The Charlotte was a convict transporter of the First Fleet , the first English settler fleet in Australia with a weight of 345 tons. The sailing ship was built on the Thames in 1784 . The ship, which was under the command of Thomas Gilbert , had to be towed into the English Channel in the first days of the voyage . The ship's doctor on board was John White , who later became the surgeon general of New South Wales .
The Charlotte left Portsmouth on May 13, 1787 with eighty-eight male and twenty female prisoners aboard, including James Squire, James Bloodsworth, James Underwood and the later famous Mary Bryant . She reached Port Jackson on January 26, 1788, from where she set sail again on May 6 with the destination China to load tea there on behalf of the British East India Company . When she returned to England on November 28, 1789, the ship was sold to a company that used it on the London - Jamaica route . In November 1818 the ship was lost near Newfoundland .
Movies
The legacy of the Knights Templar - "The Secret Lies in the Charlotte " - relates to this ship and suggests that it was stranded in the Arctic Circle. The meerschaum pipe found in the hold acts as a key and fits into the imprint inside the wrong treasury - but from there it goes on to the correct treasury. Charles Carroll's secret lies inside the Charlotte .
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