John Marshall (captain)

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John Marshall (* 26. February 1748 in Ramsgate in the county of Kent , England , † 1819 ) was an officer in the Royal Navy . He was the captain of the Scarborough , the second largest transport ship in the First Fleet . This fleet of eleven ships transported convicts from England to the then convict colony of Australia for the first time from 1787 to 1788 .

Life

John Marshall began his training as a seaman at the age of ten.

In 1787 John Marshall, under the leadership of Arthur Phillip , had been given the task as captain of the Scarborough to transport 30 crew members, 50 Royal Marines with their families and 208 male convicts on the Scarborough to the convict colony of Australia. The almost 34 meters long and 9 meters wide ship cast off on May 13, 1787 in Portsmouth . It arrived at Botany Bay on January 19, 1788 . On May 6, 1788, Scarborough, commanded by Marshall, and Charlotte , commanded by Captain Thomas Gilbert , left the Australian continent . They had been commissioned to sail as far as the Chinese canton (now Guangzhou ), at that time a trading post of the British East India Company .

On this trip, the Europeans saw numerous then unknown islands, including Aranuka , Kuria , Abaiang , Tarawa , the Gilbert Islands and Marshall Islands . The Marshall Islands initially received a different name and were later renamed after John Marshall.

After his return trip to England and the subsequent repair of the Scarborough, Marshall received the order to sail with the Second Fleet again to Australia. When the Scarborough arrived in Port Jackson on June 28, 1790 , 73 of the 259 convicts had died. Inhuman conditions prevailed on the convict ships, against which the convicts revolted. The mutinies planned by convicts were betrayed and punished with harsh sentences. After that, Marshall no longer led convict transports.

John Marshall took part in the American War of Independence and also in the Napoleonic Wars . During the Napoleonic Wars, he was seriously wounded in a sea battle with a French ship.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Ships of the First Fleet , at fellowshipfirstfleeters.org.au
  2. ↑ Michaela Ann Cameron: Scarborough , on dictionaryofsydney.org. Retrieved June 13, 2016
  3. ^ Barrie Macdonald: Cinderellas of the Empire: towards a history of Kiribati and Tuvalu . P. 15. Australian National University Press 1982. ISBN 982-02-0335-X Online on googlebooks
  4. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison: The Gilberts & Marshalls: A distinguished historian recalls the past of two recently captured pacific groups , May 22, 1944 on Life . Online on googlebooks . Retrieved June 13, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Marshall, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Royal Navy captain
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Ramsgate in Kent , England
DATE OF DEATH 1819