Prince of Wales (ship, 1786)
The Prince of Wales , a 350-ton barque , was a cargo ship that was also used as a convict carrier for the First Fleet . It was built in 1786. It transported 49 convicts, including one man. 32 Royal Marines were on board the ship under the command of Captain John Mason , which sailed from England to the convict colony of Australia in 1787/1788 .
On March 14, 1787, the Prince of Wales took the first convicts on board and left on May 13, 1787 with 10 other ships of the First Fleet in Portsmouth on their journey to Australia. The way led the eleven ships via Tenerife , Rio de Janeiro around the Cape of Good Hope through the Indian Ocean to Van Diemens Land , where the Prince of Wales arrived on January 7, 1788. Arthur Phillip , the commander of the First Fleet, sailed ahead with the four faster ships to prepare for the arrival of the other ships. Phillip arrived at Botany Bay on January 19, 1788on. The slow convoy of ships with the Prince of Wales reached the bay on January 20, 1788. On January 26, 1788, the entire fleet sailed on to Port Jackson because it had turned out that Botany Bay was not suitable for the development of the colony. When the Prince of Wales was about to sail to Port Jackson on January 26th, her new main sail tore and her main mast also broke. This resulted from the difficult wind conditions, which then meant that the Prince of Wales could no longer be steered correctly and collided with the Friendship , the smallest ship in the First Fleet.
The Prince of Wales lay in Port Jackson for five months because her cargo could not be unloaded. On their return voyage, two crew members and the captain John Mason died of scurvy before the ship was able to dock in Rio de Janeiro on October 13, 1788. 14 men of the crew had to be taken to a hospital there because they were seriously ill with scurvy. The ship reached Falmouth in England on March 25, 1789 . The Prince of Wales was later used in trade with the West Indies .
Individual evidence
- ^ Nicole Cama: Prince of Wales . In: Dictionary of Sydney . Dictionary of Sydney Trust. 2015. Retrieved June 15, 2016.