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Overview On 22 April 1792, a ponderous and awkward ship sailed into Portsmouth Harbour. It was the Waaksamheyd, a Dutch vessel first hired, and then purchased outright, to bring the remnants of the officers and crew of the First Fleets HMS Sirius back to England. Behind her company lay adventure and comradeship, privation and discipline. Ahead of them lay their first steps in five years on the soil of the nation they served, reunions with family and friendsand court-martial.
Of the 160 officers and crew who had sailed from the same harbour in the Sirius on 13 May 1787 bound for Botany Bay, only 37 returned on the Waaksamheyd. A few had returned earlier; some were still on duty in the new colony of New South Wales or had settled there. Many had died in slow agony from scurvy or the infamous Batavia fever. Some had slipped quickly from sight, lost in the waves of the southern oceans or the waving forests of the southern continent and at least one had gone spectacularly mad. It was an achievement simply to have survived. Midshipman George Raper was, along with the others who returned on the Waaksamheyd, one of the survivors. When he sailed with the First Fleet he was just seventeen years old, a young gentleman seaman. His five-year journey brought promotion, to the rank of Midshipman, and adventure. He came close to starvation on more than one occasion. He witnessed sights of great beauty and strangeness. His ship, the Sirius, narrowly escaped shipwreck twice, before ending her days on a reef off Norfolk Island; her loss would be the subject of the court-martial of her officers.
Life in the Navy George Raper was born on 19 September 1769 to Henry and Catherine Raper and baptised a month later at St Swithins London. His ancestors were wealthy businessmen, and both his grandfather and great grandfather were directors of the Bank of England. In the year in which George Raper was born, his fathera City of London businessmanwas listed as Director of London Assurance and merchant. His business addresses were No. 3 Turnwheel Lane, Cannon Street and No. 87 John's Coffee House, Cornhill. Insurance business was often transacted through coffee shops in those times. In the late eighteenth century, entry into the career stream that led to a commission in the Royal Navy generally depended on family connections. At the age of thirteen Raper joined the Navy as servant to the Captain of HMS Rose. Captains had two types of servantsthose who waited at table, washed clothes and polished shoes, and young gentlemen who were being groomed as officers. George Raper was one of the latter. He was expected to absorb an understanding of naval life through observation, and through instruction in mathematics, navigation, and the drawing of charts and views. He would also have received training in practical skills such as knotting, splicing, rigging and going aloft. Not yet adults, young gentlemen could be instructed in such practical skills by ordinary seamen without upsetting the rigid hierarchy of the Navy.
At seventeen, Raper was promoted to Able Seaman. At that rank he was transferred on 22 December 1786 to HMS Sirius, the flagship in the First Fleet. Comprising two Navy vessels and nine transports laden with convicts and supplies, the First Fleet was sent to establish a British colony at New South Wales. Commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip, the First Fleet served to relieve Britains crowded jails and to further her strategic and trading interests in the part of the world first charted by Captain Cook when George Raper was a baby.
HMS Sirius and its Officers HMS Sirius had a number of features to recommend her, and some limitations. At first sight she would have appeared almost new. In a previous life, however, she had been burnt to the gunwales and rebuilt. The Sirius was also a sixth-rater, the lowest of six levels of British naval frigates. To a modern observer she would have appeared ferry-sized ... a pygmy warship with only twenty guns. On the other hand, at Captain Phillips insistence she had been thoroughly overhauled, to the extent that Captain Hunter could describe her as altogether a very capacious and convenient vessel. She was to be the flagship of the fleet, proudly flying the red pennants of the Commodore. When George Raper boarded the Sirius for the first time on 22 December 1786, most of the officers and seamen for the voyage were already onboard. The most senior officer onboard in December was Captain Hunter. Raper was fortunate to have Hunter as his captain. He had spent twenty years between his passing as a lieutenant and receiving his commission and was a man devoid of stiff pride most accomplishd in his profession.
The next most senior officers onboard were First Lieutenant William Bradley and Second Lieutenant Philip Gidley King. Though only in their late twenties, these two Lieutenants had each had over fourteen years experience at sea and had risen rapidly through the ranks. Bradley, nephew of the Astronomer Royal and son of a mathematics master, excelled in navigation and almost certainly was Rapers instructor, along with Hunter, on the voyage. The ambitious and energetic King had served with Captain Phillip for the past five years and stood high in Phillips opinion. Other men of rank onboard were Third Lieutenant George William Maxwell, the Master, Micah Morton, and the Masters Mates, David Seally and William Bryant. Further down in the pecking order but still higher than Raper were the young gentlemen who had already achieved the rank of Midshipman. A number of them were older than Raper: Midshipmen Mathew Alt, John Harris, Daniel Southwell, and probably also James Cunningham and Francis Hill, were in their early twenties. Nearer Rapers age were Midshipmen Charles Ormsby, seventeen, and Henry Waterhouse, sixteen. The diarists of the First Fleet later had good words to say about all these young men, except Ormsby, who was arrogant and cruel. In one account Ormsby is described as ordering a seaman to carry his hammock; when the seaman refused, Ormsby knocked one of his teeth out, an act that outraged Captain Phillip. The youngest of the young gentlemen was John Ferguson, fourteen, who was, like Raper, ranked as an Able Seaman. One of the last of the officers or aspiring officers to join the Sirius, Raper was followed a few days later by one of the most colourful. Henry Brewer was an aging Midshipman whose coarse harsh features and habit of muttering to himself belied an honest and reliable character. He had been handpicked by Captain Phillip with whom he had served on several ships previously. Two months later, Able Seaman Newton Fowell joined the Sirius. Aged eighteen, he was gregarious, optimistic and well-connected, destined for early promotion and a fatal encounter with the Batavia fever. Last of all to join the ship, on 7 May, was the Commodore, Arthur Phillip. |
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