Tales from the Quarterdeck

Tag: #Queensland

  • The Loss of the Duroc and the rise of la Deliverance

    The French steamer Duroc wrecked on Mellish Reef. Source: Wikicommons.

       On the night of 12-13 August 1856, the French Naval steam corvette Duroc was wrecked on Mellish Reef about 800 km off the Queensland coast. After the ship ran aground, her passengers and crew, numbering 70 people, made it onto a small sand cay where they were safe for the time being. However, they were stranded far from regular shipping channels, and the chance of their being rescued was remote. Captain Vissiere thought their only chance of getting off the islet was to build a new boat from the wreckage of the old.

       The Duroc had set off from Port de France (Noumea), New Caledonia, five days earlier, but on that night she ran aground on a submerged coral reef and could not get off. Each passing swell pounded the hull onto the reef, and she began taking on water. Fearing the ship might break apart during the night, Captain Vissiere ordered the crew to start bringing all stores, provisions, and water casks up on deck. He also had the four lifeboats prepared in case they had to abandon ship during the night. Then Vissiere had an anxious wait until morning, when he could better assess their situation.   

    Daylight revealed the ship was well and truly lodged on the reef, and they were surrounded by breaking seas. But about four kilometres away, there was a small, low-lying sandy islet which seemed to offer a place of refuge. So began the laborious task of ferrying all the ship’s stores and personnel to dry land. Over the next 10 days, they stripped the Duroc of its masts, bowsprit, sails, spars, blacksmith’s forge, a water distillation plant and the cook’s oven. By 23 August, they had emptied the stranded vessel of anything useful and established a comfortable camp on the tiny cay. Captain Vissiere was satisfied that their immediate survival was assured, but they were stranded nearly 800 km from the nearest land, and rescue seemed unlikely.

    Survivors of the wrecked Duroc on Mellish Reef building the La Deliverance. Source: Wikicommons.

       Vissiere prided himself on being a competent master mariner, and he could not account for how his ship had run aground. He took several unhurried astrological observations on the island and would later claim that the reef he had struck was, in fact, some distance from where it was laid down on his chart. Feeling vindicated, the captain then turned his mind to finding a way back to civilisation, for not only was he responsible for his crew, but his wife and baby daughter accompanied him.

       Captain Vissiere felt that his best course of action would be to make for Australia’s east coast, where he could expect to find help from a passing ship. However, the lifeboats could carry only a fraction of those stranded on the small island. So, Captain Vissiere opted to send his First Mate, Lieutenant Vaisseau, off with the three largest boats and about half the crew. He would remain on the island with his wife, daughter, and about 30 others. They would construct a new vessel from the timber they had salvaged from the Duroc and make their escape if no one had come for them in the interim.   

    The three boats set off on 25 August with instructions to make for Cape Tribulation, where, with any luck, they would meet a British ship sailing the Great Barrier Reef’s inner passage. Cape Tribulation was probably chosen because it was easily recognisable and it was where the reef pinched in close to the coast, funnelling any passing ships close to land.

    Mellish Reef. Courtesy Google Maps

       After setting off from Mellish Reef, the three boats encountered rough weather, which threatened to capsize the heavily overloaded craft. Lt Vaisseau tried tethering the three boats together so they would not become separated, but in the rough seas, this proved dangerous, and the lines were cut. After weathering the conditions for two days, Vaisseau decided they should jettison everything non-essential to lighten the load and raise their freeboard.

       Then, one day, while Lt Vaisseau was taking his noon observation, his boat was struck by a rogue wave, tossing him into the sea. Unable to swim against the current to make it back on board his lifeboat, he would have drowned had another boat trailing astern not been able to come close enough to rescue him. Vaisseau had a lucky escape, for he was only plucked from the water as his strength was beginning to fail him.

       After five days at sea, on the evening of 30 August, they crossed through the Great Barrier Reef near Cape Tribulation and anchored in calm waters for the night. The men thought the worst of the ordeal was behind them, and they would soon fall in with a passing ship. Lt Vaisseau noted they still had 72 kgs of sea biscuits, 20 litres of brandy and 60 litres of wine when they reached the Australian coast. However, shared among 36 hungry men, that would last them only another few days.

       The next day, they made land, filled their water casks, and then bore north, hugging the shore, pushed along by the prevailing southerly winds. They stopped each night in the lee of islands, foraged for roots, greens and shellfish, and cast out lines hoping to catch fish. They only delved into the supply of sea biscuits when their efforts failed to find enough food.

       By 9 September, they had reached Albany Island in the Torres Strait. They continued sailing past Booby Island, unaware that there was an emergency store of food and water there to aid shipwrecked sailors. Having sighted not a single ship while off the Australian coast, they ventured out into the Arafura Sea. Lt Vaisseau decided they should head for the Dutch settlement of Kupang on Timor Island. The three boats finally arrived on the evening of 22 September, and not a moment too soon, for their food had run out several days earlier.

    Construction of a new vessel La Deliverance from the wreckage of the Duroc on Mellish Reef. Source: Wikicommons.

        Meanwhile, Captain Vissiere and the remaining men had been kept busy constructing the new vessel, which they named La Deliverance. Under the directions from the ship’s master carpenter, they sawed the Duroc’s lower masts into planks and fixed them to a frame. The new craft measured 14 metres in length and was completed around the time Lt Vaisseau and his party reached Timor Island.

       On 2 October, La Deliverance was launched, and they sailed away from the island they had called home for the past six weeks. Captain Vissiere intended to make for the Australian mainland, just as his lieutenant and the three boats had done. Once off land, he would decide whether they should head north, through Torres Strait and on to Kupang, or turn south towards Port Curtis (Gladstone), which was the most northerly settlement on the east coast at the time. When he reached the Australian coast, he found the same southerly trade winds that Lt Vaisseau had.

       Despite the seemingly optimistic start, the passage was arduous, hampered as it was by unpredictable weather. Prolonged calms left them stranded for days at a time. The doldrums were only relieved by violent storms that lashed them mercilessly and threatened the safety of the vessel. By the time they were rounding Cape York, the boat was leaking alarmingly. Captain Vissiere pulled in at Albany Island so urgent repairs could be made before they left the relative safety of the Australian mainland. Once the leaks were plugged, they got underway, ready to cross the Arafura Sea. On 30 October, four weeks after setting off from Mellish Reef, La Deliverance sailed into Kupang harbour.   

    Though they suffered greatly during the ordeal, Captain Vissiere did not lose a single person as a result of the wreck or the 4000 km voyages undertaken by the survivors to reach Kupang.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2023.

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  • Bato to the Rescue – 1854

    Shipwreck survivors take to their boat.. Source: Tales of Shipwrecks and Adventures at Sea, 1856.

       In 1854, the fully-rigged Dutch ship Bato rescued not one, not two, but three separate parties of shipwreck survivors whose ships had come to grief in separate mishaps in Australia’s northern waters. In the space of a few weeks, these three ships all ran aground while attempting to navigate the treacherous waters of the Great Barrier Reef and the Torres Strait.

       The first casualty was the 521-ton ship Fatima. On 3 June, the Fatima left Melbourne bound for Singapore via Torres Strait. She made good time sailing up the east coast until, on 26 June, she was within sight of Raine Island. The low-lying island and its distinctive 20-metre-tall tower marked a channel through the Great Barrier Reef and the start of a well-charted passage through Torres Strait.

       Then, just 12nm (20 km) south of Raine Island, her voyage ended abruptly and violently when she crashed into the Great Detached Reef. The Fatima could not be saved, and her captain and crew were forced to take to the boats to save their lives. A refuge of sorts was close at hand, so they struck out for Raine Island off in the distance. There they remained, subsisting on a plentiful supply of seabird eggs while they waited to be rescued.

       A couple of days after the Fatima left Melbourne, the 391-ton barque Elizabeth also set sail from that same port. She was bound for Moulmein, Burma, and also intended to pass through Torres Strait by the Raine Island passage. However, disaster struck on 28 June when the barque ran aground on a small coral outcrop about 28nm (55 km) south of Raine Island. Fortunately, no lives were lost, and after a considerable amount of effort, the crew managed to get the ship off the reef and back into deep water. However, the hull had been breached, and Captain Churchill realised that his ship was taking on more water than the pumps could remove. Churchill made the difficult decision to abandon his ship, and he and his men took to the boats. They made their way through Torres Strait and arrived at Booby Island five days later. The island was marked on charts of the day as a haven for shipwrecked sailors where a supply of food and fresh water could be found.

    The Wreck of the Thomasine. Courtesy State Library of Queensland.

       The third ship, the Thomasine, departed Sydney on 8 June bound for Batavia. She also intended to cross through the Torres Strait. But she ended her northerly run up the coast on 19 June when she struck an uncharted reef about 270 km east of present-day Port Douglas.

       Her master, Captain Holmes would later recall that around 8 o’clock on the evening of the 19th, the ship grazed a submerged reef where no such obstruction should have existed. He had been on deck at the time and had immediately gone to his cabin to consult his chart, to confirm what he suspected. While he was standing at his chart table, still consulting his map, the look-out called, “Breakers ahead.” Captain Holmes raced back on deck to the daunting sight of a long line of breaking waves ahead that extended around to his left and right, almost completely encircling the ship.

       Holmes and his crew kept the Thomasine from running aground during the night by tacking back and forth in the open water between the reefs. The next morning he saw how dire their situation was. The ship was trapped by an almost unbroken ring of breaking waves, denoting the presence of submerged coral reefs. Reefs that were absent from the charts but have since been added and bear the name Holmes Reefs.

       The wind began to rise and Holmes realised his only chance of escape was to try to make it through one of the narrow gaps he could see in the otherwise extended line of surf. He selected one, hoping it would allow his ship to reach the safety of deep water beyond. Unfortunately, the channel proved too shallow, and the Thomasine struck heavily, becoming stuck. Unable to get the Tomasine free, the captain made the difficult decision to abandon ship. The crew then readied two boats with as much food and water as they dared carry.

       Captain Holmes was doubly concerned as they tried to escape the ship and the surrounding reef. Not only did he feel responsible for his crew, but he was also accompanied by his wife and three children, the youngest of whom was just four months old. He divided his crew evenly between the two boats for the voyage north to Booby Island and a cache of stores. However, one sailor died during the struggle to get the boats through the roiling seas surging around the ship. Holmes   

    Over the next fortnight or so, the 18 castaways steadily made their way north, surviving on short rations and less than one litre of water per day from a small cask taken from the ship. But by 6 July, they had covered about 800 km and had reached Bird Island in the Torres Strait. Captain Holmes calculated that it would only take them another one or two days to reach Booby Island.  

    Map showing location of the three shipwrecks in Torres Strait. Courtesy Google Maps.

       It was around this time, the Dutch ship Bato was passing through the same waters. She had sailed from Hobart on 10 June and steadily made her way up the east coast of Australia. As Captain Brocksmit approached the Raine Island entrance, he sighted the Fatima castaways camped on the island. Ten men were taken on board while the rest followed in the Bato’s wake in their own boat until they had reached the Middle Bank well inside the Great Barrier Reef.

       The next day, 6 July, the Bato’s captain came across the survivors from the Thomasine off Bird Island and made room for them on his ship as well. Finally, the following day, the castaways from the Elizabeth were spotted on Booby Island, where they had landed four days earlier.

       Now carrying as many as 60 additional people, the Bato put the dangerous waters of Torres Strait behind her. Captain Brocksmit made his way along the Indonesian archipelago, arriving in Batavia on 25 July 1854. The survivors were disembarked, and the captains were faced with the unenviable task of notifying their respective ship owners of their losses.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2023.

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  • The Loss of the Saint Paul and its Horrific Aftermath– 1858

    Stranding of the Saint Paul, on Rossel Island. Auguste Hadamard, Le Tour du Monde, volume 4, 1861.

       In September 1858, the French ship Saint Paul was wrecked off Rossel Island, east of mainland New Guinea, with as many as 370 people on board. Of those, fewer than a dozen escaped with their lives. One of those was Narcisse Pelletier, who made it to Cape York, where he lived with the Uutaalnganu people for the next 17 years. His story is told in the next chapter. All the rest were massacred while they waited to be rescued.

       The Saint Paul was a French merchant ship of 620 tons under the command of Captain Emmanuel Pinard. In July 1858, she set sail from Hong Kong with an estimated 350 Chinese passengers bound for Sydney to try their luck on the New South Wales goldfields.

       The ship made slow progress from the outset due to adverse weather conditions. By the time she was somewhere north of New Guinea, the captain was concerned they would run out of food before reaching port. Rather than stick to the regular shipping route, east of the Solomon Islands, Captain Pinard chose to shorten his voyage and save time by sailing through the risky reef-strewn waters between the Solomons and New Guinea.

       Unfortunately, the gamble did not pay off. They were plagued by more bad weather, and thick mists enveloped the ship, barring Pinard from making any solar observations so he might accurately plot his position. The captain was sailing blind as he tried to thread his way through the treacherous Louisaide Archipelago when disaster finally struck.

    Saint Paul.

       On the night of 10/11 September, the Saint Paul struck a reef off Rossel Island on the eastern edge of the archipelago. The ship was beyond saving, so the next morning, the passengers were ferried ashore with what stores and provisions could be salvaged.

       They set up camp on a small rocky island about two or three kilometres off Rossel Island. A couple of days later, Pinard sent his first mate with half his crew across to Rossel to look for water. Islanders attacked the water party, and several of Pinard’s men were killed. The rest returned empty-handed.

       Pinard would later report that he then took the longboat crewed by most of the surviving seamen and set off for the Australian mainland to find help. He also claimed that he had only done so after consulting with his Chinese passengers and receiving their approval. Leaving behind most of the food, firearms and the second boat, he and his men set off. Years later, the cabin boy Narcisse Pelletier would contradict his captain’s statement, claiming they had fled in the dead of night, leaving the Chinese passengers to their fate.

       Pinard and his crew, including Pelletier, landed near Cape Direction after a nearly two-week passage. There, they received food and water from the local Uutaalnganu people before putting back out to sea in their boat. However, when they left, Pelletier was not with them. For some reason, he had been deliberately left behind.

    The crew of the Saint-Paul attacked by natives of Rossel Island. Auguste Hadamard, Le Tour du Monde, volume 4, 1861.

          Meanwhile, Captain Pinard and the Saint Paul’s crew were found by Captain McKellar of the schooner Prince of Denmark. He agreed to take them to the French settlement on New Caledonia, but he could only do so after he first delivered provisions to a party of beche-de-mer fishermen camped on a remote island. By now, the Chinese had been marooned for over a month, and it would be mid-December before the Prince of Denmark reached Port-de-France (Noumea).

       When Pinard finally reported the loss of his ship, the French immediately dispatched a warship to rescue the stranded passengers. The Styx reached Rossel Island on 5 January 1859, but when Lieutenant Grenoult and his men went ashore, they made a shocking discovery. Of the 350 or so people left on the island, they found only one survivor. Through sign language, he seemed to convey to Grenoult that everyone else had been massacred. Still, the shocking details would only come to light after they arrived in Sydney a few weeks later, and an interpreter could translate his story. What follows is drawn from the survivor’s own words and Lt. Grenoult’s official report.

       For a little while, the Islanders left the Saint Paul survivors alone. Then some of the Chinese ventured across to Rossel Island in the Saint Paul’s boat, and they were never seen again. A few days later, several Islanders paddled over to the castaways’ camp, offering food to anyone who returned to Rossel Island with them. When they also failed to return, the Chinese grew suspicious, and no amount of encouragement would compel them to leave their island despite their growing hunger.

    Detail from an 1829 Marine Chart showing Rossel Is. Courtesy NLA.

       Then, after the Chinese had been stranded for about a month and were in a feebly weak state, the Islanders descended on them in large numbers. Some of the castaways put up a fight, but they were easily overpowered. The camp was ransacked, and the Chinese were forced into canoes and taken to Rossel Island. The castaways would soon learn the grisly truth about what had become of those previously missing men.

       The Saint Paul survivors were corralled in a large clearing and carefully watched. Over the next several weeks, a few men at a time were separated from their comrades, beaten to death, butchered, and their flesh cooked over a fire. This horrific spectacle was apparently played out in full view of the dwindling number of survivors.

       By the time the Styx steamed into view, just half a dozen Saint Paul survivors were still alive. On seeing the French warship, the Islanders fled into the mountainous interior, taking with them four Chinese and a European sailor. Only the single man was left behind because he had been too weak to bother with. He had hidden among some rocks until the Styx’s boats landed and the French sailors stepped ashore.   

    Lt Grenoult and his men spent three days on Rossel Island trying to find the others, but without success. The Styx then delivered Captain Pinard, his men, and the young Chinese passenger to Sydney.   

     © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2023.

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  • Narcisse Pelletier: An Extraordinary Tale of Survival.

    Narcisse Pelletier and the Saint Paul.

       In April 1875, the pearling schooner John Bull’s crew encountered a man of clearly European descent living with a group of Aborigines on Cape York Peninsula. Mistakenly thinking that the man was being held against his will, they took him on board their vessel and delivered him to the nearest Government outpost at Somerset. His name was Narcisse Pelletier.

       Pelletier spent about two weeks at Somerset before being sent to Sydney on the steamer Brisbane. During his time at Somerset, Pelletier had spoken little, but on the voyage south, he was befriended by Lieutenant J.W. Ottley, a British Indian Army officer on leave in Australia. Using his rusty schoolboy French, Ottley coaxed Pelletier to tell him his remarkable story.

       Narcisse Pierre Pelletier was the son of a Saint Gilles shoemaker. At the age of 14, he went to sea as a cabin boy on the Saint Paul under the command of Captain Emmanuel Pinard. The ship sailed from Marseille in August 1857, bound for the Far East. The following year, the Saint Paul left Hong Kong for Sydney with 350 Chinese passengers drawn to New South Wales by the lure of gold. However, the ship was wrecked in the dangerous Louisiade Archipelago off the east coast of New Guinea.

    Stranding on the Saint Paul, on Rossel Island. Auguste Hadamard, Le Tour du Monde, volume 4, 1861.

       When some of the crew, including Pelletier, went in search of water on Rossel Island, they were attacked by the local inhabitants, and the mate and several sailors were killed. Pelletier himself was struck on the head and barely escaped with his life. He claimed that the captain had then decided their best chance of surviving was for the remaining crew to make for New Caledonia, leaving the Chinese passengers to their fate. This was at odds with Captain Pinard’s own account, in which he claimed to have gone in search of help at the behest of the passengers and that he had left them with most of the provisions and firearms. The story of the shipwreck and the gruesome aftermath is told in the preceding chapter.

       Pelletier recalled they suffered greatly in the longboat, surviving on a diet of flour and the raw flesh of a few seabirds that they were able to knock out of the sky when they flew too close to the boat. The sailors’ misery was amplified several days before reaching land when they ran out of drinking water. Pelletier was unsure how long they had been at sea, but they came ashore on the Australian mainland near Cape Direction, the land of the Uutaalnganu people.

       Nine of the Saint Paul’s crew reached land, including Captain Pinard and Pelletier. The first water hole they found was so small, according to Pelletier, that by the time everyone else had drunk their fill, there was none left for him. By now, he was half dead from hunger and thirst. He was suffering from exposure to the elements, and his feet had been lacerated from walking barefoot on coral.

       He told Ottley that Pinard and the rest of the men had reboarded the boat, intent on reaching the French settlement on New Caledonia, but they set out to sea without him. There he was, abandoned on an alien and possibly hostile stretch of coast far from anything familiar.

       Again, Pelletier’s version differs from Pinard’s. The captain claimed that he and all the others had stayed with the Uutaalnganu people for several weeks before they set off and were later picked up by the schooner Prince of Denmark, which eventually took them to New Caledonia. Regardless of the precise circumstances, when his shipmates left, Pelletier remained and was adopted by the Uutaalnganu people.   

    They tended to his injuries and restored him back to good health. Pelletier said that for the first several years, he missed his parents and younger brothers and longed to return home to France. But as time wore on, those feelings faded and were replaced by a strong bond to his Uutaalnganu adopted family. From the ceremonial scars scored on his chest and arms, and the piercing of his earlobe, for which he felt great pride, it is clear he had been initiated into the society. According to a later French biography, Pelletier married an Aboriginal woman and they had several children. He would remain with the Uulaalnganu for 17 years.

    Narcisse Pelletier in 1875. Source: Wikicommons.

       Then, in 1875, his world was turned upside down for a second time. One day, the pearling lugger John Bull happened to anchor near Cape Direction. Several sailors came ashore for water and to trade with the Uutaalnganu. They noticed the white man among the local inhabitants and coaxed him to visit their ship. Pelletier told Ottley that he had only gone with them for fear of what the heavily armed sailors might do if he didn’t, rather than any desire to return to “civilisation.” What’s more, he had not expected to be taken away, never to see his family and friends again. Pelletier also confessed to Ottley that he would have preferred being returned to Cape Direction and “his people,” instead of being taken down to Sydney.

       Narcisse Pelletier never did return to his Uutaalnganu family. He was delivered to the French Consulate in Sydney, where officials organised passage for him back to France. When, in January 1876, he arrived at his parents’ home, the whole town turned out to greet him. He was given a job as a lighthouse keeper near Saint Nazaire and married for a second time a few years later. Narcisse Pelletier passed away on September 28, 1894, at the age of 50.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2023.

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  • The Mystery of the Peri

    HMS Basilisk overhauls the Peri off the Queensland coast. Courtesy: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich London.

       In February 1872, the crew of HMS Basilisk found 14 men barely clinging to life on a derelict schooner adrift off the far north Queensland coast. The vessel’s name was not immediately apparent, and none of the survivors spoke English. It was a mystery as to how the ship came to be in those remote northern waters, and one that would take some time to solve.

       The side paddle steamer HMS Basilisk was steaming up the Queensland coast on a three-month cruise around Torres Strait. They were to deliver stores to the government settlement at Somerset, chart several recently reported navigation hazards and generally show the flag in that remote part of the continent.

       When the Basilisk was in the vicinity of Hinchinbrook Island, a lookout sighted a small fore-and-aft schooner off in the distance. It was rare to come upon another ship in those waters, so Captain John Moresby called for his telescope and examined the ship more closely. It was immediately clear to the master mariner that not all was as it should be with the strange vessel.

       Moresby noticed that the schooner sat heavily in the water as she sluggishly rode the long, smooth swells. His first thought was that her crew must have abandoned her for some reason. As the Basilisk drew closer, Moresby could see that her weather-beaten sails were poorly set and flapping loosely in the light breeze. The rigging was slack, and there was no sign of anyone on deck.

    Illustration of the Basilisk’s discovery of the Peri. Source: Illustrated Australian News for Home Readers, 29 Feb 1872, p. 53

       When the Basilisk raised her ensign, signalling to the strange vessel to identify itself, they got no response. But as they drew nearer still, a couple of Pacific Islanders armed with muskets staggered to their feet near the schooner’s stern. Moresby then spotted several more men lying scattered on the deck. He sent two boats across to investigate.

       What the sailors found is best summed up in Captain Moresby’s own words: “… they were living skeletons, creatures dazed with fear and mortal weakness. As our crews boarded, other half-dead wretches tottered to their feet, fumbling too at rusty, lockless muskets. … They were dreadful to look at – being in the last stage of famine, wasted to the bone; some were barely alive, and the sleeping figures were dead bodies fast losing the shape of humanity, on a deck foul with blood.”

       The boarding party found several dead and decomposing bodies on the deck. There was five feet of putrid water sloshing about in the hold. The cabin had been ransacked, and the deck bore the marks of numerous axe strokes. Parts of the deck were also stained brown by large pools of what appeared to be dried blood. And, there was no fresh water or food anywhere to be found. All the evidence, Captain Moresby later recalled, pointed to a violent and tragic incident having taken place on board the schooner.    Moresby held a funeral service for the dead and buried them at sea. He then steamed towards Cardwell, 40 km away with the schooner in tow. He landed the 14 survivors, none of whom spoke any English, but for the word “Solomon.” Moresby assumed they meant they were from the Solomon Islands. He then continued North towards Torres Strait, leaving Midshipman Sabben in charge of several sailors and the schooner. He would collect them in a couple of months on his return to Sydney.

    HMS Basilisk commander – Captain John Moresby. Photo sourced from his autobiography Two Admirals.

        The pieces of the puzzle would slowly come together over the next weeks and months. After Sabben’s men had scrubbed the headboards clean, they discovered the schooner was called the Peri. The Peri had recently been reported missing in Fijian waters. On 27 December 1871, she had sailed from Viti Levu with approximately 90 “indentured” Pacific Islanders bound for a cotton plantation on Taveuni, 100 km away, but she never arrived.

       About 30 of those 90 men had been kidnapped in the Solomon Islands and taken to Levuka in Fiji. At the time, the South Pacific was in the midst of a cotton boom, and the white plantation owners struggled to find enough field workers or kanakas to tend their crops. Many Islanders fell victim to more unscrupulous “recruiters” who stopped at nothing to fill their quotas.

       At Levuka, kanakas were disembarked and sold to plantation owners to serve three-year contracts. At the completion of their time, it was the plantation owners’ responsibility to pay off their workers and return them to their home islands. The kanakas themselves were supposed to have willingly agreed to the arrangements and be appropriately compensated for their labour; however, that was not always the case.

       In this instance, the kidnapped Solomon Islanders were sent to an Australian plantation owner on Taveuni Island. But while in transit, they seized control of the cutter and escaped. The vessel was later found aground on a small island in the Yasawa group, and most of the men were recaptured a couple of weeks later.

       The other 60 or so Islanders who had been on the Peri had likely also been recently kidnapped. They had fallen into the clutches of a notorious blackbirder named Captain McLever. By December 1871, both groups of kidnapped men had been transferred to the Peri and were about to be sent to work on a plantation on Taveuni Island.   

    It is not entirely clear what happened next, but it seems the 90 kanakas rebelled, killed the captain and crew and seized the ship. Over the next six weeks, they sailed or drifted nearly 3500 km west until they were found by the Basilisk off the Australian coast. From the water in the hold and the general state of the ship, Moresby believed they had weathered at least one severe tropical storm during their passage. And judging by their emaciated state, food and water had run out long before they were rescued. The blood stains and axe marks led some to speculate that the survivors may have resorted to cannibalism, but that was never conclusively proved, and none of the bodies found showed signs of having been butchered.

    Approx track of the Peri.

    By the time the Basilisk‘s crew boarded the schooner, there were just 14 men still alive. One more would succumb soon after being put ashore at Cardwell.

       The remaining 13 Solomon Islanders were taken to Sydney by the Basilisk on her return from Torres Strait and eventually sent back to Fiji on HMS Cossack so they might be repatriated. However, eight jumped ship when the Cossack stopped briefly at Matuku Island, perhaps fearing they were being returned to Fiji to be punished. When the last five Peri survivors were finally questioned through an interpreter in Levuka, they told the British Consul that they had been kidnapped. They described how, when they paddled out to Captain McLever’s ship, their canoes were sunk and they had been beaten and locked in the hold.   

    McLever was arrested, and the Solomon Islanders were taken back to Sydney so they could testify at his trial. However, no one had thought to send a translator, and the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. The Islanders were sent back to Fiji, but what happened to them after that is unknown.

    1.Moresby. John RN, Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea and D’Entrecasteaux Islands, John Murray, London, 1876, p.4.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2022.

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