NRS-4225 | Copies of letters sent and received

Western Port was discovered and named by George Bass in 1798. Little attention was paid to it until 1826, when the presence of the French survey ship L'Astrolabe commanded by Captain M.J. Dumont D'Urville, raised official fears of impending French settlement. Governor Darling therefore instructed Captain Samuel Wright to take twenty convicts and eighteen soldiers to establish a settlement at Western Port in December 1826. This series contains letters sent and those received. It starts with Wright's instructions to form the settlement and goes up to about the time the establishment was abandoned. Included is correspondence from the Colonial Secretary and Commissariat Department to the Commandant together with lists of convicts sent, manifests and way bills of stores and cargo shipped on various vessels for the settlement, memoranda of slop clothing for the convicts, invoices of medicines supplied, lists of livestock despatched and plants and seeds from the Botanic Gardens in Sydney. The lists of convicts provide details of their names, ship of arrival in New South Wales, original conviction (where, when, and sentence), trade, age, native place, height, complexion, colour of hair and eyes, date when last received slop clothing, and occasionally character(4/456, microfilm copy SR Reel 2721; 4/7032, microfilm copy SR Reel 903). 2 vols. Note:This description is extracted from Concise Guide to the State Archives of New South Wales, 3rd Edition 2000.