Emu (ship)

History
United Kingdom
Name: Emu
Captured: November 1812
Fate: Wrecked April 1817
General characteristics
Class and type: Snow[1]
Tons burthen: 182,[1] or 220 (bm)
Propulsion: Sail
Complement: 21[1]
Armament: 16 × 12&6-pounder guns[1]

Emu was a 220-ton merchant ship and convict ship that transported convicts to Australia. She was captured by an American privateer in 1812.

Career

Governor Lachlan Macquarie requested on 30 April 1810 that the British Government supply the colony with two brigs (colonial ships) that would not be subject to the control of the Admiralty. The British government provided Emu and Kangaroo.

Lieutenant Alexander Bisset received a letter of marque for Emu on 21 September 1812.[1] Emu left England in October 1812 with 49 female convicts.

While she was en route to Hobart Town, the American 18-gun privateer Holkar, Captain J. Rolland,[2] captured her on 30 November 1812 in the Atlantic. Her captors put 22 crew and the 49 female convicts ashore on 17 January 1813 at Porto Grande on the island of St Vincent (now São Vicente) in the Cape Verde Islands.[2] A prize crew took Emu to Newport, Rhode Island where she was sold.[2]

After 12 months Isabella picked up Emu's captain, crew, and convicts and returned them to England. The convicts were placed on a hulk in Portsmouth harbour and subsequently sent aboard the transport Broxbornebury to Port Jackson.[2]

Emu appears to have been released as she was in Australian waters in January 1815 for use of the colony and later returned to England, leaving Sydney on 25 March 1816.[3]

About a year later, in April 1817, "HM brig Emu", a transport belonging to the Cape Town Dockyard, was the first European vessel to enter the Knysna heads. She struck a rock, now known as Emu Rock, and was holed.[4] Her crew ran Emu ashore to prevent her sinking. In late April HMS Podargus arrived to render assistance.[5] After surveying the area, Podargus sailed into the Knysna and retrieved Emu's cargo.[4]

Citations

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Letter of Marque, p.62 - accessed 25 July 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Bateson, p.192.
  3. ↑ "Ship News". The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, Saturday 30 March 1816, p.2. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  4. 1 2 Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, (1818), Vol. 6, p.317.
  5. ↑ Horsburgh (1826), Vol. 1, p.196.

References


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