A series of coincidences led to eleven Moreton Bay convicts seizing an opportunity to become pirates and sailing the South Pacific in a rum-soaked bloody adventure in 1832.
On 26 June 1831, a ship named America ran aground on a reef in the Torres Straits, near far north Queensland. She had been on a voyage from Van Diemen’s Land to Batavia (Tasmania to Indonesia), and encountered a heavy storm. For 10 days, the crew sheltered on a small reef island, making trips to the wreck for supplies. It became clear that they would have to take to the lifeboat and make for a settlement; the America had broken up, and starvation loomed. A trip southward led them to Moreton Bay, and a kind welcome by Commandant Clunie, on 26 July, 1831.
A man named Foulkard bought the salvage rights to America, then bought and fitted out the schooner Caledonia to sail to the Torres Straits and bring back what the could. An up and coming young Captain, George Browning would lead her crew.
Meanwhile, a vessel named Madeira Packet ran aground on Brampton Shoals north of Moreton Bay in early December 1831. Three boats were launched from her, and two made it into Moreton Bay on 15 December 1831. On the same day, the Caledonia arrived at Amity Point, the reception point for Moreton Bay. She stopped at the sand bar, ignoring the advice of the Pilot’s Office at Moreton Bay, who wanted Caledonia to use the Government dock, which had better facilities and the advantage of being attended by the military .
The Caledonia took on supplies of wood and water on 15 December 1831, and Browning planned to set sail northwards the next morning. The boats from the Madeira Packet lay empty.
The Pilot at Amity Point had a log hut built on the sand, with living quarters and a separate room for storing supplies, including weapons. He employed a number of convicts to load and unload vessels, many of whom were experienced seamen. No doubt the convicts working at Amity Point were seeing a golden opportunity to escape.
During the night, they busied themselves burrowing in the sand under the Pilot’s hut supply room, working so quietly that those in the next room heard nothing. The convicts carried away guns and cutlasses, and quietly took a boat from the Madeira Packet and rowed out to Caledonia.
If the Pilot’s hut had been built on solid ground, if the Pilot had secured the weapons, if the boats from the Madeira Packet were not available, and if the Caledonia had stopped as advised on the Government docks, none of the extraordinary events that follow would have occurred.
The Pirates of the Caledonia
The pirate convicts were led by William Evans, the oldest of the group at 37. He was a Londoner and a seaman by trade who had come to Australia as a free man, but earned himself a seven year sentence at Moreton Bay for committing ‘simple grand larceny’ in 1827. Evans had arrived by the brig Wellington in July 1827, and after four years without trying to escape, he made a quick life or death plan.
For his first mate, Evans chose Hugh Hastings, who had come up to Moreton Bay with him on the Wellington. Hastings was 34, and a sailor from the Isle of Man who was transported for life in 1825, then to Moreton Bay by the bench at Parramatta for three years for being ‘an incorrigible character’. Evidently Hastings had been incorrigible at Moreton Bay too, because his initial three years had long expired.
William Smith, 29, of Leeds and a Coach maker by trade was made second mate. Smith had had a rough life, being transported for life in 1816 at only 14 years old. In 1829 was given three years by the bench at Sydney for attempting to make his escape from the colony. This time, he was determined to be successful. Smith had arrived at Moreton Bay in 1829 aboard the ship “City of Edinburgh” with another future pirate, the Scot Thomas McDonald.
Thomas McDonald aged 31 had been in Australia as long as William Smith. In 1816 as a teenaged sailor, McDonald was transported for seven years. Over the years, he had acquired a couple of aliases (Wilson and Robertson) and another seven years for pig stealing. Pig stealing, it seemed, was a greater crime than being incorrigible or attempting to escape from the Colony. McDonald would have been stuck at Moreton Bay until 1835 at least, had he not joined the Caledonia pirates.
Charles Campbell of Surrey was a tailor, rather than a sailor, and a thief in two hemispheres. He was looking at a release date of 1836, and had already absconded from Moreton Bay shortly after his arrival by the Isabella schooner in 1828. He was out for two months before returning in early 1829. He had survival skills, and was mates with Thomas Watson, a shipmate on the Isabella.
Thomas Watson of London was transported for life at 15 years of age in 1819, and demonstrated a spirited disregard for authority from adolescence. He came to Moreton Bay with Campbell in 1828, having been in strife for theft and communicating with bushrangers (escaped convicts), and had a two-month stint as an absconder at almost the same time as Campbell.
Another Smith, John, was a farmer who was transported for life in 1818, and got three years at Moreton Bay for stealing corn. He’d never attempted escape and had no seafaring skills beyond those acquired involuntarily during voyages to Sydney and Moreton Bay. He seems to have been in the pirate gang by virtue of being present at the right time.
Henry Halfpenny from Dublin was 23 and a mariner by trade, but had accumulated a life sentence for burglary in 1827 and a three-year stretch for absconding and robbery in Sydney. He had the sailing abilities and wild streak required for the undertaking.
Tall, dark William Vaughan had an eye-watering criminal record, and had escaped penal colonies before. He was ideal for this caper, because he wasn’t above a bit of violence to accompany his crimes.
William Hogg was also a commanding figure of a man. As tall as Vaughan, but fair-haired and florid-looking, he was equally violent. His pedigree included ‘robbery on board the brig Wellington in Sydney Cove.’ An ideal candidate.
Lastly, Thomas Massey. A shoemaker turned highway robber transported for life, he’d committed larceny in Sydney, earning seven years at Moreton Bay. He’d absconded for three weeks in 1828, and had nothing to lose by escaping.
‘Piratical Seizure’
About 3:30 am on 16 December 1831, the watch on board the Caledonia spotted a boat with eleven men on board rowing towards the schooner. It was one of the lifeboats from the Madeira Packet, but the watchman knew something irregular was happening. He raised the alarm, but the eleven convicts, armed with two muskets, three pistols and two cutlasses, were on board and in control before the crew was able to get on deck to defend the Caledonia.
The pirates made Captain Browning their hostage, ordering him at gunpoint to navigate the schooner to the South Seas. He resisted, but the armed men made him a physical hostage (one account has Browning lashed to the deck). The crew of the Caledonia was put into a Madeira Packet lifeboat, and drifted slowly to the shore and help, the oars having been thoughtfully removed by Evans and his gang.
By the time Caledonia’s crew reached the shore and raised the alarm, Caledonia had a head start on the pursuing boats, and for all anyone knew, Browning was a dead man and the pirates would make a complete escape.
News from the North
When Captain Browning was abducted, he was not aware that the America had been salvaged by another ship, and that his interrupted journey had become pointless. An American whaler named the Nelson had picked up the wreck of America and brought her to port for salvage. In those days of slow communication, the Sydney papers of 17 December 1831 had just found out about the Nelson’s recovery of the America. The journalists speculated that Mr Foulkard would take the matter to Court, having paid for salvage rights, fitted out and crewed the Caledonia in order to recover anything salvageable from America. Foulkard had paid a surprisingly modest price for the America, and he had expected to make a very decent profit.
Meanwhile, the brig Governor Phillip had made a routine stop at Moreton Bay to drop off the latest round of prisoners from Sydney and collect those who were being discharged from Moreton Bay. It also brought supplies for the Commissariat and took on produce and timber from the settlement. There was no overland passage from Sydney, and supplies that could not be produced at the settlement were transported in the regular voyages with the prisoners.
On Wednesday 15 February 1832, the Governor Phillip returned to Sydney with the crew of the Caledonia, the surviving 13 men from the Madeira Packet and the first information about the seizure of the Caledonia by convicts. For the rest of that month, the Sydney papers ran almost daily stories about the fates of the Madeira Packet and Caledonia. Nothing was known of the convict pirates from the moment they reached open waters – all that could be assumed was that they had made a successful escape, possibly with the intention of meeting up with a trader ship in the South Seas, from there to return to England. Of Browning there was little hope – trapped as he was on a boat with armed desperados.
In March 1832, HMS Zebra was commissioned to proceed to New Zealand and the Sandwich and Society Islands to look out for the Caledonia, search for absconders. A man named Driscoll, the boatswain from Sydney’s Hyde Park Barracks, was brought along to identify and help apprehend any runaway prisoners they may find in their travels. There were at this time 102 prisoners absent from the Colony, including the Moreton Bay pirates, and it was thought that many absconders had made their way to the Pacific Islands.
April 1832 went by with no word of the Caledonia. Then, on Monday 14 May 1835, an American whaler named the Milo, arrived in Sydney Cove with Captain George Browning as its passenger. He was recovering from a severe bout of illness, but was out of danger.
What on earth had happened in those five months?
To be continued.
Sources and picture credits in Part 2.
Moreton Bay and More 
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