Ships

Admiral Barrington (1791 3rd Fleet)  

Master: Robert Abbon Marsh
Surgeon: Peter Gossam

The Admiral Barrington was a 527 Ton Ship built in France in 1781. According to  Jenwilletts.com she had three decks and a length of 119 ft, breadth 32ft 4in. In 1786 she was taken up by the East India Company for two years. It appears it was the heaviest of the nine ships that comprised the Third Fleet.

The third fleet of 9 ships – Active, Admiral Barrington, Albemarle, Atlantic, Britannia, Matilda, Queen, Salamander, and William and Ann, arrived in 1791, with over 2000 convicts. The report states that 194 male convicts and 4 female convicts died during the voyage, their names are not noted. The ship Mary Anne and Gorgon are sometimes listed as in the 3rd Fleet but the vessels and their sources from the Australian National Archives lists them in the 2nd Fleet. (http://www.immigrantships.net/v5/1700v5/au3rdfleet17910926_01.html)

Other sources say there were actually 11 ships in the fleet.

The Admiral Barrington left Portsmouth on 27 March 1791 with 300 male convicts on board.  It left Portsmouth with Matilda, Active, Abermarle and Britannia but arrived last to Australia, some 203 days later, whereas the Matilda only took 127 days.   Three other ships of the fleet left from Plymouth.

Benjamin Barland, later Benjamin South was one of the convicts on board.

Speedy (a female convict ship)

http://www.jenwilletts.com/convict_ship_speedy_1800.htm

Royal Admiral

see also the Research of Margaret Hardwicke which suggests that there was fever onboard the 1800 voyage and that many of the convicts required medical treatment when they arrived in Port Jackson.

From wikipedia

Royal Admiral was an East Indiaman, launched in 1777 on the River Thames. She made eight trips for the East India Company (EIC) before she was sold. She then continued to trade. She made two trips carrying convicts from England to Australia, one as an East Indiaman in 1791, and a second in 1800. On this second voyage as a convict transport she was present at a notable naval action.

Royal Admiral first appears in the Lloyd’s Register for 1800 with William Wilson as captain and Gillet & Co. as owners, destination Botany Bay, and her age is given as 23 years old. She appears among the list of vessels sailing for the EIC, but as a separate listing from the above.^[7] She also does not appear in the Hardy & Hardy (1811) list of vessels serving the EIC between 1760 and 1810, indicating that the EIC had sold her.

She sailed from Portsmouth on 23 May 1800,^[8] under a letter of marque issued to Wilson on 10 February 1800.^[2] She was carrying 300 male convicts.^[9] She was also carrying 11 missionaries and had undertaken to deliver them to the South Sea islands after having delivered her convicts.^[8]

She was one of the vessels in the convoy at the Action of 4 August 1800, when HMS Belliqueux and the East Indiaman Exeter captured the French frigates Concorde and Médée.^[10]

Royal Admiral arrived at Rio on 12 August. Lloyd’s List reported in January 1801 that the Botany Bay ship Royal Admiral had been at Rio de Janeiro, having sailed in company with a several ships of the East India Company. On the way, 23 prisoners, her surgeon Samuel Turner, four seamen, a convict’s wife, and a convict’s child had died.^[8]

Royal Admiral reached Port Jackson, New South Wales, on 20 November.^[11] Forty-three male convicts had died during the voyage.^[9]

She left Port Jackson on 23 March, bound for China.^[5] She reached the Barrier Islands on 21 April and left them on 17 June, reaching Tahiti on 10 July. From there she sailed on 2 August, the reaching Whampoa on 23 August. For her return to Britain, she crossed Second Bar on 22 December, reaching the Cape on 30 March 1802. She stopped at St Helena on 30 April, and arrived at the Downs on 2 July.^[7]

Royal Admiral last appears in Lloyd’s Register in 1807, still with Wilson as captain, Gillet & Co. as owner, and London-Botany Bay as her destinations.