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Bass Strait Traders #2: The ex-slaver brig HENRY

BASS STRAIT TRADERS
Vessels in Colonial Waters 1830-1850

The ex-slaver brig HENRY

1. Arriving in Australia in 1836

Ian Nicholson, 1985, Shipping Arrivals and Departures Tasmania 1834-1842, Roebuck No 33, Canberra
The HENRY, a brig, an ex-Atlantic slaver, registered in London, of 145 tons burthen, under Master and Owner Captain Edwin Whiting, arrived at the Launceston bar on 9 April 1836. The brig had left London, Gravesend on 27 November 1835, making passage via Funchall Bay (22 December) and Tristan de Cunha (10 February), and carrying cargo including pork, butter, beer, rum, brandy and wine.

1.1 A dishonourable past
Ronald Parson, 1983, Ships of Australia and New Zealand Before 1850: (Details of Vessels Registered with Customs at Ports in Australia and New Zealand), Magill SA
"HENRY Wood, 2 mast, square rigged (brig), 144.75 tons, 74 foot 4 inches X 21 foot 8 inches X 9 foot 9 inches...Built time and place unknown and condemned in a court of mixed commission to suppress slavery at Sier…
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Hard Men #3: The King Island Girls

HARD MEN:
Sealers and Whalers 1800-1850

The King Island Girls

1. The sealer 

Hobart Town Gazette, March 25, 1826
"It is evident that the Legislative Government must enact a law to prevent the fishery for seals at improper seasons; else this most valuable source of colonial export will soon be lost. There are two species of seals in these seas. The early kind brings forth its young from 25th November, to the latter end of December, and the reefs and banks should be left undisturbed until May following, when the increase will be grown up, and the skins well furred. The black seal, which is the most valuable, is a month later. The unthinking sealers, harass these useful animals at all seasons, and the consequence is, that many reefs are deserted, and inferior skins have been procured from animals too young, and imposed on the merchants.
John Scott, who has long been an inhabitant of the Straits, and has cohabited there with a black woman, by whom he has three children, declares that he ha…
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