THE BIRTH OF BRISBANE CITY

By Al Finegan

Sydney, cutting down huge trees used to build homes and factories. After ten years he was awarded his ticket-ofleave, married, and worked in the timber trade as an independent contractor around Sydney. By 1815 he had saved enough to purchase this small boat. As his own skipper he ferried cargos between the colonial outposts and had gained a reputation as a smart and reliable worker. Then stories began to circulate on the docks of some shrewd operators who were making a lot of money running logs from Five Islands. So when a dodgy operator approached him with a “slightly illegal” proposal to buy cedar logs, regardless of source, Parsons jumped on board, and here they were.

His number two was Thomas Pamphlett, a particularly nasty character, who much preferred stealing to working for a living. He had been a brickmaker in Manchester, England, and supplemented his wage with theft. He had been caught four times and received various punishments, including lashes and time in a gaol gang in irons. Then in September 1810 at the Lancaster Assizes he was charged with stealing five pieces of woollen cloth and a bay mare in the County of Chester. He was found guilty and given a death sentence. This was commuted to transportation for fourteen years. He arrived in Sydney in Guildford in January 1812. He couldn’t help himself and was caught multiple times for stealing and received 100s of lashes and many months in irons in the gaol-gang. Subsequent good conduct earned him a ticket-of-leave. He began working for Parsons in 1821.

The third member of the gang was John Thompson, a Scotsman, sentenced in the Glasgow Court of Justiciary to 7 years transportation arriving in 1819. Thompson had served many years in HM Navy in war ships during the Napoleonic wars. After serving three years at the Sydney Prisoners Barracks, he was granted his ticket-of-leave and looked for work on the boats operating the shores of NSW. Parsons offered him a job on his current venture in the belief that “Thomo” would be a useful sailor to have on board, until he realised that Thomo had been a gunner in the Navy when what he needed was a sailor experienced in the operation of small boats.

Parsons greased palms and had Irish convict John Finnegan assigned to him. Finnegan had acquired a reputation as a useful sailor, already with nine months experience ferrying cedar logs from the legal site at Port Stephens. Finnegan had started working when just 6 years old. For the next 15 years he was employed as a sailor on a fishing boat operating out of Wicklow in Ireland. At age 25 he was picked up by the Peelers in Dublin, being arrested on a sweep to reduce Irishmen numbers and send them to work in NSW. His only crime was not being quick enough to escape the Peelers. He arrived in NSW in 1818. As an assigned convict, he was under the total control of his master, Parsons.

With a following wind there was not much to do, so Parsons directed his crew to keep a check on his valuable trading goods, a considerable quantity of flour and pork, and twenty-five litres of rum. They had a twenty-litre barrel of water and a drinking tin considered enough for the four or five days of their trip, and besides, it would be refilled at Five Islands. It was a beautiful clear day and, with a following wind, the boat glided along over a slight swell. In the early afternoon Finnegan began to feel a little apprehensive as he kept an eye on the gathering dark clouds closing in from the mainland, together with an increasingly strong wind from the north-west. He pointed it out to Parsons who seemed unconcerned as they would be at Five Islands in the next few hours. By mid-afternoon they could just see Five Islands about 12km ahead. But the grey menacing clouds were closing fast from the west and the wind had increased dramatically, compelling Parsons to order his crew to reduce sail and keep the bow heading downwind, a course that took them further out to sea.

The night came on with increasing wind and heavy rain, but they did not lose sight of land until shut out by darkness. The wind became a gale and continued with unabated violence into the next day, then the next and the next. They had no compass and visibility was 100 metres at best, so they had no idea in what direction they were heading and no idea that the wind had inexorably turned from northerly to southerly. The crew took turns on the helm fighting the huge waves rolling in from behind. The threat of broaching was ever present. Had the boat turned side on to the waves, it would have been the end for them all. The nights were even more terrifying than the days as the man on the helm watched desperately at the following sea rising like a huge black wall behind him then lifting them 30 or more metres upwards on the rolling wall of water, then fighting the helm to keep the boat heading directly down the wave until it was in the low point between the waves. Then the next wall of water came. It was exhausting both physically and mentally. Their carefully stowed provisions were being tossed and tumbled and drenched with sea water. The wind howled and whistled with such intensity it made it impossible to pass commands without shouting in each other’s ears. Those not on the helm were constantly bailing their open boat to stay afloat, crashing into each other as the boat heaved and smashed into the churning waves. Their fresh water ran out on the second day as the exhausted men drank regularly to quench the thirst from their toils. Each man had become overwrought from fatigue and the lack of sleep and water. Their bodies were battered and bruised from being flung about in their endeavours to stay afloat, indeed, to stay alive. The

Thomo slipped into a coma and soon passed away. By this time, Finnegan had become quite deaf. It was with difficulty that the three sane men could man a watch of two hours each.

On the afternoon of the 23rd day at sea, Parsons suddenly declared that he was dying, that he must have water even if his boat was lost. They therefore looked for a place to land, but by now the wind had increased markedly and the sight of crashing breakers dissuaded them, so they continued under easy sail. Thompson's body, which had remained in the boat, had become offensive. In silent agreement it was decided that it should be removed. It was unceremoniously tossed overboard where it, “swam as light as a cork on the water” overboard, and drifted towards the breaking surf. After quite some time he gained the nerve to tumble through the waves and made the shore. nightmare continued non-stop for five days. They thought they had been blown south, even as far as Van Diemen’s Land. Eventually the seas calmed down, and light rain began to fall. They managed to collect some water, which relieved the situation, but only for a short time until thirst overcame them again. With little water to drink over the next 15 days, they all began to suffer dreadfully, with their eyesight failing while having difficulty in speaking.

On the 20th day at sea, Thomo deteriorated and slipped into a mumbling confused daze, stumbling, and falling about the boat. Suddenly he tried to jump over the side, babbling that he could swim to shore. They seized him and, as best they could, tied him to the main mast. About an hour later,

Still with no drinking water, they continued all that day running parallel to the shore northward. On their twentyfourth day at sea they saw a long beach ahead and steered towards it where they spied what appeared to be a freshwater stream running down the sandhills and onto the beach. About 400 metres from shore they hauled down the sails, dropped the anchor, and released about 200 metres of chain to let her drift towards the line of breakers. A long rope was then made fast to the empty water keg which they sealed with the drinking tin inside. Parsons briefed Pamphlett that when he reached the stream he was to half fill the keg and drag himself along the rope back to the boat. Pamphlett stripped and clinging to the keg, jumped

Pamphlett said later that, “When landed I run to the water and drunk like a horse.” He was now so weak from fatigue and the quantity of water he had drunk that he was unable to fill the water keg and collapsed. Parsons, in despair, knew he now had no choice. Finnegan took his backpack, filled it with an axe, some scissors a knife and his coat. They both stripped off and released the anchor chain. As soon as they hit the first wave, Finnegan and Parsons jumped clear while the boat tossed and rolled in the surf, crashing into the sand, and smashed apart with its contents being flung in all directions. After being thrown wildly through the surf, Finnegan and Parsons found their feet and staggered ashore. They had finally landed safely on land. Parsons grabbed the tin cup and, “...emptied it thirteen times in succession”. Finnegan lay down in the water and drank to such excess that he threw up again and again. They eventually sated their thirst and took stock of their situation. They were all naked, their clothes lost. Their boat was dashed to pieces and only Finnegan’s jacket, a keg, a tin pot, Parson’s axe, and scissors were rescued.

It was 15th April 1823, when they sat on the beach and watched as their boat was now nothing more than debris with bits tumbling to shore while other parts floated away. Nearly all its contents were lost in the wild surf with just a few items arriving on shore. Low sand hills bordered the beach, some with deadfall, but they had no way of starting a fire. The exhausted men lay down on the sand to pass the night and, paradoxically, it rained heavily, and they suffered desperately from cold and hunger. And they had no idea where on earth they were!