THE LOSS OF THE LADY NELSON.

On November 10th Captain Bremer, having carried out his duties in accordance with the instructions that he had received from the Admiralty, took leave of the settlement. He handed over its charge to Captain Maurice Barlow. The Tamar then dropped into the stream, being saluted by 15 guns, which she returned. Two days afterwards she left Port Cockburn for India in company with the Countess of Harcourt, bound for Mauritius and England.

The Lady Nelson remained behind at Port Cockburn, partly to act as a guardship and partly to bring to the settlement the needed stores and supplies from the islands to the northwards. These islands, as well as Coepang, afforded fresh meat in the form of buffalo beef, and it proved an inestimable boon to many ships which traded in these waters. Fresh provisions being scarce at the settlement Captain Barlow sent the Lady Nelson for a cargo of buffaloes. In February 1825, the little ship set forth on her mission, from which she was doomed never to return. As she left Port Cockburn her Commander was warned to avoid an island called Baba, one of the Serwatti Islands, which was infested with pirates who were very daring and very cruel. It is supposed that the warning was unheeded, for there the little vessel met her end.

The schooner Stedcombe, Captain Burns [or Barnes], from England, arrived at Melville Island when anxiety was being felt there regarding the Lady Nelson’s fate. After her stores were landed, as scurvy was increasing among the colonists, Captain Barlow chartered the vessel on behalf of the Government and despatched her to Timor for buffaloes: she was also instructed to search for the missing Lady Nelson. Her captain remained at the settlement, and the chief mate took charge of the schooner. The Stedcombe never returned, and later it was learned that she too had been captured by pirates, off Timor Laut, about sixty miles eastward of Baba, where the Lady Nelson had been taken.

The Serwatti Islands form a chain which stretches from the east end of Timor as far as Baba. When Lieutenant Kolff of the Dutch Navy visited Baba in July 1825 the inhabitants were shy and deserted the village of Tepa on his landing. He was convinced that a crime had been committed, and learned that “some months previously an English brig manned by about a dozen Europeans had anchored off Alata on the south-east coast and had engaged in barter with the natives who were on board in great numbers, and who taking the opportunity of 5 men being on shore...attacked and killed the people on the brig as well as those in the boat when they returned.” Earl, who translated Kolff’s journal, says that “the natives received not the slightest reproof from Lieutenant Kolff for this outrage.”

Fourteen years afterwards, when Captain Gordon Bremer was acting as commandant at Port Essington, Captain Thomas Watson arrived there in the schooner Essington, bearing the news that Mr. Volshawn, master of a small trading vessel flying the Dutch flag, had seen an English sailor on the island of Timor Laut when he visited it in February of the previous year. The Englishman was kept captive at a native village on the south-eastern side of the island, and stated that he had belonged to the Stedcombe. Mr. Volshawn also declared that he had seen there articles which had been taken from the Stedcombe.

Captain Watson decided to try and rescue his countryman, and on March 31st, 1839, when off Timor Laut he stood in for the island. The plan he proposed to adopt in order to carry out the rescue was to entice a chief or Orang Kaire on board and hold him as a hostage until the English sailor was produced. As his ship came in shore three canoes under Dutch colours put out to meet him with twelve to thirteen men in each. In answer to Captain Watsons inquiries whether there was a white man on the island some of the natives replied, Certo; Engrise; Louron, which was translated as meaning that there was an Englishman at Louron. Other canoes came alongside the Essington, whose crew had been put under arms, and an Orang Kaire was allowed to come on board. Captain Watson writes: “Now was the time for carrying my plans into effect...and I told the Orang Kaire if he would bring him [the captive] to me I would give him a quantity of trade which was shown him. To this the chief agreed. But as no great faith was placed in his assertion, Watson then told him that he must send his canoes and fetch the Englishman, when he would receive his reward, but if they did not bring his prisoner he would be hung from the yard-arm, and that we should fire our great guns on the village. The ship was now surrounded by canoes and no one was allowed to come on board excepting a very friendly chief. This man immediately pulled from his bosom a small basket of papers which were found to consist of loose scraps written by the crew of the Charles Eaton. Beside these the basket contained a letter written by Lieutenant Owen Stanley, of H.M.S. Britomart, stating that he had called here and had examined and copied the scraps of paper. As night was coming on the canoes were dismissed and all the natives sent away excepting the Orang Kaire who had first arrived. The other chief was anxious to remain on board with him, but Mr. Watson would not allow him to do so.

After pacing the deck, the chief made a resolute attempt to follow his companions, tearing off the few garments which he was wearing and endeavouring to jump into the water. Early on April 1st the Essington was brought abreast of Louron. Not a canoe hove in sight until nine o’clock, when two belonging to the prisoner came alongside and the crews asked that he might be allowed to go on shore. This request Captain Watson refused, and shortly afterwards the friendly Orang, who again visited the ship, promised to deliver up the Englishman. At 2.30 P.M. two canoes were observed approaching the Essington, in one of which was the captive. He was dressed as a native, and when they drew close to the ship it was seen that he was in a most miserable condition. He was of fair complexion and his hair, which had been allowed to grow long, was “triced up in native custom with a comb made of bamboo,” and being of a light yellow colour “it resembled the finest silk.” His only garments were a sort of waistcoat without sleeves and a blue and white dungaree girdle round his loins. He looked delicate, and his face wore a woebegone expression, which apparently was habitual, while his body was covered with numberless scars and sores. The sinews of his knee-joints were very contracted, because, he told Captain Watson, he had to sit fishing so long in one position in the hot sun so that he was almost unable to walk. His ears had been perforated after the custom of the natives, and in the lobe of each he wore a piece of bamboo at least an inch in diameter.

As was to be expected, from having been fourteen years on the island, he had almost forgotten his native language and with difficulty could make himself intelligible. He was, however, able to give the following account of his life there. The Stedcombe, on leaving Melville Island, had gone to Timor Laut for live stock and had moored off Louron. Mr. Bastell, the mate in charge, then proceeded on shore with the crew, leaving on board the steward, a boy named John Edwards, and himself. As Mr. Bastell and the crew did not return he [Forbes] looked through the glass and then beheld their bodies stretched out on the beach the heads severed from each. As a canoe was perceived approaching the ship, he proposed to the steward and to John Edwards that they should arm: but the former paid no attention to him. He then proposed that he and John Edwards should punch one of the bolts out of the cable and liberate the ship. They were in the act of doing this when the natives, among whom was the Orang Kaire whom Watson had detained, boarded the Stedcombe. The unfortunate steward was killed on the spot, and the two boys, expecting to share his fate, betook themselves to the rigging and were only induced to descend upon repeated promises that they would not be injured. Strange to say, the natives kept their promises, and after plundering the ship they burnt her. The boys were kept in the capacity of ordinary slaves until about four years before the coming of the Essington, when Edwards died, and since that time Forbes had been unable to move in consequence of the stiffness in his legs. The scars were caused by the natives when he incurred their displeasure. One of their common modes of punishment was to take hot embers from the fire and place them on some part of his body until it was severely burned. When asked how he was treated generally, he replied “Trada Bergouse,” meaning very badly. Some few natives, he said, were kind to him, among them the chief who had produced the papers. Speaking of the chief of Louron, he remarked, “Louron cuts me down to the ground” which was thought to imply that he flogged him and knocked him down. Whenever a vessel hove in sight the chief would have him bound hand and foot and keep him so, as long as the vessel remained at the island. This explains why Lieutenant Stanley did not see him when he called in H.M.S. Britomart. Some of the crew of the Charles Eaton had come there and wished him to leave with them, but permission was refused. Lastly a Chinese trader had wished to purchase him and had offered several “gown pieces” as the price, but this offer too was declined. When Kolff called with two Dutch men-of-war, he and his men would have nothing to do with him, nor would they assist him to escape.

Forbes gave accounts of many ships having been cut off by these pirates but only two clear accounts the one of a China junk which they boarded, murdered and plundered the crew, and eventually burnt, and the other a schooner manned with black men, which they plundered afterwards liberating the men. He also said that a whaler had been cast away seven moons ago, and that two whale-boats and one jolly-boat with only five people in all arrived at Timor Laut. This story, however, was confused and incoherent.

When Captain Bremer arrived at Sydney in H.M.S. Alligator about the same time as the Essington, he had Forbes placed in the hospital there and wrote to the Admiralty asking for inquiries to be made about his relatives and to inform them of his existence. In his despatch Captain Bremer remarked that even Forbes’s features seemed to have “assimilated themselves” to those of the islanders.

The kindly chief was afterwards rewarded, as was Captain Watson, by the Admiralty. The Orang Kaire of Louron seems to have escaped scot free, having left the Essington as Forbes was being brought on board. Forbes afterwards retired to Williamstown, Victoria, where he spent the rest of his life as a fisherman, and it is said that he never quite recovered from the effects of his harsh bondage.

The last news of the Lady Nelson was brought to Sydney some time after her capture by a ship called the Faith, which reported that the hull of the Lady Nelson was still to be seen with her name painted on the stern at the island of Baba.

It was an unworthy end to a very gallant ship, but the record of the useful work that she accomplished survives and will have its place in every history of Australia.