1803.
September.
Thursday 8.
with captain Park to wait upon His Excellency governor King, whom we found at dinner with his family. A razor had not passed over our faces from the time of the shipwreck, and the surprise of the governor was not little at seeing two persons thus appear whom he supposed to be many hundred leagues on their way to England; but so soon as he was convinced of the truth of the vision before him, and learned the melancholy cause, an involuntary tear started from the eye of friendship and compassion, and we were received in the most affectionate manner.
His Excellency lost no time in engaging the ship Rolla, then lying in port, bound to China, to go to the rescue of the officers and crews of the Porpoise and Cato; I accompanied the governor on board the Rolla a day or two afterwards, and articles were signed by which the commander, Mr. Robert Cumming, engaged to call at Wreck Reef, take every person on board and carry them to Canton, upon terms which showed him to take the interest in our misfortune which might be expected from a British seaman. The governor ordered two colonial schooners to accompany the Rolla, to bring back those who preferred returning to Port Jackson, with such stores of the Porpoise as could be procured; and every thing was done that an anxious desire to forward His Majesty's service and alleviate misfortune could devise; even private individuals put wine, live stock, and vegetables, unasked, on board the Rolla for the officers upon the reef.
My anxiety to get back to Wreck Reef, and from thence to England with the greatest despatch, induced the governor to offer me one of the schooners to go through Torres' Strait and by the most expeditious passage to Europe; rather than take the long route by China in the Rolla. This schooner was something less than a Gravesend passage boat, being only of twenty-nine tons burthen; and therefore it required some consideration before acceding to the proposal. Her small size, when compared with the distance from Port Jackson to England, was not my greatest objection to the little