A group of sailors from the third fleet experienced a special moment during an expedition to Broken Bay, as Richard Michell reveals.
The third fleet sent to Port Jackson included a supply ship, HMS Gorgon under Captain John Parker. Second-in-command was Lieutenant John Gardner.
The Gorgon arrived on 21 September 1791 and left on 18 December. In November, Gardner and some fellow officers made an excursion to Broken Bay. They set out on foot from Manly Cove, “accompanied by two of the natives best acquainted” with the country. A boat from the ship also sailed to Broken Bay.
After a few days mainly spent fishing and relaxing, with a small amount of exploration, the overland party set out on their return trip, spending a night at Narrabeen Lagoon.
In his journal, Lieutenant Gardner wrote about an Indigenous ceremony they attended the next day at Manly Cove.
“We got to Manly Bay on the noon of the next day, very opportunely to see a native funeral. One of their tribe had died from age. They had laced him up in his canoe stuffed with grass and a blanket or two procured from us so that no part could be seen, his head towards the east, whether from accident or design we could not learn,” he wrote.
“There was a fire at the head and another at the feet. Several spears were stuck round the body at about five or six-feet distance. They did not like us to go within this space nor to touch the canoe as some of the natives said he had the smallpox, tho’ we found that not to have been the case. There did not appear any signs of sorrow except on the countenance of one man who was a near relative.
“There were about 20 collected together to watch the body, which at sunset they meant to burn. Where there is suspicion of disease they always destroy the body and bury the ashes. This concluding ceremony they said we could not see.”