Family History 4.19

Robinson story

from Robinsons of Rotherhithe by Joanne Robinson

 

 

The Louisa Campbell arrived off North Head on 21st of May 1842, just as the Osprey, having discharged her merchandise cargo, was making ready to put to sea to sail round to the Manukau to discharge the steam sawmill.

 

Having left over a month earlier she arrived only fourteen days before the Louisa Campbell. The steam engine was the first in the colony and the passengers the first emigrants direct from London. The combined cargo of the Osprey and the Louisa Campbell was valued at 20,000 pounds, thereby adding much to the value and population of the colony.

 

Phillip Cooper, ship's assistant carpenter, in his account of the schooner Osprey said, "The settlement presented an uninviting appearance, there appeared no order nor system - a few small buildings erected on posts on the side of the hills - together with a few raupo huts - represented the town of Auckland".

 

Captain Rough the pilot brought the boat up and she dropped anchor off Point Britomart, Captain Darby then giving an order to fire a salute of thirteen guns.

 

Joshua's Journal continues:

At daylight up anchor, began again beating up with the wind ahead. Early afternoon the Pilot Boat boarded us. The men in the boat gave a very discouraging account of the state of things in Auckland, the people they said living upon one another. Some of the women taking the term literally became alarmed thinking they had turned cannibals.

 

However having the Pilot on board on rounding the Heads we had the wind more fair and soon came to our anchorage. Some of the young men thinking they could pull up to the town site before us launched the captain's gig and just before rounding the heads was glad to be taken on board, thoroughly shocked up and the boat half full of water.

 

Having anchored we then fired a salute from the cannonade we had on deck. A number of canoes came alongside and the Mouris came on board and sang some songs in broken English. One was "O dear what can the matter be". They then went through a war dance and sang in their own language, to the amusement and wonder of all on board.

 

The first person that came on board was a tall aristocratic looking gentleman. He was met on deck by the gentleman to whom I was engaged, who handed him a large packet of letters. As he opened them or most of them, he just glanced at them and threw them overboard. I thought him a strange customer. A sort of presentiment came over me that I should have something to do with him. I afterwards found out he was one of the three partners I was engaged to.

 

The principle one of the three had been drowned at Manukau Heads, going in a boat with a Mouri crew to help the lady who was taken ill at the mission station and no doctor present. By this humane act the company lost the most enterprising and managing man of the three. This happened some months before our arrival. There seemed to be some terrible fate attending this company. The man of letters I have described not very long afterwards committed suicide by cutting his throat. The disappointment and failure of the enterprise overbalanced his mind. The only man of the three that remained was the one I engaged with in London.