Hello Listers Another thank you to all the folk who are still throwing their hat into the ring re. Fr Therry thread; you have all helped me tremendously. My convict Daniel CANVIN and the ship Elizabeth 3 arrived in Sydney on 31 December 1820 and so he would have been at sea for Christmas eve and day. Did the masters of these convict ships do anything for their convicts to let them celebrate (nip of rum all round) or was it business as usual? Is there anyone out there that is willing to take a stab as to what part of the coast of Australia, Elizabeth 3 would have been passing 23-24 Dec? Lesley I am wondering if you if there were many convict ships that arrived around Christmas and New Year. Thanks everyone Jenny

Jenny T wrote: > My convict Daniel CANVIN and the ship Elizabeth 3 arrived in Sydney on 31 December 1820 and so he would have been at sea for Christmas eve and day. Did the masters of these convict ships do anything for their convicts to let them celebrate (nip of rum all round) or was it business as usual? Is there anyone out there that is willing to take a stab as to what part of the coast of Australia, Elizabeth 3 would have been passing 23-24 Dec? > > Lesley I am wondering if you if there were many convict ships that arrived around Christmas and New Year. Well, the female convict ship Louisa in 1827 might have expected to be still sailing on Christmas Day, having left Woolwich on 24^th August. But it had an unusually fast trip down under (about 101 days), and it actually arrived off Port Jackson on 3^rd December and put its prisoners on shore two weeks later, 18^th December. (When you say that the Elizabeth "arrived" on 31st December, does that mean anchoring offshore or actually unloading the convicts? If the prisoners DISEMBARKED on the 31st, the ship probably arrived offshore a couple of weeks before that, and the convicts would have spent Christmas Day riding at anchor) As for the approach route along the Australian coast, the Louisa’s log (by Surgeon Joseph Cook) is a bit confusing. A couple of weeks after skirting the volcanic Amsterdam islands in the southern Indian Ocean, it notes “N.S.Wales in sight. the West” on 20^th November. The following day, 21^st November, it mentions “entrance of Bass’s Straits” Then on 26^th November it records “island of Van Diemens Land in sight”, and on 27-28^th November “proceeding to the N d. along the coasts of V.D. Land and New South Wales”. New South Wales was pretty well synonymous with the whole Australian continent at that time, I believe, and Western Australia wasn’t even claimed as British territory by Freemantle until 1829. But unless the reference to the Bass Straits was a mistake – coming only one day after that first sight of land - the Louisa's first glimpse of "New South Wales" must have been somewhere between modern Adelaide and Melbourne, and I suppose the two weeks it took from there to Sydney (one-seventh of the time taken by the whole journey from England!) was due to heavy swell and headwinds. If its Surgeon's Log has survived, you may find that the Elizabeth followed a similar route along the 36-38 degree latitude. Best regards, John Humphrey