Henry Cone, aged 24 years, was sentenced to death
on the 28th March 1787, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk Assizes for a burglary he
committed at Halesworth (a small town near the River Blyth in East Suffolk.) In June his death
sentence was commuted to transportation for life and in mid 1788 he was sent to
the 'Lion' prison hulk at Gosport. Henry became one of thousands of unfortunate
convicts who were imprisoned on the “Lion”, one of the notorious hulks in
Plymouth harbour.

These ships had been used to transport
criminals to America but the War of Independence stopped this and their
dilapidated hulks were moored in large ports and used instead as floating
prisons, a practice that lasted nearly a century.The wanton cruelty on board rivaled the Spanish
Inquisition. These hulks were widely used in England in the last half of the
eighteenth century for the confinement of convicted prisoners - they were dirty,
crowded, unhealthy and were consistently infested with disease.
On 8th September 1789 he
was embarked on HMS Guardian and the ship sailed from Spithead on 12th September
1789. He along with twenty four other convicts were selected because of their
farming experience and it was thought their skills would be useful in the
colony. Five did not survive the voyage. The GUARDIAN was built by Robert Batson
in March 1784 at Limehouse ship building docks, London. She was a Clipper of 879
tons armed with 44 guns and was 140 feet overall, and was commanded by 26 year
old Lt.(N) Edward Riou. The Guardian was sailing to the new settlement at Port
Jackson (now called Sydney, Australia) and was one of the ships in the First
Fleet and the last to sail alone. At Woolwich on the Thames, large quantities of
salt meat, flour, medical supplies, clothing, bedding and other items were
loaded. The ship then moved around to Spithead where the 25 convicts were
brought on board on the 8th September. They were to work as seaman on the
voyage. Also on board was a ships company of 88 and there were 36 passengers.
After a call at Teneriffe, the ship reached Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope
on 24th November 1789. At the Cape more plants and a number of horses, cattle,
sheep, pigs, rabbits and poultry were purchased for the colony and the ship
sailed for new South Wales on 11 December but it was never to reach it’s
destination.
0n 24th December 1789, at lat. 44 deg. S.
long. 41deg. 30min. E., the weather being extremely foggy, an island of ice was
seen about 3 miles away. Lieut. Riou approached and sent two boats to collect
ice to add to the ship’s water supply which was low due to the large number of
cattle they had on board. The boats brought off several lumps while the ship lay
to, then sail was made to stand off. The bow of the ship struck on an invisible,
underwater part of the ice and her stern swung round, knocking off the rudder
and badly damaging the stern frame, the ship becoming embedded under the
terrific bulk of ice. When at last the Guardian’s sails filled she began to
forge off but struck again and continued crashing on the ice underneath her
until she at last got clear.
While they were congratulating themselves on escaping with little more than the
loss of the rudder, the carpenter reported that two feet of water in the hold
was increasing fast. Time was spent getting the chain pumps working, and the
cattle were cleared off the deck. A few hands between decks managed to get up
and heave overboard most of the bags of flour, peas, wheat, barley, etc. that
had been taken on in the Cape of Good Hope. All the officers and men had been
employed on clearing and pumping so Lieut. Riou, realizing that they would soon
be exhausted, divided them into two watches and sent one half for refreshments.
At daylight on the 25th it was blowing a gale but they managed, with great
difficulty, to get one of the lower studding sails filled with oakum under the
ship's bottom. The managed to pump the water down to only 19 inches but the gale
increased and the fore and maintop sails were blown to pieces leaving them at
the mercy of the waves. When the starboard pump broke down the water reached to
the sloop deck and was gaining a foot every half an hour. Many by now were so
despondent that they left the pumps to secrete themselves and waited to perish
with the ship. The ship began to settle aft and water poured in through the
rudder case so Lieut. Riou ordered the boats to be hoisted out and allowed those
who wished, to leave in them. The launch, with only 8 men on board, was swept
clear but rowed back and received some provisions. A small quantity of biscuit
and an 18-gallon cask of water was lowered into the small cutter and Mr. Wadman,
Mr. Tremlett and the purser jumped down into her. Mr. Somerville and John
Spearman, a seaman, jumped into the water and swam to the launch which also took
Messrs. Clements, Wadman, Tremlett, the purser, the Rev. Mr. Crowther, and two
more of the men, out of the cutter, with two bags of biscuit and some water. Mr.
Brady, midshipman, Mr. Fletcher, captain's clerk, and five seamen remained in
the cutter but they could not be prevailed upon to return to the ship to take on
more people and supplies. Mr. Clements handed over a spare compass and quadrant
to the jolly boat, which had no water or provisions. Meanwhile Lt. Riou and the
remainder of the crew continued in the ship which, though waterlogged, still
floated. The ballast had been washed out of a large hole in her bows and the
casks in the hold provided buoyancy. The weather moderated and she was able to
make 4 knots and Lieut. Riou could keep her head on the course he wished to
steer. His chief preoccupation was with his dispirited crew. who frequently
threatened mutiny and at one time completed a raft on which they determined to
take their chance, rather than remain on the ship. He persuaded them the plan
would lead to certain death.
On right, the Guardian at Table Bay 22 Feb.1790 painted by the
Captain NOTE: the two ensigns flags are flying upside down as a distress signal
At length, on 21 February 1790, after nearly two months, land was sighted, and
the GUARDIAN was towed into Table Bay by whaleboats belonging to a British ship.
When he was frustrated in his attempts to get the ship round to Saldanha Bay,
Lieut. Riou was forced to beach her in Table Bay.
The loss of
the Guardian was a disaster for the settlements at New South Wales and Norfolk
Island. The ship would have reached Sydney by March and relieved severe food
shortages – some sheep and a large quantity of flour and salt meat was
transferred to other Second Fleet ships and eventually conveyed to the colony
but a vast quantity of other goods, plants and stock had been lost at enormous
cost.
“The Guardian will never sail again" wrote Riou sadly in April 1790 and
it was beached and abandoned but the story of the ship’s dramatic accident and
the heroic struggle to save her, captured the public imagination. Riou became an
instant celebrity and he appealed that pardons be given to the convicts for
their aid and assistance in safely returning the ship to Table
Bay.

Captain Edward Riou
Henry Cone survived the
near-sinking of the Guardian after a collision with an iceberg and was
transferred to the convict ship 'Neptune' at the Cape. He was granted a
conditional pardon for his role in helping to save the Guardian and lived on
Norfolk Island from the late 1790's.
The conditions on this ship were gloomy,
dank and unsanitary and disease took a high toll on the convicts, primary among
these were scurvy, dysentery, typhoid fever and small pox. Starvation would take
the the bigesst toll of the prisoners below the decks of the Neptune. John
Shapcote was the Naval Agent in charge of the Second fleet comprising also the
Scarborough and the Surprise. The reality was the health and welfare of convicts
during these voyages came second, the first consideration was to empty the gaols
and hulks. The fleet had sailed from Portsmouth 19th January, 1790 and during
the 84 day voyage from England to Cape Hope, 46 convicts had died on the Neptune
- proof that they had been mistreated right from the start.
It undertook to transport, clothe and feed
the convicts for a flat inclusive fee of £17 7s 6d per head, whether they landed
alive or not. Henry and the 19 from the stricken Guardian were taken on board
Neptune. The starving prisoners lay chilled to the bone on soaked bedding,
unexercised, crusted with salt, shit and vomit, festering in scurvy and boils.
Convicts were dying around them, and the ship's master dished out inhumane and
brutal treatment and there was gross incompetancy and negligence by the navel
agent. Despite remaining at the Cape for 19 days and taking on fresh provisions,
the convicts continued to be deliberately starved to death, chained in irons to
one another constantly below deck a method barbarous and used previously for
slave transportation. They were refused access topside and were stapled to the
deck. Brutal floggings with cat-o'-nine-tails were excessive and very common.
The naval agent died shortly after leaving
the Cape and it was during this last part of the voyage the rate of death
escalated. This was highest mortality rate in the history of convict
transportation to Australia - 502 convicts embarked, and 161 died and 269 sick.
When the officials boarded the three
transports at Port Jackson, they were faced with a sickening sight. Convicts,
most near naked, lying where they were chained. Most were emaciated with a lot
dead or very close to it in their chains. The majority of convicts were unable
to speak, walk or even get to their feet. All were degraded, covered in their
own body waste, dirty and infested with lice and all exhibited the savage
brutality of the beatings and floggings as well as the visable signs of the
starvation they had endured. The death rate on the Neptune was one death in
every 3 who left England. Donald Trail, master of the ship Neptune and his chief
mate were tried at the Old Bailey in 1792 for murder but Captain, First Mate and
the contractors escaped prosecution.
Henry
Cone was sent from Port Jackson to Norfolk Island arriving 7th August 1790 on
the "Surprize", which had travelled with the Neptune. He was recorded as being
there in 1801 and in 1805 he was described as a landless labourer.
The produce
from this settlement probably saved the Sydney inhabitants from starvation, but
by 1804 it was no longer needed. The soil was fertile, but clearing the
rainforest proved difficult and early crops were attacked by rats and parrots.
Although settlement continued to grow, until it reached a population of over
1100 convicts it failed to become self-supporting and proved to be both
difficult and expensive to maintain. From 1806 onwards the inhabitants were
gradually transferred to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)and by 1814 the settlement
was abandoned, and the buildings destroyed to discourage unauthorised occupation
of the Island. It remained uninhabited until 1825 when a second penal settlement
was established there, without free settlers, and prison for the worst convicts
from New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. It was officially described as "a
place of the extremist punishment, short of death".
In September 1808 Henry Cone sailed with a
woman (Mary Ann) and child Robert onto the 'City of Edinburgh' for Van Diemens Land where
he was granted thirty acres in the Argyle district at New Town near Hobart. In
1809 (his name was written Cohen) he was mustered with a woman and two children
on the land (which was not yet under cultivation), owning two pigs. As a former
inhabitant, he is recorded as lodging a complaint that he did not receive
remuneration for buildings on Norfolk Island. In 1819 (now with four children)
he had ten acres sown in wheat, beans and potatoes. The children included Henry
(c1809), Ann (1815), John (1819), James (b&d 1822) and James (1824). (one
child born before 1819 has not been identified).
Ref: The first Fleet
Convict ship "Guardian"
Convict ship "Neptune"
Norfolk to Tasmania
"SYDNEY COVE CHRONICLE", 30th June, 1790"

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