First Fleet – A List of the Naval, Marine, Military and Civil Establishment, at Botany Bay

This document is effectively a blueprint for the foundation of Australia, and would become for many years the standard reckoning of the disposition of the First Fleet.

The first page has the list of the military and civil establishment of the Colony, with the subheading “Captain Arthur Phillip of the Navy, Governor Commander in Chief of the territory of New South Wales, and of his Majesty’s Ships and Vessels employ’d on that Coast”. Subordinate officers are listed, followed by “Six Transports carrying the Convicts”, specifying the number and sex of convicts to be carried on each. Overleaf there is a list of each of the six principal ships with their officers as well as the numbers in their complement of marines.

The list was prepared by Lieutenant John Shortland who was the Agent for the Transports and was charged with putting together the logistics of the First Fleet including the hire of transport ships, provisioning, equipment and similar. The tables and description of the First Fleet from this document appear in many subsequent publications including the first published book about the First Fleet [Eden] as well as Arthur Philip’s own account of the Voyage “The voyage of Arthur Phillip to Botany Bay…” This is the cornerstone document on which all subsequent representations of the make-up of the First Fleet were based.

This document has been tipped into a copy of the George William Anderson edition of Cook’s three voyages, ‘New Authentic and Complete Collection of Voyages Round the World’, which was printed in 1786 and would have been available at just the time when the First Fleet was being assembled.