Captain John Black (31 October 1778 – c. May 1802), was an English seafarer, who had a short but eventful career that included privateering and exploration.
He was best known, during his own lifetime, for a mutiny on Lady Shore in August 1797, as it sailed south in the Atlantic Ocean, bound for Sydney, carrying female convicts.
As a result of the mutiny, Black (a junior ship's officer at the time) and several other members of the crew were put into a small boat and left to find their way to the nearest land, being Brazil.
John Black was the purser and navigator, and Lady Shore was bound for Sydney (then known as Port Jackson) with soldiers for the New South Wales Corps; Lieutenant William Minchin commanding officer of the detachment; a consignment of 69 female convicts; one male convict; and much needed supplies of food and farm implements for the Colony of New South Wales.
With good reason – mutinous because an attempt had already been made to seize the ship to avoid it arriving at its destination, and disagreeable villains because two of the sergeants had already needed to be placed in irons.
[1] A month later, on 8 June 1797, when the Lady Shore was at Falmouth, Cornwall, England, she sailed out into the Atlantic Ocean in company with the West-India Fleet.
In the early morning on 1 August 1797, when Lady Shore was about four days sail from Rio de Janeiro, the soldiers and several of the sailors mutinied.
Two weeks later, during the late afternoon of Monday 15 August 1797, John Black and 28 others were released from their imprisonment, put in a longboat with their luggage and some provisions, and cast astern.
The 29 castaways in the longboat hoisted sail and headed for Rio Grande, Brazil, the nearest settlement on the Portuguese coast of South America, about 480 kilometres (300 mi) away.
The castaways were hospitably received by the locals, and the Governor of Port St. Pedro promised them a passage to Rio de Janeiro by the first available ship.
After a frustrating wait of seven weeks, many false starts, and the loss of all his luggage and journals, Black decided to travel north overland to Rio de Janeiro.
He left by horseback on 4 October 1797 with Lisle, the male convict who had proved himself trustworthy back in Torbay when he had reported the first attempted mutiny.
On 16 October 1797, after travelling overland by horse about 770 kilometres (480 mi), Black and Lisle caught a whaleboat to St Catharine's, where they found part of the Portuguese Squadron of ships anchored.
The Spanish ship had been on a voyage from the Plata River (Buenos Aires) in Argentina to Lima in Peru, and had been captured on 19 February 1798, one month after Black had sailed from Rio de Janeiro.
With the strong westerlies along the southern coast of Australia it would have taken about 2 months for Indispensable to sail from the Cape of Good Hope to Sydney, and it should have arrived in early August 1798.
It was a stormy passage across the Indian Ocean and then around the south of Van Diemens Land, when the ship lost two boats and one man overboard.
These vessels have drained the place of all cash…Wheat, corn, beans, cabbages and fruit trees flourish, the cattle are of an uncommon size, and very fierce.
An old horse, which in England would be valued at five pounds for dog's meat, sells here for 100 guineas.Black went on to say that he chased a flock of black swans twenty-four kilometres (15 mi) down the river, but as they were shy never got a shot at them.
In August 1798, when they were both 19 years old, John Black met Mary Hyde, a convict girl and who the month before had arrived in Sydney on board the Britannia II.
Governor Hunter wrote on 25 September 1798 that some of the whalers that were in the harbour (including the Britannia II on which Mary Hyde had arrived) had proceeding on their fishing, and the town had been freed from the nuisance of the seamen who could not resist the two temptations of spirits and women.
In March 1799 Governor Hunter granted a lease of land to "Mr. John Black, late purser of the Lady Shore transport".
It was not long after that Black again left his family and sailed back to Cape Town from Sydney in what was then regarded as the shortest passage (time-wise).
This was because Hide, "living on the lease of Mr. Black; and owing 7 sheep, 4 pigs and 3 goats", had been able to meet a level of self-sufficiency, something the government greatly encouraged in an effort to cut costs.
Governor King's report on the voyage reads: A small brig from the Cape of Good Hope, commanded by Mr. Black (a person of good abilities as a surveyor and navigator) passed thro and keeping more to the Southward made Cape Albany Otway and standing to the southward made an island lying in the centre of the west entrance of the strait which he named King Island and afterwards passed thro the centre of the strait unadvisable to attempt from the east only from the west.A copy of Black's writing on the passage through Bass Strait in Harbinger was sent to England with Governor King's letter.
Black arrived back in Sydney on 11 January 1801 after having been away for 14 months, at which time his partner Mary Hyde promptly became pregnant with their second child.
Black discharged his cargo of rum and wines in Sydney into the warehouse that the businessman Simeon Lord had built specifically for this purpose.
Black managed to make the voyage up the east coast of Australia, above New Guinea, through the islands of Indonesia, and across to Mumbai and then Kolkata[3] in very good time.
Fly left the pilot on 14 May 1802 to continue sailing south across the Indian Ocean, along the bottom of Australia, through the Bass Strait above Tasmania, and then up the east coast to Sydney,[3] or so was the plan.