[2] It was built as a cargo ship for the London firm of Bell & Symonds, passing through a series of owners before being acquired by petroleum industry pioneer Alfred Suart in 1886.
[b][4] On the morning of 28 November 1903, Petriana was boarded by Henry Press, a pilot of 20 years' experience, who was to guide the ship through The Heads into Port Phillip Bay.
[8] On the evening of 30 November, the 27 Asian crew members were transferred to the Kasuga Maru, a Japanese mail steamer bound for Hong Kong, from which they were to be returned to their original port of Singapore as required by the Merchant Shipping Act 1854.
[8] Captain Kerr released a press statement highly critical of the treatment of his crew, in which he said:[3][9] I have sailed in many seas the world over, but have never before seen or heard of a country where the shipwrecked mariner was not allowed to set his foot on dry land.
[...] If this treatment of my crew is a fair specimen of your humanity it is about equal to the worst barbarity of other nations, and if it is forced on you by your laws, I regret to say they are a disgrace to the British Empire.There was an immediate public reaction to the government's handling of the wreck, which occurred in the middle of the 1903 federal election campaign.
[13] Deakin publicly defended the actions of both Hunt and the immigration officials who had originally refused the sailors entry,[10] stating the latter had acted in the spirit of "utmost humanity".
The Attorney-General, James Drake, told a meeting in Sydney:[11] It was undesirable that educated gentlemen who had been in gaol, or coloured men who had been shipwrecked, should land in Australia in defiance of the law.
They [the government] intended to keep their race pure, and make Australia a place worth living in.The issue had no measurable impact on the election results, which saw the parliamentary status quo maintained and only a single seat change hands in Victoria.
In early 1904 it issued a statement internationally via Reuters which stated that "the coloured men had been well cared for" and quoted Deakin as saying "any complaints are baseless and are merely being employed for electioneering purposes".
[15] A similar incident occurred in March 1904, when the Japanese crew of the wrecked cargo ship Elba arrived in Sydney, but controversy was averted when the local customs officials allowed the men onshore.