The ship Robert Watson was quartermaster on was one of how many ships in the flotilla that founded England's Australian penal colony?
First Fleet The First Fleet is the name given to the 11 ships that left England on 13 May 1787 to found the penal colony that became the first European settlement in Australia. The Fleet consisted of two Royal Navy vessels, three store ships and six convict transports, carrying between 1,000 and 1,500 convicts, marines, seamen, civil officers and free people (accounts differ on the numbers), and a vast quantity of stores. From England, the Fleet sailed southwest to Rio de Janeiro, then east to Cape Town and via the Great Southern Ocean to Botany Bay, arriving over the period of 18 to 20 January 1788, taking 250 to 252 days from departure to final arrival.
HMS Pilchard (1805) HMS "Pilchard" was a Royal Navy "Ballahoo"-class schooner of four 12-pounder carronades and a crew of 20. The prime contractor for the vessel was Goodrich & Co., in Bermuda. She was commissioned under Lieutenant Samuel Crew in May 1804, launched in 1805, and completed at Plymouth in 1806. Although "Pilchard" was often near naval engagements, she seems not to have had to fire her cannons before she was laid up in 1812. Entries in "Lloyd's Register" indicate that she continued in mercantile trade from at least 1817 until 1833, under a variety of owners and masters, and as far afield as Africa and Valparaiso.