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 Peruvian (1808) HMS "Peruvian" was an 18-gun "Cruizer"-class brig-sloop launched in 1808 at Parson's Yard, Warsash, England. She was the first naval vessel built at that yard. "Peruvian" captured two American privateers and participated in an expedition up the Penobscot River during the War of 1812. Then she claimed Ascension Island for Great Britain in 1815. She was broken up in 1830.