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 Bounty HMS "Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel "Bounty, was a small merchant vessel purchased by the Royal Navy for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to British possessions in the West Indies. That mission was never completed due to a mutiny led by Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian. This incident is now popularly known as the Mutiny on the "Bounty". The ship was later burned on Pitcairn Island by the mutineers. The remains of the "Bounty" were rediscovered in 1957 by an American adventurer and various parts of it have been salvaged since then.