And he sailed in a ship called Success. . .

James Stirling and the beautiful killing of King George’s Sound

Above: Having won command of HMS Success ten months earlier, 35-year-old Captain James Stirling arrived at the burgeoning colonial city of Sydney. It was late November 1826, and he held within him an overwhelming desire. After completing a substantial delivery of cash (20 000 Pounds Sterling) to the Governor, General Ralph Darling, his orders were to sail for the Trincomalee Naval Base at Ceylon, where he and Success were to be stationed. However, Stirling took it upon himself to convince General Darling to grant him an expedition to Australia’s western seaboard so he could witness first-hand the attributes of a location he argued was an essential point of settlement. Though Darling had already dispatched an army contingent and convict detail to the vicinity, Stirling remonstrated, insisting it was in the wrong place, and the heretofore overlooked Swan River must, at the very least, undergo survey. Though twenty years his senior, Darling bent to the younger man’s exhortations. Thus, in March 1827, James Stirling spent twelve fine autumnal days exploring the Swan and surrounding coastal waters, running his eyes over a warm sunlit landscape upon which all he had imagined seemed not only possible, but inevitable. At the height of his persuasive powers, Stirling’s intentions included addressing the threat posed by the newly established garrison at King George’s Sound. There could be no competing entity. Stirling’s plans for the Swan River Colony, a commercial venture intended to revitalise the family’s shrinking fortune, gained over previous generations through the slave-driven tobacco and cotton industries of the North Atlantic, were worth more to him at this time than his interrupted Naval career. And he would not cease until the colony was brought about with himself as inaugurating Governor. Image: AI generated Romantical image of 36-year-old Captain James Stirling standing at the wheel of HMS Success during March 1827, based on his 1833/34 portrait with the Swan River Cup made in London when he was in his mid 40s.

Background

When we investigated the life of James Stirling searching for the motivations behind his quest to establish a colony on the west coast of New Holland, we learned about his family’s history in the slave-driven trades of tobacco and textiles out of North America and the Caribbean, their relationship with the Royal Navy at the highest level, and ownership of coal fields and transport canals in Scotland. Also, as the family’s financial fortunes declined, their move from Scotland to London when he was six, his bright young mind, his accumulation of experience and wealth as he joined and progressed through the Navy ranks, his intellectual and social aspirations, and his canniness with regard to bride selection. Then, about his focus and relentless pursuit of the Swan River goal. The absolute singlemindedness, and luck, it took to win.

And then, his ten-year application to that very task.

In Humanist terms, James Stirling stepped into a golden period of self fulfilment when he decided upon the Swan River as the future he would place his faith in. Motivated by the need to preserve his family’s status and by what looked like an auspicious career opportunity, both of which required utmost discipline and determination, he developed an optimistic plan and furnished it with a romantic ideal. Inescapably influenced by the prevailing Romanticism movement, James Stirling fostered the notion of a future settlement placed upon a river gliding serenely toward a dazzling ocean sunset. Dressed in the finery of best 19th century living, with architecture and street planning at its core, its citizens would live a bountiful life in a place of uncompromising beauty and calm. A place he would bring into being on the basis of its positioning in the southeast quadrant of the Indian Ocean and all the commercial and military trappings he was certain would accompany its establishment.

But there were obstacles to overcome. He had never been there and no one else, not the Dutch, not the French, and neither of the most recent British hydrographers, Flinders nor Parker-King, (all of whom had ample opportunity to consider it) had taken interest. Stirling would have to argue for the Swan River on emerging geopolitical grounds, ask to have it carved from the bush using convict labour, while in the same breath find every reason to prevent King George’s Sound, Western Australia’s most obvious place of settlement so far known, from retaining its first mover advantage.

Fashioning the future from studies, imagination and persuasion

James Stirling was what you might call a high-end hybrid of the Public and Private sectors. Possessing a near perfect blend of social standing and professional capability, he was a commanding personality whose entrepreneurial zeal was infused by the precepts of the Romanticism movement yet tempered by the rigors of maintaining personal and professional integrity. For ten years he worked unceasingly to keep the Swan River Colony from abandonment. Indeed, the second half of his life continued to serve as atonement for daring to make his fortune at the hands of such unbridled voracity and all that incessant pursuit took from him.

Stirling paid his first visit to King George’s Sound early in April 1827 when he was returning from his longed-for exploration of the Swan River aboard HMS Success. The ship was brand new, and he stood at its wheel with his naval career, after a seven year lay-off, finally resumed. He sailed from England in June 1826, arriving at Sydney on 28th November, just four days ahead of the French Commander Jules Dumont d’Urville in l’Astrolabe. Stirling was all too anxious about what he considered French engrossment with Australia’s western side, having fashioned his appointment to HMS Success on the basis he was the man to strategise British security in the area. The French had laid claim at Shark Bay in 1772 but the wars in America and then massive shifts in internal affairs had prevented any subsequent action and their legal claim to Western New Holland/Australia had expired. Now, post-Revolution, post-Napoleon, France was active in the area once again.

For the previous three years, about the same time his younger brother Robert had been in Sydney as part of his service to the 3rd Regiment of Foot, Stirling had been studying opportunities in the Indian Ocean. The activities of the East India Company were feeding trade between Britain, India, newly formed Singapore, Indonesia and China and there was a great deal of interest in Australia linking up the sea lanes servicing it.

Indeed, such was the hype over Singapore, the Colonial Office had agreed to establish a trading post at Melville Island, off the coast of modern-day Darwin, in the hopes it would exploit the Trepang (Sea Cucumber) trade out of Australian waters and thereby also begin to capture more of the general trading traffic among the many Malay islands. Also, appealing to Stirling (in a commercial sense) was New South Wales’ appetite for convict labour, as more and more was required to provide for its booming pastoral industry. For the years 1820 to1825 somewhere in the region of 12 000 prisoners had been transported there and another 7000 direct to Van Diemen’s Land. The Mangles family (Stirling’s in-laws) benefitting handsomely from shipping contracts and related commercial activities. Perhaps stirred by his little brother’s tenure as Aide-de-Camp to Governor Brisbane at Sydney (Robert was five years younger), Stirling envisioned an opportunity for settlement on Australia’s western seaboard. A settlement which, if it evolved as Sydney had done, would provide a commercial bonanza for those early enough positioned to avail of it.

As anti-chattel slavery sentiment pressed toward outright cancellation, the Stirling family had been losing grip in the flagging Atlantic trade and were in need of new ideas. When he was a boy, the family had moved to London in order to focus on the textile trade but quickly ran into substantial losses. The business underwent continuous difficult change and by the time Stirling was in his thirties his brother Walter was carrying the responsibility, having along the way to raise compensation claims for the loss of hundreds of enslaved workers in the West Indies. Furthermore, his father’s health was failing and the family title, the Cadder Baronetcy, was being challenged by a rival strand of the Stirling clan. On top of all this, in the year leading up to Stirling’s appointment back into the practicing ranks, Walter’s company was facing bankruptcy, in part due to the Panic of 1825, a significant financial correction which almost collapsed the Bank of England. So, Stirling was not only motivated by the West Australian colonial opportunity he imagined, but by a deeply felt and increasingly urgent sense of responsibility toward his Stirling family heritage and business interests.

Under NSW Governor Thomas Brisbane (1821-1825), land grants in Australia had ballooned, benefitting wealthy settlers to an enormous extent. From November 1824, however, Lieutenant General Ralph Darling had been installed by the Colonial Office, and the issuing of land grants had tightened.  Robert Stirling had benefitted from 1000 acres under Governor Brisbane and James would too, under Darling, to the tune of 2560 acres, the newly restricted maximum without purchase. These grants were in line with those awarded to so many other travelling militaries at that time.

Yes, if you held privilege, entitlement was bestowed as if by the wave of a wand.

Free land and low-cost convict labour were big drawcards for those seeking to transfer their interests out of the North Atlantic and into the emerging colonies of the Indian and Pacific oceans, if only the Stirling family wanted to be colonists. Rather, their business was exploiting commercial opportunities presented by colonisation and as far as Stirling could see, New South Wales was being restrained by the Colonial Office, and a partner colony was needed to exploit Indian Ocean potential. Something, if it wasn’t brought about soon, would surely be lost to a French initiative.

Terra nullius was the rule in Australia and all that land to the west would be forsaken.

The Admiralty was aware of the French interest and twitched at the untimely concern it raised. Soon after they recalled Stirling, conversations were had with the Colonial Office at Downing Street regarding establishment of outposts upon the unclaimed portions of New Holland, one near modern day Melbourne and one which, after some deliberation, was positioned at King George’s Sound. These preventative measures being hastened by news a recently returned French expedition under Louis-Isidore Duperrey, which was supposed to look closely at Western Australia, had not and a new expedition was being planned by Dumont d’Urville, Duperrey’s Second-in-Command. Furthermore, news had reached the Colonial Office that a young French surveyor by the name of Jules Blosseville, who was also part of Duperrey’s crew and who had also spent time in New South Wales during 1824, had been asked by the French ministry to comment on the suitability of Western New Holland as a penal colony. Blosseville’s report was delivered and d’Urville issued command of Duperrey’s ship, renamed l’Astrolabe, resulting in those raised levels of anxiety at the Colonial Office and subsequent appointment of the Westernport Bay and King George’s Sound outstations.

d’Urville, at 36 years, was just a year older than Stirling. He and his crew aboard l’Astrolabe left Toulon on 22nd April, bound for the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Waiting for HMS Success to ready for departure to Sydney, knowledge of this chafed Stirling’s personal sense of urgency and drove him to force the issue of a Western Australian colony.

Stirling had been pestering the Admiralty for reappointment since returning from honeymoon in June 1824, a portion of which had been spent in France, having been superannuated in 1818 as part of the Navy’s general downsizing. After seven years on the sidelines absorbing the British elite’s cultural shift toward recognition of the individual and liberalisation of the self, Stirling not only needed an income, but desired to make an impact too. Being stationed abroad was one thing, progressing through the upper ranks another. As a Post Captain, Stirling was in line for automatic promotion (according to seniority), but it was a long way to the top that way alone. In his mid-thirties and now married into the illustrious Mangles family, amongst whom brothers Frederick and Charles Edward viewed him as an agent of good fortune, and who held powerful political and business interests tied to the Indian Ocean, Stirling was itching to let himself loose upon the Antipodean opportunity.

He eventually won recall in January 1826 with the HMS Success command, having submitted a couple of operational and technical proposals, then posited himself as a strategist on the security and commercial viability of Australia’s western seaboard. Stirling’s identification of the Swan River as the next logical location for the expansion of British colonial power held merit but the Admiralty, the Navy’s command centre, was only interested in security and the Colonial Office, under the Arch-Conservative Henry Bathurst, was pre-occupied with keeping New South Wales under its authoritative thumb. As French interest in Western Australia was noticeably intensifying, the Admiralty was willing to put Stirling and HMS Success into position, but the Colonial Office, having established a north-western trading post already, was satisfied an NSW managed outpost somewhere on the western side would do.

Stirling’s mission was to deliver the first store of British currency to New South Wales before returning, via Melville Island, to the East Indies command centre at Trincomaleee Naval Base, Ceylon (Sri Lanka). He left England in June, less than two months after d’Urville had set out in the Astrolabe

Above: Jules Dumont d’Urville, Commander of the French corvette l’Astrolabe, guided his expedition of discovery into King George’s Sound during October 1826. d’Urville had been Second in Command of the Duperrey led circumnavigation of the world in the same ship (when it was called La Coquille) between 1822 and 1825, during which they spent two months in New South Wales. Upon return d’Urville was excited to gain a second opportunity to visit the Indian and Pacific Oceans where he could explore Australia’s neglected western side, particularly King George’s Sound, which appeared a likely point of settlement. After 18 days surveying the area and making friends with Mokare and his family, d’Urville sailed eastwards, via Westernport Bay, to Sydney, arriving 2nd December, four days after Captain James Stirling in HMS Success. A little over three weeks later, Major Edmund Lockyer brought a New South Wales army detail into King George’s Sound as a late measure against the possibility of d’Urville claiming the Sound for France. Image: Loius Auguste de Sainson (1801 – 1887) Vue Du Port Do Roi Georges. (Nouvelle-Hollande.), hand-coloured lithograph from the “Voyage de la corvette l’Astrolabe”, published 1833.

Sydney and maximum alignment of self-propulsion with challenging circumstances

Though he was too late to prevent the defensive outpost from being formed at King George’s Sound, the timing of Stirling’s and d’Urville’s arrival at Sydney couldn’t have been better scripted. A sign, if Stirling needed one, his Swan River idea was vital and contentious and really rather urgent. Indeed, his ship’s name kept his spirits primed right up until he had exhausted all means of trying and subsequently left flatfooted in Trincomalee. Stirling was utterly invigorated. From the moment of landing, he was gifted the opportunity of meeting Dumont d’Urville personally and of using the interaction to further play upon governmental concerns.

But d’Urville, when Stirling went to his ship to introduce himself, flopped his wrist at him and candidly admitted he had avoided the Swan River in favour of King George’s Sound. In keeping with that, d’Urville showed Stirling charts and documentation relating to the Swan River that no one outside France had seen before. The information came from Captain Hamelin and Lieutenant Freycinet of the Naturaliste, partner vessel to the Geographe, on the Baudin expedition to Australian waters more than 25 years earlier. Two ships whose names Stirling would be confronted with in the West Coast nomenclature over the coming months. The expedition was well known, having coincided with Matthew Flinders circumnavigation of Australia in the Investigator, but neither the Admiralty nor Colonial Office realised the extent of the Naturaliste’s three-week exploration of the Swan River area and did not possess the information d’Urville had to hand.

This vexed Stirling as it explained why Duperrey hadn’t bothered going there and now why d’Urville had failed to investigate as well. Any interest the French held lay in King George’s Sound, that much was clear now. Certainly, the Swan’s open ocean frontage was an anchorage concern and the bar at its mouth a regulation stalling point. Stirling read on and saw how Hamelin and Freycinet were discouraged, though certain details still caught his eye. One high view over the open river at the convergence of a wide branch, in particular. But d’Urville was blankly ambivalent and Stirling suddenly less certain. After all his alarmist posturing, could the Swan River locality really hold so little attraction? Could no one else see the stark opportunity he did?

General Darling considered, due to the presence of three English warships in port at Sydney when l’Astrolabe arrived, that d’Urville was keeping his true thoughts to himself, even though Darling had his own reservations about soil fertility at King George’s Sound and therefore its ability to provide for a coastal settlement. In the end, despite l’Astrolabe spending the best part of three weeks at King George’s Sound, d’Urville planted no flag, left no plate nor letter of claim rolled inside a bottle positioned in a prominent place, nor had he planted seeds or left behind any animals. Not even deposited a couple of French coins, as Louis Saint-Alouarn had done at Shark Bay more than fifty years earlier. Darling and Stirling may have chosen not to believe him, but the French commander was sincere when he said he laid no claim.

It didn’t matter anymore anyway because Darling’s settlement squads had already been dispatched, leaving d’Urville no longer able to influence the outcome. In the end, Britain forestalling a foreign claim to Australia’s western seaboard hadn’t been necessary. While interested, commencing a colony certain to antagonise Britain was never something the French were bent upon.

Nonetheless, Stirling’s sense of imperative remained undiminished. King George’s Sound seemed to all intents and purposes the preferred site of everyone but himself. He simply had to go and see first-hand what the Swan River had to offer, only now having to suppress the surfacing of any negative views at the same time. He had to find a way to retain governmental concern as well as promote the idea of settlement there. This was his plan and to that end, mistrusting anything the French said or did became a key narrative while the importance of a West Coast colony, one allied to the India, South-East Asia (East Indies) and China trades, needed to be pressed upon those who could further the conversation and be persuaded to help make it a reality.

Stirling’s strategy for bringing about a western colony was informed by the way Singapore had been brought into being.  Stamford Raffles’ model for colonial engineering was inspiring. It required statesmanship as much as brinkmanship, it meant pursuing one course by means of manipulating others. By playing on fears of geopolitical loss or injury, Raffle’s used his East India Company position and deep local knowledge to broker agreement between the Dutch and the British on Javan trading rights, while doing deals with local Malaysian leaders to bring about a British entrepot on a small but ideally situated island at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. This move, a private and unauthorised quest on the part of Raffles, brilliantly commanded the complex East Indies trade while accessing the shipping lanes running between the Indian Ocean and South China Sea. Something, once it was in place, the British East India Company and then, after ratification through the Anglo Dutch Treaty of 1824, the Colonial Office could only applaud.

At the Colonial Office, Singapore was all excitement during the mid 1820s.

Stirling, mistakenly, saw similar opportunity for himself. By playing on fears of the French claiming the western side of Australia, his plan was to create a penal colony at the Swan River, to profit from the servicing of it by his wife’s family’s shipping company, to exploit it further through his Navy and East India Company contacts based in Bengal (which included members of both his and his wife’s family), to engage in substantial land acquisition via grants and cheap purchases, and, together with associates, to establish a private economic infrastructure with significant personal shareholdings. With an eighteen-year-old wife, two-year-old son and a house waiting to be built back in leafy Surrey, Captain Stirling’s true financial demands lay directly ahead. While the Navy’s approval may have been tacit, what Stirling had left to do was find a way to get the Colonial Office in London to agree, and between him and that lay the immensely robust figure of Lord Bathurst.

Contrary to some opinion, Stirling wanted a penal colony because he understood the value of shipping convicts to those who owned shipping companies. He also knew convicts needed guards and the guard’s superintendence, and that collectively they all needed food and clothing and materials to build with. A convict economy was an automatic economy and the foothold it would provide could not be ignored. In all of Stirling’s pressing he did not give up on a convict settlement at the Swan River until he was told outright, very late in the piece, that his only chance depended on a free settlement in which the government would play a minor role and the risk, to a very high degree, would fall upon the settlers; those who chose to invest in what would amount to a start-up economy. An economy entirely dependent upon the amount of money investors made available, as opposed to a government aided one.

With the Fort Dundas trading post on Melville Island already in place and a garrison in the process of being established at King George’s Sound, Stirling was doubly late to the party. Luckily, despite consultation with the East India Company, the Melville Island post had become a worryingly silent exercise in remote survival. One that fell into sickness and despair as the island was situated in a low traffic zone and inhabited by a race of indigenous mankind who didn’t take lightly to the imposition of a British fort on their shore. Intended to function politically as well as commercially by signaling to the Dutch and French that Australia’s northern coast was under British occupation, Stirling’s orders were to try and remedy its weaknesses. Something he simply couldn’t be bothered with, at least while the lower west coast remained unclaimed.

Left: The finer points behind Stirling obtaining command of HMS Success aren’t clear, and this is why some historians refer to the Australian mission as covert. However, Success’s specific orders were to transport twenty thousand pounds in British silver coins so that NSW could transition into a Sterling measured economy. Success was then to assist in relocating the Melville Island garrison within the Timor Sea before heading for Ceylon to await further orders. This was the extent of the return-to-service commission Stirling had been given, and as far as both the Admiralty and Colonial Office were concerned, all that should have occurred. There was no covert (or otherwise sanctioned) mission to explore the Swan River, nor to further deter French interest. The Swan River was all Stirling’s idea, and he had to fashion the means of getting there entirely by himself. Image; Extract from The Sydney Gazette & NSW Advertiser 29.11.1826

The reason for Stirling being granted the command, apart perhaps from the influence of a friendly Board member, were his pleas to the Admiralty respecting the security of the Australian continent west of New South Wales. That part still known as New Holland, though increasingly described as Western Australia. Believing settlement there was inevitable, it was Stirling who sized up the commercial opportunity and presented it to the Navy as a matter of geopolitical necessity. This official and unofficial espousing was enough for the Admiralty to reinstall him in the general area of interest, but once again, that was all.

Stirling’s professional competency was understood, but his underlying motives may have been suspected by the Admiralty from the outset. John Barrow, Permanent Secretary, nonetheless approved him on the basis of his hankering. This was Stirling’s skill. He was a Navy man from a prominent Navy family and had served in the Atlantic to a generally honorable extent. It was the Admiralty’s responsibility to protect England’s foreign possessions and placing Stirling in the general arena (the Indian Ocean) gave them a useful option in the event they needed to act more decisively.

So, the Admiralty issued Stirling with a limited mandate while the Colonial Office no mandate regarding Western Australia at all. It was Stirling himself who brought about the future he wanted, and it came with genuine risk. Fortunately, when he got to Sydney and began his dialogue with General Darling, he happened upon a loophole. An exploitable discrepancy on the part of Darling which left him vulnerable, and Stirling, as we shall see, viewed pretext as opportunity.

Stirling had learned from Darling that Lord Bathurst had decided upon Shark Bay as original site for the western garrison, subject to survey, but changed his mind to King George’s Sound given Shark Bay’s barren environment, and to that end Stirling decided another West Coast site would not only be perfectly acceptable to the Colonial Office but, in fact, preferred. Aroused by Bathurst’s order to survey King George’s Sound, rather than go ahead and establish a garrison there, Stirling worded his intention to survey the Swan River (in an imposing letter to Darling) as being ‘in accordance with his Lordship’s wishes’.

Darling had over responded to the order to survey King George’s Sound and instead had assembled all the components of a convict settlement and dispatched them. Major Lockyer had left Sydney for King George’s Sound in the fully laden Amity on November 9th, going on three weeks before Stirling arrived. Without hesitation, Stirling set about convincing Darling of the need to explore the Swan River as, in his view (and as he had been ordered to sit in wait at Trincomalee ready to bring it about), the Swan posed a far greater opportunity for long term settlement. Stirling leaned in on Darling, implying he had the Admiralty’s support, that the Colonial Office was apprised of his positioning at Ceylon for exactly those purposes, and that, despite d’Urville’s revelations, the French could not be trusted and no time should be spared in properly assessing the Swan’s viability.

Stirling couldn’t just take HMS Success and go. The ship had to be victualled, and to carry out a proper survey he would need attendant services, all of which required authority from Darling. Using the monsoonal time of year as a reason for delaying departure for the Timor Sea, Stirling argued for a NSW funded Swan River expedition and Darling acquiesced, assigning an attendant vessel (Currency Lass) as support as well as Colonial Botanist Charles Fraser and artist Frederick Garling Jnr.

Writing letters and reports was a key aspect of all senior military officials and the ability to argue for or justify actions taken ahead of superior sanction (something that happened not infrequently due to the length of time it took to communicate with the other side of the world), was a particular skill of Stirling’s. He could fashion an argument and assert it with unwavering confidence while remaining humble and subservient in tone, at all times respecting the authority upon whose approval he relied.

As we have seen in our comparison of Captain Wakefield’s communiques with Major Lockyer’s while at King George’s Sound during 1827, not everyone could do this. Stirling’s comprehension of Navy psychology combined with his ability to direct clear persuasive language at specific individuals enabled his recommissioning and now afforded him opportunity to take Success and explore the Swan River. Stirling had worked hard to amass as much relevant information as he could and had addressed it equally well in both commercial and Navy terms. His hybrid personality, wealth driven but institutionally framed, was at a critical stage. Ambition, as they say, bites the nails of success, and Stirling was charged with it. In order to succeed he had to catch and hold the eye of England’s highest ranked officials and, as it turns out, this he was able to do.

In addition to all this, not only had Dumont d’Urville arrived at Sydney while Stirling was there, but Captain James Brisbane RN too. Brisbane was senior in rank to Stirling (obliging Stirling to report to him) and a cousin of former Governor Thomas Brisbane. His ship, HMS Warspite, was in tandem with another, HMS Volage, and enroute to the South America Station at Rio de Janeiro. Captain Brisbane was unwell and unbeknown to anyone soon to die. Understanding how mentions in official letters to the Admiralty and Colonial Office, as well as those of other Navy officers, could influence reputation, Stirling pandered to Brisbane, helping with the administration of his position as his illness worsened. Though no more than most men would do from their hearts, this ingratiated Stirling directly with Governor Darling and by way of reports with Henry Bathurst and the Admiralty back in England. According to the newspapers of the time, Navy protocol insisted Stirling assume command of Brisbane’s ship as he became the most highly ranked officer in situ. However, because this would have prevented Stirling from pursuing his personal aspirations, he delegated those responsibilities instead.

Part of this process involved the controversial appointment of his First Lieutenant to command HMS Warspite and, in order to replace him, promotion of his Second to First alongside recruitment of midshipman Peter Belches from HMS Volage and promoting him to Third Lieutenant aboard Success. 

Captain Brisbane’s death in service presented Stirling with a rare opportunity to take up a superior rank, but clearly, immediate furtherance of his career as a Naval Officer was not what was on his mind. What the pro-government, pro-Darling, Sydney Gazette avoided implying, despite the disapproving tone of its commentary on the consequences of the reshuffle, is that Stirling swapped out his Second in Command for a Third Lieutenant he could trust. Belches was a Scotsman from Edinburgh not only known to Stirling but loyal to him. Eight years later, in 1834, Belches arrived with Stirling and a contingent of other settlers, including Patrick Taylor and Mary Bussell, aboard the James Pattison and took up various official positions at the newly invigorated (but soon to be forgotten again) village port at King George’s Sound, Albany.

Via letters, official meetings, social engagements and plain opportunistic gamesmanship, not only did Stirling spin justification for his visit to the Swan River to both Darling and Bathurst, he was also able to show through the letters of Captain Brisbane he was obeying orders, meeting all his Naval obligations and assisting a superior officer in dire need at the same time. If he was good enough, Stirling will have mused, in the long term the Navy might forgive his personal exertions and keep him in the ranks, all the way to Admiral.

Above: Another Romanticised view of Colonial Sydney. This landscape made from the North Shore in 1827 by the talented fraudster and artist Joseph Lycett, reflects the idealised view of New South Wales held by its commanding officials at the time. From the collections of the State Library of New South Wales. [a928340 / DG SV1/13]

Increasing momentum through public exposure

Empowered and effectively unstoppable, Stirling used every opportunity to turn events in his favour. While at Sydney, he read the newspapers circulating between Sydney and Hobart, building a picture of how colonial Australia viewed itself, reading of himself and all that money he had brought, of d’Urville, and of the death and state funeral of Captain Brisbane.

There were three Sydney newspapers. They were, The Gazette, still largely the government mouthpiece; The Australian, offering an alternative and critical voice since 1824; and The Monitor, a second independent view, just a few months in existence and aimed at a younger audience. Initially, The Gazette was all over Captain James Stirling, his new ship HMS Success, his delivery of the twenty thousand pounds in Sterling silver, his orders to help remedy the ailing Melville Island outpost, and then his surprise excursion to the Swan River. But it was The Australian that Stirling was to turn to when he returned from the West Coast and it was The Australian, because New South Wales was already large and busy enough, which supported a switch from useless NSW convict depot at King George’s Sound, to a new, self-funded colony at the Swan River.

The presence of l’Astrolabe and the thought of France taking a slice of Australia had aroused fervor in the already vociferous language of newspaper editors and this served as fuel for Stirling’s sense of timing. Being a Naval Captain recently arrived, especially one in a brand-new state-of-the-art warship, Stirling’s position and up-to-date knowledge of affairs back in England gave him a degree of leverage when it came to the competitive newspaper market and be began to form ideas on how he might avail of that opportunity too.

In reading the Australian press Stirling was irked by repeated mention of King George’s Sound, its commodious harbours and the convict settlement called Fredericks Town being established there under the command of a leading Army officer. Major Edmund Lockyer had acquired a degree of notoriety in the New South Wales Service by successfully exploring the far reaches of the Brisbane River just a year previous. Something that necessitated sound scientific knowledge, physical and mental toughness as well as an astute sense of Aboriginal relations. Lockyer’s appointment as OIC of the King George’s Sound garrison augured well for its establishment and was something Stirling anticipated he would have to contend with when the time came.

Indeed, Stirling was very late to the party and it was getting later still. Now, not only had he to build awareness of the Swan River and its west facing attributes, he had to position it as the location of choice. Not just his choice, but of those well above his station. Stamford Raffles’ example of playing competing forces against each other while executing a secret motive is evident in Stirling’s behaviour. He may have had the ear of the Admiralty, but not it’s sanction. Nor did he have even tacit approval from the Colonial Office for a Swan River excursion. Stirling boldly lent on the time and distance constraints they were all bound by and worried Darling into agreeance to the Swan River survey based on his (Stirling’s) implied position (after-all, there he was in Sydney with a brand-new war ship), and Darling’s own impetuousness with respect to commissioning the King George’s Sound garrison when he was asked only to make a survey.

Stirling had arrived in Sydney late in November and within three weeks had Darling compose a wilting letter to Henry Bathurst, in which Darling almost apologised for submitting to Stirling’s earnest recommendations. The Swan River had not been mentioned in any communications between the Office of the NSW Governor and the Colonial Office in London respecting the perceived French threat, and Stirling himself knew d’Urville had not been impressed by it, yet Darling found himself admitting to Bathurst Stirling’s view gave it an importance he felt, out of fear of not knowing any better, ought to be addressed. Stirling, it seems, had implied to Darling that his command of Success and positioning at Trincomalee was directly related to securing Australia’s coast beyond the jurisdiction of New South Wales, and that exploration of the Swan River was fundamental to it.

Once Stirling knew Darling’s letter had been dispatched, he began to elaborate upon the idea more openly. So much so, carefully expressed knowledge of his ideas on the Swan River filtered into the press. On January 5th, 1827, The Sydney Gazette carried editorial comment on the subject in a voice that (keen to mock King George’s Sound) hums with the tone of Stirling himself.

Stirling was not afraid to bend the truth where he thought he could get away with it.

Darling commissioned the newly built colonial cutter Currency Lass (80 tons) to accompany HMS Success on its voyage west so as to provide support and to carry vital stores for the King George’s Sound settlement. Both sailed on Wednesday 17th January bound first for Hobart Town. Currency Lass was (probably) also tasked with returning Major Lockyer to Sydney after letting off its supplies, but poor design and damage to the ship while crossing Bass Strait held it up. Recurring difficulties with Currency Lass obliged HMS Success to make King George’s Sound a necessary port of call, and in due course for Stirling to meet Major Edmund Lockyer.

Once at Hobart Stirling delivered several boxes of the new currency and important mail to the relevant authorities then took opportunity to meet with James Ross, politically naive editor of the pro-government Hobart Town Gazette. Having worked Darling into compliance, Stirling once again demonstrated his ability to target a position of strategic importance and sell its incumbent a story. On February 3rd, Ross’s newspaper published aspects of their conversation in an editorial. To this point there had been just one mention of a possible Swan River colony in the Australian papers. Stirling knew a conversation about the commercial opportunities of a western colony was needed and so further seeded the relevant body with his master plan. Suddenly enlightened, as if his newspaper were at the very forefront of colonial development, Ross broadcast the prowess of Stirling’s envisioned Swan River portal.

It is needless to point out the vast advantages which would arise to this new world, as well as to the English nation, from the planting of a colony at this place. It lies almost in the very line of ships sailing to China, where they would refresh before entering the torrid zone, and a convenient harbour there would naturally become the resort of all vessels in the India trade. The annals of commercial history clearly point out the rapid growth and importance of such shipping stations fostered by good government. Carthage, Cadiz, Venice, and many others have risen and fallen from such causes. The Cape of Good Hope owes its existence to the same, and the wonderful increase of Singapore, at this moment, is a striking example of this political truth. Though such a point would undoubtedly become the emporium of this oceanic region, and though Sydney from its position would of necessity fall in relative importance, yet that colony as well as our own would nevertheless, not deteriorate, but would rise and advance with (we may safely prophecy) the almost miraculously rapid growth of a new world, whose primary stem ought first to have been planted in that quarter.

Idealism as the path to Materialism, Success voyages to a resplendent Swan River

Such was the intensity of Stirling’s desire to realise a West Australian colony he even suggested it would have been better to initiate the settlement of New South Wales on that side, and that once in place, due to its proximity to India, its emerging city would quickly surpass that of Sydney by way of size and value. Without so much as laying eyes on the place, he dismissed all previous notions (Dutch, French & British) of the Swan River not possessing sufficient attraction to form even a small settlement, and decided it was, instead, filled with such potential it would not be long before the Kingdom of Great Britain looked upon it as equal to India, presently the jewel in its colonial crown. Such a favourable outlook indicates just how affected Stirling had become, by how much Romanticism had influenced not only his personal aspirations, but the imagined ideal of his own colonial creation.

Having grown up as the movement blossomed through literature, the recently, somewhat youthfully deceased Lord Byron (the heroic product of another famous Navy family), had led the charge on the liberalisation of self-expression. Having travelled extensively, seen the Spanish revolutionaries at work in South America, indeed met and worked with Simon Bolivar, and now possessed by much needed post-revolutionary (American and French), post-Napoleon, post-slavery calm, Stirling was hip to Europe’s cultural and intellectual fringe. And to the brand-new cult of celebrity, which owed itself to the eccentric excesses of Byron. Newly married, surrounded by well-to-do brothers-in-law only too keen to ride on the coat tails of his quest, he mused in the broad sunlit world of Romanticist philosophy. Testament to this, as his later behaviours reveal, were not only his willingness to self-determine his own life, but his belief in the primacy of the aesthetic. When tied to those flashes evident in the French exploration of it, particularly that lofty view describing what he came to call Melville Water, the very name ‘Swan River’ conjured in Stirling’s imagination a place of serene beauty upon which the Hobart Gazette‘s ‘New World’ could be built.

Allied to its Indian Ocean positioning, for Captain James Stirling, the river was the thing. For what great city in the world was not built upon a river?

Aboard HMS Success, acting as Stirling’s private secretary (the ship’s clerk), was Augustus Hearn Gilbert, who would add to the documentation relating to the expedition. Gilbert was among those close to Stirling who were not only entertained but profoundly influenced by him. Stirling was not some ordinary Navy Captain bound by duty, he was a highly capable, particularly alluring, self-actuating individual not just in command of a brand new 28-gun Atholl Class warship with a compliment of 170 odd men but taking it expressly where he wanted to go. Fraser, Garling and Gilbert must have thought they had landed the junket of a lifetime.

HMS Success anchored at the mouth of the Derwent River, Van Diemen’s Land, from 27th January until the 8th of February, when the damaged Currency Lass finally arrived. The delay allowed for Stirling to move among the social elite at Hobart for a spell but knowing he was expected at Trincomalee also gave rise to some anxiety. Things may have moved slowly in the days of wind-powered ships, but it had been more than two full months since his arrival at Sydney, and he was still on the East Coast.  Pressed for time, Success‘s carpenters hastily effected repairs to Currency Lass and the two boats set sail for Western Australia that night.

Once out on the high seas and beating against prevailing winds, Currency Lass proved too slow and was then damaged again. Stirling, after tolerating it for five days, finally decided, once again contrary to protocol, he would guide her back to the Derwent River and proceed alone. Once repaired Currency Lass was to make her own way to the Swan and if unable to get around the Capes to head for King George’s Sound so to deliver the all-important livestock and supplies.

Just short of three weeks later, on March 4th, HMS Success weathered Cape Leeuwin herself, and the next day anchored off the Swan River in the lee of Rottnest Island.

Central to Stirling’s intentions was the need to ameliorate negative impressions of the Swan River’s exposed coast, a key issue behind rejection of the area by the Dutch and French. Looming large in Stirling’s mind was King George Sound’s internationally acclaimed harbour, a pivot point in his argument for an Indian Ocean base. Rottnest Island on one side offered some protection from winds stemming from the north and northwest, while on the other, winds from the south. The lee of Garden Island’s narrow north to south trajectory lay on its coastal (eastern) side but still afforded protection from the southwest. Neither, however, seemed to provide sufficient deep water as Stirling noted many banks and shoals and was on constant look out for channels through them. The anxiety in this part of his reporting is palpable, yet his optimism and, of course, astute captaincy are equally detailed.

Once safely anchored half a mile from a dangerous isle and rocky outcrop he called Pulo Carnac (later Carnac Island, after Stirling’s newly promoted 1st Lieutenant, John Carnac). The term Pulo is Malay for ‘island’ and clue to Stirling’s infatuation with the East Indies trade at the time. Stirling took one of the smaller boats to look at the north end of nearby Garden Island and to make a closer inspection of the mainland shore where, low and behold,

 I there found reason to admire a Magnificent Sound between that Island and the Main possessing great attractions for a Sailor in search of a Port; and, altho’ we could not find an entrance into it, I saw the value of the position too strongly not to resolve upon its exploration as soon as circumstances would admit.

This ‘Magnificent Sound’ he gave the name Cockburn to, after the earlier mentioned Junior Lord of the Admiralty and politician, Sir George Cockburn, who was likely influential in Stirling gaining command of HMS Success. While technically correct, identification of this narrow and shallow water just south of the entrance to the Swan River as a ‘sound‘, is first reflection of Stirling’s attitude toward, or anticipation of, the negativity evident in existing accounts of the area. Cockburn Sound is more a bay or a bight, is shallow, and at the time riddled with dangerous sand banks. Something which would come to haunt Stirling when his ambition was realised and he stood as Governor of the new colony.

Cockburn Sound was where not only HMS Success but her copy, also called Success, ran aground. Built in 1840 and part-owned by Stirling’s brothers-in-law Frederick & Charles Edward Mangles, the ship Success was part of the Mangles family plan to corner the shipping market in and out of the colony. Success ran aground in Cockburn Sound in 1843 after she had delivered George Fletcher Moore (amongst others) back to the Swan River.  The irony is evident in that mishap alone but was doubly so because HMS Success had run aground at Carnac Island, after she returned to the Swan River, on 28 November 1829 (while Stirling was Lieutenant Governor) and required twelve months’ worth of major repairs in order to be made seaworthy again. At the time, HMS Success was under the command of Captain Jervoice who had aboard the ship’s Master, Richard Milroy, who had also been Master when Stirling Captained her during 1826 & 1827.

Also, as if the locality were adversely affected by the optimistic title it was granted, once Stirling was in situ as Lieutenant Governor at the new colony, he granted 250 000 acres behind Cockburn Sound to Thomas Peel who subsequently oversaw, at that place, Western Australia’s worst tale of colonial woe. Indeed, were it not for Peel first assuming the title of the Swan’s most avaricious speculator, then it’s most degrading failure, Stirling himself might have been viewed over the years less as ‘overly hopeful’ and more as generally fraudulent.

Above: HMS Success, under Captain Jervoice, ran aground at Pulo Carnac on 28 November 1829, very close to where Captain Stirling anchored her in March 1827. The ship was badly damaged and took twelve months to repair. Image: Water colour painting of HMS Success on the rocks off Carnac Island, 30 Nov 1829, by H Worsley. Drawn from Bonhoms auctioneers website 9 Sept 2025.

If Cockburn Sound was in anyway comparable to King George’s Sound it would have been claimed already, either by the Dutch, French or British, and even though Stirling’s ‘magnificent’ exclamation rings loudly upon the pages of his reports (as with Geographe Bay when he got there), he erred on the side of caution when it came to claiming them. This is because Stirling knew he was sailing close to the wind by straying beyond his orders to proceed to the Timor Sea and then Trincomalee, by not abiding by Navy protocol by not promoting the appropriate person to the Captaincy of HMS Warspite, and by sailing alone to the Swan River when he was supposed to be attended by Currency Lass. Claiming a ‘magnificent sound’ when it wasn’t a magnificent sound would damage his credibility to an irreparable extent.

In any case, we continue. With Success remaining anchored off Carnac Island, at 8.00 the following morning, Thursday March 8th, an 18-man expedition party set off to explore the Swan River.

According to Stirling’s account, he returned from the excursion with his party in the ship’s cutter after midnight on Friday March 16th. Lieutenant Belches, in the smaller gig, with his party, having explored the Canning River as far as they could, returned a day later.

It had been a sublime week of weather. Frederick Clause, Success‘s surgeon, writing that they had been Sleeping for nine successive nights in the open air, having our Hammocks merely slung from Tree to Tree. Apart from some difficulty getting the boats through the Heirrisson Island mud flats, it being the end of the dry season, the rest of the time was spent trouble free assessing the banks and high points. Rather than look for impediments to his plan, Stirling’s eyes sought items of interest that would aid it. Modern day psychology describes this behavior as confirmation bias. That is, ‘the tendency to search for, interpret, favor and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values‘. And not only did Stirling, but so too Fraser, Gilbert, Clause and the young painter Garling.

Today, Fraser’s exaggerated, superlative laden botanical report reads as obsequious and Garling’s paintings, while skillful, accurate and valuable, are widely viewed as Romanticist gloss. Gilbert was to become a follower of Stirling’s. Presumably pre-selected, he arrived back at the Swan River as clerk aboard HMS Sulphur on 6 June 1829, as part of the so-called first fleet, only to realise the reality of creating their paradise on a baking sand plain, even though the same wide winding river eased through it, was so far from the dream he had been seduced by, it was impossible to stick.

Not to say the Swan River didn’t genuinely appeal to their senses. Today there is an attractive modern city built around it. Clearly, the imagery they were greeted with was pleasant and when they climbed the high points under that glorious bright sun, every optimism as to its potential was teased. Garling’s series of water-coloured sketches make visual the impression which bound them as a collective. Primacy of the aesthetic at its heart, his ‘atmospheric’ representations helped sink any notions Governor Darling might have had that King George’s Sound held superior geographic qualities.

Though they were equipped for a two-week trip, the expeditioners were able to find without difficulty plenty of fresh water as well as black swans and other wild fowl for eating. Stirling, blessed by circumstance once again, left the scene convinced his intuition had been right all along.

Ecstatic Expressions; excerpts from Stirling’s report on the Swan River to Governor Darling, 18 April 1827

. . . as the Stream (Swan River) is ascended, the banks become extremely beautiful and picturesque. Their beauty is enhanced by the lofty trees, which occasionally adorn them, and by the bright green pendulous foliage with which the Shrubs are covered.

. . . the richness of the Soil, the bright foliage of the Shrubs, the majesty of the surrounding Trees, the abrupt and red coloured banks of the River occasionally seen, and the view of the blue summits of the Mountains, from which we were not far distant, made the scenery around this Spot as beautiful as anything of the kind I had ever witnessed.

The scenery was delightful—the trees growing to the water’s edge, the transparency of the river, the mountains and plains alternately appearing, and the picturesque points and bays, formed the most interesting scenery possible, and this place only requires a little assistance from art to render it one of the most delightful spots on earth. (Augustus Hearn Gilbert, from ‘An Account of the Expedition of H.M.S. “Success” Captain James Stirling, RN, from Sydney to the Swan River in 1827‘)

. . . the result of my expedition was the discovery of a Fresh Water Lagoon and a bieutiful running brook watering several hundred Acres of natural Meadow, covered even at this Season of the Year with rich green herbaceous grass.

At its Western termination, it skirts the base of an almost continued and abrupt chain of Mountains. . .  some of these Mountains attain considerable height; one whose elevation I . . . cannot consider . . . less than 3,000 feet high; it is the highest of the Chain (Mount William), although I have very strong reason to suppose that a range of much greater elevation exists at no great distance to the Eastward. (Note: Mount William is 1500 feet high)

I beg leave also to state that the degree of heat was not oppressive, although the Quick Silver during the day generally ranged from about 80° to 84° (approx 30C); when the Sea breeze prevailed, it would lower to about 78°; at Night the range would generally be from 60 to about 68° (approx 20C), depending entirely upon the Land wind which made it delightfully cool and refreshing. (F.R. Clause, Surgeon)

This Country however is more valuable for that which it might produce, than for its actual productions. Situated in a Climate which admits of Labour, possessing great varieties of excellent Soil, well Watered by Springs, Creeks and refreshing Showers, and offering, under the influence of a powerful Sun, great ranges in temperature according to the height of position occupied, It appears to hold out every attraction that a Country in a State of nature can possess.

Naivety and bliss at Geographe Bay before silence at King George’s Sound

Stirling and his comrades, histrionic in their aspirational, history-making exertions, then sailed southwards, guided by the same benign forces of the West Coast’s Mediterranean climate into Geographe Bay where they enjoyed a similarly genial passage, only at cruise in the mother ship along its west and south facing beachfronts until the wind lifted, clouds blew in and it rained. Once again leaping to conclusions, Stirling described the flat lands leading out to ‘General Darling’s Range’ (the name he gave to the extensive scarp running from north of the Swan River to south of Geographe Bay) as ‘the great plain of Quartania’, as if it were a well-watered agricultural Eden. Indeed, such was Stirling’s want for his reports to completely diminish any suggestion King George’s Sound and the South Coast could compete, he dared to suggest that beyond the Darling Scarp lay a range of snowcapped mountains. An image he retained and returned to when continuing his attempts to sell the Swan River Colony to the Colonial Office across 1827 and 1828, ultimately claiming (as late as 1834) his portion of the western seaboard was the ‘Italy of Australia’, and that his Great Plain of Quartania was on a par with the Plains of Lombardy, otherwise known as the Italian Alps Po Valley.

Stirling may have found himself pootling about in a world-class autumnal retreat, as Geographe Bay may legitimately be described, at least by way of a benign coastal resort, but the exaggerations he went to, his attachment of falsities to the prevailing aesthetic, were sufficiently over-the-top for the Admiralty’s decision maker, Sir John Barrow, to call his report ‘fallacious’ and for Lord Henry Bathurst to begin to look upon him with disdain.

Stirling knew he was pushing the limits of his Captaincy. Forcing the West Coast Colony issue was a do or die mission. His own private Waterloo, you might say. But he was ready for it, his reasoning and the strength behind his convictions was formidable. He knew how to play the game. He had conceived a business plan, built a convincing geopolitical narrative around it, dressed it in smart commercial clothing and won the necessary resources, through his institution, to research it further. Stirling was not afraid to push the envelope when it came to holding his own.

That pushing of the limits wasn’t something new, nor was it something he would cease the practice of any time soon.

Stirling had found himself in trouble with the Admiralty over a decision he made when captain of HMS Brazen based at the Jamaica station in the West Indies when he was in his mid-twenties. He had made legitimate money in addition to his salary by capturing enemy ships and bringing them in as ‘prizes‘. The value of the ship and its cargo was divided, and the captain of the capturing ship, and his Admiral, received a quarter of the value. In 1816, when he was just 25 years old, Stirling seized a ship named Hercules which was operating as part of the Spanish (South) American Patriot forces who were fighting for independence from the Spanish Empire but was told by the Governor of Jamaica to let it go. He then seized Hercules a second time when it was back out on the high seas thinking he could get away with bringing it into another British controlled port (Antigua). He did get away with it, and then he didn’t. Eight years later he was forced to cough up hefty legal costs for the charges brought against him. Also, his Uncle Charles, who was his commanding Admiral at the time, had been charged with accepting money in exchange for protecting foreign seamen, the result of which was a court martial, suspension of position and retraction of opportunity for further promotion.

These two events brought home to Stirling the scrutinous nature of the Public Service with regard to protecting its integrity and in later life, particularly his time as Governor of the Swan River Colony, he was acutely aware of it. Not enough to stop him from exploiting loopholes when he found them, though. Both the Jamaica incidents, which effectively occurred in tandem, illustrates the Stirling family penchant for pursuing what might be termed grey area wealth opportunities, those morally questionable look-ins possessed with sufficient space to argue around. When Stirling was awarded leadership of the Swan River Colony venture his reward was a grant of 100 000 acres, something he took by parceling off (claiming) multiple times that amount but only selling off as much as he was permitted. Including two lots at Albany.

So, Stirling was an opportunist as much as a strategist and decent ship’s captain. Clearly unafraid of authority, he at times very much thought he had the measure of it. Indeed, once governor considered himself the very height of it. The confidence of youth he so clearly still possessed as he headed toward his forties would only let up after ten hard years of fully committed attempts to save his activated idyll from failure. Something which, in 1834, very soon after returning from England with his Knighthood and a boatload of new investors, saw him go so far as to lead a posse of soldiers to the Murray River with the express intention of putting to death a core element of the troublesome Pinjareb/Bindjareb tribe.

After noting the dramatic limestone cliffs and caves around Cape Naturaliste, Stirling put out to sea so as to make safely around Cape Leeuwin, then rounded eastwards for King George’s Sound where they arrived on 2nd April.

It’s hard to know quite what he thought, or rather felt, when Bald Head gave way to the Breaksea and Michaelmas Island vistas, themselves, when the ship rounded to face west, opening sight to the splendor of King George’s Sound. Other than to say, it will not have been lost on the cognizant Captain Stirling.  All the great navigators who had visited over the last 35 years beheld the place not just with the same sense of awe but the same sense of strategic importance. No wonder d’Urville had picked it out. King George’s Sound had been chosen for a reason and Governor Darling, keenly sensing the urgency fueled by the French presence, backed his best judgement in dispatching Major Lockyer and the Amity to exactly that place and Lord Bathurst, determiner of all within the Colonial Office, never raised a word in objection.

Above: The enclosing arms of King George’s Sound protect the water from all but due easterly winds, themselves interrupted by the central presence of Michaelmas and Breaksea Islands. As viewed from the summit of Mount Clarence during November 1991. Image: Courtesy AussieJeff at Flckr

The South Coast is different to the West Coast. The water running up against it is influenced, to an extent, by the Indian Ocean, but it belongs majorly to an entirely different body, one whose mass is associated with the unruly Antarctic. Rather than a linear stretch of booming waves upon a single endless beach behind which sits a baking sand plain pocketed with swamps where sufficient drainage and near surface aquifers permit, the South Coast is a loopy configuration of harbours, bays and coves, of headlands and islands studded with massive glittering granite sheets, of turquoise waters and sublime beaches composed of impossibly fine, impossibly bright white sand, all of it fashioned by a moody, sometimes irritable ocean at odds with the landmass, equal in scale and every bit as dangerous, which it butts up against.

Stirling declined to comment on the South Coast at all, but perhaps a sudden swelling in his laryngeal prominence caused him to swallow uncomfortably. His reports (there were two, one addressed to Darling, the other sent directly to Lord Bathurst in London) conclude with the caves at Cape Naturaliste. His closing sentence, designed to retain absolute focus on the West Coast, suggests the name Hesperia for the land he had just explored, an international title of classical origin denoting a country looking towards the setting sun.

Stirling could not have been more clear. There was nowhere else on his mind, only the long line of coast between Geographe Bay and Shark Bay, with the Swan River at its heart.

Above: Of course, the bold and beautiful new city of Perth takes pride in its golden sunsets. James Stirling’s ‘primacy of the aesthetic’ principle is not lost on today’s realtors. City Beach hosts Perth’s top end residential eventide views.  Image: Sunset over the Sunset Coast’s shimmering Indian Ocean from Sunset Coast dot Life website. Perth, Western Australia, October 2025.

It’s uncertain what time of day HMS Success turned into the Sound, though Gilbert’s description lets us know there was plenty of daylight. He begins;

The scenery as we entered the Sound was bold and magnificent. The lofty mountains in various shapes, the curiously-formed islands, and the sea breaking violently on the rocks, give it a most striking effect;

But then, as if Stirling were right there looking over his shoulder, he checks himself.

. . . but there is, at the same time, a barren appearance in the landscape that soon fatigues the eye. . .

Gilbert uses the term ‘magnificent’ but is careful not to say more. There is no mention of scale and security. However, he does notice ‘the sea breaking violently on the rocks’ suggesting the weather may have been stormy, or at least blustery. The sunshine they experienced on the West Coast, lighting the place up and revealing lighter or brighter shades of verdancy all along the river, played at King George’s Sound a dull and monotonous game. Clue to the height of the same coastal heath they failed to observe at Fremantle.

This is unfortunate for the crew of HMS Success, if it was the case, because autumn is the best time of year along the South Coast. The daytime easterly wind, so prevalent during summer, backs off and a general calm sets in. Sunrise and sunset bring glorious celestial pigmentations, particularly sunset, where six of the eight colours on the visible spectrum layer kaleidoscopically through what is locally known as the gloaming, one of the widest ranging twilight exposés to be found anywhere on earth. Indeed, the remarkable Carrolup School, a spontaneous art movement created by displaced Aboriginal children in the 1940s, illustrates the story of southern light. Light not sinking into a molten pool at the neck of an otherwise uniform body of water but addressing a stand of becalmed trees and uncluttered country gently rolling away from it. Menang boodja stands as it always has, styled by fire, raw and naked before its endless cycle of seasons. Abreast of the wind, the wet and the cold, yet sublimely at ease the moment they disappear. And disappear they do, for longer than most realise.

Above: The Carrolup School phenomenon, a spontaneous art movement created by naturally inclined Noongar children during the forced housing period of the 1940s, first and foremost expresses landscape and light in an internationally unique style. Image: On the Alert by Barry Loo (c. 1949).  The painting is part of The Herbert Mayer Collection of Carrolup Artwork, which is held by the Curtin University Art Collection. 

Robert Brown, the distinguished Scottish Botanist, who had spent three years exploring the Australian coast, including King George’s Sound in 1801 (when aboard Flinders’ Investigator), in 1830 looked at his and other West Australian botanical collections (including Charles Fraser’s) and roundly concluded that the coast between Swan River and Cape Leeuwin, then extending eastwards as far as Middle Island (Cape Arid), was comprised of the same species. Which is to say, the native vegetation at the Swan River was the same at King George’s Sound. The two bearing a ‘striking resemblance in general character’, Brown said.

Robert Brown’s analysis was prompted by savage criticism of Stirling’s and Fraser’s assessment of the Swan River’s agricultural qualities in the wake of settler arrivals during 1829 and 1830.

Above: (R. Brown: General View of the Botany of the Vicinity of the Swan River: The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Vol. 1 (1831), pp. 17-21)

Under such conditions did James Stirling guide HMS Success toward the lesser harbour to the left of the high point known as Mount Clarence, where he knew Major Lockyer’s garrison would now be at least three months in the making. They anchored off the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour for fear of being delayed by contrary winds, such was Stirling’s desire to get back to New South Wales with his findings, and went ashore in one of the smaller boats. Once at the garrison, Stirling was apprised of a situation which on the one hand caused him great consternation, while on the other gave him every confidence his Swan River proposal, regardless of the stark qualities King George’s Sound held in its favour, would not be outdone.

The cause for consternation came when he was made aware Currency Lass had never made it and the garrison, comprised of some seventy persons, had been living on half rations since supplies from the Isabella, which had called enroute to Melville Island in mid-February, had run low. Isabella had conveyed word from Secretary McLeay at Sydney informing Lockyer HMS Success and Currency Lass were on the way. Currency Lass loaded with essential stores.

By the time Stirling arrived, the food situation had been made worse by the death of around half the livestock coinciding with arrival into the settlement of a band of destitute sealers, a number of which Lockyer had arrested on charges of murder and kidnap.  Also, there were Aborigines who had made themselves at home about the tiny village of tents and shanty type buildings, who were also drawing from supplies. Lockyer had gone to significant lengths to establish friendly relations between the Aborigines and military, welcoming them into the camp and offering them tomahawks, blankets, food and drink. Mokare and Nakina by this time were known, almost permanent, figures there and a strange uncomfortable harmony somehow existed between them, the soldiers, sealers and prisoners. Disappointingly, a sight neither Stirling nor Lockyer left words to describe.

Lockyer had seen what he thought was a good place to start cultivation when he climbed Mount Clarence on his first day ashore, but the spearing of one of his prisoners by the Aborigines prevented him from accessing it. It being located to the northeast about a mile and a half from the garrison site. Now, some three months on, there was little stored food left and no fruit or vegetables at all. Symptoms of scurvy were beginning to appear among Lockyer’s men, and the prisoners were starting to become brazen. Lockyer feared Currency Lass had ‘met with an accident’ weeks earlier and reduced the daily allowances. There had been a plentiful supply of fish whenever they took it upon themselves to cast the net. However, the situation was precarious, and the arrival of HMS Success came as a relief. To the military component, at least.

Stirling’s supplies aboard Success were enough to get them back to Sydney, barring mishap, but his dismissal of the tender at Hobart did not bode well. Currency Lass would not now arrive at King George’s Sound, as Stirling’s instructions were for it to return to Sydney if it did not reach its destination by 20th March, and for all they knew it could be lying wrecked anywhere between Bass Strait and Cape Leeuwin.

Even if Success left them as much as they could possibly spare, the garrison was to remain on short rations for as long as it took for the next service vessel to arrive. Certainly, months away. Any remote convict settlement under the kind of stress the Frederickstown barracks found itself, especially when manned one-to-one, convict to soldier, had to contend with fear of mutiny. Lockyer had already been forced to take control and issue lashes to insolent prisoners himself. Stirling came to understand all this and that Lockyer, potentially, could use it to undermine him, to show him up as reckless and self-possessed; as failing in his duty.

That damned Currency Lass was as useless a coastal cutter as had ever put to sea, and a curse at that.

Luckily, Lockyer was as tough an army man as there was and six weeks on mutton bird and fish was no worse than six weeks on rancid salted pork. Even Captain Wakefield, who was to take up the lead role when Lockyer left, seemed confident there was enough sustenance surrounding them to keep going. If only they could get some growth from their seeds. Something they would have been able to do if the farming ground Lockyer had identified on the other side of Mount Clarence (Barmup) was safe. Because of the trouble between the sealers and Aborigines, into which Lockyer and his men had stepped right into the middle of, Lockyer would not let his men out of sight of the garrison unless under armed guard and to the south side of Princess Royal Harbour, from where they were obtaining seashells for the essential purposes of burning lime. This meant the garrison had to try and grow their fresh produce practically on the shore and the results were predictably pitiable.

Stirling soon learned all attempts the garrison had made at growing, despite a dedicated gardener being part of the convict detail, had failed. A large bed, as well as other smaller ones here and there, all showed withered and dying shoots. Lockyer had situated the camp on swampy ground thinking the moisture in it would be preferable to what was otherwise sand or rock, and it hadn’t worked. He then realised the sheep were dying because there was no grass. The coastal vegetation was killing them. When Stirling lifted his eyes and looked around once again, that ‘barren appearance which fatigues the eye’ he had alerted Augustus Gilbert to, stood out even more.

That was it. King George’s Sound was barren. The place was infertile and wholly unproductive. Incapable of sustaining any form of settlement. What was the point of a world class harbour when there was nothing around it to sustain a population necessary to make use of it? That Lockyer’s farm was a thirty-minute walk away didn’t matter. It was still just bush anyway. There was no farm and for as long as the stand-off between the Aborigines and Sealers lasted, nothing would advance its establishment.

Lockyer explained to Stirling there was also good land along the French River, behind Oyster Harbour, but it was as impractical and unsafe to cultivate as his farm. Lockyer had situated the garrison exactly where it ought to have been, upon the harbour’s north shore and set the buildings facing east toward the entrance so they could see incoming vessels. It’s just there was no soil or aspect suitable to growing non-native plants in the immediate area. Something far from unheard of in the colonies, but music to Stirling’s ears at that juncture. So much so, Stirling once again leaned into a counterpart, this time to tell news the garrison would have to be abandoned. The Swan River was far superior, a veritable paradise by comparison, and as soon as he could get word to that effect to General Darling, the orders would be issued.

Stirling was anxious to leave so hurried Lockyer along, staying just one night. He had seen enough and no more was needed. There is no record of the unofficial conversations which went on but we can deduct from future actions taken by Stirling, and by the behaviour of Captain Wakefield while the garrison was under his command, that Stirling left little doubt in his mind the future of Western Australia did not lie in their present location. Both Lockyer and Wakefield had heard mixed mention of the Swan River via their interrogation of the sealers, whose knowledge of the coast extended that far, but Stirling’s rapture with it left Wakefield in the belief his tenure as Commandant at King George’s Sound would be both short and unrewarding. So much so, Wakefield’s reporting steadily reduced in word count as time went on, to the point he showed zero interest in where he was and what he was doing other than maintaining, as best he could, the health and well-being of his subordinates.

Lockyer officially discussed his position respecting the sealers and their crime with Stirling, requesting Stirling to transport the six remaining men he had detained back to Sydney to face charges. However, Stirling did not want to accommodate Lockyer. He did allow two of the men to join his crew and earn their passage back to the east that way but would take no others. Lockyer was most concerned with the availability of supplies, not knowing when the Isabella would next return, but also with the unsettling presence of the sealers among the soldiers and prisoners. Stirling, knowing his handling of the Currency Lass situation could still turn against him, agreed to leave half Success’s ration stores in lieu of the shortage, but in responding to Lockyer’s written request to transport the arrested sealers, said the Isabella was ‘shortly expected to touch here’ so there was ‘no necessity’ demanding him to comply. Lockyer subsequently set the six men ‘at large’ in order to free the camp of their ration burden.

Stirling’s curt note to Lockyer made it clear just whose rations he’d left behind and just whose ship Lockyer was getting on.

On 4th April they stood to sea, arriving eleven untroubled days later at Sydney. Currency Lass, having returned to Launceston (Port Dalrymple) for more repairs, eventually limped home to Sydney, arriving Sunday 8th April, just one week before HMS Success, wholly and expensively unsuccessful in her mission.

The brig Ann unexpectedly arrived at King George’s Sound seven weeks after HMS Success sailed, the garrison living largely off the meat of mutton-birds in the meantime. Ann provided some salted meat supplies. Winter winds from the south and west had made fishing difficult and that abundance fell away. The service vessel Isabella, which Stirling claimed, ‘was shortly expected’, finally arrived the second week of July, more than three months after Success departed. It found a stale settlement adapting to poor food supply and in the belief it held no future or purpose. There was no French threat.

On 7th April, the Hobart Town Gazette published a leaked report on what had happened at King George’s Sound respecting the Sealers, Aborigines and arrival of Major Lockyer, garrison and crew of the Amity. This report drew attention to settlement on the western side of Australia, albeit in a fashion alerting people to the exploits of the disreputable Kangaroo Island based sealing fraternity.

On Wednesday 18th April, The Australian newspaper carried first report of HMS Success’s visit to the Swan River. The language is romantic, carrying descriptions of a sublime riverscape and glimpses of fertile and level land resembling strongly the Plains of Lombardy. Within ten days, Stirling’s P.R. campaign was underway.

On 14th May, it was announced by the Sydney Gazette, Governor Darling and his wife hosted a ball and supper in honor of Captain Stirling who, it said, ‘exerted himself to the utmost in contemplating the advancement of Australia’, a consequence of which was Governor Darling’s suggestion to the Home Government the propriety and expediency of colonising Swan River.

HMS Success sailed Sydney Harbour for the Timor Sea on Saturday, 19th May.

On 13th June, The Australian carried a report regarding the experience of the Ann (Captain Grimes) at King George’s Sound, stating, ‘the description of this settlement is anything but favourable.’  Captain Wakefield was still trying to grow vegetables and grain at the garrison while Lockyer’s ‘excellent spot to form a farming establishment’, remained untouched. King George Sound’s reputation as barren and sterile was worsening.

On 26th July, The Monitor (Sydney), carried news from the returning Isabella that the settlement at King George’s Sound was ‘greatly distressed for provisions’.

On Wednesday 21st November, The Australian carried news from ‘a correspondent’ aboard Isabella, returning again from another round trip, regarding Captain Wakefield’s woeful attempts to cultivate at King George’s Sound. This article seizes upon the general mood regarding resources applied to the new settlements at Western Port, Port Essington (formerly Melville Island) and King George’s Sound, rounding on the latter as somewhere ‘not even a goat would live’, and where ‘the only animal that appears to flourish is the flea’.