On seeing one of the buoys, I asked him which side he intended going and he answered the Starboard; the Ship struck immediately, he having mistaken the buoy on the rock for the one in the fairway and consequently ran the ship immediately on the top of it.  She hung about five minutes and struck three or four times, once heavy; hove all aback and commenced getting the boats out, when she moved off and floated.

Sent the boats to sound ahead; in two minutes more she struck again but scarcely stopped.  Afterwards observed the marks that I made in the morning and carried the Ship in, keeping the three boats sounding close ahead.  The breeze died away; anchored about 1˝ miles from the Isle Buacke and inside all the reefs; the boats sounded round the Ship; found 4, 5, 6, 7 fathoms within three cables length.

Never since I have been at Sea have I ever witnessed anything to equal the carelessness and stupidity of the Master; he placed a buoy on a rock and then steered for the buoy and ran the ship immediately on it.  It was a thousand chances that we escaped being knocked to pieces, which must have been the case had it not been beautiful weather.

The Master deserves to be hanged immediately.

Unless I attend to everything myself ever so trifling, something invariably goes wrong; so much for the assistance a Captain derives from his Officers.  If I had had no Master the Ship would not have been run on shore.  Nothing has annoyed me so much since I entered the Service..

Extract from:

Lord Cottesloe (ed), Diary & Letters of Admiral Sir C.H. Fremantle, GCB, Relating to the Founding of the Colony of Western Australia 1829, Hazell, Watson & Viney, London, pp 32-34.
 

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