Founders of Nations

A Podcast helping you understand more about our neighbors in the world by examining the founders of the countries they live in.

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Founders of Nations

4b. Australia & Arthur Phillip

January 05, 2021 • Matthew Grace • Season 1 • Episode 9

This patreon-reward episode is a second episode on Australia's founders. We explore the life of Arthur Phillip and how he helped the fledgling colony survive.

Episode Webpage:
www.lang4life.com/l/australia

List of books here:
https://bookshop.org/shop/founders

Welcome back for this Patreon-funded episode. Sally, our first Patreon supporter, chose a second episode for Australia as part of her perks so here we are. We’ll do a little recap of what’s happened so far and continue on to more of the story.

If you recall, last time we were in Australia we saw the rise and then death of Captain Cook. From a poor farm boy to leader of world-sailing expeditions and finally being killed in the Hawaiian islands during some sort of dispute with the native people there. Well his legacy in Australia, of course, comes from his second journey where he found Australia's eastern coast and made a pretty good map, as was his custom, of the area.

While all this was going on we also considered the situation with crime and “transportation” in the UK. Transportation was the transporting of criminals to convict colonies. I talked about that a little more in the first Australia episode so go back and have a listen to the section if you want to go over that again.

Some review on that though, around the time of Cook’s discovery of Australia the US was rebelling against British control and so the first option for convict transportation was now closed. There was some discussion about various places and eventually Australia was agreed upon as the best option. And with the convict overcrowding becoming a crisis they didn’t even have time to send another scouting mission even though probably should have seeing as they pretty much just had Cook’s one map of the area that was based on a brief visit.

Arthur Philip was made captain/governor of the first expedition of convicts. But who was he? That's what we'll talk about today and what he did in Australia. The two main sources I'll be using for today's episode are the Fatal Shore, a history of Australia's founding, and Arthur Phillip: Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy. They are both very well researched from the number of pages and quality of primary sources I found at the back of both of them. I prefer the latter, it is written much more like a narrative and not so much like a history book. It also has thorough background on things going on around the time so you can pretty much read it without knowing much about the era and get a good grasp on it. I usually include all the books I use on the book list I'm making on bookshop.org but they don't have this one so it won't be on there. bookshop.org is a website that basically puts together lots of small book shops into one big online marketplace. I'll have a link to that on the webpage for the episode as well as the description that comes along with the episode on your podcast app.

Anyways, he was 48 at the time of the journey having been born in 1738. He was born of a German father, who had immigrated to England as a language teacher, and an English mother. Sometime in his very young years his father was killed in Naval Service and his mother must have pushed her cousin(the captain of a naval ship) to take him on as a captain's servant. So in 1747, at 9 years old, he was put on a ship and began his apprenticeship, similar to what James Cook had done but Cook was much older when this happened.

By 1751 he was admitted to a Charity school for children whose father's had died in the Navy. At this school the children were basically treated as if they were already on a ship, rations, bedding, and other things were all based on what one would find on a ship and the education they received was very focused on life at sea. This lasted for 3 years and he was sent off to begin a formal apprenticeship. This time with a whaling boat's captain, they spent time up near the North Pole whaling in European Continent. Whaling, as you probably can guess, was a dangerous and bloody job and I'm sure this was quite a shock even for someone who had basically grown up on the sea.

In 1755, the Seven Years War between mainly France and England was on the horizon. This is often known as the real first world war, it has a ton of podcast and other resources I'll link to in the mini-sode, so if you are curious about it pause this and go listen to those or put a note down somewhere to go listen to it later as we don't have time to go into much of it here. Suffice to say, action was ahead for the British Navy and Arthur Phillip was headed into the thick of it. Phillip quit his apprenticeship and his uncle, who had originally taken Phillip on as a servant took him back on as a captain's servant again.

He served with his uncle for around 4 years before getting promoted to mid-shipmen. From there he began his climb up to his final position as Admiral. One of the battles Phillip fought in was the siege of Havana by the English in 1762, Havana was one of the most important Spanish colonies in the New World. One of the naval actions is actually recorded in a painting of a naval painter, I've got that picture up on the webpage for the episode if you want to go look at it later. If you look close enough you may actually be able to see Phillip, well maybe not. The siege, which was eventually successful, was a bloody affair with around ten thousand killed and of those most were killed by disease. I'm sure this must have had a big impact on him as he cared for ships and fleets.

By 1763 the war was over and Phillip, as a lieutenant now, was put on half-pay allowed to go his way as a free man unless called back up to service. He married a rich widow and lived with her as an owner of an estate for 6 years until they were "separated" which was the version of divorce available to normal people in England at the time. According to the pre-nuptual agreement and the separation agreement Phillip gave up all rights to his ex-wife's money and belongings and, with just a lieutenant's half-pay to live on was badly in need of an income.

You'd think that would put him back on a ship in the Navy but that wasn't the case; in 1769 he got permission from the Navy to go to France, where he stayed for most of the next 5 years. The official report says that this move was for "health reasons" but the author of Sailor, Mercenary, Governor, Spy makes a compelling case that he was actually sent by the Navy to spy on French shipyards. It would take me half of our episode to make it make sense so I'll just recommend you read that book if you want to know more about how he pieces it together. For about 5 years he was back and forth between France and England until the Third Colonia Wars happened between Spain and Portugal.

Portugal and Spain were constantly struggling in the New World as Portugal had Brazil and Spain help most of the rest of South America. One of the main sources of their angst was a place called Colonia de Sacramento which was just across the Rio De Plata from none other than Buenos Aires, one of the star cities of our Argentina episode. This city was owned by the Portuguese and was a great place for British merchants to get access to the illegal trade among the Spanish colonies, who, if you listened to the Argentina episode already, you may remember were always trying to trade around the trade regulations put in place by Spain. A new war started up over this outpost and England was looking for people to send to help Portugal...but also to help gather information about the coastal towns and cities in the Americas to help prepare just in case England ever wanted to move in.

Phillip was sent with high recommendations to the Portuguese and was given a ship of the line to command(it was common for foreign officers to be loaned out to allies during war and to be given higher command than they would have been entitled to otherwise). His official job, help the Portuguese with their war went pretty well, he made a good impression on the Portuguese superiors in Brazil and was put in charge of the naval defense of Colonia for a year from 1775-1776 where he did his job well and you can be sure that being so close to Buenos Aires he was doing his best job of mapping and charting the area.

If you've listed to the Argentina episode your antennas should really be twitching now as the information Phillip collected here would be used in the British double invasion of Buenos Aires in which the Spanish Viceroy fled the city and left it to defend itself. These invasions were eventually repulsed by city milita...so you would think this was a failed mission, and I'm sure that's what the British thought at the time. But actually this self-defense of the city was one of the biggest events that lead to the revolution in Buenos Aires which would lead, through Jose de San Martin and others to most of the southern half of South America freeing itself from the Spanish. Go take a listen to that episode after this one if you're interested to know more about that.

Back to Brazil we go, he helped the Portuguese fleet in the area and the highlight of the expedition was the capture of one of Spain's top of the line ships which had gotten separated from it's squadron. He was eventually able to sail it back to Portugal and from there headed back to England where he was was consulted often in British plans to invade Spanish holdings in South America. Eventually, other, more direct threats reared their heads and the British were forced to call all of those off and it wouldn't be until the 1800s that the events I alluded to a few moments ago would happen in Buenos Aires.

Phillip did, in early 1783, achieve the rank of Captain and was able to take over a ship-of-the-line for the British Navy. His first mission was to sail, as part of a 4 ship reinforcement group to help the British fleet in India fight the French. The other 3-ships eventually had to turn back because they were damaged in a storm and so Phillip's was the only ship that eventually completed it's mission. The only problem was, not long after they left England in the first place, a ceasefire had been signed so when he got to the Indian Ocean Fleet he was ordered to head back to England with a squadron of ships. During the years, 1783 to 1786 he was sent on more spying missions inside France(this seems like a not out of the ordinary thing for naval officers to do during peacetime).

Will finish up next time...