Campbell Islands.

[Captain Hasselburg, master of the brig Perseverance (owned by R. Campbell, Jun., and Company, merchants, Sydney), discovered these islands in 1810. He named them in honour of his employers. Perseverance Harbour, named after the brig, is commodious and well sheltered. En route to the Antarctic it is the last charted harbour.]

Within one year after his discovery Captain Hasselburg lost his life in Perseverance Harbour. Sydney Gazette, January 12, 1811, furnishes particulars:—"On Sunday, November 4, the Perseverance, of which he was master was lying at Campbell Island. Captain Hasselburg ordered the jolly-boat to be got ready to take him on shore to a part of the island at which his oil casks were, about five miles from the vessel, which he left at 2 in the afternoon, with five persons—namely: Elizabeth Parr, a young woman, who was a native of Norfolk Island; George Allwright, a young lad, second son of Mr Thomas Allwright, of this place; James Bloodworth, the ship's carpenter; Richard Jackson, a seaman; and a New Zealand native boy. The weather being cold, Captain Hasselburg had very heavily clothed himself, and wore page 154a thick Flushing boat-cloak, together with a pair of strong high water-boots, the weight of which must have baffled every personal exertion when necessary to his preservation. After an absence of three hours, the vessel was unexpectedly hailed from the nearest point of land, when the other boat was despatched, and the persons that had hailed proved to be Bloodworth, Jackson, and the New Zealand boy, who gave the melancholy information that the three others had perished in the following manner:—Having safely reached the place intended, where the captain found the casks, they put off to return to the vessel, and were obliged to beat to windward. When nearly two miles distant from the shore a sudden gust came off the land, which took the boat broadside on, and before the sheet could be let go she was gunwale under, filled instantly, and disappeared. The safety of six human beings being thus committed to a Rilling Power, whose decrees are just and absolute, each was affected by the peril in proportion to their confidence in their personal strength and dexterity. Jackson pushed immediately towards the shore, and being a strong, hearty man, saved his life with ease. The little New Zealander followed his example, and had just strength enough to gain the shore. Bloodworth, regardless of himself, sprang forward to the assistance of the woman, whom he considered most likely to be in need of help, and, finding that she could swim, he cheered her with the assistance of his ready aid, and turned towards his commander, who was imploring his assistance, but who, after struggling some minutes to sustain himself with an oar and boathook, before he reached him, sank into the abyss of eternity. His next object was to save the little boy, whose danger was most imminent, and he unhappily sank as he approached him. Thus, sadly mortified by the disappointment of his hopes to which his generosity had aspired, even at the moment when his own safety was in doubt, his female charge remained alone the object of his attention. The poor creature was exhausted, and had not the power of contributing to her own deliverance. With one arm supporting her, however, he swam upwards of a mile, through a rough sea, and he gained the strand; but vain had been his labour, for respiration had for ever ceased. Agonised with horror, disappointment, and regret, he laid the breathless body of the ill-fated female beneath the cover of a bush, and, dreadfully spent with his fatigue, explored his way towards the point off which the vessel lay, and fell in with the others in his route. A boat was the same evening sent in search of the body, which darkness prevented from being found. The next morning, however, it was discovered, and the day following was interred on shore, with every decency the circumstances admitted. The bodies of the other two were not discovered when the vessel came away."

[Re Elizabeth Parr.—In Select Committee, Session 1838, Rev. J. Wilkinson testified as follows:—Morality is at the lowest possible ebb, and it is much the worse amongst tribes frequented by sailors. The women are very much affected with venereal disease of the most virulent type. I apprehend there is not one in fifty of these women without' the disease. Frequently the English will go to the masters of vessels, they first of all barter with the natives, and take their women on board, and get the highest price they can for them. One man I knew was in the habit of taking pigs and women, for the time being, all in one lot. Sometimes the women go to sea. Two or three instances I know of masters of vessels giving as much to their women as £100, and carrying them off with them on their voyage. Then they leave them on the islands, or take them with them, according as they can agree with the women themselves. Similar traffic appears to have been carried on in Sydney amongst European females. Convict women desirous of leaving the settlement were specially addicted to this method for effecting their escape. Traces of Elizabeth Parr's burial plot are still extant on the south-west arm of Perseverance Harbour. It was reputed to be the grave of a French woman, arising, no doubt, from the fact that the officer of a French expeditionary ship lost his life in the harbour, and is buried not far from the grave of the other.]

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In November of 1811 an experience of another kind occurred. It was reported to Sydney Customs by the brig Mary and Sally (Feen, master). En route from Macquaries the brig encountered terrible weather, and was forced to bear up for Campbells. A hunting party from the brig, scouring the island in quest of game, came upon two beasts of prey, which they described as being of the hyena species. Nothing is said as to what occurred at this encounter, but from the tenor of the narrative the hunting party appears to have left the animals in undisputed possession. Sydney Gazette, commenting thereon, says:—"From the description given, they appear to have been of the same species (platypus) as that of an animal killed at Port Phillip in the year 1805."

June, 1812, the islands are again in evidence, under tragical circumstances. Sydney Customs Eecords furnish the facts:—"Arrived, the schooner Elizabeth and Mary. She met in with the schooner Cumberland, Captain Stewart, who supplied the melancholy information that out of six men left on Campbell Island by the Mary and Sally only one remained alive. That was Henry Neal, a cooper, whose report stated he had been left two months entirely alone, the others having gone in a boat on some excursion, from which they never returned. Neal was received on board the Cumberland in a very dilapidated state, brought about by despondency, but recovered in a short time.

Campbells and Macquaries appear at this time to have been worked conjointly. The result is that it is impossible to define the produce of the one from that of the other. May 14, 1811, Governor Bligh (Goron, master) is cleared out at Sydney for Campbell and Macquarie Islands. Again, on March 21, 1812, the ill-fated Campbell Macquarie is cleared out to these islands, for relief of gangs employed by the house of Underwood, and with the further design of endeavouring to effect new discoveries in the higher latitudes.

"Heaton's Australian Dictionary of Dates" reports the wreck of a brig—Percenean—at the Campbells, October, 1828.