List of all ships known to have visited or sighted the Tristan da Cunha archipelago or Gough Island in the 18th century.

Ships in the 18th Century

Compiled by Albert J. Beintema, 7th July 2022

Adapted from The Remotest Island (New Generation Publishers, 2022)

Following the Portuguese era in the 16th century and the Dutch era in the 17th century, we can call the 18th century the English era, when the British replaced the Dutch as rulers of the southern oceans. The English era is well documented. French were also prominent in those days, as were the American whalers and sealers later in the century.

The 18th century begins with Edmund Halley (yes, the famous one who had a comet named after him), who sailed close by with the Paramore in 1700. He attempted no landing. He saw Nightingale and Inaccessible at close range, but Tristan was hidden in clouds. Only when he was 26 miles east of Tristan did the peak suddenly appear above the clouds.

Headland (1992) mentions the French ship St. Louis, passing Tristan in 1708, on the way from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope. I am not sure whether they really saw the island, so I leave this one with a question mark.

In 1732 the Richmond visited Diego Alvarez. Captain Gough did not know the island already had a name, so he named it after himself. Unfortunately the name stuck. The same happened with Gebroocken Eylant (Broken Island), which was visited by ignorant Captain Gamiel Nightingale, who named it after himself in 1760. And in 1767 the French Captain d'Etchevery renamed Nachtglas Island and called it Inaccessible, which is pronounced differently in French but spelled the same as in English. Not many people know that Inaccessible today actually still has a French name!

Margareth McKay, in her book The Angry Island (1963), mentions a visit around 1775 of the French Captain D'Après de Mannevillette, who was the only one ever reporting large numbers of sea turtles on Tristan beaches. Being a biologist, I know that this is impossible. D'Après de Mannevillette wrote a description of the sea route to the East, Le Neptune Oriental, based on various ships' journals, and never visited Tristan himself. Initially I thought he had just mixed up reports from other islands, but later I found another explanation for the turtles. D'Après de Mannevillette and Alexander Dalrymple were friends and exchanged sources.  When I saw Dalrymple's description of Tristan (see page on visitors in the 17th century), it reminded me of D'Après de Mannevillette's text. Comparing the two texts, they appeared to be virtually identical, word by word, except that in Dalrymples version the beaches were crowded with seals instead of turtles. The turtles were just a stupid translation error.

D'Après de Mannevillette also quotes from the journals of l'Adelaide, l'Eclatant, and le Fendant, which visited Tristan in 1712, and escaped the notice of previous Tristan historians. I thought I was the first to discover them, but it appears that Faustini mentions them too (when I wrote my book in 1997, Faustini had not yet surfaced). D'Après de Mannevillette adds a final report from a fourth ship, Le Rouillé, which sailed around Tristan in 1755.

Austria has never been known as a seagoing nation, establishing overseas colonies. Yet, Tristan da Cunha has been Austrian territory. In 1775 the Société Impériale Asiatique de Trieste was founded in Antwerp. In those days, Belgium was Austrian territory, ruled by Empress Maria Theresa. The firm was financed by Count Proli from Antwerp, and Willem Bolts from Amsterdam was appointed director. In 1775 Bolts sailed with the Joseph et Thérèse from London to Asia. They saw Tristan, and decided to appropriate it for the Austrian Empress. Business did not go well, so in 1781 the partners in the firm had to avoid bankruptcy by selling all their personal assets, which included non-existing real estate on Tristan. In 1785 the firm went down, but the island remained Austrian property. In all likelihood, Emperor Joseph II, who succeeded Maria Theresa in 1780, never knew this.

Towards the end of the 18th century shipping around Tristan intensified, everybody wanting his share in oil and fur from whales and seals. Tristan got its first inhabitant, the American John Patten, captain of the Industry. Between August 1790 and April 1791 he killed 5600 Fur Seals. At the same time, Captain Colquhoun of the Betsy planted potatoes. One of the many American whalers around Tristan was the Grand Turk, which visited Tristan in 1792. On board was the eccentric Jonathan Lambert, who would return almost twenty years later to establish his private kingdom.

1792 is also the year the first British landing took place. The Lion, Jackal and Hindostan were on their way to China, to deliver the first British Ambassador. They landed near the waterfall to get fresh drinking water. This is also the time the first serious biological research on the island took place. The French botanist Aubert du Petit Thouars, with the ship Le Courier, captain Gars, spent a couple of days ashore in 1793 collecting plants. He found many new species, several of which were named after him. He tried to climb the mountain, but halfway he found his way blocked by steep cliffs, and had to return. He did not make it in daylight and had to spend the night in the wild, soaked by rain.

Finally I managed to find a ship that had not been listed before by Tristan writers, not even by Faustini, in The Oriental Navigator (Purdy 1816), which is largely based on the Neptune Oriental by D'Après de Mannevillette. In 1795 the Providence, Captain Broughton visited Tristan.