The Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner

First edition of almost the sole original narrative of an Australian Second Fleet voyage, this account of voyages and adventures in the Pacific was written by a common seaman whose naval career lasted from 1776 to 1801. Nicol first came to the Pacific as a steward with Captain Portlock in 1785-1788; during that voyage he made a stay in Hawaii, and his short but interesting observations include a description of the making of knives out of hoop iron for the King of Hawaii.

His account of the voyage of the Lady Juliana to New South Wales, arriving in June 1790 carrying 245 female convicts, is one of the most important parts of the book since it provides virtually the only extensive description of a Second Fleet voyage (for which reason it has recently been republished by Tim Flannery). Nicol describes nine women on the voyage, particularly one Sarah Whitelam: 'I had fixed my fancy upon her from the moment I knocked the rivet out of her irons upon my anvil.' Sarah bore him a child on the voyage, and when they parted in Sydney in 1790, Nicol promised to return. Much of the narrative then concerns his two attempts to rejoin her. On the second attempt he learned en route that Sarah had made her escape to Bombay, and a later interview with her parents in Lincoln revealed nothing of her whereabouts.

Nicol returned to England in 1794 and was impressed into the King's service, witnessing the battles of Cape St Vincent (1797) and the Nile (1798), and eventually discharged in 1802. This compelling account, which offers insights into the life of the mostly anonymous eighteenth and nineteenth century mariner, concludes, 'I have been a wanderer and the child of chance all my days; and now I only look for the time when I shall enter my last ship, and be anchored with a green turf upon my breast; and I care not how soon the command is given.'

The account has been reissued several times: this first edition has become hard to find.