Page 219 - INDIANNAVYV1

HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. 18?

colonists, under the superintendence of tlieir able chief, were
engaged in clearing away the rank vegetation. While doing so,
they were frequently brought into conflict with the natives, who
came over from the niainhind in considerable numbers, and
greatly harassed the working parties by the insidious method
of attack they adopted. A convenient watering place for ships
was, however, at length cleared, and a reservoir constructed.
Sheds were also erected within the redoubt, and the settlers
were fully employed in the cultivation of land, which soon began
to recompense their labour. On the 19th of December of the
same year, Connnodore Cornwallis, brother of the Governor-
General, with H.M.'s ships ' Ariel ' and ' Perseverance,' arrived
at the settlement, and the Commodore, in his report to the
Government, stated that he found it " fully equal to what it had
been represented."
During the three years the penal settlement was established
here, Captain Bhiir occupied his time in completing his surveys,
and sailed round the island, when he discovered another larger
and more commodious harbour, about two degrees to the north-
ward, and on the eastern shore of the same island, in 43° 28'
North lat., and 93° 12' East long. To this place, also called
Port Cornwallis, the colony was removed, nnder orders from
India, in 1792, and, in March of the following year. Captain
]>lair was succeeded in command of the settlement by Major
Kyd of the Engineers.*
One of the earliest of the famous race of Indian Marine Sur-
vey orsf was Lieutenant John McCluer. The general accuracy
* In consequence of the war -witli France, the colony was put into a state of
defence ; large reinforcements were sent, and more guns mounted on the
redoubt, to guard against an apprehended attack from the enemy. On the 14th
of May, 179 (•, tlie Council of the Governor-General reported tliat the situation of
Port Cornwallis was unfivourable to the health of the settlers, and, in the follow-
ing year, fifty deaths occurred among tlio native convicts during the rainy season.
In February, 1796, accordingly, we find tliat orders were issued by the Indian
Government for the abandonment of this settlement, and tlio removal of the
penal colony, numbering, with guards, seven hundred soids, to the newly-
acquired colony of Prince of Wales' Island, as being a more hcaltliy locality.
In the year 1795, Colonel Syme, while on his way to Ava, visited Port Corn-
wallis, and devoted a chapter to it in liis work on tlie results of tlie Mission to
Ava. After its abandonment in 1796 we hear nothing furtlier from Cornwidlis until
the year 1824, when the fleet that conveyed Sir Archibald Campbell and liis army
to Burmah rendezvoused here.
During the course of the researches of the expedition sent to the Andamans in
1858, tlie Committee examined the site of the settlement formed at Port Corn-
wallis in 1792, and abandoned in 1796, owing to its nnhealthiuess, wliich the
Committee ascribed to an extensive bank of mud skirted by belts of mangrove on
the south-western extremity of Cliatham Island. The remains of the first settle-
ment, now known as Port Plair, witc di.~ent angled from the dense brushwood,
and the fragments of brickwork were found in good preservation ; in accordance
with the recommendations of Dr. Mouatt, the convict colony, consisting of Bengal
Mutineers, was established at Port Blair m 1S58.
t During the latter pait of the eighteenth century, between 1770 and 1785,
Captain John Ritchie was head of the Marine Survey Department in Calcutta,
and, iu 1782, he ofl'ered to pilot the fleet of Sir Edward Hughes into safe