Bass Strait Pirates
In the early days of the nineteenth Century in Colonial Australia, runaway convicts, and men from sealers and whale-ships, began to be a menace to shipping passing through Bass Strait(between Tasmania and Victoria) on account of their piratical ways. The Colonial Times of February tenth, 1825, says that Captain Laughton, a well known ship owner and master, reported to the government that the islands between Tasmania and the mainland of Australia were infested with a number of gangs of runaway convicts, whose pirate outrages made the navigation of Bass Strait dangerous to unprotected ships.
The Colonial Times went on to say that four men belonging to the Hobart schooner Liberty had been murdered in Westernport Bay by aboriginals and runaway convicts who were seen in the Bay in a small boat which left the Derwent River the preceding year. This boat has been repaired and strengthened by Mister Smith, the owner of the brig, the Brutus. His son had joined the gang of pirates in order to seize the Brig Brutus. The plot was discovered and the conspirators driven from the ship.
The Cutter Emma Kemp
During this same time, the Emma Kemp was a constant trading ship between Hobart and Port Phillip in Melbourne town. The Emma Kemp was a cutter of 37 tons built in Sydney by Cunningham who owned her in partnership with Kemp. Sher arrived in Hobart firstly in 1827, commanded by Captain William McMeckan, who was later a steamship owner in the New Zealand-Australian trade. Later the Emmma Kemp was commanded by Captain Steine, a young man in his early twenties. On the voyage the Emma Kemp had a crew of five, only one of whom could read or write. Her Hobart agent was William M. Orr.
When the Emma Kemp was lying at Hobart some prisoners tried to seize her and escape, but they failed. Her rudder and sails were landed to prevent a repetition of the pirate attack. In 1831, the Emma Kemp sailed from Sydney for Hobart town with Captain Hayle in command, but she struck bad weather and put into Port Arthur for spars. She had to be towed by boats and was very short of provisions. The Emma Kemp was lost at Wabb's Harbour on the East Coast of Tasmania in 1840.
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