NAVY LOOKS FOR A BOTTLE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22491, 27 August 1938, Page 21

NAVY LOOKS FOR A BOTTLE

ALL the eagerness, excitement, and suspense of a treasure island hunt surrounded an unsuccessful search made two years ago at Port Pegasus, Stewart Island, by an expedition headed by a historian and assisted by a .cruiser of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy and more than 200 of her officers and men. Their search for a bottle, containing the declaration of British sovereignty over the island and buried at Pegasus, has remained an unpublished episode in historical research in New Zealand, because the Navy has, characteristically, remained silent, and the historian who led the party died before he was able to prosecute further his efforts to discover the bottle and to determine the exact spot where, 98 years ago, Stewart Island was proclaimed a British possession. For two days in March, 1936, officers and men from H.M.S. Dunedin dug in the sands and slashed their -way along the wooded shores of Pegasus in an endeavour to find the bottle. The weather was bad, and this added to the difficulties of moving through the very thick scrub. .Any future search will not be confined to New Zealand interest for the Hydrographic Department in London has more than a passing interest in the determination of the anchorage of H.M.S. Herald when she visited Port Pegasus, or Southern Port, in June, 1840. Until the Herald's anchorage is denned, the bottle, it is certain, will remain buried and the historical archives of kthe Empire will be without the (original document declaring the island one of Great Britain's possessions. Two searches have now been made ([without success at Pegasus for the Sbottle. The first was made by the [late Mr T. Lindsay Buick, in March, 8935, and a year later H.M.S. Dunesdin, commanded by Commodore {(later Rear-Admiral) the Hon. E. R. S)rummond, and carrying Mr Buick fend Mr J. W. P. Thompson, of Half IMoon ■ Bay, as an advisory pilot, Steamed into Pegasus and moored {there for two days while an intensive but unsuccessful search of Reaches and islands was made. The, key to the eventual finding jDf the historic document lies in the feefinite locating of the point in (Pegasus at which Captain Joseph

(SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOB THE PHESS.)

[By JEKYLL.]

Nias, of the Herald, dropped anchor. The problem cannot be solved in New Zealand, and perhaps in time a valuable clue may come from the Hydrographer's Office, which promised Mr Buick before his death that it would pursue researches in other libraries and collections. What the results of those inquiries and when they will be made are matters for the future,' because "such researches, even when so interesting as the present problem, have to take a secondary position to the more urgent work of the department." Declaration of Sovereignty

With the mission of obtaining the signatures of the Maori chiefs on Stewart Island to the Treaty of Waitangi, H.M.S. Herald sailed south in June, 1840. It was intended to sail her into Paterson's Inlet; but adverse winds were experienced in Foveaux Strait, and William Stewart, after whom the island was named and who had charted Pegasus before 1815, took her into Southern Port, as Pegasus was then- called. Stewart was a magnificent pilot and seaman, and his daring handling of the frigate in moving the ship between the islands at the entrance to the land-locked harbour gave Captain Nias many panicky moments.

But exactly where Stewart brought the frigate off the wind and ordered the anchor to be dropped remains a mystery—an engrossing one, too, because of its importance in pointing to the closest spot where a body of men could have assembled while the proclamation was read and the British flag was hoisted. A sketch by E. M. Williams, who was interpreter on the Herald, shows the frigate in a delightful, yet confined, cove in Sylvan Bay, the name given to the expanse of water at the head of South Arm on what is known as the Acheron chart. The issue has been confused by the inability of the researchers to place the Herald's anchorage because of the conflict of plans. Bearings on two islands, Dryad, and Hebe, were given in the log of the Herald. The position of the anchorage has been plotted on the charts of that time, using the magnetic variation of the

Vain Search for Documents Buried At Stewart Island in 1840

year 1840. With the use of the chart published in 1834 by Thomas McDonnell and also the chart of William Stewart, published in 1815, a position was given near the entrance of what Stewart called Liberty Cove, close to the south shore.

This position is not considered feasible, because from that point the ship would not have been able to get a bearing on Dryad Island, since that island is directly behind the Bald Cone, situated on the projecting land immediately north of Liberty Cove and rising more than 900 feet high. Obviously, the Herald, if her log is to be accepted, must have been in some position from which she could get a sight of both Hebe and Dryad Islands, and the anchorage derived from plotting on the chart prepared by the surveyors on H.M.S. Acheron (much of whose work on the charting of the New Zealand coast is still in use) is further out in the open harbour. That position has now been accepted as the more probable, and it was there that H.M.S. Dunedin anchored when she carried the search party to Pegasus two years ago. Mr Buick believed that the Herald anchored there; in a letter to Commodore Drummond he wrote: "Considering the fear for the safety of his ship in which Captain Nias seemed to stand, I do not think he would have permitted Pilot Stewart to take the vessel nearer inshore, and there is, besides, the question whether the ship could have sailed much, or any, farther down the harbour in the time given in the log. This, of course, is rather difficult to judge in the absence of any information regarding the state of the wind." Yet, with the acceptance of that position, the mystery of determining the place where sovereignty was proclaimed deepens. Nowhere near is there any flat surface on the shore on which a body of men could have been conveniently landed; the hillsides for the most part run sheer down into the water. Although no papers have yet been found which suggest it, the possibility is that CaDtain Nias and Major Thomas Bunbury and the officers and marines from the Herald landed at low tide on.one of the small sandy beaches at the head of one of the coves on the western side of the

harbour. Such a beach would provide ample standing room. On his first search, Mr Buick dug on a beach in the small cove almost opposite the anchorage and under Bald Cone; although not marked on the charts, the cove contains several small islands which become peninsulas at low water. There are similar beaches and islands in Shipbuilder's Cove and in Evening Cove, and those islands were also The possibility still remains that the large search party from H.M.S. Dunedin might have been on the right island and missed the bottle because, through bad weather, the search was necessarily hurried. Moreover, who can' estimate the physical changes that may have taken place in the harbour and on the shores since 1840? The Herald made history when she anchored in Pegasus. On June 5, 1840, all the ceremonial forms usual on such occasions were observed when Stewart Island was proclaimed a British possession. The ceremony took place on "the apex of a small island which becomes a peninsula at low water," Mr Buick states in his "The Treaty of Waitangi." The previous day, Captain Nias had landed, and found Pegasus uninhabited by natives and also that the boatbuilders left at the port by Stewart had deserted it. On that still unlocated beach, Captain Nias hoisted the Union Jack, which was saluted by the marines. The guns of the Herald fired a salute, and Major Bunbury read the proclamation, which was then placed in a bottle and buried. Where?