The 'Charlotte' was a
First Fleet transport ship, built on the
River Thames in
1784, and weighing 345 tons. She was a heavy sailer, and had to be towed down the
English Channel for the first few days of the voyage. Her
master was
Thomas Gilbert, and her surgeon was
John White, principal surgeon to the colony. She left
Portsmouth on
13 May 1787, carrying eighty-eight male and twenty female
convicts, among them the later-to-be-famous
Mary Bryant, and arrived at
Port Jackson,
Sydney, Australia, on
26 January 1788. She left Port Jackson on
6 May 1788 bound for
China to take on a cargo of
tea, under charter to the
East India Company. On her return to
England on
28 November 1789 she was sold to a firm for the
London to
Jamaica run, and was lost off
Newfoundland in November 1818.