Gidday Form New Zealand

All I have to say is post lots of pics and updates of your search! Welcome!
 

The 45 ton colonial brig Venus was seized by pirates at Port Dalrymple on the night of 16 June 1806. When last seen by her master Samuel Rodman Chace at 7.00am on the 17 th she was headed out to sea. The Venus had embarked on an epic escape.

In control was Benjamin Barnet Kelly a bearded, pockmarked American who had come to Australia as first mate on the whaler Albion under Captain Eber Bunker. With him were second mate Richard Edwards, seaman Joseph Redmonds, boys Thomas Ford and William Evans, a Malay cook, soldier Richard Thompson and convicts Richard Thomas Evans, John William Lancashire, Catherine Hagerty and Charlotte Badger.

Nothing was heard of the vessel until 9 April 1807 when the ship 'Commerce' commanded by Captain Bierney arrived in Sydney bringing 39,000 sealskins for the London market and some interesting news.

While visiting the Bay of Islands, New Zealand, Bierney had been given to understand that the Venus had been there and left two of the pirates, Kelly and Lancashire, behind. Lancashire had since been captured by the master of the ship 'Brothers' but never made it back to Sydney. Somehow he vanished without a trace off the ship before it reached port and Kelly had been taken home a prisoner on the 'Britannia', but there are no records of him arriving back to Australia or Britain. The Venus had no navigator and was wandering about the coast. Bierney's tale was corroborated by Eber Bunker now captain of the whaler 'Elizabeth'.

For more than 140 years it was believed that Kelly and Lancashire had been caught and the Venus taken by the Maori who had killed and eaten her crew and burnt her hull for its iron. But Bierney and Bunker had been deceived - or were part of a deception.

During the 1950s Professor Eugenio Pereira Salas of the University of Chile began investigating early relationships between Chile and Australia, including the 1803 disappearance of George Bass on another vessel named Venus. Salas made a startling discovery. On 4 January 1807 the Venus, a 45 ton fragata, was detained near Carampangue, southern Chile. In command was one Capitan Kelly!

Benjamin Barnet Kelly had escaped the hangman, Maori cannibals and the storms of the South Pacific. His trials however were far from over. He now found himself the subject of a Spanish inquisition.

In 1807 authorities in Chile were still smarting from the loss of the 'Estremina' and the San Francisco and 'San Paulo'. These two Spanish vessels had been captured before the official declaration of war against Spain by the over eager Captain William Campbell of the Harrington who took them to Australia as prizes. Kelly was marched off to Concepcion for interrogation.

In the course of questioning Kelly told his inquisitors an imaginative tale. He had entered the Pacific via Cape Horn as navigator aboard the Pelican. The Venus had been “acquired” in Australia with the intention of returning to San Juan, South America to pick up seal hunters the Pelican had left behind. Six native women on board he described as female crew, replacements for men lost during a pirate attack. They were more likely to have been Maori women the Venus had kidnapped from the New Zealand coast. After an eventful voyage the storm battered Venus had reached the island of Juan Fernandez.

Kelly's animated narration attracted interest at the highest level when it was realized he knew something about the lost Spanish vessels. Governor Don Luis de Guzman himself instigated a further inquiry, during which Kelly revealed the ships were being held by Governor King at Port Jackson awaiting a claim by their rightful owners.

In the end, the Venus was seized by the Spanish authorities and sold at auction. Her crew were held as prisoners in barracks built for them by de Guzman in Concepcion. Kelly, the mastermind of one of colonial Australia's most intriguing escapes, was last seen sailing off to Lima in a merchant convoy. He has not been heard of since.
 

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Hi.. just joined the site today... I'm originally from Texas, but moved to NZ with my kiwi hubby in 2007... we settled into his family home here in Wellington... thinking of moving back to TX in a year or so, but I've been wondering if there's anything worth searching here... I don't have a detector (used to, but sold it years ago)... I love history too... hubby works as manager for our local RSA and I've been involved as well... we got a donation of a few hundred books from one of our old members before he passed away... I've been sorting them lately (I'm studying to be a librarian)... lots of great NZ history in those books...... anyway.. welcome aboard
 

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Hi everybody! NE Indianapolis

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Great day, hoping to get out soon to MD

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