Lady Penrhyn, civilian logistics, and return trade

Lady Penrhyn had been designed for the Atlantic slave trade but instead carried female convicts, Marines, two surgeons, and stores to New South Wales. Her eight barrels of rice sound substantial until compared with the hundreds of people the settlement had to feed. Civilian planning relied too heavily on army assumptions about local foraging, an approach badly suited to a colony at the far end of an undeveloped supply line. The ship also brought horses acquired at Cape Town, showing how the expedition assembled essential resources during the voyage rather than loading everything in Britain. After leaving Sydney, Lady Penrhyn attempted a private fur-trading venture on the northwest coast of America before sailing to Macau and Canton for tea. Her route shows how government chartering, the South Sea Company monopoly, merchant profit, and East India Company return cargoes overlapped with the work of founding a colony. She later ran to Jamaica and carried British reinforcements to the Caribbean when Revolutionary France threatened colonies there.