Royal Navy service
Buffalo was commissioned in November 1813 under Mr. Richard Anderson, Master, and became a ship of many uses and refits. Anderson was still her master between 1814 and 1815 when she was stationed at the Army Depot at Bermuda.[6] On 25 December 1814, she departed Falmouth and arrived at Port Royal on 11 February 1815, having been part of a larger convoy with HMS Swiftsure (1804) as its flagship.
On 6 June 1815, she arrived at Plymouth, and sailed to Portsmouth the next day.[8] Then in January 1816 Mr. W. Hudson became master.
She departed Woolwich, stopping off at Deal on 26 March 1816, destined for Bermuda,[9] where she arrived on 5 May.[10] On 23 May 1816, she was at Bermuda, where she embarked Dockyard workers associated with HMS Pactolus via HMS Ruby. On 30 May 1816, she arrived at Halifax. On 5 July 1816, she departed Halifax and arrived at Spithead on 26 July 1816.[11]
Buffalo was at Deptford in 1822, 1827, and 1831.[6] She was fitted as a timber carrier to carry spars from New Zealand in 1831. However, she apparently was in the Quarantine Service at Stangate in 1832.[6]
Then in January 1833 she was fitted as a convict ship, and F.W.R. Sadler took command.[6] Buffalo sailed to Australia 12 May 1833 and arrived on 5 October 1833. She carried 180 female convicts, one of whom died on the journey.
Buffalo was an important ship in the maritime history of South Australia, serving at times as a quarantine, transport or colonisation ship, while also aiding the British expansion into New Zealand, New South Wales, Tasmania, and Upper Canada.[12] Sadler received gifts from the local Maori chief of Tītore in the Bay of Islands during one of HMS Buffalo's trips. The gifts included a pin, a club, and an ornate Hei-tiki, all now in the British Museum.[13]
Buffalo was paid-off and recommissioned in January 1835. Then James Wood took command in July 1836. On 23 July 1836, as the main ship of the First Fleet of South Australia, Buffalo sailed from Portsmouth, and was the last to arrive in South Australian waters on 24 December of that year. She carried 176 colonists, including Captain John Hindmarsh, who was to become the first Governor of the new colony of South Australia following the proclamation of that colony on 28 December 1836. Other passengers on HMS Buffalo to South Australia in 1836 included: James Cock, Robert Cock (James father), William Ferguson, Osmond Gilles, Charles Beaumont Howard, Young Bingham Hutchinson, and brothers Giles E. Strangways, Thomas Bewes Strangways and Frank Potts (winemaker).
Only three deaths were ever recorded on Buffalo,[14] a remarkable record considering the medical practices of that period and the number of passengers she transported.
S. Hindmarsh may have been captain in 1837 but James Wood returned to command and would remain her captain until her loss. Wood sailed Buffalo to Quebec with 300 soldiers as reinforcements for the British forces dealing with the Rebellions of 1837 there.
Charles Morgan Lewis, who had captained the schooner Isabella on her mission to rescue survivors of Charles Eaton from the Torres Strait Islands, is recorded as having travelled as a passenger on Buffalo with the young orphan William D'Oyly, who had survived the wreck and subsequent massacre, back to London from Sydney Cove, departing on 13 May 1838.[15]
On 28 September 1839 she sailed from Quebec with 82 American patriots and 58 French prisoners from Lower Canada who were convicts and part of the Upper Canada Rebellion in 1838. On 12 October a conspiracy to murder the ship's crew was attempted, but was discovered, and the rebels secured. The mutiny was reported in the Morning Chronicle on 22 November, and much later in the Sydney Herald on 22 April 1840.[16] The Americans were transported to Hobart, Tasmania and the French convicts were brought to Sydney.[17]
She was fitted as a timber carrier again in 1839.
