Document Request: Michael Hogan and his ''Indian Princess''
Document Description: An account of the life and times of Michael Hogan, son-in-law and occasional partner of William Richardson of Calcutta, printed in The Site Gazette (Sydney Australia) in Autumn 2015, believed written by his descendant Campbell Ford.
Transcription URL: https://richardson.surnametree.com/library/vdocs/D_266#266
Document Transcription:
Captain Michael Hogan was born in September 1766 at Stone Hall, County Clare, Ireland. In his youth, he served as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, and his career was advanced with
the support of Lord Charles Cornwallis (commander of the British army in the American campaign - (left) and his brother Commodore - later Admiral - William Cornwallis (right), after both of whom Hogan, in
gratitude, would later name a ship and his property in Australia. His papers are in the Mitchell library in Sydney, and he has been the subject of a biography “Michael Hogan, Sailor, Merchant, Diplomat on Six Continents - from which much of this article comes - written by one of his descendants, Michael Hogan Styles,
After leaving the Royal Navy, Hogan began a mercantile career and eventually became a colourful mariner, privateer, slave ship captain and owner, American statesman and property speculator. His early travels took him to India, where he arrived in Bombay (present day Mumbai) in May 1789.
Histories of old Bombay tend to focus on the upper echelons of British society, the leading Indians and the vast number of poor. But there were British and native Indians who were comfortably situated without either an aristocratic lineage or high social standing. Among these were the Richardsons; a family with a long history of
merchant trading in England, Portugal and India. William Richardson, eldest of the five children of Christopher Richardson of York, England, came to India in 1764 just after the end of the Seven Year's War, when British merchants were being encouraged to settle there. He became an independent merchant trader and sea captain.
Shortly after his arrival in Bombay, Richardson hired a dark- skinned Indian woman, called Anna Maria Lacy, as a housekeeper. She was supposedly of a Portuguese family that had resided in Bombay and Goa for many years, but was also reputed to be of Parsee descent. Parsees are a religious sect descended from Persian refugees who had settled in the Bombay and Goa area of India in the seventh and eighth centuries to escape Islamic persecution, and they remained a distinct racial and religious group with little or no intermarriage with others. The term was often loosely and incorrectly applied to any Portuguese who had settled in India.
Anna soon became William’s mistress. She never took his name and he himself refers to her in his will as only a “confidante, good servant and affectionate mother”. Nevertheless, even though he also doesn’t admit to being the father of their six illegitimate children - only referring to them in his will as the “sons (or) daughters of Anna Maria Lacy” - they transparently bear the “Richardson” surname.
William and Anna had two sons, William Richardson Jr. and Christopher Rowland Richardson Sr., and four daughters. The two eldest girls, Jane and Frances (the latter of whom was later to become known as the “Indian Princess”) had been sent to England as young children - as was the custom in those days - staying with Richardson relatives living at Streatham, a small town half way between London and Croydon, and received "the best English education" at Mrs. Ray's school at Russell House in Streatham Park, next door to Streatham Place, the home of Henry and Hester Thrale. Frances later recalled that "it was at Mr. Thrale's (that) Dr. Johnson was so constant a guest that I saw something
of that lion of the day." Revered for his
enduring witticisms, Samuel Johnson (right)
was famous for his poems, essay collections,
biographies and especially for his
comprehensive dictionary. He, and other social
and intellectual figures of the day, were
frequent guests at the Thrale’s when Frances
would have been only eight years old.
The Richardson girls returned to
Bombay in 1786, when Jane was seventeen and Frances thirteen. Jane soon married a British Army officer, Captain Barnaby Boles, whose regiment was stationed in India. Three years later, Michael Hogan met and courted Frances. She was not a beauty and apparently of a markedly dark complexion, but she was from a respectable and cosmopolitan family.
In those days the choices for acceptable matches among residents of the British colony were limited; perhaps the couple found commonality in their non-English backgrounds, for both would have been regarded as a notch below full acceptability by the pure blooded English elite - Hogan for his Irishness, Frances for her Portuguese (or Indian) blood. Despite their background, several of William Richardson’s other children would also marry well; it would seem that Frances’ brother, Christopher Rowland Richardson Sr., was sent to England for an education, where he eventually married Martha Anne Humphries and later returned to India to set up an indigo plantation in Bihar. Christopher’s son (William’s grandson), Christopher Rowland Richardson Jr. (nicknamed “Black Daniel” by his troops) became a colonel in
the British Army in India and fought with
distinction in the Indian Mutiny, whilst his
daughter, (William’s granddaughter),
Catherine Marianne Richardson (right) wed
Francis H. V. Guinness of the famed Irish
brewing family, who had a neighbouring
indigo plantation in Bengal, and who later
became an MP in New Zealand.
Michael Hogan and Frances Richardson were married on Tuesday, December 15th 1789 at the home of her father in Mulund, now a respectable suburb of modern Bombay, some 30 km up the Thane River. He was barely twenty-three; Fanny, as he called her, was alleged to be eighteen. However, according to the Parish




CAPTAIN MICHAEL HOGAN AND HIS “INDIAN PRINCESS”

registers of the Presidency of Bombay, Frances was born on 20th Dec 1773; making her only 16 when she married Hogan. Perhaps her age had been falsified to allow the wedding to proceed.
Although he had turned aside a possibly illustrious career as a British naval officer in favor of a more lucrative career in commerce, Hogan told his brother-in-law, Captain Barnaby Boles, that: "I have probably my life to spend at sea". Perhaps guided by his new father-in-law William Richardson - whose opinion he valued - Hogan decided that some practical experience in commerce would be desirable. On May 5th 1790, he sailed from Bombay on the New Triumph with his bride and her father, Captain Richardson, aboard. The ship stopped first at Tellicherry where Frances was left to visit her sister Jane and Captain Boles at Calicut. The New Triumph arrived at Calcutta on July 8th where it picked up a cargo of rice and then returned to Tellicherry in November to bring Frances back to Calcutta where Hogan had decided to make their home and to try his hand at business ventures on his own.
Hogan took his first major business step by buying a teak-built ship, then under construction, from the eminent shipbuilding firm of Messrs Gillett Lambert & Ross & Company. 'It was to be a three-masted frigate, 104 feet long (some sources say 166 feet ) and 34 feet at the beam, with three decks, weighing 654 tons.' The largest ships being built at the time were in the 1,200-ton class designed for the China trade, but most ordinary merchant vessels were only in the 200-ton class. Many in the Calcutta trade were over 300 tons, though they could not exceed some 800 tons to navigate safely on the Hugli (Hooghly) river estuary to Calcutta. Hogan's ship was thus a large one and probably enjoyed the good reputation for quality that Calcutta teak-built ships then commanded. He needed to borrow a considerable sum of money, about 120,000 rupees (then worth about £12,000 pounds sterling), to make the purchase. He offered a quarter share to his father-in-law, William Richardson, a quarter to his brother-in-law Boles (and any other Army officers who wanted to subscribe - several did), and a third quarter to Pondoosett Tewajusett in Bombay, keeping the last quarter for himself. After some delay, principally because Boles needed to raise funds to buy his share, the necessary money was advanced, some of which was in respondentia bonds (a loan on the value of the ship's cargo) as security.
Since he was not licensed by the East India Company, Hogan was restricted to what was called the "Country Trade" (i.e. trade between India and China, in which he and William Richardson were engaged) as distinguished from the more profitable “Orient Trade” between India and Europe. He told others that he planned to ship rice from the granary centers around Calcutta to other parts of India where he would pick up cotton and opium for transport to China. He intended to command the new ship himself, leaving his wife Frances at Calcutta.
The new ship was launched on November 12th 1791, but the arrangements made for its use were quite different from Hogan's initial plans. He told others a few days before the launching that, due to "the embargo on grain and many indifferent prospects before ship holders in country”, he had given up plans to engage in the Country Trade and instead placed the ship under Genoese colors as Il Netunno (Neptune) and chartered it for three years to Messrs Robert Charnock & Company to sail on two voyages between India and Ostend in Belgium, where the goods would be offloaded for separate shipping to England. This was part of an elaborate plan to circumvent the East India Company’s prohibition on direct trade with Britain by unapproved traders.
At the same time, he announced he was giving up the idea of making Bombay the family home, electing London instead, at least for the time being. Explaining this decision to Boles he wrote: "Mrs. Hogan will have the opportunity of spending some time with her friends in England with which she is quite delighted, and as we leave this port at a good time of the year, early in January, the passage I doubt not will be pleasant in so capital a ship. Her accommodations will be far superior to any (East India) Company ship."
On January 30th 1792, Hogan and his now-pregnant wife Frances, as well as her parents, Captain William Richardson Sr, his mistress Anna Maria Lacy and a few of their servants - sailed from Calcutta on the Netunno. Richardson Sr., who had by this time spent 28 years in India, was permanently returning to England for his health. His eldest son, William Richardson Jr. now 17, remained in India, as he was already embarking on his own maritime career there, and would later sail with Hogan on a blood-stained voyage.
Hogan told a correspondent that the Netunno "stops at no port whatever and sails very fast" and later claimed the voyage took only three months and fourteen days. The elapsed time was closer to three months and twenty-one days, still a speedy trip by the standards of those days, as the ship stopped at St. Helena on May 18th and probably also at the Cape of Good Hope before that. Hogan's enthusiasm for a quick voyage was based on more than good business practice. On leaving Pondicherry, he said "we may first give the late glorious news in Europe." The "glorious news," contained in the March 1st issue of the Madras Courier - a copy of which was in Hogan's hands - was that a preliminary peace treaty had been concluded between the British in India and Tippoo Sultan, following the latter's decisive defeat by one of his patrons Lord Charles Cornwallis and General Robert Abercromby in the Third Mysore War, which paved the way for eventual British control over all of India.
Hogan disembarked his passenger, a Mr. Cooper, at Havre de Grace on June 30th so that the gentleman could get the news to London on a packet boat whilst Hogan supervised the unloading of the Netunno’s cargo at Ostend. Cooper delivered Hogan's covering letter and the Madras Courier to the East India Company on July 2nd. The news, including Hogan's brief letter, was printed in The Times the next day as London rejoiced at the "glorious news." One British spokesman said that Lord Cornwallis "had made the British name loved and revered in India."
After unloading the cargo, Hogan and the Netunno sailed for London. Hogan found temporary quarters at Covent Garden, where on July 17th Frances gave birth to their first child, William Hogan, who would later rise to prominence in the United States (as related later). The family soon moved to the more fashionable Finsbury Square.
William Richardson Sr. meanwhile retired to Gainford in the County of Durham, where he died in 1799. His mistress, Anna Maria Lacy, afterwards returned to the home and families that they had left in Calcutta, where she lived until her death there in 1814; desiring in her will “that my Body be buried in the new Portuguese Church (The present day Cathedral of The Most Holy Rosary, also known as the Portuguese Church, founded in 1799) and that the Expense does not exceed one thousand Rupees”.
Hogan was so proud of the performance of his new ship that, in 1793, while he was in Calcutta on
his second voyage, he commiss-
ioned a painting of the Netunno
(right) by a Flemish artist named
Balthazar Solvyns, who lived in
Calcutta for twelve years and
produced many etchings portraying
the people and life in Bengal.
Several versions of the painting still exist. Later, Hogan procured two etchings of a wooden model of a sailing vessel that looked very much like his.
The French Revolution in 1789 and the subsequent outbreak of war with England in 1793 changed international trading conditions. Of immediate concern to Hogan was the fact that British-registered vessels engaged in the Orient trade were increasingly at risk because of the presence of French privateers in the Indian Ocean, and in the waters near Britain. The risk could be avoided only with the protection provided by British Navy convoys, which was available only to East India Company ships or private British vessels sailing under government auspices or under contract with the Company. Hogan's choices were thus limited to doing business for the Company or with the British Government, or of finding some other career. He could not even consider the latter.
Fortunately, as the charter on the Netunno had by now ended, Hogan was now free to use his ship for new purposes. He renamed the ship the Marquis Cornwallis, another indication of his attachment to Cornwallis family, and registered it on September 23rd 1794 under the British flag. In October, he offered to undertake four, six or more India voyages for the East India Company. His application emphasized the best features of the ship: "She is coppered fore and aft to the bends and
MICHAEL HOGAN IN AUSTRALIA – THE BLOODY VOYAGE OF THE MARQUIS CORNWALLIS

shall be fitted under the inspection of your officers with the number of anchors and cables required and a sufficient quantity of stores and she shall mount 14 guns, six-pounders, with the quantity of ammunition required and be navigated with seven men and one boy to every one hundred tons of her chartered tonnage."
Turned down by the Company in February 1795, he offered to sell the vessel to the Royal Navy Board as a man-of-war, but was again unsuccessful. He finally found clients for a round-trip voyage in March. Under contract with the Transport Board, the Marquis Cornwallis would carry Irish convicts from Ireland to New South Wales, and on the return voyage, would pick up cargo in China and India under contract with the East India Company.
One of the only two convict ships sent to NSW in 1795, the Marquis Cornwallis left Portsmouth on June 8th, after taking on board 30 sullen soldiers of the NSW Corps (the infamous Rum Corps), commanded by Ensigns John Brabyn and William Moore, to act as guards of an expected 200 convicts. Also on board was Hogan's brother-in-law, William Richardson Jr, (1775 – 1843), who was, by now, 20 years of age. He was shown as “ship’s master” in the documents when the Marquis Cornwallis was registered in 1794 and also in Transport Board accounting of the ship's voyage to New South Wales.
The departure of the Marquis Cornwallis was already a little late, for the Transport Board had told the Admiralty on May 15th that, "It is...indispensably necessary, in order that this transport may secure her passage to China, from whence she is chartered to receive freight from the East India Company, that she should arrive by the 1stof June at Cork, and proceed thence as speedily as possible." The secretary for colonial affairs, the Duke of Portland, had also requested the Admiralty to provide a convoy for the vessel from Cork to an area near the Canary Islands. The request for convoy was approved on May 18th with the notation, "Their Lordships have taken measures ... to provide for her escort to such a distance as may place her in a state of safety."
On arrival at Cork, Captain Hogan found that he was to take on board an additional 24 female convicts for whom he had to purchase supplies out of his own funds. This was not the end of his problems. While still in port, one of the NSW Corps soldiers, Bryan O'Donald, after "damning the King and saying he would not serve his Majesty," refused to stand guard as sentry. He was tried at a general court martial on August 5th, presided over by an British Army commander, found guilty and given a sentence of 800 lashes, "this sentence to be put into execution tomorrow morning before 10 o'clock and to receive such part of the punishment as M. Hogan, the owner of the Marquis Cornwallis, shall think proper, the remainder of the 800 lashes to be given to the said Bryan O'Donald should he behave bad on his passage, and if he acts like a good soldier, M. Hogan will please to remit the remainder after what he receives tomorrow." Hogan remitted all but 150 of the lashes. Flogging was then standard practice on ships at sea.
At the last moment, an additional 9 male Irish convicts were brought aboard to make a total of 241 of whom 168 were males and 73 females. With the ship's crew and the soldiers acting as guards, there were no less than 328 persons on board. The ship also carried 136,376 pounds of beef and pork and a one-year's supply of clothing being sent by the government to the inhabitants of New South Wales, as well as goods and liquor that Hogan expected to sell privately in Sydney.
Concerned on the eve of sailing from Cove that he had left his wife Frances short of cash, Hogan wrote his London agent: "I have written to Mrs. Hogan and told her you would pay her all the money of mine you may have after paying the bills I have drawn on you, which I request you will (do), and that you will receive it from the Board as soon as possible. On your receiving my certificate from Botany Bay, you will reserve in your own hands £1,400 of the money due on them and pay the rest to Mrs. Hogan”.
MUTINY AND MURDER
The Marquis Cornwallis was finally underway at 6 p.m. on August 9th, a month behind schedule; Captain Hogan noting that the "ship was very full of rats." But rats were to be the least of his problems on this long voyage.
Even before embarking from Portsmouth, there was a report that the NSW Corps guard detachment was mutinous and that the worst among them was a Sergeant Ellis. It was also
known that several of the male convicts were “Defenders”, a loosely knit group of defiant Catholic rebels against British rule in Ireland. The Marquis Cornwallis was the first of many ships that would carry Irish political prisoners to Australia.
After a month at sea, on September 9th, two of the convicts sent a note to Captain Hogan asking to see him in private. The ship was near the Cape Verde Islands, its British Navy escort having just departed, the very islands where the youthful Hogan had participated in a naval battle fourteen years earlier. The meeting took place the next morning in the presence of the young William
Richardson. The prisoners "informed me," Hogan later recorded in the log book (left), "that a conspiracy was formed by the convicts and soldiers to get possession of the arms and the ship and that I was the first person to be put to death, and that Sgt. Ellis and a few of
the soldiers were at the head of this plot. They also informed me that the sergeant was to furnish the convicts with knives for the purpose of making saws to cut off their irons, and that the convicts were to send the sergeant money to purchase the knives, and that they and he corresponded regularly, and the notes which passed between them (after being read) were thrown overboard, and at daylight some morning they were to rush on deck in a body when the boys were let up to clear the slop buckets."
Hogan continued that this report "gave me some concern and additional caution, and induced me to request Ensign Brabyn to fall his men in and muster their kits, and on examining the sergeant's (kit) first we found six knives upon him, all new and large but one. Last night he went to Ensign Brabyn and got two knives from him, saying he had not one to cut his victuals, but to our great surprise we found him possessed of six, for (I am sure) the worst of purposes."
It was also discovered that Ellis had spiked the touchholes of six muskets and disabled two pistols so that these weapons could not be used by the guards against the convicts. Having disarmed the presumed perpetrator and warned loyal members of the guard detachment against possible surprise attack, Captain Hogan thought the mutiny plan had been thwarted. But Sergeant Ellis was not finished. "On the 12th, at 8 p.m.," Hogan's report continues, "the gunner came to me in my cabin and informed me that last night between half-past 10 and 11 o'clock, being in the lee waist, he heard the sergeant make use of mutinous and inflammatory language to the soldiers, addressing himself mostly to the sentinels on the fore hatchway (the prison door). He compared the situation of the soldiers to the convicts, saying they were worse off, for that some of the convicts were transported only for seven years, and that they were for life, and that they were damned fools to be sold."
Although Hogan was captain of the vessel, the guards were subject to the authority of their commanding officer, Ensign John Brabyn, who was yet unwilling to arrest Sergeant Ellis, perhaps fearing the whole detachment might rebel. Hogan could do nothing but post additional guards. But the next day, a convict named Patrick Hines, a "man who I had good character of and had reason to form a good opinion of from his general conduct since he came on board," confirmed the earlier disclosure of a mutiny plot between Ellis and the convicts. Hogan instructed Hines to return to the prison and obtain further information from the ringleaders "by pretending to be hearty in their desperate cause."
The full plot, as it was later pieced together, was for prisoners to seize Hogan when he was making his twice weekly inspection of the prison accompanied by several ship's officers and one of the two surgeons on board. They were all "to be put to death by their own swords." Ellis and his fellow conspirators among the guards were to attack the remaining officers on deck, including William Richardson, hand out arms to convicts as they escaped from their prison below, and once in control of the ship sail her to South America. It was also alleged that "some of the women were concerned in the conspiracy, their part being to convey knives to the men, and to put pounded glass into the messes (food) of the ship's company."
Captain Hogan forced the issue upon the reluctant Ensign Brabyn on the 15th by assembling Brabyn, his fellow ensign, William Moore, and the ship's officers and crew, including William Richardson,

to demand an indictment of the perpetrators of the plot. The assembled lot readily gave their unanimous consent. There was later dispute whether the order to punish the mutineers was given by John Brabyn, who had authority at least over his own soldiers, or by Captain Hogan, who had ultimate authority for the safety of the ship. 40 to 50 of the convicts were flogged and six of the women prisoners punished. The severest punishment was meted out to two soldiers: Sergeant Ellis's head was shaved, he was handcuffed, thumb-screwed and leg-bolted to one of his supporters, Private Lawrence Gaffney, and both were put in the ship's prison among the convicts.
On September 22nd, the convicts strangled one of the informers and attempted to force their way upon deck. One of the ship's officers later said that "Capt. Hogan rushed down the fore hatchway, followed by Mr. William Richardson and three more of the officers and myself, armed with a pair of pistols and cutlass, where began a scene which was not by any means pleasant. We stuck together in the hatchway and discharged our pistols amongst them that were most desperate who, seeing their comrades drop in several places, soon felt a damp upon their spirits. Their courage failed them, and they called out for quarter. I broke my cutlass in the affray but met with no accident myself." 7 of the convicts later died of wounds; Sergeant Ellis died on the 24th. There were no reported attempts of mutiny thereafter.
SYDNEY COVE 1796
On February 11th 1796, six months after sailing from Ireland, the Marquis Cornwallis arrived at Port Jackson, the port for Sydney, where the prisoners were put ashore and placed in the hands of the local authorities. Some of the convicts who had been punished were not fully recovered and were sent to the hospital.
Under British law, offences committed on board British ships on the high seas were subject to trial or review by Admiralty Courts. Governor John Hunter (left) reported to London that "a daring and dangerous insurrection has been reported to have been planned by the convicts, aided by some other disaffected people (on the Marquis Cornwallis)," but he said he was at a loss to know how to proceed judicially, as a Vice Admiralty Court had not yet been established in Australia. Hogan applied to the governor to conduct an official inquiry because he did not want to stay in New South Wales while the question of the governor's legal authority was debated with London and because he wanted to be cleared of any possible charges against him. Hunter directed that such an inquiry be held, after
which he would address the judicial issue. The inquiry was held on March 21st 1796 before the Judge Advocate, David Collins (left), and the Acting Chief Surgeon, William Balmain. Gaffney and several other soldiers testified that, although they were not part of the plot, Hogan had grossly mistreated them, but Ensigns Brabyn and Moore, other soldiers, the two surgeons on board and two ship's officers all confirmed the plot and testified that Hogan had acted properly throughout the affair. Collins and Balmain reported to Governor Hunter on April 30th that "we have no difficulty in saying we think Mr. Hogan, situated as he found himself with a dangerous conspiracy in his ship on the point of breaking out and headed by some of the most daring and desperate offenders that the jails of Ireland could produce, could scarcely have acted otherwise than he did, and we are of the opinion that nothing but the steps he took ensured the safety of the ship and the preservation of the lives of all on board." The report also said that "it does not appear to us that there was any improper interference with the military guard on board on the part of Mr. Hogan." Governor Hunter immediately wrote to the Duke of Portland apprizing him that “All I can at present observe upon it is that the steps which were taken by Captain Hogan .... appear to me to have been the only means which could have been used to save the ship and their own lives." Hunter did not forward the official report of the inquiry to London untilSeptember5th,longafterHoganhadleftNewSouthWales. Nothing
more was heard of the matter.
It had been eight years since the first convict ships had arrived in Sydney Cove; the Colony had survived near starvation and was becoming self-supporting, partly due to the officers and men of the New South Wales Corps, each of whom could be awarded 25 acres of free land for the asking. Officers could obtain 100-acre lots, together with ten convicts who were, in effect, used as slave labor to serve the colony, including the cultivation of farm lands in the Hawkesbury River area north of Sydney.
During his brief stay in New South Wales, Hogan acquired a plot of land previously known as Woodhay, which he called Cornwallis Place (or Estate) after his favorite nobleman, with the intention of raising livestock and growing grain. The plot consisted of 400 acres purchased from Lieutenant Abbott and 30 acres from Samuel Jackson, Abbott having bought a number of the 25 and 100-acre lots previously awarded to New South Wales Corps members to make up the 400-acre parcel. Later in April 1797, Hogan's farm supervisor purchased an additional 30-acre lot called the Rowan Farm. Both were on the Hawkesbury River slightly to the north of Green Hills, a settlement later named Windsor (below).
Governor Hunter cited Hogan's farming plans when he wrote to Under Secretary for Colonial Affairs King to encourage the Government to send some settlers, rather than only convicts, to the new British Colony. He noted that Captain Hogan, "having purchased a farm which was partly cleared .... has left several people upon it from his own ship, and a few of the convicts he brought out he has taken off the hands of the public, and seems determined to make his farm productive. He has left some live stock, tools of every kind and, in short, promises fair to (become) really a respectable farmer. It could have been well for this colony could we have early had fifty or a hundred such settlers, but many of those who have been permitted to fix (here) are truly worthless characters, and very few sent out by permission of the Government are likely to benefit the settlement. They seem, most of them, disposed to speculate in some way of no great advantage to the colony. I wish they were in their own country again."
In the same letter, sent with seven other government dispatches on the Marquis Cornwallis when it returned to England, Hunter promoted Hogan as "a man of property and good connections (who had) mentioned to me that he liked the country and climate, and had some intention of making proposals to Government to be permitted to establish a store here for the supplying with of every article which may be wanted either the settlement at large or individuals." Hunter lent his support to such a venture because he "long wished that some steps could be taken...to (suppress) effectually that shameful imposition which has so long distressed poor individuals who pay for every little article (at) the most unjust and unreasonable prices." The governor also believed that such a store would be "a means of introducing the manufactures of our own country in greater abundance into this settlement, and thereby lessen the speculations of foreigners and adventures from the East Indies." Putting in a good word for Hogan in London, Hunter closed by saying that, "If his proposals were attended with moderation in point of profit, I thought it probable Government might listen to him."
Cornwallis Place was to become a weight around Hogan's neck over his lifetime and, seventy years later, an inheritance problem for his children and grandchildren. Expecting to reap profits from livestock and grain, Hogan had arranged for two convicts on the Marquis Cornwallis, John Riley and Philip Tully, to be assigned to work the farm, and he signed an agreement with an unscrupulous and almost illiterate ex-convict named Mark Flood to manage the farm. Flood managed to avoid paying Hogan whatever profits the farm earned and to run up considerable debts by one subterfuge or another. Realizing Flood

needed to be supervised, Hogan sought the intercession of John Macarthur who later became wealthy when he introduced Europe to wool from Merino sheep. The cause of the farm's problems was not wholly attributable to his tenant farmers; there were many crop failures in New South Wales during the early years of the Colony, and in May 1799 there was a disastrous flood on lands near the Hawkesbury River. Nor was the farm always a loss; in 1805 Governor King would later report to London that Cornwallis Farm "has been very successfully and advantageously cropped on account of Government since the year 1800."
While Hogan was still in New South Wales, Governor Hunter also granted him a six-acre plot on the "eastern side of Sydney Cove," a possession Hogan apparently forgot about for over thirty years. In 1830, he asked his land agent in Sydney to obtain an "authenticated copy of a grant made to me by Governor Hunter of the point of land below the governor's garden called Bennselou's (sic) Point. It was in the month of April or May 1796 and regularly recorded.... I think it measured about 9 acres." This was obviously Bennelong Point, near what is now Government Wharf and the site of the famed Sydney Opera House - what this grant would be worth today is anyone’s guess!
There was an understandable social tension between the
to allow it.
Hogan told at least one person that he “intended to take up residence in New South Wales sometime in the future." Although his talk about this may simply have been intended to please those who stayed behind, whether willingly or not, it is enticing to speculate that he might have had the most personal of reasons for later returning to the colony. Just two weeks before Hogan left Sydney, a thirty-one year old woman convict named Ann Ryan, who had come there on the Marquis Cornwallis, gave birth to a daughter. She named her Mary Hogan and listed Michael Hogan as the father. It is possible that Ann Ryan named Hogan as the father out of some spite or to avoid the onus of the daughter's having a convict as her father, but there is no good reason to doubt the claim. Perhaps the report of women conspirators among the prisoners who "put pounded glass into the messes of the ship's company") came from Ann Ryan herself. She might even have been genuinely pleased to be selected by the captain himself, as well as happy to escape from the dreadful
British and the conquered Dutch population. Hogan were certainly not
the social equals of
British and Dutch titled
Michael and Frances
Hogan had brought with him dry goods, wine and spirits, and he was allowed to open a shop on shore to sell these articles to the inhabitants. Although, by 1796, a half dozen or so
ships would arrive every year from England and India
with basic supplies, the inhabitants still looked
forward to each arrival to bring news and luxury
goods, such as clothing and liquor. Hogan had less
success when he tried to sell spirits on nearby Norfolk
Island, which at that time was in the charge of the
strict Lieutenant-Governor Philip Gidley King (right)
- a future governor of New South Wales - who refused
officials, but Lady Anne
Barnard - wife of Andrew
Barnard, the British
Colonial Secretary at the
Cape of Good Hope
(right) - was conscious of
the slights that the
Hogans were occasion-
ally subjected to, and tried to rectify them. She noted in her diary that "Mr. and Mrs. Hogan had taken pet" at receiving no invitation to one of her large parties. She added that Frances "is a woman of color and all women of that complexion are distrustful of neglect. Mr. Hogan knows the nature of the Cape Dutch to be so disposed to disdain any one in whose blood there was a drop of the Slave that he was almost afraid of bringing her here. She herself however (is) so well received by the English that she had nothing almost to suffer from the others, but the small want of attention or appearance of it is always on the point of mortifying her - and on this occasion did also." By referring to Frances as a "woman of color," she meant a person from India, although there is no mention of Frances's mother being either Indian or Portuguese in origin. To make amends, Lady Anne invited the Hogans (and others) to dinner three nights later.
A CONTINUING TRADE WITH AUSTRALIA
Hogan would soon begin business ventures in two new areas (see below), but his first business task was to arrange for cattle to be shipped on the Marquis Cornwallis to Port Jackson under contract with the Transport Board. The vessel finally arrived at the Cape on May 1st 1798 and spent almost two months procuring and loading the cattle and other goods before sailing on June 26th. It arrived four months later at Port Jackson where 158 cows and 20 bulls were landed, as well as brandy, wine and miscellaneous goods procured at the Cape and some cows and mares Hogan sent to his Cornwallis farm. Governor Hunter reported "there are a few (cattle) rather weakly, but in general they are in as good health as any I have seen landed (at Port Jackson) after a voyage of such extent and will be a vast acquisition to the Colony." Hogan was paid £37 a head for the cattle, but future business for him and others in cattle exports ended in 1800 when New South Wales decided to increase its stock
by breeding and even sought an export market.
Hogan later received a lengthy account of the difficulties that John Macarthur, his agent at Port Jackson (right), had experienced in obtaining satisfaction from Mark Flood, the man Hogan had left in charge of his Cornwallis Place in 1796; principally involving Flood's refusal to accept instructions from Macarthur or to pay him moneys earned from growing wheat and raising livestock.
Flood was a troublemaker, repeatedly in
court over threatened or actual assaults and non-payment of debts, but part of the recurring difficulty was Hogan's poorly framed powers of attorney and instructions to Flood, Macarthur and others. At one point, Macarthur sought to have Flood dismissed as manager of the farm, but the Civil Court of Indicature denied the request, stating it could not "consider (Macarthur) or any other person or persons as agents to Captain Hogan, no paper having been produced to this Court which they think of sufficient weight to induce them to set aside the agreement entered into between Captain Hogan and Mark Flood." After reporting that Flood had assaulted a servant of Charles Munn, captain of the Marquis Cornwallis, and threatened to murder him, Macarthur in exasperation told Hogan, "I declare to God I believe the fellow is mad."
The Marquis Cornwallis left Port Jackson on December 3rd. Contrary to Hogan's expectation when he was fighting with the Transport Board and East India Company a year earlier over how to package the ship's voyage, he did not sell his favorite ship in Bengal as he planned.
conditions in the prison hold.
Hogan must have known that Ann Ryan was pregnant
because she would have already been in her seventh month when she arrived at the Colony. Whether he knew of the birth of Mary before he left Sydney cannot be known, but it is equally difficult to conclude that he was both unaware of his parenthood and totally uncaring. Perhaps, after all, he did seriously consider returning later to address the issue of his illegitimate child, but as events were to turn out he would never return to New South Wales; although the Marquis Cornwallis (under captain Charles Munn) made another voyage there in 1799.
THE MOVE TO THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
After more than two eventful years away, Michael Hogan returned to England July 24th 1797. War with Revolutionary France had begun in 1792, and he now saw an opportunity to move to the strategic Cape of Good Hope – which in 1795 had been captured from the Dutch by British forces - as a base for both lucrative privateering expeditions against ships of the French and their allies, and for access to the profitable slave trade.
Hogan, his wife Frances, five-year old son William and two-year old daughter Fanny arrived at Cape Colony on February 4th, 1798, and the family remained there for six years. He became one of the leading merchants at the Colony and acquired a fortune, despite the vagaries of international politics. He established a business office at No. 29 Heerengracht, and also bought three other pieces of property for his warehouse and possibly homes for his employees.

Instead, the Marquis Cornwallis continued to trade between India and England.
Hogan used other ships to trade with New South Wales where he thought, based on his experience there, a good market would develop. Beginning a practice of naming ships he had purchased after his children, he shipped Cape wine and brandy to Port Jackson on the Young William (named after his son) in October 1799. He well knew the high demand for spirits in New South Wales, and he may have been particularly persuaded by the report he had received from Macarthur of the high prices obtained for wine and brandy imported the previous year at Port Jackson on the convict ship Barwell. These were only a few of the vessels on which he shipped goods to New South Wales. In February 1799 Captain Phillip Gidley King made an 11 day stopover in Capetown whilst on his way from England to Sydney to take over the duties of Governor of NSW from Governor Hunter. King’s wife, Anna, wrote they “went on shore and spent all our time at Mr. Hogan’s, who had been expecting us for upwards of a year and a half” and that “a large party dined at his house that day”. Apparently their disagreements on Norfolk Island had been forgotten.
There would be many other normal business activities for Hogan, most stemming from the Colony's dearth of foodstuffs, timber and ship supplies and the need for sea transportation to import these supplies and to ferry troops and military supplies. One early example was a government-approved procurement of a cargo of tickwood (teakwood) from Pegu in what is now Myanmar (Burma), as well as two tons of beeswax and bags of rice from India.
HOGAN’S HEROES - PRIVATEERING VENTURES
As England was at that time at war with revolutionary France, Hogan decided to venture into the privateering business. A privateer was a civilian ship-owner authorized by a government “letter of marque”; a license authorizing him to arm his vessel to attack and capture enemy vessels during wartime and bring them before an admiralty court for “condemnation” - a legal process to enable him to claim ownership of a vessel taken as a prize, so that it and its cargo could then be legally sold for profit. One of Hogan’s early ventures was to export candles and tallow purchased from the sale of aSpanishprizeLaUnion toNewSouthWalesinMay1798.
Cruising for prizes with a “letter of marque” was considered an honorable calling, combining patriotism and profit to attack foreign vessels during wartime. It was a way for the Royal Navy to quickly mobilize smaller armed ships and crews without the vessels having to be commissioned into regular service as warships.
Privateering was a dangerous trade, and although seamen were a rough lot, signing on to a privateering vessel meant that they would have to engage in close combat in a small, lightly armed ship, with death an ever-present prospect and with no guarantee of ever receiving prize money. Candidates were likely to be those to whom violence was a way of life, which is probably why Hogan told his captains to consider Sydney Cove as a safe port to take their prize ships and to seek crews from among
the local ex-convicts.
Hogan initially operated the 56 ton brig Harbinger with 6 cannons, (similar to illustration right) which he bought for £700. On 22nd Aug 1800 she arrived in Table Bay from the coast of Brazil where she had taken
two French ships, and she sailed again on the 7th November 1800 from Table Bay, under Captain John Black, bound for Port Jackson. Harbinger was only the second vessel to sail through Bass Strait, reaching the Australian coast near Cape Otway on 1st January 1801, veering sharply south-west to the north-western tip of Governor King's Island (now King Island), which Black named after the Governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King. Harbinger then sailed easterly towards Wilsons Promontory. Proceeding around the tip of the promontory, Black discovered the Hogan Group of islands, which he named after the ship's owner. Governor King later purchased the Harbinger in May of that year and renamed her Norfolk. The ship was later visiting Tahiti when a hurricane struck
on 25th March 1802; Captain William House ran the Norfolk aground and the crew escaped to safety. The hull was salvaged but as it was being towed to another island it sank.
Hogan later fitted out another small 131 ton privateer named the Harriet (after one of his three daughters). Commanded by Captain White, she captured a large Danish East-Indiaman called the Holgar Danske, which was worth £100,000. A contemporary newspaper subsequently carried an article about the Harriet and an advertisement for the sale at Michael Hogan's warehouses of a couple of the prize ships that she had taken. Hogan also owned, or shared in the ownership of, several other small armed vessels; for example the Chance (178 tons, 16 guns), which cruised off the coast of Peru where she found opportunities for gain. On Thursday 19th August 1801 she captured the new 600 ton Spanish ship Amiable Maria, 14 guns, with a cargo of grain, wine and baled goods, and sent her to the Cape as a prize. On 24th September, although outgunned, the Chance also captured a 22 gun Spanish warship Limeno under captain Don Felippe Martines, which had been sent to intercept her.
Privateering became a very profitable venture for Hogan, as would his other, rather more doubtful enterprise, the slave trade.
MICHAEL HOGAN AND THE SLAVE TRADE
The custom of slavery had existed for centuries, and in some European countries the practice was now being perceived as barbaric, but in January 1800, when Hogan raised the proposal to import a total of 600 slaves from Mozambique for 200 Spanish dollars each with the new British governor, Sir George Yonge, the practice was still legal, if distasteful.
Yonge granted permission for the slave imports on February 8th, justifying it by claiming that, although he was "not inclined to encourage too much the increase of slaves in the Colony, (he was) perfectly aware of the necessity...for an additional number of labouring men and, though I would wish to see them all free men, yet, as I perceive, slaves in general meet with good usage and regulations will soon be made to regulate more favourably their treatment" He also approved the Spanish dollar transaction involved, but noted: "No goods whatever will be allowed to depart in the vessel, except a small quantity of Cape wine which I would be glad to find its way to the countries that are in amity with us."
When Hogan received the governor's approval, the Joaquin was at anchor in Table Bay with a cargo of 400 slaves from Mozambique allegedly bound to Brazil but, according to Hogan, they could now be sold at the Cape with this permission. These were the first of about 2,000 slaves he would import for sale over the next few years. Hogan also owned slaves himself; an 1800 tax census shows that he had thirty-one servants and/or slaves, but he seems to have treated them well. In 1807, after increasing pressure, the British government would pass an Act of Parliament abolishing the slave trade throughout the British Empire, although slavery itself would persist in the British colonies until its final abolition in 1838.
Three children were born to Michael and Frances Hogan in Cape Town: Harriet on April 10, 1799, John in November 1800 and Sophia on March 9, 1802. John died in infancy. When their eldest son William was ten, he was sent back to London to attend school, and would later rejoin the family in America.
On 25th March 1802 the Treaty of Amiens was signed by Joseph Bonaparte and Marquis Cornwallis (Hogan’s patron), temporarily ending hostilities between the French Republic and Great Britain. As part of the negotiations, Britain was to return the captured Cape Colony to the Dutch, who raised their flag there again on February 21st 1803 and immediately began to impose onerous taxes and restrictions on the British residents. Hogan had been anticipating this, and was already selling his properties and many business interests, including timber and sugar, to amass funds to take to the US. His plan was delayed when Francis suffered a life- threatening miscarriage the same February. Eventually, as Hogan’s son William later wrote: “On March 8th 1804, my father with my mother, three sisters and a retinue of nine servants bade farewell to the Cape of Good Hope .... on board the American ship Silenius” and two more ships which Hogan had chartered “with cargoes of Java coffee and spices and all the moveable and readily convertible

property he had in six years gathered at the Cape, falling little short of half a million of dollars, exclusive of real estate there and in New South Wales”. By this time war with France had resumed and, ironically, Cape Town would soon become permanently British after the defeat of the Dutch at the Battle of Blaauwberg in 1806.
NEW YORK - THE AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Hogan arrived at New York on the. 4th May 1804, in a great fanfare of self-publicity calculated to impress local society and businessmen, introducing his Indian born wife Frances as a “dark Indian princess with a dowry of two million US dollars”.
In his 1847 book “The Old Merchants of New York City”, author Walter Barrett recalled: “Now look back forty-eight years ago to 1805, and there was but one Hogan in New York. His name was Michael Hogan, and he had only landed in the city a few months, but what attention he received from all the leading men of that day! He was such a man as did not arrive in the then small city of New York every day. Michael Hogan brought with him in solid gold sovereigns four hundred thousand pounds, equal to two million dollars, and he had a wonderful history. What would I not give if I could write it all out!
“He arrived here in 1804, with his dark Indian princess wife. Michael Hogan was born at Stone Hall, in the County of Clare, Ireland, September 26, 1766, so he was thirty-eight years old when he landed in New York, with his dark-skinned lady and his fabulous amount of gold. But what scenes he had been through in these eventful thirty-eight years! He had been a sailor; he had commanded ships bound to ports in every quarter of the world, in Asia, Africa, America, and Europe; he had been to North as well as South America; and he had voyaged to the West as well as to the East Indies; he had made successful voyages to the almost then unknown land of Australia. In the East Indies he had married a lady of great wealth. This was the story that was talked about when Captain Michael Hogan came here." This legend became accepted as fact in America, and is still quoted in publications to this day.
However, it would seem that the fortune he possessed was nowhere near what he claimed; his son’s figures seem far more realistic – and it would more likely have come from profits in the Indian and Pacific trade and the sale of any prize shipping and cargo rather than, as the Americans came to think, his marriage to his supposed ‘well-born Indian Princess” from Bombay. Most likely he created her supposed “dowry” as a way of protecting his fortune from any bankruptcy actions in his proposed business speculations.
Hogan bought a vast estate comprising 100 acres of New York City land in the present day Harlem district (left), running north from 107th Street to 131st Street, and west from Broadway to the Hudson River, - the value of which today would be incalculable! The later tomb of US post-Civil War President Ulysses S. Grant now stands in Riverside Park, on a portion of the old property.
The southern part of Hogan’s estate he
called Monte Alto, and his home (right), in the northern portion, Claremont; the latter name being probably intended to commemorate his native county - Clare - in Ireland. However, in typical self-
aggrandising manner, Hogan claimed that he had “named Claremont for the Roehampton castle in Surrey of his long-time friend William, Duke of Clarence, the future "Sailor King, William IV of England, with whom he had served as a midshipman in the Royal Navy” An impressive claim but, like the rest, highly unlikely.
The house was decked out royally with imported furniture and the largest plate-glass mirrors yet seen in the city and, according to the New York Post reminiscing about Claremont 100 years later, “as a summer residence, it was the scene of some of the most brilliant social festivities in the city”. Michael Hogan and his “Indian Princess” had obviously taken New York society by storm.
Hogan opened a dry goods store, at 225 Broadway, later the site of Astor House, which he had for two years. He then went to 52 Greenwich Street. Later, he had a counting house at 82 Washington Street, and went into shipping, ship-owning and general commission business. He imported goods from the West Indies, as well as Spanish and other brandies. He also investigated the selling of imported slaves into the southern American states.
With England now at war with France again, in 1805 Hogan sold the Marquis Cornwallis for £68,630 to the Royal Navy, which swiftly armed her with 54 guns as HMS Cornwallis, a fourth
rate ship of the line. She served off Bombay and in the blockade of Isle de France (now Mauritius) and in the Far East, sailing to Australia and the Pacific, and was later renamed HMS Akbar. She participated in the final invasion of Isle de France, and served
in the West Indies before being laid up at Portsmouth in 1816, until the Admiralty sold her in the 1860s. In 1994 she was commemorated by a stamp issued by the Marshall Islands (above).
By 1806, The US government was deeply in debt after buying the vast area of Central America from Napoleonic France for $15 million dollars - the famous “Louisiana Purchase”. To recoup the investment, Congress offered great parcels of land at very cheap prices for rapid sale, and wealthy investors formed syndicates to buy as much as possible. This started a boom and bust real estate bubble, with many bankruptcies. In 1807 Hogan began to speculate heavily in land by the Canadian border, in Central and Northern New York State. He purchased 10,168 acres of Franklin County, and 20,000 acres just north of what became the Adirondack Park. He founded the town of Bombay, which he named in honour of his wife's birthplace, and also named Hogansburg after himself; today it is a hamlet of the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, Franklin Country, in the town of Bombay in the state of New York.
Due to various unfortunate dealings and investments in the uncertain aftermath of America’s War of 1812 with England, Hogan found himself facing financial ruin, so, to make ends meet, he sought a Government position. In 1819 he was made the Agent for United States Commerce in Havana, Cuba and, in 1820, he was moved to Valparaiso in Chile as Agent and later US Consul, but illness forced his retirement in 1831. His Claremont estate had been sold to Jacob Post in 1821, and part of the estate was ceded to the city in 1872 for the formation of Riverside Park; gradually the rest was sold, the last lot in 1900. The old house itself was moved and converted into an inn, finally being demolished in 1951.
Michael Hogan died in Hogansburg on 26th March 1833, and his wife, Frances - his beloved “Indian Princess” - looked after his dwindling estate until she died in 1859. Both are interred in New York’s Trinity Church Cemetery. Their son, William Hogan, meanwhile, had been elected to the New York State Assembly in 1822 and in 1830 was elected to the US Congress.
Hogan had never returned to his 400 acre farm in New South Wales. After 1801 it was leased by his agents, but after his resident servants died, a local man, John Hand, took over the whole estate in 1847 and would not pay rent or accept the Hogan’s claim to the land. In 1856 William Hogan’s son came to Australia and brought an action of eviction against Hand, which the Privy Council in London eventually supported in 1861. The estate was then sold, providing the Hogan family with a small but welcome inheritance.
CONTACT DETAILS
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