Jacob Nagle Jacob Nagle ( 1761 – 1841 ) was an American and British soldier , sailor , and , above all , diarist who provides an exceptional first hand account of many of the dramatic events of his lifetime . Nagle was born in Reading , Pennsylvania , and fought in the American Revolutionary War along with his father . He was in the Battle of Brandywine and in George Washington ' s artillery at Valley Forge . He resigned from the Continental Army in 1778 and enlisted in the tiny Continental Navy . When construction on the " USS Saratoga " was delayed , Nagle took to sea as a privateer in 1780 on " Fair American " , then on " Rising Sun " in 1781 . He was captured by the British and taken to St . Kitts in the Caribbean in chains . He was freed when the French Navy captured the island in 1782 but was almost immediately arrested again for aiding British sailors . He was then taken to Martinique . From that point on , he served in the Royal Navy . He sailed with the famous First Fleet expedition in 1787 as an able seaman on the expedition ' s naval escort " Sirius " . The expedition was charged with the task of founding the first British colony on the continent of Australia , in the territory of New South Wales . Botany Bay , the First Fleet ' s designated destination in New South Wales , proved unsuitable for a colony , however , when the expedition landed there in the first month of the new year . The ships of the First Fleet subsequently moved up the New South Wales coastline , under the direction of Captain Arthur Phillip , soon finding refuge in a splendid harbour which would become known as Port Jackson . Here , on 26 January 1788 , Phillip officially founded the Colony of New South Wales , on the site of the future City of Sydney . This key historical event is marked annually in Australia by a public holiday and Australia Day celebrations . " Sirius " subsequently acted as a re - supply vessel and communications link between New South Wales , the Pacific Ocean colony of Norfolk Island , and England . Sadly , the ship was wrecked on a reef on Norfolk Island in 1790 during a one of its replenishment missions . Nagle would spend a year on the island until he was eventually collected by a British vessel and returned to England , arriving there in 1792 . He lived his version of the high life until press gang ed aboard the " Hector " in that same year , serving on " Hector " until certain Bounty Mutineers were taken . In 1794 , Nagle jumped to a new ship to go to Madras and Calcutta in India . In India , he linked with two women convicts who had escaped from Sydney and had set up a brothel . In 1795 , Nagle returned to England and married . He and his wife had seven children over the ensuing years . In 1796 , he served with Admiral Lord Nelson aboard the " Blanche , " and in 1798 he served on the " Netley " as " prize - master , " which resulted in his making considerable sums of money from captured enemy shipping during the Napoleon ic Wars . In 1802 , a temporary peace was declared , and so he left the Navy and went to America to visit his family . He then entered the merchant marine , sometimes in American service and sometimes British . Nagle worked on shipping between Portugal and it ' s colony in Brazil , basing himself in Lisbon where he lived from 1811 – 1821 . He retired for good from the sea in 1824 shortly after his wife and all their children died of Yellow Fever . His journal provides a vivid record of the major events and new territories of these decades , and he wrote his " Memoirs " late in his life .