The first mention of the brig Rosetta occurred in December 1815. When convicts took over Trial on 12 September 1816, the government chartered Rosetta for £200, put a detachment of troops from the 46th Regiment on her, and sent her in pursuit.[1][2] Rosetta was unsuccessful.[3]
On 14 April 1818 Rosetta's master took a boat and acted in concert with a party of soldiers advancing overland to capture a boat that seven or 17 escaped convicts had sailed from Hobart to Port Dalrymple.[4]
The government in Tasmania purchased Rosetta circa November 1818 to service the settlements in Van Diemen's Land, and renamed the brig Prince Leopold.[5] The government paid £1200 15s for her.[6]
Around midnight on 28 October 1822 Actaeon, from Mauritius and bound for Sydney struck the rocks in D'Entrecasteaux Channel and the crew abandoned ship. The officers and some of the crew took the longboat and made for Hobart, where they reported the wreck. Deveron and Prince Leopold went to salvage as much cargo as possible and pick up the remaining crew. Some 300 barrels of pork were salvaged from Actaeon's mixed cargo of wine, spirits, coal, pork, soap, and other goods.[7] A gale totally wrecked Actaeon and three men from Prince Leopold drowned when their boat upset.[8]
In mid-1825 Prince Leopold underwent a thorough repair.
On 27 March 1826 Prince Leopold arrived at Hobart from Launceston. She was carrying five bushrangers who had been captured: Matthew Brady, Goodwin, Patrick Bryant, Thomas Jeffrey, and John Perry.[9] (On 4 May 1826, Brady, Bryant, Perry, and Jeffrey were hanged at the old Hobart gaol.)
On 29 June 1827 Hope, of 231 tons (bm), Cunningham, master, grounded on a beach opposite Betsey's Island as she was coming into Hobart from Sydney. The ship was wrecked. Prince Leopold and Recovery came out and were able to save about two-thirds of the cargo.[10]
The government sold Prince Leopold for £1250 on 12 July 1831 in an auction.[11]
Prince Leopold returned to Hobart on 30 July with a full cargo of oil that she had gathered at Adventure Bay.[12] On 4 September she brought in another cargo of oil, this time from Trumpeter Bay.
By early 1832 her owners had renamed Prince Leopold Mary Elizabeth.[13]
On 9 July 1834 Mary and Elizabeth arrived at Hobart, in ballast. Her crew had deserted her in Cloudy Bay, New Zealand.[14] While Mary Elizabeth, Lovatt, master, was at Cloudy Bay the local Maori took her boat, gear, dead whales, and whatever else they could.[15]
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