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The Supply, commanded by Lieut. Ball, was the vessel in which Lieut. P. G. King was sent by Governor Phillip to settle Norfolk Island. They left Port Jackson on February 15, 1788, and after discovering and naming Lord Howe Island and Ball's Pyramid, reached Norfolk Island on February 29. The stamp design, showing H.M.S. Supply with Ball's Pyramid in the background, is from a painting by Mr. J. A. Alleot, of Sydney, reproduced with his permission.
H.M.S. Supply was an armed stores ship and was built by H. Bird, on the Thames, in 1759, and purchased by the Admiralty in 1781. She was fitted out at Deptford Dockyard in 1782, the same yard which 10 years earlier had fitted out Cook's Resolution. A slightly larger ship than the Resolution, the Supply was of 512 tons, and carried eight guns. She was commanded by Lieut. Bell from 1787 to 1790, and was in the famous convoy to New South Wales which took out the first settlers to Botany Bay under Capt. Arthur Phillip in 1788, reaching there on January 18. The vessel does not appear in the 1793 Navy List.
 Norfolk Is SG79. SG442, Australia SG879 TuValu SG836MS

Sea Breezes  10/67

Built as a merchant wooden cargo vessel by the yard of Henry Bird at Rotherhithe on the Thames.
1759 Launched under the name SUPPLY.
Tonnage 175 ton (bm), dim. 24.2 x 6.7m.
Brig rigged.

After completing she was used as a merchant vessel, there is given she carried naval supplies from the Thames to the Channel Ports the first 27 years, before she was bought by the Royal Navy and got the name HMS SUPPLY.
As a navy brig she got an armament of 4 – 6pdrs..
Crew 50.

Under command of Henry Lidgbird Bull (sometimes given as Ball) she was a tender to HMS SIRIUS.
13 May 1787 she sailed together with the other ships of the First Convict Fleet from Portsmouth bound for Australia, arriving at Botany Bay on 18 January 1788.
15 March 1790 she got lucky to get off a lee shore, in which the HMS SIRIUS was lost on Norfolk Island, and on 24 March 1787 she left from Norfolk Island with on board 33 crew of the lost SIRIUS.

After the loss of the SIRIUS was she the only link with the outside world, and she made regular trips to the Norfolk Islands.
17 April 1790 she sailed to Batavia, Dutch East Indies for supplies, when there she chartered the Dutch snow WAAKSAMHEID to carry also some supplies to Port Jackson.
(The WAAKSA(A)MHEID= watchfulness, brought also the crew of the HMS SIRIUS back to the U.K.)

26 November 1791 she left Port Jackson bound for the U.K., sailing via the Cape Horn she reached Plymouth on 21 April 1792.
17 July 1792 sold at a public auction for £500 and renamed THOMAS AND NANCY.
Thereafter used to carry coal in the Thames area until 1806.

See also: http://www.shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =2&t=10907
Australia 1979 20c sg 703, Scott? More info on the stamp is given by viewtopic.php?t=17977

Source: some web-sites. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Supply_(1759) Ships of the Royal Navy by Colledge.