Thomas Gilbert and John Marshall are the English captains of two East India Company vessels, the Charlotte and the Scarborough, returning from carrying convicts to Botany Bay in 1788, when they sailed through the Gilbert Islands and describe Aranuka, Kuria, Abaiang and Tarawa.
The vessels had been part of the first fleet carrying convicts to Australia.
They had sailed in a convoy under the command of post-captain Arthur Phillip, New South Wales' first Governor.
The two vessels encounter their first island in the Gilberts on June 17, 1788.
In a 1941 article in Life magazine, Samuel Eliot Morison will write that this island was probably Abemama, but might have been Aranuka.
Gilbert visits Tarawa on June 20, 1788.
He names it Matthew Island, after the owner of his ship, the Charlotte.
He names the lagoon Charlotte Bay.
Sketches he makes survive today.
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