After unloading 210 Irish male prisoners, this fine new convict ship almost took out the fledgling colony and several other vessels with her! The Three Bees was at anchor for some days in Port Jackson near Government House. She was then discovered on fire and known to be carrying thirty casks of gunpowder. Rumours quickly circulated that she held 130 casks of powder. Governor Macquarie summed up the situation, "with this crisis, little short of the total destruction of the Town of Sydney was expected every moment to take place by the explosion of the magazine. The alarm was so great that numbers of the Inhabitants deserted their houses and escaped into the country to avoid being buried in its ruins". Evidently the Governor himself was among those who left town. In a letter to a friend in England, Elizabeth Macarthur commented that "the inhabitants of Sydney fled from their houses after the example of the Governor!"
The Three Bees' fourteen fully loaded guns began to fire at random across town. Loaded with ball and grape-shot, there was no way of judging where they would strike - "first pointed upon one object and then another and every instant expected to blast all the buildings around or near her". The vessel drifted closer to shore. One swivel-ball crashed through the window of Captain Piper's parlour and shattered the corner of his writing desk. Engulfed in flames, the Three Bees drifted across to the present site of the Opera House. The inhabitants of Sydney expected the magazine to blow at any time. After two hours waiting in fear, the explosion came, but was thankfully dampened by water leaking into the hull. All was blamed on a boy who failed to properly extinguish a candle in the hold. The Three Bees burnt to the water's edge, becoming a total loss. The wreck site has not been located.
(Source: Shipwreck Atlas of New South Wales, pB38)
