Watkin Tench served as a Marine officer on one of the vessels of the First Fleet and recorded his observations of the voyage in A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay. Tench also wrote of the subsequent settlement in New South Wales in A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson. These accounts are among the most important documents of early settlement in Australia, giving an insight into the early colonial settlement, as told through the keen eyes of a curious young man.