A moving, handsomely-wrought relic of the commander of the First Fleet transport Borrowdale: this is the fob seal he would have carried on board with, on one side, a neatly engraved depiction of the ship and, on the reverse, his monogrammed initials "H.R." (for Hobson Reed). One of only a handful of extant personal items known to have belonged to a First Fleeter, the depiction of the Borrowdale itself, one of the most elusive of the First Fleet vessels, is particularly significant.

A moving, handsomely-wrought relic of the commander of the First Fleet transport Borrowdale: this is the fob seal he would have carried on board with, on one side, a neatly engraved depiction of the ship and, on the reverse, his monogrammed initials "H.R." (for Hobson Reed). One of only a handful of extant personal items known to have belonged to a First Fleeter, the depiction of the Borrowdale itself, one of the most elusive of the First Fleet vessels, is particularly significant.

Under Reed's command the Borrowdale made the voyage to Botany Bay without any undue alarm, and although there were several fatalities among the crew on the difficult return voyage, necessitating a brief stay in Rio while many on board recuperated, the ship was in fact one of the first two vessels to return to England in March 1789. Two very rare printed items relate specifically to the voyage, the first a broadside in the Mitchell Library by one of the crew Richard Williams, the second a poetic elegy for Reed himself.

A little is known about Reed personally, an urbane and professional sea-captain, strongly suggesting that this would have been a gift from his immediate circle as a charm for the voyage, perhaps from the owners of the ship, or his family and friends. Well-crafted, it gives a good representation of the basic lines of the three-master, a small collier of some 272 tons. Reed took over command of the vessel before April 1785, and plied the collier-route to London until late 1786, when the ship was hired by the Navy Board as a store ship for the First Fleet. Tragically, the ship was his last command: the Borrowdale returned to England in March 1789, and a short seven months later was lost in a storm on the Norfolk coast during which Reed himself drowned.

The most striking part of the fob is the engraved swivel with the caption "Success to the Borrowdale", done in a mid-Georgian style and firmly naming the ship, the only vessel under that name registered by Lloyds in the First Fleet period. The homily "Success to the…" became popular in the 1780s and 1790s, often issued on trade tokens and similar mementoes hoping to bring luck to everything from "the City of Norwich" to the "Coal Trade", and much else besides.

The phrase "Success to the…" was particularly adopted by sailors, and used on personal sweetheart tokens and medallions of the era (there are numerous examples in Sim Comfort's book of these wonderful tokens). The most significant comparison is with the only other known example of an envoi token for a First Fleet vessel, "Success to the Friendship 1787", in honour of the convict ship of that name, now at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, (E4938-1/2), which likewise has the ship on one side and the master's initials on the other. The fob-seal does not seem to be of London manufacture, and was quite likely made around Sunderland, where the Borrowdale was launched in 1784, and where Reed lived. Its association with a civilian commander rather than an officer of the Royal Navy may explain its manufacture in a more utilitarian metal rather than the more sophisticated carnelian or precious stones commonly used by grander figures.