Post by Waverley on Jan 16, 2008 10:31:28 GMT 1
Explorers in the second half of the seventeen hundreds were going south to the mystery continent we call Australia. The continent was unexplored by its existence was known and by the time the British arrived the Dutch had long called it New Holland. But the coast was virtually uncharted.
In 1768 James Cook was given command of the Endeavour to sail with members of the Royal Society to the Pacific - officially to observe the planet Venus. He had secret orders to look for the southern continent, Australia. The voyage was gale ridden in the Pacific; in Tahiti, many in his ship suffered from venereal disease, a few junior officers tried to desert.
Eventually, on 7 October, 1769, the Endeavour sighted the eastern seaboard of New Zealand. They spent six months surveying the coast and then headed east, mainly because Endeavour was in no state to tackle Cape Horn. This is how on All Fools day 1770 they sighted what we call New South Wales. Cook at first called the landing place Stingray Bay after the marine life. But when he was told about the abundant flora, he re-named it, Botany Bay.
The Endeavour returned to England in 1771 with 38 fewer hands than the 94 she'd sailed with. Cook's second voyage, in Resolution, took him further south into the Antarctic than any navigator had gone. Another three year voyage. His third voyage, in Discovery, with William Bligh as his sailing master, was to be his last. He died in the Pacific Islands, at the hands of islanders.
Britain colonised Australia as somewhere to dump criminals. The idea was twofold: it would be a way of getting rid of some of them and the thought of transportation to a remote and hard land would act as a deterrent. The latter did not work. Some minor villains committed felonies in the hope of being deported to Australia.
The Whig law reformer Sir Samuel Romilly in 1810 said it was a bold and unpromising project to establish a new colony which should consist entirely of the "outcasts of society and the refuse of mankind". It had never been tried before. Transporting criminals was hardly new, but setting up a penal colony was, certainly on the scale envisaged when New South Wales was established for that purpose in 1788 when the first 750 felons arrived.
Originally, the whole of Australia other than Western Australia was called New South Wales. At the time, there were many doubts that the British could afford to protect and maintain her colonies. Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham both said the empire was too expensive. Colonial planner Sir James MacKintosh thought Britain would collapse beneath her empire because she could not afford to defend it. An 1812 Government Finance Committee thought that the empire though desirable, was draining resources. Yet the British remained committed to empire and determined to maintain Australia as a colony for criminals.
Phillip King, who became governor of New South Wales in 1800 said that the colony consisted chiefly of those who sold rum and those who drank it. How the convict was treated depended very much on the colony's governor. Thomas Brisbane was tough, Ralph Darling was strict, William Bligh (he of the Bounty) was a disciplinarian and held hostage in prison during a rebellion against his rule. At the other extreme was the liberal Richard Bourke. Whoever the governor and whatever the choices, there was an 18th century Calvinist belief that the brawny penance of deportation to Australia was good for the criminals' souls and potentially redemptive.
In 1768 James Cook was given command of the Endeavour to sail with members of the Royal Society to the Pacific - officially to observe the planet Venus. He had secret orders to look for the southern continent, Australia. The voyage was gale ridden in the Pacific; in Tahiti, many in his ship suffered from venereal disease, a few junior officers tried to desert.
Eventually, on 7 October, 1769, the Endeavour sighted the eastern seaboard of New Zealand. They spent six months surveying the coast and then headed east, mainly because Endeavour was in no state to tackle Cape Horn. This is how on All Fools day 1770 they sighted what we call New South Wales. Cook at first called the landing place Stingray Bay after the marine life. But when he was told about the abundant flora, he re-named it, Botany Bay.
The Endeavour returned to England in 1771 with 38 fewer hands than the 94 she'd sailed with. Cook's second voyage, in Resolution, took him further south into the Antarctic than any navigator had gone. Another three year voyage. His third voyage, in Discovery, with William Bligh as his sailing master, was to be his last. He died in the Pacific Islands, at the hands of islanders.
Britain colonised Australia as somewhere to dump criminals. The idea was twofold: it would be a way of getting rid of some of them and the thought of transportation to a remote and hard land would act as a deterrent. The latter did not work. Some minor villains committed felonies in the hope of being deported to Australia.
The Whig law reformer Sir Samuel Romilly in 1810 said it was a bold and unpromising project to establish a new colony which should consist entirely of the "outcasts of society and the refuse of mankind". It had never been tried before. Transporting criminals was hardly new, but setting up a penal colony was, certainly on the scale envisaged when New South Wales was established for that purpose in 1788 when the first 750 felons arrived.
Originally, the whole of Australia other than Western Australia was called New South Wales. At the time, there were many doubts that the British could afford to protect and maintain her colonies. Adam Smith and Jeremy Bentham both said the empire was too expensive. Colonial planner Sir James MacKintosh thought Britain would collapse beneath her empire because she could not afford to defend it. An 1812 Government Finance Committee thought that the empire though desirable, was draining resources. Yet the British remained committed to empire and determined to maintain Australia as a colony for criminals.
Phillip King, who became governor of New South Wales in 1800 said that the colony consisted chiefly of those who sold rum and those who drank it. How the convict was treated depended very much on the colony's governor. Thomas Brisbane was tough, Ralph Darling was strict, William Bligh (he of the Bounty) was a disciplinarian and held hostage in prison during a rebellion against his rule. At the other extreme was the liberal Richard Bourke. Whoever the governor and whatever the choices, there was an 18th century Calvinist belief that the brawny penance of deportation to Australia was good for the criminals' souls and potentially redemptive.