I wrote:
>English who colonized Australia were convicts expelled from England.
Mostly not, in fact.
.................
More exactly (if anyone cares), I find that:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~perthdps/convicts/res-03.html
13/05/1787
The 11 ships of the FIRST FLEET left Portsmouth under
the command of Capt Arthur Phillip. Different accounts
give varying numbers of passengers but the fleet
consisted
of at least 1,350 souls of whom 780 were convicts and
570
were freemen, women and children and the number
included four companies of marines. About 20% of the
convicts were women and the oldest convict was 82. About
50% of the convicts had been tried in Middlesex and most
of the rest were tried in the county assizes of
Devon, Kent
and Sussex.
18/01/1788
The fleet arrived in Botany Bay but the landing party
was
not impressed with the site, and moved the fleet to Port
Jackson and settled in Sydney Cove on 26/01/1788.
1790
SECOND FLEET of convicts arrived.
1791
THIRD FLEET of convicts arrived.
1793
First free settlers arrived.
................................................
The numbers of free settlers swiftly outstripped the cons:
http://www.dfat.gov.au/facts/intro.html
>Transportation of British convicts to New South Wales ceased in 1840, but
continued to Western Australia until 1868. About 160 000 convicts arrived
over 80 years. That compares with free settler arrivals as high as 50 000 a
year. [etc]
Damien Broderick
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