There are two main arguments that attempt to distinguish the motivations behind the foundation of Australia as a colony. Firstly, and traditionally, there exists the argument that Australia was settled foremostly as a penal colony for British convicts. After the loss of America as the recipient of Britain’s unwanted criminals, Australia appealed to the Georgian government as an alternative that slackened the impact of over-crowding in British jails and prison hulks.
Secondly, as Blainey argues, Australia was founded more because of the material gain envisioned from natural sources that were available in Australia, and the location of a new port near one of the most profitable trading areas at the time. A port at Botany Bay could provide a new sea base England to provision ships with commodities such as flax and pine wood, and also provide as easy way to break into the Dutch monopoly in trade in the Far East. Exporting convicts to colonise the early settlements achieved both the much-needed emptying of over-crowded British prisons, while also provided the colonies with a source of labour that could contribute to settling the land, and to production of sources for trade. Lord Sydney claimed that Australian penal colonies would be ‘reciprocally beneficial’, to English jails, and to English seapower.
Essentially, the traditional argument is based on the fact that Britain required a new trouble-free location to dump convicts. While this argument ignores other factors that may have influenced the foundation of colonies in Australia, these other factors were not as pressing as the need to re-house criminals. Colonising Australia realistically combined establishing a penal colony with other needs of the empire, such as claiming a new source of supplies of flax and pine, and creating a military base that was needed to provision and protect British ships trading in Far East.
Left: Prison hulk Success, [photograph] created between 1857 and 1918. This image displays one of the many ships of the fleet of prison hulks transporting convicts to Australia. The image also clearly displays the tall masts of Baltic pine, which were becoming difficult to aqcuire, a replacement for which was the Norfolk Island pine, growing profusely on islands surrounding Australia.
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