The Days of the Australian First Fleet

When I first traveled to Australia in 1989 and began studying Australian history, I was surprised that the early settlers of Australia – mostly convicts – survived to found a nation at all. The hardships they all underwent in the course of building the new colony are covered in detail in DEVON WAKEFIELD. Devon and Jonathan are, of course, fictional characters, but they, and many other characters in the book, undoubtedly had historical counterparts, who both loved and hated the new lands – and yet were willing to give themselves totally to building a new life there. Below is a series of contemporary drawings by artists living in the New South Wales of the First Fleet, which may give an idea of what life was really like back in the Australia of 1789.

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