First Fleet arrives in Australia

The First Fleet’s arrival in Australia in January 1788 founded the British convict colony of New South Wales and turned the eastern seaboard into a distant destination for people Britain could no longer transport to the newly independent United States. The voyage also exposed the limits of British legal inclusion: among the convicts carried to the colony were Henry and Susannah Cable, whose family had been reunited by a charitable campaign, only to find that their parcel of supplies had vanished and that British law offered them little recourse.

Why Britain chose Australia

After the American colonies became independent in 1783, Britain could no longer rely on them as a destination for convicted criminals. Officials considered sending convicts to West Africa, but malaria and yellow fever made the climate so deadly to Europeans that the region was dismissed as the white man’s graveyard. Australia offered a more distant alternative with a temperate climate.

The eastern coast had been explored by James Cook. On April 29, 1770, he landed at Botany Bay, naming it for the rich variety of species found by the naturalists travelling with him. British officials later regarded the inlet as a suitable location for a penal colony: it was temperate and, from Britain’s perspective, remote enough to be out of sight and mind.

The fleet and the new colony

In January 1788, eleven ships carrying convicts set out for Botany Bay under the command of Arthur Phillip. On January 26, the expedition established its camp at Sydney Cove, at the heart of what is now Sydney. The settlers named their new colony New South Wales; January 26 is now celebrated as Australia Day.

The arrival was not simply the movement of a fleet to a faraway shore. It began a colonial settlement through the transportation of people whom British authorities had removed from their former homes. The Cables’ story, unfolding within the fleet’s passage, makes that human dimension concrete: the colony’s founding carried families as well as convicts, and its promises of a new start were entangled with coercion and legal vulnerability.

The Cable family aboard the Alexander

Henry and Susannah Cable travelled on the Alexander, captained by Duncan Sinclair, with their young son, also named Henry. Susannah had been convicted of theft and initially sentenced to death; her sentence was commuted to fourteen years’ transportation to the American colonies. When that destination became unavailable after independence, she was selected in 1787 for transportation to Australia with the first fleet.

Henry, whom Susannah had met and fallen in love with in Norwich Castle Jail, was not initially selected. By then the couple had a young child, and Susannah’s removal to a prison boat moored on the Thames threatened to separate the family. News of the impending separation reached the philanthropist Lady Cadogan, who organized a successful campaign to have Henry transported with Susannah and their son. She also raised £20 to buy goods for the family to receive in Australia.

The missing parcel and the limits of law

The Cables sailed together, but when they reached Botany Bay their parcel was missing. Captain Sinclair claimed that it had vanished. The book presents the loss as more than a failed delivery: British convicts had practically no legal rights. They could not own property, sue in court, or give evidence there. Sinclair knew the Cables could not sue him and boasted that they had no legal case; although the text says he probably stole the parcel, it notes that he never admitted doing so.

In Britain, the matter would have ended with the convicts unable to challenge the captain. In Australia, however, a writ was issued to David Collins, the judge advocate. It described the parcel as clothes and other articles suited to the family’s circumstances, purchased through charitable contributions for Henry, his wife, and child. It also recorded that repeated requests to Sinclair had produced only a small portion of the goods—a few books—while the more valuable remainder was still aboard the Alexander. The fleet’s arrival thus introduced both a new settlement and a local legal contest over whether people denied standing in Britain could seek redress in the colony.