Just learned Australia is a penal colony and 20% of their population were descended from criminals from UK, for the crimes
Grand Larceny, theft above the value of one shilling. Petty Larceny, theft under one shilling. Buying or receiving stolen goods, jewels, and plate... Stealing lead, iron, or copper, or buying or receiving. Impersonating an Egyptian. Stealing from furnished lodgings. Setting fire to underwood. Stealing letters, advancing the postage, and secreting the money. Assault with an intent to rob. Stealing fish from a pond or river. Stealing roots, trees, or plants, or destroying them. Bigamy. Assaulting, cutting, or burning clothes. Counterfeiting the copper coin... Clandestine marriage. Stealing a shroud out of a grave. Watermen carrying too many passengers on the Thames, if any drowned. Incorrigible rogues who broke out of Prison and persons reprieved from capital punishment. Embeuling Naval Stores, in certain cases. (19 Crimes, “Crimes”)
My ancestor retired from the military after they beat Napoleon's ass and then took up a job as a marine escorting prisoners to Australia. The perk of the job was that he was given a plot of land to settle. Everyone else in the family were either shearers or gold miners.
it's roaming with a lot more wild horses, goats, and kangaroos
Isaiah Howard
that explains a lot about the way they act
Camden Bailey
>Setting fire to underwood >From 1750, the privatisation of common land in England limited peasants’ access to resources such as firewood and game. In defiance of the law, the rural poor burned the newly “enclosed” forests and deer parks. From the 1790s, arson became an increasingly frequent weapon of rural protest.
