Queen Elizabeth I

Leading social reformers of the day assumed that the best way to eliminate crime was to remove these criminals from society.

" Transportation" (ссылка преступников) as a punishment had been established in 1717, when most felons (преступники) sentenced (приговоренные) to transportation were sent to the American colonies. Planters (плантаторы) in Americaneeded labor force to do the work. They used slaves brought from Africa and convicts. Between 1718 and 1770 about 30, 000 convicts were transported to the British colonies in America.

In 1776 the Americans fought a war with the British and won their freedom to govern themselves. Britain no longer had a place to send convicts. Until a place could be found to send them they were confined (заключены) in the hulks (корпус старого корабля, непригодного к плаванию) of old navy ships anchored (стоящий на якоре) along the banks of the Thames.

As the prison population increased, it was decided to use hulks them as gaols (тюрьмы). Parliament authorised their use for a two-year period in 1776; they continued to house prisoners for 82 years!

The conditions on the ships were terrible, far worse than in the prisons. The standards of hygiene were so poor that outbreaks of disease spread quickly. Typhoid and cholera were common and there was a high death rate amongst the prisoners.

In the day time the Convicts were put to hard labour. At night the prisoners were chained to their bunks (койка) to prevent them escaping ashore.

In 1786 the government decided to send convicts to the east coast of Australia, to Botany Bay - the place Captain Cook had visited in 1770. This seems an expensive solution to the problem. Running (содержать) a jail nearly twenty thousand kilometers away would cost the government a lot of money. The British, however, saw other advantages in starting a settlement at Botany Bay. They planned to grow flax (лен) to make sailcloth (парусина) for ships, and to harvest the tall pine trees (сосна) on nearby Norfolk Island to make masts (мачты).

The British also wanted a new base for their trade with China. A settlement at Botany Bay would also be useful in case of war with the Dutch or the French who had interests in the region.

For all of these reasons the British government in 1787 sent 759 convicts to Botany Bay. Over the next seventy years, about 160, 000 people were sent to Australia: men, women and children, sometimes as young as nine years old. In Australia, the convicts were assigned to either the government or to traders as labor.