“Oh! I see,” said Harry, “that is a very good joke when you come to know all about it. What did the clerk of the hotel say to the inquiring stranger?”
“I don’t know,” replied Ned, “but I presume he told him that Sydney ducks had gone out of fashion, and were not being shot any more. Probably he let the man down as gently as possible.”
“How did the convicts come to have the name of Sydney ducks?” Harry asked.
“I can’t tell you, I am sure,” said Ned, “you will have to ask the doctor about it.”
“The name came, no doubt,” said Dr. Whitney, “from the circumstance that the first convicts who were brought to Australia were landed at Sydney, and for a good many years Sydney was the principal depot of these involuntary emigrants. The adoption of Australia as the place for convict settlement was brought about by events in America, a statement which may surprise you.”
“It certainly is surprising,” Harry remarked. “How did it happen?”
“It came about in this way,” the doctor continued; “when America was subject to England, offenders of various kinds, whether political or criminal, were sent to the American colonies, principally to the Southern States and the West Indies, where they were chiefly employed in the cultivation of tobacco. The consumption of tobacco in England was very large, and the revenue derived from it was considerable. Consequently England was able to kill two birds with one stone; she got rid of her criminals, at the same time, and made a large profit on their work.
“When the American colonies revolted in 1775, and gained their independence eight years later, England found herself deprived of a place to which she could send her convicts, and she looked around for another. She tried the coast of Africa, and found it too unhealthy for her purpose. Captain Cook had recently visited Australia and given a glowing account of it, and the government officials thought that this new country would be an excellent one for criminals. Orders were given for sending out a fleet of ships for that purpose; and, accordingly, eleven vessels, carrying more than one thousand people, sailed for Portsmouth in the month of March, 1787, with orders to proceed to Australia.”
“If England had known what was to happen,” said Harry, “she need not have been at the trouble of sending her criminals so far away; she might have kept on with America with only slight interruptions. She is sending us her criminals and paupers at present, though she does not designate them properly when she ships them, and most of the continental nations are doing the same thing. We are trying to prevent it, but I don’t believe we succeed to a very great extent.”
“Did they send a thousand convicts to Australia in this first batch?” queried Ned.