Alan Frost: Bound to Botany Bay: Putting to Rest an Ancient Imperial Lie
[Frost is emeritus professor of history at La Trobe University in Melbourne. His previous books include The Voyage of the Endeavour, Arthur Phillip, 1738-1814: His Voyaging, Botany Bay Mirages and The Global Reach of Empire.]
...So we come to the central question: why did the Pitt administration decide to establish a convict colony at Botany Bay?...
To understand this choice, we have to look to the other factors, at the other historical contexts that I have analysed. These involved Britain's naval needs in the southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, and included the roles a settlement at Botany Bay might play in trade or war, as outlined by Matra and fellow supporter George Young in 1783.
It is true that, at the end of 1784, Richard Howe, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was sceptical about the envisaged benefits, although, significantly, he didn't rule out such a move, for he began his advice to home secretary Lord Sydney with: "Should it be thought advisable to increase the number of our settlements on the plan Mr M. Matra has suggested . . ." However, between December 1784 and August 1786 there were a number of planning and political developments that combined to make a colony in NSW seem advantageous. Indeed, it may not be an overstatement to say that these developments made it necessary that the British establish a colony in the region so as to obtain formal possession of it.
These developments included pressing military and material concerns, and the grand scheme formulated by Pitt, Henry Dundas, W.W. Grenville, Lord Mulgrave and Lord Hawkesbury to promote a massive expansion of British trade in the Indian and Pacific oceans, including with the countries of eastern Asia, the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the inhabitants of the northwest Pacific coast and the Kamchatka peninsula. To bring this scheme to fruition the politicians needed to carry out a number of interrelated projects: surveys of coastlines and islands, the creation of new bases along shipping routes, liberal new trading agreements with European nations and China (and, they hoped, Japan), and the reduction or removal of the monopolies of the East India Company and the South Sea Company.
It would take 30 years and two global conflicts for this scheme to be achieved. Nonetheless, Pitt and his colleagues began the task in the mid-1780s and pursued it into the early 1800s. The colonisation of NSW is part of this larger story....
Read entire article at The Australian
...So we come to the central question: why did the Pitt administration decide to establish a convict colony at Botany Bay?...
To understand this choice, we have to look to the other factors, at the other historical contexts that I have analysed. These involved Britain's naval needs in the southern Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans, and included the roles a settlement at Botany Bay might play in trade or war, as outlined by Matra and fellow supporter George Young in 1783.
It is true that, at the end of 1784, Richard Howe, the First Lord of the Admiralty, was sceptical about the envisaged benefits, although, significantly, he didn't rule out such a move, for he began his advice to home secretary Lord Sydney with: "Should it be thought advisable to increase the number of our settlements on the plan Mr M. Matra has suggested . . ." However, between December 1784 and August 1786 there were a number of planning and political developments that combined to make a colony in NSW seem advantageous. Indeed, it may not be an overstatement to say that these developments made it necessary that the British establish a colony in the region so as to obtain formal possession of it.
These developments included pressing military and material concerns, and the grand scheme formulated by Pitt, Henry Dundas, W.W. Grenville, Lord Mulgrave and Lord Hawkesbury to promote a massive expansion of British trade in the Indian and Pacific oceans, including with the countries of eastern Asia, the Spanish colonies in the Americas and the inhabitants of the northwest Pacific coast and the Kamchatka peninsula. To bring this scheme to fruition the politicians needed to carry out a number of interrelated projects: surveys of coastlines and islands, the creation of new bases along shipping routes, liberal new trading agreements with European nations and China (and, they hoped, Japan), and the reduction or removal of the monopolies of the East India Company and the South Sea Company.
It would take 30 years and two global conflicts for this scheme to be achieved. Nonetheless, Pitt and his colleagues began the task in the mid-1780s and pursued it into the early 1800s. The colonisation of NSW is part of this larger story....