A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of AustraliaIt was 1786 when Arthur Phillip, an ambitious captain in the Royal Navy, was assigned the formidable task of organizing an expedition to Australia in order to establish a penal colony. The squalid and turbulent prisons of London were overflowing, and crime was on the rise. Even the hulks sifting at anchor in the Thames were packed with malcontent criminals and petty thieves. So the English government decided to undertake the unprecedented move of shipping off its convicts to a largely unexplored landmass at the other end of the world. |
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... spear - holes in a native shelter in the bush . The natives used different weapons to administer different degrees of discipline . The spear used on the convict Ayres was designed to stick fast amidst bone and musculature and to be ...
... spear protruding from his back into his boat and brought across the harbour , bleeding a considerable amount on the way . " The boat had five miles to row before it reached the settlement , " wrote Collins . Indeed it had longer , for ...
... spear at a convict trying to scare the marauders away and wounded him . Led by Phillip , a small party went chasing the potato thieves , and two of them were found sitting with women by a fire . One threw a club , which the marines ...
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A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia Thomas Keneally No preview available - 2007 |