The exile to the Australian colony was for 2 years
AGW,
I follow British colonial history in various parts of the globe, and have read a fantastically researched book by professor Grace Karskens,
called 'The Colony' covering from 1788-1830.
I distinctly recall that convicts sent to the colony of NSW in that period, were given 7 years Transportation (and 30 acres after their term was served
or commuted by the governor of the colony)...some were even given double that time in banishment from mother England....14 years transportation.
British soldiers who decided to settle in the colony, got the same amount of (30 acres) land grant as convicts ...British officers did a whole
lot better for themselves ,some notable ones receiving a number of lucrative land grants...ranging from hundreds to several thousands of acres.
The first Fleet had approx. 750 surviving convicts out of a total of just under 1500 people that arrived.
(approx 215 were British marines)
By about the 1840s Free settlers were keeping match with the convict influx numbers...by about 1850 the Oz population was
like 400,000 so convicts were already the minority....by 1860 pop. was about 1 million, convict population became a clear minority.
(about 160,000 convicts made it to Australia in total ,.. though not all for theft or forgery, assault, etc, ...The British were also
transporting political prisoners and other undesirables.)
In the 1820s-30s there was growing pressure from Free settlers to ban convict transport to Oz,...the new generation of settlers were
shunning the convict past of the colony and trying hard to bury it and distance themselves from it....A famous early convict , Mary Reiby,
who arrived as a teenager became very successful in business to become very wealthy...she was shunned by the new generation of settlers,
so much so she got fed up with being rejected by the new wave of cultural attitude, and moved out of Sydney Town to rural Newtown area,
building three new mansions, one for herself and one each for her two daughters....clearly money was no object, but money could not buy
her acceptance from the new generation of people flooding into the colony.
.... if you behaved, your family was allowed to immigrate and you were given 40 acres but were never allowed to return to England.
Names of convicts that returned to England from Australia, appeared in the British census to show that they did in fact return.
The Sydney Gazette also published names of convicts that declared they were returning to England.
