I have been studying how I may compare
This prison where I live unto the world:
And, for because the world is populous,
And here is not creature but myself,
I cannot do it; - yet I'll hammer't out.

Shakespeare, Richard II, V.v.

The very day we landed upon the Fatal Shore,
The planters stood around us, full twenty score or more;
They ranked us up like horses and sold us out of hand,
They chained us up to pull the plough, upon Van Dieman's Land.

Convict ballad, ca. 1825-30

The idea for this book occurred to me in 1974, when I was working on a series of television documentaries about Australian art.

In 1787, the twenty-eith year of the reign of King George III, the British Government sent a fleet to colonize Australia.