Parlons-Nous Aussais?
Apparently, if not for some espionage & subterfuge, Australia's European settlers could have come from France & not Britain...
The British colonising fleet arrived in Botany Bay only a few days before 2 French ships turned up with the same idea. They had been delayed looking for some fabled 'treasure' islands that featured on a map of the South Pacific, but didn't actually exist. Turns out the British made them up to distract the French... who fell for it hook, line, sinker, rod, reel & first 3 issues of Anglers Weekly, to paraphrase Kryten from Red Dwarf...
The other interesting thing is that Britain initially wasn't keen on the idea of colonising Australia, as it was too far away & would be too expensive (today the reverse is true, travelling to Britain from Australia is too far away & extremely expensive!!), but one of their American agents got wind of the French plan to build a new 'empire' in the South Pacific &, well, we couldn't have that!! So using the transportation of convicts as a cover story, the British hurried down under as fast as the trade winds would carry them
Either way, it was bad news for our First Australians, who died by the tens of thousands in the first 50 years of colonisation... There's no way of telling if the French would have been any better in their dealings with them, but I somehow doubt it
The British colonising fleet arrived in Botany Bay only a few days before 2 French ships turned up with the same idea. They had been delayed looking for some fabled 'treasure' islands that featured on a map of the South Pacific, but didn't actually exist. Turns out the British made them up to distract the French... who fell for it hook, line, sinker, rod, reel & first 3 issues of Anglers Weekly, to paraphrase Kryten from Red Dwarf...
The other interesting thing is that Britain initially wasn't keen on the idea of colonising Australia, as it was too far away & would be too expensive (today the reverse is true, travelling to Britain from Australia is too far away & extremely expensive!!), but one of their American agents got wind of the French plan to build a new 'empire' in the South Pacific &, well, we couldn't have that!! So using the transportation of convicts as a cover story, the British hurried down under as fast as the trade winds would carry them
Either way, it was bad news for our First Australians, who died by the tens of thousands in the first 50 years of colonisation... There's no way of telling if the French would have been any better in their dealings with them, but I somehow doubt it