Cirrus@Austlit

'Among the vast body of manuscripts composed and collected by the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), held by UCL Library’s Special Collections, is the earliest Australian convict narrative, Memorandoms by James Martin. This document also happens to be the only extant first-hand account of the most well-known, and most mythologized, escape from Australia by transported convicts.

On the night of 28 March 1791, James Martin, William and Mary Bryant and their two infant children, and six other male convicts, stole the colony’s fishing boat and sailed out of Sydney Harbour. Within ten weeks they had reached Kupang in West Timor, having, in an amazing feat of endurance, travelled over 3,000 miles (c. 5,000) kilometres) in an open boat. There they passed themselves off as the survivors of a shipwreck, a ruse which—initially, at least—fooled their Dutch hosts.' (Publication Summary from the 2017 Edition)

'At dawn on Sunday 13 May 1787 an unusual convoy of 11 ships departed from Portsmouth. Within a few hours they had sailed into the Channel, intending to run down the western coasts of France and Spain, and to then head out into the Atlantic. The convoy’s final destination had long been a mirage in the European imagination, a land so odd that the ancient Greeks (only half-jokingly) believed its inhabitants walked on their hands.1 The First Fleet, as it became known, reached Tenerife on 3 June 1787, then sailed on to Rio de Janeiro. It arrived there in early August and remained for a month to take on supplies, reaching the Cape of Good Hope on 13 October 1787, five months to the day after leaving England.' (Introduction)

"Australian Studies is the journal of the British Australian Studies Association (BASA), which was established in 1982 to bring together individuals and institutions concerned with the study of Australia, and/or the teaching of Australian topics in secondary and tertiary education. ... Australian Studies has a multidisciplinary focus, with an interest in all aspects of Australian experience and endeavour. The journal's particular aim is to foster innovative critical approaches, and to encourage connections between traditionally discrete areas of research."
(Information derived from vol.14 nos.1 & 2, Summer/Winter 1999.)