ABSTRACT
The transportation o f convicts to the Am erican plantations came to an end with the Am erican Revolution and, for the next fourteen years, Britain ’s legislators debated the pros and cons o f various projected penal settlements: the East and West Indies, the Falkland Islands, G ibraltar, Gam bia, Senegal, South Africa, Nova Scotia, India, M adagascar, Tristan da Cunha, New Caledonia, Tunis and Algiers. In 1790, New South Wales was finally chosen as the site o f the new settlement and before the turn o f the century two further establishments were opened in Newcastle, Australia and in Van D iem an’s Land (Tasmania).
