ONLY MEN ? ASIDE FROM SEAGULLS HOW MANY WHITE BIRDS WERE ON THE GROUND @ SYDNEY COVE ON 26 JANUARY 1788 – NONE
Tuesday, January 15th, 20191788 – Wednesday 6 February, Sydney Cove: ‘The day the convict women disembarked…they landed by rowing boats between 6 am and 6 pm.’ John Moore, First Fleet Marines 1786-1792, Queensland University Press, 1986
THE BACK STORY
1786 – 18 August, Westminster: Lord Sydney advised; ‘His Majesty has thought advisable to fix upon Botany Bay’.
1786 – 21 August, London: Admiralty informed Treasury; ‘orders had been issued for the transportation of 680 male convicts and 70 female convicts [amended] to New South Wales’.
1787 – 25 April, London: ‘We have ordered about 600 male and 180 female convicts…to the port on the coast of New South Wales…called Botany Bay.
And whereas, from the great disproportion of female convicts to those of males..and without sufficient proportion of that [female] sex it is well known that it be impossible to preserve the settlement from gross irregularities and disorders…it appears advisable that a further number…should be introduced’. Heads Of a Plan for Botany Bay, Historical Records of New South Wales. Vol. 1
1787 – 13 May, Portsmouth: A large armed convoy of eleven (11) ships, known in Britain and Australia as the ‘First Fleet’ commanded by Captain Arthur Phillip RN, with a complement of 1500 souls one-half convicted criminals – 570 men ‘rationed as troops serving in the West Indies‘ and 193 women camp-followers – sailed from Portsmouth England bound for Botany Bay, New Holland now Australia.
See: A Riddle When was an invasion fleet not an invasion fleet? When it is the First Fleet.