Page "Republicanism in Australia" Paragraph 40

The founding of the British penal colony at Sydney Cove in 1788 was in the geopolitical context of the revolution in the American colonies in 1776 and a year before the French revolution of 1789.

The Anti-Transportation League, a group founded in 1849 which was opposed to the transportation of convicts to Australia, argued that such a " Fenian " colony could separate from the British Empire, due to its then largely Irish Catholic make up.