The extent from York Cape to South Cape is full 33 degrees of latitude, which are calculated of course at 691/2 English miles each.] To New South Wales England has the claim which a tacit consent has generally made decisive among the European States, that of prior discovery.

The whole of that Eastern coast, except the very Southern point, having been untouched by any navigator, till it was explored by Captain Cook.

This consideration, added to the more favourable accounts given of this side of the continent than of the other, was sufficient to decide the choice of the British government, in appointing a place for the banishment of a certain class of criminals.
The cause of the determination to send out in this manner the convicts under sentence of transportation, was, as is well known, the necessary cessation of their removal to America; and the inconveniences experienced in the other modes of destination adopted after that period.
Virginia, greatly in want, at its first settlement, of labourers to clear away the impenetrable forests which impeded all cultivation, was willing, from very early times, to receive as servants, those English criminals whom our Courts of Law deemed not sufficiently guilty for capital punishment.* The planters hired their services during a limited term; and they were latterly sent out under the care of contractors, who were obliged to prove, by certificates, that they had disposed of them, according to the intention of the law.
[* Banishment was first ordered as a punishment for rogues and vagrants, by statute 39 Eliz.ch.4.See Blackst.Com.IV.chap.31.

But no place was there specified.

The practice of transporting criminals to America is said to have commenced in the reign of James I; the year 1619 being the memorable epoch of its origin: but that destination is first expressly mentioned in 18 Car.II.ch.