The First Fleet - 1787

The First Fleet was that which carried the first convicts to Australia to found a new colony.

‘The creaking hulks of rotten, rat-infested vermin in the Thames

Must be removed,’ the cry was heard;

‘The prison ships of groaning filth are rattling their chains!’

Gin soaked hags and dismal lags,

Felons in their petty way,

And Irish rebels on their knees will feel Brittania’s mighty sway.

 

‘The product of a nation’s waste, from gutter, inn and grimy port

Must not be seen,’ the righteous cry.

‘The slatterns from the tavern door must certainly be taught!’

Highwaymen and Jack the Dip

Are waiting for the gibbet cart,

While children thieves to sell as slaves can but await their barter.

 

Groaning underneath the weight of misery and malcontent

The First Fleet sailed, in eighty seven,

Spitting out from Spithead all the spite that British law could vent;

Bearing it a world away,

Shackled in the stinking hold

With curses falling on the air, they left dear England’s wanton fold.

 

The ‘Sirius’ was Phillip’s ship, a hundred feet in length throughout,

On this marines were safely decked;

But ‘Friendship’, ‘Charlotte’, ‘Prince of Wales’, and ‘Scarborough’ no doubt,

‘Alexander’, ‘Lady Penrhyn’

Echoed to those cries of pain that

Even now ring down the ages, screaming England’s mortal shame.

 

Cruelly tormented people, shuttered in and cast away

Who had to bide such bitter time

To found that ‘colony of thieves’ in distant New South Wales;

From your convict loins have sprung

The new-found nation’s hardy sons

Who look with pride, and stand beside the very first Australians.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Tate Morgan]

This is wonderful It is true and it tells it without white wash bravo daveI tip my hat to ye

[Dave Lounsbury]

wow, you have a great understanding of language and flow.
I'm not a big poem reader but this was very well written. Great job!