http://www.historyaustralia.org.au/ifhaa/ships/1stfleet.htm
Australia was colonized from the north, from the Southeast Asian landmass, across what are now Indonesia and Malaysia. Fossils of Homo erectus found in Java in the 19th century by Eugene Dubois were proposed as possible ancestors of the first Australians. Research has established that Homo erectus was in Java 1.74 million years ago. Skeletons in southeast Asia less than 100,000 years old are rare. Wadjak from java, Niah from Sarawak and Tabon from Palawan are all about 100,000 years old. 
The Endeavour sailed into Botany Bay on 28 April 1770. The crew sighted four small canoes, each with one man aboard, "very busily employed in striking fish with a long pike or spear." (p. 492) The boat passed within a quarter of a mile of the men, but, "possibly being deafened by the surf, and their attention wholly fixed upon their business," the aborigines neither saw nor heard them.
http://www.angelfire.com/country/AustralianHistory/tablecontents.htmThe ship anchored "abreast of a small village." A woman came out of the woods, followed by three children. "She often looked at the ship, but expressed neither fear nor surprise: ... she kindled a fire, and the four canoes came in from fishing. The men landed, and having hauled up their boats, began to dress their dinner, to all appearance wholly unconcerned about us, though we were within half a mile of them." (p. 492)
After dinner, the Endeavour's boat was put out to go ashore to get water. The crew hoped the natives would continue to pay them scant attention but "as soon as we approached the rocks two of the men came down upon them to dispute our landing, and the rest ran away. Each of the two champions was armed with a lance about ten feet long, and a short stick which he seemed to handle as if it was a machine to assist him in managing or throwing the lance: they called to us in a very loud tone, and in a harsh dissonant language. ... they brandished their weapons, and seemed resolved to defend their coast to the uttermost, though they were but two and we were forty." (pp. 492-3)
Cook commented, "I could not but admire their courage."
Captain Cook
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Hanging by the neck as form of capital punishment was introduced to Great Britain by the Anglo-Saxon invaders of the fifth century. By the tenth century it had become a common method of execution.
William the Conqueror decreed that hanging should only be used for conspirators or in times of war and ordered that criminals should instead be castrated and have their eyes put out.Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria was the only lord to be formally executed during his reign.
William Rufus (William II) re-introduced hanging but only for those found guilty of poaching royal deer. He too is known to have executed only a single aristocrat, William of Aldrie.
Henry I brought hanging back as the main means of execution for many crimes.
William Fitz Osbern was the first recorded execution at Tyburn in 1196. The hanging tree (near present-day Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park) would later become notorious.
Under the reign of Henry VIII some 72,000 people are estimated to have been executed by various methods including boiling, burning at the stake, beheading and hanging with perhaps the added punishment of drawing and quartering.
Sir Samuel Romilly speaking to the House of Commons on capital punishment in 1810, declared that "..[there is] no country on the face of the earth in which there [have] been so many different offences according to law to be punished with death as in England."
Known as the "Bloody Code", at its height some 220 different crimes were punishable by death. These crimes included such offences as "being in the company of Gypsies for one month", "strong evidence of malice in a child aged 7–14 years of age" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime". Many of these offences had been introduced to protect the property of the wealthy classes that emerged during the first half of the eighteenth century; a notable example being the Black Act of 1723 which created fifty capital offences for various acts of theft and poaching.
Whilst executions for murder, burglary and robbery were common, the death sentences of minor offenders were often not carried out. However, children were commonly executed for such minor crimes as stealing. A sentence of death could be commuted or respited (permanently postponed) for reasons such as benefit of clergy, official pardons, pregnancy of the offender or performance of military or naval duty[1] Many believed the situation to be a farce[citation needed].
Reform
In 1808 Romilly had the death penalty removed from pickpocketing and other trivial offences and started reform that continued over the next 50 ye
Hulks or prison ships, where hundreds of prisoners awaiting transportation, men. women and children were confined, cramped behind bars and often with leg-irons. The stench from the hulk was smelled onshore hundreds of yards away. The weakest died before the start and more during the voyage. Only the lucky or the hardy ever reached New South Wales, then known as Botany bay.
email: cwok66@hotmail.com
Holding a musket in this manner was not recommended, as you were liable to "ave yer bloody 'ead blown off" when you bent down to adjust your spats.
The bayonet was useful to prick the backsides of convicts, who were not working hard enough for the King of England,(Mad King Billy.)
Irish convicts were whipped for speaking to each other in their native tongue.
Aborigines were kept away with musket shots that sometimes missed. Female convicts guilty of misdemeanours, were whipped, chained together and sometimes tied to a dog (the purpose of which is not stated.) Even marines found guilty of stealing food or rum, were hung by the neck until dead, usually by strangulation.
Above: A Marine of what was soon known as the "Rum Corps," adept at trading in that commodity and drinking the profits, (rum, of course.)
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These convict quarters of the First Fleet had been used to transport black slaves to the American colonies and the West indies.
Many convicts died but the loss of life in the First Fleet was far less than in the Third fleet.
The Fleet arrived in Cape Town on 13 October after an uneventful trip of 39 days. I might add that there was a hiccup in Cape Town Harbour when one of the convicts, by name Phoebe Norton, [definitely a lady of quality] fell into the harbour whilst using the outside latrine of one of the transports. She was fished out by one of the sailors, none the worse for wear!!
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