First Fleet

After the initial transfer to the Scarborough, Andrew Goodwin and his fellow convicts spent a further three months below decks in irons because of delays in embarkation. Letitia Munro was transferred to the Prince of Wales. The fleet“…did not leave Portsmouth until 13 May 1787, and even then it was so hastily got together that, despite Phillip’s care, some important items – for example, clothing for the women convicts – were left behind.”2As the ships made their way out it must have been a relief to those chained below that they were finally underway, and yet they must have also experienced the anxiety associated with their effective exile from nearly everything they had ever known. They were left with the military discipline of their gaolers, what we now know of as the penal system. Andrew and Lydia had the ability to survive this whole new society based on law, and lawlessness, and contribute to the seeding of Australia.They were going to a location essentially on the other side of the earth, an unknown landscape. For Andrew his world consisted of theScarborough, the second largest of the first fleet ships at 111 feet (35 metres) long and 30 feet (10 metres) wide. She weighed 430 tons, and was built 5 years earlier in 1782 as a two-decked three masted vessel. Re-rigged as a barque, she made the trip to Australia twice as a prison ship. On her first trip she carried 208 convicts.3Letitia's transport, the Prince of Wales, was a three masted two decker brig about 31 metres long. Along with the Lady Penrhyn she was one of the newest vessels in the fleet.4