DBWI: Australia colonized by the Brits?

I heard once that Australia could have been colonized by the British, but bad weather prevented them from getting close the shore. Apparently this happened to them more than once which makes it hard to believe, but there you go. I wonder what would have happened if the Brits had succeded with colonizing Australia.
 
.. I was under the impression that they did?
They did, in Our Timeline. But this is a DBWI (Double Blind What If) which is posted from the perspective of someone in an alternate timeline from ours.

In this case, this timeline didn't have the British colonise Australia.
 
Hi
In your DBWI who did colonize Australia?

Why, the French and the Dutch of course! Quite unique patterns of colonisation too, given that the Dutch have held onto Van Deimen's Land for quite some time. The French still managed to grab most of the south and east in the end, leaving the west (quite empty) for the Dutch to absorb later.

Back on topic, I suspect, given how colony-greedy Britain has proven to be, they would have claimed all of Australia for themselves. Remember they still have a formidable navy, it was just bad luck that caused them to lose out in our timeline.
 
It will be used as a prison colony.

Somehow I doubt it. While the Brits are prone to using convicts as colonisers (like how they swamped South Africa with Anglophonic settlers in our timeline to drown out the large Afrikaaner population), they are really only used as a base population. The prospect of a frontier land - that is new land ripe for the picking - is easy to advertise in Europe, even if advertised falsely.

(OOC: In OTL, Australia was only partially used as a penal colony. It's a common myth that it was solely used for that purpose).
 
I wonder how they would have treated the natives. The french part has them fairly integratedthey still have their own belief and helped in various war.
 
I wonder how they would have treated the natives. The french part has them fairly integratedthey still have their own belief and helped in various war.

Only as a result of deculturalisation. The Aboriginal Australians are still treated fairly poorly, if only because of their beliefs. The Dutch aren't much better. Perhaps it's because the natives don't have much to offer their European overlords, though I do wish the French especially would make more of an effort.

One thing I am pleased with is the fact that the thylacine was more or less saved from extinction by Dutch colonisation of Van Deimen's Land. As we can see through other French areas of colonisation, such as in Africa or Indochina, they aren't particularly savvy when it comes to conservation.
 
A lot of was just down to capacity and ability to do more than one thing at once. I know there was talk of sending a fleet to the eastern coast of Australia, but once the briefly united States of America fell into civil unrest and war, the British rightly decided it was better to spend their energy piecemeal picking off the disloyal 13 until British North America was once more united under the House of Hannover.

I do recall reading somewhere that some of the Loyalist Revolutionary families fled to the various Dutch colonies of Australia. In fact I think the current Stadholder of Nassau-Australia may be married to one of their descendants.
 
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