If the Cook Expedition disappeared, how long until settlement of Australia?

Just as it sounds.

Any ideas for butterflies in Pacific?

France was exploring the region but would soon be facing the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars and was unlikely to start anything so adventurous for decades.

Would Britain be so quick to ship hundreds of prisoners across the world to the opposite side of an unexplored continent?

Would the French Revolution derail any further British colonization for decades as well?

Thanks.
 
I've read that global naval strategy in the age of sail was the reason Australia was colonised. So perhaps the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars would be the stimulus to explore and colonise Australia anyway if Cook went missing, it could be done prior to 1800 due to the urgency.
 
I've read that global naval strategy in the age of sail was the reason Australia was colonised. So perhaps the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars would be the stimulus to explore and colonise Australia anyway if Cook went missing, it could be done prior to 1800 due to the urgency.

Interesting. Wouldn't the FR end such a fear as the French navy was destroyed by the republic's guillatine?

Spain was an ally for much of this period. There were no other contender at sea especially in the pacific.

Despite the drama of Trafalgar, I do not believe the issue of british naval power wa ever really in doubt.

who would a british pacific fleet fight in australia?
 
It's not all about fights, but there are a couple of East India Companies and other possible armed actors around in the late 1700s that would require some naval effort to guard against. We're not talking Nelson here, just a frigate or two needing resupply and a safe berth.
 

raharris1973

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Interesting OP you have here.

It kind of creates a tabula rasa that you can fill in with what you like.

For instance, if you want a convergent TL, you can have colonization set up in during the French revolutionary wars of the 1790s, or the Napoleonic Wars, but maybe the area not started as a penal colony?

If you want to create an adventure story you could have the British decide to send a relief expedition after Cook within the decade of his departure. Maybe they could even find him alive shipwrecked somewhere. "Captain Cook, I presume?"

But, if you want to maximize divergence you can say the window is missed until the Napoleonic Wars end, and only afterward is Australia colonized, and perhaps not for penal colony reasons, and perhaps with a more diverse set of colonizers.
 
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Thanks, all.

I've been toying around with the idea that, for one reason or another, Britain never colonized Australia at this time.

Maybe they found another place to dump their prisoners (Caribbean, South Africa, etc) that would be cheap.

I may start another thread asking if Britain had never gained such a dominant position in India, would they still have attempted to colonize australia in the 18th century.
 

raharris1973

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this is worthy of being further explored, but I think others are better versed in antipodal and British history than I.
 
The reason why the British settled Australia was because they need to get rid of convicts.This need was made much urgent after the loss of the American colonies.
 
The reason why the British settled Australia was because they need to get rid of convicts.This need was made much urgent after the loss of the American colonies.

They still had a dozen Caribbean colonies, Guyana, a few decades later South Africa. Any of these would be a far cheaper dumping ground than shipping them a 10 month journey to Australia.
 
Alt Hist: it's a nitpick, but...
Britain got hold of Guiana at the same time (within a couple years) as South Africa.

Still, your point holds. they didn't need Australia to dump convicts, they needed convicts to dump on Australia and have british subjects there. Probably would have been far cheaper to buy the convict a one way ticket to anywhere, put them on a ship, and leave a footprint on their backside. But then they couldn't have claimed they had colonized Australia.
 
The reason why the British settled Australia was because they need to get rid of convicts.This need was made much urgent after the loss of the American colonies.

They could have easily sent them to Canada. They just wanted to colonize Australia and who better to recruit for that long, long voyage than people who can't say no?
 
Alt Hist: it's a nitpick, but...
Britain got hold of Guiana at the same time (within a couple years) as South Africa.

Still, your point holds. they didn't need Australia to dump convicts, they needed convicts to dump on Australia and have british subjects there. Probably would have been far cheaper to buy the convict a one way ticket to anywhere, put them on a ship, and leave a footprint on their backside. But then they couldn't have claimed they had colonized Australia.

Good point on Guyana. I'm still not sure of British motivations for controlling Australia.

Maybe Canada (i.e. British Columbia) might have been a more logical area to develope.

Note that there was always a demand for Europeans of any kind in the Caribbean to balance out the slave populaton. Also, some islands, like St. Kitts, Trinidad, etc, were really condusive to plantation slavery and really didn't develope a sustainable population until later.

At 1/4 the expense, a few tens of thousands of petty criminals might have faced a shorter journey with more immediate benefity to the mother country. Of course, yellow fever would have taken a toll, which would have indirectly ended much of the problem.
 
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