"Botany Bay" in British Magazines, 1786–1791

Abstract

This article analyzes the numerous discussions of the "Botany Bay" colony printed in eighteenth-century British magazines in the first five years after the plan for the settlement was announced (1786–1791). Examining a range of characteristic genres, including informational articles, letters from readers, poems, and images, it argues that magazines' distinctively miscellaneous forms have a powerful effect on the material they present. Even as magazines highlight diverse viewpoints and emphasize the novelty and reliability of the information they provide, their continued reuse of old materials, and the striking contradictions between different pieces published within in each magazine, compromise their ability to serve as sites of meaningful debate about colonization or penal transportation.