But we should not forget the present of these diaries, the present of the diarists as they wrote them. Emigrants kept diaries, it was expected of them by family and friends, emigrant handbooks told them to, it was as much part of emigration culture as government depots, crossing the line, and plum duff. Yet while the diaries sent back or preserved for the future were finished artifacts of the voyage out, during the voyage they were incomplete, and it is that incompleteness that needs to be imagined when reading the diaries as we find them today.

Sailing to Australia. Shipboard Diaries by Nineteenth Century British Emigrants by Andrew Hassam (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1995)

Ships were houses on the move. They had something of the convenience of home with the advantage of enforced leisure. They enabled one to write the letters one would never have written otherwise. Despite the salt spray, the heaving deck, the stench and the poor rations, they offered, marginally superior conditions in which to record one's experience than a campsite in the bush.

The Road to Botany Bay: an essay in spatial history by Paul Carter (London: Faber, 1987)

1.3 million people travelled to Australia from the United Kingdom before 1880, most of them by sailing ship.

3.5 million people travelled to Australia from Europe between 1815 and 1930.

In 1851 the Highland and Islands Emigration society was established. It told people that their country could no longer support them, that emigration to Canada or Australia was the only course open to them. The proprietors of the new sheep runs supported this policy wholeheartedly.

Within two years the Society had sent 3000 assisted emigrants to Australia.

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