A few days ago I heard someone sing a few verses of the song that's in the DT as BOTANY BAY (3) and I've had the cursed thing as an earworm on and off ever since. It prompts some questions.

Why did the songs keep Botany Bay as the destination, despite the First Fleet having stopped there only briefly before deciding that it was an unsuitable location and moving on to what became Sydney? This song dates from a century later - see this posting.

It's a jolly singalong kind of song, perhaps appropriate for some of the convicts for whom transportation offered a prospect of a better life than at home, but surely not for the majority. Why did it become and remain so popular? (Maybe whatever has caused it to stay in my head this week has done the same for others.)

One verse refers to "the first and the second class passengers" on the ship. Were convicts ever transported on the same ships as paying passengers?

Richard