For much of the eighteenth century the British transported convicts to America, but when this became impossible after 1776 they turned to Australia, where by the 1820s some 3,000 were being transported every year. By the 1840s the number of private settlers had grown, and they began objecting to the continual arrival of convict shipments. Transportation began declining under the weight of public criticism at home and in Australia in the 1850s and came to an end in 1867.
