Volume I of The Australians. After the successful struggle for independence by the North American colonies, Britain chose Botany Bay, the last distant frontier, to be home to thousands of convicts. Would this be the journey's end for young Jenny Taggart? Her father was long dead - murdered by the landlord - and she and her mother had been thrown off their land. They fled to London and like all poor country people forced to do the same, were totally unprepared for what they found there. She grew up in a pub, frequented by low-life of all description. After her mother was imprisoned for harbouring a highwayman, it seemed things could not get worse - until Jenny is wrongfully accused of receiving stolen goods and sentenced to transportation as a convict to New South Wales. In this new land, Australia, she used her farming skills remembered from childhood while eagerly learning from the Aborigines and building a new life for herself.