Week 3: A Commonwealth of Thieves

This book compiled with fulls of facts. I wonder how long did Keneally spend his time to write it as accurate as possible; and in the meantime he's trying to present it in like an adventure fiction. I assume he wants to make it accessible for every reader regardless of their knowledge in history. Then, when I looked at the bibliography section, there were a pile of sources used in rewriting the history. For instances, primary sources, secondary sources and electronic sites. Considering the amount of the sources used, there must be a lot of viewpoints, different interpretation and probably bias; however, he managed to keep the bias as little as possible and uses the information objectively. Instead, he let us to ponder by ourselves if what British was doing at that time was cruel or not and so forth.

"Terror of the Law" & Crime Rate
I think in the first chapters mostly, Keneally focuses more on daily life in London such as the crime rate and the law. The crime rate was very high that there were not enough space to place the convicts. They even had to use boats to place the prisoners. This is probably due to the exist of inequalities in distribution of wealth. Furthermore, for just a very petty crime, the punishment was severe enough to make the convict be executed or transported to outside of England. It also depends on the legislators. If they feel that the criminals should be executed, it shall be done; if for a same crime, they sent them to the prisons, and it shall be done. It was very unpredictable. However, the legislators' duty to impress others by the "terror of law" failed. In fact, like what we learned in the class, the crime rate kept increasing, a lot of convicts were executed every week and it became an entertainment program for the underclass as well as the upperclassman.

Prisoners & Population
I was surprise when Keneally mentioned that there were taproom in the prisons, access to prostitutes and most important, prisoners can pay the warder for a comfortable lodging and and services. Besides, there were a lot of visitors which then led the warder to charge them for entrance. It seems that the government was using an easy way to make money and the punishment given to the convicts did not have any impact. While reading the book, I think that British was very desperate to sentence the convicts to death or transported them outside of England. It seems England was running out of land, and implied that the population was very high that London became overcrowded. Perhaps, staying in the prison or settling down in British colonies might be a better choice. The overpopulation might also serve the purpose of colonization. Claim more lands and transfer their people there.

The Expedition and Arthur Phillips
Keneally puts Phillips in a good way even though he is writing about Phillips coming to colonize his country. I also searched about Keneally and apparently he is a strong advocate of Australian Republic, which wants to severe the ties with British Monarchy. In a way, he tries to keep bias as little as possible although he seems to not like British very much. A couple of instances which put Arthur in a positive light: he treated everyone equally- no matter who breaks the law, they would be beaten. He took care of his crewman by getting them food and clothing. He befriended the aborigines ( Bennelog). There are few situations which put him in a negative way. The way he punished the convicts (if I'm correct) using irons. Then, when the British government said the expedition was successful despite of 30 people died, was kind of upsetting. However, if we were to compare the number of death during this expedition and the number of convicts executed, it is a very small number. Besides, we can relate to the contribution of scientists -determining the longitude- which benefited the voyage and the government.

The Aborigines
The aborigines killed their infant. They were lacked of food and unable to feed their children; hence, kill them. It seems cruel. However, if we compared them with people who buried their daughters alive because of pride and shame, it seems less brutal. Beside, natives woman traded sex for food like bread.
Although I had difficult time cramming all the facts into my heads, it was interesting for a history books and very well-written. I also thinks the notes and index in the last few pages come in handy. If we forgets which chapter was about the crime rates, we can just check at the notes or the index. This is going to help me a lot in writing Paper one! Sorry if it's too long.=)