On 13 May 1787, a fleet of 11 ships carrying around 1,400 men, women and children, including around 700 convicts, left Portsmouth Harbour to sail to the other side of the world. Thieves, protesters and petty criminals were crammed below deck, with the rolling of the waves and the wails of their companions the only sounds they would hear for the next eight months – the amount of time it would take the
