Lieutenant-General Sir Richard George would never become accustomed to mornings in this god-forsaken colony. The squawking cockatoos’ addiction to slumber sundering meant he started every day on the wrong foot. Yawning, he slipped from their four-poster bed, careful not to disturb his more-sanguine wife, who, he’d always imagined, could sleep through anything, even mafficking parrots. However, despite Lady Elizabeth’s eye...

Sydney’s free settlers had limits, a regular blind eye was turned to the biblical invocation: Judge not, that ye be not judged. So, when it came to the likes of Brigid O’Sullivan, polite society couldn’t help itself: all freed convicts were skilamalink, but the Irish were beyond the pale. It was just as well the great and good didn’t know the half of it. The next stop for those who shaked a flannin of Sydney’s establishme...