Most Perfectly Safe : The Convict Shipwreck Disasters of 1833-42

If you had to sail to Australia in the early 19th century there were worse ways to travel than being transported as a convict.

Your living conditions were better than those of the sailors who manned your ship.

Discipline was harsher for the troops who guarded you.

Disease and mutiny apart, for most of the period it was safe.

The author takes the reader back to Australia's convict past to describe what life was really like on board a convict transport - and conducts an investigation into a train of disasters that, were they to occur today, would at least be worth a Royal Commission and might put pay to a political career or two.