As to the females, it is a melancholy fact, but not the less true, that far the greater proportion are utterly irreclaimable, being the most worthless and abandoned of human beings! No kindness can conciliate them, nor any indulgence render them grateful; and it is admitted by everyone, that they are, taken as a body, infinitely worse than males!
—Lieutenant Breton, Excursions in New South Wales, Western Australia and Van Diemen’s Land During the Years 1830, 1831, 1832, and 1833