The first Scots arrived in Australia with the First Fleet in 1788, including three of the first six Governors of New South Wales John Hunter, Lachlan Macquarie (often referred to as the father of Australia) and Thomas Brisbane. The majority of Scots 8,207 of the total 150,000 transported to Australia made 5% of the total convict population. The Scottish courts were unwilling to repatriate crimes deemed to be lesser offences in Scots Law which would have resulted in the deportation and repatriation to Australia, by its contemporaries and was considered more humane for lesser offences than the English and Irish legal systems. 

From 1793-1795 Scottish a group of political prisoners famously called the 'Scottish Martyrs' were repatriated to the colonies. Their trial and plight as innocent victim’s of oppression was famously reported, and Thomas Muir one of the five’s subsequent escape in 1796, caused a sensation and inspired the poetry of Robert Burns. The majority of immigrants in the late 18th century were Lowlanders from prominent wealthy families. Engineers like Andrew McDougall and John Bowman arrived with experience in building the colonies corn mills, while others were drawn to Australia by the prospects of trade. William Douglas Campbell, Robert Campbell, Charles Hook, Alexander Berry Laird of the Shoalhaven, were some of the first merchants drawn to the colonies.