of the early ones in the northeast of the continent, these new ones included British Columbia and Prince Edward Island. Rebellions broke out against British rule in 1837, but Britain appeased the rebels' supporters in 1867 by confederating the colonies into Canada, with its own prime minister. Although Canada was still firmly within the British Empire, its people now enjoyed a great degree of self-rule. Canada was unique in the British Empire in that it had a French-speaking province, Quebec, which Britain had gained rule over in the Seven Years' War. Australia and New Zealand: 1815–1870 The First Fleet of British convicts arrived at New South Wales, Australia in 1788 and established a British outpost and penal colony at Sydney Cove. These convicts were often petty 'criminals', and represented the population spill-over of Britain's Industrial Revolution, as a result of the rapid urbanisation and dire crowding of British cities. Other convicts were political dissidents, particularly from Ireland. The establishment of a wool industry and the enlightened governorship of Lachlan Macquarie were instrumental in transforming New South Wales from a notorious prison outpost into a budding civil society. Further colonies were established around the perimeter of the continent and European explorers ventured deep inland. A free colony was established at South Australia in 1836 with a vision for a province of the British Empire with political and religious freedoms. The colony became a cradle of democratic reform. The Australian gold rushes increased prosperity and cultural diversity and autonomous democratic parliaments began to be established from the 1850s onward. The native inhabitants of Australia, called the Aborigines, lived as hunter-gatherers before European arrival. The population, never large, was largely dispossessed without treaty agreements nor compensations through the 19th century by the expansion of European agriculture, and, as had occurred when Europeans arrived in North and South America, faced superior European weaponry and suffered greatly from exposure to Old World diseases such as smallpox, to which they had no biological immunity. From the early 19th century, New Zealand was being visited by European explorers, sailors, missionaries, traders and adventurers (known as Pākehā) and was administered by Britain from the nearby colony of New South Wales. In 1840 Britain signed the Treaty of Waitangi with the natives of New Zealand, the Māori, in which Britain gained sovereignty over the archipelago. As more Pākehā settlers arrived, clashes resulted and the New Zealand colonial government fought