In 1839 a group of 58 men (Mostly From the Provinces of Quebec or Ontario in Canada) departed the port of Montreal, sailing as 'Convicts' on board a Prison Transport Ship, bound for the penal colony of New South Wales (modern day Australia).
They were ordinary people who had been caught up in the political whirlwind of the 1838 'Upper Canada Rebellion'.
Even though they were all civilians, they had been put on trial and found guilty by a hastily convened Military court, where they were treated as 'enemy combatants' and faced a Court Martial proceeding similar to what happened in the wake of 1916's Irish Rebellion in Dublin. 
All those who were found guilty were shown no Mercy by the presiding officers of the court, Convicted of the charge of treason to the crown, they were stripped of all their belongings and possessions (including money, land and residences) and prepared for immediate transportation on the first prison transport ship available. This was the punitive punishment applied to all those involved instead of what some had feared would happen - public execution by hanging. After forfeiting their lands and belongings to the crown, as Convicts they no longer had any form of 'human rights' in the eyes of the law, and their treatment before departure and during the voyage itself was nothing short of barbaric.  
For those involved, and if married this also applied to their wives and children too, they were all made to pay an extremely heavy price for their act of rebellion in defiance of the crown and its representatives. 

As newly arrived convicts at the well established penal colony of what's now known as Australia, they were considered to all be the lowest of the low, worse then murderers - a bad lot. Inevitably they were treated with callous indifference by the Colony's Soldiers, despite all this, over their years of detention they ultimately earned the respect of their fellow Convicts and most surprisingly of all of the guards and officers themselves.
After earning their freedom in the usual way, they were all forbidden from returning to Canada, and settled in and around Sydney, many of these convicts descendants are still there to this day.
"Beverly Boissery...is both a trained historian and a novelist of popular fiction. In her book A Deep Sense of Wrong, she combines these skills to turn what might have been a solid but dull historical study into a fascinating story that interweaves political and legal history with a concern for the fate of a group of largely forgotten individuals and their stories''. University Of Guelph; Ontario Canada.

"Here is a terrible story bloody well told''.
Sydney University; Sydney NSW Australia.
A native Australian, Dr. Beverley Boissery knows the writing world from many angles – editor, teacher, publisher, scholar and author. Mostly, though, she is a writer of 11 books ranging from academic history to young adult fiction. In 2006 she was awarded the Surrey International Writers Conference Chamber of Commerce Award for Special Achievement.
Her young adult Sophie series published by the Dundurn Group's Boardwalk imprint is based on the 1838 Lower Canadian rebellion and marries her love of fiction with history. Sophie's Rebellion won a national award in 2006 and the second book, Sophie's Treason was selected as an "Our Choice" by the Canadian Children's Book Centre. In April 2007, Bev received a Canada Council Award for Literature.
A third Sophie book, Sophie's Exile, will be published in the Spring of 2008 by Boardwalk. She is also completing an historical fantasy (The Convict's Thumbprint) and working on another young adult trilogy (The Three Jays) which deals with the history and the after effects of World War II's holocaust period.
Bev has also been a scholar-in-residence at Regent College and U.B.C. in Canada.
She now resides fulltime in Vancouver (Canada) along with her husband, a quiet but rambunctious cat, and is always welcoming to her many Canadian and Australian friends and family who drop by, Now in her 80s she still shows no signs of slowing down.