Adam (Beau Bridges) is a young American wrongly accused of being an accomplice to murder while on shore leave in Liverpool. He is sentenced to death by hanging, but the sentence is commuted to twenty years in a convict settlement in Australia. The Governor of the colony, Sir Philip MacDonald (Sir John Mills), has a scheme in mind to settle Australia by allowing convicts to marry and by giving them land, and Adam is the perfect choice to prove his scheme is viable. He is partnered with Bess (Jane Merrow), a young Irish lass, and together they endure the hardships of the Australian outback.