Although there was relatively little Swiss (or German) emigration to the New World
by the time this novel was written, there was of course a great amount of it from
the country in which Frankenstein was published. Indeed, Percy Bysshe Shelley's grandfather
had been born in the British Colonies of North America (in Passaic, New Jersey), whence
he reimmigrated to Great Britain. The closest parallel for the Creature's plan, and
probably one that would be uppermost in the minds of a contemporary reader, was the
British penal colony established in 1788 at Botany Bay in Australia. There hardened
convicts were transported so as to rid honest citizens from their threat to the common
welfare. Over time, of course, these outcasts "civilized" a new continent.