Conclusion

Abstract

The American Revolution did not end the story of transatlantic convict transportation. As the last ship to arrive before hostitilies fully developed, the Jenny from Newcastle, came in to the Chesapeake to land its cargo in April 1776, no one in Britain imagined that this was the demise of the convict trade to America.¹ In 1769, the Virginia Gazette noted that the Conversation Club in London had debated the question, ‘is transportation a proper method of punishing criminals?’, but without noting the outcome.² For the British government the answer was always affirmative, though this proved difficult to implement after 1776. Before the Revolution, however, alternatives to the mid-Atlantic colonies had already been mooted, notably in 1767 when it was reported that William Pitt, Lord Chatham, exercised his ‘utmost endeavours to obtain pardons for all the rioters’ condemned to death, on condition that they be transported to Florida. These probably included those West Country men sentenced to hang in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire in the year of hunger riots, 1766. Significantly, though, this ‘act of clemency’ was not to be extended to any who were guilty of ‘thefts and robberies’. Yet later the same year this idea seems to have taken root, when it was reported as a firm proposal for ‘felons of either sex convicted for transportation, white servants being much wanted in that settlement’.