18/06/2006
History of New South Wales From the Records
VOLUME 1 - GOVERNOR PHILLIP 1783-1789G. B. Barton - 1889
PART III
Transportation to America
"THE prisoners condemned to transportation were a saleable commodity. Such was the demand for labour in America, that convicts and labourers were regularly purchased and shipped to the colonies, where they were sold as indented servants. The courtiers round James II exulted in the rich harvest which Monmouth's rebellion promised, and begged of the monarch frequent gifts of their condemned countrymen. Judge Jeffries heard of the scramble, and indignantly addressed the King: - 'I beseech your Majesty that I may inform you that each prisoner will be worth £10, if not £15, apiece; and, sir, if your Majesty orders these as you have already designed, persons that have not suffered in the service will run away with the booty.' At length the spoils were distributed. The convicts were in part persons of family and education, accustomed to ease and elegance. 'Take all care,' wrote the monarch, under the countersign of Sunderland, to the Government in Virginia, 'that they continue to serve for ten years at least, and that they be not permitted in any manner to redeem themselves by money or otherwise until that term be fully expired. Prepare a Bill for the Assembly of our colony, with such clauses as shall be requisite for this purpose. No Virginia Legislature seconded such malice, and in December, 1689, the exiles were pardoned. Tyranny and injustice peopled America with men nurtured in suffering and adversity. The history of our colonisation is the history of the crimes of Europe.
"Thus did Jeffries contribute to people the New World. On another occasion he exerted an opposite influence. Kidnapping had become common in Bristol, and not felons only, but young persons and others were hurried across the Atlantic and sold for money. At Bristol, the Mayor and Justices would intimidate small rogues and pilferers, who, under the terror of being hanged, prayed for transportation as the only avenue to safety, and were then divided among the members of the Court. The trade was exceedingly profitable - far more so than the slave trade - and had been conducted for years. By accident, it came to the knowledge of Jeffries, who delighted in a fair opportunity to rant. Finding that the Aldermen, Justices, and the Mayor himself were concerned in this kidnapping, he turned to the Mayor, who was sitting on the Bench, bravely arrayed in scarlet and furs, and gave him every ill name which scolding eloquence could devise. Nor would he desist till he made the scarlet chief magistrate of the city go down to the criminal's post at the bar, and plead for himself as a common rogue would have done. The prosecutions depended till the revolution, which made an amnesty; and the judicial kidnappers, retaining their gains, suffered nothing beyond disgrace and terror." - Bancroft's History of the United States, c. xiv; The Colonies on the Chesapeake Bay.
The scene between Jeffries and the Mayor of Bristol is described in North's Life of the Lord Keeper Guildford, vol. ii, p. 24, as follows:-
"There had been an usage among the Aldermen and Justices of that city [Bristol] - where all persons, even common shopkeepers, more or less, trade to the American plantations - to carry over criminals who were pardoned with condition of transportation, and to sell them for money. This was found to be a good trade, but not being content to take such felons as were convicted at their assizes and sessions, which produced but a few, they found out a shorter way, which yielded a greater plenty of the commodity. And that was this: The Mayor and Justices, or some of them, usually met at their tolsey (a Court-house by their Exchequer) about noon, which was the meeting of the merchants, as at the Exchange at London; and there they sat and did justice - business that was brought before them. "When small rogues and pilferers were taken and brought there, and upon examination put under the terror of being hanged, in order to which mittimuses were making, some of the diligent officers attending instructed them to pray transportation as the only way to save them; and for the most part they did so. Then no more was done; but the next alderman in course took one and another as their turns came, sometimes quarrelling whose the last was, and sent them over and sold them. This trade had now been driven for many years and no notice taken of it."
North then relates how Jeffries pounced upon the Mayor, put him in the dock, and made him plead for himself, "as a common rogue or thief must have done"; finally taking security from him and his accomplices to answer informations in the King's Bench.
18/06/2006
Top
of this Page
Next
Chapter
Table of Contents
Article and Book Archive
Kevin Matthews History Site
A KEVIN MATTHEWS
PRODUCTION