Transportation as punishment

On 13th May 1787 11 ships loaded to the gunwales with a human cargo set sail from Portsmouth for Botany Bay, in the land of New South Wales discovered by Captain James Cook some seventeen years previously. The 1420 souls aboard – somewhat more than that arrived at the other end – were to begin a colony in the form of a prison under the governorship of Captain Arthur Phillip – a colony built by forced labour at the barrel of the gun and at the crack of the cat o’ nine tails. Their journey must have been as terrifying in prospect as it was remarkable in completion. What could a poorly educated horse thief or pickpocket have imagined lay before him across the sea?

Transportation provides a fascinating case study in the history and methods of criminal punishment. Its need arose out of changing social conditions in England in the 18th century – the increasing urbanisation and population growth in Britain owing to the industrial revolution resulted in a terrific displacement of persons and, naturally, in an increase in crimes against property in particular. Whereas localised crimes of a relatively minor nature could have been dealt with by temporary and economic measures such as the stocks in rural districts, the rapid growth of the anonymous city meant that the means of administering punishments in this way was far less manageable. A village miscreant could have been quickly isolated, condemned and shamed by a community familiar to him or her. In the streets of London, it was easier to slip in and out of the crowd unnoticed.

Transportation was not a new punishment in 1787. But Cook’s discovery of an apparently empty and vast island at the other end of the globe made it a more attractive solution to the perennial problem of punishment. Transportation was, it was argued, more humane than the noose. The prisons of the day were notoriously overcrowded and disease-ridden; and in fact the government had resorted to putting its prisoners in prison-hulks moored on the Thames. More space was needed in the jails. What is more transportation was a means of excreting the waste matter from the body of society for its general health: the community stood only to benefit from the disposal of its more annoying and troublesome members. This was opportunity to lance the boil. It had its deterrent effect, too: New South Wales was to the eighteenth century mind surely further away than the moon is to ours – it was a terrifying prospect. And, it could also be argued, transportation was a great opportunity for the rehabilitation of the convict: if he survived the journey and the beatings and did not starve and served out his seven- or fourteen-year sentence he could find himself presented with all the opportunities of a new life in a new country.