T'RANSPORTA'TION, in English law, a species cf punishment. It is not known to the common law of England, and was originally a commutation of punishment, pardon being granted to various descrip tions of offenders on condition of nutter going I ranporlation : generally for seven Or fourteen years, or for life. It is now ststut able punishment for a great varie ty of offences. It is said to have been first inflicted as a punishment by a law in the time of Elizalieth, enacting that such rogues as were dangerous to the in ferior people should be banished. At t hat time the English plantations in North America were the receptacles of trans ported convicts. Vh.gillia, the Jerseys, Maryland. be. are the di,tiiets which received the greatest accession to their population from this cause. At the very commencement of the practice, the same arguments were employed against it by Lord Bacon which are urged at this day by many law reformers. is," he says, "a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of the people, and wick ed condemned men, to bet hose with whom you plant." After the loss of the Amer ican colonies, several years elapsed be fore the government fixed on any place by way of substitute. At length, in 1787,
Botany Bay, on the coast of New South Wales, was fixed upon : 760 convicts were despatched that year. But when the ex pedition arrived, it was discovered that Botany Bay (discovered by Cook in 1770) afforded no practicable site for the colony, which was consequently landed at Port Jackson, where the town of Sydney was founded. From that period to the present, great numbers of convicts have been transported to Port Jackson, and to the later founded colony of Can Die men's Land—the only two English penal settlements. Much has been done of late years towards regulating the condition of the convicts in t he colony, and subjecting the worst part of them to severe priva tions; in particular, by transporting some or them to particular depots, where they ire liable to close inspection and hard labor. Among the writers who have late ly contended against the policy of con tinuing the punishment of transportation, we May particularly mention Archbishop Whately.