cel an obligation to serve--except by the repayment of the
purchase money to the planter.

This course had many inconveniencies, and led to atrocious crimes. The
treatment of the convict depended on the individual who bought his
service: the state imposed but slight responsibilities, and the colonial
control was regulated by local laws.

Many notices in annals of those times indicate that the practice of
kidnapping, especially of youth, was not uncommon. Johnson, in his
immortal memoir of the poet, Savage, numbers in the catalogue of his
mother's cruelties, an attempt to send him captive to the plantations,
and to sell him for a slave.

Goldsmith refers to establishments devoted to this species of
slavery:--"I regarded myself as one of those evil things that nature
designed should be thrown into her lumber room, there to perish in
obscurity. It happened that Mr. Crispe's office seemed invitingly open
to give me a welcome reception. In this office Mr. Crispe kindly offers
to sell his Majesty's subjects a generous promise of L30 a year; for
which promise, all they give in return is their liberty for life, and
permission to let him transport them to America as slaves."[49]

Before the era of separation, the American planters had begun to resent
the influx of felons. Free labor grew plentiful, and the colonial
reputation was compromised: nor were these the sole reasons for
opposition; the management of negro slaves became a capital branch of
domestic industry; the _prestige_ of color was endangered by the
subjection of white men to the discipline of slavery.

The practice of transportation did not terminate until the era of
independence. The Canadas remained loyal; but the ministers of the day
did not deem it prudent to reward their submission with the stigma of
transportation.

Franklin, when the colonists were about to cast off the imperial rule of
Great Britain, complained of this system: he compared it to pouring
"cargoes of rattlesnakes on the shores of England." He, however,
maintained that this description of exiles formed but a small proportion
of the American people; that of one million, eighty thousand only had
been brought over the ocean, and of these one-eighth only were convicts.
In reference to the number transported to America, the accounts of the
British and American writers considerably differ. None were sent to the
New England colonies. Jefferson, during his diplomatic residence in
France, furnished