cessation of their removal to America; and the inconveniences experienced
in the other modes of destination adopted after that period.

Virginia, greatly in want, at its first settlement, of labourers to clear
away the impenetrable forests which impeded all cultivation, was willing,
from very early times, to receive as servants, those English criminals
whom our Courts of Law deemed not sufficiently guilty for capital
punishment.* The planters hired their services during a limited term; and
they were latterly sent out under the care of contractors, who were
obliged to prove, by certificates, that they had disposed of them,
according to the intention of the law.

[* Banishment was first ordered as a punishment for rogues and vagrants,
by statute 39 Eliz. ch. 4. See Blackst. Com. IV. chap. 31. But no place
was there specified. The practice of transporting criminals to America is
said to have commenced in the reign of James I; the year 1619 being the
memorable epoch of its origin: but that destination is first expressly
mentioned in 18 Car. II. ch. 2.--The transport traffic was first
regulated by statute 4 George I. ch. II. and the causes expressed in the
preamble to be, the failure of those who undertook to transport
themselves, and the great want of servants in his Majesty's plantations.
Subsequent Acts enforced further regulations.]

The benefits of this regulation were various. The colonies received by
it, at an easy rate, an assistance very necessary; and the mother country
was relieved from the burthen of subjects, who at home were not only
useless but pernicious: besides which, the mercantile returns, on this
account alone, are reported to have arisen, in latter times, to a very
considerable amount.* The individuals themselves, doubtless, in some
instances, proved incorrigible; but it happened also, not very
unfrequently, that, during the period of their legal servitude, they
became reconciled to a life of honest industry, were altogether reformed
in their manners, and rising gradually by laudable efforts, to situations
of advantage, independence, and estimation, contributed honourably to the
population and prosperity of their new country.**

[* It is said, forty thousand pounds per annum, about two thousand
convicts being sold for twenty pounds each.]

[** The Abbe Raynal has given his full testimony to the policy of this
species of banishment, in the fourteenth Book of his History, near the
beginning.]

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