76 DESPATCHES 17W It is not difficult to find a reason for the action of Sydney and Grenville in ignoring Phillip's request that transporta- tion should cease for two years. In 1789, when Phillip's despatches containing this request reached England, the state metropolitan and county gaols were crowded with convicts. inSIgriand. Thirteen years had elapsed since the cessation of trans- portation to America, and, of the enormous number of con- victs sentenced to transportation during that time, a few crowded ^^^ ^®^^ s®^* *^ Africa, and some were confined in hulks winwcts. upon the river Thames, but the vast majority, numbering upwards of 100,000,* were lying in the county and metro- politan gaols and bridewells, awaiting the execution of their sentences. So great was the risk of escape and disease^ through cramping these unfortunate people in the small and insecure buildings which then served as county gaols, that the Secretary of State was daily importuned to make some arrangement for their removal. Shortly after Grenville took office, the evil had assumed such proportions that the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London brought the matter under his notice, and pointed out that Newgate Gaol was so overcrowded with felons, many of whom had long been awaiting transportation, that SnSSw. ^l^^ir health was suffering, and, unless something was speedily done, the most fatal consequences were inevitable. Letters to the same effect from Magistrates in the country districts poured in upon Grenville ; but he had only one reply. The gaols, he admitted, were " extremely crowded in every part of England . . . the hulks are all quite filled" ;t
- As early as March, 1786, Edmund Burke called the attention of the
House of Commons to the ** melancholj situation under which those unfor- tunate people laboured who were sentenced to transportation." Their num- bers, he declared, were at that time estimated at not less than 100,000. They had been accumulating for the preTious ten years. "He wished to know what was to be done with these unhappy wretches." Apparently, the GK>Tem- ment did not know themselves —the only satisfaction Burke obtained was an assurance that tbey would not be sent to Ghimbia, which he aUuded to as the
- capital seat of plague, pestilence, and famine. The gates of hell were there
open day and night to receiye the yictims of the law." — Parliamentary History, toI. xxv, p. 391. t Historical Records, vol. ii, p. 426.
