Trade, relating to the transportation of convicts to the plantations, and the difficulty of disposing of such convicts there: It is ordered by His Majesty in Council, that it be referred to the Council of Trade, to consider how and to what places convicts, which shall be pardoned upon condition of transportation, may be best and most effectually disposed of; or what other punishment might be proper for such convicts in lieu of transportation to His Majesty's colonies in America.
It would seem, however, that there were still many of the colonists in America who were willing enough to receive the convicts transported from the mother country on the usual terms; for not only was there nothing done by the British government in the way of finding another mode of disposing of these convicts, or another place of transportation, but, in the preamble of the Act 4 George I. cap. 11., already referred to, one of the grounds of that Act, which was merely intended to provide for the better regulation of transportation, is stated to be "the great want of servants in his Majesty's plantations."
The inconveniences arising from the transportation of criminals to the North American colonies
