Читать книгу Australian History For Dummies - Alex McDermott - Страница 52

Britain had sent convicts to American colonies during the 18th century. When the American War of Independence (1775–1783) deprived Britain of its American colonies, one of the things that was lost was a handy place to send convicted criminals. Felons had been sent from Britain as bonded labour for decades, at a time of rapid demographic increase. Now convicts continued to be sentenced to ‘transportation across the seas’, but with nowhere to transport them to. A stopgap measure was housing them in prison hulks (old ships refitted for the purpose of holding prisoners) moored on the River Thames, and putting them to public work in chain gangs.

A few problems arose with this system. Firstly, the authorities had always thought that transportation should send convicts far away to some largely unknown place overseas, and now this option was gone. Secondly, in the course of the 18th century the British people had become used to getting rid of felons in such a fashion, and had a real problem with the sight of men chained up in gangs in public. Other countries in Europe had followed this route, and it was seen as a sort of continental ‘despotism’. Thirdly, pretty soon they were running out of hulks!

But the twist here is that the system coped all right with losing the American colonies, just so long as a nice couple of wars were bubbling along to keep would-be crims pleasantly occupied fighting in the British army or navy. If it wasn’t the Americans, there was always the French, and if no-one else was around then you could always pick on the Dutch. But in 1782 a terrible spectre arose: Peace. By 1784 and 1785, returned soldiers and seamen were being demobbed (stood down from the armed services) and coming back into the country via the southern ports of England. As they did so, an explosion in crime occurred.