Convict Emigrants to New England, William and Mary College Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2 Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net *********************************************************************** Convict Emigrants to New England Edward W. James William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 7, No. 2. (Oct., 1898), pp. 113-115. Page 113 CONVICT EMIGRANTS TO NEW ENGLAND.* COMMUNICATED BY EDWARD W. JAMES. "Last week arrived at Fisher's Island, the brig Nancy, belonging to this port, Capt. Robert W------ (a half-pay British officer) master, and landed his cargo, consisting of 140 convicts, taken out of the British jails. Capt. W----, it is said, received 51 sterling a head from the government for this job; and we hear, he is dis- tributing them about the country. Stand to it, houses, stores, &c., these gentry are acquainted with the business." -- Salem Mercury (Mass.), July 15, 1788. From ye Olden Time Series, Number 5. _________________________________________________________________ * A great deal has been said and written about convicts having been sent to the Southern States, less about their having been sent to the Middle States, and very little about their having been sent to the New England States. The climate of the eastern part of Virginia, the first settled part of the colony, before it had been modified by the clearing and draining of the lands, was too unfavorable for the labor of convicts of English birth to prove successful. The hot sun, malaria, and miasma were too much for them, and they generally found early graves. Of the first people who came to Virginia it is shown by Alexander Brown in his First Republic in America,(1) page 612, and by Edward ________________________________________________________________ (1) There wre living in Virginia, in November, 1619, about 900 English, of whom one-half were acclimated. There were sent to Virginia, during 1619-1624, about 4,894 emigrants. Of these, 45 in the Garland, went to the Bermudas and remained there, and 100, in the Mayflower, went to North Virginia and remained there, the rest, being 4,749, either reached Virginia or died en route, which, with the 900 of November, 1619, made a total of 5,649, of whom only 1,095 were then living in Virginia. Page 114. Eggleston in his Beginners of a Nation, pages 58 and 59, that 80 per cent of the entire number died. If such was the case very few of the convicts could have survived. They were the friendless and constituted largely the exposed class. In 1671,(1) Governor Berkeley stated that it was then rare than an unseasoned hand died, but, as he was answering the interrogatories of the commissioners of plantations, it is probable that what he said was what had been furnished him by the planters, whose interest it was to encourage, and not deter, immigration to the colony. In 1723, more than half a century later, George Hume(2) wrote: "All that comes to this country have ordinarily sickness at first wch they call a seasoning, of wch I shall assure you I had a most severe one when I went to town." If such was the experience of a man of favored position, what must have been that of the common laborer subjected to the inclemencies of a climate so different from that of his native land? It is not known how may objectionable characters were sent to the colonies, but in 1700, Massachusetts "enacted that every master of a ship arriving with passengers must hand to the custom-house officer a written certificate of the name, character, and circumstances" of each passenger, under penalty of a fine of L5 for every name omitted; and a custom-house officer was obliged to deliver to the town clerk the full list of names with the accompany- ing certificates. The existence of this wholesome statute indicates that undesirable persons had been brought into the colony; and the re-enactment of it in 1722, with the fine raised from L5 to L100, is clear proof that the nuisance was not yet abated." (Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, Vol. II, pp. 183 and 184, by John Fiske.) The other colonies also legislated on the subject, but with the same lack of success. One of the most honest of our writers(3) says, "That when the settlements began to prosper and labor commenced to be scarce here, criminals of all classes were dumped by the shipload upon our shores and sold for a period of servitude to the planters, from New England to the Carolinas." A great many more criminals have come to the United States since 1820, than were sent to the colonies before the Revolution. In the South in 1860, there was one criminal "for every(4) 1130" inhabitants, while in the North there was one criminal "for every 208 inhabitants." In 1860 there were in the North 156,230 paupers of foreign birth. The overwhelming majority of foreigners who came to America were self-respecting people, who came to better their condition, but along with them came many who were refugees from justice. The Saxons, before the Norman conquest, if E. Bulwer Litton can be relied on, do not appear to have had any deep-seated prejudice against the descendants of convicts. In Harold, Book VI., chapter VI., a Norman, in attempting to prove that the Saxons would be as well off under a Norman king as under a ____________________________________________________________________ (1) The Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I., page 139. (2) Letter of George Hume to Mr. Ninian Hume, June 20, 1723, in the William and Mary College Quarterly for April, 1898. (3) Some Colonial Mansions, edited by Thomas Allen Glenn, preface, p. vii. (4) Southern Side Lights, edited by Edward Ingle. Fisher's Island is in Long Island Sound, and is now part of Southold, Suffolk county, New York. It is about eight miles long and averages one mile in breadth, and is separated from the shore of Connecticut by a narrow strait, called Fisher's Island Sound. Page 115. Saxon, said: "But these theowes (slaves) never rise. It cannot matter to them whether shaven Norman or bearded Saxon sit on the throne." The Saxon said he was right, for that many of them were felons or thieves or the children of such, but that the children of such might become thegns, and that some of them were, and that no stain attached to them, as that they, the Saxons, cared not what a man's father had been if the man owned "ten hydes or more of good boc land." No American of the present day need worry himself as to whether or not one of his ancestors was a transported convict, as all families, American or European, would, if their lines could be traced back far enough, find many convicts among them. Walter Rye, the English genealogist says: "Unless you wish to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about your family, do not too closely search the crown plea rolls, or you may feel disgusted at finding that an ancestor was hanged for murder, burglary, or some other trifle." Note 2, page 8, Records and Record Searching.