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Reference

 * Pinco Pallino, titolo del libro, anno, città, ISBN

The Transportation Act of 1718
Transportation could be a good alternative to death but many difficulties impeded the fulfilment of this system. One of the obstacles was presented as a clause of the Act of 1706 as it abolished the reading test giving the judge the possibility of sentencing clergied offenders to a workhouse or a house of correction. Since the punishments applied in that moment did not prevent spiteful persons from committing crimes, it was necessary to find a decisive solution. Significantly, under the Whig reign the Transportation Act was introduced into the House of Commons in 1717 and was a turning point: it legitimated transportation as a direct sentence, was a progress and a simplification of the penal process.

Noncapital convicts (clergyable felons usually destined to branding on the thumb and petty larceny convicts usually destined to public whipping) were directly sentenced to transportation to American colonies for seven years. A sentence of fourteen years was imposed to prisoners guilty of capital offences pardoned by the king. Returning from the colonies before the stated period, was considered a capital offence. It was introduced by William Thomson the Solicitor General who was “the architect of the transportation policy” Thomson, a supporter of the Whigs, was a member of the borough of Ipswich until 1729, when he became a judge. He was a prominent sentencing officer at the Old Bailey and managed important information about capital offenders.

The success of this act was in part attributed to the awareness of the fact that transportation needed money for its implementation. Merchants precarious system had to be improved and the financial revolution of those years led to a significant change. Initially the government rejected Thomson’s proposal to pay merchants to transport convicts, but three months after the first transportation sentences were pronounced at the Old Bailey, he suggested that the treasury contracted Jonathan Forward, a London merchant, for the transportation to the colonies. The business was entrusted to Forward in 1718 by paying him three pounds (five pounds in 1727) for each prisoner transported overseas. The treasury paid also for the transportation of prisoners from the Home Counties.

The “Felon’s Act” (as the transportation act was called) was printed and distributed, and in April of the same year, twenty-seven men and women were sentenced to transportation The act led to significant changes: both the petty and grand larceny were punished with transportation (seven years), and a prisoner guilty of any noncapital offence, became subject to the judge discretion. In 1723 an act was presented in Virginia to discourage transportation through the introduction of cavils and possible obstacles, but the reluctance of colonies did not stop the government order. This strength and determination was proof of the political, economic and legal stability that Whig regime offered.

There was also a temporary manipulation process through which the jury used to sentence partial verdicts: convicts were condemned for lesser sentence than that of the accusation. A few sentences of transportation were modified by the court into the mid-1730s by substituting it with the branding on the thumb or whipping. This manipulation phase came to an end in 1734. With the exception of those years, the Transportation Act led to a decrease of convicts whipped, in doing so it avoided the possible upset of a public punishment. Clergyable discharge continued to be chosen when someone had to be punished but could not be transported for reasons of age or infirmity.

Transportation Act was a new beginning, it revolutionised the administration of the law and the lives of many prisoners.