There is a widespread belief that Georgia was settled by murders, thieves, debtors and assorted criminals dredged from English prisons.
There is no shame in being descended from criminals. Australians take great pride in their criminal ancestors and to quote or at least to paraphrase Dixie Carter "In the South we do not hide our horrors in the attic, we display them in the Parlor and call a press conference".
I would appreciate it if anyone with knowledge of a criminal transported to Georgia on the Trustees Dime would contact me with the information. A serial axe murderer or a psychopath like Georgia dentist Doc Holiday would be preferred but I will accept a surly jaywalker or a scofflaw with unpaid library book fines.
In fact, a little research will prove that the majority of transported English criminals were dumped in New England.
A consignment of transported convicts was refused entry in 1783 and returned to England.
New South Wales (Australia) replaced North America as a dumping ground for transported convicts in 1787. The convicts were not sold. The commissioned officers were given their pick of the women, then the non-commissioned officers, then the privates and finally male convicts that had completed their sentences were allowed to choose from what was left.
Captain Bligh was governor of New South Wales when the Rum Corps mutinied in 1808. This was Bligh's third and next to last mutiny.
The H.M.S. Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh mutinied on April 28, 1789.
The H.M.S. Director commanded by Captain William Bligh was one of the ships involved in the 1797 Spithead Mutiny.
From: A Short History of Australia
By: Ernest Scott (1868-1939),
Professor Of History In The University Of Melbourne
The correspondence of Grenville, Pitt's Foreign Minister, contains a letter written by him as late as November 1789, wherein he said (Dropmore Papers, vol. 1. p. 543);
'The landing convicts in the territories of the United States, even if the masters of the ships perform their contracts for so doing, is an act highly offensive to a country now foreign and independent; and as such very improper for this Government to authorize. And it is, besides, an act of extreme cruelty to the convicts, who, being turned ashore without any of the necessaries of life, are either left to starve, or (as has sometimes been the case) are massacred by the inhabitants. And as to transporting to the King's American colonies, you may depend upon it that, after the example set them by Admiral Milbanke, none of our governors will suffer any of these people to be landed in their governments.'
The case referred to by Grenville related to the sending of eighty Irish convicts to Newfoundland, where the Governor, Milbanke, refused to allow them to land, ignoring an Irish Act of Parliament of 1786 which authorized the sending of convicts to America or to such place out of Europe as should be appointed. The significant fact is that these Irish convicts were sent to Newfoundland after the new colony in Australia had been established.
Some convicts were transported to the west coast of Africa but it was contended that transporting convicts to Africa was cruel and inhuman punishment.
Oglethorpe wounded two of his electoral opponents with his sword in a scuffle on the streets of Haslemere in March 1722. Oglethorpe also killed a man in a drunken brawl in a brothel at 6 o'clock in the morning in April 1722 and served five months in prison.
Following his release from prison Oglethorpe was elected to Parliament from Haslemere and was re-elected to successive terms for 32 years.
Oglethorpe's time in prison and the death of his friend Robert Castell, a writer who had been imprisoned in Fleet Debtor's Prison and died in 1728 after contracting smallpox led him to persuaded the House of Commons to launch a series of inquiries into conditions in the Fleet, the Marshalsea and the King's Bench prisons for debtors. Oglethorpe chaired the Prison Discipline Committee which produced three reports exposing the horrific conditions of overcrowding, brutality and extortion stemming from the practice of running prisons as private profit-making concerns.
Oglethorpe's work on the Prison Discipline Committee brought him in contact with people interested in creating a colony of debtors in the New World. This idea had been proposed by a number of writers and in at least one book, the concept gained some acceptance before Oglethorpe became a driving force in the group in 1728.
Admiral Edward Old Grog Vernon for whom Mount Vernon is named was also on the Prison Discipline Committee.
The Charter went through several revisions and in order to bring it before the Privy Council it was necessary to drop the notion of helping debtors and adopt a more pragmatic plan to send over "the deserving poor" who would protect South Carolina from the Spanish in Florida, and the French in Louisiana while producing such goods as hemp, silk, grapes, olives and medicinal plants for England.
Volunteers to settle in Georgia out numbered the available slots. The standards were high and the cuts were deep. Successful male colonists were drilled in military tactics by the sergeants of the Royal Guard. Consequently no one was released from prison, debtor or otherwise, to settle in Georgia.
The only person on the Anne with serious jail time was Oglethorpe.
Oglethorpe challenged a neighbor to a duel for trespassing on his land at the age of 86.
From
Sir John Percival, Earl of Egmont's Diary
Volume 2 page 195
Mr. West, our late bailiff, attended. His desire is to have 500 acres and to part with his house and 50 acre lot, and in consideration of God's good providence in retrieving him from poverty into good
circumstances by going to Georgia, he leaves it to us to charge him
with what sum of money we please towards other distressed persons
who go to Georgia. He was a broken blacksmith by trade, and
relieved out of jail by the Debtors' Act, swearing himself not worth
10£. We found him an honest, sensible man, and sending him over
in the first embarkation with Mr. Oglethorp made him one of the
bailiffs or chief magistrates of Savannah town. As he went on
the poor list, his lot was a house in town and 50 acres of land.
He followed his trade of blacksmith there, and took 10£. a week
by his work. Soon after his arrival he married the widow of
another that went over, by which her half of her husband's 50
acres and his house fell to him for her life, which house he has set
for 20£. per annum. He desired to quit his magistracy that he
might have a gentleman's lot of 500 acres, and has obtained our
consents to sell his own house and 50 acres, and for that end came
over.
He told me the Colony goes prosperously on that Mr. Causton,
the head bailiff, is a passionate man, but resolution was necessary
to keep up the authority of the Trustees and repress the insolency
of many of our people. That there will this year be corn enough
to supply all the inhabitants, and that there is nobody there but may
subsist comfortably if laborious and diligent. That he was present
when the several nations of Upper Creeks came down to Savannah,
and they returned home much satisfied with the presents we made
them. That Tomachichi and his Indians live with our people
in perfect friendship; that it was a very wise thing in Mr. Oglethorp
to bring him with him to England, and he is of very great use in
pacifying differences and making other Indian nations our friends.
He extols his prudence. He gave but an indifferent account of
Mr. Quincey and of the religious disposition of our people, there
being some Sundays not 10 at Church.