Irish Convict Transportation and the Reach of the State in Late Hanoverian Britain

• Published in: Journal of the Canadian Historical Association
• Main Author: Devereaux, Simon
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: The Canadian Historical Association/La Société historique du Canada 1997
• Subjects: hist; litt; Penal; Newfoundland; Terre-Neuve
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.7202/031117ar; http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/031117ar

The difficulties encountered by English authorities in resuming the regular and effective transportation of convicts overseas between the loss of the original American destination in 1775 and the opening of a penal settlement in New South Wales in 1787 are well known to historians of criminal justice. Far less so is the contemporaneous convict crisis in Ireland. This article considers the practice of convict transportation from Ireland throughout the eighteenth century. In particular, it examines a series of three dramatic incidents of the late 1780s in which Irish convicts were unscrupulously (though not illegally) abandoned in Cape Breton, Newfoundland and the Leeward Islands. It argues, first, that such practices were not entirely surprising given the great difficulties that had often been experienced in transporting convicts from Ireland even before 1775. It goes on to suggest that the subsequent decision of authorities in London to assume a directive role in the transportation of Irish convicts was informed by changing perceptions of the British state in both its national and imperial dimensions. Entre la perte en 1775 de la destination américaine originale et l'ouverture d'une colonie pénitentiaire en Nouvelle-Galles du Sud en 1787, les autorités anglaises se heurtèrent à des difficultés lorsqu'elles voulurent reprendre la transportation outre-mer régulière et efficace des prisonniers. Si les historiens du droit criminel connaissent bien ces problèmes, ils en savent par contre beaucoup moins sur la crise des détenus que connut l'Irlande à la même époque. L'article ci-dessous vient combler cette lacune en se penchant sur l'institution de la transportation des prisonniers hors de l'Irlande au XVIIIe siècle. Il examine plus particulièrement une série de trois incidents dramatiques qui se déroulèrent à la fin des années 1780 et aux cours desquels des détenus irlandais furent abandonnés sans scrupule (mais toutefois pas illégalement) au Cap-Breton, à Terre-Neuve et dans les îles Sous-le-Vent. L'auteur ...