21 THE EXPEDITION TO BOTANY BAY. The colonies in British America continued to receive con- victs for some years after the Declaration of Independence by the United States in 1776, followed by the Treaty of Quebec and Versailles in 1783, had put an end to the system of trans- portation to the States. Among the records of the Home Office are two warrants, dated 1783 and 1784, and addressed to the superintendent of the convicts on the river Thames, requiring him to deliver certain convicts then on board the hulks to the contractor for their transportation to America,* These warrants are sufficient to show that transportation to America did not, as is often supposed, entirely c^ase after the War of Independence.t When the independence of the United States was recog- nised by England, by the Peace of Versailles, the Govern- ment found itself under the necessity of finding some other outlet for the fast-accumulating population of the gaols. The coasts of Africa were at first thought ol as the most Africa, suitable place for the reception of convicts, and many were sent there ; but the unhealthiness of the climate proved so fatal to them that transportation to that country was wholly abandoned in 1785.
- Post, p. 466. — ^It may be mentioned that when New South Wales
became the scene of operations, the warrants for the delivery of conyicts from the hulks to the contractors followed the American form. t " The Recorder of London had a long conference with Lord Sidney on the subject of the present state of the prisons of the metropolis, and the number of convicts that are increasing to an alarming degree, owing to the delay of sending abroad those under sentence of transportation. The season is over for sendmg them to Quebec and Nova Scotia ; but assurances have been eiven that two ships, properly fitted up, shall be ready by ihe latter end of March next, to carry convicte to America." — ^Annual Register, 1788, vol. XXX, Chron., p. 223, under date 8th December, 1788. Digitized by Google
