of convicts languishing in London gaols in order to get them transported to the
West Indies.^95 But a government increasingly beset by domestic enemies in the
decade following the so-called Popish Plot in 1678 had neither the resources nor
the political muscle to confront the difficulties inherent in a system of trans-
portation that relied on the private interest of merchants.
A growing acknowledgement of the problems surrounding transportation is
apparent in the increase in the number of free, or absolute, pardons granted to
condemned felons by the late 1670 s—that is, pardons issued without conditions
and that simply released the offender back into the community. Absolute par-
dons were always likely to be granted to a few convicted offenders, even in the
most punitive of regimes. Some prisoners were too ill or too elderly to be trans-
ported or to be punished in any way. But as transportation ran into difficulties,
the number of such pardons increased strikingly. Whereas, between 1662 and
1676 something in the order of 13 per cent of pardons granted to convicted
felons in London and Middlesex—to men and women convicted of all capital
offences, not simply crimes against property—were free and unconditional, by
the 1680 s that figure had risen close to 40 per cent.^96
A similar recognition of the difficulties that had overtaken transportation is
apparent in the government’s increasing willingness to allow those so sentenced
in effect to banish themselves. That had always been an option for convicts who
could mobilize powerful support, or those who could present a plausible reason
(a physical infirmity, for example) why they should not be sent to the colonies
where they would be sold into some form of service.^97 But it is a measure of the
difficulties facing gaolers and sheriffs that self-transportation became more
common by the late 1670 s, when significant numbers of convicts were allowed
to enter into recognizances to take themselves out of the country. This scheme
failed for the same reasons that undermined the merchant-driven system—a
failure confirmed by the judges at the Old Bailey in 1681 who noted
that the convicted prisoners in Newgate for some years past whoe have given Recog-
nizance for transporting themselves upon his Majesty’s gracious Letters of pardon have
not departed this Kingdom according to the provisoe in the same expressed.... It is
therefore ordered by this Court That the provisoe in such like pardons for Convicts be
drawne and made as formerly. And that the prisoners be transported by Merchants
bound by obligation to his Majesty with good suretyes in a penalty with a condition
made according to the same provisoe.^98
The Old Bailey in the Late Seventeenth Century 295(^95) Grant et al.(eds.), Acts of the Privy Council: Colonial, i. 708 – 9, 713.
(^96) Based on pardon documents in Public Record Office (PRO), C 82 and C 231. General pardons is-
sued for condemned prisoners in Newgate are also to be found in the CLRO in several boxes dated
1660 – 84, 1685–94, 1702– 60 , and post- 1760 , along with a box of royal warrants dating from 1719 requir-
ing named offenders to be included in the next Old Bailey general pardon. Pardons are also noted in the
sessions minute books (CLRO: SM).
(^97) As in the case, for example, of a prisoner in Newgate who asked for liberty to transport himself to some
plantation, ‘being unable to perform the labour of those who are sold as slaves.. .’ (CSPD 1670 , p. 624 ).
(^98) CLRO: SM 52 , July 1681.