Women continued to be pardoned on condition of transportation over the
next few years, though not in large numbers. The overcrowding in Newgate and
in other London gaols was not to be relieved until the new century, when the be-
ginning of the War ofSpanish Succession and several years of good harvests and
lower bread prices together helped to bring a substantial decrease in the num-
ber of prosecutions. In addition, two alternative pardon conditions were mobil-
ized in Anne’s reign that further drew off many offenders who might well have
been stuck in Newgate had they continued to be pardoned on condition of
transportation. The possibility that an alternative punishment might be im-
posed on pardoned offenders was raised by the cabinet when they discovered
the hostility in the colonies towards transportation in 1697. Their response was
to ask the Board ofTrade in November not only to report on possible destin-
ations for transports, but ‘what punishment might be more proper for such con-
victs in lieu of transportation’.^121 It is unclear whether an answer was
forthcoming. But two alternatives were indeed turned to when further difficul-
ties with transportation arose during the War of Spanish Succession that began
in 1702 : service in the armed forces, in the case of men; incarceration in the
house of correction or the workhouse, in the case of women and of men for
whom military service was inappropriate because of age or illness.
Service in the armed forces had been imposed on some convicted men in the
1690 s, but not directly as an alternative to hanging. Doubt about its legality is
suggested by an order of May 1692 at the Old Bailey by which five men, con-
victed of felonies and allowed clergy, had the burning on the thumb respited and
(presumably as a condition of that respite) were ordered to be ‘transported into
Flanders’ to serve in the army—an order that underlines the problematic char-
acter of penal law and practice by the end of the seventeenth century.^122 Service
in the armed forces as an alternative to hanging was first authorized in the
Mutiny Act of 1704123 and men were regularly pardoned thereafter, on condi-
tion that they would serve in an active regiment and not return to England with-
out permission.^124 About seventy men, more than half the male convicts
366 The Revolution, Crime, and Punishment in London
women did not go smoothly. Many were still in Newgate some months later, and there is a strong sug-
gestion that the recorder and two magistrates simply released twenty-five of them from the gaol on a
promise to arrange their own banishment—released, as the cabinet complained in November, ‘upon
pretence only of transportation’ (CSPD 1697 , p. 458 ). Lovell’s letter to the lord mayor expresses the sense
of hopelessness and resignation that attended efforts to make transportation work in this period. The
recorder wrote: ‘I have enquired into the condicon of these convicts and finde it necessary to let them out
upon the best security they can give to transport themselves according to the condicon of their pardon’
(CLRO: London Sess. Papers, March–April 1699 ).
(^121) CSPC: America and the West indies, 1696 – 7 , 36.
(^122) CLRO: SF 386 (May 1692 ): gaol calendar. Two men were similarly forced into the army in the
April 1693 , having been convicted of simple grand larceny and pleaded their clergy: they were granted
clergy but had the branding respited on condition of serving in the army (CLRO: SM 63 : William
Butler and Robert Wayte).
(^1233) & 4 Anne, c. 5.
(^124) PRO, C 82 / 2842. There is no evidence that efforts were ever made to insist on that condition