After the American Revolutionary War, both the Irish and British governments attempted to re-establish the trans-Atlantic convict trade instituted in the mid-seventeenth century to Virginia and Barbados. Burgeoning urban crime and the critical insecurity of the prisons in the 1780s meant that the Irish, as well as the British, desperately needed to get rid of their petty criminals. The British quickly abandoned their efforts in the face of American disapproval and settler opposition in Honduras.
However, between 1784 and 1790 the Irish despatched no less than nine shipments of convicts to North America and the West Indies. This persistence was due in part to the cheapness and convenience of the old system but also to the tardiness of the Home Office in allowing Ireland to join in the Botany Bay scheme.
When the British Governor of Newfoundland sent back an Irish shipment in late 1789 and others caused problems in Nova Scotia and the Leeward Islands, the Home Office had no choice but to allocate space for Irish convicts on the Third Fleet to New South Wales. When the 'Queen' transport finally sailed from Cork in April 1791, carrying the nucleus of Australia's Irish population, some of those on board were veterans of the trans-Atlantic phase. This book throws new light on the 'Botany Bay debate' about Australia's origins, on Irish crime and punishment in the late eighteenth century and on the Irish diaspora.
Contents:
List of Illustrations and Maps
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introductions
1. Irish Transportation Before 1783
2. Crime in Late Eighteenth-Century Ireland
3. Prisons and Punishment
4. The Revival of Trans-Atlantic Transportation
5. Emigration, Runaways and Returnees
6. The Revival of Irish Transportation
7. Irish Anticipations of Botany Bay
8. The Voyages of 1788: New London and Cape Breton
9. The Newfoundland Voyage
10. The Newfoundland Convict Crisis
11. The Barbuda Affair
12. Crisis in the Gaols
13. Irish Transportation to New South Wales
14. The 'Queen' Transport
15. Irish Transportation 1792-1795
Appendix 1. Expenditure on Irish Convict Transportation 1787-89
Appendix 2. The Newfoundland Shipment 1789
Appendix 3. Virginian Legislation Prohibiting the Landing of Convicts 1788
Appendix 4. Documents Relating to the Barbuda Voyage 1789
Appendix 5. Reports from the Botany Bay Parliament
Appendix 6. Documents Relating to the Voyage of the Queen, April 1791
Notes
Bibliography
Index
