DAYS OF BOTANY BAY.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 69, 26 September 1901, Page 2

DAYS OF BOTANY BAY.

CONVICTS PREFERRED DEATH. When transportation was a legal punishment, prisoners condemned to death for minor offences were frequently giveir their choice betweeir exile and death. The practice was, however, most common during the well-named "Bloody Assize," held by the infamous Judge Jeffreys after the Monmouth Rebellion. The horrors of the American plantations were, however, so well known that many of the condemned preferred immediate death to dying by inches in slavery. It was, however, soon discovered that planters were willing to pay £lO to £ls for slaves, and as the money went to the Judge and the Crown it became the rule to commute death sentences to banishment, whether the prisoners agreed or not. A very curious case happened in September, 1789, at the Old Bailey. Eightytwo prisoners were lying under sentence of death, and, partly on account of the precarious state of the King's health, and partly because of the scandal that such wholesale execution must have caused, the culprits were given their choice between death and transportation to New South Wales. At first most of them were reluctant to go abroad, but ultimately all but eight consented. However, as the time for execution drew near, the fear of death proved too strong for these, and so the whole eighty-two eventually became compulsory colonists, Botany Bay being their headquarters.