Transcribed from the 4 June 1822 edition of The Strabane Morning Post, by permission of The British Library: Transportation.--Before the restoration of Charles II. transportation, as a punishment, was unknown in England; but after that time, persons found guilty of offences entitled to the benefit of the clergy, and sentenced to be imprisoned, were transported to the British settlements in North America. They were not, however, sent away as perpetual slaves, but bound by indentures for seven years; and for the last three year they received wages, in order that a fund might be provided to give them a fair chance of future success in life. When the American revolution prevented the further transportation of convicts to that country, in 1775, the system of confining prisoners to hard labour on board the hulks, and houses of correction were adopted, until the discovery of New South Wales by Capt. Cook, in 1776 and 1777, opened a new field for transportation; the coast of Africa having been previously explored in vain for a fit situation for a colony of criminals. The first embarkation to this new colony, was made in Feb. 1787, and consisted of 264 convicts: the first settlement was made at Sidney; and another has since been formed in the adjacent island Van Diamen's land. So prolific has this country been in crime, that in a period of less than thirty years, the colony at Botany Bay, amounts to upwards of twenty thousand persons, one half of whom are convicts. So large an assemblage of men and women, many of whom are the most desperate characters, are with difficulty kept in order; but in order to restrain their irregularities, punishments of a summary kind are frequently inflicted. Of these the most severe, next to that of death, is transportation to the Coal river, which is ordered usually by the judge advocate, or a bench of magistrates, for a term of years or for life, as the enormity of the offence may require. Convicts dread this mode of punishment very much, because they are compelled to work in chains from sun-rise to sun-set, and are subject also to other restrictions of a highly penal description. The rigour of this sentence is, however frequently relaxed in some degree, as the criminal shews signs of amendment; and in very few cases is it found necessary to subject any of the convicts to a repetition of the sentence. =========================