man-of-war, and
procured such a recommendation to the captain that he was treated with
great civility during the voyage, and if he had had any inclinations to
have done well, he might in all probability have been much encouraged.
But after several voyages to sea, he took it as strongly in his head to
go no more as he had before to go, whether his parents would or no.

He then cried old clothes about the streets; but not finding any great
encouragement in that employment, he was easily drawn in by some wicked
people of his acquaintance, to take what they called the shortest method
of getting money, which was in plain English to go a-thieving. He had
very ill-luck in his new occupation, for in six weeks' time, after his
first setting out on the information of one of his companions, he was
apprehended, tried, convicted, and ordered for transportation.

It was his fortune to be delivered to a planter in South Carolina, who
employed him to labour in his plantations, afforded him good meat and
drink, and treated him rather better than our farmers treat their
servants here. Which leads me to say something concerning the usage such
people met with, when carried as the Law directs to our plantations, in
order to rectify certain gross mistakes; as if Englishmen abroad had
totally lost all humanity, and treated their fellow-creatures and
fellow-countrymen as slaves, or as brutes.

The Colonies on the Continent of America are those which now take off
the greatest part of those who are transported for felony from Britain,
most of the Island Colonies having long ago refused to receive them. The
countries into which they now go, trading chiefly in such kind of
commodities as are produced in England (unless it be tobacco), the
employment, therefore, of persons thus sent over, is either in attending
husbandry, or in the culture of the plant which we have before
mentioned. They are thereby exposed to no more hardships than they would
have been obliged to have undergone at home, in order to have got an
honest livelihood, so that unless their being obliged to work for their
living is to pass for great hardship, I do not conceive where else it
can lie, since the Law, rather than shed the blood of persons for small
offences, or where they appear not to have gone on for a length of time
in them, by its lenity changes the punishment of death into sending them
amongst their own countrymen at a distance from their ill-disposed
companions, who