In about half the county gaols debtors had no allowance
of bread. Everywhere prisoners were exposed to extortion, and were
sometimes detained in gaol after acquittal for non-payment of the
gaolers' fees. Such was the state of things in 1773 when John Howard
began to inquire into the condition of the prisons. He roused the
attention of parliament and of the public to these abuses, and by 1779
some of the more flagrant of them were removed. He spent the remainder
of his life in efforts to reform the prisons, and accomplished much,
though much still remained to be done. After 1776 convicts could no more
be transported to America, and male convicts were kept in hulks on the
Thames and elsewhere. These hulks soon became overcrowded, and in 1784
the old system of assigning convicts to employers in different parts of
the British dominions oversea was again adopted. The evils of this
system were recognised, and it was decided to send criminals sentenced
to transportation to New South Wales. A government was established;
Captain Phillip, of the navy, was appointed governor, and in 1787 took
out the "first fleet" with convicts. He established a settlement at Port
Jackson, and founded a city which he called Sydney, after the then
secretary for home affairs. Such was the unworthy beginning of the
present magnificent colony of New South Wales.

The population outgrew the police system. Riots were frequent in times
of scarcity or popular excitement, and often could only be quelled by
soldiers. Throughout the whole of our period highwaymen infested the
roads; in 1774 Horace Walpole at Twickenham declared that it was
scarcely safe to venture out by day; Lady Hertford had been attacked on
Hounslow Heath at three in the afternoon. Some daring robberies, two of
them of mails, were effected in 1791. In the earlier years of the reign
smuggling was carried on with amazing audacity, specially on the south
and east coasts. It was calculated that 40,000 persons were engaged in
it by sea and land, and that two-thirds of the tea and half the brandy
consumed in England paid no duty. Bands of armed smugglers rode up to
London with their goods, and attempts to interfere with their trade were
fiercely and often successfully resisted. Smuggling, however, was
checked, as we shall see, by the wise policy of Pitt. The weakness of
the police caused an alarming increase of crimes against property;
footpads stopped carriages even in Grosvenor Square and Picc