mber, 1664,
for registering persons going voluntarily, and commissions were given to
the Lord High Admiral and the officers of the ports to establish
registration offices and give certificates. Yet the spiriting still went
on, for in April, 1668, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was asked to move the
House of Commons to make the offence capital. His petitioner, said he,
had found one lost child, and after much expense and trouble, freed him,
but there were several others in the same ship, and other ships in the
river at the same work. Even if the parents found their children, they
could not recover them without money, and he was sure that if such a law
were passed the mercy to these innocents would ground a blessing on
those concerned in introducing it. This Act was finally passed on the
1st of March, 1670, punishing the spirits with death without benefit of
clergy.

There were, however, other means of procuring servants. In 1649, when
Cromwell took Drogheda by storm, about thirty prisoners were saved from
the massacre to be shipped to Barbados, and in 1651 seven or eight
thousand Scots, taken at the battle of Worcester, were reserved for a
similar fate. After the Restoration, however, there was an intermission
in such supplies, and the planters began to look to Newgate and
Bridewell for their labour supply.

The supply was by no means equal to the demand, for the agents in London
of the planters of Virginia, Barbados, St. Christopher's, and other
islands were equally clamorous for their share. As for King Charles the
Second, he granted the prisoners as a privilege to his favourites, and
even mistresses, who generally sold it to the highest bidder. The agent
must have had influence to get into the presence of the holder, say of a
hundred prisoners sentenced to transportation, and this was only
obtainable by largess to door-keepers and servants. Then came the
trouble of obtaining delivery from the prison authorities, and here
again fees were demanded. In one case that is recorded the amount paid
to the gaoler of Newgate was fifty-five shillings a head. But even now
the trouble was only beginning. The prisoners were supposed to be
delivered at the door of the gaol, and the planter was under a heavy
bond not to allow one to escape. He must account for each by a
certificate of death on the voyage or of landing in Barbados, on penalty
of five hundred pounds for every one missing. It followed, therefore,
that a sufficiently strong