Transportation 2
'To avoid corporal punishment'
The extract shown below from the Quarter Sessions is very unusual in that it records the preference of a woman, convicted of theft in 1759, to be transported to the American colonies for seven years instead of being whipped. This surely says a great deal about the severity of the corporal punishment administered in these times.
Breconshire
Quarter Sessions
Midsummer 1759
Powys
County Archives
B/Q/SO/4
This extract from the Order Books of the Breconshire
Quarter Sessions of 1759 reads as follows:
"Elizabeth Thomas singlewoman being Indicted and Convicted
this present Sessions for felony It is ordered that she be transported
to some of his Majesty's Plantations in America for the Term
of Seven Years. It being at her own request to Avoid Corporal
punishment."
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