Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/110

 13 TRANSPORTATION AND COLONISATION, Convict The employment of convicts in the formation of new foundation colonics, a practico which probably originated in the ancient custom of employing slave labour on public works, was a common one among the colonising nations of Europe from the earliest times. By two edicts issued in 1497, the epain» Spanish Govenmient authorised judicial transportation of criminals to the West Indies, and gave certain criminals the option of transporting themselves to Hispaniola (St. Domingo) at their own expense, to serve for a specified time under Columbus. The first Europeans who landed on PortugaL the coast of Brazil were two convicts, who were left ashore by the Portuguese in 1500.* The commission given by the King of France in 1540 to Jacques Cartier, or Quartier, as France. Captain- General on his second voyage to Canada, authorised him to choose fifty persons out of such criminals in prison as should have been convicted of any crimes whatever, excepting treason and counterfeiting money, whom he should think fit and capable to serve in the expedition. Another French expedition to Canada, which set sail in 1598 under the command of the Marquis de la Roche, carried forty convicts who were left on the Isle of Sables, about fifty leagues to the south-east of Cape Breton, for the purpose of forming a settlement there. In the same England, manner. Sir Martin Frobisher was supplied, by the Queen's order, with certain " prisoners and condemned men'' when he sailed in 1577 on his second voyage *^ for the discoverie of a new passage to Cataya, China, and the East India, by • Post, p. 439. Digitized by Google