During the eighteenth century, transportation to the colonies became Britain's foremost criminal punishment. From 1718 to 1775, British courts banished fifty thousand convicts. They formed the largest body of emigrants after African slaves ever compelled to go to America. The first comprehensive account of the transportation in the years preceding the settling of Australia, Bound for America combines analysis with a vivid narrative to provide new insights
into the origins of crime and the treatment of offenders on both sides of the Atlantic.