num_pages: 260
description: From the time of Queen Anne’s reign until the American Revolution, Great Britain followed the practice of transporting as many as a thousand convicts each year to Maryland and Virginia. “Out of sight, out of mind” was an apt adage for this policy. It was a policy that worked well enough until 1776, when the rebellious North American colonies declared their independence and closed their ports to reception of British prison ships. A crisis for the British criminal justice system ensued, leading to a policy of converting old merchantmen and, later, deactivated naval vessels, into floating prisons. Thus began the era of the Hulks, a “temporary expedient” that lasted for eighty years. Hardly less feared by the British criminal class than were the gallows, assignment to these deplorable dungeons at anchor became a dreaded purgatory, to be endured for months—sometimes even years—by prisoners destined for eventual transportation to Australia.
language: English
title: The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857
titlecomplete: The Intolerable Hulks: British Shipboard Confinement 1776-1857
ratings_count: 5
publisher: Fenestra Books