In a database such as this it is necessary to engage in some classification and consolidation in order to enable significant searching and counting. The terms used were selected keeping in mind the fact that they would be used in a sentence context, whilst at the same time providing sufficient detail about the kinds of things which were held to be valuable in those times, as well as the crimes for which people were transported. There are a number of variations of the word 'petty' including its more original version 'petit', a French word meaning very small. Assault is when the victim is harmed in some way. Robbery is when the victim is confronted by the thief who demands goods.
Highway robbery is robbery whilst on a public street.
Burglary was, in the past, only used to describe cases where a lodging was entered while it was occupied. If not occupied the crime was one of housebreaking. In this database burglary is used in the modern sense of when a place of lodging was entered, and goods stolen. In a legal sense there is a distinction but for the sake of simplicity the two have been combined in this database to cover the more common crime of burglary. Other cases of fraud involve forgery or some other attempt at financial deceit.