Transportation or
penal transportation is the sending of
convicted criminals or other persons regarded as undesirable to a
penal colony. For example, France transported convicts to
Devil's Island and
New Caledonia and England transported convicts, political prisoners and prisoners of war from Scotland and Ireland to its colonies in the Americas (from the 1610s until the
American Revolution in the 1770s) and Australia (1788–1868), the practice becoming available in Scotland consequent to the Union of 1707 but used less than in England.