DURING THE FINAL MONTHS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION, the British government decided to reopen the convict trade to its former colonies. Transportation, for many years Britain's favorite punishment for serious crime, had ended when vessels containing felons were refused entry into American ports shortly after the outbreak of fighting at Lexington and Concord. In mid-1783, however, the coalition ministry of Lord Frederick North and Charles Fox, alarmed by a crime wave in London and much of the countryside, resolved to revive transportation, although American opposition to the trade was longstanding and the Treaty of Paris as yet unratified. In response to a proposal from North, George III wrote on July 12, Undoubtedly the Americans cannot expect nor ever will receive any favour from Me, but the permitting them to obtain Men unworthy to remain in this Island I shall certainly consent to. By then, North had enlisted George Moore, a London merchant, whose vessel, the George, was ready within weeks to sail with a cargo of 143 prisoners. Moore was promised five hundred pounds from the English Treasury and whatever profits the convicts fetched as servants.' Historians have known that Moore's cargo was eventually unloaded in Maryland but not the fascinating details that attended this episode. The convicts had to be imported by means of an elaborate hoax and with the secret assistance of one of Maryland's prominent merchants, George Salmon. In the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress is a letterbook kept by Salmon, which contains a remarkable series of letters written to Moore over a period of twelve months, outlining plans for bringing convicts into Maryland. The correspondence is exceptionally frank in describing their efforts to deceive state authorities through a variety of subterfuges. Salmon's letters also reveal that their scheme was a colossal failure, which discouraged the revival of transportation to America and forced Britain to find a new location for much of its criminal population.