Commitments and Convictions in 1827. England was, in fact, passing through a process precisely
opposite to that which had taken place in France: the sport of the rich was becoming more and more
of an elaborate system, and more of a vested interest. This development was marked by the growth
of an offensive combination among game preservers; in some parts of the country game
associations were formed, for the express purpose of paying the costs of prosecutions, so that the
poacher had against him not merely a bench of game preservers, but a ring of squires, a sort of
Holy Alliance for the punishment of social rebels, which drew its meshes not round a parish but
round a county. Simultaneously, as we have seen, a general change was coming over the
circumstances and position of the poor. The mass of the people were losing their rights and
independence; they were being forced into an absolute dependence on wages, and were living on
the brink of famine. These two developments must be kept in mind in watching the building up of the
game code in the last phase of the ancient régime.
The Acts for protecting game passed after the accession of George III are in a crescendo of
fierceness. The first important Act was passed in 1770. Under this Act any one who killed game of
any kind between sunsetting and sunrising, or used any gun, or dog, snare, net, or other engine for
destroying game at night, was, on conviction by one witness before one Justice of the Peace, to be
punished with imprisonment for not less than three months or more than six. For a subsequent
offence he was to be imprisoned for not more than twelve months or less than six, and to be
whipped publicly between the hours of twelve and one o'clock. This was light punishment compared
with the measures that were to follow. In the year 1800, the year of Marengo, when all England was
braced up for its great duel with the common enemy of freedom and order, and the labourers were
told every day that they would be the first to suffer if Napoleon landed in England, the English
Parliament found time to pass another Act to punish poachers, and to teach justice to mend her
slow pace. By this Act when two or more persons were found in any forest, chase, park, wood,
plantation, paddock, field, meadow, or other open or enclosed ground, having any gun, net, engine,
or other instrument, with the intent to destroy, take, or kill game, they were to be seized by keepers
or servants, and on conviction before a J.P., they were to be treated as rogues and vagabonds
under the Act of 1744, i.e., they were to be punished by imprisonment with hard labour; an
incorrigible rogue, i.e., a second offender, was to be imprisoned for two years with whipping.
Further, if the offender was over twelve years of age, the magistrates might sentence him to serve in
the army or navy. If an incorrigible rogue escaped from the House of Correction he was to be liable
to transportation for seven years.
Two consequences followed from this Act. Now that punishment was made so severe, the poacher
had a strong reason for violence: surrender meant service in a condemned regiment, and he
therefore took the risks of resistance. The second consequence was the practice of poaching in
large groups. The organisation of poaching gangs was not a natural development of the industry; it
was adopted in self-defence.(38*) This Act led inevitably to those battles between gamekeepers and
labourers that became so conspicuous a feature of English life at this time, and in 1803 Lord
Ellenborough passed an Act which provided that any persons who presented a gun or tried, to stab
or cut 'with intent to obstruct, resist, or prevent the lawful apprehension or detainer of the person or
persons so stabbing or cutting, or the lawful apprehension or detainer of any of his, her, or their
accomplices for any offences for which he, she, or they may respectively be liable by law to be
apprehended, imprisoned, or detained,' should suffer death as a felon. In 1816, when peace and the
fall of prices were bringing new problems in their train, there went through Parliament, without a
syllable of debate, a Bill of which Romilly said that no parallel to it could be found in the laws of any
country in the world. By that Act a person who was found at night unarmed, but with a net for
poaching, in any forest, chase, or park was to be punished by transportation for seven years. This
Act Romilly induced Parliament to repeal in the following year, but the Act that took its place only
softened the law to the extent of withdrawing this punishment from persons found with nets, but
without guns or bludgeons: it enacted that any person so found, armed with gun, crossbow,
firearms, bludgeon, or any other offensive weapon, was to be tried at Quarter Sessions, and if
convicted, to be sentenced to transportation for seven years: if such offender were to return to Great
Britain before his time was over, he was to be transported for the rest of his life.(39*)
This savage Act, though by no means a dead letter, as Parliamentary Returns show, seems to have
defeated its own end, for in 1828 it was repealed, because, as Lord Wharncliffe told the House of
Lords, there was a certain reluctance on the part of juries to convict a prisoner, when they knew that
conviction would be followed by transportation. The new Act of 1828, which allowed a person to be
convicted before two magistrates, reserved transportation for the third offence, punishing the first
offence by three months', and the second by six months' imprisonment. But the convicted person