Whigs and Hunters: The Origin of the Black Act

‘Jesu !’ said the Squire, ‘would you commit two persons to
bridewell for a twig ?’
‘Yes,’ said the Lawyer, ‘and with great lenity too; for if we
had called it a young tree they would have been both hanged.’
Henry Fielding, The Adventures o f Joseph Andrews
The British state, all eighteenth-century legislators agreed, existed topreserve the property and, incidentally, the lives and liberties, of the
propertied. But there are more ways than one of defending property; and
property was not, in 1700, trenched around on every side by capital
statutes. It was still not a matter of course that the legislature should, in
every session, attach the penalty of death to new descriptions of offence.
Premonitions of this development can be noted in the late seventeenth
century. But perhaps no event did more to habituate men’s minds to
this recipe of state than the passage into law of 9 George I c.22, which
came to be known as ‘The Waltham Black Act’ or simply as ‘The Black
Act’. This was enacted in the four weeks of May 1723. It was drawn by the
Attorney and Solicitors-General upon the order, nem. con.y of the House
of Commons. At no stage in its passage does there appear to have been
debate or serious division; a House prepared to debate for hours a
disputed election could find unanimity in creating at a blow some fifty
new capital offences.1