Dear old gent passing by, / Something nice takes his eye. / Everything's clear, attack the rear. / Get in and pick a pocket or two.
So advised Fagin in the 1963 musical Oliver! Closer to home and 196 years earlier (or 71 years before the events of Charles Dickens's 1838 Oliver Twist), three enterprising locals were getting their come-uppances for similar acts of (by today's standards) petty crime.
The following account comes from the Caledonian Mercury of 19 January 1767:
This day, Gabriel Stewart, Jean Robertson, and Janet Marshall, indicted for several acts of pickery and theft, and also upon the British statute, for stealing thread from a bleaching field at Canonmills, were by sentence of the High Court of Justiciary, banished to the plantations for fourteen years, under the usual certifications in case of their return.
Interestingly, the probable scene of this bleaching field appears in a painting by John Knox of c.1835. We don't have permission to reproduce it, but can send you towards it at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery here. Click on the image when you get there to enlarge (it).
An interesting essay on the website Early American Crime states that, between 1718 and 1775:
In Scotland, only 700 to 800 criminals were transported […]. Transportation in Scotland was generally reserved for more serious criminals, and those coming to trial could ask to be banished before the trial began in the hope of avoiding a death sentence. The Scottish transportation system was more decentralized than it was in England, and most convicts had to make their own arrangements for passage to America. Unless they happened to be wealthy and could pay for their own trip, they generally were forced to become bound to a ship captain as an indentured servant.
Given the recent upset and outrage concerning 1–6 Canonmills Bridge, readers may be interested to read again about the extraordinary capacity of this small area to generate strong feelings. We wrote about it in Breaking news (5.12.11).