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Sentencing a convict to service in the army or navy was a very common practice.
As the Old Bailey website explains - "By sending convicts into their majesties' service, the court not only contributed to the armed forces, but also exiled undesirable characters....In some cases the prisoner was sentenced to a term of service in the army or navy. In others, the original sentence was withdrawn once the prisoner agreed to serve. Alternatively, many defendants sentenced to death were pardoned on condition of service".
Michael Lewis in his history of the early 19th century Navy says - "...smugglers were pretty smartly handled by the Coastguard first, and then by the law. Imprisonment and varying terms of transportation were common, but common too was the principle of suiting the punishment to the crime, and sending these bold sea rovers to the Fleet, literally, to be pressed into the Navy, long after true impressment was over. In this way, in the days of chronic shortage, before long term service came in, quite a few of the ratings were ex-smugglers; and very good seamen they made too, very handy and wide awake, and experts in handling boats. Yet there was a drawback. They were so adept at running from the excisemen that they were too apt to run from the Navy too. But they did not always succeed; there were six such men in the 'Genoa' at the battle of Navarino in 1827, One of them who had a wife and nine children was killed."