Humorously applied to convicts.
1796. In `History of Australia,' by G. W. Rusden (1894),p. 49 [Footnote]:
«In 1796 the Prologue (erroneously imputed to a convictBarrington, but believed to have been written by an officer)declared:
`True patriots we, for be it understood
We left our country for our country's good.'»