That was also true for the state of Georgia.
I had also heard that.
Found this:
http://www.earlyamericancrime.com/convict-transportation/business-of-transportation/georgia
“Unfortunately, the people who came over with Oglethorpe did not supply the kind of industrious work needed to start a colony. Quickly, the trustees of the colony agreed in 1734 to abandon the idea of populating the colony with debtors, contending that “as many of the poor who had been useless in England were inclined to be useless likewise in Georgia” “