Green’s Dictionary of Slang

arrested, committed to trial; thus hobbled upon the legs, transported, sent to the hulks.

1718		C. Hitchin Conduct of Receivers and Thief-Takers n.p.: Bound or Habbled alias Take.
1759		O. Goldsmith Citizen of the World II cxvi 220: They belonged to a press-gang [...] I could give no account of myself (that was the thing that always hobbled me).
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 163: A term when any of the gang is taken up and committed for trial, to say, such a one is hobbled.
1791		‘Mount’s Flash Song upon Himself’ Confessions of Thomas Mount 22: And in the ken we hobbled were. / Again they brought me to the quod.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: hobbled on the leg a transported felon, person sent on board the hulks.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1821		Flash Dict.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 17: Hobbled on the leg, a transported felon ironed on the leg, and sent on board the hulks.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 154: Hobbled committed for trial; properly said of animals fed by the way-side, with their forelegs fastened together.
1873		Sl. Dict.