we ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on America, with the old warning of the Church, Sursum corda! We ought to elevate our minds to the greatness of that trust to which the order of Providence has called us. By adverting to the dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire: and have made the most extensive, and the only honourable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race. Let us get an American revenue as we have got an American empire. English privileges have made it all that it is; English privileges alone will make it all it can be.

100. JOHN HOWARD, THE PRISON REFORMER (1777).

Growing sympathy with the weak, the unfortunate and the oppressed is an encouraging symptom which one observes in the second half of the eighteenth century. Better treatment of prisoners, better provision for the poor, and the liberation of slaves attained the magnitude of causes; while the same disposition which prompted Howard, Clarkson and Eden quickened private benevolence in a hundred directions. John Howard in his preface to The State of the Prisons in England and Wales has told how he began his philanthropic task. In connection with this extract may be mentioned some of the topics which he considers in the body of the work. Section I., under the head" General View of Distress in Prisons," takes up Food, Water, Air, Sewers, Bedding, Morals, Lunatics, Gaol Fever and Vicious Examples. Section II. is entitled, “Bad Customs in Prisons," and discusses Gaming, Irons, Non-resident Gaolers, Wives and Children, and Gaols as Private Property, besides Garnish, or the initiation fee which a new prisoner was bound by custom to pay his fellows.

SOURCE.-The State of the Prisons in England and Wales. John Howard (1726?-1790). London, 1792. P. 1.

Introduction.

The distress of prisoners, of which there are few who have not some imperfect idea, came more immediately under my

notice when I was sheriff of the county of Bedford; and the circumstance which excited me to activity in their behalf was, the seeing, some-who by the verdict of juries were declared not guilty; some-on whom the grand jury did not find such an appearance of guilt as subjected them to trial; and somewhose persecutors did not appear against them ;-after having been confined for months, dragged back to gaol, and locked up again till they should pay sundry fees to the gaoler, the clerk of assize, &c.

In order to redress this hardship, I applied to the justices of the county for a salary to the gaoler in lieu of his fees. The bench were properly affected with the grievance, and willing to grant the relief desired: but they wanted a precedent for charging the county with the expense. I therefore rode into several neighbouring counties in search of one; but I soon learned that the same injustice was practised in them; and looking into the prisons, I beheld scenes of calamity, which I grew daily more and more anxious to alleviate. In order therefore to gain a more perfect knowledge of the particulars and extent of it, by various and accurate observation, I visited most of the county gaols in England.

Seeing in two or three of them some poor creatures whose aspect was singularly deplorable, and asking the cause of it, the answer was, "they were lately brought from the bridewells". This started a fresh subject of inquiry. I resolved to inspect the bride wells and for that purpose travelled again into the counties where I had been; and, indeed, into all the rest; examining houses of correction, city and town gaols. I beheld in many of them, as well as in the county gaols, a complication of distress; but my attention was principally fixed by the gaol fever and the small pox, which I saw prevailing to the destruction of multitudes, not only of felons in their dungeons, but of debtors also.

The gaol fever is no new subject of complaint. Stow, in his Survey, mentions, that "in the year 1414, the gaolers of Newgate and Ludgate dyed, and prisoners in Newgate to the number of sixty-four". And speaking of the King's Bench prison, says, that in the six years preceding the year 1579, one hundred prisoners died there and twelve between Michaelmas and March of the last mentioned year, 'through a certain contagion called the sickness of the house"; and I shall presently have occasion, among the fatal effects of this distemper propagated from prisons, and infecting many abroad, to mention another ancient instance of that sort also. These effects

are now so notorious, that what terrifies most of us from looking into prisons, is the gaol distemper so frequent in them.

Upon this subject I was examined in the House of Commons in March, 1774: when I had the honour of their thanks. Soon after that, Mr. Popham, member for Taunton, repeated the humane attempt which had miscarried a few years before; and brought in a bill for the relief of prisoners who should be acquitted-respecting their fees; and another bill for preserving the health of prisoners, and preventing the gaol distemper. They both passed that sessions: these two acts I printed in a different character, and sent them to the keeper of every county gaol in England. By those acts, the tear was wiped from many an eye; and the legislature had for them the blessing of many that were ready to perish.

The great honour done me by the House has excited the I curiosity of some to inquire what facts I had collected. This is one reason of the present publication; but it is not the only, nor yet the principal one. There are still remaining many disorders that ought to be rectified: prisoners suffer great hardships, from which I am desirous that they should be set free: the gaol fever is not, as I am persuaded it may be, totally eradicated. These are my motives for printing this book. I think it will show plainly, that much is yet to be done for the regulation of prisons; and I am not without hope, that the legislature will finish what was so laudably begun.

I was called to the first part of my talk by my office as sheriff. To the pursuit of it I was prompted by the sorrows of the sufferers, and love to my country. The work grew upon ne insensibly. I could not enjoy my ease and leisure in the neglect of an opportunity offered me by Providence of attempting the relief of the miserable. The attention of parliament to the subject, led me to conclude that some additional labour would not be lost; and I extended my plan. The difficulty I found in searching out evidence of fraud and cruelty in various articles, together with other real sources of distress, obliged me to repeat my visits, and travel over the kingdom more than once and after all, I suspect that many frauds have been concealed from me; and that sometimes the interest of my informants prevailed over their veracity. Besides, as I had in my first journeys gathered, from facts and experience, proofs of the mischievous effects of the want of cleanliness and fresh air, I had in my latter visits these strong arguments to enforce my persuasions; and, in consequence, some gaolers grew at

last more mindful and complying, for the sake, not only of their prisoners, but of themselves and their own families.

It was not, I own, without some apprehensions of danger, that I first visited the prisons; and I guarded myself by smelling to vinegar, while I was in those places, and changing my apparel afterwards. This I did constantly and carefully when I began; but by degrees I grew less attentive to these precautions, and have long since entirely omitted them. On account of the alteration made by the act for preserving the health of prisoners, one may now look into many a prison without gaining an idea of the condition it was in a few years ago. I wish the reformation to be not for the present only, but lasting. If the motive for amendment has any where been merely temporary, there is no doubt but the effect will cease with the cause those who from such inducement have obeyed, will in future follow the example of others who have disregarded the law; and prisons that have been amended, will relapse into their former state.

As to what is still wrong, I set down matter of fact without amplification; which would in the end rather impede than promote the object of my wishes; that is, the correction of what is really amiss.

The journeys were not undertaken for the traveller's amusement; and the collections are not published for general entertainment; but for the perusal of those who have it in their power to give redress to the sufferers.

The writer begs his reader to excuse the frequent egotisms; which he did not know how to avoid, without using circumlocutions that might have been more disgusting.

101. WARREN HASTINGS AT THE COUNCIL BOARD (1780).

In governing India Warren Hastings was beset by foes without and within. The task of confirming England's position would have been beyond the compass of ordinary ability, quite apart from extending her sphere. Then Hastings must find profits for the Company, and, not least, must frustrate the opposition at his Council Board. His colleagues were at first Francis, Clavering, Monson and Barwell, of whom only Barwell supported his policy. The India state papers teem with their differences, and had Hastings not possessed uncommon tenacity

of purpose the majority would have beaten him. Upon political rivalry personal hatred ensued, and relations between the Governor and Francis had been purely official for years before their duel. It was the Mahratta War which precipitated this crisis. On August 17, 1780, they fought with pistols; Francis was wounded, and by his speedy withdrawal to England Hastings was relieved of the worst foe his administration had. Francis afterwards assisted in bringing about his impeachment by the Commons at the bar of the Lords. This minute was drafted six weeks before the duel for perusal by the home authorities. The Mr. Wheler referred to, was a new councillor who sided with Francis.

SOURCE.-Minute to East India Board. Warren Hastings (1732-1818). Selections from State Papers. Ed. G. W. Forrest. Calcutta, 1890. Vol. ii., p. 711.

Why Mr. Wheler has thus repeatedly chosen to join his name to Mr. Francis's in the minute lately delivered to them by the Board, I can neither conjecture, nor seek to know. I can easily conceive Mr. Francis's intention in obtaining this association. But as the rectitude of these acts in Mr. Francis is to be judged upon very different principles from those in which he has a common concern with Mr. Wheler, I shall consider them solely as his, and reply to them accordingly. Indeed I have no doubt of their being all the entire composition of Mr. Francis. They are not the less his by this apparent division of the property; and his name affixed to them gives me the right of regarding them as entirely his.

I did hope that the intimation conveyed in my last minute would have awakened in Mr. Francis's breast, if it were susceptible of such sensations, a consciousness of the faithless part which he was acting towards me. I have been disappointed, and must now assume a plainer style and a louder tone. In a word, my objections do not lie to the special matter of his minutes, to which I shall separately reply, but to the spirit of opposition which dictated them. I have lately offered various plans for the operations of the war. These have been succes

sively rejected as I have successively amended and endeavoured to accommodate them to Mr. Francis's objections. I had a right to his implicit acquiescence. I have lastly proposed a service requiring immediate execution, and I have freed it from the only objection formally made to it.