The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

To the Printer of the Public Ledger.

AS your Paper is open to all Letters wrote with candour and truth, be pleased to insert the following sent me from an unhappy sufferer, now under confinement in prison.

The destructive methods carried on in the Cities of London and Westminster, and in particular in a certain extensive prerogative Court, with the consequent confinement in prison, calls most loudly for redress.

In the first place a man or woman is arrested and dragged away to a Sponging House by the Officer for a debt of forty Shillings, nay even for nothing at all, as will appear by the following Supposed case. In an open account, subsisting betwixt A. and B. there shall not be more than three or four shillings due to A. plaintiff; yet the said A. shall have a power to arrest the said B. for £20. or any sum they have had dealing together for, and shall be able to keep him the said B. in custody as long as he pleases, unless an act of Insolvency relieves him: and that if there should appear to be due the small sum abovementioned, on trial, to A. the said B. is cast in costs of suit, which together with other expences incurred by the said B. on his arrest, goal fees, &c. may be made to mount to eight or nine pounds, not to mention the loss of time, credit, liberty, the distress of his family, &c. and all, perhaps, to serve the turn of some malicious, litigious, or designing persons, to the emolument only of a set of People, whose greatest mercies are acts of cruelty.

To point out the many evils attendant on a long confinement, would swell this letter to a much greater length than might be proper for a News Paper; suffice it then only to say, that by long confinement acquaintance forsake men, friends turn enemies, they lose their art or calling, become heartless, irresolute, indolent, idle, nay, ignominious, and lost to the world to such a degree, that they are never able to recover themselves, and not only the man, but his poor family either starves or becomes a burthen upon the public: though had the parent been at liberty, he might have been able to have made his children either useful, ornamental, or both, which now are a nuisance and pest to society, by being brought up as savages.

Numberless are the persons in different parts of this Kingdom, who, by unforeseen accidents, decay of trade, the present high price of provisions, (dreading the miseries of a gaol) are obliged to fly their native land, to the manifest injury of our Trade and Manufactures, which are every day sinking, and which unless timely prevented, may prove the total ruin of this Kingdom.

Now, Mr. Printer, I would beg leave to lay before the Public a proposal which, if attended to, might be of general utility, by putting a stop to the imprisonment of persons for small debts, as well as the great charge of the arrest, and that is by limiting the time of imprisonment, and that in proportion to the sum, viz. say one month for forty shillings, and so in proportion for every other sum, as an abler hand may think proper. This is only meant as the outlines of a plan which is so much wanted. I am certain the time abovementioned will, by every true Briton, be deemed sufficient; and am as certain, that every man who has either honesty or abilities to pay, would readily do it rather than lose his precious liberty for one day, for imprisonment generally speaking, renders the heart obdurate, and often totally lost to every thing just or honourable. Yet at the same time, after the limited confinement beforementioned, I would have the debtor give up his all on oath! and he who should artfully, or designedly, make away with his Creditor's money, or any person who should aid or assist him knowingly therein, to be punished by such laws as are now in force against frauds. This I am certain would put a stop to the ruin of thousands of both Debtors and Creditors, many of whom are at this time in a starving condition. Your speedy insertion of this will infinitely oblige,

Your constant Reader,

A COBBLER OF SURREY.