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History of the King's Bench.

[p281] THE real and true state of this prison, and the misery and distress that prisoners suffer in it, are very little known to the world in general. It is the public opinion, that no persons surrender to the King's Bench but such who have money in their possession which their creditors cannot lay hold of, so that they are enabled to live there in some degree of comfort: that it is a place of mirth, festivity, and joy: that no prisoner is in want; and that, in general, those who surrender themselves only go there till a proper arrangement of their affairs can be accomplished. I have proof positive to the contrary. It is highly [p282] worthy the attention of our legislature to see that the subject, restrained in the greatest blessing of life, his liberty, should not be in want of what is absolutely necessary to prevent the corruption and consequent destruction of the soul. The legislators possess a protection of their persons; and it becomes a duty in them to preserve their constituents from an oppressive deprivation of their personal liberty.

This prison rivals the purlieus of Wapping, St. Giles's, and St. James's, in vice, drunkenness, and debauchery; and, setting aside the indulgence of unnatural propensities, may be said to out-Herod Sodom and Gomorrah. Unless a man be of a certain age, of a bold and firm mind, and of undaunted resolution to bear with fortitude and manly dignity the oppression [p283] and heart-breaking agonies he suffers from his persecutors, he soon sinks into drunkenness and dissipation; and, what is worse, loses every sense of honour and dignity of sentiment -- every moral principle and virtuous disposition, with which he may enter these walls -- from the immoral contagion that is to be found in them. This contagion is so great, that, like the plague or the yellow fever, if he does not separate himself from the multitude, and live alone, which, under his circumstances, he must be more than man to do, or contrive to associate with those alone, for such there are, who bring honour and gentlemanly manners with them into their confinement, which is no very easy matter, he soon will be contaminated, and be lost to himself, to his friends, and to the world for ever.

[p284] The very air of the place is enough to infect a weak and afflicted mind; if its virtue should be able to preserve it from the despair which presents itself to many, on their passing the gates, which are barred by an unfeeling creditor; or to support the severity of the laws, and the unfeeling conduct of the fattening ministers of them.

With respect to the women to whose lot it has fallen to be doomed to this miserable and corrupting abode, those who are good become bad, and those who are bad become worse. No unhappy and unfortunate female ever did, nor do I believe ever will, quit this seat of contamination without the most degrading, if not fatal, effects of such a situation. Nay, if Diana and her nymphs, from not being able to pay the penalties for an accidental [p285] breach of the game-laws, was to be confined one twelvemonth in the Bench, unless they were locked up in the strong stone-room, they would be completely fitted for the associates or attendants on the Paphos Queen, and perhaps in a state to furnish a set of game-keepers for the ladies of manors in that delightful island: for Messalina never stole from Claudius Caesar's bed to greater scenes of revelling than is practised and enjoyed within these wanton walls.

There are within them from three hundred and fifty to five hundred prisoners, out of which number, I can with truth assert, there are very seldom fifty of this melancholy number who have any regular means of sustenance. I do not mean to say that prisoners have ever been absolutely starved to death; but this [p286] I positively assert, that numbers of the lower order, and many officers confined some even for small debts under fifty pounds,¹ who have served their country with gallantry and fidelity, and have bled in her defence, have often gone a whole week with no above three or four meals of victuals; nay more, have frequently been destitute of a penny to buy them a roll of bread for breakfast. The comfort of appeasing hunger is too great a luxury for a confined debtor to be sure of enjoying. And if a creditor, in this boasted land of liberty, were compelled to allow his debtor in prison one good meal of victuals a-day, it would, I doubt not, be exclaimed against as an horrid act of compulsory injustice. "No; he owes me money; [p287] to prison he shall go; and when he is there, whether he starves or not is no concern or mine." I call on the supreme justice of Heaven to determine, whether, in a land which boasts so loudly of its liberty, of the justice of its laws, and the lenity of its government, or in any other land -- whether, I say, it is just, that, because I have been extravagant and imprudent, or even if I have done worse, that because I am a debtor, I should suffer the most searching of all penalties, that of hunger? Is it not sufficient atonement to the injured creditor to deprive me of my liberty? but must he starve me also? Am I also to be deprived of the sixpence a-day, at best a miserable pittance, which the law of my country gives me, by the petty-fogging reptile, ycleped an attorney, who, by some quirk or quibble, or litigious oath or process, can, for near [p288] twelve months, prevent the prisoner from receiving the allowance which the law of the land intended should be paid him instantly on his committal, to keep him from starving? Just Heaven! shower down thy vengeance, I beseech thee, on all such infamous and inhuman oppressors of their fellow-creatures! or soften their hearts, and turn them from deeds of cruelty and oppression!

If a prisoner be arrested, and surrenders to the King's Bench in the month of June, after the term is over, there being no term till the next November, during a period of near five months, he may starve; for, until the Court is sitting, he cannot apply for his groats; but when November arrives, and he applies for them, then the attorney may, by the litigious process, prevent him from recovering the miserable [p289] boon until the following May. Many prisoners, during the five months of this long vacation, have suffered cruelly, and some would have absolutely starved, if it had not been for the generosity of some gentlemen, who themselves are prisoners, and have it in their power to contribute to the wants of the wretched sufferer. Many gentlemen, as well as others of superior stations in life, for several weeks, have, to my knowledge, for successive days, never known what it was to enjoy one good meal.

Nor is this all: from the scanty fare, and irregularity of their diet, they frequently contract diseases, which they have carried with them to their graves, and made them miserable objects during their lives. One gentleman, who, if he had justice done him, would be worth from [p290] thirty-five to fifty thousand pounds, during four months was not able to purchase any other aliment than a cask of sea biscuit, with some brown tea and treacle. From the bad quality of the biscuit, he was seized with a violent bowel complaint, from which he with difficulty recovered. During his illness, his humane relations, who, by a suit in Chancery, had thrown him into prison, sent to the prison door, every other day, to know if he was dead; but never came near him, or sent him any relief. Providence has spared his life, I trust, to enable him to punish such inhuman monsters.

But, supposing every prisoner to receive sixpence per day from his creditor, I will ask one simple question; will any man venture to assert that a man can live on such a stipend? What can he purchase for [p291] it? Let those who make this law try, only for one day, what they can purchase for such a sum, and they will find that they will go to bed both hungry and thirsty, unless they drink water; for a sufficient quantity of bread and small beer cannot be purchased for that money to satisfy their appetite and their thirst.

The author was confined in the year 1798, and speaks of the price of provisions at that period, when they were above a third cheaper than at present. What can a prisoner buy now, in 1801, for six-pence, when even bread is at twenty-pence the quartern loaf, and all provisions bear a proportionate exorbitance? I shall endeavour to make a calculation of what a prisoner may purchase for sixpence. The quartern loaf weighs four pounds five ounces, and is at twenty-pence; beer at [p292] four-pence the quart: one pint of porter at two-pence, and one pound of bread at four-pence farthing the pound, costs six-pence farthing. By this calculation, a prisoner cannot purchase one pound of bread and one pint of porter per day. Meat is totally out of the question: one meal per day of bread and meat is too great a luxury for a debtor to enjoy. I will ask any unfeeling church-going hypocrite, when he lifts his sanctified eyes to heaven, and repeats that petition, in the most beautiful of all prayers, "Give us this day our daily bread," when, at that very time, he is starving his debtor; I will ask him how he dare supplicate that just Being, who declared that he will shut the gates of heaven against such as refuse to visit those who are sick and in prison?

I know it is said, with justice, that a [p293] prisoner for debt is not to live in prison at the expence of his creditor. Certainly not. For such idle vagabonds would run in debt on purpose to be supported without labouring for their maintenance. But, in return, I will ask, whether it is just he should be starved? But poverty is the greatest of all crimes; therefore, in the first instance, the law is more severe against a debtor than a robber, a murderer, or a catamite; for they are taken before a justice of the peace, and sufficient cause must be shewn, before they can be committed: but a man may often be taken by a bailiff, and dragged to prison, on the false oath of a villain, and deprived of the dearest blessing in life, his liberty. It is said, that if a man be imprisoned falsely, he has sufficient redress from the laws of the land. I deny it; he has not: and, to validate my assertion, I will state the extent of the [p294] redress he can obtain. I could give more than one hundred cases, full as grievous and oppressive; but, that I may not bear too hard on the sensibility of my humane readers, and, I hope, I shall have many of them, I will content myself with the following relation: --

A particular friend of mine, a gentleman of distinguished knowledge, science, and philanthropy, and, but a few years past, member of parliament for one of the most opulent counties in Ireland, was arrested for another person in the month of July, just as the long vacation commenced, and carried to the Bench. No term commencing till November, he remained in prison near five months. The moment the Court sat he was discharged, when he commenced a prosecution against the person who had so long deprived him of [p295] his liberty: but the prosecution was scarcely begun when the defendant became a pennyless bankrupt, and was himself carried to the Fleet prison. What redress can this gentleman have for the loss of his liberty for five months? He cannot put this man in the pillory for perjury, as the law does not allow it, because it was not wilful: but if he could be pilloried, is it any atonement to him for his sufferings to see this fellow stand for one hour with his head through a hole in a board at Charing-cross? Would it not be more consistent with justice to prevent such cruel proceedings in the first instance? The felon in Newgate, and the prisoner in the Penitentiary-house, Coldbath-fields, for high crimes and misdemeanors against the State, whatever his sufferings may be in a solitary cell, has one comfort -- he knows not the pangs of [p296] hunger: but the gentleman, the citizen, the sailor, and the soldier, who may have bled in their country's defence, oppressed by sinful poverty, the worst of crimes, is allowed only sixpence per day for all his wants, and has not even a bed or fire found him to rest his wearied limbs or warm his half-starved frame.

When any one surrenders to the King's Bench, and has a command of money, he can procure a room by paying his chum, or chamber companion, out, as it is called; that is, by giving some poor man a weekly sum to let him have the room to himself, to the mutual convenience of both: as the latter, for the sake of getting a stipend to purchase food, will be content to get a lodging where he can find it at a cheap rate, by sleeping ten or twelve in a small room; or without any [p297] expence at all, by preferring a soft plank in the tap-room, or a smooth stone on a stair-case.

We who live in a land of liberty, who boast of the justice and lenity of our laws, who profess Christianity, can we, without remorse of conscience reflect on the miseries the oppressed debtor suffers? Can we pretend to possess any feeling and any religion or humanity, and with indifference view one part of our fellow-creatures persecuted and half-starved by unfeeling, remorseless creditors? I positively assert, fearless of contradiction, that many prisoners in the King's Bench have been half-starved, and have contracted disorders, from lack of sustenance, of which they have died.

The law against debtors, and their sufferings [p298] in prison, cry aloud to Heaven and the Legislature for redress. I will frankly acknowledge it to be my individual opinion, that no person, in a country of liberty, should be confined for debt, who gives up his whole property to his creditors. But the law having decreed it otherwise, and lawyers fattening, as they do, on the fruits of it, I must leave it to the future operations of justice and of mercy. But why am I, because I am unfortunately born a gentleman, liable to be deprived of my liberty throughout my life, for the small sum of ten pounds; which is a possible case, when, from the rich merchant to the inferior trader who keeps a green-stall, provided four-fifths of his creditors consent, can procure his certificate of bankruptcy, without the risk of imprisonment: while a gentleman, if he owes ten thousand pounds, and can [p299] pay only nine thousand nine hundred and ninety pounds, may, by one obdurate creditor, be confined all his life, as an act of grace has not for many years involved so large a sum. Would it not be just, at least, to put the gentleman and the soldier on the same footing with a vender of cabbages, or a cabbaging tailor?

Many officers have been, and some now are, confined in prison, who have offered their creditors a part in money, and good security for the remainder at a distant period: but they have been deaf to all terms, imagining that they have rich relations or friends, who will come forward and satisfy the whole at once. They know little of human nature: nor does any man thoroughly know either his relations or his friends until he has once been in prison. But I repeat my opinion, [p300] that, in a free country, there should be no confinement of the person for debt; yet I would have it made felony for any person to secrete one shilling of his property. It is said, that, were there no law to confine a debtor's person, our trade and commerce would suffer. It is no such thing. There is no law in Scotland to confine a debtor who gives up his property; and has the trade of Edinburgh and of Glasgow decreased? I will not confine my argument to this country. Look to Holland, a country where the true interests of trade and commerce are as well understood as in England. There is no law there to imprison a debtor; yet Holland had arrived at its wealth and grandeur by trade alone.

It must be allowed by every candid person, that these arguments, in favour of [p301] the personal liberty of the subject of this country, are very forcible; and yet I fear there is a stronger reason against it, as a considerable part of the expence incurred to the debtor before he is imprisoned, and the processes carried on to bring the actions against him to a judgment, from the stamps and fees, &c. &c. form a considerable part of the revenue to Government, which, until a substitute is found, it may not be judged prudent to annihilate; but, with my lack of brains, I would undertake to find one before tomorrow morning, that would answer every purpose of finance. Such a measure would also deprive one half of the attornies of their iniquitous bread, moistened with the tears of their miserable victims, which might be considered by some Machiavelian moralists as a crying act of injustice.

[p302] Every term prisoners come from the remotest parts of England to surrender to the King's Bench, not from choice, but from compulsion. The process of the law in this respect is unknown to the public. I will state it. If a man is arrested three hundred miles from London, on a judgment, or taken in execution, he is carried to the county jail; but if he is arrested for a simple debt, and some friend bails him, when the time arrives that he must either pay the money or surrender his person to prison, or fix his friend with the debt who bailed him, he cannot surrender to the county jail. Let him be in the most distant part of England, he must travel to London and surrender there, and on foot, if he cannot afford to pay for the conveyance of a coach or a waggon.

[p303] One very singular instance I will relate, or a poor old man, between seventy and eighty years of age, who came all the way from Cumberland on foot to surrender, sooner than be so dishonest as to fix his bail. When he came to the door of the King's Bench, he was bare-footed, and holding his shoes and a small bundle of clothes hung across a stick over his shoulder. He shewed the door-keeper a letter from an attorney, stating his case, and at whose suit he came to surrender. The door-keeper told him, according to his duty so to do, that he could not permit him to surrender; for, if he did, without undergoing the proper forms, that though he was locked up, if the process was not regularly performed, his friend, who had bailed him, would be fixed with the debt. The door-keeper very kindly ordered one of the tipstaves to go over with [p304] him to Chancery-lane, where having paid the customary fees, and walked some hundreds of miles, he then marched over to the King's Bench prison, and was received in proper form within its walls.

Having stated this curious, though a very common process, relative to a debtor surrendering to the King's Bench, I will state a process of the law which takes place after the prisoner has surrendered, or which I had an example in my own affairs, when a prisoner in this place. Amongst the writs to which I surrendered myself there, one of them was in the Court of Common Pleas: the rest were in the Court of King's Bench. Accordingly, on a subsequent day, that honest officer, Mr. Neave, the door-keeper, came into my room, to inform me that a Habeas Corpus was served on me, to remove me to the Fleet [p305] Prison. Although I knew a great deal of the process and expences of the law for debt, having paid some thousands for my knowledge, I was ignorant of this ceremony. I must confess I could not view this process either as humane or just; that being a prisoner, and after having, by the assistance of my friends, made myself a little comfortable in one prison, I should be dragged to another. However, being of Dr. Pangloss's opinion, que tout est pour le mieux, though the circumstance was sufficient to make another man doubt of the fitness of things, and that it would be of no benefit to fret and vex myself about it, I asked Mr. Neave how I should act in this case, as, from his situation, he must be well informed of all such processes. He advised me, as the debt was but a small one, to desire my lawyers to settle it; which was done, and I remained [p306] where I was. If I had not been able to pay, I should have been taken to the Fleet Prison, there surrendered, and, after paying the fees of that prison, must have taken an Habeas Corpus, to remove myself back to the King's Bench. The whole expence would have been about seven pounds; and if I could not have procured the money, I must have remained in the Fleet. To this case there is something more attached than the expence of bringing myself back by a Habeas Corpus to the Bench. By the kind assistance of my worthy and best friend, Jacob Wilkinson, who was my bondsman to the marshal, I had procured the blessing of a liberty to walk and enjoy the open air within the boundaries of the King's Bench, called the Rules. The expence incurred on the bond to obtain the benefit of the Rules, is ten pounds for the first hundred, [p307] and four pounds for every other hundred of the debt or debts for which you are imprisoned. For instance, if a man is a prisoner for four hundred, he must find good security, and pay twenty-two pounds, and so on in proportion for the larger debt. Had I been carried over to the Fleet, and there remained, I must have forfeited the money I had paid to obtain the liberty of the Rules of the Bench, and been closely confined, if not able to procure money to pay the expences necessary to procure the Rules of the Fleet: and, what is more singular, if there had been seven or eight writs, say any number, (for it makes no difference, in common, whether it be one or one hundred pleas against me,) I should have been dragged there for every one of them, and paid the same expences on each and every writ as on one, if I could; and if I could not, the expences would have [p308] lain against me in the Fleet, and I must have discharged them before I could be liberated from prison, after settling with my creditors.

I shall beg leave to mention another singular fact. If a man surrenders to the Fleet Prison instead of the King's Bench, which is at his option, if he has but one writ against him in the Court of Common Pleas, and one, eight, or eight hundred writs, (it is all the same, though not the same expence,) in the Court of King's Bench, against him, on every writ in the Court of King's Bench he can be removed to the King's Bench Prison from the Fleet. This is ringing the changes with a vengeance. It is not sufficient that a prisoner be confined in one prison, but he must like a shuttlecock, be thrown backwards and forwards from one prison to the other, [p309] with the distress of being put to considerable expence, in addition to all that he has already sustained.

A short time before I was discharged from this place, two brothers were brought up from some distant part of the island, and surrendered there. They had been engaged in a law suit, in which they were cast. The person with whom they had been at law was so humane as not to continue the process; but the attorney sent them both to the King's Bench for the costs of the suit, amounting to something above twenty pounds. This case may appear singular to the reader, who fortunately is not informed of the persecution practised on prisoners by attornies: but I will inform them, and if they doubt my assertions, they may apply to the records of the King's Bench [p310] and Fleet Prisons, and they will find there are many hundreds who are confined for the costs of suit to the lawyer, whose original debt did not amount to ten pounds; nay further, there are numbers now in prison for debts originally amounting only to the small sums of four, five, six, or seven pounds. These small debts have been brought to a judgment by the attorney, which attaches the person, the moment the costs, jointly with the debt, amount to above ten pounds, although the debtor is able and willing to pay the original debt. Many have offered to pay even a part of the costs: but, although the original debt did not exceed five or six pounds, they now are fixed in prison for above twenty pounds, owing to the attorney not being willing to relax one shilling of his demand for costs of suit in bringing the debt to an execution.

[p311] I will give you an instance, relative to myself, not only of the extravagant expence attending small debts under ten pounds, but of the generosity and integrity of the honest tradesman. I built a one-horse chair some years past; the price was, to the best of my recollection, between fifty and sixty pounds. The first day I drove it for two hours, merely to try it, and to have it properly hung: I then left it a few days with the maker, to regulate it; and, before I took it away, I paid one half of the price in money, and gave a bill for the other half at a short date, which was paid. However, I happened to send the chaise back to be screwed up, and to have some trifling alteration made, &c. the expence of which amounted to five pounds six shillings, or six pounds five, I forget which. After owing this trifle for a considerable space [p312] of time, I was served with a copy of a writ: this was but a very few months before I surrendered to the King's Bench prison, amongst a variety of other demands of much greater amount, all of which I paid before that horrid day, the Morrow of All Souls, which is so fatal to many bodies in the first week in November. I had been out of town for above two months, and totally forgot that I had been served with a copy of a writ for so small a sum. In December following, a sheriff's officer met me, who had often-times arrested me, and told me he had a warrant against me. I asked him why he did not call at my house in the morning early, that I might have gone out with him and settled it, as it was then near my time of dinner. He gave me a very satisfactory reason why he did not. I asked him the sum it amounted to. "A [p313] small sum, somewhat above twenty," he replied. As it was rather late in the day, and near dinner-time, I desired him to call on me the next morning, and I would settle it. "I would with pleasure, Colonel," said he; "but it is an execution." "That is impossible!" I replied, "For I have not signed any bond or warrant of attorney to any person existing." -- "I assure you, Colonel," continued he, "it is an execution. You ought to know the law, and what lawyers can do, for you have paid enough to know it in your lifetime." -- "I now understand you," I replied; "I suppose it is some small debt under ten pounds, brought to a judgment by the attorney," -- "Exactly so." To cut this matter very short, I went to my friend Mr. Wright in Carey-street, and surrendered to him. My agent very kindly brought me the money to discharge [p314] the debt and costs, which amounted to above twenty-four pounds. Now, if I had not been able to pay it, I must have surrendered to the King's Bench or Fleet, and there I might have lain until I had rotted, unless I had paid the twenty-four pounds; for I have no reason to believe that the attorney employed against me would have deviated from the line adopted by his brethren, and have shewn me any very distinguished favour.

I may here, I think, as well as in any other page of this volume, inform the world, that when I was making an arrangement with my creditors, and they had agreed to take a part in money, and a security in future for the remainder, the particulars of which I have stated in another part of this Work, there was but one attorney, out of the many employed [p315] against me, that would relax one shilling of their costs. Although their clients were satisfied with a part, they would be paid their whole demand; and some of the costs to the attorneys amounted to very near as much as the original debt owing to their clients. But this is in the ordinary way of the detestable profession which they follow. But, notwithstanding all the injuries they have done me, and are continually doing mankind, I will prove my Christian charity by presenting them with their portrait from the sacred writings -- "Ye are of your father the devil; and the works of your father ye will do." Filial piety, perhaps, may be their only virtue.

I desire it may be well understood, that I do not mean, in any sense whatever, to apply this conduct to the higher orders of [p316] attornies and solicitors, who would disdain to engage in low and base traffic; though not one of them is without one of these low fellows in his service to do the dirty work which they must not appear to do for themselves. Whatever they may do in the higher course of business, they disdain the common jog-trot of writ, declaration and judgment; nor are they linked with the pawn-broker, silversmith, ironmonger, &c. &c. who discount gentlemen's bills, giving a part in money and the rest in goods, with four, five, or six names indorsed on the back of the bill, and who purchase such bills from these extortioners, in the hope that the person who drew them will not be punctual at the day the bill is due, so that he may bring his action against the drawer of the bill, and make him pay costs for ever separate name indorsed on the back of it.

[p317] I shall now proceed to relate an example of extortion which I know to be correctly true. A lady in the habit of doing bills in the manner I have related, issued a bill for eighty, ninety, or an hundred pounds, I forget which sum: this bill, after passing through eight persons' hands, of course had as many indorsements, and was purchased by one of these miscreants. When the bill became due she could not immediately pay it, and he of course issued a writ against her: her lawyer undertook, put in bail for her, and defended the action. When she came forward to pay the money, this honest man charged her eight costs.

This worthy member of society, who lived in the Temple, is now dead, and gone to the devil. There being a special cause to be tried in the infernal regions, [p318] his infernal majesty could spare him no longer; but, in return for services performed, he has made him his attorney-general.² On her paying the wretch his demand, she then informed him that she would prosecute him for an usurious transaction, and make him pay about fifteen hundred pounds, which would be the penalty of it, in return for his generous and liberal conduct to her. But the Devil, who has so greatly promoted him in the other world, used to stand his friend while he was in this; and he helped him out of the scrape in the following manner:--

This lady had a whimsical propensity now and then, when in want of cash, to [p319] borrow some creditable person's name, in a way which is commonly called forging; and a bill of hers was at this time in circulation, which this attorney had got into his possession, with a distinguished nobleman's name to it, which she, in her free way, had written with her own fair hand. He accordingly took an early opportunity to inform her, that a bill had been offered to him for negociation, drawn by her, and accepted by a nobleman, for which, before he gave cash, as persons of high rank were not, like their inferiors, always punctual at the day of payment, he requested to know if she had any objection to his calling on him to ascertain that circumstance. The lady replied, that the bill would certainly be paid on the day it was due; and that it would be very intruding in him to trouble the nobleman with a visit on any such [p320] subject. At length, however, our hero in infamy began to speak a little plainer than he had hitherto done, and frankly told her that the bill was in his possession, and that he knew she had forged that nobleman's name. She then threw herself on his mercy, and he generously spared her life on her engaging not to commence a prosecution against him for his former infamous conduct. I am not certain whether I am right or not as to the law in such a case; but I am inclined to believe that this honourable and humane attorney was guilty of compounding felony; but if he was, it is not to be wondered, at, as it was in the way of his business.

As to myself, I cannot charge my memory with ever having paid more than four costs on one bill of exchange, which [p321] has fallen into the hands of such honourable practitioners of the law; which, by the by, is tolerably reasonable. These particulars are related in another part of this Work; I shall therefore proceed to the misfortunes, hardships, and prosecutions to which prisoners are subject, from unfeeling creditors, and their harpies ycleped attornies, which doomed to this prison. To proceed -- An acquaintance of mine was committed to the King's Bench, in the year 1794, for two debts, amounting to upwards of an hundred pounds, when he gave up all his property, which was then in Chancery, and took the benefit of an Act of Insolvency. In the year following he was imprisoned again, for a debt of no more than twenty-two pounds; when he applied for his sixpences, and was denied them, on account of his having taken the [p322] benefit of a former act for the debt already mentioned, and would have starved, had not a subscription been made for him by his friends, although he had property coming to him which waited the decision of Chancery.

Since that period I have had nothing further to observe: it may, however, be remarked, that when a prisoner sues for his sixpences, he must swear that he is not worth five pounds, (I believe the oath is now extended to ten;) I will not positively assert the actual expence the prisoner must pay to obtain three shillings and sixpence per week, for sometimes their friends do it gratuitously; but whether it is paid for, as in many instances, the following charges are near the mark:

But these are not all the expences of this process. He cannot appear at Westminster Hall unless in the custody of a tipstaff belonging to the King's Bench, who must also be paid for this trouble: then he cannot put his nose out of the prison without paying for a day rule, the price of which, I believe, is the same to him, or to any prisoner who has taken the benefit of the Rules, and wishes to go to town to transact business, that is four shillings. I do not pledge myself, in this one instance, to the correctness of the charge, but, I believe, the [p324] fee to the tipstaff is ten shillings; thus thirteen shillings are added to one pound three, already incurred.

If it were not for the sufferings of the prisoner, this process, which a man must undergo to obtain three shillings and sixpence per week to keep him from starving, is so absurd and ridiculous that it would be worthy of laughter; for, that a prisoner should pay one single shilling to obtain the scanty pittance from his creditor of three shillings and sixpence per week, is truly ludicrous. Although it is not in my nature to sport with the feelings and sufferings of the oppressed, yet I am at liberty to laugh heartily at the process of law, I mean, (reader, do not misconstrue my words,) the law of attornies relative to the charges they have made to their clients, at which suit a prisoner is [p325] confined. Every Monday evening, before the clock strikes nine, three shillings and sixpence must be deposited in the hands of the door-keeper for the use of the prisoner; in which payment if the creditor or his attorney is deficient, the action is supersedable, and the prisoner is discharged. Now, I do assert positively, that many attornies have charged their clients three shillings and four-pence, or six shillings and eight-pence, for sending their clerk, or going once to the Bench themselves, to pay the three shillings and sixpence. This, reader, you will readily believe, when you know that these gentlemen will not take a walk over to the King's Bench, or work in any shape, for nothing. So the creditor pays his attorney either three shillings and four-pence, or six shillings and eight-pence, in addition [p326] to the three shillings and sixpence. The whole transaction is scandalous, and requires immediate redress. It may appear singular to the reader, but I assert, that, at this very moment, there are many persons lying in prison, whose original debt to the creditor did not amount to above three, four, five, or six pounds, whose debts now, from costs to the attornies, do exceed twenty and thirty pounds. I myself have paid for a debt of four pounds thirteen shillings, and for one of six pounds sixteen shillings, and two or three times for a debt under ten pounds -- I say, that I have paid ten, twelve, or fourteen pounds costs. Many prisoners are able, and have offered to pay their original debt, but cannot pay costs to the attorney; they therefore remain in confinement, where they might pass their [p327] lives, if an occasional act of insolvency did not relieve them.

I know also, that many creditors have been very willing to take the original debt, and have been desirous of liberating the debtor: but a creditor cannot release the prisoner; for, if he grants the prisoner a discharge, the attorney fixes him with the costs of the debtor: so the creditor must pay the attorney twenty or thirty pounds costs for doing nothing more than what he ought to do, namely, for discharging his debtor, on his paying the original sum he was indebted to him.

I must now apologize to the reader for breaking off so suddenly, and not describing various other miseries and oppressions to which the unfortunate debtor in this prison is subjected, much to the discredit [p328] of a country which boasts so proudly of its liberty; but I promise faithfully, in a third volume, which I shortly intend to publish, to give various interesting cases of distress and oppression, not only in the King's Bench and the Fleet, but also in that Court, so well known by the name, style and title of the Marshalsea.

At present I have neither time or place sufficient in these volumes: I shall therefore conclude, for the present, with two or three interesting stories relative to the conduct of attornies, how they obtain bills of exchange, for which reasons they take them, and what cost they charge on them; together with a few particulars relative to prisoners confined for debts under ten pounds.

Reader, mark well what I am now going [p329] to relate, and seriously reflect, whether, in a Christian country, and in a land of liberty, it is fit that any individual should be subject to such dire persecution. It is not possible for me at present to speak with certainty to the fact, not having as yet obtained an account of the number of prisoners who are confined in the various prisons in London for debts under ten pounds: But I call God to witness, that, from the conversations I have held with various prisoners in the King's Bench, (in the Fleet it is exactly the same,) and the information I have acquired on the subject, I truly believe that I speak much within the compass, when I with horror inform you, that above one half of the prisoners in the King's Bench and the Fleet, (aye, and in most of the other jails in England,) could be liberated, and would be liberated, to-morrow, [p330] were it not for the costs that must be paid to the attorney before they can be discharged.

I shall now relate one instance in which I myself suffered very materially. Many years ago I kept horses at the livery-stables of my old friend Mr. Fozard. I had for some time given over keeping horses, and had settled all accounts with him for many months, when a man called on me, and told me that I owed him four pounds some shillings, for the keeping of a horse in grass some distance from London. I told him that I knew nothing of the matter; that I never had put any horse to grass with him; and that I did not even know the place where he lived, which I literally believed was the fact. In about three days after, I was served with a copy of a writ. I then began to [p331] reflect, and did recollect, that Fozard had put a horse one winter into a straw-yard for me; but, having settled my account with him, I of course concluded that I had paid that expence with the rest. I accordingly went to his stables and examined the books, when I found that he had not made such a charge, and of course that I owed it. I was served with the copy of a writ on a Friday evening, and on Monday morning quitted town for the neighbourhood of Ascott-heath, preparatory to the races. I was so incautious as not to look at the date on the writ, to see when it was returnable; nor did I send it to my lawyer, thinking that a week would make but little difference, as I should be in town the following Saturday. The writ, however, was made returnable in three days, and a fresh term commenced in four days. Thus the lawyer had the [p332] start of me by two terms in one week, which enabled him to make such rapid progress in his expences. On the Saturday afternoon, only eight days from the time I was served with the copy of a writ, I went to his house to pay the debt; and judging that I should not have above twenty shillings to pay for the expences at first incurred, was surprised, when his clerk made the account out, to find that the four pounds were, in eight days accumulated, by the attorney's costs, to eleven or thirteen pounds, I really forget which; but either of them is sufficient for my purpose. On my expostulations relative to the exorbitant charges produced in so short a time, the clerk informed me, that another term had commenced since the issuing of the writ, and consoled me by the assurance, that it was very fortunate I happened to call [p333] that day, as, from my having neglected to plead through my attorney to the writ, judgment would have been entered up against me on the Monday morning following, which would have been three pounds more, and that then I should have been taken in execution. I now began to understand the affair, that it was very regularly carried on, was very legal, very moderate, and very just; and nought was left for me but to pay the whole sum, acknowledge the equity of the process, and content myself with having had the good fortune to call that day, the moment I came to town, by which I saved the additional charge of three pounds. This all took place in eight days. I had, indeed, seen, during my absence at Ascott-heath, some tolerable good racing; but this attorney, it must [p334] be allowed by all sportsmen, beat every thing for speed.

I will trouble the reader with but one case more relative to exorbitant costs on debts for small sums, although I could mention several others which I have paid within the six or seven last years of my life.

Before I surrendered as a prisoner to the King's Bench, I gave a bill to a tradesman, not for any debt contracted by me, but for a lady of my acquaintance. This bill was kept back by a lawyer, into whose hands it fell; and, not being a debt of my own, it escaped my notice. After I was liberated, it was demanded of me; but, as I could not pay it, I was arrested, and compelled, from actual [p335] necessity, to bail it, and defend it for some time, till I was able to pay it, when I gave my attorney a sum of money to discharge that bill, and some other matters I had to settle; but not having sufficient money given him, he left six pounds unpaid, and informed me of his so doing. The lawyer was perfectly satisfied, and assured him that he would put me to no trouble for the remaining trifle, and that I might pay it when convenient. My lawyer, however, went out of town for two months on business, in which time this gentleman carried on the process against me; and, having brought it to an execution, fixed me in judgment for sixteen pounds sixteen shillings. It is necessary to remark, that the original bill was only _____³ pounds, the costs _____ pounds, of which he was paid all but six; and this six pounds he increased, [p336] by additional costs, to sixteen pounds sixteen shillings and sixpence, which, together with what he was paid before, brought the original debt of twenty-six pounds to no less a sum than ________.

In addition to this, the customary expences attending on a judgment, such a sheriffs poundage, caption fee, one guinea, searching the office, and some small perquisite to the house of the officer I went to, amounted to above two pounds more. Thus I paid, for a twenty-six pound debt, no less a sum than _____.

This is law, aye, and very sound, legal, and excellent law too, and what is practised every day of the year, to the emolument of the attorney, and ruin of the debtor, who, when it is a distressing [p337] circumstance to him to pay six pounds, is compelled to pay sixteen or be sent to jail, and there to lay until he rots, or can pay the costs to the attorney as well as the principal debt.

The reader will please to observe, that I paid sixteen pounds sixteen shillings to the attorney for his costs on the remaining six pounds which were left unpaid on an original debt of twenty-six pounds, on which he had already received _______ costs.

Before I take my leave of this wretched subject, I cannot refrain from relating a history of an attorney into whose hands a bill fell belonging to a very particular friend of mine; but, first, I shall state the motives which induce attornies to purchase [p338] bills of exchange. -- when money is scarce, and a gentleman wants a little cash, and cannot get his bill discounted at his banker's, having overdrawn his account considerably; or, as many are situated who have no banker at all; he goes to some advertising money-broker, and gives him a bill, we will say for a hundred pounds, to get discounted: the money-broker goes to some pawn-broker, woolen-draper, ironmonger, or some other tradesman who is in the habit of discounting bills, and giving part in money and part in goods. Of the particular losses that gentlemen suffer by taking half goods and half cash, which is the general custom, I have mentioned in another part of this book; I shall, therefore, only relate how this bill is put into circulation.

[p339] The tradesman pays this bill away to some other tradesman who is accustomed to the same traffic in bills, and puts his name on it, the broker having indorsed it before for a very good reason, because his name, being on the back of the bill, prevents him being called as a witness on a qui tam action for usury. The second tradesman, who now holds the bill, indorses it also. Now, there is the name of the drawer of the bill, the broker's name, and the two tradesmen's names, on the bill; these make four names. The last-mentioned tradesman, being in want of cash, goes to some attorney who is in the constant habits of purchasing such bills: when he comes to the attorney and shews him the bill, telling him he wants money for it, the attorney never examines the face of the bill, but looks directly on [p340] the back of it, to see how many names are there indorsed. If there are three names, it is a matter worthy of his attention; if four, it is excellent, that making five names with the drawer's. At first he pleads poverty; but at last tells him that the drawer of the bill is not a punctual man in payment of bills, and that most likely he shall have some time to wait for his money; in short, that he cannot give him above ninety pounds for the hundred pound bill. This the tradesman very readily takes, he having, by the bad quality of the goods he sold, if he was the first discounter, made already from thirty to forty per cent. or has purchased it at an inferior price of the former tradesman; but, in general, these men, who give large quantities of goods, and but a small part in cash, are many of them connected intimately together, and [p341] mutually pass each other's bills backwards and forwards, with mutual indorsements. But, to return to the attorney: when the bill is due, if not paid at the day, a process is commenced, and a writ civilly issued for form's sake; for these polite attornies are too well bred to arrest the drawer of the bill in the street; but inform him, in a very civil letter, that he is sorry he cannot give time on the bill, being directed by his client to inforce payment, (the client, observe, reader, is no other than his own dear self,) therefore respectfully requests that you will favour him with the name of your solicitor, that he may undertake for you to put in bail, as it is far from his intent to serve you pubicly with an arrest. -- You have now to thank him for his polite method of doing business, and send him the name of your solicitor. Bail is shortly [p342] put in; and if it is not in your power to pay it in a term, bail above must be put in, and bail must be justified; and, when you take the bail up, you must pay four costs exclusive of your own; and there is no means of avoiding these four extra costs, unless you let judgment go by default, which if you do, you must be prepared with the money to pay the principal sum of the bill and your own single costs, or your person is taken in execution, which is the ne plus ultra of the law, and your body may be committed to Newgate. If you defend the action by various ingenious methods, such as sham plea, write of error, and some other very clever inventions, you may postpone the payment of the bill for many months; but, in the final arrangement, when neither sham nor fudge can avail any longer, then you must be [p343] contented to pay four costs exclusive of your own; which, indeed, is tolerably moderate, as I have given you one instance in the foregoing pages, in which an attorney made a lady pay eight or nine costs, and ever one of them were special originals, and each ten pounds expence; but he was a jewel of an attorney, and as transcendant in real honour as a brilliant is to a rose diamond, to the rest of his fraternity.

You now see, reader, how great an object it is to an attorney, who buys a bill of a tradesman, to have four or five names indorsed on the back of it, otherwise it is not worth his having; nor does he think it worth negociating, if there is a probability that the drawer will punctually pay it at the day when it is due: the attorney, after all, runs no risk, even if the drawer of [p344] the bill should run away, for he can come upon the indorsers.

But, to come to the story, which is not without amusement: -- A friend of mine, who was not always, as well as myself and many others, rigidly punctual in taking up his bills at the hour when due, discounted a bill in the preceding manner: there were four or five names on the back of the bill, which made it very eligible: an attorney readily purchased this bill. The morning when due, it was presented at his house with the accustomary notice left in writing: -- "Your bill for 100l. lies due at Messrs.______ bankers.⁴ Please to call this day between the hours of three and five." -- My friend, that day, a happy [p345] day for him, but a day of disappointment to the attorney, was, per chance, more in cash than usual, and sent his servant with the money, between three and five o'clock, to take up the bill; which he did, and brought it to his master cancelled.

A few weeks after, the same tradesman, who sold this bill drawn on my friend to the attorney, called again on him with another bill drawn on the same gentleman, asking him to discount it. The moment he saw on whom the bill was drawn, he threw it with indignation on the floor, saying, "I am astonished, Sir, at your offering me such a bill; I will have nothing to do with that gentleman's bills, for the last, which I gave you money for, to oblige you, was paid the day it was presented." -- The tradesman, much to his mortification, was obliged [p346] to depart without getting cash for his bill, and had the trouble to seek for some other attorney who dealt in bills, to whom the unusual punctuality of my friend was not yet known.

Reader, I trust this story has given you some pleasure; and I assure you, on my word, it is a fact. For the veracity of the following interesting account of a distinguished junto in this town, I cannot be altogether so responsible; but, on my honour, I have heard it from good authority, and I believe the general outline of their transactions to be true.

A few years past there existed in this town a truly philanthropic money-lending society: it consisted of about five or six reputable tradesmen, two attornies, and one bailiff. I have had the honour [p347] of knowing them all personally; and with the three latter, the two attornies and the bailiff, I have been on a very familiar footing, and through them have experienced the philanthropy of the society to the amount of many and many hundreds of pounds. This distinguished society (pardon the vulgarity of the expression!) all rowed in one boat, passing bills from one to the other to multiply the names on the back of the bills, till at last they were placed in one of the attornies hands, by whom they were ultimately consigned to the care and attention of the bailiff. I have been informed that they even shared in the perquisites of the bailiff: but I do not believe it, because his fees are so trifling that it would not be sound policy in these able financiers to partake of so small a part of the profits, and let the bailiff share with them [p348] in the greater. In my opinion he could not have had any share in the profits, excepting the expence of the arrest and those incurred in his house, unless he placed money to the general account: in this manner he might pull an oar in the boat also. This amiable society is totally broken up and dispersed, by the devil having wanted one of the attornies to transact special business in the infernal courts, and by the other respectful limb of the law having retired, otio cum dignitate, into the country on a handsome fortune, acquired by costs upon bills of exchange, and costs charged to distress debtors, there to await the call of his infernal majesty; for two such able men he will not admit at the same time in his dominions. The devil even dreads their power, and stands in awe of their unparalleled skill and abilities.

[p349] For the present I shall say no more relative to the King's Bench, or of attornies, but promise the reader to give him, in a Third Volume, which will be soon published, a more minute account of that prison, and a complete investigation of the conduct of attornies to debtors, with other circumstances relative to the police of the King's Bench.

Continue...

Notes:

¹ I shall speak hereafter of officers confined for small debts. [ back ]

² The attorney-general, in former times, was called Diabolus Regis, or the King's Bull Dog. Vide a book intitled "The Mirror of Magistrates." [ back ]

³ [Over the next several paragraphs all the numbers are missing in the original book. This is presumably a typesetting error. -- Marg B.] [ back ]

⁴ Oftentimes the attorney announces that the bill lies for payment at his house or chambers. [ back ]