xvi ANTI-SLAVERY AND PRISON REFORM 223 



letter, however, from Anthony Benezet of Philadelphia, 

 one of the most enlightened advocates of the slave, in 

 1773, discouraging the plan : it was better, he thought, 

 that the negroes should live together with whites in a 

 mixed community. 1 



PRISON REFORM : JOHN HOWARD 



Amongst the friends of Fothergill was John Howard : 

 that austere enthusiast whose untiring labours in the 

 cause of humanity over land and sea ceased only when 

 they brought him to a lonely grave in Southern Russia. 

 With him Fothergill was ever ready, in the words of 

 Burke, " to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge 

 into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of 

 sorrow and pain, to remember the forgotten," and " to 

 visit the forsaken." Fothergill gave evidence with 

 Howard before the House of Commons, which led to the 

 passing in 1774 of the Act for preserving the health of 

 prisoners in gaol. Two years later Fothergill published 

 in the Gazetteer a letter signed " Philanthropes," on 

 the employment of convicts. Instead of transporting 

 them or putting them upon the hulks in the Thames, he 

 proposed that all criminals, except murderers, incendiaries 

 and robbers who used violence, should be employed in 

 sawing stone, a labour which needed no apprenticeship, 

 could be easily supervised, and which brought in at that 

 time a wage of from ten to thirty shillings a week. He 

 would have had three stone-yards formed on the river-side, 

 near Old Palace, the Savoy and the Tower respectively, 

 convenient for the shipment of the stone, and for summon- 

 ing guards if they were needed. Here houses should be 

 built, and stone cells, properly warmed, with high iron 

 palisades on the landward side, through which the 

 prisoners, in their parti-coloured dress, could be seen at 

 their work a useful deterrent, he thought, to others. 

 The work would bring in enough to pay the charges and 



1 Mem. Lettsom, ii. 534. MS. Letter, A. Benezet to Dr. F., 1773, Gibson 

 MSS. i. 27, Fds. Ref. Lib. 



