408 
JOHN HOWARD, &SQ. 
!iis enlargement granted him only on condition of his signing a paper 
disclaiming two or three pages fo his book. However, as he soon 
a fter found a few of his relatives, he got the attestations of some, and 
file ailidavits of others, proving that he was the person taken away, 
as mentioned in the narrative. 
John Howard, Esq. 
This was a man of singular and transcendent humanity. He was 
born at Hackney, in 1726 ; and was put apprentice to Mr. N. New- 
man, grocer, in Watling-street. His father died in 1742, leaving only 
this son and a daughter, to both of whom he bequeathed handsome 
fortunes ; but by his will directed that his son shsiuld not be consi- 
dered of age till he was twenty-five. His constitution being very 
weak, the remaining time of his apprenticeship was bought up, and 
he applied himself to the study of medicine and nali-ral jihilosophy. 
Falling into a nervous fever, while he lodged with a widow' lady, 
named Sarah Lardeau, a worthy woman, but an invalid, he was nursed 
with so much care and attention, that he resolved to marry her out of 
gratitude. In vain she expostulated wdth him on the extravagance 
of such a proceeding, he being about twenty-eightand she about fifty- 
one years of age; but nothing could alter his resolution, and they, 
were privately married about 1752. She was possessed of a small 
fortune, which he presented to her sister. 
During his residence at Newington, Mr. Howard, who was bred a 
dissenter, and steadfastly adhered to that profession all his life, gave 
fifty pounds to purchase the lease of a house near the meeting-house, 
and to appropriate it as a parsonage house for the minister. His 
W'ife died Nov. 10, 1755, aged 54, and he was a sincere mourner for 
her death. About this time he was elected F. R. S. In 1756 he experi- 
enced some of those evils which he made it his business to redress. 
He embarked that year in a Lisbon packet to make the tour of Portugal,, 
when the vessel was taken by a French privateer. 
“ Before we reached Brest,” says he, in his treatise on Prisons, 
p. 11. “ I suffered the extremity of thirst, not having, for above 
forty hours, one drop of water, nor hardly a morsel of food. In the 
castle of Brest I lay six nights upon straw, and observing how cru- 
elly my countrymen were used here and at Morlaix, whither I was 
carried next, — during the two months 1 was ^at Carhaix upon parole, 
I corresponded with the English prisoners* a Brest, Morlaix, and 
Dinian ; at the last of these towns were several of our ship’s crew, 
and my servant. I had sufficient evidence of their being treated with 
such barbarity that many hundreds had perished, and that thirty-six; 
were buried in a hole at Dimau in one day. When 1 came to Eng- 
land, still on parole, ! made known to the commissioners of sick 
and >vounded seamen the sundry particulars, which gained their at- 
tention and thanks. Remonstrance was made to the French court 
our sailors had redress ; and those that were in the three prisons raen- 
tioned above, were brought home in the first cartel-ships. Perhaps (adds 
Mr. Howard) what I suffered on this occasion, increased my sympa- 
thy vyitl:^ the unhappy people whose case is the subject of this book. 
