A
VIEW
OF THE
LIFE, TRAVELS,
AND
PHILANTHROPIC LABOURS
OF THE LATE
JOHN HOWARD, ESQ.
L.L.D. F.R.S.
BY JOHN AIKIN, M.D.
IN Commune anxilium natus, ac publicum bonum, ex
quo dabit cuique partem: etiam ad calamitoso, pro
portione, improbandos et emendandos, bonitatem su-
am permittet. SENECA.
BOSTON:
PRINTED BY MANNING & LORING,
For J. WHITE, S. HALL, THOMAS & ANDREWS,
D. WEST, W. SPOTSWOOD, E. LARKIN, J.
WEST, and the PROPRIETOR of the Boston Bookstore.
1794.   




INTRODUCTION.
IF it be a just observation, that every man
who has attained uncommon eminence in
his particular line of pursuit, becomes an
object worthy of the public notice, how
forcibly must such a maxim apply to that
species of excellence which renders a man
the greatest benefactor to his fellow-crea-
tures, and the noblest subject of their con-
templation? Beneficence, pure in its in-
tentions, wise and comprehensive in its
plans, and active and successful in execu-
tion, must ever stand at the head of those
qualities which elevate the human charac-
ter; and mankind cannot have a concern
so important, as the diffusion of such a spir-
it, by means of the most perfect and impres-
sive examples, in which it has actually been
displayed.
Among those truly illustrious persons
who, in the several ages and nations of the
world, have marked their track through life
by a continued course of doing good, few
have


iv INTRODUCTION.
have been so distinguished, either by the ex-
tent of the good produced, or the purity of
motive and energy of character exhibited
in the process of doing it, as the late Mr.
HOWARD. To have adopted the cause of
the prisoner, the sick and the destitute, not
only in his own country, but throughout
all Europe; to have considerably alleviated
the burden of present misery among those
unfortunate classes, and at the same time to
have provided for the reformation of the
vicious, and the prevention of future crimes
and calamities; to have been instrumental
in the actual establishment of many plans of
humanity and utility, and to have laid the
foundation for much more improvement
hereafter; - and to have done all this as a
private, unaided individual, struggling with,
toils, dangers and difficulties, which might
have appalled the most resolute,- is surely
a range of beneficence which scarcely ever
before came within the compass of one
man's exertions. Justly, then, does the
name of HOWARD stand among those
which confer the highest honour on the
English character; and, since his actions
cannot fail to transmit his memory with
glory to posterity, it is incumbent on his
countrymen and cotemporaries, for their
own


INTRODUCTION. v
own sakes, to transmit corresponding me-
morials of their veneration and gratitude.
It would, indeed, be a convincing proof
of the increased good sense and virtue of
the age, if such characters as this were found
to rise in the comparative scale of same and
applause. Long enough have mankind
weakly paid their admiration as the reward
of pernicious exertions, - of talents, often
very moderate in themselves, and only ren-
dered conspicuous by the blaze of mischief
they have kindled. It is now surely time
that men should know and distinguish their
benefactors from their foes; and that the
noblest incitements to action should be giv-
en to those actions only which are directed
to the general welfare.
Since the lamented death of this excellent
person, there have not been wanting respect-
able eulogies of his character, and such bi-
ographical notices concerning him, as might
in some measure gratify that public curiosi-
ty which is awakened by every celebrated
name. There is yet wanting, however,
what I consider as by much the most valua-
ble tribute to the memory of every man dis-
tinguished by public services; I mean a
portraiture of him, modelled upon those
circumstances which rendered him eminent;
A a displaying


vi INTRODUCTION.
displaying in their rise and progress those
features of character which so peculiarly fit-
ted him for the part he undertook, the ori-
gin and gradual developement of his great
designs, and all the successive steps by
which they were brought to their final state
of maturity. It is this branch of biographi-
cal writing that alone entitles it to rank
high among the compositions relative to hu-
man life and manners. Nature, indeed, has
implanted in us a desire of becoming ac-
quainted with those circumstances belonging
to a distinguished character which are com-
mon to him and the mass of mankind; and it
is therefore right that such a desire should in
some degree be gratified: but to make that
the principal object of attention, which, but
for its association with somewhat more im-
portant, would not at all deserve notice, is
surely to reverse the value of things, and to
estimate the mass by the quantity of its al-
loy, rather than by that of the precious
metal.
The deficiency which I have stated rela-
tive to Mr. HOWARD, it is my present ob-
ject, as far as I am able, to supply; and how-
ever the task in some respect may be beyond
my powers, yet the advantage I enjoyed of a
long and confidential intercourse with him
during


INTRODUCTION. vii
during the publication of his works, and of
frequent conversation with him concerning
the past and future objets of his inquiries,
together with the communications with
which I have been favoured by some of his
most intimate friends - will, I hope, justify
me in the eye of the public for taking it on
myself. I trust I have already appeared not
insensible to his exalted merit, nor indiffer-
ent to his reputation.
One thing more I think it necessary to
say concerning this attempt. It has been
more than once suggested in print, but, I
believe, without any foundation, that a life
of Mr. HOWARD might be expected to ap-
pear under the sanction and authority of his
family. It is proper for me to avow, that
this is not that work. The undertaking is
perfectly spontaneous on my part, without
encouragement from his relations or repre-
sentatives. Mr. HOWARD was a man with
whom every one capable of feeling the ex-
cellence and dignity of his character, might
claim kindred; and they were the nearest
to him whom he made the confidents and
depositaries of his designs.




A VIEW, &c.
JOHN HOWARD was born,
according to the best information
I am able to obtain, about the
year 1727. His father was an
upholsterer and carpet-warehouse man in
Long-lane, Smithfield, who, having acquir-
ed a handsome fortune, retired from busi-
ness, and had a house first at Enfield, and
afterwards at Hackney. It was, I believe,
at the former of these places that Mr. HOW-
ARD was born.
As Mr. HOWARD's father was a strict
Protestant Dissenter, it was natural for him
to educate his son under a preceptor of the
same principles. But his choice for this pur-
pose was the source of a lasting misfortune;
which, as it has been too frequent an occur-
rence, deserves particular notice. There
was at that time a school-master at some dis-
tance


10 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
tance from London, who, in consequence of
his moral and religious character, had been
entrusted with the education of the children
of most of the opulent dissenters in the me-
tropolis, though extremely deficient in the
qualifications requisite for such an office.*
That persons whose own education and hab-
its of life have rendered them very inade-
quate judges of the talents necessary for an
instructor of youth, should easily fall into
this error, is not to be wondered at; but the
evil is a real one, though its cause be ex-
cuseable: and, as small communities with
strong party attachments are peculiarly lia-
ble to this misplaced confidence, it is right
that they should in a particular manner be
put on their guard against it. They who
know the dissenters, will acknowledge, that
none appear more sensible of the import-
ance of a good education, or less sparing in
their endeavours to procure it for their chil-
dren; nor, upon the whole, can it be said
that
* I find it asserted in some memoirs of Mr. Howard in
the Universal Magazine, that this person (whose name is
there mentioned) was a man of considerable learning, and
author of a translation of the New Testament and of a
Latin grammar. Without inquiring how far this may
set aside the charge of his being deficient as an instructor,
I think it proper to say, that my only foundation for that
charge is Mr. Howard's own authority. 


of JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 11
that they are unsuccessful in their attempts,
Indeed, the very confined system of instruc-
tion adopted in the public schools of this
kingdom, renders it no difficult talk to vie
with them in the attainment of objects of
real utility. But if it be made a leading
purpose to train up youth in a certain set of
opinions, and for this end it be thought es-
sential that the master should be exclusively
chosen from among those who are the most
closely attached to them, it is obvious that
a small community must lie under great
comparative disadvantages.
The event with respect to Mr. HOWARD,
was, (as he assured me, with greater indig-
nation than I have heard him express upon
many subjects) that, after a continuance of
seven years at this school, he left it, not ful-
ly taught any one thing. The loss of this
period was irreparable; he felt it all his life
after, and it was but too obvious to those
who conversed with him. From this school
he was removed to Mr. Eames's academy;
but his continuance there must, I conceive,
have been of short duration; and, whatev-
er might be his acquisitions in that place, he
certainly did not supply the deficiencies of
his earlier education. As some of the ac-
counts published concerning him, might in-
culcate 


12 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
culcate the idea that he had attained con-
siderable proficiency in letters, I feel myself
obliged, from my own knowledge, to assert,
that he was never able to speak or write his
native language with grammatical correct-
ness, and that his acquaintance with other
languages (the French, perhaps, excepeted)
was slight and superficial. In estimating
the powers of his mind, it rather adds to the
account, that he had this additional difficul-
ty to combat in his pursuit of the great ob-
jects of his later years.
Mr. HOWARD's father died when he was
young, and bequeathed to him and a daugh-
ter, (his only children) considerable for-
tunes. He directed in his will, that his son
should not come to the possession of his
property till his twenty-fifth year.
It was, probably, in consequence of the
father's direction that he was bound appren-
tice to a wholesale grocer in the city. This
will appear a singular step in the education
of a young man of fortune; but at that pe-
riod, inuring youth to habits of method and
industry, and giving them a prudent regard
to money, with a knowledge of the modes
of employing it to advantage, were by ma-
ny considered as the most important points
in every condition of life. Mr. HOWARD
was 


of JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 13
was probably indebted to this part of his ed-
ucation for some of that spirit of order, and
knowledge of common affairs, which he
possessed; but he did not in this situation
contract any of that love of aggrandisement
which is the basis of all commercial exer-
tions; and so irksome was the employment
to him, that, on coming of age, he bought
out the remainder of his time, and imme-
diately set out on his travels to France and
Italy.
On his return he mixed with the world,
and lived in the style of other young men
of leisure and fortune. He had acquired
that taste for the arts which the view of the
most perfect examples of them is fitted to
create; and, notwithstanding the defects of
his education, he was not without an attach-
ment to reading and the study of nature.
The delicacy of his constitution, however,
induced him to take lodgings in the coun-
try, where for some time his health was the
principal object of his attention. As he
was supposed to be of a consumptive habit,
he was put upon a rigorous regimen of diet,
which laid the foundation of that extraor-
dinary abstemiousness and indifference to
the gratifications of the palate which ever
after so much distinguished him. It is prob-
B able


14 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
able that, from  his first appearance in a
state of independence, his way of thinking
and acting was marked by a certain singu-
larity. Of this, one of the most remarka-
ble consequences was his first marriage
about his twenty-fifth year. As a return of
gratitude to Mrs. Sarah Lardeau, (or Loi-
dore) widow, with whom he lodged at
Stoke Newington, for her kind attention to
him during his invalid state, he proposed
marriage to her, though the was twice his
age, and extremely sickly; and, notwith-
standing her remonstrances on the impro-
priety of such an union, he persisted in his
design, and it took place. She is represent-
ed as a sensible, worthy woman; and on her
death, three years afterwards, (during which
interval he continued at Newington) Mr.
HOWARD was sincerely affected with his
loss; nor did he ever fail to mention her
with respect, after his sentiments of things
may have been supposed, from greater com-
merce with the world, to have undergone a
change.
His liberality with respect to pecuniary
concerns was early displayed; and at no
time of his life does he seem to have con-
sidered money in any other light than as an
instrument of procuring happiness to him-
self


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 15
self and others. The little fortune that his
wife possessed he gave to her sister; and
during his residence at Newington he be-
stowed, much in charity, and made a hand-
some donation to the dissenting congrega-
tion there, for the purpose of providing a
dwelling-house for the minister.
His attachment to religion was a princi-
ple imbibed from his earliest years, which
continued steady and uniform through life.
The body of Christians to whom he partic-
ularly united himself were the Independ-
ents, and his system of belief was that of
the moderate Calvinists. But though he
seems early to have made up his mind as to
the doctrines he thought best founded, and
the mode of worship he most approved, yet
religion abstractedly considered, as the re-
lation between man and his Maker, and the
grand support of morality, appears to have
been the principal object of his regard. He
was less solicitous about modes and opin-
ions, than the internal spirit of piety and
devotion; and in his estimate of different
religious societies, the circumstances to
which he principally attended, were their
zeal and sincerity. As it is the nature of
sects in general, to exhibit more earnestness
in doctrine, and strictness in discipline, than
the


16 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
the establishment from which they dissent,
it is not to be wondered at that a person of
Mr. HOWARD's disposition should regard
the various denominations of sectaries with
predilection, and attach himself to their
most distinguished members. In London
he seems chiefly to have joined the Baptist
congregation in Wild-street, long under the
ministry of the much respected Dr. Sten-
nett. His connexions were, I believe, least
with that class called the Rational Dissen-
ters; yet he probably had not a more inti-
mate friend in the world than Dr. Price,
who always ranked among them. It was
his constant practice to join in the service
of the establishment when he had not the
opportunity of attennding a place of dissent-
ing worship; and though he was warmly at-
tached to the interests of party he es-
poused, yet that true spirit of cathol-
ocism, which led him to honour virtue and
religion whereever he found them, and to
regard the means only as they were subser-
vient to the end.
He was created a Fellow of the Royal
Society on May 13, 1756. This honour
was not, I presume, conferred upon him in
consequence of any extraordinary proficien-
cy in science which he had manifested; but
rather 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 17
rather in conformity to the laudable prac-
tice of that society, of attaching gentlemen
of fortune and leisure to the interests of
knowledge, by incorporating them into their
body. Mr. HOWARD was not unmindful
of the obligation he lay under to contribute
something to the common stock of informa-
tion. Three short papers of his are pub-
lished in the Transactions. These are,
In Vol. LIV. On the Degree of Cold ob-
served at Cardington in the Winter of 1763,
when Bird's Thermometer, was as low as
10 and an half.
In Vol. LVII. On the Heat of the Wa-
ters at Bath, containing a Table of the Heat
of the Waters of the different Baths.
In Vol. LXI. On the Heat of the
Ground on Mount Vesuvius.
This list may serve to give an idea of the
kind and degree of his philosophical re-
search. Meteorological observations were
much to his taste; and even in his later
tours, when he was occupied by very differ-
ent objects, he never travelled without
some instruments for that purpose. I have
heard him likewise mention some experi-
ments on the effects of the union of the pri-
mary colours in different proportions, in
which he employed himself with some as-
siduity
B 2 After


18 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
After the death of his wife, in the year
1756, he set out upon another tour, intend-
ing to commence it with a visit to the ruins
of Lisbon. The event of this design will be
hereafter mentioned. He remained abroad
a few months; and, on his return, began to
alter the house on his estate at Cardington
near Bedford, where he settled. In 1758
he made a very suitable alliance with Miss
Henrietta Leeds, eldest daughter of Edward
Leeds, Esq. of Croxton, Cambridgeshire,
king's serjeant; and sister of the present
Edward Leeds, Esq. a Master in Chancery,
and of Joseph Leeds, Esq. of Croydon,
With this lady, who possessed in an emi-
nent degree all the mild and amiable vir-
tues proper to her sex, he passed, as I have
often heard him declare, the only years of
true enjoyment which he had known in
life. Soon after his marriage he purchased
Watcombe, in the New Forcit, Hampshire,
and removed thither. Concerning his way
of life in this pleasant retreat, I find nothing
characteristic to relate, except the state of
perfect security and harmony in which he
managed to live in the midst of a people,
against whom his predecessor thought it
necessary to employ all the contrivances of
engines and guns in order to preserve him-
self 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ, 19
self from their hostilities. He had, indeed,
none of those propensities which so fre-
quently embroil country gentlemen with
their neighbours, both small and great.
He was no sportsman, no executor of the
game laws, and in no respect an encroach-
er on the rights and advantages of others.
In possessing him, the poor could not fail
soon to find that they had acquired a pro-
tector and benefactor; and I am unwilling
to believe that in any part of the world
these relations are not returned with grati-
tude and attachment. After continuing at
Watcombe three or four years, he sold the
place, and went back to Cardington, which
thenceforth became his fixed residence.
Here he steadily pursued those plans,
both with respect to the regulation of his
personal and family concerns and to the
promotion of the good of those around him,
which principle and inclination led him to
approve. Though without the ambition of
making a splendid appearance, he had a taste
for elegant neatness in his habitation and
furniture. His sobriety of manners and pe-
culiarities of living did not fit him for much
promiscuous society; yet no man received
his select friends with more true hospitali-
ty; and he always maintained an intercourse
with


20 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
with several of the first persons in his coun-
ty, who knew and respected his worth.
Indeed, however uncomplying he might be
with the freedoms and irregularities of po-
lite life, he was by no means negligent of
its received forms; and, though he might
be denominated a man of scruples and sin-
gularities, no one would dispute his claim
to the title of a gentleman.
But the terms on which he held society
with persons of his own condition, are of
much less importance in the view I mean
to take of his character, than the methods
by which he rendered himself a blessing to
the indigent and friendless in a small circle,
before he extended his benevolence to so
wide a compass. It seems to have been the
capital object of his ambition, that the poor
in his village should be the most orderly in
their manners, the neatest in their persons
and habitations, and possessed of the great-
est share of the comforts of life, that could
be met with in any part of England. And
as it was his disposition to carry every thing
he undertook to the greatest pitch of per-
fection, so he spared no pains or expense to
effect this purpose. He began by building
a number of neat cottages on his estate, an-
nexing to each a little land for a garden,
and


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 21
and other conveniences. In this project,
which might be considered as an object of
taste as well as of benevolence, he had the
full concurrence of his excellent partner. I
remember his relating, that once, having set-
tled his accounts at the close of a year, and
found a balance in his favour, he proposed
to his wife to make use of it in a journey to
London, or any other gratification the chose.
" What a pretty cottage it would build,"
was her answer; and the money was so em-
ployed. These comfortable habitations he
peopled with the most industrious and sober
tenants he could find; and over them he
exercised the superintendence of master and
father combined. He was careful to fur-
nish them with employment, to assist them
in sickness and distress, and to educate their
children. In order to preserve their morals,
he made it a condition that they should reg-
ularly attend their several places of wor-
ship, and abstain from public houses, and
from such amusements as he thought per-
nicious; and be secured their compliance
with his rules by making them tenants at
will.
I shall here beg leave to digress a little,
in order to make some general observations
on the different methods that may be pro-
posed 


22 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
posed for bettering the condition of the
lowest and most numerous class among us,
In the state in which they too frequently
appear, depressed to the extremest point of
indigence, unable by their utmost exertions
to obtain more than the bare necessaries of
existence, debased by the total want of in-
struction, and partaking of nothing that can
dignify the human character it is no won-
der that a benevolent person of the higher
ranks in society should consider them as
creatures of an inferior species, only to be
benefited by the constant exercise of his au-
thority and superintendence. And I believe
the fact to be, that, from the operation of
our poor laws, and other circumstances,
the poor in this country are more thought-
less, improvident and helpless, than those
of almost any other nation. Humanity
will, therefore, in such a state of things,
think it necessary to assume the entire man-
agement of those who can neither think nor
act for their own good; and will direct and
overrule all their concerns, just as it would
those of children and idiots. In short, it
will aim at such a kind of influence, as the
Jesuits of Paraguay established, (perhaps
with the same benevolent views) over the 
simple natives.
But


of JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 23
But is this state of pupilage to be per-
petual? and, in a land of liberty and equal
laws, is the great body of people always to
exist in a condition of actual subjection to
and dependence on the few? Are they
never to be entrusted with their own happi-
ness, but always to look up for support and
direction to those who in reality are less in-
dependent than themselves? This is an idea
which a liberal mind will be unwilling to
admit; and it will anxiously look forward
to a period, in which meanness of condi-
tion shall not necessarily imply debasement
of nature; but those of EVERY rank in
society, feeling powers within themselves
to secure their essential comforts, shall rely
upon their own exertions, and be guided by
the dictates of their own reason. That this
is not an imaginary state of things, the gen-
eral condition of the lowest classes in some
countries, and even in some parts of Eng-
land, where the working poor, at the same
time that their earnings enable them to pro-
cure the comforts of life, are inured to
habits of sobriety and frugality, is a suffi-
cient proof.
There are few counties in England which
afford less employment to a numerous poor
than that of Bedford; of course, wages are
low, 


24 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
low, and much distress would prevail, were
it not for the humanity of the gentlemen
who reside upon their estates. Among these
Mr. HOWARD distinguished himself by a
peculiar attention to the comfort and im-
provement of his dependents; and he was
accordingly held by them in the highest re-
spect and veneration. I may add, that he
possessed their LOVE; which is not always
the case with those who render essential ser-
vices to the people of that class. But he
treated them with kindness, as well as be-
neficence; and he particularly avoided eve-
ry thing stern or imperious in his manner
towards them. Whatever there might ap-
pear of strictness in the discipline he en-
forced, it had only in view their best inter-
ests; and if under his protection they could
pass a tranquil old age in their own com-
fortable cottages, rather than end their lives
in a work-house, the subordination to which
they submitted was amply compensated.
It is certain that the melioration of manners
and principles which he promoted, was the
most effectual means of eventually render-
ing them more independent; and I have
reason to know, that, latterly at least, he
was as well affected to the rights, as he was
solicitous to augment the comforts of the
poor. His 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 25
His charities were not confined to those
more immediately connected with his proper-
ty; they took in the whole circle of neigh-
bourhood. His bounty was particularly di-
rected to that fundamental point in improv-
ing the condition of the poor, giving them
a sober and useful education. From early
life he attended to this object; and he es-
tablished schools for both sexes, conducted
upon the most judicious plan. The girls
were taught reading, and needle-work in a
plain way: the boys reading, and some of
them writing, and the rudiments of arith-
metic. They were regularly to attend pub-
lic worship in the way their parents approv-
ed. The number brought up in these
schools was fluctuating, but the institutions
were uninterrupted. In every other way
in which a man thoroughly disposed to do
good with the means Providence has be-
stowed upon him, can exercise his liberali-
ty, Mr. HOWARD stood among the fore-
most. He was not only a subscriber to va-
rious public schemes of benevolence, but
his private charities were largely diffused,
and remarkably well directed. It was, in-
deed, only to his particular confidents and
coadjutors that many of these were ever
known; but they render him the most am-
C ple 


26 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
ple testimony in this respect. His very in-
timate and confidential friend, the Rev.
Mr. Thomas Smith of Bedford, gives me
the following account of this part of his
conduct, at a time when he was deeply en-
gaged in those public exertions which
might be supposed to interfere with his pri-
vate and local benefactions. " He still con-
tinued to devise liberal things for his poor
neighbours and tenants; and, considering
how much his heart and time were engaged
in his great and comprehensive plans, it
was surprising with what minuteness he
would send home his directions about his
private donations. His schools were con-
tinued to the last." It is impossible any
stronger proof can be given, that the habit
of doing good was wrought into his very
nature, than that, while his public actions
placed him without a rival for deeds of phi-
lanthropy, he should still be unable to satis-
fy his benevolent desires without his accus-
tomed benefits to his neighbours and de-
pendents.
Another early feature of that character
which Mr. HOWARD afterwards so con-
spicuously displayed, was a determined resist-
ance of injustice and oppression. No one
could be more firmly relied on as the pro-
tector


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 27
tector of right and innocence against unfeel-
ing and unprincipled power. His indigna-
tion was roused by any attempts to encroach
or domineer; and his spirit led him, without
hesitation, to express, both in words and
actions, his sense of such conduct. As no
man could be more perfectly independent,
both in mind and situation, than himself, he
made that use of his advantage which every
independent man ought to do; - he acted
as principle directed him, regardless whom
he might displease by it; he strongly mark-
ed his different sensations with respect to
different characters; and he was not less
strenuous in opposing pernicious schemes,
than in promoting beneficial ones.
The love of order and regularity likewise
marked the early as well as the later peri-
ods of his life; it directed his own domes-
tic concerns equally with his plans for the
benefit of others. His disposition of time
was exact and methodical. He accurate-
ly knew the state of all his affairs; and
the hand of economy regulated what the
heart of generosity dispensed. His taste in
dress, furniture and every thing exterior,
was turned to simplicity and neatness; and
this conformity of disposition rendered him
an admirer of the sect of Quakers, with
many 


28 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
many individuals of which he maintained
an intimate connexion.
In common with many other benevolent
and virtuous characters, he had a fondness
for gardening, and the cultivation of plants
both useful and ornamental. Indeed, as his
own diet was almost entirely of the vegeta-
ble kind, he had various inducements to at-
tend to this pleasing occupation. That
most valuable root, the potatoe, was a great
favourite with him; and a remarkably pro-
ductive species of it, which he recommend-
ed to public notice, was distingushed by his
name. His garden was an object of curios-
ity, both for the elegant manner in which
it was laid out, and for the excellence of
its productions; and in his various travels
he frequently brought home, and distributed
among his friends, the seeds of curious
kinds of cultivated vegetables.
In this manner Mr. HOWARD passed the
tranquil years of his settled residence at
Cardington; happy in himself, and the in-
strument of good to all around him. But
this state was not long to continue. His
domestic felicity received a fatal wound
from the death of his beloved wife, in the
year 1765, soon after delivery of her only
child. It is unnecessary to say how a heart
like


of JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 29
like his must have felt on such an event.
They who have been witnesses of the sen-
sibility with which, many years afterwards,
he recollected it, and know how he honour-
ed and cherished her memory, will con-
ceive his sensations at that trying period.
He was thenceforth attached to his home
only by the duties annexed to it; of which
the most interesting was the education of
his infant son. This was an office which
almost immediately commenced; for ac-
cording to his ideas, education had place
from the very first dawn of the mental fac-
ulties. The very unfortunate issue of his
cares, with respect to his son, has caused a
charge to be brought against him very deep-
ly affecting his paternal character. That
this charge was in its main circumstance
false and calumnious, has, I trust, been
proved to the satisfaction of the public, by
appeals to facts which have remained un-
controverted. I shall not, therefore, go
over again the ground of this controversy;
but shall rather follow the proper line of
this work, by briefly displaying Mr. HOW-
ARD's ideas on education, and his manner
of executing them.
Regarding children as creatures possessed
of strong passions and desires, without rea-
C 2 son


30 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
son and experience to control them, he
thought that nature seemed, as it were, to
mark them out as the subjects of absolute
authority; and that the first and fundamen-
tal principle to be inculcated upon them,
was implicit and unlimited obedience.
This cannot be effected by any process of
reasoning, before reason has its commence-
ment; and therefore must be the result of
coercion. Now, as no man ever more ef-
fectually combined the leniter in modo with
the fortiter in re, the coercion he practised
was calm and gentle, but at the same time
steady and resolute. I shall give an instance
of it which I had from himself. His child
one day, wanting something which he was
not to have, fell into a fit of crying, which
the nurse could not pacify. Mr. HOWARD
took him from her, and laid him quietly
in his lap, till, fatigued with crying, he
became still. This process, a few times
repeated, had such an effect, that the child,
if crying ever so violently, was rendered
quiet the instant his father took him. In a
similar manner, without harsh words and
threats, still less blows, he gained every oth-
er point which he thought necessary to gain,
and brought the child to such a habit of
obedience, that I have heard him say, he be-
lieved 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 31
lieved his son would have put his finger into
the fire if he had commanded him. Certain
it is, that many fathers could not, if they
approved it, execute a plan of this kind;
but Mr. HOWARD in this case only pursu-
ed the general method which he took to ef-
fect any thing which a thorough convic-
tion of its propriety induced him to under-
take. It is absurd, therefore, to represent
him as wanting that milk of human kind-
ness for his only son, with which he abound-
ed for the rest of his fellow-creatures; for
he aimed at what he thought the good of
both, by the very same means; and if he
carried the point further with respect to his
son, it was only because he was more inter-
ested in his welfare. But this course of dis-
cipline, whatever he thought of it, could
not have been long practised, since the child
was early sent to school, and the father liv-
ed very little at home afterwards. As to its
effect on the youth's mind, (if that and not
intention, be the circumstance on which
Mr. HOWARD's vindication is to depend)
I consider it as a manifest impossibility, that
controlling the child should have been the
cause of the young man's insanity. If any
such remote cause could be supposed capa-
ble of producing such an effect, the oppo-
site


32 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
site extreme of indulgence would have been
a much more likely one. But I think it
highly probable, that a father, whose pres-
ence was associated with the perception of
restraint and refusal, should always have in-
spired more awe than affection; and should
never have created that filial confidence,
which is both the most pleasing and most
salutary of the sentiments attending that re-
lation. And this has been the great evil of
that rigorous mode of education, once so
general, and still frequent, among persons
of a particular persuasion. I have authori-
ty to say, that Mr. HOWARD was at length
sensible that he had in some measure mistak-
en the mode of forming his son to that
character he wished him to acquire; though,
with respect to his mental derangement,
I know that he imputed no blame to him-
self on that head. With what parental sor-
row he was affected by that event will ap-
pear in the progress of the narration.
Having now given such a view of the
temper and manners of this excellent per-
son, in his private situation, as may serve
to introduce him to the reader's acquaint-
ance at the time of his assuming a public
character, I shall, without further delay,
proceed to trace him through those years of
his 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 33
his life, the employment of which alone has
rendered him an object of the curiosity and
admiration of his countrymen.
In the year 1773, Mr. HOWARD was
nominated high-sheriff of the county of
Bedford. An obstacle, however, lay in the
way of his accepting that office, concerning
which I shall take the liberty of making a
few remarks.
When a principled Dissenter, whose con-
dition in life permits him to aspire to the
honour of serving his country in some post
of magistracy, reflects on his situation, he
finds that he must make his election of one
of the three following determinations. He
must either comply with a religious rite of
another church, merely on account of its
being made the condition of receiving the
office; or take upon himself the office
without such compliance, under all the haz-
ard that attends it; or he must quietly fit
down under that vacation from public
charges which the state, in its wisdom, has
imposed upon him, satisfied with promoting
the welfare of individuals by modes not
interdicted to him. It would be great pre-
sumption in me to decide which of these
determinations is most conformable to duty.
In 


34 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
In fact, there is only a choice of difficul-
ties, and the decision between them must
be left to every man's own feelings, which,
if his intentions be good and honest, will
scarcely lead him wrong. But it was per-
fectly suitable to Mr. HOWARD's charac-
ter to make option of the office with the
hazard: for as, on the one hand, no con-
sideration on earth could have induced him
to violate his religious principles; so on the
other, his active disposition, and zeal for
the public good, strongly impelled him to
assume a station, in which those qualities
might have free scope for exertion; and as
to personal hazard, that was never an ob-
stacle in his way. There may be casuists
who will condemn this choice, and regard
it as a serious offence against the laws of
his country, to have taken upon him an of-
fice without complying with its prelimina-
ry conditions. But, I conceive, the sincere
philanthropist will rather make a different
reflection, and feel a shock in thinking,
that, had Mr. HOWARD been influenced by
those apprehensions which would have op-
erated upon most men, he would have been
excluded from that situation, which gave
occasion to all those services which he ren-
dered


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 35
dered to humanity in his own country, and
throughout Europe.*
He entered upon his office with the res-
olution of performing all its duties with
that
* The penalties to which Mr. HOWARD, in this instance,
exposed himself, are declared in the following clause of
the test act, which cannot too often be placed before the
eyes of Britons. "Every person that shall neglect or re-
fuse to take the sacrament as aforefaid, and yet, after such
neglect or refusal, shall execute any of the said offices or
employments, and being thereupon lawfully convicted,
shall be disabled to sue, or use any action, bill, plaint or
information, in course of law, or to prosecute any suit in
any court of equity, or to be guardian of any child, or ex-
ecutor or administrator of any person, or capable of any
legacy or deed of gift, or to bear any office; and shall
forfeit the sum of five hundred pounds, to be recovered
by him or them that shall sue for the same." In the debate
on the repeal of this act, the mover, with much eloquence,
introduced the very case of Mr. HOWARD, and seemed con-
siderably to impress his audience by the supposition of
such a man suffering its penalties, in consequence of an
information which any villain might lay against him. In
reply it was said, that, whatever were a man's intentions,
if he voluntarily contravened a known law of his country,
it ought not to be reckoned a hardship that he incurred
the penalties by which it was sanctioned. And this rea-
soning is undoubtedly just, as it respect the interest of an
individual put in competition with the security of a law.
But surely it is a proper consideration for the legislature,
whether a law be grounded on those principles of equity
and general utility which can justify the imposition of
such dreadful penalties for the breach of it, especially
when experience has shewn, that the most conscientious and
well-intentioned persons are most liable to incur them. 


36 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
that punctuality which marked his conduct
in every thing he undertook. Of these,
one of the most important, though least
agreeable, is the inspection of the PRISONS
within its jurisdiction. But this, to him,
was not only an act of duty, it interested
him as a material concern of humanity.
The attention of Mr. HOWARD to per-
sons "sick and in prison," is by himself dat-
ed as far back as the year 1756, when he
was induced by a singular, but what I
should call a sublime, curiosity to visit Lis-
bon, then lying in the recent ruins of its
terrible earthquake. The packet in which
he failed being taken by a French privateer
he, with the rest of the crew, was first ex-
pond to all the barbarities exercised by
those licensed pirates, who possess the right
of the sword, not mollified by the feelings of
gentlemen; and, on his arrival in France
he for a time endured some of the hardships
of a prisoner of war, and became acquainted
with all the sufferings of his countrymen in
the same situation. These, on his return to
to England, he took care to make known to
the Commissioners of Sick and Wounded
Seamen, who gave him their thanks for his
information, and exerted themselves to ob-
tain redress. It was impossible that so feel-
ing


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 37
ing a lesson of the calamities inflicted upon
the unprotected classes of mankind, by fel-
low-creatures "dressed in a little brief au-
thority," should fail to make a durable im-
pression on such a mind as Mr. HOWARD'S.
It was not, however, till the period of
his serving the office of sheriff, that the dis-
tresses of those confined in the civil prisons
of his own country engaged his particular
notice. In the introduction to his State of
the Prisons, he has with the most unassuming
simplicity, related the gradual progress of
his inquiries; and in what manner he was
led, from an examination of the gaols in his
own small county, to an investigation of all
the circumstances belonging to this branch
of police throughout the kingdom.
The first thing which struck him, was the
enormous injustice of remanding to prison
for the payment of FEES, those who had
been acquitted or discharged without trial.
As the magistrates of his county, though
willing to redress this grievance, did not
conceive themselves possessed of the power
of granting a remedy, Mr. HOWARD trav-
elled into some of the neighbouring coun-
ties in search of a precedent. In this search,
scenes of calamity and injustice still open-
ing upon him, he went on, and paid visits
D to


38 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
to most of the county gaols in England.
Some peculiarly deplorable objects coming
in his view, who had been brought from
the Bridewells, he was induced to enter up-
on an examination of these places of con-
finement; for which purpose he travelled
again into the counties he had before seen,
and into all the rest, visiting houses of cor-
rection, city and town gaols.
He had carried on these inquiries with so
much assiduity, that so early as March 1774,
he was desired to communicate his infor-
mation to the House of Commons, and re-
ceived their thanks. As he was then little
known, I cannot much wonder that so ex-
traordinary an instance of pure and active
benevolence was not universally compre-
hended even by that patriotic body; for a
member thought fit to ask him "at whose
expense he travelled?" a question which
Mr. HOWARD could scarcely answer with-
out some indignant emotions. Soon after
this public testimony given to the existence
of great abused and defects in our prisons,
a very worthy member, Mr. Popham, brought
into the House two bills, one "for the re-
lief of acquitted prisoners in matter of fees"
- the other "for preserving the health of
prisoners." - These salutary acts passed dur-
ing 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 39
ing the same session, and made a commence-
ment of those reforms which have since
been so much extended. Mr. HOWARD,
aware of the great deficiency of the mode
of promulgating laws among us, had these
acts printed in a different character, and sent
to every keeper of a county-gaol in Eng-
land.
In this year he was induced, by the ur-
gent persuasions of his neighbours and friends
of the town of Bedford, to stand candidate,
in conjunction with Mr. Whitbread, to
represent that borough in parliament. No
two persons could be better entitled to the
esteem of a town; and they were very warm-
ly supported in a contest, which however
terminated in the return of two other gen-
tlemen. Mr. Whitbread and Mr. HOW-
ARD petitioned the House against the re-
turn; and the event was, that the former,
and one of the sitting members, were de-
clared duly elected. To those who are ac-
quainted with the constitution of that bo-
rough, it will not appear extraordinary, that
a person possessing the attachment of a ma-
jority of the inhabitant voters should lose
his election. This, however, was a most
fortunate circumstance for the public; since,
if Mr. HOWARD had obtained a seat in the
House 


40 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
House of Commons, his plans for the refor-
mation of prisons, must have been brought
within a narrow compass; and the collate-
ral inquiries, which, so greatly to the ad-
vantage of humanity, he afterwards adopt-
ed, could never have existed.
It was Mr. HOWARD's intention to have
published his account of English prisons, in
spring 1775; but as he was sensible, that
to point out defects, without at the same
time suggesting remedies, would be of lit-
tle advantage, he thought it best to examine
with his own eyes, what had been actually
put in practice with respect to this part of
police, in some of the most enlightened
countries on the continent. Accordingly
in that year he visited France, Flanders,
Holland and Germany; and in 1176 re-
peated his visit to those countries, and also
went to Switzerland. In the intervals he
made a journey to Scotland and Ireland,
and revisited the county-gaols and many
others in England.
Thus furnished with a stock of informa-
tion greater than had ever before been col-
lected on this subject; and, indeed, proba-
bly greater than any man had, in the same
space of time, ever collected on any sub-
ject that required similar pains; he offered
it


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 41
it to the public in 1777, in a quarto volume
of near 500 pages, dedicated to the House
of Commons, by way of grateful acknowl-
edgment for the honour conferred on him
by their thanks, and for the attention they
had bestowed on the business. Before I
proceed to give an account of this work, I
shall just observe, that so zealous was Mr.
HOWARD to diffuse information, and so
determined to obviate any idea that he meant
to repay his expenses by the profitable trade
of Book-making, that, besides a profuse
munificence in presenting copies to all the
principal persons in the kingdom, and all
his particular friends, he insisted on fixing
the price of the volume so low, that, had
every copy been sold, he would still have
presented the public with all the plates, and
great part of the printing. And this prac-
tice he followed in all his subsequent publi-
cations; so that, with literal propriety, he
may be said to have GIVEN them to the
world. By the large expenses of his jour-
ney, charities and publications, he has made
himself even a greater pecuniary benefactor
to mankind than can readily be paralleled
in any age or country, his proportioned cir-
cumstances considered. Yet how small a
part was this of the sacrifices he made!
D2 He 


42 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
He chose the press of Mr. Eyres at War-
rington, induced by various elegant speci-
mens which had issued from it, and by the
opportunity a country press afforded, of
having the work done under his own in-
spection, at his own time, and with all the
minute accuracy of correction he determin-
to bestow on it. I may also say, that an
opinion of the advantage he might there en-
joy of some literary assistance in the revision
and improvement of his papers, was a far-
ther motive. To this choice I was indebt-
ed for that intimate personal acquaintance
with him, which I shall ever esteem one of
the most honourable circumstances of my
life, and the lively recollection of which
will, I trust, never quit me while memory
remains. He resided in Warrington during
the whole time of printing, and his attention
to business was most indesatigable. During
a very severe winter he made it his practice
to rise at three or four in the morning, for
the purpose of collating every word and
figure of his daily proof sheet with the orig-
inal.
As I thought it right to mention Mr.
HOWARD's literary deficiencies, it is be-
come necessary to inform the public of
the manner in which his works were com-
posed 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 43
posed. On his return from his tours he
took all his memorandum books to an
old retired friend of his, who assisted him
in methodising them, and copied out the
whole matter in correct language. They
were then put into the hands of Dr. Price,
from whom they underwent a revision, and
received occasionally considerable altera-
tions. What Mr. HOWARD himself
thought of the advantages they derived from
his assistance, will appear from the follow-
ing passages in letters to Dr. Price. "I
am ashamed to think how much I have ac-
cumulated your labours, yet I glory in that
assistance to which I owe so much credit in
the world, and under Providence, success
in my endeavours." - "It is from your
kind aid and assistance, my dear friend, that
I derive so much, of my character and in-
fluence. I exult in declaring it, and shall
carry a grateful sense of it to the last hour
of my existence." With his papers thus
corrected, Mr. HOWARD came to the press
at Warrington; and first he read them all
over carefully with me, which perusal was
repeated, sheet by sheet, as they were print-
ed. As new facts and observations were
continually suggesting themselves to his
mind, he put the matter of them upon paper
as


44 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
as they occurred, and then requested me to
clothe them in such expressions as I thought
proper. On these occasions, such was his
diffidence, that I found it difficult to make
him acquiesce in his own language, when,
as frequently happened, it was unexception-
able. Of this additional matter, some was
interwoven with the text, but the greater
part was necessarily thrown into notes,
which in some of his volumes are nume-
rous.
The title of this first work is, The State
of the Prisons in England and Wales; with
preliminary Observations, and an Account of
some Foreign Prisons. It begins with a gene-
ral View of Distress in prisons, shewing in
what respects those of England are deficient
in the articles of food, water, bedding
and fresh air; and that the morals of the
prisoners are totally neglected, the most
criminal and abandoned being suffered to
corrupt the younger and less practised. No-
tice is also taken of the gaol-fever, a disease
which has in a peculiar manner infested the
prisons of this country, and has at various
times spread its ravages from them among
our courts of judicature, our fleets and ar-
mies. The author's next section is on Bad
Customs in Prisons, under which he takes
notice


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 45
notice of the demand of garnish, the permis-
sion of gaming, the use of irons, the practice
of varying the towns where the assizes are
held, the local unfrequency of gaol delivery,
the fees still demanded by clerks of assize and
of the peace, the non-residency of gaolers,
the crouding of gaols with the wives and
children of prisoners, and the circumstance
of some gaols being private property. From
this, and the foregoing section, every one
must be convinced of the dreadful state of
our police in this important matter, and
the absolute necessity for a reformation.
For proof that the complaints here made in
general terms are not unfounded or exag-
gerated, he properly refers to the subsequent
account of particular gaols, where they are
too abundantly verified. He concludes the
second section with an enumeration of all
the prisoners in England and Wales, under
their several classes, who, in 1776, amount-
ed to 4084, a number much less than some
vague conjectures had stated, yet sufficient-
ly great to demand the serious attention of
the legislature, especially when it is consid-
ered that every man in prison may be reck-
oned to have two dependants on him for
support,
Mr. 


46 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
Mr. HOWARD's third section offers pro-
posed Improvements in the Structure and
Management of Prisons. He begins with
observations on the prison itself, with re-
spect to its situation and plan, the latter of
which is illustrated by an engraving. He
then proceeds to that most essential topic,
the regulations. These he considers under
the several heads of gaoler, chaplain, sur-
geon, fees, cleanliness, food, bedding, rules
and orders, and inspector. He much insists
upon the necessity of absolutely taking away
the tap from the keepers of prisons, the
possession of which was obviously the cause
of promoting intemperance and riot, from
the interest it gave the keeper in such irreg-
ularities. In lieu of this source of profit, he
proposes a liberal addition to the salaries of
this officer, the importance and respecta-
bility of whose employ he every where in-
culcates. He makes a separate article of
Bridewells, the original penitentiary houses
of the country, and planned with much
wisdom, but which, by long neglect and
abuse, were become rather a nuisance than
an advantage to the police. In many of
them, though the persons confined were
sentenced to hard labour, no work of any
kind was done; and this state of idleness,
with 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 47
with the company of hardened criminals,
proved to be a most effectual method of
completing the corruption of young and
pety offenders. Various excellent remarks
and suggestions are given in the whole of
this section, which contains the ground-
work of all improvement in the economy of
prisons and houses of correction.
In sect IV. Mr. HOWARD gives an ac-
count of foreign prisons; not of all he had
seen, but of such only as afforded matter
of instruction; nor in these does he notice
the frauds and defects he observed, for he
says, "the redress and investigation of for-
eign abuses was not my object." The
countries of which the prisons are describ-
ed are France, Switzerland, Germany, Hol-
land and Flanders. In the first, the suspic-
ious policy which then prevailed would
have rendered it very difficult for him to
have obtained access to the interior part of
the prisons, had he not availed himself of a
benevolent rule, which permits any person
to distribute alms to the prisoners with his
own hands. A spirit of order and precis-
ion, tempered with humanity, was observa-
ble in the conduct of this department, the
regulations of which were fixed by a very
comprehensive and judicious code contain-
ed


48 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
ed in an arret of 1717. In Switzerland,
the separation of male and female prisoners,
the solitary confinement of felons, and the
employment of those called galley-slaves,
are circumstances deserving notice. The
German prisons are regulated in a similar
manner; and the houses of correction at
Manheim, Hamburgh and Bremen, afford
useful examples of order and industry. But
it is in Holland that the purpose of reform-
ing criminals by a course of discipline is car-
ried into execution with most care and effect.
Few debtors and few atrocious offenders are
to be found there; and the rasp and spin-
houses contain the great body of prisoners.
The regulations of these are given in detail,
and the different employments of the pris-
oners in different towns, are particularly
noted. Holland appears to be Mr. HOW-
ARD's great school, to which we shall see
that he was never wearied in returning.
The Austrian Netherlands offer some of the
largest establishments of the penitentiary
kind, and prove the possibility of managing
a great number of criminals so as to make
them useful to the state, and decent in their
behaviour, by the aid of steady discipline
and separate confinement at night. Mr.
HOWARD saw, what I suppose was then
deemed


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 49
deemed an impossibility in England, in the
house of correction at Ghent, near 190
stout criminals governed with as much ap-
parent ease as the most sober and well-dis-
posed assembly in civil society. The regu-
lations of this prison are deservedly given
at some length. Mr. HOWARD concludes
this section with a forcible and manly ap-
peal to his countrymen with respect to the
comparison he was obliged to exhibit be-
tween foreign and English police in this
point, so unfavourable to the latter; calling
upon his reader to judge, from the facts
laid before him, "whether a design of re-
forming our prisons be merely visionary;
and whether idleness, debauchery, disease
and famine, be the necessary attendants of a
prison, or only connected with it in our
ideas, for want of a more perfect knowledge
and more enlarged views."
Section V. takes up the greatest part of
the book. It contains a particular account
of English prisons, arranged according to
the circuits, and comprising every county
in England and Wales. The mode adopt-
ed is very well contrived tor the easy con-
sultation of magistrates and other persons
concerned. Every principal prison in Lon-
don, and every county and city gaol, has the
E leading 


50 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
leading facts respecting it disposed in a short
table under the four heads of gaoler, pris-
oners, chaplain and surgeon. A brief de-
scription follows of situation, plan, measure-
ments, &c. with such remarks, either of
approbation or censure, as the circumstances
suggested. Lists are given of legacies and
benefactions; and all tables of fees, and
rules and orders, are copied verbatim. Next
to these, are concise accounts of all the
county Bridewells, and the town gaols and
Bridewells, with occasional remarks. The
work is closed by some tables relative to
fees and numbers, crimes and punishments
of criminals. A short conclusion termi-
nates the whole, in which the author apolo-
gizes for the language of censure he has so
often been compelled to use, enumerates
the leading objects requiring reform, and
promises, that if such a thorough parliament-
ary inquiry into this great object, as alone
can prove effectual to put it upon a proper
footing, should be undertaken, he would
devote his time to a more extensive foreign
journey, for the sake of obtaining new in-
formation to lay before the public.
I cannot dismiss the account of Mr. HOW-
ARD's first and great work, without a few
reflections, to which the contemplation of
it
     


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 51
it gives rise. And first, we may derive from
it a clear idea of the capital objects which
the author had at heart respecting prisoners.
These were, to alleviate their miseries, and
correct their vices. As to the former pur-
pose, he considered that men, partaking a
common nature, have certain claims upon
their fellow-creatures which nothing can
entirely abrogate; - that even the highest
degree of criminality does not absolutely
exclude compassion towards the perpetrators
of crimes, especially when suffering under
their effects; - that as no man passes through
life without some deviation from strict rec-
titude, so none has lived without the per-
formance of some good actions - and that,
although human laws must draw a line be-
tween such circumstances of conduct as do,
or do not, come within their cognizance,
yet there is a tribunal before which all man-
kind must appear as culprits, only distin-
guished by the degree of delinquency. He
further considered, that among the inmates
of a prison there is every possible degree of
moral demerit, from the mere inconsiderate
violation of some hard, ill-understood, local
law, to the deliberate breach of the most
sacred and universal rule of action; and
that a great number are, in the eye of the
law,


52 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
law, innocent persons, only under a tempo-
rary state of confinement, till their conduct
is properly investigated. From these dif-
ferent views of the subject, he convinced
himself, that it was the duty of every society
to pay due attention to the health, and, in
some degree, even to the comforts, of all
who are held in a state of confinement; -
that wanton and unnecessary rigour should
be practised upon none; - and that some
were entitled to all the indulgencies com-
patible with their condition. It was, how-
ever, by no means his wish (as some chose
to represent it) to render a prison so com-
fortable an abode, that the lowest order of
society might find their condition even bet-
tered by admission into it. On the contrary,
the system of discipline which he desired to
establish, was such as would appear extreme-
ly grievous to those of an idle and licentious
disposition. For, whenever imprisonment
was made the punishment of a crime, his
idea of reformation became a leading prin-
ciple in the regulation of prisons; and it
was that which cost him the chief labour in
collecting and applying facts. To accom-
plish this end, he shewed that these things
were essential; - strict and constant super-
intendence - close and regular employment
- religious


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 53
- religious instruction - rewards for indus-
try and good behaviour, and penalties for
sloth and audaciousness - distribution into
classes and divisions according to age, sex,
delinquency, &c. - and occasional and noc-
turnal solitude. In laying down these regu-
lations, he might be thought to have given
way to a certain austerity, were it not so
tempered by attention to the real demands
of human nature, and sanctified by a regard
to the best interests of offenders themselves,
that the friend of mankind was ever appar-
ent, even in the strict disciplinarian. He
extremely lamented that the plan of refor-
mation seemed, of all parts of his system of
improvement, least entered into or under-
stood in tins country. The vulgar idea that
our criminals are hardened and abandoned
beyond all possibility of amendment, ap-
peared to him equally irrational and perni-
cious. He scorned, through negligence or
despair, to give up the worst cases of mental
corruption; he fully believed that proper
remedies duly administered, would recover a
large share of them; and he thought it the
greatest of cruelties to consign a soul to
perdition, without having made every effort
for retrieving it. Merely to get rid of con-
victs by execution or perpetual banishment,
E 2 he 


54 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
he regarded as a piece of barbarous policy,
equally denoting want of feeling, and defi-
ciency of resource; and he had not so much
English prejudice about him, as to suppose,
that a system not adopted in this country
was therefore absurd or impracticable.
My second topic of reflection is the strik-
ing proof this work affords of the extensive
benefit arising from a free press. By its
means we see an individual, enjoying nei-
ther royal nor ministerial patronage, but
solely borne up by ardent zeal for the pub-
lic good, and the resources of his own mind
and fortune, enabled not only to lay before
the world complete information concerning
a most important and little-known subject,
but, in some measure, also to enforce the
correction of abuses, by bringing before the
bar of the public those by whose negligence
or criminality they had been fostered. For
as the history of mankind has shewn on the
one hand, that palpable injustice and mis-
management, even in an absolute govern-
ment, cannot long stand their ground against
the odium of an enlightened public; so, on
the other, it has proved, that even in free
constitutions, notwithstanding all their
boasted checks and balances, very gross
abuses may long prevail, unless they are
placed


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 55
placed in open day, and submitted to the
censure of the nation at large. It is scarce-
ly, I think, to be doubted, that the freedom
we enjoy in this country, and the ultimate
defeat of every pernicious project, are less
owing to the mechanism of our constitution,
than to the habitual practice (rather assumed
by the spirit of the people than granted by
the laws) of subjecting every public measure
to popular discussion by means of the press.
From this ready communication of facts and
opinions, it has happened, that many useful
designs and improvements have among us
originated from persons who had neither
power nor interest of their own, but whose
plans were adopted in consequence of the
public conviction. The respect paid to
Mr. HOWARD's virtues, abilities, and in-
dustry, placed him in a manner at the head
of the department in which he had engaged
as a volunteer; and this, not only in his
own country, but afterwards, in some meas-
ure, throughout Europe. Though in ex-
ercising the office of a censor he was supe-
rior to the fear of giving offence, yet he
ever observed the utmost delicacy in mark-
ing out individuals as objects of blame.
He boldly and forcibly displayed the abuse,
but left it to those more immediately con-
cerned,


56 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
cerned, to take notice of the delinquent.
It cannot be questioned, that numbers look-
ed with an evil eye upon his keen researches
and free detections; but how could they
venture, before the public, to confront a
man whose assertions were correct, whose
intentions were above all suspicion, and
whose life would stand the severest test?
May this example animate all future friends
of mankind with a noble confidence be-
coming their cause?
The House of Commons now took up,
with laudable zeal, the important business
of regulating the prisons; and in the
draught of a bill "to punish by imprison-
ment and hard labour certain offenders, and
to establish proper places for their recep-
tion," the plan was formed upon the rasp
and spin-houses in Holland. Mr. HOW-
ARD was now called upon by his promise,
as well as his inclination, to make a new
tour for the purpose of acquiring fresh and
more exact informaton. He, accordingly,
in April 1778, went over to Holland, and
revisited with the greatest attention the
well-conducted establishments of the peni-
tentiary kind in the United Provinces.
Thence he travelled into Germany, taking
his course through Hanover and Berlin, to
Vienna. 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 57
Vienna. From this capital he proceeded
to Italy by Venice; and, having gone as
far south as Naples, returned by the western
side of that country to Switzerland. Thence
he pursued the course of the Rhine through
Germany; and, crossing the Low Countries
to France, returned to England in January
1779. During the spring and summer of
this year he made another complete tour of
England and Wales, and likewise took a
journey through Scotland and Ireland.
The labours of these two years were cer-
tainly not less productive of useful infor-
mation than his former journies. In some
respects they were more valuable, since, be-
ing now fully master of his subject, and ac-
quainted with the means of procuring the
best intelligence, he pursued his inquiries
with greater ease and effect. He was now,
too, a distinguished character in Europe, and
might venture to assume that kind of au-
thority, to which the collection of facts,
interesting to all civilized nations, seemed
to entitle him. It is here proper to men-
tion, that although he often found it neces-
sary, especially when treading new ground,
to avail himself of recommendations to per-
sons high in rank and office; yet that he
much preferred, when he, could practise it,
carrying


58 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
carrying on his researches as an unknown in-
dividual, whose business was not suspected,
and who took such times and opportunities
of making his visits, as secured him against
any thing like disguise or preparation. And
it was his general custom, after he had once
obtained access to a prison by the presence
and interposition of authority, to stay some
time in the place, or revisit it, for the pur-
pose of renewing his inquiries single and
unexpected. Thus careful was he to guard
against deception; and with such coolness
of investigation did he execute a design
which it required so much ardour of mind
to conceive.
I shall not, however, conceal, that some
sensible and not uncandid observers of his
conduct have thought him too apt to be
prejudiced by first impressions, the effects
of which it appeared extremely difficult to
remove; and they have also charged him
with sometimes giving undue credit to per-
sons of inferior condition, at the places
where he was making his inquiries; and
likewise with being apparently better pleased
with finding occasion to censure than to
commend. If, in a few instances, there may
have been grounds for these imputations.
(as nothing human is without its defects)
yet


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 59
yet I think his works may, on the whole,
be confidently referred to, as proving, by an
immense mass of allowed and uncontradict-
ed facts, the accuracy of his representations.
It is likewise to be considered, that, as abuses
in general proceed from superiors, it was not
likely that a fair account of them should be
obtained from that quarter; and, as his great
purpose was to correct, it is natural that his
attention should have been more drawn to
what was wrong than what was right. A
Hercules who went about in order to contend
with monsters, had little to do with the
fair forms of civil life. Yet numerous in-
stances of liberal praise may be fouud in his
works, especially where he could propose the
object of it as an example proper for imita-
tion.
The tours now before us were likewise
rendered richer in utility by the comprehen-
sion of another great object, that of hospi-
tals. To these institutions of humanity
Mr. HOWARD had long been attached; he
had been a promoter of them, and attentive
to their improvement; and in his journies
through this kingdom, he had seldom failed
to visit the hospitals and infirmaries situat-
ed in our principal towns. He had also,
in his first publication, taken cursory notice
of


60 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
of a few which he saw abroad. But he
now made them an avowed object of his
examination; a circumstance, it may be
supposed, not a little pleasing to his medi-
cal friends. For, although the knowledge
collected by a professional man with similar
opportunities would, doubtless, have been
more applicable to the purpose of science,
yet matter of fact, accurately stated by a
sensible observer, must ever have its value.
Besides, when can we expect to see the
spirit and qualities of a HOWARD united,
in one of our profession, with his fortune
and leisure?
The fruit of all this research appeared in
the year 1780, in an Appendix to the State
of the Prisons in England and Wales; con-
taining a further account of foreign prisons
and hospitals, with additional remarks on
the prisons of this country. It is a quarto
volume of about two hundred pages, with
several plates. The work begins with the
foreign prisons and hospitals, and Holland
takes the lead, since a main object of the
journey was a minute account of the excel-
lent regulations of the houses of correction
in that country. Many of the rules, die-
taries, &c. are copied; and on quitting the
country, Mr. HOWARD gives his testimony
to 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 61
to the large field of information on this sub-
ject that it affords, and says, that he knows.
not which most to admire, "the neatness
and cleanliness appearing in the prisons, the
industry and regular conduct of the prison-
ers, or the humanity and attention of the
magistrates and governors." He takes lit-
tle notice of the hospitals for the sick in
Holland, not approving their mode of keep-
ing patients so warm, and excluding the
fresh air. At Berlin the regularity and
strictness of the police shews the ruling
spirit of the great Frederic. A workhouse
here is conducted in the best Dutch mode.
Vienna affords little to commend in its
prisons; on the contrary, its horrid dun-
geons seem the abode of the extremest hu-
man misery. Scarcely any thing in Mr.
HOWARD's descriptions is more touching
than the following picture:- "In one of
the dark dungeons, down twenty-four steps,
I thought I had found a person with the
gaol-fever. He was loaded with heavy
irons and chained to the wall: anguish and
misery appeared with tears clotted on his
face. He was not capable of speaking to
me; but, on examining his breast and feet
for petechiæ or spots, and finding a strong
intermitting pulse, I was convinced that he
F was 


62 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
was not ill of that disorder. A prisoner in
an opposite cell told me, that the poor crea-
ture had desired him to call for assistance,
and he had done it, but was not heard."*
The charities of this city, chiefly founded
by the late empress Queen, are much more
pleasing subjects of description.
Mr. HOWARD entered Italy with high
expectations of improvement from its nu-
merous charitable institutions and public ed-
ifices; nor does it appear that he was alto-
gether disappointed, as this country affords
him a pretty long and interesting article.
The governments in which a spirit of im-
provement and attention to public objects,
seem most to prevail, are those of Milan
and Tuscany. The hospitals in Italy afford
some novelties and useful hints; but there
appears to be a great difference among them
as
* This scene is the subject of the frontispiece to Mr.
Haley's Ode to Mr. Howard; and it is better drawn in
the following stanza of that performance.
Where in the dungeon's loathsome shade
The speechless captive clanks his chain,
With heartless hope to raise that aid
His feeble cries have call'd in vain;
Thine eye his dumb complaint explores;
Thy voice his parting breath restores;
Thy cares his ghastly visage clear
From death's chill dew, with many a clotted tear,
And to his thankful soul returning, life endear


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 63
as to cleanliness and good management.
Rome and Milan have well-conducted houses
of correction, of which plans and descrip-
tions are given. In a room of the former is
inscribed a sentence, which so admirably
expressed Mr. HOWARD's idea concerning
the purpose of civil policy relative to crim-
inals, that he would, I believe, almost
have thought it worth while to have trav-
elled thither for that alone. PARUM EST
COERCERE IMPROBOS POENA, NISI PRO-
BOS EFFICIAS DISCIPLINA. It is doing
little to restrain the bad by punishment, un-
less you render them good by discipline.
The galleys belonging to various states in
Italy, and used for punishment, may be use-
fully compared with our HULKS.
The western side of Germany offers some
good regulations in its houses of correction;
but in general, the police of this country is
no object of imitation. The dungeons of
Liege present pictures to the imagination,
more dreadful, if possible, than those of
Vienna. "In descending deep below
ground," Says Mr. HOWARD, "I heard
the moans of the miserable wretches in the
dark dungeons. The sides and roof were
all stone. In wet seasons, water from the
fosses gets into them, and has greatly damag-
ed


64 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
ed the floors."- "The dungeons in the
new prison are abodes of misery still more
shocking; and confinement in them so
overpowers human nature, as sometimes ir-
recoverably to take away the senses. I heard
the cries of the distracted as I went down to
them." Surely the Liegois cannot be blam-
ed for endeavouring to place civil authority
in different hands from those who thus out-
raged the feelings of human nature!
The additional notices of France are dis-
tinguished by an account of the Bastille,
extracted from a scarce pamphlet, which
Mr. HOWARD procured, not without haz-
ard, and a translation of the whole of which
he likewise printed. He had reason to be-
lieve, that this exposure to all Europe of
the horrid secrets of this "prison-house,"
was a cause that his after visits to that coun-
try were attended with no small danger to
his liberty; and it was once not improba-
ble that Mr. HOWARD should have been in
the number of those victims whom the de-
molition of that fortress of despotism restor-
ed to light and freedom. What a triumph
must it have been to him, to have learned,
that the frowning towers, which could not
be approached or even gazed at, without
offence, were levelled to the ground, as the
first       


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 65
first sacrifice to the recovered rights of a
generous nation! It is remarkable, that
France was of all countries that in which
he found intelligence concerning the prisons
and other government establishments, most
difficult to be obtained; and this union of
the suspicious rigour of the police with the
exterior gaiety and frivolity of the national
character, gave him no small disgust. It is
to be presumed, that the change in their
constitution will soften this contrast into a
desirable harmony between the principles
of the administration and the manners of
the people.
Great Britain, being then at war with
France, Spain and America, Mr. HOWARD
could not be unmindful of that class of
honourable prisoners to which he himself
had once belonged. He very attentively
visited the English prisoners of war confin-
ed in Calais and French Flanders, noting
down their complaints and all the particu-
lars of their treatment. He also, as I have
been well informed, clothed at his own ex-
pense, several who had been shipwrecked
on the French coast in the dreadful storm
of December 31, 1778, and were left almost
naked. He likewise exerted himself in dis-
suading the men from enlisting with the
F O French,


66 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
French, who were endeavouring to seduce
them; by which he greatly offended the
persons in office there, who could not im-
agine that he acted in all this as a private
man, but were strongly persuaded that he
was a secret agent or spy of the English
government. This natural supposition may
serve as some apology for the suspicion and
illiberality with which he was constantly
treated in that country.
On his return to England, with the true
spirit of a citizen of the world, he paid im-
mediate visits to the French, Spanish, and
American prisoners of war in this country;
nor did he forget those in Scotland and Ire-
Land. The results of his observations, given
with the most perfect impartiality, succeed
the account of foreign prisons and hospitals;
and it cannot be doubted that they had con-
siderable effect in alleviating the unavoida-
ble hardships of war.
Mr. HOWARD next gives a brief account
of what he observed worthy of notice in
his tours through Scotland and Ireland.
The former country being governed by a
different system of municipal law from that
of England, afford some useful remarks
concerning imprisonment for debt, the form
of administering an oath, and the mode of
conducting
     


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 67
conducting executions. Ireland has not
been at all behind-hand with the sister king-
dom in passing acts for the liberal improve-
ment of its prisons; but there did not, at
that time, appear an equal attention in mag-
istrates to put them in execution. Some
remarks here introduced, concerning the
practice of recruiting the army out of the
gaols, will be thought important by those,
who with that the class of armed citizens
should be respectable, in proportion to its
consequence.
The next article relates to the Hulks on
the Thames. These, at their first institution,
had been extremely unhealthy, in conse-
quence of faults which Mr. HOWARD
pointed out in his former work. Their
state was now much mended by means of
parliamentary interference; yet, on the
whole, it was not a mode of imprisonment
and employment which met with his appro-
bation. Some further remarks on the gaol-
fever succeed; which, in addition to the
general causes of want of fresh air and clean-
liness, he attributes to such a sudden change
of diet and lodging as breaks the spirits of
convicts. This corresponds with the med-
ical doctrine of the effect of debilitating
causes, in producing fevers of the typhus
kind; 


68 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
kind; yet it seems such a cause as cannot
well be avoided.
The remainder of the book is occupied
by a fresh survey of the prisons in England
and Wales, in which such changes as had
taken place since his former publication are
noted, with occasional observations. The
reader will remark with pleasure, that in
most parts of the kingdom, various useful
alterations had been made since the period
in which Mr. HOWARD began his inqui-
ries; and the great share he had in occa-
sioning them will be universally admitted.
His conclusion expresses satisfaction with
the result of his labours; and mentions,
that it had been his intention now to retire
to the tranquil enjoyment of that compe-
tence Providence had bestowed on him, but
that the earnest persuasions of those who
thought him a proper person to superintend
one of the great plans he had so much rec-
ommended, had induced him still to devote
his time to the public. Concerning this
matter, it is proper to enter into an explan-
ation. I shall only first mention, that, to-
gether with this Appendix, there was printed
a new edition, in octavo, of the State of the
Prisons, with which all this additional mat-
ter was interwoven.
An 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ, 69
An act for establishing penitentiary houses,
on which much labour and thought had
been bestowed by men of great ability, pass-
ed in 1779. By this act, three supervisors
were appointed for the purpose of superin-
tending the execution of the buildings. The
whole kingdom would naturally turn its
eyes on Mr. HOWARD, as the first person
whose services should be engaged on this
occasion; but it was not an easy task to ob-
tain his acquiescence. Among other objec-
tions, his extreme delicacy, with respect to
pecuniary emolument, stood in his way ;
and even the moderate salary annexed to
this office, seemed to him scarcely compati-
ble with the absolute disinterestedness of
conduct he had maintained, and was deter-
mined to preserve, during the whole of his
labours. At length, however, the solicita-
tions of his friends, particularly of the late
Sir W. Blackstone, the great promoter of
the design, together with a consciousness of
the service he might render the public in
this station, overcame his reluctance. Hav-
ing resolved to accept of no salary for him-
self, and having made the association of his
highly-respected friend, Dr. Fothergill, a
condition of his compliance, he, with the
Doctor, and Mr. Whately, treasurer of the
Foundling-


70 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
Foundling-hospital, were nominated by his
Majesty as the three supervisors. The first
matter for their determination was, fixing
on the spot where the two penitentiary
houses for the metropolis should be erected.
Various situations were proposed, and Mr.
HOWARD paid due attention to all the
plans, by visiting the spots, and maturely
considering all circumstances favourable
and objectionable. The result was, that his
opinion and that of Dr. Fothergill coincid-
ed in giving a preference to Islington for
reasons which he has stated in his last pub-
lication. Mr. Whately preferred the situ-
ation of limehouse. By the death-bed ad-
vice of Sir W. Blackstone, the two friends
adhered to their opinion; but the matter
was made an affair of obstinate contention,
and remained undecided during the year
1780. At the end of it Dr. Fothergill di-
ed; upon which event, Mr. HOWARD,
foreseeing that the want of the support of
such a colleague would render his future
interference useless, sent his resignation
of the office of supervisor in January 1781,
in a letter to Earl Bathurst, which he has
printed.
Now that Mr. HOWARD had freed him-
self from the engagement, which seemed to
be 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 71
be the only obstacle between him and that
elegant retreat which for so many years he
had inhabited, it might naturally be imagin-
ed that he would sit down in repose, for the
remainder of his life, satisfied with the un-
paralleled and successful exertions he had
made for the relief of the most distressed
portion of mankind; and thenceforth em-
ploy himself only in those more confined
deeds of beneficence which he had ever
practised. But it was a leading feature in
his character, not to be content with any
thing short of the greatest perfection, which
every object of his pursuit was capable of
attaining - and this principle could scarcely
fail of applying itself to a subject so import-
ant as that which had for some years occu-
pied his attention. - Though his researches
in those foreign countries which promised
most information, might have been suppos-
ed to have exhausted that source of im-
provement, yet, on surveying so large a
tract of Europe as yet unvisited, he could
not be satisfied to remain unacquainted with
the useful facts relative to his purpose,
which might possibly lie there concealed.
And he was convinced, that every new vis-
it, even to places already examined, would
afford new instruction.
It 


72 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
It was therefore no surprise to those who
intimately knew him, to learn, that in the
summer of 1781 he was set out on a tour to
the capitals of Denmark, Sweden, Russia,
and Poland, with the Sweeden intention of
revisiting Holland and part of Germany.
From this tour he returned towards the close
of the year. I have before me a letter of
his to a friend (the Rev. Mr. Smith of Bed-
ford, dated Moscow, September 7, 1781)
whence it appears, that these parts of the
world were less suitable to his mode of liv-
ing than the countries through which his
former travels lay. "I thought (say he) I
could live where any man did live; but this
northern journey, especially in Sweden, has
pinched me: no fruit, no garden-stuff, sour
bread, sour milk:- but in this city I find
every luxury, even pineapples and potatoes."
He mentions having declined every honour
that was offered him at Petersburgh, even
that of a soldier to attend him on his jour-
ney; and says, that he will not leave Mos-
cow, till he has made repeated visits to the
prisons and hospitals, since the first man in
the kingdom had assured him, that his pub-
lication would be translated into Russian.
The year 1782 he was employed in an-
other compete survey of the prisons in
England, 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 73
England, and another journey into Scot-
land and Ireland. The Irish House of
Commons having appointed a gaol-commit-
tee, he reported to it the state of several of
the prisons in Dublin. Other objects in
that Island also engaged his attention, of
which an account will be given hereafter.
Spain and Portugal yet remained untouch-
ed ground; Considering how much the
spirit of religious bigotry and civil despot-
ism has thrown these countries back in the
progress of modern improvement, much in-
struction was not to be expected from them;
yet the very circumstance of their difference
from the rest of Europe made their systems
of police an object of curiosity. He sailed
to Lisbon in February 1783, and proceed-
ed thence by land into Spain, passing from
Badajos to Madrid, and through Valladolid,
Burgos and Pamplona, to France. From
this last country he returned through Flan-
ders and Holland to England. Travelling in
Spain is a severe trial of patience to those who
have been accustomed to easy conveyance
and luxurious indigencies; but Mr. HOW-
ARD's wants were easily satisfied. "The
Spaniards, (says he, in a letter to the same
friend) are very sober, and very honest;
and if a traveller can live sparingly, and lie
G on


74 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
on the floor, he may pass tolerably well
through their country." From Lisbon to
Madrid he could seldom get the luxury of
milk with his tea; but one morning (he
tells his friend) he robbed a kid of two cups
of its mother's milk. He remained, how-
ever, in perfect health and spirits; and re-
ceived that mark of attention which he most
of all valued, a free access to the prisons of
all the cities he visited, by means of letters
to the magistrates from Count Campo-
manes.
After a short repose on his return from
this tour, he made another journey in the
summer of the same year into Scotland and
Ireland, and again visited several of the
English prisons.
His materials had now once more accu-
mulated to such a mass, as to demand com-
munication to the public. During the last
three years his labours had been even great-
er than in any former equal period; yet it
could not be expected, that the matter abso-
lutely new which he had collected should
be proportionably great. It was, however,
enough to employ him very closely during
several months of the year 1784, in printing
an appendix, and a new edition of the main
work, in which all the editions, were com-
prised.


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 75
prised. The appendix contains all the mat-
ter of that of 1780, together with what had
since accrued. Of the latter I now proceed
to give some account.
Several new houses of correction are de-
scribed under the head of Holland, the
country which Mr. HOWARD ever found
the most fertile source of instruction in this
branch of police. The plan of the large
new work-house of Amsterdam must be
well worth studying, as affording hints for
the construction of penitentiary houses.
Germany has the addition of the prisons of
Hanover and Bremen, a minute account
of the great and well-regulated work-house
at Hamburg, and short notices concerning
Silesia. Of the northern kingdoms which
he now first visited, it may in general be
observed, that their models, as well with
respect to police, as to mode of living, have
been Holland and Germany; but their pov-
erty, and the rigour of their climate, have
made them degenerate in their imitations.
In particular, they are extremely deficient
in cleanliness and industry. The new arti-
cles, therefore, of Denmark and Sweden,
though valuable for the information they
contain, yet afford little or nothing of in-
struction. The vast empire of Russia, lately
emerged


76 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
emerged from obscurity to take a command-
ing station in the system of Europe, and gov-
erned by uncontrolled power, at present di-
rected by a spirit of magnificent improve-
ment, could not but offer in its institutions
various things worthy of notice. Its police
respecting criminals, its prisons, hospitals,
and places of public education, are briefly
mentioned by Mr. HOWARD; but he has
found little to propose as an example for
other countries. The regulations of the
great convent at Petersburg, for the educa-
tion of female children of the nobility and
commoners, are given in detail, and afford
some salutary rules for the preservation of
the health of young persons, and for pro-
moting habits of cleanliness and temperance.
The plan and description of a magazine for
medicinal herbs at Moscow, will be a pleas-
ing novelty to most readers. Mr. HOW-
ARD had been anticipated in his survey of
the prisons and hospitals of the northern
kingdoms, by that well-informed traveller,
Mr. Coxe, who published a pamphlet on
the subject in 1781, here referred to with
commendation. The short head of Poland
contains little but a testimony to the neglect-
ed and wretched state of public institutions
in that ill-governed country. All travel-
lers


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 77
lers have concurred in similar representa-
tions of the whole system of affairs, internal
and external, in that unhappy seat of aristo-
cratical tyranny; so that it may be presum-
ed, there does not exist so determined an en-
emy of innovation as not to rejoice in the
change of constitution which has lately been
effected there, by means of the silent and
peaceable progress of light and reason.
There are various additional articles un-
der Flanders, one of which relates to a great
alteration for the worse in the house of
correction at Ghent. A once flourishing
manufactory carried on in the prison was at
an end; and the allowance of victuals to the
prisoners was reduced in quantity and qual-
ity. In the account of a very offensive pris-
on at Lille, Mr. HOWARD expresses his
grateful acknowledgments to Providence for
his recovery from a fever caught there of
the sick.
The account of Portugal is almost con-
fined to the prisons and hospitals of Lisbon;
the state of which, upon the whole, does
credit to the government. The employ-
ment of about a thousand vagrant and de-
serted children in a manufactory, is one of
the most observable circumstances.
G 2 SPAIN,


78 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
SPAIN, which has been long distinguished
for its charitable establishments, affords like-
wise in its criminal police, many things de-
serving of attention; though the spirit of
rigour and severity is perhaps too apparent,
amidst much laudable order and exactness.
The house of correction at Madrid, called
San Fernando, may vie with some of the
best regulated institutions of this nature;
and the Hospicio, a kind of work-house, in
which extensive manufactories are carried
on, is a good example of the union of em-
ployment with confinement. The account
of the charitable society of the Hermandad
del Refugio, who patrole the streets in the
evening, for the purpose of inviting desti-
tute wanderers to a comfortable supper and
night's lodging, will excite pleasing sensa-
tions in the breast of every lover of humanity.
The prisons of the inquisition, those objects
of horror and detestation to every Protes-
tant, and now, probably, to most Catholics,
excited great curiosity in Mr. HOWARD, of
which, however, all his efforts could only
procure a partial gratification. Yet he has
been able to communicate enough concern-
ing those of Valladolid to form a striking
picture of terror. On the whole, the pre-
dilection he had long entertained for the
Spanish 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 79
Spanish character, was not diminished by
his visit to the country; nor does he seem
to have thought his pains in extending his
inquiries to it, ill bestowed. The addition-
al notices in France, chiefly relate to the
Paris hospitals. It is needless to dwell on
these, since a very accurate description of
them has since been given in a capital work
by M. Tenon.
To the account of foreign prisons and
hospitals, succeeds a fresh survey of the pris-
oners of war.
The new journies to Scotland, now ex-
tended as far as Inverness, afford little but
censure for the neglect of the prisons in
that country. Under Ireland are introdu-
ced additional remarks on the faults and
abuses still observable in the prisons there.
Notwithstanding a very spirited exertion of
the legislature to amend their state, by fram-
ing good acts for their regulation. But,
"quid leges sine moribus, &c." The hor-
rid effects of that cheap poison, whisky, up-
on the health and morals of the lower class-
es in that country, are noticed by Mr.
HOWARD with much indignant disgust. A
new object of attention occured to him in
the two last visits to Ireland. The Protes-
tant Charter Schools, a noble foundation,
but 


80 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
but which he found sunk into wretched
abuse, notwithstanding the patronage and
superintendence of the first persons in that
kingdom. Erroneous accounts of them pub-
lished by a committee, and authorized by
being annexed to a printed sermon of a pre-
late in their favour, were detected by Mr.
HOWARD, on his visits to some of them,
and are exposed with his usual freedom.
Further accounts of the Hulks follow.
To the remarks on the gaol-fever, Mr.
HOWARD adds the information, that in
1782 he did not find one person in this king-
dom affected with that disease; but that in
1783 he had the mortification to observe sev-
eral prisons, through original bad construc-
tion and neglect, relapsing to their former
state. So essential is a plan of constant
vigilance and inspection, to counteract the
lamentable tendency to abuse in all public
institutions! This principle of corruption
and decay in every thing human is so inces-
santly active, that, if not resisted by the
timely efforts of reformation, all the con-
trivances of wisdom against natural and
moral evils, would, like the dykes of Hol-
land, perpetually sapped and worn by the
force of the elements, fall into irremediable
ruin.
The


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 81
The remainder of this volume is taken
up with a review of all the English prisons,
together with particulars of all the altera-
tions which they had undergone since the
last publication. The reader will be grati-
fied in finding, from the number of new
prisons, and new buildings and convenien-
cies added to the old, that the counties in
general had by no means been deficient in
liberal attention to this great object, since
it had been brought forward and aided by
Mr. HOWARD's indesatigable exertions.
At the conclusion, among the tables, is a
sketch of general heads of regulations for
penitentiary houses, which will be highly
useful in suggesting a complete body of
rules and orders for such establishments, if
ever they should again be thought of in this
country.
The printing of this copious appendix,
together with a complete edition of his
State of the Prisons, into which all the addi-
tions were incorporated, making a large and
closely printed quarto volume, occupied
much of Mr. HOWARD's time in the year
1784. The remainder of that, and the great-
er part of the next year, do not appear mark-
ed with his public services. They were, I
believe, chiefly employed in domestic con-
cerns,
   


82 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
cerns, of which the choice of a proper place
of education for his son, now rising towards
manhood, was one that most interested him.
But the habitude of carrying on researches
into an object, which by long possession had
acquired deep root in his mind, together
with a new idea, collaterally allied to it,
which had struck him, at length impelled
him once more to engage in the toils and
perils of a foreign journey.
He had observed that, notwithstanding
the regulations for preserving health in
prisons and hospital, infectious diseases
continued occasionally to arise and spread
in them: he had also in his travels remark-
ed the great solicitude of several trading na-
tions to preserve themselves from that most
destructive of all contagious distempers, the
plague; and, at the same time, he was well
apprised of the rude and neglected state in
which the police of our own country is left
respecting that object. Combining these
ideas, he thought that a visit to all the prin-
cipal lazarettos, and to countries frequent-
ly attacked by the plague, might afford much
information as to the means of preventing
contagion in general, as well as particular
instruction concerning establishments for
the purpose of guarding against pestilential
infection. 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 83
infection. His intent, therefore, was noth-
ing less, than to plunge into the midst of
those dangers which by other men are so
anxiously avoided; to search out and con-
front the great foe of human life, for the
sake of recognizing his features, and discov-
ering the most efficacious barriers against
his assaults. Who but must be struck with
admiration of the firmness of courage, and
the ardour of benevolence, which could
prompt such a design! As a proof of his
own idea of the hazards he was to encoun-
ter, it may be mentioned, that he resolved
to travel single and unattended; not think-
ing it justifiable to permit any of his ser-
vants to partake of a danger to which they
were not called by motives similar to his
own.
It was towards the end of 1785 that Mr.
HOWARD set out upon this tour, taking
his way through Holland and Flanders, to
the south of France. As from the jealousy
and displeasure of the French government,
he was not able to obtain permission to vis-
it the establishments there, or even to gain
assurance of personal safety, he travelled
through the country as an English physician,
never took his meals in public, and entrusted
his secret only to the Protestant ministers.
In


84 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
In a letter from Nice to the friend above-
mentioned, dated January 30, 1786, he ac-
quaints him with these circumstances, and
says, that he was five days at Marseilles and
four at Toulon; and, as it was thought that
he could not get out of France by land, he
embarked in a Genoese vessel, and was sev-
eral days striving against wind and tide.
They who at present conduct the govern-
ment of France, I am persuaded, will blush
at the idea, that a HOWARD was obliged to
conceal his name and purpose while carry-
ing on in their country inquiries which had
no other aim than the good of mankind !
From Nice, Mr. HOWARD went to Genoa,
Leghorn, and Naples, and to the islands of
Malta and Zante. He then sailed to Smyr-
na, and thence to Constantinople. I have
been favoured with a letter of his to Dr. Price
from this metropolis, dated June 22, 1786,
some extracts from which I shall present to
the reader.
"After viewing the effects of the earth-
quake in Sicily, I arrived at Malta, where
I repeatedly visited the prisons, hospitals,
poor-houses, and lazarettos, as I stayed three
weeks. From thence I went to Zante: as
they are all Greeks, I wished to have some
general idea of their hospitals and prisons,
before
     


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 85
before I went into Turkey. From thence,
in a foreign ship, I got a passage to Smyrna.
Here I boldly visited the hospitals and pris-
ons; but as some accidents happened, a few
dying of the plague, several shrunk at me,
I came thence about a fortnight ago. As I
was in a miserable Turk's boat, I was lucky
in a passage of six days and a half. A fam-
ily arrived just before me, had been between
two and three months.
"I am sorry to say some die of the plague
about us; one is just carried before my win-
dow; yet I visit where none of my conduc-
tors will accompany me. In some hospit-
als, as in the lazarettos, and yesterday among
the sick slaves, I have a constant headache,
but in about an hour after it always leaves
me. Sir Robert Ainslie is very kind; but
for the above and other reasons, I could not
lodge in his house. I am at a physician's,
and I keep some of my visits a secret."
He designed to proceed from Constanti-
nople over land to Vienna; but, having de-
termined, upon reflection, to obtain by per-
sonal experience the fullest information of
the mode of performing quarantine, he re-
turned to Smyrna, where the plague then
was, for the purpose of going to Venice
with a foul bill, that would necessarily sub-
H ject


86 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
ject him to the utmost rigour of the process.
His voyage was tedious, and rendered haz-
ardous by equinoctial storms; and in the
course of it he incurred a danger of another
kind, the ship in which he was a passenger
being attacked by a Tunisian corsair, which,
after a smart skirmish, was beaten off by the
execution done by a cannon loaded with
spike nails and bits of iron, and pointed by
Mr. HOWARD himself. It afterwards ap-
peared to have been the intention of the
captain to blow up his vessel, rather than
submit to be taken into perpetual slavery.
It was not till the close of 1786 that Mr.
HOWARD left his disagreeable quarters in
the lazaretto of Venice, in which his health
and spirits suffered considerably. Thence he
went by Trieste to Vienna. In this capital
he had the honour of a private conference
with the Emperor, which was conducted
with the utmost ease and condescension on
the part of Joseph II. and equal freedom on
the part of the Englishman. A relation of
this instructive scene in his own words, will,
I doubt not, be agreeable to the reader:
"The Emperor desired to see me, and I had
the honour of a private audience with him
of above an hour and a half. He took me
by the hand three times in conversation,
and


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 87
and thanked me for the visit. He after-
wards told our Ambassador, 'That his coun-
tryman spoke well for prisoners; that he
used no flowers, which others ever do, and
mean nothing. But his greatest favour to
me was his immediate alterations for the
relief of the prisoners."* That the late
Emperor had an ardent zeal tor improve-
ment of every kind; and a strong desire of
promoting the prosperity of his subjects,
will scarcely be denied, even by those who
are the severest censurers of the mode in
which he conducted his plans, and his ex-
treme mutability respecting them. He will
also be honoured, for the readiness with
which he laid aside the etiquette of his rank,
on every occasion where it obstructed him
in the acquisition of knowledge, or the ac-
tivity of exertion. Mr. HOWARD return-
ed through Germany and Holland, and ar-
rived safe in England early in 1787.
It was during this tour, and while he was
in solitude occupying a cell of the Venice
lazaretto, that he received from England
two pieces of intelligence, both of which
distressed and harrassed his mind, though the
emotion they excited must apparently have
been very different. One of these related
to
*Letter to Mr. Smith.


88 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
to the melancholy derangement of mind in-
to which his son had fallen, and which, af-
ter various instances of strange and unac-
countable behaviour, terminated at length
in decided insanity. They who cannot be-
lieve that the most benevolent of mankind
could be a stern and unnatural parent, will
sympathize in the anguish he must have felt
on hearing (and in such a situation too) of
an event which blasted the dearest hopes of
comfort and solace in his declining years. I,
who have frequently heard him speak of this
son, with all the pride and affection of the
kind father of art only child, cannot read
without strong emotions, the expressions he
uses in writing to his friend relative to
this bitter calamity. When he concludes
a long letter upon various topics, with the
exclamation, "But, O! my son, my son;"
I seem to perceive the efforts of a manly
mind, striving by the aid of its internal re-
sources to dispel a gloomy phantom, which
was yet ever recurring to his imagination.
But in this emergency, as in all others; the
consolations of religion were his chief res-
uge.*
The
*To prove that Mr. Howard had kind and tender
feelings for domestic as well as for public occasions, will I
hope,


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 89
The other cause of uneasiness by which
his mind was agitated, will, to many, appear
a very extraordinary one; since it arose
from a testimony of esteem and veneration
in his countrymen, which might be imagin-
ed to afford balm for his wounded spirit.
During his absence, a scheme had been set
on foot to honour him in a manner almost
unprecedented in this age and country.
Without attempting to trace it to its origin,
it may suffice to say, that, in a periodical
work of extensive circulation, the public
were called upon to testify their respect for
Mr. HOWARD by a subscription, for the
purpose of erecting a statue, or some other
monument, to his honour. The authors of
this scheme, though, doubtless, actuated by
a pure and laudable admiration of illustrious
virtue, yet must have been totally unac-
quainted with Mr. HOWARD's disposition;
otherwise they would never have thought
of
hope, by most persons be deemed a superfluous talk.
For those who require such proof, I copy the following
passage from one of his letters to Mr. Smith. "My old
servants, John Prole, Thomas Thomason, and Joseph
Crockford, have had a sad time. I hear they have been
faithful, wise and prudent. Please to thank them par-
ticularly in my name for their conduct. Two of them,
I am persuaded, have acted out of regard to his excellence
mother, - who, I rejoice, is dead."
H 2


90 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
of decorating a man, whose characteristic
feature had always been a solicitude to shun
all notice and distinction, with one of the
most glaring and prominent marks of public
applause, which might put to the blush
modesty of a much less delicate texture than
his. The English national character (if na-
tional character can be said to belong to so
heterogeneous a people) is by nothing so
strongly marked, as by a coyness and reserve
which shrink from observation, and even
to those who are acting for the public,
render the gaze of the public eye painful.
The love of glory, which is so active a sen-
timent to some of our neighbours, operates
feebly upon us: many do not rise to it, and
some go beyond it. That "humble Allen,"
whose disposition it was to "do good by
stealth and blush to find it same," was a gen-
uine English philanthropist; and such was
Mr. HOWARD, rendered, perhaps, still
more averse to public praise, by a deep sense
of religious humility.
A similar want of acquaintance with Mr.
HOWARD's designs, caused the proposers
of this plan to attribute to him an extrava-
gance of philanthropy, which could not but
appear ridiculous to those whose judgment
was net dazzled by the ardour of admiration.
It


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 91
It was asserted, among real topics of ap-
plause, that he was now gone abroad with
the view of extirpating the plague from
Turkey; an idea scarcely so rational, the
character of that nation considered, as would
be that of a mission to convert the Grand
Seignior to Christianity. Mr. HOWARD
meant, undoubtedly, to do all the good
which should lie within his compass in that,
as in all other countries which he visited;
but he never was so romantic as to suppose
that he could effect that, which would man-
ifestly require a total change in the religious
and political system of a great empire, of
all the least disposed to change.
The project of a statue, however, was ea-
gerly adopted; the subscription filled, and
was adorned with the names of ministers,
nobles, and persons of distinction; and a
committee was appointed to determine upon
the best mode of fulfilling its purpose. The
confidential friends of Mr. HOWARD were
in a disagreeable dilemma; for as, on the
one hand, they could not but rejoice in the
warmth of admiration which his country
testified for his character; so, on the other,
they well knew that its manner of display
could not fail to give him extreme pain,
and if effected, probably banish him forever.
On


92 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
On this account, they did not concur in
the scheme, and some of them ventured
publickly to throw out objections to it.
Some of its warm promoters, in reply, talk-
ed of forcing his modesty, and seemed de-
termined at all events to put in execution
their favourite design. In the meanwhile,
Mr. HOWARD was informed of this hon-
ourable persecution that was preparing
against him at home; and the sensations this
intelligence occasioned in his breast are
shewn in the following expressions contained
in a letter to the intimate friend who has al-
ready furnished me with various extracts.
"To hasten to the other very distressing affair:
Oh, why could not my friends, who know
how much I detest such parade, have stop-
ped such a hasty measure! - As a private
man, with some peculiarities, I wished to
retire into obscurity and silence. Indeed,
my friend, I cannot bear the thought of be-
ing thus dragged out. I immediately wrote,
and hope something may be done to stop it.
My best friends must disapprove it. It
deranges and confounds all my scheme
- my exaltation is my fall, my misfor-
tune."* The same sentiments on this bu-
siness
* He mentions in the same letter, as a proof how op-
posite his wishes were to monumental honours, that be-
fore 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 93
siness are expressed with equal strength in
his letters to Dr. Price. Among other things
he says, "My truest, intimate, and best
friends, have, I see by the papers, been so
kind as not to subscribe to what you so just-
ly term a hasty measure. Indeed, indeed,
if nothing now can be done, I speak from
my heart, never poor creature was more
dragged out in public."
That in all this there was no affectation,
clearly appeared from the letter he sent to
the subscribers; in which, after expressing
his gratitude, he displayed so determined a
repugnance against admitting of the propos-
ed honour, deprecating it as the severest of
punishments, that nothing could be urged
in reply, and the business was dropped. Of
the sum subscribed, amounting to upwards
of 1500l. Mr. HOWARD refused to direct
the disposal in any manner, and begged it
might no longer be termed the Howardian
fund. A part of it was reclaimed by the
subscribers, but a considerable share remain-
ed in a stock; and, since Mr. HOWARD'S
death,
fore he set out on this journey, he had given directions,
that in case of his death, his funeral expenses should not
exceed ten pounds - that his tomb should be a plain slip of
marble placed under that of his dear Henrietta in Car-
dington church, with this, inscription; John Howard
died - aged - My hope is in Christ. 


94 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
death, it has been resolved to employ it in
conferring those honours on his memory
which he would not accept while living.
This intention is in every respect strictly
proper; and, as the noble edifice of St.
Paul's is at length destined to receive na-
tional monuments, no commencement can
be more auspicious, than with a name which
will ever stand so distinguished among those.
Qui sui memores alios secere merendo.
To resume the narrative of Mr. HOW-
ARD'S public life: - After his return in 1787,
he took a short repose, and then went over
to Ireland, and visited most of the county
gaols and charter schools, and came back
by Scotland. In 1788 he renewed his vis-
it to Ireland, and completed his survey of
its gaols, hospitals, and schools. I shall lay
before the reader part of a letter to Dr. Price,
dated from Dublin, March 23, of this year.
"My journey into this country was to make
a report of the state of the charter schools,
which charity has been long neglected and
abused; as indeed most public institutions
are made private emoluments, one shelter-
ing himself under the name of a bishop,
another under that of a lord; and for elec-
tioneering interest breaking down all bar-
riers 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 95
riers of honour and honesty. However,
Parliament now seems determined to know
how its grants have been employed. I have
since my visits to these schools in 1782, been
endeavouring to excite the attention of Par-
liament; and some circumstances being in
my favour, a good Lord Lieutenant, a wor-
thy Secretary (an old acquaintance) and
the first Secretary of State, the Provost, a
steady friend, I must still pursue; so I next
week set out for Connaught and other re-
mote parts of this kingdom, which indeed
are more barbarous than Russia. By my fre-
quent journies my strength is somewhat abat-
ed, but not my courage or zeal in the cause
I am engaged in." During these two years,
he likewise repeated his examination of all
the county gaols, most of the Bridewells,
and the infirmaries and hospitals of England,
and of the hulks on the Thames, at Ports-
mouth and Plymouth.*
The
*It was, I believe, during his absence in some of the
tours of this period, that an incident happened which the
reader, I hope, will think well worth relating. A very
respectable-looking elderly gentleman on horseback, with
a servant, stopt at the inn nearest Mr. Howard's house
at Cardington, and entered into conversation with the
landlord concerning him. He observed, that charac-
ters often appeared very well at a distance, which could
not bear close inspection; he had therefore come to Mr.
Howard's 


96 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
The great variety of matter collected in
these journies was methodized and put to
the press in 1789. It composes a quarto
volume, beautifully printed, and decorated
with a number of fine plates, which, as usu-
al, are presented to the public; and so ea-
ger were the purchasers of books to par-
take of the donation, that all the copies
were almost immediately bought up. The
title is, An account of the principal Laza-
rettos in Europe, with various papers rela-
tive to the Plague; together with further
observations on some foreign prisons and
hospitals; with additional remarks on the
present state of those in Great Britain and
Ireland. Of this work I shall proceed to
give a brief analysis.
The
Howard's residence in order to satisfy himself concern-
ing him. The gentleman then, accompanied by the
innkeeper, went to the house, and looked through it,
with the offices and gardens, which he found in perfect
order. He next inquired into Mr. Howard's charac-
ter as a landlord, which was justly represented; and
several neat houses which he had built for his tenants
were shewn him. The gentleman returned to his inn,
declaring himself now satisfied with the truth of
all he had heard about Howard. This respectable
stranger was no other than Lord Monboddo; and Mr.
Howard was much flattered with the visit, and praised
his Lordship's good sense in taking such a method
of coming at the truth, since he thought it worth
his trouble. 

OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 97
The first section relates to lazarettos, be-
ginning with that of Marseilles, in which
city the horrid ravages of the plague, within
the present century, have left strong im-
pressions of dread of that destroyer of man-
kind. Those of Genoa, Leghorn, Malta,
Zante, Venice, and Trieste follow; the de-
scriptions of which are illustrated by ex-
cellent views and plans.* Of the lazaret-
tos of Venice a very particular account is
given, comprising the mode of reception
which he himself experienced, the regula-
tions of every kind, respecting officers and
their duty, visitation of ships, manner of
performing quarantine, and the expurgation
of goods of all classes, &c. All these ap-
pear to have been devised with much judg-
ment and prudence; but Mr. HOWARD is
obliged to give testimony to various in-
stances of abuse and neglect, which greatly
impair the utility of this institution, as well
as of many others in that once celebrated
and potent republic.
Sect.
*In one of his letters, Mr. Howard mentions having
met with a young Frenchman going to the academy
at Rome, who for a few sequins thankfully worked un-
der his eye, so that he can attest the accuracy of his
draughts. Several of the plates were engraved in Hol-
land.
I


98 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
Sect. II. contains proposed regulations,
and a new plan for a lazaretto; followed by
observations on the importance of such an
establishment in England. In these are in-
troduced two letters on the subject to
Mr. HOWARD; one, a long and argument-
ative one from the English merchants re-
siding at Smyrna; the other, confirming
their opinion, from those of Salonica.
These commercial papers appear worthy of
the most serious attention; and indeed it is
wonderful that a nation which boasts of
good sense and knowledge, should so long
have remained patient under a police re-
specting this matter, which answers no ef-
fectual purpose of security, but seems only
calculated to discourage commerce, and pro-
duce fees to persons in office, by the most
barefaced imposition.*
Sect. III. consists of papers relative to
the plague. They commence with a set of
answers, by different medical practitioners,
to queries with which Mr. HOWARD was
furnished by the late Dr. Jebb and myself.
I must observe, however, that all the que-
ries
*Such is the negligence and absurdity respecting the
regulations of the quarantine of persons, that I have
been assured, a naval officer has been called out of the
Opera house, to go on board his ship and perform his
quarantine. 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 99
ries do not appear, some of them having
been misapprehended, or imperfectly an-
swered, particularly such as related to the
discrimination of other fevers of the typhus
genus from the plague. These replies will
probably be thought to add little to the
stock or knowledge we possessed respecting
this disease; yet it is of some importance,
that the leading facts on which all modes
of preservation must be founded, viz. that
the plague is not known to arise spontane-
ously any where, but is always to be traced
to contagion; and that the distance to which
its infection extends through the atmos-
phere is very small, are established in them
by general agreement. The "Abstract of
a curative and preservative Method to be
observed in Pestilential Contagions," com-
municated from the Office of Health in
Venice to the court of Russia; and the
"Abridged Relation of the Plague of Spala-
toin Dalmatia, in 1784;" both extracted
from the Italian originals by myself, are the
other papers in this section. In the latter,
the medical reader will be struck with the
equivocal nature of the symptoms supposed
to discriminate this disease, and the very
gradual progress from suspicion to certainty
as to its presence.
Sect. 


100 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
Sect. IV. relates to foreign prisons and
hospitals. The employment of the galley-
slaves in the arsenal of Toulon is the most
observable circumstance relative to the south
of France. Under Italy there is a pleasing
account of the improvements at Florence,
in consequence of the humane attention of
the Grand Duke Leopold, the present Em-
peror. This prince, besides other instances of
liberal favour to Mr. HOWARD'S inquiries,
caused a copy of his new code of laws to
be presented to him, of which, on his re-
turn, Mr. HOWARD had a translation print-
ed, and distributed among the heads of the
law and other persons, in and out of Par-
liament. Of the Grand Duke Mr. HOW-
ard never spoke without the warmest ex-
pressions of giatitude and respect, calling
him a glorious prince, and declaring that
nothing could exceed his attention to what-
ever might promote the happiness and pros-
perity of his people. It is earnestly to be
wished, that the same regard to the princi-
ples of justice and humanity may accompa-
ny him in the very elevated station which is
now assigned him by Providence.
Malta, that celebrated seat of piracy, dig-
nified by the spirit of chivalry and devo-
tion, affords a new and curious article. Its
great      


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 101
great hospital, which boasts of lodging the
sick in a palace, and serving them in plate,
is here described by one whose penetrating
eye could distinguish between parade and
comfort; and it undergoes some severe cen-
sure. Mr. HOWARD visited it before he
delivered his letter of recommendation from
Sir W. Hamilton to the Grand Master, as
well as frequently afterwards.
The Turkish dominions, whence all light,
liberty, and public spirit, are most effectual-
ly excluded, could net be expected to yield
instruction in police to Europe. Yet debt-
ors and felons are there confined in separate
prisons, a refinement to which this country
is not yet entirely arrived. The hospitals
in the great commercial city of Smyrna
seem all to belong to the Franks, Greeks
and Jews. Even at Constantinople the
Turks have few hospitals, and those in a
wretched state. The hospitals for lunatics
there, are, indeed, examples of admirable
construction, but neglected in their man-
agement. Yet, amidst this disregard of the
human species, Mr. HOWARD found an
asylum for cats. Such are the contradic-
tions of man!
The institutions of Vienna shew that sin-
gular mixture of clemency and rigour, of
I 2 care 


102 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
care and neglect, that might be expected
from the indecisive character of the sover-
eign. The perpetual confinement of crim-
inals in dark, damp dungeons, as a substi-
tute for capital punishment, manifestly ap-
pears to be as little an advantage on the side
of lenity, as it is on that of public utility.
The much beaten ground of Holland still
affords new observations, particularly re-
specting the legal process for debt, in use
there.
Sect. V. relates to Scotland; and what
is new chiefly regards the charitable insti-
tutions of Edinburgh. As to the prisons
there, Mr. HOWARD was obliged to re-
mark to the Lord Provost, "that the splen-
did improvements carrying on in their places
of entertainment, streets, squares, bridges,
&c. seemed to occupy all the attention of
the gentlemen in office, to the total neglect
of this essential branch of the police." This
weighty animadversion deserves serious no-
tice, as a strong confirmation of those char-
ges against the spirit of luxury, which va-
rious modern philosophers have, been fond
of turning into ridicule. In fact, a spirit
which increases personal warns and indul-
gencies, and augments the distance between
the higher and lower orders of society, can-
not


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 103
not but interfere with the duties, as well of
charity, as of justice, which are owing to
our fellow-creatures of every condition.
The arts of luxury may promote knowledge,
and this may secondarily be employed with
advantage on objects of general utility; but
it is not likely that the same persons whose
minds are occupied with schemes of splen-
dour and elegant amusement, should bestow
attention on the coarse and disgusting of-
fices annexed to the care of the poor and
miserable.
The subject of Sect. VI. is the Irish
prisons and hospitals. Mr. HOWARD ob-
served a very liberal and humane spirit with
respect to prisons, prevailing among the
gentlemen of that country, displayed in the
erection of many new gaols, the plans of
which, however, he could not approve.
The evils occasioned by the use of spirit-
uous liquors, particularly apparent in Ire-
land, draw from him much complaint and
censure. It is a shocking consideration that
the interest of the revenue should, in this
matter, be suffered to prevail over the good
of the nation; and nothing can deserve se-
verer animadversion, than the conduct of
those servants of the public, the commis-
sioners of excise, who presume to grant li-
censes 


104 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
censes to tippling houses in villages, con-
trary to the declared wish and opinion of
gentlemen who reside on the spot, and are
witnesses of their fatal consequences to the
health and morals of the neighbourhood.
This is indeed, reverting the order of civil
government, and elevating subaltern inter-
ests to ruling principles. All the hospitals
in Dublin are noticed by Mr. HOWARD,
with remarks. He then proceeds to a sur-
vey of all the county gaols and hospitals in
the kingdom. The county hospitals are in
fact national institutions, maintained in great
part by the county rates and king's letter,
and therefore are not so exactly superintend-
ed as those in England, which depend upon
private subscription for their support. The
consequence of this is shewn in the wretch-
ed state in which the greater part of them
were found; the abodes of filth, hunger.
neglect, and every species of abuse. Yet a
spirit of improvement was beginning to
operate among them, to which this free
statement of their defects would, doubtless,
much contribute.
Sect. VII. is devoted to an account of
the Charter-schools in Ireland. The public
detection of misrepresentations and abuses
in this great national object had excited the
attention 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 105
attention of several of the leading men; and
Mr. HOWARD had been desired to lay his
observations before the committee of fif-
teen in Dublin, who have the superintend-
ence of them. He also made a report of
their state before the Irish House of Com-
mons; and, having entered heartily into the
subject, he resolved to give it a thorough
investigation. He therefore extended his
visits to the whole of them, in number thirty-
eight, and to the four provincial nurseries
from which they are supplied. The result
of his observations is here given, with free
censures of defects, and candid acknowledg-
ments of improvement. He concludes the
account with some general remarks on the
institution, and some hints for rendering it
more useful; and, after expressing a wish,
that the benefits of education were, more
generally extended over Ierland than they
can be by those schools, he displays the en-
larged liberality of his mind in the follow-
ing sentence, which contains a maxim wor-
thy of being written in letters of gold. "I
hope I shall not be thought, as a Protestant
dissenter, indifferent to the Protestant cause,
when I express my with, that these distinc-
tions (between Catholic and Protestant) were
less regarded in bestowing the advantages
of


106 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
of education; and that the increase of Prot-
estantism were chiefly trusted to the dis-
semination of knowledge and found mor-
als."
This section is concluded, with an exam-
ple strikingly illustrative of the ease with
which education may be extended to the
whole body of poor, afforded by the trustees
of the blue-coat-hospital in Chester, whose
report of their plan and its success is here
copied: and also, with the rules of the
Quaker's-school at Ackworth, excellently
adapted to promote that decent and regular
deportment in youth, which Mr. HOWARD
so much admired. Ireland has reason to
think herself peculiarly indebted to him for
is laborious investigations and free remarks
on her public institutions. No country cer-
tainly wanted them more; and none, I be-
lieve, is better disposed to profit by them.
She has not been ungrateful to her benefac-
tor, (that was never her character) for in no
country is the memory of Mr. HOWARD
more revered. During his journies there,
several of the principal towns presented
him with their freedom; and the university
of Dublin, with great liberality, conferred
on him the honourary degree of Doctor of
Laws. Mr. HOWARD'S aversion to all
kinds
     


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 107
kinds of distinction, and the natural dislike
of changing his usual designation at an ad-
vanced age, prevented him from publickly
assuming this respectable title.
Sect. VIII. relates to English prisons and
hospitals. The prisons are all specified in
the order of the former works, with such
remarks as the alterations made in them,
and other circumstances, suggested. Many
of the descriptions of hospitals are new,
particularly an account of all the hospitals
for the sick in the metropolis. It is proba-
ble that few institutions of the kind in Eu-
rope are better conducted than these; yet
there are defects, both general and particu-
lar, which Mr. HOWARD has briefly pointed
out, and which claim the attention of those
who are really interested in the utility of
these noble charities, and do not consider
them merely as subservient to private em-
olument. In a note under the county goal
in Southwark, he mentions in strong terms
of pity and indignation the state of fifty fel-
ons, sentenced for transportation in the
course of the preceding five years, and kept
in the most wretched condition till an op-
portunity should offer of putting their sen-
tence in execution. This necessary de-
lay of punishment must ever be a strong
objection 


108 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
objection to the scheme of distant banish-
ment, and gives a decided preference, both
in justice and policy, to the plan of peniten-
tiary houses, so thoughtlessly abandoned for
the Botany-bay settlement. The injustice,
indeed, of the intermediate confinement, is
lessened by an act of 24th Geo. III which
directs, that all the time during which a
convict shall have continued in gaol under
sentence of transportation, shall be deducted
out of the term of his transportation. Still,
however, such confinement is a different,
and, in these circumstances, a much worse
punishment than that to which they are
sentenced.
The county Bridewell at Reading occa-
sions a note which deserves particular atten-
tion. Mr. HOWARD has been supposed
the peculiar patron of solitary confinement,
and his recommendation has caused it to be
adopted in various places, but to a degree
beyond his intentions. He well knew,
from manifold observation, that human na-
ture could not endure, for a long time, con-
finement in perfect solitude, without sink-
ing under the burden. He had seen the
most desperate and refractory in foreign
countries tamed by it; he therefore propos-
ed in our own prisons a temporary treatment
of 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 109
of this kind, as the most effectual, yet len-
ient, mode of subduing the ferocity of our
criminals; but he never thought of its be-
ing made the sentence of offenders during
the whole term of their imprisonment; such
being not only extreme and scarcely justi-
fiable severity, but inconsistent with the de-
sign of reclaiming them to habits of indus-
try by hard labour. He, indeed, universal-
ly approved of nocturnal solitude, as afford-
ing an opportunity for serious reflection,
and preventing those plans of mischief, and
mutual encouragements to villainy, which
are certain to take place among criminals,
when left to herd together without inspec-
tion.
The employment of convicts in building
a new county gaol at Oxford, with their
general good behaviour in it, affords an ex-
ample of the possibility and probable good
effect of occupying them in useful labour
at home.
The fever wards of the Chester infirma-
ry are very properly noticed, as a spirited
instance of extending relief to persons suf-
fering under a dangerous and infectious dis-
ease, and, by proper regulations, rendering
the contagion harmless to others. I am
persuaded, that the plague itself, thus man-
K aged, 


110 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
aged, might be prevented from communi-
cating itself even to those under the same
roof with it. Mr. HOWARD was happy to
find in this city a character congenial with
his own in the ardour of active benevolence,
and distinguished by various successful
plans for the public good. To the medical
reader, as well as to many others, it will be
unnecessary to mention the name of Dr.
Haygarth.
A particular account of all the hulks is
given at the end of the English gaols.
The condition of these floating Bridewells
was improved in several respects since Mr.
HOWARD'S former visits; but, if consider-
ed in any other light than as temporary
places of confinement till some better plan
is adopted, they are liable to many objec-
tions, which are here stated.
Remarks on Penitentiary Houses follow.
In these the writer states his ideas concern-
ing their nature and object, gives the reasons
which induced Dr. Fothergill and himself
to fix on the situation of Islington, and re-
lates his resignation of the office of Super-
visor, as formerly mentioned. The general
heads of regulations proposed for such
houses in the last Appendix, are here re-
printed; and a plate is added explanatory
of


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 111
of the plan of building he approves. It is
on every account to be lamented, that Mr.
HOWARD should not have had the satisfac-
tion of seeing one of his favourite designs,
the subject of his most laborious research
and maturest reflection, carried into execu-
tion. The objection of expense was surely
unworthy of a country like this, whose
prosperity and resources are so magnificent-
ly displayed, when the provinces of Hol-
land, petty states of Germany, and cantons
of Switzerland, have not been afraid of in-
curring it. Whether the preferred scheme
of colonizing with convicts at the Anti-
podes, has the advantage of it in this re-
spect, the public are now pretty well able to
determine.
In the remarks on the gaol-fever, repeat-
ed with a little variation from the last pub-
lication, we are informed, that since 1782,
when the prisons of this kingdom were en-
tirely free from this disease, several fatal
and alarming instances of it had occurred.
Its appearance and frequency will probably
much depend upon the epidemic constitu-
tion of the year, as long as its occasional
causes continue to subsist; but that proper
care and regulations in prisons might almost
entirely 


112 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
entirely extirpate these causes, there seems
no reason to doubt.
The conclusion expresses the writer's
satisfaction in that humane and liberal spir-
it which has so much alleviated the distress
of prisoners; but laments, that here its ex-
ertions seem to stop, and that little or noth-
ing is done towards that most important ob-
ject, the reformation of offenders. From
close observation he is convinced, that the
vice of drunkenness is the root of all the
disorders of our prisons, and that some ef-
fectual means to eradicate it are necessary,
if we mean to preserve the health and
amend the morals of prisoners. Mr. HOW-
ARD therefore subjoins, as his final legacy
towards the improvement of this branch of
police, the draught of a bill for the better
regulation of gaols, and the prevention of
drunkenness and rioting in them. Of this,
the leading clauses are framed for the pur-
pose of absolutely prohibiting the entrance
of any liquor into a gaol except milk, whey,
buttermilk and water, unless in case of sick-
ness and medical prescription. He was ful-
ly sensible that, in this free living country,
the denial of even small beer would be
deemed a species of cruelty; and he doubt-
ed not that it would go far to lose him, in
the


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 113
the popular estimation, the title of the Pris-
oner's Friend: but as attaining a popularity
of that kind was not his original object, so
he could bear to forfeit it, while conscious
of still pursuing the real good of those un-
happy people. Being convinced from ex-
perience, that there was no medium in this
matter, and that if strong liquors were at all
admitted into prisons, no bounds could be
set to their use, he thought it right to deny
an indulgence to a few, for the sake of the
essential advantage of the many. Debtors,
then, while the same place of confinement
serve for them and felons, must be subject-
ed to the same restraints. And, to take off
the objection of the hardship this would im-
pose upon innocent debtors, it was greatly
his wish, that such alterations should take
place in our law for debt, that none but
fraudulent debtors should be liable to im-
prisonment, who, he justly observes, are
really criminals. He supposes that the gen-
tlemen of the faculty will condemn the to-
tal rejection of fermented liquors from the
diet of prisoners, under the notion of their
being useful as antiseptics; and I confess I
was one who pleaded with him on this sub-
ject: but he answered me with arguments
which he has here stated, and they are wor-
K 2 thy


114 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
thy of consideration. Alter all, many will
suppose, that in his feelings, both with re-
spect to these privations, and to his proposed
indulgencies of tea, and other vegetable ar-
ticles, he was in some measure under the in-
fluence of his own peculiar habits of life;
so natural is it for our judgment of particu-
lars to be warped, when our general princi-
ples remain fixed and unaltered. The
draught of a bill will, I presume, appear in
most respect excellent; and the great pur-
pose of preserving sobriety in gaols, cannot,
surely, be too much insisted on.
Mr. HOWARD'S leading ideas on this
subject were formed some years before. In
May 1787, the Lord Chancellor, in an ex-
cellent speech on a proposed insolvent bill,
after discussing the point of imprisonment
for debt, and the nature of such bills, pro-
ceeded to some considerations respecting
the management and discipline of our pris-
ons. He said, " he had lately had the hon-
our of a conversation upon the subject, with
a gentleman who was, of all others, the
best qualified to treat of it - he meant, Mr.
HOWARD, whose humanity, great as it was,
was at least equalled by his wisdom; for a
more judicious, or a more sensible reasoner
upon the topic, he never had conversed
with. 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 115
with. His own ideas had been turned to
solitary imprisonment and a strict regimen,
as a punishment for debt; and that notion had
exactly corresponded with Mr. HOWARD'S
who had agreed with him, that the great
object ought to be, when it became necessa-
ry to seclude a man from society, and im-
prison him for debt, to take care that he
came out of prison no worse a man in point
of health and morals than he went in." His
Lordship afterwards recited a story which
Mr. HOWARD had told him, in proof of
the corruption and licentiousness of our pris-
ons. A Quaker, he said, called upon him
to go with him and witness a scene which,
if he were to go singly, would, he feared, be
too much for his feelings: it was to visit a
friend in distress - a person who had lately
gone into the King's-bench prison. When
they arrived, they found the man half
drunk, playing at fives. Though greatly
shocked at the circumstance, they asked him
to go with them to the coffee-room, and
take a glass of wine. He refused, saying
he had drank so much punch, that he could
not drink wine - however, he would call
upon them before they went away. Mr.
HOWARD and his friend returned, with
feelings very different from those with which
they


116 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
they entered the place, but not less painful.
The volume concludes with several curi-
ous and valuable tables, which will proba-
bly be used for reference at future distant
periods. The enumeration of all the pris-
oners in England at his visits in 1787 and
1788, shews an alarming increase, though in
some measure to be accounted for, from a
long suspension of the usual transportation.
They amount to seven thousand four hun-
dred and eighty-two.
Mr. HOWARD remained but a short time
at home after the printing of this work. In
the conclusion of it he had declared his in-
tention "again to quit his native country,
for the purpose of revisiting Russia, Turkey,
and some other countries, and extending
his tour in the east." The reason he has
assigned for this determination, is "a serious
deliberate conviction that he was pursuing
the path of his duty;" and it cannot be
doubted, that this consideration was now, as
it ever had been, his leading principle of
action. But if it be asked, what was his
more peculiar object in this new journey,
no decisive answer, I believe, can be given
by those who enjoyed the most of his confi-
dence. I had various conversations with
him on the subject; and I found rather a
wish


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 117
wish to have objects of inquiry pointed out
to him by others, than any specific views
present to his own mind. As, indeed, his
purpose was to explore regions entirely new
to him, and of which the police respecting
his former objects was very imperfectly
known to Europe (for the Turkish domin-
ions in Asia, Egypt, and the Barbary coast,
were in his plan of travels) he could not
doubt that important subjects for observa-
tion would offer themselves unsought.
With respect to that part of his tour in
which he was to go over ground he had al-
ready trodden, I conceive that he expected
to do good in that censorial character, which
his repeated publications known and attend-
ed to all over Europe, gave him a right to
assume; and which he had before exercis-
ed to the great relief of the miserable in
various countries. If to these motives be
added the long-formed habitude of pursuing
a certain track of inquiry, and an inquie-
tude of mind proceeding from domestic mis-
fortune, no cause will be left to wonder at
so speedy a renewal of his toils and dangers.
He had resolved to go this journey too,
without an attendant; and it was not till af-
ter the most urgent and affectionate entreat-
ies, that his servant obtained permission to
accompany 


118 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
accompany him. Before he set out, he and
his very intimate and highly-respected
friend, Dr. Price, took a most affectionate
and pathetic leave of each other. From
the age and infirmities of the one, and the
hazards the other was going to encounter,
it was the foreboding of each of them that
they should never meet again in this world;
and their farewell corresponded with the so-
lemnity of such an occasion. The reader's
mind will pause upon the parting embrace
of two such men; and revere the mixture
of cordial affection, tender regret, philosoph-
ic firmness, and Christian resignation, which
their minds must have displayed.
It was in the beginning of July 1789,
that he arrived in Holland. Thence he
proceeded through the north of Germany,
Prussia, Courland, and Livonia, to St. Pe-
tersburgh. From this capital he went to
Moscow. Some extracts of a letter to Dr.
Price dated from this city, September 22,
1789, will, I doubt not, be acceptable, as
one of the latest records of his career of
benevolence.
"When I left England, I first stopped at
Amsterdam, and proceeded to Osnaburgh,
Hanover, Brunswick and Berlin; then to
Konigsberg, Riga and Petersburg; at all
which 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 119
which places I visited the prisons and hos-
pitals, which were all flung open to me,
and in some, the burgomasters accompanied
me into the dungeons, as well as into the
other rooms of confinement. I arrived a
few days ago in this city, and have begun
my rounds. The hospitals are in a sad
state. Upwards of seventy thousand sailors
and recruits died in them last year. I la-
bour to convey the torch of philanthropy
into these distant regions. I am quite well -
the weather clear - the mornings fresh -
thermometer 48, but fires not yet begun, I
wish for a mild winter, and then shall make
some progress in my European expedition.
My medical acquaintance give me but lit-
tle hope of escaping the plague in Turkey.
I do not look back, but would readily en-
dure any hardships, and encounter any dan-
gers, to be an honour to my Christian pro-
fession."
From Moscow he took his course to the
very extremity of European Russia, extend-
ed as it now is to the shores of the Black Sea,
where long dreary tracts of desert are ter-
minated by some of those new establish-
ments, which have cost such immense pro-
fusion of blood and treasure to two vast em-
pires, now become neighbours and perpetual
foes. 


120 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
foes. Here, at the distance of 1,500 miles
from his native land, he fell a victim to dis-
ease, the ravages of which, among unpitied
multitudes, he was exciting every effort to
restrain. Finis vitæ nobis luctuousus, amicis
tristis, extraneis etiam ignotisque non sine
cura!
From the faithful and intelligent servant
who accompanied him (Mr. Thomas Thoma-
son) I have been favor red with an account
of various particulars relative to his last ill-
ness, which I shall give to the reader in the
form in which I received it.
"The winter being far advanced on the
taking of Bender, the commander of the
Russian army at that place gave permission
to many of the officers to visit their friends
at Cherson, as the severity of the season
would not admit of a continuance of hostil-
ities against the Turks. Cherson, in con-
sequence, became much crowded; and the
inhabitants testified their joy for the success
of the Russians by balls and masquerades.
Several of the officers, of the inhabitants of
Cherson, and of the gentry in the neigh-
hourhood, who attended these balls, were
almost immediately afterwards attacked with
fevers; and it was Mr. HOWARD'S idea,
that the infection had been brought by the
officers 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 121
officers from Bender. Amongst the number
who caught this contagion was a young lady
who resided about sixteen miles from Cher-
son. When the had been ill some little
time, Mr. HOWARD was earnestly request-
ed to visit her. He saw her first on Sunday,
December 27. He visited her again in the
middle of the week, and a third time on the
Sunday following, January 3. On that day
he found her sweating very profusely; and,
being unwilling to check this by uncover-
ing her arm, he parted his under the bed-
clothes to feel her pulse. While he was
doing this, the effluvia from her body were
very offensive to him, and it was always his
own opinion that he then caught the fever.
She died on the following day. Mr. HOW-
ARD was much affected by her death, as he
had flattered himself with hopes of her
amendment. From January 3d to the 8th
he scarcely went out;* but on that day he
went to dine with Admiral Montgwinoff,
who lived about a mile and a half from his
lodgings. He staid later than usual; and
when he returned, found himself unwell, and-
thought he had something of the gout fly-
L ing
*There seems some mistake here, as there is a full re-
port in his memorandums, of a visit to the hospitals in
Cherson, dated January 6.


122 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
ing about him. He immediately took some
Sal Volatile in a little tea, and thought him-
self better till three or four on Saturday
morning, when feeling not so well, he re-
peated the Sal Volatile. He got up in the
morning and walked out; but, finding
himself worse, soon returned and took an
emetic. On the following night he had a
violent attack of fever, when he had re-
course to his favourite remedy, James' pow-
der, which he regularly took every two or
four hours till Sunday the 17th. For
though Prince Potemkin sent his own phy-
sician to him, immediately on being ac-
quainted with his illness, yet his own pre-
scriptions were never interfered with dur-
ing this time. On the 12th he had a kind
of fit, in which he suddenly fell down, his
face became black, his breathing difficult,
and he remained insensible for half an hour.
On the 17th he had another similar fit. On
the 18th he was seized with hiccupping,
which continued on the next day, when he
took some musk draughts by direction of the
physician. About seven o'clock on Wed-
nesday morning, the 20th of January, he
had another fit, and died in about an hour
after. He was perfectly sensible during his
illness, except in the fits, till within a very
few
  


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 123
few hours of his death. This event he all
along expected to take place; and he often
said, that he had no other wish for life than
as it gave him the means of relieving his
fellow-creatures.
During his illness he received a letter
from a friend, who mentioned having lately
seen his son at Leicester, and expressed his
hopes that Mr. HOWARD would find him
better on his return to England. When
this account was read to him, it affected him
much. His expressions of pleasure were
particularly strong, and he often desired his
servant, if ever by the blessing of God his
son was restored, to tell him how much he
prayed for his happiness. He made a will*
on the Thursday before he died; and was
buried, at his own request, at the villa of
M. Dauphine, about eight miles from Cher-
son, where a monument is erected over his
grave. He made the observation that he
should here be at the same distance from
Heaven, as if brought back to England.
While in Cherson, he saw the accounts of
the demolition of the Bastille, which seemed
to afford him a very particular pleasure;
and he thought it possible, the account he
had
*This must probably have been only some directions
to his executors, as his will is dated in 1787.


124 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
had himself published of it, might have con-
tributed to this event."
On this relation, the general exactness of
which may, I doubt not, be fully relied on,
I shall only make a medical remark or two.
Notwithstanding Mr. HOWARD'S convic-
tion of having caught the contagion from
the young lady, I think the distance of time
between his last visit to her and his own
seizure, makes the fact dubious. Contagion
thus sensibly received, usually, I believe,
operates in a less period than five days.*
Perhaps his visit to the hospitals on the 6th,
of his late return from the admiral's on the
8th, in a cold season and unwholesome cli-
mate, will better account for it. The na-
ture of his complaint is not very clear, for it
is very uncommon for the senses to remain
entire till the last, in a fever of the low or
putrid kind; nor are fits, resembling epilep-
tic attacks, among the usual symptoms of
such a disease. That a wandering gout
might make part of his indisposition, is not
very improbable, as it was a disorder to which
he was constitutionally liable, though his
mode of living prevented any severe parox-
ysms
*According to Dr. Lind, its effects, shivering and
sickness, are instantaneous. See Dissert. on fevers and
infection. Chap. ii. sect. I.


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 125
ysms of it. At any rate, his disease was
certainly attended with debility of the vital
powers, and therefore the long and frequent
use of James' powders must have been preju-
dicial. And I think it highly probable, that
Mr. HOWARD'S name may be added to the
numerous list of those, whose lives have
been sacrificed to the empirical use of a
medicine of great activity, and therefore ca-
pable of doing much harm as well as good.
It was Mr. HOWARD'S written request,
that his papers should be corrected and fitted
for publication by Dr. Price and myself.
The declining state of health of Dr. Price,*
has
*Whilst I am engaged in this work, Dr. Price has
followed his friend to the grave. A character so illus-
trious will, doubtless, have all justice done it by some
pen qualified to display its various merits. May I be
permitted, however, to take this occasion of mingling my
regrets with those of his other friends and admirers, and
offering a small tribute to the memory of one of the most
excellent of men! Though during life the advanced sta-
tion he occupied in political controversy rendered his
name as obnoxious to some, as it was cherished and rever-
ed by others, yet now he is gone to that place where all
worldly differences are at an end, it may be hoped, that
the liberal of all denominations will concur, in respect-
ing a long course of years spent in the unremitted ap-
plication of eminent abilities and acquirements, to the
promotion of what he regarded as the greatest good of
his fellow-creatures. A character in which were com-
bined simplicity of heart, with depth of understanding,-
ardent
L 2 


126 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
has caused the business to devolve solely on
me, and I have executed it to the best of my
power. Little was requisite to be done to
the greatest part, which he had himself copi-
ed out fair. The rest was with some diffi-
culty to be compiled out of detached and
broken memorandums; but in these his own
words are as much as possible preserved.
Of this supplement I shall give a general ac-
count, as I have done of the former parts of
his works.
The order and regularity of Holland still
afford useful descriptions, and some of the
abuses which even there had crept in, seem
to have been corrected since Mr. HOW-
ARD'S visits. The friend to humanity has
yet, however, to lament the continued use of
the torture there, to force confession. The
state of the prisons in Osnaburgh, Hanover,
and Brunswick, is again dwelt upon with
some minuteness, obviously because the
writer thought there was some probability
of his attracting, in a more peculiar manner,
the
ardent love of truth, with true Christian charity and
humility; - high zeal for the public interests, with per-
fect freedom from all private views; cannot be ulti-
mately injured by the petulance of wit, or the invectives
of eloquence. Dr. Price's reputation as a moralist, phi-
losopher, and politician, may safely be committed to im-
partial posterity. 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 127
the notice of those who have the power of
remedying their defects. Who will not
sympathize with him in the disappointment
he expresses in this instance, and bewail the
strange fatality by which the utmost barbar-
ity of the torture is retained in the domin-
ions of a mild and enlightened sovereign,
whose interpositions could not but be effica-
cious in suppressing it!
At Berlin and Spandau the institutions
appear to preserve the good order in which
they were left by the great Frederic. Ko-
nigsberg seems to shew the neglect incident
to places distant from the seat of govern-
ment. In a note under this place, Mr.
HOWARD makes an acknowledgment of
the attention with which his remarks have
been honoured in various foreign countries,
and properly adduces it as a reason for his
adoption of that censorial manner of noting
abuses, which, in his later journies, he has
not scrupled freely to employ.
At St. Petersburgh he had the pleasure to
observe several improvements in the hospit-
als, probably in great part owing to his own
suggestions. Under Cronstadt he finds oc-
casion, however, to animadvert upon an al-
teration in the plan of diet, generally adopt-
ed throughout the marine and military hos-
pitals


128 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
pitals of Russia, which, in his opinion, is
highly prejudicial. This alteration consists
in changing milk, and various other articles,
constituting the usual liquid and middle diet
of the sick, for the stronger and less digesti-
ble food of men in health. The prisons at
Moscow seem greatly neglected by those
whose office it is to superintend them; but
the charity displayed by individuals towards
the poor wretches confined in them, gave
Mr. HOWARD a favourable idea of the hu-
mane disposition of the nation, confirmed
by what he saw of their manners in his trav-
els.
He now hastened to those scenes, where
a destructive war, co-operating with an un-
wholesome climate, produced such evils,
aggravated by neglect and inhumanity, that
they gave him no other occupation than to
lament and complain. After all the allow-
ances that candour demands, for inevitable
wants and hardships in the distant posts of a
newly possessed country, and during the
height of widely extended military opera-
tions, the Russian commanders cannot be
vindicated from an inattention to the lives
and comforts of their soldiers, greater, as
Mr. HOWARD observes, than he had seen
in any other country. Ignorance, abuse,
mismanagement


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 129
mismanagement and deficiency, seem at their
very summit in the military hospitals of
Cherson, Witowka, and St. Nicholas. The
lively pictures he has drawn of the distresses
he here witnessed, and his pathetic descrip-
tion of the sufferings of the poor recruits,
marched from their distant homes to these
melancholy regions, must awaken in every
feeling breast a warm indignation against the
schemes of ambitious despotism, however
varnished over with the colouring of glory,
or even of national utility. No lesson ought
to be more forcibly impressed on mankind,
than, that uncontrolled power in one or few,
notwithstanding it may occasionally be ex-
ercised in splendid and even beneficent de-
signs, is on the whole absolutely inconsistent
with the happiness of a people.* The em-
press of Russia's unjust seizure of Lesser and
Crim Tartary, has been the cause of mise-
ries not to be calculated, to her own subjects
and those of Turkey, and has endangered
the tranquillity of all Europe.
I shall conclude this review of the works
and public services of Mr. HOWARD with
brief annals of his more than Herculean
labours,
*Scilicet ut Turno contingat regia conjunx
Nos, animæ viles, inhumata instetaque turba,
Sternamur campis. Æn. xi.


130 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
labours, during the last seventeen years of his
life.
1773. High-sheriff of Bedfordshire. Visited
many county and town gaols.
1774. Completed his survey of English
gaols. Stood candidate to represent
the town of Bedford.
1775. Travelled to Scotland, Ireland, France,
Holland, Flanders and Germany.
1776. Repeated his visit to the above coun-
tries, and to Switzerland. During
these two years revisited all the English
gaols.
1777. Printed his state of prisons.
1778. Travelled through Holland, Flanders,
Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and
part of France.
1779. Revisited all the counties of England
and Wales, and travelled into Scot-
land and Ireland. Acted as Supervi-
sor of the Penitentiary Houses.
1780. Printed his first appendix.
1781. Travelled into Denmark, Sweden,
Russia, Poland, Germany, and Hol-
land.
1782. Again surveyed all the English pris-
ons, and went into Scotland and Ire-
land.
1783. Visited Portugal, Spain, France,
Flanders


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 131
Flanders and Holland: also, Scotland
and Ireland; and viewed several Eng-
lish prisons.
1784. Printed the second appendix, and a
new edition of his whole works
1785.
1786.
1787.
From the close of the first of these
years, to the beginning of the
last, on his tour through Hol-
land, France, Italy, Malta, Tur-
key and Germany. Afterwards
went to Scotland and Ireland.
1788. Revisited Ireland; and during this
and the former year, travelled over all
England.
1789. Printed his work on Lazarettos, &c.
Travelled through Holland, Germany,
Prussia, and Livonia, to Russia and
lesser Tartary.
1790. January 20. Died at Cherson.
Having thus traced the footsteps of this
great philanthropist from the cradle to the
grave, and followed them with close inspec-
tion in that part of his course which com-
prehends his more public life, it only re-
mains, to assemble those features of charac-
ter which have been displayed in his actions,
and to form them in conjunction with such
minuter strokes as studious observation may
have


132 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
have enabled me to draw, into a faithful
portraiture of the man.
The first thing that struck an observer on
acquaintance with Mr. HOWARD, was a
stamp of extraordinary vigour and energy
on all his movements and expressions. An
eye lively and penetrating, strong and prom-
inent features, quick gait, and animated ges-
tures, gave promise of ardour in forming,
and vivacity in executing his designs.* At
no time of his life, I believe was he without
some object of warm pursuit; and in every
thing he pursued, he was indesatigable in
aiming at perfection. Give him a hint of
any thing he had left short, or any new ac-
quisition to be made, and while you might
suppose
*Mr. Howard had so much contempt for worldly hon-
ours that he would never sit to any painter whatever,
and this has given rise to an opinion that there is no
correct likeness of him. In this respect, however, the
public seem to be under a mistake. An ingenious and
respectable artist, Mr. T. Holloway, whose talents are
justly admired, had often an opportunity of being in com-
pany with Mr. Howard in a public place, where a sketch
of his features might be stolen. The temptation was too
great to be resisted. An accurate sketch was made, and
an engraving, executed from it.
The American Editor can assure the public, that the
original sketch alluded to above, is now in the possession
of Mr. Caleb Lownes, of Philadelphia.


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 133
suppose he was deliberating about it, you
were surprised with finding it was done. Not
Cæsar himself could better exemplify the
poet's
Nil actum credens, dum quid superesset agendum.
I remember that, having accidently re-
marked to him, that amongst the London pris-
ons he had omitted the tower, he was so
struck with the deficiency (though of tri-
fling consequence, since confinement there
is so rare) that at his very first leisure he ran
to London, and supplied it. Nor was it
only during a short period of ardour that his
exertions were thus awakened. He had the
still rarer quality of being able, for any
length of time, to bend all the powers and
faculties of his mind to one point, unseduc-
ed by every allurement which curiosity or
any other affection might throw in his way,
and unsusceptible of that satiety and disgust
which are so apt to steal upon a protracted
pursuit. Though by his early travels he
had shewn himself not indifferent to those
objects of taste and information which strike
the cultivated mind in a foreign country,
yet in the tours expressly made for the pur-
pose of examining prisons and hospitals, he
appears to have had eyes and ears for noth-
ing else: at least he suffered no other object
M to 


134 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
to detain him or draw him aside.* Impress-
ed with the idea of the importance of his
designs, and the uncertainty of human life,
he was impatient to get as much done as pos-
sible within the allotted limits. And in this
disposition consisted that enthusiasm by
which the public supposed him actuated;
for otherwise, his cool and steady temper
gave no idea of the character usually distin-
guished by that appellation. He followed
his plans, indeed, with wonderful vigour
and constancy, but by no means with that
heat and eagerness, that inflamed and exalt-
ed imagination, which denote the enthusi-
ast. Hence, he was not liable to catch at
partial representations, to view facts through
fallacious mediums, and to fall into those
mistakes which are so frequent in the re-
searches of the man of fancy and warm feel-
ing. Some persons, who only knew him
by his extraordinary actions, were ready
enough to bestow upon him that sneer of
contempt, which men of cold hearts and
selfish dispositions are so apt to apply to
whatever has the shew of high sensibility.
While others, who had a slight acquaint-
ance
*He mentioned being once prevailed upon in Italy, to
go and hear some extraordinary fine music; but, finding
his thoughts too much occupied by it, he would never
repeat the indulgence. 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 135
ance with him, and saw occasional features
of phlegm, and perhaps harshness, were dis-
posed to questions his feeling altogether, and
to attribute his exertions either merely to a
sense of duty, or to habit and humour. But
both these were erroneous conclusions. He
felt as a man should feel; but not so as to
mislead him, either in the estimate he form-
ed of objects of utility, or in his reasonings
concerning the means by which they were to
be brought into effect. The reformation of
abuse, and the relief of misery, were the
two great purposes which he kept in view
in all his undertakings; and I have equally
seen the tear of sensibility start into his eyes
on recalling some of the distressful scenes to
which he had been witness, and the spirit of
indignation flash from them on relating in-
stances of baseness and oppression. Still,
however, his constancy of mind and self-
collection never deserted him. He was
never agitated, never off his guard; and the
unspeakable advantages of such a temper in
the scenes in which he was engaged, need
not be dwelt upon.
His whole course of action was such a
trial of intrepidity and fortitude, that it may
seem altogether superfluous to speak of his
possession of these qualities. He had them,
indeed, 


136 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
indeed, both from nature and principle.
His nerves were firm; and his conviction of
marching in the path of duty made him
fearless of consequences. Nor was it only
on great occasions that this strength of mind
was shown. It raised him above false shame,
and that awe which makes a coward of many
a brave man in the presence of a superior.
No one ever less "feared the face of man"
than he. No one hesitated less in speaking
bold truths, or avowing obnoxious opinions.
His courage was equally passive and active.
He was prepared to make every sacrifice
that a regard to strict veracity, or rigorous
duty, could enjoin; and it cannot be doubt-
ed, that, had he lived in an age when as-
serting his civil and religious rights would
have subjected him to martyrdom, not a
more willing martyr would ever have as-
cended the scaffold, or embraced the stake.
The resolute temper of Mr. HOWARD
displayed itself in a certain peremptoriness,
which, when he had once determined, ren-
dered him unyielding to persuasion or dis-
suasion, and urged him on to the accom-
plishment of his purpose, regardless of ob-
stacles. He expected prompt obedience in
those from whom he had a right to require
it, and was not a man to be treated with neg-
ligence


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 157
ligence and inattention. He was, however,
extremely considerate, and sufficiently in-
dulgent to human frailties; and a good
will to please him could scarcely fail of its
effect. That his commands were reasona-
ble, and his expectations moderate, may be
inferred from the long continuance of most
of his servants with him, and his steady at-
tachment to many of those whom he em-
ployed. His means of enforcing compli-
ance were chiefly rewards; and the with-
holding them was his like method of showing
displeasure.*
The
*The following characteristic anecdote was com-
municated to me by a gentleman who travelled in a
chaise with him from Lancashire to London in 1777.
Mr. Howard observed, that he had found few things
more difficult to manage than post-chaise drivers, who
would seldom comply with his wishes of going slow or
fast, till he adopted the following method. At the end
of a stage, when the driver had been perverse, he desired
the landlord to send for some poor industrious widow,
or other proper object, of charity, and to introduce such
person and the driver together. He then paid the latter
his fare, and told him, that as he had not thought proper
to attend to his repeated requests as to the manner of
being driven, he should not make him any present; but,
to show him that he did not withhold it out of a principle
of parsimony, he would give the poor person present dou-
ble the sum usually given to a postillion. This he did,
and dismissed the parties. He had not long practised
this
M 2


138 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
The spirit of independence by which he
was ever distinguished, had in him the only
foundation to be relied on, moderate de-
sires. Perfectly contented with the com-
petence which Providence had bestowed on
him, he never had a thought of increasing
it; and even when in a situation to expect a
family, he made it a rule with himself to
lay up no part of his annual income, but to
expend in some useful or benevolent scheme
the superfluity of the year. Lest this should
be converted into a charge of carelessness
in
this mode, he said, before he experienced the good ef-
fects of it on all the roads where he was known.
A more extraordinary instance of his determined
spirit has been related to me. Travelling once in the
king of Prussia's dominions, he came to a very narrow
piece of road, admitting only one carriage, where it was
enjoined on all postillions entering at each end, to blow
their horns by way of notice. His did so; but, after
proceeding a good way, they met a courier travelling on
the king's business, who had neglected this precaution.
The courier ordered Mr. HOWARD'S postillion to turn
back; but Mr. HOWARD remonstrated, that he had com-
plied with the rule, while the other had violated it;
and therefore that he should insist on going forwards.
The courier, relying on an authority, to which, in that
country, every thing must give way, made use of high
words, but in vain. As neither was disposed to yield,
they sat still a long time in their respective carriages:
at length the courier gave up the point to the sturdy
Englishman, who would on no account renounce his
rights.
     


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 139
in providing for his own, it may be proper
to mention, that he had the best-grounded
expectations, that any children he might
have, would largely partake of the wealth
of their relations. Thus he preserved his
heart from that contamination, which (tak-
ing in the whole of life) is perhaps the dis-
ease most frequently attendant on a state of
prosperity,- the lust of growing rich; a
passion, which is too often found to swal-
low up liberality, public spirit, and, at last,
that independency, which it is the best use
of wealth to secure. By this temper of mind
he was elevated to an immeasurable distance
above every thing mean and sordid; and in
all his transactions he displayed a spirit of
honour and generosity, that might become
the "blood of the HOWARDS" when flow-
ing in its noblest channels.
Had Mr. HOWARD been less provided
with the goods of fortune, his independency
would have found a resource in the fewness
of his wants; and it was an inestimable ad-
vantage which he brought to his great work,
an advantage perhaps more uncommon in
this country than any of those already men-
tioned, that he possessed a command over all
corporeal appetites and habitudes, not less
perfect than that of any ancient philosopher,
or


140 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
or modern ascetic. The strict regimen of
diet which he had adopted early in life from
motives of health, he afterwards persevered
in through choice, and even extended its
rigour, so as to reject all those indulgencies
which even the most temperate consider as
necessary for the preservation of their
strength and vigour. Animal foods, and
fermented and spirituous drinks, he utterly
discarded from his diet. Water and the
plainest vegetables sufficed him. Milk, tea,
butter, and fruit, were his luxuries; and he
was equally sparing in the quantity of food,
and indifferent as to the stated times of tak-
ing it. Thus he found his wants supplied in
almost every place where man existed, and
was as well provided in the posadas of Spain
and caravanseras of Turkey, as in the inns
and hotels of England and France. Water
was one of his principal necessaries, for he
was a very Mussulman in his ablutions; and
if nicety or delicacy had place with him in
any respect, it was in the perfect cleanliness
of his whole person. He was equally tole-
rant of heat, cold, and all the vicissitudes of
climate; and, what is more wonderful, not
even sleep seemed necessary to him, at least
at those returns and in those proportions in
which mankind in general expect it. How 
well


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 141
well he was capable of enduring fatigue,
the amazing journies he took by all modes
of conveyance, without any intervals of
what might be called repose (since his only
baiting places were his proper scenes of ac-
tion) abundantly testify. In short, no hu-
man body was probably ever more perfectly
the servant of the mind by which it was
actuated; and all the efforts of the strongest
constitution, not inured to habits of self-de-
nial, and moral as well as corporeal exer-
cise, would have been unequal to his exer-
tions.*
With
*The following account of his mode, of travelling,
communicated to me by a gentleman in Dublin, who
had much free conversation with him, and the substance
of which I well recollect to have heard from himself,
will, I doubt not, prove interesting. "When he travel-
led in England or Ireland, it was generally on horse-
back, and he rode about forty English miles a day. He
was never at a loss for an inn. When in Ireland, or the
highlands of Scotland, he used to stop at one of the poor
cabins that stick up a rag by way of sign, and get a little
milk. When he came to the town he was to sleep at,
he bespoke a supper, with wine and beer, like another
traveller, but made his man attend him, and take it
away, whilst he was preparing his bread and milk. He
always paid the waiters, postillions, &c. liberally, because
he would have have no discontent or dispute, nor suffer his
spirits to be agitated for such a matter; saying, that in
a journey that might cost three or four hundred pounds,
fifteen or twenty pounds addition was not worth think-
ing 


142 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
With respect to the character of his un-
derstanding, that, too, was as happily adapt-
ed to the great business in which he engag-
ed. He had not, in a high degree, that ex-
tensive comprehension, that faculty of gen-
eralizing, which is said to distinguish the
man of genius, but which, without a previ-
ous collection of authentic materials, is ever
apt to lead into erroneous speculations.
He was rather a man of detail; of labori-
ous accuacy and minute examination;
and therefore he had the proper qualities
for one who was to lead the way in re-
searches where all was ignorance, con-
fusion, and local custom. Who but
such a man could have collected a body of
information, which has made even profes-
sional men acquainted with interesting facts
that they never before knew; and has given
the
ing about. When he travelled on the continent, he usual-
ly went post in his own chaise, which was a German one
that he bought for the purpose. He never stopped till he
came to the town he meant to visit, but travelled all night,
if necessary; and from habit could sleep very well in the
chaise for several nights together. In the last tour but
one he travelled twenty days and nights together without
going to bed, and found no inconvenience from it. He
used to carry with him a small tea-kettle, some cups, a lit-
tle pot of sweetmeats, and a few loaves. At the post-
house he could get his water boiled, send out for milk, and
make his repast, while his man went to the auberge." 


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 143
the English reader a more exact knowledge
of practices followed in Russia and Spain,
than he before had of those in his own coun-
try? This minuteness of detail was what he
ever regarded as his peculiar province. As
he was of all men the most modest estimator
of his own abilities, he was used to say, "I
am the plodder, who goes about to collect
materials for men of genius to make use of."
Let those who look with fastidiousness upon
long tables of rules and orders, and meas-
urements of cells and work-rooms, given
in feet and inches, consider, that when a
scheme is brought into practice, these small
circumstances must have their place; and
that the most ingenious plans often fail in
their execution for want of adjustment in
the nicer parts. Perhaps even the great
Frederic of Prussia was more indebted for
success to the exactness of his dispositions
in every minute particular connected with
practice, than to deep and sublime views of
general principles.
From a similar cast of mind, Mr. HOW-
ARD was a friend to subordination, and
all the decorums of regular society; nor
did he dislike vigorous exertions of civil
authority, when directed to laudable purpos-
es. He interfered little in disputes relative
to


144 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
to the theory of government; but was con-
tented to take systems of sovereignty as he
found them established in various parts of
the world, satisfied with prompting such an
application of their powers as might promote
the welfare of the respective communities.
A state of imprisonment being that in which
the rights of men are, in great part, at least,
suspended, it was natural that his thoughts
should be more conversant with a peo-
ple as the subjects, than as the source,
of authority. Yet he well knew and
properly valued, the inestimable blessings
of political freedom, as opposed to des-
potism; and, among the nations of Europe,
he considered the Dutch and Swiss as af-
fording the best examples of a strict and
steady police, conducted on principles of
equity and humanity. To the character of
the Dutch he was, indeed, peculiarly par-
tial; and frequently asserted, that he should
prefer Holland for his place of residence, to
any other foreign country. I can add, from
undoubted authority, that Mr. HOWARD
was one of those who (in the language of the
great Lord Chatham) "rejoiced that Amer-
ica had resisted," and triumphed in her final
success; and that he was principally attach-
ed to the popular part of our constitution;
and


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 145
and that in his own country he distinguished
himself by a spirited opposition to aristocrat-
ical influence.
His peculiar habits of life, and the exclu-
sive attention he bestowed in his later years
on a few objects, caused him to appear more
averse to society than I think he really was;
and it has been mentioned as an unfortunate
circumstance, that his shyness and reserve
frequently kept him out of the way of per-
sons from whom he might have derived
much useful information. But it is vain
to desire things incompatible. Mr. HOW-
ARD can scarcely be denied to have chosen
the best way, upon the whole, of conduct-
ing his inquires; and it he had been a more
companionable man, more ready to indulge
his own curiosity, and gratify that of others,
he would no longer have possessed one of
the chief advantages he brought to his great
work. Yet while he assiduously shunned all
engagements which would have involved
him in the forms and dissipation of society,
he was by no means disinclined to enter in-
to conversations on his particular topics;
on the contrary, he was often extremely
communicative, and would enliven a small
circle with the most entertaining relations
of his travels and adventures.
N Mr.


146 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
Mr. HOWARD had in a high degree that
respectful attention to the female sex which
so much characterizes the gentleman. Per-
haps, indeed, I may here be referring to
rules of politeness which no longer exist.
But he was as thoroughly impressed with the
maxim of place aux dames as any French-
man, though without the strain of light and
complimentary gallantry which has accom-
panied it in the individuals of that nation.
His was a more serious sentiment, connected
with the uniform practice of giving up his
own ease and accommodation, for the sake
of doing a real kindness to any female of
decent character. It is excellently illustrat-
ed by an anecdote related in a magazine, by a
person who chanced to sail with him in the
packet from Holyhead to Dublin, when the
vessel being much crowded, Mr. HOWARD
resigned his bed to a servant-maid, and took
up with the cabin floor for himself. It is
likewise displayed throughout his works,
by the warmth with which he always cen-
sures the practice of putting female prison-
ers in irons, and exposing them to any harsh
and indelicate treatment. He was fond of
nothing so much as the conversation of
women of education and cultivated manners,
and studied to attach them by little elegant
presents,


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 147
presents, and other marks of attention. In-
deed, his soft tone of voice and gentleness
of demeanor might be thought to approach
somewhat to the esseminate, and would sur-
prise those who had known him only by the
energy of his exertions. In his judgment
of female character, it was manifest that the
idea of his lost Harriet was the standard of
excellence; and, if ever he had married
again, a resemblance to her would have
been the principal motive of his choice. I
recollect to this purpose a singular anecdote,
which he related to us on his return from
one of his tours. In going from one town
in Holland to another in the common pas-
sage boat, he was placed near an elderly
gentleman, who had in company a young
lady of a most engaging manner and appear-
ance, which very strongly reminded him of
his Harriet. He was so much struck with
her, that, on arriving at the place of desti-
nation, he caused his servant to follow them,
and get intelligence who they were. I was
not without some disappointment that he
learned, that the old gentleman was an emi-
nent merchant, and the young lady, - his
wife.
Mr. HOWARD'S predilection for female
society, was in part a consequence of his
abhorrence


148 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
abhorrence of every thing gross and licen-
tious. His own language and manners were
invariably pure and delicate; and the free-
doms which pass uncensured or even ap-
plauded in the promiscuous companies of
men, would have affected him with sensa-
tions of disgust. For a person possessed of
such feelings, to have brought himself to
submit to such frequent communication
with the most abandoned of mankind, was
perhaps a greater triumph of duty over in-
clination than any other he obtained in the
prosecution of his designs. Yet the nature
of his errand to prisons probably inspired
awe and respect in the most dissolute; and
I think he has recorded, that he never met
with a single insult from the prisoners in
any of the gaols he visited.
As Mr. HOWARD was so eminently a re-
ligious character, it may be expected that
somewhat more should be said of the pe-
culiar tenets he adopted. But, besides that
this was a topic which did not enter into
our conversations, I confess, I do not per-
ceive how his general plan of conduct was
likely to be influenced by any peculiarity of
that kind. The principle of religious duty,
which is nearly the same in all systems, and
differs rather in strength than in kind in dif-
erent


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 149
ferent  persons, is surely sufficient to ac-
count for all that he did and underwent in
promoting the good of mankind, by modes
which Providence seemed to place before
him. It has been suggested, that he was
much under the influence of the doctrine of
predestination; and I know not what of
sternness has been attributed to him as its
natural consequence. For my own part, I
am not able to discover in what those no-
tions of Providence, general and particular,
which make part of the profession of all re-
ligions, differ essentially from the opinions
of the predestinarians; and, from manifold
observation, I am certain, that the reception
oS the doctrine of predestination, as an ar-
ticle of belief, does not necessarily imply
those practical consequences, which might
seem deducible from it. The language, at
least, of our lower classes of people is al-
most universally founded upon it; but when
one of them dies of an infectious disease,
notwithstanding the bystanders all speak of
the event as sated and inevitable, yet each,
for himself, does not the less avoid the in-
fection, or the less recur to medical aid it
attacked by it. With respect to Mr. HOW-
ARD, he never seemed to adopt the idea that
he was moved by an irresistible impulse to
N 2 his


150 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
his designs; for they were the subject of
much thought and discussion: nor did he
confront dangers because he had a persua-
sion that he should be preserved from their
natural consequences but because he was
elevated above them. This sentiment he has
himself more than once expressed in print;
and surely none could be either more ration-
al, or more adequate to the effects produced.
"Being in the way of my duty, (says he)
I fear no evil." I may venture to affirm,
that those of the medical profession, whose
fearlessness is not merely the result of hab-
it, must reason upon the same principle,
when they calmly expose themselves to sim-
ilar hazards. They, for the most part, use
no precautions against contagion: Mr.
HOWARD did use some; though their ef-
fects were probably trifling compared with
that of his habitual temperance and cleanli-
ness, and his untroubled serenity of mind.
On the whole, his religious confidence does
not appear to have been of a nature differ-
ent from that of other pious men; but to
be so steadily and uniformly under its influ-
ence, and to be elevated by it to such a su-
periority to all worldly considerations, can
be the lot of none but those who have form-
ed early habits referring every thing to
the


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 151
the divine will, and of fixing all their views
on futurity.
From Mr. HOWARD'S connexions with
those sects who have ever shewn a particu-
lar abhorrence of the frauds and supersti-
tions of popery, it might be supposed, that
he would look with a prejudiced eye on the
professor and ministers of that persuasion.
But such was his veneration for true vital
religion, that he was as ready to pay it hon-
our when he met with it in the habit of a
monk, as under the garb of a teacher: and
throughout his works, as well as in conver-
sation, he ever dwelt with great complacen-
cy on the pure zeal for the good of man-
kind, and genuine Christian charity, which
he frequently discovered among the Roman
Catholic clergy, both regular and secular.
He was no friend to that hasty dissolution
of convents and monastaries which formed
part of the multifarious reforms of the late
Emperor of Germany. He pitied the aged
inmates, male and female, of these quiet
abodes, who were driven from their beloved
retreats into the wide world, with a very
slender and often ill-paid pittance for their
support. "Why might not they (he would
say) be suffered gradually to die away, and
be transplanted from one religious house to
another 


152 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
another as their numbers lessened?" Those
orders which make it the great duty of their
profession to attend with the kindest assidu-
ity upon the sick and imprisoned, and who
therefore came continually within his no-
tice, seemed to conciliate his good will to
the whole fraternity; and the virtues of
order, decency, sobriety, and charity, so
much akin to his own, naturally inclined
him to a kind of fellowship with them.
He rigorously, however, abstained from any
compliances with their worship which he
thought unlawful; and gave them his es-
teem as men, without the least disposition to
concur with them as theologians.
Such were the great lines of Mr. HOW-
ARD'S character - lines strongly marked,
and sufficient to discriminate him from any
of those who have appeared in a part some-
what similar to his own on the theatre of
the world. The union of qualities which
so peculiarly fitted him for the post he un-
dertook, is not likely, in our age, again to
take place; yet different combinations may
be employed to effect the same purposes;
and, with respect to the objects of police
and humanity concerning which he occu-
pied himself, the information he has collect-
ed will render the repetition of labours like
his


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 153
his unnecessary. To propose as a model,
a character marked with such singularities,
and, no doubt, with some foibles, would be
equally vain and injudicious; but his firm
attachment to principle, high sense of hon-
our, pure benevolence, unshaken constancy,
and indesatigable perseverance, may proper-
ly be held up to the view of all persons oc-
cupying important stations, or engaged in
useful enterprises, as qualities not less to be
imitated, than admired.
I shall conclude with some account of the
literary honours which Mr. HOWARD has
received from his countrymen. It would,
indeed, have been extraordinary, if, while
senates and courts of judicature offered him
their tribute of applause, poetry and elo-
quence should have shewn an insensibility
to his merits. Besides the acknowledg-
ments paid him in every publication upon
topics similar to his own, he became the
theme of the elegant muse of Mr. Hayley,
who addressed to him an ode in the year
1780, to which reference has already been
made. That celebrated poem is, by the
American Editor, subjoined to the present
work. In the succeeding year, Mr. Burke,
adverting, in a speech to the Freemen of
Bristol, to a fact in Mr. HOWARD'S book,
struck


154 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
struck out, with the enthusiasm of genius,
into a panegyrical digression on his plans and
actions, decorated with his peculiar strain
of glowing imagery. Nothing, perhaps,
can more forcibly express the general idea
entertained of  Mr. HOWARD'S exalted
worth  than the following extract from that
speech. "I cannot name this gentleman,
says Mr. Burke, I cannot name this gentle-
man, without remarking that his labours
and writings have done much to open the
eyes and hearts of mankind. He has visit-
ed all Europe, not to survey the sumptuous-
ness of palaces, nor the stateliness of tem-
ples; not to make accurate measurements of
the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to
form a scale of the curiosities of modern
art; not to collect medals, nor to collate
manuscripts; but to dive into the depths of
dungeons, to plunge into the infection of
hospitals; to survey the mansions of sor-
row and pain; to take guage and dimen-
sions of misery, depression, and contempt;
to remember the forgotten; to attend to
the neglected; to visit the forsaken; and to
compare and collate the distresses of all men
in all countries. His plan is original and it
is as full of genius, as it is of humanity. It
is a voyage of philanthropy- a circumnavi-
gation


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 155
gation of charity! Already the benefit of this
labour itself is felt more or less in every
country: I hope he will anticipate his final
reward by seeing all its effects fully realized
in his own. He  will receive, not in retail
but in gross, the reward of those who visit
the prisoner, and he has so far forestalled
and monopolized this branch of charity, that
thee will be, I trust, little room to merit
by such acts of benevolence hereafter."
This speech was afterwards printed, and the
passage concerning Mr. HOWARD was cop-
ied into various periodical writings, and
read with universal approbation. His char-
acter was even exhibited on the stage; for
a comedy of Mrs. Inchbald's, entitled Such
Things Are, contained a part evidently
modelled upon his peculiar cast of benevo-
lence, which for a time rendered the piece
popular.
Dr. Darwin's very beautiful poem of the
Botanic Garden, printed in 1789, amidst an
unexpected variety of subjects, presents an
eulogium of Mr. HOWARD, so appropriate
and poetical, that I am sure no reader of
taste will require an apology from me for
inserting it.
- And


156 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
- And now BENEVOLENCE! thy rays divine
Dart round the globe from Zembla to the Line:
O'er each dark prison plays the cheering light,
Like northern lustres o'er the vault of night -
From realm to realm, with cross or crescent
crown'd,
Wheree'er mankind and misery are found,
O'er burning sands, deep waves, or wilds of snow,
Thy HOWARD journeying seeks the house of woe.
Down many a winding step to dungeons dank,
Where anguish wails aloud, and fetters clunk;
To caves bestrew'd with many a mouldering bone,
And cells, whose echoes only learn to groan;
Where no kind bars a whispering friend disclose,
No sunbeam enters, and no zephyr blows,
He treads, inemulous of fame or wealth,
Profuse of toil, and prodigal of health;
With soft assuasive eloquence expands
Power's rigid heart, and opes his clenching hands;
Leads stern-ey'd justice to the dark domains,
If not to sever, to relax the chains;
Or guides awaken'd mercy through the gloom,
And shews the prison, sister to the tomb! -
Gives to her babes the self-devoted wife,
To her fond husband liberty and life -
- The spirits of the good, who bend from high
Wide o'er these earthly scenes their partial eye,
When first, array'd in VIRTUE'S purest robe,
They saw her HOWARD traversing the globe;
Saw round his brows her sun-like glory blaze
In arrowy circles of unwearied rays;
Mistook


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 157
Mistook a mortal for an angel-guest,
And ask'd what seraph-foot the earth imprest.
- Onwards he moves! - Disease and death retire,
And murmuring demons hate him, and admire.
After these lines, the Editor avails him-
self of this favourable opportunity of exhib-
iting to the public, an extract from the fu-
neral sermon occasioned by the death of
Mr. HOWARD. And as it was delivered
under the influence of heart-felt emotions,
accompanied with serious regret, and refers
to the leading principle of all his actions, it
is presumed, that it will not be deemed mis-
placed, at tie close of a volume, the pur-
pose of which is, to represent in strong,
faithful, and glowing colours the charac-
ter of the BENEVOLENT HOWARD.
"Those who best knew Mr. HOWARD,"
says Mr. Palmer,* in his sermon on the
death of his benevolent friend, "are so well
acquainted with the strength of his Chris-
tian principles, and with his evangelical
views, as not to entertain a doubt but that,
during his last sickness and in the prospect
of death, (melancholy as his situation was,
at a distance from all his friends) he exer-
cised the greatest degree of firmness, pa-
O tience,
*Reverend Mr. Palmer of Hackney.


158 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
tience, and submission to the divine will; a
lively faith in the promises of the gospel; a
cheerful confidence in the grace of God, in
a Redeemer, for acceptance, renouncing, as
he often had explicitly done, all preten-
sions to merit by all the good works he had
performed; and an humble triumph in the
prospect of life eternal, as the free gift of
God through Jesus Christ. A little be-
fore he left England, when a friend express-
ed his concern at parting with him, from an
apprehension that they should never meet
again, he cheerfully replied, "We shall
soon meet in heaven;" and, as he rather
expected to die of the plague in Egypt, he
added, "the way to heaven from Grand
Cairo is as near as from London." He
that thus lived in the hope of immortality,
may well be supposed at death to have ex-
perienced a joy unspeakable and full of
"Thus lived and thus died this distin-
guished philanthropist, this bright orna-
ment of human nature and of the religion
of Jesus. As his life was singularly useful,
his death was equally glorious. He fell a
martyr in the cause of humanity. As thou-
sands blessed him while living, millions will
lament him now dead. A greater loss this
country. 

OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 159
country, may I not lay this world, has sel-
dom sustained. It may appear to many a
mysterious providence, that such a friend
to his species should be cut off at a time
when he had such noble ends in view, and
when, considering the vigour of his con-
stitution at the age of sixty-five, he might
have been expected to continue some years
as a blessing to his native country, particu-
larly in promoting the execution of the
plans which he had suggested in his publi-
cations. But his work was done: the
designs of Providence by him were accom-
plished; and doubtless all the circum-
stances of his death were wisely ordered by
Him who doth all things well, and who can
easily raise up other instruments for per-
fecting what he had begun."
"His being cut off in a foreign country,
however grievous it may be to his friends
here, is a circumstance, which may proba-
bly be wisely designed, and happily over-
ruled, for some very important purposes in
that rising kingdom, which will esteem it-
self honoured by entombing such a patriot-
ic Englishman; and where a spirit of emula-
tion may probably be excited to imitate his
virtues, and to adopt his plans, for promot-
ing


160 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
ing the growing glory and happiness of that
vast empire."
"While therefore we devoutly praise
God for what he had done by this his em-
inent servant, let us submit to his will, and
adore his wisdom and sovereignty in his re-
moval. And let us make the best improve-
ment of so affecting a dispensation; partic-
ularly by cultivating that benevolence by
which the deceased was actuated, and by do-
ing what we can, in our different spheres,
for repairing his loss. This will be the
best way of expressing our veneration for
his character, and doing honour to his
memory."
"That others, upon his decease, would
be excited to prosecute some of his schemes
for the public good, he himself had a firm
persuasion. This made him the less anx-
ious about his own life, which his friends
thought of so much importance. In the
last conversation I had with him, when I ex-
pressed my fears for his safety, and my
wishes that he could have been prevailed
upon to continue at home, in order to carry
into execution the generous plans he had
formed for the good of his country, his an-
swer was, "When I am dead somebody
else will take up the matter and carry it
through."


OF JOHN HOWARD, ESQ. 161
through." God grant that his expectations
may be verified! But where is the man to
be found who is like minded with him?
Another HOWARD this country cannot
hope to see. Nor is one, altogether his
equal, now needed. He laid a foundation,
on which it would be comparatively easy to
build. He, with incredible labour and ex-
pense, has broken up the ground, prepared
the soil, and sown the seed: to raise and
rather the crop will require but a small por-
tion of industry and public spirit. And
are there none among you, ye men of for-
tune and leisure, in whom that portion of
industry and public spirit is to be found?
Ye who, in the strongest terms language
can supply, celebrate the philanthropy of
the deceased, and have shewn yourselves
impatient to erect a monument to his hon-
our, so as scarcely to be restrained from
hurting his modesty while yet alive; is
there no one among you that wishes to in-
herit his virtues, and rear the glorious fabric
he had framed? Who that has the ability
would not be ambitious of the honour? If
it be honour of too great magnitude for an
individual to grasp, let it be divided. Here
is enough to adorn many a brow. Oh that
O 2 all


162 LIFE, TRAVELS, &c.
all in the higher ranks of life would claim
their share!"
"If but a few men of fortune and influ-
ence had a spirit equal to their power, what
a blessed country would Britain soon be-
come! The poor would be more happy and
less burthensome. The industrious would
live in ease: the idle and profligate would
be reclaimed. Crimes would be prevented
instead of being punished. Our prisons in
time would scarce need humane visitants,
but would often (like some abroad) be al-
most empty; at least those confined in them
would be there useful to the community,
and not dangerous to it when discharged.
Many would go out reformed, and would
become good members of society. Thus
Englishmen, who vainly boast of their lib-
erty, would enjoy liberty: would rest in
their beds, and travel by day or by night,
without fear of being murdered or plunder-
ed by their own species. That it is other-
wise, is in a great measure owing to the
want of public spirit in men of rank and
power. Would to God that the the loss of
ONE Patriot may prove the occasion of
raising up MANY!"
ODE


ODE
INSCRIBED TO
JOHN HOWARD,
LL.D. F.R.S.
By WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.
- "SECOND TO NONE,
IN THE WORKS OF HUMANITY AND BENEVOLENCE."
BOSTON:
PRINTED BY MANNING & LORING,
For J. WHITE, S. HALL, THOMAS & ANDREWS,
D. WEST, W. SPOTSWOOD, E. LARKIN, J.
WEST, and the PROPRIETOR of the Boston Bookstore.
1795.




ODE, &c.
FAV'RITE of Heaven, and friend of
earth!
Philanthropy, benignant power!
Whose sons display no doubtful worth,
The pageant of the passing hour!
Teach me to paint, in deathless song,
Some darling from thy filial throng,
Whose deed no party-rage inspire,
But fill th' agreeing world with one desire.
To echo his renown, responsive to my lyre!
Ah! whither lead'st thou? - whence that
sigh?
What sound of woe my bosom jars?
Why pass, where Misery's hollow eye
Glares wildly thro' those gloomy bars?
Is Virtue sunk in these abodes,
Where keen remorse the heart corrodes;
Where 


166 ODE, &c.
Where guilt's base blood with frenzy boils,
And blasphemy the mournful scene, em-
broils? -
From this infernal gloom my shudd'ring
soul recoils.
But whence those sudden sacred beams?
Oppression drops his iron rod!
And all the bright'ning dungeon seems
To speak the presence of a God.
Philanthropy's descending day
Diffuses unexpected ray!
Loveliest of angels! - at her side
Her favourite votary stands; - her English
pride,
Thro' horror's mansions led by this celestial
guide.
Hail, generous HOWARD! tho' thou bear
A name which glory's hand sublime
Has blazon'd oft, with guardian care,
In characters that fear not time;
For thee she fondly spreads her wings;
For thee from paradise she brings,
More verdant than her laurel bough,
Such wreaths of sacred palm, as ne'er till
now
The smiling seraph twin'd around a mortal
brow.
That


ODE, &c. 167
That Hero's* praise shall ever bloom,
Who shielded our insulted coast;
And launch'd his lightning to consume
The proud invader's routed host.
Brave perils rais'd his noble name:
But thou deriv'st thy matchless fame
From scenes, where deadlier danger dwells;
Where fierce contagion, with affright, repels
Valour's advent'rous step from her malig-
nant cells.
Where in the dungeon's loathsome shade,
The speechless captive clanks his chain,
With heartless hope to raise that aid
His feeble cries have call'd in vain:
Thine eye his dumb complaint explores;
Thy voice his parting breath restores;
Thy cares his ghastly visage clear
From death's chill dew, with many a clot-
ted tear,
And to his thankful soul returning life en-
dear.
What precious drug, or stronger charm,
Thy constant fortitude inspires
In scenes, whence, muttering her alarm,
Med'cine, † with selfish dread, retires?
Nor
* Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham.
† Mussabat tacito Medecina timore. Lucretius.


168 ODE, &c.
Nor charm, nor drug, dispel thy fears;
Temperance, thy better guard, appears:
For thee I see her fondly fill
Her crystal cup from nature's purest rill;
Chief nourisher of life! best antidote of
ill!
I see the hallow'd shade of HALES,*
Who felt, like thee, for human woe,
And taught the health-diffusing gales
Thro' horror's murky cells to blow,
As thy protecting angel wait;
To save thee from the snares of fate,
Commission'd
*Stephen Hales, minister of Teddington: he died at
the age of 84, 1761; and has been justly called "an or-
nament to his profession, as a clergyman, and to his coun-
try, as a philosopher." I had the happiness of knowing
this excellent man, when I was very young; and well
remember the warm glow of benevolence which used to
animate his countenance, in relating the success of his va-
rious projects for the benefit of mankind. I have fre-
quently heard him dwell with great pleasure on the for-
tunate incident which led him to the discovery of his ven-
tilator, to which I have alluded.- He had ordered a new
floor for one of his rooms; his carpenter not having pre-
pared the work so soon as he expected, he thought the
season improper for laying down new boards, when they
were brought to his house, and gave orders for their be-
ing deposited in his barn; - from their accidental posi-
tion in that place, he caught his first idea of this useful
invention. 


ODE, &c. 169
Commission'd from the Eternal Throne:
I hear him praise, in wonder's warmest
tone,
The virtues of thy heart, more active than
his own.
Thy soul supplies new funds of health
That fail not in the trying hour,
Above Arabia's spicy wealth,
And Pharmacy's reviving power.
The transports of the generous mind,
Feeling its bounty to mankind,
Inspirit every mortal part;
And, far more potent than precarious art,
Give radiance to the eye, and vigour to the
heart.
Blest HOWARD! who like thee can feel
This vital spring in all its force?
New star of philanthropic zeal;
Enlight'ning nations in thy course!
And shedding comfort's heavenly dew
On meagre want's deserted crew!
Friend to the wretch, whom friends dis-
claim,
Who feels stern justice, in his famish'd
frame,
A persecuting fiend beneath an angel's
name.
P Authority! 


170 ODE, &c.
Authority! unfeeling power,
Whose iron heart can coldly doom
The debtor, dragg'd from pleasure's bower,
To sicken in the dungeon's gloom!
O might thy terror-striking call,
Profusion's sons alone enthrall!
But thou canst want with guilt confound:
Thy bonds the man of virtuous toil sur-
round,
Driv'n by malicious fate within thy drea-
ry bound.
How savage are thy stern decrees?
Thy cruel minister I see
A weak, laborious victim seize,
By worth entitled to be free!
Behold in the afflicting strife,
The faithful partner of his life,
In vain thy ruthless servant court,
To spare her little children's sole support,
Whom this terrific form has frighten'd
from their sport.
Nor weeps she only from the thought,
Those infants must no longer share
His aid, whose daily labour bought
The pittance of their scanty fare.
The horrors of the loathsome jail
Her inly-bleeding heart assail:
E'en 


ODE, &c. 171
E'en now her fears, from fondness bred,
See the lost partner of her faithful bed
Drop, in that murd'rous scene, his pale, ex-
piring head.
Take comfort yet in these keen pains,
Fond mourner! check thy gushing tears!
The dungeon now no more contains
Those perils which thy fancy fears:
No more contagion's baleful breath
Speaks it the hideous cave of death:
HOWARD has planted safely there;
Pure minister of light! his heavenly care
Has purg'd the damp of death from that
polluted air.
Nature! on thy maternal breast
Forever be his worth engrav'd!
Thy bosom only can attest
How many a life his toil has sav'd:
Nor in thy rescued sons alone,
Great parent! this thy guardian own!
His arm defends a dearer slave;
Woman, thy darling! 'tis his pride to save*
From evils, that surpass the horrors of the
grave.
Ye
* Mr. Howard has been the happy instrument of pre-
serving female prisoners from an infamous and indecent
outrage.


172 ODE, &c.
Ye sprightly nymphs, by fortune nurst,
Who sport in joy's unclouded air,
Nor see the distant storms, that burst
In ruin on the humble fair;
Ye know not to what bitter smart
A kindred form, a kindred heart,
Is often doom'd, in life's low vale,
Where frantic fears the simple mind assail,
And fierce afflictions press, and friends and
fortune fail.
See yon' sweet rustic, drown'd in tears!
It is not guilt - 'tis misey's flood,
While dire suspicion's charge she hears
Of shedding infant, filial blood:
Nature's fond dupe! but not her foe!
That form, that face, the falsehood shew: -
Yet law exacts her stern demand;
She bids the dungeon's grating doors ex-
pand,
And the young captive faints beneath the
gaoler's hand.
Ah,
outrage. - It was formerly a custom in our gaols to load
their legs and thighs with irons, for the detestable purpose
of extorting money from these injured sufferers.- This
circumstance, unknown to me when the Ode was written,
has tempted me to introduce the few additional stanzas, as
it is my ardent wish to render this tribute to an exalted
character as little unworthy as I can of the very extensive
and sublime merit which it aspires to celebrate.


ODE, &c. 173
Ah, russian! cease thy savage aim!
She cannot 'scape thy harsh control:
Shall iron load that tender frame,
And enter that too-yielding soul? -
Unfeeling wretch! of basest mind!
To misery deaf, to beauty blind;
I see thy victim vainly plead;
For the worst fiend of hell's malignant breed
Extortion grins applause, and prompts thy
ruthless deed.
With brutal force, and ribbald jest,
Thy manacles I see thee shake;
Mocking the merciful request,
That modesty and justice make;
E'en nature's shriek with anguish strong,
Fails to suspend the impious wrong;
Till HOWARD'S hand, with brave disdain,
Throws far away this execrable chain:
O Nature, spread his fame thro' all thy am-
ple reign!
His care, exulting BRITAIN found
HERE first display'd, not here confin'd!
No single tract of earth could bound
The active virtues of his mind.
To all the lands, wheree'er the tear
That mourn'd the prisoner's wrong severe,
P 2 Sad


174 ODE, &c.
Sad Pity's glist'ning cheek impearl'd,
Eager he steer'd, with every fail unsurl'd,
A friend to every clime! a Patriot of the
World!
Ye nations thro' whose fair domain
Our flying sons of joy have past,
By pleasure driven with loosen'd rein,
Astonish'd that they flew so fast,
How did the heart-improving sight
Awake your wonder and delight,
When, in her unexampled chace,
Philanthropy outstript keen pleasure's pace.
When with a warmer soul she ran a nobler
race!
Where'er her generous Briton went.
Princes his supplicants became:
He seem'd the inquiring angel, sent
To scrutinize their secret shame.*
Captivity, where he appear'd,
Her languid head with transport rear'd;
And gazing on her godlike guest,
Like those of old, whom Heaven's pure
servant blest,
E'en by his shadow seem'd of demons dis-
possest.
Amaz'd
*I am credibly informed that several princes, or at
least persons in authority, requested Mr. Howard not to
publish a minute account of some prisons, which reflected
disgrace on their government.


ODE, &c. 175
Amaz'd her foreign children cry,
Seeing their patron pass along;
"O! who is he, whose daring eye
Can search into our hidden wrong?
What monarch's heaven-directed mind,
With royal bounty unconfin'd,
Has tempted freedom's son to share
These perils; searching with an angel's care
Each cell of dire disease, each cavern of des-
pair?"
No monarch's word, nor lucre's lust,
Nor vain ambition's restless fire,
Nor ample power, that sacred trust
His life-diffusing toils inspire:
Rous'd by no voice, save that whose cries
Internal bid the soul arise
From joys, that only seem to bless,
From low pursuits, which little minds pos-
sess,
To nature's noblest aim, the succour of dis-
tress!
Taught by that God, in mercy's robe,
Who his celestial throne resign'd,
To free the prison of the globe
From vice, th' oppressor of the mind,
For thee, of misery's rights bereft,
For thee, captivity! he left
Inviting


176 ODE, &c.
Inviting ease, who, in her bower,
Bade him with smiles enjoy the golden
hour,
While fortune deck'd his board with pleas-
ure's festive flower.
While to thy virtue's utmost scope
I boldly strive my aim to raise
As high as mortal hand may hope
To shoot the glittering shaft of praise;
Say, HOWARD, say! what may the Muse,
Whose melting eye thy merit views,
What guerdon may her love design?
What may she ask for thee, from power
divine,
Above the rich rewards which are already
thine?
Sweet is the joy, when Science flings
Her light on philosophic thought;
When genius, with keen ardour, springs,
To clasp the lovely truth he sought:
Sweet is the joy, when rapture's fire
Flows from the spirit of the lyre;
When Liberty and Virtue roll
Spring-tides of fancy o'er the poet's soul,
That wast his flying bark thro' seas above
the pole.
Sweet


ODE, &c. 177
Sweet the delight, when the gall'd heart
Feels consolation's lenient hand
Bind up the wound from fortune's dart.
With friendship's life-supporting band!
And sweeter still, and far above
These fainter joys, when purest love
The soul his willing captive keeps!
When he in bliss the melting spirit steeps,
Who drops delicious tears, and wonders
that he weeps!
But not the brightest joy, which arts,
In floods of mental light, bestow;
Nor what firm friendship's zeal imparts,
Blest antidote of bitterest woe!
Nor those that love's sweet hours dispense,
Can equal the ecstatic sense,
When swelling to a fond excess,
The grateful praises of reliev'd distress,
Re-echoed thro' the heart, the soul of boun-
ty bless.
These transports, in no common state,
Supremely pure, sublimely strong,
Above the reach of envious stae,
Blest HOWARD! these to thee belong:
While years increasing o'er thee roll,
Long may this sunshine of the soul
New


178 ODE, &c.
New vigour to thy frame convey!
Its radiance thro' thy noon of life display,
And with serenest light adorn thy closing
day!
And when the power, who joys to save,
Proclaims the guilt of earth forgiv'n;
And calls the prisoners of the grave
To all the liberty of Heav'n;
In that bright day, whose wonders blind
The eye of the astonish'd mind;
When life's glad angel shall resume
His ancient sway, announce to death his
doom,
And from existence drive that tyrant of the
tomb:
In that blest hour, when seraphs sing
The triumphs gain'd in human strife;
And to their new associates bring
The wreaths of everlasting life:
May'st thou in glory's hallow'd blaze,
Approach the eternal fount of praise,
With those who lead the angelic van,
Those pure adherents to their Saviour's
plan,
Who liv'd but to relieve the miseries of
man.