tortion gave every advantage to those who could command
money enough to purchase luxuries at an enormous cost. Oppression and an
utter carelessness of the well-being of the captive, pressed hardly upon
those who were poor. No annals can convey a more heartrending
description of the sufferings of the prisoners confined in county gaols,
than their own touching and heartfelt appeals, some of which are to be
found in the State Paper Office.

In the Tower, especially, it appears from a diary kept by a gentleman
who was confined there, that the greatest extortion was openly
practised. Mr. Forster and a Mr. Anderton, who were allowed to live in
the Governor's house, were charged the sum of five pounds a-week for
their lodging and diet,--a demand which, more than a century ago, was
deemed enormous. Several of the Highland chiefs, and among them the
celebrated Brigadier Mackintosh, were "clapped up in places of less
accommodation, for which, nevertheless, they were charged as much as
would have almost paid the rent of the best houses in St. James's Square
and Piccadilly." Mr. Forster, it must be added, was obliged to pay sixty
guineas for his privilege of living in the governor's house; and Mr.
Anderton to give a bribe of twenty-five guineas for having his irons
off. A similar tax was made upon every one who entered, and who could
pay, and they were thankful to proffer the sum of twenty guineas, the
usual demand, to be free from irons. It was, indeed, not the mere
freedom from chains for which they paid, but for the power of effecting
their escape. Upon every one who did not choose to be turned over to the
common side, a demand was made of ten guineas fee, besides two guineas
weekly for lodging, although in some rooms men lay four in a bed.
Presents were also given privately, so that in three or four months'
time, three or four thousand pounds were paid by the prisoners to their
jailers.

Many of the prisoners being men of fortune, their tables were of the
most luxurious description; forty shillings was often paid for a dish of
peas and beans, and thirty shillings for a dish of fish; and this fare,
so unlike that of imprisonment, was accompanied by the richest French
wines. The vicious excesses and indecorums which went on in the Tower,
among the state prisoners, are said to have scandalized the graver
lookers on.[39] The subsequent distress and misery which ensued may, of
course, be traced, in part to this cause.

Lord Derwe