eme
of the poet. They were alluded to by THOMSON in the following strain:

"And here can I forget the generous hand
Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched
Into the horrors of the gloomy jail?
Where misery moans unpitied and unheard,
Where sickness pines, where thirst and hunger burn,
And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice?

* * * * *

"Ye sons of mercy! yet resume the search,
Drag forth the legal monsters into light;
Wrench from their hands oppression's iron rod
And bid the cruel feel the pains they give!"

[_Winter_, l. 359-388.]

"The wretched condition of confined debtors, and the extortions and
oppressions to which they were subjected by gaolers, thus came to be
known to persons in high stations, and this excited the compassion of
several gentlemen to think of some method of relieving the poor from
that distress in which they were often involved without any fault
of their own, but by some conduct which deserved pity rather than
punishment."

VI.

RELEASE TO INSOLVENT DEBTORS, FROM PRISON.

In a very excellent publication entitled "_Reasons for establishing
the Colony of_ GEORGIA, _with regard to the trade of Great Britain,
the increase of our people, and the employment and support it
will afford to great numbers of our own poor, as well as foreign
Protestants_," by BENJAMIN MARTIN, Esq. _Lond_. 1733; are some remarks
in reference to the release of insolvent debtors from gaol, which I
deem it proper to extract and annex here; and the rather, because the
work is exceedingly rare.

After describing the deplorable condition of those who are in reduced
circumstances, and need assistance and would be glad of employment,
the writer refers to the situation of those who are thrown into
prison for debt, and judges that the number may be estimated at _four
thousand every year_; and that above one third part of the debts is
never recovered hereby; and then adds, "If half of these, or only
five hundred of them, were to be sent to Georgia every year to be
incorporated with those foreign Protestants who are expelled their own
country for religion, what great improvements might not be expected in
our trade, when those, as well as the foreigners, would be so many new
subjects gained by England? For, while they are in prison, they are
absolutely lost,--the public loses their labor, and their knowledge.
If they take the benefit of the Act of Parlia