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SCIENTIA
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ESSAYS
OF
HOWARD:
OR,
TALES OF THE PRISON.
Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art a
bitter draught............. Sterne.
SECOND EDITION.
NEW-YORK:
PRINTED BY JOSEPH DESNOUES,
149 Franklin steeet.
1835.
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PREFACE,
BY THE PUBLISHER OF THE SECOND EDITION
20000
A relic of barbarity had been ingrafted on
civilization, a fruit, all bitterness, depended
from the emblematic tree of liberty, and was
the allotted portion of many a care-worn citi-
zen of the free state of New-York. Imprison-
ment for debt, had attained a fearful growth,
when in the year 1811, the ESSAYS OF HOWARD
burst upon the vision of an astonished people,
who seemed for the first time to have learned,
that to a considerable portion of the citizens,
freedom was but a mocking name. Before this
time, the pain of protracted imprisonment was
seldom made the subject of reflection, except,
by the incarcerated victim, who, deserted or
disowned by the sun-shine friends of better days
and not unfrequently forgotten by the remorse-
less inflicter of his woe, suffered in a debtors'
jail, all the pangs of hope deferred. Howard,
if not the first who stepped forward to measure.
a lance with the demon, was certainly the first
4
PREFACE.
to overcome him. Of imprisonment for debt,
we have now but its history, the philanthropist
who inflicted the mortal wound, did not live to
witness the closing result; the author of the
Essays died in the year 1825, the act to abo-
lish imprisonment for debt, bears the date of
1831.
Modesty, the usual concomitant of merit,
would conceal the name of the author of the
Tales of the Prison, and did, to the time of his
death, conceal it from all, except a few confi-
dential friends. The anxious inquiry, frequent-
ly repeated," who is Howard ?" led but to
vague surmises, and finally settled down in the
generally admitted belief, first asserted by
Howard himself, that he was a debtor confined
for sixteen years in the New-York debtors'
jail. That this should be credited, is natural,
for who but a confined debtor could have be-
come acquainted with the subject matter of
the Tales! This innocent imposition is the only
one practised by Howard, and evidently to con-
ceal himself from public gaze. All else is true,
except the introduction of fictitious names,
which delicacy toward the incarcerated, surely
justified. Howard was never confined within
PREFACE.
5
the walls of a prison, but a susceptibility to the
woes of others seemed interwoven with his
very nature, he loved to commune with, and
to solace the miserable; his visits to the deb-
tors' jail of New-York, were frequent, and in
his sympathizing intercourse with the unhappy,
he became acquainted with the facts so patheti-
cally, detailed in the following pages. The
concealment of his name during his life was
matter of choice in him, but it entails no obliga-
tion on his survivors to perpetuate the secret.
Justice to the memory of one of the most a-
miable of men, demands that the mask should
no longer be permitted to hide from a bene-
fitted community, the name of their benefactor,
the lamented JOSEPH D. FAY, of New-York.
On the appearance of the Essays, every one
who could procure a copy, possessed himself
of it; within a very short time after its publi-
cation, the work disappeared from the shelf
of the bookseller, and to all subsequent de-
mands for it, the answer was, 'out of print.' The
effect, however, was deep and lasting, hope,
almost extinguished, lit up in the prisoner's
breast, and he was seen throwing from him, as
no longer necessary, his "little calendar of small
B2
}
6
PREFACE.
sticks, notched all over with the dismal days and
nights he had passed there;' the creditor seem-
ed startled at the thought, the first time perhaps
it had presented itself, that he was one of those
to whom might be applied the observation of the
Scotch bard, "man's inhumanity to man makes
“ countless thousands mourn;" public opinion
irresistible in a land of freemen, denounced
imprisonment for debt, and put an end to it.
The Essays are out of print, ten dollars have
been offered more than five years ago for a
single copy of the work, and the tendered
sum was rejected. That copy has been used
to produce the present edition. It is not too
much to predict, that so long as due regard for
fine sentiment, afflicting detail, pure language,
and thrilling subject, can influence the human
mind, or interest the human heart, the ESSAYS
OF HOWARD will not cease to be read and
admired.
ADVERTISEMENT,
PREFIXED TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The Publisher of the following ingenious and in-
structive Essays earnestly recommends them to the
consideration of all those who have it in their power
to effect a reform in our present barbarous laws con-
cerning imprisonment for debt. They were originally
printed in "The New-York Columbian;" they spread
with unexampled rupidity throughout the United States,
and were honoured by almost every editor who repub-
lished them, with a complimentory introduction. Even
those who are personally prejudiced against the reform,
the necessity of which this writer so ably enforces, have
confessed that the tales of woe related by Howard have
drawn forth their tears, even while they looked upon
them as mere fictions. But they are not fictions.
Every narrative in these numbers is subtantially true;
and the Debtors' Prison at this moment contains many
a wretch, whose wrongs, faithfully described, "might
make the very stones of Rome rise up and mutiny."
Although the Publisher is himself so much delighted
with the speculations of Howard, he must comply with
the injunctions of their author so far as to declare, that
they never would have appeared in this form, but for
the urgent entreaties of a committee of gentlemen from
Dutchess County, and numerous respectable and enligh-
tened inhabitants of New-York, and other cities in the
United States.
NEW XORK, 1811.
w
1
No. 1.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
"And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and
"sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond
servant." The Holy Bible.
In the good old days of Moses, when he journeyed
in the wilderness with the people of Israel, from the
fiery top of Mount Sinai, the Lord gave to man the
above statute of mercy. How far the people of these
days have obeyed its injunction, I shall endeavour to
show the public, with their permission, through the
medium of the press, by calling their attention to the
sufferings of debtors.
I have had a pretty good opportunity to know some-
thing of the miseries of that class of people, having
myself been more than sixteen years a prisoner for—
debt! I had the misfortune to have a wild and extra-
vagant brother; but he was such a liberal and gene-
rous fellow, that I could not help loving him dearly.
When he was in distress, I gave him money; and, if
I could not readily raise it for him, ( as my credit
was good,) I lent him my notes. My brother was
one of the greatest speculators that ever lived in
America, and more than once made an immense for-
10
tune-on paper. Several times he would have made
himself rich as Croesus-and me also, (for I always
shared with him!) if it had not happened, most un-
luckily that just at the moment when he was about
to realise all his ardent hopes, he wanted more money
to perfect his scheme than could possibly be obtained..
It was one of those glorious speculations that ruined
my brother and-me. He died of a broken heart-
heaven bless him, I say. But the usurer who bought
of him my lent notes, at thirty per cent. discount, by
combining with others, has kept me sixteen years a
prisoner in the jail of the city and county of New-
York. It is a horrid place—and many a time when,
through the grates of my prison window, I have
watched the last rays of the setting sun as they
gilded some neighbouring spire, I have wondered
that any man could find it in his hart to put a fellow
being in jail for debt.
But creditors, some how or other, never think of
these things. Evening to them, is a cessation from
labour, and the same departing rays of light which
make the prisoner melancholy over his sorrows, make
the heart of the creditor rejoice. He has a plenty to
eat, and when the debtor talks of starving he calls him
a fool, and says, "no man of common industry can
possibly want for the comforts of life in this happy
country." It was ever thus that my creditor replied,
when I told him, by messenger, that I was absolutely
reduced to the last stage of human misery. He never
comes to see me, and knows so little of my situation.
that I really believe if he would only take the trou-
1 1
ble to pass one week with me, he would not hesitate
a moment to give me liberty. I could never make
the least impression on his feelings; and, indeed, I
do not much wonder at it, for when one is happy be
cannot enter into the feelings of the miserable. I
have sometimes attempted to appeal to his consci-
ence, but it is so completely secured behind the
statutes of New-York, that I never shall touch it.—
Indeed, I have at last given up the hope of liberty-
blessed liberty! I can hardly write the word with-
out dropping a tear at the recollection of the joyous
days of liberty which are gone forever. I am sad
when I think how they have fled away like a dream,
and that neither I nor my creditor can ever recall
them.
Habit has so altered me from the gay being that I
was, that I really suppose if I were offered my free-
dom to day I could not enjoy it.
When I entered the walls of this terrible jail, in
which, amid the rattling of chains, I am now writing
this little impertinent story of myself, I was young,
in good health, blest with a wife whom I adored, and
as fine a boy as ever smiled in the face of a father.
The boy is dead and my wife is no more.
She was
indeed a most excellent woman, but she was wounded
to the soul by the horrors of our situation-her spirit
was broken down, and she with the infant that
caused her sickness, died in child-bed in jail, shortly
aftor my imprisonment, in the year 1791.
My boy was forced by necessity, at a very tender
age, to seek a livelihood on the ocean, and as I have
1 2
not heard from him for many years, I conclude that
he has followed the spirit of his dear departed mother.
Thus am I bereaved of wife, child, liberty and hap-
piness, by a single creditor; and this is what the law
and the constitution of America calls-legal satis-
faction. Hence it is that I say, if I was offered
my freedom to day, I could not enjoy it. As the
hoary headed tenant of the bastile, whose locks, like
mine, whitened in confinement for no crime, most
probably I should say--"I have no money--no friends
―my talents for business are lost-I have forgotten
the ways of the world-send me back to prison, for
the light is hateful."
Thus am I ("a brother that dwelt with my credi-
tor") "waxen poor"-sold to my creditor, and abso-
lutely his "bond servant." He keeps me in prison-
"compels me to serve" the purposes of REVENGE,
acts faithfully up to the laws of New-York, and cares
not a sixpence for the laws of Moses.
Reader, perhaps you smile. Far be it from me to
check a smile that lightens the heart, or plays on the
countenance of any man living. No! gentle and
courteous reader! smile, if thou canst, for the hand
of misfortune may cast thee into bondage, where thou
shalt not smile. But it is not my intention to treat
the subject lightly. If the bible is holy, (and who
dare think it not so) it is no laughable matter to
follow the statute of New-York, and break the statute
of that God who spoke from mount Sinai. For of
this very statute, which I have thought proper to
place at the head of my essay, that God has said,
I
1 3
whosoever, (mark it gentle reader!) "whosoever
shall go aside from it shall be cursed in the field,
and cursed in the city."
While I am writing this, seven prisoners, on whom
the terrible key has just been turned, are entering
with pallid countenances and sickly hearts, into their
gloomy cells. The turnkey who by the by is a very
good fellow, tries to banish their sorrow, and by way
of consolation, tells them to cheer up for "in less
than a year they'll get quite used to it." For my own
part, accustomed as I am to these scenes of wretch-
edness, I bear them, now, with considerable fortitude.
But they speak a sadness to my heart which stops.
my pen. I will resume it again, when the bustle
has subsided, and my thoughts are calm.
BS
No. II.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
Why boastest thou thyself in mischief. O mighty man.
17
Psalm li.
WHOEVER Wishes to see squalid Misery seated on
her throne, with Poverty and Vice, Oppression and
Sickness, officiating as her ministers, let him visit a
debtors' prison in this land of liberty.
"We talk," says an elegant writer, “much about
instruments of torture; Americans take crodit to
themselves for having banished the use of them from
their happy shores! Alas! be that has observed the
secrets of a debtors' prison, well knows there is infi-
nitely more torture in the lingering existence of a
poor debtor, in the silent intolerable minutes that he
spends, than in the tangible misery of whips and
racks."
How often since I have been confined within these
detestable walls, have I fervently wished, that I could
enjoy the privileges of the meanest beggar, who
sleeps in the open field with no other shelter than
the canopy of the sky!
To lie, at freedom, in the pure air, to be pelted
by the storms of heaven, are blessings compared
with the shelter of a jail, and the merciless oppression
of keepers accustomed to steel their hearts against
every feeling of pity.
?
1 5
I have been long in prison, and from my obser-
vations, have discovered that the makers of the laws
are not aware of half the cruelties committed under
the sanction of the laws. The legislature have been
anxious to secure the creditor.-Does the system of
imprisonment for debt do it? No.
We hold the rights of liberty and personal freedom
sacred, and infiintely above price. Yet, in the blind-
ness of legislatures, they have permited liberty to
he the sport of REVENGE, and the sacred and highly
valued right of personal freedom, is sold for a debt.
For the mean and contemptible sum of one hundred
dollars, a single exasperated creditor may treat his
debtor worse than a criminal, confine him to a filthy
cell behind ponderous doors-grated windows—
massy locks and damp walls-thus actually pur-
chasing, with the little sum of forty pounds, the posi-
tive, but useless slavery of a free citizen.-Slavery!
not for a day, or a year-but for life! Talk no
more, Americans! of the cruelty of Spain to the pri-
soners of Miranda!-Cease to invoke the God of
justice to pour curses on the heads of Algerine tor-
inentors. Turn home the current of your indigna-
tion and pity; for here, in the bosom of our native
land, unfortunate, innocent prisoners suffer infinitely
more than all our citizens abroad.
Some years since, a young man by the name of
Brown was cast into the prison of this city for debt.
His manners were very interesting. His fine dark
eyes beamned so much intelligence, his lively coun-
tenance expressed so much ingenuousness, that I
16
was induced, contrary to my usual rule, to soek his
acquaintance. Companions in misery soon become
attached to each other. We delighted to practise
together all the dear little acts of beguiling the tedi-
ous hours of our confinement. He played the flute,
I the violin. Many times, after the jailors horrid
rattle had summoned the debtors to their cells, and
all the prison was still, have we paced the gloomy
hall on the second floor, and by the aid of anecdote
and song, fiddle and flute, cheated woe out of more
than half her empire.
Brown was informed that one of his creditors
would not consent to his discharge, that he had
abused him very much, (as is usual in such cases,)
and made a solemn oath before his God to keep him
in jail "till he rotted"!! I watched Brown's counte-
nance when he received this information, and whe-
ther it was fancy or not, I cannot say, but I thought
I saw the cheering spirit of hope, in that moment,
desert him forever.
There is an elasticity in the young mind that ena-
bles it to bear misfortune, sometimes with an unac-
countable fortitude; but take away hope, and the
secret charm that buoys up the mind is fled also.
His conver-
It was painful to witness the gradual sinking-down
of Brown's spirit from that moment.
sation which before was always lively and animated,
became dull and desultory. His ruddy cheek became
pale, and his lips livid. Sometimes he roused the
energies of his mind, and collecting together all the
1 7
forces of religion and philosophy, he half persuaded
himself that freedom was not essential to happiness.
A glow of fire would pass over his countenance-but
It was momentary. It was the instinctive struggle
of the mind to preserve itself against the slow be-
uumbing poison of despair.
If you have cultivated some favorite flower admi-
red its beauties, and been delighted with its rich
fragrance, you may form some idea of my attachment
to Brown. If you have seen that flower withering
prematurely into decay by some fatal influence over
which you had no control, you may judge what were
my sensations when I saw this youth slowly sinking.
into the tomb.
Nothing gave Brown pleasure but the daily visits
of his amiable wife. Fy the help of a kind relation
she was able to give Brown sometimes, soup, wine,
and fruit, and every day, whether clear or stormy,
she visited the prison to cheer the drooping spirits
of her husband. She was uncommonly pretty. She
seemed an angel, administering consolation to a man
about to converse with angels. One day the bour
of one o'clock passed, and she came not. Brown
was uneasy.-Two-three, and four o'clock passed,
and she did not appear. Brown was distracted. A
messenger arrived. Mrs. Brown was very danger-
ously ill, and supposed to be dying in a convulsive
fit.———————As soon as Brown heard this, he darted to
the door with the rapidity of lightning.-The inner
door was open-and the jailor, who had just let
some one in, was closing it as Brown passed vio-
18
ently through it. The jailor knocked him down
with a massy iron key which he held in his hand,
and Brown was carried lifeless, and covered with
blood, to his cell.
There is no vice in the catalogue so great and
unpardonable in the estimation of a jailor, as an
attempt to escape. "Blast him" said the jailor, “I
wish I had killed him." The murder was warranted
by law, and the law, it seems, is far superior to the
gospel.
As soon as Brown recovered, he wrote a supplica-
ting note to his creditor, requesting that he might see
his wife. The creditor had nothing to do with the
affair, he had left it to the attorney. The attorney
had left it to the sheriff-the sheriff to the jailor-
the jailor "would see him damned before he would
stir a step for him"-In the mean time, conceive, if
you can, the agony that tortured the soul of this
most miserable debtor.
In Carthagena or in Algiers, a prisoner under such
circumstances would make known to the American
government the story of his sufferings. The editors
would publish it from city to city, and state to state,
throughout the union. The government would feel it
an indispensable duty, to levy taxes, raise soldiers,
fit out fleets, and pay ransoms for the prisoner's relief
olators and statesmen would excite a mighty up-
roar, and the skies echo with invectives against the
savage barbarities of unchristian Algerines. But
here, under the benign influence of our own christian
19
laws, the single circumstance of being unfortunate,
the very circumstance which ought to excite com-
miseration, proscribes all pity and blasts all hope!
Mrs. Brown died, and her husband was denied even
the sad privilege of closing her eyes. He lingered
for some time, till at last, he called me one day, and
gazing on me while a faint smile played upon his lips
-he said, "he believed death was more kind than
his creditors"-After a few convulsive struggles he
expired.
Legislators and sages of America! permit me to
ask you-how much benefit has that creditor derived
from the imprisonment and consequent death of an
amiable man, in the bloom of youth-who, without
this cruelty, might have flourished, even now, an
ornament and a glory to the nation?
B1
No. III.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
"Pluck out affection! all bend and privilege of nature break!
Let it be virtuous to be obstinate! Never be
Such a goslin as to obey instinct'.................. Shakspeare.
IF I can demonstrate that imprisonment for debt
is a barbarous custom, not founded in reason or hu-
manity, but growing out of wicked passions;-
that it is the old child of a dark and savage age-
fostered and pampered by the laws of theso enligh-
tened times; that it is contrary to the spirit of the
constitution of the United States of America, and in-
compatible with that liberty which our fathers pur-
chased at the price of blood, and which they bequea-
thed to us as an inheritance more precious than life
-If I can show to a logical or mathematical certain-
ty, that it is expressly forbidden by the sacred Jewish
laws, and denounced as a sin by the word of Christ
himself; I shall do just about as much good as a man
who desires to move a mountain, and heaves only
a pebble against its side.
What has pride? or what has the liberal spirit of
the constitution, to do with the short-sighted policy
of these hot political dog-days? who among the
21
enlightened sages of our state legislature, will dare
to stand forth in the cause of humanity, justice and
religion, when the almighty "spirit of party," beckons
him to the "wayward side !”
Too much occupied about the promotion of party
interests, and heated in the laudable pursuits after
office and emolument, our legislators cannot possibly
pay any attention to the little, secondary objects of
humanity. To be sure, if the English or French
put an American in prison, a host of demagogues
rise up at once, blows a furious blast that rouses the
passions of the people, and, echoing over the hills
and through the vallies of the nation, turn the eyes of
every body upon the "horrible cruelty!" "Only
think!" "said one of these valorous and sturdy cham-
pions, as he was haranguing the mob about the ines.
timable rights of liberty pending an election. "Only
think, the French have seized sixteen Americans and
cast them into jail, away from their friends, where
perhaps they linger, at this moment, destitute of
every comfort of life. What think you of that, my
fellow citizens !" "Why," replied a wag "it must be
just such another place as that were you kept me six
months for a debt of forty shillings!"
I appeal to the impartial judgement of every body
and ask, is not the whole nation just as ridiculous
as this doughty demagogue ?
Do we not bluster at a terrible rate if any other go-
vernment touches the personal liberty of a citizen?
And yet among ourselves, do we not legally autho-
22
rise one citizen to deprive another of that liberty.
for a paltry debt of forty shillings or less?
I knew a soldier in jail. He said he fought eight
years for liberty. He was wounded at brooklyn-
had two horses shot under him at Saratoga-and lost
the use of his right arm at York Town. His liberty
cost him very much. But a justice of the peace took
it away from him, because he was poor, and could
not pay the sum of three dollars and seventy nine
cents.
Is it a sin to be poor? Is it a crime to owe money ?
If so, gentlemen members of the legislature, I con-
jure you, in the name of the constitution, to pro-
mulgate them as crimes. Set them down in the
catalogue of state misdemeanors-fix a proportionato
punishment-suffer a jury to decide upon them-and
an independent judge to graduate the penalty and tho
penance, according to promulgated laws.
At present, alas! the creditor alone calls the debt-
or a criminal. Ajury finds the debt due. The
creditor, then, is sole judge of the extent of the pun-
ishment which the debtor shall endure, and the law
supplies him with power to punish precisely accor-
ding to his vendictiveness.
What! a man judge in his own case? Is not this
a little unconstitutional? Yes-but it is the custom,
and therefore superior to law-superior to the con-
stitution "pulls justice by the nose, and spits in the
face of religion." It is the usage !
Thus methinks, I hear the law of the land,
asking
Good Mr. Creditor, how long doth it please
23
your angry and merciless humor to persecute your
debtor? however wicked and malicious you are, we
tender you the irresistable force of all our statutos
to aid and support your immoral majesty!" To
which the creditor replies, rejoicing" excellent
law! wise law! superior to the discarded prejudices
of humanity and religion-that despiseth God-and
worshippeth MAMMON!"
Short sighted, and pitiful sticklers for the system
of imprisonment for debt! ye who cry aloud in the
markets about political freedom, and vote in the
councils for personal slavery—take notice, that, al-
though I am poor and a prisoner, I, nevertheless,
peep from my little tower, and mark yo all. Know
ye, "ye simular men of virtue," I will not cease in
the name of humanity-in the name of justice-in
the name of the constitution-in the holy name of
religion to denounce you.
B2
No. IV.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
Bona debitoris, non corpus abnoxium esset......Livy, b. viii.
The property of a debtor should be liable for a debt, but by
no means his body………….... Tr.
If any person supposes that any part of my repre-
sentations of a debtor's misery, is in the least exag-
gerated, let him take the trouble to enquire, but a
little, into the history of debtors, and I pledge my
word, as a man of humanity, he shall find that I have
confined myself within the limits of truth. To bo
sure, I have given fictitious names, and have, from
proper motives of delicacy, endeavoured to mislead
impertinent inquirers, by assigning dates and places
such as would best answer my object. But I givo
the public assurance, that if any man shall desire it
for a laudable purpose, I will produce inconvertible
evidence to prove, that my humble descriptions are
substantially correct.
Two and twenty years did a man linger away in
prison for debt, in the county of Orange. More than
fifty citizens have died in jail, to satisfy the malice of
creditors. Not a year passes down the lapse of time,
in which more than two thousand people are not
imprisoned in this city-imprisoned-not for crimes
-but-for misfortunes.
25
Such a scene of affecting misery affords incidents,
more touching than any that can be found in ranging
the fields of fiction; for no fancy, however glowing—
no pen, however inspired, can form and paint such
heart-rending pictures of woe, which are daily exhib-
ited in a debtors' prison. Deeply impressed with
the truth of this remark, I feel that I should injure
my designs by a departure from facts-that I shall
be more pathetic when I adhere to real incidents.
If, for instance, I should wish to excite the feelings
of the humane part of the community, by holding up
to their view scenes of distress, how ill-judged it
would be for me to soar into the regions of fancy
after objects, when, by opening the door of a prison
only, I could exhibit-not images of woe-but woe
itself-in all its sickly, pale and touching forms.
Let no one, therefore, whose attention may chance
to catch the simple relations of HowARD, lay down
the paper, under an impression that his tales are tales
of fiction. Rather let him take the alarm-fly to the
magistrates of this free land—trembling ask "if such
things be?" And, when he is answered that such
are, and "overcome us like a summer's cloud, with-
out our special wonder"-let him go forth into the
streets-"uproar the universal peace"-and from
every house-top cry aloud the alarm of―slavery.
It is my determination to awaken public feeling in
behalf of debtors. They are a part of the community
"more sinned against than sinning"-and it is high
time that something should be done to relievo them
B4
26
from the horrid oppressious of creditors and jailors.
To see one or two hundred of my fellow creatures,
for misfortunes only, caged like a flock of beasts
within a pent and stinking prison-starving, or mis-
erably kept alive by the meagre soup of stinted cha-
rity-does not melodise with the received notions of
liberty or humanity!
For more than two thousand years have the reason-
able and humane, in all civilized societies, exclaimed
against the cruelties of slavery for debt.
Plato, who was ransomed from slavery four hun-
dred years before the christian era, by his friends
generously paying three hundred drachmas for his lib-
erty, was, in my opinion, very nearly as wise and
good a man as any gentleman advocate of our days
for the system of imprisonment for money. He said
that that principle was a stain upon the GLORY OF
A REPUBLIC. Diogenes, who was also a slave until
his freedom was purchased by the great services
which he rendered to his master, spoke against impri-
sonment or slavery for money, as an inhuman vice.
Every celebrated philosopher, from that remote
period of antiquity, down to this enlightened and
republican age, has agreed with Plato and Diogenes;
but the more humane and wise politicians who have
framed laws for commerce and creditors, have
thought imprisonment neccessary to commercial in-
terests. Honce liberty, for two thousand years, has
been shamefully sacrificed on the alter of trade, and
avarice has so long maintained a most disgraceful tri-
umph over reason and humanity.
27
Without hesitation, fearless of consequences, and
proud of my undertaking, I engage on the side of
liberty, justice and humanity, determined to exert my
little might in the warfare against slavery and avarice.
Boldly, therefore, do I throw "the gauntlet to the
world," and here avow to "take a tilt and break a
lance" with any man who dares to say that imprison-
ment for debt ought not to be abolished forever from
the REPUBLIC OF AMERICA.
The histories I am about to record, I know to be
true, either from my own observations, or the testi-
mony of credible witnesses. As my remarks upon
jailors are sometimes harsh, it becomes me to say;
that I think Mr. Murden, the present keeper, and
his turnkeys, are justly deserving of applause for
their uniform kindnes to prisoners.
It pleases me, also here publickly to pay a sincere
tribute of praise to the great body of creditors in the
city of New-York. Perhaps no class of merchants
in the world treat their debtors with half the lenity
displayed by most of the merchants of this city.
But there are some few exceptions, and they shall
most assuredly, receive the homage of my attention,
not merely now, but so long as my heart beats in-
dignant at the recollection of their unfeeling perse-
cutions.
The greatest villains that appear on 'Change-
those, who stalk the Coffee-house, to practice usury,
and are masters of money because they have been
perpetrators of frauds, are generally the most unre-
lenting creditors. Even some who have been them-
28
;
selves unfortunate and dependant on the mercy of
others for their liberty, have steeled their hearts
against mercy, and barbarously driven their debtors
to that prison, from which they themselves have
fervently begged to be saved.
I have evidence to show that, in three caces,
those very men who, but a little month ago, were
debtors, notorious for their supposed fraud, and who
made the "welkin ring," with the story of their cruel
sufferings in confinement, are now "stern, obdurate,
flinty, rough, remorseless, lying, persecuting" credi-
tors-taking away the liberty, and blasting the repu-
tation of men better than themselves.
They say it becomes us, poor debtors, tamely to
wear the chains, and bow our necks to the yoke of
slavery, without making one honourable struggle for
liberty! For myself, however, I swear decidedly to
oppose, by every legal means, this base, degrading
system.
Like the unfortunate Roman debtor, whose history
is recorded by Dyonisius Halicarnassus, who made
his escape from his creditor's house, and appeared
in the forum covered with wounds, I mean to shake
my
chains even in the face of the senate, until, like
him, I restore to my country her long lost civil liberty.
I do not mean to say that all debtors are innocent;
but I will never rest from my labours while I see
them tried condemned and punished by their arbi-
trary and malicious creditors, without the constitu-
tional privilege of a trial by jury.
29
Among the Grecians, more than nine hundred
years before the mild doctrines of our glorious
Saviour were known to mankind, that creditor who
charged his debtor with fraud was obliged to prove
the charge according to law; and if he failed in his
proof, he was considered as a criminal, and punished
with severity; but the debtor was released.
How many debtors who now languish in prison
would immediately breathe the air of liberty; how
many creditors, who maliciously weave the charge
of fraud, would go to jail ;-if boasted Albany were
as enlightened as Athens-and the laws of republican-
Greece governed the United States of America.
I
No. V.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
1 could endure chains, no where, patiently; and chains at
home, where I am FREE by BIRTHRIGHT,—not at all...
It would disgust and shock me!.........
Cowper.
WHEN that great philanthropist, Mr. Howard, of
England, was confined in a gloomy dungeon in
France, much as he suffered for want of wholesome
food and pure air, it was not for himself alone that
his heart was touched with sorrow. As he cast his
cye around upon his fellow prisoners, he saw their
pale and meagre countenances, and forcibly felt the
mingled sensations of horror and pity. Some were
made frantic by despair, and the walls of their dun-
geons echoed with incoherent but expressive re-
proaches to their keepers. Others sunk silently
down on a pallet of straw, and fastening their blood-
stained eyes on Mr. Howard, they expired, the
wretched victims of unfeeling oppression. To the
heart of sensibility, no appeal is so eloquent and
irresistible, as the last look of a dying man; it is an
appeal made on that awful isthmus that separates
time from eternity. It was not lost on Mr. Howard.
Silently and solemnly he vowed before that God
31
F
whom he never ceased to adore, that if HE should be
graciously pleased to preserve his life and grant him
liberty, he would devote the residue of his days to
the noble and glorious task of "giving the prisoner
relief." He performed his vow. He made a "cir-
cumnavigation of charity." He was the pride of
England, the admiration of the world; and poets
and orators united to praise him.
The prison itself would sooner convince men that
imprisonment for debt is morally wrong, than all the
logic that could be used on that subject. Let,
therefore, the most obstinate supporter of the
present laws by some unforseen accidents be in-
volved in debt; let some exasperated creditor
cast him into the miserable receptacle of deb-
tors. Let him witness the scenes of riot, drunken-
ness, debauchery and vice, of a prison. When
the hour of refreshment arrives, there shall be no
food for him-when midnight comes, faint and
famished as he is, he shall have no place of rest.
He shall be sick, but no physicians shall attend him
-be shall tell his sufferings to his keeper-but
instead of sympathy he shall meet with curses. Let
him breathe the air of pestilence in summer, and no
fire shall cheer him in the blast of winter. He shall
subsist on the scattered crumbs of charity, with
just strength enough to drag about his emaciated bo-
dy, and the weight of his miseries shall so exaust the
powers of his mind, that he shall have but just enough
intelligence to understand how abject and wretched
B3
32
he is. When experience, the best teacher in the
world, shall make him thus acquainted with the
subject, on a sudden open the doors of his prison-
give him to snuff the enlivening air of heaven, and
to resuscitate under the invigorating influence of
joyous liberty-send him to the capitol, and let him
sit in the legislature on the grand question, to abo-
lish the degrading system of slavery for debt. If
he vote againt the abolition-he is not a man, but a
fiend he is the inveterate, irredeemable enemy of
liberty.
The advocates for imprisonment for debt ought to
acknowledge, (if I can clearly demonstrate to their
understanding, that the system is neither right nor
expedient,) that forthwith it should be altered or chan-
ged for a better one. Let us see how it operates on
the morals of men.
In the year 1803, the yellow fever raged in this city
with relentless fury. Every where the citizens fled
from the destructive pestilence; the rich resorted to
the seats of fashion and pleasure, the poor sought
refuge in those shelters provided in the suburbs of the
city by the benevolence of our active corporation.—
Humanity exerted herself in favour of eyery class of
the community-except the debtors.
It seems as if this class of people have at all times
been the legitimate heirs of misery, the step-children
of society, whose peculiar lot it is to suffer in secret,
without even the consolation of sympathy.
Those who have never reflected on the subject, do
not know how much the debtor, shut out as he is from
33
all pleasures, values even the slender joy of listening
to the bustle of the busy city. Nor can they well under-
stand how terrible was the gloom that prevailed in
the prison, when pestilence had banished every one
from town, and not a cart was heard to rattle on the
pavements. When the prisoner ascended to the top
of this "castle of indolence," instead of the beauty
and gaiety that wont to enliven the prospect, he saw
the houses and shops every where closed, and every
object seemed to wear the appearence of death and
desolation.
Among the prisoners who endured the indes-
cribable horrors of this season, there was one named
Smith. His wife and two daughters kept a boarding
house in Water street. They were too rich to be
included in the class that was provided for by the
corporation, and too poor to support the expenses of
an exile in the country. They were, however, pre-
paring to tax the friendship and charity of some
of their neighbours for a little loan of money
to enable them to move with their boarders to Green-
wich, when Mr. Smith was arrested for a small debt,
and thrown into prison.
This misfortune disconcerted their plan-the
Reighbours fled, and to increase the miseries of Mrs.
Smith, the boarders, who had hitherto contributed
to her support, fled also.
For a few days Mr. Smith was consoled by the vi-
sits, sometimes of his wife, and sometimes of his
daughters. They brought him food. I witnessed
34
the joy with which he received them-the pain-
ful anxiety with which he awaited their visits-
the relief he felt when he heard they were well
-and above all, the horror which he expressed
when he first heard that his wife was sick with
the fever. His daughter brought him this informa-
tion. She said that no physician would attend her
mother for fear of catching the disease-that doctor
*****
**had prescribed, but without seeing the patient;
that her fever was very violent, and made her some-
times quite delirious. In this season of woe, it was
the task of one of the daughters to take care of the
sick mother, while the other prepared food and carri-
ed it to the father.
Let the gay and licentious stop a moment in the
business of their pleasures, and contemplate the inter-
esting picture of these two daughters, walking thus
unhurt amid the pestilence, in the holy occupations.
of filial duty!
Not
The rest of the tale is told in a few words.
long did they walk unhurt-first one, and then the
other, was seized by this terrible epidemic. And,
will you believe it? reader! no entreaty, no bribe,
within the father's power, could prevail on any one
to go to his house to bring him information of his
family!
I will not undertake to describe the heart-rending
anxiety of that father, nor the horrors and tortures en-
dured by that deserted family-but show me the man
who can say that their sufferings are not more than
35
1
commensurate for the sIN OF DEBT! The first and
fast information this unfortunate father ever received
of his family was in the newspaper. They were bu-
ried in Potter's Field.
The father starved awhile in jail, till, at length,
goaded by his sufferings, he forged a check on the
Manhattan Bank, was transferred to Bridewell, and
from thence, after trial and conviction, was con-
demned to the State Prison for seven years. Soured
by misfortunes, and rendered misanthrophic by un-
merited sufferings, he exulted in his crimes, and
often was heard to advise people rather to be a crim-
inal than a debtor in this country, for that society here
furnished the criminal with the conveniences of life,
while the debtor was suffered to starve. He at
Jength died, the enemy of society, cursing men! And
this is one among the millions of instances in which
slavery for debt has destroyed families, and ruined
the morals of a man, who, under a rational govern-
ment, might have lived, the defender of liberty, and
a disciple of religion.
Unfeeling, cruel, pitiless and remorseless creditors;
and, legislators of New-York, careless, hicedless
and criminal as they, whether yc sleep or wake, may
the spirits of injured Smith and his suffering family
give ye no peace till your hearts shall be touched
with pity, and your eyes be opened to the folly of
your ways.
BA
No. VI.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
Say ye, oppressed by some fantastic woes,
Some jarring nerve, that baffles your repose,
How would you bear in real pain to lie,
Despis'd, neglected left alone to die....... Crabbe.
ALL laws relative to imprisonment for debt are
made for the convenience of trade, and encourage-
meat of commerce. Admitting the laws on this sub-
ject, now in force, to be morally just, and for the
sake of argument only, will I admit them to be so,
let us enquire whether they answer the great object
for which they are made.
For the purpose of securing creditors, the law
allows of arrest and imprisonment for debt in all cases
except that of a citizen having a family who is sued
for a sum under twenty five dollars. Under this au-
thority of law about two thousand five hundred peo-
ple are annually imprisoned for debt in this city only.
Excluding Sundays, this number will average nearly
eight persons per day. What would we say of Hayti
and Tripoli, of France and England, if, for the con-
venience of trade, they should imprison eight of our
citizens per day, and give them the LIBERTY of star-
ving in prison?
!
i
37
Of this number of prisoners, how many are com-
pelled to secure their debtors? this is an important
inquiry, and I venture to say decidedly, that the
answer will be conclusive against the present system.
I have taken great pains to satisfy myself on this
point, and of the last twenty-five hundred, who have
been imprisoned for debt, I defy any one to shew
me fifty instances in which either the debtor or credi-
tor has been benefited by the measure. Admitting, for
the sake of argument, that, in a few solitary cases,
the plaintiff has obtained from the unfortunate
prisoner the amount of his claim-is this a sufficient
reason for all the cruel oppressions of the existing
law? Is the reward of one persecuting creditor, an
atonement for the useless tyranny of twenty? Can
there be justice or liberty in those laws which permit
one persecuting creditor to secure his debt by means
of his cruelties-and at the same time say to the
other nine forbearing and humane creditors, “verily
oppression hath its reward, but ye who have virtue
shall depart without gain."
I knew a merchant whose integrity was never
doubted. Embarrassed by the failure of a friend,
whose security he had been in the regular way of
trade, Mr.Porter, (for so I shall call him) offered the
whole of his property to his creditors, provided they
would consent to give him a discharge. They re-
fused it. He asked a license. The creditors diffe-
red. Some were willing to give him a discharge;
others refused even a license. Then commenced
cl
38
against this man the abominable and DESTRUCTIVE
warfare of the law.
Those only who have become embarrassed by
misfortunes which no human wisdom can guard
against, who, in the keen and bitter agony which
such misfortunes inflict, have honorably offered all
their worldly possessions for their LIBERTY!—who
have felt their last buoyant hope die in their bosoms
at the cruel rejection of that offer-can possibly
conceive what were the feelings of Mr. Porter, when,
for the first time in his life, the horrid perspective
of our dedtors' laws flashed on his imagination. In
France, where we Americans believe there is no
liberty, such a man might rest, with some little hope,
on the mercy of law. In Holland, where we think
they are all slaves, such an offer would guarantee a
man the safety of his person, and the blessed RIGHT
of liberty. In Denmark, the king himself would
have taken care that no creditor, however much his
avarice might thirst for gain, or his vindictive passion
prompt him to persecution, should have dared to
speak even against the reputation of an insolvent, so
blameless and honest as Mr. Porter. But here, in
this land of liberty, science and religion, Mr. Porter
realised the melancholy truth, that no power humane
or divine can save the child of misfortune from the
fangs of leagued oppression, when the hope of gain,
or the pleasure of revenge urges it onward.
As soon as one creditor sued Mr. Porter, another,
and another followed in the chase, till, at last, fearful
39
of losing some advantage by delay, even his friends
turned against him the engine of law.
Woe to the poor man, who in the downhill of for-
tune, is first kicked by one of his fellow beings! It
is the terrible token that gives the children of human-
ity the right to kick him again. Men in prosperity
are like those dolphins which play in the sun; if they
meet with one of their species who has been unfor-
tunately wounded, they chase, worry and destroy
him.
It would astonish the sticklers for our present
laws to see what joy there was among the lawyers
at the immense increase of law business on Mr.
Porter's failure. They issued writ after writ; receiv-
ed their fees; put them in their pockets, and
smiled most graciously on the equity of laws. The
sheriff gravely distributed the writs, the deputies
laughed, while the jailor and the turnkeys chuckled
with delight.
It is worthy of remark, that lawyers, sheriff's
deputies, clerks, jailors, turnkeys, justices, constables
and marshals, are the only gentry who derive any
very great benefit from our present insolvent laws.
It is not their fault. But the legislature ought to blush
at the negligence which year after year delays a
remedy for such disgraceful evils.
Mr. Porter gave bail to the first writ, then to the
second; but they came too rapidly upon him. He
went to jail. Every creditor aimed to secure his
own individual debt. Our law allows this. Some
40
made proposals to compound-others threatned.
He would willingly have yielded all his possessions
for the benefit of the whole of his creditors, provided
they would discharge him. No suffering could move
him to make a partial payment. He was inflexibly
honest and faithful to the whole-and thereupon
every body called him a very great cheat, who had
property and would not pay his debts-but lived in
a most splendid style-in jail!
After that man had been eight years in the prison
of the city and county of New-York, his creditors
proposed to give him his liberty for his first offer! Let
the adorers of our present 'wise and mild provisions
for debtors and creditors,' remember his reply:
"No!" said he, while his proud heart swelled with
becoming indignation, "give me back the many years
I have lived a prisoner in this land of liberty-restore
to me the reputation which you have blasted forever
-re-invigorate my broken constitution, and heal,
if you can, my wounded spirit-then-perhaps-
I will accept your tender mercies, and, once more,
venture naked on a cruel world!"
Thus it is, that under our "wholesome law" a cre-
ditor wants his money and cannot obtain it if the
debtor refuses; that the debtor sighs in vain for his
freedom when his creditors say he shall live in SLA-
VERY !
Sons of Columbia! It is said that I appeal to your
feelings and not to your reason, on a question of
liberty. On such a question I disdain the American
4 1
who tampers for a moment with the logic of tyrants.
They have put their foot upon my neck, and ask me
"to SHEW CAUSE." I remonstrate against their cru-
elties-and they demand my reasons! But let it be
remembered that argument was a trick used by op-
pression in seventy-six-and that America might
have lost her liberty if her elevated spirit had stooped
to parley with the foes of freedom.
1
c2
No. I.
DIOGENES TO HOWARD.
SIR,
You must not presume that I come forth as the im-
passioned opponent of the abolition system you have
so long, and in vain, labored to support, but rather
extend that liberal charity towards me you have ge-
nerously tendered to the man who " honestly uses
the right of expressing his own opinion;' and I beg, at
the same time, to be allowed a share of that oppo-
sition "which springs out of a zealous and earnest
desire for truth and justice,” and which you are de-
termined, at all hazards, to indulge yourself.
"
You will find in me neither passion, hypocrisy
or unfeeling oppression;" these ridiculous, hated and
inhuman qualities have never yet had possession of
my soul, and God forbid they ever should. At pre.
sent I am dispossessed of "prejudices or growling
ill-nature;" and if sometimes I am overcome with
the latter failing, it is excited by the follies or villa-
nies of mankind. For this, I shall never deserve the
lash from any corporal in the service of Civil Liberty,
nor hide myself for fear of being exposed to the
gripe of your merciless clutches.
At present I feel good-humored enough to give
due acknowledgement to the pathetic, feeling and
humane numbers, which have flowed so movingly
1
43
from your pen, and must confess have symphathised
with you in the misfortunes and distress of the few of
Our fellows you have described; have checked and
chid the involuntary tear while rolling down my
cheek, and, in a pet with myself for my weakness,
bethink me that this rant is ever the production of
some interested impostor, calculated to awaken the
pity and take advantage of the feeling of sympathising
credulity. Still I would as readily extend my hand
for their alleviation as yourself; and I regret much
that the laws cannot be framed for the honest but
unfortunate debtor exclusively, without allowing the
greedy, wicked and profligate class of society to par-
ticipate in their lenity. But instances are rare, in
this city, where the industrious and worthy man is
an example of the cruelty and inhumanity of our
civil code. I would ask if nine tenths of the objects
of your tender concern have not brought themselves
to that grave of liberty, which you are pleased to
reprobate in such delusive and high-sounding terms,
by their own misconduct and folly? Must the kna-
vish abandoned rake riot in debauchery-be let
loose as a prowling beast to prey upon the unwary—
to riot in luxury, and fatten in idleness from the
earnings of the industrious? Where the prisons
thrown open as you propose, and that horde of vil-
lains and lazy impostors let loose upon society, they
would spread like a contagion, and one half the
country would be the poor drudging caterers for the
maintainance of the other half of idle vagabonds.
What insecurity would it not produce-what confu-
4 4
Bion-what distrust! The mechanic would be cau-
tious at engaging in any work, fearful that when
he had completed it he would not be paid for his
labour. The trader would be equally suspicious that
the man, who at this moment is bargaining for his
goods, at the next may walk off with them under
his arm without the fear of ever being brought to an
account for them-for where is the remedy?
You say that it were better that ten guilty persons
should be set at liberty, than that one innocent
should suffer in this way. Granted-in the evil would
stop there. But, were these ten suffered to finish
their earthly career in the same 'improvident and
licentious manner, they would be the very means
of bringing ten times ten honest and worthy citizens
to that jail of wretchedness from which you are
fighting to liberate others.
No, sir! there is no instance where Pope's partial
evil poiats more immediately to universal good; and
the present syestem is the only one from which we
can make a nice discrimination of the trust-worthy
part of mankind. It points out the greedy knave
desirous of enriching himself by the credulity of less
artful meu ; the lazy vagabond, who had rather lie
in prison a month than pay a trfling debt by a
week's labour: the debased prostitute (of which our
prison has its full proportion) who is totally careless
what ruin she is the instrument of, or who suffers to
contribute to her extravagant and indolont existence
―These, by being pent up for our inspection, are
45
not only examples, and serve as a beacon to warn
the giddy, in the hurricane of life, from trusting their
barks to the same channel; but, the industrious
sober citizen, toiling for the support of his family,
and with the hopes of having something provided for
a rainy day or the decrepitude of old age, may guard
against disappointments, and probably his ruin.
No person, sir, can be a more strenuous advocate
for liberty than myself-none more interested in her
cause; no breast heaves higher-no heart throbs
with more ardent love for this my happy country,
the treasure and guardian of that heavenly blessing.
And I think that nothing would tend more to its
corruption and extinction-to anarchy and despo-
tism, than that unbounded licentiousness which your
system seems calculated to produce. It is the
policy of all governments to keep its citizens in
subjection; not that they should become the slaves
of tyrants, but merely the subject of the laws. Lib-
erty does not consist of doing what we please-to
live without any civil restraint, as you would seem
to advocate; but in adhering to that which the law
enjoins, which secures the independence of each
individual; and in obedience to these restrictions,
every man may live in the enjoyment of equal liberty.
Your invective against the lawyers, &c. I sub-
scribe to with all my heart. They are the vultures
that fatten on the weakness, distress and folly of
their fellows—
"Sticking like lecches till they burst with blood."
}
4 6
Many of the poor wretches who are now the objects
of your commiseration, have at last found themselves
the victims of their artifice, and the dupes af a mis-
placed confidence in those voracious hyenas of the
law. If the legislature would exterminate this poi-
Ison from our state, society would be much more
happy, more harmonised, and less subject to com-
motions and fomentations.
No. VII.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
'Tis fortune brings us to the fate you see ;
And your condition may be soon like mine-
The child of sorrow and of misery............Anon.
HAVING perused the letter addressed to me -by
DIOGENES, jun. with much attention, because every
essay on the subject of imprisonment for debt is, at
this moment, especially worthy of the notice of all
the citizens of United America, I permit myself
to be diverted from the plan which I had predetermi-
ned to pursue, and devote a little of my time to the
task of replying to that gentleman.
As Diogenes of Pontus was a half-mad, misanthropic
snarling philosopher, I feel, as becomes a christian,
all the charity which Diogenes, jun. is entitled to on
account of his hereditary churlishness; and as he says
he is in a good humour governed by a zealous and
earnest desire for truth and justice only, and "dis-
possessed of all prejudice and ill-nature," I shall take
him at his word.
To excite the tear of sympathy is Howard's desire;
to "check it in a pet" is a part worthy of Diogenes.
That I have caused a tear to flow from the eye of any
་
4 8
human being by the unadorned narrative of a debtor's
misery, is to me a most grateful evidence that I have
not "laboured in vain." But that I have wrung a tear
from a cold, calculating misanthrope, from one whose
cynic nature had prejudged me "an interested impos-
tor," while he yielded to my story till he wept-this is
a triumph far exceeding my most sanguine expecta-
tion, and more than rewards me for what I have done.
With such indubitable testimony of the success of my
Essays, I feel my bosom animated by the fresh hopes:
nor can I believe Diogenes, when he says that I labor
in vain.
Admitting for a moment that "nine tenths of the
objects of my tender concern have brought them-
selves to the grave of liberty by their own "miscon-
duct and folly."-Let me ask, is a man's liberty to be
taken away for years on account of misconduct and
folly? If so, Diogenes I pray thee beware! Even thy
nature may not be perfect; and if misconduct or folly
should chance "in the hurricane of life" to lodge thee
in these gloomy cells, where I have languished sixteen
years, thou mayst find, too late perhaps, that the
punishment is by far too excessive for such venial
offences.
Let me tell you, sir, for it seems you are not aware
ofit, that the debtor's suffering is far more severe than
the most abandoned criminal's. They both alike are
doomed to confinement; but the criminal has a cell
more comfortable, or rather, less wretched than that
of a debtor, The criminal has excellent food provi-
49
ded by the state; the debtor may starve unless the
humane choose to give him sustenance. A comforta-
ble fire cheers the confined criminal in winter, and
the law supplies him with good cloathing, bed and
bedding. The debtor has no fire-no clothes-no bed
or bedding. Cold, cheerless and miserable, he suffers
through the inclemency of our seasons, or dies the
wretched victim of oppression. Under the benevo-
lent care of that most worthy class of citizens, the
FRIENDS, the state prisoner passes his days in cheer-
ful labour, and in some degree is useful to the state;
but the prisoner for debt is condemned to absolute in-
dolence is useless to his country, and a burthen to
himself. They both are alike sufferers in infamy; for
even you, sir, charitable as you are, believe every per-
secuted debtor an "abandoned knave," and, every
friend of that injured class of people "an interested
impostor." You will answer, perhaps, that our pri-
soners for debt do not starve, because the Humane
Society give them soup once in twenty-four hours.—
You, even you, Diogenes junior' the unfeeling or un-
thinking advocate of the present inhuman system of
laws, must admit that if the forlorn condition of deb-
tors is so touching as to move the compassion of a
body corporate, this circumstance alone is such a shoc-
king stigma on the character of the state, that it ought
to raise a blush on the countenance, and strike a pang
of remorse to the heart of every friend of his country.
I know not how to speak in terms sufficiently indig-
nant against the shameful injustice of those laws,
which carefully provide all the necessaries of life for
c3
50
the midnight incendiary-for the wretch who endan-
gers life by burning the city, while they thrust hordes
of men, guiltless at least of crime, into a dungeon to
starve, or drag a loathsome existence, dependant on
the stinted gifts of charity.
Diogenes says that "instances are rare, where the
industrious and worthy man is an example of the cru-
elty and inhumanity of our civil code." Who are the
judge of the worth and industry of debtors? A jury
of peers?—No. An impartial and disinterested judge?
-No. Is the debtor in any shape whatever put upon
trial? Does he confront his accuser, and face to face
meet the charge of misconduct and folly?—No. Does
he hear the voice, or see the countenance of a witness
against him?—No.-These are the privileges of cri-
minals, not of debtors. These are blessed bulwarks
raised by the sages and heroes of the revolution, to
guard against the encroachments of despotism, and
protect every class of American citizens, excepting
debtors! These are the hereditary legacies of our no-
ble fathers, sealed with their life-blood, and guaran-
teed by the constitution to every being but the" pri-
soner for debt." Terribly and cruelly does he feel
the arm of oppression, but he cannot meet it. The
unseen stroke of an interested, angry and furious
power cleaves down his liberty and breaks his spirit.
It is triumphantly asked "if the knavish and aban-
doned rake must riot in debauchery ?" I answer, that
he must be very short-sighted who cannot see that
"the rake riots in debauchery," and "fattens on the
5 1
industry of others" notwithstanding the "partial evil,”
and "universul good" of the present system. For so
defective are our laws that "hordes of villains," "lazy
impostors," and defrauding USURERS, are let loose
upon society, while very many of their unfortunate
victims are cast into confinement.
Yet, admitting that the present system is intended
to bear down only the "greedy knaves," "the lazy
vagabonds," and the debased prostitutes," let me ask
who now determines the fact of "guilty or not guilty?"
The person, of all others in the world, the least ca-
pable of doing impartial justice to the case. The
exasperated creditor himself determines the fact of
criminality, on the issue of which hangs the liberty,
the happiness and even the life of a free-born citizen
of America. And, now I appeal to the candor of
Diogenes, junior, and ask if his own judgment does
not declare, that a law which suffers a single interes-
ted individual to nod away the personal and absolute
rights of his fellow citizens in a case where all the
bad passions play without any legal restraint, whether
such law is not immoral, unreasonable, unconstitu-
tional, irreligious, and unworthy the support of Dio-
genes, junior.
I assert fearlessly that he who justifies the present
system, is either ignorant of its nature, or vicious in
his heart. No man of humanity can approve of a
law which permits an arbitrary creditor to bereave a
man of his liberty, and starve him in jail, even allow.
ing the debtor to be as guilty as the murderer.
5 2
Much less can the well-informed advocate for lib-
erty tolerate the existence of an unconstitutional sta-
tute, which by possibility only, may place the per-
sonal liberty of a citizen at the mere MERCY of any
one man, or any conspiracy of interested men.
Fatal experience has taught us that "if once it
were left in the power of any one man arbitrarily to
imprison another, there would soon be an end to all
rights and immunities." A justly celebrated writer
has said, that "unjust attacks, even upon life or
property at the arbitrary willjof a man, are less dange-
rous to a republic, than such as are made upon the
personal liberty of a citizen. To bereave a man of
life by the violence, or unjustly to take away his
estate without accusation or trial, would be so gross
and notorious an act of despotism as must at once
convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the state:
but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying
him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or
forgotten, is a less public, a less stricking, and, there-
fore, a more dangerous engine of arbitrary govern-
ment."
I cannot agree with my friend Diogenes, when
he says that the legislature ought to "exterminate" the
lawyers from our state! "They are better and worse
than other men." But this is a question foreign
from my subject.
On the ground of argument I shall meet Diogenes
junior with pleasure, to discuss any question arising
out of the present system of laws. I say they are not
1
53
only a partial, but a universal evil, productive of no
good. And I am pleased to learn that the respecta-
ble body of the grand jury of the city and county of
New-York, and the Humane Society also, who have
visited our jail, and are acquainted with the effects of
the present laws, differing a little in opinion from
Diogenes junior, have with a philanthropy and zeal
becoming enlightened freemen, denounced the sys-
sem as a public grievance.
No. II.
SIR,
DIOGENES TO HOWARD
[
You have concluded a very lengthy argument,
in the last Saturday's Columbian, by throwing the
gauntlet to Diogenes junior. This is a little unexpec-
ted, as I could scarcely believe you would for a no-
ment be diverted from your humane purpose to reply
to one who possesses all the misanthropic snarling qua-
lities of his great primogenitor-the ancient Grecian.
Would I were the hereditary heir of his understanding,
his energy, magnanimity and firmness of mind.
feel myself much deficient in intellect even to reply
to Howard on a subject which is well adapted to en-
list the partialities of the better part of mankind for
a trifling bounty: else would I convince him, whose
heart, melting at the first tender impression, is unable
to bear the weight of logical reasoning, that should
the cause he is engaged in ever succeed, it would soon
plunge us into every species of disorder, and bring
down the execrations of every worthy and well mea-
ing citizen on its projectors.
You have the winning side of the argument-conse-
quently every possible advantage. Well may you
exult in the effect your moving essays have had upon
their leaders, and of drawing a flinty tear from the
55
eye of Diogenes junior-the "cold calculating mi-
santhrope." This, sir, is an evidence of the power-
ful influence a melting and pathetic tale of ideal dis-
tress has upon our nature. It is also a proof, that if
we are drowned in tears at the relation of fictitious
misery, no wretch, however deserving his fate and
our neglect, will be suffered to perish in want of the
common necessaries of life in this land, where liberty
dwells in as perfect refinement as the disposition of
man, and the laws which are necessary for our mu-
tual security and convenience will admit of.
Stern, undeviating justice shall ever be the policy
I adopt and would recommend. Still I have a heart
humane, benevolent and indulgent to the weaknesses
of my fellows. To correct their vices will always be
to me a most pleasing task. For stubborn folly, and
unrelenting villany 1 have no jot of charity. I will
never advocate a measure that is not calculated to
lighten the load of miseries which misfortune bur-
thens us with. I have already stated my objections
to letting loose prisoners for debt, and abolishing the
system entirely; it is therefore unnecessary to repeat
them, or to descant any longer upon the evils and con-
fusion it would too certainly produce. If this law is
abolished we may as well lay aside all others, and
return to our original barbarity. The uncultivated
savage, who knows no law but that of nature, and
strictly obeys that, cannot fail to be happy. He follows
the dictates of his conscience, which is the only law
that restrains him. If he gives his fellow pain, he is
D1
5.6
well aware that his fellow has the power of retaliating
and paying him in his own coin, without any appeal
to judge or jury to decide upon the measure or pro-
portion. Necessity, therefore, compels him to adopt
the christian maxim, "do unto others as you would
they should do unto you.”
Laws are the band which binds society together,
and secures to us the advantages and blessing of so-
cial intercourse: none should be countenanced but
those which have a tendency to promote the public
good; none abolished which have heretofore regu-
lated society, and have proved salutary and conve-
nient for the prosecution of business, without substi-
tuting others equally effective.
You observe that the grand jury have denounced
the present system as a public grievance. If there
is a remedy, without producing a greater evil, I will
be among the first to advocate it. I Diogenes-cy-
nic, as you are pleased to call me-unfeeling, un-
thinking Diogenes-am intent upon. and labouring
with as much zeal as Howard to raise man to the
perfection of gods-that they may enjoy every hap-
piness of which their imperfect natures are suscepti-
ble; and where reason proves ineffectual, satire and
ridicule are brought in array to produce the intended
effect. But let them beware, lest in repairing the
fabric they leave something unfinished, or substitute
unstable materials, and the whole edifice comes
tumbling about our cars, to their shame and confu-
sion.
57
It is an easy task to address the passions, aml
awaken sympathy and compassion. The instroduction
of a pathetic story-of a prisoner starving in con-
finement-his wife clinging round his neck-his
children at his feet petitioning for bread-bereft of
his liberty, and encountering all the horrors of his
situation, without one gleam of hope, one glimmering
ray of comfort to support him in his adversity-these
are pretty stories for the entertainment of children
by the winter's fire-side, but they lose their effect
on a moment's reflection, with the conviction that
incidents of that nature are never to be met with a-
mong us. I believe you cannot produce one in-
stance (and well you might have anticipated this re-
ply) where an individual has either starved with cold
or hunger under our present cruel, inhuman and bar-
barous laws.
You have exultingly brought forward and con-
trasted the situation of the criminal with that of the
debtor-that the life-blood of our revolutionary sages
has cemented the bulwarks which guard the privi-
leges and protect the rights of criminals, while the
prisoner for debt is totally neglected disregarded-
left unprotected to the mercy of an inhuman, unre-
lenting, merciless creditor, at whose disposal is his
liberty and even his life. Barbarians! monsters!
To think that sages and heroes should provide a coin-
fortable establishment for the midnight incendiary
and every outcast pest of society, and leave the un-
fortunate prisoner for debt a prey to wretchedness,
and his very existence dependant on the stinted
5 8
gift of a cold capricious charity." Here the wretch
whom necessity urges to forge a check for a trifling
mount to relieve him from his embarrassments; per-
haps a wife hangs weeping over him, or children
asking bread, have driven him to this act of desper-
ation; he is drove in with the common herd, indul-
gently provided with "a coat of many colors,"
(which by the bye his proud heart may indignantl y
spurn) and set to hard labor at a daily task, by way
of drawing out a cheerful existence in a place and on
terms which his noble nature revolts at. There, the
rioting spendthrift, whose prodigality has reduced
an aged parent to beggary, and entailed misery on
many an orphan sister, is finally stopped in his career
by some savage creditor, whom his impertinence has
insulted, or his debauched life disgusted, and is shut
up in the debtors' jail, where if he is too lazy to
work and enjoy the luxuries of life, (and employ-
ment of some kind can always be procured) he lives
by the bounty of the charitable societies of the city.
He has no lash hanging over his head to compel him
to labour, no degrading badge to mark him for a
slave, and mock his misery; and if his regret at the
loss of liberty is not more poignant than that of the
prisoner described by Goldsmith, I cannot conceive
that his situation is much more deplorable than thou-
sands of his fellows that drudge from day to day for
the support of a wearied existence. To be sure,
confinement may at first be a little disagreeable to
one who has long fluttered on the wing of sensual
:
59
pleasure; but if any thing will reform him, this is
the place where he will have time to collect his scat-
tered senses, to reflect on his past life; and as the
finger of scorn is not pointed at him, as is the fate of
the degraded criminal, but his follies overlooked
with the eye of pity, he may in time become an in-
dustrious and useful citizen.
I am not inclined to charity for the man who
through sullen resentment or obstinate whim, en-
counter the horrors of confinement, where the downy
sopha stands ready to receive his indolent carcase, or
the luxurious sideboard groans with the weight of
every dainty that can gratify the appetite or provoke
the taste, when his creditors (probably industrious
Mechanics,) are depriving themselves of the com-
forts of life in order to remedy the derange-
ment his avarice or stubborn pride has inade in
their affairs. He is not an object of compassion,
even though he should languish thrice sixteen years.
in those gloomy cells.
D 2
1
No. VIII.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD,
BY A PRISONER.
But ah! what wish can prosper, or what pray'r
For Merchants, rich in cargoes of despair,
Who drive a loathsome traffic, gage
and span,
And buy the muscles, and the bones of man ?…..Cowper.
However stern, relentless Justice may censure the
conduct of debtors, Goodness and Mercy ought not
to desert them. For my own part, I have so long
been an eye witness to their unmerited sufferings,
that I know and fearlessly assert, that Justice herself,
in her most rigid decisions, would never inflict a pun-
ishment half so severe as that endured by the prisoner
for debt.
So far from this is the real fact, that JUSTICE weeps
over the miseries of our debtors, and blushes for
shame to think of the wrongs which are committed
under the sanction of her name.
Know, therefore, Diogenes jun. and the ignorant
and vicious part of the community, who, like him,
are the unblushing adv cates for oppression and
misery, know that justice disclains you, and frowns
with indignation to see you prostituting her holy
name to the purposes of vice. It is a trick of sin to
61
assume the semblance of virtue. No tyrant ever yet
ventured his first steps towards oppression without
talking of justice: and no enemy of liberty ever yet
opposed the struggle of her sons to throw off the yoke
of slavery without talking of the "confusion and dis-
order" it would produce, just like Diogenes.
I care but little what others may choose to think
of tricks like those; but when a man tells me that
thousands of my brothers must languish in prison for
debt, without food, and deprived of every comfort
that makes life valuable, and backs this impudent as-
sertion with an uncouth attempt to ridicule me, for
believing otherwise, I have a right to call upon the
moral and religious, the liberal and the good, to join
me in denouncing him. It is such beings as Diogenes,
that in all ages, and in all countries, have impeded
the progress of liberty, science and virtue. It was
just such pseudo patriots who persecuted Galileo for
introducing "confusion and disorder," by the lights
of science, and such hypocrites who affected to be-
lieve Faustus was leagued with Satan, because he
invented the glorious art of printing.
Among all the shameless supporters of vice, I
never knew one, except Diogenes jun. who dared
publicly to sneer at a person for cherishing pity for
a starving debtor. Nor have I met with one en-
lightened man who did not readily admit that our
debtors' laws are very defective, and in many re-
spects inhuman and oppressive. The indolence of
the legislature suffers them to exist, and it is only the
ignorant or the vicious who speak in their favour.
6 9
It is a fact, that the law protect neither the liberty
of the debtor nor the interest of the creditor. This
fact is proved by the experience of debtors and credi-
tors, and any man in the least acquainted with the
history of our debtors' prison, knows this to be a
truth. It is useless to reason to prove a fact so noto-
rious. What shall we say of that man who, in the
very face of such a solemn and conclusive fact, has
the unblushing impudence to support the present sys-
tem? How can we dare to sleep under laws which
sport with the liberty of citizens, yet do not guard the
interests of trade; which practice oppression under
the mask of justice, and strip commerce of her rights
under the semblance of protection!
}
Let it be remembered, that in opposing the pre-
sent system, I advocate not merely the rights of deb-
tors, but the interests of creditors also. And in do-
ing this, I oppose inhuman cruelty, contend for good
policy, and feel assured that justice herself, the spirit
of our constitution, and the voice of humanity, are
all in my favor, Well. therefore, may every opponent
say, that I have the "winning side of argument, and
consequently every probable advantage." Well may
they say, that they lack ability to answer me.
I am
the more confident in my assertions, because they
are founded in those principles of liberty and religion
taught me by my ancestors; and they are supported.
by the opinion of philosophers, statesmen, sages and
divines.
The learned Dr. Samuel Johnson, that giant of
English literature, whose authority in ethics is uni-
6 3
versally admitted to be genuine, has declared, that
"the confinement of any debtor in the sloth and
darkness of a prison, is a loss to the nation, and no
gain to the creditor; for of the multitude who are
pining in those cells of misery, a very small part only
is suspected of any fraudulent act by which they RE-
TAIN What belongs to others. The rest are impri-
soned by the wantonness of pride, the malignity of
revenge, or the acrimony of disappointed expecta-
tion." That great orator and statesmen, Edmund
Burke, laboured much to abolish imprisonment for
debt entirely. "I know," said he, "that credit
must be preserved; but EQUITY must be preserved
also; and it is impossible that any thing should be
necessary to commerce which is inconsistent with Jus-
TICE." He was speaking of English laws similar to
ours, and he said they were so savage, and so incon-
venient to society, that parliament, to be relieved
from the dreadful evil of its own regulation, was
obliged at times, to set open all the prisons of Eng-
land. "There was not room enough to hold the
victims of its own absurd laws."
But," said he, "if the creditor has a RIGHT to
the CARCASE of a debtor, the legislature is wrong to
deprive him of that security. And if HUMAN FLESII
is not necessary to his security, you have no right to
detain the unfortunate debtor without any benefit at
all to the person who confined him. Take it as you
will, we commit INJUSTICE."
In the same memorable speech, that noble orator
exclaimed, “If insolvency be no crime, why is it
64
punished with arbitrary imprisonment? if It be a
CRIME, why is it delivered into PRIVATE hands to
pardon without discretion, or to punish without MER-
cy and without MEASURE?" Such were the opin-
ion of Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke. Surely
they are equal in weight to the untaught lispings of
Diogenes junior, and deserves the respect of all the
little advocates for imprisonment of debtors.
((
Whoever asserts that the abolition of the system
"will plunge us into every species of disorder,"
knows nothing of the history of nations or the nature
of laws. Whoever says that it will "bring down the
execrations of the worthy," slanders the worthy, and
deserves their contempt. I again resort to the au-
thority of Burke.
Holland," be says, "under-
stands trade as well as we do, and there was not,
when Mr. Howard visited Holland, more than one
prisoner for debt in the great city of Rotterdam,"
And this is a stricking proof that trade may flourish
without the AID of our debtors' laws, and that there
is no need of an ALLIANCE between the counting
house and the gaol." France, Sweden and Denmark
have nearly abolished the barbarous custom of con-
finement for debt; yet it produces no "disorder,” and
"the worthy'' approve of the policy.
But here, in America! where we boast of VIRTUE
and LIBERTY, I attempt to relate the sufferings of a
prisoner. It falls far short of the real picture; yet
it draws a tear from the eye of misanthropy itself
However he checks it in a pet," calls me an “in-
poster," and says "every debtor is a knave." I a
05
sifer',
"knave or no knave he ought not to starve,”
and am told in reply, that because Diogenes wept
over my story, I may rest assured that no man can
possibly be permitted to starve in this land, where
liberty is so perfect that the debtor does not deserves
to enjoy it. Then my opponent blusters about his
Own “stern undeviating JUSTICE." flatters himself
that he is a wonderful "humane man," declares, how-
ever, that he will never release a prisoner for debt-
abhor that horrid, savage state where people are
compelled by necessity to be good christians, and
"to do as they would be done by," cuts an unintelli-
gible caper about a "criminal and a debtor,"` makes
agrand flourish in favour of our laws, and at last
sinks snugly into a downy sopha," hard by
luxurious side-board," and solemnly declares that he
does not pity any body who has been "even thrice
sixteen years in prison!"
a
Such is the course pursued by Diogenes junior,
who opposes me in my humane purpose of alleviat-
ing the sad condition of unfortunate debtors. Like
one of those flies which Providence has formed for
no use but to buzz about the ears and try the pa-
tience of man, he flutters in the face of Burke and
Liberty, of Humanity and Johnson, and plays with
delight on his tiny wing, well pleased to think that
he has, for a moment, checked the purposes, and dis-
turbed the contemplations of Howard.
And now, whoever this Diogenes junior is, I ad-
vive him to lay aside his pen, and keep his real name
an imperishable secret. For as sure as cruelty is
66
hateful, and benevolence amiable, if he suffers his
name to be known, he shall be despised as one who
basely attempted to ridicule the miserable condition
of debtors, and be hated as the advocate for cruelty,
till the littleness of his fame is lost in oblivion.
For myself, I pity and forgive him. I am a hoary
headed prisoner, bending under the weight of years,
and rapidly sinking into the grave, a wretched vic-
tim of that wicked policy which all wise and good
men abhor. My errors may have deserved the cen-
sure of the just, but I know they never merited those
keen sufferings which appal the fortitude and cripple
the towering spirit of man.
With these remarks I bid farewell to Diogenes for-
ever. When we meet at that bar where the creditor's
SCEPTRE and the debtor's CRIMES shall appear in a
different light from that in which they are now view-
ed by the purblind eyes of TRADE, I pray that the
"stern undeviating JUSTICE" which Diogenes and
all his coadjutors here contend for, may be made to
yield its sword into the hands of that MERCY which
now they despise.
No. IX.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
"Sooner shall whirlwinds rock the sea to rest,
And mothers stab their sucklings at the breast,
Than GOD his timely succour shall withold
From those oppress'd with hunger, thirst, and cold."
Noyes' Poem on Distress.
FOR several weeks past I have been so sick that I
was unable to write down my ideas on the barbarous
custom of imprisonment for debt.
1
During that violent snow-storm which fell about
the first of November, and which was so unseasonably
severe as to appal the hearts of the poor, and make
even the rich merchants of our city anxious for their
ADVENTURES—the miserable debtors of our prison
were without fuel.
Whatever legislators and creditors may think, there
is no debtor so very a knave but what cold and hunger
may do him harm. When I was young, and the
blood flowed rapidly in my veins-when hope, free-
dom, and fortune, smiled upon my days, I laughed at
hardships and privations. But now that my limbs are
old, and I have long suffered the horrors of confine-
ment, I feel that my once ambitious spirit is cloven
down, and I have lost that and my feedom by the
same cruel blow.
D3
63
1
I have endured the miseries of sickness in a prison.
Whatever may be the merits or demerits of a fellow
being, our religion commands that in sickness we
should pity and succour him. And, under that afflic-
tion, among feeling people, he is an object of com-
passion, even though he has all the aid which art can
give, and all the luxury that wealth can purchase.--
Let me then ask an enlightened and religious commu-
nity to reflect a little upon the appalling influence of
sickness on a prisonner in our debtor's jail. Day after
day, and night after night, he suffers pain, and no
physician attends him-no nurse administers to his re-
lief-no fire warms, and no friends consoles him.-
The Humane Society, thanks to their excellent be-
nevolence! send him food once in twenty-four hours;
but the feeble palate of a sick and miserable man
turns at the sight of common sustenance, and longs
for something palatable.
My malady kept me often awake at midnight.
When all the city was asleep, save the solitary
watchman who called the passing hours as they flew,
and, lying, said that "all was well," I was wont to
reflect upon the strange and wayward dispostion of
inan. -He is surrounded, thought I, by dangers and
misfortunes; want attacks him on this side, sick-
ness on that-
on that--and yet, instead of uniting with
his fellow-creatures to protect himself against the
common foe, he sows the seed of discord, and
quarrels with his brother: like the two lewd wo-
men of Venice, who were seen fighting with each
other, while the city was convulsed by an eartquake.
69
What should we say of a creditor who, when the
earth was on fire, should deliberately confine his deb-
tor in a dungeon? How shall a creditor answer for
his cruelty at the bar of justice, in that awful hour
when all earthly things shall be consumed forever!
Surely there is a God. Surely man will be called
to acccount. And he whose merciless nature has
locked me in this dungeon, where now I languish in
sickness, and shall dye unattended, will be asked in a
mighty voice, "Why hast thou done THIS sin?" My
creditor professes to be a Christian, and, I believe,
attends divine service regularly at St. Paul's. Weekly
as the sabbath rolls around, he prays that Heaven
will "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors""
Father of MERCIES, take not the letter of his pray-
er, but forgive him truly, as-even now-sick and
persecuted as I am-I do. When death shall have
sealed his lips forever, and his love of gold, and ma-
lice for me, shall have perished with him, let him not,
because he hath insulted thy throne by hypocritical
petitions, be blasted in thy sight forever!
During my sickness I have not been without my
consolations. It seems that when men wickedly
conspire to take away the happiness of a fellow being,
God, who is better than men, disappoints their
malice, and gives the most folorn son of misery occa-
sionally to chew the food of "sweet as well as bitter
fancies."
I was made to smile in my sorrow, by the flattering
letters which I have received from different parts of
the Union, on the subject of any Essays, and by the
kindness of Mr Holt, who, from time to time, has
70
*
sent me papers from all the states wherein my num-
hers have been published.
Information that the Humane Society were ma-
king laudable exertions for a reformation of our deb-
tors' laws, and that the people themselves were
taking a zealous part in this great concern, has chee-
red me in the gloomy hour of most oppressive sic-
kness. But I must own that nothing has contributed
so much to revive my sinking spirit, and so directly
touched my heart with delight, as a letter which I
received from some unknown person, enclosing me
a small trifle, with these words written on the cover:
"From a WIDOw, whose Husband died in a Debtors' jail, to
HOWARD, a Prisoner, sick-but not friendless."
When I opened this letter and read the inscription.
pale and emaciated as I was, tears of joy streamed
down my old wrinkled cheeks. I fell back upon my
pallet of straw, and in spite of confinement, for a
few precious moments, thought myself happy.
I had began to think that malignity had usurped
the throne of empire, not only over bloody Europe,
but peaceful America. Let me rejoice, then, that
pity holds an office in the state, and sometimes, by
stealth, pours balm into the heart which malignity
hath wounded.
Some philosophers have asserted, that men are the
offspring of chance, growing out of the dirt. Others
have quarrelled with that sect on this point, and warm-
ly contend that man is descended from the deity
himself. When we consider the mean and wicked
passions which govern men we are tempted to
}
71
believo with the former, that such low and grovelling
natures could have originated on ly from the ground;
but here and there a good man rises up, like a light
in the wilderness, and gives us spirit to hope, and
faith to believe, that we are beings of a better, origin.
My wish is to induce all the good men to unite
under the standard of TRUTH, to support HUMANITY
against the attacks of CRUElty. And since the
world is full of sophistry, and the enemy will use all
possible means to persuade us that CRUELTY is nessa-
ry to the state, let the good resolve, as an article of
their association, according to the great Addison,
"with their lives and fortunes" "firmly to support the
doctrine, that white is not black, and black is not
white,"
No. X.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
If the debtor die in execution, you may, after his death, take
out a new execution against his estate, in the same man
ner as if the body of the deceased had never been seized !...
Laws of New-York. vol. 1, p. 392. Passed 31st March,
1801.
A Writer who has taken up the pen against me
has blamed me severely for exposing the cruelty of
our debtors' laws.
A patriotic pride blushes to confess, that, however
great the crimes of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Geor-
gia, may be, towards their slaves, ours towards our
own brother whites shamefully exceed them. I have
beard a recital of a southern planter's severity, but
while indignation was rising in my bosom, the thought
of a creditor's inhumanity has suddenly checked
the emotion, and changed it into that of shame, to
think that we in the north are worse than they of the
south. Therefore while the above statute exists, let
no New-Yorker throw slavery in the teeth of a Vir-
ginian.
It is not uncommon for a creditor here to seize a
debtor, tear him from his frightened family, throw him
73
into jail, hold him there until he dies, and, then, un-
der the law of this state, take the little remnant of
funiture, cloths and bedding, from the widow, and
turn the orphan helpless on the world.
It is such facts that warrant me in saying, there is
no comparison between the situation of that poor
being whose body in the hour of adversity may, at
any moment, be imprisoned, at the whim of creditors,
and that of the enslaved African.
The African is sure that his master will give him
his play time, his food and his raiment-the debtor
droops in his dungeon—and raiment and food are
both denied him; the former breaths the free air,
and treads the scented fields of nature through the
day, and when evening comes, sleeps in security-
the latter, shut out from the cheering light of heaven,
condemned to pant in twice-breathed air, passes a
long day of hopeless misery, and a wretched night of
feverish dreams.
The slave sports with his friend and companions, and
his wife and his children are supported by his master
-the debtor is torn from his friends and companions,
and his wife and his children are suffered to starve.
He can hold no property more than a slave; if he
acquire any it is attached; even his body, his liberty,
his personal rights, are, by his misfortunes-by his
misfortunes alone, transferred to his creditor, not to
be sold, like a slave, to some humane purchaser—
but to be lodged in the loathsome store-house of a
debtors' prison.
El
7 4
Americans! Ye whose feelings were roused to in-
dignation by the cruelties of a FOE towards American
prisoners, during the war; who call down the ven-
geance of heaven upon the heads of merciless oppres-
sors-pause-for evey accusation made against them
recoils upon yourselves. Your jailors are Cunning-
hams, playing the game of petty tyranny-all your
jails are nauseous prison-ships, erected by your own
laws, for your own citizens-laws, framed, not in
the hurry of furious relentless war, but, deliberate-
ly passed in cold blood in the moments of peace.
For my own part, I have suffered so much during
a long and cruel confinement, and have by sad expe-
rience formed such a dreadful opinion of the present
insolvent laws, that I have thought it a duty which
I owe to humanity, to pray the legislature, in mercy
to debtors, to pass a law something to this effect, to wit:
"Whereas the debtors have become so numerous
that the humane and benevolent part of the commu-
nuity can no longer afford to support them, and where-
as it is wrong that creditors should carry their revenge
so far as to put such a numerous class of citizens to
the lingering torture of starvation.
"Now, therefore, in mercy to debtors, we do enact,
that debtors hereafter shall, instead of a slow death by
starvation, be forthwith shot, and that this execution
shall be carried into effect.by the jailor as soon as
the key is turned upon the debtor, and his goods
shall instantly pass to the creditor."
When a horse loses a limb by misfortune, and is
no longer useful, all humane people consider it an
75
:
act of mercy to put an end to his misery by kill-
ing him at once-and this morality applies precisely
to the case of a miserable debtor. Shortsighted peo-
ple may think that such a law would bear hard upon
a debtor's wife and children; but, in fact, it is in all
respects more kind to them than the existing laws,
inasmuch as it gives them more speedily a right
to claim relief from the "Orphan's Asylum," and the
"Widow's Society."
Alighieri Danté, one of the most celebrated poets
of Italy, occupies several pages of a poem in de-
scribing the sufferings of Ugolino and his family, who
were starved in prison. The story was so interesting
that it touched the hearts of all the feeling men, and
although Danté wrote in the 13th century, sir Joshua
Reynolds, the eminent English painter, who died in
1792, has made this tale the subject of one of his
most famous paintings.
It is astonishing how differently objects affect us when
once we become familiar with them. We now-a-days
are so intimate with cruelty, that, no matter what she
does among us, neither poet nor painter, will notice
her enormities. Yet if some poct or painter shall
wish, like Danté, or Reynolds, to read immortality,
I will recommend him, for a study, something like
the following subject; *Let him represent PATRIOT-
*The body of admiral Rodney was arrested for debt after
his death, and while proceeding to the grave; and if I
can find, any where, the history of the creditor who thus
disgraced humanity, I will gave it to the public, that the
wretch may be justly estimated.
76
19 seising the body of ADMIRAL RODNEY on its
way to the grave for a debt-not that partriotism
which glowed in the bosom of Rodney, while living
and made him encounter fire, danger, battle and death
for the good of his country-but that miser-like,
whithered up, blasting partriotism of the modern
time, which flies from danger, and stabs in disguise
for office and emolument. Or, if he prefer it, let
him describe the genius of literature weeping over
the urn of SYDENHAM, whose life was terminated
by an arrest for debt, while virtue is frowning on a
list of names of those patriots who are guilty of en-
acting such disgraceful laws. Or lastly, draw a
hero of the American revolution, covered with
wounds gained in the service of his country's liberty,
expiring in prison, for the loss of his own.
Alas, I fear, "auro venalia jura," that our rights
are too much abused by gold; that the spirit of ve-
nal speculation has overcome humanity, and lessened
the force of religion. Lest the names of those great
worthies who support these laws should be forgotten,
I am compiling a concise history of them all, and if
it should please God to spare my life, I mean, at the
rising of the next legislature, to give them to the
world, that their memories may live, and posterity
may know how to appreciate their virtues.
77
CARD
Mr. Holt will oblige Howard by thus publicly ac-
knowledging the receipt of a very flattering letter
from "A committee of Duchess County." Howard
will cheerfully comply with their request as soon as
possible. Howard thanks Historicus for his encour-
aging address, and the interesting story of Honorius,
which shall be used as the friendly writer desires.
Mr. Holt,
For the Columbian.
I have seen several pieces, in the different news
papers of this city, on the subject of our insolvent
laws; they give us a most deplorable account of the
oppressions and cruelties the poor and unfortunate
are subject to, by the creditor.
I am extremly mortified, that the legislators of
this state should permit such laws to exist among us,
to have it said by the southern planters, on hearing
that such laws do prevail, that we are much more
cruel to each other than they are to their negroes.
O legislators of this land of liberty! it is time that
you do something to wipe away. this stigma on the
state:
A SUBSCRIBER.
F2
No. XI.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
But then, poor wretch, what do thy wrongs avail!
What pity waits thy uuconnected tale:
Ah, little HERE! but when the band is riven,
That clogs thy spirit, it may soar to heaven;
There, thy foul wrongs and injuries repeat,
And call down vengeance from "the judgment seat.'-. Ancr.
If the legislature, either by inexcusable design, or
unjustifiable neglect, suffer an oppressive law, year
after year, to remain unrepcaled, they are in a degrce
responsible for all the consequences of that law. If
they enact, that a man may burn down my house,
starve my family, or take away my liberty, and in
virtue thereof these horrors are perpetrated by nine
enemy, they are in foro consientiæ "PARTICEPS
CRIMINIS," and as such they shall be judged.
With a view to the foregoing undeniable truth, I
relate the following facts, from a feeble hope that
they will reach the eyes and touch the hearts of some
of those unthinking legislators, who believe that deb-
tors are to be persecuted because they are unfortunate,
Among the melancholy innates of this "castle of
indolence," there is a debtor of the name of Danvers-
79
By means of losses which arose from no imprudence
of his own, and of a series of misfortunes over which
he had no controul, he became insolvent! He called
his creditors together, assigned over all bis property
to them, and asked for a discharge. It was denied.
Ile attempted to procure his liberty by means of
our insolvent laws; but it appears that his creditors
were much exasperated because he had divided his
property equally among them, for each one thought
himself entitled to a full payment, and no one, there-
fore, would become a petitioner. Thus
Thus situated,
with his credit gone, his reputation blasted, and all
his property imprudently given up to those very credi-
tors who refused him liberty, Mr. Danvers was sued
and cast into prison. It is often thoughtlessly and
cruelly asserted, that any honest debtor may obtain
his discharge, instantly, under our insolvent laws.
Had Danvers been dishonest, he might have been
free. As he honestly gave up all to be divided
among his creditors without favor or partiality,* he
For the Columbian.
MR. HOLT,
Being the person alinded to by Howard in his 11th number
whose child was burnt to death inJanuary last; it will probably
be alleged that I gave him the information on which the story
is founded, and that consequently I am answerable for the
accuracy of his statement. Being unwilling that my name
should be connected with any thing of so serious a nature,
when it goes to implicate the character of others, unless strict-
ly true, I think it my duty to correct an error into which the
writer has been led for want of correct information.
It is not the fact, that I actually made an assignment of all
my property forthe general benefit of all my creditors, but it
is true that I have always wished to do so, and often expressess
it, but could not effect such an arrangement. I would gladly
80
is now a prisoner; and there is a conspiracy among
his creditors to keep him so as long as the ingenious
ehicanery of skilful attornies, aided by "rebutters
and surrebutters," my lord Coke and our statutes,
can possibly
"Entangle justice in the net of law."
As soon as Danvers came here, destitute and sad as
he was, he felt not for himself-but, as to his beloved
wife and two charming children, the prospect was
frightful. Thanks to the kindness of a stranger, they
1
at any time, have surrendered every cent's worth of my pro-
perty for their benefit, without asking for a discharge from
my debts, or any advantage except my personal liberty; and
would have used every exertion in my power to have paid,
as soon as possible, any balance that would have remained a-
gainst me. Although my welfare and happiness has been as
completely destroyed, as if every creditor Thave had brought
suits against me; yet, in justice to a large majority of them,
both as to numbers and the amount of their claims, I wish it
to be known that they have neither commenced suits sgainst
me, nor, so far as I know, intimated an intention of doing so.
The statement given by Howard respecting my dear unfortu-
nate child, is substantially correct, except the substitution of
fictitious for real names; at all events, it is far from being
exaggerated. If I had any disposition to excite the sympathies
of the public in favour of myself and family, or their indigna-
nation against our inhuman oppressors, I would not stand in
need of the pen of a Howard to insure success. A simple state-
ment of facts, and an unadorned narative of our sufferings,
and the inhumau conduct of my creditors, would "a tale
unfold," that would extort a tear from the most unfeeling.
and excite the indignation of the most phlegmatic being that
wears the human form; but I have no such disposition; the
subject is too melancholly and distressing to my feelings to
think, much less to write upon. This much I thought it my
duty to say. to prevent erroneous impressions being made.
It has been drawn from me with reluctance, and I gladly quit
what is to me a very painful subject.
THE UNFORTUNATE FATHER.
of the still more unfortunate and Jamcuted Eliza,
Debtors's Jail, Jan. 20, 1811,
8 1
were not permitted to starve.
It is one of the ef-
fects of our laws, to place debtors in a situation so
distressing, that humanity is absolutely tortured by
its own sympathies into the necessity of affording re-
lief. The fact is a disgrace to the state, and I hope,
for the sake of my country, that posterity will not
believe it.
A bookseller in the neighbourhood of the prison
humanely employed Danvers and his wife in folding.
cutting and stitching books; and what with a rigid
economy, the slender earnings of this labour, toge-
ther with the occasional aid of charity, Danvers and
his wife were sometimes in the midst of misfortunes
blest with contentment.
It was in one of those halcyon hours that Danvers
and myself were "making merry" over the last re-
mains of a pitcher of ale, which he had purchased to
aid us in celebrating the birth-day of his little dar-
ling daughter Eliza. Mrs. Danvers, who had hired a
small house in the upper part of the city, had just leſt
us, saying, as she departed, that "she would go
home and make little Eliza drink our health, for the
high honors paid her on her birth-day by the pri-
soners".
To fathers and mothers I need not say what joy
there is in commemorating the birth-day of a belov.
ed child. Eliza, the charming little being who this
day shed happiness over her household, was indeed
a fairy. She was only four years old, but such in-
telligence sparkled in her eyes, and such enchant-
ment played in her smiles, as won the love and rais-
8 2
ed the wonder of every one. You may be assured
that the father, and especially the mother, thought
she was angel.
It was winter, and as Danvers. peeping through
the grate of his prison, saw his cheerful and amiable
wife, trudging through the snow, to carry his blessing
to the darling Eliza,"—"Now, Howard," said he,
"by the goddess of mercy! (and I think her the best
goddess in the catalogue) I feel at this moment that
I am gay in spite of oppression. My wife there is an
angel, and the daughter, whose fourth birth-day now
makes me so happy, is worth more, in my estima-
tion, than all the wealth in the world. Dearly as I
love my liberty," continued he, I would sooner
remain a slave than part with that little darling of
my heart. Come, Howard! here's to many happy
returns of Eliza's birth-day." So saying, he took
up the cup, and was just applying it to his lips, when
suddenly the door of his room flew open, and in rush-
ed his eldest child, covered with snow, her hands
and face purple with cold, her eyes wild, and the
tears frozen on her cheek. It was some moment be-
fore her excessive grief would permit her to speak,
She asked for her mother-who had just departed.
"God forbid, said Danvers, that any misfortune
sould happen to your mother." At length the girl
was able to speak; "Eliza is burnt to death!"
I will not undertake to describe, but leave the
reader to imagine the consternation of Danvers, wheu
those horrid words fell upon his ear—“ Eliza is
burnt to death i"
8.3
With tottering steps, he reached the outward grate
of the prison, and faintly asked the keeper of the
jail to send some one to his house.
"What will you
give me ?" said he in a surly tone that struck to the
heart of Danvers. At that instant a messenger ar-
rived with a note from Mrs. Danvers. With a tremb-
ling hand Danvers opened the note and read :
My husband, come instantly-Eliza is dying-
come instantly." The words were somewhat de-
faced, and, evidently, by the mother's tears. I look-
ed at Danvers. With a faltering voice he begged
the jailor to go with him that he might see his dying
Eliza. There was so much of intreating woe in his
countenance, that no human being could have de-
nied his request. The jailor positively refused.
Feeling that the barbarity of the law absolutely
took away from him all hope of seeing his child a-
gain, Danvers indulged in the phrenzy of grief, im-
precated terrible curses on the heads of unfeeling
creditors-and in this delirium of agony was drag-
ged to his room. The scene was too affecting
for me to endure it any longer, and I turned away
almost overcome by a reflection upon the indescrib-
able horrors of this miserable prison.
The next morning 1 received from the afflicted
Danvers the following note.
"Howward! my child, dear Eliza is dead. Her
mother, since I cannot go to my child, will bring
her remains to me. I shall see her body-before
she is entombed. Come to me at four-we will all
weep over her."
84
字
​At the time proposed, I went to my friend's cell.
His surviving child was already there. The room
would have been entirely dark, but for a little lamp
which stood near the window, casting a dim reli-
gious light" upon the iron grates on the outside. He
rose as I approached, and pressing my hand with
fervor, pointed to a seat, wished me well in a low voice,
and resumed his former place. We had not long
been seated before the coffin was brought in, followed
by the mourning mother and her old servant maid,
Lucy. The mother and the daughter covered their
faces, turned aside, and wept aloud. The father
knelt beside the bier, fixed his eyes silently upon the
infant's face, contemplated it with great anxiety for
some minutes, then suddenly bursting into a flood
of tears, made some low, faltering, but indistinct
exclamations, and waved his hand to the attend-
ant, who caused the coffin to be taken away.
A day or two afterwards I sat with my friend, who
seemed to be more tranquil and he took great
pleasure in talking about his child. "Iler form, sir,"
said he, "was perfect symmetry. Her eyes were
black, piercing, and intelligent. Her cheeks look-
ed like roses, and her face was constantly lighted up
by a heavenly smile, which discovered one of the
most beautiful dimples I ever saw. I don't believe,
sir, she was ever out of temper more than a minute
at a time in the whole course of her short life. She
appeared desirous to please every body; at home she
was peculiarly amiable and affectionate, and when
85
she received a present, invariably ran to share it
with her sisters. If she walked abroad, objects of dis-
tress always excited her compassion; and the sight of
the little chimney sweeps who run about the streets,
would very often draw from her expressions of pity.
"I have seen children, and interesting children
too, who, when checked, would pout and become
unmanageable. But my Eliza, who was very sel-
dom in fault, if treated with the least severity, would
climb upon our knees, clasp her little arms around
our necks, and exclaim, with a pensive smile, Father!
mother!—are you angry at me now? I am not angry
at you!
My child's improvements in reading were very
remarkable, and gave evidence of great talents. My
situation prevented me from sending her sister or
herself to school, and the only instruction they ever
received, has been from me in prison. The little
creature was very sprightly, and yet poetry, and
that of the most melancholy kind, gave her the great-
est delight. She committed to memory several
verses out of the Port Folio, and Campbell's Poems.
Before she learnt to read herself, she constantly en-
treated me to read for her. You may recollect, iny
friend, with how much precision she has recited the
leading incidents of stories which she has heard in
this way.
It sometimes seems to me as if my departed
child was something more than a being of our earth.
Forgive the weakness. It appears now, especially,
as if she had been animated by a kind of celestial
inspiration.
E3
86
"The following lines of Campbell were constantly
in her mind, and she repeated them with a pathos
and expression. which no child I ever saw could
equal.
"Lo! at the couch where infant beauty sleeps,
Her silent watch the mournful mother keeps?
She, while the lovely babe unconscious lies,
Smiles on her little son with pensive eyes?"?
But the song of Gilderoy, particularly the 4th verse,
interested her beyond any thing she attempted to
recite.
"Oh Gilderoy! bethought we then,
So sad, so soon to part!
When first on Roslin's lovely glen
You triumph'd o'er my heart?"
"A week or two before Eliza's death, the unfor-
tunate mother overheard her telling her sister she
would as soon die as not. My wife called the child
and asked if she knew what would be done to her
when she was dead. "Yes, mother, I shall be put in
a hole in the earth, and covered up." "My dear,
don't you think it will hurt you to be put in the cold
ground, and covered up with earth?" "No, maʼam,
you know when I am dead, I cannot feel pain." "But
what is the reason you are willing to die, Eliza?”—
Because I shall become a little angel, and go to
heaven then," was the reply. Her mother, much
affected, told her "My child, I do not wish you to
talk so any more-it distresses me." She promised
that she would not, and never did.
"But it is most remarkable, sir, that the same
87
spirit pervaded her last moments.
She had her
senses to the end, and though her sufferings must
have been agonising in the extreme, not a murmur
escaped her. She frequently desired her mother and
sister not to cry. Her mother asked her "Are you
afraid to die, my darling?" She began to answer,
but her little lips were so burnt as to stick together.
She drew them to her teeth, bit off the skin, and then
casting on the mother the sweetest smile, said "No
mother." She was again silent for some time, and
at length repeated, as if significantly, the following
couplet from her favorite ballad :
"Oh! Gilderoy! bethought we then,
So sad, so soon to part !"
and these were the last words our dear babe uttered."
Here my friend's voice faltered, and he ceased
speaking. At that moment the turnkey's rattle
which warns each prisoner to retire to his owen cell
resounded through the prison. The clattering of
closing doors, and the clank of the chains which are
fastened to them, "gavo dreadful note of preparation."
We parted.
I hardly think my friend will ever get over the
shock which the aggravating circumstances of the
event gave him. He is sometimes cheerful, but it
is cheerfulness of one sick at heart, and his thoughts
constantly revert to his dying child, her sudden fate
and the barbarity of that law which denied him a
parting interview.
I was lately looking over some books in Danver's
38
room, and found in one of them a sheet of paper, one
side of which was filled up with a very accurate like-
ness of his child, which he had drawn ſtom recol-
lection; and the other, with a copy in his wife's hand
writing, of the following exquisite little poem. I
have read it before, but it struck me as being so very
judiciously applied by the unfortunate mother, that
I could not help transcribing it, and with this wild
and plaintive elegy, I will dismiss the present num-
ber.
.8.9
{
A MOTHER'S LAMENT OVER HER INFANT.
“He was delighted with the work of his own hands; he saw -
that it was beautiful, he made it good, and took it to himself.”
I had a daughter, sweetly fair,
With mild blue eye, and auburn hair,
A dimple too in either cheek,
And cherry lips-she just could speak.
Oft in her eyes I used to gaze,
Delighted with her infant ways,
And play'd, and look'd, and play'd again--
So watchful never to give pain.
That she was pleas'd, and seldom cry'd
Except when something was deny'd,
Which sterner duty order'd so,
And this forsooth would cause her woe;
But then it went so soou away,
That we did little else but play;
She just could run-I think I see
Her infant form approaching me;
A bunch of flowers in either hand,
Like little sylph from fairy land.
She rooted was within my heart
So that I thought I could not part
From the sweet babe, I lov'd her so:
But still I knew that she MUST go!
My lov'd Eliza now is gone!
But why should I her loss bemoan?
Thro' glass of faith, I plainly see,
That she is happier far than me,
Her golden harp she tunes so sweet,
While sitting at her Saviour's feet:
!
$
น
90
1
That I should like to go and hear,
I sometimes think, and shed a tear-
(No tear of sorrow, but of joy,)
The hymns which now my child employ !
Far from the wars, which roar so near,
She's landed safe, and free from fear:
She's met a lovely sister there,
Who, like herself, was good as fair.
Angels do sit, and listen round,
(I make no doubt,) on heavenly ground,
And every voice in chorus raise,
To sing the great Redeemer's praise!
"It was a beautiful flower; it was committed to my care
and I watched over it with the tenderest affection, but I
loved it perhaps too well, and it was taken from me in mercy."
See appendix.
1
No. XII.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
The little intrests of trade have perplexed the faculties of man,
and encompassed them about with clouds and thick darkness:
Selfishness tries the cause of humanity, and Passion, ascen-
ding into the judgment-seat, pronounces sentence instead
of Reason......
Yorick.
WHEN a real philanthropist sees the miseries
which afflict mankind, he feels a sincere sympathy
that instantly prompts him to give all the relief in
his power.
He enters into the bosom of those who are born
down by the weight of their sorrows, and, no matter
what pleasures occupy, or what cares distract him,
such is his benevolence, and so imperious with
him is the dictate of DUTY, that he will not-nay, he
cannot for a moment forget to administer aid were
aid can be given. He knows that mankind are one
great family of brothers and sisters in sorrow-that
the obligation to help each other, when in distress,
can never be dispensed with, for the avocations of
business or the pursuits of amusement. Deeply im-
pressed with a belief that he is accountable to the
Great Author of his being, not only for the acts,
F1
A
9 2
but also for the omissions of his sublunary pilgrimage,
he can lend his attention to no affairs, nor can he
give his heart the rein to any pleasures, while he is
conscious that there is one sigh which he might sup-
press, or one tear which he might wipe away.
What then, upon the supposition that our legis-
lature is composed of real philanthropists, what
will be the effect of a representation to them of the
unmerited sufferings, and unconstitutional wrongs of
more than twenty thousand debtors? Will they not
instantly arouse from that cruel indifference and un-
pardonable carelessness, which, for ten years past
has perinitted so great a part of the commanity to
be oppressed, and, at least, give this grievous com-
plaint a patient, careful, and deep investigation?
A great writer has said, "that the corrosion of resent-
ment-the heaviness of sorrow-the corruption of
confined air-the want of exercise, and sometimes of
food—the contagion of diseases, from which their is no
retreat-and the severity of tyrants against whom their
can be no resistance-and all the complicated hor-
rors of a prison-put an end every year to one in four
of those that are shut up from the common comforts
of human life."
If this calculation be admitted to be only half cor-
rect, there has died in confinement, in the state of
New-York, two thousand five hundred people within
the last ten years. If credit must be fed by enormi-
ties like this, and commerce must be supported by sla-
very and death-let commerce and credit perish,
93
rather than suffer religion and humanity thus to be
trampled down. "I write not to the cruel, but to the
merciful-it is to those who rejoice with them that
rejoice, and weep with them that weep-it is to the
GENEROUS, the KIND. and the HUMANE."
I must be permitted also to address the pride of my
countrymen, and to excite, if I can, the blush of
shame upon the cheek of every patriot in the nation
In the relief of debtors, we have been out done by
Ireland; and England has gone before us in the
grand work of securing civil liberty to the poor and
unfortunate insolvent.
In March, 1809, an honorable and learned member
of the english parliament proposed a law for the deb-
tor, which effectually secures to him an absolute dis-
charge on his petitioning the chancellor, and assign
over all his property. It is with no small degree of
pride which appertains to human nature, when it
counts over its ornaments and its glories, that I make
known to the people of America the name of Sir
Samuel Romilly, whose humanity and genius pro-
posed and consummated the above improvement in
the debtor's cause. With the zeal of a truly virtuous
and intelligent man, and with the untired patience of
a genuine patriot, Mr. Romilly labored at all proper
seasons, for the space of three years, to effect an
alteration of the old system.
Speaking of the effects of the old cruel laws, he
asks the assembled legislature of England, "how it
was possible that a more aggravated grievance could
exist than that oppressive system, or how any man
94
could render his country or the cause of humanity
and justice a greater service, than by contriving to
throw off altogether the cruel tyranny of those laws."
He further said, "Is it to be believed, that under
the MILD and CONSTITUTIONAL jurisprudence of a
free country, a usage can be permitted to exist under
'the sanction of law, which places a man, for no
crime but POVERTY at the mercy of his creditor, who
is at once made judge and executioner in his own
cause; and who, at his mere discretion may imprison
his debtor for life, not because he has acted dishonest-
ly-not because he has concealed any part of his pro-
perty (for that,if proved, would be a capital felony)
but because he cannot pay that of which the law
has deprived him of all possible means of payment.”
The learned gentleman, with all the eloquence of
a great and good man, then drew a pathetic picture.
of the accumulations of wretchedness that had for
inany years been sustained by deserving families,
consigned to beggary and disgrace, by the severity
OfEAD LAWS, and INEXORABLE CREDITORS. "Had
some such law as that proposed, been passed early
in the present reign, what misery to thousands would
have been prevented! what valuable exertions of
talent and industry would the country have gained!
how many honest hearts would now beat high in the
eflection of having, by industry, surmounted early
misfortunes, and now exult in the opportunities of
discharging, with a high-minded honour, those en-
gagements which PERSECUTION and OPPRESSION
have totally placed beyond the possibility of meeting. '
95
The bill passed into a law without one single dis-
senting voice!
Our legislature are inexcusably ignorant, or they
must have known this salutary example more than
two years since; and knowing it, as I presume they
did, what excuse can they give to the people of the
state, for being out done in the cause of civil liberty
and in the cause of humanity, by even the parliament
of England?
“Surely a legislator must, at least, feel his mind
clouded with discontent, when he considers how
many have suffered on account of his neglect; when
he thinks on the wife bewailing her husband, or the
children begging the bread, which their father would
have earned, but for the severity of WICKED laws.
If, however, there are any made so obdurate, by AVA-
RICE OF CRUELTY, as to revolve these consequences
without dread or pity, I must leave them to be
awakened by some other power, for I write only to
human beings."
F 2
No. XIII.
ESSAYS OF HOWARD.
BY A PRISONER.
Mercy, the whitest dove that ever flew,
From Calv'ry fetch'd, of tinge a crimson hue;
Aloft it sent the scale on t'other side-
Man smil'd, and Justice own'd “I'm satisfied!"...Euxene.
INSOLVENT laws should be made to prevent
fraud, to favour the interest of creditors, and above
all to promote the coop of the community. The
present laws are productive of nothing but fraud,
perjury, vice and oppression. It is a monstrous ac-
cusation against our legislature-but it is a true
one.
As far as I have been able to observe, and from
all that I have heard and read, it appears, that a
dread of having recourse to these laws drives many
a citizen into frauds previous to his failure, and then
to the necessity of perjury to avoid misery, and even
death.
What can we say of those laws which, on the one
hand, tempts the unfortunate man to perjury, by the
hope of "dear, delightful liberty ;" and on the other
hand, compel him to resort to it, by the torture of
confinement, and the horrors of starvation.
97
Let me ask if there be a Greek or Roman in the
community, who, so tempted and so pressed, could
forego the oath ?
There is a poor debtor in this jail, who is now tak-
ing the BENEFIT of our law "for giving relief!"'
yes "for giving relief, in cases of insolvency."
This man, I believe was honest. His MISFORTUNES
were occasioned entirely by the frauds of others.
But the creditors were angry, and three-fourths
could not be procured to sign a petition. Mr. Fitz-
Williams, the POOR DEBTOR, of course, came to this
heart-sinking, conscience-destroying prison. After
he had been long in confinement, he heard of a pet-
tifogger in the city, who was said to be so very in-
genious and skilful in the law, that he could " get
one through the three-fourth act" at any rate. Ac-
cordingly, a messenger, at the expense of a dollar,
(for a prisoner pays dearly for every thing) was dis-
patched for the ingenious and renowed Mr. Quibble,
esq. attorney and pettifogger in Republican Alley.
In the course of two or three days, this twig of the
law called on Mr. Fitz-Williams.
"How much," said Mr. Fitz-Williams,
6 will you
charge to get me through the three-fourth act?"
Why, sir, you must know that is a point of
great consequence, and will turn altogether upon
modes and circumstances. If your creditors are easy,
my charges will be no more than ten dollars, you to
pay all expenses.
But, sir, my creditors will not consent to my
discharge, and hearing of your skill and ingenuity,
I have sent for you to get me through."
98
"Ah yes-sir-I understand. Well, sir, I am
in a monstrous hurry-a great deal to do-court sit-
ting-and so on-therefore, sir, to be plain with you,
sir, if you find signers to your petition, I will run you
through in a hurry for ten dollars cash, you to pay
expenses. But, sir-you see, sir-if I find signers
-I shall ask you twenty.''
แ
Pray, sir, what do you mean by "my finding
signers' and "your finding signers ?" I tell you, sir,
my creditors are obstinate, and will not sign."
"Well," replied the ingenious Mr. Quibble, "then
we'll cheat them-for with a small expense of eight
or ten dollars, I can buy as many signers as you
want,"
"What!" said Fitz-Williams, "how can they
swear? How can they take the oath prescribed by
law ?"
66
Nothing more easy, sir; it is done every day
-I have lately discharged fourteen debtors without
a real creditor to assist them, and what is more, sir,
they saved their property; but that, sir, is hetween
you and I-and if you were not my particular
friend and client, I would not trust you with the
secret."
"But there is an oath for me, Mr. Quibble. Pray
tell me, how can I surmount that ?"
"Why, you see, Mr. Fitz-Williams, there's a hole
in the law-it's a dam'd bad law for honest men, but
a dam'd good one for us liberal, free-thinking fellows,
that a'n't such stiff presbyterians as to startle at
breaking an oath. Now, what's an oath? Why,
99
only a promise; and who would not break his pro-
mise to get his liberty? Why, I can prove, sir, that
it's one's bounden duty to swear through thick and
thin, for one's liberty. Make creditors, Mr. Fitz-
Williams-that's your only hope.
Why, here's my good friend and client, Mr. Dashon,
he will be your creditor, if you will only be his, to
any amount wanted. So you see in this case you
have a creditor for nothing."
Mr. Fitz-Williams heard this harangue with
mixed emotions of indignation and wonder. Several
times he was on the point of spurning from him this
base, contemptible genius of law, and treating the
villain according to his deserts. But the words, “ it
is your only hope," sounded in his ear, and struck
to his heart with an influence that unnerved his arm,
and weakened his virtue. The horrors of this loath-
some prison darted through his imagination- the
pestilence of summer, the cold of winter, appeared
in the prospect he was himself the victim of misery,
his fancy painted the sufferings of his children, the
agony of their mother, and his and their ignomini-
ous death. "It is your only hope," said the lawyer,
and departed.
Here, gentle reader, let us pause for a moment;
and after we have, by the aid of thought, placed our-
selves in the miserable condition of this unfortunate
debtor, we will ask, how would we have acted under
such terrible circumstances? We can easily say how
we ought to have acted; but the question is, how
would we have acted? He was a father, and a hus-
band; for months he had lauguished in confine
100
ment, not for crimes-but for misfortunes. He
thought of his fire-side as it was when liberty smiled
upon his dwelling, and health and peace ministered
to his felicity. This tempted him on the one hand
-on the other, he was forced by despair; his heart
shrunk from the trial, his courage failed him, "your
only hope," still sounded iu his ears, and he did, ccur-
teous reader, as most probably you would have done
in his trying situation-he called Mr- Quibble back
again, and raised the sum of twenty dollars for him.
Mr. Quibble "found signers," and Mr. Fits-Will-
ams will soon be at large.
Such is the weakness of the law-such its fruits-
such its temptations-its moral effects-its crimes,
and its horrors.
And now, legislators and statesmen of my country;
patriots, philanthropists, and sages of America! ye
who hate oppression and adore liberty, who love jus-
tice and believe in religion, listen to one, who for
misfortunes alone, here, in this blessed land of free-
dom, and under your own eyes, has suffered more
oppression than ever did prisoner of Porto-Rico,
Carthagena or Tripoli!
From the gloomy cells of a prison, in the midst of
sorrow and sickness, have I written these hasty essays,
to awaken the feelings, and open the eyes of my
careless countrymen. Let no one believe that the
pictures of misery which I have drawn are too highly
wrought, or in the least exaggerated. Whatever I have
said that may appear improper, or give the least
offence, let it be set down to the natural debility of
101
one who feels, that for years he has suffered un-
merited misery. And if the critic be disposed to
abuse me for my numerous faults, let humanity and
charity plead in my favour. When these essays
meet the eyes of legislators, let them remember that
the power of custom is difficult to be overcome, and
that prejudice even among the enlightened people of
America, often governs with an usurped authority
over feeling and reason. It has always been custom
and prejudice, more than any thing else, which has
prevented ameliorations, and opposed improvements
in the condition of man. The reformation of the Juli-
an calendar was introduced by pope Gregory in 1582;
but custom and prejudice prevented its use in England
for nearly two centuries. Printing !"the glorious and
sublime art of printing! was a hundred years opposing
the prejudices, customs, and wonderful indolence of
man.
Yet it seems as if there was some strange and way.
ward principle in human nature, which makes our
prejudices, while they oppose our happiness, ready
and zealous for the promotion of mischief and misery.
To the shame of mankind it must be said, that gun-
powder was invented before the art of printing; and
although invented on the continent far from England
yet under Edward, only ten years afterwards, it dealt
havoc and death from CANNON, at the battle of Cres-
sy! How rapid we are in the arts of destruction-
how faintly slow in the persuit of good! Year after
year have the people of this state groaned under the
102
oppression of debtors' laws, which nothing but preju-
dice and custom could have supported. And this is
one of the most wonderful triumphs of custom and
prejudice over feeling, reason, humanity, liberty, and
religion, that ever disgraced and enlightened govern-
ment. Every thing cries aloud that something
should be done; and the community hope, that the
legislature wll not lose even a day after its open-
ing at Albany, before the law that unanimously
passed the house of assembly the last year, will pass
the senate, and be confirmed by the council. It
has many objections; but no matter: let it be re-
membered, that abolishing the old, and passing the
new law, will be one glorious step in the cause of
humanity. Let time and experience do the rest.
APPENDIX.
MR. HOLT,
From the Columbian.
THE sensation produceable by pathetic novels has
been frequently excited in me by reading the essays
signed "Howard," which lately appeared in your
paper; believing, however, the whole to be fiction,
the effect was but momentary. I knew, or thought
I knew, that our country did not produce cruelty or
despotism as related by Howard. In thus passing
over, without inquiry, what I considered but eccen-
tricities, the author will excuse an injustice occasion-
ed by my inclination to think better of mankind.
The story of Danvers, and the frightfully lamentable
fate of Eliza, have awakned strong emotions in the
public mind. In both private and public circles it
has become a chief theme of conversation; indig-
nation against the persecutors of Danvers, pity for
Danvers himself, and deep regret for the deceased Eli-
za, were every where expressed with lively feelings.
My sentiments not inclining me to join in the general
sympathy, I made several efforts to introduce other
topics, but in vain; nothing but the subject ofHoward's
eleventh number could be heard, all, except myself
seemed so engaged by the story of Danvers.
A communication in your paper of Tuesday last,
avowedly written by the father of Eliza, gave to the
subject a new importance, and determined me to see
Danvers himself, if Danvers really did exist, which
I yet doubted.
TS
104
I occupied my first spare moments in gratifying
this curiosity. No sooner had I entered the prison
than I enquired for Mr. Danvers; being answer-
ed by a grave looking old gentleman that no such
person lived in the prison, I was about to retire ; but
having previously produced to this gentleman the
Columbian, I was proceeding to expatiate on the im-
propriety of such impositions, when a young man
who formed one of a croud, of which I was the
centre, exclaimed, "O! that is poor Mr.-———————————,
he
lives in No.-." Accompanied by this young man, I
instantly proceeded to No.-, which I found to be a
small apartment on the second floor. Having rapped
gently at the door, and being invited to "walk in,"
I entered the room, and was about iuquiring for Mr.
but inquiry was unnecessary, so easily could
he be distinguished from all present. Three or four
persons who stood near to a small stove, were engaged
in a lively conversation no way indicative of grief or
distress. In another part of the room stood a low cot
and bed, on which sat a personage who seemed in
'deep meditation; on his face was depicted the gloom
of despair, yet his aspect had nothing severe or for-
bidding. I thought he must be, indeed he was, Dan-
vers. With the awful respect which melancholy ever
inspires, I approached him, and was about taking my
seat on the bed, before I perceived that he pointed to
me to do so; between us he laid a book he had been
reading; I took it up, it was a British edition of "A
Walk through the Tombs." The subject was gloomy,
and neither calculated to cure his melancholy, nor to
remove the embarrasments which yet prevented my
speaking. At length I addressed him, but how incon-
siderate was my essay: "You have, sir, (said I,)
been reading a melancholy subject." He remained
silent-"It is unpleasent (continued I) to be ramb-
ling, even in idea, amongst the dead." "I was
looking (said he) for the shade of my Eliza." He
105
just touched the string that seemed to unerve us
both. After a short pause, I collected resolution to
explain the motive of my visit, and having thus for-
med an acquaintance with this son of sorrow, I reti-
red, with his permission to see him again.
My second visit, which was in the afternoon of the
same day, opened with a more agreeable prospect.
I found Danvers composed and somewhat lively.
He was instructing his daughter, a very engaging
and interesting child of about ten years of age, to
write. I, with the familiarity of a friend, a charac-
ter which I now assumed, assisted in the pleasing em-
ployment. The top line, written by the father, was
in the words of the Scotch bard; "Man's inhumanity
to man." I have often observed, that those afflicted
with melancholy are ever seeking provocatives for
their disorder, and I feared that in this instance it
would defeat the object of my visit ; but it happily had
not the effect. The writing being finished, we repaired
to the seats we occupied on the preceding mouning;
and here, at my particular request, I had from Danvers
an interesting, aud, from his manner, a true recital
of his and his family's history, as connected with his
long imprisonment. The simplicity of the delivery,
the extreme cruelty connected with this man's suf-
ferings; the illness of himself and wife; that of his
oldest child, which being of many years dura tion,
was increased by a late fracture of her thigh-bone,
while the mother was attending the imprisoned father;
his efforts and offers to settle with his creditors; the
losses to himself and them in consequence of a reſu-
sal on the part of some of them to comply; and the
manner in which the law has been twisted and dis-
torted to defeat every means of his liberation-the
whole has made on me an impression not to be easily
effaced, however impossible it may be to describe.—
A long pause proceeded the particulars of the ter-
rible death of Eliza, which concluded the solenn
106
narrative-her lively disposition, her amiable temper,
her fascinating manners, her engaging prattle, and
prepossessing form and features, her astonishing ad-
vances in education, under the father's immediate di-
directions, but, O heavens! who can describe his emo-
tions, when, in the midst of sobs, sighs and hesitation,
he pictured her direful death; his various, though
vain, supplications to jailors, sheriffs, attorneys and
plaintiffs, to permit him to witness the last struggle,
to hear the last groan of his sacrificed angel, the dar-
ling of his heart; and, finally, the introduction
into prison of the coffin which held the lifeless
corpse of the artless and innocent Eliza. . And I
was this day at the grave of Eliza, (said the little
girl, who till now was silent) but I shall soon not know
it, it grows so like other graves." and is there no
memorial to mark the place where she lies ?" "None,
(answered she) pa is too poor to pay for one.
19
Then my dear (said I) it shall not be so, if pa will
permit; the world shall have the tale he told me;
the profits of the little work shall be applied to raise a
tomb over the ashes of Eliza." The father, who again
relapsed into his former sadness, said in a low voice,
"I wish there was a tomb over my Eliza."" and so
there shall be," said I, quitting the room. I could
stay no longer-the little girl was in tears, the fa-
ther relapsed into a state of seeming insensibility;
their disorders were contagious, I felt the effect,
and fled while I could. On my way home I ruminat-
ed on the distressing inrerview—I recollected my pro-
mise, and shall, if necessary, perform it. The story of
the family of Danvers shall be written, and the pro-
fits faithfully applied to the contemplated object. The
lovers of innocence will, by subscribing, aid in thus
commemorating the virtues of Eliza.
CANDIDUS.
:
1
"
招
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