The labors of Oglethorpe and his associates to correct prison abuses, were warmly acknowledged by their country, and were the grateful theme of the poet.  They were alluded to by THOMSON in the following strain: 

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

* * * * *

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

[Winter, l. 359-388.]

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

VI.

RELEASE TO INSOLVENT DEBTORS, FROM PRISON.

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

After describing the deplorable condition of those who are in reduced circumstances, and need assistance and would be glad of employment, the writer refers to the situation of those who are thrown into prison for debt, and judges that the number may be estimated at four thousand every year; and that above one third part of the debts is never recovered hereby; and then adds, “If half of these, or only five hundred of them, were to be sent to Georgia every year to be incorporated with those foreign Protestants who are expelled their own country for religion, what great improvements might not be expected in our trade, when those, as well as the foreigners, would be so many new subjects gained by England?  For, while they are in prison, they are absolutely lost,—­the public loses their labor, and their knowledge.  If they take the benefit of the Act of Parliament that allows them liberty on the delivery of their all to their creditors, they come destitute into the world again.  As they have no money and little credit, they find it almost impossible to, get into business,