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Subject Area: Political Theory
Subject Area: Law

Benjamin Vaughan to Bentham. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 10 (Memoirs Part I and Correspondence) [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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Benjamin Vaughan to Bentham.

“Will you forgive me?—Wilberforce came to me yesterday, to give me nearly carté blanche over a slave-bill, and then dined with me, and carried me to the House for that and Lambton’s motion; but neither having place, I went back to read my packet letters, and superintend insurances to many thousand pounds amount. I could say much more; but come on Saturday se’ennight, and I will introduce you and your brother to M. de Narbonne. The Bishop of Autun also dines with me, with Grey, and perhaps Sheridan.—Yours affectionately.

“All well at Paris, 27th May, and plenty of corn in France.”

Bentham had his hopes excited almost as often as they were depressed, by the vicissitudes to which his Panopticon scheme was exposed. In a letter of August 1793, he writes:—

“I have just seen Nepean. The Ministry are afraid to act under the Peniteutiary act, but will bring in a bill to get me Battersea Rise next session; and, in the meantime, recommend it to me, to try what I can do, under these circumstances, towards getting it immediately by consent of the proprietors. I am this instant sitting down to try my eloquence upon them.”

Romilly gives the following account of the Bridewell, or House of Correction at Edinburgh:—