The Online Library of Liberty

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• The Works of Jeremy Bentham
• Memoirs and Correspondence.
• Chapter XXIII.: 1828—29. Æt. 80—81.
• Bentham to La Fayette. (extract.)
• Bentham to J. B. Say. (extract.)
• La Fayette to Bentham.
• Colonel Young to Bentham.
• Bentham to the Duke of Wellington.
• Bentham to Daniel O’connell.
• Bentham to the Duke of Wellington.
• General Miller to Bentham.
• José Del Valle ( the President of Guatemala ) to Bentham. (translation.)
• Bentham to José Del Valle.
• O’connell to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell. (extracts.)
• O’connell to Bentham. (extracts.)
• Edward Livingston to Bentham.
• (translation.)
• (translation.)
• O’ Connell to Bentham.
• Bentham ( Under the Name of Phil-o’connell ) to O’connell.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• O’connell to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Chapter XXIV.: 1829—30. Æt. 81—2.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Bentham to Admiral Mordvinoff.
• Bentham to Brougham.
• Bentham to Jabez Henry.
• O’connell to C. S. Cullen.
• Bentham to Edward Livingston. * (extracts.)
• Bentham to Brougham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Bentham to John Smith, M. P.
• Bentham to President Jackson.
• J. B. to U. S. President, Jackson.
• Bentham to M. Humann (of Brussels.) (extracts.)
• Rev. Humphrey Price to Bentham.
• Bentham to Mr Price.
• Mr Price to Bentham.
• Bentham to Mr Price.
• Mr Price to Bentham.
• Chapter XXV.: 1830—31. Æt. 82—3.
• Del Valle to Bentham. (translation.)
• Bentham to Burdett.
• Sir James Graham to Bentham.
• Edward Livingston to Bentham.
• (translation.)
• General Santander to Bentham. (translated Extract.)
• (translation.)
• The Following Is Titled—“ Note By Jeremy Bentham On One of the Letters of Brissot De Warville to Him, Anno 1784, Or Thereabouts”: —
• Bentham to the Duc De Broglie.
• Bentham to the French People.
• Bentham to La Fayette.
• Bentham to Brougham.
• Brougham to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• O’connell to Bentham.
• Bentham to O’connell.
• Pacificus Against the Conquest of Ireland.
• Bentham to W. Tait.
• “1831— June 21— Dicenda to Bowring.
• Bentham to Archibald Prentice.
• José Del Valle to Bentham.
• Chapter XXVI.: 1831. Æt. 83.
• From Bentham’s Memorandum-book, 1831.
• Sir Francis Burdett to Bentham.
• Bentham to Talleyrand. (translation.)
• (translation.)
• J. Be. to J. Bo.
• Appendix. Selections From Bentham’s Narrative Regarding the Panopticon Penitentiary Project, and From the Correspondence On the Subject.
• Bentham to Earl Spencer. (extracts.)
• Bentham to Henry Dundas.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• “18 Th August, 1796.
• Reasons In Favour of the Spot Near Woolwich, As a Site For the Penitentiary House.
• Reasons Alleged Contra With Answers.
• Wilberforce to Bentham.
• Romilly to Bentham.
• Bentham to George Rose.
• George Rose to Bentham.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• Bentham to Lord St Helens.
• Bentham to Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• Bentham to Sir William Pulteney.
• Bentham to Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Bentham to Romilly.
• Sir Charles Bunbury to Bentham.
• Bentham to Dumont.
• I.: As to New South Wales.
• Bentham to Charles Abbot.
• Bentham to Charles Abbot.
• Bentham to Dumont.
• The Rev. Brownlow Ford ( Ordinary of Newgate ) to Bentham.
• Romilly to Bentham.
• Joseph Jekyll to Bentham.
• Bentham to Jekyll.
• Bentham to Sir Charles Bunbury.
• Bentham to William Wilberforce.
• William Wilberforce to Bentham.
• William Wilberforce to Bentham.
• Romilly to Bentham.
• [corrected Copy, Received 10th June, 1811.] Dated
• “ Objections to the Making Experiment of Mr Bentham’s Panopticon Plan Obviated—viz., Partly By Answers, Partly By Fresh Offers.
• Bentham to Romilly.
• “ Proposal For a New and Less Expensive Mode For Employing and Reforming Convicts.
• “ Examination of Jeremy Bentham, Esquire.

Rev. Humphrey Price to Bentham.

“County Prison, Stafford,
2d April, 1830.

“Sir,—

I am a clergyman of the Established Church of England. Some eighteen years ago, another clergyman, to whom I had been for eleven years a curate, built a small country church in the heart of the lately enclosed forest of Needwood. The king endowed it with one hundred and sixty acres of forest land, and I was the first person presented to it. There I lived laboriously, and ever in mywork, silent, and little known beyond the immediate sphere of my own duties, eking out a livelihood for my wife and four children by pupil-taking, till March 1829; at which time, the carpet manufacturers in my native town of Kidderminster suddenly dropped the prices of weaving, and the weavers as instantaneously struck. From my dear mother, who had never quitted the town, I first heard of the turn-out of the weavers in about a month from its commencement—of their most exemplary conduct. I had been born and reared among the poor men, with none other expectations as to the future than the rest of them. Without patronage or aid of any sort beyond a common free school, however, I became a clergyman, settled in another neighbourhood forty miles distant from Kidderminster, but always keeping up my connexion with my native town by means before alluded to. My heart had always yearned after the poor weavers, whom I had known for many years to be gradually sinking into a state of poverty, degradation, and want: and when I heard the particulars of the strike, I instantly decided to aid the poor dear fellows to the utmost of my power of purse and pen. I did so; and if I were at this moment to be conveyed to the gallows for doing so, I think it would be impossible for me to repent my act. But being ignorant of law, and unconscious of breaking it as an infant, here I find myself imprisoned (after the entire breaking up of my family by the expenses, &c.) for libel against six-and-twenty carpet manufacturers.

“Now for the express purpose of this letter. I am writing a letter addressed to all the operatives of England upon their present state and duties. This said letter, as far as it is written, I have read to my jailor, (a very respectable man;) but he says he dares not suffer such letter to be published without the sanction of the visiting magistrates. Of their permission to publish I despair. Nevertheless, the term of my imprisonment will end in time, when I shall be, pro tempore at least, independent of the arbitrary will of magistrates. I would not, however, (though altogether regardless of consequences, when conscious of right,) I would not, however, violate any law knowingly, unless I saw that it was a law I ought to violate,—as, for instance, a law which should command me to throw salt into the fire of a heathen sacrifice, &c.

“Will you, then, Sir, permit me to send my letter (above alluded to) to you for your advice as to the legality of it? I will thankfully send with it the requisite fee when known.

“Your answer, though only one word, (Yes or No,) will oblige,” &c.

He said he had been attached to Bentham by the phrase, “Young Antiquity,” which was in itself full of instruction. His letter interested Bentham deeply, and he thus answers it:—