Box 12 contains correspondence from Bentham’s friends and disciples including John Bowring, John Herbert Koe and Francis Place. But there are also letters from further afield, particularly from South America. Bentham felt that the push for decolonisation and independence in the region created a prime opportunity to establish new regimes on utilitarian grounds. Bentham even planned to go to Venezuela himself and ‘draw up a body of laws for the people there'. In the early nineteenth century Bentham was in correspondence with, amongst others, Simón Bolivar (President of Colombia 1821-30), José de San Martin (the Argentinian general who led South America’s fight for independence) and José Cecilio Diaz Del Valle (politician, lawyer and journalist). Bentham forwarded ideas on legislation, education, government and the press to these men in the hope that his utilitarian philosophy would be applied in South America.

Detailed contents of this box are as follows:

• Folios 1 to 4: Venezuela - Caracas. Necessity of an all-comprehensive Code [1810]
• Folios 5 to 388: Correspondence - United States of America, Colombia, Peru, Egypt, Greece, Guatemala [1817-25]

Folios from box 12 which have already been partially or fully trancribed are listed under the progress bar below.

Box 12 Progress

Untranscribed: 97
In Progress: 5
Ready For Review: 0
Completed: 513
Total: 615