JB/116/547/001

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Letter 3 XVI. Improved prisons

Such was the plan
the execution of
which whether really
intended or not, was
professed to be intended
to be brought about
from L.P's office.

And do you mean seriously, Sir, to make me
believe, or to make any body believed, or do you yourself
believe, that under my administration according to any
plan of mine or of any predecessor of mine, an
expence 504 times as great [as] that of your proposed
Penitentiary House—aye, or a half or a quarter or a tenth part of that expence 504 times as great as that of
which the expence of £40,000 once paid is but a part and
that but a small part compared with the capital representative of amount
expence of maintenance for ? will be, or
in my supposition in any case would have been incurred?—Most
certainly not my Lord. Of any such expence I do not take upon me
so much as to say, that it was so much as intended:
though of that plan which approaches the nearest much nearer to it
than any other example of any thing which the history of public waste affords,
the execution was most indubitably intended: I mean
always so far a the execution of a plan, the consequences particulars/details
of which were less visible seem to have been so perfect a secret to the authors, than to any body
else can be said to have been intended. Far therefore be it from
me therefore my Lord to undertake to maintain that
any such the execution of any such plan was ever
so much as intended: all I undertake can pretend to
shew is, that the intention of bringing about the execution
of a plan of this sort was professed: and for so saying my warrant, and
any such warrant the only warrant I have pretend to have for saying so will presently be in
readiness to meet Your Lordship's eye.

Identifier: | JB/116/547/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 116.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering	15
Box	116	Main Headings	panopticon versus new south wales
Folio number	547	Info in main headings field	letter 3
Image	001	Titles
Category	correspondence	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f14
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public	letter was never sent; see note 8 to letter 1747, vol. 7	ID Number	38080
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