sample pages from the making of the modern police, 1780–1914, part i

8/13/2019 Sample pages from The Making of the Modern Police, 17801914, Part I

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183

WILLIA M MAN GODSCHALL,A GENERALPLAN OF PAROCHIAL AND PROVINCIAL

POLICE1787, EXCERPTS

William Man Godschall,A General Plan o Parochial and Provincial Police(London:Printed or Messrs. . Payne and Son [etc.], 1787), pp. iiixii, 115.

William Man Godschall (17201802) was a justice o the peace or Surrey.1Tetext excerpted here, which appears to be his only publication, is addressed to theHome Secretary Lord Sydney and was prompted by the Kings Proclamationissued in 1787 or the Encouragement o Piety and Virtue and or Preventingand Punishing o Vice, Proaneness and Immorality. Te proclamation wasissued at the behest o William Wilberorce, who, as we saw in the previousselection, was the prime mover in the Proclamation Society.Like Zouchs, God-

schalls vision o police orms part o the broad movement or moral reorm thatmarked the latter part o the century.2

Te original text was composed o several parts which, as the author makesclear, were submitted to and discussed by the Surrey magistrates in response tothe large number o crimes recently committed. Tey were then circulated tomagistrates and explained to their audience. One o Godschalls most impor-tant claims is that, although he admits the general plan is relatively untested,the Surrey bench had tried the methods presented and ound them effective inreducing the level o crime in the area. It is interesting that in contrast to manycontemporaries, and, indeed, many modern historians, who see this as the primemover in police reorm across the century, Godschall explitily denies any linkbetween demobilization and the crime wave they had been experiencing. 3He

notes that soliders and sailors were not among those arrested and attributes therise in crime simply to general depravity. His solution to this is a general plano moral and economic regulation. Like Edward Sayer he conceives o police asa very broad system o government encompassing vagrancy and the poor laws,including the regulation o workhouses; proper suprevision o the young andapprentices, separating children rom the bad inuence o their parents i needsbe; illegitimate gain by chapmen, gleaners, smugglers and poachers; the problem


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184 Te Making o the Modern Police, 17801914: Volume 1

o alehouses, gambling and their effect on the industry o the poor; lack o reli-gion, Sabbath breaking, prostitution; and market offences. He also circulated as

part o all this a general guide or the work o the surveyor o the highway, whichshould be concerned with maintaining the conditions, passability and saety othe highway. Tis might seem peripheral to police but in act these elements

were to be central to the idea o police in the broadest sense as it continued todevelop in England and Scotland.4

Notes1. His portrait by John Russell, along with that o his wie, is in the Metropolitan Museum

o Art in New York: see http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collec-

tions/437579 [accessed 30 September 2013].2. Once again, see J. Innes,Inerior Politics: Social Problems and Social Policies in Eight-eenth-Century Britain(Oxord: Oxord University Press, 2009), pp. 179228 or J. Innes,Politics and Morals: Te Reormation o Manners Movements in Late Eighteenth-Cen-tury England, in E. Hellmuth (ed.), Te ransormation o Political Culture: England andGermany in the Late Eighteenth Century(Oxord and London: Oxord University Press,1990), pp. 57118; and A. Hunt, Governing Morals: A Social History o Moral Regula-tion(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 5776.

3. See J. M. Beattie, Te First English Detectives: Te Bow Street Runners and the Policing oLondon, 17501840 (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 2012) and N. Rogers, Confont-ing the Crime Wave: Demobilization and Disorder in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England(London: Yale University Press, 2012).

4. F. Dodsworth, Te Idea o Police in Eighteenth-Century England: Discipline, Reor-mation, Superintendence, c. 17801800, Journal o the History o Ideas, 69 (2008), pp.

583604; W. M. Godschall,A General Plan o Parochial and Provincial Police(London,1787), pp. x, 4, 10, 234, 268, 34, 413, 5865. On police and the urban environmentsee F. Dodsworth, Mobility and Civility: Police and the Formation o the Modern City,in G. Bridge and S. Watson (eds), Te New Blackwell Companion to the City(Oxord:Blackwell, 2011), pp. 23544; D. G. Barrie,Police in the Age o Improvement: Police Devel-opment and the Civic radition in Scotland, 17751865 (Cullompton: Willan, 2008).


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185

William Man Godschall, A General Plan of Parochialand Provincial Police(1787), excerpts

HOMAS LORD SYDNEY,1

, &c.

M L,Y Lordships obliging acceptance o this Attempt toward Police and

Reorm, can only be attributed to your particular Regard or Subjects so useuland benecial; and to a Desire o promoting / the gracious and seasonable inten-tion o his Majesty; whose Proclamation commands,2what his Example excites;and tends to enorce a ruth, acknowledged in all Ages; Tat the Happiness oa People depends on the Practice o Piety and Virtue, and being restrained rom

Proigacy and Vice.Your Lordships Department in the State being to countenance and encouragethe ormer, and obviate and avert the latter, an Address or such Purposes, could,

with Propriety, be made only to your Lordship, in whom Station and Principleso happily unite, to obtain such desirable Ends. Tat / your Exertions may beattended with the Success I am sure they will deserve, is the very ardent Wish o,

My Lord,Your LordshipsMost obedient,Humble Servant,

WILLIAM MAN GODSCHALL.Weston House.

Aug. 10, 1787. /


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PREFACE

I a nation like this, where commerce and riches urnish the means o luxury andindulgence to many, and beget a temptation to them in the minds o all; a pub-lication o this kind could scarcely ever have been unseasonable; but becomesespecially necessary, when his Majestys paternal regard to the welare o his peo-

ple has warned them, that an extraordinary exertion o the civil magistrate is atpresent necessary, to stop the progress o proaneness and immorality, too visiblyincreasing in many parts o this kingdom; the cause o which seems not so muchowing to a deect in the laws, as to a negligent execution o them. Inattentionand dissipation are too prevalent. /

Te rich, and they that have an arm to check,Te licence o the lowest in degree,Desert their offi ce, and, rom acile indolence,o all the violence o lawless handsResign the charge their presence would protect.

C.3

Te licentiousness designed to be obviated by the Proclamation, hath its sourcein a want o attention to the conduct o the lower degree o the people, a want odiscipline and employment or the adult, and o instruction or the inant poor;and, notwithstanding the rates or their maintenance are so high as scarcely tobe tolerable, yet how ew o those, who are best qualied, can be prevailed on to

give their attention to those objects, though so important! But expences will everincrease rom negligence; and proigacy must be wrestled with, and resisted; itwill not be wished out o a country; action is as indispensable to prevent stag-nation and corruption in the moral, as in the natural world. Without a steadysuperintendence we must orego all reasonable expectation o reormation andamendment. o obtain / these desirable ends, by exciting energy and exertion, isthe primary intention o the ollowing papers.

Te General Plan must answer or itsel. Having never been tried, its effectcannot be ascertained. Te experiment, however, seems worth the making.

Te other papers may be spoken o with more condence. Tey were drawnup and submitted to a general meeting o the Magistrates o Surrey, called on

purpose to consider o means to prevent in uture such requent burglaries and

robberies as had then been committed, to the great injury and terror o theinhabitants; copies o instructions to overseers were distributed to the severalbenches, and explained by the respective justices; a repetition o these means,and continuing privy searches, have secured the county rom any such like dep-redations rom that time to the present. /

Te Instructions to Overseers, rom the importance o their offi ce, both withregard to morals and conomy, were thought necessary to be very precise and


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Godschall, A General Plan o Parochial and Provincial Police 187

specic; especially that part relating to apprenticing the parish children, whichwas esteemed o the last importance.

Te Instructions to Constables, rom the nature and importance o theiroffi ce, were necessarily very ull and explicit.

Te Monitions to Ale-house Keepers were ound to be much wanted, andthereore every caution and prohibition were particularly mentioned.

Tese Instructions were accompanied with such explanations and exhorta-tions rom the bench, as it was thought would have their weight in promotingthe discharge o their respective duties.

Such measures having been ound effi cacious in this county, there is greatreason to / hope they may be so in others. Tey are equally practicablein :and where the efforts o magistrates are strengthened by royal example, as well as

precept, it would be blameable to despair o success.Te Surveyors Guide being a branch o police, though not o reorm, was

thought necessary to be added, as being o constant use.

[]

APROPOSAL,

PAROCHIAL PROVINCIAL POLICE.Preamble

lower order o civil polity in this kingdom is so little attended to, or so laxlyadministered, that, unless some method can be devised to give energy to the lawsnow in being, or perhaps to enact new ones, thatreormation necessary to insurethe peace, security, and property o the subject, can neither be obtained, norrationally expected. Indolence and thoughtless inactivity, are not only utterlyincapable o ever / being the occasion o Good; but, on the contrary, give con-stant opportunity or Evil, to exert its unrestrained, baleul inuence, over thetoo avourably disposed minds o the greater part o mankind.

Our laws admit not horrid punishments.Our laws and constitution happily admit not the horrid punishments and sum-mary modes o conviction,4 that obtain in other countries: and, unless these

properties are, in some degree, counterbalanced by a constant preventive atten-tion, it is impossible but crimes must become more requent.


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Late robberies not the effect o the conclusion o the war; 5but fomdepravity and idleness. Means o prevention. Compelled labour

necessary.

Te robberies lately committed, do not seem to have been the effects o the con-clusion o a war; or soldiers, or sailors, have not appeared concerned in them;but they rather / seem to have been occasioned by a diffused depravity in theminds o the offenders, and a general aversion to honest employment o any kind.Te effects o depravity can only be encountered by punishment, or increasingthe diffi culty o commission; or which end, guards, bolts, bars, bells, and dogs,seem to be the most likely means; and, perhaps, a published description o theburglarious instruments made use o, might lead to the invention o others, thatmight resist, or diminish their powers. Honest ingenuity may be an overmatchor wicked invention, as it is easier to hinder, than to effect. Aversion to honestemployment, the effect, i not the cause o depravity, must be got the better o byconnement and compelled labour, with humane usage; allowing a small shareo the prots o the toil, where there are symptoms o desert. /

Beggars not to be permitted. Nor Petty chapmen, 6poachers, norsmugglers. Vagrant act to be executed. Education o youth; to be

separated early fom their parents, and apprenticed.

When any one is suffered to live in idleness, his maintenance becomes an injurioustax upon the industrious. No beggar o any kind should be permitted; the indul-gence o our law has superseded the necessity o it. He should immediately be sentto his parish, obliged to provide or him; which surely is more humane than suffer-ing him to continue on a precarious subsistence in so uncomortable a mode o lie.

Story. An Eastern prince ordered a bag o gold as a reward to a beggar,or having given him some wholesome advice: the money was soon spent inriot and debauchery, when the beggar appeared again at the palace-gate, askingalms; which the prince observing, said to his minister, You see the ill effects omy bounty to this unhappy man; riches have been to him the source / o viceand misery. No wonder, said the sage; since thou hast given to poverty, thereward o labour.

All petty chapmen, pretending to trades merely ostensible, by which it isimpossible they should make a livelihood, such as sieve and chair-bottomers,basket-makers, venders o matches, laces, and garters, i ound wandering outo their own parishes, should be taken up and passed to them.7Young able bod-ied men living at their own hands, without known means o subsistence; should(to save them rom being poachers or smugglers, which lead directly to horse-stealing, and the gallows) be compelled to work at the wages o the country. I


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men had not opportunity to be idle, they would not have leisure to be wicked. Inshort, every clause o the vagrant act should be put in strict and constant execu-tion, which would do more toward reormation than all the convictions at theOld Bailey.8Te great Lord Coke9says, upon making the 39 Eliz. c. 7.10and agood space afer, whilst Justices o the Peace, and other offi cers were diligentand / industrious, there was not a rogue to be seen in any part o England; but,

when Justices and other offi cers became tepidior trepidiremiss, rogues swarmedagain. Te wisdom and experience o such an age, has certainly a claim uponthe respectul notice o the present, when similar measures seem at least equallynecessary. Te same great authority says, in his exposition on the 7 Jac. c. 4. Teeducation o youth, and setting to work idle and disorderly persons, are essential

parts o the well-being o a commonwealth. Te ormer is so indispensable, that,without it, punishment becomes not only useless, but cruel. Children shouldrst be taught what is right, beore they are corrected or doing what is wrong:

poor inants are most likely to learn the latter, rom their necessitous, negligent,and perhaps wicked parents, and should thereore by totally removed rom themat a very tender age; certainly not later than ten; and apprenticed to all inhab-itants in the parish, o good characters, who have occasion or servants. Tis,

which, / Dalton11calls a special work and seminary o mercy, seems to be themost probable means o inusing early habits o virtuous industry, which couldscarcely ail o having a sensible and happy effect on the morals o the rising gen-eration. Tis measure, so indispensably necessary, without which, it would be

vain to expect any great or lasting amendment, hath, however, many diffi culties,which prevent its being carried into general execution.

Diffi culties in43Eliz. A new act. Necessity o reorm.12

Te clause o the 43d o Eliz. is so worded as to make many think, that appren-ticing the inant poor is a matter o choice: overseers imagine they are notcompellable; they object that the burden is unequal, and ought to be laid in pro-

portion to the quantity o land rented. radesmen, and other inhabitants, havesimilar objections; and also say, that the term till one and twenty is so long as tobe tiresome to the master, and injurious to the apprentice. I there is any weightin / these objections, they might be removed, by a new act, when perhaps it

would be better to transer the execution o the law, rom the overseers to the jus-tices, with appeal to the quarter sessions. Some apportionment as to rents mightbe ound out; and, i altering the term o continuing an apprentice to eighteen

years o age, would obtain a good liking, so as to bring the act into general use,it would be very well worth trying. Te doors o the play-house, and the scaffoldat Newgate,13are scenes that sadly solicit radical and effectual reorm; and thenumber o boys and youths, who, or want o being early initiated into habits o


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virtuous industry, have allen victims to the laws o their country, plead eelinglyor adopting a measure the most likely to lessen the number o such melancholyexamples. Beside, that capital punishments dont seem to answer their end; tran-siency, requency, and want o solemnity, diminish their effect; they also savoursomewhat o despotism, and dont seem at all congenial with the general mild-ness o our government: perhaps treason, / murder, house-breaking, orgery, andhighway robbery, are the only crimes or which they ought to be inicted; orother transportation, solitary prisons, and public or private labour, would beadequate, and probably more effi cacious.

Te hardened wretch, who can expect no comort in this world, will nothave much ear or regret in quitting it. A momentary death has little terror orhim; labour, solitude, or an inhospitable clime, would be ar more dreadul. But,afer all, prevention should be the great object; it is the duty o every govern-ment to protect their subjects, not only rom others, but themselves. A watchulattention to inancy and youth can only effect this; which would be, wisely andhumanely to begin at the beginning; and it might be well worth considering,

whether parish schools, at public or parochial expence, would not be a very salu-tary institution. Rigid age is not easily amended. Our hope must arise rom a careand attention to youth. /

Ale-houses to be decreased; their mischies; blind ale-houses;intent o ale-houses; none in seventeen parishes in Essex;

to be decreased gradually.Te next measure, necessary toward reormation, must be to diminish the num-ber o ale-houses, and to keep the remainder strictly to the regulations the lawshave laid them under; and to license none in obscure and sequestered situations,

where thieves may meet securely to concert their depredations on the public; andwhere improvident labourers, unobserved, may spend their time and money tothe distress o themselves and amilies. Te abundance o ale-houses, especiallyblind ale-houses, as they were called, was a subject o animadversion rom theKing himsel, so long ago as the year 1616; but they are now so increased, thatan honest peasant, who would spend his money with his amily i these tempta-tions were less obvious, must have a more than ordinary share o sel-denial, i he

escapes such numerous attractions. Te original design o those / places was notto continue drinking in, but merely or the transient rereshment o travellersand labourers; and perhaps occasionally or transacting parochial public busi-ness. A ew will answer these purposes; and one more than suffi cient or that endis not only unnecessary, but hurtul. Might there not be some legal distinctionbetween inns and ale-houses? Te rst are not so generally tipling shops, but thelatter are dreadul in their consequences; and it would tend very much to dimin-


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ish their number, i no common brewer was permitted to have any property in anale-house. Te legislature has done something analogous, in prohibiting even jus-tices, who are distillers, rom licensing; but wealthy brewers impropriate a numbero these houses, and solicit gentlemen o inuence in counties and boroughs tolicence them. Legal incapacity would relieve both the one and the other; or thereare many instances embarrassing to each. Near Dunmow, in Essex, there is a dis-trict o seventeen parishes without one ale-house, which is proo positive that they/ are not universally necessary. However, the reins o reormation should be gentlygathered up: lasting amendment is generally gradual, and i the present enormousnumber o ale-houses was diminished by degrees with judgment and discretion,the good effects o such a measure would soon be seen in the amendment o themorals o the poor, and the decrease o the rates o the parish. /

CONCLUSION.

HE oregoing are the means which, afer very deliberate consideration, seemthe most likely to establish that peace, order, and security, which constitute thehappiness o the subject, and is the constant aim and endeavour o every wiseand indulgent government. But these means will not execute themselves: theymust be put in motion by some anxious and active principle, and continued soby a constant superintending care and attention; which are qualities not to beexpected rom a numerous unconnected body o men, but may be exacted roman offi cer created on purpose, to prevent the stream o justice rom stagnating,

and to continue its course uninterrupted rom the supreme executive power, tothe subordinate magistrates, and thence through the lower offi cers and ministersto the people. In all great cities, where crimes have been ound to increase rom alanguid execution o the law, one or / more offi cers o this kind would be oundeffi cacious, to give vigour to the laws, and restore relaxed discipline; and in coun-ties and districts next adjoining to the metropolis, a magistrate o this sort willbe absolutely necessary, to co-operate with, and assist his neighbours, and alsoto repel or secure the number o rogues his district will otherwise be over-run

with: without one or more such immediately responsible offi cers, this plan cancertainly never be executed, the law must continue a dead letter, offences andenormities will continue and increase; but i, in every county, according to itssize, there were two, three, or our justices, elected by a majority o the actingmagistrates approved by the king, with instructions rom the secretary o stateor the home department to view their respective districts twice every year, andto take especial note o roads, bridges, ale-houses, gaming-tables, proanation othe Lords day, tippling in time o divine service, drovers o cattle, horse-cours-ers, stage-coaches, and waggons, and every article o discipline and police, andreport them / to the secretary o state, and to the Christmas and Midsummer


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sessions,14 their exertions must be generally benecial. Tese offi cers might bestiled justices general, should attend all benches in the county, 15 and commu-nicate to their brethren whatever they observe worthy o notice. So systematica regulation would demonstrate, that government was earnest and anxious toreorm the manners o the people, and would excite in magistrates an activityand emulation to promote so desirable ends. Such measures would give new lieto the law, and bring justice and justices much into ashion. However, the wholeis submitted to better judgments, with a very sincere wish that such means maybe adopted, as may be most benecial to the public.


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193

W. H., SOMEHINS OWARDS A REVISAL OFHE PENAL LAWS1787, EXCERPTS

W. H., Some Hints owards a Revisal o the Penal Laws: Te Better Regulating thePolice, and the Necessity o Enorcing the Execution o Justice. By a Magistrate(London,1787), pp. iiiiv, 523.

Neither the author nor the intended recipient o the letter are obvious; the authorclaims to be a magistrate, but also calls into question the qualities and actions omany magistrates in such a general way that even this is questionable. Nonethe-less, the author is clearly educated and this text is one o the more erudite in thecollection, drawing on a diverse array o sources rom the classics through theRenaissance to the contemporary: legal authorities, moralists, philosophers and

poets: acitus and Horace on the cover page and in the text Plato, Solon, Seneca,Lambarde, Hale, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Puendor, Addison and Pope.

In general the text makes a claim or the importance o enorcing the existinglaws with energy instead o creating a new system o innovation. Te problem

with the enorcement o the existing laws is laid at the door o a magistracy by nomeans presented in attering terms, but it is also and particularly located in whatthe author denes as a alse lenity in sentencing. Like the previous text, and incontrast to many contemporaries and historians, the author rejects the idea thatdemobilization is the principal source o crime, although its inuence is acknowl-edged.1Rather, the main cause o crime given is that under the existing systemcriminals have little expectation o being caught, and i they are caught they are

well aware that they will almost certainly not be executed. Te author cites Haleand Machiavelli on the importance o enorcing the law, both as a duty to the

public and to establish a climate in which the certainty o severe punishment

deters others rom crime. Tis is a particularly interesting perspective because, ashistorians have demonstrated, the authors contemporaries particularly valuedthe discretion that the legal system gave them: it was the embodiment both otheir power and their capacity or correct judgement.2Tere is also a critiqueo the concentration o the law on property offences, recognizing that rewardsor the conviction o highwaymen, but not or murder, suggest the law values

property more than lie.


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Te authors position is complex. On the one hand, it is very sensibly pointedout in the midst o the period o moralizing, i not a moral panic, that charac-terized the 1780s and particularly 1787 and the Royal Proclamation discussed

previously, that the depravity o the times has been the claim o all times.3Onthe other hand, even i the contemporary period was not exceptionally viciousin the way proponents o reorm imagined, the author still elt that the moralcondition o the population should be a concern or governments because thecommon people constituted the principal national resource. Te author alsoencourages attention to all inerior offences, which are offences against the peace.Likewise, in a nal section that is not included here, despite the primary ocus onenorcement o the existing laws, the author also suggests an array o improve-ments needed in the law itsel, particularly those laws rom an archaic age whichno longer apply. Attention is paid to regulation o the number o horses stabledat inns; the power o magistrates over servants in husbandry, which ought to beextended to domestic servants to keep them within due bounds; the law on big-amy, which it is suggested is second only to murder as a social evil and should be

punished with death (the author treats bigamy as rape by deception rather thanby orce); summary justice in the case o brothels; licensing or wine; measures tocontrol pigs; the thef o trunks rom coaches and the poor laws.4

Notes1. Again, on this subject see J. M. Beattie, Te First English Detectives: Te Bow Street Run-

ners and the Policing o London, 17501840 (Oxord: Oxord University Press, 2012)

and N. Rogers, Confonting the Crime Wave: Demobilization and Disorder in Mid-Eight-eenth-Century England(London: Yale University Press, 2012).

2. For different approaches to the subject o discretion see D. Hay, Property, Authority andthe Criminal Law, in D. Hay, P. Linebaugh, J. Rule, E. P. Tompson and C. Winslow(eds), Albions Fatal ree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England, rev. edn(London: Verso, 2011) pp. 1763 and P. King, Crime, Justice and Discretion in England,17401820(Oxord: Oxord University Press, 2000).

3. On the application o the concept o moral panic in this period see D. Lemmings and C.Walker (eds),Moral Panics, the Media and the Law in Early Modern England(Basing-stoke: Palgrave, 2009).

4. W. H., Some Hints owards a Revisal o the Penal Laws ... By a Magistrate (London,1787), pp. 2431.


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answering the end o the Legislature, and require a serious and solemn investiga-tion, which I ear nothing less will ever effect than the wisdom and intererenceo Parliament; where rom the abilities and steadiness o that august assemblyalone we can look up or a reorm.

When we seriously consider, that in a commercial nation like England, sup-ported by trade, and an extensive and unbounded commerce to most parts othe known world, rom which source its riches and acknowledged superiorityare alone derived, offences will naturally increase in proportion as our tradeincreases, and we should be less surprised that our penal laws are so numerous;there must o necessity be a mode o punishment or every breach o the law,and the nature o every crime; and were but those modes o punishment moreequally proportioned to the malignity o the offence, our grievances would in agreat measure be redressed, with the help o an abridgement o some ew o the

penal statutes, which might be repealed without any injury to the law, or theconstitution: though in act our / laws (in some particular instances), howevernumerous, are not suffi ciently adapted to the genius o our constitution; but thatdoes not come within the bounds o my present intention.

Some will pretend, thatseverityin law, likepersecutionin religion, will nevermake proselytes, or answer the end o preventing criminals rom pursuing theirdepredations on the public; but I beg leave to differ rom them in opinion, as I amrmly persuaded, that a alse and mistaken lenity, which has too much prevailedo late, has produced a contrary effect to what was intended, and I am thoroughly

convinced rom atal experience, that a alse mercy has brought more men to thegallows, than it ever saved rom it. It was an admirable saying o the great JudgeHale,2When I nd mysel swayed to mercy, let me remember there is a mercylikewise due to my country. Plato says, A magistrate that punishes a criminal withdeath or ignominy, will never punish him so much or the past offence, or it isimpossible or him to undo what is done already, but he will always regard whatis to come, either to prevent the same offender rom being guilty a second / time,or else to deter others rom transgressing by his example. (Puffendor,3Book viii.ch. 3.) And were elons to suffer certain death, and led to execution within twelvehours afer conviction and sentence passed on them, it would strike more terroron their minds than can be conceived. I have requently given my present senti-ments in the public papers on this subject, but as they seldom out-live the day,

and are thrown aside unheeded, they have never produced the wished-or effects.I some o those salutary remedies prescribed by our worthy Chairman o the

quarter-sessions or the county o Middlesex, in his late address to the grand jury,such as suppressing some notorious places o public resort, night-cellars, andregulating public-houses in general, were strictly adhered to, it would go a great

way towards putting a stop to that rendezvous o robbers o every denomination,which are now grown to such an alarming and audacious height, that no person


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W. H., Some Hints owards a Revisal o the Penal Laws 197

can lie down in his bed, but he is in danger o losing his lie or his property beoremorning, or perhaps both. /

It is a received maxim in physic,4that all disorders are easier prevented thancured; the same will hold good in politics, and prove beyond a contradiction,that prevention is preerable to punishment. A magistrate whose ultimate wish isto execute the complicated duties o his offi ce, with the approbation o his ownconscience, and o real use to the community, will, you may believe me, nd itan arduous talk to acquit himsel to the satisaction o both. From serious reec-tion I cannot but lament the daily increase o elons o every description, and thosome people will pretend it is owing to the great number o soldiers and sailorsdischarged since the last war, together rom the want o employment or a largebody o articers, joined to the dearness o all kind o provisions and the heavytaxes, the necessity o the times have unavoidably loaded us with; which I read-ily grant may probably have inuenced many; yet I am rmly persuaded, that arthe greater number o those who break through the laws o their country, at thehazard o their lives, are tempted to embark in so perilous an undertaking / romtheirsecurityrom conviction, and rom a tenderness and mercy, however unmer-ited, shewed to a number5o those guilty wretches afer conviction, which seldomanswers any other end, as daily examples convince us, than returning like a dog tohis vomit, to their old iniquitous courses; and I am very much inclined to thinkthe maxim o that artul and wicked politician Machiavel6but too true, Exampleso justice are more merciulthan the unbounded exercise o pity. Tough God

orbid that I should wish to shut out mercy rom the royal breast, the sole pre-rogative o kings, and the brightest jewel in a monarchs crown, but I could wish itmade use o with more circumspection and less indiscriminately. I am thoroughlyconvinced rom observation, that not one in ve hundred have shewn an exampleo reormation in their lives or manners, or become ever afer useul members osociety. Te more than ordinary dissoluteness and depravity o the times, amongthe inerior class o people particularly, makes a reormation necessary, which can-not be effected but by an exemplary punishment, rather than a mistaken lenity. Tenatural end o / all punishment is to dispose men to obey the laws o their country,and in consequence to restrain them rom actions contrary to it.

Another evil which calls on those concerned or redress, is the loss o time,attending the sessions, together with the expence o carrying on a prosecution,

with the diffi culty o bringing a elon to conviction. Not many sessions ago, a pros-ecutor and three evidences were brought rom the extremity o the county, anddetained in London upwards o a week, at the expence o twenty pounds andmore, or solicitors ees, &c.: and the prisoners on their trial acquitted o the elon,tho no one in court believed them innocent; but the evidence in the construc-tion o the law was deemed incomplete. o obviate these inconveniences, to callthem no worse, I could wish in uture, that the days on which a prisoners trial was


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to come on were more regularly ascertained, to prevent a prosecutor and othersconcerned rom so great a loss o time; and that the treasurer o the county beempowered to pay the expences o carrying on the prosecution (and that indul-gence be no longer limited to paupers only), to prevent prosecutors / keeping outo the way, and never appearing, which is too ofen the case, whereby such a num-ber o villains escape rom the just punishment due to their atrocious crimes.

Tese observations, urnished rom the authors daily experience as a magis-trate, and ounded on truth, do not proceed rom any spirit o misanthropy, but,on the contrary, rom an universal benevolence to all mankind, particularly tothose misguided youths, who rom bad example, or their own imprudence andmisconduct, are led to supply their wants and extravagances by unlawul andatal resources.

Te shameul abuses (to call them by no harsher name) in the conduct othe Police in some parts o the metropolis, require a severe check rom those

who hold the reins o government, and at the same time, some o our penal laws,which abound with such a number o absurdities, will, I trust, undergo a severescrutiny rom the wisdom and attention o the Legislature; among a numbero others is that o a reward being paid or the apprehension o high-way rob-bers, while the securing a murderer passes without recompence. / Tus ratingour properties at a higher value than our lives, the conviction o a paltry thieis rewarded by a premium o orty pounds, whilst the murderer may make hisescape, unless apprehended through the love o justice.

It has been observed that the cause o requent executions in England, whichexceed in number those o all the rest o Europe put together (as I am wellassured), is not the severity o our laws, or the more than ordinary depravity othe people, but the absurdity o the Police, which is not elt as a check upon thecommission o a crime, but only as an engine to insure the punishment due toit, which is directly contrary to the intention o our laws, which are meant (asthey ought to be) to prevent rather than punish crimes. Te administration othe Police is still more wretched than the Police itsel. It is entrusted to persons,many o whom have neither education or knowledge enough to quali y them ora proper discharge o the duties o their offi ce; and the activity o their ollowers(i I am rightly inormed) is to be set in motion more by the prospect o lucre 7and the temptation o rewards, than an honest / zeal or the security o the pub-

lic, and the execution o the laws.I am as much an enemy to every species o punishment, that carries with it

the idea o cruelty, as any man, but the necessity or justice will not suffer me, asa man, a magistrate, or a citizen, to be silent, while the wrongs o ten thousando his majestys injured subjects call aloud or vengeance. I would not wound themildness o our laws with a thought o any aggravation o punishment: I am anadvocate only or a vigorous execution o justice agreeable to the laws now in


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orce, nor have we need o better than some o ours, were they rightly and dulyadministered. Te ollowing lines, which Mr. Addison puts into the mouth oCato,8are not altogether inapplicable:

See they suffer death,But in their deaths, remember they are men;Strain not the laws, to make their torments grievous. Tis base, degenerate age requiresSeverity, and justice in its rigour;Tis awes an impious, bold, offending world,Commands obedience and gives orce to law. /

Te depravity o manners, and the corruption o the present times, is the generalcomplaint o all times; it ever has been so, and ever will be so, not consideringthat the wickedness o the world is always the same, as to the degrees o it, it onlychanges the nature o the vices. Discipline and ear may restrain and keep the

vicious within bounds, but it is not to be thought they will ever be good o theirown accord.

Our government is unexceptionable, and our constitution admirably con-structed, and our laws ramed with wisdom, equity, and justice, calculated orthe security o every individual in the kingdom rom the highest to the lowest;

would I could say they were as well administered, but they are o no orce, with-out a aithul and vigorous execution.

For orms o government let ools contest,Whateer is best administerd is best. P.9

Te author o these lines was ar rom meaning that no one orm o governmentis, in itsel, better than another, but that no orm o government, however excel-lent or preerable in itsel, / can be suffi cient to make a people happy, unless it beadministered with integrity: on the contrary, the best sort o government, whentheormo it is preserved, and theadministrationcorrupt, is most dangerous.

Seneca,10 in one o his moral epistles, speaking o mercy, has these words:Now, though clemency in a prince be so necessary and so protable a virtue, andcruelty so dangerous an excess; it is yet the offi ce o a governor, as o the master oan hospital, to keep sick and mad men in order, and in case o extremity, the verymember is to be cut off with the ulcer; all punishment is either or amendmentor or example, or that others may live more secure. What is the end o destroy-ing those poisonous and dangerous animals which are never to be reclaimed, butto prevent mischie?

It was a maxim in politics among the Romans, that to cause good justice to beadministered, there must be good laws and good magistrates. But let the laws beever so good, they lose all their orce and effect without good and able magistrates


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or the execution o them; or / the magistrate is the soul o the law, who gives itvigour, action, and motion; and without which the law is but a dead letter.

Te public good ought to be the end o all laws, and is the best commentupon, and interpretation o them; and we do not desire the preservation o ourlaws merely or the sake o the laws themselves, but or the common interest andadvantage o mankind.

Te Lacedemonians11had a custom, contrary to the rest o the world, o pun-ishing their criminals in the night, thinking perhaps that the darkness addedsomething to the terror o the punishment.

One o the ill consequences o alse lenity, even in antient times, is relatedby Solon,12the Athenian lawgiver, who gives us a story o a man, that, havingbegged or a pardon o the king o France or the seventh murder he was guiltyo, and nding he could not obtain it, boldly told the king that he would onlyown the rst murder to be his own proper action, and that the imputationo allthe rest must lie upon the king himsel, or that he should never have committed/ the other, i the king had not given him encouragement by pardoning the rst.But I am wandering rom my subject.

Among the many examples we have o the inequality o punishments in ourpenal statutes or crimes o a similar malignity, there are none more glaring andstriking than that between those o rapeand bigamy(as an ingenious observerremarks); which it is devoutly to be wished the proposed revision o the penallaws (i any such is seriously intended) may intirely rectiy. Te rst o these is

already capital, and is attended with the oreiture o the criminals lie the lat-ter, indeed, is reckoned elony, but, since the time o Edward the VIth, has beenadmitted to clergy, and thereore the punishment is seldom more than burn-ing in the hand, and perhaps twelve months imprisonment. Te ormer, whichis a direct violation o that chastity, which constitutes among nations, civilizedand uncivilized, the honour o the emale character, deserves the severest pun-ishment which is permitted in a code o laws to be inicted. In the latter, anunsuspecting and virtuous emale is / betrayed by a specious demeanour, andctitious pretensions, into a situation not less degrading than that o her who hassuffered actual violence. Te purity o her mind is equally injured. Te offence isin truth a rape, committed by raud instead o orce, and is even attended with

worse consequences. Te subtle and deliberate villainy o the bigamist, whose

schemes are calculated not merely to obtain possession o the person, but alsoo the property, requently leaves the woman encumbered with issue, whichmaternal affection renders it impossible or her to desert. From a virtuous mar-riage, and a blameless conduct, she expected protection and peace, but she ndshersel involved in ruin, and exposed to insult. She is injured in her honour, anddeprived o her property, perhaps with the additional burthen o children tomaintain, whom she has innocently brought into the world to be reproached by it


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or illegitimate birth. Te crime is not ofen a subject o prosecution; the delicacyo the emale mind revolts rom the idea o exposing her situation in a court o

justice. But no example can be made o delinquents / without prosecution, andevery honest woman, who has been thus injured, owes it not only to hersel, butto the community, that such offences should not remain unpunished; and whenit is considered with what deliberation this species o guilt must be contracted,

with what artices and ction it must be conducted, and what tendencies it has toinjure in the tenderest point the peace o individuals, the honour o amilies, andthe public security, it surely ought to be classed, both with respect to criminalityand punishment, amongst crimes o the rst magnitude.

Every laudable endeavour, calculated to work a reormation among the lowerorder o men (by ar the most useul part o the creation, and not unworthyour protection), should be duly attended to, as they might, under proper restric-tions and regulations, become a worthy body o people, and useul members othe community, instead o being a pest to society, a disgrace to humanity, and areproach to the Police o a nation, whose laws are in general wisely ramed orthe protection o every individual, / and calculated to redress every grievancea nation like this is subject to, and stands in need o little more than a spirit oexertion in the due execution. But there are, I ear, ew magistrates in compari-son o the whole who regard the public good so ar as to devote so large a portiono their time as a due execution o those complicated duties o that importantoffi ce naturally require; their other avocations and connexions will not always

admit o it without a material injury to their domestic concerns.Tere is nothing contributes so much to the well being o a state as a just andconscientious distribution o rewardsandpunishments; and were they properlyadministered, with a strict impartiality, it would strike at the root and almostextirpate in time every species o offenders against the laws o their country,except the ew incorrigible, indeed, who are so hardened and hacknied in their

vices as to be insenble to either. Rulers would then, in the strict sense o thewords, be not a terror to good works, but to the evil, by punishing the guilty,relieving the oppressed and protecting the innocent, / always remembering thatstrict and solemn account which they themselves must one day give.

Te raming our laws is vested solely in the legislative body o the people, orvery wise purposes; the executive part belongs to the magistrate, nor has he any

authority to alter them: whatever deects there may be, they will not be imputedto him, nor do they lie at his door. It is his duty truly and indifferently to admin-ister justice to the punishment o wickedness and vice, and to the maintenanceo true religion and virtue. Tis is the sole offi ce o a just and upright magistrate,an offi ce o which Lord Coke13says (4 Inst. 170), the whole Christian worldhath not the like, i it be duly executed. Te trust reposed in the magistrate iso such a nature that he cannot make a substitute or deputy in his offi ce, seeing


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that he may not put over the condence that is put in him. Great cause, there-ore, have the Justices to take heed that they abuse not this credit; either to theoppressing o the subject, by making an untrue record, or derauding o the king ,by suppressing the record that is true and lawul. LAMB.1463. 66. /

Te dignity o that important offi ce is great, and the duties o it are mani-old and extensive, when we consider the vast number o offences over whichmagistrates have jurisdiction given them by many statutes, and likewise over allinerior crimes within their commission, whether such crimes be mentioned inany statute concerning them or not, or that all such crimes are either directly, orat least by consequence or judgment o law, against the peace.

I shall thereore conclude, with my ardent prayer and supplication to thatgreat and exalted Being who sitteth on high, judging all the nations on earth

with equity and true judgment, that it would please him to bless and keep themagistrates, giving themgrace to execute justice, and to maintain truth.

I am, dear Sir, yours, &c.W. H.


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258 Notes to pages 17589

Public Benets: Bernard Mandevilles Social and Political Tought (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1985).

8. the reception o strollers, who meet there in companies, by night:generally spend their sun-days together: ailure to honour the Sabbath was one o the principal targets o moralreormers; proaning the Sabbath was ofen cited as the rst step on the road to ruin asbecomes clear below.

9. Quack-doctors, and Mountebanks: quack remains the slang term or a raudulent doc-tor or ake medical knowledge; a mountebank is a more general term or a condencetrickster.

10. earl o Manseld:Lord Manseld was Lord Chie Justice, Englands most senior judgeand most prominent legal authority, see D. Lieberman, Te Province o Legislation Deter-mined: Legal Teory in Eighteenth-Century Britain(Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1989), particularly pp. 71143 and ODNB.11. Bailiffs: an administrative offi cer o the courts.12. 18 Geo. III. C. 19:Payment o Charges o Constables Act, 1778.13. Riding: due to its large size Yorkshire was divided into three Ridings or sub-units:

North, East and West. Te discourse on which this text was based was delivered in Pon-teract, which was in the West Riding.

14. Athelstan: grandson o Alred and probably the rst king to govern all o England aferdeeating the Vikings and conquering Northumbria in 927, ODNB.

15. male-practices:malpractices.

Godschall,A General Plan o Parochial and Provincial Police

1. HOMAS LORD SYDNEY: amongst other roles he was Home Secretary under Pittrom 1783 to 1789. Namesake o Sydney in New South Wales ( ODNB).

2. whose Proclamation commands:in 1787 George III issued aProclamation or the Encour-agement o Piety and Virtue and or Preventing and Punishing o Vice, Proaneness andImmorality. Tis ollowed the ormat o the proclamation rom the reign o Queen Anneand which was reissued several times in the rst hal o the century.

3. C:William Cowper, pastoral poet o the second hal o the eighteenth centurywho ound evangelical religion and is particularly associated with Rev. John Newton oOlney and the Olney Hymns (ODNB).

4. summary modes o conviction:in act, as noted in previous documents, summary convic-tion by a justice o the peace without a jury had become a major element in English

justice over the course o the eighteenth century, to the consternation o some; however,it applied only to relatively minor offences.

5. conclusion o the war:it was ofen noted by contemporaries that crimes rose in periods odemobilization ollowing the requent wars o the eighteenth century. Some historianssee this as the prime motive or the development o modern policing over the century:

Beattie, Te First English Detectives.6. chapmen:hawkers o chapbooks or broadside ballads, or simply any itinerant salesman.7. their own parishes passed to them:as described in previous documents, the poor law

demanded that the poor in need o relie, vagrants and those without visible means osupport should be conveyed to thier parish o settlement or relie.

8. the Old Bailey: the central criminal court in London.9. Lord Coke: Elizabethan and Jacobean legal authority and Speaker o the House o Com-

mons, Attorney General, Solicitor General and Lord Chie Justice, author o a collection


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Notes to pages 18999 259

o Law Reports and the enormously inuentialInstitutes o the Laws o England: see Poc-ock,Ancient Constitution and (ODNB).

10. 7 Jac. c. 4:an act relating to vagabonds.11. Dalton: Michael Dalton was a barrister and legal writer most amous or Te Countrey

Justice(1618), a treatise on the authority o the justices o the peace that was reprintedthrough the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (ODNB).

12. 43Eliz. A new act. Necessity o reorm:An Act or the Relie o the Poor, 1601, oneo the oundations o the Elizabethan poor laws that were still in orce.

13. the scaffold at Newgate:Newgate was the principal prison in London, situated next tothe Old Bailey, the central criminal court. In 1783 the place o execution in London wasmoved rom yburn to a new position outside Newgate to prevent the long processionthrough the streets attracting such great crowds; however, executions remained popular

spectacles outside the prison.14. Christmas and Midsummer sessions:two o the our sessions o the peace that comprisedthe Quarter Sessions; the other two were Michaelmas and Easter in spring and autumn;the Christmas session was more commonly termed the Epiphany session as it took placein January.

15. offi cers should attend all benches in the county: the bench signies the seat o magisterialor judicial authority, i.e. they should attend sessions at all locations across the county.

W. H., Some Hints owards a Revival o the Penal Laws

1. Montesquieu: Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu was theauthor o one o the eighteenth centurys most amous and inuential political texts, TeSpirit o the Laws, which appeared in English in 1750.

2. Hale:Sir Matthew Hale, Lord Chie Jusice, an English judge and legal authority o the

seventeenth century who wrote several legal treatises that remained undamental toeighteenth-century jurisprudence, particularly theHistory o the Pleas o the Crownand

History and Analysis o the Common Law, both o which were published posthumoulsyin the eighteenth century (ODNB). He was also the subject o a biography by GilbertBurnet: Te Lie and Death o Sir Matthew Hale(1682).

3. Puffendor: Samuel Puendor, a German jurist most amous or his 1675 treatise onnatural lawDe offi ciis hominis et civis, i.e. On the Duty o Man and the Citizen.

4. in physic:in medicine.5. fom a tenderness shewed to a number:in practice, although the death penalty was the

standard sentence or most relatively serious and many less serious offences, in practiceit was largely commuted in most cases with only a ew serious or repeat offenders beinghung as an example.

6. Machiavel: Niccolo Machiavelli, Florentine statesman at the time o the all o theFlorentine Republic and assumption o Medici power. He was the author o two very

different political treatises Te PrinceandDiscourses on Livy.7. lucre:nancial gain or money.8. Addison Cato:Joseph Addison was a prominent Whig author and, with Richard

Steele, co-ounder o Te Spectator in the early eighteenth century. His most notablework was Cato: A ragedy, written in 1712 (ODNB).

9. P:Alexander Pope, poet and prominent ory o the early eighteenth century. Popewas initially on good terms with Addison and Steele and wrote or the Spectatoras wellas writing a prologue or Addisons Catobeore the two later became estranged (ODNB).


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260 Notes to pages 199212

10. Seneca: Seneca the Younger, Roman statesman and Stoic philosopher and tutor and advi-sor to the Emperor Nero. He committed suicide afer being suspected o involvement ina plot or Neros assassination. His letters were amongst the most popular texts o theRoman moralists in the eighteenth century.

11. Lacedemonians: another name or Sparta, one o the most powerul o the Greek citystates and which maintained a erce independence through the complete devotion oits social and political system to training its citizens or combat in deence o the state. Itrequently gured as a political ideal in eighteenth-century republican discourse.

12. Solon:Athenian statesmen who campaigned or moral, social and political reorm andwho was considered in the eighteenth century to have been the ounder o the moredemocratic constitution o the later Athenian republic.

13. Lord Coke:Sir Edward Coke, jurist and legal authority during the reigns o Elizabeth

I and James I. He served as Solicitor General, Attorney General, Speaker o the Houseo Commons, and Chie Justice o the Courts o Kings Bench and Common Pleas. Hewas author o a collection o Law Reports and the enormously inuentialInstitutes o theLaws o England, rom which this is taken: see Pocock,Ancient Constitution.

14. LAMB:William Lambarde, an Elizabethan legal authority and author oEirenarcha, orTe Offi ces o the Justice o the Peace(1581) which seems to be the text reerred to here.

Williams,Regulations o Parochial Police

1. Europe has been agitated:a reerence to the French revolution.2. tempestuous horrors:the error o 17934.3. enans de amille:children o the amily, i.e. part o the amily.4. Paper Circulation: the circulation o paper money.5. J: the Jacobins were a radical action during the Fench revolution who were

responsible or instigating the Reign o error.6. Bedlam:Bethlem hospital or the insane, which has operated in some orm since the

thirteenth century. In the eighteenth century it was located at Moorelds in London.7. M rst successes in Flanders, R:Jean Victor Marie Moreau was a

French general during the revolutionary wars; Maximilien Robespierre was a promi-nent Jacobin who took command o the Committee or Public Saety, a body createdby the National Convention and which essentially governed France during the error.Robespierre was himsel executed in July 1794.

8. Militia Fencibles Volunteers:described in the introduction to this source.9. Standing Army or Military Police: it was common to align the idea o an organized or

paid police with a standing army which had, since the reign o Cromwell and the rule othe Major-Generals, been associated with potential dictatorship. Tere were signicantdebates about the threat o a standing army in the early eighteenth century.

10. A Magistrate:Patrick Colquhoun,A reatise on the Police o the Metropolis(1795).

11. husbandman mechanic:a husbandman was a tenant amer, a mechanic was simply alabourer.

12. Marybone:Marylebone.

sample pages from the making of the modern police, 1780–1914, part i

Documents