Citizens visiting the Bastille

Citizens Visiting the Bastille, - Vide Democratic Charities -\nPub.d Jan.y 16.th 1799. by H. Humphrey 27. S.t James's Street\nAn das/ F. S. privil. Industrie Comptoir/ Weimar.\n\nd. 21 May in debate on account of the Report of the Committee appoints to examine into/ the state of the Cold-Bath-Fields Prison in the House of Commons for new debate. Sheridan appeared this/ time to assist his friend Burdett against Sir W. Dundas and Young. Dundas says [little]. Burdett: He had/ been forbidden the prison, because it was made manifest, that his demeanor had led to make the/ prisoners more turbulent and unruly. His visits were made to Colonel Despard, all of whom [?]/ were fond to be devoid of foundation: and to the Mutineer, whose crime was of the/ deepest already, as it went to lay the power of the country at the foot of Faroo. One punct/ could [?] not deny even the Lord before the Committee that the Gaoler under the name of Bond had committed extortions/ against the prisoners. (the Opp. says to 1000 Pf. he [?] person to 100). Young wishes/ the prisoners well to occupy themselves with something useful, where only Sir Walter Raleigh had written his words in/ prison. Now they bore holes through the walls, & circoulir signatures./ [?] they telegraphic correspondence. Sheridan denies since Howard has set up the prison for this purpose.1 London d. Jan. 25, 1799./ Sir Francis Burdett asks for admission to the "New Prison in Coldbath fields\", called the Bastille by the people./ When at last the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended again, the opposition made much ado with their complaints about the abuse of power of which the ministers, under cover of that suspension, were guilty./ Sir Francis first made a noise and said he wanted to go to the New Prison to see how the state prisoners were kept there; and because the people call this prison the Bastille, he also told the coachman the place where he was to take him by that name and he understood it at once. Then he searched for the commander Despard and found him in a pitiful situation, without fire, without daylight, in a covered cell, and so on./ His statements, which were finely amplified by the other oppositionists, could not possibly be as unfounded as the ministers and the ministers wanted the public to believe, for they were as angry and incensed as one who had been told an unpleasant truth and showed in general that they had been hit in a sore place. Sir Francis's/ visits to the prison (for he repeated them) were now/ represented as dangerous and seditious, and the superintendent of the same ordered that he should no longer admit the said baronet/ for the time being. - College/ the carricaturist calls the prison because the state criminal is promoted here and can finally reach the highest dignity./ What the baronet says of the girls is appropriate to his libertarian way of life. The "vide democratic charities" goes back to an allmosis of a few guineas which Sir Fr. Burdett disbursed in the prison. The Br[o-]/ ther Citizens of the Baronet or the state prisoners, mostly former members of the correspo[n-]/ conducting society, became freye speakers, agitators, libellers, etc. [?] they should let.