"SIR,

"1I shall set off for the gaols in Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Northumberland, next Monday, and also visit again some which I have already seen, likewise Lancaster, Chester, and Shrewsbury, _if I am not taken off with the gaol distemper_; as Dr. Fothergill says, 'I carry my life in my hand, and it is a wonder I have not been taken off.'

2"The misery in gaols is great beyond description; Sheriffs for many years not having set foot into the prisons of most of the counties in England. There are many of them (the felons wards I mean) dirty, infectious, miserable places; so that, instead of sending healthy useful hands to our Colonies as transports out of our gaols, they become infectious, sickly, miserable objects: half of whom die on their passage; and many of those that arrive at the places of their destination infect the families they enter into. I saw lately in your paper, what I knew our Colonies complained of from Philadelphia: 'An Act passed to prevent infectious diseases being brought into that Province.'

3"Another great evil in gaols is, that the poor debtors on the common side in most counties have not even the felons' county allowance of bread; and I have not found twelve people that have sued out their groats in all the county gaols; that benevolent Act of 32 George II. being frustrated, as no attornies will, without pay, take a poor debtor's case in hand. These I have found some of the most pitiable objects in our gaols.

4"I am, &c.