sponging-house, or even into the jail itself.
But though the monster's own subordinates
were moved to compassion, and endeavoured to
dissuade him from his purpose, he forced his
unhappy prisoner into the infected house, where
he caught the small-pox, of which he died after
a few days, leaving a large family in the greatest
distress, and with his last breath charging
Bambridge as his murderer.

He was a poor friend and protégé of
Oglethorpe's, who, if he could not discharge
his debts, yet went often to see him, to
carry him such comfort and consolation as he
could.  And the miseries, wrongs, and oppressions
which he saw in his frequent visits to the
Fleet, set him on the track of prison amelioration
about thirty years before Howard began
his great career.  After the usual parliamentary
preliminaries, a Prison Visiting Committee was
appointed, of which Mr. James Oglethorpe was
named chairman, with the prospect of plenty
of work on hand, of dense tracts of opposition
to be traversed, of monstrous abuses to be
removed if possible, and of untiring energy to
meet them with.  The Fleet Prison was taken
first.  The Fleet had been originally designed
and used for the confinement of the prisoners
committed by the Star Chamber, and the warden
was ex-officio an officer of parliament.  When
the Star Chamber was abolished, the privileges
of the warden of the Fleet to receive fees from
archbishops, bishops, peers, and others of lower
degree, or to put such persons in irons, was
abolished, and the prison itself appropriated
to the use and confinement of debtors, and
persons committed for contempt of court.  But
the wardens, caring nothing for acts of parliament
and what they abolished, still went on
with their extortions and cruelties, putting such
of the prisoners as could not pay their fees into
irons, if they thought that would bring them
money, or if it was pleasant to them to take
revenge on impetuosity; besides otherwise
illtreating and oppressing the poor wretches, all the
same as if they had right and the law on their
side.  The warden's office, which had been given
originally to Sir Jeremy Whichcot and his heirs,
"together with that of the keeper of the old
palace at Westminster, with the shops in
Westminster Hall, and certain tenements adjoining
the Fleet," was now a mere matter of sale and
barter.  Lord Clarendon had sold it for five
thousand pounds to one John Huggins, and
Huggins re-sold it in 1728 to Bambridge, who
fell upon evil days, and Robert Castell, and Mr.
James Oglethorpe's Committee for Prison
Visiting.*
* See page 251 of the present volume.

On their first visit, February 27, 1729, the
committee found Sir William Rich in irons,
because of some dispute between him and the
warden.  They ordered him to be set free from his
chains, but they had no sooner left than
Bambridge fastened them on again.  And the next day,
when the committee unexpectedly revisited the
prison, they found Sir William loaded as before.
For which contempt of court Bambridge was
ordered into the custody of the sergeant-at-
arms, Oglethorpe, as chairman, bringing the case
before the House.  He was not a man to be
trifled with by wardens of the Fleet or others,
and so the world found out before long.

Nothing could be more horrible or more
iniquitous than the arrangements and life of the
Fleet in those days.  There were two sides, the
"Common Side" and the "Masters' Side."  On
the common side were those wards called the
Upper Chapel, the Lower Chapel, and Julius
Caesar's; and into these wards were crammed
ninety-three persons, many of them too poor to
pay for a bed or even the shilling a week which
was the price of a share of one, and so lying
on the bare boards.  The Women's Ward and
the Lion's Den were equally bad.  On the chapel
stairs were rooms let at five pounds yearly to
those who could afford to pay the rent, and on
"the same floor were cells containing wretches
who were uncertain what chamber rent they were
compelled to pay, being, as they said, at the mercy
of the warden."  Here even the sick lay on the
floor; and two women with small-pox were put
together in the same bed, and made to pay two
and tenpence a week for the accommodation.
The Masters' Side was somewhat less ghastly
than this, and the fees were higher; but not
always certain to secure what they had bought,
even when paid.  For Bambridge, when he
wanted money, used to turn his prisoners from
ward to ward, and from the Masters' Side to the
Common Side, sometimes putting the more
spirited into irons, and taming the courage of
the bold by locking them up in dungeons till
they had paid for their freedom and better treatment.
But though he made a good thing of
his prisoners, he made a better, sometimes, of
their liberty, and connived at the escape of such
as could and would pay him sufficiently well,
without much thought as to whether he went
with the law or against it.  He let many escape;
among the rest one Boyce, a smuggler, charged,
at the king's suit, with over thirty thousand
pounds.

On the 20th of March the first report of the
committee appointed three weeks before was
presented to the House.  Huggins, Bambridge,
and others, were directed to be prosecuted for
their crimes; but unfortunately the two principal
scoundrels were acquitted—Huggins, on the
charge of murder, and Bambridge, first for murder
and then for felony.  He was, however,
dismissed as warden, and a bill was brought in
for the better regulation of the Fleet.  Two
months after, a second report was presented to
the House, this time including the Marshalsea
and the Palace Court prison of Westminster.
Sir Philip Meadows was Knight-Marshal at this
time; but he had appointed one John Darby as
his deputy, and Darby had sold his post and all
the profits accruing to a butcher named Acton,
for three hundred and forty pounds yearly.
Acton seems to have been greater in the art of
oppression than even Bambridge himself; and
the Marshalsea must have been a real hell upon