from Sir Richard Phillips, A Letter to the Livery of London, Relative to the Views of the Writer in Executing the Office of Sheriff (London: T. Gillet, 1808), pp. 76–101.

A Letter to the Livery of London addresses the 'Livery' as the governing body of the City of London, composed of the various 'livery' companies, or chartered bodies originally derived from various guilds of artisans and merchants of London. The book reports Sir Richard Phillips's and others' observations on law enforcement and prisons while he was sheriff of London, and was widely influential in stimulating public discussion and parliamentary action in these areas. The selection from Phillips's Letter here deals particularly with Newgate Prison, which Phillips represents as approaching the slave ships of the period in unnecessary horrors of over-crowding and abuse. In Newgate are generally confined from four to five hundred prisoners, male and female, consisting of county debtors, – felons convicted and unconvicted, – state prisoners, – and fines, or those sentenced to a definite term of imprisonment.