An account of the rise, progress, and present state, of the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts throughout England and Wales / By James Neild.

  • Neild, James, 1744-1814.
Date:
1802
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the rise, progress, and present state, of the Society for the Discharge and Relief of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts throughout England and Wales / By James Neild. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    consider that in both Houses of Parliament persons are to be found, whose learning and experience will enable them to suggest and to afford an adequate remedy, when once the subject is taken into the consideration of the Legislature; it is to be hoped that the importance of the subject will induce the Legislature speedily to deliberate upon it; for the delay of justice is very injurious to a commercial people, and inconsistent with the idea of good government : yet how common is it, for the plain- tiffs against persons committed to the city compters, to deliver declarations, and proceed no farther, until the debtor, at his own expence, obtains a rule of court for proceeding to trial 1 In this undertaking, though the expence be small, numberless debtors are not able to defray it, but by the humane assis- tance of some casual benefactor; nay, and many instances can be adduced, in default of such a friend, of the unfortunate sufferer having sold his cloaths and his bedding to answer this purpose: and aftef all, after the base conduct of the supposed creditor, and the debtor’s long confinement, the debt has upon trial been proved supposititious, or pretended only, in which case, although the debtor may gain his cause in a court of justice, yet he must submit to the vexatious hardship of having been deprived of his liberty, his time, his goods, his reputation, and his business, without redress ; unable to prosecute the villain who ruined him, for he has neither money for law, nor for bread.