Editor’s NoteEditor’s Note1582To Evan Nepean23 July 1800 (Aet 52)

Q.S.P. 23 July 1800—Wednesday

I cannot think myself justified, in keeping back any longer the enclosed letter from Mr. Wise's Agent,² complaining of the treatment pg 335he has met with from the Treasury in relation to his Estates near Tothill Fields.—

If you do not approve of your sending it to Mr. Long, pray send it back to me that I may, or, if you think I ought to suppress it, tell me so.—

What a Debate yesterday (in the Times) about Prisons in the House! (Mainwaring seems given up by Pitt and his reputation ruined)³ and nobody to say, that among the properties of Panopticon one is—the rendering all such abuses physically impossible. I cannot avoid begging a glance for a passage (in a book) which you will find prophetic of this case.

I cannot help thinking that not only the surest but the shortest way would be, if you could persuade yourself to write something to Mr. Long to some such effect as that of the Brief⁴—with or without additions omissions or alterations.—It would thus be capable of being handed on to any other persons, who might have doubts or objections to remove. Less time would be consumed in the writing, than in the meeting, including the exertions to obtain it.—