1 Aug 1812

Evidence Introd

Introd

Ch. 26 Impris[?]

'.2 Bad for compulsion

To the correcting out of the grasp of the depredator the property of his Creditor, nothing that has ever been known by the name of torture, supposing it necessary and at the same time actually effectual or but for the wilful default of the debtor effectual would be misapplied. For if having the property at his command rather than give it up to him to whom it is due he choses /as to his choice/ to endure this torture, the proof is altogether conclusive that be the intensity of the looker what it may, be experience in the (idea) of the detention, he experiences from whatsoever course, a [...?] and more than equivalent, howsoever malignant and unenviable a pleasure.

Happily to the production of the desirable result, no such no such supposition, as such alarming no such dangerous instrument is necessary no such instrument is so effectually conducive and the familiar indeed too familiar and simple instrument solitary confinement /in prison solitude/.

Two years has scarce satisfied the unfeeling /[...?]/ and unthinking severity by which it has been applied to the purpose of punishment: two weeks would in most if not in all instances suffice for the purpose of compulsion thus directed: for the purpose of compelling disclosure and surrender of effects for the benefit of creditors.

Of suffering in the character of an instrument of compulsion operating by its intensity, as in the case of what is commonly understood by the name of torture it is a property by the stimulus applied to the mind, to excite such a degree of resisting force as has /hath/ sometimes been found sufficient to prevent the attainment of the object aimed at by it. Of solitary imprisonment, especially if alone employed as an instrument of compulsion accompanied as it ought to be with spare diet and perpetual darkness it is the property[?] to break the spirit as the phrase is, to weakness into the mind /marked [...?]/ the desired and solitary weakness, to deprive it of the power of applying what in the present case is by the supposition unjust resistance.