In May, 1732, the King made his second visit to Hanover, and was absent from England four months. He invested the Queen with full powers of Queen-Regent as before. George the Second’s visit to Hanover was again exceedingly unpopular with the nation, but he was determined to go, and it was useless to thwart him. This, Caroline’s second regency, was uneventful, though in it she managed to do something to advance the cause of prison reform. Knowing the injustices and anomalies of the criminal law, the Queen’s influence was all on the side of mercy. She showed a particular distaste to signing death warrants in her capacity as Regent, and whenever she could possibly do so she pardoned the criminals. For instance, we read: “On Tuesday the report of the four criminals who received sentence of death at the late Sessions at the Old Bailey was made to her Majesty in Council by Mr. Sergeant Raby, and her Majesty was graciously pleased to show mercy and pardon them”. In the reform of the prison system the Queen took a direct interest. She was always anxious, when it was in her power, to release prisoners, and to make penalties easier for debtors and other offenders,[84] and she was determined that something should be done to remedy the deplorable condition of the public prisons.[85] She had taken up this question the year after the King’s accession to the throne, and during her regency an inquiry was instituted, which laid bare a frightful system of abuses; gaolers and warders connived at the escape of rich prisoners, and subjected poor ones, who could not pay their extortionate demands, to every sort of cruelty, insult and oppression.