[7] This is unjust--George II. displayed conspicuous courage at Dettingen. THE CONDITION OF THE FLEET PRISON, AS REVEALED BY A PARLIAMENTARY ENQUIRY (1729). A. DESCRIPTION OF THE WARDEN, THOMAS BAMBRIDGE. +Source.+--Horace Walpole: _Anecdotes of Painting in England_, 1771. Vol. iv., p. 71. I have a sketch in oil that Hogarth gave me, which he intended to engrave.[8] It was done at the time when the house of commons appointed a committee to enquire into the cruelties exercised on prisoners in the Fleet to extort money from them. The scene is the committee; on the table are the instruments of torture. A prisoner in rags, half starved, appears before them; the poor man has a good countenance that adds to the interest. On the other hand is the inhuman gaoler. It is the very figure that Salvator Rosa would have drawn of Iago in the moment of detection. Villainy, fear, and conscience are mixed in yellow and livid on his countenance, his lips are contracted by tremor, his face advances as eager to lie, his legs step back as thinking to make his escape; one hand is thrust precipitately into his bosom, the fingers of the other are catching uncertainly at his button-holes. B. HIS CRUELTY. +Source.+--_Lieutenant Bird's Letter from the Shades to T----s B-m-dge_, 1729. Pp. 37, 38. As soon as he had introduced his Marmadons,[9] he began to treat the Prisoners in a Manner little different from that Dragooning, which, upon another Account the Protestants some time ago, suffer'd in _France_; some he clapp'd into Irons, and others he flung into dungeons; so that it may be said without much Impropriety, that the poor Prisoners underwent a perfect Persecution from their New Warden. The Effect of Persecution is always the same, tho' the Pretence may be Religion, or something else, yet Interest is the true Cause. It soon appear'd that all this Cruelty of B-mb-ge, was only to make the Prisoners more ready to comply with his Demands, by striking a previous Terror into their Minds, and they found out that the only Way to lay that spirit of Cruelty, which possess'd the New Warden, was to give up to his Avarice all the Little which was left them, or cou'd be procured from their Friends to support Life, which every one knows is as much as the generality of Men in those unfortunate Circumstances can hope or desire to do, so helpless they are of themselves, and so cold and scanty is the Charity and Allowance of Friends and Relations; many of those distress'd People, in order to satisfy his avaricious Demands, and to avoid his rigorous Treatment, which grew as terrible to them as an Inquisition, have been obliged to sell their Cloathes off their Backs and give up every Penny of their little Subsistence, by which Means they have been ready to perish with cold and hunger, passing many miserable Days together without eating a Morsel of Victuals. C. FINDINGS OF THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY.