At the next vacancy for a town councillor, he presented himself; he was unanimously returned; and on the presentation of the usual oath against an inclosure, he begged to decline the taking of it till he had made a few remarks. The town clerk who offered the oath to him was very peremptory, and told him he must take it or not take it, without observation. But Thorsby was as positive, and prevailed. In a few plain statements he showed to the council the severe injuries which the town, its beauty, its trade, its health, suffered from the want of land to extend itself upon; that it possessed the most admirable ground for houses and gardens, for factories and streets on these Lammas lands, which did no good to the freedmen, though a suitable compensation for their right, properly invested, would do them a permanent good. To the astonishment of the town, the whole corporation voted for the measure at once. In less than a year Thorsby had the satisfaction of seeing an act of parliament obtained for that purpose; and in a few years the whole of those so long desolated fields covered with handsome villas, gardens, airy streets, and public edifices; schools, alms-houses for the decayed members of different trades; a blind asylum in an open, healthy situation, under the care of the principal ladies and gentlemen of the place, where the children, under a wise system of instruction, presented one of the most interesting sights that suffering humanity can offer to the benevolent heart; and where they were preparing, too, for different occupations, which such instructions alone made possible to them.