Plans for the new penitentiary buildings were actually prepared, and operations about to commence, when the Government suddenly decided to suspend further proceedings. The principle of transportation had never been entirely abandoned. Western Africa had indeed been selected for a penal settlement, and a few convicts sent there in spite of the deadly character of the climate. But the statesmen of the day had fully recognized that they had no right to increase the punishment of imprisonment by making it also capital; and the Government, despairing of finding a suitable place of exile, was about to commit itself entirely to the plan of home penitentiaries, when the discoveries of Captain Cook in the South Seas drew attention to the vast territories of Australasia. Embarking hotly on the new project, the Government could not well afford to continue steadfast to the principle of penitentiaries, and the latter might have fallen to the ground altogether, but for the interposition of Jeremy Bentham. This remarkable man published, in 1791, his “Panopticon, or the Inspection House,” a valuable work on prison discipline, and followed it, in 1792, by a formal proposal to erect a prison on the plan he advocated. The outlines on which this model prison was to be constructed were also indicated in a memorandum by Mr. Bentham: “A circular building, an iron cage, glazed, a glass lantern as large as Ranelagh, with the cells on the outer circumference,”—such was his main idea. Within, in the very centre, an inspection station was so fixed that every cell and every part of a cell could be at all times closely observed; but, by means of blinds and other contrivances, the inspectors were concealed, unless they saw fit to show themselves, from the view of the prisoners; by which the feeling of a sort of invisible omnipresence was to pervade the whole place. There was to be solitude or limited seclusion _ad libitum_; but, unless for punishment, limited seclusion in assorted companies was to be preferred. As we have seen, Bentham proposed to throw the place open as a kind of public lounge, and to protect the prisoners from ill-treatment they were to be enabled to hold conversations with the visitors by means of tubes reaching from each cell to the general centre. Bentham’s project had much to recommend it and it was warmly embraced by Mr. Pitt and Lord Dundas, the Home Secretary. But secret influences were hostile to it. It is believed that King George III opposed it from personal dislike of Bentham who was an advanced radical. Year after year, although taken up by Parliament, the measure hung fire. At last in 1810 active steps were taken to re-open the question, thanks to the vigour with which Sir Samuel Romilly called public attention to the want of penitentiaries. Nothing now would please the House of Commons but immediate action; and this eagerness to begin is in strange contrast with the previous long years of delay.