"Mr. Anslowe (as is credibly informed) held it by fyne (and otherwise) at 600 li. per annum, and had but some part of the benefitts of the prison, nothing of the pallace at Westminster. And as for this Warden's valuation of it at 4000 li. per annum, it might be, supposeing that if the benefitts of the pallace were had &c. But what if the one with the other cost in expences 4,000 li. per annum, what will be then advanced?" &c.
This selling of the Office of Warden, led to a great squabble in the early days of Queen Anne's reign, and it seems to have arisen in this way. A Warden of the Fleet, named Ford, in the reign of William and Mary, was found guilty of suffering one Richard Spencer to escape, but was acquitted of some minor charges, and a certain Col. Baldwin Leighton obtained a grant of the Office on April 6, 1690. On June 25, 1691, this grant was quashed, and Leighton soon after died. A Mr. Tilley, in the fifth year of William and Mary purchased the Inheritance of the said Office, together with the Mansion and Gardens thereto appertaining, but on Dec. 23, 1704, judgment was given in the Queen's Bench that the Office be seized into her Majesty's hands, and this was affirmed in Parliament.
The discipline in the prison at this time seems to have been very bad, so much so that many witnesses who could have spoken of Tilley's misdeeds were hindered from giving evidence, some by being put into dungeons; others, by violence, bribes, or other artifices. Take a case in point, which happened about this time. The case of Robert Elliot and others. "One Francis Chartyres was Arrested at the several Suits of the said several Persons, about the 4th of May last, all their Debts amounting to 140 l. and upwards, which cost them 20 l. to effect: And the said Francis Chartyres being a stubborn and an obstinate Man, and dangerous to Arrest, he having killed several Persons upon the like attempt, and at this Arrest run the Bayliffs through. And after he was taken, he by Habeas Corpus turned himself over to the said Fleet Prison. And Mr. Tilley, and the Turnkey, and one Whitwood, an Officer of the Fleet, were acquainted, by the persons above mentioned, what a dangerous Man he was, and what it cost them to take him; but they took no notice thereof, and declared they would let him out for all of them; and so they did, and the next Day the said Persons Arrested him again, and he went over to the Fleet a second time, and was immediately set at liberty; who coming to the Persons aforesaid, at whose Suit he was Arrested, bid them defiance; saying, He was a Freeman, for that he had given 18 Guineas for it, and they should never have a farthing of their Debts, which they now doubt of, the said Chartyres being gone for Scotland."
Hatton, in his "New View of London," 1708, gives, the boundary of the Rules, and also descants on the pleasantness of the Prison, as an abode. "Fleet Prison, situate on the East side of the Ditch, between Ludgate Hill and Fleet Lane, but the Rules extend Southward on the East side of Fleet Canal to Ludgate Hill, and thence Eastward to Cock Ally on the South side of Ludgate Hill, and to the Old Bayly on the North, and thence Northward in the Old Bayley both sides the Street, to Fleet Lane, and all that Lane, and from the West End, southward to the Prison again. It is a Prison for Debtors from any part of the Kingdom, for those that act or speak any thing in contempt of the Courts of Chancery and Common Pleas; and for the pleasantness of the Prison and Gardens, and the aforesaid large extent of its Rules, it is preferred before most other Prisons, many giving Money to turn themselves over to this from others."
Footnotes
[108] Equal in our currency to about three times the amount.
[109] Reports of Cases, &c., by Sir James Dyer (ed. 1794) vol. ii. p. 204 a.
