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Edinburgh. 2 Septr 1793 Dear Bentham Much as I detest writing Letters especially in a place where I have so many different ways of passing my time pleasantly as I have here I should reproach myself if I were not to give you some account of a panopticon which is building in this City. As I have never heard you mention it I think it is possible that you may be entirely unacquainted with it. It is built entirely of stone and tho' it was began only a year ago the shell of it is nearly finished. The plan is Adam's and I am informed that he admits that he took the idea of it from your brother. It is a semicircular building and differs from your plan very materially in this respect that the cells in which the Convicts are to work are not placed at the outer ex-tremity of the building but look upon the annular well in the Centre of which the Inspectors room is placed. At the outer extremity are Cells in which the Convicts are to sleep and in which they are to be in solitary confinement and between the two ranges of cells there is a passage into which the doors of both cells open but as these Doors are not facing each other there is no thorough light as in your designs nor the same free circulation of air. The whole side the working Cells which lies towards the Inspectors Rooms is open and to be grated with Iron and the Inspector has no means of seeing into the Cells but from the light of the annular well which the workmen told me was to be encased with a glass sky light. There are four stories of Cells and only two Inspectors Rooms which being placed each between two stories as in your plan have a perfect view into every part of all the working cells. I am afraid you will so little be able to understand my descriptn that I must endeavour to draw some kind of plan for you. I think the want of air seems to be one great objection to this plan and another is that the Convicts in the Cells where they sleep are not exposed to any Inspection it may not be very difficult for them to make their escape especially as those cells are at the outermost part of the building. It is true that this seems to have been provided against by pretty strong walls but Mr Blackburne who had a great deal of Experience on this subject had I remember very little confidence in the thickness of walls. It is true that both the objections I have mentioned are in some degree weakened by the situation of the building which stands on the side of Calton hill under the immediate view of a great neighbourhood between the new and old towns and there is always not only a free Circulation of air but much wind. I am passing my time here very pleasantly principally however in a Society which you would not at all relish that of lawyers. Indeed I doubt whether this would be a very safe country just at this moment for you to be found in, for I heard the Judges of the Justiciary Court the other day declare with great solemnity upon the Trial of Mr Muir that to say the Courts of Justice needed reform was seditious highly criminal and betrayed a most hostile disposition towards the constitution of which the Courts of Justice form a most important part. Pray remember me to the Colonel if he is with you and to Trail if he is in town and tell Trail I am very much obliged to him for his Letter from Buxton and that as I think of staying only a day or two at Glasgow I will not trouble him for the Letters which he was so good as to offer me. Yrs ever sincerely
Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818) was a barrister who became interested in radical politics on meeting Diderot and Franklin in Paris in 1781. He also fought against the savegery of English laws - such as the laws that prescribed the death penalty for minor offenses.
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