taken to keep the same clean and to prevent the accumulation of Filth no Malignant Disease hath
ever yet appeared To which prisoners [..] for all but the most atracious Offences are committed and that
the sole. Reason why any Middlesex prisoners at all are in Newgate is that the Citizens of London
do by their several Charters among divers other Valuable Priviledges and Immunities held the
Shrievalty of Middlesex together with that of London in Farm and that as they Unite
those two several Offices and the Jurisdictions attendant thereon in the same Person so do they
make the Prison of Newgate which is situated in and is properly the Prison of London
a Prison for the County of Middlesex .

That therefore the Custody of the Middlesex Prisioners is not to be Considered as a burthen
on the Citizens but as a necessary Consequence of their Nomination of the same Persons as
are sheriffs of London to be Sheriff of Middlesex the Right to which Nomination could never
have been forced on them, they must necessarily be supposed originally to have Solicited
it and the rather as they Constantly exercise it and under Colour thereof have for many years past
raised immonse Sums in Proof whereof your Petitioners alledge that since the year 1672 the
Amount of Sheriffs Fines hath been upwards of £148750, a sufficient part whereof your
Petitioners humbly apprehend might very Properly have been applied by the Citizens for
the rebuilding of their Goal of Newgate as it is in Judgment of Law the prison of the
Sheriffs.

That although it is now upwards of 600 years since the first Building of the said
Goal no attempt hath ever been made to Charge the County of Middlesex with any expence
attending the same but on the Contrary at a Time of Publick Calamity (Vizt.) immediately
after the Dreadful Conflagration in 1666, when the real Distresses of the Citizens might
oblige them to Implore the aid of Parliament they without any Previous application to the
County of Middlesex obtained for the Purpose of Building Prisons for Felons and other
Malefactors (among other things) a Grant of a very Considerable Revenue by a Duty on Coals
which hath produced to the city no less a Sum than £736804.

That how much soever your Petitioners may be disposed to Camont that notwithstanding