Johnson Letter To British Lawmaker Analysis

In Johnson’s letter to the British lawmaker, who decides that when individuals can’t repay their debt, should be put in a debtor prison, is establishing to the lawmaker that this is against human kind to punish those who are not as fortunate as others who are able to have clothes on there backs against those who can’t. Johnson explains how it is hard to be able to have or scramble up the money in order to stay out of debt as he says in his letter, “those who are confined in gaols by their creditors, an enquiry is aid to have been made by which it appears that more than twenty thousand are at this time prisoners for debt.” Johnson has realized that the lawmaker doesn’t have an ounce of care for these people and what will happen to them, the

This is how I interpreted after I read what he actually said, “There is here no need of declamatory vehemence; we live in an age of commerce and computation; let us therefore coolly enquire what is the sum of evil which the imprisonment of debtors bring upon our country.” Johnson also uses his analysis that he has done his research on as he is concluding his final statement to this letter to the lawmaker. There are two parts to this of what he is trying to get the lawmaker to realize about these people that he is ruining there lives. Johnson says, “According to the rule generally received, which supposes that one in thirty dies yearly, the race of man may be said to be renewed at the end of thirty years.” In this last paragraph, Johnson finishes off his argument about how everyone is to be treated the same whether or not of how much money they own to their name. “A very late occurrence may show us the value of the number which we this condemn to be useless; in the reestablishment of the trained bands, thirty thousand are considered as a force sufficient against all exigencies.” All of this proves to show that Johnson has made his argument very clear to the lawmaker in his