Proposal for the Relief and Employment of Friendless Girls and Repenting Prostitutes (1758)

This is an object which seems in a more especial manner to claim the attention of the SOCIETY FOR ENCOURAGING ARTS, MANUFACTURES, AND COMMERCE, to whose patronage I recommend it. They have something in their power, in their collective, as well as private capacity, and it may be presumed they will not have it less in their inclination, among so many useful things, to give the world a striking proof of their skill, and of their beneficence. Arts and commerce cannot but flourish under the influence of a society, which has already shewn so much zeal for the welfare of their country, in promoting industry and ingenuity, and consequently checking the growth of vice. But in this they will also demonstrate a nobleness and gallantry of spirit, heightened by the most exalted policy. By preventing the guilt and misery of prostitution, they will lend assistance to destroy one of the numerous causes of the decrease of the people, which must at length involve arts, manufactures, and commerce, in one common distress. Such a step will give us a specimen of what the golden age has been, if such an age there ever was, or, at least, what is most like that happy stare which poets have described with so much art and beauty.

As I am now recommending the care of such crowds of wretched women, to the charity of the noble minded, I cannot help remarking, that if there was less idleness amongst the working female poor, there would be not only fewer prostitutes, and fewer beggars, but a most enormous expence in the poor's rate would likewise be saved.