The London-citizen exceedingly injured

or, A British inquisition display'd, in an account of the unparallel'd case of a citizen of London, bookseller to the late Queen, who was in a most unjust and arbitrary manner sent on the 23d of March last, 1738, by one Robert Wightman, a mere stranger, to a private madhouse. Containing, I. An account of the said citizen's barbarous treatment in Wright's private madhouse on Bethnal Green for nine weeks and six days, and of his rational and patient behaviour, whilst chained, handcuffed, strait-wastecoated and imprisoned in the said madhouse: where he probably would have been continued, or died under his confinement, if he had not most providentially made his escape: in which he was taken up by the constable and watchmen, being suspected to be a felon, but was unchain'd and set at liberty by Sir John Barnard, the then Lord Mayor. II. As also an account of the illegal steps, false calumnies, wicked contrivances, bold and desperate designs of the sais Wightman, in order to escape justice for his crimes, with some account of his engaging Dr. Monro and others as his accomplices. The whole humbly addressed to the legislature, as plainly shewing the absolute necessity of regulating private madhouses in a more effectual manner than at present. --

by Alexander Cruden