During nearly a quarter of a century he was engaged in negotiations with the government for the erection of a "Panopticon," for the central inspection of convicts; a plan suggested to him by a building designed by his brother Samuel, for the better supervision of his Russian shipwrights.
He contributed largely to every number - his principal topics being Education, Freedom of the Press, and Prison Discipline (under which he expounded Bentham's "Panopticon").
It was revised and kept alive by Jeremy Bentham in his fanatical scheme for a "panopticon or inspection house," described as "a circular building, an iron cage glazed, a glass lantern as large as Ranelagh, with the cells on the outer circumference."