Note 14 — William Hogarth: PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER. Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time.

Thomas Coram was born in 1668. He had amassed a competence in following the sea, and lived at Rotherhithe, like Captain Lemuel Gulliver, and that greater mariner, Captain Cuttle. In his way to and from the maritime districts of the town, his honest heart was frequently afflicted by the sight of destitute and abandoned children. Probably he had never heard of St. Vincent de Paul—this rough tarry-breeks of the Benbow and Cloudesley Shovel era—but he set about doing the selfsame work as that for which the foreign philanthropist was canonized. Coram had already effected much good by procuring an Act granting a bounty on naval stores imported to Georgia—where the colonists were frequently left destitute—and by devising an admirable scheme for the education of Indian girls. The Foundling Hospital was, however, his great work. He obtained the charter of incorporation for it, A.D. 1739. These were the words, of which I have given the sense above:—“I have not wasted the little wealth of which I was formerly possessed in self-indulgence or vain expense; and am not ashamed to confess, that in this, my old age, I am poor.” They raised a pension of a hundred a year for the benevolent veteran; Sir Sampson Gideon and Dr. Brocklesby being chief managers of the fund. Captain Coram did not live long to enjoy the pension; and at his death, it was continued to poor old Leveridge, to whose volume of songs William Hogarth contributed a frontispiece.