A signed letter from Mapletoft to Collingwood, secretary of the hospital from 1758 to 1790, regarding the case of a foundling, Samuel Viner, apprenticed to an abusive master, Henry Bartlett, a barber. Mapletoft recounts in detail the complaints of the boy's cruel treatment at the hands of his master and his repeated attempts to escape. The boy's first appeals to the authorities to stop his master from beating and threating him only resulted in further, more severe threats. A note at the end in a different hand indicates that the letter was "read at the Gen[eral] Comm[itt]ee the 22 Augt 1770 the master to attend the comm[itt]ee next Wednesday ... Both were admonished."
