her reputation and profpects of marriage, and of the depravation of her moral principle.

This pain must be extreme, if we may judge of it from those barbarous endeavours to conceal their difgrace, to which women, under fuch circumftances, fometimes have recourfe; comparing also this barbarity with their paffionate fondness for their offfpring in other cafes. Nothing but an agony of mind the most infupportable can induce a woman to forget her nature, and the pity which even a ftranger would fhew to a helpless and imploring infant. It is true, that all are not urged to this extremity; but if any are, it affords an indication of how much all fuffer from the fame cause. What fhall we fay to the authors of such mischief?

The lofs which a woman fuftains by the ruin of her reputation almost exceeds computation. Every perfon's happiness depends in part upon the respect and reception which they meet with in the world; and it is no inconfiderable mortification even to the firmeft tempers, to be rejected from the fociety of their equals, or received there with neglect and difdain. But this is not all, nor the worst. By a rule of life, which it is not eafy to blame, and which it is impoffible to alter, a woman lofes with her chaftity the chance of marrying at all, or in any manner equal to the hopes fhe had been accustomed to entertain. Now marriage, whatever it be to a man, is that, from which every woman expects her chief happiness. And this is ftill more true in low life, of which condition the women are, who are most expofed to folicitations of this fort. Add to this, that where a woman's maintenance depends upon her character, (as it does, in a great measure, with those who are to fupport themfelves by fervice) little fometimes is left to the forfaken sufferer, but to ftarve for want of employment, or to have recourfe to prostitution for food and raiment.

As a woman collects her virtue into this point, the lofs of her chastity is generally the deftruction of ber moral principle; and this confequence is to be apprehended, whether the criminal intercourse be dif covered or not.

2. The injury to the family may be understood by the application of that infallible rule, " of doing to others what we would that others should do unto us." Let a father or a brother fay, for what confideration they would fuffer this injury in a daughter or a fifter; and whether any, or even a total lofs of fortune could create equal affliction and diftrefs. And when they reflect upon this, let them distinguifh, if they can, between a robbery committed upon their property by fraud or forgery, and the ruin of their happinefs by the treachery of a feducer.

3. The public at large lofe the benefit of the woman's fervice in her proper place and deftination, as a wife and parent. This to the whole community may be little; but it is often more than all the good, which the feducer does to the community, can recompenfe. Moreover, prostitution is supplied by seduction; and in proportion to the danger there is of the woman's betaking herself, after her first sacrifice, to a life of public lewdness, the feducer is anfwerable for the multiplied evils to which his crime gives birth.

Upon the whole, if we pursue the effects of feduction through the complicated mifery which it occafions; and if it be right to estimate crimes by the mifchief they knowingly produce, it will appear fomething more than mere invective to affert, that not one half of the crimes, for which men fuffer death by the laws of England, are fo flagitious as this.*

* Yet the law has provided no punishment for this offence beyond a pecuniary fatisfaction to the injured family; and this can only be come at, by one of the quainteft fictions in the world, by the father's bringing his action against the feducer, for the lofs of his daughter's fervice, during her pregnan fy and nurturing.

Chapter IV.

ADULTERY.

A NEW fufferer is introduced, the injured hufband, who receives a wound in his fenfibility and affections, the most painful and incurable that human nature knows. In all other refpects, adultery on the part of the man who folicits the chastity of a married woman, includes the crime of feduction, and is attended with the fame mischief.

The infidelity of the woman is aggravated by cruelty to her children, who are generally involved in their parents' fhame, and always made unhappy by their quarrel.

If it be faid that thefe confequences are chargeable not fo much upon the crime, as the discovery, we anfwer, firft, that the crime could not be discov ered unless it were committed, and that the commiffion is never fecure from difcovery; and fecondly, that if we excufe adulterous connexions, whenever they can hope to escape detection, which is the conclufion to which this argument conducts us, we leave the husband no other fecurity for his wife's chastity, than in her want of opportunity or temptation; which would probably either deter men from marrying, or render marriage a ftate of fuch jealoufy and alarm to the husband, as muft end in the flavery and confinement of the wife.

The vow by which married perfons mutually engage their fidelity, is "witneffed before God," and accompanied with circumftances of folemnity and religion, which approach to the nature of an oath. The married offender therefore incurs a crime little fhort of perjury, and the feduction of a married woman is little lefs than fubornation of perjury;-and this guilt is independent of the discovery.

All behaviour, which is defigned, or which knowingly tends to captivate the affection of a married woman, is a barbarous intrusion upon the peace and virtue of a family, though it fall fhort of adultery.

The ufual and only apology for adultery is the prior tranfgreffion of the other party. There are degrees no doubt in this, as in other crimes; and fo far as the bad effects of adultery are anticipated by the conduct of the husband or wife who offends firft, the guilt of the fecond offender is lefs. But this falls very far fhort of a juftification; unless it could be fhewn that the obligation of the marriage vow depends upon the condition of reciprocal fidelity; for which conftruction, there appears no foundation, either in expediency, or in the terms of the promife, or in the design of the legislature which prefcribed the marriage rite. Moreover, the rule contended for by this plea has a manifest tendency to multiply the offence, but none to reclaim the offender.

The way of confidering the offence of one party as a provocation to the other, and the other as only retaliating the injury by repeating the crime, is a childish trifling with words.

And

"Thou shalt not commit adultery," was an interdict delivered by God himself. By the Jewish law adultery was capital to both parties in the crime: "Even he that committeth adu!ry with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and adulterefs fhall furely be put to death." Lev. xx. 10. Which passages prove, that the divine Legiflator placed a great difference between adultery and fornication. with this agree the Chriftian fcriptures; for in almost all the catalogues they have left us of crimes and criminals, they enumerate "fornication, adultery," "whoremongers, adulterers," (Matthew xv. 19. 1 Cor. vi. 9. Gal. v. 9. Heb. xiii. 4.) by which mention of both, they fhew that they did not confider them as the fame; but that the crime of adultery was, in their apprehenfion, diftinct from, and accumulated upon, that of fornication.

The hiftory of the woman taken in adultery, res corded in the eighth chapter of St. John's Gospel, has been thought by fome to give countenance to that crime. As Chrift told the woman, "Neither do I condemn thee," we must believe, it is faid, that he deemed her conduct either not criminal, or not a crime however of the heinous nature which we reprefent it to be. A more attentive examination of the cafe will, I think, convince us, that from it nothing can be concluded as to Chrift's opinion concern. ing adultery, either one way or the other. The tranfaction is thus related: "Early in the morning Jefus came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he fat down and taught them; and the Scribes and Pharifees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midft, they fay unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act: now Mofes in the law commanded that fuch fhould be ftoned; but what fayeft thou? This they faid tempting him, that they might have to accufe him. But Jefus ftooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. when they continued afking him, he lift up himself, and faid unto them, He that is without fin amongst you, let him first cast a stone at her; and again he ftooped down and wrote on the ground: and they which heard it, being convicted by their own confcience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the laft; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman ftanding in the midft. When Jefus had lift up himself and faw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are thofe thine accufers ? hath no man condemned thee? She faid unto him, No man, Lord. And he faid unto her, Neither do 1 condemn thee; go and fin no more."

So

"This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accufe him," to draw him, that is, into an exercife of judicial authority, that they might have