a single case may depend the lives of many individuals. The clemency he shews, though it spares the life of a single convict, may be the means of alluring others to the commission of the same crime, who from other judges will not meet with the same lenity. The execution of a severe judgment may be the means of procuring impunity to many other criminals, by inducing prosecutors to shrink from their duty and jurymen to violate their oaths.

From the foregoing observations it should seem, that the laws which it is proposed to repeal, cannot well be defended as part of a general system of criminal jurisprudence. Taken by themselves, it seems still more difficult to justify them. They are of such inordinate severity, that, as laws now to be executed, no person would speak in their defence. They have, indeed, by a change of circumstances, become far more severe than they were when originally passed. Not to dwell on the circumstance of their severity having increased just in the proportion that the value of money has diminished; the state of the criminal law in other respects, at the time when these laws were enacted, afforded an excuse for passing them which has long ceased to exist.

When, in the reign of King William, the benefit of clergy was taken away from the crime of privately stealing, in a shop, goods of the value of five shillings; that offence was already punishable capitally on all but those who could read. The statute had no other effect, therefore, than to place men, whose crime was aggravated by the education which they had received, upon a level with those who had to urge, in extenuation of their guilt, the deplorable ignorance in which they had been left by their parents and by the state.

The same observation cannot, indeed, be made on the Act of the 12th Anne, which relates to stealing money or goods in a dwelling-house but when it passed, only seven years had elapsed since the adoption of the law, which extended the benefit of clergy to the illiterate, as well as to those who could read and men who had been accustomed to see ignorant persons convicted capitally, for stealing what was of the value only of thirteen-pence, in any place or under any circumstances; could not have thought it an act of great severity, to appoint death as a punishment for stealing in a dwelling-house property of the value of forty shillings.

It is sufficient, however, to say of those laws, that they are not, and that it is impossible that they should, be executed; and that instead of preventing, they have multiplied crimes; the very crimes they were intended to repress, and others no less alarming to society, (perjury, and the obstructing the administration of justice.)

But although these laws are not executed, and may be said, therefore,. to exist only in theory; they are attended with many most serious practical consequences.-Amongst these, it is not the least important, that they form a kind of standard of cruelty, to justify every harsh and excessive exercise of authority. Upon all such occasions these unexecuted laws are appealed to, as if they were in daily execution.-Complain of the very severe punishments which prevail in the army and the navy; and you are told that the offences, which are so chastised, would by the municipal law be punished with death. When not long since a governour of one of the West India islands was accused of having ordered that a young woman should be tortured; his counsel said in his defence, that the woman had been guilty of a theft, and that by the laws of this country her life would have been forfeited. When, in the framing new laws, it is proposed to appoint for a very slight transgression a very severe punishment; the argument always urged in support of it is, that actions, not much more criminal, are by the already existing law punished with death.-So in the exercise of that large discretion which is left to the judges, the state of the law affords a justification for severities, which could not otherwise be justified. When for an offence, which is very low in the scale of moral turpitude, the punishment of transportation for life is inflicted; a man who only compared the crime with the punishment, would be struck with its extraordinary severity; but he finds upon inquiry, that all that mass of human suffering which is comprised in the sentence, passes by the names of tenderness and mercy; because death is affixed to the crime by a law scarcely ever executed, and, as some persons imagine, never intended to be executed.

For the honour of our national character-for the prevention of crimes-for the maintenance of that respect which is due to the laws, and to the administration of justice—and for the sake of preserving the sanctity of oaths-it is highly expedient that these statutes should be repealed.

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The latitude which juries allow themselves in estimating the value of property stolen, with a view to the punishment which is to be the consequence of their verdict, is an evil of very great magnitude. Nothing can be more pernicious, than that jury men should think lightly of the important duties they are called upon to discharge, or should acquire a habit of trifling with the solemn oaths they take. And yet ever since the passing of the acts which punish with death the stealing in shops or houses, or on board ships, property of the different values which are there mentioned; juries have, from motives of humanity, been in the habit of frequently finding by their verdicts, that the things stolen were worth much less than was clearly proved to be their value.-It is held, indeed, by some of the judges (whether by all of them, and upon all occasions, I am not certain) that juries in favour of life may fairly, in fixing the value of the property, take into their consideration the depreciation of money which has taken place since the statutes passed; or in the words of Mr. Justice Blackstone,

may reduce the present nominal value of money to its ancient standard."-To shew, therefore, to what an extent juries have assumed to themselves a power of dispensing with the law in this respect, it will be proper to refer to the earliest trials for these offences, that I happen to have met with.

In the year 1731-2, which was only thirty-two years after the act of King William, and only sixteen after the act of Queen Ann, (a period during which there had scarcely been any sensible diminution in the value of money;) it appears from the sessions papers that, of thirty-three persons indicted at the Old Bailey for stealing privately in shops, warehouses, or stables, goods to the value of five shillings and upwards, only one was convicted; twelve were acquitted; and twenty were found guilty of the theft, but the things stolen were found to be worth less than five shillings.-Of fifty-two persons tried in the same year at the Old Bailey, for stealing in dwellinghouses, money, or other property, of the value of forty shillings, only six were convicted; twenty-three were acquitted; and twenty-three were convicted of the larceny, but saved from a capital punishment by the jury stating the stolen property to be of less value than forty shillings.-In the following years the numbers do not differ very materially from those in the year 1731.

Some of the cases which occurred about this time are of such a kind, that it is difficult to imagine by what casuistry the jury could have been reconciled to their verdict. It may be proper to mention a few of them.--Elizabeth Hobbs, was tried in September 1722, for stealing in a dwelling-house one broad piece, two guineas, two half-guineas, and forty-four shillings, in money. She confessed the fact, and the jury found her guilty, but found that the money stolen was worth only thirty-nine shillings. Mary Bradley, in May 1732, was indicted for stealing in a dwelling-house, lace which she had offered to sell for twelve guineas, and for which she had refused to take eight guineas; the jury, however, who found her guilty, found the lace to be worth no more than thirty-nine shillings. Wm. Sherrington, in Oct. 1732, was indicted for stealing privately in a shop, goods which he had actually sold for 11. 5s. and the jury found that they were worth only 4s. 10d.

In the case of Michael Allom, indicted in February 1733, for privately stealing in a shop forty-three dozen pairs of stockings, value 31. 10s.; it was proved that the prisoner had sold them for a guinea and a half, to a witness who was produced on the trial; and yet the jury found him guilty of stealing what was only of the value of 4s. 10d. In another case, that of Geo. Dawson and Joseph Hitch, also indicted in February 1733, it appeared that the two prisoners, in company together at the same time, stole the same goods privately in a shop; and the jury found one guilty to the amount of 4s. 10d. and the other to the amount of 5s. that is, that the same goods were at one and the same moment of different values. This monstrous proceeding is accounted for by finding that Dawson, who was capitally convicted, had been tried before at the same sessions for a similar offence; and had been convicted of stealing to the amount only of 4s. 10. The jury seem to have thought, that having had the benefit of their indulgence once, he was not entitled to it a second time; or in other words, that having once had a pardon at their hands, he had no further claims upon their mercy.

The maxim that it is "better for ten guilty persons to eseape than for one innocent man to suffer," is mentioned with approbation by Mr. Justice Blackstone, but is contested by Dr. Paley.- "If by better," he says, "be meant that it is more for the publick advantage, the proposition I think cannot be maintained. The security of civil life, (which is essential to

the value and the enjoyment of every blessing it contains, and the interruption of which is followed by universal misery and confusion,) is protected chiefly by the dread of punishment." By the dread of punishment, it is true; but of punishment as a consequence of guilt; not of punishment falling indiscriminately on those who have not, and on those who have, provoked it by their crimes.-The security of civil life is undoubtedly the first object of all penal laws; but by nothing can that security be more grievously interrupted, than by the innocent suffering for the crimes of the guilty.-It should seem from the animadversions of Dr. Paley, that he imagined that those who have adopted this maxim, treat the escape of ten guilty persons as a trivial ill; whereas, they deem it an evil of very great magnitude; but yet one less destructive of the security and happiness of the community, than that one innocent man should be put to death with the forms and solemnities of justice.

"The misfortune," continues Dr. Paley, "of an individual, (for such may the sufferings, or even the death of an innocent person be called, when they are occasioned by no evil intention,) cannot be placed in competition with this object.”—He here speaks of the sufferings and privations endured by the victim, as if they were the only evils resulting from the pu nishment of the innocent. He overlooks entirely the mischiefs which arise from the consideration, that the most perfect innocence, and the most implicit submission to the laws, cannot afford security to those who possess the one, and practise the other. He leaves altogether out of his consideration that disrespect for the tribunals, which is the necessary consequence of so terrible a failure in the administration of justice. He does not reflect how much the effect of example, must be weakened by men being taught, from what they have themselves witnessed, that the wretch, whom they see consigned to punishment, may be in the highest degree unfortunate, and in no degree guilty.He does not take into his account the hopes which the punishment of an innocent man ever affords to the guilty, by placing in so striking a point of view, the fallibility of our tribunals; and by shewing how uncertain it is that punishment will be the consequence of guilt. Could the escape of ten of the most desperate criminals have ever produced as much mischief to society, as did the publick executions of Calas, of D'Anglade, or of Lebrun? The state