649, there being 141 convicted of murder. In the second period the executions were 494, the convictions for murder being diminished to 113. In the third period the executions were reduced to 355, the convictions for murder being diminished to 105. Thus we see that in this country a reduction in the number of capital punishments has been attended with a diminution in the number of the worst class of offences.

But, does it not reflect deep disgrace on the rulers of the English nation, that the enforcement of the laws which are intended to repress crime should be so sanguinary compared with the practical application of the laws of Prussia? To show the relative disproportion of extreme punishment in the two countries more clearly, let us take a glance at the relative population of both. The population of Prussia, according to the official census of 1826, was about 12 millions. The population of England and Wales, according to the census of 1831, was upwards of 13 millions. Therefore, in 1826 the population of the two kingdoms must have been not widely different. But what an awful disproportion between the amount of human life, in the one and the other kingdom, annually cut off from society by the sword of the law! The Prussian Government looks more to the reformation of offenders; while our own rulers are but too much disposed to believe, in spite of all experience, that the great efficacy of criminal law is in its exterminating examples!

When we speak of the Rulers of England in connection with the severe enforcement of vindictive law, let us do justice to the SUPREME MAGISTRATE, and separate the character and feelings of our august SOVEREIGN from those of his constitutional advisers. We know that GEORGE THE FOURTH was exceedingly averse to executions. We have, upon the best authority, the fact which we formerly mentioned of his anxiety to save the life of a subject against the opinion of the Members of his Council, and his frequently endeavouring, by earnest and protracted argument, when the RECORDER of London's report was under consideration, to induce them to change their minds, and to prevail upon them rather to advise mercy than sacrifice; for, as the King of ENGLAND is not an absolute Monarch like

the King of PRUSSIA, the public must be aware that it is unconstitutional for him to extend the mercy of the Crown to a criminal, unless in conformity with the advice of his responsible Ministers. We also know that to sanction the execution of a subject costs his present MAJESTY a great struggle and great pain; not only that, but he is accustomed to urge every point that can strike a considerate and humane mind in favour of the prisoner whose case is under consideration. It is greatly owing to HIS MAJESTY's own merciful anxiety to save the lives of his subjects, that the extraordinary and unprecedented circumstance has occurred that, during a period of two years and a half, there has been no execution in the Metropolis of this empire, under a jurisdiction which, extending over the City, and the county of Middlesex, embraces nearly one million and a half of people. Where, then, is the necessity for the great number of executions that annually take place in other parts of England? *

On the Liberty of the Press.-Written in 1820.

WHERE the Press is enslaved, government acts on delusion, and the people on their passions. Where the Press is free, the voice of truth is heard in palaces, and reason controls the passions of the people. All power founded in wisdom and conducted with virtue, invites examination; it is the property of truth to court exposure, to solicit discussion; but deception is fond of ambiguity and concealment. In its baseness it does things wicked; in its folly it attempts things impossible. It weakens the obligation of law by destroying its purity; and it would render its power omnipotent by making it control opinion. Thus it destroys the virtue of the laws where their operation is practicable, and attempts to give them authority where it is not. It sinks below human purposes in its actions, and affects the divine attributes in its vanity. It would chain

[+ The last preceding execution for London and Middlesex having taken place April 23, 1833.]

the mind by an effort as mad and useless as that of Xerxes to bind the waves. And all this to gratify some paltry interest, some favourite folly or petty passion, like the same monarch who warred against the elements to obtain the figs of Attica.

The Press is but the expression of public opinion; its freedom is essential to its usefulness; where it is free, it is that agent which indicates the mind and will of the community. Where it is enslaved, there is no peaceable way of collecting that will. It is unknown or scarcely heard of until it speaks in thunder, and the first expression of rebuke is uttered only in the language and acts of the last desperation.

All bad governments have looked on the press with alarm and terror their vices have made them fearful, and their fear has rendered them cruel. They indulge passion instead of consulting reason, until they become ashamed and afraid of truth as their inexorable enemy. They fancy that if they can always keep it in a state of proscription, their vicious contrivances will never be disturbed. If they have succeeded for a time in suppressing the voice of opinion, they become confident and presumptuous: but truth cannot be eternally banished; wander where it will, it can never be destroyed; it has the protection of the divinity, and it returns, like Ulysses, terrible and sudden, to break in upon the revelry of the suitors of Ithaca-the first signal of its approach is felt in the shaft of retribution.

If any argument were wanted to prove the utter futility of the most refined ingenuity of malice and elaborate system of tyranny to domineer over, and destroy opinion and the press, let men look to the fate of the Inquisition. That dreadful tribunal seems to have been permitted by Providence as much to show what the maddened vanity of human power can attempt, as to prove that the combined exertion of the evil resources of mental tyranny can end only in shame and confusion to itself. There was oppression of opinions in its most various, terrible and consolidated form. The anathemas of the Church and the terror of the Laws were united to paralyze the mind, and all their powers were exerted to prevent its free

124 PUBLIC PRESS-THE INQUISITION-STAR-CHAMBER.

expression. The rapacious spirit of confiscation, and savage acts of blood, were graced with terms from the vocabulary of superstition, that whatever was revolting to nature might be considered sanctified by the pretended mysteries of religion: and the system was called peculiarly holy, while it was peculiarly inhuman. Ages had been extending its energies, and consolidating its force-the Civil Power and the Church believed they were daily adding to its strength: yet in its end it only exemplified the fate of that house, in scripture, which was built upon the sand-" and the floods came and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house; and it fell and great was the fall of it." Such is the security of all vicious domination over the human mind. It is established in force, it must be upheld by force; but reason is its enemy, and violence is its end.

The Inquisition abhorred and proscribed the Press. It held opinion in chains of adamant, or made it pass through penal fires yet the Inquisition with its civil and ecclesiastical terrors, its jaded rack and pale criminal," has ceased to exist; while the Press, backed only by the power of reason, flourishes on its ruins.

The Court of Star-chamber-which might be called the Lesser Inquisition of England-was founded on a principle not very different from that which gave birth to the "holy" and inexorable tribunal of Spain. It was the arbitrary court of systematized tyranny into which the Press was cited, to answer for the odious offence of attempting to enlighten mankind. It was there that power, arrogating to itself a divine mission, while it acted upon its passions and confederated with darkness, placed human reason under the intimidation of shame and torture. It succeeded for a time in suppressing the truth, and by the suppression of the truth it deceived itself to its own destruction. It is true its fall shook a kingdom to the centre, but it produced its grand and vigorous renovation. The violence done to opinion, only compresses it into terrible reaction; there is no power that can restrain the march of the human mind, but that of the Great Being who created and can annihilate it that power He has delegated to no other; and how

ever Providence may dispose of Inquisitions and of Starchambers, the Press will be immortal.

But the argument of those who would overwhelm the Press, is, that it is often applied to purposes of evil. Granted:but this argument, by proving too much, proves nothing. It is but the abuse of an inestimable advantage, and there is nothing human which is exempt from abuse. Even they who argue in this way are themselves an instance of their own argument; for they abuse the Press so far as to make it a vehicle of slander on itself. If their argument was worth any thing, it would go to the suppression of the purest institutions of humanity, and even to the extermination of religion itself:-for, religion has been often abused to the detriment of morals, to destruction of charity, and to the infliction of individual oppression and national calamity. Religion was made the pretext for the crusades, when "holy" banditti, fired with superstitious and inhuman zeal, left one quarter of the globe deserted, to depopulate another. Religion was made the pretext for the bloodiest acts which have disgraced the annals of nations. The war of the league-the massacre of St. Bartholomew-the Irish massacre--and the Smithfield burnings, are matters of history, which have been attributed to religion, and which disgraced our species, as they abused her sacred name. Yet the man who would argue that the altars of religion should therefore be overthrown, her temples deserted, and her consolations refused, would be publicly accounted a fiend, or a madman. We have taken this as the strongest example to prove the bad logic of those who argue against the Liberty of the Press; the bad feeling proves itself. We are not afraid of the contention of free opinion, because we know that truth will ultimately prevail. Those who dread discussion, distrust their own cause; but reason is not to be confused by alarm, or subdued by force. We shall take another opportunity of considering the nature and effects of a Censorship.+

[+ Among the papers of the late Mr. Sydney TAYLOR, we have not found the article he here refers to. ED.]