the most orderly and well-difpofed Citi

zens.

Grotius ftrongly recommends it to all Christian princes, to copy the example of Sabaco king of Egypt, a prince of most diftinguished piety, who, as Diodorus tells us, changed capital punishments, with good fuccefs, into ftated kind of labour: And indeed we learn from hiftory, that the nations, whofe civil inftitutions have been most applauded, have not punished theft capitally.

Quintilian very juftly remarks, that no one will doubt, but that if it is poffible to reclaim the guilty, as it is allowed to be fometimes poffible, it is much better for the commonwealth to spare their lives, than to punish them capitally.

We may readily admit, that the true measure of human punishment fhould be governed by the general intereft of the ftate; but we may fafely deny that the interest

intereft of any free and well regulated ftate requires capital punishment to be inflicted, except in a cafe where the safety of the ftate demands it. And we contend, that there are more effectual methods of police, by which criminals may be amended themselves, make reparation to the injured, and by their punishments become a living and daily example to others.

In this country we have never known, that any addition to the feverity of punishments has had the intended effect of checking the progress of these crimes against which they were directed. We have at this time a remarkable inftance to the contrary, in the act of parliament for the more speedy execution of criminals in cafes of murder, and for anatomizing their bodies after execution.

This Law was, no doubt, well intended, and had a strong appearance of answering the good end for which it was calculated. Q3 Never

Nevertheless experience has proved its inef ficacy; for the number of murders has rather increafed than diminished fince the paffing of that act.

It must then be admitted, that the feveri ty of punishments does not leffen the number of criminals; and fuch rigour is more particularly inexpedient in our free conftitution, in which the Judge, in capital cafes, muft pronounce the fentence of the Law, and the fovereign has no power to alter it, though he may remit it by pardoning the offender. So that the exceffive rigour of the Law produces this dilemma, that a criminal must remain totally unpunished, or undergo a sentence too grievous and severe for the offence.

The arguments of the old writers, and fome of later date, fuch as Grotius and Puffendorf, &c. cannot, as has been obferved, be applied to our conftitution. Their reafoning is calculated for the meridian of those governments, where the fovereign might alter, difpenfe with, or mitigate

mitigate the Law at pleasure. But in our conftitution there is no medium, in capital cafes, between severity and impunity.

It has been remarked, that the writers above-mentioned recommend lenity and moderation in punishments, though they, and, in particular Puffendorf, declare their opinion, that it is not unlawful to inflict capital punishments in cafes of theft, &c. for the public good.

But, in truth, severity in punishment cannot tend to the public good, unless fuch feverity is warranted by the Law of Nature, to which all human laws and fentences should be referred. The fubtle diftinctions which philofophers and politicians have established between moral and political good, has been productive of, and applied to justify the most unnatural inftances of cruelty and injuftice. It is a diftinction founded on the vanity and arrogance of men bewildered in fpeculation, who have proudly erected a fyftem of their own, in oppofition to that of Nature and Reason, A fyftem

A system which ambition finds its interest in fupporting against the common sense and undoubted rights of mankind.

To this dangerous refinement, however, we may oppose the authority of the poet,

Nunquam aliud natura, aliud fapientia dicit.

JUVENAL.

And we may venture to fay, that a police founded on the unnatural principles of fuch a diftinction, is a monftrous superstructure,

CHAP. VI.

SECT. I.

Of the Causes which have produced the Severity of Punishments.

I

F we enter into an accurate and political investigation of the causes which gave rife to the exceffive rigour of Punishments, we shall be more clearly convinced that

their