care of the legislature to direct this power over the lives of the fubjects, in a manner most agreeable to the state of civilized refine

ment.

It is remarkable, that the first who reftrained the Benefit of the Clergy was Henry VII. a politic and ambitious Prince, who fupported a precarious title by rigorous inftitutions; and by later ftatutes it is entirely taken away, in a multitude of offences. But what appears most extraordinary and unaccountable is, that the greatest part of the Crimes for which offenders are excluded from their Clergy, have been declared capital fince the Revolution.

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If the propofition above quoted is true, "That in all or moft countries of Europe the rigour of punishments has diminished or augmented in proportion as they approached towards, or deviated from, Liberty;" then how shall we reconcile the practice, fince the Revolution, with the principles of the conftitution?

It is well known, that at the Revolution the plan of Liberty was extended, and our religious and civil Rights at that time received confirmation and enlargement. Here then, one might conclude, there was room for a milder system of Government.

Nevertheless we find, that the fum of capital punishments has been confiderably augmented fince that happy period: and there muft certainly be an error in legislature, when Laws are enacted against the principles of the conftitution.

The ruling principle of Government in this kingdom is allowed to be Liberty; but our Criminal Laws feem rather calculated to keep flaves in awe, than to govern freemen, They seem to contradict all notions of juftice, and confound all distinctions of morality. By the ignominy they impose in many cafes, they bend the mind to the lowest state of fervitude: by the rigour they indifcriminately inflict, they adopt the principles of defpotifm, and make fear the motive of obedience.

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Defpotifm

Defpotifm itself may, indeed, teach us, milder inftitutions; for we are told, that in Ruffia, during the reigns of the late Emprefs Elizabeth, and the prefent Empress. Catherine the Second, no malefactors have been put to death.

Like bad mafters, who are readier to chaftife than inftruct their fcholars, we have adapted our Laws rather to punish delinquents than to prevent crimes. But fuch Laws are fo far from having a tendency to reform the morals of the people, that, by expofing them to ruin and ignominy for flight offences, they are rendered desperate in their fortunes, and totally loft to all sense of fhame. Their punishment ferves only to prepare them for greater crimes, till, at length, they are fent out of the world by the hands of the executioner, when, by the wisdom of the legiflature, they might have lived for the benefit of fociety.

It may be affirmed, that were the injured themselves to be intrufted with the right of revenge, their fentence would not,

in general, be fo rigorous as that of the Law; for few men in the present civilized ftate have that violent refentment against many offences which the Law has expreft, and we find that they rather fuffer crimes to go unpunished than to be the inftruments of punishing them too feverely.

Thus, by impunity, wicked men are confirmed in the habitude of evil, till they become totally corrupt and abandoned; and thus the laws counteract their own end. They tend to corrupt rather than reform the morals of the people: they are repugnant to the dictates of reafon and justice; and diametrically oppofite to the principles of our conftitution. Let us now fee whether they correfpond with the nature of the climate;

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SECT. III.

Of Criminal Laws in relation to the Climate.

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F the dominion of the Climate, as Montefquieu affirms, is the moft fovereign of all dominions, we may venture to affert, that our Laws in criminal cafes are by no means calculated to correct the vices of the Climate.

It is notorious even to a proverb, that the Climate of this country is fuch as fubjects the natives to a gloom and melancholy, which renders them restless in their condition, and dissatisfied with their very being : so many destroy themselves even in the lap of good fortune, that the crime of fuicide is deemed to be the natural growth of our foil.

How impolitic therefore is it to make capital punishments fo frequent, among people who have fo little dread of diffolution, and among whom natural causes are fuppofed

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