violent punishments become familiar, and are despised.' A people are to be led, like rational creatures, not driven like brutes. The shame of being punished ought always to be the principal part of an offender's punishment. And a person, who is punished, will suffer severely from shame, unless either the punishment be unjust, which is the fault of the government, or himself, and those, who are witnesses of his punishment, be hardened and abandoned; which is a greater fault of the government. For it was the government's business to take care, that the people should not become thus ill-disposed. The Czarina proposes+ that all punishments flow naturally from the respective crimes. If this rule were observed, thieves and highwaymen would be punished with hard work and hard fare, because they became guilty through idleness and luxury. If a government is mild, and a country happy under it, banishment will be a sufficient punishment for most offences. Crimes, which tend to corrupt the morals of the people, ought always to bring this punishment upon the offenders; because the morals of the people ought above all things to be secured. Hanging is a punishment, as ancient as King Ina, says Sir William Dugdale. William the Bastard punished with putting out of eyes, emasculation, cutting off hands or feet, &c. Henry I. introduced hanging for theft and robbery. Beheading cri minals of quality was first practised, he thinks, in 8 Will Conq. Drowning was a punishment used in the time of Edward II. and before. In the county palatine of Chester they used beheading instead of hanging, in the time of Edward I. A murderer was, in those days, dragged to execution by the relations of the murdered by a long rope. Among the ancient Germans, and, after them, among our Saxon ancestors, a murderer was obliged to pay damages to the king for the loss of a subject; to the Lord for the loss of a vassal; and as Tacitus observes (de mor. Germ. recipit satisfactionem. &c.) to all the family of the deceased for the loss of their father, son, brother, &c.† It was enacted in this parliament that the king should not pardon murder.‡ A man was boiled to death in Smithfield (on an old statute since repealed) for poisoning.§ Beccaria, p. 102, holds capital punishment wholly unnecessary, excepting only where the life of the offender is clearly incompatible with the safety of the state. When an offender is hanged,, he is made an example to a few hundreds, and is forgotten. Put him in a state of slavery, confinement, or continually returning correction, during many years, or for life, and you make him a constant example to a succession of individuals during the whole period of his punishment, besides that his labour may in some degree compensate for the injury he has done society. *Orig. Juridic. p. 89. + Spelm. Gloss. voc. Cenegild. Rap. 1. 466. § Ibid. 1. 792. Too severe punishments affect the people with compassion for the sufferer, and hatred against the laws and the administrators of the laws. There are in England no less than 160 crimes declared by law capital, without benefit of clergy.* If severity were the certain means for curing some faults in a people, it does not follow that it ought to be used, because it may leave a worse distemper than it removes. It may force them out of one wrong track into another more wrong. It may break and dastardize their spirit; or it may harden and brutify them. The Japanese are afraid of hardening their children by severity; but the Japanese government is not afraid of hardening the people by accustoming them to rigorous punishments. Yet the maxims by which a family of children, and those by which a people are to be formed, and to be governed, are no way essentially different. There was a bill brought into parliament under James I. for exempting the gentry of this realm from the slavish punishment of whipping.† Punishments are indispensable in states; and a proper application of them produces valuable effects. Painvine's execution for cowardice, at the beginning of the Dutch war, was of considerable service. He was tried twice by his brother officers; but acquitted, to the great disgust of the states, who saw, says 4 * Blackst. iv. 11. Burnet,* that "the officers were resolved to be gentle to one another, and to save their fellow-officers, how guilty soever they might be." The Prince of Orange brought him to a third trial before himself and a court of the supreme officers, in which they had the assistance of six judges. He was cast for his life. Nothing seems clearer, if we compare Admiral Byng's conduct, A. D. 1755, with that of Blake, Vernon, or any of our truly brave commanders, than that he deservedly suffered the punishment due to cowardice. Yet we find several of the officers, who could not decently avoid condemning him, afterwards pretending great uneasiness about his fate, and desiring to disclose their reasons for passing the sentence of death on him, which would discover, they said, such circumstances as might, perhaps, shew the sentence to have been improper. The king respited Byng and a motion was made for bringing in a bill for releasing the officers from the obligation of secrecy; but the lords wisely rejected it, approving the old rule, Hang well and pay well, and you shall be well served. We punish many very atrocious crimes too slightly, as well as several inconsiderable crimes too severely. Perjury in England is only the pillory. Among the Russians, it is punished with severe whipping, and banishment.‡ A bill was brought in, A. D 1694, to make perjury felony. Thrown out. Several lords protest, because there was great need of a severer punishment for perjury.§ Our laws are too gentle to perjury; to adultery; to the seduction of modest women; to insolvency occasioned by over * Hist. own Times, 1. 470. t Alm. Deb. Com. v. 204. Mod. Univ. Hist. xxxv. 124. trading or extravagance; to idleness in the lower people; to bribery and corruption; to engrossing and monopolizing the necessaries of life; to giving and accepting challenges; to murders with aggravations of cruelty, &c. Preventive wisdom suggests the necessity, 1. Of an incorrupt legislature. 2. Of clear and simple laws, digested in a short code. 3. Of the certainty of punishment in case of transgressions. Pardons, even from the Throne, are of doubtful consequence. They invite offenders, especially persons of rank; for they trust they shall always have interest to obtain their pardon. Laws ought to be so just and so mild, that they may be put in execution, which would supersede the use of the royal prerogative, and save the king the trouble of much solicitation and reflection when he refuses. 4. Of liberty. A slave has no veneration for his country or its laws. His country does nothing for him, that may allure him to obedience: freemen have a hand in making the laws, and therefore may be supposed to be prejudiced in their favour. Men naturally oppose laws made by those who assume an unjustifiable authority over them. 5. Of sound education, useful public instruction, and a free press, with whatever else tends to spread light and knowledge among the people. A savage or uncultivated people are only obedient as far as fear carries them. Knowledge enlarges the mind, and leads it to the love of order and regularity. Education furnishes the mind with what takes it off from the sordid pursuit of riches, power, and sensual pleasure. 6. Of rewards rather honorary than pecuniary. ́ 7. Of associations, as that in Poland called the commonwealth of Babina; which consisted of all the most considerable people of the country, who met from time to time to inquire into the general behaviour of the people, and promoted good behaviour by their countenance and other invitations; discouraging the contrary by general disgrace. But indeed we need go no farther than our own wise and judicious Quakers; who do more by their manner of educating their youth, and their treatment of them in consequence of their behaviour, than all |