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    f of that year , Twenty convicts were executed , at . once before Newgate ; in April i Nifietcen ; and in the November following , Ei " ghteen suffered death at the same place .

    besides others executed during the several months of that year , amounting in the whole to nearly One Hundred , many of them young persons , who fell a sacrifice to the severity of the penal statutes ., in London alone—not one of them tinder a charge of murder *" Wakefield ' s Life , v . i . p . 311 .

    Cc It is said by those who know Europe generally , that there are more thefts committed and punished annually in England , than in all the other nations put together . If this be so , there must be a cause *

    or causes for such depravity in our common people . May not one be , the deficiency of justice and morality in our national government , manifested in our oppressive conduct to subjects and unjust wars on our neighbours ?"

    Dr . Franklin * s Letter to B . Vaughan , Esq . March 14 , 1785 . Works . 8 vo . i i . ' 4 > 4 * b . 6 i England , contenting herself with the superior wisdom ,

    humanity and justice oi her laws in all repects but one , and too fond of $ the ancient order of things , ' has alone remained stationary . The nation , indeed , is fully sensible of the evil which attends a multitude

    of sanguinary laws , and the government Itself begins to be alarmed with the magnitude of the mischief . Judge Blackstone was active in prosecuting a reform ; and Lord Ashburton , it is said , , was prevented by his death from bringing forward in Parliament a j ) lan for that purpose . " Bradford ' s Enquiry into the Punishffient of Death , p . 31 .

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    Proposition JI . ¦ ¦ • • Severe laws restrain humane men from p rosecutwg ' off en de rs . * ' Some years ago , an act was passed in Ireland , by which it was made

    a capital felony . to cut down a tree by day or by night . A gentleman who dedicated much of his pro - perty * and most of his time to agricultural improvements ; who had planted much , and was much attached to his plantations , was

    the first to rejoice at this additional security to his property , and havings before the act passed , suffered much from these depredations , he again and again declared that in the event of detecting a , ny offender , the law should be put in force . An occasion soon occurred . An

    offender was detected in the very act of destroying his plantations ; and was committed for trial at the ensuing assizes . I well knew what my friend endured upon that occasion . I had the happiness of his friendship and the honour of his confidence : he was a man of the

    highest worth and of undaunted public spirit ; he never relaxed in his resolution to enforce the Jaw ; he prepared to proceed and did proceed to the assize town ; but there bis fortitude at last failed : he

    declared that after the most agonizing deliberation , he could not reconcile to his notions of justice the propriety of being the cause of an untimely deaih of a fellow creature for having cut down a tree . My worthy friend

    afterward § stated to me , that , great as he considered the injury to society in suffering the criminal to escape witn impunity , yet he could not be instrumental in procuring his condemnation , even though the crown inight remit the punishment * Such was the mode in

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    28 Facts relating to Criminal Law .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1812, page 28, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1744/page/28/