The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1818-04-09 00:00:00

Y 3,578,TiV1 12 6

Surplus 894,942 4 3
Total to be provided fur by E'cbr•quer
Bills at bth April, 1818, pursuant £ 2,683,936 8 3
to the •burr Act

..11,branee.1 by the Bank last Quarter 3,571351
To be advauced now

It would seem to be the general wi►h that the
Public Funds should be sssessed to the Poor
Mutes ; hut then, it would be necessary to drte•r-
mine where the holder of such stock should pay his
assessment—whether to the place where he wee resi-
dent, or where he had other property.

A private letter Irons Paris says--" The discus-
sions on the Budget, in the Chamber of Deputies,
are painful in every loyal Frenchman. The ridi-
cule thrown upon the Chamber by such speeches
as those of MAI. Piet and Villevrque extends itself
to the constitutional government, at the same titne
the the indignation caused by the invectives of M.
lahourdmintiye provokes animosity, mid retards
the reconciliation so necessary between the friends
of the t hurter and legitimacy. These impressions
induced s I Members to call fur the closing of
the discussion, whirl,, in fact, will not take place
until they pats to the articles. The speech of AI.
Lalitte surprised every body. A rumour was circu-
lated, that lie would forcibly deprecate the employ-
ment of Swiss troops, and even of the Royal Guard ;
and ahio oppose the vote for foreign subAdies ; but
this was not the ease; he observed a sober measure
of opposition, entirely divested of virulent invective.
The eulogy Int the wisdom of his Majesty, with
which lie closed his speech, was the more agrees-
-61., as it was unexpected; and M. Lutitie will be
convinced, by the impression which it has made,
that moderation and truth are the hest means of
succeeding with the wi:11-disposed in every country.
—lt is repotted, that the pr. jet of a law on the of-
fairs of the Bank is in contemplati ((((( and that it will
be submitted to the Chamber of Peers iii the course
of a few clays. By this law the Company of Direc-
tors will be removed, by the appointment of 100
of the principal Stockholders. The two Governors
will be nominated by the Company of Directors.
Tlie shares will be reduced from 90,000 fr. to
70,000 tr. and the existing residue of .20,0e0 fr.
will be divided amongst the Stockholders. It is
said that these regulations have been framed with
the consent of a tiojtidly of the present Court of
Directors."

REFLECTIONS
02 Tilt
FREQUENCY OF EXECUTIONS FOR FORGERY.

To Ma Editor of " The Literary Panorama."

Ste—The frequency of executions lately, for the
c r of forgery, and for that of passing• forged
Balk notes, by means of agents employed to utter
them, bus led many thinking and humane persons
to coissider the subject ; to which I am deslrous of
drawing your altentioii, and that of your respectable
readers, by a -salmi and dispassionate discussion,
winch appears to me to be the necessary precursor
of a more humane system. These crimes are dis-
tinct in the contemplation of the law, and way
to ino.t advantage be examined distinctly.
IVith regard to the first, viz. Forgery of Bank
note►, if we are to reckon it, according lu the
penalty attached to its commission, it must rank
next to, if not on a par with—!{larder !
But, in a moral point of view, how different is
it ! It is said We are a commercial nation, and
it is necessary to protect our property by arlequa►e
laws :"—Atitnitted : but, is our property effectually
protected by this (as 1 must call it) plinguinaty
law ? let the increased,and I fear increasing, num-
ber of offenders against it, answer ! Now, I take
the end intruded by all puni►hntent to be example,
with a view to prevention. Do then the present
meal,. answer the end ? Alas! no; examples mid-
tiply, arid ceinies increase! Is there not, then,
something dr fec,ive or inapplicable in the law, as
it stand.; and ought it not to b. changed ?
But, suppose fur a moineut, that the law, as it
stands, did prevent, by its svverity, the more fre-
quent commission of the crime, arc we sure that
we arc justified in the eyes of our Maker in enact.
ing such laws ? For, although we are a commercial
'tattoo, do we not wish also to be a moral and reli-
gious people ? Yet, how irreconcilable are the two
characters! If commerce Is not to be preserved,
but at such an immense sacrifice of human life, I
am almost ready to join with a late Statesman of
some celebi ity ni his exclamation of perish coin.
coerce," that Imissaiiity, religton, and morality
may be preserved ! But, Ido not think the alter.
native is liteefSNlV. I thick that commerce, and
the lives of our fellow-creatures, may be preserved
together, by the a•lnptinu of a different system.—
What that should be, I Icave to those a ho, with
equal zeal, but wi:11 far greater metros, may be
disposed so investtgate the subl-tr.
%%That I have observed, with regard to forgers•,
applies with double force to time second crime under
consideration ; via. the passing of forged owes,
by parties who were nut coucerned to forging
them.

There is now a miserable e'se before me, of too
pier lads, who ha.l nearly fallen the vi• tons of til-
-1 sins, that had reaped the greater par', if net
the *lode of the benefits of iii- collate for which
these unhappy culprits were doomed to suffer. 1
believe, Sir, it is an axiom of our laws, that inten-
tion coustitiltas the crime:—if a wan in an affray
uointeittionally kills 11111 opponent, it is not
dried as aitiuuuting to murder, unless malice pre-
pense be proved. Now in the es'a ef the:te un-
happy youths. no malice prepense (if I may be al-
lowed the application) was proved in their commit-
ting the crime, for which they were condemned to
lose their lives. 'limy were, pi-limps i,piorant of
the extent of guilt into which they were enticed,
by designing, men, who most profited by its com-
mission : thus, by a swinge anomaly in our laws,
the really and morally guilty escape, whir the com-
paratively innocent suffer; or in other words, con-
filming the metaphor, the monoslaughter only is
punished with ofeJth, while the real murderer es-
capes puoislitnent ! So monstrous and absurd does
this appear to niyunkarned wind, that I should
almost think it :is just and r.otional to execute a
pistol, us the engine for destroying a human being,
and acquit the mini who pulled the trigger, as to
lite.e ix. ruled the poor Istqs in question, for a
crime, of which they were only the instruments,
and lint the agents—the mere effect, hut not the
cause ! I do loupe and trust, Sir, that such u mon-
strous anomaly, may no longer he allowed to stunt
the pages of our Statute Hook, too deeply died
already in the blood of human sit tims.
It would ire trespassing too touch on the limits
of your valuable publication, were 1 to trate the
probable cause of the great increase of forgery :
but, when the etiange of our carrel. y from metal
to paper is for as moment considered, no one can be
:t a loss for the cause. Ido not memo to discass
the subject of paper currency ; but uoinuttig, that
it is indispensably iieceswary, 1 must be permitted
to observe, that it is no less lath-peumilly necessary
to adopt some plan (bully I believe have been of-
fered) of rendering the commission of forgery as
(Viotti as possible ! and if this be not done, it
becomes, in fact, an inducement to the cionnomaion
of the crime. What would be said, if' men, whose
houses contained valrable plate, &c. were to retire
to rest at nights, with their doors and windrows un-
fastened ? Every observer would say, they deterred
to lose their property ! Nor nun I sure ilmt unless
is door be _forced open, a robbery committed under
such circumstances, would be punishable aiili
droll !--and it is stated to be as easy to imitate the
notes which are now current, as it would be to rob
au unfastened house.

But, Sir, let those who have the means and the
power to protect their property do so effectual!! ;
their neglect, I conceive, renders them morally an-
swerable fur the consequences. and thus they be-
come accountable fur every life traciiticed to their
want of due precaution.
Pernitt me, Sir to conclude these brief remarks
with the following extract from the Celebrated Dr.
Goldsmith's admirable novel of the Vicar of
Wakefield ; it is so apposite to the present subject,
and expresses, so much better than I can do, my
own sentiments, that I think uo further opology will
be necessary to its introduction Imre:—

" Whim by indiscriminate penal laws a nation beholds the
same punishment atfixed to dissimilar degrees of guilt, from
perceiving no distinction in the penalty, the people are kd
to lose all 6.11 iii the crimeo and this disienctioit is
the bulwark of all twos:tidy : tints the multi, vide of laws
vintners new vices, and ucw vices call fur fresh re-
straints.
" It were to be wished then, that power, instead of con.
tri•ing new laws to punish vice; instead of drawing bard
the cords of society, till a convulsion come to burst them ;
instead of cutting away wretches as auks', before we
hove tried their utility; instead of converting cor: ect:on into
vengeance 5 it wen: In be wished, that we tried iist wittictire

a,:s 4f gore:11,110M, and suede law the fn °lector, but out
tyrant, of the people. We should then find that creatures
whose souls are hell as dress, only wanted the Item! of a
rcliner ; we should then and the arretsbes, now stuck tip for
long tortures led luxury should feel a oposnentary !mug,
inieit, if properly treater!, serve to sinew the State in tintx,,
of danger; that as their faces are like sours, their hearts
•re su too ; that few minds ate so base, as that pent venture
cannot amend turns; that man may see IM, last erititt• witl;•
out dying for it; and that very 'title blood will serve to
cement Our ntcurity."
I am, Sir, yoers,-idr: •
HUNANITA§.

THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

s.

At a moment when universal attention is flied on
the Expedition now aailink towards the North
Pole, and when important discoveries may in every
case be expected throughout the Polar rations, the
following extract from IVrazall's "
,state of Europe
in 1754," under the article of " Denmark," is
highly curious:—
" Greenland was included in the dependaticies
of the Norwegian Monarchy, and coloniz,d f.ono
thence as early as the eleventh century. This fact
merits peculiar attention. The trade to tho.r frozen
and desolate regions, however extraordinary it may
appear, was even superinteinted with uncommon
anxiety, and interdicted to every European nation.
We can scarcely believe that Christianity war esta-
blished within the Arctic Circle, and that au epis-
copal Diocese existed among the snows in the viCi-
nity of the Pole. In the year 1380, the Bishop of
Gattle, capital of Greeilland. who was a *Or sigaii
of the Auchiepiscopal See of Droutheim, assisted at
an ecclesiastical assembly held at Nyberg, in the
Isle of Fisneti. Under the reign of largaret of
Waldemar, towards the close of the fourteenth et
tory, the colony disappeared. Its deatruction was
attiihuted to the effects of the great plague which
ravaged Europe about 1330, and to the consequent
wain of regillar supplies of prosisions from Norway.
" l'arious but ineffectual endeavours were ex-
erted to discover the remains of this establishment,
if any survived. Under the reign of Christian the
Second, about the year 1510, ‘'m I kendorf, Arch-
bishop of I).m:then:l, a prelate of literature and
merit, sent repeated expeditious thither, for the
same 'intimate ; hut, without success, the settlers
having all perished. No attempt to recolonise
Greeilland has been made within the last four hun-
dred years. It is a remarkable fact, that the same
late has hitherto attended the Spanish American
Colonic* star the Southern Pule; all the gat inolis
or establishments I.ft in Terra del Fuogo, and on
the coast of Patagonia, having been destroyed by
the inclemency of those inhospitable latitudes, or
by the want of provisions. It would form an object
of curious philo-oliltical, and ecru political expert-
:new, to ascertain how near to the two Poles man
could exist iii a state of society. The advanced
progress of navigation in the present age could
leave little apprehension of the ability to atipply
such a colony with regular quantities of proviso:op,
and ssaries of eery kind."