The National Register.
London, England, 1820-05-14 00:00:00

131

ON THE LATE EXECUTIONS.
We cannot avoid reverting with an expression
of unmitigated horror to the scene lately exhibited
at Newgate, so far as the execution of a part of
the sentence of the unhappy men alluded to was
concerned. Gracious Heaven ! do we live in a
Christian country, and is the vengeance of the law
thus, without any one object of utility to mankind,
to exceed the limits of death ? Even for actual
murder, the hanging in chains and dissection of
bodies is surely a law of very doubtful propriety !
It is true, that the bloody stat'ite by which decolla-
tion is lawful, remains on the statute book, with
all its horrible provisions of mutilations, as passed
in the time of one of the Edwards, an age of barba-
rism, and it is this statute which Sir S. Romilly
endeavoured to have repealed in a former Parlia-
ment, and which repeal a Tory, by the name of
Charles York, we remember, too successfully opposed.
But—ls this the spirit of the white man's heaven
or, is it the spirit of the Indian Chief? With what
consistency Lord Sidmouth could advise the remise
Sion of the other mutilations, and retain thi► mails"
that of the law, we cannot imagine. A surgeon
with a knife, before an immense body of civilised
Englishmen and Christians, to cut off five heads from
the bodies of five malefactors just hanged, the blood
yet reeking fresh in the veinal Was it meant for
effect of terror ? It was not terror—it was horror !
We should have thought that the pangs which must
have wrung a father's heart—(let a certain noble-
man read this, and he wiU understand it I)—would
have wrought a milder sentiment than to have any
thing to do with the exhibition of blood ! The very
seltolution of assassination confessed, removes all '
doubt as to the criminality and justice of the pu-
nishment of death for the conspirators in question,
although an awful and most important part of the
history, concerning Edwards, remains yet to be
developed. But we protest, as Christians, against
all insults and revenge upon the body of a fellow-
creature whose spirit is departed, and gone before
the tribunal of Him who judgeth the hearts!--And
while the criminal code is about to undergo a gene-
=1 revision, we are surprised that any such a part of
it as mutilations should be put into execution.
We now return to the chief subject of our late
Postscript, and in looking over the debates upon the
King's speech, we observed that one Member of the
lower House quoted a passage from Mr. Burke, in-
timating that " while men are allowedito attribute
public calamities to the measures of Government,
there can be no peace in a nation." Perhaps if we
canvass Mr. Wilmot's speech, we may be sent to
Newgate for a breach of privilege; but of Mr.
Burke we may, and will speak—and first, we beg
leave to remark, that nearly up to the time when
this said Mr. Burke had his mouth stopped with a
pension of 1,5001. per annum, he spent all his days
in censuring the meastires of the administration ;
and even after he seceded from the Whigs, he con-
demned the administration for not being more inve-
terate than they were (which could hardly be),
against France. Witness his letters on what he
cells a Regicide Peace.
And pray, we must ask this conveniently minded
man, whose real language is nothing short of what
unjust men in authority have done in every age,
via. " We will do what we like, and you shall hold
your tongues." We would ask—To what are the
decline and fall, or the rise and prosperity of nations
to be attributed ? To the arbitrary and unconsti-
tutional decree of Providence ? or, to the agency of
Providence operating by causes permitted by Provi-
dence to be within human controul? If the latter,
we go to the very fountain and well-head of civil
liberty, implying among other things free discussions
of public measures as necessary to operate whole-
somely upon the agency of those causes affecting
nations, the counsels by which they are governed,
and the experienced or probable consequence of
those counsels; and we see that, humanly speaking,