The National Register.
London, England, 1819-02-08 00:00:00

r WM+

Our iling, ott6titution an aiDl.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1819.

in exciting popular

for the sufferer, and

horror of the bloody law to which he falls a victim.
Now admitting Dr Paley's principles, it appears, that
his very object—example—is defeated by punishing a
man for stealing a sheep, in the same fate as if he had
murdered a fellow creature. The Doe tor's justification,
therefore, in this respect, of the infliction of death by
the law of England on so many minor offences. falls
short of its object. Ile advances, however, another
defence, namely, that death, though denounced against
so many crimes, is inflicted on only a few criminals.
This he says, is systematically the intention of the law
of England. 'lt is founded on the consideration, that
• the selection of proper objects for capital punishment
principally depends upon circumstances ; which how-
' ever easy to perceive, in each particular case, after
' the crime is committed, it is impos►ible to enumerate
' or define before hand, or to ascertain, however, will
• that exactness, which is requisite in legal descriptions.
' Hence, although it be necessary to fix by precise
rules of law the baundary on one site, that is, the
limit to which the punishment may be extended; and
also, that nothing less than the authority of the whole
legislature be suffered to determine that boundary,
and assign these rules ; yet the mitigation of punish-
' ment the exercise of lenity, may without danger be
entrusted to the execative magistrate, whose dis-
cretion will operate upon those numerous, unforeseen,
mutable, and indefinite circumstances both of the
crime and the criminal, whit i constitute or quality
the malignity of each offence. Without the power
of relaxation lodged in a Aving authority, either
some offenders would escape capital punishment,
whom the public safety required to suffer, or some
' would undergo this punishment, where it was
' neither deserved nor necessary. For if judgment of
death were reserved for one or two species of crime

only (which xvould probably be the case, if that pu-

nishment Wai intended to be executed without exec',-
" tion), crimes might occur of the most dangerous ex-
' ample, and accompanied with circumstances of heinous
• aggravation, which did nut fall within any description
of offences teLich the laws had made capital, and
which consequently could not receive the punishment
their own ntalignity and the public safety required.'
' The law of England,' he contiqdes, is constructed
upon a different and better policy. By the number
of statutes creating capital offences, it sweeps into
• the net every crime, which under every possible cit.-
' cumstance, may merit the punishment of death ; but
when the execution of this sentence comes to be de.
libetatcd upon, a small proportion of each class are
singled out, the general character, or the peculiar
ng-
gravations of whose crimes, render them fit examples
of public justice. By this expedient few ectually suf.
fee death, whilst the dread and danger of it hang over
the crimes of many.'

Now, admiting the full force of this argument, what
would it prove? Much more than Doctor Paley in-
tended, viz. that arbitrary power, discreetly adminis-
tered, is better than a system of law ; because as the
varieties of the degrees of guilt of diticreut culprits arc
infinite, w no previous denunciations of the law can fit
them exactly, bat only the cliseretion of the judges,
when all these drcumstances are known. Now admit-

tine this argument, it could only hold true were there
but one jade, and were he gifted with the keenest in-
sight into characters and motives. But there are twelve
judges, who go the circuits, and we have no right to
expect that they should be all so gifted. The discre-
tion of one judge is very diffe'cnt from that of another ;
and must be so. Imputing to all, as they well deserve,
much knowledr, the highest integrity, and the best
intentions. vet from wagons causes of hibit, tempera-
's:teak, stu..l'.es) aud Ilirfercuee of experieuee, some

PRICE 90.

must be more inclined to severity than others, and some
must view similar circumstances in different lights. The
consequence therefore is, that the fate of an offender, .s
the law is administered in this country, depends, not
only on the various shades of guilt belonging to his ef-
fence, but also on the chance of who happens to Le the
judge who tries him—whether, in the coarse but expres-
sive language of the criminals, it being a hanging judge,
or not. Besides this, the assertion or supposition, with
which the foregoing extract from Dr. Paley concluder,
is not well grounded. He says, By this expedient few
actually suffer death'—in proportion to the number
whom the law condemns to death, this is true. Whiht
the dread and danger of it hang over many.' Now
this is not true, nor can it be, unless men were differ-
ently constituted than they are. A much greater
number of those, who are guilty of these minor offen-
ces have their punishment mitigated than saffer capi-
tally. This is known to the people at large as much as
to the lawyers or legislators of the country. How thea
can the dread of death be said to hang over those who
are tempted to commit these offences, when a large•
majority of those who do commit them escape capi-
tal punishment ? The fact is you cannot cheat the
peop.e, and deter them from mimes by the dread of
death, if you do not generally inflict that penalty.
Thcv will believe what they see and witness, nit what
the law books say ; and experience will tell them, that
though in the books death for these crimes is the
general rule, and a mitigated punishment the exception;
is point of fact the inferior penalty is the generetrule.
and death the exception. Death, theretbre, when it
is inflicted, will not operate as an example ; and still
less will it do so, when ,the prisoner and every one
else imputes it, not to the degree of his guilt, but
to his being unlucky in the judge who tries hini.
The sacrifice of his life, therethre, is clearly an evil,
without aay equivalent good. Thus, as far as capital
punishment is inflicted on these offences, it does not
operate as an example, much less as fir as it is nut
inflicted. It seems, therefbre, that this defence of such
a bloody code as the English, totally fail ; and that
the very practice on which the defence originates,
proves the impracticability of the law as it stands ;
while the above considerations thew the impolicy of A.
as it is administered

Accounts both from Sweden arid Norway exhibit the
unexampled fact, that down to the beginning► of the
present month, there has been neither frost nor snow :n
these remote and hitherto inhospitable regiori; Lot
that the pritarose blossom, and the gooseberry La-s
are green, under the 59;h degree of latitude.

A document of some importance has Wen recei7ett
from the United States, in the form aim officiate letter
from the American Srcretary of State, to the Itlntblican
Minister at the Court of Madrid : and which professes
to he an answer to.the representations of M. Pizarro, oar
the much canvassed subject of the Florid's. Three-
ti.,:ialis of the letter, though no.ninally discussing the
meuits of the late war with the Seminole Indians, as it
concerns th Spaniards only, is devoted to the single
topic of the mi!i:ary butclory ~f Arbuthnot and Atn-
brister ; and discloses, we can hardly hesitate to believe,
the principles en which the American Ministry are in-
clined to argue, when it may lie pressed upon theta by
Great Britain, the great question in which our right,
interests, and honour, are involved. Front the- wire:e
of this paper, with the documents annexed td- it, we
rather suspea tha: the American Government mean to
defend and justify the conduct of Gen. Jackson towards
the subjects of Great Britain, whom he and his court-
martial, between them, unawfully put to the sword.
Not excuses, merely, but justification; not jusiifictsiion,
but the highest admiration andapplause,are lavished up-
on Jack-on for the whole of his proceedings towards.
three unhappy Englishmen. Ev-ry odious epithet is
bestowed upon the unfortunate men, and upon other
British of icers.who had preceded thous in their ennaden-
tial intercourse with the 'pull -h Aut.,orities of the
Indian tribes. We trust that, upon reconsideration, thy
Cabinet ef the United States may Las tVJW the tuna in,
acts sione in, the Florida& if approved of at Washini
tun, it is no lo ,per Gen. Jackson, but Mr. Monroe at
theßepublie itself, which become re.spuosWe
to civilipiti,on, and to huuutuity.