The Statesman.
London, England, 1812-01-25 00:00:00

LONDON:
satumort a*NroAst 13, 1813.

By letters bAught by the Conqueror, dated De.
r.ember 13th, from the Mediterranean, we learn
that Vice. Admiral Sir Enw. PELLEW, after recen.
noitring and enticing out the enemy's fleet from
Toulon, on the 11th December (British, twelve sail
of the line—French, sixteen sail of the line), had
returned to Mahon harbour, as the enemy .bugged
their own shores so closely, and it being very fine
weather, it was impossible to bring them to action.
Two sail of the line of the IVlediterranesa fleet are
coming home. The Pcarlen had dashed into Toulon
prior to the 1 lth, and severely handled two of the
ear m►'s frigates ; but, on coming out, a French 74
encountered her, and it was only by cutti*g away
some of the French rigging that the 'leaden got off.

The inhabitants rrf this enlightened Metropolis are
doomed to witness, on Wednesday next, the awful
scene of no less tl an six unfortunate wretches suf-
fering an ignominious and painful death, as an of-
fering to adpease the offended laws of their country.
Whenever we hear of this sort of punishment being
inflicted, we feel a repugnance towards it, which na-
turally leads us to investigate its justice and its policy,
and the conclusions we have always been led to draw
from this inrestiga ti on ,have conrantlyproved uniform.
It appear; to us that the infliction of death, upon
feeble erring man, as a punishment for infringing the
I.tws of Society, is so contrary to his natural
rights, that weave astonished the practice ever ob-
tained a place in the judicial code of any nation.—
The establishment of laws originated in thh neces-
sities of the- human species; this same necessity
Enuirea that every infraction of them should
be punished. But when that punishment is ex-
tended beyond the bounds which the law itself
can only reach, we are disposed to regard this as a
sirlation of our legitimate rights. The vital spark
ehich animates the human breast, flowed originally
from a source uncontroulable by man ; it is pre-
s.lmptuous in man, therefore, to disjoin what the
Creator bath united—to deprive his fellow-man of
that life he cannot confer.—But we shall be told,
that by the laws of Gon himself, the puuishment
of death ought to be inflicted upon a murderer.—
We grant, that this part of the Judaical system of
jurisprudence, once had the divine sanction and
suthority;—thatf in the days of men's ignorance,
when the human passions were unlimited and
unrestrainable, it was found necessary to check
a crime so unuaturat, by giving blood for blood.
But when society advanced in its progress to-
wards perfection I when the mind became more hu-
maniced, particularly at the era of the introduction I
tf the mild and tolerant principles of Christianity,
men became loss savage ; their thirst for Wed walk,

supplanted by a Ged-like feeling, which led them to
4°w, rather than to bate; -one another. The law
^Nth respired an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,
beearne abrogated; and the idea that man had a
right to inflict the punition of death on his fel-
!ow-roan, for any offence whatever, was, in onr hum-
Neapprehension, utterly precluded in the system Pre-
NiSated by the founder of the Christian Religion.
Such, however, is the perverseness of our nature;
.trO. the propensity to mingle our own institutions
with those of the divinity, that, although the intro-
driction of the Christian Religion was well calculated
of itself to meliorate the condition of man, he
nevertheless blended it with his own crude no-
tions of law, in which he retained the enact-
:: cut authorizing the punishment of death. Rut let
•'s direct our attention to what we consider the
and object of all laws—namely, rustic Ex-
"PLE AND GENERAL UTILITY—and applying these
principles to the particular subject under dis-
cussion, we shall be able, in some measure, to
;:!.p7iiit3 the justness of our remarks; --With
'!d, then, to public example, it seems pretty
,Q *-s, that the putting a ci,j,nilad t4i- death,

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