Memoir of William Roscoe, Esq. 213 



His humanity and amiable mind revolted from the frequency of 

 executions ; and he eagerly desired to see those statutes which 

 awarded death for trifling offences, and are too barbarous to be 

 enforced in the present day, expunged from the code of British 

 jurisprudence. Shortly before the period of his misfortunes, 

 his attention had been turned to the subject of penal law and 

 prison discipline. In 1819 he published his tract, entitled " 06- 

 servations on Penal Jurisprudence, and the Reformation of 

 Criminals ^ which was followed, between that period and 1 825, 

 by two other dissertations on the same subject. 



The principle of the system which he advocates is, that the 

 only legitimate object of punishment is the prevention of a 

 repetition of the crime, by a reformation of the offenders ; which 

 effect he proposed to accomplish by hard labour in penitentiaries, 

 and by moral instruction. He denies that we have any right to 

 punish for the mere benefit to society of the example. He in- 

 veighs against the barbarous maxim that revenge or expiation 

 for the injury committed ought ever to be the principle of penal 

 legislation ; and cannot admit that retribution to the injured 

 party can be the proposed end of punishment. In the third 

 part of his essay, he seems to doubt the propriety of the pun- 

 ishment of death in any case, — Part iii. p. 106 ; but, at all 

 events, he considers that it should be reserved for four or five 

 crimes of the blackest dye. These essays contain the out- 

 line of some principles which are now generally acknowledged ; 

 and if the humanity and generous spirit of the author have led 

 him to form a too favourable estimate of human nature, and to 

 overlook some difficulties in the practical application of his prin- 

 ciples of legislation, we cannot but admire the benevolent enthu- 

 siasm and earnest appeal to the best feelings of our nature which 

 are stampt on every page of his treatise. 



In his second tract he had pointed out the evil consequences 

 likely to result from too great severity in prison disciphne, and had 

 entered a warm protest against the horrid punishment of long-con- 

 tinued solitary confinement, as a general measure for effecting this 

 reformation of offenders. He severely commented in the third 

 part on the atrocities which appeared to have been perpetrated iQ 

 the Auburn Penitentiary in the State of New York. This drew 

 him into a long controversy with several American writers in the 



