[ ^10 ] 



■would have of the immediate fuperintendence of their governors 

 would create confidence in the good, and apprehenfion in thofe 

 who are difpofcd to mifchief. It is not the feverity and the du- 

 ration of punifhment, but its certainty and its immediate con- 

 ne£tion with the crime, which a£t moft forcibly upon the human 

 mind. No means can be more likely to prevent difobedience to 

 the laws, either civil or military, than thofe which increafe the 

 probability of fpeedy dete£tion. What man would attempt to 

 ily from the civil power who knew that his flight would be ad- 

 vertized through the kingdom in a few minutes, and that the 

 defcription of his perfon with the publication of his offence 

 would infallibly meet him wherever he went? With fuch ad- 

 vantages government would not be obliged to keep an extrava- 

 gant force in difplay to create refped. 



Whoever attends to fecret hiftories and private memoirs, 

 from " The diary of Bob Dodington" to the fhamelefs " Secret 

 " Hiftory of the Court of Berlin," will be convinced of the 

 anxiety of courts and courtiers for early intelligence. Mirabeau 

 paints in ftrong colours his anxiety to give his employers at the 

 French court the earliejl intelligence of the death of the king of 

 Pruflia. His own perplexity, and the buftle amongft rival cour- 

 tiers and ambafladors, are well defcribed : — the confequence of 

 carrier-pigeons and couriers, and the expenfe which Mirabeau was 

 commiffioned to defray, fhew the value which the court of Ver- 



failles annexed to his fuccefs*. 



As 



* Mirabeau's Secret Hiftory of the Court of Berlin, Page 50. 



