1824) 
Punishment by Death, 
tiful formula, dictated by the author of 
their religion, and which sums up in a 
few words every thing, perhaps, which a 
Christian ought to pray for, there is a 
clause of covenant,—“ forgive us our 
trespasses, as we forgive them that 
trespass against wus ;’’? and let them re- 
member that every man who pursues 
revenge (whether as an individual or a 
corporationist), every time that he pro- 
nounces this prayer, pronounces his 
own condemnation. 
But to return to the cause of the 
general sympathy in behalf of the un- 
happy convict.— 
It became evident from the circum- 
stances, which came out upon the trial, 
that the character of Mr. Fauntleroy had 
been much traduced—that his crime, at 
least, was free from many of the aggra- 
vations imputed, by previous rumour ; 
and it is now sufficiently notorious, that 
a part at least, of his plea of palliation 
is substantiated; that the monies pro- 
cured by his forgeries, were not, as had 
been rumoured, profligately wasted in 
debauchery and extravagance, but were 
regularly paid in to the general stock, 
to support the else tottering credit of 
the concern. Hence, to the creditors 
of the firm, the aspect of the onus of 
moral responsibility, for the default, be- 
comes essentially altered ; and a ques- 
tion naturally arises, whether it was pos- 
sible that the partners could be ignorant 
that something wrong was going on ?— 
that the large sums of money, by which 
their credit was, successively, bolstered, 
were, to say the least, mysteriously ob- 
tained: whatever reasons they might 
have for not inquiring into the nature 
of the mystery. The public, in the 
mean time, in commiseration for the 
calumnies which had aggravated so 
unmercifully the offences of the cri- 
minal, extend their sympathies from 
the aggravation to the crime itself; 
and by a reaction natural to the in- 
nate, though sometimes slumbering, 
benevolence of the human breast, finding 
that the offender has not been so guilty 
as they imagined, forego their resext- 
ment for the proven guilt. 
Nor does the current of considerate 
inquiry pause even here. General con- 
clusions, “of great pith and moment,” 
are, not unfrequently, the results of the 
attention excited by individual occur- 
rences. The eyes of the public seemed 
to have opened, at last, to the convic- 
tion, to which reason and humanity 
ought never to have been blind, ‘that 
the punishment awarded is too heavy, 
and the Banking System. 387 
and disproportioned* to the offence :+ 
while the press itself, partaking ot the 
reaction, urges on the prayer of mercy 
and forbearance; and chimes in with, 
and diffuses, the general sentiment, that 
those only who have shed. the blood of 
man, should pay the price of atonement 
with their blood. 
This then, and not any peculiarity, 
in the particular: case itself, is the true 
ground of petition for the life of Mr. 
Fauntleroy. 
The necessary limits of this essay 
render it impracticable te enter, at large, 
into all the important considerations 
involved in the general subject; or to 
amplify upon the axioms, however ca- 
pable of illustration,—that all unneces- 
sary punishments by death are no other 
than legalised murders ;—that murders, 
by the law, are, in fact, much more 
enormous and atrocious stains upon 
national character, than murders against 
the law;—that the latter are the 
crimes of individuals only ; the former 
are the crimes of the state; and, as far as 
the nation can be regarded as assenting 
to such laws, are the crimes of the na- 
tion at large. 
But the best way, perhaps, for the 
petitioners to fortify their plea is, by ap- 
peal, not to Scripture and Christianity 
(more talked of than reverenced in mat- 
ters of government and legislation !) 
but to the politician’s creed, expediency. 
This is, in fact, and, perhaps, for ever 
must be, while states and legislation Jast 
the load-star of judicial enactment. Our’ 
constitutional lawyers well know, though’ 
the surly lexicographer, who still from 
the sepulchre dogmatizes over our lan- 
guage did not,t that the object of punish- 
ment 
* It was justly observed in a morning 
paper (the Herald) of the 18th, that the 
moral offence of forging a deed or bond, or 
other written instrument, is in no respect, 
at all greater than the stock-jobbing trick of 
forging foreign news-papers, or printed do- 
cuments and despatches, to defraud the 
buyers and sellers in the Stock Exchange. 
The turpitude undoubtedly is just the same. 
The objects in both instances are fraud and 
robbery : nor can reason, or morality, diseri- 
minate or suggest a difference, whether the 
plunder: be perpetrated by stationer’s or 
by printer’s ink. 
+ “ Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by 
man shall his blood be shed.” We know of 
no other law of punishment by death, that 
can exist, in a truly Christian country. 
{ See the miserable misinterpretation of 
the word punishment im Johnson’s. Dic~ 
tionary. 
3D 2 
