MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS. 167 



and the impartial examination of the arguments on this great question 

 After the hest use that my faculties would enable me to make of all the 

 sources of knowledge on this subject within my reach, after long reflection, 

 and not until I had canvassed every argument that could suggest itself to 

 my mind, I came to the conclusion that the punishment of death should find no 

 place in the code which you have directed me to present. 



In coming to a resolution on this solemn subject, we must not forget a prin- 

 ciple established on the soundest reason — that, other things being equal, the 

 punishment should be preferred which gives us the means of correcting any 

 false judgment to which passion, indifference, false testimony, or deceiving 

 appearances may have given rise. Error, from these or other causes, is 

 sometimes inevitable. Its operation is instantaneous, and its fatal effects in 

 the punishment of death follow without delay : but time is required for its 

 correction. We retrace our steps with difficulty. It is mortifying to 

 acknowledge that we have been unjust ; and, during the time requisite for 

 the discovery of the truth, for its operation on our unwilling minds, for the 

 interposition of that power which alone can stop the execution of the law, its 

 stroke falls, and the innocent victim dies. What would not then the jurors 

 who convicted, the judges who condemned, the mistaken witness who testi- 

 fied to the guilt, what would not the whole community who saw the suffer- 

 er's dying agonies, who heard at that moment his fruitless asseverations of 

 innocence, what would they not all give to have yet within their reach the 

 means of repairing the wrongs they had witnessed or inflicted ? 



Instances of this kind are not unfrequent : many of them are on record. 

 Several have taken place in our own day ; and a very remarkable example, which 

 was given but a few years since in one of the Northern States, shows, in a striking 

 manner, the danger of those punishments which cannot be recalled or compensated, 

 even though the innocence of the sufferer is rendered clear to demonstration. A few 

 such instances in a century are sufficient to counteract the best effects that 

 could be derived from example. There is no spectacle that takes such hold 

 on the feelings, as that of an innocent man suffering by an unjust sentence. 

 One such example is remembered, when twenty of merited punishment are 

 forgotten. The best passions take part against the laws, and arraign their 

 operation as iniquitous and inhuman. 



To see a human being in the full enjoyment of all the faculties of his 

 mind and all the energies of his body — his vital powers attacked by no dis- 

 ease, injured by no accident — the pulse beating high with youth and health 

 —to see him doomed by the cool calculation of his fellow-men to certain 

 destruction, which no courage can repel, no art or persuasion avert — to see a 

 mortal distribute the most awful dispensations of the Deity, usurp his attri- 

 butes, and fix by his own decree an inevitable limit to that existence which 

 almighty power alone can give, and which its sentence alone should destroy, 

 must give rise to solemn reflections, which the imposing spectacle of a human 

 sacrifice naturally produces, until its frequent recurrence renders the mind 

 insensible to the impression. 



On the Yellow Colour of the Leavi:s in Autumn It is well 



known that the green foliage of trees assumes before falling in Autumn, es« 

 peciallv after one or more nights of frost, a beautiful citron-yellow colour. 

 This is particularly observed in the Beech, CBctula aibaj, the Pear tree, 

 ( I'yrns communis J, the Apple tree, (Pyrin Milns), the Elm, ( Ulmus campet- 



