242 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, ETC., 



&c, shooting at, with intent to kill, cutting and maiming, assault, 

 with intent to do bodily harm, six ; manslaughter, two ; arson, one ; 

 piracy and burglary, eight; house-breaking, ten; highway robbery, 

 seven ; receiving, one ; forgery, two ; larceny on the high seas, one ; 

 larceny, four ; cattle-stealing, one ; piracy only, one ; robbery, eight ; 

 — total, fifty -four.' 



"The prisoners in jail on the 18th of November, 1835, untried, 

 were seventy-four, from various causes of delay ; they were, however, 

 neither unknown nor unheeded. With respect to the causes of this 

 state of crime, he had formed his own conclusions, and begged them 

 to weigh and examine them, and judge for themselves ; he thought 

 the number of capital convictions alone, enough to point his own and 

 their attention to it, as an indication of the state of the country as 

 to crime. 



"He did not think it necessary to mention the number of con- 

 victions before the Supreme Court, during the same period, for 

 offences not capital. He would, however, briefly refer to them, and 

 to all offences which were tried before the several Courts of Quarter 

 Sessions throughout the colony, in the exercise of their summary 

 jurisdiction, and by juries ; the mass of offences which were 

 summarily disposed of by the magistrates; and, added to all those, 

 the numerous undiscovered crimes, which every man who had heard 

 him, and to whom the report of his words should come, would at 

 once admit to have occurred within his own circle of knowledge. 

 There the picture presented to their minds would be one of the most 

 painful reflection. It would appear to one that could look down 

 upon the community, that the main business of us all was the com- 

 mission of crime, or the punishment of it: as if the whole colony 

 was in motion towards the several courts of justice ; and the most 

 painful reflection of all must be that so many capital sentences, and 

 the execution of them, had not had the effect of preventing crime, by 

 way of example. 



" In his opinion, one grand cause of such a state of things was the 

 overwhelming defect in the religious principles of the community ; a 

 principle, which he considered as the polar star, to guide a man in all 

 his conduct, and without which none other would prevent him from 

 crime. 



"But that he might not be said to make so grave a charge upon 

 light foundation, he would instance the crimes of violence, the mur- 

 ders, manslaughters, in drunken revels, the perjuries, the false 



