230 HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, ETC., 



(these were fruitful sources of capital conviction in former times) ; so 

 that those which had taken place since that time, were all of crimes 

 of violence : murder, rape, robbery, burglary, maliciously stabbing, 

 shooting, and wounding, and offences of similar character. 



" The calendar for the present sessions presents the following facts, 

 and had been furnished him by the crown solicitor : 



" ' There had been convicted of murder, two ; stabbing with intent, 

 &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 convictions 

 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 commission 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 prevent- 

 ing 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. 



