existed, independent of the mortgage, though in some other shape. It might have been lent out to strangers, or locked up in the funds, or employed as commercial or agricultural capital. It is the same with the national debt, which is just so much principal sunk, and lost to ourselves and our posterity for ever.- -But to put the subject in another light, let me ask Mr. Colquhoun, the cause of the distresses so universally felt at this moment throughout the country, and whether an annual reduction of thirty or forty inillions in the amount of taxation, would not relieve these calamities, and make the nation richer? See Hume's essay on public credit, and Smith's Wealth of Nations. Next to the delusion entertained by some on the subject of the NATIONAL DEBT, is the anticipated operation of the SINKING FUND in extinguishing it. Whether a Mortgager chooses to discharge annually a certain portion of the incumbrance on his estate, or to put out the same sum at compound interest every year, until it shall have equalled the amount of the whole mortgage money, will make no difference either in the amount of the sum paid, or in the time necessary for paying it! What then is the advantage of a Sinking Fund? In the opinion of ministers no doubt it is the facility which it affords them for borrowing, whenever the expenditure exceeds the income of the country. To me, however, it seems that this has been one of the main causes of ministerial extravagance, and of that rage for war which has unhappily taken possession of the country. Had it been necessary at all times to raise the money demanded for war within the year, both ministers and the people would have shewn on many occasions a greater anxiety to cultivate peace. ON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH. WHILE events so momentous to the welfare of Europe; while scenes, that excel all the imagination of an Asiatic ever painted to our minds, were passing daily before our sight, we might find excuses for not paying a minute attention to the wants of our domestic and internal policy. But now that all these stimulating scenes have passed now that legitimate authority has been every where restored, and that on the wide surface of the earth no trace is left of all those convulsions which once seemed to threaten destruction to civilization and liberty, we should indeed be inexcusable, if, after having, with so much anxiety and perseverance, been intent on the interests of the world, we did not pay a little attention to the few dark spots of our own internal government. For though, without doubt, England is the nation the most fortunate in its domestic government; though, owing to the wisdom and continued perseverance of our ancestors in the cause of liberty, we may boast of a constitution perhaps as nearly approaching to perfection, as human powers allow; still we must not wonder, that some things have been left by our ancestors to their posterity, which either through the want of time, of sufficient light upon the subject, or through the pressure of greater matter, they were unable to perform. Nor should this prove to us a cause of complaint; for indeed has not this gradual, though continual course towards the reformation of the first sketch of our constitution, formed the great and only cause of the permanence of our rights, by the security it afforded against the workings of impatient, though honorable feelings, against the fixing as corner-stones in our constitution, rotten principles of action? but chiefly by its impeding the overbearing flood of hasty reformation from sweeping with it in its course, all the good that was united even with the bad? Following the same course, it is now the time to look to our laws, which though they may not appear to some immediately to concern the welfare of our constitution, still have the most intimate concern therein; for so closely linked are private and public good, that we much doubt the possibility of drawing the separating line. It is not, however, our intention, to enter into the whole of this subject at once, but to confine ourselves, for the present, to the examination of the relative proportion of punishment and guilt, in those cases where death is ordained by our criminal code. A subject which every one, who is in the habit of reading our daily papers, must perceive requires strong attention and gradual reform. The multiplicity of crimes, the great number of those yearly condemned to death, the great number of cases in which both judges and jury are obliged to use modifying powers, certainly point out the existence of some radical error in the very foundation of our criminal laws. In the last century, the relation of punishment and crime drew the attention of many many authors have written upon it, and some princes have put in execution the ideas of philosophers. Italy, the nation which has set the example, almost in every pursuit, either of good or bad, was in this also the first nation whose philosophers entered this career, and whose princes showed the example of availing themselves of the light thrown upon the subject. Beccaria, whatever might be the harshness of his disposition in private life, has rendered the public a great service by his attempts to introduce a milder spirit in the hearts of the administrators of justiceand Leopold of Tuscany, though some may complain of his frivolity, and others of his weakness; had first the merit of forming a code upon the principles of this philosopher. In every country, the work of the Roman sage was read; in every country it was translated and purchased; but it was not in every country that his principles were adopted, or even noticed in the manner becoming a subject of a nature so important. Following the example of Tuscany, Russia under Elizabeth and Catherine was the only great nation that amended its code according to this just though mercy-breathing system. Thus that nation, which every rival stigmatised with the name of barbarian, had first the glory of adding to her other glorious wreaths the more honorable civic crown of reforming her code according to a system that does honor to the feeling heart. The French sages, though perhaps it was owing to them that Russia adopted the system, in their own country were content with examining, criticizing, and commenting on it, and never, during the whole of that sanguinary revolution, when stretching forth hands imbrued in the blood of their innocent countrymen, they talked of reason, philanthropy, and universal love, never was a single voice raised to propose a system of penal laws, the spirit of which was true |