presented a Petition from the right hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan on behalf of himself and other proprietors of the late theatre royal Drury lane; setting forth, "That the late theatre royal in Drury Lane was erected in the year 1793 by means of subscription shares, amounting to the sum of 150,000l.; and that owing to the great miscalculation of the architect employed to build the same, and to various other unforeseen circumstances, the theatre was left under a great accumulation of debt after the expenditure of the said sum of 150,000l.; and that in the year 1802, the whole affairs and demands on the theatre were regulated under an order of the court of chancery; and that the property thus circumstanced, and in the progressive discharge of those demands, was wholly destroyed by the calamity of fire in the month of February 1809, being insured only in the comparative small amount of 35,000l.; and that, under these circumstances, the proprietors, duly considering the interests of the various persons whose property to so large an amount has been embarked in the undertaking, find that the only adequate mode to do justice to such persons, and to rebuild the theatre, is by transferring the property to a large body of subscribers, who are willing to raise a fund adequate to the accomplishment of that object, on the sole condition that the subscribing individuals shall not be subject to any call or demand beyond the amount of their original subscriptions; and therefore praying, for leave to bring, in a bill for effecting the purposes before-mentioned, and for such other purposes as may be necessary for supporting, maintaining, and improving the said property, under such regulations and restrictions as to the House shall seem meet."

Ordered, That the said Petition be referred to a Committee.

brought up the Report of the Committee of Supply which sat yesterday, of their resolution for granting to his Majesty the sum of 400,000l. to make good his engagement with his Sicilian Majesty for the present year.

opposed the resolution, inasmuch as the grant exceeded by 100,000l. the original stipulation with his Sicilian Majesty. The proposition for this additional grant, he understood, was founded upon an alledgement that it was rendered necessary by certain other stipulations not yet finally adjusted; and he thought it a bad precedent to grant so large a sum of the public money upon stipulations that might never take place. He thought, therefore, the House would be deserting its duty in voting away so large a sum of the public money, without having a very strong case made out to prove an urgent necessity for it, or that some serious inconvenience might arise from a delay of the grant until the stipulations were ratified. With respect to the alledged stipulations, he was anxious to ascertain whether any of them were of a commercial nature. His reason was that from authority in which he confided, he had understood that notwithstanding the assistance Great Britain afforded the Sicilian government, and though there was a great demand for British produce, still this country, in a commercial intercourse, was the least favoured; and that actually duties were levied upon such articles tantamount to a direct prohibition. He understood also, there was a commercial treaty in existence between this country and Sicily, upon which our interests were greatly neglected by the British government. On this point he was not sure whether he correctly stated the fact. He understood also, that the people of Sicily complained that this country, by the occupation of their island, had drawn upon them the hostility of France. A vast expence, too, was incurred to this country in the necessity of detaching so great a portion of our disposable force as 10,000 men, to keep up an army for the defence of that island. Such an expence ought not to be incurred, without some adequate object of advantage, and not merely for enabling the Sicilian government to maintain principles of domination over its subjects that were very oppressive and obnoxious to the people of that island, and which rendered them highly dissatisfied with their government. Of this fact his Majesty's ministers were fully apprised in the dispatches received from the British officers in the island. It was well known that the people of that country were anxious for a reform in their government, which they would wish to effect through the means of England, rather than of any other nation; but even through Buonaparté rather than not at all. Experience had proved, that the French, with all the insidious designs and rapacious cruelties which designated their character in every country where they obtained a footing, had still the art of persuading the population of those countries, that their object was the public good, thus inducing numbers to become their partisans. He thought therefore it was the duty as well as the sound policy of his Majesty's ministers to use their influence with that government which they were subsidizing and defending, to adopt such a system of reform as would at once satisfy and attach the people; instead of teaching that government to rely solely upon the defence of British troops, maintained at so great an expence to this country, and which occupied so very important a portion of our disposable force, and required so considerable a number of our transports which were essentially necessary to other objects of the public service.

said, though the hon. gent, had entered into a very wide field upon the present occasion, he would confine himself merely to notice such parts as applied to the question of the grant before the House. From what had fallen from the hon, gent., he understood him, though opposing this vote, to be friendly to our connexions with Sicily; and indeed, when he considered that not only the present, but all the governments of this country, and men of all parties, had held this connexion as of value in every political view, as well as with regard to our commercial interests in Malta and the Mediterranean, he thought he might assume, that there was no difference of opinion as to the importance of preserving the independence of Sicily from the grasp of Buonaparté. This had been so felt at all times, that every government thought it worth a great expense; and to this consideration it must also be superadded, as the hon. gent, himself had acknowledged, that we were bound to Sicily, by ties of good faith, from the circumstances attending the breaking out of the war with France. He was afraid the hon. gent, had gone a little too much, not only into accounts derived from Sicily, but into such as might easily be traced to another quarter. That there was a general dislike to the Sicilian as well as to all old governments—that the intrigues of France might have been in some instances successful— and that there might be some disaffected —he was not prepared to deny; but that the feeling was universal there was no proof. Reports might come from Sicily to that effect; for were there not even in this country, men, mad, wild, foolish and wicked enough to say, that there was nothing, even among ourselves, worth fighting for; and who found such inveterate faults in our constitution, as to be ready rather than submit to it, to submit to French tyranny, with all its evils? But this did not prove that this government ought to intrude alterations of system on other governments; for, whatever reforms in our own enlightened country we might judge right, it did not therefore become us to force on others. We ought to be averse then to prescribing terms which could never be done wisely; and if we interfered at all, it ought to be by advice and suggestion, and not by controul; and the more so, as it must be to a party to whom we were affording aid and protection. It was the object of his Majesty's government to maintain the independence of Sicily against Buonaparté but to intermeddle with the form of government in that island would be, in his conception, to violate the principles of good faith with that prince with whom we were in alliance. With respect to the additional sum of 100,000l. now voted, he begged to remind the hon. member that a similar sum was voted in the last session of parliament, although it was not advanced. The grant was thought necessary with a view to render the sum stipulated as effective as possible, without burthening this country with any loss arising from the difference of exchange, which must amount to a very considerable deduction; and, as the money was to be advanced by proportionate instalments, and no reasonable doubt could exist of the accedence of the Sicilian government to the stipulations proposed, he thought that any delay in the present grant would only lead to disappoint that government in the early instalments they were taught to expect.

supported the objections of his hon. friend (Mr. Lambe.) He was decidedly against granting the additional 100.000l. until the House should be informed of the ratification; and as to the scruples of the right hon. gent. about using influence with the Sicilian government for a reform of oppressive abuses in favour of the people, there was lying on the an table an official document from their own ambassador in Spain, and now one of his Majesty's cabinet ministers (marquis Wellesley) to shew that they had not scrupled to interfere with the Spanish Junta in matters of internal government; and therefore the pretence now made was directly in opposition to the principles already adopted by ministers themselves. The oppressions of which the Sicilians complained were not of a modern date. They did not originate within the last twenty years, not within the last century, but had from time immemorial been severely felt by that people. They did not result merely from the government, but from certain rights and privileges claimed by individuals and coroporate towns; and he could not see the impropriety of ministers recommending to a government in their alliance, such a reform as would attach the people to that government, and insure their co-operation against the common enemy; and as to the necessity of granting now the additional 100,000l. he saw no other principle on which to solve the riddle, except that his Majesty's ministers, pressed as they were, wished to have as much of the public money as possible speedily placed at their disposal, in order that they might prorogue the Parliament, and avert the discussion of many important subjects still pending.

observed, that the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not state a single reason why the House should agree to his resolution. He had talked of jacobins, and of something said somewhere, and by some person; but all this was wholly irrelevant to the arguments enforced against this proposed grant. In answer he must tell him, that the best assistance jacobinism, if it existed, could receive, would be from an unnecessary expenditure of the public money. There were numerous reasons why the additional grant should be delayed. In the present, state of circumstances it became the paramount duty of the country to husband its resources, in order to be prepared for those trying occasions, which, from the present state of Europe, were likely to arise. Under such an impression, he felt it his duty to move, as an Amendment, that 300,000l. be substituted instead of the 400.000l. originally proposed.

The House proceeded to a division, when the numbers were,—For the amendmendment 25. Against it 55. Majority 30.—The original Resolution was then agreed to.

moved the order of the day for receiving the Report upon this bill. The Report was then brought up and the amendments agreed to. On the question that the bill be engrossed,

, however reluctant he was to oppose any measure brought forward by the hon. and learned gent., felt himself called upon to resist the passing of this or of the two other bills in progress through the House. The object of these bills was to render offences, capital hitherto, no longer so. As a friend to the old law, he found himself bound to resist such an alteration. Besides, it was not right that it should go forth to the public, that these bills had been passed in that House on the ground that the criminal law of the country was defective. All the arguments of the hon. and learned gent. founded upon the numbers that escaped punishment, would, he was persuaded, not avail upon due consideration. If all those who escaped through the unwillingness of parties to prosecute, through their avarice in declining the expence of prosecution, through their inability to defray the expence, through the ingenuity of counsel, or by means of false witnesses, were deducted from the aggregate, it would reduce the number of those that escaped the certainty of punishment very considerably. Besides, it was the uniform principle of the English law, that punishments were not inflicted for the satisfaction of justice, but for the prevention of crimes by the influence of example. The hon. gent. then proceeded to notice the preambles of the acts of Henry VIII, of Philip and Mary, and of Elizabeth, and contended that he was borne out by these preambles in asserting, that the acts were such as the House was in the habit of passing—such, for instance, as those against White Boys, in order to put down any occasional acts of violence. The offences which they had been meant to repress were committed by bodies of banditti, who passed from county to county, often in defiance of the military, and not to be put down by that which, in later times was considered a panacea for all purposes, the posse comitatus. If the punishments in use were not to be retained, where would the learned and honourable gentleman seek for others to be substituted for them? Would he from Russia introduce the knout, which was, according to the evidence of those who had witnessed its infliction, more horrible than death itself? Would he, with Beccaria, recommend perpetual imprisonment? Would he revive the practice of nailing ears to the pillory? Or would he establish solitary imprisonment—a description of punishment, perhaps, desirable, but which a very large proportion of people in this country were resolved to employ all means to get abolished? Upon the whole, he was not prepared to alter the law of England, under which we had lived so happily, and which preserved the property in this rich and flourishing nation, with so small a loss of life. He should therefore oppose these bills in every stage.

, if he could agree with the hon. gent., that the ends of justice would best be promoted by the existing laws, should with him vote against the bill before the House. But he must contend that crimes were more effectually prevented by the certainty than the severity of punishment. The system of criminal law in this country, he contended, was most bloody, and was uniformly so represented in foreign nations. In practice he was ready to admit that the English criminal law was not so bloody; but the practice which thus mitigated its severity was a departure from the principle of the system, and the strongest evidence of the necessity of a reformation. The certainty of a lesser punishment would have more effect in deterring from the commission of crimes, as the hon. member must have often observed in the country to which they both belonged, than the terror of a greater, which might probably never be inflicted. Some years ago an act was passed in Ireland to make it felony and death to cut down a tree by day or by night. A gentleman of the highest worth and public spirit, who was in the habit of planting much, and was attached to his plantations, persuaded himself, that in the event of detecting any person destroying his trees, he could have resolution enough to put the act in force. An occasion soon occurred, and he, who had the honour of that gentleman's acquaintance, was well aware of all the anxiety he suffered as the period of the assizes approached. Up to the first day of that assizes, however, he appeared to have retained his resolution, but then his fortitude, failed him; he declared it impossible for him to put the bloody law in force, and could not reconcile it to any notion of justice to get a fellow-creature hanged for cutting down a tree. If a person of his rank and enlightened mind could shrink from putting so severe a law in force, how much more likely were persons of humbler rank to decline to prosecute? Offenders would always calculate not only on the chance of their escape, but upon the common feelings of mankind, which would probably prevent parties from taking away the life of a fellow creature by a prosecution for so disproportionate an offence. All writers were agreed upon the point, that the certainty, not the severity of punishment, was most likely to deter from the commission of crimes. If, as the hon. gent. had said, the laws when too severe were not put in force, because individuals then declined to prosecute, was not that a reason why such laws should be modified in order that they might no longer remain a dead letter? The leaning of juries to the side of mercy was another argument for the alteration, because the mitigation of the excessive severity of the laws was in such cases produced sometimes by what should be deprecated by every legislature—perjury, however it may be defended from a consideration of the motives. The hon. gent. had asked triumphantly what punishments were to be resorted to; but if he had read the bill, he would have been enabled to answer that question by all that appeared on the face of the bill. He would have seen the discretion to be given to judges to change transportation for solitary confinement. However solitary confinement might appear worse than death to a person who could be guilty of premeditated crimes, it would have a good effect on the interests of society. The individual would not be lost to the community; he would come forth from confinement a better man than he entered it; and, as in the case of hanging or transportation, the effect of the example of punishment would not be lost to the public. He should most heartily, therefore, support the motion of his hon. and learned friend, who, he trusted, would not be diverted by any interruptions from the career of humanity he was pursuing.

begged leave to submit to the House the few observations that occurred to him on this subject. If he felt any difficulty upon the measures then in progress through the House, it would arise from considering a part of that general system which had been alluded to by the hon. baronet, and characterised as a career of humanity. He was not friendly to any great or violent changes. It had always been his practice in that House, to steer a middle course between the conflicting opinions respecting public measures. That course he was aware was not the way to effect any thing brilliant, either in that House or out of it; but then he was inclined to prefer what was useful to what was splendid. In the pages of the hon. and learned member (sir S. Romilly) he found it stated, that to the discretion proposed to be allowed to judges, nature had assigned one limit. For his own part, if they could be sure, that juries would be competent to sift and ascertain all the circumstances of each case that might be brought before them, so as to be enabled to decide according to its real merits, he should feel no objection at leaving juries in possession of full discretion. But when it should be considered from what description of persons juries were usually chosen, it must be obvious that they would be as liable as any other body to fall into error. In stating what he felt upon this point, he did not wish to shelter himself from any construction which might be put upon his use of any particular expression. He was not afraid to add therefore, that in his view of the subject a certain degree of arbitrary discretion appeared necessary, absolutely essential, in all administrations of justice. In admitting this, however, he must also state, that this arbitrary discretion should not be unlimited. If all the difficulties on this head could be ascertained, then the House could attain the perfection of human jurisprudence; and if such perfection was desirable, it must be obvious that approximations to it must also be desirable. He thought that in some instances this discretion was carried too far. If it were admitted as a principle, that in the case of crimes of difficult detection, the quantity of punishment or the deterring principle should be greater, it would follow, that in crimes of easier detection the quantity of punishment should be less. It was not his intention to go into any of the more heinous offences to apply this principle, but confine himself to the more ordinary offences. Sheep-stealing he thought very properly punished with death; because, considering the manner in which sheep were fed upon extensive downs, the exposure to depredation, and the difficulty of detection, such a severe punishment was necessary for the sake of preserving the vast quantity of wholesome food and warm raiment for human use. It was his opinion too that all circumstances of aggravation or mitigation should be attended to in the apportioning the punishment; such, for instance, as the case of actually forcing the door, or striking the blow, circumstances at present attended to in proclamations. Such circumstances would unquestionably have effect in deterring from the commission of crimes under such aggravated circumstances. The necessity of allowing a discretion in these cases flowed from the imperfection of the human powers of judgment. But whether the discretion was to be given to the judge or the jury, as far as he could form an opinion, he thought it should be left to the judge. When the House considered the manner in which the judges, not alone of the present day, but for many years back, were selected from a description of persons against whom no reflection could lie, he was persuaded that it would be evident the discretion could no where be better placed. He would much rather see it lodged in their hands than with juries, unless it could be made subject to definite rules, and juries should be found enlightened enough to discern and decide upon the actual merits, upon a comprehensive view of all the circumstances of each case. But though a friend to discretion under the qualifications he had stated, he should never accede to the establishment of unlimited discretion in any quarter. He should here enter his protest against the general principle of any extensive alteration, at the same time reserving to himself the right of agreeing to such parts of the measures of the hon. and learned member in which he could, consistently with his views and principles, concur. He was convinced that any reformation to be beneficial must be made in the detail; and whilst he entertained that opinion, he must at all times oppose any large or extensive steps towards an object which, in his view, was only to be gradually attained. Though he respected and admired, the laws of England, he should never suffer his veneration for them to induce him to resist any measure, which might be brought forward for their actual improvement.

conceived the present to be a question if, where guilt was found, execution of the sentence annexed must follow as the necessary consequence. This it was impossible ever to lay down. Such a doctrine would require certain and precise rules of proceeding, which it would be impossible to lay down as applicable to every particular case. He proceeded to notice the different arguments in the publication of sir S. Romilly on this subject, from the greater part of which he expressed his dissent. He denied that a man was ever punished because he had been guilty of another crime, different from that on account of which he was tried; or that, in the language of his hon. and learned friend's pamphlet, the person so condemned suffered not for the crime of which he was found guilty, but for another of which he laboured only under the suspicion. It was an old and a true saying, that the last feather broke the horse's back, but he presumed, it would hardly be said that a feather would break a horse's back, if there was no pre-existing weight imposed on him. In this view did he regard the argument now used by his hon. and learned friend. He conceived that laws were originally made, not so much for the punishment, as for the prevention of crime. Intimidation, he maintained, was the best method of effecting this. His hon. and learned friend seemed to argue that no sentence ought to be passed which should not be executed. But was it possible to lay down such a rule? It was impossible to judge of any case till it actually occurred; but to apply the argument of his hon. and learned friend it would be necessary to look to cases known and unknown. It was possible to distinguish things obviously different in themselves, but it was impossible unconditionally to provide for different degrees of the same species of offence. The right hon. gent. proceeded to allude to a bill which, he understood, was once more to come before them, for preventing cruelty to animals, on which no two men could have the same feeling for any considerable period of time, and on which no one man could think alike for half an hour together. He could not help looking with an eye of jealousy on all such visionary schemes, which had humanity and justice for their ostensible causes. What had we witnessed within the last twenty years? Had not the French Revolution begun with the abolition of capital punishments in every case; but not till they had sacrificed their sovereign, whom they had thus made the grand finale to this species of punishment. When he looked, however to the millions who had since fallen in the course of the Revolution, he could not but regard all schemes of the kind with an eye of jealousy. He asked, therefore, if such a system as this was, without consideration, to be put up against that of Dr. Paley?

said, that it was a principle which was agreed to on all hands, that the prevention of crimes was the object of punishment; and the question only was, whether the plan proposed by his hon. and learned friend (sir S. Romilly) would not be, in all probability, more efficacious for the attainment of that object than the system of criminal laws which now exists. If it were only equally efficacious with the existing system, every body must prefer it, as producing the same effect by means less severe; but it appeared to him that it would not only be as efficacious, but probably more so. It was evident that either the law or the practice must be wrong, and whichever was wrong ought to be remedied. Now the practice of not inflicting the punishment denounced by the law, came every day before the observation of the public, and under the inspection of parliament, and yet no fault had been found with it. There was no disposition to censure the judges, or his Majesty's advisers, for not putting the law in execution. It therefore did appear to him to be most clear that in the public opinion the laws appeared too severe in their punishments. It was wrong, in any country, that the laws should be in direct opposition to public opinion; but it would be particularly improper in this country, where offences are tried by a jury, and where laws contrary to the general opinion were not likely to be well executed. There, in fact, appeared to be an universal confederacy in this country against the criminal law as it now stands. In the first place, the juries, notwithstanding the paucity of executions, still were unwilling to trust the lives of the prisoners to the discretion of the judge, but took hold of every possible circumstance to acquit them of the capital part of the charge. Next came the judges; and lastly his Majesty's advisers, who were all anxious to spare the lives of those who had been capitally convicted. It therefore appeared to be generally agreed by all men, that the punishment of death was much too severe for the generality of offences against which it was denounced. If intimidation would absolutely prevent crime, the punishment of death might be held out for the most trifling offences; but it was well known that the terror even of death would not altogether prevent the commission of crimes. Juries were now in a manner forced by the severity of the law to take upon themselves a discretion which the law never intended to give them. Even the sanctity of their oath was sometimes obliged to yield to the feelings of nature, and they were guilty of what had been sometimes called a pious perjury, to acquit a prisoner. The fault was in the law as it now stood; for every law must be faulty which acts so decidedly against the feelings of the whole country. He did not mean to say that the law should in every case be carried into strict execution, nor would he wish that his Majesty should be deprived of the power of granting pardons. He thought, however, that pardons should be only exceptions to the general rule, and that it was by no means right that the general administration of the criminal law of the country should be founded on the King's pardon, whether his Majesty was advised by his judges or his othér advisers. He never could conceive how he could agree to passing any law unless it were his intention that it should be generally executed. It had been, urged, that in the plan proposed by his hon. and learned friend (sir S. Romilly) there was a considerable degree of discretion given. It was true that there necessarily was a considerable degree of discretion, but then it was a discretion of a very different nature. It was not a discretion going to life or death, but merely of proportioning the gradations of a certain sort of punishment to the gradations of crimes. In capital punishments there was no possible gradation; and he thought it too much generally to leave the life or death of persons convicted to the mere discretion of the judge. It was this which induced juries so often to acquit prisoners when there could be hardly any doubt of their guilt. If, however, a milder system should be introduced, there would be no longer so much repugnance to prosecuting offenders, or so much disinclination to convict them. He therefore approved of the principle of the bill of his honourable and learned friend, and thought that an experiment of that sort might very safely be tried. He thought that it was better calculated than the present system for preventing crimes, by rendering the punishment more certain. He therefore should support the bill.

, confining himself to the particular bills before the House, maintained that, as far as his experience went, parties were not, by the existing law, restrained from prosecuting, nor juries from finding the fact. He argued that the law was already armed with all the power given by this bill, and so far executed, that although felons of this description were often exempted from death, they were still transported, imprisoned, &c. Thus the law, as it stood, had all the power of punishment and prevention given by the bills, and the power of death in addition. He argued that the possibility of inflicting death did operate as a prevention; though he, and others who thought with him, laboured under a disadvantage from not being able to produce instances, because what was prevented was never seen. He maintained that these cases were often attended with circumstances which rendered it extremely proper that there should be a power of inflicting the punishment of death; and he illustrated this by cases which he had seen on the circuit in the early part of his life, where the dwellings of poor cottagers had been plundered while they were at their labour. The situation was different in originating a law entirely from that of proposing a repeal of an old law on the same point; unless experience proved the old to be pernicious it ought not to be altered on mere theory. He denied that experience had proved the existing law to be pernicious or inefficacious. The judges, who must be best acquainted with its practical effect, had not been consulted, or, at least, they had not given their sanction to the proposed change. Conceiving that no particular good would result from this change, he was adverse to the bills.

maintained, that it was notorious that parties were often prevented from prosecuting, and witnesses from coming forward by the severity of the existing law, and that juries were often obliged to have recourse to a pious perjury, as it had been called. It was unnecessary for him to state the importance of not relaxing the obligation of an oath; he was for leaving this amiable weakness, or pious perjury, or whatever it might be termed, to the circulating libraries, and for keeping it out of the courts of law. These bills were brought forwaŕd as a remedy against existing evil—an evil which every one in the habit of attending on criminal courts must know to exist. The discretion as to the infliction of death the judges would, he believed, very readily dispense with. It was one which they felt the most painful anxiety in exercising.

said, that entertaining as he did the highest respect for the talents and motives of his hon. and learned friend, he could not agree with him in his views of the subject before the House. He wished that his learned friend, previous to the introduction of his series of bills, had consulted those who were best competent to give him information. However sanguinary our criminal code might be in appearance, there was not upon its practical application so mild a system under the sun. In fact many of our laws were only preserved in terrorem. They were like a blunderbuss and rattle in the window of an honest citizen retired into the country; kept there to frighten away the thieves, and from which a shot might not have been discharged in twenty years. He contended against the repeal of the law against stealing in a shop; the existence of which was absolutely necessary to protect the justifiable artifices employed in the exposition of goods. In a commercial country like this, such laws were necessary, for properly could not be safe without them. He was adverse to weakening the penal code, the effect of which would be more mischievous than the House was aware of. He was persuaded it would be better to leave the application of the criminal laws to the conscience of the juries, the discretion of the judge, and the royal mercy, whenever it should be necessary. There was a discretion of punishing desertion with death in the military code, and yet hardly one out of 100,000 deserters was put to death. In a country where political and personal freedom was so much enjoyed as among us, our criminal statutes must of course be numerous and severe. These multiplied punishments were part of the price we paid for our liberty; they were counterbalances that must unavoidably take place. By altering our criminal system, or disturbing it in any material degree, we should destroy those high and lofty sentiments which were the best safeguards of our constitution. He thought the code might be safely allowed to remain as it was. It was less formidable in effect than appearance. It prevented crimes without recurring to punishment. No other system he was persuaded would answer the great end of legislation so well. He argued, that the penal laws of England were necessarily more severe than those of other countries, because the controul and suspicious watching of private actions was less rigid. Such a system of suspicion was utterly inconsistent with the feelings and liberties of the people of this country, and therefore the penal law must be more severe. In other countries the armed man was every where, and he himself had seen him among a crowd of young people at a ball, and interfering to tell one of the dancers, that he must not turn his partner that way. Our code had grown out of the commercial system. Forgery was formerly but a larceny; but the security of property made it necessary to punish it with death. He deprecated these alterations of the law, as attended with the worst effects. He therefore felt it his duty to oppose the bill.

observed, that the greater part if not the whole of the argument used by the gentleman on the other side, would apply move correctly to any measure for the establishment of a totally new system of police than to the bill under consideration. But, even supposing this bill involved a proposition for the diminution of capital punishments generally, could gentlemen put the test of that experience, upon which they professed so much to rely, against the propriety of such a proposition. How did experience argue upon this question? Why, that the infliction of capital punishments had become comparatively infrequent and unnecessary. In the reign of Henry 8, the number of capital punishments was at the rate of 2,000 per annum; in the time of Elizabeth it fell to 400; and, he understood, that of late years since the Revolution, a very small proportion of those who were sentenced ever suffered death. From this he inferred that such a punishment had been found in great part unnecessary; and why then should the power of inflicting it be allowed to remain in so great proportion of our penal laws subject to the discretion of the judges, and subject also to all the inconveniences which had been already stated with regard to prosecutors, juries and witnesses, and the frequent impunity of guilt in consequence of the excessive severity of punishment? As to the measure before the House, the plain question was, whether the offence described was of that nature to which the punishment of death ought to apply? And he was fully prepared upon the fullest deliberation to decide in the negative. Out of 1,000 sentenced only one being executed, it was clear that the law was unnecessary, and that the exception was the rule while the rule was the exception. Instead of severe punishments which had no effect in preventing the repetition of crimes, or promoting the amendment of criminals, he would strongly recommend the general establishment of the system of penitentiary houses—not only with respect to this case, but to many others; he could not help considering the severity of our penal code as inconsistent with justice and humanity, as a disgrace to the character of the country. So much indeed was his right hon. friend, now no more (Mr. Pitt) persuaded of the rectitude of this opinion, that to his knowledge that distinguished person had it in contemplation to commit the whole of our penal code to the revision of some able lawyers, for the purpose of digesting a plan to lessen the sanguinary nature of its punishments, and the knowledge of this circumstance ought to have considerable weight with those who respected the opinion of that great man. To the able and eminent lawyer who had undertaken this revision, and who had brought forward the bill under discussion, he for one would declare, as he felt the most unfeigned thanks, and he could not avoid adding the expression of his regret, that his hon. and learned friend was not in his benevolent undertakings more adequately supported.

cordially agreed with his hon. friend, that the law of the 19th of the King, which, though dormant, would not, he hoped, be inefficacious, and which provided for the amendment of criminals by their confinement in penitentiary houses, ought to be put in force, in order to prevent the contagion of vice, and to render it practicable for a criminal to come out of confinement an amended subject and capable of returning to an honest course of life. His hon. and learned friend, in whom the discussion originated, contended that the present law, by holding out the punishment of death, augmented the evils which it professed to diminish. With all his respect for his hon. and learned friend, he must say that his own experience, confirmed by the opinions of those who were the best qualified to judge upon the subject, was directly the reverse, Would any one state a case in which a prosecutor had been deterred from proceeding for fear of bringing the criminal to a capital punishment? (Hear, hear!) It might be so; but until such a case was stated to him he would not believe its existence. If a prosecutor were desirous of avoiding the capital part of the charge, he had nothing to do but to abstain from stating that the robbery took place in a dwelling house, or that it amounted to 40s. in value. It was an exaggeration therefore to say, that the present law led to perfect impunity. It had been said that the law induced witnesses to perjure themselves. This was all imaginary, and he was sure that no practical man would state that as his opinion. He allowed that juries might occasionally be inclined to indulge a latitude in valuing the articles which were the subject of a prosecution. This was exclusively censurable, but what followed? Perfect impunity? By no means. The criminal was subject to the same punishment as he would be were the offence made a chargeable felony. To take away one description of punishment would not lead to a greater certainty of punishment; and he was persuaded that no one who was conversant with the administration of criminal law would contend that the terror of capital punishment, however surely inflicted, did not deter from the commission of crime. He instanced several cases in which criminals had speculated on their crimes being only transportable offences. But it seemed the dread of a capital punishment was to operate on a prosecutor, on witnesses, on the jury, on every body but the individual tempted to commit the crime. Was that a rational supposition? The theory of his hon. and learned friend was directed against the whole system of discretion in criminal law, and if adopted in one case must be adopted in the rest. He admitted that it would be very beautiful if the law could be so contrived, as that a precise punishment should be proposed for every individual offence, without leaving any thing to the discretion of those by whom the law was administered. But although this would be very beautiful, it would be wholly impracticable. All that could be done in practice was to have generic description of crimes. The peculiar circumstances of aggravation on the one hand, and of extenuation on the other by which every individual case was marked, as they could not be foreseen, could not be embodied in the law. Let any one try his hand at such a particularization, and he would soon find the impossibility of it. Even could it be accomplished, so far from insuring a certainty of punishment, it would give the criminal the greatest opportunities for escape, both in the mode in which the indictment must necessarily be drawn up, and in the hesitation which juries would entertain in consequence.—Under all the circumstances he thought the present system better than that proposed to be substituted.

conceived the whole system of our laws to arise from certain circumstances, which from time to time, had pressed upon the notice of the legislature, and seemed to render the enactment of such laws necessary. If any one had found its way into the code inflicting too severe a punishment for a crime, which, from its frequency at the time the act was passed, might seem to call for such severity, it did not follow that such a law should be continued in force to the end of time, or at periods when the crime had ceased to be frequent. If the hon. gent. had proposed a Committee to revise the whole system of our criminal laws, he should then have approved of the observation of his hon. and learned friend (the solicitor-general), and have thought it would not be well thus to risk shaking the whole system of our laws. It was clear that a discretionary power must still continue to be vested in the judges, and the question before the House was not, whether they should extinguish that power, but how far it might be proper to limit its range. No man could say it would be extinguishing the power to impose limits to its range. The whole amount of the change went to take from them the power of dispensing life or death, and to that he could see no objection. Whether or not the existence of the punishment of death were absolutely necessary, it could not prevent the commission of the crime. The opinions of the various high law authorities appeared to be paired, he might therefore be justified in forming his own. His hon. and learned friend (the solicitor general) had said it was strange that the severity of the punishment should produce so great an effect on all but those on whom it was to be inflicted. The illregulated mind of a hardened sinner inflamed by the prospect of gain, would, from the unfrequency of the inflicting of the punishment denounced by the law, more readily brave the danger thus incurred, than a well regulated mind would risk the possibility of condemning a man to death unjustly. It had been said that though the capital punishment was seldom inflicted on such offenders, they did not escape transportation and other punishments. This was true, after conviction the parties did not wholly escape; but in the two previous stages there was the chance of death, or of total impunity. It would be desirable to remove from juries any temptation to perjury, however benevolent their motives might be; and it would be better not to persevere in a system affording such facilities for escape, but doing away the severer punishment increase the probability of the offenders being visited by the lesser. In acting thus, they would run no risk of shaking the whole system. No dread of innovation could be felt equal to that which might have been entertained when the law was made, after it had been seen that in the course of a century the crime and the punishment were so seldom found together.

did not agree in the justness of the criticism passed upon the speech of his learned friend (the solicitor-general), by his right hon. friend who spoke last, in the proposition put by the last speaker. He argued from the case of the hardened offender against the scruples of an humane juror; but it was not the hardened offender they wanted to deter, but those who had not, perhaps, been actually guilty of any offence. He denied that the opinions of legal men were poised upon the practical good consequences, of the law as it now stood. It was unsupported by the authority of one single judge or magistrate, or the hon. gent. who brought the subject forward would have strengthened his own opinions by stating that circumstance to the House. He did not think the bill would have a tendency to prevent the commission of the crime; if he did he should think it a good bill. He did not know that there were any reasons for believing that more persons were deterred from prosecuting than from committing the offence by dread of the punishment. His right hon. friend seemed to think it a most extravagant idea of the solicitor general's that those likely to offend were as likely to dread the punishment, as the juries who decided on their case, from the difference between the mind of a hardened sinner and a well regulated mind. Was it only the hardened sinner on whom the severity of the punishment could be wished to produce an effect? Was it not equally to be wished that those who were not hardened might be deterred from committing such offences. And might not that effect be supposed to result from the severity of the punishment. The prosecutor and the juries might be affected by the severity of the punishment, but he did not believe the felon would commit an offence from an idea that that circumstance would screen him from punishment. If such inconveniences arose from the conduct of prosecutors and juries, might not the end of the hon. gentleman be answered by increasing the amount necessary to constitute a capital offence. It was easy to bring forward instances of prosecutors being unwilling to subject an offender to a punishment so severe; but it was not so easy to bring forward those instances when persons disposed to commit such an offence had been deferred by a dread of the punishment. Prosecutors were ready enough to come forward with statements, but those who had been tempted to offend would keep their secret for their own sakes. The 1,800 cases mentioned to prove the defective state of the law, went to establish its perfection, as in all those cases the severity of the sentence had been ameliorated, and the appropriate punishment inflicted. This proved at least that the execution of the law was not so much too severe. It should seem that the severity was rather in the amendment, as its object was not to get rid of severity of punishment, but merely of severity of denunciation. The effect of the bill would be to make the offence more frequent, and he cautioned those who might be disposed to support it, lest in consequence it should become necessary for them again to have recourse to the legislature, and not only revive the law, but put it in execution.

replied at some length to the imputations which had been thrown on his conduct. One hon. gent. had supposed he wished for the introduction of something like the French police, and another a somethinglike the French Revolution, and then an appeal had been made to his humanity for the sake of those millions who might fall in consequence of the supposed changes he might cause. He hoped gentlemen would not oppose the bill because they might differ from him in sentiment upon other things. He wished them to consider what the law is at present, what the proposed amendments were, and only judge the bill from its individual merits. It was not, as had been said, founded on theory, but on practice. House robbing, he had asserted, had considerably increased for some years past. This no one had thought proper to deny. He could only impute this increase to the circumstance of the law not being enforced. It had been said to disprove that, that the prosecutor not wishing to cause the death of the offender, might prosecute him for a minor offence. It was not proper that it should thus depend upon an obscure individual whether or not a man should be tried for his life. In those cases where the hon. gent. opposite thought the offence the greatest, that of servants robbing their masters, the parties oftenest escaped.—He knew of instances of that nature. He knew too that juries in many cases doubted where no doubt would exist, if they were not averse to punish with such excessive rigour.—A year ago a woman was tried at the Old Bailey for stealing a 10l. note from her master. She had stolen nothing beside, except the box in which it was enclosed, which was worth but a penny. The jury convicted her of stealing to the amount of 39s. and thus sunk the capital part of the charge. Many similar cases might be found in the recent session papers. Juries ought not thus to be led to slight their oaths. Judges had also been thus influenced; they had frequently carefully avoided asking the value of things in order to shun the capital part of the charge. He denied that the system had been of so long standing as the solicitor-general had asserted it to be. In support of this he cited lord chief justice Hale. Dr. Paley, to whose authority the solicitor-general attached so much importance, spoke of the certainty of punishment as being more likely to deter men from the commission of offences than severity. He wished the laws to have effect, as those who from their irregularities were most likely to offend might thus be restrained.—It had been said, that he had the authority of the judges against him. The judges generally had expressed no opinion upon it; but their known practice in screening through motives of humanity, the culprits before them from the capital part of such offences, was an evidence in favour of such alteration as he now proposed. He bad never said that no discretionary power should be held by the judges, but he had said that that power ought to be as circumscribed as might be. The frequency of executions took away from their effect, and rendered them more cruel. No one could witness the ceremony of passing sentence of death upon criminals, and hear the solemn prayer with which it concludes, without being affected, were it not considered as being an idle form. Not one-tenth part of those thus sentenced to death being executed, it almost degenerates into a solemn mockery. The individuals knowing this, still continued to be buoyed up with hopes of escaping, each hoping it will not be his fate to suffer, till at length the fatal order arrives, and he, all hurry, has little time to prepare for that world into which he is about to pass. Sir Samuel concluded a very energetic speech, defending his general conduct, and denying that he had published his pamphlet merely with a view of gaining reputation or popularity.

A division took place, when the numbers were—