. At
the close of the trial, Lacy leaned over the bar and said, "had it not
been for you, doctor, we should have pulled through."

Lacy was conspicuous in the press-yard for his fervour, and delivered an
animated warning to the multitude, who were drawn together to witness an
unusual sacrifice of life at one drop! Dr. Ross, who still endeavoured
to rally round the scaffold some special interest, gave an artistic
description of their end; but he was astonished to observe how the
sufferers themselves were but little affected, and the spectators less.
He mourned over the unmeaning countenances of the mob, who felt little
but curiosity when they saw them step from the full bloom of life to the
grave! Nor was it perceived by that zealous defender of lenity, when the
government was lenient, and of the severity, when the government was
severe, that the execution of nine persons for an act, in which three
only actually participated, or perhaps contemplated, could only be
possible among such a people. It is rather a matter of exultation, that
there is a limit, beyond which executions become the dullest of all
entertainments. At that time no one would have thought a single sufferer
worth a glance of the eye.

It is remarked, that the most notorious of these offenders were rather
prepossessing, except that their looks, by long residence in the bush,
had acquired an air of wildness. The indicative theories of Lavater were
negatived by the usual aspect of these crowds of victims; but the most
impatient of penal restraint, have been not only violent and corrupt,
but often of resolute and generous dispositions; often possessing the
elements of a mental character, which, had it not been perverted by
crime, might have been distinguished for the energy of virtue. On the
primary treatment of such men, everything depends; and their first
master determined whether they were to become active and intelligent
agriculturists, or by pernicious indulgence, and not less ill-judged
severity, to pass rapidly, by a reckless and resentful temper, from the
triangle to the scaffold.

Such severe exhibitions of penal vengeance were intended to crush the
insurgent spirit; to prove to the prisoners that any forms of
combination or resistance would be followed by severer suffering. The
re-action of that excitement assisted the future success of discipline.
It convinced the masters that a neglected or careless management was
equally pernicious. But the na