ren, or perhaps all of these relations,
(such things have been,) nose him in his own village, and insult him
with the riches acquired from the plunder of his goods, ready again to
head a Jacobin faction to attack his life? He is unworthy of the name of
man who would suffer it. It is unworthy of the name of a government,
which, taking justice out of the private hand, will not exercise it for
the injured by the public arm.

I know it sounds plausible, and is readily adopted by those who have
little sympathy with the sufferings of others, to wish to jumble the
innocent and guilty into one mass by a general indemnity. This cruel
indifference dignifies itself with the name of humanity.

It is extraordinary, that, as the wicked arts of this regicide and
tyrannous faction increase in number, variety, and atrocity, the desire
of punishing them becomes more and more faint, and the talk of an
indemnity towards them every day stronger and stronger. Our ideas of
justice appear to be fairly conquered and overpowered by guilt, when it
is grown gigantic. It is not the point of view in which we are in the
habit of viewing guilt. The crimes we every day punish are really below
the penalties we inflict. The criminals are obscure and feeble. This is
the view in which we see ordinary crimes and criminals. But when guilt
is seen, though but for a time, to be furnished with the arms and to be
invested with the robes of power, it seems to assume another nature, and
to get, as it were, out of our jurisdiction. This I fear is the case
with many. But there is another cause full as powerful towards this
security to enormous guilt,--the desire which possesses people who have
once obtained power to enjoy it at their ease. It is not humanity, but
laziness and inertness of mind, which produces the desire of this kind
of indemnities. This description of men love general and short methods.
If they punish, they make a promiscuous massacre; if they spare, they
make a general act of oblivion. This is a want of disposition to proceed
laboriously according to the cases, and according to the rules and
principles of justice on each case: a want of disposition to assort
criminals, to discriminate the degrees and modes of guilt, to separate
accomplices from principals, leaders from followers, seducers from the
seduced, and then, by following the same principles in the same detail,
to class punishments, and to fit them to the nature and kind of the
delinquency.