laws with severity, that are most in
danger of violation, as the commander of a garrison doubles the guard on
that side which is threatened by the enemy.

This method has been long tried, but tried with so little success, that
rapine and violence are hourly increasing, yet few seem willing to
despair of its efficacy; and of those who employ their speculations upon
the present corruption of the people, some propose the introduction of
more horrid, lingering, and terrifick punishments; some are inclined to
accelerate the executions; some to discourage pardons; and all seem to
think that lenity has given confidence to wickedness, and that we can
only be rescued from the talons of robbery by inflexible rigour, and
sanguinary justice.

Yet, since the right of setting an uncertain and arbitrary value upon
life has been disputed, and since experience of past times gives us
little reason to hope that any reformation will be effected by a
periodical havock of our fellow-beings, perhaps it will not be useless
to consider what consequences might arise from relaxations of the law,
and a more rational and equitable adaptation of penalties to offences.

Death is, as one of the ancients observes, [Greek: to ton phoberon
phoberotaton], _of dreadful things the most dreadful_: an evil, beyond
which nothing can be threatened by sublunary power, or feared from human
enmity or vengeance. This terrour should, therefore, be reserved as the
last resort of authority, as the strongest and most operative of
prohibitory sanctions, and placed before the treasure of life, to guard
from invasion what cannot be restored. To equal robbery with murder is
to reduce murder to robbery; to confound in common minds the gradations
of iniquity, and incite the commission of a greater crime to prevent the
detection of a less. If only murder were punished with death, very few
robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when, by the last act of
cruelty, no new danger is incurred, and greater security may be
obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them forbear?

It may be urged, that the sentence is often mitigated to simple robbery;
but surely this is to confess that our laws are unreasonable in our own
opinion; and, indeed, it may be observed, that all but murderers have,
at their last hour, the common sensations of mankind pleading in their
favour.

From this conviction of the inequality of the punishment to the offence,
proceeds the frequent solicitat