] It appears by the following extract from a letter written by the
Earl of Mansfield to Mr. Burke, dated the 17th July, 1780, that these
Reflections had also been communicated to him:--"I have received the
honor of your letter and very judicious thoughts. Having been so greatly
injured myself, I have thought it more decent not to attend the reports,
and consequently have not been present at any deliberation upon the
subject."

SOME THOUGHTS

ON THE APPROACHING EXECUTIONS,

HUMBLY OFFERED TO CONSIDERATION.

As the number of persons convicted on account of the late unhappy
tumults will probably exceed what any one's idea of vengeance or example
would deliver to capital punishment, it is to be wished that the whole
business, as well with regard to the number and description of those who
are to suffer death as with regard to those who shall be delivered over
to lighter punishment or wholly pardoned, should be entirely a work of
reason.

It has happened frequently, in cases of this nature, that the fate of
the convicts has depended more upon the accidental circumstance of their
being brought earlier or later to trial than to any steady principle of
equity applied to their several cases. Without great care and sobriety,
criminal justice generally begins with anger and ends in negligence. The
first that are brought forward suffer the extremity of the law, with
circumstances of mitigation of their case; and after a time, the most
atrocious delinquents escape merely by the satiety of punishment.

In the business now before his Majesty, the following thoughts are
humbly submitted.

If I understand the temper of the public at this moment, a very great
part of the lower and some of the middling people of this city are in a
very critical disposition, and such as ought to be managed with firmness
and delicacy. In general, they rather approve than blame the principles
of the rioters, though the better sort of them are afraid of the
consequences of those very principles which they approve. This keeps
their minds in a suspended and anxious state, which may very easily be
exasperated by an injudicious severity into desperate resolutions,--or
by weak measures on the part of government it may be encouraged to the
pursuit of courses which may be of the most dangerous consequences to
the public.

There is no doubt that the approaching executions will very much
determine the future conduct of those people. They ought to be s