ALE, you see he is compelled to begin with acknowledging
that there are great authorities against him; and he could not say that
GROTIUS was not one of the most virtuous as well as one of the most
learned of mankind. HALE does not know very well what to do with those old
sayings about the justification which hard necessity gives: he does not
know what to do with the maxim, that, "in case of extreme necessity all
things _are owned in common_." He is exceedingly puzzled with these
ancient authorities, and flies off into prattle rather than argument, and
tells us a story about "_jesuitical_" casuists in France, who advised
apprentices and servants to rob their masters, and that they thus "let
loose the ligaments of property and civil society." I fancy that it would
require a pretty large portion of that sort of faith which induced this
Protestant judge to send witches and wizards to the gallows; a pretty
large portion of this sort of faith, to make us believe, that the
"_casuists_ of France," who, doubtless, _had servants of their own_, would
teach servants to rob their masters! In short, this prattle of the judge
seems to have been nothing more than one of those Protestant effusions
which were too much in fashion at the time when he wrote.

24. He begins his second paragraph, or paragraph B., by saying, that he
"_takes it_" to be so and so; and then comes another qualified expression;
he talks of civil government "_as here in England_." Then he says, that
the rule of GROTIUS and others, against which he has been contending, "he
takes _to be false_, at _least_," says he, "_by the laws of England_."
After he has made all these qualifications, he then proceeds to say that
_such taking is theft_; that it is _felony_; and it is a crime which the
laws of England punish with _death_! But, as if stricken with remorse at
putting the frightful words upon paper; as if feeling shame for the law
and for England itself, he instantly begins to tell us, that the judge who
presides at the trial is intrusted, "_by the laws of England_," with power
to _reprieve_ the offender, in order to the obtaining of the _King's
mercy_! Thus he softens it down. He will have it to be LAW to put a man to
death in such a case; but he is ashamed to leave his readers to believe,
that an English judge and an English king WOULD OBEY THIS LAW!

25. Let us now hear the reasons which he gives for this which he pretends
to be law. His first reason is, that there wo