of Ireland or the moral improvement of its people. But the abolition of the punishment of death, has not been looked to for the accomplishment of either; a few humane men of one religious community, of late years, have interfered in cases of capital convictions, and have succeeded in effecting a remission of the sentence in particular instances. The author of an admirable pamphlet, entitled, " Employ, don't Hang them," has demonstrated the inexpediency and inutility of the old mode of repressing crime; but no politician has taken up this question, on the broad ground of its vast importance, as a measure for the moral and social reformation of the people. The two great moral evils which struck at the root of national prosperity in Ireland, were intemperance and a proneness to personal violence, that arose in a great degree from the sense of the insecurity of life, in their own cases, and the little value they were taught to set upon it in reference to others.

The example of sanguinary punishments, tended rather to habituate the people to the spectacle of death, than to produce a wholesome influence on their minds the greatest of all reforms, has taken from the national character the reproach and crime of intemperance; the other stain upon it remains to be removed. Within the last four years the crime of homicide has, indeed, decreased to an unprecedented extent; but agrarian outrages, attended with the loss of life, still follow in the footsteps of destitution and oppression, and barbarous deeds are punished but not repressed, by penalties, which neither humanize nor terrify the evil doers.

Much indeed of late years has been done to make the law itself, by its example, diffuse a civilizing spirit, and by its administration, to produce a sense of the security and inviolability of human life.

But a great deal more remains to be done, to cause it to be respected, and to deprive its victims of the sympathy, which its severity procures for them, among those of their own class and station in society.

In times by no means remote, we have seen the terrors of a draconian code resorted to without effect; the appeal must now be to a better and a stronger passion than fear, to cause the law to be respected and obeyed. If the observation of the effects of sanguinary punishments, in many countries uncivilized, or wholly unreclaimed from barbarism, might enable one to form any opinion of their influence on the habits of the people subject to their infliction, the result of such experience could not fail to make those punishments the criterion of national character; and, in proportion as the laws were severe, the people would be found to be barbarous. It may be said, that it is not the rigour of the law which has brutalized them; but, if it cannot be shewn that its extreme severity has tended to humanize them, we must come to the conclusion that it has not fulfilled its purposeand, failing of it, that it ought to be put an end to. The vengeance of the law, and of that rigour which went beyond the law, overtook a multitude of the subordinate actors in the conspiracy of the United Irishmen in 1798. Its justice was at length satis

fied, or satiated, with the victims who expiated their offences on the scaffold, or at the lamp-posts. Clemency at length prevailed in the councils of the administration; and the chiefs of that conspiracythe men who directed, planned, and concocted it— Messrs. Emmett, O'Connor, M'Nevin, Jackson, Neilson, &c. were spared, and allowed to leave the country. Is there one man living, who now thinks that this act of mercy was injurious to the state, detrimental to its peace, or prejudicial to the ends of justice? Is there one man living, who believes that the public interests would have been promoted in any degree more by the hanging of these gentlemen, than by their subsequent deaths, in the ordinary course of nature, in a distant land? Many of them rose, in foreign countries, to the first rank and highest honours in their different professions— became useful members of society-reared up their children in virtuous habits, and left their families amply provided for. The private virtues of Emmett, M'Nevin and Sampson, I never heard spoken of in America, by those, even, of their own countrymen most inimical to their early principles, except in terms of commendation. If, in their instance, justice required not the forfeiture of life for the punishment of their offences-how much is it to be lamented that, in that of the Sheares, the same opportunity was not afforded for the retrieval of their errors, and the protection of those belonging to them.

A conversation on this subject, with an American gentleman, some years ago, tended not a little to

confirm, if not to form, the opinions expressed in the preceding observations.

One of the persons whom the humanity of an English jury saved from an ignominious death, the elder Watson, was living in New York, in 1835. The absurdity, no less than the criminality of the attempt of the actors in the Spafields outrages, was not calculated to enlist much sympathy in their behalf even in America.

Watson, however, had the good fortune, shortly after his acquittal, to seek a refuge in New York. His principal associates remained in England; and the subsequent Cato-street conspiracy, which brought them to the scaffold, afforded presumptive proof of the mischievous designs both of Watson and Thistlewood in the former attempt. No doubt the minister of that day expected a conviction in the case of Watson, and thought that the interests of the public required it. The jury, however, thought otherwise, and they acquitted the prisoner. One of the most eminent physicians of New York pointed out to me, in a public assemblage in that city, in 1835, a gentleman of a grave and respectable appearance, and seemingly of retired and unassuming manners. "You see that middle-aged man in black?" said the American physician; "I guess you were very anxious to have him hanged in the old country a few years ago. His name is Watson; he managed to get over here, and he has lived amongst us some years. He has turned out here a very quiet, inoffensive, industrious man. He follows his profession, and has had the good sense to take no part whatever in our

politics. I reckon," continued my informant, "that society goes on in the old country pretty much as well as it did since he left it. He is here attending to his business, which, perhaps, he did not do at home, and gaining his livelihood in a creditable manner. I have a notion, the very worst way in the world to improve a man, is to hang him—or to benefit society, is to put folks to death who don't know how to behave themselves, or to support their families. We keep them alive here, in order to teach them how to do both." It is most devoutly to be wished (so far) we may follow their example, and in our plans for the improvement of the people, the preservation of the peace, the repression of violence, for rendering the laws respected, and strengthening the execution of them; we may superadd to the American "notion," the counsel of the author of the pamphlet already referred to, even improving on the latter, and that the motto of all moral reformation in regard to our people may be-Teach, employ, and do not hang them.

VOL. II.