The heart of a good man cannot but recoil at the
thought of punishing a slight injury with death; especially when he
remembers that the thief might have procured safety by another crime,
from which he was restrained only by his remaining virtue.
The obligations to assist the exercise of publick justice are indeed
strong; but they will certainly be overpowered by tenderness for life.
What is punished with severity contrary to our ideas of adequate
retribution, will be seldom discovered; and multitudes will be suffered
to advance from crime to crime, till they deserve death, because, if
they had been sooner prosecuted, they would have suffered death before
they deserved it.
This scheme of invigorating the laws by relaxation, and extirpating
wickedness by lenity, is so remote from common practice, that I might
reasonably fear to expose it to the publick, could it be supported only
by my own observations: I shall, therefore, by ascribing it to its
author, Sir Thomas More, endeavour to procure it that attention, which I
wish always paid to prudence, to justice, and to mercy.[c]
No. 115. TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1751.
_Quaedam parvu quidem; sed non toleranda maritis_. JUV. Sat vi. 184.
Some faults, though small, intolerable grow.
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