APPENDIX. (E.)

AN

ADDRESS TO THE JUDGES,

IN THE

COURT OF KING'S BENCH,

ON THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1799

MY LORDS,

By a precipitate decision on the guilt of my intentions ye are now empowered, with a privilege of most awful responsibility, under which I had much rather be the sufferer than the agent to inflict punishment on me for the supposed errors or perversities of my understanding. Now such punishment and such offences, whatever the irrational and indistinct conceptions of rude antiquity may have sanctioned by authority, prescribed by records, and established by precedent, are so essentially inappli

cable to each other, that I may securely challenge the whole aggregate of human intellect to point out the least affinity between them.

Represent to yourselves the palpable distinction between transactions of this nature, and a case of active violence or positive hostility. Have I injured another by assault upon his person, or depredation on his estate? Though I regard all corporal punishment as universally indefensible in itself, because infinitely pernicious in it's effects, still the restraint of confinement becomes unquestionably a suitable expedient for the prevention of similar mischiefs from the same aggressor, till he be brought to a due sense of his injustice, and prove the sincerity of this conviction by such demeanour, as implies a radical reformation of his principles: otherwise, iniquity and confusion from the unrestrained intemperances of selfish and licentious men would sweep away the floodgates of society, and desolate the comforts of civil life. with respect to opinions and exertions of intellect in written appeals to the understandings of men, who call themselves free, where actual violence is not only not exerted, but discouraged and condemned in explicit language; if the most shadowy pretence for personal incommodity of any kind can be ascertained by

But,

a rational manifestation of correspondency between these objects, I will readily contribute my assenting suffrage to any punishment, which shall be appointed for me: if however the proof of such connexion transcend, as it certainly does transcend, all capacity of moral demonstration, I may be the sufferer, but others must be the criminals; and criminals of no ordinary magnitude.

In a pamphlet lately published in vindication of the Bridewell of Cold Bath Fields, a position to the following purport is propounded, as the basis of the penal regulations in that place: "Punishment and restraint must be employed, until the mind of the prisoner is subdued;" the precise meaning of which words cannot be collected so well from any accuracy of expression in the maxim, as from the prevalent conceptions on the subject of corrective punishment in general; but the fundamental notion seems to be, a supposition of melioration to the dispositions of an offender by a system of severity; an expectation, that repentance and reformation may be forced on the mind through violence and rigour. Now it appears to me most indubitable from every principle of reason and every deduction of experience, that effects of a nature extremely different must unavoidably take place from

harshness and austerity: namely, exasperation and obduracy on the part of a person thus treated; not without a gradual extinction, in the punisher, of all those charities and sensibilities which alone redeem our natures from a degradation below the savageness of mere brutality. It may be the fond vision of a deluded imagination, but I have always cherished an opinion, that the very hypothesis of a rational agent, unamendable by benignity and compassion, and reclaimable by severities alone to humanity and virtue, is the bitterest satire on the wisdom of Omnipotence; as the creator of the most sottish and perverse being in existence: and, beyond all controversy, if the religion of our gentle Master teach not his disciples a most affectionate consideration for all their brethren of mankind, and especially for those, who have gone astray from the path of virtue, it teaches nothing; because this love of our fellow-creatures is most peremptorily laid down by the favorite disciple, as the only genuine attestation of our love for God himself;-as the sum and substance of all moral excellence: but vexatious and harassing oppression has never yet been deemed an in

a "Count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother." 2 Thess. ii. 15. W.

gredient in the composition of evangelical benevolence; nor can a single syllable in support of such uncompassionate persuasions be produced from the Christian Scriptures.

Were even a murderer committed to my custody, I should endeavour to impress upon his mind a deep sensation of the injustice and atrocity of his offence: I should labour to convince him that exclusion from society was indispensable, not only for the good of the community, but for the prevention also of accumulated guilt upon his own head: yet I would address him in the kind language of expostulation and rebuke: I would regard him with generosity and tenderness: I would prove myself his friend by every exertion of sympathetic attention in my power to his most calamitous condition: I would shew, that I loved the man, though I abhorred his offence: if he were hungry, I would feed him; if he were thirsty, I would give him drink: nor should I despair of overcoming evil with good; of producing remorse unfeigned, and substantial reformation, by this lenient and peaceful process. Thus would my own benevolent affections be essentially improved, the great law of brotherly love, enacted in the Gospel, fulfilled by a just obedience; and a brand plucked from the fire to repentance and salvation.