Page:Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1775).djvu/102

 a stranger, and for the first accusation than for one who hath been often excused.

Should the person who is excluded for ever from society be deprived of his property? This question may be considered in different lights. The confiscation of effects, added to banishment, is a greater punishment than banishment alone; there ought then to be some cases, in which, according to the crime, either the whole fortune should be confiscated, or part only, or none at all. The whole should be forfeited, when the law, which ordains banishment, declares, at the same time, that all connexions, or relations, between the society and the criminal are annihilated. In this case, the citizen dies; the man only remains, and with respect to a political body, the death of the citizen should have the same consequences with the death of the man. It seems to follow then, that in this case, the effects of the criminal should devolve to his lawful heirs. But it is not on account of this refinement that I disapprove of