Page:Letters of Junius, volume 2 (Woodfall, 1772).djvu/355

Rh between the fortune of the felon and the fine by which he may compound for his felony. The ratio now upon record, and transmitted to posterity under the auspices of Lord Mansfield, is exactly one to an hundred.—My Lord, without intending it, you have laid a cruel restraint upon the genius of your countrymen. In the warmest indulgence of their passions they have an eye to the expense! and if their other virtues fail us, we have a resource in their economy.

taking so trifling a security from John Eyre, you invited, and manifestly exhorted him to escape. Although in bailable cases it be usual to take four securities, you left him in the custody of three Scotchmen, whom he might have easily satisfied for conniving at his retreat. That he did not make use of the opportunity you industriously gave him, neither justifies your conduct, nor can it be any way accounted for, but by his excessive and monstrous avarice. Any other man, but this bosom-friend of three Scotchmen, would gladly have sacrificed a few hundred pounds, rather than submit to the infamy of pleading guilty in open court. It is possible indeed that he might have flattered himself,