Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/258

248 Might not that woman, by her labour, have made the reparation ordained by God, in paying four-fold? Is not all puniſhment inflicted beyond the merit of the offence, ſo much puniſhment of innocence? In this light, how vaſt is the annual quantity, of not only injured but ſuffering innocence, in almoft all the civilized ſtates of Europe!

But it ſeems to have been thought, that this kind of innocence may be puniſhed by way of preventing crimes. I have read, indeed, of a cruel Turk in Barbary, who, whenever he bought a new Chriſtian ſlave, ordered him immediately to be hung up by the legs, and to receive a hundred blows of a cudgel on the ſoles of his feet, that the ſevere ſenſe of the puniſhment, and fear of incurring it thereafter, might prevent the faults that ſhould merit it. Our author himſelf would hardly approve entirely of this Turk's conduct in the government of ſlaves; and yet he appears to recommend ſomething like it for the government of Engliſh ſubjects, when he applauds the reply of Judge Burnet to the convict horſe-ſtealer; who being aſked what he had to ſay why judgment of death ſhould not paſs againſt him, and anſwering, that it was hard to hang a man for only ſtealing a horſe, was told by the judge, "Man, thou are not to be hanged only for ſtealing a horſe, but that horſes may not be ſtolen." The man's anſwer, if candidly examined, will, I imagine, appear reaſonable, as being founded on the eternal principle of juſtice and equity, that puniſhments ſhould be proportioned to offences; and the judge's reply brutal and unreaſonable, though the writer "wiſhes all judges to carry it with them whenever they go the circuit, and to bear it in their minds, as containing a wiſe reaſon for all the penal ſtatutes which they are called upon to put in execution. It at once illuſtrates," ſays