1. That every individual, restored to Society in this way, is the means of affording a species of encouragement, peculiarly calculated to bring others into the same dreadful situation, from which the unhappy Convict is thus rescued.
2. That for this reason every pardon granted, without some lesser punishment, or removing the convicts from Society, is a link broken in the chain of justice, by annihilating that united strength which binds the whole together.
3. That by removing the terror of punishments by frequent pardons, the design of the Law is rendered in a great measure ineffectual; the lives of persons executed are thrown away, being sacrificed rather to the vengeance of the Law than to the good of the Public; and no other advantage is received than by getting rid of one thief, whose place, (under present circumstances,) will speedily be supplied by another.[137]
Nothing can sanction the punishment of death for crimes short of murder, but the terror of the example operating as the means of prevention.—It is upon this principle alone that one man is sacrificed to the preservation of thousands.—Executions, therefore, being exhibited as seldom as a regard to the public interest really required, ought to be rendered as terrific and solemn to the eyes of the people as possible.
The punishment now in use, considered in point of law to be next to that of deprivation of life, is Transportation.
It has been already mentioned that Parliament authorized this species of punishment in the year 1718—when the general plan of sending Convicts to the American Plantations was first adopted. This System continued for 56 years; during which period, and until the commencement of the American War in 1775, great numbers of Felons were sent chiefly to the Province of Maryland. The rigid discipline which the colonial Laws authorized the masters[138] to exercise over servants, joined to the prospects which agricultural pursuits, after some experience was acquired, afforded to these Outcasts, tended to reform the chief part; and after the expiration of their servitude, they mingled in the Society of the Country, under circumstances highly beneficial to themselves and even to the Colony. Possessed in general (as every adroit thief must be) of good natural abilities, they availed themselves of the habits of industry they acquired in the years of their servitude—became farmers and planters on their own account; and many of them, succeeding in these pursuits, not only acquired that degree of respectability which is attached to property and industry; but also in their turn became masters, and purchased the servitude of future Transports sent out for sale.[139]
The Convicts having accumulated greatly in the year 1776, and the intercourse with America being shut up, it became indispensably necessary to resort to some other expedient; and in the choice of difficulties the System of the Hulks was suggested, and first adopted under the authority of an Act of the 16th of his present Majesty.
The Legislature, uncertain with regard to the success of this new species of punishment, and wishing to make other experiments, by an Act of the same Session,[140] empowered the Justices of every county in England to prepare Houses of Correction for the reception of Convicts under sentence of death, to whom his Majesty should extend his Royal Mercy, to be kept at hard labour for a term not exceeding ten years.
The same Act, among many other excellent regulations, ordered the Convicts to be kept separate, and not allowed to mix with any offenders convicted of crimes less than Larceny—and that they should be fed with coarse inferior food, water, and small beer, without permission to have any other food, drink, or cloathing, than that allowed by the Act, under certain penalties:—they were to be clothed at the public expence.
And as an encouragement to these delinquents, while such as refused to work were to receive corporal punishment, those who behaved well had not only the prospect held out of shortening the period of their confinement, but also were to receive decent clothes, and a sum of money not less than forty shillings, nor more than five pounds, when discharged.