quin upon the bearers' shoulders, and looked around at first with some attention. I did not observe the smallest discomposure in his countenance or manner at the sight of the gallows, or any of the ceremonies passing about it. He asked for the Bramins, who were not come, and showed some earnestness, as if he apprehended the execution might take place before their arrival. I took that opportunity of assuring him I would wait his own time; It was early in the day, and there was no hurry?' The Bramins soon after appearing, I offered to remove the officers, thinking that he might have something to say in private; but he made a motion not to do it, and said, he had only a few words to remind them of, what he had said concerning Rajah Gourdass, and the case of his Zenana. He spoke to me, and desired that the men might be taken care of, as they were to take charge of his body, which he desired repeatedly might not be touched by any of the bystanders; but he seemed not in the least alarmed or discomposed at the crowd around him. There was some delay in the necessary preparations, and from the awkwardness of the people: he was no way desirous of protracting the business, but repeatedly told me he was ready. Upon my asking him if he had any more friends he wished to see, he answered, he had many, but this was neither a place, or an occasion to look for them. Did he apprehend there might be any present, who could not get up for the crowd? He mentioned one, whose name was called? but he immediately said it was of no consequence, probably he had not come.' He then desired me to remember him to General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Francis, and looked with the greatest composure. When he was not engaged in conversation, he lay back in the palanquin, moving his lips and tongue as before. I then caused him to be asked about the signal he was to make, which could not be done by speaking, on account of the noise of the crowd. He said he would make a motion with his hand: and when it was represented to him that it would be necessary for his hands to be tied, in order to prevent any involuntary motion, and I recommended his making a motion with his foot, he said he would. Nothing now remained but the last painful ceremony. I ordered his palanquin to be placed close under the gallows, but he chose to walk, which he did more erect than I have generally seen him. At the foot of the steps which led to the stage, he put his hands behind him to be tied with a handkerchief, looking around at the same time with the utmost unconcern: some difficulties arising about the cloth which should be tied over his face, he told the people that it must not be done by one of us. I presented to him a subaltern sepoy officer, who is a Bramin, and he came forward with a handkerchief in his hand; but the Rajah pointed to a servant of his own, who was lying prostrate at his feet, and beckoned him to do it. He had some weakness in his feet, which, added to the confinement of his hands, made him mount the steps with difficulty. But he showed not the least reluctance, scrambling rather forward to get up. He then stood erect on the stage while I examined his countenance as steadfastly as I could, till the cloth covered it, to see if I could observe the smallest sympton of fear, or

alarm, but there was not a trace of it. My own spirits sunk, and I stept into my palanquin; but before I was well seated, he had given the signal, and the stage was removed. I could observe, when I was a little recovered, that his arms lay back in the same position, in which I saw them first tied, nor could I perceive any contortion of that side of his mouth and face which was visible. In a word, his steadiness, composure, and resolution throughout the whole of this melancholy transaction, were equal to any examples of fortitude I have ever read or heard of. The body was taken down after hanging the usual time, and delivered to the Bramins for burning."

While this tragedy, said Sir Gilbert, was acting, the surrounding multitudes were agitated with grief, fear, and suspense. With a kind of superstitious incredulity, they could not believe that it was really intended to put the Rajah to death; but when they saw him tied up, and the scaffold drop from under him, they set up an universal yell, and with the most piercing cries of horror and dismay, betook themselves to flight, running many of them as far as the Ganges, and plunging into the water, as if to hide themselves from such tyranny as they had witnessed, or to wash away the pollution contracted from viewing such a spectacle.

It may perhaps be proper to add, that Nundcomar was executed upon a charge of forgery; that he was seventy years of age at the time of his execution: and that he was a Bramin, a rank considered sacred amongst the Hindoos.

NOTE M, page 309.

In the year 1818 a committee was appointed to inquire into the laws and the administration of the laws relating to bankrupts. Various witnesses were examined as to the effect of the law by which the punishment of death is enacted for the non-surrender or for concealment of property to the amount of 201. They were unanimous in their evidence that the law was, in consequence of its severity, wholly inoperative. I am fearful of increasing the size of this tract, or the evidence should be inserted in this note. Upon this evidence the report was made.

NOTE X, page 309.

It was my intention that this note should contain the list of authors in favor of mitigation of severe punishment, which I have since inserted in the Preface.

Note Y, page 311.

If there is any merit in this mode of considering the effect of punishment, it is to be wholly ascribed to Mr. Jeremy Bentham, and it may be found in his invaluable work on Morals and Legislation, page xxi. From this work I make the following short extract:

"II. There are four distinguishable sources from which pleasure and pain are in use to flow: considered separately, they may be termed the physical, the political, the moral, and the religious: and inasmuch as the pleasures and pains belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law or rule of conduct, they may all of them be termed sanctions.

"III. If it be in the present life, and from the ordinary course of nature, not purposely modified by the interposition of the will of any human being, nor by any extraordinary interposition of any superior invisible being, that the pleasure or the pain takes place or is expected, it may be said to issue from or to belong to the physical sanction. "IV. If at the hands of a particular person or set of persons in the community, who under names correspondent to that of judge, are chosen for the particular purpose of dispensing it, according to the will of the sovereign or supreme ruling power in the state, it may be said to issue from the political sanction.

"V. If at the hands of such chance persons in the community, as the party in question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with, according to each man's spontaneous disposition, and not according to any settled or concerted rule, it may be said to issue from the moral sanction.

"VI. If from the immediate hand of a superior invisible being, either in the present life, or in a future, it may be said to issue from the religious sanction.

"VII. For these four objects, which in their nature have so much in common, it seemed of use to find a common name. It seemed of use, in the first place, for the convenience of giving a name to certain pleasures and pains, for which a name equally characteristic could hardly otherwise have been found: in the second place, for the sake of holding up the efficacy of certain moral forces, the influence of which is apt not to be sufficiently attended to. Does the political sanction exert an influence over the conduct of mankind? The moral, the religious sanction do so to. In every inch of his career are the operations of the political magistrate liable to be aided or impeded by these two foreign powers: who, one or other of them, or both, are sure to be either his rivals or his allies. Does it happen to him to leave them out in his calculations? he will be sure almost to find himself mistaken in the result. Of all this we shall find abundant proofs in the sequel of this work. It behoves him, therefore, to have them continually before his eyes; and that under such a name as exhibits the relation they bear to his own purposes and designs."

In M. Dumont's work intitled "Traités de Législation, par M. Jéréme Bentham," he says, "Ces quatre sanctions n'agissent pas sur tous les hommes de la même manière, ni avec le même degré de force; elles sont quelquefois rivales, quelquefois alliées et quelquefois eunemies: quand elles s'accordent, elles opèrent avec une force irrésistible; quand elles se combattent, elles doivent s' affoiblir réciproquement; quand elles sont en rivalité, elles doivent produire des incertitudes et des con tradictions dans la conduit des hommes.

"On peut imaginer quatre corps de lois qui correspondroient à ces quatre sanctions. Tout seroit au plus haut point de perfection possible, si ces quatre corps de lois n'en formoient qu'un seul. Mais ce but est encore bien loin de nous, quoiqu'il ne soit pas impossible de l'atteindre. Cependant le Législateur doit se souvenir sans cesse, qui'il ne dispose immédiatement que de la sanction politique. Les trois

autres pouvoirs seront nécessairement ses rivaux ou ses alliés, ses antagonistes ou ses ministres. S'il les néglige dans ses calculs, il sera trompé dans ses résultats; mais s'il les fait concourir à ses vues, il aura une force immense. On ne peut espérer de les réunir que sons lé'tendart de l'Utilité.

"La sanction naturelle est la seule qui agisse toujours, la seule qui opère d'elle-même, la seule qui soit immuable dans ses principaux caractères : c'est elle qui ramène insensiblement à soi toutes les autres, qui corrige leurs écarts, et qui produit tout ce qu'il y a d'uniformité dans les sentimens et les jugemens des hommes.

"La sanction populaire et la sanction religieuse sont plus mobiles, plus changeantes, plus dépendantes des caprices de l'esprit humain. La force, de la sanction populaire est plus égale, plus continue, plus sourde et plus constamment d'accord avec le Principe de l'Utilité. La force de la sanction religieuse est plus inégale, plus variable, selon les tems et les individus, plus sujette à des écarts dangereux. Elle s'affoiblit dans le repos, elle se relève par l'opposition.

"La sanction politique l'emporte, à certains égards, sur toutes les deux : elle agit avec une force plus égale sur tous les hommes; elle est plus claire et plus précise dans ses préceptes; elle est plus sûre et plus exemplaire dans ses opérations; enfin, elle est plus susceptible d'être perfectionnée. Chaque progrès qu'elle fait influe immédiatement sur le progrès des deux autres, mais elle n'embrasse que des actions d'une certaine espèce; elle n'a pas assez de prise sur la conduite privée des individus ; elle ne peut procéder que sur des preuves qu'il est souvent impossible d'obtenir, et on lui échappe par le secret, la force ou la ruse. Ainsi, soit qu'on examine dans ces différentes sanctions, ce qu' elles font ou ce qu'elles ne peuvent pas faire, on voit la nécessité de n'en rejeter aucune, mais de les employer toutes, en les dirigeant vers le même but.

“Ce sont des aimans dont on détruit la vertu en les présentant les uns aux autres par leurs pôles contraires, tandis qu'on la décuple en les unissant par les pôles amis."

NOTE Z, page 319.

The following extract from a work of Mr. Bentham's seems founded upon this supposition, that the legal punishment ought necessarily to increase with the temptation to commit the crime: and, if so, to be contrary to his own principles, as explained in the last note:-that the whole punishment ought to increase, is indisputable but the whole consists of the legal punishment, the moral punishment, and the religious punishment: which may be embodied under what he terms tutelary motives.

BENTHAM.

The value of the punishment must not be less in any case than what is sufficient to outweigh that of the profit' to the offence."

[Profit]. By the profit of an offence, is to be understood, not merely the pecuniary profit, but the pleasure or advantage, of whatever kind it be, which a man reaps, or expects to reap, from the gratification of the desire which prompted him to engage in the offence.*

It is the profit (that is, the expectation of the profit) of the offence that 1 ! See ch. xi. [Dispositions] xxix.

If it be, the offence (unless some other considerations, independent of the punishment, should intervene and operate efficaciously in the character of tutelary motives)' will be sure to be committed notwithstanding: the whole lot of punishment will be thrown away: it will be altogether inefficacious.3

The above rule has been often objected to, on account of its seeming harshness but this can only have happened for want of its being properly understood. The strength of the temptation, cæteris paribus, is as the profit of the offence: the quantum of the punishment must rise with the profit of the offence: cæteris paribus, it must therefore rise with the strength of the temptation. This there is no disputing. True it is, that the stronger the temptation, the less conclusive is the indication which the act of delinquency affords of the depravity of the offender's disposition. So far then as the absence of any aggravation, arising from extraordinary depravity of disposition, may operate, or at the utmost, so far as the presence of a ground of extenuation, constitutes the impelling motive, or, where there are several, the sum of the impelling motives, by which a man is prompted to engage in the offence. It is the punishment, that is, the expectation of the punishment, that consti tutes the restraining motive, which, either by itself, or in conjunction with others, is to act upon him in a contrary direction, so as to induce him to abstain from engaging in the offence. Accidental circumstances apart, the strength of the temptation is as the force of the seducing, that is, of the impelling motive or motives. To say then, as authors of great merit and great name have said, that the punishment ought not to increase with the strength of the temptation, is as much as to say in mechanics, that the moving force or momentum of the power, need not increase in proportion to the momentum of the burthen.

2 Beccaria, dei Delitti, 6. id. trad. par. Morellet, § 23.

1 See ch. x. [Motives] 1.

:

2 It is a well known adage, though it is to be hoped not a true one, that every man has his price. It is commonly meant of a man's virtue. This saying, though in a very different sense, was strictly verified by some of the Anglo-saxon laws: by which a fixed price was set, not upon a man's virtue indeed, but upon his life: that of the sovereign himself among the rest. For 200 shillings you might have killed a peasant: for six times as much, a nobleman and for six-and-thirty times as much, you might have killed the king. A king in those days was worth exactly 7,200 shillings. If then the heir to the throne, for example, grew weary of waiting for it, he had a secure and legal way of gratifying his impatience: he had but to kill the king with one hand, and pay himself with the other, and all was right. An earl Godwin, or a duke Streon, could have bought the lives of a whole dynasty. It is plain, that if ever a king in those days died in his bed, he must have had something else, besides this law, to thank for it. This being the production of a remote and barbarous age, the absurdity of it is presently recognised: but, upon examination, it would be found, that the freshest laws of the most civilised nations are continually falling into the same error. This, in short, is the case wheresoever the punishment is fixed, while the profit of delinquency is indefinite: or, to speak more precisely, where the punishment is limited utosech a mark, that the profit of delinquency may reach beyond it. 3 See ch. xiii. [Cases unmeet] § 1.

See ch xi. [Dispositions] xlii.

* Wilkins Leg. Anglo-sax. 71, 72.] See Hume, voli. Append. p. 219.