kneel down and beg forgiveness. Then came a thunder of applause, and
everything was over. Such are the English, and above all, the Londoners.
They hoot the king and the royal family when they appear in public, and
the consequence is, that they are never seen, save on great occasions,
when order is kept by hundreds of constables.

One day, as I was walking by myself, I saw Sir Augustus Hervey, whose
acquaintance I had made, speaking to a gentleman, whom he left to come to
me. I asked him whom he had been speaking to.

"That's the brother of Earl Ferrers," said he, "who was hanged a couple
of months ago for murdering one of his people."

"And you speak to his brother?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Is he not dishonoured by the execution of his relative?"

"Dishonoured! Certainly not; even his brother was not dishonoured. He
broke the law, but he paid for it with his life, and owed society nothing
more. He's a man of honour, who played high and lost; that's all. I don't
know that there is any penalty in the statute book which dishonours the
culprit; that would be tyrannical, and we would not bear it. I may break
any law I like, so long as I am willing to pay the penalty. It is only a
dishonour when the criminal tries to escape punishment by base or
cowardly actions."

"How do you mean?"

"To ask for the royal mercy, to beg forgiveness of the people, and the
like."

"How about escaping from justice?"

"That is no dishonour, for to fly is an act of courage; it continues the
defiance of the law, and if the law cannot exact obedience, so much the
worse for it. It is an honour for you to have escaped from the tyranny of
your magistrates; your flight from The Leads was a virtuous action. In
such cases man fights with death and flees from it. 'Vir fugiens denuo
pugnabit'."

"What do you think of highway robbers, then?"

"I detest them as wretches dangerous to society, but I pity them when I
reflect that they are always riding towards the gallows. You go out in a
coach to pay a visit to a friend three or four miles out of London. A
determined and agile-looking fellow springs upon you with his pistol in
his hand, and says, 'Your money or your life.' What would you do in such
a case?"

"If I had a pistol handy I would blow out his brains, and if not I would
give him my purse and call him a scoundrelly assassin."

"You would be wrong in both cases. If you killed him, you would be
hanged, for you have no right to take the la