surrounded by the comforts and conveniences of the
well-educated and well-conditioned classes of English society. This, it
is true, was a peculiar case. It was marked in the circumstances and
enormity of the crime, and marked in the subsequent good conduct of the
prisoner. But can any one object, that, after ten years' imprisonment,
this man was allowed to try his fortunes once more among his fellow-men?
Are there those who would have had no faith in his uninterrupted good
conduct; in the abundant evidence of complete reformation; in the fact
that, in prison and poverty and disgrace, he had allied to him friends
of name and fortune and Christian virtues, who were ready to aid him in
his good resolutions? If any such there be, let them visit the solitary
cell of the despairing convict, whose crime is so great that executive
clemency fears to approach it. Crime and despair have made the features
appalling; all the worst passions of our nature riot together in the
temple made for the living God; and the death of the body is almost
certainly to be preceded by madness, insanity, and idiocy of the mind.
Or, if any think that this person escaped with too light an expiation
for so great a crime, let them recall the incident of the youth who was
questioned because he looked with fond affection into the babbling face
of the running brook, and, apologizing, as it were, in reply said, "O,
yes, it is very beautiful, and especially to me, who have seen no water
for four years, beside what I have had to drink!"

Nor is it assumed, in all that is said upon this subject, that the laws
are severe, or that the judicial administration of them is not
characterized by justice and mercy. In the ordinary course of affairs,
the pardoning power is not resorted to for the correction of any error
or injustice of the courts; but it is the means by which the state
tempers its justice with mercy; and, if the penalties for crime were
less than they are, the necessity for the exercise of this power would
still remain. It assumes that the object of the penal law is
reformation; and if this object, in some cases, can be attained by the
exercise of the pardoning power, while the rigid execution of the
sentence would leave the criminal, as it usually will, still hardened
and unrepenting, is it not wise for the state to benefit itself, and
save the prisoner, by opening the prison-doors, and inviting the convict
to a life of industry and virtue? And let it n