2c" Benjamin Franklin [1755 
slave, ordered him immediately to be hung up by the 
legs,and to receive a hundred blows of a cudgel onthe 
soles of his feet, that the severe sense of the punish- 
ment, and fear of incurring it thereafter, might pre- 
vent 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 
(p. 105) 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 punish- 
ments 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 execu- 
tion. It at once illustrates,” says he, ‘‘the true 
grounds and reasons of all capital punishments what- 
soever, namely, that every man’s property, as well 
as his life, may be held sacred and inviolate.” Is 
there then no difference in value between property 
and life? If I think it right that the crime of murder 
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