cannot tell whether it is from the number of our penal laws, or the licentiousness of our people, that this country should show more convicts in a year than half the dominions of Europe united. Perhaps it is owing to both; for they mutually produce each other. When by indiscriminate penal laws a nation beholds the same punishment affixed to dissimilar degrees of guilt, from perceiving no distinction in the penalty, the people are led to lose all sense of distinction in the crime; and this distinction is the bulwark of all morality: thus the multitude of laws produce new vices, and new vices call for fresh restraints.
It were to be wished, then, that power, instead of contriving new laws to punish vice, instead of drawing hard the cords of society till a convulsion come to burst them, instead of cutting away wretches as useless before we have tried their utility, instead of converting correction into vengeance; it were to be wished that we tried the restrictive arts of government, and made law the protector, but not the tyrant, of the people. We should then find that creatures, whose souls are held as dross, only wanted the hand of a refiner; we should then find that wretches, now stuck up for long tortures, lest luxury should feel a momentary pang, might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the State in times of danger; that as their faces are like ours, their hearts are so too; that few minds are so base as that perseverance cannot amend; that a man may see his last crime without dying for it; and that very little blood will serve to cement our security.
TOWNSHEND’S CONTUMACY (1767).
Source.—Correspondence of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Vol. iii., pp. 233 et seq. London, 1838–1840.
Mr. Townshend then mentioned the extraordinaries of America, and the necessity of voting a particular sum; which he said he neither could nor would move, unless the cabinet previously took the whole state of America into consideration, and enabled him to declare to the House the opinion of administration as to the forts, the Indian trade, the disposition of the troops, in short the whole arrangements, considered with a view to a general reduction of expense, and a duty which he undertook should be laid to defray what remained: that he had promised this to the House, and upon the authority of what passed in the cabinet; and if he could not make it good, he should be obliged to consider the best means, by what he should say or by his conduct, to make it appear that it was not his fault, and against his opinion.3
I acquainted your Lordship of this the last time I had the honour of waiting on you from Lord Barrington; the difficulty greatly arising from several conjectural estimates being laid by him before the House. I was surprised at Mr. Townshend’s conduct, which really continues excessive on every occasion, till I afterwards understood in conversation, that he declared he knew of Lord North’s refusal, and from himself. The Duke of Grafton told me, and I suppose may tell your Lordship, that he sent to Lord North to ask him. It appears to me quite impossible that Mr. Townshend can mean to go on in the King’s service; but of this your Lordship will judge much better than I can, after the Duke of Grafton has given you a farther account.
I have the honour to be, with great respect, Your Lordship’s most obliged humble servant, Shelburne.
WILKES RIOTS (1768).
Source.—Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1766–1769. Pp. 322, 323. London, 1879.
Robert Wood to Sir J. Fielding.
5 and 6 April.—Lord Weymouth has been informed that Mr. Stuart, the wine merchant, upon application to you for assistance against the mob on the night of the illumination, had not met with that support which he had reason to expect from the civil magistrate. Though this account does not agree with what his Lordship had conceived of your vigilance and activity, yet he has ordered me to acquaint you with it, and to add that though, on the one hand, he relies much on your zeal, and is ready to do justice to your diligence at the time of the late riotous proceedings, yet, on the other, he thinks it his indispensable duty to take notice of any remissness in a magistrate upon whom so much of the public order and tranquillity depends; and if Mr. Stuart’s account of this matter be founded, his Lordship desires that I will let you know it will very much change that favourable opinion which he wishes to preserve of you. His Lordship thinks it would be unfair towards you as well as to the public to keep this matter from you, though Mr. Stuart has not given it in as matter of formal complaint, but merely for the Secretary of State’s information. Lord Weymouth is willing to suppose there must be some mistake in what he has heard.
P.S.—As Lord Weymouth had taken every precaution that could be imagined in order to support magistracy and give weight to your proceedings, he is disappointed to find that there should be any complaint; and though he despises clamour, he must pay attention to facts urged by a citizen of character; and I heartily wish you may put it in his power to set you clear of imputation, which is his wish also.
The reply to this letter is dated the 5th.
Sir John Fielding gives a history of the transactions of the night, and says that, to the best of his knowledge, and to the best of his abilities, with unwearied attention, diligence, and application, he has done everything in his power to preserve peace and good order, and to detect offenders and bring them to justice, from the beginning to the conclusion of the late unhappy disturbances. Is sincerely concerned if in any respect Mr. Steward mistook his meaning, and more so that Lord Weymouth should be dissatisfied with his conduct as a magistrate. Unfortunate he has always been; at present particularly so, when his warmest endeavours to discharge a public trust with loyalty to his Sovereign, fidelity to his country, and obedience to his superiors, have been so far ineffectual as not to secure him the confidence of those by whom he would wish to be approved.—Bow Street.
RIOTS IN THE NORTH (1768).
Source.—Calendar of Home Office Papers, 1766–1769. Pp. 839, 840. London, 1879.
Duke of Northumberland to H.M.’s Principal Secretaries of State.
12 and 14 April.—Has received within these few days several letters from Newcastle, giving an account of a very riotous spirit having broken out among the sailors and other persons in that place and its neighbourhood, who have committed many outrages, a continuance of which is still greatly to be apprehended. His Grace enters into full particulars. The Mayor and other magistrates of Newcastle, and the justices of Northumberland and Durham, have been very vigilant and active on this occasion, but it is their united request, in which his Grace joins, that a regiment might be quartered and continued in Newcastle and the neighbourhood.—Northumberland House, 12 April.
Reply from Lord Weymouth, dated the 14th, enclosing a copy of the letter written in consequence to the Secretary-at-War, directing him to give orders for detaining the troops at Newcastle and the neighbourhood which are now there, and to report whether the present disposition of the troops in that part of the world may not admit of an alteration which may answer the purposes of support
