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Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1 by Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay Macaulay
page 41 of 1006 (04%)
ends. In the case of such a knave as Wild, or such a ruffian as
Thurtell, it is a very important end. In the case of a powerful
and wicked statesman, it is infinitely more important; so
important, as alone to justify the utmost severity, even though
it were certain that his fate would not deter others from
imitating his example. At present, indeed, we should think it
extremely pernicious to take such a course, even with a worse
minister than Strafford, if a worse could exist; for, at present,
Parliament has only to withhold its support from a Cabinet to
produce an immediate change of hands. The case was widely
different in the reign of Charles the First. That Prince had
governed during eleven years without any Parliament; and, even
when Parliament was sitting, had supported Buckingham against
its most violent remonstrances.

Mr. Hallam is of opinion that a bill of pains and penalties ought
to have been passed; but he draws a distinction less just, we
think, than his distinctions usually are. His opinion, so far as
we can collect it, is this, that there are almost insurmountable
objections to retrospective laws for capital punishment, but
that, where the punishment stops short of death, the objections
are comparatively trifling. Now the practice of taking the
severity of the penalty into consideration, when the question is
about the mode of procedure and the rules of evidence, is no
doubt sufficiently common. We often see a man convicted of a
simple larceny on evidence on which he would not be convicted of
a burglary. It sometimes happens that a jury, when there is
strong suspicion, but not absolute demonstration, that an act,
unquestionably amounting to murder, was committed by the prisoner
before them, will find him guilty of manslaughter. But this is
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