The bill for punishing Duncombe was open to all the objections
which can be urged against the bill for punishing Fenwick, and to
other objections of even greater weight. In both cases the
judicial functions were usurped by a body unfit to exercise such
functions. But the bill against Duncombe really was, what the
bill against Fenwick was not, objectionable as a retrospective
bill. It altered the substantive criminal law. It visited an
offence with a penalty of which the offender, at the time when he
offended, had no notice.

It may be thought a strange proposition that the bill against
Duncombe was a worse bill than the bill against Fenwick, because
the bill against Fenwick struck at life, and the bill against
Duncombe struck only at property. Yet this apparent paradox is a
sober truth. Life is indeed more precious than property. But the
power of arbitrarily taking away the lives of men is infinitely
less likely to be abused than the power of arbitrarily taking
away their property. Even the lawless classes of society
generally shrink from blood. They commit thousands of offences
against property to one murder; and most of the few murders which
they do commit are committed for the purpose of facilitating or
concealing some offence against property. The unwillingness of
juries to find a fellow creature guilty of a capital felony even
on the clearest evidence is notorious; and it may well be
suspected that they frequently violate their oaths in favour of
life. In civil suits, on the other hand, they too often forget
that their duty is merely to give the plaintiff a compensation
for evil suffered; and, if the conduct of the defendant has moved
their indignation and his fortune is known to be large, they turn
themselves into a criminal tribunal, and, under the name of