at any time when a south-east wind blows.

Are you secure from that wind the greater part of the year?Half of the year; and during the other half it is not always dangerous; so much so that whenever government have occasion to send troops or stores, they send them at any time.

Does not the colony derive their fuel from Plattenburgh Bay? -No; their demand of common fuel is got nearer; the resources of timber in that country are scarcely known, they are very great, and it will be a great while before they are exhausted.

What is the description of timber?-Not any timber we know of in this country; to use the language of carpenters, it is a kind of yellow wood, more resembling fir than any thing else.

Is there any wood fit for shipbuilding; any teak?-No; but there is a species of wood which very much resembles mahogany, and is almost as valuable; I think the produce of the Cape in articles of commerce remain entirely to be discovered, and made use of. Various kinds of timber that grow in the forests are applicable to, I suppose, all the purposes we can want for domestic uses; I could particularly mention one, which I have imagined would answer all the purposes of lignum vita, and another as good as box wood.

Do you include making blocks from lignum vitæ ?-Yes; I mean that particularly, the natural productions of the Cape colony have never had any experiment made upon them. How far they may

commerce, I am not able to say; it is not likely that the present inhabitants of the colony, the Dutch boors, will ever be the means of bringing those articles to light; so that a great deal of good might be expected to be derived from European settlers going there, men of some knowledge of the arts of this country. I think there is no doubt they would soon discover a number of useful things, that would not only turn to their own advantage, but to the political advantage of the colony. Also, from the mild and sometimes warm nature of the climate it is very probable many of the productions of tropical countries, articles of commerce, might be cultivated there with success. I would only add, that with regard to the mineralogy of the colony, it is altogether unknown; and, therefore, it might be worth the attention of any settler to examine it.

Extracts from the Report of the Select Committee appointed to consider so much of the Criminal law as relates to capital Punishment for Felonies.

Your Committee, in execution of the trust delegated to them by the House, have endeavoured strictly to confine themselves within the limits prescribed to them by the terms of their appointment. In some cases they have laid down restrictions for themselves, which the letter of the resolution of the House did not impose. They have abstained from all consideration of those

capital

capital felonies which may be said to be of a political nature, being directed against the authority of government and the general peace of society. To the nature and efficacy of the secondary punishments, of transportation and imprisonment, they have directed no part of their inquiries, because another Committee had been ap. pointed to investigate them, and because no part of the facts or arguments to be stated in this report, will be found to depend either on the present state of these secondary punishments, or on the degree of improvement of which they may be found capable. With many extensive and important parts of the criminal law; such, for example, as that which regulates the trial of offenders; they are entirely satisfied, and they should not have suggested any changes in these departments even if they had been within the appointed province of this Committee. On other parts of the subject; as for example, in the definition and arrangement of crimes, they have recommended a consolidation of the laws respecting only one class of offences, and have presumed only to express a general opinion of the utility of the like consolidation in some other cases. They wish expressly to disclaim all doubt of the right of the legislature to inflict the punishment of death, wherever that punishment, and that alone, seems capable of protecting the community from enormous and atrocious crimes.The object of the Committee has been to ascertain, as far as the nature of the case admitted, by VOL. LXI.

evidence, whether, in the present state of the sentiments of the people of England, capital punishment in most cases of offences unattended with violence, be a necessary or even the most effectual security against the prevalence of crimes.

1. In the first place, they endeavoured to collect official accounts of the state of crimes and the administration of criminal law throughout the kingdom, from the earliest period to which authentic information reaches. The annual returns of commitments, convictions and executions, first procured by addresses from this House, and since required by statute, go no farther back than 1805. Accounts, though not perfectly satisfactory, of the same particulars, from London and Middlesex, from 1749 to the present time, have been already laid before parliament, which, with an official summary of the returns of England and Wales from 1805, will be inserted in the appendix of this report.

A full and authentic account of convictions and executions for London and Middlesex, from 1699 to 1804, obtained, for the latter part of that time, from the clerk of arraigns at the Old Bailey, and for the former part from the officers of the city of London, is inserted in the appendix. The corporation of the city of London have shown on this occasion a liberality and public spirit worthy of acknowledgment; and it is to be hoped, that they will continue their researches as far back as their records extend, and thus comᏃ

plete

plete returns, probably unparal leled in the history of criminal law.

The deputy clerk of assize for the home circuit, has laid before your Committee a return of commitments, convictions and executions on that circuit, which comprehends the counties of Herts, Essex, Kent, Sussex and Surry, from 1689 to 1718, from 1755 to 1784, and from 1784 to 1814. The returns of the intermediate period from 1718 to 1755, he will doubtless furnish very soon. From this important return it appears, that, for the first thirty years which followed the revolution, the average proportion of convic tions to executions was 38 to 20; that from 1755 to 1784 it was 46 to 13; and that from 1784 to 1814, it was 74 to 19. It is worthy of remark, that the whole number of convictions for murder, on the home circuit, in the first period was 123; that the executions for the same period were 87 that in the second, the convictions for the same offence were 67, and the executions 57; and that in the third, the convictions were 54, and the executions 44. If the increase of the population during a prosperous period of a hundred and thirty years be taken into the account, and if we bear in mind that within that time a considerable city has grown up on the southern bank of the Thames, we shall be disposed to consider it as no exaggeration to affirm, that in this district (not one of the most favorably situated in this respect) murder has abated in the remarkable proportion of three if not four to one.

In the thirty years from 1755 to 1784 the whole convictions for murder in London and Middlesex were 71; and in the thirty years from 1784 to 1814 they were 66. In the years 1815, 1816 and 1817, the whole convictions for murder in London were 9, while in the three preceding years they were 14. Most of the other returns relate to too short a period, or too narrow a district, to afford materials for safe conclusion with respect to the comparative frequency of crimes at different periods.

In general however it appears that murders and other crimes of violence and cruelty, have either diminished, or not increased; and that the deplorable increase of criminals is not of such a nature as to indicate any diminution in the humanity of the people.

In considering the subject of our penal laws, your committee will first lay before the House their observations on that part which is the least likely to give rise to difference of opinion. That many statutes denouncing capital punishments might be safely and wisely repealed, has long been a prevalent opinion. It is sanctioned by the authority of two successive committees of this House, composed of the most eminent men of their age, and in some measure by the authority of the House itself, which passed several bills on the recommendation of their committees. As a general position, the propriety of repealing such statutes seems scarcely to have been disputed; respecting the number and choice of them, different sentiments

must

must always be expected. Your committee have not attempted a complete enumeration, which much time and considerable deliberation would be required to accomplish. They selected some capital felonies for the continuance of which they cannot anticipate any serious argument, and which seem to them to serve no purpose but that of encumbering and discrediting the Statute book. Various considerations have combined to guide their choice; sometimes mere levity and hurry have raised an insignificant offence, or an almost indifferent act, into a capital crime; in other acts the evil has been manifestly and indeed avowedly temporary, though it unfortunately produced a permanent law. Where the punishment of death was evidently unnecessary at the time of its original establishment, and where, if it was originally justified by a temporary danger, or excused by a temporary fear, it has long been acknowledged to be altogether disproportioned to the offence, your committee conceive themselves warranted in confidently recommending its abolition. But they have also adverted to another consideration; if in addition to the intrinsic evidence of unwarrantable severity in law which arises from the comparison of the act forbidden with the punishment threatened, they find also that the law has scarcely ever been executed since its first enactment, or if it has fallen into disuse as the nation became more humane and generally enlightened, your committee consider themselves as

authorized to recommend its repeal by long experience and by the deliberate judgment of the whole nation. In the application of this latter principle, they have been materially aided by the documents which have been mentioned. Where a penal law has not been carried into effect in Middlesex for more than a century, in the counties round London for sixty years, and in the extensive district which forms the western circuit for fifty, it may be safely concluded that the general opinion has pronounced it to be unfit or unnecessary to continue in force.

It has sometimes been said, that the abolition of penal laws which have fallen into disuse is of little advantage to the community. Your committee consider this opinion as an error. They forbear to enlarge on the striking remark of lord Bacon, that all such laws weaken and disarm the other parts of the criminal system. The frequent occurrence of the unexecuted threat of death in a criminal code, tends to rob that punishment of all its terrors, and to enervate the general authority of the government and the laws. The multiplication of this threat in the laws of England has brought on them, and on the nation, a character of harshness and cruelty which evidence of a mild administration of them will not entirely remove. Repeal silences the objection. Reasoning founded on lenient exercise of authority, whatever its force may be, is not calculated to efface a general and deep impression. The removal of disused laws is a preliminary operation

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operation which greatly facilitates a just estimate, and (where it is necessary) an effectual reform of those laws which are to remain in activity. Were capital punishments reduced to the comparatively small number of cases in which they are often inflicted, it would become a much simpler operation to form a right judgment of their propriety or necessity. Another consideration of still greater moment presents itself on this part of the subject; penal laws are sometimes called into activity after long disuse, and in cases where their very existence may be unknown to the best informed part of the community; malicious prosecutors set them in motion; a mistaken administration of the law may apply them to purposes for which they were not intended, and which they are calculated more to defeat than to promote: such seems to have been the case of the person who, in the year 1814, at the assizes for Essex, was capitally convicted of the offence of cutting down trees, and who, in spite of earnest applications for mercy from the prosecutor, the committing magistrate and the whole neighbourhood, was executed, apparently because he was believed to be habitually engaged in other offences, for none of which however he had been convicted or tried.

This case is not quoted as furnishing any charge against the humanity of the judge or of the advisers of the crown; they certainly acted according to the dictates of their judgment: but it is a case where the effect of punishment is sufficiently shown by the

w

evidence to be the reverse of exemplary, and it is hard to say whether the general disuse of the capital punishment in this offence, or the single instance in which it has been carried into effect, suggests the strongest reasons for its abolition.

The statutes creating capital felonies which the committee have considered under this head, are reducible to two classes; the first relate to acts either so nearly indifferent as to require no penalty, or if injurious, not of such a magnitude as that they may not safely be left punishable as misdemeanors at common law. In these your committee propose the simple repeal; they are as follows:

1.-1 and 2 Phil. and Mary, c. 4. Egyptians remaining within the kingdom one month.

2.-18 Charles 2, c. 3. Notorious thieves in Cumberland and Northumberland.

3.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Being armed and disguised in any forest, park, &c.

4.9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Being armed and disguised in any warren.

5.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Being armed and disguised in any high road, open heath, common or down.

6.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Unlaw. fully hunting, killing, or stealing

deer.

7.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Robbing warrens, &c.

8.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Stealing or taking any fish out of any river or pond, &c.

9.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Hunting in his Majesty's forests or chases. 10.-9 Geo. 1, c. 22. Break