O. The interest you take in this case misleads you. When you are guided by feeling more than by sober judgment, it is not wonderful that you should conclude, that you had overpowered me with argument, whilst you have only furnished me with declamation, Vox et preterea-Pardon me, you know the rest. But let us take your instances and analyse them, and you will be at no loss to perceive that the analogy, so far from holding good, will completely fail in the most material points. A. Do you maintain, then, that one man cannot be received as the substitute of another? O. In certain cases I do. A. What is the difference between relieving a person from a grievous burden and the sentence of the law? O. If a burden be too heavy for a person, he is under no obligation to bear it; or, if it must be conveyed to a certain distance, it requires no great sagacity to divide it into such portions as may be easily conveyed. A. But what if it be of such a nature that it cannot be divided without the most material injury? O. In that case he must either procure assistance or let it alone. A. Then you have no objection that another, who may be more able and willing, carry it for him? O. Certainly not. A. Then why may not I bear the burden of Fauntleroy's sentence? A. That load, that pressure, by which, in the mean time, his spirits are borne down, and which, at no distant date, will sink bim into the grave. O. Now attend, I pray you, to the import of your expressions, and mistake not figurative for literal signification. Your illustration is entirely metaphorical or analogical; but what is the force of such reasoning? It is founded altogether upon resemblance; but take this along with you, that resemblance is not reality. With the utmost propriety you may compare Fauntleroy's present affliction, and the execution which awaits him, to a burden under which, in the mean time, he droops, and eventually sinks in death. But while you are thus allowed to speak metaphorically, you are not in a matter of such importance, if I may be allowed the expression, to act metaphorically, forgetting all the while that you are contenting yourself and endeavouring to satisfy others with the shadow without the substance, with the figure without the subject which it represents, and wishing to satisfy the law with the counterfeit of justice. A. The counterfeit of justice! O. What else can it be called than a counterfeit? Or if you prefer another term, you may call it a figurative, I was about to say a mimic, representation of justice- but it is not even that. A. I do not altogether comprehend your meaning. O. Well then, let us reverse the illustration. Suppose, for instance, that the law were to lay hold of the figure without the reality, what would you think of the law? A. Really I can form no judgment till you be more explicit. O. Suppose, then, that a robbery or murder be exhibited on the stage; were the law to put to death the actor because he had personated the robber or murderer, this would be punishing the counterfeit of crime. In like manner, were the law to accept of you instead of Fauntleroy, and consign you to execution, to call this the counterfeit of justice is but a tame designation, for it would be no other than A LEGAL MURDER, A. But not if I be willing to suffer. O. That does not alter the case; for where there is no crime there can be no punishment. A. But cannot I take both his crime and punishment upon myself? O. What! pass for the counterfeit of Fauntleroy! A. No. To counterfeit implies deceit and imposition: but in this arrangement there is an open avowal to the world. O. An avowal! Of what? Of a mutual collusion to deceive the world, I do not merely say by a mock representation of justice, but by a legal murder. A. I must beg leave to view it in a different light. Instead of a collusion, it appears to me to be a most ingenious contrivance and expedient to 0. Do what? A. To save the life of a fellow-creature. O. I thought you were about to say to evade the ends of justice. A. No, Sir, that is not my intention, but to mingle mercy with judgment. O. Your motive may be charitable in the extreme; but if your schemes and plans cannot be adopted without a gross violation both of the letter and spirit of the law, and a total disregard to all the ends of justice, these are too momentous considerations to be foregone for the indulgence of your fantastic mode of exercising your charity. Fiat justitia-ruat cœlum. A. I own to you that my device may not altogether coincide with the letter, but I do not see that it is contrary to the spirit of the law. For in my person the law holds a victim. In this hold, so far from justice being only satisfied in respect of my innocence, more is given than she could require. All the ends of justice are thus amply secured. For in my death the utmost displeasure of the law is expressed against crime. Mercy is extended to a guilty individual, and a warning and example afforded to deter others in future from similar transgression. So that while this is a measure for which the law does not provide, yet it is not contrary to the law, but above it. The law is thus magnified and made honourable. O. I must say that your proposal is altogether in direct violation both of the letter and spirit of the law. In your person the law holds no victim. She neither dare nor can conceive you as such. So long as you have committed no crime, she cannot withdraw from you her protecting hand. There is then no satisfaction for you to make. And as for the law being magnified and made honourable by your death as an innocent person, so far from this being the case, such a transaction, could she possibly connive at it, would only enfeeble and degrade her. A. How so? 0. Because instead of reaching her object in conformity to the plain and obvious meaning of her statutes, by setting them aside and listening to your visionary schemes, she proceeds out of her own beaten track; she enters upon a course of speculations and experiments, the mischievous result of which is not matter of doubt. For observe, that even in listening to your plan she vacillates between the innocent and the guilty-in adopting it she mistakes her object, and thereby becomes exposed to the ridicule and contempt of mankind. Besides, what would be the effect of such a precedent? If in such an extreme case as this a substitute could be accepted, it certainly could not be refused in cases of minor importance when substitutes could be VOL. I. 2 K more easily obtained. Offences would thus multiply in proportion as the law would lose its power to reach them. No. If the law is to be magnified and made honourable, it must proceed in an even, undeviating course, and be so impartially administered, that even the highest person in the State shall not be above its reach; nor the meanest individual below its protection. A. Your observations imply that I cannot take Fauntleroy's crime upon myself? O. Precisely so. If it be Fauntleroy's crime, how can it be yours? O. Imputed to you! Who would or can impute it to you? Nobody suspects you. Fauntleroy has been found guilty; he denies not the charge, and acknowledges the justice of his sentence. A. But may I not impute his crime to myself? O. Are you guilty then, or not guilty? A. Guilty. O. Guilty!! A. Yes; by imputation, but not in reality. O. That is to say guilty, but innocent; and innocent, but guilty. Was there ever a more palpable contradiction ? A. Though guilt and innocence are not to be confounded, yet it must be allowed, that, according to the established usages of mankind, one person may give satisfaction for the defaults of another. For instance, suppose Fauntleroy incarcerated for debt to the amount of his forgery, and that from his want of finances, and the determination of his creditor, he has no hope of release, and suppose that I advance for him to the amount of his debt, and defray other incidental charges, do you imagine that there would be any further claim on that account to detain him in prison ? O. None whatever. A. Then I may impute Fauntleroy's debt to myself, and the imputation be accepted, but not his crime. What is the reason of this? I no more incurred his debt, than I committed his forgery, and yet I am allowed to compensate for the one, but not for the other. O. You are not allowed to give satisfaction for his crime, because you cannot, not being capable, by any construction whatever consistent with truth, of being accounted guilty. Neither had his creditor any claim upon you for payment of the debt, but you yourself voluntarily came forward and paid it. He accepted, because his claim was for money alone, which you could give to or for Fauntleroy to any extent that your will and fortune permitted. Now, observe the difference between crime and money. Whilst you must now allow that it is not possible to transfer crime from one to another, on the contrary money was made for the very purpose of transferrence, " "Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands.” A. But though crime may not be transferred, may not the punishment, as in the case of Damon; the executioner being on the very point of doing his office, when Pythias appeared to relieve him? O. I am glad you have brought forward that far-famed instance of heroic friendship, to mark to you the distinction that is to be observed between law that is founded on the unchangeable principles of right and wrong, and that which proceeds from the will of a capricious tyrant. Under an arbitrary government the Prince may dispense with the laws, because he is under no controul, therefore we are not always to expect consistency in his administration: the transferrence of punishment from the one friend to the other, then, under the direction of the elder Dionysius, need give us no surprise. His acceptance of the one friend to die for the other was wanton, capricious, and in every point at variance with law and justice, as founded on proper principles. Because, as I have already said, where there is crime, it cannot be transferred; and where there is no crime, there can be no punishment. A. Suppose that Fauntleroy had assaulted one of the lieges, or committed some petty crime, and on that account had been condemned to pay to the King a fine of a thousand pounds; this is his punishment, but he cannot pay it O. Pay a punishment ! ! A. Sir, I beg not to be interrupted-I say he cannot pay it-I advance it for him, and no objection is made to its acceptance: now, may I not in this case be said to bear his punishment, though innocent of his crime? O. By no means, for here only his purse is punished. If it be empty, you are under no obligation to fill it; but if you choose to do it, your gift is not a punishment. 4. But if I pay for him the amount of his fine, he escapes the punishment, and the law is satisfied: now, why may I not on the very same principle give my life? O. If you will only recollect what has been said with regard to the instance of debt, you can have no difficulty on the subject. His punishment was fine till that fine is paid, it is a debt due to the law. But there is a very wide difference between his purse and person. Personal punishments must be borne by the criminal himself, otherwise the law would sanction only a mockery of justice. A. So you maintain the impossibility of one person bearing punishment for the crimes of another? O. I do most unequivocally. A. Well, then, here are some cases in point. I shall be glad to know how you will dispose of them. Fauntleroy's family have no share in his crime, but if his sentence be executed, it will bring a stain upon them, the consequences of which are incalculable. But I will produce a still stronger instance. Suppose a wealthy nobleman has undergone a sentence of attainder; in this case his heirs, though innocent of his crime, become degraded in rank and fortune. Nay, we see nature herself under the divine regulation following the very same course. In consequence of criminal indulgences a man may transmit diseases to his family, which may render them miserable during life, and ultimately prove the cause of their death. In these, and in innumerable instances which might be mentioned, we see the innocent suffering for the guilty. O. And by their suffering have the guilty been released either from their crimes or their punishments? A. No; I cannot say that they have. O. Well, then, you must own that the guilty in the first instance have been punished, and you see that, in consequence, others connected with them may also suffer, and that severely. But you will observe that their sufferings are not punishments; they are only evils or misfortunes, which take place according to the laws by which human society is constituted, and which, so far as the laws of nature are concerned, it is impossible without a miracle to prevent. But mark how this evil is counterbalanced; see how nicely nature adjusts her scales; see with what equality good and evil are apportioned. For as one may suffer in consequence of the crime of another, so in a corre sponding degree may one be benefited by the merit of another. But as in the former case the individual could not be charged with another's crime, so in the latter case he cannot appropriate another's merit. As suffering in the one case cannot be denominated punishment, so enjoyment in the other cannot be termed reward, but bad or good fortune according to the natural course of events. A. By this, then, I am to conclude that virtue and vice are not transferrable any more than reward and punishment; and that when one is benefited by the good, or suffers by the evil conduct of another, he can take neither merit nor demerit to himself, but ascribe his good or bad fortune to the natural course of events? O. Most certainly. A. But how am I to reconcile your doctrine with the usages of all nations? For all nations have coincided in the sentiment, that both crime and punishment may be transferred. O. Produce an example. A. Take that of sacrifices. Have not sacrifices in all ages and countries been offered for the expiation of guilt, even according to the natural dictates of reason and religion? On these occasions the sins of the individual were supposed to be transferred to the victim, and to be expiated by the sacrifice of his life. Nay, according to the law of Moses, which you will grant to have been of divine institution, the sins not of one individual but of the whole people might be transferred to the head of a single animal, to be carried away. 1 allude to the scape-goat; the law concerning which is as follows: "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited,” &c. O. And do you really understand this as literally expressed ? A. How can it be understood otherwise? O. Ridiculous! Truly a most easy and convenient mode of getting quit of crimes and their consequences, putting them on the head of a goat to run away with them! Even your own language, which you naturally, though perhaps inadvertently expressed, indicates the impossibility of such transferrence. Did you not just now say, that "the sins of the individual were supposed to be transferred to the victim, and to be expiated by the sacrifice of its life"? It was with propriety that you used the term " supposed," for it could be nothing else than supposition. Hear the express declaration of the great Apostle of the Gentiles: "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls or of goats should take away sins." Because crime, I say, crime is a personal act that is already past, and therefore IRREVOCABLE; what the guilty person hath done never can be made the doing of another, and never can be undone. So long as he exists, the guilt adheres to him; and when he dies, though his memory were to last through eternity, it must be stained with it. What is past, I speak it with reverence, is not in the power even of Omnipotence to recall. A. Truly, I do not comprehend your statement. Fauntleroy has been ordered for execution. That order is past. But is it not possible to recall the order? Might not his Majesty exercise his royal prerogative, and grant a full and free pardon? O. Very true, he might. But would it the less on that account cease to |