Severe and pointed as the laws unquestionably are with an immediate view to the prevention of this evil, experience proves how ineffectual they have been, since every idle and profligate character becomes a smuggler. But it is not merely the offence of smuggling as it relates to the revenue, which is to be deplored as a grievance to the Public, since those on the Sea Coasts of the kingdom, concerned in such pursuits, are generally of ferocious habits, which produce such excesses and depredations upon the unfortunate, when suffering the calamity of shipwreck, as would disgrace the rudest savages. With contaminated minds, depraved hearts, men given up to such warfare upon helpless humanity, become fit instruments for every species of criminality.--_Vagabonds by trade_, the transition from one offence to another is easy, and hence through this medium many culprits are added to the general catalogue of delinquency, which nothing can check or prevent but a System of Police, attaching responsibility _some-where instead of no-where as at present_. Crimes are also generated in no inconsiderable degree, by the evil examples exhibited in _Prisons_, and by the length of time persons charged with offences are suffered to remain in gaols previous to their trial, particularly in the counties adjoining the Metropolis, where they frequently are in confinement five and six months before the assizes.--If they were novices in villainy before, the education they receive in these seminaries, in the event of their escaping justice, returns them upon society, completely proselyted and instructed in the arts of mischief and depredation. Nor have the unequal scale of punishments, and the ultimate unconditional pardons, dictated no doubt by the purest motives of humanity, a less tendency to generate new crimes. Encouraged by the chances of escaping free, _even after conviction_, many delinquents pursue their evil courses, trusting ultimately to this resource, if other devices shall fail. To shew mankind that crimes are sometimes wholly pardoned, and that punishment is not the necessary consequence, is to nourish the flattering hope of impunity, and is the cause of their considering every punishment which is actually inflicted, as an act of injustice and oppression. Let the Legislator be _tender_, _indulgent_, and _humane_; but let the Executors of the Laws be inexorable in punishing;--at least to a certain extent. CHAP. XII.