No sooner does the punishment of the law attach on a criminal, than false humanity becomes his friend. Pardons are applied for; and it is known that his Majesty's great goodness and love of mercy has been frequently abused by the tricks, devices, and frauds, too commonly resorted to, by convicts and agents equally depraved as themselves; who while they have recourse to every species of falsehood and forgery, for the purpose of attaining the object in view, at the same time plunder the friends and relatives of the prisoner, of their last guinea, as the wages of villainy and misrepresentation. By such nefarious practices, it is much to be feared, that many a hardened villain has eluded the punishment of the Law, without any previous reference to the committing Magistrates, who may be supposed to have accurately examined into his character and connections; and what is still worse, without extending to the Community those benefits which might arise from important discoveries useful to Public Justice; such as convicted felons are always capable of making, and which, in conjunction with transportation, it should seem, ought to be one indispensable condition, upon which pardons should be granted to capital convicts. Instead of these precautions which appear to be absolutely requisite, it is to be lamented, that without reflecting that a common thief can seldom be restrained by military discipline, many of the worst class of convicts have received his Majesty's gracious pardon, on the simple condition of going into the Army or Navy: This has been no sooner granted, than the Royal Mercy has been abused, either by desertion, or by obtaining a discharge, in consequence of some real or pretended incapacity, which was previously concealed. Relieved in so easy a manner, from the heavy load of a capital punishment, the culprits return again to their old practices; and by this means, punishment not only ceases to operate as a prevention of crimes, by example, but becomes even an encouragement; while the labour of detection, and the expence of trial and conviction, are fruitlessly thrown on an injured individual, and their effect is wholly lost to the Public.