The encouragement given by this Government to anonymous accusers, and secret informations, is attended with consequences which greatly outweigh any benefit that can arise from them. They must destroy mutual confidence, and promote suspicions and jealousies among neighbours; and, while they render all ranks of men fearful, they encourage them to be malicious. The laws ought to be able to protect every man who openly and boldly accuses another. If any set of men, in a State, are so powerful, that it is dangerous for an individual to charge them with their crimes openly, there must be a weakness in that government which requires a speedy remedy; but let not that be a remedy worse than the disease. It is no proof of the boasted wisdom of this Government; that, in the use of the torture, it imitates many European States, whose judicial regulations it has avoided where they seem far less censurable. The practice of forcing confession, and procuring evidence by this means, always appeared to me a complication of cruelty and absurdity. To make a man suffer more than the pains of death, that you may discover whether he deserves death, or not, is a manner of distributing justice which I cannot reconcile to my idea of equity. If it is the intention of the Legislature, that every crime shall be expiated by the sufferings of somebody, and is regardless whether this expiation is made by the agonies of an innocent person, or a guilty, then there is no more to be said; but, if the intention be to discover the truth, this horrid device of the torture will very often fail; for nineteen people out of twenty will declare whatever they imagine will soonest put an end to their sufferings, whether it be truth or falsehood. LETTER XVI. Venice. Although many important events have happened since the establishment of the State Inquisition, which have greatly affected the power, riches, and extent of dominion of this republic, yet the nature of the Government has remained much the same. In what I have to add, therefore, I shall be very short and general. I have already observed, that it was the usual policy of this republic to maintain a neutrality, as long as possible, in all the wars which took place among her neighbours; and when obliged, contrary to her inclinations, to declare for either party, she generally joined with that State whose distant situation rendered its power and prosperity the least dangerous of the two to Venice.