By the law of this country, the _species_ of punishment for every offence is always ascertained; but, between certain defined limits, the measure and degree of that punishment is, with very few exceptions, left to the discretion of the presiding judge. Treasons and some felonies are, indeed, capital: but, in the mercy of modern times, the great majority of felonies, and all misdemeanours, are visited, some with various terms of transportation or imprisonment, which, in most cases, may be with or without hard labour, at the discretion of the court. In these cases, the punishment is prescribed by the statute law; but there are some misdemeanours the punishment of which has not been interfered with by any statute, and to which, therefore, the common law punishments are still attached. The case of Mr O'Connell, which is now in abeyance, seems to range itself under this head of misdemeanours. Such cases are punishable by fine or imprisonment, or by both; but the amount of the one, or the duration of the other, is each left at large to be estimated by the court, according to the more or less aggravated nature of the offence, and, as it is said, also according to the quality and condition of the parties. That a fine should, in all cases, be reasonable, has been declared by Magna Charta; and the Bill of Rights has also provided, that excessive fine, or cruel and unusual punishments, should not be inflicted; but what may or may not be unreasonable or excessive, cruel or unusual, is left entirely to the judgment of the executive. For crimes of a dark political hue, which, by their tendency to subvert the government or destroy the institutions of the country, necessarily assume a character highly dangerous to the safety and well-being of the state, it might be difficult to say what degree of punishment would be excessive or unusual. It seems probable, that in cases of this nature, which include crimes, so varied in their circumstances that there appears no limit to the degree of guilt incurred--crimes, the nature and character of which could not possibly be foreseen or provided for, in all their infinite multiplicity of detail; it seems probable that, in such cases, a large discretion may have been purposely left by the framers of our constitution, in order that the degree of guilt, on each occasion, should be measured by an expansive self-adjusting scale of punishment, applied, indeed, and administered by the judges of the land, but regulated and adjusted, in each succeeding age, by the influence of public opinion, and by the spirit and temper of the times.