During the vacation of 1807 Sir Samuel Romilly prepared some of those reforms in the criminal law, by which he is most known to the public. For many years he had been intent on this subject, and had made it his particular study. During repeated visits to the continent, he never missed an opportunity of attending any important trial; and for the sixteen years during which he attended the circuit, he had been in the habit of noting down whatever appeared to him worthy of observation in the criminal courts. Shocked at instances of judicial injustice, which thus fell under his notice, he had secretly resolved that, if it should ever be in his power, he would endeavour to provide a remedy for such gross abuses. The principles of his intended reforms were contained in his answer to Dr. Madan. He held that the prevention of crime is more effectually accomplished by certainty than by severity of punishment; that to approximate to certainty of punishment, it was necessary to mitigate the severities of the penal code; that, unless this were done, there would still be an indisposition on the part of the public to prosecute, of witnesses to give evidence, of juries to convict, and even of judges to put in execution the sentences they had themselves passed;—that all these were so many chances of escape offered to a culprit, operating rather as encouragements than as checks to crime. These doctrines, then so new, although now received as axioms, made but few converts at first; and it was not till they were again brought before the public in the House of Commons, in 1808, that they attracted some of that attention to which they were entitled. One of his first bills, which repealed the punishment of death for stealing privately from the person to the amount of five shillings, passed both houses with but little opposition; but, as the number of prosecutions increased in consequence, it was alleged that the crime itself had increased, and that all similar reforms would be attended with similar mischief. Romilly urged in vain that, when the measure was under consideration, he had foretold that it would produce an increase of prosecutions; and that this, far from being an argument against the mitigation of punishment, was the best proof of its efficacy. In vain did he defend his principle, with the varied stores of his knowledge, with the most powerful arguments, and with the eloquence of deep conviction. The mature reflections of above thirty years’ study and experience were treated as the rash innovations of a wild theorist. The effect of government circulars was too seldom counteracted by the attendance of his own political friends; no party advantage could be gained from such enlightened labours; there was no large and powerful body in the country to second his efforts; and when, at length, after unremitting perseverance, he occasionally succeeded in carrying a bill through the Commons, it was rarely permitted to pass through the ordeal of the Upper House.