was instituted against him, and the fact being clearly proved, he was for this breach of confidence, to the general satisfaction of the public, condemned to perpetual imprisonment. In England his crime would have amounted to no more than a felony, within the benefit of clergy, punishable with transportation or imprisonment for a definite term of years. The violation of a trust which should have been held peculiarly sacred, was certainly a moral aggravation of his guilt; but it should have been considered, that in proportion as confidence was reposed in him, so were his temptations to abuse that confidence increased; and that circumstance, which, on a desultory view of the subject, seems to magnify the crime, will on cool reflection be found most essentially to diminish it. The countenance of this plunderer of the sustenance of orphans was that of a very ordinary villain. He was at large in the court-yard, without irons, and did not seem much depressed by his situation, though his fellow-prisoners treated him as a criminal whose guilt so flagrantly surpassed theirs,
