and tends moſt to the ſecurity of the world ; by removing one murderer from the earth, and ſetting a dreadful example to deter others : ſo that even this grand inſtance proceeds upon other principles than thoſe of retaliation. And truly, if any meaſure of puniſhment is to be taken from the damage ſuſtained by the ſufferer, the puniſhment ought rather to exceed than equal the injury : ſince it ſeems contrary to reaſon and equity, that the guilty (if convicted) ſhould ſuffer no more than the innocent has done before him ; eſpecially as the ſuffering of the innocent is paſt and irrevocable, that of the guilty is future, contingent, and liable to be eſcaped or evaded. With regard indeed to crimes that are incomplete, which conſiſt merely in the intention, and are not yet carried into act, as conſpiracies and the like ; the innocent has a chance to fruſtrate or avoid the villany, as the conſpirator has alſo a chance to eſcape his puniſhment : and this may be one reaſon why the lex talionis is more proper to be inflicted, if at all, for crimes that conſiſt in intention, than for ſuch as are carried into act. It ſeems indeed conſonant to natural reaſon, and has therefore been adopted as a maxim by ſeveral theoretical writers[1], that the puniſhment, due to the crime of which one falſely accuſes another, ſhould be inflicted on the perjured informer. Accordingly, when it was once attempted to introduce into England the law of retaliation, it was intended as a puniſhment for ſuch only as preferred malicious accuſations againſt others ; it being enacted by ſtatute 37 Edw. III. c. 18. that ſuch as preferred any ſuggeſtions to the king's great council ſhould put in ſureties of taliation ; that is, to incur the ſame pain that the other ſhould have had, in caſe the ſuggeſtion were found untrue. But, after one year's experience, this puniſhment of taliation was rejected, and impriſonment adopted in it's ſtead[2]
But though from what has been ſaid it appears, that there cannot be any regular or determinate method of rating the
