Sketches of the History of Man. Lord Kames (Henry Home)
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he was left without meat or drink, having no means for freedom but to employ the one hand to cut off the other. The barbarity of the English at that period made severe punishments necessary: but the punishment mentioned goes beyond severity; it is brutal cruelty. The barbarous treatment of the Jews during the dark ages of Christianity, gives pregnant evidence, that Christians were not short of Pagans in cruelty. Poisoning and assassination were most licentiously perpetrated no farther back than the last century. Some pious men made vigorous efforts in more than one general council to have assassination condemned, as repugnant to the law of God; but in vain.*<361>
I wish to soften the foregoing scene: it may be softened a little. Among barbarians, punishments must be sanguinary, as their bodies only are sensible of pain, not their minds.†
The restoration of arts and sciences in Europe, and a reformation in religion, had a wonderful effect in sweetening manners, and promoting the interests of society. Of all crimes high treason is the most involved in circumstances, and the most difficult to be defined or circumscribed. And yet, for that crime are reserved the most exquisite torments. In England, the punishment is, to cut up the criminal a-<362>live, to tear out his heart, to dash it about his ears, and to throw it into the flames. The same punishment continues in form, not in reality: the heart indeed is torn out, but not till the criminal is strangled. Even the virulence of religious zeal is considerably abated. Savonarola was condemned to the flames as an impious impostor; but he was first privately strangled. The fine arts, which humanize manners, were in Italy at that time accelerating toward perfection. The famous Latimer was in England condemned to be burnt for heresy: but bags of gunpowder were put under his arms, that he might be burnt with the least pain. Even Knox, a violent Scotch reformer, acknowledges, that Wishart was strangled before he was thrown into the flames for heresy. So bitter was the late persecution against the Jesuits, that not only were their persons proscribed, but in many places their books, not even excepting books upon mathematics, and other abstract subjects. That persecution resembled in many particulars the persecution against the knights-templars: fifty-nine of the latter were burnt alive: the former were really less inno-<363>cent; and yet such humanity prevails at present, that not a drop of Jesuit-blood has been shed. A bankrupt in Scotland, if he have not suffered by unavoidable misfortune, is by law condemned to wear a party-coloured garment. That law is not now put in execution, unless where a bankrupt deserves to be stigmatized for his culpable misconduct.
Whether the following late instance of barbarity do not equal any of those above mentioned, I leave to the reader. No traveller who visited Petersburgh during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth can be ignorant of Madam Lapouchin, the great ornament of that court. Her intimacy with a foreign ambassador having brought her under suspicion of plotting with him against the government, she was condemned to undergo the punishment of the knout. At the place of execution, she appeared in a genteel undress, which heightened her beauty. Of whatever indiscretion she might have been guilty, the sweetness of her countenance and her composure, left not in the spectators the slightest suspicion of guilt. Her youth also, her beauty, her life and spirit pleaded for her. <364> But all in vain: she was deserted by all, and abandoned to surly executioners; whom she beheld with astonishment, seeming to doubt whether such preparations were intended for her. The cloak that covered her bosom being pulled off, modesty took the alarm, and made her start back: she turned pale, and burst into tears. One of the executioners stripped her naked to the waste, seized her with both hands, and threw her on his back, raising her some inches from the ground. The other executioner laying hold of her delicate limbs with his rough fists, put her in a posture for receiving the punishment. Then laying hold of the knout, a sort of whip made of a leathern strap, he with a single stroke tore off a slip of skin from the neck downward, repeating his strokes till all the skin of her back was cut off in small slips. The executioner finished his task with cutting out her tongue; after which she was banished to Siberia.*<365>
The native inhabitants of the island Amboyna are Malayans. Those on the sea-coast are subject to the Dutch: those in the inland parts are their declared enemies, and never give quarter. A Dutch captive, after being confined five days without food, is ripped up, his heart cut out, and the head severed from the body, is preserved in spice for a trophy. Those who can show the greatest number of Dutch heads are the most honourable.
In early times, when revenge and cruelty trampled on law, people formed associations for securing their lives and their possessions. These were common in Scandinavia and in Scotland. They were also common in England during the Anglo-Saxon government, and for some ages after the Conquest. But, instead of support-<366>ing justice, they contributed more than any other cause to confusion and anarchy, the members protecting each other, even in robbery and murder. They were suppressed in England by a statute of Richard II.; and in Scotland by reiterated statutes.
Roughness and harshness of manners are generally connected with cruelty; and the manners of the Greeks and Trojans are accordingly represented in the Iliad as remarkably rough and harsh. When the armies were ready to engage(a), Menestheus King of Athens, and Ulysses of Ithaca, are bitterly reproached by Agamemnon for lingering, while others were more forward. “Son of Peleus,” he said, “and thou versed in artful deceit, in mischief only wise, why trembling shrink ye back from the field; why wait till others engage in fight? You it became, as first in rank, the first to meet the flame of war. Ye first to the banquet are called, when we spread the feast. Your delight is to eat, to regale, to quaff unstinted the generous wine.” In the fifth book, Sarpedon upbraids Hector<367> for cowardice. And Tle polemus, ready to engage with Sarpedon, attacks him first with reviling and scurrilous words. Because Hector was not able to rescue the dead body of Sarpedon from the Greeks, he is upbraided by Glaucus, Sarpedon’s friend, in the following words: “Hector, though specious in form, distant art thou from valour in arms. Undeserved hast thou fame acquired, when thus thou shrinkest from the field. Thou sustainest not the dreadful arm, not even the sight of godlike Ajax. Thou hast shunned his face in the fight: thou darest not approach his spear.”
Rough and harsh manners produced slavery; and slavery fostered rough and harsh manners, by giving them constant exercise. The brutality of the Spartans to the Helots, their slaves, is a reproach to the human species. Beside suffering the harshest usage, they were prevented from multiplying by downright murder and massacre. Why did not such barbarity render the Spartans detestable, instead of being respected by their neighbours as the most virtuous people in Greece? There can be but one reason, that the Greeks<368> were all of them cruel, the Spartans a little more perhaps than the rest. In Rome, a slave, chained at the gate of every great house, gave admittance to the guests invited to a feast: could any but barbarians behold such a spectacle without pain?
Whence the rough and harsh manners of our West-Indian planters, but from the unrestrained licence of venting ill humour upon their negro slaves?* Why art car-<369>ters a rugged set of men? Plainly because horses, their slaves, submit without resistance. An ingenious writer, describing Guiana in the southern continent of America, observes, that the negroes, who are more numerous than the whites, must be kept in awe by severity of discipline.8 And he endeavours to justify the practice; ur-<370>ging, that beside contributing to the safety of the white inhabitants, it makes the slaves themselves less unhappy. “Impossibility of attainment,” says he, “never fails to annihilate desire of enjoyment; and rigid treatment, suppressing every hope of liberty, makes them peaceably submit to slavery.” Sad indeed must be the condition of slaves, if harsh treatment contribute to make them less unhappy. Such reasoning may be relished by rough European planters, intent upon gain: I am inclined, however, to believe, that the harsh treatment of these poor people is more owing to the avarice of their masters than to their own perverseness.* That slaves in all ages have been harshly treated, is a melancholy truth. One exception I know, and but one, which I gladly mention in honour of the Mandingo negroes. Their slaves, who are numerous, <371> receive very gentle treatment; the women especially, who are generally so well dressed as not to be distinguishable from those who are free.
Many political writers are of opinion, that for crimes instigated by avarice only, slavery for life, and hard work, would be a more adequate punishment than death. I would subscribe to that opinion but for the following consideration, that the having such criminals perpetually in view, would harden our hearts, and eradicate pity,