Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/209

bosom of a man that holds so stern and rigorous a charge as you do; a charge the exercise of which is apt to nip every germ of pity, and to steel the heart against the soft sensations inspired by the sight of the suffering wretch—such feelings excite my admiration and double my reverence. But I cannot join in condemning you, for having been the involuntary author of the destruction of an innocent person, since your motives were pure, and the circumstances such as baffled all human caution and foresight. You are bound to execute the laws, which, if they be cruel or insufficient throw all the censure and responsibility on those only that enacted them, and not on the inferior functionary, that has neither the power to amend, nor to abrogate. The case of the two unfortunate sufferers is shocking beyond description, but the whole remorse ought to bear on their denunciators, and in the first instance, on the execrable villains, who exposed the dead and mangled body with such false marks and appearances as to represent me. I will cheerfully give one-half of my fortune, if any of the inven-