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down the same principle (though in different words) towards the beginning of the
Chancellor to the young Prince,) “you have heard of other enormities like to these, and some even worse than these — detestably and damnably perpetrated no otherwise than under the colour (or pretence) of that Law, viz. Quod Principi placuit (juxta Leges Civiles) legis habet vigorem.” “Etiam et alia enormia,” (says he,) “hiis fimilia, ac quaedam hiis deteriora, dum in Francia et prope regnum illud conversatus es, audisti non alio, quam legis illius colore DETESTABILIATER DAMNABILITERQUE PERPETRATA, quæ hic inferere, nostrum nimium dialogum protelaret," &c.
Whether or not this particular mode of dispatching the French King's Subjects is yet in use, I know not; but of this we are well assured, that private executions of persons unknown are still practiced there, which in effect are equally dangerous, and cannot be considered in any other light than that of so many wilful Murders, for which the Kings of France, and all those men whom they have intrusted with the administration of Justice, are most certainly accountable, and must one day answer in their own private persons as individuals, besides the enormous guilt which lies heavy upon that whole people as a nation, for passively permitting such notorious and crying iniquity to be practised among them under the borrowed name of the Law: And it is not only the dispatching of men (to put them out of the way of opposition to Government) that is intended by these midnight executions, but also, in some cases, to satisfy a base malicious revenge, by torturing the helpless victim with the cruel death of breaking on the wheel; for, as both the name and crime of the sufferer are concealed, (or perhaps a wrong name given out to prevent pity,) it cannot be said that such cruelty is used by way of example to deter bad men from committing treason, or other particular crimes; so that
