1821. April 17

Penal Law.

Under the haead of pardon, say - mercy grants pardon upon payment of fees.

punishment: Where the offended ruler is that God which is in heaven, dignity being infinite, that punishment ought to be, and is, in each instance, infinite. Where the offended ruler is that God which is on earth, the punishment ought not to be infinite, it ought only to be next to infinite. Where justice alone consulted, such, accordingly, would be the punishment of this sinner. But, in the heart of that God which is upon earth, and with us, justice has, for her never-failing companion and appeaser, mercy whose other name is clemency. Mercy has for her office /junction/ the rendering of no effect to an amount more or less considerable the decrees of justice. In this, as in all other cases, mercy has interposed, and, after deducting from what has been ordained by justice - what has been subtracted from it by mercy, the balance is what my sentence forms that punishment which my /any/ the sentence is about to declare.

Among the ingredients of this rhetoric, is an ingenious irony: that irony of which the name is sarcasm. In the language of social intercourse, a visit, in the most frequent signification of the word, is a journey made to a man/'s/ in his residence for motives of kindness - for the manifestation of kindness, such, as your sentence declares, is the kindness, the loving kindness, which you - the convict, the offending sinner, have deserved, and deserve at the hands of that God which is in heaven, at the hands of his most excellent and most worthy representative that God which is upon earth and with us - at the hands of me whom you see his representative and servant.