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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

erected, as I have mentioned, in the great area between the stadt-house and the weighing or custom-house, upon a level with the first floor of the former building, through which the criminals enter to the spot assigned for them to receive their punishment: those who are to be whipped receive that punishment with considerable severity, and are not permitted to retire till those who are to die have suffered death, which is inflicted by decapitation with the sword or hanging, though the latter is most frequent. On these melancholy occasions, the chief magistrates attend in their robes, and nothing is omitted to augment the solemnity of the scene.

In consequence of its being expected that though a culprit is to suffer death, he is to receive the fatal stroke in the precise mode prescribed by the law, a magistrate who presided at the execution of a murderer a few years since, had nearly subjected himself to a severe punishment. The guilt of the criminal was aggravated by cruelty, and he was condemned to lose his life by decapitation, in which case the law directs that it shall be severed by one stroke of the sword: previous to his quitting the chamber of the last prayers, he laid a wager with a friend who attended him, that he had suggested an expedient by which the executioner should not be able to perform his office; and accordingly, the moment he knelt to receive the fatal

ANECDOTE OF A MALEFACTOR.

265

stroke, he rolled his head in every direction so violently, and so rapidly, that the executioner could not strike him with any probability of decollating him at one blow; and after many fruitless aims, was compelled to renounce the attempt. The officers who were entrusted to see to the execution of the sentence were in the greatest dilemma; in vain did they try by argument to persuade the fellow to remain still, and quietly have his head taken off; he was remanded back to prison, and after an hour's deliberation, the presiding magistrate, upon his own responsibility, ordered the gallows to be brought out, upon which he caused him to be executed. The judges and lawyers took alarm, and half the city felt as if the murderer had been murdered; and nothing but the high character, rank, and influence of the magistrate, by whose resolute orders the miscreant at length paid the forfeit of his life, preserved him from the most unpleasant consequences for enforcing the spirit of the law after a different fashion from that prescribed. Capital punishments are very rare four malefactors were executed in 1799, and nine since. The Dutch entertain a frightful opinion of the criminal laws of England, which they consider very sanguinary, from the great number of delinquents who are annually put to death there.

The strong apartments which formerly contained the vast treasures of the bank, and the offices attached to that

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wealthy concern, are on the ground-floor, where several clerks are employed to transact the business of that celebrated establisment. From the wise measures adopted by the king, who made, as I have before observed, the recognition of the national debt one of the first measures of his government, the national creditor has no apprehensions. Before the war, this institution, which was a bank of deposit, was supposed to contain the greatest quantity of bullion in the world, and popular credulity dwelt with ostentatious fondness upon the extent of its accumulated treasures, which they resembled to a Peruvian mine; its pile of precious metals was valued at the enormous sum of forty millions. The regulations which governed deposits made in this bank were as follow: the person depositing cash or bullion received a credit in the books for the amount, and a receipt for the same, which expired at the end of six months, was given, renewable upon paying a small per centage for warehouse rent: if such receipt expired before the money or bullion was redeemed, neither the one nor the other could be afterwards removed, but for it an equivalent in bank credit was given, which receipt could afterwards be converted into cash in the market. Another regulation was, that not a florin of the cash or bullion invested should ever be removed by way of loan. This compact between the bank and

the creditor was always considered inviolable.

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mour was circulated, with equal celerity and anxiety, soon after the arrival of the French in Holland, highly injurious to the responsibility of the institution, and a deputation of merchants waited respectfully on the directors of the bank, to solicit satisfaction as to its solvency; to which an answer, couched in general terms, but favorable to its responsibility, was given. Owing to the unshaken stability which it had displayed, from 1672, when Louis the Fourteenth, at the head of a victorious army, was expected every hour to have made his triumphal entry into Amsterdam, to 1795, when the French fixed the destiny of the country, this answer was received with perfect confidence and security in the bank, and any doubt upon the subject was considered to be the result of party malignity. Upon the French taking possession of Amsterdam, a complete investigation of the business followed, and the official report of the provisional representatives of the city announced, that

"No deficiency whatever will exist in the said bank, and the debits and credits will precisely balance, with this exception, that instead of specie, there have been received into the said bank, from time to time, as securities for large sums advanced by it within the last fifty years, a very considerable number of bonds, viz.

"Seventy bonds of the India Company of Amsterdam, guaranteed by the states of that province, being each of 100,000 florins banco, at three per cent. interest; besides a similar one of 50,000 banco, on which there will be due, according to the calculation of the said clerks, the sums of 249,000 florins banco, for interest. On account of which bonds, the treasurer of the said city is debited in the aforesaid balance 6,273,000 florins banco.

"Besides these, there are fifty bonds, each for 24,000 florins, on account of the provinces of Holland and West Friezland, belonging to the loan-office of this city, on which, according to the information of the clerks, the bank has advanced, agreeably to the aforesaid balance, the sum of 838,857 florins banco, on which there will be due for interest 30,000 florins. In addition to which, the loan-office owes the bank, conformable to the same information, the sum of 1,715,000 florins banco.

"That further, if every thing shall appear as has been stated by the said clerks, and sterling being converted into stock, the treasurer of the city will, in addition, owe to the bank, and for which it was made debtor at the closing of the accounts above alluded to, the sum of

And what it owed at the actual closing of the accounts,

Making together, banco,

38,358 2 0 155,314 6 8

Florins 193,672 8 8.

"That there is also due, from the said bank, 227,264 2 8, for which bonds were originally given; but according to the clerk's statement were burnt; but for which the city notwithstanding paid interest annually to the bank.

"That it is nevertheless obvious, that the city is responsible for this sum, as well as for the whole, as it ought to be considered with respect to it, not only as guarantee, but as actual debtor to the bank.

“That moreover, among other things in the said bank, there has been found in substance all the specie for which accountable receipts have been given, agreeable to the list made out, and delivered to the committee of commerce and marine by the cashiers of the bank, and which can, in consequence, be at all times drawn out by the holders of the said receipts, in exchange for them, when it shall please them so to do.

"The aforesaid provisional representatives have, therefore, not only taken the requisite and most efficacious measures, that henceforward there shall not be delivered from, nor advanced by, the said bank, contrary to its original institution, any specie whatsoever, by any authority, either as a loan, or in any other illegal manner; but also that the said bonds, lodged in the said bank as securities, as aforesaid, shall be liquidated as soon as possible, and generally, that this city, as debtor to the bank, shall, with all practicable dispatch, discharge in cash the balance of its account with the said bank, which being done, the provisional representatives declare, that there can exist no deficiency of any kind soever; and that they will,