And to say the truth, these laws, at first view, have rather
an appearance of a plan of vexatious litigation and crooked
law-chicanery than of a direct and sanguinary attack upon the rights of
private conscience: because they did not affect life, at least with
regard to the laity; and making the Catholic opinions rather the subject
of civil regulations than of criminal prosecutions, to those who are
not lawyers and read these laws they only appear to be a species of
jargon. For the execution of criminal law has always a certain
appearance of violence. Being exercised directly on the persons of the
supposed offenders, and commonly executed in the face of the public,
such executions are apt to excite sentiments of pity for the sufferers,
and indignation against those who are employed in such cruelties,--being
seen as single acts of cruelty, rather than as ill general principles of
government. But the operation of the laws in question being such as
common feeling brings home to every man's bosom, they operate in a sort
of comparative silence and obscurity; and though their cruelty is
exceedingly great, it is never seen in a single exertion, and always
escapes commiseration, being scarce known, except to those who view them
in a general, which is always a cold and phlegmatic light.
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