All excess of punishment is a crime. To remit a fugitive to
excessive punishment is to be accessary to the crime. Ought we to wish
for the obligation, or the right to do it? Better, on the whole, to
consider these crimes as sufficiently punished by the exile.
There is one crime, however, against property, pressed by its
consequences into more particular notice, to wit;
_Forgery_, whether of coin or paper; and whether paper of public or
private obligation. But the fugitive for forgery is punished by exile
and confiscation of the property he leaves: to which add by convention,
a civil action against the property he carries or acquires, to the
amount of the special damage done by his forgery.
The carrying away of the property of another, may also be reasonably
made to found a civil action. A convention then may include forgery and
the carrying away the property of others, under the head of,
3. _Flight from debts_.
To remit the fugitive in this case, would be to remit him in every case.
For in the present state of things, it is next to impossible not to owe
something. But I see neither injustice nor inconvenience in permitting
the fugitive to be sued in our courts. The laws of some countries
punishing the unfortunate debtor by perpetual imprisonment, he is right
to liberate himself by flight, and it would be wrong to re-imprison
him in the country to which he flies.
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