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foreseen nor intended; but, if exerted with sound discretion, so far from weakening the laws, will strengthen their operation. Where the punishment is fixed by law to a crimeof a general legal description, comprehending a great variety of different acts, which must, from the course of human conduct, be accompanied with evidence of greater or less depravity; there, this attribute of the chief executive magistrate seems necessary, to remedy the imperfection of the general law, and to render the punishment more equitably proportioned to the guilt of the offender; since, from the inevitable want of foresight in the legislature, of the circumstances of each case, it could not be so predetermined by them. Thus, forgery and counterfeiting, as well as passing money, knowing the same to be forged or counter-feit, punished by imprisonment for life, is a crime, the objects of which are endlessly diversified, com-prehending acts of different degrees of turpitude.* * It may be fairly questioned, whether this and some other crimes are not improperly punished by imprisonment for life. If the sentence did not exceed a certain number of years, it would be in the power of the court to apply the punishment in a manner more justly proportioned to the offence: there would then be rarely, if ever, any occasion for the executive to remit the sentence. Most of the governments of Europe, excepting England, have, in circumstances of society and manners far less favourable than those of this country, gone farther in the melioration of their penal laws; and the punishment of death is gradually disappearing from their codes. Where the law has only defined a limit in the time of imprisonment, leaving it to the discretion of the judge to fix the duration of punishment within that limit, according to the circumstances of each case; there, it may be generally said, that the executive ought not to interpose, unless when the discretion of the court has been manifestly exercised under some misapprehension, or where circumstances, favourable to the convict, come to light after trial, of which he could not avail himself at the time, but had they been known, ought to have prevented or lessened his punishment. Unequivocal evidence of reformation in a con-vict, after his imprisonment; to ascertain which, as