monarch cannot so well gratify it in anything, as a strict execution of
the laws.

Besides; all parties would be obliged to close with so good a work as
this, for their own reputation: Neither is any expedient more likely to
unite them. For the most violent party men, I have ever observed, are
such, as in the conduct of their lives have discovered least sense of
religion or morality; and when all such are laid aside, at least those
among them as shall be found incorrigible, it will be a matter perhaps
of no great difficulty to reconcile the rest.

The many corruptions at present in every branch of business are almost
inconceivable. I have heard it computed by skilful persons, that of six
millions raised every year for the service of the public, one third, at
least, is sunk and intercepted through the several classes and
subordinations of artful men in office, before the remainder is applied
to the proper use. This is an accidental ill effect of our freedom. And
while such men are in trust, who have no check from within, nor any
views but toward their interest, there is no other fence against them,
but the certainty of being hanged upon the first discovery, by the
arbitrary will of an unlimited monarch, or his vizier. Among us, the
only danger to be apprehended is the loss of an employment; and that
danger is to be eluded a thousand ways. Besides, when fraud is great, it
furnishes weapons to defend itself: And at worst, if the crimes be so
flagrant, that a man is laid aside out of perfect shame, (which rarely
happens) he retires loaded with the spoils of the nation; _et fruitur
diis iratis_. I could name a commission, where several persons, out of a
salary of five hundred pounds, without other visible revenues, have
always lived at the rate of two thousand, and laid out forty or fifty
thousand upon purchases of lands or annuities. A hundred other instances