is allowed the greatest spur imaginable both to labour and invention.  When a law is made to stop some growing evil, the wits of those, whose interest it is to break it with secrecy or impunity, are immediately at work; and even among those who pretend to fairer characters, many would gladly find means to avoid, what they would not be thought to violate.  They desire to reap the advantage, if possible, without the shame, or at least, without the danger.  This art is what I take that dexterous race of men, sprung up soon after the Revolution, to have studied with great application ever since, and to have arrived at great perfection in it.  According to the doctrine of some Romish casuists, they have found out quam prope ad peccatum sine peccato possint accedere.[3] They can tell how to go within an inch of an impeachment, and yet come back untouched.  They know what degree of corruption will just forfeit an employment, and whether the bribe you receive be sufficient to set you right, and put something in your pocket besides.  How much to a penny, you may safely cheat the Qu[ee]n, whether forty, fifty or sixty per cent. according to the station you are in, and the dispositions of the persons in office, below and above you.  They have computed the price you may securely take or give for a place, or what part of the salary you ought to reserve.  They can discreetly distribute five hundred pounds in a small borough, without any danger from the statutes, against bribing elections.  They can manage a bargain for an office, by a third, fourth or fifth hand, so that you shall not know whom to accuse; and win a thousand guineas at play, in spite of the dice, and send away the loser satisfied:  They can pass the most exorbitant accounts, overpay the creditor with half his demands, and sink the rest.

It would be endless to relate, or rather indeed impossible to discover, the several arts which curious men have found out to enrich themselves, by defrauding the public, in defiance of the law.  The military men, both by sea and land, have equally cultivated this most useful science:  neither hath it been altogether neglected by the other sex; of which, on the contrary, I could produce an instance, that would make ours blush to be so far outdone.

Besides, to confess the truth, our laws themselves are extremely defective in many articles, which I take to be one ill effect of our best possession, liberty.  Some years ago, the ambassador of a great prince was arrested,[4] and outrages committed on his person in our streets, without any possibility of redress from Westminster-Hall, or the prerogative of the sovereign; and the legislature was forced to provide a remedy against the like evils in times to come.  A commissioner of the stamped paper[5] was lately discovered to have notoriously cheated the public of great sums for many years, by counterfeiting the stamps, which the law had made capital.  But the aggravation of his crime, proved to be the cause