that what was lawful for him to confpire to, would be inexcufable in the rest of mankind. For though fucceeding ages will, without doubt, give many millions of men to the world; yet, poffibly, no age nor country will ever produce a fécond Cicero.

TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTION.

"Whether an Highwayman or a cheating Tradefman, is the bonefier Perfon ?”

I

Suppose, most perfons will allow, that plain dealing is one very important branch of honefty: Taking this for granted, the next enquiry will be, who is the plain dealer? The highwayman, who openly avows his defign, and fays to you, frankly and above-board, your money or your life! Or the fbarking, fhuffling tradefman, who, in a fly clandeftine manner, abufes the confidence you repofe in him, and cheats you, under the fictitious appearance of a fair dealer? Is not fuch a perfon, as much a robber, to all intents and purpofes, as the man who privily fteals any part of your property out of your dwelling-house, or takes it from you by force on the highway?

Mutual confidence, fuch as is fuppofed to obtain between buyer and feller, is one main band of fociety and every illicit practice, that tends to render that confidence precarious, is a ftep toward diffolving thofe focial connections, of which reciprocal confidence is the bafis. Here, again, I apprehend, the fcale turns in favour of the highwayman. When he prefents his piftol at the coachwindow (or, it may be, fomething that looks like one, merely to infpire terror, without even a poffibi

lity of doing real mifchief), he gives you your alternative; he lets you know what you have to expect, in cafe of refufal. You are not betrayed under a pretext of honesty, but exprefsly left to your own option, whether you will refign your purfe, or ftand to the confequence. I grant this to be a breach of the peace, and a breach of integrity: but then it is an open, declared one; and you know what you have to do. And, let it be a breach of what it will befide, it is plainly no breach of truft: confidence is utterly difavowed on both fides: and therefore, though forced to part with fome of your money, order to fecure your perfonal fafety (and he, I think, is a fool who would not), yet you are not cheated of it. And though force of this kind, if univerfal, would be no lefs fubverfive of fociety, than fraud; yet, fince, by the care of the legislature, inftances of the former are infinitely fewer than inftances of the latter; going on the highway is not, upon the whole, and as matters now ftand, either fo general an evil, or so pernicious to the community, as cheating behind a counter.

Add, to all this, that, when I exchange my money for fome certain commodity in lieu of it, I juftl expect, and my tradefman profeffes to let me have, an equitable equivalent for the money fo paid. But, if, instead of fuch an equivalent, there is, in reality, no due proportion between the price I pay, and the article I purchafe; I am as much robbed by that infiduous falefman, as if he was to ftop me on Hounflow Heath. I mean not to juftify the gentlemen of the road. I am truly fenfible, that before a perfon can take that defperate and unlawful method of repairing his fortune, he must have bid adieu to virtue and be loft to principle; we are not now exculpating villainy, but only weighing and comparing it.

In common life, it is ufual to diftinguish between theft and robbery. But I apprehend, thefe, though

nominally

nominally and circumftantially different, are, in fact, one and the fame.

The man, who unjustly deprives another of his property, robs him: and there are but two ways of doing this; either privately or publicly. But, in this cafe, the thing itself fuffers very great alteration, from the mode of doing it. I therefore fet down the unfair tradefman, and the profeft highwayman, for robbers. Only, one conducts his fcheme in an open manner; the other adds treachery to difhonesty. Robbery is robbery, either way if there is any difference, it feems to confift in this: that robbery on the public road, is robbery barefaced; whereas, robbery in a fhop, is robbery disguised: which only makes it a worfe fpecies of the fame genus.

One thing more deferves confideration. There have been inftances of men who have robbed others on the highway, and, fome years after, fent the perfons, they robbed, anonymous letters, including Bank bills to more than the amount of what they took thus repaying, with intereft, what they had formerly borrowed on the Heath. But I never yet heard of a cheating tradefman who made the fame return to the customers he had defrauded: and, in"deed, if a tradesman of that ftamp was, afterwards, to act on this noble principle of recoiling integrity, he would have enough to do, and, after all his unjuft gains, have little or nothing to bequeath to his own family. However, as the inftances, of reimburfing the party robbed are rare; and as general conclufions cannot be formed from particular premifes, I lay no great ftrefs on the last observation: but for the reafons alledged before, I muft, and do give it as my opinion, that though the cheating tradefiman, and the highway robber are both rogues, and great ones; yet that, upon the whole, the highwayman is the honefter rogue of the two. And as, of two evils, prudence bids us chufe the least; so, of two villains, juftice tells us, that the leaft is to be preferred.

POEMS

POE M S

SACRED SUBJECTS,

WHEREIN THE

Fundamental Doctrines of Christianity,

WITH

MANY OTHER INTERESTING POINTS, are occafionally introduced.

Written between Fifteen and Eighteen Years of Age.

En, fanctos Manibus punfet fumeret

Ignes Veftatem fe Mufa facit; bene libera

Curis Libera Deliciifque, Jocifque & Amore profano.