Page:A Dissertation on the Construction of Locks (1815).pdf/35

 purpose, unless a free and deliberate access to the key-hole could be rendered as useless to the purpose of obtaining a key by impression, as the picklock, and other instruments of mischief, may be rendered (to the purpose of opening the Lock) by the multiplicity and intricacy of its wards. The hasty execution of a midnight robbery, in which the servants of the family do not act a part, will not allow sufficient time, if proper instruments were at hand, to overcome the difficulties, which ingenious locksmiths have opposed to foreign invaders: my chief attention, therefore, was applied to contrive a security against the advantage which a domestic enemy possesses, in the opportunity of executing his purposes at leisure. But practicable as this appeared, I did not venture to attempt it by any means hitherto found ineffectual, not presuming to imagine I could give perfection to an instrument, which men of much greater knowledge and experience had left defective. I was, therefore, as solicitous to avoid their excellencies, as to escape their imperfections, which, are so blended in the best common Locks, as to make it impossible to adopt the one, without falling into the other. A very little thought on the subject convinced me, that