Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/210

202 can discreetly distribute five hundred pounds in a small borough, without any danger from the statutes against bribing at 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: they can 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 publick, in defiance of the law. The military men, both by sea and land, have equally cultivated this most useful science: neither has 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, 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 time to come. A commissioner of the stamped paper was lately discovered to have notoriously cheated the publick of great sums, for many years, by counterfeiting the stamps, which the law has made capital: but