Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/260

250 plundering government exerciſed by our merchants in the Indies; the confiſcating war made upon the American colonies; and, to ſay nothing of thoſe upon France and Spain, view the late war upon Holland, which was ſeen by impartial Europe in no other light than that of a war of rapine and pillage; the hopes of an immenſe and eaſy prey being its only apparent, and probably its true and real motive and encouragement. Juſtice is as ſtrictly due between neighbour nations as between neighbour citizens. A highway-man is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang, as when ſingle; and a nation that makes an unjuſt war is only a great gang. After employing your people in robbing the Dutch, "is it ſtrange that, being put out of that employ by peace, they ſtill continue robbing, and rob one another? Piraterie, as the French call it, or privateering, is the univerſal bent of the Engliſh nation, at home and abroad, wherever ſettled. No leſs than ſeven hundred privateers were, it is ſaid, commiſſioned in the laſt war! Theſe were fitted out by merchants, to prey upon other merchants, who had never done them any injury. Is there probably any one of thoſe privateering merchants of London, who were ſo ready to rob the merchants of Amſterdam, that would not as readily plunder another London merchant of the next ſtreet, if he could do it with the ſame impunity! The avidity, the alieni appetens is the ſame; it is the fear alone of the gallows that makes the difference. How then can a nation, which, among the honeſteſt of its people, has ſo many thieves by inclination, and whoſe government encouraged and commiſſioned no leſs than ſeven hundred gangs of robbers; how can ſuch a nation have the face to condemn the crime in individuals, and hang up twenty of them in a morning! It