After a Revolution, You see the same Men in the Drawing-room, and within a Week the same Flatterers.
Of Punishment.
Wherever a Government knows when to show the Rod, it will not often be put to use it. But between the want of Skill, and the want of Honesty, Faults generally either escape Punishment, or are mended to no Purpose.
Men are not hang’d for stealing Horses, but that Horses may not be stolen.
Wherever a Knave is not punished, an honest Man is laugh’d at.
A Cheat to the Publick is thought infamous, and yet to accuse him is not thought an honourable part. What a Parodox! ’Tis an ill Method, to make the Aggravation of the Crime a Security against the Punishment; so that the Danger is not to rob, but not to rob enough.
Treason must not be inlayed Work of several Pieces, it must be an entire Piece of itself. Accumulative in that case is a murdering Word, that carrieth Injustice, and no Sense in it.
An Inference, though never so rational, should go no farther than to justify a Suspicion, not so far as to inflict a Punishment. Nothing is so apt to break with Stretching, as an Inference; and nothing so ridiculous, as to see how Fools will abuse one.