Hypereides puts it plainly in his speech in this very case. Seeing that it was not the practice at Athens to pay salaries to politicians for their services, the public, he says, was quite prepared that they should make indirect profits and receive money privately for their work; the one thing intolerable was that they should take it from the enemies of their country or to prejudice Athenian interests. [Sidenote: Modern sentiment at least repudiates these principles.] In England we have had the good fortune to find rich men of high traditions to carry on the affairs of the nation, and even where we do not, or used not, to give salaries, it has been long thought disgraceful to make politics the source of private gain. How far it was done or not, in spite of this feeling, we need not inquire. There can be no doubt that now, at all events, there are large numbers of men supporting themselves by a parliamentary career; and it is usually said of America also, that politics are there regarded as a lucrative profession, and that the men who spend their lives in politics from mere ambition or from pure patriotism are very rare indeed. Still I think modern sentiment, theoretically at least, brands these indirect profits as disgraceful; nor do I think any modern advocate would describe such a practice as perfectly excusable in the way that Hypereides expresses it. We are dealing, therefore, with a condition of public morality in which taking bribes, to put it plainly, was not at all considered a heinous offence, provided always that they were not taken to injure the State. You might therefore be a patriot at Athens, and yet make that patriotism a source of profit. [Sidenote: As regards practice we have Walpole] This combination of high and sordid principles seems so shocking to modern gentlemen that I must remind them of two instances not irrelevant to the question in hand. In the first place men who were thoroughly honourable and served their country faithfully, as, for example, Sir Robert Walpole, have thought it quite legitimate to corrupt with money those under them and those opposed to them. Though they would scorn to receive bribes, they did not scruple to offer them; and they have left it on record that they found few men unwilling to accept such bribes in some indirect or disguised form. [Sidenote: and the Greek patriots of our own century.]