what degree of corruption will just forfeit an employment, and whether the bribe you receive be sufficient to set you right, and put something in your pocket besides. How much to a penny, you may safely cheat the Qu[ee]n, whether forty, fifty or sixty _per cent._ according to the station you are in, and the dispositions of the persons in office, below and above you. They have computed the price you may securely take or give for a place, or what part of the salary you ought to reserve. They can discreetly distribute five hundred pounds in a small borough, without any danger from the statutes, against bribing 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; and 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 public, in defiance of the law. The military men, both by sea and land, have equally cultivated this most useful science: neither hath 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,[4] 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 times to come. A commissioner of the stamped paper[5] was lately discovered to have notoriously cheated the public of great sums for many years, by counterfeiting the stamps, which the law had made capital. But the aggravation of his crime, proved to be the cause that saved his life; and that additional heightening circumstance of betraying his trust, was found to be a legal defence. I am assured, that the notorious cheat of the brewers at Portsmouth,[6] detected about two months ago in Parliament, cannot by any law now in force, be punished in any degree, equal to the guilt and infamy of it. Nay, what is almost incredible, had Guiscard survived his detestable attempt upon Mr. Harley's person, all the inflaming circumstances of the fact, would not have sufficed, in the opinion of many lawyers, to have punished him with death;[7] and the public must have lain under this dilemma, either to condemn him by a law, _ex post facto_ (which would have been of dangerous consequence, and form an ignominious precedent) or undergo the mortification to see the greatest villain upon earth escape unpunished,