honestly; yet a politick coward often passes for a brave man for want of being try’d; and an arrant knave, for want of opportunity for a very honest fellow. You blame me for building my own welfare out of your ruin, and charge me with knavery for taking the advantage of your folly; I am of that old opinion, that all mankind are either fools or knaves; and it is a maxim in my politicks, that he who will not be a knave, the world will make a fool of him. One man’s oversight is always another’s gain. How then can you condemn me for laying hold of that opportunity, which your weakness gave me as a tryal of my wit? and had I neglected making a true use of it to my own advantage, I had made myself a greater fool than he who trusted a single man’s honesty with so large a temptation. Could you have kept your estate in your own power, how great was your indiscretion to deliver it into mine? and since I found, when I had it in my custody, I could secure it to myself, beyond the power of the law to recover it, how foolish shou’d I have been to have omitted the opportunity? in short, I am very well satisfyed at the usage I gave you, no check of conscience do I yet find that inclines me to repentance; but am heartily resolv’d, thro’ the course of my life, never to let slip so luscious an advantage. As for my sorting of broad-money for the royal snippers, it was grown so universal a practice among all dealers, that it ceas’d from being thought criminal, and became a profitable trade; and I never was so lazy in my life, as to suffer any project to be on foot, wherein money was to be got, but I always had a hand in’t. The _Hollanders_ clipp’d it openly in their shops, and pass’d it afterwards among us. And shall we suffer a foreign nation to ingross that advantage to themselves, which was doubtless rather the property of a true-born _Englishman_ to enjoy? no I am a true lover of my country, and do assert, it’s better to be rogues among our selves, and cozen one another, than it is to be cheated in our own way by a pack of knavish neighbours.