" jection to the reverence of the laws, for the authority and fupport of which true virtue muft abate very much of its original vigour; and many vicious actions are introduced, not only by their permiffion, but alfo by their perfuafion. Ex fenatus-confultis plebifque fcitis fcelera exercentur S. The commiffion of certain crimes is autho"rifed by the decrees of the fenate and the common people." I follow the common phrafe, which makes a diftinction betwixt things profitable and honeft, so as to call fome natural actions which are not only useful but neceffary, difhoneft and obfcene. Useful treachery their title But let us proceed in our inftances of treachery. treachery. Two pretenders to the kingdom of Thrace fell into a difpute about The emperor hindered them from taking arms; but one of them under colour of bringing matters to an amicable iffue by an interview, having invited his competitor to an entertainment at his house, caufed him to be secured, and put to death ‡. Juftice required that the Romans fhould have fatisfaction for this offence, but there was a difficulty in obtaining it by the common forms. What therefore they could not do lawfully, without a war, and without danger, they attempted by treachery, and what they could not do honeftly they accomplished profitably. For this end one Pomponius Flaccus was pitched upon as a fit inftrument . This man, by diffembled words and affurances, having drawn the other into his toil, inftead of the honour and favour which he had promifed, fent him bound hand and foot to Rome. Here one traitor betrayed another, contrary to the common cuftom; for they are full of miftruft, and it is not eafy to over-reach them in their own art; witnefs the fad experience we have lately had of this. Treachery, how Let who will be Pomponius Flaccus, and there are enough that would; for my part, both my word and my faith are like all the reft, parts of this common body : the beft they can do is to ferve the public, and this I take to be prefuppofed. But as, fhould one command me to take charge of the palace and the records, or to § Senec. Ep. 95. Tacit. Annal. lib. ii. cap. 65. Id. ibid. cap. 67. enter enter upon the office of conductor of pioneers, I would say, that as to the former, it is what I do not understand, and as to the latter, that I am called to a more honourable employment: fo likewife, fhould any one want me to lie, betray, and forfwear myself, for fome notable fervice, much more to affaffinate or poifon, I would fay, if I have robbed or ftolen from any one, fend me forthwith to the galleys. For it is justifiable for a man of honour to fay, as the Lacedæmonians did, when they were juft on the point of concluding their agreement after their defeat by Antipater, "You may impofe as heavy and ruinous burdens upon us as you pleafe, but if you "command us to do things that are fhameful and difhoneft, you will only lofe your time +." Every one, to be fure, had taken the fame oath to himself that the kings of Egypt made their judges fwear folemnly; viz. that they would not decree any thing contrary to their confciences, though they themselves fhould command it §. In fuch commiffions there is an evident mark of ignominy and condemnation: and whoever gives you fuch a commiffion does in fact accufe you; and he gives it you, if you understand it right, for a burden and a punishment. As much as the public affairs are amended by what you do, your own are impaired by it; and the better you behave for the public you act so much the worfe for yourself. Nor will it be a new thing, nor perhaps without fome colour of justice, if the fame perfon ruin you who set you at work. Treachery, in what cafe ex. cufeable. If treachery ought to be excufed in any cafe, it is only fo when employed in chaftifing and betraying the traitor. There are examples enough of treachery, not only where it was refused, but punished by thofe in whofe favour it had been undertaken. Who knows not the fentence of Fabricius against Pyrrhus's phyfician? Inftances of trea But we find this alfo recorded, that a man has given command for an action chery punished which he afterwards feverely revenged on the person whom he employed in it, re by thofe who gave orders for it. † Plutarch, in his Differences of the Flatterer and the Friend, chap. 21. Plutarch, in the remarkable sayings of the ancient kings, &c. towards the beginning. jecting jecting a credit and power fo uncontrolled, and disavowing a fervitude and obedience so fordid and abandoned. Jaropele duke of Ruffia tampered with a gentleman of Hungary to betray Boleflaus king of Poland by putting him to death, or giving the Ruffians an opportunity to do him fome notable injury. The gentleman acted very craftily in the affair; he devoted himself more than ever to the service of the king, obtained to be of his council, and one of his chief confidents. With thefe advantages, and chufing the critical opportunity of his fovereign's abfence, he betrayed to the Ruffians the great and rich city of Wifliez, which was entirely plundered and burnt, with the total flaughter, not only of its inhabitants, without diftinction of fex or age, but of a great number of the neighbouring gentry whom he had convened there for his purpose. Jaropele being glutted with his revenge, and his wrath being appeafed, for which however he had fome pretence (for Boleflaus had very much provoked him, by a behaviour too of the like kind) and being gorged with the fruit of this treachery, taking into confideration the deformity of the act in a naked abftracted light, and looking upon it with a calm difpaffionate view, conceived fuch a remorfe and difguft, that he caufed the eyes of his agent to be plucked out, and his tongue and privy parts to be cut off. How Antigo. nus punished the foldiers of Eumenes, whom they had deliver ed up to him. Antigonus perfuaded the foldiers called Argyrafpides to betray his adversary Eu menes their general into his hands. But after putting him to death, he himself defired to be the commiffioner of the divine juftice for the punishment of fo deteftable a crime, and configned the traitors over to the governor of the province, with exprefs command by all means to deftroy and bring them to an evil end §. So that of that great number of men not one ever returned to Macedonia. The better he had been ferved by them the more wicked he judged the service to be, and the more deferving of punishment. Plutarch, in his Life of Eumenes, chap. 9, to the end. The A flave both rewarded and pu nifhed by Sylla for betraying his master. The flave who betrayed his mafter P. Sulpicius, by discovering the place where he lay concealed, was, according to promife, manumitted from Sylla's profcription, but by virtue of his edict, though he a flave, he was instantly thrown headlong from the Tarpeian rock . was no longer Another exam ple of the like justice by king Clovis. And our king Clovis inftead of armour of gold, which he had promifed them, caufed three of Canacro's fervants to be hanged after they had betrayed their maf fter to him, though he had fet them upon it. They were hanged with the purfe of their reward about their necks. After they had fatisfied their fecond and fpecial engagement they fatisfy the general and first. Mahomet II. caufed his brother to be murdered, and delivers over the perfon whom he employed to difpatch him, to be punished. committed it (for they were Mahomet the Second being refolved to rid himself of his brother out of a jealoufy of his power, as is the cuftom of the Ottoman race, employed one of his officers in the execution, who choaked him by pouring water into his throat. When this was done, Mahomet, to make atonement for the murder, delivered the man who into the hands of the deceafed's mother only brothers by the father's fide) who in his prefence ript open the murderer's bofom, and in a fury ran her hands into his breaft, and rifled it for his heart, which The tore out, and threw to the dogs. Even to the vilest of people it is a pleasure, when their end has been ferved by a criminal action, to patch it up with fome mixture of goodness and juftice, as by way of compenfation and check of confcience. To which may be added, that they look upon the inftruments of fuch horrid crimes, as upon perfons that reproach them therewith, and aim by their deaths to cancel the memory and teftimony of fuch practices. Traitors held ac Now if perhaps you are rewarded, in order not to fruftrate the public neceffity curfed by thofe of this extreme and defperate remedy, he who bestows the reward will notwith even who Valer. Max. lib. vi, cap. 5. in Romanis § 7. re standing ftanding, if he be not fuch a one himself, look upon you as a curfed and execrable fellow; and concludes you to be a greater traitor than he does whom you betray; for he feels the malignity of your courage by your own hands, being employed without reluctance and without objection. He employs you like the most abandoned mifcreants in the office of hangman, an office as useful as it is dishonourable. Befides the bafenefs of fuch commiffioners, there is moreover a proftitution of confcience. Sejanus's daughter being a virgin, and as fuch not liable to be put to death, according to the form of law at Rome, was firft ravished by the hangman, and then ftrangled. Thus not only his hand but his foul is a flave to the public convenience. What Mon taigne thinks of thofe who con fent to be the executioners of their own kindred. When Amurath the First, more feverely to punish his fubjects for having fupported the parricide rebellion of his fon, ordered that the nearest of kin to them should lend a hand in their execution, I think it was very honourable in any of them who chose rather to be unjustly deemed culpable for another's parricide, than to be obedient to the demand of justice for a parricide of their own. And whereas, at the taking of fome little forts, I have seen rascals, who, to fave their own lives, have been glad to hang their friends and companions, I have thought them in a worse condition than those that were hanged. It is faid that Witholde, a prince of Lithuania, introduced a practice, that a criminal who was condemned to die hould dispatch himself with his own hand, for he thought it strange that a third perfon, who was innocent of the crime, fhould be charged with, and employed in, homicide. In what cafe a prince is excuf able for a breach of his word. When fome urgent circumftance, and fome impetuous and unforeseen accident, that very much concerns his government, compels a prince to evade his engagement, or throws him out of his ordinary duty, he ought to afcribe this neceffity to a fcourge of the divine rod. Vice it is not, for he has given up his own reafon to a Tacit. Annal. lib. v. cap. 9. more |