ife and honour shall more depend upon the skill and diligence
of my attorney than on my own innocence. I would venture myself with
such justice as would take notice of my good deeds, as well as my ill;
where I had as much to hope as to fear: indemnity is not sufficient pay
to a man who does better than not to do amiss. Our justice presents to
us but one hand, and that the left hand, too; let him be who he may, he
shall be sure to come off with loss.

In China, of which kingdom the government and arts, without commerce with
or knowledge of ours, surpass our examples in several excellent features,
and of which the history teaches me how much greater and more various the
world is than either the ancients or we have been able to penetrate, the
officers deputed by the prince to visit the state of his provinces, as
they punish those who behave themselves ill in their charge, so do they
liberally reward those who have conducted themselves better than the
common sort, and beyond the necessity of their duty; these there present
themselves, not only to be approved but to get; not simply to be paid,
but to have a present made to them.

No judge, thank God, has ever yet spoken to me in the quality of a judge,
upon any account whatever, whether my own or that of a third party,
whether criminal or civil; nor no prison has ever received me, not even
to walk there. Imagination renders the very outside of a jail
displeasing to me; I am so enamoured of liberty, that should I be
interdicted the access to some corner of the Indies, I should live a
little less at my ease; and whilst I can find earth or air open
elsewhere, I shall never lurk in any place where I must hide myself.
My God! how ill should I endure the condition wherein I see so many
people, nailed to a corner of the kingdom, deprived of the right to enter
the principal cities and courts, and the liberty of the public roads,
for having quarrelled with our laws. If those under which I live should
shake a finger at me by way of menace, I would immediately go seek out
others, let them be where they would. All my little prudence in the
civil wars wherein we are now engaged is employed that they may not
hinder my liberty of going and coming.

Now, the laws keep up their credit, not for being just, but because they
are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no
other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools,
still oftener by men