eople, who have not been goaded thereto by Severity
and Oppression. The inoffensive Stag grows formidable when _at __ Bay_.
The Worm turneth not, till it receiveth a Crush.

I forget the Book, though I remember the Passage, where a Prince demanded
of his favourite Minister, what he should do with a Number of the Commons
and Nobility, whom he had suppressed and taken Captive in the Act of
Rebellion? The Minister answered, _Put them, and their Adherents,
instantly to Death_. No, replied the Prince, that were an Act of such
Bloodshed and Barbarity, as neither Fear nor Revenge shall persuade me to
perpetrate. _Then, grant them all free Pardon_, rejoined the Minister.
How! said the Prince, must Rebellion go altogether unpunished? There is no
Medium that can assure your Safety, answered the Minister; you must either
pull this Party wholly up by the Root, so as to leave no Fibre from whence
future Enmity may grow; or else, you must change that Enmity into
Friendship, by binding their Gratitude to your Person and Interest, with
the kindliest of all Connections, that of your Goodness and Favour. _A
partial Punishment will be too little for your Safety; a partial Pardon
will not be enough._ You must either wholly annihilate their Power, by
their _Death_; or derive Strength to yourself, from that Power, by their
_Friendship_.

By disarming our Enemies, the utmost we can hope, is, to render them
impotent. The Diminution of _their_ Power adds nothing to our _own_.
Repentance is never so permanent or sincere, as when preceded by Pardon;
and Favour is, as the polar Attraction, to Inclination. Is there a Man
whose Love and Gratitude you desire to engage? Common Sense will direct
you to do him a Benefit. Would you bind him to your Service with Hoops of
Steel? You must make it his Interest, as well as his Duty, to befriend
you.

It is, by no means, my Intention to arraign either the Wisdom or good
Policy of our Forefathers. But all Men are, in some Degree, fallible, as
well in the congregate, as in the individual; and the Shrewd may err as
much, by over-reaching their Aim, as the Ignorant, by falling short, or
deviating from it.

But, had a hundred _Pitts_, and a hundred _Cecils_, composed the Senate of
our Ancestors, at the Time that those _Penal Laws_ were enacted; had those
Laws been ever so wise and so just, so wholesome and necessary, and well
suited to the Season; is that a Reason that they should _continue so_ to
the End of Ti