pose, which to disclose is to disappoint; any crime, which to hide is to countenance; or any character, which to avoid is to be safe; as it is incompatible with virtue, and injurious to society, can be a law only among those who are enemies to both. Among such, indeed, it is a law which there is some degree of obligation to fulfil; and the secrets even of their conversation are, perhaps, seldom disclosed, without an aggravation of their guilt; it is the interest of society, that the veil of taciturnity should be drawn over the mysteries of drunkenness and lewdness; and to hide even the machinations of envy, ambition, or revenge, if they happen to mingle in these orgies among the rites of Bacchus, seems to be the duty of the initiated, though not of the profane. If he who has associated with robbers, who has reposed and accepted a trust, and whose guilt is a pledge of his fidelity, should betray his associates for hire; if he is urged to secure himself, by the anxiety of suspicion, or the terrors of cowardice, or to punish others by the importunity of resentment and revenge; though the public receives benefit from his conduct, and may think it expedient to reward him, yet he has only added to every other species of guilt, that of treachery to his friends: he has demonstrated, that he is so destitute of virtue, as not to possess even those vices which resemble it; and that he ought to be cut off as totally unfit for human society, but that, as poison is an antidote to poison, his crimes are a security against the crimes of others. It is, however, true, that if such an offender is stung with remorse, if he feels the force of higher obligations than those of an iniquitous compact, and if urged by a desire to atone for the injury which he has done to society, he gives in his information, and delivers up his associates, with whatever reluctance, to the laws; by this sacrifice he ratifies his repentance, he becomes again the friend of his country, and deserves not only protection but esteem: for the same action may be either virtuous or vicious, and may deserve either honour or infamy, as it may be performed upon different principles; and indeed no action can be morally classed or estimated, without some knowledge of the motive by which it is produced. But as there is seldom any other clue to the motives of particular actions, than the general tenor of his life by whom they are performed; and as the lives of those who serve their country by bringing its enemies to punishment, are commonly flagitious to the highest degree; the ideas of this service and the most sordid villany are so connected, that they always recur together: if only this part of a character is known, we immediately infer that the whole is infamous; and it is, therefore, no wonder, that the name by which it is expressed, especially when it is used to denominate a profession, should be odious; or that a good man should not always have sufficient fortitude, to strike away the mask of dissimulation, and direct the sword of justice. But whatever may be thought of those, who discharge their obligations to the public by treachery to their companions; it cannot be pretended, that he, to whom an immoral design is communicated by inadvertence or mistake, is under any private obligation to conceal it: the charge which devolves upon him, he must instantly renounce: for while he hesitates, his virtue is suspended: and he who communicates such design to another, not by inadvertence or mistake, but upon presumption of concurrence, commits an outrage upon his honour and defies his resentment. Let none, therefore, be encouraged to profane the rites of conversation, much less of friendship, by supposing there is any law, which ought to restrain the indignation of virtue, or deter repentance from reparation. N° 47. TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1753. -Multi Committunt eadem diverso crimina fato; Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema. JUV. -Ev'ry age relates, That equal crimes unequal fates have found; CREECH. MAN, though as a rational being he has thought fit to style himself the lord of the creation, is yet frequently the voluntary slave of prejudice and custom; the most general opinions are often absurd, and the prevailing principles of action ridiculous. It may, however, be allowed, that if in these instances reason always appeared to be overborne by the importunity of appetite; if the future was sacri-, ficed to the present, and hope renounced only for possession; there would not be much cause for wonder: but that man should draw absurd conclusions, contrary to his immediate interest; that he should, even at the risk of life, gratify those vices in some, which in others he punishes with a gibbet or a wheel, is in the highest degree astonish ing; and is such an instance of the weakness of our reason, and the fallibility of our judgment, as should incline us to accept with gratitude of that guidance which is from above. But if it is strange, that one man has been immortalized as a god, and another put to death as a felon, for actions which have the same motive and the same tendency, merely because they were circumstantially different; it is yet more strange, that this difference has always been such as increases the absurdity; and that the action which exposes a man to infamy and death, wants only greater aggravation of guilt, and more extensive and pernicious effects, to render him the object of veneration and applause. Bagshot, the robber, having lost the booty of a week among his associates at hazard, loaded his pistols, mounted his horse, and took the Kentish road, with a resolution not to return till he had recruited his purse. Within a few miles of London, just as he heard a village clock strike nine, he met two gentlemen in a post-chaise, which he stopped. One of the gentlemen immediately presented a pistol, and at the same time a servant rode up armed with a blunderbuss. The robber, perceiving that he should be vigorously opposed, turned off from the chaise and discharged a pistol at the servant, who instantly fell dead from his horse. The gentlemen had now leaped from the chaise: but the foremost receiving a blow on his head with the stock of the pistol that had been just fired, reeled back a few paces: the other having fired at the murderer without success, attempted to dismount him, and succeeded; but while they were grappling with each other, the villain drew a knife, and stabbed his antagonist to the heart. He then, with the calm intrepidity of a hero who is familiar with danger, proceeded to rifle the pockets of the dead; and the survivor having recovered from the blow, and being imperiously commanded to deliver, was now obliged to comply. When the victor had thus obtained the pecuniary reward of his prowess, he determined to lose no part of the glory, which, as conqueror, was now in his power: turning, therefore, to the unhappy gentleman, whom he had plundered, he condescended to insult him with the applause of conscious superiority; he told him, he had never robbed any persons who behaved better; and as a tribute due to the merit of the dead, and as a token of his esteem for the living, he generously threw him back a shilling to prevent his being stopped at the turnpike. He now remounted his horse, and set off towards London: but at the turnpike, a coach that was paying the toll obstructed his way; and by the light of the flambeau that was behind it, he discovered that his coat was much stained with blood; this discovery threw him into such confusion, that he attempted to rush by; he was, however, prevented; and his appearance giving great reason to suspect his motive, he was seized and detained. In the coach were two ladies, and a little boy about five years old. The ladies were greatly alarmed, when they heard that a person was taken who was supposed to have just committed a robbery and a murder: they asked many questions with great eagerness; but their inquiries were little regarded, till a gentleman rode up, who, seeing their distress, offered his assistance. The elder of the two ladies acquainted him, that her husband, Sir Harry Freeman, was upon the road in his return from Gravesend, where he had been to receive an only son upon his arrival from India, after an absence of near six years; that herself and her daughter-in-law, were |