Previous - Next

The first I shall mention, relates to informers. All crimes
against the state, are punished here with the utmost severity; but,
if the person accused makes his innocence plainly to appear upon
his trial, the accuser is immediately put to an ignominious death;
and out of his goods or lands the innocent person is quadruply
recompensed for the loss of his time, for the danger he underwent,
for the hardship of his imprisonment, and for all the charges he
has been at in making his defence; or, if that fund be deficient,
it is largely supplied by the crown. The emperor also confers on
him some public mark of his favour, and proclamation is made of his
innocence through the whole city.

They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore
seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and
vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's
goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior
cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a
perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon
credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to
punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets
the advantage. I remember, when I was once interceding with the
emperor for a criminal who had wronged his master of a great sum of
money, which he had received by order and ran away with; and
happening to tell his majesty, by way of extenuation, that it was
only a breach of trust, the emperor thought it monstrous in me to
offer as a defence the greatest aggravation of the crime; and truly
I had little to say in return, farther than the common answer, that
different nations had different customs; for, I confess, I was
heartily ashamed. {2}

Although we usually call reward and punishment the two hinges upon
which all government turns, yet I could never observe this maxim to
be put in practice by any nation except that of Lilliput. Whoever
can there bring sufficient proof, that he has strictly observed the
laws of his country for seventy-three moons, has a claim to certain
privileges, according to his quality or condition of life, with a
proportionable sum of money out of a fund appropriated for that
use: he likewise acquires the title of snilpall, or legal, which
is added to his name, but does not descend to his posterity. And
these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us,
when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties,
without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the
image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six
eyes, two before, as many behind, and on each side one, to signify
circumspection; with a bag of gold open in her right hand, and a
sword sheathed in her left, to show she is more disposed to reward
than to punish.

In choosing persons for all employments, they have more regard to
good morals than to great abilities; for, since government is

Previous - Next