The lowest condition of life, with freedom attending it, is better than
the most exalted station under a restraint. Æsop and Phædrus, who had
both felt the bitter effects of slavery, though the latter of them had
the good fortune to have the mildest prince that ever was for his
master, cannot forbear taking all opportunities to express their great
abhorrence of servitude, and their passion for liberty, upon any terms
whatsoever. Indeed, a state of slavery, with whatever seeming grandeur
and happiness it may be attended, is yet so precarious a thing, that he
must want sense, honour, courage, and all manner of virtue, who can
endure to prefer it in his choice. A man who has so little honour as to
bear to be a slave, when it is in his power to prevent or redress it,
would make no scruple to cut the throats of his fellow creatures, or to
do any wickedness that the wanton unbridled will of his tyrannical
master could suggest.