To betray our friends is one of the blackest of crimes; and however
much traitors may suppose they recommend themselves by their successful
acts of treachery, they will find that those who employ them as useful
instruments in any dirty business of faction or party, are shocked at
the baseness of their minds; and however convenient it may be to “like
the treason, the traitor will be despised.” History furnishes us with
many instances of kings and great men who have punished the actors of
treachery with death, though the part they acted had been so conducive
to their interests as to give them a victory, or perhaps the quiet
possession of a throne: nor can princes pursue a more just maxim than
this, for a traitor is a villain, and sticks at nothing to promote his
own selfish ends. He that will betray one master for a bribe, will
betray another on the same account. It is therefore impolitic in any
state to suffer such wretches to live under its protection. Since then
this maxim is so good, and likely at all times to be acted upon, what
stupid rogues must they be who undertake such precarious dirty work!
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