If (says _Æsop_) You shall once Destroy your Present Governor, that is
Full and Wealthy, you must of Necessity Chuse Others when he is gone, who
will be sure to Fill their own Coffers out of what the Other has left ye.
This Fable upon the Whole, is very Instructive how People should Behave
themselves in the Case of Male-Administration, or Oppression; where there
is any Colour or Complaint of Cruelty, or Injustice, under the Cover of
Sovereign Power. The _Fox_’s Resolution here is mightily to the Purpose:
That is to say, where the Grievance is only the Unrighteous Exercise of
a Lawful Authority. The Removal of _Bloud Suckers_ that are already as
Full as their Skins will hold, serves only to make way for Others that
are Greedy and Empty. This is no Redress of the Evil, No, nor so much as
a Change; but in Truth, an Augmentation of it.
It is again to be Consider’d, that as Government is Necessary, Sacred,
and Unaccountable, so it is but Equal for us to bear the Infelicities
of a Male Exercise of it, as we Enjoy the Blessings of Authority and
Publique Order. There’s Nothing Pure that’s Sublunary, but somewhat still
of Good Blended with the Bad, and of Bad with the Good; And This Natural
Mixture runs through the Whole Course and Condition of Humane Affairs.
We are not to be either our Own Carvers, or our Own Chusers, and the Man
puts out his Own Eyes that does not see the Folly, and the Iniquity of
Struggling with Insuperable Powers, which is Impious in the Practice,
and Miserable in the Conclusion. Where Government is Accounted as
Bondage, the Exercise of it shall never fail of being call’d Persecution
and Oppression: But to put Matters at Worst, Let us for Argument sake,
suppose Pilling and Polling Officers, as Busie upon the People as These
Flies were upon the _Fox_: Better bear a Tolerable Present Calamity then
Exchange it for a Worse; and the _Fox_ had the Wit rather to suffer the
Galling of a Parcel of _Flies_ that were full already, then by Beating
them off, to make way for a New set of Hungry Sharpers that would do him
Fifty times the Mischief.