Guilty and unexperienced, he knew not
what course to take: to confess his crime to Candidus,
and solicit his interposition, was little less dreadful
than to stand before the frown of a court of justice.
Having, therefore, passed the day with anguish in
his heart and distraction in his looks, he seized at
night a very large sum of money in the compting-
house, and setting out he knew not whither, was
heard of no more.
The consequence of his flight was the ruin of
Candidus; ruin surely undeserved and irreproachable,
and such as the laws of a just government ought
either to prevent or repair: nothing is more inequitable
than that one man should suffer for the crimes
of another, for crimes which he neither prompted
nor permitted, which he could neither foresee nor
prevent. When we consider the weakness of human
resolutions and the inconsistency of human conduct,
it must appear absurd that one man shall engage for
another, that he will not change his opinions or alter
his conduct.
It is, I think, worthy of consideration, whether,
since no wager is binding without a possibility of loss
on each side, it is not equally reasonable, that no
contract should be valid without reciprocal stipulations;
but in this case, and others of the same kind, what
is stipulated on his side to whom the bond is given?
he takes advantage of the security, neglects his
affairs, omits his duty, suffers timorous wickedness to
grow daring by degrees, permits appetite to call for
new gratifications, and, perhaps, secretly longs for the
time in which he shall have power to seize the
forfeiture; and if virtue or gratitude should prove too
strong for temptation, and a young man persist in
honesty, however instigated by his passions, what
can secure him at last against a false accusation? I
for my part always shall suspect, that he who can
by such methods secure his property, will go one
step further to increase it; nor can I think that man
safely trusted with the means of mischief, who, by
his desire to have them in his hands, gives an
evident proof how much less he values his neighbour's
happiness than his own.
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