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The Czar found employment sufficient in his own
dominions, and amused himself in digging canals,
and building cities: murdering his subjects with
insufferable fatigues, and transplanting nations from
one corner of his dominions to another, without
regretting the thousands that perished on the
way: but he attained his end, he made his people
formidable, and is numbered by fame among the
demigods.
I am far from intending to vindicate the sanguinary
projects of heroes and conquerors, and would
wish rather to diminish the reputation of their
success, than the infamy of their miscarriages: for I
cannot conceive, why he that has burned cities, wasted
nations, and filled the world with horrour and
desolation, should be more kindly regarded by mankind,
than he that died in the rudiments of wickedness;
why he that accomplished mischief should be glorious,
and he that only endeavoured it should be criminal.
I would wish Caesar and Catiline, Xerxes and
Alexander, Charles and Peter, huddled together in
obscurity or detestation.
But there is another species of projectors, to whom
I would willingly conciliate mankind; whose ends
are generally laudable, and whose labours are
innocent; who are searching out new powers of nature,
or contriving new works of art; but who are yet
persecuted with incessant obloquy, and whom the
universal contempt with which they are treated,
often debars from that success which their industry
would obtain, if it were permitted to act without
opposition.
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