THE FOWLER AND THE PARTRIDGE.
A Fowler having taken a Partridge in his nets, the bird begged hard for a reprieve, and promised the man, if he would let him go, to decoy the other Partridges into his snares. No, replies the Fowler, if I had before been undetermined what to do with you, now you have condemned yourself by your own words: for he who is such a scoundrel as to offer to betray his friends, to save himself, deserves if possible worse than death.
APPLICATION.
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!