If the mischiefs of this vice, in a public station, were confined to enriching only those particular persons employed, the evil would be more supportable; but it is usually quite otherwise.  When a steward defrauds his lord, he must connive at the rest of the servants, while they are following the same practice in their several spheres; so that in some families you may observe a subordination of knaves in a link downwards to the very helper in the stables, all cheating by concert, and with impunity:  And even if this were all, perhaps the master could bear it without being undone; but it so happens, that for every shilling the servant gets by his iniquity, the master loses twenty; the perquisites of servants being but small compositions for suffering shopkeepers to bring in what bills they please.[3] It is exactly the same thing in a state:  an avaricious man in office is in confederacy with the whole clan of his district or dependence, which in modern terms of art is called, “To live, and let live;” and yet their gains are the smallest part of the public’s loss.  Give a guinea to a knavish land-waiter, and he shall connive at the merchant for cheating the Queen of an hundred.  A brewer gives a bribe to have the privilege of selling drink to the Navy; but the fraud is ten times greater than the bribe, and the public is at the whole loss.[4]

Moralists make two kinds of avarice; that of Catiline, alieni appetens, sui profusus;[5] and the other more generally understood by that name; which is, the endless desire of hoarding:  But I take the former to be more dangerous in a state, because it mingles well with ambition, which I think the latter cannot; for though the same breast may be capable of admitting both, it is not able to cultivate them; and where the love of heaping wealth prevails, there is not in my opinion, much to be apprehended from ambition.  The disgrace of that sordid vice is sooner apt to spread than any other, and is always attended with the hatred and scorn of the people:  so that whenever those two passions happen to meet in the same subject, it is not unlikely that Providence hath placed avarice to be a check upon ambition; and I have reason to think, some great ministers of state have been of my opinion.

The divine authority of Holy Writ, the precepts of philosophers, the lashes and ridicule of satirical poets, have been all employed in exploding this insatiable thirst of money, and all equally controlled by the daily practice of mankind.  Nothing new remains to be said upon the occasion, and if there did, I must remember my character, that I am an Examiner only, and not a Reformer.

However, in those cases where the frailties of particular men do nearly affect the public welfare, such as a prime minister of state, or a great general of an army; methinks there should be some expedient contrived, to let them know impartially what is the world’s opinion in the point:  Encompassed with a crowd of depending flatterers, they are many degrees blinder to their own faults than the common infirmities of human nature can plead in their excuse; Advice dares not be offered, or is wholly lost, or returned with hatred:  and whatever appears in public against their prevailing vice, goes for nothing; being either not applied, or passing only for libel and slander, proceeding from the malice and envy of a party.