which serve as well for the conveniences as necessaries
of life. The third is to employ hands for the
exportation of the redundance of our own commodities,
and to exchange them with the redundances of foreign
nations, that thus every soil and every climate may
enjoy the fruits of the whole earth. The gentleman
is, by employing hands, likewise to embellish his
country with the improvement of art and sciences,
with the making and executing good and wholesome laws
for the preservation of property and the distribution
of justice, and in several other manners to be useful
to society. Now we come to the second part of
this division,
viz., of those who employ hands
for their own use only; and this is that noble and
great part who are generally distinguished into conquerors,
absolute princes, statesmen, and prigs [Footnote:
Thieves.]. Now all these differ from each other
in greatness only—they employ
more
or
fewer hands. And Alexander the Great
was only
greater than a captain of one of the
Tartarian or Arabian hordes, as he was at the head
of a larger number. In what then is a single
prig inferior to any other great man, but because
he employs his own hands only; for he is not on that
account to be levelled with the base and vulgar, because
he employs his hands for his own use only. Now,
suppose a prig had as many tools as any prime minister
ever had, would he not be as great as any prime minister
whatsoever? Undoubtedly he would. What then
have I to do in the pursuit of greatness but to procure
a gang, and to make the use of this gang centre in
myself? This gang shall rob for me only, receiving
very moderate rewards for their actions; out of this
gang I will prefer to my favour the boldest and most
iniquitous (as the vulgar express it); the rest I
will, from time to time, as I see occasion, transport
and hang at my pleasure; and thus (which I take to
be the highest excellence of a prig) convert those
laws which are made for the benefit and protection
of society to my single use.”
Having thus preconceived his scheme, he saw nothing
wanting to put it in immediate execution but that
which is indeed the beginning as well as the end of
all human devices: I mean money. Of which
commodity he was possessed of no more than sixty-five
guineas, being all that remained from the double benefits
he had made of Bagshot, and which did not seem sufficient
to furnish his house, and every other convenience
necessary for so grand an undertaking. He resolved,
therefore, to go immediately to the gaming-house,
which was then sitting, not so much with an intention
of trusting to fortune as to play the surer card of
attacking the winner in his way home. On his
arrival, however, he thought he might as well try
his success at the dice, and reserve the other resource
as his last expedient. He accordingly sat down
to play; and as Fortune, no more than others of her
sex, is observed to distribute her favours with strict
regard to great mental endowments, so our hero lost