Wesley Corpus

Therefore every smuggler is a thief-general, who picks the pockets both of the King and all his fellow-subjects. He wrongs them all; and, above all, the honest traders; many of whom he deprives of their maintenance; constraining them either not to sell their goods at all, or to sell them to no profit. Some of them are tempted hereby, finding they cannot get bread for their families, to turn thieves too. And then you are accountable for their sin as well as your own; you bring their blood upon your own head. Calmly consider this, and you will never more ask what harm there is in smuggling. III. 1. But for all this, cannot men find excuses for it? Yes, abundance; such as they are. “I would not do this,” says one, “I would not sell uncustomed goods, but I am under a necessity: I cannot live without it.” I answer, May not the man who stops you on the highway say the very same? “I would not take your purse; but I am under a necessity: I cannot live without it.” Suppose the case to be your own; and will you accept of this excuse? Would not you tell him, “Let the worst come to the worst, you had better be honest, though you should starve.” But that need not be, neither. Others who had no more than you to begin with, yet find a way to live honestly; and certainly so may you: However, settle it in your heart, “Live or die, I will be an honest man.” 2. “Nay,” says another, “we do not wrong the King; for he loses nothing by us. Yea, on the contrary, the King is rather a gainer; namely, by the seizures that are made.” So you plunder the King, out of stark love and kindness t You rob him to make him rich ! It is true, you take away his purse; but you put an heavier in its place | Are you serious? Do you mean what you say? Look me in the face, and tell me so. You cannot. You know in your own conscience that what comes to the King out of all seizures made the year round, does not amount to the tenth, no, not to the hundredth, part of what he is defrauded of.