hriving so easy and certain as to grow
rich by defrauding the public; for public thieveries are more safe and
less prosecuted than private, like robberies committed between sun and
sun, which the county pays and no one is greatly concerned in; and as
the monster of many heads has less wit in them all than any one
reasonable person, so the monster of many purses is easier cheated than
any one indifferent, crafty fool. For all the difficulty lies in being
trusted, and when he has obtained that, the business does itself; and if
he should happen to be questioned and called to an account, a pardon is
as cheap as a paymaster's fee, not above fourteenpence in the pound.

He thinks that when a man comes to wealth or preferment, and is to put
on a new person, his first business is to put off all his old
friendships and acquaintances, as things below him and no way consistent
with his present condition, especially such as may have occasion to make
use of him or have reason to expect any civil returns from him; for
requiting of obligations received in a man's necessity is the same thing
with paying of debts contracted in his minority when he was under age,
for which he is not accountable by the laws of the land. These he is to
forget as fast as he can, and by little neglects remove them to that
distance that they may at length by his example learn to forget him, for
men who travel together in company when their occasions lie several ways
ought to take leave and part. It is a hard matter for a man that comes
to preferment not to forget himself, and therefore he may very well be
allowed to take the freedom to forget others; for advancement, like the
conversion of a sinner, gives a man new values of things and persons, so
different from those he had before that that which was wont to be most
dear to him does commonly after become the most disagreeable; and as it
is accounted noble to forget and pass over little injuries, so it is to
forget little friendships, that are no better than injuries when they
become disparagements, and can only be importune and troublesome instead
of being useful, as they were before. All Acts of Oblivion have, of late
times, been found to extend rather to loyal and faithful services done
than rebellion and treasons committed. For benefits are like flowers,
sweet only and fresh when they are newly gathered, but stink when they
grow stale and wither; and he only is ungrateful who makes returns of
obligations,