If they should be told, and
should believe the story, that, if they dare attempt to make their
condition better, they will infallibly make it worse,--that, if they aim
at obtaining liberty, they will have their slavery doubled,--that their
endeavor to put themselves upon anything which approaches towards an
equitable footing with their fellow-subjects will be considered as an
indication of a seditious and rebellious disposition,--such a view of
things ought perfectly to restore the gentlemen, who so anxiously
dissuade their countrymen from wishing a participation with the
privileged part of the people, to the good opinion of their fellows. But
what is to _them_ a very full justification is not quite so honorable to
that power from whose maxims and temper so good a ground of rational
terror is furnished. I think arguments of this kind will never be used
by the friends of a government which I greatly respect, or by any of the
leaders of an opposition whom I have the honor to know and the sense to
admire. I remember Polybius tells us, that, during his captivity in
Italy as a Peloponnesian hostage, he solicited old Cato to intercede
with the Senate for his release, and that of his countrymen: this old
politician told him that he had better continue in his present
condition, however irksome, than apply again to that formidable
authority for their relief; that he ought to imitate the wisdom of his
countryman Ulysses, who, when he was once out of the den of the Cyclops,
had too much sense to venture again into the same cavern.
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