[113]
Is it
not so? In the most trifling affairs be who neglects a commission, must be condemned by
a most dishonouring sentence; in a matter of this importance, when he to whom the
character of the dead, the fortunes of the living have been recommended and entrusted,
loads the dead with ignominy and the living with poverty, shall he be reckoned among
honourable men, shall he even be reckoned a man at all? In trifling affairs, in affairs
of a private nature, even carelessness is accounted a crime, and is liable to a sentence
branding a man with infamy; because, if the commission be properly executed, the man who
has given the commission may feel at his ease and be careless about it: he who has
undertaken the commission may not. In so important an affair as this, which was done by
public order and so entrusted to him, what punishment ought to be inflicted on that man
who has not hindered some private advantage by his carelessness, but has polluted and
stained by his treachery the solemnity of the very commission itself? or by what
sentence shall he be condemned?
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