Since The Fire, The Inhabitants Have Been Very Assiduously Employed
In Searching For Property Secreted During The Confusion; And It
Is
astonishing how many people, formerly termed reputable, had availed
themselves of the common calamity to purloin what the flames
Spared.
Others, expert at making a distinction without a difference,
concealed what they found, not troubling themselves to inquire for
the owners, though they scrupled to search for plunder anywhere, but
amongst the ruins.
To be honester than the laws require is by most people thought a
work of supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has
ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich
the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought
to great perfection by the statesman and swindler; and meaner knaves
are not tardy in following their footsteps.
It moves my gall to discover some of the commercial frauds practised
during the present war. In short, under whatever point of view I
consider society, it appears to me that an adoration of property is
the root of all evil. Here it does not render the people
enterprising, as in America, but thrifty and cautious. I never,
therefore, was in a capital where there was so little appearance of
active industry; and as for gaiety, I looked in vain for the
sprightly gait of the Norwegians, who in every respect appear to me
to have got the start of them. This difference I attribute to their
having more liberty - a liberty which they think their right by
inheritance, whilst the Danes, when they boast of their negative
happiness, always mention it as the boon of the Prince Royal, under
the superintending wisdom of Count Bernstorff.
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