488 
INSTANCES OF CLEMENCY. 
all manner of crimes. The people appeared to have a right to demand 
the blood of all accomplices in such notorious malversations, and 
even the interest of the state seemed to authorize such a claim, that, 
by exemplary severities, such enormous crimes might be prevented 
for the future. But Thrasybulus, rising above those sentiments, from 
the superiority of his more extensive genius, and the views of a more 
discerning and profound policy, foresaw, that by punishing the 
guilty, eternal seeds of discord and enmity would remain, to weaken 
the public by intestine divisions, when it was necessary to unite 
against the common enemy ; and would also occasion the loss, to the 
state, of many citizens, which might render important services, from 
the view of making amends for past misbehaviour. 
Cardinal Mazarine observed to Don Lewis de Haro, prime minister 
of Spain, that “ the gentle and humane conduct in the government of 
France had prevented the troubles and revolts of that kingdom from 
having any fatal consequences, and that the king had not lost a foot 
of ground by them to that day; whereas the inflexible severity of the 
Spaniards w'as the occasion that the subjects of that monarchy, when- 
ever they threw^ off the mask, never returned to their obedience but 
by the force of arms ; which sufficiently appears, added he, in the 
example of the Hollanders, who are in the peaceable possession of 
many provinces, that not an age ago were the patrimony of the king 
of Spain.” 
Leonidas, the heroic king of Sparta, with only three hundred men, 
disputed the pass of Thermopylae against the whole army of Xerxes ; 
and being killed in the engagement, Xerxes, by the advice of Mardonius,. 
one of his generals, caused his dead body to be hung upon a gallows, 
making thereby the intended dishonour of his enemy his own immortal 
shame. But some time after, Xerxes being defeated, and Mardonius 
slain, one of the principal citizens of ^gina came and addressed himself 
to Pausanias, desiring him to avenge the indignity that Mardonius and 
Xerxes had shewn to Leonidas, by treating Mardonius’s body after 
the same manner. He added, that by satisfying the manes of those 
who were killed at Thermopylze, he would be sure to immortalize 
his own name throughout Greece, and make his memory precious to 
the latest posterity. “ Carry thy base counsels elsewhere,” replied 
Pausanias ; “ thou must have a very wrong notion of true glory, to 
imagine that the way for me to acquire it is to resemble the barba- 
rians, If the esteem of the people of ^gina is not to be purchased 
but by such a proceeding, I shall be content with preserving that of 
the Lacedaemonians only, amongst whom the base and ungenerous 
pleasure of revenge is never put in competition with that of shewing 
clemency and moderation to their enemies, especially after their 
death. As for the souls of my departed countrymen, they are 
sufficiently avenged by the death of many thousands of the Persians 
slain upon the spot, in the last engagement.” 
Maternal Affection. 
( From M. de Humhold's Travels. 
In 1797, the missionary of San Fernando had led his Indians to 
the banks of the Kio Guaviare, on one of those hostile incursions^ 
