Traters, I will here remark, are a onfortnit class of peple. If they wasn’t, they wouldn’t be traters. They conspire to bust up a country — they fail, and they’re traters. They bust her, and they become statesmen and heroes.

[Traitors, I will here remark, are an unfortunate class of people. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be traitors. They conspire to bust up a country — they fail, and they’re traitors. They bust her, and they become statesmen and heroes.]

Artemus Ward (1834-1867) American humorist, editor, lecturer [pseud. of Charles Farrar Browne]

“The Tower of London,” The Complete Works of Atermus Ward (1898)