that system, from the contagion of which apprehensions are entertained.

For my part I have long thought that one great cause of the stability of this wretched scheme of things in France was an opinion that it could not stand; and, therefore, that all external measures to destroy it were wholly useless.

cy.

As to the bankruptcy, that event has happened Bankruptlong ago, as much as it is ever likely to happen. As soon as a nation compels a creditor to take paper currency in discharge of his debt, there is a bankruptcy. The compulsory paper has in some degree answered; not because there was a surplus from church lands, but because faith has not been kept with the clergy. As to the holders of the old funds, to them the payments will be dilatory, but they will be made, and whatever may be the discount on paper, whilst paper is taken, paper will

be issued.

As to the rest, they have shot out three branches Resources. of revenue to supply all those which they have destroyed, that is, the Universal Register of all Transactions, the heavy and universal Stamp Duty, and the new Territorial Impost, levied chiefly on the reduced estates of the gentlemen. These branches of the revenue, especially as they take assignats in payment, answer their purpose in a considerable degree, and keep up the credit of their paper; for as they receive it in their treasury, it is in reality funded

.

funded upon all their taxes and future resources of all kinds, as well as upon the church estates. As this paper is become in a manner the only visible maintenance of the whole people, the dread of a bankruptcy is more apparently connected with the delay of a counter-revolution, than with the duration of this republick; because the interest of the new republick manifestly leans upon it; and, in my opinion, the counter-revolution cannot exist along with it. The above three projects ruined some ministers under the old government, merely for having conceived them. They are the salvation of the present rulers.

As the Assembly has laid a most unsparing and cruel hand on all men who have lived by the bounty, the justice, or the abuses, of the old government, they have lessened many expences. The royal establishment, though excessively and ridiculously great for their scheme of things, is reduced at least one half; the estates of the king's brothers, which under the ancient government had been in truth royal revenues, go to the general stock of the confiscation; and as to the crown lands, though, under the monarchy, they never yielded two hundred and fifty thousand a year, by many they are thought at least worth three times as much.

As to the ecclesiastical charge, whether as a compensation for losses, or a provision for religion, of which they made at first a great parade, and entered

entered into a solemn engagement in favour of it,
it was estimated at a much larger sum than they
could expect from the church property, movable
or immovable: they are completely bankrupt as
to that article. It is just what they wish; and it
is not productive of any serious inconvenience.
The non-payment produces discontent and occa-
sional sedition; but is only by fits and spasms,
and amongst the country people who are of no
These seditions furnish new pretexts
consequence.
for non-payment to the church establishment, and
help the Assembly wholly to get rid of the clergy,
and indeed of any form of religion, which is not
only their real, but avowed object.

They are embarrassed indeed in the highest de- Want of Money how gree, but not wholly resourceless. They are with- supplied. out the species of money. Circulation of money is a great convenience, but a substitute for it may be found. Whilst the great objects of production and consumption, corn, cattle, wine, and the like, exist in a country, the means of giving them circulation, with more or less convenience, cannot be wholly wanting. The great confiscation of the church and of the crown lands, and of the appendages of the princes, for the purchase of all which their paper is always received at par, gives means of continually destroying and continually creating, and this perpetual destruction and renovation feeds the speculative market, and prevents, and

VOL. VII.

E

will

།

terest not

to them.

will prevent, till that fund of confiscation begins to fail, a total depreciation.

Monied in- But all consideration of public credit in France necessary is of little avail at present. The action indeed of the monied interest was of absolute necessity at the beginning of this Revolution; but the French republick can stand without any assistance from that description of men, which, as things are now circumstanced, rather stands in need of assistance itself from the power which alone substantially exists in France; I mean the several districts and municipal republicks, and the several clubs which direct all their affairs and appoint all their magistrates. This is the power now paramount to every thing, even to the Assembly itself called National, and that to which tribunals, priesthood, laws, finances, and both descriptions of military power are wholly subservient, so far as the military power of either description yields obedience to any name of authority.

The world of contingency and political combination is much larger than we are apt to imagine. We never can say what may, or may not happen, without a view to all the actual circumstances. Experience, upon other data than those, is of all things the most delusive. Prudence in new cases can do nothing on grounds of retrospect. A constant vigilance and attention to the train of things as they successively emerge, and to act

on

on what they direct, are the only sure courses.
The physician that let blood, and by blood-let-
ting cured one kind of plague, in the next added
to its ravages.
That power goes with property is
not universally true, and the idea that the operation
of it is certain and invariable may mislead us very
fatally.

parated

perty.

Whoever will take an accurate view of the Power sestate of those republicks, and of the composition of from prothe present Assembly deputed by them (in which Assembly there are not quite fifty persons possessed of an income amounting to 1007. sterling yearly) must discern clearly, that the political and civil power of France is wholly separated from its property of every description; and of course that neither the landed nor the monied interest possesses the smallest weight or consideration in the direction of any publick concern. The whole kingdom is directed by the refuse of its chicane, with the aid of the bustling, presumptuous young clerks of counting-houses and shops, and some intermixture of young gentlemen of the same character in the several towns. The rich peasants are bribed with church lands; and the poorer of that description are, and can be, counted for nothing. They may rise in ferocious, ill-directed tumultsbut they can only disgrace themselves and signalize the triumph of their adversaries.

The truly active citizens, that is, the above de- Effect of scriptions, are all concerned in intrigue respecting

the rota.