the contrary, I behold with aftonishment, rifing before me, by the very hands of arbitrary power, and in the very midst of war and confufion, a regular, methodical fyftem of public credit; I behold a fabric laid on the natural and folid foundations of truft and confidence among men; and rifing, by fair gradations, order over order, according to the just rules of fymmetry and art. What a reverse of things! Principle, method, regularity, ceconomy, frugality, juftice to individuals, and care of the people, are the resources with which France makes war upon Great Britain. God avert the omen! But if we should fee any genius in war and politics arife in France, to fecond what is done in the bureau !—I turn my eyes from the confequences.

tax.

The noble lord in the blue ribbon, laft year, treated all this with contempt. He never could conceive it poffible that the French minifter of finance could go through that year with a loan of but seventeen hundred thousand pounds; and that he should be able to fund that loan without any The fecond year, however, opens the very fame scene. A small loan, à loan of no more than two millions five hundred thousand pounds, is to carry our enemies through the service of this year alfo. No tax is raised to fund that debt; no tax is raised for the current fervices. I am credibly informed that there is no anticipation whatfoever. * Compenfations are correctly made. Old debts continue to be funk as in the time of profound peace. Even payments which their treasury had been authorized to fufpend during the time of war, are not suspended.

A general reform, executed through every department of the revenue, creates an annual income of more than half a million, whilft it facilitates and fimplifies all the

*This term comprehends various retributions made to perfons whofe offices are taken away, or who, in any other way, fuffer by the new arrangements that are made.

§

functions

functions of administration. The king's household-at the remotest avenues to which, all reformation has been hitherto stopped—that household, which has been the strong hold of prodigality, the virgin fortrefs which was never before attacked--has been not only not defended, but it has, even in the forms, been furrendered by the king to the œconomy of his minifter. No capitulation; no referve. Economy has entered in triumph into the public fplendor of the monarch, into his private amusements, into the appointments of his nearest and highest relations. Economy and public spirit have made a beneficent and an honest spoil; they have plundered, from extravagance and luxury, for the use of fubftantial fervice, a revenue of near four hundred thoufand pounds. The reform of the finances, joined to this reform of the court, gives to the public nine hundred thousand pounds a year and upwards.

The minister who does these things is a great man—But the king who defires that they should be done, is a far greater. We must do justice to our enemies-These are the acts of a patriot king. I am not in dread of the vast armies of France: I am not in dread of the gallant fpirit of its brave and numerous nobility: I am not alarmed even at the great navy which has been fo miraculoufly created. All thefe things Louis the fourteenth had before. With all these things, the French monarchy has more than once fallen proftrate at the feet of the public faith of Great Britain. It was the want of public credit which difabled France from recovering after her defeats, or recovering even from her victories and triumphs. It was a prodigal court, it was an ill-ordered revenue, that fapped the foundations of all her greatness. Credit cannot exist under the arm of neceffity. Neceffity ftrikes at credit, I allow, with a heavier and quicker blow under an arbitrary monarchy,

than

than under a limited and balanced government: but still neceffity and credit are natural enemies, and cannot be long reconciled in any fituation. From neceffity and corruption, a free state may lose the spirit of that complex constitution which is the foundation of confidence. On the other hand, I am far from being fure, that a monarchy, when once it is properly regulated, may not for a long time, furnish a foundation for credit upon the folidity of its maxims, though it affords no ground of truft in its inftitutions. I am afraid I fee in England, and in France, fomething like a beginning of both these things. I wish I may be found in a mistake.

This very short, and very imperfect state of what is now going on in France (the laft circumstances of which I received in about eight days after the registry of the * edict) I do not, Sir, lay before you for any invidious purpose. It is in order to excite in us the spirit of a noble emulation.Let the nations make war upon each other (fince we must make war) not with a low and vulgar malignity, but by a competition of virtues. This is the only way by which both parties can gain by war. The French have imitated us; let us, through them, imitate ourselves; ourselves in our better and happier days. If public frugality, under whatever men, or in whatever mode of government, is national strength, it is a ftrength which our enemies are in poffeffion of before us.

Sir, I am well aware, that the ftate and the refult of the French œconomy which I have laid before you, are even now lightly treated by fome, who ought never to speak but from information. Pains have not been spared, to represent them as impofitions on the public. Let me tell you, Sir, that the creation of a navy, and a two years war without taxing, are a very fingular species of imposture. But be it Edict, registered 29th January, 1780. B b

VOL. II.

fo.

fo. For what end does Neckar carry on this delufion? Is it to lower the 'eftimation of the crown he ferves, and to render his own administration contemptible? No! No! He is confcious, that the fenfe of mankind is fo clear and decided in favour of economy, and of the weight and value of its refources, that he turns himself to every fpecies of fraud and artifice, to obtain the mere reputation of it. Men do not affect a conduct that tends to their difcredit. Let us, then, get the better of Monfieur Neckar in his own way-Let us do in reality what he does only in pretence.Let us turn his French tinfel into English gold. Is then the meer opinion and appearance of frugality and good management of fuch ufe to France, and is the fubftance to be fo mifchievous to England? Is the very constitution of nature fo altered by a fea of twenty miles, that œconomy fhould give power on the continent, and that profufion should give it here? For God's fake let not this be the only fashion of France which we refufe to copy.

To the last kind of neceffity, the defires of the people, I have but a very few words to fay. The minifters feem to contest this point; and affect to doubt, whether the people do really defire a plan of economy in the civil government. Sir, this is too ridiculous. It is impoffible that they should not defire it. It is impoffible that a prodigality which draws its refources from their indigence, should be pleafing to them. Little factions of penfioners, and their dependants, may talk another language. But the voice of nature is against them; and it will be heard. The people of England will not, they cannot take it kindly, that reprefentatives fhould refufe to their conftituents,, what an absolute fovereign voluntarily offers to his fubjects. The expreffion of the petitions is, that "before any new bur"thens are laid upon this country, effectual measures be

"taken

"taken by this house, to enquire into, and correct, the grofs "abufes in the expenditure of public money."

This has been treated by the noble lord in the blue ribbon, as a wild factious language. It happens, however, that the people in their address to us, use almost word for word the fame terms as the king of France uses in addresfing himself to his people; and it differs only, as it falls short of the French king's idea of what is due to his fubjects. "To convince," fays he, "our faithful fubjects of "the defire we entertain not to recur to new impofitions, un"til we have firft exhaufted all the refources which order "and œconomy can poffibly fupply."-&c. &c.

These desires of the people of England, which come far short of the voluntary conceffions of the king of France, are moderate indeed. They only contend that we fhould interweave fome economy with the taxes with which we have chofen to begin the war. They request, not that you should rely upon œconomy exclufively, but that you should give it rank and precedence, in the order of the ways and means of this fingle feffion.

But if it were poffible, that the defires of our conftituents, defires which are at once fo natural, and so very much tempered and fubdued, fhould have no weight with an house of commons, which has its eye elsewhere; I would turn my eyes to the very quarter to which theirs are directed. I would reason this matter with the house, on the mere policy of the queftion; and I would undertake to prove, that an early dereliction of abufe, is the direct interest of government; of government taken abstractedly from its duties, and confidered merely as a fystem intending its own confervation.

If there is any one eminent criterion, which, above all the reft, distinguishes a wife government from an admini