prodigies of population. I never will suppose that fabrick of a state to be the worst of all political inftitutions, which, by experience, is found to contain a principle favourable (however latent it may be) to the encrease of mankind.

The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible ftandard, by which we may judge whether, on the whole, a government be protecting or destructive. France far exceeds England in the multitude of her people; but I apprehend that her comparative wealth is much inferior to ours; that it is not fo equal in the diftribution, nor fo ready in the circulation. I believe the difference in the form of the two governments to be amongst the causes of this advantage on the fide of England. I fpeak of England, not of the whole British dominions; which, if compared with those of France, will, in fome degree, weaken the comparative rate of wealth upon our fide. But that wealth, which will not endure a comparison with the riches of England, may conftitute a very refpectable degree of opulence. Mr. Necker's book published in 1785*, contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts relative to public œconomy and to political arithmetic; and his fpeculations on the fubject are general wife and liberal. In that work he gives an idea of the state of France, very remote from the portrait of a country whofe government was a perfect grievance, an abfolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain remedy of a total revolution.

De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par M. Necker.

He

He affirms, that from the year 1726 to the year 1784, there was coined at the mint of France, in the fpecies of gold and filver, to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds fterling*.

It is impoffible that Mr. Necker fhould be mif'taken in the amount of the bullion which has been coined in the mint. It is a matter of official record. The reafonings of this able financier, concerning the quantity of gold and filver which remained for circulation, when he wrote in 1785, that is about four years before the depofition and imprisonment of the French King, are not of equal certainty; but they are laid on grounds so apparently folid, that it is not easy to refuse a confiderable degree of affent to his calculation. He calculates the numeraire, or what we call fpecie, then actually exifting in France, at about eighty-eight millions of the fame English money. A great accumulation of wealth for one country, large as that country is! Mr. Necker was fo far from confidering this influx of wealth as likely to ceafe, when he wrote in 1785, that he prefumes upon a future annual increase of two per cent. upon the money brought into France during the periods from which he computed.

Some adequate caufe must have originally introduced all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom; and fome caufe as operative muft have kept at home, or returned into its bofom, fuch a vaft flood of treasure as Mr. Necker calculates to remain for domeftic circulation. Suppose any reasonable deductions from M. Necker's com

Vol. iii. chap. 8. and chap. 9.

putation;

putation; the remainder muft ftill amount to an immense fum. Caufes thus powerful to acquire and to retain, cannot be found in difcouraged industry, insecure property, and a positively deftructive government. Indeed, when I confider the face of the kingdom of France; the multitude and opulence of her cities; the ufeful magnifience of her spacious high roads and bridges; the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations opening the conveniences of maritime communication through a folid continent of fo immenfe an extent; when I turn my eyes to the ftupendous works of her ports and harbours, and to her whole naval apparatus, whether for war or trade; when I bring before my view the number of her fortifications, conftructed with fo bold and masterly a skill, and made and maintained at fo prodigious a charge, prefenting an armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies upon every fide; when I recollect how very small a part of that extenfive region is without cultivation, and to what complete perfection the culture of many of the best productions of the earth have been brought in France; when I reflect on the excellence of her manufactures and fabrics, fecond to none but ours, and in fome particulars not fecond; when I contemplate the grand foundations of charity, public and private; when I furvey the ftate of all the arts that beautify and polifh life; when I reckon the men fhe has bred for extending her fame in war, her able statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers and theologians, her philofophers, her critics, her historians and antiquaries, her poets, and her orators facred

6

facred and profane, I behold in all this fomething which awes and commands the imagination, which checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indifcriminate cenfure, and which demands, that we should very seriously examine, what and how great are the latent vices that could authorife us at once to level fo fpecious a fabric with the ground. I do not recognize, in this view of things, the defpotifm of Turkey. Nor do I difcern the character of a government that has been, on the whole, fo oppreffive, or fo corrupt, or fo negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. I must think such a government well deserved to have its excellencies heightened; its faults corrected; and its capacities improved into a British constitution.

Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that depofed government for feveral years back, cannot fail to have obferved, amidst the inconftancy and fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavour towards the profperty and improvement of the country; he must admit, that it had long been employed, in some instances, wholly to remove, in many confiderably to correct, the abufive practices and usages that had prevailed in the ftate; and that even the unlimited power of the fovereign over the perfons of his fubjects, inconfiftent, as undoubtedly it was, with law and liber

ty, had yet been every day growing more mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation, that government was open, with a cenfurable degree of facility, to all forts of projects and projectors on the fubject. Rather too much countenance was given to the fpirit of innovation, O 2 which

which foon was turned against thofe who foftered it, and ended in their ruin. It is but cold, and no very flattering juftice to that fallen monarchy, to fay, that, for many years, it trefpaffed more by levity and want of judgment in feveral of its fchemes, than from any defect in diligence or in public fpirit. To compare the government of France for the laft fifteen or fixteen years with wife and well-conftituted establishments, during that, or during any period, is not to act with fairnefs. But if in point of prodigality in the expenditure of money, or in point of rigour in the exercise of power, it be compared with any of the former reigns, I believe candid judges will give little credit to the good intentions of those who dwell perpetually on the donations to favourites, or on the expences of the court, or on the horrors of. the Baftile in the reign of Louis the XVIth.

Whether the fyftem, if it deferves fuch a name, now built on the ruins of that antient monarchy, will be able to give a better account of the population and wealth of the country, which it has taken under its care, is a matter very doubtful. Inftead of improving by the change, I apprehend that a long series of years must be told before it can recover in any degree the effects of this philofophic revolution, and before the nation can be replaced on its former footing. If Dr. Price fhould think fit, a few years hence, to favour us with an estimate of the population of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale of thirty millions of fouls, as computed in 1789, or the affembly's computation of twenty-fix millions of that year; or even Mr. Necker's