ground there is for their affignats, which they have not pre-occupied by other charges. They do injuftice to that great, mother fraud, to compare it with their degenerate imitation. It is not true, that Law built folely on a fpeculation concerning the Miffiffippi. He added the Eaft India trade; he added the African trade; he added the farms of all the farmed revenue of France. All these together unquestionably could not fupport the ftructure which the public enthufiafm, not he, chofe to build upon thefe bafes. But thefe were, however, in comparifon, generous delufions. They fuppofed, and they aimed at an increase of the commerce of France. They opened to it the whole range of the two hemifpheres. They did not think of feeding France from its own fubftance. A grand imagination found in this flight of commerce fomething to captivate. It was wherewithal to dazzle the eye of an eagle. It was not made to entice the smell of a mole, nuzzling and burying himself in his mother earth, as yours is. Men were not then quite fhrunk from their natural dimenfions by a degrading and fordid philofophy, and fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above all remember, that in impofing on the imagination, the then managers of the fyftem made a compliment to the freedom of men. their fraud there was no mixture of force. This was referved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reafon which might break in upon the folid darkness of this enlightened age. In On recollection, I have faid nothing of a scheme of finance which may be urged in favour of the abilities of thefe gentlemen, and which has been introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally adopted adopted in the national affembly. It comes with fomething folid in aid of the credit of the paper circulation; and much has been faid of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into money the bells of the fuppreffed churches.. This is their alchymy. There are fome follies which baffle argument; which go beyond ridicule; and which excite no feeling in us but difguft; and therefore I fay no more upon it. It is as little worth remarking any farther upon all their drawing and re-drawing, on their circulation for putting off the evil day, on the play between the treafury and the Caiffe d'Efcompte, and on all thefe old exploded contrivances of mercantile fraud, now exalted into policy of state. The revenue will not be trifled with. The prattling about the rights of men will not be accepted in payment for a biscuit or a pound of gunpowder. Here then the metaphyficians defcend from their airy fpeculations, and faithfully follow examples. What examples? the examples of bankrupts. But, defeated, baffled, disgraced, when their breath, their strength, their inventions, their fancies defert them, their confidence ftill maintains its ground. In the manifest failure of their abilities they take credit for their benevolence. When the revenue disappears in their hands, they have the prefumption, in some of their late proceedings, to value themselves on the relief given to the people. They did not relieve the people. If they entertained fuch intentions, why did they order the obnoxious taxes to be paid? The people relieved themselves in fpite of the affembly. But waving all difcuffion on the parties, who may claim the merit of this fallacious relief, has there there been, in effect, any relief to the people in any form.? Mr. Bailly, one of the grand agents of paper circulation, lets you into the nature of this relief. His fpeech to the National Affembly contained an high and laboured panegyric on the inhabitants of Paris for the conftancy and unbroken resolution with which they have borne their diftrefs and mifery. A fine picture of public felicity! What! great courage and unconquerable firmness of mind to endure benefits, and fuftain redress! One would think from the speech of this learned Lord Mayor, that the Parisians, for this twelvemonth past, had been fuffering the ftraits of fome dreadful blockade; that Henry the Fourth had been stopping up the avenues to their fupply, and Sully thundering with his ordnance at the gates of Paris; when in reality they are befieged by no other enemies than their own madness and folly, their own credulity and perverfeness. But Mr. Bailly will fooner thaw the eternal ice of his atlantic regions, than reftore the central heat to Paris, whilft it remains "finitten with the cold, dry, petrifick mace" of a falfe and unfeeling philofophy. Some time after this speech, that is, on the thirteenth of last Auguft, the fame magiftrate, giving an account of his government at the bar of the fame affembly, expreffes himself as follows: "In the month "of July 1789," [the period of everlasting commemoration]" the finances of the city of Paris were yet in good order; the expenditure was "counterbalanced by the receipt, and she had at "that time a million [forty thousand pounds fterling] in bank. The expences which the has been "conftrained "conftrained to incur, fubfequent to the revolution, amount to 2,500,000 livres. From these expences, and the great falling off in the product " of the free gifts, not only a momentary but a "total want of money has taken place." This is the Paris upon whofe nourishment, in the courfe of the last year, such immense fums, drawn from the vitals of all France, has been expended. As long as Paris ftands in the place of antient Rome, fo long fhe will be maintained by the fubject provinces. It is an evil inevitably attendant on the dominion of fovereign democratic republics. As it happened in Rome, it may furvive that republican domination which gave rife to it. In that cafe defpotifin itself muft fubmit to the vices of popularity. Rome, under her emperors, united the evils of both fyftems; and this unnatural combination was one great cause of her ruin. To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public eftate, is a cruel and infolent impofition. Statefinen, before they valued themselves on the relief given to the people, by the deftruction of their revenue, ought first to have carefully attended to the solution of this problem:Whether it be more advantageous to the people to pay confiderably, and to gain in proportion; or to gain little or nothing, and to be difburthened of all contribution? My mind is made up to decide in favour of the first propofition. Experience is with me, and, I believe, the best opinions alfo. To keep a balance between the power of acquifition on the part of the fubject, and the demands he is to anfwer on the part of the ftate, is a fundamental part of the skill of a true poli tician. tician. The means of acquifition are prior in time, and in arrangement. Good order is the foundation of all good things. To be enabled to acquire, the people, without being fervile, muft be tractable and obedient. The magistrate must have his reverence, the laws their authority. The body of the people muft not find the principles of natural fubordination by art rooted out of their minds. They must respect that property of which they cannot partake. They must labour to obtain what by labour can be obtained; and when they find, as they commonly do, the fuccefs difproportioned to the endeavour, they must be taught their confolation in the final proportions of eternal juftice. Of this confolation, whoever deprives them, deadens their industry, and ftrikes at the root of all acquifition as of all confervation. He that does this is the cruel oppreffor, the merciless enemy of the poor and wretched; at the fame time that by his wicked fpeculations he expofes the fruits of fuccefsful induftry, and the accumulations of fortune, to the plunder of the negligent, the difappointed, and the unprofperous. Too many of the financiers by profeffion are apt to fee nothing in revenue, but banks, and circulations, and annuities on lives, and tontines, and perpetual rents, and all the small wares of the fhop. In a fettled order of the state, these things are not to be flighted, nor is the skill in them to be held of trivial estimation. They are good, but then only good, when they affume the effects of that fettled or der, and are built upon it. But when men think that thefe beggarly contrivances may supply a refource for the evils which refult from breaking up the foundations 3 |