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Part XVI.
Part XVI.
We are next to see how they have conducted themselves in contriving equal
impositions, proportioned to the means of the citizens, and the least likely
to lean heavy on the active capital employed in the generation of that private
wealth, from whence the public fortune must be derived. By suffering the
several districts, and several of the individuals in each district, to judge
of what part of the old revenue they might withhold, instead of better
principles of equality, a new inequality was introduced of the most oppressive
kind. Payments were regulated by dispositions. The parts of the kingdom which
were the most submissive, the most orderly, or the most affectionate to the
commonwealth, bore the whole burthen of the state. Nothing turns out to be so
oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. To fill up all the deficiencies
in the old impositions, and the new deficiencies of every kind which were to
be expected, what remained to a state without authority? The National Assembly
called for a voluntary benevolence; for a fourth part of the income of all the
citizens, to be estimated on the honour of those who were to pay. They
obtained something more than could be rationally calculated, but what was far
indeed from answerable to their real necessities, and much less to their fond
expectations. Rational people could have hoped for little from this their tax
in the disguise of a benevolence; a tax weak, ineffective, and unequal; a tax
by which luxury, avarice, and selfishness were screened, and the load thrown
upon productive capital, upon integrity, generosity, and public spirit - a tax
of regulation upon virtue. At length the mask is thrown off, and they are now
trying means (with little success) of exacting their benevolence by force.
This benevolence, the ricketty offspring of weakness, was to be supported
by another resource, the twin brother of the same prolific imbecility. The
patriotic donations were to make good the failure of the patriotic
contribution. John Doe was to become security for Richard Roe. By this scheme
they took things of much price from the giver, comparatively of small value to
the receiver; they ruined several trades; they pillaged the crown of its
ornaments, the churches of their plate, and the people of their personal
decorations. The invention of these juvenile pretenders to liberty was in
reality nothing more than a servile imitation of one of the poorest resources
of doting despotism. They took an old huge full-bottomed periwig out of the
wardrobe of the antiquated frippery of Louis the Fourteenth, to cover the
premature baldness of the National Assembly. They produced this old-fashioned
formal folly, though it had been so abundantly exposed in the Memoirs of the
Duke de St. Simon, if to reasonable men it had wanted any arguments to display
its mischief and insufficiency. A device of the same kind was tried in my
memory by Louis the Fifteenth, but it answered at no time. However, the
necessities of ruinous wars were some excuse for desperate projects. The
deliberations of calamity are rarely wise. But here was a season for
disposition and providence. It was in a time of profound peace, then enjoyed
for five years, and promising a much longer continuance, that they had
recourse to this desperate trifling. They were sure to lose more reputation by
sporting, in their serious situation, with these toys and playthings of
finance, which have filled half their journals, than could possibly be
compensated by the poor temporary supply which they afforded. It seemed as if
those who adopted such projects were wholly ignorant of their circumstances,
or wholly unequal to their necessities. Whatever virtue may be in these
devices, it is obvious that neither the patriotic gifts, nor the patriotic
contribution, can ever be resorted to again. The resources of public folly are
soon exhausted. The whole indeed of their scheme of revenue is to make, by any
artifice, an appearance of a full reservoir for the hour, whilst at the same
time they cut off the springs and living fountains of perennial supply. The
account not long since furnished by M. Necker was meant, without question, to
be favourable. He gives a flattering view of the means of getting through the
year; but he expresses, as it is natural he should, some apprehension for that
which was to succeed. On this last prognostic, instead of entering into the
grounds of this apprehension, in order, by a proper foresight, to prevent the
prognosticated evil, M. Necker receives a sort of friendly reprimand from the
president of the Assembly.
As to their other schemes of taxation, it is impossible to say anything
of them with certainty; because they have not yet had their operation; but
nobody is so sanguine as to imagine they will fill up any perceptible part of
the wide gaping breach which their incapacity has made in their revenues. At
present the state of their treasury sinks every day more and more in cash, and
swells more and more in fictitious representation. When so little within or
without is now found but paper, the representative not of opulence but of
want, the creature not of credit but of power, they imagine that our
flourishing state in England is owing to that bank-paper, and not the
bank-paper to the flourishing condition of our commerce, to the solidity of
our credit, and to the total exclusion of all idea of power from any part of
the transaction. They forget that, in England, not one shilling of paper-money
of any description is received but of choice; that the whole has had its
original in cash actually deposited; and that it is convertible at pleasure,
in an instant, and without the smallest loss, into cash again. Our paper is of
value in commerce, because in law it is of none. It is powerful on `Change,
because in Westminster Hall it is impotent. In payment of a debt of twenty
shillings, a creditor may refuse all the paper of the bank of England. Nor is
there amongst us a single public security, of any quality or nature
whatsoever, that is enforced by authority. In fact it might be easily shown,
that our paper wealth, instead of lessening the real coin, has a tendency to
increase it; instead of being a substitute for money, it only facilitates its
entry, its exit, and its circulation; that it is the symbol of prosperity, and
not the badge of distress. Never was a scarcity of cash, and an exuberance of
paper, a subject of complaint in this nation.
Well! but a lessening of prodigal expenses, and the economy which has
been introduced by the virtuous and sapient Assembly, make amends for the
losses sustained in the receipt of revenue. In this at least they have
fulfilled the duty of a financier. - Have those, who say so, looked at the
expenses of the National Assembly itself? of the municipalities ? of the city
of Paris? of the increased pay of the two armies? of the new police? of the
new judicatures? Have they even carefully compared the present pension list
with the former? These politicians have been cruel, not economical. Comparing
the expense of the former prodigal government and its relation to the then
revenues with the expenses of this new system as opposed to the state of its
new treasury, I believe the present will be found beyond all comparison more
chargeable. ^55
[Footnote 55: The reader will observe, that I have but lightly touched (my
plan demanded nothing more) on the condition of the French finances, as
connected with the demands upon them. If I had intended to do otherwise, the
materials in my hands for such a task are not altogether perfect. On this
subject I refer the reader to M. de Calonne`s work; and the tremendous display
that he has made of the havoc and devastation in the public estate, and in all
the affairs of France, caused by the presumptuous good intentions of ignorance
and incapacity. Such effects those causes will always produce. Looking over
that account with a pretty str ct eye, and, with perhaps too much rigour,
deducting everything which may be placed to the account of a financier out of
place, who might be supposed by his enemies desirous of making the most of his
cause, I believe it will be found, that a more salutary lesson of caution
against the daring spirit of innovators, than what has been supplied at the
expense of France, never was at any time furnished to mankind.]
It remains only to consider the proofs of financial ability, furnished by
the present French managers when they are to raise supplies on credit. Here I
am a little at a stand; for credit, properly speaking, they have none. The
credit of the ancient government was not indeed the best; but they could
always, on some terms, command money, not only at home, but from most of the
countries of Europe where a surplus capital was accumulated; and the credit of
that government was improving daily. The establishment of a system of liberty
would of course be supposed to give it new strength: and so it would actually
have done, if a system of liberty had been established. What offers has their
government of pretended liberty had from Holland, from Hamburgh, from
Switzerland, from Genoa, from England, for a dealing in their paper? Why
should these nations of commerce and economy enter into any pecuniary dealings
with a people, who attempt to reverse the very nature of things; amongst whom
they see the debtor prescribing at the point of the bayonet, the medium of his
solvency to the creditor; discharging one of his engagements with another;
turning his very penury into his resource; and paying his interest with his
rags?
Their fanatical confidence in the omnipotence of church plunder has
induced these philosophers to overlook all care of the public estate, just as
the dream of the philosopher`s stone induces dupes, under the more plausible
delusion of the hermetic art, to neglect all rational means of improving their
fortunes. With these philosophic financiers, this universal medicine made of
church mummy is to cure all the evils of the state. These gentlemen perhaps do
not believe a great deal in the miracles of piety; but it cannot be
questioned, that they have an undoubting faith in the prodigies of sacrilege.
Is there a debt which presses them? - Issue assignats. Are compensations to be
made, or a maintenance decreed to those whom they have robbed of their
freehold in their office, or expelled from their profession? - Assignats. Is a
fleet to be fitted out? - Assignat. If sixteen millions sterling of these
assignats, forced on the people, leave the wants of the state as urgent as
ever-issue, says one, thirty millions sterling of assignats - says another,
issue fourscore millions more of assignats. The only difference among their
financial factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of assignats to be
imposed on the public sufferance. They are all professors of assignats. Even
those, whose natural good sense and knowledge of commerce, not obliterated by
philosophy, furnish decisive arguments against this delusion, conclude their
arguments, by proposing the emission of assignats. I suppose they must talk of
assignats, as no other language would be understood. All experience of their
inefficiency does not in the least discourage them. Are the old assignats
depreciated at market? - What is the remedy? Issue new assignats. - Mais si
maladia, oponiatria, non vult se garire, quid illi facere? assignare-postea
assignare; ensuita assignare. The word is a trifle altered. The Latin of your
present doctors may be better than that of your old comedy; their wisdom and
the variety of their resources are the same. The have not more notes in their
song than the cuckoo; though, far from the softness of that harbinger of
summer and plenty, their voice is as harsh and as ominous as that of the
raven.
Who but the most desperate adventurers in philosophy and finance could at
all have thought of destroying the settled revenue of the state, the sole
security for the public credit, in the hope of rebuilding it with the
materials of confiscated property? If, however, an excessive zeal for the
state should have led a pious and venerable prelate (by anticipation a father
of the church ^56) to pillage his own order, and, for the good of the church
and people, to take upon himself the place of grand financier of confiscation,
and comptroller-general of sacrilege, he and his coadjutors were in my
opinion, bound to show, by their subsequent conduct, that they knew something
of the office they assumed. When they had resolved to appropriate to the Fisc,
a certain portion of the landed property of their conquered country, it was
their business to render their bank a real fund of credit, as far as such a
bank was capable of becoming so.
[Footnote 56: La Bruyere of Bossuet.]
To establish a current circulating credit upon any Land-bank, under any
circumstances whatsoever, has hitherto proved difficult at the very least. The
attempt has commonly ended in bankruptcy. But when the Assembly were led,
through a contempt of moral, to a defiance of economical, principles, it might
at least have been expected, that nothing would be omitted on their part to
lessen this difficulty, to prevent any aggravation of this bankruptcy. It
might be expected, that to render your Land-bank tolerable, every means would
be adopted that could display openness and candour in the statement of the
security; everything which could aid the recovery of the demand. To take
things in their most favourable point of view, your condition was that of a
man of a large landed estate, which he wished to dispose of for the discharge
of a debt, and the supply of certain services. Not being able instantly to
sell, you wished to mortgage. What would a man of fair intentions, and a
commonly clear understanding, do in such circumstances? Ought he not first to
ascertain the gross value of the estate; the charges of its management and
disposition; the encumbrances perpetual and temporary of all kinds that affect
it; then, striking a net surplus, to calculate the just value of the security?
When that surplus (the only security to the creditor) had been clearly
ascertained, and properly vested in the hands of trustees; then he would
indicate the parcels to be sold, and the time and conditions of sale; after
this, he would admit the public creditor, if he chose it, to subscribe his
stock into his new fund; or he might receive proposals for an assignat from
those who would advance money to purchase this species of security.
This would be to proceed like men of business, methodically and
rationally; and on the only principles of public and private credit that have
an existence. The dealer would then know exactly what he purchased; and the
only doubt which could hang upon his mind would be, the dread of the
resumption of the spoil, which one day might be made (perhaps with an addition
of punishment) from the sacrilegious gripe of those execrable wretches who
could become purchasers at the auction of their innocent fellow-citizens.
An open and exact statement of the clear value of the property, and of
the time, the circumstances, and the place of sale, were all necessary, to
efface as much as possible the stigma that has hitherto been branded on every
kind of Land-bank. It became necessary on another principle, that is, on
account of a pledge of faith previously given on that subject, that their
future fidelity in a slippery concern might be established by their adherence
to their first engagement. When they had finally determined on a state
resource from church booty, they came, on the 14th of April, 1790, to a solemn
resolution on the subject; and pledged themselves to their country, "that in
the statement of the public charges for each year, there should be brought to
account a sum sufficient for defraying the expenses of the R.C.A. religion,
the support of the ministers at the altars, the relief of the poor, the
pensions to the ecclesiastics, secular as well as regular, of the one and of
the other sex, in order that the estates and goods which are at the disposal
of the nation may be disengaged of all charges, and employed by the
representatives, or the legislative body, to the great and most pressing
exigencies of the state." They further engaged, on the same day, that the sum
necessary for the year 1791 should be forthwith determined.
In this resolution they admit it their duty to show distinctly the
expense of the above objects, which, by other resolutions, they had before
engaged should be first in the order of provision. They admit that they ought
to show the estate clear and disengaged of all charges, and that they should
show it immediately. Have they done this immediately, or at any time? Have
they ever furnished a rent-roll of the immovable estates, or given in an
inventory of the movable effects, which they confiscate to their assignats? In
what manner they can fulfill their engagements of holding out to public
service, "an estate disengaged of all charges," without authenticating the
value of the estate, or the quantum of the charges, I leave it to their
English admirers to explain. Instantly upon this assurance, and previously to
any one step towards making it good, they issue, on the credit of so handsome
a declaration, sixteen millions sterling of their paper. This was manly. Who,
after this masterly stroke, can doubt of their abilities in finance? - But
then, before any other emission of these financial indulgences, they took care
at least to make good their original promise! - If such estimate, either of
the value of the estate or the amount of the encumbrances, has been made, it
has escaped me. I never heard of it.
At length they have spoken out, and they have made a full discovery of
their abominable fraud, in holding out the church lands as security for any
debts, or any service whatsoever. They rob only to enable them to cheat; but
in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery and the fraud by
making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole apparatus of
force and of deception. I am obliged to M. de Calonne for his reference to the
document which proves this extraordinary fact; it had by some means escaped
me. Indeed it was not necessary to make out my assertion as to the breach of
faith on the declaration of the 14th of April, 1790. By a report of their
committee it now appears, that the charge of keeping up the reduced
ecclesiastical establishments, and other expenses attendant on religion, and
maintaining the religious of both sexes, retained or pensioned, and the other
concomitant expenses of the same nature, which they have brought upon
themselves by this convulsion in property, exceeds the income of the estates
acquired by it in the enormous sum of two millions sterling annually; besides
a debt of seven millions and upwards. These are the calculating powers of
imposture! This is the finance of philosophy! This is the result of all the
delusions held out to engage a miserable people in rebellion, murder, and
sacrilege, and to make them prompt and zealous instruments in the ruin of
their country! Never did a state, in any case, enrich itself by the
confiscations of the citizens. This new experiment has succeeded like all the
rest. Every honest mind, every true lover of liberty and humanity, must
rejoice to find that injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high
road to riches. I subjoin with pleasure, in a note, the able and spirited
observations of M. de Calonne on this subject. ^57
[Footnote 57: Ce n`est point a l`assemblee entiere que je m`adresse ici; je ne
parle qu`a ceux qui l`egarent, en lui cachant sous des gazes seduisantes le
but ou ils l`entrainent. C`est a eux que je dis: votre objet, vous n`en
disconviendrez pas, c`est d`oter tout espoir au clerge, et de consommer sa
ruine; c`est-la, en ne vous soupconnant d`aucune combinaison de cupidite,
d`aucun regard sur le jeu des effets publics, c`est-la ce qu`on doit croire
que vous avez en vue dans la terrible operation que vous proposez; c`est ce
qui doit en etre le fruit. Mais le peuple que vous y interessez, quel avantage
peut-il y trouver? En vous servant sans cesse de lui, que faites vous pour
lui? Rien, absolument rien; et, au contraire, vous faites ce qui ne conduit
qu` a l`accabler de nouvelles charges. Vous avez rejete, a son prejudice, une
offre de 400 millions, dont l`acceptation pouvoit devenir un moyen de
soulagement en sa faveur; et a cette ressource, aussi profitable que
legitimate, vous avez substitue une injustice ruineuse, qui, de votre propre
aveu, charge le tresor public, et par consequent le peuple, d`un surcroit de
depense annuelle de 50 millions au moins, et d`un remboursement de 150
millions.
"Malheureux Peuple! voila ce que vous vaut en dernier resultat
l`expropriation de l`Eglise, et la durete des decrets taxateurs du traitement
des ministres d`une religion bienfaisante; et desormais ils seront a votre
charge: leurs charites soulageoient les pauvres; et vous allez etre emposes
pour subvenir a leur entretien!" - De l`Etat de la France, p. 81. See also p.
92, and the following pages.]
In order to persuade the world of the bottomless resource of
ecclesiastical confiscation, the Assembly have proceeded to other
confiscations of estates in offices, which could not be done with any common
colour without being compensated out of this grand confiscation of landed
property. They have thrown upon this fund, which was to show a surplus
disengaged of all charges, a new charge; namely, the compensation to the whole
body of the disbanded judicature; and of all suppressed offices and estates; a
charge which I cannot ascertain, but which unquestionably amounts to many
French millions. Another of the new charges in an annuity of four hundred and
eighty thousand pounds sterling, to be paid (if they choose to keep faith) by
daily payments, for the interest of the first assignats. Have they ever given
themselves the trouble to state fairly the expense of the management of the
church lands in the hands of the municipalities, to whose care, skill, and
diligence, and that of their legion of unknown under-agents, they have chosen
to commit the charge of the forfeited estates, and the consequence of which
had been so ably pointed out by the bishop of Nancy?
But it is unnecessary to dwell on these obvious heads of encumbrance.
Have they made out any clear state of the grand encumbrance of all, I mean the
whole of the general and municipal establishments of all sorts, and compared
it with the regular income by revenue? Every deficiency in these becomes a
charge on the confiscated estate, before the creditor can plant his cabbages
on an acre of church property. There is no other prop than this confiscation
to keep the whole state from tumbling to the ground. In this situation they
have purposely covered all, that they ought industriously to have cleared,
with a thick fog; and then, blindfold themselves, like bulls that shut their
eyes when they push, they drive, by the point of the bayonets, their slaves,
blindfolded indeed no worse than their lords, to take their fictions for
currencies, and to swallow down paper pills by thirty-four millions sterling
at a dose. Then they proudly lay in their claim to a future credit, on failure
of all their past engagements, and at a time when (if in such a matter
anything can be clear) it is clear that the surplus estates will never answer
even the first of their mortgages, I mean that of the four hundred millions
(or sixteen millions sterling) of assignats. In all this procedure I can
discern neither the solid sense of plain dealing, nor the subtle dexterity of
ingenious fraud. The objections within the Assembly to pulling up the
flood-gates for this inundation of fraud are unanswered; but they are
thoroughly refuted by an hundred thousand financiers in the street. These are
the numbers by which the metaphysic arithmetecians compute. These are the
grand calculations on which a philosophical public credit is founded in
France. They cannot raise supplies; but they can raise mobs. Let them rejoice
in the applauses of the club at Dundee, for their wisdom and patriotism in
having thus applied the plunder of the citizens to the service of the state. I
hear of no address upon this subject from the directors of the bank of
England; though their approbation would be of a little more weight in the
scale of credit than that of the club at Dundee. But, to do justice to the
club, I believe the gentlemen who compose it to be wiser than they appear;
that they will be less liberal of their money than of their addresses; and
that they would not give a dog`s-ear of their most rumpled and ragged Scotch
paper for twenty of your fairest assignats.
Early in this year the Assembly issued paper to the amount of sixteen
millions sterling: what must have been the state into which the Assembly has
brought your affairs, that the relief afforded by so vast a supply has been
hardly perceptible? This paper also felt an almost immediate depreciation of
five per cent., which in a little time came to about seven. The effect of
these assignats on the receipt of the revenue is remarkable. M. Necker found
that the collectors of the revenue, who received in coin, paid the treasury in
assignats. The collectors made seven per cent. by thus receiving in money, and
accounting in depreciated paper. It was not very difficult to foresee, that
this must be inevitable. It was, however, not the less embarrassing. M. Necker
was obliged (I believe, for a considerable part, in the market of London) to
buy gold and silver for the mint, which amounted to about twelve thousand
pounds above the value of the commodity gained. That minister was of opinion,
that, whatever their secret nutritive virtue might be, the state could not
live upon assignats alone; that some real silver was necessary, particularly
for the satisfaction of those who, having iron in their hands, were not likely
to distinguish themselves for patience, when they should perceive that, whilst
an increase of pay was held out to them in real money, it was again to be
fraudulently drawn back by depreciated paper. The minister, in this very
natural distress, applied to the Assembly, that they should order the
collectors to pay in specie what in specie they had received. It could not
escape him, that if the treasury paid three per cent. for the use of a
currency, which should be returned seven per cent. worse than the minister
issued it, such a dealing could not very greatly tend to enrich the public.
The Assembly took no notice of his recommendation. They were in this dilemma -
If they continued to receive the assignats, cash must become an alien to their
treasury: if the treasury should refuse those paper amulets, or should
discountenance them in any degree, they must destroy the credit of their sole
resource. They seem then to have made their option; and to have given some
sort of credit to their paper by taking it themselves; at the same time in
their speeches they made a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather
think, above legislative competence; that is, that there is no difference in
value between metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout,
proof article of faith, pronounced under an anathema, by the venerable fathers
of this philosophic synod. Credat who will-certainly not Judaeus Apella.
A noble indignation rises in the minds of your popular leaders, on
hearing the magic lantern in their show of finance compared to the fraudulent
exhibitions of Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear the sands of his Mississippi
compared with the rock of the church, on which they build their system. Pray
let them suppress this glorious spirit, until they show to the world what
piece of solid ground there is for their assignats, which they have not
pre-occupied by other charges. They do injustice to that great, mother fraud,
to compare it with their degenerate imitation. It is not true that Law built
solely on a speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the East India
trade; he added the African trade; he added the farms of all the farmed
revenue of France. All these together unquestionably could not support the
structure which the public enthusiasm, not he, chose to build upon these
bases. But these were, however, in comparison, generous delusions. They
supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the commerce of France. They
opened to it the whole range of the two hemispheres. They did not think of
feeding France from its own substance. A grand imagination found in this
flight of commerce something 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
shrunk from their natural dimensions by a degrading and sordid philosophy, and
fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above all, remember, that, in imposing
on the imagination, the then managers of the system made a compliment to the
freedom of men. In their fraud there was no mixture of force. This was
reserved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason which might
break in upon the solid darkness of this enlightened age.
On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme of finance which may be
urged in favor of the abilities of these gentlemen, and which has been
introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally adopted, in the National
Assembly. It comes with something solid in aid of the credit of the paper
circulation; and much has been said of its utility and its elegance. I mean
the project for coining into money the bells of the suppressed churches. This
is their alchemy. There are some follies which baffle argument; which go
beyond ridicule; and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore
I say no more upon it.
It is as little worth remarking any further upon all their drawing and
re-drawing, on their circulation for putting off the evil day, on the play
between the treasury and the Caisse d`Escompte, and on all these 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 metaphysicians descend from their airy speculations, and faithfully follow
examples. What examples? The examples of bankrupts. But defeated, baffled,
disgraced, when their breath, their strength, their inventions, their fancies
desert them, their confidence still 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 presumption, 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 such intentions, why did they
order the obnoxious taxes to be paid? The people relieved themselves in spite
of the Assembly.
But waiving all discussion on the parties who may claim the merit of this
fallacious relief, has 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 speech to the National Assembly contained a
high and laboured panegyric on the inhabitants of Paris, for the constancy and
unbroken resolution with which they have borne their distress and misery. A
fine picture of public felicity! What! great courage and unconquerable
firmness of mind to endure benefits, and sustain redress? One would think from
the speech of this learned lord mayor, that the Parisians, for this
twelvemonth past, had been suffering the straits of some dreadful blockade;
that Henry the Fourth had been stopping up the avenues to their supply, and
Sully thundering with his ordnance at the gates of Paris; when in reality they
are besieged by no other enemies than their own madness and folly, their own
credulity and perverseness. But Mr. Bailly will sooner thaw the eternal ice of
his Atlantic regions, than restore the central heat to Paris, whilst it
remains "smitten with the cold, dry, petrific mace" of a false and unfeeling
philosophy. Some time after this speech, that is, on the thirteenth of last
August, the same magistrate, giving an account of his government at the bar of
the same Assembly, expresses 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 sterling] "in bank.
The expenses which she has been constrained to incur, subsequent to the
Revolution, amount to 2,500,000 livres. From these expenses, 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 whose
nourishment, in the course of the last year, such immense sums, drawn from the
vitals of all France, have been expended. As long as Paris stands in the place
of ancient Rome, so long she will be maintained by the subject provinces. It
is an evil inevitably attendant on the dominion of sovereign democratic
republics. As it happened in Rome, it may survive that republican domination
which gave rise to it. In that case despotism itself must submit to the vices
of popularity. Rome, under her emperors, united the evils of both systems; 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 estate, is a cruel and insolent imposition. Statesmen, before they
valued themselves on the relief given to the people by the destruction 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 considerably,
and to gain in proportion; or to gain little or nothing, and to be
disburthened of all contribution? My mind is made up to decide in favour of
the first proposition. Experience is with me, and, I believe, the best
opinions also. To keep a balance between the power of acquisition on the part
of the subject, and the demands he is to answer on the part of the state, is
the fundamental part of the skill of a true politician. The means of
acquisition 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
servile, must be tractable and obedient. The magistrate must have his
reverence, the laws their authority. The body of the people must not find the
principles of natural subordination 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 success disproportioned to the endeavour, they must be taught the r
consolation in the final proportions of eternal justice. Of this consolation
whoever deprives them, deadens their industry, and strikes at the root of all
acquisition as of all conservation. He that does this is the cruel oppressor,
the merciless enemy of the poor and wretched; at the same time that by his
wicked speculations he exposes the fruits of successful industry, and the
accumulations of fortune, to the plunder of the negligent, the disappointed,
and the unprosperous.
Too many of the financiers by profession are apt to see nothing in
revenue but banks, and circulations, and annuities on lives, and tontines, and
perpetual rents, and all the small wares of the shop. In a settled order of
the state, these things are not to be slighted, nor is the skill in them to be
held of trivial estimation. They are good, but then only good, when they
assume the effects of that settled order, and are built upon it. But when men
think that these beggarly contrivances may supply a resource for the evils
which result from breaking up the foundations of public order, and from
causing or suffering the principles of property to be subverted, they will, in
the ruin of their country, leave a melancholy and lasting monument of the
effect of preposterous politics, and presumptuous, short-sighted,
narrow-minded wisdom.
The effects of the incapacity shown by the popular leaders in all the
great members of the commonwealth are to be covered with the "all-atoning
name" of liberty. In some people I see great liberty indeed; in many, if not
in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude. But what is liberty without
wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it
is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what
virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on
account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths. Grand, swelling
sentiments of liberty I am sure I do not despise. They warm the heart; they
enlarge and liberalize our minds; they animate our courage in a time of
conflict. Old as I am, I read the fine raptures of Lucan and Corneille with
pleasure. Neither do I wholly condemn the little arts and devices of
popularity. They facilitate the carrying of many points of moment; they keep
the people together; they refresh the mind in its exertions; and they diffuse
occasional gaiety over the severe brow of moral freedom. Every politician
ought to sacrifice to the graces; and to join compliance with reason. But in
such an undertaking as that in France, all these subsidiary sentiments and
artifices are of little avail. To make a government requires no great
prudence. Settle the seat of power; teach obedience and the work is done. To
give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only
requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper
together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent
work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and
combining mind. This I do not find in those who take the lead in the National
Assembly. Perhaps they are not so miserably deficient as they appear. I rather
believe it. It would put them below the common level of human understanding.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of
popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no
service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments,
not the guides, of the people. If any of them should happen to propose a
scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he
will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more
splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause.
Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the
prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may
enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is
obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers,
that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might
have aimed.
But am I so unreasonable as to see nothing at all that deserves
commendation in the indefatigable labours of this Assembly? I do not deny
that, among an infinite number of acts of violence and folly, some good may
have been done. They who destroy everything certainly will remove some
grievance. They who make everything new, have a chance that they may establish
something beneficial. To give them credit for what they have done in virtue of
the authority they have usurped, or which can excuse them in the crimes by
which that authority has been acquired, it must appear, that the same things
could not have been accomplished without producing such a revolution. Most
assuredly they might; because almost every one of the regulations made by
them, which is not very equivocal, was either in the cession of the king,
voluntarily made at the meeting of the states, or in the concurrent
instructions to the orders. Some usages have been abolished on just grounds;
but they were such, that if they had stood as they were to all eternity, they
would little detract from the happiness and prosperity of any state. The
improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors
fundamental.
What ever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our
neighbours the example of the British constitution, than to take models from
them for the improvement of our own. In the former they have got an invaluable
treasure. They are not, I think, without some causes of apprehension and
complaint; but these they do not owe to their constitution, but to their own
conduct. I think our happy situation owing to our constitution; but owing to
the whole of it, and not to any part singly; owing in a great measure to what
we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to
what we have altered or superadded. Our people will find employment enough for
a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess
from violation. I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I
changed, it should be to preserve, I should be led to my remedy by a great
grievance. In what I did, I should follow the example of our ancestors. I
would make the reparation as nearly as possible in the style of the building.
A politic caution, a guarded circumspection, a moral rather than a
complexional timidity, were among the ruling principles of our forefathers in
their most decided conduct. Not being illuminated with the light of which the
gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted
under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind. He that
had made them thus fallible, rewarded them for having in their conduct
attended to their nature. Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve
their fortune, or to retain their bequests. Let us add, if we please, but let
us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the
British constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to
follow in their desperate flights, the aeronauts of France.
I have told you candidly my sentiments. I think they are not likely to
alter yours. I do know that they ought. You are young; you cannot guide, but
must follow the fortune of your country. But hereafter they may be of some use
to you, in some future form which your commonwealth may take. In the present
it can hardly remain; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to
pass, as one of our poets says, "through great varieties of untried being,"
and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood.
I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much
impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer
of greatness; and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenour of
his life. They come from one, almost the whole of whose public exertion has
been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whose breast no anger
durable or vehement has ever been kindled, but by what he considered as
tyranny; and who snatches from his share in the endeavours which are used by
good men to discredit opulent oppression, the hours he has employed on your
affairs; and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his
usual office: they come from one who desires honours, distinctions, and
emoluments, but little; and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt
for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns contention, though he will hazard
an opinion: from one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who would
preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end; and,
when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by
overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his
reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.
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