F

of the finances of France fuch, that, after œconomifing (on principles of juftice and mercy) through all departments, no fair repartition of burthens upon all the orders could poffibly reftore them? If fuch an equal impofition would have been fufficient, you well know it might eafily have been made. Mr. Neckar, in the budget which he laid before the Orders affembled at Versailles, made a detailed expofition of the state of the French nation *.

If we give credit to him, it was not neceffary to have recourfe to any new impofitions whatfoever, to put the receipts of France on a balance with its expences. He ftated the permanent charges of all defcriptions, including the intereft of a new loan of four hundred millions,

"Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
"But to be restless in a worse extreme ?

"And for that lethargy was there no cure,
"But to be cast into a calenture?

"Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance
"So far, to make us wish for ignorance?
"And rather in the dark to grope our way,
"Than, led by a false guide, to err by day?
"Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand,
"What barbarous invader sack'd the land?
"But when he hears, no Goth, no Turk did bring
"This desolation, but a Christian king;
"When nothing, but the name of zeal, appears
" "Twixt our best actions, and the worst of theirs,
"What does he think our sacrilege would spare,
"When such th' effects of our Devotion are?"

Cooper's Hill, by Sir John Denham. ✷ Rapport de Mons. le directeur général des finances, fait par ordre du Roi à Versailles. Mai 5, 1789.

at

at 531,444,000 livres; the fixed revenue at 475,294,000, making the deficiency 56,150,000, or short of 2,200,000 sterling. But to balance it, he brought forward savings and improvements of revenue (considered as entirely certain) to rather more than the amount of that deficiency; and he concludes with these emphatical words (p. 39) "Quel pays, Messieurs, que celui, «ou, sans impots et avec de simples objets in" appercus, on peut faire disparoitre un deficit

qui a fait tant de bruit en Europe." As to the re-imbursement, the finking of debt, and the other great objects of public credit and political arrangement indicated in Mons. Necker's speech, no doubt could be entertained, but that a very moderate and proportioned assessment on the citizens without distinction would have provided for all of them to the fullest extent of their demand.

If this representation of Mons. Neckar was false, then the assembly are in the highest degree culpable for having forced the king to accept as his minister, and since the king's deposition, for having employed as their minister, a man who had been capable of abusing. so notoriously the confidence of his master and their own; in a matter too of the highest moment, and directly appertaining to his particular office. But if the representation was exact (as, having always along with you conceived a high degree of respect for Mr. Neckar, I make no doubt it was) then what can be said in favour of those, who, instead of moderate, reasonable, and general contribution, have in cold blood, and impelled by

no necessity, had recourse to a partial and cruel confiscation?

Was that contribution refused on a pretext of privilege, either on the part of the clergy or On that of the nobility? No certainly. As to the clergy, they even ran before the wishes of the third order. Previous to the meeting of the states, they had in all their instructions expressly directed their deputies to renounce every immunity, which put them upon a footing distinct from the condition of their fellow-subjects. In this renunciation the clergy were even more. explicit than the nobility.

But let us suppose that the deficiency had remained at the 56 millions, (or £. 2,200,000 sterling) as at first stated by Mr. Necker. Let us allow that all the resources he opposed to that deficiency were impudent and groundless fictions; and that the assembly (or their lords of articles * at the Jacobins) were from thence justified in laying the whole burthen of that deficiency on the clergy, yet allowing all this, a necessity of £2,200,000 sterling will not support a confiscation to the amount of five millions. The impofition of £. 2,200,000 on the clergy, as partial, would have been oppressive and unjust, but it would not have been altogether ruinous to those on whom it was imposed; and therefore it would not have answered the real purpose of the managers.

In the constitution of Scotland during the Stuart reigns, a committee fat for preparing bills; and none could pass, bat those previously approved by them. This committee was called lords of articles.

Perhaps persons, unacquainted with the state of France, on hearing the clergy and the noblesse were privileged in point of taxation, may be led to imagine, that previous to the revolution these bodies had contributed nothing to the state. This is a great mistake. They certainly did not contribute equally with each other, nor either of them equally with the commons. They both however contributed largely. Neither nobility nor clergy enjoyed any exemption from the excise on consumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other numerous indirect impofitions, which in France as well as here, make so very large a proportion of all payments to the public. The noblesse paid the capitation. They paid also a land-tax, called the twentieth penny, to the height sometimes of three, sometimes of four shillings in the pound; both of them direct impositions of no light nature, and no trivial produce. The clergy of the provinces annexed by conquest to France (which in extent make about an eighth part of the whole but in wealth a much larger proportion) paid likewise to the capitation and the twentieth penny, at the rate paid by the nobility. The clergy in the old provinces did not pay the capitation; but they had redeemed themselves at the expence of about 24 millions, or a little more than a million sterling. They were exempted from the twentieths; but then they made, free gifts; they contracted debts for the state; and they were subject to some other charges, the whole computed at about a thirteenth

part of

their clear income. They ought to have paid annually about forty thousand pounds more, to put them on a par with the contribution of the nobility.

When the terrors of this tremendous profcription hung over the clergy, they made an offer of a contribution, through the archbishop of Aix, which, for its extravagance, ought not to have been accepted. But it was evidently and obviously more advantageous to the public creditor, than any thing which could rationally be promised by the confiscation. Why was it not accepted? The reason is plain—There was no desire that the church should be brought to serve the state. The service of the state was made a pretext to destroy the church. One great end in the project would have been defeated, if the plan of extortion had been adopted in lieu of the scheme of confiscation. The new landed interest connected with the new republic, and connected with it for its very being, could not have been created. This was the reason why that extravagant ransom was not accepted."

The madness of the project of confiscation, on the plan that was first pretended, soon became apparent. To bring this unwieldy mass of sanded property, enlarged by the confiscation of all the vast landed domain of the crown, at once into market, was obviouly to defeat the profits proposed by the confiscation, by depreciating the value of those lands, and indeed of all the landed estates throughout France. Such a sudden diversion of all its circulating money from trade to land, must be an additional mischief. What