_arcanum_,--that in reality, and in a fair sense, the lands of the
Church (so far as anything certain can be gathered from their
proceedings) are not to be sold at all. By the late resolutions of the
National Assembly, they are, indeed, to be delivered to the highest
bidder. But it is to be observed, that _a certain portion only of the
purchase-money is to be laid down_. A period of twelve years is to be
given for the payment of the rest. The philosophic purchasers are
therefore, on payment of a sort of fine, to be put instantly into
possession of the estate. It becomes in some respects a sort of gift to
them,--to be held on the feudal tenure of zeal to the new establishment.
This project is evidently to let in a body of purchasers without money.
The consequence will be, that these purchasers, or rather grantees, will
pay, not only from the rents as they accrue, which might as well be
received by the state, but from the spoil of the materials of buildings,
from waste in woods, and from whatever money, by hands habituated to the
gripings of usury, they can wring from the miserable peasant. He is to
be delivered over to the mercenary and arbitrary discretion of men who
will be stimulated to every species of extortion by the growing demands
on the growing profits of an estate held under the precarious
settlement of a new political system.
When all the frauds, impostures, violences, rapines, burnings, murders,
confiscations, compulsory paper currencies, and every description of
tyranny and cruelty employed to bring about and to uphold this
Revolution have their natural effect, that is, to shock the moral
sentiments of all virtuous and sober minds, the abettors of this
philosophic system immediately strain their throats in a declamation
against the old monarchical government of France. When they have
rendered that deposed power sufficiently black, they then proceed in
argument, as if all those who disapprove of their new abuses must of
course be partisans of the old,--that those who reprobate their crude
and violent schemes of liberty ought to be treated as advocates for
servitude. I admit that their necessities do compel them to this base
and contemptible fraud. Nothing can reconcile men to their proceedings
and projects but the supposition that there is no third option between
them and some tyranny as odious as can be furnished by the records of
history or by the invention of poets. This prattling of theirs hardly
deserves the name of sophistry. It is nothing but plain impudence. Have
these gentlemen never heard, in the whole circle of the worlds of theory
and practice, of anything between the despotism of the monarch and the
despotism of the multitude? Have they never heard of a monarchy directed
by laws, controlled and balanced by the great hereditary wealth and
hereditary dignity of a nation, and both again controlled by a judicious
check from the reason and feeling of the people at large, acting by a
suitable and permanent organ? Is it, then, impossible that a man may be
found who, without criminal ill intention or pitiable absurdity, shall
prefer such a mixed and tempered government to either of the
extremes,--and who may repute that nation to be destitute of all wisdom
and of all virtue, which, having in its choice to obtain such a
government with ease, _or rather to confirm it when actually possessed_,
thought proper to commit a thousand crimes, and to subject their country
to a thousand evils, in order to avoid it? Is it, then, a truth so
universally acknowledged, that a pure democracy is the only tolerable
form into which human society can be thrown, that a man is not permitted
to hesitate about its merits, without the suspicion of being a friend to
tyranny, that is, of being a foe to mankind?
I do not know under what description to class the present ruling
authority in France. It affects to be a pure democracy, though I think
it in a direct train of becoming shortly a mischievous and ignoble
oligarchy. But for the present I admit it to be a contrivance of the
nature and effect of what it pretends to. I reprobate no form of
government merely upon abstract principles. There may be situations in
which the purely democratic form will become necessary. There may be
some (very few, and very particularly circumstanced) where it would be
clearly desirable. This I do not take to be the case of France, or of
any other great country. Until now, we have seen no examples of
considerable democracies. The ancients were better acquainted with them.
Not being wholly unread in the authors who had seen the most of those
constitutions, and who best understood them, I cannot help concurring
with their opinion, that an absolute democracy no more than absolute
monarchy is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.
They think it rather the corruption and degeneracy than the sound
constitution of a republic. If I recollect rightly, Aristotle observes,
that a democracy has many striking points of resemblance with a
tyranny.[105] Of this I am certain, that in a democracy the majority of
the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon
the minority, whenever strong divisions prevail in that kind of polity,
as they often must,--and that oppression of the minority will extend to
far greater numbers, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than
can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. In
such a popular persecution, individual sufferers are in a much more
deplorable condition than in any other. Under a cruel prince they have
the balmy compassion of mankind to assuage the smart of their wounds,
they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy
under their sufferings: but those who are subjected to wrong under
multitudes are deprived of all external consolation; they seem deserted
by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
But admitting democracy not to have that inevitable tendency to party
tyranny which I suppose it to have, and admitting it to possess as much
good in it when unmixed as I am sure it possesses when compounded with
other forms; does monarchy, on its part, contain nothing at all to
recommend it? I do not often quote Bolingbroke, nor have his works in
general left any permanent impression on my mind. He is a presumptuous
and a superficial writer. But he has one observation which in my opinion
is not without depth and solidity. He says that he prefers a monarchy to
other governments, because you can better ingraft any description of
republic on a monarchy than anything of monarchy upon the republican
forms. I think him perfectly in the right. The fact is so historically,
and it agrees well with the speculation.
I know how easy a topic it is to dwell on the faults of departed
greatness. By a revolution in the state, the fawning sycophant of
yesterday is converted into the austere critic of the present hour. But
steady, independent minds, when they have an object of so serious a
concern to mankind as government under their contemplation, will disdain
to assume the part of satirists and declaimers. They will judge of human
institutions as they do of human characters. They will sort out the good
from the evil, which is mixed in mortal institutions as it is in mortal
men.
Your government in France, though usually, and I think justly, reputed
the best of the unqualified or ill-qualified monarchies, was still full
of abuses. These abuses accumulated in a length of time, as they must
accumulate in every monarchy not under the constant inspection of a
popular representative. I am no stranger to the faults and defects of
the subverted government of France; and I think I am not inclined by
nature or policy to make a panegyric upon anything which is a just and
natural object of censure. But the question is not now of the vices of
that monarchy, but of its existence. Is it, then, true, that the French
government was such as to be incapable or undeserving of reform, so that
it was of absolute necessity the whole fabric should be at once pulled
down, and the area cleared for the erection of a theoretic, experimental
edifice in its place? All France was of a different opinion in the
beginning of the year 1789. The instructions to the representatives to
the States-General, from every district in that kingdom, were filled
with projects for the reformation of that government, without the
remotest suggestion of a design to destroy it. Had such a design been
then even insinuated, I believe there would have been but one voice, and
that voice for rejecting it with scorn and horror. Men have been
sometimes led by degrees, sometimes hurried, into things of which, if
they could have seen the whole together, they never would have permitted
the most remote approach. When those instructions were given, there was
no question but that abuses existed, and that they demanded a reform:
nor is there now. In the interval between the instructions and the
Revolution things changed their shape; and in consequence of that
change, the true question at present is, whether those who would have
reformed or those who have destroyed are in the right.
To hear some men speak of the late monarchy of France, you would imagine
that they were talking of Persia bleeding under the ferocious sword of
Thamas Kouli Khân,--or at least describing the barbarous anarchic
despotism of Turkey, where the finest countries in the most genial
climates in the world are wasted by peace more than any countries have
been worried by war, where arts are unknown, where manufactures
languish, where science is extinguished, where agriculture decays, where
the human race itself melts away and perishes under the eye of the
observer. Was this the case of France? I have no way of determining the
question but by a reference to facts. Facts do not support this
resemblance. Along with much evil, there is some good in monarchy
itself; and some corrective to its evil from religion, from laws, from
manners, from opinions, the French monarchy must have received, which
rendered it (though by no means a free, and therefore by no means a good
constitution) a despotism rather in appearance than in reality.
Among the standards upon which the effects of government on any country
are to be estimated, I must consider the state of its population as not
the least certain. No country in which population flourishes, and is in
progressive improvement, can be under a _very_ mischievous government.
About sixty years ago, the Intendants of the Generalities of France
made, with other matters, a report of the population of their several
districts. I have not the books, which are very voluminous, by me, nor
do I know where to procure them, (I am obliged to speak by memory, and
therefore the less positively,) but I think the population of France was
by them, even at that period, estimated at twenty-two millions of
souls. At the end of the last century it had been generally calculated
at eighteen. On either of these estimations, France was not ill-peopled.
M. Necker, who is an authority for his own time at least equal to the
Intendants for theirs, reckons, and upon apparently sure principles, the
people of France, in the year 1780, at twenty-four millions six hundred
and seventy thousand. But was this the probable ultimate term under the
old establishment? Dr. Price is of opinion that the growth of population
in France was by no means at its acme in that year. I certainly defer to
Dr. Price's authority a good deal more in these speculations than I do
in his general politics. This gentleman, taking ground on M. Necker's
data, is very confident that since the period of that minister's
calculation the French population has increased rapidly,--so rapidly,
that in the year 1789 he will not consent to rate the people of that
kingdom at a lower number than thirty millions. After abating much (and
much I think ought to be abated) from the sanguine calculation of Dr.
Price, I have no doubt that the population of France did increase
considerably during this latter period: but supposing that it increased
to nothing more than will be sufficient to complete the twenty-four
millions six hundred and seventy thousand to twenty-five millions, still
a population of twenty-five millions, and that in an increasing
progress, on a space of about twenty-seven thousand square leagues, is
immense. It is, for instance, a good deal more than the proportionable
population of this island, or even than that of England, the best
peopled part of the United Kingdom.
It is not universally true that France is a fertile country.
Considerable tracts of it are barren, and labor under other natural
disadvantages. In the portions of that territory where things are more
favorable, as far as I am able to discover, the numbers of the people
correspond to the indulgence of Nature.[106] The Generality of Lisle,
(this I admit is the strongest example,) upon an extent of four hundred
and four leagues and a half, about ten years ago contained seven hundred
and thirty-four thousand six hundred souls, which is one thousand seven
hundred and seventy-two inhabitants to each square league. The middle
term for the rest of France is about nine hundred inhabitants to the
same admeasurement.
I do not attribute this population to the deposed government; because I
do not like to compliment the contrivances of men with what is due in a
great degree to the bounty of Providence. But that decried government
could not have obstructed, most probably it favored, the operation of
those causes, (whatever they were,) whether of Nature in the soil, or
habits of industry among the people, which has produced so large a
number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in
some particular places such prodigies of population. I never will
suppose that fabric of a state to be the worst of all political
institutions which by experience is found to contain a principle
favorable (however latent it may be) to the increase of mankind.
The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, 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 so equal in the distribution, nor so 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 side of England: I
speak of England, not of the whole British dominions,--which, if
compared with those of France, will in some degree weaken the
comparative rate of wealth upon our side. But that wealth, which will
not endure a comparison with the riches of England, may constitute a
very respectable degree of opulence. M. Necker's book, published in
1785,[107] contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts
relative to public economy and to political arithmetic; and his
speculations on the subject are in general wise and liberal. In that
work he gives an idea of the state of France, very remote from the
portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an
absolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain
remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that from the year 1726 to the
year 1784 there was coined at the mint of France, in the species of gold
and silver, to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds
sterling.[108]
It is impossible that M. Necker should be mistaken in the amount of the
bullion which has been coined in the mint. It is a matter of official
record. The reasonings of this able financier concerning the quantity of
gold and silver which remained for circulation, when he wrote in 1785,
that is, about four years before the deposition and imprisonment of the
French king, are not of equal certainty; but they are laid on grounds so
apparently solid, that it is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of
assent to his calculation. He calculates the _numéraire_, or what we
call _specie_, then actually existing in France, at about eighty-eight
millions of the same English money. A great accumulation of wealth for
one country, large as that country is! M. Necker was so far from
considering this influx of wealth as likely to cease, when he wrote in
1785, that he presumes upon a future annual increase of two per cent
upon the money brought into France during the periods from which he
computed.
Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined
at its mint into that kingdom; and some cause as operative must have
kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of treasure
as M. Necker calculates to remain for domestic circulation. Suppose any
reasonable deductions from M. Necker's computation, the remainder must
still amount to an immense sum. Causes thus powerful to acquire and to
retain cannot be found in discouraged industry, insecure property, and a
positively destructive government. Indeed, when I consider the face of
the kingdom of France, the multitude and opulence of her cities, the
useful magnificence of her spacious high-roads and bridges, the
opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations opening the
conveniences of maritime communication through a solid continent of so
immense an extent,--when I turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her
ports and harbors, and to her whole naval apparatus, whether for war or
trade,--when I bring before my view the number of her fortifications,
constructed with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and maintained
at so prodigious a charge, presenting an armed front and impenetrable
barrier to her enemies upon every side,--when I recollect how very small
a part of that extensive 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, second to none but ours, and in some
particulars not second,--when I contemplate the grand foundations of
charity, public and private,--when I survey the state of all the arts
that beautify and polish life,--when I reckon the men she has bled for
extending her fame in war, her able statesmen, the multitude of her
profound lawyers and theologians, her philosophers, her critics, her
historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators, sacred and
profane,--I behold in all this something which awes and commands the
imagination, which checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and
indiscriminate censure, and which demands that we should very seriously
examine what and how great are the latent vices that could authorize us
at once to level so spacious a fabric with the ground. I do not
recognize in this view of things the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I
discern the character of a government that has been on the whole so
oppressive, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit _for
all reformation_. I must think such a government well deserved to have
its excellences heightened, its faults corrected, and its capacities
improved into a British Constitution.
Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that deposed government
for several years back cannot fail to have observed, amidst the
inconstancy and fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor
towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit
that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in
many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages that had
prevailed in the state,--and that even the unlimited power of the
sovereign over the persons of his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly
it was, with law and liberty, had yet been every day growing more
mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itself to reformation,
that government was open, with a censurable degree of facility, to all
sorts of projects and projectors on the subject. Rather too much
countenance was given to the spirit of innovation, which soon was turned
against those who fostered it, and ended in their ruin. It is but cold,
and no very flattering justice to that fallen monarchy, to say, that,
for many years, it trespassed more by levity and want of judgment in
several of its schemes than from any defect in diligence or in public
spirit. To compare the government of France for the last fifteen or
sixteen years with wise and well-constituted establishments during that,
or during any period, is not to act with fairness. But if in point of
prodigality in the expenditure of money, or in point of rigor 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 favorites, or on the
expenses of the court, or on the horrors of the Bastile, in the reign of
Louis the Sixteenth.[109]
Whether the system, if it deserves such a name, now built on the ruins
of that ancient 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. Instead 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 philosophic Revolution, and
before the nation can be replaced on its former footing. If Dr. Price
should think fit, a few years hence, to favor us with an estimate of the
population of France, he will hardly be able to make up his tale of
thirty millions of souls, as computed in 1789, or the Assembly's
computation of twenty-six millions of that year, or even M. Necker's
twenty-five millions in 1780. I hear that there are considerable
emigrations from France,--and that many, quitting that voluptuous
climate, and that seductive Circean liberty, have taken refuge in the
frozen regions and under the British despotism of Canada.
In the present disappearance of coin, no person could think it the same
country in which the present minister of the finances has been able to
discover fourscore millions sterling in specie. From its general aspect
one would conclude that it had been for some time past under the special
direction of the learned academicians of Laputa and Balnibarbi.[110]
Already the population of Paris has so declined, that M. Necker stated
to the National Assembly the provision to be made for its subsistence
at a fifth less than what had formerly been found requisite.[111] It is
said (and I have never heard it contradicted) that a hundred thousand
people are out of employment in that city, though it is become the seat
of the imprisoned court and National Assembly. Nothing, I am credibly
informed, can exceed the shocking and disgusting spectacle of mendicancy
displayed in that capital. Indeed, the votes of the National Assembly
leave no doubt of the fact. They have lately appointed a standing
committee of mendicancy. They are contriving at once a vigorous police
on this subject, and, for the first time, the imposition of a tax to
maintain the poor, for whoso present relief great sums appear on the
face of the public accounts of the year.[112] In the mean time the
leaders of the legislative clubs and coffee-houses are intoxicated with
admiration at their own wisdom and ability. They speak with the most
sovereign contempt of the rest of the world. They toll the people, to
comfort them in the rags with which they have clothed them, that they
are a nation of philosophers; and sometimes, by all the arts of
quackish parade, by show, tumult, and bustle, sometimes by the alarms
of plots and invasions, they attempt to drown the cries of indigence,
and to divert the eyes of the observer from the ruin and wretchedness of
the state. A brave people will certainly prefer liberty accompanied with
a virtuous poverty to a depraved and wealthy servitude. But before the
price of comfort and opulence is paid, one ought to be pretty sure it is
real liberty which is purchased, and that she is to be purchased at no
other price. I shall always, however, consider that liberty as very
equivocal in her appearance, which has not wisdom and justice for her
companions, and does not lead prosperity and plenty in her train.