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 burden 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 honor 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,--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 rickety 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 those 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 Saint-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 favorable. 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
origin 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 expenses 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.[131]
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 Hamburg, 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? _Assignats_. 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 inefficacy does not in the least discourage them. Are the old
_assignats_ depreciated at market? What is the remedy? Issue new
_assignats_.--_Mais si maladia opiniatria 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. They 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[132]) 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.
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 candor in the statement of the security, everything
which could aid the recovery of the demand. To take things in their most
favorable 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 incumbrances 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 this 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 fourteenth 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 estate, or given in an inventory of the movable effects, which
they confiscate to their assignats? In what manner they can fulfil 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
incumbrances, 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 a 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 fourteenth 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.[133]
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 color 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 is 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 incumbrance.
Have they made out any clear state of the grand incumbrance 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
arithmeticians 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
_Judæus Apella_.