As to the operation of the first (the confiscation and paper currency)
merely as a cement, I cannot deny that these, the one depending on the
other, may for some time compose some sort of cement, if their madness
and folly in the management, and in the tempering of the parts together,
does not produce a repulsion in the very outset. But allowing to the
scheme some coherence and some duration, it appears to me, that if,
after a while, the confiscation should not be found sufficient to
support the paper coinage (as I am morally certain it will not), then,
instead of cementing, it will add infinitely to the dissociation,
distraction, and confusion of these confederate republics, both with
relation to each other, and to the several parts within themselves. But
if the confiscation should so far succeed as to sink the paper currency,
the cement is gone with the circulation. In the mean time its binding
force will be very uncertain, and it will straiten or relax with every
variation in the credit of the paper.
One thing only is certain in this scheme, which is an effect seemingly
collateral, but direct, I have no doubt, in the minds of those who
conduct this business, that is, its effect in producing an OLIGARCHY in
every one of the republics. A paper circulation, not founded on any
real money deposited or engaged for, amounting already to four-and-forty
millions of English money, and this currency by force substituted in the
place of the coin of the kingdom, becoming thereby the substance of
its revenue, as well as the medium of all its commercial and civil
intercourse, must put the whole of what power, authority, and influence,
is left, in any form whatsoever it may assume, into the hands of the
managers and conductors of this circulation.
In England we feel the influence of the bank; though it is only the
centre of a voluntary dealing. He knows little indeed of the influence
of money upon mankind, who does not see the force of the management of
a monied concern, which is so much more extensive, and in its nature so
much more depending on the managers than any of ours. But this is
not merely a money concern. There is another member in the system
inseparably connected with this money management. It consists in the
means of drawing out at discretion portions of the confiscated lands for
sale; and carrying on a process of continual transmutation of paper
into land, and of land into paper. When we follow this process in its
effects, we may conceive something of the intensity of the force
with which this system must operate. By this means the spirit of
money-jobbing and speculation goes into the mass of land itself,
and incorporates with it. By this kind of operation, that species of
property becomes (as it were) volatilized; it assumes an unnatural and
monstrous activity, and thereby throws into the hands of the several
managers, principal and subordinate, Parisian and provincial, all the
representative of money, and perhaps a full tenth part of all the land
in France, which has now acquired the worst and most pernicious part of
the evil of a paper circulation,--the greatest possible uncertainty
in its value. They have reversed the Latonian kindness to the landed
property of Delos. They have sent theirs to be blown about, like the
light fragments of a wreck, oras et littora circum.
The new dealers, being all habitually adventurers, and without any fixed
habits or local predilections, will purchase to job out again, as the
market of paper, or of money, or of land, shall present an advantage.
For though a holy bishop thinks that agriculture will derive great
advantage from the "ENLIGHTENED" usurers who are to purchase the church
confiscations, I, who am not a good, but an old farmer, with great
humility beg leave to tell his late lordship, that usury is not tutor
of agriculture; and if the word "enlightened" be understood according
to the new dictionary, as it always is in your new schools, I cannot
conceive how a man's not believing in God can teach him to cultivate
the earth with the least of any additional skill or encouragement. "Diis
immortalibus sero," said an old Roman, when he held one handle of the
plough, whilst Death held the other. Though you were to join in the
commission all the directors of the two academies to the directors of
the Caisse d'Escompte, an old experienced peasant is worth them all.
I have got more information upon a curious and interesting branch of
husbandry, in one short conversation with an old Carthusian monk, than
I have derived from all the Bank directors that I have ever conversed
with. However, there is no cause for apprehension from the meddling of
money-dealers with rural economy. These gentlemen are too wise in their
generation. At first, perhaps, their tender and susceptible imaginations
may be captivated with the innocent and unprofitable delights of a
pastoral life; but in a little time they will find that agriculture is a
trade much more laborious, and much less lucrative, than that which they
had left. After making its panegyric, they will turn their backs on it
like their great precursor and prototype. They may, like him, begin by
singing "Beatus ille"--but what will be the end?
"Haec ubi locutus foenerator Alphius,
Jamjam futurus rusticus
Omnem relegit Idibus pecuniam;
Quaerit Calendis ponere."
They will cultivate the Caisse d'Eglise, under the sacred auspices
of this prelate, with much more profit than its vineyards and its
corn-fields. They will employ their talents according to their habits
and their interests. They will not follow the plough whilst they can
direct treasuries, and govern provinces.
Your legislators, in everything new, are the very first who have founded
a commonwealth upon gaming, and infused this spirit into it, as its
vital breath. The great object in these politics is to metamorphose
France from a great kingdom into one great play-table: to turn its
inhabitants into a nation of gamesters; to make speculation as extensive
as life; to mix it with all its concerns; and to divert the whole of
the hopes and fears of the people from their usual channels into the
impulses, passions, and superstitions of those who live on chances.
They loudly proclaim their opinion, that this their present system of
a republic cannot possibly exist without this kind of gaming fund; and
that the very thread of its life is spun out of the staple of
these speculations. The old gaming in funds was mischievous enough
undoubtedly; but it was so only to individuals. Even when it had its
greatest extent in the Mississippi and South Sea, it affected but few,
comparatively; where it extends further, as in lotteries, the spirit
has but a single object. But where the law, which in most circumstances
forbids, and in none countenances, gaming, is itself debauched, so as
to reverse its nature and policy, and expressly to force the subject
to this destructive table, by bringing the spirit and symbols of
gaming into the minutest matters, and engaging everybody in it, and in
everything, a more dreadful epidemic distemper of that kind is spread
than yet has appeared in the world. With you a man can neither earn nor
buy his dinner without a speculation. What he receives in the morning
will not have the same value at night. What he is compelled to take as
pay for an old debt will not be received as the same when he comes to
pay a debt contracted by himself; nor will it be the same when by prompt
payment he would avoid contracting any debt at all. Industry must wither
away. Economy must be driven from your country. Careful provision will
have no existence. Who will labour without knowing the amount of
his pay? Who will study to increase what none can estimate? Who will
accumulate, when he does not know the value of what he saves? If you
abstract it from its uses in gaming, to accumulate your paper wealth,
would be not the providence of a man, but the distempered instinct of a
jackdaw.
"OMNIPOTENCE OF CHURCH PLUNDER."
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.