Volume II Part 22 (1/2)
[Footnote 1: The main and uniform maxim of the judges is, the greater the truth the greater the libel.]
[Footnote 2: Since writing the above, two other places occur in Mr. Burke's pamphlet in which the name of the Bastille is mentioned, but in the same manner. In the one he introduces it in a sort of obscure question, and asks: ”Will any ministers who now serve such a king, with but a decent appearance of respect, cordially obey the orders of those whom but the other day, in his name, they had committed to the Bastille?” In the other the taking it is mentioned as implying criminality in the French guards, who a.s.sisted in demolis.h.i.+ng it. ”They have not,” says he, ”forgot the taking the king's castles at Paris.” This is Mr. Burke, who pretends to write on const.i.tutional freedom.]
[Footnote 3: I am warranted in a.s.serting this, as I had it personally from M.
de la Fayette, with whom I lived in habits of friends.h.i.+p for fourteen years.]
[Footnote 4: An account of the expedition to Versailles may be seen in No. 13 of the Revolution de Paris containing the events from the 3rd to the 10th of October, 1789.]
[Footnote 5: It is a practice in some parts of the country, when two travellers have but one horse, which, like the national purse, will not carry double, that the one mounts and rides two or three miles ahead, and then ties the horse to a gate and walks on. When the second traveller arrives he takes the horse, rides on, and pa.s.ses his companion a mile or two, and ties again, and so on--Ride and tie.]
[Footnote 6: The word he used was renvoye, dismissed or sent away.]
[Footnote 7: When in any country we see extraordinary circ.u.mstances taking place, they naturally lead any man who has a talent for observation and investigation, to enquire into the causes. The manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, are the princ.i.p.al manufacturers in England. From whence did this arise? A little observation will explain the case. The princ.i.p.al, and the generality of the inhabitants of those places, are not of what is called in England, the church established by law: and they, or their fathers, (for it is within but a few years) withdrew from the persecution of the chartered towns, where test-laws more particularly operate, and established a sort of asylum for themselves in those places. It was the only asylum that then offered, for the rest of Europe was worse.--But the case is now changing. France and America bid all comers welcome, and initiate them into all the rights of citizens.h.i.+p. Policy and interest, therefore, will, but perhaps too late, dictate in England, what reason and justice could not. Those manufacturers are withdrawing, and arising in other places. There is now erecting in Pa.s.sey, three miles from Paris, a large cotton manufactory, and several are already erected in America. Soon after the rejecting the Bill for repealing the test-law, one of the richest manufacturers in England said in my hearing, ”England, Sir, is not a country for a dissenter to live in,--we must go to France.” These are truths, and it is doing justice to both parties to tell them. It is chiefly the dissenters that have carried English manufactures to the height they are now at, and the same men have it in their power to carry them away; and though those manufactures would afterwards continue in those places, the foreign market will be lost. There frequently appear in the London Gazette, extracts from certain acts to prevent machines and persons, as far as they can extend to persons, from going out of the country. It appears from these that the ill effects of the test-laws and church-establishment begin to be much suspected; but the remedy of force can never supply the remedy of reason. In the progress of less than a century, all the unrepresented part of England, of all denominations, which is at least an hundred times the most numerous, may begin to feel the necessity of a const.i.tution, and then all those matters will come regularly before them.]
[Footnote 8: When the English Minister, Mr. Pitt, mentions the French finances again in the English Parliament, it would be well that he noticed this as an example.]
[Footnote 9: Mr. Burke, (and I must take the liberty of telling him that he is very unacquainted with French affairs), speaking upon this subject, says, ”The first thing that struck me in calling the States-General, was a great departure from the ancient course”;--and he soon after says, ”From the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and very nearly as it has happened, all that was to follow.”--Mr. Burke certainly did not see an that was to follow. I endeavoured to impress him, as well before as after the States-General met, that there would be a revolution; but was not able to make him see it, neither would he believe it. How then he could distinctly see all the parts, when the whole was out of sight, is beyond my comprehension. And with respect to the ”departure from the ancient course,” besides the natural weakness of the remark, it shows that he is unacquainted with circ.u.mstances. The departure was necessary, from the experience had upon it, that the ancient course was a bad one.
The States-General of 1614 were called at the commencement of the civil war in the minority of Louis XIII.; but by the cla.s.s of arranging them by orders, they increased the confusion they were called to compose. The author of L'Intrigue du Cabinet, (Intrigue of the Cabinet), who wrote before any revolution was thought of in France, speaking of the States-General of 1614, says, ”They held the public in suspense five months; and by the questions agitated therein, and the heat with which they were put, it appears that the great (les grands) thought more to satisfy their particular pa.s.sions, than to procure the goods of the nation; and the whole time pa.s.sed away in altercations, ceremonies and parade.”--L'Intrigue du Cabinet, vol. i. p. 329.]
[Footnote 10: There is a single idea, which, if it strikes rightly upon the mind, either in a legal or a religious sense, will prevent any man or any body of men, or any government, from going wrong on the subject of religion; which is, that before any human inst.i.tutions of government were known in the world, there existed, if I may so express it, a compact between G.o.d and man, from the beginning of time: and that as the relation and condition which man in his individual person stands in towards his Maker cannot be changed by any human laws or human authority, that religious devotion, which is a part of this compact, cannot so much as be made a subject of human laws; and that all laws must conform themselves to this prior existing compact, and not a.s.sume to make the compact conform to the laws, which, besides being human, are subsequent thereto. The first act of man, when he looked around and saw himself a creature which he did not make, and a world furnished for his reception, must have been devotion; and devotion must ever continue sacred to every individual man, as it appears, right to him; and governments do mischief by interfering.]
[Footnote 11: See this work, Part I starting at line number 254.--N.B. Since the taking of the Bastille, the occurrences have been published: but the matters recorded in this narrative, are prior to that period; and some of them, as may be easily seen, can be but very little known.]
[Footnote 12: See ”Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain,” by G.
Chalmers.]
[Footnote 13: See ”Administration of the Finances of France,” vol. iii, by M.
Neckar.]
[Footnote 14: ”Administration of the Finances of France,” vol. iii.]
[Footnote 15: Whether the English commerce does not bring in money, or whether the government sends it out after it is brought in, is a matter which the parties concerned can best explain; but that the deficiency exists, is not in the power of either to disprove. While Dr. Price, Mr. Eden, (now Auckland), Mr. Chalmers, and others, were debating whether the quant.i.ty of money in England was greater or less than at the Revolution, the circ.u.mstance was not adverted to, that since the Revolution, there cannot have been less than four hundred millions sterling imported into Europe; and therefore the quant.i.ty in England ought at least to have been four times greater than it was at the Revolution, to be on a proportion with Europe. What England is now doing by paper, is what she would have been able to do by solid money, if gold and silver had come into the nation in the proportion it ought, or had not been sent out; and she is endeavouring to restore by paper, the balance she has lost by money. It is certain, that the gold and silver which arrive annually in the register-s.h.i.+ps to Spain and Portugal, do not remain in those countries. Taking the value half in gold and half in silver, it is about four hundred tons annually; and from the number of s.h.i.+ps and galloons employed in the trade of bringing those metals from South-America to Portugal and Spain, the quant.i.ty sufficiently proves itself, without referring to the registers.
In the situation England now is, it is impossible she can increase in money. High taxes not only lessen the property of the individuals, but they lessen also the money capital of the nation, by inducing smuggling, which can only be carried on by gold and silver. By the politics which the British Government have carried on with the Inland Powers of Germany and the Continent, it has made an enemy of all the Maritime Powers, and is therefore obliged to keep up a large navy; but though the navy is built in England, the naval stores must be purchased from abroad, and that from countries where the greatest part must be paid for in gold and silver. Some fallacious rumours have been set afloat in England to induce a belief in money, and, among others, that of the French refugees bringing great quant.i.ties. The idea is ridiculous. The general part of the money in France is silver; and it would take upwards of twenty of the largest broad wheel wagons, with ten horses each, to remove one million sterling of silver. Is it then to be supposed, that a few people fleeing on horse-back or in post-chaises, in a secret manner, and having the French Custom-House to pa.s.s, and the sea to cross, could bring even a sufficiency for their own expenses?
When millions of money are spoken of, it should be recollected, that such sums can only acc.u.mulate in a country by slow degrees, and a long procession of time. The most frugal system that England could now adopt, would not recover in a century the balance she has lost in money since the commencement of the Hanover succession. She is seventy millions behind France, and she must be in some considerable proportion behind every country in Europe, because the returns of the English mint do not show an increase of money, while the registers of Lisbon and Cadiz show an European increase of between three and four hundred millions sterling.]
[Footnote 16: That part of America which is generally called New-England, including New-Hamps.h.i.+re, Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode-Island, and Connecticut, is peopled chiefly by English descendants. In the state of New-York about half are Dutch, the rest English, Scotch, and Irish. In New-jersey, a mixture of English and Dutch, with some Scotch and Irish.
In Pennsylvania about one third are English, another Germans, and the remainder Scotch and Irish, with some Swedes. The States to the southward have a greater proportion of English than the middle States, but in all of them there is a mixture; and besides those enumerated, there are a considerable number of French, and some few of all the European nations, lying on the coast. The most numerous religious denomination are the Presbyterians; but no one sect is established above another, and all men are equally citizens.]
[Footnote 17: For a character of aristocracy, the reader is referred to Rights of Man, Part I., starting at line number 1457.]
[Footnote 18: The whole amount of the a.s.sessed taxes of France, for the present year, is three hundred millions of francs, which is twelve millions and a half sterling; and the incidental taxes are estimated at three millions, making in the whole fifteen millions and a half; which among twenty-four millions of people, is not quite thirteen s.h.i.+llings per head. France has lessened her taxes since the revolution, nearly nine millions sterling annually. Before the revolution, the city of Paris paid a duty of upwards of thirty per cent. on all articles brought into the city. This tax was collected at the city gates. It was taken off on the first of last May, and the gates taken down.]
[Footnote 19: What was called the livre rouge, or the red book, in France, was not exactly similar to the Court Calendar in England; but it sufficiently showed how a great part of the taxes was lavished.]
[Footnote 20: In England the improvements in agriculture, useful arts, manufactures, and commerce, have been made in opposition to the genius of its government, which is that of following precedents. It is from the enterprise and industry of the individuals, and their numerous a.s.sociations, in which, tritely speaking, government is neither pillow nor bolster, that these improvements have proceeded. No man thought about government, or who was in, or who was out, when he was planning or executing those things; and all he had to hope, with respect to government, was, that it would let him alone. Three or four very silly ministerial newspapers are continually offending against the spirit of national improvement, by ascribing it to a minister. They may with as much truth ascribe this book to a minister.]
[Footnote 21: With respect to the two houses, of which the English parliament is composed, they appear to be effectually influenced into one, and, as a legislature, to have no temper of its own. The minister, whoever he at any time may be, touches it as with an opium wand, and it sleeps obedience.