not feel fuch emotions on fuch occafions. He does not deserve the name of a free man who will not exprefs them.

Few barbarous conquerors have ever made fo terrible a revolution in property. None of the heads of the Roman factions, when they established " crudelem illam Haftam" in all their auctions of rapine, have ever fet up to fale the goods of the conquered citizen to fuch an enormous amount. It must be allowed in favour of thofe tyrants of antiquity, that what was done by them could hardly be faid to be done in cold blood. Their paffions were inflamed, their tempers foured, their understandings confused, with the spirit of revenge, with the innumerable reciprocated and recent inflictions and retaliations of blood and rapine. They were driven beyond all bounds of moderation by the apprehenfion of the return of power with the return of property to the families of thofe they had injured beyond all hope of forgiveness.

These Roman confifcators, who were yet only in the elements of tyranny, and were not inftructed in the rights of men to exercife all forts of cruelties on each other without provocation, thought it neceffary to spread a fort of colour over their injuftice. They confidered the vanquifhed party as composed of traitors who had borne arms, or otherwife had acted with hoftility against the commonwealth. They regarded them as perfons who had forfeited their property by their crimes. With you, in your improved state of the human mind, there was no fuch formality. You feized upon five millions sterling of annual rent, and turned forty or fifty thousand human creatures out of their houses, because "fuch was your pleasure." The tyrant, Harry the Eighth of England, as he was not better enlightened than the Roman Marius's and Sylla's, and had not ftudied in your new fchools, did not know what an effectual inftrument of defpotifm was to be found in that grand magazine of offenfive weapons, the rights of men. When he refolved to rob the abbies, as the club of the Jacobins have robbed all the ecclefiaftics, he began by fetting on foot a commiffion to examine into the crimes and abuses which prevailed in thofe communities. As it might be expected, his commiffion reported truths, exaggerations,

and

and falfehoods. But truly or falfely it reported abufes and offences. However, as abuses might be corrected, as every crime of perfons does not infer a forfeiture with regard to communities, and as property, in that dark age, was not difcovered to be a creature of prejudice, all thofe abuses, (and there were enough of them) were hardly thought fufficient ground for such a confifcation as it was for his purposes to make. He therefore procured the formal furrender of thefe eftates. All thefe operofe proceedings were adopted by one of the moft decided tyrants in the rolls of hiftory, as neceffary preliminaries, before he could venture, by bribing the members of his two servile houses with a fhare of the fpoil, and holding out to them an eternal immunity from taxation, to demand a confirmation of his iniquitous proceedings by an act of parliament. Had fate referved him to our times, four technical terms would have done his business, and faved him all this trouble; he needed nothing more than one fhort form of incantation-" Philofophy, Light, Liberality, the Rights of Men."

66

I can fay nothing in praise of those acts of tyranny, which no voice has hitherto ever commended under any of their falfe colours; yet in these false colours an homage was paid by defpotifm to juftice. The power which was above all fear and all remorfe was not fet above all shame. While Shame keeps its watch, Virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will Moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

I believe every honest man sympathizes in his reflections with our political poet on that occafion, and will pray to avert the omen whenever thefe acts of rapacious defpotifm present themselves to his view or his imagination:

"May no fuch storm "Fall on our times, where ruin must reform. "Tell me (my mufe) what monftrous, dire offence, "What crimes could any Christian king incenfe "To fuch a rage? Was't luxury, or luft? "Was be fo temperate, fo chaíte, fo juft?

<< Were

"Were these their crimes? they were his own much 66 more;

"But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor."*

This fame wealth, which is at all times treason and lefe nation to indigent and rapacious defpotifm, under all modes of polity, was your temptation to violate property, law, and religion, united in one object. But was the ftate of France fo wretched and undone, that no other refource but rapine remained to preferve its existence? On this point I wish to receive fome information. When the ftates met, was the condition of the finances of France fuch, that, after œconomifing (on principles of juftice and mercy) through all departments, no fair repartition of

The reft of the paffage is this

"Who having spent the treasures of his crown,

Condemns their luxury to feed his own.

And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame
"Of facrilege, must bear Devotion's name.
"No crime fo bold, but would be understood,
"A real, or at leaft a feeming good,

"Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name;
"And, free from confcience, is a flave to fame.
"Thus he the church at once protects, and fpoils :
"But princes' fwords are fharper than their ftyles.
"And thus to th' ages paft he makes amends,
"Their charity deftroys, their faith defends.
"Then did Religion in a lazy cell,

"In empty aëry contemplations dwell;

"And, like the block, unmoved lay: but ours,
"As much too active, like the ftork devours.
"Is there no temp'rate region can be known,
Betwixt their frigid, and our torrid zone?

"Could we not wake from that lethargic dream,
"But to be reftlefs in a worfe extreme ?
"And for that lethargy was there no cure,
"But to be caft into a calenture?

"Can knowledge have no bound, but muft advance
"So far, to make us with for ignorance?

"And rather in the dark to grope our way,
"Than, led by a falfe guide, to err by day?
"Who fees thefe difmal heaps, but would demand,
"What barbarous invader fack'd the land?

But when he hears, no Goth, no Turk did bring
"This defolation, but a Chriftian king;
"When nothing, but the name of zeal, appears
"Twixt our best actions, and the worst of theirs,
"What does he think our facrilege would fpare,
"When fuch th' effects of our Devotion are ?"

COOPER'S HILL, by Sir JOHN DENHAM.

of burthens upon all the orders could poffibly restore. them? If fuch an equal impofition would have been fufficient, you well know it might easily 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 recourse to any new impofitions whatsoever, to put the receipts of France on a balance with its expences. He ftated the permanent charges of all defcriptions, including the interest of a new loan of four hundred millions, at 531,444,000 livres; the fixed revenue at 475,294,000, making the deficiency 56,150,000, or fhort of 2,200,000 fterling. But to balance it, he brought forward favings and improvements of revenue (confidered as entirely certain) to rather more than the amount of that deficiency; and he concludes with these emphatical words (p. 39) Quel pays, Meffieurs, que celui, ou, fans impots et avec de fimples objets inappercus, on peut "faire difparoitre un deficit qui a fait tant de bruit en "Europe. As to the reimbursement, the finking of debt, and the other great objects of public credit and political arrangement indicated in Monf. Neckar's fpeech, no doubt could be entertained, but that a very moderate and proportioned affeffment on the citizens without distinction, would have provided for all of them to the fullest extent of their demand.

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If this representation of Monf. Neckar was falfe, then the affembly are in the highest degree culpable for having forced the king to accept as his minifter, and fince the king's depofition, for having employed as their minister, a man who had been capable of abufing so notorioutly the confidence of his mafter and their own; in a matter too of the highest moment, and directly appertaining to his particular office. But if the reprefentation 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 faid in favour of thofe, who, instead of moderate, reasonable, and general contribution, have in cold

Rapport de Monf. le Directeur général des finances, fait par ordre du Roi à Versailles. Mai 5, 1789.

cold blood, and impelled by no neceffity, had recourse to a partial and cruel confifcation?

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 ftates, they had in all their inftructions expressly directed their deputies to renounce every immunity, which put them upon a footing diftinct from the condition of their fellow fubjects. In this renunciation the clergy were even more explicit than the nobility.

But let us fuppofe that the deficiency had remained at the 56 millions, (or £. 2,200,000 fterling) as at first ftated by Mr. Neckar. Let us allow that all the refources he oppofed to that deficiency were impudent and groundless fictions; and that the affembly (or their lords of articles at the Jacobins) were from thence juftified in laying the whole burthen of that deficiency on the clergy,

yet allowing all this, a neceffity of £. 2,200,000 sterling will not fupport a confifcation to the amount of five millions. The impofition of £. 2,200,000 on the clergy, as partial, would have been oppreffive and unjust, but it would not have been altogether ruinous to those on whom it was impofed; and therefore it would not have anfwered the real purpose of the managers.

Perhaps perfons, 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 excife on confumable commodities, from duties of custom, or from any of the other numerous indirect impofitions, which in France as well as here, make fo very large a proportion of all payments to the public. The nobleffe paid the capitation. They paid

alfo

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