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 injustice. They confidered the vanquished party as compofed 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 thoufand human creatures out of their houfes, becaufe "fuch was your pleafure." 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 schools, 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 abufes which prevailed in thofe communities. As it might be expected, his commiffion reported truths, exaggerations, and falfhoods. But truly or falfely it reported abufes and offences. However, as abuses might be corrected, as evéry 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 abufes

(and

(and there were enough of them) were hardly thought fufficient ground for fuch a confifcation as it was for his purposes to make. He therefore procured the formal furrender of thefe eftates. All these 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 fervile houses with a fhare of the spoil, 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 thing more than one short form of incantation" Philofophy, Light, Liberality, the Rights of Men."

I can fay nothing in praife of those acts of tyranny, which no voice has hitherto ever commended under any of their falfe colours; yet in thefe falfe colours an homage was paid by defpotifm to justice. The power which was above all fear and all remorfe was not fet above all fhame. Whilft fhame 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 honeft man fympathizes in his reflections with our political poet on that occafion, and will pray to avert the omen whenever thefe acts of rapacious defpotifm prefent themfelves to his view or his imagination:

"May no fuch storm "Fall on our times, where ruin must reform.

<< Tell

«Tell me (my mufe) what monftrous, dire offence,
<< What crimes could any Christian king incense
"To fuch a rage? Was 't luxury, or lust?
"Was he fo temperate, so chafte, so just?

« Were these their crimes? they were his own much cc 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 defpotism, 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 preserve its existence? On this point I wish to receive fome information. When the ftates met, was the condition

* 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 fhame
"Of facrilege, must bear Devotion's name.
"No crime fo bold, but would be understood
"A real, or at least 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 spoils:
"But princes' fwords are sharper than their styles.
"And thus to th' ages past 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?

of

"Could

of the finances of France fuch, that, after ceco❤ nomifing (on principles of juftice and mercy) through all departments, no fair repartition of burthens upon all the orders could poffibly reftore them? If fuch an equal imposition would have been sufficient, 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 exposition of the state of the French nation *.

If we give credit to him, it was not neceffary to have recourse to any new impofitions whatfoever, to put the receipts of France on a ba lance with its expences. He stated the permanent charges of all defcriptions, including the intereft of a new loan of four hundred millions,

"Could we not wake from that lethargic dream, "But to be reftlefs in a worse 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 wish for ignorance?

"And rather in the dark to grope our way,
"Than, led by a false 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 Christian 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 spare,
" When fuch th' effects of our Devotion are?"

COOPER'S HILL, by Sir JonN DENHAM. * Rapport de Monf. le directeur général des finances, fait par ordre du Roi à Verfatlles. Mai 5, 1789.

at

at 531,444,000 livres; the fixed revenue at 475,294,000, making the deficiency 56,150,000, or short 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 in

appercus, on peut faire difparoitre un deficit qui a fait tant de bruit en Europe." As to the re-imbursement, the finking of debt, and the other great objects of public credit and political arrangement indicated in Monf. Necker's speech, no doubt could be entertained, but that a very moderate and proportioned affeffment on the citizens without diftinction would have provided for all of them to the fulleft extent of their demand.

If this reprefentation 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 minifter, a man who had been capable of abufing fo notoriously 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, inftead of moderate, reafonable, and general contribution, have in cold blood, and impelled by