Marshall briefly but clearly analyzes the economic and commercial outcome of the war:—
"Manufactures have declined in the same ratio that the cultivation of the soil has increas'd. War has been made upon the great manufacturing towns & they are in a considerable degree destroy'd. With manufactures France does not supply herself fully from her internal resources.
"Those of Britain flow in upon her notwithstanding the most severe prohibitory laws. The port of Rotterdam is purposely left open by the English & their goods are imported by the Dutch under Prussian and other neutral colors. They are smuggled in great quantities into France.
"Peace, then, will find this [French] nation entirely competent to the full supply of her colonies with provisions and needing manufactures to be imported for her own consumption.... France can take from America tobacco & raw cotton she can supply us with wines, brandies & silks."
Marshall then makes a searching commentary on French politics.
"The existing political state of France is connected with certain internal & powerfully operating causes by which it has been & will continue to be greatly influenc'd. Not the least of these is the tenure by which property is held.
"In the course of the revolution it is believed that more than half the land of France has become national.[629] Of this a very considerable proportion has been sold at a low rate.
"It is true that much of it belonged to those who have fallen under the Guillotine or who have been termed emigrants. Among the emigrants are many whose attachment to their country has never been shaken; & what is remarkable, among them are many who were never out of France. The law upon this subject is worthy of attention.
"Any two persons, no matter what their reputation, may, to some authority, I believe the municipality of the district, write & subscribe against any person whatever a charge, that such person is an emigrant, on receipt of which the person so charg'd is without further investigation inscribed on the list of emigrants.
"If the person so inscribed be afterwards apprehended while his name remains on the list, the trial, as I understand, is, not of the fact of emigration, but of the identity of the persons, & if this identity be established, he is instantly fusiller'd [shot]. The law is either rightly executed or permitted to be relax'd, as the occasion or the temper of the times may direct.