To suppose, then, that the French are devoted to a system which has served as a pretext for so many crimes, and has been the cause of so many calamities, is to conclude them a nation of philosophers, who are able to endure, yet incapable of reasoning; and who suffer evils of every kind in defence of a principle with which they can be little acquainted, and which, in practice, they have known only by the destruction it has occasioned.
You may, perhaps, have been persuaded, that the people submit patiently now, for the sake of an advantage in perspective; but it is not in the disposition of unenlightened men (and the mass of a people must necessarily be so) to give up the present for the future. The individual may sometimes atchieve this painful conquest over himself, and submit to evil, on a calculation of future retribution, but the multitude will ever prefer the good most immediately attainable, if not under the influence of that terror which supersedes every other consideration. Recollect, then, the counsel of the first historian of our age, and "suspend your belief of whatever deviates from the laws of nature and the character of man;" and when you are told the French are attached to a government which oppresses them, or to principles of which they are ignorant, suppose their adoption of the one, and their submission to the other, are the result of fear, and that those who make these assertions to the contrary, are either interested or misinformed.
Excuse me if I have devoted a few pages to a subject which with you is obsolete. I am indignant at the perusal of such falsehoods; and though I feel for the humiliation of great talents, I feel still more for the disgrace such an abuse of them brings on our country.
It is not inapposite to mention a circumstance which happened to a friend of Mr. D____'s, some little time since, at Paris. He was passing through France, in his way from Italy, at the time of the general arrest, and was detained there till the other day. As soon as he was released from prison, he applied in person to a member of the Convention, to learn when he might hope to return to England. The Deputy replied, "Ma soi je n'en sais rien [Faith I can't tell you.]—If your Messieurs (naming some members in the opposition) had succeeded in promoting a revolution, you would not have been in your cage so long—mais pour le coup il faut attendre." [But now you must have patience.] It is not probable the members he named could have such designs, but Dumont once held the same language to me; and it is mortifying to hear these miscreants suppose, that factious or ambitious men, because they chance to possess talents, can make revolutions in England as they have done in France.
In the papers which gave rise to these reflections, I observe that some of your manufacturing towns are discontented, and attribute the stagnation of their commerce to the war; but it is not unlikely, that the stagnation and failures complained of might have taken place, though the war had not happened.—When I came here in 1792, every shop and warehouse were over-stocked with English goods. I could purchase any article of our manufacture at nearly the retail price of London; and some I sent for from Paris, in the beginning of 1793, notwithstanding the reports of war, were very little advanced. Soon after the conclusion of the commercial treaty, every thing English became fashionable; and so many people had speculated in consequence, that similar speculations took place in England. But France was glutted before the war; and all speculations entered into on a presumption of a demand equal to that of the first years of the treaty, must have failed in a certain degree, though the two countries had remained at peace.—Even after a two years cessation of direct intercourse, British manufactures are every where to be procured, which is a sufficient proof that either the country was previously over supplied, or that they are still imported through neutral or indirect channels. Both these suppositions preclude the likelihood that the war has so great a share in relaxing the activity of your commerce, as is pretended.
But whatever may be the effect of the war, there is no prospect of peace, until the efforts of England, or the total ruin of the French finances,* shall open the way for it.
* By a report of Cambon's at this time, it appears the expences of France in 1792 were eighteen millions sterling—in 1793, near ninety millions—and, in the spring of 1794, twelve and a half millions per month!—The church bells, we learn from the same authority, cost in coinage, and the purchase of copper to mix with the metal, five or six millions of livres more than they produced as money. The church plate, which was brought to the bar of the Convention with such eclat, and represented as an inexhaustible resource, amounted to scarcely a million sterling: for as the offering was every where involuntary, and promoted by its agents for the purposes of pillage, part was secreted, a still greater part stolen, and, as the conveyance to Paris was a sort of job, the expences often exceeded the worth—a patine, a censor, and a small chalice, were sent to the Convention, perhaps an hundred leagues, by a couple of Jacobin Commissioners in a coach and four, with a military escort. Thus, the prejudices of the people were outraged, and their property wasted, without any benefit, even to those who suggested the measure.
* By a report of Cambon's at this time, it appears the expences of France in 1792 were eighteen millions sterling—in 1793, near ninety millions—and, in the spring of 1794, twelve and a half millions per month!—The church bells, we learn from the same authority, cost in coinage, and the purchase of copper to mix with the metal, five or six millions of livres more than they produced as money. The church plate, which was brought to the bar of the Convention with such eclat, and represented as an inexhaustible resource, amounted to scarcely a million sterling: for as the offering was every where involuntary, and promoted by its agents for the purposes of pillage, part was secreted, a still greater part stolen, and, as the conveyance to Paris was a sort of job, the expences often exceeded the worth—a patine, a censor, and a small chalice, were sent to the Convention, perhaps an hundred leagues, by a couple of Jacobin Commissioners in a coach and four, with a military escort. Thus, the prejudices of the people were outraged, and their property wasted, without any benefit, even to those who suggested the measure.
* By a report of Cambon's at this time, it appears the expences of France in 1792 were eighteen millions sterling—in 1793, near ninety millions—and, in the spring of 1794, twelve and a half millions per month!—The church bells, we learn from the same authority, cost in coinage, and the purchase of copper to mix with the metal, five or six millions of livres more than they produced as money. The church plate, which was brought to the bar of the Convention with such eclat, and represented as an inexhaustible resource, amounted to scarcely a million sterling: for as the offering was every where involuntary, and promoted by its agents for the purposes of pillage, part was secreted, a still greater part stolen, and, as the conveyance to Paris was a sort of job, the expences often exceeded the worth—a patine, a censor, and a small chalice, were sent to the Convention, perhaps an hundred leagues, by a couple of Jacobin Commissioners in a coach and four, with a military escort. Thus, the prejudices of the people were outraged, and their property wasted, without any benefit, even to those who suggested the measure.
* By a report of Cambon's at this time, it appears the expences of France in 1792 were eighteen millions sterling—in 1793, near ninety millions—and, in the spring of 1794, twelve and a half millions per month!—The church bells, we learn from the same authority, cost in coinage, and the purchase of copper to mix with the metal, five or six millions of livres more than they produced as money. The church plate, which was brought to the bar of the Convention with such eclat, and represented as an inexhaustible resource, amounted to scarcely a million sterling: for as the offering was every where involuntary, and promoted by its agents for the purposes of pillage, part was secreted, a still greater part stolen, and, as the conveyance to Paris was a sort of job, the expences often exceeded the worth—a patine, a censor, and a small chalice, were sent to the Convention, perhaps an hundred leagues, by a couple of Jacobin Commissioners in a coach and four, with a military escort. Thus, the prejudices of the people were outraged, and their property wasted, without any benefit, even to those who suggested the measure.