“The uneasiness of the clergy concerning the free-gift, and other impositions, towards answering the necessities of the state, proceeds not so much from the impositions, as from the assessments. The dignitaries, who should pay the most, always pay the least, considering their incomes. The whole load falls on the poor parish priests, and other country incumbents, who have scarce a subsistence, and are more burthened as clergymen than as subjects.
“That the assembly of the bishops tax themselves, and the whole ecclesiastical body, is not a privilege belonging to the clergy, but a mere indulgence of the Kings of France, granted then with a proviso, that the assessments should be equitable, and that the inferior priests, who are the King’s subjects no less than the greater ecclesiastics, should not be overcharged.
“The tax is rated by the income, which is an iniquitous assessment: a priest with only a hundred crowns a year, paying a crown, in effect, is rated much higher than a bishop, who, with a hundred thousand livres a year, pays a thousand: a yearly income of ninety-nine thousand livres being ever more or less superfluous; whereas he who has only a hundred crowns, by being deprived of one, must feel it in the very necessaries of life.
“The inferior clergy are the King’s subjects equally with the higher. To allow the bishops to tax priests, because they are subordinate to them, is a manifest error in government, the spiritual power having no claims in temporals. The imposition and assessments of taxes appertains to the crown, the mitre has nothing to do in it.
“The whole body of the clergy should be taxed once for all, like the body of the laity: what tax the clergy can pay may be easily known; it is only taking an account of the several sums which the clergy has paid for these last twenty years; the twentieth part of the amount will be a fair yearly tax, as in twenty years an exact calculation may be made of the periodical wants of the state. In this interval, all the revolutions may be reduced to a general sum.
“It may be left to the clergy’s choice to pay the tax, without holding an assembly: this might be done by a tarif on the large and small dignities and benefices, or the tax might be levied by the King’s officers, as on the other subjects of the state.
“The latter most comports with the dignity of the crown, and will likewise be more advantageous. As the church is daily making acquisitions, and its general opulence is continually increasing by donations, the clergy’s payments should be raised in proportion to their aggrandizement.
“This rise of the clergy’s tax would be no more than what takes place in the common imposts. Artificers and tradespeople pay more in proportion to their thriving, though this be by their own labour and industry.”
The American affairs, of which not a word had been heard since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, now began to employ the court’s attention. The English complained, by their ambassador, my Lord Albemarle, that the French countenanced the Indians in their practices, and, underhand instigated them to molest their settlement in Nova Scotia. M. de Puisieux told the British minister, that the people at London were mistaken; “The court of France, said he, knows nothing of this supposed instigation; and, very probably, it exists only in the suspicious minds of the English.”
However, the first sparks of that fire, which was to kindle the war a fresh, already began to appear. Advice came from Canada, that the Indians were in motion; and though the cabinet of Versailles did not give direct orders to the French to oppose any such motion, neither did it tell them not to do so. This silence left the commanders to guess how they were to act; accordingly, they did not declare openly, but let second causes take their course.