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Estimates of the Strength of France and Russia.
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The excise and consumption duties, raised at the barriers of the several divisions of the kingdom, in the cities towns, and villages, on the produce of agriculture, amounted to

20,000,000

6,000,000

£.26,000,000

The expence of collecting.

We have the authority of Necker and others, to say, that upwards of 300,000 persons were employed in the collection of the revenue. The subsistence of three hundred thousand men would, in any part of Europe, in Necker's time, have cost, at least.....

In all countries, those employed to collect the public revenues, and to hunt after smugglers, are considered as being taken from the dregs of society, and capable of every species of baseness and corruption; we may therefore estimate the thieveries and extortions of such a number of these gentry, together with what they would receive as bribes and douceus for connivance, at.......

The produce of the labour of 3,000,000 men, employed in useful industry, over and above their subsistence, must have been worth to the commuuity at least..

6,000,000

6,000,000

3,000,000

L.15,000,000

Anticipations, discount, and gratuities to the financiers, spies, and in

formers.

From the American war to the breaking out of the revolution, the anticipations upon the revenue, or the advances made to government by the farmer-generals and others, were seldom under ten or twelve millions sterling, and never cost less than from 12 to 15 per cent. These, with other agiotage, or stock-jobbing, and immense fortunes amassed by all those who were in any wise concerned in the finance department, amounted, we will say, to only 5,000,000l. which, with the fifteen millions, make 20,000,000.

Of these twenty millions, four fifths, at least, fell upon the proprietors, cultivators, and consumers of the produce of agriculture, say 16,000,0001. which, with the twenty-six millions before-mentioned, make 42,000,0001.

So that the rental and the produce of the territory of old France were charged with forty-two millions sterling; or with two-fifths more annually than thirty millions would be upon the present extent and population of the republic,

Estimates of the Strength of France and Russia.

Manufactures.-As the manufactures of all countries are more or less modelled upon the leading taste and manners of the people amongst whom they are made, those of France were hitherto considered so gaudy and overcharged, that they never were in general request amongst the sober part of the community in any other country. There never was any thing of real use, combined with durable elegance, made in France; nor, if we except their pomatums, hair-powder, and girlish toys, did their manufactures produce any article that could command a general market.

The republic has now, however, acquired advantages which monarchical France never had. The revolution has destroyed that prejudice which excluded manufacturers, mechanics, and merchants, from what was considered genteel society: it has annihilated the public debt; the circulating capital is thereby nearly confined to specie and wares, and cannot so far exceed a fair proportion with the produce of the soil, as to raise the produce of labour above the level of exportation; and it has Jaid open the face of the whole country to agriculture and improvement; so that an abundance of the necessaries of life is secured and certain. The war has given to France a military command over half the governments of Europe; and the diplomacy of Buonaparte commands the other half, and also Africa and America. France may therefore either monopolize the consumption of these countries, or insist on a decided preference being given in their markets to the produce of France and her manufactures.

The other states of continental Europe can set no manufactures in competion with those of France: their military and militia laws, the feudal vassalage still existing, and the rights of corporations, are insurmountable obstacles to all kinds of mechanical perfection. In Great Britain, the immense mass of public and private paper in circulation, the amount and manner of levying the public imposts, with the nnpardonable neglect of the fisheries, have raised the price of labour to such a rate, that, notwithstanding the superiority of British mechanism, if efficacious measures are not taken to secure the necessaries of common life at a fair price, her exportation must, sooner or later, be confined to such articles as cannot be made elsewhere.

If we add to these the vigorous efforts said to be making by the French government to encourage the manufactures; and also, what cannot be doubted, that considerable emigrations of both hands and money, from other countries, will settle in France, it will appear extremely probable that the manufactures of France may shortly become an important branch of her national industry.

Maritime trade.-To what extent the maritime trade of France may be carried, is, at this moment, impossible to be foreseen. I shall therefore make only one remark.

Estimates of the Strength of France and Russia.

Of the numerous faults and blunders committed by the several parties concerned in the late revolutionary war, next to Great Britain the government of America has made the most irretrievable. To enter into a war, for the mere purpose of acting upon the defensive, is the most ridiculous of all political absurdities. Such parties generally receive more blows than they give, and, in the end, they are spurned at by their friends, and despised by their enemies.

As the United States are situate, possessing an immense length of coast, a great number of mercantile ports, and the several provinces producing but little variation in their exportable commodities, to enable their rapidly increasing population to maintain a profitable intercourse with the rest of the world, a certain portion of the sugar trade is indispensably necessary. A small settlement or two would be of little importance to America; nor can it be expected that this government will be satisfied with such. But how are they now to acquire any great possession?

During her warfare with France, or at any time prior to the destruction of Toussaint, America might have easily secured St. Domingo; a single proclamation, declaring that island an integral part of the fedral republic, and an independant state in the union, would have instantaneously rallied both blacks and whites around her standard. And what has the United States to apprehend from France? Caresses and attention, but certainly no sort of danger.

The acquisition of St. Domingo would have been, both in a commercial and political consideration, every thing that America could rationally desire; it would have enabled the United States to carry on a wide, extensive, and profitable maritime trade; and, as it would have rendered the political and mercantile interests of America and Great Britain reciprocal and mutual, by securing the British possessions in the West Indies, it would have raised an insuperable barrier between the United States and their perfidious sister, the French Government.

The opportunity is now lost! The partial patriotism of her chief magistrate has, to all appearance, deprived America, perhaps for ever, of becoming that conspicuous nation which nature, and the spirit of her inhabitants, certainly designed her to be in a few years. The politics of the acting president seem to be guided by no other system than the personal animosities of Mr. Jefferson: he seems to bear malice against the British government; and that hatred is with him a sufficient reason to make America the unconditional dupe of the French republic.

St. Domingo lost, the Americans have turned their views towards the island of Cuba. They consider the acquisition of that settlement as the certain result of a quarrel with Spain; and they pretend to have already a plausible pretext to make a claim upon that forlorn monarchy.

Estimates of the Strength of France and Russia.

Military Strength.-Much has been said about the military spirit with which, it is pretended, that certain nations have been, and are yet endued. Some people have, no doubt, at certain periods, displayed uncommon military valour; but this is neither hereditary nor confined to any peculiar locality *. In their primitive errant state, men are naturally active and warlike; but in all stages of society, as if it were by moral necessity, they follow chiefs, and imitate those whom they consider as their superiors. In the civilized world, the spirit, or public character of every nation, is derived from, and guided by the rulers of the state: if the government be virtuous, valiant, and active, the community will be moral, brave, aud industrious.

Since the system of resistance to legal authority has been ratified by all the sovereigns of Europe, much pains have been taken to shew, that a people, fighting in what is called their own cause, are capable of greater atchievements than those who fight for a chief. By this invidious doctrine it is meant to prove, that oppression, ignorance, and corruption, are the hereditary characteristics of a legal government: otherwise, how could it be asserted that a band of rebel adventurers, a few usurpers, or a self-elected chief, should be better qualified than a leigtimate sovereign raise a commonwealth to grandeurt? These pretended extraordinary powers of democracy are mere bug-bears: a people no sooner renounce their allegiance to one ruler, than they pass under the dominion of another; and if, at the command of a consul, or president, they perform deeds which they will not do at the order of an emperor, or a king, the

• Several extraordinary men have, at certain periods, raised and maintained armies and navies very disproportionate to the visible means they possessed. In confining our remarks to modern times, we find that Gutavus Adolphus organised an army, which made Sweden arbitrator in the affairs of Europe. Some men oftalents raised even Holland to the same rauk; and Frederic II. made a Brandenburg army formidabte to the House of Austria: but the localities and natural powers of Sweden, Holland, and Prussia, not being in themselves sufficient to consolidate a preponderance in the political world, their power declined as the genius and heroisan which had raised them to eminenc e disappeared. These states are now fallen into dependency, and under foreign subjection, and the others are dwindling itseninto their natural insignificance.

↑ There is no country in Europe where this doctrine is less defined, nor propagated with more industry, than it has lately been in Great Britain. When a faction of Polish adventurers, sanctioned by the most insignificant prince that ever swayed a sceptre, attempted to extend the Jacobin revolution of France from Constantinople to the northerm extremities of Europe, the British press teemed with prayers for their success, and poured out reprobations upon those governments that, in their own defence, opposed the torrent of anarchy and confusion. The London papers made heroic and victorious armies of the black negoes in St. Domingo; and at the moment we are writing, they are filled with such panegyrics on the patriotism and noble zeał of the deluded rabble in Switzerland, that to read them iş disgusting to common sense.

Estimates of the Strength of France and Russia.

cause must ueaessarily lie in the superior, or inferior capacity of one of the parties.

Calculations made upon the spirit of a nation without a body, or upon the body of a people without a soul, will always prove fallacious. In the political sphere of human action, extraordinary men appear but seldom; and although the vexatious vices of ignorant rulers may sometimes rouse up an oppressed people to vengeance, yet they will never become formidable to other states, until they themselves are subdued, and follow a leader, or obey a chief.

The only true criterion, by which the natural powers of a nation can be ascertained, is its population, and the ease or the difficulty of subsistence and the permanent military strength of a state must ever be confined to that part of the community which, unemployed in productive labour, can be maintained without inconveniency to the whole.

With respect to France, the peace of Nimeguen made the dominions of Louis XIV. the most compact and populous kingdom in Europe; that of Utrecht extended them to Spain and the Indies; and a natural consequence was, the consolidation of the military preponderance of that monarchy. The present situation of Holland, Germany, and Italy, was then foreseen, and the ruin of Great Britain itself was predicted.

At Nimeguen, Sir William Temple declared it to be his opinion, That whoever advised the States General to make peace with France, in her then formidable posture, was a traitor to all the sovereigns of Europe."-The elector of Brandenburg was of the same opinion, and wrote to the Prince of Orange, "If Holland will not come heartily forward, it is our duty to exterminate those Dutchmen, and to establish, in their stead, a more effectual barrier to the conquering system of France."During the negociations at Utrecht, the Emperor told Lord Peterborough, that the Queen, by her secret preliminaries with Louis, had ceded Europe and the Indies to France; and the Electoral Prince of Brunswick, afterwards George I. in his memorials, endeavoured te con'vince the British ministry that, by giving up the Spanish monarchy to the House of Bourbon, they surrendered the British kingdem as a province to the same power. The same prince observed to Raby, afterwards Stafford, "Your mistress has signed the death-warrant of E rope, and of Old England; and you, Sir, are charged to prepare the halters."

In short, the peace of Nimeguen was the preliminary to the subjec tion of Europe, and that of Utrecht was the definitive treaty: the one put France in an offensive position, the other destroyed the defensive means of all her neighbours*.

* It is remarkable that the British government should have imposed both these treaties upon the world. It is still more remarkable that the fallacions conclusions,

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