by the high price of corn throughout the year 1789; a price arising almost entirely from Mons. Necker's fine operations in the corn trade, as it has been proved at large; it is true there is a deduction to be made on account of the unavoidable diminution of consumption in every article of land produce, not essentially necessary to life: every object of luxury, or tending to it, is lessened greatly. But after this discount is allowed, the balance, in favour of the little proprietor farmers, must be very great. The benefit of such a sum being added, as it is to the capital of husbandry, needs no explanation. Their agriculture must be invigorated by such wealth-by the freedom enjoyed by its its professors; by the destruction of its innumerable shackles ; and even by the distresses of other employments, occasioning new and great investments of capital in land and these leading facts will appear in a clearer light, when the prodigious division of landed property in France is well considered; probably half, perhaps twothirds, of the kingdom are in the possession of little proprietors, who paid quit-rents, and feudal duties, for the spots they farmed. Such men are placed at once in comparative affluence; and as ease is thus acquired by at least half the kingdom, it must not be set down as a point of trifling importance. Should France escape a civil war, she will, in the prosperity of these men, find a resource which politicians at a distance do not calculate. With rents the case is certainly different; for, beyond all doubt, landlords will, sooner or later, avail themselves of these circumstances, by advancing their rents; acting in this respect, as in every other country, is common; but they will find it impossible to deprive the tenantry of a vast advantage, necessarily flowing from their emancipation.

The confusion, which has since arisen in the finances, owing almost entirely to the mode of taxation adopted by the assembly, has had the effect of continuing to the present moment (1791), a freedom from all impost to the little proprietors, which, however dreadful its general effects on the national affairs, has tended strongly to enrich this class.

The effects of the revolution, not on any particular class of cultivators, but on agriculture in general, is with me, I must confess, very questionable; I see no benefits flowing,

particularly to agriculture (liberty applies equally to all classes, and is not yet sufficiently established for the protection of property), except the case of tythes; but I see the rise of many evils; restrictions and prohibitions on the trade of corn-a varying land-tax-and impeded inclosures, are mischiefs on principle, that may have a generative faculty; and will prove infinite drawbacks from the prosperity, which certainly was attainable. It is to be hoped, that the good sense of the assembly will reverse this system by degrees; for, if it is not reversed, AGRICULTURE

CANNOT FLOURISH.

The effect of the revolution, on the public revenue, is one great point on which Mons. de Calonne lays considerable stress; and it has been since urged in France, that the ruin of 30,000 families, thrown absolutely out of employment, and consequently out of bread, in the collection of taxes on salt and tobacco only, has had a powerful influence in spreading universal distress and misery. The public revenue sunk, in one year, 175 millions: this was not a loss of that sum; the people to whom assignats were paid on that account lost no more than the discount; the loss, therefore, to the people to whom that revenue was paid, could amount to no more than from 5 to 10 per cent.' But was it a loss to the miserable subjects who formerly paid those taxes; and who paid them by the sweat of their brows, at the expence of the bread out of their children's mouths, assessed with tyranny, and levied in blood. Do they feel a loss in having 175 millions in their pockets in 1789, more than they had in 1788? and in possessing other 175 millions more in 1790, and the inheritance in future? Is not such a change ease, wealth, life, and animation to those classes, who, while the pens of political satirists slander all innovations, are every moment reviving, by inheriting from that revolution something which the old government assuredly did not give? The revenue of the clergy may be called the revenue of the public:-those to whom the difference between the present payment of one

1 Since this was written, assignats fell in December 1791, and January 1792, to 34 to 38 per cent. paid in silver, and 42 to 50 paid in gold, arising from great emissions; from the quantity of private paper issued; from forged ones being common, and from the prospect of a war.

hundred and forty millions, and the old tythes, are a deduction of all revenue, are, beyond doubt, in great distress; but what say the farmers throughout the kingdom, from whom the detestable burthen of those taxes were extorted? Do not they find their culture lightened, their industry freed, their products their own? Go to the aristocratical politician at Paris, or at London, and you hear only of the ruin of France-go to the cottage of the métayer, or the house of the farmer, and demand of him what the result has been-there will be but one voice from Calais to Bayonne. If tythes were to be at one stroke abolished in England,' no doubt the clergy would suffer, but would not the agriculture of the kingdom, with every man dependent on it, rise with a vigour never before experienced?

FUTURE EFFECTS.

It would betray no inconsiderable presumption to attempt to predict what will be the event of the revolution now passing in France; I am not so imprudent. But there are considerations that may be offered to the attention of those who love to speculate on future events better than I do. There are three apparent benefits in an aristocracy forming the part of a constitution; first, the fixed, consolidated, and hereditary importance of the great nobility, is, for the most part, a bar to the dangerous pretensions, and illegal views, of a victorious and highly popular king, president, or leader. Assemblies, so elected, as to be swayed absolutely by the opinion of the people, would frequently, under such a prince, be ready to grant him much more than a well constituted aristocratic senate. Secondly, such popular assemblies, as I have just described, are sometimes led to adopt decisions too hastily, and too

It is an error in France to suppose, that the revenue of the church is small in England. The Royal Society of Agriculture at Paris states that revenue at 210,0001.; it cannot be stated at less than five millions sterling. "Mem. presenté par la S. R. d'Ag. a l'Assemblée Nationale," 1789, p. 52.-One of the greatest and wisest men we have in England, persists in asserting it to be much less than two millions. From very numerous inquiries, which I am still pursuing, I have reason to believe this opinion to be founded on insufficient data.

imprudently; and particularly in the case of wars with neighbouring nations; in the free countries, we have known the commonalty have been too apt to call lightly for them. An aristocracy, not unduly influenced by the crown, stands like a rock against such phrenzies, and hath a direct inIterest in the encouragement and support of peaceable maxims. The remark is applicable to many other subjects, in which mature deliberation is wanted to ballast the impetuosity of the people. I always suppose the aristocratic body well constituted, upon the basis of a sufficient property, and at the same time no unlimited power in the crown, to throw all the property of the kingdom into the same scale, which is the case in England. Thirdly, whatever benefits may arise from the existence of an executive power, distinct from the legislative, must absolutely depend on some intermediate and independent body between the people and the executive power. Every one must grant, that if there be no such body, the people are enabled, when they please, to annihilate the executive authority,—and assign it, as in the case of the long parliament, to committees of their own representatives; or, which is the same thing, they may appear, as they did at Versailles, armed before the King, and insist on his consent to any propositions they bring him: in these cases, the seeming advantages derived from a distinct executive power are lost. And it must be obvious, that in such a constitution as the present one of France, the kingly office can be put down as easily, and a readily, as a secretary can be reprimanded for a false entry in the journals. If a constitution be good, all great changes in it should be esteemed a matter of great difficulty and hazard: it is in bad ones only that alterations should not be looked upon in a formidable light.

That these circumstances may prove advantages in an aristocratical portion of a legislature, there is reason to believe; the inquiry is, whether they be counter-balanced by possible or probable evils. May there not come within. this description, the danger of an aristocracy uniting with crown against the people? that is to say, influencing by weight of property and power, a great mass of the people dependent against the rest of the people who are independent? Do we not see this to be very much the case in

England at this moment? To what other part of our constitution is it imputable that we have been infamously involved in perpetual wars, from which none reap any benefit but that tribe of vermin which thrive most when a nation most declines; contractors, victuallers, paymasters, stock-jobbers, and money-scriveners: a set by whom ministers are surrounded; and in favour of whom whole classes amongst the people are beggared and ruined. Those who will assert a constitution can be good1 which suffers these things, ought at least to agree, that such an one as would not suffer them would be much better.2

If an aristocracy have thus its advantages and disadvantages, it is natural to inquire, whether the French nation be likely to establish something of a senate, that shall have the advantages without the evils. If there should be none, no popular representatives will ever be brought, with the consent of their constituents, to give up a power in their own possession and enjoyment. It is experience alone, and long experience, that can satisfy the doubts which every one must entertain on this subject. What can be know, experimentally, of a government which has not stood the brunt of unsuccessful and of successful wars? The English constitution has stood this test, and has been found deficient; or rather, as far as this test can decide any thing, has been proved worthless; since in a single century, it has involved

1 It ought not to be allowed even tolerable, for this plain reason, such public extravagance engenders taxes to an amount that will sooner or later force the people into resistance, which is always the destruction of a constitution; and surely that must be admitted bad, which carries to the most careless eye the seeds of its own destruction. Two hundred and forty millions of public debt in a century, is in a ratio impossible to be supported; and therefore evidently ruinous.

2 The direct power of the king of England," says Mr. Burke, "is considerable. His indirect is great indeed. When was it that a king of England wanted wherewithal to make him respected, courted, or perhaps even feared in every state in Europe?" It is in such passages as these, that this elegant writer lays himself open to the attacks, formidable, because just, of men who have not an hundredth part of his talents. Who questions, or can question, the power of a prince that in Jess than a century has expended above 1000 millions, and involved his people in a debt of 240! The point in debate is not the existence of power, but its excess. What is the constitution that generates or allows of such expences? The very mischief complained of is here wrought into a merit, and brought in argument to prove that poison is salutary.