of proselytism in the most fanatical degree; and from thence, by an easy progress, with the spirit of persecution according to their means.* What was not to be done towards their great end by any direct or immediate act, might be wrought by a longer process through the medium of opi. nion. To command that opinion, the first step is to establish a dominion over those who direct it. They contrived to possess themselves, with great method and perfeverance, of all the avenues to literary fame. Many of them indeed stood high in the ranks of literature and science. The world had done them justice; and in favour of general talents forgave the evil tendency of their peculiar principles. This was true liberality; which they returned by endeavouring to confine the reputation of fenfe, learning, and taste to themselves or their followers. I will venture to say that this narrow, exclusive spirit has not been less prejudicial to literature and to taste, than to morals and true philosophy. These atheistical fathers have a bigotry of their own; and they have learnt to talk against monks with the spirit of a monk. But in some things they are men of the world. The resources of intrigue are called in to fupply the defects of argument and wit. To this system * This (down to the end of the first senterice in the next paragraph) and some other parts here and there, were inserted, on his reading the manufcript, by my loft fon. of of literary monopoly was joined an unremitting industry to blacken and difcredit in every way, and by every means, all those who did not hold to their faction. To those who have observed the spirit of their conduct, it has long been clear that nothing was wanted but the power of carrying the intolerance of the tongue and of the pen into a persecution which would strike at property, liberty, and life. / The defultory and faint perfecution carried on against them, more from compliance with form and decency than with serious resentment, neither weakened their strength, nor relaxed their efforts. The issue of the whole was, that what with oppofition, and what with success, a violent and malignant zeal, of a kind hitherto unknown in the world, had taken an entire poffession of their minds, and rendered their whole conversation, which otherwise would have been pleasing and instructive, perfectly disgusting. A spirit of cabal, intrigue, and profelytism, pervaded all their thoughts, words, and actions. And, as controversial zeal foon turns its thoughts on force, they began to infinuate themselves into a correspondence with foreign princes; in hopes, through their authority, which at first they flattered, they might bring about the changes they had in view. To them it was indifferent whether these changes were to be accomplished by the thunderbolt of VOL. V. P defpotifm, despotism, or by the earthquake of popular commotion. The correfpondence between this catal and the late king of Pruffia, will throw no small light upon the spirit of all their proceedings.* For the fame purpose for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a diftinguished manner, the monied interest of France; and partly through the means furnished by those whose peculiar offices gave them the most extensive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied all the avenues to opinion. Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the publick mind; the alliance therefore of these writers with the monied interest,† had no small effect in removing the popular odium and envy which attended that species of wealth. These writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great zeal for the poor, and the lower orders, whilft in their fatires they rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts, of nobility, and of priesthood. They became a fort of demagogues. They served as a link to unite, in favour of one object, obnoxious wealth to reftlefs and defperate poverty. : As these two kinds of men appear principal * I do not chuse to shock the feeling of the moral reader with any quotation of their vulgar, base, and profane language. † Their connection with Turgot and almost all the people of the finance. leaders leaders in all the late transactions, their junction and politicks will ferve to account, not upon any principles of law or of policy, but as a cause, for the general fury with which all the landed property of ecclefiaftical corporations has been attacked; and the great care which, contrary to their pretended principles, has been taken, of a monied interest originating from the authority of the crown. All the envy against wealth and power, was artificially directed against other descriptions of riches. On what other principle than that which I have stated can we account for an appearance so extraordinary and unnatural as that of the ecclefiaftical poffeffions, which had stood fo many fucceffions of ages and shocks of civil violences, and were guarded at once by justice, and by prejudice, being applied to the payment of debts, comparatively recent, invidious, and contracted by a de cried and fubverted government? Was the publick estate a sufficient stake for the publick debts? Assume that it was not, and that a lofs must be incurred somewhere-When the only estate lawfully possessed, and which the contracting parties had in contemplation at the time in which their bargain was made, happens to fail, who, according to the principles of natural and legal equity, ought to be the fufferer? Certainly it ought to be either the party who trusted; or the party who perfuaded him to trust; or both; and not third parties who had no concern with the transaction. Upon any insolvency they ought to fuffer who were weak enough to lend upon bad security, or they who fraudulently held out a fecurity that was not valid. Laws are acquainted with no other rules of decision. But by the new institute of the rights of men, the only perfons, who in equity ought to fuffer, are the only persons who are to be faved harmless: those are to answer the debt who neither were lenders nor borrowers, mortgagers nor mortgagees. What had the clergy to do with these transactions? What had they to do with any publick engagement further than the extent of their own debt? To that, to be sure, their eftates were bound to the last acre. Nothing can lead more to the true fpirit of the affembly, which fits for publick confifcation, with its new equity, and its new morality, than an attention to their proceeding with regard to this debt of the clergy. The body of confiscators, true to that monied interest for which they were false to every other, have found the clergy competent to incur a legal debt. Of course they declared them legally entitled to the property which their power of incurring the debt and mortgaging the eftate implied; recognising the rights of those perfecuted citizens, in the very act in which they were thus grofsly violated. If, as I faid, any perfons are to make good de ficiencies |