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But that decried government could not have obstructed, most probably it favoured, the operation of those causes (whatever they were) whether of nature in the foil, or habits of industry among the people, which has produced so large a number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in some particular places such prodigies of population. I never will suppose that fabrick of a state to be the worst of all political institutions, which, by experience, is found to contain a principle favourable (however latent it may be) to the increase of mankind.

The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, by which we may judge whether, on the whole, a government be protecting or destructive. France far exceeds England in the multitude of her people; but I apprehend that her comparative wealth is much inferiour to ours; that it is not so equal in the distribution, nor fo ready in the circulation. I believe the difference in the form of the two governments to be amongst the causes of this advantage on the side of England. I speak of England, not of the whole British dominions; which, if compared with those of France, will, in some degree, weaken the comparative rate of wealth upon our fide. But that wealth, which will not endure a comparison with the riches of England, may constitute a very respectable degree of opulence. Mr. Necker's book, published

published in 1785,* contains an accurate and interefting collection of facts relative to publick œconomy and to political arithmetick; and his speculations on the subject are in general wife and liberal. In that work he gives an idea of the state of France, very remote from the portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an abfolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that from the year 1726 to the year 1784, there was coined at the mint of France, in the species of gold and filver, to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds sterling.t

It is impossible that Mr. Necker should be miftaken in the amount of the bullion which has been coined in the mint. It is a matter of official record. The reasonings of this able financier, concerning the quantity of gold and silver which remained for circulation, when he wrote in 1785, that is, about four years before the depofition and imprisonment of the French king, are not of equal certainty; but they are laid on grounds so apparently solid, that it is not easy to refuse a considerable degree of assent to his calculation. He

• De l'Administration des Finances de la France, par Monf. Necker.

† Vol. iii. chap. 8. and chap. 9.

calculates

calculates the numeraire, or what we call specie, then actually existing in France, at about eightyeight millions of the fame English money. A great accumulation of wealth for one country, large as that country is! Mr. Necker was fo far from confidering this influx of wealth as likely to ceafe, when he wrote in 1785, that he prefumes upon a future annual increase of two per cent. upon the money brought into France during the periods from which he computed.

Some adequate cause must have originally introduced all the money coined at its mint into that kingdom; and fome cause as operative must have kept at home, or returned into its bosom, such a vast flood of treasure as Mr. Necker calculates to remain for domeftick circulation. Suppose any reasonable deductions from Mr. Necker's computation; the remainder must still amount to an immense fum. Causes thus powerful to acquire and to retain, cannot be found in difcouraged industry, infecure property, and a positively deftructive government. Indeed, when I confider the face of the kingdom of France; the multitude and opulence of her cities; the useful magnificence of her spacious high roads and bridges; the opportunity of her artificial canals and navigations opening the conveniences of maritime communication through a folid continent of so immenfe an extent; when I turn

turn my eyes to the stupendous works of her ports and harbours, and to her whole naval apparatus, whether for war or trade; when I bring before my view the number of her fortifications, conftructed with so bold and masterly a skill, and made and maintained at so prodigious a charge, presenting an armed front and impenetrable barrier to her enemies upon every fide; when I recollect how very small a part of that extensive region is without cultivation, and to what complete perfection the culture of many of the best productions of the earth have been brought in France; when I reflect on the excellence of her manufactures and fabricks, second to none but ours, and in some particulars not fecond; when I contemplate the grand foundations of charity, publick and private; when I survey the state of all the arts that beautify and polish life; when I reckon the men she has bred for extending her fame in war, her able statesmen, the multitude of her profound lawyers and theologians, her philofophers, her criticks, her historians and antiquaries, her poets and her orators, facred and profane; I behold in all this fomething which awes and commands the imagination, which checks the mind on the brink of precipitate and indiscriminate cen fure, and which demands, that we should, very feriously examine, what and how great are the latent vices that could authorize us at once to level WL. V.

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so spacious a fabrick with the ground. I do not recognise, in this view of things, the despotism of Turkey. Nor do I difcern the character of a government, that has been, on the whole, so oppref. five, or so corrupt, or so negligent, as to be utterly unfit for all reformation. I must think fuch a go vernment well deferved to have its excellencies heightened; its faults corrected; and its capacities improved into a British constitution.

Whoever has examined into the proceedings of that depofed government for several years back, cannot fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavour towards the profperity and improvement of the country; he must admit, that it had long been employed, in some instances, wholly to remove, in many confiderably to correct, the abufive practices and usages that had prevailed in the state; and that even the unlimited power of the fovereign over the perfons of his subjects, inconsistent, as undoubtedly it was, with law and liberty, had yet been every day growing more mitigated in the exercise. So far from refusing itfelf to reformation, that government was open, with a cenfurable degree of facility, to all forts of projects and projectors on the fubject. Rather too much countenance was given to the spirit of innovation, which foon was turned against those who foftered it, and ended in their ruin. It is but Cold,

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