our arms, and the extenfion of our dominion, by fixing the attention and exciting the admiration of other nations, has given rife to a spirit of imitation which difpofes them to copy us in all things, but principally in that in which we are moft diftinguished, the form of our government. In France more efpecially, fubjects were publicly and eagerly difcuffed, which before were either thought too dangerous to be meddled with, or which it was fuppofed a people fo long and fo often charged with being too frivolous for deep thinking, and too vain to profit by the thoughts of others, would not take the trouble to confider. The principles upon which governments were originally founded, the ultimate objects of their inftitution, with the relative rights and duties of the governors and of the governed, became fubje&ts of common converfation among common men. But above all, the perfonal fecurity afforded by the English conftitution, and the right which every man poffeffed of appealing publicly to the laws and to the world, in all cafes of grievance or oppreffion by power, were generally admired and envied: while lettres de cachet, and all other modes of imprifonment, banishment, or punishment, without legal trial, and legal condemnation, were univerfally execrated.

But this difpofition among the people might have been easily overJayed and fmothered in its infancy, if the American war had not at the fame time effectually provided for its nurture and growth. The minds of men grow attached to thofe principles which the caufes they are embarked in require them to maintain; and as the neceflity and long habit

of referring to and infifting upon the rights of government during the American contests, may in fome degree have weakened the fpirit of liberty amongst us, fo the French nation, reforting more to provifion and principle, by which the abuses of power are corrected, than those by which its energy is maintained, have imbibed a love of freedom nearly incompatible with royalty. But it was owing to a fecondary caufe that the American war became inftrumental to the revolution which has taken place in the affairs of that country. It involved the crown in fuch difficulties and diftreffes, as compelled it at length of neceffity to throw itself for fupport upon the people; thereby affording them fuch an opportunity for ipeaking, thinking and acting freely, as (excepting the licentioufness of the civil wars) three centuries had not before fhewn to France.

For the illufiration of this fubject it may be neceffary to premise, that the public debts of that kingdom had been exceedingly heavy, and its finances much embarraffed for many years back: that the intolerable burthens which war and ambition had laid upon the nation were continually increafed by the enormous expences of the crown, and the profufion that prevailed during the unequalled length of the two latt reigns: that the weight and amount of the debts were only part of the public misfortune: that the whole fyftem of finance was in the laft degree faulty and ruinous; that the taxes were ill laid, and worse levied; and that the farmers of the revenues, who made immense fortunes, were almoft the only people who lived in fplendour, while the bulk and the most valuable part of

the

the nation were groaning in poverty.

The American war took place in this ftate of things; and the people, in their zeal to fupport a new fovereign in his firft war, forgot debts and taxes. The oftenfible caufes, and the understood private motives of the war, were all likewife alluring and highly captivating to the imaginations of a generous, a warlike, and even to a commercial people. It appeared great and heroic to refcue an oppreffed people, who were gallantly contending for their rights, from inevitable ruin; it feemed a grand ftroke of policy to reduce the power and to humble the pride of a great and haughty rival: the heavy blows received in the former war with England could not be forgotten; and however the wounds feemed to be fkinned over by a peace fo unaccountably favourable that the principles on which it was concluded are not yet perhaps understood, they ftill rankled in the breaft of every Frenchman; nothing could therefore be more flattering to the national pride than to fuppofe the happy opportunity was now arrived for erafing all the ftigmas of that unfortunate period: nor was this all, for as it was univerfally fuppofed that the lofs of America would prove an incurable if not a mortal wound to England, foit was equally expected that the power of the Gallic throne would thereby be fixed on such permanent foundations, as never again to be fhaken by any ftroke of fortune; and to complete this pyramid of glory and advantage, commercial benefits before unknown, along with fuch an acceffion of naval firength as fhould VOL. XXIX.

command the feas, were to be de rived from the new alliance and connection with America. This fpeculation, like many others, when tried by the teft of dear-bought experience, came to nothing, and these fond hopes have already vanithed in fmoke. The nation were, however, fo fanguine in them, that they entered into the war with unexampled appetite, and a common heart and a common hand appeared in its profecution.

But though the American war failed in producing its wifhed-for effects with refpect to France, it left behind it other relics of a lefs pleafing nature, which could not foon be forgotten. Through various caufes, particularly from the novel manner in which it was conducted, its operations being mottly naval, and extended to the remoteft quarters of the world, from the extreme poverty and urgent neceflity of their new allies, and the prevalent fpirit of the time, which led to the most unbounded fupplies, under a perfuafion that the money fo laid out would be repaid in advantages to an hundred times its amount, the American war became the most expenfive, for the time of its continuance, of any in which France probably had ever been engaged; and this expence was the more ruinous in its effect, from the circumstance that a great part of this money was funk at fuch diftances from home, or laid out in commodities doubly perishable, through nature and through hoftility, that there was little profpect of its ever returning. From this war, then, an immenfe new debt being laid upon the back of the old, already too great, the accumulation became fo vaft, that [M]

it

it seemed to fwell beyond the common bounds of examination and enquiry.

The multitude of the diftin& loans which all together compofed this vaft mafs of debt, and the diverfity of the conditions upon which (according to the genius of the refpective projectors) they had been raised, the numberlefs appropriations of particular revenues to particular funds, and the frequent infractions of thefe to fupply the immediate neceflities of the ftate, occafioned fuch voluminous detailed accounts, fuch endless references, explanations, applications and deficiencies, with fuch eternal calculations and crowds of figures, that the whole prefented a chaos of confufion, in which the financiers them felves feemed fcarcely lefs bewildered than the public.

This ftate of disorder and dark nefs was comparatively, however, only a fmall part of the public grievance. The taxes, numerous as they were, and ruinous in the laft degree to the people, were totally unequal to the fupply of the current expences of the ftate, and to the difcharge of the intereit or aunuities rifing on the various funds. This deficiency was fo great fince the late war, that the whole amount of the revenues fell feveral millions fterling thort of the demand in each year. New funds could not be raifed, but the exigencies of the ftate must be fupplied; and no means appeared for anfwering this purpose, but by withholding the payment of the annuities to the public creditors, for fo great a fum as the amount of the deficiency. This ruinous measure could not but involve multitudes of people in the

greatest distress and calamity; and befides raised great clamour and dif content, at the undue preference fuppofed to be given to thofe claffes whofe payments were not ftopped.

In this difaftrous ftate of public affairs, while financier fucceeded financier, and projects multiplied upon projects, each new minifter attributed the public evils to the fault of his predeceffor, and had his own favourite fcheme of arrangement, which was to remove them all. This produced a ceflation of the murmurs of the public while the fhort funfhine of hope lafted; but only ferved to redouble their grief and indignation when they found that every attempt at elucidation only ferved to thicken the obfcurity, and that every hope of redress ended in an increase of the evils.

The crown, with respect to all that lay within its own immediate cognizance and power, acted the nobleft part during this flate of public embarraffment and diftrefs. Incapable of comprehending the complicated details, and the perplexed fituation of the national finances, the king endeavoured to alleviate the diftreffes of the people, by cur tailing the expences of his court, houthold, and even of his royal perfon. But though these reduc tions were fo great as to trench deeply upon the long-eftablished fplendour of the crown, and though the favings were accordingly very confiderable, yet they failed of anfwering the patriotic and generous intentions of the monarch, when plunged into the abyfs of public debts, demands, and neceflities. The free gifts granted by the clergy, and other public bodies, produced as little permanent effe&;

and

and amidst the multitude of demands, could fcarcely afford relief to any prefent pecuniary neceffity of the court.

Thefe circumftances, with the alarming clamour and difcontent which they produced, threw the crown into a fituation extremely irkfome to all potentates, but the moft favourable that could be to the new spirit rifen in France, and to the withes of a people who now began to grow impatient for an opportunity of recovering fome part at least of their ancient rights and privileges. The crown, wearied out by the repeated failure and difappointment which it had experienced in the fchemes and undertakings of minifters, and finding its difficulties every day increating, and becoming more infupportable, determined at length to throw itfelf upon the affection and wifdom of the nation for fuccour and fupport. It is faid, that M. de Calonne, who was then the financial minifter, had propofed this wife and falutary measure. It is however certain that the king adopted the measure with fo good a grace, that it feemed to flow fpontaneously from his own good difpofition and will; and it was undoubtedly happy to France that her prefent monarch neither poffeffed the obftinate, overbearing, arbitrary temper of fome of his predeceffors, nor had configned his power into the hands of miftreffes and favourites, and fuffered his mind to be poifoned by the vanity and pleasures of a volup

tuous court.

The pecuniary difficulties of the ftate have, in many countries, and particularly in England, made it neceffary for monarchs to apply to the collective refources and collec

tive councils of their people. The modification of regal authority, and the admiffion of the public into a participation of that authority, has generally been attended with confequences eafy and happy to both. Few kings however have had recourfe to this expedient until they had exhaufted every other means of fupply; they most commonly vifited their fubjects after the adoption of irregular or violent meafures for increafing the revenue they already poffeffed, and thus loft the merit of a generous reliance on the approbation and affection of their. people, feeming rather to be driven to them by neceffity than to turn to them through choice. This has not been the cafe in the prefent government of France. There have, comparatively fpeaking, during the prefent reign, been but little refort to compulfory loans, arbitrary extenfion of taxes, alteration in the value of the coin, or to any of those modes of violence and chicane which not unfrequently compose the fiscal inventory of monarchs. On the contrary, whether it was the effect of defign, or of accident, it fo happened, that from the moment the prefent king turned his attention ferioufly to the improvement of his revenues, the object has been to establish a basis of public credit. This was begun under the adminiftration of Mr. Neckar, by a general expofure of the finances. The public were folemnly called in to the council of the monarch, and defired to judge for themfelves in a concern of fuch great and general importance.-A great step, not to the forms but to the fubftance of public liberty, and perhaps the greatest advance that ever was made by a king towards the establishment of a free conftitu[M] 2

tion.

tion. With more or lefs regularity this fyftem has been pursued ever fince, until by its natural operation, combined with the growing neceflities of the government, it led to the calling of the affembly of the notables, and from thence to a more univerfal application to the fenfe of the nation.

Although fo much time has elapfed fince the laft convocation of the ftates general, that thofe affemblies are almoft obfolete, yet the French nation never wholly loft fight of that remnant of their ancient conftitution. Their wifeft patriots, and the moft fpirited of their governors, have often looked back to that antique and falutary remedy. In that period of mixed infurrection and tyranny, joined to foreign glory, which diftinguifhed the dominion of cardinal Richelieu, the nation was never in the condition, in the temper, or in the neceffity of deliberating in common. During the troubles which attended the minority of Louis the XIVth, the queen regent often talked of calling the fates general. The fplendour, the viciflitudes of that reign, are well known: the unlimited power of the monarch, and the troubled fcenes in which he wound up the glories of his life. The duke of Burgundy, the pupil of the author of Telemachus, to whom his grandfather had begun to delegate a portion of his authority, on whom the fondeft hopes of the nation turned, and who promifed to unite the qualities of a chriftian, a philofopher, and a king, had certainly formed a defign, among many other projects for the advantage of the ftate, and the relief of his people, to convene the ftates. He dying prematurely, power, on the demife

of Louis the XIVth, fell into hands of a different ftamp. It is not improbable that the veneration in which the character of this prince remained in the memory of the French, and particularly of his family, infufed fimilar fentiments into the mind of the late dauphin (the fon of Louis the XVth) who formed himself upon the model of the duke of Burgundy. The reverence, approaching to adoration, which the prefent king of France entertains for the opinions and attachments of his father, is fuppofed to be the ruling principle of his character and conduct. It is therefore a curious and not an improbable speculation to fuppofe, that the approxi mation to the body of the nation, and leaning to public councils, which, whether wifely or not, whether fortunately or not, have diftinguifhed the prefent reign, had their origin in thofe remote and fucceffive caufes. And if fo, it is a matter worthy of contemplation to confider,how the thoughts, writings, and actions of thofe who are dead many years, affect the revolutions of the prefent day.

It became however a matter of difficulty in what manner to obtain the fenfe or aid of the nation in the prefent exigence. The ancient affemblies of the ftates of the kingdom had been fo long difufed, that not only their forms were worn out of memory, but the extent of their rights and powers were fo much unknown, that all information upon the subject was either to be fought amidst the rubbish of the antiquarian, or in the obfcure and faithlefs pages of vague and illinformed hiftorians, who were much fonder of relating prodigies, than of preferving thofe records of man