the funds for this aftonishing annual addition to all her vast preceding taxes, an addition equal to the whole excife, cuftoms, land and malt taxes of England taken together.

But what must be the reader's aftonishment, perhaps his indignation, if he fhould find that this great financier has fallen into the most unaccountable of all errours, no lefs an errour than that of miftaking the identical fums borrowed by France upon intereft, for supplies raised within the year. Can it be conceived that any man only entered into the firft rudiments of finance fhould make fo egregious a blunder; fhould write it, should print it; fhould carry it to a fecond edition: fhould take it not collaterally and incidentally, but lay it down as the corner-ftone of his whole fyftem, in fuch an important point as the comparative states of France and England? But it will be faid, that it was his misfortune to be ill-informed. all. A man of any loofe general knowledge, and of the most ordinary fagacity, never could have been misinformed in fo grofs a manner; because he would have immediately rejected fo wild and extravagant an account.

Not at

The fact is this: the credit of France, bad as it might have been, did enable her (not to raife within the year) but to borrow the very fums the author mentions; that is to fay, 1,106,916,261 livres, making, in the author's computation, £.50,314,378., VOL. II.

G

The

The credit of France was low; but it was not annihilated. She did not derive, as our author chooses to affert, any advantages from the debility of her credit. Its confequence was the natural one: the borrowed; but the borrowed upon bad terms, indeed on the most exorbitant usury.

In fpeaking of a foreign revenue, the very pretence to accuracy would be the moft inaccurate thing in the world. Neither the author nor I can with certainty authenticate the information we communicate to the publick, nor in an affair of eternal fluctuation arrive at perfect exactnefs. All we can do, and this we may be expected to do, is to avoid grofs errours and blunders of a capital nature. We cannot order the proper officer to lay the accounts before the houfe. But the reader muft judge on the probability of the accounts we lay before him. The author fpeaks of France as raifing her fupplies for war by taxes within the year; and of her debt, as a thing fcarcely worthy of notice. I affirm that the borrowed large fums in every year; and has thereby accumulated an immense debt. This debt continued after the war infinitely to embarrass her affairs; and to find fome means for its reduction was then and has ever fince been the firft object of her policy. But fhe has fo little fucceeded in all her efforts, that the perpetual debt of France is at this hour little fhort of £.100,000,000 fterling; and the ftands charged with at least 40,000,000

9

40,000,000 of English pounds on life-rents and tontines. The annuities paid at this day at the Hotel de Ville of Paris, which are by no means her folé payments of that nature, amount to 139,000,000 of livres, that is, to 6,318,000 pounds; befides billets au porteur, and various detached and unfunded debts, to a great amount, and which bear an intereft.

At the end of the war, the intereft payable on her debt amounted to upwards of feven millions fterling. M. de la Verdy, the laft hope of the French finances, was called in, to aid in the reduction of an intereft, fo light to our author, fo in-、 tolerably heavy upon those who are to pay it. After many unfuccefsful efforts towards reconciling arbitrary reduction with publick credit, he was obliged to go the plain high road of power, and to impofe a tax of 10 per cent. upon a very great part of the capital debt of that kingdom; and this measure of present ease, to the destruction of future credit, produced about £.500,000 a year which was carried to their Caiffe d'amortissement or finking fund. But fo unfaithfully and unsteadily has this and all the other articles which compofe that fund been applied to their purposes, that they have given the state but very little even of present relief, fince it is known to the whole world that fhe is behind-hand on every one of her establishments. Since the year 1763, there has been no

operation of any confequence on the French finances and in this enviable condition is France at prefent with regard to her debt.

Every body knows that the principal of the debt is but a name; the interest is the only thing which can diftrefs a nation. Take this idea, which will not be difputed, and compare the intereft paid by England with that paid by France:

Intereft paid by France, funded and unfunded, for perpetuity or on lives, after the tax of 10 per cent. Intereft paid by England, as stated by the author, p. 27

Intereft paid by France exceeds that paid by England,

£.

6,500,000

4,600,000

£. 1,900,000

The author cannot complain, that I ftate the intereft paid by England as too low. He takes it himself as the extremeft term. Nobody who knows any thing of the French finances will affirm that I ftate the intereft paid by that kingdom too high. It might be eafily proved to amount to a great deal more even this is near two millions above what is paid by England.

There are three standards to judge of the good condition of a nation with regard to its finances. Ift, The relief of the people. 2d, The equality of

fupplies to establishments. 3d; The ftate of publick credit. Try France on all thefe ftandards.

Although our author very liberally adminifters relief to the people of France, its government has not been altogether fo gracious. Since the peace, fhe has taken off but a fingle vingtieme, or fhilling in the pound, and fome fmall matter in the capitation. But, if the government has relieved them in one point, it has only burthened them the more heavily in another. The Taille*, that grievous and deftructive impofition, which all their financiers lament, without being able to remove or to replace, has been augmented no less than fix millions of livres, or 270,000 pounds English. A further

augmentation of this or other duties is now talked of; and it is certainly neceffary to their affairs: fo exceedingly remote from either truth or verfimilitude is the author's amazing affertion, that the burthens of France in the war were in a great measure temporary, and must be greatly diminished by a few years of peace.

In the next place, if the people of France are not lightened of taxes, fo neither is the state difburthened of charges. I fpeak from very good information, that the annual income of that ftate is at this day 30 million of livres, or £.1,350,000)

*

A tax rated by the intendant in each generality on the prefumed fortune of every perfon below the degree of a gen

tleman.

G 3

fterling,