fterling, fhort of a provifion for their ordinary peace establishment; fo far are they from the attempt or even hope to difcharge any part of the capital of their enormous debt. Indeed under fuch extreme ftraitnefs and diftraction labours the whole body of their finances, fo far does their charge outrun their fupply in every particular, that no man, I believe, who has confidered their affairs with any degree of attention or information, but muft hourly look for fome extraordinary convulfion in that whole system; the effect of which on France, and even on all Europe, it is difficult to conjecture.

In the third point of view, their credit. Let the reader caft his eye on a table of the price of French funds, as they stood a few weeks ago, compared with the state of fome of our English stocks, even in their prefent low condition:

This ftate of the funds of France and England is fufficient to convince even prejudice and obftinacy, that if France and England are not in the fame condition (as the author affirms they are not) the difference is infinitely to the disadvantage of

France.

France. This depreciation of their funds has not much the air of a nation lightening burthens and difcharging debts.

Such is the true comparative ftate of the two kingdoms in thofe capital points of view. Now as to the nature of the taxes which provide for this debt, as well as for their ordinary establishments, the author has thought proper to affirm that "they are comparatively light;" that "the "has mortgaged no fuch oppreffive taxes as ours:" his effrontery on this head is intolerable. Does the author recollect a fingle tax in England to which fomething parallel in nature, and as heavy in burthen, does not exift in France; does he not know that the lands of the nobleffe are still under the load of the greater part of the old feudal charges, from which the gentry of England have been relieved for upwards of 100 years, and which were in kind, as well as burthen, much worfe than our modern land tax? Befides that all the gentry of France ferve in the army on very flender pay, and to the utter ruin of their fortunes; all those who are not noble, have their lands heavily taxed. Does he not know that wine, brandy, foap, candles, leather, falt-petre, gunpowder, are taxed in France? Has he not heard that government in France has made a monopoly of that great article of falt? that they compel the people to take a certain quantity of it, and at a certain rate, both rate and quan

tity fixed at the arbitrary pleasure of the impofer?* that they pay in France the Taille, an arbitrary imposition on prefumed property? that a tax is laid in fact and name, on the fame arbitrary standard, upon the acquifitions of their industry? and that in France a heavy capitation-tax is alfo paid, from the higheft to the very pooreft fort of people? have we taxes of fuch weight, or any thing at all of the compulfion, in the article of falt? do we pay any taillage, any faculty-tax, any industry-tax? do we pay any capitation-tax whatsoever? I believe the people of London would fall into an agony to hear of fuch taxes propofed upon them as are paid at Paris. There is not a fingle article of provifion for man or beaft, which enters that great city, and is not excised; corn, hay, meal, butchers-meat, fish, fowls, every thing. I do not here mean to cenfure the policy of taxes laid on the confumption of great luxurious cities. I only ftate the fact. We should be with difficulty brought to hear of a tax of 50s. upon every ox fold in Smithfield. Yet this tax is paid in Paris. Wine, the lower fort of wine, little better than English small beer, pays 2d. a bottle.

* Before the war it was fold to, or rather forced on, the confumer at 11 fous, or about 5d. the pound. What it is at prefent, I am not informed. Even this will appear no trivial impofition. In London, falt may be had at a penny farthing per pound from the last retailer.

We

4

We indeed tax our beer: but the impofition on fmall beer is very far from heavy. In no part of England are eatables of any kind the object of taxation. In almoft every other country in Europe they are excised, more or lefs. I have by me the ftate of the revenues of many of the principal nations on the continent; and, on comparing them with ours, I think I am fairly warranted to affert, that England is the moft lightly taxed of any of the great states of Europe. They whose unnatural and fullen joy arifes from a contemplation of the diftreffes of their country will revolt at this pofition. But if I am called. upon, I will prove it beyond all poffibility of difpute; even though this proof fhould deprive these gentlemen of the fingu lar fatisfaction of confidering their country as undone; and though the best civil government, the beft conftituted, and the beft managed revenue that ever the world beheld, fhould be thoroughly vindicated from their perpetual clamours and complaints. As to our neighbour and rival France, in addition to what I have here fuggested, I fay, and when the author chooses formally to deny, I fhall formally prove it, that her fubjects pay more than England, on a computation of the wealth of both countries; that her taxes are more injudiciously and more oppreffively impofed; more vexatiously collected; come in a smaller proportion to the royal coffers, and are lefs applied by far to the publick

fervice.

fervice. I am not one of thofe who choose to take the author's word for this happy and flourishing condition of the French finances, rather than attend to the changes, the violent pushes and the defpair of all her own financiers. Does he choose to be referred for the eafy and happy condition of the fubject in France to the remonftrances of their own parliaments, written with fuch an eloquence, feeling, and energy, as I have not feen exceeded in any other writings? The author may fay, their complaints are exaggerated, and the effects of faction. I anfwer, that they are the reprefentations of numerous, grave, and moft refpectable bodies of men, upon the affairs of their own country. But, allowing that difcontent and faction may pervert the judgment of fuch venerable bodies in France, we have as good a right to fuppofe that the fame caufes may full as probably have produced from a private, however refpectable perfon, that frightful, and, I truft I have fhewn groundless reprefentation of our own affairs in England.

The author is fo confcious of the dangerous effects of that representation, that he thinks it neceffary, and very neceffary it is, to guard againft them. He affures us, "that he has not made that "difplay of the difficulties of his country, to ex

pofe her counfels to the ridicule of other states, "or to provoke a vanquished enemy to infult her;

nor to excite the people's rage against their go

66 vernours,