tobe the first and leading principle in the government of any kingdom, to provide for the people the mere neceffaries of life, yet we think that the greatness and happiness of every country depends fo much upon the condition of its manufactures and marine commerce, that it may be wife and beneficial to facrifice, in fome inftances, even the landed intereft to objects fo effential and important as those above-mentioned. A little further we meet with another attack upon M. Colbert, who feems to be marked out by the author as the object of his vengeance. He fays, however infatuated the nobility of our own country have been to the fplendid manufactures of France, the prefent taste and elegance of thofe now produced by our own rich fabricks of filks and velvets in England, are, I am convinced, by fome patterns I have lately feen here, equal in beauty, and fuperior in quality to thofe of Lyons and as other nations have alfo imitated them with good fuccefs, the fuperb city of Lyons, in which the famous Colbert had placed his future fame, hath, within my own memory, like the state of France itfel, been funking and declining fo very fast, that now it manufactures little more than is consumed by the French themselves. The proud city of Lyons, which hath long made fo great a figure in trade and commerce, will, it is more than probable, foon experience the fame fate, as the once opulent city of Sevile hath met with; which, though now funk, from the vices of the Spanish government, into a state of poverty, had, but a century and half ago, according to Don Jeronimo d' Uztariz, a writer of great reputation, within her walls, not lefs than eight thoufand looms, conftantly employed in her coftly rich manufactures, with which fhe fupplied all the nations in Europe; and however formal and pedantic the prefent Spanish dress may appear in the eyes of refined moderns, Spain was at that time, in its drefs, as well as its language and manners, the model for all the courts of Europe.' This is the first account we remember to have met with, fo dif graceful to the city of Lyons; but that the demand for French manufactured filks and velvets is not at all decreased in this country, is a truth which our own artificers of those branches in Norwich and Spitalfields can too fatally declare. We cannot help congratulating ourselves that we were born Englishmen, when we read the following account. In France, the nobility, the gentry, the clergy, all the great proprietors of land, and every perfon holding any fort of employment under the state, are exempted from the taille, or the land-tax, whilft the inferior ranks of freeeholders, and all the the lower and fubordinate claffes of people, who, in common policy, ought as much as poffible, to be spared, are oppreffed by it in the most inhuman manner: even the day-labourers, who are not poffeffed of land, have a tax upon their industry, in proportion to what it is fuppofed they may, by the sweat of their brows, acquire: and it is a fundamental principle of the French government, that the lower claffes of people muft be kept poor, to fecure their obedience to the ftate, and to force them to hard labour. This doctrine, however right and eafy it may appear to minifters pampered with all the delicacies of life, is certainly carried to extremes, very inconfiftent with true policy and the real intereft of the ftate: for the peasants and labouring people, are, from their conftant fatigues, and want of proper food to recruit their strength, exhaufted and worn out, even before the age of fifty: the robust and full-fed people, who labour at the plough in England, would hear with aftonishment, that the fame claffes of people in France, never tafte any other reward for the sweat of their brows, and the curse of their existence, than a scanty support of bread, and water, and roots.' The objections our author makes to the method of conducting their military affairs, are most of them juft. His account of the clergy is a very ftrong reproach against the political government of that country. To fuffer one fixth part of the whole revenue of the kingdom to center in the hands of a fortieth part of the fubjects, who are totally useless to agriculture or commerce; and to fuffer them to tax themfelves, is fuch a folecifm in the management of public concerns, that nothing could induce us to believe it, but the fact before our eyes. Our inquirer's folution may perhaps be right when he says, that the court fubmitted to the abuse, rather than inflame the fanguinary zeal of their Ravilliacs, their Clements, or their Damiens. He tells us next, that by the method of farming the public revenues in France, a fum is gained by the contractors equal to that paid by them to the government; whereas in England the expence of collecting the fame kinds of revenue amount to at most 12 per cent. The expence of the king's houfhold appears to be enormous indeed; the methods of impofing upon the king in the charges of the great officers in that department, are infamous beyond measure. We find by this account that their monarch, however defpotic, has fuffered very fevere remonstrances on that head from the parliament of Paris, though composed of a body of men without power, and, as our author fays, held by the court in the utmost contempt. $ 2 The The purchase of rank or degrees of nobility, is no doubt the principal fource of the want of induftry in the inhabitants. Our author reckons fixty thoufand families of that species of nobility, though there are only fifty two real or hereditary peers. It seems that the French, fenfible of their inattention to the promotion of agriculture, are upon the point of reforming that particular; the king, attended by feveral of his nobles, has fet an example of working at the plough with his own. , hands, which, according to cuftom in fuch cafes, has occafioned a like fpirit to diffufe itfelf through the subordinate claffes of the people, inafmuch as feveral bodies or focieties in the different provinces have been formed for the advancement of tillage and culture: but our inquirer, according to his ge neral notion of the French, is of opinion that thofe efforts will end in vapor, for a variety of reafons, drawn from the 'nature of that oppreffive government, and which are worthy the attention of the reader. Speaking of their circulating gold and filver, he estimates it at fixty or feventy millions, which, he fays, is fo far from being fufficient for effecting the cultivation of 140 millions of acres of land, and putting in motion the industry and commerce of twenty millions of inhabitants, that he thinks it is not one third part of what would be neceffary to put those objects on as good a footing as thofe of England. Our author proceeds more minutely in this calculation. He fays, that the French have, on a divifion upon the principles before laid down, only 31. per man to put their intereft by fea and land in motion; whereas England, with only twenty millions of coin, has by its punctual and immenfe credit, obtained an auxiliary of 140 millions of paper-money, equally efficacious as to the purposes before-mentioned; which, fuppofing fix millions of perfons, gives 271. to each individual for putting bis induftry and ingenuity in motion. This, fays he, is the principal caufe of the advantage and the great fuperiority we enjoy over France as a rival nation. We are very far from thinking the calculation just with respect to England. The number of inhabitants, at this time, are rated by the most able calculators at eight millions; and as to the quantity of paper-money we think the estimate very erroneous we fuppofe when he speaks of circulating papermoney, he means the amount of the out-ftanding notes from the bank of England, as we know of no other paper in this country that can be called circulating, and equally efficacious with the coin, which we will venture to affert, bears no proportion to the fum he has fixed it at. If he means any other kind of government fecurities, which pafs among brokers in Exchange-alley, we must be excufed from admitting it to come under the denomination of circulating cash, and must also observe, that those kinds of fecurities are transacted in the fame manner in France. After mentioning the expenfive wars the French have fo frequently and fo deeply engaged in for the laft hundred years, as the principal cause of the prefent poverty and distress of that nation, he adds thereto, the fums yearly paid by way of penfions, which, by all accounts, are moft enormous. He eftimates the gold and filver of France for use and ornament, at a fum equal to the circulating coin, which, as hath been already observed, is upwards of fixty millions. What the author fays concerning the rate of intereft being an indication of the quantity of circulating cafh, is certainly juft. Low intereft is a proof of fuperfluity in that article, as high intereft indicates the contrary. We find that the dif ference between the expence of borrowing upon public loans in England, and in France, is as 4 to 6; and from thence we deduce that the difference between the circulating cash of the two nations bears much the fame proportion, which corroborates our affertions before made. Thus far our author proceeds in his Candid Inquiry, which he concludes with a cha racter of the prefent premier of the French government. He is a man of exceffive ambition and intrepidity, and of a most refined addrefs; and though brought up in a life of pleasure and diffipation in the army, and was, at the time he came into power, unacquainted with the first rudiments of government, yet, by the favour of his fovereign, he was entrufted to conduct both the late war, and the late peace. Born of a family in Lorrain, more diftinguished for its antiquity than its opulence, he, foon after he came into power, furpaffed all the other nobles in fplendor and profufion; and became in a little time fo intoxicated with pomp and oftentation, as brought upon him the envy and hatred of all ranks of his fellow-fubjects. With a fuccefs never equalled by the great Richlieu himself, he hath trampled under foot the power and jealousy of all the princes of the blood; the discontents of the army; the complaints of the hydra-headed clergy; and the refentments of all the collective bodies of men in the whole kingdom. Equally fuccessful in extricating his country out of a most unfortunate war, as in framing a formidable confe deracy of all the princes of the blood of Bourbon into one family-compact, and reconciling the jealousy and hatred that had long fubfifted between the courts of Vienna and Verfailles, he now enjoys in full poffeffion, a power, with which he would, S 3 would, like Louis XIV. infult all Europe, but that he is conscious the resources of his country are too much exhausted to fupport his boundless ambition in any expensive projects.' In the poftfcript we are prefented with a comparison between the laft regent in France, and the prefent minifter, not much in favour of either. We are alfo made acquainted with the appropriation to the king's private ufe for eight years, of the produce of a tax destined for the discharge of the national debt. The author mentions two other inftances of real appropriation; the laft is a circumftance which has alarmed all the creditors of the ftate. The circumftance is fo well known that it is fcarcely neceffary to say it refers to the reduction of intereft from five to two and an half per cent. without any alternative to the lender. A promife of a future letter to expatiate on the particulars of the national debt of France, concludes this performance. We have thought it expedient to give a very particular attention to this publication. The alarm which was lately raised, from the hints thrown out in the courfe of parliamentary debate by a noble peer, whose private information has formerly been of important fervice to his country, renders every thing relative to the state or power of our rival nation, worthy of the most accurate difcuffion. We have felected the most ftriking paffages, and our animadverfions have followed them respectively. Upon the whole, we are of opinion that this piece is the production of a mafterly hand, but he seems to have imbibed notions too depreffive of the French nation to be credited in their utmost extent. We therefore hope it will have no effect on those who are to provide for the security of this country; and that the ministry will not truft our defence to the weakness of our adverfaries, but to the strength of our own arms. III. Hiftorical Extracts relating to Laws, Cufoms, Manners, Trade, Literature, Arts, Sciences, and remarkable Tranfa&ions, civil, military, and ecclefiaftical. Tranflated from the New Hiftory of France, begun by Abbot Velly, continued by M. Villaret, and now under further Continuation by M. Garnier, Profeffor Regius. 8vo. Pr. 55. Owen. ONE NE volume only of this work is published; but it appears from the preface that a fecond is intended. The fubject is divided into a great number of sections or chapters, each having prefixed an account of what is treated of in it. This mifcellaneous collection cannot but afford great entertainment both |