Montgaillard-Situ- 
 
 ation of England, 
 1811. 
 
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 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
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 ii i ur uALi 
 LIBRARY, 
 
 ANGELES. CA
 
 SITUATION 
 
 OF 
 
 IN 
 
 BY M. MIE. DE iMONTGAILLARD. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, BY A CITIZEN 
 OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 " We ought to be apprehensive that the mad pretensions, the tyranny, and 
 the cupidity of our ministers, will one day open the eyes of all Europe. Let 
 us enjoy with moderation our commercial prosperity, and not excite wars. 
 If a great man should be seated on the throne of France, England would 
 fall, and would be of no more importance in the system of Europe, than the 
 bland of Sardinia j for bankruptcy is at our doors.".. ..Bolingbroke, 1732. 
 
 NEW-YORK > 
 
 PRINTED BY C. S. VAN WINKLE-- 
 
 No. 122 Water-street. 
 
 1812;
 
 DISTRICT OP NEW-YORK, ss. 
 
 BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the tenth day of March, in the thirty- 
 sixth year of the independence of the United States of America, JOHN 
 FW;CH, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the 
 right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words following, to wit : 
 
 " Situation of England, in 1811. ByM. Mie. De Montgaillard. Trans- 
 lated from the French, by a Citizen of the United States. ' We ought to be 
 apprehensive that the mad pretensions, the tyranny, and the cupidity of our 
 ministers, will one day open the eyes of all Europe. Let us enjoy with mode- 
 ration our commercial prosperity, and not excite wars. If a great man should 
 be seated on the throne of France, England would fall, and would be of no 
 more importance in the system of Europe than the island of Sardinia, for 
 bankruptcy is at our doors.'.. ..Bolingbroke, 1732." 
 
 In conformity to an act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " an 
 act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, 
 and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the timet 
 therein mentioned." And also to an act, entitled, " an act supplementary to 
 an act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the 
 copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies 
 during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the 
 arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." 
 
 CHARLES CLINTON, 
 Clerk of the District afNen-York. 
 
 f| 
 
 351'
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 or THE 
 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 The work now offered to the public, through 
 the medium of an English translation, issued from 
 the Paris press in the month of August last. It is 
 the production of a man of distinction, of talents, 
 and of information, who was of the ancient order 
 of nobility in France before the revolution. 
 
 Having emigrated to England during that tur- 
 bulent period, the Count de Montgaillard resided 
 some time in that country ; and, from his rank and 
 political connexions, had great opportunities of 
 gaining correct and minute information on every 
 subject relative to the power, the wealth, the re- 
 sources, and the government of Great-Britain.
 
 4 
 
 As the subject of which this book treats is, at 
 the present moment, of a highly interesting nature, 
 the translator has thought that he might render an 
 acceptable service to his countrymen by the publica- 
 tion of it in their own language. It is altogether 
 foreign from his purpose, or desire, to enter into 
 any discussions on the merit oj the work, or the 
 soundness of the opinions advanced in it ; for which 
 he by no means holds himself responsible. Many, 
 no doubt, will be inclined to question both ; yet, no 
 small portion of candid and dispassionate readers 
 must admit that, although abounding in repetitions, 
 and occasionally declamatory, it contains many 
 serious and incontrovertible truths truths of a na- 
 ture to excite the deepest concern in the mind of 
 every American who feels an interest in the inde- 
 pendence, the welfare, and the prosperity of his 
 country. 
 
 The translator deems it proper to add that, in 
 rendering the language of the author into Eng- 
 lish, he has most scrupulously adhered to the true 
 sense and meaning of the original ; he has even^ 
 in many instances, given a literal version, as far
 
 5 
 
 as the idioms of the trvo languages would allow, 
 being persuaded that in a work of this sort a rigid 
 adherence to the sense, and even style of the au- 
 thor, is of more importance than polished expres- 
 sions or elegant diction. 
 
 NEW-YORK, March 10, 1812.
 
 ERRATA. 
 
 Page 16, line 6th,/or springs read spring. 
 43, 9th, praising, hiring, 
 do. 10th, praise hire. 
 
 67, 4th, stinking sinking-. 
 74, 7th, render renders. 
 
 86, 10th, comes come. 
 
 99, do. Mr. Fierney Mr. Tierney. 
 150, 16th, rivalries rivalities. 
 160 8c 161, 19th 8c 6th, Hague Hogue. 
 
 171, 17th, require requires. 
 180, 17th, having a conrersation, read having 
 
 held a conversation. 
 
 207, 4th, navigation negociation. 
 And wherever the word Thuilleries occurs, read Tn- 
 ileries. 
 
 t
 
 SITUATION OF ENGLAND, 
 IN 1811. 
 
 THE present conjunctures, and the political 
 state of Europe, justify, in a most suprising man- 
 ner, the prophetic words of one of the greatest 
 statesmen and best citizens that England has ever 
 possessed. 
 
 Superficial or prejudiced minds, men corrupt- 
 ed by vices, or by the false habits of a revolu- 
 tionary luxury, sold to the passions and the poli- 
 tics of the British government, may still believe 
 in her prosperity, and the duration of her power ; 
 let us then analyze this power, in order to de- 
 monstrate its weakness and approaching ruin, 
 should the British ministry continue obstinately 

 
 8 
 
 to refuse the peace which the French empire, 
 with remarkable moderation and generosity, for 
 these ten years past has offered to them. 
 
 The confessions made in the bosom of an inti- 
 mate confidence, by the minister whose honour- 
 able labours procured peace, to Europe after the 
 disastrous war of the succession ; those profound 
 views, that brilliancy of genius, that lively soli- 
 citude, in which were depicted at once the most 
 ardent love of country, and the most astonishing 
 knowledge of every political interest ; these con- 
 ceptions of the statesman who embraces, in his 
 thoughts, the destinies of empires, the caprices 
 of fortune, and even the probabilities of chance ; 
 so many prodigies, so many subversions, so many 
 creations effected in Europe, in the space of 
 twenty years ; all these things show the pro- 
 found and penetrating mind of Bolingbroke, and 
 the imminent dangers by which Great Britain is 
 threatened with destruction. 
 
 The changes which, in our days, have renew- 
 ed the face of Europe, must lead to results equal- 
 ly honourable and happy to all nations results 

 
 infinitely disastrous to Great-Britain, if the Eng- 
 lish ministry persist in violating their rights and 
 trampling upon their sovereignty ; such events 
 will render the humiliation and downfal of the 
 political and commercial power of Great Bri- 
 tain without a remedy, if her cabinet persist in 
 the war of extermination which it has so madly 
 declared against the navigation and commerce 
 of every other people. 
 
 Nature has decreed, that the French empire 
 should be the centre of strength and protection 
 to all the nations of the continent : such a po- 
 litical order is fixed and immutable. It is, 
 therefore, owing only to circumstances essen- 
 tially false, corrupt, or weak, that the sceptre 
 of the seas has been momentarily placed in the 
 hands of England. These circumstances on the 
 one hand, and the maritime tyranny of Great 
 Britain on the other, have produced all the 
 ravages, and engendered all the evils and afflic- 
 tions of which sovereigns and people have had 
 to complain to this day. 
 
 2
 
 10 
 
 Every sensible and impartial man, whatever 
 may be his country, his profession, or his politi- 
 cal opinions, must recognize, in the conduct and 
 in the disposition of the government of France, 
 the liberal and unvariable intention to liberate 
 the commerce and industry of the people of 
 Europe, to protect their sovereignty and their 
 maritime independence, to insure the honour- 
 able enjoyment of the commercial rights inhe- 
 rent in each crown ; such a man is forced also to 
 confess, that the intrigues, the aggressions, and 
 the cupidity of the ministers of England, have 
 provoked wars, overthrown governments, and 
 precipitated the downfal and extinction of 
 many of the reigning dynasties of Europe. 
 From faults to faults, from disasters to disasters, 
 and, as if dragged on by the fatality of their 
 blindness, the English ministers have, at length, 
 arrived to the pitch of declaring, in the deliri- 
 um of their tyrannic cupidity, that every nation 
 must be vassals of the British flag, slaves to 
 the commerce of Great Britain, tributaries to 
 her industry, and victims to her policy.
 
 11 
 
 We shall show the nature of the maritime 
 principles and commercial spirit of England ; 
 we shall make known the state of her finances, 
 and the impossibility in which the government 
 finds itself to maintain an active naval force no 
 less precarious and accidental, than it is formi- 
 dable and gigantic ; we shall finally exhibit the 
 great interests of honour and existence which 
 all the sovereigns of Europe have to second 
 the noble efforts which the emperor of France 
 is making to insure the independence of their 
 flag and their commerce. 
 
 We must examine into the naval power and 
 the commercial riches of England ; we must 
 strip, to the eyes of Europe, this phantom of 
 prosperity which had seduced every govern- 
 ment, which oppresses all people, and which 
 would have bound the universe under the most 
 shameful and inflexible laws, if, amidst every 
 prodigy and every kind of glory which can 
 honour the human mind, Providence, in his eter- 
 nal justice, had not signalized and marked out 
 to the people of this world, the avenger of
 
 12 
 
 their rights, and the protector of their liberties ; 
 if Providence had not bestowed on the French 
 empire, a statesman profound in the cabinet, a 
 warrior invincible in the camp, the wisest and 
 greatest administrator, and the best of mo- 
 narchs. 
 
 Far be it from us to cherish any sentiment of 
 flattery, of prejudice, or of hatred ! We wish 
 not to awaken ancient animosities between two 
 nations formed to esteem and to honour each 
 other with sincerity ; on the contrary, may en- 
 mities and ancient jealousies yield, at length, 
 to interests better understood, to that new situa- 
 tion of political affairs, to that spirit of intelli- 
 gence, of activity, and of industry, which has 
 spread itself over Europe! The observations 
 which we are going to offer, are positive and 
 incontestable ; the facts which this work will 
 exhibit, are true at London as at Paris, at St. 
 Petersburg as at Vienna and at Naples ; they 
 are founded upon the official declarations made 
 in the two houses of parliament of England ; 
 upon the accounts rendered by Lord North
 
 13 
 
 at the close of his administration; upon the 
 speeches delivered by Mr. William Pitt, by Mr. 
 Edmund Burke, and by the first statesmen in 
 England ; upon the writings of publicists whose 
 authority is an article of faith in that kingdom. 
 In unveiling the situation of England, we would 
 wish to make known to Europe, the errors, the 
 ignorance, and the absurd tyranny of the minis- 
 ters who rule the three kingdoms : in this finan- 
 cial, commercial and political exposition, our ob- 
 ject is to open the eyes, if it be possible, of the 
 English nation, to prevent the bloody catas- 
 trophe with which they are menaced. The gene- 
 ral interest of nations, the peace of the continent, 
 the prosperity of England herself, animates and 
 directs us in this undertaking ; it is these sen- 
 timents we obey in exposing the shameful policy 
 of those ministers of war , who, with an impunity 
 so long, so deplorable, and so scandalous, have 
 roused the indignation of every true friend to 
 his country, of every loyal subject of his sove- 
 reign, of every man jealous of the prosperity 
 and the independence of his government.
 
 14 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Of the constitutive Principles and Spirit of the 
 British Government, with regard to its naval 
 and commercial Power. 
 
 WE shall not, at present, enter into discussions 
 which might appear foreign to this work, al- 
 though it would naturally admit of a series of 
 theoretical observations on the nature and ef- 
 fects of commerce. We shall confine ourselves 
 to the presenting of reflections indispensable to 
 a true knowledge of the spirit and principles of 
 the English government, commercially and po- 
 litically speaking. 
 
 Commerce does not constitute the real strength 
 and prosperity of a state ; it only develops and 
 increases them : commerce exhibits every ap- 
 pearance of riches ; but it constitutes not the 
 true wealth of a nation : the essential strength 
 and riches of a nation exist in its population, and 
 in the fertility of its soil. Commerce, indeed, is 
 seen to change incessantly from region to region,
 
 15 
 
 from people to people ; the sands, the deserts of 
 the east, formerly enriched with palaces and 
 temples, at the present day scarcely possess 
 their ruins; whilst the nation of the Gauls in- 
 variably offer that fertility and wealth, which in 
 ancient times rendered their territory of such 
 importance to the Roman power. In short, it 
 is commerce which, at first, among the Phreni- 
 cians, represented fortune under the blind attri- 
 butes of inconstancy. 
 
 Commerce produces effects infinitely advan- 
 tageous ; but its spirit is often injurious to a na- 
 tion, because the love of gain tends to efface 
 from the mind every liberal idea, and always 
 ends in placing interest in the scale against 
 honour ; so that among people essentially com- 
 mercial, riches obtain too much consideration 
 and influence, to the detriment of honour and 
 good faith. From commerce certain conse- 
 quences necessarily result, and no political regu- 
 lations can prevent them ; a good system of ad- 
 ministration may nevertheless direct these ef- 
 fects towards the prosperity of the state, by
 
 16 
 
 modifying whatever is found unhappy, or per- 
 nicious in their nature. Economy and labour 
 give rise to commerce, which, in its turn, pro- 
 duces riches, and, consequently, luxury and 
 avidity, that is to say, the necessity of maintain- 
 ing luxury ; thence spring? up corruption, fraud 
 and wars. In every state whose existence is 
 principally founded upon commerce, these effects 
 acquire such a degree of consistence, that at the 
 end of a certain tune fictitious riches swallow 
 up territorial riches ; and by dint of being rich, 
 a state at length finds itself reduced to poverty. 
 Thus the conquests and commercial usurpations 
 of England exhaust, at the present day, the vital 
 strength of the country, and will end in devour- 
 ing every principle of her political existence. 
 
 It results from these principles, that the more 
 a nation, whose prosperity is essentially founded 
 upon commerce, extends her political influence, 
 the less that nation can promise herself to preserve 
 peace for any length of time. The Venitians, 
 the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the 
 English, every modern nation which has succes- 
 sively pretended to the empire of commerce,
 
 17 
 
 has been exposed to continual wars ; they have 
 alarmed and astonished the world by their cruel- 
 ties and rapine. 
 
 Economists, philanthropists, philosophers of 
 ^very sect, in their scientific declamations, have 
 in vain endeavoured to dignify and exalt com- 
 merce to the rank and nobleness of military, ho- 
 nour ; the nature and spirit of commerce, that is 
 to say, the experience and the necessity of things, 
 will ever disavow their praises. Voltaire has 
 spoken of commerce like a poet ; Fenelon, J. J. 
 Rousseau, and Raynal, like sophists and rhetori- 
 cians. These[writers have exercised their imagi- 
 nation, and what is worse, a philosophical imagi- 
 nation, upon commerce and political institutions, 
 that is to say, upon subjects which demand the 
 most extensive practical knowledge, which re- 
 quire wisdom, impartiality, and sound sense. 
 
 When a government founds its political 
 strength upon commerce ; when this government 
 pretends to appropriate to itself the monopoly 
 of all colonial produce, then the commerce of 
 that nation becomes exclusive, and its rivals are 
 
 its enemies ; that nation seeks to enrich itself at 
 
 3
 
 18 
 
 their expense ; it forms political alliances only iu 
 the view of procuring a profit and certain advan- 
 tages. It is for this reason that public or politi- 
 cal faith is almost always violated by nations es- 
 sentially commercial ; by nations which seek to 
 monopolize all kinds of industry and commerce. 
 Treaties bind them only as far as they are found 
 favourable to their particular and exclusive 
 interests. These nations buy alliances with gold, 
 and nothing is less stable, at the same time, than 
 their alliance, because it is founded only upon 
 commercial interest, and that interest varies eve- 
 ry day. Particular laws, general laws may in- 
 deed modify, but they never go far enough to ef- 
 fect a change in a similar order of things, because 
 it is founded upon interest, that is to say, upon 
 the strongest of all human and political passions. 
 An agricultural and military nation is necessarily 
 generous in its resolutions, and faithful to its trea- 
 ties : this is the spirit of the French empire. A 
 maritime and commercial nation is dragged on, 
 in spite of itself, to treachery and to despotism, 
 in all its relations with other people this is the 
 spirit of the kingdom of Great Britain.
 
 19 
 
 We are far from denying the advantages, of- 
 ten inestimable, which commerce may procure to 
 a state ; still less are we disposed to refuse a sin- 
 cere esteem for the profession of the real mer- 
 chant : he merits the respect and the gratitude 
 of his fellow citizens, when integrity, industry, 
 the love of peace, obedience to the laws of his 
 country, arid loyalty to his sovereign, preside 
 over his operations and his trade. The mer- 
 chant who lays a foundation for the ease of his 
 family, and who increases that of the state, in de- 
 voting himself to prudent calculations, and to an 
 honourable labour, in giving new activity to in- 
 dustry, in vending and exchanging real produc- 
 tions, and not fictitious and illusive riches, in 
 multiplying the enjoyments of his fellow citizens, 
 in causing life to circulate in every class of soci- 
 ety ; that merchant is a most estimable man, re- 
 spectable and worthy of honour. In showing, 
 therefore, the fatal effects which result from com- 
 merce, we speak only, in this work, of the com- 
 mercial spirit applied to a nation or a govern- 
 ment whose existence, prosperity and strength 
 are principally, and, as it were, wholly founded
 
 20 
 
 upon commerce ; we mean only to speak of a 
 government whose political consequence is de- 
 rived from the benefits of commercial industry, 
 and which finds itself compelled, by the nature 
 of things, to exercise a general monopoly. 
 
 A state, the principal riches of which consist 
 in the produce of an industry which is not pecu- 
 liar to it, that is to say, which is not inherent in 
 its soil, or does not spring from the surplus of its 
 local productions, is in a very precarious situa- 
 tion ; it enjoys but an artificial importance. 
 
 Tyre, Palmyra, Carthage, Venice, Hamburg, 
 Amsterdam, Lisbon, and even Cadiz, prove this 
 assertion. 
 
 It is not (yet four centuries ago that vessels 
 driven by tempests, met destruction on the al- 
 most desert coast of Albion, and at a much later 
 period, the harbours and ports of England were 
 filled with foreign ships. Under the reign of 
 Charles the first, England counted but three mer- 
 chant ships of the burthen of 300 tons, and the 
 whole merchant shipping of that kingdom did 
 not amount to more than 1700 ships. Before 
 the publication of the Berlin decree, she employ-
 
 21 
 
 ed, according to English writers, about 20,000 
 vessels, constituting a tonnage of 2,000,000. Un- 
 til the reign of Elizabeth, England was scarcely 
 reckoned among the number of powers of the se- 
 cond order ; and we have seen her, before the ele- 
 vation of the emperor Napoleon to the throne 
 of France, exercise a very great influence in the 
 general affairs of Europe, and arrogate to herself 
 the sovereignty of the seas. So sudden and so 
 great a prosperity, produced by accidental cau- 
 ses, and by the profits of a commerce which does 
 not appertain essentially to the power of Eng- 
 land, must diminish and finally vanish, by a ne- 
 cessary effect of the tyranny and of the monopo- 
 ly which Great Britain pretends to exercise to- 
 wards every other nation. 
 
 The commerce truly useful to a state ; the com- 
 merce that lasts forever, and which constantly 
 procures new wealth to a nation, is that which ex- 
 ists in the exchange of the surplus productions of 
 its soil and industry for objects of necessity or of 
 luxury, of which that nation is deprived, or for 
 gold and silver, which, at all times and in all pla- 
 ces, represent those objects. Thus a nation
 
 22 
 
 which has a great excess or surplus quantity of 
 raw materials or of manufactured articles of its 
 soil, may carry on a very active and advanta- 
 geous commerce: this is the case with the 
 French empire, and she will eternally find her- 
 self in this situation. A nation, on the contrary, 
 whose trade consists, in a great measure, of pro- 
 ductions foreign to its soil, and out of its reach, 
 can have only a precarious commerce, subject to 
 political circumstances, and consequently to a 
 ruin which will inevitably take place at a period 
 more or less distant : such is the actual state of 
 England. 
 
 The commerce of export and import. The 
 importations are of little advantage to a state 
 and indicate the feebleness of its industry or the 
 sterility of its soil, when the aggregate of com- 
 modities imported exceed, durably, the aggregate 
 of exportation. Spain, of all the European na- 
 tions, is that which exports the least and receives 
 the greatest importations ; Spain has> therefore, 
 been much less rich, much less really powerful, 
 since the discovery of Mexico and Peru, than 
 she was under the dominion of the Moors. That
 
 23 
 
 monarchy has impoverished herself in propor- 
 tion to the dead riches, that is to say, the pre- 
 cious metals which she has drawn from America. 
 Great Britain, at the present day, is less rich 
 and less powerful, relatively, than she was under 
 the reign of Elizabeth, because the augmenta- 
 tion of the representative signs of her commodi- 
 ties, and the emission of that fictitious money cal- 
 led bank bills, are found to be out of proportion 
 to the population and produce of the whole Bri- 
 tish territory, because the price of labour and of 
 objects of the iirst necessity have increased in an 
 alarming proportion, because the consequences 
 of the extension of commerce have created in 
 the state an enormous mass of debts and public 
 burthens. The nation is compelled incessantly 
 to enrich itself, that is to say, incessantly to in- 
 crease the profits of commerce, in order to make 
 head against these burthens and debts : they can 
 only be supported and acquitted in England by 
 a continually increasing exportation of colonial 
 produce, or of the productions of her industry ; 
 if this exportation stop, the nation will necessa- 
 rily be struck with political palsy and death.
 
 24 
 
 
 
 The expectations of a nation, when they are 
 not composed of the surplus productions natural 
 to its territory or its industry, are always acci- 
 dental and precarious : similar exportations may 
 be advantageous to a state in certain conjunc- 
 tures, and during a certain time ; they may even 
 procure it great prosperity. This has happened 
 to Holland; but they establish not the power 
 of a nation; still less can they lay the foun- 
 dation of, and secure so accidental a power a 
 commercial or political revolution is sufficient 
 to annihilate a similar prosperity. More than 
 a century ago Holland imported and export- 
 ed the productions of every country and na- 
 tion. This commerce, at bottom, was only a 
 transportation of commodities and merchandize 
 of diiferent sorts from one place to another ; 
 it was entirely dependant upon the ignorance 
 or the will of governments, which must sooner 
 or later perceive the advantage of reserving to 
 their own subjects the profits which foreign fac- 
 tors and freighters carried off on their goods. 
 Holland ought therefore to consider the honour-
 
 able incorporation of her provinces with the 
 French empire as a great benefit granted to her 
 industry and commerce. When the liberty of 
 the seas shall have been guarantied in the name 
 of all the European nations, the departments of 
 Holland will be able to judge of the commercial 
 and political importance which they derive from 
 their incorporation with the empire. This pe- 
 riod is not very distant ; and every measure 
 taken by the emperor Napoleon tends to accele- 
 rate its arrival. Every nation whose commerce 
 is not founded, for the most part, on the ex- 
 change of the productions natural to its territo- 
 ry, must expect a reverse of fortune, a decline 
 similar to that of Holland. At the present day, 
 England draws more from herself than from 
 other nations, and the state is a loser by the ex- 
 cess of its commerce. The following observa- 
 tions will prove this truth in an incontestable 
 manner. The prodigious extension of the Bri- 
 tish commerce, and the formidable situation of 
 her naval force, hide, in some degree, this con- 
 sequence from public opinion ; but nothing de- 
 
 4
 
 , 
 monstrates more clearly how much the wealth 
 
 produced by the commerce of England is false 
 and illusive for the state, than the bounties grant- 
 ed in all bills relative to exportation ; in propor- 
 tion as commerce extends its progress, or to 
 tspeak more correctly, its ravages in England, 
 the government finds itself compelled to insult 
 and plunder every flag. By a necessary conse- 
 quence of the spirit of monopoly which directs 
 the councils of England, that government is 
 placed under the necessity of imposing upon 
 every nation of the globe, a contribution arising 
 from the consumption of English commodities, 
 equally disgraceful and burthensome to those 
 nations. In short, the British ministry is arrived 
 to the pitch of resembling a highwayman, who 
 should present, in one hand a pistol, and in the 
 other, goods to be sold at the price his avarice 
 or the embarrassment of his affairs might fix to 
 them. It is easily seen why England has not, 
 nor ever 1 can have sincere and constant allies ; 
 she places herself out of the great social family 
 of the world, out of the laws of nations ; cupidi- 
 ty, ambition and violence constitute the public
 
 27 
 
 law of her ministers ; the mass of injustice and of 
 depredations committed by their orders, is 
 scarcely credible ; but which, it must be ac- 
 knowledged, is the inevitable consequence of 
 that extension, so prodigiously immoderate, of 
 the commercial importance of Great Britain. 
 This false prosperity, this policy, at once capri- 
 cious and violent, is daily mining the happiness 
 of that country, and will finally plunge it into an 
 abyss of calamity ; the obstinate, ignorant, and 
 perverse conduct of the present administration, 
 tends still more to hasten the ruin of the state ; 
 for although formidable fleets may, indeed, for a 
 certain time, hold the empire of the seas, yet 
 they never can secure that of commerce. Mar- 
 kets are necessary for a sale, and these markets 
 are on the continent of Europe ; the power then 
 which preponderates on the continent, will 
 always, in the end, be the master of commerce, 
 These observations were necessary in order to 
 enter upon the subject of which we propose to 
 treat.
 
 28 
 
 Let us take a view of the naval and commer- 
 cial power of England; we shall afterwards 
 show the continually increasing abuses which 
 the ministers have made of that power, the evils 
 which it has poured upon the universe, and the 
 disasters to which the English nation themselves 
 must fall victims, if they do not hasten to enter 
 upon a wise administration, to adopt a system at 
 once pacific and consistent with the maritime 
 rights of other nations, and to effect a reform or 
 a revision in parliament, which may secure the 
 rights and prosperity of the people. 
 
 Navy Sea and Land Force. 
 
 Before the reign of Henry the 8th, England 
 had no navy, upon an established footing ; that 
 sovereign established a permanent fleet, but 
 without making any regulations for its equip- 
 ment and maintenance. Since that king, no 
 monarch, no parliament has ever dared to pub* 
 lish a positive law for the recruiting of a naval
 
 29 
 
 force ; this is a vice inherent in the British con- 
 stitution ; it obliges the government to have re- 
 course to the iniquitous and violent means of 
 the press ; the wants of the state then impose 
 silence on the constitution by which England is 
 ruled, and which guaranties the property and 
 liberty of the subject ; this is that constitution of 
 which the English people show themselves so 
 proud and so jealous. 
 
 Elizabeth took particular care of her navy, and 
 was the first who permitted individuals to arm 
 for privateering. Elizabeth, by this disposition, 
 added a great affliction to all the evils that war 
 occasions to mankind. A new legislation was 
 soon introduced into the maritime code of Eu- 
 rope ; that dangerous bait offered to cupidity, 
 rendered wars more frequent and more bloody ; 
 the military spirit, liberal and noble in itself, was 
 degraded and corrupted ; valor and prowess 
 were seen to change into commercial specula- 
 tions ; it was necessary to guard against all the 
 horrors of war in the bosom of peace; the 
 most respectable merchants of the continent, in
 
 80 
 
 the sadred engagements of reciprocal transac- 
 tions, found but an insufficient and uncertain 
 security for their shipments. England made 
 war before she declared it, and her admirals 
 pillaged before they attacked. 
 
 James I. and Charles I. neglected the navy ; 
 but Cromwell felt the necessity of turning to 
 this purpose the unquiet activity of the nation. 
 Under the reign of Charles I. they counted in 
 England (as we have before observed) but three 
 vessels of 300 tons ; before the death of Charles 
 II. they reckoned near five hundred. The na- 
 vigation of England was indebted to the regu- 
 lationg of Cromwell for this increase ; the effect 
 of which was to carry off from the Dutch all 
 the profits of freighting, to deprive them of the 
 coasting trade which they pursued in England, 
 and to create a nursery of seamen. Cromwell 
 gave a great and real strength to the maritime 
 power, in taking the officers and admirals from 
 every class of the nation. Since the Protector, 
 every king of England has honoured and pro- 
 tected the naval service; they have, with reason
 
 and wisdom, made it a political regulation to 
 place some of the members of the royal family 
 in the navy, and this noble example has given 
 great animation to the naval spirit in England. 
 
 In 1704 the royal fleet consisted of one hun- 
 dred and twenty ships of the line, mounting from 
 forty-four to a hundred guns, and about a hun- 
 dred and sixty vessels of smaller force. Lewis 
 XIV. had, twenty years before, as large a 
 navy. 
 
 In 1754, the royal fleet comprised a hundred 
 and fifty ships of the line, of from fifty to a hun- 
 dred guns, ninety frigates or sloops of war, and 
 fifty vessels of weaker force. At this period 
 Lewis XV. had not in his ports the third of 
 this naval force. 
 
 In 1804, the royal fleet numbered two hun- 
 dred and eighty ships of the line, from fifty up 
 to a hundred guns, a hundred and seventy fri- 
 gates or sloops of war, and a hundred and eighty 
 vessels of inferior force. In this enumeration 
 many vessels are comprehended, which are guard, 
 store and prison ships, or which are not in a
 
 32 
 
 condition to maintain themselves at sea. The 
 amount of the effective and disposable naval 
 force, the maximum of what may be put in hos- 
 tile activity, does not exceed one hundred and 
 fifteen ships of the line, ninety frigates or sloops 
 of war, and about eighty vessels of smaller force. 
 This state of the navy requires, for its arming 
 and equipment, a hundred and thirty thousand 
 men, and the merchant shipping employs more 
 than two hundred thousand sailors. The naval 
 force of England must necessarily have experi- 
 enced a diminution since the year 1 805, that is 
 to say, since the decrees of Berlin, principally 
 in the number of seamen ; England being depri- 
 ved of the facility of enrolling sailors in the Ad- 
 riatic and Baltic. 
 
 England cannot arm a naval force more con- 
 siderable than the statement of 1 804 ; the wants 
 of her commerce, her work shops, her manufac- 
 tories, her population do not permit her even to 
 maintain, in a regular and permanent manner, 
 so imposing a navy. The government, in order 
 to keep at sea those strong and numerous squad-
 
 33 
 
 rons, is obliged to take away from the merchant 
 vessels a part of their sailors ; there are besides^ 
 in the English navy, about forty thousand fo- 
 reign sailors, who in future will not be recruited, 
 and whose place will be with difficulty supplied 
 by the subjects of the three kingdoms. 
 
 Population and Agriculture of the three Kingdoms* 
 
 Great Britain is not in a condition to main- 
 tain, for a length of time, a naval power so much 
 beyond the real resources of its agricultural po- 
 pulation. The population of the three king- 
 doms does not exceed twelve millions of indi- 
 viduals ; we are even permitted to doubt whe- 
 ther it rises quite to this number. Women, old 
 men and children form three fourths of this po- 
 pulation. England is, moreover, the countiy of 
 Europe in which are found proportionably the 
 fewest men of a middle age : in that island, more 
 than in any other territory, there is an increase 
 of dangers and accidents which await man arriv- 
 
 o , , 
 
 ed at the age of maturity : navigation there 
 
 5
 
 34 
 
 gradually cuts off no small portion of men, 
 abridges the duration of their life, and robs them 
 of that taste for sedentary and domestic occupa- 
 tions which are the foundation and preservation 
 of families. 
 
 They count in England, say the economists 
 and writers of that nation, about four hundred 
 thousand land holders, and seven hundred 
 thousand manufacturers or artisans working on 
 their own account, without comprising in the 
 latter, the workmen hired in the shops, and in- 
 dividuals who pledge their labour to provide for 
 their subsistence. English writers, who are fond 
 of enumerating by thousands, manufactures of 
 wool, silk, cottons, porcelain or pottery, metals, 
 glass, hardware, &c. affirm that, sincft the com- 
 mercial treaty of 1786 between France and Eng- 
 land, there have been established in the three 
 kingdoms more than fifteen hundred manufacto- 
 ries, and that there was an increase of eight 
 hundred thousand workmen from 1786 to 1791. 
 Such acknowledgments, pronounced in the 
 houses of parliament, show to other powers the 
 care and prudence which ought to direct them,
 
 35 
 
 in the treaties they conclude with a government 
 which so skilfully turns to its advantage the 
 errors or good intention of foreign courts. 
 This unmeasured extension of manufacturing 
 industry offers a proof of the relative diminu- 
 tion of the population in England: in effect, it 
 is agriculture which creates, augments, and per- 
 petuates families in the lower classes. 
 
 A manufacturing or commercial nation may 
 indeed exhibit, momentarily, an overgrown po- 
 pulation, because great benefits are granted to 
 emigrant strangers ; a lucrative protection assur- 
 ed to new establishments ; in a word, every kind 
 of encouragement bestowed upon commerce, at- 
 tract workmen, multiply them without forming 
 families and fill the workshops with an artificial 
 population. Let the usual outlets to manufac- 
 tured productions close or dry up, the number 
 of manufactories diminish, and that borrowed 
 population soon disappears. If we consider the 
 degree to which the rigours of the press have in- 
 creased in England within the last six and thirty 
 years, we shall clearly perceive the defect, the
 
 
 36 
 
 diminution of the population of that kingdom, 
 in a political or national point of view, and also 
 the great disproportion and absorption of the 
 naval and military force of Great Britain rela- 
 tively to her population. 
 
 In casting our eyes upon the statements sub- 
 mitted to parliament in 1808 and 1809, we find, 
 that in the session before the last, the number of 
 poor receiving support from the government in 
 the three kingdoms, amounted to 810,000 indi- 
 viduals; different acts of parliament ordered more 
 than 4,000,000 sterling for the assistance which 
 political beneficence judged necessary : the tax 
 for the support of the poor in 1730 did not ex- 
 ceed 800,000 pounds sterling ; it has been quin- 
 tupled in the space of eighty years. Public 
 charity has never been carried further in any 
 government; but such liberality, however ho- 
 nourable it may be to a goverment, attests the 
 decay of its real strength : we may venture to 
 say, in England, it denotes impoverishment, and 
 decline in the body politic. If, at the same fime, 
 we observe that the power of this nation is no-
 
 37 
 
 thing else than a development, beyond measure, 
 and against all prudence, of industiy, of com- 
 merce, and of bank riches, we may judge to what 
 a degree the political influence of England is ar- 
 tificial and unstable. In effect, it is suffi- 
 cient that the productions of her industry no lon- 
 ger find consumers on the continent of Europe ; 
 (we shall presently show that the two American 
 continents can offer to England, in a supposition 
 hazarded on the most favourable grounds, but a 
 very small consumption ;) it is sufficient that the 
 articles of her commerce, and the markets for her 
 colonial produce be obstructed in Europe to 
 cause public credit, bank paper, and the fortune 
 of the nation to experience a great catastrophe. 
 
 England herself does not gather a sufficient 
 quantity of grain for the consumption of her in- 
 habitants; the proof of this is shown by the 
 acts of parliament, which, for twenty years past, 
 have prohibited exportation, arid granted a con- 
 siderable bounty on the importation of grain. 
 The English are, however, after the Dutch, the 
 people who consume the least bread ; but fer-
 
 38 
 
 mented liquors require a great quantity of 
 grain. Ireland does not produce enough for the 
 food of the inhabitants ; the potatoe, in part, 
 supplies its place. Scotland scarcely raises the 
 fourth part of the grain that its population de- 
 mands. The price of bread corn, the founda- 
 tion of all comparisons of wealth or strength, 
 exceeds, in England, the price of that commodi- 
 ty in every other country in Europe, without 
 even excepting Holland, which reaps nothing, 
 but which borders on the richest territory of 
 Europe. This calculation proves, mathemati- 
 cally, that commercial and manufacturing indus- 
 try is exercised in England at the expense of 
 agricultural ; although the latter has been great- 
 ly improved within the last fifty years. Though 
 the English farmers endeavour, at great expense, 
 and with excessive care, to draw a very great 
 profit from the soil, either by pasturage or by 
 seeding and planting the ground, it is not less 
 true, that, in the final result, the territorial re- 
 sources of England, are not in proportion to its 
 maritime and commercial importance. Besides.,
 
 39 
 
 this kingdom has few forests ; it is almost entire- 
 ly stripped of the wood necessary for its navy ; 
 it finds itself obliged to seek, out of its own 
 sovereignty, in the north of Europe, a great 
 part of its naval stores, to levy, in every country, 
 sailors to keep up its navy, and soldiers to de- 
 fend its foreign possessions. It i& ifyen reduced 
 to the necessity of having recourse to com- 
 merce to maintain its political importance ; it is 
 then compelled incessantly to borrow, incessant- 
 ly to create new taxes, in order to support both 
 its power and its commerce, as we shall present- 
 ly show. 
 
 Expenses of the Navy and Army. 
 
 The expenses of the navy amounted, in 1778, 
 to 5 millions sterling, and in 1781, to about 6 
 millions sterling. From the first years of the 
 present war, these expenses, including those of 
 the artillery, arose to 8 millions 500 thousand 
 pounds sterling. In the last session, the chan-
 
 46 
 
 cellor of the exchequer demanded 20 millions 
 200 thousand pounds sterling, for the navy, not 
 including the artillery for the sea service. The 
 expenses which the defence of England render- 
 ed necessary in 1805, were estimated above 14 
 millions 300 thousand pounds sterling. In 
 1806, Lord Petty demanded 15 millions 200 
 thousand pounds sterling for the land service ; 
 in 1809, this service required near 18 millions 
 sterling. In the last session, Mr. Percival de- 
 manded 19 millions 200 thousand pounds ster- 
 ling, for the army, barracks, and artillery ; he 
 demanded, besides, 3 millions 200 pounds ster- 
 ling for the extraordinary expenses which the 
 defence of England and Ireland required. 
 Thus the navy, the army, and the defence of 
 the three kingdoms have absorbed, in the last 
 session, a sum amounting to more than 42 mil- 
 lions sterling. 
 
 If it be necessary to provide for the navy and 
 artillery debts, the sums demanded must evidently 
 prove insufficient should the war continue, and 
 the ports of the continent be closely shut against
 
 41 
 
 English merchandize. The armies and fleets, 
 the transport, equipment and maintenance of 
 which, have become indispensable in Europe, 
 in the Indies, and in America ; those extensive 
 cruizes, those ridiculous blockades, which Eng- 
 land is, however, reduced (at the peril of her 
 existence) to maintain with more activity than 
 ever, from one extremity of Europe to the 
 other; the necessity in which she is placed 
 of transforming her admirals into smugglers, 
 and her captains of ships into travelling clerks ; 
 the pacification of the continent in regard to 
 France, and the impossibility for Great Bri- 
 tain to excite a war in her favour, or to 
 effect a diversion in any degree serious or 
 durable; the constant necessity of protecting 
 her fleets of merchantmen and her trading ships, 
 against the squadrons, and even against the 
 simple privateers of the French empire ; all these 
 political conjunctures require, on the part of the 
 British government, a vigilance at every mo- 
 ment, an unremitting attention, a constant and 
 
 6
 
 42 
 
 increasing activity, immense naval forces. The 
 expenses of this part of the public service must 
 increase, from one half year to the other, in a 
 manner to baffle all precise calculation. 
 
 The army and artillery, in the most critical 
 years of the American war, cost only about 6 
 millions sterling ; the expenses of this branch, 
 as we have just seen, have undergone an alarm- 
 ing augmentation since the rupture of the treaty 
 of Amiens. The apprehensions of seeing an army 
 of the enemy disembark on the shores of Great 
 Britain, have led the ministers into measures ex- 
 tremely expensive ; and the enormous expenses 
 into which the Spanish war is plunging the 
 English government, no longer allows of any 
 reasonable calculation of the sum that may be 
 required to supply the wants of the navy, the 
 artillery, and the army. 
 
 The land forces of Great Britain are compo- 
 sed of the army, or regular troops, and of militia, 
 or f enables. 
 
 The regular troops form a hundred and twen- 
 ty-two regiments of infantry and cavalry ; the
 
 43 
 
 total amount of which, in effective men of rank, 
 scarcely rises to a hundred and twenty thousand; 
 \ve even believe, that it is acting generously to 
 carry this estimation above a hundred and ten 
 thousand men. The English cabinet has been 
 able to procure about twenty-four thousand 
 foreign recruits, by hiring men on the continent, 
 at any price, by exciting desertions in every 
 country, by praising valor and military service, 
 as people elsewhere praise every kind of labour 
 and assistance. 
 
 This army, called active, has not received 
 within the last two years, an augmentation of 
 more than eight or nine thousand men, in spite 
 of the enormous sums granted for enlisting. It 
 is unnecessary to add, that we do not here speak 
 of Sicilians, Portuguese, and Spaniards in the 
 pay of England. 
 
 The ridiculous expeditions attempted by the 
 ministers, on the continent, have occasioned the 
 active army to experience considerable losses ; 
 they must find it impossible to repair them. 
 The dreadful mortality which afflicted the Eng- 
 lish army in the island of Walcheren, and the
 
 44 
 
 reverses it has experienced in Portugal arid 
 Spain, have probably diminished its numbers 
 more than forty thousand men. The ministry 
 are obliged to leave their numerous colonies in 
 America almost destitute of troops. 
 
 It is not thought that there are, at this moment, 
 in the West Indies, in Canada, and in Nova 
 Scotia, beyond nine or ten thousand regular 
 troops ; these establishments, however, require 
 a force of from sixteen to seventeen thousand 
 men for their defence against an attack, con- 
 stantly possible, on the part of the enemy, or to 
 guard against insurrection, or the independence 
 of the subjects or slaves. The island of Ceylon, 
 and the establishments in the East Indies, impe- 
 riously require from twenty-two to twenty-four 
 thousand men of European troops for their de- 
 fence ; besides, from ten to eleven thousand 
 men are necessary for the preservation of Gib- 
 raltar, the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Malta and 
 Sicily. This simple view of the subject shows 
 the degree of military feebleness in which Great 
 Britain is placed internally ; the ministers 
 daily put in jeopardy her existence on her own 

 
 45 
 
 territory, in order to deluge with blood the 
 peninsula of Europe, and to preserve, a few mo- 
 ments longer, the sceptre of the ocean in the 
 cabinet of London. 
 
 The national militia, or f enables, were organi- 
 zed by the government, at the moment in which 
 it was threatened with a descent on the British 
 shores. The ministry made a general appeal to 
 the bravery of the nation ; armed the land 
 holders of every class, and announced that an 
 army of from four to five hundred thousand 
 men were ready to meet the enemy who should 
 attempt to land on their coasts. But in render- 
 ing all merited justice to individual bravery, to 
 the loyal and patriotic spirit of the English, we 
 are firmly persuaded that this kind of levy en 
 masse, composed of so many incoherent parts, 
 unskilful, undisciplined, could not oppose a very 
 formidable resistance to the progress of an ene- 
 my, who should disembark on the English 
 shores, with eighty thousand French troops ; all 
 this multitude of artisans, of labourers, of clerks, 
 or workmen, all these troops produced from the 
 brains of Mr. Windham, would present little else 

 
 46 
 
 than a general confusion ; several skirmishes 
 might take place, but it is nearly certain, that one 
 general engagement would decide the fate of 
 London, and consequently, the conquest of the 
 three kingdoms. We must here be permitted 
 to observe, that, in the civil wars which have agi- 
 tated that nation, for more than four centuries, 
 one great battle has almost always opened the 
 road to London to the victorious party, and that 
 the taking of the capital has always been follow- 
 ed by the submission of the counties. This 
 fact, which is peculiar to the English monarchy, 
 is explained by the form of the island and the 
 situation of London, which at the same time 
 show the feeble defence which that country 
 could oppose to an army of the enemy. 
 
 Without multiplying details, which make no 
 part of the object of this work, we shall observe, 
 that the expenses alone of the navy and army 
 ought to alarm, not indeed the government, 
 since it manufactures paper money, and effects 
 loans at pleasure, but the English people, who in 
 the end are obliged to pay for the obstinate di- 
 lapidation, the hostile ineptitude, and thepoliti-
 
 47 
 
 eal animosity of the ministers ; for the new sys- 
 tem of power established in Europe, and founded 
 upon a hundred victories, the results of which 
 no human event can henceforth change this Na- 
 poleonian and continental system no longer per- 
 mits England to diminish her naval force and 
 military state, unless the ministers at length con- 
 sent, in order to preserve every interest of that 
 country, to listen to the language of peace; to res- 
 tore to neutral and maritime nations all the rights 
 of which they have been violently and unjustly 
 stripped by the English government. 
 
 England, with regard to her naval and milita- 
 ry power, is in a state of unnatural tension; it- 
 becomes every day more difficult for her to sup- 
 port a development of forces w T hich are incom- 
 patible with the population and territorial re- 
 sources of the three kingdoms. In a state of or- 
 dinary war, the markets of a great part of Eu- 
 rope remain open to the English flag, but in the 
 present, when they are all closed, we do not 
 think the ministry will be able, during four or 
 five years more, to obtain the means of so inor- 
 dinate an abuse of power as that under which
 
 48 
 
 England is groaning at the present day. But 
 the partisans of the government will say, it is 
 not with her possessions in Europe, but with 
 those of the two Indies, that England maintains 
 the contest in which she is engaged against all 
 Europe ; it is not London, it is Calcutta that is 
 the real capital of Great Britain ; it is the inex 
 haustable treasures of Bengal that enables the 
 nation to display efforts which astonish the two 
 worlds ! We shall show, in the course of this 
 work, that these assertions, though true in a com- 
 mercial point of view, are false in regard to the 
 consequences deduced from them; we shall prove 
 that this exuberance, this commercial plenitude, 
 occasions precisely the weakness of England, 
 and must produce her ruin, if the ports of Eu- 
 rope be shut against her flag, and a commercial 
 revolution take place on the continent which ren- 
 der English merchandize useless, and conse- 
 quently fatal to its possessors. 
 
 But how have the finances of England been 
 able to permit the government to display that 
 immense power ? It is in this place that we com- 
 mence the examination of the territorial and com-
 
 49 
 
 mercial riches of the three kingdoms: we 
 shall embrace the opportunity to compare the 
 strength and real wealth of the French empire 
 with those of England. 
 
 ^j 
 
 It is verified by documents the least contest- 
 ed, that the quantity of land either cultivated or 
 appropriated to pleasure grounds, does not 
 amount, in the three kingdoms, to above thirty- 
 five millions of acres ; we may estimate at a hun- 
 dred and fifty-four millions of acres, the land 
 cultivated or cleared in the territory forming 
 the French empire. 
 
 The territorial productions of the three king- 
 doms are not sufficient to supply the wants of 
 the inhabitants : England draws a part of her 
 salt provisions from Holland, a part of her grain 
 from Sicily and the north. 
 
 The French empire is precisely in an inverse 
 situation ; independently of a better quality of 
 land, and the enjoyment of a milder climate, 
 agriculture has within the last fifteen years ex- 
 tended, and still extends every day, her domi- 
 nion in the French empire. The faults, the mis- 
 fortunes even, of the revolution, have produced
 
 50 
 
 an advantage of territorial reproduction ; the 
 population increases, and agriculture improves 
 in France, in consequence of the division of for- 
 tunes, the great superiority that the productions 
 of the soil will constantly and necessarily pre- 
 serve there over the productions of commercial 
 and manufacturing industry, and the encourage- 
 ment and numberless benefits granted by the 
 emperor Napoleon to agriculture and industry. 
 The interior commerce of the local productions 
 of the empire suffices to pour into its bosom a 
 general abundance, and to excite the labour of 
 every class of society. The French empLe 
 might experience great calamities (and certainly 
 the revolution it has undergone dispenses us 
 from any proofs in that respect) without its phy- 
 sical constitution being exhausted or even sensi- 
 bly altered; a wise regimen, a few years of 
 paternal government, will always be sufficient, 
 in this happy and magnificent territory, to 
 repair great losses or great faults. Rich in 
 the fertility of her soil, and in the industry of 
 her inhabitants, France may do without every 
 other nation ; wt do not mean to say that, po- 
 litically, and in -the general system of Europe,
 
 51 
 
 it would be advantageous to the French empire 
 to adopt a principle of economy of such a nature ; 
 we mean only to say, that it would be sufficient 
 for the French empire to refuse to consume the 
 luxuries of England to strike her a mortal blow. 
 Sully advised Henry IV. to maintain, above all 
 things, among the French people, a military 
 spirit, and a fondness for agriculture: what 
 would this minister have said, if he had seen 
 Frenchmen foolishly ask for the fashions, the 
 manners, the luxury, the merchandize, and the 
 principles of England ? 
 
 Under the ministry of Colbert, the balance of 
 trade between France and England, yielded an 
 annual profit of 18,000,000 of livres in favour of 
 the former. 
 
 In 1670, (by the statement drawn up by order 
 of the lords commissioners, for the commercial 
 treaty of France,) the merchandize exported 
 from England to France, amounted to about 
 3,600,000 livres tournois ; the merchandize 
 imported from France into England, amount- 
 ed to about 24,000,000 of livres tournois. In 
 1788, the balance of trade between the two
 
 52 
 
 nations, gave a profit of 82,000,000 of livres tour- 
 nois to England. The first fact proves the real 
 riches of France well administered ; the second 
 shows the consequences of the English evil,, and 
 the vices of the treaty of commerce concluded in 
 1786, by the ministers of Lewis XVI. both attest 
 the relative inferiority of England, in regard to 
 territory and industry, whenever the French em- 
 pire is governed with wisdom and energy. 
 
 It will, no doubt, be objected to this, that the 
 seventeenth century is not the nineteenth centu- 
 ry ; that people live according to the times, ac- 
 cording to the manners; that the progress of 
 civilization, of intelligence, and of navigation, 
 have rendered many more enjoyments and new 
 luxuries necessary ; that each age has its fashions 
 and its wants, and that fortune or wealth never 
 make a retrograde movement in her enjoyments 
 of luxury, without injuring the interests of the 
 state and the comfort of individuals. We shall 
 prove, in the progress of this work, that it is pre- 
 cisely in a new, and, as it were, heroic age, that 
 a nation ought to found its wealth and strength 
 upon its own resources, by liberating itself from
 
 53 
 
 every tribute that its wants do not imperiously 
 command. 
 * English writers, in estimating the revenue of 
 
 O O 
 
 all the territorial and commercial fortunes of 
 the subjects of the three kingdoms at the sum of 
 136,000,000 pounds sterling, show how much 
 the wealth of Great Britain is illusive and pre- 
 carious. In all the estimates which the pen- 
 sioners of the British ministry present to the 
 public with so proud a confidence, commercial 
 industry forms more than two thirds, and al- 
 most three fourths of this immense revenue: 
 this single consideration proves how much the 
 prosperity of England is accidental and ill- 
 founded. Although it would be easy to show 
 the exaggeration of a calculation so hypotheti- 
 cal and so difficult to establish as that of the Eng- 
 lish writers ; and although similar views, which 
 may be considered as metaphysical abstractions, 
 be ridiculous, since they are perfectly useless in 
 the practice of finances, yet we will adopt them 
 an instant as signs of the riches of England ; 
 it will serve us, at least, to show that the taxes, 
 public debt, and the various wants of the
 
 54 
 
 English government, annually require from eve- 
 ry subject the sacrifice of two fifths of all his in- 
 come of whatever description. 
 
 In effect, every guinea that an Englishman 
 contrives to get possession of, no matter by what 
 means, pays, at the present time, to the public 
 treasury, from 8 shillings to 8 shillings and 6 
 pence annually, in consequence of the various 
 imposts and taxes which press upon the produc- 
 tions of the soil and industry. Already under 
 the administration of M. Neckar it was gene- 
 rally acknowledged by the publicists of the two 
 nations, that when an individual in France paid 
 20 sous (about 19 cents) an individual in Eng- 
 land paid 4 francs (about 73 cents.) The Eng- 
 lish ministers boasted of this pretended riches 
 arising from the contributions of the three king- 
 doms : they thence concluded that every subject 
 of the three kingdoms possessed by his industry 
 a revenue of 14 pounds sterling, whilst every 
 subject of France had no more than an income 
 of 4 pounds sterling : but this pretended wealth 
 being principally the produce of industry, the
 
 55 
 
 territory yielding scarcely the fourth part of it, 
 this consequence evidently results from it, that 
 it is on the profits of trade that the public taxes 
 and the facility of paying them depend. What 
 becomes of the public wealth, if the profits of 
 trade dimmish ? The burthen of the taxes and 
 imposts in the two nations bear nearly the pro- 
 portion, one to the other, that we have just 
 stated ; this proportion, and the relative situa- 
 tion of the two countries, fix in a positive man- 
 ner the riches' of the French empire, and the 
 poverty of England. When we make use of the 
 terms riches and poverty, we mean to apply 
 them only to the government of the body poli- 
 tic ; and it is in this sense that facts will demon- 
 strate that the French empire is the richest, and 
 that Great, Britain is the poorest government of 
 Europe. 
 
 Public Debt. 
 
 We do not fear to warrant the accuracy of the 
 sums and the financial results which we are go- 
 ing to present to the reader: they are extracted
 
 56 
 
 from documents furnished by the exchequer, 
 from reports drawn up by the committee of the 
 house of commons appointed to inquire into the 
 state of the nation; they are moreover support- 
 ed by the statements presented to parliament by 
 the chancellors of the exchequer, who, for thirty 
 years past, have directed the English finances'. 
 
 Let us enter into the labyrinth of the public 
 debt of Great Britain. 
 
 In 1680, the public debt was estimated at 8 
 millions sterling ; the most moderate of the Eng- 
 lish writers value at 87 millions sterling the ex- 
 penses incurred by King William in the war 
 which preceded the treaty of Riswick, and at 
 70 millions sterling the amount expended by 
 Queen Anne in the war of the succession. The 
 maritime superiority of England, at the end of 
 the seventeenth, and at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, the profits of her commerce, 
 a continuation of moderate and wise measures 
 in her administration, until the death of Queen 
 Anne, that is to say, until the accession of the 
 house of Brunswick to the throne of England,
 
 5? 
 
 left the nation and the government in -a real state 
 of prosperity and glory. That epoch was un- 
 questionably a most happy period for England, 
 both with regard to foreign relations, and to in- 
 ternal administration. 
 
 At the accession of George I. the debt 
 amounted to 50,000,000 sterling ; that monarch 
 left it, at his death, in the same state* 
 
 George II. from the year 1740, raised the debt 
 to 80,000,000 sterling. Between 1 740 and 1 748, 
 the parliament voted 55,000,000 sterling, for the 
 war of Charles VI. The war of 1755, cost 
 England 49,000,000 sterling. 
 
 King George III. followed this system of 
 wars, of loans, and of augmentation of the debt* 
 In 1768, the public debt was estimated at the 
 sum of 153,000,000 sterling. Between the 
 peace of Versailles, in 1763, and the first arma- 
 ments directed against North America, in 1 774, 
 a part of the debt was liquidated ; and in 1773, 
 we find it reduced to 136 ,000,000 sterling. 
 
 The American war Iqfl Great Britain into 
 expenses so excessive, that the government was 
 
 a
 
 58 
 
 obliged to effect numerous loans ; so that, in 
 1783, the debt amounted to 240,000,000 sterling, 
 the interest of which required the sum of 
 8,500,000 pounds sterling annually. Although, 
 at the period of the peace of 1783, the total 
 amount of imposts and public revenue did not 
 exceed 14,000,000 sterling in the three king- 
 doms; yet the extent and profits of the com- 
 merce of Great Britain were so considerable, 
 that it is generally admitted that the situation of 
 England might then have been considered as 
 satisfactory. A wise administration, and a pa- 
 cific system, might have improved this situation, 
 in a manner to have placed the nation and the 
 government in a state of durable power and 
 prosperity. 
 
 But the revolution of France, the war that 
 England declared against that power, and that 
 she caused successively to be declared by all the 
 sovereigns of Europe, in the intention of effect- 
 fng the dismemberment of the French monarchy, 
 
 and of becoming the mistress of the navigation 
 
 * 
 
 and commerce of the four parts of the globe ; 
 the events that the French revolution has produ-
 
 59 
 
 ced, the victories of its armies, the just and ne- 
 cessary consequences which result from the 
 new political system established on the Europe- 
 an continent ; in short, the prodigious increase 
 of influence, and of power, of glory, and of 
 prosperity given to the French empire, by the 
 Emperor Napoleon ; all these cause? have placed 
 the English government in a critical situation ; a 
 situation that, from this moment, may even be 
 considered as desperate, in regard to the finances 
 and public debt of the kingdom, if the ministry 
 do not hasten to adopt measures, at once pacific, 
 and compatible with the maritime rights of the 
 different states of Europe. 
 
 In 1804, the total amount of the public debt, 
 funded and not funded, was declared to be 
 about 510,000,000 sterling. 
 
 The chancellor of the exchequer, Lord Petty, 
 on the 1st of February, 1806, laid it down as a 
 basis of his financial operations, that the aggre- 
 gate of the public debt amounted to 5io,400,000 
 pounds sterling; that minister evidently esti-
 
 . 
 
 60 
 
 piated it at from 10 to 11,000,000 below its 
 real amount. 
 
 In 1808, the public debt was declared to 
 amount to the sum of 578,000,000 sterling. 
 
 In the speech delivered by Mr. Martin, the 
 19th of March, 1810, the public debt was stated 
 to amount to 784,000,000 sterling. If there be 
 no error in the print, or ignorance of the editors 
 of public papers, who have published these de- 
 bates in France, we must attribute to the spirit 
 of party, and to exaggeration, which is always 
 the consequence, the great error into which Mr. 
 [Martin may have fallen. Notwithstanding the 
 foolish enterprises of the English cabinet, the 
 unskilful and ridiculous diversions they have 
 attempted on the continent, notwithstanding the 
 obstruction of almost all the markets for British 
 commerce on the continent, it is impossible to 
 admit such an augmentation of the public debt 
 in so short a space of time ; public credit could 
 not have resisted so violent a trial, and a gene- 
 ral commotion would have taken place in the 
 three kingdoms. We believe, that we are not 
 far from the trutlj in estimating the whole
 
 61 
 
 amount of the debt funded and not funded, at 
 the moment in which we are writing, at the sum 
 of from 650 to 660,000,000 sterling, the interest 
 of which requires a sum which cannot be less 
 than from 22 to ^3,000,000 sterling. 
 
 We shall not extend any further our views on 
 this subject, although, in a discussion of so seri- 
 ous a nature, the importance of the subject 
 would excuse the dryness and length of details. 
 
 How has the body politic in England, been 
 able to withstand this progression of the public 
 debt ? What is the revenue of that kingdom ? 
 What are the taxes and imposts levied upon the 
 subjects? What can be, in short, the profits of 
 a commerce which enables the subjects to pay 
 guch imposts and such taxes ? 
 
 Public Revenue. 
 
 In 1 580, the national revenue did not exceed 
 2,300,000 pounds sterling. In 1688, it did not 
 amount to more than 4,900,000 pounds sterling.
 
 62 
 
 In 1714, it fielded as much as 6,000,000 of 
 pounds sterling. In 1773, it was 10,400,000 
 pounds sterling. In 1775, it amounted to near 
 12,000,000 sterling. In 1786, the produce of 
 all the taxes, imposts, duties, original and addi- 
 tional, to the number of two hundred and seven- 
 teen, amounted to 1 4,600,000 pounds sterling. 
 
 In 1804, the total amount of the taxes and 
 imposts was estimated, by the ministers, at 
 32,100,000 pounds sterling. 
 
 In 1806, the national revenue, formed by the 
 permanent taxes, the lottery, malt duty, and the 
 ivar tax, was represented to be 57,000,000 ster- 
 ling ; the war tax comprised in this estimate, con- 
 stituted a sum of from 16 to 17,000,000 sterling. 
 
 In 1 809, the ministers stated that the national 
 revenue, or produce of all the taxes, might be 
 valued at 65,000,000 sterling; they estimated 
 the permanent or additional taxes at 41,000,000 
 sterling, and the war tax at from 23 to 24,000,000 
 sterling. 
 
 To complete the public service, and to supply 
 all the expenses of the state, in 1804, the minis- 
 ters stated, that a sum of 58,000,000 sterling was
 
 63 
 
 necessary ; they demanded 72,000,000 sterling 
 in 1806, and 75,000,000 sterling in 1809. 
 
 In the space of less than forty-years, the ex- 
 penses of the nation, or the whole amount of 
 v the wants of the government, have increased 
 from 12,600,000 pounds sterling, necessary in 
 1773, to the sum of 75,000,000 sterling, necessa- 
 ry in 1809. 
 
 In the space of sixty-two years, from 1748 to 
 
 1 809, the taxes and imposts have increased, in 
 England, from 7,400,000 pounds sterling, to the 
 sum of 65,060,000 sterling. 
 
 In the space of forty-two years, from 1768 to 
 
 1810, the public debt has been augmented, in 
 England, from 153,000,000, to the sum of from 
 650 to 660,000,000 sterling. 
 
 From 1756 to 1762, new taxes were estab- 
 lished to the amount of 4,500,000 pounds ster- 
 ling ; from 1762 to 1775, new taxes were created 
 to the amount of 850,000 pounds sterling ; from 
 1775 to 1783, there was an imposition of new 
 taxes of 3,900,000 pounds sterling ; from 1783 
 to 1802, the amount of the new taxes imposed, 
 was 13,240,000 pounds sterling; from 1802 to
 
 64 
 
 1809, the taxes and imposts were increased from 
 29,890,000 pounds sterling, to nearly 65,000,000 
 sterling. 
 
 It is impossible, in the circumstances in which 
 England is placed, to augment the permanent or 
 territorial taxes ; it is even more than doubtful 
 whether the government can continue to levy 
 upon the people such excessive impositions, 
 when commerce, which affords the English the 
 only possibility of acquitting them, must ex- 
 perience an extreme diminution and embarrass- 
 ment ; when the public debt must increase every 
 year in proportion to this embarrassment and di- 
 minution of commerce. 
 
 King William was the real father of the public 
 debt of England, of the system of borrowing, and 
 of that policy of permanent hostility against 
 the continent. 
 
 It is curious to observe that all the acts of par- 
 liament dated in the reigns of King William 
 and Queen Anne, authorising loans, bore this 
 title, " that the funds are designed to prosecute 
 the war with vigour against France." With a
 
 65 
 
 pretext so seducing to the Englishmen, Wil- 
 liam opened that bank of loans (a true bucket 
 of the Danaides) which will never be filled nor 
 closed ; he began the enormous debt, " the 
 weight of which," as Bolingbroke has said, "is 
 plunging England every day into the gulph of 
 inevitable bankruptcy." 
 
 All the taxes in England being pledged, the 
 capital of the impost itself is thus, as it were, 
 alienated by the law for the income tax ; from 
 which" it results, that whenever it becomes ne- 
 cessary to meet the enormous expenses into 
 which the ignorance and absurd system of the 
 ministers of the war of extermination have precipi- 
 tated the three kingdoms, the various wants of 
 the state can be answered only by the public 
 credit, that is to say, by loans, and by the cus- 
 tom houses, that is to say, by the profits of com- 
 merce. 
 
 Until lately, the activity and the advantages 
 of commerce have supported the public credit ; 
 so that the government has been able to multi- 
 ply loans in proportion as the public service ren- 
 
 9
 
 66 
 
 dered them indispensable. These loans have 
 been annually, since the year 1798, from 15> 
 20, 24, even to 26,000,000 sterling each year, in 
 the three kingdoms. If the ministers declared 
 the loan of 1808 only for 10,000,000 sterling, 
 this moderation must be attributed to the politi- 
 cal situation in which the continent was found to 
 be; a situation which dispensed the ministers 
 from granting subsidies to the continental pow- 
 ers ; it must equally be attributed to the state of 
 peace which, in some measure, prevailed on the 
 continent, to the advantages which the opening 
 of Spain and the Brazils seemed to promise the 
 English flag, and above all, to the immense smug- 
 gling trade in colonial produce, which was car- 
 ried on in the Baltic, to Hamburg, and to Hol- 
 land. 
 
 William III. conceived in England the sys- 
 tem of the public funds, of chartered companies, 
 and of banks ; by these means he opened to roy- 
 al authority the road to loans and to despotism, 
 by the corruption of the national representation. 
 We have seen with what prodigality his succes- 
 sors have abused his conceptions ; wise and en-
 
 67 
 
 lightened ministers jvho had the happiness of 
 their country at heart, contrived in the first years 
 of the reign of George I. the establishment 
 of what is called the stinking fund, being de- 
 signed to effectuate the extinction of the public 
 debt. This is an excellent financial institution, 
 perfectly proper to inspire confidence, and sus- 
 ceptible of securing the credit of the nation 
 but this institution, like the best of laws, is not 
 sheltered from the abuses that power and cor- 
 ruption may exercise, when it is at the mercy 
 of the venality and ambition of ministers. By a 
 clause in the original act, the residue of the 
 taxes destined for the sinking fund, was left at 
 the disposal of parliament. This clause has 
 been sufficient to suspend all reimbursement 
 in time of war, under the pretext of an- 
 swering the demands of the public service for 
 the current year. Ambitious or avaricious mi- 
 nisters may, at their will, dispose of the sums in- 
 tended for the reduction of the public debt ; to 
 succeed in their manoeuvres, it is only necessary 
 to secure to themselves a feeble majority of
 
 68 
 
 votes in parliament. Loans are multiplied, and 
 must be filled up at a higher interest ; but they 
 furnish ministers with fresh means for domestic 
 corruption. 
 
 The result of such a political and financial sys- 
 tem is, that the traffic of the votes of parliament 
 and that of the public stock are become univer- 
 sal in England ; legislation there now is nothing 
 but a trade. The party of capitalists and stock- 
 jobbers have overthrown the landholders ; they 
 have corrupted the nation, and have introduced 
 themselves into the legislature as an integral part 
 of it. The members of parliament, whatever 
 they may be, seek only to arrive at the ministry, 
 to remain there peaceably, fill up a new loan, 
 and fascinate the public credit by the use of the 
 method and expedients so skilfully put in prac- 
 tice by Mr. Pitt 
 
 That minister imposed a necessity on the Eng- 
 lish government of misleading more and more 
 the public opinion ; and the deplorable facility 
 that the financial system and transfers, imagined 
 by Mr. Pitt, gives the English ministers of abu-
 
 69 
 
 sing the credit and fortune of the nation, must 
 produce consequences, the more fatal as it is no 
 longer in the power of ministerial authority 
 to change his method and expedients, without 
 running the risk of occasioning a total ruin of 
 public credit, and of the finances of the state. 
 
 England is daily eating up the capital of her 
 revenue, that is to say, she is devouring her own 
 vitals; the government is in the situation in 
 which an individual would find himself who 
 owed all that he possessed, and whose steward 
 paid over to his creditors the whole amount of 
 his income ; but who might find means to borrow 
 every year the sums necessary to supply the 
 wants of the master, and carry on his business : 
 the only difference between the government 
 and the individual, is, that the former cannot be 
 compelled by law to discharge its debts, but on 
 the contrary, the law furnishes it with new 
 means to increase them. 
 
 The science and ability of the English minis- 
 ters consist in contriving how to impose new 
 taxes and to effect new loans.
 
 70 
 
 The most absurd of all men in the world are 
 system-mongers, political projectors, and fra- 
 mers of philosophical constitutions ; but in finan- 
 ces, the absurdity consists in not finding money; 
 it must be had, whatever may be the means, or, 
 to speak more correctly, whatever may be the 
 price it may cost. No one can dispute the abili- 
 ty of the English ministers, or rather that of Mr. 
 Pitt, whose lessons they religiously follow, in the 
 expedients they have hitherto employed in or- 
 der to provide for the public expenses. 
 
 There is no country on the face of the globe 
 where fiscal genius has attained the power of 
 creating so many kinds of imposts, and at the 
 same time such heavy taxes on all the produc* 
 tions of the soil, of industry, and of luxury. 
 
 The English speak w r ith a sort of ostentation 
 of the quantity, and of the nature of the taxes 
 which they permit the government to lay on 
 the nation ; it is always the profits and the pros- 
 perity of commercial industry that pay the ex- 
 penses of this national'pride! English writers, and 
 Smith himself, in his excellent treatise on thervealth
 
 71 
 
 of nations, boasts of the nature of those taxes, 
 which in England fall upon the consumers and 
 upon objects of luxury, in preference to the pro- 
 ductions of the soil and of agriculture. 
 
 This is owning that the majority of the taxes, 
 collected by the British government, ure drawn, 
 from the profits of manufactures or of commerce. 
 Indirect taxes offer certain advantages, in as 
 much as they appear to be voluntary, are paid 
 by degrees, and in a manner, in some measure, 
 invisible ; their collection is nevertheless very 
 expensive. This multiplicity and weight of 
 taxes, moreover, greatly embarrass industry, 
 raise the price of labour, and necessarily oppress 
 the most numerous class of the nation, that of 
 the poor. 
 
 The ministers disguise, as much as they are 
 able, the amount of the arrears of taxes and ex- 
 penses; they never acknowledge exactly the 
 nett produce of the additional taxes, and they 
 draw from the sinking fund, even without being 
 authorised. In the American war, they took 
 28,000,000 sterling from this fund ; the inquiry 
 instituted by Lord Shelburn, proved that the
 
 72 
 
 ministers had diposed of so large a sum without 
 the sanction of parliament ; but in general, they 
 are authorised by parliament in the urgent ne- 
 cessities of the war. Under the administrations 
 of Walpole and of Pitt, similar malversations, 
 commutations of debt, and conversions of exche- 
 quer bills were often revealed, but always to no 
 purpose ; the English government is so deeply 
 vitiated in its principles, the system of continen- 
 tal connections, and of wars, has been so obsti- 
 nately embraced by the ministry since King 
 William, (and that by the facility which loans 
 and public stock give the ministers of buying 
 the votes of parliament,) that Lord Bolingbroke 
 already observed, in 1 736, c< that after twenty- 
 " three years of peace, the debts contracted by 
 " wars, and particularly by that of the succession, 
 " were still unextinguished ; that the most bur- 
 " thensome taxes to the landholders had become 
 " the ordinary funds for the current service of 
 " each year, and that, after such a disposition, 
 " the ruin of England became a necessary con- 
 " sequence of her political system."
 
 73 
 
 We may apply, with much more reason, to 
 
 the present circumstances, what Lord Boling- 
 
 i 
 
 broke said, in regard to the war of the succes- 
 sion, with that justness and impartiality attached 
 to all his assertions. " It is high time to save 
 " England from total insolvency and bankrupt- 
 " cy, by abandoning a plan of conduct, which is 
 " maintained only by prejudices and the passions 
 " of party, by the caprice of some individuals, 
 " the interest of many, and by a fatal ambition 
 " and avarice." 
 
 But what are the resources which the Eng- 
 lish government finds in the commerce of the 
 three kingdoms, in public credit, the bank, and 
 paper money, which represent and support this 
 credit ? Let us examine whether these resources 
 are capable of giving to a nation sufficient stabili- 
 ty and strength, in order to maintain its maritime 
 and political importance in a prosperous situa* 
 tion. 
 
 10
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Of Public Credit, of Fictitious Riches, and of tin 
 Commercial Prosperity of Great Britain. 
 
 THE American war began the overthrow of 
 the finances of England ; the war of extermina- 
 tion declared by the ministers of that country, 
 against all the maritime nations of Europe, ren- 
 der the decline and political fall of Great Bri- 
 tain inevitable, if the ministry do not hasten to 
 conclude a peace compatible with the various 
 interests of the commercial nations. 
 
 The public expenses and the interest of the 
 debt have so prodigiously increased, within these 
 last fifteen years, that it is mathematically im- 
 possible, in the most favourable supposition for 
 her commerce, her piracies, her naval or colonial 
 conquests, that England can be able to reim- 
 burse annually, beyond 2,000,000, or 2,50Q000 
 sterling of the capital of the debt ; her govern- 
 ment must even enjoy a peace and a commer- 
 cial prosperity of long duration, in order to be
 
 75 
 
 able to maintain, only upon the present footing, 
 the assize and the levy of the taxes, in order to 
 be able to augment, in a sufficient proportion, 
 the funds destined to the extinction of the debt, 
 in order to be able, in short, to succeed in equal- 
 ling the receipts to the disbursements. 
 
 Since the accession of George I. 1714, the 
 situation of the finances has presented but one 
 single period of amelioration and real prosperi- 
 ty ; this period elapsed between the years 1762 
 and 1773; there was then paid off nearly 
 18,000,000 sterling of the national debt. The 
 history of England offers, in the space of sixty 
 years, but this single interval of internal pros- 
 perity. 
 
 What imposes upon the vulgar, in regard to 
 the resources of Great Britain, is the facility 
 with which the loans asked for by the ministers, 
 contrive to be filled up ; this facility, this credit, 
 is dependant, in a great measure, upon the move- 
 ment given to the public stocks, and upon the 
 emission of bank paper and exchequer bills. 
 Without pretending to deny whatever reality 
 there may be in the commercial resources- of
 
 76 
 
 Great Britain, resources which to this day have 
 permitted the state to support the public funds 
 and the paper of the bank, we may venture to 
 gay, that the enormous loans effected by that 
 government, prove but little more the real 
 wealth of the nation, than loans of 500,000,000, 
 or of a milliard, opened by the convention of 
 France, and immediately filled up with assig- 
 nats, proved the public wealth of that monarchy, 
 at a time when she contained within her bosom 
 so prodigious a mass of paper money. 
 
 Bank of England, Paper Money, and Specie in 
 Circulation. 
 
 Upon fundamental principles, all paper emit- 
 ted in a government, as a representative sign of 
 gold and silver, has an illusive value when this 
 paper is not reimbursable in specie at the will of 
 the holder ; for, in this case, it is impossible that 
 a difference be not established between the value 
 of specie and that of the paper, which is the re-
 
 77 
 
 preservative sign of it. Once this difference es- 
 tablished, gold and silver are locked up; the 
 constraint which trade from that time experien- 
 ces, renders a greater emission of paper necessa- 
 ry, which, in its turn, produces a new relative 
 depreciation, or dearness of specie ; and as, in 
 the end, one of the two signs must destroy the 
 other, bankruptcy is inevitable. 
 
 The emission of a great quantity of paper 
 money in a state, has a necessary influence OQ 
 the course of exchange between that state and 
 foreign countries, and also, on the mercantile 
 value of gold and silver in the interior of that 
 state. Whatever may be the solidity of the 
 pledge for the redemption of paper money, the 
 value of it diminishes proportionally with the 
 quantity thrown into circulation ; whenever it 
 cannot be exchanged for specie at the will of 
 the bearer, it is then nothing but a fictitious sign, 
 the value of which is absolutely dependant upon 
 arbitrary circumstances. If this paper money 
 has been issued under the express condition, 
 that it might be converted into gold or silver at
 
 78 
 
 pleasure, it no longer offers either solidity or 
 security, from the moment the government 
 makes a law to suspend the reimbursement or 
 payment of it in specie. 
 
 Paper money, or bank bills, give a salutary 
 movement to the internal circulation of a coun- 
 try, when this paper money does not usurp the 
 place of specie in any of the employments 
 which the latter could and ought to fulfil : then 
 paper money animates individual transactions, 
 facilitates commercial operations, and spreads a 
 greater degree of ease among all classes of socie- 
 ty. If the emission of paper money deviates 
 sensibly from the proportion of specie in a na- 
 tion, extravagance or public wants soon demand 
 an augmentation of this fictitious money ; con- 
 sequently gold and silver rise in price, and retire 
 from circulation ; the price of labour, in every 
 kind of industry, increases in a rapid manner ; 
 the same thing takes place with respect to com- 
 modities and every object of necessity ; ex- 
 change with foreign countries becomes every 
 day more unfavourable ; and if, unhappily for 
 the nation exposed to such a trial, there be no
 
 79 
 
 longer either vigilance or limits to the emission 
 of paper money, it must end in producing the 
 dissolution of the body politic, when the state 
 does not contain in its own constitution a vital 
 principle of sufficient force to throw off these 
 mortal humours, if we may so speak. 
 
 France has supported 2 milliards and a half of 
 debts contracted in the reign of Lewis XIV. she 
 
 ^y 
 
 surmounted the operations of Law to nearly the 
 amount of 4 milliards of bills of his scheme. 
 During the course of the revolution, Europe has 
 beheld this empire without laws, without a chief, 
 and as it were, without property, support the de- 
 preciation of 30 milliards of paper money. Eu- 
 rope has seen this empire arise, full of new life 
 and strength, from that tomb in which every 
 social and political law seemed condemned to be 
 buried. The cause of these prodigies is in th 
 situation, in the territory, in the nature of the 
 French empire ; this empire, the first and the 
 most powerful of all states, because wealth is 
 there founded upon an order of things constant 
 and imperishable.
 
 80 
 
 Let it be tried in England, or in any nation liv- 
 ing by commerce, to reduce the nominal value of 
 paper money, and we should see the political 
 constitution of that nation overthrown by a 
 similar measure. It is only those nations which 
 are essentially rich from their own territory, 
 whose political existence, in such a case, could 
 survive a bankruptcy ; the ministers of every 
 country well know this. We shall not enlarge 
 upon a subject, the discussion of which is not 
 necessary to the matter we treat of in this work, 
 whatever advantages such a discussion might, 
 afford against the financial system of England. 
 
 We see, in that kingdom, a prosperity as it 
 were incalculable, and a real penury in the re- 
 sources and the various revenues of the state, be- 
 cause the greatest part of these resources and 
 revenues are accidental and artificial. 
 
 In reality, the political wealth of that monar- 
 chy is founded upon the system of loans and the 
 banking establishment, a system and an estab- 
 lishment which are themselves founded upon 
 the manufacturing industry and the commerce 
 of the country. The bank has hitherto been
 
 81 
 
 the real pillar of the state; commerce supports 
 the bank, and the bank and the state are now 
 one and the same thing. The bank figures 
 without reality, and nominally, if we may so 
 speak, as a creditor of the state. We have not 
 the presumption to undertake to estimate the 
 amount for which the bank has become a creditor 
 of the state ; very little precise information can 
 be had on this subject : besides, such an exami- 
 nation would be useless, since the bank, at pre- 
 sent, is truly the broker, the agent, the instru- 
 ment of the state. It indubitably results from 
 the present banking and financial system of Eng- 
 land, that the taxes, the revenues, the industry, 
 the soil, the manufactures, and the commerce of 
 the three kingdoms, are mortgaged to the credi- 
 tors. The national debt and the emission of 
 bank bills have put the fortune of every indivi- 
 dual in the three kingdoms into the hands of the 
 government. If there could remain the least 
 doubt on this subject in the mind of an inatten- 
 tive man, after what has been stated, it would 
 be sufficient to cast his eyes upon the war tax, 
 
 11
 
 82 
 
 aud 1 lie tax on real estate, in order to be convin- 
 ced that such are the effects produced in Eng- 
 land by the double system of public debts and 
 paper money. 
 
 The government pays or appropriates certain 
 revenues to the bank, and at the same time, bor- 
 rows of the bank the sums necessary for the pub- 
 lic service. We must then examine the resour- 
 ces of the government or of the bank ; they con- 
 sist in the produce of the public revenue, and in 
 the specie which, in every country, ought to re- 
 present this produce. 
 
 It is pretty generally admitted by the great 
 writers on political economy, that all the specie, 
 gold and silver, existing in circulation in the dif- 
 ferent European states, towards the end of the last 
 century, might be estimated at about 9 milliards 
 of francs; 1 * no question is made of the gold or 
 silver substances employed in civil or religious 
 luxury. The quantity of metallic substances in- 
 creases annually in Europe, in the proportion of 
 from one and a quarter to one and a third per 
 
 * A franc is about nineteen cents our money... .Translator.
 
 83 
 
 cent : about the seventh part of this quantity is 
 furnished by the mines of Russia and Germany ; 
 the other six parts come from the mines of 
 South America : but a part of this wealth im- 
 ported from America is not coined; it is reserv- 
 ed for the use of luxury, and constitutes more 
 
 than the fourth, almost a third of this importa- 
 
 f 
 
 tion. The benefits derived from exploring the 
 mines of America, diminished progressively dur- 
 ing the eighteenth century, whether on account 
 of the exhaustion of certain mines, or on account 
 of the bad methods adopted, principally in Peru, 
 in the working of the mines, or the cleansing of 
 the mineral. The whole product of gold and 
 silver substances, which are imported annually 
 from America, and that Europe keeps and retains 
 within itself, may be estimated at between 
 95 and 100,000,000 of francs, of which, from 68 
 to 70,000,000 of francs are coined and thrown 
 into circulation. This last sum has even dimi- 
 nished about a ninth part; for it is calculated 
 that, at the end of five-and-twenty years, Europe 
 loses about 200,000,000 of francs in specie, that is
 
 84 
 
 to say, a little more than 8,000,000 every year, 
 by concealment under ground and by shipwreck. 
 
 From documents furnished, and from asser- 
 tions advanced by the best informed statesmen 
 and writers, by Smith, Baveriant, Meggens, 
 Georgi, Campomanes, &c. we cannot reckon 
 above 70,000,000 of francs, the living part (if 
 we may be permitted to use this expression) of 
 gold or silver substances annually imported into 
 Europe from the mines of America. 
 
 The quantity of metallic substances that Eu- 
 rope receives from America has been found to 
 be insufficient, for, about a century past, to an- 
 swer the progressive dearness of commodities of 
 the first necessity, and the advanced price of la- 
 bour which the extension of commerce, in every 
 European state, has necessarily occasioned: 
 this is the reason which has given rise to, and 
 now renders indispensably necessary, paper 
 money and banks in almost every country. 
 From the report of the bullion committee on the 
 high price of bullion, it appears that the gold 
 coin in circulation in 1797 was estimated at 
 30,000,000 sterling. (Every body -knows that
 
 85 
 
 the quantity of silver coin in circulation in 
 England is trifling compared with that of gold.) 
 When one is destitute of positive information, 
 it would be presumptuous to pretend to know 
 the quantity of gold and silver in circulation in 
 the three kingdoms, at the moment in which 
 we are writing; but the rate of exchange 
 being so unfavorable, the high price and scarci- 
 ty of gold, the considerable exportations of in- 
 gots and of gold and silver coin, that the various 
 demands of the state and of commerce have re- 
 quired from England, since the promulgation of 
 the Berlin decrees and the Spanish war, allow 
 us to think, that the quantity of gold and silver 
 which the three kingdoms possess (without in- 
 tending to infer that this quantity is in circula- 
 tion) does not amount perhaps to 20,000,000 
 sterling at the present moment. The commerce 
 of England is obliged to pour every year into 
 China and the East Indies from 8 to 900,000 
 pounds sterling in specie, which is exported di- 
 rectly from the ports of Great Britain ; this ex- 
 portation is inevitable; unfortunately, at all
 
 86 
 
 times the trade with China has absorbed ancl 
 swallowed up specie : it is a truth attested by 
 the experience of thirty centuries. The cottons 
 of Bombay and Surat are the only merchandize 
 for which China and Japan pay in specie ; but 
 the English are obliged to carry back that specie 
 to China to pay for tea, varnish, &c. ; for Europe 
 has never carried on a trade with China and Ja- 
 pan without carrying there gold and silver, which 
 never comes out again from those countries 
 It has been calculated that since the discovery 
 of the Cape of Good Hope and America, the 
 people of the East Indies have received from 
 the Europeans in specie or in ingots, to the 
 amount of about 6 millards of francs. The Eng- 
 lish flag carrying on, for twenty years past, the 
 seventeen twentieths of the commerce with the 
 Indies, that nation almost alone, furnishes the ex- 
 portation of specie which those countries require, 
 In all this, we do not comprehend the gold and 
 silver which are exported directly from the ports 
 of South America, or from the Phillippine islands 
 in the East Indies. To provide against the scar- 
 city and want of specie, rendered every day more
 
 S7 
 
 sensible by the increase of commerce, which re- 
 quires a greater quantity of representative signs, 
 in order to satisfy the demands of trade, Eng- 
 land has been obliged to issue a great quantity 
 of paper money. The bank was established in 
 1694, the 5th year of the reign of William III. 
 and Queen Mary, with the exclusive privilege of 
 discounting notes and bills of exchange, which 
 might have less than six months to run ; it appro- 
 priated to itself, besides, the trade in gold and 
 silver substances, to the prejudice of private 
 banks and individuals : in reality, the bank is a 
 commercial and financial company whose paper 
 passes for money in England. Exchequer bills, 
 navy stock, annuities, &c. are also current with 
 the public : we see, besides, in circulation, notes 
 of the East India Company, South Sea Comp^ 
 ny, &c. the value of which is immense, but the 
 real amount is a very great mystery. 
 
 . Bills of the banks of Edinburg, Glasgow and 
 Aberdeen, are also thrown into circulation; 
 moreover, private banker's bills pass as currently 
 as ready money, because at London no body 
 keeps in the house any more money than is ne-
 
 88 
 
 eessary for daily expenses ; each person lodges 
 his money with his banker. 
 
 England having no gold or silver mines, can- 
 not maintain the movement of industry and the 
 extreme activity of her commerce, but by pro- 
 curing, every year, a fresh supply of specie 
 through the balance of trade, or by incessantly 
 multiplying paper as the representative of specie. 
 England receives in gold the payment of almost 
 every thing she sells in Portugal: therefore 
 Great Britain depends more upon Portugal than 
 the latter depends upon her ; she finds herself 
 there without a rival, an advantage which the 
 English commerce does not enjoy in Spain. It 
 is unnecessary to add, that these details relate to 
 the order of things existing three or four years 
 ago in the peninsula. 
 
 The English have had a trade with Russia ever 
 since Edward VI. ; they are obliged constantly 
 to pay in specie the balance of this trade ; for 
 twenty years past, particularly of late years, 
 they have made great efforts, by means of their 
 colonial produce, to deliver* England from the 
 dependance in which she was placed in regard
 
 89 
 
 to Russia for hemp, flax, potash, iron, boards, 
 threads, naval stores, copper, &c. Hamburg was, 
 of all the north, the city where the English main- 
 tained the most advantagous commerce ; they 
 drew from thence specie, an immense quantity of 
 Silesian cloth; the sales which they made there 
 of their woolen manufactures and colonial pro- 
 duce were still more considerable than their 
 purchases. 
 
 Paper money produces, during a certain time, 
 beneficial effects to a nation, but this expedient 
 at length becomes fatal to it, if obliged to main- 
 tain important relations with neighbouring na- 
 tions, because the state finds itself, in certain con- 
 junctures, (and this is what has happened to Eng- 
 land) exposed to very great external expenses ; 
 the real wealth goes out of the state to provide 
 for these expenses. One sees at a glance the 
 wound which thence results to a nation, when 
 foreign markets and the profits of commerce 
 do not cause this real wealth, or the precious 
 metals, to return into its bosom. 
 
 The expedient of paper money gives great 
 12
 
 90 
 
 movement to the circulation of commodities in 
 the interior of a state ; it produces, in this re- 
 spect, the effect of an abundance of the precious 
 metals for the same sum ; but luxury and the ex- 
 penses of individuals considerably increase, and 
 fictitious riches become, by accumulating, of 
 less value; so that if the paper money exceed 
 infinitely the quantity of metallic matter or real 
 riches, if the paper money be out of proportion 
 with the general affairs of commerce, the state 
 will be threatened with the loss of its credit, at 
 the moment in which it has most need of it. This 
 result is the more common, as a great credit, so 
 long as it subsists, offers a great facility of ex- 
 pending, and of accumulating the debts of a na- 
 tion. 
 
 These digressions are not out of place, since 
 they relate to the credit, and consequently, the 
 paper money of England. They estimated, in 
 1794, at between 14 and 15,000,000 sterling, the 
 paper of the bank in circulation in England : 
 this assertion was advanced by a member of the 
 house of commons and met with no contradiction. 
 At the commencement of the year 1797, the
 
 91 
 
 amount of bank bills in circulation was found re- 
 duced to less than 10,000,000 sterling; in the 
 years 1795 and 1796, the medium of the amount 
 of bills in circulation was about 10,000,000 ster- 
 ling. The confidence which the bills of the bank 
 enjoyed, at these periods, in the interior circula- 
 tion, was owing to the flourishing state of the 
 British commerce, and above all (according to 
 the expression of Mr. Burke) to the total ab- 
 sence of every idea of the intervention of pow- 
 er in all the operations of the bank. Since these 
 periods, the ministers have caused a bill to be 
 passed, authorising the bank to suspend its pay- 
 ments in specie; a bill, the dispositions of which 
 have subsisted for these fourteen years : during 
 this time the bank has issued a greater quantity 
 of paper. We may, at the present day, estimate at 
 between 25 and 117,000,000 sterling the amount of 
 bills of the bank of England in circulation in that 
 kingdom ; the documents furnished the house of 
 commons in the last session prove, that in 1810, 
 the amount in circulation, of bills of Jive pounds 
 sterling and vpnards, rose to above 1 6,000,000 
 sterling : the bills for less than five pounds ster-
 
 92 
 
 ling were not comprised in this estimate, which 
 is evidently too low by 2 or 3,000,000 sterling ; 
 the quantity of bills for less than Jive pounds 
 sterling amounted then to above 7,000,000 ster- 
 ling, and that of post notes to above 1,000,000 
 sterling. The dearness of gold and silver, the 
 high price of guineas relatively to paper, the 
 great loss on the exchange between London 
 and every part of the continent; the report pre- 
 sented in the last session by the bullion commit- 
 tee on the high price of bullion ; the necessity 
 in which the bank has found itself since 1797 of 
 suspending its payments ; the act of parliament 
 authorising this measure ; the great quantity of 
 exchequer bills thrown into circulation ; the for- 
 ced exportation of gold and silver from Eng- 
 land to the continent to discharge subsidies and 
 the expenses of the war : all these causes, which 
 attest the disappearance of specie, denote, at the 
 same time, a great augmentation in the mass of 
 paper money in circulation. 
 
 The depreciation of this paper is from 1 8 to 
 19 percent: the price of a guinea, and the loss 
 on exchange between London and foreign coun-
 
 93 
 
 tries, demonstrate it. Here facts speak, and take 
 place of reasoning and of proofs ; they authorise 
 us to estimate at 27,000,000 sterling the amount 
 of bank bills in circulation, whether above or 
 below 5 pounds sterling each. England does not 
 possess, perhaps, at the present day, 20,000,000 
 sterling in gold and silver ; the bearer of a bank 
 bill ought not to expect to be able, at pleasure, to 
 exchange his paper for specie : we even see that 
 it is only necessary that certain circumstances 
 should take place, (and they may break out from 
 one moment to another) in order to shackle and 
 palsy all commercial and individual transactions 
 in England. Such a state of things announces 
 the embarrassment, the distress, and the ruin of 
 the finances of Great Britain. 
 
 The mass of paper money, or bills of the bank 
 of London, at the present day in circulation, the 
 amount of notes issued by the country banks, in 
 the form of circulating bills, the prodigious quan- 
 tity of exchequer bills, of navy stock, annuities, 
 notes of the South Sea and East India Compa- 
 nies, &c. which, in circulation, represent gold 
 and silver, and in England, supply the place of
 
 94 - 
 
 specie, may give an idea of the immensity of 
 fictitious signs which are In circulation in the 
 three kingdoms ; signs become necessary to the 
 operations of commerce and the expenses of 
 government ; but which threaten public credit, 
 and the bank of England with a great catas- 
 trophe, should the interdiction of English mer- 
 chandize on the continent occasion a cessation 
 of the profits of commerce, which alone give 
 life and motion to these fictitious signs. 
 
 The bank of France is established in an em* 
 pire whose revenues, fixed, permanent, and inhe- 
 rent to the territory, amount to a sum of more 
 than 900,000,000 of francs ; there exists in this 
 empire, about 2 milliards 700,000,000 of specie 
 in circulation. M. Necker affirms, in his Ad- 
 ministration of the Finances, that from 1726 to 
 1785, there were coined in France, of gold arid 
 silver, about 2 milliards 500,000,000, that is to 
 say, more than 42,000,000 each year. This 
 banker, far from considering this increase of 
 specie as likely to stop, thought, " that the suc- 
 " cessive and annual augmentation would
 
 95 
 
 ** amount to 2 per cent of the' value of the total 
 " amout imported into France." We think, 
 that M. Necker was not mistaken in the quantity 
 of ingots which have been coined at the mint, 
 since it is a plain fact taken from the books of the 
 office ; but we do not think, that the stockjob- 
 ber-minister, (jninistre-agioteury) has reasoned 
 with the wisdom of a minister of finances, in 
 estimating at 50,000,000 the successive and 
 annual augmentation of the specie in gold and 
 silver in France; a similar augmentation since 
 the year 1785, would produce mo?e than a 
 milliard, and would raise the amount of gold 
 and silver, at the present day, in circulation in 
 the French empire, to the sum of 3 milliards, 
 500,000,000. 
 
 M. Necker computed, at the period in which 
 he published his account of the finances, at 
 2 milliards 200,000,000 the amount of gold in 
 silver in circulation in the kingdom. The treaty 
 of commerce of 1786, and the revolution in 
 France, have occasioned the exportation of a 
 considerable quantity of specie ; but the victo-
 
 ries of the Emperor Napoleon have happily 
 caused it all to return into the bosom of the 
 French empire; and besides, the empire has 
 been enriched by the contributions of the 
 conquered nations; these causes, joined to 
 the excellent system of finances and politi- 
 cal economy adopted by the imperial govern- 
 ment, authorise us to estimate at about 2 
 milliards 700,000,000 of francs, the quantity of 
 specie in circulation in the French empire ; we 
 believe this estimate to be very nearly exact. 
 
 The bank of France has not issued, in repre- 
 sentative signs, more than an eighth part of the 
 revenues of the state, not more than a twenty 
 fifth part of the specie existing in the empire ; 
 and the situation of the finances is so prosperous, 
 that the interest of the public debt scarcely 
 amounts to the twelfth part of the revenues of 
 the state. 
 
 The bank of England is established in a king- 
 dom, thrae fourths of the public revenues of 
 which are fortuitous, momentary, and depend- 
 ant upon the profits of a commerce which may
 
 97 
 
 be restrained, or even annihilated, by certain p 
 litical or commercial revolutions. The reve- 
 nues truly national of this state cannot be fixed, 
 in a permanent manner, at above 20,000,000 ster- 
 ling ; for the war tax, which may be called a 
 revolutionary impost, put upon real estate, ought 
 to be considered, even by the most necessitous 
 and the most avaricious administration, only as 
 a temporary resource, and on which, it is impossi- 
 ble to make a basis of fixed revenue. The in- 
 terest of the public debt of England, absorbs 
 more than the national and established revenue 
 of the kingdom ; the whole territory of Great 
 Britain would scarcely prove sufficient to pay off 
 the capital of the debt. The bank has issued 
 paper money for a sum almost as considerable 
 as the amount of specie in circulation in 1 797 ; 
 for a sum greater than the total amount of the 
 national and established revenue ; the holders 
 of bank bills are destitute of security ; they are 
 deprived of the right of requiring payment for 
 their effects ; and finally, the paper of the bank 
 has not, nor ever eari have, any other than a ficti- 
 
 13
 
 98 
 
 tious value, every day rendered more uncertain 
 and exposed to a total depreciation. 
 
 The bank, until 1793, confined itself to the 
 discounting of commercial paper ; that was the 
 spirit, the object of its institution. The profits 
 which the bank made by its discounts, depend- 
 ing upon the prosperity of commerce, these 
 profits must diminish, if commerce experience 
 difficulties in the markets on the European con- 
 tinent ; the decrees of Berlin and Milan have 
 produced this effect. To make up for the loss 
 of the profits arising from the discount of com- 
 mercial paper, the bank has speculated in exche- 
 quer bills, bills which bear interest ; the bank 
 has bought up these bills, as also government 
 stock, effects known under the name of navy an- 
 nuities, notes of the South Sea and East India 
 Companies, &c. as fast as the government issued 
 or caused to be thrown into circulation these 
 bills or obligations. The bank has thus become, 
 within the last twenty years, the broker of the 
 exchequer, or of the state ; it must be considered, 
 in truth, as the instrument of the government,
 
 99 
 
 Parliament having passed an act, in 1793, to au<- 
 thorize the bank to issue bills on acceptations of 
 the treasury or exchequer, it is clear, that the 
 government is, in some manner, the master of 
 the emissions of bank bills. The conversion of 
 exchequer bills immediately into bank bills de- 
 pends really, and one may even say absolutely, 
 on the influence which the ministry exercise 
 over the votes of parliament ; the chancellor of 
 the exchequer has only need, as Mr. Fierney 
 observed, in 1 807, in the house of commons, of a 
 paper mill, which would serve him, at the same 
 time to manufacture bills and notes, and to buy 
 votes in parliament ; the bank lends the govern- 
 ment upon obligations deposited, and it puts 
 them in circulation on its ow r n account, so that 
 the bank is found to have in its possession, an 
 immense quantity of the effects of the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Whatever may be the profit that the bank de- 
 rives from throwing exchequer bills into circu- 
 lation, a mass of bills and paper money so con- 
 siderable, must necessarily increase, in an alarm-,.
 
 100 
 
 ing manner, the price of every article of con- 
 sumption, occasion the dearness and disappear- 
 ance of gold and silver, and lead to an incalcu- 
 lable series of bankruptcies in commerce. The 
 profits of the bank, whether it discounts com- 
 mercial paper, exchequer bills, or effects of the 
 government, being necessarily dependant upon 
 the prosperity of commercial industry, it is evi- 
 dent, that the difficulties and embarrassments of 
 the bank must increase in proportion as com- 
 merce experiences a privation of vent or of 
 markets. The bank cannot for a moment con- 
 tinue its business, but in augmenting the quan- 
 tity of its bills. Whatever security may be of- 
 fered to the bank by the merchants to whom it 
 lends its paper, it is incontestable, that the aug- 
 mentation of the quantity of bank bills in cir- 
 culation, must add progressively to the depre- 
 ciation of the paper, and to an increase in the 
 price of every object of necessity ; it is evident 
 that the value of bank bills must get more and 
 more distant from the value of gold and silver 
 specie. The expenses which England is forced to
 
 101 
 
 provide for out of her island, and the paying of 
 her troops in Specie, the excessive importations 
 of colonial produce and foreign commodities, 
 which have taken place in England, and the 
 prodigious diminution in the sale and produce 
 of her merchandize on the European continent, 
 render the exportation of gold and silver every 
 day more indispensable, and also the augmenta- 
 tion of the mass of paper money. Such are the 
 effects already produced by the Berlin and 
 Milan decrees. 
 
 One can hardly form an exact idea of the 
 quantity of commercial notes and bills of ex- 
 change, performing in some manner the office of 
 paper money, which are in circulation in the 
 three kingdoms. In 1797, the number of coun- 
 try banks was t\vo hundred and thirty ; it was 
 acknowledged last year, in the report of the 
 committee of the house of commons on the high 
 price of bullion, that the number of country 
 banks was seven hundred and twenty-one ; 
 within a year, the number has greatly increased ; 
 the amount of bills issued by these banks, was
 
 102 
 
 estimated, by the committee, at 20,000,000 stea- 
 ling ; it is now pretty generally acknowledged* 
 that the quantity of these bills amounts to 
 about 34,000,000 sterling ; whilst in 1797, there 
 were only 5,000,000 of country bank bills in 
 circulation. There is not a manufacturing or 
 commercial town of any importance where they 
 do not issue, to facilitate the operations of trade, 
 bills which are current within the circuit of the 
 manufactures and work shops. As long as the 
 bank of England discounted these bills or effects^ 
 as long as the profits arising from the sale of the 
 manufactures, and from commerce, enabled the 
 drawers to pay their bills when due, the multi- 
 plication of the fictitious signs gave the manu- 
 facturing and commercial industry the appear- 
 ance of great prosperity ; but if this industry 
 experiences embarrassments in the markets, and 
 in the sale of its produce, then all the channels 
 of circulation are found to be choaked, without 
 its being in the power of the banking houses or 
 manufacturers to meet their engagements ; and 
 bankruptcies are the necessary consequences of
 
 108 
 
 tliis enormous multiplication of bills of exchange 
 and commercial notes; such precisely is the 
 terrible effect that the measures ordered by the 
 Berlin and Milan decrees, are producing ; der 
 crees, the continuance and strict execution of 
 which must occasion, in an irresistible manner 
 for England, the ruin of manufacturing industry, 
 and the progressive depreciation of the fictitious 
 signs which represent that industry. Great 
 Britain is in reality and fact, a paper kingdom, in 
 which three fourths of the public wealth is de- 
 pendant upon the profits of a monopoly burtheu- 
 some to Europe, and in which the public debt 
 absorbs the total amount of the territorial and 
 established revenue. 
 
 I fall into frequent repetitions ; I am driven 
 to it by the nature and importance of the subject 
 of which I am treating. 
 
 There were also presented to the house of 
 commons, observations and documents relative 
 to the specie in circulation, and to the finances 
 of England ; it would not be difficult to show, 
 that, in this report, the unfavourable side was
 
 104 
 
 softened, and the favourable strengthened. In 
 admitting the accuracy of these documents, it 
 would thence result, that in February, 1798, 
 the amount of bills of the bank of England, did 
 not rise quite to 12,000,000 sterling; that in 
 1802 it did not exceed 16,000,000 sterling; that 
 in February, 1810, it was increased to about 
 20,000,000 sterling; that in Febwiary, 1811, it 
 rose to 23,000,000 sterling. Thus, since the 
 publication of the Berlin decrees, 1806 and 
 1807, the amount of these bills must have suc- 
 cessively risen to the sum avowed, of 23,000,000 
 sterling. We see how fatal the measures order- 
 ed by these decrees have been to the finances 
 and to the commerce of Great Britain. 
 
 In four years time, the quantity of bank bills 
 in circulation has been augmented about 
 10,000,000 sterling. The importations of co- 
 lonial produce have increased, it is true, in an 
 extraordinary proportion ; but the exportations 
 of this produce have experienced such great ob- 
 stacles, and so important a diminution, that all 
 commercial and banking affairs have been in a 
 state of embarrassment and distress in England.
 
 105 
 
 Exportations, that is to say, the profits of com- 
 merce are decreasing from day to day in that 
 kingdom ; and as the government is obliged to 
 incur excessive expenses abroad, expenses which 
 must be paid in specie, bullion, and gold and sil- 
 ver coin, of necessity disappear and go out of 
 the country. At the same time, the government 
 is compelled to augment the mass of fictitious 
 signs, that is to say, bank bills, exchequer 
 bills, &c. j for the first of all laws, for a govern- 
 ment, is to have in circulation a quantity of me- 
 tallic or fictitious signs which answer to the ex- 
 tent and exigency of affairs; without which there 
 would be a palsy in the body politic. 
 
 The British government has given an inordi- 
 nate extension to commerce, and that govern- 
 ment was desirous of exercising in Europe n 
 monopoly of all commercial commodities ; the 
 markets for colonial produce and English ma- 
 nufactures have been shut on the European con- 
 tinent ; the continents of North and South Ame- 
 rica can offer to British commerce but an incon- 
 siderablemarket,and a very limited consumption: 
 14
 
 106 
 
 the total expenses of the government have risen, 
 in the space of fourteen years (1796 to 1810) 
 from the sum of 40,000,000 sterling to neraly 
 80,000,000 sterling, whilst in this same space of 
 , time, the total amount of the revenue has not 
 
 risen to more than about 60,000,000 sterling ; 
 the specie in circulation, and the gold and silver 
 substances which are in that kingdom, diminish 
 every day, in consequence of the necessity un- 
 der which the government is placed of paying 
 in specie or ingots, all the expenses of the war. 
 It results from these circumstances, from this' 
 state of things (a state acknowledged in par- 
 liament) the articles of which, relative to the 
 finances, presented to the house of commons, 
 we shall not discuss, though many of these 
 articles are evidently favoured ; it results, 
 we say, 1st. That there exists an annual de- 
 ficiency of about 20,000,000 sterling between 
 the public revenue and the total expenses of 
 Great Britain; 2d. That the public expenses 
 must increase every year in England, in conse- 
 quence of the commercial and hostile system 
 embraced by the present administration of that,
 
 i67 
 
 kingdom, whilst the public revenues, three 
 fourths of which are produced by exportation. 4 ; 
 and the profits of commerce, must experience a 
 much greater diminution, as the markets for co- 
 lonial produce and British manufactures will be 
 more closely shut in Europe; 3d. That gold and 
 silver substances diminish every day, on the one 
 hand, because they are obliged to export them, 
 on the other, because fefetr causes them to be lock- 
 ed up. The quantity of fictitious signs and paper 
 money must increase every day, both in order to 
 replace in circulation the continually increasing 
 insufficiency of specie, and to make head against 
 the internal expenses and the interest of the pub- 
 lic debt 4th. That Great Britain is really in a 
 crisis of danger, which cannot, and ought not to 
 be compared to any of the difficult circumstan- 
 ces which have heretofore existed for the public 
 weal, at various disastrous periods ; such as the 
 invasion of the Pretender in Scotland, the war 
 with America, commercial distresses, the trou- 
 bles and internal scarcity experienced in 1793, 
 1795, 1797, c.; for at these different periods 

 
 108 
 
 England preserved great facilities for the expor- 
 tation of her merchandize, and almost all the 
 markets of Europe remained open to the opera- 
 tions of her commerce. 5th. That the immi- 
 nent dangers to which, at the present day, Eng- 
 land is exposed, proceed principally, absolutely, 
 from the Berlin decrees against British com- 
 merce on the continent of Europe. A situation 
 so alarming for the subjects of the three king- 
 doms must grow worse in proportion as the com- 
 merce of Great Britain shall experience a more 
 durable and a more extensive interdiction on 
 the continent, 6th. That the political and con- 
 tinental system established in Europe cannot 
 leave the English government any hope of open- 
 ing again, by force, the markets necessary for 
 their commerce, and that they cannot even ex- 
 cite another war, or effect any diversion serious 
 enough to give the least facility to the commer- 
 cial relations of that country in the various states 
 of Europe. 7th. Finally, that the creditors of 
 the state, the holders of bank and exchequer 
 bills, the principal banking, commercial, and 
 manufacturing houses, are threatened with bank-
 
 109 
 
 ruptcy, the body politic in England is exposed 
 to a speedy and a great revolution, if the mar- 
 kets for British commerce continue to be strict- 
 ly shut in Europe, that is to say, if England do 
 not adopt a system of peace compatible with the 
 maritime and commercial rights of the different 
 nations of the continent. 
 
 Surely, it is impossible not to acknowledge 
 here the important and happy effects already ob- 
 tained by the Berlin and Milan decrees ! These 
 decrees may occasion some privations, they may 
 lead to some individual losses, some momentary 
 embarrassments in the commercial relations of 
 the continental states ; but they strike directly 
 the commerce of England ; they must on that 
 account alone, very soon produce favourable re- 
 sults to the merchants and manufactures of the 
 French Empire, and of every European nation. 
 France deprived, momentarily, of the means of 
 combating England on the ocean, had no choice 
 left of the mode of attacking that power, the pri- 
 mary cause of all the calamities and of all the 
 wars which, for twenty years past, have afflicted 
 Europe. The French empire has declared war
 
 110 
 
 against the commerce of Great Britain, and this 
 disposition proves the wisdom and the profound- 
 ness of the views of the cabinet of the Thuilleries. 
 At all periods, well informed minds, real French- 
 men, have acknowledged and proclaimed the ne- 
 cessity of attacking the commerce of Great Bri- 
 tain. " The English (observed the bishop of 
 " Mende, with much justice, to Lewis XIV.) 
 " ought to be treated with rigour and prohibi- 
 " tion of their commerce, and not with respect 
 " and condescendence ; you will never have 
 " security for your vessels till you propose to 
 " seize their ships in all your ports, and till you 
 " prohibit the use of their merchandize : take a 
 " colony from the English, arid discontents will 
 " break out in London ; ruin their commerce 
 " and we shall see the prudent people among 
 " them compel their government to make peace, 
 *' rather than lose the whole." Besides, Eng- 
 land set the example by interdicting commerce 
 with France, by burning and destroying foreign 
 manufactures, by imposing exorbitant duties on 
 the importation of foreign goods, which might
 
 Ill 
 
 enter into competition with English manufac- 
 tures. 
 
 Since the time of King William, we have seen 
 in each reign, the parliament and the monarch 
 enact laws, publish regulations or orders of coun- 
 cil, interdicting commerce with such or such a 
 nation, prohibiting the importation of foreign 
 productions or manufactures, charging them 
 with exorbitant duties, ordering the destruction 
 or burning of them, authorising domiciliary visits 
 for the puipose of discovering and confiscating 
 foreign merchandize: we could make an im- 
 mense collection of English laws and regula- 
 tions, the object of which was to render exclu- 
 sive the commerce of Great Britain, and to de*- 
 stroy the commercial and manufacturing indus- 
 try of every other nation of Europe ; the differ- 
 ent states of Europe only use reprisals in inter- 
 dicting English commerce , and in ordering their 
 
 i 
 merchandize to be burnt or destroyed. This 
 
 measure is just ; it is commanded by policy ; it 
 is authorised by the general interest of govern* 
 inents, and we will say, even with assurance, by
 
 112 
 
 the interest well understood of individuals ; the 
 merchants and manufacturers of the French em- 
 pire, and of the different states of the continent, 
 will very soon recover, with usury, the sacrifices 
 which the general pacification requires from 
 them, at this moment, and which are prescribed 
 by the sovereignty, the independence, and the 
 prosperity of the maritime and commercial na- 
 tions. The moment is not distant, when the 
 French empire will possess a sufficiency of raw 
 materials to furnish its manufactures of cotton, 
 and the consumption of the empire ; these raw 
 materials, being drawn from the Levant and 
 from the territory of its allies, cannot be stopped 
 by the English flag, and they will preserve in 
 the empire enormous sums which England 
 formerly carried off from France for this branch 
 of commerce ; and French manufacturers will 
 cease to be tributary to those of Great Britain. 
 The encouragement and protection granted at 
 present by the Emperor Napoleon, to the trans- 
 port and arrival of cotton, give to the merchants 
 and manufacturers of the empire, the assurance
 
 113 
 i 
 
 of a labour, arid a prosperity, of which it will ho 
 longer be in the power of England to fix the 
 price, or interrupt the course. 
 
 We must again repeat it, the wealth and the 
 power of Great Britain arise from commerce, 
 and the profits of commerce constitute three 
 fourths of the public revenue of that kingdom : 
 it is this, so considerable a part of the riches of 
 England, that the decrees of Berlin reach, and 
 will strike with sterility. Every expedient that 
 the British government may imagine, to prevent 
 so great a danger, will be insufficient ; it must 
 even aggravate the evil, if the system of prohi- 
 bition, announced by the decrees of Berlin and 
 Milan against English commerce on the conti- 
 nent, be rigorously put in execution by all the 
 governments of Europe. 
 
 Let Great Britain have forty or fifty millions 
 of subjects, or slaves, on the banks of the Indus, 
 or the Ganges ; let her draw from her provinces 
 of Bengal, and from her four presidencies of the 
 East Indies, an immense quantity of produce, 
 of raw materials and of manufactures ; let her 
 
 15
 
 114 
 
 have, in a word, within her power, a great 
 pail of the commerce of America and of the 
 Indies, it matters little. Those possessions and 
 advantages may have contributed to enrich Eng- 
 land momentarily, and to raise her to a great de- 
 gree of importance ; but can they establish and 
 secure the public fortune of England ? We 
 boldly say no. It is unnecessary to spin out rea- 
 sonings and conjectures, in order to show to 
 what degree the territorial and commercial ad- 
 vantages which Great Britain enjoys in India 
 are precarious ; they may even escape from her, 
 they may be ravished from her, from one instant 
 to another. The English export from Bengal, 
 and import into Europe, a quantity of produce 
 and manufactures, the consumption of which 
 cannot be effected in the three kingdoms, and 
 the introduction of which on the continent of 
 Europe is prevented by the Berlin decrees. 
 The greatest part of the cotton of Malabar and 
 of Coromandel is worked up in India, and is 
 brought manufactured into the ports of England. 
 The low price of labour in India, and the ex- 
 pense and trouble attending the transport of
 
 cotton in bales from India to Europe, regulate 
 and fix, in this respect, the English trade with 
 India. 
 
 The produce and manufactures of India, for 
 the most part, are not necessary to the inhabi- 
 tants of the West India islands, and the people 
 of South and North America ; much of this pro- 
 duce is indigenous to America, or may easily be 
 naturalized there ; the quantity of this produce 
 and of these manufactures that South America 
 would consume and require from the English 
 commerce, is besides so trifling, compared with 
 the abundance of it in the warehouses in Great 
 Britain, that it would be absurd to suppose, that 
 England could durably effect a sensible disposal 
 of India goods in that part of America. With 
 respect to merchandize manufactured in Great 
 Britain, such as cloths, cottons, and woolen stuffs, 
 which the English flatter themselves their flag 
 will import into Spanish America, this object of 
 commerce must be subject to a great competi- 
 tion with the American flag ; the manufactures 
 of the United States may, in a few years, be in 
 a situation to furnish South America with a
 
 116 
 
 great part of this merchandize, and at a lower 
 price than those of England; moreover, the 
 union of the provinces of Holland to the French 
 empire, and the continental system adopted in 
 the different states of Germany and in the Span- 
 ish peninsula, must necessarily deprive England 
 of a great part of the raw materials essential 
 (for the quality and even for the quantity) to her 
 woolen and cotton manufactures. We see how 
 hazardous and uncertain are the importations 
 made by England of the merchandize of Ben- 
 gal, into Europe and America; we see how 
 many accidents await the sale of this merchan- 
 dize. 
 
 On the other side, the English power in Ben- 
 gal may be destroyed still more speedily than it 
 was obtained. Let England lose in Europe one 
 great naval battle, and Bengal ceases to exist for 
 that kingdom ! It is in England where the ships 
 are that guard the coasts of India ; and in re- 
 ality Plymouth is the citadel of Calcutta. One 
 great check experienced by England on her 
 own shores, would be sufficient to permit the im>
 
 117 
 
 perial fleets to carry to the Marattas, to the Na- 
 bobs of the peninsula, the news of their liberty, 
 and the blessings of their independence. Mari- 
 time powers may make colonial conquests, they 
 cannot preserve them, but by a great superiority 
 of naval force; the more these conquests are 
 extensive, the less easy it is to keep them the 
 more they are distant from the metropolis, the 
 less easy it is to defend them. Without citing 
 here the Carthagenians, who were not able to keep 
 Sicily, although that island was within reach of 
 their capital ; without citing the example of the 
 Portuguese and Dutch, who have successively 
 lost a great part of their eastern colonies, and 
 who must necessarily have been dispossessed of 
 them, because their maritime forces were out of 
 proportion to the real and territorial power of 
 the state ; let us call to mind the inutility of the 
 efforts displayed during eight years by England 
 to retain under her yoke the provinces of North 
 America! Canada itself must, within a few , 
 years, enter into the confederation of the United 
 States of America, or constitute itself an inde-
 
 118 
 
 pendent nation ; it is an event that many cir- 
 cumstances may render very near, but which, in 
 every case, will take place the day in which - 
 England ceases to be mistress of the sea. 
 
 If we now consider the enormous distance at 
 which the provinces of Bengal are placed from 
 England, the naval forces necessary to cover and 
 protect the peninsula of India, the military stores 
 which the defence of that continent requires, 
 stores and forces the arrival of which in India 
 ought not to experience any delay or irregulari- 
 ty ; if we reflect upon the implacable hatred that 
 the Nabobs and Rajahs, so violently stripped of 
 their possessions, bear the English government ; 
 if we pay attention to the warlike spirit and the 
 desire of liberty with which the Marattas are an- 
 imated^ we may judge if the English nation can 
 reasonably flatter themselves with the expecta- 
 tion of preserving, for any length of time, the ter- 
 ritorial sovereignty and dominion which they 
 have usurped in Hindostan. 
 
 In whatever point of view we consider the po- 
 litical power of Great Britain, it is found every 
 where to" depend, almost entirely, upon the pro-
 
 119 
 
 i 
 
 fits, and consequently the revolutions of com- 
 merce; we see that this power has increased pro- 
 portionally with the extent of its commerce, 
 because all the European governments had per- 
 mitted England to import and sell in their states 
 her colonial produce and her manufactures ; we 
 find that England has already experienced the 
 first check, by extending, beyond measure, 
 against prudence, and in contempt of the rights 
 of nations, her commercial operations and mari- 
 time usurpations; since the excessive abund- 
 ance of colonial produce and manufactured 
 goods which incumber the warehouses of the 
 three kingdoms, is occasioning the ruin of the 
 manufactures and the merchants, who are una* 
 ble to sell this merchandize and fulfil their en* 
 gagements. We see that the political power of 
 England must decline and undergo a great catas 1 - 
 trophe, if the different governments of Europe 
 be penetrated with the necessity which exists^ 
 for the prosperity of their states and their peo- 
 ple, that the English commerce should cease to 
 exercise the monopoly of colonial produce and 
 of British manufactures, to the direct prejudice
 
 120 
 
 of the national manufactures of each state : they 
 must be convinced that the decrees of Berlin 
 and Milan are reaching directly the public for* 
 tune of England, and are gaining great commer- 
 cial battles over that kingdom, whilst the moment 
 is approaching when the imperial squadrons will 
 combat the English power in the seas of Ameri- 
 ca and the Indies. 
 
 We have shown that a great portion of the 
 public wealth of England depended, essentially, 
 upon the political and commercial relations of 
 that country with the different states of Europe ; 
 it is, in effect, in these states that she has carried 
 on the most necessary and the most advanta- 
 geous trade ; that she has found the materials 
 which the maintenance of her naval forces re- 
 quires ; that she has effected that series of opera- 
 tions, of purchases and of sales, which the various 
 wants of the three kingdoms demand. Since 
 the execution of the Berlin and Milan decrees, 
 these truths have become so palpable that it 
 would be useless, in order to demonstrate them 
 to the least intelligent mind, to add to the argu- 
 ments already advanced on the subject. At the 

 
 121 
 
 present time we must shut our eyes not to see 
 the real situation of England. Every thing that 
 an English hand touches is converted into sugar, 
 indigo, coffee, or muslin ; such is the reason on 
 which the partisans and stipendiaries of the Bri- 
 tish government rely, to convince the world of 
 her prosperity and her riches ! It is precisely 
 this reason which openly shows her penury and 
 her embarrassments, since all the sugar of the 
 West Indies and all the muslins of Bengal, heap- 
 ed together in the warehouses of London, have 
 no longer any commercial value for Great Bri- 
 tain, when there can no longer be found in Eu- 
 rope markets for the sale of them, or consumers 
 to pay for them. 
 
 It is, nevertheless, the proceeds of the sale of 
 these commodities which must furnish the greaest 
 part of the public expenditure of England; it is 
 the profits of this commerce which must guaranty 
 the public debt of that kingdom, a debt so prodi- 
 giously increased within the last twenty years, 
 that all the revenues of the English power in In- 
 dia would not suffice to pay the interest of it : the 
 
 16
 
 122 
 
 interest of the public debt amounts to about 22 
 or 23,000,000 sterling, and English writers, the 
 most inclined to exaggerate, do not estimate at 
 above 20,000,000 sterling the total amount of 
 the revenues which England draws from the East 
 Indies. Great Britain has her head and her 
 arms in Europe, but her body is really in India ; 
 hence the comparison of the golden statue with 
 feet of clay, is perfectly appropriate to the poli- 
 tical situation of England. The public debt of 
 that kingdom is the cancer which gnaws the go- 
 vernment, and must occasion its death. 
 
 On state principles, a public debt is not incom- 
 patible with the prosperity of an empire ; it may 
 even, in many circumstances, improve its politi- 
 cal situation ; but, to this end, a public debt 
 ought to be in a just proportion to the revenue 
 of the state; then, as celebrated politicians have 
 observed, " the government has a more easy 
 " movement, \the hands more at liberty ; every 
 " citizen is more directly interested in its tran- 
 " quillity and fortune, because a part of the life 
 " interest of the subjects is connected with the 

 
 123 
 
 " fate of the public weal ; in short, the govern- 
 " ment obtains a greater confidence and a great- 
 " er credit, if it constantly observes a rigorous 
 " punctuality in its payments, and in the perfor- 
 " mance of its promises." It is without doubt, 
 in setting out from this principle, that the best 
 statesmen of England have considered the sys- 
 tem of her public debt as advantageous to the 
 nation ; but they thought that this system ought 
 to be restrained to rules fixed, invariable, and en- 
 tirely independent of ministerial authority. In 
 the opinion of Lord Bolingbroke, Great Britain 
 was in a situation to support advantageously a 
 debt of from 100 to 120,000,000. That minis- 
 ter thought that such a system of finances would 
 stimulate the activity and the industry of the 
 subjects of the three kingdoms; he was persuaded 
 that beyond 120,000,000 there would no longer 
 be any limits, that the ministers would accumu- 
 late loans, that bankruptcy would be inevitable, 
 whatever might be the extension of commerce, and 
 that the body politic would be struck to the 
 heart: according to his opinion, the excessive
 
 rise of labour, the immoderate increase of taxes, 
 and the misery of the most numerous class of 
 the nation, would be the necessary consequen- 
 ces of the accumulation of the public debt, and 
 would one day be incurable evils. 
 
 It is exactly what has happened in England 
 within the last twenty years. 
 
 But, some will say, how has the British go- 
 vernment been able hitherto to impose on 
 every other government, in regard to her pros- 
 perity and her real power? How has the cabi- 
 net of London obtained the confidence and the 
 influence necessary to form those coalitions 
 which have convulsed Europe ? And why has 
 not the English nation already sunk under the 
 burthen of their taxes, the enormity of the pub- 
 lic debt, the suspension of payment of the paper 
 money? These phenomena are explained by 
 the profits of the British commerce, and the in- 
 vasion of the commerce and industry of every 
 other people. 
 
 What are then the nature, the extent, and the 
 riches of the English commerce ? Are they in- 
 
 I
 
 125 
 
 herent in the territorial and positive power of 
 the state? Can that nation flatter itself with 
 the expectation of preserving yet a long time, 
 the profits and the political influence which 
 commerce has procured to its government ? 
 
 In order to judge soundly this great question, 
 we must examine facts. 
 
 V 
 
 Commerce, and Colonial System of England. 
 
 Before the protectorate of Cromwell, the com- 
 merce of England was, in some measure, Confin- 
 ed to the sale of her woolens, to the produce of 
 her tin and coal mines, and to the superfluity of 
 the few objects which the fishery, the soil, and 
 the industry of the country furnished. Her ex- 
 ternal commerce and her trading vessels had so 
 little activity, that the half of the transport and 
 freight of that kingdom belonged to the Dutch 
 and the Danes. In publishing the navigation 
 act, which was extended and improved by 
 Charles II. the protector placed the English in 

 
 126 
 
 the fortunate necessity of carrying on for them- 
 selves the commerce of their island ; the navi- 
 gation act caused the naval power of Great Bri- 
 tain to take an enormous stride, and the creation 
 of the banking system came, fifty years later, 
 to give it a prodigious extension. Thus Crom- 
 well and King William, the one excited by the 
 desire of securing his authority and of restrain- 
 ing turbulent minds, the other by his violent 
 hatred to France, gave birth, without suspecting 
 it, to one of the greatest political phenomena 
 which have occurred in modern times. The ef- 
 fects of their acts were the union of the commer- 
 cial riches of the nation with the laws of the state, 
 and the placing of every individual fortune at 
 the disposition of the public weal ; the govern- 
 ment has therefore, since the commencement of 
 the eighteenth century, encouraged, protected, 
 and defended the naval power by every forcible 
 means that legislation could form ; commerce 
 and industry have been surrounded by every 
 security that laws could offer, and the English 
 people have found themselves obliged to second,
 
 127 
 
 with all their faculties, the projects of maritime 
 conquests, and commercial invasions which the 
 government has incessantly formed. 
 
 Acts and dispositions of this nature, must ne- 
 cessarily establish a system rigorously exclusive 
 and hostile ; this has happened. In order to 
 favour the naval pretensions and commercial 
 cupidity of the nation, the cabinet of London 
 have constantly set at variance the great powers 
 of the continent ; they have overthrown the 
 connexions of order, of alliances, and of families 
 in every European state ; they have excited 
 tumults and civil wars ; they have placed Eng- 
 land in permanent hostilities with other nations, 
 in order to get possession of their commerce, in- 
 vade their colonies, and destroy their manufac- 
 tures ; they have practised violent depredations 
 in every sea, and displayed a ferocious cupidity 
 on every coast where their armies could appear; 
 nothing has been sacred for the British ministry. 
 The faith of treaties, the laws of nations, the 
 most solemn guaranties, the most positive pro- 
 mises of alliance and of aid, all have been denied, 
 disavowed, or violated at the moment in which
 
 128 
 
 people under submission, or unfortunate allies, 
 claimed either the faith of treaties or the per- 
 formance of promises. The ministry of London 
 have succoured their allies to deceive them ; they 
 have fought their enemies to destroy their com- 
 merce ; they have acknowledged neutrals to 
 plunder them; the British armies have had 
 orders, not to fight, but to ravage ; these armies 
 have disembarked on the continent, not to de- 
 fend effectively, the powers which the cabinet of 
 London had compelled to take up arms, but to 
 be spectators of a reverse, and of the destruction 
 of these powers; it is by employing a similar 
 policy that the British government have endea- 
 voured, and finally been able, to render their 
 island the emporium and the market for all the 
 productions of the globe. England has founded 
 her commercial riches on the ruins of every 
 other maritime nation ; and she has rendered 
 every people tributary to her manufacturing in- 
 dustry, in order to preserve that riches within 
 her own bosom. It is in America, it is in India, 
 that the cabinet of London have found the re- 
 sources with which they have enslaved Europe
 
 129 
 
 and stained it with blood ; but it is precisely 
 these resources of which Europe may, at the 
 present day, forever deprive England, by reject- 
 ing the consumption of colonial produce and 
 articles of British manufacture. 
 
 M. de Montesquieu observes, in his immortal 
 writings, that from time to time, the commerce 
 of nations takes a new attitude which changes 
 the face of the world. The maritime discove- 
 ries of the East Indies and America, are the 
 two events which, for twenty centuries, have 
 produced the most extensive consequences. 
 These discoveries, contemporary with those of 
 artillery and of printing, have effected a prodi- 
 gious change, scarcely conceivable, in the vari- 
 ous relations of governments and people At 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, they 
 gave an astonishing activity to the human mind ; 
 very soon riches ceased to be the exclusive por- 
 tion of men of power ; they fell among the class 
 of subjects ; sovereigns did not disdain to have 
 recourse to the credit of simple merchants. Th$ 
 
 17
 
 necessity of avoiding the trouble and the ex- 
 pense of transporting money ; a necessity which 
 riches, acquired by great combinations of indus- 
 try and maritime boldness, very soon rendered 
 more pressing, gave rise to the system of ex- 
 change, that is to say, the means of removing 
 gold and silver at pleasure, and of transporting 
 them in an invisible manner ; exchange and na- 
 vigation created a sort of power, of which ancient 
 people, the human mind itself, had not suspect- 
 ed the possibility. On every side, strength, in- 
 dustry, and boldness were seen in contention. 
 Riches flatter all the passions of man, because 
 there is not one that gold does not promise to 
 gratify ; but commercial riches not being, in their 
 nature, fundamentally and irrevocably acquired, 
 as territorial riches essentially are, the people 
 suddenly enriched by the commerce and the de- 
 vastation of the Indies and America, fell spee- 
 dily from their opulence ; commercial wealth 
 then successively passed through the hands of 
 several nations ; it gave them a great splendour, 
 without adding any thing to their real strength.
 
 131 
 
 The Hanse Towns, the first factors of great 
 maritime commerce, the Venitians, the Portu- 
 guese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, enjoyed by 
 turns the favours of commercial fortune these 
 people were the directors and the arbiters of the 
 commerce of Europe; they ruled its politics, 
 and more than once, disposed of its destiny. 
 After a rapid revolution of prosperity and dis- 
 asters, the sovereignty of commerce came, at 
 the voice of Cromwell and William III., and pla- 
 ced herself in the bosom of England ; and the 
 commercial monopoly of that power enchains, 
 oppresses, and lays waste the four quarters of 
 the globe. 
 
 Cromwell, a hypocritical and sanguinary 
 usurper, presumed to place himself on that 
 throne, which four hundred years of civil ware 
 had shaken, and the effects of which every 
 reign had felt ; the English were his slaves, and 
 scarcely thought themselves his subjects. To 
 secure his personal safety, and insure the sub- 
 mission of the three kingdoms, the Protector 
 gave to the general fermentation of minds, the
 
 132 
 
 double aliment of cupidity and of glory; he 
 sent squadrons into the seas of the new world ; 
 he supported with grandeur the interests of the 
 nation ; he forced the English to draw advan- 
 tage from his genius, and even from his cruelties ; 
 he opened South America and the treasure? of 
 Mexico to England, by taking the island of 
 Jamaica from the Spaniards ; he opened North 
 America to British manufacturers, by forcing 
 the exiles, the proscribed, and the sectaries of 
 his island, to found colonies, and to take posses- 
 sion of an immense continent. 
 
 It is from the protectorate that is dated the 
 first period of this political system, the combi- 
 nations, and the development of which, have 
 had so astonishing and so fatal an influence over 
 the balance and the repose of Europe. 
 
 But in the middle of the seventeenth century, 
 the real and the relative power of Great Britain 
 were still in a state of feebleness, which did not 
 permit the cabinet of London to undertake those 
 great enterprises and those conquests which ra- 
 pidly elevate a nation, and place it at the head
 
 133 
 
 of the political system. At that period, France 
 and Spain were really mistresses of America 
 and of Europe, and a great part of the commerce 
 of the world was in the hands of Holland ; it was 
 then necessary to deprive the United Provinces 
 of this commerce, divide and weaken Spain and 
 France, and introduce into Europe a new system 
 of wealth and power ; in a word, it was necessa- 
 ry to get possession of the commerce of America 
 and the Indies, and finally render Europe tribu- 
 tary to this commerce. The military and poli- 
 tical operations of King William prepared in 
 England these important consequences. The 
 stadtholder-king roused the industry of his sub- 
 jects ; he put every private interest in extreme 
 agitation, by instituting those associations or 
 companies whence has really sprung the public 
 and commercial spirit of the English nation. 
 The commercial and banking companies, the 
 manufacturers, and the capitalists immediately 
 lent each other mutual aid, in order to obtain 
 either a more considerable, or a more certain 
 profit.
 
 134 
 
 The political constitution, renewed in 1688, 
 yielded itself to these great measures, placed 
 maritime and commercial power under the safe- 
 guard of legislation, put legislation under the 
 protection of commerce and the navy, made the 
 peers of the realm, and the members of the com- 
 mons sit down on the same bales of merchan- 
 dize, and converted the acts of parliament into 
 bills of exchange and mercantile notes. Not- 
 withstanding the wars and formidable enterprises 
 which the treasures and commerce of the two 
 Indies had enabled Charles V. and Philip II. 
 during near a century, to undertake, maritime 
 and commercial influence were, however, still of 
 small consideration in the European system. 
 The first discussions relative to this influence, or 
 power, the first treaties of navigation and com- 
 merce, introduced into the public law of Europe, 
 were concluded during the negociations of 
 Riswick ; until then, the sea had not dared to 
 claim a share of power with the land. Before 
 the treaties of Westphalia, commercial transac- 
 tions were not considered as a positive and es- 
 sential part of the political system; they had
 
 136 
 
 occasioned only quarrels between nations, they 
 had required only privileged conventions be- 
 tween states ; it is even remarkable that Eng- 
 land was the only maritime power which took 
 no part in the negociations of Westphalia, and 
 which was not called to the congress of all the 
 European nations. 
 
 Spain and Portugal, as also Holland, had in- 
 deed pretensions to the exclusive, enjoyment of 
 the commerce in the precious metals and in 
 spices ; but these pretensions were those of the 
 territory ; they did not exceed the rights of sove- 
 reignty of these powers, and the privileges de- 
 rived from it, in regard to the settlement and ad- 
 ministration of their colonies. 
 
 We have seen the little influence which Great 
 Britain exercised over Europe towards the mid- 
 dle of the seventeenth century ; but the cabinet 
 of London, from the accession of William to 
 the throne of England, adopted that hostile sys- 
 tem which tends to excite and perpetuate dissen- 
 sions between the different states of Europe : 
 they embraced, in its utmost extent, that odious 
 and sanguinary policy, in order to keep France
 
 136 
 
 in a continual state of agitation and embarrass- 
 ment, that is to say, in order to hinder the French 
 monarchy from creating or maintaining, upon 
 a .formidable footing, that naval force which 
 ought to have protected the maritime rights of 
 Europe, and opposed an insurmountable barrier 
 to the usurpations meditated by the English 
 government. It was thus that, by the disposi- 
 tions of the treaty of Utrecht, the cabinet of Lon- 
 don required that France should demolish Dun- 
 kirk, cede Hudson's bay with all the neighbour- 
 ing coasts and seas, abandon St. Christopher's, 
 Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia: that cabi- 
 net required, by the same treaty, that Spain 
 should cede to England the possessions of Gib- 
 raltar and the island of Minorca. It is sufficient 
 to read history, in order to be convinced that all 
 the wars which have taken place, since the reign 
 of Lewis XIV. have been directly or indirectly 
 the work of English politics; the cabinet of 
 London has been at the head of the five great 
 
 o 
 
 wars which, for these hundred and twenty years, 
 have stained Europe with blood. If, in the mar
 
 137 
 
 of extermination which England has so madly 
 undertaken and maintained against France, se- 
 veral kings, several sovereigns have lost their 
 states or a part of their provinces, it is not to 
 France that they must impute their disasters ; 
 the dispossessed sovereigns must accuse Eng- 
 land, and England alone, of their misfortunes and 
 their losses ; she is responsible, in the eyes of 
 posterity, for all the blood which has been spil- 
 led for twenty years past. But, it is now at 
 length in the power of all the cabinets of the con- 
 tinent to insure its repose and prosperity, by 
 seconding, with good faith and energy, the ef- 
 forts that the Emperor Napoleon is displaying 
 to oblige England to give peace to the world, 
 and to restore to eveiy maritime nation the in- 
 dependence and the honour of its flag. 
 
 Lewis XIV. who exercised so great an influ- 
 ence in Europe, and who wished to acquire, for 
 the French nation, every kind of glory, mani- 
 fested, during the whole course of his reign, the 
 intention to protect the navigation and com- 
 merce of every people. This monarch created a 
 
 18
 
 138 
 
 navy ; he promulgated the best code of marine 
 law and ordinances that exists. 
 
 He had conquered the empire of the sea for 
 the French flag ; a succession of disasters and 
 faults, produced by the intrigues of England, 
 did not permit the cabinet of Versailles to give 
 to the naval power (at the end of the seven- 
 teenth century) the attention and the aid which 
 that part of the military force of the state re- 
 quired. The dilapidations of the regency, the 
 administration of an old man, the reign of 
 courtesans under Lewis XV. half a century of 
 faults and political errors in his cabinet, and in 
 almost all the cabinets of Europe, the venality 
 of certain ministers, the corruption and the vices 
 of certain courts; all these causes permitted 
 England to seize the sceptre of the seas. The 
 ministry of England had the facility of extend- 
 ing, as it were at pleasure, and of consolidat- 
 ing her maritime usurpations. She obtained a 
 direct influence over all the commercial transar^ 
 tions of the continent. The conquest of Ca- 
 nada enabled her to rule the commerce of North
 
 139 
 
 America and the West Indies ; her conquests 
 in the East Indies furnished her with the means 
 of invading successively the commerce of every 
 other nation of Europe in that part of the world ; 
 the peace of 1783 too soon concluded the treaty 
 of commerce of 1786, so inconsiderately con- 
 sented to, and so immaturely contracted, guar- 
 antied all the commercial usurpations of Eng- 
 land, and gave her, through the weakness of the 
 ministers of France, the liberty of spreading over 
 the continent the English leprosy, that is to say, 
 the taste, the desire, the consumption of English 
 merchandize. At length, the French revolu- 
 tion, fomented by the British ministry, having 
 palsied or destroyed the only means of naval re- 
 sistance that Europe could successfully oppose 
 against the tyrannical pretensions of England, 
 that power openly arrogated to herself the em- 
 pire of every sea ; stripped nations of their colo- 
 nial rights, rendered every flag tributary to her 
 flag, earned conflagration into the ports and na- 
 
 o* o * 
 
 val arsenals of every state, destroyed their ma- 
 rine forces, blushed not to abandon herself to the
 
 W- 
 
 140 
 
 most execrable piracies, and to constitute them 
 a right of war; exercised, by fire and the sword, 
 the monopoly of all the mercantile produce of 
 the universe, and has finally arrived at the pitch 
 of trying to sell by force this produce in every 
 market of Europe. 
 
 And yet England has constantly prohibited 
 in her island, or charged with exorbitant imposts, 
 the importation of all foreign productions which 
 might enter into competition with her own. In 
 1768 the British parliament interdicted the com- 
 merce with France, as being a public nuisance. 
 William HI. in his declaration of war, 1689, com- 
 plains of the excessive duties by which Lewis 
 XIV. had stopped the importation of English 
 manufactures into his states, with the intention, 
 adds William III. of destroying the commerce of 
 my subjects, the only source of their riches and pow- 
 er. Political circumstances had reduced Lew- 
 is XIV. to the necessity of permitting the 
 Dutch (article 13th of the treaty of commerce 
 signed at Nimeguen) to carry on the coasting 
 trade in France ; this article is one of the most
 
 141 
 
 -Jib 
 
 fatal to the marine classes* of France of any 
 that has been promulgated : for this reason Eng- 
 land, in the negociations at Riswick, insisted on 
 the preservation of this article in favour of the 
 Dutch. 
 
 The excessive duties imposed on English 
 merchandize in France, being equivalent to a 
 prohibition, England made no opposition to the 
 concluding of a treaty between France and Hol- 
 land, after the peace of Riswick, (tariff of 1699,) 
 by which every branch of navigation and French 
 industry was surrendered to the United Provin- 
 ces ; the duties on woolen goods were reduced 
 near one half, and those of England were im- 
 ported into France under the name of Dutch 
 goods: thus in 1701, Lewis XIV. was obliged to 
 prohibit all the productions of English manufac- 
 tures, whether they came direct or from the ware- 
 houses of Holland. Then exclaimed the parlia- 
 mentary orators : the balance of commerce is the 
 balance of power, and the French are our most 
 
 * The sailors on the coasts of France are distributed into 
 classes.... Translator.
 
 142 
 
 dangerous rivals; let us hinder them from selling 
 their merchandize and force them to buy ours. 
 Since that time the English ministers have said : 
 let us become masters of all mercantile produce, 
 and reserve to ourselves the exclusive monopoly 
 of commerce in the four quarters of the world. 
 
 To what is the commerce of England redu- 
 ced, at the present day, that commerce so pro- 
 digiously extolled by the writers and partisans 
 of the British ministry? The conquest of the 
 peninsula of India, accomplished in fifteen years, 
 Has delivered to the English government the 
 commercial riches of the East; that conquest 
 has enabled the government, in the space of ten 
 years, to increase its financial resources with a 
 sum of 14,000,000 sterling annually, in the sim- 
 ple addition of taxes or duties ; but the greatest 
 part of the produce or manufactured articles of 
 Bengal and India no longer find markets or buy- 
 ers in Europe. In America, the West India 
 islands gather their crops, export and trade only 
 on account of England ; but West India produce 
 is prohibited in Europe, and Europe is the only
 
 143 
 
 market where this produce can be sold. Eng- 
 land thought to exercise, through Canada and 
 Nova Scotia, a despotic influence over the com- 
 merce of the United States; but the United 
 States, jealous of the honour and independence 
 of their flag, feel the necessity ,of shutting their 
 ports against British monopoly, and of rejecting 
 from their bosom those importations of English 
 merchandize, which deprive their own citizens 
 of their labour and their profit. The English 
 flag has the liberty, momentarily, to infest the 
 Mediterranean sea, by means of the occupation 
 of Sicily and the island of Malta : but the expen- 
 ses of a stationary force, and of the territory, 
 which the preservation of these islands requires, 
 as also for the defence of Canada, absorb the pro- 
 fits which these establishments procure, at the 
 present day, to England. That power in vain 
 may reign, almost without obstacles, over every 
 sea ; she is only the more inexorably repulsed 
 from every shore, where the necessary markets 
 are to be found for her manufactures and her 
 commerce. 

 
 144 
 
 England has become master of every island, 
 of every cape, of every promontory ; she has 
 stations on every sea ; she shows herself on 
 every coast ; she endeavours to introduce into 
 every state, legions of venders and monopolists ; 
 she pretends, in*short, to blockade all Europe, 
 in order to make it submit to the consumption 
 and purchase of her merchandize and colonial 
 produce. 
 
 What has resulted from this tyranny, from 
 this excessive monopoly ? And what in the end 
 has th,at naval power, so formidable, accomplish- 
 ed ? The colonial produce of the West Indies, 
 and a part of the productions of Spanish and 
 Portuguese America, having become English 
 property on commissions, the government has 
 been obliged to adopt the system of storing, on 
 account of the difficulty of exporting this mer- 
 chandize to the continent of Europe. The go- 
 vernment has opened three great basins or 
 docks, called London, West India, and Foreign 
 Docks, in order to form an emporium for the 
 reception of the productions of every part of the 
 world ; they have permitted foreign merchan-
 
 145 
 
 dize to be deposited there, and to be exported 
 without paying any duty; they have opened 
 the port of London to the trade of neutral na- 
 tions, of allied nations, and even of enemy- 
 Rations, and they have, in some measure, render- 
 ed the Thames a free port, in which all the 
 merchandize of the universe may be imported 
 and deposited. We shall further see, that this 
 prodigious abundance of merchandize of every 
 sort, which fills the warehouses of England.* 
 must exhaust commercial capitals, and re- 
 duce commerce to great distress, if the English 
 merchants cannot export this merchandize, and 
 distribute it through the various markets of 
 Europe. The problem of the prosperity, 
 or of the ruin of England, may be thus stated ; 
 can Europe do without the productions of the 
 new world, and can the markets on the con- 
 tinent of Europe be closed against English 
 merchandize until the continent ghall have 
 learned to do without it ? 
 
 We shall not be reproached with having dis;- 
 guised, or weakened the influence and the com- 
 
 W
 
 r 146 
 
 mercial and maritime advantages which England 
 has been able to appropriate to herself, at the 
 expense of every other people ; we shall show 
 that her power and advantages are at the bottom 
 illusive. The world may judge of what impor- 
 lajice it is to all the powers of the continent, to 
 rally more closely than ever round the invinci- 
 ble eagles of the monarch who is combating 
 England, in order to compel her to acknowledge 
 and respect the maritime rights of nations. 
 
 We shall give convincing proofs of the dan- 
 gers with which the English government is sur- 
 rounded; and show that the naval power of 
 Great Britain must, in the course of a few years, 
 yield the empire of the seas to the united squad- 
 rons of the French empire and its allies. A few 
 more colonies and ships of war, far from aug- 
 menting the real strength of England, must, on 
 the contrary, diminish her force. Great Britain 
 would not, from the absolute destruction of all 
 the navies of Europe, and the possession of all 
 the colonies of the two worlds, reap any essential 
 benefit, or one productive of any advantage to 
 the- finances of the three kingdoms; if the
 
 147 
 
 British commerce had no entry, no resting 
 place, no considerable markets on the European 
 continent ; in short, if Europe ceased to be tri- 
 butary to the colonies beyond sea. Events will 
 soon prove, that the continents of the two 
 Americas cannot offer to England a sufficient 
 market for her manufactured goods , moreover, 
 the manufactures of Europe will be introduced, 
 established, and naturalized in North and South 
 America ; and finally, the real and absolute in- 
 terdiction of English merchandize on the conti- 
 nent of Europe, will be sufficient to compel the 
 cabinet of London to make every restitution, 
 give every guaranty which the liberty and mari- 
 time prosperity of the people of Europe re- 
 quire ; that cabinet has no other means left of 
 preserving Great Britain from bankruptcy and 
 total ruin, than at length to give peace to the 
 world,
 
 148 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Of the Impossibility in which England is placet, 
 to maintain for a long time, her Naval Pre- 
 ponderance and her Commercial Superiority / 
 of the Interest which all the Sovereigns of 
 Europe have to secure the Liberty of Commerce 
 and the Rights of Nations, and to Interdict in 
 their States, the Importation and the Consump- 
 tion of English Merchandise. 
 
 THE influence and the prosperity of England 
 are not founded on the population and the rich- 
 es of her territory ; that influence and prosperi- 
 ty are derived essentially from the commercial 
 profits of the nation ; consequently the credit, 
 the fortune, and the political existence of the 
 .English government depend upon the naval 
 force which protects and defends commerce, and 
 upon the markets or profits of commerce which 
 maintain the naval force. Naval power is not in 
 itself a positive and substantial power, (if we 
 may so speak) susceptible of an invariable pre- 
 ponderance, as the continental power essentially*
 
 149 
 
 is. In order that a state, invested with maritime 
 supremacy, may preserve it, in a durable man- 
 ner, it is necessary for that state to possess, by 
 itself alone, more vessels and more sailors than 
 all the other nations together ; it is necessary, 
 besides, that the population and the territory of 
 the state should be able to command resources 
 great enough to furnish, in a fixed and permanent 
 manner, the means of maintaining a similar navy 
 and navigation. 
 
 Such a kind of power imperiously requires, 
 by its own nature, by the frequency of dangers 
 and decay, to which all the elements expose ar- 
 maments and fleets, by that crowd of accidents, 
 one alone of which would suffice to annihilate 
 the most formidable naval army ; such a kind of 
 power requires, we say, enormous and incalcu- 
 lable expenses, greater than the expenses de- 
 manded by the continental power and the main- 
 tenance of land forces. 
 
 When a nation has not, within its own bosom, 
 a principle of force proportioned to the display 
 of its naval power, that nation only enjoys an 
 usurped power, and one that is to a certain de-
 
 150 
 
 gree precarious; hence we have seen, among 
 ancient and among modern people, the empire 
 of the sea and of commerce pass into the hands 
 of different nations, with whom there remains at 
 the present day, only the remembrance of their 
 former grandeur and their delusive riches! The 
 Hanse towns, the Venitians, the Genoese, the Por- 
 tuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, have posses- 
 sed the most numerous and the most formidable 
 navies ; these people once carried on the com- 
 merce of the world : their fortune is now eclip- 
 sed, extinguished, because their population and 
 their territory denied them the means of sup- 
 porting that fortune; because they had not in- 
 trinsically the necessary force to resist the jea- 
 lousies, the rivalties which their prosperity ex- 
 cited among other nations. Great Britain might 
 flatter herself with the expectation of preserving 
 the empire of the seas, if the population of that 
 kingdom had increased proportionally with its 
 maritime power ; on the contrary, it is proved, 
 that the population of England has experienced, 
 within fifteen years, a relative diminution, and
 
 151 
 
 that it is not sufficient to maintain, in a stable 
 manner, the naval force. The English ministry 
 are obliged to levy sailors in every nation, to 
 press them, as it were, in every country of Eu- 
 rope, in order to complete the equipment of 
 their ships of war. That England might be able 
 to maintain her naval forces on their actual 
 footing, it would be necessary for her to have 
 the liberty of carrying off sailors from the dif- 
 ferent countries of the continent ; it would be ne- 
 cessary that the governments should be willing 
 to tolerate similar levies or emigrations; it would 
 be necessary that they should renounce, in fa- 
 vour of England, all effective participation in 
 maritime commerce, all independence and na- 
 tional sovereignty a and the honour of their flag 
 or of their crown ; and as the French empire is 
 the most powerful state of Europe, it would be 
 necessary, in the first place, that this empire 
 should be willing to abdicate her dignity and po- 
 litical influence, consent to forget and betray all 
 her positive and relative interests, and renounce 
 the sovereignty of her shores and her ports.
 
 152 
 
 In reality, the maritime power of England 
 must be considered as an accidental force, which 
 the cabinet of the Thuilleries will, at all times, 
 have the power of modifying and restraining 
 within bounds, suitable to the interests of the 
 French people, and, we may venture even to 
 say, suitable to the interests of the English people. 
 
 Mr. Burke, in his observations on the policy of 
 the allied powers, relative to the affairs of France, 
 October, 1793, did not hesitate to acknowledge 
 and publish these political truths : " A people, 
 " without a powerful rival, must necessarily go 
 " to ruin, by giving themselves up to an insatia- 
 " ble and immeasurable ambition. However 
 " formidable France may be to us, she is not 
 " equally so to the other states ; on the contrary, 
 f< I am firmly persuaded that it would be impos- 
 " sible to maintain the liberty of Europe if 
 " France was not a very important power. It 
 tf is of great importance to England, and to eve- 
 " ry other nation, that France should continue 
 *' to be a preponderating power. We are follow- 
 " ing a plan of conduct destructive of our pow-
 
 153 
 
 w er ; our object evidently is, to leave Prance 
 " neither colonies, nor commerce, nor navy. The 
 " maritime despotism of England is at its height, 
 " and it will force the rest of the world to league 
 ** against her." 
 
 Such are the words addressed by Mr. Burke 
 to his countrymen, and certainly this statesman, 
 alike commendable for his political talents as 
 for his devotion to his country, cannot be sus- 
 pected of partiality towards France. We shall 
 see further with what warmth, with what pro- 
 foundness of views, Mr. Burke deplored that des- 
 potism of monopoly and commerce, which the 
 cabinet of London have not blushed, from the 
 year 1793, to make the basis of their political 
 system. That cabinet have since boldly prcv- 
 claimed principles injurious to the maritime 
 rights of every people ; the commerce of Eng- 
 land is now nothing else than. an immense piracy, 
 an execrable tyranny which every European na- 
 > tion has a right and an interest to destroy. 
 
 A nation powerful on the land will always be 
 powerful at sea, whenever she possesses a great 
 
 20
 
 151 
 
 extent of coasts, and when her coasts and har- 
 bours are so situated as to open an easy and ex- 
 tensive navigation: it may be advanced with 
 certainty, that a great commerce and a rich na- 
 vigation will always be in the power of such a 
 nation, when she is ruled by a strong and en- 
 lightened government. The times of ministerial 
 faults and errors are happily passed in France ; 
 the empire has every thing to hope ; it has no 
 longer to fear that the administration will neglect 
 the advantages which nature has bestowed on it, 
 and which victory has secured to it for ever*. 
 
 M. de Montesquieu, who, in point of errors, 
 has committed only great ones, observes in his 
 sublime work on the grandeur and fall of the 
 Romans, that a fleet is the only thing which 
 power and money cannot create immediately ; 
 he has also said, that it requires the whole life 
 of a great prince to raise a fleet capable of 
 appearing before a po.wer which has already the 
 empire of the sea. These two opinions are fun- 
 damentally false, the reign of Lewis XIV. and 
 even that of Lewis XV. have furnished proofs
 
 155 
 
 of the contrary. M. de Montesquieu, in the 
 immensity and elevation of his philosophical 
 researches, perhaps also in the excess of his 
 admiration for the political constitution of Eng- 
 land, did not recollect that Richelieu (who con- 
 ceived the idea of changing Br^st, a mere fishing 
 town, into one of the first military ports of Eu- 
 rope) in ten years time, shut all the coasts of 
 France against the English flag : let us here call 
 to mind, that naval science owes to Richelieu the 
 first idea of a ship of a hundred and twenty 
 feet* keel, pierced for seventy two guns: that 
 minister had the Couronne constructed after de- 
 signs traced by his own hand. 
 
 The author of the Spirit of Laws t had forgot- 
 ten that when Lewis XIV. really ascended the 
 throne, twenty years after the death of that 
 great minister, there existed but nine ships of 
 the line in all the ports of France, so much had 
 Mazarin, during the course of his administra^ 
 tion, neglected the navy of the monarchy I We 
 read in the Memoirs of M. de Torcy, Letters da 
 
 * French measure, equal to 130 feet English,
 
 156 
 
 Jf. de Lionne, " that not a single sailor was to 
 " be found (1666) in all the ports of France ; 
 " that Duquesne has had all the trouble in the 
 " world, having employed three months about 
 * it, to form the crew of a single ship, the 
 " Vendomc." 
 
 Lewis XIV. asked leave of the Dutch to 
 build vessels in their ship-yards, and to cast ar- 
 tillery in their arsenals ; that monarch solicited 
 permission to buy, in the marshes of Holland, 
 iron, tar, and even cordage ; and fifteen years 
 later, the French navy was the first in Europe ! 
 After the engagement of Tobago, and those of 
 Agosta, the French flag was respected in every 
 sea ; Chateau-Renaud landed in Ireland, in spite 
 of the enemy's squadrons, beat, the English 
 fleets, carried off the Dutch convoys, and brought 
 - back his ships in triumph, into the port of Brest, 
 loaded with the spoils of the two nations. Lewis 
 XIV. sent to sea as many as eighty ships of the 
 line, he had Duquesne at the head of his squad- 
 rons, that seaman who may be placed above all 
 the admirals that England has produced. That
 
 157 
 
 power has nothing, in the chronicles of her navy, 
 which equals the campaign of Tourville, known 
 under the name of the Campaign of the Large. 
 The Marquis de Roquefeuille, cruising in the 
 channel, obliged the ships of his Britannic Majes- 
 ty, first to give him the honour of ' the salute. 
 A single sovereign, a single minister proved, in a 
 few years, that France, in consequence of the 
 position of her coasts and the population of her 
 territory, might have the first navy in Europe. 
 
 It is not yet thirty years since the French na- 
 vy was, if not superior, at least equal in every 
 respect to the English ; and but for the folly of 
 two ministers of the marine before the revolu- 
 tion ; but for the incapacity of certain French 
 admirals, whom intrigues of the toilette had 
 raised to command, the war of 1778 had insured 
 the preponderance of the French flag in Europe 
 and in the Indies. 
 
 The opinion advanced by M. de Montesquieu 
 might have appeared well founded, sixty years 
 ago, under the kings of the third dynasty ; such 
 an opinion would be absurd at the present day : 
 it was not given to M. de Montesquieu to divine
 
 158 
 
 HIM who was to create the French empire, and 
 to make it the first in the world. 
 
 The great error of the English, that which 
 engenders all the political mistakes of their 
 government, and which perpetuates its blind- 
 ness, arises from their not judging either of the 
 times, or of the grandeur of the French empire. 
 The Emperor Napoleon is not a King of France ; 
 he is the invincible Son of Victory ; and with 
 his power begins the true race of the Caesars ; 
 that which will never finish ; that which will have 
 no Augustulus, nor Lewis the Debonair ; thai 
 which must rule the destinies of the world, 
 during a long series of ages. 
 
 However accidental may be the naval supre- 
 macy of England, a power so immense as hers 
 is, nevertheless, very formidable during the 
 whole duration of its action. In effect, a squad- 
 ron, mistress of the sea, transports itself, at plea- 
 sure, to every country, to every port in the two 
 hemispheres ; it becomes, in an instant, a fron- 
 tier of every kingdom, arrives unexpectedly, 
 lays waste the maritime parts of an empire,
 
 159 
 
 transports armies with celerity to every field of 
 battle, and causes its presence, and even its ab- 
 sence, to be feared all over, from the uncertain- 
 ty in which the enemy is left of the point intend- 
 ed to threaten. The nation which has the most 
 formidable fleets, is then a very important 
 power ; its alliance or its influence cannot be 
 disdained any where. But as the empire of the 
 -sea is not sufficient to give universal monarchy 
 to this nation ; that is to say, an absolute influ- 
 ence in general affairs, her cabinet exerts and 
 flatters itself to accomplish that object by divid- 
 ing great states, and by exciting frequent wars ; 
 for the most decisive naval engagements, and 
 the dominion, even uncontested, of the ocean, 
 have never decided the fate of a great war, and 
 still less can they decide the political prepon- 
 derance of a nation. The battles of Salamin 
 and Actium, of which so much has been spoken, 
 decided the fortune of Greece, and the fate of 
 the Universe, only because the affairs of the 
 Persians, and the party of Anthony at those 
 periods, were in almost a desperate, situation.
 
 160 
 
 Since the discovery of the loadstone and the in- 
 vention of artillery, navigation, which before 
 was only the result of practice, is now become 
 an art ; since the discovery of the two Indies, 
 a navy has been an object of high consideration, 
 and has become successively of very great im- 
 portance in European power ; the universe is 
 aggrandized, for Europe, by a whole hemis- 
 phere ; the respective situation of every state has 
 been changed with regard to itself, and with re- 
 gard to the assemblage of the political world ; 
 because an unbounded career is opened to the 
 industry of every people, which has made, as it 
 were, but one single nation of all the nations of 
 the globe ; and yet, notwithstanding this new 
 and imposing order of things, maritime power 
 remains constantly in a secondary situation and 
 influence, in relation to continental power. The 
 battle of the Hague is the most decisive naval 
 affair which has taken place in modern times ; 
 that which was followed by the greatest and 
 most disastrous consequences to the vanquished ; 
 that battle, however, did not attack very
 
 161 
 
 bly the power of Lewis XIV. in Europe, it did 
 not prevent that monarch from uniting forever 
 to his crow r n, the continental conquests which he 
 had achieved for France ; nor did it deprive him 
 of the means of placing his grandson on the 
 throne of Spain. The battle of the Hague, 
 all those which the English have gained over 
 the French and the Dutch, have not destroyed, 
 not even weakened, in a very sensible manner, 
 the political influence of the cabinet of Ver- 
 sailles, in the general system, whenever this 
 cabinet has been under the direction of men of 
 abilities, ministers really Frenchmen. 
 
 Since the French revolution, Great Britain 
 has dispersed, destroyed, or palsied the naval 
 forces of France, and of all the powers of Eu- 
 rope ; have these great maritime losses weaken- 
 ed the empire ? It has displayed a prodigious 
 force, a power, the possibility of which was not 
 suspected. Directed by the genius of a great 
 man, the French empire has come out of its 
 eradle in full glory and strength, better consti- 
 tuted than ever the Roman empire was ; it hai 
 
 21
 
 become the ruler, the supreme arbiter of the 
 destinies of Europe. 
 
 The maritime losses of the French empire 
 were almost inevitable, they were occasioned by 
 the necessity of the political circumstances in 
 which Europe was placed. But happily, a 
 great naval disaster is not for France, an acci- 
 dent which attacks the principle of her power ; 
 in England, on the contrary, every political and 
 territorial security may depend on the issue of a 
 naval battle ; a great engagement lost by Eng- 
 land would be sufficient, at the same instant, to 
 open the road to London, shut the Thames, 
 bring on the ruin of the state, and the loss of its 
 numerous colonies. These reflections, these 
 facts, fully authorise us to conclude, that every 
 power which possesses the empire of the sea 
 must lose it, must be dispossessed of it in a given 
 time, by the inevitable effect of conjunctures 
 which may be calculated with a certain preci- 
 sion, when that power has not in itself a popula- 
 tion and a force of resistance proportioned to 
 the maritime supremacy which it exercises.
 
 163 
 
 Every age, eveiy nation, bears testimony to this 
 truth ; it leads us to say, that the celebrated 
 maxim of, he who is master of the sea is master of 
 the land, is radically false, though it may mo- 
 mentarily appear to be true. When a poet 
 said, 
 
 " The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world," 
 
 he couched a beautiful thought in a very fine 
 verse ; but the poet advanced an absurdity, 
 and abused the privilege granted to poetry, to 
 embellish and perpetuate illusions. The empire 
 of the land leads necessarily to that of the sea ; 
 and, at all times, it will be the fault of the most 
 powerful nation on the continent, when it is not 
 also the most formidable on the ocean. 
 
 I now speak particularly of France and Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The English government is so strongly im- 
 pressed with these axioms, it is so thoroughly 
 convinced of the real and relative inferiority of 
 Great Britain, in relation to the French empire, 
 that there is no means of corruption, no intrigues, 
 no violence, no enterprizes, that the British 

 
 , 164 
 
 ministry do not put in practice, to oppose the 
 preponderance of the French empire on the 
 continent, and prevent the consolidation of the 
 Napoleonian dynasty. It is in perpetuating 
 troubles and wars, in plunging various states 
 into disasters which must bring on their ruin, 
 in spreading fire and blood over every country 
 of Europe ; it is in employing all these per- 
 fidies, every seduction to arm sovereigns or 
 people against the French empire, that the 
 royal counting-house of St. James has flattered 
 itself with the idea of preserving that maritime 
 and commercial sovereignty, which it has been 
 able to usurp by destroying, successively, the 
 maritime forces of the different nations of Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 But the hostile and political revolution of the 
 continent is irrevocably finished, consummated ; 
 the eighteenth of Brumaire is accomplished in Eu- 
 rope /* The French Empire guaranties the des-r 
 
 *9th November, 1799 Epoch when the French republic 
 was destroyed, and Bonaparte made first consul.... Translator.
 
 165 
 
 tinies and the peace of nations ; the Napoleonian 
 dynasty is seated on an unshaken basis. 
 
 The interest of every people, the honour and 
 existence of every sovereign, are attached to the 
 stability of this glorious political system, to the 
 stability of this happy order of things. 
 
 Great commercial revolutions are preparing, 
 and are daily approaching with unerring steps. 
 It is to the French empire that all the people of 
 the continent will be indebted for the improve- 
 ments which the present conjunctures tend to 
 produce, in their industry and their internal pros- 
 perity. 
 
 The French empire contains within her bo- 
 som, and possesses on her maritime frontiers, 
 and on those of her natural allies, all the elements 
 of a great naval power, and the richests means 
 of navigation of which a great state could ever 
 be ambitious. Twelve hundred leagues of coast, 
 the finest ports and the safest harbours of Eu- 
 rope, military ports of the first order, ship-yarde 
 on every shore from the Baltic to the Darda- 
 nelles, military yard proper for the most mi-
 
 mere us constructions; materials, naval stores in 
 abundance, shores and rivers open to all the na- 
 vigation of the north and the south, of the east 
 and the west ; an excellent race of seamen in Holr 
 land, on the waters of the Baltic, in the gulf of 
 Gascoriy, in Britanny, in Provence, on the Adri- 
 atic sea, on all the European side of the Medi- 
 terranean sea ; a national revenue perfectly free, 
 founded on the invariable reproduction of the 
 industry and soil of France : so many and such 
 precious advantages permit the Emperor Napo- 
 leon to create and maintain a naval power, for- 
 midable enough to restore the liberty of the 
 seas, and cause the independence of every flag 
 to be respected. 
 
 The maritime conscription established in the 
 empire and in the allied states, is sufficient to 
 give to the imperial flag three times as many sai- 
 lors as England can ever be furnished with, by 
 all her corruptions and violence. 
 
 The ship-yards of Amsterdam, of Antwerp, 
 of Brest, of Rochefort, of Cherbourg, arid of Tou- 
 lon, those of Ferrol, Lisbon, Cadiz, Carthagena, 
 Genoa, Naples, Venice, Porto-Re, &c. may, in
 
 167 
 
 a few months, be covered with vessels, at the 
 voice of the Emperor of the French : the squad- 
 rons which sail from these ports, embracing and 
 enclosing every open sea of Europe will be able 
 to protect every people, and will soon display 
 their flags in the seas of America and the Indies: 
 the day on which the French flag shall reappear 
 in India and join the Marattas,the English pow- 
 er will be destroyed. 
 
 Great Britain has riot the power to prevent, to 
 stop this naval creation, to oppose its progress in 
 a victorious and constant manner : the ministry 
 may, indeed, for some time yet, retard the mari* 
 time liberation of Europe ; but their most in- 
 flammatory violence cannot hinder a develop- 
 ment of forces, which, at the present day, resulJ 
 from the nature of things, and from the system. 
 so happily, so firmly established on the conti- 
 nent. England can no more stop the growth of 
 the naval power of the French empire, than slie 
 can cause to retrograde the continental power of 
 this empire. 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon has declared thai
 
 168 
 
 ^^^L^rt^i^inr 
 
 the French empire must have a fleet; lie will 
 " by conquest, insure at once, the rights of na- 
 " tions, the liberty of the seas, and a general 
 " peace." Who would dare to doubt of success, 
 when guarantied by genius, power, and wealth? 
 
 Lewis XI V. at his accession to the throne, had 
 neither military ports, nor ship-yards, nor naval 
 stores ; every thing was to be created : the limits 
 of France were confined ; this kingdom present- 
 ed irregularity and weakness in a part of its fron- 
 tiers by land; its maritime frontiers, on all sides, 
 were hemmed in by Holland, Spain, and the 
 states of Italy ; that monarch found two great 
 powers, Holland and England, in possession of 
 every sea; he was the object of the jealousy and 
 political hatred of Spain. Lewis XIV. willed, 
 ordered, and in a few years had a fleet sufficient- 
 ly formidable to dispute with England and Hol- 
 land the sovereignty of the ocean ! 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon is master of an em- 
 pire whose resources are infinitely superior to 
 those which Lewis XIV. could bring into ac- 
 lion; he has raised his subjects even to the height
 
 169 
 
 6f his own glory ; he has changed the face ot 
 the political world, and covered Europe with 
 his trophies. Can it be difficult for the monarch 
 who creates his age and his people, to create a 
 fleet? The marine schools recently established 
 
 - 
 
 by the imperial decrees, are organized in such a 
 manner, as to give to the pupils the theoretical 
 and practical science necessary to render them 
 seamen ; and if they have not at first, the prac- 
 tice of great naval evolutions, it is in the presence 
 of the English fleets, and in the midst of engage- 
 ments, that they will complete their knowledge 
 of the art of the Duquesnes and the Tourvilles. 
 
 In the course of a few years, England may be 
 compelled, arms in hand, to renounce the do- 
 minion which she has arrogantly assumed over 
 the seas; to acknowledge a maritime legisla- 
 tion conformable to the rights of nations; to 
 adopt, in short, those principles of equity and 
 moderation which alone can insure the prosperi- 
 ty and existence of states. 
 
 It is then only by hastening to adopt this poli- 
 cy, just in its principle, claimed by every people 
 
 22
 
 170 
 
 and commanded by the present system of Eu- 
 rope, that Great Britain can prevent the ruin of 
 her naval power, the annihilation of her com- 
 merce and all the disasters which threaten her 
 finances. If the cabinet of London wait to 
 give peace to the world, till the inexorable ne- 
 cessity of arms come and force them to it, Great 
 Britain will have lost, and perhaps forever, the 
 greatest, the most precious part of her commer- 
 cial resources ; the state itself, by the continua- 
 tion of the war of extermination, runs the risk of 
 being swallowed up in its ruins. 
 
 For the commerce of Great Britain may in 
 vain, at the present day, embrace in its opera- 
 tions, the united productions of America and the 
 Indies ; that immense commerce will be struck 
 with sterility, and perish in the hands of the 
 English merchants. 
 
 The having a great quantity of produce 
 to exchange or to sell, is not sufficient for a state, 
 in order to carry on a great external commerce ; 
 it is necessary that this produce be transported 
 and sold without obstacles, in order that the
 
 171 
 
 owner or factor may draw the value of it, and a 
 profit proportioned to the expenses attending the 
 transportation and sale ; if the state has no free, 
 sufficient, and certain market for the sale or ex- 
 change of the commodities, which it puts rn the 
 general balance of commerce, its operations are 
 shackled and in distress ; if there no longer ex- 
 ist markets for these commodities; if, on the 
 contrary, they are found to be struck with pro- 
 hibition in their customary markets, the abun- 
 dance of the merchandize, instead of being use- 
 ful'to commerce and the state, overloads both, 
 and impoverishes instead of enriching them. 
 
 England draws from her possessions in Ame- 
 rica and India, a quantity of produce and mer- 
 chandize, infinitely more considerable than the 
 consumption of the three kingdoms require ; it 
 is, therefore, absolutely necessary, that three 
 fourths of it be poured upon the European con- 
 tinent ; there are the markets where Great Bri- 
 tain must sell her merchandize, and where she 
 must buy various articles necessary for her 
 awn consumption, or to make retyrns for her
 
 172 
 
 purchases in America and the Indies. England 
 carries to France, and to most of the European 
 states, only colonial produce, or manufactured 
 goods, which are not of the first necessity in 
 those states ; which are not even particularly 
 wanted for their consumption; whilst Great 
 Britain has an absolute want, a pressing necessi- 
 ty for various articles and produce, which 
 France and the states of Europe contain within 
 their bosom, and with which they alone can 
 furnish the English commerce. 
 
 Wines, oils, silks, brandies, grains, laces, 
 many objects of luxury and fashion, naval 
 stores, dryed fruits, the iron and copper of the 
 north, &c. &c. All these articles form a very 
 considerable object, a principal one in the trade 
 of England with the four quarters of the world ; 
 they are indispensable to the commerce, and in 
 part, to the consumption of that country. In 
 exchange for these precious commodities, Eng- 
 land really supplies Europe, and particularly 
 France, only with superfluous produce and ar- 
 ticles of luxury, the use of which was almost
 
 173 
 
 unknown a century ago, and the consumption 
 of which is not a matter of necessity, as it grati- 
 fies only fictitious wants, wants created by cir- 
 cumstances, equally fatal to the industry and 
 prosperity of those states. England had, how- 
 ever, succeeded in exciting those wants, even 
 among the lower classes of the people ; Europe 
 had experienced, for from thirty to forty years 
 past, such a degeneracy in its manners, in all 
 its national and political principles ; corruption 
 and English luxury had made so great a pro- 
 gress, even among the people of the north, that 
 every body yielded with a sort of fanaticism to 
 that crowd of new and expensive habits, which 
 the English Avere introducing under the bait of 
 riches, of liberty, and of philosophy. Four 
 plants or shrubs, almost unknown in Europe a 
 cenfury and a half ago, have made the commer- 
 cial fortune of England, and really support, at 
 the present day, the throne of that kingdom ; 
 the coffee, the cotton, the tea plant, and the 
 sugar cane, have, within a very few years, taken 
 the place of a part of the food and clothing
 
 171 
 
 which the people of Europe liad used during a 
 long series of ages. It is with the produce of 
 these four plants, which Europe can do without 
 and experience no great privation, and the place 
 of which may be supplied in a manner more 
 lucrative to governments and less expensive to 
 individuals ; it is nevertheless with these exotic 
 and parasite plants, that England drains nations 
 of their gold, and succeeds in palsying all the 
 means of industry which are appropriate to 
 them. From the moment that the English 
 commerce assumed to itself, almost exclusively, 
 the possession or the sale of colonial produce, it 
 disposed of the greatest part of the fortune of 
 Europe ; it exercised a despotic influence over 
 every government, and it succeeded in render- 
 ing Europe tributary to America and to India. 
 But the day when the consumption of colonial 
 produce ceases to be needful to the continent, 
 the fortune of Great Britain will experience a 
 total revolution. It is of importance to the re- 
 pose, to the peace, to the prosperity of Europe, 
 that its various states learn to do without English 
 merchandize ; that they encourage the industry
 
 175 
 
 of their subjects, and that national manufactures 
 every where make war against, the manufactures 
 of Great Britain. If the sovereigns on the con- 
 tinent felt penetrated with the utility, the neces- 
 sity of disaccustoming their subjects to the use 
 of colonial produce and English manufactured 
 goods, of ridding themselves of an anti-national 
 and shameful luxury, of favouring, by great ex- 
 amples, the consumption of the productions of 
 their territory, of protecting and honouring ma- 
 nufactures, the raw materials of which are not 
 subject to the rates of a government without 
 equity and without reason ; if, we say, the Eu- 
 ropean governments would take a resolution so 
 conformable to their dignity and their interests, 
 they would add to the positive riches of their 
 states, by procuring to their subjects a greater 
 and a more substantial ease ; every government 
 would find, in this noble exercise of authority 
 and protection, an abundant source of prosperi- 
 ty ; it would free itself from those odious tri- 
 butes imposed on it, by an unrelenting war, and 
 the avidity and exactions of the British ministry .
 
 176 
 
 arid by depriving that ministry of the gold 
 which tht j y seek to carry off in their commerce 
 with every country, that gold with which they 
 provoke and maintain every war, the sovereigns 
 of Europe would insure the tranquillity of their 
 reign, arid the peace of their states. 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon has given a mag- 
 nanimous example of this commercial revolu- 
 tion, which the interest and industry of every na- 
 tion of the continent equally solicit. Half of 
 the population already have honourably re- 
 nounced these superfluities of a disastrous and 
 anti-French luxury. 
 
 When it is so honourable to be a Frenchman ; 
 when a Frenchman must be proud of obeying 
 victoiy and genius, of being a subject of the 
 Emperor Napoleon, can a few momentary priva- 
 tions be placed in the scale against the best inte- 
 rests and the honour of the empire? 
 
 They have discontinued, in England, the use 
 of French wines, and taken to those of Spain and 
 Portugal. " After all," exclaimed in the house 
 of commons in England, a true patriot (and it
 
 177 
 
 is honourable to love ones country more than 
 ones self,) " it would be better for Great Britain 
 " to drink only turnip juice, or drink no wine at 
 " all, rather than have recourse to France for it ; 
 " we must pay considerable sums in specie for 
 "* it, whereas the wine and brandy of Portugal 
 ** are the produce of our manufactures" 
 
 These are the principles, the public spirit 
 which it is useful to receive from England, and 
 not that fatal and ridiculous Anglomania, of 
 which philosophers and hired writers had suc- 
 ceeded, thirty years ago, in making a social re- 
 ligion ! With a new glory, the French people 
 ought to recover all the splendor, all the dignity 
 of the French name ; they ought to offer to thek 
 Emperor the last proof of love and devotion. 
 The noblest tribute that a faithful subject can, at 
 this day, present to his sovereign, is to repulse, 
 vilify the use of English merchandize, to stamp 
 it with the seal of infamy ; it is by renouncing 
 the consumption of the produce of English in- 
 dustry and commerce, by imposing privations on 
 ourselves, which will soon cease even to be pri-
 
 178 
 
 rations ; it is by combating England with the 
 arms which she uses against us, that we shall ob- 
 tain a general, a glorious, and a durable peace. 
 It is the two capitals of England, Calcutta and 
 Manchester, that we must attack, and we are 
 able to do it, by proscribing, under pain of ridi- 
 cule and contempt, both colonial produce and 
 the manufactured goods of Great Britain. 
 It is time to resume our commerce and our in- 
 dustry ; to furnish the august chief of the em- 
 pire with the most important means of effecting 
 the noble restoration of France, and of assuring 
 for ever the prosperity of our manufactures. 
 Let us cease to enrich our enemies, and let us 
 have public spirit suitable to the dignity of the 
 greatest people, governed by the greatest of mo- 
 narchs. 
 
 Lewis XIV. did not pardon the Dutch go- 
 vernment for endeavouring to introduce into 
 Prance, as a first condition of every treaty, their 
 own stuffs and merchandize, and with them a 
 fondness for English merchandise, which the 
 Dutch had then the privilege of transporting
 
 179 
 
 and exchanging in every port of the European 
 continent A good Frenchman dwells with plea- 
 sure on the French pride of this monarch ; his 
 last words were decrees for the great Lords of 
 the state ; Lewis XIV. with great difficulty, al- 
 lowed them to travel in England : in that he 
 gave proof of good sense and a love for his coun- 
 try ; French taste was lost as soon as the order 
 of the nobility were permitted to travel in Eng- 
 land, that is, during the regency of the Duke of 
 Orleans, the first period of that corruption of 
 morality and philosophy, which has since made 
 such great ravages in the body politic. A king 
 of France has rarely pronounced a more judi- 
 cious, a more royal word than that of Lewis XIV. 
 on the subject of the English fashions : " That 
 " does not show good taste, that is not French" 
 He observed also, " That the greatest misfor- 
 " tune which could happen to France, would be 
 " for Frenchmen to acquire a fondness for Eng- 
 " lish merchandize, English manners, and an es- 
 " teem for that government." One would think 
 that Lewis XIV. had a presentiment of the end
 
 180 
 
 ^ 
 
 of bis race, in judging from many acts of his ad- 
 ministration. That monarch, from his first years, 
 was alarmed at the political maxims and princi- 
 ples which had convulsed England under the 
 reign of Charles I. ; the disorders and the cor- 
 ruption of the Duke of Orleans, gave him great 
 apprehensions : ought we to be astonished at the 
 aversion which Lewis XIV. constantly showed 
 to the political principles which the archbishop 
 of Cambray had instilled into the mind of the 
 Duke of Burgundy ; and at the opinion which 
 that monarch entertained of the understanding 
 of Fenelon, in other respects one of the most 
 estimable prelates that the church of France has 
 ever had, and one of the most eloquent writers 
 that do honour to the French language ? 
 
 It is well known that Lewis XIV. having a 
 conversation of an hour and a half in his cabi- 
 net, with the author of Telemachus, said in com- 
 ing out : " I have just listened to the most sys- 
 " tematic man, and the greatest wit in my king- 
 dom." The fact is, that Lewis XIV. had, 
 above all things, the instinct of royalty ; his vi-
 
 181 
 
 cious and neglected education denied him the re- 
 quisite talents. 
 
 Every Frenchman, at the present day, does 
 honour to himself in offering to his Emperor the 
 sacrifice of this English luxury, the progress of 
 which was one of the scourges of the French re- 
 volution. Already the arts and sciences vie 
 with each other in activity and researches, for 
 the discovery of substances, in the productions 
 of the French soil, to supply the place of coloni- 
 al produce, in order to liberate the manufactures 
 of the empire from the impost and the fetters 
 which English manufactures obliged them to 
 
 o o 
 
 bear ; and, perhaps, in a few years it will be as 
 difficult to make the French resume the taste 
 for English goods, and to feel the want of them, 
 as it may have appeared, not long since, impossi- 
 ble to attack and to vanquish that taste and de- 
 sire. 
 
 France manufactures the most beautiful cloths, 
 and the finest silks in the universe ; her gold 
 stuffs offer the most magnificent luxury of gran- 
 deur that courts could desire ; she has within her
 
 182 
 
 bosom the most precious colours for dying : the 
 Levant and Italy will always be eager to sell her 
 cotton and the coffee which opulence and luxu- 
 ry may require, and as to those colonial produc- 
 tions, which the monopoly of England has so 
 happily obliged the French to renounce ; the es- 
 says heretofore made prove, that many vegeta- 
 bles and indigenous plants may, in many re- 
 ipects, furnish a substitute for the sugar of the 
 cane. 
 
 Independently of the prohibition of colonial 
 produce, and the possibility of supplying in part 
 its place, advantageously for the state, the 
 French empire must attack England, even in 
 the contraband trade which she will endeavour 
 to carry on in her merchandize. The members 
 of parliament the most devoted to the ministry 
 confess, that the true cause of the commercial 
 distress which is felt in the three kingdoms, pro- 
 ceeds from the former markets of Europe being 
 shut against the produce of their colonies and 
 their manufactures; the ministers themselves 
 admit, that the immense quantity of colonial pro-
 
 183 
 
 duce which fill the warehouses of London, ex- 
 haust the capitals of the English merchants, and 
 that the system of storing foreign as well as do- 
 mestic merchandize for exportation, aggravates 
 still more the commercial distress. The smug- 
 gling trade is then become a measure of the first 
 necessity for the British commerce, and the pro- 
 hibition ordered by the imperial decrees strike 
 the object directly ! 
 
 To what a situation, to what prosperity is a 
 government reduced, which finds itself obliged 
 to rank smuggling among the number of its re- 
 sources ! The chancellor of the exchequer has 
 represented it in these terms, speaking of Eng- 
 lish commerce : " The markets of Europe are 
 " at present shut against us by the most rigorous 
 " edicts ; but experience proves that the severest 
 " commercial restrictions and interdictions al- 
 " ways end in a relaxation in the execution of 
 " them ; and there is scarcely a doubt but that the 
 " industry of our merchants, and the wants of the 
 " consumers on the continent, will be able to sur- 
 " mount a part of the obstacles opposed to them.' ? 
 This is a very useful piece of advice givea to
 
 184 
 
 the French custom houses. Mr. Percival con- 
 siders the imperial decrees as temporary mea- 
 sures, the rigour of which it is very easy to 
 elude ; he regards the commercial relations of 
 England with the continent as only interrupt- 
 ed ; he does not believe that they are shut with- 
 out return ; he hopes that a great quantity -of 
 English produce willjind the means of penetrat- 
 ing into the continent ; he always thinks, like his 
 predecessors, that he has to do with a king of 
 France, and will not see that Napoleon is not a 
 king of France, but the Emperor and the Son 
 of Victory ; he does not reflect that the Empe- 
 ror Napoleon has pronounced an absolute inter- 
 diction against colonial produce and the manu- 
 factures of Great Britain, and the political sys- 
 tem of the cabinet of the Thuilleries is fixed, im- 
 mutable as the power and glory of its sovereign ! 
 With regard to cotton manufactures, the raw 
 material increases from day to day, in the interi- 
 or of the empire, in consequence of the protec- 
 tion and encouragement granted by the Empe- 
 ror : already the French manufactures success- 
 fully vie with the English in respect both to the
 
 texture and finish of the work ; the provinces of 
 the Adriatic, the kingdom of Naples, and the Eu- 
 ropean provinces of Turkey, may furnish the 
 cotton manufactures of the French empire with 
 the raw materials, in a sufficient quantity for 
 their consumption. It may be advanced with 
 some degree of certainty, that the moment is 
 not very distant, when the cotton manufacturers 
 established in the French empire, will cease to 
 be tributary to English commerce for the raw 
 material ; when the French consumers will cease 
 to be tributary to the manufactures of Bengal, 
 of Manchester, and the other parts of the three 
 kingdoms. When the productions of the 
 French cotton manufactures are sufficient for 
 the consumption of the inhabitants of the em- 
 pire, it will be good policy to lay such heavy 
 duties on English manufactured merchandize, 
 that it can in no case support a competition of 
 price with French merchandize ; England will 
 then have lost, and France will have acquired, 
 a great branch of industry and riches. Before 
 
 24
 
 186 
 
 the publication of the Berlin and Milan decrees, 
 cotton goods carried off annually, from the 
 French empire, an enormous sum in specie ; the 
 fondness so generally diffused, for English stuffs 
 of cotton, deprived the nation, from day to day, 
 of the profits of an extensive commerce, which 
 the manufactures of cloth, silk, and linen, had 
 procured to France, in the Levant and in a great 
 part of the north of Europe. The administra- 
 tive and commercial measures adopted by the 
 Emperor Napoleon, restrain the monopoly and 
 the consumption of English merchandize ; they 
 insure to the French manufactures a future pros- 
 perity which will not depend on the monopoly 
 and maritime tyranny of Great Britain. The 
 period is not distant when the establishments of 
 Rouen, and of the great manufacturing towns 
 will find, on the territory of the natural allies of 
 the French empire, the raw material necessary 
 in their manufactures of cotton ; then the in- 
 dustry, the manufacture, and the consumption 
 of cotton goods will be truly French, and out 
 of the reach of British despotism. The French
 
 187 
 
 people ought to wait with confidence ; they 
 ought to second, with all their efforts, the mea- 
 sures adopted by the Emperor Napoleon ; they 
 ought to be really jealous, proud of the pros- 
 perity of their manufactures; and the French 
 manufactures will always be those, the raw ma- 
 terials of which, will be drawn from the territory 
 of the empire, or its allies, and not from the 
 colonies of England. 
 
 The excessive abundance of produce and 
 goods of various sorts, which encumber the 
 warehouses in England, is a direct cause of dis* 
 tress to the commerce of that country, from the 
 moment that exportation becomes impossible to 
 the continent of Europe. A merchant who 
 should have on hand, belonging to himself, a 
 great quantity of merchandize, without being 
 able to effect the sale of it, and receive the re- 
 turns, would very soon find it impossible to per- 
 sue his commercial operations, and meet his en- 
 gagements ; he would be reduced to' seek for 
 means in his personal credit, and if a great num- 
 ber of merchants of his country, should find
 
 188 
 
 themselves, at the same time, in a similar abun* 
 dancty and the like situation, what resources 
 could he then find in his credit ? England is this 
 merchant, in the full extent of the term ; the 
 present situation of England is a real commer- 
 cial dropsy ; England manufactures in her inte- 
 rior, collects in her colonial possessions, imports 
 into her island infinitely more mercantile objects 
 than the consumption of the three kingdoms can 
 support. Were it true that the manufactures 
 and commerce of Great Britain had attained that 
 degree of continually increasing prosperity which 
 the ministers daily vaunt, that commerce and 
 those manufactures would then only feel more 
 infallibly diminish every day, their sales and 
 their profits, if the markets of the European con- 
 tinent were strictly shut against them. Were she 
 mistress of all the colonies of the two Indies, 
 had she on board her vessels all the produce of 
 America and Asjia, did she possess in her ware- 
 houses all the commercial movables of the uni- 
 verse, Great Britain would only be more imme- 
 diately exposed to a general bankruptcy, if her
 
 189 
 
 merchants and her 'manufacturers could not 
 transport their merchandize to the markets of 
 the continent, if they could not, consequently, 
 receive the value of it. 
 
 In 1807, in the sitting of the house of com- 
 mons of the 17th February, the chancellor of 
 the exchequer already complained of the super- 
 abundance of sugar and other colonial produce, 
 which encumbered the markets of England. In' 
 the English possessions, at Jamaica, sugar was 
 not worth, eight months ago, more than from 30 
 to 35 centimes,* the half-kilogramme or pound 
 of sixteen ounces, coffee not more than from 60 
 to 70 centimes ,-f that colony is in a state of 
 penury approaching to misery ; it contracts 
 numerous debts in order to effect the clearing 
 
 o 
 
 and settlement of the country, and it cannot 
 procure the articles necessary for the support 
 and comfort of the inhabitants. In England 
 they fatten cattle with sugar, which has no longer 
 any commercial price ; that commodity does not 
 bring, in the market of London, the first cost in 
 
 * 6 to 7 cents, currency of the United States, 
 f 1 2 to 1 4 cents, idem.
 
 190 
 
 America, with the addition of the charges of 
 transportation and duties in England. In the 
 miserable little island of Heligoland, where the 
 English have been reduced to form a mart for 
 their colonial produce arid manufactures, in 
 order to smuggle them into the continent, su^ar 
 
 00 * CT 
 
 does not sell for above 75 to 80 centimes (15 to 
 16 cents) a 'pound, coffee not above 85 to 90 
 centimes (17 to 18 cents;) the contraband tra- 
 ders dare not buy at a higher rate ; and this 
 rock, hitherto disdained by the inhabitants of 
 the banks of the Elbe and the Weser, and the 
 coasts of the Noth Sea, has become, for the 
 commerce of Great Britain, an object of as much 
 importance as the markets of -London and 
 Cadiz. 
 
 Finally, the ware houses in England are glut- 
 ted with colonial produce, and the coffers of the 
 merchants empty of specie ; they have mer- 
 chandize beyond measure ; and yet they possess 
 no disposable fund ; the manufactories consume 
 an immense quantity of raw materials, and their 
 productions are heaped up and buried in places 
 of deposit ; this fatal abundance by turns,
 
 191 
 
 cause and effect, becomes, at length, a source of 
 impoverishment and ruin, because neither the 
 government nor individuals can disgorge this 
 merchandize on the continent of Europe. It is 
 no longer in the power of the merchant, or the 
 state, to repay the value of the merchandize to 
 the owners, the manufacturers, the workmen, 
 and the capitalists whose labour, subsistance, 
 and fortune it represents ; labour and fortune 
 which must, however, answer for the great ma- 
 jority of the taxes and imposts necessary to 
 nourish public credit, and give life to the bank 
 and the government Individual bankruptcies 
 multiply ; the government is obliged ttf estab- 
 lish loan offices, to make advances in order to 
 afford aid to commerce ; and on all sides fore- 
 boding symptoms accumulate, precursors of 
 those great revolutions which occasion the total 
 overthrow of states. 
 
 One might make an enormous book of the 
 misfortunes and losses already produced in Eng- 
 land by commercial distress ; it is however on- 
 'ly at its commencement, and in affairs of trade.
 
 192 
 
 the progression from discredit to ruin is terrible. 
 Although the commercial state of Great Britain 
 is no longer a mistery to well informed persons, 
 we shall take the liberty to give some details on 
 this subject : they will serve, it is hoped, to con- 
 vince the most devoted partisans of the English 
 ministry, of the necessity under which England 
 is placed of having speedy recourse to a pacific 
 system, which will satisfy and guaranty the ma- 
 ritime and commercial interests of the different 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 The cities of London, Manchester, Birming- 
 ham, Liverpool, Glasgow, Lancaster, Sheffield, 
 Dublin, &c. in the three kingdoms, are those 
 which exhibit the greatest manufacturing im- 
 portance ; the effects produced by the treaty of 
 commerce, concluded between the cabinets of 
 Versailles and London in 1786, and many cir- 
 cumstances occasioned by the French revolu- 
 tion, contributed to increase the activity and 
 advancement of the manufactories of Great Bri- 
 tain; the country was exhausted to fill the towns 
 
 
 
 with workmen and artisans, and England was en-
 
 193 
 
 abled, at the beginning of the nineteenth centu- 
 ry, to glut the European continent with her 
 manufactured productions. 
 
 Political conjunctures having, as it were, se- 
 parated the new world from Europe, the Eng- 
 lish fleets obtained, in America, a supremacy 
 against which it became impossible to contend ; 
 so that Great Britain had at her disposal, all the 
 productions of the West Indies. That nation 
 then appeared to be master of all the trade of 
 Europe; and the English ministry thought 
 themselves so completely the arbiters of the con- 
 tinent, that they went so far as to threaten Eu- 
 rope with depriving it entirely of colonial pro- 
 duce. The Emperor Napoleon then had re- 
 course to the only means which were possible, to 
 oppose with success the commercial monopoly 
 of England ; the interdiction of all commerce 
 with that country, and the burning of its mer- 
 chandize. Europe, almost entirely, has been 
 closed against colonial produce and the manu- 
 factured productions of Great Britain, and that 
 
 25
 
 194 
 
 power no longer finds any other markets open 
 to her than those of South America, 
 
 But it is not sufficient for the English com- 
 merce to have an opening in South America ; 
 buyers must be found there, whose wants, whose 
 abilities and whose numbers must be in propor- 
 tion to the surplus quantity of English goods. 
 Most assuredly it is not to the people of South 
 America that England can sell the produce of 
 the West Indies; all the productions of the two 
 Indies are indigenous to South America, or may 
 be naturalized in its climates, except tea, for 
 which the herb of Paraguay serves as a substi- 
 tute, in a great part of that country : but 
 Great Britain has flattered herself with the ex- 
 pectation of finding in the Spanish and Portu- 
 guese possessions, an immense opening for the 
 production of the industry and manufactures of 
 the three kingdoms ; it was a false and even an 
 absurd hope ; already it has vanished ! 
 
 The events which opened South America to 
 the English flag have deceived the avidity of the 
 merchants, and misled the prudence of the go- 
 vernment ; all the traders of the manufacturing
 
 195 
 
 towns have made great speculations ; they have 
 overstocked South America with their goods ; 
 the Spanish and Portuguese markets of the new 
 world have been overloaded in the most extra- 
 ordinary manner, and exhibit a general glut; 
 the population of this country, in regard to its 
 extent, is so inconsiderable, that its wants are 
 quite limited, and in many respects indicated 
 and restrained by the climate ; it has consequent- 
 ly consumed but a small part of the goods car- 
 ried there ; the rest remain unsold in the store 
 houses, and have greatly fallen in price : the 
 merchants who had made these shipments have 
 found themselves, as was very natural to pre- 
 sume, unable to satisfy their engagements at 
 home ; great failures have consequently taken 
 place in many commercial and banking houses 
 in the three kingdoms ; the manufacturers have 
 not been paid by the merchants, and have also 
 been forced to fail, and discharge the whole or 
 part of their workmen, according to the resour- 
 ces which were still left to them ; the work has 
 been reduced one half; thousands of workmen
 
 106 
 
 find themselves without employment and with- 
 out bread ; the price of the articles manufactur- 
 ed has fallen three fifths ; all classes of the na- 
 tion have been exposed to bankruptcies more 
 or less considerable ; gold and silver have be- 
 come every day more scarce ; bank bills have 
 experienced a depreciation hitherto unknown in 
 England ; houses established on the most solid 
 foundation have been on the eve of declaring 
 their insolvency ; the two houses which had the 
 disposal, in some degree, of the credit and loans 
 of government, have sunk under the weight of 
 their merchandize and their bills ; distrust has 
 become general ; a vast number of workshops 
 are idle in a great part of the three kingdoms ; 
 the manufacturers are obliged to remain inac- 
 tive, and commerce has experienced such dis- 
 tress, a distress of so long a duration, that the 
 government has been obliged to afford aid to the 
 manufacturers and tradesmen of the three king- 
 doms : parliament has granted them a loan of 
 6,000,000 sterling, to enable them to fulfil a 
 part of their engagements.
 
 197 
 
 
 This assistance may palliate the evil for a 
 
 short time, it is inadequate to cure it. It is not 
 6,000,000 sterling more, thrown into circulation, 
 which will re-establish commercial credit in 
 England; 50 or 100,000,000 sterling would not 
 produce that effect ; even were the government 
 able to grant so large a sum without giving a 
 mortal stab to public credit : it is the markets 
 on the continent that are necessary to give life 
 and motion to the commerce of England! It is 
 only the opening of the former markets of Eu- 
 rope that can save Great Britain from the alarm- 
 ing crisis in which she is placed, and it is in this 
 respect that it may be justly said, that the fate of 
 England is at the disposal of the Emperor Na- 
 poleon. 
 
 The ministers vainly draw a comparison be- 
 tween the actual distress, and that which the 
 commerce of England experienced in 1793; 
 they are deluded with the hopes, that Smith 
 America will afford a vast opening to English 
 manufactures. The chancellor of the exche- 
 quer in vain may observe, " that it is proved,
 
 198 
 
 tc from thirty years experience, that a glut in a 
 " market is very soon followed by a scarcity ;" 
 he vainly flatters himself that " the markets of 
 " South America, at present overstocked with 
 " goods, will empty themselves insensibly, and 
 " that in a year's time, the increased demand 
 " will carry off, besides what is annually made, 
 " all that may be manufactured in the interval," 
 &c. This is false reasoning, or rather it is de- 
 ceiving himself voluntarily, with the intention 
 to mislead the public opinion. In every kind 
 of commerce, the quantity of merchandize to be 
 imported into a country ought to be calculated 
 by the number of consumers; and certainly, 
 South America ought to possess a population of 
 fifty millions of inhabitants, in order to give 
 sufficient vent in that country to the manufac- 
 tured productions of Great Britain ; besides, 
 they may establish manufactures at home, and 
 the United States, on their side, will be eager to 
 carry them a part of the productions of their 
 industry. The continent of South America 
 labours under a revolutionary fever, which ren-
 
 199 
 
 ders events uncertain, and which may occasion 
 confiscations and dangers of a very serious na- 
 ture to commerce, in those provinces and king- 
 doms. The state of fermentation in which 
 South America is placed, demands a serious and 
 dispassionate attention ; it would be acting with 
 great indiscretion to establish a system of com- 
 merce with that country, before it has taken a 
 consistent and stable form. 
 
 Spanish America, moreover, is connected 
 with Spain and Europe by such strong ties, that 
 we may be permitted to believe, that those pro- 
 vinces will feel the necessity of rallying round 
 their mother country, when the pacification of 
 Spain shall guaranty to South America an 
 honourable enjoyment of the rights which be- 
 long to it. 
 
 When they compare the present distressed 
 state of the English commerce with that which 
 it felt in 1793, when they speak of thirty years 
 experience, to compare purchases with sales, 
 they commit a very great mistake. 
 
 In 1793, the whole continent of Europe was 
 open to England, and although that power wa
 
 200 
 
 not at war with France, the English flag earned 
 its merchandize even into the center of that 
 kingdom ; the French revolution prodigiously 
 augmented the exportations of England ; scarce- 
 ly could they suffice to the demands which mul- 
 tiplied from all parts of the continent. It was 
 with her merchandize that England subsidized 
 the powers that declared war against France ; it 
 was at this period that the lower classes of socie- 
 ty contracted a fondness for the manufactured 
 productions of England, the consumption of 
 which at length became a habit in France. The 
 men who were at the head of the French govern- 
 ment, if, indeed, it be permitted to give this 
 name to a similar interregnum, were too much 
 occupied in saving the country from monarchy, 
 and in repulsing the armies of the continental 
 powers ; besides, it would have been very diffi- 
 cult to oppose serious obstacles to the introduc- 
 tion of English merchandize, when every state 
 opened its territory to the importation of it. 
 But the face of Europe has been changed for the 
 last ten years ; a great man is seated on the
 
 201 
 
 throne of France ; he wishes to promote the 
 grandeur of this empire ; his resolutions are those 
 of wisdom and genius, and his power is as un- 
 bounded as his genius ! 
 
 If the British government had not succeeded, 
 during the three last years, in introducing her 
 colonial produce into the north of Germany 
 and the Adriatic, by making use of false colours 
 and false papers, by using every species of fraud 
 and corruption which English cupidity could 
 imagine, it is highly probable that a general dis- 
 content would have already broken out in the 
 three kingdoms ; it is not easy to foresee the 
 dangers to which a similar commotion would 
 expose the royal authority. That extension of 
 the commerce of Great Britain which is out of 
 all proportion to the resources of the population 
 and the territory, is one of the great causes 
 which is preparing the fall of that power, and 
 which will render it inevitable, if the cabinet of 
 London do not hasten to come to an accommoda- 
 tion with the maritime nations, if they do not 
 
 adhere to a continental peace. Let the English 
 
 26
 
 202 
 
 cabinet persist in that system of universal 
 monopoly, of war of extermination, which they 
 have so madly adopted and 39 ridiculously exe- 
 cuted, a system' which, at the present day, pre- 
 sents no danger but to England herself, and a 
 strict and absolute prohibition of English mer- 
 chandize on the European continent, will suffice 
 to effect the political ruin and annihilation of 
 Great Britain ! 
 
 On the subject of this system of monopoly 
 and maritime tyranny, let us listen to one of the 
 greatest statesmen of the three kingdoms ; 
 " Among precaution^ against ambition, it may 
 " not be amiss to take one precaution against 
 " our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own 
 " power, and our own ambition, I dread our be- 
 " ing two much dreaded. It is ridiculous to say 
 " we are not men, and that, as men, we shall 
 n never wish to aggrandize ourselves in some 
 " way or other. Can we say, that even at thig 
 " very hour we are not invidiously aggrandized? 
 " We are already in possession of almost all the 
 " commerce of the world. Our empire in 
 " India is an awful thing. If we should come
 
 203 
 
 " to be in a condition not only to have all this 
 " ascendant in commerce, but to be absolutely 
 " able, without fhe least controul, to hold the 
 " commerce of all other nations totally depend- 
 " ant upon our good pleasure, we may say, that 
 " we shall not abuse this astonishing; and hither- 
 
 O 
 
 " to unheard of pow r er. But every other nation 
 " will think we shall abuse it. 
 
 " It is impossible but that, sooner or later, 
 " this state of things must produce a combination 
 " against us w r hich may end in our ruin." 
 
 This is what was published in London, in 
 1793, by one of the greatest statesmen of Great 
 Britain ; a man distinguished, during the whole 
 course of his political career, for his devotion to 
 the glory and interests of his country ; an Eng- 
 lishman, all of whose writings, at that time, bore 
 the character of violent animadversion on the 
 French government! 
 
 At present it is easy to appreciate the justness 
 and profound views of the emperor of the 
 French, in his decrees of Berlin and Milan. 
 
 There are few ideai so liberal as that of
 
 204 
 
 the liberty of the seas. But the government of 
 France has, in vain, for a century past, made 
 every effort to establish in Europe a maritime 
 legislation, which would favour the navigation of 
 every nation in time of peace, and insure that 
 of neutrals in time of war ; the British ministry 
 have constantly disavowed, outraged, and tram- 
 pled upon the rights of nations ; that ministry 
 have admitted the justice of the principle in 
 their own favour, but they have never suffered 
 the application and the exercise of it in favour of 
 other nations. When Spain, using an incon- 
 testable right of sovereignty, established guard 
 boats (guardas costas) in order to repress the 
 plundering committed by the English in the 
 Gulf of Mexico : " By what right," exclaimed 
 Walpole in full parliament, l< does Spain pre- 
 " tend to assume maritime empire in America ? 
 " Is not the sea free and common to all nations ?" 
 The same nation which had constituted itself 
 tyrant of the seas by the navigation act, wished 
 then to appear the avenger of the freedom of 
 commerce ; and it was in the name of the
 
 205 
 
 liberty of the seas that the cabinet of St. .Tames 
 justified its declaration of war against Spain. 
 In the war of 1778, that cabinet acknowledged 
 
 ^ ^j 
 
 the armed neutrality of the powers of the north ; 
 but they were indebted for this benefit to the 
 intervention and protection of the cabinet of 
 Versailles: the maritime force of France and 
 the embarrassments of Great Britain, did not 
 then permit the English government to violate 
 that neutrality. 
 
 The French government has proclaimed the 
 freedom of navigation, it has, at all times, pro- 
 tected the maritime rights of nations. From 
 the reign of Henry II. till the last years of 
 Lewis XVI. all the royal ordinances of France 
 have tended to the preservation of these rights; 
 we even see Lewis XIV. granting privileges to 
 the Hanse Towns, to the Danes and to the Dutch, 
 at the expense of the commerce of his own sub- 
 jects. 
 
 In England, since the time of Cromwell, there 
 has not been promulgated a single regulation, a 
 single act, which has not been directed against
 
 206 
 
 the navigation and rights of the different nations 
 of Europe. 
 
 We have only to open the collection of acts 
 of parliament and orders of council of Great 
 Britain to find, in every year, in every month, 
 for a hundred and fifty years past, the most vio- 
 lent laws, the most iniquitous regulations, the 
 most rigorous obstacles, promulgated against 
 the navigation, the commerce, the industry and 
 
 the trade of every European nation. Portugal 
 
 i 
 
 has been compelled, since the treaty of Lisbon, 
 1703, to deliver to the English all the produc- 
 tions of her soil, and to receive from England 
 colonial produce and English manufactures, at 
 the prices, and under the rates of duties which 
 it pleased the cabinet of London to establish. 
 That cabinet, it must be confessed, has given 
 proof of superior cunning and foresight when- 
 ever a treaty of commerce was in question: I shall 
 cite one example ; it will show to all nations 
 with what prudence and precautions they ought 
 to consent to a commercial treaty with England. 
 In 1667 a treaty of commerce was concluded be-
 
 207 
 
 tween Spain and England, the principal articles 
 of which the cabinet of London has never ceas- 
 ed to insist upon, in all the subsequent treaties 
 with that power, as a basis of navigation. This 
 treaty was signed the 23d of May, 1 667 ; and the 
 next day, Mr. W. Godolphin, secretary of the 
 British legation, and principal author of the trea- 
 ty, wrote to Lord Arlington : " The commercial 
 " treaty which I had the honour to promise 
 " your Lordship, includes not only all the pri- 
 " vileges granted to every other nation what- 
 " ever, but some others also which have never been 
 " enjoyed by any other nation, and which lintro- 
 " duced in a way that the council of Madrid did 
 " not know the importance of them. I do not think 
 u that Spain, for a hundred years past, has made 
 " a convention which I have not studied as a les- 
 " son, in order to be assured of the perfection of 
 " this ; I have done every thing that was possi- 
 " ble in order that the privileges granted to our 
 " commerce may surpass the privileges, immu- 
 " nities and beneficial clauses hitherto granted, 
 " or which may hereafter be granted to the most 
 rt ckristian king, to the States General of t))
 
 208 
 
 " United Provinces, to the Hanse Towns, &c. 
 " Our merchants have a right to appoint their 
 " own lawyers, agents, solicitors, &c. which the 
 " judges of the country are obliged to acknow- 
 " ledge as often as the case may occur. Final- 
 " ly, for the great perfection of the treaty, I 
 " have carefully examined every treaty which 
 " Spain has made with any other country, all the 
 " declarations in favour of our different facto- 
 " ries, and have received no complaint from 
 " them, nor any new demand for their advantage: 
 " it is true, that besides the franchises and com- 
 " mercial advantages which this crown had be- 
 " fore granted to other nations, we obtain stipu- 
 " lations of which I have no where found any 
 " example." 
 
 The treaty of Amiens will be a monument of 
 the liberality of principles and loyalty of con- 
 duct manifested on the part of the cabinet of the 
 Thuilleries ; that magnanimous condescendence, 
 that longanimity of patience and of endeavours, 
 with which the Emperor of the French has invi- 
 ted the British government to recognise a mari
 
 209 
 
 time legislation conformable to the dignity of 
 crowns, will ever do honour to the imperial ca- 
 binet 
 
 Moderation and equity dictated the preten- 
 sions of France ; she stipulated in favour of eve- 
 ry people. England having violated the treaty 
 of Amiens, that government no longer being 
 willing to admit any other maritime laws than 
 those which it pleased the cabinet of London to 
 publish ; navigation and the interests of mark 
 time nations being found at the mercy of the or- 
 ders in council, there remained to France but one 
 means of recovering the sovereignty of flags 
 an extreme means : it was to interdict the com- 
 merce of England with the continent of Europe, 
 until the naval forces of the Empire and of its 
 allies could contend, upon an equal footing, 
 with those of England, and compel that power 
 to consent to the liberty of the seas. All the 
 political transactions of the cabinet of the Thuil- 
 leries, since the treaty of Amiens, give proof of 
 an inviolable respect for maritime rights, of an 
 excessive moderation in colonial pretensions of 
 
 27
 
 210 
 
 a remarkable frankness in commercial guarari- 
 ties. A conduct so noble, so constantly pacific, 
 was conformable to the true interests of the Eng- 
 lish people ; but the ministers, dazzled by that 
 immense superiority of naval force which was 
 necessarily to place in their power all the colo- 
 nies of the West Indies, misled by the ambition 
 and the faults of the great continental powers, 
 who adhered to the will of the cabinet of Lon- 
 don, have obstinately persevered in the war sys- 
 tem adopted by Mr. Pitt ; they have prepared 
 the overthrow of Europe, rather than renounce 
 the tyranny exercised by the British flag on the 
 seas. The seizure of the Spanish frigates, and 
 the assassination of the seamen in time of perfect 
 peace, the atrocious invasion of Copenhagen, 
 the violation of the port of Constantinople, the 
 emigration of the court of Portugal, the civil war 
 in Spain ; the cowardly abandonment of the Em- 
 peror of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the 
 King of Sweden, in the midst of dangers and 
 disasters brought upon them by the conduct of 
 England; enterprises of burning and devasta- 

 
 211 
 
 tion directed, in contempt of the laws of war 
 and of nations, against the ports of the enemy, 
 of neutrals, and of allies ; an uninterrupted se- 
 ries of piracies and extortions practised against 
 the commerce of every people : such is the rule 
 of conduct adopted by the British government, 
 from the treaty of Amiens to this day. 
 
 It is this atrocious and enraged policy of the 
 British ministry, which, from the year 1792, has 
 armed Europe against the French monarchy ; 
 since 1704, it has excited, one by one, all the 
 great powers againt the French empire ; coali- 
 tion after coalition, treaty after treaty, subsidy 
 after subsidy, it has rendered necessary, inevita- 
 ble and just, the ruin or the diminution of the po- 
 litical influence of every ally of Great Britain : 
 but it little concerns the British ministry to wit- 
 ness the misfortunes of sovereigns, the fall of 
 thrones, the desolations of people ! The ministe- 
 rial partizans have not been afraid to utter in 
 full parliament (1807) the following maxims: 
 " That the weakness of the continental powers 
 " constituted the strength of Great Britain ; that
 
 212 
 
 " the system hitherto pursued by the ministers 
 " was wise and good, since England profited at 
 " little expense, by all the agitations of Europe ; 
 " that she was prospering whilst the people of the 
 <c continent were exhausting themselves ; that 
 *' she was maintaining herself gloriously, whilst 
 " the other powers were sinking by piecemeals ; 
 *' that she was making conquests, whilst they were 
 c< losing their slates. Prudence requires that we 
 " should consider all nations as our enemies, in 
 " this sense, at least, that we ought always to be 
 " apprehensive of seeing their forces successive- 
 a ly directed against us ; consequently the most 
 " fortunate thing that could happen to England, 
 " would be to see their forces exhaust, weaken 
 *' and consume themselves among one another, 
 " whilst ours are preserved untouched. Our 
 " ministers are Englishmen, and not Prussians, 
 " Russians, Austrians, or Swedes ; we want mi- 
 " nisters who see and seek only the interests of 
 " England ; ministers, then, conduct themselves 
 " wisely and usefully when they extend the com- 
 " merce and dominion of England, by employing 
 < { forces that might be totally sacrificed in extra-
 
 813 
 
 " vagant expeditions, to defend people who arc 
 " strangers to our existence ; ministers then merit 
 " the confidence of the English nation, when, at 
 "so little expense; and almost without the na- 
 " tion's incurring any danger, they maintain so 
 '' long a war, and so disastrous a one for other 
 " people," &c. 
 
 Ambition, avarice and selfishness have never 
 advanced more execrable language ; it is that of 
 Machiavel in delirium. Ought we now to be as- 
 tonished, if, after having excited every govern- 
 ment to make war, the ministry of St. James 
 have deserted every post of alliance and of ho- 
 nour, if they have only made useless diversions, 
 and such even as were contrary to the true inte- 
 rest of their allies ? 
 
 England has made no efforts to prevent the 
 dismemberment of the Swedish monarchy ; in 
 
 * 
 
 favour of Austria she has attempted only absurd 
 and ridiculous expeditions in Holland ; all her 
 military assistance in favour of the ancient court 
 of Naples w r as confined to acts of rapine and com- 
 plots of assassination, she has not made a single 
 useful movement to protect Prussia on the coasts
 
 214 
 
 of the Baltic, or on the banks of the Vistula ; if 
 she afterwards transported some bodies of troops 
 to the gulph of Gascony or the Tagus, is was 
 riot seriously to defend the peninsula ; she wish- 
 ed to keep up a spirit of revolt and a system of 
 robbery on the Spanish and Portuguese territo- 
 ries ; these troops land on the shores of their al- 
 lies, in order to carry on a smuggling trade; they 
 fight, in the last extremity, solely to reserve to 
 themselves the facility of making a retreat, and 
 gaining their ships ; they see the places of their 
 allies capitulate under heaps of ashes, without 
 having attempted to aid them ; and, in reality, 
 the war is finished for the English armies on the 
 continent. The ministry consider this war as 
 favourable, glorious for Great Britain, when her 
 admirals have landed some thousand bales of 
 merchandize, when her generals have succeeded 
 in maintaining themselves during some months 
 on the territory of their allies : for nobody can 
 doubt of the issue which the Spanish war must 
 have ; arid the delays of pacification which the 
 peninsula experiences, will show, in a more for-
 
 215 
 
 eible manner, the inutility of the efforts of Em*- 
 land to perpetuate divisions and troubles there. 
 
 Such is the nature of that noble assistance, 
 which, for these nine years, Great Britain 
 has granted to her allies : surely, the result of 
 this policy could not be doubtful ! It must ne- 
 cessarily have brought back, and it has brought 
 back the European powers to a system of true 
 alliances and respective interests, a system the 
 more firmly established as Austria has adopted 
 
 the only wise policy which could insure a con- 
 
 
 tinental peace. 
 
 The wisdom and the virtues which distinguish 
 the Emperor Francis I. the love which this sove- 
 reign bears his people, whose benedictions are 
 poured upon him every day, have liberated the 
 Austrian states from that hostile vassallage 
 which the cabinet of London had imposed on 
 them. 
 
 It was with royal dignity and loyalty that the 
 Emperor Francis I. appeared before the van- 
 quisher of his states : antiquity had never seen 
 a conqueror exhibit the example which the Em- 
 peror Napoleon showed in Austria ; he retired
 
 216 
 
 from the gratitude of the conquered people; 
 he did not wish to deprive them either of 
 their fidelity or of their devotion to their sove- 
 reign : " He wished not to rob his subjects of 
 any of the sentiments which they owed to their 
 prince." An inspiration so noble, thoughts so 
 elevated, must have triumphed over all jealousy, 
 over every hatred fomented for two centuries 
 by England : the monarch of the Danube has 
 preserved all the dignity of his crown; and 
 when his brave armies were incapable of resist- 
 ing him, to whom every thing must yield, the 
 emperor Francis I. increased the power and the 
 glory of his illustrious house, by contracting 
 with the court of France an alliance which 
 promises to Europe long years of prosperity and 
 peace. 
 
 The sovereign of Prussia has lost a part of 
 his provinces, for having permitted English pas- 
 sions and avarice to prevail in his councils ; that 
 sovereign, as soon as he desired it, recovered a 
 natural ally in the cabinet of the Thuilleries, a 
 protector of the liberty of Prussian commerce.
 
 217 
 
 The king of Sweden was on the point of seeing 
 his monarchy effaced from the number of pow- 
 ers, because he had submitted his sceptre to or- 
 ders emanating from the cabinet of London ; he 
 has lost his crown. The intrigues of England 
 have occasioned the dispossessing of the king of 
 Sardinia, of the ancient king o4]ie two Sicilies, 
 of the stadtholder of Holland, of the^aqcient so- 
 vereigns of Hesse, of the Duchy of Brunswick, 
 of the Roman States, &c. ; Genoa, Venice* Flo- 
 rence, the Hanse Towns, Holland, Switzerland, 
 all the provinces of Germany, have sought their 
 preservation or their prosperity in the protection 
 
 and generosity of the emperor of the French. 
 
 c 
 
 Spain and Portugal have seen their provinces 
 laid waste, all the evils of war are still kept up 
 there, by that English policy which desires that 
 the continental powers should weaken and con- 
 sume themselves, in order that the merchants of 
 London may sell sugar and coffee : and when 
 the calamities of so many princes, so much pub- 
 lic distress, has been spread over the continent, 
 
 2B
 
 218 
 
 what is the indemnity offered to sovereigns and 
 people by the cabinet of London ? Subsidies 
 pompously announced, long time expected, paid 
 in goods> or sparingly remitted in that same gold 
 which English merchandize had drawn from 
 their country, and which English merchandize is 
 sent again to squeeze from the nations which 
 confide in the faith of British treaties, and aban- 
 don themselves to the promises of assistance so 
 profusely given by the cabinet of London. 
 
 It was for some thousand pounds weight of 
 sugar, some bales of India muslin, that rich mo- 
 narchies, powerful states, compromised their 
 existence, and abandoned their people to all the 
 miseries of war ; it was to introduce her mer- 
 chandize on the continent, to complete the spo- 
 liation and fuin of every maritime nation, that 
 England tore Europe from its foundations, and 
 precipitated sovereigns and people into the gulf 
 of destruction. 
 
 Let us speak of it to day as impartial pos- 
 terity will speak of it ! Europe was dissolved, 
 arts, sciences, civilization were lost, if, in those 
 fatal circumstances, the cabinet of the Thuille-
 
 219 
 
 ries had not given to all nations the noble exam- 
 ple of interdicting British commerce in their 
 states, and prohibiting the consumption of Eng- 
 lish merchandize ; if the Emperor Napoleon 
 had not opposed, by the decrees of Berlin and 
 Milan, an insurmountable barrier and check to 
 the maritime despotism and commercial mono* 
 poly of Great Britain. 
 
 The negociations and the letters of the empe- 
 ror of the French, the object of which, for eight 
 years past, has been to recall the government of 
 England to pacific measures, will attest to every 
 age, the moderation and grandeur of soul of that 
 sovereign. He had limited the frontiers of the 
 French empire to the banks of the Rhine ; he 
 had assigned to every state a political influence, 
 equally favourable to its power, and to the 
 peace of the continent ; every social maxim, 
 every principle conservatory of authority, of or- 
 der, of property, had received a sacred and an in- 
 violable guaranty from the Emperor Napoleon ; 
 he desired the prosperity of his Empire, the 
 peace of Europe, the happiness of nations. In
 
 this noble wish, the monarch whose eagles are 
 invincible, whose armies know not how to lose a 
 battle, this warrior did honour to himself in of- 
 fering to England a political moderation and 
 condescension which ought to have insured the 
 peace of the world ! The cabinet of London 
 have rejected every pacific proposition, they have 
 eluded every conciliatory demonstration pre- 
 sented after every triumph, after every con- 
 quest, offered at Austerlitz, at Tilsit, at Erfurt, 
 at Vienna, at Paris, at Madrid ; and that cabi- 
 net have said : Perish Europe, perish every so- 
 vereign, before Great Britain will renounce the 
 sceptre of the seas ! 
 
 Thus the emperor of the French has been 
 compelled to create the confederation of the 
 Rhine, the kingdom of Italy, the great dutchy of 
 Warsaw, the Illyrian provinces; he has been 
 compelled to re-establish the kingdoms of Na- 
 ples, of Portugal, and of Spain ; he has been 
 forced to unite under the imperial sceptre, the 
 provinces of Holland, of Tuscany, of the Ro- 
 jnan States, the Hanse Towns, the mouths of the
 
 221 
 
 Elbe and the Weser ; or in other words, it is 
 thus that the emperor of the French has found 
 himself under the indispensable necessity of 
 saving Europe from an approaching dissolution, 
 and from an eternal succession of wars, bv 
 
 v 
 
 giving it the French empire and its genius, as a 
 center of force, of protection, and of defence. 
 
 By these unions, and this disposition of power, 
 the continent is restored to peace ; great conti- 
 nental wars are become nearly impossible ; their 
 duration, at least, cannot be long ! The powers 
 allied to France are aggrandized ; they may ex- 
 pect to see their prosperity increase with their 
 fidelity to this tutelary alliance ; the different 
 provinces incorporated with the French empire 
 have no longer to dread the agitations and dan- 
 gers to which they were, for so long a time, a 
 prey j they enjoy the benefits and partake of the 
 glory of the imperial government ; Europe is, at 
 length, restored to herself, and all the maritime 
 nations are called upon to enjoy the commer- 
 cial advantages which paturally belong to them, 
 to exercise that portion of industry which com-
 
 222 
 
 ports with their territory. Such is the situation 
 of the continent. 
 
 The situation of England grows worse, and 
 becomes every day more ruinous, more disas- 
 trous, more critical. A parliament whose de- 
 bates exhibit at every session, new scandals, a 
 greater dilapidation, discoveries more alarming ; 
 a succession of ministers that no chastisement 
 can reach, a series of corruptions that no regu- 
 lation ean prevent; embarrassed finances, a 
 bank and a government on the eve of failure ; 
 an assize of taxes and imposts which the territo- 
 rial revenue of Great Britain cannot acquit, the 
 greatest part of which is founded on the produce 
 and profits of commerce, and which the whole 
 consumption of the subjects of the three king- 
 doms cannot enable the government to aug- 
 ment ; a deficit between the receipts and the ex- 
 penditure of the state, almost as great as the ter- 
 ritorial revenue of the three kingdoms ; an im- 
 measurable importation of merchandize from the 
 two Indies, which no longer finds any buyers on 
 the European continent ; an annual succession
 
 223 m 
 
 of loans; a public debt, the capital of which 
 would nearly absorb the territorial value of 
 Great Britain ; the gold and the blood of the 
 brave English nation prodigally wasted in ex- 
 peditions ill-conceived, always ill-timed, and 
 necessarily disastrous; the markets and ware- 
 houses in England over stocked with a dead 
 value, glutted with produce, the consumption of 
 which is impossible in her interior, the sale im- 
 possible on the continent ; an enormous mass of 
 paper money and bank bills ; the disappearance 
 and progressive dearness of gold and silver coin, 
 either domestic or foreign ; an exchange and 
 commercial relations every day more unfavour- 
 able ; innumerable and important failures ; the 
 credit of the public funds shaken, and more un- 
 certain than ever before; manufactures and 
 workshops either deserted, or overloaded with 
 productions, the value of which is diminishing 
 daily in the hands of the owner and artisan ; a 
 quarter of the active population reduced to the 
 necessity of receiving aid from public charity, 
 or of drawing subsistence from the poor rates ;
 
 224 
 
 a general want of confidence, a stifled fermen- 
 tation in all classes of society ; every cabinet of 
 Europe shut against the agents, every port of 
 the continent against the flag of Great Britain ; 
 relations and affairs with South America incon- 
 siderable and absolutely uncertain, with North 
 America embroiled and squally ; a third of the 
 population of the three kingdoms under the 
 yoke of the most iniquitous restrictions, oppress- 
 ed by sanguinary laws, constantly ready, in Ire- 
 land, to shake off British dominion ; a throne 
 old and tottering ; a royal authority shaken by 
 the despotism and political usurpations of the 
 ministers ; an alarming versatility in the resolu- 
 tions of the cabinet, in the orders of the council, 
 in the direction of the land and sea forces ; in 
 short, all the symptoms internal and external, 
 which announce the fall of a state and presage 
 the dissolution of a body politic. 
 
 The system and the violence of the maritime 
 laws of the cabinet of London, have brought 
 about this deplorable staje of things ; for it is 
 these laws which have rendered necessary the 
 measures employed by the government of
 
 225 
 
 France, in its decrees of Berlin and Milan* 
 From the moment that the cabinet of London 
 obstinately rejected every conciliatory proposi- 
 tion, that they were determined to perpetuate 
 continental hostilities and extend the ravages of 
 maritime tyranny, there remained to the cabinet 
 of the Tuileries no other means to insure the 
 repose and commercial independence of nations, 
 than that of attacking the commerce, that is to 
 say, the finances and public credit, which in Eng- 
 land maintain the naval forces and political 
 power of the state. The Berlin and Milan de- 
 crees have already, in part, attained this object ; 
 the strict execution of the measures enjoined by 
 these decrees, in France and in the allied states, 
 must end in effecting the commercial ruin of 
 Great Britain. These decrees are essentially 
 conformable to the nature of things, to political 
 right, to the laws of nations, since they are only 
 reprisals exercised against the orders of council, 
 published by England in 1806 against the navi- 
 gation and commerce of neutral nations. The 
 
 29
 
 226 
 
 cabinet of London have violated, by the orders 
 of council, every principle, every stipulation, 
 which they had recognised and sanctioned by 
 the 17th and 18th articles of the treaty of navi- 
 gation concluded at Utrecht ; these articles ad- 
 mit a free navigation not only from enemy 
 places to a neutral place, but also from one 
 place of an enemy to another place of an ene- 
 my ; they stipulate with respect to ships and 
 merchandize, " that free ships shall make free 
 " goods, and that every thing found on board 
 " the vessels (with the exception of contraband 
 " merchandize) shall be considered as free, al- 
 " though the cargo, or a part of it, may belong 
 " to an enemy of England or of France." 
 The 24th, 25th, and 26th articles, explain and 
 fix the right of visit at sea by armed vessels of 
 war ; they secure the liberty of the persons on 
 board, of the goods, and of the ships : " the 26th 
 " article expressly states that the vessel, which 
 " shall be met with, and the merchandize found 
 " on board (except contraband) shall not be de- 
 " tained under the pretext of her being laden
 
 
 227 
 
 " with prohibited articles, and still less corifisca- 
 " ted as legitimate prize. The vessel visited, 
 " after having shown her sea letter, and proved 
 " that she has no contraband goods on board, 
 " shall be free to pursue her voyage without be- 
 " ing obliged, in any manner whatever, to turn 
 " from the place of her destination," &c. 
 
 These are true maritime laws, such as tend to 
 diminish the horrors of war and preserve the re- 
 lations of commerce between nations ; this is the 
 independence and sovereignty of flags sanctioned 
 and guarantied. Let us now compare the orders 
 of council, promulgated in 1806 and 1807, by 
 the cabinet of London, with these stipulations, 
 and we shall perceive the whole extent of the 
 maritime tyranny which that cabinet wish to ex- 
 ercise ! England seizes the ship and the mer- 
 chandize under whatever flag they may be found 
 destined for a port of the enemy in a state of 
 blockade ; and as she extends the right of block- 
 ade not to ports so closely invested by the forces 
 of the enemy that it would not be possible to 
 enter without imminent danger, (according to
 
 228 
 
 the law generally admitted in treaties,) but to 
 the whole extent of the coasts of an empire, it 
 follows that she no longer admits of a neutral 
 flag, a flag independent of the acts that the cabi- 
 net of London tvish to enforce. 
 
 It was then just, and founded in right, that the 
 flag of neutral powers which acknowledged these 
 acts and submitted to pay the duties imposed by 
 England, should be assimilated to the English 
 flag and exposed to the same interdiction ; it 
 was then just, that all the English coasts should 
 be declared in a state of blockade, by the French 
 government; and that they should declare Eng- 
 land in a state of blockade, for those powers 
 which should submit to the pretensions and ar- 
 bitrary laws of the cabinet of London. 
 
 The decrees of Berlin and Milan essentially 
 protect the maritime rights of nations ; the dis- 
 positions sanctioned by these decrees, ought to 
 be the law, the public law of nations, as long as 
 England shall not acknowledge the independ- 
 ence and sovereignty of flags ; in this respect, 
 the negotiations and the acts of the cabinet of
 
 .229 
 
 the Tuileries, for ten years past, merit the 
 gratitude of sovereigns and people. 
 
 Politv and humanity have no charters more 
 sublime than those treaties of peace consented 
 to by the Emperor Napoleon, on the field of bat- 
 tle, where all the powers of Europe had lost the 
 right of reclaiming their independence and their 
 provinces. The Emperor has treated, he has 
 compromised in favour of every hereditary prin- 
 ciple, of every principle conservatory of social or- 
 der, in favour of a continental peace, in favour 
 of maritime liberty ; this monarch has stipulated, 
 for Europe, against the enemy of the peace of 
 Europe, and of the freedom of the seas ; he has 
 desired to preserve, of his political supremacy, 
 only the positions and advantages strictly neces- 
 sary to bring about and secure a general pacifi- 
 
 , 
 
 jcation: he has shown a grandeur, a justice, and 
 
 we venture to say, a political moderation which 
 England cannot refuse to admit. The Emperor 
 Napoleon has discovered to the universe thf 
 two great passions which fill his soul : the glo- 
 ry of the French Empire, and the prosperity of 
 every nation on the continent !
 
 230 
 
 England has obliged the Emperor of the 
 French four times to take up arms, in less than 
 ten years. At the opening of every campaign, 
 at every* battle which decided the fate of a sove- 
 reign or a state, at the conclusion of every treaty 
 of peace, England has eluded or rejected the 
 honourable propositions which were offered to 
 her, by a sovereign whose conquests are unex- 
 ampled in history : so much wisdom and glory 
 on the one side, so much obstinacy and perfidy 
 on the other, must necessarily concentrate the 
 political forces and powers of Europe under one 
 influence. It is not, therefore, ambitious calcu- 
 lations, or a desire of vain glory, which have oc- 
 casioned the new aggrandizements of the French 
 empire ; they were imperiously dictated by 
 the conjunctures that policy and British laws 
 had brought about. The cabinet of the Tuil- 
 eries found itself, by the influence of events, by 
 the very nature of things, the regulator of every 
 European interest, at the issue of a struggle in 
 which all the continental powers were reduced 
 to confess the injustice of their aggressions, the
 
 231 
 
 Machiavelian intrigues of the English cabinet, 
 the inferiority of their forces, and the inexhaus- 
 table resources of an empire directed by that un- 
 shaken firmness of soul, by that calm of genius 
 which characterize the Emperor Napoleon. 
 
 The English ministers have been completely 
 misled by the hostile system embraced, seven- 
 teen years ago, by Mr. Pitt : a system the adop- 
 tion of which, at that period, by the prime minis- 
 ter of Great Britain, under the particular cir- 
 cumstances then existing might be excused but 
 well might that minister, in his dying words, ex- 
 claim, oh my country! The successors of Mr. 
 Pitt have not attended to the difference of times, 
 of men, of circumstances; they have had no 
 idea of the character and the genius of the 
 Emperor of the French ; these men at once so 
 old in prejudices, so young in the administration 
 of great affairs, were disposed to see only 
 through the illusions of jealousy and hatred, 
 the increase of glory and strength which the 
 French empire daily received, under the scep- 
 tre of a monarch whose power and genius baffle 
 all comparison of histoiy.
 
 232 
 
 Destitute of political foresight, and we may 
 add, of talents for administration, the ministers 
 have dissipated, in ill contrived coalitions, still 
 more illy executed, the forces of all the powers 
 of Europe, and the most precious resources of 
 Great Britain. In a gigantic struggle, in which, 
 however, the success of France could not be 
 doubtful, but to extreme ignorance and preju- 
 dice, the English ministers have deprived their 
 nation of every alliance, of every support, of all 
 continental influence which might be useful to it 
 in negociations for peace, and of the resistance 
 which the continent was still making in favour 
 
 ~ 
 
 of England; they have rendered the French 
 empirfe more formidable every day ; they have 
 made that power unshakeable, by compelling 
 the Emperor Napoleon, either by the union of 
 territory, by the creation of various sovereign- 
 ties, or by a federative system of the greatest 
 strength, to occupy and retain all the expugna- 
 ble positions on the European continent. Eng- 
 land has indissolubly linked Germany, Italy, the 
 states of the Baltic sea, all the coasts of ancient
 
 233 
 
 Greece, Switzerland, and the Spains to the 
 French system; she has made the preservation 
 and prosperity of these states dependant upon 
 the protection of the cabinet of the Tuileries ; 
 she has put the last seal to a continental peace, 
 by laying between the French empire and Aus- 
 tria the foundation of a peace which the alliance 
 of the two imperial houses must render alike du- 
 rable and sincere. 
 
 The daughter of so many kings, that princess 
 whose virtues had placed her so high in the thoughts 
 of the Emperor Napoleon, has been chosen to 
 share the first throne in the universe, and the 
 house of Austria immediately shone with new 
 splendor. Dear to the French by her virtues 
 and her graces, the august empress has just ac- 
 quired immortal rights to their love and grati- 
 tude ; Maria Louisa has given birth to a race of 
 keroes, on whom will for ever repose the desti- 
 nies of France, the destinies of the world : every 
 wish, every hope of the innumerable subjects of 
 the emperor of the French is gratified ; the hap- 
 piness and glory of the empire are insured, and 
 
 30
 
 234 
 
 the imperial dynasty becomes eternal as the glory 
 of its founder ! Oh ! may he be happy, as also 
 his august consort, till the last moments of ttte 
 longest life ! May he be crowned with every 
 paternal and royal felicity ; the legislator, the 
 hero, the politician who saved France when 
 ready to be devoured by factions and conquest, 
 the warrior whose every step was marked with 
 triumphs and prodigies, the administrator whose 
 every thought is a benefit to his people ! The 
 love of the French is the only recompense worthy 
 of so great a soul ; and these ecstacies, these 
 transports of joy, this enthusiasm of tenderness, 
 and admiration, the homage of which, at the 
 cradle of the king of Rome, at the throne of the 
 Cesars, has just been offered by so many various 
 people, equally happy under the imperial scep- 
 tre ; these sentiments so sweet, so lively, show 
 to the universe whether the French people arc 
 wanting in love to their emperor and empress. 
 
 The cabinet of London has effected, in every 
 respect, in Europe, the most favourable political 
 revolution that the- French empire could desire; 
 the consequences of this revolution must pro-
 
 duce, in the general relations of commerce, u 
 change which may occasion the ruin of Ocat 
 Britain. 
 
 In vain may the maritime supremacy of Eng- 
 land, the extent of her colonial possessions, the 
 profits of that monopoly which she pretends to 
 exercise over the globe, all those warehouses 
 overloaded with the merchandize of the two 
 Indies, still dazzle superficial or prejudiced 
 minds; Great Britain carries within her bosom 
 all the principles of an approaching dissolution. 
 That power, so colossal, is now at the mercy of 
 events, which she cannot avoid but in adhering 
 to a general pacification. 
 
 Yet a little while, and the naval forces of the 
 empire will engage with the English squadrons, 
 even on their own coasts ; and already all the 
 commercial relations of the three kingdoms with 
 Europe are obstructed, and, as it were, drad. 
 A great naval engagement, won in the channel, 
 may cause the maritime power of England to 
 disappear, and open the road to London to the 
 imperial eagles of France ; and whilst thr<e day-
 
 236 
 
 of glory are coming, the absolute interdiction 
 and burning of English merchandize on the con- 
 tinent, are reaching the vitals of the public credit 
 of England, are depriving the government of the 
 means of maintaining, in a durable manner, that 
 naval force which alone protects the colonies and 
 the commerce of Great Britain, and will suffice to 
 make that power descend to the rank which its 
 territory and population assign to it in the politi- 
 cal system. 
 
 The emperor of the French has consecrated 
 these fundamental maxims of civilization, of in- 
 dustry, and of the prosperity of nations : " The 
 " rights of war are one and the same by land and 
 " by sea ; the sea is common to all nations, and 
 " ought to belong to them equally ; the flag of 
 " a neutral power ought to cover the merchan- 
 " dize and the vessel ; a port and coasts ought 
 " not to be considered in a state of blockade, 
 " but when that port and those coasts are so 
 " closely invested by the forces of the enemy, 
 " that entrance could not be made without iin- 
 " minent danger." Maritime independence, the 
 sovereignty of flags, the prosperity and com-
 
 237 
 
 mercial rights of every people, arc comprised 
 in these principles: the cabinet of France ac- 
 knowledge and proclaim them, the cabinet of 
 England are not willing to admit them, they 
 will not suffer the exercise of them ; England 
 pretends to an exclusive dominion over the sea?, 
 and it is to become masters of the commerce of 
 the globe, in order to ravish from all nations 
 their wealth and their industry, that the cabinet 
 of London have provoked the fall of so many 
 states, and that they still deluge Portugal and 
 Spain with blood. 
 
 When a monarch repels and combats to the 
 last extremity, a maritime code so injurious to 
 the peace and rights of nations, as is the mari- 
 time code of Great Britain, that monarch may 
 justly be regarded as the benefactor of man- 
 kind ! 
 
 The dignity, the repose, the interests of every 
 European state, therefore, require that sove- 
 reigns should unite, in good faith, their efforts to 
 those of the emperor of the French, in order to 
 put an end to that system of maritime tyranny, 
 of indefinite blockade, adopted by the English
 
 238 
 
 government. If the vessels, the merchandize, 
 the agents of England, be inexorably driven 
 back from the frontiers of every state, if the 
 European continent be really shut against the 
 produce of the English colonies and industry, 
 the cabinet of London would soon find it out of 
 their power to impose updn the nation those 
 enormous taxes; to effect, by public credit, 
 those enormous loans which enable them to 
 maintain and perpetuate continental wars ; then 
 the British government would be forced to ac- 
 knowledge a maritime legislation, conformable 
 to the safety and the interests of every people ; 
 peace would then be restored to the world. 
 
 Heavy duties on colonial produce, an abso- 
 lute prohibition and interdiction on the conti- 
 nent, of the manufactured goods of Great Bri- 
 tain ; and it follows, that the decrees of Berlin 
 and Milan are measures essentially conservato- 
 ry of the peace and prosperity of nations. 
 These measures contain, in themselves, every 
 principle of maritime and commercial independ- 
 ence ; they are, to every state, a pledge of 
 union and tranquillity, they will inevitably pro-
 
 239 
 
 duce the ruin and political fall of Great Britain, 
 if the English ministers do not hasten to adopt 
 a wise and considerate conduct, to answer the 
 just and conciliatory demonstrations of the 
 French government, and to conclude a peace ; 
 peace which alone can preserve England from a 
 total otherthrow. 
 
 We repeat, in terminating this writing, what 
 Lord Viscount Bolingbroke said to his country, 
 near eighty years ago : " Let England enjoy 
 " with moderation her commercial prosperity, 
 " and excite no more wars." 
 
 The GREAT MAN is seated for ever on the 
 throne of France.
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 THIS work was, written several months ago 
 and delivered to the press. In this interval, 
 Lord Stanhope has proposed to the parliament 
 of England some resolutions, which throw the 
 greatest light on the critical situation of that 
 country. 
 
 When we were tracing the picture just offer- 
 ed to the reader, we were far from thinking 
 that the ministers themselves would discover to 
 the eyes of the universe, the depth of the 
 wounds of Great Britain. This will be an as- 
 tonishing period in the history of the world, in 
 which we see a nation, which pretends to exer- 
 cise the empire of commerce in all parts of the 
 civilized globe, reduced, all at once, to unveil its 
 commercial distress, and to adopt the fatal expe- 
 dient of paper money, because a landholder, 
 Lord King, was disposed to exercise the right 
 which a legal contract gave him against his 
 tenants.
 
 241 
 
 Deplorable situation of England ! That ex- 
 tension of commerce, that increase of industry, 
 which had drawn her power from the bosom 
 of the waves, and rendered her little island 
 the rival of the greatest empires, become them- 
 selves the cause of her fall and ruin ! Some 
 months already elapsed since the execution 
 of the decrees of Berlin arid Milan, have suf- 
 ficed to shake even to its foundations, that rich 
 and magnificent edifice which philosophy, le- 
 gislation, and commerce, had erected in Great 
 Britain ; the splendor of that kingdom is at an 
 end it is extinguished. 
 
 Lord King has set fire to the temple of Ephe- 
 sus, and the ministers are completing its destruc- 
 tion. Mr. Pitt had opened, in the three king- 
 doms, the box of Pandora ; the present minis- 
 ters have taken out even hope from it. Such is 
 the situation of the finances and the political 
 and commercial relations of England, that the 
 remedies which the ministers apply must be 
 more dangerous than the evil, if the councils of 
 that kingdom do not hasten to have recourse to 
 
 31
 
 242 
 
 the only means that can prevent the ruin of 
 the English power, PEACE. 
 
 The bill recently proposed by Lord Stan- 
 hope is entitled, "an act to prevent the gold 
 " coin of the kingdom from being given or re- 
 " ccived in payment at a rate above the current 
 " value ; and to prevent government securities 
 " and bank bills from being received in payment 
 " at a rate less than the sum mentioned on the face 
 " of them" This bill is badly worded, its defi- 
 nition is not exact ; in reality, it is an act to give 
 a legal and forced currency to bank bills. 
 
 Lord Stanhope has said that gold, by the fluc- 
 tuations of exchange, being liable to variations 
 in its mercantile value, and may disappear 
 from the markets of England, whenever the 
 balance of trade is against that country, it 
 ought not in future to be 'considered as the 
 only legal money of the kingdom. He has 
 laid it down as a principle, " that a pound ster- 
 " ling, in bank paper, is absolutely equal to a 
 " pound sterling in gold ; that the pound sterling
 
 243 
 
 ** being the abstract value, by which the com- 
 " puted value of every object of consumption is 
 <f measured, that value ought to be independent of 
 " the variable quantity of gold or bills, the repre- 
 " sentative signs, which may be found in circu- 
 " lation." We shall observe, by the way, that 
 if Lord Stanhope knows the means of rendering 
 the mercantile value of the pound sterling, inde- 
 pendent of the nature and the quantity of the 
 representative signs in circulation, he has found 
 the philosopher's stone. In the mean time he 
 proposes places ofdeposite, transfers of b mk bills, 
 triple registers, ^T. ; all these forms of responsi- 
 bility and payment will not add a straw to the 
 value of these bills, nor cause a single guinea to 
 appear in circulation. 
 
 The principles advanced by this peer of Great 
 Britain are false, and his bill is absurd, in the 
 sense in which it has been presented. Lord 
 Stanhope himself has proved it, by demanding 
 that the bank should be obliged, at the opening 
 of each session, to present a statement of its af- 
 fairs, and that parliament should fix a maximum
 
 244 
 
 to the emissions of bank bills ; two propositions 
 which, at bottom, make only one. The minis- 
 ters have been sensible that the distress of com- 
 merce, on the contrary, required that the dis- 
 counts of the bank should every day be increas- 
 ed, and that, consequently, the emission of bills 
 should be less restrained than ever. 
 
 What is, at the present day, the nature, what 
 are the resources of the bank of England? 
 
 The bank of England, properly speaking, as 
 it was established in 1694 by King William, in 
 fact no longer exists ; it is destroyed. 
 
 On the principles of its establishment, the 
 bank of England was solely intended to favour 
 commercial discounts ; it had no connexion with 
 the government. The solidity of the credit of 
 this company was founded upon the payment, 
 in specie, made at the pleasure of the bearer of 
 its paper ; the confidence in this paper was very 
 great, because every individual was free to re- 
 fuse it in payment, and the prosperity which 
 the bank had enjoyed during a century, was due 
 to the flourishing state of the commerce of the 
 nation.
 
 245 
 
 For a debt of twenty shillings, said Mr. Burke, 
 it is optional with an individual to refuse in pay- 
 ment all the paper of the bank of ENGLAND. 
 This paper had a great value in commercial con- 
 cerns, because it had none in the eye of the 
 law ; it was all powerful on the exchange, be- 
 cause it was without power in Westminster- 
 Hall. 
 
 Mr. Pitt caused the bank in 1 793 to be autho- 
 rized t6 issue bills upon acceptances of the trea- 
 sury : from that time it was identified with the 
 government ; if any one doubts it, let him call to 
 mind that when that minister, four years later, 
 caused to be passed the act for the suspension 
 of payment in specie, it was declared in the 
 house of commons, " that the chancellor of the 
 " exchequer had contracted with the bank an 
 " engagement not to enter into any negotiation 
 *' with a foreign power for subsidies, or other 
 " money concerns, without previously advising 
 " the governor and lieutenant governor of the 
 < f bank." The government then exercised the 
 power of limiting or extending, at will, the
 
 246 
 
 of the bills of this company, whilst it 
 used the greatest art to persuade the public of 
 the independence of the bank. 
 
 In 1745, when the invasion of the Pretender 
 spread an extreme agitation and distrust all over 
 the three kingdoms, experience made known that 
 the bank Avas far from possessing in real sums, 
 existing in money, deposited in its vaults (as had 
 constantly been asserted,) the specie necessary to 
 reimburse the holders of its bills; the bank paid 
 only in small money, and small sums : fortunate- 
 ly for its credit, the Pretender took less time to 
 escape from England, than the bank took to 
 count out the shillings for the bearers of its pa- 
 per. 
 
 Mr. Pitt, in 1797, had a bill passed to autho- 
 rise the bank to suspend its payments in specie ; 
 this bill proved to what a degree its coffers were, 
 empty and destitute of specie : from that very 
 moment the holders of its paper ought to have 
 foreseen that its value would henceforth be ar- 
 bitrary, subject to acts of authority, and depend- 
 ent upon commercial or political conjunctures.
 
 247 
 
 
 which might occasion its depreciation, or total 
 
 discredit. 
 
 Mr. Perceval has just had an act passed to 
 give a legal and forced currency, in England, to 
 bank bills; this is the real sense in which the 
 act must be taken ; it is useless to dispute about 
 words. 
 
 It is then incontestable, that the bank of Eng- 
 land has no longer any independence ; that the di- 
 rection and administration of that establishment 
 are, as well as its fortune, under the positive in- 
 fluence of the government, which may extend, 
 at its pleasure, the emission of the bills, by giv- 
 ing to the bank treasury acceptances or exche- 
 quer bills. It is at the same time proved, thai 
 the bank is unable to effect its payments in spe- 
 cie, at the pleasure of the holders of its paper, 
 and, moreover, this paper has just been stamped 
 with a law which forbids its refusal in payment. 
 
 What are the resources of the bank, in an or- 
 der, or rather disorder of things of this nature ? 
 
 Notwithstanding the monstrous political er- 
 rors into which the ministers of Great Britain 

 
 * 
 have fallen these twenty years past, the paper 
 
 of the bank was a cause of opulence and a symbol 
 of prosperity in that kingdom, as long as the 
 commerce of the nation found, by means of the 
 flags of neutrals or allies, great openings in the 
 ports of Europe, and great profits in the mar- 
 kets of the continent The public confidence 
 in this representative sign was maintained by the 
 liberty of accepting or refusing it in payment ; 
 the moment of its depreciation had not arrived ; 
 it enjoyed all its luxury, if we may thus express 
 ourselves. 
 
 Every thing is now changed. The bills of the 
 bank no longer offer to the holders any other se- 
 curity than what may be found in the solidity 
 of the merchants and the government. Now, 
 the merchants overstocked with goods which no 
 longer find any market, are every day on the 
 eve of bankruptcy ; the bank thus finds much 
 less paper to discount, whilst at the same time, 
 it is forced to discount more, in order to retard 
 the ruin of commerce : its solidity is then sha- 
 ken in this respeet On the other hand, the go-
 
 249 
 
 * 
 
 vernment every day issue a greater quantity of 
 exchequer bills, they incessantly increase the 
 public debt of the state ; and when every thing 
 forces them to -augment the public expenditure, 
 they behold, at every instant, their resources di- 
 minish by the decline of the public fortune : the 
 bank, under this head, can give no other securi- 
 ty than that which is common to the other credi- 
 tors of the state. 
 
 This truth is so clear, that the legislature is re- 
 duced to the necessity, at the moment in which 
 we are writing, of obliging individuals in Eng- 
 land to receive their bills for the sum announced 
 on the face of them. This measure is no reme- 
 dy, it must, on the contrary, aggravate the evil. 
 
 The chancellor of the exchequer observed, that 
 he had hitherto been very far from proposing a 
 measure of the nature of Lord Stanhope's bill, 
 because he had flattered himself that Lord King 
 would abandon his fatal project of refusing bank 
 bills in payment ; but that he changed his opin- 
 ion as to the necessity of this bill, when he saw a 
 considerable number of persons of great weighty 
 
 32
 
 250 
 
 A 
 
 who pretend to possess exclusively all the do- 
 mestic virtues, and all the talents and know- 
 ledge of statesmen, approve, support, and even 
 publicly applaud the dangerous step which has 
 occasioned this bill ; which might induce many 
 individuals to follow a similar example, and 
 place the nation and the government in a very 
 great embarrassment. We report the particular 
 words of the prime minister, because they per- 
 fectly express the very great embarrassment of the 
 nation and the government, and because they 
 discover the no less embarrassment of the genius 
 of Mr. Perceval. The partizans of this mi- 
 nister added in the debate that, until that mo- 
 ment, bank bills had been received in payment 
 with the same facility as specie, in consequence of 
 the general good sense of the nation, whence it re- 
 sulted that confidence and good faith supplied the 
 place of law on this subject, and had rendered 
 the present measure useless. Since the chancel- 
 lor of the exchequer acknowledges the necessity 
 of the bill, and even goes so far as to say, that it 
 is very possible that this measure may be insuffi-
 
 251 
 
 dent to remedy all the inconveniences of the 
 present position, it seems to be clear that the ge- 
 neral good sense of the nation, its good faith and 
 confidence no longer exist. 
 
 What does the minister mean when he an- 
 nounces that recourse must be had to other mea- 
 sures ; this, it is of importance to explain. The 
 object of Lord Stanhope's bill is to prevent gold 
 coin from being sold or bought at a higher rate 
 than its nominal value ; bank bills from being 
 given or taken below the value mentioned on 
 the face of them, and two prices from being es- 
 tablished for goods, one in gold, and the other 
 in paper. The minister himself does not believe 
 that the bill can produce the miracles it promi- 
 ses ; for that reason he declares this measure in- 
 sufficient: who does not perceive, in reality, 
 that it must produce effects contrary to those ex- 
 pected ? 
 
 Hitherto gold coin was still seen in circulation 
 in England, because the possessor of this gold 
 had legally the liberty to fix the price of it ; be- 
 cause every individual had the liberty of refu-
 
 252 
 
 sing the bills of the bank. The moment when 
 this paper becomes legal money, when creditors 
 are obliged to receive it for the amount mention- 
 ed on the face of it, paper necessarily drives 
 specie from the market, in all kinds of trade ; 
 for a seller is nothing else than a creditor, and a 
 creditor perfectly independent of the law at the 
 moment of selling : from that time, every arti- 
 cle has a real price, that which gold establishes, 
 and a variable price, which depends on the value 
 which paper has in the eyes of the seller. This 
 price is calculated from the double proportion 
 of the scarcity of gold and the quantity of paper, 
 that is, from the double proportion of the real 
 value of the metal and the fictitious value of the 
 bill. 
 
 In all internal trade, the seller will require 
 gold, if he can get it, because with that gold he 
 can procure as much paper as he wants ; if peo- 
 ple will not give him gold at the price of his 
 merchandize, he will increase the price at the 
 rate of the loss on the paper offered to him, in re- 
 lation to the value of gold, that is, at the rate of
 
 253 
 
 the quanity of paper which he would require, to 
 procure the quantity of gold which his merchan- 
 dize really represents. 
 
 And do not suppose that he will be mistaken 
 in his calculation ; for he will take into consi- 
 deration, not only the reality, but the fears, not 
 only the actual loss, but the future or probable 
 loss ; every day, every hour, every instant, has 
 its progression for the dearness of gold, for the 
 depreciation of paper, for the price of goods. 
 In external trade, where it is absolutely necessa- 
 ry to appear with the sign generally adopted by 
 nations, with the sign w r hich foreigners will take, 
 gold alone can show itself; and to this effect, 
 gold must be bought at the market price, that is, 
 at the rate of the difference of the value existing 
 between gold and paper. 
 
 The government will then be reduced to the 
 necessity of debasing their own paper, because, 
 in order to procure the gold indispensably ne- 
 cessary for the payment of their external ex- 
 penses, they must multiply paper at the double 
 rate of the dearness of gold and the depreciation
 
 254 
 
 of their bills ; they will be forced to discredit 
 
 \ 
 
 paper money, and nevertheless find in this paper 
 money all their resources ; for no taxes or im- 
 posts will be paid in specie. From this moment, 
 there no longer exists any budget, or fixed and 
 regular statement of the finances, since the go- 
 vernment, receiving from the subjects sums, the 
 real value of which is constantly more relative, 
 more variable, has really no longer the same 
 amount to provide for the expenses withal ; the 
 nominal value of the receipts at the exchequer 
 will be the same, but the effective value of these 
 receipts will be as variable as the value of paper 
 money relatively to gold. In this state of 
 things the taxes must then be increased, in pro- 
 portion to the depreciation of paper money 
 with which they are acquitted ; for the amount 
 of the taxes must represent the total amount of 
 the public expenses of the state, in order that the 
 receipts of the government may suffice for the 
 expenditure of the state ; by consequence, the 
 budget, or assize of taxes, must be graduated 
 upon the proportional scale of paper and gold.
 
 255 
 
 But it is not so easy to impose on a nation, as 
 it is to fabricate paper money ; the government 
 being obliged to appear with specie, in a vast 
 number of transactions, which cannot be effect- 
 ed, within or without the state, but with gold or 
 silver, will then be obliged to make a double 
 operation, in both of which they will lose ; the 
 more they purchase specie, the more they depre- 
 ciate paper money ; the more they issue or expend 
 of paper money, the less of specie they obtain, 
 because the proportion has a tendency incessant- 
 ly to establish itself, in spite of all the laws of 
 public authority, between the commodity to be 
 purchased and its true representative sign. The 
 metal is the sign, for the metal pays for the 
 commodity ; paper is not, it cannot be this sign, 
 for the paper never pays with its nominal value, 
 it pays only with its real value, that is to say, 
 with the quantity of gold that its nominal value 
 represents. 
 
 The foundation of every system of finances is 
 thus invariably laid down ; gold is the represen- 
 tative sign of the commodity ; paper is only the
 
 256 
 
 representative sign of gold. In order to repre- 
 sent all commodities, it was necessary to choose 
 a sign whose value was as determinate, as inva- 
 variable as the nature of things would permit, as 
 this sign was intended to measure, or to estimate, 
 in a permanent manner, the value of every 
 thing; by consequence, it was necessary to 
 choose a sign that was rare, little liable to altera- 
 tion or destruction, that might be easily trans- 
 ported, and without trouble concealed; these 
 reasons have rendered the metals, among all 
 nations, the representatives of the value of every 
 thing. Gold and silver being the most precious 
 of the metals, that is, uniting the greatest number 
 of the conditions required to form the value, 
 which ought to serve to measure every other 
 value, have had the preference above every 
 other metal, as representative signs, and all na- 
 tions have agreed to adopt them, and to consider 
 them as the representative value of every other 
 value. We shall not here enter into theoreti- 
 cal dissertations on the nature, the value, and the 
 respective quantity of the metals or representa-
 
 257 
 
 tire signs, nor on their effects, with respect to 
 produce and raw materials ; all these points of 
 economical and political doctrine, are of no im- 
 portance either to the subject of which we treat, 
 or to the circumstances connected with it ; our 
 business is with facts and not with systems. 
 
 Before Lord Stanhope's bill, the bank paper 
 of England was a real representative sign, not- 
 withstanding the diminution of its value in rela- 
 tion to gold, by reason of every individual's 
 being at liberty to accept or refuse it. As soon 
 as this liberty ceases to exist, bank bills then be- 
 come paper money, and have no longer any de- 
 terminate value ; and consequently, gold re- 
 mains the sole real representative sign on ac- 
 count of its invariable value. 
 
 Every law that parliament may pass to oblige 
 gold to appear by the side of, and in compa- 
 ny with paper money, will only serve to enhance 
 the price of gold, and to cause it to be more 
 closely locked up in coffers. Bank bills, that 
 is, the signs which alone will be in circulation, 
 
 33
 
 258 
 
 will experience a depreciation proportional to> 
 the scarcity of gold; the price of provisions 
 and every other commodity, and the price of 
 labour will continually rise in proportion to this 
 depreciation. From the moment that gold has 
 no longer a currency equal to paper, from the 
 moment that gold can circulate with paper, only 
 at different prices, it is impossible for this metal 
 to appear in the market, under any other title 
 than that of merchandize ; as merchandize, the 
 twenty-one shillings of the guinea no longer 
 correspond with the twenty-one shillings in 
 paper ; they answer only to as many shillings as 
 are necessary to buy a guinea. Relative deno- 
 minations no longer exist ; the price of gold, 
 which is itself merchandize, is an object of com- 
 merce, it rises higher and higher ; and at length, 
 the moment arrives when there is not a single 
 guinea to be found in the market, and when piles 
 of paper are insufficient to buy provisions and 
 articles of the first necessity ; then the assize of 
 provisions, or the maximum becomes inevitable. 
 The ministers deceive themselves most
 
 259 
 
 strangely, if they think that their bank paper, 
 doing the office of legal money, and forced 
 among individuals, will hinder the exportation of 
 guineas and ingots ; gold which has no longer 
 any circulation in England, must indeed go 
 elsewhere to seek other markets and an employ- 
 ment which will afford it the enjoyment of its 
 true value ; the metals will be exported without 
 return from the three kingdoms ; there will re- 
 main in Great Britain only her bank bills, which 
 will be offered to her from all quarters in the 
 narne of the law ; these bills stripped of the 
 quality which alone gave them any real value ; 
 of the property of being changed, at will, for 
 specie, and of being accepted or refused in pay- 
 ment ; these bills once invested with the title of 
 legal money among individuals, will destroy 
 themselves by their own nature ; and by an in- 
 variable law attached to all paper money, that 
 every emission calls forth other emissions, every 
 bill incessantly begets new bills. 
 
 Whether the bank has in circulation only 
 thirteen millions sterling more than at the pe-
 
 260 
 
 riod of the suspension ; whether sums more or 
 less considerable be due to it from the state, for 
 its capital and for advances ; whether it can, at 
 the present day, show to its creditors, or holders 
 of its bills, amounts in figures, equal to the quan- 
 tity of its bills, is not the question ; the amounts 
 which the bank could exhibit on its books, are 
 nothing else than claims on the government, and 
 by that very circumstance, are confounded with 
 the public debt, and offer no better security to 
 the creditors ; the bank and the state are then 
 only one and the same thing, and paper mo^ey 
 can no longer be refused in payment ; this is the 
 question, and it ought to be well considered ! 
 
 In order not to deprive the public of all its 
 illusions at once, they have spoken vaguely of a 
 period when the bank might resume its payments 
 in specie ; but in things of this sort, what is once 
 impossible will not cease to be so ; the impossi- 
 bility increases as it goes on. 
 
 Before the suspension of the payments in spe- 
 cie, the amount of bank bills in circulation, ac- 
 cording to ministerial partisans, was -fourteen
 
 261 
 
 millions sterling ; it was found to be reduced to 
 ten millions sterling at the period of the sus- 
 pension, and at the present day, it rises to twen- 
 ty-three millions sterling, acknowledged by the 
 ministers; there were, besides, about twenty 
 millions sterling of country bank bills in circu- 
 lation in the year 1797. These estimates are 
 not quite exact ; we adopt them, however, with- 
 out observation. According to the report of the 
 bullion committee, the gold coin in circulation, 
 at the period of the suspension, was estimated at 
 thirty millions sterling ; the amount of specie 
 was then equal to the amount of bank bills ; yet 
 the bank was obliged to suspend its payments in 
 specie ! 
 
 From the debates which have just taken place 
 in parliament, it appears that, at the present time, 
 the quantity of bills of the bank of England in 
 circulation amounts to near twenty millions ster- 
 ling ; the quantity of country bank bills was de- 
 clared, in the session of 1 810, to amount to thirty 
 four millions sterling ; there are then, officially 
 speaking, near sixty millions of bills of the bank
 
 262 
 
 of England and of the country banks in circula- 
 tion in England ; that is to say, a quantity dou- 
 ble the amount existing in 1797. When we 
 unite, in the same calculation, the bills of the 
 bank of England to those of the country banks, 
 we follow the computation of the bullion com- 
 mittee, who thought " that the amount of bills 
 " issued by the country banks depended, in a 
 " great measure, on the amount of bills issued by 
 " the bank of England, which serve to redeem 
 " the former." That committee without doubt 
 considered it useless to enter into details, which 
 might show how much the emission of country 
 bank bills depended on that cf the bank of Eng- 
 land ; how much the circulation of the former is 
 connected with the circulation of the latter ; and 
 how much the quantity of both is indispensable 
 to the commercial operations and individual 
 transactions of the counties. Whatever may 
 have been the opinion of the committee on this 
 subject, one thing is clear, that the amount of 
 bills of the bank of England in circulation at the 
 present day, is greater by from thirteen to four-
 
 263 
 
 teen millions sterling than it was in 1797, that ii? f 
 at the period when the bank was reduced to the 
 necessity of suspending its payments, and now 
 there is scarcely any specie in circulation ! 
 
 The chancellor of the exchequer has had the 
 courage and the candor to pronounce these 
 words in the sitting of the 9th of July : " It has 
 " been pretended, indeed, that there is an abun- 
 " dance of gold in the country, and that conse- 
 " quently the bank might immediately resume 
 " its payments in specie ; but I am ignorant on 
 " what grounds this fact has been advanced, and 
 " am authorised to believe quite the contrary, 
 " from the testimony of persons who are the best 
 " informed on this subject, and whose opinion 
 " ought to have the most weight on a question of 
 " this nature." It is only in a government a prey 
 to an extreme confusion, that a prime minister is 
 compelled to express himself in this manner. 
 
 In computing all the money which is in the 
 kingdom, concealed or not concealed, it amount* 
 perhaps, at present, to twenty millions sterling;, 
 that which is i circulation is onlv about three
 
 millions of dollars, and this sum is in stamped 
 dollars, and consequently false money. The 
 general distrust, the embarrassments which all 
 classes of society experience, occasion the specie 
 to be locked up daily ; a few millions sterling 
 more of bank bills thrown into circulation would 
 not have sttfficed to produce such consequences; 
 they result from the system of maritime tyranny 
 arid perpetual war which has rendered necessary 
 the establishment of a forced paper money ; it is 
 the continuation of that odious system which 
 widens the abyss opened by Mr. Pitt. I have 
 observed, in a former work, that that minister 
 made himself a banker from the beginning of his 
 political career, in order to keep the reins of go- 
 vernment in his hands, all the springs of which 
 were put in movement by commerce. 
 
 Mr. Pitt was perfectly well acquainted with 
 stock-jobbing and parliamentary intrigues; eve- 
 ry thing that he touched was immediately con- 
 verted into bank bills. 
 
 After the two measures so happily hazarded 
 in 1793 and 1797, he had the power of causing
 
 265 
 
 bank bills to be declared legal money between 
 individuals ; but England had still all her com- 
 mercial resources ; three fourths of the ports of 
 Europe were still open to the produce and mer- 
 chandize of Great Britain, and the profit of com- 
 merce brought gold back into England; the 
 only question then was not to alarm public credit. 
 Mr. Pitt supported it, by constantly exhibiting 
 the paper as perfectly free in its circulation, and 
 by leaving the bank, in appearance, free from the 
 influence and the attacks of the government ; 
 the illusion, at least, was not destroyed. At pre- 
 sent, in consequence of the provisions of Lord 
 Stanhope's bill, the bank is declared to be one 
 of the departments or public offices of the go- 
 vernment ; its bills have no longer any real com- 
 mercial value ; they are bills of the state : its 
 paper is forced, as is all paper money. There 
 is now but a single difference between the bank 
 bill and the French assignat, which is, that the 
 latter was publicly made by the government, and 
 the former is still fabricated, in appearance, by 
 a company, which, however, as every body 
 knows, manufactures for the wants of the Eng- 
 
 34
 
 I 
 
 lish government. These wants are become in- 
 calculable, which must give rise to circumstan- 
 ces so imperious, that we shall soon see disap- 
 pear the slight shades which yet distinguish the 
 English paper money from the paper money of 
 the French revolution. The same system is 
 adopted, and the same consequences must en- 
 sue. 
 
 The chancellor enters into an idle and ridicu- 
 lous discussion on bank bills compared with as- 
 signats. To undertake to presume what must 
 take place in England from what has happened 
 in France ; to balance the quantity of paper 
 money issued by the two states, and to form a 
 geometrical proportion by which to fix the emis- 
 sion of paper money forced in Great Britain, is 
 to be ignorant of the most simple notions of 
 economy and politics. 
 
 Mr. Perceval deceives himself; the question 
 is not to compare the respective quantities of 
 the two papers ; the moment for that is not yet 
 come. What ought to be compared is the na- 
 ture of these papers, their respective circum- 
 stances. The chancellor of the exchequer, a-
 
 267 
 
 bove all, ought not to have forgotten to state, 
 that the quantity of French assignats, when the 
 fall of that paper began, had not yet amounted 
 to the sum of sixty millions sterling, \vhich is the 
 amount of the bills of the different banks in Eng- 
 land actually in circulation. The English mi- 
 nisters cannot reason from the examples offered 
 by France, Austria, the United States, or any 
 other power which has had a great mass of pa- 
 per money to support, and thence draw conclu- 
 sions in favour of England, on account of the 
 comparatively less quantity of paper money 
 which she has in circulation they ought to take 
 into consideration the political state of Europe, 
 and the particular conjunctures which affect Eng- 
 land. They will then see, that a forced paper 
 money, and a total absence of gold, must bring 
 on the ruin of their nation. 
 
 Since 1793, the cabinet of London seemed to 
 have forgotten that territory is almost nothing in 
 England, in regard to public wealth ; that com- 
 merce is every thing in that kingdom ; that the 
 profits of commerce, for the most part, pay the 
 taxes, maintain the navy and army, and answer
 
 268 
 
 for the public debt. That cabinet do not recol- 
 lect that Great Britain has never before been en- 
 gaged in a war, by which her commerce suffer- 
 ed very greatly ; that in all the preceding wars 
 with France, the ports of Europe remained open 
 to her colonial produce and merchandize ; that 
 these commodities, passing through countries 
 where they were received, arrived into those 
 where they were prohibited, and were distribut- 
 ed over the territory of France, the greatest 
 consumer and richest proprietor in Europe. 
 That cabinet reckon always with old Europe, 
 and never with the new Europe, the destinies of 
 which are irrevocably fixed by the Napoleonian 
 dynasty. In short, and this is the most fatal of 
 all their errors, the English ministers will not 
 yet understand that a continental system of the 
 first force, and out of the reach of their attacks, 
 can shut all the P'uropean ports against the pro- 
 duce and merchandize of Great Britain, that this 
 prohibition will cease only at the return of peace, 
 and that the longer the war continues, the more the 
 recources of England will experience deterioration 
 and diminution.
 
 269 
 
 The great distress in the finances of England 
 must really be dated from the year 1804, or the 
 violation of the peace of Amiens ; the great de- 
 preciation of the bank paper from the year 1808, 
 or the execution of the decrees of Berlin and 
 Milan. 
 
 The extreme scarcity of gold coin in England 
 must be attributed to the following causes, 
 which have arisen from the system of monopoly 
 and war, obstinately followed by the present 
 administration : 1st. The prodigious augmenta- 
 tion which has taken place in the public expen- 
 ses, in the exportations of specie which Eng- 
 land has been obliged to make, since the viola- 
 tion of the peace of Amiens, for subsidies to the 
 continent, and particularly to maintain the war 
 in Spain. The ministers say that their troops 
 fight well, at least they fight dearly : the wants 
 of a common English soldier are more expen- 
 sive than those of a French officer, arid the twen- 
 ty-five thousand English who are in the penin- 
 sula, cost as much, for pay and provisions, as a 
 French army of a hundred thousand men;
 
 270 
 
 2d. The extraordinary and senseless importations 
 of colonial produce and national and foreign mer- 
 chandize, which have taken place in the port of 
 London, and on account of which the merchants 
 have made advances and paid pretty heavy ex- 
 penses ; but the decrees of Berlin, having shut 
 up the markets and stopped the sales, the mer- 
 chandize has no longer any commercial price ; 
 the merchant finds himself in possession of a 
 pledge altogether illusive, and the whole quan- 
 tity of the produce which he had stored will not 
 suffice to cover the advances, the expenses, and 
 the duties which it has incurred. This system 
 of universal storing, in the circumstances in 
 which England now stands, is one of the great- 
 est blunders which a government has ever com- 
 mitted. 3d. The enormous freights payed by 
 England to neutral vessels, to Danes, Ameri- 
 cans, Swedes, &c. whose flags covered English 
 merchandize. 4th. The prohibition of British 
 commerce by the decrees of Berlin and Milan, 
 and the difficulty of exporting her merchandize 
 to the continent of Europe* 5th. The augmea-
 
 271 
 
 fation of the amount of bank bills in circulation, 
 which, in consequence of all these circumstan- 
 ces, has occasioned gold to disappear, and ren- 
 ders it more difficult, fronrday to day, to resume 
 the payments in specie. 
 
 The ministers have no need to trouble them- 
 selves about the period when the bank shall re- 
 sume its payments in specie ; it is impossible for 
 the bank to think of it, before all the political 
 and commercial relations of England are re-es- 
 tablished on the continent : but in the interval, 
 the emissions will be increased to that degree, 
 that it will then be impossible to redeem this pa- 
 per. The ministers have said that it would be 
 proper to fix two years, after the peace, as the pe- 
 riod when the bank should be obliged to resume 
 its payments ; they calculated that the English 
 merchants would require this space of time to 
 disgorge in every state of Europe, that prodigious 
 quantity of merchandize which load the ware- 
 houses of London, to effect the sale of it, and re- 
 ceive the price ; it is therefore not the cabinet 
 of St, James which can give the bank of Eng-
 
 272 
 
 land the necessary facilities to resume its pay- 
 ments in specie ; it is the cabinet of the Tuile- 
 ries alone which can permit it ! Mr. Perceval 
 knows that perfectly, and Mr. Vansittard, Mr. 
 Rose, &c. have no need of informing the minis- 
 ters that it would be imprudent and dangerous 
 for the bank to resume its payments before the 
 conclusion of peace : we can assure them that 
 this danger will never exist for England. 
 
 But acknowledgments of this nature fully de- 
 cide the question of the continental system, and 
 they prove that the bank of England is in fact 
 destroyed. 
 
 That government meets every where in full 
 face, in its island and out of its island, the Ber- 
 lin and Milan decrees ; these decrees wound on 
 all sides, and reach the very heart of the public 
 fortune of England. If there had not, till lately, 
 in certain parts of the continent, been fraudulent 
 importations, and an internal smuggling trade 
 in English merchandize carried on, a general 
 revolution would already have taken place in 
 the three kingdoms: the debates in the two
 
 27'} 
 
 houses of Parliament prove that the alarming 
 situation of the finances of England is principal- 
 ly owing to the exclusion of the commerce of 
 the English nation from all the European ports : 
 in a circumstance of this nature we may take 
 the patient's word ; he knows were the evil lies : 
 every thing, even to the period when it may be 
 permitted to wise and enlightened ministers, to 
 apply to the polkical disease of England the on- 
 ly remedies which are suitable to so critical a 
 situation ; every thing, at the present day, is at 
 the disposal of the Emperor Napoleon, 
 
 The board of directors of the bank have as^ 
 serted ; " that no other bounds ought to be pre- 
 " scribed to the emission of their bills, than the 
 " demand for them ; and that nothing is to be 
 rt feared from going too far in the discounting 
 ** of all the good paper offered." Surely, Mr. 
 Perceval himself could not have spoken better ! 
 This principle, liable to the most serious conse- 
 quences, when it relates to paper money, might 
 have been defended, with some appearance of 
 reason, when every individual was at liberty to 
 
 3?
 
 274 
 
 accept or refuse bank bills in payment; but 
 it may produce the ruin of the state, and 
 that of every private fortune, when the minis- 
 ters, or the directors are authorised to issue 
 bank bills upon acceptances of the treasury, and 
 have the power to extend the emission at their 
 pleasure; and when an act has just been passed 
 to compel individuals to receive bank bills in 
 payment, for the sum mentioned on the face of 
 them. We have shown the nature of the good 
 paper which must, in future, be offered to the 
 bank for discount ; we have proved that the hol- 
 ders of its bills, destitute of all security, with re- 
 spect to the solidity of their claims, ought not 
 to expect to see the bank resume its payments 
 in specie. 
 
 Once again, the decrees of Berlin and Milan 
 deprive the English nation of almost all their 
 commercial relations with Europe; commerce 
 cannot bring back into England the specie and 
 the ingots which the external expenses take out ; 
 the wants of the government increase every day, 
 with the distress of commerce ; and the state i*
 
 275 
 
 reduced to the necessity of augmenting the mass 
 of paper in circulation, because it is absolutely 
 necessary to have a quantity of representative 
 signs sufficient for the various wants of the pub- 
 lic. The progressive depreciation of the paper 
 money is an inevitable consequence of this state 
 of things. 
 
 The difficulties and embarrassments of the 
 finances of England are arrived at that point, 
 that all the palliatives presented in parliament 
 by the ministers will effect no cure. Prom this 
 moment, the bank bills must be regarded as hav- 
 ing the forced currency of paper money. Mr. 
 Perceval has confessed that it was possible that 
 the measure proposed by Lord Stanhope's bill 
 might be insufficient to remedy all the incon- 
 veniences of the present situation, and that it 
 might be necessary to render bank bills legal 
 money in every case ; this chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer has a remote ministerial tradition of 
 acts relative to paper money; he even draws 
 advantage from the silence of Mr. Pitt : it will 
 be in the tomb of the son of Chatham, that Mr. 
 Perceval will seek that series of supplementary
 
 acts which he intends to make a present to the 
 English nation ! But on the other side, what is 
 equally consolatory and flattering to the Eng- 
 lish, and no less true, is, that " the^nation has al- 
 " ready overcome those alarming dangers which 
 " the predictions of certain persons announced 
 " in England, in 1 797, on account of the suspen- 
 " sion of payment in specie. The nation has ob- 
 " tained, since 1797, a greater degree of inter- 
 (i nal prosperity and external force, than at any 
 " other preceding period." 
 
 IV^r. Perceval really pronounced these words 
 in the house of commons, in calling for the adop- 
 tion of the bill proposed by Lord Stanhope. 
 
 Good Heavens ! What internal prosperity is 
 that of a nation in which the parliament is forced 
 to confess the continually increasing distress of 
 its commerce ; in which the chancellor of the 
 exchequer represents the class of farmers and 
 capitalists in such a suffering state, that it has 
 become indispensable to oblige their creditors to 
 receive in payment a money depreciated, and 
 entirely at the mercy of circumstances; in 
 which the prime minister confesses that a simple 

 
 27*7 
 
 individual wishing to exercise his rights as a 
 landholder, has compelled him to propose simi- 
 lar measures ! What external force is that of a 
 state, which no longer has a single resting place, 
 a single market, a single opening on the Europe- 
 an continent ; whose vessels are excluded from 
 every port, whose envoys repulsed from every 
 cabinet; a state which has lost all political 
 influence, which has not a single ally, which, iA 
 short, is reduced to the necessity of carrying on 
 a smuggling trade with large squadrons, as the 
 only means remaining in order to procure to its 
 merchants the sale of a part of their merchan- 
 dize ! 
 
 In order to establish a sort of equality be- 
 tween specie and paper, there ought to be gold 
 enough to exchange for paper ; the profits of 
 commerce alone can procure this object ; other- 
 w r ise there ought to be confidence enough (or 
 that sense which the ministers call the general 
 good sense of the nation) in the paper to receive 
 it at the same value as gold ; now, this confi- 
 dence can only exist by the liberty of taking or 
 refusing the payment ; or, in short, the quantity
 
 278 
 
 of paper ought to be so far limited, that it coukf 
 not suffice for the transactions of business ; gold 
 would then, by consequence, be forced to find 
 an inevitable employment ; but the wants of 
 the government and of commerce do not at pre- 
 
 * 
 
 sent allow of a diminution in the quantity of 
 paper in circulation. The depreciation of the 
 paper money must then go on increasing, if Eng- 
 lish merchandize cannot penetrate into the con- 
 tinent ; and the moment must arrive when the 
 parliament will be obliged to fix by law, the 
 price of all commodities and every article of 
 provisions. Then the ruin of Great Britain 
 will be accomplished; revolutions, the conse- 
 quences of which no mind can calculate, the ac- 
 cidents and disasters, none determine, will obli- 
 terate even the traces of the prosperity and po- 
 litical power of Great Britain. 
 
 Tf the ministers persevere in the system of 
 eternal war, of maritime spoliation, and of 
 commercial monopoly which has already caused 
 such great evils to England, they will increase 
 still more the expenditures and public debt of 
 the state; and exhaust the last resources of the
 
 279 
 
 g 
 
 three kingdoms ; they will indeed have the fatal 
 power of preserving, yet a while, tbeir corrupt 
 influence in the houses of parliament, but they 
 will have destroyed the very constitution of 
 England ; and as, in the last result, the progres- 
 sive decay of commerce, must occasion the loss 
 of the greatest part of the revenues of the state, 
 England will be annihilated. 
 
 There now remains but one means of safety ; 
 
 | 
 
 it is to reduce the expenses of every kind to a 
 just proportion with the wealth and resources of 
 the three kingdoms ; to recognise a maritime le- 
 gislation conformable to the independence and 
 the rights of other nations, and thus to open 
 again to the English commerce, the markets of 
 the continent of Europe. In a word, it is only 
 by PEACE ; by a wise administration, enlighten- 
 ed in regard to the true interests of Great Bri- 
 tain, jealous of the honour of saving their coun- 
 try, that the English nation can yet avoid the 
 misfortunes, the revolutions, and the calamities 
 of every kind, which at this moment threaten 
 England with a total subversion. 
 
 FINIS.
 
 
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 2 
 
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