[98] For the same purpose
for which they intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a
distinguished manner, the moneyed interest of France; and partly through
the means furnished by those whose peculiar offices gave them the most
extensive and certain means of communication, they carefully occupied
all the avenues to opinion.
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have
great influence on the public mind; the alliance, therefore, of these
writers with the moneyed interest[99] had no small effect in removing
the popular odium and envy which attended that species of wealth. These
writers, like the propagators of all novelties, pretended to a great
zeal for the poor and the lower orders, whilst in their satires they
rendered hateful, by every exaggeration, the faults of courts, of
nobility, and of priesthood. They became a sort of demagogues. They
served as a link to unite, in favor of one object, obnoxious wealth to
restless and desperate poverty.
As these two kinds of men appear principal leaders in all the late
transactions, their junction and politics will serve to account, not
upon any principles of law or of policy, but as a _cause_, for the
general fury with which all the landed property of ecclesiastical
corporations has been attacked, and the great care which, contrary to
their pretended principles, has been taken of a moneyed interest
originating from the authority of the crown.
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