Simple
confiscation is a boon only for the clergy: to the lawyers some
appearances of equity are to be observed; and they are to receive
compensation to an immense amount. Their compensation becomes part of
the national debt, for the liquidation of which there is the one
exhaustless fund. The lawyers are to obtain their compensation in the
new Church paper, which is to march with the new principles of
judicature and legislature. The dismissed magistrates are to take their
share of martyrdom with the ecclesiastics, or to receive their own
property from such a fund and in such a manner as all those who have
been seasoned with the ancient principles of jurisprudence, and had been
the sworn guardians of property, must look upon with horror. Even the
clergy are to receive their miserable allowance out of the depreciated
paper, which is stamped with the indelible character of sacrilege, and
with the symbols of their own ruin, or they must starve. So violent an
outrage upon credit, property, and liberty, as this compulsory paper
currency, has seldom been exhibited by the alliance of bankruptcy and
tyranny, at any time, or in any nation.
In the course of all these operations, at length comes out the grand
_arcanum_,--that in reality, and in a fair sense, the lands of the
Church (so far as anything certain can be gathered from their
proceedings) are not to be sold at all.
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