These are the numbers by which the metaphysic
arithmeticians compute. These are the grand calculations on which a
philosophical public credit is founded in France. They cannot raise
supplies; but they can raise mobs. Let them rejoice in the applauses of
the club at Dundee for their wisdom and patriotism in having thus
applied the plunder of the citizens to the service of the state. I hear
of no address upon this subject from the directors of the Bank of
England,--though their approbation would be of a _little_ more weight in
the scale of credit than that of the club at Dundee. But to do justice
to the club, I believe the gentlemen who compose it to be wiser than
they appear,--that they will be less liberal of their money than of
their addresses, and that they would not give a dog's ear of their most
rumpled and ragged Scotch paper for twenty of your fairest assignats.
Early in this year the Assembly issued paper to the amount of sixteen
millions sterling. What must have been the state into which the Assembly
has brought your affairs, that the relief afforded by so vast a supply
has been hardly perceptible? This paper also felt an almost immediate
depreciation of five per cent, which in a little time came to about
seven. The effect of these assignats on the receipt of the revenue is
remarkable. M. Necker found that the collectors of the revenue, who
received in coin, paid the treasury in assignats.
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