The correspondence between this cabal and the
late king of Prussia will throw no small light upon the spirit of
all their proceedings.* For the same purpose for which they
intrigued with princes, they cultivated, in a distinguished manner,
the monied 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.
* I do not choose to shock the feeling of the moral reader with
any quotation of their vulgar, base, and profane language.
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 monied interest* 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.
* Their connection with Turgot and almost all the people of the
finance.
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 monied interest
originating from the authority of the crown.
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