A great multitude all over France is in the same
condition and the same temper.
*(2) See the proceedings of the confederation at Nantz.
It is not the confiscation of our church property from this
example in France that I dread, though I think this would be no
trifling evil. The great source of my solicitude is, lest it should
ever be considered in England as the policy of a state to seek a
resource in confiscations of any kind, or that any one description
of citizens should be brought to regard any of the others as their
proper prey.* Nations are wading deeper and deeper into an ocean of
boundless debt. Public debts, which at first were a security to
governments by interesting many in the public tranquillity, are likely
in their excess to become the means of their subversion. If
governments provide for these debts by heavy impositions, they
perish by becoming odious to the people. If they do not provide for
them, they will be undone by the efforts of the most dangerous of
all parties- I mean an extensive, discontented monied interest,
injured and not destroyed. The men who compose this interest look
for their security, in the first instance, to the fidelity of
government; in the second, to its power. If they find the old
governments effete, worn out, and with their springs relaxed, so as
not to be of sufficient vigor for their purposes, they may seek new
ones that shall be possessed of more energy; and this energy will be
derived, not from an acquisition of resources, but from a contempt
of justice.
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