Far from any increase of revenue in their hands, I find, by a
report of M. Vernier, from the committee of finances, of the second of
August last, that the amount of the national revenue, as compared with
its produce before the Revolution, was diminished by the sum of two
hundred millions, or eight millions sterling of the annual income,
considerably more than one-third of the whole.
If this be the result of great ability, never surely was ability
displayed in a more distinguished manner or with so powerful an
effect. No common folly, no vulgar incapacity, no ordinary official
negligence, even no official crime, no corruption, no peculation,
hardly any direct hostility which we have seen in the modern world
could in so short a time have made so complete an overthrow of the
finances and, with them, of the strength of a great kingdom.- Cedo qui
vestram rempublicam tantam amisistis tam cito?
The sophisters and declaimers, as soon as the Assembly met,
began with decrying the ancient constitution of the revenue in many of
its most essential branches, such as the public monopoly of salt. They
charged it, as truly as unwisely, with being ill-contrived,
oppressive, and partial. This representation they were not satisfied
to make use of in speeches preliminary to some plan of reform; they
declared it in a solemn resolution or public sentence, as it were
judicially passed upon it; and this they dispersed throughout the
nation.
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