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Burke, Edmund

"Reflections On The Revolution In France"

Is a fleet to be fitted out?- Assignats. If sixteen
millions sterling of these assignats, forced on the people, leave
the wants of the state as urgent as ever- issue, says one, thirty
millions sterling of assignats- says another, issue fourscore millions
more of assignats. The only difference among their financial
factions is on the greater or the lesser quantity of assignats to be
imposed on the public sufferance. They are all professors of
assignats. Even those whose natural good sense and knowledge of
commerce, not obliterated by philosophy, furnish decisive arguments
against this delusion conclude their arguments by proposing the
emission of assignats. I suppose they must talk of assignats, as no
other language would be understood. All experience of their
inefficiency does not in the least discourage them. Are the old
assignats depreciated at market?- What is the remedy? Issue new
assignats.- Mais si maladia, opiniatria, non vult se garire, quid illi
facere? assignare- postea assignare; ensuita assignare. The word is
a trifle altered. The Latin of your present doctors may be better than
that of your old comedy; their wisdom and the variety of their
resources are the same. They have not more notes in their song than
the cuckoo, though, far from the softness of that harbinger of
summer and plenty, their voice is as harsh and as ominous as that of
the raven.


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