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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