ART. XXIII. The Five Promises: Conduct of the Consular Government toward Frant, England, Italy, Germany, and especially Switzerland. By Sir FRANCIS D'IVERNOIS. 8vo. pp. 350. THE financial system of the French, says with precise justice a manifesto of Bonaparte, reposes exclusively on their soil and their courage. The contribution fonçiere and the recette exterieure, are in fact the chief sources of governmental income. The contribution fonçiere closely resembles our assessments, with the addition of a rent-tax. The doors, windows, carriages, and servants, of each housekeeper are enumerated; an estimate of the value of the furniture is inserted; the rent is recorded; and on all these particulars a tax is levied, at present so moderate, that in a nation less military, it might speedily be doubled without inconvenience. This tax is chiefly odious among the small proprietors of land: it is chiefly evaded at Paris, where the government is shy of making enemies, and where the facility of shifting residence renders evasion easy. . The recette exterieure is a tribute impudently exacted from Spain, Holland, and other contiguous countries, as the price of neutrality, security, or autonomy. The independent nations of Europe ought to resist such levies, by instantly withdrawing their recognition from all those states which submit to them. From the moment a real independence has terminated, it is time lost to dissemble the conquest; and only enables the overawing power to secure a larger proportion of the eventual partition. Both these classes of revenue arc admittedly progressive in France. There are other symptoms of increasing internal prosperity. Witness, the indirect taxes, which during the last three years have produced as under,* neglecting fractions. Indeed the minister Gaudin appears to have introduced great order into the collection of the revenue; and although it cannot be doubted that the expences of the French government are increasing, yet the means of meeting those expences extend with still greater rapidity. Governments are strong in proportion to the circulation of which they Enregistrement, Year VIII. are the organ: they derive power both from what they levy and from what they pay; and far from acquiring influence or popularity by economy, they usually acquire it by magnificence. Notwithstanding these facts, Sir Fran cis D'Ivernois persists in drawing his old inferences, that France is verging on new bankruptcies; and that French power (which is a far wilder inference) would by new bankruptcies be brought to the brink of ruin. To encourage this country in a war of finance, is like encouraging a man of property to gamble with an adventurer: if he breaks his antagonist he has not gained any thing; if he breaks himself, he has lost every thing. We have much more faith in the representations contained in Mr. Necker's "Last Views of Finance" than in those of his fellow-citizen: he makes the re venue of France amount to twenty-thres millions sterling. The consequence of understating the income of all governments is to strengthen those governments, and to provide an apology for new levies; it predisposes authority to timely precaution, and the people to patie.it acquiescence. Mr. Necker understands far better the art of letting down an au thority: "What a country, he said to Louis XVI. where subordinate econo mies and imperceptible objects would suffice to banish the very appearance of a deficit." He now says to Bonaparte, "Behold France rising from beneath her ruins, as opulent as ever." The expenditure of France appears here to be estimated with little exaggera tion, and to approach nearer to probability than the estimate of income: It runs thus according to the postscript: "Let us now proceed to the princi; 4 article, namely, "Expenditure present and future. "Every one, who has attended to the French budgets, must remember, how u formly the Directory promised, that at the peace the expense of the army should be r duced to one hundred and fifty millions; and Year IX. Year X. 55,789,000 | 71,219,000 | 80,€65,000 4,708,000 6,398,000 7.007,000 17,261,000 20,901,000 | 23,238,000 22,800,000 | 29,807,000 | 41,065,000 that when, in the year X, the consular government raised them to two hundred and ten, it declared, by the minister of finance, that in this article there was a certainty of important reductions, which were impossible during the first moments (of peace.) "These first moments have passed away, and he has raised the expense of the army to two hundred and forty-three millions; so that the important reductions, of which he guaranteed the certainty twelve months ago, are already converted into a certain increase of thirty-three millions. Thus, even should there be no further augmentation in the year XII, the army will cost, on the peace esta blishment, and under the republican government, just double what it cost under the monarchy. "The same remark applies to the navy, the expense of which, from the year X to the year XI, has likewise increased from one hundred and five to one hundred and twentysix millions. "Another observation, of no less importance, is, that precisely in the same proporton in which the army and navy establishments have been immoderately increased, the new list of expenses for the year XI, the amount of which is five hundred and eighty L.ne millions and a half, does not contain any one of the articles, which, as I all along foretold, would be passed over in silence. The sinking fund is the only one of which mention is made, and this is stated no more than five millions, though the government stands engaged, by a decree, to take it ten, commencing from the year XII. I ne same may be said of the roads, this artiof expenditure not being stated at one Lurth of the eighteen millions which the government intends appropriating to them. Lely, a profound silence has been observed floating debt, which amounts to above milliard and a half, (about sixty millions ring; on that part of the debt already loaded, the interest of which will commence in the year XII; on the army of reserve; on the legion of honour; on the new depart mental senatorships; and even on the new lyceums; the expenses of which are doubt less intended to be thrown upon the depart merits. 46 However important these omissions Ey appear, they are far less so than that of e clergy, in favour of whom Bonaparte Lad instituted an eighth department of admitration; the only one not set down for hare in the probable expenditure for the Ver XI. All that I have been able to discoin the accounts for the preceding year, when the extraordinary installation of the Lops was to be provided for, is, that the Whole Gallican church of France was unable to obama sumequal to that which was swallow ed up by Bonaparte's privy counsellors alone. Scarcely has the impious author of the conCordat devoted to the service of the Deity twice the amount he devotes to that of the opera and dramatic art! "The omission of these seven articles itself constitutes an additional deficit of near one hundred millions, which does not appear in the consular budget. The treasury, however, will not perceive this deficit till the consul shall have realised all these promises. Strange as such omissions may appear, it is far more so, that the tribunes, to whom Bonaparte thought proper to submit his accounts of the receipt and expenditure, considered them so well proportioned to each other, and so complete, that they have solemnly thanked him for rendering, in less than thirty months, the finances more flou rishing than they ever had been since the year 1688, when Colbert died; that is to say, they thank him for having gloriously restored the equilibrium, by inserting in the account of the revenue an external receipt of twenty millions, and obliterating from that of the expenditure seven articles, which will amount to at least a hundred millions. "Notwithstanding this gross artifice exhibited in the new budget, the accounts of receipt and expenditure, which accompany it, induce me to think that it is less difficult to restore the equilibrium, than was once imagined; and that it might be accomplished by at once adopting the two following mea sures: "1. A retrenchment of one hundred millions in the expenses of the army and navy; not only perfectly easy in itself, but at the same time the surest mode of consolidating that peace, to which the ininister of finance principally attributes the improvement in the revenue. 2. A diminution of at least fifty millions in the land tax, together with a reform in all the expenses of show, beginning with the civil list of the consuls, the senate, the tribunes, the legislative body, and the legion of honour. "If I am not very much mistaken, republican France will never be able, without these two reductions, to return to a pacific system, to a state of prosperity, to find with in herself sufficient resources to enable her to go on without plunder, without tributes, and without external receipts." Very unfavourable and certainly overcharged accounts of the internal distresses of the French are given in various places, as (at p. xxiv.) of the roads, which (the writer speaks from personal observation) are good already, and in a state of active amelioration. The cotin neatness and embellishment within tages of the peasantry have improved these twelve years. The small farmhouses are more elegant and more numerous. The guingettes of the lower classes are cleanlier, and let higher. The wages The historical digressions in this work of Sir Francis D'Ivernois, are of more value than that part of the work which respects the finances of France: none better deserves the attention of Europe, than the appendix which respects the justly odious conduct of the French in Switzerland. Bonaparte has omitted nothing in his power, to obliterate the Swiss from the list of independant states; he has reduced the great bulk of that people to utter desperation, and to ensure their peaceable submission, he finds himself above having recourse to any other measures than those of restoring thefr arms, and withdrawing his army, at the very moment in which he takes from them every means of maintaining their own tranquility Thus it is, that he thinks it necessary to bolster up the odious laws which he has forced on them, by no other support than that of his name, and of the heterogeneous amalgamna imposed upon them, an amalgama equally detested by both parties. After this, lest any observer should have retained a doubt of the real object of the first consul, he himself most fully explained it. When he dismissed the Swiss deputies, he disclosed the secret of his system toward their country, and proclaimed it to the world through the news papers of Paris; "If,' said he, you shall again fall into a state of anarchy, I must reduce you to order by force, and by the annihilation of your independence*.' "Who is so blind as not to see in this declaration, that by thus having in some cantons permitted the predomination of the friends of order, and in others forcibly established the triumph of the jacobins, he is sowing the seeds of new commotions? Agitated as the inhabitants of Switzerland have been, his contrivance of leaving them to "After he had satisfactorily proved to the Swiss the reality of this repugnance, by m nufacturing for them nineteen constitutions, and committing several of them to the chore of the very men whom he had before teproached with the overthrow of the legitimate government of M. Reding, he had only to cide on the fate of that individual, and fv: other prisoners at Arbourg. To have p longed their confinement, would have bee absurd, as its only object was that the seve rity of their treatment might induce thes to assist at the consulta at Paris, where M Reding's presence would indeed have cer pleted the triumph of the mediator. At th first mention of such a proposal, he replied, that having already unsolicitedly re presented his sentiments to the first consu he had no farther communication to make him. Afterwards, when they had the 3 rance to repeat their attempt, he by his lence demonstrated to his jailers, that never retracts his resolutions. “I know not whether my readers w agree with me, but in my estimation, t illustrious Aloys Reding voluntarily subm ting to wear chains himself, rather than as in forging those of his country, and repell *«See Journal des Débats, March 18th. this last insult without indulging in any recrimination, is an object worthy if possible of higher admiration in the prison of Arbourg, than on the plains of Mortgarten. This is indeed the homo fortiter miser, whom Seneca describes as the noblest spectacle of the creation. Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat intentus operi suo deus Ecce par deo dignum, vir fortis cum mulâ fortuna compositus ntique si et provocavit.-Ita affecti sumus ut nihil æque magnam apud nos admirationem occupel quam homo fortiter miser.” To the general information, to the in lustry, and the sagacity of Sir Francis D'Ivernois high praise is due. His vindictive aversion to the French oppressors of his country, does honour to his republican spirit. His animosity against Bonaparte is shared by every enemy to usurpation or tyranny. The first promise which the consul is accused of having broken is respect for property; the second is respect for the constitution; the third, peace, and moderation to the vanquish ; the fourth, not to interfere in the domesLe concerns of other countries; the fifth, to restore publié credit. Under each head farts are detailed, which convincingly a repeated departure from these professions; yet there is a something in Le plan of criticism, not altogether dexterous and consistent. Some of the Complaints tend only to render Bona parte odious out of France: these should have been separated into some address to the Swiss. Others only tend to render him odicus in France: these should have been separated into some address to the French; and might have been powerfully strengthened by a person duly acquainted with the state of opinion in Paris. In some places Steigner, an aristocratic chieftain of the Swiss, is unaccountably applauded: he is supposed to have stimulated those measures of the Senate of Bern, which, by destroying the hope of domestic redress, founded a French party in Switzerland. Elsewhere Reding, the purer chieftain of a purer cause, is applauded with like zeal, and with less reserve. The art of hostility does not consist in indiscriminate, in perpetual, or in contradic. tory opposition; but in selecting the most uniformly thwarted interest for the especial object of protection, and in dropping all grounds of discussion which interfere with its sympathies. Bonaparte is a hero of the anti-jacobins, not of their adversaries; it is in the name of outraged liberty that he should be devoted to the abhorrence of the nations he en⚫ slaves. The restorer of popery and monarchy is sure of the perennial praise of the priest and of the courtier. ART. XXIV. The Importance of Malta considered. By G. ORR, Esq. 8vo.] WHEN Richard Lion-heart coveted the Holy Land, he began by taking possession of the island of Cyprus. Perhaps the shipping then in use could be all accommodated there, but not modern men of war. Rhodes was long a seat of maritime Power: is its best port become a mere aven for sloops and feluccas? Is Lampedusa, though so dear to the se, worthless to the armed Neptune? it as a maritime arsenal useless and temptible? One must presume, at least, that a tion, whose charts are the best in Lurope, has been unable any where to detect a naval station in the Mediter*ean; since she has thought fit to set extravagant a value on Malta, as to Ank her infinitesimal fraction of a right to it worth a war. Mr. Orr endeavours to demonstrate his value. He justly calls it the watch. wer of the Mediterranean, and rents the advantages it afforded during Axy. REV. VOL. II. the Egyptian campaign. Very true. But will no other island answer all these purposes nearly as well? Mr. Orr takes it for granted that it is always an object to us (p. 22) to interrupt the proceedings of the French; whereas, it ought to be an object to us only to interrupt those proceedings of the French, which tend to interfere with our own national interests. By interrupting last war their aggrandizement southward, we have compelled them to extend themselves in the north, and are now wholly unable to eradicate them. from Holland, from Westphalia, from Denmark. Never was such want of statesmanship displayed as in the selection of enterprizes during the antijacobin war. In the progressive partition of the world, Great Britain, from geographical causes, cannot aggrandize herself. Her interest, therefore, is to promote the institution of new independent powers, among whom she may preserve her old relative rank; and not the perpetual addition of territory to those already in being, who thereby become relative as well as positively, greater. ART. XXV. The Importance of Malta considered, in the Years 1796 and 1798: 21 Remarks, which occurred during a Journey from England to India, in the Year 177 By MARK WOOD, Esq. M. P. late Chief Engineer, Bengal. 4to. pp. 78. IN the year 1796, Mr. Wood addressed a letter to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas, and in the year 1798 he addressed two letters to Mr. Dundas alone, exhibiting in the most clear and satisfactory manner the high importance of Malta to Great Britain, as a depôt and guardian of our commerce in the Mediterranean and Ionian seas; and as affording the most effectual, if not the only, means of protecting our eastern empire from the insatiable ambition of the French republic. Malta is truly represented as "that station which would give us completely the command of the Levant, since not one ship from thence could sail to or from any port in Europe, unless by our permission or under convoy of a superior fleet; the coasts of Spain, France, Italy, and Africa must be subject to our control, and, whilst at war with this country, be kept under necessary subjection. From Africa and Sicily we could have ample supplies for our fleets and garrisons; and by the Dardanelles, from the Euxine and Caspian seas, inexhaustible supplies of various naval stores, which, if not secured to ourselves, must inevitably find their way to the arsenals of France." These short letters do the greatest credit to the sagacity and political foresight of Mr. Wood: Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt is distinctly foretold, and even the measures which he pursued when in possession of the country, are anticipated. But it was not the custom of our last ministers to profit by the superior knowledge of private individuals, or act upon advice-till it was too late to be of service. In the year 1779, Mr. Wood received a note about mid-day, from Mr. Wilkes, clerk to the secret committee of the court of East India directors, desiring to see him on particular business: he attended, and, under injunctions of secrecy, the desire of the committee was communicated, that he would charme himself with their dispatches, as wel those of the secretary of state, and p ceed with them overland to India 1evening. Mr. Wood, accordingly, off on his journey, which he purs with the utmost expedition, accord to his instructions, by way of Hol and Germany to Venice, and thence Alexandria, Grand Cairo, and Suez, Fort St. George. If the contents his dispatches had not been represent as of the highest and most pressing m portance to the British nation, the ten of the instructions, that every thing t security was to be sacrificed to expedit would have justified the inference. E it was the mountain in labour! "From the tenor of our instructions, well as conversation of Mr. Wilkes, o person would have believed the dispatches have been of infinite importance; and aFrench had been expelled from all ther tlements in India, and Sir Edward Hoz with a large fleet of men of war, accur nied by troops in transports, had sai the East only a few days before, I natur concluded that his destination was -Mauritius, and that I carried orders troops and stores to be immediately from India to co-operate in this expedr A large army of near 30,000 men was a time in and about the Carnatic, totall employed, and as many in Bengal. On arrival at Madras, I was not a little sur to find that, excepting honours for Sir 1. mas Rumbold and Sir Hector Manr dispatch merely contained orders for des. ing the fortifications of Pondichery. A reached Madras many months before Edward got as far as the Cape, the to with which such a plan could have b executed is obvious, and Sir Edward ny have performed this service and reached in as soon as he did." The remarks in this rapid journal be serviceable to those who are employ in a similar expedition. |