We earnestly entreat you, fire, to be on your guard against the emotions and propenfities of your tender heart, in order that the acco. nomy already begun may continue, and thofe reforms adopted and fettled be of conftant duration. When a pure and enlightened adminiftration endeavours to establish certain principles of œconomy, it generally meets with fome ancient customs that feem to have been long attached to the conftitution, and to enjoy the right of prefcription. If the minister acts with firmnefs, he is immediately blamed for his imprudence; if with precaution, the world will cenfure his weakness: what difficulties will not then in fuch a cafe furround the monarch, and be inceffantly multiplying about him! Coutiers will publicly approve of, nay applaud, the projected reforms; but in fecret they will try to weaken, and even prevent their effect; all means will be employed to deceive him; it is then that art, addrefs, and fineffe, appear in a thousand different forms, actuated by the most imperious of all motives, perfonal intereft: the fovereign, thus befet, and attacked on every fide by claims, fuits, petitions, &c. is forced to liften to importunate clamours, and through the goodness of his heart often grants what could never be obtained through his justice. The moment the word economy is mentioned, it echoes through the room; the cunning courtier apparently adopts the plan, and withes to be numbered among the great characters of the nation, whofe example he affects to imitate; but he calculates at the fame time how long the economical reform may fubfift, and how he may render abortive the retrenchments that diminifh either his credit or his reve nues all expences but his own feem fufaeptible of diminution: in a vaft adminiftration, the weakest pretexts are easily tinged with the colouring of reafon; and that oeconomy which has been so often courted, and always expected, appears and difappears in an inftant, leaving a black cloud over the beautiful countenance of truth, which fome faint rays had begun to render confpicuous. Thefe reflections, fire, written in the annals of every nation, are the faithful hiftory of the human heart: never could the meditation on them be more interesting to your majefty than at prefent, for the application fuits exactly to the urgent circumftances of the times. The more vigour and firmnefs your inajefly will fhew for the intended reforms, and faiutary refolutions, the more difficulties and obstacles will certainly impede the way; and experience may perhaps have already proved, that the perfons interested in thefe acconomical views begin to hint as if the propofed fums were equivocal and precarious, and the deductions agreed upon incompatible with old cuftoms, and unlikely to laft a long time. It is in your majesty's power to enforce, with a laudable perfeverance, the order that muft` establish with permanency this indifpenfable reform. Every thing fhould undergo the ftrictest enquiry. Your majesty's juftice, which is to us the fureft and most facred pledge, emboldens your parliament to lay before you, without danger of incurring your royal difpleafure, fome of those remarks and obfervations that muft naturally have occurred to you. Had you known, fire, the real ftate of your finances, no doubt you would not have undertaken thofe immenfe edifices that are are now building, nor made fo many acquifitions onerous to the ftate; you would not have permitted fo inany exchanges of the crown lands, nor granted thofe exceffive liberalities that the importunate and intriguing are always fure of obtaining. The facility of obtain ing money from the reafury (the fatal bane of all administrations) would never have been fuffered to increafe, for it expofes every moment the fovereign to fome dangerous furprize; it fquanders fecretly the public revenue, and can never over-balance, with its pretended utility, the great inconveniencies always attending it. Your majefty would certainly never have confented to have Paris furrounded by fuch a magnificent wall; to fee palaces erected for your excife-officers at an exorbitant expence, in order to coincide with the views of the farmers-general, who, in expectation of a precarious and diitant gain, expend annually thofe fums that fhould be appropriated to wants of more real neceffity. All these objects, fire, and many others, the enumeration of which would aftonish, are fufceptible of amendment; fome require a confiderable diminution; others an entire fuppreflion. But it is not the total only of each department that fhould be properly diminished; every part of it fhould be fcrupuloufly examined, and divefted of all its fuperfluous charges; it fhould be reduced to the fimple and absoLutely neceflary expence in fo doing, your majesty might easily double the intended reform of the forty millions of livres, and this might then prove a real relief to your fuffering fubjects. There are honourable economies, fire, that, far from diminishing the fplendour of a throne, add luftre and dignity to it. Majefty itfelf may fubmit to privations. The fovereign is always great when his fubjects are happy; and the fight of happiness ipread over a whole people is fo pompous and brilliant, that it commands public admiration and univerfal applaufe. Thefe diminutions, fuppreffions, reforms, and economies, so often folicited by your parliaments, demanded by the notables, and promifed to their fpirited and just perfeverance, are wifhed for and expected every day by the unhappy hufbandman, whole tears bedew the very field that contributes to fo many ufelefs expences before it has furnished the neceffary fubfiftence to the perfon who fowed it, for the fubfiftence of himself and family, and who, deprived of the common neceffaries, is forced to take from his poverty itfelf, wherewith to furnish to the exigencies of the ftate. Thefe unhappy beings, fire, Frenchmen by birth, and MEN, have a double right to enjoy their facred property even in the bosom of indigence; but as they cannot claim it themfelves at your majesty's feet, let their claims and their rights be ever prefent before you; let their plaints find their way to the throne, and reach your royal perfon; let them hear your gracious answer, and let them know that your majesty's goodness and justice are the fureft fupporters they can hope to find near the throne. The French never confult any intereft infeparable from the throne; they are always biaffed by their At every barriers (turnpike) there are two beautiful manñions, in the form of lodges, adorned with pillars, pilafters, medallions, &c. fincere fincere attachment to their monarch; in their fervent zeal and enthufiaftic emotions for the royal caufe, they have been capable of the greatest facrifices; and they may fancy the ways and means of the nation as unbounded as their affection. These ways and means, therefore, must be carefully managed and ufed at proper times. It fhould be likewife confidered, that the contributions proceeding from the impofts granted to the monarch are only intended as fubfidies to the ftate, and that the fovereign is but the distributor of whatever is not employed for the public weal, which naturally belongs to thofe who co-operated in levying the contributions; and, if they are diverted from their chief and primitive intent, their fertile fource will foon become infufficient, and, in a fhort time, exhaufted; particularly if the expences increase in proportion to the receipt. All kinds of impofts fhould be proportioned to the neceffary wants of the nation, and end with them. Each citizen contributes part of his property, for the fake of maintaining public fafety and private tranquillity. The people, on fuch principles, founded on the rights of mankind, and confirmed by reafon, fhould never increase their contributions but when the expences of the state have undergone all the favings, alterations, and retrenchments, they are capable of. It is for this reafon, therefore, that your parliament, fire, look upon the duty on ftamped paper as en. tirely oppofite to thele primitive notions. It would affect the private tranquillity, by neceffarily opening a way to errors, and thereby would prove far more dangerous than the gabelle [duty on falt, a kind of excife], which was, as has been feen, liable to open frauds. The most exact and habitual attention could hardly be fufficient to diftinguish the numberlefs ftamped papers that are to ferve for each refpective act of juftice or common tranfaction. What mistakes will not the greateft part of your fubjects be liable to, by interchanging thefe papers, and making ufe of the one for the other! Many writings, by fuch involuntary faults, may appear counterfeited in the eye of justice; and the unwary individual will find himself daily expofed to pay exorbitant fines, or to encounter difagreeable and heavy fuits at law. Such a duty, fire, is likewife incompatible with public fafety, as it would deeply wound mutual confidence, which is the fure foundation of it. Individuals would be afraid of producing unftamped bills or notes before a tribunal; and in this age, where there are fuch fre- . quent inftances of perfons taking all forts of advantages, and commencing or prolonging vexatious and never-ending fuits, a wife legiflator fhould be very careful not to introduce new fubjects of chicanery. Betides, our public trust, fire, and our national dignity, abfolutely forbid the introduction of fuch a dangerous duty. The moment a declaration is iffued, which is generally vicious in almost all its difpofitions, a feducing facility of extending its meaning or duration offers itfelf, and pretences are not wanting for impoting plaufibly on the public. Experience furnishes us with too many examples. The two fous and the eight fous per livre for instance, the fecond warrant for the poll-tax, and fo many other inventions, which the fertile genius of finances has imagined, and is never at a lofs to find to over-charge the fubjects, are but a continuation and extenfion of a duty, fimple in its origin; and fuch an extenfion, fire, is often divested of any legal authority, and only collected in virtue of the minister's mandate. Without mentioning, fire, the multiplicity of marks, precautions, and fines, annexed to and attending the duty on ftamped paper, it is certain that it would caufe a delay in public and private bufinefs, and obtruct the common daily tranfactions. All delay is dangerous, and all obfruction muft produce a delay. A bill of exchange, improperly ftamped, would be liable to a fine; the fine must be paid immediately by the poffeffor of the bill; he therefore would be obliged to advance the fum for the fine, pay instead of re ceiving, and be out of his money till the expiration of his unlucky bill. He would be a fufferer for other perfons faults, and fuch faults might be renewed feveral times in one and the fame day, in the very fame hour; his payments must be affected by it, and his credit called in queftion. Thence mißruft and doubts will neceffarily arife; and you know, fire, that there fubfifts a kind of chain in the course of exchanges, that ftrongly binds all the commercial parts of mankind in the known world. Our trading toa ns would lofe, in the eyes of a foreigner, that level or advantage they were wont to enjoy. In fhort, were not fuch a duty extremely onerous it itself, its unlimited duration must caufe a general alarm. We have often feen taxes, limited till fuch a time, prolonged even after the intention of the fupply had been amply fulfilled; but we did not expect to fee one that is to laft perpetually, at the very time when a certain period was mentioned for diminishing the national debt. Lewis XIV. established the poll, tax in 1695, and the tenth in 1710. The misfortunes and heavy loffes fuftained towards the latter end of his reign, and the invasion of the kingdom, made him attempt a step, the fuccefs of which he very much doubted in his own mind. That great monarch, finding himself obliged to lay fuch a duty, feemed to have been doubtful whether he had a right to lay it; and if parliament then thought it their duty to have it registered, it was because the contribution was to laft but a fhort time; it was chiefly because the exigencies of the ftate feemed to require a fpeedy redrefs; had it not been for thefe fubftantial reafons, fire, Lewis XIV. would have owned, "that it was the nation alone, re-united in the three general ftates, that can give the neceffary confent for establishing a perpetual tax-that parliament were never invefted with fuch a power, and that, charged by the fovereign to announce his will to the people, they had never been charged by the people to reprefent them fo implicitly." This is what your refpectful parliament takes now the liberty of mentioning to your majefty; and, penetrated with this truth, alarmed at the enormous deficiency, and truck with the deplorable diforders that have produced it, and might render it perpetual, they with very much to see the whole nation affembled, before they register any new impost. The nation alone thus affembled, and instructed in the true ftate of the finances, may extirpate the great abufes that are existing at prefent, and offer great refources to obviate them in future. Tis 'Tis for you, fire, that the honour was referved of renewing thofe national affemblies which render the reign of Charlemagne fo great and illustrious; affemblies that repaired all king John's difaftrous calamities, and concurred with parliament to re-establish Charles VII. on the throne. All the world is convinced now of the truth of this maxim-that myftery generally accompanies miftruft and weakness-that the greater authority is, the more confidence and candour it should infpireand that entrusting the provincial affemblies with part of the adminiftration, inftead of weakening it, would enlighten and render it more active. Your notables, fire, fo wifely felected by your majefty, have affifted the throne with their counfels, and unveiled the long hidden countenance of truth, which you were determined to fee. How happy are now the members of this affembly in prefenting you, fire, with the effufions of that truth they ftrongly feel in their hearts! The monarch of France can never be fo great as when furrounded by his hapPy fubjects: he has nothing to fear but the excess of their attachment: he has no other precaution to take but to be upon his guard againfi iffuing orders that may be beyond their porver to accomplish. By a perfect union beween the fovereign and the people, each party will be the gainer; and a monarch can never err in following the steps of the hero of the fecond race, who forced from the unanimous lips of admiring Europe the name of Great, which he certainly deferved by protecting juf tice and his people with the fame arm that ftruck terror to his enemies; nor thofe of a Charles V. whom pofterity, the impartial judge of kings, has dignified with the title of Wife; nor thofe of Lewis 3 XII. who in one of thofe affemblies had the fweet fatisfaction of hearing himself proclaimed the Father of his People; nor thofe in fhort of Henry IV. whofe name, fill fo cherished by the French, is an honour to humanity, and daily receives from our grateful hearts a copious tribute of tears. Your parliament, fire, waiting with impatience for the happy and wished-for moment, when a just monarch will deign to fpread his benign influence over a faithful nation, and grant their requests, moft refpectfully intreat your majefty to recall and annull the declaration of the ftamp-duty, as altogether incompatible with the prefent fituation of affairs; a duty, that, were it to be enforced, would cause univerfal difcontent and forrow to all the nation, and the name only of which has already spread a general alarm through the kingdom. His Moft Chriftian Majeftv's Speech to the Parliament of Paris, Nov. 19, 1787. Gentlemen, I am come to this affembly to recall to my parliament thofe principles from which it ought never to deviate; to hear what you have to fay upon two great acts of adminiftration and legiflation, which to me have appeared neceffary; finally to reply to you upon the reprefentations made to me by the chamber of vacations, in favour of my parliament of Bourdeaux. The principles which mean to recall to your recollection, are a part of the effence of the monarchy, and I will not fuffer them to be unknown or changed. I had no need of folicitations to affemble the notables of my kingdom. I fhall never be afraid of being among my fubjects. A king |