The Statesman.
London, England, 1815-09-26 00:00:00

ON THE REVOLUTION FRANCE.

ag The gross infaity which attended kilres de ca-
thet sod thrt thistilit.'daritig the whole reign of Louis
XV. made them ',teemed in England, by people
isot well informed, u the most prominent features of
the despotism of France. They were certainly car-
ried to an excess hardly credible; to the length of
being sold, with blanks, to be filled up with name;
at (ho p ~,sitre of the purchaser; who was thus elle,
in the gratification of private revenge, to tear a
man from the bosom of his family, awl bury hint
in a dungeon, where he would exist fergotten, and
die unknown*!---But such excesses could not
be comma*, in any country; and they were reduced
almost to nothing, from the accession of the present
King. 'I he great mass of the people, by which I
mean the lower and middle ranks, could suffer very
little from such engines, and, as few of them are ob-
jects of jealou-y, had there been nothing else to
complain of, it jc not probable they would ever have
been brought to take up arms. The abuses attend-
ing the levy of. taxes were heavy and universal.—
The kingdom was parcelled into Generalities, with
an Intendant at the head of each, into whose hands
the whole power of the Crown was delegated for
every thing evrept the military authority ; but par-
ticularly for all affairs of finance. Toe Generalities
were subdivided into Electimis, at the heed of which
was a Sub-dehipte, appointed by the Intendant.—
Th., rolls of the taille, crwitation, vingtirmes, and
other taxes, were diiitributed among districts, pa-
rishes, and individuals, at the pleasure of the In-
tendant, who could exempt, change, add, or di.
minish, at pleasure. Such. on enormous power,
constantly acting, awl from which no man was free,
mind, in the nature of things, degenerate in many
cases into absolute tyranny. It must be obriati3,
that the friends, acquaintances, and dependants of
the Intendant, and of all his sub-delegues; and the
friends of thee friends, to a long chain of depen-
dence, might. he favoured its taxation at the expellee
of their miserable neighbours ; and that noblemen,
in fawner at Court, to whose ptotection the Inten-
dant himself Weald naturally look uv, could find
little difficulty in throwing much of the weight of
their taxes on others, without a similar support.— •
Instances, anti even gross ones, have been reported
to me hi many parts of the kingdom, that made
.me shudder at the oppression to which numbers most
have been condemned, by the undue favours granted

• An anecdote which I have Iranian auth-iritv to be depend-
ed on, nits es& an the profligacy of Goveininem, in revect
to line arbitrary imprisonment+. I ord Albemarle, When Al,.'
b.i.sador in France. istmut the Yeilr 17:53. negociaiing theetziog
of the limits of the American colonies, which three years af-
ter, itsiuttir•eti the war, calling one day on the Minister for
Attain., was intrininred, rot a few minutes, into his
eahmet, while finished a Opal conversation in the op.irtment
In tegich he ow slly received litoSe who roar; rcd with him.—
A• hi- tor !ship walked latekssnrtis hod (..surds,in very
small mon (o French cabinet is never n large • w)„ he could
not h Ip seeine n paper lying on the table, written in a large ie.
gible haw', raid coutoining n list of Ike prisoners in the
11 which the tiro MIMIC was Gordon. Witelf She Minister ether-
ed, Lord Athens ale apologised lutists 411,01am:oily 'remarking
the paper; the other replied, that it was tint of the lenst von-
sequence, far Oil mode no secret of be mimes. Lord A. then
' said. that he had seen the manse of G•irdou first in she list, and
he beeerd to kn ,w, its its all probability the person of this
mime was a British seller,, w lint account be bad been put
into the !inside. Ti.. told him that hiltnew whin;
• of the avows ben irmild wok,. the propel roquiries. Thd next
algae be kriv Lord Atheasatie, he inurrnic•l him. that, on en-
rsiring into the tn.+. of Gordon, he could nit no prison who
6414 Rive him' the leAt • idoimaliou i.n which he find had
Curare tbltaself ins. rrumserti, who selesousit affirmed, that be
bast *AIM. smallest logatelige. evea...u, pron. of the cau•e
••
p( is inspri,omnent, bat that he had been confined thirty years;
%avert, Milled the Isttalare, UsltileteithlaS" lb be immediately
released, and lie is now at large. Such a•caselsoots DO COW

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