Smith resided there is thus described by Smollett in his thirty-sixth letter, dated March 23, 1765:—

'You ask whether I think the French people are more taxed than the English? but I apprehended, the question would be more apropos, if you asked whether the French taxes are more unsupportable than the English? for, in comparing burdens, we ought always to consider the strength of the shoulders that bear them. I know no better way of estimating the strength, than by examining the face of the country, and observing the appearance of the common people, who constitute the bulk of every nation. When I therefore see the country of England smiling with cultivation; the grounds exhibiting all the perfections of agriculture, parcelled out into beautiful enclosures, cornfields, hay and pasture, woodland and common; when I see her meadows well stocked with black cattle; her downs covered with sheep; when I view her teams of horses and oxen, large and strong, fat and sleek; when I see her farm-houses the habitations of plenty, cleanliness, and convenience; and her peasants well fed, well lodged, well clothed, tall and stout, and hale and jolly; I cannot help concluding that the people are well able to bear those impositions which the public necessities have rendered necessary. On the other hand, when I perceive such signs of poverty, misery, and dirt, among the commonalty of France, their unfenced fields dug up in despair, without the intervention of meadow or fallow ground, without cattle to furnish manure, without horses to execute the plans of agriculture; their farm-houses mean, their furniture wretched, their apparel beggarly; themselves and their beasts the images of famine; I cannot help thinking they groan under oppression, either from their landlords or their government; probably from both.

The principal impositions of the French government are these: -First, the taille, paid by all the commons, except those that are privileged; secondly, the capitation, from which no persons (not even the nobles) are excepted; thirdly, the tenths and twentieths, called Dixièmes and Vingtièmes, which everybody pays. This tax was originally levied as an occasional aid in times of war, and other emergencies; but, by degrees, is become a standing revenue even in time of peace. All the money arising from these impo

sitions goes directly to the king's treasury; and must undoubtedly amount to a very great sum. Besides these, he has the revenue of the farms, consisting of the droits d'aides, or excise on wine, brandy, &c.; of the custom-house duties; of the gabelle, comprehending that most oppressive obligation on individuals to take a certain quantity of salt at the price which the farmers shall please to fix; of the exclusive privilege to sell tobacco; of the droits de controlle, insinuation, centième denier, franchiefs, aubeine, échange et contraéchange, arising from the acts of voluntary jurisdiction, as well as certain law-suits. These farms are said to bring into the king's coffers above one hundred and twenty millions of livres yearly, amounting to near five millions sterling; but the poor people are said to pay about a third more than this sum, which the farmers retain to enrich themselves, and bribe the great for their protection; which protection of the great is the true reason why this most iniquitous, oppressive, and absurd method of levying money is not laid aside. Over and above those articles I have mentioned, the French king draws considerable sums from his clergy, under the denomination of dons gratuits, or free gifts; as well as from the subsidies given by the pays d'états, such as Provence, Languedoc, and Bretagne, which are exempted from the taille. The whole revenue of the French king amounts to between twelve and thirteen millions sterling. These are great resources for the king; but they will always keep the poor miserable, and effectually prevent them from making such improvements as might turn their lands to the best advantage. But, besides being eased in the article of taxes, there is something else required to make them exert themselves for the benefit of their country. They must be free in their persons, secure in their property, indulged with reasonable leases, and effectually protected by law from the insolence and oppression of their superiors.

'Great as the French king's resources may appear, they are hardly sufficient to defray the enormous expense of his government. About two millions sterling per annum of his revenue are said to be anticipated for paying the interest of the public debts; and the rest is found inadequate to the charge of a prodigious standing army, a double frontier of fortified towns, and the extravagant appointments of ambassadors, generals, governors, intendants, commandants, and other officers of the crown, all of whom affect a

pomp, which is equally ridiculous and prodigal. * * * But the finances of France are so ill managed, that many of their commandants and other officers have not been able to draw their appointments these two years. In vain they complain and remonstrate. When they grow troublesome, they are removed. How then must they support the glory of France? how, but by oppressing the poor people? The treasurer makes use of their money for his own benefit. The king knows it; he knows his officers, thus defrauded, fleece and oppress the people; but he thinks proper to wink at these abuses. That government may be said to be weak and tottering which finds itself obliged to connive at such proceedings. The King of France, in order to give strength and stability to his administration, ought to have sense to adopt a sage plan of economy, and vigour of mind sufficient to execute it in all its parts, with the most rigorous exactness. He ought to have courage enough to find fault, and even to punish the delinquents, of what quality soever they may be; and the first act of reformation ought to be a total abolition of all the farms. There are undoubtedly many marks of relaxation in the reins of the French government, and in all probability the subjects of France will be the first to take the advantage of it. There is at present a violent fermentation of different principles among them, which, under the reign of a very weak prince, or during a long minority, may produce a great change in the constitution. In proportion to the progress of reason and philosophy, which have made great advances in this kingdom, superstition loses ground; ancient prejudices give way; a spirit of freedom takes the ascendant. All the learned laity of France detest the hierarchy as a plan of despotism, founded on imposture and usurpation. The Protestants, who are very numerous in the southern parts, abhor it with all the rancour of religious fanaticism. Many of the commons, enriched by commerce and manufacture, grow impatient of those odious distinctions, which exclude them from the honours and privileges due to their importance in the commonwealth; and all the parliaments or tribunals of justice in the kingdom seem bent upon asserting their rights and independence in the face of the king's prerogative, and even at the expense of his power and authority. Should any prince, therefore, be seduced by evil counsellors, or misled by his own bigotry, to take some arbitrary

step that may be extremely disagreeable to all those communities, without having spirit to exert the violence of his power for the support of his measures, he will become equally detested and despised; and the influence of the commons will insensibly encroach upon the pretensions of the crown. But if, in the time of a minority, the power of the government should be divided among the different competitors for the regency, the parliaments and people will find it still more easy to acquire and ascertain the liberty at which they aspire, because they will have the balance of power in their hands, and be able to make either scale preponderate.' * * *

Four assemblies, called Parliaments, sat in four different places. No free commercial intercourse existed between the various provinces of the kingdom. The peasantry were ground down by taxation, levied on the most vicious principle, the hatefulness of the impost being made more odious by a capricious system of exemptions. The King, the nobles, and the hierarchy were engaged perpetually in robbing and humiliating the people.

The taille was the equivalent of the English tallage. But the discretionary power of levying this impost had been taken away from the English monarch as long ago as the days of the Great Charter. The military tenants of the French monarchy, who constituted the nobility of that kingdom, were originally bound to military servicea condition originally more onerous than was involved in the taxes levied on the roturier. But for a long time before the Revolution, France possessed a standing army, the funds necessary for maintaining which were wrung from the visible resources of the French peasantry. The indirect taxation of France combined the least possible productiveness with the greatest possible oppressiveness, and violated every canon of financial prudence and equity.

I have quoted the authority of Smollett for the beggarliness of the French peasantry, because the evidence he gives was taken in the year during which Smith was in France. Similar testimony could be supplied from the Tour of Arthur Young, undertaken just before the Revolution.

It has been objected to Adam Smith and Hume, that they did not foresee the French Revolution, intimately as they were acquainted with the state of France. But the objection is shallow. What is called political prophecy is often mere guess-work, which no wise man will seriously indulge in. The easiest way in which weak men think they can gain a reputation is by sinister predictions of political events. No one can anticipate the conservative forces of society, no one can gather enough information to make a safe induction as to the resistance which may be made to change, or, indeed, as to the forces which will compel change.

But there is such a thing as political prescience. It is not difficult to discover the inevitable consequences induced by certain kinds of political action. This faculty Smith possessed in the highest degree, in a far higher degree than Hume, whose sagacity and acuteness he admired so much. Of this prescience his great work is the most noteworthy illustration. No person has ever pointed out with more exactness the effects of a mistaken commercial policy, the invariable reaction from a course of legislation which does not commend itself to the moral sense of a nation, and the mischievous consequences which ensue when a public law gives its sanction to private selfishness.

Smith returned to England in October, 1766, and very soon took up his abode at Kirkcaldy. Here he spent ten