trade-winds, &c. The effect which that they supply not only her own the difference in the gravity of bodies consumption, but that of Italy. and produces upon the matter and fluids Germany. The manufactures of on the surface of the globe, is 306 France never before prospered so times greater than the effect produced much. by the attraction of the moon, and 1372 times greater than any effect produced by the sun. FRANCE. Analysis of the Financial Situation of England and France. England-England cannot have more than 300 millions of revenue: she has, however, 1500 millions: but 300 millions represent her actual wealth, and 1200 millions the revenue of her monopoly; whence it results, that when England is ever so little cramped in her commerce, the exchange becomes unfavourable to her; she can no longer support herself, and she requires a paper money. Paper money is a natural and indispensable consequence of the situation of a nation, which, like England, has created a factitious revenue. England pays 600 millions of interest for debt; that is twice her real and reasonable re venue. Analysis of the Commercial Situation of England. As the power of England rests upon her commerce, that commerce consists in the circulation of the produce of the New World. We have proved that four-fifths of her retenue arose from brokerage; it is the coffee, therefore, the sugar, the indigo, the dye-woods, the muslins of India, which constitute her fortune; all her prosperity consists in drawing these productions from both the Indies, and in promoting their introduction into Europe. France.-France has an interest wholly continental; her revenue arises from the produce of her fields, of her vines, her olives, her tobacco, her fabrics of silk and linen; and from the cottons of her southern provinces. Like the continent, she has an interest in rejecting the merchandise of the Indies, and in profitting by the bounty of Nature, which has placed within the old continent what may enable it to dispense with the new. Thus, the shackles which she has thrown upon English brokerage are such, that the consumption of sugar, of coffee, and colonial produce, has within three years decreased one-half in Europe. The discoveries which she has made enable her even to replace the produc tions of the continent. The sugar from grapes is sold cheaper than the cane-sugar ever was, even at the period of greatest communication with the colonies. The cottons of Naples and of Rome are superior to those of America. The kermes, the woad, and the madder, thanks to the aids of chemistry, compensate for the want of colonial dyes. Already soda is made every where. When the New World was discovered, the arts of chemistry were in their infancy. France.-France has 800 millions of revenue in time of peace. This is only two thirds of what she can raise in time of war. By adding 30 centimes to her rates of imports, her revenue is raised to 1200 millions. This revenue is wholly derived from her own terri tory. She has 50 millions of debt, that is to say, one-sixteenth of her ordinary income. It is obvious from this, that France has not, and ought not to have a paper money. France inay be considered as a rich farmer, who finds every thing upon his farm. She has no need of commerce, but as an agent for selling her productions. *Germany, Italy, are open to her spe1 culatious; and even England is happy te to receive, when she chooses to send, the surplus of her produce. The Bank discounts twice as much as the Caisse d'escompte discounted in 1780. It has 120 millions of notes in circulation. These are true bank notes, con- The continental system has provertible into specie at pleasure, and duced a real, a prodigious revolution. not forced. The coinage of France It will oppose an insurmountable obis the best in Europe. Money is there stacle to the brokerage of England; abundant, and the rate of interest is and in proportion as the continental from 4 to 5 per cent. Her manufac- powers feel, and they have felt it for fines are in such a state of prosperity, a long time, that it is their interest to In order to have sailors, they are pressed, they are carried off in the public streets without law, and like savages. In these expeditions men are beaten, they are killed; every where authority acts with violence. The English government then has all the characteristics of tyranny and op pression; it employs the bayonet and the cannon to keep in obedience one of the principal divisions of its empire, and to restrain its capital; it shackles six millions of its citizens in the exercise of their religion. tax the importation of colonial pro- in London unattended: he has, ten duce, they will have sugar, coffee, times, been very near being assassicotton, and indigo, from the continent nated; he will take care not to go itself. This result is not chimerical, among a crowd-it is probable that The actual prosperity of France, the he would not do so with impunity. aid which she derives from the arts to procure that which she wants, from that this revolution has advanced five sixths of its course. It has been silently working, it will burst forth; and, at a general continental peace, England will be astonished at the progress of the arts of chemistry in Europe, of the naturalization of the culture of the plants of America on the continent, and the repugnance of the continent to give her its gold, and impoverish itself when it finds an equivalent within itself. These are the great causes of the diminution of English commerce; these effects will be more efficacious than the Decrees of Milan and Berlin. Let these Decrees continue in force a few years longer, and they will make themselves be felt a century after they have been revoked. England.--The alliance of England has caused the ruin of the powers who have courted it; witness the Stadtholder of Holland, the Kings of Naples and Sardinia, and the other Princes who have given themselves up to it. England is, in her internal policy, intolerant; a population of more than six millions of Christians cannot profess their religion; cannot hold employments in the state, or in the army, without renouncing their faith. England oppresses the nations with whom she unites, because she carries her oppression so far as not to leave them the free exercise of their religion. Such are the effects of the English administration. Ireland cannot be guarded without a considerable army. Tranquillity cannot be maintained in London without an armed force. Even in London, English troops have been scen to fire upon the people-old men, women, children-to enforce the respect due to the law. It was not only the bayonet that was employed-it was cannon, and trains of artillery, which were brought to London, to make the government respected. The King of England durst not go abroad France. All the powers allied to France are aggrandized; all the countries united with it receive fraternal treatment; toleration, there, is entire and absolute; within the circumfe rence of the Louvre is the chapel of St. Thomas, where protestants officiate the Emperor appoints and pays the bishops and clergy, the presidents of the Consistory, and the ministers; organize the seminaries and the schools of Geneva and Montauban. Civil authority has no right to restrain the conscience; this is the principle of the French monarchy. No troops are necessary in the united countries. Piedmont, Tuscany, Genoa, had not 1500 troops when the Emperor was at Vienna. There were only 1200 men in garrison at Paris. The conscription was levied, taxes were exactly paid, and every thing was tranquil. At no time has an armed force been employed since the close of the Revolution; and the Emperor promenades in the midst of the crowd which covers the Carousal, or in the park of St. Cloud in his chariot and four, at slow pace, with the Empress, and a single page, and amidst 150,000 spectators surrounding his carriage, and blessing the father of the country. Opinion is all-powerful in France, from the lowest class to the highest; all listen to reason, and march when the trumpet sounds. The conscription is regulated like the taxes; it is levied without commotion, without disorder: the magistrates of the people preside over the whole; there is nothing of violence or tumult to be seen. Germany. he remained fixed and immoveable; According to the German Pæda-, his eyes turned wildly here and there without taking cognizance of any object, and the muscles of his face were gogic Magazine, (vol. 111. p. 407.) died lately in Swabia, a schoolmaster, who for one and fifty years had superintended a large institution with old fashioned severity. From an average inferred by means of recorded observations, one of the ushers has calculated that, in the course of his exertion, he has given 911,500 canings, 124,000 floggings, 209,000 custodes, 136,000 tips with the ruler, 10,200 boxes on the ear, and 22,700 tasks to get by heart. It was further calcu; lated that he had made 700 boys stand on peas, 600 kneel on a sharp edge of wood, 5000 wear the fools cap, and 1700 hold the rod. Martial's observa tion, Ferula tristes, sceptra pædagogorum cessant," seems not yet applicable to Swabia. 66 fallen and fixed like those of a dead body. Being left to himself, he passed nineteen days in this condition, without eating, drinking, or any evacuation, and died on the twentieth day. Italy. There were lately in Rome several establishments for the support of missions and tolerated churches, including several English, Scottish, and Irish colleges. All these institutions have lately been suppressed by the French emperor, and their possessions confiscated. Some of the heads of these colleges have been called upon to deliver up their accounts. A short time before this suppression, Mr. O'Canan, an ecclesiastic, intending to carry with him to America, certain bells of consecration, left Rome for Naples, where, being arrested, and stripped of his packet, he died in the course of two days. culture. Spain. Remarkable instance of the effects of fear.--George Grochantzy, a Polander, who had enlisted as a soldier in the service of the King of Prussia, deserted during the last war. A small party was sent in pursuit of him; and As a compensation for the loss of when he least expected it, they surthe gains and amusements of superprised him singing and dancing among Paris places at the disposal of the stition, an imperial decree issued from a company of peasants, who were got together at an inn, and were making minister of the interior, 500,000 francs, merry. This event, so sudden and to be applied to the establishment of unforseen, and at the same time so manufactures in Rome, to the encoudreadful in its consequences, struck ragement of the growth of cotton, in him in such a manner, that giving a the neighbouring country, and to the great cry, he became at once altoge- improvement of the climate and agri ther stupid and insensible, and was seized without the least resistance. They carried him away to Glosau, where he was brought before the council of war, and received sentence as a deserter. He suffered himself to be led and disposed of at the will of those about him, without uttering a word, or giving the least sign that he knew what had happened or would happen to him. He remained immoveable as a statue wherever he was placed, and was wholly passive with respect to all that was done to him or about him. During all the time he was in custody, he neither ate, drank, nor slept, nor had any evacuation. After some time they knocked off his fetters, and left him at liberty to go whither he would. He received his liberty with the same insensibility that he had showed upon other occasions : UNIVERSAL MAG. VOL. XIV. It appears, from good authority, that the crop of fine wool of all descriptions is lessened in this kingdom.-"We have," says a letter on this subject, "this year less than a third part of the usual quantity, and it is to be feared that, in future, it will not be more abundant, the flocks having been diminished, not only by the unfavourableness of the season, but also on account of the sheep being harrassed by the frequent journies they have been obliged to take. Many of them have been obliged to change their pastures entirely, which never fails injuring the wool, and occasions a great inferiority in comparison with its fe mer state, both with respect to the fineness and the staple. & S adopted to MEMOIRS OF REMARKABLE PERSONS. ABRAHAM GOLDSMID, ESQ. any other parties were successful in N Friday morning, Sept. 28, this the negociation with the minister, in a great measure, not only our own, ciate the bargain, until at length but the fate of neighbouring nations, (though willing to participate) no one has for the last twenty years greatly cared to enter the lists against them, depended, put a period to his exist- and they were considered as the prinence by a pistol, in a water-closet, cipal loan-jobbers. To the facility situate in a part of the shrubbery, with which money was obtained called the Wilderness, at his house at through their means, may probably Morden, Surrey. He was discovered be attributed the long continuance of about eight o'clock mortally wounded, a war which has nearly desolated Eubut not dead. Medical assistance was rope; for however the tyrannical consent for, but he died at ten o'clock, in duct of Bonaparte may be reprobated, the bosom of his afflicted family. He it is indubitable, that our having subwas in the 53d year of his age. The sidized other powers opposed to him, extreme irritation of his feelings, from has been the great cause of his invetethe pressure of the many intricate rate malignity and hostility towards concerns in which he was involved, this country. had, for the last ten or twelve days preyed upon him so much, that he was visibly disturbed; and in a moment of mental delirium, he committed this fatal act, which has deprived his numerous family of an inestimable parent. The great Frederick of Prussia is believed to have owed his resources during the height of his glory to a Jew of equally distinguished celebrity; who, if we may credit Voltaire, was his great confidante and friend, and assisted in the partition and despoliaThe origin of this wealthy indivi- tion of Poland. In like manuer, the dual is said to have been so low, that Goldsmids enjoyed the confidence of there are persons living who remember the prime ministers of England, and the head of the family to have been a even princes of the blood have been retailer of sealing-wax and hair rollers entertained by the deceased in the in the public streets of the metropolis, most costly and sumptuous manner. from which he emerged, till by great On a very recent occasion the dessert economy and extraordinary applica- of fruits alone is said to have cost tion to mercantile traffic, the house 7001. but how insignificant was such a latterly employed more than 100 clerks, sum to his immense acquirements, who were arranged in distinct rooms when favoured by a successful issue, in a suite of offices, and there was as they generally were, till the recent scarcely an article, either of native or calamitous circumstances so fatal to foreign produce, with which you his mental peace. might not have been well supplied by It is known that in conjunction their firm. The returns were of course with Sir F. Baring he took half of the immense, and their dealings marked late loan for 14 millions; and supby the strictest punctuality; but from posing, as has been advanced, that he dealings in goods they became dealers had distributed amongst his friends, in money, and though iron may some- without profit, 3 millions thereof, (as times be as profitable as gold, yet it is has been his general practice) 4 mil not so rapidly rendered productive. lions remained to his firm. In the This induced them to turn their at- commencement at least, and till after tention to more enlarged speculations, the first or second instalment is paid even the provision for fleets and of 10 per cent. the omnium (as it is armies; indeed such was the success called) generally bears a premium, of the firm, that it was long currently and if only of a quarter of 5s. per cent. believed on the Stock Exchange, that the profit on 4 millions is 10,000l.; if no loan of government could be pro- a half or 10s. per 1001. 20,000l.; if ductive unless the Goldsmids were 3-4ths or 15s. per 100l. $0,000l.; and concerned therein; and in order to if 1 per cent. 40,000l. In the present render this opinion valid, whenever year the premium has been as high as 24 per cent, which would yield a profit wicked and direful pursuit of indiviof 100,000l., and on former occasions dual aggrandizement, at the expense it has frequently exceeded that pre- of the blood, treasure, and liberties of mium even to 5 and 6 per cent, and the whole world;-while Mr. Goldthis is often obtained by the advance smid could feel himself thus exalted of not more than a 10th or 5th part of in his own ideal consequence;-while the principal sum required, before the enabled to give splendid and ostent whole is disposed of by the fortunate tious fetes to the first princes of the contractor, often without any regard blood, which in fact cost him nothing to the supposed goodness of the bar- but a few days speculation in the gain, but depending more frequently Alley, where he could COMMAND the upon the successes of commerce or funded market, we heard nothing but agriculture vielding a superfluity of of the munificence of Mr. Goldsmid,— wealth. The recent embarrassments and difficulties of the trading part of the community, unfortunately for Mr. Goldsmid, had in the present year prevented his finding that ready mar ket for this funded stock which he expected, and instead of a premium of 94, it had actually fell to a discount of 6 per cent. previous to the shocking catastrophe which terminated his existence! Such are the fatal effects of speculation and avarice!!. the most distant symptom of the insanity of such a man was never even lisped. But, alas! to confirm the degeneracy of the age, and the scandalous venality of the press, the moment the towering pride of this idoliser of wealth is checked by a few reverses, and he finds that he can no longer be the supreme barometer of the British Funds, the whole country is put in a state of alarm by the rashness of this man, who, in the morning, is consiEulogiums, ai ke obnoxious to truth dered sufficiently SANE to transact and decency, upon the character of business in the Stock-Market to the this individual, having appeared in amount of hundreds of thousands, but the columns of almost all the daily who, failing in his object to elevate papers without intermission, from the the price of the funds to the goal of period of his death up to the present his ambition, returns home and meditime, it becomes necessary that a few tates the cowardly and diabolical act brief remarks should be made upon of self murder where he deliberately the genuine claims of this departed rises from his bed next morning, and individual to public remembrance. seeks the most retired spot to perpeA Coroner's Inquest has returned a trate. But Mr. Goldsmid was a rich verdict of insanity upon the body; man, therefore, notwithstanding that but we should but ill discharge our his destruction of himself was thus duty if we hesitated to affirm, that, in perpetrated with all the system of preour minds, a thirst for money and a arrangement, yet this last and worst most criminal and towering ambition act of human turpitude is to be softenobviously formed the leading charac- ed by the appellation of the term teristics of the man, and that the rash insanity, and the world is to be told termination of his existence, was no- only of his private acts of munificence. toriously the result of a temper in- and generosity! That Mr. Goldsmid flated with worldly ambition and in- may have been the instrument of ad. ordinate pride, and no other species of vancing to wealth many individuals, insanity!-While he could revel in as his encomiasts affirm, we doubt not; millions, for thousands he looked down but let these men take into their con- . upon with contempt,)—millions ob- sideration how many families have tained in the worst species of human been reduced to ruin by the imspeculation, because they were wrung mensity of his intrigues and specula out of the vitals of national prosperity; tions in the Alley, and sure we are, while he could indulge in the arro- if they mean to reason as christians gant idea that he was the pecuniary and as patriot citizens, they must see prop, in a manner, of a rapacious and in the public life of Mr. Goldsmid profligate administration, and that he could supply them perpetually with money on loan, which enabled them to mortgage their country in the much more to deprecate and deplore than to applaud and hold up to the admiration of a credulous, oppressed, and ill-used multitude. Looking to |
