A88] 
try, have they not leagued against 
a minister who would have been 
the protector of their properties ? 
Far from voluntarily yielding to 
the voice of reason, and making 
slight sacrifices to the pubiic inte- 
yest, they have aggravated their 
vexations, and immolated men to 
the preservation of their animals ; 
yet, instead of reproaching their 
own injustice, and attributing to 
their pride and unfeeling sternness 
the vengeance of their former vas- 
sals, they impute it to philosopliy. 
Ah! let her no longer be calum- 
niated! she foresaw all our misfor- 
tunes, she braved and hazarded 
“persecution to avert them; but her 
efforts have been fruitless! Princes 
have more heavily burthened their 
people instead of relieving them ; 
the great have humbled instead of 
succouring them ; 
scandalized instead of edifying 
them; magistrates have outraged 
instead of protecting them. The 
moment of their power arrived. 
Then they recollefied nothing but 
the insults and sufferings which 
they had so long endured. If their 
vengeance has been terrible, it is 
not philosophy that has dire¢ted it; 
on the contrary, she has tried to 
alleviate its effeéts: but it has no 
more been in her power to stop the 
excesses at which she deeply groan- 
ed, than it was to realize the good 
which she proposed. 
"It is not during the flame of re- 
volutions that the voice of sages 
has any empire over the human 
passions. | What could the Ro- 
man orators-and philosophers do 
amidst the proseriptions of Sylla 
and the triumvirs? no more than 
the de ‘Phous and |’ Hospitais in the 
rage of the League. Could Fene- 
pontiffs have : 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1796. 
lon, Montesquieu, Voltaire, and 
Rousseau' himself, were they still 
living, by their discourses or writ- 
ings put astop to the sanguinary 
acts which tarnish our Irberty and 
excite the lamentation of our legis- 
lators ? Reduced to fruitless re- 
grets, we should see them resem- 
ble the pilot, who, during the 
fury of a horrible tempest, contem- 
plates with stupefattion the vessel 
which he can no longer govern. 
Let a single philosopher, worthy of 
the name, be mentioned to me, who 
has excited the people to murder 
and conflagration; who has not re- 
commended to them to be generous 
in victory, to respect legitimate 
property, to spare imbecility, to 
condemn the guilty by the rules of 
justice alone ! 
Of the Causes of the Increase of 
Crimes. From Colquhoun’s Treatise 
on the Police of the Metropolis. 
IN developing the causes which 
have so multiplied and increased 
those various offences and public: 
wrongs which are at present felt to 
press so hard upon society, it may 
be truly affirmed in the first in- 
stances, much is to be imputed to. 
deficient and inapplicable laws, and 
to an ill regulated police. 
Crimes of every description have 
their origin'in the vicious and im- 
moral habits of the people ;—in the 
want of attention to the education 
of the inferior orders of society ;— 
and in the deficiency of the system 
which has been established for 
guarding the morals of this useful 
class of the community. 
Innumerable temptations occur 
in a great capital where crimes are 
resorted 
