FRANCE. 165 



off her debts, by engaging in no wars, and- 

 by contracting no new debts. If a fyftem 

 of this nature was followed, they affured 

 me they could prove, by undeniable calcu- 

 lations, that France, in twenty years, could 

 pay off every (hilling of her debts, have five 

 millions fterling in bank, a fleet of an hun- 

 dred fail of the line, and an army of two 

 hundred thoufand men. The great point 

 upon which all this was to turn, was the 

 new mode of taxation. Inftead of a multi- 

 plicity of impofls, chiefly indirect, in which 

 the fubjeds pay <;s. for every one that comes 

 into the royal treafury, they propofe an 

 equal repartition of a land-tax upon the 

 nett produce of the earth, fo as almoft to 

 abforb moft of the other taxes of the ftate. 

 By this means the fubject would be able to 

 pay a much larger fum than at prefent, 

 without any burthen ; and the King would 

 receive thofe enormous expences, which are, 

 at prefent, wafted before the money arrives* 

 in his treafury. At the fame time, how- 

 ever, they allow that this, or any other fy- 

 ftem would be vain, if the old practice of 

 borrowing went on, and mortgaging the 

 revenues to pay the intereft, as nothing but 

 M 3 ruin 



