The Revolution 363 



one-tenth of that number in towns? 7. In various passages of 

 these travels I have shown the wretched state of French agri- 

 culture for want of more sheep; the new system is a curious way 

 to effect an increase — by lowering the profit of keeping them. 

 8. The French manufacturers, under the old system oi freedom, 

 bought raw materials from other nations, to the amount of 

 several millions, besides working up all the produce of France; 

 if sinking the price be not their object, what is ? Can they desire 

 to do more than this ? If under the new government their fabrics 

 do not flourish as under the old one, is that a reason for pro- 

 hibition and restriction, for robbery and plunder of the landed 

 interest, to make good their own losses ? x\nd if such a demand is 

 good logic in a manufacturer's counting-house, is that a reason 

 for its being received in a NATIONAL ASSEI\IBLY! ! 



One of the most curious inquiries that can be made by a 

 tra\'eller is to endeavour to ascertain how much per cent, a 

 capital invested in land, and in farming-stock, will return for 

 cultivation in different countries; no person, according to my 

 knowledge, has attempted to explain this very important but 

 difficult problem. The price of land, the interest of money, the 

 wages of labour, the rates of all sorts of products, and the amount 

 of taxes, must be calculated with some degree of precision, 

 in order to analyse this combination. I have for many years 

 attempted to gain information on this curious point concerning 

 various countries. If a man in Ensfland buvs land rented at 

 I2S. an acre, at 30 years' purchase, and cultivates it himself, 

 making five rents, he will make not more than from 4J to 5 per 

 cent,, and at most 6, speaking of general culture, and not 

 estimating singular spots or circumstances, and including the 

 capital invested in both land and stock. I learn from the corre- 

 spondence of the best farmer, and the greatest character the new 

 world has produced, certain circumstances, which enable me to 

 assert, with confidence, that money invested on the same prin- 

 ciples, in the middle states of North America, will yield con- 

 siderably more than double the return in England, and in many 

 instances the treble of it. To compare France with these two 

 cases is very difficult : — had the National Assembly done for the 

 agriculture of the kingdom what France had a right to expect 

 from FREEDOM, the account would have been advantageous. For 

 buying at 30 years' purchase, stocking the same as in England, 

 and reckoning products 6 per cent, lower in price (about the fact), 

 the total capital would have paid from 5^ to 6^ per cent.; land 

 tax reckoned at 3s. in the pound, which is the proportion of the 



