rchased all that came in his
way. The country people finding a ready sale for their onions,
poured in from all quarters, and our projector found that, in
proportion as he bought, the market became more profusely supplied,
and that the commodity he had hoped to monopolize was inexhaustible.

Goods purchased from such motives are not as you may conceive sold till
the temptation of an exorbitant profit seduces the proprietor to risk a
momentary possession of assignats, which are again disposed of in a
similar way. Thus many necessaries of life are withdrawn from
circulation, and when a real scarcity ensues, they are produced to the
people, charged with all the accumulated gains of these intermediate
barters.

This illiberal and pernicious commerce, which avarice and fear have for
some time kept in great activity, has at length attracted the notice of
the Convention, and very severe laws are now enacted against monopolies
of all kinds. The holder of any quantity of merchandize beyond what he
may be supposed to consume is obliged to declare it to his municipality,
and to expose the articles he deals in in writing over his door. These
clauses, as well as every other part of the decree, seem very wise and
equitable; but I doubt if the severity of the punishment annexed to any
transgression of it will not operate so as to defeat the purposes
intended to be produced. A false declaration is punishable by six years
imprisonment, and an absolute non-compliance with death.--Blackstone
remarks, that it is the certainty, not the severity, of punishment, which
makes laws efficacious; and this must ever be the case amongst an humane
people.--An inordinate desire of gain is not often considered by mankind
as very criminal, and those who would willingly subject it to its
adequate punishment of fine and confiscation, will hesitate to become the
means of inflicting death on the offender, or of depriving him of his
liberty. The Poets have, from time immemorial, claimed a kind of
exclusive jurisdiction over the sin of avarice: but, unfortunately, minds
once steeled by this vice are not often sensible to the attacks of
ridicule; and I have never heard that any poet, from Plautus to Moliere,
has reformed a single miser. I am not, therefore, sorry that our
legislature has encroached on this branch of the poetical prerogative,
and only wish that the mild regimen of the Muses had been succeeded by
something less rigid t