us, with many other things, that there are more causes
than have commonly been taken into our consideration, by which
government may be subverted. The moneyed men, merchants, principal
tradesmen, and men of letters (hitherto generally thought the peaceable
and even timid part of society) are the chief actors in the French
Revolution. But the fact is, that, as money increases and circulates,
and as the circulation of news in politics and letters becomes more and
more diffused, the persons who diffuse this money and this intelligence
become more and more important. This was not long undiscovered. Views of
ambition were in France, for the first time, presented to these classes
of men: objects in the state, in the army, in the system of civil
offices of every kind. Their eyes were dazzled with this new prospect.
They were, as it were, electrified, and made to lose the natural spirit
of their situation. A bribe, great without example in the history of the
world, was held out to them,--the whole government of a very large
kingdom.

[Sidenote: Grounds of security supposed for England.]

[Sidenote: Literary Interest.]

[Sidenote: Moneyed interest.]

There are several who are persuaded that the same thing cannot happen in
England, because here (they say) the occupations of merchants,
tradesmen, and manufacturers are not held as degrading situations. I
once thought that the low estimation in which commerce was held in
France might be reckoned among the causes of the late Revolution; and I
am still of opinion that the exclusive spirit of the French nobility did
irritate the wealthy of other classes. But I found long since, that
persons in trade and business were by no means despised in France in the
manner I had been taught to believe. As to men of letters, they were so
far from being despised or neglected, that there was no country,
perhaps, in the universe, in which they were so highly esteemed,
courted, caressed, and even feared: tradesmen naturally were not so much
sought in society, (as not furnishing so largely to the fund of
conversation as they do to the revenues of the state,) but the latter
description got forward every day. M. Bailly, who made himself the
popular mayor on the rebellion of the Bastile, and is a principal actor
in the revolt, before the change possessed a pension or office under the
crown of six hundred pound English a year,--for that country, no
contemptible provision; and this he obtained solely as