nd seven
hundred and seventy-two inhabitants to each square league. The middle
term for the rest of France is about nine hundred inhabitants to the
same admeasurement.

I do not attribute this population to the deposed government; because I
do not like to compliment the contrivances of men with what is due in a
great degree to the bounty of Providence. But that decried government
could not have obstructed, most probably it favored, the operation of
those causes, (whatever they were,) whether of Nature in the soil, or
habits of industry among the people, which has produced so large a
number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in
some particular places such prodigies of population. I never will
suppose that fabric of a state to be the worst of all political
institutions which by experience is found to contain a principle
favorable (however latent it may be) to the increase of mankind.

The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, by
which we may judge whether, on the whole, a government be protecting or
destructive. France far exceeds England in the multitude of her people;
but I apprehend that her comparative wealth is much inferior to
ours,--that it is not so equal in the distribution, nor so ready in the
circulation. I believe the difference in the form of the two governments
to be amongst the causes of this advantage on the side of England: I
speak of England, not of the whole British dominions,--which, if
compared with those of France, will in some degree weaken the
comparative rate of wealth upon our side. But that wealth, which will
not endure a comparison with the riches of England, may constitute a
very respectable degree of opulence. M. Necker's book, published in
1785,[107] contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts
relative to public economy and to political arithmetic; and his
speculations on the subject are in general wise and liberal. In that
work he gives an idea of the state of France, very remote from the
portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an
absolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain
remedy of a total revolution. He affirms, that from the year 1726 to the
year 1784 there was coined at the mint of France, in the species of gold
and silver, to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds
sterling.[108]

It is impossible that M. Necker should be mistaken in the amount of the
bullion