cs, secular as well as regular, of the one
and of the other sex, _in order that the estates and goods which are at
the disposal of the nation may be disengaged of all charges, and
employed by the representatives, or the legislative body, to the great
and most pressing exigencies of the state."_ They further engaged, on
the same day, that the sum necessary for the year 1791 should be
forthwith determined.

In this resolution they admit it their duty to show distinctly the
expense of the above objects, which, by other resolutions, they had
before engaged should be first in the order of provision. They admit
that they ought to show the estate clear and disengaged of all charges,
and that they should show it immediately. Have they done this
immediately, or at any time? Have they ever furnished a rent-roll of the
immovable estate, or given in an inventory of the movable effects, which
they confiscate to their assignats? In what manner they can fulfil their
engagements of holding out to public service "an estate disengaged of
all charges," without authenticating the value of the estate or the
quantum of the charges, I leave it to their English admirers to explain.
Instantly upon this assurance, and previously to any one step towards
making it good, they issue, on the credit of so handsome a declaration,
sixteen millions sterling of their paper. This was manly. Who, after
this masterly stroke, can doubt of their abilities in finance?--But
then, before any other emission of these financial _indulgences_, they
took care at least to make good their original promise.--If such
estimate, either of the value of the estate or the amount of the
incumbrances, has been made, it has escaped me. I never heard of it.

At length they have spoken out, and they have made a full discovery of
their abominable fraud in holding out the Church lands as a security for
any debts or any service whatsoever. They rob only to enable them to
cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery
and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up
their whole apparatus of force and of deception. I am obliged to M. de
Calonne for his reference to the document which proves this
extraordinary fact: it had by some means escaped me. Indeed, it was not
necessary to make out my assertion as to the breach of faith on the
declaration of the fourteenth of April, 1790. By a report of their
committee it now appears that the charg