certainly not
_Judaeus Apella_.

A noble indignation rises in the minds of your popular leaders, on
hearing the magic-lantern in their show of finance compared to the
fraudulent exhibitions of Mr. Law. They cannot bear to hear the sands
of his Mississippi compared with the rock of the Church, on which they
build their system. Pray let them suppress this glorious spirit, until
they show to the world what piece of solid ground there is for their
assignats, which they have not preoccupied by other charges. They do
injustice to that great mother fraud, to compare it with their
degenerate imitation. It is not true that Law built solely on a
speculation concerning the Mississippi. He added the East India trade;
he added the African trade; he added the farms of all the farmed revenue
of France. All these together unquestionably could not support the
structure which the public enthusiasm, not he, chose to build upon these
bases. But these were, however, in comparison, generous delusions. They
supposed, and they aimed at, an increase of the commerce of France. They
opened to it the whole range of the two hemispheres. They did not think
of feeding France from its own substance. A grand imagination found in
this flight of commerce something to captivate. It was wherewithal to
dazzle the eye of an eagle. It was not made to entice the smell of a
mole, nuzzling and burying himself in his mother earth, as yours is. Men
were not then quite shrunk from their natural dimensions by a degrading
and sordid philosophy, and fitted for low and vulgar deceptions. Above
all, remember, that, in imposing on the imagination, the then managers
of the system made a compliment to the freedom of men. In their fraud
there was no mixture of force. This was reserved to our time, to quench
the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid
darkness of this enlightened age.

On recollection, I have said nothing of a scheme of finance which may be
urged in favor of the abilities of these gentlemen, and which has been
introduced with great pomp, though not yet finally adopted in the
National Assembly. It comes with something solid in aid of the credit of
the paper circulation; and much has been said of its utility and its
elegance. I mean the project for coining into money the bells of the
suppressed churches. This is their alchemy. There are some follies which
baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling
in us bu