deadly contagion?

And yet what regard was paid to so just a demand? It was buried in the
Committee of Finance. That committee wanted to make anarchy the means of
an union. They only busied themselves in making the Belgic Provinces
subservient to their finances.

Cambon said loftily before the Belgians themselves: The Belgian war
costs us hundreds of millions. Their ordinary revenues, and even some
extraordinary taxes, will not answer to our reimbursements; and yet we
have occasion for them. The mortgage of our assignats draws near its
end. What must be done? Sell the Church property of Brabant. There is a
mortgage of two thousand millions (eighty millions sterling). How shall
we get possession of them? By an immediate union. Instantly they decreed
this union. Men's minds were not disposed to it. What does it signify?
Let us make them vote by means of money. Without delay, therefore, they
secretly order the Minister of Foreign Affairs to dispose of four or
five hundred thousand livres (20,000_l._ sterling) _to make the
vagabonds of Brussels drunk, and to buy proselytes to the union in all
the States_. But even these means, it was said, will obtain but a weak
minority in our favor. What does that signify? _Revolutions_, said they,
_are made only by minorities. It is the minority which has made the
Revolution of France; it is a minority which, has made the people
triumph_.

The Belgic Provinces were not sufficient to satisfy the voracious
cravings of this financial system. Cambon wanted to unite everything,
that he might sell everything. Thus he forced the union of Savoy. In
the war with Holland, he saw nothing but gold to seize on, and
assignats to sell at par.[11] "Do not let us dissemble," said he one day
to the Committee of General Defence, in presence even of the patriot
deputies of Holland, "you have no ecclesiastical goods to offer us for
our indemnity. IT IS A REVOLUTION IN THEIR COUNTERS AND IRON CHESTS[12]
that must be made amongst the DUTCH." The word was said, and the bankers
Abema and Van Staphorst understood it.

Do you think that that word has not been worth an army to the
Stadtholder? that it has not cooled the ardor of the Dutch patriots?
that it has not commanded the vigorous defence of Williamstadt?

Do you believe that the patriots of Amsterdam, when they read the
preparatory decree which gave France an execution on their goods,--do
you believe that those patriots would not have liked better to h