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has not taken place, and you will find a better cultivation, and infinitely iefs mifery ;and if you would fee a dill riel, with as little difirefs in it as is confident with the politicalfyftem of the old government of Fiance, you mud affuredlygo where there are no littleproperties at all. You mud vifit the great farms in Beauce, Picardy, part of Normandy ,and Artois, and there you will find no more population than what is regularly employedand regularly paid ; and if in fuch didridts you Ihould, contrary to this rule, meet withmuch didrefs, it is twenty to one but that it is in a parilh which has fome commons thattempt the poor to have cattle—to have property—and, in confequencc, mifery. Whenyou are engaged in this political tour, finifii it by feeing England, and I will finew you alet of peafants well cloathed, well nourifhed, tolerably drunken from fuperfluity, welllodged, and at their eafe ; and yet amongd them, not one in a thoufand has either landor cattle. When you have viewed all this, go back to your tribune, and preach, if youpleafe, in favour of a minute divifion of landed property. There are two other grofserrors, in relation to this fubjeft, that Ihould be mentioned ; thefe are, the encourage-ments that are fometimes given to marriage, and the idea of the importance of attradbingforeigners. Neither of thefe is at all admiflible on juft principles, i-i fuch a country asFrance . The predominant evil of the kingdom, is the having fo great a population, thatfibe can neither employ nor feed it: why then encourage marriage ? would you breedmore people, becaufe you have more already than you know what to do with ? Youhave fo great a competition for food, that your people are ftarving or in mifery ; andyou would encourage the production of more to encourage that competition. It mayalmoft be quefiioned, whether the contrary policy ought not to be embraced ? whetherdifficulties Ihould not be laid on the marriage of thofe who cannot make it appear thatthey have a profpedt of maintaining the children that (hall be the fruit of it ? But whyencourage marriages which are fure to take place in all fituationsin which they ought totake place ?—There is no inftance to be found of plenty of regular employment beingfirft eftabliffied, where marriages have not followed in a proportionate degree. Thepolicy, therefore, at bell is ufelefs, and may be pernicious. Nor is the attraction of fo-reigners defirablein fuch a kingdom as France . It does not feem reafonable to have apeasantry half ftarved for want of employment, arifing from a too great populoufnefs;and yet, at the fame time, to import foreigners, to increafe the competition for employ-ment and bread, which are infufficient for the prefent population of the kingdom. Thismuft be the effeCt, if the new comers be induftrious; if they belong to the higher daffies,their emigration from home mult be very infignificant and by no means an objeCt of true’policy ; they mtft leave their own country, not in confequence of encouragement givenin another, but from fome ftrokes of ill policy at home. Such inftances are indeed outof the common courfe of events, like the perfections of a Duke d’Alva, or the revo*cation of the ediCt of Nantes . It is the duty of every country, to open its arms, throughmere humanity, to receive fuch fugitives; and the advantages derived from receivingthem may be very confiderable, as was the cafe with England. But this is not the kindof emigrations to which I would allude, but rather to the eftabliffiment of fuch coloniesas the King of Spain’s, in the Sierre Morena. German beggars were imported, at animmenfe expence, and fupplied with every thing neceffary to eftablifh little farms in thofedeferts; whilft at the fame time, every town in Spain fwarmed with multitudes of idleand poor vagrants, who owed their fupport to biffiops and convents. Supprefs gradu-ally this blind and indiferiminate charity, the parent of infinite abufe and mifery, and atthe fame time give fimilar employments to your own poor ; by means of this policy,you will want no foreigners ; and you may fettle ten Spaniffi families for the expence ofone German. It is very common to hear of the want of population in Spain , and foine
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