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the operation of a fteady and wife ceconomy ; he then called on the Tufcan creditors toliquidate their debts, in the ratio of 3 per cent.; thofe who had money did it; and tothofe who had none, he lent the neceffary fums: by this method, the diftinft receiptand payment were aboliffied ; the accounts were melted into the land-tax ; and a num-ber of revenue officers, &c. were reformed : nine or ten millions of crowns were thusextinguiffied.
VI. He has aboliffied all rights of commonage throughout his dominions, and giventhe powers of an univerfal inclofure..
VII. He has fold a confiderable portion of the eftates belonging to the fovereign,which has occafioned a great increafe of cultivation, and the fettlement in his dominions-of many rich foreigners *.
VIII. In levying taxes, he has aboliffied all the diftinftions of noble, ignoble, andec-clefiaftical tenures; and all exemptions are fet afide.
IX. He has built a magnificent lazaretto at Leghorn , and fpent three millions onroads ; but it would be entering too much into detail to fpecify his works of this fort jthey are numerous.
The effects of fuch an enlightened fyftem of government have been great; generalaffertions will not defcribe them fo fatisfaftorily to a reader as particular, inftances. Sig.Paoletti, who has been cure of the pariffi of Villamagna forty, three years, affured me,that the forty farms, of which it confifts, have rifen in their value full 2000 fcudi each inthat time, which is about cent per cent, of their former value; this great improvementhas been chiefly wrought of late years, and efpecially in the laft ten. It highly meritsnotice, that the countries in Europe , whofe whole attention has been given exclufivelyto their commerce and manufactures, and particularly England, where the commercial,fyftem has been more relied on than in any other country, have experienced nothingequal to this cafe of Tufcany, the government of which has proceeded on a principledireftly contrary, and given its encouragement immediately to agriculture, and circuitoujlyto manufactures. In the tours I made through England, twenty years ago, I foundland felling on an average at thirty-two and a half years purchafe; it fells at prefent atno more than twenty-eight. While Tufcany therefore has been adding immenfely tothe money value of her foil, without trade and without manufactures, (comparativelyfpeaking to thofe of England,) we have in the fame period, with an immenfe increafe oftrade, been lofing in our land* This faCt, which is unqueflionably true, is a curiouscircumftance for political analyfis : it proves fomething wrong in our fyftem. Popula-tion in Villamagna has augmented about a feventh, in the fame period.
I ffiall not quit this article, without giving the preference decidedly to Leopold, GrandDuke of Tufcany, as the wifeft of the princes, whofe power admits a comparifon in theage in which he lives : t-hofe are mean fpirits, or fomething worfe, that will hefitate amoment between him and Frederic of Pruffia : a fovereign no more to be compared tohim, than the deftroyers and tyrants of mankind are to be placed in competition withtheir greateft benefactors f.
* By the general regulations for the diftrift of Florence, May 23, t774. cap 33. it is ordered thatall the landed property of the communities, kept in adminiftration, or let, fliall be fold or let on long leafe.Paoletti, p. 85.
-)- The conduct of this Prince in his new fituation, to which he acceded at a mod: critical and dangerousmoment, has been worthy of his preceding reputation, and has fet a damp on the rank in which Ihavefup-pofed him. A few years more added to the life of Jofeph, would have diivered the Audrian monarchy tonothing; Leopold has, by his wife and prudent management, every where preferved it.
Modena,—