2 6(j RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.

in which adventurers of ail forts are fo fure to make their fortunes as they are here.Provided they take care to put part of the booty into the Electoral chert, they are fureto live unmolerted. The lotto of Genoa, which, though decorated with a fmooth andfplendid name, is in fact no more than a Pharaoh table, at which the ftate endeavours tocheat its fubjefts, thrives in no German foil fo well as in this. It harmonized too wellwith the reft of the fyftem of finance, not to be readily and eagerly adopted. I have'feen lottery-office propofals publifhed with the Eledtor’s privilege, and decorated withhis arms, in which it is faid, that a lottery is the jhortejl , fafejl, and mofi becoming wayfor a man to make his fortune. Now, every body knows, that what advantage thereis in a game of this kind is only for the rich, and that he who buys his thirty-twos andfixty-fourths is fure to be undone. What muft we think then of a court, whith ufesevery trick and paltry artifice to entice its fubjedts to play a game, by which they arefure to lofe, and it muft gain at leaft ioo per cent ? It is true, indeed, that there is fucha lottery in every court in Germany ; but at none are fuch mean tricks as thefe madeufe of to induce the fubjects to play.

Thefe oppreffions, however, great as they feem, are ftill nothing in comparifon ofwhat the proteftants have to fuffer from the court. According to repeated treaties, theeftablilhed religion of the country ftiould be the reformed; but notwithftanding this,the Catholics have found means to grow powerful enough, not only to be at the head -of every thing themfelves, but to perfecute the Proteftants in the moft infamous man-ner. For this purpofe they have received villains of every kind into their villages, toincreafe the number of Catholics ; they have difpoffeffed the Proteftants of all places andports whatever; they have treated them with every kind of indignity; nay, even in thecourts of juftice, the moft fcandalous and infamous partialities have taken place. Andyet, fo are human affairs conducted, amidft this outrageous tyranny, and whilft theemigrations to America have been fuch, that the Engliih know no other name for aGerman than that of Palatine, this court has met with authors, both in and out of thecountry, to extol the wifdom of its councils: nay, would you think it! although halfthe fubjefts of the country are driven out of it, and the reft fo oppreffed that they hardlyknow how to live in it, there is a college for teaching the feveral branches of politicaleeconomy fubfifting at Lautern, and projectors innumerable are fent to Frankenthal toeftablilh manufactures!

That, notwithftanding the repeated and multifarious vexations they are expofed to,the farmers of this country are ftill enabled to hold up their heads, is, no doubt, owingto the frequent emigrations. Thefe keep the price of land low, and enable the halfwho remain (for above half are-driven out) to fubfift with a tolerable degree of com-fort.

Notwithftanding all the reputation which the manufactures of the Palatinate havegained, there is more fhew than fubftance about them. All thofe of Frankenthal puttogether are not equal to fingle ones which might be named in Auftria, in Switzerland ,at Berlin, and in feveral other countries. Excepting only the china manufactory, thereis not a fingle one which employs a hundred men, or has a capital of 100,000 guilders..But here they call a place where three men and a few boys are making wafers, a wafermarufattory. In this fenfe, every taylor and ffioemak.er’s fhop may pals for a manu-factory. And yet they do not know how to prepare the produce of the country forthe internal confumption of it. The tobacco which grows in the Palatinate is carriedinto Holland to be made, and brought back again for confumption. Another proof ofthe wifdom of this government is, the difficulties it places in the way of the exports ofits own fubjects. The city of Mentz, I have told you, fubfifts entirely by bread made

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