these financial indulgences, they took care at least to make good their original promise. If such esti|mate, either of the value of the estate or the amount of the incumbrances, has been made, it has escaped me. I never heard of it. They have however done one thing, which in the gross is clear, obscure, as usual, in the detail. They have thrown upon this fund, which was to shew a surplus, disengaged of all charges, a new charge; namely, the com|pensation to the whole body of the disbanded judi|cature; and of all suppressed offices and estates; a charge which I cannot ascertain, but which unques|tionably amounts to many French millions. Ano|ther of the new charges, is an annuity of four hun|dred and eighty thousand pounds sterling, to be paid (if they choose to keep faith) by daily pay|ments, for the interest of the first assignats. Have they ever given themselves the trouble to state fairly the expence of the management of the church lands in the hands of the municipalities, to whose care, skill, and diligence, and that of their legion of unknown under agents, they have chosen to commit the charge of the forfeited estates, and the consequence of which had been so ably pointed out by the bishop of Nancy?
But it is unnecessary to dwell on these ob|vious heads of incumbrance. Have they made out any clear state of the grand incumbrance of all, I mean the whole of the general and municipal establishments of all sorts, and com|pared it with the regular income by revenue? Every deficiency in these becomes a charge on the confiscated estate, before the creditor can plant his cabbages on an acre of church property. There is
