It is not universally true that France is a fertile country.  Considerable tracts of it are barren, and labor under other natural disadvantages.  In the portions of that territory where things are more favorable, as far as I am able to discover, the numbers of the people correspond to the indulgence of Nature.[106] The Generality of Lisle, (this I admit is the strongest example,) upon an extent of four hundred and four leagues and a half, about ten years ago contained seven hundred and thirty-four thousand six hundred souls, which is one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two inhabitants to each square league.  The middle term for the rest of France is about nine hundred inhabitants to the same admeasurement.

I do not attribute this population to the deposed government; because I do not like to compliment the contrivances of men with what is due in a great degree to the bounty of Providence.  But that decried government could not have obstructed, most probably it favored, the operation of those causes, (whatever they were,) whether of Nature in the soil, or habits of industry among the people, which has produced so large a number of the species throughout that whole kingdom, and exhibited in some particular places such prodigies of population.  I never will suppose that fabric of a state to be the worst of all political institutions which by experience is found to contain a principle favorable (however latent it may be) to the increase of mankind.

The wealth of a country is another, and no contemptible standard, by which we may judge whether, on the whole, a government be protecting or destructive.  France far exceeds England in the multitude of her people; but I apprehend that her comparative wealth is much inferior to ours,—­that it is not so equal in the distribution, nor so ready in the circulation.  I believe the difference in the form of the two governments to be amongst the causes of this advantage on the side of England:  I speak of England, not of the whole British dominions,—­which, if compared with those of France, will in some degree weaken the comparative rate of wealth upon our side.  But that wealth, which will not endure a comparison with the riches of England, may constitute a very respectable degree of opulence.  M. Necker’s book, published in 1785,[107] contains an accurate and interesting collection of facts relative to public economy and to political arithmetic; and his speculations on the subject are in general wise and liberal.  In that work he gives an idea of the state of France, very remote from the portrait of a country whose government was a perfect grievance, an absolute evil, admitting no cure but through the violent and uncertain remedy of a total revolution.  He affirms, that from the year 1726 to the year 1784 there was coined at the mint of France, in the species of gold and silver, to the amount of about one hundred millions of pounds sterling.[108]