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Perhaps, in the system of their finances, there is no circumstance that shews a decline of the real principles of their government, more than that of putting contraventions of the tobacco farm under the controul of the state inquisitors; which must have been done since M. de la Lande's second edition, as he mentions expressly their having nothing to do with the finances.* A conduct utterly ridiculous, in a state that once conducted itself with so much dignity.

Even in the delicate article of imparting the privileges of the aristocracy, to the nobility of Terra Firma, by whom they are in general detested, they have exhibited no doubtful symptoms of weakness and want of policy. Reputation has been for many years the great support of their government: to manifest therefore such a want of policy, as strikes the most careless eye, is to suffer in the tenderest point. In 1774, they offered gratis, a seat in the consiglio maggiore, to forty families, their subjects, who possessed 12001. a year in land; provided there were four degrees of nobility, on the side of both husband and wife. Great numbers of families were eligible, but not ten in the whole would agree to the proposal. To offer a share in the legislature of so celebrated a republic, which in past periods would have been sought for with singular avidity, and to suffer the mortification of a refusal, was exhibiting a sign of internal weakness, and of want of judgment, adapted to reduce the reputation of their policy to nothing. The motives for the refusal are obvious: these families must of course remove to Venice; that is, to go from a city where they were old and respected, to another where they would be new and despised. Their estates also would not only suffer from their absence, but would be subject to new entails, and held by other tenures; no mortgage of them is allowable; and they are subject to peculiar laws of inheritance. In addition to these disadvantages, they are cut off from serving foreign princes; whereas the nobility of Terra Firma engage in such service. The emperor's ambassador at Turin, is a subject of Venice; and one of the Pellegrini family, a field marshal in his army. Nor did the noblemen of Terra Firma refuse the favour for these reasons alone; they dreaded the power which the state exerts over the noble Venetians, in sending them upon expensive embassies, in which they must spend the whole of their income, and, if that be not sufficient, contract debts to support themselves; for these reasons, and many others mentioned to me, which I did not equally understand, the government might have known before they made the offer, that it would subject them to the disgrace of a refusal. Long before the period in question, considerable additions had been made to nobles of Venice, from the Terra Firma, but these honours were paid for; the price 17,0001. sterling; 70001. in cash, and 10,000l. lent to the state in perpetuity.

It is a curious circumstance, which marks undeceivingly the general features of the Venetian government, that about forty years ago, as well as at other periods, there were negotiations between the court of Vienna and the Venetians, relative to an exchange of territory; the district of Crema was to have been given by Venice, for a part of the Chiara d'Adda; the rumour of which filled the people of the latter with the greatest apprehensions; they felt even a terror, at the idea of being transferred to the government of Venice; knowing, certainly, from their vicinity, that the change would be for the worse. This ascertains the comparative merit of two governments, that one is less bad than the other.

Upon the whole it may be remarked, that the wisdom of the Venetian government flows entirely from its interior organization, which is admirably farmed; but abuses, in spite of this, have multiplied so much, that the first real shock that happens will overturn it. The fall of a government, however, which has subsisted with great reputation so much longer than any other existing at present, ought to be esteemed a great political loss, since the establishment of new systems is not at present wanted for the benefit of mankind, so much as the improvement of old ones; and if by any amelioration of the Venetian aristocracy, the benefit of the common people could be better secured, it might yet last in enlightened ages, as well as through those of darkness and ignorance.

VOL. IV.

* Voyage en Italie, tom. vii. p. 7. 4 z

BOLOGNA.... The government of the church, though in so many respects considered as one of the worst in Europe, ought, not to be condemned too generally, for some discrimination should be used. Thus in point of taxation, there are few countries that have less to complain of than this, as I have shown in the proper place; and another circumstance was mentioned to me here, which proves that it is not the pope's fault that it is not better-His holiness was ready to abolish all fetes, confining them to Sunday; and made the offer to the senate of Bologna, if they would apply to him for the purpose; great debates ensued in that body, and it was determined not to make the application.

TUSCANY.... The government of the grand duke is, as every one knows, absolute; it admits therefore of no other discrimination, than what results from the personal character of the prince. The circumstances I noted, during my residence at Florence, will shew that few sovereigns have deserved better of their subjects than Leopold: the details, however, which I shall enter into, will be very slight, not that the subject wants importance, but because many other books contain large accounts of this period; and especially the collection of his * laws, of which I wish to see a complete English translation, for the use of our legislators. The encouragements which this wise and benevolent sovereign has given to his subjects, are of various descriptions; to class them with any degree of regularity, would be to abridge that collection; a few that bear more or or less upon agriculture, I shall mention.

1. He has abolished tythes, which will be explained more at large, under the proper head.

2. He has established an absolute freedom in the trade of corn.

3. He has for many years contributed one-fourth part of the expence of buildings, in the Val de Nievole, and the lower province of Siena.

4. He has this year made the culture of tobacco free, and engaged to buy all that is raised at 16s. the pound.

5. He has extinguished the national debt of Tuscany, which had existed from the time of the republic; for it deserves noting (in order for some future historian † of the modern ages, to mark the fact that the richest people run in debt the most) that the republic of Florence was one of the most commercial and rich in Europe. Two evils attended this debt, which the grand duke bent his operations to remove; first, three or four millions of it were due to foreigners, particularly to the Genoese, which carried much money out of Tuscany; and, secondly, there were distinct bureaus of collection and payment, for transacting the business of these debts. To remedy this double mischief, he first bought up all that part of the debt due to strangers, which he effected by the operation of a steady and wise economy; he then called on the Tuscan creditors to liquidate their debts, in the ratio of 3 per cent.; those who had money did it; and to those who had none, he lent the necessary sums: by this method, the distinct receipt and payment were abolished; the accounts were melted into the land-tax; and a number of revenue officers, &c. were reformed: nine or ten millions of crowns were thus extinguished.

* Collezione di Leggi, octavo, 10 vols. Siena.

† There is no work in the whole range of literature, more wanted than a Modern History of Europe, written philosophically; that is to say, with due attention to the progress of arts, sciences, and government; and with none paid to wars, battles, sieges, intrigues, generals, heroes, and cut throats, more than briefly to condemn them: in such a work, the circumstance of the richest countries in Europe, having plunged themselves the deepest and most ruinously in debts, to support wars of commerce and ambition, should be particularly explained and condemned.

6. He has abolished all rights of commonage throughout his dominions, and given the powers of an universal inclosure.

7. He has sold a considerable portion of the estates belonging to the sovereign, which has occasioned a great increase of cultivation, and the settlement in his dominions of many rich foreigners.*

8. In levying taxes, he has abolished all the distinctions of noble, ignoble, and ecclesiastical tenures; and all exemptions are set aside.

9. He has built a magnificent lazaretto at Leghorn, and spent three millions on roads; but it would be entering too much into detail to specify his works of this sort; they are numerous.

The effects of such an enlightened system of government have been great; general assertions will not describe them so satisfactorily to a reader as particular instances. Sig. Paoletti, who has been cure of the parish of Villamagna forty-three years, assured me, that the forty farms, of which it consists, have risen in their value full 2000 scudi each in that time, which is about cent per cent. of their former value; this great improvement has been chiefly wrought of late years, and especially in the last ten. It highly merits notice, that the countries in Europe, whose whole attention has been given exclusively to their commerce and manufactures, and particularly England, where the commercial system has been more relied on than in any other country, have experienced nothing equal to this case of Tuscany, the government of which has proceeded on a principle directly contrary, and given its encouragement immediately to agriculture, and circuitously to manufactures. In the tours I made through England, twenty years ago, I found land selling on an average at thirty-two and a half years purchase ; it sells at present at no more than twenty-eight. While Tuscany therefore has been adding immensely to the money value of her soil, without trade and without manufactures (comparatively speaking to those of England) we have in the same period, with an immense increase of trade, been losing in our land. This fact, which is unquestionably true, is a curious circumstance for political analysis: it proves something wrong in our system. Population in Villamagna has augmented about a seventh, in the same period.

I shall not quit this article, without giving the preference decidedly to Leopold, grand duke of Tuscany, as the wisest of the princes, whose power admits a comparison in the age in which he lives: those are mean spirits, or something worse, that will hesitate a moment between him and Frederick of Prussia: a sovereign no more to be compared to him, than the destroyers and tyrants of mankind are to be placed in competition with their greatest benefactors.†

* By the general regulations for the district of Florence, May 23, 1774, cap. 35, it is ordered that all the landed property of the communities, kept in administration, or let, shall be sold or let on long lease. Paoletti, p. 85.

† The conduct of this prince in his new situation, to which he acceded at a most critical and dangerous moment, has been worthy of his preceding reputation, and has set a stamp on the rank in which I have supposed him. A few years more added to the life of Joseph, would have shivered the Austrian monarchy to nothing; Leopold has, by his wise and prudent management, every where preserved it.

MODENA.... In an age in which the sovereigns of Europe are incumbered, and some of them ruined by debts, a contrary conduct deserves considerable attention. The duke of Modena, for ten years past, has practised a very wise economy: he is supposed, on good authority, to have saved about a million of zechins (475,000l.) and he continues to save in the same proportion. This is a very singular circumstance, and the effect of it is observable; for I was assured at Modena, that this treasure was much greater than the whole circulating currency of the dutchy: and they spoke of it as a very mischievous thing, to withdraw from circulation and use, so considerable a sum, occasioning prices generally to rise, and every thing to be dear. By repeated inquiries, I found this dearness was nothing more than what is found in the states around, which have all experienced, more or less, a considerable rise of prices in ten years. But how could withdrawing money from circulation raise prices? It ought on the contrary, in a country that has no paper-money, to lower them. That this effect did not follow, we may easily conclude from these complaints. But the very persons who complained of this treasure could not assert that money was more wanted in the dutchy than before it was begun to be saved. They even gave a proof to the contrary, by affirming the rate of interest to be at present 41⁄2 per cent. only. Upon the whole, the effect is evidently harmless; and it is a most curious fact in politics, that a government can gradually draw from circulation a sum that in ten years exceeded the current coin of the state, without causing an apparent deficiency in the currency, or any inconveniency whatever. Conclusions of infinite importance are to be drawn from such a fact; it seems to prove, that the general modern policy of contracting public debts, is absurd and ruinous in the extreme; as saving in the time of peace is clearly without any of those inconveniences which were once supposed to attend it; and by means of forming a treasure, a nation doubles her nominal wealth, that sort of wealth which is real or imaginary, according to the use that is made of it. The reputation, preventing attacks, is perhaps the greatest of all. How contrary to the funding system, which carries in its nature, such a probability of present weakness, and such a certainty of future ruin!

PARMA.... The river from Parma to the Po has been surveyed, and might be made navigable for about 25,000l. sterling; but to the honour of the government which has been diffused through so many countries by the house of Bourbon, no such undertaking can here be thought of. Don Philip's history, it is to be hoped, will be written by some pen that can teach mankind, from such an instance, of what stuff men are sometimes made, whom birth elevates to power. The present duke spends too much money upon monks, to have any to spare for navigation.

PIEDMONT.... The house of Savoy has, for some centuries, possessed the reputation of governing their dominions with singular ability; and of making so dexterous a use of events, as to have been continually aggrandizing their territory. The late king was among the wisest princes of his family, and shewed his talents for government in the practice of an enlightened and steady œconomy: it deserves no slight attention among the princes of Europe, in the present ferment of men's minds, whether there be any other criterion of a wise government. The late king of Sardinia saved 12,000,000 livres; paid off a great debt; repaired all his fortresses; adorned his palaces; and built one of the most splendid theatres in Europe; all by the force of economy. The contrast of the present reign is striking; his present majesty found himself in possession of the treasure of his predecessor. He sold the property of the jesuits, to the amount of 20,000,000 livres; he has raised 7 or 8,000,000 livres by the creation of paper-money; thus, without noticing the portions of the queen and the princess of Piedmont, he has received 40,000,000 livres extraordinary (2,000,000l. sterling:) all of which has been lavished, and a debt contracted and increasing; the fortifications not in good repair; and report says, that his army is neither well paid, nor well disciplined. These features are not to be mistaken; the king, though free from the vices which degrade so many princes, and possessing many amiable virtues, is of too easy a disposition, which exposes him to situations, in which œconomy is sacrificed to feelings; amiable for private life, but inconsistent with the severity of a monarch's duty.

It is a most curious circumstance in the king of Sardinia's government, that there is in this court a great desire to sell the island of Sardinia. A treaty was opened with the empress of Russia for that purpose, after she was disappointed in her negotiation with the Genoese, in the projected acquisition of Spazzie, and of Malta: but in all these schemes of a Mediterranean establishment, she was disappointed by the vigorous and decisive interference of the courts of Versailles and Madrid. One cannot have any hesitation in the opinion, that to improve this island, by means of a good government, would be more political than so strange a measure as its sale.*

* It may not here be unuseful to the reader, if I note some minutes taken at Turin concerning that island, one of the most neglected spots in Europe, and which, of course, betrays the effects of a vicious system of government sufficiently, for conclusions of some importance to be drawn. The marshes are so numerous and extensive, that the intemperia is every where found; the mountains numerous and high; and wastes found so generally, that the whole isle may be considered as such, with spots only cultivated. Estates in the hands of absentees are large, the rents consequently sent away, and the people left to the mercy of rapacious managers. The duke of Assinaria has 300,000 livres a year: the duke of St. Piera 160,000 livres: the marquis of Pascha as much; and many live in Spain. M. de Girah, a grandee, has an estate of two days journey, from Poula to Oleastre. The peasants in a miserable situation; their cabins wretched hovels, without either windows or chimnies; their cattle have nothing to eat in winter, but browzing in woods, for there are no wolves. The number of wild ducks incredible. Shooting them was the chief amusement of an officer, who was nine years in the island, and who gave me this account. Provisions cheap; bread, 1s. the pound; beef, 2s.; mutton, 24s.; a load of wood, of ten quintals, 4s. 9d. sterling. Wheat is the only export; in this grain the lands are naturally fertile, yielding commonly seven or eight for one, and some even forty. No silk; and oil, worse than easy to conceive. They have some wine almost as good as Malaga, and not unlike it. The great want of the island is that of water: springs are scarce, and the few rivers are in low bottoms. To these particulars I shall add a few from Gemelli.

Sardinia is a real desert, for the most part; and where cultivated, it is in the most wretched manner: every thing consumed in the island (except the immediate food of the day) is imported, even their flax * and wood, from Corsica and Tuscany; the miserable inhabitants know not even the art of making hay; their crops are destroyed by wild animals, for the very notion of an inclosure is unknown. Leases are annual. The tunny fishery produces from abroad 60,000 scudi.‡

They have no mules; and the cities, as they are called, have been supplied with corn from abroad; with plenty in the island, which could not be brought for want of mules to convey it; insomuch that a fourth part of the corn has been offered as a payment, for carrying the other three parts to the towns, and not accepted.§

In 1750, there were about 360,000 souls in Sardinia; in 1773, they were 421,597; so that in twenty-three years the increase was 61,597; occasioned by an institution called Monti Frumentarii, which furnishes seed on credit to the poor farmers, who cannot afford to buy it.|| Cattle in the island, in 1771; cows, &c. 1,710,259; oxen for work, horses, mares, and calves bred for work, 185,266.

Working oxen,

Cows in half,

Calves, ammansite,
Horses and mares,

Hogs,

Oxen and calves, rudi,

97,753

13,099

8,080

66,334

152,471

58,770

Carried over,

396,507

* Rifforimente Della Sardegna Gemelli, 4to, vol. i. p. 50.

† Ibid. p. 2.

† Ibid. p. 54. § Ibid. p. 5.

Ibid. p. 46.

Ibid. p. 350.

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