The great and durable interests of society, which the indulgence of such passions inevitably ruins, are the barrier which, in ordinary circumstances, is opposed to these disorders; and it is this influence which has so long prevented any serious outbreak of anarchy in Great Britain. But the immense extent of the confiscation of landed property during the first Revolution, and the total ruin of commercial and movable wealth, from the events of the maritime war, and the effects of the enormous issue of assignats, has prevented the construction of this barrier in anything like sufficient strength to withstand the forces which pressed against it. Nine-tenths of the realised wealth of the country was destroyed during the convulsion; what remained was for the most part concentrated in the hands of a few bankers and moneyed men, who aimed at cheapening everything, and depressing industry, in order to augment the value of their metallic riches. The influence of the natural leaders of the producing class, the great proprietors of land, was at an end, for they were almost all destroyed. The six millions of separate landed proprietors, who had come in their place, had scarcely any influence in the state; for the great majority of them were too poor to pay 200 francs a-year (£8) direct taxes--the necessary condition towards an admission into the electoral body--and as individuals they were in too humble circumstances to have any influence in the state. The returns of the "_Impôt foncière_," or land-tax, showed that above four millions of this immense body had properties varying from £2 to £10 a-year each--not more than is enjoyed by an Irish bogtrotter. In these circumstances, not only was the steadying influence of property in general unfelt in the state, but the property which did make itself felt was of a disturbing rather than a pacifying tendency; for it was that of bankers and money-lenders, whose interests, being those of consumers, not producers, went to support measures calculated to depress industry rather than elevate it, and thereby augment rather than diminish the distress which, from these causes, soon came to press so severely upon the urban population.