If then the coalition be on the point of its dissolution, and Charette has laid down his arms, either we must abandon the subjugation of France, or seek for other means to accomplish it, which, if they exist at all, are internal. Nothing can be more dazzling and imposing than the great success of the French against their foreign enemies, and the seeming ease with which the vast machine of the republican government moves; but this smooth exterior conceals a hollow and ulcerated inside. The numberless abuses subsisting in the multiplied public offices, which defy control or abolition; (what think you of its being asserted in the convention, that in the post-office department more than _thirty-nine thousand_ persons receive salaries?) the depreciation of _assignats_, which proceeds in a ratio continually increasing, a piece of money, which eight weeks since sold for 140 livres, now fetching 400; and, above all, the enormous public expenditure, which almost defies computation; are causes of the most serious alarm to the supporters of the revolution. The last of them, if not checked, must produce a national bankruptcy, and overturn this government, as it did the monarchy; but whether to give birth to a new form of democracy, or to the restoration of a king, who shall say! By the report of the new financier, Johannot, made to the convention---- livres The national expence of the month of _Nivose_ last was 23,374,450 - or - £.18,522,632 The receipt of taxes in the same month was 57,168,733 - or - 2,501,132 ---------- ----------- Excess of expenditure, rejecting shillings and pence, and reckoning a livre at 10½_d._b 366,205,717 - or - £.16,021,500 ----------- ------------ In the succeeding month, _Pluviose_, the difference was still more enormous: it exceeded the receipt by 443,164,244 livres, or £.19,388,435. “The trappings of royalty” would poorly keep pace with this unprecedented profusion, which is hourly increasing, by the inevitable augmentation of salaries to all the public servants, both civil and military. The naval officers have had a considerable addition to their pay since I left Brest; and, as a signal to all beneath, the stipend of the members of the convention has been increased from eighteen to thirty-six livres a day.