and his judgment, may tax an individual to the detriment of his family and in wrong of his creditors.  A pretence of public spirit may disable him from the performance of his private duties; it may disable him even from paying the legitimate contributions which he is to furnish according to the prescript of law.  But what is the most dangerous of all is that malignant disposition to which this mode of contribution evidently tends, and which at length leaves the comparatively indigent to judge of the wealth, and to prescribe to the opulent, or those whom they conceive to be such, the use they are to make of their fortunes.  From thence it is but one step to the subversion of all property.

Far, very far, am I from supposing that such things enter into the purposes of those excellent persons whose zeal has led them to this kind of measure; but the measure itself will lead them beyond their intention, and what is begun with the best designs bad men will perversely improve to the worst of their purposes.  An ill-founded plausibility in great affairs is a real evil.  In France we have seen the wickedest and most foolish of men, the constitution-mongers of 1789, pursuing this very course, and ending in this very event.  These projectors of deception set on foot two modes of voluntary contribution to the state.  The first they called patriotic gifts.  These, for the greater part, were not more ridiculous in the mode than contemptible in the project.  The other, which they called the patriotic contribution, was expected to amount to a fourth of the fortunes of individuals, but at their own will and on their own estimate; but this contribution threatening to fall infinitely short of their hopes, they soon made it compulsory, both in the rate and in the levy, beginning in fraud, and ending, as all the frauds of power end, in plain violence.  All these devices to produce an involuntary will were under the pretext of relieving the more indigent classes; but the principle of voluntary contribution, however delusive, being once established, these lower classes first, and then all classes, were encouraged to throw off the regular, methodical payments to the state, as so many badges of slavery.  Thus all regular revenue failing, these impostors, raising the superstructure on the same cheats with which they had laid the foundation of their greatness, and not content with a portion of the possessions of the rich, confiscated the whole, and, to prevent them from reclaiming their rights, murdered the proprietors.  The whole of the process has passed before our eyes, and been conducted, indeed, with a greater degree of rapidity than could be expected.