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262 himself at your expense will, I allow, have also paid wages to his workmen, who had nothing of themselves; but he will, every year, have sunk and put by a sum that will, at length, have produced to him thirty thousand livres a year. This fortune, then, he will have acquired at your expense. Nor can you ever sell him the produce of your land dear enough to reimburse you for what he will have got by you; for were you to attempt such an advance of your price he would procure what he wanted cheaper from other countries. A proof of which is, that he remains constantly possessor of his thirty thousand livres a year, and you of your one hundred and twenty livres, that often diminish instead of increasing.

It is then necessary and equitable that the refined industry of the trader should pay more than the gross industry of the farmer. The same is to be said of the collectors of the revenue. Your tax had previously been but twelve livres, before our great ministers were pleased to take from you twenty crowns. Of these twelve livres the collector retained tenpence, or ten sols, for himself. If in your province there were five hundred thousand souls he will have gained two hundred and fifty thousand livres a year. Suppose he spends fifty thousand; it is clear that at the end of ten years he will be two millions in pocket. It is then but just that he should contribute his proportion, otherwise everything would be perverted and go to ruin.