We hear, therefore, with great composure, the present
triumph of the more violent republicans, and suffer without impatience
this interregnum of news, which is to continue until the Convention shall
have determined in what manner the intelligence of their proceedings
shall be related to the departments.
The great solicitude of the people is now rather about their physical
existence than their political one--provisions are become enormously
dear, and bread very scarce: our servants often wait two hours at the
baker's, and then return without bread for breakfast. I hope, however,
the scarcity is rather artificial than real. It is generally supposed to
be occasioned by the unwillingness of the farmers to sell their corn for
paper. Some measures have been adopted with an intention of remedying
this evil, though the origin of it is beyond the reach of decree. It
originates in that distrust of government which reconciles one part of
the community to starving the other, under the idea of self-preservation.
While every individual persists in establishing it as a maxim, that any
thing is better than assignats, we must expect that all things will be
difficult to procure, and will, of course, bear a high price. I fear,
all the empyricism of the legislature cannot produce a nostrum for this
want of faith. Dragoons and penal laws only "linger, and linger it out;"
the disease is incurable.
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