* After the insurrection of the blacks in St. Domingo, and other
troubles in the West Indies, the great colonial trade and remarkable
prosperity of Nantes and Bordeaux, including all the industrial
enterprises by which the production, transportation and circulation of
cotton, sugar and coffee were affected;[15]
* After the declaration of war with England, the shipping interest;
* After the declaration of war with all Europe, the commerce of the
continent.[16]
Failure after failure, an universal crash, utter cessation of
extensively organized and productive labor: instead of productive
industries, I see none now but destructive industries, those of the
agricultural and commercial vermin, those of dealers in junk and
speculators who dismantle mansions and abbeys, and who demolish
chateaux and churches so as to sell the materials as cheap as dirt,
who bargain away national possessions, so as to make a profit on the
transaction. Imagine the mischief a temporary owner, steeped in debt,
needy and urged on by the maturity of his engagements, can and must do
to an estate held under a precarious title and of suspicious
acquirement, which he has no idea of keeping, and from which,
meanwhile, he derives every possible benefit:[17] not only does he put
no spokes in the mill-wheel, no stones in the dyke, no tiles on the
roof, but he buys no manure, exhausts the soil, devastates the forest,
alienates the fields, and dismembers the entire farm, damaging the
ground and the stock of tools and injuring the dwelling by selling its
mirrors, lead and iron, and oftentimes the window-shutters and doors.
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