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¬produce remained in our granaries unsold; he- cause the importers could sell at a large profit, for a price which would scarcely pay the labour and taxes upon an Armatian farm." ¬" But where was your government all this while ?" ¬" Our government," he answered, " was no otherwise in fault than in not being perhaps sufficiently on its guard to prevent the evil at the very first moment of the peace ; and when at last it proceeded to pass a law to check im- portations, it had great difficulties to encoun- ter; the multitude, who, in all nations, are honest and upright, but who, upon the most important occasions, arc often quite incapable of understanding their own interests, became every where tumultuous, even to riot and rebel- lion, reasoning (if it deserve the name) that whatever had a tendency to raise the price of bread, without any reference to the causes of the, then prices of grain, was an unjust and ¬k 3 cruel ¬
