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Review<**fTran$action$ ofthe Parisian Sa...
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Art. I.—Transactions Of The Parisian San...
the Son of man cometh _, shall he find faith on the earth *? " One reason perhaps why the people of this country have looked with indifference upoi > the change that has taken place in the condition of the Jews on the Continent
of Europe is that it has heen effected by a power in hostility to Great Britain _* Our patriotic animosities , usually violent , are here ridiculous . We think no name too
abusive for the Emperor of the French . We give credit to every charge that renegade Frenchmen © r needy writers publish against him . Nothing that he does is praiseworthy , none of his measures are even
_accidentally beneficial . Englishmen expatiate with raptures upon feudal vassalage because Bonaparte has delivered Germany from it , and defend persecution because Bonaparte is tolerant .
On the same principle the en _* franchisement of the Jews inFrance is never adverted to but in ridicule and contempt . Their convocation at Paris is either a scheme for
extorting money from them , or a mere theatrical shew , devised to gratify the _vanity- of an upstart ruler . To substantiate the charge of rapacity against _tha French government , a story is told f of a douceur of 30 millions of _livres
being required of the Jews , previous to their assembling to form a Sanhedrim . We utterly disbelieve it . Even were it true , we see no
_violation of _equ _^ y in demanding _pf a community who , in the most troublesome periods of the French Revolution , had not only enjoyed an exemption from military _serf _« _i _,., _» , _« _, _,., „ _,, „ _,,, » _, . I „ _., , _. . , _. _—
Art. I.—Transactions Of The Parisian San...
vie _? ( the heaviest of all personal taxes ) but had profited , as mercantile men , by the distresses of their neighbours , a pecuniary consideration for their valuable _privileges *
If this country > vere invaded by the French , and the expulsion of them were found difficult , who would complain of the injustice of levying a tax upon the property of the Clergy and of Dissenting
Ministers , as a substitution for per * sonai service ?—Rapacity would rather have kept the Jews in a state of subjection and fear , and have doled out privileges by morsels and at a heavy price , than have , for any bribe completely emancipated
them . They are now to all intents and purposes French citizens , and as much secure as any other classes of their countrymen from extoFtion . They can no more be oppressed as a people ; and if gain were the object of the French government in its . late measures
towards them , it has duped itself and realized the fable of the boy and the goose which laid golden eggs _. That the assembling of the Jews ,
in solemn council at Paris , was a proud _spectacle cannot be denied , nor is it improbable that an ambition of glory might have mingled itself with the motives that induced
Bonaparte to convoke them . But it is surely no disgrace to a prince that he builds his glory upon the happiness of his subjects . Would to God that all that occupy thrones had no other ambition I
Putting aside all national aliimosity and vulgar suspicion _^ , it would be interesting to inquire into the real motives of Bonaparte for bettering the condition , of the _Jeyvs . They are no doubt political : there a _^ e few instance * T _« cQrd of kings _aud _cojperurs doing
Review<**Ftran$Action$ Ofthe Parisian Sa...
Review _<** fTran $ action $ ofthe Parisian Sanhediivi . 651
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1807, page 651, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121807/page/31/
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