Gazette Of The United States

STATE PAPER.

Message of the Executive directory of France respecting
the emission of " Mandats Territoriaux,"
Landed Assignments.

Citizens Legislators,

Your Resolution of the 20th of this month relative to the creation of " Territorial Mandats"
payable to the bearer, is one of those grand and
happy measures which at the most critical eras of
the Revolution, have operated to the welfare of
the Republic. But it would be fatal if you did
not hasten to make an addition which is indispensable, by giving to those Mandats a compulsive currency. Without such a law, the new paper and
the old would both fall into equal depreciation.
The stock-jobbers would seize upon both, they
would plunder the nation of its demesnes, and the
government of its resources.

Certainly when paper money has but a remote,
a doubtful or insufficient security, nothing short of
despotism can force its currency. Such would be
the case if it was intended to recall the assignats to
their nominal value, before their mass was reduced
to the amount of the national property at the disposal of government. But it would be a weak
abandonment of the rights of the people, to leave
to malignity and avarice to fix the value of a mandat, which can be immediately converted into real
property, at the choice of the bearer, amongst the
best portions of the Republic. The citizens may
be deceived as to their real interests, by the cruel
maneuvers of stock jobbing. They have been deceived, and will be so till, unless their Representatives foresee and warn them of the danger.

Have you not been compelled to pronounce certain penalties against those who refused the Republican money, tho it was evidently of more value
than that which bore the Royal stamp?—Why
should you hesitate to take the same part against
those who may wish to depreciate a paper, which
has more need of confidence, as it is not divisible
into small portions, and therefore less liable to ordinary transactions? If you do not take this step,
this paper must fall, and with its own, will infallibly
cause the ruin of the assignats.

It is in your power, on the contrary, to raise the
one thro' the other, and to breathe thus new life
thro' all the ramifications of the body politic, robust in itself, but weakened and dried up through
the want of circulation:

There are those, however, who seem to descry
in this paper the annihilation of the assignats. This
is an error to which stock jobbers will labor to give
credit, as wishing to monopolize this representative
sign, and to possess themselves of the public fortune.
But it is evident that, on the contrary, stock jobbing will find its death in the compulsive circulation of this paper, and that in 24 hours the government will triple the value of the assignats.

The assignat is now at the three hundredth part
of its nominal value. When the mandats shall be
par with the money, the assignats are to be exchanged at every office in the Republic for the hundredth
part of their nominal rate. Thus is their value
tripled in a word. The assignats thus exchanged,
are to be burned, until there shall be no more than
three milliards in circulation, The circulation will
then be brought back to its usual course, and the
paper to its natural proportion to the land which
it represents.—The mandat being on a par with
money, and the relation of the assignats with the
former being prescribed by the laws, stock-jobbing
can no longer maintain its ground. It dies; and
France is delivered from a scourge more horrible
than all the inflictions of her combined enemies!

This proportion of one to an hundred between
the Mandat and the Assignat, appears to be most
suitable for the present. It accords with the measures which have been taken for raising the forced
loan. It leaves to the nation the resources which
may be necessary for its occasions, until the system
of contribution shall be settled, and the receipts collected regularly. In proportion as the circulating
mass of Assignats shall be diminished by burning
those which are exchanged, the relative value of 100
for one, may be gradually ameliorated until the
equilibrium shall be restored without any shock between the remaining Assignats and the Demesnes
which form their security.

But it is necessary for this purpose, that severe
penalties shall be decreed against those who attempt
to make the smallest alteration in the relative value
of Republican money. Those who exchange mandats, against money otherwise than at par, must be
rigorously punished.. It was by relaxing from this
essential point, that assignats have fallen into their
present state of depreciation, and that it is impossible to raise them suddenly. to their primitive value,
without passing beyond the value of the security,
and stripping the nation of its last resources.

It is solely from your firmness and fidelity in the
adoption and execution of these measures, that
France can be revivified, and that she can rise free,
glorious, and happy, after all the storms of the Revolution.

We invite you, therefore, Citizens Legislators, to
give this message an immediate consideration.

(Signed)
LETOURNEUR, President.
LEGARDE, Secretary.