The Virginia Gazette

The French King's Letter to the General Assembly of the Clergy.

"It is with Concern I see you have not yet taken a Resolution agreeable to the Demand made in my Name. The Sentiments of Affection and Good-will I have for the Clergy of my Kingdom, are so deeply engraved in my Heart, that they have suffered no Alteration, though your Zeal has not been answerable to what I had a Right to expect from it. Full of Respect for the holy Functions of your sacred Ministry, I shall always think it my Duty to preserve the same Exemptions, the Privileges and Immunities, which the Kings my Predecessors granted you, and there was no need that your Assembly should explain to me the just Motives on which they are grounded. The Demands which have been made upon you in my Name, were of such a Nature as might make you easy, in Regard to your Fears that the Revenues of the Clergy of France would be subjected to the Execution of the Edict that orders the levying of the 20th Penny: Since which I condescend to assure you again, that this was not my Intention, and your Assembly sent me Word, that they had a very grateful Sense of it. Instead of the usual Free-Gift, I chose rather to demand of you in the ordinary Forms, not for myself, but for yourselves, an annual Sum, which should be appropriated to discharge your Debts. My Care of the true Interest of the Clergy induced me to confirm afresh, by my Declaration of the 17th of August last, the Resolutions which your former Assemblies had come to for reforming the Defect of the general Department of your Impositions, which I look upon as the Principle, and the Cause of the Inequality of Impositions in each Diocese. After so many Testimonies of a singular, and distinguished Protection, I could not, in answering your Remonstrances, do otherwise than renew the same kind Assurances. Indeed I perceive, by the Report I have caused to be made to me in Council, that I had foreseen them; and there should now remain nothing more to be done, than to come to a precise Resolution on the Demand made by my Orders to your Assembly. I did not expect that the Clergy of the Gallican Church, those Defenders of the King's over-reign and independent Authority in Temporals, should seem bent upon freeing their Possessions from that same Authority, as if the Obligation I am under to watch over the Conversion of their Revenues, did not also give Rise to, or include, an Obligation in them to contribute to the Necessities of this State, of which Churchmen make a Part.

"Tis then with Reluctance that I shall see myself forced to the Means Authority furnishes, which in maintaining the Maxims of my Kingdom, will be calculated only for the Good of the Clergy, if you persist in not coming to a Resolution about the Demand made by my Order to your Assembly; such a Resolution as I ought to expect from your Respect, from your Gratitude, and from your Care of your own Interest.

Whereupon I pray God &c."