These institutions must bear principally upon three points, to wit; 1st. The pledges which insure to our subjects a perfect security of life, honor and fortune. 2d. A regular mode of assessing and levying the taxes. 3d. A mode equally regular, for the levy of soldiers, and the duration of the service.
And are not life and honor truly the most precious goods which exist? What man, however base his situation, if his character adapt him for violence, could be prevented from having recourse to it, and thus doing injury to his government and the country, if his life and honor are endangered? If, on the contrary, he enjoys, in this respect, a perfect security, he will not wander from the paths of loyalty, and all his acts will concur to the prosperity of the government, and of his brethren. If his fortune be not secured to him, each remains cold to the voice of the prince and the country; no one is occupied with the progress of public fortune, absorbed as every one must be in his own inquietudes. But if, on the other hand, the citizen possess in confidence his property of every kind, then full of ardor in his business, the circle of which he seeks to enlarge in order to extend that of his pleasure, he finds each day redoubled in his heart the love of his prince and country, and devotion to her cause; these sentiments become in him the source of the most praiseworthy actions.
As to the regular assessment and establishment of the taxes, it is very important that this matter should be regulated, for the State that is driven to various expenses for the defense of its territory, can procure the money necessary for its armies and other services only by the contributions levied upon the subjects. Although, thanks be to God, those of our empire have for some time been delivered from the scourge of monopolies, improperly regarded in former times as a source of revenue, an injurious custom still exists, and which cannot but have disastrous consequences, I mean that practice of venal concession known as the Iltizam. By this system the civil and financial administration of a locality is delivered to the arbitration of a single man, and sometimes to the iron hand of the most violent and base passions, for if this farmer of the revenue be not good, he will only have regard to his own advantage.