22.14. 14. How the Exchange is a Constraint on despotic Power.
Russia would have descended from its despotic power, but could not. The establishment
of commerce depended on that of the exchange, and the transactions were
inconsistent with all its laws.
In 1745 the Czarina made a law to expel the Jews, because they
remitted into foreign countries the specie of those who were banished
into Siberia, as well as that of the foreigners entertained in her
service. As all the subjects of the empire are slaves, they can neither
go abroad themselves nor send away their effects without permission. The
exchange which gives them the means of remitting their specie from one
country to another is therefore entirely incompatible with the laws of
Russia.
Commerce itself is inconsistent with the Russian laws. The people
are composed only of slaves employed in agriculture, and of slaves
called ecclesiastics or gentlemen, who are the lords of those slaves;
there is then nobody left for the third estate, which ought to be
composed of mechanics and merchants.
