How shall I explain to an Englishman the doctrine of universal requisition? I rejoice that you can imagine nothing like it.--After establishing, as a general principle, that the whole country is at the disposal of government, succeeding decrees have made specific claims on almost every body, and every thing. The tailors, shoemakers,* bakers, smiths, sadlers, and many other trades, are all in requisition--carts, horses, and carriages of every kind, are in requisition--the stables and cellars are put in requisition for the extraction of saltpetre, and the houses to lodge soldiers, or to be converted into prisons.
* In order to prevent frauds, the shoemakers were obliged to make only square-toed shoes, and every person not in the army was forbidden to wear them of this form. Indeed, people of any pretentions to patriotism (that is to say, who were much afraid) did not venture to wear any thing but wooden shoes; as it had been declared anti-civique, if not suspicious, to walk in leather.
--Sometimes shopkeepers are forbidden to sell their cloth, nails, wine, bread, meat, &c. There are instances where whole towns have been kept without the necessaries of life for several days together, in consequence of these interdictions; and I have known it proclaimed by beat of drum, that whoever possessed two uniforms, two hats, or two pair of shoes, should relinquish one for the use of the army! Yet with all these efforts of despotism, the republican troops are in many respects ill supplied, the produce being too often converted to the use of the agents of government, who are all Jacobins, and whose peculations are suffered with impunity, because they are too necessary, or perhaps too formidable for punishment.
These proceedings, which are not the less mischievous for being absurd, must end in a total destruction of commerce: the merchant will not import what he may be obliged to sell exclusively to government at an arbitrary and inadequate valuation.--Those who are not imprisoned, and have it in their power, are for the most part retired from business, or at least avoid all foreign speculations; so that France may in a few months depend only on her internal resources. The same measures which ruin one cla.s.s, serve as a pretext to oppress and levy contributions on the rest.--In order to make this right of seizure still more productive, almost every village has its spies, and the domiciliary visits are become so frequent, that a man is less secure in his own house, than in a desert amidst Arabs. On these occasions, a band of Jacobins, with a munic.i.p.al officer at their head, enter sans ceremonie, over-run your apartments, and if they find a few pounds of sugar, soap, or any other article which they choose to judge more than sufficient for immediate consumption, they take possession of the whole as a monopoly, which they claim for the use of the republic, and the terrified owner, far from expostulating, thinks himself happy if he escapes so well.--But this is mere vulgar tyranny: a less powerful despotism might invade the security of social life, and banish its comforts. We are p.r.o.ne to suffer, and it requires often little more than the will to do evil to give us a command over the happiness of others. The Convention are more original, and, not satisfied with having reduced the people to the most abject slavery, they exact a semblance of content, and dictate at stated periods the chastis.e.m.e.nt which awaits those who refuse to smile.
The splendid ceremonies at Paris, which pa.s.s for popular rejoicings, merit that appellation less than an auto de fe. Every movement is previously regulated by a Commissioner appointed for the purpose, (to whom en pa.s.sant these fetes are very lucrative jobs,) a plan of the whole is distributed, in which is prescribed with great exactness, that at such and such parts the people are to "melt into tears," at others they are to be seized with a holy enthusiasm, and at the conclusion of the whole they are to rend the air with the cry of "Vive la Convention!"
--These celebrations are always attended by a military force, sufficient to ensure their observance, besides a plentiful mixture of spies to notice refractory countenances or faint acclamations.
The departments which cannot imitate the magnificence of Paris, are obliged, nevertheless, to manifest their satisfaction. At every occasion on which a rejoicing is ordered, the same kind of discipline is preserved; and the aristocrats, whose fears in general overcome their principles, are often not the least zealous attendants.
At the retaking of Toulon, when abandoned by our countrymen, the National Guards were every where a.s.sembled to partic.i.p.ate in the festivity, under a menace of three days imprisonment. Those persons who did not illuminate their houses were to be considered as suspicious, and treated as such: yet, even with all these precautions, I am informed the business was universally cold, and the b.a.l.l.s thinly attended, except by aristocrats and relations of emigrants, who, in some places, with a baseness not excused even by their terrors, exhibited themselves as a public spectacle, and sang the defeats of that country which was armed in their defence.
I must here remark to you a circ.u.mstance which does still less honour to the French character; and which you will be unwilling to believe. In several towns the officers and others, under whose care the English were placed during their confinement, were desirous sometimes on account of the peculiar hardship of their situation as foreigners, to grant them little indulgences, and even more liberty than to the French prisoners; and in this they were justified on several considerations, as well as that of humanity.--They knew an Englishman could not escape, whatever facility might be given him, without being immediately retaken; and that if his imprisonment were made severe, he had fewer external resources and alleviations than the natives of the country: but these favourable dispositions were of no avail--for whenever any of our countrymen obtained an accommodation, the jealousy of the French took umbrage, and they were obliged to relinquish it, or hazard the drawing embarra.s.sment on the individual who had served them.
You are to notice, that the people in general, far from being averse to seeing the English treated with a comparative indulgence, were even pleased at it; and the invidious comparisons and complaints which prevented it, proceeded from the gentry, from the families of those who had found refuge in England, and who were involved in the common persecution.--I have, more than once, been reproached by a female aristocrat with the ill success of the English army; and many, with whom I formerly lived on terms of intimacy, would refuse me now the most trifling service.--I have heard of a lady, whose husband and brother are both in London, who amuses herself in teaching a bird to repeat abuse of the English.
It has been said, that the day a man becomes a slave, he loses half his virtue; and if this be true as to personal slavery, judging from the examples before me, I conclude it equally so of political bondage.--The extreme despotism of the government seems to have confounded every principle of right and wrong, every distinction of honour and dishonour and the individual, of whatever cla.s.s, alive only to the sense of personal danger, embraces without reluctance meanness or disgrace, if it insure his safety.--A tailor or shoemaker, whose reputation perhaps is too bad to gain him a livelihood by any trade but that of a patriot, shall be besieged by the flatteries of people of rank, and have levees as numerous as Choiseul or Calonne in their meridian of power.
When a Deputy of the Convention is sent to a town on mission, sadness takes possession of every heart, and gaiety of every countenance. He is beset with adulatory pet.i.tions, and propitiating gifts; the n.o.blesse who have escaped confinement form a sort of court about his person; and thrice happy is the owner of that habitation at which he condescends to reside.--*
* When a Deputy arrives, the gentry of the town contend with jealous rivalship for the honour of lodging him; and the most eloquent eulogist of republican simplicity in the Convention does not fail to prefer a large house and a good table, even though the unhallowed property of an aristocrat.--It is to be observed, that these Missionaries travel in a very patriarchal style, accompanied by their wives, children, and a numerous train of followers, who are not delicate in availing themselves of this hospitality, and are sometimes accused of carrying off the linen, or any thing else portable--even the most decent behave on these occasions as though they were at an inn.
--A Representative of gallantry has no reason to envy either the authority of the Grand Signor, or the licence of his seraglio--he is arbiter of the fate of every woman that pleases him; and, it is supposed, that many a fair captive has owed her liberty to her charms, and that the philosophy of a French husband has sometimes opened the doors of his prison.
Dumont, who is married, and has besides the countenance of a white Negro, never visits us without occasioning a general commotion amongst all the females, especially those who are young and pretty. As soon as it is known that he is expected, the toilettes are all in activity, a renovation of rouge and an adjustment of curls take place, and, though performed with more haste, not with less solicitude, than the preparatory splendour of a first introduction.--When the great man arrives, he finds the court by which he enters crowded by these formidable prisoners, and each with a pet.i.tion in her hand endeavours, with the insidious coquetry of plaintive smiles and judicious tears, that brighten the eye without deranging the features, to attract his notice and conciliate his favour.
Happy those who obtain a promise, a look of complacence, or even of curiosity!--But the attention of this apostle of republicanism is not often bestowed, except on high rank, or beauty; and a woman who is old, or ill dressed, that ventures to approach him, is usually repulsed with vulgar brutality--while the very sight of a male suppliant renders him furious. The first half hour he walks about, surrounded by his fair cortege, and is tolerably civil; but at length, fatigued, I suppose by continual importunity, he loses his temper, departs, and throws all the pet.i.tions he has received unopened into the fire.
Adieu--the subject is too humiliating to dwell on. I feel for myself, I feel for human nature, when I see the fastidiousness of wealth, the more liberal pride of birth, and the yet more allowable pretensions of beauty, degraded into the most abject submission to such a being as Dumont. Are our principles every where the mere children of circ.u.mstance, or is it in this country only that nothing is stable? For my own part I love inflexibility of character; and pride, even when ill founded, seems more respectable while it sustains itself, than concessions which, refused to the suggestions of reason, are yielded to the dictates of fear.--Yours.
February 12, 1794.
I was too much occupied by my personal distresses to make any remarks on the revolutionary government at the time of its adoption. The text of this political phoenomenon must be well known in England--I shall, therefore, confine myself to giving you a general idea of its spirit and tendency,--It is, compared to regular government, what force is to mechanism, or the usual and peaceful operations of nature to the ravages of a storm--it subst.i.tutes violence for conciliation, and sweeps with precipitate fury all that opposes its devastating progress. It refers every thing to a single principle, which is in itself not susceptible of definition, and, like all undefined power, is continually vibrating between despotism and anarchy. It is the execrable shape of Milton"s Death, "which shape hath none," and which can be described only by its effects.--For instance, the revolutionary tribunal condemns without evidence, the revolutionary committees imprison without a charge, and whatever a.s.sumes the t.i.tle of revolutionary is exonerated from all subjection to humanity, decency, reason, or justice.--Drowning the insurgents, their wives and children, by boatloads, is called, in the dispatch to the Convention, a revolutionary measure--*
* The detail of the horrors committed in La Vendee and at Nantes were not at this time fully known. Carrier had, however, acknowledged, in a report read to the Convention, that a boat-load of refractory priests had been drowned, and children of twelve years old condemned by a military commission! One Fabre Marat, a republican General, wrote, about the same period, I think from Angers, that the Guillotine was too slow, and powder scarce, so that it was concluded more expedient to drown the rebels, which he calls a patriotic baptism!--The following is a copy of a letter addressed to the Mayor of Paris by a Commissary of the Government:
"You will give us pleasure by transmitting the details of your fete at Paris last decade, with the hymns that were sung. Here we all cried _"Vive la Republique!"_ as we ever do, when our holy mother Guillotine is at work. Within these three days she has shaved eleven priests, one _ci-devant_ n.o.ble, a nun, a general, and a superb Englishman, six feet high, and as he was too tall by a head, we have put that into the sack!
At the same time eight hundred rebels were shot at the Pont du Ce, and their carcases thrown into the Loire!--I understand the army is on the track of the runaways. All we overtake we shoot on the spot, and in such numbers that the ways are heaped with them!"
--At Lyons, it is revolutionary to chain three hundred victims together before the mouths of loaded cannon, and ma.s.sacre those who escape the discharge with clubs and bayonets;* and at Paris, revolutionary juries guillotine all who come before them.--**
* The Convention formally voted their approbation of this measure, and Collot d"Herbois, in a report on the subject, makes a kind of apostrophical panegyric on the humanity of his colleagues. "Which of you, Citizens, (says he,) would not have fired the cannon? Which of you would not joyfully have destroyed all these traitors at a blow?"
** About this time a woman who sold newspapers, and the printer of them, were guillotined for paragraphs deemed incivique.
--Yet this government is not more terrible than it is minutely vexations.
One"s property is as little secure as one"s existence. Revolutionary committees every where sequestrate in the gross, in order to plunder in detail.*
* The revolutionary committees, when they arrested any one, pretended to affix seals in form. The seal was often, however, no other than the private one of some individual employed--sometimes only a b.u.t.ton or a halfpenny, which was broken as often as the Committee wanted access to the wine or other effects. Camille Desmoulins, in an address to Freron, his fellow-deputy, describes with some humour the mode of proceeding of these revolutionary pilferers:
_"Avant hier, deux Commissaires de la section de Mutius Scaevola, montent chez lui--ils trouvent dans la bibliotheque des livres de droit; et non-obstant le decret qui porte qu"on ne touchera point Domat ni a Charles Dumoulin, bien qu"ils traitent de matieres feodales, ils sont main ba.s.se sur la moitie de la bibliotheque, et chargent deux Chrocheteurs des livres paternels. Ils trouvent une pendule, don"t la pointe de Paiguille etoit, comme la plupart des pointes d"aiguilles, terminee en trefle: il leur semble que cette pointe a quelque chose d"approchant d"une fleur de lys; et non-obstant le decret qui ordonne de respecter les monumens des arts, il confisquent la pendule.--Notez bien qu"il y avoit a cote une malle sur laquelle etoit l"adresse fleurdelisee du marchand.--Ici il n"y avoit pas moyen de aier que ce fut une belle et bonne fleur de lys; mais comme la malle ne valoit pas un corset, les Commissaires se contentent de rayer les lys, au lieu que la malheureuse pendule, qui vaut bien 1200 livres, est, malgre son trefle, emportee par eux-memes, qui ne se fioient pas aux Chrocheteurs d"un poid si precieux--et ce, en vertu du droit que Barrere a appelle si heureus.e.m.e.nt le droit de prehension, quoique le decret s"opposat, dans l"espece, a l"application de ce droit.--Enfin, notre decemvirat sectionnaire, qui se mettoit ainsi au-dessus des decrets, trouve le brevet de pension de mon beau-pere, qui, comme tous les brevets de pension, n"etant pas de nature a etre porte sur le grand livre de la republique, etoit demeure dans le porte-feuille, et qui, comme tous les brevets de pension possibles, commencoit par ce protocole; Louis, &c. Ciel! s"ecrient les Commissaires, le nom du tyran!--Et apres avoir retrouve leur haleine, suffoquee d"abord par l"indignation, ils mettent en poche le brevet de pension, c"est a dire 1000 livres de rente, et emportent la marmite. Autre crime, le Citoyen Duplessis, qui etoit premier commis des finances, sous Clugny, avoit conserve, comme c"etoit l"usage, la cachet du controle general d"alors--un vieux porte-feuille de commis, qui etoit au rebut, ouble au dessus d"une armoire, dans un tas de poussiere, et auquel il n"avoit pas touche ne meme pense depuis dix ans peutetre, et sur le quel on parvint a decouvrir l"empreinte de quelques fleurs de lys, sous deux doigts de cra.s.se, acheva de completer la preuve que le Citoyen Duplessis etoit suspect--et la voila, lui, enferme jusqu"a la paix, et le scelle mis sur toutes les portes de cette campagne, ou, tu te souviens, mon cher Freroa--que, decretes tous deux de prise de corps, apres le ma.s.sacre du Champ de Mars, nous trouvions un asyle que le tyran n"osoit violer."_
"The day before yesterday, two Commissaries belonging to the section of Mutius Scaevola, entered my father-in-law"s apartments; they found some law-books in the library, and, notwithstanding the decree which exempts from seizure the works of Domat and Charles Dumouin, (although they treat of feudal matters,) they proceeded to lay violent hands on one half of the collection, and loaded two porters with paternal spoils. The next object that attracted their attention was a clock, the hand of which, like the hands of most other clocks, terminated in a point, in the form of a trefoil, which seemed to them to bear some resemblance to a fleur de lys; and, notwithstanding the decree which ordains that the monuments of the arts shall be respected, they immediately pa.s.sed sentence of confiscation on the clock. I should observe to you, that hard by lay a portmanteau, having on it the maker"s address, encircled with lilies.-- Here there was no disputing the fact, but as the trunk was not worth five livres, the Commissaries contented themselves with erasing the lilies; but the unfortunate clock, being worth twelve hundred, was, notwithstanding its trefoil, carried off by themselves, for they would not trust the porters with so precious a load.--And all this was done in virtue of the law, which Barrere aptly denominated the law of prehension, and which, according to the terms of the decree itself, was not applicable to the case in question.
"At length our sectionary decemvirs, who thus placed themselves above the law, discovered the grant of my father-in-law"s pension, which, like all similar grants, being excluded from the privilege of inscription on the great register of public debts, had been left in his port-folio; and which began, as all such grants necessarily must, with the words, Louis, &c. "Heaven!" exclaimed the Commissaries, "here is the very name of the tyrant!" And, as soon as they recovered their breaths, which had been nearly stopped by the violence of the indignation, they coolly pocketed the grant, that is to say, an annuity of one thousand livres, and sent off the porridge-pot. Nor did these const.i.tute all the crimes of Citizen Duplessis, who, having served as first clerk of the revenue board under Clugny, had, as was usual, kept the official seal of that day. An old port-folio, which had been thrown aside, and long forgotten, under a wardrobe, where it was buried in dust, and had, in all probability, not been touched for ten years, but, which with much difficulty, was discovered to bear the impression of a fleur de lys, completed the proof that Citizen Duplessis was a suspicious character. And now behold him shut up in a prison until peace shall be concluded, and the seals put upon all the doors of that country seat, where, you may remember, my dear Freron, that at the time when warrants were issued for apprehending us both, after the ma.s.sacre in the Champ de Mars, we found an asylum which the tyrant did not dare to violate."
--In a word, you must generally understand, that the revolutionary system supersedes law, religion, and morality; and that it invests the Committees of Public Welfare and General Safety, their agents, the Jacobin clubs, and subsidiary banditti, with the disposal of the whole country and its inhabitants.
This gloomy aera of the revolution has its frivolities as well as the less disastrous periods, and the barbarism of the moment is rendered additionally disgusting by a mixture of levity and pedantry.--It is a fashion for people at present to abandon their baptismal and family names, and to a.s.sume that of some Greek or Roman, which the debates of the Convention have made familiar.--France swarms with Gracchus"s and Publicolas, who by imaginary a.s.similations of acts, which a change of manners has rendered different, fancy themselves more than equal to their prototypes.*
* The vicissitudes of the revolution, and the vengeance of party, have brought half the sages of Greece, and patriots of Rome, to the Guillotine or the pillory. The Newgate Calendar of Paris contains as many ill.u.s.trious names as the index to Plutarch"s Lives; and I believe there are now many Brutus"s and Gracchus"s in durance vile, besides a Mutius Scaevola condemned to twenty years imprisonment for an unskilful theft.--A man of Amiens, whose name is Le Roy, signified to the public, through the channel of a newspaper, that he had adopted that of Republic.
--A man who solicits to be the executioner of his own brother ycleps himself Brutus, and a zealous preacher of the right of universal pillage cites the Agrarian law, and signs himself Lycurgus. Some of the Deputies have discovered, that the French mode of dressing is not characteristic of republicanism, and a project is now in agitation to drill the whole country into the use of a Roman costume.--You may perhaps suspect, that the Romans had at least more bodily sedateness than their imitators, and that the shrugs, jerks, and carracoles of a French pet.i.t maitre, however republicanized, will not a.s.sort with the grave drapery of the toga. But on your side of the water you have a habit of reasoning and deliberating --here they have that of talking and obeying.
Our whole community are in despair to-day. Dumont has been here, and those who accosted him, as well as those who only ventured to interpret his looks, all agree in their reports that he is in a "bad humour."--The brightest eyes in France have supplicated in vain--not one grace of any sort has been accorded--and we begin to cherish even our present situation, in the apprehension that it may become worse.--Alas! you know not of what evil portent is the "bad humour" of a Representant. We are half of us now, like the Persian Lord, feeling if our heads are still on our shoulders.--I could add much to the conclusion of one of my last letters. Surely this incessant solicitude for mere existence debilitates the mind, and impairs even its pa.s.sive faculty of suffering. We intrigue for the favour of the keeper, smile complacently at the gross pleasantries of a Jacobin, and tremble at the frown of a Dumont.--I am ashamed to be the chronicler of such humiliation: but, "tush, Hal; men, mortal men!" I can add no better apology, and quit you to moralize on it.--Yours.
[No date given.]
Were I a mere spectator, without fear for myself or compa.s.sion for others, the situation of this country would be sufficiently amusing. The effects produced (many perhaps unavoidably) by a state of revolution--the strange remedies devised to obviate them--the alternate neglect and severity with which the laws are executed--the mixture of want and profusion that distinguish the lower cla.s.ses of people--and the distress and humiliation of the higher; all offer scenes so new and unaccountable, as not to be imagined by a person who has lived only under a regular government, where the limits of authority are defined, the necessaries of life plentiful, and the people rational and subordinate. The consequences of a general spirit of monopoly, which I formerly described, have lately been so oppressive, that the Convention thought it necessary to interfere, and in so extraordinary a way, that I doubt if (as usual) "the distemper of their remedies" will not make us regret the original disease. Almost every article, by having pa.s.sed through a variety of hands, had become enormously dear; which, operating with a real scarcity of many things, occasioned by the war, had excited universal murmurings and inquietude. The Convention, who know the real source of the evil (the discredit of a.s.signats) to be unattainable, and who are more solicitous to divert the clamours of the people, than to supply their wants, have adopted a measure which, according to the present appearances, will ruin one half of the nation, and starve the other. A maximum, or highest price, beyond which nothing is to be sold, is now promulgated under very severe penalties for all who shall infringe it.
Such a regulation as this, must, in its nature, be highly complex, and, by way of simplifying it, the price of every kind of merchandise is fixed at a third above what it bore in 1791: but as no distinction is made between the produce of the country, and articles imported--between the small retailer, who has purchased perhaps at double the rate he is allowed to sell at, and the wholesale speculator, this very simplification renders the whole absurd and inexecutable.--The result was such as might have been expected; previous to the day on which the decree was to take place, shopkeepers secreted as many of their goods as they could; and, when the day arrived, the people laid siege to them in crowds, some buying at the maximum, others less ceremonious, and in a few hours little remained in the shop beyond the fixtures. The farmers have since brought neither b.u.t.ter nor eggs to market, the butchers refuse to kill as usual, and, in short, nothing is to be purchased openly. The country people, instead of selling provisions publicly, take them to private houses; and, in addition to the former exorbitant prices, we are taxed for the risk that is incurred by evading the law. A dozen of eggs, or a leg of mutton, are now conveyed from house to house with as much mystery, as a case of fire-arms, or a treasonable correspondence; the whole republic is in a sort of training like the Spartan youth; and we are obliged to have recourse to dexterity and intrigue to procure us a dinner.
Our legislators, aware of what they term the "aristocratie marchande,"-- that is to say, that tradesmen would naturally shut up their shops when nothing was to be gained--provided, by a clause in the above law, that no one should do this in less time than a year; but as the injunction only obliged them to keep the shops open, and not to have goods to sell, every demand is at first always answered in the negative, till a sort of intelligence becomes established betwixt the buyer and seller, when the former, if he may be trusted, is informed in a low key, that certain articles may be had, but not au maximum.--Thus even the rich cannot obtain the necessaries of life without difficulty and submitting to imposition--and the decent poor, who will not pillage nor intimidate the tradesmen, are more embarra.s.sed than ever.
The above species of contraband commerce is carried on, indeed, with great circ.u.mspection, and no avowed hostilities are attempted in the towns. The great war of the maximum was waged with the farmers and higlers, as soon as it was discovered that they took their commodities privily to such people as they knew would buy at any price, rather than not be supplied. In consequence, the guards were ordered to stop all refractory b.u.t.ter-women at the gates, and conduct them to the town-house, where their merchandize was distributed, without pity or appeal, au maximum, to those of the populace who could clamour loudest.
These proceedings alarmed the peasants, and our markets became deserted.
New stratagems, on one side, new attacks on the other. The servants were forced to supply themselves at private rendezvous in the night, until some were fined, and others arrested; and the searching all comers from the country became more intolerable than the vexations of the ancient Gabelle.--Detachments of dragoons are sent to scour the farm-yards, arrest the farmers, and bring off in triumph whatever the restive housewives have ama.s.sed, to be more profitably disposed of.
In this situation we remain, and I suppose shall remain, while the law of the maximum continues in force. The principle of it was certainly good, but it is found impossible to reduce it to practice so equitably as to affect all alike: and as laws which are not executed are for the most part rather pernicious than nugatory, informations, arrests, imposition, and scarcity are the only ends which this measure seems to have answered.
The houses of detention, before insupportable, are now yet more crouded with farmers and shopkeepers suspected of opposing the law.--Many of the former are so ignorant, as not to conceive that any circ.u.mstances ought to deprive them of the right to sell the produce of their farms at the highest price they can get, and regard the maximum much in the same light as they would a law to authorize robbing or housebreaking: as for the latter, they are chiefly small dealers, who bought dearer than they have sold, and are now imprisoned for not selling articles which they have not got. An informer by trade, or a personal enemy, lodges an accusation against a particular tradesman for concealing goods, or not selling au maximum; and whether the accusation be true or false, if the accused is not in office, or a Jacobin, he has very little chance of escaping imprisonment.--It is certain, that if the persecution of these cla.s.ses of people continue, and commerce (already nearly annihilated by the war) be thus shackled, an absolute want of various articles of primary consumption must ensue; but if Paris and the armies can be supplied, the starving the departments will be a mere pleasurable experiment to their humane representatives!
March 1, 1794.
The freedom of the press is so perfectly well regulated, that it is not surprizing we are indulged with the permission of seeing the public papers: yet this indulgence is often, I a.s.sure you, a source of much perplexity to me--our more intimate a.s.sociates know that I am a native of England, and as often as any debates of our House of Commons are published, they apply to me for explanations which it is not always in my power to give them. I have in vain endeavoured to make them comprehend the nature of an opposition from system, so that when they see any thing advanced by a member exactly the reverse of truth, they are wondering how he can be so ill informed, and never suspect him of saying what he does not believe himself. It must be confessed, however, that our extracts from the English papers often form so complete a contrast with facts, that a foreigner unacquainted with the tactics of professional patriotism, may very naturally read them with some surprize. A n.o.ble Peer, for example, (whose wisdom is not to be disputed, since the Abbe Mably calls him the English Socrates,*) a.s.serts that the French troops are the best clothed in Europe; yet letters, of nearly the same date with the Earl"s speech, from two Generals and a Deputy at the head of different armies intreat a supply of covering for their denudated legions, and add, that they are obliged to march in wooden shoes!**
* It is surely a reflection on the English discernment not to have adopted this happy appellation, in which, however, as well as in many other parts of "the rights of Man and the Citizen," the Abbe seems to have consulted his own zeal, rather than the n.o.ble Peer"s modesty.
** If the French troops are now better clothed, it is the effect of requisitions and pre-emptions, which have ruined the manufacturers.