ery faults of our friends are often endearing to us, they may extend
their indulgence to the "humane" and "liberal" precepts of the Jacobins,
and the massacres of September.--To confess the truth, I am not a little
ashamed for my country when I see addresses from England to a Convention,
the members of which have just been accusing each other of assassination
and robbery, or, in the ardour of a debate, threatening, cuffing, and
knocking each other down. Exclusive of their moral character, considered
only as it appears from their reciprocal criminations, they have so
little pretension to dignity, or even decency, that it seems a mockery to
address them as the political representatives of a powerful nation
deliberating upon important affairs.

If a bearer of one of these congratulatory compliments were not apprized
of the forms of the House, he would be rather astonished, at his
introduction, to see one member in a menacing attitude, and another
denying his veracity in terms perfectly explicit, though not very civil.
Perhaps, in two minutes, the partizans of each opponent all rise and
clamour, as if preparing for a combat--the President puts on his hat as
the signal of a storm--the subordinate disputants are appeased--and the
revilings of the principal ones renewed; till, after torrents of indecent
language, the quarrel is terminated by a fraternal embrace.*--I think,
after such a scene, an addresser must feel a little humiliated, and would
return without finding his pride greatly increased by his mission.

* I do not make any assertions of this nature from conjecture or
partial evidence. The journals of the time attest that the scenes I
describe occur almost in every debate.--As a proof, I subjoin some
extracts taken nearly at hazard:

"January 7th, Convention Nationale, Presidence de Treilhard.--The
debate was opened by an address from the department of Finisterre,
expressing their wishes, and adding, that these were likewise the
wishes of the nation at large--that Marat, Robespierre, Bazire,
Chabot, Merlin, Danton, and their accomplices, might be expelled the
Convention as caballers and intriguers paid by the tyrants at war
with France."

The account of this debate is thus continued--"The almost daily
troubles which arise in the Convention were on the point of being
renewed, when a member, a friend to order, spoke as follows, and, it
is rem