writers; but these fallacious
accounts are not like the ephemeral deceits of your party prints in
England, the effect of which is destroyed in a few hours by an opposite
assertion. None here are bold enough to contradict what their sovereigns
would have believed; and a town or district, driven almost to revolt by
the present system of recruiting, consents very willingly to be described
as marching to the frontiers with martial ardour, and burning to combat
les esclaves des tyrans! By these artifices, one department is misled
with regard to the dispositions of another, and if they do not excite to
emulation, they, at least, repress by fear; and, probably, many are
reduced to submission, who would resist, were they not doubtful of the
support and union of their neighbours. Every possible precaution is
taken to prevent any connections between the different departments--
people who are not known cannot obtain passports without the
recommendation of two housekeepers--you must give an account of the
business you go upon, of the carriage you mean to travel in, whether it
has two wheels or four: all of which must be specified in your passport:
and you cannot send your baggage from one town to another without the
risk of having it searched. All these things are so disgusting and
troublesome, that I begin to be quite of a different opinion from Brutus,
and should certainly prefer being a slave among a free people, than thus
be tormented with the recollection that I am a native of England in a
land of slavery. Whatever liberty the French might have acquired by
their first revolution, it is now much like Sir John Cutler's worsted
stockings, so torn, and worn, and disguised by patchings and mendings,
that the original texture is not discoverable.--Yours, &c.

June 3, 1793.

We have been three days without receiving newspapers; but we learn from
the reports of the courier, that the Brissotins are overthrown, that many
of them have been arrested, and several escaped to raise adherents in the
departments. I, however, doubt much if their success will be very
general: the people have little preference between Brissot and Marat,
Condorcet and Robespierre, and are not greatly solicitous about the names
or even principles of those who govern them--they are not yet accustomed
to take that lively interest in public events which is the effect of a
popular constitution. In England every thing is a subject of debate and
contest, bu