ary incorrectness and want
of method since we left Peronne; but I shall not allow your competency as
a critic, until you have been a prisoner in the hands of French
republicans.

It will not be improper to notice to you a very ingenious decree of
Gaston, (a member of the Convention,) who lately proposed to embark all
the English now in France at Brest, and then to sink the ships.--Perhaps
the Committee of Public Welfare are now in a sort of benevolent
indecision, whether this, or Collot d'Herbois' gunpowder scheme, shall
have the preference. Legendre's iron cage and simple hanging will,
doubtless, be rejected, as too slow and formal. The mode of the day is
"les grandes mesures." If I be not seriously alarmed at these
propositions, it is not that life is indifferent to me, or that I think
the government too humane to adopt them. My tranquillity arises from
reflecting that such measures would be of no political use, and that we
shall most likely be soon forgotten in the multitude of more important
concerns. Those, however, whom I endeavour to console by this reasoning,
tell me it is nothing less than infallible, that the inutility of a crime
is here no security against its perpetration, and that any project which
tends to evil will sooner be remembered than one of humanity or justice.

[End of Vol. I. The Printed Books]

[Beginning of Volume II. Of The Printed Books]

Providence, Dec. 20, 1793.

"All places that are visited by the eye of Heaven, are to the wise man
happy havens." If Shakspeare's philosophy be orthodox, the French have,
it must be confessed, many claims to the reputation of a wise people; and
though you know I always disputed their pretensions to general gaiety,
yet I acknowledge that misfortune does not deprive them of the share they
possess, and, if one may judge by appearances, they have at least the
habit, more than any other nation, of finding content under situations
with which it should seem incompatible. We are here between six and
seven hundred, of all ages and of all ranks, taken from our homes, and
from all that usually makes the comfort of life, and crowded together
under many of the inflictions that constitute its misery; yet, in the
midst of all this, we fiddle, dress, rhyme, and visit as ceremoniously as
though we had nothing to disturb us. Our beaux, after being correctly
frizz'd and powdered behind some door, compliment the belle just escaped
from a toilet, perform