cided the fate of the
constitution. The Patriots all rallied to the principles thus settled,
carried every question agreeably to them, and reduced the aristocracy
to insignificance and impotence. But duties of exculpation were now
incumbent on me. I waited on Count Montmorin the next morning, and
explained to him, with truth and candor, how it happened that my house
had been made the scene of conferences of such a character. He told me
he already knew every thing which had passed, that so far from taking
umbrage at the use made of my house on that occasion, he earnestly
wished I would habitually assist at such conferences, being sure I
should be useful in moderating the warmer spirits, and promoting a
wholesome and practicable reformation only. I told him I knew too well
the duties I owed to the King, to the nation, and to my own country, to
take any part in councils concerning their internal government, and that
I should persevere, with care, in the character of a neutral and passive
spectator, with wishes only, and very sincere ones, that those measures
might prevail which would be for the greatest good of the nation. I have
no doubt, indeed, that this conference was previously known and approved
by this honest minister, who was in confidence and communication with
the Patriots, and wished for a reasonable reform of the constitution.

Here I discontinue my relation of the French Revolution. The minuteness
with which I have so far given its details, is disproportioned to the
general scale of my narrative. But I have thought it justified by the
interest which the whole world must take in this Revolution. As yet, we
are but in the first chapter of its history. The appeal to the rights of
man, which had been made in the United States, was taken up by France,
first of the European nations. From her the spirit has spread over those
of the South. The tyrants of the North have allied indeed against it;
but it is irresistible. Their opposition will only multiply its millions
of human victims; their own satellites will catch it, and the condition
of man through the civilized world, will be finally and greatly
meliorated. This is a wonderful instance of great events from small
causes. So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences
in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a
sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants.
I have been more minute in relating the early trans