ne who is unlucky
enough to be a spectator, may interest, without the advantage of literary
talents.--Yours.

Peronne, August 24, 1793.

I have been out to-day for the first time since the arrest of the
English, and, though I have few acquaintances here, my adventure at the
Hotel de Ville has gained me a sort of popularity. I was saluted by many
people I did not know, and overwhelmed with expressions of regret for
what had happened, or congratulations on my having escaped so well.

The French are not commonly very much alive to the sufferings of others,
and it is some mortification to my vanity that I cannot, but at the
expence of a reproaching conscience, ascribe the civilities I have
experienced on this occasion to my personal merit. It would doubtless
have been highly flattering to me to relate the tender and general
interest I had excited even among this cold-hearted people, who scarcely
feel for themselves: but the truth is, they are disposed to take the part
of any one whom they think persecuted by their government; and their
representative, Dumont, is so much despised in his private character, and
detested in his public one, that it suffices to have been ill treated by
him, to ensure one a considerable portion of the public good will.

This disposition is not a little consolatory, at a time when the whole
rage of an oligarchical tyranny, though impotent against the English as a
nation, meanly exhausts itself on the few helpless individuals within its
power. Embarrassments accumulate and if Mr. Pitt's agents did not most
obligingly write letters, and these letters happen to be intercepted just
when they are most necessary, the Comite de Salut Publique would be at a
loss how to account for them.

Assignats have fallen into a discredit beyond example, an hundred and
thirty livres having been given for one Louis-d'or; and, as if this were
not the natural result of circumstances like the present, a
correspondence between two Englishmen informs us, that it is the work of
Mr. Pitt, who, with an unparalleled ingenuity, has contrived to send
couriers to every town in France, to concert measures with the bankers
for this purpose. But if we may believe Barrere, one of the members of
the Committee, this atrocious policy of Mr. Pitt will not be unrevenged,
for another intercepted letter contains assurances that an hundred
thousand men have taken up arms in England, and are preparing to march
against the iniquit