ity of the law to act,
for the "arrest of _suspected_ persons." It declares every "remnant of
the _gentry_ of France to be an object of suspicion." It declares the
"_business of bankers_ to render them objects of suspicion." It declares
"their reluctance to receive assignats, and their sordid _attachment to
their own interests_," to make all merchants objects of suspicion. It
declares "all the _relatives_ of emigrants" to be objects of suspicion.
It declares "all the clergy who have refused the constitutional oath,
and all the former magistracy," to be objects of suspicion. All those
classes of society are to be sentenced at once, "_without being heard_."
Let us strike at once, says this desperate document, "_without trial_
and _without mercy_. Let us banish all compassion from our bosoms. Oh!
what innumerable mischiefs may be produced by a false sentiment of
pity?"

This decree, which made every man a victim who had any thing to lose,
instantly crowded the French prisons with the merchants, the bankers,
and the whole monied class in France. Those who could be plundered no
longer, were sent to execution. In Paris alone, within six months, a
thousand persons of the various professions had been murdered by the
guillotine. During the three years of the democracy, no less than
eighteen thousand individuals, chiefly of the middle order, perished by
the guillotine.

This frightful catalogue closed with a remark on the belligerent
propensities which such a state of society must produce. "It must be the
immediate interest of a government, founded on principles wholly
contradictory to the received maxims of all surrounding nations, to
propagate the doctrines abroad by which it subsists at home; to
assimilate every neighbouring state to its own system; and to subvert
every constitution which even forms an advantageous contrast to its own
absurdities. Such a government must, from its nature, be hostile to all
governments of whatever form; but, above all, to those which are most
strongly contrasted with its own vicious structure, and which afford to
their subjects the best security for the maintenance of order, liberty,
justice, and religion."

Sheridan made a speech, of great beauty and animation, in reply. But his
whole argument consisted in the sophism, that the French had been
rendered savage by the long sense of oppression, and that the blame of
their atrocities, (which he fully admitted,) should be visited on the
monarchy