representation you have made in the letter, or
whether you must be forced to go further into the subject. The state of
my health will not admit of delay, and besides the tortured state of
my mind wears me down. If they talk of bringing me to trial (and I well
know there is no accusation against me and that they can bring none)
I certainly summons you as an Evidence to my Character. This you may
mention to them either as what I intend to do or what you intend to do
voluntarily for me.

I am anxious that you undertake this business without losing time,
because if I am not liberated in the course of this decade, I intend, if
in case the seventy-one detained deputies are liberated, to follow the
same track that they have done, and publish my own case myself.(1)
I cannot rest any longer in this state of miserable suspense, be the
consequences what they may.

Thomas Paine.

1 Those deputies, imprisoned for having protested against
the overthrow of the Girondin government, May 31,1793, when
the Convention was invaded and overawed by the armed
communes of Paris. These deputies were liberated and
recalled to the Convention, December 8, 1794. Paine was
invited to resume his seat the day before, by a special act
of the Convention, after an eloquent speech by Thibaudeau.--
_Editor._.

Dear Sir: I need not mention to you the happiness I received from the
information you sent me by Mr. Beresford. I easily guess the persons
you have conversed with on the subject of my liberation--but matters
and even promises that pass in conversation are not quite so strictly
attended to here as in the Country you come from. I am not, my Dear Sir,
impatient from any thing in my disposition, but the state of my health
requires liberty and a better air; and besides this, the rules of the
prison do not permit me, though I have all the indulgences the Concierge
can give, to procure the things necessary to my recovery, which is
slow as to strength. I have a tolerable appetite but the allowance of
provision is scanty. We are not allowed a knife to cut our victuals
with, nor a razor to shave; but they have lately allowed some barbers
that are here to shave. The room where I am lodged is a ground floor
level with the earth in the garden and floored with brick, and is so
wet after every rain that I cannot guard against taking colds that
continually cheat my recovery. If you could, without interfering with or
der