ty-four
hours. To such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his
Committee arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man
living. Scarcely a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty,
fifty, or more, were not taken out of the prison, carried before a
pretended tribunal in the morning, and guillotined before night. One
hundred and sixty-nine were taken out of the Luxembourg one night, in
the month of July, and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined. A
list of two hundred more, according to the report in the prison, was
preparing a few days before Robespierre fell. In this last list I have
good reason to believe I was included. A memorandum in the hand-writing
of Robespierre was afterwards produced in the Convention, by the
committee to whom the papers of Robespierre were referred, in these
words:

"Demander que Thomas "I Demand that Thomas Paine
"Payne soit decrete d'ac- be decreed of accusation
"cusation pour les inte- for the interests of America
"rotsde l'Amerique,autant as well as of France."
"que de la France."

1 In reading this the Committee added, "Why Thomas Payne
more than another? Because He helped to establish the
liberty of both worlds."--_Editor_.

I had then been imprisoned seven months, and the silence of the
Executive part of the government of America (Mr. Washington) upon the
case, and upon every thing respecting me, was explanation enough to
Robespierre that he might proceed to extremities.

A violent fever which had nearly terminated my existence, was, I
believe, the circumstance that preserved it. I was not in a condition to
be removed, or to know of what was passing, or of what had passed, for
more than a month. It makes a blank in my remembrance of life. The first
thing I was informed of was the fall of Robespierre.

About a week after this, Mr. Monroe arrived to supercede Gouverneur
Morris, and as soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be
read, I found a way to convey one to him by means of the man who lighted
the lamps in the prison; and whose unabated friendship to me, from whom
he had never received any service, and with difficulty accepted any
recompense, puts the character of Mr. Washington to shame.

In a few days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed to me in a
note from an intermediate person, with assurance of his friendship, and
expressing a desire that I