newspapers, seem so sanguine in their expectation, and so positive in
their assertions of an English revolution, that I occasionally, and in
spite of myself, feel a vague but serious solicitude, which I should not
have supposed the apprehension of any political evil could inspre. I
know the good sense and information of my countrymen offer a powerful
resource against the love of change and metaphysical subtilties; but, it
is certain, the French government have much depended on the spirit of
party, and the zeal of their propagandistes. They talk of a British
convention, of a conventional army, and, in short, all France seem
prepared to see their neighbours involved in the same disastrous system
with themselves. The people are not a little supported in this error by
the extracts that are given them from your orators in the House of
Commons, which teem with nothing but complaints against the oppression of
their own country, and enthusiastic admiration of French liberty. We
read and wonder--collate the Bill of Rights with the Code
Revolutionnaire, and again fear what we cannot give credit to.

Since the reports I allude to have gained ground, I have been forcibly
stricken by a difference in the character of the two nations. At the
prospect of a revolution, all the French who could conveniently leave the
country, fled; and those that remained (except adventurers and the
banditti that were their accomplices) studiously avoided taking any part.
But so little are our countrymen affected with this selfish apathy, that
I am told there is scarcely one here who, amidst all his present
sufferings, does not seem to regret his absence from England, more on
account of not being able to oppose this threatened attack on our
constitution, than for any personal motive.--The example before them
must, doubtless, tend to increase this sentiment of genuine patriotism;
for whoever came to France with but a single grain of it in his
composition, must return with more than enough to constitute an hundred
patriots, whose hatred of despotism is only a principle, and who have
never felt its effects.--Adieu.

February 2, 1794.

The factions which have chosen to give France the appellation of a
republic, seem to have judged, and with some reason, that though it might
answer their purpose to amuse the people with specious theories of
freedom, their habits and ideas were far from requiring that these fine
schemes should be carried into prac