st, 1805.

MY LORD:--That the population of this capital has, since the Revolution,
decreased near two hundred thousand souls, is not to be lamented. This
focus of corruption and profligacy is still too populous, though the
inhabitants do not amount to six hundred thousand; for I am well
persuaded that more crimes and excesses of every description are
committed here in one year than are perpetrated in the same period of
time in all other European capitals put together. From not reading in
our newspapers, as we do in yours, of the robberies, murders, and frauds
discovered and punished, you may, perhaps, be inclined to suppose my
assertion erroneous or exaggerated; but it is the policy of our present
Government to labour as much as possible in the dark; that is to say, to
prevent, where it can be done, all publicity of anything directly or
indirectly tending to inculpate it of oppression, tyranny, or even
negligence; and to conceal the immorality of the people so nearly
connected with its own immoral power. It is true that many vices and
crimes here, as well as everywhere else, are unavoidable, and the natural
consequences of corruption, and might be promulgated, therefore, without
attaching any reproach to our rulers; but they are so accustomed to the
mystery adherent to tyranny, that even the most unimportant lawsuit,
uninteresting intrigue, elopement, or divorce, are never allowed to be
mentioned in our journals, without a previous permission from the prefect
of police, who very seldom grants it.

Most of the enormities now deplored in this country are the consequence
of moral and religious licentiousness, that have succeeded to political
anarchy, or rather were produced by it, and survive it. Add to this the
numerous examples of the impunity of guilt, prosperity of infamy, misery
of honesty, and sufferings of virtue, and you will not think it
surprising that, notwithstanding half a million of spies, our roads and
streets are covered with robbers and assassins, and our scaffolds with
victims.

The undeniable TRUTH that this city alone is watched by one hundred
thousand spies (so that, when in company with six persons, one has reason
to dread the presence of one spy), proclaims at once the morality of the
governors and that of the governed: were the former just, and the latter
good, this mass of vileness would never be employed; or, if employed,
wickedness would expire for want of fuel, and the hydra of tyranny pe