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 practice. I know of no example equal to the submission of the French at this moment; and if “departed spirits were permitted to review the world,” the shades of Richelieu or Louvois might hover with envy round the Committee of Public Welfare, and regret the undaring moderation of their own politics.

How shall I explain to an Englishman the doctrine of universal requisition? I rejoice that you can imagine nothing like it. After establishing, as a general principle, that the whole country is at the disposal of government, succeeding decrees have made specific claims on almost every body, and every thing. The tailors, shoemakers, bakers, smiths, sadlers, and many other trades, are all in requisition carts, horses, and carriages of every kind, are in requisition the stables and cellars are put in requisition for the extraction of saltpetre, and the houses to lodge soldiers, or to be converted into prisons.

Sometimes shopkeepers are forbidden to sell their cloth, nails, wine, bread, meat, &c. There are instances where whole towns have been kept without the necessaries of life for several days together, in consequence of these interdictions; and I have known it proclaimed by beat of drum, that whoever possessed two uniforms, two hats, or two pair of shoes, should relinquish one for the use of the army! Yet with all these efforts of despotism, the republican troops are in many respects ill supplied, the produce being too often converted to the use of the agents of government, who are all Jacobins, and whose peculations are suffered with impunity, because they are too necessary, or perhaps too formidable for punishment.

These proceedings, which are not the less mischievous for being absurd, must end in a total destruction of commerce: the merchant will not import what he may be obliged to sell exclusively to government at an arbitrary and inadequate valuation. Those who are not imprisoned, and have it in their power, are for the most part retired from business, or at least avoid all foreign speculations; so that France may in a few months depend only on her internal resources. The same measures which ruin one class, serve as a pretext to oppress and levy contributions on the rest. In order to make this right of seizure still more productive, almost every village has its spies, and the domiciliary visits are become so frequent, that a man is less secure in his own house, than in a desert amidst Arabs. On these occasions, a band of Jacobins, with a municipal officer at their head, enter sans ceremonie, over-run your apartments, and if they find a few pounds of sugar, soap, or any other article which they choose to judge more than sufficient for immediate consumption, they take possession of the whole as a monopoly, which they claim for the use of the republic, and the terrified owner, far from expostulating, thinks himself happy if he escapes so well. But this is mere vulgar tyranny: a less powerful despotism might invade the security of social life, and banish its comforts. We are prone to suffer, and it requires often little more than the will to do evil to give us a command over the happiness of others. The Convention are more original, and, not satisfied with having reduced the people to the most abject slavery, they exact a semblance of content, and dictate at stated periods the chastisement which awaits those who refuse to smile.

The splendid ceremonies at Paris, which pass for popular rejoicings, merit that appellation less than an auto de fe. Every movement is previously regulated by a Commissioner appointed for the purpose, (to whom en passant these fetes are very lucrative jobs,) a plan of the whole is distributed, in which is prescribed with great exactness, that at such and such parts the people are to “melt into tears,” at others they are to be seized with a holy enthusiasm, and at the conclusion of the whole they are to rend the air with the cry of “Vive la Convention!” These celebrations are always attended by a military force, sufficient to ensure their observance, besides a plentiful mixture of spies to notice refractory countenances or faint acclamations.

The departments which cannot imitate the magnificence of Paris, are obliged, nevertheless, to manifest their satisfaction. At every occasion on which a rejoicing is ordered, the same kind of discipline is preserved; and the aristocrats, whose fears in general overcome their principles, are often not the least zealous attendants.

At the retaking of Toulon, when abandoned by our countrymen, the National Guards were every where assembled to participate in the festivity, under a menace of three days imprisonment. Those persons who did not illuminate their houses were to be considered as suspicious, and treated as such: yet, even with all these precautions, I am informed the business was universally cold, and the balls thinly attended, except by aristocrats and relations of emigrants, who, in some places, with a baseness not excused even by their terrors, exhibited themselves as a public spectacle, and sang the defeats of that country which was armed in their defence.

I must here remark to you a circumstance which does still less honour to the French character; and which you will be unwilling to believe. In several towns the officers and others, under whose care the English were placed during their confinement, were desirous sometimes on account of the peculiar hardship of their situation as foreigners, to grant them little indulgences, and even more liberty than to the French prisoners; and in this they were justified on several considerations, as well as that of humanity. They knew an Englishman could not escape, whatever facility might be given him, without being immediately retaken; and that if his imprisonment were made severe, he had fewer external resources and alleviations than the natives of the country: but these favourable dispositions were of no avail for whenever any of our countrymen obtained an accommodation, the jealousy of the French took umbrage, and they were obliged to relinquish it, or hazard the drawing embarrassment on the individual who had served them.

You are to notice, that the people in general, far from being averse to seeing the English treated with a comparative indulgence, were even pleased at it; and the invidious comparisons and complaints which prevented it, proceeded from the gentry, from the families of those who had found refuge in England, and who were involved in the common persecution. I have, more than once, been reproached by a female aristocrat with the ill success of the English army; and many, with whom I formerly lived on terms of intimacy, would refuse me now the most trifling service. I have heard of a lady, whose husband and brother are both in London, who amuses herself in teaching a bird to repeat abuse of the English.

It has been said, that the day a man becomes a slave, he loses half his virtue; and if this be true as to personal slavery, judging from the examples before me, I conclude it equally so of political bondage. The extreme despotism of the government seems to have confounded every principle of right and wrong, every distinction of honour and dishonour and the individual, of whatever class, alive only to the sense of personal danger, embraces without reluctance meanness or disgrace, if it insure his safety. A tailor or shoemaker, whose reputation perhaps is too bad to gain him a livelihood by any trade but that of a patriot, shall be besieged by the flatteries of people of rank, and have levees as numerous as Choiseul or Calonne in their meridian of power.

When a Deputy of the Convention is sent to a town on mission, sadness takes possession of every heart, and gaiety of every countenance. He is beset with adulatory petitions, and propitiating gifts; the Noblesse who have escaped confinement form a sort of court about his person; and thrice happy is the owner of that habitation at which he condescends to reside.

A Representative of gallantry has no reason to envy either the authority of the Grand Signor, or the licence of his seraglio he is arbiter of the fate of every woman that pleases him; and, it is supposed, that many a fair captive has owed her liberty to her charms, and that the philosophy of a French husband has sometimes opened the doors of his prison.

Dumont, who is married, and has besides the countenance of a white Negro, never visits us without occasioning a general commotion amongst all the females, especially those who are young and pretty. As soon as it is known that he is expected, the toilettes are all in activity, a renovation of rouge and an adjustment of curls take place, and, though performed with more haste, not with less solicitude, than the preparatory splendour of a first introduction. When the great man arrives, he finds the court by which he enters crowded by these formidable prisoners, and each with a petition in her hand endeavours, with the insidious coquetry of plaintive smiles and judicious tears, that brighten the eye without deranging the features, to attract his notice and conciliate his favour. Happy those who obtain a promise, a look of complacence, or even of curiosity! But the attention of this apostle of republicanism is not often bestowed, except on high rank, or beauty; and a woman who is old, or ill dressed, that ventures to approach him, is usually repulsed with vulgar brutality while the very sight of a male suppliant renders him furious. The first half hour he walks about, surrounded by his fair cortege, and is tolerably civil; but at length, fatigued, I suppose by continual importunity, he loses his temper, departs, and throws all the petitions he has received unopened into the fire.

Adieu the subject is too humiliating to dwell on. I feel for myself, I feel for human nature, when I see the fastidiousness of wealth, the more liberal pride of birth, and the yet more allowable pretensions of beauty, degraded into the most abject submission to such a being as Dumont. Are our principles every where the mere children of circumstance, or is it in this country only that nothing is stable? For my own part I love inflexibility of character; and pride, even when ill founded, seems more respectable while it sustains itself, than concessions which, refused to the suggestions of reason, are yielded to the dictates of fear. Yours.