It is its very character to
submit to such things. There is a consanguinity between benevolence and
humility. They are virtues of the same stock. Dignity is of as good a
race; but it belongs to the family of fortitude. In the spirit of that
benevolence, we sent a gentleman to beseech the Directory of Regicide
not to be quite so prodigal as their republic had been of judicial
murder. We solicited them to spare the lives of some unhappy persons of
the first distinction, whose safety at other times could not have been
an object of solicitation. They had quitted France on the faith of the
declaration of the rights of citizens. They never had been in the
service of the Regicides, nor at their hands had received any stipend.
The very system and constitution of government that now prevails was
settled subsequent to their emigration. They were under the protection
of Great Britain, and in his Majesty's pay and service. Not an hostile
invasion, but the disasters of the sea, had thrown them upon a shore
more barbarous and inhospitable than the inclement ocean under the most
pitiless of its storms. Here was an opportunity to express a feeling for
the miseries of war, and to open some sort of conversation, which,
(after our public overtures had glutted their pride,) at a cautious and
jealous distance, might lead to something like an accommodation.--What
was the event? A strange, uncouth thing, a theatrical figure of the
opera, his head shaded with three-colored plumes, his body fantastically
habited, strutted from the back scenes, and, after a short speech, in
the mock-heroic falsetto of stupid tragedy, delivered the gentleman who
came to make the representation into the custody of a guard, with
directions not to lose sight of him for a moment, and then ordered him
to be sent from Paris in two hours.
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