138 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1Y94. 



perpetuate his authority, a decree, 

 was made, declaring France under 

 (I revolutionary government until 

 peace should be restored. The 

 distance at which this plainly ap- 

 peared, was a sufncient earnest that 

 he should long, continue in the su- 

 preme power. Under pretext of 

 consulting the general security, he 

 studiously encouraged a spirit of 

 ferocity, and blood-thirstiress of 

 disposition. He collected a number 

 of rufSans, who were decreed to be 

 a revolutionaiy army, and whom, 

 by procuring them a large pr.v, he 

 secured in his personal interest. 

 They acted, as it were, as his body- 

 guards, and terrified all people into 

 submission. Such apropensity arose 

 at last to shed blood, that an ad- 

 dress was presented to the Con- 

 vention by one of the sections of Pa- 

 ris, petitioning the sacrifice of nine 

 hundred thousand individuals, as 

 necessary to complete the estabhsh- 

 ment of the revolution ! 



Intoxicated by his power, and 

 infuriated by his hatred to mo- 

 narchy and its friends, he let loose 

 such a persecution of them, as 

 proved no less disgraceful to the 

 French for abetting it than to him- 

 self for promoting it *. They were 

 sentenced to imprisonment and de- 

 privation of property, banishment 



or death, as it seemed raost suitable 

 to their supposed guilt. But that 

 which best proved the confonnity 

 of the times to his own disposition, 

 and the devotion or rather imbeci- 

 lity of the Convention in coin- 

 ciding implicitly with ail his de- 

 mands, was, the requisition of the 

 Jacobiu club, form.illy preferred by 

 that body, that terror should be 

 declared the standing order of the 

 day. Numbers of the members 

 were well known to disapprove of 

 the terriiic measures used to keep 

 the public in subjection : and such 

 a requisition was manifestly in- 

 tended as an insult to their feelings. 

 But that furious club was ready to 

 enforce with all its weight the man- 

 dates of Robespien-e : and he 

 was highly desirous to let the Con- 

 vention see that he had another 

 assembly at his command, little less 

 formidable than their own, and that 

 might, incase of need, counterpoise 

 their opposition to him, were their 

 sentiments to alter in his disfavour. 

 But a trial of their complaisance 

 much inore humiliating, and at- 

 tended with much more serious 

 consequences, was, that decree ex- 

 torted by the clamours of this outi 

 rageous club, by which they di- 

 vested themselves of one of the 

 most valuable privileges that was 



♦ Though it be impossible to vindicate a very great portion at least of the 

 French nation, who were as willing to execute and even prompt, as Robespierre, 

 with his revolutionsry tribunal, to enact bloody decrees, from the charge of 

 a ferocious and blood-ihirsty disposition, yet this disposition did not by any means 

 appear in the French armies ; which cherished, even in the bloody reign of Robe- 

 spierre, ideas of military pride, honour and gallantry. While a whole sectioa 

 of Paris petitioned for the inhuman sacrifice of near a million of their fellow- 

 citizens, the arn-'ics refused to carry the decree for granting no quarter to the 

 English and Hanoverians into execution. Why did not the French soldiers, turn 

 their arms against the tyranny of Robespierre? Probably they would lave done 

 more if they had net been actuated by a dreid, and occupied in efforts to repeal ex- 

 ternal aggression, and the dominion of foreign masters. 



annexed 



