102] 
all their difficulties. These friends 
were now become their most de- 
cided enemies, and alleged such 
reasons for their enmity, as the con- 
vention found it not easy to invali. 
date. Itresolved, inthis extremity, 
to have recourse to the military 
stationed at Paris. Between these 
and the Parisians there subsisted, 
however, such a fraternal intimacy, 
that those members of the conven- 
tion, who guided its motives on 
this perilous emergency, soon found 
that other auxiliaries would be - 
wanted. It behoved them to be 
expeditious. The language of 
their opponents’ in the capital 
breathed the worst of menaces, and 
it was evident that either the city 
or the convention must give the law 
without controul, Nothing was 
omitted by the citizens, that could 
fender the majority of that body 
odious or despicable. . Murderers, 
despots, or sycophants, were the 
terms in wh:ch they described them. 
The authors of the assassinations in 
September, 1792, and of the judi. 
cial murders of the Gironde party in 
Oober, 1793, the remnants of 
the mountain and of Roberspierre’s 
faGtion, with the approvers and 
abettors of all their cnormities: 
these, and such as these, the Pa- 
risiens said, still retained their seats 
in the convention. Were such 
men, sullied with crimes and infa- 
mies, fit to preside over 2 nation? 
What must ihe enemies of France, 
what must Europe, thnk of the 
French, if they submittes to be go- 
verned by such men? National jus- 
tice required that they should forih- 
with be dismissed from the seat of 
authority. Thiswas the least punish- 
ment that could be inflifted upon 
men who deserved so much greater. 
The utmost they could expeét from 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 1798. 
the lenity of the nation was, to be 
sheltered, with other criminals, un. 
der a general aét of amnesty. But 
if they persisted in the refusal to re. 
sign their power, such additional 
guilt ought to be punished with un- 
relenting severity. It excluded 
them at once from all hopes of mer. 
cy; and the public would be justi. 
fied in carrying their vengeance te 
the utmost extremes. 
‘The obstinacy of the citizens, in 
requiring the deputies to surrender 
their authority, and the determina. 
tion of these to retain it, had kin. 
dled the wrath and indignation of 
both parties to the highest pitch. 
Numbers of the former would 
listen to nothing, short of the most 
inexorable treatment of that body. 
It was obeying the laws of impar. 
tial justice, they said, to retaliate 
upon every one of them. The con. 
duét of each, throughout the whole 
revolution, ought to be scrutinized 
in open court, and no subterfuges 
allowed, or excu!pations admitted 
for the enormities in which they had 
participated, or had not the courage . 
to discountenance. It was ineum.~ 
bent on the French to clear up 
their charaCier to the world, by ex. 
ecuting the rigour of the law upon 
men who deserved no pardon, who 
had embrued their hands in the 
blood of innacent multitudes, after 
shedding that of worthy patriots ; 
and who had, by a series of horrors, ’ 
brought the cause of liberty inté 
disgrace, and empowered its ene- 
mies to asperse its most upright 
friends and assertors. Till justice 
was done upon such men, the sur. 
rounding nations would have a right 
to consider the French as a savage “ . 
and sanguinary people, enslaved by 
the successive faétions of the day, 
and 
