160] 
wishes of the respeétive parties, that 
the examination might terminate in 
their favour. The remarkable fer- 
vour with which the royalisis ex- 
pressed their hope of its repeal, 
sufficiently indicated how much they 
expected it would militate for them, 
while the apprehensions of the re- 
publicans, lest it should be repealed, 
_manifested equally their conviétion, 
how strongly this would operate to 
their detriment. 
This fermentation of the public 
mind carried the weight of the 
strongest arguinent with those who 
were entrusted with this great de- 
cision. The elatedness of the royal 
party, on the bare possibility of a 
repeal, clearly pointed out the 
danger of it to the commonwealth, 
and admonished its well-wishers to 
oppose such a measure with all their 
might. ‘The members of the com- 
mittee of examination, being staunch 
republicans, could not fail to per- 
ceive the question before them in 
the same light. They did not there- 
fore hesitate to pronounce explicitly 
a verdiét conformable to the opinion 
of their party, which was thereby 
released from a state of the deepest 
anxiety on the issue of this busi- 
ness. 
There were, however, some very 
sincere republicans in both the 
councils, who disapproved ofthis law, 
and exerted their abilities for its 
repeal. They argued that it made 
no difference between the relations 
of real enemies to the revolution, 
who had abandoned their country, 
out of hatred to the system intro- 
duced by that event, and the rela- 
tions of individuals who had fled 
from the tyranny that had deluged 
France with proscriptions and mur- 
ders. Such a flight ought not, in 
the clearest equity, to be accounted 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1796. 
punishable. The law should have 
been pointed at those chiefly whose 
crimes had rendered them objeéts 
of abhorrence to all parties; and 
who, having been tried and con-~ 
demned for them, had been sheltered 
from punishment, by the amnesty 
extended to them by that law, in 
defiance of equity and the general 
sense of the public, which loudly 
demanded that they should be made 
examples of, as guilty of plunders 
and assassinations that had filled the 
nation with dread and horror. Were 
such men to be excepted from the 
rigour of a law which ought to have 
been made for them alone, instead 
of falling upon the innocent ? Was 
it reconcileable with reason and 
propriety, that such men should be 
promoted to posts of honour and 
authority ? But the faét was, that 
the period when this law took 
place was marked by the terrors 
that hung over those who, though 
they reprobated, did not dare to re- 
fuse their assent to it. The consti- 
tution, though framed and accepted, 
stood yet upon a tottering founda- 
tion. ‘The most upright men in the 
convention felt themselves in danger 
from that violent party still prevail- 
ing, and with which they had no 
other expedient to compromise for 
their own safety, than consenting to 
this inequitable law, in hope how- 
ever of some auspicious opportunity 
to repeal it. This opportunity was 
arrived, and every motive concurred 
to induce the legislature to rescind 
an aét replete with cruelty and 
scandal. It was well known, that 
those, whom it affeéted, had been 
falsely held out to the public, as_ 
enemies to the state, and their 
names, together with those of 
their relations, wantonly inserted 
in the list of emigrants, while 
ara | 
