These men were apprehended as smugglers, under circumstances of peculiar
atrocity, and committed to the gaol at ____. A few days after, a young
girl, of bad character, who has much influence at the club, made a
motion, that the people, in a body, should demand the release of the
prisoners. The motion was carried, and the Hotel de Ville assailed by a
formidable troop of sailors, fish-women, &c.--The municipality refused to
comply, the Garde Nationale was called out, and, on the mob persisting,
fired over their heads, wounded a few, and the rest dispersed of
themselves.--Now you must understand, the latent motive of all this was
two thousand livres promised to one of the Jacobin leaders, if he
succeeded in procuring the men their liberty.--I do not advance this
merely on conjecture. The fact is well known to the municipality; and
the decent part of it would willingly have expelled this man, who is one
of their members, but that they found themselves too weak to engage in a
serious quarrel with the Jacobins.--One cannot reflect, without
apprehension, that any society should exist which can oppose the
execution of the laws with impunity, or that a people, who are little
sensible of realities, should be thus abused by names. They suffer, with
unfeeling patience, a thousand enormities--yet blindly risk their
liberties and lives to promote the designs of an adventurer, because he
harangues at a club, and calls himself a patriot.
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