I have this day made a discovery of a very unpleasant nature, which Mad.
de ____ had hitherto cautiously concealed from me. All the English, and
other foreigners placed under similar circumstances, are now, without
exception, arrested, and the confiscation of their property is decreed.
It is uncertain if the law is to extend to wearing apparel, but I find
that on this ground the Committee of Peronne persist in refusing to take
the seals off my effects, or to permit my being supplied with any
necessaries whatsoever. In other places they have put two, four, and, I
am told, even to the number of six guards, in houses belonging to the
English; and these guards, exclusive of being paid each two shillings per
day, burn the wood, regale on the wine, and pillage in detail all they
can find, while the unfortunate owner is starving in a Maison d'Arret,
and cannot obtain permission to withdraw a single article for his own
use.--The plea for this paltry measure is, that, according to the report
of a deserter escaped from Toulon, Lord Hood has hanged one Beauvais, a
member of the Convention. I have no doubt but the report is false, and,
most likely, fabricated by the Comite de Salut Public, in order to
palliate an act of injustice previously meditated.
It is needless to expatiate on the atrocity of making individuals, living
here under the faith of the nation, responsible for the events of the
war, and it is whispered that even the people are a little ashamed of it;
yet the government are not satisfied with making us accountable for what
really does happen, but they attribute acts of cruelty to our countrymen,
in order to excuse those they commit themselves, and retaliate imagined
injuries by substantial vengeance.
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