Oct. 30.
For some days the guards have been so untractable, and the croud at the
door has been so great, that Fleury was obliged to make various efforts
before he could communicate the result of his negotiation. He has at
length found means to inform us, that his friend the tailor had exerted
all his interest in our favour, but that Dumont and Le Bon (as often
happens between neighbouring potentates) are at war, and their enmity
being in some degree subject to their mutual fears, neither will venture
to liberate any prisoner arrested by the other, lest such a disposition
to clemency should be seized on by his rival as a ground of accusation.*
* But if they did not free the enemies of each other, they revenged
themselves by throwing into prison all their mutual friends--for the
temper of the times was such, that, though these Representatives
were expressly invested with unlimited powers, they did not venture
to set any one at liberty without a multitude of forms and a long
attendance: on the contrary, they arrested without any form at all,
and allowed their myrmidons to harrass and confine the persons and
sequester the property of all whom they judged proper.--It seemed to
have been an elementary principle with those employed by the
government at this time, that they risked nothing in doing all the
mischief they could, and that they erred only in not doing enough.
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