God, and the grandson of
William Penn proclaimed a bounty of fifty dollars for the scalp of a
female Indian, and three times as much for a male. A man would have had
quite as good a chance of justice from the Revolutionary Tribunal, as
at the hands of Braxfield, the Scotch judge, who condemned Muir and
Palmer for sedition in 1793, and who told the government, with a brazen
front worthy of Carrier or Collot d'Herbois themselves, that, if they
would only send him prisoners, he would find law for them.

We have no sympathy with the spirit of paradox that has arisen in these
days, amusing itself by the vindication of bad men. We think that the
author of the Law of Prairial was a bad man. But it is time that there
should be an end of the cant which lifts up its hands at the crimes of
republicans and freethinkers, and shuts its eyes to the crimes of kings
and churches. Once more, we ought to rise into a higher air; we ought to
condemn, wherever we find it, whether on the side of our adversaries or
on our own, all readiness to substitute arbitrary force for the
processes of ordered justice. There are moments when such a readiness
may be leniently judged, but Prairial of 1794 was not one of them either
in France or in England. And what makes the crime of this law more
odious, is its association with the official proclamation of the State
worship of a Supreme Being. The scene of Robespierre's holy festival
becomes as abominable as a catholic Auto-da-fe, where solemn homage was
offered to the God of pity and loving-kindness, while flame glowed round
the limbs of the victims.

* * * * *

Robespierre was inflamed with resentment, not because so many people
were guillotined every day, but because the objects of his own enmity
were not among them. He was chagrined at the miscarriage of his scheme;
but the chagrin had its root in his desire for order, and not in his
humanity. A good man--say so imperfectly good a man as Danton--could not
have endured life, after enacting such a law, and seeing the ghastly
work that it was doing. He could hardly have contented himself with
drawing tears from the company in Madame Duplay's little parlour, by his
pathetic recitations from Corneille and Racine, or with listening to
melting notes from the violin of Le Bas. It is commonly said by
Robespierre's defenders that he withdrew from the Committee of Public
Safety, as soon as he found out that he was powerless to ar