t the sad science of
discriminating the shades of wickedness, in which (as I have before
noticed) the French have been rendered such adepts, oblige them at
present to fix their hopes--not according to the degree of merit, but by
that of guilt. They are reduced to distinguish between those who
sanction murders, and those who perpetrated them--between the sacrificer
of one thousand victims, and that of ten--between those who assassinate,
and those who only reward the assassin.*

* Tallien is supposed, as agent of the municipality of paris, to
have paid a million and a half of livres to the Septembrisers or
assassins of the prisons! I know not whether the sum was in
assignats or specie.--If in the former, it was, according to the
exchange then, about two and thirty thousand pounds sterling: but if
estimated in proportion to what might be purchased with it, near
fifty thousand. Tallien has never denied the payment of the money--
we may, therefore, conclude the charge to be true.

--Before the revolution, they would not have known how to select, where
all were objects of abhorrence; but now the most ignorant are casuists in
the gradations of turpitude, and prefer Tallien to Le Bon, and the Abbe
Sieyes to Barrere.

The crimes of Carrier have been terminated, not punished, by death. He
met his fate with a courage which, when the effect of innocence, is
glorious to the sufferer, and consoling to humanity; but a career like
his, so ended, was only the confirmation of a brutal and ferocious mind.*

* When Carrier was arrested, he attempted to shoot himself, and, on
being prevented by the Gens-d'armes, he told them there were members
of the Convention who would not forgive their having prevented his
purpose--implying, that they apprehended the discoveries he might
make on his trial. While he was dressing himself, (for they took
him in bed,) he added, "_Les Scelerats!_ (Meaning his more
particular accomplices, who, he was told, had voted against him,)
they deserved that I should be as dastardly as themselves." He
rested his defence entirely on the decrees of the Convention.

--Of thirty who were tried with him as his agents, and convicted of
assisting at the drownings, shootings, &c. two only were executed, the
rest were acquitted; because, though the facts were proved, the moral
latitude of the Revolutionary Jury* did not find the guilt