ting
the legislature. But in politics, as well as love, such experiments are
dangerous. Far from being received with regret, the proposition excited
universal transport; and it required all the diligence of the agents of
government to insinuate effectually, that if Paris were abandoned by the
Convention at this juncture, it would not only become a prey to famine,
but the Jacobins would avail themselves of the momentary disorder to
regain their power, and renew their past atrocities.

"A conviction that we in reality derive our scanty supplies from
exertions which would not be made, were they not necessary to restrain
the popular ill humour, added to an habitual apprehension of the Clubs,*
assisted this manoeuvre; and a few of the sections were, in consequence,
prevailed on to address our Representatives, and to request they would
remain at their post.--

* Paris had been long almost entirely dependent on the government
for subsistence, so that an insurrection could always be procured by
withholding the usual supply. The departments were pillaged by
requisitions, and enormous sums sent to the neutral countries to
purchase provisions, that the capital might be maintained in
dependence and good humour. The provisions obtained by these means
were distributed to the shopkeepers, who had instructions to retail
them to the idle and disorderly, at about a twentieth part of the
original cost, and no one could profit by this regulation, without
first receiving a ticket from the Committee of his section.

It was lately asserted in the Convention, and not disavowed, that if
the government persisted in this sort of traffic, the annual loss
attending the article of corn alone would amount to fifty millions
sterling. The reduction of the sum in question into English money
is made on a presumption that the French government did not mean
(were it to be avoided) to commit an act of bankruptcy, and redeem
their paper at less than par. Reckoning, however, at the real value
of assignats when the calculation was made, and they were then worth
perhaps a fifth of their nominal value, the government was actually
at the expence of ten millions sterling a year, for supplying Paris
with a very scanty portion of bread! The sum must appear enormous,
but the peculation under such a government must be incalculable; and
when it is