an event would procure me my liberty. I neither
desire the one nor expect the other; but, to indulge her, I speak no
English, and avoid two or three of my countrymen who I am told are here.
There have been also some English families who were lately removed, but
the French pronounce our names so strangely, that I have not been able to
learn who they were.

November 19, 1793.

The English in general, especially of late years, have been taught to
entertain very formidable notions of the Bastille and other state prisons
of the ancient government, and they were, no doubt, horrid enough; yet I
have not hitherto been able to discover that those of the new republic
are any way preferable. The only difference is, that the great number of
prisoners which, for want of room, are obliged to be heaped together,
makes it impossible to exclude them as formerly from communication, and,
instead of being maintained at the public expence, they now, with great
difficulty, are able to procure wherewithal to eat at their own. Our
present habitation is an immense building, about a quarter of a mile from
the town, intended originally for the common gaol of the province. The
situation is damp and unwholesome, and the water so bad, that I should
suppose a long continuance here of such a number of prisoners must be
productive of endemical disorders. Every avenue to the house is guarded,
and no one is permitted to stop and look up at the windows, under pain of
becoming a resident. We are strictly prohibited from all external
intercourse, except by writing; and every scrap of paper, though but an
order for a dinner, passes the inquisition of three different people
before it reaches its destination, and, of course, many letters and notes
are mislaid, and never sent at all.--There is no court or garden in which
the prisoners are allowed to walk, and the only exercise they can take is
in damp passages, or a small yard, (perhaps thirty feet square,) which
often smells so detestably, that the atmosphere of the house itself is
less mephitic.

Our fellow-captives are a motley collection of the victims of nature,
of justice, and of tyranny--of lunatics who are insensible of their
situation, of thieves who deserve it, and of political criminals whose
guilt is the accident of birth, the imputation of wealth, or the
profession of a clergyman. Among the latter is the Bishop of Amiens,
whom I recollect to have mentioned in a former letter. You w