ve been exposed; but could we carry our thoughts into the future,
when the dangers are ended and the irritations forgotten, what
to-day seems an act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance.
[_Murmurs_.] My anxiety for the cause of France has become for the
moment concern for her honor. If, on my return to America, I should
employ myself on a history of the French Revolution, I had rather record
a thousand errors on the side of mercy, than be obliged to tell one act
of severe justice. I voted against an appeal to the people, because it
appeared to me that the Convention was needlessly wearied on that point;
but I so voted in the hope that this Assembly would pronounce against
death, and for the same punishment that the nation would have voted,
at least in my opinion, that is for reclusion during the war, and
banishment thereafter.(1) That is the punishment most efficacious,
because it includes the whole family at once, and none other can so
operate. I am still against the appeal to the primary assemblies,
because there is a better method. This Convention has been elected to
form a Constitution, which will be submitted to the primary assemblies.
After its acceptance a necessary consequence will be an election and
another assembly. We cannot suppose that the present Convention will
last more than five or six months. The choice of new deputies will
express the national opinion, on the propriety or impropriety of your
sentence, with as much efficacy as if those primary assemblies had been
consulted on it. As the duration of our functions here cannot be long,
it is a part of our duty to consider the interests of those who shall
replace us. If by any act of ours the number of the nation's enemies
shall be needlessly increased, and that of its friends diminished,--at a
time when the finances may be more strained than to-day,--we should
not be justifiable for having thus unnecessarily heaped obstacles in
the path of our successors. Let us therefore not be precipitate in our
decisions.

1 It is possible that the course of the debate may have
produced some reaction among the people, but when Paine
voted against submitting the king's fate to the popular vote
it was believed by the king and his friends that it would be
fatal. The American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, who had
long been acting for the king, wrote to President
Washington, Jan. 6, 1793: "The king's fate is to be decided
ne