d,--The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I entrust this
letter is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the
opportunity of seeing him, as he had set off for Havre prior to my
writing this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his
friends, who is also an acquaintance of mine.

We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without
some considerable faults here. Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed
principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the
Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off
to the Enemy, and taken a considerable part of the Army with him. The
expedition to Holland has totally failed, and all Brabant is again in
the hands of the Austrians.

You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of fortune
has occasioned, but it has been without commotion. Dumouriez threatened
to be in Paris in three weeks. It is now three weeks ago; he is still on
the frontier near to Mons with the Enemy, who do not make any progress.
Dumouriez has proposed to re-establish the former Constitution in
which plan the Austrians act with him. But if France and the National
Convention act prudently this project will not succeed. In the first
place there is a popular disposition against it, and there is force
sufficient to prevent it. In the next place, a great deal is to be taken
into the calculation with respect to the Enemy. There are now so many
persons accidentally jumbled together as to render it exceedingly
difficult to them to agree upon any common object.

The first object, that of restoring the old Monarchy, is evidently given
up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution. The object of
England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object of Austria
was to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted, each party
having one, the Confederation could hold together, each helping the
other; but after this I see not how a common object is to be formed.
To all this is to be added the probable disputes about opportunity,
the expence, and the projects of reimbursements. The Enemy has once
adventured into France, and they had the permission or the good fortune
to get back again. On every military calculation it is a hazardous
adventure, and armies are not much disposed to try a second time the
ground upon which they have been defeated.

Had this revolution been conducted consistently with its princi