t
this is the first line that has come from me, either to the Convention
or to any of the Committees, since my imprisonment,--which is
approaching to eight months. --Ah, my friends, eight months' loss of
liberty seems almost a life-time to a man who has been, as I have been,
the unceasing defender of Liberty for twenty years.

I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having
written before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe
that Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every
man of virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention
some time about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre,
I have always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the
partizans he had in the place. The intention of that address was to
prepare the way for destroying me, by making the people declare (though
without assigning any reason) that I had lost their confidence; the
Address, however, failed of success, as it was immediately opposed by a
counter-address from St. Omer, which declared the direct contrary. But
the strange power that Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy and
the most hardened cruelties, had obtained, rendered any attempt on my
part to obtain justice not only useless but dangerous; for it is the
nature of Tyranny always to strike a deeper blow when any attempt has
been made to repel a former one. This being my situation, I submitted
with patience to the hardness of my fate and waited the event of
brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to the nation and to me.

Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787 I promised to
all my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope
of seeing a revolution happily established in France, that might serve
as a model to the rest of Europe,(1) and the earnest and disinterested
desire of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me
to defer my return to that country, and to the society of my friends,
for more than seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity,
especially after having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the
American Revolution which continued almost eight years, deserved a
better fate than the long imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it
is not the nation but a faction that has done me this injustice. Parties
and Factions, various and numerous as they have been, I have always
avoided. My heart was devoted t