ment.

1 The falsehood told Paine, accompanied by an intimation of
danger in pursuing the pretended reclamation, was of course
meant to stop any farther action by Paine or his friends.--
_Editor._.

August 25, 1794.

My Dear Sir: Having nothing to do but to sit and think, I will write
to pass away time, and to say that I am still here. I have received two
notes from Mr. Beresford which are encouraging (as the generality of
notes and letters are that arrive to persons here) but they contain
nothing explicit or decisive with respect to my liberation, and _I
shall be very glad to receive a line from yourself to inform me in what
condition the matter stands_. If I only glide out of prison by a sort
of accident America gains no credit by my liberation, neither can my
attachment to her be increased by such a circumstance. She has had the
services of my best days, she has my allegiance, she receives my portion
of Taxes for my house in Borden Town and my farm at New Rochelle, and
she owes me protection both at home and thro' her Ministers abroad, yet
I remain in prison, in the face of her Minister, at the arbitrary will
of a committee.

Excluded as I am from the knowledge of everything and left to a random
of ideas, I know not what to think or how to act. Before there was
any Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) and while the
Robespierrian faction lasted, I had nothing to do but to keep my mind
tranquil and expect the fate that was every day inflicted upon my
comrades, not individually but by scores. Many a man whom I have passed
an hour with in conversation I have seen marching to his destruction the
next hour, or heard of it the next morning; for what rendered the scene
more horrible was that they were generally taken away at midnight, so
that every man went to bed with the apprehension of never seeing his
friends or the world again.

I wish to impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in
Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any
over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my
liberation, you omit procuring it for me _now_, you may have to lament
the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the
Northward or other possible accident may happen to bring this about. I
am not out of danger till I am out of Prison.

Yours affectionately.

P. S.--I am now entirely without money. The Convention owes me