execution of the sentence/"--"As the convention was elected
for the express purpose of forming a Constitution, its continuance
cannot be longer than four or five months more at furthest; and if,
after my _return to America_, I should employ myself in writing the
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."--"Ah Citizens! give not the tyrant of England the triumph
of seeing the man perish on a scaffold who had aided my much-loved
America."

Does this look as if I had abandoned America? But if she abandons me
in the situation I am in, to gratify the enemies of humanity, let that
disgrace be to herself. But I know the people of America better than to
believe it,(1) tho' I undertake not to answer for every individual.

When this discourse was pronounced, Marat launched himself into the
middle of the hall and said that "I voted against the punishment of
death because I was a quaker." I replied that "I voted against it both
morally and politically."

1 In the French pamphlet: "pour jamais lui preter du tels
sentiments."

I certainly went a great way, considering the rage of the times, in
endeavouring to prevent that execution. I had many reasons for so doing.
I judged, and events have shewn that I judged rightly, that if they once
began shedding blood, there was no knowing where it would end; and as
to what the world might call _honour_ the execution would appear like a
nation killing a mouse; and in a political view, would serve to transfer
the hereditary claim to some more formidable Enemy. The man could do no
more mischief; and that which he had done was not only from the vice of
his education, but was as much the fault of the Nation in restoring
him after he had absconded June 21st, 1791, as it was his. I made
the proposal for imprisonment until the end of the war and perpetual
banishment after the war, instead of the punishment of death. Upwards of
three hundred members voted for that proposal. The sentence for absolute
death (for some members had voted the punishment of death conditionally)
was carried by a majority of twenty-five out of more than seven hundred.

I return from this digression to the proper subject of my memorial.(1)

1 This and the preceding five paragraphs, and five following
the nest, are omitted from the American pamphlet.--
_Editor._.

Painful as the want of liberty