yesterday a conversation with your Minister and your liberation is
certain--you will be in liberty to-morrow." Vanhuele also adds, "I find
the advice of Mr. Labonadaire good, for tho' you have some enemies in
the Convention, the strongest and best part are in your favour." But
the case is, and I felt it whilst I was writing the letter to the
Convention, that there is an awkwardness in my appearing, you being
present; for every foreigner should apply thro' his Minister, or rather
his Minister for him.

1 The letter of Peter Whiteside, quoted at the beginning of
the Memorial. See introduction to the Memorial. It would
seem from this whole letter that it was not known by
Americans in Paris that Monroe had been kept ont of his
office by Morris for nearly a month after his arrival in
Paris.--_Editor._

When I thus see day after day and month after month, and promise after
promise, pass away without effect, what can I conclude but that either
the Committees are secretly determined not to let me go, or that the
measures you take are not pursued with the vigor necessary to give them
effect; or that the American National character is without sufficient
importance in the French Republic? The latter will be gratifying to
the English Government. In short, Sir, the case is now arrived to that
crisis, that for the sake of your own reputation as a Minister you ought
to require a positive answer from the Committee. As to myself, it is
more agreeable to me now to contemplate an honourable destruction, and
to perish in the act of protesting against the injustice I suffer,
and to caution the people of America against confiding too much in the
Treaty of Alliance, violated as it has been in every principle, and in
my imprisonment though an American Citizen, than remain in the wretched
condition I am. I am no longer of any use to the world or to myself.

There was a time when I beheld the Revolution of the 10th. Thermidor
[the fall of Robespierre] with enthusiasm. It was the first news
my comrade Vanhuele communicated to me during my illness, and it
contributed to my recovery. But there is still something rotten at the
Center, and the Enemies that I have, though perhaps not numerous, are
more active than my friends. If I form a wrong opinion of men or things
it is to you I must look to set me right. You are in possession of the
secret. I know nothing of it. But that I may be guarded against as many
wants as