an usurped
government, which inspires no confidence, and which, to supply an
administration lavish beyond all example, has been obliged to issue such
an immense quantity of paper as nearly destroys its credit. In
political, as in moral, vices, the first always necessitates a second,
and these must still be sustained by others; until, at length, the very
sense of right and wrong becomes impaired, and the latter is not only
preferred from habit, but from choice.

Thus the arbitrary emission of paper has been necessarily followed by
still more arbitrary decrees to support it. For instance--the people
have been obliged to sell their corn at a stated price, which has again
been the source of various and general vexations. The farmers, irritated
by this measure, concealed their grain, or sold it privately, rather than
bring it to market.--Hence, some were supplied with bread, and others
absolutely in want of it. This was remedied by the interference of the
military, and a general search for corn has taken place in all houses
without exception, in order to discover if any was secreted; even our
bedchambers were examined on this occasion: but we begin to be so
accustomed to the visite domiciliaire, that we find ourselves suddenly
surrounded by the Garde Nationale, without being greatly alarmed.--I know
not how your English patriots, who are so enamoured of French liberty,
yet thunder with the whole force of their eloquence against the ingress
of an exciseman to a tobacco warehouse, would reconcile this domestic
inquisition; for the municipalities here violate your tranquillity in
this manner under any pretext they choose, and that too with an armed
cortege sufficient to undertake the siege of your house in form.

About fifteen departments are in insurrection, ostensibly in behalf of
the expelled Deputies; but I believe I am authorized in saying, it is by
no means the desire of the people at large to interfere. All who are
capable of reflection consider the dispute merely as a family quarrel,
and are not partial enough to either party to adopt its cause. The
tropps they have already raised have been collected by the personal
interest of the members who contrived to escape, or by an attempt of a
few of the royalists to make one half of the faction subservient to the
destruction of the other. If you judge of the principles of the nation
by the success of the Foederalists,* and the superiority of the
Convention, you will be