while I have a hope they may reach you they shall not be destroyed.
--I bid you adieu in a state of mind which the circumstances I am under
will describe better than words.--Yours.

Maison d'Arret, Arras, Oct. 15, 1793.

Dear Brother,

The fears of a timid mind usually magnify expected evil, and anticipated
suffering often diminishes the effect of an apprehended blow; yet my
imagination had suggested less than I have experienced, nor do I find
that a preparatory state of anxiety has rendered affliction more
supportable. The last month of my life has been a compendium of misery;
and my recollection, which on every other subject seems to fail me, is,
on this, but too faithful, and will enable me to relate events which will
interest you not only as they personally concern me, but as they present
a picture of the barbarity and despotism to which this whole country is
subject, and to which many thousands besides myself were at the same
instant victims.

A few evenings after I concluded my last, the firing of cannon and
ringing the great bell announced the arrival of Dumont (still
Representative en mission in our department). The town was immediately
in alarm, all the gates were shut, and the avenues leading to the
ramparts guarded by dragoons. Our house being in a distant and
unfrequented street, before we could learn the cause of all this
confusion, a party of the national guard, with a municipal officer at
their head, arrived, to escort Mad. de ___ and myself to a church, where
the Representant was then examining the prisoners brought before him.
Almost as much astonished as terrified, we endeavoured to procure some
information of our conductors, as to what was to be the result of this
measure; but they knew nothing, and it was easy to perceive they thought
the office they were executing an unpleasant one. The streets we passed
were crouded with people, whose silent consternation and dismayed
countenances increased our forebodings, and depressed the little courage
we had yet preserved. The church at our arrival was nearly empty, and
Dumont preparing to depart, when the municipal officer introduced us to
him. As soon as he learned that Mad. de ____ was the sister of an
emigrant, and myself a native of England, he told us we were to pass the
night in a church appointed for the purpose, and that on the morrow we
should be conveyed to Arras. For a moment all my faculties became
suspended, and it was only by a