for their instruction. The tactics actually adopted by the
French revolutionists for managing assemblies and their methods of
executing justice form a queer commentary on the philosopher who, like
Voltaire's Mamres in the _White Bull_, continued to 'meditate
profoundly' in placid disregard of facts. He was in fact proposing that
the lava boiling up in a volcanic eruption should arrange itself
entirely according to his architectural designs. But his proposal to
become a gaoler during the revolution reaches the pathetic by its
amiable innocence. On 26th August 1792, Bentham was one of the men upon
whom the expiring Assembly, anxious to show its desire of universal
fraternity, conferred the title of citizen. With Bentham were joined
Priestley, Paine, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Washington, and others. The
September massacres followed. On 18th October the honour was
communicated to Bentham. He replied in a polite letter, pointing out
that he was a royalist in London for the same reason which would make
him a republican in France. He ended by a calm argument against the
proscription of refugees.[264] The Convention, if it read the letter,
and had any sense of humour, must have been amused. The war and the
Reign of Terror followed. Bentham turned the occasion to account by
writing a pamphlet (not then published) exhorting the French to
'emancipate their colonies.' Colonies were an aimless burthen, and to
get rid of them would do more than conquest to relieve their finances.
British fleets and the insurrection of St. Domingo were emancipating by
very different methods.

Bentham was, of course, disgusted by the divergence of his clients from
the lines chalked out by proper respect for law and order. On 31st
October 1793 he writes to a friend, expressing his wish that Jacobinism
could be extirpated; no price could be too heavy to pay for such a
result: but he doubts whether war or peace would be the best means to
the end, and protests against the policy of appropriating useless and
expensive colonies instead of 'driving at the heart of the
monster.'[265] Never was an adviser more at cross-purposes with the
advised. It would be impossible to draw a more striking portrait of the
abstract reasoner, whose calculations as to human motives omit all
reference to passion, and who fancied that all prejudice can be
dispelled by a few bits of logic.

Meanwhile a variety of suggestions more or less important and connected
with passing events w