for a public situation, Dumont availed himself of this timidity and supineness in those who ought to have become the representatives of the people; and, by a talent for intrigue, and a coarse facility of phrase-making, (for he has no pretensions to eloquence,) prevailed on the mob to elect him.  His local knowledge, active disposition, and subservient industry, render him an useful kind of drudge to any prevailing party, and, since the overthrow of the Brissotines, he has been entrusted with the government of this and some of the neighbouring departments.  He professes himself a zealous republican, and an apostle of the doctrine of universal equality, yet unites in his person all the attributes of despotism, and lives with more luxury and expence than most of the ci-devant gentry.  His former habitation at Oisemont is not much better than a good barn; but patriotism is more profitable here than in England, and he has lately purchased a large mansion belonging to an emigrant.

* “Britain no longer pays her patriots with her spoils:”  and perhaps it is matter of congratulation to a country, when the profession of patriotism is not lucrative.  Many agreeable inferences may be made from it—­the sentiment may have become too general for reward, Ministers too virtuous to fear, or even the people too enlightened to be deceived.

—­His mode of travelling, which used at best to be in the coche d’eau [Passage-boat.] or the diligence, is now in a coach and four, very frequently accompanied by a led horse, and a party of dragoons.  I fear some of your patriots behold this with envy, and it is not to be wondered at that they should wish to see a similar revolution in England.  What a seducing prospect for the assertors of liberty, to have the power of imprisoning and guillotining all their countrymen!  What halcyon days, when the aristocratic palaces* shall be purified by solacing the fatigues of republican virtue, and the levellers of all distinction travel with four horses and a military escort!—­But, as Robespierre observes, you are two centuries behind the French in patriotism and information; and I doubt if English republicanism will ever go beyond a dinner, and toasting the manes of Hampden and Sydney.  I would, therefore, seriously advise any of my compatriots who may be enamoured of a government founded on the rights of man, to quit an ungrateful country which seems so little disposed to reward their labours, and enjoy the supreme delight of men a systeme, that of seeing their theories in action.

* Many of the emigrants’ houses were bought by members of the Convention, or people in office.  At Paris, crouds of inferior clerks, who could not purchase, found means to get lodged in the most superb national edifices:  Monceaux was the villa of Robespierre—­St. Just occasionally amused himself at Raincy—­Couthon succeed the Comte d’Artois at Bagatelle-and Vliatte, a juryman of the Revolutionary Tribunal,