either by their own servants or the agents of the republic.  I have known an elegant house put in requisition to erect blacksmiths’ forges in for the use of the army, and another filled with tailors employed in making soldiers’ clothes.—­Houses were likewise not unfrequently abandoned by the servants through fear of sharing the fate of their masters, and sometimes exposed equally by the arrest of those who had been left in charge, in order to extort discoveries of plate, money, &c. the concealment of which they might be supposed privy to.

--So that I have no resource, either for myself or Mrs. D____, but the
sale of a few trinkets, which I had fortunately secreted on my first
arrest.   How are we to exist, and what an existence to be solicitous
about!   In gayer moments, and, perhaps, a little tinctured by romantic
refinement, I have thought Dr. Johnson made poverty too exclusively the
subject of compassion:  indeed I believe he used to say, it was the only
evil he really felt for.   This, to one who has known only mental
suffering, appears the notion of a coarse mind; but I doubt whether, the
first time we are alarmed by the fear of want, the dread of dependence
does not render us in part his converts.   The opinion of our English sage
is more natural than we may at first imagine; or why is it that we are
affected by the simple distresses of Jane Shore, beyond those of any
other heroine?—­Yours.

April 22, 1794.

Our abode becomes daily more crouded; and I observe, that the greater part of those now arrested are farmers.  This appears strange enough, when we consider how much the revolutionary persecution has hitherto spared this class of people; and you will naturally enquire why it has at length reached them.

It has been often observed, that the two extremes of society are nearly the same in all countries; the great resemble each other from education, the little from nature.  Comparisons, therefore, of morals and manners should be drawn from the intervening classes; yet from this comparison also I believe we must exclude farmers, who are every where the same, and who seem always more marked by professional similitude than national distinction.

The French farmer exhibits the same acuteness in all that regards his own interest, and the same stupidity on most other occasions, as the mere English one; and the same objects which enlarge the understanding and dilate the heart of other people, seem to have a contrary effect on both.  They contemplate the objects of nature as the stock-jobber does the vicissitudes of the public funds:  “the dews of heaven,” and the enlivening orb by which they are dispelled, are to the farmer only objects of avaricious speculation; and the scarcity, which is partially profitable, is but too often more welcome than a general abundance.—­They consider nothing beyond the limits of their own farms, except for the purpose of making envious comparisons with those of their neighbours; and being fed and clothed almost without intermediate commerce, they have little necessity for communication, and are nearly as isolated a part of society as sailors themselves.