the leafing feafon, following his gleaning family home, gathering up the ears that may drop from their pleafing burthens, as they bear them to the cottage. And firft I fhall offer to your feelings fome emigrant hiftories.

Even before the cloud broke into flame, it was, really, afflicting to fee, in paffing the Frontiers of Germany, the fituation of the French emigrants, the greater part of whom were of the firft rank, and reduced, like those and reduced, like those of the laft, to fubfift on the good faith, and good will, of those, in whose towns, and villages, they had taken refuge. But good will, and good faith, like all other things, have their bound; and, like all other things, too, are fubject to contingence. I ftaid long enough in the different retreats of thefe unhappy people, to perceive, that the protection, at first offered, was amongst the objects of this changeable world, that fhew early figns of earthly mutability. Whether tendered, in the beginning,by urbanity, pity, or politics, the warmth of the welcome began to abate. I faw, .but too often, the altered air of the hoft cut into the heart of his gueft. The protections were not, indeed, nay are not, even yet, withdrawn; but infinitely different is the being en1 dured

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dured and invited, being fuffered to remain, and follicited to continue.

The fevere chagrin, which this caufed in an high-fpirited, and high-born fet of men, (whofe fenfibility is always in proportion to rank, habits, and education) may easily be gueffed; but their endeavours to conceal that chagrin from the people, with whom they have taken refuge, and yet more from the lower orders of their own country, exhibited to the obferving eye, a picture truly touching. Prior to the breaking out of the war, I was at Neuwied and Coblentz, (at the latter place, you remember, I died), and from these towns, (notwithstanding my death), I paffed into many others while hoftilities were preparing and I found, wherever the French emigrants were permitted to have "a local "habitation," you might fee this inward ftruggle betwixt blood and fituation. I frequently obferved the expatriated Nobleffe, gather together towards evening in the fuburbs, furrounded by several hundreds of their adherents, not to abuse the time, but to engage in all those manly exercifes, which ferved a triple purpose: Firft, to hide their regret from common fpectators: fecondly, to obviate, for a

time, the sense of their condition: thirdly, to fupport and cultivate that ftrength of body and mind, which grief and idleness might impair. I took notice that their fwords were either at their fides, or lying by them, even their fports. But *after all this, I have followed them into their private apartments, where their minds, no longer on the ftretch, relaxed and yielded to the truth of circumftance. Yet without particularizing, the general survey was lamentable: Many thousands of human beings, in the highest rank, and of the highest talents, bred to the enjoyment and expenditure of ample fortunes, driven from their poffeffions, in the pleasanteft, gayeft, and most agreeable country of the world, or what very lately was fuch, of great natural vivacity, and of habitual elegance, all of them reduced by (what, at leaft, to them appears) a virtue in excefs, the love of their king, their country, the maintainance of their hereditary rights, and the recovery of their patrimonial honour. My friend, however thefe unfortunates may fare, on your fide of the German Ocean, I have feen hundreds of them, on this fide, conftrained, like the poor foldier, to take their cold lodging on a bed of fraw; their hourishment coarfe as their bed,

far

* I was lodged in the fame hotel with a number of these unhappy gentlemen fome months.

far from their friends, their wives, their children; their eftates confifcated, themfelves exiled.

Was 'not all this, and much more, that might, with too much truth be added, enough to break down the higheft fpirit,, and unbrace the strongest arm? Stand they not, according to the expreffion of a great Divine, "in the firft rank of objects of our fympathy, entitled, not only to relief, but, refpect and veneration?" A fet of men, born in, and inured to, far lefs polishing, and, as they are usually thought, more emafculating circumftances, fuch as a cold country, a rigorous difcipline, and a lefs ardent temperament, might feem wanting to fupport this fad reverse. Frenchmen, and more particularly for French nobility, to bear it with an equal mind, (without taking into the account, the rapidity of a tranfition from the livelieft and moft abundant, to the most gloomy and unfupplied ftate), certainly fhews of what thefe once airy fpirits are capable, when called out by an extraordinary occafion.

34

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For

༈ ་,

From these primary furveys, I plainly forefaw, what has fince happened, viz. that when these wretched wanderers did come into action,

they would maintain their share in the dreadful day of open rupture, as firmly, and as bravely, as if they had never known a softness, or indulged a luxury. But long before the time was ripe to enter the field of blood, it would have wrung your heart, to have feen the unaccommodated fituation of thoufands, who have fince fhed their blood in la Vendée, a name not to be mentioned without an affociation of horrors and facrifices, from which every reflecting mind muft turn with Jhuddering Sympathy: for, if ever human creatures were devoted on all fides, these are they who must everlastingly ftand in the firft rank of victims; and whether their deftruction arofe from the cold delays of policy, or from the malice of adverse fortune, the families, the legions, the armies, the almost miriads of perfons who found untimely graves in that ill-Day'd country, are the most to be honoured, compaffionated, and deplored. Peace to their afhes, and recompence to their fouls!