The letter which I had written to the President, notwithstanding its eventual ill success, caused several English persons jointly to write a somewhat similar letter; in which, after having represented that their _wives_ and children _wanted_ them, they said, they hoped their reasons would appear _vrai-semblables_, or have the semblance of truth. The Assembly on hearing this burst into a laugh, and passed on to the order of the day. On the 16th I carried a passport from _Lord Gower_ to the office of _Mr. le Brun_, the minister for foreign affairs; here I was told to leave it, and I should have another in its stead the next day. The next day I applied for it, and was told, no passports could be delivered. The matter now appeared to me to become serious, as the courier who had carried the account of the affair of the 10th to London was not yet returned, and that rumours were spread, that the English in Paris were almost all _grands seigneurs & aristocrates_; so that I saw only two probable means of safety; one of which was, to draw up a petition to the National Assembly, in behalf of all the British subjects, to get it signed by as many as I could find, and who might chuse to sign it, and to carry it to the Assembly in a small body, which might have been the means of procuring a pass; and in case this was refused, the other plan would have been for all the British to have incorporated themselves into a _Legion Britannique_, and offered their services according to the exigence of the case.[32] This petition was accordingly, on the 18th, drawn up by a member of the English Parliament; translated into French, and carried about to be signed; when at the bankers we fortunately met with a person who informed us, that our passes were ready at the moment, at _Mr. Le Brun's_: thither we went; I obtained my pass at two o'clock afternoon, the petition was torn and given to the winds; I took a hackney coach that instant, to carry me to the _Poste aux chevaux_, ordered the horses, and before three I was out of the barriers of Paris. [Note 32: Before, and on the 10th of August, there were not above thirty British travellers in Paris, but after that day, in less than a week it was supposed that above two thousand had from all parts of the kingdom resorted to the capital, in order to obtain passports to get away.] Here follows a copy of my passport. At the top of the paper is an engraving of a shield, on which is inscribed _Vivre libre ou mourir_ (live free or die,) supported by two female figures, the _dexter_ representing _Minerva_ standing, with the cap of liberty at the end of a pike; the _sinister_, the French constitution personified as a woman sitting on a lion, with one hand holding a book, on which is written _Constitution Francaise, droits de l'homme_, and with the other supporting a crown over the shield, which crown is effaced by a dash with a pen. Then follows: