He did not scruple to avow that the Committee of Public Safety had been the saviours of France and the founders of her gigantic empire; and after a flourish on the civil wars and massacres attendant on the acquisition of our English freedom, said it was impossible to establish a Republic except by wading through seas of blood. I asked him whether it was true that a project had been in contemplation to reduce the population of France to one-third of its present number. He answered that it had been seriously discussed, and that Dubois Croucé was the author. M. David, like every other Frenchman, is utterly ignorant of the nature of the liberty we enjoy and of all our institutions. They have not a conception of the possibility of freedom existing in any state with a monarch at its head; with them there is not a vestige of liberty among any people who have not high-sounding Roman titles. In the same measure they cannot comprehend the being of that middle class of society which constitutes the bulwark of our isle. According to their notions of Britain, a man must be noble or a pauper. Thanks to our barbarous forefathers we have the whole essence of regulated freedom, without the gilded terms of Roman despotism; we have gothic names for the enjoyment of an enlightened people. David recognises no freedom that is not open to holy insurrection against established authority. Wherever shrieks of murder and the notes of the trumpet are not heard, there can be no liberty. A person who is conversant in the science of physiognomy would pronounce the character of this monster at first sight. With a hideous wen upon his lip, which shows his teeth and for ever marks him with the snarling grin of a tiger--with features and eyes which denote a lust for massacre, he is a savage by instinct and an assassin by rule. He is an atheist in faith and practice, and a murderer by choice. While he was a member of the Committee of Public Safety and General Vigilance, his greatest pleasure consisted in frequenting the prison, where he feasted his eyes upon those who were condemned to die and loaded the unhappy victims with imprecations. It was his constant practice to call every morning at the prisons to inquire how many were to be guillotined, and on being told one day that there were sixteen, he instantly exclaimed in a furious attitude: “How, only sixteen! The Republic is undone!” Retributive justice eventually overtook David, and he was committed to prison in order to be tried for his life. After he had lain some time in jail, two individuals sent to inform him that they were commissioned by certain persons in England to save his life. A powerful interposition did take place, and he was restored to liberty. Some time after he was officially informed (I heard this from his own mouth) that he was wholly indebted to the English for his life and liberation.