“In about two days I was under weigh for Paris,” writes Cobb, “with the national courier for government. We drove Jehu-like without stopping, except to change horses and mail, taking occasionally a mouthful of bread and washing it down with low-priced Burgundy wine. As to sleep I did not get one wink during the whole six hundred and eighty-four miles. We had from ten to twelve mounted horsemen for guard during the night, and to prove that the precaution was necessary, the second morning after leaving Brest, just before the guard left us, we witnessed a scene that filled us with horror: the remains of a courier lying in the road, the master, postillion, and five horses lying dead and mangled by it, and the mail mutilated and scattered in all directions. However, the next stage was only five miles and not considered dangerous, and we proceeded on. We reached Paris on a beautiful June morning.” But here was the beginning of fresh trouble: matters there were moving too fast for much attention to be given a young American shipmaster in quest of papers. Cobb writes that it was in “the bloody reign of Robespierre. I minuted down a thousand persons that I saw beheaded by the infernal guillotine, and probably saw as many more that I did not minute down.” He was surfeited with horrors and despairing of his mission as time passed swiftly on toward the termination of his fifty days of grace, when a friendly Frenchman at his hotel advised him to appeal direct to Robespierre, “saying that he was partial to Americans.” On the instant a note was despatched: “An American citizen, captured by a French frigate on the high seas, requests a personal interview and to lay his grievances before the citizen Robespierre.” And within an hour came the answer: “I will grant citizen Cobb an interview to-morrow at 10 A.M. Robespierre.” The event proved Robespierre to be sympathetic, and, moreover, that he spoke very good English. Cobb told him of his unavailing visits to the “Office of the Twenty-third Department.” “Go again to the office,” said Robespierre, “and tell citizen F. T. that you come from Robespierre, and if he does not produce your papers and finish your business immediately, he will hear from me again in a way not so pleasing to him.” Such a message, with the guillotine working overtime in the Place de la Concorde, was likely to produce results, and the affair was concluded with despatch. But Robespierre was near his eclipse; and hardly had Cobb received his papers than, to his horror, he was to see Robespierre’s head falling into the basket. He waited not upon the order of his going, but fled from Paris, and arrived at Hamburg the very day before his bills became due. “The fortunate result of this voyage increased my fame as a shipmaster,” is his sole comment upon the adventure, “but allowed me only a few days at home.”