utmost, make him regarded as a good master of a merchantman, and nothing
else.

Of the present commander of our, flotilla at Boulogne, Lacrosse, I will
also say some few words. A lieutenant before the Revolution, he became,
in 1789, one of the most ardent and violent Jacobins, and in 1792 was
employed by the friend of the Blacks, and our Minister, Monge, as an
emissary in the West Indies, to preach there to the negroes the rights of
man and insurrection against the whites, their masters. In 1800,
Bonaparte advanced him to a captain-general at Guadeloupe, an island
which his plots, eight years before, had involved in all the horrors of
anarchy, and where, when he now attempted to restore order, his former
instruments rose against him and forced him to escape to one of your
islands--I believe Dominico. Of this island, in return for his
hospitable reception, he took plans, according to which our General
Lagrange endeavoured to conquer it last spring. Lacrosse is a perfect
revolutionary fanatic, unprincipled, cruel, unfeeling, and intolerant.
His presumption is great, but his talents are trifling.




LETTER XXXIV.

PARIS, October, 1805.

MY LORD:--The defeat of the Austrians has excited great satisfaction
among our courtiers and public functionaries; but the mass of the
inhabitants here are too miserable to feel for anything else but their
own sufferings. They know very well that every victory rivets their