as he could form a capital fufficient and By repeated examination, affifted by the At this time obftacles of another nature, and truly infurmountable, came forward *. Sieyes, more infulated than ever, found it neceffary to confine himfelf, with the utmost strictness, to the line of his duty. His fortune, at the commencement of the Revolution, confifted in benefices and penfions to the amount of feven or eight thoufand livres annually; in three fmall portions of annuities on the Hotel de Ville at Paris, making together the fum of eight hundred and forty livres; and, laftly, in various fums lent on fecurity, which comprehended his patrimony, and favings for nine or ten years. The total, at that time, amounted to the principal fum of forty-fix or forty-feven thoufand livres. The article of favings had for its motive the defign of retiring to the United States of America, as foon Jufque datum Sceleri. Lucian. The caution which Sieyes had hitherto ufed, had preferved him amidft the deftruction both of friends and enemies, and feems to have impofed on him a refolution to avoid any fituation of icfponfibility, which could not but be held with danger. From the time, therefore, fo great a fhare in the tranfactions of the laft feven years in France is not likely, at the prefent period, to be spoken of with a temperate regard to truth: by one party he will be vilified and abused; by the other he will be elevated above the point of humanity. To time, therefore, we leave him, with a wifh that the horrid fcenes which have lately degraded that unfortunate kingdom may never be repeated, and that the perpetrators and advifers, whoever they may be who have hitherto efcaped, may yet meet with condign punishment. that he publicly gave up the emoluments INTERESTING PARTICULARS OF THE GOVERNMENT WERE a philofopher to choose a ftation, from whence to obferve human nature in its greatest diverfity of character and appearance, he ought to fix upon the capital of Ruffia. From the Hotel de Londres, from whence I now write, he would fee a continual fucceffion of people from all quarters of the globe, drefied in the fafhion of their country; and with the fanciful ornaments of courtiers, and cavaliers, and heydukes, and running footmen; the venerable beards and flowing veftments of priests, and the cropped heads and leather coats of peasants; forming one of the most arufing and whimfical fcenes that can be imagined. The diverfity is as great in the manner of life, as it is in the appearance of those who inhabit this city. Foreigners generally continue attached to their native habits and predilections: and, in St Petersburg, you may be entertained after the manner of almoft every nation in Europe; as well as molt of the Afiatic tribes, from the wall of China to the mouth of the Oby, and from Conftantinople to the fea of Kamt-, fchatka. I am much pleased with the freedom which strangers enjoy here-I mean the freedom from being molefied on account of the fingularity of their manner and appearance. In London you muft not only drefs in the English style: you muft alfo follow all the capricious varieties of fashion, if you would avoid being marked out as ridiculous, or hooted as a monfter. In St Petersburg you are perfectly fafe from all fuch ridiculous difafters: not only do you fee people appearing in national dreffes of the most various fashions and materials, without drawing on themselves particular regard'; but often alfo, on a mafquerade evening, you obferve many walking to the public rooms in their mafques and other whimsical accoutrements, without attracting a troublesome degree of attention. Some of our countrymen, who are fo zealously English, as to revere even the follies and exceffes which fpring out of our free conftitution, affect to confider this circumftance as an instance of the ftupidity of the Ruffian character, and of the degradation to which the people are reduced by the active operation of a defpotic government. It does not appear to me, however, that any fuch fuppofition is neceffary to account for the fact. The Ruffian Empire is made up of a variety of nations, differing from one another in language, in drefs, and in manners. The court drefs being purely foreign, there are no circunftances which give to any one national drefs of the Empire the fuperiority over all the reft. Hence every tribe preferves its own and as the capital attracts to itself fome individuals from every nation of which the Empire is compofed, the inhabitants of St Peterfburg are accustomed to fee much greater variety of dreffes than thofe of almost any other city. Habit produces the fame effects in Ruffia, that it does in other countries: a Ruffian can no more than an Englishman be fuppofed to ftand gaping in idle wonder at objects which he may fee every hour of the day. Strangers enjoy in this Empire, as entire a freedom in matters of religion as in drefs and manner of life; neither do the natives difcover a greater degree of curiofity to obferve the one than the other. The English, the French, the Germans, the Dutch, &c. have churches in St Peterfourg, which are attended by the ladies and domeftics of their ref. pective congregations. Sometimes alfo you may fee a few gentlemen in thefe churches; but this is comparatively a rare Occurrence. It is also extremely rare to fee natives led, by their curiofity, to obferve the ceremonies of any religion except their own. Indeed, the forms of the Ruffian national church are fo fplendid and impofing, that those who have been educated to revere them, muft neceffarily look with contempt on the nakedness of other religious inftitutes which have no fuch pompous appendages to fet them off. around them, to fee whether any fufpicious perfon be within hearing. Yet, notwithftanding the care that is taken to prevent the too free agitation of matters of state, men will fometimes take liberties with forbidden fubjects of difcourfe even in Ruffia. In thefe cafes a fpecial ftatute is iffued, prohibiting all converfation whatever, on that particular point, and denouncing high pains and penalties againft all who fhall be found tranfgreffing. What effect fuch a prohibition would have had in England, an Englishman need not be told. But in Ruffia there are fome cogent motives to obedience, which feldom fail of producing their effect. A great teacher of political submiffion, called a knout-mafter general, keeps his refidence in this capital; who, though but little converfant with the fcience of jurifprudence, can by a few practical trokes, make a statute more coercive than could be done by all the reasoning of all the lawyers that ever lived. This auguft perfonage, who is generally a man of high rank and higher worship, never condefcends to adopt the pedantic accuracy of attending to forms of procedure, to attend to diftinctions of cafes, or to the tedious investigation of facts and circumftances, which tend fo much to retard the legal speed of justice in our native country. Without any other formality than that of announcing an order from his fuperiors, he proceeds directly to the exercife of his occupation, and generally applies his admonition fo vigorously, that he who has received one leffon feldom cares to be found ftanding in need of a second. The freedom which foreigners enjoy in these refpects is, however, counterbalanced by fome reftraints and mortifiCations to which they are expofed. An Englishman, for example, thinks it extremely hard that he is not at liberty to fpeak his fentiments of political measures, You may perhaps think that any thing or political men and women; nor to tra- like levity is very much misplaced on vel more than a few pofts out of town with fuch a fubject. Englishmen are accufout a paffport; nor to pass a man of rank tomed to speak of the knit, as of the without making way for him. In thefe re- most dreadful and molt degrading pufpects, however, he is only on a footing nishment that can be conceived. Yet with the natives. Political difcuffion is it is neither more cruel nor more dealmoft wholly interdi&ed: and thofe grading than fome punifhments that who ftill venture to fpeak of the mea- are inflicted in our country. Confider fares of government, do it in whifpers; the public whippings which are, and not til they have locked carefully multitude of cafes, awarded by our own VOL. LVIII. K k in a law; law; or the ftill more dreadful floggings, &c. which our military delinquents are obliged to undergo; and you will fee that one of the freeft and moft enlightened nations that ever exifted, has not yet been able to devise any probable expedient to mitigate, beyond a certain degree, the feverity of legal infliction. I would not be underftood to infinuate any unqualified approbation of either the one practice or the other. I only wish to affure you, that the dreadful defcriptions we have read, of the punishment of the knout, are confiderably overcharged; at least, that they are not applicable to the prefent practice; although they may have been fuggefted by fome of the most atrocious inftances of former times. which feldom exceeds twelve or fif teen, has been heard to say, that for a bottle of brandy, he would undergo as many more. You may indeed infinuate, that this must have been owing to his attachment to brandy, rather than to the mildness of the punishment. But I imagine the greatest drunkard in the English army, when fuffering the excruciating effect of five hundred lashes, would not confent to take another five hundred for all the diftilled fpirits in Travellers have either been misled by their own feelings on this fubject, or they have voluntarily mifled their readcrs. Were I to tranflate the word knout by its precife equivalent whip, and tell you that, in Ruffia, perfons convicted of certain crimes are punished by whipping, I fhould tell you the exact truth: and yet it would not ftrike you as in the leaft degree extraordinary; because you may fee the fame fpecies of difcipline inflicted on the fame defcription of offenders in every town in Great Britain. But when I retain the Ruffian word, and fay, that in this unhappy country malefactors are knouted; imagination fupplies the place of exact defcription, and your blood begins to freeze, from a confufed notion you form, of flaying alive, and tearing out the tongue, and otherwife mangling the carcafe of fuch miferable wretches as are condemned to this unhuman punithTruft me, there is more deception in this than you may be apt to imagine. The knout, as it is commonly I have been told (for I never had an inflicted, is not more fevere than the opportunity of feeing it) that when this whippings in many cafes ordered by an officer is ordered to Mofcow, which English judge. It is not by any means fome times happens, as most of the dif fo terrible as the floggings fometimes affected or difappointed nobles have inflicted on our military offenders. A their winter refidence there, his appearRuffian, after having just received the ance operates like the breaking out of ordinary number of strokes of the knout, the plague. The public places are shute ment. In up; focial intercourfe is almoft wholly ties which diftinguish nations is very fufpended, and the city waiting in fear- remote, and that it is vain to search for ful expectation where the blow is to its caufes. fall; for it is well known that the knout mafter never makes fuch journeys in vain. You exprefs your altonishment how any nation can fubmit to a government which authorifes fuch enormities as the private caftigations mentioned in my letter. Had you attended to the internal hiftory of this empire, your fur prife would have ceafed. The annals of the princes of this country, with only a few exceptions, are ftained with deeds of uncommon atrocity. The gibbet, the axe, and the knout, were the great inftruments of their administration; and hence the people, seeing the rod of tyranny continually waving over their heads, become by degrees callous to its impreffion. From the practice of fub mitting to the will of their princes arofe habits of fubjection in the people, which have rendered them the willing victims of arbitrary power, and riveted the fetters of defpotifm. But, when the tendency of national manners and opinions is once formed, it is eafy for government to affift its progrefs, to complete its effect, and prolong its duration. According to this view, the forms of government, which have been fanctified in Ruffia by immemorial prefcription, appear fully adequate to account for the abject fubmillion which diftinguishes the fubjects of this empire. Without recurring to the barbarity of more ancient times, I fhall beg leave to turn your attention to Peter the Great, juftly in many respects styled the father of his country. I need not remind you of the atrocious punishments inflicted in his name, and by his authority. You cannot be ignorant of them, and I wish not to revive in you the fentiments of horror and indig nation, which you must have felt in perufing the accounts of them. Peter, indeed, feldom had recourfe to the private mode of punishment which I mentioned in my laft, but he often punished with his own hands, fuch delinquents as he did not wish to deliver up to the public executioner. 4 At what period, or from what circumftances, this tendency was firft impreffed on the national fpirits is perhaps The inftances of this kind that are on impoffible to be known. The caufes record are almoft innumerable. I fewhich give to nations their diftinctive lect a fingle example: He had fumcharacter, feem to me to lie generally moned a council, I forgot on what occawithout the reach of our obfervation. I fion, at seven in the morning. When imagine that government, which is ge- he entered the fenate-house, he was af nerally fuppofed to be the great agent tonifhed to find not one of thofe arrived in this cafe, is as much the confequence whom he had ordered to attend. By as it is the cause of national character. the time he had waited about ten mi At one period, the form of government nutes, and wrought himself up to a pro. over the greater part of Europe was per degree of rage, the prefident ap nearly the fame. The characters of the pears; who, feeing the ftorm was about different European nations were, how to fall on him, begins to make an apo ever, at that period, as diftinct as they logy. But in vain. Peter, whofe pafare now. The three nations of which fions never liftened to excufes, inftantly the British empire confifts have long enjoyed fimilar privileges; yet the English character is very different from the Irish, and the Scotch is diftin&t from both. It would feem, therefore, that the rigin of thofe characteristic peculiari feizes and belabours him molt feverely. Every member fhared the fame fate according to the order of his arrival, until General Gordon appeared. The General was not a little alarmed at the appearance, which the council-room prefented. But the Emperor's rage was by, K k 2 this |