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tioned to the general scale of my narrative. But I have thought it justified by the interest which the whole world must take in this Revolution. As yet, we are but in the first chapter of its history. The appeal to the rights of man, which had been made in the United States, was taken up by France, first of the European nations. From her, the spirit has spread over diose of the South. The tyrants of the North, have allied indeed against it; but it is irresistible. Their opposition will only multiply its millions of human victims ;. their own satellites will catch it, and the condi tion of man through the civilized world, will be finally and greatly ameliorated. This is a wonderful instance of great events, from small causes. So inscrutable is the arrangement of causes and consequences in this world, that a two-penny duty on tea, unjustly imposed in a sequestered part of it, changes the condition of all its inhabitants. I have been more minute in relating the early trans actions of this regeneration, because I was in circumstances pecu liarly favorable for a knowledge of the truth. Possessing the con fidence and intimacy of the leading Patriots, and more than all, of the Marquis Fayette, their head and Atlas, who had no secrets from me, I learned with correctness, the views and proceedings of that party ; while my intercourse with the diplomatic missionaries of Europe at Paris, all of them with the court, and eager in prying into its councils and proceedings, gave me a knowledge of these also. My information was always, and immediately committed to writing, in letters to Mr. Jay, and often to my friends, and a recur rence to these letters, now ensures me against errors of memory.
These opportunities of information, ceased at this period, with my retirement from this interesting scene of action. I had been more than a year soliciting leave to go home, with a view to place my daughters in the society and care of their friends, and to re turn for a short time, to my station at Paris. But the metamorpho sis through which our government was then passing from its Chry- salid to its Organic form, suspended its action in a great degree ; and it was not till the last of August, that I received the permis sion I had asked. And here, I cannot leave this great and good country, without expressing my sense of its pre-eminence of cha racter, among the nations of the earth. A more benevolent peo ple I have never known, nor greater warmth and devotedness in their select friendships. Their kindness and accommodation to stran gers, is unparalleled, and the hospitality of Paris, is beyond any thing I had conceived to be practicable in a large city. Their emi nence, too, in science, the communicative dispositions of their sci entific men, the politeness of the general manners, the ease and vivacity of their conversation, give a charm to their society, to be
