agents, and convicted of assisting at the drownings, shootings, &c. two only were executed, the rest were acquitted; because, though the facts were proved, the moral latitude of the Revolutionary Jury* did not find the guilt of the intention—­that is, the culprits were indisputably the murderers of several thousand people, but, according to the words of the verdict, they did not act with a counter-revolutionary intention.

* An English reader may be deceived by the name of Jury.  The Revolutionary Jury was not only instituted, but even appointed by the Convention.—­The following is a literal translation of some of the verdicts given on this occasion: 

     “That O’Sulivan is author and accomplice of several noyades
     (drownings) and unheard-of cruelties towards the victims delivered
     to the waves.

     “That Lefevre is proved to have ordered and caused to be executed a
     noyade of men, women, and children, and to have committed various
     arbitrary acts.

     “That General Heron is proved to have assassinated children, and
     worn publicly in his hat the ear of a man he had murdered.  That he
     also killed two children who were peaceably watching sheep.

“That Bachelier is author and accomplice of the operations at Nantes, in signing arbitrary mandates of arrest, imposing vexatious taxes, and taking for himself plate, &c. found at the houses of citizens arrested on suspicion.

     “That Joly is guilty, &c. in executing the arbitrary orders of the
     Revolutionary Committee, of tying together the victims destined to
     be drowned or shot.”

There are thirty-one articles conceived nearly in the same terms, and which conclude thus—­“All convicted as above, but not having acted with criminal or counter-revolutionary intentions, the Tribunal acquits and sets them at liberty.”

All France was indignant at those verdicts, and the people of Paris were so enraged, that the Convention ordered the acquitted culprits to be arrested again, perhaps rather for protection than punishment.  They were sent from Paris, and I never heard the result; but I have seen the name of General Heron as being at large.

The Convention were certainly desirous that the atrocities of these men (all zealous republicans) should be forgotten; for, independently of the disgrace which their trial has brought on the cause, the sacrifice of such agents might create a dangerous timidity in future, and deprive the government of valuable partizans, who would fear to be the instruments of crimes for which, after such a precedent, they might become responsible.  But the evil, which was unavoidable, has been palliated by the tenderness or gratitude of a jury chosen by the Convention, who, by sacrificing two only of this mass of monsters, and protecting the rest, hope to consecrate the useful principle of indulgence for every act, whatever its enormity, which has been the consequence of zeal or obedience to the government.