Almost every where the
houses of persons arrested were pilfered either by their own
servants or the agents of the republic. I have known an elegant
house put in requisition to erect blacksmiths' forges in for the use
of the army, and another filled with tailors employed in making
soldiers' clothes.--Houses were likewise not unfrequently abandoned
by the servants through fear of sharing the fate of their masters,
and sometimes exposed equally by the arrest of those who had been
left in charge, in order to extort discoveries of plate, money, &c.
the concealment of which they might be supposed privy to.
--So that I have no resource, either for myself or Mrs. D____, but the
sale of a few trinkets, which I had fortunately secreted on my first
arrest. How are we to exist, and what an existence to be solicitous
about! In gayer moments, and, perhaps, a little tinctured by romantic
refinement, I have thought Dr. Johnson made poverty too exclusively the
subject of compassion: indeed I believe he used to say, it was the only
evil he really felt for. This, to one who has known only mental
suffering, appears the notion of a coarse mind; but I doubt whether, the
first time we are alarmed by the fear of want, the dread of dependence
does not render us in part his converts.
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