She met on the road Republicans who patriotically pressed her to remain. All her effects are seized. . . . As she is an additional hostage, I am going to send her to Paris." At Paris accordingly the poor woman arrived, and I presume she is "la nièce Pitt" who was liberated in June 1795. According to the letters published by Gifford, she had been a nun at Abbeville, and was of impaired intellect. Benjamin Pitt, an elderly tradesman, and his wife Elizabeth Atlay, were also sent to Paris, and detained till February 1795. The announcement of their arrest by Barère, "the licensed liar of the Convention," as Michelet styles him, created unbounded delight.
Sampson Perry, militia surgeon, quack medicine vendor, and journalist, has given in his "History of the Revolution" some particulars of his own captivity. On his first visit to Paris, Paine took him to dine at the Hotel de Ville with Pétion, the guests including Dumouriez, Santerre, Condorcet, Danton, and Brissot. Prosecuted for asserting in his Argus that the King and Pitt had kept back information for stockjobbing purposes, he fled to France in January 1793. He was a witness at the mock trial of Marat, but merely gave evidence as to a young man named Johnson, who, his mind unhinged by fears for Paine's safety, had attempted suicide, after making a will in Paine's favour. He states that, for want of room else-
