extracts from some notes written to his mother from his prison, in january, 1796, mostly written in english, with a penc

“Do you still blaspheme the noble English liberty., the habeas corpus, the trial by jury, and fixed laws ? Even the poor copy which the French have preserved of them would shelter us from the injustice under which I am suffering, if we were in France.”

“I am not a Frenchman, I do not approve their actions nor their government, (at this time he had been arrested by the French party,) but I adhere more firmly than ever to the opinion, that without liberty there is neither honour, nor justice, nor virtue, nor happiness, and that a counter-revolution is still worse than the revolution which preceded it. I am not a friend to democracy, but I should be ashamed to call myself an aristocrat, and to bear this name in common with the lower nobility of Pescia.”

“I will endeavour to obtain permission to draw, for it would be a great resource. Adieu, beloved mother, love me, but do not grieve for me; my gloomiest moments are those in which I am thinking, consequently when I am writing; but when I am reading, or talking with my friends, I feel as if I were out of prison.”

“How impatient I am! I have no feeling but impatience! I languish to get out, I languish for all I anticipate; nevertheless I am well, and as we had obliging guards, I had company, and I am gay to-day; be gay also, dear mother, it is impossible but that I should be soon liberated. I am accused of no fact, the witnesses have only their opinions to allege.”

“As to politics, I would say little. My opinions on liberty are too steady ever to change: as to the French, what they make me suffer will not make me think worse of them, nor will it ever make me think better of kings and their satellites.”