Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/199

Rh Of his mother-in-law, Lady Mary Hamilton, we shall hear again. William Newton, born in England in 1762, had been a captain in the dragoons, and had also been in the Russian army. In 1792 he twice pressed his services on the Convention. He was made a cavalry colonel, and was the contractor for a new kind of military waggon. He was arrested along with the other English in Paris. He appears to have been denounced by a prison spy for having remarked, after reading Barère's indictment against England, "Has Barère ever been in England? What crimes can the English Government have committed?" He was also in the habit of comparing Robespierre to an Eastern despot. He was executed June 6th, 1794. On the scaffold he exclaimed to the mob, "I am happier than your tyrants, for they tremble, whereas I am quite composed."

One of his fellow-victims was Thomas Delany, a youth of seventeen. His history is told by Yorke, apparently on the authority of Paine, whom he visited at Paris in 1802. Yorke states that a youth, whose name he withholds, was sent by his mother to acquire French polish. He was incautious and vehement, and openly denounced the Revolution. Thrown into prison, he retained his high spirits, and made the walls ring with "Rule Britannia" and "God save the King." Put on trial along with Newton, he did not utter a syllable,