Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/204

 bassador at Paris, requesting the French government to deliver up those two noblemen to the care of his excellency. A messenger, accompanied by two Alguazils, set out at the same time, to conduct them hither. The French government readily consented to this requisition, and your friends were conveyed in safe custody from Paris to this city, where they underwent several examinations, in which, much to our satisfaction, they sully substantiated their innocence, so that not the least suspicion could remain on their character. Their whole deportment, their grief, their anxiety to have the most rigorous researches made, did away every idea of culpability: and, as a farther proof of their honor and integrity, they voluntarily offered to remain in custody, till farther discoveries respecting the real perpetrators of this horrid crime should be made. This proposal, however, we thought ourselves unwarranted to accept. Not contented with the most honorable acquittal from all suspicion and reality of guilt, they, of their own accord bound themselves, under forfeiture of life and property, not to