Note 177 — Chapter I
Reading edition
No better testimony concerning the unfavorable impression created by the execution of the French king could be had than that supplied by the comment of Salem’s republican minister, the Reverend William Bentley. Under date of March 25, 1793, he wrote: “The melancholy news of the beheading of the Roi de France is confirmed in the public opinion, & the event is regretted most sincerely by all thinking people. The french lose much of their influence upon the hearts of the Americans by this event.” (Diary, vol. ii, p. 13. Cf. Hazen, Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution, pp. 254 et seq.) This thrill of public horror also found expression in the following lines taken from a broadside of the day: