New Travels in the United States of America

Jacques Pierre Brissot, who assumed the name of de Warville, a celebrated French Girondist, was born at Chartres, where his father was an inn-keeper, in January 1754. He received a good education and entered the office of a lawyer at Paris. His first works were on the philosophy of law, and showed how thoroughly Brissot was imbued with the ethical precepts of Rousseau. The first work was dedicated to Voltaire and was received by the old philosophe with much favour. Brissot became known as a facile and able writer, and was engaged on the Mercure, on the Courrier de l'Europe, and on other papers. Ardently devoted to the service of humanity, he projected a scheme for a general concourse of all the savants in Europe, and started in London a paper, Journal du Lycée de Londres, which was to be the organ of their views. The plan was unsuccessful, and soon after his return to Paris Brissot was lodged in the Bastille on the charge of having published a work against the government. He obtained his release after four months, and again devoted himself to pamphleteering, but had speedily to retire for a time to London. On this second visit he became acquainted with some of the leading Abolitionists, and founded later in Paris a Société des Amis des Noirs, of which he was president during 1790 and 1791. As an agent of this society he paid a visit to the United States in 1788, and in 1791 published his «New Travels in the United States of America.»