Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/207

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IX.

TERRORISTS.

Grieve—Arthur—Rose—James—Duroure—Kavanagh.

It is sad to find Englishmen among the Terrorists, even though foreign birth or long absence had made them English only in name. George Grieve, who hunted Madame Dubarry to death, was an hereditary agitator. His grandfather Ralph, a scrivener, at a contested election of a clergyman in 1694 headed the unsuccessful party, and was expelled from the Common Council of Alnwick. Ralph's son Richard, also an attorney, was agent for Lord Ossulston, the Whig candidate at the election of 1748, and he headed a mob which stormed the town hall, thus frustrating the attempt of the Council to procure an unfair return. Ossulston was, however, unseated, while Grieve—his conduct denounced as "partial and villainous, and in defiance of all ties, both human and divine"—was expelled from the Council. This happened only a few weeks before George's birth. With such a lineage George Grieve could scarcely fail to be an ardent politician; yet his elder brother, Davidson Richard, was a quiet country gentleman,