He belonged to the liberals or democrats, and the triumph of the aristocratic party, through the interference of the courts of France and Sardinia, made continued residence in Geneva impossible, though he was not among the number of the proscribed.

In 1785 he moved to London, the former prime minister Lord Shelburne, who had been created Marquess of Lansdowne the previous year, having invited him to undertake the education of his sons.

[2] It was at Lansdowne's house, where he was treated virtually as member of the family, that he became acquainted with many illustrious men, including Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Lord Holland and Sir Samuel Romilly.

During a stay of two months in that city he had almost daily intercourse with Honoré Mirabeau, and a certain affinity of talents and pursuits led to an intimacy between two persons diametrically opposed to each other in habits and in character.

According to his own account, all the fundamental ideas and most of the illustrative material were already in Bentham's manuscripts; but his task was chiefly to abridge by striking out repeated matter, to supply lacunae, to secure uniformity of style, and to improve the French.

The proceedings and negotiations to which this mission gave rise necessarily brought Dumont into connection with most of the leading men in the Constituent Assembly, and made him an interested spectator, sometimes even a participator, indirectly, in the events of the French Revolution.

The same cause also led him to renew his acquaintance with Mirabeau, whom he found occupied with his duties as a deputy, and with the composition of his journal, the Courrier de Provence.

In fact his friend George Wilson used to relate that one day, when they were dining together at a table d'hôte at Versailles, he saw Dumont engaged in writing the most celebrated paragraph of Mirabeau's address to the king for the removal of the troops.

[4] In 1801 Dumont travelled over various parts of Europe with Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, and on his return settled down to the editorship of Bentham's works.