The Life of Thomas Paine, by Moncure Daniel Conway

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Chapter XX. "The Rights of Man." [1790-1791]

Edmund Burke's "Reflexions on the Revolution in France" appeared about November 1, 1790. Paine was staying at the Angel Inn, Islington, and there immediately began his reply. With his sentiment for anniversaries, he may have begun his work on November 4th, in honor of the English Revolution, whose centenary celebration he had witnessed three years before. In a hundred years all that had been turned into a more secure lease of monarchy. Burke's pamphlet founded on that Revolution a claim that the throne represented a perpetual popular franchise. Paine might have heard under his window the boys, with their "Please to remember , The fifth of November, "seen their effigy of Guy Fawkes, which in two years his own effigy was to replace. But no misgivings of that kind haunted him. For his eyes the omens hung over the dark Past; on the horizon a new day was breaking in morning stars and stripes. With the inspiration of perfect faith, born of the sacrifices that had ended so triumphantly in America, Paine wrote the book which, coming from such deep, the deeps answered.

Although Paine had been revising his religion, much of the orthodox temper survived in him; notably, he still required some kind of Satan to bring out his full energy. In America it had been George III, duly hoofed and horned, at whom his inkstand was hurled; now it is Burke, who appeared with all the seductive brilliancy of a fallen Lucifer. No man had been more idealized by Paine than Burke. Not only because of his magnificent defence of American patriots, but because of his far-reaching exposures of despotism, then creeping, snake-like, from one skin to another. At the very time that Paine was writing "Common Sense," Burke was pointing out that "the power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less odium, under the name of influence." He had given liberalism the sentence: "The forms of a free and the ends of an arbitrary government are things not altogether incompatible." He had been the intimate friend of Priestley and other liberals, and when Paine arrived in 1787 had taken him to his heart and home. Paine maintained his faith in Burke after Priestley and Price had remarked a change. In the winter of 1789, when the enthusiastic author was sending out jubilant missives to Washington and others, announcing the glorious transformation of France, he sent one to Burke, who might even then have been preparing the attack on France, delivered early in the Parliament of 1790. When, soon after his return from Paris, Paine mingled with the mourners for their lost leader, he was informed that Burke had for some time been a "masked pensioner," to the extent of £1,500 per annum. This rumor Paine mentioned, and it was not denied, whether because true, or because Burke was looking forward to his subsequent pension of £2,500, is doubtful. Burke's book preceded the events in France which caused reaction in the minds of Wordsworth and other thinkers in England and America. The French were then engaged in adapting their government to the free principles of which Burke himself had long been the eloquent advocate. It was not without justice that Erskine charged him with having challenged a Revolution in England, by claiming that its hereditary monarchy was bound on the people by a compact of the previous century, and that, good or bad, they had no power to alter it. The power of Burke's pamphlet lay largely in his deftness with the methods of those he assailed. He had courted their company, familiarized himself with their ideas, received their confidences. This had been especially the case with Paine. So there seemed to be a soupçon of treachery in his subtleties and his disclosures.

But after all he did not know Paine. He had not imagined the completeness with which the struggle in America had trained this man in every art of controversy. Grappling with Philadelphia Tories, Quakers, reactionists, with aristocrats on the one hand and anarchists on the other, Paine had been familiarized beyond all men with every deep and by way of the subject on which Burke had ventured. Where Burke had dabbled Paine had dived. Never did man reputed wise go beyond his depth in such a bowl as when Burke appealed to a revolution of 1688 as authoritative. If one revolution could be authoritative, why not another? How did the seventeenth century secure a monopoly in revolution? If a revolution in one century could transfer the throne from one family to another, why might not the same power in another transfer it to an elective monarch, or a president, or leave it vacant?

To demolish Burke was the least part of Paine's task. Burke was, indeed, already answered by the government established in America, presided over by a man to whom the world paid homage. To Washington, Paine's work was dedicated. His real design was to write a Constitution for the English nation. And to-day the student of political history may find in Burke's pamphlet the fossilized, and in Paine's (potentially) the living, Constitution of Great Britain.

For adequacy to a purpose Paine's "Common Sense" and his "Rights of Man" have never been surpassed. Washington pronounced the former unanswerable, and Burke passed the like verdict on the latter when he said that the refutation it deserved was "that of criminal justice." There was not the slightest confusion of ideas and aim in this book. In laying down first principles of human government, Paine imports no preference of his own for one form or another. The people have the right to establish any government they choose, be it democracy or monarchy, -- if not hereditary. He explains with nicety of consecutive statement that a real Constitution must be of the people, and for the people. That is, for the people who make it; they have no right, by any hereditary principle, to bind another people, unborn. His principle of the rights of man was founded in the religious axiom of his age that all men derived existence from a divine maker. To say men are born equal means that they are created equal. Precedent contradicts precedent, authority is against authority, in all our appeals to antiquity, until we reach the time when man came from the hands of his maker. "What was he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be given him." "God said Let us make man in our own image." No distinction between men is pointed out. All histories, all traditions, of the creation agree as to the unity of man. Generation being the mode by which creation is carried forward, every child derives its existence from God. "The world is as new to him as it was to the first man that existed, and his natural right to it is of the same kind." On these natural rights Paine founds man's civil rights. To secure his natural rights the individual deposits some of them -- e.g. the right to judge in his own cause -- in the common stock of society.

Paine next proceeds to distinguish governments which have arisen out of this social compact from those which have not. Governments are classified as founded on -- (1) superstition; (2) power; (3) the common interests of society, and the common rights of man: that is, on priestcraft, on conquest, on reason. A national constitution is the act of the people antecedent to government; a government cannot therefore determine or alter the organic law it temporarily represents. Pitt's bill to reform Parliament involves the absurdity of trusting an admittedly vitiated body to reform itself. The judges are to sit in their own case. "The right of reform is in the nation in its original character, and the constitutional method would be by a general convention elected for the purpose." The organization of the aggregate of rights which individuals concede to society, for the security of all rights, makes the Republic. So far as the rights have been surrendered to extraneous authority, as of priest-craft, hereditary power, or conquest, -- it is Despotism.

To set forth these general principles was Paine's first design. His next aim was to put on record the true and exact history of events in France up to the year 1791. This history, partly that of an eyewitness, partly obtained from the best men in France -- Lafayette, Danton, Brissot, and others, -- and by mingling with the masses, constitutes the most fresh and important existing contribution to our knowledge of the movement in its early stages. The majority of histories of the French Revolution, Carlyle's especially, are vitiated by reason of their inadequate attention to Paine's narrative. There had been then few serious outbreaks of the mob, but of these Burke had made the most. Paine contends that the outrages can no more be charged against the French than the London riots of 1780 against the English nation; then retorts that mobs are the inevitable consequence of misgovernment.

"It is by distortedly exalting some men, that others are distortedly debased. A vast mass of mankind are degradedly thrown into the background of the human picture, to bring forward, with greater glare, the puppet show of state and aristocracy. In the commencement of a revolution, those men are rather followers of the camp than of the standard of liberty, and have yet to be instructed how to use it."

Part I. of "The Rights of Man" was printed by Johnson in time for the opening of Parliament (February), but this publisher became frightened, and only a few copies bearing his name found their way into private hands, one of these being in the British Museum. J. S. Jordan, 166 Fleet Street, consented to publish it, and Paine, entrusting it to a committee of his friends -- William Godwin, Thomas Holcroft, and Thomas Brand Hollis took his departure for Paris. From that city he sent a brief preface which appeared with Jordan's first edition, March 13, 1791. Oldys (Chalmers) asserts that the work was altered by Jordan. This assertion, in its sweeping form, is disproved not only by Holcroft's note to Godwin, but by a comparison of the "Johnson" and "Jordan" volumes in the British Museum. The preface to which Holcroft alludes is of biographical interest both as regards Paine and Burke. As it does not appear in the American edition it is here inserted:

"From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to continue in that opinion, than to change it.

"At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written him, but a short time before, to inform him how prosperously matters were going on. Soon after this I saw his advertisement of the Pamphlet he intended to publish. As the attack was to be made in a language but little studied, and less understood, in France, and as everything suffers by translation, I promised some of the friends of the Revolution in that country, that whenever Mr. Burke's Pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant misrepresentations which Mr. Burke's Pamphlet contains; and that while it is an outrageous abuse of the French Revolution, and the principles of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of the world.

"I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct in Mr. Burke, as (from the circumstance I am going to mention) I had formed other expectations.

"I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might never more have existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the neighbourhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were disposed to set honestly about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that time characterized the people of England; but experience and an acquaintance with the French Nation have most effectually shown to the Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than between America and France.

"When I came to France in the spring of 1787, the Archbishop of Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I became much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a man of an enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments and my own perfectly agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched impolicy of two nations, like England and France, continually worrying each other, to no other end than that of a mutual increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be assured I had not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our opinions into writing, and sent it to him; subjoining a request, that if I should see among the people of England any disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the two nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be authorised to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of France? He answered me by letter in the most unreserved manner, and that not for himself only, but for the Minister, with whose knowledge the letter was declared to be written.
"I put this letter into the hands of Mr. Burke almost three years ago, and left it with him, where it still remains, hoping, and at the same time naturally expecting, from the opinion I had conceived of him, that he would find some opportunity of making a good use of it, for the purpose of removing those errors and prejudices which two neighbouring nations, from the want of knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both.

"When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed to it; instead of which, no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies. That there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between Nations, it becomes the more unpardonable.

"With respect to a paragraph in this work alluding to Mr. Burke's having a pension, the report has been some time in circulation, at least two months; and as a person is often the last to hear what concerns him the most to know, I have mentioned it, that Mr. Burke may have an opportunity of contradicting the rumour, if he thinks proper."

"The Rights of Man" produced a great impression from the first. It powerfully reinforced the "Constitutional Society," formed seven years before, which Paine had joined. The book was adopted as their new Magna Charta. Their enthusiasm was poured forth on March 23d in resolutions which Daniel Williams, secretary, is directed to transmit "to all our corresponding Constitutional Societies in England, Scotland, and France." In Ireland the work was widely welcomed. I find a note that "at a numerous meeting of the Whigs of the Capital [Dublin] on Tuesday the 5th of April, Hugh Crothers in the chair," a committee was appointed to consider the most effectual mode of disseminating Mr. Paine's pamphlet on "The Rights of Man."

In order to be uniform with Burke's pamphlet the earlier editions of "The Rights of Man," were in the three-shilling style. The proceeds enriched the Society for Constitutional Information, though Paine had been drained of funds by the failure of Whiteside. Gouverneur Morris, as appears by the subjoined extracts from his diary, is disgusted with Paine's "wretched apartments" in Paris, in which, however, the reader may see something finer than the diarist's luxury, which the author might have rivaled with the means devoted to his Cause. This was perhaps what Morris and Paine's friend Hodges agreed in deeming a sort of lunacy.

"April 8.

"Return home, and read the answer of Paine to Burke's book; there are good things in the answer as well as in the book. Paine calls on me. He says that he found great difficulty in prevailing on any bookseller to publish his book; that it is extremely popular in England, and, of course, the writer, which he considers as one of the many uncommon revolutions of this age. He turns the conversation on times of yore, and as he mentions me among those who were his enemies, I frankly acknowledge that I urged his dismissal from the office he held of secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs."

"April 16.

"This morning I visit Paine and Mr. Hodges. The former is abroad, the latter is in the wretched apartments they occupy. He speaks of Paine as being a little mad, which is not improbable."

"April 25.

"This morning Paine calls and tells me that the Marquis de Lafayette has accepted the position of head of the National Guards."

"May 1.

"Dine with Montmorin. Bouinville is here. He is just returned from England. He tells me that Paine's book works mightily in England."

Up to this point Paine had, indeed, carried England with him, -- for England was at heart with Fox and the Opposition. When Burke made his first attack on the French Revolution (February 9, 1790), he was repeatedly called to order; and Fox -- with tears, for their long friendship was breaking for ever -- overwhelmed Burke with his rebuke. Even Pitt did not say a word for him. His pamphlet nine months later was ascribed to inspiration of the King, from whom he expected favors; and although the madmen under whom the French Revolution fell presently came to the support of his case, Burke personally never recovered his place in the esteem of England. That the popular instinct was true, and that Burke was playing a deeper game than appeared, was afterwards revealed in the archives of England and France.

There was every reason why Paine's reply should carry liberal statesmen with him. His pamphlet was statesmanlike. The French Constitution at that time was the inchoate instrument beginning with the "Declaration of Rights," adopted on Lafayette's proposal (August 26, 1789), and containing provisions contrary to Paine's views. It recognized the reigning house, and made its executive power hereditary. Yet so free was Paine from pedantry, so anxious for any peaceful advance, that it was at the expected inauguration of this Constitution he had consented to bear the American flag, and in his reply to Burke he respects the right of a people to establish even hereditary executive, the right of constitutional reform being retained. "The French constitution distinguishes between the king and the sovereign; it considers the station of the king as official, and places sovereignty in the nation." In the same practical way he deals with other survivals in the French Constitution -- such as clericalism, and the property qualification for suffrage -- by dwelling on their mitigations, while reaffirming his own principles on these points.

A very important part of Paine's answer was that which related to the United States. Burke, the most famous defender of American revolutionists, was anxious to separate their movement from that in France. Paine, with ample knowledge, proved how largely the uprising in France was due to the training of Lafayette and other French officers in America, and to the influence of Franklin, who was "not the diplomatist of a court, but of man." He also drew attention to the effect of the American State Constitutions, which were a grammar of liberty. He points out that under this transatlantic influence French liberalism had deviated from the line of its forerunners, -- from Montesquieu, "obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence"; Voltaire, "both the flatterer and satirist of despotism"; Rousseau, leaving "the mind in love with an object without describing the means of possessing it"; Turgot, whose maxims are directed to "reform the administration of government rather than the government itself." To these high praise is awarded, but they all had to be filtered through America.

And it goes without saying that it was not the reactionary America with which John Adams and Gouverneur Morris had familiarized Burke. "The Rights of Man" was the first exposition of the republicanism of Jefferson, Madison, and Edmund Randolph that ever appeared. And as this republicanism was just then in deadly struggle with reaction, the first storm raised by Paine's book occurred in America. It was known in America that Paine was about to beard the British lion in his den, and to expectant ears the roar was heard before its utterance.

"Paine's answer to Burke (writes Madison to Jefferson, May 1st) has not yet been received here [New York]. The moment it can be got, Freneau tells me, it will be published in Child's paper [Daily Advertiser ]. It is said that the pamphlet has been suppressed, and that the author withdrew to France before or immediately after its appearance. This may account for his not sending copies to his friends in this country."

Mr. Beckley, however, had by this time received a copy and loaned it to Jefferson, with a request that he would send it to J. B. Smith, whose brother, S. H. Smith, printed it with the following Preface:

"The following Extracts from a note accompanying a copy of this pamphlet for republication is so respectable a testing of its value, that the Printer hopes the distinguished writer will excuse its present appearance. It proceeds from a character equally eminent in the councils of America, and conversant in the affairs of France, from a long and recent residence at the Court of Versailles in the Diplomatic department; and at the same time that it does justice to the writings of Mr. Paine, it reflects honor on the source from which it flows by directing the mind to a contemplation of that Republican firmness and Democratic simplicity which endear their possessor to every friend of the Rights of Man.

"After some prefatory remarks the Secretary of State observes:

" `I am extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted, and that something is at length to be publicly said against the political heresies which have sprung up among us.

" `I have no doubt our citizens will rally a second time round the standard of Common Sense.' "

As the pamphlet had been dedicated to the President, this encomium of the Secretary of State ("Jefferson" was not mentioned by the sagacious publisher) gave it the air of a manifesto by the administration. Had all been contrived, Paine's arrow could not have been more perfectly feathered to reach the heart of the anti-republican faction. The Secretary's allusion to "political heresies" was so plainly meant for the Vice-President that a million hands tossed the gauntlet to him, and supposed it was his own hand that took it up. These letters, to The Columbian Centinel (Boston), were indeed published in England as by "John Adams," and in the trial of Paine were quoted by the Attorney-General as proceeding from "the second in the executive government" of America. Had it been generally known, however, that they were by the Vice-President's son, John Quincy Adams, the effect might not have been very different on the father. Edmund Randolph, in view of John Adams' past services, felt some regret at the attacks on him, and wrote to Madison: "should rejoice that the controversy has been excited, were it not that under the character of [Publicola] he, who was sufficiently depressed before, is now irredeemable in the public opinion without being the real author. "The youth, however, was only in his twenty-fourth year, and pretty certainly under his father's inspiration.

It is improbable, however, that John Adams could have written such scholarly and self-restrained criticisms on any work by Paine, mere mention of whom always made him foam at the mouth. Publicola's arguments could not get a fair hearing amid surviving animosities against England and enthusiasm for a republican movement in France, as yet not a revolution, which promised the prevalence of American ideas in Europe. The actual England of that era, whose evils were powerfully portrayed by Paine, defeated in advance any theoretical estimate of the advantages of its unwritten Constitution. America had, too, an inventor's pride in its written Constitution, as yet untried by experience. Publicola assailed, successfully as I think, Paine's principle that a vitiated legislature could never be trusted to reform itself. It was answered that there is no reason why the people may not delegate to a legislature, renewed by suffrage, the power of altering even the organic law. Publicola contends that the people could not act in their original character in changing a constitution, in opposition to an existing legislature, without danger of anarchy and war; that if the people were in harmony with their legislature it could be trusted to carry out their amendments; that a legislature without such constitutional powers would nevertheless exercise them by forced constructions; and that the difficulty and delay of gathering the people in convention might conceivably endanger the commonwealth, were the power of fundamental alteration not delegated to the legislature, -- a concurrent right being reserved by the people.

This philosophical statement, interesting in the light of French revolutions and English evolutions, recoiled on Publicola from the walls of Paine's real fortress. This was built of the fact that in England the majority was not represented even in the Commons, and that the people had no representation at all in two branches of their government. Moreover, Paine's plea had been simply for such reconstitution of government as would enable the people to reform it without revolution or convulsion. Publicola was compelled to admit that the English people had no resort but the right of revolution, so that it appeared mere Monarchism to argue against Paine's plea for a self-amending constitution in England.

Publicola's retort on the Secretary's phrase, "political heresies" (infelicitous from a freethinker), -- "Does he consider this pamphlet of Mr. Paine's as the canonical book of political scripture," -- hurt Jefferson so much that he supposed himself harmed. He was indeed much annoyed by the whole affair, and straightway wrote to political leaders letters -- some private, others to be quoted, -- in which he sought to smooth things by declaring that his note was not meant for publication. To Washington he writes (May 8th) the Beckley-Smith story, beginning:

"I am afraid the indiscretion of a printer has committed me with my friend Mr. Adams, for whom, as one of the most honest and disinterested men alive, I have a cordial esteem, increased by long habits of concurrence in opinion in the days of his republicanism; and even since his apostasy to hereditary monarchy and nobility, though we differ, we differ as friends should do."

The "Jeffersonians" were, of course, delighted, and there is no knowing how much reputation for pluck the Secretary was gaining in the country at the very moment when his intimate friends were soothing his tremors. These were increased by the agitation of the British representatives in America over the affair. The following re-enforcement was sent by Madison on May 12th:

"I had seen Paine's pamphlet, with the Preface of the Philadelphia edition. It immediately occurred that you were brought into the frontispiece in the manner you explain. But I had not foreseen the particular use made of it by the British partizans. Mr. Adams can least of all complain. Under a mock defence of the Republican constitutions of his country he attacked them with all the force he possessed, and this in a book with his name to it, while he was the Representative of his country at a foreign Court. Since he has been the second magistrate in the new Republic, his pen has constantly been at work in the same Cause; and though his name has not been prefixed to his anti-republican discourses, the author has been as well known as if that formality had been observed. Surely if it be innocent and decent in one servant of the public thus to write attacks against its Government, it cannot be very criminal or indecent in another to patronize a written defence of the principles on which that Government is founded. The sensibility of Hammond [British Minister] and Bond [British Consul-General] for the indignity to the British Constitution is truly ridiculous. If offence could be justly taken in that quarter, what would France have a right to say to Burke's pamphlet, and the countenance given to it and its author, particularly by the King himself? What, in fact, might not the United States say, when revolutions and democratic Governments come in for a large charge of the scurrility lavished on those of France?"

One curious circumstance of this incident was that the fuss made by these British agents was about a book concerning which their government, under whose nose it was published, had not said a word. There was, indeed, one sting in the American edition which was not in the English, but that does not appear to have been noticed. The resentment shown by the British agents was plainly meant to aid Adams and the partisans of England in their efforts to crush the republicans, and bring Washington to their side in hostility to Jefferson. Four years later they succeeded, and already it was apparent to the republican leaders that fine engineering was required to keep the Colossus on their side. Washington being at Mount Vernon, his secretary, Tobias Lear, was approached by Major Beckwith, an English agent (at Mrs. Washington's reception), who undertook to lecture through him the President and Secretary of State. He expressed surprise that Paine's pamphlet should be dedicated to the President, as it contained remarks "that could not but be offensive to the British government." The Major might have been embarrassed if asked his instructions on the point, but Lear only said that the President had not seen the pamphlet, nor could he be held responsible for its sentiments. "True," said Beckwith, "but I observe, in the American edition, that the Secretary of State has given a most unequivocal sanction to the book, as Secretary of State; it is not said as Mr. Jefferson." Lear said he had seen the pamphlet, "but," he added, "I will venture to say that the Secretary of State has not done a thing which he would not justify." Beckwith then remarked that he had spoken only as "a private character," and Lear went off to report the conversation in a letter to Washington (May 8th), and next day to Attorney-General Randolph. Lear also reports to Washington that he had heard Adams say, with his hand upon his breast: "I detest that book and its tendency, from the bottom of my heart." Meanwhile the Attorney-General, after conversation with Beckwith, visited Jefferson, and asked if he had authorized the publication of his note in Paine's pamphlet.

"Mr. Jefferson said that, so far from having authorized it, he was exceedingly sorry to see it there; not from a disavowal of the approbation which it gave the work, but because it had been sent to the printer, with the pamphlet for republication, without the most distant idea that he would think of publishing any part of it. And Mr. Jefferson further added that he wished it might be understood, that he did not authorize he publication of any part of his note."

These words of Lear to Washington, written no doubt in Randolph's presence, suggest the delicacy of the situation. Jefferson's anxiety led him to write Vice-President Adams (July 17th) the Beckley-Smith story.

"I thought [he adds] so little of the note that I did not even keep a copy of it, nor ever heard a tittle more of it till, the week following, I was thunderstruck with seeing it come out at the head of the pamphlet. I hoped that it would not attract. But I found on my return from a journey of a month, that a writer came forward under the name of Publicola, attacking not only the author and principles of the pamphlet, but myself as its sponsor by name. Soon after came hosts of other writers, defending the pamphlet and attacking you by name as the writer of Publicola. Thus our names were thrown on the stage as public antagonists."

Then follows some effusiveness for Adams, and protestations that he has written none of these attacks. Jefferson fully believed that Publicola was the Vice-President, and had so informed Monroe, on July 10th. It was important that his lieutenants should not suspect their leader of shrinking, and Jefferson's letters to them are in a different vein. "Publicola," he tells Monroe, "in attacking all Paine's principles, is very desirous of involving me in the same censure with the author. I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles; but it is equally certain I never meant to have entered as a volunteer in the cause. My occupations do not permit it." To Paine he writes (July 29th):

"Indeed I am glad you did not come away till you had written your Rights of Man. A writer under the signature of Publicola has attacked it, and a host of champions has entered the arena immediately in your defence." It is added that the controversy has shown the people firm in their republicanism, "contrary to the assertions of a sect here, high in name but small in numbers," who were hoping that the masses were becoming converted "to the doctrine of King, Lords, and Commons."

In the letter to which this was a reply, Paine had stated his intention of returning to America in the spring. The enthusiasm for Paine and his principles elicited by the controversy was so overwhelming that Edmund Randolph and Jefferson made an effort to secure him a place in Washington's Cabinet. But, though reinforced by Madison, they failed. These statesmen little knew how far Washington had committed himself to the British government. In October, 1789, Washington, with his own hand, had written to Gouverneur Morris, desiring him in "the capacity of private agent, and on the authority and credit of this letter, to converse with His Britannic Majesty's ministers on these points; viz., whether there be any, and what objections to performing those articles in the treaty which remained to be performed on his part, and whether they incline to a treaty of commerce with the United States on any, and what terms?" This was a secret between Washington, Morris, and the British Cabinet. It was the deepest desire of Washington to free America from British garrisons, and his expectation was to secure this by the bribe of a liberal commercial treaty, as he ultimately did. The demonstration of the British agents in America against Paine's pamphlet, their offence at its dedication to the President and sanction by the Secretary of State, were well calculated. That it was all an American coup, unwarranted by any advice from England, could not occur to Washington, who was probably surprised when he presently received letter from Paine showing that he was getting along quite comfortably under the government he was said to have aggrieved.

LONDON, July 21, 1791

DEAR SIR.

I received your favor of last August by Col. Humphries since which I have not written to or heard from you. I mention this that you may know no letters have miscarried. I took the liberty of addressing my late work `Rights of Man,' to you; but tho' I left it at that time to find its way to you, I now request your acceptance of fifty copies as a token of remembrance to yourself and my Friends. the work has had a run beyond anything that has been published in this Country on the subject of Government, and the demand continues. In Ireland it has had a much greater. A letter I received from Dublin, 10th of May, mentioned that the fourth edition was then on sale. I know not what number of copies were printed at each edition, except the second, which was ten thousand. The same fate follows me here as I at first experienced in America, strong friends and violent enemies, but as I have got the ear of the Country, I shall go on, and at least shew them, what is a novelty here, that there can be a person beyond the reach of corruption.

"I arrived here from France about ten days ago. M. de la Fayette [Lafayette] is well. The affairs of that Country are verging to a new crisis, whether the Government shall be Monarchical and hereditary or wholly representative? I think the latter opinion will very generally prevail in the end. On this question the people are much forwarder than the National Assembly.

"After the establishment of the American Revolution, it did not appear to me that any object could arise great enough to engage me a second time. I began to feel myself happy in being quiet; but I now experience that principle is not confined to Time or place, and that the ardour of seventy-six is capable of renewing itself. I have another work on hand which I intend shall be my last, for I long much to return to America. It is not natural that fame should wish for a rival, but the case is otherwise with me, for I do most sincerely wish there was some person in this Country that could usefully and successfully attract the public attention, and leave me with a satisfied mind to the enjoyment of quiet life: but it is painful to see errors and abuses and sit down a senseless spectator. Of this your own mind will interpret mine.

"I have printed sixteen thousand copies; when the whole are gone of which there remain between three and four thousand I shall then make a cheap edition, just sufficient to bring in the price of the printing and paper as I did by Common Sense.

"Mr. Green who will present you this, has been very much my friend. I wanted last October to draw for fifty pounds on General Lewis Morris who has some money of mine, but as he is unknown in the Commercial line, and American credit not very good, and my own expended, I could not succeed, especially as Gov'r Morris was then in Holland. Col. Humphries went with me to your Agent Mr. Walsh, to whom I stated the case, and took the liberty of saying that I knew you would not think it a trouble to receive it of Gen. Morris on Mr. Walsh's account, but he declined it. Mr. Green afterwards supplied me and I have since repaid him. He has a troublesome affair on his hands here, and is in danger of losing thirty or forty thousand pounds, embarked under the flag of the United States in East India property. The persons who have received it withhold it and shelter themselves under some law contrivance. He wishes to state the case to Congress not only on his own account, but as a matter that may be nationally interesting.

"The public papers will inform you of the riots and tumults at Birmingham, and of some disturbances at Paris, and as Mr. Green can detail them to you more particularly than I can do in a letter I leave those matters to his information. I am, etc."

Nine months elapsed before Washington answered this letter, and although important events of those months have yet to be related, the answer may be here put on record.

"PHILADELPHIA, 6 May, 1792.

"DEAR SIR.

"To my friends, and those who know my occupations, I am sure no apology is necessary for keeping their letters so much longer unanswered, than my inclination would lead me to do. I shall therefore offer no excuse for not having sooner acknowledged the receipt of your letter of the 21st of June [July]. My thanks, however, for the token of your remembrance, in the fifty copies of `The Rights of Man,' are offered with no less cordiality, than they would have been had I answered your letter in the first moment of receiving it.

"The duties of my office, which at all times, especially during the session of Congress, require an unremitting attention, naturally become more pressing towards the close of it; and as that body have resolved to rise tomorrow, and as I have determined, in case they should, to set out for Mount Vernon on the next day, you will readily conclude that the present is a busy moment with me; and to that I am persuaded your goodness will impute my not entering into the several points touched upon in your letter. Let it suffice, therefore, at this time, to say, that I rejoice in the information of your personal prosperity, and, as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than I do, that it is the first wish of my heart, that the enlightened policy of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings, to which they are entitled, and lay the foundation of happiness for future generations.

"With great esteem, I am, dear Sir &c.

"P. S. Since writing the foregoing, I have received your letter of the 13th of February, with the twelve copies of your new work, which accompanied it, and for which you must accept my additional thanks."

There is no lack of personal cordiality in this letter, but one may recognize in its ingenious vagueness, in its omission of any acknowledgment of the dedication of Paine's book, that he mistrusts the European revolution and its American allies.

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Chapter XXI. Founding the European Republic. [1791]

It has already been mentioned that John Adams had been proclaimed in France the author of "Common Sense." The true author was now known, but, as the anti-monarchal parts of his work were expurgated, Paine, in turn, was supposed to be a kind of John Adams -- a revolutionary royalist. This misunderstanding was personally distasteful, but it had the important compensation of enabling Paine to come before Europe with a work adapted to its conditions, essentially different from those of America to which "Common Sense" was addressed in 1776. It was a matter of indifference to him whether the individual executive was called "King" or "President." He objected to the thing, not the name, but as republican superstition had insisted on it in America there was little doubt that France would follow the example. Under these circumstances Paine made up his mind that the republican principle would not be lost by the harmonizing policy of preserving the nominal and ornamental king while abolishing his sovereignty. The erection of a tremendous presidential power in the United States might well suggest to so staunch a supporter of ministerial government that this substance might be secured under a show of royalty. Dr. Robinet considers it a remarkable "prophecy" that Paine should have written in 1787 of an approaching alliance of "the Majesty of the Sovereign with the Majesty of the Nation" in France. This was opposed to the theories of Jefferson, but it was the scheme of Mirabeau, the hope of Lafayette, and had not the throne been rotten this prudent policy might have succeeded. It was with an eye to France as well as to England that Paine, in his reply to Burke, had so carefully distinguished between executive sovereignty subject to law and personal monarchy.

When the last proof of his book was revised Paine sped to Paris, and placed it in the hand of his friend M. Lanthenas for translation. Mirabeau was on his death-bed, and Paine witnessed that historic procession, four miles long, which bore the orator to his shrine. Witnessed it with relief, perhaps, for he is ominously silent concerning Mirabeau. With others he strained his eyes to see the Coming Man; with others he sees formidable Danton glaring at Lafayette; and presently sees advancing softly between them the sentimental, philanthropic -- Robespierre.

It was a happy hour for Paine when, on a day in May, he saw Robespierre rise in the National Assembly to propose abolition of the death penalty. How sweet this echo of the old "testimonies" of Thetford Quaker meetings. "Capital, punishment," cries Robespierre, "is but a base assassination, punishing" one crime by another, murder with murder. Since judges are not infallible they have no right to pronounce irreparable sentences." He is seconded by the jurist Duport, who says impressively: "Let us at least make revolutionary scenes as little tragic as possible! Let us render man honorable to man!" Marat, right man for the role, answered with the barbaric demand "blood for blood," and prevailed. But Paine was won over to Robespierre by this humane enthusiasm. The day was to come when he must confront Robespierre with a memory of this scene.

That Robespierre would supersede Lafayette Paine could little imagine. The King was in the charge of the great friend of America, and never had country a fairer prospect than France in those beautiful spring days. But the royal family fled. In the early morning of June 21st Lafayette burst into Paine's bedroom, before he was up, and cried "The birds are flown!" "It is well," said Paine; "I hope there will be no attempt to recall them." Hastily dressing, he rushed out into the street, and found the people in uproar. They were clamoring as if some great loss had befallen them. At the Hôtel de Ville Lafayette was menaced by the crowd,, which accused him of having assisted the King's flight, and could only answer them: "What are you complaining of? Each of you saves twenty sous tax by suppression of the Civil List." Paine encounters his friend Thomas Christie. "You see," he said, "the absurdity of monarchical governments; here will be a whole nation disturbed by the folly of one man."

Here was Marat's opportunity. His journal, L'Ami du Peuple, clamored for a dictator, and for the head of Lafayette. Against him rose young Bonneville, who, in La Bouche de Fer, wrote: "No more kings! No dictator! Assemble the People in the face of the sun; proclaim that the Law alone shall be sovereign, -- the Law, the Law alone, and made for all!"

Bonnevilles words in his journal about that time were apt to be translations from the works of his friend Paine, with whom his life was afterwards so closely interwoven. The little group of men who had studied Paine, ardent republicans, beheld a nation suddenly become frantic to recover a king who could not be of the slightest value to any party in the state. The miserable man had left a letter denouncing all the liberal measures he had signed since October, 1789, which sealed his doom as a monarch. The appalling fact was revealed that the most powerful revolutionists -- Robespierre and Marat especially -- had never considered a Republic, and did not know what it was.

On June 25th, Paine was a heavy-hearted spectator of the return of the arrested king. He had personal realization that day of the folly of a people in bringing back a king who had relieved them of his presence. He had omitted to decorate his hat with a cockade, and the mob fell on him with cries of "Aristocrat! à la lanterne!" After some rough handling he was rescued by a Frenchman who spoke English, and explained the accidental character of the offence. Poor Paine's Quaker training had not included the importance of badges, else the incident had revealed to him that even the popular rage against Louis was superstitious homage to a cockade. Never did friend of the people have severer proofs that they are generally wrong. In America, while writing as with his heart's blood the first plea for its independence, he was "shadowed" as a British spy; and in France he narrowly escapes the aristocrat's lantern, at the very moment when he was founding the first republican society, and writing its declaration.

This "Société Republicaine," as yet of five members, inaugurated itself on July 1st, by placarding Paris with its manifesto, which was even nailed on the door of the National Assembly.

"Brethren and fellow citizens:

"The serene tranquility, the mutual confidence which prevailed amongst us, during the time of the late King's escape, the indifference with which we beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that the absence of a King is more desirable than his presence, and that he is not only a political superfluity, but a grievous burden, pressing hard on the whole nation.

"Let us not be imposed upon by sophisms; all that concerns this is reduced to four points.

"He has abdicated the throne in having fled from his post. Abdication and desertion are not characterized by the length of absence; but by the single act of flight. In the present instance, the act is everything, and the time nothing.

"The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who false to his trust, perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine flight, obtains a fraudulent passport, conceals a King of France under the disguise of a valet, directs his course towards a frontier covered with traitors and deserters, and evidently meditates a return into our country, with a force capable of imposing his own despotic laws.

"Whether ought his flight to be considered as his own act, or the act of those who fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution of his own, or was it inspired into him by others? The alternative is immaterial; whether fool or hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself equally unworthy of the important functions that had been delegated to him.

"In every sense that the question can be considered, the reciprocal obligation which subsisted between us is dissolved. He holds no longer any authority. We owe him no longer obedience. We see in him no more than an indifferent person; we can regard him only as Louis Capet.

"The history of France presents little else than a long series of public calamity, which takes its source from the vices of the Kings; we have been the wretched victims that have never ceased to suffer either for them or by them. The catalogue of their oppressions was complete, but to complete the sum of their crimes, treason yet was wanting. Now the only vacancy is filled up, the dreadful list is full; the system is exhausted; there are no remaining errors for them to commit, their reign is consequently at an end.

"What kind of office must that be in a government which requires neither experience nor ability to execute? that may be abandoned to the desperate chance of birth, that may be filled with an idiot, a madman, a tyrant, with equal effect as by the good, the virtuous, and the wise? An office of this nature is a mere nonentity: it is a place of show, not of use. Let France then, arrived at the age of reason, no longer be deluded by the sound of words, and let her deliberately examine, if a King, however insignificant and contemptible in himself, may not at the same time be extremely dangerous.

"The thirty millions which it costs to support a King in the eclat of stupid brutal luxury, presents us with an easy method of reducing taxes, which reduction would at once release the people, and stop the progress of political corruption. The grandeur of nations consists, not, as Kings pretend, in the splendor of thrones, but in a conspicuous sense of their own dignity, and in a just disdain of those barbarous follies and crimes, which, under the sanction of royalty have hitherto desolated Europe.

"As to the personal safety of Louis Capet, it is so much the more confirmed, as France will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit of revenge against a wretch who has dishonored himself. In defending a just and glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade it, and the universal tranquility which prevails is an undeniable proof, that a free people know how to respect themselves."

Malouet, a leading royalist member, tore down the handbill, and, having ascertained its author, demanded the prosecution of Thomas Paine and Achille Duchâtelet. He was vehemently supported by Martineau, deputy of Paris, and for a time there was a tremendous agitation. The majority, not prepared to commit themselves to anything at all, voted the order of the day, affecting, says Henri Martin, a disdain that hid embarrassment and inquietude.

This document, destined to reappear in a farther crisis, and the royalist rage, raised Paine's Republican Club to vast importance. Even the Jacobins, who had formally declined to sanction republicanism, were troubled by the discovery of a society more radical than themselves. It was only some years later that it was made known (by Paine) that this formidable association consisted of five members, and it is still doubtful who these were. Certainly Paine, Achille Duchâtelet, and Condorcet; probably also Brissot, and Nicolas Bonneville. In order to avail itself of this tide of fame, the Société Républicaine started a journal, -- The Republican. The time was not ripe, however; only one copy appeared; that, however, contained a letter by Paine, written in June, which excited considerable flutter. To the reader of to-day it is mainly interesting as showing Paine's perception that the French required instruction in the alphabet of republicanism; but, amid its studied moderation, there was a paragraph which the situation rendered pregnant:

"Whenever the French Constitution shall be rendered conformable to its declaration of rights, we shall then be enabled to give to France, and with justice, the appellation of a Civic Empire; for its government will be the empire of laws, founded on the great republican principles of elective representation and the rights of man. But monarchy and hereditary succession are incompatible with the basis of its Constitution."

Now this was the very constitution which Paine, in his answer to Burke, had made comparatively presentable; to this day it survives in human memory mainly through indulgent citations in "The Rights of Man." Those angels who, in the celestial war, tried to keep friendly with both sides, had human counterparts in France, their constitutional oracle being the Abbe Sieyès. He had entered warmly into the Revolution, invented the name "National Assembly," opposed the veto power, supported the Declaration of Rights. But he had a superstitious faith in individual executive, which, as an opportunist, he proposed to vest in the reigning house. This class of "survivals" in the constitution were the work of Sieyès, who was the brain of the Jacobins, now led by Robespierre, and with him ignoring republicanism for no better reason than that their title was "Société des Amis de la Constitution." Sieyès petted his constitution maternally, perhaps because nobody else loved it, and bristled at Paine's criticism. He wrote a letter to the Moniteur, asserting that there was more liberty under a monarchy than under a republic. He announced his intention of maintaining monarchical executive against the new party started into life by the King's flight. In the same journal (July 8th,) Paine accepts the challenge "with pleasure." Paine himself was something of an opportunist; as in America he had favored reconciliation with George III. up to the Lexington massacre, so had he desired a modus vivendi with Louis XVI. up to his flight. But now he unfurls the anti-monarchical flag.

"I am not the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man wishes more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable state of private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid enemy of what is called monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can either alter or corrupt -- by my attachment to humanity; by the anxiety which I feel within myself for the dignity and honor of the human race; by the disgust which I experience when I observe men directed by children and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the evils that monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast; and by those sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the exactions, the wars, and the massacres with which monarchy has crushed mankind. In short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have declared war."

In reply Sieyès used the terms "monarchy" and "republic" in unusual senses. He defines "republic" as a government in which the executive power is lodged in more than one person, "monarchy" as one where it is entrusted to one only. He asserted that while he was in this sense a monarchist Paine was a "polycrat." In a republic all action must finally lodge in an executive council deciding by majority, and nominated by the people or the National Assembly. Sieyès did not, however, care to enter the lists.

"My letter does not announce that I have leisure to enter into a controversy with republican polycrats."

Paine now set out for London. He traveled with Lord Daer and Etienne Dumont, Mirabeau's secretary. Dumont had a pique against Paine, whose republican manifesto had upset a literary scheme of his, -- to evoke Mirabeau from the tomb and make him explain to the National Assembly that the King's flight was a court plot, that they should free Louis XVI. from aristocratic captivity, and support him. But on reading the Paine placard, "I determined, "says Dumont, "for fear of evil consequences to myself, to make Mirabeau return to his tomb." Dumont protests that Paine was fully convinced that the world would be benefited if all other books were burned except "The Rights of Man," and no doubt the republican apostle had a sublime faith in the sacred character of his "testimonies" against kings. Without attempting to determine whether this was the self-reliance of humility or egoism, it may be safely affirmed that it was that which made Paine's strokes so effective.

It may also be remarked again that Paine showed a prudence with which he has not been credited. Thus, there is little doubt that this return to London was in pursuance of an invitation to attend a celebration of the second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. He arrived at the White Bear, Piccadilly, the day before (July 13th), but on finding that there was much excitement about his republican manifesto in France he concluded that his presence at the meeting might connect it with movements across the Channel, and did not attend. Equal prudence was not, however, displayed by his opponents, who induced the landlord of the Crown and Anchor to close his doors against the advertised meeting. This effort to prevent the free assemblage of Englishmen, and for the humane purpose of celebrating the destruction of a prison whose horrors had excited popular indignation, caused general anger. After due consideration it was deemed opportune for those who sympathized with the movement in France to issue a manifesto on the subject. It was written by Paine, and adopted by a meeting held at the Thatched House Tavern, August 20th, being signed by John Horne Tooke, as Chairman. This "Address and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty," though preceded by the vigorous "Declaration of the Volunteers of Belfast," quoted in its second paragraph, was the earliest warning England received that the revolution was now its grim guest.

"Friends and Fellow Citizens:

At a moment like the present, when wilful misrepresentations are industriously spread by partizans of arbitrary power and the advocates of passive obedience and court government, we think it incumbent upon us to declare to the world our principles, and the motives of our conduct.

"We rejoice at the glorious event of the French revolution. If it be asked, `What is the French revolution to us?' We answer as has already been answered in another place, `It is much -- much to us as men; much to us as Englishmen. As men, we rejoice in the freedom of twenty-five millions of men.

We rejoice in the prospect which such a magnificent example opens to the world.'

"We congratulate the French nation for having laid the axe to the root of tyranny, and for erecting government on the sacred hereditary rights of man; rights which appertain to all, and not to any one more than another.

"We know of no human authority superior to that of a whole nation; and we profess and claim it as our principle that every nation has at all times an inherent and indefeasable right to constitute and establish such government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest, and happiness.

"As Englishmen we also rejoice, because we are immediately interested in the French Revolution.

"Without inquiring into the justice, on either side, of the reproachful charges of intrigue and ambition which the English and French courts have constantly made on each other, we confine ourselves to this observation, -- that if the court of France only was in fault, and the numerous wars which have distressed both countries are chargeable to her alone, that court now exists no longer, and the cause and the consequence must cease together. The French therefore, by the revolution they have made, have conquered for us as well as for themselves, if it be true that this court only was in fault, and ours never.

"On this side of the case the French revolution concerns us immediately; we are oppressed with a heavy national debt, a burthen of taxes, an expensive administration of government, beyond those of any people in the world.

"We have also a very numerous poor; and we hold that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition, and intrigue.

"We believe there is no instance to be produced but in England, of seven millions of inhabitants, which make but little more than one million families, paying yearly seventeen millions of taxes.

"As it has always been held out by the administrations that the restless ambition of the court of France rendered this expences necessary to us for our own defence, we consequently rejoice, as men deeply interested in the French revolution; for that court, as we have already said, exists no longer, and consequently the same enormous expences need not continue to us.

"Thus rejoicing as we sincerely do, both as men and Englishmen, as lovers of universal peace and freedom, and as friends to our national prosperity and reduction of our public expences, we cannot but express our astonishment that any part or any members of our own government should reprobate the extinction of that very power in France, or wish to see it restored, to whose influence they formerly attributed (whilst they appeared to lament) the enormous increase of our own burthens and taxes. What, then, are they sorry that the pretence for new oppressive taxes, and the occasion for continuing many old taxes, will be at an end? If so, and if it is the policy of courts and court government to prefer enemies to friends, and a system of war to that of peace, as affording more pretences for places, offices, pensions, revenue and taxation, it is high time for the people of every nation to look with circumspection to their own interest.

"Those who pay the expences, and not those who participate in the emoluments arising from them, are the persons immediately interested in inquiries of this kind. We are a part of that national body on whom this annual expence of seventeen millions falls; and we consider the present opportunity of the French revolution as a most happy one for lessening the enormous load under which this nation groans. If this be not done we shall then have reason to conclude that the cry of intrigue and ambition against other courts is no more than the common cant of all courts.

"We think it also necessary to express our astonishment that a government desirous of being called FREE , should prefer connexion with the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe. We know of none more deserving this description than those of Turkey and Prussia, and the whole combination of German despots.

"Separated as we happily are by nature from the tumults of the continent, we reprobate all systems and intrigues which sacrifice (and that too at a great expence) the blessings of our natural situation. Such systems cannot have a natural origin.

"If we are asked what government is, we hold it to be nothing more than a national association; and we hold that to be the best which secures to every man his rights and promotes the greatest quantity of happiness with the least expence. We live to improve, or we live in vain; and therefore we admit of no maxims of government or policy on the mere score of antiquity or other men's authority, the old whigs or the new.

"We will exercise the reason with which we are endued, or we possess it unworthily. As reason is given at all times, it is for the purpose of being used at all times.

"Among the blessings which the French revolution has produced to that nation we enumerate the abolition of the feudal system, of injustice, and of tyranny, on the 4th of August, 1789. Beneath the feudal system all Europe has long groaned, and from it England is not yet free. Game laws, borough tenures, and tyrannical monopolies of numerous kinds still remain amongst us; but rejoicing as we sincerely do in the freedom of others till we shall haply accomplish our own, we intended to commemorate this prelude to the universal extirpation of the feudal system by meeting on the anniversary of that day (the 4th of August) at the Crown and Anchor: from this meeting we were prevented by the interference of certain unnamed and sculking persons with the master of the tavern, who informed us that on their representation he would not receive us. Let those who live by or countenance feudal oppressions take the reproach of this ineffectual meanness and cowardice to themselves: they cannot stifle the public declaration of our honest, open, and avowed opinions.

These are our principles, and these our sentiments; they embrace the interest and happiness of the great body of the nation of which we are a part. As to riots and tumults, let those answer for them who by wilful misrepresentations endeavour to excite and promote them; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and lose the great cause of public good in the outrages of a mis-informed mob. We take our ground on principles that require no such riotous aid.

"We have nothing to apprehend from the poor for we are pleading their cause; and we fear not proud oppression for we have truth on our side.

"We say and we repeat it that the French revolution opens to the world an opportunity in which all good citizens must rejoice, that of promoting the general happiness of man, and that it moreover offers to this country in particular an opportunity of reducing our enormous taxes: these are our objects, and we will pursue them."

A comparative study of Paine's two republican manifestos -- that placarded in Paris July 1st, and this of August 20th to the English -- reveals the difference between the two nations at that period. No break with the throne in England is suggested, as none had been declared in France until the King had fled, leaving behind him a virtual proclamation of war against all the reforms he had been signing since 1789. The Thatched House address leaves it open for the King to take the side of the Republic, and be its chief. The address is simply an applied "Declaration of Rights." Paine had already maintained, in his reply to Burke, that the English monarch was an importation unrelated to the real nation, "which is left to govern itself, and does govern itself, by magistrates and juries, almost on its own charge, on republican principles." His chief complaint is that royalty is an expensive sinecure." So far had George III. withdrawn from his attempt to govern as well as reign, which had ended so disastrously in America. The fall of the French King who had aided the American "rebellion" was probably viewed with satisfaction by the English court, so long as the revolution confined itself to France. But now it had raised its head in England, and the alarm of aristocracy was as if it were threatened with an invasion of political cholera.

The disease was brought over by Paine. He must be isolated. But he had a hold on the people, including a large number of literary men, and Non-conformist preachers. The authorities, therefore, began working cautiously, privately inducing the landlords of the Crown and Anchor and the Thatched House to refuse their rooms to the "Painites," as they were beginning to be called. But this was a confession of Paine's power. Indeed all opposition at that time was favorable to Paine. Publicola's reply to "The Rights of Man," attributed to Vice-President Adams, could only heighten Paine's fame; for John Adams' blazing court-dress, which amused us at the Centenary (1889), was not forgotten in England; and while his influence was limited to court circles, the entrance of so high an official into the arena was accepted as homage to the author. The publication at the same time of the endorsement of Paine's "Rights of Man" by the Secretary of State, the great Jefferson, completed the triumph. The English government now had Paine on its hands, and must deal with him in one way or another.

The closing of one door after another of the usual places of assembly to sympathizers with the republican movement in France, being by hidden hands, could not be charged upon Pitt's government; it was, however, a plain indication that a free expression through public meetings could not be secured without risk of riots. And probably there would have been violent scenes in London had it not been for the moderation of the Quaker leader. At this juncture Paine held a supremacy in the constitutional clubs of England and Ireland equal to that of Robespierre over the Jacobins of Paris. He had the giant's strength, but did not use it like a giant. He sat himself down in a quiet corner of London, began another book, and from time to time consulted his Cabinet of Reformers.

His abode was with Thomas Rickman, a bookseller, his devoted friend. He had known Rickman at Lewes, as a youthful musical genius of the club there, hence called "Clio." He had then set some song of Paine's to music, and afterwards his American patriotic songs, as well as many of his own. He now lived in London with wife and children these bearing names of the great republicans, beginning with Thomas Paine, -- and with them the author resided for a time. A particular value, therefore, attaches to the following passages in Rickman's book:

"Mr. Paine's life in London was a quiet round of philosophical leisure and enjoyment. It was occupied in writing, in a small epistolary correspondence, in walking about with me to visit different friends, occasionally lounging at coffee-houses and public places, or being visited by a select few. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the French and American ambassadors, Mr. Sharp the engraver, Romney the painter, Mrs. Wolstonecraft, Joel Barlow, Mr. Hull, Mr. Christie, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Towers, Col. Oswald, the walking Stewart, Captain Sampson Perry, Mr. Tuffin, Mr. William Choppin, Captain De Stark, Mr. Horne Tooke, &c. &c. were among the number of his friends and acquaintance; and of course, as he was my in mate, the most of my associates were frequently his. At this time he read but little, took his nap after dinner, and played with my family at some game in the evening, as chess, dominos, and drafts, but never at cards; in recitations, singing, music, &c; or passed it in conversation: the part he took in the latter was always enlightened, full of information, entertainment, and anecdote. Occasionally we visited enlightened friends, indulged in domestic jaunts and recreations from home, frequently lounging at the White Bear, Picadilly, with his old friend the walking Stewart, and other clever travelers from France, and different parts of Europe and America. When by ourselves we sat very late, and often broke in on the morning hours, indulging the reciprocal interchange of affectionate and confidential intercourse. `Warm from the heart and faithful to its fires' was that intercourse, and gave to us the `feast of reason and the flow of soul.' "

"Mr. Paine in his person was about five feet ten inches high, and rather athletic; he was broad shouldered, and latterly stooped a little. His eye, of which the painter could not convey the exquisite meaning, was full, brilliant, and singularly piercing; it had in it the `muse of fire.' In his dress and person he was generally very cleanly, and wore his hair cued, with side curls, and powdered, so that he looked altogether like a gentleman of the old French school. His manners were easy and gracious; his knowledge was universal and boundless; in private company and among his friends his conversation had every fascination that anecdote, novelty and truth could give it. In mixt company and among strangers he said little, and was no public speaker."

Paine does not appear to have ever learned that his name had been pressed for a place in Washington's Cabinet, and apparently he did not know until long after it was over what a tempest in Jefferson's teapot his book had innocently caused. The facts came to him while he was engaged on his next work, in which they are occasionally reflected. In introducing an English friend to William Short, U. S. Chargé d'Affaires at Paris, under date of November 2d, Paine reports progress:

"I received your favour conveying a letter from Mr. Jefferson and the answers to Publicola for which I thank you. I had John Adams in my mind when I wrote the pamphlet and it has hit as I expected.

"M. Lenobia who presents you this is come to pass a few days at Paris. He is a bon republican and you will oblige me much by introducing him among our friends of bon foi. I am again in the press but shall not be out till about Christmas, when the Town will begin to fill. By what I can find, the Government Gentry begin to threaten. They have already tried all the under-plots of abuse and scurrility without effect; and have managed those in general so badly as to make the work and the author the more famous; several answers also have been written against it which did not excite reading enough to pay the expence of printing.

"I have but one way to be secure in my next work which is, to go further than in my first. I see that great rogues escape by the excess of their crimes, and, perhaps, it may be the same in honest cases. However, I shall make a pretty large division in the public opinion, probably too much so to encourage the Government to put it to issue, for it will be rather like begging them than me.

"By all the accounts we have here, the French emigrants are in a hopeless condition abroad; for my own part I never saw anything to fear from foreign courts -- they are more afraid of the French Revolution than the revolution needs to be of them; and the same caution which they take to prevent the French principles getting among their armies, will prevent their sending armies among the principles.

"We have distressing accounts here from St. Domingo. It is the natural consequence of Slavery and must be expected every where. The Negroes are enraged at the opposition made to their relief and are determined, if not to relieve themselves to punish their enemies. We have no new accounts from the East Indies, and people are in much doubt.

I am, affectionately yours,

THOMAS PAINE."

The "scurrility" referred to may have been that of George Chalmers, elsewhere mentioned. Two days after this letter to Short was written Paine received a notable ovation.

There was a so-called "Revolution Society" in "London, originally formed by a number of prominent dissenters. The Society had manifested its existence only by listening to a sermon on the anniversary of the Revolution of 1688 (November 4th) and thereafter dining together. It had not been supposed to interest itself in any later revolution until 1789. In that year the annual sermon was delivered by Dr. Richard Price, the Unitarian whose defence of the American Revolution received the thanks of Congress. In 1776 Price and Burke stood shoulder to shoulder, but the sermon of 1789 sundered them. It was "On the Love of our Country," and affirmed the constitutional right of the English people to frame their own government, to choose their own governors, and to cashier them for misconduct. This was the "red rag" that drew Burke into the arena. Dr. Price died April 19, 1791, and his great discourse gathered new force from the tributes of Priestley and others at his grave. He had been a staunch friend of Paine, and at the November festival of this year his place was accorded to the man on whom the "Constitutionalists" beheld the mantle of Price and the wreath of Washington. The company at this dinner of 1791, at the London Tavern, included many eminent men, some of them members of Parliament. The old Society was transformed -- William and Mary and 1688 passed into oblivion before Thomas Paine and 1791. It was probably for this occasion that the song was written (by whom I know not) -- "Paine's Welcome to Great Britain."

"He comes -- the great Reformer comes!
Cease, cease your trumpets, cease, cease your drums!
Those warlike sounds offend the ear,
Peace and Friendship now appear
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome,
Welcome, thou Reformer, here!

"Prepare, prepare, your songs prepare,
Freedom cheers the brow of care;
The joyful tidings spread around,
Monarchs tremble at the sound!
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,
Rights of Man, and Paine resound!"

Mr. Dignum sang (to the tune of "The Tear That Bedews Sensibility's Shrine.")

"Unfold, Father Time, thy long records unfold,
Of noble achievements accomplished of old;
When men, by the standard of Liberty led,
Undauntedly conquered or cheerfully bled

"But now 'midst the triumphs these moments reveal,
Their glories all fade and their lustre turns pale,
While France rises up, and proclaims the decree
That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free.

"As spring to the fields, or as dew to the flowers.
To the earth parched with heat, as the soft dropping showers,
As health to the wretch that lies languid and wan,
Or rest to the weary -- is Freedom to man!

"Where Freedom the light of her countenance gives,
There only he triumphs, there only he lives;
Then seize the glad moment and hail the decree
That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free.

"Too long had oppression and terror entwined
Those tyrant-formed chains that enslaved the free mind;
While dark superstition, with nature at strife,
For ages had locked up the fountain of life;

"But the dæmon is fled, the delusion is past,
And reason and virtue have triumphed at last;
Then seize the glad moments, and hail the decree,
That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free.

"France, we share in the rapture thy bosom that fills,
While the Genius of Liberty bounds o'er thy hills
Redundant henceforth may thy purple juice flow,
Prouder wave thy green woods, and thine olive trees grow!

"While the hand of philosophy long shall entwine,
Blest emblems, the laurel, the myrtle and vine,
And heaven through all ages confirm the decree
That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free!"

Paine gave as his toast, "The Revolution of the World," and no doubt at this point was sung "A New Song," [Hail Great Republic] as it was then called, written by Paine himself to the tune of "Rule Britannia":

"Hail, Great Republic of the world,
The rising empire of the West,
Where famed Columbus, with a mighty mind inspired,
Gave tortured Europe scenes of rest.
Be thou forever, forever great and free,
The Land of Love and Liberty.

"Beneath thy spreading mantling vine,
Beside thy flowery groves and springs,
And on thy lofty, thy lofty mountains' brow,
May all thy sons and fair ones sing.
Chorus.

"From thee may rudest nations learn
To prize the cause thy sons began;
From thee may future, may future tyrants know
That sacred are the Rights of Man.
Chorus.

"From thee may hated discord fly,
With all her dark, her gloomy train;
And o'er thy fertile, thy fertile wide domain
May everlasting friendship reign.
Chorus.

"Of thee may lisping infancy
The pleasing wondrous story tell,
And patriot sages in venerable mood
Instruct the world to govern well.
Chorus.

"Ye guardian angels watch around,
From harm protect the new-born State;
And all ye friendly, ye friendly nations join,
And thus salute the Child of Fate.
Be thou forever, forever great and free,
The Land of Love and Liberty!"

Notwithstanding royal tremors these gentlemen were genuinely loyal in singing the old anthem with new words:

"God save the Rights of Man!
Give him a heart to scan
Blessings so dear;
Let them be spread around,
Wherever Man is found,
And with the welcome sound
Ravish his ear!"

No report is preserved of Paine's speech, but we may feel sure that in giving his sentiment "The Revolution of the World" he set forth his favorite theme -- that revolutions of nations should be as quiet, lawful, and fruitful as the revolutions of the earth.

[admin]

Chapter XXII. The Right of Evolution. [1792]

The Abbé Sieyès did not escape by declining to stand by his challenge of the republicans. In the second part of "The Rights of Man" Paine considers the position of that gentleman, namely, that hereditary monarchy is an evil, but the elective mode historically proven worse. That both are bad Paine agrees, but "such a mode of reasoning on such a subject is inadmissible, because it finally amounts to an accusation of providence, as if she had left to man no other choice with respect to government than between two evils." Every now and then this Quaker Antæus touches his mother earth -- the theocratic principle -- in this way; the invigoration is recognizable in a religious seriousness, which, however, makes no allowance for the merely ornamental parts of government, always so popular. "The splendor of a throne is the corruption of a state." However, the time was too serious for the utility of bagatelles to be much considered by any. Paine engages Sieyès on his own ground, and brings historic evidence to prove that the wars of succession, civil and foreign, show hereditary a worse evil than elective headship, as illustrated by Poland, Holland, and America. But he does not defend the method of either of these countries, and clearly shows that he is, as Sieyès said, a "polycrat," so far as the numerical composition of the Executive is concerned. He affirms, however, that governing is no function of a republican Executive. The law alone governs. "The sovereign authority in any country is the power of making laws, and everything else is an official department."

More than fifty thousand copies of the first part of "The Rights of Man" had been sold, and the public hungrily awaited the author's next work. But he kept back his proofs until Burke should fulfil his promise of returning to the subject and comparing the English and French constitutions. He was disappointed, however, at finding no such comparison in Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." It did, however, contain a menace that was worth waiting for.

"Oldys" (Chalmers) says that Paine was disappointed at not being arrested for his first pamphlet on "The Rights of Man," and had, "while fluttering on the wing for Paris, hovered about London a whole week waiting to be taken." It is, indeed, possible that he would have been glad to elicit just then a fresh decision from the courts in favor of freedom of speech and of the press, which would strengthen faint hearts. If he had this desire he was resolved not to be disappointed a second time.

A publisher (Chapman) offered him a thousand guineas for the manuscript of Part II. Paine declined; "he wished to reserve it in his own hands." Facts afterwards appeared which rendered it probable that this was a ministerial effort to suppress the book.

Paine's Part Second was to appear about the first of February, or before the meeting of Parliament. But the printer (Chapman) threw up the publication, alleging its "dangerous tendencies," whereby it was delayed until February 17th, when it was published by Jordan. Meanwhile, his elaborate scheme for reducing taxes so resembled that which Pitt had just proposed in Parliament that the author appended his reasons for believing that his pages had been read by the government clerk, Chalmers, and his plan revealed to Pitt. "Be the case, however, as it may, Mr. Pitt's plan, little and diminutive as it is, would have made a very awkward appear once had this work appeared at the time the printer had engaged to finish it."

In the light of Pitt's subsequent career it is a significant fact that, in the beginning of 1792, he should be suspected of stealing Paine's thunder! And, indeed, throughout Paine's Part Second the tone towards Pitt implies some expectation of reform from him. Its severity is that which English agitators for constitutional reform have for a half century made familiar and honorable. The historical student finds mirrored in this work the rosy picture of the United States as seen at its dawn by the disfranchised people of Europe, and beside that a burdened England now hardly credible. It includes an historical statement of the powers claimed by the crown and gradually distributed among non-elective peers and class-elective commoners, the result being a combination of all three against admission of the people to any degree of self-government. Though the arraignment is heavy, the method of reform is set forth with moderation. Particular burdens are pointed out, and England is warned to escape violent revolution by accommodating itself to the new age. It is admitted that no new system need be constructed. "Mankind (from the long tyranny of assumed power) have had so few opportunities of making the necessary trials on modes and principles of government, in order to discover the best, that government is but now beginning to be known, and experience is yet wanting to determine many particulars." Paine frankly retracts an old opinion of his own, that the legislature should be unicameral. He now thinks that, though there should be but one representation, it might secure wiser deliberation to divide it, by lot, into two or three parts. "Every proposed bill shall first be debated in those parts, by succession, that they may become hearers of each other, but without taking any vote; after which the whole representation to assemble, for a general debate, and determination by vote." The great necessity is that England shall gather its people, by representation, in convention and frame a constitution which shall contain the means of peaceful development in accordance with enlightenment and necessity.

In Part I. Paine stated his general principles with some reservations, in view of the survival of royalty in the French constitution. In Part II. his political philosophy is -- freely and fully developed, and may be summarized as follows:

1. Government is the organization of the aggregate of those natural rights which individuals are not competent to secure individually, and therefore surrender to the control of society in exchange for the protection of all rights.

2. Republican government is that in which the welfare of the whole nation is the object.

3. Monarchy is government, more or less arbitrary, in which the interests of an individual are paramount to those of the people generally.

4. Aristocracy is government, partially arbitrary, in which the interests of a class are paramount to those of the people generally.

5. Democracy is the whole people governing themselves without secondary means.

6. Representative government is the control of a nation by persons elected by the whole nation.

7. The Rights of Man mean the right of all to representation.

Democracy, simple enough in small and primitive societies, degenerates into confusion by extension to large populations. Monarchy, which originated amid such confusion, degenerates into incapacity by extension to vast and complex interests requiring "an assemblage of practical knowledges which no one individual can possess." "The aristocratical form has the same vices and defects with the monarchical, except that the chance of abilities is better from the proportion of numbers."

The representative republic advocated by Paine is different from merely epitomized democracy. "Representation is the delegated monarchy of a nation." In the early days of the American republic, when presidential electors were independent of the constituents who elected them, the filtration of democracy was a favorite principle among republicans. Paine evidently regards the representative as different from a delegate, or mere commissioner carrying out instructions. The representatives of a people are clothed with their sovereignty; that, and not opinions or orders, has been transferred to them by constituencies. Hence we find Paine, after describing the English people as "fools" (p.260), urging representation as a sort of natural selection of wisdom.

"Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all purposes; but, with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing place. It rises in one today, in another tomorrow, and has most probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn. As this is the order of nature, the order of government must follow it, or government will, as we see it does, degenerate into ignorance. The hereditary system therefore, is as repugnant to human wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as unjust. As the republic of letters brings forward the best literary productions, by giving to genius a fair and universal chance, so the representative system is calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can be found."

We have seen that "Publicola" (John Quincy Adams) in his answer to Paine's Part I. had left the people no right to alter government but the right of revolution, by violence; Erskine pointed out that Burke's pamphlet had similarly closed every other means of reform. Paine would civilize reformation:

"Formerly, when divisions arose respecting governments, recourse was had to the sword, and civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the new system, and reference is had to national conventions. Discussion and the general will arbitrate the question, private opinion yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted."

Thus he is really trying to supplant the right of revolution with the right of evolution.

"It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn in the country the trees would present a leafless wintery appearance. As people are apt to pluck twigs as they go along, I perhaps might do the same, and by chance might observe that a single bud on that twig had begun to smell. I should reason very unnaturally, or rather not reason at all to suppose this was the only bud in England which had this appearance. Instead of deciding thus, I should instantly conclude that the same appearance was beginning, or about to begin, everywhere; and though the vegetable sleep will continue longer on some trees and plants than others, and though some of them may not blossom for two or three years, all will be in leaf in the summer, except those which are rotten. What pace the political summer may keep with the natural, no human foresight can determine. It is, however, not difficult to perceive that the Spring is begun. Thus wishing, as I sincerely do, freedom and happiness to all nations, I close the Second Part."

Apparently the publisher expected trouble. In the Gazetteer, January 25th, had appeared the following notice:

"MR. PAINE, it is known, is to produce another book this season. The composition of this is now past, and it was given a few weeks since to two printers, whose presses it was to go through as soon as possible. They printed about half of it, and then, being alarmed by some intimations, refused to go further. Some delay has thus occurred, but another printer has taken it, and in the course of the next month it will appear. Its title is to be a repetition of the former, 'The Rights of Man,' of which the words 'Part the Second' will shew that it is a continuation."

That the original printer, Chapman, impeded the publication is suggested by the fact that on February 7th, thirteen days after the above announcement, Paine writes: "Mr. Chapman, please to deliver to Mr. Jordan the remaining sheets of the "Rights of Man." And that "some intimations" were received by Jordan also may be inferred from the following note and enclosure to him:

"February 16, 1792.

"For your satisfaction and my own, I send you the enclosed, tho' I do not apprehend there will be any occasion to use it. If, in case there should, you will immediately send a line for me under cover to Mr. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard, who will forward it to me, upon which I shall come and answer personally for the work. Send also to Mr. Horne Tooke.

"T. P."

"February 16, 1792.

"SIR:

"Should any person, under the sanction of any kind of authority, enquire of you respecting the author and publisher of the Rights of Man, you will please to mention me as the author and publisher of that work, and shew to such person this letter. I will, as soon as I am made acquainted with it, appear and answer for the work personally.

"Your humble servant,

"THOMAS PAINE.

"Mr. Jordan, No. 166 Fleet-street."

Some copies were in Paine's hands three days before publication, as appears by a note of February 13th to Jefferson, on hearing of Morris' appointment as Minister to France.

"Mr. Kennedy, who brings this to New York, is on the point of setting out. I am therefore confined to time. I have enclosed six copies of my work for yourself in a parcel addressed to the President, and three or four for my other friends, which I wish you to take the trouble of presenting.

"I have just heard of Governeur Morris's appointment. It is a most unfortunate one; and, as I shall mention the same thing to him when I see him, I do not express it to you with the injunction of confidence. He is just now arrived in London, and this circumstance has served, as I see by the French papers, to increase the dislike and suspicion of some of that nation and the National Assembly against him.

"In the present state of Europe it would be best to make no appointments."

Lafayette wrote Washington a strong private protest against Morris, but in vain. Paine spoke frankly to Morris, who mentions him on Washington's birthday:

"February 22.

"I read Paine's new publication today, and tell him that I am really afraid he will be punished. He seems to laugh at this, and relies on the force he has in the nation. He seems to become every hour more drunk with self-conceit. It seems, however, that his work excites but little emotion, and rather raises indignation. I tell him that the disordered state of things in France works against all schemes of reformation both here and elsewhere. He declares that the riots and outrages in France are nothing at all. It is not worth while to contest such declarations. I tell him, therefore, that as I am sure he does not mean what he says, I shall not dispute it. Visit the Duchess of Gordon, who tells me that she supposes I give Paine his information about America, and speaks very slightly of our situation, as being engaged in a civil war with the Indians. I smile, and tell her that Britain is also at war with Indians, though in another hemisphere."

In his appendix Paine alludes vaguely to the book of George Chalmers ("Oldys").

"A ministerial bookseller in Picadilly, who has been employed, as common report says, by a clerk of one of the boards closely connected with the Ministry (the board of Trade and Plantations, of which Lord Hawkesbury is president) to publish what he calls my Life (I wish his own life and that of the Cabinet were as good,) used to have his books printed at the same printing office that I employed."

In his fifth edition Chalmers claims that this notice of his work, unaccompanied by any denial of its statements, is an admission of their truth. It looks as if Paine had not then seen the book, but he never further alluded to it. There was nothing in Chalmers' political or orthographical criticisms requiring answer, and its tar and feathers were so adroitly mixed, and applied with such a masterly hand, that Paine had to endure his literary lynching in silence. "Nothing can lie like the truth."

Chalmers' libels were so ingeniously interwoven with the actual stumbles and humiliations of Paine's early life, that the facts could not be told without dragging before the public his mother's corpse, and breaking treaty with his divorced wife. Chalmers would have been more successful as a government employé in this business had he not cared more for himself than for his party. By advertising, as we have seen (Preface, xv), his first edition as a "Defence" of Paine's writings he reaped a pecuniary harvest from the Painites before the substitution of "Review" tempted the Burkites. This trick probably enraged more than it converted. The pompous pseudonym covered a vanity weak enough to presently drop its lion skin, revealing ears sufficiently long to expect for a government clerk the attention accorded to a reverend M.A. of the University of Pennsylvania. This degree was not only understood in England with a clerical connotation, but it competed with Paine's "M.A." from the same institution. The pseudonym also concealed the record of Chalmers as a Tory refugee from Maryland, and an opponent of Burke, long enough to sell several editions. But the author was known early in 1792, and was named in an important pamphlet by no means altogether favorable to Paine. After rebuking Paine for personalities towards men whose station prevents reply, this writer also disagrees with him about the Constitution. But he declares that Paine has collected the essence of the most venerated writers of Europe in the past, and applied the same to the executive government, which cannot stand the test.

"The Constitution will; but the present mode of administering that Constitution must shrink from the comparison. And this is the reason, that foolish Mr. Rose of the Treasury trembles on the bench, and the crafty clerk in Lord Hawkesbury's office, carries on his base attacks against Paine by sap, fights him under the mask of a Philadelphia parson, fit disguise for the most impudent falsehoods that ever were published, and stabs him in the dark. But, of this upstart clerk at the Cockpit, more hereafter."

George Chalmers being mentioned by name in this and other pamphlets, and nothing like a repudiation coming from him or from "Oldys" in any of his ten editions, the libel recoiled on the government, while it damaged Paine. The meanness of meeting inconvenient arguments by sniffing village gossip for private scandals was resented, and the calumnies were discounted. Nevertheless, there was probably some weakening in the "Painite" ranks. Although this "un-English" tracking of a man from his cradle, and masked assassination angered the republicans, it could hardly fail to intimidate some. In every period it has been seen that the largest interests, even the liberties, of English peoples may be placed momentarily at the mercy of any incident strongly exciting the moral sentiment. A crafty clerk accuses Paine of mal-treating his wife; the leader's phalanx of friends is for one instant disconcerted; Burke perceives the opportunity and points it out to the King; Pitt must show equal jealousy of royal authority; Paine is prosecuted. There is little doubt that Pitt was forced to this first step which reversed the traditions of English freedom, and gave that Minister his historic place as the English Robespierre of counter-revolution.

On May 14th Paine, being at Bromley, Kent, learned that the government had issued summons against Jordan, his publisher. He hastened to London and assumed the expense of Jordan's defence. Jordan, however, privately compromised the affair by agreeing to plead guilty, surrender his notes relating to Paine, and receive a verdict to the author's prejudice -- that being really the end of the government's business with the publisher. On May 21st a summons was left on Paine at his London lodgings (Rickman's house) to appear at the Court of King's Bench on June 8th. On the same day issued a royal proclamation against seditious writings. On May 25th, in the debate on the Proclamation, Secretary Dundas said in the House of Commons that the proceedings against Jordan were instituted because Mr. Paine could not be found. Thereupon Paine, detecting the unreality of the prosecution of his publisher, addressed a letter to the Attorney-General. Alluding to the remark of Dundas in Parliament, he says:

"Mr. Paine, Sir, so far from secreting himself never went a step out of his way, nor in the least instance varied from his usual conduct, to avoid any measure you might choose to adopt with respect to him. It is on the purity of his heart, and the universal utility of the principles and plans which his writings contain, that he rests the issue; and he will not dishonour it by any kind of subterfuge. The apartments which he occupied at the time of writing the work last winter, he has continued to occupy to the present hour, and the solicitors of the prosecution know where to find him; of which there is a proof in their own office, as far back as the 21st of May, and also in the office of my own attorney. -- But admitting, for the sake of the case, that the reason for proceeding against the publication was, as Mr. Dundas stated, that Mr. Paine could not be found, that reason can now exist no longer. The instant that I was informed that an information was preparing to be filed against me as the author of, I believe, one of the most useful and benevolent books ever offered to mankind, I directed my attorney to put in an appearance; and as I shall meet the prosecution fully and fairly, and with a good and upright conscience, I have a right to expect that no act of littleness will be made use of on the part of the prosecution towards influencing the future issue with respect to the author. This expression may, perhaps, appear obscure to you, but I am in the possession of some matters which serve to show that the action against the publisher is not intended to be a real action."

He then intimates that, if his suspicions should prove well-founded, he will withdraw from his intention of defending the publisher, and proposes that the case against Jordan be given up. At the close of his letter Paine says:

"I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself defeated, has been one of the promoters of this prosecution; and I shall return the compliment by shewing, in a future publication, that he has been a masked pensioner at £1500 per annum for about ten years. Thus it is that the public money is wasted, and the dread of public investigation is produced."

The secret negotiations with the publisher being thus discovered, no more was heard of Jordan, except that his papers were brought out at Paine's trial.

The Information against Paine, covering forty-one, pages, octavo, is a curiosity. It recites that:

"Thomas Paine, late of London, gentleman, being a wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person, and being greatly disaffected to our said Sovereign Lord the now King, and to the happy constitution and government of this kingdom . . . and to bring them into hatred and contempt, on the sixteenth day of February, in the thirty-second year of the reign of our said present Sovereign Lord the King, with force and arms at London aforesaid, to wit, in the parish of St. Mary le Bone, in the Ward of Cheap, he, the said Thomas, wickedly, maliciously and seditiously, did write and publish, and caused to be written and published, a certain false, scandalous, malicious, and seditious libel, of and concerning the said late happy Revolution, and the said settlements and limitations of the crown and regal governments of the said kingdoms and dominions . . . intitled, 'Rights of Man, Part the Second, Combining principle and practice.' . . . In one part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, 'All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown' (meaning, amongst others, the crown of this kingdom) 'or an heritable throne,' (meaning the throne of this kingdom),' or by what other fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind are heritable property. To inherit a government is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.' . . . 'The time is not very distant when England will laugh at itself for sending to Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick, for men' (meaning the said King William the Third, and King George the First) 'at the expence of a million a year, who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her interest, and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish constable. If government could be trusted to such hands, it must be some easy and simple thing indeed; and materials fit for all the purposes may be found in every town and village in England.' In contempt of our said Lord the now King and his laws, to the evil example of all others in like case offending, and against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and dignity. Whereupon the said Attorney General of our said Lord the King, who for our said Lord the King in this behalf, prosecuteth for our said Lord the King, prayeth the consideration of the court here in the premises, and that due process of law may be awarded against him, the said Thomas Paine, in this behalf, to make him answer to our said Lord the King, touching and concerning the premises aforesaid.

"To this information the defendant hath appeared, and pleaded Not Guilty, and thereupon issue is joined."

The specifications and quotations in the Information are reiterated twice, in one case (Paine's note on William and Mary centenary), three times. It is marvelous that such an author, martial with "force and arms," could still walk freely about London. But the machinery for suppressing thought had always a tendency to rust in England; it had to be refurbished. To the royal proclamation against seditious writings corporations and rotten boroughs responded with loyal addresses. In the debate on that proclamation (May 25th) Secretary Dundas and Mr. Adam had arraigned Paine, and he addressed an open letter to the Secretary (June 6th) which was well received. Mr. Adam had said that:

"He had well considered the subject of constitutional publications, and was by no means ready to say that books of science upon government though recommending a doctrine or system different from the form of our constitution were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Utopia, and Hume for his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth. But the publication of Mr. Paine reviled what was most sacred in the Constitution, destroyed every principle of subordination, and established nothing in their room."

The real difficulty was that Paine had put something in the room of hereditary monarchy -- not a Utopia, but the representative system of the United States. He now again compares the governmental expenses of England and America and their condition. He shows that the entire government of the United States costs less than the English pension list alone.

"Here is a form and system of government that is better organized than any other government in the world, and that for less than one hundred thousand pounds, and yet every member of Congress receives as a compensation for his time and attendance on public business, one pound seven shillings per day, which is at the rate of nearly five hundred pounds a year. This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political superstition to support it. It was by encouraging discussion and rendering the press free upon all subjects of government, that the principles of government became understood in America, and the people are now enjoying their present blessings under it. You hear of no riots, tumults and disorders in that country; because there exists no cause to produce them. Those things are never the effect of freedom, but of restraint, oppression, and excessive taxation."

On June 8th Paine appeared in court and was much disappointed by the postponement of his trial to December. Lord Onslow having summoned a meeting at Epsom of the gentry in Surrey, to respond to the proclamation, receives due notice. Paine sends for presentation to the gentlemen one hundred copies of his "Rights of Man," one thousand of his "Letter to Dundas." The bearer is Horne Tooke, who opens his speech of presentation by remarking on the impropriety that the meeting should be presided over by Lord Onslow, a bed-chamber lord (sinecure) at £1,000 with a pension of £3,000. Tooke, being cut short, his speech was continued by Paine, whose two letters to Onslow (June 17th and 21st) were widely circulated. On June 20th was written a respectful letter to the Sheriff of Sussex, or other presiding officer, requesting that it be read at a meeting to be held in Lewes. This interesting letter has already been quoted in connection with Paine's early residence at Lewes. In these letters the author reinforces his accused book, reminds the assemblies of their illegal conduct in influencing the verdict in a pending matter, taunts them with their meanness in seeking to refute by brute force what forty pamphlets had failed to refute by argument.

The meeting at Lewes, his old town, to respond to the proclamation occurred on the fourth of July. That anniversary of his first cause was celebrated by Paine also. Notified by his publisher that upwards of a thousand pounds stood to his credit, he directed it to be all sent as a present to the Society for Constitutional Information.

A careful tract of 1793 estimates the sales of "The Rights of Man" up to that year at 200,000 copies! In the opinion of the famous publisher of such literature, Richard Carlile, the king's proclamation seriously impeded the sale. "One part of the community is afraid to sell, and another to purchase, under such conditions. It is not too much to say that, if `Rights of Man' had obtained two or three years' free circulation in England and Scotland, it would have produced a similar effect to that which 'Common Sense' did in the United States." However, the reign of terror had not yet begun in France, nor the consequent reign of panic in England.

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Chapter XXIII. The Deputy for Calais in the Convention. [1792]

The prosecution of Paine in England had its counterpart in a shrine across the channel. The Moniteur, June 17, 1792, announces the burning of Paine's works at "Excester," and the expulsion from Manchester of a man pointed out as Paine. Since April 16th his "Rights of Man," sympathetically translated by M. Lanthenas, had been in every French home. Paine's portrait, just painted in England by Romney and engraved by Sharpe, was in every cottage, framed in immortelles. In this book the philosophy of visionary reformers took practical shape. From the ashes of Rousseau's "Contrat Social," burnt in Paris, rose "The Rights of Man," no phœnix, but an eagle of the new world, with eye not blinded by any royal sun. It comes to tell how by union of France and America -- of Lafayette and Washington -- the "Contrat Social" was framed into the Constitution of a happy and glorious new earth, over it a new heaven unclouded by priestly power or superstitions. By that book of Paine's (Part I), the idea of a national convention was made the purpose of the French leaders who were really inspired by an "enthusiasm of humanity." In December, 1791, when the legislature sits paralyzed under royal vetoes, Paine's panacea is proposed.

On the tenth of August, 1792, after the massacre of the Marseillese by the King's Swiss guards, one book, hurled from the window of the mobbed palace, felled an American spectator -- Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore -- who consoled himself by carrying it home. The book, now in the collection of Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, New York, was a copy of "The Thirteen Constitutions," translated by Franklin's order into French (1783) and distributed among the monarchs of Europe. What a contrast between the peace and order amid which the thirteen peoples, when the old laws and authorities were abolished, formed new ones, and these scenes in France! "For upwards of two years from the commencement of the American war," wrote Paine, and a longer period, in several of the American States, there were no established forms of government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was too much occupied in defence to employ its attention in establishing new governments; yet, during this interval, order and harmony were preserved as inviolate as in any country in Europe." When Burke pointed to the first riots in France, Paine could make a retort: the mob is what your cruel governments have made it, and only proves how necessary the overthrow of such governments. That French human nature was different from English nature he could not admit. Liberty and equality would soon end these troubles of transition. On that same tenth of August Paine's two great preliminaries are adopted the hereditary representative is superseded and a national convention is called. The machinery for such convention, the constituencies, the objects of it, had been read in "The Rights of Man," as illustrated in the United States and Pennsylvania, by every French statesman. It was the American Republic they were about to found; and notwithstanding the misrepresentation of that nation by its surviving courtiers, these French republicans recognized their real American Minister: Paine is summoned.

On August 26, 1792, the National Assembly, on proposal of M. Guadet, in the name of the "Commission Extraordinaire," conferred the title of French citizen on "Priestley, Payne [Paine], Benthom, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, David Williams, Gorani, Anacharsis Clootz, Campe, Cormelle, Paw, N. Pestalozzi, Washington, Hamilton, Maddison [Madison], Klopstoc, Kosciusko, Gilleers." Schiller was afterwards added, and on September 25th the Patriote announces the same title conferred on Thomas Cooper, John Horne Tooke, John Oswald, George Boies, Thomas Christie, Dr. Joseph Warner, Englishmen, and Joel Barlow, American. Paine was elected to the French Convention by four different departments -- Oise, Puy-de-Dôme, Somme, and Pas-de-Calais. The votes appear to have been unanimous.

Here is an enthusiastic appeal (Riom, le 8 Septembre) signed by Louvet, "auteur de la Sentinelle," and thirty-two others, representing nine communes, to Paine, that day elected representative of Puy-de-Dôme:

"Your love for humanity, for liberty and equality, the useful works that have issued from your heart and pen in their defence, have determined our choice. It has been hailed with universal and reiterated applause. Come, friend of the people, to swell the number of patriots in an assembly which will decide the destiny of a great people, perhaps of the human race. The happy period you have predicted for the nations has arrived. Come! do not deceive their hope!"

But already Calais, which elected him September 6th, had sent a municipal officer, Achille Audibert, to London, to entreat Paine's acceptance. Paine was so eager to meet the English government in court, that he delayed his answer. But his friends had reason to fear that his martyrdom might be less mild than he anticipated, and urged his acceptance. There had been formed a society of the "Friends of Liberty," and, at its gathering of September 12th, Paine appears to have poured forth "inflammatory eloquence." At the house of his friend Johnson, on the following evening, Paine was reporting what he had said to some sympathizers, among them the mystical William Blake, who was convinced that the speech of the previous night would be followed by arrest. Gilchrist's account of what followed is here quoted:

"On Paine's rising to leave, Blake laid his hand on the orator's shoulder, saying, 'You must not go home, or you are a dead man,' and hurried him off on his way to France, whither he was now in any case bound to take his seat as a legislator. By the time Paine was at Dover, the officers were in his house, [he was staying at Rickman's, in Marylebone] and, some twenty minutes after the Custom House officials at Dover had turned over his slender baggage, narrowly escaped from the English Tories. Those were hanging days! Blake on the occasion showed greater sagacity than Paine, whom, indeed, Fuseli affirmed to be more ignorant of the common affairs of life than himself even. Spite of unworldliness and visionary faculty, Blake never wanted for prudence and sagacity in ordinary matters."

Before leaving London Paine managed to have an interview with the American Minister, Pinckney, who thought he could do good service in the Convention.

Mr. Frost, who accompanied Paine and Audibert, had information of certain plans of the officials. He guided them to Dover by a circuitous route -- Rochester, Sandwich, Deal. With what emotions does our world-wanderer find himself in the old town where he married and suffered with his first love, Mary Lambert, whose grave is near! Nor is he so far from Cranbrook, where his wife receives her mysterious remittances, but since their separation "has not heard of" this said Thomas Paine, as her testimony goes some years later. Paine is parting from England and its ghosts forever. The travelers find Dover excited by the royal proclamation. The collector of customs has had general instructions to be vigilant, and searches the three men, even to their pockets. Frost pretended a desire to escape, drawing the scent from Paine. In his report (September 15th) of the search to Mr. Dundas, Paine says:

"Among the letters which he took out of my trunk were two sealed letters, given into my charge by the American minister in London [Pinckney], one of which was addressed to the American minister at Paris, the other to a private gentleman; a letter from the president of the United States, and a letter from the secretary of State in America, both directed to me, and which I had received from the American minister, now in London, and were private letters of friendship; a letter from the electoral body, of the department of Calais, containing the notification of my being elected to the National Convention; and a letter from the president of the National Assembly informing me of my being also elected for the department of the Oise [Versailles]. . . . When the collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of the trunks, he proposed to read them. The first letter he took up for this purpose was that from the president of the United States to me. While he was doing this I said, that it was very extraordinary that General Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to me, without its being subject to be read by a customhouse officer. Upon this Mr. Frost laid his hand over the face of the letter, and told the collector that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost then, casting his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said, I will read this part to you, which he did; of which the following is an exact transcript. -- 'And as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than I do, it is the first wish of my heart that the enlightened policy of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which they are entitled and lay the foundation of happiness for future generations.' "

So Washington's nine months' delay in acknowledging Paine's letter and gift of fifty volumes had brought his letter in the nick of time. The collector quailed before the President's signature. He took away the documents, leaving a list of them, and they were presently returned. Soon afterward the packet sailed, and "twenty minutes later" the order for Paine's arrest reached Dover. Too late! Baffled pursuers gnash their teeth, and Paine passes to his ovation.

What the ovation was to be, he could hardly anticipate even from the cordial, or glowing, letter of Hérault Séchelles summoning him to the Convention, -- a fine translation of which by Cobbett is given in the Appendix. Ancient Calais, in its time, had received heroes from across the channel, but hitherto never with joy. That honor the centuries reserved for a Thetford Quaker. As the packet sails in a salute is fired from the battery; cheers sound along the shore. As the representative for Calais steps on French soil soldiers make his avenue, the officers embrace him, the national cockade is presented. A beautiful lady advances, requesting the honor of setting the cockade in his hat, and makes him a pretty speech, ending with Liberty, Equality, and France. As they move along the Rue de l'Égalité (late Rue du Roi) the air rings with "Vive Thomas Paine!" At the town hall he is presented to the Municipality, by each member embraced, by the Mayor also addressed. At the meeting of the Constitutional Society of Calais, in the Minimes, he sits beside the president, beneath the bust of Mirabeau and the united colors of France, England, and America. There is an official ceremony announcing his election, and plaudits of the crowd, "Vive la Nation!" "Vive Thomas Paine!" The Minimes proving too small, the meeting next day is held in the church, where martyred saints and miraculous Madonnas look down on this miraculous Quaker, turned savior of society. In the evening, at the theatre, a box is decorated "For the Author of 'The Rights of Man.' "

Thus for once our wayfarer, so marked by time and fate, received such welcome as hitherto had been accorded only to princes. Alas, that the aged eyes which watched over his humble cradle could not linger long enough to see a vision of this greatness, or that she who bore the name of Elizabeth Paine was too far out of his world as not even to know that her husband was in Europe. A theatrical La France must be his only bride, and in the end play the rôle of a cruel stepmother. When Washington was on his way to his inauguration in New York, passing beneath triumphal arches, amid applauding crowds, a sadness came over him as he reflected, so he wrote a friend, how easily all this enthusiasm might be reversed by a failure in the office for which he felt himself so little competent. But for Paine on his way to sit in the Convention of a People's representatives -- one summoned by his own pen for objects to which his life was devoted, for which he had the training of events as well as studies, -- for him there could be no black star hovering over his welcome and his triumphal pathway to Paris. For, besides his fame, there had preceded him to every town rumors of how this representative of man -- of man in America, England, France -- had been hunted by British oppressors down to the very edge of their coast. Those outwitted pursuers had made Paine a greater power in France than he might otherwise have been. The Moniteur (September 23d) told the story, and adds "Probably M. Payne will have been indemnified for such injustices by the brilliant reception accorded him on his arrival on French soil."

Other representatives of Calais were Personne, Carnat, Bollet, Magniez, Varlet, Guffroy, Eulard, Duquesnoy, Lebas, Daunon. It could hardly be expected that there should be no jealousy of the concentration of enthusiasm on the brilliant Anglo-American. However, none of this yet appeared, and Paine glided flower-crowned in his beautiful barge, smoothly toward his Niagara rapids. He had, indeed, heard the distant roar, in such confused, hardly credited, rumors of September massacres as had reached London, but his faith in the National Convention was devout. All the riots were easily explained by the absence of that charm. He had his flask of constitutional oil, other representatives no doubt had theirs, and when they gathered on September 21st, amid equinoctial gales, the troubled waters would be still.

Paine reached White's Hotel, Paris, September 19th; on the 20th attends a gathering of the "Conventionnels"; on the 21st moves in their procession to the Tuileries, for verification of credentials by the expiring Assembly, repairing with them for work in the Salle du Manege. He was introduced by the Abbé Grégoire, and received with acclamations.

On September 21st, then, the Year One opens. It greets mankind with the decree: "Royalty is from this day abolished in France."

September 22d, on a petition from Orleans, Danton proposes removal of the entire administrative corps, municipal and judicial, to prevent their removal by popular violence. Paine (through Goupilleau) suggests postponement for more thorough discussion. Having got rid of kings they must be rid of royal hirelings; but if partial reforms are made in the judiciary system those institutions cannot possess coherence; for the present persons might be changed without altering laws; finally, justice cannot be administered by men ignorant of the laws. Danton welcomes Paine's views, and it is decreed that the administrative bodies be renewed by popular election; but the limitations on eligibility, fixed by the Constitution of 1791, are abolished -- the judge need not be a lawyer, nor the municipal officer a proprietor.

On September 25th appears Paine's letter to his "Fellow Citizens," expressing his "affectionate gratitude" for his adoption and his election. "My felicity is increased by seeing the barrier broken down that divided patriotism by spots of earth, and limited citizenship to the soil, like vegetation." The letter is fairly "floreal" with optimistic felicities. "An over-ruling Providence is regenerating the old world by the principles of the new." "It is impossible to conquer a nation determined to be free." "It is now the cause of all nations against the cause of all courts." "In entering on this great scene, greater than any nation has been called to act in, let us say to the agitated mind, be calm! Let us punish by instruction, rather than by revenge. Let us begin the new era by a greatness of friendship, and hail the approach of union and success."

October 11th, a committee to frame a constitution is appointed, consisting of Sieyès, Paine, Brissot, Pétion, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Barrère, Danton, Condorcet. Supplementary -- Barbaroux, Hérault Séchelles, Lanthenas, Débry, the Abbé Fauchet, Lavicourterie. Paine was placed second to his old adversary, Sieyès, only because of his unfamiliarity with French. At least four of the committee understood English -- Condorcet, Danton, Barrère, and Brissot. Paine had known Brissot in America, their friendship being caused by literary tastes in common, and the zeal of both for negro emancipation.

On October 25th was written for Le Patriote Français (edited by Brissot) an address by Paine arguing carefully the fallacies of royalism. He tersely expresses the view now hardly paradoxical, that "a talented king is worse than a fool."

"We are astonished at reading that the Egyptians set upon the throne a stone, which they called king. Well! such a monarch was less absurd and less mischievous than those before whom nations prostrate themselves. At least he deceived no one. None supposed that he possessed qualities or a character. They did not call him Father of his People; and yet it would have been scarcely more ridiculous than to give such a title to a blockhead (un étourdi) whom the right of succession crowns at eighteen. A dumb idol is better than one animated."

In this letter Paine adroitly prepares the way for his purpose of saving the life of Louis XVI., for whose blood the thirst is growing. "It is little," he says, "to overthrow the idol; it is the pedestal which must especially be beaten down. It is the kingly office, rather than the officer, that is destructive (meurtrière). This is not seen by every one."

In those who sympathized with the human spirit of his views Paine inspired deep affection. A volume might be filled with the personal tributes to him. In Paris he was the centre of a loving circle, from the first. "I lodge," writes Lord Edward Fitzgerald to his mother (October 30th), "with my friend Paine -- we breakfast, dine, and sup together. The more I see of his interior, the more I like and respect him. I cannot express how kind he is to me; there is a simplicity of manner, a goodness of heart, and a strength of mind in him, that I never knew a man before possess."

Paine was chosen by his fellow-deputies of Calais to offer the Convention the congratulations of their department on the abolition of monarchy. This letter, written October 27th, was on that day read in Convention, in French,

"CITIZEN PRESIDENT;

In the name of the deputies of the department of Pas de Calais, I have the honor of presenting to the Convention the felicitations of the General Council of the Commune of Calais on the abolition of royalty.

"Amid the joy inspired by this event, one can not forbear some pain at the folly of our ancestors, who have placed us under the necessity of treating seriously (solennellement) the abolition of a phantom.

"THOMAS PAINE, Deputy, etc."

The Moniteur, without printing the letter, says that applause followed the word "fantôme." The use of this word was a resumption of Paine's effort to save the life of the king, then a prisoner of state, by a suggestion of his insignificance. But he very soon realizes the power of the phantom, which lies not only in the monarchical Trade Union of Europe but in the superstition of monarchy in those who presently beheaded poor Louis. Paine was always careful to call him Louis Capet, but the French deputies took the king seriously to the last. The king's divine foot was on their necks in the moment when their axe was on his. But Paine feared a more terrible form which had arisen in place of the royal prisoner of the Temple. On the fourth day of the Convention Marat arose with the words, "It seems a great many here are my enemies," and received the shouted answer, "All! all!" Paine had seen Marat hypnotize the Convention, and hold it subdued in the hollow of his hand. Here was King Stork ready to succeed King Log.

But what has the Convention to do with deciding about Louis XVI., or about affairs, foreign or domestic? It is there like the Philadelphia Convention of 1787; its business is to frame a Constitution, then dissolve, and let the organs it created determine special affairs. So the committee work hard on the Constitution; "Deputy Paine and France generally expect," finds Carlyle, "all finished in a few months." But, alas, the phantom is too strong for the political philosophers. The crowned heads of Europe are sinking their differences for a time and consulting about this imprisoned brother. And at the same time the subjects of those heads are looking eagerly towards the Convention.

The foreign menaces had thus far caused the ferocities of the revolution, for France knew it was worm-eaten with enemies of republicanism. But now the Duke of Brunswick had retreated, the French arms were victorious everywhere; and it is just possible that the suicide of the Republic -- the Reign of Terror -- might never have been completed but for that discovery (November 10th) of secret papers walled up in the Tuileries. These papers compromised many, revealed foreign schemes, and made all Paris shriek "Treason!" The smith (Gamain) who revealed the locality of that invisible iron press which he had set under the wainscot, made a good deal of history that day.

A cry for the king's life was raised, for to France he was the head and front of all conspiracy. How everybody bent under the breath of those days may be seen in the fact that even Gouverneur Morris is found writing to Lord Wycombe (November 22d): "All who wish to partake thereof [freedom] will find in us (ye French) a sure and certain ally. We will chase tyranny, and, above all, aristocracy, off the theatre of the Universe."

Paine was living in the "Passage des Pétites Pères, No. 7." There are now two narrow passages of that name, uniting near the church "Notre Dame des Victoires," which still bears the words, "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité." No. 7 has disappeared as a number, but it may have described a part of either No. 8 or No. 9, -- both ancient. Here he was close to a chapel of the Capucines, unless, indeed, it had already been replaced by this church, whose interior walls are covered with tablets set up by individuals in acknowledgment of the Virgin's miraculous benefits to them. Here he might study superstition, and no doubt did; but on November 10th he has to deal with the madness of a populace which has broken the outer chains of superstition with a superstition of their own, one without restraints to replace the chains. Beneath his window the Place des Victoires will be crowded with revolutionists, frantic under rumors of the discovered iron press and its treasonable papers. He could hardly look out without seeing some poor human scape-goat seeking the altar's safety. Our Lady will look on him from her church the sad-eyed inquiry: "Is this, then, the new religion of Liberty, with which you supplant the Mother and Babe?"

Paine has carried to success his anti-monarchical faith. He was the first to assail monarchy in America and in France. A little more than a year before, he had founded the first Republican Society in Europe, and written its Declaration on the door of the National Assembly. Sieyès had denounced him then as a "polyarchist." Now he sat with Sieyès daily, framing a republican Constitution, having just felicitated the Convention on the abolition of the phantom -- Royalty. And now, on this terrible night of November 20th, this unmaker of kings finds himself the solitary deputy ready to risk his life to save the man whose crown he had destroyed. It is not simply because the old Quaker heart in him recoils from bloodshed, but that he would save the Republic from the peril of foreign invasion, which would surely follow the execution of Louis, and from disgrace in America, whose independence owed much to the fallen monarch.

In his little room, the lonely author, unable to write French, animated by sentiments which the best of the French revolutionists could not understand -- Danton reminding him that "revolutions are not made of rose-water" -- must have before the morrow's Convention some word that shall control the fury of the moment. Rose-water will not answer now. Louis must pass his ordeal; his secret schemes have been revealed; the treachery of his submissions to the people exposed. He is guilty, and the alternatives are a calm trial, or death by the hands of the mob. What is now most needed is delay, and, that secured, diversion of national rage from the individual Louis to the universal anti-republican Satan inspiring the crowned heads of Europe. Before the morning dawns, Paine has written his letter to the president. It is translated before the Convention meets, November 21st, and is read to that body the same day. Louis XVI., he says, should be tried. The advice is not suggested by vengeance, but by justice and policy. If innocent, he may be allowed to prove it; if guilty, he must be punished or pardoned by the nation. He would, however, consider Louis, individually, beneath the notice of the republic. The importance of his trial is that there is a conspiracy of "crowned brigands" against the liberties not only of France, but of all nations, and there is ground for suspecting that Louis XVI. was a partner in it. He should be utilized to ferret out the whole gang, and reveal to the various peoples what their monarchs, some of whom work in secret for fear of their subjects, are doing. Louis XVI. should not be dealt with except in the interest of all Europe.

"If, seeing in Louis XVI. only a weak and narrow-minded man, badly reared, as all like him, subject, it is said, to intemperance, imprudently re-established by the Constituent Assembly on a throne for which he was unfit, -- if we hereafter show him some compassion, this compassion should be the effect of national magnanimity, and not a result of the burlesque notion of pretended inviolability."

Lamartine, in his history of the Girondists, reproaches Paine for these words concerning a king who had shown him friendship during the American war. But the facts were not well explored in Lamartine's time. Louis Blanc recognizes Paine's intent. "He had learned in England that killing a monarch -- does not kill monarchs." This grand revolutionary proposal to raise the inevitable trial from the low plane of popular wrath against a prisoner to the dignity of a process against European monarchy, would have secured delay and calmer counsels. If the reader, considering the newly discovered papers, and the whole situation, will examine critically Paine's words just quoted, he will find them meriting a judgment the reverse of Lamartine's. With consummate art, the hourly imperiled king is shielded from vindictive wrath by the considerations that he is non compos, not responsible for his bringing up, was put back on the throne by the Assembly, after he had left it, acknowledging his unfitness, and that compassion for him would be becoming to the magnanimity of France. A plea for the King's immunity from trial, for his innocence or his virtues, would at that juncture have been fatal. As it was, this ingenious document made an impression on the Convention, which ordered it to be printed.

The delay which Paine's proposal would involve was, as Louis Blanc remarks, fatal to it. It remains now only to work among the members of the Convention, and secure if possible a majority that will be content, having killed the king, to save the man; and, in saving him, to preserve him as an imprisoned hostage for the good behavior of Europe. This is now Paine's idea, and never did man toil more faithfully for another than he did for that discrowned Louis Capet.

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Chapter XXIV. Outlawed In England. [1792-1793]

While Paine was thus, towards the close of 1792, doing the work of a humane Englishman in France, his works were causing a revolution in England -- a revolution the more effectual because bloodless. In Paine's letter to Secretary Dundas (Calais, September 15th), describing the examination of his papers at Dover, a "postscript" states that among the papers handled was "a printed proof copy of my Letter to the Addressers, which will soon be published." This must have been a thumbscrew for the Secretary when he presently read the pamphlet that escaped his officers. In humor, freedom, and force this production may be compared with Carlyle's "Latter Day Pamphlets." Lord Stormont and Lord Grenville having made speeches about him, their services are returned by a speech which the author has prepared for them to deliver in Parliament. This satirical eulogy on the British constitution set the fashion for other radical encomiums of the wisdom of the king and of the peers, the incorruptibility of the commons, beauty of rotten boroughs, and freedom of the people from taxes, with which prosecuting attorneys were unable to deal. Having felicitated himself on the circulation of his opinions by the indictment, and the advertisements of his books by loyal "Addresses," Paine taunts the government for its method of answering argument. It had been challenging the world for a hundred years to admire the perfection of its institutions. At length the challenge is taken up, and, lo, its acceptance is turned into a crime, and the only defence of its perfection is a prosecution Paine points out that there was no sign of prosecution until his book was placed within reach of the poor. When cheap editions were clamored for by Sheffield, Leicester, Chester, Warwickshire, and Scotland, he had announced that any one might freely publish it. About the middle of April he had himself put a cheap edition in the press. He knew he would be prosecuted for that, and so wrote to Thomas Walker. It was the common people the government feared. He remarks that on the same day (May 21st) the prosecution was instituted and the royal proclamation issued -- the latter being indictable as an effort to influence the verdict in a pending case. He calls attention to the "special jury," before which he was summoned. It is virtually selected by the Master of the Crown Office, a dependant on the Civil List assailed in his book. The special jury is treated to a dinner, and given two guineas for a conviction, and but one guinea and no dinner for acquittal. Even a fairly selected local jury could not justly determine a constitutional issue affecting every part of the empire. So Paine brings under scrutiny every part of the legal machinery sprung on him, adding new illustrations of his charges against the whole system. He begins the siege, which Bradlaugh was to carry forward in a later time, against the corrupt Pension List, introducing it with his promised exposure of Edmund Burke. Near the end of Lord North's administration Burke brought in a bill by which it was provided that a pension or annuity might be given without name, if under oath that it was not for the benefit of a member of the House of Commons. Burke's pension had been taken out under the name of another man; but being under the necessity of mortgaging it, the real pensioner had to be disclosed to the mortgagee. For the rest, this "Address to the Addressers," as it was popularly called, -- or "Part Third of the Rights of Man," as one publisher entitled it, -- sowed broadcast through England passages that were recited in assemblies, and sentences that became proverbs.

"It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a Nation, Thou shalt not read."

"Thought, by some means or other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though reading may."

"Whatever the rights of the people are, they have a right to them; and none have a right either to withhold or to grant them."

"The project of hereditary Governors and Legislatures was a treasonable usurpation over the rights of posterity."

"Put a country right, and it will soon put government right."

"When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example to the poor to plunder the rich of his property."

"Who are those that are frightened at reform? Are the public afraid their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid that their condition should be rendered too comfortable?"

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be."

"If to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government -- to lessen the oppression of taxes -- to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed -- to endeavour to conciliate nations with each other to extirpate the horrid practice of war -- to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce -- and to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank -- if these things be libelous, let me live the life of a Libeler, and let the name of Libeler be engraven on my tomb,"

Two eminent personages were burnt in effigy in Europe about this time, one in France, the other in England: Paine and the Pope.

Under date of December 19th, the American minister (Morris) enters in his diary:

"Several Americans dine with me. Paine looks a little down at the news from England; he has been burned in effigy."

This was the reply of the Addressers, the noble men and gentry, to Paine's "Letter." It is said that on the Fifth of November it was hinted to the boys that their Guy Fawkes would extort more pennies if labeled "Tom Paine," and that thenceforth the new Guy paraded with a pair of stays under his arm. The holocaust of Paine went on through December, being timed for the author's trial, set for the eighteenth. One gets glimpses in various local records and memoirs of the agitation in England. Thus in Mrs. Henry Sandford's account of Thomas Poole, we read in Charlotte Poole's journal:

"December 18, 1792.

"John dined with Tom Poole, and from him heard that there was a great bustle at Bridgwater yesterday -- that Tom Paine was burnt in Effigy, and that he saw Richard Symes sitting on the Cornhill with a table before him, receiving the oaths of loyalty to the king, and affection to the present constitution, from the populace. I fancy this could not have been a very pleasant sight to Tom Poole, for he has imbibed some of the wild notions of liberty and equality that at present prevail so much: and it is but within these two or three days that a report has been circulated that he has distributed seditious pamphlets to the common people of Stowey. But this report is entirely without foundation. Everybody at this time talks politicks, and is looking with anxiety for fresh intelligence from France which is a scene of guilt and confusion."

In Richardson's "Borderer's Table Book" is recorded:

"1792 (Dec.)

"This is month, Thomas Paine, author of the `Rights of Man,' &c. &c., was burnt at most of the towns and considerable villages in Northumberland and Durham."

No doubt, among the Durham towns, Wearmouth saw at the stake an effigy of the man whose iron bridge, taken down at Paddington, and sold for other benefit than Paine's, was used in spanning the Wear with the arch of his invention: all amid shouts of "God save the King," and plaudits for the various public-spirited gentlemen and architects, who patriotically appropriated the merits and patent of the inventor. The Bury Post (published near Paine's birthplace) says, December 12th:

"The populace in different places have been lately amusing themselves by burning effigies. As the culprit on whom they meant to execute this punishment was Thomas Paine, they were not interrupted by any power civil or military. The ceremony has been at Croydon in Surrey, at Warrington, at Lymington, and at Plymouth."

"January 9, 1793

"On Saturday last the effigy of Thomas Paine was carried round the town of Swaffham, and afterwards hung on a gibbet, erected on the market-hill for that purpose. In the evening his remains were committed to the flames amidst acclamations of God save the King, etc."

The trial of Paine for high treason was by a Special Jury in the Court of King's Bench, Guildhall, on Tuesday, December 18, 1792, before Lord, Kenyon. The "Painites" had probably little hope of acquittal. In Rickman's journal (manuscript) he says: "C. Lofft told me he knew a gentleman who tried for five or six years to be on the special juries, but could not, being known to be a liberty man. He says special juries are packed to all intents and purposes." The reason for gathering such powerful counsel for defence must have been to obtain from the trial some definitive adjudication on the legal liabilities of writers and printers, and at the same time to secure, through the authority of Erskine, an affirmation of their constitutional rights. Lord Loughborough and others vainly tried to dissuade Erskine from defending Paine. For himself, Paine had given up the case some time before, and had written from Paris, November 11th, to the Attorney-General, stating that, having been called to the Convention in France, he could not stay to contest the prosecution, as he wished.

That the Government of England is as great, if not the greatest perfection of fraud and corruption that ever took place since governments began, is what you cannot be a stranger to; unless the constant habit of seeing it has blinded your sense. But though you may not chuse to see it, the people are seeing it very fast, and the progress is beyond what you may chuse to believe. Is it possible that you or I can believe, or that reason can make any other man believe, that the capacity of such a man as Mr. Guelph, or any of his profligate sons, is necessary to the government of a nation? I speak to you as one man ought to speak to another: and I know also that I speak what other people are beginning to think. That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if you do it will signify nothing) without packing a Jury, and we both know that such tricks are practised, is what I have very good reason to believe. . . .

Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of drawing away twelve men into a situation that may be injurious to them afterwards. I do not speak this from policy, but from benevolence; but if you chuse to go on with the process, I make it my request that you would read this letter in Court, after which the judge and the jury may do what they please. As I do not consider myself the object of the prosecution, neither can I be affected by the issue one way or the other, I shall, though a foreigner in your country, subscribe as much money as any other man towards supporting the right of the nation against the prosecution; and it is for this purpose only that I shall do it. As I have not time to copy letters, you will excuse the corrections."

A month after this awful letter was written, Paine no doubt knew its imprudence. It was sprung on the Court by the Attorney-General, and must alone have settled the verdict, had it not been foregone. Erskine, Paine's leading counsel, was Attorney-General for the Prince of Wales -- foremost of "Mr. Guelph's profligate sons," -- and he was compelled to treat as a forgery the letter all felt to be genuine. He endeavored to prevent the reading of it, but Lord Kenyon decided that "in prosecutions for high treason, where overt acts are laid, you may prove overt acts not laid to prove those that are laid. If it [the letter] goes to prove him the author of the book, I am bound to admit it." Authorship of the book being admitted, this was only a pretext. The Attorney-General winced a good deal at the allusion to the profligate sons, and asked:

"Is he [Paine] to teach human creatures, whose moments of existence depend upon the permission of a Being, merciful, long-suffering, and of great goodness, that those whose youthful errors, from which even royalty is not exempted, are to be treasured up in a vindictive memory, and are to receive sentence of irremissible sin at His hands?"

It may be incidentally remarked here that the Attorney-General could hardly have failed to retort with charges against the author, had not Paine's reputation remained proof against the libelous "biography" by the government clerk, Chalmers.

The main part of the prosecution was thus uttered by Paine himself. While reading the letter the prosecutor paused to say: "If I succced in this prosecution he shall never return to this country otherwise than in vinculis, for I will outlaw him."

Erskine's powerful defence of the constitutional rights of thought and speech in England is historical. He built around Paine an enduring constitutional fortress, compelling Burke and Fox to lend aid from their earlier speeches. The fable with which he closed was long remembered.

"Constraint is the natural parent of resistance, and a pregnant proof that reason is not on the side of those who use it. You must all remember, gentlemen, Lucian's pleasant story Jupiter and a countryman were walking together, conversing with great freedom and familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth. The countryman listened with attention and acquiescence, while Jupiter strove only to convince him: but happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily around and threatened him with his thunder. `Ah, ha !' says the countryman, `now, Jupiter, I know that you are wrong; you are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder.'

"This is the case with me. I can reason with the people of England, but I cannot fight against the thunder of authority."

Mr. Attorney-General arose immediately to reply to Mr. Erskine, when Mr. Campbell (the foreman of the jury) said: "My Lord, I am authorized by the jury here to inform the Attorney-General that a reply is not necessary for them, unless the Attorney-General wishes to make it, or your Lordship." Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the jury gave in their verdict -- Guilty.

Paine was outlawed.

The eye of England followed its outlaw before and after his trial. In the English state archives is a note of G. Munro to Lord Grenville, September 8th, announcing "Mr. Payne's" election for the Département de l'Oise. Earl Gower announces, on information of Mr. Mason, that "Tom Payne is on his road to take his seat." On September 22d a despatch mentions Paine's speech on the judiciary question. "December 17, 1792. Tom Payne is in the country unwell, or pretending to be so." The most remarkable of the secret despatches, however, are two sent from Paris on the last day of the year 1792. One of these alludes to the effect of Paine's trial and outlawry on the English radicals in Paris:

"Tom Payne's fate and the unanimity of the English has staggered the boldest of them, and they are now dwindling into nothing. Another address was, however, proposed for the National Convention: this motion, I understand, was made by Tom Payne and seconded by Mr. Mery: it was opposed by Mr. Frost, seconded by Mr. McDonald."

The second allusion to Paine on December 31st deserves to be pondered by historians:

"Tom Payne has proposed banishing the royal family of France, and I have heard is writing his opinion on the subject; his consequence seems daily lessening in this country, and I should never be surprised if he some day receives the fate he merits."

It thus seems that whatever good deed Paine was about, he deserves death. Earl Gower, and the agents he left on his departure (September) in Paris, must have known that Paine's proposal was the only alternative of the king's execution, and that if his consequence was lessening it was solely because of labors to save the lives of the royal family. This humane man has the death-sentence of Robespierre on him anticipated by the ambassador of a country which, while affecting grief for Louis XVI., was helping on his fate.

Danton said to Count Theodore de Lameth:

"I am willing to try and save the King, but I must have a million of money to buy up the necessary votes, and the money must be on hand in eight days. I warn you that although I may save his life I shall vote for his death; I am quite willing to save his head, but not to lose mine."

The Count and the Spanish Ambassador broached the matter to Pitt, who refused the money. He was not willing to spend a few thousands to save the life of America's friend, though he made his death a pretext for exhausting his treasury to deluge Europe with blood.

Gouverneur Morris, whose dislike of Paine's republicanism was equally cynical, was intimate with Earl Gower, and no doubt gave him his information. Morris was clear-headed enough to perceive that the massacres in France were mainly due to the menaces of foreign monarchs, and was in hearty sympathy with Paine's plan for saving the life of Louis XVI. On December 28th he writes to Washington that a majority of the Convention:

"have it in contemplation not only to refer the judgment to the electors of France, that is, to her people, but also to send him and his family to America, which Paine is to move for. He mentioned this to me in confidence, but I have since heard it from another quarter."

On January 6, 1793, Morris writes to Washington concerning Genêt, the new Minister to the United States, who had been introduced to him by Paine, and dined with him. At the close he says:

"The King's fate is to be decided next Monday the 14th. That unhappy man, conversing with one of his council on his own fate, calmly summed up the motives of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the Council [Convention] would vote for referring his case to the people, and that in consequence he should be massacred. I think he must die or reign."

Paine also feared that a reference to the populace meant death. He had counted a majority in the Convention who were opposed to the execution. Submission of the question to the masses would thus, if his majority stood firm, be risking the life of Louis again. Unfortunately this question had to be determined before the vote on life or death. At the opening of the year 1793 he felt cheerful about the situation. On January 3d he wrote to John King, a retreating comrade in England, as follows:

"DEAR KING,

"I don't know anything, these many years, that surprised and hurt me more than the sentiments you published in the Courtly HERALD, the 12th December, signed John King, Egham Lodge. You have gone back from all you ever said. When I first knew you in Ailiffe-street, an obscure part of the city, a child, without fortune or friends, I noticed you: because I thought I saw in you, young as you was, a bluntness of temper, a boldness of opinion, and an originality of thought, that portended some future good. I was pleased to discuss with you, under our friend Oliver's lime-tree, those political notions which I have since given the world in my `Rights of Man.'

"You used to complain of abuses as well as me. What, then, means this sudden attachment to Rings? this fondness of the English Government, and hatred of the French? If you mean to curry favour, by aiding your Government, you are mistaken: they never recompence those who serve it: they buy off those who can annoy it, and let the good that is rendered it be its own reward. Believe me, KING, more is to be obtained by cherishing the rising spirit of the People, than by subduing it. Follow my fortunes, and I will be answerable that you shall make your own.

"THOMAS PAINE"

"This last sentence may even now raise a smile. King must subsequently have reflected with satisfaction that he did not "follow the fortunes" of Paine, which led him into prison at the end of the year. A third letter from him to Paine appeared in the Morning Herald, April 17, 1793, in which he says:

" 'If the French kill their king, it will be a signal for my departure, for I will not abide among such sanguinary men.' These, Mr. Paine, were your words at our last meeting; yet after this you are not only with them, but the chief modeler of their new Constitution."

Mr. King might have reflected that the author of the "Rights of Man," which he had admired, was personally safer in regicide France than in liberticide England, which had outlawed him.

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Contents of Volume II:

• I. "Kill the King, but Not the Man" (1793)
• II. An Outlawed English Ambassador (1793)
• III. Revolution vs. Constitution (1793)
• IV. A Garden in the Faubourg St. Denis (1793)
• V. A conspiracy (1793)
• VI. A Testimony Under the Guillotine (1793-1794)
• VII. A Minister and His Prisoner (1794)
• VIII. Sick and in Prison (1794)
• IX. A Restoration (1795)
• X. The Silence of Washington (1795-1796)
• XI. "The Age of Reason" (1794-1795)
• XII. Friendships (1795-1796)
• XIII. Theophilanthropy (1796-1797)
• XIV. The Republican Abdiel (1797-1800)
• XV. The Last Year in Europe (1801-1802)
• XVI. The American Inquisition (1802-1803)
• XVII. New Rochelle and the Bonnevilles (1803-1805)
• XVIII. A New York Prometheus (1805-1807)
• XIX. Personal Traits (1806-1808)
• XX. Death and Resurrection (1808-1809)

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Chapter 1. "Kill the King, but Not the Man." [1793]

Dumas' hero, Dr. Gilbert (in "Ange Pitou" ), an idealization of Paine, interprets his hopes and horrors on the opening of the fateful year 1793. Dr. Gilbert's pamphlets had helped to found liberty in the New World, but sees that it may prove the germ of total ruin to the Old World.

"A new world," repeated Gilbert; "that is to say, a vast open space, a clear table to work upon, -- no laws, but no abuses; no ideas, but no prejudices. In France, thirty thousand square leagues of territory for thirty millions of people; that is to say, should the space be equally divided, scarcely room for a cradle or a grave for each. Out yonder, in America, two hundred thousand square leagues for three millions of people; frontiers which are ideal, for they border on the desert, which is to say, immensity. In those two hundred thousand leagues, navigable rivers, having a course of a thousand leagues; virgin forests, of which God alone knows the limits, -- that is to say, all the elements of life, of civilization, and of a brilliant future. Oh, how easy it is, Billot, when a man is called Lafayette, and is accustomed to wield a sword; when a man is called Washington, and is accustomed to reflect deeply, -- how easy is it to combat against walls of wood, of earth, of stone, of human flesh! But when, instead of founding, it is necessary to destroy; when we see in the old order things that we are obliged to attack, walls of bygone, crumbling ideas; and that behind the ruins even of these walls crowds of people and of interests still take refuge; when, after having found the idea, we find that in order to make the people adopt it, it will be necessary perhaps to decimate that people, from the old who remember to the child who has still to learn; from the recollection which is the monument to the instinct that is its germ -- then, oh then, Billot, it is a task that will make all shudder who can see beneath the horizon . . . . I shall, however, persevere, for although I see obstacles, I can perceive the end; and that end is splendid, Billot. It is not the liberty of France alone that I dream of; it is the liberty of the whole world. It is not the physical equality; it is equality before the law, -- equality of rights. It is not only the fraternity of our own citizens, but of all nations . . . . Forward, then, and over the heaps of our dead bodies may one day march the generations of which this boy here is in the advanced guard!"

Though Dr. Gilbert has been in the Bastille, though he barely escapes the bullet of a revolutionist, he tries to unite the throne and the people. So, as we have seen, did Paine struggle until the King took flight, and, over his own signature, branded all his pledges as extorted lies. Henceforth for the King personally he has no respect; yet the whole purpose of his life is now to save, that of the prisoner. Besides his humane horror of capital punishment, especially in a case which involves the heads of thousands, Paine foresees Nemesis fashioning her wheels in every part of Europe, and her rudder across the ocean, -- where America beholds in Louis XVI. her deliverer.

Paine's outlawry, announced by Kersaint in Convention, January 1st, was more eloquent for wrath than he for clemency. Under such menaces the majority for sparing Louis shrank with the New Year; French pride arose, and with Danton was eager to defy despots by tossing to them the head of a king. Poor Paine found his comrades retreating. What would a knowledge of the French tongue have been worth to this leading republican of the world, just then the one man sleeplessly seeking to save a King's life! He could not plead with his enraged republicans, who at length over powered even Brissot, so far as to draw him into the fatal plan of voting for the King's death, coupled with submission to the verdict of the people. Paine saw that there was at the moment no people, but only an infuriated clan. He was now defending a forlorn hope, but he struggled with a heroism that would have commanded the homage of Europe had not its courts been also clans. He hit on a scheme which he hoped might; in that last extremity, save the real revolution from a suicidal inhumanity. It was the one statesmanlike proposal of the time that the King should be held as a hostage for the peaceful behavior of other kings, and, when their war on France had ceased, banished to the United States.

On January 15th, before the vote on the King's punishment was put, Paine gave his manuscript address to the president: debate closed before it could be read, and it was printed. He argued that the Assembly, in bringing back Louis when he had abdicated and fled, was the more guilty; and against his transgressions it should be remembered that by his aid the shackles of America were broken.

"Let then those United States be the guard and the asylum of Louis Capet. There, in the future, remote from the miseries and crimes of royalty, he may learn, from the constant presence of public prosperity, that the true system of government consists not in monarchs, but in fair, equal, and honorable representation. In recalling this circumstance, and submitting this proposal, I consider myself a citizen of both countries. I submit it as an American who feels the debt of gratitude he owes to every Frenchman. I submit it as a man, who, albeit an adversary of kings, forgets not that they are subject to human frailties. I support my proposal as a citizen of the French Republic, because it appears to me the best and most politic measure that can be adopted. As far as my experience in public life extends, I have ever observed that the great mass of people are always just, both in their intentions and their object; but the true method of attaining such purpose does not always appear at once. The English nation had groaned under the Stuart despotism. Hence Charles I. was executed; but Charles II. was restored to all the powers his father had lost. Forty years later the same family tried to re-establish their oppression; the nation banished the whole race from its territories. The remedy was effectual; the Stuart family sank into obscurity, merged itself in the masses, and is now extinct."

He reminds the Convention that the king had two brothers out of the country who might naturally desire his death: the execution of the king might make them presently plausible pretenders to the throne, around whom their foreign enemies would rally: while the man recognized by foreign powers as the rightful monarch of France was living there could be no such pretender.

"It has already been proposed to abolish the penalty of death, and it is with infinite satisfaction that I recollect the humane and excellent oration pronounced by Robespierre on the subject, in the constituent Assembly. Monarchical governments have trained the human race to sanguinary punishments, but the people should not follow the examples of their oppressors in such vengeance. As France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find out a milder and more effectual substitute."

This was admirable art. Under shelter of Robespierre's appeal against the death penalty, the "Mountain," could not at the moment break the force of Paine's plea by reminding the Convention of his Quaker sentiments. It will be borne in mind that up to this time Robespierre was not impressed, nor Marat possessed, by the homicidal demon. Marat had felt for Paine a sort of contemptuous kindness, and one day privately said to him: "It is you, then, who believe in a republic; you have too much sense to believe in such a dream." Robespierre, according to Lamartine, "affected for the cosmopolitan radicalism of Paine the respect of a neophite for ideas not understood." Both leaders now suspected that Paine had gone over to the "Brissotins," as the Girondists were beginning to be called. However, the Brissotins, though a majority, had quailed before the ferocity with which the Jacobins had determined on the king's death. M. Taine declares that the victory of the minority in this case was the familiar one of reckless violence over the more civilized the wild beast over the tame. Louis Blanc denies that the Convention voted, as one of them said, under poignards; but the signs of fear are unmistakable.

Vergniaud had declared it an insult for any one to suppose he would vote for the king's death, but he voted for it. Villette was threatened with death if he did not vote for that of the king. Sieyès, who had attacked Paine for republicanism, voted death. "What," he afterward said, "what were the tribute of my glass of wine in that torrent of brandy?" But Paine did not withhold his cup of cold water. When his name was called he cried out: "I vote for the detention of Louis till the end of the war, and after that his perpetual banishment." He spoke his well prepared vote in French, and may have given courage to others. For even under poignards -- the most formidable being liability to a charge of royalism -- the vote had barely gone in favor of death.

The fire-breathing Mountain felt now that its supremacy was settled. It had learned its deadly art of conquering a thinking majority by recklessness. But suddenly another question was sprung upon the Convention: Shall the execution be immediate, or shall there be delay? The Mountain groans and hisses as the question is raised, but the dictation had not extended to this point, and the question must be discussed. Here is one more small chance for Paine's poor royal client. Can the execution only be postponed it will probably never be executed. Unfortunately Marat, whose thirst for the King's blood is almost cannibalistic, can read on Paine's face his elation. He realizes that this American, with Washington behind him, has laid before the Convention a clear and consistent scheme for utilizing the royal prisoner. The king's neck under a suspended knife, it will rest with the foreign enemies of France whether it shall fall or not; while the magnanimity of France and its respect for American gratitude will prevail. Paine, then, must be dealt with somehow in this new debate about delay.

He might, indeed, have been dealt with summarily had not the Moniteur done him an opportune service; on January 17th and 18th it printed Paine's unspoken argument for mercy, along with Erskine's speech at his trial in London, and the verdict. So on the 19th, when Paine entered the Convention, it was with the prestige not only of one outlawed by Great Britain for advocating the Rights of Man, but of a representative of the best Englishmen and their principles. It would be vain to assail the author's loyalty to the Republic. That he would speak that day was certain, for on the morrow (20th) the final vote was to be taken. The Mountain could not use on Paine their weapon against Girondins; they could not accuse the author of the "Rights of Man" of being royalist. When he had mounted the tribune, and the clerk (Bancal, Franklin's friend) was beginning to read his speech, Marat cried, "I submit that Thomas Paine is incompetent to vote on this question; being a Quaker his religious principles are opposed to the death-penalty." There was great confusion for a time. The anger of the Jacobins was extreme, says, Guizot, and "they refused to listen to the speech of Paine, the American, till respect for his courage gained him a hearing:" Demands for freedom of speech gradually subdued the interruptions, and the secretary proceeded:

"Very sincerely do I regret the Convention's vote of yesterday for death. I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years that I have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed something to it in the revolution of the United States of America. My language has always been that of liberty and humanity, and I know by experience that nothing so exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all circumstances. I know that the public mind of France, and particularly that of Paris, has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which they have been exposed; but could we carry our thoughts into the future, when the dangers are ended, and the irritations forgotten, what to-day seems an act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance.

[Murmurs.] My anxiety for the cause of France has become for the moment concern for its honor. If, on my return to America, I should employ myself on a history of the French Revolution, I had rather record a thousand errors dictated by humanity, than one inspired by a justice too severe. I voted against an appeal to the people, because it appeared to me that the Convention was needlessly wearied on that point; but I so voted in the hope that this Assembly would pronounce against death, and for the same punishment that the nation would have voted, at least in my opinion, that is, for reclusion during the war and banishment thereafter. That is the punishment most efficacious, because it includes the whole family at once, and none other can so operate. I am still against the appeal to the primary assemblies, because there is a better method. This Convention has been elected to form a Constitution, which will be submitted to the primary assemblies. After its acceptance a necessary consequence will be an election, and another Assembly. We cannot suppose that the present Convention will last more than five or six months. The choice of new deputies will express the, national opinion on the propriety or impropriety of your sentence, with as much efficacy as if those primary assemblies had been consulted on it. As the duration of our functions here cannot be long, it is a part of our duty to consider the interests of those who shall replace us. If by any act of ours the number of the nation's enemies shall be needlessly increased, and that of its friends diminished, -- at a time when the finances may be more strained than to-day, -- we should not be justifiable for having thus unnecessarily heaped obstacles in the path of our successors. Let us therefore not be precipitate in our decisions.

"France has but one ally -- the United States of America. That is the only nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the kingdoms of northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It happens, unfortunately, that the person now under discussion is regarded in America as a deliverer of their country. I can assure you that his execution will there spread universal sorrow, and it is in your power not thus to wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French language I would descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to respite the execution of the sentence on Louis."

Here were loud murmurs from the "Mountain," answered with demands for liberty of opinion. Thuriot sprang to his feet crying, "This is not the language of Thomas Paine." Marat mounted the tribune and asked Paine some questions, apparently in English, then descending he said to the Assembly in French: "I denounce the interpreter, and I maintain that such is not the opinion of Thomas Paine. It is a wicked and faithless translation." These words, audacious as mendacious, caused a tremendous uproar. Garran came to the rescue of the frightened clerk, declaring that he had read the original, and the translation was correct. Paine stood silent and calm during the storm. The clerk proceeded:

"Your Executive Committee will nominate an ambassador to Philadelphia; my sincere wish is that he may announce to America that the National Convention of France, out of pure friendship to America, has consented to respite Louis. That people, your only ally, have asked you by my vote to delay the execution.

"Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the man perish on a scaffold who helped my dear brothers of America to break his chains!"

At the conclusion of this speech Marat "launched himself into the middle of the hall" and cried out that Paine had "voted against the punishment of death because he was a Quaker." Paine replied, "I voted against it both morally and politically."

Had the vote been taken that day perhaps Louis might have escaped. Brissot, shielded from charges of royalism by Paine's republican fame, now strongly supported his cause. "A cruel precipitation," he cried, "may alienate our friends in England, Ireland, America. Take care! The opinion of European peoples is worth to you armies!" But all this only brought out the Mountain's particular kind of courage; they were ready to defy the world -- Washington included -- in order to prove that a King's neck was no more than any other man's. Marat's clan -- the "Nihilists" of the time, whose strength was that they stopped at nothing -- had twenty-four hours to work in; they surrounded the Convention next day with a mob howling for "justice!" Fifty-five members were absent; of the 690 present a majority of seventy decided that Louis XVI. should die within twenty-four hours.

A hundred years have passed since that tragedy of poor Louis; graves have given up their dead; secrets of the hearts that then played their part are known. The world can now judge between England's Outlaw and England's King of that day. For it is established, as we have seen, both by English and French archives, that while Thomas Paine was toiling night and day to save the life of Louis that life lay in the hand of the British Ministry. Some writers question the historic truth of the offer made by Danton, but none can question the refusal of intercession, urged by Fox and others at a time when (as Count d'Estaing told Morris) the Convention was ready to give Pitt the whole French West Indies to keep him quiet. It was no doubt with this knowledge that Paine declared from the tribune that George III. Would triumph in the execution of the King who helped America to break England's chains. Brissot also knew it when with weighed words he reported for his Committee (January 12th): "The grievance of the British Cabinet against France is not that Louis is in judgment, but that Thomas Paine wrote `The Rights of Man.' " "The militia were armed," says Louis Blanc, "in the south-east of England troops received order to march to London, the meeting of Parliament was advanced forty days, the Tower was reinforced by a new garrison, in fine there was unrolled a formidable preparation of war against -- Thomas Paine's book on the Rights of Man!"

Incredible as this may appear the debates in the House of Commons, on which it is fairly founded, would be more incredible were they not duly reported in the "Parliamentary History." In the debates on the Alien Bill, permitting the King to order any foreigner out of the country at will, on making representations to the French Convention in behalf of the life of Louis, on augmenting the military forces with direct reference to France, the recent trial of Paine was rehearsed, and it was plainly shown that the object of the government was to suppress freedom of the press by Terror. Erskine was denounced for defending Paine and for afterwards attending a meeting of the "Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press," to whose resolutions on Paine's case his name was attached. Erskine found gallant defenders in the House, among them Fox, who demanded of Pitt: "Can you not prosecute Paine without an army?" Burke at this time enacted a dramatic scene. Having stated that three thousand daggers had been ordered at Birmingham by an Englishman, he drew from his pocket a dagger, cast it on the floor of the House of Commons, and cried: "That is what we are to get from an alliance with France!" Paine -- Paine -- Paine -- was the burden laid on Pitt, who had said to Lady Hester Stanhope: "Tom Paine is quite right." That Thomas Paine and his "Rights of Man" were the actual cause of the English insults to which their declaration of war replied was so well understood in the French Convention that its first answer to the menaces was to appoint Paine and Condorcet to write an address to the English people.

It is noticeable that on the question whether the judgment on the King's fate should be submitted to the people, Paine voted "No." His belief in the right of all to representation implied distrust of the immediate voice of the masses. The King had said that if his case were referred to the people "he should be massacred." Gouverneur Morris had heard this, and no doubt communicated it to Paine, who was in consultation with him on his plan of sending Louis to America. Indeed, it is probable that popular suffrage would have ratified the decree. Nevertheless, it was a fair "appeal to the people" which Paine made, after the fatal verdict, in expressing to the Convention his belief that the people would not have done so. For after the decree the helplessness of the prisoner appealed to popular compassion, and on the fatal day the tide had turned. Four days after the execution the American Minister writes to Jefferson: "The greatest care was taken to prevent a concourse of people. This proves a conviction that the majority was not favorable to that severe measure. In fact the great mass of the people mourned the fate of their unhappy prince."

To Paine the death of an "unhappy prince" was no more a subject for mourning than that of the humblest criminal -- for, with whatever extenuating circumstances, a criminal he was to the republic he had sworn to administer. But the impolicy of the execution, the resentment uselessly incurred, the loss of prestige in America, were felt by Paine as a heavy blow to his cause -- always the international republic. He was, however, behind the scenes enough to know that the blame rested mainly on America's old enemy and his league of foreign courts against liberated France. The man who, when Franklin said "Where liberty is, there is my country," answered "Where liberty is not, there is mine," would not despair of the infant republic because of its blunders. Attributing these outbursts to maddening conspiracies around and within the new-born nation, he did not believe there could be peace in Europe so long as it was ruled by George III. He therefore set himself to the struggle, as he had done in 1776. Moreover, Paine has faith in Providence.

At this time, it should be remembered, opposition to capital punishment was confined to very few outside of the despised sect of Quakers. In the debate three, besides Paine, gave emphatic expression to that sentiment, Manuel, Condorcet, -- Robespierre! The, former, in giving his vote against death, said: "To Nature belongs the right of death. Despotism has taken it from her; Liberty will return it." As for Robespierre, his argument was a very powerful reply to Paine, who had reminded him of the bill he had introduced into the old National Assembly for the abolition of capital punishment. He did, indeed, abhor it, he said; it was not his fault if his views had been disregarded. But why should men who then opposed him suddenly revive the claims of humanity when the penalty happened to fall upon a King? Was the penalty good enough for the people, but not for a King? If there were any exception in favor of such a punishment, it should be for a royal criminal.

This opinion of Robespierre is held by some humane men. The present writer heard from Professor Francis W. Newman -- second to none in philanthropy and compassionateness -- a suggestion that the death penalty should be reserved for those placed at the head of affairs who betray their trust, or set their own above the public interests to the injury of a Commonwealth.

The real reasons for the execution of the King closely resemble those of Washington for the execution of Major André, notwithstanding the sorrow of the country, with which the Commander sympathized. The equal nationality of the United States, repudiated by Great Britain, was in question.

To hang spies was, however illogically, a conventional usage among nations. Major André must die, therefore, and must be refused the soldier's death for which he petitioned. For a like reason Europe must be shown that the French Convention is peer of their scornful Parliaments; and its fundamental principle, the equality of men, could not admit a King's escape from the penalty which would be unhesitatingly inflicted on a "Citizen." The King had assumed the title of Citizen, had worn the republican cockade; the apparent concession of royal inviolability, in the moment of his betrayal of the compromise made with him, could be justified only on the grounds stated by Paine, -- impolicy of slaying their hostage, creating pretenders, alienating America; and the honor of exhibiting to the world, by a salient example, the Republic's magnanimity in contrast with the cruelty of Kings.

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Chapter II. An Outlawed English Ambassador. [1793]

Soon after Paine had taken his seat in the Convention, Lord Fortescue wrote to Miles, an English agent in Paris, a letter fairly expressive of the feelings, fears, and hopes of his class.

"Tom Paine is just where he ought to be -- a member of the Convention of Cannibals. One would have thought it impossible that any society upon the face of the globe should have been fit for the reception of such a being until the late deeds of the National Convention have shown them to be most fully qualified. His vocation will not be complete, nor theirs either, till his head finds its way to the top of a pike, which will probably not be long first."

But if Paine was so fit for such a Convention, why should they behead him? The letter betrays a real perception that Paine possesses humane principles, and an English courage, which would bring him into danger. This undertone of Fortescue's invective represented the profound confidence of Paine's adherents in England. When tidings came of the King's trial and execution, whatever glimpses they gained of their outlawed leader showed him steadfast as a star caught in one wave and another of that turbid tide. Many, alas, needed apologies, but Paine required none. That one Englishman, standing on the tribune for justice and humanity, amid three hundred angry Frenchmen in uproar, was as sublime a sight as Europe witnessed in those days. To the English radical the outlawry of Paine was as the tax on light, which was presently walling up London windows, or extorting from them the means of war against ideas. The trial of Paine had elucidated nothing, except that, like Jupiter, John Bull had the thunderbolts, and Paine the arguments. Indeed, it is difficult to discover any other Englishman who at the moment pre-eminently stood for principles now proudly called English.

But Paine too presently held thunderbolts. Although his efforts to save Louis had offended the "Mountain," and momentarily brought him into the danger Lord Fortescue predicted, that party was not yet in the ascendant. The Girondists were still in power, and though some of their leaders had bent before the storm, that they might not be broken, they had been impressed both by the courage and the tactics of Paine. "The Girondists consulted Paine," says Lamartine, "and placed him on the Committee of Surveillance." At this moment many Englishmen were in France, and at a word from Paine some of their heads might have mounted on the pike which Lord Fortescue had imaginatively prepared for the head that wrote "The Rights of Man." There remained, for instance, Mr. Munro, already mentioned. This gentleman, in a note preserved in the English Archives, had written to Lord Grenville (September 8, 1792) concerning Paine: "What must a nation come to that has so little discernment in the election of their representatives, as to elect such a fellow?" But having lingered in Paris after England's formal declaration of war (February 11th), Munro was cast into prison. (He owed his release to that "fellow" Paine, and must be duly credited with having acknowledged it, and changed his tone for the rest of his life, -- which he probably owed to the English committeeman. Had Paine met with the fate which Lords Gower and Fortescue hoped, it would have gone hard with another eminent countryman of theirs, -- Captain Grimstone, R.A. This personage, during a dinner party at the Palais Égalité, got into a controversy with Paine, and, forgetting that the English Jove could not in Paris safely answer argument with thunder, called Paine a traitor to his country and struck him a violent blow. Death was the penalty of striking a deputy, and Paine's friends were not unwilling to see the penalty inflicted on this stout young Captain who had struck a man of fifty-six. Paine had much trouble in obtaining from Barrère, of the Committee of Public Safety, a passport out of the country for Captain Grimstone, whose traveling expenses were supplied by the man he had struck.

In a later instance, related by Walter Savage Landor, Paine's generosity amounted to quixotism. The story is finely told by Landor, who says in a note: "This anecdote was communicated to me at Florence by Mr. Evans, a painter of merit, who studied under Lawrence, and who knew personally (Zachariah) Wilkes and Watt. In religion and politics he differed widely from Paine."

"Sir;" said he, "let me tell you what he did for me. My name is Zachariah Wilkes. I was arrested in Paris and condemned to die. I had no friend here; and it was a time when no friend would have served me: Robespierre ruled. 'I am innocent!' I cried in desperation. 'I am innocent, so help me God! I am condemned for the offence of another.' I wrote a statement of my case with a pencil; thinking at first of addressing it to my judge, then of directing it to the president of the Convention. The jailer, who had been kind to me, gave me a gazette, and told me not to mind seeing my name, so many were there before it.

" `O!' said I 'though you would not lend me your ink, do transmit this paper to the president.'

" `No, my friend!' answered he gaily. 'My head is as good as yours, and looks as well between the shoulders, to my liking. - Why not send it (if you send it anywhere) to the deputy Paine here?' pointing to a column in the paper.

" `O God! he must hate and detest the name of Englishman: pelted, insulted, persecuted, plundered . . . '

" `I could give it to him,' said the jailer.

" 'Do then!' said I wildly. 'One man more shall know my innocence.' He came within the half hour. I told him my name, that my employers were Watt and Boulton of Birmingham, that I had papers of the greatest consequence, that if I failed to transmit them, not only my life was in question, but my reputation. He replied: `I know your employers by report only; there are no two men less favourable to the principles I profess, but no two upon earth are honester. You have only one great man among you: it is Watt; for Priestley is gone to America. The church-and-king men would have japanned him. He left to these philosophers of the rival school his house to try experiments on; and you may know, better than I do, how much they found in it of carbon and calx, of silex and argilla.'

"He examined me closer than my judge had done; he required my proofs. After a long time I satisfied him. He then said, 'The leaders of the Convention would rather have my life than yours. If by any means I can obtain your release on my own security, will you promise me to return within twenty days?' I answered, 'Sir, the security I can at present give you, is trifling . . . I should say a mere nothing.'

" 'Then you do not give me your word?' said he.

" `I give it and will redeem it.'

"He went away, and told me I should see him again when he could inform me whether he had succeeded. He returned in the earlier part of the evening, looked fixedly upon me, and said,

'Zachariah Wilkes! if you do not return in twenty-four days (four are added) you will be the most unhappy of men; for had you not been an honest one, you could not be the agent of Watt and Boulton. I do not think I have hazarded much in offering to take your place on your failure: such is the condition.' I was speechless; he was unmoved. Silence was first broken by the jailer. 'He seems to get fond of the spot now he must leave it.' I had thrown my arms upon the table towards my liberator, who sat opposite, and I rested my head and breast upon it too, for my temples ached and tears had not yet relieved them. He said, 'Zachariah! follow me to the carriage.' The soldiers paid the respect due to his scarf, presenting arms, and drawing up in file as we went along. The jailer called for a glass of wine, gave it me, poured out another, and drank to our next meeting."

Another instance may be related in Paine's own words, written (March 20, 1806) to a gentleman in New York.

"SIR,

"I will inform you of what I know respecting General Miranda, with whom I first became acquainted at New York, about the year 1783. He is a man of talents and enterprise, and the whole of his life has been a life of adventures.

"I went to Europe from New York in April, 1787. Mr. Jefferson was then Minister from America to France, and Mr. Littlepage, a Virginian (whom Mr. Jay knows), was agent for the king of Poland, at Paris. Mr. Littlepage was a young man of extraordinary talents, and I first met with him at Mr. Jefferson's house at dinner. By his intimacy with the king of Poland, to whom also he was chamberlain, he became well acquainted with the plans and projects of the Northern Powers of Europe. He told me of Miranda's getting himself introduced to the Empress Catharine of Russia, and obtaining a sum of money from her, four thousand pounds sterling; but it did not appear to me what the object was for which the money was given; it appeared a kind of retaining fee.

"After I had published the first part of the `Rights of Man' in England, in the year 1791, I met Miranda at the house of Turnbull and Forbes, merchants, Devonshire Square, London. He had been a little before this in the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to the affair of Nootka Sound, but I did not at that time know it; and I will, in the course of this letter, inform you how this connection between Pitt and Miranda ended; for I know it of my own knowledge.

''I published the second part of the 'Rights of Man' in London, in February, 1792, and I continued in London till I was elected a member of the French Convention, in September of that year; and went from London to Paris to take my seat in the Convention, which was to meet the 20th of that month. I arrived in Paris on the 19th. After the Convention met, Miranda came to Paris, and was appointed general of the French army, under General Dumouriez. But as the affairs of that army went wrong in the beginning of the year 1793, Miranda was suspected, and was brought under arrest to Paris to take his trial. He summoned me to appear to his character, and also a Mr. Thomas Christie, connected with the house of Turnbull and Forbes. I gave my testimony as I believed, which was, that his leading object was and had been the emancipation of his country, Mexico, from the bondage of Spain; for I did not at that time know of his engagements with Pitt. Mr. Christie's evidence went to show that Miranda did not come to France as a necessitous adventurer; but believed he came from public spirited motives, and that he had a large sum of money in the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. The house of Turnbull and Forbes was then in a contract to supply Paris with flour. Miranda was acquitted.

"A few days after his acquittal he came to see me, and in a few days afterwards I returned his visit. He seemed desirous of satisfying me that he was independent, and that he had money in the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. He did not tell me of his affair with old Catharine of Russia, nor did I tell him that I knew of it. But be entered into conversation with respect to Nootka Sound, and put into my hands several letters of Mr. Pitt's to him on that subject; amongst which was one which I believe he gave me by mistake, for when I had opened it, and was beginning to read it, he put forth his hand and said, 'O, that is not the letter I intended'; but as the letter was short I soon got through with it, and then returned it to him without making any remarks upon it. The dispute with Spain was then compromised; and Pitt compromised with Miranda for his services by giving him twelve hundred pounds sterling, for this was the contents of the letter.

"Now if it be true that Miranda brought with him a credit upon certain persons in New York for sixty thousand pounds sterling, it is not difficult to suppose from what quarter the money came; for the opening of any proposals between Pitt and Miranda was already made by the affair of Nootka Sound. Miranda was in Paris when Mr. Monroe arrived there as Minister; and as Miranda wanted to get acquainted with him, I cautioned Mr. Monroe against him, and told him of the affair of Nootka Sound, and the twelve hundred pounds.

"You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter, and with my name to it."

Here we find a paid agent of Pitt calling on outlawed Paine for aid, by his help liberated from prison; and, when his true character is accidentally discovered, and he is at the outlaw's mercy, spared, -- no doubt because this true English ambassador, who could not enter England, saw that at the moment passionate vengeance had taken the place of justice in Paris. Lord Gower had departed, and Paine must try and shield even his English enemies and their agents, where, as in Miranda's case, the agency did not appear to affect France. This was while his friends in England were hunted down with ferocity.

In the earlier stages of the French Revolution there was much sympathy with it among literary men and in the universities. Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, were leaders in the revolutionary cult at Oxford and Cambridge. By 1792, and especially after the institution of Paine's prosecution, the repression became determined. The memoir of Thomas Poole, already referred to, gives the experiences of a Somerset gentleman, a friend of Coleridge. After the publication of Paine's "Rights of Man" (1791) he became a "political Ishmaelite."

"He made his appearance amongst the wigs and powdered locks of his kinsfolk and acquaintance, male and female, without any of the customary powder in his hair, which innocent novelty was a scandal to all beholders, seeing that it was the outward and visible sign of a love of innovation, a well-known badge of sympathy with democratic ideas."

Among Poole's friends, at Stowey, was an attorney named Symes, who lent him Paine's "Rights of Man." After Paine's outlawry Symes met a cabinet-maker with a copy of the book, snatched it out of his hand, tore it up, and, having learned that it was lent him by Poole, propagated about the country that he (Poole) was distributing seditious literature about the country. Being an influential man, Poole prevented the burning of Paine in effigy at Stowey. As time goes on this country-gentleman and scholar finds the government opening his letters, and warning his friends that he is in danger.

"It was," he writes to a friend, "the boast an Englishman was wont to make that he could think, speak, and write whatever he thought proper, provided he violated no law, nor injured any individual. But now an absolute control exists, not indeed over, the imperceptible operations of the mind, for those no power of man can control; but, what is the same thing, over the effects of those operations, and if among these effects, that of speaking is to be checked, the soul is as much enslaved as the body in a cell of the Bastille. The man who once feels, nay fancies, this, is a slave. It shows as if the suspicious secret government of an Italian Republic had replaced the open, candid government of the English laws."

As Thomas Poole well represents the serious and cultured thought of young England in that time, it is interesting to read his judgment on the king's execution and the imminent war.

"Many thousands of human beings will be sacrificed in the ensuing contest, and for what? To support three or four individuals, called arbitrary kings, in the situation which they have usurped. I consider every Briton who loses his life in the war as much murdered as the King of France, and every one who approves the war, as signing the death warrant of each soldier or sailor that falls . . . . The excesses in France are great; but who are the authors of them? The Emperor of Germany, the King of Prussia, and Mr. Burke. Had it not been for their impertinent interference, I firmly believe the King of France would be at this moment a happy monarch, and that people would be enjoying every advantage of political liberty . . . . The slave-trade, you will see, will not be abolished, because to be humane and honest now is to be a traitor to the constitution, a lover of sedition and licentiousness? But this universal depression of the human mind cannot last long."

It was in this spirit that the defence of a free press was undertaken in England. That thirty years' war was fought and won on the works of Paine. There were some "Lost Leaders": the king's execution, the reign of terror, caused reaction in many a fine spirit; but the rank and file followed their Thomas Paine with a faith that crowned heads might envy. The London men knew Paine thoroughly. The treasures of the world would not draw him, nor any terrors drive him, to the side of cruelty and inhumanity. Their eye was upon him. Had Paine, after the king's execution, despaired of the republic there might have ensued some demoralization among his followers in London. But they saw him by the side of the delivered prisoner of the Bastille, Brissot, an author well known in England, by the side of Condorcet and others of Franklin's honored circle, engaged in death-struggle with the fire-breathing dragon called "The Mountain." That was the same unswerving man they had been following, and to all accusations against the revolution their answer was -- Paine is still there!

A reign of terror in England followed the outlawry of Paine. Twenty-four men, at one time or another, were imprisoned, fined, or transported for uttering words concerning abuses such as now every Englishman would use concerning the same. Some who sold Paine's works were imprisoned before Paine's trial, while the seditious character of the books was not yet legally settled. Many were punished after the trial, by both fine and imprisonment. Newspapers were punished for printing extracts, and for having printed them before the trial. For this kind of work old statutes passed for other purposes were impressed, new statutes framed, until Fox declared the Bill of Rights repealed, the constitution cut up by the roots, and the obedience of the people to such "despotism" no longer "a question of moral obligation and duty, but of prudence."'

From his safe retreat in Paris bookseller Rickman wrote his impromptu:

"Hail Briton's land! Hail freedom's shore!
Far happier than of old;
For in thy blessed realms no more
The Rights of Man are sold!

The famous town-crier of Bolton, who reported to his masters that he had been round that place "and found in it neither the right of man nor common sense," made a statement characteristic of the time. The aristocracy and gentry had indeed lost their humanity and their sense under a disgraceful panic. Their serfs, unable to read, were fairly represented by those who, having burned Paine in effigy, asked their employer if there was "any other gemman he would like burnt, for a glass o' beer." The White Bear (now replaced by the Criterion Restaurant) no longer knew its little circle of radicals. A symbol of how they were trampled out is discoverable in the "T. P." shoenails. These nails, with heads so lettered, were in great request among the gentry, who had only to hold up their boot-soles to show how they were trampling on Tom Paine and his principles. This at any rate was accurate. Manufacturers of vases also devised ceramic anathemas.

In all of this may be read the frantic fears of the King and aristocracy which were driving the Ministry to make good Paine's aphorism, "There is no English Constitution." An English Constitution was, however, in process of formation, -- in prisons, in secret conclaves, in lands of exile, and chiefly in Paine's small room in Paris. Even in that time of Parisian turbulence and peril the hunted liberals of England found more security in France than in their native land. For the eyes of the English reformer of that period, seeing events from prison or exile, there was a perspective such as time has now supplied to the historian. It is still difficult to distribute the burden of shame fairly. Pitt was unquestionably at first anxious to avoid war. That the King was determined on the war is certain; he refused to notice Wilberforce when he appeared at court after his separation from Pitt on that point.

When William Pitt died in 1806, -- crushed under disclosures in the impeachment of Lord Melville, -- the verdict of many sufferers was expressed in an "Epitaph Impromptu" (MS.) found among the papers of Thomas Rickman. It has some historic interest.

"Reader! with eye indignant view this bier;
The foe of all the human race lies here.
With talents small, and those directed, too,
Virtue and truth and wisdom to subdue,
He lived to every noble motive blind,
And died, the execration of mankind.
"Millions were butchered by his damnéd plan
To violate each sacred right of man;
Exulting he o'er earth each misery hurled,
And joyed to drench in tears and blood, the world.
"Myriads of beings wretched he has made
By desolating war, his favourite trade,
Who, robbed of friends and dearest ties, are left
Of every hope and happiness bereft.
"In private life made up of fuss and pride,
Not e 'en his vices leaned to virtue's side;
Unsound, corrupt, and rotten at the core,
His cold and scoundrel heart was black all o'er;
Nor did one passion ever move his mind
That bent towards the tender, warm, and kind.
"Tyrant, and friend to war! we hail the day
When Death, to bless mankind, made thee his prey,
And rid the earth of all could earth disgrace,
The foulest, bloodiest scourge of man's oppressed race."

But the three attempts on his life, and his mental infirmity, may be pleaded for George III. Paine, in his Letter To Mr. Secretary Dundas, June 6, 1792, wrote "Madjesty"; when Rickman objected, he said: "Let it stand." And it stands now as the best apology for the King, while it rolls on Pitt's memory the guilt of a twenty-two years' war for the subjugation of thought and freedom. In that last struggle of the barbarism surviving in civilization, it was shown that the madness of a populace was easily distanced by the cruelty of courts. Robespierre and Marat were humanitarian beside George and his Ministers the Reign of error, and all the massacres of the French Revolution put together, were child's-play compared with the anguish and horrors spread through Europe by a war whose pretext was an execution England might have prevented.

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Chapter III. Revolution vs. Constitution. [1793]

The French revolutionists have long borne responsibility for the first declaration of war in 1793. But from December 13, 1792, when the Painophobia Parliament began its debates, to February 1st, when France proclaimed itself at war with England, the British government had done little else than declare war -- and prepare war -- against France. Pitt, having to be re-elected, managed to keep away from Parliament for several days at its opening, and the onslaught was assumed by Burke. He began by heaping insults on France. On December 15th he boasted that he had not been cajoled by promise of promotion or pension, though he presently, on the same evening, took his seat for the first time on the Treasury bench. In the "Parliamentary History" (vols. xxx. and xxxi.) may be found Burke's epithets on France, -- the "republic of assassins," "Cannibal Castle," "nation of murderers," "gang of plunderers," "murderous atheists," "miscreants," "scum of the earth." His vocabulary grew in grossness, of course, after the King's execution and the declaration of war, but from the first it was ribaldry and abuse. And this did not come from a private member, but from the Treasury bench.

He was supported by a furious majority which stopped at no injustice. Thus the Convention was burdened with guilt of the September massacres, though it was not then in existence. Paine's works being denounced, Erskine reminded the House of the illegality of so influencing a trial not yet begun. He was not listened to. Fox and fifty other earnest men had a serious purpose of trying to save the King's life, and proposed to negotiate with the Convention. Burke fairly foamed at the motions to that end, made by Fox and Lord Lansdowne. What, negotiate with such villains! To whom is our agent to be accredited? Burke draws a comic picture of the English ambassador entering the Convention, and, when he announces himself as from "George Third, by the grace of God," denounced by Paine. "Are we to humble ourselves before Judge Paine?" At this point Whetstone made a disturbance and was named. There were some who found Burke's trifling intolerable. Mr. W. Smith reminded the House that Cromwell's ambassadors had been received by Louis XIV. Fox drew a parallel between the contemptuous terms used toward the French, and others about "Hancock and his crew," with whom Burke advised treaty, and with whom His Majesty did treat. All this was answered by further insults to France, these corresponding with a series of practical injuries. Lord Gower had been recalled August 17th, after the formation of a republic, and all intercourse with the French Minister in London, Chauvelin, was terminated. In violation of the treaty of 1786, the agents of France were refused permission to purchase grain and arms in England, and their vessels loaded with provisions seized. The circulation of French bonds, issued in 1790, was prohibited in England. A coalition had been formed with the enemies of France, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia. Finally, on the execution of Louis XVI., Chauvelin was ordered (January 24th) to leave England in eight days. Talleyrand remained, but Chauvelin was kicked out of the country, so to say, simply because the Convention had recognized him. This appeared a plain casus belli, and was answered by the declaration of the Convention in that sense (February 1st), which England answered ten days later.

In all this Paine recognized the hand of Burke. While his adherents in England, as we have seen, were finding in Pitt a successor to Satan, there is a notable absence from Paine's writings and letters of any such animosity towards that Minister. He regarded Pitt as a victim. "The father of Pitt," he once wrote, "when a member of the House of Commons, exclaiming one day, during a former war, against the enormous and ruinous expense of German connections, as the offspring of the Hanover succession, and borrowing a metaphor from the story of Prometheus, cried out: `Thus, like Prometheus, is Britain chained to the barren rock of Hanover, whilst the imperial eagle preys upon her vitals." It is probable that on the intimations from Pitt, at the close of 1792, of his desire for private consultations with friendly Frenchmen, Paine entered into the honorable though unauthorized conspiracy for peace which was terminated by the expulsion of Chauvelin. In the light of later events, and the desertion of Dumouriez, these overtures of Pitt made through Talleyrand (then in London) were regarded by the French leaders, and are still regarded by French writers, as treacherous. But no sufficient reason is given for doubting Pitt's good faith in that matter. Writing to the President (Washington), December 28, 1792, the American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, states the British proposal to be:

"France shall deliver the royal family to such branch of the Bourbons as the King may choose, and shall recall her troops from the countries they now occupy. In this event Britain will send hither a Minister and acknowledge the Republic, and mediate a peace with the Emperor and King of Prussia. I have several reasons to believe that this information is not far from the truth."

It is true that Pitt had no agent in France whom he might not have disavowed, and that after the fury with which the Painophobia Parliament, under lead of Burke, inspired by the King, had opened, could hardly have maintained any peaceful terms. Nevertheless, the friends of peace in France secretly acted on this information, which Gouverneur Morris no doubt received from Paine. A grand dinner was given by Paine, at the Hôtel de Ville, to Dumouriez, where this brilliant General met Brissot, Condorcet, Santerre, and several eminent English radicals, among them Sampson Perry. At this time it was proposed to send Dumouriez secretly to London, to negotiate with Pitt, but this was abandoned. Maret went, and be found Pitt gracious and pacific. Chauvelin, however, advised the French government of this illicit negotiation, and Maret was ordered to return. Such was the situation when Louis was executed. That execution, as we have seen, might have been prevented had Pitt provided the money; but it need not be supposed that, with Burke now on the Treasury bench, the refusal is to be ascribed to anything more than his inability to cope with his own majority, whom the King was patronizing. So completely convinced of Pitt's pacific disposition were Maret and his allies in France that the clandestine ambassador again departed for London: But on arriving at Dover, he learned that Chauvelin had been expelled, and at once returned to France.

Paine now held more firmly than ever the first article of his faith as to practical politics: the chief task of republicanism is to break the Anglo-German sceptre. France is now committed to war; it must be elevated to that European aim. Lord North and America reappear in Burke and France.

Meanwhile what is said of Britain in his "Rights of Man" was now more terribly true of France -- it had no Constitution. The Committee on the Constitution had declared themselves ready to report early in the winter, but the Mountaineers managed that the matter should be postponed until after the King's trial. As an American who prized his citizenship, Paine felt chagrined and compromised at being compelled to act as a legislator and a judge because of his connection with a Convention elected for the purpose of framing a legislative and judicial machinery. He and Condorcet continued to add touches to this Constitution, the Committee approving, and on the first opportunity it was reported again. This was February 15, 1793. But, says the Moniteur, "the struggles between the Girondins and the Mountain caused the examination and discussion to be postponed." It was, however, distributed.

Gouverneur Morris, in a letter to Jefferson (March 7th), says this Constitution "was read to the Convention, but I learnt the next morning that a Council had been held on it overnight, by which it was condemned." Here is evidence in our American archives of a meeting or "Council" condemning the Constitution on the night of its submission. It must have been secret, for it does not appear in French histories, so far as I can discover. Durand de Maillane says that "the exclusion of Robespierre and Couthon from this eminent task framing a Constitution was a new matter for discontent and jealousy against the party of Pétion" -- a leading Girondin, -- and that Robespierre and his men desired "to render their work useless." No indication of this secret condemnation of the Paine-Condorcet Constitution, by a conclave appeared on March 1st, when the document was again submitted. The Convention now set April 15th for its discussion, and the Mountaineers fixed that day for the opening of their attack on the Girondins. The Mayor of Paris appeared with a petition, adopted by the Communal Council of the thirty-five sections of Paris, for the arrest of twenty-two members of the Convention, as slanderers of Paris, -- "presenting the Parisians to Europe as men of blood," -- friends of Roland, accomplices of the traitor Dumouriez, enemies of the clubs. The deputies named were: Brissot, Guadet, Vergniaud, Gensonné, Grangeneuve, Buzot, Barbaroux, Salles, Biroteau, Pontécoulant, Pétion, Lanjuinais, Valaze, Hardy, Louvet, Lehardy, Gorsas, Abbé Fauchet, Lanthenas, Lasource, Valady, Chambon. Of this list five were members of the Committee on the Constitution, and two supplementary members. Besides this, two of the arraigned -- Louvet and Lasource -- had been especially active in pressing forward the Constitution. The Mountaineers turned the discord they thus caused into a reason for deferring discussion of the Constitution. They declared also that important members were absent, levying troops, and especially that Marat's trial had been ordered. The discussion on the petition against the Girondins, and whether the Constitution should be considered, proceeded together for two days, when the Mountaineers were routed on both issues. The Convention returned the petition to the Mayor, pronouncing it "calumnious," and it made the Constitution the order of the day. Robespierre, according to Durand-Maillane, showed much spite at this defeat. He adroitly secured a decision that the preliminary "Declaration of Rights" should be discussed first, as there could be endless talk on those generalities.

It now appears plain that Robespierre, Marat, and the Mountaineers generally were resolved that there should be no new government. The difference between them and their opponents was fundamental: to them the Revolution was an end, to the others a means. The Convention was a purely revolutionary body. It had arbitrarily absorbed all legislative and judicial functions, exercising them without responsibility to any code or constitution. For instance, in State Trials French law required three fourths of the voices for condemnation; had the rule been followed Louis XVI. would not have perished. Lanjuinais had pressed the point, and it was answered that the sentence on Louis was political, for the interest of the State; salus pobuli supremo lex. This implied that the Convention, turning aside from its appointed functions, had, in anticipation of the judicial forms it meant to establish, constituted itself into a Vigilance Committee to save the State in an emergency. But it never turned back again to its proper work. Now when the Constitution was framed, every possible obstruction was placed in the way of its adoption, which would have relegated most of the Mountaineers to private life.

Robespierre and Marat were in luck. The Paine-Condorcet Constitution omitted all mention of a Deity. Here was the immemorial and infallible recipe for discord, of which Robespierre made the most. He took the "Supreme Being" under his protection; he also took morality under his protection, insisting that the Paine-Condorcet Constitution gave liberty even to illicit traffic. While these discussions were going on Marat gained his triumphant acquittal from the charges made against him by the Girondins. This damaging blow further demoralized the majority which was eager for the Constitution. By violence, by appeals against atheism, by all crafty tactics, the Mountaineers secured recommitment of the Constitution. To the Committee were added Hérault de Séchelles, Ramel, Mathieu, Couthon, Saint-Just, -- all from the Committee of Public Safety. The Constitution as committed was the most republican document of the kind ever drafted, as remade it was a revolutionary instrument; but its preamble read: "In the presence and under the guidance (auspices) of the Supreme Being, the French People declare," etc.

God was in the Constitution; but when it was reported (June Loth) the Mountaineers had their opponents en route for the scaffold. The arraignment of the twenty-two, declared by the Convention "calumnious" six weeks before, was approved on June 2d. It was therefore easy to pass such a constitution as the victors desired. Some had suggested, during the theological debate, that "many crimes had been sanctioned by this King of kings," -- no doubt with emphasis on the discredited royal name. Robespierre identified his "Supreme Being" with NATURE, of whose ferocities the poor Girondins soon had tragical evidence.

The Constitution was adopted by the Convention on June 25th; it was ratified by the Communes August 10th. When it was proposed to organize a government under it, and dissolve the Convention, Robespierre remarked: That sounds like a suggestion of Pitt! Thereupon the Constitution was suspended until universal peace, and the Revolution superseded the Republic as end and aim of France.

Some have ascribed to Robespierre a phrase he borrowed, on one occasion, from Voltaire, Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer [If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him. -- Digital Editor's Translation.] Robespierre's originality was that he did invent a god, made in his own image, and to that idol offered human sacrifices, -- beginning with his own humanity. That he was genuinely superstitious is suggested by the plausibility with which his enemies connected him with the "prophetess," Catharine Théot, who pronounced him the reincarnate "Word of God." Certain it is that he revived the old forces of fanaticism, and largely by their aid crushed the Girondins, who were rationalists. Condorcet had said that in preparing a Constitution for France they had not consulted Numa's nymph or the pigeon of Mahomet; they had found human reason sufficient.

Corruption of best is worst. In the proportion that a humane deity would be a potent sanction for righteous laws, an inhuman deity is the sanction of inhuman laws. He who summoned a nature-god to the French Convention let loose the scourge on France. Nature inflicts on mankind, every day, a hundred-fold the agonies of the Reign of Terror. Robespierre had projected into nature a sentimental conception of his own, but he had no power to master the force he had evoked. That had to take the shape of the nature-gods of all time, and straightway dragged the Convention down to the savage plane where discussion becomes an exchange of thunder-stones. Such relapses are not very difficult to effect in revolutionary times. By killing off sceptical variations, and cultivating conformity, a cerebral evolution proceeded for ages by which kind-hearted people were led to worship jealous and cruel gods, who, should they appear in human form, would be dealt with as criminals. Unfortunately, however, the nature-god does not so appear; it is represented in euphemisms, while at the same time it coerces the social and human standard. Since the nature-god punishes hereditarily, kills every man at last, and so tortures millions that the suggestion of hell seems only too probable to those sufferers, a political system formed under the legitimacy of such a superstition must subordinate crimes to sins, regard atheism as worse than theft, acknowledge the arbitrary principle, and confuse retaliation with justice. From the time that the shekinah of the nature-god settled on the Mountain, offences were measured, not by their injury to man, but as insults to the Mountain-god, or to his anointed. In the mysterious counsels of the Committee of Public Safety the rewards are as little harmonious with the human standard as in the ages when sabbath-breaking and murder met the same doom. Under the paralyzing splendor of a divine authority, any such considerations as the suffering or death of men become petty. The average Mountaineer was unable to imagine that those who tried to save Louis had other than royalist motives. In this Armageddon the Girondins were far above their opponents in humanity and intelligence, but the conditions did not admit of an entire adherence to their honorable weapons of argument and eloquence. They too often used deadly threats, without meaning them; the Mountaineers, who did mean them, took such phrases seriously, and believed the struggle to be one of life and death. Such phenomena of bloodshed, connected with absurdly inadequate causes, are known in history only where gods mingle in the fray. Reign of Terror? What is the ancient reign of the god of battles, jealous, angry every day, with everlasting tortures of fire prepared for the unorthodox, however upright, even more than for the immoral? In France too it was a suspicion of unorthodoxy in the revolutionary creed that plunged most of the sufferers into the lake of fire and brimstone.

From the time of Paine's speeches on the King's fate he was conscious that Marat's evil eye was on him. The American's inflexible republicanism had inspired the vigilance of the powerful journals of Brissot and Bonneville, which barred the way to any dictatorship. Paine was even propagating a doctrine against presidency, thus marring the example of the United States, on which ambitious Frenchmen, from Marat to the Napoleons, have depended for their stepping-stone to despotism. Marat could not have any doubt of Paine's devotion to the Republic, but knew well his weariness of the Revolution. In the simplicity of his republican faith Paine had made a great point of the near adoption of the Constitution, and dissolution of the Convention in five or six months, little dreaming that the Mountaineers were concentrating themselves on the aim of becoming masters of the existing Convention and then rendering it permanent. Marat regarded Paine's influence as dangerous to revolutionary government, and, as he afterwards admitted, desired to crush him. The proposed victim had several vulnerable points: he had been intimate with Gouverneur Morris, whose hostility to France was known; he had been intimate with Dumouriez, declared a traitor; and he had no connection with any of the Clubs, in which so many found asylum. He might have joined one of them had he known the French language, and perhaps it would have been prudent to unite himself with the "Cordeliers," in whose esprit de corps some of his friends found refuge.

However, the time of intimidation did not come for two months after the King's death, and Paine was busy with Condorcet on the task assigned them, of preparing an Address to the People of England concerning the war of their government against France. This work, if ever completed, does not appear to have been published. It was entrusted (February 1st) to Barrère, Paine, Condorcet, and M. Faber. As Frederic Masson, the learned librarian and historian of the Office of Foreign Affairs, has found some trace of its being assigned to Paine and Condorcet, it may be that further research will bring to light the Address. It could hardly have been completed before the warfare broke out between the Mountain and the Girondins, when anything emanating from Condorcet and Paine would have been delayed, if not suppressed. There are one or two brief essays in Condorcet's works notably "The French Republic to Free Men " -- which suggest collaboration with Paine, and may be fragments of their Address.

At this time the long friendship between Paine and Condorcet, and the Marchioness too, had become very intimate. The two men had acted together on the King's trial at every step, and their speeches on bringing Louis to trial suggest previous consultations between them.

Early in April Paine was made aware of Marat's hostility to him. General Thomas Ward reported to him a conversation in which Marat had said: "Frenchmen are mad to allow foreigners to live among them. They should cut off their ears, let them bleed a few days, and then cut off their heads." "But you yourself are a foreigner," Ward had replied, in allusion to Marat's Swiss birth. The answer is not reported. At length a tragical incident occurred, just before the trial of Marat (April 13th), -- which brought Paine face to face with this enemy. A wealthy young Englishman, named Johnson, with whom Paine had been intimate in London, had followed him to Paris, where he lived in the same house with his friend. His love of Paine amounted to worship. Having heard of Marat's intention to have Paine's life taken, such was the young enthusiast's despair, and so terrible the wreck of his republican dreams, that he resolved on suicide. He made a will bequeathing his property to Paine, and stabbed himself. Fortunately he was saved by some one who entered just as he was about to give himself the third blow. It may have been Paine himself who then saved his friend's life; at any rate, he did so eventually.

The decree for Marat's trial was made amid galleries crowded with his adherents, male and female ("Dames de la Fraternité"), who hurled cries of wrath on every one who said a word against him. All were armed, the women ostentatious of their poignards. The trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal was already going in Marat's favor, when it was determined by the Girondins to bring forward this affair of Johnson. Paine was not, apparently, a party to this move, though he had enjoined no secrecy in telling his friend Brissot of the incident, which occurred before Marat was accused. On April 16th there appeared in Brissot's journal Le Patriote Français, the following paragraph:

"A sad incident has occurred to apprise the anarchists of the mournful fruits of their frightful teaching. An Englishman, whose name I reserve, had abjured his country because of his detestation of kings; he came to France hoping to find there liberty; he saw only its mask on the hideous visage of anarchy. Heart-broken by this spectacle, he determined on self-destruction. Before dying, he wrote the following words, which we have read, as written by his own trembling hand, on a paper which is in the possession of a distinguished foreigner: -- 'I had come to France to enjoy Liberty, but Marat has assassinated it. Anarchy is even more cruel than despotism. I am unable to endure this grievous sight, of the triumph of imbecility and inhumanity over talent and virtue.' "

The acting editor of Le Patriote Françis, Girey-Dupré, was summoned before the Tribunal, where Marat was on trial, and testified that the note published had been handed to him by Brissot, who assured him that it was from the original, in the hands of Thomas Paine. Paine deposed that he had been unacquainted with Marat before the Convention assembled; that he had not supposed Johnson's note to have any connection with the accusations against Marat.

President. -- Did you give a copy of the note to Brissot?

Paine. -- I showed him the original.

President. -- Did you send it to him as it is printed?

Paine. -- Brissot could only have written this note after what I read to him, and told him. I would observe to the tribunal that Johnson gave himself two blows with the knife after he had understood that Marat would denounce him.

Marat. -- Not because I would denounce the youth who stabbed himself, but because I wish to denounce Thomas Paine.

Paine (continuing). -- Johnson had for some time suffered mental anguish. As for Marat, I never spoke to him but once. In the lobby of the Convention he said to me that the English people are free and happy; I replied, they groan under a double despotism.

No doubt it had been resolved to keep secret the fact that young Johnson was still alive. The moment was critical; a discovery that Brissot had written or printed "avant de mourir" of one still alive might have precipitated matters.

It came out in the trial that Marat, addressing a club ("Friends of Liberty and Equality"), had asked them to register a vow to recall from the Convention "all of those faithless members who had betrayed their duties in trying to save a tyrant's life," such deputies being "traitors, royalists, or fools."

Meanwhile the Constitution was undergoing discussion in the Convention, and to that Paine now gave his entire attention. On April 20th the Convention, about midnight, when the Moderates had retired and the Mountaineers found themselves masters of the field, voted to entertain the petition of the Parisian sections against the Girondins. Paine saw the star of the Republic sinking. On "April 20th, 2d year of the Republic," he wrote as follows to Jefferson:

"My dear Friend,

"The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I entrust this letter is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the opportunity of seeing him, as he had set off for Havre prior to my writing this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his friends, who is also an acquaintance of mine.

"We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without some considerable faults here. Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off to the Enemy, and taken a considerable part of the Army with him. The expedition to Holland has totally failed and all Brabant is again in the hands of the Austrians.

"You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of fortune has occasioned, but it has been without commotion. Dumouriez threatened to be in Paris in three weeks. It is now three weeks ago; he is still on the frontier near to Mons with the Enemy, who do not make any progress. Dumouriez has proposed to re-establish the former Constitution, in which plan the Austrians act with him. But if France and the National Convention act prudently this project will not succeed. In the first place there is a popular disposition against it, and there is force sufficient to prevent it. In the next place, a great deal is to be taken into the calculation with respect to the Enemy. There are now so many powers accidentally jumbled together as to render it exceedingly difficult to them to agree upon any common object.

"The first object, that of restoring the old Monarchy, is evidently given up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution. The object of England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object of Austria was to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted, each party having one, the Confederation could hold together, each helping the other; but after this I see not how a common object is to be formed. To all this is to be added the probable disputes about opportunity, the expense, and the projects of reimbursements. The Enemy has once adventured into France, and they had the permission or the good fortune to get back again. On every military calculation it is a hazardous adventure, and armies are not much disposed to try a second time the ground upon which they have been defeated.

"Had this revolution been conducted consistently with its principles, there was once a good prospect of extending liberty through the greatest part of Europe; but I now relinquish that hope. Should the Enemy by venturing into France put themselves again in a condition of being captured, the hope will revive; but this is a risk that I do not wish to see tried, lest it should fail.

"As the prospect of a general freedom is now much shortened, I begin to contemplate returning home. I shall await the event of the proposed Constitution, and then take my final leave of Europe. I have not written to the President, as I have nothing to communicate more than in this letter. Please to present to him my affection and compliments, and remember me among the circle of my friends.

Your sincere and affectionate friend,

"THOMAS PAINE.

"P. S. I just now received a letter from General Lewis Morris, who tells me that the house and barn on my farm at N. Rochelle are burnt down. I assure you I shall not bring money enough to build another."

Four days after this letter was written Marat, triumphant, was crowned with oak leaves. Foufrede in his speech (April 16th) had said: "Marat has formally demanded dictatorship." This was the mob's reply: Bos locutus est.

With Danton, Paine had been on friendly terms, though he described as "rose water" the author's pleadings against the guillotine. On May 6th, Paine wrote to Danton a letter brought to light by Taine, who says: "Compared with the speeches and writings of the time, it produces the strangest effect by its practical good sense." Dr. Robinet also finds here evidence of "a lucid and wise intellect."

"PARIS, May 6th, 2nd year of the Republic (1793).

"CITOYEN DANTON:

"As you read English, I write this letter to you without passing it through the hands of a translator. I am exceedingly disturbed at the distractions, jealousies, discontents and uneasiness that reign among us, and which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on the Republic. When I left America in the year 1787, it was my intention to return the year following, but the French Revolution, and the prospect it afforded of extending the principles of liberty and fraternity through the greater part of Europe, have induced me to prolong my stay upwards of six years. I now despair of seeing the great object of European liberty accomplished, and my despair arises not from the combined foreign powers, not from the intrigues of aristocracy and priestcraft, but from the tumultuous misconduct with which the internal affairs of the present revolution is conducted.

"All that now can be hoped for is limited to France only, and I agree with your motion of not interfering in the government of any foreign country, nor permitting any foreign country to interfere in the government of France. This decree was necessary as a preliminary toward terminating the war. But while these internal contentions continue, while the hope remains to the enemy of seeing the Republic fall to pieces, while not only the representatives of the departments but representation itself is publicly insulted, as it has lately been and now is by the people of Paris, or at least by the tribunes, the enemy will be encouraged to hang about the frontiers and await the issue of circumstances.

"I observe that the confederated powers have not yet recognised Monsieur, or D'Artois, as regent, nor made any proclamation in favour of any of the Bourbons; but this negative conduct admits of two different conclusions. The one is that of abandoning the Bourbons and the war together; the other is that of changing the object of the war and substituting a partition scheme in the place of their first object, as they have done by Poland. If this should be their object, the internal contentions that now rage will favour that object far more than it favoured their former object. The danger every day increases of a rupture between Paris and the departments. The departments did not send their deputies to Paris to be insulted, and every insult shown to them is an insult to the departments that elected and sent them. I see but one effectual plan to prevent this rupture taking place, and that is to fix the residence of the Convention, and of the future assemblies, at a distance from Paris.

"I saw, during the American Revolution, the exceeding inconvenience that arose by having the government of Congress within the limits of any Municipal Jurisdiction. Congress first resided in Philadelphia, and after a residence of four years it found it necessary to leave it. It then adjourned to the State of Jersey. It afterwards removed to New York; it again removed from New York to Philadelphia, and after experiencing in every one of these places the great inconvenience of a government, it formed the project of building a Town, not within the limits of any municipal jurisdiction, for the future residence of Congress. In any one of the places where Congress resided, the municipal authority privately or openly opposed itself to the authority of Congress, and the people of each of those places expected more attention from Congress than their equal share with the other States amounted to. The same thing now takes place in France, but in a far greater excess.

"I see also another embarrassing circumstance arising in Paris of which we have had full experience in America. I mean that of fixing the price of provisions. But if this measure is to be attempted it ought to be done by the Municipality. The Convention has nothing to do with regulations of this kind; neither can they be carried into practice. The people of Paris may say they will not give more than a certain price for provisions, but as they cannot compel the country people to bring provisions to market the consequence will be directly contrary to their expectations, and they will find dearness and famine instead of plenty and cheapness. They may force the price down upon the stock in hand, but after that the market will be empty.

"I will give you an example. In Philadelphia we undertook, among other regulations of this kind, to regulate the price of Salt; the consequence was that no Salt was brought to market, and the price rose to thirty-six shillings sterling per Bushel. The price before the war was only one shilling and sixpence per Bushel; and we regulated the price of flour (farine) till there was none in the market, and the people were glad to procure it at any price.

"There is also a circumstance to be taken into the account which is not much attended to. The assignats are not of the same value they were a year ago, and as the quantity increases the value of them will diminish. This gives the appearance of things being dear when they are not so in fact, for in the same proportion that any kind of money falls in value articles rise in price. If it were not for this the quantity of assignats would be too great to be circulated. Paper money in America fell so much in value from this excessive quantity of it, that in the year 1781, I gave three hundred paper dollars for one pair of worsted stockings. What I write you upon this subject is experience, and not merely opinion.

"I have no personal interest in any of these matters, nor in any party disputes. I attend only to general principles.

"As soon as a constitution shall be established I shall return to America; and be the future prosperity of France ever so great, I shall enjoy no other part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In the mean time I am distressed to see matters so badly conducted, and so little attention paid to moral principles. It is these things that injure the character of the Revolution and discourage the progress of liberty all over the world.

"When I began this letter I did not intend making it so lengthy, but since I have gone thus far I will fill up the remainder of the sheet with such matters as occur to me.

"There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of Treachery that ought to be punished as well as any other kind of Treachery. It is a private vice productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected. It is therefore, equally as necessary to guard against the evils of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or misconduct. For my own part I shall hold it a matter of doubt, until better evidence arises than is known at present, whether Dumouriez has been a traitor from policy or from resentment. There was certainly a time when he acted well, but it is not every man whose mind is strong enough to bear up against ingratitude, and I think he experienced a great deal of this before he revolted. Calumny becomes harmless and defeats itself when it attempts to act upon too large a scale. Thus the denunciation of the Sections [of Paris] against the twenty-two deputies falls to the ground. The departments that elected them are better judges of their moral and political characters than those who have denounced them. This denunciation will injure Paris in the opinion of the departments because it has the appearance of dictating to them what sort of deputies they shall elect. Most of the acquaintances that I have in the convention are among those who are in that list, and I know there are not better men nor better patriots than what they are.

"I have written a letter to Marat of the same date as this but not on the same subject. He may show it to you if he chuse.

"Votre Ami,

"THOMAS PAINS.

"Citoyen Danton."

It is to be hoped that Paine's letter to Marat may be discovered in France; it is shown by the Cobbett papers, printed in the Appendix, that he kept a copy, which there is reason to fear perished with General Bonneville's library in St. Louis. Whatever may be the letter's contents, there is no indication that thereafter Marat troubled Paine. Possibly Danton and Marat compared their letters, and the latter got it into his head that hostility to this American, anxious only to cross the ocean, could be of no advantage to him. Or perhaps he remembered that if a hue and cry were raised against "foreigners" it could not stop short of his own leaf-crowned Neufchatel head. He had shown some sensitiveness about that at his trial. Samson Pegnet had testified that, at conversations in Paine's house, Marat had been reported as saying that it was necessary to massacre all the foreigners, especially the English. This Marat pronounced an "atrocious calumny, a device of the statesmen his epithet for Girondins] to render me odious." Whatever his motives, there is reason to believe that Marat no longer included Paine in his proscribed list. Had it been otherwise a fair opportunity of striking down Paine presented itself on the occasion, already alluded to, when Paine gave his testimony in favor of General Miranda. Miranda was tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal on May 12th, and three days following. He had served under Dumouriez, was defeated, and was suspected of connivance with his treacherous commander. Paine was known to have been friendly with Dumouriez, and his testimony in favor of Miranda might naturally have been used against both men. Miranda was, however, acquitted, and that did not make Marat better disposed towards that adventurer's friends, all Girondins, or, like Paine, who belonged to no party, hostile to Jacobinism. Yet when, on June 2d, the doomed Girondins were arrested, there were surprising exceptions: Paine and his literary collaborateur, Condorcet. Moreover, though the translator of Paine's works, Lanthenas, was among the proscribed, his name was erased on Marat's motion.

On June 7th Robespierre demanded a more stringent law against foreigners, and one was soon after passed ordering their imprisonment. It was understood that this could not apply to the two foreigners in the Convention -- Paine and Anacharsis Clootz, though it was regarded as a kind of warning to them. I have seen it stated, but without authority, that Paine had been admonished by Danton to stay away from the Convention on June 2d, and from that day there could not be the slightest utility in his attendance. The Mountaineers had it all their own way. For simply criticising the Constitution they brought forward in place of that of the first committee, Condorcet had to fly from prosecution. Others also fled, among them Brissot and Duchatel. What with the arrestations and flights Paine found himself, in June, almost alone. In the Convention he was sometimes the solitary figure left on the Plain, where but now sat the brilliant statesmen of France. They, his beloved friends, have started in procession towards the guillotine, for even flight must end there; daily others are pressed into their ranks; his own summons, he feels, is only a question of a few weeks or days. How Paine loved those men -- Brissot, Condorcet, Lasource, Duchatel, Vergniaud, Gensonné! Never was man more devoted to his intellectual comrades. Even across a century one may realize what it meant to him, that march of some of his best friends to the scaffold, while others were hunted through France, and the agony of their families, most of whom he well knew.

Alas, even this is not the worst! For what were the personal fate of himself or any compared with the fearful fact that the harvest is past and the republic not saved! Thus had ended all his labors, and his visions of the Commonwealth of Man. The time had come when many besides poor Johnson sought peace in annihilation. Paine, heartbroken, sought oblivion in brandy. Recourse to such anaesthetic, of which any affectionate man might fairly avail himself under such incredible agony as the ruin of his hopes and the approaching murder of his dearest friends, was hitherto unknown in Paine's life. He drank freely, as was the custom of his time; but with the exception of the evidence of an enemy at his trial in England, that he once saw him under the influence of wine after a dinner party (1792), which he admitted was "unusual," no intimation of excess is discoverable in any contemporary record of Paine until this his fifty-seventh year. He afterwards told his friend Rickman that, "borne down by public and private affliction, he had been driven to excesses in Paris"; and, as it was about this time that Gouverneur Morris and Colonel Bosville, who had reasons for disparaging Paine, reported stories of his drunkenness (growing ever since), we may assign the excesses mainly to June. It will be seen by comparison of the dates of events and documents presently mentioned that Paine could not have remained long in this pardonable refuge of mental misery. Charlotte Corday's poignard cut a rift in the black cloud. After that tremendous July 13th there is positive evidence not only of sobriety, but of life and work on Paine's part that make the year memorable.

Marat dead, hope springs up for the arrested Girondins. They are not yet in prison, but under "arrestation in their homes"; death seemed inevitable while Marat lived, but Charlotte Corday has summoned a new leader. Why may Paine's imperiled comrades not come forth again? Certainly they will if the new chieftain is Danton, who under his radical rage hides a heart. Or if Marat's mantle falls on Robespierre, would not that scholarly lawyer, who would have abolished capital punishment, reverse Marat's cruel decrees? Robespierre had agreed to the new Constitution (reported by Paine's friend, Hérault de Séchelles) and when even that dubious instrument returns with the popular sanction, all may be well. The Convention, which is doing everything except what it was elected to do, will then dissolve, and the happy Republic remember it only as a nightmare. So Paine takes heart again, abandons the bowl of forgetfulness, and becomes a republican Socrates instructing disciples in an old French garden.

G

[admin]

Chapter IV. A Garden in the Faubourg St. Denis [1793]

Sir George Trevelyan has written a pregnant passage, reminding the world of the moral burden which radicals in England had to bear a hundred years ago.

"When to speak or write one's mind on politics is to obtain the reputation, and render one's self liable to the punishment of a criminal, social discredit, with all its attendant moral dangers, soon attaches itself to the more humble opponents of a ministry. To be outside the law as a publisher or a pamphleteer is only less trying to conscience and conduct than to be outside the law as a smuggler or a poacher; and those who, ninety years ago, placed themselves within the grasp of the penal statutes as they were administered in England and barbarously perverted in Scotland were certain to be very bold men, and pretty sure to be unconventional up to the uttermost verge of respectability. As an Italian Liberal was sometimes half a bravo, and a Spanish patriot often more than half a brigand, so a British Radical under George the Third had generally, it must be confessed, a dash of the Bohemian. Such, in a more or less mitigated form, were Paine and Cobbett, Hunt, Hone, and Holcroft; while the same causes in part account for the elfish vagaries of Shelley and the grim improprieties of Godwin. But when we recollect how these, and the like of these, gave up every hope of worldly prosperity, and set their life and liberty in continual hazard for the sake of that personal and political freedom which we now exercise as unconsciously as we breathe the air, it would be too exacting to require that each and all of them should have lived as decorously as Perceval, and died as solvent as Bishop mainline.''

To this right verdict it may be added that, even at the earlier period when it was most applicable, the radicals could only produce one rival in profligacy (John Wilkes) to their aristocratic oppressors. It may also be noted as a species of homage that the slightest failings of eminent reformers become historic. The vices of Burke and Fox are forgotten. Who remembers that the younger Pitt was brought to an early grave by the bottle? But every fault of those who resisted his oppression is placed under a solar microscope. Although, as Sir George affirms, the oppressors largely caused the faults, this homage to the higher moral standard of the reformers may be accepted.

It was, indeed, a hard time for reformers in England. Among them were many refined gentlemen who felt that it was no country for a thinker and scholar to live in. Among the pathetic pictures of the time was that of the twelve scholars, headed by Coleridge and Southey, and twelve ladies, who found the atmosphere of England too impure for any but slaves to breathe, and proposed to seek in America some retreat where their pastoral "pantisocrasy" might be realized. Lack of funds prevented the fulfilment of this dream, but that it should have been an object of concert and endeavor, in that refined circle at Bristol, is a memorable sign of that dreadful time. In the absence of means to form such communities, preserving the culture and charm of a society evolved out of barbarism, apart from the walls of a remaining political barbarism threatening it with their ruins, some scholars were compelled, like Coleridge, to rejoin the feudalists, and help them to buttress the crumbling castle. They secured themselves from the social deterioration of living on wild "honey-dew" in a wilderness, at cost of wearing intellectual masks. Some fled to America, like Cobbett. But others fixed their abode in Paris, where radicalism was fashionable and invested with the charm of the salon and the theatre.

Before the declaration of war Paine had been on friendly terms with some eminent Englishmen in Paris: he dined every week with Lord Lauderdale, Dr. John Moore, an author, and others in some restaurant. After most of these had followed Lord Gower to England he had to be more guarded. A British agent, Major Semple, approached him under the name of Major Lisle. He professed to be an Irish patriot, wore the green cockade, and desired introduction to the Minister of War. Paine fortunately knew too many Irishmen to fall into this snare. But General Miranda, as we have seen, fared better. Paine was, indeed, so overrun with visitors and adventurers that he appropriated two mornings of each week at the Philadelphia House for levees. These, however, became insufficient to stem the constant stream of visitors, including spies and lion-hunters, so that he had little time for consultation with the men and women whose co-operation he needed in public affairs. He therefore leased an out-of-the-way house, reserving knowledge of it for particular friends, while still retaining his address at the Philadelphia Hotel, where the levees were continued.

The irony of fate had brought an old mansion of Madame de Pompadour to become the residence of Thomas Paine and his half dozen English disciples. It was then, -- and still is, No.63 Faubourg St. Denis. Here, where a King's mistress held her merry fètes, and issued the decrees of her reign sometimes of terror, the little band of English humanitarians read and conversed, and sported in the garden. In a little essay on "Forgetfulness," addressed to his friend, Lady Smith, Paine described these lodgings.

"They were the most agreeable, for situation, of any I ever had in Paris, except that they were too remote from the Convention, of which I was then a member. But this was recompensed by their being also remote from the alarms and confusion into which the interior of Paris was then often thrown. The news of those things used to arrive to us, as if we were in a state of tranquility in the country. The house, which was enclosed by a wall and gateway from the street, was a good deal like an old mansion farm-house, and the court-yard was like a farm yard, stocked with fowls, -- ducks, turkies, and geese; which, for amusement, we used to feed out of the parlor window on the ground floor. There were some hutches for rabbits, and a sty with two pigs. Beyond was a garden of more than an acre of ground, well laid out, and stocked with excellent fruit trees. The orange, apricot, and greengage plum were the best I ever tasted; and it is the only place where I saw the wild cucumber. The place had formerly been occupied by some curious person.

"My apartments consisted of three rooms; the first for wood, water, etc.; the next was the bedroom; and beyond it the sitting room, which looked into the garden through a glass door; and on the outside there was a small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs almost hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which I could descend into the garden without going down stairs through the house . . . . I used to find some relief by walking alone in the garden, after dark, and cursing with hearty good-will the authors of that terrible system that had turned the character of the Revolution I had been proud to defend. I went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my appearance; because I found it impossible to join in their tremendous decrees, and useless and dangerous to oppose them. My having voted and spoken extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution of the king, had already fixed a mark upon me; neither dared any of my associates in the Convention to translate and speak in French for me anything I might have dared to have written . . . . Pen and ink were then of no use to me; no good could be done by writing, and no printer dared to print; and whatever I might have written, for my private amusement, as anecdotes of the times, would have been continually exposed to be examined, and tortured into any meaning that the rage of party might fix upon it. And as to softer subjects, my heart was in distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp hung upon the weeping willows.

"As it was summer, we spent most of our time in the garden, and passed it away in those childish amusements that serve to keep reflection from the mind, -- such as marbles, Scotch hops, battledores, etc., at which we were all pretty expert. In this retired manner we remained about six or seven weeks, and our landlord went every evening into the city to bring us the news of the day and the evening journal."

The "we" included young Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. Christie, Mr. Choppin, probably Mr. Shopworth, an American, and M. Laborde, a scientific friend of Paine. These appear to have entered with Paine into co-operative housekeeping, though taking their chief meals at the restaurants. In the evenings they were joined by others, -- the Brissots (before the arrest), Nicholas Bonneville, Joel Barlow, Captain Imlay, Mary Wollstonecraft, the Rolands. Mystical Madame Roland dreaded Paine's power, which she considered more adapted to pull down than to build, but has left a vivid impression of "the boldness of his conceptions, the originality of his style, the striking truths he throws out bravely among those whom they offend." The Mr. Shapworth alluded to is mentioned in a manuscript journal of Daniel Constable, sent me by his nephew, Clair J. Grece, LL.D. This English gentleman visited Baton Rouge and Shapworth's plantation in 1822. "Mr. S.," he says, "has daughter married to the Governor [Robinson], has traveled in Europe, married a French lady. He is a warm friend of Thomas Paine, as is his son-in-law. He lived with Paine many months at Paris. He [Paine] was then a sober, correct gentleman in appearance and manner." The English refugees, persecuted for selling the "Rights of Man," were, of course, always welcomed by Paine, and poor Rickman was his guest during this summer of 1793. The following reminiscence of Paine, at a time when Gouverneur Morris was (for reasons that presently appear) reporting him to his American friends as generally drunk, was written by Rickman:

"He usually rose about seven. After breakfast he usually strayed an hour or two in the garden, where he one morning pointed out the kind of spider whose web furnished him with the first idea of constructing his iron bridge; a fine model of which, in mahogany, is preserved in Paris. The little happy circle who lived with him will ever remember those days with delight: with these select friends he would talk of his boyish days, played at chess, whist, piquet, or cribbage, and enliven the moments by many interesting anecdotes: with these he would play at marbles, scotch hops, battledores, etc.: on the broad and fine gravel walk at the upper end of the garden, and then retire to his boudoir, where he was up to his knees in letters and papers of various descriptions. Here he remained till dinner time; and unless he visited Brissot's family, or some particular friend, in the evening, which was his frequent custom, he joined again the society of his favorites and fellow boarders, with whom his conversation was often witty and cheerful, always acute and improving, but never frivolous. Incorrupt, straightforward, and sincere, he pursued his political course in France, as everywhere else, let the government or clamor or faction of the day be what it might, with firmness, with clearness, and without a shadow of turning."

In the spring of 1890 the present writer visited the spot. The lower front of the old mansion is divided into shops, -- a Fruiterer being appropriately next the gateway, which now opens into a wide thoroughfare. Above the rooms once occupied by Paine was the sign "Ecrivain Publique," -- placed there by a Mademoiselle who wrote letters and advertisements for humble neighbors not expert in penmanship. At the end of what was once the garden is a Printer's office, in which was a large lithograph portrait of Victor Hugo. The printer, his wife, and little daughter were folding publications of the "Extreme Left." Near the door remains a veritable survival of the garden and its living tenants which amused Paine and his friend. There were two ancient fruit trees, of which one was dying, but the other budding in the spring sunshine. There were ancient coops with ducks, an pigeon-houses with pigeons, also rabbits, and some flowers. This little nook, of perhaps forty square feet, and its animals, had been there -- so an old inhabitant told me -- time out of mind. They belonged to nobody in particular; the pigeons were fed by the people around; the fowls were probably kept there by some poultryman. There were eager groups attending every stage of the investigation. The exceptional antiquity of the mansion had been recognized by its occupants, -- several families, but without curiosity, and perhaps with regret. Comparatively few had heard of Paine.

Shortly before I had visited the garden near Florence which Boccaccio's immortal tales have kept in perennial beauty through five centuries. It may be that in the far future some brother of Boccace will bequeath to Paris as sweet a legend of the garden where beside the plague of blood the prophet of the universal Republic realized his dream in microcosm. Here gathered sympathetic spirits from America, England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, freed from prejudices of race, rank, or nationality, striving to be mutually helpful, amusing themselves with Arcadian sports, studying nature, enriching each other by exchange of experiences. It is certain that in all the world there was no group of men and women more disinterestedly absorbed in the work of benefiting their fellow beings. They could not, however, like Boccaccio's ladies and gentlemen "kill Death" by their witty tales; for presently beloved faces disappeared from their circle, and the cruel axe was gleaming over them.

And now the old hotel became the republican capitol of Europe. There sat an international Premier with his Cabinet, concentrated on the work of saving the Girondins. He was indeed treated by the Executive government as a Minister. It was supposed by Paine and believed by his adherents that Robespierre had for him some dislike. Paine in later years wrote of Robespierre as a "hypocrite," and the epithet may have a significance not recognized by his readers. It is to me probable that Paine considered himself deceived by Robespierre with professions of respect, if not of friendliness before being cast into prison; a conclusion naturally based on requests from the Ministers for opinions on public affairs. The archives of the Revolution contain various evidences of this, and several papers by Paine evidently in reply to questions. We may feel certain that every subject propounded was carefully discussed in Paine's little cosmopolitan Cabinet before his opinion was transmitted to the revolutionary Cabinet of committees. In reading the subjoined documents it must be borne in mind that Robespierre had not yet been suspected of the cruelty presently associated with his name. The Queen and the Girondist leaders were yet alive. Of these leaders, Paine was known to be the friend, and it was of the utmost importance that he should be suavely loyal to the government that had inherited these prisoners from Marat's time.

The first of these papers is erroneously endorsed "January 1793. Thom. Payne. Copie," in the French State Archives. Its reference to the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk assigns its date to the late summer. It is headed, "Observations on the situation of the Powers joined against France."

"It is always useful to know the position and the designs of one's enemies. It is much easier to do so by combining and comparing the events, and by examining the consequences which result from them, than by forming one's judgment by letters found or intercepted. These letters could be fabricated with the intention of deceiving, but events or circumstances have a character which is proper to them. If in the course of our political operations we mistake the designs of our enemy, it leads us to do precisely that which he desired we should do, and it happens, by the fact, but against our intentions, that we work for him.

"It appears at first sight that the coalition against France is not of the nature of those which form themselves by a treaty. It has been the work of circumstances. It is a heterogeneous mass, the parts of which dash against each other, and often neutralise themselves. They have but one single point of reunion, the re-establishment of the monarchical government in France. Two means can conduct them to the execution of this plan. The first is, to re-establish the Bourbons, and with them the Monarchy; the second, to make a division similar to that which they have made in Poland, and to reign themselves in France. The political questions to be solved are, then, to know on which of these two plans it is most probable the united Powers will act; and which are the points of these plans on which they will agree or disagree.

"Supposing their aim to be the re-establishment of the Bourbons, the difficulty which will present itself, will be, to know who will be their Allies?

"Will England consent to the re-establishment of the compact of family in the person of the Bourbons, against whom she has machinated and fought since her existence? Will Prussia consent to re-establish the alliance which subsisted between France and Austria, or will Austria wish to re-establish the ancient alliance between France and Prussia, which was directed against her? Will Spain, or any other maritime Power, allow France and her Marine to ally themselves to England? In fine, will any of these Powers consent to furnish forces which could be directed against herself? However, all these cases present themselves in the hypothesis of the restoration of the Bourbons.

"If we suppose that their plan be the dismemberment of France, difficulties will present themselves under another form, but not of the same nature. It will no longer be question, in this case, of the Bourbons, as their position will be worse; for if their preservation is apart of their first plan, their destruction ought to enter in the second; because it is necessary for the success of the dismembering that not a single pretendant to the Crown of France should exist.

"As one must think of all the probabilities in political calculations, it is not unlikely that some of the united Powers, having in view the first of these plans, and others the second, -- that this may be one of the causes of their disagreement. It is to be remembered that Russia recognised a Regency from the beginning of Spring; not one of the other Powers followed her example. The distance of Russia from France, and the different countries by which she is separated from her, leave no doubt as to her dispositions with regard to the plan of division; and as much as one can form an opinion on the circumstances, it is not her scheme.

"The coalition directed against France is composed of two kinds of Powers. The Maritime Powers, not having the same interest as the others, will be divided, as to the execution of the project of division.

"I do not hesitate to believe that the politic of the English Government is to foment the scheme of dismembering, and the entire destruction of the Bourbon family.

"The difficulty which must arise, in this last hypothesis, between the united Maritime Powers proceeds from their views being entirely opposed.

"The trading vessels of the Northern Nations, from Holland to Russia, must pass through the narrow Channel which lies between Dunkirk and the coasts of England; and consequently not one of them will allow this latter Power to consequently have forts on both sides of this Strait. The audacity with which she has seized the neutral vessels ought to demonstrate to all Nations how much her schemes increase their danger, and menace the security of their present and future commerce.

"Supposing then that the other Nations oppose the plans of England, she will be forced to cease the war with us; or, if she continues it, the Northern Nations will become interested in the safety of France.

"There are three distinct parties in England at this moment: the Government party, the Revolutionary party, and an intermedial party, which is only opposed to the war on account of the expense it entails, and the harm it does commerce and manufacture. I am speaking of the People, and not of the Parliament. The latter is divided into two parties: the Ministerial, and the Anti-Ministerial. The Revolutionary party, the intermedial party and the Anti-Ministerial party will all rejoice, publicly or privately, at the defeat of the Duke of York's army, at Dunkirk. The intermedial party, because they hope that this defeat will finish the war. The Antiministerial party, because they hope it will overthrow the Ministry. And all the three because they hate the Duke of York. Such is the state of the different parties in England.

"Signed:

THOMAS PAINE."

In the same volume of the State Archives (Paris) is the following note by Paine, with its translation:

"You mentioned to me that saltpetre was becoming scarce. I communicate to you a project of the late Captain Paul Jones, which, if successfully put in practice, will furnish you with that article.

"All the English East India ships put into St. Helena, off the coast of Africa, on their return from India to England. A great part of their ballast is saltpetre. Captain Jones, who had been at St. Helena, says that the place can be very easily taken. His proposal was to send off a small squadron for that purpose, to keep the English flag flying at port. The English vessels will continue coming in as usual. By this means it will be a long time before the Government of England can have any knowledge of what has happened. The success of this depends so much upon secrecy that I wish you would translate this yourself, and give it to Barrère."

In the next volume (38) of the French Archives, marked "États Unis, 1793," is a remarkable document (No.39), entitled "A Citizen of America to the Citizens of Europe." The name of Paine is only penciled on it, and it was probably written by him; but it purports to have been written in America, and is dated "Philadelphia, July 28, 1793; 18th Year of Independence." It is a clerk's copy, so that it cannot now be known whether the ruse of its origin in Philadelphia was due to Paine or to the government. It is an extended paper, and repeats to some extent, though not literally, what is said in the "Observations" quoted above. Possibly the government, on receiving that paper (Document 39 also), desired Paine to write it out as an address to the "Citizens of Europe." It does not appear to have been published. The first four paragraphs of this paper, combined with the "Observations," will suffice to show its character.

"Understanding that a proposal is intended to be made at the ensuing meeting of the Congress of the United States of America, to send Commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of all the Neutral Powers, for the purpose of negotiating preliminaries of Peace, I address this letter to you on that subject, and on the several matters connected therewith.

"In order to discuss this subject through all its circumstances, it will be necessary to take a review of the state of Europe, prior to the French revolution. It will from thence appear, that the powers leagued against France are fighting to attain an object, which, were it possible to be attained, would be injurious to themselves.

"This is not an uncommon error in the history of wars and governments, of which the conduct of the English government in the war against America is a striking instance. She commenced that war for the avowed purpose of subjugating America; and after wasting upwards of one hundred millions sterling, and then abandoning the object, she discovered in the course of three or four years, that the prosperity of England was increased, instead of being diminished, by the independence of America. In short, every circumstance is pregnant with some natural effect, upon which intentions and opinions have no influence; and the political error lies in misjudging what the effect will be. England misjudged it in the American war, and the reasons I shall now offer will shew that she misjudges it in the present war. -- In discussing this subject, I leave out of the question every thing respecting forms and systems of government; for as all the governments of Europe differ from each other, there is no reason that the government of France should not differ from the rest.

"The clamours continually raised in all the countries of Europe were that the family of the Bourbons was become too powerful; that the intrigues of the court of France endangered the peace of Europe. Austria saw with a jealous eye the connection of France with Prussia; and Prussia, in her turn became jealous of the connection of France with Austria; England had wasted millions unsuccessfully in attempting to prevent the family compact with Spain; Russia disliked the alliance between France and Turkey; and Turkey became apprehensive of the inclination of France towards an alliance with Russia. Sometimes the quadruple alliance alarmed some of the powers, and at other times a contrary system alarmed others, and in all those cases the charge was always made against the intrigues of the Bourbons."

In each of these papers a plea for the imperiled Girondins is audible. Each is a reminder that he, Thomas Paine, friend of the Brissotins, is continuing their anxious and loyal vigilance for the Republic. And during all this summer Paine had good reason to believe that his friends were safe. Robespierre was eloquently deprecating useless effusion of blood. As for Paine himself, he was not only consulted on public questions, but trusted in practical affairs. He was still able to help Americans and Englishmen who invoked his aid. Writing to Lady Smith concerning two applications of that kind, he says:

"I went into my chamber to write and sign a certificate for them, which I intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release. Just as I had finished it, a man came into my room, dressed in the Parisian uniform of a captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with a good address. He told me that two young men, Englishmen, were arrested and detained in the guard house, and that the section (meaning those who represented and acted for the section) had sent him to ask me if I knew them, in which case they would be liberated. This matter being soon settled between us, he talked to me about the Revolution, and something about the `Rights of Man,' which he had read in English; and at parting offered me, in a polite and civil manner, his services. And who do you think the man was who offered me his services? It was no other than the public executioner, Samson, who guillotined the King and all who were guillotined in Paris, and who lived in the same street with me."

There appeared no reason to suppose this a domiciliary visit, or that it had any relation to anything except the two Englishmen. Samson was not a detective. It soon turned out, however, that there was a serpent creeping into Paine's little garden in the Faubourg St. Denis. He and his guests knew it not, however, until all their hopes fell with the leaves and blossoms amid which they had passed a summer to which Paine, from his prison, looked back with fond recollection.