THE

LIFE

OF

THOMAS PAINE,

AUTHOR OF

COMMON SENSE, RIGHTS OF MAN, AGE OF REASON,
LETTER TO THE ADDRESSERS, &c. &c.

BY
THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN,

To counteract foul slander's lies.
And vindicate the good, and wise,
Has been my only aim ;
If skilless I've perform'd my part,
The error lies not with my heart.
My HEAD 's alone to blame.

Eonbon :

rRlNTED AND PUBLISHED BY THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN,
UPPER MARY-LE-BONE STREET ;
AND TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERK.
J 819.

DEDICATION.

Celestial Truth! the guider of his pen
Whose Life I sketch, to thee devoted solely
1 dedicate my work ; for who 'mongst men
Merits pre-eminence so pure, and holy*?
O Thou ! whose light enlarges every day.
May on the world thy full effulgence beam ;
So PUBLIC RECTITUDE shall make its way.
So PRIVATE VIRTUE be no idle dream.
Order and beauty follow in thy train.
And taste and happin ess await on thee ;
Lift up thy voice aloud and all the vain.
And all the wrong and all the false shall flee.
Celestial Truth! thy blessings I implore,
Thy bright reward I seek, and seek no more.

IP RE FACE,

The two following letters are so explanatory
of the reasons why the publication of the life
of Mr. Paine has been so long delayed, and are
so well calculated to excite the candor of the
reader towards the work, that no apology is
offered for making them a part of the preface.
" To the Editor of the Universal Magazine.
[Norember, 1811 ]
" ON MR. CLIO RICKMAN's
" supposed undertaking of the life of
" thomas paine.
" Sir, " The public has been, within the
" last year or two, led to expect a Life of the
" celebrated Thomas Paine, from the pen of
" Mr. Clio Rickman, well known, on various
A

VI

" accounts, to be more thoroughly qualified
" for that task than any other person in this
" country. " This information, however, I repeat as I
" received it, uncertain whether it came abroad
" in any authenticated shape; and can only
" add, that no doubt need be entertained of
" sufficient attention from the public in times
" like the present, to a well-written life of that
" extraordinary character, whose principles and
" precepts are at this moment in full operation
" over the largest and richest portion of the
" habitable globe, and which in regular process
" of time may, from the efficacious influence
" of the glorious principles of freedom, become
" the-grand theatre of civilization.
" I have often desired to make a commu-
" nication of this kind to your Magazine,
" but am particularly impelled thereto at this
" moment, from observing in some periodical
" publications devoted to political and religious
" bigotry, a sample of their usual sophistical
" accounts of the last moments of men who

Vll
have been in life eminent for the independ
ence and freedom of their opinions ; but the
whole that the bigot to whom I allude has
been able to effect in the case of Mr. Paine,
amounts to an acknowledgment that the phi
losopher died stedfast to. those opinions of
religion in which he had lived ; and the dis
appointment is plain enough to be seen, that
similar forgeries could not, with any prospect
of success, be circulated concerning Paine's
tergiversation and death - bed conversion,
which were so greedily swallowed for a
length of time by the gulls of fanaticism
respecting Voltaire, D'Alembert, and others,
until the Monthly Review, in the real spirit
of philosophy, dispelled the imposition.

" The late Life of Thomas Paine by Cheet-
" ham, of New York, gave rise to the above
" Magazine article. Cheetham humph ! Now
" should it not rather be spelled Cheat 'em,
" as applicable to every reader of that farrago
" of imposition and malignity, miscalled the
" Life of Paine-

VIII
" Probably it may be but a travelling name
" in order to set another book a-travelling, for
" the purpose of scandalizing and maligning
" the reputation of a defunct public man, in-
'' stead of the far more difficult task of con-
" futing his principles.
" Nothing can be more in course than this
" conjecture, authorised indeed by the fol-
" lowing fact, v.'ith which I believe the public
" is, to this day, unacquainted; namely, that
" Mr. Chalmers publicly at a dinner acknow-
" ledged himself the author of that very silly
" and insipid catchpenny, formerly sent abroad
" under the misnomer of a ' Life of Thomas
" Paine, by F. Oldys, of America.'
" The chief view of this application is
" to ascertain whether or not Mr. Rickman
" really intends to undertake the work in
" question. " I am, Sir, &c. &c.
" POLITICUS."

IX
Universal Magazine, December 1811.
" MR. CLIO RICKMAN's REPLY TO POLITICUS.
" Sir, " If you had done me the favour of
" a call, I would readily have satisfied all .your
" enquiries about the Life of Mr, Paine.
" It is true I had the memoirs of that truly
" wise and good man in a great state of for-
" wardness about a year ago ; but a series of
" the most severe and dreadful family distresses
" since that time have rendered me incapable of
" completing them.
" Tho an entire stranger to me (for I
" have not the least idea from w^hom the letter
" I am replying to came), I feel obliged to you
" for the liberal opinion therein expressed of
" me and of my fitness for the work.
" I have taken great pains that the life of
" my friend should be given to the world as

X

" the subject merits ; and a few M'eeks, when-
" ever I can sit down to it, will complete it.
" Unhappily, Cheetham is the real name
" of a real apostate. He lived, when Mr.
" Paine was my inmate in 1792, at Man-
" Chester, and was a violent and furious ido-
" later of his.
" That Mr. Paine died in the full conviction
" of the truth of the principles he held when
" living I shall fully prove, and should have
" answered the contemptible trash about his
" death, so industrious]}^ circulated, but that
*' the whole account exhibited on the face of
" it fanatical fraud; and it was pushed for-
" ward in a mode and manner so ridiculous and
" glaringly absurd, as to carry with it its own
" antidote. " Such Christians would be much better
" employed in mending their own lives, and
'' shewing in them an example of good man-
" ners and morals, than in calumniating the

XI

" characters and in detailing silly stories of the
" deaths of those deists who have infinitely
" outstripped them, in their journey thro
" life, in every talent and virtue, and in dif-
" fusing information and happiness among
" their fellow men.
" I again beg the favour of a call, as the
" circumstances attached to the query ofyour's,
" and the delays and hindrances, which are of
" a fanijly and distressing nature, to the pub-
" lication of Mr. Paine's life, are better adapted
" for private than public discussion.
" I am, Sir, your obedient Servant,
" Clio Rickman."

It may not be necessary for me to premise
any thing further than to say, that I affect not
to rank with literary men, nor, as they rise,
do I wish it; that authorship* is neither my

• See Preface to my " Poetical Scraps," 2 vols, where
this subject is further enlarged on."

XII

profession nor pursuit ; and that, except in an
undeviating attention to truth, and a better
acquaintance with Mr. Paine and his life than
any other man, I am perhaps the most unfit to
arrange it for the public eye.
What I have hitherto written and published
has arisen out of the moment, has been com
posed on the spur of the' occasion, inspired by
the scenery and circumstances around me, and
produced abroad and at home, amid innu
merable vicissitudes, the hurry of travel, busi
ness, pleasure, and during a life singularly
active, eventful and chequered.
Latterly too that life has been begloomed
by a train of ills which have trodden on each
other's heel, and which, added to the loss of
my inspirer, my guifle, my genius, and my
muse; of her, the most highly qualified and
best able to assist mc, have rendoied the work
peculiarly irksome and oppressive.
In the year 1802, on my journey from
France, I had the misfortune to lose my desk

XIII
of papers; — a loss I have never lamented more
than on the present occasion. Among these
were Mr. Paine's letters to me, particularly
those from France in the most interesting years
to Europe, 1792, 1793. Not a scrap of these,
together with some of his poetiy, could I ever
recover. — By this misfortune the reader will
lose much entertaining and valuable matter.

1819.
These memoirs have remained untouched
from 1011 till now, and have not received any
addition of biographical matter since. They
were written by that part of my family who
were at hand, as I dictated them ; by those
loved beings of whom death has deprived me,
and from whom other severe ills have separated"
me. The manuscript, on these and many other
accounts, awakens " busy meddling Mf.j\ioRY,"
and tortures me with painful remembrances;
and save that it is a duty I owe to thj public
and to the memory and character of a valued
friend, I should not have set about its arrange
ment.

XIV
My heart is not in it. There are literary
productions, which like some children, tho
disagreeable to every body else, are still fa
vorites with the parent: this offspring of
mine is not of this sort, it hath no such
affection. Thus surrounded, and every Avay broken
in upon by the most painful and harrassing
circumstances, I claim the reader's candour ;
and I now litcrall)' force myself to the pub
lication of Mr. Paine's Life, lest it should again
be improperly done, or not be done at all, and
the knowledge of so great and good a man
be thereby lost to the world.

The engraving of Mr. Paine, by Mr. Sharp,
prefixt to this v/ork is the only true likeness
of him; it is from his portrait by Romne^',
and is perhaps the greatest likeness ever taken
by any painter: to that eminent artist I intro
duced him in 1792, and it was by my earnest
persuasion that he sat to him.*
* The large proofs of Mr. Paine sell at one guinea
and the large prints at half-a-guinea, to be had of the

XV

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 con
vey the exquisite meaning, was full, brilliant,
and singularly piercing ; it had in it the " muse
of fire." In his dress and person he was gene
rally 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 friends his con
versation had every fascination that anecdote,
novelty and truth could give it. In mixt
company and among stiangers he said little,
and was no public speaker.
Thus much is said of him in general, and
in this place, that the reader may the better
bear us company in his Life.

publisher. The small ones, proofs at three and sixpence ;
and prints, at two and sixpence.

^y/'ly SeuSL^A^Cty^^

***** **««
A^y^e^syr^-iyTt^ i<f *ycr*^ •X'<^s<>^ t^^^c

-=^^^y^

^Pl^^<y.

LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE.

The following memoirs of Mr. Paine, if
they have no other merit, at least have that
of being- true.

a

Europe and America have for years been
in possession of his works : these form the most
important part of his life, and these are publicly
sold and generally read ; nor will the spirit of
enquiry and sound reasoning, which the pub
lication of them is so well calculated to pro
mote, be long confined to any part of the world ;
for, to use his own words, " An army of prin-
" ciples will penetrate where an army of sol-
" diers cannot. It will succeed where diplo-
" matie managem^ent would fail. It is neither
" the Pthine, the Channel, nor the Ocean, that
" can arrest its progress. It will march on the
" horizon of the world, and it will conquer."
B

" What manner of man" Mr. Paine was,
his works will best exhibit, and from these his
public, and much of his private character will
be best ascertained. But, as solicitude about
the life of a great man and an extraordinary
writer is common to all, it is here attempted
to be gratified.
The Life of Mr. Paine by Francis Oldys*
was written seventeen years before Mr. Paine's
death; and was, in fact, drawn up by a
person employed by a certain lord, and who
was to have five hundred pounds for the
job, if he calumniated and belied him to his
lordship's and the ministry's satisfaction.
A continuation of this Life, printed at Phi
ladelphia in 1796, is in the same strain as the
above, and equally contemptible.

* " The Life of Thomas Pain, the Author of Rights of
" Man, v.'ith a Defence of his Writings, by Francis Oldys,
" A. M. of the University of Pennsylvania : — Dublin
" printed." This silly and contemptible book against Mr.
Paine and his writings, which was calculated every way to in
jure bira and them, tells a falsehood in the title page, to secure
its sale, by inserting in it, " with a Defence of his Writings."'

A most vile and scandalous memoir of him,
with the name of William Cobbett as the
author, though we hope he was not so, appeared
in London about the year 1795 with this motto:
" A life that's one continued scene
" Of all that's infamous and mean."
Mr. James Cheetham's Life of Mr. Paine,
published at New York after Mr. Paine's death
in 1809, is a farrago of still more silly, trifling,
false, and malicious matter. It is an outrageous
attack upon him which bears, upon the face
of it, idle gossiping, and gross misrepresenta
tion. The critique on this Life, in the British Re
view for June 1811, consists of more corrupt
trash about Mr. Paine than even Cheetham's
book, and is in its style inflated and bombastic
to a laughable excess. Whence this came, and
for what purposes published, the candid will
readily discern, and cannot but lament the too
frequent abuse, both by the tongue and by the
pen, of characters entirely unknown to those
B 2

who libel them, and by whom, if they were
known, they would be approved and esteemed.
Indeed the whole of these works are so ridi
culously overstrained in their abuse that they
carry their own antidote with them.
The Life by Cheetham is so palpably writ
ten to distort, disfigure, mislead, and vilify,
and does this so bunglingly, that it defeats its
own purposes, and becomes entertaining from
the excess of its laboured and studied defa
mation. It is indeed " Guilt's blunder," and subverts
all it was intended to accomplish. It is filled
with long details of uninteresting American
matter, bickering letters of obscure individuals,
gossiping stories of vulgar fanatics, prejudiced
political cant, and weak observations on theo
logy. It may be supposed, from my long and affec
tionate intercourse with Mr. Paine, that these

memoirs will have an opposite bias, and pou
tray too flattering and exalted a character of him.
To this I reply, that I am not disposed to
advocate the errors and irregularities of any
man, however intimate with him, to suffer the
partialities of friendship to prevent the due
appreciation of character, or induce me to dis-
res-ard the hallowed dictates of truth.

-to^

Mr. Paine was one of those men who,
Wise by some centuries before the croud.
Must by their novel systems, tho correct.
Of course offend the wicked, weak, and proud.
Must meet with hatred, calumny, neglect.

In his retirement to America, towards the
close of his life, Mr. Paine was particularly
unfortunate; for, as the author of the "Age of
Reason," he could not have gone to so unfavor
able a quarter of the world. A country, abound
ing in fanatics, could not be a proper one for
him whose mind was bold, enquiring, liberal,
and soaring, free from prejudice, and who from
principle was a deist.

Of all wrath, fanatical wrath is the most
intense ; nor can it be matter of surprise that
Mr. Paine received from great numbers in Ame
rica an unwelcome reception, and was treated
with neglect and illiberality.
It is true on his return to that country in
1802, he received great attention from many
of those who remembered the mighty influence
of his writings in the gloomy period of the
Revolution; and from others who had since em
braced his principles ; but these attentions were
not, by many, long continued.
Thousands, who had formerly looked up to
Mr. Paine as the principal founder of the Re
public, had imbibed a strong dislike to him on
account of his religious principles ; and thou
sands more, who were opposed to his political'
principles, seized hold of the mean and dastardly
expedient of attacking those principles thro
the religious feelings and prejudices of the
people. The vilest calumnies were constantly
vented against him in the public papers, and

the weak minded were afraid to encounter the
popular prejudice.
The letter he wrote to General Washington
also estranged him from many of his old friends,
and has been to his adversaries a fruitful theme
of virulent accusation, and a foundation on
which to erect a charge of ingratitude and in
temperance. It must certainly be confessed
that his naturally warm feelings, which could
ill brook any slight, particularly wlicie he was
conscious he so little deserved it, appear to
have led him to form a somewhat precipitate
judgment of the conduct of the American presi
dent, with regard to his (Mr. Paine's) impri
sonment in France, and to attribute to design
and wilful neglect what was probably only the
result of inattention or perhaps misinformation;
and under the influence of this incorrect im
pression he seems to have indulged, rather too
hastily, suspicions of ^Vashington's political
conduct with respect to England. But surely
some little allowance should be made for the
circumstances under which he Avrote; just

8
escaped from the horrors of a prison Avhere he
had been for several months confined under
the sanguinary reign of Robespierre, when
death strode incessantly through its cells, and
the guillotine floated in the blood of its Avretch-
ed inhabitants ; and if, Avith the recollection of
these scenes of terror fresh in his memory, and
impressed with the idea that it Avas by Washing
ton's neglect that his life had been thus endan
gered, he may haA'e been betrayed into a style
of severity Avhich Avas perhaps not quite war
ranted, we can only lament, without attaching
blame to either, that any thing jarring should
have occurred between two men Avho AA^ere both
staunch supporters of the cause of freedom, and
thus have given the enemies of liberty occasion
to triumph because its advocates were not more
than mortal.
The dark and troublous years of the revo
lution having past aAvay, and a government
being firmly established, wealth possessed more
influence than patriotism; and, a large portion
of the people consisting of dissenters, fana-

ticism was more predominant than toleration,
candour and charity.
These causes produced the shameful and
ungrateful neglect of Mr. Paine in the eve
ning of his days ; of that Paine Avho by his
long, faithful, and disinterested services in the
Revolution, and afterwards by inculcating and
enforcing correct principles, deserved, above all
other men, the most kind and unremitting
attention from, and to be held in the highest
estimation by, the American people.
There Avere indeed a chosen and enlightened
few, Avho, like himself " bold enough to be
honest and honest enough to be bold," feeling
his value, continued to be his friends to his last
hour. Paine Avas not one of the great men who
live amid great events, and forward and share
their splendour; he created them; and, in this
point of view, he was a very superior character
to Washington.

10

Far be it from me to derogate from the
value of that great man; but it is presumed
that he is more justly appreciated in the follow
ing epitaph, than in some longer essays toAvards
characterizing him :
Important periods mark'd thy s])lendid life.
With tyrant men and tyrant means at strife;
Tho ne'er in Europe, yet thy well-earn'd fame
Throughout all Europe raade revered thy name.
Thus far is true, but truth must further tell.
That lucky hits thy bright career befell ;
Nor will thy shade this portraiture condemn.
That great events made thee, ai)d not thou them.
Mr. Paine having ever in his mind the servi-
ceshehad rendered tbe United States, of whose
independence he Avas the principal author and
means, it cannot be matter of wonder that he
Avas deeply hurt and affected at not being re
cognized and treated by the Americans as he
deserved, and as his labours for their benefit
merited. Shunned Avhere he ought to have been ca
ressed, coldly neglected Avhere he ought to
have been cherished, throAvn into the back

11

ground where he ought to have been promi
nent, and cruelly treated and calumniated by
a host of ignorant and canting fanatics, it can
not be a subject of surprise, though it certainly
must of regret, that he sometimes, towards the
close of life, gave into the too frequent indul
gence of drinking, neglected his appearance,
and retired, mortified and disgusted, from an
ill-judging, unkind, unjust Avorld, into coarse
obscurity, and the association of characters in
inferior life.
In this place it is absolutely necessary k)
observe, that during his residence Avith me in
London in and about the year 1792, and in the
course of his life previous to that time, he Avas
not in the habit of drinking to excess; he Avas
clean in his person, and in his manners polite
and engaging ; and ten years after this, when
I Avas Avith him in France, he did not drinit
spirits, and wine he took moderately ; he even
objected to any spirits being laid in as a part
of his sea stock, observing to me, that tho
sometimes, borne doAvn by public and private

12

affliction, he had been driven to excesses in
Paris, the cause and effect would cease toge
ther, and that in America he should live as he
liked, and as he ought to live.
That Mr. Paine had his failings is as true
as that he Avas a man, and that some of them
grew on him at a very advanced time of life,
arising from the circumstances before detailed,
there can be no doubt : but to magnify these,
to give him vices he had not, and seek only
occasions of misrepresenting and vilifying his
character, without bringing forward the great
and good traits in it, is cruel, unkind, and
unjust. " Let those who stand take heed lest they
fall." — They too, Avhen age debilitates the body
and mind, and unexpected trials and grievances
assail them, may give into errors that they noAV
vauntingly value themselves in not havino-
Singularly blest are they Avho are correct iu
their conduct ; they should be happy and thank
ful that they are so ; and instead of calumnia-

13

ting and being hard upon, should compas
sionate those who are not.
The throwers of the first stone would indeed
be few if the condition were complied Avith on
which it should be cast. That Mr. Paine in
his declining years drank more than he should
have done, and that he Avas a little tinctured
with avarice, is in some measure true ; but, to
these errors of his old age, avc ought to oppose
his being the principal agent in creating the
government of the American States ; and that
thro his efforts millions have now the hap
piness of sitting at ease under their own vines
and their own fig trees ; his fair and upright
conduct thro life, his honest perseverance in
principles Avhich he might liaA^e had immense
sums for relinquishing, or for being silent
about, his never Avriting for , money or making
his works matter of pecuniary advantage to
himself, but, on the contrary, as Avill be exem
plified in these memoirs, his firmness in resist
ing all such emolument and in not listening
to the voice of the briber.

14

Even amidst the violent party abuse of the
day there Avere cotemporary Avriters Avho knew
how to appreciate Mr. Paine's talents and prin
ciples, and to speak of him as he deserved.*

* There were also public meetings held, and addresses
to him from Nottingham, Norwich, &c. &c. from the Con
stitutional Society in London, to which belonged persons of
great affluence aud influence, and some of the best informed,
best intentioued, and most exalted characters. From these
and from many other bodies of men were published the
highest testimonies of thanks and approbation of Mr. Paine
and his political works. These addresses and the resolutions
of the public meetings may be seen in the papers and hand
bills of the day. — We subjoin two from Manchester and
Sheffield.

" Manchester. — At a Meeting of the Manchester
Constitutional Society, held this day, it was ULauimously
resolved, " That the thanks of this Society are due to Mr. Tho
mas Paine, for the publication of " liis Second Part of the
Rights or Man, cvtubhiing Principle and Practice," — a
work of the highest importance to every nation under
heaven ; but particularly to this, as containing excellent and
practicable plans for an immediate and considerable reduc
tion of the public expenditure ; for the prevention of wars ;
for the extension of our manufactures and commerce ; for
the education of the young ; for the comfortable support of
the aged ; for the better maintenance of tbe poor of every

15

" We are now," says one of these, " to
" treat of "a real great man, a noble of nature,
" one Avhose mind is enlarged and Avholely
" free from prejudice; one Avho has most use-

description ; and finally, for lessening greatly, and without
delay, the enormous load of taxes under which this country
at present labours.
" That this Society congratulate their countrymen at
large on the influence which Mr. Paine's publications appear
to have had, in procuring the repeal of some oppressive
taxes in the present session of parliament ; and they hope
that this adoption of a small part of Mr. Paine's ideas mil be
followed by the most strenuoui exertions to accomplish a complete
reform in the present inadequate state of the representation of the
people, aud that the other great plans of public benefit,
which Mr. Paine has so powerfully recommended, will be
speedily carried into effect. "Thomas Walker, President.
" Mar. 13, 1792. " Samuel Jackson, Secretary."

" Sheffield Society for Constitutional Information.
" This Society, composed chiefly of the Ivlanufacturers
of Sheffield, began about four months ago, and is already
increased to nearly Tvs^o thousand Members, and is daily
increasing ; exclusive of the adjacent towns and villages,
who are forming themselves into similar societies.
" Considering, as we do, that the want of knowledge
and information in the general mass of the people, has
exposed them to numberless impositions and abuses, the

" fully and honourably devoted his pen to
" support the glorious cause of general liberty
" and the rights of man. In his reply to Mr.
" Burke's miserable rhapsody in favour of op-

exertions of this Society are directed to the acquirement of
useful knowledge, and to spread the same, as far as our
endeavours and abilities can extend.
" We declare that we have derived more true know
ledge from the two w >rks of fdr. Thomas Paine, entitled
Rights of MAjN, Part the Pint and Second, than from any
other author on the subject. The practice as well as the
principle of government is laid down in those works, in a
manner so clear and irresistibly convincing, that this Society
do hereby resolve to give their thanks to Mr. Paine for his
two said publications entitled ' Rights of Man,' Part 1st and
2d. Also
" Resolved unanimously, That the thanks of this Society
be given to Mr. Paine for the affectionate concern he has
shewn in his second work in behalf of the poor, the infant,
and the aged ; who, notwithstanding the opulence which
blesses other parts of the community, are by the grievous
weight of taxes rendered tbe miserable victims of poverty
and wretchedness. " Resolved unanimously, That the thanks of this Society
be given to J. Horne Tooke, Esq. for his meritorious
support of our lawful privileges, as a firm advocate of our
natural and just rights, tlie establishment of an equal repre
sentation of the people.
" Resolved unanimously, That this Society, disdaininEr

17
" pression, popery, and tyranny, he has urged
" the most lucid arguments, and brought for-
" ward truths the most convincing. Like a
" poAA'erful magician he touches with his wand
" the hills of error and they smoke ; the moun-
" tains of inhumanity and they melt away."
" Had Thomas Paine," says another most
enlightened writer in 1795, in reply to Cheet^
ham, Cobbett, Oldys, &c. " been nothing

to be considered either of a ministerial or an opposition
party (names of which we are tired, having been so often
deceived by both) do ardently recommend it to all their
fellow citizens, into whose hands these resolutions may
come, to confer seriously and calmly with each other, on
the subject alluded to • and to manifest to the world, that
the spirit of true liberty is a spirit of order; and that to
obtain justice, it is consistent that we be just ourselves.
" Resolved unanimously. That these Resolutions be
printed, and that a Copy thereof be transmitted to the
' Society for Constitutional Information in London,' request
ing their approbation for twelve of our friends to be entered
into their Society, for th^ purpose of establishing a con
nexion and a regular communication with that and all other
similar societies in the kingdom.
" By order of the Committee,
" Mar. 14, 1792. " David Martin, Chairman."
C

18

superior to a vagabond seaman, a bankrupt
stay maker, a discarded exciseman, a porter
in the streets of Philadelphia, or Avhatever
else the insanity of Grub-street chooses to
call him, hundreds of thousands of copies of
his Avriting had never announced his name in
every village on the globe where the English
language is spoken, and very extensively
Avhere it is not ; nor Avould the rays of royal
indignation have illuminated that character
which they cannot scorch."

The folloAving are the obserA'ations of Mr,
Erskine, noAV Lord Erskine, Avhei:i counsel for
him on the prosecution against him for his
work ' Rights of Man.' " Upon the mat-
" ter, which I hasten to lay before you, can
" you refuse injustice to pronounce, that from
" his education, from the accidents and habits
" of his life, from the time and circumstances
" attending it, and from every line and letter
" of the Avork itself and all his other Avritino-s
" before and ever since, his conscience and
" understanding (no matter Avhether errone-

19

" ously or not) Avere deeply and solemnly im-
" pressed Avith the matters contaiiicd in his
" book ; that he addressed it to the reason of
" the nation at large, and not to the passions of
" individuals; and that in the issue of its influ-
" ence he contemplated only Avhat appeared
" to him (though it may not to us) to be the
" interest and happiness of England, and of the
" whole human race? In drawing the one or
" other of these conclusions, the book stands
" first in order, and it shall speak for itself.
" Gentlemen, the Avhole of it is in evidence
" before you, the particular parts arranged
" having only been read by my consent upon
" the presumption that on retiring from the
" court you would carefully compare them
" with the context, and all the parts Avith
" the Avhole vieM^ed together.
" You cannot indeed do justice without it.
" The most common letter, even in the ordi-
" nary course of business, cannot be read in
" a cause to prove an obligation for twenty
c 2

20
" shillings without th* whole being read, that
" the writer's meaning may be seen without
" deception. " But in a criminal charge only of four
" pages and a half, out of a AVork containing
" nearly two hundred, you cannot, Avith even
" the appearance of common justice, pronounce
" a judgment Avithout the most deliberate and
" cautious comparison. I observe that the
" noble and learned judge confirms me in this
" observation. But if any given part of a work
" be legally explanatory of every other part
" of it, the preface, h fortiori, is the most
" material, because the preface is the author's
" own key to his Avriting ; it is there that he
" takes the reader by the hand and introduces
" his subject ; it is there that the spirit and
" intention of the whole is laid before him
" by way of prologue. A preface is meant by
" the author as a clue to ignorant or careless
" readers ; the author says by it to every man
" who chooses to begin Avhere he ought,
" look at my plan, attend to my distinctions,

21

" mark the purpose, and limitations of the pur-
" pose, I lay before you. Let them, the ca-
" lumniators of Thomas Paine, now attend to
" his preface, Avhere, to leave no excuse for
" ignorance or misrepresentation, he expresses
" himself thus : ' I have differed from some
" professional gentlemen on the subject of pro-
" secutions, and I since find they are falling
" into my opinion, Avhich I will here state as
" fully but as concisely as I can. I Avill first
'' put a case with respect to my law, and then
" compare it with a government, or with what
" in England is, or has been called, a consti-
" tution.' " It Avould be an act of despotism, or what
" in England is called arbitrary power, to
" make a law to prevent investigating the
" principles, good or bad, on Avhich such a laAV
'•' or any other is founded. If a law be bad,
" it is one thing to oppose the practice of it,
" but it is quite a different thing to expose its
" errors, to reason on its defects, and to show
" cause why it should be repealed, or Avhy

o-*

" another ousht to be substituted in its
" place. " I have always held it an opinion (making
" it also my practice) that it is better to obey
" a bad law, making use at the same time of
" every argument to show its errors and pro-
" duce its repeal, than forcibly to violate it;
" because the precedent of breaking a bad law
" might Aveaken the force, and lead to a dis-
" cretionary violation, of those which are
" good. " The case is the same Avith principles and
" forms of a government, or of Avhat are called
" constitutions, and the parts of Avhich they
" are composed.
" It is for the good of nations, and not for
" the emolument or aggrandisement of parti-
" cular individuals, that government ought to
" be established, and that mankind are at the
" expence of supporting it. The defects of
" every government and constitution, both as

23

" to principle and form, must, on a parity of
" reasoning, be as open to discussion as the
" defects of a law ; and it is a duty every man
" owes to society to point them out : When
" those defects and the means of remedying
" them are generally seen by a nation, that
" nation Avill reform its government or its
" constitution in the one case, as the govern-
" ment repealed or reformed the law in the
" other." Mr. Erskine further says, " In that great
" and calamitous conflict, the American Avar,
" Mr. Burke and Mr. Paine fought on the same
" field of reason together, but Avith A^ery diffe-
*' rent success. Mr. Burke spoke to a parlia-
" ment in England such as Sir G. Saville de-
" scribes it, that had no ears but for sounds
" that flattered its corruptions; Mr. Paine, on
" the other hand, spoke to a people, reasoned
" Avith them, that they Avere bound by no sub-
" jection to any sovereignty further than their
" own benefits connected them ; and by these
" powerful arguments prepared the minds of

24

-' the American people for their glorious, just,
'' and happy revolution,"
After this he very properly replies to those
silly, heated people, AA^ho object to Mr. Paine's
discussing the subject he so ably handles.
" A subject which, if dangerous to be dis-
" cussed, he, !Mr. Burke, should not have led
" to the discussion : for surely it is not to be
" endured that any private man is to publish
" a creed for a Avhple nation, to tell us we are
" not to think for ourselves, to impose his own
" fetters on the human mind, to do2;matise at
" discretion, and that no man shall sit down
" to answer him Avithout being guilty of a
" libel; I assert, iha,t, if it be a libel to mistake
" our constitution, to support it by means that
" tend to destroy it, and to choose the most
" dangerous season for the interference, Mr.
" Burke is that libeller, but not therefore the
" object of a criminal prosecution ; for whilst
" I am defending the motives of one man I
" have neither right nor disposition to crimi-

25

" nate the motives of others. All I contend for
¦* is a fact that cannot be controverted, viz.
" that this officious interference was the origin
•' of Mr. Paine's book. I put my cause upon
" its being the origin of it, the avowed origin
" of it, as Avill abundantly appear from the
¦* introduction and preface to both parts, and
" throughout the whole body of the work ; nay
'* from the work of Mr. Burke himself, to
" which both of them are answers."
Even Mr. Burke, v^riting on one of Mr.
Paine's works, ' Common Sense,' says, " that ce-
" lebrated pamphlet, which prepared the minds
" of the people for independence."
The following extract is from Mrs. Charlotte
Smith's ' Desmond,' a novel, for matter and
manner, equalled by few, and Avhich for the
excellent sentiments it inculcates is worthy the
reader's! attention.
" In reading the book you sent me, which
" I have yet had only time to do superficially,

26

" I am forcibly struck by truths that either
" were not seen before, or Avere by me, who
" did not Avish to acknowledge them, carefully
" repressed; they sometimes are bluntly deli-
" vered, but it is often impossible to refuse
" immediate assent to those which appear the
" boldest, impossible to deny that many others
" have been acceded to, AA'hen the}' were spoken
" by men to AA'hose authority Ave have paid
" a kind of prescriptive obedience, tho they
" noAV haA'e called forth such clamour and abuse
" against the author of the ' Rights of Man.'
" My other letters from England are filled Avith
" accounts of the rage and indignation Avhich
" this publication has excited ; I pique myself,
" however, on having, in my former letter, cited
" against Burke, a sentence of Locke Avhich
" contradicts, as forcibly as Paine has contra-
" dieted, one of his most absurd positions. I
" know that, Avhere sound argument fails, abu-
" sive declamation is always substituted, and
" that it often silences Avhere it cannot con-
" vince. I know too that Avhere the politics
" are obnoxious, recourse is always had to per-

27

" sonal detraction ; therefore Avonder not that,
" on your side of the Avater, those who are
" averse to the politics of Paine Avill declaim
" instead of arguing, and those Avho feel the
" force of his abilities will vilify his private
" life, as if that Avas any thing to the purpose,
" I do however wonder that these angry anta-
" gonists do not recollect that the clamour
" they raise serves only to prove their fears,
" and that if the writings of this man are, as'
" they Avould represent, destitute of truth and
" sound argument, they must be quickly con-
" signed to contempt and oblivion, and could
" neither be themselves the subject of alarm,
" or render their author an object of investi-
" gation and abhorrence ; but the truth is,
" Avhatever may be his private life (with Avhich
" I cannot understand that the public have
" any concern) he comes, as a political writer,
" under the description given of a controvertist
" by the acute author to whom IMonsieur
" D'Hauteville has so terrible an aversion: —
" ' Was there ever so abominable a fellow ?
" * He exposes truth so odiously, he sets before
" ' our eyes the arguments on both sides Avith
" ' horrible impartiality; he is so intolerably

28

" ' clear and plain, that he enables people Avho
" ' have only common sense, to doubt, and
" * even to judge.' Voltaire^
It would be unjust to omit the testimony of
so great a man as Mr. Monroe* in Mr. Paine's
favour^ especially as he knew our author
thro many years, and Avas incapable of any
thing less than a due appreciation of his cha^
racter. " It is necessary for me to tell you how
" much all your countrymen, I speak of the
" great mass of the people, are interested in
" your Avelfare ; they have not forgotten the
" history of their own revolution, and the dif-
" ficult scenes through which they passed; nor
" do they review its several stages Avithout
" reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility
" of the merits of those Avho served them in
" that great and arduous conflict. The crime
" of ingratitude has not yet stained, nor I
" trust ever Avill stain, our national character.

* Elected President of America in 1817.

29

" You are considered by them as not only
" having rendered important services in our
" own revolution, but as being on a more
" extensive scale the friend of human rights,
" and a distinguished and able advocate in
" favour of public liberty. To the welfare of
" Thomas Paine the Americans are not, nor
" can they be, indifferent."
But Paine is now dead, the test of time
must prove him, and the reader will I hope be
gratified that I add the elegant and very appro-
propriate language of my brother-in-law, Mr.
Capel Lofft.
" I have learnt that on the writings of men
the grave is a severe and impartial critic;
what deserves disesteem Avill have no long
celebrity, but Avhat has truth and social good
for its principle, and has been the emanation
of a powerful mind, under the influence of
these motives has the germ of immortality ;
whatever of perishable frailty may adhere
to it will soon drop into oblivion. The
' fleeting forms of error change in every ge
neration; a wrong is ever a confined and

30

" a capricious taste. Nothing will generally
" and permanently please that does not derive
" itself from an hioher orisfin. It is needless
" therefore to iuA^eigh against the dead, those
" especially Avho have been poor, and perse-
" cuted, and traduced through life. Such, if
" they merit shame and neglect with posterity,
'* must of course meet it. These are no impo-
" sing circumstances to create a false homage.
" But if they have deserved the esteem, the
" gratitude, the affectionate veneration of suc-
" ceeding ages, no satire, no invidious exag-
" gerated selection of their faults Avill check
" their career. The licensed cry that marks
" the commencement of their triumph Avill be
" hourly fainter, and its last holloAV murmurs
" will have expired Avithout ever reaching that
" temple in Avhich their fame, its solemn pro-
" gress completed, must reside, Avhile aught of
" human glory beams on the earth from the
" awful shrine. If men, in other respects of
*' wisdom and virtue, have so far forgotten
" themselves as to aid the cry, those tutelary
" poAvers leave at such a moment the side of
" those Avhoiu at other times they have most
" favoured. They add force to the sacred

31

" sound of just praise ; the din of their con-
" stant enemies, the hasty and eager clamour
" of their erring friends sink, lost and un-
" distinguished, in the full harmonious ac-
~" claim." In the year 1795, in a letter to me Mr.
Lofft thus Avrites, after objecting to the first
part of the ' Age of Reason :' " I am glad Paine
" is living : he cannot be even Avrong without
" enlightening mankind ; such is the vigour of
" his intellect, such the acuteness of his re-
" search, and such the force and vivid perspi-
" cuity of his expressions."
It has been a fashion among the enemies
of Mr. Paine, when unable to cope Avith his
arguments, to attack his style, Avhich they
charge Avith inaccuracy and want of elegance ;
and some, even of those most friendly to his
principles, have joined in this captious criti
cism. It had not, perhaps, all the meretricious
ornaments and studied graces that glitter in
the pages of Burke, which would have been
so many obscurities in the eyes of that part
of the community for whose perusal his writings

32

were principally intended, but it is singularly
nervous and pointed; his arguments are always
forcibly stated, nor does a languid line ever
weary the attention of the reader. It is true,
he never studied variety of phrase at the ex-
pence of perspicuity. His object was to en
lighten, not to dazzle ; and often, for the sake
of more forcibly impressing an idea on the
mind of the reader, he has made use of verbal-
repetitions Avhich to a fastidious ear may perhaps
sound unmusical. But although, in the opinion
of some, his pages may be deficient in elegance,
few will deny that they are copious in matter;
and, if they sometimes fail to tickle the ear,
they will never fail to fill the mind.
Distinctness and arrangement are the pecu
liar characteristics of his writings : this reflec
tion brings to mind an observation once made
to him by an American girl, that his head was
like an orange — it had a separate apartment
for every thing it contained.
Notwithstanding this general character of
his writings, the bold and original style of
thinking which every where pervades them

33

often displays 'itself in a luxuriance of imagery,
and a poetic elevation of fancy, which stand
unrivalled by the pages of our english clas
sics. Thomas Paine Avas born at Thetford in the
county of Norfolk in England, on the 29th
of January, 1736. His father Joseph Paine,
Avho Avas the son of a small reputable farmer,
followed the trade of a stay maker, and was by
religious profession a quaker. His mother's
maiden name was Frances Cocke, a member of
the church of England, and daughter of an
attorney at Thetford.
They were married at the parish church of
Euston, near Thetford, the 20th of June,
1734. His father, by this marriage out of the so
ciety of quakers, was disowned by that com
munity. Mr. Paine received his education at the
grammar school at Thetford, under the Revd.
Wm. Knowles, master; and one of his school-
D

34

mates at tUs-t time was the larte counsellor
Mingay, He gave very early indication of talents and
strong abilities, and addicted himself, when a
mere boy, to reading poetical authors ; but this
disposition his parents endeavoured to discoiiT
When a child he composed some lilies dh
a fly being caught in a spider's web, and pro
duced, Avhen eight years of age, die loUowing
epitaph on a crow which he buried iji the
garden : — Here lies the body of John Crow,
Who once was high but now is low ;
Ye brother Crows take warning all.
For as you rise, so must you fall.
At this school his studies were directed
merely to the useful branches of reading, wri
ting, and arithmetic, and he left it at thirteen
years of age, applying, tho he did not like it,
to his father's business for nearly five years.
In the year 1756, when about twenty years

35

of age, he went to London, where he worked
some time in Hanover Street, Long Acre, with
Mr. Morris, a noted stay maker.
He continued but a short time in London^
and it is probable about this time made his
seafaring adventure of which he thus speaks :
' At an early age, raw and adventurous, and
' heated with the false heroism of a master
' [Revd. Mr. Knowles, master of the grammar
' school at Thetford] who had served in a man
' of war, I began my fortune, and entered on
' board the Terrible, Captain Death. From
' this adventure I Avas happily prevented by
' the affectionate and moral remonstrances of a
' good father, who from the habits of his life,
' being of the quaker profession, looked on
' me as lost ; but the impression, much as it
' affected me at the time, Avore away, and I
' entered afterwards in the King of Prussia
' privateer. Captain Mender, and went with her
' to sea."

This Way of life Mr. Paine soon left, and
about the year 1758 worked at his trade for
near twelve months at Dover. In April 1759
D 2

36

he settled as a master stay maker at Sandwich ;
and the 27th of September following married
Mary Lambert, the daughter of an exciseman
of that place. In April 1760, he removed with
his wife to Margate, where she died shortly
after, and he again mingled with the crouds of
London. In July 1761, disgusted with the toil and
little gain of his late occupation, he renounced
it for ever, and determined to apply himself
to the profession of an exciseman, toAvards
Avhich, as his wife's father was of that call
ing, he had some time turned his thoughts.
At this period he sought shelter under his
father's roof at Thetford, that he might pro
secute, in quiet and retirement, the object of
his future course. Through the interest of Mr.
Cocksedge, the recorder of Thetford, after four
teen months of study, he Avas established as a
supernumerary in the excise, about the age
of tAventy-five, In this situation at Grantham and Alford,
&c. he did not continue more than two or

37

three years, when he relinquished it in August
1765, arid commenced rt again in July 1766.
In this interval he was teacher at Mr. Noble's
academy in Leman Street, Goodman's Fields,
at a salary of =£25 a year. In a similar occu
pation he afterwards lived for a short time, at
Kensington, with a Mr. Gardner.
I remember when once speaking of the im
provement he gained in the above capacities
and some other lowly situations he had been
in, he made this observation : " Here I derived
" considerable information ; indeed I have sel-
" dom passed five minutes of my life, hoAV-
" ever circumstanced, in Avhich I did not ac-
" quire some knowledge."
During this residence in London Mr. Paine
attended the philosophical lectures of Martin
and Ferguson, and became acquainted with
Dr. Bevis of the Temple, a great astronomer.
In these studies and in the mathematics he
soon became a proficient.
In March 1768 he Avas settled as an excise-

38

man at Lewes, in Sussex, and there, on the
26th of March 1771, married Elizabeth Ollive,
shortly after the death of her father, whose
trade of a tobacconist and grocer he entered
into and carried on.
In this place he lived several years in habits
of intimacy with a very respectable, sensible,
and convivial set of acquaintance, who Avere
entertained with his witty sallies, and informed
by his more serious conversations.
In politics he was at this time a Whig, and
notorious for that quality which has been de
fined perseverance in a good cause and obsti
nacy in a bad one. He Avas tenacious of his
opinions, which were bold, acute, and inde
pendent, and which he maintained with ardour,
elegance, and argument.
At this period, at Lewes, the White Hart
evening club was the resort of a social and
intelligent circle who, out of fun, seeing that
disputes often ran very warm and high, fre
quently had what they called the * Headstrong
Book.' This was no other than an old Greek

3£l
Hoinei- which Avas sent the morning after a
debate vehemently maintained, to the most
bbstinate haranguer of the Club ; this book had
the following title, as implying that Mr. Paine
the best deserved and the most frequently
bbtained iti THE
HEADSTRONG BOOK,
OR
ORIGINAL BOOK OF OBSTINACY,
WRITTEN BY
*»**• •*»», OF LEWES, IN SUSSEX;
AND REVISED AND CORRECTED BY
'THOMAS PAINE.

EULOGY 6N PAINEi
Immortal Paine, while mighty reasoners jar.
We crown thee General of the Headstrong War ;
Thy logic vanouish'd error, and thy mind
No bounds, but those of right and truth, coi)fined;
Thy soul of fire must sure ascend the sky.
Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die ;
For men like thee their names must eVer save
From the black edicts of the tyrant gfave.

40

My friend Mr. Lee, of Lewes, in commu
nicating this to me in September 1810, said
" This was manufactured nearly forty years ago,
" as applicable to Mr. Paine, and I believe you
" will alloAV, however indifferent the manner,
" that I did not very erroneously anticipate
" his future celebrity."
During his residence at Lewes, he wrote
several excellent little pieces in prose and verse,
and among the rest the celebrated song on the
death of General Wolfe, beginning
In a mouldering cave where the wretched retreat* —
It was about this time he Avrote " The Trial
of Farmer Carter's Dog Porter," in the manner
of a drama, a work of exquisite wit and hu
mour. In 1772 the excise oflScers throughout the
kingdom formed a design of applying to par
liament for some addition to their salaries.

* This and other of Mr. Paine's poetical effusions, the
reader will find at the close of this work.

41

Upon this occasion Mr. Paine, Avho by this
time Avas distinguished amongst them as a
man of talent, Avas fixed upon as a fit person,
and solicited to draw up their case, and this he
did in a very succinct and masterly manner.
This case makes an octavo pamphlet, and four
thousand copies were printed by Mr. Wm. Lee
of Lewes : it is entitled " The Case of the
Salary of the Officers of Excise, and Thoughts
on the Corruption arising from the Poverty of
Excise Officers." No application, however,
notwithstanding this effort, Avas made to par
liament. In April 1774 the goods of his shop were
sold to pay his debts.
As a grocer, he trafficked in exciseable
articles, and being suspected of unfair practices
was dismissed the excise after being in it
twelve years. Whether this reason was a just
one or not never was ascertained : it was how
ever the ostensible one,
Mr. Paine might perhaps have been in the
habit of smuggling, in common Avith his neigh-

42

hours; it was the universal custom along the
coast, and more or less the practice of all ranks
of people, from lords and ladies, ministers and
magistrates, down to the cottager and labourer.
I cannot, while upon this subject, resist
the republication of a letter of mine in Octo^
ber 1807
" To the Editor of the Independent Whig."
" Sir, " If there are anv characters riiore
to be abhorred than others, it is those who in
flict severe punishments against offenders and
yet themselves commit the same crimes.
" If any characters more than others de
serve execration, exposure, and to be driven
from among mankind, it is those governors of
the people who break the laws they themselves
make, and punish others for breaking.
" Suffer me, Mr. Editor, thus to preface
the following fact ; fact I say, because I stand
ready to prove it so.

43

" When Admiral Duncan rendezvoused in
the Downs with his fleet on the 8th of January
1806, the Spider lugger, Daniel Falara, master,
was sent to Guernsey to smuggle articles fot
the fleet, such as wine, spirits, hair powder,
playing cards, tobacco, &c. for the supply of
the different ships.
" At her arrival in the Downs, the ships'
boats flocked round her to unload her and her
contraband cargo. A custom-house extra boat
commanded by William Wallace, seeing the
lugger, followed and took her ; in doing which
he did his duty. .
" On his inspecting the smuggled articles
with Avhich she Avas laden, he found a number
of cases directed to Admiral Duncan, the Right
Honble William Pitt, the heaven-born minister
of England, and to the Right Honble Henry
Dundas, Walmer Castle. In a few days, Wal
lace, the master of the custom-house cutter,
received orders from government to give the
lugger and her smuggled cargo up, on penalty
of being dismissed the service, and these cases
of smuggled goods were afterwards delivered

44

at the prime minister's, Mr. Pitt's, at Walmer
Castle. " Mr. Editor, read what follows, and re
press your indignation if you can.
" There are now in Deal jail fourteen per
sons for trifling acts of smuggling compared
to the above of the Right Honble William Pitt
and the now Right Honble Lord Melville.
" The former Avere poor, and kncAV not
how to live, the latter Avere most afliluently
and splendidly supported by the people ; that
is, they were paupers upon the generous public,
towards Avhom they thus scandalously and infa
mously conducted themselves. " I am, Sir,
" Your humble servant,
" Clio Rickman."
As Mr. Paine's being dismissed the excise
has been a fa\'orite theme with his abusers it
may be necessary here to relate the following
fact.

45

At the time he was an exciseman at Lewes,
he was so approA'ed for doing his duty that
Mr. Jenner, principal clerk in the Excise Office,
London, had several times occasion to write
letters from the Board of Excise thanking Mr.
Paine for his assiduity in his profession, and
for his information and calculations forwarded
to the office.
In May . following Mr. Paine and his Avife
separated by mutual agreement ; articles of
which Avere finally settled on the 4th of June.
Which of them Avas in this instance in the
wrong, or whether either of them Avas so, ihust
be left undetermined ; as on this subject
no knowledge or judgment can be formed.
They are now both removed, where, as we
are told, none " are either married or given
in marriage," and where, consequently,
there can be no disagreements on this
score. This I can assert, that Mr. Paine always
spoke tenderly and respectfully of his Avife;
and sent her several times pecuniary aid, Avith
out her knoAving even whence it came.

40

So much has however been said on Mr.
Paine having never cohabited with Miss Ollive,
whom he married at Lewes, that if I were en
tirely to omit any mention of it, I might be
charged Avith doing so because afraid to meet
the subject, which forms, indeed, a very sin
gular part of Mr. Paine's history.
That he did not cohabit with her from the
moment they left the altar till the day of their
separation, a space of three years, although
they lived in the same house together, is an
indubitable truth. It is also true, that no phy
sical defect, on the part of Mr. Paine, can be
adduced as a reason for such conduct.
I have in my possession the letters and
documents on this subject, — Mr. Francis Whee
ler's letters from Lewes of April 16, 1774, to
Mr. Philip Moore, proctor in the Commons, and
his reply of April 18, 1774; and from Dr.
Manning of Lewes I have frequently heard a
candid detail of the circumstances.
Well, of this curious fact in Mr. Paine's
life, Avhat is to be said? To make use of it

47

^s a subject of reproach, abuse, and calumny,
is absurd : it is one of those things in human
life upon which we cannot come to any deci
sion, and which might have been honourable
as well as dishonourable to Mr. Paine, I think
most probably the former, could every why
and Avherefore be known. But as this cannot
be, the fact, for a fact it is, must be left for
the reader's reflection ; and I dare say if he is a
candid one, it is not the only circumstance in
life which he cannot understand, and upon which
therefore he should not decide uncharitably.
Mr. Paine's answer upon my once referring
to this subject Avas, " It is nobody's business
" but my own : I had cause for it, but I will
" name it to no one."
Towards the end of this year, 1 774, he was
strongly recommended to the great and good
Dr. Franklin, " the favour of whose friend-
" ship," he says, " I possessed in England, and
" my introduction to this part of the Avorld
" [America] was thro his patronage."*
• Cri.^s, No. 3.

48

Mr. Paine now formed the resolutibn of
quitting his native country, and soon crossed
the Atlantic ; and, as he himself relates, arrived
at Philadelphia in the winter, a few months
before the battle of Lexington, which was-
fought in April 1775.
It appears that his first employment in the
New World was Avith Mr. Aitkin a bookseller,
as editor of the Pennsylvanian Magazine; and
his introduction to that work, dated January
24th, 1775, is thus concluded: "Thus encom
passed with difficulties, this first number of
the Pennsyh'anian Magazine entreats a favor
able reception ; of which we shall only say,
that like the early snow-drop it comes forth
in a barren season, and contents itself Avith
foretelling the reader that choicer floAvers
are preparing to appear."
The following letter from Dr. Rush of Phi
ladelphia it is presumed may not improperly
be given here ; but it should be remarked that
this letter was Avritten as late as July 1809, on
purpose to be inserted in Cheetham's infamous
Life of Mr. Paine, and under some prejudices,

49

as appears on the face of it, as Avell as at a
period when every misrepresentation and ca
lumny had been exicited against him.
" Philadelphia, July 17, 1809.
" Sir, " In compliance with your re
quest, I send you herewith answers to your
questions relative to the late Thomas Paine.
" He came to Philadelphia in the year
1772* with a short letter of introduction from
Dr. Franklin, to one of his friends.
" His design was to open a school for the
instruction of young ladies, in several branches
of knowledge, which at that time was seldom
taught in the schools of our country.
" About the year 1773,'f I met him acci-

Dr. Rush is mistaken — it was 1774.
t 1775. E

50

dentally in Mr. Aitkin's book-store, and Avas
introduced to him by Mr. Aitkin. We con
versed a few minutes, Avhen I left. Soon after
wards I read a short essay Avith which I was
much pleased, in one of Bradford's papers,
against the slavery of the Africans in our coun
try, and Avhich I was informed Avas Avritten
by Mr. Paine. This excited my desire to be
better acquainted Avith him. We met soon
after this in Mr. Aitkin's book-store, Avhere I
did homage to his principles, and pen, upon the
subject of the enslaved Africans.
" After this, Mr. Aitkin employed him as
the editor of his Magazine, Avith a salary of
£25 currency a year. This work was well
supported by him. His song upon the death
of General Wolfe, and his reflections upon the
death of Lord Clive, gave it a sudden currency
which few works of that kind have since had
in our country.
" When the subject of American indepen
dence began to be agitated in general conver
sation, I observed the public mind to be loaded
with an immense mass of prejudice and error

61

relative to it. Something appeared to be want
ing to move them, beyond the ordinary short
and cold addresses of newspaper publications.
" At this time I called upon Mr. Paine, and
suggested to him the propriety of preparing
our citizens for a perpetual separation of our
country from Great Britain, by means of a
work of such length, as Avould obviate all the
objections to it.* He seized the idea Avith avi
dity, and immediately began his famous pam
phlet in favour of that measure. He read the
sheets to me at my house, as he composed
them. When he had finished them, I advised
him to put them into the hands of Dr. Franklin,
Samuel Adams, and the late Judge Wilson ;
assuring him at the same time, that they held
the same opinion that he had defended.
" The first of those gentlemen, and I be-

* I have always understood and still believe that this
suggestion came originally from Mr. Paine himself; indeed
Doctor Rush's letter is all through a little egotistical, and
from the close of it, it may be seen he was also a man of
prejudice.
E 2

52

lieve the second, saw the manuscript ; but
Judge Wilson being from home when Mr. Paine
called upon him, it was not subjected to his
inspection. No addition was made to it by
Dr. Franklin, but a passage was struck out, or
omitted, in the printing it, Avhich I conceive
to be one of the most striking in it : it was
the following : ' A greater absurdity cannot
' be conceived than three millions of people
' running to their sea-coast every time a ship
'arrives from London, to know what portion
' of liberty they should enjoy.'
" A title only Avas wanted for this pamphlet
before it was committed to press. Mr. Paine
proposed to call it ' Plain Truth :' I objected
to it, and suggested the title of ' Common
Sense.' This was instantly adopted, and nothing
now remained but to find a printer Avho had
boldness enough to publish it. At that time
there Avas a certain Robert Bell, an intellie-ent
Scotch printer and bookseller in Philadelphia,
whom I knew to be as high toned as Mr. Paine
upon the subject of American independence.
I mentioned the pamphlet to him, and he at
once consented to run the risk of publishing

53

It. The author and the printer were imme
diately brought together, and ' Common Sense '
burst from the press of the latter in a few days
with an effect which has been rarely produced
by types and paper in any age or country.
" Between the time of the publication of
this pamphlet and the 4th of July 1776, Mr.
Paine published a number of essays in Mr.
Bradford's paper under the signature of ' The
Forester,' in defence of the opinions contained
in his ' Common Sense.'
" In the summer and autumn of 1776 he
served as a volunteer in the American war
under General Washington. Whether he re
ceived pay and rations I cannot tell. He liA'^ed
a good deal Avith the officers of the first rank
in the army, at Avhose tables his ' Common
Sense' always made him a welcome guest.
The legislature of Pennsylvania gave Mr. Paine
^500 as an acknowledgment of the services
he had rendered the United States by his pub
lications.

" He acted as clerk to the legislature of Penn-

54

sylvania about the year 1780. I do not know
the compensation he received for his services
in that station. He acted a while as secretary
of the Secret Committee of Congress, but Avas
dismissed by them for publishing some of their
secrets relative to Mr. Deane.
" Mr. Paine's manner of life Avas desultory :
he often visited in the families of Dr. Franklin,
Mr. Ritterhouse, and Mr. G. Clymer; Avhere
he made himself acceptable by a turn he disco
vered for philosophical as well as political
subjects. " After the year 1776 my intercourse Avith
Mr. Paine was casual. I met him now and
then at the tables of some of our Avhig citizens,
where he spoke but little, but Avas always in
offensive in his manner and conversation.
"I possess one of his letters Avritten to me
from France upon the subject of the abolition
of the slave trade. An extract from it was
published in the Columbian Magazine.
•' I did not see Mr, Paine when he passed

55

thro Philadelphia a few years ago. His
principles avowed in his ' Age of Reason ' were
so offensive to me that I did not wish to renew
my intercourse with him.
^' I have thus briefly and in great haste
endeavoured to answer your questions. — Should
you publish this letter, I beg my testimony
against Mr. Paine's infidelity may not be omit
ted in it. " From, Sir,
" Your's respectfully,
" Benjamin Rush.'*
One cannot read the close of this letter
without lamenting to see this hackneyed word
*' infidelity" so everlastingly misapplied to injure
and vilify those against Avhom it is hurled.
The Avord " infidelity" means only a disbelief
of any opinion or any thing advanced, and
may be with propriety applied to christians as
not believing in deism, as well as to deists
as not believing in Christianity; so that all

56

sectarians and all believers are infidels to their
opposing doctrines.
As it may amuse the reader to see Mr.
Paine's style Avhile editor of the Pennsylvanian
Magazine, the following extract is given from
one of his essays on the riches of the earth
and the diligence necessary to discover them :
" Tho Nature is gay, polite, and generous
" abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly
" at home. Return the visit, and she admits
" you Avith all the suspicion of a miser, and all
" the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired
" to replenish her charms. Bred up in antide-
'•' luvian notions, she lias not j'et acquired the
" european taste of receiving visits in her dress-
" ing room ; she locks and bolts up her private
" recesses Avith extraordinary care, as if not
" only determined to preserve her hoards, but
" to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a
" face that \yas young and lovely before the
" days of Adam. He that would view Nature
" in her undress, and partake of her internal
" treasures, must proceed with the resolution
'' of a robber, if not a ravisher : she gives nq

57

" invitations to folloAV her to the cavern. The
" external earth makes no proclamation of the
" interior stores, but leaves to chance and in-
" dustry the discovery of the Avhole. In such
" gifts as nature can annually recreate she is
" noble and profuse, and entertains the Avhole
" Avorld Avith the interests of her fortunes, but
" watches over the capital Avith the care of a
" miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the
" earth, in caves of utter daikness ; the hoards of
" wealth moulder in the chests, like the riches of
" the necromancer's cell. It must be A^eiy plea-
¦' sant to an adventurous speculatist to make
" excursions into these gothic regions : in his
" travels he may possibly come to a cabinet
" locked up in some rocky A'ault Avhose treasures
" might reward his toil and enable him to shine
•' on his return as splendidly as Nature herself,"
Soon after his return to America, as foreign
supplies of gunpowder were stopt, he turned
his attention to chemistry, and set his fertile
talents to Avork in endeavouring to discover
some cheap and expeditious method of furnish
ing Congress Avith saltpetre ; and he proposed
in the Pennsylvania,n Journal, Nov. 2, 1775,

£8

the plan of a saltpetre association for volun
tarily supplying the national magazines with
gunpowder. His popularity in America now increased
daily, and from this era he became a great
public character and an object of interest and
attention to the world.
In 1776, on the 10th of January he pub
lished the celebrated and powerfully discrimi
nating pamphlet 'Common Sense.'
Perhaps the greatest compliment that can
be paid to this Avork is the effect it so rapidly
had on the people, who had before no predis
position towards its principles, as may be ga
thered from Mr. Paine's oAvn words.
" I found the disposition of the people such,
" that they might have been led by a thread
" and governed by a reed. Their attachment
" to Britain Avas obstinate, and it Avas at that
" time a kind of treason to speak against it;
" they disliked the ministry but they esteemed
" the nation. Their idea of grievance operated

59

" without resentment, and their single object
" Avas reconciliation." — Crisis, No. 7.
" Independence was a doctrine scarce and
" rare, even towards the conclusion of the
" year 1775. All our politics had been founded
" on the hope or expectation of making the
" matter up, a hope Avhich though general on the
" side of America, had never entered the head
" or heart of the British court." — Crisis, No. 3.
Even Mr. Cheetham, whom no one will
suspect of flattering Mr. Paine, thus forcibly
describes the effects of ' Common Sense ' on the
people of America.
" This pamphlet of forty octavo pages,
" holding out relief by proposing independence
" to an oppressed and despairing people, was
" published in January 1776; speaking a lan-
" guage Avhich the colonists had felt, but not
" thought of. Its popularity, terrible in its
" consequences to the parent country, was
" unexampled in the history of the press.*
* "Nothing could be better timed than this performance;

60

" At first involving the colonists it was thought
" in the crime of rebellion, and pointing to a
" road leading inevitably to ruin, it Avas read
" Avith indignation and alarm ; but when the
" reader, and every body read it, recovering
" the first shock, re-perused it, its arguments
" nourishing his feelings and appealing to his
" pride, re-animated his hopes, and satisfied his
" understanding, that ' Common Sense,' backed
" by the resources and force of the colonies,
" poor and feeble as they Avere, could alone
" rescue them from the unqualified oppression

In union with the feelings and sentiments of the people it
produced surprising effects, — many thousands were con
vinced, and led to approve, and long for separation from the
mother country; tho that measure was not only a few months
before foreign to their wishes, but the object of their ab
horrence, the current suddenly became so much in its favour,
that it bore down all before it." — Rumsay's Rev. wl. 1. page
367, London, 1793.

" The publications which have appeared, have greatly
promoted the spirit of independency, but no one so much
as the pamphlet under the signature of ' Common Sense,"
written by Mr. Thomas Paine, an Englishman. Nothing
could have been better timed than this performance : it ha
produced most astonishing effects." — Gordon's Rev. voU 2
page 78, New York, 1794.

s

61

" with which they were threatened. The un-
" known author, in the moments of enthusiasm
" Avhich succeeded, was an angel sent from
" heaven to save from all the horrors of slavery
" by his timely, powerful, and unerring councils,
" a faithful but abused, a brave but misrepre-
" sented people." — Cheetham's Life of Paine.*
' Common Sense,' it appears, Avas univer
sally read and approved : the first edition sold
almost immediately, and the second Avith very
large additions was before the public soon
after. On this production and some others,
and his motives for Avriting, Mr. Paine thus
remarks :

* When ' Common Sense' arrived at Albany the Conven
tion of New York was in session : General Scott, a leading
member, alarmed at the boldness and novelty of its argu
ments, mentioned his fears to several of his distinguished
colleagues, and suggested a private meeting in the evening
for the purpose of writing an answer. They accordingly met,
and Mr. M'Kesson read the pamphlet thro. At first it was
deemed both necessary and expedient to answer it imme
diately, but casting about for the necessary arguments they
concluded to adjourn and meet again. In a few evenings
they assembled, but so rapid was the change of opinion in the
colonies at large in favour of independence, that they ulti
mately agreed not to oppose it.

62

" Politics and self interest have been so
" uniformly connected that the Avorld from be-
" ing so often deceived has a right to be suspi-
" cious of public characters. But Avith regard
" to myself I am perfectly easy on this head.
" I did not at my first setting out in pub-
" lie life, nearly seventeen years ago, turn my
" thoughts to subjects of government from mo-
" tives of interest; and my conduct from that
" moment to this proves the fact. I saw an
" opportunity in which I thought I could do
" some good, and I followed exactly Avhat my
" heart dictated : I neither read books, nor
" studied other people's opinions — I thought for
" myself. The case Avas this :
" During the suspension of the old go-
" vernment in America, both prior to and
" at the breaking out of hostilities, I Avas
" struck Avith the order and decorum Avith
" which every thing Avas conducted, and im-
" prest with the idea that a little more than
" what society naturally performed Avas all the
" government that Avas necessary. On these
" principles I published the pamphlet * Com-
" mon Sense.'

63

" The success it met with was beyond any
" thing since the invention of printing. I
" gave the copyright up to every state in the
" Union, and the demand run to not less than
" one hundred thousand copies, and I conti-
" nued the subject under the title of ' American
" Crisis,' till the complete establishment of the
" American revolution."
Further he says, " It was the cause of Ame-
" rica that made me an author. The force
" with which it struck my mind made it
" impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be
" silent; and if in the course of seven years
" I have rendered her any service, I have
" added likewise something to the reputation
" of literature by freely and disinterestedly
" employing it in the service of mankind, and
" shoAving there may be genius without pros-
" titution." Owing to this disinterested conduct of Mr.
Paine, it appears that tho the sale of ' Com
mon Sense' was so great, he Avas in debt to the
printer =£29. 12*. Id. This liberality and con
scientious discharge of his duty Avith respect

64

to his serviceable Avritings, as he called them.
he adopted thro life. " When I bring out my
" poetical and anecdotical Avorks," he Avould
often say to me, " Avhich Avill be little bettel"
" than amusing, I shall sell them ; but I must
" have no gain in view, must make no traffic of
" my political and theological Avritings : they
" are with me matter of principle, and not
" matter of money : I cannot desire to derive
" benefit from them, or make them the sub-
" ject to attain it."
And twenty-seven years after the publi
cation of ' Common Sense,' he thus writes to a
friend. " As the French revolution advanced
" it fixed the attention of the Avorld, and drew
" from the pen of Edmund Burke a furious attack ;
" this brought me once more on the public the-
" atre of public politics, and occasioned my
" writing a work that had the greatest run of
" any ever published in the English language.
" The principles in it were the same as those in
" my former one. As to myself I acted in both
" cases alike.
" I relinquished to the people of England

65

" all profit, as I had done to those of America,
" from the AVork ; my reward existed in the am-
" bition of doing good, and in the independent
" happiness of my own mind. In my publica-
" tions I follow the rule I began, that is to
" consult with nobody, nor let any body see
" Avhat I write till it appears publicly ;* Avere I
" to do otherwise the case would be that be-
* A ridiculous notion has been often broached, that
Mr. Paine wrote not the works attributed to him; or if he
did, that he was greatly assisted : this silly stuff baa been
generally urged by his opponents, as if, even supposing it
was so, it invalidated their matter, or in any way rendered
them less true: the contrary is the fact. Mr. Paine was so
tenacious on this subject that he would not alter a line or
word, at the suggestion even of a friend.
I remember when he read me his letter to Dundas in
1792, I objected to the pun, Madjesty, as beneath him ;
"Never mind," he said, "they say Mad Tom of me, so I shall
let it stand Madjesty." I say not that his tenacity on this sub
ject was not absurd ; but it affords the fullest contradiction
to the opinion, that he ever had the least aid or assistance
in his writings, or suffered the smallest alteration to be made
in them by others.
If the reader will refer to the period in which Mr. Paine
raade use of this pun he will find that it could not have any
allusion to the king's melancholy infirmity ¦ — he was one of
the last men in the world to be guilty of any thing of the kind ;
nor can it be supposed it is now brought forward but for tlie
reason stated. F

66

" tAveen the timidity of some who are so afraid
" of doing wrong that they never do right, the
" puny judgment of others, and the despicable
" craft of preferring expedient to right, as if
" the Avorld Avas a world of babies in leading
" strings, I should get forward Avith nothing.
" My path is a right line, as strait and
" clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness
" (if they will have it so) Avith which I speak
" on any subject is a compliment to the person
" I address ; it is like saying to him, I treat you
" as a man and not as a child. With respect to
" any Avorldly object, as it is impossible to dis-
" cover any in me, therefore what I do, and my
" manner of doing it, ought to be ascribed to a
" good motive. In a great affair, where the
" good of man is at stake, I love to work for
" nothing; and so fully am I under the influ-
" ence of this principle, that I should lose the
" spirit, the pride, and the pleasure of it, Avere
" I conscious that I looked for reward."
In the course of this year, 1776, Mr.
Paine accompanied the army Avith General
Washington, and was with him in his retreait

67

from Hudson's River to the Delaware. At this
period our author stood undismayed, amid a
flying congress, and the general terror of the
land. The Americans, he loudly asserted, were
in possession of resources sufficient to authorize
hope, and he laboured to inspire others with the
same sentiments, Avhich animated himself.
To effect this, on the 19th of December
he published ' The Crisis,' Avherein with a
masterly hand he stated CA'cry reason for hope,
and examined all the motives for apprehension.
This Avork he continued at various interA'als,
till the revolution was completely established :
the last number appeared on the 19th of April,
1783, the same day a cessation of hostilities
was proclaimed.
In 1 777, congress unanimously and unknown
to Mr. Paine, appointed him secretary in the
foreign department; and from this time a close
friendship continued betAveen him and Dr.
Franklin. From his office went all letters that were
officially written by congress : and the corre-
F 2

68

spondence of congress rested afterwards in his
hands. This appointment gave Mr. Paine au
opportunity of seeing into foreign courts, and
their manner of doing business and conducting-
themselves. In this office Avhich obliged him
to reside with congress wherever it fled,, or
however it was situated, Mr. Paine deserved
the highest praise for the clearness, firmness,
and magnanimity of his conduct. His up
rightness and entire fitness for this office did
not however prevent intrigue and interested-
ness, or defeat cabal; for a difference being
fomented betAveen congress and him, re
specting one of their commissioners then in
Europe, (Mr. Silas Deane) he resigned his
secretaryship on the 8 th of January, 1779,
and . declined, at the same time, the pecu
niary offers made him by the ministers of
France and Spain, M. Gerrard and Don Juan
Mirralles. This resignation of, or dismissal from his
situation as secretary for foreign affairs, has
been so variously mentioned and argued upon.

69

that the reader is referred to the tedious de
tail of it in the journals of the day, if he
has patience to Avade thro so much American
temporary, and party political gossip. Mr.
Paine's OAvn account in his letter to congress
shortly is, " I prevented Deane's fraudulent
" demand being paid, and so far the country
" is obliged to me, hut I became the victim
" of my integrity."
The party junto against him say he was
guilty of a violation of his official duty, &c.
And here I shall leave it, as the bick
erings of parties in America, in the year
1779, cannot be worth an European's atten
tion; and as to the Americans themselves
they have various means by their legislatural
records, registers of the day, and pamphlets,
then and since, to go into the subject if they
think it of importance enough.
About this time Mr. Paine had the de
gree of master of arts conferred on him by
the university of Philadelphia; and in 1780,
was chosen a member of the American Phi- -

70

losophical Society, when it was revived by
the legislature of the province of Pennsylvania.
In February 1781 Colonel Laurens, amidst
the financial distress of America, Avas sent on a
mission to France in order to obtain a loan,
and Mr. Paine, at the solicitation of the co
lonel, accompanied him.
Mr. Paine, in his letter to congress, intimates
that this mission originated with himself, and
takes upon himself the credit of it.
They arrived in France the following
month, obtained a loan of ten millions of
livres, and a present of six millions, and
landed in America the succeeding August
Avith two millions and a half in silver. His
value, his firmness, his independence, as a
political character were now universally ac
knowledged; his great talents, and the high
purposes to Avhich he devoted them, made
him generally sought after and looked up to;
and General Washington Avas foremost to
express the great sense he had of the ex
cellence of his character, and the importance
of his services ; and would himself have pro--

71

posed to congress a great remuneration of
them, had not Mr. Paine positively objected
to it, as a bad precedent, and an improper
mode. In August 1782, he published his spirited
letter to the Ahh6 Raynal ; of this letter a
very sensible writer observes, " that it dis-
" plays an accuracy of judgment and strength
" of penetration that Avould do honour to the
" most enlightened philosopher. It exhibits
" proofs of knowledge so comprehensive, and
*' discrimination so acute, as must in the
" opinion of the best judges place the author
" in the highest ranks of literature."
We shall here make a few extracts from
this Avork, Avhich will fully refute the malig
nant insinuations of his enemies, Avho represent
him as totally destitute of the benefits resulting
from a liberal education. The impartial reader
need only attend to the ensuing extracts, Avhich
will abundantly convince him of the futility
of such assertions, and prove our author's judg
ment as a critic, and his acquaintance Avith
polite leaming.

72
In the introduction to this letter are the
following expressions : " There are few men
" in any country Avho can at once, and without
" the aid of reflection and revisal, combine
" warm passions Avith a cool temper, and the
" full expansion of imagination Avith the na-
" tural and necessary gravity of judgment, so
" as to be rightly balanced Avithin themselves,
" and to make a reader feel, fancy, and under-
" stand justly at the same time. To call these
" powers of the mind into action at once, in a
" manner that neither shall interrupt, and that
" each shall aid and invigorate the other, is
" a talent very rarely possessed."
" It often happens that the weight of an
" argument is lost by the wit of setting it off,
" or the judgment disordered by an intem-
" perate irritation of the passions; yet a certain
" degree of animation must be felt by the
" writer, and raised in the reader, in order
" to interest the attention, and a sufficient
" scope given to the imagination to enable
" it to create in the mind a sight of the per-
" sons, characters, and circumstances of the
" subject; for without these, the judgment

73

" will feel little or no excitement to office,
" and its determination Avill be cold, sluggish,
" and imperfect. But if either or both of the
" two former are raised too high, or heated
" too much, the judgment Avill be jostled from
" its seat, and the Avhole matter, however
" perfect in itself, Avill diminish into a pan-
" tomime of the mind, in Avhich we create
" images that promote no other purpose than
" amusement." " The abb6's writings bear evident marks
" of that extension and rapidity of thinking,
" and quickness of sensation, which above all
" others require revisal."
In the course of the letter we find the fol
lowing admirable remarks on the Abb6 Ray-
nal's Avritings :
" In this paragraph the conception is lofty
" and the expressions elegant ; but the colour-
" ing is too high for the original, and the
" likeness fails through an excess of graces."
" To fit the powers of thinking and thp

74

" turn of language to the subject, so as to
" bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the
" point in question and nothing else, is the true
" criterion of Avriting. But the greater part of
" the abba's Avritings, if he Avill pardon me the
" remark, appear to me uncentral, and burthened
" with variety. They represent a beautiful Avil-
" derness without paths, in which the eye is
" diverted by every thing, Avithout being par-
" ticularly directed to any thing, in which it is
" ao-reeable to be lost and difficult to find the
" Avay out."
The following luminous passage on preju
dice, and the comparison drawn to illustrate
it, exhibit at once the eloquence of the orator
and the judgment of the philosopher.
" There is something exceedingly curious in
" the constitution and operation of prejudice :
" it has the singular ability of accommodating
" itself to all the possible varieties of the human
" mind. Some passions and Adces are but thinly
" scattered among mankind, and find only here
" and there a fitness of reception. But prejudice,
" like the spider, makes every Avhere its home.

75

" It has neither taste nor choice of place, and all
" that it requires is room. There is scarcely a
" situation except fire and water, in Avhich a
" spider will not live; so let the mind be as
" naked as the walls of an empty and forsaken
" tenement, gloomy as a dungeon, or ornamented
" Avith the richest abilities of thinking, let it be
" hot, cold, dark, or light, lonely or inhabited,
" still prejudice, if undisturbed, Avill fill it
" with cobAvebs, and live like the spider
" where there seems nothing to live on. If
" the one prepares her poisoning to her pa-
" late, and her use, the other does the same,
" and as several of our passions are strongly
" characterized by the animal Avorld, prejudice
" may be denominated the spider of the
" mind." On the 29th of October he brought out
his excellent letter to the Earl of Shelburne
on his speech in the House of Lords, July
the 10th, 1782.
To get an idea of the speech of this
earl, it may not be necessary to quote more
than the following sentence. " When Great

76

" Britain acknowledges American indepen-
" dence the sun of Britain's glory is set for

" When the war ended," says Mr. Paine, " I
" went from Philadelphia to Bordentown on
" the east end of the Delaware, where I
" have a small place. Congress Avas at this
" time at Prince Town fifteen miles distant,
" and General Washington had taken his
" head quarters at Rocky Hill Avithin the
" neighbourhood of congress for the purpose
" of resigning his commission, the object for
" which he had accepted it being accom-
" plished, and of retiring to private life.
" While he was on this business he wrote
" me the letter which I here subjoin."
" Rocky Hill, Sept. 10, 1783.
" I have learned since I have been at this
place that you are at BordentoAvn. Whether
for the sake of retirement or economy I know
not ; be it for either, for both, or whatever it
may, if you will come to this place and partake
with me, I shall be exceedingly happy to. see

77

you at it. Your presence may remind congress
of your past services to this country, and if it is
in my power to impress them command my best
services Avith freedom ; as they Avill be rendered
cheerful by one who entertains a lively sense of
the importance of your works, and who with
much pleasure subscribes himself
" Your sincere friend,
" G. Washington."
In 1785 congress granted Mr. Paine three
thousand dollars for his services to the people of
America, as may be seen by the folloAving
document. " Friday, August 26, 1785.
" On the report of a committee consisting of
Mr. Gerry, Mr. Petit, and Mr. King, to whom
was referred a letter of the 13th from Thomas
Paine ;
" Resolved, That the early, unsolicited, and
continued labours of Mr. Thomas Paine, in
explaining the principles of the late revolution,
by ingenious and timely publications upon the
nature of liberty and civil government, have

78

been well received by the citizens of these
states, and merit the approbation of congress ;
and that in consideration of these services, and
the benefits produced thereby, Mr. Paine is
entitled to a liberal gratification from the
United States." " Monday, October 3, 1785.
" On the report of a committee consisting
of Mr. Gerry, Mr. HoAvell, and Mr. Long, to
whom Avere referred sundry letters from Mr.
Thomas Paine, and a report on his letter of the
14th of September;
" Resolved, That the board of treasury take
order for paying to Mr. Thomas Paine, the sum
of three thousand dollars, for the considerations
of the 23rd of August last." Journals of
Congress. The state of Pennsylvania, in Avhich he first
published ' Common Sense' and ' The Crisis,'
in 1785, presented him, by an act of legislature,
.£500 currency. New York gave him the
estate at New Rochelle in the county of West
chester, consisting of more than three hundred

79

acres of land in high cultivation: on this
estate was an elegant stone house, 125 by 28
feet, besides out-houses : the latter property
was farmed much to his advantage, during his
long stay in Europe, by some friends, as Avill
hereafter be more fully noticed.
Mr. Monroe, Avhen ambassador in England,
once speaking on this subject at my house, said
that Mr. Paine would have received a very
large remuneration from the state of Virginia,
but that Avhile the matter was before the
assembly, and he Avas extremely popular and
in high favour, he published reasons against
some proceedings of that state Avhich he
thought improper, and thereby lost, by a
majority of one, the high reward he would
otherwise have received * ; — a memorable
instance of the independence of his mind, and
of his attachment to truth and right above all
other considerations. A conduct exactly oppo-

* This work was entitled ' Public Good, being -an.
Examination of the Claim of Virginia to tbe vacant Western
Territory.' "

80

site to that of the pensioned Burke, Avhose
venality cannot be better pointed out than in
the following conversation Avith Mr. Paine,
after dining together at the Duke of Portland's

at Bulstrode.

Burke was very inquisitive to know how
the Americans Avere disposed toward the king of
England, when Mr. Paine, to Avhom the subject
was an ungracious one, and Avho felt teazed,
related the following anecdote.
At a small town, in which was a tavern bear
ing the sign of the king's head, it was insisted on
by the inhabitants that a memento so odious
should not continue up ; but there was no
painter at hand, to change it into General
Washington, or any other favorite, so the sign
was suffered to remain, with this inscription
under it — This is the sign of the Loggerhead !
Burke, who at this moment Avas a concealed
pensioner, tho a public oppositionist, replied
peevishly, " Loggerhead or any other head, he

.81

" has many good things to give away, and 1
" should be glad of some of them/'
This same Mr. Burke, in one of his speeches
in the House of Commons, said, " kings were
naturally fond of low company," and " that
many of the nobility act the part of flatterers,
parasites, pimps, and buffoons," &c. : but his
character Avill be best appreciated, by reading
Mr, Paine's Letter to the Addressers.
In 1786 he published in Philadelphia ' Dis
sertation on Government, the Affairs of the
Bank, and Paper Money,' an octavo pamphlet
of sixty-four pages. The bank alluded to is
the bank of North America, of which he thus
speaks ;
" In the year 1780, Avhen the British army
" having laid waste the southern states, closed
" its ravages by the capture of Charlston, Avhen
" the financial sources of con9;ress Avere dried
" up, Avhen the public treasury was empty, and
" the army of independence paralysed by Avant,
" a voluntary subscription for its relief Avas
" raised in Philadelphia. This voluntary fund.

82

" amounting to three hundred thousand pounds,
" afterwards converted into a bank by the
" subscribers, headed by Robert Norris, sup-
" phed the wants of the army; probably the
" aids which it furnished enabled Washington
" to carry into execution his well- concerted
" plan against Cornwallis. Congress in the
" year 1781 incorporated the subscribers to the
" fund, under the title of the Bank of North
" America. In the following year it Avas fur-
" ther incorporated by an act of the Penn-
" sylvanian assembly."
Mr. Paine liberally subscribed five hundred
dollars to this fund.
After the establishment of the indepen
dence of America, of the vigorous and success
ful exertions to attain which glorious object
he had been the animating principle, soul, and
support ; feeling his exertions no longer requi
site in that country, he embarked for France,
and arrived at Paris early in 1787, carry
ing with him his fame as a literary man, an
acute philosopher, and most profound poli
tician.

83

At this time he presented to the Aca
demy of Sciences the model of a bridge
which he invented, the principle of Avhich
has been since so highly celebrated and ap-
proA'ed. From Paris he arrived in England the 3d
of September, just thirteen years after his
departure for Philadelphia. Prompted by that
filial affection which his conduct had ever
manifested he hastened to Thetford to visit his
mother, on whom he settled an allowance of
nine shillings a week. Of this comfortable
solace she was afterwards deprived by the
bankruptcy of the merchant in whom the
trust Avas vested.
Mr. Paine resided at Rotherham in York
shire during part of the year 1788, where an
iron bridge upoii the principle alluded to was
cast and erected, and obtained for him among
the mathematicians of Europe a high repu
tation. In the erection of this, a considerable
sum had been expended, for which he was
hastily arrested by the assignees of an Ame
rican merchant, and thrown into confinement.
q2

84

From this however, and the debt, he cleared
himself in about three weeks.*
The publication of ' Mr. Burke's Reflections
on the French Revolution' produced in reply
from Mr. Paine his great, universally knoAvn,
and celebrated work 'Rights of Man.' The
first part of this work was written partly at
the Angel at Islington, partly in Harding
Street, Fetter Lane, and finished at Versailles.
In February 1791 this book made its appear
ance in London, and many hundred thousand
copies were rapidly sold.
In May following he went again to France,
and Avas at Paris at the time of the flight of
the king, and also on his return. On this me
morable occasion he made this observation :
" You see the absurdity of your system of
" government ; here Avill be a whole nation
" disturbed by the folly of one man." Upon
this subject also he made the following reply
to the Marquis la Fayette who came into his

• More or less upon this plan of Mr. Paine's, the diffe
rent iron bridges in Europe have been constructed.

85

bed-room before he Avas up, saying, " The birds
" are flown." " 'Tis well : I hope there will
" be no attempt to recall them."
On the 13th of July he returned to London,
but did not attend the celebration of the anni
versary of the French revolution the following
day, as has been falsely asserted.
On the 20th of August he drew up the
address and declaration of the gentlemen who
met at the Thatched House Tavern. This
address is so replete with wisdom and mode
ration that it is here subjoined.
" Address and Declaration* of the Friends of
Universal Peace and Liberty, held at the
Thatched House Tavern, St. James's Street,
Aug. 20, 1791, by Thomas Paine, Author
of the Works entitled ^ Common Sense '
and ' Rights of Man.'
" Friends and Fellow Citizens,
" At a moment like the present,
when wilful misrepresentations are industri-
* Vide Appendix to lid part of ' Rights of Man.'

86

ously 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?' Ave ansAver as
has been already 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 magni-
' ficent example opens to the world.'
" We congratulate the French nation for
having laid the axe to the foot of tyranny,
and for erecting government on the sacred
hereditary rights of man ; rights Avhich apper
tain to all, and not to any one more than an
other. " We know of no human authority superior
to that of a whole nation ; and we profess and

* Declaration of the volunteers of Belfast.

87

proclaim it as our principle that every nation
has at all times an inherent indefesible 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, Ave con
fine ourselves to this observation, that if the
court of France only Avas 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 them
selves, if it be true that this court only Avas
in fault, and ours never.
" On this state of the case the French re-

88

volution concerns us immediately : we are
oppressed Avith a heavy national debt, a bur
then of taxes, an expensive administration of
government,' beyond those of any people in
the Avorld.
" We have also a very numerous poor; and
we hold that the moral obligation of providing
for old iage, 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 expence ne
cessary to us for our own defence, Ave conse
quently rejoice as men deeply interested in the
* Now nearly seventy millions !

89

French revolution, for that court, as we have
already said, exists no longer, and conse
quently the same enormous expenses 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 na
tional prosperity and reduction of our public
expences, we cannot but express our astonish
ment that any part of 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 ncAV 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
pircuraspectibn to their own interest

90

" Those who pay the expences, and not
those who participate in the emoluments ari
sing 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 am
bition 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 connexions
with the m.ost 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 repro
bate all systems and intrigues which sacrifice
(and that too at a great expence) the blessings

91

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 as
sociation ; and we hold that to be the best
Avhich secures to every man his rights and
promotes the greatest quantity of happiness
with the least expence. We live to improve,
or Ave live in vain ; and therefore Ave admit of
no maxims of government or policy on the
mere score of antiquity or other men's autho
rity, 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 Ave
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, bo-

92

rough tenures, and tyrannical monopolies of
numerous kinds still remain amongst us; but
rejoicing as we sincerely do in the freedom
of others till Ave shall haply accomplish our
own, Ave 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 Ave Avere
prevented by the interference of certain un
named and sculking persons with the master
of the tavern, who informed us that on
their representation he Avould not receive us.
Let those Avho live by or countenance feu
dal oppressions take the reproach of this
ineffectual meanness and cowardice to them
selves: they cannot stifle the public decla
ration 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 Ave are a part. As to riots
and tumults, let those answer for them Avho
by Avilful misrepresentations endeavour to
excite and promote them ; or Avho seek to
stun the sense of the nation, and lose the great

93

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
Ave fear not proud oppression for we have
truth on our side.
" We say and we repeat it, that the French
revolution opens to the Avorld an opportunity
in Avhich 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.
" John Horne Tooke, chairman."
The language of this address is bold
and free, but not more so than that of the
late Lord Chatham, or of that once violent
advocate of reform, the late Mr. Pitt, better
known by the title of the ' Enemy of the
Human Race.'

94

" There is a set of men" (says the Earl
of Chatham) " in the city of London, Avho
" are known to live in riot and luxury,
" upon the plunder of the ignorant, the
" innocent, and the helpless, upon that part
" of the community which stands most in
" need of, and best deserves the care and
" protection of the legislature. To me, my
" lords, whether they be miserable jobbers
" of 'Change Alley, or the lofty Asiatic
" plunderers of Leadenhall Street, they are
" equally detestable. I care but little Avhe-
" ther a man walks on foot, or is drawn by
" eight horses, or by six horses ; if his
" luxury be supported by the plunder of
" his country, I despise and abhor him,
" My lords, while I had the honour of
" serving his majesty, I never ventured to
" look at the Treasury but from a distance:
" it is a business I am unfit for, and to
" Avhich I never could have submitted. The
little I knoAV of it, has not served to
raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called
" the monied interest; I mean that blood-
" sucker, that muckAvorm, Avhich calls him-
" self the friend of government; Avhich pre-

95

" tends to serve this or that administration,
" and may hie purchased on the same terms
" by any administration. Under this descrip-
" tion I include the whole race of com-
" missioners, jobbers, contractors, clothiers,
" and remitters."*
" No one, Mr. Speaker," says Mr. Pitt,
" knoAvs better than I do the decencies that
" are due to the sovereign from this house;
" but at the same time, I am not ignorant
" of the duty I owe to my country: I scorn
" to approach the crown with servility and
" adulation; and I cannot countenance or
" cherish the determined spirit breathed in
" the speech, without betraying my duty to
" my constituents. The country is almost
" drained of men and money ,'f blood is shed
" in profusion, and millions squandered, only
" to purchase disasters and disgrace, I really

* Vide Earl of Chatham's speech, in the debate on
Falkland's Island.
i" The national debt was then £251,000,000: under the
management of this same Mr. Pitt, it is now (1811) nearly
£600,000,000; and now (181 9) nearly one thousand millions.

96

" cannot tell how the state can be retrieved,
" its situation is desperate, and it is this
" circumstance alone that makes me have
" recourse to the expedient I am going to
" adopt. It is not a change of ministers
" that I look for, I do not want to see the
" present servants of the crown out of office,
" or the persons who sit near me appointed
" in their room; it is a total change of sys-
" tem and measures that I look for; and till
" I can have some pledge that in this my
" Avishes shall be gratified I will oppose
" privilege to prerogative, and vote that
" not a shilling be given from the peo-
" pie to the crown until they shall first
" have received an earnest that ministers feel
" a thorough conviction of past errors, and
" are determined to do every thing to cor-
" rect them. When this shall be done no
" one shall surpass me in cheerfulness in
" granting ample supplies; but I must pause
" before I can think of A-^oting away the
" money of the people with no probability
" of national advantage, but Avith aliftost
" moral certainty of ruin to their affairs." —
Mr. Pitfs Speech on Friday, Nov. 30, 1781.

m

On the subject of the address at the
Thatched House Tavern, which Mr. Paine
did write, it is impossible not to quote
* Cheetham's Life' just to exhibit his blind
ness and ignorance, and to show how preju
dice had warped this once idoliser of Mr.
Paine, — " Horne Tooke, perhaps the most
" acute man of his age, was at this meet-
" ing ; and as it was rumoured, Paine ob-
" serves, that the greiat grammarian Avas the
" author of the address, he takeis the liberty
" of mentioning the fact, that he wrote it
" himself. I neVer heard of the; rumour,
" which was doubtless a fiction formed and
" asserted by Paine merely to gratify his
" egotism. No one could mistake the un-
" couth and ungrammatical writings of one,
" for the correct and elegant productions of
" the other." But what can be expected
from him who calls ' Common Sense ' a
wretched work ; ' The Rights of Man,' a
miserable production; and ' Burke's Reflections,'
a book of the proudest sagacity?
What can be expected from him who a few
years before writing the above, in England
H

98

deified Mr. Paine, and called his AVritings
immortal? And who says " Fox was vehemently
" adverse, and in this he Avas right, to universal
" suffrage :" who further says of the American
government, — •
" I hazard nothing in remarking, unless it
' be hazardous to state the truth, that however
' excellent the system of our government may
' be in theory, the whole opeiation of our
' system of politics in practice, with -the chiefs
' who lead the two parties, and who by hook
' or by crook govern the nation, is one of
' mystery, craft, and imposition. In these
' articles which abound amongst us, no nation
' can vie with the United States. That I hold
' to be impossible.
" This prodigy of human intellect Paine,
' or rather this sediment of ever-renewed
' intoxication, was presented to the convention
' on the 15th of February 1798. In this
' disproportioned thing, this dream of well
' meaning fanatics or deliberate act of cool
' dilapidators, universal suffrage was laid
down to perfection.

99

" May not Paine's constitution of I^enn-
" sylvania have been the cause of the tyranny
" of Robespierre?
" Paine was always an advocate either of
" democratic anarchy or of imperial despotism,
" there was no medium with him.
" They talk," he said to a friend of mine, "'of
'' the tyranny of the Emperor of France. I
" know Bonaparte, I have lived under his
" government, and he allows as much freedom
" as I Avish or as any body ought to have.
" With Napoleon's invasion of Spain he was
'* enraptured, and of coui*se wished him success !
" Could such a man be a friend of freedom ?"*
What can be expected from that Cheetham
whose book is filled with such matter as the

* Of the infamotis falsehood of this assertion I am a
complete witness, being with him when he left France, and
knowing how truly he appreciated, and disliked the cha
racter of Buonaparte, and his go.vernment, aud how fervent
his wishes were to leave that country, which he emphatically
called Golgotha !
h2

100

above, who was the worshipper Of this very
Paine in England, and the most violent disse
minator of his Avritings, and who in his ' Life '
of him has such trash as the following ? and
which I know to be false.
" When the 'Rights of Man' reached
" LcAves, where Paine married Miss Ollive,
" the women as with one voice said, ' Od rot
" ' im, let im come ear if he dust, an we'll
" 'tell im what the rights of women is; we'll
" ' toss im in a blanket, an ring im out of
" 'LeAvis wi our frying pans.' "
Mr. Paine's life in London AVas a quiet
round of philosophical leisure and enjoyment.
It was occupied in writing, in a small epis
tolary correspondence, in walking about with
me to visit different friends, occasionally loun
ging at coffee-houses and public places, or
being visited by a select few. Lord EdvA'ard
Fitzgerald; the French and American ambas
sadors, Mr. Sharp the engraver, Romney the
painter, Mrs, Wolstonecroft, Joel Barlow, Mr.
Hull, Mr. Christie, Dr. Priestly, Dr. Towers,
Colonel Oswald, the walking Stewart, Captain

101

Sampson Perry, Mr. Tuffin, Mr. William Chop->
pin, Captain De Stark, Mr. Home Tooke, &c.
&c. were among the number of his friends and
acquaintance ; and of course, as he was my
inmate, the most of my associates were fre»
quently 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, in
dulged in domestic jaunts, and recreations
from home, frequently lounging at the White
Bear, Piccadilly, wath his old friend the walk
ing Stewart, and other clever travellers from
France, and different parts of Europe and
America. When by ourselves we sate 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 inter-

102
course, and gave to us the '* feast of reason and
the flow of soul."
It was at the Mr, Christie's before men
tioned, at a dinner party with several of the
above, and other characters of great interest
and talent, that Horne Tooke happened to sit
between Mr, Paine and Madame D'Eon ; for
this character was, at this time, indisputably
feminine. Tooke, Avhose Avit and brilliant
conversation Avas ever abundant, looking on
each side of him, said, " I am now in the
*' most extraordinary situation in which ever
" man Avas placed. On the left of me sits
" a gentleman, Avho, brought up in obscurity,
" has proved himself the greatest political
" Avriter in the world, and has made more
'" noise in it, and excited more attention and
*' obtained more fame, than any man ever did.
" On the right of me sits a lady, Avho has
" been employed in public situations at diffe-
" rent courts ; who had high rank in the army,
" was greatly skilled in horsemanship, Avho has
" fought several duels, and at the small sword
'^ had no equal ; who for fifty years past, all
'^ Europe has recognised in the character and

103

" dress of a gentleman." — "Ah!" replied Ma
dame D'Eon, " these are very extraordinary
" things, indeed. Monsieur Tooke, and proves
" you did not know what was at the bottom."
If this same Chevalier D'Eon had been
lost at sea, burnt, or had in any Avay left the
world, unknown and unnoticed, all Europe
would have believed he was a woman, as really
as any creed in their religion; and yet this
was not so. In 1810, soon after his death,
I saw and examined this mysterious character;
and that he Avas incontestibly a man, a che-
A'alier, and not a madame, is most certain. So
that Avhat every body says is not always true ;
and this is an instance to be added to many
thousands of the truth of the sailor's adage,
" Seeing is believing ;" and should warn us
not to give credence hastily to any thing that
does not fall under our OAvn immediate expe
rience, knowledge, and observation.
The second part of ' Rights of Man,' Avhich
completed the celebrity of its author, and
placed him at the head of political writers, Avas
pubUshed in February 1792. Never had any

104
work so rapid and extensive a sale ; and it has
been calculated that near a million and a half
of copies were printed and published in Eng
land, From this time Mr, Paine generally resided
in London, and principally with me, till the
12th of September 1792, when he sailed for
France Avith Mr, Achilles Audibert, who came
express from the French convention to my
house to request his personal assistance in their
deliberations. On his arrival at Calais a public dinner
was provided, a royal salute Avas fired from
the battery, the troops were drawn out, and
there was a general rejoicing throughout the
town. He has often been heard to remark
that the proudest moment of his life was that
in which, on this occasion, he set foot upon
the Gallic shore.
In his own country he had been infamously
treated, and at the time of his quitting Do\'er
most rudely dealt with both by the officers
who ransacked his trunks, and a set of hire-

105
lings who were employed to hiss, hoot, and
maltreat, and it is strongly suspected, to de
stroy him.
It deprest him to think that his endeavours
to cleanse the Augsean stable of corruption
in England should have been so little under
stood, or so ill appreciated as to subject him
to such ignominious, such cowardly treatment.
Yet seven hours after this those very endea
vours obtained him an honourable reception in
France, and on his landing he was respectfully
escorted, amidst the loud plaudits of the mul
titude, to the house of his friend Mr. Audi
bert, the chief magistrate of the place, Avhere
he was visited by the commandant and all
the municipal officers in form, who after
wards gaA'e him a sumptuous entertainment
in the town hall.
I
The same honour was also paid him on
his departure for Paris.*

* The reader is referred to Brissof s paper ' Le Patriot
Francois,' and ' Le Journal de Gorsas,' for minute parti-

100

About the time of his arriA'al at Paris
the national convention began to divide
itself into factions; the king's friends had
been completely subdued by the suppression
of the Feuillans, the affair of the 10th of
August, and the massacre of the 2nd and
3rd of September ; while the jacobins who
had been hitherto considered as the patriotic
party, became in their turns divided into
different cabals, some of them wishing a
federative government, others, the enragfes,
desiring the death of the king and of all
allied to the nobility; but none of those
Avere republicans.
Those fcAV deputies Avho had just ideas
of a commouAvealth, and Avhose leader Avas
Paine, did not belong to the jacobin club.
I mention this, because Mr. Paine took

culars of Mr. Paine's introduction to the president of the
convention, to the ministers, and different committees; his
being appointed a deputy, and a member of the committee
of constitution, &c. &c. &c.

107

infinite trouble to instill into their minds the
difference between liberty and licentiousness,
and the danger to the peace, good order,
and Avell-doing of society, that must arise
from letting the latter encroach on the pre
rogatives of the former.
He laboured incessantly to preserve the
life of the king, and he succeeded in mak
ing some couA^erts to his opinions on this
subject; and his life would have been saved
but for Barrere, who having been appointed
by Robespierre to an office he Avas ambi
tious of obtaining, and certainly very fit for,
his influence brought with it forty votes; so
early was corruption introduced into this
assembly. For Calais, Mr. Paine was re
turned deputy to the couA'ention; he was
elected as well for Versailles, but as the
former town first did him the honour he
became its representative. He Avas extremely
desirous and expected to be appointed one
of the deputies to Holland ; a circumstance
that probably would have taken place had
not the committee of constitution delayed
so long the production of the new form

108
that the jacobins anticipated them, and pub»
lished proposals for a new constitution before
the committee.
This delay was owing to the jealousy
of Condorcet who had written the preface,
part of which some of the members
thought should have been in the body of
the work.
Brissot and the whole party of the Ge-
rondites lost ground daily after this; and
with them died away all that was national,
just, and humane: they Avere however highly
to blame for their want of energy.
In the beginning of April 1793, the
convention received the letter from Dumou-
rier that put all France in a panic: in this
letter he mentioned the confidence the army
had in him, and his intention of marching
to Paris to restore to France her constitu
tional king: this had the strongest effect, as
it Avas accompanied by an address from the
prince of Coburg, in which he agreed to
co-operate with Dumourier.

109
Mr. Paine, who never consideired the vast
difference betAveen the circumstances of the
two countries, France and America, suggested
an idea that Dumourier might be brought
about by appointing certain deputies to wait
on him coolly and dispassionately, to hear
his gricA'ances, and armed with powers to re
dress them.
On this subject he addressed a letter ta
the convention, in which he instanced the
case of an American general Avho receded
with the army under his command in con
sequence of his being dissatisfied with th«
proceedings of congress. The congress were
panic struck by this event, and gave up all
for lost; but Avhen the first impression of
alarm subsided they sent a deputation from
their own body to the general, Avho with
his staff gave them the meeting; and thus
matters were again reinstated. But there
was too much impetuosity and faction in the
French convention to admit of such tem
perate proceedings.
Mr. Paine, however, had written the letter.

no

and was going to Brissot's in order to meet
Barrere for the purpose of proposing an ad
justment, when he met a friend who had
that moment left the convention, Avho in
formed him that a decree had been past
offering- one hundred thousand crowns for
Dumourier's head, and another making it
high treason to propose any thing in his
favour. What the consequence of Mr. Paine's pro
ject might have been I do not know, but
the offer of the' convention made hundreds
of desperate -characters leave Paris, as speedily
as possible, in hopes of the proffered reward ;
it detached the affection of the soldiers from
their general, and made them go OA'er to
the enemy.
Towards the close of 1792 his ' Letter to
the Addressers' Avas published, which was
sought after Avith the same avidity as his
other productions.
I Of this letter, Avhich, with many other
1 things, he wrote at my house, I have the

Ill

original manuscript; and the table on virhich
they were written is still carefully preserved
by me : it has a brass plate in the centre
with this inscription placed there by my di
rection on his quitting England —

This Plate
is iDscribed by
/Thomas Clio RickmaTi,^
in remembrance
of his dear friend
Thomas Paine.
I who on this Table |
in the Year
1792
Vwrote several of his/
invaluable Works

The ' Letter to the Addressers' possesses all
Mr. Paine's usual strength of reasoning, and
abounds also in the finest strokes of genuine
satire, wit, and hum^our. About this time
a prosecution took place against the publish
ers of ' Rights of Man.'

How this was managed, and Mr. Paine's

112
Opinion of it, will be best understood by the
following letter never before published.
" To Sir Archibald Macdonald, " Attorney General.
" Sir, " Though I have some reasons for
believing that you were not the original
promoter or encourager of the prosecution
commenced against the work entitled ' Rights
of Man,' either as that prosecution is in
tended to effect the author, the publisher,
or the public; yet as you appear the official
person therein, I address this letter to you,
not as Sir Archibald Macdonald, but as at
torney general.
" You began by a prosecution against
the publisher Jordan, and the reason assigned
by Mr. Secretary Dundas, in the House of
Commons in the debate on the proclamation,
May 25, for taking that measure, was, be
said, because Mr, Paine could not be found,
or words to that effect, Mr. Paine, sir, so
far from secreting himself, never went a step
out of his Avay, nor in the least instance varied

113

from his usual conduct, to avoid any mea
sure you might choose to adopt Avith respect
to him. It is on the purity of his heart,
and the universal utility of the principles
and plans Avhich his Avritings contain, that
he rests the issue ; and he Avill not disho
nour it by any kind of subterfuge. The
apartments Avhich he occupied at the time
of writing the AVork last winter he has con
tinued to occupy to the present hour, and
the solicitors to the prosecution knew 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
publisher 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
I

114

useful and benevolent books ever offered to
mankind, I directed my attorney to put in
an appearance; and as I shall meet the prose
cution fully and fairly and Avith a good and
upright conscience, I have a right to expect
that no act of littleness Avill be made use of
on the part of the prosecution towards influ
encing the future issue with respect to the
author. This expression may perhaps appear
obscure to you, but I am in the possession of
some iriatters Avhich serve to shew that the
action against the publisher is not intended
to be a real action. If therefore any persons
concerned on the prosecution have found their
cause so Aveak as to make it appear convenient
to them to enter into a negociation Avith the
publisher, whether for the purpose of his sub
mitting to' a verdict, and to make use of the
ATi'dict so obtained as a circumstance, by Avay
of precedent, on a future trial against myself;
or for any other purpose not fully made knoAvn
to me ; if, I say, I have cause to suspect this
to be the case I shall most certainly Avithdraw
the defence I should otherwise have made or
promoted on his (the publisher's), behalf^ and
leave the negociators to themselves, and

115
shall reserve the Avhole of the defence for the
real trial.
" But, Sir, for the purpose of conducting
this matter with at least that appearance of
fairness and openness that shall justify itself
before the public, whose cause it really is
(for it is the right of public discussion and in
vestigation that is questioned), I have to pro
pose to you to cease the prosecution against
the publisher; and as the reason or pretext
can no longer exist for continuing it against
him because Mr, Paine could not be found,
that you Avould direct the whole process against
me, with whom the prosecuting party will
not find it possible to enter into any private
negociation. " I will do the cause f'ull justice, as well for
the sake of the nation, as for my own repu
tation. " Another reason for discontinuing the pro
cess against the publisher is, because it can
amount to nothing. First, because a jury in
London cannot decide upon the fact of pub-*
1 2

116

lishing beyond the limits of the jurisdiction of
London, and therefore the Avork may be re
published over and over again in every county
in the nation, and every case must have a
separate process; and by the time that three
or four hundred prosecutions have been had
the eyes of the nation Avill then be fully open-
to see that the AVork in question contains a
plan the best calculated to root out all the
abuses of gOA'ernment, and to lessen the taxes
of the nation upwards of six millions annu
ally. " Secondly, because though the gentlemen
of London may be very expert in understanding
their particular professions and occupations, and
how to make business contracts with govern
ments beneficial to themselves as individuals,
the rest of the nation may not be disposed to
consider them sufficiently qualified nor autho
rised to determine for the whole nation on
plans of reforms, and on systems and princi
ples of govenament. This Avould be in effect
to erect a jury into a national convention,
instead of electing a conventioUj and to
lay a precedent for the probable tyranny of

117

juries, under the pretence of supporting their
rights. " That the possibility always exists of pack
ing juries will not be denied; and therefore
in all cases where government is the prosecutor,
more especially in those where the right of
public discussion and investigation of prin
ciples and systems of government is attempted
to be suppressed by a verdict, or in those
Avhere the object of the Avork that is prosecuted
is the reform of abuse, and the abolition of
sinecure places and pensions, in all these cases
the A'erdict of a jury Avill itself become a
subject of discussion ; and therefore it furnishes
an additional reason for discontinuing the
prosecution against the publisher, more espe
cially as it is not a secret that there has been
a negociation Avith him for secret purposes,
and for proceeding against me only. I shall
make a much stronger defence than what I
believe the treasury solicitor's agreement with
him will permit him to do.
" I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself
defeated, and not being able to make any

118

answer to the ' Rights of Man,' has been one
of the promoters of this prosecution ; and I
shall return the compliment to him 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. " I am, Sir,
" Your obedient humble servant,
" To
Sir A. Macdonald, "Thomas Paine."
att.-gen.
This letter Avas Avritten previous to Mr.
Paine's quitting England, and is, the writer
believes, the only letter he ever Avrote to
Sir Archibald Macdonald.
It is the more necessary to state this as
a letter said to be Mr. Paine's was read on
his trial; a letter calculated to make much

119
against him, and Avhich Avas no doubt, as
Mr. Erskine asserted, a forared one. This
letter, cA^en if genuine, Avas not evidence,
was not charged in the information, and
ought not to have made any part in the
trial. Of this letter Mr, Erskine, now ' Lord
Erskine, thus remarked on Mr. Paine's
trial : —
" I consider that letter and indeed have
" ahvays heard it treated as a forgery, con-
" trived to injure the merits of the cause,
" and to embarrass me personally in its de-
" fence: I have a right so to consider it,
" because it is unsupported by any thing
" similar at an earlier period. The defen-
" dant's Avhole deportment previous to the
" publication has been Avholly unexception-
" able : he properly desired to be given up
" as the author of the book if any enquiry
" should take place concerning it; and he
" is not affected in evidence, directly or in-
" directly, Avith any illegal or suspicious
" conduct, not even with uttering an indis-

120

^' crcet or taunting expression, nor with any
" one matter or thing inconsistent with the
" best subject in England,
" His opinions, indeed, were adverse to our
" system, but I maintain that opinion is
" free, and that conduct alone is amenable to
" the law,"* As the proclamation which
gave rise to the ' Letter to the Addressers' is a
curious document, and evinces the temper
of the powers that Avere of that day, it is for
the entertainment of the reader here in
serted ; —
" The London Gazette, published by au
thority, from Saturday, I\Iay 19, to Tuesday,
May 22, " By the King, a Proclamation.
" George R.
" Whereas divers Avicked and seditious wri-

* The reader is referred to Mr. Erskine's speech on
Mr. Paine's trial, as a most luminous exhibition of just
reasoning, sound argument, interesting quotations, and
manly eloquence.

121

tings have been printed, published, and indus
triously dispersed, tending to excite tumult
and disorder, by endeavouring to raise ground
less jealousies and discontents in the minds
of our faithful and loving subjects respecting
the laws and happy constitution of govern
ment, civil and religious, established in this
kingdom, and endeavouring to vilify, and
bring into contempt, the wise and whole
some provisions made at the time of the
glorious revolution, and since strengthened
and confirmed by subsequent laws for
the preservation and security of the rights
and liberties of our faithful and loving sub
jects: and Avhereas divers writings have also
been printed, published, and industriously dis
persed, recommending the said Avicked and
seditious publications to the attention of all
our faithful and loving subjects: and Avliereas
Ave have also reason to believe that corres
pondencies have been entered into with sun
dry persons in foreign parts with a view to
forward the criminal and wicked purposes
above mentioned : and whereas the Avealth,
happiness and prosperity of this kingdom do,
under divine providence, chiefly depend upon

122

a due submission to the laAVs, a just confi
dence in the integrity and Avisdoni of parlia
ment, and a continuance of that zealous
attachment to that government and constitu
tion of the kingdom Avhich has ever pre-
A'-ailed in the minds of the people thereof:
and Avhereas there is nothing Avhich Ave so
so earnestly desire as to secure the public
peace and prosperity, and to preserve to all our
loving subjects the full enjoyment of their
rights and liberties, both religious and civil :
We, therefore, being resolved, as far as in
us lies, to repress the Avicked and seditious
practices aforesaid, and to deter all persons
from folioAving so pernicious an example, have
thought fit, by the advice of our priA-y council,
to issue tills our Royal Proclamation, solemnly
warning all our loving subjects, as they tender
their own happiness, and that of their poste
rity, to guard against all such attempts, which
aim at the subversion of all regular government
Avithin this kingdom, and which are inconsist
ent with the peace and order of society : and
earnestly exhorting them at all times, and to the
utmost of their power, to avoid and discourage
all proceedings, tending to produce tumults and

123

riots : and Ave do strictly charge and command
all our magistrates in and throughout our king
dom of Great Britain, that they do make dili
gent inquiry, in order to discover the authors
and printers of such Avicked and seditious Avri
tings as aforesaid, and all others who shall dis
perse the same : and Ave do further charge
and command all our sheriffs, justices of the
peace, chief magistrates in our cities, bo
roughs, and corporations, and all other our
officers and magistrates throughout our king
dom of Great Britain, that they do, in their
several and respective stations, take the most
immediate and effectual care to suppress and
prevent all riots, tumults and other disorders,
Avhich may be attempted to be raised or
made by any person or persons, Avhich, on
Avhatever pretext they may be grounded, are
not only contrary to law, but dangerous to
the most important interests of this kingdom :
and we do further require and command all
and every our magistrates aforesaid that they
do from time to time transmit to one of
our principal secretaries of state due and full
information of such persons as shall be found
offending as aforesaid, or in any degree aid-

IM

ing or abetting therein : it being our deter
mination, for the preservation of the peace
and happiness of our faithful and loving sub
jects, to carry the laws vigorously into exe
cution against such offenders as aforesaid, —
Given at our Court at the Queen's House,
the twenty-first day of May, One thou
sand seven hundred and ninety-two, in the
thirty-second year of our reign. ¦ — God save
the king."'
Soon after this, his excellent Letters to
Lord Onslow, to Mr. Dundas, and the Sheriff
of Sussex were published.
Mr. Paine's trial for the second part of
' Rights of Man' took place on the 18th of
December 1792, and he being found guilty
the booksellers and publishers Avho Avere taken
up and imprisoned previously to this trial
forebore to stand one themselves, and suf
fered judgment to go by default; for Avhich
they received the sentence of three years im
prisonment each. Of these booksellers and
publishers 1 Avas one, but by flying to
France I eluded this merciful sentence.

125

On the subject of these prosecutions I
AViote to Mr. Fox, whom I well knew; and
my intimate friend for years, Lord Stanhope,
as I Avas myself the subject of two of them,
and Avas well acquainted with the party factions
of the day, and the iniquitous intrigues of
the opposing leaders, in and out of office;
for the Avritings of Mr. Paine which Avere
as broad as the universe, and having nothing
to do Avith impure elections and auger-hole
politics, gave equal offence to all sides.
In the course of these letters AAdiich are
still extant, it Avas impossible not to dwell
on the absurdity of trial by jury in matters
of opinion, and the folly of any body of
men deciding for others in science and spe
culative discussion, in politics and religion.
Is it not applying the institution of juries to
purposes for which they Avere not intended,
to set up twelve men to judge and deter
mine for a Avhole nation on matters that
relate to systems and principles of govern
ment? A matter of fact may be cognizable
by a jur}', and certainly ascertained Avith
respect to offences against common law and

126

in the ordinary intercourses of society; but
on matters of political opinion, of taste, of
metaphysical enquiry, aud of religious belief,
every one must be left to decide as his en
quiries, his experience, and his conviction
impel him.
If the arm of poAver in every country
and on every doctrine could have enforced
its tyranny, almost all Ave noAV possess, and
that is A'aluable, Avould have been destroyed;
and if all the governments and factions
that have made the Avorld miserable could
have had their A\'ay, every thing desirable
in art, science, philosophy, literature, poli
tics, and religion, Avould haA'e been by
turns obliterated ; and the Bible, the Tes
tament, the Alcoran, the Avritings of Locke,
Erasmus Helvetius, Mercier, Milton, Shak-
speare, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Swift, Bo-
langer, Hume, Penn, Tucker, Paine, Ba
con, Bolingbroke, and of thousands of others
on all sides, Avould have been burnt; nor
Avould there be a printing press in the Avorld.
It has happened happily for many years

127

past, thanks to the art of printing and the'
means adopted to crush the circulation of
knowledge, that the very modes employed
to accomplish this end have not only proved
abortive, but have given wings to truth,
and diffused it into every corner of the uni
verse. The publication of trials containing quo
tations from the AVorks to be put down have
disseminated their contents infinitely wider
than they Avould else have reached, and have
excited enquiries that would otherwise have
Iain dormant.
So ludicrously did this strike Mr. Paine
that his frequent toast Avas, " The best way
of advertising good books, — by prosecution.''
As the attorney-general's attacks upon
prosecuted AA'orks of a clever and profound
description, and the judges' charges upon them
contain nothing like argument or refutation,
but follow up the criminating and absurd
language of the indictment or ex-officio In
formation,* and breathe only declamation and

The reader is referred to these documents as well

12B

ignorant abuse, they by their weakness ex
pose the cause they espouse, and strengthen
the truths they affect to destroy.
I shall close these observations by quoting
two old and good-humoured lines.
"Treason does never prosper — what's the reason 1
When it prospers — it is never treason !
This trial of Mr. Paine, and these sen
tences, subverted of course the very ends
they were intended to effect.
Mr. Paine Avas acknowledged deputy for
Calais, the 21st of September, 1792. In
France, during the early part of the revolu
tion, his time Avas almost Avholly occupied as
a deputy of the convention and as a mem-

worth his notice, and as a proof of the truth of these
observations : for instance, these informations state that
Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious, seditious, and
evil disposed person, hath, with force of arm,s, and most
wicked cunning, written and published a certain false,
scandalous, malicious, and seditious libel; in one part
thereof to the tenor aud effect follov/ing, that is to say —
&c. &'c.

129

ber of the committee of constitution. His
company Avas now coveted and sought after
universally among every description of people,
and by many who for some reasons never
chose to avow it. With the Earl of Lauder
dale, and Dr. Moore, whose company he was
fond of, he dined every Friday, till Lord
GoAver's departure made it necessary for them
to quit France, which was early in 1793.
About this period he removed from White's
Hotel to one near the Rue de Richelieu, where
he was so plagued and interrupted by numerous
visitors, and sometimes by adventurers, that
in order to have some time to himself he
appropriated two mornings in a week for
his levee days.* To this indeed he was

* Among these adventurers was a person who called
himself Major Lisle : Mr. Paine was at breakfast when he
was announced; he stated himself to be lately arrived from
Ireland ; he was drest in the Irish uniform, and wore a
green cockade ; he appeared to be a well informed man,
and was gentlemanly in his manners, but extremely voluble.
He ran over the number of sieges and battles he had been
at, and ended with professing a zealous desire to serve the
republic, wishing Mr. Paine to give hira a letter of recora-
K

130

extremely averse, from the fuss and formality
attending it, but he was nevertheless obliged
to adopt it.
Annoyed and disconcerted Avith a life so
contrary to his Avishes and habits, and so
inimical to his views, he retired to the Faux-
bourg St. Dennis, where he occupied part of
the hotel that Madame de Pompadour once
resided in.
Here was a good garden Avell laid out,
and here too our mutual friend Mr, Choppin
occupied apartments: at this residence, Avhich
for a town one was very quiet, he lived a
life of retirement and philosophical ease, while
it was believed he Avas gone into the country

mendation to, the minister at war, Mr. Paine was extremely
observing, shrewd, and cautious ; he treated him witb
hospitality and politeness, and enquired after some of the
leading characters in Ireland, with whom he found the
major not at all acquainted ; he then recommended him to
take the credentials of his services to the military com.*.
mittee, but declined every importunity to interfere himself.
This adventurer turned out afterwards to be the notorious
Major Semple.

131

for his health, which by this time indeed
was much impaired by intense application to
business, and by the anxious solicitude he felt
for the welfare of public affairs.
Here Avith a chosen few he unbent him
self; among whom were Brissot, the Marquis
de Chatelet le Rol of the gallerle de honore,
and an old friend of Dr. Franklin's, Bancal,
and sometimes General Miranda, His English
associates Avere Christie and family, Mrs.
Wolstonecraft, Mr. and Mrs. Stone, &c.
Among his American friends were Capt. Imlay,
Joel Barlow, &c. &c. to these parties the French
inmates Avere generally invited.
It Avas about this time a gentleman at
Paris thus writes of him to his friend: —
" An English lady of our acquaintance,
" not less remarkable for her talents than for
" her elegance of manners, entreated me to
" contrive that she might have an interview
" with Mr. Paine. In consequence of this
" I invited him to dinner on a day when
" we were to be favored with her company.
K 2

132

" For above four hours he kept every
" one in astonishment and admiration of his
" memory, his keen observation of men and
" manners, his numberless anecdotes of the
" American Indians, of the American Avar, of
," Franklin, Washington, and even of his
' Majesty, of whom he told several curious
" facts of humour and benevolence. His
" remarks on genius and taste can never be
r forgotten by those present."
Joel BarloAV was many years Mr. Paine's
intimate friend, and it was from Mr. Paine
he derived much of the great knowledge
and acuteness of talent he possessed. Joel
Barlow Avas a great philosopher, and a great
poet; but there are spots in the sun, and
I instance the following littleness in his con
duct as a warning, and to prove how much
of honest fame and character is lost by any
thing like tergiversation. Joel Barlow has
omitted the name of Mr. Paine in his very
fine poem ' The Columbiad ;' a name essen
tial to the AVork as the principal founder of
the American republic and of the happiness
of its citizens. Omitting the name of Mr»

133

Paine in the history of America, and where
the amelioration of the human race is so
much concerned, is like omitting the name
of NcAVton in writing the history of his phi
losophy, or that of God Avhen creation is
the subject; yet this, Joel Barlow has done,
and done so lest the name of Paine com
bined with his theological opinions should
injure the sale of the poem. — Mean and un
handsome conduct !
To remedy this omission, tho not in the
line style of Barlow, the foUoAving lines are
suggested to be placed at the close of the
425th line in the Sth book, page 157 of his
Columbiad : —

A man who honor'd Albion by his birth.
The wisest, brightest, humblest son of earth;
A man, in every sense that word can mean.
Now started angel-like upon the scene.
Drew forth his pen of reason, truth, and fire.
The land to animate, the troops inspire;
And called that independent spirit forth.
Which gives all bliss to man, and constitutes his worth.
'T was he suggested first, 't was lie who plann'd
A separation from the mother land :

134
His ' Common Sense' bis ' Crisis' led the way.
To great Columbia's happy perfect day,
And all she has of good or ever may ! —

}

As Euclid clear his various writings shone.
His pen inspired by glorious truth alone.
O'er all the earth diffusing light and life.
Subduing error, ignorance, and strife ;
Raised man to just pursuits, to thinking right.
And yet will free the world from woe and falsehood's night;
To this immortal man, to Paine 'twas given.
To metamorphose earth from hell to heaven.
He usually rose about seven, breakfasted
with his friend Choppin, Johnson, and two
or three other Englishmen, and a Monsieur
La Borde, Avho had been an officer In the
ci-devant garde du corps, an intolerable aris
tocrat, but Avhose skill in mechanics and geo
metry brought on a friendship between him
and Paine: for the undaunted and distin
guished ability and firmness Avith Avhich he
ever defended his OAvn opinions Avhen contro-
A^erted, do not reflect higher honour upon
him than that unbounded liberality towards the
opinions of others which constituted such a
prominent feature in his character, and
Avhich never suffered mere difference of sen
timent, Avhether political or religious, to

135

interrupt the harmonious intercourse of friend
ship, or impede the interchanges of knoAV-
ledge aud information.
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 at Paris.
The little happy circle who lived with him
here Avill ever remember these days with de
light : with these select friends he Avould talk
of his boyish days, play at chess, Avhist, piquet,
or cribbage, and enliven the moments by many
interesting anecdotes : with these he would
play at marbles, scotch hops, battledores, &c.
on the broad and fine gravel walk at the upper
end of the garden, and then retire to his bou
doir, Avhere he was up to his knees iu letters
and papers of various descriptions. Here he
remained till dinner time ; and unless he vi
sited Brissot's family, or some particular friend
in the evening, AvhIch was his frequent custom,
he joined again the society of his favorites

136

and fellow-boarders, Avith whom his conver
sation was often witty and cheerful, always
acute and Improving, but never frivolous.
Incorrupt, strait forward, and sincere, he
pursued his political course in France, as every
Avhere else, let the government or clamor or
faction of the day be Avhat it might, with
firmness, with clearness, and without a " sha
dow of turning."
« In all Mr. Paine's enquiries and conver
sations he evinced the strongest attachment to
!
the investigation of truth, and Avas always for
^oing to the fountain head for information.
He often lamented Ave had no good history of
America, and that the letters Avritten by Co
lumbus, the early navigators, and others, to
the Spanish court, were inaccessible, and that
many valuable documents, collected by Philip
the lid, and deposited with the national
archives at Simania, had not yet been pro
mulgated. He used to speak highly of the
sentimental parts of Raynal's History.
It is not intended to enter into an account

137

of the French revolution, its progress, the dif
ferent colors it took and aspects it assumed.
The history of this most important event
may be found at large detailed by French
writers as well as those of other nations, and
the world is left to judge of it.
It is unfortunate for mankind that Mr.
Paine, by imprisonment and the loss of his
invaluable papers, Avas prevented giving the
best, most candid and philosophical account of
these times. These papers contained the his
tory of the French revolution, and were no
doubt a most correct, discriminating, and en
lightened detail of the events of that Important
era. For these papers the historian Gibbon
sent to France, and made repeated application,
upon a conviction that they Avould be impartial,
profound, and philosophical documents.
It is well known that Mr. Paine alwavs\
lamented the turn affairs took in France, and |
grieved at the period Ave are now adverting

to, when corrupt influence was rapidly infecting
every department of the state. He saw the
jealousies and animosities that were breedin"-,

13B

and that a turbulent faction Avas forming
among the people that would first enslave
and ultimately overwhelm even the convention
itself Mr. Paine's opinion upon this subject Avas
always the same, and in 1804 he thus speaks
it: "With respect to the revolution, It Avas
" begun by good men, on good principles, and
" I haA^e ever believed it would haA'e gone
" on so had not the provocative interference
" of foreign powers distracted it into madness
" and sown jealousies among the leaders. The
" people of England have now two revolutions,
" the American and the French, before them.
" Their own wisdom avIU direct them what to
" choose and Avhat to avoid, and in every thing
" Avhich relates to their happiness, combined
" Avith the common good of mankind, I Avish
" them honour and success."
Mr. Paine's memorable speech against the
death of the king, is, or ought to be, in every
body's hands. It Avas as follows :
" Citizen President: My hatred and abhor-

139

rence of absolute monarchy are sufficiently
known ; they originate in principles of reason
and conviction, nor, except Avith life, can
they CA'er be extirpated ; but my compassion for
the unfortunate, whether friend or enemy, is
equally lively and sincere,
" I voted that Louis should be tried,
because it Avas necessary to afford proofs to
the world of the perfidy, corruption, and abo
mination of the French government.
" The infinity of CA'idence that has been
produced exposes them in the most glaring
and hideous colours.
" Nevertheless I am inclined to believe that
if Louis Capet had been born in an obscure
condition, had he llA'^ed Avithin the circle of an
amiable and respectable neighbourhood, at
liberty to practise the duties of domestic life,
had he been thus situated I cannot believe that
he would have shcAvn himself destitute of social
virtues ; we are, in a moment of fermentation
like this, naturally little Indulgent to his vices,
or rt^ther to those of his government ; Ave regard

140

them with additional horror and indignation ;
not that they are more heinous than those of his
predecessors, but because our eyes are noAV open,
and the veil of delusion at length withdraAvn ;
yet the lamentable degraded state to which he
is actually reduced is surely far less imputable
to him than to the constituent assembly Avhich,
of its own authority, Avithout consent or advice
of the people, restored him to the throne,
" I was present at the time of the flight
or abdication of Louis XVI, and when he Avas
taken and brought back. The proposal of
restoring to him the supreme power struck me
with amazement; and although at that time I
was not a citizen, yet as a citizen of the world
I employed all the efforts that depended on me
to prevent it.
" A small society, composed only of five
persons, two of whom are noAV members of the
convention, took at that time the name of the
Republican Club (Soci6t6 Republicaine), This
society opposed the restoration of Louis, not so
much on account of his personal offences, as In
order to overthrow monarchy, and to erect on

141

its ruins the republican system and an equal
representation. " With this design I traced out in the
English language certain propositions which
were translated, with some trifling alteration,
and signed by Achilles Duchelclet, lieutenant-
general in the army of the French republic,
and at that time one of the five members Avhich
composed our little party ; the laAV requiring the
signature of a citizen at the bottom of each
printed paper.
" The paper was indignantly torn by
Malonet, and brought forth in this very room
as an article of accusation against the person
who had signed it, the author, and their adhe
rents ; but such is the revolution of events that
this paper is now revived, and brought forth
for a very opposite purpose.
" To remind the nation of the error of that
unfortunate day, that fatal error of not having
then banished Louis XVI from its bosom, the
paper in question Avas conceived in the fol
lowing terms; and I bring it forward this day

142

to plead in favor of his exile preferably to his
death. " ' Brethren, and fellow Citizens : The serene
' tranquillity, the mutual confidence which pre-
' vailed amongst us during the time of the late
' king's escape, the indifference Avith Avhich Ave
' beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that
' the absence of the king is more desirable than
' his presence, and that he is not only a political
' superfluity but a grievous burthen pressing hard
' on the whole nation.
" ' Let us not be imposed on by sophisms : all
' that concerns this man is reduced to four points.
' He has abdicated the throne in having fled from
' his post. Abdication and desertion are not
' characterized by length of absence, but by
' the single act of flight. In the present in-
' stance the act is every thing, and the time
' nothing. " ' The nation can never give back its
' confidence to a man Avho, false to his trust,
* perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine
' flight, obtains a fraudulent passport, conceals

143

' a king of France under the disguise of a
' valet, directs his course towards a frontier
' covered Avith traitors and deserters, and evi-
' dently meditates a return into our country
' with a force capable of imposing his own
' despotic laws. Ought his flight to be con-
' sidered as his own act, or the act of those Avho
' fled Avith 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 trai-
' tor, he has proved himself equally un-
' worthy of the vast and important functions
' that had been delegatfed to him.
" ' In every sense that the question can be
' considered the reciprocal obligations which
' subsisted between us are dissolved. He holds
' no longer authority ; Ave owe him no longer
'obedience; Ave see in him no more than an
'indifferent person; Ave 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 her

144

' 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 was yet
'wanting; now the onl}' vacancy Is filled up,
' the dreadful list is full ; the system is ex-
' hausted ; there are no remaining errors for
' them to commit, their reign is consequently
' at an end.
" ' As to the personal safety of Mr. Louis
' Capet, it is so much the more confirmed, as
' France will not stop to degrade herself by a
' spirit of revenge against a Avretch who has
' dishonored himself. In defending a just and
' glorious cause it is not possible to degrade it;
' and the universal tranquillity Avhich prevails is
' an undeniable proof that a free people know
' how to respect themselves.'
" Having thus explained the principles and
ex-ertions of the republicans at that fatal pe
riod Avhen Louis was reinstated in full pos
session of the executive power Avhich by his
flight had been suspended, I return to the

145

subject, and to the deplorable condition in
Avhich the man is now actually involved.
What Avas neglected at the time of which
I have been speaking has been since brought
about by the force of necessity.
" The Avilful treacherous defects in the
former constitution haA^e been brought to
light, the continual alarm of treason and
conspiracy rouzed the nation and produced
eventfully a second revolution. The people
have beat down royalty, never, never to rise
again; they have brought Louis Capet to
the bar, and demonstrated in the face of the
Vi^hole Avorld, the intrigues, the cabals, the
falsehood, corruption, and rooted depravity
of his government : there remains then only
one question to be considered, what is to be
done with this man?
" For myself, I freely confess that when
I reflect on the unaccountable folly that
restored the executive power to his hands,
all covered as he was w^ith perjuries and
treason, I am far more ready to condemn
L

146
the constituent assembly than the unfortunate
prisoner Louis Capet.
" But, abstracted from every other consi
deration, there is one circumstance in his
life Avhich ought to cover or at least to
palliate a great number of his transgres
sions, and this very circumstance affords the
French nation a blessed occasion of extrica
ting itself from the yoke of Its kings Avith
out defiling itself in the impurities of their
blood. " It is to France alone, I know that the
United States of America owe that support
which enabled them to shake off an unjust
and tyrannical yoke. The ardour and zeal
which she displayed to provide both men and
money were the natural consequences of a
thirst for liberty. But as the nation at that
time, restrained by the shackles of her own
government, could only act by means of a
monarchical organ, this organ, whatever in
other respects the object might be, certainly
performed a good, a great action.

147

" Let then these United States be the
safeguard and asylum of Louis Capet.
There, hereafter, far removed from the
miseries and crimes of royalty, he may learn,
from the constant aspect of public prosperity,
that the true system of government consists
in fair, equal, and honourable representation.
In relating this circumstance, and in sub
mitting this proposition, I consider myself as
a citizen of both countries.
" I submit it as a citizen of America who
feels the debt of gratitude Avhich he owes
to every Frenchman. I submit it also as a
man Avho cannot forget that kings are sub
ject to human frailties. I support my pro
position as a citizen of the French republic,
because it appears to me the best, the 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 the people are invariably just, both
•in their intentions and in their objects; but
the true method of accomplishing that effect,
L 2

&

148

does not always sheAV itself in the first in
stance. For example, the English nation had
groaned under the despotism of the Stuarts.
Hence Charles the Ist lost his life; yet
Charles the lid Avas restored to all the
full plenitude of power which his father
had lost. Forty years had irot expired Avhen
the same family strove to re-establish their
ancient oppression; so the nation then
banished from Its territories the Avhole race.
The remedy was effectual : the Stuart family
sunk into obscurity, confounded itself with
the multitude, and is at length extinct.
" The French nation has carried her mea
sures of government to a greater length.
France is not satisfied Avith exposing the
guilt of the monarch, she has penetrated into
the vices and horrors of the monarchy. She
has shewn them clear as daylight and for
ever crushed tliat system ; and he, Avhoever
he may be, that should ever dare to reclaim
those rights, woidd be regarded not as a pre
tender, but punished as a traitor.
" Two brothers of Louis Capet have

149

banished themselves from the country, but
they are obliged to comply with the spirit
and etiquette of the courts Avhere they reside.
" They can advance no pretensions on
their own account so long as Louis shall live.
" The history of monarchy in France was
a system pregnant Avith crimes and murders,
cancelling all natural ties, even those by
Avhich brothers are united. We knoAV how
often they have assassinated each other to
pave a Avay to power. As those hopes Avhich
the emigrants had reposed in Louis XVI are
fled, the last that remains rests upon his death,
and their situation inclines them to desire
this catastrophe, that they may once again
rally round a more active chief, and try
one further effort under the fortune of the
ci-devant Monsieur and d'Artois. That such
an enterprise Avould precipitate them into a
ncAV abyss of calamity and disgrace it is
not difficult to foresee; j'et it might be at
tended with mutual loss, and it is our duty
as legislators not to spill a drop of blood
when our purpose may be effectually accom-

150

plished without It. It has been already pro
posed to abolish the punishment of death,
and it is with infinite satisfaction that I
recollect the humane and excellent oration
pronounced by Robespierre on that subject
in the constituent assembly. This cause must
find its advocates in every corner where en
lightened politicians and lovers of humanity
exist, and it ought above all to find them in
this assembly,
I " Bad governments have trained the human
I' race and inured it to the sanguinary arts and
I refinements of punishment; and it is exactly
the same punishment that has so long shocked
the sight and tormented the patience of the
people which now in their turn they practise
in revenge on their oppressors,
" But it becomes us to be strictly on our
guard against the abomination and perversity of
such examples. As France has been the first of
European nations to amend her government, let
her also be the first to abolish the punishment
of death, and to find out a milder and more
effectual substitute.

151

" In the particular case now under consider
ation, I submit the following propositions.-—
1st, That the national convention shall pro
nounce the sentence of banishment on Louis
and his family : 2nd, That Louis Capet shall
be detained in prison till the end of the war,
and then the sentence of banishment to be
executed." His conduct in this instance as Avell as that
towards Captain Grimstone display that hu
mane, charitable, and truly benevolent spirit
which uniformly marked his character and in
fluenced his conduct.
On the day of the trial of Marat, Mr. Paine
dined at White's Hotel with Mr. Milnes, a
gentleman of great hospitality and profusion,
Avho usually gave a public dinner to twenty or
thirty gentlemen once a Aveek. At table,
among many others besides Mr, Paine, was a
Captain Grimstone, a lineal descendant from Sir
Harbottle Grirastone, Avho Avas a member of
Cromwell's parliament and an officer in his
army. This man Avas a high aristocrat, a great
gambler, and it was believed could not quit

152

France on account of his being much in debt.
He took little pains to conceal his political
principles, and when the glass had freely cir
culated, a short time after dinner he attempted
loudly and impertinently to combat the political
doctrines of the philosopher : this was to be
sure the viper biting at the file, ]\Ir, Paine in
few Avords, Avith much acuteness and address,
continued exposing the fallacy of his reasoning,
and rebutting his invectives.
The captain became more violent, and
waxed so angry, that at length rising from his
chair he walked round the table to where Mr,
Paine was sitting, and here began a volley of
abuse, calling him incendiary, traitor to his
country, and struck him a violent blow that
nearly knocked him off his seat. Captain
Grimstone Avas a stout young man about thirty,
and Mr. Paine at this time nearly sixty.
The company, Avho suspected not such an
outrage against every thing decent, mannerly,
and just, and Avho had occasion frequently
during dinner to call him to order, Avere noAV
obliged to give him in charge of the national

153

guard. It must be remembered that an act
of the convention had made it death to strike
a deputy, and every one In company Avith the
person committing the assault refusing to give
up the offender Avas considered as an accom
plice. But a short period before this circumstance
happened nine men had been decapitated, one
of Avhom had struck Bourdeur de L'olse, at
Orleans. The other eight were Avalking Avith
him in the street at the time.
Paine Avas extremely agitated Avhen he
reflected on the danger of his unprovoked
enemy, and Immediately applied to Barrere, at
that time president of the committee of public
safety, for a passport for the unhappy man, Avho
must otherwise have suffered death ; and tho he
found the greatest difficulty in effecting this, he
however persevered and at length accomplished
it, at the same time sending Grimstone money
to defray his travelling expences ; for his pass
port Avas of so short a duration that he was
obliged to go immediately from his prison to
the raessagerle nationale.

154
Of Mr. Paine's arrest by Robespierre and
his imprisonment, &c. we cannot be so well
informed as by himself in his own affecting and
interesting letters.
" When I Avas voted out of the French
convention the reason assigned for It Avas that
I Avas a foreigner. When Robespierre had
" me seized in the night and imprisoned In
" the Luxembourg (where I remained eleven
" months) he assigned no reason for It. But
" Avhen he proposed bringing me to the tri-
" bunal, wdiich Avas like sending me at once
" to the scaffold, he then assigned a reason;
" and the reason was, ' for the interest of
" ' America as well as France' — ' pour I'int^r^t
" ' de TAmerlque autant que de la France.' The
" Avords are in his own hand-writing and re-
" ported to the convention by the committee
" appointed to examine his papers, and are
" printed in their report, Avith this reflection
I " added to them, ' Why Thomas Paine more
!*' ' than another? because he contributed to
i^" ' the hberty of both Avorlds?' There must
''i' have been coalition in sentiment, if not in
" fact, between the terrorists of America and

155

" the terrorists of France, and Robespierre.
" must have known it or he could not havej
" had the Idea of putting America into the
" bill of accusation against me.
" Yet these men, these terrorists of the ncAV
' world, who were Avaiting in the devotion of
' their hearts for the joyful news of my
' destruction, are the same banditti who are
' now bellowing in all the hackneyed language
' of hackneyed hypocrisy about humanity and
' piety, and often about something they call
' infidelity, and they finish with the chorus of
' crucify him, crucify him, I am become so
' famous among them that they cannot eat or
' drink without me. I serve them as a stand-
' ing dish, and they cannot make up a bill of
' fare if I am not in it.
" Thomas Paine, to their mortification, Pro-
' vidence has protected in all his dangers,
' patronized him in all his undertakings, en-
' couraged him in all his ways, and rewarded
' him at last by bringing him in health and
' safety to the promised land. This is more
' than it did by the Jews, the chosen people

156

" whom they tell us it brought out of the land
" of Egypt and out of the house of bondage;
" for they all died in the Avilderness and INIoses
" too. I was one of the nine members that
" composed the first committee of constitution.
" Six of them have been destroyed ; Sieyes and
" myself have survived. He by bending Avith
" the times, and I by not bending. The other
" survivor joined Robespierre and signed Avith
" him the warrant for my arrestation.
" After the fall of Robespierre he Avas seized
" and imprisoned in his turn, and sentenced to
" transportation. He has since apologized to me
" for having signed the Avarrant by saying he
" felthlmself in danger and Avas obliged to do It.
" Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr.
" Jefferson's, and a good patriot, Avas my suppll-
" ant as a member of the committee of constitu-
" tion ; that is, he was to supply my place if I
" had not accepted or had resigned, being nexf
" in number of A'otes to me. He Avas imprisoned
" in the Luxembourg Avith me, Avas taken to the
" tribunal and to the guillotine, and I, his prin-
" cipal, was left.

157

" There Avere but two foreigners in the con-
" vention, Anarcharsis Cloots and myself. We
" were both put out of the convention by the
" same vote, arrested by the same order, and
" carried to prison together the same night. He
" was taken to the guillotine, and I Avas again
" left. Joel Barlow was with us when we went
" to prison. Joseph Leban, one of the vilest
" characters that ever existed, and who made
" the streets of Arras run wdth blood, was my
" suppliant member of the convention for the
" department of the Pais de Calais. When I
" Avas put out of the convention he came and
" took my place. When I was liberated
" from prison and voted again into the conven-
" tion he was sent to the same prison and took
" my place there, and he went to the guillotine
" instead of me. He supplied my place all the
" Avay thro. One hundred and sixty-eight per-
" sons Avere taken out of the Luxembourg in one
'* night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillo-
" tined the next day, of which I know I was to
" have been one ; and the manner I escaped that
" fate is curious, and has all the appearance of
" accident. The room in which I Avas lodged
'' was on the ground floor and one of a long

158

" range of rooms under a gallery, and the door
" of it opened outward and flat against the Avail ;
" so that when it was open the inside of the door
" appeared outward, and the contrary when it
" was shut : I had three comrades fellow-prisoners
" with me, Joseph Vanhuile of Bruges, since
" president of the municipality of that town,
" Michael Robins, and Bastini of Louvain,
" When persons by scores and by hundreds Avere
" to be taken out of prison for the guillotine it
" was always done in the night, and those Avho
" performed that office had a private mark or
" signal by Avhich they knew what rooms to go
" to, and what number to take,
" We, as I said, were four, and the door of
" our room Avas marked, unobserved by us, with
" that number in chalk ; but it happened, if hap-
" pening is a proper word, that the mark was
" put on the door when it was open and flat
" against the wall, and thereby came on the
" inside when we shut it at night, and the de-
" stroying angel passed it by, A few days after
" this Robespierre fell, and the American ambassa-
" dor arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me
" tg his house.

159

" During the whole of my imprisonment, prior
" to the fall of Robespierre, there w^as no time
" Avhen I could think my life Avorth twenty-four
" hours ; and my mind Avas made up to meet
" its fate. The Americans in Paris went in a
" body to the convention to reclaim me, but
" without success. There was no party among
" them Avith respect to me. My only hope then
" rested on the government of America that it
" Avould remember me.
" But the icy heart of ingratitude, in Avhat-
" ever man it is placed, has neither feelings nor
" sense of honour. The letter of Mr. Jefferson
" has served to Avipe aAvay the reproach, and
" done justice to the mass of people of
"^ America." While Mr. Paine was In prison he Avrote much
of his 'Age of Reason,' and amused himself with
carrying on an epistolary correspondence Avith
Lady S*** under the assumeil name of 'The
Castle in the Air,' and lier ladyship answered
under the signature of ' The Little Corner of the
World.' This correspondence is reported to oe
extremely beautiful and interesting.

160

At this period a deputation of Americans
solicited the release of Thomas Paine from prison;
and as this document, and the Avay in Avhich It Is
introduced in Mr. Sampson Perry's history of the
French revolution, bear much interest, and are
highly honourable to Mr. Paine, the deputation,
and Mr. Perry, I give It In his own words :
" As an historian does not write in conformity
" to the humours or caprice of the day, but looks
" to the mature opinions of a future period, so
" the humble tracer of these hasty sketches,
" though without pretensions himself to live In
" after times, is nevertheless at once desirous of
" proA'ing his indifference to the unpopularity of
" the moment, and his confidence in the justice
" posterity avIU exercise tOAvards one of the
" greatest friends of the human race. The author
" is the more authorised to pass this eulogium on
" a character already sufficiently celebrious,
" having had the means and the occasion of
" exploring his mind and his qualities, as Avell
" Avith suspicion as with confidence. The name
" of Thomas Paine may excite hatred in some,
" and inspire terror in others. It ought to do
" neither, he Is the friend of all ; and it is only

161

" because reason and virtue are not sufficiently
" prevalent, that so many do not love him : he is
" not the enemy of those even who are eager to
" have his fate at their disposal. The time may ,
" not be far off when they will be glad their
" fate Avere at his ; but the cowardly as Avell as ;
" the brave have contributed to fill England
" with dishonour for silently allowing the best
" friends of the human race to be persecuted with
" a virulence becoming the darkest ages only.
" The physical world is in rapid movement, '
" the moral advances perhaps as quick ; that part }
" of it which is dark now will be light ; AA'hen it (
" shall have but half revolved, men and things \
" will be seen more clearly, and he Aviil be most ¦
" esteemed by the good who shall have made the
" largest sacrifice to truth and public A'irtue.
" Thomas Paine Avas suspected of having checked
" the aspiring light of the public mind by opi-
" nions not suitable to the state France was in.
" He was for confiding more to the pen, and
" doubting the effect of the guillotine,
" Robespierre said, that method Avould do
M

162

" with such a country as America, but could
" avail nothing in one highly corrupted like
" France. To disagree in opinion with a mind
" so heated Avas to incur all the resentment it
" contained. Thomas Paine had preserved an
" intimacy AvIth Brissot from an acquaintance of
" long date, and because he spoke the English
" language; when Brissot fell Paine was in
" danger, and, as his preface to the second part
" of the ' Rights of Man,' shews, he had a miracu-
" lous escape.
" The Americans in Paris saw the perilous
" situation of their fellow citizen, of the cham-|
" pion of the liberty of more than one quarter of
"•' the world; they drew up an address and pre-'
" sented it at the bar of the convention; it was
" worcJed as follows: —
" ' Citiztms ! the French nation had invited
" ' the most illostrious of all foreign nations to
" ' the honour of r'.epresenting her.
" ' Thomas Paine, tlhe apostle of liberty in
" ' America, a profound a'nd valuable philoso-
" ' pher a virtuous and esteemed citizen, came

163

"" ' to France and took a seat among you. Parti-
" * cular circumstances rendered necessary the
" ' decree to put under arrest all the English
" ' residing in France.
" 'Citizens! representatives! we come to
" ' demand of you Thomas Paine, in the name of
" ' the friends of liberty, in the name of the
" 'Americans your brothers and allies; Avas there
" ' any thing more wanted to obtain our demand
" 'we would tell you. Do not give to the
" ' leagued despots the pleasure of seeing Paine
" ' in irons. W^e shall Inform you that the seals
" ' put upon the papers of Thomas Paine have
" ' been taken oflp, that the committee of gene-
" 'ral safety exq.niined them, and far from
'' ' finding among them any dangerous proposi-
" 'tions, they only found the love of liberty
" * which characterised him all his life time, that
" 'eloquence of nature and philosophy which
" 'made him the friend of mankind, and those
" 'principles of public morality which merited
" ' the hatred of kings, and the affection of his
" ' felloAV-citizens. " ' In short. Citizens ! if you permit us to
M 2

164

" ' restore Thomas Paine to the embraces of his
" ' felloAV-citizens we offer to pledge ourselves
" ' as securities for his conduct during the short
" ' time he shall remain in France,' "
After his liberation he found a friendly
asylum at the American minister's house,
Mr, Monroe, uoav president of the United
States ; and for some years before Mr, Paine left
Paris, he lodged at M, Bonville's, associating
occasionally Avith the great men of the day, Con
dorcet, Volney, Mercier, Joel Barlow, &c, &c.
and sometimes dining Avith Bonaparte and his
generals,* — He now indulged his mechanical
turn, and amused himself in bridge and ship
modelling, and in pursuing his favorite studies,

* When Bonaparte returned from Italy he called on Mr.
Paine and invited hira to dinner: in the course of his rap
turous address to him he declared that a statue of gold
ought to be erected to him in every city in the universe,
assuring him that he always slept with bis book ' Rights
of Man' under his pillow, and conjured him to honor him
with his correspondence and advice.
This anecdote is only related as a fact. Of the sincerity
of the compliment, those must judge who know Bona
parte's principles best.

165

the mathematics and natural philosophy. —
"'These models," says a correspondent of that
time, "exhibit an extraordinary degree not only
'* of skill but of taste in mechanics, and are
" Avrought Avith extreme delicacy entirely by his
" own hands. The largest of these, the model
" of a bridge, is nearly four feet in length: the
" iron- works, the chains, and every other article
" belonging to it Avere forged and manufactured
" by himself. It is intended as the model of a
" bridge which is to be constructed across the
" DelaAvare, extending 480 feet with only one
" arch. The other is to be erected over anarroAver-
" river, whose name I forget, and is likewise a
*" single arch, and of his own Avorkmanship
" excepting the chains, Avhich instead of iron are
" cut out of pasteboard, by the fair hand of his
'•' correspondent,' The little Corner of the World,'
" whose indefatigable perseverance is extraor-
'¦'¦ dinary. He Avas offered =£3000 for these models
" and refused it. He also forged himself the
" model of a crane of a new description, which
" when put together exhibited the power of the
^' lever to a most surprising degree."
During this time he also published his

166

' Dissertation on first Principles of Government,'
his ' Essay on Finance,' his first and second
parts of the 'Age of Reason,' his 'Letter to
Washington,' his 'Address to the Theophilan-
thropists,' 'Letter to Erskine,' &c. &c. Poetry
too employed his Idle hours, and he produced
some fine pieces, Avhich the world Avill probably
one day see.
Wearied Avith the direction things took in
France, which he used to say, Avas " the pro
mised land, but not the land of promise," he had
long sighed for his OAvn dear America,
"It is,"* he Avould say, "the country of
" my heart and the place of my political and

* See ' Letters from Thomas Paine to the Citizens of Ame
rica,' after an absence of fifteen years in Europe, to which are
subjoined some letters between him and the late General
Washington, Mr, Samuel Adams, and the late President of
the United States, Mr. Jefferson; also some original Poetry of
Mr, Paine's, and a Fac Simile of his hand-writing in 1803,
London: published by and for Clio Rickman, Upper
Mary-le-bone-Street, London,

167

** literary birth. It was the American revolution
" made me an author, and forced into action the
" mind that had been dormant and had no wish
" for public life, nor has it now," Mr, Paine
made many efforts to cross the Atlantic, but they
were ineffectual: some of these I state in his oAvn
words. "As soon as the American ambassador
" had made a good standing with the French
" government, (for the conduct of his prede-
" cessor had made his reception as minister diffi-
*' cult,) he wanted to send dispatches to his own
" government, by a person to whom he could also
^' confide a verbal communication, and he fixed
" his choice upon me. He then applied to the
" committee of public safety for a passport, but
" as I had been voted again into the convention
" it was only the convention that could give
" the passport ; and as an application to them for
" that purpose would have made my going
" publicly knoAvn, I was obliged to sustain
" the disappointment, and the then ambassador
" to lose the opportunity.
" When that gentleman left France to return
" to America, I AA'as to have come with hira ;
" it Avas fortunate I did not. The vessel he

168
" sailed in was visited by an English frigate
" that searched every part of it, and down to
" the hold, for Thomas Paine, I then Avent the
" same year to embark for Havre; but several
" British frigates Avere cruizing in sight of the
" port, who knew I Avas there, and I had to
" return again to Paris. Seeing myself thus cut
" off from every opportunity of returning that
" Avas in my power to command, I wrote to Mr.
" Jefferson, requesting that if the fate of the
" election should put him in the chair of the
" presidency, and he should have occasion to
" send a frigate to France, he Avould give me
" an opportunity of returning- by It, Avhich he
" did; but I declined coming by the Maryland,
" the vessel that was offered me, and Avaited
" for the frigate that Avas to bring the ncAV
" minister, Mr, Chancellor Livington, to France;
" but that frigate Avas ordered to the Mediter-
" ranean ; and as at that time the Avar was
" over, and the British cruizers called in, I
" could come any Avay, I then agreed to come
" with Commodore Barney in a vessel he had
" engaged. It was again fortunate I did not,
" for the vessel sunk at sea, and the people were
" preserved in a boat,"

169

" Had half the number of evils befallen me
" that the number of dangers amount to through
" which I have been preserved, there are those
" who Avould ascribe it to the wrath of heaven ;
" Avhy then do they not ascribe my preservation
" to the protecting favour of heaven ? Even in
" my Avorldly concerns I have been blessed.
" The little property I left in America, and
" Avhich I cared nothing about, not even to
" receive the rent of it, has been increasing in
" the A'alue of its capital more than eight hun-
" dred dollars every year for the fourteen years
" and more that I have been absent from it. I
" am now in my circumstances independent,
" and my economy makes me rich.
"As to my health it is perfectly good, and I
" leave the world to judge of the stature of my
" mind." In July 1802, Mr. Jefferson, the then
president of America, in a letter to Mr. Paine
writes thus :
" You express a wish in your letter to
" return to America by a national ship.

170

" Mr. DaAvson, who brings over the treaty,
" and Avho avIII present you this letter, is charged
" with orders to the captain of the 'Maryland?
" to receive and accommodate you back if you
" can be ready to return at such a short Avarning.
" You will in general find us returned to senti-
" ments Avorthy of former times: in these it
" will be your glory to haA'e steadily laboured,
" and AvIth as much effect as any man living.
" That you may live long to continue your
" useful labours, and reap the rcAvard in the
" thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer.
" Accept the assurance of my high esteem and
" affectionate attachment. "Thomas Jefferson."
"Washington, July 1802."
By the Maryland, as Mr. Paine states, he did
not go ; and It Avas not till the 1st of September
1802, after spending some time Avith him at
llavre de Grace, that 1 took leave of him on his
departure for America, in a ship named the
London Pacquet, just ten years after his leaving
r.iy house in London. This parting gave rise to
the following extempore stanzas :

171
STANZAS,
AVRITTEN ON THE BEACH AT HAVRE DE GRACE,
AND ADDKESSED TO THE
SEA.

" A generous friendship no cold medium knows," — Pop^.

Thus smooth be thy waves, and thus gentle the breeze,
As thou bearest my Paine far away;
O ! waft him to comfort and regions of ease.
Each blessing of friendship and freedom to seize.
And bright be his setting sun's ray.
May America hail her preserver and friend.
Whose ' Common Sense' taught her aright.
How liberty thro her domains to extend,
The means to acquire each desirable end.
And fiU'd her with reason and light.
One champion of all that is glorious and good
Will greet him sincerely I know ;
No supporter of craft, of oppression, and blood.
The defender of liberty long he lias stood ;
Of tyranny only the foe.
Yes Jefferson ! well in his principles school'd.
Will embrace him with gladness of heart;
His value he knows and is not to be fool'd,
Nor his wisdom and knowledge one moment o'er ruled.
By falsehood, corruption, and art.

172
Tho bitter, dear Paine, is this parting to me,
I rejoice that from Europe once more.
From France too, unworthy thy talents and thee.
Thou art hastening to join the happy and free ;
May the breezes blow gently, and smooth be the sea
That speed thee to Liberty's shore !
The ardent desire which Mr. Paine ever
had to retire to and dwell in his beloved
America is strongly pourtrayed in the folloAV-
ing letter to a female friend in that country,
written some years before.
" You touch me on a A^ery tender point
" Avhen you say that my friends on your
" side of the water cannot be reconciled to
" the idea of my abandoning America even
" for my native England.
" They are right, I had rather see my
" horse Button eating the grass of Borden-
" town or Morisania, than see all the pomp
" and shew of Europe.
" A thousand years hence, for I must
" indulge a fcAV thoughts, perhaps in less,
" America may be Avhat Europe now is.
" The innocence of her character that won

173

" the hearts of all nations In her favour may
" sound like a romance, and her inimitable
" virtue as if it had never been.
" The ruins of that liberty for which
" thousands bled may just furnish materials
" for a village tale, or extort a sigh from
" rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of
" that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall de-
" ride the principles and deny the fact.
" When Ave contemplate the fall of em-
" pires and the extinction of the nations of
" the ancient world Ave see but little more
" to excite our regret than the mouldering
" ruins of pompous palaces, magnificent mo-
" numents, lofty pyramids, and walls and tow-
" ers of the most costly workmanship; but
" Avhen the empire of America shall fall, the
" subject for contemplative sorrow Avill be in-
" finitely greater than crumbling brass or
" marble can inspire. It avIII not then be
" said, here stood a temple of vast antiquity,
" here rose a babel of invisible height, or
" there a palace of sumptuous extraA'agance;
" but here (ah ! painful thought !) the noblest

174

" work of human wisdom, the grandest scene
" of human glory, and the fair cause of
" freedom, rose and fell ! Read this, and then
" ask if I forget America."
There is so uncommon a degree of interest,
and that Avhich conveys an idea of so much
heart intercourse in this letter, that the
reader may be led to desire some know
ledge of the person to Avhom it Avas addressed.
This lady's name Avas I believe Nicholson,
and afterwards the wife of Colonel Few;
between her and Mr. Paine a very affec
tionate attachment and sincere regard sub
sisted, and it Avas no small mortification on
his final return to Ncav York to be totally
neglected by her and her husband.
But against the repose of Mr. Paine's
dying moments there seems to have been a
conspiracy, and this lady after years of dis
regard and inattention sought Mr. Paine on
his death bed.
Mr. Few was with her, but Mr. Paine,
refusing to shake hands Avith her, said firmly

175

and very impressively, " You have neglected
" me, and I beg you avIU leave the room."
Mrs. FcAV went into the garden, and Avept
bitterly. Of Mr, Paine's reception in America and
some interesting account of his own life and its
vicissitudes, his 'Letters to the Citizens of Ame
rica,' before noticed, speak better than I can.
These letters, under the care of Mr,
Monroe, he sent me in 1804, and I pub
lished them, Avith the folloAving one of his
own accompanying them,
" My dear Friend,
" Mr, Monroe, Avho is appointed mi-
" nister extraordinary to France, takes charge
" of this, to be delivered to Mr, Este, banker
" in Paris, to be forwarded to you.
" I arrived at Baltimore 30th of October,
" and you can have lao idea of the agitation
" which my arrival occasioned. From New

176

" Hampshire to Georgia, (an extent of 1500
" miles) every newspaper was filled with ap-
" plause or abuse.
" My property in this country has been
" taken care of by my friends, and is now
" worth six thousand pounds sterling; Avhich
" put in the funds Avill bring me =£400
" sterling a year.
" Remember me in friendship and affec-
" tion to your AvIfe and family, and in the
" circle of our friends.
" I am but just arrived here, and the
" minister sails in a few hours, so that I
" have just time to write you this. If he
" should not sail this tide I will Avrite to my
" good friend Col. Bosville, but in any case
" I request you to wait on him for me.
" Your's in friendship,
" Thomas Paine."
What course he meant to pursue in Ame
rica, his own words will best tell, and best

177

characterize his sentiments and principles .
they are these :
" As this letter is intended to announce
" my arrival to my friends, and my enemies
'' if I have any, for I ought to have none in
" America, and as introductory to others
" that Avill occasionally follow, I shall close
" it by detailing the line of conduct I shall
*' pursue. " I have no occasion to ask, nor do I
" intend to accept, any place or office in the
" government. " There is none it could give me that
" would in any way be equal lo the profits
" I could make as an author (for I have an
" established fame in the literary world) could
" I reconcile it to my principles to make
" money by my pohtics or religion; I must
" be in every thing as I have ever been, a
" disinterested volunteer: my proper sphere
" of action is on the common floor of citizen-
" ship, and to honest men I give my hand
" and my heart freely. N

178

" I have some manuscript works to publish,
" of which I shall give proper notice, and some
" mechanical affairs to bring forward, that avIII
" employ all my leisure time.
" I shall continue these letters as I see
" occasion, and as to the low party prints that
" choose to abuse me, they are Avelcome; I
" shall not descend to answer them. I have
" been too much used to such common stuff to
" take any notice of it. " Thomas Paine."
" City of Washington."
From this period to the time of his death,
AvhIch Avas the 9th of June 1809, Mr. Paine
lived principally at Ncav York, and on his estate
at New Rochelle; publishing occasionally some
excellent things in the Aurora Newspaper, also
' An Essay on the Invasion of England,' ' On
the YelloAv Fever,' ' On Gun-Boats,' Sec. &c.
and in 1807, ' An Examination of the Pas
sages in the New Testament, quoted from
the Old, and called Prophecies concerning Jesus
Christ,' &c.

179

This is a most acute, profound, clear, argu
mentative, and entertaining Avorkj and may be
considered and is now entitled ' The Third Part
of the Age of Reason.'
In the course of Mr. Paine's life, he was
often reminded of a reply he once made to this
observation of Dr. Franklin's, " Where liberty is,
there is my country :" Mr. Paine's retort was,
" Where liberty is not, there is ray country."
And unfortunately he had occasion for many
years in Europe to realize the truth of his axiom.
Soon after Mr. Paine's arrival in America
he invited over Mr, and Mrs, Bonneville and their
children. At Bonneville's house at Paris he had
for years found a home, a friendly shelter, Avhen
the difficulty of getting supplies of money from
America, and other and many ills assailed him.
Bonneville and his family A\'ere poor, and sunk in
the world ; Mr. Paine therefore, tho he Avas not
their inmate without remuneration, offered them
in return an asylum Avith him in America.
Mrs. Bonneville and her three boys, to whom he
was a friend during his life and at his death,
soon joined him there. If any part can be
N 2

180

marked out as infamous and wicked, in a book
full of what is so, it is Cheetham's suggestion
upon this just and generous conduct of Mr.
Paine's to the Bonneville family, which he
attributes to the most base and cowardly
motives. Among other things in * Cheetham's Life of
Mr. Paine' is the assertion that he wrote ' The
Commentary on the Eastern Wise Men travel
ling to Bethlehem guided by a Star,' &c. and
' The Story of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram,'
at Mr. Carver's house at New York. This
stands among a large catalogue of other false
hoods, for these and other very pointed satirical
poems were given to me some years before this
by Mr. Paine in France. The particulars
of Mr. Paine's being shot at while sitting by his
fire-side at BordentoAvn is given in his own
letters in the appendix, page 224. The bullet
from the fire-arm shattered the glass over the
chimney-piece very near to him, I find a letter
in reply to one of mine, in which he writes
" the account you heard of a man's firing into
" my house is true — the grand jury found the
" bill ar'-"''"'-- bi'-n. •''-'•J he lies over for frJni ->

181

The latter part of ' Cheetham's Life of Mr.
Paine' is taken up in giving letters between him
and Carver, at Avhose house he lodged some time
at New York, about domestic and pecuniary
differences, trifling and local trash, and in de
tailing the gossip and nonsensical malevolence
of the idle, fanatical, and prejudiced.
As the author of these memoirs well knows
and corresponds Avim Mr. Carver, it is very
plain to hira that Cheethara has supplied much
of the style and matter of Carver's letters, for
Mr. Carver was a most strenuous advocate
and supporter of Mr. Paine's political and re
ligious principles.
That he and Mr. Paine had some private
differences Avhile Mr, Paine Avas his lodger Is
true; and it should seem that Cheetham, bent
upon giving an erroneous bias to every thing
concerning Mr. Paine, stirred up and magni
fied these differences, and made the letters
which Carver really Avrote, the vehicle of
extraneous, bitter, and false matter, Avhich
formed no part of the original disagreement be
tween them; in short, Cheetham's work is filled
Avith abuse of a man Avhose age, for Paine

182

was then past seventy, ought to have been his
protection, and might have been offered as
an apology at least for some defects and
failings when his mind too Avas depressed
under neglect, abuse, and misrepresenta
tion. In January 1809, Mr, Paine became very
feeble and infirm, so iniich so, as to be
scarcely capable of doing any thing for
himself During this illness he Avas pestered on
every hand with the Intrusive and impertinent
visits of the bigoted, the fanatic, and the
designing. To entertain the reader, some spe
cimens of the conduct of these intruders are
here given.
He usually took a nap after dinner, and
would not be disturbed let who Avould call
to see him. One afternoon a very old lady
dressed in a large scarlet hooded cloak
knocked at the door and enquired for Tho
mas Paine. Mr. Jarvis, with Avhom Mr. Paine
resided, told her he was asleep, I am very
sorry she said for that, for I want to see him

183

particularly. Thinking it a pity to make an
old woman call twice, Mr, Jarvis took her
into Mr, Paine's bed room, and awoke him ;
he rose upon one elbow, then, Avith an ex
pression of eye that made the old woman
stagger back a step or two, he asked, " What
" do you Avant?" " Is your name Paine?"
" Yes," " Well then, I come from Almighty
" God to tell you, that if you do not repent
" of your sins, and believe in our blessed
" saviour Jesus Christ, you will be damned
" and" — " Poh, poh, it is not true, you
" Avere not sent Avith any such impertinent
" message; Jarvis, make her go away; pshaw!
" he Avould not send such a foolish ugly old
" woman about with his messages; go aAvay,
" go back, shut the door," The old lady retired,
raised both her hands, kept them so, and
without saying another Avord Avalked away
in mute astonishment.
The folloAving is a curious example of a
friendly, neighbourly visit.
About two Aveeks before his death he Avas
visited by the Rev. Mr. MilledoUar, a pres-

184

byterian minister of great eloquence, and the
Rev. Mr. Cunningham. The latter gentleman
said, " Mr. Paine, we visit you as friends and
" neighbours: you have now a full view of
" death, you cannot live long, and Avhoever
" does not believe in Jesus Christ Avill
" assuredly be damned." " Let me," said
Paine, " have none of your popish stuff; get
" away with you, good morning, good
" morning." The Rev. Mr. MilledoUar at-
tempted to address him but he Avas inter
rupted in the same language. When they
M^ere gone, he said to Mrs. Hedden, his
housekeeper, " do not let them come here
" again, they intrude upon me." They soon
renewed their AMsit, but Mrs. Hedden told
them they could not be admitted, and that
she thought the attempt useless, for if God
did not change his mind, she Avas sure no
human power could: they retired. Among
others, the Rev. Mr. Hargrove, minister of a
new sect called the New Jerusalemites, once
accosted him Avith this impertinent stuff:
" My name is Hargrove, sir; I am minister
" of the new Jerusalem church ; we, sir, ex-
" plain the scripture in its true meaning;

185

" the key has been lost these four thousand
" years, and we have found it." " Then,"
said Paine in his oAvn neat Avay, " it must
" have been very rusty."
In his last moments he Avas A'ery anxious
to die, and also very solicitous about the
mode of his burial; for as he Avas completely
unchanged in his theological sentiments, he
would on no account, even after death,
countenance ceremonies he disapproved, con
taining doctrines and expressions of a belief
Avhich he conscientiously objected to, and
had spent great part of his life in combat
ting. He wished to be interred in the quaker's
burying- ground, and on this subject he re
quested to see Mr. Willet Hicks, a member
of that society, who called on him in con
sequence. Mr. Paine, after the usual salutations, said,
" As I am going to leave one place it is
" necessary to provide another; I am now
" in my seventy-third year, and do not ex-

186

" pect to live long; I wish to be buried in
" your burying ground." He said his father
Avas a quaker, and that he thought better of
the principles of that society than any other,
and approved their mode of burial. This
request of Mr. Paine Avas refused, very
much to the discredit of those Avho did so;
and as the quakers are not unused to grant
such indulgencies, in this case it seemed to
arise from very little and uuAv^orthy motives
and prejudices, on the part of those who com
plied not Avith this his earnest and unas
suming solicitation.
The above quaker in some conversation of a
serious nature with Mr. Paine, a short time be
fore his death, Avas assured by him that his senti
ments respecting the christian religion Avere
now precisely the same as when he wrote the
' Age of Reason.'
About the 4th of May, symptoms of ap
proaching- dissolution became very evident to
himself, and he soon fell off his milk-punch, and
became too infirm to take any thing ; complain
ing of much bodily pain.

187

On the 8th of June 1809, about 9 in the
morning, he placidly, and almost without a
struggle, died, as he had lived, a deist.
Why so much consequence should be attached
to what is called a recantation in man's last mo
ments of a belief or opinion held thro life, a thing
I never witnessed nor knew any one Avho did, it is
difficult to say, at least Avith any credit, to those
who harp so much upon it. A belief or an opinion
is none the less correct or true even if it be recant
ed, and I strenuously urge the reader to reflect
seriously, how few there are Avho really have any
fixed belief and conviction thro life of a
metaphysical or religious nature ; hoAV few who
devote any time to such investigation, or Avho
are not the creatures of form, education, and
habit; and take upon trust tenets instead of
inquiring into their truth and rationality. In
deed it appears that those Avho are so loud about
the recantation of philosophers, are neither
religious, moral, or correct themselves, and
exhibit not in their OAvn lives, either religion
in belief, or principle in conduct.
He Avas aged 72 years and 5 months. At

188

nine of the clock in the forenoon of the 9th of
June, the day after his decease, he Avas taken
from his house at Greenwich, attended by seven
persons, to New Rochelle ; where he was after
wards interred on his own faim. A stone has
been placed at the head of his grave according
to the direction in his Avill, Avith the following
inscription, — THOMAS PAINE,
AUTHOR OP
COMMON SENSE,
Died June 8th 1809, Aged 72 Years and 5 Months.
There is near the close of Cheetham's Life of
Mr. Paine a letter of a Doctor Mauley's, descrip
tive of Mr. Paine's illness, and some of his last
hours ; but it is too evidently the production of
a fanatic, Avho Avished to discredit and traduce
him, and also Avho was wrath at his being a deist.
As an instance of the tone of this letter Avhich
Cheetham Avrote to Mauley for, and Avhich Avas
a contrivance between them to slander him, he
says, " that his anger Avas easily kindled, and I
doubt not that his resentments were lastlna.-."
This libeller of Mr. Paine knew but little of

189

him, and wrote thus on visiting him in a
dying state Avorn down with age, pain, and
feebleness. O shame ! where is thy blush 1 — The visits
of Doctor Manley to Mr. Paine in his last
moments look very like a contrivance to mis
represent and encourage the notion of his
recantation. Mauley's letter is evidently written to an
swer a purpose among the enemies of Mr, Paine,
and has been particularly circulated in a
mutilated state, in order generally to impose
the idea that Mr, Paine renounced his faith
before he died ; yet even this letter has the fol
lowing passage :
Again I addressed him, " Mr. Paine, you
" have not answered my questions — will you
" answer them? Allow me to ask again. Do
" you believe, or let me qualify the question,
" Do you wish to believe that Jesus Christ is
" the son of God? After a pause of some
" minutes he answered, I have no Avish to be-
" lieve on that subject, I then left him, and
" know not Avhether he afterwards spoke,"

190

The reader must from the foregoing pages
be persuaded hoAV unkindly teased and
obtrusively tormented were the closing hours
of Mr. Paine's life; hours that ahvays should
be soothed by tenderness, quietude, and every
kind attention, and in Avhich the mind gene
rally loses all its strength and energy, and is
as unlike its former self as its poor suffering
companion the body.
Infirmity doth still neglect all office.
Whereto our health is bound ; we are not ourselves
When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind
To suffer with the body. Shakspeaee,
To a rational man it should seem that a deist,
if he be so from principle, and he is as likely to
be so as any other religionist, is no more to be
expected to renounce his principles on his death
bed or to abandon his belief at that moment, than
the Christian, the Jew, the Mahometan, or any
other religionist.
It win be seen that Mr, Paine A-ery early,
when a mere child, Avas inspired as it Avere Avith
the antichristian principles Avhich he held re
ligiously thro life. See page 36,' Age of Reason.'

191

" From the time I was capable of conceiving
" an idea and acting upon it by reflection, I
" either doubted the truth of the Christian sys-
" tem, or thought it to be a strange affair; I
" scarcely knew which it was, but I well
" remember, when about seven or eight years of
" age, hearing- a sermon read by a relation of
" mine who Avas a great devotee of the church
" upon the subject of what is called " redemp-
" tion, by the death of the son of God."
" ^fter the sermon was ended I went into
" the garden, and as I was going down the
" garden-steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot)
" I revolted at the recollection of what I had
" heard : it was to me a serious reflection arising
" from the idea I had, that God Avas too good to
" do such an action, and also too almighty to
" be under any necessity of doing it. I believe
" in the same manner to this moment : and I
" moreover believe that any system of religion
" that has any thing- in it that shocks the mind of
" a child cannot be a true system,"
His philosophical and astronomical pursuits
could not but confirm him in the most exalted.

192

the most divine ideas of a supreme being, and in
the purity and sublimity of deism,
A belief of millions of millions of inhabited
worlds, millions of millions of miles apart, neces
sarily leads the mind to thfe worship of a God
infinitely above the one described by those reli
gionists who speak and write of him as they do,
and as if only the maker of our earth, and as alone
interested in what concerns it. In contemplating
the immense wor^s of God, ' the creation' is the
only book of revelation in which the deist can
believe ; and his religion consists in contempla
ting the power, Avisdom, and benignity of him in
his glorious works, and endeavouring to imitate
him in every thing moral, scientifical and mecha
nical. It cannot be urged too strongly, so much
Avrong headedness if not Avrong heartedness is
there on this subject, that the religion of the deist
no more precludes the blessed hope of salvation
than the christian or any other religion.
We see thro different mediums, and in
our pursuits and experience are unlike. How
others have felt after reading- maturely the 'Age
of Reason,' and the ' Rights of Man,' and pur-

193

suing fairly, coolly, and assiduously the subjects
therein treated, I leave to them; but for myself I
must say, these works carried perfect conviction
with them to my mind, and the opinions they
contain are fully confirmed by much reading,
by long, honest, unwearied investigation and
observation. The best and Avisest of human beings both
male and female that I have known thro life have
been deists, nor did any thing in the shape of their
recantation either in life or death ever come to
my knowledge, nor can I understand how a
real, serious, and long-adopted belief can be
recanted. That Mr, Paine's religious belief had been
long established and Avas with him a deep rooted
principle, may be seen by his conduct Avhen
imprisoned and extremely ill in the Luxembourg
in 1794,* Mr. Bond, an English surgeon who was
confined there at the same time, tho by no

See ' Age of Reason,' part I.
O

194

means a friend to Mr. Paine's political or theo
logical doctrines, gave me the following testi
mony of Mr. Paine's sentiments :
" Mr. Paine, while hourly expecting to die,
" read to me parts of his ' Age of Reason;' and
" every night when I left him to be separately
" locked up, and expected not to see him alive
" in the morning, he always expressed his firm
" belief in the principles of that book, and
" begged I would tell the world such were his
" dying opinions. He often said that if he lived
" he should prosecute further that work, and
" print it." Mr. Bond's frequent observation
when speaking of Mr. Paine was, that he Avas
the most conscientious man he ever knew.
While upon this subject, it avIU probably
occur to the reader, as Avell as to the writer, how
little belief from inquiry and principle there
is in the world ; and how much oftener religious
profession is adopted from education, form, pru
dence, fear, and a variety of other motives, than
from unprejudiced enquiry, a love truth, of free
discussion, and from entire conviction. Reasoniirg
thus. It may fairly be inferred that men like Mr,

195

Paine, a pious deist, of deep research, laborious
enquiry, and critical examination, are the most
likely from disinterested motives to adopt opi
nions, and of course the least likely to relinquish
them. Before I quit the subject I give the folloAving
authentic document in a letter from New
York :
" Sir, " I Avitnessed a scene last night which
" occasioned sensations only to be felt, not to
" be described ; the scene I allude to was no
" less extraordinary than the beholding the well-
" known Thomas Paine struggling to retain a
" little longer in connection his soul and body.
" For near an hour I sat by the bedside of that
" well-known character, to whom I was intro-
" duced by one of his friends. Could the me-
" mory have retained the suggestions of my
" mind in the moments when I was reviewing
" the paljid looks of him Avho had attempted
" to overthrow kingdoms and monarchies, of
" him who has astonished the world with the
" fruits of a vast mind, whose works have
o2

196

' caused a great part of mankind to think and
' feel as they never did before, such suggestions
' would not be uninteresting to you. I could not
' contemplate the approaching dissolution of
' such a man, see him gasping for breath, with-
' out feelings of a peculiar nature. Poor Paine's
' body has given Avay before his mind AvhIch
' is yet firm; mortification seems to have taken
' up its dwelling- in his frame, and he avIU soon
' be no more. With respect to his principles
' he will die as he has lived ; they are unaltered.
' Some methodists Avent to him a few days
' ago to endeavour to make a convert of him,
' but he would not listen to their entreaties."
Soon after Mr. Paine's death the followine
character of him and his Avritings appeared in a
London news-paper, Avritten by a gentleman well
acquainted with him and them :
" He Avas in his youth of a strong resolution
" and constant temper. He had from his in-
" fancy adopted the opinions he so successfully
" promulgated in his manhood. All his literary
" productions evince an acute, profound, and
" determined mind. His language is simple

197

" and nervous, adapted to all capacities, and so
" pointed and unequivocal that there is no mis-
" conceiving it. He is sententious, his axioms
" are incontrovertible and self-evident, and their
" impressions are indelible.
" No human being's efforts have done more
" for liberty. He has made more converts than
" Sydney and RusselL His ' Common Sense'
" enfranchised America. America Avas divided
" between two parties ; . the arguments of this
" little pamphlet decided the contest. His
" glorious 'Rights of Man' had nearly a similar
" effect in England. Innumerable replies have
" been made against it, but so weak and futile as
" to injure the cause they were meant to sustain.
" He reasoned from facts, and his diction was
" irresistible. " He pours down like a torrent and bears
" every thing before him. He was prosecuted
" for his Avorks, but they were so admired that
" they Avere in every library. He seemed stern
" and morose, but he was lenient, friendly, and
" benevolent. " He instanced his humanity by his resolute

198

" vote to save the king of France, and the san-
" guinary Robespierre never forgave him, and
" in the reign of terror imprisoned him ; but
'" this apostle of liberty, though in such eminent
" danger, never retracted his opinions, nor im-
" plored mercy. It pleased Providence that he
" should escape this monster. Bold, manly, and
" fearless, he never concealed his sentiments;
" positive and inflexible, they never varied,
" being founded on conviction and pure prin-
" ciples. He remained at Paris long after Bona-
" parte rendered himself supreme in the state,
^- and spoke as free as ever. In 1802, he de-
" parted from Paris for his admired America;
*' the only true birth-place of liberty, where he
*' finished his days in 1809, June 8, at New^-
" York, aged 73, His ashes there.
But his fame every where."
The folloAving advertisement appeared in
the New York Advertiser, June 9, 1809 :
" Mr. Thomas Paine,
" Thy spirit, independence, let me share.
Smollett.
" With heait-felt sorrow and poignant

199

regret Ave are compelled to announce to the
world that Mr. Thomas Paine is no more.
" This distinguished philanthropist, whose
hfe was devoted to the cause of humanity,
departed this life yesterday morning; and if
any man's memory deserved a place in the
breast of a freeman, it is that of the de
ceased, for ' take him for all in all
' We ne'er shall look upon his like again.'
" The friends of the deceased are invited
to attend his funeral by 9 o'clock in the
morning, from his late residence at Green
wich, from whence his corpse will be con
veyed to New Rochelle for interment;
' His ashes there.
His fame every where.*' "

* This quotation, which is a translation from a Latin
epitaph on Frederick Illd, thus rendered, would serve
very well for Mr. Paine.
In this small compass tho Paine's ashes lie.
His fame is every where, and ne'er shall die.

200
It appears by Mr. Paine's will that he
died worth a considerable property. This Avill
is in the latter part of the appendix.
Before I take leave of my reader I would
press upon his mind the necessity of candour ;
and if he be a christian I must tell him
he will cease to be so the moment he
appeals to coercion and resorts to prosecu
tion and to persecution in matters of belief
and opinion : such conduct his own ' New Tes
tament' is decidedly against. It is better not
to believe In a God than to believe unwor
thily of him, and the less Ave make him
after our image the less we blaspheme him.
Let enquiry supercede calumny and censure,
and let it be ever remembered that those
systems in government or religion Avhich
will not bear discussion and investigation are
not worth solicitude. Ignorance is the only
original sin: spread information and knowledge,
and virtue and truth avIII follow. Read I bejr
you, reader, Lord Bolingbroke's 3rd and 4th
chapters " concerning authority in matters of
religion;" read the " Letter of Gilbert Wake
field," Avho was a violent christian, to Sir John

201
Scott, then attorney general, about the
year 1798, from which this is an extract:
" What right, I wish to be informed, can
" one man claim, distinct from power and
" tyranny, and usurpation, to dictate creeds,
" and to prescribe sentiments, for another?
" Let us put an extreme case upon this
" question, Avhich Avill abundantly elucidate,
" and indubitably decide the controversy : I
" mean the publication of ' Paine's Age of
" Reason.' " But I would not forcibly suppress this
" book; much less would I punish (O ! my
" God ! be such Avickedness far from me: or
" leave me destitute of thy favour in the
" midst of this perjured and sanguinary gene-
''' ration !) much less would I punish, by fine
" or imprisonment, from any possible consi-
" deration, the publisher, or author, of those
" pages. " Prudential motives would prevent
" me; because such interdiction serves only to

202
" excite the restless curiosity of mankind;
" and the restraints of law give fresh vigour
" to circulation.
" Motives of philosophy would prevent
" me : because enquiry and discussion are
" hereby provoked ; and sparks of truth, which
" Avould otherwise have been concealed for
" ever, are elicited by the collision of debate;
" to the unspeakable emolument and illumi-
" nation of mankind, in the promotion of
" mutual forbearance and esteem, in the fur-
" therance of valuable knowledge, and in
" the consequent propagation of all happiness
" and virtue. Truth can never suffer from
" argument and enquiry; but may be essen-
" tially injured by the tyrannous interference
" of her pretended advocates,
" Motives of justice Avould deter me.
" Why should I refuse another that privilege of
" thinking and writing, which I claim and
" exercise myself?
" Motives of humanita' Avould deter me.

203
" I should think with horror on the punish-
" ment of any man for his belief; in
" which he has no discretionary power, but
" is necessarily SAVayed by the controlling
" despotism of arguments and reaisons; and at
" what licence or patent shop shall I purchase
" a gag to silence him? Or, what shall hin-
" der him from forming the same unfavour-
" able judgment of my opinions, and pur-
" suing in his turn the same measures of
" intimidation and coercion with myself?
" Thus the fair and goodly creation of
" the Alraighty is to be converted into a
" howling wilderness of savage beasts, alter-
" nately hunting and worrying- each other.
" Lastly, motives of religion Avould
" deter me from molesting any writer for the
" publication of his sentiments."
Oppose argument to argument, reason to
reason, opinion to opinion, book to book,
truth must prevail; and that which is of di
vine origin will bring itself thro. Set not
attorney generals and human laws at work.

204
nor pay any religion which boasts an heavenly
origin so bad a compliment, or libel its
founders, by endeavouring to support it by
such infamous means. Suffer me, while on this
subject, to re-publish the following
VERSES,
WRITTEN EXTEMPORE

CONVENT AT
MONSERRATE in SPAIN,
1785.

With solemn step, this awful pile I tread,
Nor with indignant eye around me gaze ;
Nor view contemptuously the sacred dead.
The bloody cross, and ever burning blaze.
No idle prejudice my soul conceives.
Nor horrid bigotry my bosom feels ;
I damn not him, who this or that believes.
Nor care before what saint the good man kneels.

205
Still to the great Jehovah, Lord of all !
In different ways the pious heave the sigh ;
Regardless of the mode, he hears their call.
And dries, in every land, the tearful eye.
The honest mind In every varied clime.
Alike demands the approving smile of heaven ;
Sincere amendment does away the crime.
And mercy to the contrite heart is given.
Is not the God you worship boundless love?
Say then ye sects of every land and name.
How do you dare hh dictates disapprove.
And ever seek each other to defame ?
Shall you, who boast a Saviour for your head,
A lord who suffered, died, and bled for all.
Still in your actions contradict his creed,
And wanting candour — low as devils fall ! *

• The author wishes to be understood, that he only uses tbe
word devils figuratively ; lie has no faith in their existence really,
and he believes, that when mankind find that t'ley do not want
wars, and taxes, and a religion to underprop the extravagancies
of power by extravagancies of its own, they will discover thut they
can do very well without devils.

206
Hence, ye profane ! of whatsoever tribe.
And perish all the systems that you teach !
In vain you talk, if you have priestly pride,
And wanting charity in vain you preach.
What are your forms, ye Christians, Pagans, Turks .''
If vehicles to serve your God, 'tis well ;
He heeds not what they are, if good your works.
Nor cares if psalms you sing, or beads you tell.
Serve then sincere that Power who reigns above;
O'er all he holds corrective mercy's rod ;
On all, by varying means, pours boundless love.
Then work his will, his goodness haste to prove, —
For all the pure in heart shall see their God.
Poetical Scraps, vol. II. page 135.

How paltry, hoAV detestable, is that criticism,
which only seeks to find out and dwell on er
rors and inaccuracies ; passing over in silence,
what is grand, sublime, and useful ! How still
more paltry, and detestable, is that disposition,
Avhich seeks only to find out and dwell on the
defects and foibles of character !
While Mr. Paine's enemies have laboured,

207

and are still labouring, to detect vices and errors
in his life and manners, shall not his friends
dwell on the immense good he has done in public
life, on the happiness he has created for myriads,
in private? Shall they not point to the abodes of
delight and comfort, Avhere live and flourish the
blessings of domestic bliss ; affection's dear
intercourses, friendship's solaces, and love's
sacred enjoyments ? and there are millions of
such abodes originating in his labours. Why
seek occasions, surly critics and detractors ! to
maltreat and misrepresent Mr. Paine ? He was
mild, unoffending, sincere, gentle, humble, and
unassuming ; his talents were soaring, acute, pro
found, extensive, and original ; and he possessed
that charity, Avhich covers a multitude of sins :
but as the following Elegy, published soon after
his death, conveying a just character of him, is
considered as a more appropriate channel for
doing so than prose, I take the liberty to con
clude this Life Avith transcribing it.

208

ELEGY

MEMORY OF THOMAS PAINE.

The unconquerable mind, and Freedom's holy flame. Graa'«

Acutely throbb'd my bosom, as I stood
On Gallia's strand, and markt, with tearful eye.
Thy lessening bark that plough'd the briny flood.
Till the last glimpse was lost mid sea and sky.
Yet hope still flutter'd round my aching breast;
And as along our favorite walks I stray'd.
While the bright sun was sinking in the Avest,
And Seine her matchless prospects wide display'd :
Or while the moon, holding her high career,
Gleam'd on the sombre woods and glittering main.
While murmuring surges, breaking on the ear.
With melancholy musings mixt their strain —
Fondly I sigh'd, alas ! — Tho here no more
Mid Nature's loveliest scenery we shall prowl.
No?- share again, on Havre's charming shore,
" The feast of reason and the flow of soul" —

'209
Tlio here, mid bowers fit for the Muse's haunt.
We ne'er shall shape our devious course again ;
Ne'er range the hills, the woods, the fields, that slant
Where the broad Seine m-ajestic meets the main —
Yet will I not despair. The time may come.
When on Columbia's free and happy coast,
"With thee once more at large thy friend shall roam.
Once more renew the blessings he has lost.
Thus Hope still flutter'd round my throbbing breast.
And heal'd the direful wound which parting gave.
Soothed each afflictive feeling into rest.
And like a pitying angel came to save.
And often thus, amid my troublous days —
A life eventful, and of varied hue —
Has Hope shone on me with benignant rays.
And present evils taught me to subdue.
Fallacious charmer! long my soul enjoy'd
The pleasing hope to cross the Atlantic main ;
But cruel Death the promised bliss destroy'd.
And snatcht, with unrelenting hand, my Paine.
Cast in superior mould, some nobler souls
Sublimely soar, for great events design'd.
Whom no corruption taints, no vice controls —
Who live to enlighten — live to bless mankind.
P

210
Wise by some centuries before the crowd.
These, by their systems novel tho correct.
Must still offend the wicked, weak, and proud ;
Must meet with hatred, calumny, neglect.
Twas ever thus ; and such has been thy fate — •
The fate of all, pre-eminent like thee :
But glory, honour, and renown, tho late
Thy well-deserved, thy sure reward shall be.
Oh ! had thy hasty censurers known thee well,
Unbiass'd had tbey ^^eigh'd thy works and TiiEr, ;
Base Calumny had biush'd her tale to tell,
And thousands fi-om this worst of crimes been free —
This CRIME of CEIMES ! to damn unheard, unknown.
The lives and labours of the great and true :
Here the malicious slanderer stands alone ;
No fouler aim can infamy pursue.
What agonies have wrung my indignant breast,
To hear abused the man who proudly stood,
Of every talent, every worth possest.
Immutable and just, and wise and good!
Is WIT a quality to charm the soul .?
Is GENIUS dear — is sciemce to be loved ?
Is Reason, of omnipotent controul,
Man's highest, noblest boast, to be approved?

211
Is all divine philosophy, held forth
As every good dispensing to our race,
Spreading philanthropy and taste on earth.
And raising man above the vile and base.?
Are strong, romantic, rich, poetic powers —
Fancy, that scatters all the graces round —
And anecdote, that gilds convivial hours —
Talents acute, impressive, and profound —
Are these held dear, and by the bard and sage
Reverenced, esteem'd, and praised, from pole to pole }
Then Paine must live to every future age.
And immortality his name enroll.
For ME, who thus pourtray the man I loved.
No venal motives guide the ardent quill ;
For still to ME the fond attachment proved
A source of sufferings, calumny, and ill.
But not the voice of millions, led astray
By party, interest, prejudice, and fear,
Cin ever waken in my breast dismay,
Or make me aught but what I am appear.
Worms of a day! our duty let us do.
And bow to truth, eternal truth alone;
All pride, and selfishness, and strife subdue.
Be kind to others' faults, and mend our own.
P 2

212
For ME, I followed where conviction led.
Sought only peace and right, with even course ;'
Still labour'd that the heart might guide the head,.
And hated enmity, cabal, and force.
And for the dear dear groupe that croud my board,
Celestialize my rambles and fire-side.
For these, my boys and girls, I but implored
That TRUTH, and only truth, might be their guide.
Worms of a day ! it is not worth our while
To live to mental lying, vice, and woe:
Since pomp and splendour deck the paths of guile,.
O ! let us pomp and splendour still forego.
I've read their works, and known high-minded men,
W^hose plaudits by the nations have been rung,
Who've woo'd philosophy, or pour'd the strain,
Or greatly reason'd, or divinely sung.
But these, indeed, to thee the palm must yield;
Superior gifts, superior powers were thine ;
They fade like stars that quit heaven's azure field.
When bright the beams of morn begin to shine.
Twas thine to point the means of human weal.
To rescue man from slavery and crime;
To all his better passions to appeal.
His life ennoble, and his thoughts sublime.

213
T\vas thine his social happiness to plan,
His public blessings, private virtues raise ;
And teaching reason, and the rights of man.
To all posterity ensure thy praise.
Twas thine, by works devoted but to truth.
Wisdom and life and light to spread below ;
To lead from jarring creeds, and laws micouth,
From slavery, superstition, pride, and woe.
Let these thy works immortalize thy fame;
Let these to purer times thy praise extend.
Whose grateful sons will hail thy hallow'd name.
Which scarcely found, in times corrupt, a friend.
My boast it is to rank with these, though few ;
My pride, this humble tribute to bestow ;
To give to WISDOM, virtue, Paine their due,
This to myself, to thee, and truth I owe!

APPENDIX,
CONTAINING SOME '
ORIGINAL PIECES IN PROSE AND VERSE,
BY
Mr, PAINE.
^ t^ »i

Note. — This little production of Mr, Paine is well
worth attention ; particularly too when millions have been
and are squandering upon useless land fortifications along
the coast, and on the works in and about Dover, &c.
The observations of a great man are always deserving of
notice ; and those which follow carry so complete a convic
tion of their propriety and truth along with them, that the
English reader cannot but be led ta reflect on the very
opposite plans pursued in protecting our own coasts ; if
indeed, that may be called protection which we are now
adopting. One thing most recommendatory of gun-boats has, I
think, not been sufficiently enlarged upon in Mr. Paine's
essay, but which, while we lament that any system of war
should be necessary, surely speaks highly in favour of them,

215
viz. that while they protect a nation from insult and are un
doubtedly its best defenders, their size renders it impossible
for them to go far, and annoy, and attack, and carry con
quest, desolation, and misery to distant shores I

ON THE COMPARATIVE POWERS AND EXPENCE
OF
SHIPS OF WAR,
GUN-BOATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS,
The natural defence by men is common to all nations ;
but artificial defence, as an auxiliary to human strength,
must be adapted to the local condition and circumstances
of a country.
What may be suitable to one country, or in one state
of circumstances, may not be so in another.
The United States have a long line of coast, of more
than two thousand miles, every part of which requires
defence, because every part is approachable by water.
The right principle for the United States to go upon,
as a defence for the coast, is that of combining the great
est practical power with the least possible bulk, that the
whole quantity of power may be better distributed through
the several parts of such an extensive coast.

216

The power of a ship of war is altogether in the num
ber and size of the guns she carries, for the ship of itself
has no power.
Ships cannot struggle with each other like animals ;
and besides this, as half her guris are on one side of the
ship, and half on the other ; and as she can use only the
guns on one side at a time, her real power is only equal to
half her number of guns. A seventy-four can use only
thirty-seven guns. She must tack about to bring the other
half into action, and while she is doing this she is defence
less and exposed.
As this is the case with ships of war, a question
naturally arises therefrom, which is, whether 74 guns,
or any other number, cannot be more effectually employed,
and that with much less expence, than by putting them
all into one ship of such an enormous bulk, that it cannot
approach a shore either to defend it or attack it ; and
though the ship can change its place, the whole number of
guns can be only at one place at a time, and only half that
number can be used at a time.
This is a true statement of the case between ships
of war and gun-boats for the defence of a coast and of
towns situated near a coast.
But the case often is, that men are led away by the
greatness of an idea, and not by the justness of it!

217
This is always the case with those who are advocates for
navies and large ships.*
A gun-boat carrying as heavy metal as a ship of 100
guns can carry, is a one-gun ship of the line ; and seventy-
four of them, which would cost much less than a 74-gun
ship would cost, would be able to blow a 74-gun ship
out of the water.
They have in the use of their guns double the power
of the ship, that is, they have the use of their whole
number, of seventy-four to thirty-seven.
Having thus stated the general outlines of the subject,
I come to particulars.
That I might have a correct data to go upon Avith
respect to ships and gun-boats, I wrote to the head of one
of the departments at Washington for information on the
subject. The following is the answer I received : — •
" Calculating the cost of a 74 or 100 gun ship from
the actual cost of the ship United States of 44 guns, built

* A nation having a navy is a temptation for an enemy to
go to war with it. Thus, if America had had a navy, England
would have been at war with her long ago, to attack or obtain that
navy !— Ed.

218
at Philadelphia, between the years 1795 and 1708, which
amounted to 300,000' dollars, it may be presumed, that
a 74-gun ship would cost 500,000 dollars, and a 100
gun ship 700,000 doll.-'.rs,
" Gun-boats c.ilculated merely for the defence of
harbours and rivers will, on an average, cost about 4000
dollars each, when fit to receive the crew and provisions,"
On the data here given, I proceed to state compa
rative calculations respecting ships and gun-boats.
The ship United States cost 300,000 dollars. Gun
boats cost 4000 dollars each, consequently the 300,000
dollars expended on the ship, for the purpose of getting
use of 44 guns, and those most heavy metal, would have
built seventy-five gun-boats, each carrying a cannon of
the same weight of metal that a ship of 100 guns can carry.
The difference therefore is, that the gun-boats give
the use of thirty-one guns, heavy metal, more than can be
obtained by the ship, and the expenses in both cases
equal. A 74-giui ship costs 500,000 dollars. The same
money would build 125 gun-boats. The gain by gun
boats is the use of forty-one more guns, than can be
obtained by expending the money on a ship of 74 guns.
The cost of aa lOO-gun ship is 700,000 dollars. This
money would build 175 guu-boats ; the gain therefore

219
by the boats is the use of seventy-five guns more thas
by the ship.
Though I had a general impression ever since I had
the knowledge of gun-boats, that any given sum would go
farther in building gun-bpata than in building ships of war,
and that gun-boats were preferable to ships for home
defence, I did not suppose the difference was so great as
the calculations above given prove them to be, for it
is almost double iu favour of the gun-boats. It is as 175
to 100. The cause of this difference is easily explained.
The fact is, that all that part of the expence in building
a ship from deck upwards, including masts, yards, sails,
and rigging, is saved by building gun-boats, which are
. moved by oars, or a light sail occasionally.
The difference also, in point of repairs, between ships
of war and gun-boats, is not only great, but it is greater
in proportion than their first cost. The repairs of ships of
war is annually from l-14th to 1-lOth of their first cost.
The annual repairs of a ship that cost 300,000 dollars,
will be above "21,000 dollars; the greatest part of this
expense is in her sails and rigging, which gun-boats are
free from.
The difference also in point of duration is great.
Gun-boats, when not in use, can be put under shelter,
and preserved from the weather, but ships cannot; or
boats can be sunk in the water or mud. This is the

220
¦way the nuts of cider mills for grinding apples are
preserved. Were they to be exposed to the dry and hot
air after coming wet from the mill, they would crack, and
split and be good for nothing. But timber under water
will continue sound for sev«ral hundred years, provided
there be no worms.
Another advantage in favour of gun-boats, is the
expedition with which a great number of them can be
built at once. A hundred may be built as soon as one,
if there are hands enough to set about them separately.
They do not require preparations for building them that
ships require, nor deep water to launch them in. They
can be built on the shore of shallow waters ; or they
might be framed in the woods, or forests, and the parts
brought separately down, and put together on the shore.
But ships take up a long time in building.
The ship United States took up two whole years,
1796 and 1797, and part of the years 1795 and 1798, and
all this for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns, and
those not heavy metal.
This foolish affair was not in the days of the present
administration. Ships and gun-boats are for different services. Ships
are for distant expeditions ; gun-boats for home defence.
The one for the ocean, the other for the shore.
G un-boats being moved by oars cannot be deprived of

221

motion by calms, for the calmer the weather the better
for the boat. But a hostile ship becalmed in any of our
waters, can be taken by gun boats moved by oars, let the
rate of the ship be what it may. A 100-gun man of
war becalmed is like a giant in a dead palsy ; every
little fellow can kick him.
The United States ought to have 500 gun-boats,
stationed in different parts of the coast, each carrying a
thirty-two or thirty-six pounder. Hostile ships would not
then venture to lie within our waters, were it only for the
certainty of being sometimes becalmed. They would then
becom-e prizes, and the insulting bullies on the ocean
become prisoners in our own waters.
Having thus stated the comparative powers and ex-
pence of ships of war and gun-boats, I come to speak of
fortifications. Fortifications may be comprehended under two general
heads. First. Fortified towns ; that is, towns enclosed within
a fortified polygon, of which there are many on the conti
nent of Europe, but not any in England,
Secondly, Simple forts and batteries. These are
not formed on the regular principles of fortification, that
is, they are not formed for the purpose of standing a
siege as a fortified polygon is. They are for the pur-

222

pose of obstructing or annoying the progress of an enemy
by land or water.
Batteries are formidable in defending narrow passes,
by land, such as the passage of a bridge, or of a road cut
through a rough and craggy mountain, that cannot be
passed any where else. But they are not formidable in
defending water passes, because a ship, with a brisk wind
and tide ruiming at the rate of ten miles aa hour, will be
out of the reach of the fire of the battery in fifteen or
twenty minutes; and being a swift moving object all the
time, it would be a mere chance that any shot struck her.
When the object of a ship is that of passing a
battery, for the purpose of attaining or attacking some
other object, it is not customary for the ship to fire
at the battery, lest it should disturb her course. Three
or four men are kept on deck to attenti the helm,
and the lest having nothing to do, go below.
Duckworth, in passing the Dardanelles up to Con
stantinople, did not fire at the batteries.
When batteries, for the defence of water-passes, can
be erected without any great expence, and the men
not exposed to capture, it may be very proper to have
them. They may keep off small piratical vessels, but
they are not to be trusted to for defence.
Fortifications give, in general, a delusive idea of

223

protection. All our principal losses in the revolutionary
war Mere occasioned by trusting to fortifications.
Fort Washington with a garrison of 2500 men, was
taken in less than four hours, and the men made prisoners
of war. The same fate had befallen Fort Lee, on the op
posite shore, if General Lee had not moved hastily off,
and gained Hackinsack bridge. General Lincoln for-
tified Charleston, in South Carolina, and himself and
his army were made prisoners of war.
General Washington began fortifying New York in
1776. General Howe passed up the East River, landed
his army at Frog's Point, about twenty miles above the
city, and marched down upon it; and had not General
Washington stole silently and suddenly off on the North
River side of York Island, himself and his army had
also been prisoners.
Trust not to fortifications otherwise than as batteries,
that c^n be abandoned at discretion.
The case however is, that batteries as a water de
fence against the passage of ships cannot do much.
Were any given number of guns to be put in a bat
tery for that purpose, and an equal number of the
same weight of metal put in gun-boats for the
same purpose, those in the boats would be more ef
fectual than those in the battery.
The reason of this is obvious. A battery is sta-
p 8

224
tJonary. Its fire is limited to about two miles, and there
its power ceases. But every gun-boat moved by oars
is a moveable fortification, that can follow up its fire,
and change its place and position as circumstances
may require ; and besides this, gun-boats in calms
are the sovereigns of ships.
As the matter interests the public, and most pro
bably will come before congress at its next meeting ;
if the printers in any of the States, after publishing it
in their newspapers, have a mind to publish it in a
pamphlet form, together with my former piece on gun
boats, they have my consent freely.
I neither take copy-right nor profit from any
thing I publish.
Thomas Paine.

TWO LETTERS FROM Mr. PAINE,
IN "WHICH HE ALLUDES TO THE
CIRCUMSTANCE OF BEING SHOT AT.
New Rochelle, July 9, 1804.
Fellow Citizen,
As the weather is now getting hot in New York
and the people begin to get out of town, you may as
well come up here and help me to settle my accounts

225
with the man who lives on the place. You will be
able to do this better than I shall, and in the mean
time I can go on with my literary works, without
having my mind taken off by affairs of a different kind.
I have received a packet from Governor Clinton enclosing
what I wrote for. If you come up by the stage you
will stop at the post office, and they will direct you
the way to the farm. It is only a pleasant walk, I
send a piece for the Prospect ; if the plan mentioned
in it is pursued, it will open a way to enlarge and
give establishment to the deistical church ; but of this
and some other things we will talk when you come
up, and the sooner the better,
Your's in friendship,
Thomas Paine.
I have not received any newspapers nor any num
bers of the Prospect since I have been here.
Bring my bag up with you.

New Rochelle, Jan. 16, 1805.
Esteemed Friend,
I have received two letters from you, one
giving an account of your taking Thomas to Mr.
Fowler, the other dated Jan. 12; I did not answer
the first, because I hoped to see you the next Satur
day or the Saturday after. What you heard of a gun
being fired into the room is true; Robert and Rachel
Q

226

were both gone out to keep christmas eve, and about
eight o'clock at night the gun was fired; I run im
mediately out, one of Mr. Dean's boys with me, but
the person that had done it was gone ; I directly suspected
who it was, and hallooed to him by name, that he was
discovered. I did this that the party who fired might know
I was on the watch. I cannot find any ball, but whatever
the gun was charged with passed through about three or
four inches below the window, making a hole large enough
for a finger to go through ; the muzzle must have been
very near, as the place is black with the powder, and the
glass of the window is shattered to pieces. Mr. Shule
after examining the place, and getting what information
could be had, issued a warrant to take up Derrick, and
after examination committed him. He is now on bail (five
hundred dollars) to take his trial at the supreme court in
May next. Derrick owes me forty-eight dollars for which
I have his note, and he was to w ork it out in making stone
fence which he has not even begun, and besides this I
have had to pay forty-two pounds eleven shillings for
whi( h I had passed my word for him at Mr. Pelton's
store. Derrick borrowed the gun under pretence of giving
Mrs. Bayeaux a christmas gun. He was «ith Purdy
about two hours before the attack on the house was made,
and he came from thence to Dean's half drunk, and
brought with him a bottle of rum, and Purdy was with him
when he was taken up.
I am exceedingly well in health, and shall always be

227

glad to see you. Hiibbs tells me that your horse is get
ting better. Mr. Shule sent for the horse and took him
when the first snow came, but he leaped the fences and
came back. Hubbs says there is a bone broke. If this be
the case I suppose he has broke or cracked it in leaping a
fence when he was lame of the other hind leg, and hung
with his hind legs in the fence. I am glad to hear what
you tell me of Thomas. He shall not want for any thing
that is necessary if he be a good boy, for he has no friend
but me. You have not given me any account about the
meeting house. Remember me to our friends.
Your's in friendship,
Thomas Paine.

TO FORGETFULNESS, FROM
'The Castle in The Air,' to ' The Little Corner of the World,'

Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear
herself flattered, is flattered by every one. But the absent
and silent goddess, Forgetfulness, has no votaries, and is
never thought of: yet we owe her much. She is the god
dess of ease, tho not of pleasure.
When the mind is like a room hung with black, and
every corner of it crouded with the most horrid images
Q 2

228
imagination can create, this kind, speechless goddess of a
maid, Forgetfulness, is following us night and day with
her opium wand, and gently touching first one, and then
another, benumbs them into rest, and at last glides them
away with the silence of a departing shadow. It is thus
the tortured mind is restored to the calm condition of ease,
and fitted for happiness.
How dismal must the picture of life appear to the
mind in that dreadful moment, when it resolves on dark
ness, and to die! One can scarcely believe such a choice
was possible. Yet how many of the young and beautiful,
timid iu every thing else, and formed for delight, have
shut their eyes upon the world, and made the waters their
sepulchral bed ! Ah 1 would they in that crisis, when life
and death are both before them, and each within their
reach, would they but think, or try to think, that Forget
fulness will come to their relief, and lull them into ease,
they could stay their hand, and lay hold of life. But there
is a necromancy iu wretchedness that entombs the mind,
and increases the misery, by shutting out every ray of light
and hope. It makes the wretched falsely believe they will
be wretched ever. It is the most fatal of all dangerous
delusions ; and it is only when this necromantic night-mare
of the mind begins to vanish, by being resisted, that it is
discovered to be but a tyrannic spectre. All grief, like all
things else, will yield to the obliterating power of time.
While despair is preying on the mind, time and its effects
are preying on despair; and certain it is, the dismal vision

229

will fade away, and Forgetfulness with her sister Ease, will
change the scene. Then let not the wretched be rash
but wait, painful as the struggle may be, the arrival of
Forgetfulness; for it will certainly arrive.
I have twice been present at the scene of attempted
suicide. The one a love-distracted girl in England, the
other of a patriotic friend in France ; and as the circum
stances of each are strongly pictured in my memory, I
will relate them to you. They will in some measure cor
roborate what I have said of Forgetfulness.
About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in Eng
land, and on a visit at the house of a widow lady, Mrs.
E  , at a small village in the fens of that county. It
was in summer ; and one evening after supper, Mrs. E 
and myself went to take a turn in the garden. It was about
eleven o'clock, and to avoid the night air of the fens, we weYe
walking in a bower, shaded over with hazel-bushes. On
a sudden, she screamed out, and cried " Lord ! look
look!" I cast my eyes through the openings of the hazel-
bushes, in the direction she \^as looking, and saw a white
shapeless figure, without head or arms, moving along one
of the walks at some distance from us. I quitted Mrs.
E  , and went after it. When I got into the walk
where the figure was, aud was following it, it took up ano
ther walk. There was a holly bush in the corner of the two
walks, which, it being night, I did not observe ; and as I
continued to step forward, the holly-bush came in a straight

230

line between me and the figure, and I lost sight of it ; and as
I passed along one walk, and the figure the other, the holly
bush still continued to intercept the view, so as to give the
appearance that the figure had vanished. When I came to
the corner of the two walks, I caught sight of it again, and
coming up with it, I reached out my hand to touch it ;
and in the act of doing this the idea struck me. Will my
hand pass through the air, or shall I feel any thing .'' Less
than a moment would decide this, and my hand rested on
the shoulder of a human figure. I spoke, but do not recol
lect what I said. It answered in a low voice, " Pray let
me alone." I then knew who it was. It was a young lady
who was on a visit to Mrs. E  , and who, when we
sat down to supper, said she found herself extremely ill,
and would go to bed. I called to Mrs. E  , who
came, and I said to her, " It is Miss N  ." Mrs. E 
said, " My God! I hope you are not going to do yourself
any hurt ;" for Mrs. E  suspected something. She
replied with pathetic melancholy, " Life has not one plea
sure for me." We got her into the house, and Mrs. E 
took her to sleep with her.
The case was, the man whom she expected to be mar
ried to, had forsaken her, and when she heard he w as to be
married to another, the shock appeared to her to be too
great to be borne. She had retired, as 1 have said, to her
room, and when she supposed all the family were gone to
bed, (which would have been tlie case, if Mrs. E — — and
I had not walked into the garden) she undressed herself, and

231

tied her apron over her head ; which descending below
her waist gave her the sliapeless figure I have spoken of.
Aided by the obscurity of almost midnight, and with
this and a white under petticoat and slippers, for she had
taken out her buckles, and put them at the servant maid's
door, I suppose as a keepsake, she came down stairs,
and was going to drown herself in a pond at the bottom
of the garden, towards which she was going when Mrs.
E  screamed out. We found afterwards, that she
had heard the scream, and that was the cause of her
changing her walk.
By gentle usage, and leading her into subjects that
might, without doing violence to her feelings, and without
letting her see the direct intention of it, steal her as it were
from the horror she was in, (and I felt a compassionate,
earnest disposition to do it, for she was a good girl) she
recovered her former cheerfulness, and was afterwards the
happy wife, and the mother of a family.
The other case, and the conclusion in my next.
In Paris, in 1793, I had lodgings in the Rue
Fauxbourg, St. Denis, No. 63. They were the most
aoreeable 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 recompenced
by their being also remote from the alarms and confusion

232

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 tranquillity 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 parlour 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 green-gage plumb,
were the best 1 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, &c. with an old fashioned closet chest, high
enough to hang up clothes in ; the next was the bed
room; and beyond it the sitting room, which looked into
the garden thro 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
thro the house. I am trying by description to make you see
the place in your mind, because it will assist the story I
have to tell ; and which I think you can do, because you
once called upon me there on account of Sir  ,
who was then, as I was soon afterwards, in arrestation. But

233
it was winter when you came, and it is a summer scene t
am describing. W W 'iV'
1 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 repre
sented 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 that offered me
his services J It was no other than the public execu
tioner Samson, who guillotined the king and all who
were guillotined in Paris ; and who lived in the same
.section and in the same street with me.

As to myself, 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
* Mr. Paine hero alludes to two frisnds who were under arrest. Eo.

234
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 danger
ous 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 any thing 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 1 might have written for my private amuse
ment, as anecdotes of the times, would have been con
tinually 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 ip distress at the
fate of my friends, and my harp was 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 amuse
ments that serve to keep reflection from the mind,
such as marbles, scotch-hops, battledores, &c. at which
we were all pretty expert.

235

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. I have now, my ' Little Corner of the World,' led
you on, step by step, to the scene that makes the sequel of
this narrative, and I will put that scene before your eyes.
You shall see it in description as I saw it in fact.*

He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France,
a passport was obtained for him and Mr. Choppin : they
received it late in the evening, and set off next morning for
Basle before four, from which place I had a letter from
them, highly pleased with their escape from France,
into which they had entered with an enthusiasm of patriotic
devotion. Ah France ! thou hast ruined the character of
a revolution virtuously begun, and destroyed those who
produced it. I might almost say like Job's servant,
' aud 1 only am escaped.'
Two days after they were gone I heard a rapping at
the gate, and looking out of the window of the bed
room I saw the landlord going with the candle to the

* The second instance of attempted suicide is omitted frOm
motives of ;)crsonal delicacy. Mr. Paine's letter is continued, as
it contains an account of liis mode of life before he was sent to
prison, &c. — Ed.

236

gate, which he opened, and a guard with musquets and
fixed bayonets entered. I went to bed again, and made
up my mind for prison, for I was then the only lodger.
It was a guard to take up  , but I thank
God they were out of their reach.
The guard came about a month after, in the night,
and took away the landlord, Georgeit; and the scene in
the house finished with the arrestation of myself. This
was soon after you called oil me, and sorry I was it
was not in my power to render to  the service
that you asked.
I have now fulfilled my engagement, and I hope your
expectation, in relating the case of  , landed back
on the shore of life, by the mistake of the pilot, who was
conducting him out ; and preserved afterwards from
prison, perhaps a worse fate, without knowing it
himself. You say a story cannot be too melancholy for you.
This is interesting and affecting, but not melancholy. It
may raise in your mind a sympathetic sentiment in reading
it ; and though it may start a tear of pity, you will not
have a tear of sorrow to drop on the page.

Here, my contemplative correspondent, let us stop

237

and look back upon the scene. The matters here
related being all facts, are strongly pictured in my mind,
and in this sense, Forgetfulness does not apply. But facts
and feelings are distinct things, and it is against feelings
that the opium wand of Forgetfulness draws us into ease.
Look back on any scene or subject that once gave you
distress, for all of us have felt some, and you will find,
that though the remembrance of the fact is not extinct
in your memory, the feeling is extinct in your mind.
You can remember when you had felt distress, but you
cannot feel that distress again, and perhaps will wonder
you felt it then. It is like a shadow that loses itself
by light. It is often difficult to know what is a misfortune:
that which we feel as a great one to day, may be die
means of turning aside our steps into some new path that
leads to happiness yet unknown. In tracing the scenes
of my own life, I can discover that the condition I
now enjoy, which is sweet to me, and will be more so
when I get to America, except by the loss of your society,
has been produced, in the first Instance, in my being
disappointed in former projects. Under that impene
trable veil futurity we know not what is concealed,
and the day to arrive is hidden from us. Turning then
our thoughts to those cases of despair that lead to suicide,
when, ' the mind' as you say ' neither sees nor hears, and
holds council only with itsdf; when the very idea of
consolation would add to the torture,^ and self-destructiou

238

is its only aim,' what, it may be asked, is the best advice,
what the best relief? I answer, seek it not in reason, for
the mind is at war with reason, and to reason against feel
ings is as vain as to reason against fire : it serves only to
torture the torture, by adding reproach to horror. All
reasoning with ourselves in such cases acts upon us like
the reason of another person, which however kindly done,
serves but to insult the misery we suffer. If reason could
remove the pain, reason would have prevented it. If she
could not do the one, how is she to perform the other .''
In all such cases we must look upon reason as dispossessed
of her empire, by a revolt of the mind. She retires her
self to a distance to weep, and the ebony sceptre of despair
rules alone. All that reason can do is to suggest, to hint
a thought, to signify a wish, to cast now and then a kind
of bewailing look, to hold up, when she can catch the
eye, the miniature shaded portrait of Hope ; and tho
dethroned, and can dictate no more, to wait upon us in
the humble station of a hand-maid.

A Letter from Mr. Paine to a Gentleman at
Washington.
New Rochelle, March 20, 1806.
I will inform you of what I know respecting
General Miranda, with whom I first became acquainted at

239
New York about the year 1783, He is a man of talents
and enterprize, a Mexican by birth, 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 .John 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 project was for which the mo
ney w as given : it appeared as a kind of retaining fee.
After I had published the first part of tbe '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 time before this
•u the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to 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 bet^veen
Pitt and Miranda ended ; for I know it of my own know
ledge.

240
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 at Paris on the 19th.
After the convention met Miranda came to Paris, and
was appointed general of the French army, under Ge
neral Dumourier; but as the affairs of that army went
wrong in the beginning of the year 1792, 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 Turn-
bull and Forbes.
I gave my testimony as I believed, which w as, that his
leading object was, and had been, the emancipation of his
country, Mexico, from the bondage of Spain; fori did
not at that time know of his engagements with Pitt, Mr,
Christie's evidence went to shew that Miranda did not come
to France as a necessitous adventurer ; that 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 sup
ply Paris with flour, Miranda was acquitted,
A few days after his acquittal he came to see me, and

241

a few days afterwards I returned the; 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 Cathariiie of Russia,
nor did 1 tell him that I knew of it:
But he 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 that I believe he gave me by mistake, for when I had
opened it aud 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 it, and then
returned it to him without making any remarks upon it.
The dispute with Spain about Nootka Sound 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 thou
sand pounds sterling, it is not diflicult to suppose from
what quarter the credit 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
B

242
him of the affair of Nootka Sound, and the twelve hun
dred pounds.
You are at liberty to make what use you please of this
letter, and with my name to it.
Thomas Paine.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS,
Note.^-M.T. Carlile has just published a little pam
phlet of Mr. Paine's poetry, the whole of which, with
a few others added in this collection, have been in my
possession many years. I have omitted one very witty
piece that Mr. Carhle has printed, ' A Commentary on
the Eastern Wise Men,' it ranging not with my plan ;
also the ' British Constitution,' not knowing it to be Mr.
Paine's.

SONG.
Tujie. — Rule Britanitia.

Hail great republic of the world.
Which rear'd, which reaPd, her empire in tbe west.
Where fam'd Columbus', Colu-mbus' flag unfurl' d,:
Gave tortured Europe scenes of rest ;

243
Be thoii for ever, for ever, great and free.
The laud of Love, and Liberty !
Beneath thy spreading, mantling vine.
Beside, beside each flowery grove, and spring.
And where thy lofty, thy lofty mountains shine.
May all thy sons, and fair ones sing,
Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free.
The land of Love, and Liberty !
From thee, may hellish DiscoitD prowl.
With all, with all her dark, and hateful train ;
And whilst thy mighty, thy mighty Waters roll.
May heaven descended Concord reign.
Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free.
The land of Love, and Liberty!
Where'er the Atlantic surges lave.
Or sea, or sea, the human eye delights,
There may thy starry, thy starry standard wave.
The Constellation of thy Rights!
Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free,
The land of Love, and Liberty !
May ages as they rise proclaim.
The glories, the glories of thy natal day ;
And states from thy, from thy exalted name.
Learn how to rule, and to obey.
Be thou for ever, for ever great and free.
The land of Love, and Liberty !
R 2

244
Let Laureats make their Birth-days known.
Or how, or how, war's thunderbolts are hurl'd ;
Tis ours the charter, the charter, ours alone.
To sing the Birth-day of a world !
Be thou for ever, for ever, great and free,
The land of Love and Liberty !

THE BOSTON PATRIOTIC SONG.

Tune. — Anacreon in Heaven.

Ye Sons of Columbia who bravely have fought.
For those rights which unstain'd from your sires have
descended,
May you long taste the blessings your valour has bought,
And your sous reap the soil which their fathers defended ;
Mid the reign of mild peace.
May your nation increase.
With the glory of Rome, and the wisdom of Greece.
CHORUS.
And ne'er may the sons of Columbia be slaves.
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
In a clime whose rich vales feed the marts of the world,
Whose shores are unshaken by Europe's commotion ;
The trident of commerce should never be hurl'd.
To increase the legitimate power of the ocean ;
But should pirates invade,
Though in thunder array'd.
Let your cannon declare the free charter of trade.

245
chorus.
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves.
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its wave*.
The fame of our arms, of our laws the mild sw
Had justly ennobled ournation in story.
Till the dark clouds of fiction obscured our bright day,
And envellop'd the sun of American glory;
But let traitors be told,
Who their country have sold.
And barter'd their God, for his image in gold,
CHORUS.
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves.
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
While France her huge limbs bathes recumbent in blood.
And society's base threats with wide dissolution ;
May Peace like the dove, who return'd from the flood.
Find an Ark of abode in our mild Constitution ;
But tho peace is our aim.
Yet the boon we disclaim,
If bought by our Sovereignty, Justice, or Fame,
chorus.
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves.
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
'Tis the fire of the flint each American warms.
Let Rome's haughty victors beware of collision !
Let them bring all the vassals of Europe in arms.
We're a World by ourselves, and disdain a division ;

246
While with patriot pride,
To our laws we're allied,
No foe can subdue us, no faction divide ;
chorus.
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
Our mountains are crown'd with imperial oak.
Whose roots like our Liberty ages have nourish'd.
But long e'er the nation submits to the yoke.
Not a tree .shall be left on the soil where it flourish'd.
Should invasion impend,
Every grove would descend.
From the hill tops they shaded, our shores to defend.
chorus.
For ne'er shall the sons of.CoLUMBiA be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
Let our patriots destroy vile anarchy's worm.
Lest our liberty's growth should be check'd by corrosion.
Then let clouds thicken round us, we heed not the storm.
Our earth fears no shock, but the earth's own explosion.
Foes assail us in vain,
Tho their fleets bridge the main.
For our altars, and claims, with our lives we'll maintain.
chorus.
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

247
Should the tempest of war overshadow our land.
Its bolts can ne'er rend Freedom's temple asunder;
For unmoved at its portal would Washington stand.
And repulse with his breast the assaults of the thunder.
His sword from its sleep.
In its scabbard would leap,
And conduct with its point every flash to the deep.
chorus.
For ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.
Let Fame to the world, sound America's voice.
No intrigue can her sons from their government sever ;
Its wise regulations, and laws are their choice.
And shall flourish till Liberty, slumber for ever.
Then unite heart and hand.
Like Leonidas' band ;
Aud swear by the God of the ocean, and land ;
chorus.
That ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves.
While the earth bears a plant, or the sea rolls its waves.

SONG,

Tune — Anacreon in Heaven.

To Columbia, who gladly reclined at her ease.
On Atlantic's broad bosom, lie smiling in peace.

248
Minerva flew hastily, sent from above.
And addrest her this message from thundering Jove :
Rouse, quickly awake.
Your Freedom's at stake.
Storms arise, your renown'd Independence to shake,
Then lose not a moment, my aid I will lend.
If your sons will assemble your Rights to defend.
Roused Columbia rose up, and indignant declared.
That no nation she had wrong'd, and no nation she fear'd,
That she wished not for war, but if war were her fate.
She would rally up souls independent and great.
Then tell mighty Jove,
That we quickly will prove.
We deserve the protection he'll send from above;
For ne'er shall the sons of America bend,
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend.
Minerva smiled cheerfully as she withdrew,
Enraptured to find her Americans true,
" For, said she, our sly Mercury oft times reports.
That your sons are divided" — Columbia retorts,
" Tell that vile god of thieves.
His report but deceives.
And we care not what madman such nonsense believes.
For ne'er shall the sons of America bend.
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend."
Jove rejoiced in Columbia such union to «ee.
And swore by old Styx she deserved to be free ;

249
Then assembled the Gods, who all gave consent,
Their assistance if needful her ill to prevent;
Mars arose, shook his armour.
And sW'Ore his old Farmer
Should ne'er in his country see ought that could harm her.
For ne'er should the sons of America bend.
But united their Rights and their Freedom defend,
Minerva resolved that her iEgis she'd lend,
And Apollo declared he their cause would defend.
Old Vulcan an armour would forge for their aid.
More firm thap the one for Achilles he made.
Jove vow'd he'd prepare,
A compound most rare.
Of courage, and union, a bountiful share;
And swore ne'er shall the sons of America bend,
But their Rights and their Freedom most firmly defend.
Ye sons of Columbia then join hand in hand.
Divided we fall, but united we stand ;
Tis ours to determine, tis ours to decree.
That in peace we will live Independent and Free;
And should from afar
Break the horrors of war.
We'll always be ready at once to declare,
That ne'er will the sons of America bend.
But united tlieir Rights and their Freedom defend.

250

The following story, ridiculous as it is, is a fact, A farmer at
New Shoreham, near Brighthelmstone, having voted at an elec
tion for a member of parliament contrary to the pleasure of three
neighbouring justices, they took revenge on his dog, which they
caused to be hanged, for starting a hare upon the high road.

FARMER SHORT'S DOG, PORTER,
A TALE.
Three justices (so says my tale)
Once met upon the public weal.
For learning, law, and parts profound.
Their fame was spread the county round ;
Each by his wondrous art could tell
Of things as strange, as Sydrophel ;
Or by the help of sturdy ale.
So cleverly could tell a tale.
That half the gaping slanders by
Would laugh aloud ; the rest would cry.
Or by the help of nobler wine.
Would knotty points so nice define.
That in an instant right was wrong,
Yet did not hold that station long.
For while they talk'd of wrong and right.
The question vanisht out of sight.
Each knew by practice where to turn
To every powerful page in Burn,
And could by help of note and book
Talk law like Littleton and Coke.

251
Each knew by instinct when an^ where
A farmer caught or kill'd a bare ;
Could tell if any man had got
One hundred pounds per ann, or not ;
Or what was greater, could divine
If it was only ninety-nine.
For when the hundred wanted one.
They took away the owner's gun.
Knew by the leering of an eye
If girls had lost their chastity.
And if they had not — would divine
Some way to make their virtue shine.
These learned brothers being assembled
(At which the country fear'd and trembled),
A warrant sent to bring before 'em.
One Farmer Short, who dwelt at Shoreham,
Upon a great and heavy charge.
Which we shall here relate at large.
That those who were not there may read,
In after days the mighty deed :
Viz.
" That he," the 'foresaid " Farmer Short,
" Being by the devil moved, had not
" One hundred pounds per annum got;
" That having not (in form likewise)
" The fear of God before his eyes,

252
" By force and arms did keep and cherish,
" Within the aforesaid town and parish,
" Against the statute so provided,
" A dog. And there the dog abided.
" That he, this dog, did then and there,
" Pursue and take and kill a hare ;
" Which treason was, or some such thing,
" Against our sovereign lord the king."
The constable was bid to jog.
And bring the farmer — not the dog.
But fortune, whose perpetual wheel
Grinds disappointment sharp as steel,
On purpose to attack the pride
Of those who over others ride.
So nicely brought the matter round,
That Farmer Short could not be found.
Which plunged the bench in so much doubt
They knew not what to go about.
But after pondering, pro and con,
And mighty reasonings thereupon.
They found on opening of the laws.
That he, the dog aforesaid, was
By being privy to the fact.
Within the meaning of the act.
And since the master had withdrawn.
And was the Lord knows whither gone.
They judged it right, and good in law.
That he, the dog, should answer for

253
Such crimes as they by proof could show
Were acted by himself and Co.
The constable again was sent.
To bring the dog ; or dread the event.
Poor Porter, right before the door.
Was guarding of his master's store ;
And as the constable approach'd him.
He caught him by the leg and broach'd him ;
Poor Porter thought (if dogs can think)
He came to steal his master's chink.
The man, by virtue of his staff,
Bid people help ; not stand and laugh ; »
On which a mighty rout began ;
Some blamed the dog, and some the man.
Some said he had no business there.
Some. said he had business every where.
At length the constable prevail' d.
And those who would not help were jail'd ;
And taking Porter by the collar,
Commanded all the guards to follow.
The justices received the felon.
With greater form than I can tell on.
And quitting now their wine and punch,
Began upon him, all at once.
At length a curious quibble rose,
How far the law could interpose,

254
For it was proved, and rightly too.
That he, the dog, did not pursue
The hare, with any ill intent.
But only follow'd by the scent ;
And she, the hare, by running hard,
Thro hedge and ditch, without regard,
Plunged in a pond, and there was drown'd,
And by a neighboring justice found ;
Wherefore, though he the hare annoy'd.
It can't be said that he destroy'd ;
It even can't be proved he beat her.
And " to destroy," must mean, " to eat her.'
Did you e'er see a gamester struck.
With all the symptoms of ill luck ?
Or mark the visage which appears.
When even hope herself despairs I
So look'd the bench, and eyery brother.
Sad pictures drew of one another ;
Till one more learned than the rest,
Rose up, and thus the court addressed.
"Why, gentlemen, I'll tell ye how,
" Ye may clear up this matter now,
" For I am of opinion strong
" The dog deserves, and should be hung.
" I'll prove it by as plain a case,
" As is the nose upon your face.
" Now if, suppose, a man, or so,
" Should be obliged, or not to go.

255
" About, or not about a case,
" To this, or that, or t'other place;
" And if another man, for fun,
" Should fire a pistol (viz.) a gun,
" And he, the first, by knowing not
" That he, the second man had shot,
" Should undesign'dly meet the bullet,
" Against the throat (in Greek) the gullet,
" And get such mischief by the hit
" As should unsense him of his wit,
" And if that after that he died,
" D'ye think the other mayn't be tried?
" Most sure he must, and hang'd, because
" He fired his gun against the laws :
" For 'tis a case most clear and plain,
" Had A, not shot, B, had not been slain:
" So had the dog not chased the hare,
" She never had been drown'd — that's clear.
This logic, rhetoric, and wit.
So nicely did the matter hit.
That Porter — tho unheard, was cast,
And in a halter breathed his last.
The justices adjourned to dine.
And whet their logic up with wine.

256
SONG,
ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL WOLF£.

In a mouldering cave where the wretched retreat,
Britannia sat wasted with care;
She mourn'd for her Wolfe, and exclaim'd against fate^
And gave herself up to despair.
The walls of her cell she had sculptured around
With the feats of her favorite son ;
And even the dust, as it lay on the ground,
Was engraved with the deeds he had done.
The sire of the Gods from his crystalline throne
Beheld the disconsolate dame.
And moved with her tears he sent Mercury down^
And these were the tidings that came.
Britannia forbear, not a sigh nor a tear
For thy Wolfe so deservedly loved.
Your tears shall be changed into triumphs of joyv
For thy Wolfe is not dead but removed.
The sons of the East, the proud giants of old.
Have crept from their darksome abodes,
And this is the news as in Heaven it was told.
They were marching to war with the God's;
A council was held in the chambers of Jove,
And this was their final decree.
That Wolfe should be called to the armies above.
And the charge was entrusted to me.

257
To the plains of Quebec with the orders I flew.
He begg'd for a moment's delay ; '
He cry'd, Oh ! forbear, let me victory hear,
And then thy command I'll obey.
With a darksome thick film I encompass'd his eyes.
And bore him away in an urn,
Lest the fondness he bore to his own native shore.
Should induce him again to return.
This Song was written immediately after the Death of General Wolfe,
At this time a prize was oiFercd for the best Epitaph on that celebrated
hero. Of these Epitaphs I have a manascript collection of eighteen. Mr.
Paine entered the list among other competitors, but his matter growing too
long for an Epitaph, and assuming another shape, he entitled it an Ode;
and it was so published in the Gentleman's Magazine. It was soon after
set to music, became a popular song, and was sung at the Anacreontic aud
other societiss. — Ed.

THE SNOW-DROP AND CRITIC,
A DIALOGUE.
To the Editor of the Pennsylvanian Magazine, 1775.
Sir,
I have given your very modest " Snow Drop"* what I
think Shakspeare calls — " a local habitation and a name ;"
that is, I have made a poet of him, and have sent him to
take possession of a page in your next magazine : here he

* Introduction or Preface to No. 1. — See p. 3. Miscellaneous
Letters and Essays, Political Works, Vol. II.
S

258

comes disputing with a critic, about the propriety of a
prologue. Etiter Critic and Snow Drop.
CRITIC.
Prologues to magazines ! — the man is mad,
No magazine, a prologue ever had ;
But let us hear, what new, and mighty things.
Your wonder working magic fancy brings.
SNOW-DROP.
Bit by the muse in an unlucky hour,
I've left myself at home, and turn'd a flower ;
And thus disguised came forth to tell my tale,
A plain white Snow Drop gather'd from the vale;
I come to sing that summer is at hand.
The summer time of wit you 'II understand ;
And that this garden of our magazine.
Will soon exhibit such a pleasing scene.
That even critics shall admire the show.
If their good grace will give us time to grow :
Beneath the surface of the parent earth.
We 've various seeds just struggling into birth ;
Plants, fruits, and flowers, and all the smiling race.
That can the orchard, or the garden grace ;
Our numbers Sir, so vast and endless are.
That when in full complexion we appear;
Each eye, each hand, shall pluck what suits its taste,
And every palate shall enjoy a feast ;
The Rose, and Lily, shall address the fair.
And whisper sweetly out, " My dears, take care ;"

259
With sterling worth the Plant of Sense shall rise.
And teach the curious to philosophize ;
The keen-eyed wit shall claim the Scented Briar,
And sober cits the Solid Grain admire;
While generous juices sparkling from the Vine,
Shall warm the audience till they cry — divine !
And when the scenes 'of one gay month are o'er.
Shall clap their hands, and shout — encore ! encore !

CRITIC.
All this is mighty fitie ! but prithee when.
The frost returns, how fight ye then your men

SNOW-DROP.
I 'II tell you, sir ! we '11 garnish out the scenes,
With stately rows of hardy Evergreens,
Trees that will bear the frost and deck their tops
With everlasting flowers, like diamond drops.
We '11 draw, and paint, and carve, with so much skill.
That wondering wits shall cry, diviner still !
CRITIC.
Better, and better, yet ! but now suppose.
Some critic wight in mighty verse, or prose,
Should draw his gray goose weapon, dipt in gall,
And mow ye down Pla nts. Flowers, Trees, and All,
SNOW-DROP.
Why then, we'll die like Flowers of sweet Perfume,
And yield a fragrance, even in the Tomb !
s 2

260 '
IMPROMPTU on
BACHELORS' HALL,
A t Philadelphia, being destroyed by Lightning, 1775.
Fair Venus so often was mist from the skies.
And Bacchus as frequently absent likewise,
That the synod began to enquire out the reason.
Suspecting the culprits were plotting of treason.
At length it was found they had open'd a ball
At a place by the mortals call'd Bachelors' Hall;
Where Venus disclosed every fun she could think of,
Aud Bacchus made nectar for mortals to drink of.
Jove highly displeas'd at such riotous doings.
Sent Time to reduce the whole building to ruins ;
But Time was so slack with his traces and dashes.
That Jove in a passion consumed it to ashes.

LIBERTY TREE,
A Song, written early in the American Revolution.

Tune—" Gods of the Greeks."

In a chariot of light, from the regions of day,
The Goddess of Liberty came.
Ten thousand celestials directed her way.
And hither conducted the dame.

261
A fair budding branch from the gardens above.
Where millions with millions agree.
She brought in her hand as a pledge of her love,
And the plant she named Liberty Tree.
The celesfial exotic struck deep in the ground,
Like a native it flourish'd and bore :
The fame of its fruit drew the nations around.
To seek out this peaceable shore.
Unmindful of names or distinctions they came.
For freemen like brothers agree;
With one spirit endued, they one friendship pursued.
And their temple was Liberty Tree,
Beneath this fair tree, like the patriarchs of old.
Their bread in contentment they ate,
Unvexed with the troubles of silver or gold.
The cares of the grand and the great.
With timber and tar they Old England supplied.
And supported her power on the sea :
Her battles they fought, without getting a groat.
For the honour of Liberty Tree,
But hear, O ye swains (tis a tale most profane).
How all the tyrannical powers.
King, commons, and lords, are uniting amain.
To cut down this guardian of ours.
From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms.
Thro the land let the sound of it flee:
Let the far and the near all unite with a cheer.
In defence of our Liberty Tree,

362
VERSES TO A FRIEND,
AFTER A LONG CONVERSATION ON WAR.

The rain pours down, the city looks forlorn,
And gloomy subjects suit the howling morn ;
Close by my fire, with door and window fast.
And safely shelter'd from the driving blast.
To gayer thoughts I bid a day's adieu,
To spend a scene of solitude with you.
So oft has black revenge engross'd the care
Of all the leisure hours man finds to spare ;
So oft has guilt in all her thousand dens,
Call'd for the vengeance of chastising pens ;
That while I fain would ease my heart on you.
No thought is left untold, no passion new.
From flight to flight the mental path appears.
Worn with the steps of near six thousand years,
And fiU'd throughout with every scene of pain.
From modern murderers down to murderous Cain.
Alike in cruelty, alike in hate.
In guilt alike, but more alike in fate.
Cursed supremely for the blood they drew.
Each from the rising world, while each was new.

263
Go, men of blood ! true likeness of the first.
And strew your blasted heads with homely dust :
In ashes sit — in wretched sackcloth weep.
And with unpitied sorrows cease to sleep.
Go haunt the tombs, and single out tbe place
Where earth itself shall suffer a disgrace.
Go spell the letters on some mouldering urn.
And ask if he who sleeps there can return.
Go count the numbers that in silence lie.
And learn by study what it is to die ;
For sure your heart, if any heart you own,
Conceits that man expires without a groan ;
That he who lives receives from you a grace.
Or death is nothing but a change of place :
That peace is dull, that joy from sorrow springs,
And war the most desirable of things.
Else why these scenes that wound the feeling mind.
This sport of death — this cockpit of mankind!
Why sobs the widow in perpetual pain ?
Why cries the orphan, — " Oh ! my father's slain T
Why hangs the sire his paralytic head.
And nods with manly grief — " My son is dead !"
Why drops the tear from off" the sister's cheek.
And sweetly tells the misery she would speak ?
Or why, in sorrow sunk, does pensive John
To all the neighbours tell, " Poor master's gone ?"
Oh ! could I paiut the passion that I feel.
Or point a horror that would wound like steel.

264
To each unfeeling, unrelenting mind,
I'd send destruction and relieve mankind.
You that are husbands, fathers, brothers, all
The tender names which kindred learn to call;
Yet like an image carved in massy stone.
You bear the shape, but sentiment have none ;
Allied by dust and figure, not with mind,
You only herd, but live not with mankind.
Since then no hopes to civilize remain.
And mild philosophy has preach'd in vain.
One prayer is left which dreads no proud reply,
That he who made you breathe will make you die.

LINES
SENT TO SIR ROBERT SMITH,
The morning after asking Mr. Paine over night the question
WHAT IS LOVE?
Paris, 1800.
'Tis that delightful transport we can feel,
Which painters cannot paiut, nor words reveal.
Nor any art we know of,— can conceal.
Canst thou describe the sun-beams to the blind,
Or make him feel a shadow with his mind ?

265
So neither can we by description show
This first of all felicities below.
When happy Love pours magic o'er the sOul,
And all our thoughts in sweet delirium roll ;
When Contemplation spreads her rainbow wings,
And every flutter some new rapture brings :
How sweetly then our moments glide away,
And dreams repeat the raptures of the day ;
We live in ecstacy to all things kind.
For Love can teach a moral to the mind.
But are there not some other marks that prove.
What is this wonder of the soul, call'd Love.?
O yes, there are, but of a different kind.
The dreadful horrors of a dismal mind.
Some jealous fury throws her poison'd dart
And rends in pieces the distracted heart.
When Love's a tyrant, and the soul a slave.
No hopes remain to thought, but in the grave ;
In that dark den, it sees an end to grief.
And what was once its dread, becomes relief.
What a^e the iron chains that hands have wrought ^
The hardest chains to break, are those of thought.
Think well of this, ye lovers, and be kind.
Nor play with torture — or a tortured mind.

266
IMPROMPTU ON
A LONG NOSED FRIEND,*
Paris, 1800,

Going along the other day,
Upon a certain plan ;
I met a nose upon the way.
Behind it — was a man,
I called unto the nose to stop.
And when it had done so, —
The man behind it — he came up,
They made Zenobio,

THE STRANGE STORY OF
KORAII, DATHAN, AND ABIRAM,
Numbers, Chap, xvi, accounted for.

Old ballads sing of Chevy-chace,
Beneath whose rueful shade.
Full many a valiant man was slain.
And many a widow made,
• Count Zenobio,

267
But I will tell of one much worse.
That happ'd in days of yore.
All in the barren wilderness.
Beside the Jordan shore ;
Where Moses led the people forth,
Call'd chosen tribes of God ;
And fed them forty years with quails.
And ruled them with a rod.
A dreadful fray once rose among
These self-named tribes of I am ;
Where Korah fell, and by his side
Fell Dathan and Abiram,
An earthquake swallow'd thousands up,
And fire came down like stones ;
Which slew their sons and daughters all,
Their wives and little ones.
'Twas all about old Aaron's tythes
This murdering quarrel rose ;
For tythes are worldly things of old.
That lead from words to blows,
A Jew of Venice has explain'd.
In the language of his nation.
The manner how this fray began.
Of which here is translatioru

268
There was a widow old and poor,
Who scarce herself could keep ;
Her stock of goods was very small.
Her flock one single sheep.
And when the time of shearing came,
She counted much her gains ;
For now, said she, I shall be blest.
With plenty for my pains.
When Aaron heard the sheep was shear'd.
And gave a good increase.
He straightway sent his tything-man.
And took away the fleece.
At this the weeping widow went
To Korah to complain.
And Korah he to Aaron went
In order to explain.
But Aaron said, in such a case.
There can be no forbearing.
The law ordains that thou shaltgive
The first fleece of thy shearing.
When lambing time was come about,
This sheep became a dam ;
And bless'd the widow's mournful heart.
By bringing fortha lamb.

269
When Aaron heard the sheep had young.
He staid till it was grown.
And then he sent his tything man,
And took it for his own.
Again the weeping widow went
To Korah with her grief.
But Aaron said, in such a case.
There could be no relief.
For in the holy law 'tis writ.
That whilst thou keep'st the stock,
Thou shalt present unto the Lord
The firstling of thy flock.
The widow then in deep distress.
And having nought to eat.
Against her will she kill'd the sheep.
To feed upon the meat.
When Aaron heard the sheep was kill'd.
He sent and took a limb ;
Which by the holy law he said
Pertained unto hinj.
For in the holy law 'tis writ.
That when thou kill'st a beast.
Thou shalt a shoulder and a breast
Present unto the priest.

270
The widow then worn out with grief.
Sat down to mourn and weep.
And in a fit of passion said.
The devil take the sheep.
Then Aaron took the whole away.
And said the laws record,
That all and each devoted thing
Belongs unto the Lord.
The widow went among her kin.
The tribes of Israel rose ;
And all the widows young and old,
PuU'd Aaron by the nose.
But Aaron call'd an earthquake up.
And fire from out the sky ;
A'nd all the consolation is —
The ***** tells a lie.

Mr. Paine, while in prison at Paris, as has been before
mentioned, corresponded with a lady under the signature
of " The Castle in the Air," while she addressed her
letters from " The Little Corner of the World." For
reasons which he knew not, their intercourse was suddenly
saspended, and for some time he believed his fair friend to
be in obscurity and distress. Many years afterwards how-

271

ever, he met her unexpectedly at Paris, in aiBuent cir
cumstances, and married to Sir Robert Smith, The
following is a copy of one of these poetical effusions.

From the CASTLE in the AIR to THE LITTLE
CORNER OF THE WORLD,

In the region of clouds, where the whirlwinds arise.
My Castle of Fancy was built;
The turrets reflected the blue of the skies,
And the windows with sun-beams were gilt.
The rainbow sometimes in its beautiful state,
Enamell'd the mansion around ;
And the figures that fancy in clouds can create.
Supplied me with gardens and ground,
I had grottoes, and fountains, and orange-tree groves,
I had all that enchantment has told ;
I had sweet shady walks, for the Gods and their Loves,
I had mountains of coral and gold.
But a storm that I felt not, had risen and roll'd.
While wrapp'd in a .slumber I lay ;
And when I look'd out in the morning, behold
My Castle was carried away.

272
It past over rivers, and vallies, and groves.
The world it was all in my view ;
I thought of my friends, of their fates, of their loves.
And often, full often of you.
At length it came over a beautiful scene.
That Nature in silence had made ;
The place was but small, but 'twas sweetly serene.
And chequer'd with sunshine, and shade.
I gazed, and I envied with painful goodwill.
And grew tired of my seat in the air ;
When all of a sudden my Castle stood still.
As if some attraction was there.
Like a lark from the sky it came fluttering down.
And placed me exactly in view.
When who should I meet, in this charming retreat.
This corner of calmness, but you.
Delighted to find you in honour and ease,
I felt no more sorrow, nor pain ;
But the wind coming fair, I ascended the breeze,
Atid went back with my Castle again.

273

The People of the State of New-York, by the Grace
bf God, Free and Independent, to all to whom thes^
presents ihall come or may concern, SEND GREETING:
Know ye. That the annexed is a true copy of the
will of THOMAS PAINE, deceased, as recorded in the
office of our surrogate, in and for the city and county of
New-York. In testimony whereof, we have caused the
seal of office of our said surrogate to be hereunto affixed.
Witness, Silvanus Miller, Esq. surrogate of said county, at
the city of New- York, the twelfth day of July, in the w
year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and nine, ^
and of our Independence the thirty-fourth. ^
<
SILVANUS MILLER. 2

The last will and testament of me, the subscriber,
Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator
God, and in no other being, for I know of no other, nor
believe in any other, — I Thomas Paine, of the state of
New- York, author of the work entitled ' Common Sense,'
written in Philadelphia, in 1775, and published in that
city the beginning of January 1776, which awaked Ame
rica to a Declaration of Independence on the fourth of
July following, which was as fast as the work could spread
through such an extensive country ; author also of the
several numbers of the American Crisis, " thirteen in all,"
T

274

published occasionally during the progress of the revolu
tionary war — the last is on the peace ; author also of the
'Rights of Man,' parts the first and second, written and
published in Loudon, in 17D1 and 92; audior also of a
work on religion,' Age of Reason' part the first and second
(" N. B. I have a third part by me in manuscript and an
answer to the Bishop of Llandaff";") author also of a work
lately published, entitled 'Examination of the Pass:iges in
the New Testament quoted from the Old, and called
Prophecies concerning Jesus Christ,' and shewing there
are no prophecies of any such person ; author also of
j| several other works not here enumerated, " Dissertations'on
?- First Principles of Government" — " Decline and Fall of die
^ English System of Finance'' — " Agrarian Justice," &c. &c.
^ make this my last will and testament, that is to say : I
§ give and bequeath to my executors herein after appointed,
' Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, thirty
shares I hold in the New- York Phoenix Insurance Com
pany which cost me 1470 dollars, they are worth now
upwards of 1500 dollars, and all my moveable effects, and
also the money that may be in my trunk or elsewhere at
tbe time of my decease, paying thereout the expences of my
funeral, in trust as to the said shares, moveables and
money for Margaret Brazier Bonneville, wife of Nicholas
Bonneville, of Paris, for her own sole and separate use,
and at her own disposal, notwithstanding her coverture.
As to my farm in New-Rochelle, I give, devise, and be
queath the same to my said executors Walter Morton
and Thomas Addis Emmet, and to the survivor of them,

275
his heirs and assigns for ever, in trust, nevertheless, to
Sell and dispose of the north side thereof, now in the
occupation of Andrew A. Dean, beginning at the west end
of the orchard and running in a line with the land sold to
 Coles to the end of the farm, and to apply the
money arising from such sale as hereinafter directed. I
give to my friends Walter Morton, of the New-York
Phoenix Insurance Company, and Thomas Addis Emmet,
councellor at law, late of Ireland, two hundred dollars
each, and one hundred dollars to Mrs. Palmer, widow
of Elihu Palmer, late of New- York, to be paid out of the
money arising from said sale, aud I give the remainder of ^
the money arising from that sale, one half thereof to Clio '^
Rickman,* of High or Upper Mary-la-Bonne street, '^ CO
London, and the other half to Nicholas Bonneville, of 2
Paris, husband of Margaret B. Bonneville aforesaid : ^
and as to the south part of the said farm, containing Up
wards of one hundred acres, in trust to rent out the same
or otherwise put it to profit, as shall be found most advisa
ble, and to pay the rents and profits thereof to the said
Margaret B. Bonneville, in trust for her children, Benjamin
Bonneville, and Thomas Bonneville, their education and

* Not a stiver did I ever get, and how the executors can jus
tify their conduct towards mc, I know not. Waller Morton has
deceived, and used me very scandalously, about this legacy : this
may not surprise, but that Thomas Addis Emmet, the expa
triated republican from Ireland, should not do me justice in this
business, remains unexplained, hurts my feelings exceedingly,
and has injured me deeply.
T 2

2f6

maintenance, until they come to the age of twenty-one'
years, in order that she may bring them well up, give
them good and useful learniiip;, and instruct them in their
duty to God, and the practice of morality, the rent of the
land or the interest of the money for which it may be
sold, as herein after mentioned, to be employed in their
education. And after the youngest of the said children
shall have arrived at the age of t«enty-one years, in
further trust to convey the same to the said children share
and share alike in fee simple. But if it shall be thought
advisable to my executors and executrix, or the survi-
(4 vor or survivors' of them, at any time before the young-
I- est of the said children shall come of asfe, to sell and
dispose of the said south side of the said farm, in that
S case I hereby authorise and empower my said executors
tq to sell and dispose of the same, and I direct that the
money arising from such sale be put into stock, either in
the United States bank stock or New York PhcEnix insu
rance company stock, the interest or dividends thereof to be
applied as is already directed for the education and main
tenance of the said children ; and the' principal to be trans
ferred to the said children or the survivor of them on his
or their coming of age. 1 know not if the society of
people called quakers admit a person to be buried in their
burying ground, who does not belong lo their society, but
if they do or will admit me, I would prefer being buried
there : my father belonged to that profession, and I was
partly brought up in it. Cut if it is not consistent with
their rules to do this, I desire to be buried on my own

277

farm at New-Rochelle. The place where I am to be buried
to be a square of twelve feet, to be enclosed with rows of
trees, and a stone or post and rail fence, with a head stone
with my name and age engraved npon it, author of
'Common Sense.' I nominate, constitute, and appoint
Walter Morton, of the New York Phoenix Insurance Com
pany, and Thomas Addis Emmet, councellor at ]nw, late
of Ireland, and Margaret B. Bonneville, executors and
executrix to this my last will and testament, requesting
the said Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, that
they will give what assistance they conveniently can to
Mrs. Bonneville, and see that the children be well brought -
up. Thus placing confidence in their friendship, I here- "
with take my final leave of them and of the world. I have ^
lived an honest and useful life to mankind ; my time has ^
been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure °
and resignatio'.i to the will of my Creator God. Dated ^
this eighteenth day of January, in the year one thousand
eight hundred and nine, and I have also signed my name
to the other sheet of this will in testimony of its being a
part thereof.
THOMAS PAINE, [l. s.]
Signed, sealed, published and declared by the testator,
in our presence, who at his request, and in the presence of
each other, have set our names as witnesses thereto, the
words "published and declared" first interlined.
Wm. KEESE,
JAMES ANGEVINE,
CORNELIUS RYDER.

PrinUd by Thomas Clio Rickman, 7, Uppef Mary -le-bone Street,
Portland flace, lrondo,i.

LIST or
MR, PAINE'S WORKS,

Trial of Dog Porter, about 1770, printed at Lewes.
Case of Excismen, 1772. printed at Lewes, octavo,
Introduction to the Pennsylvanian Magazine, January 24,
1775, do.
To the publisher of do, on the utility of Magazines, no
place no date, do.
Philadelphia, 1775, (supposed) do.
Useful and entertaining Hints on the internal Riches of the
Colonies, Pennsylvanian Magazine, Philadelphia,
1775, do.
Reflections on the Death of Lord Clive, Pennsylvanian
Magazine, (not seen,) do.
New Anecdote of Alexander the Great, Pennsylvanian
Magazine, 1775, do.
Common Sense, Philadelphia, January 1776, do.
The Crisis, l6 numbers, from Dec. 23, 1776, to Dec. y,
1783, do.
Letter to Abbe Raynall, Philadelphia, J 782, do.
Public Good, being an Examination of the Claim of Vir
ginia to the Vacant Western Territory, &c. Philadel
phia, 1784, do.
Dissertation on Government, the Affairs of Bank and
Paper-Money, Philadelphia, 1786, do.

List of Mr. Paine's Works.
Prospects on the Rubicon, London, 1787, do.
Letter to the Author of the Republican, Paris, 1791-
Rights of Man, part 1st, London, 1791. do.
Letter to Abbe Sieyes, 1791, do.
Rights of Man, part 2d London, 1792.
Letter to Henry Dundas, London, June 6, 1792, do.
Letter to Lord Onslow, London, June 17, 1792, do.
Letter to Onslow Cranley, commonly called Lord Onslow
London, June 21, 1792.
Letter to the Sheriff" of Sussex,
Letter to the Addressers, London, July, 1 792, ditto.
Letter to Secretary Dundas, on his Detention at Dover,
Calais, Sept, 15, 1792, ditto.
Letter to the People of France, (on his Election to the
Convention) Paris, Sept. 25, 1792, ditto.
Letter to the Attorney General of England, on the Pro
secution against him, Paris, Nov. 11, 1792, ditto.
Reasons for preserving the Life of Louis XVI, Paris,
January, 1793.
Age of Reason, part 1, Paris 1794, ditto.
Dissertation on first Principles of Government, Paris,
1794, do.
Speech delivered in the Convention against the Constitu
tion of 1795, do.
Agrarian Justice, Paris 1796, ditto.
Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance, Paris
1796, ditto.
Letter to George Washington, Paris, 1796, ditto.
Age of Reason, part 2, Paris 1796, ditto.

List of Mr. Paine's Works.
Letter to the Hon. Thomas Erskine on the Prosecution of
Williams, Paris 1797, ditto.
Letter to the People and Armies of France, on the events
of the 18th Fructidor, Paris 1797, ditto.
Letters to the Citizens of the United States, Washington,
1802, and London ditto.
Examinations of the Prophecies, Essay on Dreams, &c.
New York, 1807, making 3rd part of the Age of
Reason, ditto.
He wrote in addition, from 1805 to 1808 Essays for the
American Newspapers.
On the Invasion of England, New York, 1804.
Essay on the Yellow Fever, London, 1807, &o. &c. 8cc.
London, 1819.
Ip 1818, Mr. Cariile published the whole of Mr.
Paine's Works, Theological and Political, in Three regu
lar Volumes, octavo, and which are now publicly sold.

BOOKS,
JUST PUBLISHEfi,
AND WRITTEN
By THOMAS CLIO RICKMAN,

1. Poetical Scraps, in 2 vols, with elegant Vignettes,
15s. in boards, and at higher Prices in elegant Bindings,
2. "fhe Fallen Cottage, a Poem in quarto, with an
elegant engraved Title Page. Price 2s, 6d,
3. The Evening Walk, a Sentimental Tale, interspersed
with poetic Scraps. Written at Severiteen Years of Age.
Price Ss. 6d.
4. A select Collection of Epigrams, many of them
original. Price 2s. iu Boards, or 4s. in elegant fancy
Bindings. 5. Mr. Pitt's Democracy Manifested. Price Is. 6d.
6. Hints on Hats. Price 6d.
7. Man's Rights, a Song, the Music by Kenrick,
Price Is.
8. An Ode on the Emancipation of the Blacks of
St. Domingo. Pi-ice Is. 6d. fine copies — Is. common.
Inscribed to Earl Stanhope, and prefaced by Capel
Loff't, Esq.

KEW BOOKS,
9, Corruption, a Satire, with a full length Portrait of
the Author, Price 3s,
10. The Atrocities of a Convent, in 3 vols. Price ISs.
6d. 11. Elegy to the Memory of Thomas Paine. Price Is,
JBj/ whom are also just Published,
12. A famihar Epistle to the Right Honourable William
Pitt, on his Apostacy, &c. See. Price Is.
13. Memoirs of the Year Two Thousand Five Hun
dred. Price 4s. Gd. and 5s.
14. Emigration to America. Price Is. 6d.
15. Letters from Thomas Paine to the Citizens of
America, after an Absence of fifteen Years in Europe.
To which are subjoined some Letters between Him and
the late General Washingtpn, Mr. Samuel Adams, and
the present President of the United States : also some
Original Poetry of Mr. Paine's, and a Fac Simile of his
Hand Writing in 1803, Price 3s. 6d.
16. An Address to the Society of Friends commonly
called Quakers, on excommunicating such of their Members
as marry those of other religious Professions, Price Is. 6d.
17. Rights of Discussion, or a vindication of Dissen
ters of every Denomination. Price 2s. 6d.
18. Sydney, a Monody, occasioned by the Loss of the
Viceroy Packet. Price Is. 6d.

NEW BOOKS.
ig. Welcome to School, a Song with Music. Price
Is. 6d.
20. Naval Triumphs, a Song with Music. Price
Is. 6d.
21. The Nightingale, ditto. Price Is.
22. To Arms ! to Arms ! ditto, price Is. Set also to
a Military Band, by Davy.
23, A correct Portrait of George Fox, the Founder
of the Sect of the People called Quakers. This Portrait
is engraved from the original Painting of him, by Hon-
thurst (in the year 1654, and in the 30th year of Fox's
Age), now in the Possession of the Publisher. Prints
7s. 6d.~Proofs 15s.
24. All exact and high finished Portrait of Thomas
Clio Rickman, from a full-size painting by Hazlitt, size
10 Inches by 8. The Price 10s. 6d. Proofs 15s.
25. Also, a whole Length, by Dighton, Price 5b. and
7s. 6d.
26. An incomparable fine Portrait of Thomas Paine.
Painted by Romney. Engraved by Sharp. Large Proofs
,£1. Is. Prints 10s. 6d. Small Proofs 3s. 6d. Prints
2s. 6d.

Bp the King's Royal Letters Patent,
THE
PATENT SIGNAL TRUMPET,
FOR
INCREASING THE POWER OF SOUND.

Sold: only by the Patentee, Thomas Clio Rickman,
Bookseller, and Stationer, Upper Mary-le-Bone
Street.
Where all Periodical Publications are regularly served,
and Newspapers franked to any part of England.
Copper-Plates elegantly engraved. Music, Prints,
&c. Printing in all its branches. Book-binding
done in every way. Seal Engraving executed in
the most accurate and superior manner.

AN EXTENSIVE CIRCULATING LIBRARY.

.. f

¦fit

:¦'-%¦¦

J"

»•?¦&:"¦

fl

si
•I. ¦ In * "
S