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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III., by 
+Thomas Paine
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III.
+       1791-1804
+
+Author: Thomas Paine
+
+Editor: Moncure Daniel Conway
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2010 [EBook #31271]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE
+
+By Thomas Paine
+
+Edited By Moncure Daniel Conway
+
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+1791-1804
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+
+Copyright, 1895
+
+By G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  Introduction to the Third Volume
+
+  I.  The Republican Proclamation
+
+  II.  To the Authors of "Le Républicain"
+
+  III.  To the Abbe Sieyes
+
+  IV.  To the Attorney General
+
+  V.  To Mr. Secretary Dundas
+
+  VI.  Letters to Onslow Cranley
+
+  VII.  To the Sheriff of the County of Sussex
+
+  VIII.  To Mr. Secretary Dundas
+
+  IX.  Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation
+
+  X.  Address to the People of France
+
+  XI.  Anti-Monarchal Essay
+
+  XII.  To the Attorney General, on the Prosecution AGAINST
+        THE SECOND PART OF RIGHTS of Man
+
+  XIII.  On the Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI to Trial
+
+  XIV.  Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet
+
+  XV.  Shall Louis XVI. Have Respite?
+
+  XVI.  Declaration of Rights.
+
+  XVII.  Private Letters to Jefferson
+
+  XVIII.  Letters to Danton
+
+  XIX.  A Citizen of America to the Citizens of Europe
+
+  XX.  Appeal to the Convention
+
+  XXI.  The Memorial to Monroe
+
+  XXII.  Letter to George Washington
+
+  XXIII.  Observations
+
+  XXIV.  Dissertation on First Principles of Government
+
+  XXV.  The Constitution of 1795
+
+  XXVI.  The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance
+
+  XXVII.  Forgetfulness
+
+  XXVIII.  Agrarian Justice
+
+  XXIX.  The Eighteenth Fructidor
+
+  XXX.  The Recall of Monroe
+
+  XXXI.  Private Letter to President Jefferson
+
+  XXXII.  Proposal that Louisiana be Purchased
+
+  XXXIII.  Thomas Paine to the Citizens of the United States
+
+  XXXIV.  To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD VOLUME.
+
+WITH HISTORICAL NOTES AND DOCUMENTS.
+
+In a letter of Lafayette to Washington ("Paris, 12 Jan., 1790") he
+writes: "_Common Sense_ is writing for you a brochure where you will see
+a part of my adventures." It thus appears that the narrative embodied in
+the reply to Burke ("Rights of Man," Part I.), dedicated to Washington,
+was begun with Lafayette's collaboration fourteen months before its
+publication (March 13, 1791).
+
+In another letter of Lafayette to Washington (March 17, 1790) he writes:
+
+"To Mr. Paine, who leaves for London, I entrust the care of sending
+you my news.... Permit me, my dear General, to offer you a picture
+representing the Bastille as it was some days after I gave the order for
+its demolition. I also pay you the homage of sending you the principal
+Key of that fortress of despotism. It is a tribute I owe as a son to
+my adoptive father, as aide-de-camp to my General, as a missionary of
+liberty to his Patriarch."
+
+The Key was entrusted to Paine, and by him to J. Rut-ledge, Jr., who
+sailed from London in May. I have found in the manuscript despatches of
+Louis Otto, Chargé d' Affaires, several amusing paragraphs, addressed to
+his govern-ment at Paris, about this Key.
+
+"August 4, 1790. In attending yesterday the public audience of the
+President, I was surprised by a question from the Chief Magistrate,
+'whether I would like to see the Key of the Bastille?' One of his
+secretaries showed me at the same moment a large Key, which had
+been sent to the President by desire of the Marquis de la Fayette. I
+dissembled my surprise in observing to the President that 'the time had
+not yet come in America to do ironwork equal to that before him.'
+The Americans present looked at the key with indifference, and as if
+wondering why it had been sent But the serene face of the President
+showed that he regarded it as an homage from the French nation."
+"December 13, 1790. The Key of the Bastille, regularly shown at the
+President's audiences, is now also on exhibition in Mrs. Washington's
+_salon_, where it satisfies the curiosity of the Philadelphians. I am
+persuaded, Monseigneur, that it is only their vanity that finds pleasure
+in the exhibition of this trophy, but Frenchmen here are not the less
+piqued, and many will not enter the President's house on this account."
+
+In sending the key Paine, who saw farther than these distant Frenchmen,
+wrote to Washington: "That the principles of America opened the Bastille
+is not to be doubted, and therefore the Key comes to the right place."
+
+Early in May, 1791 (the exact date is not given), Lafayette writes
+Washington: "I send you the rather indifferent translation of Mr. Paine
+as a kind of preservative and to keep me near you." This was a hasty
+translation of "Rights of Man," Part I., by F. Soûles, presently
+superseded by that of Lanthenas.
+
+The first convert of Paine to pure republicanism in France was Achille
+Duchâtelet, son of the Duke, and grandson of the authoress,--the friend
+of Voltaire. It was he and Paine who, after the flight of Louis XVI.,
+placarded Paris with the Proclamation of a Republic, given as the first
+chapter of this volume. An account of this incident is here quoted from
+Etienne Dumont's "Recollections of Mirabeau":
+
+"The celebrated Paine was at this time in Paris, and intimate in
+Condorcet's family. Thinking that he had effected the American
+Revolution, he fancied himself called upon to bring about one in France.
+Duchâtelet called on me, and after a little preface placed in my hand an
+English manuscript--a Proclamation to the French People. It was nothing
+less than an anti-royalist Manifesto, and summoned the nation to
+seize the opportunity and establish a Republic. Paine was its author.
+Duchâtelet had adopted and was resolved to sign, placard the walls of
+Paris with it, and take the consequences. He had come to request me to
+translate and develop it. I began discussing the strange proposal,
+and pointed out the danger of raising a republican standard without
+concurrence of the National Assembly, and nothing being as yet known
+of the king's intentions, resources, alliances, and possibilities of
+support by the army, and in the provinces. I asked if he had consulted
+any of the most influential leaders,--Sieves, Lafayette, etc. He had
+not: he and Paine had acted alone. An American and an impulsive nobleman
+had put themselves forward to change the whole governmental system
+of France. Resisting his entreaties, I refused to translate the
+Proclamation. Next day the republican Proclamation appeared on the walls
+in every part of Paris, and was denounced to the Assembly. The idea of
+a Republic had previously presented itself to no one: this first
+intimation filled with consternation the Right and the moderates of the
+Left. Malouet, Cazales, and others proposed prosecution of the author,
+but Chapelier, and a numerous party, fearing to add fuel to the fire
+instead of extinguishing it, prevented this. But some of the seed sown
+by the audacious hand of Paine were now budding in leading minds."
+
+A Republican Club was formed in July, consisting of five members, the
+others who joined themselves to Paine and Duchâtelet being Condorcet,
+and probably Lanthenas (translator of Paine's works), and Nicolas de
+Bonneville. They advanced so far as to print "Le Républicain," of which,
+however, only one number ever appeared. From it is taken the second
+piece in this volume.
+
+Early in the year 1792 Paine lodged in the house and book-shop of Thomas
+"Clio" Rickman, now as then 7 Upper Marylebone Street. Among his friends
+was the mystical artist and poet, William Blake. Paine had become to
+him a transcendental type; he is one of the Seven who appear in Blake's
+"Prophecy" concerning America (1793):
+
+
+  "The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent
+  Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore;
+  Piercing the souls of warlike men, who rise in silent night:--
+  Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Warren, Gates, Hancock, and Greene,
+  Meet on the coast glowing with blood from Albion's fiery Prince."
+
+
+The Seven are wrapt in the flames of their enthusiasm. Albion's Prince
+sends to America his thirteen Angels, who, however, there become
+Governors of the thirteen States. It is difficult to discover from
+Blake's mystical visions how much political radicalism was in him, but
+he certainly saved Paine from the scaffold by forewarning him (September
+13, 1792) that an order had been issued for his arrest. Without
+repeating the story told in Gilchrist's "Life of Blake," and in my "Life
+of Paine," I may add here my belief that Paine also appears in one of
+Blake's pictures. The picture is in the National Gallery (London), and
+called "The spiritual form of Pitt guiding Behemoth." The monster jaws
+of Behemoth are full of struggling men, some of whom stretch imploring
+hands to another spiritual form, who reaches down from a crescent
+moon in the sky, as if to rescue them. This face and form appear to me
+certainly meant for Paine.
+
+Acting on Blake's warning Paine's friends got him off to Dover, where,
+after some trouble, related in a letter to Dundas (see p. 41 of this
+volume), he reached Calais. He had been elected by four departments to
+the National Convention, and selected Calais, where he was welcomed
+with grand civic parades. On September 19, 1792, he arrived in Paris,
+stopping at "White's Hotel," 7 Passage des Pétits Pères, about five
+minutes' walk from the Salle de Manége, where, on September 21st, the
+National Convention opened its sessions. The spot is now indicated by a
+tablet on the wall of the Tuileries Garden, Rue de Rivoli. On that
+day Paine was introduced to the Convention by the Abbé Grégoire, and
+received with acclamation.
+
+The French Minister in London, Chauvelin, had sent to his government
+(still royalist) a despatch unfavorable to Paine's work in England, part
+of which I translate:
+
+"May 23, 1792. An Association [for Parliamentary Reform, see pp. 78,
+93, of this volume] has been formed to seek the means of forwarding the
+demand. It includes some distinguished members of the Commons, and a few
+peers. The writings of M. Payne which preceded this Association by a
+few days have done it infinite harm. People suspect under the veil of
+a reform long demanded by justice and reason an intention to destroy a
+constitution equally dear to the peers whose privileges it consecrates,
+to the wealthy whom it protects, and to the entire nation, to which
+it assures all the liberty desired by a people methodical and slow in
+character, and who, absorbed in their commercial interests, do not
+like being perpetually worried about the imbecile George III. or public
+affairs. Vainly have the friends of reform protested their attachment
+to the Constitution. Vainly they declare that they desire to demand
+nothing, to obtain nothing, save in lawful ways. They are persistently
+disbelieved. Payne alone is seen in all their movements; and this author
+has not, like Mackintosh, rendered imposing his refutation of Burke. The
+members of the Association, although very different in principles, find
+themselves involved in the now almost general disgrace of Payne."
+
+M. Noël writes from London, November 2, 1792, to the republican
+Minister, Le Brun, concerning the approaching trial of Paine, which had
+been fixed for December 18th.
+
+"This matter above all excites the liveliest interest. People desire
+to know whether they live in a free country, where criticism even of
+government is a right of every citizen. Whatever may be the decision in
+this interesting trial, the result can only be fortunate for the cause
+of liberty. But the government cannot conceal from itself that it is
+suspended over a volcano. The wild dissipations of the King's sons
+add to the discontent, and if something is overlooked in the Prince of
+Wales, who is loved enough, it is not so with the Duke of York, who
+has few friends. The latter has so many debts that at this moment the
+receivers are in his house, and the creditors wish even his bed to be
+seized. You perceive, Citizen, what a text fruitful in reflexions this
+conduct presents to a people groaning under the weight of taxes for the
+support of such whelps (_louvetaux_)."
+
+Under date of December 22, 1792, M. Noël writes:
+
+"London is perfectly tranquil. The arbitrary measures taken by the
+government in advance [of Paine's trial] cause no anxiety to the mass
+of the nation about its liberties. Some dear-headed people see well that
+the royal prerogative will gain in this crisis, and that it is dangerous
+to leave executive power to become arbitrary at pleasure; but this very
+small number groan in silence, and dare not speak for fear of seeing
+their property pillaged or burned by what the miserable hirelings
+of government call 'Loyal Mob,' or 'Church and King Mob.' To the
+'Addressers,' of whom I wrote you, are added the associations for
+maintaining the Constitution they are doing all they can to destroy.
+There is no corporation, no parish, which is not mustered for this
+object. All have assembled, one on the other, to press against
+those whom they call 'The Republicans and the Levellers,' the most
+inquisitorial measures. Among other parishes, one (S. James' Vestry
+Room) distinguishes itself by a decree worthy of the sixteenth century.
+It promises twenty guineas reward to any one who shall denounce those
+who in conversation or otherwise propagate opinions contrary to the
+public tranquillity, and places the denouncer under protection of the
+parish. The inhabitants of London are now placed under a new kind of
+_Test_, and those who refuse it will undoubtedly be persecuted. Meantime
+these papers are carried from house to house to be signed, especially by
+those lodging as strangers. This _Test_ causes murmurs, and some try to
+evade signature, but the number is few. The example of the capital is
+generally followed. The trial of Payne, which at one time seemed likely
+to cause events, has ended in the most peaceful way. Erskine has been
+borne to his house by people shouting _God Save the King! Erskine
+forever!_ The friends of liberty generally are much dissatisfied with
+the way in which he has defended his client. They find that he threw
+himself into commonplaces which could make his eloquence shine, but
+guarded himself well from going to the bottom of the question. Vane
+especially, a distinguished advocate and zealous democrat, is furious
+against Erskine. It is now for Payne to defend himself. But whatever
+he does, he will have trouble enough to reverse the opinion. The Jury's
+verdict is generally applauded: a mortal blow is dealt to freedom of
+thought. People sing in the streets, even at midnight, _God save the
+King and damn Tom Payne!_" (1)
+
+     1 The despatches from which these translations are made are
+     in the Archives of the Department of State at Paris, series
+     marked _Angleterre_ vol. 581.
+
+The student of that period will find some instruction in a collection,
+now in the British Museum, of coins and medals mostly struck after the
+trial and outlawry of Paine. A halfpenny, January 21,1793: _obverse_,
+a man hanging on a gibbet, with church in the distance; motto "End of
+Pain"; _reverse_, open book inscribed "The Wrongs of Man." A token: bust
+of Paine, with his name; _reverse_, "The Mountain in Labour, 1793."
+Farthing: Paine gibbeted; _reverse_, breeches burning, legend,
+"Pandora's breeches"; beneath, serpent decapitated by a dagger,
+the severed head that of Paine. Similar farthing, but _reverse_,
+combustibles intermixed with labels issuing from a globe marked
+"Fraternity"; the labels inscribed "Regicide," "Robbery," "Falsity,"
+"Requisition"; legend, "French Reforms, 1797"; near by, a church with
+flag, on it a cross. Half-penny without date, but no doubt struck in
+1794, when a rumor reached London that Paine had been guillotined:
+Paine gibbeted; above, devil smoking a pipe; _reverse_, monkey dancing;
+legend, "We dance, Paine swings." Farthing: three men hanging on a
+gallows; "The three Thomases, 1796." _Reverse_, "May the three knaves
+of Jacobin Clubs never get a trick." The three Thomases were Thomas
+Paine, Thomas Muir, and Thomas Spence. In 1794 Spence was imprisoned
+seven months for publishing some of Paine's works at his so-called
+"Hive of Liberty." Muir, a Scotch lawyer, was banished to Botany Bay for
+fourteen years for having got up in Edinburgh (1792) a "Convention," in
+imitation of that just opened in Paris; two years later he escaped from
+Botany Bay on an American ship, and found his way to Paine in Paris.
+Among these coins there are two of opposite character. A farthing
+represents Pitt on a gibbet, against which rests a ladder; inscription,
+"End of P [here an eye] T." _Reverse_, face of Pitt conjoined with that
+of the devil, and legend, "Even Fellows." Another farthing like the
+last, except an added legend, "Such is the reward of tyrants, 1796."
+These anti-Pitt farthings were struck by Thomas Spence.
+
+In the winter of 1792-3 the only Reign of Terror was in England. The
+Ministry had replied to Paine's "Rights of Man" by a royal proclamation
+against seditious literature, surrounding London with militia, and
+calling a meeting of Parliament (December, 1792) out of season.
+Even before the trial of Paine his case was prejudged by the royal
+proclamation, and by the Addresses got up throughout the country in
+response,--documents which elicited Paine's Address to the Addressers,
+chapter IX. in this volume. The Tory gentry employed roughs to burn
+Paine in effigy throughout the country, and to harry the Nonconformists.
+Dr. Priestley's house was gutted. Mr. Fox (December 14, 1792) reminded
+the House of Commons that all the mobs had "Church and King" for their
+watchword, no mob having been heard of for "The Rights of Man"; and
+he vainly appealed to the government to prosecute the dangerous libels
+against Dissenters as they were prosecuting Paine's work. Burke, who in
+the extra session of Parliament for the first time took his seat on the
+Treasury Bench, was reminded that he had once "exulted at the victories
+of that rebel Washington," and welcomed Franklin. "Franklin," he said,
+"was a native of America; Paine was born in England, and lived under the
+protection of our laws; but, instigated by his evil genius, he conspired
+against the very country which gave him birth, by attempting to
+introduce the new and pernicious doctrines of republicans."
+
+In the course of the same harangue, Burke alluded to the English and
+Irish deputations, then in Paris, which had congratulated the Convention
+on the defeat of the invaders of the Republic. Among them he named
+Lord Semphill, John Frost, D. Adams, and "Joel--Joel the Prophet" (Joel
+Barlow). These men were among those who, towards the close of 1792,
+formed a sort of Paine Club at "Philadelphia House"--as White's Hotel
+was now called. The men gathered around Paine, as the exponent of
+republican principles, were animated by a passion for liberty which
+withheld no sacrifice. Some of them threw away wealth and rank as
+trifles. At a banquet of the Club, at Philadelphia House, November 18,
+1792, where Paine presided, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Sir Robert Smyth,
+Baronet, formally renounced their titles. Sir Robert proposed the toast,
+"A speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions."
+Another toast was, "Paine--and the new way of making good books known by
+a Royal proclamation and a King's Bench prosecution."
+
+There was also Franklin's friend, Benjamin Vaughan, Member of
+Parliament, who, compromised by an intercepted letter, took refuge in
+Paris under the name of Jean Martin. Other Englishmen were Rev. Jeremiah
+Joyce, a Unitarian minister and author (coadjutor of Dr. Gregory in
+his "Cyclopaedia "); Henry Redhead Yorke, a West Indian with some negro
+blood (afterwards an agent of Pitt, under whom he had been imprisoned);
+Robert Merry, husband of the actress "Miss Brunton"; Sayer, Rayment,
+Macdonald, Perry.
+
+Sampson Perry of London, having attacked the government in his journal,
+"The Argus," fled from an indictment, and reached Paris in January,
+1793. These men, who for a time formed at Philadelphia House their
+Parliament of Man, were dashed by swift storms on their several rocks.
+Sir Robert Smyth was long a prisoner under the Reign of Terror, and died
+(1802) of the illness thereby contracted. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was
+slain while trying to kindle a revolution in Ireland. Perry was a
+prisoner in the Luxembourg, and afterwards in London. John Frost, a
+lawyer (struck off the roll), ventured back to London, where he was
+imprisoned six months in Newgate, sitting in the pillory at Charing
+Cross one hour per day. Robert Merry went to Baltimore, where he died
+in 1798. Nearly all of these men suffered griefs known only to the "man
+without a country."
+
+Sampson Perry, who in 1796 published an interesting "History of the
+French Revolution," has left an account of his visit to Paine in
+January, 1793:
+
+"I breakfasted with Paine about this time at the Philadelphia Hotel, and
+asked him which province in America he conceived the best calculated
+for a fugitive to settle in, and, as it were, to begin the world with no
+other means or pretensions than common sense and common honesty. Whether
+he saw the occasion and felt the tendency of this question I know not;
+but he turned it aside by the political news of the day, and added that
+he was going to dine with Petion, the mayor, and that he knew I should
+be welcome and be entertained. We went to the mayoralty in a hackney
+coach, and were seated at a table about which were placed the following
+persons: Petion, the mayor of Paris, with his female relation who did
+the honour of the table; Dumourier, the commander-in-chief of the French
+forces, and one of his aides-de-camp; Santerre, the commandant of the
+armed force of Paris, and an aide-de-camp; Condorcet; Brissot; Gaudet;
+Genson-net; Danton; Rersaint; Clavière; Vergniaud; and Syèyes; which,
+with three other persons, whose names I do not now recollect, and
+including Paine and myself, made in all nineteen."
+
+Paine found warm welcome in the home of Achille Du-châtelet, who with
+him had first proclaimed the Republic, and was now a General. Madame
+Duchâtelet was an English lady of rank, Charlotte Comyn, and English was
+fluently spoken in the family. They resided at Auteuil, not far from the
+Abbé Moulet, who preserved an arm-chair with the inscription, _Benjamin
+Franklin hic sedebat_, Paine was a guest of the Duchâtelets soon after
+he got to work in the Convention, as I have just discovered by a letter
+addressed "To Citizen Le Brun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris."
+
+"Auteuil, Friday, the 4th December, 1792. I enclose an Irish newspaper
+which has been sent me from Belfast. It contains the Address of the
+Society of United Irishmen of Dublin (of which Society I am a member)
+to the volunteers of Ireland. None of the English newspapers that I have
+seen have ventured to republish this Address, and as there is no other
+copy of it than this which I send you, I request you not to let it go
+out of your possession. Before I received this newspaper I had drawn up
+a statement of the affairs of Ireland, which I had communicated to my
+friend General Duchâtelet at Auteuil, where I now am. I wish to confer
+with you on that subject, but as I do not speak French, and as the
+matter requires confidence, General Duchâtelet has desired me to say
+that if you can make it convenient to dine with him and me at Auteuil,
+he will with pleasure do the office of interpreter. I send this letter
+by my servant, but as it may not be convenient to you to give an answer
+directly, I have told him not to wait--Thomas Paine."
+
+It will be noticed that Paine now keeps his servant, and drives to the
+Mayor's dinner in a hackney coach. A portrait painted in Paris about
+this time, now owned by Mr. Alfred Howlett of Syracuse, N. Y., shows him
+in elegant costume.
+
+It is mournful to reflect, even at this distance, that only a little
+later both Paine and his friend General Duchâtelet were prisoners. The
+latter poisoned himself in prison (1794).
+
+The illustrative notes and documents which it seems best to set before
+the reader at the outset may here terminate. As in the previous volumes
+the writings are, as a rule, given in chronological sequence, but an
+exception is now made in respect of Paine's religious writings, some of
+which antedate essays in the present volume. The religious writings
+are reserved for the fourth and final volume, to which will be added
+an Appendix containing Paine's poems, scientific fragments, and several
+letters of general interest.
+
+
+
+
+I. THE REPUBLICAN PROCLAMATION.(1)
+
+"Brethren and Fellow Citizens:
+
+"The serene tranquillity, the mutual confidence which prevailed amongst
+us, during the time of the late King's escape, the indifference with
+which we beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that the absence of
+a King is more desirable than his presence, and that he is not only a
+political superfluity, but a grievous burden, pressing hard on the whole
+nation.
+
+"Let us not be imposed on by sophisms; all that concerns this is reduced
+to four points.
+
+"He has abdicated the throne in having fled from his post. Abdication
+and desertion are not characterized by the length of absence; but by the
+single act of flight. In the present instance, the act is everything,
+and the time nothing.
+
+"The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who, false to
+his trust, perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine flight, obtains
+a fraudulent passport, conceals a King of France under the disguise of
+a valet, directs his course towards a frontier covered with traitors
+and deserters, and evidently meditates a return into our country, with a
+force capable of imposing his own despotic laws.
+
+"Should his flight be considered as his own act, or the act of those
+who fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution of his own, or was
+it inspired by others? The alternative is immaterial; whether fool or
+hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself equally unworthy of
+the important functions that had been delegated to him.
+
+     1 See Introduction to this volume. This manifesto with which
+     Paris was found placarded on July 1, 1791, is described by
+     Dumont as a "Republican Proclamation," but what its literal
+     caption was I have not found.--_Editor_.
+
+"In every sense in which the question can be considered, the reciprocal
+obligation which subsisted between us is dissolved. He holds no longer
+any authority. We owe him no longer obedience. We see in him no more
+than an indifferent person; we can regard him only as Louis Capet.
+
+"The history of France presents little else than a long series of public
+calamity, which takes its source from the vices of 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
+only vacancy is filled up, the dreadful list is full; the system is
+exhausted; there are no remaining errors for them to commit; their reign
+is consequently at an end.
+
+"What kind of office must that be in a government which requires for its
+execution neither experience nor ability, that may be abandoned to the
+desperate chance of birth, that may be filled by an idiot, a madman, a
+tyrant, with equal effect as by the good, the virtuous, and the wise? An
+office of this nature is a mere nonentity; it is a place of show, not of
+use. Let France then, arrived at the age of reason, no longer be deluded
+by the sound of words, and let her deliberately examine, if a King,
+however insignificant and contemptible in himself, may not at the same
+time be extremely dangerous.
+
+"The thirty millions which it costs to support a King in the eclat of
+stupid brutal luxury, presents us with an easy method of reducing taxes,
+which reduction would at once relieve the people, and stop the progress
+of political corruption. The grandeur of nations consists, not, as Kings
+pretend, in the splendour of thrones, but in a conspicuous sense of
+their own dignity, and in a just disdain of those barbarous follies and
+crimes which, under the sanction of Royalty, have hitherto desolated
+Europe.
+
+"As to the personal safety of Louis Capet, it is so much the more
+confirmed, as France will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit of
+revenge against a wretch who has dishonoured himself. In defending
+a just and glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade it, and the
+universal tranquillity which prevails is an undeniable proof that a free
+people know how to respect themselves."
+
+
+
+
+II. TO THE AUTHORS OF "LE RÉPUBLICAIN."(1)
+
+
+Gentlemen:
+
+M. Duchâtelet has mentioned to me the intention of some persons to
+commence a work under the title of "The Republican."
+
+As I am a Citizen of a country which knows no other Majesty than that of
+the People; no other Government than that of the Representative body;
+no other sovereignty than that of the Laws, and which is attached to
+_France_ both by alliance and by gratitude, I voluntarily offer you my
+services in support of principles as honorable to a nation as they are
+adapted to promote the happiness of mankind. I offer them to you with
+the more zeal, as I know the moral, literary, and political character
+of those who are engaged in the undertaking, and find myself honoured in
+their good opinion.
+
+But I must at the same time observe, that from ignorance of the French
+language, my works must necessarily undergo a translation; they can of
+course be of but little utility, and my offering must consist more of
+wishes than services. I must add, that I am obliged to pass a part of
+this summer in England and Ireland.
+
+As the public has done me the unmerited favor of recognizing me under
+the appellation of "Common Sense," which is my usual signature, I shall
+continue it in this publication to avoid mistakes, and to prevent
+my being supposed the author of works not my own. As to my political
+principles, I shall endeavour, in this letter, to trace their general
+features in such a manner, as that they cannot be misunderstood.
+
+     1 "Le Républicain; ou le Défenseur du gouvernement
+     Représentatif. Par une Société des Républicains. A Paris.
+     July, 1791." See Introduction to this volume.--_Editor_.
+
+It is desirable in most instances to avoid that which may give even the
+least suspicion as to the part meant to be adopted, and particularly
+on the present occasion, where a perfect clearness of expression is
+necessary to the avoidance of any possible misinterpretation. I am
+happy, therefore, to find, that the work in question is entitled "The
+Republican." This word expresses perfectly the idea which we ought to
+have of Government in general--_Res Publico_,--the public affairs of a
+nation.
+
+As to the word _Monarchy_, though the address and intrigue of Courts
+have rendered it familiar, it does not contain the less of reproach or
+of insult to a nation. The word, in its immediate or original sense,
+signifies _the absolute power of a single individual_, who may prove
+a fool, an hypocrite, or a tyrant. The appellation admits of no other
+interpretation than that which is here given. France is therefore not a
+_Monarchy_; it is insulted when called by that name. The servile spirit
+which characterizes this species of government is banished from France,
+and this country, like AMERICA, can now afford to Monarchy no more than
+a glance of disdain.
+
+Of the errors which monarchic ignorance or knavery has spread through
+the world, the one which bears the marks of the most dexterous
+invention, is the opinion that the system of _Republicanism_ is only
+adapted to a small country, and that a _Monarchy_ is suited, on the
+contrary, to those of greater extent. Such is the language of Courts,
+and such the sentiments which they have caused to be adopted in
+monarchic countries; but the opinion is contrary, at the same time, to
+principle and to experience.
+
+The Government, to be of real use, should possess a complete knowledge
+of all the parties, all the circumstances, and all the interests of a
+nation. The monarchic system, in consequence, instead of being suited
+to a country of great extent, would be more admissible in a small
+territory, where an individual may be supposed to know the affairs and
+the interests of the whole. But when it is attempted to extend this
+individual knowledge to the affairs of a great country, the capacity of
+knowing bears no longer any proportion to the extent or multiplicity of
+the objects which ought to be known, and the government inevitably falls
+from ignorance into tyranny. For the proof of this position we need only
+look to Spain, Russia, Germany, Turkey, and the whole of the Eastern
+Continent,--countries, for the deliverance of which I offer my most
+sincere wishes.
+
+On the contrary, the true _Republican_ system, by Election and
+Representation, offers the only means which are known, and, in my
+opinion, the only means which are possible, of proportioning the wisdom
+and the information of a Government to the extent of a country.
+
+The system of _Representation_ is the strongest and most powerful center
+that can be devised for a nation. Its attraction acts so powerfully,
+that men give it their approbation even without reasoning on the cause;
+and France, however distant its several parts, finds itself at this
+moment _an whole_, in its _central_ Representation. The citizen is
+assured that his rights are protected, and the soldier feels that he
+is no longer the slave of a Despot, but that he is become one of the
+Nation, and interested of course in its defence.
+
+The states at present styled _Republican_, as Holland, Genoa, Venice,
+Berne, &c. are not only unworthy the name, but are actually in
+opposition to every principle of a _Republican_ government, and the
+countries submitted to their power are, truly speaking, subject to an
+_Aristocratic_ slavery!
+
+It is, perhaps, impossible, in the first steps which are made in a
+Revolution, to avoid all kind of error, in principle or in practice, or
+in some instances to prevent the combination of both. Before the sense
+of a nation is sufficiently enlightened, and before men have entered
+into the habits of a free communication with each other of their natural
+thoughts, a certain reserve--a timid prudence seizes on the human mind,
+and prevents it from obtaining its level with that vigor and promptitude
+that belongs to _right_.--An example of this influence discovers
+itself in the commencement of the present Revolution: but happily this
+discovery has been made before the Constitution was completed, and in
+time to provide a remedy.
+
+The _hereditary succession_ can never exist as a matter of _right_; it
+is a _nullity_--a _nothing_. To admit the idea is to regard man as a
+species of property belonging to some individuals, either born or to
+be born! It is to consider our descendants, and all posterity, as mere
+animals without a right or will! It is, in fine, the most base and
+humiliating idea that ever degraded the human species, and which, for
+the honor of Humanity, should be destroyed for ever.
+
+The idea of hereditary succession is so contrary to the rights of man,
+that if we were ourselves to be recalled to existence, instead of being
+replaced by our posterity, we should not have the right of depriving
+ourselves beforehand of those _rights_ which would then properly belong
+to us. On what ground, then, or by what authority, do we dare to deprive
+of their rights those children who will soon be men? Why are we not
+struck with the injustice which we perpetrate on our descendants, by
+endeavouring to transmit them as a vile herd to masters whose vices are
+all that can be foreseen.
+
+Whenever the _French_ constitution shall be rendered conformable to its
+_Declaration of Rights_, we shall then be enabled to give to France, and
+with justice, the appellation of a _civic Empire_; for its government
+will be the empire of laws founded on the great republican principles
+of _Elective Representation_, and the _Rights of Man_.--But Monarchy
+and Hereditary Succession are incompatible with the _basis_ of its
+constitution.
+
+I hope that I have at present sufficiently proved to you that I am
+a good Republican; and I have such a confidence in the truth of the
+principles, that I doubt not they will soon be as universal in _France_
+as in _America_. The pride of human nature will assist their evidence,
+will contribute to their establishment, and men will be ashamed of
+Monarchy.
+
+I am, with respect, Gentlemen, your friend,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Paris, June, 1791.
+
+
+
+
+III. TO THE ABBÉ SIÈYES.(1)
+
+Paris, 8th July, 1791.
+
+Sir,
+
+At the moment of my departure for England, I read, in the _Moniteur_
+of Tuesday last, your letter, in which you give the challenge, on
+the subject of Government, and offer to defend what is called the
+_Monarchical opinion_ against the Republican system.
+
+I accept of your challenge with pleasure; and I place such a confidence
+in the superiority of the Republican system over that nullity of a
+system, called _Monarchy_, that I engage not to exceed the extent of
+fifty pages, and to leave you the liberty of taking as much latitude as
+you may think proper.
+
+The respect which I bear your moral and literary reputation, will be
+your security for my candour in the course of this discussion; but,
+notwithstanding that I shall treat the subject seriously and sincerely,
+let me promise, that I consider myself at liberty to ridicule, as they
+deserve, Monarchical absurdities, whensoever the occasion shall present
+itself.
+
+By Republicanism, I do not understand what the name signifies in
+Holland, and in some parts of Italy. I understand simply a government
+by representation--a government founded upon the principles of the
+Declaration of Rights; principles to which several parts of the French
+Constitution arise in contradiction. The Declaration of Rights of France
+and America are but one and the same thing in principles, and almost in
+expressions; and this is the Republicanism which I undertake to defend
+against what is called _Monarchy_ and _Aristocracy_.
+
+     1 Written to the _Moniteur_ in reply to a letter of the Abbé
+     (July 8) elicited by Paine's letter to "Le Républicain"
+     (II.). The Abbé now declining a controversy, Paine dealt
+     with his views in "Rights of Man," Part IL, ch. 3.--
+     _Editor_.
+
+I see with pleasure that in respect to one point we are already agreed;
+and _that is, the extreme danger of a civil list of thirty millions_. I
+can discover no reason why one of the parts of the government should
+be supported with so extravagant a profusion, whilst the other scarcely
+receives what is sufficient for its common wants.
+
+This dangerous and dishonourable disproportion at once supplies the one
+with the means of corrupting, and throws the other into the predicament
+of being corrupted. In America there is but little difference, with
+regard to this point, between the legislative and the executive part of
+our government; but the first is much better attended to than it is in
+France.
+
+In whatsoever manner, Sir, I may treat the subject of which you
+have proposed the investigation, I hope that you will not doubt my
+entertaining for you the highest esteem. I must also add, that I am not
+the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man more heartily
+wishes than myself to see them all in the happy and honourable state of
+private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid enemy of
+what is called Monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can
+either alter or corrupt--by my attachment to humanity; by the anxiety
+which I feel within myself, for the dignity and the honour of the human
+race; by the disgust which I experience, when I observe men directed by
+children, and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the evils that
+Monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast; and by those
+sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the exactions, the
+wars, and the massacres with which Monarchy has crushed mankind: in
+short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have declared war.
+
+Thomas Paine.(1)
+
+     1 To the sixth paragraph of the above letter is appended a
+     footnote: "A deputy to the congress receives about a guinea
+     and a half daily: and provisions are cheaper in America
+     than in France." The American Declaration of Rights referred
+     to unless the Declaration of Independence, was no doubt,
+     especially that of Pennsylvania, which Paine helped to
+     frame.--Editor.
+
+
+
+
+IV. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.
+
+
+[Undated, but probably late in May, 1793.]
+
+
+Sir,
+
+Though I have some reason 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 intended to
+affect 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 Attorney 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, he 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
+way, nor in the least instance varied from his usual conduct, to avoid
+any measure you might choose to adopt with respect to him. It is on the
+purity of his heart, and the universal utility of the principles and
+plans which his writings contain, that he rests the issue; and he will
+not dishonour it by any kind of subterfuge. The apartments which he
+occupied at the time of writing the work last winter, he has continued
+to occupy to the present hour, and the solicitors of the prosecution
+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.(1)
+
+     1 Paine was residing at the house of one of his publishers,
+     Thomas Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street, London. His
+     Attorney was the Hon. Thomas Erskine.--_Editor_.
+
+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 useful
+and benevolent books ever offered to mankind, I directed my Attorney
+to put in an appearance; and as I shall meet the prosecution fully and
+fairly, and with a good and upright conscience, I have a right to
+expect that no act of littleness will be made use of on the part of the
+prosecution towards influencing the future issue with respect to the
+author. This expression may, perhaps, appear obscure to you, but I am
+in the possession of some matters which serve to shew that the action
+against the publisher is not intended to be a _real_ action. If,
+therefore, any persons concerned in the prosecution have found their
+cause so weak, as to make it appear convenient to them to enter into
+a negociation with the publisher, whether for the purpose of his
+submitting to a verdict, and to make use of the verdict so obtained as a
+circumstance, by way of precedent, on a future trial against myself;
+or for any other purpose not fully made known to me; if, I say, I have
+cause to suspect this to be the case, I shall most certainly withdraw
+the defence I should otherwise have made, or promoted on his (the
+publisher's) behalf, and leave the negociators to themselves, and shall
+reserve the whole of the defence for the _real_ trial.(1)
+
+But, sir, for the purpose of conducting this matter with at least the
+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 investigation that is questioned,) I have to propose 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 would direct the whole process
+against me, with whom the prosecuting party will not find it possible to
+enter into any private negociation.
+
+     1 A detailed account of the proceedings with regard to the
+     publisher will be found infra, in ix., Letter to the
+     Addressers.--_Editor_.
+
+I will do the cause full justice, as well for the sake of the nation, as
+for my own reputation.
+
+Another reason for discontinuing the process against the publisher is,
+because it can amount to nothing. First, because a jury in London cannot
+decide upon the fact of publishing beyond the limits of the jurisdiction
+of London, and therefore the work may be republished 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 will then be fully open to see that the
+work in question contains a plan the best calculated to root out all the
+abuses of government, and to lessen the taxes of the nation upwards of
+_six millions annually_.
+
+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 government beneficial to themselves as
+individuals, the rest of the nation may not be disposed to consider them
+sufficiently qualified nor authorized to determine for the whole Nation
+on plans of reform, and on systems and principles of Government. This
+would be in effect to erect a jury into a National Convention, instead
+of electing a Convention, and to lay a precedent for the probable
+tyranny of juries, under the pretence of supporting their rights.
+
+That the possibility always exists of packing 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 principles and systems of Government is attempted to be
+suppressed by a verdict, or in those where the object of the work that
+is prosecuted is the reform of abuse and the abolition of sinecure
+places and pensions, in all these cases the verdict of a jury will
+itself become a subject of discussion; and therefore, it furnishes
+an additional reason for discontinuing the prosecution against the
+publisher, more especially as it is not a secret that there has been a
+negociation with 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 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
+1500L. 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,
+
+Thomas Paine.(1)
+
+     1 Paine's case was set down for June 8th, and on that day he
+     appeared in court; but, much to his disappointment, the
+     trial was adjourned to December 18th, at which time he was
+     in his place in the National Convention at Paris.--_Editor_.
+
+
+
+
+V. TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.(1)
+
+
+London, June 6, 1793.
+
+Sir,
+
+As you opened the debate in the House of Commons, May 25th, on the
+proclamation for suppressing publications, which that proclamation
+(without naming any) calls wicked and seditious: and as you applied
+those opprobious epithets to the works entitled "RIGHTS OF MAN," I think
+it unnecessary to offer any other reason for addressing this letter to
+you.
+
+I begin, then, at once, by declaring, that I do not believe there are
+found in the writings of any author, ancient or modern, on the subject
+of government, a spirit of greater benignity, and a stronger inculcation
+of moral principles than in those which I have published. They come,
+Sir, from a man, who, by having lived in different countries, and
+under different systems of government, and who, being intimate in
+the construction of them, is a better judge of the subject than it is
+possible that you, from the want of those opportunities, can be:--And
+besides this, they come from a heart that knows not how to beguile.
+
+I will farther say, that when that moment arrives in which the best
+consolation that shall be left will be looking back on some past
+actions, more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then
+with happiness remember, among other things, I have written the RIGHTS
+OF MAN.---As to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or place-men,
+and place-expectants,--those who possess, or those who are gaping for
+office,--may say of them, it will not alter their character, either with
+the world or with me.
+
+     1 Henry D. (afterwards Viscount Melville), appointed
+     Secretary for the Home Department, 1791. In 1805 he was
+     impeached by the Commons for "gross malversation" while
+     Treasurer of the Navy; he was acquitted by the Lords
+     (1806), but not by public sentiment or by history.--
+     _Editor_.
+
+Having, Sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not
+particularly on your speech on that occasion, but on any one to which
+your motion on that day gave rise; and I shall begin with that of Mr.
+Adam.
+
+This Gentleman accuses me of not having done the very thing that _I have
+done_, and which, he says, if I _had_ done, he should not have accused
+me.
+
+Mr. Adam, in his speech, (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26,) says,
+
+"That he had well considered the subject of Constitutional Publications,
+and was by no means ready to say (but the contrary) that books of
+science upon government though recommending a doctrine or system
+different from the form of our constitution (meaning that of England)
+were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn
+Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Eutopia, and Hume
+for his Idea of a perfect Commonwealth. But (continued Mr. Adam) the
+publication of Mr. Paine was very different; for it reviled what
+was most sacred in the constitution, destroyed every principle of
+subordination, and _established nothing in their room_."
+
+I readily perceive that Mr. Adam has not read the Second Part of _Rights
+of Man_, and I am put under the necessity, either of submitting to an
+erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly
+shall prefer the latter.--If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in
+my reasoning upon systems of government, in the Second Part of _Rights
+of Man_, I have shown as clearly, I think, as words can convey ideas, a
+certain system of government, and that not existing in theory only,
+but already in full and established practice, and systematically
+and practically free from all the vices and defects of the English
+government, and capable of producing more happiness to the people, and
+that also with an eightieth part of the taxes, which the present English
+system of government consumes; I hope he will do me the justice, when
+he next goes to the House, to get up and confess he had been mistaken in
+saying, that I had _established nothing, and that I had destroyed every
+principle of subordination_. Having thus opened the case, I now come to
+the point.
+
+In the Second Part of the Rights of Man, I have distinguished government
+into two classes or systems: the one the hereditary system, the other
+the representative system.
+
+In the First Part of _Rights of Man_, I have endeavoured to shew, and
+I challenge any man to refute it, that there does not exist a right
+to establish hereditary government; or, in other words, hereditary
+governors; because hereditary government always means a government
+yet to come, and the case always is, that the people who are to live
+afterwards, have always the same right to choose a government for
+themselves, as the people had who lived before them.
+
+In the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, I have not repeated those
+arguments, because they are irrefutable; but have confined myself to
+shew the defects of what is called hereditary government, or hereditary
+succession, that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into
+the hands of men totally unworthy of it, from want of principle, or
+unfitted for it from want of capacity.--James the IId. is recorded as
+an instance of the first of these cases; and instances are to be found
+almost all over Europe to prove the truth of the latter.
+
+To shew the absurdity of the Hereditary System still more strongly, I
+will now put the following case:--Take any fifty men promiscuously, and
+it will be very extraordinary, if, out of that number, one man should be
+found, whose principles and talents taken together (for some might have
+principles, and others might have talents) would render him a person
+truly fitted to fill any very extraordinary office of National Trust.
+If then such a fitness of character could not be expected to be found
+in more than one person out of fifty, it would happen but once in a
+thousand years to the eldest son of any one family, admitting each, on
+an average, to hold the office twenty years. Mr. Adam talks of something
+in the Constitution which he calls _most sacred_; but I hope he does not
+mean hereditary succession, a thing which appears to me a violation of
+every order of nature, and of common sense.
+
+When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise
+virtuous, who have died, and their families been ruined, in the defence
+of knaves and fools, and which they would not have done, had they
+reasoned at all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an
+individual can render to mankind, than to endeavour to break the chains
+of political superstition. Those chains are now dissolving fast,
+and proclamations and persecutions will serve but to hasten that
+dissolution.
+
+Having thus spoken of the Hereditary System as a bad System, and subject
+to every possible defect, I now come to the Representative System, and
+this Mr. Adam will find stated in the Second Part of Rights of Man, not
+only as the best, but as the only _Theory_ of Government under which the
+liberties of the people can be permanently secure.
+
+But it is needless now to talk of mere theory, since there is already a
+government in full practice, established upon that theory; or in other
+words, upon the Rights of Man, and has been so for almost twenty years.
+Mr. Pitt, in a speech of his some short time since, said, "That there
+never did, and never could exist a Government established upon those
+Rights, and that if it began at noon, it would end at night." Mr. Pitt
+has not yet arrived at the degree of a school-boy in this species of
+knowledge; his practice has been confined to the means of _extorting
+revenue_, and his boast has been--_how much!_ Whereas the boast of the
+system of government that I am speaking of, is not how much, but how
+little.
+
+The system of government purely representative, unmixed with any thing
+of hereditary nonsense, began in America. I will now compare the effects
+of that system of government with the system of government in England,
+both during, and since the close of the war.
+
+So powerful is the Representative system, first, by combining and
+consolidating all the parts of a country together, however great the
+extent; and, secondly, by admitting of none but men properly qualified
+into the government, or dismissing them if they prove to be otherwise,
+that America was enabled thereby totally to defeat and overthrow all
+the schemes and projects of the hereditary government of England against
+her. As the establishment of the Revolution and Independence of America
+is a proof of this fact, it is needless to enlarge upon it.
+
+I now come to the comparative effect of the two systems _since_ the
+close of the war, and I request Mr. Adam to attend to it.
+
+America had internally sustained the ravages of upwards of seven years
+of war, which England had not. England sustained only the expence of the
+war; whereas America sustained not only the expence, but the destruction
+of property committed by _both_ armies. Not a house was built
+during that period, and many thousands were destroyed. The farms and
+plantations along the coast of the country, for more than a thousand
+miles, were laid waste. Her commerce was annihilated. Her ships were
+either taken, or had rotted within her own harbours. The credit of
+her funds had fallen upwards of ninety per cent., that is, an original
+hundred pounds would not sell for ten pounds. In fine, she was
+apparently put back an hundred years when the war closed, which was not
+the case with England.
+
+But such was the event, that the same representative system of
+government, though since better organized, which enabled her to conquer,
+enabled her also to recover, and she now presents a more flourishing
+condition, and a more happy and harmonized society, under that system of
+government, than any country in the world can boast under any other. Her
+towns are rebuilt, much better than before; her farms and plantations
+are in higher improvement than ever; her commerce is spread over the
+world, and her funds have risen from less than ten pounds the hundred to
+upwards of one hundred and twenty. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues talk
+of the things that have happened in his boyish administration, without
+knowing what greater things have happened elsewhere, and under other
+systems of government.
+
+I now come to state the expence of the two systems, as they now stand
+in each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that
+government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honour and
+trust, and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre.
+
+The whole amount of the nett(sic) taxes in England (exclusive of the
+expence of collection, of drawbacks, of seizures and condemnation, of
+fines and penalties, of fees of office, of litigations and informers,
+which are some of the blessed means of enforcing them) is seventeen
+millions. Of this sum, about nine millions go for the payment of the
+interest of the national debt, and the remainder, being about eight
+millions, is for the current annual expences. This much for one side of
+the case. I now come to the other.
+
+The expence of the several departments of the general Representative
+Government of the United States of America, extending over a space
+of country nearly ten times larger than England, is two hundred and
+ninety-four thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight dollars, which, at
+4s. 6d. per dollar, is 66,305L. 11s. sterling, and is thus apportioned;
+
+[Illustration: table046]
+
+On account of the incursions of the Indians on the back settlements,
+Congress is at this time obliged to keep six thousand militia in pay, in
+addition to a regiment of foot, and a battalion of artillery, which it
+always keeps; and this increases the expence of the War Department to
+390,000 dollars, which is 87,795L. sterling, but when peace shall be
+concluded with the Indians, the greatest part of this expence will
+cease, and the total amount of the expence of government, including that
+of the army, will not amount to 100,000L. sterling, which, as has been
+already stated, is but an eightieth part of the expences of the English
+government.
+
+I request Mr. Adam and Mr. Dundas, and all those who are talking of
+Constitutions, and blessings, and Kings, and Lords, and the Lord
+knows what, to look at this statement. Here is a form and system of
+government, that is better organized and better administered than any
+government in the world, and that for less than one hundred thousand
+pounds per annum, and yet every Member of Congress receives, as a
+compensation for his time and attendance on public business, one pound
+seven shillings per day, which is at the rate of nearly five hundred
+pounds a year.
+
+This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations
+to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political
+superstition to support it; it was by encouraging discussion and
+rendering the press free upon all subjects of government, that the
+principles of government became understood in America, and the people
+are now enjoying the present blessings under it. You hear of no riots,
+tumults, and disorders in that country; because there exists no cause
+to produce them. Those things are never the effect of Freedom, but of
+restraint, oppression, and excessive taxation.
+
+In America, there is not that class of poor and wretched people that
+are so numerously dispersed all over England, who are to be told by a
+proclamation, that they are happy; and this is in a great measure to
+be accounted for, not by the difference of proclamations, but by the
+difference of governments and the difference of taxes between that
+country and this. What the labouring people of that country earn, they
+apply to their own use, and to the education of their children, and
+do not pay it away in taxes as fast as they earn it, to support Court
+extravagance, and a long enormous list of place-men and pensioners;
+and besides this, they have learned the manly doctrine of reverencing
+themselves, and consequently of respecting each other; and they laugh
+at those imaginary beings called Kings and Lords, and all the fraudulent
+trumpery of Court.
+
+When place-men and pensioners, or those who expect to be such, are
+lavish in praise of a government, it is not a sign of its being a good
+one. The pension list alone in England (see sir John Sinclair's History
+of the Revenue, p. 6, of the Appendix) is one hundred and seven thousand
+four hundred and four pounds, _which is more than the expences of the
+whole Government of America amount to_. And I am now more convinced than
+before, that the offer that was made to me of a thousand pounds for the
+copy-right of the second part of the Rights of Man, together with the
+remaining copyright of the first part, was to have effected, by a quick
+suppression, what is now attempted to be done by a prosecution. The
+connection which the person, who made the offer, has with the King's
+printing-office, may furnish part of the means of inquiring into this
+affair, when the ministry shall please to bring their prosecution to
+issue.(1) But to return to my subject.--
+
+I have said in the second part of the _Rights of Man_, and I repeat
+it here, that the service of any man, whether called King, President,
+Senator, Legislator, or any thing else, cannot be worth more to any
+country, in the regular routine of office, than ten thousand pounds per
+annum. We have a better man in America, and more of a gentleman, than
+any King I ever knew of, who does not occasion half that ex-pence; for,
+though the salary is fixed at £5625 he does not accept it, and it is
+only the incidental expences that are paid out of it.(2) The name by
+which a man is called is of itself but an empty thing. It is worth and
+character alone which can render him valuable, for without these, Kings,
+and Lords, and Presidents, are but jingling names.
+
+But without troubling myself about Constitutions of Government, I have
+shewn in the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, that an alliance may be
+formed between England, France, and America, and that the expences of
+government in England may be put back to one million and a half, viz.:
+
+     Civil expence of Government...... 500,000L.
+     Army............................. 500,000
+     Navy............................. 500,000
+                                      ----------
+                                     1,500,000L.
+
+And even this sum is fifteen times greater than the expences of
+government are in America; and it is also greater than the whole peace
+establishment of England amounted to about an hundred years ago. So much
+has the weight and oppression of taxes increased since the Revolution,
+and especially since the year 1714.
+
+     1 At Paine's trial, Chapman, the printer, in answer to fa
+     question of the Solicitor General, said: "I made him three
+     separate offers in the different stages of the work; the
+     first, I believe, was a hundred guineas, the second five
+     hundred, and the last was a thousand."--_Editor_.
+
+     2 Error. See also ante, and in vol. ii., p. 435.
+     Washington had retracted his original announcement, and
+     received his salary regularly.--_Editor_.
+
+To shew that the sum of 500,000L. is sufficient to defray all civil
+expences of government, I have, in that work, annexed the following
+estimate for any country of the same extent as England.--
+
+In the first place, three hundred Representatives, fairly elected, are
+sufficient for all the purposes to which Legislation can apply, and
+preferable to a larger number.
+
+If, then, an allowance, at the rate of 500L. per annum be made to every
+Representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expence, if the whole
+number attended six months each year, would be.......75,000L.
+
+The Official Departments could not possibly exceed the following number,
+with the salaries annexed, viz.:
+
+
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: Table]
+
+Three offices at
+ 10,000L.
+ each
+ 30,000
+
+Ten ditto at
+ 5,000
+ u
+ 50,000
+
+Twenty ditto at
+ 2,000
+ u
+ 40,000
+
+Forty ditto at
+ 1,000
+ it
+ 40,000
+
+Two hundred ditto at
+ 500
+ u
+ 100,000
+
+Three hundred ditto at  200
+ u
+ 60,000
+
+Five hundred ditto at
+ 100
+ u
+ 50,000
+
+Seven hundred ditto at  75
+ it
+ 52,500
+
+497,500L.
+
+
+If a nation chose, it might deduct four per cent, from all the offices,
+and make one of twenty thousand pounds per annum, and style the person
+who should fill it, King or Madjesty, (1) or give him any other title.
+
+Taking, however, this sum of one million and a half, as an abundant
+supply for all the expences of government under any form whatever,
+there will remain a surplus of nearly six millions and a half out of
+the present taxes, after paying the interest of the national debt; and
+I have shewn in the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, what appears to me,
+the best mode of applying the surplus money; for I am now speaking of
+expences and savings, and not of systems of government.
+
+     1 A friend of Paine advised him against this pun, as too
+     personal an allusion to George the Third, to whom however
+     much has been forgiven on account of his mental infirmity.
+     Yorke, in his account of his visit to Paine, 1802, alludes
+     to his (Paine's) anecdotes "of humor and benevolence"
+     concerning George III.--_Editor_.
+
+I have, in the first place, estimated the poor-rates at two millions
+annually, and shewn that the first effectual step would be to abolish
+the poor-rates entirely (which would be a saving of two millions to the
+house-keepers,) and to remit four millions out of the surplus taxes to
+the poor, to be paid to them in money, in proportion to the number of
+children in each family, and the number of aged persons.
+
+I have estimated the number of persons of both sexes in England, of
+fifty years of age and upwards, at 420,000, and have taken one third of
+this number, viz. 140,000, to be poor people.
+
+To save long calculations, I have taken 70,000 of them to be upwards of
+fifty years of age, and under sixty, and the others to be sixty years
+and upwards; and to allow six pounds per annum to the former class, and
+ten pounds per annum to the latter. The expence of which will be,
+
+  Seventy thousand persons at 6L. per annum..... 420,000L.
+  Seventy thousand persons at 10L. per annum.... 700,000
+                                                -----------
+                                               1,120,000L.
+
+There will then remain of the four millions, 2,880,000L. I have stated
+two different methods of appropriating this money. The one is to pay it
+in proportion to the number of children in each family, at the rate of
+three or four pounds per annum for each child; the other is to apportion
+it according to the expence of living in different counties; but in
+either of these cases it would, together with the allowance to be
+made to the aged, completely take off taxes from one third of all the
+families in England, besides relieving all the other families from the
+burthen of poor-rates.
+
+The whole number of families in England, allotting five souls to each
+family, is one million four hundred thousand, of which I take one third,
+_viz_. 466,666 to be poor families who now pay four millions of taxes,
+and that the poorest pays at least four guineas a year; and that the
+other thirteen millions are paid by the other two-thirds. The plan,
+therefore, as stated in the work, is, first, to remit or repay, as is
+already stated, this sum of four millions to the poor, because it is
+impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of
+collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish
+the poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the
+commutation tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars
+of all which are set forth in the work, to which I desire Mr. Adam to
+refer for particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to
+a town of the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its
+favour, compared with the present state of things, of upwards of fifty
+thousand pounds annually, and so in proportion to all other places
+throughout the nation. This certainly is of more consequence than that
+the same sums should be collected to be afterwards spent by riotous
+and profligate courtiers, and in nightly revels at the Star and Garter
+tavern, Pall Mall.
+
+I will conclude this part of my letter with an extract from the Second
+Part of the _Rights of Man_, which Mr. Dundas (a man rolling in luxury
+at the expence of the nation) has branded with the epithet of "wicked."
+
+"By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments
+of civil torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful ex-pence of
+litigation prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by
+ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of
+age begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to
+place to breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows
+will have a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on
+the death of their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children
+will no longer be considered as increasing the distresses of their
+parents. The haunts of the wretched will be known, because it will be
+to their advantage; and the number of petty crimes, the offspring of
+poverty and distress, will be lessened. The poor as well as the rich
+will then be interested in the support of Government, and the cause and
+apprehension of riots and tumults will cease. Ye who sit in ease, and
+solace yourselves in plenty, and such there are in Turkey and Russia,
+as well as in England, and who say to yourselves, _are we not well off_
+have ye thought of these things? When ye do, ye will cease to speak and
+feel for yourselves alone."
+
+After this remission of four millions be made, and the poor-rates
+and houses and window-light tax be abolished, and the commutation
+tax changed, there will still remain nearly one million and a half
+of surplus taxes; and as by an alliance between England, France and
+America, armies and navies will, in a great measure, be rendered
+unnecessary; and as men who have either been brought up in, or long
+habited to, those lines of life, are still citizens of a nation in
+common with the rest, and have a right to participate in all plans of
+national benefit, it is stated in that work (_Rights of Man_, Part ii.)
+to apply annually 507,000L. out of the surplus taxes to this purpose, in
+the following manner:
+
+[Illustration: table 053]
+
+The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter, will not admit
+of my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas
+because he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose, to
+appear conspicuous; but the purport of it is to justify myself from the
+charge which Mr. Adam has made.
+
+This Gentleman, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter,
+considers the writings of Harrington, More and Hume, as justifiable and
+legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so
+doing they shewed plans and systems of government, not only different
+from, but preferable to, that of England; and he accuses me of
+endeavouring to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of
+that which I had reasoned against; whereas, the fact is, that I have
+not only reasoned by comparison of the representative system against
+the hereditary system, but I have gone further; for I have produced
+an instance of a government established entirely on the representative
+system, under which greater happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes
+required, and much higher credit is established, than under the system
+of government in England. The funds in England have risen since the war
+only from 54L. to 97L. and they have been down since the proclamation,
+to 87L. whereas the funds in America rose in the mean time from 10L. to
+120L.
+
+His charge against me of "destroying every principle of subordination,"
+is equally as groundless; which even a single paragraph from the work
+will prove, and which I shall here quote:
+
+"Formerly when divisions arose respecting Governments, recourse was had
+to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded
+by the new system, and _recourse is had to a national convention_.
+Discussion, and the general will, arbitrates the question, and to
+this private opinion yields with a good grace, and _order is preserved
+uninterrupted_."
+
+That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one
+by a Member of the Legislative, for _not_ doing a certain thing, and
+the other by the Attorney General for _doing_ it, is a strange jumble of
+contradictions. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against
+the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of
+the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the
+work will go on.
+
+I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objection
+I found against the plan and principles contained in the Second Part
+of _Rights of Man_, when I had written the book, was, that they would
+beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred
+throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for
+men to act from the direct and disinterested principles of honour; but
+the prosecution now commenced has fortunately removed that objection,
+and the approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate
+impulse of honour added to that of national interest.
+
+I am, Mr. Dundas,
+
+Not your obedient humble Servant,
+
+But the contrary,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+VI. LETTERS TO ONSLOW CRANLEY,
+
+Lord Lieutenant of the county of Surry; on the subject of the late
+excellent proclamation:--or the chairman who shall preside at the
+meeting to be held at Epsom, June 18.
+
+
+FIRST LETTER.
+
+London, June 17th, 1792.
+
+SIR,
+
+I have seen in the public newspapers the following advertisement, to
+wit--
+
+"To the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants of
+the county of Surry.
+
+"At the requisition and desire of several of the freeholders of the
+county, I am, in the absence of the Sheriff, to desire the favour of
+your attendance, at a meeting to be held at Epsom, on Monday, the 18th
+instant, at 12 o'clock at noon, to consider of an humble address to his
+majesty, to express our grateful approbation of his majesty's paternal,
+and well-timed attendance to the public welfare, in his late most
+gracious Proclamation against the enemies of our happy Constitution.
+
+"(Signed.) Onslow Cranley."
+
+
+Taking it for granted, that the aforesaid advertisement, equally as
+obscure as the proclamation to which it refers, has nevertheless some
+meaning, and is intended to effect some purpose; and as a prosecution
+(whether wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly) is already commenced
+against a work intitled RIGHTS OF MAN, of which I have the honour and
+happiness to be the author; I feel it necessary to address this letter
+to you, and to request that it may be read publicly to the gentlemen who
+shall meet at Epsom in consequence of the advertisement.
+
+The work now under prosecution is, I conceive, the same work which is
+intended to be suppressed by the aforesaid proclamation. Admitting this
+to be the case, the gentlemen of the county of Surry are called upon by
+somebody to condemn a work, and they are at the same time forbidden by
+the proclamation to know what that work is; and they are further called
+upon to give their aid and assistance to prevent other people from
+knowing it also. It is therefore necessary that the author, for his own
+justification, as well as to prevent the gentlemen who shall meet from
+being imposed upon by misrepresentation, should give some outlines of
+the principles and plans which that work contains.
+
+The work, Sir, in question, contains, first, an investigation of general
+principles of government.
+
+It also distinguishes government into two classes or systems, the one
+the hereditary system; the other the representative system; and it
+compares these two systems with each other.
+
+It shews that what is called hereditary government cannot exist as a
+matter of right; because hereditary government always means a government
+yet to come; and the case always is, that those who are to live
+afterwards have always the same right to establish a government for
+themselves as the people who had lived before them.
+
+It also shews the defect to which hereditary government is unavoidably
+subject: that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into
+the hands of men totally unworthy of it from the want of principle, and
+unfitted for it from want of capacity. James II. and many others are
+recorded in the English history as proofs of the former of those cases,
+and instances are to be found all over Europe to prove the truth of the
+latter.
+
+It then shews that the representative system is the only true system of
+government; that it is also the only system under which the liberties of
+any people can be permanently secure; and, further, that it is the
+only one that can continue the same equal probability at all times of
+admitting of none but men properly qualified, both by principles and
+abilities, into government, and of excluding such as are otherwise.
+
+The work shews also, by plans and calculations not hitherto denied nor
+controverted, not even by the prosecution that is commenced, that the
+taxes now existing may be reduced at least six millions, that taxes may
+be entirely taken off from the poor, who are computed at one third of
+the nation; and that taxes on the other two thirds may be considerably
+reduced; that the aged poor may be comfortably provided for, and the
+children of poor families properly educated; that fifteen thousand
+soldiers, and the same number of sailors, may be allowed three
+shillings per week during life out of the surplus taxes; and also that a
+proportionate allowance may be made to the officers, and the pay of the
+remaining soldiers and sailors be raised; and that it is better to apply
+the surplus taxes to those purposes, than to consume them on lazy and
+profligate placemen and pensioners; and that the revenue, said to be
+twenty thousand pounds per annum, raised by a tax upon coals, and given
+to the Duke of Richmond, is a gross imposition upon all the people of
+London, and ought to be instantly abolished.
+
+This, Sir, is a concise abstract of the principles and plans contained
+in the work that is now prosecuted, and for the suppression of which the
+proclamation appears to be intended; but as it is impossible that I can,
+in the compass of a letter, bring into view all the matters contained
+in the work, and as it is proper that the gentlemen who may compose that
+meeting should know what the merits or demerits of it are, before they
+come to any resolutions, either directly or indirectly relating thereto,
+I request the honour of presenting them with one hundred copies of the
+second part of the Rights of Man, and also one thousand copies of my
+letter to Mr. Dundas, which I have directed to be sent to Epsom for that
+purpose; and I beg the favour of the Chairman to take the trouble of
+presenting them to the gentlemen who shall meet on that occasion, with
+my sincere wishes for their happiness, and for that of the nation in
+general.
+
+Having now closed thus much of the subject of my letter, I next come
+to speak of what has relation to me personally. I am well aware of the
+delicacy that attends it, but the purpose of calling the meeting appears
+to me so inconsistent with that justice that is always due between man
+and man, that it is proper I should (as well on account of the gentlemen
+who may meet, as on my own account) explain myself fully and candidly
+thereon.
+
+I have already informed the gentlemen, that a prosecution is commenced
+against a work of which I have the honour and happiness to be the
+author; and I have good reasons for believing that the proclamation
+which the gentlemen are called to consider, and to present an address
+upon, is purposely calculated to give an impression to the jury before
+whom that matter is to come. In short, that it is dictating a verdict by
+proclamation; and I consider the instigators of the meeting to be held
+at Epsom, as aiding and abetting the same improper, and, in my opinion,
+illegal purpose, and that in a manner very artfully contrived, as I
+shall now shew.
+
+Had a meeting been called of the Freeholders of the county of Middlesex,
+the gentlemen who had composed that meeting would have rendered
+themselves objectionable as persons to serve on a Jury, before whom the
+judicial case was afterwards to come. But by calling a meeting out
+of the county of Middlesex, that matter is artfully avoided, and the
+gentlemen of Surry are summoned, as if it were intended thereby to give
+a tone to the sort of verdict which the instigators of the meeting no
+doubt wish should be brought in, and to give countenance to the Jury in
+so doing. I am, sir,
+
+With much respect to the
+
+Gentlemen who shall meet, Their and your obedient and humble Servant,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+TO ONSLOW CRANLEY,
+
+COMMONLY CALLED LORD ONSLOW.
+
+SECOND LETTER. SIR,
+
+London, June 21st 1792.
+
+WHEN I wrote you the letter which Mr. Home Tooke did me the favour to
+present to you, as chairman of the meeting held at Epsom, Monday, June
+18, it was not with much expectation that you would do me the justice of
+permitting, or recommending it to be publicly read. I am well aware that
+the signature of Thomas Paine has something in it dreadful to sinecure
+Placemen and Pensioners; and when you, on seeing the letter opened,
+informed the meeting that it was signed Thomas Paine, and added in a
+note of exclamation, "the common enemy of us all." you spoke one of the
+greatest truths you ever uttered, if you confine the expression to
+men of the same description with yourself; men living in indolence and
+luxury, on the spoil and labours of the public.
+
+The letter has since appeared in the "Argus," and probably in other
+papers.(1) It will justify itself; but if any thing on that account
+hath been wanting, your conduct at the meeting would have supplied
+the omission. You there sufficiently proved that I was not mistaken in
+supposing that the meeting was called to give an indirect aid to the
+prosecution commenced against a work, the reputation of which will long
+outlive the memory of the Pensioner I am writing to.
+
+When meetings, Sir, are called by the partisans of the Court, to
+preclude the nation the right of investigating systems and principles
+of government, and of exposing errors and defects, under the pretence
+of prosecuting an individual--it furnishes an additional motive for
+maintaining sacred that violated right.
+
+The principles and arguments contained in the work in question, _Rights
+OF Man_, have stood, and they now stand, and I believe ever will stand,
+unrefuted. They are stated in a fair and open manner to the world, and
+they have already received the public approbation of a greater number of
+men, of the best of characters, of every denomination of religion, and
+of every rank in life, (placemen and pensioners excepted,) than all the
+juries that shall meet in England, for ten years to come, will amount
+to; and I have, moreover, good reasons for believing that the approvers
+of that work, as well private as public, are already more numerous than
+all the present electors throughout the nation.
+
+     1 The _Argus_ was edited by Sampson Perry, soon after
+     prosecuted.--_Editor_.
+
+Not less than forty pamphlets, intended as answers thereto, have
+appeared, and as suddenly disappeared: scarcely are the titles of any of
+them remembered, notwithstanding their endeavours have been aided by all
+the daily abuse which the Court and Ministerial newspapers, for almost
+a year and a half, could bestow, both upon the work and the author;
+and now that every attempt to refute, and every abuse has failed,
+the invention of calling the work a libel has been hit upon, and the
+discomfited party has pusillanimously retreated to prosecution and a
+jury, and obscure addresses.
+
+As I well know that a long letter from me will not be agreeable to you,
+I will relieve your uneasiness by making it as short as I conveniently
+can; and will conclude it with taking up the subject at that part where
+Mr. HORNE TOOKE was interrupted from going on when at the meeting.
+
+That gentleman was stating, that the situation you stood in rendered it
+improper for you to appear _actively_ in a scene in which your private
+interest was too visible: that you were a Bedchamber Lord at a thousand
+a year, and a Pensioner at three thousand pounds a year more--and here
+he was stopped by the little but noisy circle you had collected round.
+Permit me then, Sir, to add an explanation to his words, for the benefit
+of your neighbours, and with which, and a few observations, I shall
+close my letter.
+
+When it was reported in the English Newspapers, some short time since,
+that the empress of RUSSIA had given to one of her minions a large tract
+of country and several thousands of peasants as property, it very justly
+provoked indignation and abhorrence in those who heard it. But if we
+compare the mode practised in England, with that which appears to us so
+abhorrent in Russia, it will be found to amount to very near the same
+thing;--for example--
+
+As the whole of the revenue in England is drawn by taxes from the
+pockets of the people, those things called gifts and grants (of which
+kind are all pensions and sinecure places) are paid out of that stock.
+The difference, therefore, between the two modes is, that in England the
+money is collected by the government, and then given to the Pensioner,
+and in Russia he is left to collect it for himself. The smallest sum
+which the poorest family in a county so near London as Surry, can be
+supposed to pay annually, of taxes, is not less than five pounds; and as
+your sinecure of one thousand, and pension of three thousand per annum,
+are made up of taxes paid by eight hundred such poor families, it comes
+to the same thing as if the eight hundred families had been given to
+you, as in Russia, and you had collected the money on your account.
+Were you to say that you are not quartered particularly on the people
+of Surrey, but on the nation at large, the objection would amount to
+nothing; for as there are more pensioners than counties, every one may
+be considered as quartered on that in which he lives.
+
+What honour or happiness you can derive from being the PRINCIPAL PAUPER
+of the neighbourhood, and occasioning a greater expence than the poor,
+the aged, and the infirm, for ten miles round you, I leave you to enjoy.
+At the same time I can see that it is no wonder you should be strenuous
+in suppressing a book which strikes at the root of those abuses. No
+wonder that you should be against reforms, against the freedom of the
+press, and the right of investigation. To you, and to others of your
+description, these are dreadful things; but you should also consider,
+that the motives which prompt you to _act_, ought, by reflection, to
+compel you to be _silent_.
+
+Having now returned your compliment, and sufficiently tired your
+patience, I take my leave of you, with mentioning, that if you had not
+prevented my former letter from being read at the meeting, you would not
+have had the trouble of reading this; and also with requesting, that
+the next time you call me "_a common enemy_," you would add, "_of us
+sinecure placemen and pensioners_."
+
+I am, Sir, &c. &c. &c.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+VII. TO THE SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX,
+
+OR, THE GENTLEMAN WHO SHALL PRESIDE AT THE MEETING TO BE HELD AT LEWES,
+JULY 4.
+
+London, June 30, 1792.
+
+Sir,
+
+I have seen in the Lewes newspapers, of June 25, an advertisement,
+signed by sundry persons, and also by the sheriff, for holding a meeting
+at the Town-hall of Lewes, for the purpose, as the advertisement states,
+of presenting an Address on the late Proclamation for suppressing
+writings, books, &c. And as I conceive that a certain publication
+of mine, entitled "Rights of Man," in which, among other things, the
+enormous increase of taxes, placemen, and pensioners, is shewn to be
+unnecessary and oppressive, _is the particular writing alluded to in
+the said publication_; I request the Sheriff, or in his absence, whoever
+shall preside at the meeting, or any other person, to read this letter
+publicly to the company who shall assemble in consequence of that
+advertisement.
+
+Gentlemen--It is now upwards of eighteen years since I was a resident
+inhabitant of the town of Lewes. My situation among you, as an officer
+of the revenue, for more than six years, enabled me to see into the
+numerous and various distresses which the weight of taxes even at that
+time of day occasioned; and feeling, as I then did, and as it is natural
+for me to do, for the hard condition of others, it is with pleasure I
+can declare, and every person then under my survey, and now living, can
+witness, the exceeding candour, and even tenderness, with which that
+part of the duty that fell to my share was executed. The name of _Thomas
+Paine_ is not to be found in the records of the Lewes' justices, in any
+one act of contention with, or severity of any kind whatever towards,
+the persons whom he surveyed, either in the town, or in the country;
+of this, _Mr. Fuller_ and _Mr. Shelley_, who will probably attend the
+meeting, can, if they please, give full testimony. It is, however, not
+in their power to contradict it.
+
+Having thus indulged myself in recollecting a place where I formerly
+had, and even now have, many friends, rich and poor, and most probably
+some enemies, I proceed to the more important purport of my letter.
+
+Since my departure from Lewes, fortune or providence has thrown me
+into a line of action, which my first setting out into life could not
+possibly have suggested to me.
+
+I have seen the fine and fertile country of America ravaged and deluged
+in blood, and the taxes of England enormously increased and multiplied
+in consequence thereof; and this, in a great measure, by the instigation
+of the same class of placemen, pensioners, and Court dependants, who
+are now promoting addresses throughout England, on the present
+_unintelligible_ Proclamation.
+
+I have also seen a system of Government rise up in that country, free
+from corruption, and now administered over an extent of territory ten
+times as large as England, _for less expence than the pensions alone in
+England amount to_; and under which more freedom is enjoyed, and a more
+happy state of society is preserved, and a more general prosperity is
+promoted, than under any other system of Government now existing in the
+world. Knowing, as I do, the things I now declare, I should reproach
+myself with want of duty and affection to mankind, were I not in the
+most undismayed manner to publish them, as it were, on the house-tops,
+for the good of others.
+
+Having thus glanced at what has passed within my knowledge, since my
+leaving Lewes, I come to the subject more immediately before the meeting
+now present.
+
+Mr. Edmund Burke, who, as I shall show, in a future publication, has
+lived a concealed pensioner, at the expence of the public, of fifteen
+hundred pounds per annum, for about ten years last past, published a
+book the winter before last, in open violation of the principles of
+liberty, and for which he was applauded by that class of men _who are
+now promoting addresses_. Soon after his book appeared, I published the
+first part of the work, entitled "Rights of Man," as an answer thereto,
+and had the happiness of receiving the public thanks of several bodies
+of men, and of numerous individuals of the best character, of every
+denomination in religion, and of every rank in life--placemen and
+pensioners excepted.
+
+In February last, I published the Second Part of "Rights of Man," and as
+it met with still greater approbation from the true friends of national
+freedom, and went deeper into the system of Government, and exposed the
+abuses of it, more than had been done in the First Part, it consequently
+excited an alarm among all those, who, insensible of the burthen of
+taxes which the general mass of the people sustain, are living in luxury
+and indolence, and hunting after Court preferments, sinecure places, and
+pensions, either for themselves, or for their family connections.
+
+I have shewn in that work, that the taxes may be reduced at least _six
+millions_, and even then the expences of Government in England would be
+twenty times greater than they are in the country I have already spoken
+of. That taxes may be entirely taken off from the poor, by remitting to
+them in money at the rate of between _three and four pounds_ per head
+per annum, for the education and bringing up of the children of the poor
+families, who are computed at one third of the whole nation, and _six
+pounds_ per annum to all poor persons, decayed tradesmen, or others,
+from the age of fifty until sixty, and _ten pounds_ per annum from after
+sixty. And that in consequence of this allowance, to be paid out of the
+surplus taxes, the poor-rates would become unnecessary, and that it is
+better to apply the surplus taxes to these beneficent purposes, _than to
+waste them on idle and profligate courtiers, placemen, and pensioners_.
+
+These, gentlemen, are a part of the plans and principles contained in
+the work, which this meeting is now called upon, in an indirect manner,
+to vote an address against, and brand with the name of _wicked and
+seditious_. But that the work may speak for itself, I request leave to
+close this part of my letter with an extract therefrom, in the following
+words: [_Quotation the same as that on p. 26_.]
+
+Gentlemen, I have now stated to you such matters as appear necessary
+to me to offer to the consideration of the meeting. I have no other
+interest in what I am doing, nor in writing you this letter, than the
+interest of the _heart_. I consider the proposed address as calculated
+to give countenance to placemen, pensioners, enormous taxation, and
+corruption. Many of you will recollect, that whilst I resided among you,
+there was not a man more firm and open in supporting the principles of
+liberty than myself, and I still pursue, and ever will, the same path.
+
+I have, Gentlemen, only one request to make, which is--that those
+who have called the meeting will speak _out_, and say, whether in
+the address they are going to present against publications, which the
+proclamation calls wicked, they mean the work entitled _Rights of Man_,
+or whether they do not?
+
+I am, Gentlemen, With sincere wishes for your happiness,
+
+Your friend and Servant,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.
+
+Calais, Sept. 15, 1792.
+
+Sir,
+
+I CONCEIVE it necessary to make you acquainted with the following
+circumstance:--The department of Calais having elected me a member
+of the National Convention of France, I set off from London the 13th
+instant, in company with Mr. Frost, of Spring Garden, and Mr. Audibert,
+one of the municipal officers of Calais, who brought me the certificate
+of my being elected. We had not arrived more, I believe, than five
+minutes at the York Hotel, at Dover, when the train of circumstances
+began that I am going to relate. We had taken our baggage out of the
+carriage, and put it into a room, into which we went. Mr. Frost, having
+occasion to go out, was stopped in the passage by a gentleman, who told
+him he must return into the room, which he did, and the gentleman came
+in with him, and shut the door. I had remained in the room; Mr. Audibert
+was gone to inquire when the packet was to sail. The gentleman then
+said, that he was collector of the customs, and had an information
+against us, and must examine our baggage for prohibited articles. He
+produced his commission as Collector. Mr. Frost demanded to see the
+information, which the Collector refused to shew, and continued to
+refuse, on every demand that we made. The Collector then called in
+several other officers, and began first to search our pockets. He took
+from Mr. Audibert, who was then returned into the room, every thing
+he found in his pocket, and laid it on the table. He then searched Mr.
+Frost in the same manner, (who, among other things, had the keys of the
+trunks in his pocket,) and then did the same by me. Mr. Frost wanting
+to go out, mentioned it, and was going towards the door; on which the
+Collector placed himself against the door, and said, nobody should
+depart the room. After the keys had been taken from Mr. Frost, (for I
+had given him the keys of my trunks beforehand, for the purpose of his
+attending the baggage to the customs, if it should be necessary,) the
+Collector asked us to open the trunks, presenting us the keys for
+that purpose; this we declined to do, unless he would produce his
+information, which he again refused. The Collector then opened the
+trunks himself, and took out every paper and letter, sealed or unsealed.
+On our remonstrating with him on the bad policy, as well as the
+illegality, of Custom-House officers seizing papers and letters, which
+were things that did not come under their cognizance, he replied, that
+the _Proclamation_ gave him the authority.
+
+Among the letters which he took out of my trunk, were two sealed
+letters, given into my charge by the American Minister in London
+[Pinckney], one of which was directed to the American Minister at Paris
+[Gouverneur Morris], the other to a private gentleman; a letter from the
+President of the United States, and a letter from the Secretary of
+State in America, both directed to me, and which I had received from
+the American Minister, now in London, and were private letters of
+friendship; a letter from the electoral body of the Department of
+Calais, containing the notification of my being elected to the National
+Convention; and a letter from the President of the National Assembly,
+informing me of my being also elected for the Department of the Oise.
+
+As we found that all remonstrances with the Collector, on the bad policy
+and illegality of seizing papers and letters, and retaining our persons
+by force, under the pretence of searching for prohibited articles,
+were vain, (for he justified himself on the Proclamation, and on the
+information which he refused to shew,) we contented ourselves with
+assuring him, that what he was then doing, he would afterwards have to
+answer for, and left it to himself to do as he pleased.
+
+It appeared to us that the Collector was acting under the direction of
+some other person or persons, then in the hotel, but whom he did not
+choose we should see, or who did not choose to be seen by us; for the
+Collector went several times out of the room for a few minutes, and was
+also called out several times.
+
+When the Collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of
+the trunks, he proceeded to read them. The first letter he took up for
+this purpose was that from the President of the United States to me.
+While he was doing this, I said, that it was very extraordinary that
+General Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to
+me, without its being subject to be read by a custom-house officer. Upon
+this Mr. Frost laid his hand over the face of the letter, and told the
+Collector that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost
+then, casting his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said,
+I will read this part to you, which he did; of which the following is an
+exact transcript--
+
+"And as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind
+than I do, it is the first wish of my heart, that the enlightened policy
+of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which
+they are entitled, and lay the foundation of happiness for future
+generations."(1)
+
+As all the other letters and papers lay then on the table, the Collector
+took them up, and was going out of the room with them. During the
+transactions already stated, I contented myself with observing what
+passed, and spoke but little; but on seeing the Collector going out of
+the room with the letters, I told him that the papers and letters then
+in his hand were either belonging to me, or entrusted to my charge, and
+that as I could not permit them to be out of my sight, I must insist on
+going with him.
+
+     1 Washington's letter is dated 6 May, 1792. See my _Life of
+     Paine_ vol. i., p. 302.--_Editor_.
+
+The Collector then made a list of the letters and papers, and went out
+of the room, giving the letters and papers into the charge of one of
+the officers. He returned in a short time, and, after some trifling
+conversation, chiefly about the Proclamation, told us, that he saw _the
+Proclamation was ill-founded_, and asked if we chose to put the letters
+and papers into the trunks ourselves, which, as we had not taken them
+out, we declined doing, and he did it himself, and returned us the keys.
+
+In stating to you these matters, I make no complaint against the
+personal conduct of the Collector, or of any of the officers. Their
+manner was as civil as such an extraordinary piece of business could
+admit of.
+
+My chief motive in writing to you on this subject is, that you may take
+measures for preventing the like in future, not only as it concerns
+private individuals, but in order to prevent a renewal of those
+unpleasant consequences that have heretofore arisen between nations from
+circumstances equally as insignificant. I mention this only for myself;
+but as the interruption extended to two other gentlemen, it is probable
+that they, as individuals, will take some more effectual mode for
+redress.
+
+I am, Sir, yours, &c.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+P. S. Among the papers seized, was a copy of the Attorney-General's
+information against me for publishing the _Rights of Man_, and a printed
+proof copy of my Letter to the Addressers, which will soon be published.
+
+
+
+
+IX. LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION.(1)
+
+COULD I have commanded circumstances with a wish, I know not of any that
+would have more generally promoted the progress of knowledge, than
+the late Proclamation, and the numerous rotten Borough and Corporation
+Addresses thereon. They have not only served as advertisements, but they
+have excited a spirit of enquiry into principles of government, and a
+desire to read the Rights OF Man, in places where that spirit and that
+work were before unknown.
+
+The people of England, wearied and stunned with parties, and alternately
+deceived by each, had almost resigned the prerogative of thinking. Even
+curiosity had expired, and a universal languor had spread itself over
+the land. The opposition was visibly no other than a contest for power,
+whilst the mass of the nation stood torpidly by as the prize.
+
+In this hopeless state of things, the First Part of the Rights of
+Man made its appearance. It had to combat with a strange mixture
+of prejudice and indifference; it stood exposed to every species of
+newspaper abuse; and besides this, it had to remove the obstructions
+which Mr. Burke's rude and outrageous attack on the French Revolution
+had artfully raised.
+
+     1 The Royal Proclamation issued against seditious writings,
+     May 21st. This pamphlet, the proof of which was read in
+     Paris (see P. S. of preceding chapter), was published at 1s.
+     6d. by H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, and Thomas Clio
+     Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street (where it was written),
+     both pub-Ushers being soon after prosecuted.--_Editor_.
+
+But how easy does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the
+spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the laboured productions of
+the brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally
+familiar to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight.
+No artificial light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of
+daylight; so neither can the best invented fiction fill the mind with
+every conviction which truth begets.
+
+To overthrow Mr. Burke's fallacious book was scarcely the operation of a
+day. Even the phalanx of Placemen and Pensioners, who had given the
+tone to the multitude, by clamouring forth his political fame, became
+suddenly silent; and the final event to himself has been, that as he
+rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
+
+It seldom happens, that the mind rests satisfied with the simple
+detection of error or imposition. Once put in motion, _that_ motion soon
+becomes accelerated; where it had intended to stop, it discovers new
+reasons to proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the
+limits it first prescribed to itself. Thus it has happened to the people
+of England. From a detection of Mr. Burke's incoherent rhapsodies, and
+distorted facts, they began an enquiry into the first principles of
+Government, whilst himself, like an object left far behind, became
+invisible and forgotten.
+
+Much as the First Part of RIGHTS OF Man impressed at its first
+appearance, the progressive mind soon discovered that it did not go far
+enough. It detected errors; it exposed absurdities; it shook the fabric
+of political superstition; it generated new ideas; but it did not
+produce a regular system of principles in the room of those which it
+displaced. And, if I may guess at the mind of the Government-party,
+they beheld it as an unexpected gale that would soon blow over, and
+they forbore, like sailors in threatening weather, to whistle, lest they
+should encrease(sic) the wind. Every thing, on their part, was profound
+silence.
+
+When the Second Part of _Rights of Man, combining Principle and
+Practice_, was preparing to appear, they affected, for a while, to act
+with the same policy as before; but finding their silence had no more
+influence in stifling the progress of the work, than it would have in
+stopping the progress of time, they changed their plan, and affected
+to treat it with clamorous contempt. The Speech-making Placemen and
+Pensioners, and Place-expectants, in both Houses of Parliament, the
+_Outs_ as well as the _Ins_, represented it as a silly, insignificant
+performance; as a work incapable of producing any effect; as something
+which they were sure the good sense of the people would either despise
+or indignantly spurn; but such was the overstrained awkwardness with
+which they harangued and encouraged each other, that in the very act of
+declaring their confidence they betrayed their fears.
+
+As most of the rotten Borough Addressers are obscured in holes and
+corners throughout the country, and to whom a newspaper arrives as
+rarely as an almanac, they most probably have not had the opportunity of
+knowing how far this part of the farce (the original prelude to all the
+Addresses) has been acted. For _their_ information, I will suspend a
+while the more serious purpose of my Letter, and entertain them with two
+or three Speeches in the last Session of Parliament, which will serve
+them for politics till Parliament meets again.
+
+You must know, Gentlemen, that the Second Part of the Rights of Man (the
+book against which you have been presenting Addresses, though it is
+most probable that many of you did not know it) was to have come out
+precisely at the time that Parliament last met. It happened not to be
+published till a few days after. But as it was very well known that the
+book would shortly appear, the parliamentary Orators entered into a very
+cordial coalition to cry the book down, and they began their attack by
+crying up the _blessings_ of the Constitution.
+
+Had it been your fate to have been there, you could not but have been
+moved at the heart-and-pocket-felt congratulations that passed between
+all the parties on this subject of _blessings_; for the _Outs_ enjoy
+places and pensions and sinecures as well as the _Ins_, and are as
+devoutly attached to the firm of the house.
+
+One of the most conspicuous of this motley groupe, is the Clerk of
+the Court of King's Bench, who calls himself Lord Stormont. He is also
+called Justice General of Scotland, and Keeper of Scoon, (an opposition
+man,) and he draws from the public for these nominal offices, not less,
+as I am informed, than six thousand pounds a-year, and he is, most
+probably, at the trouble of counting the money, and signing a receipt,
+to shew, perhaps, that he is qualified to be Clerk as well as Justice.
+He spoke as follows.(*)
+
+"That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
+constitution of these realms, I am confident. It is a subject upon which
+there can be no divided opinion in this house. I do not pretend to be
+deep read in the knowledge of the Constitution, but I take upon me to
+say, that from the extent of my knowledge [_for I have so many thousands
+a year for nothing_] it appears to me, that from the period of the
+Revolution, for it was by no means created then, it has been, both in
+theory and practice, the wisest system that ever was formed. I never was
+[he means he never was till now] a dealer in political cant. My life has
+not been occupied in that way, but the speculations of late years seem
+to have taken a turn, for which I cannot account. When I came into
+public life, the political pamphlets of the time, however they might be
+charged with the heat and violence of parties, were agreed in extolling
+the radical beauties of the Constitution itself. I remember [_he means
+he has forgotten_] a most captivating eulogium on its charms, by Lord
+Bolingbroke, where he recommends his readers to contemplate it in all
+its aspects, with the assurance that it would be found more estimable
+the more it was seen, I do not recollect his precise words, but I wish
+that men who write upon these subjects would take this for their
+model, instead of the political pamphlets, which, I am told, are now in
+circulation, [_such, I suppose, as Rights of Man,_] pamphlets which
+I have not read, and whose purport I know only by report, [_he means,
+perhaps, by the noise they make_.] This, however, I am sure, that
+pamphlets tending to unsettle the public reverence for the constitution,
+will have very little influence. They can do very little harm--for
+[_by the bye, he is no dealer in political cant_] the English are a
+sober-thinking people, and are more intelligent, more solid, more steady
+in their opinions, than any people I ever had the fortune to see. [_This
+is pretty well laid on, though, for a new beginner_.] But if there
+should ever come a time when the propagation of those doctrines should
+agitate the public mind, I am sure for every one of your Lordships, that
+no attack will be made on the constitution, from which it is truly said
+that we derive all our prosperity, without raising every one of
+your Lordships to its support It will then be found that there is no
+difference among us, but that we are all determined to stand or fall
+together, in defence of the inestimable system "--[_of places and
+pensions_].
+
+     * See his speech in the Morning Chronicle of Feb. 1.--
+     Author.
+
+After Stormont, on the opposition side, sat down, up rose another noble
+Lord, on the ministerial side, Grenville. This man ought to be as strong
+in the back as a mule, or the sire of a mule, or it would crack with
+the weight of places and offices. He rose, however, without feeling any
+incumbrance, full master of his weight; and thus said this noble Lord to
+t'other noble Lord!
+
+"The patriotic and manly manner in which the noble Lord has declared
+his sentiments on the subject of the constitution, demands my cordial
+approbation. The noble Viscount has proved, that however we may differ
+on particular measures, amidst all the jars and dissonance of parties,
+we are unanimous in principle. There is a perfect and entire consent
+[_between us_] in the love and maintenance of the constitution as
+happily subsisting. It must undoubtedly give your Lordships concern, to
+find that the time is come [heigh ho!] when there is propriety in the
+expressions of regard to [o! o! o!] the constitution. And that there are
+men [confound--their--po-li-tics] who disseminate doctrines hostile to
+the genuine spirit of our well balanced system, [_it is certainly well
+balanced when both sides hold places and pensions at once._] I agree
+with the noble viscount that they have not [I hope] much success. I am
+convinced that there is no danger to be apprehended from their attempts:
+but it is truly important and consolatory [to us placemen, I suppose] to
+know, that if ever there should arise a serious alarm, there is but one
+spirit, one sense, [_and that sense I presume is not common sense_]
+and one determination in this house "--which undoubtedly is to hold all
+their places and pensions as long as they can.
+
+Both those speeches (except the parts enclosed in parenthesis, which
+are added for the purpose of illustration) are copied verbatim from the
+Morning Chronicle of the 1st of February last; and when the situation of
+the speakers is considered, the one in the opposition, and the other
+in the ministry, and both of them living at the public expence, by
+sinecure, or nominal places and offices, it required a very unblushing
+front to be able to deliver them. Can those men seriously suppose
+any nation to be so completely blind as not to see through them? Can
+Stormont imagine that the political _cant_, with which he has larded his
+harangue, will conceal the craft? Does he not know that there never was
+a cover large enough to hide _itself_? Or can Grenvilie believe that his
+credit with the public encreases with his avarice for places?
+
+But, if these orators will accept a service from me, in return for the
+allusions they have made to the _Rights of Man_, I will make a speech
+for either of them to deliver, on the excellence of the constitution,
+that shall be as much to the purpose as what they have spoken, or as
+_Bolingbroke's captivating eulogium_. Here it is.
+
+"That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
+constitution, I am confident. It is, my Lords, incomprehensibly good:
+but the great wonder of all is the wisdom; for it is, my lords, _the
+wisest system that ever was formed_.
+
+"With respect to us, noble Lords, though the world does not know it, it
+is very well known to us, that we have more wisdom than we know what to
+do with; and what is still better, my Lords, we have it all in stock. I
+defy your Lordships to prove, that a tittle of it has been used yet; and
+if we but go on, my Lords, with the frugality we have hitherto done, we
+shall leave to our heirs and successors, when we go out of the world,
+the whole stock of wisdom, _untouched_, that we brought in; and there is
+no doubt but they will follow our example. This, my lords, is one of the
+blessed effects of the hereditary system; for we can never be without
+wisdom so long as we keep it by us, and do not use it.
+
+"But, my Lords, as all this wisdom is hereditary property, for the sole
+benefit of us and our heirs, and it is necessary that the people should
+know where to get a supply for their own use, the excellence of our
+constitution has provided us a King for this very purpose, and for _no
+other_. But, my Lords, I perceive a defect to which the constitution
+is subject, and which I propose to remedy by bringing a bill into
+Parliament for that purpose.
+
+"The constitution, my Lords, out of delicacy, I presume, has left it as
+a matter of _choice_ to a King whether he will be wise or not. It has
+not, I mean, my Lords, insisted upon it as a constitutional point,
+which, I conceive it ought to have done; for I pledge myself to your
+Lordships to prove, and that with _true patriotic boldness_, that he has
+_no choice in the matter_. This bill, my Lords, which I shall bring in,
+will be to declare, that the constitution, according to the true intent
+and meaning thereof, does not invest the King with this choice; our
+ancestors were too wise to do that; and, in order to prevent any doubts
+that might otherwise arise, I shall prepare, my Lords, an enacting
+clause, to fix the wisdom of Kings by act of Parliament; and then, my
+Lords our Constitution will be the wonder of the world!
+
+"Wisdom, my lords, is the one thing needful: but that there may be no
+mistake in this matter, and that we may proceed consistently with the
+true wisdom of the constitution, I shall propose a _certain criterion_
+whereby the _exact quantity of wisdom_ necessary for a King may be
+known. [Here should be a cry of, Hear him! Hear him!]
+
+"It is recorded, my Lords, in the Statutes at Large of the Jews, 'a
+book, my Lords, which I have not read, and whose purport I know only by
+report,' _but perhaps the bench of Bishops can recollect something about
+it_, that Saul gave the most convincing proofs of royal wisdom before
+he was made a King, _for he was sent to seek his father's asses and he
+could not find them_.
+
+"Here, my Lords, we have, most happily for us, a case in point: This
+precedent ought to be established by act of Parliament; and every King,
+before he be crowned, should be sent to seek his father's asses, and
+if he cannot find them, he shall be declared wise enough to be King,
+according to the true meaning of our excellent constitution. All,
+therefore, my Lords, that will be necessary to be done by the enacting
+clause that I shall bring in, will be to invest the King beforehand with
+the quantity of wisdom necessary for this purpose, lest he should happen
+not to possess it; and this, my Lords, we can do without making use of
+any of our own.
+
+"We further read, my Lords, in the said Statutes at Large of the
+Jews, that Samuel, who certainly was as mad as any Man-of-Rights-Man
+now-a-days (hear him! hear him!), was highly displeased, and even
+exasperated, at the proposal of the Jews to have a King, and he warned
+them against it with all that assurance and impudence of which he was
+master. I have been, my Lords, at the trouble of going all the way to
+_Paternoster-row_, to procure an extract from the printed copy. I was
+told that I should meet with it there, or in _Amen-eorner_, for I was
+then going, my Lords, to rummage for it among the curiosities of the
+_Antiquarian Society_. I will read the extracts to your Lordships, to
+shew how little Samuel knew of the matter.
+
+"The extract, my Lords, is from 1 Sam. chap. viii.:
+
+"'And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked
+of him a King.
+
+"'And he said, this will be the manner of the King that shall reign
+over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for
+his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his
+chariots.
+
+"'And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over
+fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest,
+and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
+
+"'And he will take your daughters to be confectionnes, and to be cooks,
+and to be bakers.
+
+"'And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your
+olive-yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
+
+"'And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and
+give to his officers and to his servants.
+
+"'And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your
+goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
+
+"'And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his
+servants.
+
+"'And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your King, which ye shall
+have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.'
+
+"Now, my Lords, what can we think of this man Samuel? Is there a word of
+truth, or any thing like truth, in all that he has said? He pretended
+to be a prophet, or a wise man, but has not the event proved him to be a
+fool, or an incendiary? Look around, my Lords, and see if any thing has
+happened that he pretended to foretell! Has not the most profound peace
+reigned throughout the world ever since Kings were in fashion? Are not,
+for example, the present Kings of Europe the most peaceable of mankind,
+and the Empress of Russia the very milk of human kindness? It would not
+be worth having Kings, my Lords, if it were not that they never go to
+war.
+
+"If we look at home, my Lords, do we not see the same things here as are
+seen every where else? Are our young men taken to be horsemen, or foot
+soldiers, any more than in Germany or in Prussia, or in Hanover or in
+Hesse? Are not our sailors as safe at land as at sea? Are they ever
+dragged from their homes, like oxen to the slaughter-house, to serve on
+board ships of war? When they return from the perils of a long voyage
+with the merchandize of distant countries, does not every man sit down
+under his own vine and his own fig-tree, in perfect security? Is the
+tenth of our seed taken by tax-gatherers, or is any part of it given to
+the King's servants? In short, _is not everything as free from taxes as
+the light from Heaven!_ (1)
+
+"Ah! my Lords, do we not see the blessed effect of having Kings in every
+thing we look at? Is not the G. R., or the broad R., stampt upon every
+thing? Even the shoes, the gloves, and the hats that we wear,
+are enriched with the impression, and all our candles blaze a
+burnt-offering.
+
+"Besides these blessings, my Lords, that cover us from the sole of the
+foot to the crown of the head, do we not see a race of youths growing
+up to be Kings, who are the very paragons of virtue? There is not one of
+them, my Lords, but might be trusted with untold gold, as safely as
+the other. Are they not '_more sober, intelligent, more solid, more
+steady_,' and withal, _more learned, more wise, more every thing, than
+any youths we '_ever had the fortune to see.' Ah! my Lords, they are a
+_hopeful family_.
+
+"The blessed prospect of succession, which the nation has at this moment
+before its eyes, is a most undeniable proof of the excellence of our
+constitution, and of the blessed hereditary system; for nothing, my
+Lords, but a constitution founded on the truest and purest wisdom
+could admit such heaven-born and heaven-taught characters into the
+government.--Permit me now, my Lords, to recal your attention to the
+libellous chapter I have just read about Kings. I mention this, my
+Lords, because it is my intention to move for a bill to be brought into
+parliament to expunge that chapter from the Bible, and that the Lord
+Chancellor, with the assistance of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
+York, and the Duke of Clarence, be requested to write a chapter in the
+room of it; and that Mr. Burke do see that it be truly canonical, and
+faithfully inserted."--Finis.
+
+     1 Allusion to the window-tax.--Editor,
+
+If the Clerk of the Court of King's Bench should chuse to be the orator
+of this luminous encomium on the constitution, I hope he will get
+it well by heart before he attempts to deliver it, and not have
+to apologize to Parliament, as he did in the case of Bolingbroke's
+encomium, for forgetting his lesson; and, with this admonition I leave
+him.
+
+Having thus informed the Addressers of what passed at the meeting of
+Parliament, I return to take up the subject at the part where I broke
+off in order to introduce the preceding speeches.
+
+I was then stating, that the first policy of the Government party was
+silence, and the next, clamorous contempt; but as people generally
+choose to read and judge for themselves, the work still went on, and the
+affectation of contempt, like the silence that preceded it, passed for
+nothing.
+
+Thus foiled in their second scheme, their evil genius, like a
+will-with-a-wisp, led them to a third; when all at once, as if it had
+been unfolded to them by a fortune-teller, or Mr. Dundas had discovered
+it by second sight, this once harmless, insignificant book, without
+undergoing the alteration of a single letter, became a most wicked and
+dangerous Libel. The whole Cabinet, like a ship's crew, became alarmed;
+all hands were piped upon deck, as if a conspiracy of elements was
+forming around them, and out came the Proclamation and the Prosecution;
+and Addresses supplied the place of prayers.
+
+Ye silly swains, thought I to myself, why do you torment yourselves
+thus? The Rights OF Man is a book calmly and rationally written; why
+then are you so disturbed? Did you see how little or how suspicious such
+conduct makes you appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty,
+would hush you into prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments,
+contained in that work, are placed before the eyes of the nation, and
+of the world, in a fair, open, and manly manner, and nothing more is
+necessary than to refute them. Do this, and the whole is done; but if ye
+cannot, so neither can ye suppress the reading, nor convict the author;
+for the Law, in the opinion of all good men, would convict itself, that
+should condemn what cannot be refuted.
+
+Having now shown the Addressers the several stages of the business,
+prior to their being called upon, like Cæsar in the Tyber, crying to
+Cassius, "_help, Cassius, or I sink_!" I next come to remark on the
+policy of the Government, in promoting Addresses; on the consequences
+naturally resulting therefrom; and on the conduct of the persons
+concerned.
+
+With respect to the policy, it evidently carries with it every mark
+and feature of disguised fear. And it will hereafter be placed in the
+history of extraordinary things, that a pamphlet should be produced by
+an individual, unconnected with any sect or party, and not seeking to
+make any, and almost a stranger in the land, that should compleatly
+frighten a whole Government, and that in the midst of its most
+triumphant security. Such a circumstance cannot fail to prove, that
+either the pamphlet has irresistible powers, or the Government very
+extraordinary defects, or both. The nation exhibits no signs of fear at
+the Rights of Man; why then should the Government, unless the interest
+of the two are really opposite to each other, and the secret is
+beginning to be known? That there are two distinct classes of men in
+the nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon
+the taxes, is evident at first sight; and when taxation is carried to
+excess, it cannot fail to disunite those two, and something of this kind
+is now beginning to appear.
+
+It is also curious to observe, amidst all the fume and bustle about
+Proclamations and Addresses, kept up by a few noisy and interested men,
+how little the mass of the nation seem to care about either. They
+appear to me, by the indifference they shew, not to believe a word the
+Proclamation contains; and as to the Addresses, they travel to London
+with the silence of a funeral, and having announced their arrival in
+the Gazette, are deposited with the ashes of their predecessors, and Mr.
+Dundas writes their _hic facet_.
+
+One of the best effects which the Proclamation, and its echo the
+Addresses have had, has been that of exciting and spreading curiosity;
+and it requires only a single reflection to discover, that the object
+of all curiosity is knowledge. When the mass of the nation saw that
+Placemen, Pensioners, and Borough-mongers, were the persons that stood
+forward to promote Addresses, it could not fail to create suspicions
+that the public good was not their object; that the character of the
+books, or writings, to which such persons obscurely alluded, not daring
+to mention them, was directly contrary to what they described them to
+be, and that it was necessary that every man, for his own satisfaction,
+should exercise his proper right, and read and judge for himself.
+
+But how will the persons who have been induced to read the _Rights of
+Man_, by the clamour that has been raised against it, be surprized
+to find, that, instead of a wicked, inflammatory work, instead of a
+licencious and profligate performance, it abounds with principles of
+government that are uncontrovertible--with arguments which every reader
+will feel, are unanswerable--with plans for the increase of commerce
+and manufactures--for the extinction of war--for the education of
+the children of the poor--for the comfortable support of the aged and
+decayed persons of both sexes--for the relief of the army and navy, and,
+in short, for the promotion of every thing that can benefit the moral,
+civil, and political condition of Man.
+
+Why, then, some calm observer will ask, why is the work prosecuted, if
+these be the goodly matters it contains? I will tell thee, friend;
+it contains also a plan for the reduction of Taxes, for lessening the
+immense expences of Government, for abolishing sinecure Places and
+Pensions; and it proposes applying the redundant taxes, that shall
+be saved by these reforms, to the purposes mentioned in the former
+paragraph, instead of applying them to the support of idle and
+profligate Placemen and Pensioners.
+
+Is it, then, any wonder that Placemen and Pensioners, and the whole
+train of Court expectants, should become the promoters of Addresses,
+Proclamations, and Prosecutions? or, is it any wonder that Corporations
+and rotten Boroughs, which are attacked and exposed, both in the First
+and Second Parts of _Rights of Man_, as unjust monopolies and public
+nuisances, should join in the cavalcade? Yet these are the sources from
+which Addresses have sprung. Had not such persons come forward to
+oppose the _Rights of Man_, I should have doubted the efficacy of my
+own writings: but those opposers have now proved to me that the blow was
+well directed, and they have done it justice by confessing the smart.
+
+The principal deception in this business of Addresses has been, that the
+promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They
+have assumed to pass themselves upon the public as a part of the Public,
+bearing a share of the burthen of Taxes, and acting for the public good;
+whereas, they are in general that part of it that adds to the public
+burthen, by living on the produce of the public taxes. They are to the
+public what the locusts are to the tree: the burthen would be less, and
+the prosperity would be greater, if they were shaken off.
+
+"I do not come here," said Onslow, at the Surry County meeting, "as the
+Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as
+a plain country gentleman." The fact is, that he came there as what he
+was, and as no other, and consequently he came as one of the beings I
+have been describing. If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by
+the public, as a pauper is by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the
+title; and the same description will suit the Duke of Richmond, who led
+the Address at the Sussex meeting. He also may set up for a gentleman.
+
+As to the meeting in the next adjoining county (Kent), it was a scene of
+disgrace. About two hundred persons met, when a small part of them drew
+privately away from the rest, and voted an Address: the consequence of
+which was that they got together by the ears, and produced a riot in the
+very act of producing an Address to prevent Riots.
+
+That the Proclamation and the Addresses have failed of their intended
+effect, may be collected from the silence which the Government party
+itself observes. The number of addresses has been weekly retailed in the
+Gazette; but the number of Addressers has been concealed. Several of the
+Addresses have been voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a
+considerable number of them by not more than thirty. The whole number of
+Addresses presented at the time of writing this letter is three hundred
+and twenty, (rotten Boroughs and Corporations included) and even
+admitting, on an average, one hundred Addressers to each address, the
+whole number of addressers would be but thirty-two thousand, and nearly
+three months have been taken up in procuring this number. That the
+success of the Proclamation has been less than the success of the work
+it was intended to discourage, is a matter within my own knowledge; for
+a greater number of the cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of
+the Rights OF Man has been sold in the space only of one month, than the
+whole number of Addressers (admitting them to be thirty-two thousand)
+have amounted to in three months.
+
+It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a Nation, "_thou
+shalt not read_." This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done under
+the old Government of France; but it served to procure the downfall of
+the latter, and is subverting that of the former; and it will have
+the same tendency in all countries; because _thought_ by some means
+or other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though
+reading may.
+
+If _Rights of Man_ were a book that deserved the vile description which
+the promoters of the Address have given of it, why did not these men
+prove their charge, and satisfy the people, by producing it, and reading
+it publicly? This most certainly ought to have been done, and would also
+have been done, had they believed it would have answered their purpose.
+But the fact is, that the book contains truths which those time-servers
+dreaded to hear, and dreaded that the people should know; and it is now
+following up the,
+
+
+ADDRESS TO ADDRESSERS.
+
+Addresses in every part of the nation, and convicting them of
+falsehoods.
+
+Among the unwarrantable proceedings to which the Proclamation has given
+rise, the meetings of the Justices in several of the towns and counties
+ought to be noticed.. Those men have assumed to re-act the farce of
+General Warrants, and to suppress, by their own authority, whatever
+publications they please. This is an attempt at power equalled only by
+the conduct of the minor despots of the most despotic governments in
+Europe, and yet those Justices affect to call England a Free Country.
+But even this, perhaps, like the scheme for garrisoning the country
+by building military barracks, is necessary to awaken the country to a
+sense of its Rights, and, as such, it will have a good effect.
+
+Another part of the conduct of such Justices has been, that of
+threatening to take away the licences from taverns and public-houses,
+where the inhabitants of the neighbourhood associated to read and
+discuss the principles of Government, and to inform each other thereon.
+This, again, is similar to what is doing in Spain and Russia; and the
+reflection which it cannot fail to suggest is, that the principles and
+conduct of any Government must be bad, when that Government dreads and
+startles at discussion, and seeks security by a prevention of knowledge.
+
+If the Government, or the Constitution, or by whatever name it be
+called, be that miracle of perfection which the Proclamation and
+the Addresses have trumpeted it forth to be, it ought to have defied
+discussion and investigation, instead of dreading it. Whereas, every
+attempt it makes, either by Proclamation, Prosecution, or Address, to
+suppress investigation, is a confession that it feels itself unable to
+bear it. It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from enquiry. All
+the numerous pamphlets, and all the newspaper falsehood and abuse, that
+have been published against the Rights of Man, have fallen before it
+like pointless arrows; and, in like manner, would any work have fallen
+before the Constitution, had the Constitution, as it is called, been
+founded on as good political principles as those on which the Rights OF
+Man is written.
+
+It is a good Constitution for courtiers, placemen, pensioners,
+borough-holders, and the leaders of Parties, and these are the men that
+have been the active leaders of Addresses; but it is a bad Constitution
+for at least ninety-nine parts of the nation out of an hundred, and this
+truth is every day making its way.
+
+It is bad, first, because it entails upon the nation the unnecessary
+expence of supporting three forms and systems of Government at once,
+namely, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratical.
+
+Secondly, because it is impossible to unite such a discordant
+composition by any other means than perpetual corruption; and therefore
+the corruption so loudly and so universally complained of, is no
+other than the natural consequence of such an unnatural compound of
+Governments; and in this consists that excellence which the numerous
+herd of placemen and pensioners so loudly extol, and which at the same
+time, occasions that enormous load of taxes under which the rest of the
+nation groans.
+
+Among the mass of national delusions calculated to amuse and impose upon
+the multitude, the standing one has been that of flattering them into
+taxes, by calling the Government (or as they please to express it,
+the English Constitution) "_the envy and the admiration of the world_"
+Scarcely an Address has been voted in which some of the speakers have
+not uttered this hackneyed nonsensical falsehood.
+
+Two Revolutions have taken place, those of America and France; and both
+of them have rejected the unnatural compounded system of the English
+government. America has declared against all hereditary Government, and
+established the representative system of Government only. France has
+entirely rejected the aristocratical part, and is now discovering
+the absurdity of the monarchical, and is approaching fast to the
+representative system. On what ground then, do these men continue a
+declaration, respecting what they call the _envy and admiration of other
+nations_, which the voluntary practice of such nations, as have had the
+opportunity of establishing Government, contradicts and falsifies. Will
+such men never confine themselves to truth? Will they be for ever the
+deceivers of the people?
+
+But I will go further, and shew, that were Government now to begin in
+England, the people could not be brought to establish the same system
+they now submit to.
+
+In speaking on this subject (or on any other) _on the pure ground
+of principle_, antiquity and precedent cease to be authority, and
+hoary-headed error loses its effect. The reasonableness and propriety of
+things must be examined abstractedly from custom and usage; and, in this
+point of view, the right which grows into practice to-day is as much a
+right, and as old in principle and theory, as if it had the customary
+sanction of a thousand ages. Principles have no connection with time,
+nor characters with names.
+
+To say that the Government of this country is composed of King, Lords,
+and Commons, is the mere phraseology of custom. It is composed of
+men; and whoever the men be to whom the Government of any country is
+intrusted, they ought to be the best and wisest that can be found, and
+if they are not so, they are not fit for the station. A man derives
+no more excellence from the change of a name, or calling him King, or
+calling him Lord, than I should do by changing my name from Thomas to
+George, or from Paine to Guelph. I should not be a whit more able to
+write a book because my name was altered; neither would any man, now
+called a King or a lord, have a whit the more sense than he now has,
+were he to call himself Thomas Paine.
+
+As to the word "Commons," applied as it is in England, it is a term
+of degradation and reproach, and ought to be abolished. It is a term
+unknown in free countries.
+
+But to the point.--Let us suppose that Government was now to begin in
+England, and that the plan of Government, offered to the nation for its
+approbation or rejection, consisted of the following parts:
+
+First--That some one individual should be taken from all the rest of the
+nation, and to whom all the rest should swear obedience, and never be
+permitted to sit down in his presence, and that they should give to him
+one million sterling a year.--That the nation should never after have
+power or authority to make laws but with his express consent; and that
+his sons and his sons' sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or
+bad, fit or unfit, should have the same power, and also the same money
+annually paid to them for ever.
+
+Secondly--That there should be two houses of Legislators to assist in
+making laws, one of which should, in the first instance, be entirely
+appointed by the aforesaid person, and that their sons and their sons'
+sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should for
+ever after be hereditary Legislators.
+
+Thirdly--That the other house should be chosen in the same manner as the
+house now called the House of Commons is chosen, and should be subject
+to the controul of the two aforesaid hereditary Powers in all things.
+
+It would be impossible to cram such a farrago of imposition and
+absurdity down the throat of this or any other nation that was capable
+of reasoning upon its rights and its interest.
+
+They would ask, in the first place, on what ground of right, or on what
+principle, such irrational and preposterous distinctions could, or ought
+to be made; and what pretensions any man could have, or what services he
+could render, to entitle him to a million a year? They would go
+farther, and revolt at the idea of consigning their children, and their
+children's children, to the domination of persons hereafter to be born,
+who might, for any thing they could foresee, turn out to be knaves or
+fools; and they would finally discover, that the project of hereditary
+Governors and Legislators _was a treasonable usurpation over the rights
+of posterity_. Not only the calm dictates of reason, and the force of
+natural affection, but the integrity of manly pride, would impel men to
+spurn such proposals.
+
+From the grosser absurdities of such a scheme, they would extend their
+examination to the practical defects--They would soon see that it would
+end in tyranny accomplished by fraud. That in the operation of it, it
+would be two to one against them, because the two parts that were to be
+made hereditary would form a common interest, and stick to each other;
+and that themselves and representatives would become no better
+than hewers of wood and drawers of water for the other parts of the
+Government.--Yet call one of those powers King, the other Lords, and the
+third the Commons, and it gives the model of what is called the English
+Government.
+
+I have asserted, and have shewn, both in the First and Second Parts
+of _Rights of Man_, that there is not such a thing as an English
+Constitution, and that the people have yet a Constitution to form. _A
+Constitution is a thing antecedent to a Government; it is the act of a
+people creating a Government and giving it powers, and defining the
+limits and exercise of the powers so given_. But whenever did the people
+of England, acting in their original constituent character, by a
+delegation elected for that express purpose, declare and say, "We, the
+people of this land, do constitute and appoint this to be our system and
+form of Government." The Government has assumed to constitute itself,
+but it never was constituted by the people, in whom alone the right of
+constituting resides.
+
+I will here recite the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the
+United States of America. I have shewn in the Second Part of _Rights
+of Man_, the manner by which the Constitution was formed and afterwards
+ratified; and to which I refer the reader. The preamble is in the
+following words:
+
+"We, the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
+union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for
+common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
+of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
+constitution for the United States of America."
+
+Then follow the several articles which appoint the manner in which the
+several component parts of the Government, legislative and executive,
+shall be elected, and the period of their duration, and the powers they
+shall have: also, the manner by which future additions, alterations,
+or amendments, shall be made to the constitution. Consequently, every
+improvement that can be made in the science of government, follows in
+that country as a matter of order. It is only in Governments founded on
+assumption and false principles, that reasoning upon, and investigating
+systems and principles of Government, and shewing their several
+excellencies and defects, are termed libellous and seditious. These
+terms were made part of the charge brought against Locke, Hampden, and
+Sydney, and will continue to be brought against all good men, so long as
+bad government shall continue.
+
+The Government of this country has been ostentatiously giving challenges
+for more than an hundred years past, upon what it called its own
+excellence and perfection. Scarcely a King's Speech, or a Parliamentary
+Speech, has been uttered, in which this glove has not been thrown, till
+the world has been insulted with their challenges. But it now appears
+that all this was vapour and vain boasting, or that it was intended to
+conceal abuses and defects, and hush the people into taxes. I have taken
+the challenge up, and in behalf of the public have shewn, in a fair,
+open, and candid manner, both the radical and practical defects of the
+system; when, lo! those champions of the Civil List have fled away,
+and sent the Attorney-General to deny the challenge, by turning the
+acceptance of it into an attack, and defending their Places and Pensions
+by a prosecution.
+
+I will here drop this part of the subject, and state a few particulars
+respecting the prosecution now pending, by which the Addressers will
+see that they have been used as tools to the prosecuting party and their
+dependents. The case is as follows:
+
+The original edition of the First and Second Parts of the Rights of
+Man, having been expensively printed, (in the modern stile of printing
+pamphlets, that they might be bound up with Mr. Burke's Reflections on
+the French Revolution,) the high price(1) precluded the generality
+of people from purchasing; and many applications were made to me from
+various parts of the country to print the work in a cheaper manner. The
+people of Sheffield requested leave to print two thousand copies for
+themselves, with which request I immediately complied. The same request
+came to me from Rotherham, from Leicester, from Chester, from several
+towns in Scotland; and Mr. James Mackintosh, author of _Vindico
+Gallico_, brought me a request from Warwickshire, for leave to print ten
+thousand copies in that county. I had already sent a cheap edition to
+Scotland; and finding the applications increase, I concluded that the
+best method of complying therewith, would be to print a very numerous
+edition in London, under my own direction, by which means the work would
+be more perfect, and the price be reduced lower than it could be by
+_printing_ small editions in the country, of only a few thousands each.
+
+     1 Half  a crown.--_Editor_.
+
+The cheap edition of the first part was begun about the first of last
+April, and from that moment, and not before, I expected a prosecution,
+and the event has proved that I was not mistaken. I had then occasion to
+write to Mr. Thomas Walker of Manchester, and after informing him of my
+intention of giving up the work for the purpose of general information,
+I informed him of what I apprehended would be the consequence; that
+while the work was at a price that precluded an extensive circulation,
+the government party, not able to controvert the plans, arguments,
+and principles it contained, had chosen to remain silent; but that I
+expected they would make an attempt to deprive the mass of the nation,
+and especially the poor, of the right of reading, by the pretence of
+prosecuting either the Author or the Publisher, or both. They chose to
+begin with the Publisher.
+
+Nearly a month, however, passed, before I had any information given me
+of their intentions. I was then at Bromley, in Kent, upon which I came
+immediately to town, (May 14) and went to Mr. Jordan, the publisher of
+the original edition. He had that evening been served with a summons to
+appear at the Court of King's Bench, on the Monday following, but for
+what purpose was not stated. Supposing it to be on account of the
+work, I appointed a meeting with him on the next morning, which was
+accordingly had, when I provided an attorney, and took the ex-pence of
+the defence on myself. But finding afterwards that he absented himself
+from the attorney employed, and had engaged another, and that he had
+been closeted with the Solicitors of the Treasury, I left him to follow
+his own choice, and he chose to plead Guilty. This he might do if he
+pleased; and I make no objection against him for it. I believe that his
+idea by the word _Guilty_, was no other than declaring himself to be the
+publisher, without any regard to the merits or demerits of the work; for
+were it to be construed otherwise, it would amount to the absurdity of
+converting a publisher into a Jury, and his confession into a verdict
+upon the work itself. This would be the highest possible refinement upon
+packing of Juries.
+
+On the 21st of May, they commenced their prosecution against me, as the
+author, by leaving a summons at my lodgings in town, to appear at the
+Court of King's Bench on the 8th of June following; and on the same day,
+(May 21,) _they issued also their Proclamation_. Thus the Court of St.
+James and the Court of King's Bench, were playing into each other's
+hands at the same instant of time, and the farce of Addresses brought up
+the rear; and this mode of proceeding is called by the prostituted name
+of Law. Such a thundering rapidity, after a ministerial dormancy of
+almost eighteen months, can be attributed to no other cause than their
+having gained information of the forwardness of the cheap Edition, and
+the dread they felt at the progressive increase of political knowledge.
+
+I was strongly advised by several gentlemen, as well those in the
+practice of the law, as others, to prefer a bill of indictment
+against the publisher of the Proclamation, as a publication tending to
+influence, or rather to dictate the verdict of a Jury on the issue of a
+matter then pending; but it appeared to me much better to avail myself
+of the opportunity which such a precedent justified me in using, by
+meeting the Proclamation and the Addressers on their own ground, and
+publicly defending the Work which had been thus unwarrantably attacked
+and traduced.--And conscious as I now am, that the Work entitled
+Rights OF Man so far from being, as has been maliciously or erroneously
+represented, a false, wicked, and seditious libel, is a work abounding
+with unanswerable truths, with principles of the purest morality and
+benevolence, and with arguments not to be controverted--Conscious, I
+say, of these things, and having no object in view but the happiness
+of mankind, I have now put the matter to the best proof in my power, by
+giving to the public a cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of
+that Work. Let every man read and judge for himself, not only of the
+merits and demerits of the Work, but of the matters therein contained,
+which relate to his own interest and happiness.
+
+If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species
+of hereditary government--to lessen the oppression of taxes--to propose
+plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support
+of the aged and distressed--to endeavour to conciliate nations to each
+other--to extirpate the horrid practice of war--to promote universal
+peace, civilization, and commerce--and to break the chains of political
+superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank;--if these
+things be libellous, let me live the life of a Libeller, and let the
+name of Libeller be engraved on my tomb.
+
+Of all the weak and ill-judged measures which fear, ignorance,
+or arrogance could suggest, the Proclamation, and the project for
+Addresses, are two of the worst. They served to advertise the work which
+the promoters of those measures wished to keep unknown; and in doing
+this they offered violence to the judgment of the people, by calling on
+them to condemn what they forbad them to know, and put the strength
+of their party to that hazardous issue that prudence would have
+avoided.--The County Meeting for Middlesex was attended by only
+one hundred and eighteen Addressers. They, no doubt, expected, that
+thousands would flock to their standard, and clamor against the _Rights
+of Man_. But the case most probably is, that men in all countries, are
+not so blind to their Rights and their Interest as Governments believe.
+
+Having thus shewn the extraordinary manner in which the Government party
+commenced their attack, I proceed to offer a few observations on the
+prosecution, and on the mode of trial by Special Jury.
+
+In the first place, I have written a book; and if it cannot be refuted,
+it cannot be condemned. But I do not consider the prosecution as
+particularly levelled against me, but against the general right, or
+the right of every man, of investigating systems and principles of
+government, and shewing their several excellencies or defects. If the
+press be free only to flatter Government, as Mr. Burke has done, and to
+cry up and extol what certain Court sycophants are pleased to call a
+"glorious Constitution," and not free to examine into its errors or
+abuses, or whether a Constitution really exist or not, such freedom is
+no other than that of Spain, Turkey, or Russia; and a Jury in this case,
+would not be a Jury to try, but an Inquisition to condemn.
+
+I have asserted, and by fair and open argument maintained, the right
+of every nation at all times to establish such a system and form of
+government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest,
+and happiness; and to change and alter it as it sees occasion. Will any
+Jury deny to the Nation this right? If they do, they are traitors, and
+their verdict would be null and void. And if they admit the right, the
+means must be admitted also; for it would be the highest absurdity to
+say, that the right existed, but the means did not. The question then
+is, What are the means by which the possession and exercise of
+this National Right are to be secured? The answer will be, that
+of maintaining, inviolably, the right of free investigation; for
+investigation always serves to detect error, and to bring forth truth.
+
+I have, as an individual, given my opinion upon what I believe to be
+not only the best, but the true system of Government, which is the
+representative system, and I have given reasons for that opinion.
+
+First, Because in the representative system, no office of very
+extraordinary power, or extravagant pay, is attached to any individual;
+and consequently there is nothing to excite those national contentions
+and civil wars with which countries under monarchical governments are
+frequently convulsed, and of which the History of England exhibits such
+numerous instances.
+
+Secondly, Because the representative is a system of Government always
+in maturity; whereas monarchical government fluctuates through all the
+stages, from non-age to dotage.
+
+Thirdly, Because the representative system admits of none but men
+properly qualified into the Government, or removes them if they prove
+to be otherwise. Whereas, in the hereditary system, a nation may be
+encumbered with a knave or an ideot for a whole life-time, and not be
+benefited by a successor.
+
+Fourthly, Because there does not exist a right to establish hereditary
+government, or, in other words, hereditary successors, because
+hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and the
+case always is, that those who are to live afterwards have the same
+right to establish government for themselves, as the people had who
+lived before them; and, therefore, all laws attempting to establish
+hereditary government, are founded on assumption and political fiction.
+
+If these positions be truths, and I challenge any man to prove the
+contrary; if they tend to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to free
+them from error, oppression, and political superstition, which are the
+objects I have in view in publishing them, that Jury would commit an act
+of injustice to their country, and to me, if not an act of perjury, that
+should call them _false, wicked, and malicious_.
+
+Dragonetti, in his treatise "On Virtues and Rewards," has a paragraph
+worthy of being recorded in every country in the world--"The science
+(says he,) of the politician, consists, in, fixing the true point of
+happiness and freedom. Those men deserve the gratitude of ages who
+should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of
+_individual happiness_ with the least _national expence_." But if Juries
+are to be made use of to prohibit enquiry, to suppress truth, and
+to stop the progress of knowledge, this boasted palladium of liberty
+becomes the most successful instrument of tyranny.
+
+Among the arts practised at the Bar, and from the Bench, to impose
+upon the understanding of a Jury, and to obtain a Verdict where
+the consciences of men could not otherwise consent, one of the most
+successful has been that of calling _truth a libel_, and of insinuating
+that the words "_falsely, wickedly, and maliciously_," though they
+are made the formidable and high sounding part of the charge, are not
+matters of consideration with a Jury. For what purpose, then, are they
+retained, unless it be for that of imposition and wilful defamation?
+
+I cannot conceive a greater violation of order, nor a more abominable
+insult upon morality, and upon human understanding, than to see a man
+sitting in the judgment seat, affecting by an antiquated foppery of
+dress to impress the audience with awe; then causing witnesses and Jury
+to be sworn to truth and justice, himself having officially sworn the
+same; then causing to be read a prosecution against a man charging him
+with having _wickedly and maliciously written and published a certain
+false, wicked, and seditious book_; and having gone through all this
+with a shew of solemnity, as if he saw the eye of the Almighty darting
+through the roof of the building like a ray of light, turn, in an
+instant, the whole into a farce, and, in order to obtain a verdict
+that could not otherwise be obtained, tell the Jury that the charge of
+_falsely, wickedly, and seditiously_, meant nothing; that _truth_ was
+out of the question; and that whether the person accused spoke truth or
+falsehood, or intended _virtuously or wickedly_, was the same thing;
+and finally conclude the wretched inquisitorial scene, by stating
+some antiquated precedent, equally as abominable as that which is then
+acting, or giving some opinion of his own, and _falsely calling the one
+and the other--Law_. It was, most probably, to such a Judge as this,
+that the most solemn of all reproofs was given--"_The Lord will smite
+thee, thou whitened wall_."
+
+I now proceed to offer some remarks on what is called a Special Jury. As
+to what is called a Special Verdict, I shall make no other remark upon
+it, than that it is in reality _not_ a verdict. It is an attempt on the
+part of the Jury to delegate, or of the Bench to obtain, the exercise of
+that right, which is committed to the Jury only.
+
+With respect to the Special Juries, I shall state such matters as I have
+been able to collect, for I do not find any uniform opinion concerning
+the mode of appointing them.
+
+In the first place, this mode of trial is but of modern invention, and
+the origin of it, as I am told, is as follows:
+
+Formerly, when disputes arose between Merchants, and were brought before
+a Court, the case was that the nature of their commerce, and the method
+of keeping Merchants' accounts not being sufficiently understood by
+persons out of their own line, it became necessary to depart from the
+common mode of appointing Juries, and to select such persons for a Jury
+whose _practical knowledge_ would enable them to decide upon the case.
+From this introduction, Special Juries became more general; but some
+doubts having arisen as to their legality, an act was passed in the 3d
+of George II. to establish them as legal, and also to extend them to all
+cases, not only between individuals, but in cases where _the Government
+itself should be the prosecutor_. This most probably gave rise to the
+suspicion so generally entertained of packing a Jury; because, by this
+act, when the Crown, as it is called, is the Prosecutor, the Master of
+the Crown-office, who holds his office under the Crown, is the person
+who either wholly nominates, or has great power in nominating the Jury,
+and therefore it has greatly the appearance of the prosecuting party
+selecting a Jury.
+
+The process is as follows:
+
+On motion being made in Court, by either the Plaintiff or Defendant, for
+a Special Jury, the Court grants it or not, at its own discretion.
+
+If it be granted, the Solicitor of the party that applied for the
+Special Jury, gives notice to the Solicitor of the adverse party, and a
+day and hour are appointed for them to meet at the office of the Master
+of the Crown-office. The Master of the Crown-office sends to the Sheriff
+or his deputy, who attends with the Sheriff's book of Freeholders. From
+this book, forty-eight names are taken, and a copy thereof given to each
+of the parties; and, on a future day, notice is again given, and the
+Solicitors meet a second time, and each strikes out twelve names. The
+list being thus reduced from forty-eight to twenty-four, the first
+twelve that appear in Court, and answer to their names, is the Special
+Jury for that cause. The first operation, that of taking the forty-eight
+names, is called nominating the Jury; and the reducing them to
+twenty-four is called striking the Jury.
+
+Having thus stated the general process, I come to particulars, and the
+first question will be, how are the forty-eight names, out of which the
+Jury is to be struck, obtained from the Sheriff's book? For herein lies
+the principal ground of suspicion, with respect to what is understood by
+packing of Juries.
+
+Either they must be taken by some rule agreed upon between the parties,
+or by some common rule known and established beforehand, or at the
+discretion of some person, who in such a case, ought to be perfectly
+disinterested in the issue, as well officially as otherwise.
+
+In the case of Merchants, and in all cases between individuals,
+the Master of the office, called the Crown-office, is officially an
+indifferent person, and as such may be a proper person to act between
+the parties, and present them with a list of forty-eight names, out of
+which each party is to strike twelve. But the case assumes an entire
+difference of character, when the Government itself is the Prosecutor.
+The Master of the Crown-office is then an officer holding his office
+under the Prosecutor; and it is therefore no wonder that the suspicion
+of packing Juries should, in such cases, have been so prevalent.
+
+This will apply with additional force, when the prosecution is commenced
+against the Author or Publisher of such Works as treat of reforms, and
+of the abolition of superfluous places and offices, &c, because in such
+cases every person holding an office, subject to that suspicion, becomes
+interested as a party; and the office, called the Crown-office, may,
+upon examination, be found to be of this description.
+
+I have heard it asserted, that the Master of the Crown-office is to open
+the sheriff's book as it were per hazard, and take thereout forty-eight
+_following_ names, to which the word Merchant or Esquire is affixed.
+The former of these are certainly proper, when the case is between
+Merchants, and it has reference to the origin of the custom, and to
+nothing else. As to the word Esquire, every man is an Esquire who
+pleases to call himself Esquire; and the sensible part of mankind are
+leaving it off. But the matter for enquiry is, whether there be any
+existing law to direct the mode by which the forty-eight names shall be
+taken, or whether the mode be merely that of custom which the office has
+created; or whether the selection of the forty-eight names be wholly
+at the discretion and choice of the Master of the Crown-office? One or
+other of the two latter appears to be the case, because the act already
+mentioned, of the 3d of George II. lays down no rule or mode, nor refers
+to any preceding law--but says only, that Special Juries shall hereafter
+be struck, "_in such manner as Special Juries have been and are usually
+struck_."
+
+This act appears to have been what is generally understood by a "_deep
+take in_." It was fitted to the spur of the moment in which it was
+passed, 3d of George II. when parties ran high, and it served to throw
+into the hands of Walpole, who was then Minister, the management of
+Juries in Crown prosecutions, by making the nomination of the
+forty-eight persons, from whom the Jury was to be struck, follow the
+precedent established by custom between individuals, and by this means
+slipt into practice with less suspicion. Now, the manner of obtaining
+Special Juries through the medium of an officer of the Government, such,
+for instance, as a Master of the Crown-office, may be impartial in the
+case of Merchants or other individuals, but it becomes highly improper
+and suspicious in cases where the Government itself is one of the
+parties. And it must, upon the whole, appear a strange inconsistency,
+that a Government should keep one officer to commence prosecutions, and
+another officer to nominate the forty-eight persons from whom the Jury
+is to be struck, both of whom are _officers of the Civil List_, and yet
+continue to call this by the pompous name of _the glorious "Right of
+trial by Jury!_"
+
+In the case of the King against Jordan, for publishing the Rights of
+Man, the Attorney-General moved for the appointment of a Special Jury,
+and the Master of the Crown-office nominated the forty-eight persons
+himself, and took them from such part of the Sheriff's book as he
+pleased.
+
+The trial did not come on, occasioned by Jordan withdrawing his plea;
+but if it had, it might have afforded an opportunity of discussing the
+subject of Special Juries; for though such discussion might have had
+no effect in the Court of King's Bench, it would, in the present
+disposition for enquiry, have had a considerable effect upon the
+Country; and, in all national reforms, this is the proper point to begin
+at. But a Country right, and it will soon put Government right. Among
+the improper things acted by the Government in the case of Special
+Juries, on their own motion, one has been that of treating the Jury with
+a dinner, and afterwards giving each Juryman two guineas, if a verdict
+be found for the prosecution, and only one if otherwise; and it has been
+long observed, that, in London and Westminster, there are persons who
+appear to make a trade of serving, by being so frequently seen upon
+Special Juries.
+
+Thus much for Special Juries. As to what is called a _Common Jury_, upon
+any Government prosecution against the Author or Publisher of RIGHTS OF
+Man, during the time of the _present Sheriffry_, I have one question
+to offer, which is, _whether the present Sheriffs of London, having
+publicly prejudged the case, by the part they have taken in procuring
+an Address from the county of Middlesex, (however diminutive and
+insignificant the number of Addressers were, being only one hundred and
+eighteen,) are eligible or proper persons to be intrusted with the power
+of returning a Jury to try the issue of any such prosecution_.
+
+But the whole matter appears, at least to me, to be worthy of a more
+extensive consideration than what relates to any Jury, whether Special
+or Common; for the case is, whether any part of a whole nation, locally
+selected as a Jury of twelve men always is, be competent to judge and
+determine for the whole nation, on any matter that relates to systems
+and principles of Government, and whether it be not applying the
+institution of Juries to purposes for which such institutions were not
+intended? For example,
+
+I have asserted, in the Work Rights of Man, that as every man in the
+nation pays taxes, so has every man a right to a share in government,
+and consequently that the people of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
+Leeds, Halifax, &c have the same right as those of London. Shall, then,
+twelve men, picked out between Temple-bar and Whitechapel, because the
+book happened to be first published there, decide upon the rights of
+the inhabitants of those towns, or of any other town or village in the
+nation?
+
+Having thus spoken of Juries, I come next to offer a few observations on
+the matter contained in the information or prosecution.
+
+The work, Rights of Man, consists of Part the First, and Fart the
+Second. The First Part the prosecutor has thought it most proper to let
+alone; and from the Second Fart he has selected a few short paragraphs,
+making in the whole not quite two pages of the same printing as in the
+cheap edition. Those paragraphs relate chiefly to certain facts, such
+as the revolution of 1688, and the coming of George the First, commonly
+called of the House of Hanover, or the House of Brunswick, or some such
+House. The arguments, plans and principles contained in the work, the
+prosecutor has not ventured to attack. They are beyond his reach.
+
+The Act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support
+of the prosecution, is the Act intituled, "An Act, declaring the rights
+and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown,"
+passed in the first year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by
+the name of the "Bill of Rights."
+
+I have called this bill "_A Bill of wrongs and of insult_." My reasons,
+and also my proofs, are as follow:
+
+The method and principle which this Bill takes for declaring rights and
+liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties; it is an
+assumed attempt to take them wholly from posterity--for the declaration
+in the said Bill is as follows:
+
+"The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in _the name of all
+the people_, most humbly and faithfully _submit themselves, their heirs,
+and posterity for ever_;" that is, to William and Mary his wife, their
+heirs and successors. This is a strange way of declaring rights and
+liberties. But the Parliament who made this declaration in the name, and
+on the part, of the people, had no authority from them for so doing;
+and with respect to _posterity for ever_, they had no right or authority
+whatever in the case. It was assumption and usurpation. I have reasoned
+very extensively against the principle of this Bill, in the first part
+of Rights of Man; the prosecutor has silently admitted that reasoning,
+and he now commences a prosecution on the authority of the Bill, after
+admitting the reasoning against it.
+
+It is also to be observed, that the declaration in this Bill, abject and
+irrational as it is, had no other intentional operation than against the
+family of the Stuarts, and their abettors. The idea did not then exist,
+that in the space of an hundred years, posterity might discover a
+different and much better system of government, and that every species
+of hereditary government might fall, as Popes and Monks had fallen
+before. This, I say, was not then thought of, and therefore the
+application of the Bill, in the present case, is a new, erroneous, and
+illegal application, and is the same as creating a new Bill _ex post
+facto_.
+
+It has ever been the craft of Courtiers, for the purpose of keeping
+up an expensive and enormous Civil List, and a mummery of useless and
+antiquated places and offices at the public expence, to be continually
+hanging England upon some individual or other, called _King_, though
+the man might not have capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and
+absurdity of this, is appearing more and more every day; and still those
+men continue to act as if no alteration in the public opinion had taken
+place. They hear each other's nonsense, and suppose the whole nation
+talks the same Gibberish.
+
+Let such men cry up the House of Orange, or the House of Brunswick,
+if they please. They would cry up any other house if it suited their
+purpose, and give as good reasons for it. But what is this house, or
+that house, or any other house to a nation? "_For a nation to be free,
+it is sufficient that she wills it_." Her freedom depends wholly upon
+herself, and not on any house, nor on any individual. I ask not in what
+light this cargo of foreign houses appears to others, but I will say in
+what light it appears to me--It was like the trees of the forest, saying
+unto the bramble, come thou and reign over us.
+
+Thus much for both their houses. I now come to speak of two other
+houses, which are also put into the information, and those are the
+House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Here, I suppose, the
+Attorney-General intends to prove me guilty of speaking either truth
+or falsehood; for, according to the modern interpretation of Libels, it
+does not signify which, and the only improvement necessary to shew the
+compleat absurdity of such doctrine, would be, to prosecute a man for
+uttering a most _false and wicked truth_.
+
+I will quote the part I am going to give, from the Office Copy, with the
+Attorney General's inuendoes, enclosed in parentheses as they stand in
+the information, and I hope that civil list officer will caution the
+Court not to laugh when he reads them, and also to take care not to
+laugh himself.
+
+The information states, that _Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious,
+seditious, and evil-disposed person, hath, with force and arms, and
+most wicked cunning, written and published a certain false, scandalous,
+malicious, and seditious libel; in one part thereof, to the tenor and
+effect following, that is to say_--
+
+"With respect to the two Houses, of which the English Parliament
+(_meaning the Parliament of this Kingdom_) is composed, they appear to
+be effectually influenced into one, and, as a Legislature, to have no
+temper of its own. The Minister, (_meaning the Minuter employed by the
+King of this Realm, in the administration of the Government thereof_)
+whoever he at any time may be, touches it (_meaning the two Houses of
+Parliament of this Kingdom_) as with an opium wand, and it (_meaning the
+two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom_) sleeps obedience."
+
+As I am not malicious enough to disturb their repose, though it be time
+they should awake, I leave the two Houses and the Attorney General, to
+the enjoyment of their dreams, and proceed to a new subject.
+
+The Gentlemen, to whom I shall next address myself, are those who have
+stiled themselves "_Friends of the people_," holding their meeting at
+the Freemasons' Tavern, London.(1)
+
+One of the principal Members of this Society, is Mr. Grey, who, I
+believe, is also one of the most independent Members in Parliament.(2)
+I collect this opinion from what Mr. Burke formerly mentioned to me,
+rather than from any knowledge of my own. The occasion was as follows:
+
+I was in England at the time the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound:
+and the day after the King's Message, as it is called, was sent to
+Parliament, I wrote a note to Mr. Burke, that upon the condition the
+French Revolution should not be a subject (for he was then writing
+the book I have since answered) I would call on him the next day, and
+mention some matters I was acquainted with, respecting the affair; for
+it appeared to me extraordinary that any body of men, calling themselves
+Representatives, should commit themselves so precipitately, or "sleep
+obedience," as Parliament was then doing, and run a nation into expence,
+and perhaps a war, without so much as enquiring into the case, or the
+subject, of both which I had some knowledge.
+
+     1 See in the Introduction to this volume Chauvelin's account
+     of this Association.--_Editor._
+
+     2  In the debate in the House of Commons, Dec. 14, 1793, Mr.
+     Grey is thus reported: "Mr. Grey was not a friend to
+     Paine's doctrines, but he was not to be deterred by a man
+     from acknowledging that he considered the rights of man as
+     the foundation of every government, and those who stood out
+     against those rights as conspirators against the people." He
+     severely denounced the Proclamation.   Parl. Hist., vol.
+     xxvi.--_Editor._
+
+When I saw Mr. Burke, and mentioned the circumstances to him, he
+particularly spoke of Mr. Grey, as the fittest Member to bring such
+matters forward; "for," said Mr. Burke, "_I am not the proper_ person to
+do it, as I am in a treaty with Mr. Pitt about Mr. Hastings's trial." I
+hope the Attorney General will allow, that Mr. Burke was then _sleeping
+his obedience_.--But to return to the Society------
+
+I cannot bring myself to believe, that the general motive of this
+Society is any thing more than that by which every former parliamentary
+opposition has been governed, and by which the present is sufficiently
+known. Failing in their pursuit of power and place within doors, they
+have now (and that in not a very mannerly manner) endeavoured to possess
+themselves of that ground out of doors, which, had it not been made
+by others, would not have been made by them. They appear to me to have
+watched, with more cunning than candour, the progress of a certain
+publication, and when they saw it had excited a spirit of enquiry,
+and was rapidly spreading, they stepped forward to profit by the
+opportunity, and Mr. Fox _then_ called it a Libel. In saying this, he
+libelled himself. Politicians of this cast, such, I mean, as those who
+trim between parties, and lye by for events, are to be found in every
+country, and it never yet happened that they did not do more harm
+than good. They embarrass business, fritter it to nothing, perplex the
+people, and the event to themselves generally is, that they go just
+far enough to make enemies of the few, without going far enough to make
+friends of the many.
+
+Whoever will read the declarations of this Society, of the 25th of April
+and 5th of May, will find a studied reserve upon all the points that are
+real abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of Government, of
+the abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and pensions, of
+the enormity of the Civil List, of the excess of taxes, nor of any one
+matter that substantially affects the nation; and from some conversation
+that has passed in that Society, it does not appear to me that it is
+any part of their plan to carry this class of reforms into practice. No
+Opposition Party ever did, when it gained possession.
+
+In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into contention
+with this Society; their incivility towards me is what I should expect
+from place-hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground
+they have advanced upon, and I wish that every individual among them may
+act in the same upright, uninfluenced, and public spirited manner that I
+have done. Whatever reforms may be obtained, and by whatever means,
+they will be for the benefit of others and not of me. I have no other
+interest in the cause than the interest of my heart. The part I have
+acted has been wholly that of a volunteer, unconnected with party; and
+when I quit, it shall be as honourably as I began.
+
+I consider the reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as
+proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out hackneyed subject, about which
+the nation is tired, and the parties are deceiving each other. It is not
+a subject that is cognizable before Parliament, because no Government
+has a right to alter itself, either in whole or in part. The right,
+and the exercise of that right, appertains to the nation only, and the
+proper means is by a national convention, elected for the purpose, by
+all the people. By this, the will of the nation, whether to reform or
+not, or what the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend, will be
+known, and it cannot be known by any other means. Partial addresses, or
+separate associations, are not testimonies of the general will.
+
+It is, however, certain, that the opinions of men, with respect
+to systems and principles of government, are changing fast in all
+countries. The alteration in England, within the space of a little more
+than a year, is far greater than could have been believed, and it is
+daily and hourly increasing. It moves along the country with the silence
+of thought. The enormous expence of Government has provoked men to
+think, by making them feel; and the Proclamation has served to increase
+jealousy and disgust. To prevent, therefore, those commotions which too
+often and too suddenly arise from suffocated discontents, it is best
+that the general WILL should have the full and free opportunity of being
+publicly ascertained and known.
+
+Wretched as the state of representation is in England, it is every
+day becoming worse, because the unrepresented parts of the nation are
+increasing in population and property, and the represented parts are
+decreasing. It is, therefore, no ill-grounded estimation to say, that
+as not one person in seven is represented, at least fourteen millions of
+taxes out of the seventeen millions, are paid by the unrepresented part;
+for although copyholds and leaseholds are assessed to the land-tax, the
+holders are unrepresented. Should then a general demur take place as to
+the obligation of paying taxes, on the ground of not being represented,
+it is not the Representatives of Rotten Boroughs, nor Special Juries,
+that can decide the question. This is one of the possible cases that
+ought to be foreseen, in order to prevent the inconveniencies that might
+arise to numerous individuals, by provoking it.
+
+I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the rights
+of people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either
+to withhold them, or to grant them. Government ought to be established
+on such principles of justice as to exclude the occasion of all such
+applications, for wherever they appear they are virtually accusations.
+
+I wish that Mr. Grey, since he has embarked in the business, would take
+the whole of it into consideration. He will then see that the right of
+reforming the state of the Representation does not reside in Parliament,
+and that the only motion he could consistently make would be, that
+Parliament should _recommend_ the election of a convention of the
+people, because all pay taxes. But whether Parliament recommended it
+or not, the right of the nation would neither be lessened nor increased
+thereby.
+
+As to Petitions from the unrepresented part, they ought not to be looked
+for. As well might it be expected that Manchester, Sheffield, &c.
+should petition the rotten Boroughs, as that they should petition the
+Representatives of those Boroughs. Those two towns alone pay far more
+taxes than all the rotten Boroughs put together, and it is scarcely to
+be expected they should pay their court either to the Boroughs, or the
+Borough-mongers.
+
+It ought also to be observed, that what is called Parliament, is
+composed of two houses that have always declared against the right of
+each other to interfere in any matter that related to the circumstances
+of either, particularly that of election. A reform, therefore, in the
+representation cannot, on the ground they have individually taken,
+become the subject of an act of Parliament, because such a mode would
+include the interference, against which the Commons on their part have
+protested; but must, as well on the ground of formality, as on that of
+right, proceed from a National Convention.
+
+Let Mr. Grey, or any other man, sit down and endeavour to put his
+thoughts together, for the purpose of drawing up an application to
+Parliament for a reform of Parliament, and he will soon convince himself
+of the folly of the attempt. He will find that he cannot get on; that
+he cannot make his thoughts join, so as to produce any effect; for,
+whatever formality of words he may use, they will unavoidably include
+two ideas directly opposed to each other; the one in setting forth
+the reasons, the other in praying for relief, and the two, when placed
+together, would stand thus: "_The Representation in Parliament is so
+very corrupt, that we can no longer confide in it,--and, therefore,
+confiding in the justice and wisdom of Parliament, we pray_," &c, &c.
+
+The heavy manner in which every former proposed application to
+Parliament has dragged, sufficiently shews, that though the nation might
+not exactly see the awkwardness of the measure, it could not clearly see
+its way, by those means. To this also may be added another remark, which
+is, that the worse Parliament is, the less will be the inclination to
+petition it. This indifference, viewed as it ought to be, is one of the
+strongest censures the public express. It is as if they were to say to
+them, "Ye are not worth reforming."
+
+Let any man examine the Court-Kalendar of Placemen in both Houses, and
+the manner in which the Civil List operates, and he will be at no loss
+to account for this indifference and want of confidence on one side, nor
+of the opposition to reforms on the other.
+
+Who would have supposed that Mr. Burke, holding forth as he formerly
+did against secret influence, and corrupt majorities, should become
+a concealed Pensioner? I will now state the case, not for the little
+purpose of exposing Mr. Burke, but to shew the inconsistency of any
+application to a body of men, more than half of whom, as far as the
+nation can at present know, may be in the same case with himself.
+
+Towards the end of Lord North's administration, Mr. Burke brought a bill
+into Parliament, generally known by Mr. Burke's Reform Bill; in which,
+among other things, it is enacted, "That no pension exceeding the sum
+of three hundred pounds a year, shall be granted to any one person,
+and that the whole amount of the pensions granted in one year shall not
+exceed six hundred pounds; a list of which, together with the _names
+of the persons_ to whom the same are granted, shall be laid before
+Parliament in twenty days after the beginning of each session, until
+the whole pension list shall be reduced to ninety thousand pounds." A
+provisory clause is afterwards added, "That it shall be lawful for the
+First Commissioner of the Treasury, to return into the Exchequer any
+pension or annuity, _without a name_, on his making oath that such
+pension or annuity is not directly or indirectly for the benefit, use,
+or behoof of any Member of the House of Commons."
+
+But soon after that administration ended, and the party Mr. Burke acted
+with came into power, it appears from the circumstances I am going to
+relate, that Mr. Burke became himself a Pensioner in disguise; in a
+similar manner as if a pension had been granted in the name of John
+Nokes, to be privately paid to and enjoyed by Tom Stiles. The name of
+Edmund Burke does not appear in the original transaction: but after the
+pension was obtained, Mr. Burke wanted to make the most of it at once,
+by selling or mortgaging it; and the gentleman in whose name the pension
+stands, applied to one of the public offices for that purpose. This
+unfortunately brought forth the name of _Edmund Burke_, as the real
+Pensioner of 1,500L. per annum.(1) When men trumpet forth what they call
+the blessings of the Constitution, it ought to be known what sort of
+blessings they allude to.
+
+As to the Civil List of a million a year, it is not to be supposed that
+any one man can eat, drink, or consume the whole upon himself. The case
+is, that above half the sum is annually apportioned among Courtiers,
+and Court Members, of both Houses, in places and offices, altogether
+insignificant and perfectly useless as to every purpose of civil,
+rational, and manly government. For instance,
+
+Of what use in the science and system of Government is what is called
+a Lord Chamberlain, a Master and Mistress of the Robes, a Master of the
+Horse, a Master of the Hawks, and one hundred other such things? Laws
+derive no additional force, nor additional excellence from such mummery.
+
+In the disbursements of the Civil List for the year 1786, (which may be
+seen in Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue,) are four separate
+charges for this mummery office of Chamberlain:
+
+[Illustration: table110]
+
+From this sample the rest may be guessed at. As to the Master of the
+Hawks, (there are no hawks kept, and if there were, it is no reason the
+people should pay the expence of feeding them, many of whom are put to
+it to get bread for their children,) his salary is 1,372L. 10s.
+
+     1 See note at the end of this chapter.--_Editor._
+
+And besides a list of items of this kind, sufficient to fill a quire of
+paper, the Pension lists alone are 107,404L. 13s. 4d. which is a greater
+sum than all the expences of the federal Government in America amount
+to.
+
+Among the items, there are two I had no expectation of finding, and
+which, in this day of enquiry after Civil List influence, ought to be
+exposed. The one is an annual payment of one thousand seven hundred
+pounds to the Dissenting Ministers in England, and the other, eight
+hundred pounds to those of Ireland.
+
+This is the fact; and the distribution, as I am informed, is as follows:
+The whole sum of 1,700L. is paid to one person, a Dissenting Minister
+in London, who divides it among eight others, and those eight among such
+others as they please. The Lay-body of the Dissenters, and many of their
+principal Ministers, have long considered it as dishonourable, and have
+endeavoured to prevent it, but still it continues to be secretly paid;
+and as the world has sometimes seen very fulsome Addresses from parts of
+that body, it may naturally be supposed that the receivers, like Bishops
+and other Court-Clergy, are not idle in promoting them. How the money is
+distributed in Ireland, I know not.
+
+To recount all the secret history of the Civil List, is not the
+intention of this publication. It is sufficient, in this place, to
+expose its general character, and the mass of influence it keeps alive.
+It will necessarily become one of the objects of reform; and therefore
+enough is said to shew that, under its operation, no application to
+Parliament can be expected to succeed, nor can consistently be made.
+
+Such reforms will not be promoted by the Party that is in possession of
+those places, nor by the Opposition who are waiting for them; and as
+to a _mere reform_, in the state of the Representation, the idea that
+another Parliament, differently elected from the present, but still a
+third component part of the same system, and subject to the controul of
+the other two parts, will abolish those abuses, is altogether delusion;
+because it is not only impracticable on the ground of formality, but is
+unwisely exposing another set of men to the same corruptions that have
+tainted the present.
+
+Were all the objects that require reform accomplishable by a mere reform
+in the state of the Representation, the persons who compose the present
+Parliament might, with rather more propriety, be asked to abolish all
+the abuses themselves, than be applied to as the more instruments of
+doing it by a future Parliament. If the virtue be wanting to abolish the
+abuse, it is also wanting to act as the means, and the nation must, from
+necessity, proceed by some other plan.
+
+Having thus endeavoured to shew what the abject condition of Parliament
+is, and the impropriety of going a second time over the same ground that
+has before miscarried, I come to the remaining part of the subject.
+
+There ought to be, in the constitution of every country, a mode of
+referring back, on any extraordinary occasion, to the sovereign and
+original constituent power, which is the nation itself. The right of
+altering any part of a Government, cannot, as already observed, reside
+in the Government, or that Government might make itself what it pleased.
+
+It ought also to be taken for granted, that though a nation may feel
+inconveniences, either in the excess of taxation, or in the mode of
+expenditure, or in any thing else, it may not at first be sufficiently
+assured in what part of its government the defect lies, or where the
+evil originates. It may be supposed to be in one part, and on enquiry
+be found to be in another; or partly in all. This obscurity is naturally
+interwoven with what are called mixed Governments.
+
+Be, however, the reform to be accomplished whatever it may, it can only
+follow in consequence of obtaining a full knowledge of all the causes
+that have rendered such reform necessary, and every thing short of this
+is guess-work or frivolous cunning. In this case, it cannot be supposed
+that any application to Parliament can bring forward this knowledge.
+That body is itself the supposed cause, or one of the supposed causes,
+of the abuses in question; and cannot be expected, and ought not to be
+asked, to give evidence against itself. The enquiry, therefore, which
+is of necessity the first step in the business, cannot be trusted to
+Parliament, but must be undertaken by a distinct body of men, separated
+from every suspicion of corruption or influence.
+
+Instead, then, of referring to rotten Boroughs and absurd Corporations
+for Addresses, or hawking them about the country to be signed by a few
+dependant tenants, the real and effectual mode would be to come at once
+to the point, and to ascertain the sense of the nation by electing a
+National Convention. By this method, as already observed, the general
+WILL, whether to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how
+far it shall extend, will be known, and it cannot be known by any other
+means. Such a body, empowered and supported by the nation, will have
+authority to demand information upon all matters necessary to be
+en-quired into; and no Minister, nor any person, will dare to refuse it.
+It will then be seen whether seventeen millions of taxes are necessary,
+and for what purposes they are expended. The concealed Pensioners will
+then be obliged to unmask; and the source of influence and corruption,
+if any such there be, will be laid open to the nation, not for the
+purpose of revenge, but of redress.
+
+By taking this public and national ground, all objections against
+partial Addresses on the one side, or private associations on the other,
+will be done away; THE NATION WILL DECLARE ITS OWN REFORMS; and the
+clamour about Party and Faction, or Ins or Outs, will become ridiculous.
+
+The plan and organization of a convention is easy in practice.
+
+In the first place, the number of inhabitants in every county can be
+sufficiently ascertained from the number of houses assessed to the
+House and Window-light tax in each county. This will give the rule
+for apportioning the number of Members to be elected to the National
+Convention in each of the counties.
+
+If the total number of inhabitants in England be seven millions, and the
+total number of Members to be elected to the Convention be one thousand,
+the number of members to be elected in a county containing one hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants will be _twenty-one_, and in like
+proportion for any other county.
+
+As the election of a Convention must, in order to ascertain the general
+sense of the nation, go on grounds different from that of Parliamentary
+elections, the mode that best promises this end will have no
+difficulties to combat with from absurd customs and pretended rights.
+The right of every man will be the same, whether he lives in a city,
+a town, or a village. The custom of attaching Rights to _place_, or
+in other words, to inanimate matter, instead of to the _person_,
+independently of place, is too absurd to make any part of a rational
+argument.
+
+As every man in the nation, of the age of twenty-one years, pays taxes,
+either out of the property he possesses, or out of the product of his
+labor, which is property to him; and is amenable in his own person to
+every law of the land; so has every one the same equal right to vote,
+and no one part of the nation, nor any individual, has a right to
+dispute the right of another. The man who should do this ought to
+forfeit the exercise of his _own_ right, for a term of years. This would
+render the punishment consistent with the crime.
+
+When a qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the
+firmest possible ground; because the qualification is such, as nothing
+but dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as
+a principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But
+when Rights are placed upon, or made dependant upon property, they are
+on the most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings,
+and fly away," and the rights fly with them; and thus they become lost
+to the man when they would be of most value.
+
+It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice, that exclusions
+have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first,
+changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The
+Representatives in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to
+do right, even in part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of
+all the wrongs it has endured. This case serves to shew, that the same
+conduct that best constitutes the safety of an individual, namely,
+a strict adherence to principle, constitutes also the safety of a
+Government, and that without it safety is but an empty name. When the
+rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example to the poor
+to plunder the rich of his property; for the rights of the one are
+as much property to him, as wealth is property to the other, and the
+_little all_ is as dear as the _much_. It is only by setting out on just
+principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will
+always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the
+poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be
+effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.
+
+Exclusions are not only unjust, but they frequently operate as
+injuriously to the party who monopolizes, as to those who are excluded.
+When men seek to exclude others from participating in the exercise of
+any right, they should, at least, be assured, that they can effectually
+perform the whole of the business they undertake; for, unless they do
+this, themselves will be losers by the monopoly. This has been the case
+with respect to the monopolized right of Election. The monopolizing
+party has not been able to keep the Parliamentary Representation, to
+whom the power of taxation was entrusted, in the state it ought to have
+been, and have thereby multiplied taxes upon themselves equally with
+those who were excluded.
+
+A great deal has been, and will continue to be said, about
+disqualifications, arising from the commission of offences; but were
+this subject urged to its full extent, it would disqualify a great
+number of the present Electors, together with their Representatives;
+for, of all offences, none are more destructive to the morals of Society
+than Bribery and Corruption. It is, therefore, civility to such persons
+to pass this subject over, and to give them a fair opportunity of
+recovering, or rather of creating character.
+
+Every thing, in the present mode of electioneering in England, is the
+reverse of what it ought to be, and the vulgarity that attends elections
+is no other than the natural consequence of inverting the order of the
+system.
+
+In the first place, the Candidate seeks the Elector, instead of the
+Elector seeking for a Representative; and the Electors are advertised as
+being in the interest of the Candidate, instead of the Candidate being
+in the interest of the Electors. The Candidate pays the Elector for his
+vote, instead of the Nation paying the Representative for his time and
+attendance on public business. The complaint for an undue election is
+brought by the Candidate, as if he, and not the Electors, were the party
+aggrieved; and he takes on himself, at any period of the election, to
+break it up, by declining, as if the election was in his right and not
+in theirs.
+
+The compact that was entered into at the last Westminster election
+between two of the candidates (Mr. Fox and Lord Hood,) was an indecent
+violation of the principles of election. The Candidates assumed, in
+their own persons, the rights of the Electors; for, it was only in the
+body of the Electors, and not at all in the Candidates, that the
+right of making any such compact, or compromise, could exist. But the
+principle of Election and Representation is so completely done away,
+in every stage thereof, that inconsistency has no longer the power of
+surprising.
+
+Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten Borough
+Addressers, nor from County-meetings, promoted by Placemen and
+Pensioners, can the sense of the nation be known. It is still corruption
+appealing to itself. But a Convention of a thousand persons, fairly
+elected, would bring every matter to a decided issue.
+
+As to County-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live
+near to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such
+occasions is but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The
+only consistent service which such meetings could render, would be that
+of apportioning the county into convenient districts, and when this is
+done, each district might, according to its number of inhabitants, elect
+its quota of County Members to the National Convention; and the vote of
+each Elector might be taken in the parish where he resided, either by
+ballot or by voice, as he should chuse to give it.
+
+A National Convention thus formed, would bring together the sense and
+opinions of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of
+Government, and the interest of the Public, and of the several parts
+thereof, would then undergo an ample and rational discussion, freed from
+the language of parliamentary disguise.
+
+But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to
+reason with, and endeavour to convince each other, upon any matter that
+respects their common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of
+opinions, when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every
+good citizen practically conforms.
+
+Mr. Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the
+opportunity of knowing,) that the abuses acted under the present system,
+are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
+whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
+effectual reform, has endeavoured to preclude the event, by sturdily
+denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
+bestow a thought upon this case.
+
+When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it
+necessarily implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from
+absolute necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because,
+without it, there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is,
+perhaps, the only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas
+upon other matters, can consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode
+of decision derived from the primary original right of every individual
+concerned; _that_ right being first individually exercised in giving an
+opinion, and whether that opinion shall arrange with the minority or the
+majority, is a subsequent accidental thing that neither increases nor
+diminishes the individual original right itself. Prior to any debate,
+enquiry, or investigation, it is not supposed to be known on which side
+the majority of opinions will fall, and therefore, whilst this mode of
+decision secures to every one the right of giving an opinion, it admits
+to every one an equal chance in the ultimate event.
+
+Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of
+a national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so
+marvellously loaded with con-fusion, as to appear at first sight, almost
+impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called Law.
+
+But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so
+much the subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the
+remedy will immediately present itself, but, with it, the means of
+preventing the like case hereafter.
+
+In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the
+absurdity of every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and
+the laws partake in a similar manner, of this assumption. They have no
+period of legal or natural expiration; and, however absurd in principle,
+or inconsistent in practice many of them have become, they still are,
+if not especially repealed, considered as making a part of the general
+mass. By this means the body of what is called Law, is spread over a
+space of _several hundred years_, comprehending laws obsolete, laws
+repugnant, laws ridiculous, and every other kind of laws forgotten
+or remembered; and what renders the case still worse, is, that the
+confusion multiplies with the progress of time. (*)
+
+To bring this misshapen monster into form, and to prevent its lapsing
+again into a wilderness state, only two things, and those very simple,
+are necessary.
+
+The first is, to review the whole mass of laws, and to bring forward
+such only as are worth retaining, and let all the rest drop; and to give
+to the laws so brought forward a new era, commencing from the time of
+such reform.
+
+     * In the time of Henry IV. a law was passed making it felony
+     "to multiply gold or silver, or to make use of the craft of
+     multiplication," and this law remained two hundred and
+     eighty-six years upon the statute books. It was then
+     repealed as being ridiculous and injurious.--_Author_.
+
+Secondly; that at the expiration of every twenty-one years (or any other
+stated period) a like review shall again be taken, and the laws, found
+proper to be retained, be again carried forward, commencing with that
+date, and the useless laws dropped and discontinued.
+
+By this means there can be no obsolete laws, and scarcely such a thing
+as laws standing in direct or equivocal contradiction to each other, and
+every person will know the period of time to which he is to look back
+for all the laws in being.
+
+It is worth remarking, that while every other branch of science is
+brought within some commodious system, and the study of it simplified by
+easy methods, the laws take the contrary course, and become every year
+more complicated, entangled, confused, and obscure.
+
+Among the paragraphs which the Attorney General has taken from the
+_Rights of Man_, and put into his information, one is, that where I
+have said, "that with respect to regular law, there is _scarcely such a
+thing_."
+
+As I do not know whether the Attorney-General means to show this
+expression to be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE,
+I shall make no other reply to him in this place, than by remarking,
+that if almanack-makers had not been more judicious than law-makers,
+the study of almanacks would by this time have become as abstruse as the
+study of the law, and we should hear of a library of almanacks as we
+now do of statutes; but by the simple operation of letting the obsolete
+matter drop, and carrying forward that only which is proper to be
+retained, all that is necessary to be known is found within the space of
+a year, and laws also admit of being kept within some given period.
+
+I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addresses, the
+Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to
+the Society, styling itself "The Friends of the People."
+
+That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than
+in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition,
+and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the
+experience of every day-proves to be true, as well in England as in
+other countries.
+
+As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of
+opinion, and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed
+its habits of thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed
+by before, the only true method to prevent popular discontents and
+commotions is, to throw, by every fair and rational argument, all the
+light upon the subject that can possibly be thrown; and at the same
+time, to open the means of collecting the general sense of the nation;
+and this cannot, as already observed, be done by any plan so effectually
+as a national convention. Here individual opinion will quiet itself by
+having a centre to rest upon.
+
+The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various
+descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me,
+either to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have
+acted with cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a
+new phrase, namely, that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the
+interpretation of which is, _a continuance of the abuses as long as
+possible, If we cannot hold all let us hold some_.
+
+Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that
+their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure
+places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid
+that their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out
+mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect
+of receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier
+frightened at the thoughts of his discharge, and three shillings per
+week during life? Is the sailor afraid that press-warrants will be
+abolished? The Society mistakes the fears of borough-mongers, placemen,
+and pensioners, for the fears of the people; and the _temperate and
+moderate Reform_ it talks of, is calculated to suit the condition of the
+former.
+
+Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political
+cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.--A thing, moderately good, is
+not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue;
+but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. But who is to be the
+judge of what is a temperate and moderate Reform? The Society is the
+representative of nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the
+nation commit this power to those in Parliament, in whose election they
+had no choice; and, therefore, even upon the ground the Society has
+taken, recourse must be had to a National Convention.
+
+The objection which Mr. Fox made to Mr. Grey's proposed Motion for a
+Parliamentary Reform was, that it contained no plan.--It certainly did
+not. But the plan very easily presents itself; and whilst it is fair
+for all parties, it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from
+private or popular discontent.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+     Editorial Note on Burke's Alleged Secret Pension.--By
+     reference to Vol. II., pp. 271, 360, of this work, it will
+     be seen that Paine mentions a report that Burke was a
+     "pensioner in a fictitious name." A letter of John Hall to a
+     relative in Leicester, (London, May 1,1792.) says: "You will
+     remember that there was a vote carried, about the conclusion
+     of the American war, that the influence of the Crown had
+     increased, was increasing, and should be diminished. Burke,
+     poor, and like a good angler, baited a hook with a bill to
+     bring into Parliament, that no pensions should be given
+     above £300 a year, but what should be publicly granted, and
+     for what, (I may not be quite particular.) To stop that he
+     took in another person's name £1500 a year for life, and
+     some time past he disposed of it, or sold his life out. He
+     has been very still since his declension from the Whigs, and
+     is not concerned in the slave-trade [question?] as I hear
+     of." This letter, now in possession of Hall's kinsman, Dr.
+     Dutton Steele of Philadelphia, contains an item not in
+     Paine's account, which may have been derived from it. Hall
+     was an English scientific engineer, and acquainted with
+     intelligent men in London. Paine was rather eager for a
+     judicial encounter with Burke, and probably expected to be
+     sued by him for libel, as he (Burke) had once sued the
+     "Public Advertiser" for a personal accusation. But Burke
+     remained quiet under this charge, and Paine, outlawed, and
+     in France, had no opportunity for summoning witnesses in its
+     support. The biographers of Burke have silently passed over
+     the accusation, and this might be fair enough were this
+     unconfirmed charge made against a public man of stainless
+     reputation in such matters. But though Burke escaped
+     parliamentary censure for official corruption (May 16, 1783,
+     by only 24 majority) he has never been vindicated. It was
+     admitted that he had restored to office a cashier and an
+     accountant dismissed for dishonesty by his predecessor.
+     ("Pari. Hist.," xxiii., pp. 801,902.) He escaped censure by
+     agreeing to suspend them.    One was proved guilty, the
+     other committed suicide. It was subsequently shown that one
+     of the men had been an agent of the Burkes in raising India
+     stock. (Dilke's "Papers of a Critic," ii-, p. 333--"Dict.
+     Nat Biography": art Burke.) Paine, in his letter to the
+     Attorney-General (IV. of this volume), charged that Burke
+     had been a "masked pensioner" ten years. The date
+     corresponds with a secret arrangement made in 1782 with
+     Burke for a virtual pension to his son, for life, and his
+     mother. Under date April 34 of that year, Burke, writing to
+     William Burke at Madras, reports his appointment as
+     Paymaster: "The office is to be 4000L. certain. Young
+     Richard [his son] is the deputy with a salary of 500L. The
+     office to be reformed according to the Bill. There is enough
+     emoluments. In decency it could not be more. Something
+     considerable is also to be secured for the life of young
+     Richard to be a security for him and his mother."("Mem. and
+     Cor. of Charles James Fox," i., p. 451.) It is thus certain
+     that the Rockingham Ministry were doing for the Paymaster
+     all they could "in decency," and that while posing as a
+     reformer in reducing the expenses of that office, he was
+     arranging for secret advantages to his family. It is said
+     that the arrangement failed by his loss of office, but while
+     so many of Burke's papers are withheld from the public (if
+     not destroyed), it cannot be certain that something was not
+     done of the kind charged by Paine. That Burke was not strict
+     in such matters is further shown by his efforts to secure
+     for his son the rich sinecure of the Clerkship of the Polls,
+     in which he failed. Burke was again Paymaster in 1783-4, and
+     this time remained long enough in office to repeat more
+     successfully his secret attempts to secure irregular
+     pensions for his family. On April 7, 1894, Messrs. Sotheby,
+     Wilkinson, and Hodge sold in London (Lot 404) a letter of
+     Burke (which I have not seen in print), dated July 16, 1795.
+     It was written to the Chairman of the Commission on Public
+     Accounts, who had required him to render his accounts for
+     the time he was in office as Paymaster-General, 1783-4.
+     Burke refuses to do so in four angry and quibbling pages,
+     and declares he will appeal to his country against the
+     demand if it is pressed. Why should Burke wish to conceal
+     his accounts? There certainly were suspicions around Burke,
+     and they may have caused Pitt to renounce his intention,
+     conveyed to Burke, August 30, 1794, of asking Parliament to
+     bestow on him a pension. "It is not exactly known," says one
+     of Burke's editors, "what induced Mr. Pitt to decline
+     bringing before Parliament a measure which he had himself
+     proposed without any solicitation whatever on the part of
+     Burke." (Burke's "Works," English Ed., 1852, ii., p. 252.)
+     The pensions were given without consultation with
+     Parliament--1200L. granted him by the King from the Civil
+     List, and 2500L. by Pitt in West Indian 41/2 per cents.
+     Burke, on taking his seat beside Pitt in the great Paine
+     Parliament (December, 1792), had protested that he had not
+     abandoned his party through expectation of a pension, but
+     the general belief of those with whom he had formerly acted
+     was that he had been promised a pension.   A couplet of the
+     time ran:
+
+     "A pension makes him change his plan,
+     And loudly damn the rights of man."
+
+     Writing in 1819, Cobbett says: "As my Lord Grenville
+     introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to
+     introduce the name of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to
+     shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in
+     the Pension List, and who is now named fifty million times
+     where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."--
+     _Editor._
+
+
+
+
+X. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Paris, Sept. 25, [1792.] First Year of the Republic.
+
+Fellow Citizens,
+
+I RECEIVE, with affectionate gratitude, the honour which the late
+National Assembly has conferred upon me, by adopting me a Citizen of
+France: and the additional honor of being elected by my fellow citizens
+a Member of the National Convention.(1) Happily impressed, as I am, by
+those testimonies of respect shown towards me as an individual, I feel
+my felicity increased by seeing the barrier broken down that divided
+patriotism by spots of earth, and limited citizenship to the soil, like
+vegetation.
+
+Had those honours been conferred in an hour of national tranquillity,
+they would have afforded no other means of shewing my affection, than
+to have accepted and enjoyed them; but they come accompanied with
+circumstances that give me the honourable opportunity of commencing
+my citizenship in the stormy hour of difficulties. I come not to enjoy
+repose. Convinced that the cause of France is the cause of all mankind,
+and that liberty cannot be purchased by a wish, I gladly share with you
+the dangers and honours necessary to success.
+
+     1 The National Assembly (August 26, 1792) conferred the
+     title of "French Citizen" on "Priestley, Payne, Bentham,
+     Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, Campe, Cormelle, Paw,
+     David Williams, Gorani, Anacharsis Clootz, Pestalozzi,
+     Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Klopstoc, Kosciusko,
+     Gilleers."--_Editor._. vol ni--7
+
+I am well aware that the moment of any great change, such as that
+accomplished on the 10th of August, is unavoidably the moment of
+terror and confusion. The mind, highly agitated by hope, suspicion and
+apprehension, continues without rest till the change be accomplished.
+But let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is
+certain. It is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this, or of
+that individual, that calls France and her armies into action. It is the
+great cause of all. It is the establishment of a new aera, that shall
+blot despotism from the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of
+peace and citizenship, the great Republic of Man.
+
+It has been my fate to have borne a share in the commencement and
+complete establishment of one Revolution, (I mean the Revolution of
+America.) The success and events of that Revolution are encouraging to
+us. The prosperity and happiness that have since flowed to that country,
+have amply rewarded her for all the hardships she endured and for all
+the dangers she encountered.
+
+The principles on which that Revolution began, have extended themselves
+to Europe; and an over-ruling Providence is regenerating the Old World
+by the principles of the New. The distance of America from all the
+other parts of the globe, did not admit of her carrying those principles
+beyond her own situation. It is to the peculiar honour of France, that
+she now raises the standard of liberty for all nations; and in fighting
+her own battles, contends for the rights of all mankind.
+
+The same spirit of fortitude that insured success to America; will
+insure it to France, for it is impossible to conquer a nation determined
+to be free! The military circumstances that now unite themselves to
+France, are such as the despots of the earth know nothing of, and can
+form no calculation upon. They know not what it is to fight against a
+nation; they have only been accustomed to make war upon each other,
+and they know, from system and practice, how to calculate the probable
+success of despot against despot; and here their knowledge and their
+experience end.
+
+But in a contest like the present a new and boundless variety of
+circumstances arise, that deranges all such customary calculations. When
+a whole nation acts as an army, the despot knows not the extent of the
+power against which he contends. New armies arise against him with the
+necessity of the moment. It is then that the difficulties of an invading
+enemy multiply, as in the former case they diminished; and he finds them
+at their height when he expected them to end.
+
+The only war that has any similarity of circumstances with the present,
+is the late revolution war in America. On her part, as it now is in
+France, it was a war of the whole nation:--there it was that the enemy,
+by beginning to conquer, put himself in a condition of being conquered.
+His first victories prepared him for defeat. He advanced till he could
+not retreat, and found himself in the midst of a nation of armies.
+
+Were it now to be proposed to the Austrians and Prussians, to escort
+them into the middle of France, and there leave them to make the most
+of such a situation, they would see too much into the dangers of it to
+accept the offer, and the same dangers would attend them, could they
+arrive there by any other means. Where, then, is the military policy of
+their attempting to obtain, by force, that which they would refuse by
+choice? But to reason with despots is throwing reason away. The best of
+arguments is a vigorous preparation.
+
+Man is ever a stranger to the ways by which Providence regulates the
+order of things. The interference of foreign despots may serve to
+introduce into their own enslaved countries the principles they come
+to oppose. Liberty and Equality are blessings too great to be the
+inheritance of France alone. It is an honour to her to be their first
+champion; and she may now say to her enemies, with a mighty voice, "O!
+ye Austrians, ye Prussians! ye who now turn your bayonets against us,
+it is for you, it is for all Europe, it is for all mankind, and not for
+France alone, that she raises the standard of Liberty and Equality!"
+
+The public cause has hitherto suffered from the contradictions contained
+in the Constitution of the Constituent Assembly. Those contradictions
+have served to divide the opinions of individuals at home, and to
+obscure the great principles of the Revolution in other countries. But
+when those contradictions shall be removed, and the Constitution be
+made conformable to the declaration of Rights; when the bagatelles of
+monarchy, royalty, regency, and hereditary succession, shall be exposed,
+with all their absurdities, a new ray of light will be thrown over the
+world, and the Revolution will derive new strength by being universally
+understood.
+
+The scene that now opens itself to France extends far beyond the
+boundaries of her own dominions. Every nation is becoming her colleague,
+and every court is become her enemy. It is now the cause of all nations,
+against the cause of all courts. The terror that despotism felt,
+clandestinely begot a confederation of despots; and their attack upon
+France was produced by their fears at home.
+
+In entering on this great scene, greater than any nation has yet been
+called to act in, let us say to the agitated mind, be calm. Let us
+punish by instructing, rather than by revenge. Let us begin the new
+ara by a greatness of friendship, and hail the approach of union and
+success.
+
+Your Fellow-Citizen,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XI. ANTI-MONARCHAL ESSAY. FOR THE USE OF NEW REPUBLICANS.(1)
+
+When we reach some great good, long desired, we begin by felicitating
+ourselves. We triumph, we give ourselves up to this joy without
+rendering to our minds any full account of our reasons for it. Then
+comes reflexion: we pass in review all the circumstances of our new
+happiness; we compare it in detail with our former condition; and
+each of these thoughts becomes a fresh enjoyment. This satisfaction,
+elucidated and well-considered, we now desire to procure for our
+readers.
+
+In seeing Royalty abolished and the Republic established, all France
+has resounded with unanimous plaudits.(2) Yet, Citizen President: In the
+name of the Deputies of the Department of the Pas de Calais, I have the
+honor of presenting to the Convention the felicitations of the General
+Council of the Commune of Calais on the abolition of Royalty.
+
+     1 Translated for this work from Le Patriote François,
+     "Samedi 20 Octobre, 1793, l'an Ier de la République.
+     Supplement au No. 1167," in the Bibliothèque Nationale,
+     Paris. It is headed, "Essai anti-monarchique, à l'usage des
+     nouveaux républicains, tiré de la Feuille Villageoise." I
+     have not found this Feuille, but no doubt Brissot, in
+     editing the essay for his journal (Le Patriote François)
+     abridged it, and in one instance Paine is mentioned by name.
+     Although in this essay Paine occasionally repeats sentences
+     used elsewhere, and naturally maintains his well-known
+     principles, the work has a peculiar interest as indicating
+     the temper and visions of the opening revolution.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Royalty was abolished by the National Convention on the
+     first day of its meeting, September 21, 1792, the
+     revolutionary Calendar beginning next day. Paine was chosen
+     by his fellow-deputies of Calais to congratulate the
+     Convention, and did so in a brief address, dated October 27,
+     which was loaned by M. Charavay to the Historical Exposition
+     of the Revolution at Paris, 1889, where I made the subjoined
+     translation: "folly of oar ancestor», who have placed us
+     under the necessity of treating gravely (solennellement) the
+     abolition of a phantom (fantôme).--Thomas Paine, Deputy."--
+     _Editor._
+
+Amid the joy inspired by this event, one cannot forbear some pain
+at the some who clap their hands do not sufficiently understand the
+condition they are leaving or that which they are assuming.
+
+The perjuries of Louis, the conspiracies of his court, the wildness of
+his worthy brothers, have filled every Frenchman with horror, and this
+race was dethroned in their hearts before its fall by legal decree. But
+it is little to throw down an idol; it is the pedestal that above all
+must be broken down; it is the regal office rather than the incumbent
+that is murderous. All do not realize this.
+
+Why is Royalty an absurd and detestable government? Why is the Republic
+a government accordant with nature and reason? At the present time a
+Frenchman should put himself in a position to answer these two questions
+clearly. For, in fine, if you are free and contented it is yet needful
+that you should know why.
+
+Let us first discuss Royalty or Monarchy. Although one often wishes to
+distinguish between these names, common usage gives them the same sense.
+
+
+ROYALTY.
+
+Bands of brigands unite to subvert a country, place it under tribute,
+seize its lands, enslave its inhabitants. The expedition completed, the
+chieftain of the robbers adopts the title of monarch or king. Such
+is the origin of Royalty among all tribes--huntsmen, agriculturists,
+shepherds.
+
+A second brigand arrives who finds it equitable to take away by force
+what was conquered by violence: he dispossesses the first; he chains
+him, kills him, reigns in his place. Ere long time effaces the memory
+of this origin; the successors rule under a new form; they do a little
+good, from policy; they corrupt all who surround them; they invent
+fictitious genealogies to make their families sacred (1); the knavery
+of priests comes to their aid; they take Religion for a life-guard:
+thenceforth tyranny becomes immortal, the usurped power becomes an
+hereditary right.
+
+     1 The Boston Investigator's compilation of Paine's Works
+     contains the following as  supposed to be Mr. Paine's:
+
+     "Royal Pedigree.--George the Third, who was the grandson of
+     George the Second, who was the son of George the First, who
+     was the son of the Princess Sophia, who was the cousin of
+     Anne, who was the sister of William and Mary, who were the
+     daughter and son-in-law of James the Second, who was the son
+     of Charles the First, who was a traitor to his country and
+     decapitated as such, who was the son of James the First, who
+     was the son of Mary, who was the sister of Edward the Sixth,
+     who was the son of Henry the Eighth, who was the coldblooded
+     murderer of his wives, and the promoter of the Protestant
+     religion, who was the son of Henry the Seventh, who slew
+     Richard the Third, who smothered his nephew Edward the
+     Fifth, who was the son of Edward the Fourth, who with bloody
+     Richard slew Henry the Sixth, who succeeded Henry the Fifth,
+     who was the son of Henry the Fourth, who was the cousin of
+     Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward the Third, who
+     was the son of Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward
+     the First, who was the son of Henry the Third, who was the
+     son of John, who was the brother of Richard the First, who
+     was the son of Henry the Second, who was the son of Matilda,
+     who was the daughter of Henry the First, who was the brother
+     of William Rufus, who was the son of William the Conqueror,
+     who was the son of a whore."--_Editor._
+
+The effects of Royalty have been entirely harmonious with its origin.
+What scenes of horror, what refinements of iniquity, do the annals of
+monarchies present! If we should paint human nature with a baseness of
+heart, an hypocrisy, from which all must recoil and humanity disavow, it
+would be the portraiture of kings, their ministers and courtiers.
+
+And why should it not be so? What should such a monstrosity produce
+but miseries and crimes? What is monarchy? It has been finely disguised,
+and the people familiarized with the odious title: in its real sense the
+word signifies _the absolute power of one single individual_, who may
+with impunity be stupid, treacherous, tyrannical, etc. Is it not an
+insult to nations to wish them so governed?
+
+Government by a single individual is vicious in itself, independently of
+the individual's vices. For however little a State, the prince is
+nearly always too small: where is the proportion between one man and the
+affairs of a whole nation?
+
+True, some men of genius have been seen under the diadem; but the evil
+is then even greater: the ambition of such a man impels him to conquest
+and despotism, his subjects soon have to lament his glory, and sing
+their _Te-deums_ while perishing with hunger. Such is the history of
+Louis XIV. and so many others.
+
+But if ordinary men in power repay you with incapacity or with princely
+vices? But those who come to the front in monarchies are frequently
+mere mean mischief-makers, commonplace knaves, petty intriguers, whose
+small wits, which in courts reach large places, serve only to display
+their ineptitude in public, as soon as they appear. (*) In short,
+monarchs do nothing, and their ministers do evil: this is the history of
+all monarchies.
+
+But if Royalty as such is baneful, as hereditary succession it is
+equally revolting and ridiculous. What! there exists among my kind a man
+who pretends that he is born to govern me? Whence derived he such right?
+From his and my ancestors, says he. But how could they transmit to him
+a right they did not possess? Man has no authority over generations
+unborn. I cannot be the slave of the dead, more than of the living.
+Suppose that instead of our posterity, it was we who should succeed
+ourselves: we should not to-day be able to despoil ourselves of the
+rights which would belong to us in our second life: for a stronger
+reason we cannot so despoil others.
+
+An hereditary crown! A transmissible throne! What a notion! With even a
+little reflexion, can any one tolerate it? Should human beings then be
+the property of certain individuals, born or to be born? Are we then to
+treat our descendants in advance as cattle, who shall have neither will
+nor rights of their own? To inherit government is to inherit peoples,
+as if they were herds. It is the basest, the most shameful fantasy that
+ever degraded mankind.
+
+It is wrong to reproach kings with their ferocity, their brutal
+indifference, the oppressions of the people, and molestations of
+citizens: it is hereditary succession that makes them what they are:
+this breeds monsters as a marsh breeds vipers.
+
+     * J. J. Rousseau, Contrat Social.--Author.
+
+The logic on which the hereditary prince rests is in effect this: I
+derive my power from my birth; I derive my birth from God; therefore
+I owe nothing to men. It is little that he has at hand a complacent
+minister, he continues to indulge, conscientiously, in all the crimes of
+tyranny. This has been seen in all times and countries.
+
+Tell me, then, what is there in common between him who is master of a
+people, and the people of whom he is master? Are these masters really of
+their kind? It is by sympathy that we are good and human: with whom does
+a monarch sympathize? When my neighbor suffers I pity, because I put
+myself in his place: a monarch pities none, because he has never been,
+can never be, in any other place than his own.
+
+A monarch is an egoist by nature, the _egoist par excellence_. A
+thousand traits show that this kind of men have no point of contact with
+the rest of humanity. There was demanded of Charles II. the punishment
+of Lauderdale, his favorite, who had infamously oppressed the Scotch.
+"Yes," said Charles coolly, "this man has done much against the Scotch,
+but I cannot see that he has done anything against my interests." Louis
+XIV. often said: "If I follow the wishes of the people, I cannot act the
+king." Even such phrases as "misfortunes of the State," "safety of the
+State," filled Louis XIV. with wrath.
+
+Could nature make a law which should assure virtue and wisdom invariably
+in these privileged castes that perpetuate themselves on thrones, there
+would be no objection to their hereditary succession. But let us pass
+Europe in review: all of its monarchs are the meanest of men. This one
+a tyrant, that one an imbecile, another a traitor, the next a debauchee,
+while some muster all the vices. It looks as if fate and nature had
+aimed to show our epoch, and all nations, the absurdity and enormity of
+Royalty.
+
+But I mistake: this epoch has nothing peculiar. For, such is the
+essential vice of this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples
+have not even the chances of nature,--they cannot even hope for a good
+prince as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason
+and justice an individual reared to command others. The word of young
+Dionysius was very sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful
+action, said, "Have I given thee such example?" "Ah," answered the
+youth, "thy father was not a king!"
+
+In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would
+suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic institution of
+hereditary kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there
+really exist particular lineages possessing certain qualities which
+enter the blood of the embryo prince, and adapt him physically
+for royalty, as a horse for the racecourse? But then, in this wild
+supposition, it yet becomes necessary to assure the genuine family
+descent of the heir presumptive. To perpetuate the noble race of
+Andalusian chargers, the circumstances pass before witnesses, and
+similar precautions seem necessary, however indecent, to make sure that
+the trickeries of queens shall not supply thrones with bastards, and
+that the kings, like the horses, shall always be thoroughbreds.
+
+Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary
+royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be
+filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple
+workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be
+a living automaton. We are astonished when reading that the Egyptians
+placed on the throne a flint, and called it their king. We smile at
+the dog Barkouf, sent by an Asiatic despot to govern one of his
+provinces.(*) But mon-archs of this kind are less mischievous and less
+absurd than those before whom whole peoples prostrate themselves. The
+flint and the dog at least imposed on nobody. None ascribed to them
+qualities or characters they did not possess. They were not styled
+'Father of the People,'--though this were hardly more ridiculous than
+to give that title to a rattle-head whom inheritance crowns at eighteen.
+Better a mute than an animate idol. Why, there can hardly be cited an
+instance of a great man having children worthy of him, yet you will have
+the royal function pass from father to son! As well declare that a wise
+man's son will be wise. A king is an administrator, and an hereditary
+administrator is as absurd as an author by birthright.
+
+     * See the first year of La Feuille Villageoise, No. 42.--
+     Author. [Cf. Montaigne's Essays, chap. xii.--_Editor._]
+
+Royalty is thus as contrary to common sense as to com-mon right. But it
+would be a plague even if no more than an absurdity; for a people who
+can bow down in honor of a silly thing is a debased people. Can they be
+fit for great affairs who render equal homage to vice and virtue, and
+yield the same submission to ignorance and wisdom? Of all institutions,
+none has caused more intellectual degeneracy. This explains the
+often-remarked abjectness of character under monarchies.
+
+Such is also the effect of this contagious institution that it renders
+equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the
+evils of "Nobility." If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that
+of a distinction? The Nobility's heritage asks only homage, that of
+the Crown commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born
+illustrious,' I merely smile; when he says 'I am born your master,' I
+set my foot on him.
+
+When the Convention pronounced the abolition of Royalty none rose
+for the defence that was expected. On this subject a philosopher, who
+thought discussion should always precede enactment, proposed a singular
+thing; he desired that the Convention should nominate an orator
+commissioned to plead before it the cause of Royalty, so that the
+pitiful arguments by which it has in all ages been justified might
+appear in broad daylight. Judges give one accused, however certain
+his guilt, an official defender. In the ancient Senate of Venice there
+existed a public officer whose function was to contest all propositions,
+however incontestible, or however perfect their evidence. For the rest,
+pleaders for Royalty are not rare: let us open them, and see what the
+most specious of royalist reasoners have said.
+
+1. _A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of
+powerful men_.
+
+Establish the Rights of Man(1); enthrone Equality; form a good
+Constitution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no
+distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry
+and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity
+of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established,
+you will be assured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men.
+Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.
+
+     1 The reader should bear in mind that this phrase, now used
+     vaguely, had for Paine and his political school a special
+     significance; it implied a fundamental Declaration of
+     individual rights, of supreme force and authority, invasion
+     which, either by legislatures, law courts, majorities, or
+     administrators, was to be regarded as the worst treason and
+     despotism.--_Editor._
+
+2. _The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to
+restrain it_.
+
+With representatives, frequently renewed, who neither administer
+nor judge, whose functions are determined by the laws; with national
+conventions, with primary assemblies, which can be convoked any moment;
+with a people knowing how to read, and how to defend itself; with good
+journals, guns, and pikes; a Legislature would have a good deal of
+trouble in enjoying any months of tyranny. Let us not suppose an evil
+for the sake of its remedy.
+
+3. _A king is needed to give force to executive power_.
+
+This might be said while there existed nobles, a priesthood,
+parliaments, the privileged of every kind. But at present who can resist
+the Law, which is the will of all, whose execution is the interest of
+all? On the contrary the existence of an hereditary prince inspires
+perpetual distrust among the friends of liberty; his authority is odious
+to them; in checking despotism they constantly obstruct the action of
+government. Observe how feeble the executive power was found, after our
+recent pretence of marrying Royalty with Liberty.
+
+Take note, for the rest, that those who talk in this way are men who
+believe that the King and the Executive Power are only one and the same
+thing: readers of _La Feuille Villageoise_ are more advanced.(*)
+
+     * See No. 50.--_Author_
+
+Others use this bad reasoning: "Were there no hereditary chief there
+would be an elective chief: the citizens would side with this man or
+that, and there would be a civil war at every election." In the first
+place, it is certain that hereditary succession alone has produced
+the civil wars of France and England; and that beyond this are the
+pre-tended rights, of royal families which have twenty times drawn on
+these nations the scourge of foreign wars. It is, in fine, the heredity
+of crowns that has caused the troubles of Regency, which Thomas Paine
+calls Monarchy at nurse.
+
+But above all it must be said, that if there be an elective chief, that
+chief will not be a king surrounded by courtiers, burdened with pomp,
+inflated by idolatries, and endowed with thirty millions of money; also,
+that no citizen will be tempted to injure himself by placing another
+citizen, his equal, for some years in an office without limited income
+and circumscribed power.
+
+In a word, whoever demands a king demands an aristocracy, and thirty
+millions of taxes. See why Franklin described Royalism as _a crime like
+poisoning_.
+
+Royalty, its fanatical eclat, its superstitious idolatry, the delusive
+assumption of its necessity, all these fictions have been invented only
+to obtain from men excessive taxes and voluntary servitude. Royalty
+and Popery have had the same aim, have sustained themselves by the same
+artifices, and crumble under the same Light.
+
+
+
+
+XII. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, ON THE PROSECUTION AGAINST THE SECOND PART
+OF RIGHTS OF MAN.(1)
+
+Paris, 11th of November, 1st Year of the Republic. [1792.]
+
+Mr. Attorney General:
+
+Sir,--As there can be no personal resentment between two strangers, I
+write this letter to you, as to a man against whom I have no animosity.
+
+You have, as Attorney General, commenced a prosecution against me, as
+the author of Rights of Man. Had not my duty, in consequence of my being
+elected a member of the National Convention of France, called me from
+England, I should have staid to have contested the injustice of
+that prosecution; not upon my own account, for I cared not about the
+prosecution, but to have defended the principles I had advanced in the
+work.
+
+     1 Read to the Jury by the Attorney General, Sir Archibald
+     Macdonald, at the trial of Paine, December 18, 1792, which
+     resulted in his outlawry.--_Editor._
+
+The duty I am now engaged in is of too much importance to permit me to
+trouble myself about your prosecution: when I have leisure, I shall have
+no objection to meet you on that ground; but, as I now stand, whether
+you go on with the prosecution, or whether you do not, or whether you
+obtain a verdict, or not, is a matter of the most perfect indifference
+to me as an individual. If you obtain one, (which you are welcome to
+if you can get it,) it cannot affect me either in person, property, or
+reputation, otherwise than to increase the latter; and with respect to
+yourself, it is as consistent that you obtain a verdict against the Man
+in the Moon as against me; neither do I see how you can continue the
+prosecution against me as you would have done against one _your own
+people, who_ had absented himself because he was prosecuted; what passed
+at Dover proves that my departure from England was no secret. (1)
+
+My necessary absence from your country affords the opportunity of
+knowing whether the prosecution was intended against Thomas Paine, or
+against the Right of the People of England to investigate systems and
+principles of government; for as I cannot now be the object of the
+prosecution, the going on with the prosecution will shew that something
+else was the object, and that something else can be no other than the
+People of England, for it is against _their Rights_, and not against
+me, that a verdict or sentence can operate, if it can operate at all.
+Be then so candid as to tell the Jury, (if you choose to continue the
+process,) whom it is you are prosecuting, and on whom it is that the
+verdict is to fall.(2)
+
+But I have other reasons than those I have mentioned for writing you
+this letter; and, however you may choose to interpret them, they proceed
+from a good heart. The time, Sir, is becoming too serious to play
+with Court prosecutions, and sport with national rights. The terrible
+examples that have taken place here, upon men who, less than a year ago,
+thought themselves as secure as any prosecuting Judge, Jury, or Attorney
+General, now can in England, ought to have some weight with men in
+your situation. That the government of England is as great, if not the
+greatest, perfection of fraud and corruption that ever took place since
+governments began, is what you cannot be a stranger to, unless the
+constant habit of seeing it has blinded your senses; but though you
+may not chuse to see it, the people are seeing it very fast, and the
+progress is beyond what you may chuse to believe. Is it possible that
+you, or I, can believe, or that reason can make any other man believe,
+that the capacity of such a man as Mr. Guelph, or any of his profligate
+sons, is necessary to the government of a nation? I speak to you as one
+man ought to speak to another; and I know also that I speak what other
+people are beginning to think.
+
+     1 See Chapter VIII. of this volume.--_Editor._
+
+     2 In reading the letter in court the Attorney General said
+     at this point: "Gentlemen, I certainly will comply with
+     this request. I am prosecuting both him and his work; and
+     if I succeed in this prosecution, he shall never return to
+     this country otherwise than _in vintulis_, for I will outlaw
+     him."--_Editor._
+
+That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if you do, it will signify
+nothing) _without packing a Jury_, (and we _both_ know that such tricks
+are practised,) is what I have very good reason to believe, I have gone
+into coffee-houses, and places where I was unknown, on purpose to learn
+the currency of opinion, and I never yet saw any company of twelve men
+that condemned the book; but I have often found a greater number than
+twelve approving it, and this I think is _a fair way of collecting the
+natural currency of opinion_. Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of
+drawing twelve men into a situation that may be _injurious_ to them
+afterwards. I do not speak this from policy, but from benevolence; but
+if you chuse to go on with the process, I make it my request to you that
+you will read this letter in Court, after which the Judge and the Jury
+may do as they please. As I do not consider myself the object of the
+prosecution, neither can I be affected by the issue, one way or the
+other, I shall, though a foreigner in your country, subscribe as much
+money as any other man towards supporting the right of the nation
+against the prosecution; and it is for this purpose only that I shall do
+it.(1)
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+As I have not time to copy letters, you will excuse the corrections.
+
+     1 In reading this letter at the trial the Attorney
+     interspersed comments. At the phrase, "Mr. Guelph and his
+     profligate sons," he exclaimed: "This passage is
+     contemptuous, scandalous, false, cruel. Why, gentlemen, is
+     Mr. Paine, in addition to the political doctrines he is
+     teaching us in this country, to teach us the morality and
+     religion of implacability? Is he to teach human creatures,
+     whose moments of existence depend upon the permission of a
+     Being, merciful, long-suffering, and of great goodness, that
+     those youthful errors from which even royalty is not
+     exempted, are to be treasured up in a vindictive memory, and
+     are to receive sentence of irremissible sin at His hands....
+     If giving me pain was his object he has that hellish
+     gratification." Erskine, Fame's counsel, protested in
+     advance against the reading of this letter (of which he had
+     heard), as containing matter likely to divert the Jury from
+     the subject of prosecution (the book). Lord Kenyon admitted
+     the letter.--_Editor._
+
+P. S. I intended, had I staid in England, to have published the
+information, with my remarks upon it, before the trial came on; but as
+I am otherwise engaged, I reserve myself till the trial is over, when I
+shall reply fully to every thing you shall advance.
+
+
+
+
+XIII. ON THE PROPRIETY OF BRINGING LOUIS XVI. TO TRIAL.(1)
+
+Read to the Convention, November 21, 1792.
+
+Paris, Nov. 20, 1792.
+
+Citizen President,
+
+As I do not know precisely what day the Convention will resume the
+discussion on the trial of Louis XVI., and, on account of my inability
+to express myself in French, I cannot speak at the tribune, I request
+permission to deposit in your hands the enclosed paper, which contains
+my opinion on that subject. I make this demand with so much more
+eagerness, because circumstances will prove how much it imports to
+France, that Louis XVI. should continue to enjoy good health. I should
+be happy if the Convention would have the goodness to hear this paper
+read this morning, as I propose sending a copy of it to London, to be
+printed in the English journals.(2)
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+     1 This address, which has suffered by alterations in all
+     editions is here revised and completed by aid of the
+     official document: "Opinion de Thomas Payne, Depute du
+     Département de la Somme [error], concernant le jugement de
+     Louis XVI. Précédé par sa lettre d'envoi au Président de la
+     Convention. Imprimé par ordre de la Convention Nationale. À
+     Paris. De l'Imprimerie Nationale." Lamartine has censured
+     Paine for this speech; but the trial of the King was a
+     foregone conclusion, and it will be noted that Paine was
+     already trying to avert popular wrath from the individual
+     man by directing it against the general league of monarchs,
+     and the monarchal system. Nor would his plea for the King's
+     life have been listened to but for this previous address.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 Of course no English journal could then venture to print
+     it.--_Editor._
+
+A Secretary read the opinion of Thomas Paine. I think it necessary
+that Louis XVI. should be tried; not that this advice is suggested by
+a spirit of vengeance, but because this measure appears to me just,
+lawful, and conformable to sound policy. If Louis is innocent, let us
+put him to prove his innocence; if he is guilty, let the national will
+determine whether he shall be pardoned or punished.
+
+But besides the motives personal to Louis XVI., there are others which
+make his trial necessary. I am about to develope these motives, in the
+language which I think expresses them, and no other. I forbid myself the
+use of equivocal expression or of mere ceremony. There was formed among
+the crowned brigands of Europe a conspiracy which threatened not only
+French liberty, but likewise that of all nations. Every thing tends
+to the belief that Louis XVI. was the partner of this horde of
+conspirators. You have this man in your power, and he is at present the
+only one of the band of whom you can make sure. I consider Louis XVI. in
+the same point of view as the two first robbers taken up in the affair
+of the Store Room; their trial led to discovery of the gang to which
+they belonged. We have seen the unhappy soldiers of Austria, of Prussia,
+and the other powers which declared themselves our enemies, torn from
+their fire-sides, and drawn to butchery like wretched animals, to
+sustain, at the cost of their blood, the common cause of these crowned
+brigands. They loaded the inhabitants of those regions with taxes to
+support the expenses of the war. All this was not done solely for Louis
+XVI. Some of the conspirators have acted openly: but there is reason
+to presume that this conspiracy is composed of two classes of brigands;
+those who have taken up arms, and those who have lent to their cause
+secret encouragement and clandestine assistance. Now it is indispensable
+to let France and the whole world know all these accomplices.
+
+A little time after the National Convention was constituted, the
+Minister for Foreign Affairs presented the picture of all the
+governments of Europe,--those whose hostilities were public, and those
+that acted with a mysterious circumspection. This picture supplied
+grounds for just suspicions of the part the latter were disposed to
+take, and since then various circumstances have occurred to confirm
+those suspicions. We have already penetrated into some part of the
+conduct of Mr. Guelph, Elector of Hanover, and strong presumptions
+involve the same man, his court and ministers, in quality of king
+of England. M. Calonne has constantly been favoured with a friendly
+reception at that court.(1) The arrival of Mr. Smith, secretary to Mr.
+Pitt, at Coblentz, when the emigrants were assembling there; the recall
+of the English ambassador; the extravagant joy manifested by the court
+of St. James' at the false report of the defeat of Dumouriez, when
+it was communicated by Lord Elgin, then Minister of Great Britain at
+Brussels--all these circumstances render him [George III.] extremely
+suspicious; the trial of Louis XVI. will probably furnish more decisive
+proofs.
+
+The long subsisting fear of a revolution in England, would alone, I
+believe, prevent that court from manifesting as much publicity in its
+operations as Austria and Prussia. Another reason could be added to
+this: the inevitable decrease of credit, by means of which alone all
+the old governments could obtain fresh loans, in proportion as the
+probability of revolutions increased. Whoever invests in the new loans
+of such governments must expect to lose his stock.
+
+Every body knows that the Landgrave of Hesse fights only as far as he is
+paid. He has been for many years in the pay of the court of London. If
+the trial of Louis XVI. could bring it to light, that this detestable
+dealer in human flesh has been paid with the produce of the taxes
+imposed on the English people, it would be justice to that nation to
+disclose that fact. It would at the same time give to France an exact
+knowledge of the character of that court, which has not ceased to be the
+most intriguing in Europe, ever since its connexion with Germany.
+
+     1 Calonne (1734-1802), made Controller General of the
+     Treasury in 1783, lavished the public money on the Queen, on
+     courtiers, and on himself (purchasing St. Cloud and
+     Rambouillet), borrowing vast sums and deceiving the King as
+     to the emptiness of the Treasury, the annual deficit having
+     risen in 1787 to 115 millions of francs. He was then
+     banished to Lorraine, whence he proceeded to England, where
+     he married the wealthy widow Haveley. By his agency for the
+     Coblentz party he lost his fortune. In 1802 Napoleon brought
+     him back from London to Paris, where he died the same year.
+     --_Editor._
+
+Louis XVI., considered as an individual, is an object beneath the notice
+of the Republic; but when he is looked upon as a part of that band of
+conspirators, as an accused man whose trial may lead all nations in
+the world to know and detest the disastrous system of monarchy, and the
+plots and intrigues of their own courts, he ought to be tried.
+
+If the crimes for which Louis XVI. is arraigned were absolutely personal
+to him, without reference to general conspiracies, and confined to the
+affairs of France, the plea of inviolability, that folly of the moment,
+might have been urged in his behalf with some appearance of reason; but
+he is arraigned not only for treasons against France, but for having
+conspired against all Europe, and if France is to be just to all Europe
+we ought to use every means in our power to discover the whole extent
+of that conspiracy. France is now a republic; she has completed her
+revolution; but she cannot earn all its advantages so long as she is
+surrounded with despotic governments. Their armies and their marine
+oblige her also to keep troops and ships in readiness. It is therefore
+her immediate interest that all nations shall be as free as herself;
+that revolutions shall be universal; and since the trial of Louis XVI.
+can serve to prove to the world the flagitiousness of governments in
+general, and the necessity of revolutions, she ought not to let slip so
+precious an opportunity.
+
+The despots of Europe have formed alliances to preserve their respective
+authority, and to perpetuate the oppression of peoples. This is the end
+they proposed to themselves in their invasion of French territory. They
+dread the effect of the French revolution in the bosom of their own
+countries; and in hopes of preventing it, they are come to attempt
+the destruction of this revolution before it should attain its perfect
+maturity. Their attempt has not been attended with success. France has
+already vanquished their armies; but it remains for her to sound the
+particulars of the conspiracy, to discover, to expose to the eyes of
+the world, those despots who had the infamy to take part in it; and the
+world expects from her that act of justice.
+
+These are my motives for demanding that Louis XVI. be judged; and it is
+in this sole point of view that his trial appears to me of sufficient
+importance to receive the attention of the Republic.
+
+As to "inviolability," I would not have such a word mentioned. If,
+seeing in Louis XVI. only a weak and narrow-minded man, badly reared,
+like all his kind, given, as it is said, to frequent excesses of
+drunkenness--a man whom the National Assembly imprudently raised again
+on a throne for which he was not made--he is shown hereafter some
+compassion, it shall be the result of the national magnanimity, and not
+the burlesque notion of a pretended "inviolability."
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.  REASONS FOR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF LOUIS CAPET,
+
+As Delivered to the National Convention, January 15, 1703.(1)
+
+Citizen President,
+
+My hatred and abhorrence of monarchy are sufficiently known: they
+originate in principles of reason and conviction, nor, except with life,
+can they ever 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 was necessary to afford
+proofs to the world of the perfidy, corruption, and abomination of the
+monarchical system. The infinity of evidence that has been produced
+exposes them in the most glaring and hideous colours; thence it results
+that monarchy, whatever form it may assume, arbitrary or otherwise,
+becomes necessarily a centre round which are united every species of
+corruption, and the kingly trade is no less destructive of all morality
+in the human breast, than the trade of an executioner is destructive
+of its sensibility. I remember, during my residence in another country,
+that I was exceedingly struck with a sentence of M. Autheine, at the
+Jacobins [Club], which corresponds exactly with my own idea,--"Make me a
+king to-day," said he, "and I shall be a robber to-morrow."
+
+     1 Printed in Paris (Hartley, Adlard & Son) and published in
+     London with the addition of D. I. Eaton's name, in 1796.
+     While Paine was in prison, he was accused in England and
+     America of having helped to bring Louis XVI. to the
+     scaffold. The English pamphlet has a brief preface in which
+     it is presented "as a burnt offering to Truth, in behalf of
+     the most zealous friend and advocate of the Rights of Man;
+     to protect him against the barbarous shafts of scandal and
+     delusion, and as a reply to all the horrors which despots of
+     every description have, with such unrelenting malice,
+     attempted to fix on his conduct. But truth in the end must
+     triumph: cease then such calumnies: all your efforts are
+     in vain --you bite a file."--_Editor._
+
+Nevertheless, I am inclined to believe that if Louis Capet had been born
+in obscure condition, had he lived within the circle of an amiable and
+respectable neighbourhood, at liberty to practice the duties of domestic
+life, had he been thus situated, I cannot believe that he would have
+shewn himself destitute of social virtues: we are, in a moment of
+fermentation like this, naturally little indulgent to his vices, or
+rather to those of his government; we regard them with additional
+horror and indignation; not that they are more heinous than those of
+his predecessors, but because our eyes are now open, and the veil of
+delusion at length withdrawn; yet the lamentable, degraded state to
+which he is actually reduced, is surely far less imputable to him
+than to the Constituent Assembly, which, of its own authority, without
+consent or advice of the people, restored him to the throne.
+
+I was in Paris at the time of the flight, or abdication of Louis XVI.,
+and when he was taken and brought back. The proposal of restoring him to
+supreme power struck me with amazement; and although at that time I was
+not a French 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
+now members of the Convention,(1) took at that time the name of the
+Republican Club (Société Républicaine). This society opposed the
+restoration of Louis, not so much on account of his personal offences,
+as in order to overthrow the monarchy, and to erect on 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 alterations, and
+signed by Achille Duchâtelet, now Lieutenant-General in the army of the
+French republic, and at that time one of the five members which composed
+our little party: the law requiring the signature of a citizen at the
+bottom of each printed paper.
+
+     1 Condorect and Paine; the other members were Achille
+     Duchitelet, and probably Nicolas de Bonneville and
+     Lanthenas,--translator of Paine's "Works."--_Editor._
+
+The paper was indignantly torn by Malouet; and brought forth in this
+very room as an article of accusation against the person who had signed
+it, the author and their adherents; but such is the revolution of
+events, that this paper is now received and brought forth for a very
+opposite purpose--to remind the nation of the errors of that unfortunate
+day, that fatal error of not having then banished Louis XVI. from its
+bosom, and to plead this day in favour of his exile, preferable to his
+death.
+
+The paper in question, was conceived in the following terms:
+
+[The address constitutes the first chapter of the present volume.]
+
+Having thus explained the principles and the exertions of the
+republicans at that fatal period, when Louis was rein-stated in
+full possession of the executive power which by his flight had been
+suspended, I return to the subject, and to the deplorable situation in
+which the man is now actually involved.
+
+What was neglected at the time of which I have been speaking, has been
+since brought about by the force of necessity. The wilful, treacherous
+defects in the former constitution have been brought to light; the
+continual alarm of treason and conspiracy aroused the nation, and
+produced eventually 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 whole world, the intrigues,
+the cabals, the falsehood, corruption, and rooted depravity, the
+inevitable effects of monarchical government. There remains then only
+one question to be considered, what is to be done with this man?
+
+For myself I seriously confess, that when I reflect on the unaccountable
+folly that restored the executive power to his hands, all covered as
+he was with perjuries and treason, I am far more ready to condemn the
+Constituent Assembly than the unfortunate prisoner Louis Capet.
+
+But abstracted from every other consideration, there is one circumstance
+in his life which ought to cover or at least to palliate a great number
+of his transgressions, and this very circumstance affords to the French
+nation a blessed occasion of extricating itself from the yoke of kings,
+without 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 the unjust and tyrannical
+yoke of Britain. The ardour and zeal which she displayed to provide both
+men and money, were the natural consequence of a thirst for liberty.
+But as the nation at that time, restrained by the shackles of her own
+government, could only act by the means of a monarchical organ, this
+organ--whatever in other respects the object might be--certainly
+performed a good, a great action.
+
+Let then those 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 not in kings, but in fair, equal, and
+honourable representation.
+
+In relating this circumstance, and in submitting 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 which he owes to every
+Frenchman. I submit it also as a man, who, although the enemy of kings,
+cannot forget that they are subject to human frailties. I support my
+proposition 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 an
+effect does not always shew itself in the first instance. For example:
+the English nation had groaned under the despotism of the Stuarts.
+Hence Charles I. lost his life; yet Charles II. was restored to all
+the plenitude of power, which his father had lost. Forty years had
+not expired when the same family strove to reestablish their ancient
+oppression; so the nation then banished from its territories the whole
+race. The remedy was effectual. The Stuart family sank into obscurity,
+confounded itself with the multitude, and is at length extinct.
+
+The French nation has carried her measures of government to a greater
+length. France is not satisfied with exposing the guilt of the monarch.
+She has penetrated into the vices and horrors of the monarchy. She has
+shown them clear as daylight, and forever crushed that system; and he,
+whoever he may be, that should ever dare to reclaim those rights would
+be regarded not as a pretender, but punished as a traitor.
+
+Two brothers of Louis Capet have banished themselves from the country;
+but they are obliged to comply with the spirit and etiquette of the
+courts where they reside. They can advance no pretensions on their own
+account, so long as Louis Capet shall live.
+
+Monarchy, in France, was a system pregnant with crime and murders,
+cancelling all natural ties, even those by which brothers are united. We
+know how often they have assassinated each other to pave a way to power.
+As those hopes which 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 around
+a more active chief, and try one further effort under the fortune of
+the ci-devant Monsieur and d'Artois. That such an enterprize would
+precipitate them into a new abyss of calamity and disgrace, it is not
+difficult to foresee; yet it might be attended with mutual loss, and it
+is our duty as legislators not to spill a drop of blood when our purpose
+may be effectually accomplished without it.
+
+It has already been proposed 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
+enlightened politicians and lovers of humanity exist, and it ought above
+all to find them in this assembly.
+
+Monarchical governments have trained the human race, and inured it to
+the sanguinary arts and refinements of punishment; and it is exactly the
+same punishment which has so long shocked the sight and tormented
+the patience of the people, that now, in their turn, they practice in
+revenge upon their oppressors. But it becomes us to be strictly on our
+guard against the abomination and perversity of monarchical examples:
+as France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let
+her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find
+out a milder and more effectual substitute.
+
+In the particular case now under consideration, I submit the following
+propositions: 1st, That the National Convention shall pronounce sentence
+of banishment on Louis and his family. 2d, That Louis Capet shall
+be detained in prison till the end of the war, and at that epoch the
+sentence of banishment to be executed.
+
+
+
+
+XV. SHALL LOUIS XVI. HAVE RESPITE?
+
+SPEECH IN THE CONVENTION, JANUARY 19, 1793.(1)
+
+(Read in French by Deputy Bancal,)
+
+Very sincerely do I regret the Convention's vote of yesterday for death.
+
+Marat [_interrupting_]: I submit that Thomas Paine is incompetent to
+vote on this question; being a Quaker his religious principles are
+opposed to capital punishment. [_Much confusion, quieted by cries for
+"freedom of speech" on which Bancal proceeds with Paine's speech_.]
+
+     1 Not included in any previous edition of Paine's "Works."
+     It is here printed from contemporary French reports,
+     modified only by Paine's own quotations of a few sentences
+     in his Memorial to Monroe (xxi.).--_Editor._
+
+I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years that I
+have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed something
+to it in the revolution of the United States of America, My language has
+always been that of liberty _and_ humanity, and I know that nothing
+so exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all
+circumstances. I know that the public mind of France, and particularly
+that of Paris, has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which
+they have been exposed; but could we carry our thoughts into the future,
+when the dangers are ended and the irritations forgotten, what
+to-day seems an act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance.
+[_Murmurs_.] My anxiety for the cause of France has become for the
+moment concern for her honor. If, on my return to America, I should
+employ myself on a history of the French Revolution, I had rather record
+a thousand errors on the side of mercy, than be obliged to tell one act
+of severe justice. I voted against an appeal to the people, because it
+appeared to me that the Convention was needlessly wearied on that point;
+but I so voted in the hope that this Assembly would pronounce against
+death, and for the same punishment that the nation would have voted,
+at least in my opinion, that is for reclusion during the war, and
+banishment thereafter.(1) That is the punishment most efficacious,
+because it includes the whole family at once, and none other can so
+operate. I am still against the appeal to the primary assemblies,
+because there is a better method. This Convention has been elected to
+form a Constitution, which will be submitted to the primary assemblies.
+After its acceptance a necessary consequence will be an election and
+another assembly. We cannot suppose that the present Convention will
+last more than five or six months. The choice of new deputies will
+express the national opinion, on the propriety or impropriety of your
+sentence, with as much efficacy as if those primary assemblies had been
+consulted on it. As the duration of our functions here cannot be long,
+it is a part of our duty to consider the interests of those who shall
+replace us. If by any act of ours the number of the nation's enemies
+shall be needlessly increased, and that of its friends diminished,--at a
+time when the finances may be more strained than to-day,--we should
+not be justifiable for having thus unnecessarily heaped obstacles in
+the path of our successors. Let us therefore not be precipitate in our
+decisions.
+
+     1 It is possible that the course of the debate may have
+     produced some reaction among the people, but when Paine
+     voted against submitting the king's fate to the popular vote
+     it was believed by the king and his friends that it would be
+     fatal. The American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, who had
+     long been acting for the king, wrote to President
+     Washington, Jan. 6, 1793: "The king's fate is to be decided
+     next Monday, the 14th. That unhappy man, conversing with one
+     of his Council on his own fate, calmly summed up the motives
+     of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the Council
+     would vote for referring his case to the people, and that in
+     consequence he should be massacred." Writing to Washington
+     on Dec. 28, 1792, Morris mentions having heard from Paine
+     that he was to move the king's banishment to America, and he
+     may then have informed Paine that the king believed
+     reference of his case to popular vote would be fatal.
+     Genet was to have conducted the royal family to America.--
+     _Editor._
+
+France has but one ally--the United States of America. That is the only
+nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the
+kingdoms of northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It
+unfortunately happens that the person now under discussion is considered
+by the Americans as having been the friend of their revolution. His
+execution will be an affliction to them, and it is in your power not
+to wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French language I
+would descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to
+respite the execution of the sentence on Louis.
+
+Thuriot: This is not the language of Thomas Paine.
+
+Marat: I denounce the interpreter. I maintain that it is not Thomas
+Paine's opinion. It is an untrue translation.
+
+Garran: I have read the original, and the translation is correct.(1)
+
+[_Prolonged uproar. Paine, still standing in the tribune beside his
+interpreter, Deputy Bancal, declared the sentiments to be his._]
+
+Your Executive Committee will nominate an ambassador to Philadelphia;
+my sincere wish is that he may announce to America that the National
+Convention of France, out of pure friendship to America, has consented
+to respite Louis. That people, by my vote, ask you to delay the
+execution.
+
+Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the
+man perish on the scaffold who had aided my much-loved America to break
+his chains!
+
+Marat ["_launching himself into the middle of the hall_"]: Paine voted
+against the punishment of death because he is a Quaker.
+
+Paine: I voted against it from both moral motives and motives of public
+policy.
+
+     1 See Guizot, "Hist, of France," vi., p. 136. "Hist.
+     Parliamentair," vol. ii., p. 350. Louis Blanc says that
+     Paine's appeal was so effective that Marat interrupted
+     mainly in order to destroy its effect.--"Hist, de la Rev.,"
+     tome vii, 396.--_Editor._
+
+
+
+
+XVI. DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.(1)
+
+The object of all union of men in society being maintenance of their
+natural rights, civil and political, these rights are the basis of the
+social pact: their recognition and their declaration ought to precede
+the Constitution which assures their guarantee.
+
+1. The natural rights of men, civil and political, are liberty,
+equality, security, property, social protection, and resistance to
+oppression.
+
+2. Liberty consists in the right to do whatever is not contrary to
+the rights of others: thus, exercise of the natural rights of each
+individual has no limits other than those which secure to other members
+of society enjoyment of the same rights.
+
+     1 In his appeal from prison to the Convention (August 7,
+     1794) Paine states that he had, as a member of the Committee
+     for framing the Constitution, prepared a Plan, which was in
+     the hands of Barère, also of that Committee. I have not yet
+     succeeded in finding Paine's Constitution, but it is certain
+     that the work of framing the Constitution of 1793 was mainly
+     entrusted to Paine and Condorcet.
+
+     Dr. John Moore, in his work on the French Revolution,
+     describes the two at their work; and it is asserted that he
+     "assisted in drawing up the French Declaration of Rights,"
+     by "Juvencus," author of an able "Essay on the Life and
+     Genius of Thomas Paine," whose information came from a
+     personal friend of Paine. ("Aphorisms, Opinions, and
+     Reflections of Thomas Paine," etc., London, 1826. Pp. 3,
+     14.) A translation of the Declaration and Constitution
+     appeared in England (Debrett, Picadilly, 1793), but with
+     some faults. The present translation is from "Oeuvres
+     Complètes de Condorcet," tome xviii. The Committee reported
+     their Constitution February 15th, and April 15th was set for
+     its discussion, Robespierre then demanded separate
+     discussion of the Declaration of Rights, to which he
+     objected that it made no mention of the Supreme Being, and
+     that its extreme principles of freedom would shield illicit
+     traffic. Paine and Jefferson were troubled that the United
+     States Constitution contained no Declaration of Rights, it
+     being a fundamental principle in Paine's theory of
+     government that such a Declaration was the main safeguard of
+     the individual against the despotism of numbers.    See
+     supra, vol. ii.t pp. 138, 139.--_Editor._.
+
+3. The preservation of liberty depends on submission to the Law, which
+is the expression of the general will. Nothing unforbidden by law can be
+hindered, and none may be forced to do what the law does not command.
+
+4. Every man is free to make known his thoughts and opinions.
+
+5. Freedom of the press, and every other means of publishing one's
+opinion, cannot be interdicted, suspended, or limited.
+
+6. Every citizen shall be free in the exercise of his religion
+(_culte_).
+
+7. Equality consists in the enjoyment by every one of the same rights.
+
+8. The law should be equal for all, whether it rewards or punishes,
+protects or represses.
+
+9. All citizens are admissible to all public positions, employments, and
+functions. Free nations recognize no grounds of preference save talents
+and virtues.
+
+10. Security consists in the protection accorded by society to every
+citizen for the preservation of his person, property, and rights.
+
+11. None should be sued, accused, arrested, or detained, save in cases
+determined by the law, and in accordance with forms prescribed by it.
+Every other act against a citizen is arbitrary and null.
+
+12. Those who solicit, further, sign, execute, or cause to be executed,
+such arbitrary acts are culpable, and should be punished.
+
+13. Citizens against whom the execution of such acts is attempted
+have the right to repel force by force; but every citizen summoned or
+arrested by authority of the Law, and in the forms by it prescribed,
+should instantly obey: he renders himself guilty by resistance.
+
+14. Every man being presumed innocent until legally pronounced guilty,
+should his arrest be deemed indispensable, all rigor not necessary to
+secure his person should be severely represssed by law.
+
+15. None should be punished save in virtue of a law formally enacted,
+promulgated anterior to the offence, and legally applied.
+
+16. Any law that should punish offences committed before its existence
+would be an arbitrary act. Retroactive effect given to the law is a
+crime.
+
+17. The law should award only penalties strictly and evidently necessary
+to the general safety. Penalties should be proportioned to offences, and
+useful to society.
+
+18. The right of property consists in every man's being master in the
+disposal, at his will, of his goods, capital, income, and industry.
+
+19. No kind of labor, commerce, or culture, can be prohibited to any
+one: he may make, sell, and transport every species of production.
+
+20. Every man may engage his services and his time; but he cannot sell
+himself; his person is not an alienable property.
+
+21. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without
+his consent, unless evidently required by public necessity, legally
+determined, and under the condition of a just indemnity in advance.
+
+22. No tax shall be imposed except for the general welfare, and to meet
+public needs. All citizens have the right to unite personally, or by
+their representatives, in the fixing of imposts.
+
+23. Instruction is the need of all, and society owes it to all its
+members equally.
+
+24. Public succours are a sacred debt of society; it is for the law to
+determine their extent and application.
+
+25. The social guarantee of the rights of man rests on the national
+sovereignty.
+
+26. This sovereignty is one, indivisible, imprescriptible, and
+inalienable.
+
+27. It resides essentially in the whole people, and every citizen has an
+equal right to unite in its exercise.
+
+28. No partial assemblage of citizens, and no individual, may attribute
+to themselves sovereignty, or exercise any authority, or discharge any
+public function, without formal delegation thereto by the law.
+
+29. The social guarantee cannot exist if the limits of public
+administration are not clearly determined by law, and if the
+responsibility of all public functionaries is not assured.
+
+30. All citizens are bound to unite in this guarantee, and in enforcing
+the law when summoned in its name.
+
+31. Men united in society should have legal means of resisting
+oppression.
+
+32. There is oppression when any law violates the natural rights, civil
+and political, which it should guarantee.
+
+There is oppression when the law is violated by public officials in its
+application to individual cases.
+
+There is oppression when arbitrary actions violate the rights of citizen
+against the express purpose (_expression_) of the law.
+
+In a free government the mode of resisting these different acts of
+oppression should be regulated by the Constitution.
+
+33. A people possesses always the right to reform and alter its
+Constitution. A generation has no right to subject a future generation
+to its laws; and all heredity in offices is absurd and tyrannical.
+
+
+
+
+XVII. PRIVATE LETTERS TO JEFFERSON.
+
+
+Paris, 20 April, 1793.
+
+My dear Friend,--The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I entrust this
+letter is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the
+opportunity of seeing him, as he had set off for Havre prior to my
+writing this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his
+friends, who is also an acquaintance of mine.
+
+We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without
+some considerable faults here. Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed
+principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the
+Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off
+to the Enemy, and taken a considerable part of the Army with him. The
+expedition to Holland has totally failed, and all Brabant is again in
+the hands of the Austrians.
+
+You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of fortune
+has occasioned, but it has been without commotion. Dumouriez threatened
+to be in Paris in three weeks. It is now three weeks ago; he is still on
+the frontier near to Mons with the Enemy, who do not make any progress.
+Dumouriez has proposed to re-establish the former Constitution in
+which plan the Austrians act with him. But if France and the National
+Convention act prudently this project will not succeed. In the first
+place there is a popular disposition against it, and there is force
+sufficient to prevent it. In the next place, a great deal is to be taken
+into the calculation with respect to the Enemy. There are now so many
+persons accidentally jumbled together as to render it exceedingly
+difficult to them to agree upon any common object.
+
+The first object, that of restoring the old Monarchy, is evidently given
+up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution. The object of
+England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object of Austria
+was to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted, each party
+having one, the Confederation could hold together, each helping the
+other; but after this I see not how a common object is to be formed.
+To all this is to be added the probable disputes about opportunity,
+the expence, and the projects of reimbursements. The Enemy has once
+adventured into France, and they had the permission or the good fortune
+to get back again. On every military calculation it is a hazardous
+adventure, and armies are not much disposed to try a second time the
+ground upon which they have been defeated.
+
+Had this revolution been conducted consistently with its principles,
+there was once a good prospect of extending liberty through the greatest
+part of Europe; but I now relinquish that hope. Should the Enemy by
+venturing into France put themselves again in a condition of being
+captured, the hope will revive; but this is a risk I do not wish to see
+tried, lest it should fail.
+
+As the prospect of a general freedom is now much shortened, I begin
+to contemplate returning home. I shall await the event of the proposed
+Constitution, and then take my final leave of Europe. I have not written
+to the President, as I have nothing to communicate more than in this
+letter. Please to present him my affection and compliments, and remember
+me among the circle of my friends.
+
+Your sincere and affectionate friend,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+P. S. I just now received a letter from General Lewis Morris, who tells
+me that the house and Barn on my farm at New Rochelle are burnt down. I
+assure you I shall not bring money enough to build another.
+
+
+
+Paris, 20 Oct., 1793.
+
+I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre about the
+20th of this month. This will probably be brought you by Mr. Barlow or
+Col. Oswald. Since my letter by Dominick I am every day more convinced
+and impressed with the propriety of Congress sending Commissioners to
+Europe to confer with the Ministers of the Jesuitical Powers on the
+means of terminating the War. The enclosed printed paper will shew there
+are a variety of subjects to be taken into consideration which did not
+appear at first, all of which have some tendency to put an end to the
+War. I see not how this War is to terminate if some intermediate power
+does not step forward. There is now no prospect that France can carry
+revolutions into Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can
+conquer France on the other hand. It is a sort of defensive War on both
+sides. This being the case, how is the War to close? Neither side
+will ask for peace though each may wish it. I believe that England
+and Holland are tired of the War. Their Commerce and Manufactures have
+suffered most exceedingly,--besides this, it is for them a War without
+an object. Russia keeps herself at a distance.
+
+I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners,
+and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the ocean,
+as one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would
+know what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney [Gen. Thomas
+Pinckney, American Minister in England] to their councils, and it would
+be of use, on many accounts, that one of them should come over from
+Holland to France. Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral
+powers, would have all the effects of a Peace, without the difficulties
+attending the adjustment of all the forms of Peace.
+
+Yours affectionately,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII. LETTER TO DANTON.(1)
+
+Paris, May 6, 2nd year of the Republic [1793.]
+
+Citoyen Danton: As you read English, I write this letter to you without
+passing it through the hands of a translator. I am exceedingly disturbed
+at the distractions, jealousies, discontents and uneasiness that reign
+among us, and which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on
+the Republic. When I left America in the year 1787, it was my intention
+to return the year following, but the French Revolution, and the
+prospect it afforded of extending the principles of liberty and
+fraternity through the greater part of Europe, have induced me to
+prolong my stay upwards of six years. I now despair of seeing the great
+object of European liberty accomplished, and my despair arises not from
+the combined foreign powers, not from the intrigues of aristocracy and
+priestcraft, but from the tumultuous misconduct with which the internal
+affairs of the present revolution are conducted.
+
+All that now can be hoped for is limited to France only, and I agree
+with your motion of not interfering in the government of any foreign
+country, nor permitting any foreign country to interfere in the
+government of France. This decree was necessary as a preliminary toward
+terminating the war. But while these internal contentions continue,
+while the hope remains to the enemy of seeing the Republic fall to
+pieces, while not only the representatives of the departments but
+representation itself is publicly insulted, as it has lately been and
+now is by the people of Paris, or at least by the tribunes, the enemy
+will be encouraged to hang about the frontiers and await the issue of
+circumstances.
+
+     1 This admirable letter was brought to light by the late M.
+     Taine, and first published in full by Taine's translator,
+     John Durand ("New Materials for the History of the American
+     Revolution," 1889). The letter to Marat mentioned by Paine
+     has not been discovered. Danton followed Paine to prison,
+     and on meeting him there said: "That which you did for the
+     happiness and liberty of your country I tried to do for
+     mine. I have been less fortunate, but not less innocent.
+     They will send me to the scaffold; very well, my friend, I
+     will go gaily." M. Taine in La Révolution (vol. ii., pp.
+     382, 413, 414) refers to this letter of Paine, and says:
+     "Compared with the speeches and writings of the time, it
+     produces the strangest effect by its practical good sense."
+     --_Editor._,
+
+I observe that the confederated powers have not yet recognized Monsieur,
+or D'Artois, as regent, nor made any proclamation in favour of any
+of the Bourbons; but this negative conduct admits of two different
+conclusions. The one is that of abandoning the Bourbons and the war
+together; the other is that of changing the object of the war and
+substituting a partition scheme in the place of their first object, as
+they have done by Poland. If this should be their object, the internal
+contentions that now rage will favour that object far more than it
+favoured their former object. The danger every day increases of a
+rupture between Paris and the departments. The departments did not send
+their deputies to Paris to be insulted, and every insult shown to them
+is an insult to the departments that elected and sent them. I see but
+one effectual plan to prevent this rupture taking place, and that is to
+fix the residence of the Convention, and of the future assemblies, at a
+distance from Paris.
+
+I saw, during the American Revolution, the exceeding inconvenience that
+arose by having the government of Congress within the limits of any
+Municipal Jurisdiction. Congress first resided in Philadelphia, and
+after a residence of four years it found it necessary to leave it. It
+then adjourned to the State of Jersey. It afterwards removed to
+New York; it again removed from New York to Philadelphia, and after
+experiencing in every one of these places the great inconvenience of
+a government, it formed the project of building a Town, not within
+the limits of any municipal jurisdiction, for the future residence of
+Congress. In any one of the places where Congress resided, the municipal
+authority privately or openly opposed itself to the authority of
+Congress, and the people of each of these places expected more attention
+from Congress than their equal share with the other States amounted to.
+The same thing now takes place in France, but in a far greater excess.
+
+I see also another embarrassing circumstance arising in Paris of which
+we have had full experience in America. I mean that of fixing the price
+of provisions. But if this measure is to be attempted it ought to
+be done by the Municipality. The Convention has nothing to do with
+regulations of this kind; neither can they be carried into practice. The
+people of Paris may say they will not give more than a certain price
+for provisions, but as they cannot compel the country people to bring
+provisions to market the consequence will be directly contrary to their
+expectations, and they will find dearness and famine instead of plenty
+and cheapness. They may force the price down upon the stock in hand, but
+after that the market will be empty.
+
+I will give you an example. In Philadelphia we undertook, among other
+regulations of this kind, to regulate the price of Salt; the consequence
+was that no Salt was brought to market, and the price rose to thirty-six
+shillings sterling per Bushel. The price before the war was only one
+shilling and sixpence per Bushel; and we regulated the price of flour
+(farina) till there was none in the market, and the people were glad to
+procure it at any price.
+
+There is also a circumstance to be taken into the account which is not
+much attended to. The assignats are not of the same value they were a
+year ago, and as the quantity increases the value of them will diminish.
+This gives the appearance of things being dear when they are not so in
+fact, for in the same proportion that any kind of money falls in
+value articles rise in price. If it were not for this the quantity of
+assignats would be too great to be circulated. Paper money in America
+fell so much in value from this excessive quantity of it, that in the
+year 1781 I gave three hundred paper dollars for one pair of worsted
+stockings. What I write you upon this subject is experience, and not
+merely opinion. I have no personal interest in any of these matters, nor
+in any party disputes. I attend only to general principles.
+
+As soon as a constitution shall be established I shall return to
+America; and be the future prosperity of France ever so great, I shall
+enjoy no other part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In the mean
+time I am distressed to see matters so badly conducted, and so little
+attention paid to moral principles. It is these things that injure the
+character of the Revolution and discourage the progress of liberty all
+over the world. When I began this letter I did not intend making it so
+lengthy, but since I have gone thus far I will fill up the remainder of
+the sheet with such matters as occur to me.
+
+There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of
+denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his
+private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and
+without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all
+authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of Treachery that ought to
+be punished as well as any other kind of Treachery. It is a private vice
+productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into
+disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected.
+It is therefore, equally as necessary to guard against the evils
+of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind
+confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of
+public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or
+misconduct. For my own part I shall hold it a matter of doubt, until
+better evidence arises than is known at present, whether Dumouriez has
+been a traitor from policy or resentment. There was certainly a time
+when he acted well, but it is not every man whose mind is strong enough
+to bear up against ingratitude, and I think he experienced a great deal
+of this before he revolted. Calumny becomes harmless and defeats itself,
+when it attempts to act upon too large a scale. Thus the denunciation
+of the Sections [of Paris] against the twenty-two deputies [Girondists]
+falls to the ground. The departments that elected them are better judges
+of their moral and political characters than those who have denounced
+them. This denunciation will injure Paris in the opinion of the
+departments because it has the appearance of dictating to them what sort
+of deputies they shall elect. Most of the acquaintances that I have in
+the Convention are among those who are in that list, and I know there
+are not better men nor better patriots than what they are.
+
+I have written a letter to Marat of the same date as this but not on the
+same subject. He may show it to you if he chuse.
+
+Votre Ami,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Citoyen Danton.
+
+
+
+
+XIX. A CITIZEN OF AMERICA TO THE CITIZENS OF EUROPE (1)
+
+
+18th Year of Independence.
+
+     1 State Archives, Paris: États Unis, vol. 38, fol. 90. This
+     pamphlet is in English, without indication of authorship or
+     of the place of publication. It is accompanied by a French
+     translation (MS.) inscribed "Par Thomas Payne." In the
+     printed pamphlet the date (18th Year, etc) is preceded by
+     the French words (printed): "Philadelphie 28 Juillet 1793."
+     It was no doubt the pamphlet sent by Paine to Monroe, with
+     various documents relating to his imprisonment, describing
+     it as "a Letter which I had printed here as an American
+     letter, some copies of which I sent to Mr. Jefferson." A
+     considerable portion of the pamphlet embodies, with
+     occasional changes of phraseology, a manuscript (États Unis,
+     vol. 37, Do. 39) endorsed: "January 1793. Thorn. Payne.
+     Copie. Observations on the situation of the Powers joined
+     against France." This opens with the following paragraph:
+     "It is always useful to know the position and the designs of
+     one's enemies. It is much easier to do so by combining and
+     comparing the events, and by examining the consequences
+     which result from them, than by forming one's judgment by
+     letters found or intercepted. These letters could be
+     fabricated with the intention of deceiving, but events or
+     circumstances have a character which is proper to them. If
+     in the course of our political operations we mistake the
+     designs of our enemy, it leads us to do precisely that which
+     he desires we should do, and it happens by the fact, but
+     against our intentions, that we work for him." That the date
+     written on this MS. is erroneous appears by an allusion to
+     the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk in the closing
+     paragraph: "There are three distinct parties in England at
+     this moment: the government party, the revolutionary party,
+     and an intermedial party,--which is only opposed to the war
+     on account of the expense it entails, and the harm it does
+     commerce and manufactures. I am speaking of the People, and
+     not of the Parliament. The latter is divided into two
+     parties: the Ministerial, and the Anti-ministerial. The
+     revolutionary party, the intermedial party, and the anti-
+     ministerial party, will all rejoice, publicly or privately,
+     at the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk."   The two
+     paragraphs quoted represent the only actual additions to the
+     pamphlet. I have a clipping from the London Morning
+     Chronicle of Friday, April 25, 1794, containing the part of
+     the pamphlet headed "Of the present state of Europe and the
+     Confederacy," signed "Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense,
+     etc." On February 1,1793, the Convention having declared
+     war, appointed Paine, Barère, Condorcet and Faber, a
+     Committee to draft an address to the English people. It was
+     never done, but these fragments may represent notes written
+     by Paine with reference to that task.   The pamphlet
+     probably appeared late in September, 1793.--_Editor._,
+
+
+Understanding that a proposal is intended to be made at the ensuing
+meeting of the Congress of the United States of America "to send
+commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of all the Neutral
+Powers for the purpose of negotiating preliminaries of peace," I address
+this letter to you on that subject, and on the several matters connected
+therewith.
+
+In order to discuss this subject through all its circumstances, it
+will be necessary to take a review of the state of Europe, prior to the
+French revolution. It will from thence appear, that the powers leagued
+against France are fighting to attain an object, which, were it possible
+to be attained, would be injurious to themselves.
+
+This is not an uncommon error in the history of wars and governments, of
+which the conduct of the English government in the war against America
+is a striking instance. She commenced that war for the avowed purpose of
+subjugating America; and after wasting upwards of one hundred millions
+sterling, and then abandoning the object, she discovered, in the course
+of three or four years, that the prosperity of England was increased,
+instead of being diminished, by the independence of America. In short,
+every circumstance is pregnant with some natural effect, upon which
+intentions and opinions have no influence; and the political error
+lies in misjudging what the effect will be. England misjudged it in
+the American war, and the reasons I shall now offer will shew, that she
+misjudges it in the present war. In discussing this subject, I leave out
+of the question everything respecting forms and systems of government;
+for as all the governments of Europe differ from each other, there is no
+reason that the government of France should not differ from the rest.
+
+The clamours continually raised in all the countries of Europe were,
+that the family of the Bourbons was become too powerful; that the
+intrigues of the court of France endangered the peace of Europe. Austria
+saw with a jealous eye the connection of France with Prussia; and
+Prussia, in her turn became jealous of the connection of France with
+Austria; England had wasted millions unsuccessfully in attempting to
+prevent the family compact with Spain; Russia disliked the alliance
+between France and Turkey; and Turkey became apprehensive of the
+inclination of France towards an alliance with Russia. Sometimes the
+quadruple alliance alarmed some of the powers, and at other times a
+contrary system alarmed others, and in all those cases the charge was
+always made against the intrigues of the Bourbons.
+
+Admitting those matters to be true, the only thing that could have
+quieted the apprehensions of all those powers with respect to the
+interference of France, would have been her entire NEUTRALITY in Europe;
+but this was impossible to be obtained, or if obtained was impossible
+to be secured, because the genius of her government was repugnant to all
+such restrictions.
+
+It now happens that by entirely changing the genius of her government,
+which France has done for herself, this neutrality, which neither wars
+could accomplish nor treaties secure, arises naturally of itself, and
+becomes the ground upon which the war should terminate. It is the
+thing that approaches the nearest of all others to what ought to be the
+political views of all the European powers; and there is nothing that
+can so effectually secure this neutrality, as that the genius of the
+French government should be different from the rest of Europe.
+
+But if their object is to restore the Bourbons and monarchy together,
+they will unavoidably restore with it all the evils of which they have
+complained; and the first question of discord will be, whose ally is
+that monarchy to be?
+
+Will England agree to the restoration of the family compact against
+which she has been fighting and scheming ever since it existed? Will
+Prussia agree to restore the alliance between France and Austria, or
+will Austria agree to restore the former connection between France and
+Prussia, formed on purpose to oppose herself; or will Spain or Russia,
+or any of the maritime powers, agree that France and her navy should be
+allied to England? In fine, will any of the powers agree to strengthen
+the hands of the other against itself? Yet all these cases involve
+themselves in the original question of the restoration of the Bourbons;
+and on the other hand, all of them disappear by the neutrality of
+France.
+
+If their object is not to restore the Bourbons, it must be the
+impracticable project of a partition of the country. The Bourbons will
+then be out of the question, or, more properly speaking, they will be
+put in a worse condition; for as the preservation of the Bourbons made
+a part of the first object, the extirpation of them makes a part of the
+second. Their pretended friends will then become interested in their
+destruction, because it is favourable to the purpose of partition that
+none of the nominal claimants should be left in existence.
+
+But however the project of a partition may at first blind the eyes of
+the confederacy, or however each of them may hope to outwit the other
+in the progress or in the end, the embarrassments that will arise are
+insurmountable. But even were the object attainable, it would not be of
+such general advantage to the parties as the neutrality of France, which
+costs them nothing, and to obtain which they would formerly have gone to
+war.
+
+
+
+OF THE PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE, AND THE CONFEDERACY.
+
+In the first place the confederacy is not of that kind that forms
+itself originally by concert and consent. It has been forced together by
+chance--a heterogeneous mass, held only by the accident of the moment;
+and the instant that accident ceases to operate, the parties will retire
+to their former rivalships.
+
+I will now, independently of the impracticability of a partition
+project, trace out some of the embarrassments which will arise among the
+confederated parties; for it is contrary to the interest of a majority
+of them that such a project should succeed.
+
+To understand this part of the subject it is necessary, in the
+first place, to cast an eye over the map of Europe, and observe the
+geographical situation of the several parts of the confederacy; for
+however strongly the passionate politics of the moment may operate, the
+politics that arise from geographical situation are the most certain,
+and will in all cases finally prevail.
+
+The world has been long amused with what is called the "_balance of
+power_." But it is not upon armies only that this balance depends.
+Armies have but a small circle of action. Their progress is slow and
+limited. But when we take maritime power into the calculation, the scale
+extends universally. It comprehends all the interests connected with
+commerce.
+
+The two great maritime powers are England and France. Destroy either of
+those, and the balance of naval power is destroyed. The whole world of
+commerce that passes on the Ocean would then lie at the mercy of the
+other, and the ports of any nation in Europe might be blocked up.
+
+The geographical situation of those two maritime powers comes next under
+consideration. Each of them occupies one entire side of the channel from
+the straits of Dover and Calais to the opening into the Atlantic. The
+commerce of all the northern nations, from Holland to Russia, must pass
+the straits of Dover and Calais, and along the Channel, to arrive at the
+Atlantic.
+
+This being the case, the systematical politics of all the nations,
+northward of the straits of Dover and Calais, can be ascertained from
+their geographical situation; for it is necessary to the safety of their
+commerce that the two sides of the Channel, either in whole or in part,
+should not be in the possession either of England or France. While one
+nation possesses the whole of one side, and the other nation the other
+side, the northern nations cannot help seeing that in any situation of
+things their commerce will always find protection on one side or the
+other. It may sometimes be that of England and sometimes that of France.
+
+Again, while the English navy continues in its present condition, it is
+necessary that another navy should exist to controul the universal sway
+the former would otherwise have over the commerce of all nations. France
+is the only nation in Europe where this balance can be placed. The
+navies of the North, were they sufficiently powerful, could not be
+sufficiently operative. They are blocked up by the ice six months in the
+year. Spain lies too remote; besides which, it is only for the sake of
+her American mines that she keeps up her navy.
+
+Applying these cases to the project of a partition of France, it will
+appear, that the project involves with it a DESTRUCTION OF THE BALANCE
+OF MARITIME POWER; because it is only by keeping France entire and
+indivisible that the balance can be kept up. This is a case that at
+first sight lies remote and almost hidden. But it interests all the
+maritime and commercial nations in Europe in as great a degree as any
+case that has ever come before them.--In short, it is with war as it
+is with law. In law, the first merits of the case become lost in the
+multitude of arguments; and in war they become lost in the variety of
+events. New objects arise that take the lead of all that went before,
+and everything assumes a new aspect. This was the case in the last great
+confederacy in what is called the succession war, and most probably will
+be the case in the present.
+
+I have now thrown together such thoughts as occurred to me on the
+several subjects connected with the confederacy against France, and
+interwoven with the interest of the neutral powers. Should a conference
+of the neutral powers take place, these observations will, at least,
+serve to generate others. The whole matter will then undergo a more
+extensive investigation than it is in my power to give; and the evils
+attending upon either of the projects, that of restoring the Bourbons,
+or of attempting a partition of France, will have the calm opportunity
+of being fully discussed.
+
+On the part of England, it is very extraordinary that she should have
+engaged in a former confederacy, and a long expensive war, to _prevent_
+the family compact, and now engage in another confederacy to _preserve_
+it. And on the part of the other powers, it is as inconsistent that they
+should engage in a partition project, which, could it be executed, would
+immediately destroy the balance of maritime power in Europe, and would
+probably produce a second war, to remedy the political errors of the
+first.
+
+A Citizen of the United States of America.
+
+
+
+
+XX. APPEAL TO THE CONVENTION.(1)
+
+
+Citizens Representatives: If I should not express myself with the energy
+I used formerly to do, you will attribute it to the very dangerous
+illness I have suffered in the prison of the Luxembourg. For several
+days I was insensible of my own existence; and though I am much
+recovered, it is with exceeding great difficulty that I find power to
+write you this letter.
+
+     1 Written in Luxembourg prison, August 7, 1794. Robespierre
+     having fallen July 29th, those who had been imprisoned under
+     his authority were nearly all at once released, but Paine
+     remained. There were still three conspirators against him on
+     the Committee of Public Safety, and to that Committee this
+     appeal was unfortunately confided; consequently it never
+     reached the Convention. The circumstances are related at
+     length infra, in the introduction to the Memorial to Monroe
+     (XXI.). It will also be seen that Paine was mistaken in his
+     belief that his imprisonment was due to the enmity of
+     Robespierre, and this he vaguely suspected when his
+     imprisonment was prolonged three months after Robespierre's
+     death.--_Editor._.
+
+But before I proceed further, I request the Convention to observe: that
+this is the first line that has come from me, either to the Convention
+or to any of the Committees, since my imprisonment,--which is
+approaching to eight months. --Ah, my friends, eight months' loss of
+liberty seems almost a life-time to a man who has been, as I have been,
+the unceasing defender of Liberty for twenty years.
+
+I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having
+written before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe
+that Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every
+man of virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention
+some time about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre,
+I have always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the
+partizans he had in the place. The intention of that address was to
+prepare the way for destroying me, by making the people declare (though
+without assigning any reason) that I had lost their confidence; the
+Address, however, failed of success, as it was immediately opposed by a
+counter-address from St. Omer, which declared the direct contrary. But
+the strange power that Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy and
+the most hardened cruelties, had obtained, rendered any attempt on my
+part to obtain justice not only useless but dangerous; for it is the
+nature of Tyranny always to strike a deeper blow when any attempt has
+been made to repel a former one. This being my situation, I submitted
+with patience to the hardness of my fate and waited the event of
+brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to the nation and to me.
+
+Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787 I promised to
+all my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope
+of seeing a revolution happily established in France, that might serve
+as a model to the rest of Europe,(1) and the earnest and disinterested
+desire of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me
+to defer my return to that country, and to the society of my friends,
+for more than seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity,
+especially after having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the
+American Revolution which continued almost eight years, deserved a
+better fate than the long imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it
+is not the nation but a faction that has done me this injustice. Parties
+and Factions, various and numerous as they have been, I have always
+avoided. My heart was devoted to all France, and the object to which I
+applied myself was the Constitution. The Plan which I proposed to the
+Committee, of which I was a member, is now in the hands of Barère, and
+it will speak for itself.
+
+     1 Revolutions have now acquired such sanguinary associations
+     that it is important to bear in mind that by "revolution"
+     Paine always means simply a change or reformation of
+     government, which might be and ought to be bloodless. See
+     "Rights of Man" Part II., vol. ii. of this work, pp. 513,
+     523.--:_Editor_.
+
+It is perhaps proper that I inform you of the cause as-assigned in the
+order for my imprisonment. It is that I am 'a Foreigner'; whereas, the
+_Foreigner_ thus imprisoned was invited into France by a decree of the
+late National Assembly, and that in the hour of her greatest danger,
+when invaded by Austrians and Prussians. He was, moreover, a citizen of
+the United States of America, an ally of France, and not a subject of
+any country in Europe, and consequently not within the intentions of any
+decree concerning Foreigners. But any excuse can be made to serve the
+purpose of malignity when in power.
+
+I will not intrude on your time by offering any apology for the broken
+and imperfect manner in which I have expressed myself. I request you to
+accept it with the sincerity with which it comes from my heart; and I
+conclude with wishing Fraternity and prosperity to France, and union and
+happiness to her representatives.
+
+Citizens, I have now stated to you my situation, and I can have no doubt
+but your justice will restore me to the Liberty of which I have been
+deprived.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Luxembourg, Thermidor 19, 2nd Year of the French Republic, one and
+indivisible.
+
+
+
+
+XXI. THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
+
+EDITOR'S historical introduction:
+
+The Memorial is here printed from the manuscript of Paine now among the
+Morrison Papers, in the British Museum,--no doubt the identical document
+penned in Luxembourg prison. The paper in the United States State
+Department (vol. vii., Monroe Papers) is accompanied by a note by
+Monroe: "Mr. Paine, Luxembourg, on my arrival in France, 1794. My answer
+was after the receipt of his second letter. It is thought necessary to
+print only those parts of his that relate directly to his confinement,
+and to omit all between the parentheses in each." The paper thus
+inscribed seems to have been a wrapper for all of Paine's letters.
+An examination of the MS. at Washington does not show any such
+"parentheses," indicating omissions, whereas that in the British Museum
+has such marks, and has evidently been prepared for the press,--being
+indeed accompanied by the long title of the French pamphlet. There are
+other indications that the British Museum MS. is the original Memorial
+from which was printed in Paris the pamphlet entitled:
+
+"Mémoire de Thomas Payne, autographe et signé de sa main: addressé à
+M. Monroe, ministre des États-unis en france, pour réclamer sa mise en
+liberté comme citoyen Américain, 10 Sept 1794. Robespierre avait fait
+arrêter Th. Payne, en 1793--il fut conduit au Luxembourg où le glaive
+fut longtemps suspendu sur sa tête. Après onze mois de captivité, il
+recouvra la liberté, sur la réclamation du ministre Américain--c'était
+après la chute de Robespierre--il reprit sa place à la convention, le 8
+décembre 1794. (18 frimaire an iii.) Ce Mémoire contient des renseigne
+mens curieux sur la conduite politique de Th. Payne en france, pendant
+la Révolution, et à l'époque du procès de Louis XVI. Ce n'est point, dit
+il, comme Quaker, qu'il ne vota pas La Mort du Roi mais par un sentiment
+d'humanité, qui ne tenait point à ses principes religieux. Villenave."
+
+No date is given, but the pamphlet probably appeared early in 1795.
+Matthieu Gillaume Thérèse Villenave (b. 1762, d. 1846) was a journalist,
+and it will be noticed that he, or the translator, modifies Paine's
+answer to Marat about his Quakerism. There are some loose translations
+in the cheap French pamphlet, but it is the only publication which
+has given Paine's Memorial with any fulness. Nearly ten pages of
+the manuscript were omitted from the Memorial when it appeared as
+an Appendix to the pamphlet entitled "Letter to George Washington,
+President of the United States of America, on Affairs public and
+private." By Thomas Paine, Author of the Works entitled, Common Sense,
+Rights of Man, Age of Reason, &c. Philadelphia: Printed by Benj.
+Franklin Bache, No. 112 Market Street. 1796. [Entered according to
+law.] This much-abridged copy of the Memorial has been followed in
+all subsequent editions, so that the real document has not hitherto
+appeared.(1)
+
+In appending the Memorial to his "Letter to Washington," Paine would
+naturally omit passages rendered unimportant by his release, but his
+friend Bache may have suppressed others that might have embarrassed
+American partisans of France, such as the scene at the king's trial.
+
+     1 Bache's pamphlet reproduces the portrait engraved in
+     Villenave, where it is underlined: "Peint par Ped [Peale] à
+     Philadelphie, Dessiné par F. Bonneville, Gravé par Sandoz."
+     In Bache it is: "Bolt sc. 1793 "; and beneath this the
+     curious inscription: "Thomas Paine. Secretair d. Americ:
+     Congr: 1780. Mitgl: d. fr. Nat. Convents. 1793." The
+     portrait is a variant of that now in Independence Hall, and
+     one of two painted by C. W. Peale. The other (in which the
+     chin is supported by the hand) was for religious reasons
+     refused by the Boston Museum when it purchased the
+     collection of "American Heroes" from Rembrandt Peale. It was
+     bought by John McDonough, whose brother sold it to Mr.
+     Joseph Jefferson, the eminent actor, and perished when his
+     house was burned at Buzzard's Bay. Mr. Jefferson writes me
+     that he meant to give the portrait to the Paine Memorial
+     Society, Boston; "but the cruel fire roasted the splendid
+     _Infidel_, so I presume the saints are satisfied."
+
+This description, however, and a large proportion of the suppressed
+pages, are historically among the most interesting parts of the
+Memorial, and their restoration renders it necessary to transfer the
+document from its place as an appendix to that of a preliminary to the
+"Letter to Washington."
+
+Paine's Letter to Washington burdens his reputation today more,
+probably, than any other production of his pen. The traditional judgment
+was formed in the absence of many materials necessary for a just
+verdict. The editor feels under the necessity of introducing at this
+point an historical episode; he cannot regard it as fair to the memory
+of either Paine or Washington that these two chapters should be printed
+without a full statement of the circumstances, the most important of
+which, but recently discovered, were unknown to either of those men. In
+the editor's "Life of Thomas Paine" (ii., pp. 77-180) newly discovered
+facts and documents bearing on the subject are given, which may
+be referred to by those who desire to investigate critically such
+statements as may here appear insufficiently supported. Considerations
+of space require that the history in that work should be only summarized
+here, especially as important new details must be added.
+
+Paine was imprisoned (December 28, 1793) through the hostility of
+Gouverneur Morris, the American Minister in Paris. The fact that the
+United States, after kindling revolution in France by its example, was
+then represented in that country by a Minister of vehement royalist
+opinions, and one who literally entered into the service of the King to
+defeat the Republic, has been shown by that Minister's own biographers.
+Some light is cast on the events that led to this strange situation by
+a letter written to M. de Mont-morin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, by
+a French Chargé d'Affaires, Louis Otto, dated Philadelphia, 10 March,
+1792. Otto, a nobleman who married into the Livingston family, was an
+astute diplomatist, and enjoyed the intimacy of the Secretary of
+State, Jefferson, and of his friends. At the close of a long interview
+Jefferson tells him that "The secresy with which the Senate covers its
+deliberations serves to veil personal interest, which reigns therein in
+all its strength." Otto explains this as referring to the speculative
+operations of Senators, and to the commercial connections some of them
+have with England, making them unfriendly to French interests.
+
+"Among the latter the most remarkable is Mr. Robert Morris, of English
+birth, formerly Superintendent of Finance, a man of greatest talent,
+whose mercantile speculations are as unlimited as his ambition. He
+directs the Senate as he once did the American finances in making it
+keep step with his policy and his business.... About two years ago Mr.
+Robert Morris sent to France Mr. Gouverneur Morris to negotiate a loan
+in his name, and for different other personal matters.... During his
+sojourn in France, Mr. Rob. Morris thought he could make him more useful
+for his aims by inducing the President of the United States to entrust
+him with a negotiation with England relative to the Commerce of the two
+countries. M. Gouv. Morris acquitted himself in this as an adroit man,
+and with his customary zeal, but despite his address (insinuation)
+obtained only the vague hope of an advantageous commercial treaty on
+condition of an _Alliance resembling that between France and the United
+States_.... [Mr. Robert Morris] is himself English, and interested in
+all the large speculations founded in this country for Great Britain....
+His great services as Superintendent of Finance during the Revolution
+have assured him the esteem and consideration of General Washington,
+who, however, is far from adopting his views about France. The warmth
+with which Mr. Rob. Morris opposed in the Senate the exemption of French
+_armateurs_ from tonnage, demanded by His Majesty, undoubtedly had
+for its object to induce the king, by this bad behavior, to break the
+treaty, in order to facilitate hereafter the negotiations begun with
+England to form an alliance. As for Mr. Gouv. Morris he is entirely
+devoted to his correspondent, with whom he has been constantly connected
+in business and opinion. His great talents are recognized, and his
+extreme quickness in conceiving new schemes and gaining others to them.
+He is perhaps the most eloquent and ingenious man of his country, but
+his countrymen themselves distrust his talents. They admire but fear
+him." (1)
+
+     1 Archives of the State Department, Paris, États Unis.,
+      vol. 35, fol. 301.
+
+The Commission given to Gouverneur Morris by Washington, to which
+Otto refers, was in his own handwriting, dated October 13, 1789, and
+authorized him "in the capacity of private agent, and in the credit of
+this letter, to converse with His Britannic Majesty's ministers on these
+points, viz. whether there be any, and what objection to performing
+those articles of the treaty which remained to be performed on his part;
+and whether they incline to a treaty of commerce on any and what terms.
+This communication ought regularly to be made to you by the Secretary
+of State; but, that office not being at present filled, my desire of
+avoiding delays induces me to make it under my own hand."(1)
+
+The President could hardly have assumed the authority of secretly
+appointing a virtual ambassador had there not been a tremendous object
+in view: this, as he explains in an accompanying letter, was to
+secure the evacuation by Great Britain of the frontier posts. This
+all-absorbing purpose of Washington is the key to his administration.
+Gouverneur Morris paved the way for Jay's treaty, and he was paid for
+it with the French mission. The Senate would not have tolerated his
+appointment to England, and only by a majority of four could the
+President secure his confirmation as Minister to France (January 12,
+1792). The President wrote Gouverneur Morris (January 28th) a friendly
+lecture about the objections made to him, chiefly that he favored the
+aristocracy and was unfriendly to the revolution, and expressed "the
+fullest confidence" that, supposing the allegations founded, he would
+"effect a change." But Gouverneur Morris remained the agent of Senator
+Robert Morris, and still held Washington's mission to England, and he
+knew only as "conspirators" the rulers who succeeded Louis XVI. Even
+while utilizing them, he was an agent of Great Britain in its war
+against the country to which he was officially commissioned.
+
+     1 Ford's "Writings of George Washington" vol. xi., p. 440.
+
+Lafayette wrote to Washington ("Paris, March 15,1792") the following
+appeal:
+
+"Permit me, my dear General, to make an observation for yourself alone,
+on the recent selection of an American ambassador. Personally I am a
+friend of Gouverneur Morris, and have always been, in private, quite
+content with him; but the aristocratic and really contra-revolutionary
+principles which he has avowed render him little fit to represent the
+only government resembling ours.... I cannot repress the desire that
+American and French principles should be in the heart and on the lips of
+the ambassador of the United States in France." (1)
+
+In addition to this; two successive Ministers from France, after the
+fall of the Monarchy, conveyed to the American Government the most
+earnest remonstrances against the continuance of Gouverneur Morris in
+their country, one of them reciting the particular offences of which
+he was guilty. The President's disregard of all these protests and
+entreaties, unexampled perhaps in history, had the effect of giving
+Gouverneur Morris enormous power over the country against which he
+was intriguing. He was recognized as the Irremovable. He represented
+Washington's fixed and unalterable determination, and this at a moment
+when the main purpose of the revolutionary leaders was to preserve the
+alliance with America. Robespierre at that time ( 1793) had special
+charge of diplomatic affairs, and it is shown by the French historian,
+Frédéric Masson, that he was very anxious to recover for the republic
+the initiative of the American alliance credited to the king; and
+"although their Minister, Gouverneur Morris, was justly suspected,
+and the American republic was at that time aiming only to utilize the
+condition of its ally, the French republic cleared it at a cheap rate of
+its debts contracted with the King."(2) Morris adroitly held this
+doubt, whether the alliance of his government with Louis XVI. would
+be continued to that King's executioners, over the head of the
+revolutionists, as a suspended sword. Under that menace, and with
+the authentication of being Washington's irremovable mouthpiece, this
+Minister had only to speak and it was done.
+
+     1 "Mémoire», etc., du General Lafayette," Bruxelles, 1837,
+     tome ii., pp. 484,485.
+
+     2 "Le Département des Affaires Étrangères pendant la
+     Révolution," p. 395.
+
+Meanwhile Gouverneur Morris was steadily working in France for the
+aim which he held in common with Robert Morris, namely to transfer the
+alliance from France to England. These two nations being at war, it was
+impossible for France to fulfil all the terms of the alliance; it could
+not permit English ships alone to seize American provisions on the seas,
+and it was compelled to prevent American vessels from leaving French
+ports with cargoes certain of capture by British cruisers. In this way
+a large number of American Captains with their ships were detained in
+France, to their distress, but to their Minister's satisfaction. He did
+not fail to note and magnify all "infractions" of the treaty, with the
+hope that they might be the means of annulling it in favor of England,
+and he did nothing to mitigate sufferings which were counts in his
+indictment of the Treaty.
+
+It was at this point that Paine came in the American Minister's way. He
+had been on good terms with Gouverneur Morris, who in 1790 (May 29th)
+wrote from London to the President:
+
+"On the 17th Mr. Paine called to tell me that he had conversed on the
+same subject [impressment of American seamen] with Mr. Burke, who had
+asked him if there was any minister, consul, or other agent of the
+United States who could properly make application to the Government: to
+which he had replied in the negative; but said that I was here, who had
+been a member of Congress, and was therefore the fittest person to step
+forward. In consequence of what passed thereupon between them he [Paine]
+urged me to take the matter up, which I promised to do. On the 18th I
+wrote to the Duke of Leeds requesting an interview."
+
+     1 Force's "American State Papers, For. Rel.," vol. i.
+
+At that time (1790) Paine was as yet a lion in London, thus able to
+give Morris a lift. He told Morris, in 1792 that he considered his
+appointment to France a mistake. This was only on the ground of his
+anti-republican opinions; he never dreamed of the secret commissions
+to England. He could not have supposed that the Minister who had so
+promptly presented the case of impressed seamen in England would
+not equally attend to the distressed Captains in France; but these,
+neglected by their Minister, appealed to Paine. Paine went to see
+Morris, with whom he had an angry interview, during which he asked
+Morris "if he did not feel ashamed to take the money of the country
+and do nothing for it." Paine thus incurred the personal enmity of
+Gouverneur Morris. By his next step he endangered this Minister's
+scheme for increasing the friction between France and America; for
+Paine advised the Americans to appeal directly to the Convention, and
+introduced them to that body, which at once heeded their application,
+Morris being left out of the matter altogether. This was August 22d, and
+Morris was very angry. It is probable that the Americans in Paris
+felt from that time that Paine was in danger, for on September 13th a
+memorial, evidently concocted by them, was sent to the French government
+proposing that they should send Commissioners to the United States to
+forestall the intrigues of England, and that Paine should go with them,
+and set forth their case in the journals, as he "has great influence
+with the people." This looks like a design to get Paine safely out of
+the country, but it probably sealed his fate. Had Paine gone to America
+and reported there Morris's treacheries to France and to his own
+country, and his licentiousness, notorious in Paris, which his diary has
+recently revealed to the world, the career of the Minister would have
+swiftly terminated. Gouverneur Morris wrote to Robert Morris that
+Paine was intriguing for his removal, and intimates that he (Paine) was
+ambitious of taking his place in Paris. Paine's return to America must
+be prevented.
+
+Had the American Minister not been well known as an enemy of the
+republic it might have been easy to carry Paine from the Convention to
+the guillotine; but under the conditions the case required all of the
+ingenuity even of a diplomatist so adroit as Gouverneur Morris. But fate
+had played into his hand. It so happened that Louis Otto, whose letter
+from Philadelphia has been quoted, had become chief secretary to the
+Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris, M. Deforgues. This Minister and
+his Secretary, apprehending the fate that presently overtook both, were
+anxious to be appointed to America. No one knew better than Otto the
+commanding influence of Gouverneur Morris, as Washington's "irremovable"
+representative, both in France and America, and this desire of the two
+frightened officials to get out of France was confided to him.(1) By
+hope of his aid, and by this compromising confidence, Deforgues came
+under the power of a giant who used it like a giant. Morris at
+once hinted that Paine was fomenting the troubles given by Genêt to
+Washington in America, and thus set in motion the procedure by which
+Paine was ultimately lodged in prison.
+
+There being no charge against Paine in France, and no ill-will felt
+towards him by Robespierre, compliance with the supposed will of
+Washington was in this case difficult. Six months before, a law had been
+passed to imprison aliens of hostile nationality, which could not affect
+Paine, he being a member of the Convention and an American. But a decree
+was passed, evidently to reach Paine, "that no foreigner should be
+admitted to represent the French people"; by this he was excluded from
+the Convention, and the Committee of General Surety enabled to take the
+final step of assuming that he was an Englishman, and thus under the
+decree against aliens of hostile nations.(2)
+
+     1 Letter of Gouverneur Morris to Washington, Oct 19, 1793.
+     Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," vol. ii., p. 375.
+
+     2 Although, as I have said, there was no charge against
+     Paine in France, and none assigned in any document connected
+     with his arrest, some kind of insinuation had to be made in
+     the Convention to cover proceedings against a Deputy, and
+     Bourdon de l'Oise said, "I know that he has intrigued with a
+     former agent of the bureau of Foreign Affairs." It will be
+     seen by the third addendum to the Memorial to Monroe that
+     Paine supposed this to refer to Louis Otto, who had been his
+     interpreter in an interview requested by Barère, of the
+     Committee of Public Safety. But as Otto was then, early in
+     September, 1793, Secretary in the Foreign Office, and Barère
+     a fellow-terrorist of Bourdon, there could be no accusation
+     based on an interview which, had it been probed, would have
+     put Paine's enemies to confusion. It is doubtful, however,
+     if Paine was right in his conjecture. The reference of
+     Bourdon was probably to the collusion between Paine and
+     Genêt suggested by Morris.
+
+Paine was thus lodged in prison simply to please Washington, to whom
+it was left to decide whether he had been rightly represented by his
+Minister in the case. When the large number of Americans in Paris
+hastened in a body to the Convention to demand his release, the
+President (Vadier) extolled Paine, but said his birth in England brought
+him under the measures of safety, and referred them to the Committees.
+There they were told that "their reclamation was only the act of
+individuals, without any authority from the American Government."
+Unfortunately the American petitioners, not understanding by this a
+reference to the President, unsuspiciously repaired to Morris, as
+also did Paine by letter. The Minister pretended compliance, thereby
+preventing their direct appeal to the President. Knowing, however, that
+America would never agree that nativity under the British flag made
+Paine any more than other Americans a citizen of England, the American
+Minister came from Sain-port, where he resided, to Paris, and secured
+from the obedient Deforgues a certificate that he had reclaimed Paine
+as an American citizen, but that he was held as a _French_ citizen.
+This ingeniously prepared certificate which was sent to the Secretary
+of State (Jefferson), and Morris's pretended "reclamation," _which was
+never sent to America_, are translated in my "Life of Paine," and here
+given in the original.
+
+
+À Paris le 14 février 1794, 26 pluviôse.
+
+Le Minisire plénipotentiaire des États Unis de l'Amérique près la
+République française au Ministre des Affaires Étrangères.
+
+Monsieur:
+
+Thomas Paine vient de s'adresser à moi pour que je le réclame comme
+Citoyen des États Unis. Voici (je crois) les Faits que le regardent. Il
+est né en Angleterre. Devenu ensuite Citoyen des États Unis il s'y
+est acquise une grande célébrité par des Écrits révolutionnaires. En
+consequence il fût adopté Citoyen français et ensuite élu membre de la
+Convention. Sa conduite depuis cette époque n'est pas de mon ressort.
+J'ignore la cause de sa Détention actuelle dans la prison du Luxembourg,
+mais je vous prie Monsieur (si des raisons que ne me sont pas connues
+s'opposent à sa liberation) de vouloir bien m'en instruire pour que je
+puisse les communiquer au Gouvernement des États Unis. J'ai l'honneur
+d'être, Monsieur,
+
+Votre très humble Serviteur
+
+Gouv. Morris.
+
+Paris, i Ventôse l'An ad. de la République une et indivisible.
+
+Le Ministre des Affaires Étrangères au Ministre Plénipotentiaire des
+États Unis de V Amérique près la République Française.
+
+Par votre lettre du 26 du mois dernier, vous réclamez la liberté de
+Thomas Faine, comme Citoyen américain. Né en Angleterre, cet ex-deputé
+est devenu successivement Citoyen Américain et Citoyen français. En
+acceptant ce dernier titre et en remplissant une place dans le Corps
+Législatif, il est soumis aux lob de la République et il a renoncé de
+fait à la protection que le droit des gens et les traités conclus avec
+les États Unis auraient pu lui assurer.
+
+J'ignore les motifs de sa détention mais je dois présumer qûils bien
+fondés. Je vois néanmoins soumettre au Comité de Salut Public la démande
+que vous m'avez adressée et je m'empresserai de vous faire connaître sa
+décision.
+
+Dir ORGUBS. (1)
+
+     1 Archives of the Foreign Office, Paris, "États Unis," vol.
+     xl. Translations:--Morris: "Sir,--Thomas Paine has just
+     applied to me to claim him as a citizen of the United
+     States. Here (I believe) are the facts relating to him. He
+     was born in England. Having afterwards become a citizen of
+     the United States, he acquired great celebrity there by his
+     revolutionary writings. In consequence he was adopted a
+     French citizen and then elected Member of the Convention.
+     His conduct since this epoch is out of my jurisdiction. I am
+     ignorant of the reason for his present detention in the
+     Luxembourg prison, but I beg you, sir (if reasons unknown to
+     me prevent his liberation), be so good as to inform me, that
+     I may communicate them to the government of the United
+     States." Deporgurs: "By your letter of the 36th of last
+     month you reclaim the liberty of Thomas Paine as an American
+     citizen. Born in England, this ex-deputy has become
+     successively an American and a French citizen. In accepting
+     this last title, and in occupying a place in the Corps
+     Législatif he submitted himself to the laws of the Republic,
+     and has certainly renounced the protection which the law of
+     nations, and treaties concluded with the United States,
+     could have assured him. I am ignorant of the motives of his
+     detention, but I must presume they are well founded. I shall
+     nevertheless submit to the Committee of Public Safety the
+     demand you have addressed to me, and I shall lose no time in
+     letting you know its decision."
+
+It will be seen that Deforgues begins his letter with a falsehood: "You
+reclaim the liberty of Paine as an American citizen." Morris's letter
+had declared him a French citizen out of his (the American Minister's)
+"jurisdiction." Morris states for Deforgues his case, and it is
+obediently adopted, though quite discordant with the decree, which
+imprisoned Paine as a foreigner. Deforgues also makes Paine a member
+of a non-existent body, the "Corps Législatif," which might suggest
+in Philadelphia previous connection with the defunct Assembly. No such
+inquiries as Deforgues promised, nor any, were ever made, and of course
+none were intended. Morris had got from Deforgues the certificate he
+needed to show in Philadelphia and to Americans in Paris. His pretended
+"reclamation" was of course withheld: no copy of it ever reached America
+till brought from French archives by the present writer. Morris does
+not appear to have ventured even to keep a copy of it himself. The draft
+(presumably in English), found among his papers by Sparks, alters the
+fatal sentence which deprived Paine of his American citizenship and of
+protection. "Res-sort"--jurisdiction--which has a definite technical
+meaning in the mouth of a Minister, is changed to "cognizance"; the
+sentence is made to read, "his conduct from that time has not come under
+my cognizance." (Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 401).
+Even as it stands in his book, Sparks says: "The application, it must
+be confessed, was neither pressing in its terms, nor cogent in its
+arguments."
+
+The American Minister, armed with this French missive, dictated by
+himself, enclosed it to the Secretary of State, whom he supposed to be
+still Jefferson, with a letter stating that he had reclaimed Paine as an
+American, that he (Paine) was held to answer for "crimes," and that any
+further attempt to release him would probably be fatal to the prisoner.
+By these falsehoods, secured from detection by the profound secrecy of
+the Foreign Offices in both countries, Morris paralyzed all interference
+from America, as Washington could not of course intervene in behalf of
+an American charged with "crimes" committed in a foreign country, except
+to demand his trial. But it was important also to paralyze further
+action by Americans in Paris, and to them, too, was shown the French
+certificate of a reclamation never made. A copy was also sent to Paine,
+who returned to Morris an argument which he entreated him to embody in
+a further appeal to the French Minister. This document was of course
+buried away among the papers of Morris, who never again mentioned Paine
+in any communication to the French government, but contented himself
+with personal slanders of his victim in private letters to Washington's
+friend, Robert Morris, and no doubt others. I quote Sparks's summary of
+the argument unsuspectingly sent by Paine to Morris:
+
+"He first proves himself to have been an American citizen, a character
+of which he affirms no subsequent act had deprived him. The title of
+French citizen was a mere nominal and honorary one, which the
+Convention chose to confer, when they asked him to help them in making a
+Constitution. But let the nature or honor of the title be what it might,
+the Convention had taken it away of their own accord. 'He was
+excluded from the Convention on the motion for excluding _foreigners_.
+Consequently he was no longer under the law of the Republic as a
+_citizen_, but under the protection of the Treaty of Alliance, as fully
+and effectually as any other citizen of America. It was therefore the
+duty of the American Minister to demand his release.'"
+
+To this Sparks adds:
+
+"Such is the drift of Paine's argument, and it would seem indeed that
+he could not be a foreigner and a citizen at the same time. It was hard
+that his only privilege of citizenship should be that of imprisonment.
+But this logic was a little too refined for the revolutionary tribunals
+of the Jacobins in Paris, and Mr. Morris well knew it was not worth
+while to preach it to them. He did not believe there was any serious
+design at that time against the life of the prisoner, and he considered
+his best chance of safety to be in preserving silence for the present.
+Here the matter rested, and Paine was left undisturbed till the arrival
+of Mr. Monroe, who procured his discharge from confinement." ("Life of
+Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 417.)l
+
+Sparks takes the gracious view of the man whose Life he was writing, but
+the facts now known turn his words to sarcasm. The Terror by which Paine
+suffered was that of Morris, who warned him and his friends, both in
+Paris and America, that if his case was stirred the knife would fall
+on him. Paine declares (see xx.) that this danger kept him silent till
+after the fall of Robespierre. None knew so well as Morris that
+there were no charges against Paine for offences in France, and that
+Robespierre was awaiting that action by Washington which he (Morris) had
+rendered impossible. Having thus suspended the knife over Paine for six
+months, Robespierre interpreted the President's silence, and that
+of Congress, as confirmation of Morris's story, and resolved on the
+execution of Paine "in the interests of America as well as of France";
+in other words to conciliate Washington to the endangered alliance with
+France.
+
+Paine escaped the guillotine by the strange accident related in a
+further chapter. The fall of Robespierre did not of course end his
+imprisonment, for he was not Robespierre's but Washington's prisoner.
+Morris remained Minister in France nearly a month after Robespierre's
+death, but the word needed to open Paine's prison was not spoken.
+After his recall, had Monroe been able at once to liberate Paine, an
+investigation must have followed, and Morris would probably have taken
+his prisoner's place in the Luxembourg. But Morris would not present his
+letters of recall, and refused to present his successor, thus keeping
+Monroe out of his office four weeks. In this he was aided by Bourdon
+de l'Oise (afterwards banished as a royalist conspirator, but now a
+commissioner to decide on prisoners); also by tools of Robespierre who
+had managed to continue on the Committee of Public Safety by laying
+their crimes on the dead scapegoat--Robespierre. Against Barère (who had
+signed Paine's death-warrant), Billaud-Varennes, and Colloit d'Her-bois,
+Paine, if liberated, would have been a terrible witness. The Committee
+ruled by them had suppressed Paine's appeal to the Convention, as they
+presently suppressed Monroe's first appeal. Paine, knowing that Monroe
+had arrived, but never dreaming that the manoeuvres of Morris were
+keeping him out of office, wrote him from prison the following letters,
+hitherto unpublished.
+
+     1 There is no need to delay the reader here with any
+     argument about Paine's unquestionable citizenship, that
+     point having been settled by his release as an American, and
+     the sanction of Monroe's action by his government. There was
+     no genuineness in any challenge of Paine's citizenship, but
+     a mere desire to do him an injury. In this it had marvellous
+     success. Ten years after Paine had been reclaimed by Monroe,
+     with the sanction of Washington, as an American citizen, his
+     vote was refused at New Rochelle, New York, by the
+     supervisor, Elisha Ward, on the ground that Washington and
+     Morris had refused to Declaim him. Under his picture of the
+     dead Paine, Jarvis, the artist, wrote: "A man who devoted
+     his whole life to the attainment of two objects--rights of
+     man, and freedom of conscience--had his vote denied when
+     living, and was denied a grave when dead."--_Editor._
+
+
+August 17th, 1794.
+
+My Dear Sir: As I believe none of the public papers have announced your
+name right I am unable to address you by it, but a _new_ minister from
+America is joy to me and will be so to every American in France.
+
+Eight months I have been imprisoned, and I know not for what, except
+that the order says that I am a Foreigner. The Illness I have suffered
+in this place (and from which I am but just recovering) had nearly put
+an end to my existence. My life is but of little value to me in
+this situation tho' I have borne it with a firmness of patience and
+fortitude.
+
+I enclose you a copy of a letter, (as well the translation as the
+English)--which I sent to the Convention after the fall of the Monster
+Robespierre--for I was determined not to write a line during the time of
+his detestable influence. I sent also a copy to the Committee of public
+safety--but I have not heard any thing respecting it. I have now
+no expectation of delivery but by your means--_Morris has been my
+inveterate enemy_ and I think he has permitted something of the national
+Character of America to suffer by quietly letting a Citizen of that
+Country remain almost eight months in prison without making every
+official exertion to procure him justice,--for every act of violence
+offered to a foreigner is offered also to the Nation to which he
+belongs.
+
+The gentleman, Mr. Beresford, who will present you this has been very
+friendly to me.(1) Wishing you happiness in your appointment, I am your
+affectionate friend and humble servant.
+
+
+August 18th, 1794.
+
+Dear Sir: In addition to my letter of yesterday (sent to Mr. Beresford
+to be conveyed to you but which is delayed on account of his being at
+St. Germain) I send the following memoranda.
+
+I was in London at the time I was elected a member of this Convention.
+I was elected a Deputé in four different departments without my knowing
+any thing of the matter, or having the least idea of it. The intention
+of electing the Convention before the time of the former Legislature
+expired, was for the purpose of reforming the Constitution or rather for
+forming a new one. As the former Legislature shewed a disposition that
+I should assist in this business of the new Constitution, they prepared
+the way by voting me a French Citoyen (they conferred the same title
+on General Washington and certainly I had no more idea than he had of
+vacating any part of my real Citizenship of America for a nominal one in
+France, especially at a time when she did not know whether she would
+be a Nation or not, and had it not even in her power to promise me
+protection). I was elected (the second person in number of Votes, the
+Abbé Sieves being first) a member for forming the Constitution, and
+every American in Paris as well as my other acquaintance knew that it
+was my intention to return to America as soon as the Constitution should
+be established. The violence of Party soon began to shew itself in the
+Convention, but it was impossible for me to see upon what principle they
+differed--unless it was a contention for power. I acted however as I
+did in America, I connected myself with no Party, but considered myself
+altogether a National Man--but the case with Parties generally is that
+when you are not with one you are supposed to be with the other.
+
+     1 A friendly lamp-lighter, alluded to in the Letter to
+     Washington, conveyed this letter to Mr. Beresford.--
+     _Editor._
+
+I was taken out of bed between three and four in the morning on the
+28 of December last, and brought to the Luxembourg--without any other
+accusation inserted in the order than that I was a foreigner; a motion
+having been made two days before in the Convention to expel Foreigners
+therefrom. I certainly then remained, even upon their own tactics, what
+I was before, a Citizen of America.
+
+About three weeks after my imprisonment the Americans that were in Paris
+went to the bar of the Convention to reclaim me, but contrary to my
+advice, they made their address into a Petition, and it miscarried.
+I then applied to G. Morris, to reclaim me as an official part of his
+duty, which he found it necessary to do, and here the matter stopt.(1)
+I have not heard a single line or word from any American since, which
+is now seven months. I rested altogether on the hope that a new Minister
+would arrive from America. I have escaped with life from more dangers
+than one. Had it not been for the fall of Roberspierre and your timely
+arrival I know not what fate might have yet attended me. There seemed to
+be a determination to destroy all the Prisoners without regard to merit,
+character, or any thing else. During the time I laid at the height of my
+illness they took, in one night only, 169 persons out of this prison
+and executed all but eight. The distress that I have suffered at being
+obliged to exist in the midst of such horrors, exclusive of my own
+precarious situation, suspended as it were by the single thread of
+accident, is greater than it is possible you can conceive--but thank God
+times are at last changed, and I hope that your Authority will release
+me from this unjust imprisonment.
+
+     1 The falsehood told Paine, accompanied by an intimation of
+     danger in pursuing the pretended reclamation, was of course
+     meant to stop any farther action by Paine or his friends.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+August 25, 1794.
+
+My Dear Sir: Having nothing to do but to sit and think, I will write
+to pass away time, and to say that I am still here. I have received two
+notes from Mr. Beresford which are encouraging (as the generality of
+notes and letters are that arrive to persons here) but they contain
+nothing explicit or decisive with respect to my liberation, and _I
+shall be very glad to receive a line from yourself to inform me in what
+condition the matter stands_. If I only glide out of prison by a sort
+of accident America gains no credit by my liberation, neither can my
+attachment to her be increased by such a circumstance. She has had the
+services of my best days, she has my allegiance, she receives my portion
+of Taxes for my house in Borden Town and my farm at New Rochelle, and
+she owes me protection both at home and thro' her Ministers abroad, yet
+I remain in prison, in the face of her Minister, at the arbitrary will
+of a committee.
+
+Excluded as I am from the knowledge of everything and left to a random
+of ideas, I know not what to think or how to act. Before there was
+any Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) and while the
+Robespierrian faction lasted, I had nothing to do but to keep my mind
+tranquil and expect the fate that was every day inflicted upon my
+comrades, not individually but by scores. Many a man whom I have passed
+an hour with in conversation I have seen marching to his destruction the
+next hour, or heard of it the next morning; for what rendered the scene
+more horrible was that they were generally taken away at midnight, so
+that every man went to bed with the apprehension of never seeing his
+friends or the world again.
+
+I wish to impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in
+Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any
+over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my
+liberation, you omit procuring it for me _now_, you may have to lament
+the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the
+Northward or other possible accident may happen to bring this about. I
+am not out of danger till I am out of Prison.
+
+Yours affectionately.
+
+P. S.--I am now entirely without money. The Convention owes me 1800
+livres salary which I know not how to get while I am here, nor do I know
+how to draw for money on the rent of my farm in America. It is under
+the care of my good friend General Lewis Morris. I have received no rent
+since I have been in Europe.
+
+[Addressed] Minister Plenipotentiary from America, Maison des Étrangers,
+Rue de la Loi, Rue Richelieu.
+
+
+Such was the sufficiently cruel situation when there reached Paine in
+prison, September 4th, the letter of Peter Whiteside which caused him
+to write his Memorial. Whiteside was a Philadelphian whose bankruptcy in
+London had swallowed up some of Paine's means. His letter, reporting to
+Paine that he was not regarded by the American Government or people as
+an American citizen, and that no American Minister could interfere in
+his behalf, was evidently inspired by Morris who was still in Paris, the
+authorities being unwilling to give him a passport to Switzerland,
+as they knew he was going in that direction to join the conspirators
+against France. This Whiteside letter put Paine, and through him Monroe,
+on a false scent by suggesting that the difficulty of his case lay in a
+_bona fide_ question of citizenship, whereas there never had been really
+any such question. The knot by which Morris had bound Paine was thus
+concealed, and Monroe was appealing to polite wolves in the interest of
+their victim. There were thus more delays, inexplicable alike to Monroe
+and to Paine, eliciting from the latter some heartbroken letters, not
+hitherto printed, which I add at the end of the Memorial. To add to
+the difficulties and dangers, Paris was beginning to be agitated by
+well-founded rumors of Jay's injurious negotiations in England, and a
+coldness towards Monroe was setting in. Had Paine's release been delayed
+much longer an American Minister's friendship might even have proved
+fatal. Of all this nothing could be known to Paine, who suffered agonies
+he had not known during the Reign of Terror. The other prisoners of
+Robespierre's time had departed; he alone paced the solitary corridors
+of the Luxembourg, chilled by the autumn winds, his cell tireless, unlit
+by any candle, insufficiently nourished, an abscess forming in his side;
+all this still less cruel than the feeling that he was abandoned, not
+only by Washington but by all America.
+
+This is the man of whom Washington wrote to Madison nine years before:
+"Must the merits and services of 'Common Sense' continue to glide down
+the stream of time unrewarded by this country?" This, then, is his
+reward. To his old comrade in the battle-fields of Liberty, George
+Washington, Paine owed his ten months of imprisonment, at the end of
+which Monroe found him a wreck, and took him (November 4) to his own
+house, where he and his wife nursed him back into life. But it was not
+for some months supposed that Paine could recover; it was only after
+several relapses; and it was under the shadow of death that he wrote the
+letter to Washington so much and so ignorantly condemned. Those who have
+followed the foregoing narrative will know that Paine's grievances were
+genuine, that his infamous treatment stains American history; but they
+will also know that they lay chiefly at the door of a treacherous and
+unscrupulous American Minister.
+
+Yet it is difficult to find an excuse for the retention of that Minister
+in France by Washington. On Monroe's return to America in 1797, he
+wrote a pamphlet concerning the mission from which he had been curtly
+recalled, in which he said:
+
+"I was persuaded from Mr. Morris's known political character and
+principles, that his appointment, and especially at a period when the
+French nation was in a course of revolution from an arbitrary to a free
+government, would tend to discountenance the republican cause there
+and at home, and otherwise weaken, and greatly to our prejudice, the
+connexion subsisting between the two countries."
+
+In a copy of this pamphlet found at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote on
+the margin of this sentence:
+
+"Mr. Morris was known to be a man of first rate abilities; and his
+integrity and honor had never been impeached. Besides, Mr. Morris was
+sent whilst the kingly government was in existence, ye end of 91 or
+beginning of 92." (1)
+
+But this does not explain why Gouverneur Morris was persistently kept in
+France after monarchy was abolished (September 21, 1792), or even after
+Lafayette's request for his removal, already quoted. To that letter
+of Lafayette no reply has been discovered. After the monarchy was
+abolished, Ternant and Genêt successively carried to America protests
+from their Foreign Office against the continuance of a Minister in
+France, who was known in Paris, and is now known to all acquainted with
+his published papers, to have all along made his office the headquarters
+of British intrigue against France, American interests being quite
+subordinated. Washington did not know this, but he might have known it,
+and his disregard of French complaints can hardly be ascribed to any
+other cause than his delusion that Morris was deeply occupied with
+the treaty negotiations confided to him. It must be remembered that
+Washington believed such a treaty with England to be the alternative of
+war.(2) On that apprehension the British party in America, and British
+agents, played to the utmost, and under such influences Washington
+sacrificed many old friendships,--with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
+Edmund Randolph, Paine,--and also the confidence of his own State,
+Virginia.
+
+     1  Washington's marginal notes on Monroe's "View, etc.,"
+     were first fully given in Ford's "Writings of Washington,"
+     vol. xiii., p. 452, seq.
+
+     2 Ibid., p. 453.
+
+There is a traditional impression that Paine's angry letter to
+Washington was caused by the President's failure to inter-pose for
+his relief from prison. But Paine believed that the American Minister
+(Morris) had reclaimed him in some feeble fashion, as an American
+citizen, and he knew that the President had officially approved Monroe's
+action in securing his release. His grievance was that Washington, whose
+letters of friendship he cherished, who had extolled his services to
+America, should have manifested no concern personally, made no use of
+his commanding influence to rescue him from daily impending death, sent
+to his prison no word of kindness or inquiry, and sent over their mutual
+friend Monroe without any instructions concerning him; and finally, that
+his private letter, asking explanation, remained unanswered. No doubt
+this silence of Washington concerning the fate of Paine, whom he
+acknowledged to be an American citizen, was mainly due to his fear
+of offending England, which had proclaimed Paine. The "outlaw's"
+imprisonment in Paris caused jubilations among the English gentry,
+and went on simultaneously with Jay's negotiations in London, when any
+expression by Washington of sympathy with Paine (certain of publication)
+might have imperilled the Treaty, regarded by the President as vital.
+
+So anxious was the President about this, that what he supposed had been
+done for Paine by Morris, and what had really been done by Monroe,
+was kept in such profound secrecy, that even his Secretary of State,
+Pickering, knew nothing of it. This astounding fact I recently
+discovered in the manuscripts of that Secretary.(1) Colonel Pickering,
+while flattering enough to the President in public, despised his
+intellect, and among his papers is a memorandum concluding as follows:
+
+"But when the hazards of the Revolutionary War had ended, by the
+establishment of our Independence, why was the knowledge of General
+Washington's comparatively defective mental powers not freely divulged?
+Why, even by the enemies of his civil administration were his abilities
+very tenderly glanced at? --Because there were few, if any men, who
+did not revere him for his distinguished virtues; his modesty--his
+unblemished integrity, his pure and disinterested patriotism. These
+virtues, of infinitely more value than exalted abilities without them,
+secured to him the veneration and love of his fellow citizens at large.
+Thus immensely popular, no man was willing to publish, under his hand,
+even the simple truth. The only exception, that I recollect, was the
+infamous Tom Paine; and this when in France, after he had escaped the
+guillotine of Robespierre; and in resentment, because, after he had
+participated in the French Revolution, President Washington seemed
+not to have thought him so very important a character in the world,
+as officially to interpose for his relief from the fangs of the French
+ephemeral Rulers. In a word, no man, however well informed, was willing
+to hazard his own popularity by exhibiting the real intellectual
+character of the immensely popular Washington."
+
+     1 Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 11., p. 171.
+
+How can this ignorance of an astute man, Secretary of State under
+Washington and Adams, be explained? Had Washington hidden the letters
+showing on their face that he _had_ "officially interposed" for Paine by
+two Ministers?
+
+Madison, writing to Monroe, April 7, 1796, says that Pickering had
+spoken to him "in harsh terms" of a letter written by Paine to the
+President. This was a private letter of September 20, 1795, afterwards
+printed in Paine's public Letter to Washington. The Secretary certainly
+read that letter on its arrival, January 18, 1796, and yet Washington
+does not appear to have told him of what had been officially done in
+Paine's case! Such being the secrecy which Washington had carried from
+the camp to the cabinet, and the morbid extent of it while the British
+Treaty was in negotiation and discussion, one can hardly wonder at his
+silence under Paine's private appeal and public reproach.
+
+Much as Pickering hated Paine, he declares him the only man who ever
+told the simple truth about Washington. In the lapse of time historical
+research, while removing the sacred halo of Washington, has revealed
+beneath it a stronger brain than was then known to any one. Paine
+published what many whispered, while they were fawning on Washington for
+office, or utilizing his power for partisan ends. Washington, during his
+second administration, when his mental decline was remarked by
+himself, by Jefferson, and others, was regarded by many of his eminent
+contemporaries as fallen under the sway of small partisans. Not only
+was the influence of Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Monroe, Livingston,
+alienated, but the counsels of Hamilton were neutralized by Wolcott and
+Pickering, who apparently agreed about the President's "mental powers."
+Had not Paine previously incurred the _odium theologicum_, his pamphlet
+concerning Washington would have been more damaging; even as it was, the
+verdict was by no means generally favorable to the President, especially
+as the replies to Paine assumed that Washington had indeed failed to
+try and rescue him from impending death.(1) A pamphlet written by Bache,
+printed anonymously (1797), Remarks occasioned by the late conduct of
+Mr. Washington, indicates the belief of those who raised Washington to
+power, that both Randolph and Paine had been sacrificed to please Great
+Britain.
+
+The _Bien-informé_ (Paris, November 12, 1797) published a letter from
+Philadelphia, which may find translation here as part of the history of
+the pamphlet:
+
+"The letter of Thomas Paine to General Washington is read here with
+avidity. We gather from the English papers that the Cabinet of St James
+has been unable to stop the circulation of that pamphlet in England,
+since it is allowable to reprint there any English work already
+published elsewhere, however disagreeable to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas.
+We read in the letter to Washington that Robespierre had declared to
+the Committee of Public Safety that it was desirable in the interests
+of both France and America that Thomas Paine, who, for seven or eight
+months had been kept a prisoner in the Luxembourg, should forthwith be
+brought up for judgment before the revolutionary tribunal. The proof of
+this fact is found in Robespierre's papers, and gives ground for strange
+suspicions."
+
+     1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an
+     American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the
+     infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General
+     Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
+     Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington,
+     speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although
+     he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to
+     be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they
+     are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute
+     falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are
+     pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in
+     this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you
+     will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias
+     William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an
+     Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions,
+     and a want of official information as to many facts, it is
+     not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the
+     action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in
+     Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these
+     disclosed.
+
+"It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend
+James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves
+on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man.
+Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine
+is still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in
+America] also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after
+actually arriving he found his (really popular) _principles no longer
+the order of the day_, and thought best to re-embark.
+
+"The English journals, while repeating this idle rumor, observed that it
+was unfounded, and that Paine had not left France. Some French journals
+have copied these London paragraphs, but without comments; so that at
+the very moment when Thomas Paine's Letter on the 18th. Fructidor is
+published, _La Clef du Cabinet_ says that this citizen is suffering
+unpleasantness in America."
+
+Paine had intended to return with Monroe, in the spring of 1797, but,
+suspecting the Captain and a British cruiser in the distance, returned
+from Havre to Paris. The packet was indeed searched by the cruiser
+for Paine, and, had he been captured, England would have executed the
+sentence pronounced by Robespierre to please Washington.
+
+
+
+MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO JAMES MONROE,
+
+MINISTER FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+Prison of the Luxembourg, Sept. 10th, 1794.
+
+I address this memorial to you, in consequence of a letter I received
+from a friend, 18 Fructidor (September 4th,) in which he says, "Mr.
+Monroe has told me, that he has no orders [meaning from the American
+government] respecting you; but I am sure he will leave nothing
+undone to liberate you; but, from what I can learn, from all the late
+Americans, you are not considered either by the Government, or by
+the individuals, as an American citizen. You have been made a french
+Citizen, which you have accepted, and you have further made yourself
+a servant of the french Republic; and, therefore, it would be out
+of character for an American Minister to interfere in their internal
+concerns. You must therefore either be liberated out of Compliment to
+America, or stand your trial, which you have a right to demand."
+
+This information was so unexpected by me, that I am at a loss how to
+answer it. I know not on what principle it originates; whether from an
+idea that I had voluntarily abandoned my Citizenship of America for that
+of France, or from any article of the American Constitution applied to
+me. The first is untrue with respect to any intention on my part; and
+the second is without foundation, as I shall shew in the course of this
+memorial.
+
+The idea of conferring honor of Citizenship upon foreigners, who had
+distinguished themselves in propagating the principles of liberty and
+humanity, in opposition to despotism, war, and bloodshed, was first
+proposed by me to La Fayette, at the commencement of the french
+revolution, when his heart appeared to be warmed with those principles.
+My motive in making this proposal, was to render the people of different
+nations more fraternal than they had been, or then were. I observed that
+almost every branch of Science had possessed itself of the exercise
+of this right, so far as it regarded its own institution. Most of the
+Academies and Societies in Europe, and also those of America, conferred
+the rank of honorary member, upon foreigners eminent in knowledge, and
+made them, in fact, citizens of their literary or scientific republic,
+without affecting or anyways diminishing their rights of citizenship
+in their own country or in other societies: and why the Science of
+Government should not have the same advantage, or why the people of
+one nation should not, by their representatives, exercise the right of
+conferring the honor of Citizenship upon individuals eminent in another
+nation, without affecting _their_ rights of citizenship, is a problem
+yet to be solved.
+
+I now proceed to remark on that part of the letter, in which the writer
+says, that, _from what he can learn from all the late Americans, I
+am not considered in America, either by the Government or by the
+individuals, as an American citizen_.
+
+In the first place I wish to ask, what is here meant by the Government
+of America? The members who compose the Government are only individuals,
+when in conversation, and who, most probably, hold very different
+opinions upon the subject. Have Congress as a body made any declaration
+respecting me, that they now no longer consider me as a citizen? If they
+have not, anything they otherwise say is no more than the opinion
+of individuals, and consequently is not legal authority, nor anyways
+sufficient authority to deprive any man of his Citizenship. Besides,
+whether a man has forfeited his rights of Citizenship, is a question not
+determinable by Congress, but by a Court of Judicature and a Jury; and
+must depend upon evidence, and the application of some law or article of
+the Constitution to the case. No such proceeding has yet been had, and
+consequently I remain a Citizen until it be had, be that decision what
+it may; for there can be no such thing as a suspension of rights in the
+interim.
+
+I am very well aware, and always was, of the article of the Constitution
+which says, as nearly as I can recollect the words, that "any citizen
+of the United States, who shall accept any title, place, or office, from
+any foreign king, prince, or state, shall forfeit and lose his right of
+Citizenship of the United States."
+
+Had the Article said, that _any citizen of the United States, who shall
+be a member of any foreign convention, for the purpose of forming a free
+constitution, shall forfeit and lose the right of citizenship of the
+United States_, the article had been directly applicable to me; but
+the idea of such an article never could have entered the mind of the
+American Convention, and the present article _is_ altogether foreign
+to the case with respect to me. It supposes a Government in active
+existence, and not a Government dissolved; and it supposes a citizen of
+America accepting titles and offices under that Government, and not a
+citizen of America who gives his assistance in a Convention chosen by
+the people, for the purpose of forming a Government _de nouveau_ founded
+on their authority.
+
+The late Constitution and Government of France was dissolved the 10th of
+August, 1792. The National legislative Assembly then in being, supposed
+itself without sufficient authority to continue its sittings, and it
+proposed to the departments to elect not another legislative Assembly,
+but a Convention for the express purpose of forming a new Constitution.
+When the Assembly were discoursing on this matter, some of the members
+said, that they wished to gain all the assistance possible upon the
+subject of free constitutions; and expressed a wish to elect and invite
+foreigners of any Nation to the Convention, who had distinguished
+themselves in defending, explaining, and propagating the principles
+of liberty. It was on this occasion that my name was mentioned in the
+Assembly. (I was then in England.)
+
+     1 In the American pamphlet a footnote, probably added by
+     Bache, here says: "Even this article does not exist in the
+     manner here stated." It is a pity Paine did not have in his
+     prison the article, which says: "No person holding any
+     office of profit or trust under them [the United States]
+     shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any
+     present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever,
+     from any king, prince, or foreign State."--_Editor._
+
+
+After this, a deputation from a body of the french people, in order
+to remove any objection that might be made against my assisting at the
+proposed Convention, requested the Assembly, as their representatives,
+to give me the title of French Citizen; after which, I was elected a
+member of the Convention, in four different departments, as is already
+known.(1)
+
+The case, therefore, is, that I accepted nothing from any king,
+prince, or state, nor from any Government: for France was without any
+Government, except what arose from common consent, and the necessity of
+the case. Neither did I _make myself a servant of the french Republic_,
+as the letter alluded to expresses; for at that time France was not a
+republic, not even in name. She was altogether a people in a state of
+revolution.
+
+It was not until the Convention met that France was declared a republic,
+and monarchy abolished; soon after which a committee was elected, of
+which I was a member,(2) to form a Constitution, which was presented to
+the Convention [and read by Condorcet, who was also a member] the
+15th and 16th of February following, but was not to be taken into
+consideration till after the expiration of two months,(3) and if
+approved of by the Convention, was then to be referred to the people for
+their acceptance, with such additions or amendments as the Convention
+should make.
+
+     1 The deputation referred to was described as the
+     "Commission Extraordinaire," in whose name M. Guadet moved
+     that the title of French Citizen be conferred on Priestley,
+     Paine, Bentham, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, David
+     Williams, Cormelle, Paw, Pestalozzi, Washington, Madison,
+     Hamilton, Klopstock, Koscinsko, Gorani, Campe, Anacharsis
+     Clootz, Gilleers. This was on August 26, and Paine was
+     elected by Calais on September 6,1792; and in the same week
+     by Oise, Somme, and Puy-de-Dome.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Sieves, Paine, Brissot, Pétion, Vergniaud, Gensonne,
+     Barère, Danton, Condorcet.--_Editor._
+
+     3 The remainder of this sentence is replaced in the American
+     pamphlet by the following: "The disorders and the
+     revolutionary government that took place after this put a
+     stop to any further progress upon the case."--_Editor._
+
+In thus employing myself upon the formation of a Constitution, I
+certainly did nothing inconsistent with the American Constitution. I
+took no oath of allegiance to France, or any other oath whatever. I
+considered the Citizenship they had presented me with as an honorary
+mark of respect paid to me not only as a friend to liberty, but as
+an American Citizen. My acceptance of that, or of the deputyship, not
+conferred on me by any king, prince, or state, but by a people in a
+state of revolution and contending for liberty, required no transfer of
+my allegiance or of my citizenship from America to France. There I was
+a real citizen, paying Taxes; here, I was a voluntary friend, employing
+myself on a temporary service. Every American in Paris knew that it was
+my constant intention to return to America, as soon as a constitution
+should be established, and that I anxiously waited for that event.
+
+I know not what opinions have been circulated in America. It may have
+been supposed there that I had voluntarily and intentionally abandoned
+America, and that my citizenship had ceased by my own choice. I can
+easily [believe] there are those in that country who would take such
+a proceeding on my part somewhat in disgust. The idea of forsaking
+old friendships for new acquaintances is not agreeable. I am a little
+warranted in making this supposition by a letter I received some time
+ago from the wife of one of the Georgia delegates in which she says
+"Your friends on this side the water cannot be reconciled to the idea of
+your abandoning America."
+
+I have never abandoned her in thought, word or deed; and I feel it
+incumbent upon me to give this assurance to the friends I have in that
+country and with whom I have always intended and am determined, if the
+possibility exists, to close the scene of my life. It is there that I
+have made myself a home. It is there that I have given the services of
+my best days. America never saw me flinch from her cause in the most
+gloomy and perilous of her situations; and I know there are those in
+that country who will not flinch from me. If I have enemies (and every
+man has some) I leave them to the enjoyment of their ingratitude.*
+
+     * I subjoin in a note, for the sake of wasting the solitude
+     of a prison, the answer that I gave to the part of the
+     letter above mentioned.   It is not inapplacable to the
+     subject of this Memorial; but it contain! somewhat of a
+     melancholy idea, a little predictive, that I hope is not
+     becoming true so soon.
+
+It is somewhat extraordinary that the idea of my not being a citizen
+of America should have arisen only at the time that I am imprisoned
+in France because, or on the pretence that, I am a foreigner. The case
+involves a strange contradiction of ideas. None of the Americans who
+came to France whilst I was in liberty had conceived any such idea or
+circulated any such opinion; and why it should arise now is a matter
+yet to be explained. However discordant the late American Minister G. M.
+[Gouverneur Morris] and the late French Committee of Public Safety were,
+it suited the purpose of both that I should be continued in arrestation.
+The former wished to prevent my return to America, that I should not
+expose his misconduct; and the latter, lest I should publish to the
+world the history of its wickedness. Whilst that Minister and the
+Committee continued I had no expectation of liberty. I speak here of the
+Committee of which Robespierre was member.(1)
+
+     "You touch me on a very tender point when you say that my
+     friends on your side the water cannot be reconciled to the
+     idea of my abandoning America. They are right. I had rather
+     see my horse Button eating the grass of Borden-Town or
+     Morrisania than see all the pomp and show of Europe.
+
+     "A thousand years hence (for I must indulge a few thoughts)
+     perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The
+     innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all
+     nations in her favour, may sound like a romance and her
+     inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that
+     liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain 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 deride the principle and
+     deny the fact.
+
+     "When we contemplate the fall of Empires and the extinction
+     of the nations of the Ancient World, we see but little to
+     excite our regret than the mouldering ruins of pompous
+     palaces, magnificent museums, lofty pyramids and walls and
+     towers of the most costly workmanship; but when the Empire
+     of America shall fall, the subject for contemplative sorrow
+     will be infinitely greater than crumbling brass and marble
+     can inspire. It will not then be said, here stood a temple
+     of vast antiquity; here rose a babel of invisible height;
+     or there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; but here, Ah,
+     painful thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the
+     grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of Freedom
+     rose and fell. Read this, and then ask if I forget
+     America."--Author.
+
+
+     1 This letter, quoted also in Paine's Letter to Washington,
+     was written from London, Jan. 6, 1789, to the wife of Col.
+     Few, née Kate Nicholson. It is given in full in my "Life of
+     Paine," i., p. 247.--_Editor._
+
+
+
+THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
+
+I ever must deny, that the article of the American constitution
+already mentioned, can be applied either verbally, intentionally,
+or constructively, to me. It undoubtedly was the intention of the
+Convention that framed it, to preserve the purity of the American
+republic from being debased by foreign and foppish customs; but it never
+could be its intention to act against the principles of liberty, by
+forbidding its citizens to assist in promoting those principles in
+foreign Countries; neither could it be its intention to act against
+the principles of gratitude.(1) France had aided America in the
+establishment of her revolution, when invaded and oppressed by England
+and her auxiliaries. France in her turn was invaded and oppressed by a
+combination of foreign despots. In this situation, I conceived it an act
+of gratitude in me, as a citizen of America, to render her in return the
+best services I could perform. I came to France (for I was in England
+when I received the invitation) not to enjoy ease, emoluments, and
+foppish honours, as the article supposes; but to encounter difficulties
+and dangers in defence of liberty; and I much question whether those who
+now malignantly seek (for some I believe do) to turn this to my injury,
+would have had courage to have done the same thing. I am sure Gouverneur
+Morris would not. He told me the second day after my arrival, (in
+Paris,) that the Austrians and Prussians, who were then at Verdun,
+would be in Paris in a fortnight. I have no idea, said he, that seventy
+thousand disciplined troops can be stopped in their march by any power
+in France.
+
+     1 This and the two preceding paragraphs, including the
+     footnote, are entirely omitted from the American pamphlet.
+     It will be seen that Paine had now a suspicion of the
+     conspiracy between Gouverneur Morris and those by whom he
+     was imprisoned. Soon after his imprisonment he had applied
+     to Morris, who replied that he had reclaimed him, and
+     enclosed the letter of Deforgues quoted in my Introduction
+     to this chapter, of course withholding his own letter to the
+     Minister. Paine answered (Feb. 14, 1793): "You must not
+     leave me in the situation in which this letter places me.
+     You know I do not deserve it, and you see the unpleasant
+     situation in which I am thrown. I have made an answer to the
+     Minister's letter, which I wish you to make ground of a
+     reply to him. They have nothing against me--except that they
+     do not choose I should lie in a state of freedom to write my
+     mind freely upon things I have seen. Though you and I are
+     not on terms of the best harmony, I apply to you as the
+     Minister of America, and you may add to that service
+     whatever you think my integrity deserves. At any rate I
+     expect you to make Congress acquainted with my situation,
+     and to send them copies of the letters that have passed on
+     the subject. A reply to the Minister's letter is absolutely
+     necessary, were it only to continue the reclamation.
+     Otherwise your silence will be a sort of consent to his
+     observations." Deforgues' "observations" having been
+     dictated by Morris himself, no reply was sent to him, and no
+     word to Congress.--_Editor_.
+
+     2 In the pamphlet this last clause of the sentence is
+     omitted.--_Editor._.
+
+Besides the reasons I have already given for accepting the invitations
+to the Convention, I had another that has reference particularly to
+America, and which I mentioned to Mr. Pinckney the night before I left
+London to come to Paris: "That it was to the interest of America that
+the system of European governments should be changed and placed on the
+same principle with her own." Mr. Pinckney agreed fully in the same
+opinion. I have done my part towards it.(1)
+
+It is certain that governments upon similar systems agree better
+together than those that are founded on principles discordant with each
+other; and the same rule holds good with respect to the people living
+under them. In the latter case they offend each other by pity, or by
+reproach; and the discordancy carries itself to matters of commerce. I
+am not an ambitious man, but perhaps I have been an ambitious American.
+I have wished to see America the _Mother Church_ of government, and I
+have done my utmost to exalt her character and her condition.
+
+     1 In the American pamphlet the name of Pinckney (American
+     Minister in England) is left blank in this paragraph, and
+     the two concluding sentences are omitted from both the
+     French and American pamphlets.--_Editor._,
+
+I have now stated sufficient matter, to shew that the Article in
+question is not applicable to me; and that any such application to my
+injury, as well in circumstances as in Rights, is contrary both to
+the letter and intention of that Article, and is illegal and
+unconstitutional. Neither do I believe that any Jury in America, when
+they are informed of the whole of the case, would give a verdict to
+deprive me of my Rights upon that Article. The citizens of America,
+I believe, are not very fond of permitting forced and indirect
+explanations to be put upon matters of this kind. I know not what were
+the merits of the case with respect to the person who was prosecuted for
+acting as prize master to a french privateer, but I know that the jury
+gave a verdict against the prosecution. The Rights I have acquired
+are dear to me. They have been acquired by honourable means, and by
+dangerous service in the worst of times, and I cannot passively permit
+them to be wrested from me. I conceive it my duty to defend them, as the
+case involves a constitutional and public question, which is, how
+far the power of the federal government (1) extends, in depriving any
+citizen of his Rights of Citizenship, or of suspending them.
+
+That the explanation of National Treaties belongs to Congress is
+strictly constitutional; but not the explanation of the Constitution
+itself, any more than the explanation of Law in the case of individual
+citizens. These are altogether Judiciary questions. It is, however,
+worth observing, that Congress, in explaining the Article of the Treaty
+with respect to french prizes and french privateers, confined itself
+strictly to the letter of the Article. Let them explain the Article
+of the Constitution with respect to me in the same manner, and the
+decision, did it appertain to them, could not deprive me of my Rights of
+Citizenship, or suspend them, for I have accepted nothing from any king,
+prince, state, or Government.
+
+You will please to observe, that I speak as if the federal Government
+had made some declaration upon the subject of my Citizenship; whereas
+the fact is otherwise; and your saying that you have no order respecting
+me is a proof of it. Those therefore who propagate the report of my not
+being considered as a Citizen of America by Government, do it to the
+prolongation of my imprisonment, and without authority; for Congress,
+_as a government_, has neither decided upon it, nor yet taken the matter
+into consideration; and I request you to caution such persons against
+spreading such reports. But be these matters as they may, I cannot have
+a doubt that you find and feel the case very different, since you have
+heard what I have to say, and known what my situation is [better] than
+you did before your arrival.
+
+     1 In the pamphlet occurs here a significant parenthesis by
+     Bache:  "it should have been said in this case, how far the
+     Executive."--_Editor._.
+
+But it was not the Americans only, but the Convention also, that
+knew what my intentions were upon that subject. In my last discourse
+delivered at the Tribune of the Convention, January 19,1793, on the
+motion for suspending the execution of Louis 16th, I said (the Deputy
+Bancal read the translation in French): "It unfortunately happens that
+the person who is the subject of the present discussion, is considered
+by the Americans as having been the friend of their revolution. His
+execution will be an affliction to them, and it is in your power not
+to wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the french language I
+would descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to
+respite the execution of the sentence/"--"As the convention was elected
+for the express purpose of forming a Constitution, its continuance
+cannot be longer than four or five months more at furthest; and if,
+after my _return to America_, I should employ myself in writing the
+history of the french Revolution, I had rather record a thousand
+errors on the side of mercy, than be obliged to tell one act of severe
+Justice."--"Ah Citizens! give not the tyrant of England the triumph
+of seeing the man perish on a scaffold who had aided my much-loved
+America."
+
+Does this look as if I had abandoned America? But if she abandons me
+in the situation I am in, to gratify the enemies of humanity, let that
+disgrace be to herself. But I know the people of America better than to
+believe it,(1) tho' I undertake not to answer for every individual.
+
+When this discourse was pronounced, Marat launched himself into the
+middle of the hall and said that "I voted against the punishment of
+death because I was a quaker." I replied that "I voted against it both
+morally and politically."
+
+     1 In the French pamphlet: "pour jamais lui prêter du tels
+     sentiments."
+
+I certainly went a great way, considering the rage of the times, in
+endeavouring to prevent that execution. I had many reasons for so doing.
+I judged, and events have shewn that I judged rightly, that if they once
+began shedding blood, there was no knowing where it would end; and as
+to what the world might call _honour_ the execution would appear like a
+nation killing a mouse; and in a political view, would serve to transfer
+the hereditary claim to some more formidable Enemy. The man could do no
+more mischief; and that which he had done was not only from the vice of
+his education, but was as much the fault of the Nation in restoring
+him after he had absconded June 21st, 1791, as it was his. I made
+the proposal for imprisonment until the end of the war and perpetual
+banishment after the war, instead of the punishment of death. Upwards of
+three hundred members voted for that proposal. The sentence for absolute
+death (for some members had voted the punishment of death conditionally)
+was carried by a majority of twenty-five out of more than seven hundred.
+
+I return from this digression to the proper subject of my memorial.(1)
+
+     1 This and the preceding five paragraphs, and five following
+     the nest, are omitted from the American pamphlet.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+Painful as the want of liberty may be, it is a consolation to me to
+believe, that my imprisonment proves to the world, that I had no share
+in the murderous system that then reigned. That I was an enemy to it,
+both morally and politically, is known to all who had any knowledge of
+me; and could I have written french as well as I can English, I would
+publicly have exposed its wickedness and shewn the ruin with which it
+was pregnant. They who have esteemed me on former occasions, whether in
+America or in Europe will, I know, feel no cause to abate that esteem,
+when they reflect, that _imprisonment with preservation of character is
+preferable to liberty with disgrace_.
+
+I here close my Memorial and proceed to offer you a proposal that
+appears to me suited to all the circumstances of the case; which is,
+that you reclaim me conditionally, until the opinion of Congress can be
+obtained on the subject of my citizenship of America; and that I remain
+in liberty under your protection during that time.
+
+I found this proposal upon the following grounds.
+
+First, you say you have no orders respecting me; consequently, you
+have no orders _not_ to reclaim me; and in this case you are left
+discretionary judge whether to reclaim or not. My proposal therefore
+unites a consideration of your situation with my own.
+
+Secondly, I am put in arrestation because I am a foreigner. It is
+therefore necessary to determine to what country I belong. The right of
+determining this question cannot appertain exclusively to the Committee
+of Public Safety or General Surety; because I appeal to the Minister of
+the United States, and show that my citizenship of that country is good
+and valid, referring at the same time, thro' the agency of the Minister,
+my claim of right to the opinion of Congress. It being a matter between
+two Governments.
+
+Thirdly. France does not claim me fora citizen; neither do I set up any
+claim of citizenship in France. The question is simply, whether I am
+or am not a citizen of America. I am imprisoned here on the decree for
+imprisoning foreigners, because, say they, I was born in England. I
+say in answer that, though born in England, I am not a subject of the
+English Government any more than any other American who was born, as
+they all were, under the same Government, or than the Citizens of France
+are subjects of the French Monarchy under which they were born. I have
+twice taken the oath of abjuration to the British King and Government
+and of Allegiance to America,--once as a citizen of the State of
+Pennsylvania in 1776, and again before Congress, administered to me by
+the President, Mr. Hancock, when I was appointed Secretary in the Office
+of Foreign Affairs in 1777.
+
+The letter before quoted in the first page of this memorial, says, "It
+would be out of character for an American minister to interfere in the
+internal affairs of France." This goes on the idea that I am a citizen
+of France, and a member of the Convention, which is not the fact. The
+Convention have declared me to be a foreigner; and consequently the
+citizenship and the election are null and void.(1) It also has the
+appearance of a Decision, that the article of the Constitution,
+respecting grants made to American Citizens by foreign kings, princes,
+or states, is applicable to me; which is the very point in question,
+and against the application of which I contend. I state evidence to the
+Minister, to shew that I am not within the letter or meaning of that
+Article; that it cannot operate against me; and I apply to him for the
+protection that I conceive I have a right to ask and to receive. The
+internal affairs of France are out of the question with respect to my
+application or his interference. I ask it not as a citizen of France,
+for I am not one: I ask it not as a member of the Convention, for I am
+not one; both these, as before said, have been rendered null and void;
+I ask it not as a man against whom there is any accusation, for there
+is none; I ask it not as an exile from America, whose liberties I
+have honourably and generously contributed to establish; I ask it as a
+Citizen of America, deprived of his liberty in France, under the plea of
+being a foreigner; and I ask it because I conceive I am entitled to it,
+upon every principle of Constitutional Justice and National honour.(2)
+
+     1 In the pamphlet: "The Convention included me in the vote
+     for dismissing foreigners from the Convention, and the
+     Committees imprisoned me as a foreigner."--_Editor._
+
+     2 All  previous editions of the pamphlet end with this
+     word.--_Editor._
+
+But tho' I thus positively assert my claim because I believe I have a
+right to do so, it is perhaps most eligible, in the present situation
+of things, to put that claim upon the footing I have already mentioned;
+that is, that the Minister reclaims me conditionally until the opinion
+of Congress can be obtained on the subject of my citizenship of America,
+and that I remain in liberty under the protection of the Minister during
+that interval.
+
+N. B. I should have added that as Gouverneur Morris could not inform
+Congress of the cause of my arrestation, as he knew it not himself, it
+is to be supposed that Congress was not enough acquainted with the case
+to give any directions respecting me when you came away.
+
+T.P.
+
+
+
+ADDENDA.
+
+Letters, hitherto unpublished, written by Paine to Monroe before his
+release on November 4., 1794.
+
+
+1. Luxembourg Mem Vendemaire, Old Style Oct 4th 1794
+
+Dear Sir: I thank you for your very friendly and affectionate letter of
+the 18th September which I did not receive till this morning.(1) It has
+relieved my mind from a load of disquietude. You will easily suppose
+that if the information I received had been exact, my situation was
+without hope. I had in that case neither section, department nor
+Country, to reclaim me; but that is not all, I felt a poignancy of
+grief, in having the least reason to suppose that America had so soon
+forgotten me who had never forgotten her.
+
+Mr. Labonadaire, in a note of yesterday, directed me to write to the
+Convention. As I suppose this measure has been taken in concert with
+you, I have requested him to shew you the letter, of which he will make
+a translation to accompany the original.
+
+(I cannot see what motive can induce them to keep me in prison. It
+will gratify the English Government and afflict the friends I have in
+America. The supporters of the system of Terror might apprehend that if
+I was in liberty and in America I should publish the history of their
+crimes, but the present persons who have overset that immoral System
+ought to have no such apprehension. On the contrary, they ought to
+consider me as one of themselves, at least as one of their friends. Had
+I been an insignificant character I had not been in arrestation. It was
+the literary and philosophical reputation I had gained, in the world,
+that made them my Enemies; and I am the victim of the principles, and
+if I may be permitted to say it, of the talents, that procured me the
+esteem of America. My character is the _secret_ of my arrestation.)
+
+     1 Printed in the letter to Washington, chap. XXII. The delay
+     of sixteen days in Monroe's letter was probably due to the
+     manouvres of Paine's enemies on the Committee of Public
+     Safety. He was released only after their removal from the
+     Committee, and the departure of Gouverneur Morris.--
+     _Editor._,
+
+If the letter I have written be not covered by other authority than my
+own it will have no effect, for they already know all that I can say. On
+what ground do they pretend to deprive America of the service of any
+of her citizens without assigning a cause, or only the flimsy one of
+my being born in England? Gates, were he here, might be arrested on the
+same pretence, and he and Burgoyne be confounded together.
+
+It is difficult for me to give an opinion, but among other things
+that occur to me, I think that if you were to say that, as it will be
+necessary to you to inform the Government of America of my situation,
+you require an explanation with the Committee upon that subject; that
+you are induced to make this proposal not only out of esteem for the
+character of the person who is the personal object of it, but because
+you know that his arrestation will distress the Americans, and the more
+so as it will appear to them to be contrary to their ideas of civil and
+national justice, it might perhaps have some effect. If the Committee
+[of Public Safety] will do nothing, it will be necessary to bring this
+matter openly before the Convention, for I do most sincerely assure you,
+from the observations that I hear, and I suppose the same are made in
+other places, that the character of America lies under some reproach.
+All the world knows that I have served her, and they see that I am still
+in prison; and you know that when people can form a conclusion upon a
+simple fact, they trouble not themselves about reasons. I had rather
+that America cleared herself of all suspicion of ingratitude, though I
+were to be the victim.
+
+You advise me to have patience, but I am fully persuaded that the longer
+I continue in prison the more difficult will be my liberation. There
+are two reasons for this: the one is that the present Committee, by
+continuing so long my imprisonment, will naturally suppose that my mind
+will be soured against them, as it was against those who put me in, and
+they will continue my imprisonment from the same apprehensions as the
+former Committee did; the other reason is, that it is now about two
+months since your arrival, and I am still in prison. They will explain
+this into an indifference upon my fate that will encourage them to
+continue my imprisonment. When I hear some people say that it is the
+Government of America that now keeps me in prison by not reclaiming me,
+and then pour forth a volley of execrations against her, I know not
+how to answer them otherwise than by a direct denial which they do not
+appear to believe. You will easily conclude that whatever relates to
+imprisonments and liberations makes a topic of prison conversation;
+and as I am now the oldest inhabitant within these walls, except two
+or three, I am often the subject of their remarks, because from the
+continuance of my imprisonment they auger ill to themselves. You see I
+write you every thing that occurs to me, and I conclude with thanking
+you again for your very friendly and affectionate letter, and am with
+great respect,
+
+Your's affectionately,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+(To day is the anniversary of the action at German Town. [October 4,
+1777.] Your letter has enabled me to contradict the observations before
+mentioned.)
+
+
+
+2. Oct 13, 1794 Dear Sir: On the 28th of this Month (October) I shall
+have suffered ten months imprisonment, to the dishonour of America as
+well as of myself, and I speak to you very honestly when I say that my
+patience is exhausted. It is only my actual liberation that can make me
+believe it. Had any person told me that I should remain in prison two
+months after the arrival of a new Minister, I should have supposed that
+he meant to affront me as an American. By the friendship and sympathy
+you express in your letter you seem to consider my imprisonment as
+having connection only with myself, but I am certain that the inferences
+that follow from it have relation also to the National character of
+America, I already feel this in myself, for I no longer speak with pride
+of being a citizen of that country. Is it possible Sir that I should,
+when I am suffering unjust imprisonment under the very eye of her new
+Minister?
+
+While there was no Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) nobody
+wondered at my imprisonment, but now everybody wonders. The continuance
+of it under a change of diplomatic circumstances, subjects me to the
+suspicion of having merited it, and also to the suspicion of having
+forfeited my reputation with America; and it subjects her at the same
+time to the suspicion of ingratitude, or to the reproach of wanting
+national or diplomatic importance. The language that some Americans
+have held of my not being considered as an American citizen, tho'
+contradicted by yourself, proceeds, I believe, from no other motive,
+than the shame and dishonour they feel at the imprisonment of a
+fellow-citizen, and they adopt this apology, at my expence, to get rid
+of that disgrace. Is it not enough that I suffer imprisonment, but my
+mind also must be wounded and tortured with subjects of this kind? Did I
+reason from personal considerations only, independent of principles and
+the pride of having practiced those principles honourably, I should be
+tempted to curse the day I knew America. By contributing to her liberty
+I have lost my own, and yet her Government beholds my situation in
+silence. Wonder not, Sir, at the ideas I express or the language in
+which I express them. If I have a heart to feel for others I can feel
+also for myself, and if I have anxiety for my own honour, I have it also
+for a country whose suffering infancy I endeavoured to nourish and
+to which I have been enthusiastically attached. As to patience I have
+practiced it long--as long as it was honorable to do so, and when it
+goes beyond that point it becomes meanness.
+
+I am inclined to believe that you have attended to my imprisonment
+more as a friend than as a Minister. As a friend I thank you for your
+affectionate attachment. As a Minister you have to look beyond me to the
+honour and reputation of your Government; and your Countrymen, who have
+accustomed themselves to consider any subject in one line of thinking
+only, more especially if it makes a strong [impression] upon them, as
+I believe my situation has made upon you, do not immediately see the
+matters that have relation to it in another line; and it is to bring
+these two into one point that I offer you these observations. A citizen
+and his country, in a case like mine, are so closely connected that the
+case of one is the case of both.
+
+When you first arrived the path you had to pursue with respect to my
+liberation was simple. I was imprisoned as a foreigner; you knew that
+foreigner to be a citizen of America, and you knew also his character,
+and as such you should immediately have reclaimed him. You could lose
+nothing by taking strong ground, but you might lose much by taking an
+inferior one; but instead of this, which I conceive would have been the
+right line of acting, you left me in their hands on the loose intimation
+that my liberation would take place without your direct interference,
+and you strongly recommended it to me to wait the issue. This is more
+than seven weeks ago and I am still in prison. I suspect these people
+are trifling with you, and if they once believe they can do that, you
+will not easily get any business done except what they wish to have
+done.
+
+When I take a review of my whole situation--my circumstances ruined,
+my health half destroyed, my person imprisoned, and the prospect of
+imprisonment still staring me in the face, can you wonder at the
+agony of my feelings? You lie down in safety and rise to plenty; it
+is otherwise with me; I am deprived of more than half the common
+necessaries of life; I have not a candle to burn and cannot get one.
+Fuel can be procured only in small quantities and that with great
+difficulty and very dear, and to add to the rest, I am fallen into a
+relapse and am again on the sick list. Did you feel the whole force of
+what I suffer, and the disgrace put upon America by this injustice done
+to one of her best and most affectionate citizens, you would not, either
+as a friend or Minister, rest a day till you had procured my liberation.
+It is the work of two or three hours when you set heartily about
+it, that is, when you demand me as an American citizen, or propose a
+conference with the Committee upon that subject; or you may make it the
+work of a twelve-month and not succeed. I know these people better than
+you do.
+
+You desire me to believe that "you are placed here on a difficult
+Theatre with many important objects to attend to, and with but few to
+consult with, and that it becomes you in pursuit of these to regulate
+your conduct with respect to each, as to manner and time, as will in
+your judgment be best calculated to accomplish the whole." As I know
+not what these objects are I can say nothing to that point. But I have
+always been taught to believe that the liberty of a Citizen was the
+first object of all free Governments, and that it ought not to give
+preference to, or be blended with, any other. It is that public object
+that all the world can see, and which obtains an influence upon public
+opinion more than any other. This is not the case with the objects you
+allude to. But be those objects what they may, can you suppose you will
+accomplish them the easier by holding me in the back-ground, or making
+me only an accident in the negotiation? Those with whom you confer will
+conclude from thence that you do not feel yourself very strong upon
+those points, and that you politically keep me out of sight in the
+meantime to make your approach the easier.
+
+There is one part in your letter that is equally as proper should be
+communicated to the Committee as to me, and which I conceive you are
+under some diplomatic obligation to do. It is that part which you
+conclude by saying that "_to the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans
+are not and cannot be indifferent_." As it is impossible the Americans
+can preserve their esteem for me and for my oppressors at the same
+time, the injustice to me strikes at the popular part of the Treaty of
+Alliance. If it be the wish of the Committee to reduce the treaty to a
+mere skeleton of Government forms, they are taking the right method to
+do it, and it is not improbable they will blame you afterwards for not
+in-forming them upon the subject. The disposition to retort has been so
+notorious here, that you ought to be guarded against it at all points.
+
+You say in your letter that you doubt whether the gentleman who informed
+me of the language held by some Americans respecting my citizenship of
+America conveyed even his own ideas clearly upon the subject.(1) I know
+not how this may be, but I believe he told me the truth. I received a
+letter a few days ago from a friend and former comrade of mine in which
+he tells me, that all the Americans he converses with, say, that
+I should have been in liberty long ago if the Minister could have
+reclaimed me as an American citizen. When I compare this with the
+counter-declarations in your letter I can explain the case no otherwise
+than I have already done, that it is an apology to get rid of the shame
+and dishonour they feel at the imprisonment of an American citizen,
+and because they are not willing it should be supposed there is want
+of influence in the American Embassy. But they ought to see that this
+language is injurious to me.
+
+On the 2d of this month Vendemaire I received a line from Mr. Beresford
+in which he tells me I shall be in liberty in two or three days, and
+that he has this from good authority. On the 12th I received a note from
+Mr. Labonadaire, written at the Bureau of the Concierge, in which he
+tells me of the interest you take in procuring my liberation, and that
+after the steps that had been already taken that I ought to write to the
+Convention to demand my liberty _purely and simply_ as a citizen of the
+United States of America. He advised me to send the letter to him, and
+he would translate it. I sent the letter inclosing at the same time
+a letter to you. I have heard nothing since of the letter to the
+Convention. On the 17th I received a letter from my former comrade
+Vanhuele, in which he says "I am just come from Mr. Russell who had
+yesterday a conversation with your Minister and your liberation is
+certain--you will be in liberty to-morrow." Vanhuele also adds, "I find
+the advice of Mr. Labonadaire good, for tho' you have some enemies in
+the Convention, the strongest and best part are in your favour." But
+the case is, and I felt it whilst I was writing the letter to the
+Convention, that there is an awkwardness in my appearing, you being
+present; for every foreigner should apply thro' his Minister, or rather
+his Minister for him.
+
+     1 The letter of Peter Whiteside, quoted at the beginning of
+     the Memorial. See introduction to the Memorial. It would
+     seem from this whole letter that it was not known by
+     Americans in Paris that Monroe had been kept ont of his
+     office by Morris for nearly a month after his arrival in
+     Paris.--_Editor._
+
+When I thus see day after day and month after month, and promise after
+promise, pass away without effect, what can I conclude but that either
+the Committees are secretly determined not to let me go, or that the
+measures you take are not pursued with the vigor necessary to give them
+effect; or that the American National character is without sufficient
+importance in the French Republic? The latter will be gratifying to
+the English Government. In short, Sir, the case is now arrived to that
+crisis, that for the sake of your own reputation as a Minister you ought
+to require a positive answer from the Committee. As to myself, it is
+more agreeable to me now to contemplate an honourable destruction, and
+to perish in the act of protesting against the injustice I suffer,
+and to caution the people of America against confiding too much in the
+Treaty of Alliance, violated as it has been in every principle, and in
+my imprisonment though an American Citizen, than remain in the wretched
+condition I am. I am no longer of any use to the world or to myself.
+
+There was a time when I beheld the Revolution of the 10th. Thermidor
+[the fall of Robespierre] with enthusiasm. It was the first news
+my comrade Vanhuele communicated to me during my illness, and it
+contributed to my recovery. But there is still something rotten at the
+Center, and the Enemies that I have, though perhaps not numerous, are
+more active than my friends. If I form a wrong opinion of men or things
+it is to you I must look to set me right. You are in possession of the
+secret. I know nothing of it. But that I may be guarded against as many
+wants as possible I shall set about writing a memorial to Congress,
+another to the State of Pennsylvania, and an address to the people of
+America; but it will be difficult for me to finish these until I know
+from yourself what applications you have made for my liberation, and
+what answers you have received.
+
+Ah, Sir, you would have gotten a load of trouble and difficulties off
+your hands that I fear will multiply every day, had you made it a point
+to procure my liberty when you first arrived, and not left me floating
+on the promises of men whom you did not know. You were then a new
+character. You had come in consequence of their own request that Morris
+should be recalled; and had you then, before you opened any subject
+of negociation that might arise into controversy, demanded my liberty
+either as a Civility or as a Right I see not how they could have refused
+it.
+
+I have already said that after all the promises that have been made I
+am still in prison. I am in the dark upon all the matters that relate
+to myself. I know not if it be to the Convention, to the Committee of
+Public Safety, of General Surety, or to the deputies who come
+sometimes to the Luxembourg to examine and put persons in liberty, that
+applications have been made for my liberation. But be it to whom it
+may, my earnest and pressing request to you as Minister is that you
+will bring this matter to a conclusion by reclaiming me as an American
+citizen imprisoned in France under the plea of being a foreigner born in
+England; that I may know the result, and how to prepare the Memorials
+I have mentioned, should there be occasion for them. The right of
+determining who are American citizens can belong only to America. The
+Convention have declared I am not a French Citizen because she has
+declared me to be a foreigner, and have by that declaration cancelled
+and annulled the vote of the former assembly that conferred the Title
+of Citizen upon Citizens or subjects of other Countries. I should not be
+honest to you nor to myself were I not to express myself as I have done
+in this letter, and I confide and request you will accept it in that
+sense and in no other.
+
+I am, with great respect, your suffering fellow-citizen,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+P. S.--If my imprisonment is to continue, and I indulge very little hope
+to the contrary, I shall be under the absolute necessity of applying
+to you for a supply of several articles. Every person here have their
+families or friends upon the spot who make provision for them. This is
+not the case with me; I have no person I can apply to but the American
+Minister, and I can have no doubt that if events should prevent
+my repaying the expence Congress or the State of Pennsylvania will
+discharge it for me.
+
+To day is 22 Vendemaire Monday October 13, but you will not receive this
+letter till the 14th. I will send the bearer to you again on the 15th,
+Wednesday, and I will be obliged to you to send me for the present,
+three or four candles, a little sugar of any kind, and some soap for
+shaving; and I should be glad at the same time to receive a line from
+you and a memorandum of the articles. Were I in your place I would order
+a Hogshead of Sugar, some boxes of Candles and Soap from America, for
+they will become still more scarce. Perhaps the best method for you
+to procure them at present is by applying to the American Consuls at
+Bordeaux and Havre, and have them up by the diligence.
+
+
+
+3. [Undated.]
+
+Dear Sir: As I have not yet received any answer to my last, I have
+amused myself with writing you the inclosed memoranda. Though
+you recommend patience to me I cannot but feel very pointedly the
+uncomfortableness of my situation, and among other reflections that
+occur to me I cannot think that America receives any credit from the
+long imprisonment that I suffer. It has the appearance of neglecting
+her citizens and her friends and of encouraging the insults of foreign
+nations upon them, and upon her commerce. My imprisonment is as well
+and perhaps more known in England than in France, and they (the English)
+will not be intimidated from molesting an American ship when they see
+that one of her best citizens (for I have a right to call myself so) can
+be imprisoned in another country at the mere discretion of a Committee,
+because he is a foreigner.
+
+When you first arrived every body congratulated me that I should soon,
+if not immediately, be in liberty. Since that time about two hundred
+have been set free from this prison on the applications of their
+sections or of individuals--and I am continually hurt by the
+observations that are made--"that a section in Paris has more influence
+than America."
+
+It is right that I furnish you with these circumstances. It is the
+effect of my anxiety that the character of America suffer no reproach;
+for the world knows that I have acted a generous duty by her. I am the
+third American that has been imprisoned. Griffiths nine weeks, Haskins
+about five, and myself eight [months] and yet in prison. With respect
+to the two former there was then no Minister, for I consider Morris as
+none; and they were liberated on the applications of the Americans in
+Paris. As to myself I had rather be publicly and honorably reclaimed,
+tho' the reclamation was refused, than remain in the uncertain situation
+that I am. Though my health has suffered my spirits are not broken. I
+have nothing to fear unless innocence and fortitude be crimes. America,
+whatever may be my fate, will have no cause to blush for me as a
+citizen; I hope I shall have none to blush for her as a country. If, my
+dear Sir, there is any-thing in the perplexity of ideas I have mistaken,
+only suppose yourself in my situation, and you will easily find an
+excuse for it. I need not say how much I shall rejoice to pay my
+respects to you without-side the walls of this prison, and to enquire
+after my American friends. But I know that nothing can be
+accomplished here but by unceasing perseverance and application. Yours
+affectionately.
+
+
+
+4. October 20, 1794.
+
+Dear Sir: I recd. your friendly letter of the 26 Vendemaire on the day
+it was written, and I thank you for communicating to me your opinion
+upon my case. Ideas serve to beget ideas, and as it is from a review of
+every thing that can be said upon a subject, or is any ways connected
+with it, that the best judgment can be formed how to proceed, I present
+you with such ideas as occur to me. I am sure of one thing, which is
+that you will give them a patient and attentive perusal.
+
+You say in your letter that "I must be sensible that although I am an
+American citizen, yet if you interfere in my behalf as the Minister of
+my country you must demand my liberation only in case there be no charge
+against me; and that if there is I must be brought to trial previously,
+since no person in a _private_ character can be exempt from the laws of
+the country in which he resides."--This is what I have twice attempted
+to do. I wrote a letter on the 3d Sans Culottodi(1) to the Deputies,
+members of the Committee of Surety General, who came to the Luxembourg
+to examine the persons detained. The letter was as follows:--"Citizens
+Representatives: I offer myself for examination. Justice is due to every
+Man. It is Justice only that I ask.--Thomas Paine."
+
+As I was not called for examination, nor heard anything in consequence
+of my letter the first time of sending it, I sent a duplicate of it a
+few days after. It was carried to them by my good friend and comrade
+Vanhuele, who was then going in liberty, having been examined the day
+before. Vanhuele wrote me on the next day and said: "Bourdon de l'Oise
+[who was one of the examining Deputies] is the most inveterate enemy you
+can have. The answer he gave me when I presented your letter put me in
+such a passion with him that I expected I should be sent back again
+to prison." I then wrote a third letter but had not an opportunity of
+sending it, as Bourdon did not come any more till after I received Mr.
+Labonadaire's letter advising me to write to the Convention. The letter
+was as follows:--"Citizens, I have twice offered myself for examination,
+and I chose to do this while Bourdon de l'Oise was one of the
+Commissioners.
+
+     1 Festival of Labour, September 19, 1794.--_Editor._.
+
+This Deputy has said in the Convention that I intrigued with an ancient
+agent of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs. My examination therefore while
+he is present will give him an opportunity of proving his charge or of
+convincing himself of his error. If Bourdon de l'Oise is an honest man
+he will examine me, but lest he should not I subjoin the following. That
+which B[ourdon] calls an intrigue was at the request of a member of the
+former Committee of Salut Public, last August was a twelvemonth. I met
+the member on the Boulevard. He asked me something in French which I
+did not understand and we went together to the Bureau of Foreign Affairs
+which was near at hand. The Agent (Otto, whom you probably knew in
+America) served as interpreter, The member (it was Barère) then asked
+me 1st, If I could furnish him with the plan of Constitution I had
+presented to the Committee of Constitution of which I was member with
+himself, because, he said, it contained several things which he
+wished had been adopted: 2dly, He asked me my opinion upon sending
+Commissioners to the United States of America: 3dly, If fifty or an
+hundred ship loads of flour could be procured from America. As verbal
+interpretation was tedious, it was agreed that I should give him my
+opinion in writing, and that the Agent [Otto] should translate it, which
+he did. I answered the first question by sending him the plan [of
+a Constitution] which he still has. To the second, I replied that
+I thought it would be proper to send Commissioners, because that in
+Revolutions circumstances change so fast that it was often necessary
+to send a better supply of information to an Ally than could be
+communicated by writing; and that Congress had done the same thing
+during the American War; and I gave him some information that the
+Commissioners would find useful on their arrival. I answered the third
+question by sending him a list of American exports two years before,
+distinguishing the several articles by which he would see that the
+supply he mentioned could be obtained. I sent him also the plan of Paul
+Jones, giving it as his, for procuring salt-petre, which was to send
+a squadron (it did not require a large one) to take possession of the
+Island of St. Helen's, to keep the English flag flying at the port,
+that the English East India ships coming from the East Indies, and that
+ballast with salt-petre, might be induced to enter as usual; And that it
+would be a considerable time before the English Government could know
+of what had happened at St. Helen's. See here what Bourdon de l'Oise has
+called an intrigue.--If it was an intrigue it was between a Committee of
+Salut Public and myself, for the Agent was no more than the interpreter
+and translator, and the object of the intrigue was to furnish France
+with flour and salt-petre."--I suppose Bourdon had heard that the agent
+and I were seen together talking English, and this was enough for _him_
+to found his charge upon.(1)
+
+You next say that "I must likewise be sensible that although I am an
+American citizen that it is likewise believed there [in America] that
+I am become a citizen of France, and that in consequence this latter
+character has so far [illegible] the former as to weaken if not destroy
+any claim you might have to interpose in my behalf." I am sorry I cannot
+add any new arguments to those I have already advanced on this part of
+the subject. But I cannot help asking myself, and I wish you would
+ask the Committee, if it could possibly be the intention of France to
+_kidnap_ citizens from America under the pretence of dubbing them
+with the title of French citizens, and then, after inviting or rather
+enveigling them into France, make it a pretence for detaining them? If
+it was, (which I am sure it was not, tho' they now act as if it was) the
+insult was to America, tho' the injury was to me, and the treachery was
+to both.
+
+     1 The communications of Paine to Barère are given in my
+     "Life of Paine," vol. ii-i PP. 73, 87. Otto was Secretary to
+     the Minister of Foreign Affairs when he acted as interpreter
+     between Paine and Barère. There was never any charge at all
+     made against Paine, as the Archives of France now prove,
+     save that he was a "foreigner." Paine was of coarse ignorant
+     of the conspiracy between Morris and Deforgues which had
+     imprisoned him. Bourdon de l'Oise, one of the most cruel
+     Jacobins and Terrorists, afterwards conspired with Pichegru
+     to overthrow the Republic, and was with him banished (1797)
+     to Sinamari, South America, where he died soon after his
+     arrival.--_Editor._.
+
+Did they mean to kidnap General Washington, Mr. Madison, and several
+other Americans whom they dubbed with the same title as well as me? Let
+any man look at the condition of France when I arrived in it,--invaded
+by Austrians and Prussians and declared to be in danger,--and then ask
+if any man who had a home and a country to go to, as I had in America,
+would have come amongst them from any other motive than of assisting
+them. If I could possibly have supposed them capable of treachery
+I certainly would not have trusted myself in their power. Instead
+therefore of your being unwilling or apprehensive of meeting the
+question of French citizenship, they ought to be ashamed of advancing
+it, and this will be the case unless you admit their arguments or
+objections too passively. It is a case on their part fit only for
+the continuations of Robespierre to set up. As to the name of French
+citizen, I never considered it in any other light, so far as regarded
+myself, than as a token of honorary respect. I never made them any
+promise nor took any oath of allegiance or of citizenship, nor bound
+myself by an act or means whatever to the performance of any thing.
+I acted altogether as a friend invited among them as I supposed on
+honorable terms. I did not come to join myself to a Government already
+formed, but to assist in forming one _de nouveau_, which was afterwards
+to be submitted to the people whether they would accept it or not, and
+this any foreigner might do. And strictly speaking there are no citizens
+before this is a government. They are all of the People. The Americans
+were not called citizens till after Government was established, and not
+even then until they had taken the oath of allegiance. This was the
+case in Pennsylvania. But be this French citizenship more or less, the
+Convention have swept it away by declaring me to be a foreigner, and
+imprisoning me as such; and this is a short answer to all those who
+affect to say or to believe that I am French Citizen. A Citizen without
+Citizenship is a term non-descript.
+
+After the two preceeding paragraphs you ask--"If it be my wish that you
+should embark in this controversy (meaning that of reclaiming me)
+and risque the consequences with respect to myself and the good
+understanding subsisting between the two countries, or, without
+relinquishing any point of right, and which might be insisted on in
+case of extremities, pursue according to your best judgment and with the
+light before you, the object of my liberation?"
+
+As I believe from the apparent obstinacy of the Committees that
+circumstances will grow towards the extremity you mention, unless
+prevented beforehand, I will endeavour to throw into your hands all the
+lights I can upon the subject.
+
+In the first place, reclamation may mean two distinct things. All the
+reclamations that are made by the sections in behalf of persons detained
+as _suspect_ are made on the ground that the persons so detained are
+patriots, and the reclamation is good against the charge of "suspect"
+because it proves the contrary. But my situation includes another
+circumstance. I am imprisoned on the charge (if it can be called one)
+of being a foreigner born in England. You know that foreigner to be a
+citizen of the United States of America, and that he has been such since
+the 4th of July 1776, the political birthday of the United States,
+and of every American citizen, for before that period all were British
+subjects, and the States, then provinces, were British dominions.--Your
+reclamation of me therefore as a citizen of the United States (all other
+considerations apart) is good against the pretence for imprisoning me,
+or that pretence is equally good against every American citizen born
+in England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or Holland, and you know this
+description of men compose a very great part of the population of the
+three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and make also a
+part of Congress, and of the State Legislatures.
+
+Every politician ought to know, and every civilian does know, that the
+Law of Treaty of Alliance, and also that of Amity and Commerce knows no
+distinction of American Citizens on account of the place of their birth,
+but recognizes all to be Citizens whom the Constitution and laws of the
+United States of America recognize as such; and if I recollect rightly
+there is an article in the Treaty of Commerce particular to this
+point. The law therefore which they have here, to put all persons in
+arrestation born in any of the Countries at war with France, is, when
+applied to Citizens of America born in England, Ireland, Scotland,
+Germany, or holland, a violation of the treaties of Alliance and of
+Commerce, because it assumes to make a distinction of Citizens which
+those Treaties and the Constitution of America know nothing of. This is
+a subject that officially comes under your cognizance as Minister, and
+it would be consistent that you expostulated with them upon the Case.
+That foolish old man Vadier, who was president of the Convention and of
+the Committee of Surety general when the Americans then in Paris went
+to the Bar of the Convention to reclaim me, gave them for answer that
+my being born in England was cause sufficient for imprisoning me. It
+happened that at least half those who went up with that address were in
+the same case with myself.
+
+As to reclamations on the ground of Patriotism it is difficult to know
+what is to be understood by Patriotism here. There is not a vice, and
+scarcely a virtue, that has not as the fashion of the moment suited
+been called by the name of Patriotism. The wretches who composed the
+revolutionary tribunal of Nantz were the Patriots of that day and the
+criminals of this. The Jacobins called themselves Patriots of the first
+order, men up to the height of the circumstances, and they are now
+considered as an antidote to Patriotism. But if we give to Patriotism a
+fixed idea consistent with that of a Republic, it would signify a strict
+adherence to the principles of Moral Justice, to the equality of civil
+and political Rights, to the System of representative Government, and an
+opposition to every hereditary claim to govern; and of this species
+of Patriotism you know my character. But, Sir, there are men on the
+Committee who have changed their Party but not their principles. Their
+aim is to hold power as long as possible by preventing the establishment
+of a Constitution, and these men are and will be my Enemies, and seek to
+hold me in prison as long as they can. I am too good a Patriot for them.
+It is not improbable that they have heard of the strange language held
+by some Americans that I am not considered in America as an American
+citizen, and they may also have heard say, that you had no orders
+respecting me, and it is not improbable that they interpret that
+language and that silence into a connivance at my imprisonment. If they
+had not some ideas of this kind would they resist so long the civil
+efforts you make for my liberation, or would they attach so much
+importance to the imprisonment of an Individual as _to risque_ (as
+you say to me) _the good understanding that exists between the two
+Countries?_You also say that _it is impossible for any person to do more
+than you have done without adopting the other means_, meaning that of
+reclaiming me. How then can you account for the want of success after so
+many efforts, and such a length of time, upwards of ten weeks, without
+supposing that they fortify themselves in the interpretation I have just
+mentioned? I can admit that it was not necessary to give orders, and
+that it was difficult to give direct orders, for I much question if
+Morris had informed Congress or the President of the whole of the case,
+or had sent copies of my letters to him as I had desired him to do.
+You would find the case here when you came, and you could not fully
+understand it till you did come, and as Minister you would have
+authority to act upon it. But as you inform me that you know what the
+wishes of the President are, you will see also that his reputation is
+exposed to some risque, admitting there to be ground for the supposition
+I have made. It will not add to his popularity to have it believed in
+America, as I am inclined to think the Committee believe here, that he
+connives at my imprisonment. You say also that _it is known to everybody
+that you wish my liberation_. It is, Sir, because they know your wishes
+that they misinterpret the means you use. They suppose that those mild
+means arise from a restriction that you cannot use others, or from a
+consciousness of some defect on my part of which you are unwilling to
+provoke the enquiry.
+
+But as you ask me if it be my wish that you should embark in this
+controversy and risque the consequences with respect to myself, I will
+answer this part of the question by marking out precisely the part I
+wish you to take. What I mean is a sort of middle line above what you
+have yet gone, and not up to the full extremity of the case, which will
+still lie in reserve. It is to write a letter to the Committee that
+shall in the first place defeat by anticipation all the objections they
+might make to a simple reclamation, and at the same time make the ground
+good for that object. But, instead of sending the letter immediately, to
+invite some of the Committee to your house and to make that invitation
+the opportunity of shewing them the letter, expressing at the same time
+a wish that you had done this, from a hope that the business might be
+settled in an amicable manner without your being forced into an official
+interference, that would excite the observations of the Enemies of both
+Countries, and probably interrupt the harmony that subsisted between the
+two republics. But as I can not convey the ideas I wish you to use by
+any means so concisely or so well as to suppose myself the writer of the
+letter I shall adopt this method and you will make use of such parts or
+such ideas of it as you please if you approve the plan. Here follows the
+supposed letter:
+
+Citizens: When I first arrived amongst you as Minister from the United
+States of America I was given to understand that the liberation of
+Thomas Paine would take place without any official interference on my
+part. This was the more agreeable to me as it would not only supercede
+the necessity of that interference, but would leave to yourselves the
+whole opportunity of doing justice to a man who as far as I have been
+able to learn has suffered much cruel treatment under what you have
+denominated the system of Terror. But as I find my expectations have not
+been fulfilled I am under the official necessity of being more explicit
+upon the subject than I have hitherto been.
+
+Permit me, in the first place, to observe that as it is impossible for
+me to suppose that it could have been the intention of France to seduce
+any citizens of America from their allegiance to their proper country
+by offering them the title of French citizen, so must I be compelled to
+believe, that the title of French citizen conferred on Thomas Paine was
+intended only as a mark of honorary respect towards a man who had
+so eminently distinguished himself in defence of liberty, and on no
+occasion more so than in promoting and defending your own revolution.
+For a proof of this I refer you to his two works entitled _Rights of
+Man_. Those works have procured to him an addition of esteem in America,
+and I am sorry they have been so ill rewarded in France. But be this
+title of French Citizen more or less, it is now entirely swept away by
+the vote of the Convention which declares him to be a foreigner, and
+which supercedes the vote of the Assembly that conferred that title upon
+him, consequently upon the case superceded with it.
+
+In consequence of this vote of the Convention declaring him to be a
+foreigner the former Committees have imprisoned him. It is therefore
+become my official duty to declare to you that the foreigner thus
+imprisoned is a citizen of the United States of America as fully, as
+legally, as constitutionally as myself, and that he is moreover one of
+the principal founders of the American Republic.
+
+I have been informed of a law or decree of the Convention which
+subjects foreigners born in any of the countries at war with France
+to arrestation and imprisonment. This law when applied to citizens of
+America born in England is an infraction of the Treaty of Alliance and
+of Amity and Commerce, which knows no distinction of American citizens
+on account of the place of their birth, but recognizes all to be
+citizens whom the Constitution and laws of America recognize as such.
+The circumstances under which America has been peopled requires this
+guard on her Treaties, because the mass of her citizens are composed not
+of natives only but also of the natives of almost all the countries
+of Europe who have sought an asylum there from the persecutions they
+experienced in their own countries. After this intimation you will
+without doubt see the propriety of modelling that law to the principles
+of the Treaty, because the law of Treaty in cases where it applies is
+the governing law to both parties alike, and it cannot be infracted
+without hazarding the existence of the Treaty.
+
+Of the Patriotism of Thomas Paine I can speak fully, if we agree to give
+to patriotism a fixed idea consistent with that of a republic. It would
+then signify a strict adherence to Moral Justice, to the equality of
+civil and political rights, to the system of representative government,
+and an opposition to all hereditary claims to govern. Admitting
+patriotism to consist in these principles, I know of no man who has gone
+beyond Thomas Paine in promulgating and defending them, and that for
+almost twenty years past.
+
+I have now spoken to you on the principal matters concerned in the case
+of Thomas Paine. The title of French citizen which you had enforced upon
+him, you have since taken away by declaring him to be a foreigner, and
+consequently this part of the subject ceases of itself. I have declared
+to you that this foreigner is a citizen of the United States of America,
+and have assured you of his patriotism.
+
+I cannot help at the same time repeating to you my wish that his
+liberation had taken place without my being obliged to go thus far into
+the subject, because it is the mutual interest of both republics to
+avoid as much as possible all subjects of controversy, especially those
+from which no possible good can flow. I still hope that you will save me
+the unpleasant task of proceeding any farther by sending me an order
+for his liberation, which the injured state of his health absolutely
+requires. I shall be happy to receive such an order from you and
+happy in presenting it to him, for to the welfare of Thomas Paine the
+Americans are not and cannot be indifferent.
+
+This is the sort of letter I wish you to write, for I have no idea that
+you will succeed by any measures that can, by any kind of construction,
+be interpreted into a want of confidence or an apprehension of
+consequences. It is themselves that ought to be apprehensive of
+consequences if any are to be apprehended. They, I mean the Committees,
+are not certain that the Convention or the nation would support them
+in forcing any question to extremity that might interrupt the good
+understanding subsisting between the two countries; and I know of no
+question [so likely] to do this as that which involves the rights and
+liberty of a citizen.
+
+You will please to observe that I have put the case of French
+citizenship in a point of view that ought not only to preclude, but to
+make them ashamed to advance any thing upon this subject; and this is
+better than to have to answer their counter-reclamation afterwards.
+Either the Citizenship was intended as a token of honorary respect, or
+it was in-tended to deprive America of a citizen or to seduce him from
+his allegiance to his proper country. If it was intended as an honour
+they must act consistently with the principle of honour. But if they
+make a pretence for detaining me, they convict themselves of the act
+of seduction. Had America singled out any particular French citizen,
+complimented him with the title of Citizen of America, which he without
+suspecting any fraudulent intention might accept, and then after having
+invited or rather inveigled him into America made his acceptance of
+that Title a pretence for seducing or forcing him from his allegiance to
+France, would not France have just cause to be offended at America? And
+ought not America to have the same right to be offended at France? And
+will the Committees take upon themselves to answer for the dishonour
+they bring upon the National Character of their Country? If these
+arguments are stated beforehand they will prevent the Committees going
+into the subject of French Citizenship. They must be ashamed of it.
+But after all the case comes to this, that this French Citizenship
+appertains no longer to me because the Convention, as I have already
+said, have swept it away by declaring me to be foreigner, and it is not
+in the power of the Committees to reverse it. But if I am to be citizen
+and foreigner, and citizen again, just when and how and for any purpose
+they please, they take the Government of America into their own hands
+and make her only a Cypher in their system.
+
+Though these ideas have been long with me they have been more
+particularly matured by reading your last Communication, and I have
+many reasons to wish you had opened that Communication sooner. I am best
+acquainted with the persons you have to deal with and the circumstances
+of my own case. If you chuse to adopt the letter as it is, I send you a
+translation for the sake of expediting the business. I have endeavoured
+to conceive your own manner of expression as well as I could, and the
+civility of language you would use, but the matter of the letter is
+essential to me.
+
+If you chuse to confer with some of the members of the Committee at
+your own house on the subject of the letter it may render the sending it
+unnecessary; but in either case I must request and press you not to give
+away to evasion and delay, and that you will fix positively with them
+that they shall give you an answer in three or four days whether they
+will liberate me on the representation you have made in the letter, or
+whether you must be forced to go further into the subject. The state of
+my health will not admit of delay, and besides the tortured state of
+my mind wears me down. If they talk of bringing me to trial (and I well
+know there is no accusation against me and that they can bring none)
+I certainly summons you as an Evidence to my Character. This you may
+mention to them either as what I intend to do or what you intend to do
+voluntarily for me.
+
+I am anxious that you undertake this business without losing time,
+because if I am not liberated in the course of this decade, I intend, if
+in case the seventy-one detained deputies are liberated, to follow the
+same track that they have done, and publish my own case myself.(1)
+I cannot rest any longer in this state of miserable suspense, be the
+consequences what they may.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+     1 Those deputies, imprisoned for having protested against
+     the overthrow of the Girondin government, May 31,1793, when
+     the Convention was invaded and overawed by the armed
+     communes of Paris. These deputies were liberated and
+     recalled to the Convention, December 8, 1794. Paine was
+     invited to resume his seat the day before, by a special act
+     of the Convention, after an eloquent speech by Thibaudeau.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+Dear Sir: I need not mention to you the happiness I received from the
+information you sent me by Mr. Beresford. I easily guess the persons
+you have conversed with on the subject of my liberation--but matters
+and even promises that pass in conversation are not quite so strictly
+attended to here as in the Country you come from. I am not, my Dear Sir,
+impatient from any thing in my disposition, but the state of my health
+requires liberty and a better air; and besides this, the rules of the
+prison do not permit me, though I have all the indulgences the Concierge
+can give, to procure the things necessary to my recovery, which is
+slow as to strength. I have a tolerable appetite but the allowance of
+provision is scanty. We are not allowed a knife to cut our victuals
+with, nor a razor to shave; but they have lately allowed some barbers
+that are here to shave. The room where I am lodged is a ground floor
+level with the earth in the garden and floored with brick, and is so
+wet after every rain that I cannot guard against taking colds that
+continually cheat my recovery. If you could, without interfering with or
+deranging the mode proposed for my liberation, inform the Committee that
+the state of my health requires liberty and air, it would be good ground
+to hasten my liberation. The length of my imprisonment is also a reason,
+for I am now almost the oldest inhabitant of this uncomfortable mansion,
+and I see twenty, thirty and sometimes forty persons a day put in
+liberty who have not been so long confined as myself. Their liberation
+is a happiness to me; but I feel sometimes, a little mortification
+that I am thus left behind. I leave it entirely to you to arrange this
+matter. The messenger waits. Your's affectionately,
+
+T. P.
+
+I hope and wish much to see you. I have much to say. I have had the
+attendance of Dr. Graham (Physician to Genl. O'Hara, who is prisoner
+here) and of Dr. Makouski, house physician, who has been most
+exceedingly kind to me. After I am at liberty I shall be glad to
+introduce him to you.
+
+     1 This letter, written in a feeble handwriting, is not
+     dated, but Monroe's endorsement, "2d. Luxembourg,"
+     indicates November 2, two days before Paine's liberation.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+
+
+XXII. LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON.
+
+Paris, July 30, 1796.
+
+As censure is but awkwardly softened by apology. I shall offer you
+no apology for this letter. The eventful crisis to which your double
+politics have conducted the affairs of your country, requires an
+investigation uncramped by ceremony.
+
+There was a time when the fame of America, moral and political, stood
+fair and high in the world. The lustre of her revolution extended itself
+to every individual; and to be a citizen of America gave a title to
+respect in Europe. Neither meanness nor ingratitude had been mingled
+in the composition of her character. Her resistance to the attempted
+tyranny of England left her unsuspected of the one, and her open
+acknowledgment of the aid she received from France precluded all
+suspicion of the other. The Washington of politics had not then
+appeared.
+
+At the time I left America (April 1787) the Continental Convention, that
+formed the federal Constitution was on the point of meeting. Since that
+time new schemes of politics, and new distinctions of parties, have
+arisen. The term _Antifederalist_ has been applied to all those who
+combated the defects of that constitution, or opposed the measures
+of your administration. It was only to the absolute necessity of
+establishing some federal authority, extending equally over all the
+States, that an instrument so inconsistent as the present federal
+Constitution is, obtained a suffrage. I would have voted for it myself,
+had I been in America, or even for a worse, rather than have had none,
+provided it contained the means of remedying its defects by the same
+appeal to the people by which it was to be established. It is always
+better policy to leave removeable errors to expose themselves, than
+to hazard too much in contending against them theoretically. I have
+introduced these observations, not only to mark the general difference
+between Antifederalist and Anti-constitutionalist, but to preclude
+the effect, and even the application, of the former of these terms to
+myself. I declare myself opposed to several matters in the Constitution,
+particularly to the manner in which what is called the Executive is
+formed, and to the long duration of the Senate; and if I live to return
+to America, I will use all my endeavours to have them altered.(*) I also
+declare myself opposed to almost the whole of your administration; for
+I know it to have been deceitful, if not perfidious, as I shall shew
+in the course of this letter. But as to the point of consolidating the
+States into a Federal Government, it so happens, that the proposition
+for that purpose came originally from myself. I proposed it in a letter
+to Chancellor Livingston in the spring of 1782, while that gentleman
+was Minister for Foreign Affairs. The five per cent, duty recommended
+by Congress had then fallen through, having been adopted by some of the
+States, altered by others, rejected by Rhode Island, and repealed by
+Virginia after it had been consented to. The proposal in the letter I
+allude to, was to get over the whole difficulty at once, by annexing a
+continental legislative body to Congress; for in order to have any law
+of the Union uniform, the case could only be, that either Congress, as
+it then stood, must frame the law, and the States severally adopt it
+without alteration, or the States must erect a Continental Legislature
+for the purpose. Chancellor Livingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur
+Morris, and myself, had a meeting at the house of Robert Morris on
+the subject of that letter. There was no diversity of opinion on the
+proposition for a Continental Legislature: the only difficulty was on
+the manner of bringing the proposition forward. For my own part, as I
+considered it as a remedy in reserve, that could be applied at any time
+_when the States saw themselves wrong enough to be put right_, (which
+did not appear to be the case at that time) I did not see the propriety
+of urging it precipitately, and declined being the publisher of it
+myself. After this account of a fact, the leaders of your party will
+scarcely have the hardiness to apply to me the term of Antifederalist.
+But I can go to a date and to a fact beyond this; for the proposition
+for electing a continental convention to form the Continental Government
+is one of the subjects treated of in the pamphlet _Common Sense_.(1)
+
+     * I have always been opposed to the mode of refining
+     Government up to an individual, or what is called a single
+     Executive. Such a man will always be the chief of a party. A
+     plurality is far better: It combines the mass of a nation
+     better together: And besides this, it is necessary to the
+     manly mind of a republic that it loses the debasing idea of
+     obeying an individual.--_Author_.
+
+
+     1 See vol. i. of this work, pp. 97, 98, 109, no.--_Editor._.
+
+Having thus cleared away a little of the rubbish that might otherwise
+have lain in my way, I return to the point of time at which the present
+Federal Constitution and your administration began. It was very well
+said by an anonymous writer in Philadelphia, about a year before that
+period, that "_thirteen staves and ne'er a hoop will not make a barrel_"
+and as any kind of hooping the barrel, however defectively executed,
+would be better than none, it was scarcely possible but that
+considerable advantages must arise from the federal hooping of the
+States. It was with pleasure that every sincere friend of America
+beheld, as the natural effect of union, her rising prosperity; and it
+was with grief they saw that prosperity mixed, even in the blossom,
+with the germ of corruption. Monopolies of every kind marked your
+administration almost in the moment of its commencement. The lands
+obtained by the revolution were lavished upon partisans; the interest
+of the disbanded soldier was sold to the speculator; injustice was acted
+under the pretence of faith; and the chief of the army became the patron
+of the fraud.(2) From such a beginning what else could be expected, than
+what has happened? A mean and servile submission to the insults of one
+nation; treachery and ingratitude to another.
+
+     2 The history of the Scioto Company, by which so many
+     Frenchmen as well as Americans were ruined, warranted an
+     even stronger statement. Though Washington did not know what
+     was going on, he cannot be acquitted of a lack of due
+     precaution in patronizing leading agents of these
+     speculations, and introducing them in France.--_Editor._
+
+Some vices make their approach with such a splendid appearance, that we
+scarcely know to what class of moral distinctions they belong. They
+are rather virtues corrupted than vices, originally. But meanness and
+ingratitude have nothing equivocal in their character. There is not a
+trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so originally vice,
+that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into
+existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found
+protection in you, and the levee-room is their place of rendezvous.
+
+As the Federal Constitution is a copy, though not quite so base as the
+original, of the form of the British Government, an imitation of its
+vices was naturally to be expected. So intimate is the connection
+between _form and practice_, that to adopt the one is to invite the
+other. Imitation is naturally progressive, and is rapidly so in matters
+that are vicious.
+
+Soon after the Federal Constitution arrived in England, I received a
+letter from a female literary correspondent (a native of New York) very
+well mixed with friendship, sentiment, and politics. In my answer
+to that letter, I permitted myself to ramble into the wilderness of
+imagination, and to anticipate what might hereafter be the condition
+of America. I had no idea that the picture I then drew was realizing
+so fast, and still less that Mr. Washington was hurrying it on. As the
+extract I allude to is congenial with the subject I am upon, I here
+transcribe it:
+
+     [_The extract is the same as that given in a footnote, in
+     the Memorial to Monroe, p. 180_.]
+
+Impressed, as I was, with apprehensions of this kind, I had America
+constantly in my mind in all the publications I afterwards made. The
+First, and still more the Second, Part of the Rights of Man, bear
+evident marks of this watchfulness; and the Dissertation on First
+Principles of Government [XXIV.] goes more directly to the point than
+either of the former. I now pass on to other subjects.
+
+It will be supposed by those into whose hands this letter may fall, that
+I have some personal resentment against you; I will therefore settle
+this point before I proceed further.
+
+If I have any resentment, you must acknowledge that I have not been
+hasty in declaring it; neither would it now be declared (for what are
+private resentments to the public) if the cause of it did not unite
+itself as well with your public as with your private character, and with
+the motives of your political conduct.
+
+The part I acted in the American revolution is well known; I shall not
+here repeat it. I know also that had it not been for the aid received
+from France, in men, money and ships, that your cold and unmilitary
+conduct (as I shall shew in the course of this letter) would in all
+probability have lost America; at least she would not have been the
+independent nation she now is. You slept away your time in the field,
+till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have
+but little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, sir, to
+speak the undisguised language of historical truth.
+
+Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of every
+thing to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution
+began to appear. You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging
+and swallowing the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from
+one end to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You
+have as many addresses in your chest as James the II. As to what were
+your views, for if you are not great enough to have ambition you are
+little enough to have vanity, they cannot be directly inferred from
+expressions of your own; but the partizans of your politics have
+divulged the secret.
+
+John Adams has said, (and John it is known was always a speller after
+places and offices, and never thought his little services were highly
+enough paid,)--John has said, that as Mr. Washington had no child, the
+Presidency should be made hereditary in the family of Lund Washington.
+John might then have counted upon some sinecure himself, and a provision
+for his descendants. He did not go so far as to say, also, that the
+Vice-Presidency should be hereditary in the family of John Adams. He
+prudently left that to stand on the ground that one good turn deserves
+another.(*)
+
+John Adams is one of those men who never contemplated the origin of
+government, or comprehended any thing of first principles. If he had,
+he might have seen, that the right to set up and establish hereditary
+government, never did, and never can, exist in any generation at any
+time whatever; that it is of the nature of treason; because it is an
+attempt to take away the rights of all the minors living at that time,
+and of all succeeding generations. It is of a degree beyond common
+treason. It is a sin against nature. The equal right of every generation
+is a right fixed in the nature of things. It belongs to the son when of
+age, as it belonged to the father before him. John Adams would himself
+deny the right that any former deceased generation could have to
+decree authoritatively a succession of governors over him, or over his
+children; and yet he assumes the pretended right, treasonable as it is,
+of acting it himself. His ignorance is his best excuse.
+
+John Jay has said,(**) (and this John was always the sycophant of
+every thing in power, from Mr. Girard in America, to Grenville in
+England,)--John Jay has said, that the Senate should have been appointed
+for life. He would then have been sure of never wanting a lucrative
+appointment for himself, and have had no fears about impeachment. These
+are the disguised traitors that call themselves Federalists.(**)
+
+Could I have known to what degree of corruption and perfidy the
+administrative part of the government of America had descended, I
+could have been at no loss to have understood the reservedness of Mr.
+Washington towards me, during my imprisonment in the Luxembourg. There
+are cases in which silence is a loud language. I will here explain the
+cause of that imprisonment, and return to Mr. Washington afterwards.
+
+     * Two persons to whom John Adams said this, told me of it.
+     The secretary of Mr. Jay was present when it was told to
+     me.--_Author_.
+
+     **  If Mr. John Jay desires to know on what authority I say
+     this, I will give that authority publicly when he chooses to
+     call for it--_Author_.
+
+In the course of that rage, terror and suspicion, which the brutal
+letter of the Duke of Brunswick first started into existence in France,
+it happened that almost every man who was opposed to violence, or who
+was not violent himself, became suspected. I had constantly been opposed
+to every thing which was of the nature or of the appearance of violence;
+but as I had always done it in a manner that shewed it to be a principle
+founded in my heart, and not a political manouvre, it precluded the
+pretence of accusing me. I was reached, however, under another pretence.
+
+A decree was passed to imprison all persons born in England; but as
+I was a member of the Convention, and had been complimented with the
+honorary style of Citizen of France, as Mr. Washington and some other
+Americans had been, this decree fell short of reaching me. A motion was
+afterwards made and carried, supported chiefly by Bourdon de l'Oise,
+for expelling foreigners from the Convention. My expulsion being thus
+effected, the two committees of Public Safety and of General Surety,
+of which Robespierre was the dictator, put me in arrestation under the
+former decree for imprisoning persons born in England. Having thus shewn
+under what pretence the imprisonment was effected, I come to speak of
+such parts of the case as apply between me and Mr. Washington, either as
+a President or as an individual.
+
+I have always considered that a foreigner, such as I was in fact, with
+respect to France, might be a member of a Convention for framing a
+Constitution, without affecting his right of citizenship in the
+country to which he belongs, but not a member of a government after
+a Constitution is formed; and I have uniformly acted upon this
+distinction» To be a member of a government requires that a person be
+in allegiance to that government and to the country locally. But a
+Constitution, being a thing of principle, and not of action, and
+which, after it is formed, is to be referred to the people for their
+approbation or rejection, does not require allegiance in the persons
+forming and proposing it; and besides this, it is only to the thing
+after it be formed and established, and to the country after its
+governmental character is fixed by the adoption of a constitution, that
+the allegiance can be given. No oath of allegiance or of citizenship was
+required of the members who composed the Convention: there was nothing
+existing in form to swear allegiance to. If any such condition had been
+required, I could not, as Citizen of America in fact, though Citizen of
+France by compliment, have accepted a seat in the Convention.
+
+As my citizenship in America was not altered or diminished by any thing
+I had done in Europe, (on the contrary, it ought to be considered as
+strengthened, for it was the American principle of government that I
+was endeavouring to spread in Europe,) and as it is the duty of every
+govern-ment to charge itself with the care of any of its citizens who
+may happen to fall under an arbitrary persecution abroad, and is also
+one of the reasons for which ambassadors or ministers are appointed,--it
+was the duty of the Executive department in America, to have made (at
+least) some enquiries about me, as soon as it heard of my imprisonment.
+But if this had not been the case, that government owed it to me on
+every ground and principle of honour and gratitude. Mr. Washington owed
+it to me on every score of private acquaintance, I will not now say,
+friendship; for it has some time been known by those who know him, that
+he has no friendships; that he is incapable of forming any; he can serve
+or desert a man, or a cause, with constitutional indifference; and it is
+this cold hermaphrodite faculty that imposed itself upon the world,
+and was credited for a while by enemies as by friends, for prudence,
+moderation and impartiality.(1)
+
+     1 "L'on pent dire qu'il [Washington] jouit de tous les
+     avantages possibles a l'exception des douceurs de
+     l'amitié."--Louis Otto, Chargé d'Affaires (at New York) to
+     his government, 13 June, 1790. French Archives, vol. 35, No.
+     32.--Editor.
+
+Soon after I was put into arrestation, and imprisoned in the Luxembourg,
+the Americans who were then in Paris went in a body to the bar of the
+Convention to reclaim me. They were answered by the then President
+Vadier, who has since absconded, that _I was born in England_, and it
+was signified to them, by some of the Committee of _General Surety_, to
+whom they were referred (I have been told it was Billaud Varennes,) that
+their reclamation of me was only the act of individuals, without any
+authority from the American government.
+
+A few days after this, all communications from persons imprisoned to
+any person without the prison was cut off by an order of the Police. I
+neither saw, nor heard from, any body for six months; and the only hope
+that remained to me was, that a new Minister would arrive from America
+to supercede Morris, and that he would be authorized to enquire into
+the cause of my imprisonment. But even this hope, in the state to which
+matters were daily arriving, was too remote to have any consolatory
+effect, and I contented myself with the thought, that I might be
+remembered when it would be too late. There is perhaps no condition from
+which a man conscious of his own uprightness cannot derive consolation;
+for it is in itself a consolation for him to find, that he can bear that
+condition with calmness and fortitude.
+
+From about the middle of March (1794) to the fall of Robespierre
+July 29, (9th of Thermidor,) the state of things in the prisons was a
+continued scene of horror. No man could count upon life for twenty-four
+hours. To such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his
+Committee arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man
+living. Scarcely a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty,
+fifty, or more, were not taken out of the prison, carried before a
+pretended tribunal in the morning, and guillotined before night. One
+hundred and sixty-nine were taken out of the Luxembourg one night, in
+the month of July, and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined. A
+list of two hundred more, according to the report in the prison, was
+preparing a few days before Robespierre fell. In this last list I have
+good reason to believe I was included. A memorandum in the hand-writing
+of Robespierre was afterwards produced in the Convention, by the
+committee to whom the papers of Robespierre were referred, in these
+words:
+
+     "Demander que Thomas           "I Demand that Thomas Paine
+     "Payne soit décrété d'ac-       be decreed of accusation
+     "cusation pour les inté-        for the interests of America
+     "rôtsde l'Amérique,autant       as well as of France."
+     "que de la France."
+
+
+     1 In reading this the Committee added, "Why Thomas Payne
+     more than another? Because He helped to establish the
+     liberty of both worlds."--_Editor_.
+
+I had then been imprisoned seven months, and the silence of the
+Executive part of the government of America (Mr. Washington) upon the
+case, and upon every thing respecting me, was explanation enough to
+Robespierre that he might proceed to extremities.
+
+A violent fever which had nearly terminated my existence, was, I
+believe, the circumstance that preserved it. I was not in a condition to
+be removed, or to know of what was passing, or of what had passed, for
+more than a month. It makes a blank in my remembrance of life. The first
+thing I was informed of was the fall of Robespierre.
+
+About a week after this, Mr. Monroe arrived to supercede Gouverneur
+Morris, and as soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be
+read, I found a way to convey one to him by means of the man who lighted
+the lamps in the prison; and whose unabated friendship to me, from whom
+he had never received any service, and with difficulty accepted any
+recompense, puts the character of Mr. Washington to shame.
+
+In a few days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed to me in a
+note from an intermediate person, with assurance of his friendship, and
+expressing a desire that I would rest the case in his hands. After a
+fortnight or more had passed, and hearing nothing farther, I wrote to a
+friend who was then in Paris, a citizen of Philadelphia, requesting him
+to inform me what was the true situation of things with respect to me. I
+was sure that something was the matter; I began to have hard thoughts of
+Mr. Washington, but I was unwilling to encourage them.
+
+In about ten days, I received an answer to my letter, in which the
+writer says, "Mr. Monroe has told me that he has no order [meaning from
+the President, Mr. Washington] respecting you, but that he (Mr. Monroe)
+will do every thing in his power to liberate you; but, from what I learn
+from the Americans lately arrived in Paris, you are not considered,
+either by the American government, or by the individuals, as an American
+citizen."
+
+I was now at no loss to understand Mr. Washington and his new fangled
+faction, and that their policy was silently to leave me to fall in
+France. They were rushing as fast as they could venture, without
+awakening the jealousy of America, into all the vices and corruptions of
+the British government; and it was no more consistent with the policy
+of Mr. Washington, and those who immediately surrounded him, than it was
+with that of Robespierre or of Pitt, that I should survive. They have,
+however, missed the mark, and the reaction is upon themselves.
+
+Upon the receipt of the letter just alluded to, I sent a memorial to Mr.
+Monroe, which the reader will find in the appendix, and I received from
+him the following answer.(1) It is dated the 18th of September, but did
+not come to hand till about the 4th of October. I was then failing into
+a relapse, the weather was becoming damp and cold, fuel was not to be
+had, and the abscess in my side, the consequence of these things, and
+of the want of air and exercise, was beginning to form, and which has
+continued immoveable ever since. Here follows Mr. Monroe's letter.
+
+     1 The appendix consisted of an abridgment of the Memorial,
+     which forms the preceding chapter (XXI.) in this volume.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+Paris, September 18th, 1794. "Dear Sir,
+
+"I was favoured soon after my arrival here with several letters from
+you, and more latterly with one in the character of memorial upon the
+subject of your confinement; and should have answered them at the
+times they were respectively written had I not concluded you would have
+calculated with certainty upon the deep interest I take in your welfare,
+and the pleasure with which I shall embrace every opportunity in my
+power to serve you. I should still pursue the same course, and for
+reasons which must obviously occur, if I did not find that you are
+disquieted with apprehensions upon interesting points, and which justice
+to you and our country equally forbid you should entertain. You mention
+that you have been informed you are not considered as an American
+citizen by the Americans, and that you have likewise heard that I had
+no instructions respecting you by the government. I doubt not the person
+who gave you the information meant well, but I suspect he did not even
+convey accurately his own ideas on the first point: for I presume the
+most he could say is, that you had likewise become a French citizen,
+and which by no means deprived you of being an American one. Even
+this, however, may be doubted, I mean the acquisition of citizenship in
+France, and I confess you have said much to show that it has not been
+made. I really suspect that this was all that the gentleman who wrote
+to you, and those Americans he heard speak upon the subject meant. It
+becomes my duty, however, to declare to you, that I consider you as
+an American citizen, and that you are considered universally in that
+character by the people of America. As such you are entitled to my
+attention; and so far as it can be given consistently with those
+obligations which are mutual between every government and even a
+transient passenger, you shall receive it.
+
+"The Congress have never decided upon the subject of citizenship in
+a manner to regard the present case. By being with us through the
+revolution you are of our country as absolutely as if you had been born
+there, and you are no more of England, than every native American is.
+This is the true doctrine in the present case, so far as it becomes
+complicated with any other consideration. I have mentioned it to make
+you easy upon the only point which could give you any disquietude.
+
+"Is it necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I
+speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare?
+They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution and the
+difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its
+several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the
+merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The
+crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain,
+our national character. You are considered by them as not only having
+rendered important service 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.
+
+"Of the sense which the President has always entertained of your merits,
+and of his friendly disposition towards you, you are too well assured
+to require any declaration of it from me. That I forward his wishes
+in seeking your safety is what I well know, and this will form an
+additional obligation on me to perform what I should otherwise consider
+as a duty.
+
+"You are, in my opinion, at present menaced by no kind of danger.
+To liberate you, will be an object of my endeavours, and as soon as
+possible. But you must, until that event shall be accomplished, bear
+your situation with patience and fortitude. You will likewise have the
+justice to recollect, that I am placed here upon a difficult theatre*
+many important objects to attend to, with few to consult It becomes me
+in pursuit of those to regulate my conduct in respect to each, as to
+the manner and the time, as will, in my judgment, be best calculated to
+accomplish the whole.
+
+"With great esteem and respect consider me personally your friend,
+
+"James Monroe."
+
+
+The part in Mr. Monroe's letter, in which he speaks of the President,
+(Mr. Washington,) is put in soft language. Mr. Monroe knew what Mr.
+Washington had said formerly, and he was willing to keep that in view.
+But the fact is, not only that Mr. Washington had given no orders to Mr.
+Monroe, as the letter [of Whiteside] stated, but he did not so much as
+say to him, enquire if Mr. Paine be dead or alive, in prison or out, or
+see if there be any assistance we can give him.
+
+     This I presume alludes to the embarrassments which the
+     strange conduct of Gouverneur Morris had occasioned, and
+     which, I well know, had created suspicions of the sincerity
+     of Mr. Washington.--_Author_. voi. m--ij
+
+While these matters were passing, the liberations from the prisons were
+numerous; from twenty to forty in the course of almost every twenty-four
+hours. The continuance of my imprisonment after a new Minister had
+arrived immediately from America, which was now more than two months,
+was a matter so obviously strange, that I found the character of the
+American government spoken of in very unqualified terms of reproach;
+not only by those who still remained in prison, but by those who were
+liberated, and by persons who had access to the prison from without.
+Under these circumstances I wrote again to Mr. Monroe, and found
+occasion, among other things, to say: "It will not add to the popularity
+of Mr. Washington to have it believed in America, as it is believed
+here, that he connives at my imprisonment."
+
+The case, so far as it respected Mr. Monroe, was, that having to get
+over the difficulties, which the strange conduct of Gouverneur Morris
+had thrown in the way of a successor, and having no authority from the
+American government to speak officially upon any thing relating to me,
+he found himself obliged to proceed by unofficial means with individual
+members; for though Robespierre was overthrown, the Robespierrian
+members of the Committee of Public Safety still remained in considerable
+force, and had they found out that Mr. Monroe had no official authority
+upon the case, they would have paid little or no regard to his
+reclamation of me. In the mean time my health was suffering exceedingly,
+the dreary prospect of winter was coming on, and imprisonment was still
+a thing of danger. After the Robespierrian members of the Committee were
+removed by the expiration of their time of serving, Mr. Monroe reclaimed
+me, and I was liberated the 4th of November. Mr. Monroe arrived in Paris
+the beginning of August before. All that period of my imprisonment,
+at least, I owe not to Robespierre, but to his colleague in projects,
+George Washington. Immediately upon my liberation, Mr. Monroe invited me
+to his house, where I remained more than a year and a half; and I speak
+of his aid and friendship, as an open-hearted man will always do in such
+a case, with respect and gratitude.
+
+Soon after my liberation, the Convention passed an unanimous vote,
+to invite me to return to my seat among them. The times were still
+unsettled and dangerous, as well from without as within, for the
+coalition was unbroken, and the constitution not settled. I chose,
+however, to accept the invitation: for as I undertake nothing but what
+I believe to be right, I abandon nothing that I undertake; and I
+was willing also to shew, that, as I was not of a cast of mind to be
+deterred by prospects or retrospects of danger, so neither were my
+principles to be weakened by misfortune or perverted by disgust.
+
+Being now once more abroad in the world, I began to find that I was
+not the only one who had conceived an unfavourable opinion of Mr.
+Washington; it was evident that his character was on the decline as well
+among Americans as among foreigners of different nations. From being the
+chief of the government, he had made himself the chief of a party;
+and his integrity was questioned, for his politics had a doubtful
+appearance. The mission of Mr. Jay to London, notwithstanding there
+was an American Minister there already, had then taken place, and was
+beginning to be talked of. It appeared to others, as it did to me, to
+be enveloped in mystery, which every day served either to increase or to
+explain into matter of suspicion.
+
+In the year 1790, or about that time, Mr. Washington, as President,
+had sent Gouverneur Morris to London, as his secret agent to have some
+communication with the British Ministry. To cover the agency of Morris
+it was given out, I know not by whom, that he went as an agent from
+Robert Morris to borrow money in Europe, and the report was permitted
+to pass uncontradicted. The event of Morris's negociation was, that Mr.
+Hammond was sent Minister from England to America, Pinckney from
+America to England, and himself Minister to France. If, while Morris was
+Minister in France, he was not a emissary of the British Ministry and
+the coalesced powers, he gave strong reasons to suspect him of it. No
+one who saw his conduct, and heard his conversation, could doubt his
+being in their interest; and had he not got off the time he did, after
+his recall, he would have been in arrestation. Some letters of his had
+fallen into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and enquiry was
+making after him.
+
+A great bustle had been made by Mr. Washington about the conduct of
+Genet in America, while that of his own Minister, Morris, in France, was
+infinitely more reproachable. If Genet was imprudent or rash, he was not
+treacherous; but Morris was all three. He was the enemy of the French
+revolution, in every stage of it. But notwithstanding this conduct
+on the part of Morris, and the known profligacy of his character, Mr.
+Washington in a letter he wrote to him at the time of recalling him on
+the complaint and request of the Committee of Public Safety, assures
+him, that though he had complied with that request, he still retained
+the same esteem and friendship for him as before. This letter Morris was
+foolish enough to tell of; and, as his own char-acter and conduct were
+notorious, the telling of it could have but one effect, which was that
+of implicating the character of the writer.(1) Morris still loiters
+in Europe, chiefly in England; and Mr. Washington is still in
+correspondence with him. Mr. Washington ought, therefore, to expect,
+especially since his conduct in the affairs of Jay's treaty, that France
+must consider Morris and Washington as men of the same description. The
+chief difference, however, between the two is, (for in politics there
+is none,) that the one is profligate enough to profess an indifference
+about _moral_ principles, and the other is prudent enough to conceal the
+want of them.
+
+     1 Washington wrote to Morris, June 19,1794, "my confidence
+     in and friendship for you remain undiminished." It was not
+     "foolish" but sagacious to show this one sentence, without
+     which Morris might not have escaped out of France. The
+     letter reveals Washington's mental decline. He says "until
+     then [Fauchet's demand for recall of Morris, early 1794] I
+     had supposed you stood well with the powers that were."
+     Lafayette had pleaded for Morris's removal, and two French
+     Ministers before Fauchet, Ternant and Genet, had expressed
+     their Government's dissatisfaction with him. See Ford's
+     Writings of Washington, vii., p. 453; also Editor's
+     Introduction to XXI.--_Editor._
+
+About three months after I was at liberty, the official note of Jay
+to Grenville on the subject of the capture of American vessels by the
+British cruisers, appeared in the American papers that arrived at Paris.
+Every thing was of a-piece. Every thing was mean. The same kind of
+character went to all circumstances public or private. Disgusted at
+this national degradation, as well as at the particular conduct of Mr.
+Washington to me, I wrote to him (Mr. Washington) on the 22d of February
+(1795) under cover to the then Secretary of State, (Mr. Randolph,) and
+entrusted the letter to Mr. Le-tombe, who was appointed French consul
+to Philadelphia, and was on the point of taking his departure. When I
+supposed Mr. Letombe had sailed, I mentioned the letter to Mr. Monroe,
+and as I was then in his house, I shewed it to him. He expressed a
+wish that I would recall it, which he supposed might be done, as he had
+learnt that Mr. Letombe had not then sailed. I agreed to do so, and it
+was returned by Mr. Letombe under cover to Mr. Monroe.
+
+The letter, however, will now reach Mr. Washington publicly in the
+course of this work.
+
+About the month of September following, I had a severe relapse which
+gave occasion to the report of my death. I had felt it coming on a
+considerable time before, which occasioned me to hasten the work I
+had then in hand, the _Second part of the Age of Reason_. When I had
+finished that work, I bestowed another letter on Mr. Washington, which I
+sent under cover to Mr. Benj. Franklin Bache of Philadelphia. The letter
+is as follows:
+
+
+"Paris, September 20th, 1795.
+
+"Sir,
+
+"I had written you a letter by Mr. Letombe, French consul, but, at the
+request of Mr. Monroe, I withdrew it, and the letter is still by me.
+I was the more easily prevailed upon to do this, as it was then my
+intention to have returned to America the latter end of the present
+year, 1795; but the illness I now suffer prevents me. In case I had
+come, I should have applied to you for such parts of your official
+letters (and of your private ones, if you had chosen to give them) as
+contained any instructions or directions either to Mr. Monroe, or to
+Mr. Morris, or to any other person respecting me; for after you were
+informed of my imprisonment in France, it was incumbent on you to have
+made some enquiry into the cause, as you might very well conclude that I
+had not the opportunity of informing you of it. I cannot understand your
+silence upon this subject upon any other ground, than as _connivance_ at
+my imprisonment; and this is the manner it is understood here, and will
+be understood in America, unless you give me authority for contradicting
+it. I therefore write you this letter, to propose to you to send me
+copies of any letters you have written, that may remove that suspicion.
+In the preface to the second part of the Age of Reason, I have given a
+memorandum from the hand-writing of Robespierre, in which he proposed a
+decree of accusation against me, '_for the interests of America as well
+as of France!_' He could have no cause for putting America in the
+case, but by interpreting the silence of the American government into
+connivance and consent. I was imprisoned on the ground of being born
+in England; and your silence in not enquiring into the cause of that
+imprisonment, and reclaiming me against it, was tacitly giving me up. I
+ought not to have suspected you of treachery; but whether I recover
+from the illness I now suffer or not, I shall continue to think you
+treacherous, till you give me cause to think otherwise. I am sure you
+would have found yourself more at your ease, had you acted by me as
+you ought; for whether your desertion of me was intended to gratify the
+English Government, or to let me fall into destruction in France that
+you might exclaim the louder against the French Revolution, or whether
+you hoped by my extinction to meet with less opposition in mounting up
+the American government--either of these will involve you in reproach
+you will not easily shake off.
+
+"THOMAS Paine."
+
+     1 Washington Papers in State Department. Endorsed by Bache:
+     "Jan. 18, 1796. Enclosed to Benj. Franklin Bache, and by him
+     forwarded immediately upon receipt."--_Editor._.
+
+Here follows the letter above alluded to, which I had stopped in
+complaisance to Mr. Monroe.
+
+
+"Paris, February aad, 1795.
+
+"Sir,
+
+"As it is always painful to reproach those one would wish to respect, it
+is not without some difficulty that I have taken the resolution to
+write to you. The dangers to which I have been exposed cannot have been
+unknown to you, and the guarded silence you have observed upon that
+circumstance is what I ought not to have expected from you, either as a
+friend or as President of the United States.
+
+"You knew enough of my character to be assured that I could not have
+deserved imprisonment in France; and, without knowing any thing more
+than this, you had sufficient ground to have taken some interest for my
+safety. Every motive arising from recollection of times past, ought to
+have suggested to you the propriety of such a measure. But I cannot find
+that you have so much as directed any enquiry to be made whether I
+was in prison or at liberty, dead or alive; what the cause of that
+imprisonment was, or whether there was any service or assistance you
+could render. Is this what I ought to have expected from America, after
+the part I had acted towards her, or will it redound to her honour or
+to yours, that I tell the story? I do not hesitate to say, that you have
+not served America with more disinterestedness, or greater zeal, or more
+fidelity, than myself, and I know not if with better effect. After the
+revolution of America was established I ventured into new scenes
+of difficulties to extend the principles which that revolution had
+produced, and you rested at home to partake of the advantages. In the
+progress of events, you beheld yourself a President in America, and me a
+prisoner in France. You folded your arms, forgot your friend, and became
+silent.
+
+"As every thing I have been doing in Europe was connected with my wishes
+for the prosperity of America, I ought to be the more surprised at this
+conduct on the part of her government. It leaves me but one mode of
+explanation, which is, _that every thing is not as it ought to be
+amongst you_, and that the presence of a man who might disapprove, and
+who had credit enough with the country to be heard and believed, was not
+wished for. This was the operating motive with the despotic faction
+that imprisoned me in France, (though the pretence was, that I was a
+foreigner,) and those that have been silent and inactive towards me
+in America, appear to me to have acted from the same motive. It is
+impossible for me to discover any other.(1)
+
+"After the part I have taken in the revolution of America, it is
+natural that I feel interested in whatever relates to her character
+and prosperity. Though I am not on the spot to see what is immediately
+acting there, I see some part of what she is acting in Europe. For
+your own sake, as well as for that of America, I was both surprised
+and concerned at the appointment of Gouverneur Morris to be Minister
+to France. His conduct has proved that the opinion I had formed of that
+appointment was well founded. I wrote that opinion to Mr. Jefferson at
+the time, and I was frank enough to say the same thing to Morris--_that
+it was an unfortunate appointment?_ His prating, insignificant
+pomposity, rendered him at once offensive, suspected, and ridiculous;
+and his total neglect of all business had so disgusted the Americans,
+that they proposed drawing up a protest against him. He carried this
+neglect to such an extreme, that it was necessary to inform him of it;
+and I asked him one day, if he did not feel himself ashamed to take the
+money of the country, and do nothing for it?' But Morris is so fond of
+profit and voluptousness, that he cares nothing about character. Had
+he not been removed at the time he was, I think his conduct would have
+precipitated the two countries into a rupture; and in this case,
+hated _systematically_ as America is and ever will be by the British
+government, and at the same time suspected by France, the commerce of
+America would have fallen a prey to both countries.
+
+     1 This paragraph of the original letter was omitted from the
+     American pamphlet, probably by the prudence of Mr. Bache.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 "I have just heard of Gouverneur Morris's appointment. It
+     is a most unfortunate one; and, as I shall mention the same
+     thing to him when I see him, I do not express it to you with
+     the injunction of confidence."--Paine to Jefferson, Feb.
+     13,1792.--_Editor._
+
+     3  Paine could not of course know that Morris was willing
+     that the Americans, to whom he alludes, captains of captured
+     vessels, should suffer, in order that there might be a case
+     against France of violation of treaty, which would leave the
+     United States free to transfer the alliance to England. See
+     Introduction to XXI.. also my "Life of Paine," ii., p.
+     83.--_Editor._.
+
+"If the inconsistent conduct of Morris exposed the interest of America
+to some hazard in France, the pusillanimous conduct of Mr. Jay in
+England has rendered the American government contemptible in Europe.
+Is it possible that any man who has contributed to the independence of
+Amer-ica, and to free her from the tyranny and injustice of the British
+government, can read without shame and indignation the note of Jay to
+Grenville? It is a satire upon the declaration of Independence, and an
+encouragement to the British government to treat America with contempt.
+At the time this Minister of Petitions was acting this miserable part,
+he had every means in his hands to enable him to have done his business
+as he ought. The success or failure of his mission depended upon the
+success or failure of the French arms. Had France failed, Mr. Jay might
+have put his humble petition in his pocket, and gone home. The case
+happened to be otherwise, and he has sacrificed the honour and perhaps
+all the advantages of it, by turning petitioner. I take it for granted,
+that he was sent over to demand indemnification for the captured
+property; and, in this case, if he thought he wanted a preamble to his
+demand, he might have said,
+
+'That, tho' the government of England might suppose itself under
+the necessity of seizing American property bound to France, yet
+that supposed necessity could not preclude indemnification to the
+proprietors, who, acting under the authority of their own government,
+were not accountable to any other.'
+
+"But Mr. Jay sets out with an implied recognition of the right of the
+British government to seize and condemn: for he enters his complaint
+against the _irregularity_ of the seizures and the condemnation, as if
+they were reprehensible only by not being _conformable_ to the _terms_
+of the proclamation under which they were seized. Instead of being the
+Envoy of a government, he goes over like a lawyer to demand a new trial.
+I can hardly help thinking that Grenville wrote that note himself and
+Jay signed it; for the style of it is domestic and not diplomatic.
+The term, _His_ Majesty, used without any descriptive epithet, always
+signifies the King whom the Minister that speaks represents. If this
+sinking of the demand into a petition was a juggle between Grenville
+and Jay, to cover the indemnification, I think it will end in another
+juggle, that of never paying the money, and be made use of afterwards to
+preclude the right of demanding it: for Mr. Jay has virtually disowned
+the right _by appealing to the magnanimity of his Majesty against the
+capturers_. He has made this magnanimous Majesty the umpire in the case,
+and the government of the United States must abide by the decision. If,
+Sir, I turn some part of this business into ridicule, it is to avoid the
+unpleasant sensation of serious indignation.
+
+"Among other things which I confess I do not understand, is the
+proclamation of neutrality. This has always appeared to me as
+an assumption on the part of the executive not warranted by the
+Constitution. But passing this over, as a disputable case, and
+considering it only as political, the consequence has been that of
+sustaining the losses of war, without the balance of reprisals. When
+the profession of neutrality, on the part of America, was answered by
+hostilities on the part of Britain, the object and intention of that
+neutrality existed no longer; and to maintain it after this, was not
+only to encourage farther insults and depredations, but was an informal
+breach of neutrality towards France, by passively contributing to the
+aid of her enemy. That the government of England considered the American
+government as pusillanimous, is evident from the encreasing insolence of
+the conduct of the former towards the latter, till the affair of General
+Wayne. She then saw that it might be possible to kick a government into
+some degree of spirit.(1) So far as the proclamation of neutrality was
+intended to prevent a dissolute spirit of privateering in America under
+foreign colors, it was undoubtedly laudable; but to continue it as a
+government neutrality, after the commerce of America was made war upon,
+was submission and not neutrality. I have heard so much about this thing
+called neutrality, that I know not if the ungenerous and dishonorable
+silence (for I must call it such,) that has been observed by your part
+of the government towards me, during my imprisonment, has not in some
+measure arisen from that policy.
+
+     1 Wayne's success against the Indians of the Six Nations,
+     1794, was regarded by Washington also as a check on England.
+     Writing to Pendleton, Jan. 22, 1795, he says: "There is
+     reason to believe that the Indians...._together with their
+     abettors_; begin to see things in a different point of
+     view." (Italics mine).--_Editor._
+
+"Tho' I have written you this letter, you ought not to suppose it has
+been an agreeable undertaking to me. On the contrary, I assure you, it
+has caused me some disquietude. I am sorry you have given me cause to
+do it; for, as I have always remembered your former friendship with
+pleasure, I suffer a loss by your depriving me of that sentiment.
+
+"Thomas Paine."
+
+
+That this letter was not written in very good temper, is very evident;
+but it was just such a letter as his conduct appeared to me to merit,
+and every thing on his part since has served to confirm that
+opinion. Had I wanted a commentary on his silence, with respect to my
+imprisonment in France, some of his faction have furnished me with it.
+What I here allude to, is a publication in a Philadelphia paper, copied
+afterwards into a New York paper, both under the patronage of the
+Washington faction, in which the writer, still supposing me in prison
+in France, wonders at my lengthy respite from the scaffold; and he marks
+his politics still farther, by saying:
+
+"It appears, moreover, that the people of England did not relish his
+(Thomas Paine's) opinions quite so well as he expected, and that for one
+of his last pieces, as destructive to the peace and happiness of their
+country, (meaning, I suppose, the _Rights of Man_,) they threatened
+our knight-errant with such serious vengeance, that, to avoid a trip to
+Botany Bay, he fled over to France, as a less dangerous voyage."
+
+I am not refuting or contradicting the falsehood of this publication,
+for it is sufficiently notorious; neither am I censuring the writer: on
+the contrary, I thank him for the explanation he has incautiously given
+of the principles of the Washington faction. Insignificant, however, as
+the piece is, it was capable of having some ill effects, had it arrived
+in France during my imprisonment, and in the time of Robespierre; and I
+am not uncharitable in supposing that this was one of the intentions of
+the writer.(*)
+
+     * I know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the
+     Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but
+     now a British consul; and that he writes under the
+     signature of Peter Skunk or Peter Porcupine, or some such
+     signature.--Author.
+
+     This footnote probably added to the gall of Porcupine's
+     (Cobbett's) "Letter to the Infamous Tom Paine, in Answer to
+     his Letter to General Washington" (Polit. Censor, Dec.,
+     1796), of which he (Cobbett) afterwards repented. Phineas
+     Bond had nothing to do with it.--Editor.
+
+I have now done with Mr. Washington on the score of private affairs. It
+would have been far more agreeable to me, had his conduct been such as
+not to have merited these reproaches. Errors or caprices of the temper
+can be pardoned and forgotten; but a cold deliberate crime of the heart,
+such as Mr. Washington is capable of acting, is not to be washed away. I
+now proceed to other matter.
+
+After Jay's note to Grenville arrived in Paris from America, the
+character of every thing that was to follow might be easily foreseen;
+and it was upon this anticipation that _my_ letter of February the 22d
+was founded. The event has proved that I was not mistaken, except that
+it has been much worse than I expected.
+
+It would naturally occur to Mr. Washington, that the secrecy of Jay's
+mission to England, where there was already an American Minister, could
+not but create some suspicion in the French government; especially
+as the conduct of Morris had been notorious, and the intimacy of Mr.
+Washington with Morris was known.
+
+The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world, is
+a sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called _prudence_. It
+is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied
+to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence
+furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is
+the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the
+embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for
+he authorized it to be made known to the French government, as a
+confidential matter, (Mr. Washington should recollect that I was a
+member of the Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here
+state) he authorized it, I say, to be announced, and that for the
+purpose of preventing any uneasiness to France on the score of Mr. Jay's
+mission to England, that the object of that mission, and of Mr. Jay's
+authority, was restricted to that of demanding the surrender of the
+western posts, and indemnification for the cargoes captured in American
+vessels. Mr. Washington knows that this was untrue; and knowing this,
+he had good reason to himself for refusing to furnish the House of
+Representatives with copies of the instructions given to Jay, as he
+might suspect, among other things, that he should also be called upon
+for copies of instructions given to other Ministers, and that, in
+the contradiction of instructions, his want of integrity would be
+detected.(1) Mr. Washington may now, perhaps, learn, when it is too late
+to be of any use to him, that a man will pass better through the world
+with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being detected in
+_one_ sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.
+
+The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negotiated by
+Mr. Jay, (for nobody suspected any,) came in an English newspaper, which
+announced that a treaty _offensive and defensive_ had been concluded
+between the United States of America and England. This was immediately
+denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though
+it was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some
+underhand business was going forward.(*) At length the treaty itself
+arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.
+
+     1 When the British treaty had been ratified by the Senate
+     (with one stipulation) and signed by the President, the
+     House of Representatives, required to supply the means for
+     carrying into effect, believed that its power over the
+     supplies authorized it to check what a large majority
+     considered an outrage on the country and on France. This was
+     the opinion of Edmund Randolph (the first Attorney General),
+     of Jefferson, Madison, and other eminent men. The House
+     having respectfully requested the President to send them
+     such papers on the treaty as would not affect any existing
+     negotiations, he refused in a message (March 30, 1796),
+     whose tenor Madison described as "improper and indelicate."
+     He said "the assent of the House of Representatives is not
+     necessary to the validity of a treaty." The House regarded
+     the message as menacing a serious conflict, and receded.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     * It was the embarrassment into which the affairs and credit
+     of America were thrown at this instant by the report above
+     alluded to, that made it necessary to contradict it, and
+     that by every means arising from opinion or founded upon
+     authority. The Committee of Public Safety, existing at that
+     time, had agreed to the full execution, on their part, of
+     the treaty between America and France, notwithstanding some
+     equivocal conduct on the part of the American government,
+     not very consistent with the good faith of an ally; but they
+     were not in a disposition to be imposed upon by a counter-
+     treaty. That Jay had no instructions beyond the points above
+     stated, or none that could possibly be construed to extend
+     to the length the British treaty goes, was a matter believed
+     in America, in England, and in France; and without going to
+     any other source it followed naturally from the message of
+     the President to Congress, when he nominated Jay upon that
+     mission. The secretary of Mr. Jay came to Paris soon after
+     the treaty with England had been concluded, and brought with
+     him a copy of Mr. Jay's instructions, which he offered to
+     shew to me as _justification of Jay_. I advised him, as a
+     friend, not to shew them to anybody, and did not permit him
+     to shew them to me. "Who is it," said I to him, "that you
+     intend to implicate as censureable by shewing those
+     instructions? Perhaps that implication may fall upon your
+     own government." Though I did not see the instructions, I
+     could not be at a loss to understand that the American
+     administration had been playing a double game.--Author.
+
+     That there was a "double game" in this business, from first
+     to last, is now a fact of history. Jay was confirmed by the
+     Senate on a declaration of the President in which no
+     faintest hint of a treaty was given, but only the
+     "adjustment of our complaints," "vindication of our rights,"
+     and cultivation of "peace." Only after the Envoy's
+     confirmation did the Cabinet add the main thing, his
+     authority to negotiate a commercial treaty. This was done
+     against the protest of the only lawyer among them, Edmund
+     Randolph, Secretary of State, who said the exercise of such
+     a power by Jay would be an abridgment of the rights of the
+     Senate and of the nation. See my "Life of Randolph," p. 220.
+     For Jay's Instructions, etc., see I. Am. State Papers,
+     Foreign Relations.--Editor.
+
+It is curious to observe, how the appearance of characters will change,
+whilst the root that produces them remains the same. The Washington
+faction having waded through the slough of negociation, and whilst it
+amused France with professions of friendship contrived to injure her,
+immediately throws off the hypocrite, and assumes the swaggering air of
+a bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on
+this occasion filled with paragraphs about _Sovereignty_. A paltroon may
+boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the
+only kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. But those
+daring paragraphs, as Timothy Pickering(1) well knows, were intended
+for France; without whose assistance, in men, money, and ships, Mr.
+Washington would have cut but a poor figure in the American war. But of
+his military talents I shall speak hereafter.
+
+I mean not to enter into any discussion of any article of Jay's treaty;
+I shall speak only upon the whole of it. It is attempted to be justified
+on the ground of its not being a violation of any article or articles
+of the treaty pre-existing with France. But the sovereign right of
+explanation does not lie with George Washington and his man Timothy;
+France, on her part, has, at least, an equal right: and when nations
+dispute, it is not so much about words as about things.
+
+A man, such as the world calls a sharper, and versed as Jay must be
+supposed to be in the quibbles of the law, may find a way to enter into
+engagements, and make bargains, in such a manner as to cheat some other
+party, without that party being able, as the phrase is, _to take the law
+of him_. This often happens in the cabalistical circle of what is called
+law. But when this is attempted to be acted on the national scale of
+treaties, it is too despicable to be defended, or to be permitted to
+exist. Yet this is the trick upon which Jay's treaty is founded, so
+far as it has relation to the treaty pre-existing with France. It is a
+counter-treaty to that treaty, and perverts all the great articles of
+that treaty to the injury of France, and makes them operate as a bounty
+to England, with whom France is at war.
+
+     1 Secretary of State.--_Editor._.
+
+The Washington administration shews great desire that the treaty between
+France and the United States be preserved. Nobody can doubt their
+sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British
+merchant, or a British agent or sailor in America, that does not
+anxiously wish the same thing. The treaty with France serves now as
+a passport to supply England with naval stores and other articles of
+American produce, whilst the same articles, when coming to France, are
+made contraband or seizable by Jay's treaty with England. The treaty
+with France says, that neutral ships make neutral property, and thereby
+gives protection to English property on board American ships; and Jay's
+treaty delivers up French property on board American ships to be seized
+by the English. It is too paltry to talk of faith, of national honour,
+and of the preservation of treaties, whilst such a bare-faced treachery
+as this stares the world in the face.
+
+The Washington administration may save itself the trouble of proving to
+the French government its _most faithful_ intentions of preserving
+the treaty with France; for France has now no desire that it should be
+preserved. She had nominated an Envoy extraordinary to America, to make
+Mr. Washington and his government a present of the treaty, and to
+have no more to do with _that_, or with _him_. It was at the same time
+officially declared to the American Minister at Paris, _that the French
+Republic had rather have the American government for an open enemy
+than a treacherous friend_. This, sir, together with the internal
+distractions caused in America, and the loss of character in the world,
+is the _eventful crisis_, alluded to in the beginning of this letter, to
+which your double politics have brought the affairs of your country. It
+is time that the eyes of America be opened upon you.
+
+How France would have conducted herself towards America and American
+commerce, after all treaty stipulations had ceased, and under the sense
+of services rendered and injuries received, I know not. It is, however,
+an unpleasant reflection, that in all national quarrels, the innocent,
+and even the friendly part of the community, become involved with the
+culpable and the unfriendly; and as the accounts that arrived from
+America continued to manifest an invariable attachment in the general
+mass of the people to their original ally, in opposition to the
+new-fangled Washington faction,--the resolutions that had been taken
+in France were suspended. It happened also, fortunately enough, that
+Gouverneur Morris was not Minister at this time.
+
+There is, however, one point that still remains in embryo, and
+which, among other things, serves to shew the ignorance of Washington
+treaty-makers, and their inattention to preexisting treaties, when they
+were employing themselves in framing or ratifying the new treaty with
+England.
+
+The second article of the treaty of commerce between the United States
+and France says:
+
+"The most christian king and the United States engage mutually, not to
+grant any particular favour to other nations in respect of commerce and
+navigation that shall not immediately become common to the other party,
+who shall enjoy the same favour freely, if the concession was freely
+made, or on allowing the same compensation if the concession was
+conditional."
+
+All the concessions, therefore, made to England by Jay's treaty are,
+through the medium of this second article in the pre-existing treaty,
+made to France, and become engrafted into the treaty with France, and
+can be exercised by her as a matter of right, the same as by England.
+
+Jay's treaty makes a concession to England, and that unconditionally,
+of seizing naval stores in American ships, and condemning them as
+contraband. It makes also a concession to England to seize provisions
+and _other articles_ in American ships. _Other articles are all other
+articles_, and none but an ignoramus, or something worse, would have put
+such a phrase into a treaty. The condition annexed in this case is, that
+the provisions and other articles so seized, are to be paid for at a
+price to be agreed upon. Mr. Washington, as President, ratified
+this treaty after he knew the British Government had recommended an
+indiscriminate seizure of provisions and all other articles in American
+ships; and it is now known that those seizures were made to fit out the
+expedition going to Quiberon Bay, and it was known before hand that they
+would be made. The evidence goes also a good way to prove that Jay and
+Grenville understood each other upon that subject. Mr. Pinckney,(1)
+when he passed through France on his way to Spain, spoke of the
+recommencement of the seizures as a thing that would take place.
+
+     1 Gen. Thomas Pinckney, U. S. Minister to England.--
+     _Editor._
+
+The French government had by some means received information from London
+to the same purpose, with the addition, that the recommencement of
+the seizures would cause no misunderstanding between the British and
+American governments. Grenville, in defending himself against the
+opposition in Parliament, on account of the scarcity of corn, said (see
+his speech at the opening of the Parliament that met October 29, 1795)
+that _the supplies for the Quiberon expedition were furnished out of the
+American ships_, and all the accounts received at that time from
+England stated that those seizures were made under the treaty. After the
+supplies for the Quiberon expedition had been procured, and the expected
+success had failed, the seizures were countermanded; and had the French
+seized provision vessels going to England, it is probable that the
+Quiberon expedition could not have been attempted.
+
+In one point of view, the treaty with England operates as a loan to
+the English government. It gives permission to that government to take
+American property at sea, to any amount, and pay for it when it suits
+her; and besides this, the treaty is in every point of view a surrender
+of the rights of American commerce and navigation, and a refusal to
+France of the rights of neutrality. The American flag is not now a
+neutral flag to France; Jay's treaty of surrender gives a monopoly of it
+to England.
+
+On the contrary, the treaty of commerce between America and France
+was formed on the most liberal principles, and calculated to give the
+greatest encouragement to the infant commerce of America. France was
+neither a carrier nor an exporter of naval stores or of provisions.
+Those articles belonged wholly to America, and they had all the
+protection in that treaty which a treaty could give. But so much has
+that treaty been perverted, that the liberality of it on the part
+of France, has served to encourage Jay to form a counter-treaty with
+England; for he must have supposed the hands of France tied up by her
+treaty with America, when he was making such large concessions in favour
+of England. The injury which Mr. Washington's administration has done to
+the character as well as to the commerce of America, is too great to be
+repaired by him. Foreign nations will be shy of making treaties with
+a government that has given the faithless example of perverting the
+liberality of a former treaty to the injury of the party with whom it
+was made.(1)
+
+     1 For an analysis of the British Treaty see Wharton's
+     "Digest of the International Law of the United States," vol.
+     it, § 150 a. Paine's analysis is perfectly correct.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+In what a fraudulent light must Mr. Washington's character appear in the
+world, when his declarations and his conduct are compared together! Here
+follows the letter he wrote to the Committee of Public Safety, while Jay
+was negotiating in profound secrecy this treacherous treaty:
+
+"George Washington, President of the United States of America, to the
+Representatives of the French people, members of the Committee of Public
+Safety of the French Republic, the great and good friend and ally of the
+United States.
+
+"On the intimation of the wish of the French republic that à new
+Minister should be sent from the United States, I resolved to manifest
+my sense of the readiness with which _my_ request was fulfilled, [that
+of recalling Genet,] by immediately fulfilling the request of your
+government, [that of recalling Morris].
+
+"It was some time before a character could be obtained, worthy of the
+high office of expressing the attachment of the United States to
+the happiness of our allies, _and drawing closer the bonds of our
+friendship_. I have now made choice of James Monroe, one of our
+distinguished citizens, to reside near the French republic, in quality
+of Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. He is
+instructed to bear to you our _sincere solicitude for your welfare, and
+to cultivate with teal the cordiality so happily subsisting between
+us_. From a knowledge of his fidelity, probity, and good conduct, I have
+entire confidence that he will render himself acceptable to you,
+and give effect to your desire of preserving and _advancing, on all
+occasions, the interest and connection of the two nations_. I beseech
+you, therefore, to give full credence to whatever he shall say to you
+on the part of the United States, and _most of all, when he shall assure
+you that your prosperity is an object of our affection_.
+
+"And I pray God to have the French Republic in his holy keeping.
+
+"G. Washington."
+
+
+Was it by entering into a treaty with England to surrender French
+property on board American ships to be seized by the English, while
+English property on board American ships was declared by the French
+treaty not to be seizable, _that the bonds of friendship between America
+and France were to be drawn the closer?_ Was it by declaring naval
+stores contraband when coming to France, whilst by the French treaty
+they were not contraband when going to England, that the _connection
+between France and America was to be advanced?_ Was it by opening the
+American ports to the British navy in the present war, from which ports
+the same navy had been expelled by the aid solicited from France in the
+American war (and that aid gratuitously given) (2) that the gratitude
+of America was to be shewn, and the _solicitude_ spoken of in the letter
+demonstrated?
+
+     1 The italics are Paine's. Paine's free use of this document
+     suggests that he possessed the confidence of the French
+     Directory.--_Editor._
+
+     2  It is notable that Paine adheres to his old contention in
+     his controversy with Deane. See vol. i., ch. aa of this work;
+     and vol. i., ch. 9 of my "Life of Paine."--_Editor._.
+
+As the letter was addressed to the Committee of Public Safety, Mr.
+Washington did not expect it would get abroad in the world, or be seen
+by any other eye than that of Robespierre, or be heard by any other ear
+than that of the Committee; that it would pass as a whisper across the
+Atlantic, from one dark chamber to the other, and there terminate. It
+was calculated to remove from the mind of the Committee all suspicion
+upon Jay's mission to England, and, in this point of view, it was suited
+to the circumstances of the movement then passing; but as the event
+of that mission has proved the letter to be hypocritical, it serves no
+other purpose of the present moment than to shew that the writer is
+not to be credited. Two circumstances serve to make the reading of the
+letter necessary in the Convention. The one was, that they who succeeded
+on the fall of Robespierre, found it most proper to act with publicity;
+the other, to extinguish the suspicions which the strange conduct of
+Morris had occasioned in France.
+
+When the British treaty, and the ratification of it by Mr. Washington,
+was known in France, all further declarations from him of his good
+disposition as an ally and friend, passed for so many cyphers; but still
+it appeared necessary to him to keep up the farce of declarations. It
+is stipulated in the British treaty, that commissioners are to report
+at the end of two years, on the case of _neutral ships making neutral
+property_. In the mean time, neutral ships do _not_ make neutral
+property, according to the British treaty, and they _do_ according to
+the French treaty. The preservation, therefore, of the French treaty
+became of great importance to England, as by that means she can employ
+American ships as carriers, whilst the same advantage is denied to
+France. Whether the French treaty could exist as a matter of right after
+this clandestine perversion of it, could not but give some apprehensions
+to the partizans of the British treaty, and it became necessary to them
+to make up, by fine words, what was wanting in good actions.
+
+An opportunity offered to that purpose. The Convention, on the public
+reception of Mr. Monroe, ordered the American flag and the French flags
+to be displayed unitedly in the hall of the Convention. Mr. Monroe made
+a present of an American flag for the purpose. The Convention returned
+this compliment by sending a French flag to America, to be presented by
+their Minister, Mr. Adet, to the American government. This resolution
+passed long before Jay's treaty was known or suspected: it passed in
+the days of confidence; but the flag was not presented by Mr. Adet till
+several months after the treaty had been ratified. Mr. Washington made
+this the occasion of saying some fine things to the French Minister; and
+the better to get himself into tune to do this, he began by saying the
+finest things of himself.
+
+"Born, sir (said he) in a land of liberty; _having_ early learned its
+value; _having_ engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; _having_,
+in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent
+establishment in my own country; _my_ anxious recollections, my
+sympathetic feelings, and _my_ best wishes are irresistibly excited,
+whenever, in any country, I see an oppressed people unfurl the banner of
+freedom."
+
+Mr. Washington, having expended so many fine phrases upon himself, was
+obliged to invent a new one for the French, and he calls them "wonderful
+people!" The coalesced powers acknowledged as much.
+
+It is laughable to hear Mr. Washington talk of his _sympathetic
+feelings_, who has always been remarked, even among his friends, for
+not having any. He has, however, given no proofs of any to me. As to the
+pompous encomiums he so liberally pays to himself, on the score of the
+American revolution, the reality of them may be questioned; and since
+he has forced them so much into notice, it is fair to examine his
+pretensions.
+
+A stranger might be led to suppose, from the egotism with which Mr.
+Washington speaks, that himself, and himself only, had generated,
+conducted, compleated, and established the revolution: In fine, that it
+was all his own doing.
+
+In the first place, as to the political part, he had no share in it;
+and, therefore, the whole of _that_ is out of the question with respect
+to him. There remains, then, only the military part; and it would have
+been prudent in Mr. Washington not to have awakened enquiry upon that
+subject. Fame then was cheap; he enjoyed it cheaply; and nobody was
+disposed to take away the laurels that, whether they were _acquired_ or
+not, had been _given_.
+
+Mr. Washington's merit consisted in constancy. But constancy was the
+common virtue of the revolution. Who was there that was inconstant? I
+know but of one military defection, that of Arnold; and I know of no
+political defection, among those who made themselves eminent when the
+revolution was formed by the declaration of independence. Even Silas
+Deane, though he attempted to defraud, did not betray.(1)
+
+     1 This generous judgment by Deane's old adversary has become
+     questionable under recent investigations.--_Editor._.
+
+But when we speak of military character, something more is to be
+understood than constancy; and something more _ought_ to be understood
+than the Fabian system of _doing nothing_. The _nothing_ part can be
+done by any body. Old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper of head quarters,
+(who threatened to make the sun and the wind shine through Rivington of
+New York,) 'could have done it as well as Mr. Washington. Deborah would
+have been as good as Barak.
+
+Mr. Washington had the nominal rank of Commander in Chief, but he was
+not so in fact. He had, in reality, only a separate command. He had no
+controul over, or direction of, the army to the northward under Gates,
+that captured Burgoyne; nor of that to the south under [Nathaniel]
+Greene, that recovered the southern States.(2) The nominal rank,
+however, of Commander in Chief, served to throw upon him the lustre
+of those actions, and to make him appear as the soul and centre of all
+military operations in America.
+
+     1 The Tory publisher of New York City, whose press was
+     destroyed in 1775 by a mob of Connecticut soldiers.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 See Mr. Winterbotham's valuable History of America, lately
+     published.--Author. [The "History of the Establishment of
+     Independence" is contained in the first of Mr.
+     Winterbotham's four volumes (London, 1795).--_Editor._.]
+
+He commenced his command June, 1775, during the time the Massachusetts
+army lay before Boston, and after the affair of Bunker-hill. The
+commencement of his command was the commencement of inactivity. Nothing
+was afterwards done, or attempted to be done, during the nine months
+he remained before Boston. If we may judge from the resistance made at
+Concord, and afterwards at Bunker-hill, there was a spirit of enterprise
+at that time, which the presence of Mr. Washington chilled into cold
+defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts respect, which
+his habitual silence tends to preserve; but he has not the talent of
+inspiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Boston in March
+1776, to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more
+advantageous position at New York.
+
+The inactivity of the campaign of 1775, on the part of General
+Washington, when the enemy had a less force than in any other future
+period of the war, and the injudicious choice of positions taken by
+him in the campaign of 1776, when the enemy had its greatest force,
+necessarily produced the losses and misfortunes that marked that gloomy
+campaign. The positions taken were either islands or necks of land.
+In the former, the enemy, by the aid of their ships, could bring their
+whole force against apart of General Washington's, as in the affair
+of Long Island; and in the latter, he might be shut up as in the bottom
+of a bag. This had nearly been the case at New York, and it was so in
+part; it was actually the case at Fort Washington; and it would have
+been the case at Fort Lee, if General Greene had not moved precipitately
+off, leaving every thing behind, and by gaining Hackinsack bridge, got
+out of the bag of Bergen Neck. How far Mr. Washington, as General, is
+blameable for these matters, I am not undertaking to determine; but they
+are evidently defects in military geography. The successful skirmishes
+at the close of that campaign, (matters that would scarcely be noticed
+in a better state of things,) make the brilliant exploits of General
+Washington's seven campaigns. No wonder we see so much pusillanimity in
+the President, when we see so little enterprise in the General!
+
+The campaign of 1777 became famous, not by anything on the part of
+General Washington, but by the capture of General Burgoyne, and the
+army under his command, by the Northern army at Saratoga, under General
+Gates. So totally distinct and unconnected were the two armies of
+Washington and Gates, and so independent was the latter of the authority
+of the nominal Commander in Chief, that the two Generals did not so much
+as correspond, and it was only by a letter of General (since Governor)
+Clinton, that General Washington was informed of that event. The British
+took possession of Philadelphia this year, which they evacuated
+the next, just time enough to save their heavy baggage and fleet of
+transports from capture by the French Admiral d'Estaing, who arrived at
+the mouth of the Delaware soon after.
+
+The capture of Burgoyne gave an eclat in Europe to the American arms,
+and facilitated the alliance with France. The eclat, however, was
+not kept up by any thing on the part of General Washington. The same
+unfortunate languor that marked his entrance into the field, continued
+always. Discontent began to prevail strongly against him, and a party
+was formed in Congress, whilst sitting at York-town, in Pennsylvania,
+for removing him from the command of the army. The hope, however,
+of better times, the news of the alliance with France, and the
+unwillingness of shewing discontent, dissipated the matter.
+
+Nothing was done in the campaigns of 1778, 1779, 1780, in the part
+where General Washington commanded, except the taking of Stony Point by
+General Wayne. The Southern States in the mean time were over-run by the
+enemy. They were afterwards recovered by General Greene, who had in a
+very great measure created the army that accomplished that recovery.
+In all this General Washington had no share. The Fabian system of war,
+followed by him, began now to unfold itself with all its evils; but
+what is Fabian war without Fabian means to support it? The finances of
+Congress depending wholly on emissions of paper money, were exhausted.
+Its credit was gone. The continental treasury was not able to pay the
+expense of a brigade of waggons to transport the necessary stores to the
+army, and yet the sole object, the establishment of the revolution,
+was a thing of remote distance. The time I am now speaking of is in the
+latter end of the year 1780.
+
+In this situation of things it was found not only expedient, but
+absolutely necessary, for Congress to state the whole case to its ally.
+I knew more of this matter, (before it came into Congress or was known
+to General Washington) of its progress, and its issue, than I chuse
+to state in this letter. Colonel John Laurens was sent to France as an
+Envoy Extraordinary on this occasion, and by a private agreement between
+him and me I accompanied him. We sailed from Boston in the Alliance
+frigate, February 11th, 1781. France had already done much in accepting
+and paying bills drawn by Congress. She was now called upon to do more.
+The event of Colonel Laurens's mission, with the aid of the venerable
+Minister, Franklin, was, that France gave in money, as a present, six
+millions of livres, and ten millions more as a loan, and agreed to send
+a fleet of not less than thirty sail of the line, at her own expense,
+as an aid to America. Colonel Laurens and myself returned from Brest the
+1st of June following, taking with us two millions and a half of livres
+(upwards of one hundred thousand pounds sterling) of the money given,
+and convoying two ships with stores.
+
+We arrived at Boston the 25th of August following. De Grasse arrived
+with the French fleet in the Chesapeak at the same time, and was
+afterwards joined by that of Barras, making 31 sail of the line.
+The money was transported in waggons from Boston to the Bank at
+Philadelphia, of which Mr. Thomas Willing, who has since put himself at
+the head of the list of petitioners in favour of the British treaty, was
+then President. And it was by the aid of this money, and this fleet, and
+of Rochambeau's army, that Cornwallis was taken; the laurels of which
+have been unjustly given to Mr. Washington. His merit in that affair was
+no more than that of any other American officer.
+
+I have had, and still have, as much pride in the American revolution as
+any man, or as Mr. Washington has a right to have; but that pride has
+never made me forgetful whence the great aid came that compleated
+the business. Foreign aid (that of France) was calculated upon at the
+commencement of the revolution. It is one of the subjects treated of
+in the pamphlet _Common Sense_, but as a matter that could not be hoped
+for, unless independence was declared.1 The aid, however, was greater
+than could have been expected.
+
+It is as well the ingratitude as the pusillanimity of Mr. Washington,
+and the Washington faction, that has brought upon America the loss
+of character she now suffers in the world, and the numerous evils her
+commerce has undergone, and to which it is yet exposed. The British
+Ministry soon found out what sort of men they had to deal with, and they
+dealt with them accordingly; and if further explanation was wanting, it
+has been fully given since, in the snivelling address of the New York
+Chamber of Commerce to the President, and in that of sundry merchants of
+Philadelphia, which was not much better.
+
+     1  See vol. i. of this work, p. ixx. Paine was sharply taken
+     to task on this point by "Cato."   Ib.% pp. 145-147.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+When the revolution of America was finally established by the
+termination of the war, the world gave her credit for great character;
+and she had nothing to do but to stand firm upon that ground. The
+British ministry had their hands too full of trouble to have provoked
+a rupture with her, had she shown a proper resolution to defend her
+rights. But encouraged as they were by the submissive character of the
+American administration, they proceeded from insult to insult, till none
+more were left to be offered. The proposals made by Sweden and Denmark
+to the American administration were disregarded. I know not if so much
+as an answer has been returned to them. The minister penitentiary,
+(as some of the British prints called him,) Mr. Jay, was sent on a
+pilgrimage to London, to make up all by penance and petition. In the
+mean time the lengthy and drowsy writer of the pieces signed _Camillas_
+held himself in reserve to vindicate every thing; and to sound in
+America the tocsin of terror upon the inexhaustible resources of
+England. Her resources, says he, are greater than those of all the other
+powers. This man is so intoxicated with fear and finance, that he knows
+not the difference between _plus_ and _minus_--between a hundred pounds
+in hand, and a hundred pounds worse than nothing.
+
+The commerce of America, so far as it had been established by all the
+treaties that had been formed prior to that by Jay, was free, and the
+principles upon which it was established were good. That ground ought
+never to have been departed from. It was the justifiable ground
+of right, and no temporary difficulties ought to have induced an
+abandonment of it. The case is now otherwise. The ground, the scene, the
+pretensions, the everything, are changed. The commerce of America is, by
+Jay's treaty, put under foreign dominion. The sea is not free for her.
+Her right to navigate it is reduced to the right of escaping; that is,
+until some ship of England or France stops her vessels, and carries them
+into port. Every article of American produce, whether from the sea or
+the sand, fish, flesh, vegetable, or manufacture, is, by Jay's treaty,
+made either contraband or seizable. Nothing is exempt. In all other
+treaties of commerce, the article which enumerates the contraband
+articles, such as fire arms, gunpowder, &c, is followed by another
+article which enumerates the articles not contraband: but it is not so
+in Jay's treaty. There is no exempting article. Its place is supplied by
+the article for seizing and carrying into port; and the sweeping phrase
+of "provisions and _other articles _" includes every thing. There never
+was such a base and servile treaty of surrender since treaties began to
+exist.
+
+This is the ground upon which America now stands. All her rights
+of commerce and navigation are to begin anew, and that with loss of
+character to begin with. If there is sense enough left in the heart
+to call a blush into the cheek, the Washington administration must
+be ashamed to appear.--And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private
+friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger)
+and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide
+whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned
+good principles, or whether you ever had any.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII. OBSERVATIONS.(1)
+
+     1 State Archives, Paris, États Unis, vol. 43, fol. 100.
+     Undated, but evidently written early in the year 1795, when
+     Jay's Treaty was as yet unknown. Paine was then staying in
+     the house of the American Minister, Monroe.--' Editor,
+
+The United States of America are negociating with Spain respecting the
+free Navigation of the Mississippi, and the territorial limits of this
+large river, in conformity with the Treaty of Peace with England dated
+30th November, 1782. As the brilliant successes of the French Republic
+have forced England to grant us, what was in all justice our due, so the
+continuation of the prosperity of the Republic, will force Spain to make
+a Treaty with us on the points in controversy.
+
+Since it is certain that all that we shall obtain from Spain will be due
+to the victories of France, and as the inhabitants of the western part
+of the United States (which part contains or covers more than half
+the United States), have decided to claim their rights to the free
+navigation of the Mississippi, would it not be a wiser policy for the
+Republican Government (who have only to command to obtain) to arrogate
+all the merit, by making our demands to Spain, one of the conditions, of
+France, to consent to restore peace to the Castilians. They have only
+to declare, they will not make Peace, or that they will support with
+all their might, the just reclamations of their allies against these
+Powers,--against England for the surrender of the frontier posts, and
+for the indemnities due through their depredations on our Trade, and
+against Spain for our territorial limits, and the free navigation of
+the Mississippi. This declaration would certainly not prolong the War a
+single day more, nor cost the Republic an obole, whilst it would assure
+all the merit of success to France, and besides produce all the good
+effects mentioned above.
+
+It may perhaps be observed that the Negociation is already finished
+with England, and perhaps in a manner which will not be approved of by
+France. That may be, (though the terms of this arrangement may not be
+known); but as to Spain, the negociation is still pending, and it is
+evident that if France makes the above _Declaration_ as to this Power
+(which declaration would be a demonstrative proof of what she would
+have done in the other case if circumstances had required it), she would
+receive the same credit as if the Declaration had been made relatively
+to the two Powers. In fact the Decree or resolution (and perhaps this
+last would be preferable) can be worded in terms which would declare
+that in case the arrangement with England were not satisfactory, France
+will nevertheless, maintain the just demands of America against
+that Power. A like Declaration, in case Mr. Jay should do anything
+reprehensible, and which might even be approved of in America, would
+certainly raise the reputation of the French Republic to the most
+eminent degree of splendour, and lower in proportion that of her
+enemies.
+
+It is very certain that France cannot better favour the views of the
+British party in America, and wound in a most sensible manner the
+Republican Government of this country, than by adopting a strict and
+oppressive policy with regard to us. Every one knows that the injustices
+committed by the privateers and other ships belonging to the French
+Republic against our navigation, were causes of exultation and joy
+to this party, even when their own properties were subjected to these
+depredations, whilst the friends of France and the Revolution were vexed
+and most confused about it. It follows then, that a generous policy
+would produce quite opposite effects--it would acquire for France the
+merit that is her due; it would discourage the hopes of her adversaries,
+and furnish the friends of humanity and liberty with the means of acting
+against the intrigues of England, and cement the Union, and contribute
+towards the true interests of the two republics.
+
+So sublime and generous a manner of acting, which would not cost
+anything to France, would cement in a stronger way the ties between
+the two republics. The effect of such an event, would confound and
+annihilate in an irrevocable manner all the partisans for the British
+in America. There are nineteen twentieths of our nation attached through
+inclination and gratitude to France, and the small number who seek
+uselessly all sorts of pretexts to magnify the small occasions of
+complaint which might have subsisted previously will find itself reduced
+to silence, or have to join their expressions of gratitude to ours.--The
+results of this event cannot be doubted, though not reckoned on: all the
+American hearts will be French, and England will be afflicted.
+
+An American.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV. DISSERTATION ON FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. (1)
+
+     1 Printed from the first edition, whose title is as above,
+     with the addition: "By Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense;
+     Rights of Man; Age of Reason. Paris, Printed at the
+     English Press, me de Vaugerard, No. 970. Third year of the
+     French Republic." The pamphlet seems to have appeared early
+     in July (perhaps the Fourth), 1795, and was meant to
+     influence the decision of the National Convention on the
+     Constitution then under discussion. This Constitution,
+     adopted September 23d, presently swept away by Napoleon,
+     contained some features which appeared to Paine reactionary.
+     Those to which he most objected are quoted by him in his
+     speech in the Convention, which is bound up in the same
+     pamphlet, and follows this "Dissertation" in the present
+     volume. In the Constitution as adopted Paine's preference
+     for a plural Executive was established, and though the
+     bicameral organization (the Council of Five Hundred and the
+     Council of Ancients) was not such as he desired, his chief
+     objection was based on his principle of manhood suffrage.
+     But in regard to this see Paine's "Dissertations on
+     Government," written nine years before (vol. ii., ch. vi. of
+     this work), and especially p. 138 seq. of that volume, where
+     he indicates the method of restraining the despotism of
+     numbers.--_Editor._,
+
+There is no subject more interesting to every man than the subject of
+government. His security, be he rich or poor, and in a great measure
+his prosperity, are connected therewith; it is therefore his interest
+as well as his duty to make himself acquainted with its principles, and
+what the practice ought to be.
+
+Every art and science, however imperfectly known at first, has been
+studied, improved, and brought to what we call perfection by the
+progressive labours of succeeding generations; but the science of
+government has stood still. No improvement has been made in the
+principle and scarcely any in the practice till the American revolution
+began. In all the countries of Europe (except in France) the same forms
+and systems that were erected in the remote ages of ignorance still
+continue, and their antiquity is put in the place of principle; it is
+forbidden to investigate their origin, or by what right they exist.
+If it be asked how has this happened, the answer is easy: they are
+established on a principle that is false, and they employ their power to
+prevent detection.
+
+Notwithstanding the mystery with which the science of government has
+been enveloped, for the purpose of enslaving, plundering, and imposing
+upon mankind, it is of all things the least mysterious and the most easy
+to be understood. The meanest capacity cannot be at a loss, if it begins
+its enquiries at the right point. Every art and science has some point,
+or alphabet, at which the study of that art or science begins, and by
+the assistance of which the progress is facilitated. The same method
+ought to be observed with respect to the science of government.
+
+Instead then of embarrassing the subject in the outset with the numerous
+subdivisions under which different forms of government have been
+classed, such as aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, &c.
+the better method will be to begin with what may be called primary
+divisions, or those under which all the several subdivisions will be
+comprehended.
+
+The primary divisions are but two:
+
+First, government by election and representation.
+
+Secondly, government by hereditary succession.
+
+All the several forms and systems of government, however numerous
+or diversified, class themselves under one or other of those primary
+divisions; for either they are on the system of representation, or on
+that of hereditary succession. As to that equivocal thing called mixed
+government, such as the late government of Holland, and the present
+government of England, it does not make an exception to the general
+rule, because the parts separately considered are either representative
+or hereditary.
+
+Beginning then our enquiries at this point, we have first to examine
+into the nature of those two primary divisions.
+
+If they are equally right in principle, it is mere matter of opinion
+which we prefer. If the one be demonstratively better than the other,
+that difference directs our choice; but if one of them should be so
+absolutely false as not to have a right to existence, the matter settles
+itself at once; because a negative proved on one thing, where two only
+are offered, and one must be accepted, amounts to an affirmative on the
+other.
+
+The revolutions that are now spreading themselves in the world have
+their origin in this state of the case, and the present war is a
+conflict between the representative system founded on the rights of the
+people, and the hereditary system founded in usurpation. As to what are
+called Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, they do not, either as things
+or as terms, sufficiently describe the hereditary system; they are but
+secondary things or signs of the hereditary system, and which fall of
+themselves if that system has not a right to exist. Were there no
+such terms as Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, or were other terms
+substituted in their place, the hereditary system, if it continued,
+would not be altered thereby. It would be the same system under any
+other titulary name as it is now.
+
+The character therefore of the revolutions of the present day
+distinguishes itself most definitively by grounding itself on the system
+of representative government, in opposition to the hereditary. No other
+distinction reaches the whole of the principle.
+
+Having thus opened the case generally, I proceed, in the first place, to
+examine the hereditary system, because it has the priority in point of
+time. The representative system is the invention of the modern world;
+and, that no doubt may arise as to my own opinion, I declare it
+before hand, which is, _that there is not a problem in Euclid more
+mathematically true, than that hereditary government has not a right to
+exist. When therefore we take from any man the exercise of hereditary
+power, we take away that which he never had the right to possess, and
+which no law or custom could, or ever can, give him a title to_.
+
+The arguments that have hitherto been employed against the hereditary
+system have been chiefly founded upon the absurdity of it, and its
+incompetency to the purpose of good government. Nothing can present to
+our judgment, or to our imagination, a figure of greater absurdity, than
+that of seeing the government of a nation fall, as it frequently does,
+into the hands of a lad necessarily destitute of experience, and often
+little better than a fool. It is an insult to every man of years, of
+character, and of talents, in a country. The moment we begin to reason
+upon the hereditary system, it falls into derision; let but a single
+idea begin, and a thousand will soon follow. Insignificance, imbecility,
+childhood, dotage, want of moral character; in fine, every defect
+serious or laughable unite to hold up the hereditary system as a figure
+of ridicule. Leaving, however, the ridiculousness of the thing to the
+reflections of the reader, I proceed to the more important part of the
+question, namely, whether such a system has a right to exist.
+
+To be satisfied of the right of a thing to exist, we must be satisfied
+that it had a right to begin. If it had not a right to begin, it has not
+a right to continue. By what right then did the hereditary system begin?
+Let a man but ask himself this question, and he will find that he cannot
+satisfy himself with an answer.
+
+The right which any man or any family had to set itself up at first to
+govern a nation, and to establish itself hereditarily, was no other than
+the right which Robespierre had to do the same thing in France. If he
+had none, they had none. If they had any, he had as much; for it is
+impossible to discover superiority of right in any family, by virtue of
+which hereditary government could begin. The Capets, the Guelphs,
+the Robespierres, the Marats, are all on the same standing as to the
+question of right. It belongs exclusively to none.
+
+It is one step towards liberty, to perceive that hereditary government
+could not begin as an exclusive right in any family. The next point
+will be, whether, having once begun, it could grow into a right by the
+influence of time.
+
+This would be supposing an absurdity; for either it is putting time in
+the place of principle, or making it superior to principle; whereas time
+has no more connection with, or influence upon principle, than principle
+has upon time. The wrong which began a thousand years ago, is as much a
+wrong as if it began to-day; and the right which originates to-day, is
+as much a right as if it had the sanction of a thousand years. Time with
+respect to principles is an eternal now: it has no operation upon them:
+it changes nothing of their nature and qualities. But what have we to
+do with a thousand years? Our life-time is but a short portion of that
+period, and if we find the wrong in existence as soon as we begin to
+live, that is the point of time at which it begins to us; and our right
+to resist it is the same as if it never existed before.
+
+As hereditary government could not begin as a natural right in any
+family, nor derive after its commencement any right from time, we have
+only to examine whether there exist in a nation a right to set it up,
+and establish it by what is called law, as has been done in England. I
+answer NO; and that any law or any constitution made for that purpose is
+an act of treason against the right of every minor in the nation, at the
+time it is made, and against the rights of all succeeding generations.
+I shall speak upon each of those cases. First, of the minor at the time
+such law is made. Secondly, of the generations that are to follow.
+
+A nation, in a collective sense, comprehends all the individuals of
+whatever age, from just born to just dying. Of these, one part will be
+minors, and the other aged. The average of life is not exactly the same
+in every climate and country, but in general, the minority in years are
+the majority in numbers; that is, the number of persons under twenty-one
+years, is greater than the number of persons above that age. This
+difference in number is not necessary to the establishment of the
+principle I mean to lay down, but it serves to shew the justice of it
+more strongly. The principle would be equally as good, if the majority
+in years were also the majority in numbers.
+
+The rights of minors are as sacred as the rights of the aged. The
+difference is altogether in the different age of the two parties, and
+nothing in the nature of the rights; the rights are the same rights;
+and are to be preserved inviolate for the inheritance of the minors when
+they shall come of age. During the minority of minors their rights are
+under the sacred guardianship of the aged. The minor cannot surrender
+them; the guardian cannot dispossess him; consequently, the aged part
+of a nation, who are the law-makers for the time being, and who, in the
+march of life are but a few years ahead of those who are yet minors, and
+to whom they must shortly give place, have not and cannot have the right
+to make a law to set up and establish hereditary government, or, to
+speak more distinctly, _an hereditary succession of governors_; because
+it is an attempt to deprive every minor in the nation, at the time such
+a law is made, of his inheritance of rights when he shall come of age,
+and to subjugate him to a system of government to which, during his
+minority, he could neither consent nor object.
+
+If a person who is a minor at the time such a law is proposed, had
+happened to have been born a few years sooner, so as to be of the age of
+twenty-one years at the time of proposing it, his right to have objected
+against it, to have exposed the injustice and tyrannical principles of
+it, and to have voted against it, will be admitted on all sides. If,
+therefore, the law operates to prevent his exercising the same rights
+after he comes of age as he would have had a right to exercise had he
+been of age at the time, it is undeniably a law to take away and annul
+the rights of every person in the nation who shall be a minor at the
+time of making such a law, and consequently the right to make it cannot
+exist.
+
+I come now to speak of government by hereditary succession, as it
+applies to succeeding generations; and to shew that in this case, as in
+the case of minors, there does not exist in a nation a right to set it
+up.
+
+A nation, though continually existing, is continually in a state of
+renewal and succession. It is never stationary.
+
+Every day produces new births, carries minors forward to maturity, and
+old persons from the stage. In this ever running flood of generations
+there is no part superior in authority to another. Could we conceive an
+idea of superiority in any, at what point of time, or in what century of
+the world, are we to fix it? To what cause are we to ascribe it? By
+what evidence are we to prove it? By what criterion are we to know it? A
+single reflection will teach us that our ancestors, like ourselves, were
+but tenants for life in the great freehold of rights. The fee-absolute
+was not in them, it is not in us, it belongs to the whole family of
+man, thro* all ages. If we think otherwise than this, we think either as
+slaves or as tyrants. As slaves, if we think that any former generation
+had a right to bind us; as tyrants, if we think that we have authority
+to bind the generations that are to follow.
+
+It may not be inapplicable to the subject, to endeavour to define what
+is to be understood by a generation, in the sense the word is here used.
+
+As a natural term its meaning is sufficiently clear. The father, the
+son, the grandson, are so many distinct generations. But when we speak
+of a generation as describing the persons in whom legal authority
+resides, as distinct from another generation of the same description who
+are to succeed them, it comprehends all those who are above the age of
+twenty-one years, at the time that we count from; and a generation of
+this kind will continue in authority between fourteen and twenty-one
+years, that is, until the number of minors, who shall have arrived at
+age, shall be greater than the number of persons remaining of the former
+stock.
+
+For example: if France, at this or any other moment, contains
+twenty-four millions of souls, twelve millions will be males, and twelve
+females. Of the twelve millions of males, six millions will be of the
+age of twenty-one years, and six will be under, and the authority
+to govern will reside in the first six. But every day will make some
+alteration, and in twenty-one years every one of those minors who
+survives will have arrived at age, and the greater part of the former
+stock will be gone: the majority of persons then living, in whom the
+legal authority resides, will be composed of those who, twenty-one years
+before, had no legal existence. Those will be fathers and grandfathers
+in their turn, and, in the next twenty-one years, (or less) another race
+of minors, arrived at age, will succeed them, and so on.
+
+As this is ever the case, and as every generation is equal in rights to
+another, it consequently follows, that there cannot be a right in any
+to establish government by hereditary succession, because it would be
+supposing itself possessed of a right superior to the rest, namely,
+that of commanding by its own authority how the world shall be hereafter
+governed and who shall govern it. Every age and generation is, and must
+be, (as a matter of right,) as free to act for itself in all cases, as
+the age and generation that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of
+governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all
+tyrannies. Man has no property in man, neither has one generation a
+property in the generations that are to follow.
+
+In the first part of the Rights of Man I have spoken of government by
+hereditary succession; and I will here close the subject with an extract
+from that work, which states it under the two following heads. (1)
+
+     1 The quotation, here omitted, will be found in vol. ii. of
+     this work, beginning with p. 364, and continuing, with a few
+     omissions, to the 15th line of p. 366. This "Dissertation"
+     was originally written for circulation in Holland, where
+     Paine's "Rights of Man" was not well known.--_Editor._
+
+
+*****
+
+
+The history of the English parliament furnishes an example of this kind;
+and which merits to be recorded, as being the greatest instance of
+legislative ignorance and want of principle that is to be found in any
+country. The case is as follows:
+
+The English parliament of 1688, imported a man and his wife from
+Holland, _William and Mary_, and made them king and queen of England.
+(2) Having done this, the said parliament made a law to convey the
+government of the country to the heirs of William and Mary, in the
+following words: "We, the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, do,
+in the name of the people of England, most humbly and faithfully submit
+_ourselves, our heirs, and posterities_, to William and Mary, _their
+heirs and posterities_, for ever." And in a subsequent law, as quoted by
+Edmund Burke, the said parliament, in the name of the people of England
+then living, _binds the said people, their heirs and posterities, to
+William and Mary, their heirs and posterities, to the end of time_.
+
+     2 "The Bill of Rights (temp. William III.) shows that the
+     Lords and Commons met not in Parliament but in convention,
+     that they declared against James II., and in favour of
+     William III.  The latter was accepted as sovereign, and, when
+     monarch. Acta of Parliament were passed confirming what had
+     been done."--Joseph Fisher in Notes and Queries (London),
+     May 2,1874. This does not affect Paine's argument, as a
+     Convention could have no more right to bind the future than
+     a Parliament.--_Editor._.
+
+It is not sufficient that we laugh at the ignorance of such law-makers;
+it is necessary that we reprobate their want of principle. The
+constituent assembly of France, 1789, fell into the same vice as the
+parliament of England had done, and assumed to establish an hereditary
+succession in the family of the Capets, as an act of the constitution
+of that year. That every nation, _for the time being_, has a right to
+govern itself as it pleases, must always be admitted; but government by
+hereditary succession is government for another race of people, and
+not for itself; and as those on whom it is to operate are not yet in
+existence, or are minors, so neither is the right in existence to set it
+up for them, and to assume such a right is treason against the right of
+posterity.
+
+I here close the arguments on the first head, that of government by
+hereditary succession; and proceed to the second, that of government
+by election and representation; or, as it may be concisely expressed,
+_representative government_, in contra-distinction to _hereditary
+government_.
+
+Reasoning by exclusion, if _hereditary government_ has not a right to
+exist, and that it has not is proveable, _representative government_ is
+admitted of course.
+
+In contemplating government by election and representation, we amuse
+not ourselves in enquiring when or how, or by what right, it began. Its
+origin is ever in view. Man is himself the origin and the evidence
+of the right. It appertains to him in right of his existence, and his
+person is the title deed.(1)
+
+The true and only true basis of representative government is equality of
+Rights. Every man has a right to one vote, and no more, in the choice
+of representatives. The rich have no more right to exclude the poor from
+the right of voting, or of electing and being elected, than the poor
+have to exclude the rich; and wherever it is attempted, or proposed, on
+either side, it is a question of force and not of right. Who is he that
+would exclude another? That other has a right to exclude him.
+
+That which is now called aristocracy implies an inequality of rights;
+but who are the persons that have a right to establish this inequality?
+Will the rich exclude themselves? No. Will the poor exclude themselves?
+No. By what right then can any be excluded? It would be a question, if
+any man or class of men have a right to exclude themselves; but, be this
+as it may, they cannot have the right to exclude another. The poor will
+not delegate such a right to the rich, nor the rich to the poor, and to
+assume it is not only to assume arbitrary power, but to assume a right
+to commit robbery. Personal rights, of which the right of voting for
+representatives is one, are a species of property of the most sacred
+kind: and he that would employ his pecuniary property, or presume upon
+the influence it gives him, to dispossess or rob another of his property
+of rights, uses that pecuniary property as he would use fire-arms, and
+merits to have it taken from him.
+
+     1 "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for
+     among old parchments or musty records. They are written as
+     with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the
+     hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured
+     by mortal power."--Alexander Hamilton, 1775. (Cf. Rights of
+     Man, Toi. ii., p. 304): "Portions of antiquity by proving
+     everything establish nothing. It is authority against
+     authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of
+     the rights of man at the creation."--_Editor._.
+
+Inequality of rights is created by a combination in one part of the
+community to exclude another part from its rights. Whenever it be made
+an article of a constitution, or a law, that the right of voting, or
+of electing and being elected, shall appertain exclusively to persons
+possessing a certain quantity of property, be it little or much, it is a
+combination of the persons possessing that quantity to exclude those who
+do not possess the same quantity. It is investing themselves with powers
+as a self-created part of society, to the exclusion of the rest.
+
+It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality
+of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves; and
+in this view of the case, pardoning the vanity of the thing, aristocracy
+is a subject of laughter. This self-soothing vanity is encouraged by
+another idea not less selfish, which is, that the opposers conceive they
+are playing a safe game, in which there is a chance to gain and none
+to lose; that at any rate the doctrine of equality includes _them_,
+and that if they cannot get more rights than those whom they oppose and
+would exclude, they shall not have less. This opinion has already been
+fatal to thousands, who, not contented with _equal rights_, have sought
+more till they lost all, and experienced in themselves the degrading
+_inequality_ they endeavoured to fix upon others.
+
+In any view of the case it is dangerous and impolitic, sometimes
+ridiculous, and always unjust, to make property the criterion of the
+right of voting. If the sum or value of the property upon which the
+right is to take place be considerable, it will exclude a majority of
+the people, and unite them in a common interest against the government
+and against those who support it; and as the power is always with
+the majority, they can overturn such a government and its supporters
+whenever they please.
+
+If, in order to avoid this danger, a small quantity of property be
+fixed, as the criterion of the right, it exhibits liberty in disgrace,
+by putting it in competition with accident and insignificance. When a
+brood-mare shall fortunately produce a foal or a mule that, by being
+worth the sum in question, shall convey to its owner the right of
+voting, or by its death take it from him, in whom does the origin of
+such a right exist? Is it in the man, or in the mule? When we consider
+how many ways property may be acquired without merit, and lost without a
+crime, we ought to spurn the idea of making it a criterion of rights.
+
+But the offensive part of the case is, that this exclusion from the
+right of voting implies a stigma on the moral char* acter of the persons
+excluded; and this is what no part of the community has a right to
+pronounce upon another part. No external circumstance can justify it:
+wealth is no proof of moral character; nor poverty of the want of it.
+On the contrary, wealth is often the presumptive evidence of dishonesty;
+and poverty the negative evidence of innocence. If therefore property,
+whether little or much, be made a criterion, the means by which that
+property has been acquired ought to be made a criterion also.
+
+The only ground upon which exclusion from the right of voting is
+consistent with justice, would be to inflict it as a punishment for a
+certain time upon those who should propose to take away that right from
+others. The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by
+which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce
+a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of
+another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives
+is in this case. The proposal therefore to disfranchise any class of men
+is as criminal as the proposal to take away property. When we speak
+of right, we ought always to unite with it the idea of duties: rights
+become duties by reciprocity. The right which I enjoy becomes my duty
+to guarantee it to another, and he to me; and those who violate the duty
+justly incur a forfeiture of the right.
+
+In a political view of the case, the strength and permanent security
+of government is in proportion to the number of people interested in
+supporting it. The true policy therefore is to interest the whole by
+an equality of rights, for the danger arises from exclusions. It is
+possible to exclude men from the right of voting, but it is impossible
+to exclude them from the right of rebelling against that exclusion; and
+when all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made
+perfect.
+
+While men could be persuaded they had no rights, or that rights
+appertained only to a certain class of men, or that government was a
+thing existing in right of itself, it was not difficult to govern
+them authoritatively. The ignorance in which they were held, and the
+superstition in which they were instructed, furnished the means of doing
+it. But when the ignorance is gone, and the superstition with it; when
+they perceive the imposition that has been acted upon them; when they
+reflect that the cultivator and the manufacturer are the primary
+means of all the wealth that exists in the world, beyond what nature
+spontaneously produces; when they begin to feel their consequence by
+their usefulness, and their right as members of society, it is then no
+longer possible to govern them as before. The fraud once detected
+cannot be re-acted. To attempt it is to provoke derision, or invite
+destruction.
+
+That property will ever be unequal is certain. Industry, superiority
+of talents, dexterity of management, extreme frugality, fortunate
+opportunities, or the opposite, or the means of those things, will ever
+produce that effect, without having recourse to the harsh, ill sounding
+names of avarice and oppression; and besides this, there are some men
+who, though they do not despise wealth, will not stoop to the drudgery
+or the means of acquiring it, nor will be troubled with it beyond their
+wants or their independence; whilst in others there is an avidity to
+obtain it by every means not punishable; it makes the sole business of
+their lives, and they follow it as a religion. All that is required
+with respect to property is to obtain it honestly, and not employ it
+criminally; but it is always criminally employed when it is made a
+criterion for exclusive rights.
+
+In institutions that are purely pecuniary, such as that of a bank or a
+commercial company, the rights of the members composing that company are
+wholly created by the property they invest therein; and no other rights
+are represented in the government of that company, than what arise out
+of that property; neither has that government cognizance of _any thing
+but property_.
+
+But the case is totally different with respect to the institution of
+civil government, organized on the system of representation. Such a
+government has cognizance of every thing, and of _every man_ as a member
+of the national society, whether he has property or not; and, therefore,
+the principle requires that _every man_, and _every kind of right_, be
+represented, of which the right to acquire and to hold property is but
+one, and that not of the most essential kind. The protection of a man's
+person is more sacred than the protection of property; and besides
+this, the faculty of performing any kind of work or services by which
+he acquires a livelihood, or maintaining his family, is of the nature of
+property. It is property to him; he has acquired it; and it is as much
+the object of his protection as exterior property, possessed without
+that faculty, can be the object of protection in another person.
+
+I have always believed that the best security for property, be it much
+or little, is to remove from every part of the community, as far as
+can possibly be done, every cause of complaint, and every motive to
+violence; and this can only be done by an equality of rights. When
+rights are secure, property is secure in consequence. But when property
+is made a pretence for unequal or exclusive rights, it weakens the right
+to hold the property, and provokes indignation and tumult; for it is
+unnatural to believe that property can be secure under the guarantee of
+a society injured in its rights by the influence of that property.
+
+Next to the injustice and ill-policy of making property a pretence
+for exclusive rights, is the unaccountable absurdity of giving to mere
+_sound_ the idea of property, and annexing to it certain rights; for
+what else is a _title_ but sound? Nature is often giving to the world
+some extraordinary men who arrive at fame by merit and universal
+consent, such as Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, &c. They were truly great
+or noble.
+
+But when government sets up a manufactory of nobles, it is as absurd
+as if she undertook to manufacture wise men. Her nobles are all
+counterfeits.
+
+This wax-work order has assumed the name of aristocracy; and the
+disgrace of it would be lessened if it could be considered only as
+childish imbecility. We pardon foppery because of its insignificance»
+and on the same ground we might pardon the foppery of Titles. But the
+origin of aristocracy was worse than foppery. It was robbery. The
+first aristocrats in all countries were brigands. Those of later times,
+sycophants.
+
+It is very well known that in England, (and the same will be found
+in other countries) the great landed estates now held in descent were
+plundered from the quiet inhabitants at the conquest. The possibility
+did not exist of acquiring such estates honestly. If it be asked how
+they could have been acquired, no answer but that of robbery can
+be given. That they were not acquired by trade, by commerce, by
+manufactures, by agriculture, or by any reputable employment, is
+certain. How then were they acquired? Blush, aristocracy, to hear your
+origin, for your progenitors were Thieves. They were the Robespierres
+and the Jacobins of that day. When they had committed the robbery, they
+endeavoured to lose the disgrace of it by sinking their real names under
+fictitious ones, which they called Titles. It is ever the practice of
+Felons to act in this manner. They never pass by their real names.(1)
+
+     1 This and the preceding paragraph have been omitted from
+     some editions.--Editor.
+
+As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of
+Rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of
+rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavour
+to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the
+robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure. That part
+of the government of England that is called the house of lords, was
+originally composed of persons who had committed the robberies of which
+I have been speaking. It was an association for the protection of the
+property they had stolen.
+
+But besides the criminality of the origin of aristocracy, it has an
+injurious effect on the moral and physical character of man. Like
+slavery it debilitates the human faculties; for as the mind bowed down
+by slavery loses in silence its elastic powers, so, in the contrary
+extreme, when it is buoyed up by folly, it becomes incapable of exerting
+them, and dwindles into imbecility. It is impossible that a mind
+employed upon ribbands and titles can ever be great. The childishness of
+the objects consumes the man.
+
+It is at all times necessary, and more particularly so during the
+progress of a revolution, and until right ideas confirm themselves by
+habit, that we frequently refresh our patriotism by reference to first
+principles. It is by tracing things to their origin that we learn to
+understand them: and it is by keeping that line and that origin always
+in view that we never forget them.
+
+An enquiry into the origin of Rights will demonstrate to us that
+_rights_ are not _gifts_ from one man to another, nor from one class of
+men to another; for who is he who could be the first giver, or by what
+principle, or on what authority, could he possess the right of giving? A
+declaration of rights is not a creation of them, nor a donation of them.
+It is a manifest of the principle by which they exist, followed by a
+detail of what the rights are; for every civil right has a natural
+right for its foundation, and it includes the principle of a reciprocal
+guarantee of those rights from man to man. As, therefore, it is
+impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin
+of man, it consequently follows, that rights appertain to man in right
+of his existence only, and must therefore be equal to every man. The
+principle of an _equality of rights_ is clear and simple. Every man can
+understand it, and it is by understanding his rights that he learns his
+duties; for where the rights of men are equal, every man must finally
+see the necessity of protecting the rights of others as the most
+effectual security for his own. But if, in the formation of a
+constitution, we depart from the principle of equal rights, or attempt
+any modification of it, we plunge into a labyrinth of difficulties from
+which there is no way out but by retreating. Where are we to stop? Or
+by what principle are we to find out the point to stop at, that shall
+discriminate between men of the same country, part of whom shall be
+free, and the rest not? If property is to be made the criterion, it is
+a total departure from every moral principle of liberty, because it
+is attaching rights to mere matter, and making man the agent of that
+matter. It is, moreover, holding up property as an apple of discord,
+and not only exciting but justifying war against it; for I maintain the
+principle, that when property is used as an instrument to take away the
+rights of those who may happen not to possess property, it is used to an
+unlawful purpose, as fire-arms would be in a similar case.
+
+In a state of nature all men are equal in rights, but they are not equal
+in power; the weak cannot protect themselves against the strong. This
+being the case, the institution of civil society is for the purpose
+of making an equalization of powers that shall be parallel to, and
+a guarantee of, the equality of rights. The laws of a country, when
+properly constructed, apply to this purpose. Every man takes the arm of
+the law for his protection as more effectual than his own; and therefore
+every man has an equal right in the formation of the government, and
+of the laws by which he is to be governed and judged. In extensive
+countries and societies, such as America and France, this right in the
+individual can only be exercised by delegation, that is, by election and
+representation; and hence it is that the institution of representative
+government arises.
+
+Hitherto, I have confined myself to matters of principle only. First,
+that hereditary government has not a right to exist; that it cannot be
+established on any principle of right; and that it is a violation of all
+principle. Secondly, that government by election and representation has
+its origin in the natural and eternal rights of man; for whether a man
+be his own lawgiver, as he would be in a state of nature; or whether he
+exercises his portion of legislative sovereignty in his own person, as
+might be the case in small democracies where all could assemble for the
+formation of the laws by which they were to be governed; or whether he
+exercises it in the choice of persons to represent him in a national
+assembly of representatives, the origin of the right is the same in
+all cases. The first, as is before observed, is defective in power; the
+second, is practicable only in democracies of small extent; the third,
+is the greatest scale upon which human government can be instituted.
+
+Next to matters of _principle_ are matters of _opinion_, and it is
+necessary to distinguish between the two. Whether the rights of men
+shall be equal is not a matter of opinion but of right, and consequently
+of principle; for men do not hold their rights as grants from each
+other, but each one in right of himself. Society is the guardian but not
+the giver. And as in extensive societies, such as America and France,
+the right of the individual in matters of government cannot be exercised
+but by election and representation, it consequently follows that the
+only system of government consistent with principle, where simple
+democracy is impracticable, is the representative system. But as to the
+organical part, or the manner in which the several parts of government
+shall be arranged and composed, it is altogether _matter of opinion_,
+It is necessary that all the parts be conformable with the _principle of
+equal rights_; and so long as this principle be religiously adhered to,
+no very material error can take place, neither can any error continue
+long in that part which falls within the province of opinion.
+
+In all matters of opinion, the social compact, or the principle by which
+society is held together, requires that the majority of opinions becomes
+the rule for the whole, and that the minority yields practical obedience
+thereto. This is perfectly conformable to the principle of equal rights:
+for, in the first place, every man has a _right to give an opinion_ but
+no man has a right that his opinion should _govern the rest_. In the
+second place, it is not supposed to be known beforehand on which side
+of any question, whether for or against, any man's opinion will fall.
+He may happen to be in a majority upon some questions, and in a minority
+upon others; and by the same rule that he expects obedience in the one
+case, he must yield it in the other. All the disorders that have arisen
+in France, during the progress of the revolution, have had their origin,
+not in the _principle of equal rights_, but in the violation of that
+principle. The principle of equal rights has been repeatedly violated,
+and that not by the majority but by the minority, and _that minority
+has been composed of men possessing property as well as of men without
+property; property, therefore, even upon the experience already had,
+is no more a criterion of character than it is of rights_. It will
+sometimes happen that the minority are right, and the majority are
+wrong, but as soon as experience proves this to be the case, the
+minority will increase to a majority, and the error will reform itself
+by the tranquil operation of freedom of opinion and equality of rights.
+Nothing, therefore, can justify an insurrection, neither can it ever be
+necessary where rights are equal and opinions free.
+
+Taking then the principle of equal rights as the foundation of the
+revolution, and consequently of the constitution, the organical part,
+or the manner in which the several parts of the government shall be
+arranged in the constitution, will, as is already said, fall within the
+province of opinion.
+
+Various methods will present themselves upon a question of this kind,
+and tho' experience is yet wanting to determine which is the best,
+it has, I think, sufficiently decided which is the worst. That is
+the worst, which in its deliberations and decisions is subject to
+the precipitancy and passion of an individual; and when the whole
+legislature is crowded into one body it is an individual in mass. In all
+cases of deliberation it is necessary to have a corps of reserve, and it
+would be better to divide the representation by lot into two parts, and
+let them revise and correct each other, than that the whole should sit
+together, and debate at once.
+
+Representative government is not necessarily confined to any one
+particular form. The principle is the same in all the forms under which
+it can be arranged. The equal rights of the people is the root from
+which the whole springs, and the branches may be arranged as present
+opinion or future experience shall best direct. As to that _hospital of
+incurables_ (as Chesterfield calls it), the British house of peers,
+it is an excrescence growing out of corruption; and there is no more
+affinity or resemblance between any of the branches of a legislative
+body originating from the right of the people, and the aforesaid
+house of peers, than between a regular member of the human body and an
+ulcerated wen.
+
+As to that part of government that is called the _executive_, it is
+necessary in the first place to fix a precise meaning to the word.
+
+There are but two divisions into which power can be arranged. First,
+that of willing or decreeing the laws; secondly, that of executing or
+putting them in practice. The former corresponds to the intellectual
+faculties of the human mind, which reasons and determines what shall be
+done; the second, to the mechanical powers of the human body, that puts
+that determination into practice.(1) If the former decides, and the
+latter does not perform, it is a state of imbecility; and if the latter
+acts without the predetermination of the former, it is a state
+of lunacy. The executive department therefore is official, and is
+subordinate to the legislative, as the body is to the mind, in a
+state of health; for it is impossible to conceive the idea of two
+sovereignties, a sovereignty to _will_, and a sovereignty to _act_.
+The executive is not invested with the power of deliberating whether it
+shall act or not; it has no discretionary authority in the case; for it
+can _act no other thing_ than what the laws decree, and it is _obliged_
+to act conformably thereto; and in this view of the case, the executive
+is made up of all the official departments that execute the laws, of
+which that which is called the judiciary is the chief.
+
+     1 Paine may have had in mind the five senses, with reference
+     to the proposed five members of the Directory.--_Editor._.
+
+But mankind have conceived an idea that _some kind of authority_ is
+necessary to _superintend_ the execution of the laws and to see
+that they are faithfully performed; and it is by confounding this
+superintending authority with the official execution that we get
+embarrassed about the term _executive power_. All the parts in the
+governments of the United States of America that are called THE
+EXECUTIVE, are no other than authorities to superintend the execution of
+the laws; and they are so far independent of the legislative, that they
+know the legislative only thro' the laws, and cannot be controuled or
+directed by it through any other medium.
+
+In what manner this superintending authority shall be appointed, or
+composed, is a matter that falls within the province of opinion. Some
+may prefer one method and some another; and in all cases, where opinion
+only and not principle is concerned, the majority of opinions forms the
+rule for all. There are however some things deducible from reason, and
+evidenced by experience, that serve to guide our decision upon the case.
+The one is, never to invest any individual with extraordinary power; for
+besides his being tempted to misuse it, it will excite contention and
+commotion in the nation for the office. Secondly, never to invest power
+long in the hands of any number of individuals. The inconveniences that
+may be supposed to accompany frequent changes are less to be feared than
+the danger that arises from long continuance.
+
+I shall conclude this discourse with offering some observations on the
+means of _preserving liberty_; for it is not only necessary that we
+establish it, but that we preserve it.
+
+It is, in the first place, necessary that we distinguish between the
+means made use of to overthrow despotism, in order to prepare the way
+for the establishment of liberty, and the means to be used after the
+despotism is overthrown.
+
+The means made use of in the first case are justified by necessity.
+Those means are, in general, insurrections; for whilst the established
+government of despotism continues in any country it is scarcely possible
+that any other means can be used. It is also certain that in the
+commencement of a revolution, the revolutionary party permit to
+themselves a _discretionary exercise of power_ regulated more by
+circumstances than by principle, which, were the practice to continue,
+liberty would never be established, or if established would soon be
+overthrown. It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is
+to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth
+or any principle so irresistibly obvious, that all men believed it
+at once. Time and reason must co-operate with each other to the final
+establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be
+first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction
+operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct,
+not to destroy.
+
+Had a constitution been established two years ago, (as ought to have
+been done,) the violences that have since desolated France and injured
+the character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been
+prevented.(1) The nation would then have had a bond of union, and every
+individual would have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But,
+instead of this, a revolutionary government, a thing without either
+principle or authority, was substituted in its place; virtue and crime
+depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one day, became
+treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of a
+constitution; for it is the nature and intention of a constitution to
+_prevent governing by party_, by establishing a common principle that
+shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to
+all parties, _thus far shalt thou go and no further_. But in the absence
+of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and instead of principle
+governing party, party governs principle.
+
+     1 The Constitution adopted August 10, 1793, was by the
+     determination of "The Mountain," suspended during the war
+     against France. The revolutionary government was thus made
+     chronic--_Editor._
+
+An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to
+stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He
+that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from
+oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent
+that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine.
+
+Paris, July, 1795.
+
+
+
+
+XXV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1795.
+
+
+SPEECH IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL CONVENTION, JULY 7, 1795.
+
+On the motion of Lanthenas, "That permission be granted to Thomas
+Paine, to deliver his sentiments on the declaration of rights and the
+constitution," Thomas Paine ascended the Tribune; and no opposition
+being made to the motion, one of the Secretaries, who stood by Mr.
+Paine, read his speech, of which the following is a literal translation:
+
+Citizens:
+
+The effects of a malignant fever, with which I was afflicted during a
+rigorous confinement in the Luxembourg, have thus long prevented me from
+attending at my post in the bosom of the Convention, and the magnitude
+of the subject under discussion, and no other consideration on earth,
+could induce me now to repair to my station.
+
+A recurrence to the vicissitudes I have experienced, and the critical
+situations in which I have been placed in consequence of the French
+Revolution, will throw upon what I now propose to submit to the
+Convention the most unequivocal proofs of my integrity, and the
+rectitude of those principles which have uniformly influenced my
+conduct.
+
+In England I was proscribed for having vindicated the French Revolution,
+and I have suffered a rigorous imprisonment in France for having pursued
+a similar mode of conduct. During the reign of terrorism, I was a close
+prisoner for eight long months, and remained so above three months after
+the era of the 10th Thermidor.(1) I ought, however, to state, that I
+was not persecuted by the _people_ either of England or France. The
+proceedings in both countries were the effects of the despotism existing
+in their respective governments. But, even if my persecution had
+originated in the people at large, my principles and conduct would still
+have remained the same. Principles which are influenced and subject to
+the controul of tyranny, have not their foundation in the heart.
+
+     1 By the French republican calendar this was nearly the
+     time. Paine's imprisonment lasted from December 28, 1793, to
+     November 4, 1794. He was by a unanimous vote recalled to the
+     Convention, Dec 7, 1794, but his first appearance there was
+     on July 7, 1795.--_Editor._,
+
+A few days ago, I transmitted to you by the ordinary mode of
+distribution, a short Treatise, entitled "Dissertation on the First
+Principles of Government." This little work I did intend to have
+dedicated to the people of Holland, who, about the time I began to write
+it, were determined to accomplish a Revolution in their Government,
+rather than to the people of France, who had long before effected that
+glorious object. But there are, in the Constitution which is about to
+be ratified by the Convention certain articles, and in the report which
+preceded it certain points, so repugnant to reason, and incompatible
+with the true principles of liberty, as to render this Treatise, drawn
+up for another purpose, applicable to the present occasion, and under
+this impression I presumed to submit it to your consideration.
+
+If there be faults in the Constitution, it were better to expunge them
+now, than to abide the event of their mischievous tendency; for certain
+it is, that the plan of the Constitution which has been presented to you
+is not consistent with the grand object of the Revolution, nor congenial
+to the sentiments of the individuals who accomplished it.
+
+To deprive half the people in a nation of their rights as citizens,
+is an easy matter in theory or on paper: but it is a most dangerous
+experiment, and rarely practicable in the execution.
+
+I shall now proceed to the observations I have to offer on this
+important subject; and I pledge myself that they shall be neither
+numerous nor diffusive.
+
+In my apprehension, a constitution embraces two distinct parts or
+objects, the _Principle_ and the _Practice_; and it is not only an
+essential but an indispensable provision that the practice should
+emanate from, and accord with, the principle. Now I maintain, that the
+reverse of this proposition is the case in the plan of the Constitution
+under discussion. The first article, for instance, of the _political
+state_ of citizens, (v. Title ii. of the Constitution,) says:
+
+"Every man born and resident in France, who, being twenty-one years of
+age, has inscribed his name on the Civic Register of his Canton, and who
+has lived afterwards one year on the territory of the Republic, and who
+pays any direct contribution whatever, real or personal, is a French
+citizen." (1)
+
+     1 The article as ultimately adopted substituted "person" for
+     "man," and for "has inscribed his name" (a slight
+     educational test) inserted "whose name is inscribed."--
+     _Editor._
+
+I might here ask, if those only who come under the above description are
+to be considered as citizens, what designation do you mean to give the
+rest of the people? I allude to that portion of the people on whom the
+principal part of the labour falls, and on whom the weight of indirect
+taxation will in the event chiefly press. In the structure of the social
+fabric, this class of people are infinitely superior to that privileged
+order whose only qualification is their wealth or territorial
+possessions. For what is trade without merchants? What is land without
+cultivation? And what is the produce of the land without manufactures?
+But to return to the subject.
+
+In the first place, this article is incompatible with the three first
+articles of the Declaration of Rights, which precede the Constitutional
+Act.
+
+The first article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+
+"The end of society is the public good; and the institution of
+government is to secure to every individual the enjoyment of his
+rights."
+
+But the article of the Constitution to which I have just adverted
+proposes as the object of society, not the public good, or in other
+words, the good of _all_, but a partial good; or the good only of a
+_few_; and the Constitution provides solely for the rights of this few,
+to the exclusion of the many.
+
+The second article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+
+"The Rights of Man in society are Liberty, Equality, Security of his
+person and property."
+
+But the article alluded to in the Constitution has a direct tendency to
+establish the reverse of this position, inasmuch as the persons excluded
+by this _inequality_ can neither be said to possess liberty, nor
+security against oppression. They are consigned totally to the caprice
+and tyranny of the rest.
+
+The third article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+
+"Liberty consists in such acts of volition as are not injurious to
+others."
+
+But the article of the Constitution, on which I have observed, breaks
+down this barrier. It enables the liberty of one part of society to
+destroy the freedom of the other.
+
+Having thus pointed out the inconsistency of this article to the
+Declaration of Rights, I shall proceed to comment on that of the same
+article which makes a direct contribution a necessary qualification to
+the right of citizenship.
+
+A modern refinement on the object of public revenue has divided the
+taxes, or contributions, into two classes, the _direct_ and the_
+indirect_, without being able to define precisely the distinction or
+difference between them, because the effect of both is the same.
+
+Those are designated indirect taxes which fall upon the consumers of
+certain articles, on which the tax is imposed, because, the tax being
+included in the price, the consumer pays it without taking notice of it.
+
+The same observation is applicable to the territorial tax. The land
+proprietors, in order to reimburse themselves, will rack-rent their
+tenants: the farmer, of course, will transfer the obligation to the
+miller, by enhancing the price of grain; the miller to the baker, by
+increasing the price of flour; and the baker to the consumer, by raising
+the price of bread. The territorial tax, therefore, though called
+_direct_, is, in its consequences, _indirect_.
+
+To this tax the land proprietor contributes only in proportion to the
+quantity of bread and other provisions that are consumed in his own
+family. The deficit is furnished by the great mass of the community,
+which comprehends every individual of the nation.
+
+From the logical distinction between the direct and in-direct taxation,
+some emolument may result, I allow, to auditors of public accounts, &c.,
+but to the people at large I deny that such a distinction (which by the
+by is without a difference) can be productive of any practical
+benefit. It ought not, therefore, to be admitted as a principle in the
+constitution.
+
+Besides this objection, the provision in question does not affect to
+define, secure, or establish the right of citizenship. It consigns to
+the caprice or discretion of the legislature the power of pronouncing
+who shall, or shall not, exercise the functions of a citizen; and
+this may be done effectually, either by the imposition of a _direct or
+indirect_ tax, according to the selfish views of the legislators, or by
+the mode of collecting the taxes so imposed.
+
+Neither a tenant who occupies an extensive farm, nor a merchant or
+manufacturer who may have embarked a large capital in their respective
+pursuits, can ever, according to this system, attain the preemption
+of a citizen. On the other hand, any upstart, who has, by succession
+or management, got possession of a few acres of land or a miserable
+tenement, may exultingly exercise the functions of a citizen, although
+perhaps neither possesses a hundredth part of the worth or property of a
+simple mechanic, nor contributes in any proportion to the exigencies of
+the State.
+
+The contempt in which the old government held mercantile pursuits, and
+the obloquy that attached on merchants and manufacturers, contributed
+not a little to its embarrassments, and its eventual subversion; and,
+strange to tell, though the mischiefs arising from this mode of conduct
+are so obvious, yet an article is proposed for your adoption which has a
+manifest tendency to restore a defect inherent in the monarchy.
+
+
+I shall now proceed to the second article of the same Title, with which
+I shall conclude my remarks.
+
+The second article says, "Every French soldier, who shall have served
+one or more campaigns in the cause of liberty, is deemed a citizen
+of the republic, without any respect or reference to other
+qualifications."(1)
+
+It would seem, that in this Article the Committee were desirous of
+extricating themselves from a dilemma into which they had been plunged
+by the preceding article. When men depart from an established principle
+they are compelled to resort to trick and subterfuge, always shifting
+their means to preserve the unity of their objects; and as it rarely
+happens that the first expedient makes amends for the prostitution of
+principle, they must call in aid a second, of a more flagrant nature,
+to supply the deficiency of the former. In this manner legislators go
+on accumulating error upon error, and artifice upon artifice, until
+the mass becomes so bulky and incongruous, and their embarrassment so
+desperate, that they are compelled, as their last expedient, to resort
+to the very principle they had violated. The Committee were precisely
+in this predicament when they framed this article; and to me, I confess,
+their conduct appears specious rather than efficacious.(2)
+
+     1 This article eventually stood: "All Frenchmen who shall
+     have made one or more campaigns for the establishment of the
+     Republic, are citizens, without condition as to taxes."--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 The head of the Committee (eleven) was the Abbé Sieves,
+     whose political treachery was well known to Paine before it
+     became known to the world by his services to Napoleon in
+     overthrowing the Republic.--_Editor._
+
+It was not for himself alone, but for his family, that the French
+citizen, at the dawn of the revolution, (for then indeed every man
+was considered a citizen) marched soldier-like to the frontiers, and
+repelled a foreign invasion. He had it not in his contemplation, that he
+should enjoy liberty for the residue of his earthly career, and by his
+own act preclude his offspring from that inestimable blessing. No! He
+wished to leave it as an inheritance to his children, and that they
+might hand it down to their latest posterity. If a Frenchman, who united
+in his person the character of a Soldier and a Citizen, was now to
+return from the army to his peaceful habitation, he must address his
+small family in this manner: "Sorry I am, that I cannot leave to you
+a small portion of what I have acquired by exposing my person to
+the ferocity of our enemies and defeating their machinations. I have
+established the republic, and, painful the reflection, all the laurels
+which I have won in the field are blasted, and all the privileges to
+which my exertions have entitled me extend not beyond the period of
+my own existence!" Thus the measure that has been adopted by way of
+subterfuge falls short of what the framers of it speculated upon; for
+in conciliating the affections of the _Soldier_, they have subjected
+the _Father_ to the most pungent sensations, by obliging him to adopt a
+generation of Slaves.
+
+Citizens, a great deal has been urged respecting insurrections. I am
+confident that no man has a greater abhorrence of them than myself, and
+I am sorry that any insinuations should have been thrown out upon me
+as a promoter of violence of any kind. The whole tenor of my life and
+conversation gives the lie to those calumnies, and proves me to be a
+friend to order, truth and justice.
+
+I hope you will attribute this effusion of my sentiments to my anxiety
+for the honor and success of the revolution. I have no interest distinct
+from that which has a tendency to meliorate the situation of mankind.
+The revolution, as far as it respects myself, has been productive of
+more loss and persecution than it is possible for me to describe, or for
+you to indemnify. But with respect to the subject under consideration, I
+could not refrain from declaring my sentiments.
+
+In my opinion, if you subvert the basis of the revolution, if you
+dispense with principles, and substitute expedients, you will extinguish
+that enthusiasm and energy which have hitherto been the life and soul of
+the revolution; and you will substitute in its place nothing but a
+cold indifference and self-interest, which will again degenerate into
+intrigue, cunning, and effeminacy.
+
+But to discard all considerations of a personal and subordinate nature,
+it is essential to the well-being of the republic that the practical or
+organic part of the constitution should correspond with its principles;
+and as this does not appear to be the case in the plan that has been
+presented to you, it is absolutely necessary that it should be submitted
+to the revision of a committee, who should be instructed to compare it
+with the Declaration of Rights, in order to ascertain the difference
+between the two, and to make such alterations as shall render them
+perfectly consistent and compatible with each other.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM OF FINANCE.(1)
+
+     "On the verge, nay even in the gulph of bankruptcy."
+
+     1 This pamphlet, as Paine predicts at its close (no doubt on
+     good grounds), was translated into all languages of Europe,
+     and probably hastened the gold suspension of the Bank of
+     England (1797), which it predicted. The British Government
+     entrusted its reply to Ralph Broome and George Chalmers, who
+     wrote pamphlets. There is in the French Archives an order
+     for 1000 copies, April 27, 1796, nineteen days after Paine's
+     pamphlet appeared. "Mr. Cobbett has made this little
+     pamphlet a text-book for most of his elaborate treatises on
+     our finances.... On the authority of a late Register of Mr.
+     Cobbett's I learn that the profits arising from the sale of
+     this pamphlet were devoted [by Paine] to the relief of the
+     prisoners confined in Newgate for debt."--"Life of Paine,"
+     by Richard Carlile, 1819.--_Editor._.
+
+
+Debates in Parliament.
+
+Nothing, they say, is more certain than death, and nothing more
+uncertain than the time of dying; yet we can always fix a period beyond
+which man cannot live, and within some moment of which he will die. We
+are enabled to do this, not by any spirit of prophecy, or foresight into
+the event, but by observation of what has happened in all cases of human
+or animal existence. If then any other subject, such, for instance, as
+a system of finance, exhibits in its progress a series of symptoms
+indicating decay, its final dissolution is certain, and the period of it
+can be calculated from the symptoms it exhibits.
+
+Those who have hitherto written on the English system of finance, (the
+funding system,) have been uniformly impressed with the idea that its
+downfall would happen _some time or other_. They took, however, no data
+for their opinion, but expressed it predictively,--or merely as opinion,
+from a conviction that the perpetual duration of such a system was a
+natural impossibility. It is in this manner that Dr. Price has spoken of
+it; and Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, has spoken in the same manner;
+that is, merely as opinion without data. "The progress," says Smith,
+"of the enormous debts, which at present oppress, and will in the long
+run _most probably ruin_, all the great nations of Europe [he should
+have said _governments_] has been pretty uniform." But this general
+manner of speaking, though it might make some impression, carried with
+it no conviction.
+
+It is not my intention to predict any thing; but I will show from data
+already known, from symptoms and facts which the English funding system
+has already exhibited publicly, that it will not continue to the end of
+Mr. Pitt's life, supposing him to live the usual age of a man. How much
+sooner it may fall, I leave to others to predict.
+
+Let financiers diversify systems of credit as they will, it _is_
+nevertheless true, that every system of credit is a system of paper
+money. Two experiments have already been had upon paper money; the one
+in America, the other in France. In both those cases the whole capital
+was emitted, and that whole capital, which in America was called
+continental money, and in France assignats, appeared in circulation; the
+consequence of which was, that the quantity became so enormous, and so
+disproportioned to the quantity of population, and to the quantity' of
+objects upon which it could be employed, that the market, if I may so
+express it, was glutted with it, and the value of it fell. Between five
+and six years determined the fate of those experiments. The same fate
+would have happened to gold and silver, could gold and silver have been
+issued in the same abundant manner that paper had been, and confined
+within the country as paper money always is, by having no circulation
+out of it; or, to speak on a larger scale, the same thing would happen
+in the world, could the world be glutted with gold and silver, as
+America and France have been with paper.
+
+The English system differs from that of America and France in this one
+particular, that its capital is kept out of sight; that is, it does
+not appear in circulation. Were the whole capital of the national debt,
+which at the time I write this is almost one hundred million pounds
+sterling, to be emitted in assignats or bills, and that whole quantity
+put into circulation, as was done in America and in France, those
+English assignats, or bills, would soon sink in value as those of
+America and France have done; and that in a greater degree, because
+the quantity of them would be more disproportioned to the quantity
+of population in England, than was the case in either of the other two
+countries. A nominal pound sterling in such bills would not be worth one
+penny.
+
+But though the English system, by thus keeping the capital out of sight,
+is preserved from hasty destruction, as in the case of America and
+France, it nevertheless approaches the same fate, and will arrive at it
+with the same certainty, though by a slower progress. The difference
+is altogether in the degree of speed by which the two systems approach
+their fate, which, to speak in round numbers, is as twenty is to one;
+that is, the English system, that of funding the capital instead of
+issuing it, contained within itself a capacity of enduring twenty times
+longer than the systems adopted by America and France; and at the end of
+that time it would arrive at the same common grave, the Potter's Field
+of paper money.
+
+The datum, I take for this proportion of twenty to one, is the
+difference between a capital and the interest at five per cent. Twenty
+times the interest is equal to the capital. The accumulation of paper
+money in England is in proportion to the accumulation of the interest
+upon every new loan; and therefore the progress to the dissolution is
+twenty times slower than if the capital were to be emitted and put into
+circulation immediately. Every twenty years in the English system is
+equal to one year in the French and American systems.
+
+Having thus stated the duration of the two systems, that of funding upon
+interest, and that of emitting the whole capital without funding, to be
+as twenty to one, I come to examine the symptoms of decay, approaching
+to dissolution, that the English system has already exhibited, and to
+compare them with similar systems in the French and American systems.
+
+The English funding system began one hundred years ago; in which time
+there have been six wars, including the war that ended in 1697.
+
+1. The war that ended, as I have just said, in 1697.
+
+2. The war that began in 1702.
+
+3. The war that began in 1739.
+
+4. The war that began in 1756.
+
+5. The American war, that began in 1775.
+
+6. The present war, that began in 1793.
+
+
+The national debt, at the conclusion of the war which ended in 1697, was
+twenty-one millions and an half. (See Smith's Wealth of Nations,
+chapter on Public Debts.) We now see it approaching fast to four hundred
+millions. If between these two extremes of twenty-one millions and four
+hundred millions, embracing the several expenses of all the including
+wars, there exist some common ratio that will ascertain arithmetically
+the amount of the debts at the end of each war, as certainly as the fact
+is known to be, that ratio will in like manner determine what the amount
+of the debt will be in all future wars, and will ascertain the period
+within which the funding system will expire in a bankruptcy of the
+government; for the ratio I allude to, is the ratio which the nature of
+the thing has established for itself.
+
+Hitherto no idea has been entertained that any such ratio existed, or
+could exist, that would determine a problem of this kind; that is, that
+would ascertain, without having any knowledge of the fact, what the
+expense of any former war had been, or what the expense of any future
+war would be; but it is nevertheless true that such a ratio does exist,
+as I shall show, and also the mode of applying it.
+
+The ratio I allude to is not in arithmetical progression like the
+numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; nor yet in geometrical progression, like
+the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; but it is in the series of
+one half upon each preceding number; like the numbers 8, 12, 18, 27, 40,
+60, 90, 135.
+
+Any person can perceive that the second number, 12, is produced by the
+preceding number, 8, and half 8; and that the third number, 18, is in
+like manner produced by the preceding number, 12, and half 12; and so
+on for the rest. They can also see how rapidly the sums increase as
+the ratio proceeds. The difference between the two first numbers is but
+four; but the difference between the two last is forty-five; and from
+thence they may see with what immense rapidity the national debt has
+increased, and will continue to increase, till it exceeds the ordinary
+powers of calculation, and loses itself in ciphers.
+
+I come now to apply the ratio as a rule to determine in all cases.
+
+I began with the war that ended in 1697, which was the war in which the
+funding system began. The expense of that war was twenty-one millions
+and an half. In order to ascertain the expense of the next war, I add
+to twenty-one millions and an half, the half thereof (ten millions and
+three quarters) which makes thirty-two millions and a quarter for the
+expense of that war. This thirty-two millions and a quarter, added to
+the former debt of twenty-one millions and an half, carries the national
+debt to fifty-three millions and three quarters. Smith, in his
+chapter on Public Debts, says, that the national debt was at this time
+fifty-three millions.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of the next war, that of 1739, by
+adding, as in the former case, one half to the expense of the preceding
+war. The expense of the preceding war was thirty-two millions and a
+quarter; for the sake of even numbers, say, thirty-two millions; the
+half of which (16) makes forty-eight millions for the expense of that
+war.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of the war of 1756, by adding,
+according to the ratio, one half to the expense of the preceding war.
+The expense of the preceding was taken at 48 millions, the half of which
+(24) makes 72 millions for the expense of that war. Smith, (chapter on
+Public Debts,) says, the expense of the war of 1756, was 72 millions and
+a quarter.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of the American war, of 1775, by
+adding, as in the former cases, one half to the expense of the preceding
+war. The expense of the preceding war was 72 millions, the half of which
+(36) makes 108 millions for the expense of that war. In the last
+edition of Smith, (chapter on Public Debts,) he says, the expense of the
+American war was _more than an hundred millions_.
+
+I come now to ascertain the expense of the present war, supposing it to
+continue as long as former wars have done, and the funding system not
+to break up before that period. The expense of the preceding war was 108
+millions, the half of which (54) makes 162 millions for the expense of
+the present war. It gives symptoms of going beyond this sum, supposing
+the funding system not to break up; for the loans of the last year and
+of the present year are twenty-two millions each, which exceeds the
+ratio compared with the loans of the preceding war. It will not be from
+the inability of procuring loans that the system will break up. On
+the contrary, it is the facility with which loans can be procured that
+hastens that event. The loans are altogether paper transactions; and
+it is the excess of them that brings on, with accelerating speed, that
+progressive depreciation of funded paper money that will dissolve the
+funding system.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of future wars, and I do this merely
+to show the impossibility of the continuance of the funding system, and
+the certainty of its dissolution.
+
+The expense of the next war after the present war, according to the
+ratio that has ascertained the preceding cases, will be 243 millions.
+
+Expense of the second war 364
+
+---------------- third war 546
+
+---------------- fourth war 819
+
+-------- fifth war 1228
+
+                                                        3200 millions;
+
+which, at only four per cent. will require taxes to the nominal amount
+of one hundred and twenty-eight millions to pay the annual interest,
+besides the interest of the present debt, and the expenses of
+government, which are not included in this account. Is there a man so
+mad, so stupid, as to sup-pose this system can continue?
+
+When I first conceived the idea of seeking for some common ratio that
+should apply as a rule of measurement to all the cases of the funding
+system, so far as to ascertain the several stages of its approach to
+dissolution, I had no expectation that any ratio could be found that
+would apply with so much exactness as this does. I was led to the idea
+merely by observing that the funding system was a thing in continual
+progression, and that whatever was in a state of progression might be
+supposed to admit of, at least, some general ratio of measurement,
+that would apply without any very great variation. But who could have
+supposed that falling systems, or falling opinions, admitted of a ratio
+apparently as true as the descent of falling bodies? I have not made the
+ratio any more than Newton made the ratio of gravitation. I have only
+discovered it, and explained the mode of applying it.
+
+To shew at one view the rapid progression of the funding system to
+destruction, and to expose the folly of those who blindly believe in
+its continuance, and who artfully endeavour to impose that belief upon
+others, I exhibit in the annexed table, the expense of each of the six
+wars since the funding system began, as ascertained by ratio, and the
+expense of the six wars yet to come, ascertained by the same ratio.
+
+[Illustration: Table318]
+
+     * The actual expense of the war of 1739 did not come up to
+     the sum ascertained by the ratio.   But as that which is the
+     natural disposition of a thing, as it is the natural
+     disposition of a stream of water to descend, will, if
+     impeded in its course, overcome by a new effort what it had
+     lost by that impediment, so it was with respect to this war
+     and the next (1756) taken collectively; for the expense of
+     the war of 1756 restored the equilibrium of the ratio, as
+     fully as if it had not been impeded. A circumstance that
+     serves to prove the truth of the ratio more folly than if
+     the interruption had not taken place. The war of 1739 ***
+     languid; the efforts were below the value of money et that
+     time; for the ratio is the measure of the depreciation of
+     money in consequence of the funding system; or what comes
+     to the same end, it is the measure of the increase of paper.
+     Every additional quantity of it, whether in bank notes or
+     otherwise, diminishes the real, though not the nominal value
+     of the former quantity.--_Author_
+
+
+Those who are acquainted with the power with which even a small ratio,
+acting in progression, multiplies in a long series, will see nothing to
+wonder at in this table. Those who are not acquainted with that subject,
+and not knowing what else to say, may be inclined to deny it. But it is
+not their opinion one way, nor mine the other, that can influence the
+event. The table exhibits the natural march of the funding system to its
+irredeemable dissolution. Supposing the present government of England to
+continue, and to go on as it has gone on since the funding system began,
+I would not give twenty shillings for one hundred pounds in the funds to
+be paid twenty years hence. I do not speak this predictively; I produce
+the data upon which that belief is founded; and which data it is every
+body's interest to know, who have any thing to do with the funds, or
+who are going to bequeath property to their descendants to be paid at a
+future day.
+
+Perhaps it may be asked, that as governments or ministers proceeded by
+no ratio in making loans or incurring debts, and nobody intended any
+ratio, or thought of any, how does it happen that there is one? I
+answer, that the ratio is founded in necessity; and I now go to explain
+what that necessity is.
+
+It will always happen, that the price of labour, or of the produce
+of labour, be that produce what it may, will be in proportion to the
+quantity of money in a country, admitting things to take their natural
+course. Before the invention of the funding system, there was no other
+money than gold and silver; and as nature gives out those metals with
+a sparing hand, and in regular annual quantities from the mines, the
+several prices of things were proportioned to the quantity of money at
+that time, and so nearly stationary as to vary but little in any fifty
+or sixty years of that period.
+
+When the funding system began, a substitute for gold and silver began
+also. That substitute was paper; and the quantity increased as the
+quantity of interest increased upon accumulated loans. This appearance
+of a new and additional species of money in the nation soon began to
+break the relative value which money and the things it will purchase
+bore to each other before. Every thing rose in price; but the rise at
+first was little and slow, like the difference in units between two
+first numbers, 8 and 12, compared with the two last numbers 90 and 135,
+in the table. It was however sufficient to make itself considerably felt
+in a large transaction. When therefore government, by engaging in a new
+war, required a new loan, it was obliged to make a higher loan than the
+former loan, to balance the increased price to which things had risen;
+and as that new loan increased the quantity of paper in proportion
+to the new quantity of interest, it carried the price of things still
+higher than before. The next loan was again higher, to balance that
+further increased price; and all this in the same manner, though not
+in the same degree, that every new emission of continental money in
+America, or of assignats in France, was greater than the preceding
+emission, to make head against the advance of prices, till the combat
+could be maintained no longer. Herein is founded the necessity of which
+I have just spoken. That necessity proceeds with accelerating velocity,
+and the ratio I have laid down is the measure of that acceleration; or,
+to speak the technical language of the subject, it is the measure of the
+increasing depreciation of funded paper money, which it is impossible to
+prevent while the quantity of that money and of bank notes continues to
+multiply. What else but this can account for the difference between one
+war costing 21 millions, and another war costing 160 millions?
+
+The difference cannot be accounted for on the score of extraordinary
+efforts or extraordinary achievements. The war that cost twenty-one
+millions was the war of the con-federates, historically called the grand
+alliance, consisting of England, Austria, and Holland in the time of
+William III. against Louis XIV. and in which the confederates were
+victorious. The present is a war of a much greater confederacy--a
+confederacy of England, Austria, Prussia, the German Empire, Spain,
+Holland, Naples, and Sardinia, eight powers, against the French Republic
+singly, and the Republic has beaten the whole confederacy.--But to
+return to my subject.
+
+It is said in England, that the value of paper keeps equal with the
+value of gold and silver. But the case is not rightly stated; for the
+fact is, that the paper has _pulled down_ the value of gold and silver
+to a level with itself. Gold and silver will not purchase so much of any
+purchasable article at this day as if no paper had appeared, nor so much
+as it will in any country in Europe where there is no paper. How long
+this hanging together of money and paper will continue, makes a new
+case; because it daily exposes the system to sudden death, independent
+of the natural death it would otherwise suffer.
+
+I consider the funding system as being now advanced into the last twenty
+years of its existence. The single circumstance, were there no other,
+that a war should now cost nominally one hundred and sixty millions,
+which when the system began cost but twenty-one millions, or that the
+loan for one year only (including the loan to the Emperor) should now be
+nominally greater than the whole expense of that war, shows the state of
+depreciation to which the funding system has arrived. Its depreciation
+is in the proportion of eight for one, compared with the value of its
+money when the system began; which is the state the French assignats
+stood a year ago (March 1795) compared with gold and silver. It is
+therefore that I say, that the English funding system has entered on the
+last twenty years of its existence, comparing each twenty years of
+the English system with every single year of the American and French
+systems, as before stated.
+
+Again, supposing the present war to close as former wars have done, and
+without producing either revolution or reform in England, another war at
+least must be looked for in the space of the twenty years I allude to;
+for it has never yet happened that twenty years have passed off without
+a war, and that more especially since the English government has dabbled
+in German politics, and shown a disposition to insult the world, and the
+world of commerce, with her navy. The next war will carry the national
+debt to very nearly seven hundred millions, the interest of which, at
+four per cent, will be twenty-eight millions besides the taxes for
+the (then) expenses of government, which will increase in the same
+proportion, and which will carry the taxes to at least forty millions;
+and if another war only begins, it will quickly carry them to above
+fifty; for it is in the last twenty years of the funding system, as in
+the last year of the American and French systems without funding, that
+all the great shocks begin to operate.
+
+I have just mentioned that, paper in England has _pulled down_ the value
+of gold and silver to a level with itself; and that _this pulling dawn_
+of gold and silver money has created the appearance of paper money
+keeping up. The same thing, and the same mistake, took place in
+America and in France, and continued for a considerable time after the
+commencement of their system of paper; and the actual depreciation of
+money was hidden under that mistake.
+
+It was said in America, at that time, that everything was becoming
+_dear_; but gold and silver could then buy those dear articles no
+cheaper than paper could; and therefore it was not called depreciation.
+The idea of _dearness_ established itself for the idea of depreciation.
+The same was the case in France. Though every thing rose in price soon
+after assignats appeared, yet those dear articles could be purchased no
+cheaper with gold and silver, than with paper, and it was only said that
+things were _dear_. The same is still the language in England. They
+call it _deariness_. But they will soon find that it is an actual
+depreciation, and that this depreciation is the effect of the funding
+system; which, by crowding such a continually increasing mass of paper
+into circulation, carries down the value of gold and silver with it. But
+gold and silver, will, in the long run, revolt against depreciation, and
+separate from the value of paper; for the progress of all such systems
+appears to be, that the paper will take the command in the beginning,
+and gold and silver in the end.
+
+But this succession in the command of gold and silver over paper, makes
+a crisis far more eventful to the funding system than to any other
+system upon which paper can be issued; for, strictly speaking, it is not
+a crisis of danger but a symptom of death. It is a death-stroke to the
+funding system. It is a revolution in the whole of its affairs.
+
+If paper be issued without being funded upon interest, emissions of it
+can be continued after the value of it separates from gold and silver,
+as we have seen in the two cases of America and France. But the funding
+system rests altogether upon the value of paper being equal to gold and
+silver; which will be as long as the paper can continue carrying down
+the value of gold and silver to the same level to which itself descends,
+and no longer. But even in this state, that of descending equally
+together, the minister, whoever he may be, will find himself beset with
+accumulating difficulties; because the loans and taxes voted for the
+service of each ensuing year will wither in his hands before the year
+expires, or before they can be applied. This will force him to have
+recourse to emissions of what are called exchequer and navy bills,
+which, by still increasing the mass of paper in circulation, will drive
+on the depreciation still more rapidly.
+
+It ought to be known that taxes in England are not paid in gold
+and silver, but in paper (bank notes). Every person who pays any
+considerable quantity of taxes, such as maltsters, brewers, distillers,
+(I appeal for the truth of it, to any of the collectors of excise in
+England, or to Mr. White-bread,)(1) knows this to be the case. There is
+not gold and silver enough in the nation to pay the taxes in coin, as
+I shall show; and consequently there is not money enough in the bank to
+pay the notes. The interest of the national funded debt is paid at the
+bank in the same kind of paper in which the taxes are collected. When
+people find, as they will find, a reservedness among each other in
+giving gold and silver for bank notes, or the least preference for the
+former over the latter, they will go for payment to the bank, where they
+have a right to go. They will do this as a measure of prudence, each one
+for himself, and the truth or delusion of the funding system will then
+be proved.
+
+     1 An eminent Member of Parliament.--_Editor._.
+
+I have said in the foregoing paragraph that there is not gold and silver
+enough in the nation to pay the taxes in coin, and consequently that
+there cannot be enough in the bank to pay the notes. As I do not choose
+to rest anything upon assertion, I appeal for the truth of this to the
+publications of Mr. Eden (now called Lord Auckland) and George Chalmers,
+Secretary to the Board of Trade and Plantation, of which Jenkinson (now
+Lord Hawkesbury) is president.(1) (These sort of folks change their
+names so often that it is as difficult to know them as it is to know
+a thief.) Chalmers gives the quantity of gold and silver coin from the
+returns of coinage at the Mint; and after deducting for the light gold
+recoined, says that the amount of gold and silver coined is about twenty
+millions. He had better not have proved this, especially if he had
+reflected that _public credit is suspicion asleep_. The quantity is much
+too little.
+
+     1 Concerning Chalmers and Hawkesbury see vol. ii., p. 533.
+     Also, preface to my "Life of Paine",  xvi., and other
+     passages.---_Editor._.
+
+Of this twenty millions (which is not a fourth part of the quantity of
+gold and silver there is in France, as is shown in Mr. Neckar's Treatise
+on the Administration of the Finances) three millions at least must be
+supposed to be in Ireland, some in Scotland, and in the West Indies,
+Newfoundland, &c. The quantity therefore in England cannot be more than
+sixteen millions, which is four millions less than the amount of the
+taxes. But admitting that there are sixteen millions, not more than
+a fourth part thereof (four millions) can be in London, when it is
+considered that every city, town, village, and farm-house in the nation
+must have a part of it, and that all the great manufactories, which most
+require cash, are out of London. Of this four millions in London, every
+banker, merchant, tradesman, in short every individual, must have some.
+He must be a poor shopkeeper indeed, who has not a few guineas in his
+till. The quantity of cash therefore in the bank can never, on the
+evidence of circumstances, be so much as two millions; most probably
+not more than one million; and on this slender twig, always liable to be
+broken, hangs the whole funding system of four hundred millions, besides
+many millions in bank notes. The sum in the bank is not sufficient to
+pay one-fourth of only one year's interest of the national debt, were
+the creditors to demand payment in cash, or demand cash for the bank
+notes in which the interest is paid, a circumstance always liable to
+happen.
+
+One of the amusements that has kept up the farce of the funding system
+is, that the interest is regularly paid. But as the interest is always
+paid in bank notes, and as bank notes can always be coined for the
+purpose, this mode of payment proves nothing. The point of proof is, can
+the bank give cash for the bank notes with which the interest is paid?
+If it cannot, and it is evident it cannot, some millions of bank notes
+must go without payment, and those holders of bank notes who apply last
+will be worst off. When the present quantity of cash in the bank is paid
+away, it is next to impossible to see how any new quantity is to arrive.
+None will arrive from taxes, for the taxes will all be paid in bank
+notes; and should the government refuse bank notes in payment of taxes,
+the credit of bank notes will be gone at once. No cash will arise from
+the business of discounting merchants' bills; for every merchant will
+pay off those bills in bank notes, and not in cash. There is therefore
+no means left for the bank to obtain a new supply of cash, after the
+present quantity is paid away. But besides the impossibility of paying
+the interest of the funded debt in cash, there are many thousand
+persons, in London and in the country, who are holders of bank notes
+that came into their hands in the fair way of trade, and who are not
+stockholders in the funds; and as such persons have had no hand in
+increasing the demand upon the bank, as those have had who for their own
+private interest, like Boyd and others, are contracting or pretending to
+contract for new loans, they will conceive they have a just right that
+their bank notes should be paid first. Boyd has been very sly in France,
+in changing his paper into cash. He will be just as sly in doing the
+same thing in London, for he has learned to calculate; and then it is
+probable he will set off for America.
+
+A stoppage of payment at the bank is not a new thing. Smith in his
+Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. 2, says, that in the year 1696,
+exchequer bills fell forty, fifty, and sixty per cent; bank notes twenty
+per cent; and the bank stopped payment. That which happened in 1696 may
+happen again in 1796. The period in which it happened was the last year
+of the war of King William. It necessarily put a stop to the further
+emissions of exchequer and navy bills, and to the raising of new loans;
+and the peace which took place the next year was probably hurried on by
+this circumstance, and saved the bank from bankruptcy. Smith in speaking
+from the circumstances of the bank, upon another occasion, says (book
+ii. chap. 2.) "This great company had been reduced to the necessity
+of paying in sixpences." When a bank adopts the expedient of paying in
+sixpences, it is a confession of insolvency.
+
+It is worthy of observation, that every case of failure in finances,
+since the system of paper began, has produced a revolution in
+governments, either total or partial. A failure in the finances of
+France produced the French revolution. A failure in the finance of
+the assignats broke up the revolutionary government, and produced
+the present French Constitution. A failure in the finances of the Old
+Congress of America, and the embarrassments it brought upon commerce,
+broke up the system of the old confederation, and produced the federal
+Constitution. If, then, we admit of reasoning by comparison of causes
+and events, the failure of the English finances will produce some change
+in the government of that country.
+
+As to Mr. Pitt's project of paying off the national debt by applying
+a million a-year for that purpose, while he continues adding more than
+twenty millions a-year to it, it is like setting a man with a wooden leg
+to run after a hare. The longer he runs the farther he is off.
+
+When I said that the funding system had entered the last twenty years
+of its existence, I certainly did not mean that it would continue twenty
+years, and then expire as a lease would do. I meant to describe that
+age of decrepitude in which death is every day to be expected, and life
+cannot continue long. But the death of credit, or that state that is
+called bankruptcy, is not always marked by those progressive stages
+of visible decline that marked the decline of natural life. In the
+progression of natural life age cannot counterfeit youth, nor conceal
+the departure of juvenile abilities. But it is otherwise with respect
+to the death of credit; for though all the approaches to bankruptcy
+may actually exist in circumstances, they admit of being concealed by
+appearances. Nothing is more common than to see the bankrupt of to-day a
+man in credit but the day before; yet no sooner is the real state of
+his affairs known, than every body can see he had been insolvent long
+before. In London, the greatest theatre of bankruptcy in Europe, this
+part of the subject will be well and feelingly understood.
+
+Mr. Pitt continually talks of credit, and the national resources. These
+are two of the feigned appearances by which the approaches to bankruptcy
+are concealed. That which he calls credit may exist, as I have just
+shown, in a state of insolvency, and is always what I have before
+described it to be, _suspicion asleep_.
+
+As to national resources, Mr. Pitt, like all English financiers that
+preceded him since the funding system began, has uniformly mistaken the
+nature of a resource; that is, they have mistaken it consistently with
+the delusion of the funding system; but time is explaining the delusion.
+That which he calls, and which they call, a resource, is not a resource,
+but is the _anticipation_ of a resource. They have anticipated what
+_would have been_ a resource in another generation, had not the use of
+it been so anticipated. The funding system is a system of anticipation.
+Those who established it an hundred years ago anticipated the resources
+of those who were to live an hundred years after; for the people of the
+present day have to pay the interest of the debts contracted at that
+time, and all debts contracted since. But it is the last feather that
+breaks the horse's back. Had the system begun an hundred years before,
+the amount of taxes at this time to pay the annual interest at four per
+cent. (could we suppose such a system of insanity could have continued)
+would be two hundred and twenty millions annually: for the capital of
+the debt would be 5486 millions, according to the ratio that ascertains
+the expense of the wars for the hundred years that are past. But long
+before it could have reached this period, the value of bank notes,
+from the immense quantity of them, (for it is in paper only that such
+a nominal revenue could be collected,) would have been as low or lower
+than continental paper has been in America, or assignats in France; and
+as to the idea of exchanging them for gold and silver, it is too absurd
+to be contradicted.
+
+Do we not see that nature, in all her operations, disowns the visionary
+basis upon which the funding system is built? She acts always by
+renewed successions, and never by accumulating additions perpetually
+progressing. Animals and vegetables, men and trees, have existed since
+the world began: but that existence has been carried on by succession
+of generations, and not by continuing the same men and the same trees in
+existence that existed first; and to make room for the new she removes
+the old. Every natural idiot can see this; it is the stock-jobbing idiot
+only that mistakes. He has conceived that art can do what nature cannot.
+He is teaching her a new system--that there is no occasion for man to
+die--that the scheme of creation can be carried on upon the plan of
+the funding system--that it can proceed by continual additions of new
+beings, like new loans, and all live together in eternal youth. Go,
+count the graves, thou idiot, and learn the folly of thy arithmetic!
+
+But besides these things, there is something visibly farcical in the
+whole operation of loaning. It is scarcely more than four years ago
+that such a rot of bankruptcy spread itself over London, that the whole
+commercial fabric tottered; trade and credit were at a stand; and
+such was the state of things that, to prevent or suspend a general
+bankruptcy, the government lent the merchants six millions in
+_government_ paper, and now the merchants lend the government twenty-two
+millions in _their_ paper; and two parties, Boyd and Morgan, men but
+little known, contend who shall be the lenders. What a farce is this!
+It reduces the operation of loaning to accommodation paper, in which
+the competitors contend, not who shall lend, but who shall sign, because
+there is something to be got for signing.
+
+Every English stock-jobber and minister boasts of the credit of England.
+Its credit, say they, is greater than that of any country in Europe.
+There is a good reason for this: for there is not another country in
+Europe that could be made the dupe of such a delusion. The English
+funding system will remain a monument of wonder, not so much on account
+of the extent to which it has been carried, as of the folly of believing
+in it.
+
+Those who had formerly predicted that the funding system would break
+up when the debt should amount to one hundred or one hundred and fifty
+millions, erred only in not distinguishing between insolvency and actual
+bankruptcy; for the insolvency commenced as soon as the government
+became unable to pay the interest in cash, or to give cash for the bank
+notes in which the interest was paid, whether that inability was known
+or not, or whether it was suspected or not. Insolvency always takes
+place before bankruptcy; for bankruptcy is nothing more than the
+publication of that insolvency. In the affairs of an individual, it
+often happens that insolvency exists several years before bankruptcy,
+and that the insolvency is concealed and carried on till the individual
+is not able to pay one shilling in the pound. A government can ward off
+bankruptcy longer than an individual: but insolvency will inevitably
+produce bankruptcy, whether in an individual or in a government. If then
+the quantity of bank notes payable on demand, which the bank has issued,
+are greater than the bank can pay off, the bank is insolvent: and when
+that insolvency is declared, it is bankruptcy.(*)
+
+     *  Among the delusions that have been imposed upon the
+     nation by ministers to give a false colouring to its
+     affairs, and by none more than by Mr. Pitt, is a motley,
+     amphibious-charactered thing called the _balance of trade_.
+     This balance of trade, as it is called, is taken from the
+     custom-house books, in which entries are made of all cargoes
+     exported, and also of all cargoes imported, in each year;
+     and when the value of the exports, according to the price
+     set upon them by the exporter or by the custom-house, is
+     greater than the value of the imports, estimated in the same
+     manner, they say the balance of trade is much in their
+     favour.
+
+     The custom-house books prove regularly enough that so many
+     cargoes have been exported, and so many imported; but this
+     is all that they prove, or were intended to prove. They have
+     nothing to do with the balance of profit or loss; and it is
+     ignorance to appeal to them upon that account: for the case
+     is, that the greater the loss is in any one year, the higher
+     will this thing called the balance of trade appear to be
+     according to the custom-house books. For example, nearly the
+     whole of the Mediterranean convoy has been taken by the
+     French this year; consequently those cargoes will not
+     appear as imports on the custom-house books, and therefore
+     the balance of trade, by which they mean the profits of it,
+     will appear to be so much the greater as the loss amounts to;
+     and, on the other hand, had the loss not happened, the
+     profits would have appeared to have been so much the less.
+     All the losses happening at sea to returning cargoes, by
+     accidents, by the elements, or by capture, make the balance
+     appear the higher on the side of the exports; and were they
+     all lost at sea, it would appear to be all profit on the
+     custom-house books. Also every cargo of exports that is lost
+     that occasions another to be sent, adds in like manner to
+     the side of the exports, and appears as profit. This year
+     the balance of trade will appear high, because the losses
+     have been great by capture and by storms. The ignorance of
+     the British Parliament in listening to this hackneyed
+     imposition of ministers about the balance of trade is
+     astonishing. It shows how little they know of national
+     affairs--and Mr. Grey may as well talk Greek to them, as to
+     make motions about the state of the nation. They understand
+     only fox-hunting and the game laws,--_Author_.
+
+I come now to show the several ways by which bank notes get into
+circulation: I shall afterwards offer an estimate on the total quantity
+or amount of bank notes existing at this moment.
+
+The bank acts in three capacities. As a bank of discount; as a bank of
+deposit; and as a banker for the government.
+
+First, as a bank of discount. The bank discounts merchants' bills of
+exchange for two months. When a merchant has a bill that will become due
+at the end of two months, and wants payment before that time, the bank
+advances that payment to him, deducting therefrom at the rate of five
+per cent, per annum. The bill of exchange remains at the bank as a
+pledge or pawn, and at the end of two months it must be redeemed. This
+transaction is done altogether in paper; for the profits of the bank,
+as a bank of discount, arise entirely from its making use of paper as
+money. The bank gives bank notes to the merchant in discounting the bill
+of exchange, and the redeemer of the bill pays bank notes to the bank in
+redeeming it. It very seldom happens that any real money passes between
+them.
+
+If the profits of a bank be, for example, two hundred thousand pounds a
+year (a great sum to be made merely by exchanging one sort of paper
+for another, and which shows also that the merchants of that place are
+pressed for money for payments, instead of having money to spare to lend
+to government,) it proves that the bank discounts to the amount of four
+millions annually, or 666,666L. every two months; and as there never
+remain in the bank more than two months' pledges, of the value of
+666,666L., at any one time, the amount of bank notes in circulation at
+any one time should not be more than to that amount. This is sufficient
+to show that the present immense quantity of bank notes, which are
+distributed through every city, town, village, and farm-house in
+England, cannot be accounted for on the score of discounting.
+
+Secondly, as a bank of deposit. To deposit money at the bank means to
+lodge it there for the sake of convenience, and to be drawn out at any
+moment the depositor pleases, or to be paid away to his order. When
+the business of discounting is great, that of depositing is necessarily
+small. No man deposits and applies for discounts at the same time;
+for it would be like paying interest for lending money, instead of for
+borrowing it. The deposits that are now made at the bank are almost
+entirely in bank notes, and consequently they add nothing to the ability
+of the bank to pay off the bank notes that may be presented for payment;
+and besides this, the deposits are no more the property of the bank than
+the cash or bank notes in a merchant's counting-house are the property
+of his book-keeper. No great increase therefore of bank notes, beyond
+what the discounting business admits, can be accounted for on the score
+of deposits.
+
+Thirdly, the bank acts as banker for the government. This is the
+connection that threatens to ruin every public bank. It is through this
+connection that the credit of a bank is forced far beyond what it ought
+to be, and still further beyond its ability to pay. It is through this
+connection, that such an immense redundant quantity of bank notes, have
+gotten into circulation; and which, instead of being issued because
+there was property in the bank, have been issued because there was none.
+
+When the treasury is empty, which happens in almost every year of every
+war, its coffers at the bank are empty also. It is in this condition of
+emptiness that the minister has recourse to emissions of what are called
+exchequer and navy bills, which continually generates a new increase of
+bank notes, and which are sported upon the public, without there being
+property in the bank to pay them. These exchequer and navy bills (being,
+as I have said, emitted because the treasury and its coffers at the bank
+are empty, and cannot pay the demands that come in) are no other than
+an acknowledgment that the bearer is entitled to receive so much money.
+They may be compared to the settlement of an account, in which the
+debtor acknowledges the balance he owes, and for which he gives a note
+of hand; or to a note of hand given to raise money upon it.
+
+Sometimes the bank discounts those bills as it would discount merchants'
+bills of exchange; sometimes it purchases them of the holders at the
+current price; and sometimes it agrees with the ministers to pay an
+interest upon them to the holders, and keep them in circulation. In
+every one of these cases an additional quantity of bank notes gets into
+circulation, and are sported, as I have said, upon the public, without
+there being property in the bank, as banker for the government, to pay
+them; and besides this, the bank has now no money of its own; for the
+money that was originally subscribed to begin the credit of the bank
+with, at its first establishment, has been lent to government and wasted
+long ago.
+
+"The bank" (says Smith, book ii. chap. 2.) "acts not only as an ordinary
+bank, but as a great engine of State; it receives and pays a greater
+part of the annuities which are due to the creditors of the _public_."
+(It is worth observing, that the _public_, or the _nation_, is always
+put for the government, in speaking of debts.) "It circulates" (says
+Smith) "exchequer bills, and it advances to government the annual amount
+of the land and malt taxes, which are frequently not paid till several
+years afterwards." (This advancement is also done in bank notes,
+for which there is not property in the bank.) "In those different
+operations" (says Smith) "_its duty to the public_ may sometimes have
+obliged it, without any fault of its directors, _to overstock the
+circulation with paper money_."--bank notes. How its _duty_ to _the
+public_ can induce it _to overstock that public_ with promissory bank
+notes which it _cannot pay_, and thereby expose the individuals of that
+public to ruin, is too paradoxical to be explained; for it is on
+the credit which individuals _give to the bank_, by receiving and
+circulating its notes, and not upon its _own_ credit or its _own_
+property, for it has none, that the bank sports. If, however, it be the
+duty of the bank to expose the public to this hazard, it is at least
+equally the duty of the individuals of that public to get their money
+and take care of themselves; and leave it to placemen, pensioners,
+government contractors, Reeves' association, and the members of both
+houses of Parliament, who have voted away the money at the nod of
+the minister, to continue the credit if they can, and for which their
+estates individually and collectively ought to answer, as far as they
+will go.
+
+There has always existed, and still exists, a mysterious, suspicious
+connection, between the minister and the directors of the bank, and
+which explains itself no otherways than by a continual increase in bank
+notes. Without, therefore, entering into any further details of the
+various contrivances by which bank notes are issued, and thrown upon the
+public, I proceed, as I before mentioned, to offer an estimate on the
+total quantity of bank notes in circulation.
+
+However disposed governments may be to wring money by taxes from the
+people, there is a limit to the practice established by the nature of
+things. That limit is the proportion between the quantity of money in a
+nation, be that quantity what it may, and the greatest quantity of taxes
+that can be raised upon it. People have other uses for money besides
+paying taxes; and it is only a proportional part of the money they can
+spare for taxes, as it is only a proportional part they can spare
+for house-rent, for clothing, or for any other particular use. These
+proportions find out and establish themselves; and that with such
+exactness, that if any one part exceeds its proportion, all the other
+parts feel it.
+
+Before the invention of paper money (bank notes,) there was no other
+money in the nation than gold and silver, and the greatest quantity of
+money that was ever raised in taxes during that period never exceeded a
+fourth part of the quantity of money in the nation. It was high taxing
+when it came to this point. The taxes in the time of William III. never
+reached to four millions before the invention of paper, and the quantity
+of money in the nation at that time was estimated to be about sixteen
+millions. The same proportions established themselves in France. There
+was no paper money in France before the present revolution, and the
+taxes were collected in gold and silver money. The highest quantity of
+taxes never exceeded twenty-two millions sterling; and the quantity of
+gold and silver money in the nation at the same time, as stated by M.
+Neckar, from returns of coinage at the Mint, in his Treatise on the
+Administration of the Finances, was about ninety millions sterling. To
+go beyond this limit of a fourth part, in England, they were obliged to
+introduce paper money; and the attempt to go beyond it in France, where
+paper could not be introduced, broke up the government. This proportion,
+therefore, of a fourth part, is the limit which the thing establishes
+for itself, be the quantity of money in a nation more or less.
+
+The amount of taxes in England at this time is full twenty millions;
+and therefore the quantity of gold and silver, and of bank notes, taken
+together, amounts to eighty millions. The quantity of gold and silver,
+as stated by Lord Hawkes-bury's Secretary, George Chalmers, as I have
+before shown, is twenty millions; and, therefore, the total amount
+of bank notes in circulation, all made payable on demand, is sixty
+millions. This enormous sum will astonish the most stupid stock-jobber,
+and overpower the credulity of the most thoughtless Englishman: but were
+it only a third part of that sum, the bank cannot pay half a crown in
+the pound.
+
+There is something curious in the movements of this modern complicated
+machine, the funding system; and it is only now that it is beginning
+to unfold the full extent of its movements. In the first part of its
+movements it gives great powers into the hands of government, and in the
+last part it takes them completely away.
+
+The funding system set out with raising revenues under the name of
+loans, by means of which government became both prodigal and powerful.
+The loaners assumed the name of creditors, and though it was soon
+discovered that loaning was government-jobbing, those pretended loaners,
+or the persons who purchased into the funds afterwards, conceived
+themselves not only to be creditors, but to be the _only_ creditors.
+
+But such has been the operation of this complicated machine, the funding
+system, that it has produced, unperceived, a second generation of
+creditors, more numerous and far more formidable and withal more
+real than the first generation; for every holder of a bank note is a
+creditor, and a real creditor, and the debt due to him is made payable
+on demand. The debt therefore which the government owes to individuals
+is composed of two parts; the one about four hundred millions bearing
+interest, the other about sixty millions payable on demand. The one is
+called the funded debt, the other is the debt due in bank notes.
+
+The second debt (that contained in the bank notes) has, in a great
+measure, been incurred to pay the interest of the first debt; so that in
+fact little or no real interest has been paid by government. The whole
+has been delusion and fraud. Government first contracted a debt, in the
+form of loans, with one class of people, and then run clandestinely into
+debt with another class, by means of bank notes, to pay the interest.
+Government acted of itself in contracting the first debt, and made a
+machine of the bank to contract the second. It is this second debt that
+changes the seat of power and the order of things; for it puts it in
+the power of even a small part of the holders of bank notes (had they no
+other motives than disgust at Pitt and Grenville's sedition bills,) to
+control any measure of government they found to be injurious to their
+interest; and that not by popular meetings, or popular societies, but
+by the simple and easy opera-tion of withholding their credit from that
+government; that is, by individually demanding payment at the bank
+for every bank note that comes into their hands. Why should Pitt and
+Grenville expect that the very men whom they insult and injure,
+should, at the same time, continue to support the measures of Pitt and
+Grenville, by giving credit to their promissory notes of payment? No new
+emissions of bank notes could go on while payment was demanding on the
+old, and the cash in the bank wasting daily away; nor any new advances
+be made to government, or to the emperor, to carry on the war; nor any
+new emission be made on exchequer bills.
+
+"_The bank_" says Smith, (book ii. chap. 2) "_is a great engine of
+state_." And in the same paragraph he says, "_The stability of the bank
+is equal to that of the British government_;" which is the same as to
+say that the stability of the government is equal to that of the bank,
+and no more. If then the bank cannot pay, the _arch-treasurer_ of the
+holy Roman empire (S. R. I. A.*) is a bankrupt. When Folly invented
+titles, she did not attend to their application; forever since the
+government of England has been in the hands of _arch-treasurers_, it has
+been running into bankruptcy; and as to the arch-treasurer _apparent_,
+he has been a bankrupt long ago. What a miserable prospect has England
+before its eyes!
+
+     * Put of the inscription on an English guinea.--_Author_.
+
+Before the war of 1755 there were no bank notes lower than twenty
+pounds. During that war, bank notes of fifteen pounds and of ten pounds
+were coined; and now, since the commencement of the present war, they
+are coined as low as five pounds. These five-pound notes will circulate
+chiefly among little shop-keepers, butchers, bakers, market-people,
+renters of small houses, lodgers, &c. All the high departments of
+commerce and the affluent stations of life were already _overstocked_,
+as Smith expresses it, with the bank notes. No place remained open
+wherein to crowd an additional quantity of bank notes but among the
+class of people I have just mentioned, and the means of doing this
+could be best effected by coining five-pound notes. This conduct has the
+appearance of that of an unprincipled insolvent, who, when on the verge
+of bankruptcy to the amount of many thousands, will borrow as low as
+five pounds of the servants in his house, and break the next day.
+
+But whatever momentary relief or aid the minister and his bank might
+expect from this low contrivance of five-pound notes, it will increase
+the inability of the bank to pay the higher notes, and hasten the
+destruction of all; for even the small taxes that used to be paid in
+money will now be paid in those notes, and the bank will soon find
+itself with scarcely any other money than what the hair-powder
+guinea-tax brings in.
+
+The bank notes make the most serious part of the business of finance:
+what is called the national funded debt is but a trifle when put in
+comparison with it; yet the case of the bank notes has never been
+touched upon. But it certainly ought to be known upon what authority,
+whether that of the minister or of the directors, and upon what
+foundation, such immense quantities are issued. I have stated the amount
+of them at sixty millions; I have produced data for that estimation; and
+besides this, the apparent quantity of them, far beyond that of gold and
+silver in the nation, corroborates the statement. But were there but a
+third part of sixty millions, the bank cannot pay half a crown in the
+pound; for no new supply of money, as before said, can arrive at the
+bank, as all the taxes will be paid in paper.
+
+When the funding system began, it was not doubted that the loans that
+had been borrowed would be repaid. Government not only propagated that
+belief, but it began paying them off. In time this profession came to be
+abandoned: and it is not difficult to see that bank notes will march
+the same way; for the amount of them is only another debt under another
+name; and the probability is that Mr. Pitt will at last propose
+funding them. In that case bank notes will not be so valuable as French
+assignats. The assignats have a solid property in reserve, in the
+national domains; bank notes have none; and, besides this, the English
+revenue must then sink down to what the amount of it was before the
+funding system began--between three and four millions; one of which
+the _arch-treasurer_ would require for himself, and the arch-treasurer
+_apparent_ would require three-quarters of a million more to pay his
+debts. "_In France_," says Sterne, "_they order these things better_."
+
+I have now exposed the English system of finance to the eyes of all
+nations; for this work will be published in all languages. In doing
+this, I have done an act of justice to those numerous citizens of
+neutral nations who have been imposed upon by that fraudulent system,
+and who have property at stake upon the event.
+
+As an individual citizen of America, and as far as an individual can
+go, I have revenged (if I may use the expression without any immoral
+meaning) the piratical depredations committed on the American commerce
+by the English government. I have retaliated for France on the subject
+of finance: and I conclude with retorting on Mr. Pitt the expression he
+used against France, and say, that the English system of finance "is on
+the verge, nay even in the
+
+GULPH OF BANKRUPTCY."
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+PARIS, 19th Germinal. 4th year of the Republic, April 8, 1796.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII. FORGETFULNESS.(1)
+
+     1 This undated composition, of much biographical interest,
+     was shown by Paine to Henry Redhead Yorke, who visited him
+     in Paris (1802), and was allowed to copy the only portions
+     now preserved. In the last of Yorke's Letters from France
+     (Lond., 1814), thirty-three pages are given to Paine. Under
+     the name "Little Corner of the World," Lady Smyth wrote
+     cheering letters to Paine in his prison, and he replied to
+     his then unknown correspondent under the name of "The Castle
+     in die Air." After his release he discovered in his
+     correspondent a lady who had appealed to him for assistance,
+     no doubt for her husband. With Sir Robert (an English banker
+     in Paris) and Lady Smyth, Paine formed a fast friendship
+     which continued through life. Sir Robert was born in 1744,
+     and married (1776) a Miss Blake of Hanover Square, London.
+     He died in 1802 of illness brought on by his imprisonment
+     under Napoleon. Several of Paine's poems were addressed to
+     Lady Smyth.--_Editor._
+
+
+FROM "THE CASTLE IN THE AIR," TO THE "LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD."
+
+Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear her-self
+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 goddess of ease, though not of pleasure.
+
+When the mind is like a room hung with black, and every corner of it
+crowded with the most horrid images 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 darkness, and to die! One can scarcely
+believe such a choice was possible. Yet how many of the young and
+beautiful, timid in every thing else, and formed for delight, have shut
+their eyes upon the world, and made the waters their sepulchral bed! Ah,
+would they in that crisis, when life and death are before them, and
+each within their reach, would they but think, or try to think, that
+Forgetfulness 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
+in 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 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 circumstances of each are strongly pictured in my
+memory, I will relate them to you. They will in some measure corroborate
+what I have said of Forgetfulness.
+
+About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in England, 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 were 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 was 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, and was following it, it took up
+another 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 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 recollect 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 pleasure for
+me." We got her into the house, and Mrs. E------ took her to sleep with
+her.
+
+The case was, the man to whom she expected to be married had forsaken
+her, and when she heard he was to be married to another the shock
+appeared to her to be too great to be borne. She had retired, as I have
+said, to her room, and when she supposed all the family were gone to
+bed, (which would have been the case if Mrs. E------ and I had not
+walked into the garden,) she undressed herself, and tied her apron over
+her head; which, descending below her waist, gave her the shapeless
+figure I have spoken of. 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, and aided by the obscurity of
+almost midnight, she came down stairs, and was going to drown her-self
+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 a happy
+wife, and the mother of a family.
+
+The other case, and the conclusion in my next: In Paris, in 1793, had
+lodgings in the Rue Fauxbourg, St. Denis, No. 63.(1) They were the most
+agreeable, for situation, of any I ever had in Paris, except that they
+were too remote from the Convention, of which I was then a member. But
+this was recompensed by their being also remote from the alarms and
+confusion into which the interior of Paris was then often thrown. The
+news of those things used to arrive to us, as if we were in a state of
+tranquility in the country. The house, which was enclosed by a wall and
+gateway from the street, was a good deal like an old mansion farm house,
+and the court yard was like a farm-yard, stocked with fowls, ducks,
+turkies, and geese; which, for amusement, we used to feed out of the
+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 plum, were the best I ever tasted;
+and it is the only place where I saw the wild cucumber. The place had
+formerly been occupied by some curious person.(2)
+
+     1 This ancient mansion is still standing (1895).--_Editor._
+
+     2 Madame de Pompadour, among others.--_Editor._»
+
+My apartments consisted of three rooms; the first for wood, water, etc.,
+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 through a glass door; and on the outside there was a
+small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs almost
+hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which I could descend into
+the garden, without going down stairs through the house. I 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 [Robert Smyth], who was
+then, as I was soon afterwards, in arrestation. But it was winter when
+you came, and it is a summer scene I am describing.
+
+*****
+
+I went into my chambers to write and sign a certificate for them, which
+I intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release. Just as I
+had finished it a man came into my room dressed in the Parisian uniform
+of a captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with a good address.
+He told me that two young men, Englishmen, were arrested and detained
+in the guard house, and that the section, (meaning those who represented
+and acted for the section,) had sent him to ask me if I knew them,
+in which case they would be liberated. This matter being soon settled
+between us, he talked to me about the Revolution, and something about
+the "Rights of Man," which he had read in English; and at parting
+offered me in a polite and civil manner, his services. And who do you
+think the man was that offered me his services? It was no other than the
+public executioner Samson, who guillotined the king, and all who were
+guillotined in Paris; and who lived in the same 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 turned the character of the Revolution I had
+been proud to defend.
+
+I went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my
+appearance; because I found it impossible to join in their tremendous
+decrees, and useless and dangerous to oppose them. My having voted and
+spoken extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution
+of the king, had already fixed a mark upon me: neither dared any of my
+associates in the Convention to translate and speak in French for me
+anything I might have dared to have written.
+
+
+*****
+
+Pen and ink were then of no use to me: no good could be done by writing,
+and no printer dared to print; and whatever I might have written for
+my private amusement, as anecdotes of the times, would have been
+continually exposed to be examined, and tortured into any meaning that
+the rage of party might fix upon it; and as to softer subjects, my heart
+was in distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp hung upon the
+weeping willows.(1)
+
+As it was summer we spent most of our time in the garden, and passed it
+away in those childish amusements that serve to keep reflection from the
+mind, such as marbles, scotch-hops, battledores, etc., at which we were
+all pretty expert.
+
+In this retired manner we remained about six or seven weeks, and our
+landlord went every evening into the city to bring us the news of the
+day and the evening journal.
+
+I have now, my "Little Corner of the World," led you on, step by step,
+to the scene that makes the sequel to this narrative, and I will put
+that scene before your eyes. You shall see it in description as I saw it
+in fact.
+
+     1 This allusion is to the Girondins.--_Editor._,
+
+     2 Yorke omits the description "from motives of personal
+     delicacy." The case was that of young Johnson, a wealthy
+     devotee of Paine in London, who had followed him to Paris
+     and lived in the same house with him. Hearing that Marat had
+     resolved on Paine's death, Johnson wrote a will bequeathing
+     his property to Paine, then stabbed himself, but recovered.
+     Paine was examined about this incident at Marat's trial.
+     (Moniteur, April 24, 1793.) See my "Life of Paine," vol.
+     ii., p. 48 seq.--_Editor._.
+
+*****
+
+He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a passage was
+obtained for him and Mr. Choppin: they received it late in the evening,
+and set off the 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, "and I 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 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 [Johnson and
+Choppin], 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 on me, and sorry
+I was it was not in my power to render to [Sir Robert Smyth] the service
+that you asked.
+
+I have now fulfilled my engagement, and I hope your expectation, in
+relating the case of [Johnson], 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 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 today, may be the 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 impenetrable 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 counsel only with itself; when the very idea of consolation would
+add to the torture, and self-destruction 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
+feelings 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 herself 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 though dethroned, and can dictate
+no more, to wait upon us in the humble station of a handmaid.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII. AGRARIAN JUSTICE.
+
+Editor's introduction:
+
+This pamphlet appeared first in Paris, 1797, with the title: "Thomas
+Payne à La Législature et au Directoire. Ou la Justice Agraire opposée à
+la Loi Agraire, et aux privilèges agraires. Prix 15 sols. À Paris, chez
+la citoyenne Ragouleau, près le Théâtre de la République, No. 229. Et
+chez les Marchands de Nouveautés." A prefatory note says (translated):
+"The sudden departure of Thomas Paine has pre-vented his supervising the
+translation of this work, to which he attached great value. He entrusted
+it to a friend. It is for the reader to decide whether the scheme here
+set forth is worthy of the publicity given it." (Paine had gone to Havre
+early in May with the Monroes, intending to accompany them to America,
+but, rightly suspecting plans for his capture by an English cruiser,
+returned to Paris.) In the same year the pamphlet was printed in
+English, by W. Adlard in Paris, and in London for "T. Williams, No.
+8 Little Turnstile, Holborn." Paine's preface to the London edition
+contained some sentences which the publishers, as will be seen,
+suppressed under asterisks, and two sentences were omitted from the
+pamphlet which I have supplied from the French. The English title adds a
+brief resume of Paine's scheme to the caption--"Agrarian Justice opposed
+to Agrarian Law, and to Agrarian Monopoly." The work was written in the
+winter of 1795-6, when Paine was still an invalid in Monroe's house,
+though not published until 1797.
+
+The prefatory Letter to the Legislature and the Directory, now for the
+first time printed in English, is of much historical interest, and shows
+the title of the pamphlet related to the rise of Socialism in France.
+The leader of that move-ment, François Noel Babeuf, a frantic and
+pathetic figure of the time, had just been executed. He had named
+himself "Gracchus," and called his journal "Tribune du Peuple," in
+homage to the Roman Tribune, Caius Gracchus, the original socialist and
+agrarian, whose fate (suicide of himself and his servant) Babeuf and his
+disciple Darthé invoked in prison, whence they were carried bleeding to
+the guillotine. This, however, was on account of the conspiracy they had
+formed, with the remains of the Robespierrian party and some disguised
+royalists, to overthrow the government. The socialistic propaganda of
+Babeuf, however, prevailed over all other elements of the conspiracy:
+the reactionary features of the Constitution, especially the property
+qualification of suffrage of whose effects Paine had warned the
+Convention in the speech printed in this volume, (chapter xxv.) and the
+poverty which survived a revolution that promised its abolition, had
+excited wide discontent. The "Babouvists" numbered as many as 17,000 in
+Paris. Babeuf and Lepelletier were appointed by the secret council of
+this fraternity (which took the name of "Equals") a "Directory of Public
+Safety." May 11, 1796, was fixed for seizing on the government, and
+Babeuf had prepared his Proclamation of the socialistic millennium. But
+the plot was discovered, May 10th, the leaders arrested, and, after
+a year's delay, two of them executed,--the best-hearted men in the
+movement, Babeuf and Darthé. Paine too had been moved by the cry for
+"Bread, and the Constitution of '93 "; and it is a notable coincidence
+that in that winter of 1795-6, while the socialists were secretly
+plotting to seize the kingdom of heaven by violence, Paine was devising
+his plan of relief by taxing inheritances of land, anticipating by a
+hundred years the English budget of Sir William Harcourt. Babeuf having
+failed in his socialist, and Pichegru in his royalist, plot, their blows
+were yet fatal: there still remained in the hearts of millions a Babeuf
+or a Pichegru awaiting the chieftain strong enough to combine them,
+as Napoleon presently did, making all the nation "Égaux" as parts of a
+mighty military engine, and satisfying the royalist triflers with the
+pomp and glory of war.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S INSCRIPTION.
+
+To the Legislature and the Executive Directory of the French Republic.
+
+The plan contained in this work is not adapted for any particular
+country alone: the principle on which it is based is general. But as the
+rights of man are a new study in this world, and one needing protection
+from priestly imposture, and the insolence of oppressions too long
+established, I have thought it right to place this little work under
+your safeguard. When we reflect on the long and dense night in which
+France and all Europe have remained plunged by their governments and
+their priests, we must feel less surprise than grief at the bewilderment
+caused by the first burst of light that dispels the darkness. The eye
+accustomed to darkness can hardly bear at first the broad daylight. It
+is by usage the eye learns to see, and it is the same in passing from
+any situation to its opposite.
+
+As we have not at one instant renounced all our errors, we cannot at one
+stroke acquire knowledge of all our rights. France has had the honour of
+adding to the word _Liberty_ that of _Equality_; and this word signifies
+essentially a principal that admits of no gradation in the things to
+which it applies. But equality is often misunderstood, often misapplied,
+and often violated.
+
+_Liberty_ and _Property_ are words expressing all those of our
+possessions which are not of an intellectual nature. There are two kinds
+of property. Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from
+the Creator of the universe,--such as the earth, air, water. Secondly,
+artificial or acquired property,--the invention of men. In the latter
+equality is impossible; for to distribute it equally it would be
+necessary that all should have contributed in the same proportion, which
+can never be the case; and this being the case, every individual would
+hold on to his own property, as his right share. Equality of natural
+property is the subject of this little essay. Every individual in
+the world is born therein with legitimate claims on a certain kind of
+property, or its equivalent.
+
+The right of voting for persons charged with the execution of the laws
+that govern society is inherent in the word Liberty, and constitutes
+the equality of personal rights. But even if that right (of voting) were
+inherent in property, which I deny, the right of suffrage would still
+belong to all equally, because, as I have said, all individuals have
+legitimate birthrights in a certain species of property.
+
+I have always considered the present Constitution of the French Republic
+the _best organized system_ the human mind has yet produced. But I hope
+my former colleagues will not be offended if I warn them of an error
+which has slipped into its principle. Equality of the right of suffrage
+is not maintained. This right is in it connected with a condition on
+which it ought not to depend; that is, with a proportion of a certain
+tax called "direct." The dignity of suffrage is thus lowered; and, in
+placing it in the scale with an inferior thing, the enthusiasm that
+right is capable of inspiring is diminished. It is impossible to find
+any equivalent counterpoise for the right of suffrage, because it is
+alone worthy to be its own basis, and cannot thrive as a graft, or an
+appendage.
+
+Since the Constitution was established we have seen two conspiracies
+stranded,--that of Babeuf, and that of some obscure personages who
+decorate themselves with the despicable name of "royalists." The defect
+in principle of the Constitution was the origin of Babeuf's conspiracy.
+He availed himself of the resentment caused by this flaw, and instead
+of seeking a remedy by legitimate and constitutional means, or proposing
+some measure useful to society, the conspirators did their best to renew
+disorder and confusion, and constituted themselves personally into a
+Directory, which is formally destructive of election and representation.
+They were, in fine, extravagant enough to suppose that society, occupied
+with its domestic affairs, would blindly yield to them a directorship
+usurped by violence.
+
+The conspiracy of Babeuf was followed in a few months by that of the
+royalists, who foolishly flattered themselves with the notion of
+doing great things by feeble or foul means. They counted on all the
+discontented, from whatever cause, and tried to rouse, in their turn,
+the class of people who had been following the others. But these new
+chiefs acted as if they thought society had nothing more at heart
+than to maintain courtiers, pensioners, and all their train, under the
+contemptible title of royalty. My little essay will disabuse them, by
+showing that society is aiming at a very different end,--maintaining
+itself.
+
+We all know or should know, that the time during which a revolution is
+proceeding is not the time when its resulting advantages can be
+enjoyed. But had Babeuf and his accomplices taken into consideration the
+condition of France under this constitution, and compared it with what
+it was under the tragical revolutionary government, and during the
+execrable reign of Terror, the rapidity of the alteration must have
+appeared to them very striking and astonishing. Famine has been replaced
+by abundance, and by the well-founded hope of a near and increasing
+prosperity.
+
+As for the defect in the Constitution, I am fully convinced that it will
+be rectified constitutionally, and that this step is indispensable; for
+so long as it continues it will inspire the hopes and furnish the means
+of conspirators; and for the rest, it is regrettable that a Constitution
+so wisely organized should err so much in its principle. This fault
+exposes it to other dangers which will make themselves felt. Intriguing
+candidates will go about among those who have not the means to pay the
+direct tax and pay it for them, on condition of receiving their votes.
+Let us maintain inviolably equality in the sacred right of suffrage:
+public security can never have a basis more solid. Salut et Fraternité.
+
+Your former colleague,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S ENGLISH PREFACE.
+
+The following little Piece was written in the winter of 1795 and 96;
+and, as I had not determined whether to publish it during the present
+war, or to wait till the commencement of a peace, it has lain by me,
+without alteration or addition, from the time it was written.
+
+What has determined me to publish it now is, a sermon preached by
+Watson, _Bishop of Llandaff_. Some of my Readers will recollect, that
+this Bishop wrote a Book entitled _An Apology for the Bible_ in answer
+to my _Second Part of the Age of Reason_. I procured a copy of his Book,
+and he may depend upon hearing from me on that subject.
+
+At the end of the Bishop's Book is a List of the Works he has written.
+Among which is the sermon alluded to; it is entitled: "The Wisdom and
+Goodness of God, in having made both Rich and Poor; with an Appendix,
+containing Reflections on the Present State of England and France."
+
+The error contained in this sermon determined me to publish my Agrarian
+Justice. It is wrong to say God made _rich and poor_; he made only _male
+and female_; and he gave them the earth for their inheritance. '...
+
+Instead of preaching to encourage one part of mankind in insolence... it
+would be better that Priests employed their time to render the general
+condition of man less miserable than it is. Practical religion consists
+in doing good: and the only way of serving God is, that of endeavouring
+to make his creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its
+object is nonsense and hypocracy.
+
+     1 The omissions are noted in the English edition of 1797.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy
+at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered
+as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.
+
+Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called
+civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness
+of man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side,
+the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is
+shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The
+most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found
+in the countries that are called civilized.
+
+To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to
+have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is
+at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that
+state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want
+present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe. Poverty,
+therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It
+exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is
+without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science, and
+manufactures.
+
+The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of
+Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared
+to the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has
+operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the
+other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural
+state.
+
+It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but
+it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The
+reason is, that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires
+ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself
+sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the
+earth is cultivated. When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the
+additional aids of cultivation, art, and science, there is a necessity
+of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be
+sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The
+thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the
+benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that
+which is called the civilized state.
+
+In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of
+civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the
+condition of every person born into the world, after a state of
+civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born
+before that period. But the fact is, that the condition of millions, in
+every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before
+civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America
+at the present day. I will shew how this fact has happened.
+
+It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural
+uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, _the common
+property of the human race_. In that state every man would have been
+born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with the
+rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions,
+vegetable and animal.
+
+But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of
+supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it
+is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to
+separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon
+which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from
+that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is
+the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is
+individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land,
+owes to the community a _ground-rent_ (for I know of no better term
+to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this
+ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.
+
+It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing as from all the
+histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced
+with cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property
+before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that
+of hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds:
+neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the
+Bible may be credited in probable things, were owners of land. Their
+property consisted, as is always enumerated, in flocks and herds, and
+they travelled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions
+at that time, about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia,
+where those people lived, also shew that there was no landed property.
+It was not admitted that land could be claimed as property.
+
+There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not
+make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had
+no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither
+did the creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the
+first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed
+property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of
+landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the
+improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that
+improvement was made. The value of the improvement so far exceeded the
+value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the
+end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right
+of the individual. But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of
+rights, and will continue to be so long as the earth endures.
+
+It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful
+ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the
+boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know
+his own. I have entitled this tract Agrarian Justice, to distinguish it
+from Agrarian Law. Nothing could be more unjust than Agrarian Law in a
+country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant
+of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it
+does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The
+additional value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted,
+became the property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them,
+or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. Whilst, therefore, I
+advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all
+those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the
+introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the
+right of the possessor to the part which is his.
+
+Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever
+made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value.
+But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest
+evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation
+of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought
+to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby
+created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.
+
+In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right,
+and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right
+which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards
+till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of
+government. Let us then do honour to revolutions by justice, and give
+currency to their principles by blessings.
+
+Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now
+proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,
+
+To create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every
+person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen
+pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or
+her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed
+property:
+
+And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person
+now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall
+arrive at that age.
+
+
+
+MEANS BY WHICH THE FUND IS TO BE CREATED.
+
+I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its
+natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the
+_common property of the human race_; that in that state, every person
+would have been born to property; and that the system of landed
+property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what
+is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom
+it dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an
+indemnification for that loss.
+
+The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is
+intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the
+crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen
+imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of
+the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive
+generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of
+the present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and
+be in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after,
+as I shall shew.
+
+It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every
+person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious
+distinctions. It is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of
+the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over
+and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who
+did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the
+common fund.
+
+Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse
+condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than
+he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that
+civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for
+that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion
+equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.
+
+Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears
+to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any
+present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes
+or emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the revolution,
+but because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and
+also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it)
+is at the moment that.. property is passing by the death of one person
+to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives
+nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is, that
+the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right,
+begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to
+continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.
+
+My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect
+to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with
+such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I
+offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection
+than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree
+sufficiently with fact.
+
+In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity,
+all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the
+possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a
+datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age
+will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though
+many persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age of
+twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of
+that time.
+
+Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without
+any material variation one way or other, the average of time in which
+the whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will
+have passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have
+gone by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some
+parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the
+possession of one person, other parts will have revolved two or three
+times before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to that
+average; for were one half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in
+thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole revolved
+once.
+
+Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole
+capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the
+thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year,
+that is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being
+thus known, and the ratio per cent, to be subtracted from it determined,
+it will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, to be
+applied as already mentioned.
+
+In looking over the discourse of the English minister, Pitt, in his
+opening of what is called in England the budget, (the scheme of finance
+for the year 1796,) I find an estimate of the national capital of that
+country. As this estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my
+hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon
+the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will
+serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and
+population be more or less. I am the more disposed to take this estimate
+of Mr. Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own
+calculation, how much better money may be employed than in wasting it,
+as he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What,
+in the name of heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is
+better that the people have bread.
+
+Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal,
+to be one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about
+one-fourth part of the national capital of France, including Belgia. The
+event of the last harvest in each country proves that the soil of France
+is more productive than that of England, and that it can better support
+twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of England
+can seven or seven and a half millions.
+
+The thirtieth part of this capital of 1,300,000,000L. is 43,333,333L.
+which is the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country
+to new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France
+in the proportion of four to one, will be about one hundred and
+seventy-three millions sterling. From this sum of 43,333,333L. annually
+revolving, is to be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance
+absorbed in it, which, perhaps, in fair justice, cannot be taken at
+less, and ought not to be taken for more, than a tenth part.
+
+It will always happen, that of the property thus revolving by deaths
+every year a part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters,
+and the other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be
+about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will
+descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of 13,333,333L. to more
+distant relations, and in part to strangers.
+
+Considering, then, that man is always related to society, that
+relationship will become comparatively greater in proportion as the next
+of kin is more distant, it is therefore consistent with civilization to
+say that where there are no direct heirs society shall be heir to a part
+over and above the tenth part due to society. If this additional part be
+from five to ten or twelve per cent., in proportion as the next of kin
+be nearer or more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may
+fall, which ought always to go to society and not to the government
+(an addition of ten per cent, more), the produce from the annual sum of
+43,333,333L. will be:
+
+[Illustration: table361]
+
+Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed fund, I come,
+in the next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund,
+and to compare it with the uses to which the fund is to be applied.
+
+The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions
+and a half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in
+that case be about four hundred thousand. There would not, however, be
+more than that number that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling
+per annum, though they would be entitled to it. I have no idea it would
+be accepted by many persons who had a yearly income of two or three
+hundred pounds sterling. But as we often see instances of rich people
+falling into sudden poverty, even at the age of sixty, they would always
+have the right of drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions,
+therefore, of the above annual sum of 5,666,6667L. will be required for
+four hundred thousand aged persons, at ten pounds sterling each.
+
+I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years
+of age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one
+years, the number of persons annually arriving at that age, must be
+equal to the annual number of deaths, to keep the population stationary.
+But the greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the
+number of persons annually arriving at twenty-one will be less than half
+the number of deaths. The whole number of deaths upon a population of
+seven millions and an half will be about 220,000 annually. The number
+arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about 100,000. The whole
+number of these will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for the
+reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would be
+entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving it,
+the amount would stand thus:
+
+[Illustration: table362]
+
+There are, in every country, a number of blind and lame persons, totally
+incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the
+greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above
+the age of fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The
+remaining sum of 316,666L. will provide for the lame and blind under
+that age, at the same rate of 10L. annually for each person.
+
+Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the
+particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some observations.
+
+It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am
+pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is
+unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is
+necessary that a revolution should be made in it.(1) The contrast of
+affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye,
+is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little
+about riches, as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are
+capable of good. I care not how affluent some may be, provided that
+none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy
+affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, whilst so
+much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and the
+unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be suffocated
+cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the felicity of
+affluence than the proposed 10 per cent, upon property is worth. He that
+would not give the one to get rid of the other has no charity, even for
+himself.
+
+     1 This and the preceding sentence axe omitted in all
+     previous English and American editions.--_Editor._.
+
+There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by
+individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do,
+when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may
+satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he
+has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing
+civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pullies,
+that the whole weight of misery can be removed.
+
+The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve
+and take out of view three classes of wretchedness--the blind, the lame,
+and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with means
+to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do this without deranging
+or interfering with any national measures. To shew that this will be the
+case, it is sufficient to observe that the operation and effect of
+the plan will, in all cases, be the same as if every individual were
+_voluntarily_ to make his will and dispose of his property in the manner
+here proposed.
+
+But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan.
+In all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally
+active than charity; and, with respect to justice, it ought not to be
+left to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice
+or not. Considering then, the plan on the ground of justice, it ought to
+be the act of the whole, growing spontaneously out of the principles of
+the revolution, and the reputation of it ought to be national and not
+individual.
+
+A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy
+that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also
+the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases
+by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is
+exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds
+apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate
+a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which
+is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be
+fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens.
+The national domains also would sell the better if pecuniary aids were
+provided to cultivate them in small lots.
+
+It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of
+civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity
+or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched
+only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of
+economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor?
+This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age
+of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with. The rugged
+face of society, chequered with the extremes of affluence and want,
+proves that some extraordinary violence has been committed upon it,
+and calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the poor in all
+countries are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible
+for them to get cut of that state of themselves. It ought also to be
+observed that this mass increases in all countries that are called
+civilized. More persons fall annually into it than get out of it.
+
+Though in a plan of which justice and humanity are the
+foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the
+calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of any
+plan to shew that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The success
+of any proposed plan submitted to public consideration must finally
+depend on the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the
+justice of its principles.
+
+The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will
+consolidate the interest of the Republic with that of the individual.
+To the numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the
+system of landed property it will be an act of national justice. To
+persons dying possessed of moderate fortunes it will operate as a
+tontine to their children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid
+into the fund: and it will give to the accumulation of riches a degree
+of security that none of the old governments of Europe, now tottering on
+their foundations, can give.
+
+I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the
+countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear
+property left of five hundred pounds sterling. To all such the plan is
+advantageous. That property would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if
+there were only two children under age they would receive fifteen pounds
+each, (thirty pounds,) on coming of age, and be entitled to ten pounds
+a-year after fifty. It is from the overgrown acquisition of property
+that the fund will support itself; and I know that the possessors of
+such property in England, though they would eventually be benefited by
+the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But
+without entering into any inquiry how they came by that property, let
+them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that
+Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon
+the people of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria
+and the Bourbons against the liberties of France, than would pay
+annually all the sums proposed in this plan.
+
+I have made the calculations stated in this plan, upon what is called
+personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon
+land is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property
+into the calculation is equally well founded though on a different
+principle. Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in
+common to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society;
+and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property
+without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.
+Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a
+continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot
+be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all
+cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained.
+All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's
+own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes
+on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part
+of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.
+This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is
+best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that
+the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect
+of paying too little for the labour that produced it; the consequence
+of which is, that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer
+abounds in affluence. It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly
+the price of labour to the profits it produces; and it will also be
+said, as an apology for the injustice, that were a workman to receive
+an increase of wages daily he would not save it against old age, nor be
+much bet-ter for it in the interim. Make, then, society the treasurer to
+guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason, that because he
+might not make a good use of it for himself, another should take it.
+
+The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as
+unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the
+consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot
+continue when once investigation begins in any country, that makes
+the possessors of property dread every idea of a revolution. It is the
+hazard and not the principle of revolutions that retards their progress.
+This being the case, it is necessary as well for the protection of
+property, as for the sake of justice and humanity, to form a system
+that, whilst it preserves one part of society from wretchedness, shall
+secure the other from depredation.
+
+The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded
+affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor
+of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour,
+instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when,
+instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon
+wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call
+the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and
+it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate
+security.
+
+To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and
+this can only be done by making property productive of a national
+blessing, extending to every individual. When the riches of one man
+above another shall increase the national fund in the same proportion;
+when it shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on the
+prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man acquires, the
+better it shall be for the general mass; it is then that antipathies
+will cease, and property be placed on the permanent basis of national
+interest and protection.
+
+I have no property in France to become subject to the plan I propose.
+What I have which is not much, is in the United States of America. But
+I will pay one hundred pounds sterling towards this fund in rance, the
+instant it shall be established; and I will pay the same sum in England
+whenever a similar establishment shall take place in that country.
+
+A revolution in the state of civilization is the necessary companion of
+revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country
+be from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called
+civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give
+that revolution effect. Despotic government supports itself by abject
+civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness
+in the mass of the people, are the chief enterions. Such governments
+consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual
+faculty is not his privilege; _that he has nothing to do with the laws
+but to obey them _; (*) and they politically depend more upon breaking
+the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by
+desperation.
+
+     * Expression of Horsley, an English bishop, in the English
+     parliament.--Author.
+
+It is a revolution in the state of civilization that will give
+perfection to the revolution of France. Already the conviction that
+government by representation is the true system of government is
+spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen
+by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But
+when a system of civilization, growing out of that system of government,
+shall be so organized that not a man or woman born in the Republic but
+shall inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before them
+the certainty of escaping the miseries that under other governments
+accompany old age, the revolution of France will have an advocate and an
+ally in the heart of all nations.
+
+An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot;
+it will succeed where diplomatic management would fail: it is neither
+the Rhine, the Channel, nor the Ocean that can arrest its progress: it
+will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.
+
+
+MEANS FOR CARRYING THE PROPOSED PLAN INTO EXECUTION,
+
+AND TO RENDER IT AT THE SAME TIME CONDUCIVE TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST.
+
+I. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons,
+as commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep
+a register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the
+charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into
+execution.
+
+II. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased
+persons shall be ascertained.
+
+III. When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be
+ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the
+co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age the person authorized by the
+will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the
+commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four
+equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the
+choice of the payers. One half of the whole property shall remain as a
+security until the bond be paid off.
+
+IV. The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of
+the canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national
+bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount
+of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been
+paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.
+
+V. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the
+bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay
+the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving
+at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to
+suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their
+right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater
+degree of ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary
+register be kept, in each canton, of the names of the persons thus
+suspending that right, at least during the present war.
+
+VI. As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in
+four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always
+be _numéraire_ [cash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the
+first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.
+
+VII. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all
+possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times
+the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with
+_numéraire_ continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off
+whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire
+a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be
+received in payment of taxes, or emprunts equal to numéraire, because
+the government can always receive numéraire for them at the bank.
+
+VIII. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent, be
+made in numeraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan.
+But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property
+may pay ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in
+numeraire, If the payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at
+the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount;
+and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the
+fund, equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will create
+means to carry itself into execution.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX. THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR.
+
+
+To the People of France and the French Armies (1)
+
+     1 This pamphlet was written between the defeat of Pichegru's
+     attempt, September 4, 1794, and November 12, of the same
+     year, the date of the Bien-informé in which the publication
+     is noticed. General Pichegra (Charles), (1761-1804) having
+     joined a royalist conspiracy against the Republic, was
+     banished to Cayenne (1797), whence he escaped to England;
+     having returned to Paris (1804) he was imprisoned in the
+     Temple, and there found strangled by a silk handkerchief,
+     whether by his own or another's act remaining doubtful.
+     --Editor.
+
+When an extraordinary measure, not warranted by established
+constitutional rules, and justifiable only on the supreme law of
+absolute necessity, bursts suddenly upon us, we must, in order to form
+a true judgment thereon, carry our researches back to the times that
+preceded and occasioned it. Taking up then the subject with respect to
+the event of the Eighteenth of Fructidor on this ground, I go to examine
+the state of things prior to that period. I begin with the establishment
+of the constitution of the year 3 of the French Republic.
+
+A better _organized_ constitution has never yet been devised by human
+wisdom. It is, in its organization, free from all the vices and defects
+to which other forms of government are more or less subject. I will
+speak first of the legislative body, because the Legislature is, in the
+natural order of things, the first power; the Executive is the first
+magistrate.
+
+By arranging the legislative body into two divisions, as is done in the
+French Constitution, the one, (the Council of Five Hundred,) whose part
+it is to conceive and propose laws; the other, a Council of Ancients, to
+review, approve, or reject the laws proposed; all the security is given
+that can arise from coolness of reflection acting upon, or correcting
+the precipitancy or enthusiasm of conception and imagination. It is
+seldom that our first thought, even upon any subject, is sufficiently
+just.(1)
+
+     1 For Paine's ideas on the right division of representatives
+     into two chambers, which differ essentially from any
+     bicameral system ever adopted, see vol. ii., p. 444 of this
+     work; also, in the present volume, Chapter XXXIV.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+The policy of renewing the Legislature by a third part each year, though
+not entirely new, either in theory or in practice, is nevertheless one
+of the modern improvements in the science of government. It prevents,
+on the one hand, that convulsion and precipitate change of measures
+into which a nation might be surprised by the going out of the whole
+Legislature at the same time, and the instantaneous election of a new
+one; on the other hand, it excludes that common interest from taking
+place that might tempt a whole Legislature, whose term of duration
+expired at once, to usurp the right of continuance. I go now to speak of
+the Executive.
+
+It is a principle uncontrovertible by reason, that each of the parts
+by which government is composed, should be so constructed as to be in
+perpetual maturity. We should laugh at the idea of a Council of Five
+Hundred, or a Council of Ancients, or a Parliament, or any national
+assembly, who should be all children in leading strings and in the
+cradle, or be all sick, insane, deaf, dumb, lame or blind, at the same
+time, or be all upon crutches, tottering with age or infirmities. Any
+form of government that was so constructed as to admit the possibility
+of such cases happening to a whole Legislature would justly be the
+ridicule of the world; and on a parity of reasoning, it is equally as
+ridiculous that the same cases should happen in that part of government
+which is called the Executive; yet this is the contemptible condition to
+which an Executive is always subject, and which is often happening,
+when it is placed in an hereditary individual called a king. When
+that individual is in either of the cases before mentioned, the whole
+Executive is in the same case; for himself is the whole. He is then (as
+an Executive) the ridiculous picture of what a Legislature would be if
+all its members were in the same case. The one is a whole made up of
+parts, the other a whole without parts; and anything happening to the
+one, (as a part or sec-tion of the government,) is parallel to the same
+thing happening to the other.
+
+As, therefore, an hereditary executive called a king is a perfect
+absurdity in itself, any attachment to it is equally as absurd. It is
+neither instinct or reason; and if this attachment is what is called
+royalism in France, then is a royalist inferior in character to every
+species of the animal world; for what can that being be who acts neither
+by instinct nor by reason? Such a being merits rather our derision
+than our pity; and it is only when it assumes to act its folly that it
+becomes capable of provoking republican indignation. In every other
+case it is too contemptible to excite anger. For my own part, when I
+contemplate the self-evident absurdity of the thing, I can scarcely
+permit myself to believe that there exists in the high-minded nation of
+France such a mean and silly animal as a royalist.
+
+As it requires but a single glance of thought to see (as is before said)
+that all the parts of which government is composed must be at all times
+in a state of full maturity, it was not possible that men acting under
+the influence of reason, could, in forming a Constitution, admit an
+hereditary Executive, any more than an hereditary Legislature. I go
+therefore to examine the other cases.
+
+In the first place, (rejecting the hereditary system,) shall the
+Executive by election be an _individual or a plurality_.
+
+An individual by election is almost as bad as the hereditary system,
+except that there is always a better chance of not having an idiot. But
+he will never be any thing more than a chief of a party, and none but
+those of that party will have access to him. He will have no person
+to consult with of a standing equal with himself, and consequently be
+deprived of the advantages arising from equal discussion.
+
+Those whom he admits in consultation will be ministers of his own
+appointment, who, if they displease by their advice, must expect to
+be dismissed. The authority also is too great, and the business too
+complicated, to be intrusted to the ambition or the judgment of an
+individual; and besides these cases, the sudden change of measures
+that might follow by the going out of an individual Executive, and the
+election of a new one, would hold the affairs of a nation in a state of
+perpetual uncertainty. We come then to the case of a plural Executive.
+
+It must be sufficiently plural, to give opportunity to discuss all the
+various subjects that in the course of national business may come before
+it; and yet not so numerous as to endanger the necessary secrecy that
+certain cases, such as those of war, require.
+
+Establishing, then, plurality as a principle, the only question is, What
+shall be the number of that plurality?
+
+Three are too few either for the variety or the quantity of business.
+The Constitution has adopted five; and experience has shewn, from the
+commencement of the Constitution to the time of the election of the new
+legislative third, that this number of Directors, when well chosen, is
+sufficient for all national executive purposes; and therefore a greater
+number would be only an unnecessary expence. That the measures of the
+Directory during that period were well concerted is proved by their
+success; and their being well concerted shews they were well discussed;
+and, therefore, that five is a sufficient number with respect to
+discussion; and, on the other hand, the secret, whenever there was
+one, (as in the case of the expedition to Ireland,) was well kept, and
+therefore the number is not too great to endanger the necessary secrecy.
+
+The reason why the two Councils are numerous is not from the necessity
+of their being so, on account of business, but because that every
+part of the republic shall find and feel itself in the national
+representation.
+
+Next to the general principle of government by representation, the
+excellence of the French Constitution consists in providing means to
+prevent that abuse of power that might arise by letting it remain too
+long in the same hands. This wise precaution pervades every part of the
+Constitution. Not only the legislature is renewable by a third every
+year, but the president of each of the Councils is renewable every
+month; and of the Directory, one member each year, and its president
+every three months. Those who formed the Constitution cannot be accused
+of having contrived for themselves. The Constitution, in this respect,
+is as impartially constructed as if those who framed it were to die as
+soon as they had finished their work.
+
+The only defect in the Constitution is that of having narrowed the right
+of suffrage; and it is in a great measure due to this narrowing the
+right, that the last elections have not generally been good. My former
+colleagues will, I presume, pardon my saying this to day, when they
+recollect my arguments against this defect, at the time the Constitution
+was discussed in the Convention.(1)
+
+     1  See Chapters XXIV. and XXV., also the letter prefaced to
+     XXVIII., in this volume.--_Editor._,
+
+I will close this part of the subject by remarking on one of the most
+vulgar and absurd sayings or dogmas that ever yet imposed itself upon
+the world, which is, "_that a Republic is fit only for a small country,
+and a Monarchy for a large one_." Ask those who say this their reasons
+why it is so, and they can give none.
+
+Let us then examine the case. If the quantity of knowledge in a
+government ought to be proportioned to the extent of a country, and
+the magnitude and variety of its affairs, it follows, as an undeniable
+result, that this absurd dogma is false, and that the reverse of it is
+true. As to what is called Monarchy, if it be adaptable to any country
+it can only be so to a small one, whose concerns are few, little
+complicated, and all within the comprehension of an individual. But when
+we come to a country of large extent, vast population, and whose affairs
+are great, numerous, and various, it is the representative republican
+system only, that can collect into the government the quantity
+of knowledge necessary to govern to the best national advantage.
+Montesquieu, who was strongly inclined to republican government,
+sheltered himself under this absurd dogma; for he had always the
+Bastile before his eyes when he was speaking of Republics, and therefore
+_pretended_ not to write for France. Condorcet governed himself by
+the same caution, but it was caution only, for no sooner had he the
+opportunity of speaking fully out than he did it. When I say this of
+Condorcet, I know it as a fact. In a paper published in Paris, July,
+1791, entitled, "_The Republican, or the Defender of Representative
+Government?_" is a piece signed _Thomas Paine_.(1) That piece was
+concerted between Condorcet and myself. I wrote the original in
+English, and Condorcet translated it. The object of it was to expose the
+absurdity and falsehood of the above mentioned dogma.
+
+     1 Chapter II. of this volume. See also my "Life of Paine,"
+     vol. i., p. 311.--Editor.
+
+Having thus concisely glanced at the excellencies of the Constitution,
+and the superiority of the representative system of government over
+every other system, (if any other can be called a system,) I come to
+speak of the circumstances that have intervened between the time the
+Constitution was established and the event that took place on the 18th
+of Fructidor of the present year.
+
+Almost as suddenly as the morning light dissipates darkness, did the
+establishment of the Constitution change the face of affairs in France.
+Security succeeded to terror, prosperity to distress, plenty to famine,
+and confidence increased as the days multiplied, until the coming of the
+new third. A series of victories unequalled in the world, followed
+each other, almost too rapidly to be counted, and too numerous to be
+remembered. The Coalition, every where defeated and confounded, crumbled
+away like a ball of dust in the hand of a giant. Every thing, during
+that period, was acted on such a mighty scale that reality appeared a
+dream, and truth outstript romance. It may figuratively be said, that
+the Rhine and the Rubicon (Germany and Italy) replied in triumphs to
+each other, and the echoing Alps prolonged the shout. I will not
+here dishonour a great description by noticing too much the English
+government. It is sufficient to say paradoxically, that in the magnitude
+of its littleness it cringed, it intrigued, and sought protection in
+corruption.
+
+Though the achievements of these days might give trophies to a nation
+and laurels to its heroes, they derive their full radiance of glory
+from the principle they inspired and the object they accomplished.
+Desolation, chains, and slavery had marked the progress of former wars,
+but to conquer for Liberty had never been thought of. To receive
+the degrading submission of a distressed and subjugated people, and
+insultingly permit them to live, made the chief triumph of former
+conquerors; but to receive them with fraternity, to break their chains,
+to tell them they are free, and teach them to be so, make a new volume
+in the history of man.
+
+Amidst those national honours, and when only two enemies remained, both
+of whom had solicited peace, and one of them had signed preliminaries,
+the election of the new third commenced. Every thing was made easy to
+them. All difficulties had been conquered before they arrived at the
+government. They came in the olive days of the revolution, and all they
+had to do was not to do mischief.
+
+It was, however, not difficult to foresee, that the elections would not
+be generally good. The horrid days of Robespierre were still remembered,
+and the gratitude due to those who had put an end to them was forgotten.
+
+Thousands who, by passive approbation during that tremendous scene, had
+experienced no suffering, assumed the merit of being the loudest against
+it. Their cowardice in not opposing it, became courage when it was over.
+They exclaimed against Terrorism as if they had been the heroes that
+overthrew it, and rendered themselves ridiculous by fantastically
+overacting moderation. The most noisy of this class, that I have met
+with, are those who suffered nothing. They became all things, at all
+times, to all men; till at last they laughed at principle. It was the
+real republicans who suffered most during the time of Robespierre. The
+persecution began upon them on the 31st of May, 1793, and ceased only
+by the exertions of the remnant that survived.
+
+In such a confused state of things as preceded the late elections the
+public mind was put into a condition of being easily deceived; and it
+was almost natural that the hypocrite would stand the best chance of
+being elected into the new third. Had those who, since their election,
+have thrown the public affairs into confusion by counter-revolutionary
+measures, declared themselves beforehand, they would have been denounced
+instead of being chosen. Deception was necessary to their success.
+The Constitution obtained a full establishment; the revolution was
+considered as complete; and the war on the eve of termination. In such a
+situation, the mass of the people, fatigued by a long revolution, sought
+repose; and in their elections they looked out for quiet men. They
+unfortunately found hypocrites. Would any of the primary assemblies
+have voted for a civil war? Certainly they would not. But the electoral
+assemblies of some departments have chosen men whose measures, since
+their election, tended to no other end but to provoke it. Either those
+electors have deceived their constituents of the primary assemblies, or
+they have been themselves deceived in the choice they made of deputies.
+
+That there were some direct but secret conspirators in the new third can
+scarcely admit of a doubt; but it is most reasonable to suppose that a
+great part were seduced by the vanity of thinking they could do better
+than those whom they succeeded. Instead of trusting to experience, they
+attempted experiments. This counter-disposition prepared them to fall in
+with any measures contrary to former measures, and that without seeing,
+and probably without suspecting, the end to which they led.
+
+No sooner were the members of the new third arrived at the seat of
+government, than expectation was excited to see how they would act.
+Their motions were watched by all parties, and it was impossible for
+them to steal a march unobserved. They had it in their power to do great
+good, or great mischief. A firm and manly conduct on their part, uniting
+with that of the Directory and their colleagues, would have terminated
+the war. But the moment before them was not the moment of hesitation. He
+that hesitates in such situation is lost.
+
+The first public act of the Council of Five Hundred was the election of
+Pichegru to the presidency of that Council. He arrived at it by a very
+large majority, and the public voice was in his favour. I among the rest
+was one who rejoiced at it. But if the defection of Pichegru was at that
+time known to Condé, and consequently to Pitt, it unveils the cause that
+retarded all negotiations for peace.(1) They interpreted that election
+into a signal of a counter-revolution, and were waiting for it; and they
+mistook the respect shown to Pichegru, founded on the supposition of his
+integrity, as a symptom of national revolt. Judging of things by their
+own foolish ideas of government, they ascribed appearances to causes
+between which there was no connection. Every thing on their part has
+been a comedy of errors, and the actors have been chased from the stage.
+
+     1 Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1736-1818),
+     organized the French emigrants on the Rhine into an army
+     which was incorporated with that of Austria but paid by
+     England. He converted Pichegru into a secret partisan of the
+     Bourbons. He ultimately returned to France with Louis
+     XVIII., who made him colonel of infantry and master of the
+     royal household.--_Editor._,
+
+Two or three decades of the new sessions passed away without any
+thing very material taking place; but matters soon began to explain
+themselves. The first thing that struck the public mind was, that no
+more was heard of negotiations for peace, and that public business stood
+still. It was not the object of the conspirators that there should be
+peace; but as it was necessary to conceal their object, the Constitution
+was ransacked to find pretences for delays. In vain did the Directory
+explain to them the state of the finances and the wants of the army. The
+committee, charged with that business, trifled away its time by a series
+of unproductive reports, and continued to sit only to produce more.
+Every thing necessary to be done was neglected, and every thing improper
+was attempted. Pichegru occupied himself about forming a national guard
+for the Councils--the suspicious signal of war,--Camille Jordan about
+priests and bells, and the emigrants, with whom he had associated
+during the two years he was in England.1 Willot and Delarue attacked the
+Directory: their object was to displace some one of the directors, to
+get in another of their own. Their motives with respect to the age of
+Barras (who is as old as he wishes to be, and has been a little too old
+for them) were too obvious not to be seen through.(2)
+
+     1 Paine's pamphlet, addressed to Jordan, deals mainly with
+     religions matters, and is reserved for oar fourth volume.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+     2 Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras (1755-1899) was
+     President of the Directory at this time, 1797.--_Editor._.
+
+In this suspensive state of things, the public mind, filled with
+apprehensions, became agitated, and without knowing what it might be,
+looked for some extraordinary event. It saw, for it could not avoid
+seeing, that things could not remain long in the state they were in,
+but it dreaded a convulsion. That spirit of triflingness which it
+had indulged too freely when in a state of security, and which it is
+probable the new agents had interpreted into indifference about the
+success of the Republic, assumed a serious aspect that afforded to
+conspiracy no hope of aid; but still it went on. It plunged itself into
+new measures with the same ill success, and the further it went the
+further the public mind retired. The conspiracy saw nothing around it to
+give it encouragement.
+
+The obstinacy, however, with which it persevered in its repeated
+attacks upon the Directory, in framing laws in favour of emigrants and
+refractory priests, and in every thing inconsistent with the immediate
+safety of the Republic, and which served to encourage the enemy to
+prolong the war, admitted of no other direct interpretation than that
+something was rotten in the Council of Five Hundred. The evidence of
+circumstances became every day too visible not to be seen, and too
+strong to be explained away. Even as errors, (to say no worse of
+them,) they are not entitled to apology; for where knowledge is a duty,
+ignorance is a crime.
+
+The more serious republicans, who had better opportunities than the
+generality had, of knowing the state of politics, began to take
+the alarm, and formed themselves into a Society, by the name of the
+Constitutional Club. It is the only Society of which I have been a
+member in France; and I went to this because it was become necessary
+that the friends of the Republic should rally round the standard of
+the constitution. I met there several of the original patriots of the
+revolution; I do not mean of the last order of Jacobins, but of the
+first of that name. The faction in the Council of Five Hundred,
+who, finding no counsel from the public, began to be frightened at
+appearances, fortified itself against the dread of this Society, by
+passing a law to dissolve it. The constitutionality of the law was at
+least doubtful: but the Society, that it might not give the example of
+exasperating matters already too much inflamed, suspended its meetings.
+
+A matter, however, of much greater moment soon after presented itself.
+It was the march of four regiments, some of whom, in the line of their
+route, had to pass within about twelve leagues of Paris, which is the
+boundary the Constitution had fixed as the distance of any armed
+force from the legislative body. In another state of things, such a
+circumstance would not have been noticed. But conspiracy is quick of
+suspicion, and the fear which the faction in the Council of Five
+Hundred manifested upon this occasion could not have suggested itself
+to innocent men; neither would innocent men have expostulated with the
+Directory upon the case, in the manner these men did. The question they
+urged went to extort from the Directory, and to make known to the enemy,
+what the destination of the troops was. The leaders of the faction
+conceived that the troops were marching against them; and the conduct
+they adopted in consequence of it was sufficient to justify the measure,
+even if it had been so. From what other motive than the consciousness of
+their own designs could they have fear? The troops, in every instance,
+had been the gallant defenders of the Republic, and the openly declared
+friends of the Constitution; the Directory had been the same, and if the
+faction were not of a different description neither fear nor suspicion
+could have had place among them.
+
+All those manouvres in the Council were acted under the most
+professional attachment to the Constitution; and this as necessarily
+served to enfeeble their projects. It is exceedingly difficult, and next
+to impossible, to conduct a conspiracy, and still more so to give it
+success, in a popular government. The disguised and feigned pretences
+which men in such cases are obliged to act in the face of the public,
+suppress the action of the faculties, and give even to natural courage
+the features of timidity. They are not half the men they would be where
+no disguise is necessary. It is impossible to be a hypocrite and to be
+brave at the same instant.
+
+The faction, by the imprudence of its measures, upon the march of
+the troops, and upon the declarations of the officers and soldiers to
+support the Republic and the Constitution against all open or concealed
+attempts to overturn them, had gotten itself involved with the army, and
+in effect declared itself a party against it. On the one hand, laws were
+proposed to admit emigrants and refractory priests as free citizens; and
+on the other hand to exclude the troops from Paris, and to punish the
+soldiers who had declared to support the Republic In the mean time all
+negociations for peace went backward; and the enemy, still recruiting
+its forces, rested to take advantage of circumstances. Excepting the
+absence of hostilities, it was a state worse than war.
+
+If all this was not a conspiracy, it had at least the features of one,
+and was pregnant with the same mischiefs. The eyes of the faction could
+not avoid being open to the dangers to which it obstinately exposed
+the Republic; yet still it persisted. During this scene, the journals
+devoted to the faction were repeatedly announcing the near approach of
+peace with Austria and with England, and often asserting that it was
+concluded. This falsehood could be intended for no other purpose than to
+keep the eyes of the people shut against the dangers to which they were
+exposed.
+
+Taking all circumstances together, it was impossible that such a state
+of things could continue long; and at length it was resolved to bring it
+to an issue. There is good reason to believe that the affair of the
+18th Fructidor (September 4) was intended to have taken place two days
+before; but on recollecting that it was the 2d of September, a day
+mournful in the annals of the revolution, it was postponed. When the
+issue arrived, the faction found to its cost it had no party among the
+public. It had sought its own disasters, and was left to suffer the
+consequences. Foreign enemies, as well as those of the interior, if
+any such there be, ought to see in the event of this day that all
+expectation of aid from any part of the public in support of a counter
+revolution is delusion. In a state of security the thoughtless, who
+trembled at terror, may laugh at principles of Liberty (for they have
+laughed) but it is one thing to indulge a foolish laugh, quite another
+thing to surrender Liberty.
+
+Considering the event of the 18th Fructidor in a political light, it is
+one of those that are justifiable only on the supreme law of absolute
+necessity, and it is the necessity abstracted from the event that is to
+be deplored. The event itself is matter of joy. Whether the manouvres in
+the Council of Five Hundred were the conspiracy of a few, aided l>y the
+perverseness of many, or whether it had a deeper root, the dangers were
+the same. It was impossible to go on. Every thing was at stake, and
+all national business at a stand. The case reduced itself to a simple
+alternative--shall the Republic be destroyed by the darksome manouvres
+-of a faction, or shall it be preserved by an exceptional act?
+
+During the American Revolution, and that after the State constitutions
+were established, particular cases arose that rendered it necessary to
+act in a manner that would have been treasonable in a state of peace. At
+one time Congress invested General Washington with dictatorial power.
+At another time the Government of Pennsylvania suspended itself and
+declared martial law. It was the necessity of the times only that
+made the apology of those extraordinary measures. But who was it that
+produced the necessity of an extraordinary measure in France? A faction,
+and that in the face of prosperity and success. Its conduct is without
+apology; and it is on the faction only that the exceptional measure has
+fallen. The public has suffered no inconvenience. If there are some men
+more disposed than others not to act severely, I have a right to place
+myself in that class; the whole of my political life invariably proves
+it; yet I cannot see, taking all parts of the case together, what else,
+or what better, could have been done, than has been done. It was a
+great stroke, applied in a great crisis, that crushed in an instant,
+and without the loss of a life, all the hopes of the enemy, and restored
+tranquillity to the interior.
+
+The event was ushered in by the discharge of two cannon at four in the
+morning, and was the only noise that was heard throughout the day. It
+naturally excited a movement among the Parisians to enquire the cause.
+They soon learned it, and the countenance they carried was easy to be
+interpreted. It was that of a people who, for some time past, had
+been oppressed with apprehensions of some direful event, and who felt
+themselves suddenly relieved, by finding what it was. Every one went
+about his business, or followed his curiosity in quietude. It resembled
+the cheerful tranquillity of the day when Louis XVI. absconded in 1791,
+and like that day it served to open the eyes of the nation.
+
+If we take a review of the various events, as well conspiracies as
+commotions, that have succeeded each other in this revolution, we shall
+see how the former have wasted consumptively away, and the consequences
+of the latter have softened. The 31st May and its consequences were
+terrible. That of the 9th and 10th Thermidor, though glorious for the
+republic, as it overthrew one of the most horrid and cruel despotisms
+that ever raged, was nevertheless marked with many circumstances
+of severe and continued retaliation. The commotions of Germinal and
+Prairial of the year 3, and of Vendemaire of the year 4, were many
+degrees below those that preceded them, and affected but a small part of
+the public. This of Pichegru and his associates has been crushed in an
+instant, without the stain of blood, and without involving the public in
+the least inconvenience.
+
+These events taken in a series, mark the progress of the Republic from
+disorder to stability. The contrary of this is the case in all parts
+of the British dominions. There, commotions are on an ascending scale;
+every one is higher than the former. That of the sailors had nearly
+been the overthrow of the government. But the most potent of all is the
+invisible commotion in the Bank. It works with the silence of time, and
+the certainty of death. Every thing happening in France is curable; but
+this is beyond the reach of nature or invention.
+
+Leaving the event of the 18th Fructidor to justify itself by the
+necessity that occasioned it, and glorify itself by the happiness of
+its consequences, I come to cast a coup-d'oil on the present state of
+affairs.
+
+We have seen by the lingering condition of the negociations for peace,
+that nothing was to be expected from them, in the situation that things
+stood prior to the 18th Fructidor. The armies had done wonders, but
+those wonders were rendered unproductive by the wretched manouvres of a
+faction. New exertions are now necessary to repair the mischiefs which
+that faction has done. The electoral bodies, in some Departments, who
+by an injudicious choice, or a corrupt influence, have sent improper
+deputies to the Legislature, have some atonement to make to their
+country. The evil originated with them, and the least they can do is to
+be among the foremost to repair it.
+
+It is, however, in vain to lament an evil that is past. There is neither
+manhood nor policy in grief; and it often happens that an error in
+politics, like an error in war, admits of being turned to greater
+advantage than if it had not occurred. The enemy, encouraged by that
+error, presumes too much, and becomes doubly foiled by the re-action.
+England, unable to conquer, has stooped to corrupt; and defeated in
+the last, as in the first, she is in a worse condition than before.
+Continually increasing her crimes, she increases the measure of her
+atonement, and multiplies the sacrifices she must make to obtain peace.
+Nothing but the most obstinate stupidity could have induced her to let
+slip the opportunity when it was within her reach. In addition to the
+prospect of new expenses, she is now, to use Mr. Pitt's own figurative
+expression against France, _not only on the brink, but in the gulph
+of bankruptcy_. There is no longer any mystery in paper money. Call
+it assignats, mandats, exchequer bills, or bank notes, it is still the
+same. Time has solved the problem, and experience has fixed its fate.(1)
+
+     1 See Chapter XXVI. of this volume.--_Editor._.
+
+The government of that unfortunate country discovers its faithlessness
+so much, that peace on any terms with her is scarcely worth obtaining.
+Of what use is peace with a government that will employ that peace for
+no other purpose than to repair, as far as it is possible, her shattered
+finances and broken credit, and then go to war again? Four times within
+the last ten years, from the time the American war closed, has the
+Anglo-germanic government of England been meditating fresh war. First
+with France on account of Holland, in 1787; afterwards with Russia;
+then with Spain, on account of Nootka Sound; and a second time against
+France, to overthrow her revolution. Sometimes that government employs
+Prussia against Austria; at another time Austria against Prussia; and
+always one or the other, or both against France. Peace with such a
+government is only a treacherous cessation of hostilities.
+
+The frequency of wars on the part of England, within the last century,
+more than before, must have had some cause that did not exist prior to
+that epoch. It is not difficult to discover what that cause is. It is
+the mischievous compound of an Elector of the Germanic body and a King
+of England; and which necessarily must, at some day or other, become
+an object of attention to France. That one nation has not a right to
+interfere in the internal government of another nation, is admitted; and
+in this point of view, France has no right to dictate to England what
+its form of government shall be. If it choose to have a thing called a
+King, or whether that King shall be a man or an ass, is a matter with
+which France has no business. But whether an Elector of the Germanic
+body shall be King of England, is an _external_ case, with which
+France and every other nation, who suffers inconvenience and injury in
+consequence of it, has a right to interfere.
+
+It is from this mischievous compound of Elector and King, that
+originates a great part of the troubles that vex the continent of
+Europe; and with respect to England, it has been the cause of her
+immense national debt, the ruin of her finances, and the insolvency of
+her bank. All intrigues on the continent, in which England is a party,
+or becomes involved, are generated by, and act through, the medium of
+this Anglo-germanic compound. It will be necessary to dissolve it. Let
+the Elector retire to his Electorate, and the world will have peace.
+
+England herself has given examples of interference in matters of this
+kind, and that in cases where injury was only apprehended. She engaged
+in a long and expensive war against France (called the succession war)
+to prevent a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth being king of Spain;
+because, said she, _it will be injurious_ to me; and she has been
+fighting and intriguing against what was called the family-compact ever
+since. In 1787 she threatened France with war to prevent a connection
+between France and Hoi-land; and in all her propositions of peace to-day
+she is dictating separations. But if she look at the Anglo-germanic
+compact at home, called the Hanover succession, she cannot avoid seeing
+that France necessarily must, some day or other, take up that subject,
+and make the return of the Elector to his Electorate one of the
+conditions of peace. There will be no lasting peace between the two
+countries till this be done, and the sooner it be done the better will
+it be for both.
+
+I have not been in any company where this matter aas been a topic, that
+did not see it in the light it is here stated. Even Barthélémy,(1) when
+he first came to the Directory (and Barthélémy was never famous for
+patriotism) acknowledged in my hearing, and in company with Derché,
+Secretary to the Legation at Lille, the connection of an Elector of
+Germany and a King of England to be injurious to France. I do not,
+however, mention it from a wish to embarrass the negociation for peace.
+The Directory has fixed its _ultimatum_; but if that ultimatum be
+rejected, the obligation to adhere to it is discharged, and a new one
+may be assumed. So wretchedly has Pitt managed his opportunities» that
+every succeeding negociation has ended in terms more against him than
+the former. If the Directory had bribed him, he could not serve his
+interest better than he does. He serves it as Lord North served that of
+America, which finished in the discharge of his master.*
+
+     1 Marquis de Barthélémy (François) (1750-1830) entered the
+     Directory in June, 1796, through royalist influence. He
+     shared Pichegru's banishment, and subsequently became an
+     agent of Louis XVIII.--_Editor._
+
+     * The father of Pitt, when a member of the House of Commons,
+     exclaiming one day, during a former war, against the
+     enormous and ruinous expense of German connections, as the
+     offspring of the Hanover succession, and borrowing a
+     metaphor from the story of Prometheus, cried out: "Thus,
+     Hie Prometheus, is Britain chained to the barren rock of
+     Hanover; whilst the imperial eagle preys upon her vitals."--
+     Author.
+
+Thus far I had written when the negociation at Lille became suspended,
+in consequence of which I delayed the publication, that the ideas
+suggested in this letter might not intrude themselves during the
+interval. The _ultimatum_ offered by the Directory, as the terms of
+peace, was more moderate than the government of England had a right to
+expect. That government, though the provoker of the war, and the first
+that committed hostilities by sending away the ambassador Chauvelin,(**)
+had formerly talked of demanding from France, _indemnification for
+the past and security for the future_. France, in her turn, might have
+retorted, and demanded the same from England; but she did not. As it was
+England that, in consequence of her bankruptcy, solicited peace, France
+offered it to her on the simple condition of her restoring the islands
+she had taken. The ultimatum has been rejected, and the negociation
+broken off. The spirited part of France will say, _tant mieux_, so much
+the better.
+
+     ** It was stipulated in the treaty of commerce between
+     France and England, concluded at Paris, that the sending
+     away an ambassador by either party, should be taken as an
+     act of hostility by the other party. The declaration of war
+     (Feb. M *793) by the Convention, of which I was then a
+     member and know well the case, was made in exact conformity
+     to this article in the treaty; for it was not a declaration
+     of war against England, but a declaration that the French
+     Republic is in war with England; the first act of hostility
+     having been committed by England. The declaration was made
+     immediately on Chauvelin's return to France, and in
+     consequence of it. Mr. Pitt should inform himself of things
+     better than he does, before he prates so much about them, or
+     of the sending away of Malmesbury, who was only on a visit
+     of permission.--Author.
+
+How the people of England feel on the breaking up of the negociation,
+which was entirely the act of their own Government, is best known to
+themselves; but from what I know of the two nations, France ought to
+hold herself perfectly indifferent about a peace with the Government of
+England. Every day adds new strength to France and new embarrassments
+to her enemy. The resources of the one increase, as those of the other
+become exhausted. England is now reduced to the same system of paper
+money from which France has emerged, and we all know the inevitable fate
+of that system. It is not a victory over a few ships, like that on the
+coast of Holland, that gives the least support or relief to a paper
+system. On the news of this victory arriving in England, the funds did
+not rise a farthing. The Government rejoiced, but its creditors were
+silent.
+
+It is difficult to find a motive, except in folly and madness, for the
+conduct of the English government. Every calculation and prediction of
+Mr. Pitt has turned out directly the contrary; yet still he predicts.
+He predicted, with all the solemn assurance of a magician, that France
+would be bankrupt in a few months. He was right as to the thing, but
+wrong as to the place, for the bankruptcy happened in England whilst the
+words were yet warm upon his lips. To find out what will happen, it is
+only necessary to know what Mr. Pitt predicts. He is a true prophet if
+taken in the reverse.
+
+Such is the ruinous condition that England is now in, that great as
+the difficulties of war are to the people, the difficulties that would
+accompany peace are equally as great to the Government. Whilst the war
+continues, Mr. Pitt has a pretence for shutting up the bank. But as that
+pretence could last no longer than the war lasted, he dreads the peace
+that would expose the absolute bankruptcy of the government, and unveil
+to a deceived nation the ruinous effect of his measures. Peace would be
+a day of accounts to him, and he shuns it as an insolvent debtor shuns
+a meeting of his creditors. War furnishes him with many pretences; peace
+would furnish him with none, and he stands alarmed at its consequences.
+His conduct in the negociation at Lille can be easily interpreted. It is
+not for the sake of the nation that he asks to retain some of the taken
+islands; for what are islands to a nation that has already too many for
+her own good, or what are they in comparison to the expense of another
+campaign in the present depreciating state of the English funds? (And
+even then those islands must be restored.)
+
+No, it is not for the sake of the nation that he asks. It is for the
+sake of himself. It is as if he said to France, Give me some pretence,
+cover me from disgrace when my day of reckoning comes!
+
+Any person acquainted with the English Government knows that every
+Minister has some dread of what is called in England the winding up
+of accounts at the end of a war; that is, the final settlement of all
+expenses incurred by the war; and no Minister had ever so great cause of
+dread as Mr. Pitt. A burnt child dreads the fire, and Pitt has had some
+experience upon this case. The winding up of accounts at the end of the
+American war was so great, that, though he was not the cause of it,
+and came into the Ministry with great popularity, he lost it all by
+undertaking, what was impossible for him to avoid, the voluminous
+business of the winding up. If such was the case in settling the
+accounts of his predecessor, how much more has he to apprehend when the
+accounts to be settled are his own? All men in bad circumstances
+hate the settlement of accounts, and Pitt, as a Minister, is of that
+description.
+
+But let us take a view of things on a larger ground than the case of
+a Minister. It will then be found, that England, on a comparison of
+strength with France, when both nations are disposed to exert their
+utmost, has no possible chance of success. The efforts that England made
+within the last century were not generated on the ground of _natural
+ability_, but of _artificial anticipations_. She ran posterity into
+debt, and swallowed up in one generation the resources of several
+generations yet to come, till the project can be pursued no longer. It
+is otherwise in France. The vastness of her territory and her population
+render the burden easy that would make a bankrupt of a country like
+England.
+
+It is not the weight of a thing, but the numbers who are to bear that
+weight, that makes it feel light or heavy to the shoulders of those who
+bear it. A land-tax of half as much in the pound as the land-tax is in
+England, will raise nearly four times as much revenue in France as is
+raised in England. This is a scale easily understood, by which all the
+other sections of productive revenue can be measured. Judge then of the
+difference of natural ability.
+
+England is strong in a navy; but that navy costs about eight millions
+sterling a-year, and is one of the causes that has hastened her
+bankruptcy. The history of navy bills sufficiently proves this. But
+strong as England is in this case, the fate of navies must finally be
+decided by the natural ability of each country to carry its navy to the
+greatest extent; and France is able to support a navy twice as large as
+that of England, with less than half the expense per head on the people,
+which the present navy of England costs.
+
+We all know that a navy cannot be raised as expeditiously as an army.
+But as the average duration of a navy, taking the decay of time, storms,
+and all circumstances and accidents together, is less than twenty years,
+every navy must be renewed within that time; and France at the end of a
+few years, can create and support a navy of double the extent of that of
+England; and the conduct of the English government will provoke her to
+it.
+
+But of what use are navies otherwise than to make or prevent invasions?
+Commercially considered, they are losses. They scarcely give any
+protection to the commerce of the countries which have them, compared
+with the expense of maintaining them, and they insult the commerce of
+the nations that are neutral.
+
+During the American war, the plan of the armed neutrality was formed and
+put in execution: but it was inconvenient, expensive, and ineffectual.
+This being the case, the problem is, does not commerce contain within
+itself, the means of its own protection? It certainly does, if the
+neutral nations will employ that means properly.
+
+Instead then of an _armed neutrality_, the plan should be directly the
+contrary. It should be an _unarmed neutrality_. In the first place,
+the rights of neutral nations are easily defined. They are such as are
+exercised by nations in their intercourse with each other in time of
+peace, and which ought not, and cannot of right, be interrupted in
+consequence of war breaking out between any two or more of them.
+
+Taking this as a principle, the next thing is to give it effect. The
+plan of the armed neutrality was to effect it by threatening war; but an
+unarmed neutrality can effect it by much easier and more powerful means.
+
+Were the neutral nations to associate, under an honourable injunction of
+fidelity to each other, and publicly declare to the world, that if any
+belligerent power shall seize or molest any ship or vessel belonging
+to the citizens or subjects of any of the powers composing that
+Association, that the whole Association will shut its ports against the
+flag of the offending nation, and will not permit any goods, wares,
+or merchandise, produced or manufactured in the offending nation, or
+appertaining thereto, to be imported into any of the ports included in
+the Association, until reparation be made to the injured party,--the
+reparation to be three times the value of the vessel and cargo,--and
+moreover that all remittances on money, goods, and bills of exchange, do
+cease to be made to the offending nation, until the said reparation be
+made: were the neutral nations only to do this, which it is their
+direct interest to do, England, as a nation depending on the commerce of
+neutral nations in time of war, dare not molest them, and France would
+not. But whilst, from the want of a common system, they individually
+permit England to do it, because individually they cannot resist it,
+they put France under the necessity of doing the same thing. The supreme
+of all laws, in all cases, is that of self-preservation.
+
+As the commerce of neutral nations would thus be protected by the means
+that commerce naturally contains within itself, all the naval operations
+of France and England would be confined within the circle of acting
+against each other: and in that case it needs no spirit of prophecy to
+discover that France must finally prevail. The sooner this be done, the
+better will it be for both nations, and for all the world.
+
+Thomas Paine.(1)
+
+     1 Paine had already prepared his "Maritime Compact," and
+     devised the Rainbow Flag, which was to protect commerce, the
+     substance and history of which constitutes his Seventh
+     Letter to the People of the United States, Chapter XXXIII.
+     of the present volume. He sent the articles of his proposed
+     international Association to the Minister of Foreign
+     Relations, Talleyrand, who responded with a cordial letter.
+     The articles of "Maritime Compact," translated into French
+     by Nicolas Bouneville, were, in 1800, sent to all the
+     Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Europe, and to the
+     ambassadors in Paris.--_Editor._,
+
+
+
+
+XXX. THE RECALL OF MONROE. (1)
+
+
+     1 Monroe, like Edmund Randolph and Thomas Paine, was
+     sacrificed to the new commercial alliance with Great
+     Britain. The Cabinet of Washington were entirely hostile to
+     France, and in their determination to replace Monroe were
+     assisted by Gouverneur Morris, still in Europe, who wrote to
+     President Washington calumnies against that Minister. In a
+     letter of December 19, 1795, Morris tells Washington that he
+     had heard from a trusted informant that Monroe had said to
+     several Frenchmen that "he had no doubt but that, if they
+     would do what was proper here, he and his friends would turn
+     out Washington." On July 2, 1796, the Cabinet ministers,
+     Pickering, Wolcott, and Mo-Henry, wrote to the President
+     their joint opinion that the interests of the United States
+     required Monroe's recall, and slanderously connected him
+     with anonymous letters from France written by M.
+     Montflorence. The recall, dated August 22, 1796, reached
+     Monroe early in November. It alluded to certain "concurring
+     circumstances," which induced his removal, and these "hidden
+     causes" (in Paine's phrase) Monroe vainly demanded on his
+     return to America early in 1797. The Directory, on
+     notification of Monroe's recall, resolved not to recognize
+     his successor, and the only approach to an American Minister
+     in Paris for the remainder of the century was Thomas Paine,
+     who was consulted by the Foreign Ministers, De la Croix and
+     Talleyrand, and by Napoleon. On the approach of C. C.
+     Pinckney, as successor to Monroe, Paine feared that his
+     dismissal might entail war, and urged the Minister (De la
+     Croix) to regard Pinckney,--nominated in a recess of the
+     Senate,--as in "suspension" until confirmed by that body.
+     There might be unofficial "pourparlers," with him. This
+     letter (State Archives, Paris, États Unis, vol. 46, fol. 425)
+     was considered for several days before Pinckney reached
+     Paris (December 5, 1796), but the Directory considered that
+     it was not a "dignified" course, and Pinckney was ordered to
+     leave French territory, under the existing decree against
+     foreigners who had no permit to remain.--_Editor._.
+
+
+Paris, Sept. 27, 1797. Editors of the Bien-in formé.
+
+Citizens: in your 19th number of the complementary 5th, you gave an
+analysis of the letters of James Monroe to Timothy Pickering. The
+newspapers of Paris and the departments have copied this correspondence
+between the ambassador of the United States and the Secretary of State.
+I notice, however, that a few of them have omitted some important facts,
+whilst indulging in comments of such an extraordinary nature that it is
+clear they know neither Monroe's integrity nor the intrigues of Pitt in
+this affair.
+
+The recall of Monroe is connected with circumstances so important to the
+interests of France and the United States, that we must be careful not
+to confound it with the recall of an ordinary individual. The Washington
+faction had affected to spread it abroad that James Monroe was the cause
+of rupture between the two Republics. This accusation is a perfidious
+and calumnious one; since the main point in this affair is not so much
+the recall of a worthy, enlightened and republican minister, as
+the ingratitude and clandestine manoeuvering of the government of
+Washington, who caused the misunderstanding by signing a treaty
+injurious to the French Republic.
+
+James Monroe, in his letters, does not deny the right of government to
+withdraw its confidence from any one of its delegates, representatives,
+or agents. He has hinted, it is true, that caprice and temper are not
+in accordance with the spirit of paternal rule, and that whenever a
+representative government punishes or rewards, good faith, integrity and
+justice should replace _the good pleasure of Kings_.
+
+In the present case, they have done more than recall an agent. Had they
+confined themselves to depriving him of his appointment, James Monroe
+would have kept silence; but he has been accused of lighting the torch
+of discord in both Republics. The refutation of this absurd and infamous
+reproach is the chief object of his correspondence. If he did not
+immediately complain of these slanders in his letters of the 6th and
+8th [July], it is because he wished to use at first a certain degree of
+caution, and, if it were possible, to stifle intestine troubles at
+their birth. He wished to reopen the way to peaceful negotiations to be
+conducted with good faith and justice.
+
+The arguments of the Secretary of State on the rights of the supreme
+administration of the United States are peremptory; but the observations
+of Monroe on the hidden causes of his recall are touching; they come
+from the heart; they are characteristic of an excellent citizen. If he
+does more than complain of his unjust recall as a man of feeling would;
+if he proudly asks for proofs of a grave accusation, it is after he has
+tried in vain every honest and straightforward means. He will not suffer
+that a government, sold to the enemies of freedom, should discharge upon
+him its shame, its crimes, its ingratitude, and all the odium of its
+unjust dealings.
+
+Were Monroe to find himself an object of public hatred, the Republican
+party in the United States, that party which is the sincere ally
+of France, would be annihilated, and this is the aim of the English
+government.
+
+Imagine the triumph of Pitt, if Monroe and the other friends of freedom
+in America, should be unjustly attacked in France!
+
+Monroe does not lay his cause before the Senate since the Senate
+itself ratified the unconstitutional treaty; he appeals to the house of
+Representatives, and at the same time lays his cause before the upright
+tribunal of the American nation.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI. PRIVATE LETTER TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON.
+
+
+Paris, October 1, 1800.
+
+Dear Sir,--I wrote to you from Havre by the ship Dublin Packet in the
+year 1797. It was then my intention to return to America; but there were
+so many British frigates cruising in sight of the port, and which after
+a few days knew that I was at Havre waiting to go to America, that I did
+not think it best to trust myself to their discretion, and the more so,
+as I had no confidence in the captain of the Dublin Packet (Clay).(1) I
+mentioned to you in that letter, which I believe you received thro'
+the hands of Colonel [Aaron] Burr, that I was glad since you were not
+President that you had accepted the nomination of Vice President.
+
+The Commissioners Ellsworth & Co.(2) have been here about eight months,
+and three more useless mortals never came upon public business. Their
+presence appears to me to have been rather an injury than a benefit.
+They set themselves up for a faction as soon as they arrived. I was then
+in Belgia.(3) Upon my return to Paris I learnt they had made a point of
+not returning the visits of Mr. Skipwith and Barlow, because, they said,
+they had not the confidence of the executive. Every known republican was
+treated in the same manner. I learned from Mr. Miller of Philadelphia,
+who had occasion to see them upon business, that they did not intend
+to return my visit, if I made one. This, I supposed, it was intended I
+should know, that I might not make one. It had the contrary effect. I
+went to see Mr. Ellsworth. I told him, I did not come to see him as a
+commissioner, nor to congratulate him upon his mission; that I came to
+see him because I had formerly known him in Congress. "I mean not,"
+said I, "to press you with any questions, or to engage you in
+any conversation upon the business you are come upon, but I will
+nevertheless candidly say that I know not what expectations the
+Government or the people of America may have of your mission, or what
+expectations you may have yourselves, but I believe you will find you
+can do but little. The treaty with England lies at the threshold of all
+your business. The American Government never did two more foolish things
+than when it signed that Treaty and recalled Mr. Monroe, who was the
+only man could do them any service." Mr. Ellsworth put on the dull
+gravity of a Judge, and was silent. I added, "You may perhaps make a
+treaty like that you have made with England, which is a surrender of the
+rights of the American flag; for the principle that neutral ships make
+neutral property must be general or not at all." I then changed the
+subject, for I had all the talk to myself upon this topic, and enquired
+after Samuel Adams, (I asked nothing about John,) Mr. Jefferson, Mr.
+Monroe, and others of my friends; and the melancholy case of the yellow
+fever,--of which he gave me as circumstantial an account as if he had
+been summing up a case to a Jury. Here my visit ended, and had Mr.
+Ellsworth been as cunning as a statesman, or as wise as a Judge, he
+would have returned my visit that he might appear insensible of the
+intention of mine.
+
+     1 The packet was indeed searched for Paine by a British
+     cruiser.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Oliver Ellsworth (Chief Justice), W. V. Murray, and W. R.
+     Davie, were sent by President Adams to France to negotiate a
+     treaty. In this they failed, but a convention was signed
+     September 30, 1800, which terminated the treaty of 1778,
+     which had become a source of discord, and prepared the way
+     for the negotiations of Livingston and Monroe in 1803.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     3 Paine had visited his room-mate in Luxembourg prison,
+     Vanhuele, who was now Mayor of Bruges.--_Editor._.
+
+I now come to the affairs of this country and of Europe. You will, I
+suppose, have heard before this arrives to you, of the battle of
+Marengo in Italy, where the Austrians were defeated--of the armistice
+in consequence thereof, and the surrender of Milan, Genoa etc. to
+the french--of the successes of the french Army in Germany--and the
+extension of the armistice in that quarter--of the preliminaries of
+Peace signed at Paris--of the refusal of the Emperor [of Austria] to
+ratify these preliminaries--of the breaking of the armistice by the
+french Government in consequence of that refusal--of the "gallant"
+expedition of the Emperor to put himself at the head of his Army--of his
+pompous arrival there--of his having made his will--of prayers being put
+in all his churches for the preservation of the life of this Hero--of
+General Moreau announcing to him, immediately on his arrival at the
+Army, that hostilities would commence the day after the next at sunrise
+unless he signed the treaty or gave security that he would sign within
+45 days--of his surrendering up three of the principal keys of Germany
+(Ulm, Philipsbourg, and Ingolstadt) as security that he would sign them.
+This is the state things are now in, at the time of writing this letter;
+but it is proper to add that the refusal of the Emperor to sign the
+preliminaries was motived upon a note from the King of England to be
+admitted to the Congress for negociating Peace, which was consented to
+by the french upon the condition of an armistice at Sea, which England,
+before knowing of the surrender the Emperor had made, had refused. From
+all which it appears to me, judging from circumstances, that the Emperor
+is now so compleatly in the hands of the french, that he has no way of
+getting out but by a peace. The Congress for the peace is to be held
+at Lunéville, a town in France. Since the affair of Rastadt the French
+commissioners will not trust themselves within the Emperor's territory.
+
+I now come to domestic Affairs. I know not what the Commissioners have
+done, but from a paper I enclose to you, which appears to have
+some authority, it is not much. The paper as you will perceive is
+considerably prior to this letter. I know that the Commissioners before
+this piece appeared intended setting off. It is therefore probable that
+what they have done is conformable to what this paper mentions, which
+certainly will not atone for the expence their mission has incurred,
+neither are they, by all the accounts I hear of them, men fitted for the
+business.
+
+But independently of these matters there appears to be a state of
+circumstances rising, which if it goes on, will render all partial
+treaties unnecessary. In the first place I doubt if any peace will be
+made with England; and in the second place, I should not wonder to see a
+coalition formed against her, to compel her to abandon her insolence on
+the seas. This brings me to speak of the manuscripts I send you.
+
+The piece No. I, without any title, was written in consequence of a
+question put to me by Bonaparte. As he supposed I knew England and
+English Politics he sent a person to me to ask, that in case of
+negociating a Peace with Austria, whether it would be proper to include
+England. This was when Count St. Julian was in Paris, on the part of the
+Emperor negociating the preliminaries:--which as I have before said the
+Emperor refused to sign on the pretence of admitting England.
+
+The piece No. 2, entitled _On the Jacobinism of the English at sea_, was
+written when the English made their insolent and impolitic expedition to
+Denmark, and is also an auxiliary to the politic of No. I. I shewed it
+to a friend [Bonneville] who had it translated into french, and printed
+in the form of a Pamphlet, and distributed gratis among the foreign
+Ministers, and persons in the Government. It was immediately copied
+into several of the french Journals, and into the official Paper, the
+Moniteur. It appeared in this paper one day before the last dispatch
+arrived from Egypt; which agreed perfectly with what I had said
+respecting Egypt. It hit the two cases of Denmark and Egypt in the exact
+proper moment.
+
+The Piece No. 3, entitled _Compact Maritime_, is the sequel of No. 2,
+digested in form. It is translating at the time I write this letter,
+and I am to have a meeting with the Senator Garat upon the subject.
+The pieces 2 and 3 go off in manuscript to England, by a confidential
+person, where they will be published.(1)
+
+     1 The substance of most of these "pieces" are embodied in
+     Paine's Seventh Letter to the People of the United States
+     (infra p. 420).--_Editor._
+
+By all the news we get from the North there appears to be something
+meditating against England. It is now given for certain that Paul has
+embargoed all the English vessels and English property in Russia till
+some principle be established for protecting the Rights of neutral
+Nations, and securing the liberty of the Seas. The preparations in
+Denmark continue, notwithstanding the convention that she has made with
+England, which leaves the question with respect to the right set up by
+England to stop and search Neutral vessels undecided. I send you the
+paragraphs upon the subject.
+
+The tumults are great in all parts of England on account of the
+excessive price of corn and bread, which has risen since the harvest.
+I attribute it more to the abundant increase of paper, and the
+non-circulation of cash, than to any other cause. People in trade
+can push the paper off as fast as they receive it, as they did by
+continental money in America; but as farmers have not this opportunity,
+they endeavor to secure themselves by going considerably in advance.
+
+I have now given you all the great articles of intelligence, for I
+trouble not myself with little ones, and consequently not with the
+Commissioners, nor any thing they are about, nor with John Adams,
+otherwise than to wish him safe home, and a better and wiser man in his
+place.
+
+In the present state of circumstances and the prospects arising from
+them, it may be proper for America to consider whether it is worth her
+while to enter into any treaty at this moment, or to wait the event of
+those circumstances which if they go on will render partial treaties
+useless by deranging them. But if, in the mean time, she enters into
+any treaty it ought to be with a condition to the following purpose:
+Reserving to herself the right of joining in an Association of Nations
+for the protection of the Rights of Neutral Commerce and the security of
+the liberty of the Seas.
+
+The pieces 2, 3, may go to the press. They will make a small pamphlet
+and the printers are welcome to put my name to it. (It is best it should
+be put.) From thence they will get into the newspapers. I know that the
+faction of John Adams abuses me pretty heartily. They are welcome.
+
+It does not disturb me, and they lose their labour; and in return for
+it I am doing America more service, as a neutral Nation, than their
+expensive Commissioners can do, and she has that service from me for
+nothing. The piece No. 1 is only for your own amusement and that of your
+friends.
+
+I come now to speak confidentially to you on a private subject. When Mr.
+Ellsworth and Davie return to America, Murray will return to Holland,
+and in that case there will be nobody in Paris but Mr. Skipwith that
+has been in the habit of transacting business with the french Government
+since the revolution began. He is on a good standing with them, and if
+the chance of the day should place you in the presidency you cannot do
+better than appoint him for any purpose you may have occasion for in
+France. He is an honest man and will do his country justice, and that
+with civility and good manners to the government he is commissioned to
+act with; a faculty which that Northern Bear Timothy Pickering wanted,
+and which the Bear of that Bear, John Adams, never possessed.
+
+I know not much of Mr. Murray, otherwise than of his unfriendliness to
+every American who is not of his faction, but I am sure that Joel Barlow
+is a much fitter man to be in Holland than Mr. Murray. It is upon
+the fitness of the man to the place that I speak, for I have not
+communicated a thought upon the subject to Barlow, neither does he
+know, at the time of my writing this (for he is at Havre), that I have
+intention to do it.
+
+I will now, by way of relief, amuse you with some account of the
+progress of iron bridges.
+
+[Here follows an account of the building of the iron bridge at
+Sunderland, England, and some correspondence with Mr. Milbanke, M. P.,
+which will be given more fully and precisely in a chapter of vol. IV.
+(Appendix), on Iron Bridges, and is therefore omitted here.]
+
+I have now made two other Models [of bridges]. One is pasteboard, five
+feet span and five inches of height from the cords. It is in the opinion
+of every person who has seen it one of the most beautiful objects the
+eye can behold. I then cast a model in metal following the construction
+of that in paste-board and of the same dimensions. The whole was
+executed in my own Chamber. It is far superior in strength, elegance,
+and readiness in execution to the model I made in America, and which you
+saw in Paris.(1) I shall bring those models with me when I come
+home, which will be as soon as I can pass the seas in safety from the
+piratical John Bulls. I suppose you have seen, or have heard of the
+Bishop of Landaff's answer to my second part of the Age of Reason. As
+soon as I got a copy of it I began a third part, which served also as an
+answer to the Bishop; but as soon as the clerical society for promoting
+_Christian Knowledge_ knew of my intention to answer the Bishop, they
+prosecuted, as a Society, the printer of the first and second parts, to
+prevent that answer appearing. No other reason than this can be assigned
+for their prosecuting at the time they did, because the first part had
+been in circulation above three years and the second part more than one,
+and they prosecuted immediately on knowing that I was taking up their
+Champion. The Bishop's answer, like Mr. Burke's attack on the french
+revolution, served me as a back-ground to bring forward other subjects
+upon, with more advantage than if the background was not there. This is
+the motive that induced me to answer him, otherwise I should have gone
+on without taking any notice of him. I have made and am still making
+additions to the manuscript, and shall continue to do so till an
+opportunity arrive for publishing it.
+
+     1 "These models exhibit an extraordinary degree not only of
+     skill, but of taste, and are wrought with extreme delicacy
+     entirely by his own hands. The largest is nearly four feet
+     in length; the iron-works, the chains, and every other
+     article belonging to it, were forged and manufactured by
+     himself. It is intended as the model of a bridge which is to
+     be constructed across the Delaware, extending 480 feet, with
+     only one arch. The other is to be erected over a lesser
+     river, whose name I forget, and is likewise a single arch,
+     and of his own workmanship, excepting the chains, which,
+     instead of iron, are cut out of paste-hoard by the fair hand
+     of his correspondent, the 'Little Corner of the World' (Lady
+     Smyth), whose indefatigable perseverance is extraordinary.
+     He was offered £3000 for these models and refused it."--
+     Yorke's _Letters from France_, These models excited much
+     admiration in Washington and Philadelphia. They remained for
+     a long time in Peale's Museum at Philadelphia, but no trace
+     is left of them.--_Editor._
+
+If any American frigate should come to france, and the direction of
+it fall to you, I will be glad you would give me the opportunity of
+returning. The abscess under which I suffered almost two years is
+entirely healed of itself, and I enjoy exceeding good health. This is
+the first of October, and Mr. Skipwith has just called to tell me the
+Commissioners set off for Havre to-morrow. This will go by the frigate
+but not with the knowledge of the Commissioners. Remember me with much
+affection to my friends and accept the same to yourself.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII. PROPOSAL THAT LOUISIANA BE PURCHASED.(1)
+
+
+(SENT TO THE PRESIDENT, CHRISTMAS DAY, 1802.)
+
+     1 Paine, being at Lovell's Hotel, Washington, suggested the
+     purchase of Louisiana to Dr. Michael Leib, representative
+     from Pennsylvania, who, being pleased with the idea,
+     suggested that he should write it to Jefferson. On the day
+     after its reception the President told Paine that "measures
+     were already taken in that business."--_Editor._.
+
+Spain has ceded Louisiana to France, and France has excluded Americans
+from New Orleans, and the navigation of the Mississippi. The people of
+the Western Territory have complained of it to their Government, and the
+Government is of consequence involved and interested in the affair. The
+question then is--What is the best step to be taken?
+
+The one is to begin by memorial and remonstrance against an infraction
+of a right. The other is by accommodation,--still keeping the right in
+view, but not making it a groundwork.
+
+Suppose then the Government begin by making a proposal to France to
+re-purchase the cession made to her by Spain, of Louisiana, provided it
+be with the consent of the people of Louisiana, or a majority thereof.
+
+By beginning on this ground any thing can be said without carrying the
+appearance of a threat. The growing power of the Western Territory can
+be stated as a matter of information, and also the impossibility
+of restraining them from seizing upon New Orleans, and the equal
+impossibility of France to prevent it.
+
+Suppose the proposal attended to, the sum to be given comes next on
+the carpet. This, on the part of America, will be estimated between the
+value of the commerce and the quantity of revenue that Louisiana will
+produce.
+
+The French Treasury is not only empty, but the Government has consumed
+by anticipation a great part of the next year's revenue. A monied
+proposal will, I believe, be attended to; if it should, the claims upon
+France can be stipulated as part of the payment, and that sum can be
+paid here to the claimants.
+
+----I congratulate you on _The Birthday of the New Sun_,
+
+now called Christmas Day; and I make you a present of a thought on
+Louisiana.
+
+T.P.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII. THOMAS PAINE TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES,
+
+
+And particularly to the Leaders of the Federal Faction, LETTER I.(1)
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, November 15th. The venerable
+     Mr. Gales, so long associated with this paper, had been in
+     youth a prosecuted adherent of Paine in Sheffield, England.
+     The paper distinguished itself by the kindly welcome it gave
+     Paine on his return to America. (See issues of Nov. 3 and
+     10, 1802.) Paine landed at Baltimore, Oct. 30th.--_Editor._,
+
+After an absence of almost fifteen years, I am again returned to the
+country in whose dangers I bore my share, and to whose greatness I
+contributed my part.
+
+When I sailed for Europe, in the spring of 1787, it was my intention to
+return to America the next year, and enjoy in retirement the esteem of
+my friends, and the repose I was entitled to. I had stood out the storm
+of one revolution, and had no wish to embark in another. But other
+scenes and other circumstances than those of contemplated ease were
+allotted to me. The French revolution was beginning to germinate when I
+arrived in France. The principles of it were good, they were copied
+from America, and the men who conducted it were honest. But the fury of
+faction soon extinguished the one, and sent the other to the scaffold.
+Of those who began that revolution, I am almost the only survivor,
+and that through a thousand dangers. I owe this not to the prayers of
+priests, nor to the piety of hypocrites, but to the continued protection
+of Providence.
+
+But while I beheld with pleasure the dawn of liberty rising in Europe,
+I saw with regret the lustre of it fading in America. In less than two
+years from the time of my departure some distant symptoms painfully
+suggested the idea that the principles of the revolution were expiring
+on the soil that produced them. I received at that time a letter from a
+female literary correspondent, and in my answer to her, I expressed my
+fears on that head.(1)
+
+I now know from the information I obtain upon the spot, that the
+impressions that then distressed me, for I was proud of America, were
+but too well founded. She was turning her back on her own glory, and
+making hasty strides in the retrograde path of oblivion. But a spark
+from the altar of _Seventy-six_, unextinguished and unextinguishable
+through the long night of error, is again lighting up, in every part of
+the Union, the genuine name of rational liberty.
+
+As the French revolution advanced, it fixed the attention of the world,
+and drew from the pensioned pen (2) of Edmund Burke a furious attack.
+This brought me once more on the public theatre of politics, and
+occasioned the pamphlet _Rights of Man_. It had the greatest run of
+any work ever published in the English language. The number of copies
+circulated in England, Scotland, and Ireland, besides translations
+into foreign languages, was between four and five hundred thousand. The
+principles of that work were the same as those in _Common Sense_, and
+the effects would have been the same in England as that had produced in
+America, could the vote of the nation been quietly taken, or had equal
+opportunities of consulting or acting existed. The only difference
+between the two works was, that the one was adapted to the local
+circumstances of England, and the other to those of America. As to
+myself, I acted in both cases alike; I relinquished to the people of
+England, as I had done to those of America, all profits from the work.
+My reward existed in the ambition to do good, and the independent
+happiness of my own mind.
+
+     1 Paine here quotes a passage from his letter to Mrs. Few,
+     already given in the Memorial to Monroe (XXI.). The entire
+     letter to Mrs. Few will be printed in the Appendix to Vol.
+     IV. of this work.--_Editor._
+
+     2 See editorial note p. 95 in this volume.--_Editor._
+
+But a faction, acting in disguise, was rising in America; they had lost
+sight of first principles. They were beginning to contemplate government
+as a profitable monopoly, and the people as hereditary property. It
+is, therefore, no wonder that the _Rights of Man_ was attacked by that
+faction, and its author continually abused. But let them go on; give
+them rope enough and they will put an end to their own insignificance.
+There is too much common sense and independence in America to be long
+the dupe of any faction, foreign or domestic.
+
+But, in the midst of the freedom we enjoy, the licentiousness of the
+papers called Federal, (and I know not why they are called so, for they
+are in their principles anti-federal and despotic,) is a dishonour
+to the character of the country, and an injury to its reputation
+and importance abroad. They represent the whole people of America as
+destitute of public principle and private manners. As to any injury they
+can do at home to those whom they abuse, or service they can render
+to those who employ them, it is to be set down to the account of
+noisy nothingness. It is on themselves the disgrace recoils, for the
+reflection easily presents itself to every thinking mind, that _those
+who abuse liberty when they possess it would abuse power could they
+obtain it_; and, therefore, they may as well take as a general motto,
+for all such papers, _We and our patrons are not fit to be trusted with
+power_.
+
+There is in America, more than in any other country, a large body
+of people who attend quietly to their farms, or follow their several
+occupations; who pay no regard to the clamours of anonymous scribblers,
+who think for themselves, and judge of government, not by the fury of
+newspaper writers, but by the prudent frugality of its measures, and the
+encouragement it gives to the improvement and prosperity of the country;
+and who, acting on their own judgment, never come forward in an election
+but on some important occasion. When this body moves, all the little
+barkings of scribbling and witless curs pass for nothing. To say to this
+independent description of men, "You must turn out such and such persons
+at the next election, for they have taken off a great many taxes, and
+lessened the expenses of government, they have dismissed my son, or my
+brother, or myself, from a lucrative office, in which there was nothing
+to do"--is to show the cloven foot of faction, and preach the language
+of ill-disguised mortification. In every part of the Union, this faction
+is in the agonies of death, and in proportion as its fate approaches,
+gnashes its teeth and struggles. My arrival has struck it as with an
+hydrophobia, it is like the sight of water to canine madness.
+
+As this letter is intended to announce my arrival to my friends, and to
+my enemies if I have any, for I ought to have none in America, and as
+introductory to others that will occasionally follow, I shall close it
+by detailing the line of conduct I shall pursue.
+
+I have no occasion to ask, and do not intend to accept, any place or
+office in the government.(1) There is none it could give me that would
+be any ways equal to 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 politics or religion. I must be in every
+thing what I have ever been, a disinterested volunteer; my proper sphere
+of action is on the common floor of citizenship, and to honest men I
+give my hand and my heart freely.
+
+     1 The President (Jefferson) being an intimate friend of
+     Paine, and suspected, despite his reticence, of sympathizing
+     with Paine's religions views, was included in the
+     denunciations of Paine ("The Two Toms" they were called),
+     and Paine here goes out of his way to soften matters for
+     Jefferson.--_Editor._.
+
+I have some manuscript works to publish, of which I shall give proper
+notice, and some mechanical affairs to bring forward, that will 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
+welcome; I shall not descend to answer them. I have been too much used
+to such common stuff to take any notice of it. The government of England
+honoured me with a thousand martyrdoms, by burning me in effigy in every
+town in that country, and their hirelings in America may do the same.
+
+City of Washington.
+
+THOMAS PAINE.
+
+
+
+LETTER II(1)
+
+As the affairs of the country to which I am returned are of more
+importance to the world, and to me, than of that I have lately left,
+(for it is through the new world the old must be regenerated, if
+regenerated at all,) I shall not take up the time of the reader with an
+account of scenes that have passed in France, many of which are painful
+to remember and horrid to relate, but come at once to the circumstances
+in which I find America on my arrival.
+
+Fourteen years, and something more, have produced a change, at least
+among a part of the people, and I ask my-self what it is? I meet or hear
+of thousands of my former connexions, who are men of the same principles
+and friendships as when I left them. But a non-descript race, and of
+equivocal generation, assuming the name of _Federalist_,--a name that
+describes no character of principle good or bad, and may equally
+be applied to either,--has since started up with the rapidity of a
+mushroom, and like a mushroom is withering on its rootless stalk. Are
+those men _federalized_ to support the liberties of their country or to
+overturn them? To add to its fair fame or riot on its spoils? The
+name contains no defined idea. It is like John Adams's definition of a
+Republic, in his letter to Mr. Wythe of Virginia.(2) _It is_, says he,
+_an empire of laws and not of men_. But as laws may be bad as well as
+good, an empire of laws may be the best of all governments or the worst
+of all tyrannies. But John Adams is a man of paradoxical heresies, and
+consequently of a bewildered mind. He wrote a book entitled, "_A Defence
+of the American Constitutions_," and the principles of it are an attack
+upon them. But the book is descended to the tomb of forgetfulness, and
+the best fortune that can attend its author is quietly to follow its
+fate. John was not born for immortality. But, to return to Federalism.
+
+     1 National Intelligencer, Nov. 23d, 1802.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Chancellor Wythe, 1728-1806.--_Editor._ vol m--«5
+
+In the history of parties and the names they assume, it often happens
+that they finish by the direct contrary principles with which they
+profess to begin, and thus it has happened with Federalism.
+
+During the time of the old Congress, and prior to the establishment of
+the federal government, the continental belt was too loosely buckled.
+The several states were united in name but not in fact, and that nominal
+union had neither centre nor circle. The laws of one state frequently
+interferred with, and sometimes opposed, those of another. Commerce
+between state and state was without protection, and confidence without
+a point to rest on. The condition the country was then in, was aptly
+described by Pelatiah Webster, when he said, "_thirteen staves and ne'er
+a hoop will not make a barrel_."(1)
+
+If, then, by _Federalist_ is to be understood one who was for cementing
+the Union by a general government operating equally over all the States,
+in all matters that embraced the common interest, and to which the
+authority of the States severally was not adequate, for no one State
+can make laws to bind another; if, I say, by a _Federalist_ is meant
+a person of this description, (and this is the origin of the name,) _I
+ought to stand first on the list of Federalists_, for the proposition
+for establishing a general government over the Union, came originally
+from me in 1783, in a written Memorial to Chancellor Livingston, then
+Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Congress, Robert Morris, Minister
+of Finance, and his associate, Gouverneur Morris, all of whom are now
+living; and we had a dinner and conference at Robert Morris's on the
+subject. The occasion was as follows:
+
+Congress had proposed a duty of five per cent, on imported articles, the
+money to be applied as a fund towards paying the interest of loans to
+be borrowed in Holland. The resolve was sent to the several States to
+be enacted into a law. Rhode Island absolutely refused. I was at
+the trouble of a journey to Rhode Island to reason with them on the
+subject.(2) Some other of the States enacted it with alterations, each
+one as it pleased. Virginia adopted it, and afterwards repealed it, and
+the affair came to nothing.
+
+     1 "Like a stare in a cask well bound with hoops, it [the
+     individual State] stands firmer, is not so easily shaken,
+     bent, or broken, as it would be were it set up by itself
+     alone."--Pelatiah Webster, 1788. See Paul L. Ford's
+     Pamphlets cm the Constitution, etc., p. 128.--Editor
+
+     2  See my "Life of Paine." vol i., p. 103.--Editor,
+
+It was then visible, at least to me, that either Congress must frame the
+laws necessary for the Union, and send them to the several States to be
+enregistered without any alteration, which would in itself appear like
+usurpation on one part and passive obedience on the other, or some
+method must be devised to accomplish the same end by constitutional
+principles; and the proposition I made in the memorial was, to _add
+a continental legislature to Congress, to be elected by the several
+States_. The proposition met the full approbation of the gentlemen to
+whom it was addressed, and the conversation turned on the manner of
+bringing it forward. Gouverneur Morris, in walking with me after dinner,
+wished me to throw out the idea in the newspaper; I replied, that I did
+not like to be always the proposer of new things, that it would have too
+assuming an appearance; and besides, that _I did not think the country
+was quite wrong enough to be put right_. I remember giving the same
+reason to Dr. Rush, at Philadelphia, and to General Gates, at whose
+quarters I spent a day on my return from Rhode Island; and I suppose
+they will remember it, because the observation seemed to strike them.(1)
+
+     1 The Letter Books of Robert Morris (16 folio volumes, which
+     should be in our national Archives) contain many entries
+     relating to Paine's activity in the public service. Under
+     date Aug. 21, 1783, about the time referred to by Paine in
+     this letter, Robert Morris mentions a conversation with him
+     on public affairs. I am indebted to General Meredith Read,
+     owner of these Morris papers, for permission to examine
+     them.--_Editor._.
+
+But the embarrassments increasing, as they necessarily must from the
+want of a better cemented union, the State of Virginia proposed holding
+a commercial convention, and that convention, which was not sufficiently
+numerous, proposed that another convention, with more extensive and
+better defined powers, should be held at Philadelphia, May 10, 1787.
+
+When the plan of the Federal Government, formed by this Convention, was
+proposed and submitted to the consideration of the several States, it
+was strongly objected to in each of them. But the objections were not on
+anti-federal grounds, but on constitutional points. Many were shocked
+at the idea of placing what is called Executive Power in the hands of a
+single individual. To them it had too much the form and appearance of a
+military government, or a despotic one. Others objected that the
+powers given to a president were too great, and that in the hands of
+an ambitious and designing man it might grow into tyranny, as it did
+in England under Oliver Cromwell, and as it has since done in France.
+A Republic must not only be so in its principles, but in its forms. The
+Executive part of the Federal government was made for a man, and those
+who consented, against their judgment, to place Executive Power in the
+hands of a single individual, reposed more on the supposed moderation of
+the person they had in view, than on the wisdom of the measure itself.
+
+Two considerations, however, overcame all objections. The one was, the
+absolute necessity of a Federal Government. The other, the rational
+reflection, that as government in America is founded on the
+representative system any error in the first essay could be reformed
+by the same quiet and rational process by which the Constitution was
+formed, and that either by the generation then living, or by those who
+were to succeed. If ever America lose sight of this principle, she will
+no longer be the _land of liberty_. The father will become the assassin
+of the rights of the son, and his descendants be a race of slaves.
+
+As many thousands who were minors are grown up to manhood since the name
+of _Federalist_ began, it became necessary, for their information, to
+go back and show the origin of the name, which is now no longer what it
+originally was; but it was the more necessary to do this, in order to
+bring forward, in the open face of day, the apostacy of those who first
+called themselves Federalists.
+
+To them it served as a cloak for treason, a mask for tyranny. Scarcely
+were they placed in the seat of power and office, than Federalism was to
+be destroyed, and the representative system of government, the pride
+and glory of America, and the palladium of her liberties, was to be
+overthrown and abolished. The next generation was not to be free. The
+son was to bend his neck beneath the father's foot, and live, deprived
+of his rights, under hereditary control. Among the men of this apostate
+description, is to be ranked the ex-president _John Adams_. It has been
+the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with
+arrogance, and finish in contempt. May such be the fate of all such
+characters.
+
+I have had doubts of John Adams ever since the year 1776. In a
+conversation with me at that time, concerning the pamphlet _Common
+Sense_, he censured it because it attacked the English form of
+government. John was for independence because he expected to be made
+great by it; but it was not difficult to perceive, for the surliness of
+his temper makes him an awkward hypocrite, that his head was as full of
+kings, queens, and knaves, as a pack of cards. But John has lost deal.
+
+When a man has a concealed project in his brain that he wants to bring
+forward, and fears will not succeed, he begins with it as physicians
+do by suspected poison, try it first on an animal; if it agree with the
+stomach of the animal, he makes further experiments, and this was the
+way John took. His brain was teeming with projects to overturn the
+liberties of America, and the representative system of government, and
+he began by hinting it in little companies. The secretary of John Jay,
+an excellent painter and a poor politician, told me, in presence of
+another American, Daniel Parker, that in a company where himself was
+present, John Adams talked of making the government hereditary, and that
+as Mr. Washington had no children, it should be made hereditary in the
+family of Lund Washington.(1) John had not impudence enough to propose
+himself in the first instance, as the old French Normandy baron did,
+who offered to come over to be king of America, and if Congress did not
+accept his offer, that they would give him thirty thousand pounds for
+the generosity of it(2); but John, like a mole, was grubbing his way to
+it under ground. He knew that Lund Washington was unknown, for nobody
+had heard of him, and that as the president had no children to succeed
+him, the vice-president had, and if the treason had succeeded, and the
+hint with it, the goldsmith might be sent for to take measure of the
+head of John or of his son for a golden wig. In this case, the good
+people of Boston might have for a king the man they have rejected as a
+delegate. The representative system is fatal to ambition.
+
+     1 See supra footnote on p. 288.--_Editor._
+
+     2 See vol. ii. p. 318 of this work.--_Editor._
+
+Knowing, as I do, the consummate vanity of John Adams, and the
+shallowness of his judgment, I can easily picture to myself that when
+he arrived at the Federal City he was strutting in the pomp of his
+imagination before the presidential house, or in the audience hall, and
+exulting in the language of Nebuchadnezzar, "Is not this great Babylon,
+that I have built for the honour of my Majesty!" But in that unfortunate
+hour, or soon after, John, like Nebuchadnezzar, was driven from among
+men, and fled with the speed of a post-horse.
+
+Some of John Adams's loyal subjects, I see, have been to present him
+with an address on his birthday; but the language they use is too tame
+for the occasion. Birthday addresses, like birthday odes, should not
+creep along like mildrops down a cabbage leaf, but roll in a torrent of
+poetical metaphor. I will give them a specimen for the next year. Here
+it is--
+
+When an Ant, in travelling over the globe, lift up its foot, and put it
+again on the ground, it shakes the earth to its centre: but when YOU,
+the mighty Ant of the East, was born, &c. &c. &c, the centre jumped upon
+the surface.
+
+This, gentlemen, is the proper style of addresses from _well-bred_ ants
+to the monarch of the ant hills; and as I never take pay for preaching,
+praying, politics, or poetry, I make you a present of it. Some people
+talk of impeaching John Adams; but I am for softer measures. I would
+keep him to make fun of. He will then answer one of the ends for which
+he was born, and he ought to be thankful that I am arrived to take his
+part. I voted in earnest to save the life of one unfortunate king, and
+I now vote in jest to save another. It is my fate to be always plagued
+with fools. But to return to Federalism and apostacy.
+
+The plan of the leaders of the faction was to overthrow the liberties
+of the new world, and place government on the corrupt system of the old.
+They wanted to hold their power by a more lasting tenure than the choice
+of their constituents. It is impossible to account for their conduct and
+the measures they adopted on any other ground. But to accomplish that
+object, a standing army and a prodigal revenue must be raised; and to
+obtain these, pretences must be invented to deceive. Alarms of dangers
+that did not exist even in imagination, but in the direct spirit of
+lying, were spread abroad. Apostacy stalked through the land in the garb
+of patriotism, and the torch of treason blinded for a while the flame of
+liberty.
+
+For what purpose could an army of twenty-five thousand men be wanted?
+A single reflection might have taught the most credulous that while
+the war raged between France and England, neither could spare a man to
+invade America. For what purpose, then, could it be wanted? The case
+carries its own explanation. It was wanted for the purpose of destroying
+the representative system, for it could be employed for no other. Are
+these men Federalists? If they are, they are federalized to deceive and
+to destroy.
+
+The rage against Dr. Logan's patriotic and voluntary mission to France
+was excited by the shame they felt at the detection of the false alarms
+they had circulated. As to the opposition given by the remnant of
+the faction to the repeal of the taxes laid on during the former
+administration, it is easily accounted for. The repeal of those taxes
+was a sentence of condemnation on those who laid them on, and in the
+opposition they gave in that repeal, they are to be considered in the
+light of criminals standing on their defence, and the country has passed
+judgment upon them.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+City of Washington, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 19, 1802.
+
+
+
+LETTER III.(1)
+
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 29th, 1802.--_Editor._.
+
+To ELECT, and to REJECT, is the prerogative of a free people.
+
+Since the establishment of Independence, no period has arrived that
+so decidedly proves the excellence of the representative system of
+government, and its superiority over every other, as the time we now
+live in. Had America been cursed with John Adams's _hereditary Monarchy_
+or Alexander Hamilton's _Senate for life_ she must have sought, in the
+doubtful contest of civil war, what she now obtains by the expression of
+public will. An appeal to elections decides better than an appeal to the
+sword.
+
+The Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the
+Washington administration, and the whole of that of Adams, is enveloped
+in mystery to me. That there were men in the government hostile to the
+representative system, was once their boast, though it is now their
+overthrow, and therefore the fact is established against them. But that
+so large a mass of the people should become the dupes of those who were
+loading them with taxes in order to load them with chains, and deprive
+them of the right of election, can be ascribed only to that species
+of wildfire rage, lighted up by falsehood, that not only acts without
+reflection, but is too impetuous to make any.
+
+There is a general and striking difference between the genuine effects
+of truth itself, and the effects of falsehood believed to be truth.
+Truth is naturally benign; but falsehood believed to be truth is always
+furious. The former delights in serenity, is mild and persuasive, and
+seeks not the auxiliary aid of invention. The latter sticks at nothing.
+It has naturally no morals. Every lie is welcome that suits its purpose.
+It is the innate character of the thing to act in this manner, and the
+criterion by which it may be known, whether in politics or religion.
+When any thing is attempted to be supported by lying, it is presumptive
+evidence that the thing so supported is a lie also. The stock on which a
+lie can be grafted must be of the same species as the graft.
+
+What is become of the mighty clamour of French invasion, and the cry
+that our country is in danger, and taxes and armies must be raised to
+defend it? The danger is fled with the faction that created it, and what
+is worst of all, the money is fled too. It is I only that have committed
+the hostility of invasion, and all the artillery of popguns are prepared
+for action. Poor fellows, how they foam! They set half their own
+partisans in laughter; for among ridiculous things nothing is more
+ridiculous than ridiculous rage. But I hope they will not leave off. I
+shall lose half my greatness when they cease to lie.
+
+So far as respects myself, I have reason to believe, and a right to say,
+that the leaders of the Reign of Terror in America and the leaders of
+the Reign of Terror in France, during the time of Robespierre, were in
+character the same sort of men; or how is it to be accounted for, that
+I was persecuted by both at the same time? When I was voted out of
+the French Convention, the reason assigned for it was, that I was 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 when he proposed bringing me to the tribunal, which
+was like sending me at once to the scaffold, he then assigned a reason,
+and the reason was, _for the interests of America as well as of France,
+"Pour les intérêts de l'Amérique autant que de la France_" The words are
+in his own hand-writing, and reported to the Convention by the committee
+appointed to examine his papers, and are printed in their report, with
+this reflection added to them, "_Why Thomas Paine more than another?
+Because he contributed to the liberty of both worlds_."(1)
+
+     1 See my "Life of Paine," vol. ii., pp. 79, 81. Also, the
+     historical introduction to XXI., p. 330, of this volume.
+     Robespierre never wrote an idle word. This Paine well knew,
+     as Mirabeau, who said of Robespierre: "That man will go far
+     he believes every word he says."--_Editor._
+
+There must have been a coalition in sentiment, if not in fact, between
+the Terrorists of America and the Terrorists of France, and Robespierre
+must have known it, or he could not have had the idea of putting America
+into the bill of accusation against me. Yet these men, these Terrorists
+of the new world, who were waiting in the devotion of their hearts for
+the joyful news of my destruction, are the same banditti who are now
+bellowing in all the hacknied language of hacknied 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, they cannot eat or drink without me. I serve them
+as a standing dish, and they cannot make up a bill of fare if I am not
+in it.
+
+But there is one dish, and that the choicest of all, that they have not
+presented on the table, and it is time they should. They have not yet
+_accused Providence of Infidelity_. Yet according to their outrageous
+piety, she(1) must be as bad as Thomas Paine; she has protected him in
+all his dangers, patronized him in all his undertakings, encouraged him
+in all his ways, and rewarded him at last by bringing him in safety and
+in health to the Promised Land. This is more than she did by the Jews,
+the chosen people, that they tell us she brought out of the land
+of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; for they all died in the
+wilderness, and Moses too.
+
+I was one of the nine members that composed the first Committee of
+Constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Sièyes and myself have
+survived--he by bending with the times, and I by not bending. The other
+survivor joined Robespierre, he was seized and imprisoned in his turn,
+and sentenced to transportation. He has since apologized to me for
+having signed the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger and was
+obliged to do it.(2)
+
+     1 Is this a "survival" of the goddess Fortuna?--_Editor._
+
+     2 Barère.    His apology to Paine proves that a death-
+     warrant had been issued, for Barère did not sign the order
+     for Paine's arrest or imprisonment.--_Editor._
+
+Hérault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jefferson, and a good patriot,
+was my _suppléant_ as member of the Committee of Constitution, that is,
+he was to supply my place, if I had not accepted or had resigned, being
+next in number of votes to me. He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg with
+me, was taken to the tribunal and the guillotine, and I, his principal,
+was left.
+
+There were two foreigners in the Convention, Anarcharsis Clootz 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 was again left. Joel Barlow
+was with us when we went to prison.
+
+Joseph Lebon, one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and who
+made the streets of Arras run with blood, was my _suppléant_, as member
+of the Convention for the department of the Pas de Calais. When I
+was put out of the Convention he came and took my place. When I was
+liberated from prison and voted again into the Convention, he was sent
+to the same prison and took my place there, and he was sent to the
+guillotine instead of me. He supplied my place all the way through.
+
+One hundred and sixty-eight persons were taken out of the Luxembourg
+in one night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillotined next day, of
+which I now 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 was lodged was on the ground floor, and one of a
+long range of rooms under a gallery, and the door of it opened outward
+and flat against the wall; 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 Vanhuele, of Bruges, since
+President of the Municipality of that town, Michael Rubyns, and Charles
+Bastini of Louvain.
+
+When persons by scores and by hundreds were to be taken out of the
+prison for the guillotine it was always done in the night, and those who
+performed that office had a private mark or signal, by which they knew
+what rooms to go to, and what number to take. We, as I have stated, were
+four, and the door of our room was marked, unobserved by us, with that
+number in chalk; but it happened, if happening is a proper word, that
+the mark was put on when the door was open, and flat against the
+wall, and thereby came on the inside when we shut it at night, and the
+destroying angel passed by it.(1) A few days after this, Robespierre
+fell, and Mr. Monroe arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me to his
+house.
+
+     1 Painefs preface to the "Age of Reason" Part IL, and his
+     Letter to Washington (p. 222.) show that for some time after
+     his release from prison he had attributed his escape from
+     the guillotine to a fever which rendered him unconscious at
+     the time when his accusation was demanded by Robespierre;
+     but it will be seen (XXXI.) that he subsequently visited his
+     prison room-mate Vanhuele, who had become Mayor of Bruges,
+     and he may have learned from him the particulars of their
+     marvellous escape. Carlyle having been criticised by John G.
+     Alger for crediting this story of the chalk mark, an
+     exhaustive discussion of the facts took place in the London
+     Athenoum, July 7, 21, August 25, September 1, 1894, in which
+     it was conclusively proved, I think, that there is no reason
+     to doubt the truth of the incident See also my article on
+     Paine's escape, in The Open Court (Chicago), July 26,1894.
+     The discussion in the Athenoum elicited the fact that a
+     tradition had long existed in the family of Sampson Perry
+     that he had shared Paine's cell and been saved by the
+     curious mistake. Such is not the fact. Perry, in his book on
+     the French Revolution, and in his "Argus," told the story of
+     Paine's escape by his illness, as Paine first told it; and
+     he also relates an anecdote which may find place here:
+     "Mr. Paine speaks gratefully of the kindness shown him by his
+     fellow-prisoners of the same chamber during his severe
+     malady, and especially of the skilful and voluntary
+     assistance lent him by General O'Hara's surgeon. He relates
+     an anecdote of himself which may not be unworthy of
+     repeating. An arrêt of the Committee of Public Welfare had
+     given directions to the administrators of the palace
+     [Luxembourg] to enter all the prisons with additional guards
+     and dispossess every prisoner of his knives, forks, and
+     every other sharp instrument; and also to take their money
+     from them. This happened a short time before Mr. Paine's
+     illness, and as this ceremony was represented to him as an
+     atrocious plunder in the dregs of municipality, he
+     determined to avert its effect so far as it concerned
+     himself. He had an English bank note of some value and gold
+     coin in his pocket, and as he conceived the visitors would
+     rifle them, as well as his trunks (though they did not do so
+     by any one) he took off the lock from his door, and hid the
+     whole of what he had about him in its inside. He recovered
+     his health, he found his money, but missed about three
+     hundred of his associated prisoners, who had been sent in
+     crowds to the murderous tribunal, while he had been
+     insensible of their or his own danger." This was probably
+     the money (£200) loaned by Paine to General O'Hara (who
+     figured at the Yorktown surrender) in prison.--_Editor._
+
+During the whole of my imprisonment, prior to the fall of Robespierre,
+there was no time when I could think my life worth twenty-four hours,
+and my mind was 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 with respect to me. My only hope then rested on the
+government of America, that it would _remember me_. But the icy heart of
+ingratitude, in whatever man it be placed, has neither feeling nor
+sense of honour. The letter of Mr. Jefferson has served to wipe away the
+reproach, and done justice to the mass of the people of America.(1)
+
+     1 Printed in the seventh of this series of Letters.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+When a party was forming, in the latter end of 1777, and beginning of
+1778, of which John Adams was one, to remove Mr. Washington from the
+command of the army on the complaint that _he did nothing_, I wrote the
+fifth number of the Crisis, and published it at Lancaster, (Congress
+then being at Yorktown, in Pennsylvania,) to ward off that meditated
+blow; for though I well knew that the black times of '76 were the
+natural consequence of his want of military judgment in the choice of
+positions into which the army was put about New York and New Jersey, I
+could see no possible advantage, and nothing but mischief, that could
+arise by distracting the army into parties, which would have been the
+case had the intended motion gone on.
+
+General [Charles] Lee, who with a sarcastic genius joined a great fund
+of military knowledge, was perfectly right when he said "_We have no
+business on islands, and in the bottom of bogs, where the enemy, by the
+aid of its ships, can bring its whole force against apart of ours and
+shut it up_." This had like to have been the case at New York, and it
+was the case at Fort Washington, and would have been the case at Fort
+Lee if General [Nathaniel] Greene had not moved instantly off on the
+first news of the enemy's approach. I was with Greene through the whole
+of that affair, and know it perfectly.
+
+But though I came forward in defence of Mr. Washington when he was
+attacked, and made the best that could be made of a series of blunders
+that had nearly ruined the country, he left me to perish when I was in
+prison. But as I told him of it in his life-time, I should not now bring
+it up if the ignorant impertinence of some of the Federal papers, who
+are pushing Mr. Washington forward as their stalking horse, did not make
+it necessary.
+
+That gentleman did not perform his part in the Revolution better, nor
+with more honour, than I did mine, and the one part was as necessary
+as the other. He accepted as a present, (though he was already rich,)
+a hundred thousand acres of land in America, and left me to occupy six
+foot of earth in France.(1) I wish, for his own reputation, he had acted
+with more justice. But it was always known of Mr. Washington, by
+those who best knew him, that he was of such an icy and death-like
+constitution, that he neither loved his friends nor hated his enemies.
+But, be this as it may, I see no reason that a difference between Mr.
+Washington and me should be made a theme of discord with other people.
+There are those who may see merit in both, without making themselves
+partisans of either, and with this reflection I close the subject.
+
+     1 Paine was mistaken, as many others were, about the gifts
+     of Virginia (1785) to Washington. They were 100 shares, of
+     $100 each, in the James River Company, and 50 shares, of
+     £100 each, in the Potomac Company. Washington, accepted on
+     condition that he might appropriate them _to public uses_
+     which was done in his Will.--_Editor._
+
+As to the hypocritical abuse thrown out by the Federalists on other
+subjects, I recommend to them the observance of a commandment that
+existed before either Christian or Jew existed:
+
+     Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses:
+     With thine eye  that it behold no evil,
+     With thine ear, that it hear no evil,
+     With thy tongue, that it speak no evil,
+     With thy hands, that they commit no evil.
+
+If the Federalists will follow this commandment, they will leave off
+lying.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 26,1802.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.(1)
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 6th. 1802.--_Editor._.
+
+As Congress is on the point of meeting, the public papers will
+necessarily be occupied with the debates of the ensuing session, and
+as, in consequence of my long absence from America, my private affairs
+require my attendance, (for it is necessary I do this, or I could not
+preserve, as I do, my independence,) I shall close my address to the
+public with this letter.
+
+I congratulate them on the success of the late elections, and _that_
+with the additional confidence, that while honest men are chosen and
+wise measures pursued, neither the treason of apostacy, masked under the
+name of Federalism, of which I have spoken in my second letter, nor the
+intrigues of foreign emissaries, acting in concert with that mask, can
+prevail.
+
+As to the licentiousness of the papers calling themselves _Federal_, a
+name that apostacy has taken, it can hurt nobody but the party or the
+persons who support such papers. There is naturally a wholesome pride
+in the public mind that revolts at open vulgarity. It feels itself
+dishonoured even by hearing it, as a chaste woman feels dishonour by
+hearing obscenity she cannot avoid. It can smile at wit, or be diverted
+with strokes of satirical humour, but it detests the _blackguard_. The
+same sense of propriety that governs in private companies, governs in
+public life. If a man in company runs his wit upon another, it may draw
+a smile from some persons present, but as soon as he turns a blackguard
+in his language the company gives him up; and it is the same in public
+life. The event of the late election shows this to be true; for in
+proportion as those papers have become more and more vulgar and abusive,
+the elections have gone more and more against the party they support,
+or that supports them. Their predecessor, _Porcupine_ [Cobbett] had
+wit--these scribblers have none. But as soon as his _blackguardism_ (for
+it is the proper name of it) outran his wit, he was abandoned by every
+body but the English Minister who protected him.
+
+The Spanish proverb says, "_there never was a cover large enough to hide
+itself_"; and the proverb applies to the case of those papers and the
+shattered remnant of the faction that supports them. The falsehoods they
+fabricate, and the abuse they circulate, is a cover to hide something
+from being seen, but it is not large enough to hide itself. It is as
+a tub thrown out to the whale to prevent its attacking and sinking the
+vessel. They want to draw the attention of the public from thinking
+about, or inquiring into, the measures of the late administration, and
+the reason why so much public money was raised and expended; and so far
+as a lie today, and a new one tomorrow, will answer this purpose, it
+answers theirs. It is nothing to them whether they be believed or not,
+for if the negative purpose be answered the main point is answered, to
+them.
+
+He that picks your pocket always tries to make you look another way.
+"Look," says he, "at yon man t'other side the street--what a nose he has
+got?--Lord, yonder is a chimney on fire!--Do you see yon man going along
+in the salamander great coat? That is the very man that stole one of
+Jupiter's satellites, and sold it to a countryman for a gold watch,
+and it set his breeches on fire!" Now the man that has his hand in your
+pocket, does not care a farthing whether you believe what he says or
+not. All his aim is to prevent your looking at _him_; and this is the
+case with the remnant of the Federal faction. The leaders of it have
+imposed upon the country, and they want to turn the attention of it from
+the subject.
+
+In taking up any public matter, I have never made it a consideration,
+and never will, whether it be popular or unpopular; but whether it be
+_right_ or _wrong_. The right will always become the popular, if it has
+courage to show itself, and the shortest way is always a straight line.
+I despise expedients, they are the gutter-hole of politics, and the sink
+where reputation dies. In the present case, as in every other, I
+cannot be accused of using any; and I have no doubt but thousands will
+hereafter be ready to say, as Gouverneur Morris said to me, after having
+abused me pretty handsomely in Congress for the opposition I gave
+the fraudulent demand of Silas Deane of two thousand pounds sterling:
+"_Well, we were all duped, and I among the rest!_"(1)
+
+     1 See vol. I., chapters xxii., xxiii., xxiv., of this work.
+     Also my "Life of Paine," vol. I., ch. ix., x.--_Editor._
+
+Were the late administration to be called upon to give reasons for
+the expence it put the country to, it can give none. The danger of an
+invasion was a bubble that served as a cover to raise taxes and armies
+to be employed on some other purpose. But if the people of America
+believed it true, the cheerfulness with which they supported those
+measures and paid those taxes is an evidence of their patriotism; and
+if they supposed me their enemy, though in that supposition they did me
+injustice, it was not injustice in them. He that acts as he believes,
+though he may act wrong, is not conscious of wrong.
+
+But though there was no danger, no thanks are due to the late
+administration for it. They sought to blow up a flame between the two
+countries; and so intent were they upon this, that they went out of
+their way to accomplish it. In a letter which the Secretary of State,
+Timothy Pickering, wrote to Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul at Paris,
+he broke off from the official subject of his letter, to _thank God_ in
+very exulting language, _that the Russians had cut the French army
+to pieces_. Mr. Skipwith, after showing me the letter, very prudently
+concealed it.
+
+It was the injudicious and wicked acrimony of this letter, and some
+other like conduct of the then Secretary of State, that occasioned me,
+in a letter to a friend in the government, to say, that if there was any
+official business to be done in France, till a regular Minister could
+be appointed, it could not be trusted to a more proper person than Mr.
+Skipwith. "_He is_," said I, "_an honest man, and will do business, and
+that with good manners to the government he is commissioned to act with.
+A faculty which that BEAR, Timothy Pickering, wanted, and which the BEAR
+of that bear, John Adams, never possessed_."(2)
+
+     2 By reference to the letter itself (p. 376 of this volume)
+     it will be seen that Paine here quotes it from memory.--
+     _Editor._ vol III--
+
+In another letter to the same friend, in 1797, and which was put
+unsealed under cover to Colonel Burr, I expressed a satisfaction
+that Mr. Jefferson, since he was not president, had accepted the
+vice presidency; "_for_," said I, "_John Adams has such a talent for
+blundering and offending, it will be necessary to keep an eye over
+him_." He has now sufficiently proved, that though I have not the spirit
+of prophecy, I have the gift of _judging right_. And all the world
+knows, for it cannot help knowing, that to judge _rightly_ and to write
+_clearly_, and that upon all sorts of subjects, to be able to command
+thought and as it were to play with it at pleasure, and be always master
+of one's temper in writing, is the faculty only of a serene mind, and
+the attribute of a happy and philosophical temperament. The scribblers,
+who know me not, and who fill their papers with paragraphs about me,
+besides their want of talents, drink too many slings and drams in a
+morning to have any chance with me. But, poor fellows, they must do
+something for the little pittance they get from their employers. This is
+my apology for them.
+
+My anxiety to get back to America was great for many years. It is the
+country of my heart, and the place of my political and literary birth.
+It was the American revolution that 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. By the accounts I received, she appeared to me to be
+going wrong, and that some meditated treason against her liberties
+lurked at the bottom of her government. I heard that my friends were
+oppressed, and I longed to take my stand among them, and if other times
+to _try mens souls_ were to arrive, that I might bear my share. But my
+efforts to return were ineffectual.
+
+As soon as Mr. Monroe had made a good standing with the French
+government, for the conduct of his predecessor [Morris] had made his
+reception as Minister difficult, he wanted to send despatches to his own
+government by a person to whom he could confide a verbal communication,
+and he fixed his choice on 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 known, I was obliged to sustain the disappointment, and Mr.
+Monroe to lose the opportunity.(1)
+
+When that gentleman left France to return to America, I was to have
+gone with him. It was fortunate I did not. The vessel he sailed in was
+visited by a British frigate, that searched every part of it, and down
+to the hold, for Thomas Paine.(2) I then went, the same year, to embark
+at Havre. But several British frigates were cruizing in sight of the
+port who knew I was there, and I had to return again to Paris. Seeing
+myself thus cut off from every opportunity that was in my power to
+command, I wrote to Mr. Jefferson, 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 would give me the opportunity
+of returning by it, which he did. But I declined coming by the
+_Maryland_, the vessel that was offered me, and waited for the frigate
+that was to bring the new Minister, Mr. Chancellor Livingston, to
+France. But that frigate was ordered round to the Mediterranean; and
+as at that time the war was over, and the British cruisers called in,
+I could come any way. I then agreed to come with Commodore Barney in a
+vessel he had engaged. It was again fortunate I did not, for the vessel
+sank at sea, and the people were preserved in the boat.
+
+     1 The correspondence is in my "Life of Paine," vol. ii.,
+     pp. 154-5.--_Editor._
+
+     2 The "Dublin Packet," Captain Clay, in whom Paine, as he
+     wrote to Jefferson, "had  no confidence."--_Editor._
+
+Had half the number of evils befallen me that the number of dangers
+amount to through which I have been pre-served, there are those who
+would ascribe it to the wrath of heaven; why then do they not ascribe
+my preservation to the protecting favour of heaven? Even in my worldly
+concerns I have been blessed. The little property I left in America,
+and which I cared nothing about, not even to receive the rent of it,
+has been increasing in the value of its capital more than eight hundred
+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. I am in every instance a
+living contradiction to the mortified Federalists.
+
+In my publications, I follow the rule I began with in _Common Sense_,
+that is, to consult nobody, nor to let any body see what I write till
+it appears publicly. Were I to do otherwise, the case would be, that
+between 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 world was a world of babies
+in leading strings, I should get forward with nothing. My path is a
+right line, as straight and clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness
+(if they will have it to be so) with which I speak on any subject, is a
+compliment to the judgment of the reader. It is like saying to him,
+_I treat you as a man and not as a child_. With respect to any worldly
+object, as it is impossible to discover 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 happiness of man is at stake, I love
+to work for nothing; and so fully am I under the influence of this
+principle, that I should lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride
+of it, were I conscious that I looked for reward; and with this
+declaration, I take my leave for the present.(1)
+
+     1 The self-assertion of this and other letters about this
+     time was really self-defence, the invective against him, and
+     the calumnies, being such as can hardly be credited by those
+     not familiar with the publications of that time.--_Editor._
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Dec. 3, 1802.
+
+
+
+LETTER V.(1)
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Feb., 1803. In the Tarions
+     collections of these Letters there appears at this point a
+     correspondence between Paine and Samuel Adams of Boston, but
+     as it relates to religious matters I reserve it for the
+     fourth volume.--_Editor._.
+
+It is always the interest of a far greater part of the nation to have
+a thing right than to have it wrong; and therefore, in a country whose
+government is founded on the system of election and representation, the
+fate of every party is decided by its principles.
+
+As this system is the only form and principle of government by which
+liberty can be preserved, and the only one that can embrace all the
+varieties of a great extent of country, it necessarily follows, that to
+have the representation real, the election must be real; and that where
+the election is a fiction, the representation is a fiction also. _Like
+will always produce like_.
+
+A great deal has been said and written concerning the conduct of Mr.
+Burr, during the late contest, in the federal legislature, whether Mr.
+Jefferson or Mr. Burr should be declared President of the United States.
+Mr. Burr has been accused of intriguing to obtain the Presidency.
+Whether this charge be substantiated or not makes little or no part of
+the purport of this letter. There is a point of much higher importance
+to attend to than any thing that relates to the individual Mr. Burr: for
+the great point is not whether Mr. Burr has intrigued, but whether the
+legislature has intrigued with _him_.
+
+Mr. Ogden, a relation of one of the senators of New Jersey of the same
+name, and of the party assuming the style of Federalists, has written
+a letter published in the New York papers, signed with his name, the
+purport of which is to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charges brought
+against him. In this letter he says:
+
+"When about to return from Washington, two or three _members of
+Congress_ of the federal party spoke to me of _their views_, as to the
+election of a president, desiring me to converse with Colonel Burr on
+the subject, and to ascertain _whether he would enter into terms_. On my
+return to New York I called on Colonel Burr, and communicated the above
+to him. He explicitly declined the explanation, and _did neither propose
+nor agree to any terms_."
+
+How nearly is human cunning allied to folly! The animals to whom nature
+has given the faculty we call _cunning_, know always when to use it,
+and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and
+betrays.
+
+Mr. Ogden's letter is intended to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charge
+of intriguing to obtain the presidency; and the letter that he (Ogden)
+writes for this purpose is direct evidence against his party in
+Congress, that they intrigued with Burr to obtain him for President,
+and employed him (Ogden) for the purpose. To save _Aaron_, he betrays
+_Moses_, and then turns informer against the _Golden Calf_.
+
+It is but of little importance to the world to know if Mr. Burr
+_listened_ to an intriguing proposal, but it is of great importance to
+the constituents to know if their representatives in Congress made one.
+The ear can commit no crime, but the tongue may; and therefore the right
+policy is to drop Mr. Burr, as being only the hearer, and direct the
+whole charge against the Federal faction in Congress as the active
+original culprit, or, if the priests will have scripture for it, as the
+serpent that beguiled Eve.
+
+     1 In the presidential canvas of 1800, the votes in the
+     electoral college being equally divided between Burr and
+     Jefferson, the election was thrown into the House of
+     Representatives. Jefferson was elected on the 36th ballot,
+     but he never forgave Burr, and between these two old friends
+     Paine had to write this letter under some embarrassment. The
+     last paragraph of this Letter shows Paine's desire for a
+     reconciliation between Burr and Jefferson. Aaron Burr is one
+     of the traditionally slandered figures of American history.
+     --_Editor._
+
+The plot of the intrigue was to make Mr. Burr President, on the private
+condition of his agreeing to, and entering into, terms with them, that
+is, with the proposers. Had then the election been made, the country,
+knowing nothing of this private and illegal transaction, would have
+supposed, for who could have supposed otherwise, that it had a President
+according to the forms, principles, and intention of the constitution.
+No such thing. Every form, principle, and intention of the constitution
+would have been violated; and instead of a President, it would have had
+a mute, a sort of image, hand-bound and tongue-tied, the dupe and slave
+of a party, placed on the theatre of the United States, and acting the
+farce of President.
+
+It is of little importance, in a constitutional sense, to know what the
+terms to be proposed might be, because any terms other than those which
+the constitution prescribes to a President are criminal. Neither do I
+see how Mr. Burr, or any other person put in the same condition, could
+have taken the oath prescribed by the constitution to a President, which
+is, "_I do solemnly swear (or affirm,) that I will faithfully execute
+the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of
+my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
+States_."
+
+How, I ask, could such a person have taken such an oath, knowing at the
+same time that he had entered into the Presidency on terms unknown
+in the Constitution, and private, and which would deprive him of the
+freedom and power of acting as President of the United States, agreeably
+to his constitutional oath?
+
+Mr. Burr, by not agreeing to terms, has escaped the danger to which
+they exposed him, and the perjury that would have followed, and also
+the punishment annexed thereto. Had he accepted the Presidency on
+terms unknown in the constitution, and private, and had the transaction
+afterwards transpired, (which it most probably would, for roguery is a
+thing difficult to conceal,) it would have produced a sensation in the
+country too violent to be quieted, and too just to be resisted; and in
+any case the election must have been void.
+
+But what are we to think of those members of Congress, who having taken
+an oath of the same constitutional import as the oath of the President,
+violate that oath by tampering to obtain a President on private
+conditions. If this is not sedition against the constitution and the
+country, it is difficult to define what sedition in a representative can
+be.
+
+Say not that this statement of the case is the effect of personal or
+party resentment. No. It is the effect of _sincere concern_ that such
+corruption, of which this is but a sample, should, in the space of a few
+years, have crept into a country that had the fairest opportunity that
+Providence ever gave, within the knowledge of history, of making itself
+an illustrious example to the world.
+
+What the terms were, or were to be, it is probable we never shall know;
+or what is more probable, that feigned ones, if any, will be given. But
+from the conduct of the party since that time we may conclude, that no
+taxes would have been taken off, that the clamour for war would have
+been kept up, new expences incurred, and taxes and offices increased
+in consequence; and, among the articles of a private nature, that
+the leaders in this seditious traffic were to stipulate with the mock
+President for lucrative appointments for themselves.
+
+But if these plotters against the Constitution understood their
+business, and they had been plotting long enough to be masters of it, a
+single article would have comprehended every thing, which is, _That the
+President (thus made) should be governed in all cases whatsoever by a
+private junto appointed by themselves_. They could then, through the
+medium of a mock President, have negatived all bills which their
+party in Congress could not have opposed with success, and reduced
+representation to a nullity.
+
+The country has been imposed upon, and the real culprits are but few;
+and as it is necessary for the peace, harmony, and honour of the Union,
+to separate the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the
+betrayed, that men who once were friends, and that in the worst of
+times, should be friends again, it is necessary, as a beginning, that
+this dark business be brought to full investigation. Ogden's letter
+is direct evidence of the fact of tampering to obtain a conditional
+President. He knows the two or three members of Congress that
+commissioned him, and they know who commissioned them.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Jan. 29th, 1803.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.(1)
+
+     1 The Aurora (Philadelphia).--_Editor._.
+
+Religion and War is the cry of the Federalists; Morality and Peace the
+voice of Republicans. The union of Morality and Peace is congenial;
+but that of Religion and War is a paradox, and the solution of it is
+hypocrisy.
+
+The leaders of the Federalists have no judgment; their plans no
+consistency of parts; and want of consistency is the natural consequence
+of want of principle.
+
+They exhibit to the world the curious spectacle of an _Opposition_
+without a _cause_, and conduct without system. Were they, as doctors,
+to prescribe medicine as they practise politics, they would poison their
+patients with destructive compounds.
+
+There are not two things more opposed to each other than War and
+Religion; and yet, in the double game those leaders have to play, the
+one is necessarily the theme of their politics, and the other the text
+of their sermons. The week-day orator of Mars, and the Sunday preacher
+of Federal Grace, play like gamblers into each other's hands, and this
+they call Religion.
+
+Though hypocrisy can counterfeit every virtue, and become the associate
+of every vice, it requires a great dexterity of craft to give it the
+power of deceiving. A painted sun may glisten, but it cannot warm. For
+hypocrisy to personate virtue successfully it must know and feel what
+virtue is, and as it cannot long do this, it cannot long deceive.
+When an orator foaming for War breathes forth in another sentence a
+_plaintive piety of words_, he may as well write hypocrisy on his front.
+
+The late attempt of the Federal leaders in Congress (for they acted
+without the knowledge of their constituents) to plunge the country into
+War, merits not only reproach but indignation. It was madness, conceived
+in ignorance and acted in wickedness. The head and the heart went
+partners in the crime.
+
+A neglect of punctuality in the performance of a treaty is made
+a _cause_ of war by the _Barbary powers_, and of remonstrance and
+explanation by _civilised powers_. The Mahometans of Barbary negociate
+by the sword--they seize first, and ex-postulate afterwards; and the
+federal leaders have been labouring to _barbarize_ the United States by
+adopting the practice of the Barbary States, and this they call honour.
+Let their honour and their hypocrisy go weep together, for both are
+defeated. Their present Administration is too moral for hypocrites, and
+too economical for public spendthrifts.
+
+A man the least acquainted with diplomatic affairs must know that a
+neglect in punctuality is not one of the legal causes of war, unless
+that neglect be confirmed by a refusal to perform; and even then it
+depends upon circumstances connected with it. The world would be in
+continual quarrels and war, and commerce be annihilated, if Algerine
+policy was the law of nations. And were America, instead of becoming an
+example to the old world of good and moral government and civil manners,
+or, if they like it better, of gentlemanly conduct towards other
+nations, to set up the character of ruffian, that of _word and blow, and
+the blow first_, and thereby give the example of pulling down the little
+that civilization has gained upon barbarism, her Independence, instead
+of being an honour and a blessing, would become a curse upon the world
+and upon herself.
+
+The conduct of the Barbary powers, though unjust in principle, is suited
+to their prejudices, situation, and circumstances. The crusades of the
+church to exterminate them fixed in their minds the unobliterated belief
+that every Christian power was their mortal enemy. Their religious
+prejudices, therefore, suggest the policy, which their situation and
+circumstances protect them in. As a people, they are neither commercial
+nor agricultural, they neither import nor export, have no property
+floating on the seas, nor ships and cargoes in the ports of foreign
+nations. No retaliation, therefore, can be acted upon them, and they sin
+secure from punishment.
+
+But this is not the case with the United States. If she sins as a
+Barbary power, she must answer for it as a Civilized one. Her commerce
+is continually passing on the seas exposed to capture, and her ships
+and cargoes in foreign ports to detention and reprisal. An act of War
+committed by her in the Mississippi would produce a War against the
+commerce of the Atlantic States, and the latter would have to curse the
+policy that provoked the former. In every point, therefore, in which the
+character and interest of the United States be considered, it would
+ill become her to set an example contrary to the policy and custom of
+Civilized powers, and practised only by the Barbary powers, that of
+striking before she expostulates.
+
+But can any man, calling himself a Legislator, and supposed by his
+constituents to know something of his duty, be so ignorant as to imagine
+that seizing on New Orleans would finish the affair or even contribute
+towards it? On the contrary it would have made it worse. The treaty
+right of deposite at New Orleans, and the right of the navigation of the
+Mississippi into the Gulph of Mexico, are distant things. New Orleans is
+more than an hundred miles in the country from the mouth of the river,
+and, as a place of deposite, is of no value if the mouth of the river be
+shut, which either France or Spain could do, and which our possession
+of New Orleans could neither prevent or remove. New Orleans in our
+possession, by an act of hostility, would have become a blockaded
+port, and consequently of no value to the western people as a place of
+deposite. Since, therefore, an interruption had arisen to the commerce
+of the western states, and until the matter could be brought to a fair
+explanation, it was of less injury to have the port shut and the river
+open, than to have the river shut and the port in our possession.
+
+That New Orleans could be taken required no stretch of policy to plan,
+nor spirit of enterprize to effect. It was like marching behind a man to
+knock him down: and the dastardly slyness of such an attack would have
+stained the fame of the United States. Where there is no danger cowards
+are bold, and Captain Bobadils are to be found in the Senate as well
+as on the stage. Even _Gouverneur_, on such a march, dare have shown a
+leg.(1)
+
+     1 Gouverneur Morris being now leader of the belligerent
+     faction in Congress, Paine could not resist the temptation
+     to allude to a well-known incident (related in his Diary and
+     Letters, i., p. 14). A mob in Paris having surrounded his
+     fine carriage, crying "Aristocrat!" Morris showed his
+     wooden leg, declaring he had lost his leg in the cause of
+     American liberty. Morris was never in any fight, his leg
+     being lost by a commonplace accident while driving in
+     Philadelphia. Although Paine's allusion may appear in bad
+     taste, even with this reference, it was politeness itself
+     compared with the brutal abuse which Morris (not content
+     with imprisoning Paine in Paris) and his adherents were
+     heaping on the author on his return to America; also on
+     Monroe, whom Jefferson had returned to France to negotiate
+     for the purchase of Louisiana.--_Editor._,
+
+The people of the western country to whom the Mississippi serves as
+an inland sea to their commerce, must be supposed to understand the
+circumstances of that commerce better than a man who is a stranger to
+it; and as they have shown no approbation of the war-whoop measures of
+the Federal senators, it becomes presumptive evidence they disapprove
+them. This is a new mortification for those war-whoop politicians; for
+the case is, that finding themselves losing ground and withering away in
+the Atlantic States, they laid hold of the affair of New Orleans in the
+vain hope of rooting and reinforcing themselves in the western States;
+and they did this without perceiving that it was one of those ill judged
+hypocritical expedients in politics, that whether it succeeded or failed
+the event would be the same. Had their motion [that of Ross and Morris]
+succeeded, it would have endangered the commerce of the Atlantic States
+and ruined their reputation there; and on the other hand the attempt
+to make a tool of the western people was so badly concealed as to
+extinguish all credit with them.
+
+But hypocrisy is a vice of sanguine constitution. It flatters and
+promises itself every thing; and it has yet to learn, with respect to
+moral and political reputation, it is less dangerous to offend than to
+deceive.
+
+To the measures of administration, supported by the firmness and
+integrity of the majority in Congress, the United States owe, as far as
+human means are concerned, the preservation of peace, and of national
+honour. The confidence which the western people reposed in the
+government and their representatives is rewarded with success. They are
+reinstated in their rights with the least possible loss of time; and
+their harmony with the people of New Orleans, so necessary to the
+prosperity of the United States, which would have been broken, and the
+seeds of discord sown in its place, had hostilities been preferred to
+accommodation, remains unimpaired. Have the Federal ministers of the
+church meditated on these matters? and laying aside, as they ought to
+do, their electioneering and vindictive prayers and sermons, returned
+thanks that peace is preserved, and commerce, without the stain of
+blood?
+
+In the pleasing contemplation of this state of things the mind, by
+comparison, carries itself back to those days of uproar and extravagance
+that marked the career of the former administration, and decides, by
+the unstudied impulse of its own feelings, that something must then have
+been wrong. Why was it, that America, formed for happiness, and remote
+by situation and circumstances from the troubles and tumults of the
+European world, became plunged into its vortex and contaminated with its
+crimes? The answer is easy. Those who were then at the head of affairs
+were apostates from the principles of the revolution. Raised to an
+elevation they had not a right to expect, nor judgment to conduct,
+they became like feathers in the air, and blown about by every puff of
+passion or conceit.
+
+Candour would find some apology for their conduct if want of judgment
+was their only defect. But error and crime, though often alike in their
+features, are distant in their characters and in their origin. The one
+has its source in the weakness of the head, the other in the hardness
+of the heart, and the coalition of the two, describes the former
+Administration.(1)
+
+     1 That of John Adams.--_Editor._
+
+Had no injurious consequences arisen from the conduct of that
+Administration, it might have passed for error or imbecility, and
+been permitted to die and be forgotten. The grave is kind to innocent
+offence. But even innocence, when it is a cause of injury, ought to
+undergo an enquiry.
+
+The country, during the time of the former Administration, was kept in
+continual agitation and alarm; and that no investigation might be made
+into its conduct, it entrenched itself within a magic circle of terror,
+and called it a SEDITION LAW.(1) Violent and mysterious in its measures
+and arrogant in its manners, it affected to disdain information, and
+insulted the principles that raised it from obscurity. John Adams and
+Timothy Pickering were men whom nothing but the accidents of the times
+rendered visible on the political horizon. Elevation turned their heads,
+and public indignation hath cast them to the ground. But an inquiry
+into the conduct and measures of that Administration is nevertheless
+necessary.
+
+The country was put to great expense. Loans, taxes, and standing armies
+became the standing order of the day. The militia, said Secretary
+Pickering, are not to be depended upon, and fifty thousand men must be
+raised. For what? No cause to justify such measures has yet appeared. No
+discovery of such a cause has yet been made. The pretended Sedition Law
+shut up the sources of investigation, and the precipitate flight of John
+Adams closed the scene. But the matter ought not to sleep here.
+
+It is not to gratify resentment, or encourage it in others, that I enter
+upon this subject. It is not in the power of man to accuse me of a
+persecuting spirit. But some explanation ought to be had. The motives
+and objects respecting the extraordinary and expensive measures of the
+former Administration ought to be known. The Sedition Law, that shield
+of the moment, prevented it then, and justice demands it now. If the
+public have been imposed upon, it is proper they should know it; for
+where judgment is to act, or a choice is to be made, knowledge is first
+necessary. The conciliation of parties, if it does not grow out of
+explanation, partakes of the character of collusion or indifference.
+
+     1 Passed July 14, 1798, to continue until March 3, 1801.
+     This Act, described near the close of this Letter, and one
+     passed June 35th, giving the President despotic powers over
+     aliens in the United States, constituted the famous "Alien
+     and Sedition Laws." Hamilton opposed them, and rightly saw
+     in them the suicide of the Federal party.--_Editor._,
+
+There has been guilt somewhere; and it is better to fix it where
+it belongs, and separate the deceiver from the deceived, than that
+suspicion, the bane of society, should range at large, and sour the
+public mind. The military measures that were proposed and carrying on
+during the former administration, could not have for their object the
+defence of the country against invasion. This is a case that decides
+itself; for it is self evident, that while the war raged in Europe,
+neither France nor England could spare a man to send to America. The
+object, therefore, must be something at home, and that something was the
+overthrow of the representative system of government, for it could be
+nothing else. But the plotters got into confusion and became enemies to
+each other. Adams hated and was jealous of Hamilton, and Hamilton hated
+and despised both Adams and Washington.(1) Surly Timothy stood aloof, as
+he did at the affair of Lexington, and the part that fell to the public
+was to pay the expense.(2)
+
+     1 Hamilton's bitter pamphlet against Adams appeared in 1800,
+     but his old quarrel with Washington (1781) had apparently
+     healed. Yet, despite the favors lavished by Washington on
+     Hamilton, there is no certainty that the latter ever changed
+     his unfavorable opinion of the former, as expressed in a
+     letter to General Schuylor, Feb. 18, 1781 (Lodge's
+     "Hamilton's Works," vol. viii., p. 35).--_Editor._
+
+     2 Colonel Pickering's failure, in 1775, to march his Salem
+     troops in time to intercept the British retreat from
+     Lexington was attributed to his half-heartedness
+     in the patriotic cause.--_Editor._
+
+But ought a people who, but a few years ago, were fighting the battles
+of the world, for liberty had no home but here, ought such a people
+to stand quietly by and see that liberty undermined by apostacy
+and overthrown by intrigue? Let the tombs of the slain recall their
+recollection, and the forethought of what their children are to be
+revive and fix in their hearts the love of liberty.
+
+If the former administration can justify its conduct, give it the
+opportunity. The manner in which John Adams disappeared from the
+government renders an inquiry the more necessary. He gave some account
+of himself, lame and confused as it was, to certain _eastern wise men_
+who came to pay homage to him on his birthday. But if he thought it
+necessary to do this, ought he not to have rendered an account to
+the public. They had a right to expect it of him. In that tête-à-tête
+account, he says, "Some measures were the effect of imperious necessity,
+much against my inclination." What measures does Mr. Adams mean, and
+what is the imperious necessity to which he alludes? "Others (says he)
+were measures of the Legislature, which, although approved when passed,
+were never previously proposed or recommended by me." What measures,
+it may be asked, were those, for the public have a right to know the
+conduct of their representatives? "Some (says he) left to my discretion
+were never executed, because no necessity for them, in my judgment, ever
+occurred."
+
+What does this dark apology, mixed with accusation, amount to, but
+to increase and confirm the suspicion that something was wrong?
+Administration only was possessed of foreign official information,
+and it was only upon that information communicated by him publicly or
+privately, or to Congress, that Congress could act; and it is not in
+the power of Mr. Adams to show, from the condition of the belligerent
+powers, that any imperious necessity called for the warlike and
+expensive measures of his Administration.
+
+What the correspondence between Administration and Rufus King in London,
+or Quincy Adams in Holland, or Berlin, might be, is but little known.
+The public papers have told us that the former became cup-bearer from
+the London underwriters to Captain Truxtun,(1) for which, as Minister
+from a neutral nation, he ought to have been censured. It is, however,
+a feature that marks the politics of the Minister, and hints at the
+character of the correspondence.
+
+     1 Thomas Truxtun (1755-1822), for having captured the French
+     frigate "L'Insurgente," off Hen's Island, 1799, was
+     presented at Lloyd's coffee-house with plate to the value of
+     600 guineas. Rufus King (1755-1827), made Minister to England
+     in 1796, continued under Adams, and for two years under
+     Jefferson's administration.--_Editor._
+
+I know that it is the opinion of several members of both houses of
+Congress, that an enquiry, with respect to the conduct of the late
+Administration, ought to be gone into. The convulsed state into which
+the country has been thrown will be best settled by a full and fair
+exposition of the conduct of that Administration, and the causes and
+object of that conduct. To be deceived, or to remain deceived, can be
+the interest of no man who seeks the public good; and it is the deceiver
+only, or one interested in the deception, that can wish to preclude
+enquiry.
+
+The suspicion against the late Administration is, that it was plotting
+to overturn the representative system of government, and that it spread
+alarms of invasions that had no foundation, as a pretence for raising
+and establishing a military force as the means of accomplishing that
+object.
+
+The law, called the Sedition Law, enacted, that if any person should
+write or publish, or cause to be written or published, any libel
+[without defining what a libel is] against the Government of the United
+States, or either house of congress, or against the President, he
+should be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by
+imprisonment not exceeding two years.
+
+But it is a much greater crime for a president to plot against a
+Constitution and the liberties of the people, than for an individual to
+plot against a President; and consequently, John Adams is accountable to
+the public for his conduct, as the individuals under his administration
+were to the sedition law.
+
+The object, however, of an enquiry, in this case, is not to punish, but
+to satisfy; and to shew, by example, to future administrations, that an
+abuse of power and trust, however disguised by appearances, or rendered
+plausible by pretence, is one time or other to be accounted for.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+BORDENTOWN, ON THE DELAWARE,
+
+New Jersey, March 12, 1803. vol. III--27
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+     EDITOR'S PREFACE.
+
+     This letter was printed in _The True American_, Trenton, New
+     Jersey, soon after Paine's return to his old home at
+     Bordenton. It is here printed from the original manuscript,
+     for which I am indebted to Mr. W. F. Havemeyer of New York.
+     Although the Editor has concluded to present Paine's
+     "Maritime Compact" in the form he finally gave it, the
+     articles were printed in French in 1800, and by S. H. Smith,
+     Washington, at the close of the same year. There is an
+     interesting history connected with it. John Hall, in his
+     diary ("Trenton, 20 April, 1787") relates that Paine told
+     him of Dr. Franklin, whom he (Paine) had just visited in
+     Philadelphia,  and the Treaty he, the Doctor, made with the
+     late King of Prussia by adding an article that, should war
+     ever break out, Commerce should be free. The Doctor said he
+     showed it to Vergennes, who said it met his idea, and was
+     such as he would make even with England. In his Address to
+     the People of France, 1797 (see p. 366), Paine closes with a
+     suggestion on the subject, and a year later (September 30,
+     1798), when events were in a critical condition, he sent
+     nine articles of his proposed _Pacte Maritime_ to
+     Talleyrand, newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. The
+     letters that passed are here taken from the originals (State
+     Archives, Paris, États Unis, vol. 48).
+
+
+"Rue Theatre française, No. 4, 9 Vendemaire, 6 year.
+
+"Citizen Minister: I promised you some observations on the state of
+things between France and America. I divide the case into two parts.
+First, with respect to some Method that shall effectually put an end to
+all interruptions of the American Commerce. Secondly, with respect to
+the settlement for the captures that have been made on that Commerce.
+
+"As to the first case (the interruption of the American Commerce
+by France) it has foundation in the British Treaty, and it is the
+continuance of that treaty that renders the remedy difficult. Besides,
+the American administration has blundered so much in the business of
+treaty-making, that it is probable it will blunder again in making
+another with France. There is, however, one method left, and there is
+but one that I can see, that will be effectual. It is a _non-importation
+Convention; that America agrees not to import from any Nation in Europe
+who shall interrupt her Commerce on the seas, any goods, wares, or
+merchandize whatever, and that all her ports shall be shut against
+the Nation that gives the offence_. This will draw America out of her
+difficulties with respect to her treaty with England.
+
+"But it will be far better if this non-importation convention were to
+be a general convention of Nations acting as a Whole. It would give a
+better protection to Neutral Commerce than the armed neutrality could
+do. I would rather be a Neutral Nation under the protection of such a
+Convention, which costs nothing to make it, than be under the protection
+of a navy equal to that of Great Britain. France should be the patron of
+such a Convention and sign it. It would be giving both her consent and
+her protection to the Rights of Neutral Nations. If England refuse to
+sign it she will nevertheless be obliged to respect it, or lose all her
+Commerce.
+
+"I enclose you a plan I drew up about four months ago, when there was
+expectation that Mr. Madison would come to France. It has lain by me
+ever since.
+
+"The second part, that of settlement for the captures, I will make the
+subject of a future correspondence. Salut et respect."
+
+
+Talleyrand's Reply ("Foreign Relations, 15 Vendemaire An. 6," Oct.
+6, 1797): "I have the honor to return you, Citizen, with very sincere
+thanks, your Letter to General Washington which you have had the
+goodness to show me.
+
+"I have received the letter which you have taken the trouble to write
+me, the 9th of this month. I need not assure you of the appreciation
+with which I shall receive the further indications you promise on the
+means of terminating in a durable manner the differences which must
+excite your interest as a patriot and as a Republican. Animated by
+such a principle your ideas cannot fail to throw valuable light on the
+discussion you open, and which should have for its object to reunite the
+two Republics in whose alienation the enemies of liberty triumph."
+
+Paine's plan made a good impression in France--He writes to Jefferson,
+October 6, 1800, that the Consul Le Brun, at an entertainment given to
+the American envoys, gave for his toast: "À l'union de 1' Amérique avec
+les Puissances du Nord pour faire respecter la liberté des mers."
+
+The malignant mind, like the jaundiced eye, sees everything through a
+false medium of its own creating. The light of heaven appears stained
+with yellow to the distempered sight of the one, and the fairest actions
+have the form of crimes in the venomed imagination of the other.
+
+For seven months, both before and after my return to America in October
+last, the apostate papers styling themselves "Federal" were filled with
+paragraphs and Essays respecting a letter from Mr. Jefferson to me at
+Paris; and though none of them knew the contents of the letter, nor the
+occasion of writing it, malignity taught them to suppose it, and the
+lying tongue of injustice lent them its aid.
+
+That the public may no longer be imposed upon by Federal apostacy, I
+will now publish the Letter, and the occasion of its being written.
+
+The Treaty negociated in England by John Jay, and ratified by the
+Washington Administration, had so disgracefully surrendered the right
+and freedom of the American flag, that all the Commerce of the
+United States on the Ocean became exposed to capture, and suffered in
+consequence of it. The duration of the Treaty was limited to two years
+after the war; and consequently America could not, during that period,
+relieve herself from the Chains which the Treaty had fixed upon her.
+This being the case, the only relief that could come must arise out of
+something originating in Europe, that would, in its consequences, extend
+to America. It had long been my opinion that Commerce contained within
+itself the means of its own protection; but as the time for bringing
+forward any new system is not always happening, it is necessary to watch
+its approach, and lay hold of it before it passes away.
+
+As soon as the late Emperor Paul of Russia abandoned his coalition with
+England and become a Neutral Power, this Crisis of time, and also of
+circumstances, was then arriving; and I employed it in arranging a plan
+for the protection of the Commerce of Neutral Nations during War,
+that might, in its operation and consequences, relieve the Commerce of
+America. The Plan, with the pieces accompanying it, consisted of
+about forty pages. The Citizen Bonneville, with whom I lived in Paris,
+translated it into French; Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul, Joel
+Barlow, and myself, had the translation printed and distributed as
+a present to the Foreign Ministers of all the Neutral Nations then
+resident in Paris. This was in the summer of 1800.
+
+It was entitled Maritime Compact (in French _Pacte Maritime_), The plan,
+exclusive of the pieces that accompanied it, consisted of the following
+Preamble and Articles.
+
+
+MARITIME COMPACT.
+
+Being an Unarmed Association of Nations for the protection of the Rights
+and Commerce of Nations that shall be neutral in time of War.
+
+Whereas, the Vexations and Injuries to which the Rights and Commerce of
+Neutral Nations have been, and continue to be, exposed during the time
+of maritime War, render it necessary to establish a law of Nations for
+the purpose of putting an end to such vexations and Injuries, and to
+guarantee to the Neutral Nations the exercise of their just Rights,
+
+We, therefore, the undersigned Powers, form ourselves into an
+Association, and establish the following as a Law of Nations on the
+Seas.
+
+ARTICLE THE FIRST. Definition of the Rights of neutral Nations.
+
+The Rights of Nations, such as are exercised by them in their
+intercourse with each other in time of Peace, are, and of right ought to
+be, the Rights of Neutral Nations at all times; because,
+
+First, those Rights not having been abandoned by them, remain with them.
+
+Secondly, because those Rights cannot become forfeited or void, in
+consequence of War breaking out between two or more other Nations.
+
+A War of Nation against Nation being exclusively the act of the Nations
+that make the War, and not the act of the Neutral Nations, cannot,
+whether considered in itself or in its consequences, destroy or diminish
+the Rights of the Nations remaining in Peace.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE SECOND.
+
+The Ships and Vessels of Nations that rest neuter and at Peace with the
+World during a War with other Nations, have a Right to navigate freely
+on the Seas as they navigated before that War broke out, and to proceed
+to and enter the Port or Ports of any of the Belligerent Powers, _with
+the consent of that Power_, without being seized, searched, visited, or
+any ways interrupted, by the Nation or Nations with which that Nation is
+at War.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE THIRD.
+
+For the Conservation of the aforesaid Rights, We, the undersigned
+Powers, engaging to each other our Sacred Faith and Honour, declare,
+
+That if any Belligerent Power shall seize, search, visit, or any ways
+interrupt any Ship or Vessel belonging to the Citizens or Subjects of
+any of the Powers composing this Association, then each and all of the
+said undersigned Powers will cease to import, and will not permit to
+be imported into the Ports or Dominions of any of the said undersigned
+Powers, in any Ship or Vessel whatever, any Goods, wares, or
+Merchandize, produced or manufactured in, or exported from, the
+Dominions of the Power so offending against the Association hereby
+established and Proclaimed.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE FOURTH.
+
+That all the Ports appertaining to any and all of the Powers composing
+this Association shall be shut against the Flag of the offending Nation.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE FIFTH.
+
+That no remittance or payment in Money, Merchandize, or Bills of
+Exchange, shall be made by any of the Citizens, or Subjects, of any of
+the Powers composing this Association, to the Citizens or Subjects of
+the offending Nation, for the Term of one year, or until reparation
+be made. The reparation to be ---- times the amount of the damages
+sustained.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE SIXTH.
+
+If any Ship or Vessel appertaining to any of the Citizens or Subjects of
+any of the Powers composing this Association shall be seized, searched,
+visited, or interrupted, by any Belligerent Nation, or be forcibly
+prevented entering the Port of her destination, or be seized, searched,
+visited, or interrupted, in coming out of such Port, or be forcibly
+prevented from proceeding to any new destination, or be insulted or
+visited by any Agent from on board any Vessel of any Belligerent Power,
+the Government or Executive Power of the Nation to which the Ship or
+Vessel so seized, searched, visited, or interrupted belongs, shall, on
+evidence of the fact, make public Proclamation of the same, and send
+a Copy thereof to the Government, or Executive, of each of the Powers
+composing this Association, who shall publish the same in all the extent
+of his Dominions, together with a Declaration, that at the expiration
+of ---- days after publication, the penal articles of this Association
+shall be put in execution against the offending Nation.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE SEVENTH.
+
+If reparation be not made within the space of one year, the said
+Proclamation shall be renewed for one year more, and so on.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE EIGHTH.
+
+The Association chooses for itself a Flag to be carried at the Mast-head
+conjointly with the National Flag of each Nation composing this
+Association.
+
+The Flag of the Association shall be composed of the same colors as
+compose the Rainbow, and arranged in the same order as they appear in
+that Phenomenon.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE NINTH.
+
+And whereas, it may happen that one or more of the Nations composing
+this Association may be, at the time of forming it, engaged in War or
+become so in future, in that case, the Ships and Vessels of such Nation
+shall carry the Flag of the Association bound round the Mast, to denote
+that the Nation to which she belongs is a Member of the Association and
+a respecter of its Laws.
+
+N. B. This distinction in the manner of carrying the Flag is mearly for
+the purpose, that Neutral Vessels having the Flag at the Mast-head, may
+be known at first sight.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE TENTH.
+
+And whereas, it is contrary to the moral principles of Neutrality and
+Peace, that any Neutral Nation should furnish to the Belligerent Powers,
+or any of them, the means of carrying on War against each other, We,
+therefore, the Powers composing this Association, Declare, that we
+will each one for itself, prohibit in our Dominions the exportation or
+transportation of military stores, comprehending gunpowder, cannon, and
+cannon-balls, fire arms of all kinds, and all kinds of iron and steel
+weapons used in War. Excluding therefrom all kinds of Utensils and
+Instruments used in civil or domestic life, and every other article that
+cannot, in its immediate state, be employed in War.
+
+Having thus declared the moral Motives of the foregoing Article, We
+declare also the civil and political Intention thereof, to wit,
+
+That as Belligerent Nations have no right to visit or search any Ship or
+Vessel belonging to a Nation at Peace, and under the protection of
+the Laws and Government thereof, and as all such visit or search is an
+insult to the Nation to which such Ship or Vessel belongs and to
+the Government of the same, We, therefore, the Powers composing this
+Association, will take the right of prohibition on ourselves to whom it
+properly belongs, and by whom only it can be legally exercised, and
+not permit foreign Nations, in a state of War, to usurp the right of
+legislating by Proclamation for any of the Citizens or Subjects of the
+Powers composing this Association.
+
+It is, therefore, in order to take away all pretence of search or visit,
+which by being offensive might become a new cause of War, that we will
+provide Laws and publish them by Proclamation, each in his own Dominion,
+to prohibit the supplying, or carrying to, the Belligerent Powers,
+or either of them, the military stores or articles before mentioned,
+annexing thereto a penalty to be levied or inflicted upon any persons
+within our several Dominions transgressing the same. And we invite all
+Persons, as well of the Belligerent Nations as of our own, or of
+any other, to give information of any knowledge they may have of
+any transgressions against the said Law, that the offenders may be
+prosecuted.
+
+By this conduct we restore the word Contraband (_contra_ and _ban_) to
+its true and original signification, which means against Law, edict, or
+Proclamation; and none but the Government of a Nation can have, or can
+exercise, the right of making Laws, edicts, or Proclamations, for the
+conduct of its Citizens or Subjects.
+
+Now We, the undersigned Powers, declare the aforesaid Articles to be a
+Law of Nations at all times, or until a Congress of Nations shall meet
+to form some Law more effectual.
+
+And we do recommend that immediately on the breaking out of War between
+any two or more Nations, that Deputies be appointed by all Neutral
+Nations, whether members of this Association or not, to meet in Congress
+in some central place to take cognizance of any violations of the Rights
+of Neutral Nations.
+
+Signed, &c.
+
+
+For the purpose of giving operation to the aforesaid plan of an _unarmed
+Association_, the following Paragraph was subjoined:
+
+It may be judged proper for the order of Business, that the Association
+of Nations have a President for a term of years, and the Presidency to
+pass by rotation, to each of the parties composing the Association.
+
+In that case, and for the sake of regularity, the first President to
+be the Executive power of the most northerly Nation composing the
+Association, and his deputy or Minister at the Congress to be President
+of the Congress,--and the next most northerly to be Vice-president, who
+shall succeed to the Presidency, and so on. The line determining the
+Geographical situation of each, to be the latitude of the Capital of
+each Nation.
+
+If this method be adopted it will be proper that the first President
+be nominally constituted in order to give rotation to the rest. In that
+case the following Article might be added to the foregoing, viz't. The
+Constitution of the Association nominates the Emperor Paul to be _first
+President_ of the Association of Nations for the protection of Neutral
+Commerce, and securing the freedom of the Seas.
+
+
+The foregoing plan, as I have before mentioned, was presented to the
+Ministers of all the Neutral Nations then in Paris, in the summer of
+1800. Six Copies were given to the Russian General Springporten; and a
+Russian Gentleman who was going to Petersburgh took two expressly for
+the purpose of putting them into the hands of Paul I sent the original
+manuscript, in my own handwriting, to Mr. Jefferson, and also wrote him
+four Letters, dated the 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th of October, 1800, giving
+him an account of what was then going on in Europe respecting Neutral
+Commerce.
+
+The Case was, that in order to compel the English Government to
+acknowledge the rights of Neutral Commerce, and that free Ships make
+free Goods, the _Emperor Paul_, in the month of September following the
+publication of the plan, shut all the Ports of Russia against England.
+Sweden and Denmark did the same by their Ports, and Denmark shut up
+Hamburgh. Prussia shut up the Elbe and the Weser. The ports of Spain,
+Portugal, and Naples were shut up, and, in general, all the ports of
+Italy, except Venice, which the Emperor of Germany held; and had it not
+been for the untimely death of Paul, a _Law of Nations_, founded on the
+authority of Nations, for establishing the rights of Neutral Commerce
+and the freedom of the Seas, would have been proclaimed, and the
+Government of England must have consented to that Law, or the Nation
+must have lost its Commerce; and the consequence to America would have
+been, that such a Law would, in a great measure if not entirely, have
+released her from the injuries of Jay's Treaty.
+
+Of all these matters I informed Mr. Jefferson. This was before he was
+President, and the Letter he wrote me after he was President was in
+answer to those I had written to him and the manuscript Copy of the plan
+I had sent here. Here follows the Letter:
+
+
+Washington, March 18, 1801. Dear Sir:
+
+Your letters of Oct. 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th, came duly to hand, and the
+papers which they covered were, according to your permission, published
+in the Newspapers, and in a Pamphlet, and under your own name. These
+papers contain precisely our principles, and I hope they will be
+generally recognized here. _Determined as we are to avoid, if possible,
+wasting the energies of our People in war and destruction, we shall
+avoid implicating ourselves with the Powers of Europe, even in support
+of principles which we mean to pursue. They have so many other Interests
+different from ours that we must avoid being entangled in them. We
+believe we can enforce those principles as to ourselves by Peaceable
+means, now that we are likely to have our Public Councils detached from
+foreign views. The return of our citizens from the phrenzy into which
+they had been wrought, partly by ill conduct in France, partly by
+artifices practiced upon them, is almost extinct, and will, I believe,
+become quite so_, But these details, too minute and long for a Letter,
+will be better developed by Mr. Dawson, the Bearer of this, a Member of
+the late Congress, to whom I refer you for them. He goes in the Maryland
+Sloop of War, which will wait a few days at Havre to receive his Letters
+to be written on his arrival at Paris. You expressed a wish to get a
+passage to this Country in a Public Vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with
+orders to the Captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you
+back if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. Rob't R.
+Livingston is appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of
+France, but will not leave this, till we receive the ratification of
+the Convention by Mr. Dawson. I am in hopes you will find us returned
+generally to sentiments worthy of former times. In these it will be
+your glory to have steadily laboured and with as much effect as any man
+living. That you may long live to continue your useful Labours and to
+reap the reward in the thankfulness of Nations is my sincere prayer.
+Accept assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.
+
+Thomas Jefferson.
+
+
+This, Citizens of the United States, is the Letter about which the
+leaders and tools of the Federal faction, without knowing its contents
+or the occasion of writing it, have wasted so many malignant falsehoods.
+It is a Letter which, on account of its wise economy and peaceable
+principles, and its forbearance to reproach, will be read by every good
+Man and every good Citizen with pleasure; and the faction, mortified at
+its appearance, will have to regret they forced it into publication. The
+least atonement they can now offer is to make the Letter as public as
+they have made their own infamy, and learn to lie no more.
+
+The same injustice they shewed to Mr. Jefferson they shewed to me. I
+had employed myself in Europe, and at my own expense, in forming and
+promoting a plan that would, in its operation, have benefited the
+Commerce of America; and the faction here invented and circulated an
+account in the papers they employ, that I had given a plan to the French
+for burning all the towns on the Coast from Savannah to Baltimore. Were
+I to prosecute them for this (and I do not promise that I will not, for
+the Liberty of the Press is not the liberty of lying,) there is not a
+federal judge, not even one of Midnight appointment, but must, from the
+nature of the case, be obliged to condemn them. The faction, however,
+cannot complain they have been restrained in any thing. They have had
+their full swing of lying uncontradicted; they have availed themselves,
+unopposed, of all the arts Hypocrisy could devise; and the event has
+been, what in all such cases it ever will and ought to be, _the ruin of
+themselves_.
+
+The Characters of the late and of the present Administrations are now
+sufficiently marked, and the adherents of each keep up the distinction.
+The former Administration rendered itself notorious by outrage,
+coxcombical parade, false alarms, a continued increase of taxes, and an
+unceasing clamor for War; and as every vice has a virtue opposed to
+it, the present Administration moves on the direct contrary line.
+The question, therefore, at elections is not properly a question upon
+Persons, but upon principles. Those who are for Peace, moderate taxes,
+and mild Government, will vote for the Administration that conducts
+itself by those principles, in whatever hands that Administration may
+be.
+
+There are in the United States, and particularly in the middle States,
+several religious Sects, whose leading moral principle is PEACE. It is,
+therefore, impossible that such Persons, consistently with the dictates
+of that principle, can vote for an Administration that is clamorous
+for War. When moral principles, rather than Persons, are candidates for
+Power, to vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect
+a duty.
+
+That persons who are hunting after places, offices, and contracts,
+should be advocates for War, taxes, and extravagance, is not to be
+wondered at; but that so large a portion of the People who had nothing
+to depend upon but their Industry, and no other public prospect but that
+of paying taxes, and bearing the burden, should be advocates for the
+same measures, is a thoughtlessness not easily accounted for. But reason
+is recovering her empire, and the fog of delusion is clearing away.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+BORDENTOWN, ON THE DELAWARE,
+
+New Jersey, April 21, 1803.(1)
+
+
+     1 Endorsed: "Sent by Gen. Bloomfield per Mr. Wilson for Mr.
+     Duane." And, in a later hand: "Paine Letter 6. Found among
+     the Bartram Papers sent by Col. Carr."--Editor.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV. TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA.(1)
+
+     1 In a letter to Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury
+     (Oct 14, 1804), John Randolph of Roanoke proposed "the
+     printing of -- thousand copies of Tom Paine's answer to
+     their remonstrance, and transmitting them by as many
+     thousand troops, who can speak a language perfectly
+     intelligible to the people of Louisiana, whatever that of
+     their government may be," The purchase of Louisiana was
+     announced to the Senate by President Jefferson, October 17,
+     1803.--Editor.
+
+A publication having the appearance of a memorial and remonstrance, to
+be presented to Congress at the ensuing session, has appeared in several
+papers. It is therefore open to examination, and I offer you my remarks
+upon it. The title and introductory paragraph are as follows:
+
+"_To the Congress of the United States in the Senate and House of
+Representatives convened_: We the subscribers, planters, merchants, and
+other inhabitants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the legislature
+of the United States with a memorial of _our rights_, a remonstrance
+against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for
+that redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive
+stipulations, have entitled us."
+
+It often happens that when one party, or one that thinks itself a party,
+talks much about its rights, it puts those of the other party upon
+examining into their own, and such is the effect produced by your
+memorial.
+
+A single reading of that memorial will show it is the work of some
+person who is not of your people. His acquaintance with the cause,
+commencement, progress, and termination of the American revolution,
+decides this point; and his making our merits in that revolution the
+ground of your claims, as if our merits could become yours, show she
+does not understand your situation.
+
+We obtained our rights by calmly understanding principles, and by the
+successful event of a long, obstinate, and expensive war. But it is
+not incumbent on us to fight the battles of the world for the world's
+profit. You are already participating, without any merit or expense in
+obtaining it, the blessings of freedom acquired by ourselves; and in
+proportion as you become initiated into the principles and practice of
+the representative system of government, of which you have yet had no
+experience, you will participate more, and finally be partakers of the
+whole. You see what mischief ensued in France by the possession of power
+before they understood principles. They earned liberty in words, but
+not in fact. The writer of this was in France through the whole of
+the revolution, and knows the truth of what he speaks; for after
+endeavouring to give it principle, he had nearly fallen a victim to its
+rage.
+
+There is a great want of judgment in the person who drew up your
+memorial. He has mistaken your case, and forgotten his own; and by
+trying to court your applause has injured your pretensions. He has
+written like a lawyer, straining every point that would please his
+client, without studying his advantage. I find no fault with the
+composition of the memorial, for it is well written; nor with the
+principles of liberty it contains, considered in the abstract. The error
+lies in the misapplication of them, and in assuming a ground they have
+not a right to stand upon. Instead of their serving you as a ground of
+reclamation against us, they change into a satire on yourselves. Why
+did you not speak thus when you ought to have spoken it? We fought for
+liberty when you stood quiet in slavery.
+
+The author of the memorial injudiciously confounding two distinct
+cases together, has spoken as if he was the memorialist of a body of
+Americans, who, after sharing equally with us in all the dangers and
+hardships of the revolutionary war, had retired to a distance and made
+a settlement for themselves. If, in such a situation, Congress had
+established a temporary government over them, in which they were not
+personally consulted, they would have had a right to speak as the
+memorial speaks. But your situation is different from what the situation
+of such persons would be, and therefore their ground of reclamation
+cannot of right become yours. You are arriving at freedom by the easiest
+means that any people ever enjoyed it; without contest, without expense,
+and even without any contrivance of your own. And you already so far
+mistake principles, that under the name of _rights_ you ask for _powers;
+power to import and enslave Africans_; and _to govern_ a territory that
+_we have purchased_.
+
+To give colour to your memorial, you refer to the treaty of cession, (in
+which _you were not_ one of the contracting parties,) concluded at Paris
+between the governments of the United States and France.
+
+"The third article" you say "of the treaty lately concluded at
+Paris declares, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be
+incorporated in the union of the United States, and admitted _as soon as
+possible, according to the principles_ of the Federal Constitution, to
+the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens
+of the United States; and _in the mean time_, they shall be protected
+in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the
+religion they profess."
+
+As from your former condition, you cannot be much acquainted with
+diplomatic policy, and I am convinced that even the gentleman who
+drew up the memorial is not, I will explain to you the grounds of this
+article. It may prevent your running into further errors.
+
+The territory of Louisiana had been so often ceded to different European
+powers, that it became a necessary article on the part of France,
+and for the security of Spain, the ally of France, and which accorded
+perfectly with our own principles and intentions, that it should be
+_ceded no more_; and this article, stipulating for the incorporation of
+Louisiana into the union of the United States, stands as a bar against
+all future cession, and at the same time, as well as "_in the mean
+time_" secures to you a civil and political permanency, personal
+security and liberty which you never enjoyed before.
+
+France and Spain might suspect, (and the suspicion would not have been
+ill-founded had the cession been treated for in the administration of
+John Adams, or when Washington was president, and Alexander Hamilton
+president over him,) that we _bought_ Louisiana for the British
+government, or with a view of selling it to her; and though such
+suspicion had no just ground to stand upon with respect to our present
+president, Thomas Jefferson, who is not only not a man of intrigue but
+who possesses that honest pride of principle that cannot be intrigued
+with, and which keeps intriguers at a distance, the article was
+nevertheless necessary as a precaution against future contingencies.
+But you, from not knowing the political ground of the article, apply
+to yourselves _personally_ and _exclusively_, what had reference to the
+_territory_, to prevent its falling into the hands of any foreign
+power that might endanger the [establishment of] _Spanish_ dominion in
+America, or those of the _French_ in the West India Islands.
+
+You claim, (you say), to be incorporated into the union of the United
+States, and your remonstrances on this subject are unjust and without
+cause.
+
+You are already _incorporated_ into it as fully and effectually as the
+Americans themselves are, who are settled in Louisiana. You enjoy the
+same rights, privileges, advantages, and immunities, which they
+enjoy; and when Louisiana, or some part of it, shall be erected into a
+constitutional State, you also will be citizens equal with them.
+
+You speak in your memorial, as if you were the only people who were
+to live in Louisiana, and as if the territory was purchased that
+you exclusively might govern it. In both these cases you are greatly
+mistaken. The emigrations from the United States into the purchased
+territory, and the population arising therefrom, will, in a few years,
+exceed you in numbers. It is but twenty-six years since Kentucky
+began to be settled, and it already contains more than _double_ your
+population.
+
+In a candid view of the case, you ask for what would be injurious to
+yourselves to receive, and unjust in us to grant. _Injurious_, because
+the settlement of Louisiana will go on much faster under the government
+and guardianship of Congress, then if the government of it were
+committed to _your_ hands; and consequently, the landed property
+you possessed as individuals when the treaty was concluded, or have
+purchased since, will increase so much faster in value.--_Unjust to
+ourselves_, because as the reimbursements of the purchase money must
+come out of the sale of the lands to new settlers, the government of it
+cannot suddenly go out of the hands of Congress. They are guardians of
+that property for _all the people of the United States_. And besides
+this, as the new settlers will be chiefly from the United States, it
+would be unjust and ill policy to put them and their property under the
+jurisdiction of a people whose freedom they had contributed to purchase.
+You ought also to recollect, that the French Revolution has not
+exhibited to the world that grand display of principles and rights, that
+would induce settlers from other countries to put themselves under a
+French jurisdiction in Louisiana. Beware of intriguers who may push you
+on from private motives of their own.
+
+You complain of two cases, one of which you have _no right_, no concern
+with; and the other is founded in direct injustice.
+
+You complain that Congress has passed a law to divide the country
+into two territories. It is not improper to inform you, that after the
+revolutionary war ended, Congress divided the territory acquired by
+that war into ten territories; each of which was to be erected into a
+constitutional State, when it arrived at a certain population mentioned
+in the Act; and, in the mean time, an officer appointed by the
+President, as the Governor of Louisiana now is, presided, as Governor
+of the Western Territory, over all such parts as have not arrived at
+the maturity of _statehood_. Louisiana will require to be divided
+into twelve States or more; but this is a matter that belongs to _the
+purchaser_ of the territory of Louisiana, and with which the inhabitants
+of the town of New-Orleans have no right to interfere; and beside this,
+it is probable that the inhabitants of the other territory would choose
+to be independent of New-Orleans. They might apprehend, that on some
+speculating pretence, their produce might be put in requisition, and a
+maximum price put on it--a thing not uncommon in a French government.
+As a general rule, without refining upon sentiment, one may put
+confidence in the justice of those who have no inducement to do us
+injustice; and this is the case Congress stands in with respect to both
+territories, and to all other divisions that may be laid out, and to all
+inhabitants and settlers, of whatever nation they may be.
+
+There can be no such thing as what the memorial speaks of, that is, _of
+a Governor appointed by the President who may have no interest in the
+welfare of Louisiana_. He must, from the nature of the case, have more
+interest in it than any other person can have. He is entrusted with the
+care of an extensive tract of country, now the property of the United
+States by purchase. The value of those lands will depend on the
+increasing prosperity of Louisiana, its agriculture, commerce, and
+population. You have only a local and partial interest in the town of
+New-Orleans, or its vicinity; and if, in consequence of exploring the
+country, new seats of commerce should offer, his general interest would
+lead him to open them, and your partial interest to shut them up.
+
+There is probably some justice in your remark, as it applies to the
+governments under which you _formerly_ lived. Such governments
+always look with jealousy, and an apprehension of revolt, on colonies
+increasing in prosperity and population, and they send governors to
+_keep them down_. But when you argue from the conduct of governments
+_distant and despotic_, to that of _domestic_ and _free_ government, it
+shows you do not understand the principles and interest of a Republic,
+and to put you right is friendship. We have had experience, and you have
+not.
+
+The other case to which I alluded, as being founded in direct injustice,
+is that in which you petition for _power_, under the name of _rights_,
+to import and enslave Africans!
+
+_Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing
+to be struck from the earth by its justice?_
+
+_Why, then, do you ask it of man against man?_
+
+_Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo?_
+
+
+Common Sense.
+
+Sept 22, 1804.
+
+
+END OF VOLUME III.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume
+III., by Thomas Paine
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diff --git a/31271-8.zip b/31271-8.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      The Writings of Thomas Paine, Volume III by Thomas Paine
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre     { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III., by
+Thomas Paine
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III.
+       1791-1804
+
+Author: Thomas Paine
+
+Editor: Moncure Daniel Conway
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2010 [EBook #31271]
+Last Updated: November 15, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Thomas Paine
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Edited By Moncure Daniel Conway
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      VOLUME III.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      1791-1804
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      <br /><br /> G. P. Putnam's Sons <br /><br /> New York London <br /><br />
+      Copyright, 1895 <br /><br /> By G. P. Putnam's Sons <br />
+    </h4>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img alt="titlepage (29K)" src="images/titlepage.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD VOLUME. </a><br /><br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE REPUBLICAN PROCLAMATION
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO THE AUTHORS
+        OF "LE RÉPUBLICAIN." <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
+        THE ABBÉ SIÈYES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
+        THE ATTORNEY GENERAL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
+        MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LETTERS
+        TO ONSLOW CRANLEY <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
+        THE SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX, <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0009">
+        VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0010"> IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE
+        ADDRESSERS ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0011">
+        X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0012"> XI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ANTI-MONARCHAL ESSAY FOR THE
+        USE OF NEW REPUBLICANS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO
+        THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, ON THE PROSECUTION AGAINST THE SECOND PART <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ON THE PROPRIETY OF
+        BRINGING LOUIS XVI. TO TRIAL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> XIV.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp; REASONS FOR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF LOUIS CAPET, <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SHALL LOUIS XVI. HAVE
+        RESPITE? <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;DECLARATION
+        OF RIGHTS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRIVATE
+        LETTERS TO JEFFERSON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> XVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LETTER
+        TO DANTON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        CITIZEN OF AMERICA TO THE CITIZENS OF EUROPE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0021"> XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;APPEAL TO THE CONVENTION
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0022"> XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE MEMORIAL
+        TO MONROE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0023"> XXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;LETTER
+        TO GEORGE WASHINGTON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> XXIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OBSERVATIONS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0025"> XXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;DISSERTATION
+        ON FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0026">
+        XXV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE CONSTITUTION OF 1795 <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0027"> XXVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE
+        ENGLISH SYSTEM OF FINANCE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0028"> XXVII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;FORGETFULNESS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0029">
+        XXVIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;AGRARIAN JUSTICE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0030"> XXIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0031"> XXX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE RECALL OF
+        MONROE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0032"> XXXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PRIVATE
+        LETTER TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0033">
+        XXXII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;PROPOSAL THAT LOUISIANA BE PURCHASED <br /><br />
+        <a href="#link2H_4_0034"> XXXIII.&nbsp;&nbsp; </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THOMAS
+        PAINE TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0035"> XXXIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS
+        OF LOUISIANA <br /><br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD VOLUME.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      WITH HISTORICAL NOTES AND DOCUMENTS.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In a letter of Lafayette to Washington ("Paris, 12 Jan., 1790") he writes:
+      "<i>Common Sense</i> is writing for you a brochure where you will see a
+      part of my adventures." It thus appears that the narrative embodied in the
+      reply to Burke ("Rights of Man," Part I.), dedicated to Washington, was
+      begun with Lafayette's collaboration fourteen months before its
+      publication (March 13, 1791).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In another letter of Lafayette to Washington (March 17, 1790) he writes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To Mr. Paine, who leaves for London, I entrust the care of sending you my
+      news.... Permit me, my dear General, to offer you a picture representing
+      the Bastille as it was some days after I gave the order for its
+      demolition. I also pay you the homage of sending you the principal Key of
+      that fortress of despotism. It is a tribute I owe as a son to my adoptive
+      father, as aide-de-camp to my General, as a missionary of liberty to his
+      Patriarch."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Key was entrusted to Paine, and by him to J. Rut-ledge, Jr., who
+      sailed from London in May. I have found in the manuscript despatches of
+      Louis Otto, Chargé d' Affaires, several amusing paragraphs, addressed to
+      his govern-ment at Paris, about this Key.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "August 4, 1790. In attending yesterday the public audience of the
+      President, I was surprised by a question from the Chief Magistrate,
+      'whether I would like to see the Key of the Bastille?' One of his
+      secretaries showed me at the same moment a large Key, which had been sent
+      to the President by desire of the Marquis de la Fayette. I dissembled my
+      surprise in observing to the President that 'the time had not yet come in
+      America to do ironwork equal to that before him.' The Americans present
+      looked at the key with indifference, and as if wondering why it had been
+      sent But the serene face of the President showed that he regarded it as an
+      homage from the French nation." "December 13, 1790. The Key of the
+      Bastille, regularly shown at the President's audiences, is now also on
+      exhibition in Mrs. Washington's <i>salon</i>, where it satisfies the
+      curiosity of the Philadelphians. I am persuaded, Monseigneur, that it is
+      only their vanity that finds pleasure in the exhibition of this trophy,
+      but Frenchmen here are not the less piqued, and many will not enter the
+      President's house on this account."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In sending the key Paine, who saw farther than these distant Frenchmen,
+      wrote to Washington: "That the principles of America opened the Bastille
+      is not to be doubted, and therefore the Key comes to the right place."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in May, 1791 (the exact date is not given), Lafayette writes
+      Washington: "I send you the rather indifferent translation of Mr. Paine as
+      a kind of preservative and to keep me near you." This was a hasty
+      translation of "Rights of Man," Part I., by F. Soûles, presently
+      superseded by that of Lanthenas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first convert of Paine to pure republicanism in France was Achille
+      Duchâtelet, son of the Duke, and grandson of the authoress,&mdash;the
+      friend of Voltaire. It was he and Paine who, after the flight of Louis
+      XVI., placarded Paris with the Proclamation of a Republic, given as the
+      first chapter of this volume. An account of this incident is here quoted
+      from Etienne Dumont's "Recollections of Mirabeau":
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The celebrated Paine was at this time in Paris, and intimate in
+      Condorcet's family. Thinking that he had effected the American Revolution,
+      he fancied himself called upon to bring about one in France. Duchâtelet
+      called on me, and after a little preface placed in my hand an English
+      manuscript&mdash;a Proclamation to the French People. It was nothing less
+      than an anti-royalist Manifesto, and summoned the nation to seize the
+      opportunity and establish a Republic. Paine was its author. Duchâtelet had
+      adopted and was resolved to sign, placard the walls of Paris with it, and
+      take the consequences. He had come to request me to translate and develop
+      it. I began discussing the strange proposal, and pointed out the danger of
+      raising a republican standard without concurrence of the National
+      Assembly, and nothing being as yet known of the king's intentions,
+      resources, alliances, and possibilities of support by the army, and in the
+      provinces. I asked if he had consulted any of the most influential
+      leaders,&mdash;Sieves, Lafayette, etc. He had not: he and Paine had acted
+      alone. An American and an impulsive nobleman had put themselves forward to
+      change the whole governmental system of France. Resisting his entreaties,
+      I refused to translate the Proclamation. Next day the republican
+      Proclamation appeared on the walls in every part of Paris, and was
+      denounced to the Assembly. The idea of a Republic had previously presented
+      itself to no one: this first intimation filled with consternation the
+      Right and the moderates of the Left. Malouet, Cazales, and others proposed
+      prosecution of the author, but Chapelier, and a numerous party, fearing to
+      add fuel to the fire instead of extinguishing it, prevented this. But some
+      of the seed sown by the audacious hand of Paine were now budding in
+      leading minds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Republican Club was formed in July, consisting of five members, the
+      others who joined themselves to Paine and Duchâtelet being Condorcet, and
+      probably Lanthenas (translator of Paine's works), and Nicolas de
+      Bonneville. They advanced so far as to print "Le Républicain," of which,
+      however, only one number ever appeared. From it is taken the second piece
+      in this volume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in the year 1792 Paine lodged in the house and book-shop of Thomas
+      "Clio" Rickman, now as then 7 Upper Marylebone Street. Among his friends
+      was the mystical artist and poet, William Blake. Paine had become to him a
+      transcendental type; he is one of the Seven who appear in Blake's
+      "Prophecy" concerning America (1793):
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  "The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent
+  Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore;
+  Piercing the souls of warlike men, who rise in silent night:&mdash;
+  Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Warren, Gates, Hancock, and Greene,
+  Meet on the coast glowing with blood from Albion's fiery Prince."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Seven are wrapt in the flames of their enthusiasm. Albion's Prince
+      sends to America his thirteen Angels, who, however, there become Governors
+      of the thirteen States. It is difficult to discover from Blake's mystical
+      visions how much political radicalism was in him, but he certainly saved
+      Paine from the scaffold by forewarning him (September 13, 1792) that an
+      order had been issued for his arrest. Without repeating the story told in
+      Gilchrist's "Life of Blake," and in my "Life of Paine," I may add here my
+      belief that Paine also appears in one of Blake's pictures. The picture is
+      in the National Gallery (London), and called "The spiritual form of Pitt
+      guiding Behemoth." The monster jaws of Behemoth are full of struggling
+      men, some of whom stretch imploring hands to another spiritual form, who
+      reaches down from a crescent moon in the sky, as if to rescue them. This
+      face and form appear to me certainly meant for Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Acting on Blake's warning Paine's friends got him off to Dover, where,
+      after some trouble, related in a letter to Dundas (see p. 41 of this
+      volume), he reached Calais. He had been elected by four departments to the
+      National Convention, and selected Calais, where he was welcomed with grand
+      civic parades. On September 19, 1792, he arrived in Paris, stopping at
+      "White's Hotel," 7 Passage des Pétits Pères, about five minutes' walk from
+      the Salle de Manége, where, on September 21st, the National Convention
+      opened its sessions. The spot is now indicated by a tablet on the wall of
+      the Tuileries Garden, Rue de Rivoli. On that day Paine was introduced to
+      the Convention by the Abbé Grégoire, and received with acclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French Minister in London, Chauvelin, had sent to his government
+      (still royalist) a despatch unfavorable to Paine's work in England, part
+      of which I translate:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "May 23, 1792. An Association [for Parliamentary Reform, see pp. 78, 93,
+      of this volume] has been formed to seek the means of forwarding the
+      demand. It includes some distinguished members of the Commons, and a few
+      peers. The writings of M. Payne which preceded this Association by a few
+      days have done it infinite harm. People suspect under the veil of a reform
+      long demanded by justice and reason an intention to destroy a constitution
+      equally dear to the peers whose privileges it consecrates, to the wealthy
+      whom it protects, and to the entire nation, to which it assures all the
+      liberty desired by a people methodical and slow in character, and who,
+      absorbed in their commercial interests, do not like being perpetually
+      worried about the imbecile George III. or public affairs. Vainly have the
+      friends of reform protested their attachment to the Constitution. Vainly
+      they declare that they desire to demand nothing, to obtain nothing, save
+      in lawful ways. They are persistently disbelieved. Payne alone is seen in
+      all their movements; and this author has not, like Mackintosh, rendered
+      imposing his refutation of Burke. The members of the Association, although
+      very different in principles, find themselves involved in the now almost
+      general disgrace of Payne."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Noël writes from London, November 2, 1792, to the republican Minister,
+      Le Brun, concerning the approaching trial of Paine, which had been fixed
+      for December 18th.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "This matter above all excites the liveliest interest. People desire to
+      know whether they live in a free country, where criticism even of
+      government is a right of every citizen. Whatever may be the decision in
+      this interesting trial, the result can only be fortunate for the cause of
+      liberty. But the government cannot conceal from itself that it is
+      suspended over a volcano. The wild dissipations of the King's sons add to
+      the discontent, and if something is overlooked in the Prince of Wales, who
+      is loved enough, it is not so with the Duke of York, who has few friends.
+      The latter has so many debts that at this moment the receivers are in his
+      house, and the creditors wish even his bed to be seized. You perceive,
+      Citizen, what a text fruitful in reflexions this conduct presents to a
+      people groaning under the weight of taxes for the support of such whelps (<i>louvetaux</i>)."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Under date of December 22, 1792, M. Noël writes:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "London is perfectly tranquil. The arbitrary measures taken by the
+      government in advance [of Paine's trial] cause no anxiety to the mass of
+      the nation about its liberties. Some dear-headed people see well that the
+      royal prerogative will gain in this crisis, and that it is dangerous to
+      leave executive power to become arbitrary at pleasure; but this very small
+      number groan in silence, and dare not speak for fear of seeing their
+      property pillaged or burned by what the miserable hirelings of government
+      call 'Loyal Mob,' or 'Church and King Mob.' To the 'Addressers,' of whom I
+      wrote you, are added the associations for maintaining the Constitution
+      they are doing all they can to destroy. There is no corporation, no
+      parish, which is not mustered for this object. All have assembled, one on
+      the other, to press against those whom they call 'The Republicans and the
+      Levellers,' the most inquisitorial measures. Among other parishes, one (S.
+      James' Vestry Room) distinguishes itself by a decree worthy of the
+      sixteenth century. It promises twenty guineas reward to any one who shall
+      denounce those who in conversation or otherwise propagate opinions
+      contrary to the public tranquillity, and places the denouncer under
+      protection of the parish. The inhabitants of London are now placed under a
+      new kind of <i>Test</i>, and those who refuse it will undoubtedly be
+      persecuted. Meantime these papers are carried from house to house to be
+      signed, especially by those lodging as strangers. This <i>Test</i> causes
+      murmurs, and some try to evade signature, but the number is few. The
+      example of the capital is generally followed. The trial of Payne, which at
+      one time seemed likely to cause events, has ended in the most peaceful
+      way. Erskine has been borne to his house by people shouting <i>God Save
+      the King! Erskine forever!</i> The friends of liberty generally are much
+      dissatisfied with the way in which he has defended his client. They find
+      that he threw himself into commonplaces which could make his eloquence
+      shine, but guarded himself well from going to the bottom of the question.
+      Vane especially, a distinguished advocate and zealous democrat, is furious
+      against Erskine. It is now for Payne to defend himself. But whatever he
+      does, he will have trouble enough to reverse the opinion. The Jury's
+      verdict is generally applauded: a mortal blow is dealt to freedom of
+      thought. People sing in the streets, even at midnight, <i>God save the
+      King and damn Tom Payne!</i>" (1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The despatches from which these translations are made are
+     in the Archives of the Department of State at Paris, series
+     marked <i>Angleterre</i> vol. 581.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The student of that period will find some instruction in a collection, now
+      in the British Museum, of coins and medals mostly struck after the trial
+      and outlawry of Paine. A halfpenny, January 21,1793: <i>obverse</i>, a man
+      hanging on a gibbet, with church in the distance; motto "End of Pain"; <i>reverse</i>,
+      open book inscribed "The Wrongs of Man." A token: bust of Paine, with his
+      name; <i>reverse</i>, "The Mountain in Labour, 1793." Farthing: Paine
+      gibbeted; <i>reverse</i>, breeches burning, legend, "Pandora's breeches";
+      beneath, serpent decapitated by a dagger, the severed head that of Paine.
+      Similar farthing, but <i>reverse</i>, combustibles intermixed with labels
+      issuing from a globe marked "Fraternity"; the labels inscribed "Regicide,"
+      "Robbery," "Falsity," "Requisition"; legend, "French Reforms, 1797"; near
+      by, a church with flag, on it a cross. Half-penny without date, but no
+      doubt struck in 1794, when a rumor reached London that Paine had been
+      guillotined: Paine gibbeted; above, devil smoking a pipe; <i>reverse</i>,
+      monkey dancing; legend, "We dance, Paine swings." Farthing: three men
+      hanging on a gallows; "The three Thomases, 1796." <i>Reverse</i>, "May the
+      three knaves of Jacobin Clubs never get a trick." The three Thomases were
+      Thomas Paine, Thomas Muir, and Thomas Spence. In 1794 Spence was
+      imprisoned seven months for publishing some of Paine's works at his
+      so-called "Hive of Liberty." Muir, a Scotch lawyer, was banished to Botany
+      Bay for fourteen years for having got up in Edinburgh (1792) a
+      "Convention," in imitation of that just opened in Paris; two years later
+      he escaped from Botany Bay on an American ship, and found his way to Paine
+      in Paris. Among these coins there are two of opposite character. A
+      farthing represents Pitt on a gibbet, against which rests a ladder;
+      inscription, "End of P [here an eye] T." <i>Reverse</i>, face of Pitt
+      conjoined with that of the devil, and legend, "Even Fellows." Another
+      farthing like the last, except an added legend, "Such is the reward of
+      tyrants, 1796." These anti-Pitt farthings were struck by Thomas Spence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the winter of 1792-3 the only Reign of Terror was in England. The
+      Ministry had replied to Paine's "Rights of Man" by a royal proclamation
+      against seditious literature, surrounding London with militia, and calling
+      a meeting of Parliament (December, 1792) out of season. Even before the
+      trial of Paine his case was prejudged by the royal proclamation, and by
+      the Addresses got up throughout the country in response,&mdash;documents
+      which elicited Paine's Address to the Addressers, chapter IX. in this
+      volume. The Tory gentry employed roughs to burn Paine in effigy throughout
+      the country, and to harry the Nonconformists. Dr. Priestley's house was
+      gutted. Mr. Fox (December 14, 1792) reminded the House of Commons that all
+      the mobs had "Church and King" for their watchword, no mob having been
+      heard of for "The Rights of Man"; and he vainly appealed to the government
+      to prosecute the dangerous libels against Dissenters as they were
+      prosecuting Paine's work. Burke, who in the extra session of Parliament
+      for the first time took his seat on the Treasury Bench, was reminded that
+      he had once "exulted at the victories of that rebel Washington," and
+      welcomed Franklin. "Franklin," he said, "was a native of America; Paine
+      was born in England, and lived under the protection of our laws; but,
+      instigated by his evil genius, he conspired against the very country which
+      gave him birth, by attempting to introduce the new and pernicious
+      doctrines of republicans."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the course of the same harangue, Burke alluded to the English and Irish
+      deputations, then in Paris, which had congratulated the Convention on the
+      defeat of the invaders of the Republic. Among them he named Lord Semphill,
+      John Frost, D. Adams, and "Joel&mdash;Joel the Prophet" (Joel Barlow).
+      These men were among those who, towards the close of 1792, formed a sort
+      of Paine Club at "Philadelphia House"&mdash;as White's Hotel was now
+      called. The men gathered around Paine, as the exponent of republican
+      principles, were animated by a passion for liberty which withheld no
+      sacrifice. Some of them threw away wealth and rank as trifles. At a
+      banquet of the Club, at Philadelphia House, November 18, 1792, where Paine
+      presided, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Sir Robert Smyth, Baronet, formally
+      renounced their titles. Sir Robert proposed the toast, "A speedy abolition
+      of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions." Another toast was,
+      "Paine&mdash;and the new way of making good books known by a Royal
+      proclamation and a King's Bench prosecution."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was also Franklin's friend, Benjamin Vaughan, Member of Parliament,
+      who, compromised by an intercepted letter, took refuge in Paris under the
+      name of Jean Martin. Other Englishmen were Rev. Jeremiah Joyce, a
+      Unitarian minister and author (coadjutor of Dr. Gregory in his
+      "Cyclopaedia "); Henry Redhead Yorke, a West Indian with some negro blood
+      (afterwards an agent of Pitt, under whom he had been imprisoned); Robert
+      Merry, husband of the actress "Miss Brunton"; Sayer, Rayment, Macdonald,
+      Perry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sampson Perry of London, having attacked the government in his journal,
+      "The Argus," fled from an indictment, and reached Paris in January, 1793.
+      These men, who for a time formed at Philadelphia House their Parliament of
+      Man, were dashed by swift storms on their several rocks. Sir Robert Smyth
+      was long a prisoner under the Reign of Terror, and died (1802) of the
+      illness thereby contracted. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was slain while trying
+      to kindle a revolution in Ireland. Perry was a prisoner in the Luxembourg,
+      and afterwards in London. John Frost, a lawyer (struck off the roll),
+      ventured back to London, where he was imprisoned six months in Newgate,
+      sitting in the pillory at Charing Cross one hour per day. Robert Merry
+      went to Baltimore, where he died in 1798. Nearly all of these men suffered
+      griefs known only to the "man without a country."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sampson Perry, who in 1796 published an interesting "History of the French
+      Revolution," has left an account of his visit to Paine in January, 1793:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I breakfasted with Paine about this time at the Philadelphia Hotel, and
+      asked him which province in America he conceived the best calculated for a
+      fugitive to settle in, and, as it were, to begin the world with no other
+      means or pretensions than common sense and common honesty. Whether he saw
+      the occasion and felt the tendency of this question I know not; but he
+      turned it aside by the political news of the day, and added that he was
+      going to dine with Petion, the mayor, and that he knew I should be welcome
+      and be entertained. We went to the mayoralty in a hackney coach, and were
+      seated at a table about which were placed the following persons: Petion,
+      the mayor of Paris, with his female relation who did the honour of the
+      table; Dumourier, the commander-in-chief of the French forces, and one of
+      his aides-de-camp; Santerre, the commandant of the armed force of Paris,
+      and an aide-de-camp; Condorcet; Brissot; Gaudet; Genson-net; Danton;
+      Rersaint; Clavière; Vergniaud; and Syèyes; which, with three other
+      persons, whose names I do not now recollect, and including Paine and
+      myself, made in all nineteen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine found warm welcome in the home of Achille Du-châtelet, who with him
+      had first proclaimed the Republic, and was now a General. Madame
+      Duchâtelet was an English lady of rank, Charlotte Comyn, and English was
+      fluently spoken in the family. They resided at Auteuil, not far from the
+      Abbé Moulet, who preserved an arm-chair with the inscription, <i>Benjamin
+      Franklin hic sedebat</i>, Paine was a guest of the Duchâtelets soon after
+      he got to work in the Convention, as I have just discovered by a letter
+      addressed "To Citizen Le Brun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Auteuil, Friday, the 4th December, 1792. I enclose an Irish newspaper
+      which has been sent me from Belfast. It contains the Address of the
+      Society of United Irishmen of Dublin (of which Society I am a member) to
+      the volunteers of Ireland. None of the English newspapers that I have seen
+      have ventured to republish this Address, and as there is no other copy of
+      it than this which I send you, I request you not to let it go out of your
+      possession. Before I received this newspaper I had drawn up a statement of
+      the affairs of Ireland, which I had communicated to my friend General
+      Duchâtelet at Auteuil, where I now am. I wish to confer with you on that
+      subject, but as I do not speak French, and as the matter requires
+      confidence, General Duchâtelet has desired me to say that if you can make
+      it convenient to dine with him and me at Auteuil, he will with pleasure do
+      the office of interpreter. I send this letter by my servant, but as it may
+      not be convenient to you to give an answer directly, I have told him not
+      to wait&mdash;Thomas Paine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be noticed that Paine now keeps his servant, and drives to the
+      Mayor's dinner in a hackney coach. A portrait painted in Paris about this
+      time, now owned by Mr. Alfred Howlett of Syracuse, N. Y., shows him in
+      elegant costume.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is mournful to reflect, even at this distance, that only a little later
+      both Paine and his friend General Duchâtelet were prisoners. The latter
+      poisoned himself in prison (1794).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The illustrative notes and documents which it seems best to set before the
+      reader at the outset may here terminate. As in the previous volumes the
+      writings are, as a rule, given in chronological sequence, but an exception
+      is now made in respect of Paine's religious writings, some of which
+      antedate essays in the present volume. The religious writings are reserved
+      for the fourth and final volume, to which will be added an Appendix
+      containing Paine's poems, scientific fragments, and several letters of
+      general interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      I. THE REPUBLICAN PROCLAMATION.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      "Brethren and Fellow Citizens:
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      "The serene tranquillity, the mutual confidence which prevailed amongst
+      us, during the time of the late King's escape, the indifference with which
+      we beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that the absence of a King is
+      more desirable than his presence, and that he is not only a political
+      superfluity, but a grievous burden, pressing hard on the whole nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Let us not be imposed on by sophisms; all that concerns this is reduced
+      to four points.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He has abdicated the throne in having fled from his post. Abdication and
+      desertion are not characterized by the length of absence; but by the
+      single act of flight. In the present instance, the act is everything, and
+      the time nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who, false to his
+      trust, perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine flight, obtains a
+      fraudulent passport, conceals a King of France under the disguise of a
+      valet, directs his course towards a frontier covered with traitors and
+      deserters, and evidently meditates a return into our country, with a force
+      capable of imposing his own despotic laws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Should his flight be considered as his own act, or the act of those who
+      fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution of his own, or was it
+      inspired by others? The alternative is immaterial; whether fool or
+      hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself equally unworthy of the
+      important functions that had been delegated to him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See Introduction to this volume. This manifesto with which
+     Paris was found placarded on July 1, 1791, is described by
+     Dumont as a "Republican Proclamation," but what its literal
+     caption was I have not found.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "In every sense in which the question can be considered, the reciprocal
+      obligation which subsisted between us is dissolved. He holds no longer any
+      authority. We owe him no longer obedience. We see in him no more than an
+      indifferent person; we can regard him only as Louis Capet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The history of France presents little else than a long series of public
+      calamity, which takes its source from the vices of 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 only vacancy is
+      filled up, the dreadful list is full; the system is exhausted; there are
+      no remaining errors for them to commit; their reign is consequently at an
+      end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What kind of office must that be in a government which requires for its
+      execution neither experience nor ability, that may be abandoned to the
+      desperate chance of birth, that may be filled by an idiot, a madman, a
+      tyrant, with equal effect as by the good, the virtuous, and the wise? An
+      office of this nature is a mere nonentity; it is a place of show, not of
+      use. Let France then, arrived at the age of reason, no longer be deluded
+      by the sound of words, and let her deliberately examine, if a King,
+      however insignificant and contemptible in himself, may not at the same
+      time be extremely dangerous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The thirty millions which it costs to support a King in the eclat of
+      stupid brutal luxury, presents us with an easy method of reducing taxes,
+      which reduction would at once relieve the people, and stop the progress of
+      political corruption. The grandeur of nations consists, not, as Kings
+      pretend, in the splendour of thrones, but in a conspicuous sense of their
+      own dignity, and in a just disdain of those barbarous follies and crimes
+      which, under the sanction of Royalty, have hitherto desolated Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As to the personal safety of Louis Capet, it is so much the more
+      confirmed, as France will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit of
+      revenge against a wretch who has dishonoured himself. In defending a just
+      and glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade it, and the universal
+      tranquillity which prevails is an undeniable proof that a free people know
+      how to respect themselves."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      II. TO THE AUTHORS OF "LE RÉPUBLICAIN."(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Gentlemen:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      M. Duchâtelet has mentioned to me the intention of some persons to
+      commence a work under the title of "The Republican."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I am a Citizen of a country which knows no other Majesty than that of
+      the People; no other Government than that of the Representative body; no
+      other sovereignty than that of the Laws, and which is attached to <i>France</i>
+      both by alliance and by gratitude, I voluntarily offer you my services in
+      support of principles as honorable to a nation as they are adapted to
+      promote the happiness of mankind. I offer them to you with the more zeal,
+      as I know the moral, literary, and political character of those who are
+      engaged in the undertaking, and find myself honoured in their good
+      opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I must at the same time observe, that from ignorance of the French
+      language, my works must necessarily undergo a translation; they can of
+      course be of but little utility, and my offering must consist more of
+      wishes than services. I must add, that I am obliged to pass a part of this
+      summer in England and Ireland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the public has done me the unmerited favor of recognizing me under the
+      appellation of "Common Sense," which is my usual signature, I shall
+      continue it in this publication to avoid mistakes, and to prevent my being
+      supposed the author of works not my own. As to my political principles, I
+      shall endeavour, in this letter, to trace their general features in such a
+      manner, as that they cannot be misunderstood.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 "Le Républicain; ou le Défenseur du gouvernement
+     Représentatif. Par une Société des Républicains. A Paris.
+     July, 1791." See Introduction to this volume.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is desirable in most instances to avoid that which may give even the
+      least suspicion as to the part meant to be adopted, and particularly on
+      the present occasion, where a perfect clearness of expression is necessary
+      to the avoidance of any possible misinterpretation. I am happy, therefore,
+      to find, that the work in question is entitled "The Republican." This word
+      expresses perfectly the idea which we ought to have of Government in
+      general&mdash;<i>Res Publico</i>,&mdash;the public affairs of a nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the word <i>Monarchy</i>, though the address and intrigue of Courts
+      have rendered it familiar, it does not contain the less of reproach or of
+      insult to a nation. The word, in its immediate or original sense,
+      signifies <i>the absolute power of a single individual</i>, who may prove
+      a fool, an hypocrite, or a tyrant. The appellation admits of no other
+      interpretation than that which is here given. France is therefore not a <i>Monarchy</i>;
+      it is insulted when called by that name. The servile spirit which
+      characterizes this species of government is banished from France, and this
+      country, like AMERICA, can now afford to Monarchy no more than a glance of
+      disdain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the errors which monarchic ignorance or knavery has spread through the
+      world, the one which bears the marks of the most dexterous invention, is
+      the opinion that the system of <i>Republicanism</i> is only adapted to a
+      small country, and that a <i>Monarchy</i> is suited, on the contrary, to
+      those of greater extent. Such is the language of Courts, and such the
+      sentiments which they have caused to be adopted in monarchic countries;
+      but the opinion is contrary, at the same time, to principle and to
+      experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Government, to be of real use, should possess a complete knowledge of
+      all the parties, all the circumstances, and all the interests of a nation.
+      The monarchic system, in consequence, instead of being suited to a country
+      of great extent, would be more admissible in a small territory, where an
+      individual may be supposed to know the affairs and the interests of the
+      whole. But when it is attempted to extend this individual knowledge to the
+      affairs of a great country, the capacity of knowing bears no longer any
+      proportion to the extent or multiplicity of the objects which ought to be
+      known, and the government inevitably falls from ignorance into tyranny.
+      For the proof of this position we need only look to Spain, Russia,
+      Germany, Turkey, and the whole of the Eastern Continent,&mdash;countries,
+      for the deliverance of which I offer my most sincere wishes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the contrary, the true <i>Republican</i> system, by Election and
+      Representation, offers the only means which are known, and, in my opinion,
+      the only means which are possible, of proportioning the wisdom and the
+      information of a Government to the extent of a country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The system of <i>Representation</i> is the strongest and most powerful
+      center that can be devised for a nation. Its attraction acts so
+      powerfully, that men give it their approbation even without reasoning on
+      the cause; and France, however distant its several parts, finds itself at
+      this moment <i>an whole</i>, in its <i>central</i> Representation. The
+      citizen is assured that his rights are protected, and the soldier feels
+      that he is no longer the slave of a Despot, but that he is become one of
+      the Nation, and interested of course in its defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The states at present styled <i>Republican</i>, as Holland, Genoa, Venice,
+      Berne, &amp;c. are not only unworthy the name, but are actually in
+      opposition to every principle of a <i>Republican</i> government, and the
+      countries submitted to their power are, truly speaking, subject to an <i>Aristocratic</i>
+      slavery!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, perhaps, impossible, in the first steps which are made in a
+      Revolution, to avoid all kind of error, in principle or in practice, or in
+      some instances to prevent the combination of both. Before the sense of a
+      nation is sufficiently enlightened, and before men have entered into the
+      habits of a free communication with each other of their natural thoughts,
+      a certain reserve&mdash;a timid prudence seizes on the human mind, and
+      prevents it from obtaining its level with that vigor and promptitude that
+      belongs to <i>right</i>.&mdash;An example of this influence discovers
+      itself in the commencement of the present Revolution: but happily this
+      discovery has been made before the Constitution was completed, and in time
+      to provide a remedy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>hereditary succession</i> can never exist as a matter of <i>right</i>;
+      it is a <i>nullity</i>&mdash;a <i>nothing</i>. To admit the idea is to
+      regard man as a species of property belonging to some individuals, either
+      born or to be born! It is to consider our descendants, and all posterity,
+      as mere animals without a right or will! It is, in fine, the most base and
+      humiliating idea that ever degraded the human species, and which, for the
+      honor of Humanity, should be destroyed for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of hereditary succession is so contrary to the rights of man,
+      that if we were ourselves to be recalled to existence, instead of being
+      replaced by our posterity, we should not have the right of depriving
+      ourselves beforehand of those <i>rights</i> which would then properly
+      belong to us. On what ground, then, or by what authority, do we dare to
+      deprive of their rights those children who will soon be men? Why are we
+      not struck with the injustice which we perpetrate on our descendants, by
+      endeavouring to transmit them as a vile herd to masters whose vices are
+      all that can be foreseen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whenever the <i>French</i> constitution shall be rendered conformable to
+      its <i>Declaration of Rights</i>, we shall then be enabled to give to
+      France, and with justice, the appellation of a <i>civic Empire</i>; for
+      its government will be the empire of laws founded on the great republican
+      principles of <i>Elective Representation</i>, and the <i>Rights of Man</i>.&mdash;But
+      Monarchy and Hereditary Succession are incompatible with the <i>basis</i>
+      of its constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope that I have at present sufficiently proved to you that I am a good
+      Republican; and I have such a confidence in the truth of the principles,
+      that I doubt not they will soon be as universal in <i>France</i> as in <i>America</i>.
+      The pride of human nature will assist their evidence, will contribute to
+      their establishment, and men will be ashamed of Monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, with respect, Gentlemen, your friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, June, 1791.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      III. TO THE ABBÉ SIÈYES.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Paris, 8th July, 1791.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment of my departure for England, I read, in the <i>Moniteur</i>
+      of Tuesday last, your letter, in which you give the challenge, on the
+      subject of Government, and offer to defend what is called the <i>Monarchical
+      opinion</i> against the Republican system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I accept of your challenge with pleasure; and I place such a confidence in
+      the superiority of the Republican system over that nullity of a system,
+      called <i>Monarchy</i>, that I engage not to exceed the extent of fifty
+      pages, and to leave you the liberty of taking as much latitude as you may
+      think proper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The respect which I bear your moral and literary reputation, will be your
+      security for my candour in the course of this discussion; but,
+      notwithstanding that I shall treat the subject seriously and sincerely,
+      let me promise, that I consider myself at liberty to ridicule, as they
+      deserve, Monarchical absurdities, whensoever the occasion shall present
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By Republicanism, I do not understand what the name signifies in Holland,
+      and in some parts of Italy. I understand simply a government by
+      representation&mdash;a government founded upon the principles of the
+      Declaration of Rights; principles to which several parts of the French
+      Constitution arise in contradiction. The Declaration of Rights of France
+      and America are but one and the same thing in principles, and almost in
+      expressions; and this is the Republicanism which I undertake to defend
+      against what is called <i>Monarchy</i> and <i>Aristocracy</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Written to the <i>Moniteur</i> in reply to a letter of the Abbé
+     (July 8) elicited by Paine's letter to "Le Républicain"
+     (II.). The Abbé now declining a controversy, Paine dealt
+     with his views in "Rights of Man," Part IL, ch. 3.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I see with pleasure that in respect to one point we are already agreed;
+      and <i>that is, the extreme danger of a civil list of thirty millions</i>.
+      I can discover no reason why one of the parts of the government should be
+      supported with so extravagant a profusion, whilst the other scarcely
+      receives what is sufficient for its common wants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This dangerous and dishonourable disproportion at once supplies the one
+      with the means of corrupting, and throws the other into the predicament of
+      being corrupted. In America there is but little difference, with regard to
+      this point, between the legislative and the executive part of our
+      government; but the first is much better attended to than it is in France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In whatsoever manner, Sir, I may treat the subject of which you have
+      proposed the investigation, I hope that you will not doubt my entertaining
+      for you the highest esteem. I must also add, that I am not the personal
+      enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man more heartily wishes than
+      myself to see them all in the happy and honourable state of private
+      individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid enemy of what is
+      called Monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can either
+      alter or corrupt&mdash;by my attachment to humanity; by the anxiety which
+      I feel within myself, for the dignity and the honour of the human race; by
+      the disgust which I experience, when I observe men directed by children,
+      and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the evils that Monarchy
+      has spread over the earth excite within my breast; and by those sentiments
+      which make me shudder at the calamities, the exactions, the wars, and the
+      massacres with which Monarchy has crushed mankind: in short, it is against
+      all the hell of monarchy that I have declared war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 To the sixth paragraph of the above letter is appended a
+     footnote: "A deputy to the congress receives about a guinea
+     and a half daily: and provisions are cheaper in America
+     than in France." The American Declaration of Rights referred
+     to unless the Declaration of Independence, was no doubt,
+     especially that of Pennsylvania, which Paine helped to
+     frame.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IV. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      [Undated, but probably late in May, 1793.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I have some reason 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 intended to affect
+      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 Attorney General.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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, he 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 way, nor
+      in the least instance varied from his usual conduct, to avoid any measure
+      you might choose to adopt with respect to him. It is on the purity of his
+      heart, and the universal utility of the principles and plans which his
+      writings contain, that he rests the issue; and he will not dishonour it by
+      any kind of subterfuge. The apartments which he occupied at the time of
+      writing the work last winter, he has continued to occupy to the present
+      hour, and the solicitors of the prosecution 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.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine was residing at the house of one of his publishers,
+     Thomas Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street, London. His
+     Attorney was the Hon. Thomas Erskine.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The instant that I was informed that an information was preparing to be
+      filed against me, as the author of, I believe, one of the most useful and
+      benevolent books ever offered to mankind, I directed my Attorney to put in
+      an appearance; and as I shall meet the prosecution fully and fairly, and
+      with a good and upright conscience, I have a right to expect that no act
+      of littleness will be made use of on the part of the prosecution towards
+      influencing the future issue with respect to the author. This expression
+      may, perhaps, appear obscure to you, but I am in the possession of some
+      matters which serve to shew that the action against the publisher is not
+      intended to be a <i>real</i> action. If, therefore, any persons concerned
+      in the prosecution have found their cause so weak, as to make it appear
+      convenient to them to enter into a negociation with the publisher, whether
+      for the purpose of his submitting to a verdict, and to make use of the
+      verdict so obtained as a circumstance, by way of precedent, on a future
+      trial against myself; or for any other purpose not fully made known to me;
+      if, I say, I have cause to suspect this to be the case, I shall most
+      certainly withdraw the defence I should otherwise have made, or promoted
+      on his (the publisher's) behalf, and leave the negociators to themselves,
+      and shall reserve the whole of the defence for the <i>real</i> trial.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, sir, for the purpose of conducting this matter with at least the
+      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 investigation that is questioned,) I have to propose 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 would direct the whole process against
+      me, with whom the prosecuting party will not find it possible to enter
+      into any private negociation.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 A detailed account of the proceedings with regard to the
+     publisher will be found infra, in ix., Letter to the
+     Addressers.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I will do the cause full justice, as well for the sake of the nation, as
+      for my own reputation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another reason for discontinuing the process against the publisher is,
+      because it can amount to nothing. First, because a jury in London cannot
+      decide upon the fact of publishing beyond the limits of the jurisdiction
+      of London, and therefore the work may be republished 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 will then be fully open to see that the work
+      in question contains a plan the best calculated to root out all the abuses
+      of government, and to lessen the taxes of the nation upwards of <i>six
+      millions annually</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 government beneficial to themselves as
+      individuals, the rest of the nation may not be disposed to consider them
+      sufficiently qualified nor authorized to determine for the whole Nation on
+      plans of reform, and on systems and principles of Government. This would
+      be in effect to erect a jury into a National Convention, instead of
+      electing a Convention, and to lay a precedent for the probable tyranny of
+      juries, under the pretence of supporting their rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the possibility always exists of packing 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 principles and systems of Government is attempted to be suppressed by a
+      verdict, or in those where the object of the work that is prosecuted is
+      the reform of abuse and the abolition of sinecure places and pensions, in
+      all these cases the verdict of a jury will itself become a subject of
+      discussion; and therefore, it furnishes an additional reason for
+      discontinuing the prosecution against the publisher, more especially as it
+      is not a secret that there has been a negociation with 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself defeated, and not being able to
+      make any answer to the <i>Rights of Man</i>, 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 1500L. per
+      annum for about ten years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it is that the public money is wasted, and the dread of public
+      investigation is produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, sir, Your obedient humble servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine's case was set down for June 8th, and on that day he
+     appeared in court; but, much to his disappointment, the
+     trial was adjourned to December 18th, at which time he was
+     in his place in the National Convention at Paris.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      V. TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      London, June 6, 1793.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As you opened the debate in the House of Commons, May 25th, on the
+      proclamation for suppressing publications, which that proclamation
+      (without naming any) calls wicked and seditious: and as you applied those
+      opprobious epithets to the works entitled "RIGHTS OF MAN," I think it
+      unnecessary to offer any other reason for addressing this letter to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I begin, then, at once, by declaring, that I do not believe there are
+      found in the writings of any author, ancient or modern, on the subject of
+      government, a spirit of greater benignity, and a stronger inculcation of
+      moral principles than in those which I have published. They come, Sir,
+      from a man, who, by having lived in different countries, and under
+      different systems of government, and who, being intimate in the
+      construction of them, is a better judge of the subject than it is possible
+      that you, from the want of those opportunities, can be:&mdash;And besides
+      this, they come from a heart that knows not how to beguile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will farther say, that when that moment arrives in which the best
+      consolation that shall be left will be looking back on some past actions,
+      more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then with
+      happiness remember, among other things, I have written the RIGHTS OF MAN.&mdash;-As
+      to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or place-men, and
+      place-expectants,&mdash;those who possess, or those who are gaping for
+      office,&mdash;may say of them, it will not alter their character, either
+      with the world or with me.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Henry D. (afterwards Viscount Melville), appointed
+     Secretary for the Home Department, 1791. In 1805 he was
+     impeached by the Commons for "gross malversation" while
+     Treasurer of the Navy; he was acquitted by the Lords
+     (1806), but not by public sentiment or by history.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having, Sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not
+      particularly on your speech on that occasion, but on any one to which your
+      motion on that day gave rise; and I shall begin with that of Mr. Adam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Gentleman accuses me of not having done the very thing that <i>I have
+      done</i>, and which, he says, if I <i>had</i> done, he should not have
+      accused me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Adam, in his speech, (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26,) says,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That he had well considered the subject of Constitutional Publications,
+      and was by no means ready to say (but the contrary) that books of science
+      upon government though recommending a doctrine or system different from
+      the form of our constitution (meaning that of England) were fit objects of
+      prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn Harrington for his Oceana,
+      Sir Thomas More for his Eutopia, and Hume for his Idea of a perfect
+      Commonwealth. But (continued Mr. Adam) the publication of Mr. Paine was
+      very different; for it reviled what was most sacred in the constitution,
+      destroyed every principle of subordination, and <i>established nothing in
+      their room</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I readily perceive that Mr. Adam has not read the Second Part of <i>Rights
+      of Man</i>, and I am put under the necessity, either of submitting to an
+      erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly shall
+      prefer the latter.&mdash;If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in my
+      reasoning upon systems of government, in the Second Part of <i>Rights of
+      Man</i>, I have shown as clearly, I think, as words can convey ideas, a
+      certain system of government, and that not existing in theory only, but
+      already in full and established practice, and systematically and
+      practically free from all the vices and defects of the English government,
+      and capable of producing more happiness to the people, and that also with
+      an eightieth part of the taxes, which the present English system of
+      government consumes; I hope he will do me the justice, when he next goes
+      to the House, to get up and confess he had been mistaken in saying, that I
+      had <i>established nothing, and that I had destroyed every principle of
+      subordination</i>. Having thus opened the case, I now come to the point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Second Part of the Rights of Man, I have distinguished government
+      into two classes or systems: the one the hereditary system, the other the
+      representative system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the First Part of <i>Rights of Man</i>, I have endeavoured to shew, and
+      I challenge any man to refute it, that there does not exist a right to
+      establish hereditary government; or, in other words, hereditary governors;
+      because hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and
+      the case always is, that the people who are to live afterwards, have
+      always the same right to choose a government for themselves, as the people
+      had who lived before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Second Part of <i>Rights of Man</i>, I have not repeated those
+      arguments, because they are irrefutable; but have confined myself to shew
+      the defects of what is called hereditary government, or hereditary
+      succession, that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into the
+      hands of men totally unworthy of it, from want of principle, or unfitted
+      for it from want of capacity.&mdash;James the IId. is recorded as an
+      instance of the first of these cases; and instances are to be found almost
+      all over Europe to prove the truth of the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To shew the absurdity of the Hereditary System still more strongly, I will
+      now put the following case:&mdash;Take any fifty men promiscuously, and it
+      will be very extraordinary, if, out of that number, one man should be
+      found, whose principles and talents taken together (for some might have
+      principles, and others might have talents) would render him a person truly
+      fitted to fill any very extraordinary office of National Trust. If then
+      such a fitness of character could not be expected to be found in more than
+      one person out of fifty, it would happen but once in a thousand years to
+      the eldest son of any one family, admitting each, on an average, to hold
+      the office twenty years. Mr. Adam talks of something in the Constitution
+      which he calls <i>most sacred</i>; but I hope he does not mean hereditary
+      succession, a thing which appears to me a violation of every order of
+      nature, and of common sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise
+      virtuous, who have died, and their families been ruined, in the defence of
+      knaves and fools, and which they would not have done, had they reasoned at
+      all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an individual can
+      render to mankind, than to endeavour to break the chains of political
+      superstition. Those chains are now dissolving fast, and proclamations and
+      persecutions will serve but to hasten that dissolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus spoken of the Hereditary System as a bad System, and subject
+      to every possible defect, I now come to the Representative System, and
+      this Mr. Adam will find stated in the Second Part of Rights of Man, not
+      only as the best, but as the only <i>Theory</i> of Government under which
+      the liberties of the people can be permanently secure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is needless now to talk of mere theory, since there is already a
+      government in full practice, established upon that theory; or in other
+      words, upon the Rights of Man, and has been so for almost twenty years.
+      Mr. Pitt, in a speech of his some short time since, said, "That there
+      never did, and never could exist a Government established upon those
+      Rights, and that if it began at noon, it would end at night." Mr. Pitt has
+      not yet arrived at the degree of a school-boy in this species of
+      knowledge; his practice has been confined to the means of <i>extorting
+      revenue</i>, and his boast has been&mdash;<i>how much!</i> Whereas the
+      boast of the system of government that I am speaking of, is not how much,
+      but how little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The system of government purely representative, unmixed with any thing of
+      hereditary nonsense, began in America. I will now compare the effects of
+      that system of government with the system of government in England, both
+      during, and since the close of the war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So powerful is the Representative system, first, by combining and
+      consolidating all the parts of a country together, however great the
+      extent; and, secondly, by admitting of none but men properly qualified
+      into the government, or dismissing them if they prove to be otherwise,
+      that America was enabled thereby totally to defeat and overthrow all the
+      schemes and projects of the hereditary government of England against her.
+      As the establishment of the Revolution and Independence of America is a
+      proof of this fact, it is needless to enlarge upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now come to the comparative effect of the two systems <i>since</i> the
+      close of the war, and I request Mr. Adam to attend to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      America had internally sustained the ravages of upwards of seven years of
+      war, which England had not. England sustained only the expence of the war;
+      whereas America sustained not only the expence, but the destruction of
+      property committed by <i>both</i> armies. Not a house was built during
+      that period, and many thousands were destroyed. The farms and plantations
+      along the coast of the country, for more than a thousand miles, were laid
+      waste. Her commerce was annihilated. Her ships were either taken, or had
+      rotted within her own harbours. The credit of her funds had fallen upwards
+      of ninety per cent., that is, an original hundred pounds would not sell
+      for ten pounds. In fine, she was apparently put back an hundred years when
+      the war closed, which was not the case with England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But such was the event, that the same representative system of government,
+      though since better organized, which enabled her to conquer, enabled her
+      also to recover, and she now presents a more flourishing condition, and a
+      more happy and harmonized society, under that system of government, than
+      any country in the world can boast under any other. Her towns are rebuilt,
+      much better than before; her farms and plantations are in higher
+      improvement than ever; her commerce is spread over the world, and her
+      funds have risen from less than ten pounds the hundred to upwards of one
+      hundred and twenty. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues talk of the things that
+      have happened in his boyish administration, without knowing what greater
+      things have happened elsewhere, and under other systems of government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now come to state the expence of the two systems, as they now stand in
+      each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that
+      government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honour and
+      trust, and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole amount of the nett(sic) taxes in England (exclusive of the
+      expence of collection, of drawbacks, of seizures and condemnation, of
+      fines and penalties, of fees of office, of litigations and informers,
+      which are some of the blessed means of enforcing them) is seventeen
+      millions. Of this sum, about nine millions go for the payment of the
+      interest of the national debt, and the remainder, being about eight
+      millions, is for the current annual expences. This much for one side of
+      the case. I now come to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The expence of the several departments of the general Representative
+      Government of the United States of America, extending over a space of
+      country nearly ten times larger than England, is two hundred and
+      ninety-four thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight dollars, which, at 4s.
+      6d. per dollar, is 66,305L. 11s. sterling, and is thus apportioned;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img src="images/table046.jpg" alt="Table046 " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img alt="table047 (26K)" src="images/table047.jpg" width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      On account of the incursions of the Indians on the back settlements,
+      Congress is at this time obliged to keep six thousand militia in pay, in
+      addition to a regiment of foot, and a battalion of artillery, which it
+      always keeps; and this increases the expence of the War Department to
+      390,000 dollars, which is 87,795L. sterling, but when peace shall be
+      concluded with the Indians, the greatest part of this expence will cease,
+      and the total amount of the expence of government, including that of the
+      army, will not amount to 100,000L. sterling, which, as has been already
+      stated, is but an eightieth part of the expences of the English
+      government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I request Mr. Adam and Mr. Dundas, and all those who are talking of
+      Constitutions, and blessings, and Kings, and Lords, and the Lord knows
+      what, to look at this statement. Here is a form and system of government,
+      that is better organized and better administered than any government in
+      the world, and that for less than one hundred thousand pounds per annum,
+      and yet every Member of Congress receives, as a compensation for his time
+      and attendance on public business, one pound seven shillings per day,
+      which is at the rate of nearly five hundred pounds a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations
+      to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political
+      superstition to support it; it was by encouraging discussion and rendering
+      the press free upon all subjects of government, that the principles of
+      government became understood in America, and the people are now enjoying
+      the present blessings under it. You hear of no riots, tumults, and
+      disorders in that country; because there exists no cause to produce them.
+      Those things are never the effect of Freedom, but of restraint,
+      oppression, and excessive taxation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In America, there is not that class of poor and wretched people that are
+      so numerously dispersed all over England, who are to be told by a
+      proclamation, that they are happy; and this is in a great measure to be
+      accounted for, not by the difference of proclamations, but by the
+      difference of governments and the difference of taxes between that country
+      and this. What the labouring people of that country earn, they apply to
+      their own use, and to the education of their children, and do not pay it
+      away in taxes as fast as they earn it, to support Court extravagance, and
+      a long enormous list of place-men and pensioners; and besides this, they
+      have learned the manly doctrine of reverencing themselves, and
+      consequently of respecting each other; and they laugh at those imaginary
+      beings called Kings and Lords, and all the fraudulent trumpery of Court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When place-men and pensioners, or those who expect to be such, are lavish
+      in praise of a government, it is not a sign of its being a good one. The
+      pension list alone in England (see sir John Sinclair's History of the
+      Revenue, p. 6, of the Appendix) is one hundred and seven thousand four
+      hundred and four pounds, <i>which is more than the expences of the whole
+      Government of America amount to</i>. And I am now more convinced than
+      before, that the offer that was made to me of a thousand pounds for the
+      copy-right of the second part of the Rights of Man, together with the
+      remaining copyright of the first part, was to have effected, by a quick
+      suppression, what is now attempted to be done by a prosecution. The
+      connection which the person, who made the offer, has with the King's
+      printing-office, may furnish part of the means of inquiring into this
+      affair, when the ministry shall please to bring their prosecution to
+      issue.(1) But to return to my subject.&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have said in the second part of the <i>Rights of Man</i>, and I repeat
+      it here, that the service of any man, whether called King, President,
+      Senator, Legislator, or any thing else, cannot be worth more to any
+      country, in the regular routine of office, than ten thousand pounds per
+      annum. We have a better man in America, and more of a gentleman, than any
+      King I ever knew of, who does not occasion half that ex-pence; for, though
+      the salary is fixed at £5625 he does not accept it, and it is only the
+      incidental expences that are paid out of it.(2) The name by which a man is
+      called is of itself but an empty thing. It is worth and character alone
+      which can render him valuable, for without these, Kings, and Lords, and
+      Presidents, are but jingling names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But without troubling myself about Constitutions of Government, I have
+      shewn in the Second Part of <i>Rights of Man</i>, that an alliance may be
+      formed between England, France, and America, and that the expences of
+      government in England may be put back to one million and a half, viz.:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Civil expence of Government...... 500,000L.
+     Army............................. 500,000
+     Navy............................. 500,000
+                                      &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+                                     1,500,000L.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And even this sum is fifteen times greater than the expences of government
+      are in America; and it is also greater than the whole peace establishment
+      of England amounted to about an hundred years ago. So much has the weight
+      and oppression of taxes increased since the Revolution, and especially
+      since the year 1714.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 At Paine's trial, Chapman, the printer, in answer to fa
+     question of the Solicitor General, said: "I made him three
+     separate offers in the different stages of the work; the
+     first, I believe, was a hundred guineas, the second five
+     hundred, and the last was a thousand."&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+
+     2 Error. See also ante, and in vol. ii., p. 435.
+     Washington had retracted his original announcement, and
+     received his salary regularly.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      To shew that the sum of 500,000L. is sufficient to defray all civil
+      expences of government, I have, in that work, annexed the following
+      estimate for any country of the same extent as England.&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, three hundred Representatives, fairly elected, are
+      sufficient for all the purposes to which Legislation can apply, and
+      preferable to a larger number.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, then, an allowance, at the rate of 500L. per annum be made to every
+      Representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expence, if the whole
+      number attended six months each year, would be.......75,000L.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Official Departments could not possibly exceed the following number,
+      with the salaries annexed, viz.:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [ILLUSTRATION: Table]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Three offices at
+ 10,000L.
+ each
+ 30,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Ten ditto at
+ 5,000
+ u
+ 50,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Twenty ditto at
+ 2,000
+ u
+ 40,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Forty ditto at
+ 1,000
+ it
+ 40,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Two hundred ditto at
+ 500
+ u
+ 100,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Three hundred ditto at  200
+ u
+ 60,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Five hundred ditto at
+ 100
+ u
+ 50,000
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+Seven hundred ditto at  75
+ it
+ 52,500
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      497,500L.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a nation chose, it might deduct four per cent, from all the offices,
+      and make one of twenty thousand pounds per annum, and style the person who
+      should fill it, King or Madjesty, (1) or give him any other title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking, however, this sum of one million and a half, as an abundant supply
+      for all the expences of government under any form whatever, there will
+      remain a surplus of nearly six millions and a half out of the present
+      taxes, after paying the interest of the national debt; and I have shewn in
+      the Second Part of <i>Rights of Man</i>, what appears to me, the best mode
+      of applying the surplus money; for I am now speaking of expences and
+      savings, and not of systems of government.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 A friend of Paine advised him against this pun, as too
+     personal an allusion to George the Third, to whom however
+     much has been forgiven on account of his mental infirmity.
+     Yorke, in his account of his visit to Paine, 1802, alludes
+     to his (Paine's) anecdotes "of humor and benevolence"
+     concerning George III.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have, in the first place, estimated the poor-rates at two millions
+      annually, and shewn that the first effectual step would be to abolish the
+      poor-rates entirely (which would be a saving of two millions to the
+      house-keepers,) and to remit four millions out of the surplus taxes to the
+      poor, to be paid to them in money, in proportion to the number of children
+      in each family, and the number of aged persons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have estimated the number of persons of both sexes in England, of fifty
+      years of age and upwards, at 420,000, and have taken one third of this
+      number, viz. 140,000, to be poor people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To save long calculations, I have taken 70,000 of them to be upwards of
+      fifty years of age, and under sixty, and the others to be sixty years and
+      upwards; and to allow six pounds per annum to the former class, and ten
+      pounds per annum to the latter. The expence of which will be,
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Seventy thousand persons at 6L. per annum..... 420,000L.
+  Seventy thousand persons at 10L. per annum.... 700,000
+                                                &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;-
+                                               1,120,000L.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There will then remain of the four millions, 2,880,000L. I have stated two
+      different methods of appropriating this money. The one is to pay it in
+      proportion to the number of children in each family, at the rate of three
+      or four pounds per annum for each child; the other is to apportion it
+      according to the expence of living in different counties; but in either of
+      these cases it would, together with the allowance to be made to the aged,
+      completely take off taxes from one third of all the families in England,
+      besides relieving all the other families from the burthen of poor-rates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The whole number of families in England, allotting five souls to each
+      family, is one million four hundred thousand, of which I take one third,
+      <i>viz</i>. 466,666 to be poor families who now pay four millions of
+      taxes, and that the poorest pays at least four guineas a year; and that
+      the other thirteen millions are paid by the other two-thirds. The plan,
+      therefore, as stated in the work, is, first, to remit or repay, as is
+      already stated, this sum of four millions to the poor, because it is
+      impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of
+      collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish the
+      poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the commutation
+      tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars of all which
+      are set forth in the work, to which I desire Mr. Adam to refer for
+      particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to a town of
+      the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its favour,
+      compared with the present state of things, of upwards of fifty thousand
+      pounds annually, and so in proportion to all other places throughout the
+      nation. This certainly is of more consequence than that the same sums
+      should be collected to be afterwards spent by riotous and profligate
+      courtiers, and in nightly revels at the Star and Garter tavern, Pall Mall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will conclude this part of my letter with an extract from the Second
+      Part of the <i>Rights of Man</i>, which Mr. Dundas (a man rolling in
+      luxury at the expence of the nation) has branded with the epithet of
+      "wicked."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments of civil
+      torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful ex-pence of litigation
+      prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and
+      hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of age begging
+      for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to place to
+      breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows will have
+      a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on the death of
+      their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children will no longer
+      be considered as increasing the distresses of their parents. The haunts of
+      the wretched will be known, because it will be to their advantage; and the
+      number of petty crimes, the offspring of poverty and distress, will be
+      lessened. The poor as well as the rich will then be interested in the
+      support of Government, and the cause and apprehension of riots and tumults
+      will cease. Ye who sit in ease, and solace yourselves in plenty, and such
+      there are in Turkey and Russia, as well as in England, and who say to
+      yourselves, <i>are we not well off</i> have ye thought of these things?
+      When ye do, ye will cease to speak and feel for yourselves alone."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this remission of four millions be made, and the poor-rates and
+      houses and window-light tax be abolished, and the commutation tax changed,
+      there will still remain nearly one million and a half of surplus taxes;
+      and as by an alliance between England, France and America, armies and
+      navies will, in a great measure, be rendered unnecessary; and as men who
+      have either been brought up in, or long habited to, those lines of life,
+      are still citizens of a nation in common with the rest, and have a right
+      to participate in all plans of national benefit, it is stated in that work
+      (<i>Rights of Man</i>, Part ii.) to apply annually 507,000L. out of the
+      surplus taxes to this purpose, in the following manner:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img src="images/table053.jpg" alt="Table 053 " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter, will not admit of
+      my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas because
+      he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose, to appear
+      conspicuous; but the purport of it is to justify myself from the charge
+      which Mr. Adam has made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Gentleman, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter,
+      considers the writings of Harrington, More and Hume, as justifiable and
+      legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so
+      doing they shewed plans and systems of government, not only different
+      from, but preferable to, that of England; and he accuses me of
+      endeavouring to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of that
+      which I had reasoned against; whereas, the fact is, that I have not only
+      reasoned by comparison of the representative system against the hereditary
+      system, but I have gone further; for I have produced an instance of a
+      government established entirely on the representative system, under which
+      greater happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes required, and much higher
+      credit is established, than under the system of government in England. The
+      funds in England have risen since the war only from 54L. to 97L. and they
+      have been down since the proclamation, to 87L. whereas the funds in
+      America rose in the mean time from 10L. to 120L.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His charge against me of "destroying every principle of subordination," is
+      equally as groundless; which even a single paragraph from the work will
+      prove, and which I shall here quote:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Formerly when divisions arose respecting Governments, recourse was had to
+      the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the
+      new system, and <i>recourse is had to a national convention</i>.
+      Discussion, and the general will, arbitrates the question, and to this
+      private opinion yields with a good grace, and <i>order is preserved
+      uninterrupted</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one by
+      a Member of the Legislative, for <i>not</i> doing a certain thing, and the
+      other by the Attorney General for <i>doing</i> it, is a strange jumble of
+      contradictions. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against
+      the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of
+      the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the work
+      will go on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objection I
+      found against the plan and principles contained in the Second Part of <i>Rights
+      of Man</i>, when I had written the book, was, that they would beneficially
+      interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred throughout the
+      nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for men to act from
+      the direct and disinterested principles of honour; but the prosecution now
+      commenced has fortunately removed that objection, and the approvers and
+      protectors of that work now feel the immediate impulse of honour added to
+      that of national interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, Mr. Dundas,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not your obedient humble Servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the contrary,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VI. LETTERS TO ONSLOW CRANLEY,
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Lord Lieutenant of the county of Surry; on the subject of the late
+      excellent proclamation:&mdash;or the chairman who shall preside at the
+      meeting to be held at Epsom, June 18.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FIRST LETTER.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      London, June 17th, 1792.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have seen in the public newspapers the following advertisement, to wit&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "To the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants of
+      the county of Surry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "At the requisition and desire of several of the freeholders of the
+      county, I am, in the absence of the Sheriff, to desire the favour of your
+      attendance, at a meeting to be held at Epsom, on Monday, the 18th instant,
+      at 12 o'clock at noon, to consider of an humble address to his majesty, to
+      express our grateful approbation of his majesty's paternal, and well-timed
+      attendance to the public welfare, in his late most gracious Proclamation
+      against the enemies of our happy Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "(Signed.) Onslow Cranley."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking it for granted, that the aforesaid advertisement, equally as
+      obscure as the proclamation to which it refers, has nevertheless some
+      meaning, and is intended to effect some purpose; and as a prosecution
+      (whether wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly) is already commenced
+      against a work intitled RIGHTS OF MAN, of which I have the honour and
+      happiness to be the author; I feel it necessary to address this letter to
+      you, and to request that it may be read publicly to the gentlemen who
+      shall meet at Epsom in consequence of the advertisement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work now under prosecution is, I conceive, the same work which is
+      intended to be suppressed by the aforesaid proclamation. Admitting this to
+      be the case, the gentlemen of the county of Surry are called upon by
+      somebody to condemn a work, and they are at the same time forbidden by the
+      proclamation to know what that work is; and they are further called upon
+      to give their aid and assistance to prevent other people from knowing it
+      also. It is therefore necessary that the author, for his own
+      justification, as well as to prevent the gentlemen who shall meet from
+      being imposed upon by misrepresentation, should give some outlines of the
+      principles and plans which that work contains.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work, Sir, in question, contains, first, an investigation of general
+      principles of government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It also distinguishes government into two classes or systems, the one the
+      hereditary system; the other the representative system; and it compares
+      these two systems with each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It shews that what is called hereditary government cannot exist as a
+      matter of right; because hereditary government always means a government
+      yet to come; and the case always is, that those who are to live afterwards
+      have always the same right to establish a government for themselves as the
+      people who had lived before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It also shews the defect to which hereditary government is unavoidably
+      subject: that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into the
+      hands of men totally unworthy of it from the want of principle, and
+      unfitted for it from want of capacity. James II. and many others are
+      recorded in the English history as proofs of the former of those cases,
+      and instances are to be found all over Europe to prove the truth of the
+      latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It then shews that the representative system is the only true system of
+      government; that it is also the only system under which the liberties of
+      any people can be permanently secure; and, further, that it is the only
+      one that can continue the same equal probability at all times of admitting
+      of none but men properly qualified, both by principles and abilities, into
+      government, and of excluding such as are otherwise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work shews also, by plans and calculations not hitherto denied nor
+      controverted, not even by the prosecution that is commenced, that the
+      taxes now existing may be reduced at least six millions, that taxes may be
+      entirely taken off from the poor, who are computed at one third of the
+      nation; and that taxes on the other two thirds may be considerably
+      reduced; that the aged poor may be comfortably provided for, and the
+      children of poor families properly educated; that fifteen thousand
+      soldiers, and the same number of sailors, may be allowed three shillings
+      per week during life out of the surplus taxes; and also that a
+      proportionate allowance may be made to the officers, and the pay of the
+      remaining soldiers and sailors be raised; and that it is better to apply
+      the surplus taxes to those purposes, than to consume them on lazy and
+      profligate placemen and pensioners; and that the revenue, said to be
+      twenty thousand pounds per annum, raised by a tax upon coals, and given to
+      the Duke of Richmond, is a gross imposition upon all the people of London,
+      and ought to be instantly abolished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Sir, is a concise abstract of the principles and plans contained in
+      the work that is now prosecuted, and for the suppression of which the
+      proclamation appears to be intended; but as it is impossible that I can,
+      in the compass of a letter, bring into view all the matters contained in
+      the work, and as it is proper that the gentlemen who may compose that
+      meeting should know what the merits or demerits of it are, before they
+      come to any resolutions, either directly or indirectly relating thereto, I
+      request the honour of presenting them with one hundred copies of the
+      second part of the Rights of Man, and also one thousand copies of my
+      letter to Mr. Dundas, which I have directed to be sent to Epsom for that
+      purpose; and I beg the favour of the Chairman to take the trouble of
+      presenting them to the gentlemen who shall meet on that occasion, with my
+      sincere wishes for their happiness, and for that of the nation in general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now closed thus much of the subject of my letter, I next come to
+      speak of what has relation to me personally. I am well aware of the
+      delicacy that attends it, but the purpose of calling the meeting appears
+      to me so inconsistent with that justice that is always due between man and
+      man, that it is proper I should (as well on account of the gentlemen who
+      may meet, as on my own account) explain myself fully and candidly thereon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have already informed the gentlemen, that a prosecution is commenced
+      against a work of which I have the honour and happiness to be the author;
+      and I have good reasons for believing that the proclamation which the
+      gentlemen are called to consider, and to present an address upon, is
+      purposely calculated to give an impression to the jury before whom that
+      matter is to come. In short, that it is dictating a verdict by
+      proclamation; and I consider the instigators of the meeting to be held at
+      Epsom, as aiding and abetting the same improper, and, in my opinion,
+      illegal purpose, and that in a manner very artfully contrived, as I shall
+      now shew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had a meeting been called of the Freeholders of the county of Middlesex,
+      the gentlemen who had composed that meeting would have rendered themselves
+      objectionable as persons to serve on a Jury, before whom the judicial case
+      was afterwards to come. But by calling a meeting out of the county of
+      Middlesex, that matter is artfully avoided, and the gentlemen of Surry are
+      summoned, as if it were intended thereby to give a tone to the sort of
+      verdict which the instigators of the meeting no doubt wish should be
+      brought in, and to give countenance to the Jury in so doing. I am, sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With much respect to the
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gentlemen who shall meet, Their and your obedient and humble Servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TO ONSLOW CRANLEY, COMMONLY CALLED LORD ONSLOW. SECOND LETTER. SIR,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      London, June 21st 1792.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WHEN I wrote you the letter which Mr. Home Tooke did me the favour to
+      present to you, as chairman of the meeting held at Epsom, Monday, June 18,
+      it was not with much expectation that you would do me the justice of
+      permitting, or recommending it to be publicly read. I am well aware that
+      the signature of Thomas Paine has something in it dreadful to sinecure
+      Placemen and Pensioners; and when you, on seeing the letter opened,
+      informed the meeting that it was signed Thomas Paine, and added in a note
+      of exclamation, "the common enemy of us all." you spoke one of the
+      greatest truths you ever uttered, if you confine the expression to men of
+      the same description with yourself; men living in indolence and luxury, on
+      the spoil and labours of the public.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter has since appeared in the "Argus," and probably in other
+      papers.(1) It will justify itself; but if any thing on that account hath
+      been wanting, your conduct at the meeting would have supplied the
+      omission. You there sufficiently proved that I was not mistaken in
+      supposing that the meeting was called to give an indirect aid to the
+      prosecution commenced against a work, the reputation of which will long
+      outlive the memory of the Pensioner I am writing to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When meetings, Sir, are called by the partisans of the Court, to preclude
+      the nation the right of investigating systems and principles of
+      government, and of exposing errors and defects, under the pretence of
+      prosecuting an individual&mdash;it furnishes an additional motive for
+      maintaining sacred that violated right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principles and arguments contained in the work in question, <i>Rights
+      OF Man</i>, have stood, and they now stand, and I believe ever will stand,
+      unrefuted. They are stated in a fair and open manner to the world, and
+      they have already received the public approbation of a greater number of
+      men, of the best of characters, of every denomination of religion, and of
+      every rank in life, (placemen and pensioners excepted,) than all the
+      juries that shall meet in England, for ten years to come, will amount to;
+      and I have, moreover, good reasons for believing that the approvers of
+      that work, as well private as public, are already more numerous than all
+      the present electors throughout the nation.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The <i>Argus</i> was edited by Sampson Perry, soon after
+     prosecuted.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Not less than forty pamphlets, intended as answers thereto, have appeared,
+      and as suddenly disappeared: scarcely are the titles of any of them
+      remembered, notwithstanding their endeavours have been aided by all the
+      daily abuse which the Court and Ministerial newspapers, for almost a year
+      and a half, could bestow, both upon the work and the author; and now that
+      every attempt to refute, and every abuse has failed, the invention of
+      calling the work a libel has been hit upon, and the discomfited party has
+      pusillanimously retreated to prosecution and a jury, and obscure
+      addresses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I well know that a long letter from me will not be agreeable to you, I
+      will relieve your uneasiness by making it as short as I conveniently can;
+      and will conclude it with taking up the subject at that part where Mr.
+      HORNE TOOKE was interrupted from going on when at the meeting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That gentleman was stating, that the situation you stood in rendered it
+      improper for you to appear <i>actively</i> in a scene in which your
+      private interest was too visible: that you were a Bedchamber Lord at a
+      thousand a year, and a Pensioner at three thousand pounds a year more&mdash;and
+      here he was stopped by the little but noisy circle you had collected
+      round. Permit me then, Sir, to add an explanation to his words, for the
+      benefit of your neighbours, and with which, and a few observations, I
+      shall close my letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When it was reported in the English Newspapers, some short time since,
+      that the empress of RUSSIA had given to one of her minions a large tract
+      of country and several thousands of peasants as property, it very justly
+      provoked indignation and abhorrence in those who heard it. But if we
+      compare the mode practised in England, with that which appears to us so
+      abhorrent in Russia, it will be found to amount to very near the same
+      thing;&mdash;for example&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the whole of the revenue in England is drawn by taxes from the pockets
+      of the people, those things called gifts and grants (of which kind are all
+      pensions and sinecure places) are paid out of that stock. The difference,
+      therefore, between the two modes is, that in England the money is
+      collected by the government, and then given to the Pensioner, and in
+      Russia he is left to collect it for himself. The smallest sum which the
+      poorest family in a county so near London as Surry, can be supposed to pay
+      annually, of taxes, is not less than five pounds; and as your sinecure of
+      one thousand, and pension of three thousand per annum, are made up of
+      taxes paid by eight hundred such poor families, it comes to the same thing
+      as if the eight hundred families had been given to you, as in Russia, and
+      you had collected the money on your account. Were you to say that you are
+      not quartered particularly on the people of Surrey, but on the nation at
+      large, the objection would amount to nothing; for as there are more
+      pensioners than counties, every one may be considered as quartered on that
+      in which he lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What honour or happiness you can derive from being the PRINCIPAL PAUPER of
+      the neighbourhood, and occasioning a greater expence than the poor, the
+      aged, and the infirm, for ten miles round you, I leave you to enjoy. At
+      the same time I can see that it is no wonder you should be strenuous in
+      suppressing a book which strikes at the root of those abuses. No wonder
+      that you should be against reforms, against the freedom of the press, and
+      the right of investigation. To you, and to others of your description,
+      these are dreadful things; but you should also consider, that the motives
+      which prompt you to <i>act</i>, ought, by reflection, to compel you to be
+      <i>silent</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now returned your compliment, and sufficiently tired your patience,
+      I take my leave of you, with mentioning, that if you had not prevented my
+      former letter from being read at the meeting, you would not have had the
+      trouble of reading this; and also with requesting, that the next time you
+      call me "<i>a common enemy</i>," you would add, "<i>of us sinecure
+      placemen and pensioners</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, Sir, &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VII. TO THE SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX,
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      OR, THE GENTLEMAN WHO SHALL PRESIDE AT THE MEETING TO BE HELD AT LEWES,
+      JULY 4.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      London, June 30, 1792.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have seen in the Lewes newspapers, of June 25, an advertisement, signed
+      by sundry persons, and also by the sheriff, for holding a meeting at the
+      Town-hall of Lewes, for the purpose, as the advertisement states, of
+      presenting an Address on the late Proclamation for suppressing writings,
+      books, &amp;c. And as I conceive that a certain publication of mine,
+      entitled "Rights of Man," in which, among other things, the enormous
+      increase of taxes, placemen, and pensioners, is shewn to be unnecessary
+      and oppressive, <i>is the particular writing alluded to in the said
+      publication</i>; I request the Sheriff, or in his absence, whoever shall
+      preside at the meeting, or any other person, to read this letter publicly
+      to the company who shall assemble in consequence of that advertisement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gentlemen&mdash;It is now upwards of eighteen years since I was a resident
+      inhabitant of the town of Lewes. My situation among you, as an officer of
+      the revenue, for more than six years, enabled me to see into the numerous
+      and various distresses which the weight of taxes even at that time of day
+      occasioned; and feeling, as I then did, and as it is natural for me to do,
+      for the hard condition of others, it is with pleasure I can declare, and
+      every person then under my survey, and now living, can witness, the
+      exceeding candour, and even tenderness, with which that part of the duty
+      that fell to my share was executed. The name of <i>Thomas Paine</i> is not
+      to be found in the records of the Lewes' justices, in any one act of
+      contention with, or severity of any kind whatever towards, the persons
+      whom he surveyed, either in the town, or in the country; of this, <i>Mr.
+      Fuller</i> and <i>Mr. Shelley</i>, who will probably attend the meeting,
+      can, if they please, give full testimony. It is, however, not in their
+      power to contradict it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus indulged myself in recollecting a place where I formerly had,
+      and even now have, many friends, rich and poor, and most probably some
+      enemies, I proceed to the more important purport of my letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since my departure from Lewes, fortune or providence has thrown me into a
+      line of action, which my first setting out into life could not possibly
+      have suggested to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have seen the fine and fertile country of America ravaged and deluged in
+      blood, and the taxes of England enormously increased and multiplied in
+      consequence thereof; and this, in a great measure, by the instigation of
+      the same class of placemen, pensioners, and Court dependants, who are now
+      promoting addresses throughout England, on the present <i>unintelligible</i>
+      Proclamation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have also seen a system of Government rise up in that country, free from
+      corruption, and now administered over an extent of territory ten times as
+      large as England, <i>for less expence than the pensions alone in England
+      amount to</i>; and under which more freedom is enjoyed, and a more happy
+      state of society is preserved, and a more general prosperity is promoted,
+      than under any other system of Government now existing in the world.
+      Knowing, as I do, the things I now declare, I should reproach myself with
+      want of duty and affection to mankind, were I not in the most undismayed
+      manner to publish them, as it were, on the house-tops, for the good of
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus glanced at what has passed within my knowledge, since my
+      leaving Lewes, I come to the subject more immediately before the meeting
+      now present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Edmund Burke, who, as I shall show, in a future publication, has lived
+      a concealed pensioner, at the expence of the public, of fifteen hundred
+      pounds per annum, for about ten years last past, published a book the
+      winter before last, in open violation of the principles of liberty, and
+      for which he was applauded by that class of men <i>who are now promoting
+      addresses</i>. Soon after his book appeared, I published the first part of
+      the work, entitled "Rights of Man," as an answer thereto, and had the
+      happiness of receiving the public thanks of several bodies of men, and of
+      numerous individuals of the best character, of every denomination in
+      religion, and of every rank in life&mdash;placemen and pensioners
+      excepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In February last, I published the Second Part of "Rights of Man," and as
+      it met with still greater approbation from the true friends of national
+      freedom, and went deeper into the system of Government, and exposed the
+      abuses of it, more than had been done in the First Part, it consequently
+      excited an alarm among all those, who, insensible of the burthen of taxes
+      which the general mass of the people sustain, are living in luxury and
+      indolence, and hunting after Court preferments, sinecure places, and
+      pensions, either for themselves, or for their family connections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have shewn in that work, that the taxes may be reduced at least <i>six
+      millions</i>, and even then the expences of Government in England would be
+      twenty times greater than they are in the country I have already spoken
+      of. That taxes may be entirely taken off from the poor, by remitting to
+      them in money at the rate of between <i>three and four pounds</i> per head
+      per annum, for the education and bringing up of the children of the poor
+      families, who are computed at one third of the whole nation, and <i>six
+      pounds</i> per annum to all poor persons, decayed tradesmen, or others,
+      from the age of fifty until sixty, and <i>ten pounds</i> per annum from
+      after sixty. And that in consequence of this allowance, to be paid out of
+      the surplus taxes, the poor-rates would become unnecessary, and that it is
+      better to apply the surplus taxes to these beneficent purposes, <i>than to
+      waste them on idle and profligate courtiers, placemen, and pensioners</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These, gentlemen, are a part of the plans and principles contained in the
+      work, which this meeting is now called upon, in an indirect manner, to
+      vote an address against, and brand with the name of <i>wicked and
+      seditious</i>. But that the work may speak for itself, I request leave to
+      close this part of my letter with an extract therefrom, in the following
+      words: [<i>Quotation the same as that on p. 26</i>.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gentlemen, I have now stated to you such matters as appear necessary to me
+      to offer to the consideration of the meeting. I have no other interest in
+      what I am doing, nor in writing you this letter, than the interest of the
+      <i>heart</i>. I consider the proposed address as calculated to give
+      countenance to placemen, pensioners, enormous taxation, and corruption.
+      Many of you will recollect, that whilst I resided among you, there was not
+      a man more firm and open in supporting the principles of liberty than
+      myself, and I still pursue, and ever will, the same path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have, Gentlemen, only one request to make, which is&mdash;that those who
+      have called the meeting will speak <i>out</i>, and say, whether in the
+      address they are going to present against publications, which the
+      proclamation calls wicked, they mean the work entitled <i>Rights of Man</i>,
+      or whether they do not?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, Gentlemen, With sincere wishes for your happiness,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your friend and Servant,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      VIII. TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Calais, Sept. 15, 1792.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I CONCEIVE it necessary to make you acquainted with the following
+      circumstance:&mdash;The department of Calais having elected me a member of
+      the National Convention of France, I set off from London the 13th instant,
+      in company with Mr. Frost, of Spring Garden, and Mr. Audibert, one of the
+      municipal officers of Calais, who brought me the certificate of my being
+      elected. We had not arrived more, I believe, than five minutes at the York
+      Hotel, at Dover, when the train of circumstances began that I am going to
+      relate. We had taken our baggage out of the carriage, and put it into a
+      room, into which we went. Mr. Frost, having occasion to go out, was
+      stopped in the passage by a gentleman, who told him he must return into
+      the room, which he did, and the gentleman came in with him, and shut the
+      door. I had remained in the room; Mr. Audibert was gone to inquire when
+      the packet was to sail. The gentleman then said, that he was collector of
+      the customs, and had an information against us, and must examine our
+      baggage for prohibited articles. He produced his commission as Collector.
+      Mr. Frost demanded to see the information, which the Collector refused to
+      shew, and continued to refuse, on every demand that we made. The Collector
+      then called in several other officers, and began first to search our
+      pockets. He took from Mr. Audibert, who was then returned into the room,
+      every thing he found in his pocket, and laid it on the table. He then
+      searched Mr. Frost in the same manner, (who, among other things, had the
+      keys of the trunks in his pocket,) and then did the same by me. Mr. Frost
+      wanting to go out, mentioned it, and was going towards the door; on which
+      the Collector placed himself against the door, and said, nobody should
+      depart the room. After the keys had been taken from Mr. Frost, (for I had
+      given him the keys of my trunks beforehand, for the purpose of his
+      attending the baggage to the customs, if it should be necessary,) the
+      Collector asked us to open the trunks, presenting us the keys for that
+      purpose; this we declined to do, unless he would produce his information,
+      which he again refused. The Collector then opened the trunks himself, and
+      took out every paper and letter, sealed or unsealed. On our remonstrating
+      with him on the bad policy, as well as the illegality, of Custom-House
+      officers seizing papers and letters, which were things that did not come
+      under their cognizance, he replied, that the <i>Proclamation</i> gave him
+      the authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the letters which he took out of my trunk, were two sealed letters,
+      given into my charge by the American Minister in London [Pinckney], one of
+      which was directed to the American Minister at Paris [Gouverneur Morris],
+      the other to a private gentleman; a letter from the President of the
+      United States, and a letter from the Secretary of State in America, both
+      directed to me, and which I had received from the American Minister, now
+      in London, and were private letters of friendship; a letter from the
+      electoral body of the Department of Calais, containing the notification of
+      my being elected to the National Convention; and a letter from the
+      President of the National Assembly, informing me of my being also elected
+      for the Department of the Oise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we found that all remonstrances with the Collector, on the bad policy
+      and illegality of seizing papers and letters, and retaining our persons by
+      force, under the pretence of searching for prohibited articles, were vain,
+      (for he justified himself on the Proclamation, and on the information
+      which he refused to shew,) we contented ourselves with assuring him, that
+      what he was then doing, he would afterwards have to answer for, and left
+      it to himself to do as he pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It appeared to us that the Collector was acting under the direction of
+      some other person or persons, then in the hotel, but whom he did not
+      choose we should see, or who did not choose to be seen by us; for the
+      Collector went several times out of the room for a few minutes, and was
+      also called out several times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of the
+      trunks, he proceeded to read them. The first letter he took up for this
+      purpose was that from the President of the United States to me. While he
+      was doing this, I said, that it was very extraordinary that General
+      Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to me, without
+      its being subject to be read by a custom-house officer. Upon this Mr.
+      Frost laid his hand over the face of the letter, and told the Collector
+      that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost then, casting
+      his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said, I will read this
+      part to you, which he did; of which the following is an exact transcript&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind
+      than I do, it is the first wish of my heart, that the enlightened policy
+      of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which they
+      are entitled, and lay the foundation of happiness for future
+      generations."(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As all the other letters and papers lay then on the table, the Collector
+      took them up, and was going out of the room with them. During the
+      transactions already stated, I contented myself with observing what
+      passed, and spoke but little; but on seeing the Collector going out of the
+      room with the letters, I told him that the papers and letters then in his
+      hand were either belonging to me, or entrusted to my charge, and that as I
+      could not permit them to be out of my sight, I must insist on going with
+      him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Washington's letter is dated 6 May, 1792. See my <i>Life of
+     Paine</i> vol. i., p. 302.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Collector then made a list of the letters and papers, and went out of
+      the room, giving the letters and papers into the charge of one of the
+      officers. He returned in a short time, and, after some trifling
+      conversation, chiefly about the Proclamation, told us, that he saw <i>the
+      Proclamation was ill-founded</i>, and asked if we chose to put the letters
+      and papers into the trunks ourselves, which, as we had not taken them out,
+      we declined doing, and he did it himself, and returned us the keys.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In stating to you these matters, I make no complaint against the personal
+      conduct of the Collector, or of any of the officers. Their manner was as
+      civil as such an extraordinary piece of business could admit of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My chief motive in writing to you on this subject is, that you may take
+      measures for preventing the like in future, not only as it concerns
+      private individuals, but in order to prevent a renewal of those unpleasant
+      consequences that have heretofore arisen between nations from
+      circumstances equally as insignificant. I mention this only for myself;
+      but as the interruption extended to two other gentlemen, it is probable
+      that they, as individuals, will take some more effectual mode for redress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, Sir, yours, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P. S. Among the papers seized, was a copy of the Attorney-General's
+      information against me for publishing the <i>Rights of Man</i>, and a
+      printed proof copy of my Letter to the Addressers, which will soon be
+      published.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      IX. LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      COULD I have commanded circumstances with a wish, I know not of any that
+      would have more generally promoted the progress of knowledge, than the
+      late Proclamation, and the numerous rotten Borough and Corporation
+      Addresses thereon. They have not only served as advertisements, but they
+      have excited a spirit of enquiry into principles of government, and a
+      desire to read the Rights OF Man, in places where that spirit and that
+      work were before unknown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The people of England, wearied and stunned with parties, and alternately
+      deceived by each, had almost resigned the prerogative of thinking. Even
+      curiosity had expired, and a universal languor had spread itself over the
+      land. The opposition was visibly no other than a contest for power, whilst
+      the mass of the nation stood torpidly by as the prize.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this hopeless state of things, the First Part of the Rights of Man made
+      its appearance. It had to combat with a strange mixture of prejudice and
+      indifference; it stood exposed to every species of newspaper abuse; and
+      besides this, it had to remove the obstructions which Mr. Burke's rude and
+      outrageous attack on the French Revolution had artfully raised.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The Royal Proclamation issued against seditious writings,
+     May 21st. This pamphlet, the proof of which was read in
+     Paris (see P. S. of preceding chapter), was published at 1s.
+     6d. by H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, and Thomas Clio
+     Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street (where it was written),
+     both pub-Ushers being soon after prosecuted.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But how easy does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the
+      spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the laboured productions of the
+      brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally
+      familiar to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight. No
+      artificial light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of
+      daylight; so neither can the best invented fiction fill the mind with
+      every conviction which truth begets.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To overthrow Mr. Burke's fallacious book was scarcely the operation of a
+      day. Even the phalanx of Placemen and Pensioners, who had given the tone
+      to the multitude, by clamouring forth his political fame, became suddenly
+      silent; and the final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a
+      rocket, he fell like the stick.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It seldom happens, that the mind rests satisfied with the simple detection
+      of error or imposition. Once put in motion, <i>that</i> motion soon
+      becomes accelerated; where it had intended to stop, it discovers new
+      reasons to proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the
+      limits it first prescribed to itself. Thus it has happened to the people
+      of England. From a detection of Mr. Burke's incoherent rhapsodies, and
+      distorted facts, they began an enquiry into the first principles of
+      Government, whilst himself, like an object left far behind, became
+      invisible and forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much as the First Part of RIGHTS OF Man impressed at its first appearance,
+      the progressive mind soon discovered that it did not go far enough. It
+      detected errors; it exposed absurdities; it shook the fabric of political
+      superstition; it generated new ideas; but it did not produce a regular
+      system of principles in the room of those which it displaced. And, if I
+      may guess at the mind of the Government-party, they beheld it as an
+      unexpected gale that would soon blow over, and they forbore, like sailors
+      in threatening weather, to whistle, lest they should encrease(sic) the
+      wind. Every thing, on their part, was profound silence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Second Part of <i>Rights of Man, combining Principle and Practice</i>,
+      was preparing to appear, they affected, for a while, to act with the same
+      policy as before; but finding their silence had no more influence in
+      stifling the progress of the work, than it would have in stopping the
+      progress of time, they changed their plan, and affected to treat it with
+      clamorous contempt. The Speech-making Placemen and Pensioners, and
+      Place-expectants, in both Houses of Parliament, the <i>Outs</i> as well as
+      the <i>Ins</i>, represented it as a silly, insignificant performance; as a
+      work incapable of producing any effect; as something which they were sure
+      the good sense of the people would either despise or indignantly spurn;
+      but such was the overstrained awkwardness with which they harangued and
+      encouraged each other, that in the very act of declaring their confidence
+      they betrayed their fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As most of the rotten Borough Addressers are obscured in holes and corners
+      throughout the country, and to whom a newspaper arrives as rarely as an
+      almanac, they most probably have not had the opportunity of knowing how
+      far this part of the farce (the original prelude to all the Addresses) has
+      been acted. For <i>their</i> information, I will suspend a while the more
+      serious purpose of my Letter, and entertain them with two or three
+      Speeches in the last Session of Parliament, which will serve them for
+      politics till Parliament meets again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You must know, Gentlemen, that the Second Part of the Rights of Man (the
+      book against which you have been presenting Addresses, though it is most
+      probable that many of you did not know it) was to have come out precisely
+      at the time that Parliament last met. It happened not to be published till
+      a few days after. But as it was very well known that the book would
+      shortly appear, the parliamentary Orators entered into a very cordial
+      coalition to cry the book down, and they began their attack by crying up
+      the <i>blessings</i> of the Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had it been your fate to have been there, you could not but have been
+      moved at the heart-and-pocket-felt congratulations that passed between all
+      the parties on this subject of <i>blessings</i>; for the <i>Outs</i> enjoy
+      places and pensions and sinecures as well as the <i>Ins</i>, and are as
+      devoutly attached to the firm of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most conspicuous of this motley groupe, is the Clerk of the
+      Court of King's Bench, who calls himself Lord Stormont. He is also called
+      Justice General of Scotland, and Keeper of Scoon, (an opposition man,) and
+      he draws from the public for these nominal offices, not less, as I am
+      informed, than six thousand pounds a-year, and he is, most probably, at
+      the trouble of counting the money, and signing a receipt, to shew,
+      perhaps, that he is qualified to be Clerk as well as Justice. He spoke as
+      follows.(*)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
+      constitution of these realms, I am confident. It is a subject upon which
+      there can be no divided opinion in this house. I do not pretend to be deep
+      read in the knowledge of the Constitution, but I take upon me to say, that
+      from the extent of my knowledge [<i>for I have so many thousands a year
+      for nothing</i>] it appears to me, that from the period of the Revolution,
+      for it was by no means created then, it has been, both in theory and
+      practice, the wisest system that ever was formed. I never was [he means he
+      never was till now] a dealer in political cant. My life has not been
+      occupied in that way, but the speculations of late years seem to have
+      taken a turn, for which I cannot account. When I came into public life,
+      the political pamphlets of the time, however they might be charged with
+      the heat and violence of parties, were agreed in extolling the radical
+      beauties of the Constitution itself. I remember [<i>he means he has
+      forgotten</i>] a most captivating eulogium on its charms, by Lord
+      Bolingbroke, where he recommends his readers to contemplate it in all its
+      aspects, with the assurance that it would be found more estimable the more
+      it was seen, I do not recollect his precise words, but I wish that men who
+      write upon these subjects would take this for their model, instead of the
+      political pamphlets, which, I am told, are now in circulation, [<i>such, I
+      suppose, as Rights of Man,</i>] pamphlets which I have not read, and whose
+      purport I know only by report, [<i>he means, perhaps, by the noise they
+      make</i>.] This, however, I am sure, that pamphlets tending to unsettle
+      the public reverence for the constitution, will have very little
+      influence. They can do very little harm&mdash;for [<i>by the bye, he is no
+      dealer in political cant</i>] the English are a sober-thinking people, and
+      are more intelligent, more solid, more steady in their opinions, than any
+      people I ever had the fortune to see. [<i>This is pretty well laid on,
+      though, for a new beginner</i>.] But if there should ever come a time when
+      the propagation of those doctrines should agitate the public mind, I am
+      sure for every one of your Lordships, that no attack will be made on the
+      constitution, from which it is truly said that we derive all our
+      prosperity, without raising every one of your Lordships to its support It
+      will then be found that there is no difference among us, but that we are
+      all determined to stand or fall together, in defence of the inestimable
+      system "&mdash;[<i>of places and pensions</i>].
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See his speech in the Morning Chronicle of Feb. 1.&mdash;
+     Author.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After Stormont, on the opposition side, sat down, up rose another noble
+      Lord, on the ministerial side, Grenville. This man ought to be as strong
+      in the back as a mule, or the sire of a mule, or it would crack with the
+      weight of places and offices. He rose, however, without feeling any
+      incumbrance, full master of his weight; and thus said this noble Lord to
+      t'other noble Lord!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The patriotic and manly manner in which the noble Lord has declared his
+      sentiments on the subject of the constitution, demands my cordial
+      approbation. The noble Viscount has proved, that however we may differ on
+      particular measures, amidst all the jars and dissonance of parties, we are
+      unanimous in principle. There is a perfect and entire consent [<i>between
+      us</i>] in the love and maintenance of the constitution as happily
+      subsisting. It must undoubtedly give your Lordships concern, to find that
+      the time is come [heigh ho!] when there is propriety in the expressions of
+      regard to [o! o! o!] the constitution. And that there are men [confound&mdash;their&mdash;po-li-tics]
+      who disseminate doctrines hostile to the genuine spirit of our well
+      balanced system, [<i>it is certainly well balanced when both sides hold
+      places and pensions at once.</i>] I agree with the noble viscount that
+      they have not [I hope] much success. I am convinced that there is no
+      danger to be apprehended from their attempts: but it is truly important
+      and consolatory [to us placemen, I suppose] to know, that if ever there
+      should arise a serious alarm, there is but one spirit, one sense, [<i>and
+      that sense I presume is not common sense</i>] and one determination in
+      this house "&mdash;which undoubtedly is to hold all their places and
+      pensions as long as they can.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Both those speeches (except the parts enclosed in parenthesis, which are
+      added for the purpose of illustration) are copied verbatim from the
+      Morning Chronicle of the 1st of February last; and when the situation of
+      the speakers is considered, the one in the opposition, and the other in
+      the ministry, and both of them living at the public expence, by sinecure,
+      or nominal places and offices, it required a very unblushing front to be
+      able to deliver them. Can those men seriously suppose any nation to be so
+      completely blind as not to see through them? Can Stormont imagine that the
+      political <i>cant</i>, with which he has larded his harangue, will conceal
+      the craft? Does he not know that there never was a cover large enough to
+      hide <i>itself</i>? Or can Grenvilie believe that his credit with the
+      public encreases with his avarice for places?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, if these orators will accept a service from me, in return for the
+      allusions they have made to the <i>Rights of Man</i>, I will make a speech
+      for either of them to deliver, on the excellence of the constitution, that
+      shall be as much to the purpose as what they have spoken, or as <i>Bolingbroke's
+      captivating eulogium</i>. Here it is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
+      constitution, I am confident. It is, my Lords, incomprehensibly good: but
+      the great wonder of all is the wisdom; for it is, my lords, <i>the wisest
+      system that ever was formed</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With respect to us, noble Lords, though the world does not know it, it is
+      very well known to us, that we have more wisdom than we know what to do
+      with; and what is still better, my Lords, we have it all in stock. I defy
+      your Lordships to prove, that a tittle of it has been used yet; and if we
+      but go on, my Lords, with the frugality we have hitherto done, we shall
+      leave to our heirs and successors, when we go out of the world, the whole
+      stock of wisdom, <i>untouched</i>, that we brought in; and there is no
+      doubt but they will follow our example. This, my lords, is one of the
+      blessed effects of the hereditary system; for we can never be without
+      wisdom so long as we keep it by us, and do not use it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But, my Lords, as all this wisdom is hereditary property, for the sole
+      benefit of us and our heirs, and it is necessary that the people should
+      know where to get a supply for their own use, the excellence of our
+      constitution has provided us a King for this very purpose, and for <i>no
+      other</i>. But, my Lords, I perceive a defect to which the constitution is
+      subject, and which I propose to remedy by bringing a bill into Parliament
+      for that purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The constitution, my Lords, out of delicacy, I presume, has left it as a
+      matter of <i>choice</i> to a King whether he will be wise or not. It has
+      not, I mean, my Lords, insisted upon it as a constitutional point, which,
+      I conceive it ought to have done; for I pledge myself to your Lordships to
+      prove, and that with <i>true patriotic boldness</i>, that he has <i>no
+      choice in the matter</i>. This bill, my Lords, which I shall bring in,
+      will be to declare, that the constitution, according to the true intent
+      and meaning thereof, does not invest the King with this choice; our
+      ancestors were too wise to do that; and, in order to prevent any doubts
+      that might otherwise arise, I shall prepare, my Lords, an enacting clause,
+      to fix the wisdom of Kings by act of Parliament; and then, my Lords our
+      Constitution will be the wonder of the world!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Wisdom, my lords, is the one thing needful: but that there may be no
+      mistake in this matter, and that we may proceed consistently with the true
+      wisdom of the constitution, I shall propose a <i>certain criterion</i>
+      whereby the <i>exact quantity of wisdom</i> necessary for a King may be
+      known. [Here should be a cry of, Hear him! Hear him!]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It is recorded, my Lords, in the Statutes at Large of the Jews, 'a book,
+      my Lords, which I have not read, and whose purport I know only by report,'
+      <i>but perhaps the bench of Bishops can recollect something about it</i>,
+      that Saul gave the most convincing proofs of royal wisdom before he was
+      made a King, <i>for he was sent to seek his father's asses and he could
+      not find them</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Here, my Lords, we have, most happily for us, a case in point: This
+      precedent ought to be established by act of Parliament; and every King,
+      before he be crowned, should be sent to seek his father's asses, and if he
+      cannot find them, he shall be declared wise enough to be King, according
+      to the true meaning of our excellent constitution. All, therefore, my
+      Lords, that will be necessary to be done by the enacting clause that I
+      shall bring in, will be to invest the King beforehand with the quantity of
+      wisdom necessary for this purpose, lest he should happen not to possess
+      it; and this, my Lords, we can do without making use of any of our own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We further read, my Lords, in the said Statutes at Large of the Jews,
+      that Samuel, who certainly was as mad as any Man-of-Rights-Man now-a-days
+      (hear him! hear him!), was highly displeased, and even exasperated, at the
+      proposal of the Jews to have a King, and he warned them against it with
+      all that assurance and impudence of which he was master. I have been, my
+      Lords, at the trouble of going all the way to <i>Paternoster-row</i>, to
+      procure an extract from the printed copy. I was told that I should meet
+      with it there, or in <i>Amen-eorner</i>, for I was then going, my Lords,
+      to rummage for it among the curiosities of the <i>Antiquarian Society</i>.
+      I will read the extracts to your Lordships, to shew how little Samuel knew
+      of the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The extract, my Lords, is from 1 Sam. chap. viii.:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of
+      him a King.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he said, this will be the manner of the King that shall reign over
+      you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his
+      chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over
+      fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and
+      to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he will take your daughters to be confectionnes, and to be cooks,
+      and to be bakers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards,
+      even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give
+      to his officers and to his servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your
+      goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "'And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your King, which ye shall
+      have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Now, my Lords, what can we think of this man Samuel? Is there a word of
+      truth, or any thing like truth, in all that he has said? He pretended to
+      be a prophet, or a wise man, but has not the event proved him to be a
+      fool, or an incendiary? Look around, my Lords, and see if any thing has
+      happened that he pretended to foretell! Has not the most profound peace
+      reigned throughout the world ever since Kings were in fashion? Are not,
+      for example, the present Kings of Europe the most peaceable of mankind,
+      and the Empress of Russia the very milk of human kindness? It would not be
+      worth having Kings, my Lords, if it were not that they never go to war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "If we look at home, my Lords, do we not see the same things here as are
+      seen every where else? Are our young men taken to be horsemen, or foot
+      soldiers, any more than in Germany or in Prussia, or in Hanover or in
+      Hesse? Are not our sailors as safe at land as at sea? Are they ever
+      dragged from their homes, like oxen to the slaughter-house, to serve on
+      board ships of war? When they return from the perils of a long voyage with
+      the merchandize of distant countries, does not every man sit down under
+      his own vine and his own fig-tree, in perfect security? Is the tenth of
+      our seed taken by tax-gatherers, or is any part of it given to the King's
+      servants? In short, <i>is not everything as free from taxes as the light
+      from Heaven!</i> (1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Ah! my Lords, do we not see the blessed effect of having Kings in every
+      thing we look at? Is not the G. R., or the broad R., stampt upon every
+      thing? Even the shoes, the gloves, and the hats that we wear, are enriched
+      with the impression, and all our candles blaze a burnt-offering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Besides these blessings, my Lords, that cover us from the sole of the
+      foot to the crown of the head, do we not see a race of youths growing up
+      to be Kings, who are the very paragons of virtue? There is not one of
+      them, my Lords, but might be trusted with untold gold, as safely as the
+      other. Are they not '<i>more sober, intelligent, more solid, more steady</i>,'
+      and withal, <i>more learned, more wise, more every thing, than any youths
+      we '</i>ever had the fortune to see.' Ah! my Lords, they are a <i>hopeful
+      family</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The blessed prospect of succession, which the nation has at this moment
+      before its eyes, is a most undeniable proof of the excellence of our
+      constitution, and of the blessed hereditary system; for nothing, my Lords,
+      but a constitution founded on the truest and purest wisdom could admit
+      such heaven-born and heaven-taught characters into the government.&mdash;Permit
+      me now, my Lords, to recal your attention to the libellous chapter I have
+      just read about Kings. I mention this, my Lords, because it is my
+      intention to move for a bill to be brought into parliament to expunge that
+      chapter from the Bible, and that the Lord Chancellor, with the assistance
+      of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, be
+      requested to write a chapter in the room of it; and that Mr. Burke do see
+      that it be truly canonical, and faithfully inserted."&mdash;Finis.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Allusion to the window-tax.&mdash;Editor,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If the Clerk of the Court of King's Bench should chuse to be the orator of
+      this luminous encomium on the constitution, I hope he will get it well by
+      heart before he attempts to deliver it, and not have to apologize to
+      Parliament, as he did in the case of Bolingbroke's encomium, for
+      forgetting his lesson; and, with this admonition I leave him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus informed the Addressers of what passed at the meeting of
+      Parliament, I return to take up the subject at the part where I broke off
+      in order to introduce the preceding speeches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was then stating, that the first policy of the Government party was
+      silence, and the next, clamorous contempt; but as people generally choose
+      to read and judge for themselves, the work still went on, and the
+      affectation of contempt, like the silence that preceded it, passed for
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus foiled in their second scheme, their evil genius, like a
+      will-with-a-wisp, led them to a third; when all at once, as if it had been
+      unfolded to them by a fortune-teller, or Mr. Dundas had discovered it by
+      second sight, this once harmless, insignificant book, without undergoing
+      the alteration of a single letter, became a most wicked and dangerous
+      Libel. The whole Cabinet, like a ship's crew, became alarmed; all hands
+      were piped upon deck, as if a conspiracy of elements was forming around
+      them, and out came the Proclamation and the Prosecution; and Addresses
+      supplied the place of prayers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ye silly swains, thought I to myself, why do you torment yourselves thus?
+      The Rights OF Man is a book calmly and rationally written; why then are
+      you so disturbed? Did you see how little or how suspicious such conduct
+      makes you appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty, would hush
+      you into prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments, contained in that
+      work, are placed before the eyes of the nation, and of the world, in a
+      fair, open, and manly manner, and nothing more is necessary than to refute
+      them. Do this, and the whole is done; but if ye cannot, so neither can ye
+      suppress the reading, nor convict the author; for the Law, in the opinion
+      of all good men, would convict itself, that should condemn what cannot be
+      refuted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now shown the Addressers the several stages of the business, prior
+      to their being called upon, like Cæsar in the Tyber, crying to Cassius, "<i>help,
+      Cassius, or I sink</i>!" I next come to remark on the policy of the
+      Government, in promoting Addresses; on the consequences naturally
+      resulting therefrom; and on the conduct of the persons concerned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With respect to the policy, it evidently carries with it every mark and
+      feature of disguised fear. And it will hereafter be placed in the history
+      of extraordinary things, that a pamphlet should be produced by an
+      individual, unconnected with any sect or party, and not seeking to make
+      any, and almost a stranger in the land, that should compleatly frighten a
+      whole Government, and that in the midst of its most triumphant security.
+      Such a circumstance cannot fail to prove, that either the pamphlet has
+      irresistible powers, or the Government very extraordinary defects, or
+      both. The nation exhibits no signs of fear at the Rights of Man; why then
+      should the Government, unless the interest of the two are really opposite
+      to each other, and the secret is beginning to be known? That there are two
+      distinct classes of men in the nation, those who pay taxes, and those who
+      receive and live upon the taxes, is evident at first sight; and when
+      taxation is carried to excess, it cannot fail to disunite those two, and
+      something of this kind is now beginning to appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is also curious to observe, amidst all the fume and bustle about
+      Proclamations and Addresses, kept up by a few noisy and interested men,
+      how little the mass of the nation seem to care about either. They appear
+      to me, by the indifference they shew, not to believe a word the
+      Proclamation contains; and as to the Addresses, they travel to London with
+      the silence of a funeral, and having announced their arrival in the
+      Gazette, are deposited with the ashes of their predecessors, and Mr.
+      Dundas writes their <i>hic facet</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the best effects which the Proclamation, and its echo the Addresses
+      have had, has been that of exciting and spreading curiosity; and it
+      requires only a single reflection to discover, that the object of all
+      curiosity is knowledge. When the mass of the nation saw that Placemen,
+      Pensioners, and Borough-mongers, were the persons that stood forward to
+      promote Addresses, it could not fail to create suspicions that the public
+      good was not their object; that the character of the books, or writings,
+      to which such persons obscurely alluded, not daring to mention them, was
+      directly contrary to what they described them to be, and that it was
+      necessary that every man, for his own satisfaction, should exercise his
+      proper right, and read and judge for himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how will the persons who have been induced to read the <i>Rights of
+      Man</i>, by the clamour that has been raised against it, be surprized to
+      find, that, instead of a wicked, inflammatory work, instead of a
+      licencious and profligate performance, it abounds with principles of
+      government that are uncontrovertible&mdash;with arguments which every
+      reader will feel, are unanswerable&mdash;with plans for the increase of
+      commerce and manufactures&mdash;for the extinction of war&mdash;for the
+      education of the children of the poor&mdash;for the comfortable support of
+      the aged and decayed persons of both sexes&mdash;for the relief of the
+      army and navy, and, in short, for the promotion of every thing that can
+      benefit the moral, civil, and political condition of Man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why, then, some calm observer will ask, why is the work prosecuted, if
+      these be the goodly matters it contains? I will tell thee, friend; it
+      contains also a plan for the reduction of Taxes, for lessening the immense
+      expences of Government, for abolishing sinecure Places and Pensions; and
+      it proposes applying the redundant taxes, that shall be saved by these
+      reforms, to the purposes mentioned in the former paragraph, instead of
+      applying them to the support of idle and profligate Placemen and
+      Pensioners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Is it, then, any wonder that Placemen and Pensioners, and the whole train
+      of Court expectants, should become the promoters of Addresses,
+      Proclamations, and Prosecutions? or, is it any wonder that Corporations
+      and rotten Boroughs, which are attacked and exposed, both in the First and
+      Second Parts of <i>Rights of Man</i>, as unjust monopolies and public
+      nuisances, should join in the cavalcade? Yet these are the sources from
+      which Addresses have sprung. Had not such persons come forward to oppose
+      the <i>Rights of Man</i>, I should have doubted the efficacy of my own
+      writings: but those opposers have now proved to me that the blow was well
+      directed, and they have done it justice by confessing the smart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principal deception in this business of Addresses has been, that the
+      promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They
+      have assumed to pass themselves upon the public as a part of the Public,
+      bearing a share of the burthen of Taxes, and acting for the public good;
+      whereas, they are in general that part of it that adds to the public
+      burthen, by living on the produce of the public taxes. They are to the
+      public what the locusts are to the tree: the burthen would be less, and
+      the prosperity would be greater, if they were shaken off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I do not come here," said Onslow, at the Surry County meeting, "as the
+      Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as a
+      plain country gentleman." The fact is, that he came there as what he was,
+      and as no other, and consequently he came as one of the beings I have been
+      describing. If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by the public,
+      as a pauper is by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the title; and
+      the same description will suit the Duke of Richmond, who led the Address
+      at the Sussex meeting. He also may set up for a gentleman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the meeting in the next adjoining county (Kent), it was a scene of
+      disgrace. About two hundred persons met, when a small part of them drew
+      privately away from the rest, and voted an Address: the consequence of
+      which was that they got together by the ears, and produced a riot in the
+      very act of producing an Address to prevent Riots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the Proclamation and the Addresses have failed of their intended
+      effect, may be collected from the silence which the Government party
+      itself observes. The number of addresses has been weekly retailed in the
+      Gazette; but the number of Addressers has been concealed. Several of the
+      Addresses have been voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a
+      considerable number of them by not more than thirty. The whole number of
+      Addresses presented at the time of writing this letter is three hundred
+      and twenty, (rotten Boroughs and Corporations included) and even
+      admitting, on an average, one hundred Addressers to each address, the
+      whole number of addressers would be but thirty-two thousand, and nearly
+      three months have been taken up in procuring this number. That the success
+      of the Proclamation has been less than the success of the work it was
+      intended to discourage, is a matter within my own knowledge; for a greater
+      number of the cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of the Rights OF
+      Man has been sold in the space only of one month, than the whole number of
+      Addressers (admitting them to be thirty-two thousand) have amounted to in
+      three months.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a Nation, "<i>thou
+      shalt not read</i>." This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done
+      under the old Government of France; but it served to procure the downfall
+      of the latter, and is subverting that of the former; and it will have the
+      same tendency in all countries; because <i>thought</i> by some means or
+      other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though
+      reading may.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If <i>Rights of Man</i> were a book that deserved the vile description
+      which the promoters of the Address have given of it, why did not these men
+      prove their charge, and satisfy the people, by producing it, and reading
+      it publicly? This most certainly ought to have been done, and would also
+      have been done, had they believed it would have answered their purpose.
+      But the fact is, that the book contains truths which those time-servers
+      dreaded to hear, and dreaded that the people should know; and it is now
+      following up the,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ADDRESS TO ADDRESSERS.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Addresses in every part of the nation, and convicting them of falsehoods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the unwarrantable proceedings to which the Proclamation has given
+      rise, the meetings of the Justices in several of the towns and counties
+      ought to be noticed.. Those men have assumed to re-act the farce of
+      General Warrants, and to suppress, by their own authority, whatever
+      publications they please. This is an attempt at power equalled only by the
+      conduct of the minor despots of the most despotic governments in Europe,
+      and yet those Justices affect to call England a Free Country. But even
+      this, perhaps, like the scheme for garrisoning the country by building
+      military barracks, is necessary to awaken the country to a sense of its
+      Rights, and, as such, it will have a good effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another part of the conduct of such Justices has been, that of threatening
+      to take away the licences from taverns and public-houses, where the
+      inhabitants of the neighbourhood associated to read and discuss the
+      principles of Government, and to inform each other thereon. This, again,
+      is similar to what is doing in Spain and Russia; and the reflection which
+      it cannot fail to suggest is, that the principles and conduct of any
+      Government must be bad, when that Government dreads and startles at
+      discussion, and seeks security by a prevention of knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the Government, or the Constitution, or by whatever name it be called,
+      be that miracle of perfection which the Proclamation and the Addresses
+      have trumpeted it forth to be, it ought to have defied discussion and
+      investigation, instead of dreading it. Whereas, every attempt it makes,
+      either by Proclamation, Prosecution, or Address, to suppress
+      investigation, is a confession that it feels itself unable to bear it. It
+      is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from enquiry. All the numerous
+      pamphlets, and all the newspaper falsehood and abuse, that have been
+      published against the Rights of Man, have fallen before it like pointless
+      arrows; and, in like manner, would any work have fallen before the
+      Constitution, had the Constitution, as it is called, been founded on as
+      good political principles as those on which the Rights OF Man is written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a good Constitution for courtiers, placemen, pensioners,
+      borough-holders, and the leaders of Parties, and these are the men that
+      have been the active leaders of Addresses; but it is a bad Constitution
+      for at least ninety-nine parts of the nation out of an hundred, and this
+      truth is every day making its way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is bad, first, because it entails upon the nation the unnecessary
+      expence of supporting three forms and systems of Government at once,
+      namely, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly, because it is impossible to unite such a discordant composition
+      by any other means than perpetual corruption; and therefore the corruption
+      so loudly and so universally complained of, is no other than the natural
+      consequence of such an unnatural compound of Governments; and in this
+      consists that excellence which the numerous herd of placemen and
+      pensioners so loudly extol, and which at the same time, occasions that
+      enormous load of taxes under which the rest of the nation groans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the mass of national delusions calculated to amuse and impose upon
+      the multitude, the standing one has been that of flattering them into
+      taxes, by calling the Government (or as they please to express it, the
+      English Constitution) "<i>the envy and the admiration of the world</i>"
+      Scarcely an Address has been voted in which some of the speakers have not
+      uttered this hackneyed nonsensical falsehood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two Revolutions have taken place, those of America and France; and both of
+      them have rejected the unnatural compounded system of the English
+      government. America has declared against all hereditary Government, and
+      established the representative system of Government only. France has
+      entirely rejected the aristocratical part, and is now discovering the
+      absurdity of the monarchical, and is approaching fast to the
+      representative system. On what ground then, do these men continue a
+      declaration, respecting what they call the <i>envy and admiration of other
+      nations</i>, which the voluntary practice of such nations, as have had the
+      opportunity of establishing Government, contradicts and falsifies. Will
+      such men never confine themselves to truth? Will they be for ever the
+      deceivers of the people?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I will go further, and shew, that were Government now to begin in
+      England, the people could not be brought to establish the same system they
+      now submit to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In speaking on this subject (or on any other) <i>on the pure ground of
+      principle</i>, antiquity and precedent cease to be authority, and
+      hoary-headed error loses its effect. The reasonableness and propriety of
+      things must be examined abstractedly from custom and usage; and, in this
+      point of view, the right which grows into practice to-day is as much a
+      right, and as old in principle and theory, as if it had the customary
+      sanction of a thousand ages. Principles have no connection with time, nor
+      characters with names.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To say that the Government of this country is composed of King, Lords, and
+      Commons, is the mere phraseology of custom. It is composed of men; and
+      whoever the men be to whom the Government of any country is intrusted,
+      they ought to be the best and wisest that can be found, and if they are
+      not so, they are not fit for the station. A man derives no more excellence
+      from the change of a name, or calling him King, or calling him Lord, than
+      I should do by changing my name from Thomas to George, or from Paine to
+      Guelph. I should not be a whit more able to write a book because my name
+      was altered; neither would any man, now called a King or a lord, have a
+      whit the more sense than he now has, were he to call himself Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the word "Commons," applied as it is in England, it is a term of
+      degradation and reproach, and ought to be abolished. It is a term unknown
+      in free countries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to the point.&mdash;Let us suppose that Government was now to begin in
+      England, and that the plan of Government, offered to the nation for its
+      approbation or rejection, consisted of the following parts:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First&mdash;That some one individual should be taken from all the rest of
+      the nation, and to whom all the rest should swear obedience, and never be
+      permitted to sit down in his presence, and that they should give to him
+      one million sterling a year.&mdash;That the nation should never after have
+      power or authority to make laws but with his express consent; and that his
+      sons and his sons' sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or
+      unfit, should have the same power, and also the same money annually paid
+      to them for ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly&mdash;That there should be two houses of Legislators to assist in
+      making laws, one of which should, in the first instance, be entirely
+      appointed by the aforesaid person, and that their sons and their sons'
+      sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should for
+      ever after be hereditary Legislators.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirdly&mdash;That the other house should be chosen in the same manner as
+      the house now called the House of Commons is chosen, and should be subject
+      to the controul of the two aforesaid hereditary Powers in all things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be impossible to cram such a farrago of imposition and absurdity
+      down the throat of this or any other nation that was capable of reasoning
+      upon its rights and its interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They would ask, in the first place, on what ground of right, or on what
+      principle, such irrational and preposterous distinctions could, or ought
+      to be made; and what pretensions any man could have, or what services he
+      could render, to entitle him to a million a year? They would go farther,
+      and revolt at the idea of consigning their children, and their children's
+      children, to the domination of persons hereafter to be born, who might,
+      for any thing they could foresee, turn out to be knaves or fools; and they
+      would finally discover, that the project of hereditary Governors and
+      Legislators <i>was a treasonable usurpation over the rights of posterity</i>.
+      Not only the calm dictates of reason, and the force of natural affection,
+      but the integrity of manly pride, would impel men to spurn such proposals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the grosser absurdities of such a scheme, they would extend their
+      examination to the practical defects&mdash;They would soon see that it
+      would end in tyranny accomplished by fraud. That in the operation of it,
+      it would be two to one against them, because the two parts that were to be
+      made hereditary would form a common interest, and stick to each other; and
+      that themselves and representatives would become no better than hewers of
+      wood and drawers of water for the other parts of the Government.&mdash;Yet
+      call one of those powers King, the other Lords, and the third the Commons,
+      and it gives the model of what is called the English Government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have asserted, and have shewn, both in the First and Second Parts of <i>Rights
+      of Man</i>, that there is not such a thing as an English Constitution, and
+      that the people have yet a Constitution to form. <i>A Constitution is a
+      thing antecedent to a Government; it is the act of a people creating a
+      Government and giving it powers, and defining the limits and exercise of
+      the powers so given</i>. But whenever did the people of England, acting in
+      their original constituent character, by a delegation elected for that
+      express purpose, declare and say, "We, the people of this land, do
+      constitute and appoint this to be our system and form of Government." The
+      Government has assumed to constitute itself, but it never was constituted
+      by the people, in whom alone the right of constituting resides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will here recite the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the United
+      States of America. I have shewn in the Second Part of <i>Rights of Man</i>,
+      the manner by which the Constitution was formed and afterwards ratified;
+      and to which I refer the reader. The preamble is in the following words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "We, the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
+      union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for common
+      defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
+      to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution
+      for the United States of America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then follow the several articles which appoint the manner in which the
+      several component parts of the Government, legislative and executive,
+      shall be elected, and the period of their duration, and the powers they
+      shall have: also, the manner by which future additions, alterations, or
+      amendments, shall be made to the constitution. Consequently, every
+      improvement that can be made in the science of government, follows in that
+      country as a matter of order. It is only in Governments founded on
+      assumption and false principles, that reasoning upon, and investigating
+      systems and principles of Government, and shewing their several
+      excellencies and defects, are termed libellous and seditious. These terms
+      were made part of the charge brought against Locke, Hampden, and Sydney,
+      and will continue to be brought against all good men, so long as bad
+      government shall continue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Government of this country has been ostentatiously giving challenges
+      for more than an hundred years past, upon what it called its own
+      excellence and perfection. Scarcely a King's Speech, or a Parliamentary
+      Speech, has been uttered, in which this glove has not been thrown, till
+      the world has been insulted with their challenges. But it now appears that
+      all this was vapour and vain boasting, or that it was intended to conceal
+      abuses and defects, and hush the people into taxes. I have taken the
+      challenge up, and in behalf of the public have shewn, in a fair, open, and
+      candid manner, both the radical and practical defects of the system; when,
+      lo! those champions of the Civil List have fled away, and sent the
+      Attorney-General to deny the challenge, by turning the acceptance of it
+      into an attack, and defending their Places and Pensions by a prosecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will here drop this part of the subject, and state a few particulars
+      respecting the prosecution now pending, by which the Addressers will see
+      that they have been used as tools to the prosecuting party and their
+      dependents. The case is as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The original edition of the First and Second Parts of the Rights of Man,
+      having been expensively printed, (in the modern stile of printing
+      pamphlets, that they might be bound up with Mr. Burke's Reflections on the
+      French Revolution,) the high price(1) precluded the generality of people
+      from purchasing; and many applications were made to me from various parts
+      of the country to print the work in a cheaper manner. The people of
+      Sheffield requested leave to print two thousand copies for themselves,
+      with which request I immediately complied. The same request came to me
+      from Rotherham, from Leicester, from Chester, from several towns in
+      Scotland; and Mr. James Mackintosh, author of <i>Vindico Gallico</i>,
+      brought me a request from Warwickshire, for leave to print ten thousand
+      copies in that county. I had already sent a cheap edition to Scotland; and
+      finding the applications increase, I concluded that the best method of
+      complying therewith, would be to print a very numerous edition in London,
+      under my own direction, by which means the work would be more perfect, and
+      the price be reduced lower than it could be by <i>printing</i> small
+      editions in the country, of only a few thousands each.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Half  a crown.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The cheap edition of the first part was begun about the first of last
+      April, and from that moment, and not before, I expected a prosecution, and
+      the event has proved that I was not mistaken. I had then occasion to write
+      to Mr. Thomas Walker of Manchester, and after informing him of my
+      intention of giving up the work for the purpose of general information, I
+      informed him of what I apprehended would be the consequence; that while
+      the work was at a price that precluded an extensive circulation, the
+      government party, not able to controvert the plans, arguments, and
+      principles it contained, had chosen to remain silent; but that I expected
+      they would make an attempt to deprive the mass of the nation, and
+      especially the poor, of the right of reading, by the pretence of
+      prosecuting either the Author or the Publisher, or both. They chose to
+      begin with the Publisher.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly a month, however, passed, before I had any information given me of
+      their intentions. I was then at Bromley, in Kent, upon which I came
+      immediately to town, (May 14) and went to Mr. Jordan, the publisher of the
+      original edition. He had that evening been served with a summons to appear
+      at the Court of King's Bench, on the Monday following, but for what
+      purpose was not stated. Supposing it to be on account of the work, I
+      appointed a meeting with him on the next morning, which was accordingly
+      had, when I provided an attorney, and took the ex-pence of the defence on
+      myself. But finding afterwards that he absented himself from the attorney
+      employed, and had engaged another, and that he had been closeted with the
+      Solicitors of the Treasury, I left him to follow his own choice, and he
+      chose to plead Guilty. This he might do if he pleased; and I make no
+      objection against him for it. I believe that his idea by the word <i>Guilty</i>,
+      was no other than declaring himself to be the publisher, without any
+      regard to the merits or demerits of the work; for were it to be construed
+      otherwise, it would amount to the absurdity of converting a publisher into
+      a Jury, and his confession into a verdict upon the work itself. This would
+      be the highest possible refinement upon packing of Juries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 21st of May, they commenced their prosecution against me, as the
+      author, by leaving a summons at my lodgings in town, to appear at the
+      Court of King's Bench on the 8th of June following; and on the same day,
+      (May 21,) <i>they issued also their Proclamation</i>. Thus the Court of
+      St. James and the Court of King's Bench, were playing into each other's
+      hands at the same instant of time, and the farce of Addresses brought up
+      the rear; and this mode of proceeding is called by the prostituted name of
+      Law. Such a thundering rapidity, after a ministerial dormancy of almost
+      eighteen months, can be attributed to no other cause than their having
+      gained information of the forwardness of the cheap Edition, and the dread
+      they felt at the progressive increase of political knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was strongly advised by several gentlemen, as well those in the practice
+      of the law, as others, to prefer a bill of indictment against the
+      publisher of the Proclamation, as a publication tending to influence, or
+      rather to dictate the verdict of a Jury on the issue of a matter then
+      pending; but it appeared to me much better to avail myself of the
+      opportunity which such a precedent justified me in using, by meeting the
+      Proclamation and the Addressers on their own ground, and publicly
+      defending the Work which had been thus unwarrantably attacked and
+      traduced.&mdash;And conscious as I now am, that the Work entitled Rights
+      OF Man so far from being, as has been maliciously or erroneously
+      represented, a false, wicked, and seditious libel, is a work abounding
+      with unanswerable truths, with principles of the purest morality and
+      benevolence, and with arguments not to be controverted&mdash;Conscious, I
+      say, of these things, and having no object in view but the happiness of
+      mankind, I have now put the matter to the best proof in my power, by
+      giving to the public a cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of that
+      Work. Let every man read and judge for himself, not only of the merits and
+      demerits of the Work, but of the matters therein contained, which relate
+      to his own interest and happiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of
+      hereditary government&mdash;to lessen the oppression of taxes&mdash;to
+      propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable
+      support of the aged and distressed&mdash;to endeavour to conciliate
+      nations to each other&mdash;to extirpate the horrid practice of war&mdash;to
+      promote universal peace, civilization, and commerce&mdash;and to break the
+      chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper
+      rank;&mdash;if these things be libellous, let me live the life of a
+      Libeller, and let the name of Libeller be engraved on my tomb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all the weak and ill-judged measures which fear, ignorance, or
+      arrogance could suggest, the Proclamation, and the project for Addresses,
+      are two of the worst. They served to advertise the work which the
+      promoters of those measures wished to keep unknown; and in doing this they
+      offered violence to the judgment of the people, by calling on them to
+      condemn what they forbad them to know, and put the strength of their party
+      to that hazardous issue that prudence would have avoided.&mdash;The County
+      Meeting for Middlesex was attended by only one hundred and eighteen
+      Addressers. They, no doubt, expected, that thousands would flock to their
+      standard, and clamor against the <i>Rights of Man</i>. But the case most
+      probably is, that men in all countries, are not so blind to their Rights
+      and their Interest as Governments believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus shewn the extraordinary manner in which the Government party
+      commenced their attack, I proceed to offer a few observations on the
+      prosecution, and on the mode of trial by Special Jury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, I have written a book; and if it cannot be refuted, it
+      cannot be condemned. But I do not consider the prosecution as particularly
+      levelled against me, but against the general right, or the right of every
+      man, of investigating systems and principles of government, and shewing
+      their several excellencies or defects. If the press be free only to
+      flatter Government, as Mr. Burke has done, and to cry up and extol what
+      certain Court sycophants are pleased to call a "glorious Constitution,"
+      and not free to examine into its errors or abuses, or whether a
+      Constitution really exist or not, such freedom is no other than that of
+      Spain, Turkey, or Russia; and a Jury in this case, would not be a Jury to
+      try, but an Inquisition to condemn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have asserted, and by fair and open argument maintained, the right of
+      every nation at all times to establish such a system and form of
+      government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest, and
+      happiness; and to change and alter it as it sees occasion. Will any Jury
+      deny to the Nation this right? If they do, they are traitors, and their
+      verdict would be null and void. And if they admit the right, the means
+      must be admitted also; for it would be the highest absurdity to say, that
+      the right existed, but the means did not. The question then is, What are
+      the means by which the possession and exercise of this National Right are
+      to be secured? The answer will be, that of maintaining, inviolably, the
+      right of free investigation; for investigation always serves to detect
+      error, and to bring forth truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have, as an individual, given my opinion upon what I believe to be not
+      only the best, but the true system of Government, which is the
+      representative system, and I have given reasons for that opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, Because in the representative system, no office of very
+      extraordinary power, or extravagant pay, is attached to any individual;
+      and consequently there is nothing to excite those national contentions and
+      civil wars with which countries under monarchical governments are
+      frequently convulsed, and of which the History of England exhibits such
+      numerous instances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly, Because the representative is a system of Government always in
+      maturity; whereas monarchical government fluctuates through all the
+      stages, from non-age to dotage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirdly, Because the representative system admits of none but men properly
+      qualified into the Government, or removes them if they prove to be
+      otherwise. Whereas, in the hereditary system, a nation may be encumbered
+      with a knave or an ideot for a whole life-time, and not be benefited by a
+      successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fourthly, Because there does not exist a right to establish hereditary
+      government, or, in other words, hereditary successors, because hereditary
+      government always means a government yet to come, and the case always is,
+      that those who are to live afterwards have the same right to establish
+      government for themselves, as the people had who lived before them; and,
+      therefore, all laws attempting to establish hereditary government, are
+      founded on assumption and political fiction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If these positions be truths, and I challenge any man to prove the
+      contrary; if they tend to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to free them
+      from error, oppression, and political superstition, which are the objects
+      I have in view in publishing them, that Jury would commit an act of
+      injustice to their country, and to me, if not an act of perjury, that
+      should call them <i>false, wicked, and malicious</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dragonetti, in his treatise "On Virtues and Rewards," has a paragraph
+      worthy of being recorded in every country in the world&mdash;"The science
+      (says he,) of the politician, consists, in, fixing the true point of
+      happiness and freedom. Those men deserve the gratitude of ages who should
+      discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of <i>individual
+      happiness</i> with the least <i>national expence</i>." But if Juries are
+      to be made use of to prohibit enquiry, to suppress truth, and to stop the
+      progress of knowledge, this boasted palladium of liberty becomes the most
+      successful instrument of tyranny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the arts practised at the Bar, and from the Bench, to impose upon
+      the understanding of a Jury, and to obtain a Verdict where the consciences
+      of men could not otherwise consent, one of the most successful has been
+      that of calling <i>truth a libel</i>, and of insinuating that the words "<i>falsely,
+      wickedly, and maliciously</i>," though they are made the formidable and
+      high sounding part of the charge, are not matters of consideration with a
+      Jury. For what purpose, then, are they retained, unless it be for that of
+      imposition and wilful defamation?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot conceive a greater violation of order, nor a more abominable
+      insult upon morality, and upon human understanding, than to see a man
+      sitting in the judgment seat, affecting by an antiquated foppery of dress
+      to impress the audience with awe; then causing witnesses and Jury to be
+      sworn to truth and justice, himself having officially sworn the same; then
+      causing to be read a prosecution against a man charging him with having <i>wickedly
+      and maliciously written and published a certain false, wicked, and
+      seditious book</i>; and having gone through all this with a shew of
+      solemnity, as if he saw the eye of the Almighty darting through the roof
+      of the building like a ray of light, turn, in an instant, the whole into a
+      farce, and, in order to obtain a verdict that could not otherwise be
+      obtained, tell the Jury that the charge of <i>falsely, wickedly, and
+      seditiously</i>, meant nothing; that <i>truth</i> was out of the question;
+      and that whether the person accused spoke truth or falsehood, or intended
+      <i>virtuously or wickedly</i>, was the same thing; and finally conclude
+      the wretched inquisitorial scene, by stating some antiquated precedent,
+      equally as abominable as that which is then acting, or giving some opinion
+      of his own, and <i>falsely calling the one and the other&mdash;Law</i>. It
+      was, most probably, to such a Judge as this, that the most solemn of all
+      reproofs was given&mdash;"<i>The Lord will smite thee, thou whitened wall</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now proceed to offer some remarks on what is called a Special Jury. As
+      to what is called a Special Verdict, I shall make no other remark upon it,
+      than that it is in reality <i>not</i> a verdict. It is an attempt on the
+      part of the Jury to delegate, or of the Bench to obtain, the exercise of
+      that right, which is committed to the Jury only.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With respect to the Special Juries, I shall state such matters as I have
+      been able to collect, for I do not find any uniform opinion concerning the
+      mode of appointing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, this mode of trial is but of modern invention, and the
+      origin of it, as I am told, is as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formerly, when disputes arose between Merchants, and were brought before a
+      Court, the case was that the nature of their commerce, and the method of
+      keeping Merchants' accounts not being sufficiently understood by persons
+      out of their own line, it became necessary to depart from the common mode
+      of appointing Juries, and to select such persons for a Jury whose <i>practical
+      knowledge</i> would enable them to decide upon the case. From this
+      introduction, Special Juries became more general; but some doubts having
+      arisen as to their legality, an act was passed in the 3d of George II. to
+      establish them as legal, and also to extend them to all cases, not only
+      between individuals, but in cases where <i>the Government itself should be
+      the prosecutor</i>. This most probably gave rise to the suspicion so
+      generally entertained of packing a Jury; because, by this act, when the
+      Crown, as it is called, is the Prosecutor, the Master of the Crown-office,
+      who holds his office under the Crown, is the person who either wholly
+      nominates, or has great power in nominating the Jury, and therefore it has
+      greatly the appearance of the prosecuting party selecting a Jury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The process is as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On motion being made in Court, by either the Plaintiff or Defendant, for a
+      Special Jury, the Court grants it or not, at its own discretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If it be granted, the Solicitor of the party that applied for the Special
+      Jury, gives notice to the Solicitor of the adverse party, and a day and
+      hour are appointed for them to meet at the office of the Master of the
+      Crown-office. The Master of the Crown-office sends to the Sheriff or his
+      deputy, who attends with the Sheriff's book of Freeholders. From this
+      book, forty-eight names are taken, and a copy thereof given to each of the
+      parties; and, on a future day, notice is again given, and the Solicitors
+      meet a second time, and each strikes out twelve names. The list being thus
+      reduced from forty-eight to twenty-four, the first twelve that appear in
+      Court, and answer to their names, is the Special Jury for that cause. The
+      first operation, that of taking the forty-eight names, is called
+      nominating the Jury; and the reducing them to twenty-four is called
+      striking the Jury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus stated the general process, I come to particulars, and the
+      first question will be, how are the forty-eight names, out of which the
+      Jury is to be struck, obtained from the Sheriff's book? For herein lies
+      the principal ground of suspicion, with respect to what is understood by
+      packing of Juries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Either they must be taken by some rule agreed upon between the parties, or
+      by some common rule known and established beforehand, or at the discretion
+      of some person, who in such a case, ought to be perfectly disinterested in
+      the issue, as well officially as otherwise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the case of Merchants, and in all cases between individuals, the Master
+      of the office, called the Crown-office, is officially an indifferent
+      person, and as such may be a proper person to act between the parties, and
+      present them with a list of forty-eight names, out of which each party is
+      to strike twelve. But the case assumes an entire difference of character,
+      when the Government itself is the Prosecutor. The Master of the
+      Crown-office is then an officer holding his office under the Prosecutor;
+      and it is therefore no wonder that the suspicion of packing Juries should,
+      in such cases, have been so prevalent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This will apply with additional force, when the prosecution is commenced
+      against the Author or Publisher of such Works as treat of reforms, and of
+      the abolition of superfluous places and offices, &amp;c, because in such
+      cases every person holding an office, subject to that suspicion, becomes
+      interested as a party; and the office, called the Crown-office, may, upon
+      examination, be found to be of this description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have heard it asserted, that the Master of the Crown-office is to open
+      the sheriff's book as it were per hazard, and take thereout forty-eight <i>following</i>
+      names, to which the word Merchant or Esquire is affixed. The former of
+      these are certainly proper, when the case is between Merchants, and it has
+      reference to the origin of the custom, and to nothing else. As to the word
+      Esquire, every man is an Esquire who pleases to call himself Esquire; and
+      the sensible part of mankind are leaving it off. But the matter for
+      enquiry is, whether there be any existing law to direct the mode by which
+      the forty-eight names shall be taken, or whether the mode be merely that
+      of custom which the office has created; or whether the selection of the
+      forty-eight names be wholly at the discretion and choice of the Master of
+      the Crown-office? One or other of the two latter appears to be the case,
+      because the act already mentioned, of the 3d of George II. lays down no
+      rule or mode, nor refers to any preceding law&mdash;but says only, that
+      Special Juries shall hereafter be struck, "<i>in such manner as Special
+      Juries have been and are usually struck</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This act appears to have been what is generally understood by a "<i>deep
+      take in</i>." It was fitted to the spur of the moment in which it was
+      passed, 3d of George II. when parties ran high, and it served to throw
+      into the hands of Walpole, who was then Minister, the management of Juries
+      in Crown prosecutions, by making the nomination of the forty-eight
+      persons, from whom the Jury was to be struck, follow the precedent
+      established by custom between individuals, and by this means slipt into
+      practice with less suspicion. Now, the manner of obtaining Special Juries
+      through the medium of an officer of the Government, such, for instance, as
+      a Master of the Crown-office, may be impartial in the case of Merchants or
+      other individuals, but it becomes highly improper and suspicious in cases
+      where the Government itself is one of the parties. And it must, upon the
+      whole, appear a strange inconsistency, that a Government should keep one
+      officer to commence prosecutions, and another officer to nominate the
+      forty-eight persons from whom the Jury is to be struck, both of whom are
+      <i>officers of the Civil List</i>, and yet continue to call this by the
+      pompous name of <i>the glorious "Right of trial by Jury!</i>"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the case of the King against Jordan, for publishing the Rights of Man,
+      the Attorney-General moved for the appointment of a Special Jury, and the
+      Master of the Crown-office nominated the forty-eight persons himself, and
+      took them from such part of the Sheriff's book as he pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The trial did not come on, occasioned by Jordan withdrawing his plea; but
+      if it had, it might have afforded an opportunity of discussing the subject
+      of Special Juries; for though such discussion might have had no effect in
+      the Court of King's Bench, it would, in the present disposition for
+      enquiry, have had a considerable effect upon the Country; and, in all
+      national reforms, this is the proper point to begin at. But a Country
+      right, and it will soon put Government right. Among the improper things
+      acted by the Government in the case of Special Juries, on their own
+      motion, one has been that of treating the Jury with a dinner, and
+      afterwards giving each Juryman two guineas, if a verdict be found for the
+      prosecution, and only one if otherwise; and it has been long observed,
+      that, in London and Westminster, there are persons who appear to make a
+      trade of serving, by being so frequently seen upon Special Juries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much for Special Juries. As to what is called a <i>Common Jury</i>,
+      upon any Government prosecution against the Author or Publisher of RIGHTS
+      OF Man, during the time of the <i>present Sheriffry</i>, I have one
+      question to offer, which is, <i>whether the present Sheriffs of London,
+      having publicly prejudged the case, by the part they have taken in
+      procuring an Address from the county of Middlesex, (however diminutive and
+      insignificant the number of Addressers were, being only one hundred and
+      eighteen,) are eligible or proper persons to be intrusted with the power
+      of returning a Jury to try the issue of any such prosecution</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the whole matter appears, at least to me, to be worthy of a more
+      extensive consideration than what relates to any Jury, whether Special or
+      Common; for the case is, whether any part of a whole nation, locally
+      selected as a Jury of twelve men always is, be competent to judge and
+      determine for the whole nation, on any matter that relates to systems and
+      principles of Government, and whether it be not applying the institution
+      of Juries to purposes for which such institutions were not intended? For
+      example,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have asserted, in the Work Rights of Man, that as every man in the
+      nation pays taxes, so has every man a right to a share in government, and
+      consequently that the people of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds,
+      Halifax, &amp;c have the same right as those of London. Shall, then,
+      twelve men, picked out between Temple-bar and Whitechapel, because the
+      book happened to be first published there, decide upon the rights of the
+      inhabitants of those towns, or of any other town or village in the nation?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus spoken of Juries, I come next to offer a few observations on
+      the matter contained in the information or prosecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The work, Rights of Man, consists of Part the First, and Fart the Second.
+      The First Part the prosecutor has thought it most proper to let alone; and
+      from the Second Fart he has selected a few short paragraphs, making in the
+      whole not quite two pages of the same printing as in the cheap edition.
+      Those paragraphs relate chiefly to certain facts, such as the revolution
+      of 1688, and the coming of George the First, commonly called of the House
+      of Hanover, or the House of Brunswick, or some such House. The arguments,
+      plans and principles contained in the work, the prosecutor has not
+      ventured to attack. They are beyond his reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support of
+      the prosecution, is the Act intituled, "An Act, declaring the rights and
+      liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown,"
+      passed in the first year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by
+      the name of the "Bill of Rights."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have called this bill "<i>A Bill of wrongs and of insult</i>." My
+      reasons, and also my proofs, are as follow:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The method and principle which this Bill takes for declaring rights and
+      liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties; it is an
+      assumed attempt to take them wholly from posterity&mdash;for the
+      declaration in the said Bill is as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in <i>the name of all
+      the people</i>, most humbly and faithfully <i>submit themselves, their
+      heirs, and posterity for ever</i>;" that is, to William and Mary his wife,
+      their heirs and successors. This is a strange way of declaring rights and
+      liberties. But the Parliament who made this declaration in the name, and
+      on the part, of the people, had no authority from them for so doing; and
+      with respect to <i>posterity for ever</i>, they had no right or authority
+      whatever in the case. It was assumption and usurpation. I have reasoned
+      very extensively against the principle of this Bill, in the first part of
+      Rights of Man; the prosecutor has silently admitted that reasoning, and he
+      now commences a prosecution on the authority of the Bill, after admitting
+      the reasoning against it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is also to be observed, that the declaration in this Bill, abject and
+      irrational as it is, had no other intentional operation than against the
+      family of the Stuarts, and their abettors. The idea did not then exist,
+      that in the space of an hundred years, posterity might discover a
+      different and much better system of government, and that every species of
+      hereditary government might fall, as Popes and Monks had fallen before.
+      This, I say, was not then thought of, and therefore the application of the
+      Bill, in the present case, is a new, erroneous, and illegal application,
+      and is the same as creating a new Bill <i>ex post facto</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has ever been the craft of Courtiers, for the purpose of keeping up an
+      expensive and enormous Civil List, and a mummery of useless and antiquated
+      places and offices at the public expence, to be continually hanging
+      England upon some individual or other, called <i>King</i>, though the man
+      might not have capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and absurdity
+      of this, is appearing more and more every day; and still those men
+      continue to act as if no alteration in the public opinion had taken place.
+      They hear each other's nonsense, and suppose the whole nation talks the
+      same Gibberish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let such men cry up the House of Orange, or the House of Brunswick, if
+      they please. They would cry up any other house if it suited their purpose,
+      and give as good reasons for it. But what is this house, or that house, or
+      any other house to a nation? "<i>For a nation to be free, it is sufficient
+      that she wills it</i>." Her freedom depends wholly upon herself, and not
+      on any house, nor on any individual. I ask not in what light this cargo of
+      foreign houses appears to others, but I will say in what light it appears
+      to me&mdash;It was like the trees of the forest, saying unto the bramble,
+      come thou and reign over us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus much for both their houses. I now come to speak of two other houses,
+      which are also put into the information, and those are the House of Lords,
+      and the House of Commons. Here, I suppose, the Attorney-General intends to
+      prove me guilty of speaking either truth or falsehood; for, according to
+      the modern interpretation of Libels, it does not signify which, and the
+      only improvement necessary to shew the compleat absurdity of such
+      doctrine, would be, to prosecute a man for uttering a most <i>false and
+      wicked truth</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will quote the part I am going to give, from the Office Copy, with the
+      Attorney General's inuendoes, enclosed in parentheses as they stand in the
+      information, and I hope that civil list officer will caution the Court not
+      to laugh when he reads them, and also to take care not to laugh himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The information states, that <i>Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious,
+      seditious, and evil-disposed person, hath, with force and arms, and most
+      wicked cunning, written and published a certain false, scandalous,
+      malicious, and seditious libel; in one part thereof, to the tenor and
+      effect following, that is to say</i>&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With respect to the two Houses, of which the English Parliament (<i>meaning
+      the Parliament of this Kingdom</i>) is composed, they appear to be
+      effectually influenced into one, and, as a Legislature, to have no temper
+      of its own. The Minister, (<i>meaning the Minuter employed by the King of
+      this Realm, in the administration of the Government thereof</i>) whoever
+      he at any time may be, touches it (<i>meaning the two Houses of Parliament
+      of this Kingdom</i>) as with an opium wand, and it (<i>meaning the two
+      Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom</i>) sleeps obedience."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I am not malicious enough to disturb their repose, though it be time
+      they should awake, I leave the two Houses and the Attorney General, to the
+      enjoyment of their dreams, and proceed to a new subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Gentlemen, to whom I shall next address myself, are those who have
+      stiled themselves "<i>Friends of the people</i>," holding their meeting at
+      the Freemasons' Tavern, London.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the principal Members of this Society, is Mr. Grey, who, I believe,
+      is also one of the most independent Members in Parliament.(2) I collect
+      this opinion from what Mr. Burke formerly mentioned to me, rather than
+      from any knowledge of my own. The occasion was as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in England at the time the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound:
+      and the day after the King's Message, as it is called, was sent to
+      Parliament, I wrote a note to Mr. Burke, that upon the condition the
+      French Revolution should not be a subject (for he was then writing the
+      book I have since answered) I would call on him the next day, and mention
+      some matters I was acquainted with, respecting the affair; for it appeared
+      to me extraordinary that any body of men, calling themselves
+      Representatives, should commit themselves so precipitately, or "sleep
+      obedience," as Parliament was then doing, and run a nation into expence,
+      and perhaps a war, without so much as enquiring into the case, or the
+      subject, of both which I had some knowledge.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See in the Introduction to this volume Chauvelin's account
+     of this Association.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2  In the debate in the House of Commons, Dec. 14, 1793, Mr.
+     Grey is thus reported: "Mr. Grey was not a friend to
+     Paine's doctrines, but he was not to be deterred by a man
+     from acknowledging that he considered the rights of man as
+     the foundation of every government, and those who stood out
+     against those rights as conspirators against the people." He
+     severely denounced the Proclamation.   Parl. Hist., vol.
+     xxvi.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When I saw Mr. Burke, and mentioned the circumstances to him, he
+      particularly spoke of Mr. Grey, as the fittest Member to bring such
+      matters forward; "for," said Mr. Burke, "<i>I am not the proper</i> person
+      to do it, as I am in a treaty with Mr. Pitt about Mr. Hastings's trial." I
+      hope the Attorney General will allow, that Mr. Burke was then <i>sleeping
+      his obedience</i>.&mdash;But to return to the Society&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot bring myself to believe, that the general motive of this Society
+      is any thing more than that by which every former parliamentary opposition
+      has been governed, and by which the present is sufficiently known. Failing
+      in their pursuit of power and place within doors, they have now (and that
+      in not a very mannerly manner) endeavoured to possess themselves of that
+      ground out of doors, which, had it not been made by others, would not have
+      been made by them. They appear to me to have watched, with more cunning
+      than candour, the progress of a certain publication, and when they saw it
+      had excited a spirit of enquiry, and was rapidly spreading, they stepped
+      forward to profit by the opportunity, and Mr. Fox <i>then</i> called it a
+      Libel. In saying this, he libelled himself. Politicians of this cast,
+      such, I mean, as those who trim between parties, and lye by for events,
+      are to be found in every country, and it never yet happened that they did
+      not do more harm than good. They embarrass business, fritter it to
+      nothing, perplex the people, and the event to themselves generally is,
+      that they go just far enough to make enemies of the few, without going far
+      enough to make friends of the many.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whoever will read the declarations of this Society, of the 25th of April
+      and 5th of May, will find a studied reserve upon all the points that are
+      real abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of Government, of the
+      abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and pensions, of the
+      enormity of the Civil List, of the excess of taxes, nor of any one matter
+      that substantially affects the nation; and from some conversation that has
+      passed in that Society, it does not appear to me that it is any part of
+      their plan to carry this class of reforms into practice. No Opposition
+      Party ever did, when it gained possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into contention
+      with this Society; their incivility towards me is what I should expect
+      from place-hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground
+      they have advanced upon, and I wish that every individual among them may
+      act in the same upright, uninfluenced, and public spirited manner that I
+      have done. Whatever reforms may be obtained, and by whatever means, they
+      will be for the benefit of others and not of me. I have no other interest
+      in the cause than the interest of my heart. The part I have acted has been
+      wholly that of a volunteer, unconnected with party; and when I quit, it
+      shall be as honourably as I began.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I consider the reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as
+      proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out hackneyed subject, about which
+      the nation is tired, and the parties are deceiving each other. It is not a
+      subject that is cognizable before Parliament, because no Government has a
+      right to alter itself, either in whole or in part. The right, and the
+      exercise of that right, appertains to the nation only, and the proper
+      means is by a national convention, elected for the purpose, by all the
+      people. By this, the will of the nation, whether to reform or not, or what
+      the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend, will be known, and it
+      cannot be known by any other means. Partial addresses, or separate
+      associations, are not testimonies of the general will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, however, certain, that the opinions of men, with respect to systems
+      and principles of government, are changing fast in all countries. The
+      alteration in England, within the space of a little more than a year, is
+      far greater than could have been believed, and it is daily and hourly
+      increasing. It moves along the country with the silence of thought. The
+      enormous expence of Government has provoked men to think, by making them
+      feel; and the Proclamation has served to increase jealousy and disgust. To
+      prevent, therefore, those commotions which too often and too suddenly
+      arise from suffocated discontents, it is best that the general WILL should
+      have the full and free opportunity of being publicly ascertained and
+      known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wretched as the state of representation is in England, it is every day
+      becoming worse, because the unrepresented parts of the nation are
+      increasing in population and property, and the represented parts are
+      decreasing. It is, therefore, no ill-grounded estimation to say, that as
+      not one person in seven is represented, at least fourteen millions of
+      taxes out of the seventeen millions, are paid by the unrepresented part;
+      for although copyholds and leaseholds are assessed to the land-tax, the
+      holders are unrepresented. Should then a general demur take place as to
+      the obligation of paying taxes, on the ground of not being represented, it
+      is not the Representatives of Rotten Boroughs, nor Special Juries, that
+      can decide the question. This is one of the possible cases that ought to
+      be foreseen, in order to prevent the inconveniencies that might arise to
+      numerous individuals, by provoking it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the rights of
+      people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either to
+      withhold them, or to grant them. Government ought to be established on
+      such principles of justice as to exclude the occasion of all such
+      applications, for wherever they appear they are virtually accusations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish that Mr. Grey, since he has embarked in the business, would take
+      the whole of it into consideration. He will then see that the right of
+      reforming the state of the Representation does not reside in Parliament,
+      and that the only motion he could consistently make would be, that
+      Parliament should <i>recommend</i> the election of a convention of the
+      people, because all pay taxes. But whether Parliament recommended it or
+      not, the right of the nation would neither be lessened nor increased
+      thereby.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Petitions from the unrepresented part, they ought not to be looked
+      for. As well might it be expected that Manchester, Sheffield, &amp;c.
+      should petition the rotten Boroughs, as that they should petition the
+      Representatives of those Boroughs. Those two towns alone pay far more
+      taxes than all the rotten Boroughs put together, and it is scarcely to be
+      expected they should pay their court either to the Boroughs, or the
+      Borough-mongers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It ought also to be observed, that what is called Parliament, is composed
+      of two houses that have always declared against the right of each other to
+      interfere in any matter that related to the circumstances of either,
+      particularly that of election. A reform, therefore, in the representation
+      cannot, on the ground they have individually taken, become the subject of
+      an act of Parliament, because such a mode would include the interference,
+      against which the Commons on their part have protested; but must, as well
+      on the ground of formality, as on that of right, proceed from a National
+      Convention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let Mr. Grey, or any other man, sit down and endeavour to put his thoughts
+      together, for the purpose of drawing up an application to Parliament for a
+      reform of Parliament, and he will soon convince himself of the folly of
+      the attempt. He will find that he cannot get on; that he cannot make his
+      thoughts join, so as to produce any effect; for, whatever formality of
+      words he may use, they will unavoidably include two ideas directly opposed
+      to each other; the one in setting forth the reasons, the other in praying
+      for relief, and the two, when placed together, would stand thus: "<i>The
+      Representation in Parliament is so very corrupt, that we can no longer
+      confide in it,&mdash;and, therefore, confiding in the justice and wisdom
+      of Parliament, we pray</i>," &amp;c, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heavy manner in which every former proposed application to Parliament
+      has dragged, sufficiently shews, that though the nation might not exactly
+      see the awkwardness of the measure, it could not clearly see its way, by
+      those means. To this also may be added another remark, which is, that the
+      worse Parliament is, the less will be the inclination to petition it. This
+      indifference, viewed as it ought to be, is one of the strongest censures
+      the public express. It is as if they were to say to them, "Ye are not
+      worth reforming."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let any man examine the Court-Kalendar of Placemen in both Houses, and the
+      manner in which the Civil List operates, and he will be at no loss to
+      account for this indifference and want of confidence on one side, nor of
+      the opposition to reforms on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who would have supposed that Mr. Burke, holding forth as he formerly did
+      against secret influence, and corrupt majorities, should become a
+      concealed Pensioner? I will now state the case, not for the little purpose
+      of exposing Mr. Burke, but to shew the inconsistency of any application to
+      a body of men, more than half of whom, as far as the nation can at present
+      know, may be in the same case with himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the end of Lord North's administration, Mr. Burke brought a bill
+      into Parliament, generally known by Mr. Burke's Reform Bill; in which,
+      among other things, it is enacted, "That no pension exceeding the sum of
+      three hundred pounds a year, shall be granted to any one person, and that
+      the whole amount of the pensions granted in one year shall not exceed six
+      hundred pounds; a list of which, together with the <i>names of the persons</i>
+      to whom the same are granted, shall be laid before Parliament in twenty
+      days after the beginning of each session, until the whole pension list
+      shall be reduced to ninety thousand pounds." A provisory clause is
+      afterwards added, "That it shall be lawful for the First Commissioner of
+      the Treasury, to return into the Exchequer any pension or annuity, <i>without
+      a name</i>, on his making oath that such pension or annuity is not
+      directly or indirectly for the benefit, use, or behoof of any Member of
+      the House of Commons."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But soon after that administration ended, and the party Mr. Burke acted
+      with came into power, it appears from the circumstances I am going to
+      relate, that Mr. Burke became himself a Pensioner in disguise; in a
+      similar manner as if a pension had been granted in the name of John Nokes,
+      to be privately paid to and enjoyed by Tom Stiles. The name of Edmund
+      Burke does not appear in the original transaction: but after the pension
+      was obtained, Mr. Burke wanted to make the most of it at once, by selling
+      or mortgaging it; and the gentleman in whose name the pension stands,
+      applied to one of the public offices for that purpose. This unfortunately
+      brought forth the name of <i>Edmund Burke</i>, as the real Pensioner of
+      1,500L. per annum.(1) When men trumpet forth what they call the blessings
+      of the Constitution, it ought to be known what sort of blessings they
+      allude to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the Civil List of a million a year, it is not to be supposed that
+      any one man can eat, drink, or consume the whole upon himself. The case
+      is, that above half the sum is annually apportioned among Courtiers, and
+      Court Members, of both Houses, in places and offices, altogether
+      insignificant and perfectly useless as to every purpose of civil,
+      rational, and manly government. For instance,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of what use in the science and system of Government is what is called a
+      Lord Chamberlain, a Master and Mistress of the Robes, a Master of the
+      Horse, a Master of the Hawks, and one hundred other such things? Laws
+      derive no additional force, nor additional excellence from such mummery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the disbursements of the Civil List for the year 1786, (which may be
+      seen in Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue,) are four separate
+      charges for this mummery office of Chamberlain:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img src="images/table110.jpg" alt="Table110 " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      From this sample the rest may be guessed at. As to the Master of the
+      Hawks, (there are no hawks kept, and if there were, it is no reason the
+      people should pay the expence of feeding them, many of whom are put to it
+      to get bread for their children,) his salary is 1,372L. 10s.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See note at the end of this chapter.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      And besides a list of items of this kind, sufficient to fill a quire of
+      paper, the Pension lists alone are 107,404L. 13s. 4d. which is a greater
+      sum than all the expences of the federal Government in America amount to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the items, there are two I had no expectation of finding, and which,
+      in this day of enquiry after Civil List influence, ought to be exposed.
+      The one is an annual payment of one thousand seven hundred pounds to the
+      Dissenting Ministers in England, and the other, eight hundred pounds to
+      those of Ireland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the fact; and the distribution, as I am informed, is as follows:
+      The whole sum of 1,700L. is paid to one person, a Dissenting Minister in
+      London, who divides it among eight others, and those eight among such
+      others as they please. The Lay-body of the Dissenters, and many of their
+      principal Ministers, have long considered it as dishonourable, and have
+      endeavoured to prevent it, but still it continues to be secretly paid; and
+      as the world has sometimes seen very fulsome Addresses from parts of that
+      body, it may naturally be supposed that the receivers, like Bishops and
+      other Court-Clergy, are not idle in promoting them. How the money is
+      distributed in Ireland, I know not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To recount all the secret history of the Civil List, is not the intention
+      of this publication. It is sufficient, in this place, to expose its
+      general character, and the mass of influence it keeps alive. It will
+      necessarily become one of the objects of reform; and therefore enough is
+      said to shew that, under its operation, no application to Parliament can
+      be expected to succeed, nor can consistently be made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such reforms will not be promoted by the Party that is in possession of
+      those places, nor by the Opposition who are waiting for them; and as to a
+      <i>mere reform</i>, in the state of the Representation, the idea that
+      another Parliament, differently elected from the present, but still a
+      third component part of the same system, and subject to the controul of
+      the other two parts, will abolish those abuses, is altogether delusion;
+      because it is not only impracticable on the ground of formality, but is
+      unwisely exposing another set of men to the same corruptions that have
+      tainted the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Were all the objects that require reform accomplishable by a mere reform
+      in the state of the Representation, the persons who compose the present
+      Parliament might, with rather more propriety, be asked to abolish all the
+      abuses themselves, than be applied to as the more instruments of doing it
+      by a future Parliament. If the virtue be wanting to abolish the abuse, it
+      is also wanting to act as the means, and the nation must, from necessity,
+      proceed by some other plan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus endeavoured to shew what the abject condition of Parliament
+      is, and the impropriety of going a second time over the same ground that
+      has before miscarried, I come to the remaining part of the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There ought to be, in the constitution of every country, a mode of
+      referring back, on any extraordinary occasion, to the sovereign and
+      original constituent power, which is the nation itself. The right of
+      altering any part of a Government, cannot, as already observed, reside in
+      the Government, or that Government might make itself what it pleased.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It ought also to be taken for granted, that though a nation may feel
+      inconveniences, either in the excess of taxation, or in the mode of
+      expenditure, or in any thing else, it may not at first be sufficiently
+      assured in what part of its government the defect lies, or where the evil
+      originates. It may be supposed to be in one part, and on enquiry be found
+      to be in another; or partly in all. This obscurity is naturally interwoven
+      with what are called mixed Governments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be, however, the reform to be accomplished whatever it may, it can only
+      follow in consequence of obtaining a full knowledge of all the causes that
+      have rendered such reform necessary, and every thing short of this is
+      guess-work or frivolous cunning. In this case, it cannot be supposed that
+      any application to Parliament can bring forward this knowledge. That body
+      is itself the supposed cause, or one of the supposed causes, of the abuses
+      in question; and cannot be expected, and ought not to be asked, to give
+      evidence against itself. The enquiry, therefore, which is of necessity the
+      first step in the business, cannot be trusted to Parliament, but must be
+      undertaken by a distinct body of men, separated from every suspicion of
+      corruption or influence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead, then, of referring to rotten Boroughs and absurd Corporations for
+      Addresses, or hawking them about the country to be signed by a few
+      dependant tenants, the real and effectual mode would be to come at once to
+      the point, and to ascertain the sense of the nation by electing a National
+      Convention. By this method, as already observed, the general WILL, whether
+      to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend,
+      will be known, and it cannot be known by any other means. Such a body,
+      empowered and supported by the nation, will have authority to demand
+      information upon all matters necessary to be en-quired into; and no
+      Minister, nor any person, will dare to refuse it. It will then be seen
+      whether seventeen millions of taxes are necessary, and for what purposes
+      they are expended. The concealed Pensioners will then be obliged to
+      unmask; and the source of influence and corruption, if any such there be,
+      will be laid open to the nation, not for the purpose of revenge, but of
+      redress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By taking this public and national ground, all objections against partial
+      Addresses on the one side, or private associations on the other, will be
+      done away; THE NATION WILL DECLARE ITS OWN REFORMS; and the clamour about
+      Party and Faction, or Ins or Outs, will become ridiculous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plan and organization of a convention is easy in practice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, the number of inhabitants in every county can be
+      sufficiently ascertained from the number of houses assessed to the House
+      and Window-light tax in each county. This will give the rule for
+      apportioning the number of Members to be elected to the National
+      Convention in each of the counties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the total number of inhabitants in England be seven millions, and the
+      total number of Members to be elected to the Convention be one thousand,
+      the number of members to be elected in a county containing one hundred and
+      fifty thousand inhabitants will be <i>twenty-one</i>, and in like
+      proportion for any other county.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the election of a Convention must, in order to ascertain the general
+      sense of the nation, go on grounds different from that of Parliamentary
+      elections, the mode that best promises this end will have no difficulties
+      to combat with from absurd customs and pretended rights. The right of
+      every man will be the same, whether he lives in a city, a town, or a
+      village. The custom of attaching Rights to <i>place</i>, or in other
+      words, to inanimate matter, instead of to the <i>person</i>, independently
+      of place, is too absurd to make any part of a rational argument.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As every man in the nation, of the age of twenty-one years, pays taxes,
+      either out of the property he possesses, or out of the product of his
+      labor, which is property to him; and is amenable in his own person to
+      every law of the land; so has every one the same equal right to vote, and
+      no one part of the nation, nor any individual, has a right to dispute the
+      right of another. The man who should do this ought to forfeit the exercise
+      of his <i>own</i> right, for a term of years. This would render the
+      punishment consistent with the crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the
+      firmest possible ground; because the qualification is such, as nothing but
+      dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as a
+      principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But when
+      Rights are placed upon, or made dependant upon property, they are on the
+      most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings, and fly
+      away," and the rights fly with them; and thus they become lost to the man
+      when they would be of most value.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice, that exclusions
+      have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first, changes
+      afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The Representatives
+      in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to do right, even in
+      part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of all the wrongs it has
+      endured. This case serves to shew, that the same conduct that best
+      constitutes the safety of an individual, namely, a strict adherence to
+      principle, constitutes also the safety of a Government, and that without
+      it safety is but an empty name. When the rich plunder the poor of his
+      rights, it becomes an example to the poor to plunder the rich of his
+      property; for the rights of the one are as much property to him, as wealth
+      is property to the other, and the <i>little all</i> is as dear as the <i>much</i>.
+      It is only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be
+      just to each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich
+      protect the rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the
+      rich. But the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentarily
+      reciprocal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Exclusions are not only unjust, but they frequently operate as injuriously
+      to the party who monopolizes, as to those who are excluded. When men seek
+      to exclude others from participating in the exercise of any right, they
+      should, at least, be assured, that they can effectually perform the whole
+      of the business they undertake; for, unless they do this, themselves will
+      be losers by the monopoly. This has been the case with respect to the
+      monopolized right of Election. The monopolizing party has not been able to
+      keep the Parliamentary Representation, to whom the power of taxation was
+      entrusted, in the state it ought to have been, and have thereby multiplied
+      taxes upon themselves equally with those who were excluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great deal has been, and will continue to be said, about
+      disqualifications, arising from the commission of offences; but were this
+      subject urged to its full extent, it would disqualify a great number of
+      the present Electors, together with their Representatives; for, of all
+      offences, none are more destructive to the morals of Society than Bribery
+      and Corruption. It is, therefore, civility to such persons to pass this
+      subject over, and to give them a fair opportunity of recovering, or rather
+      of creating character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every thing, in the present mode of electioneering in England, is the
+      reverse of what it ought to be, and the vulgarity that attends elections
+      is no other than the natural consequence of inverting the order of the
+      system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, the Candidate seeks the Elector, instead of the
+      Elector seeking for a Representative; and the Electors are advertised as
+      being in the interest of the Candidate, instead of the Candidate being in
+      the interest of the Electors. The Candidate pays the Elector for his vote,
+      instead of the Nation paying the Representative for his time and
+      attendance on public business. The complaint for an undue election is
+      brought by the Candidate, as if he, and not the Electors, were the party
+      aggrieved; and he takes on himself, at any period of the election, to
+      break it up, by declining, as if the election was in his right and not in
+      theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The compact that was entered into at the last Westminster election between
+      two of the candidates (Mr. Fox and Lord Hood,) was an indecent violation
+      of the principles of election. The Candidates assumed, in their own
+      persons, the rights of the Electors; for, it was only in the body of the
+      Electors, and not at all in the Candidates, that the right of making any
+      such compact, or compromise, could exist. But the principle of Election
+      and Representation is so completely done away, in every stage thereof,
+      that inconsistency has no longer the power of surprising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten Borough Addressers,
+      nor from County-meetings, promoted by Placemen and Pensioners, can the
+      sense of the nation be known. It is still corruption appealing to itself.
+      But a Convention of a thousand persons, fairly elected, would bring every
+      matter to a decided issue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to County-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live
+      near to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such
+      occasions is but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The
+      only consistent service which such meetings could render, would be that of
+      apportioning the county into convenient districts, and when this is done,
+      each district might, according to its number of inhabitants, elect its
+      quota of County Members to the National Convention; and the vote of each
+      Elector might be taken in the parish where he resided, either by ballot or
+      by voice, as he should chuse to give it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A National Convention thus formed, would bring together the sense and
+      opinions of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of
+      Government, and the interest of the Public, and of the several parts
+      thereof, would then undergo an ample and rational discussion, freed from
+      the language of parliamentary disguise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to reason
+      with, and endeavour to convince each other, upon any matter that respects
+      their common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of opinions,
+      when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every good
+      citizen practically conforms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the
+      opportunity of knowing,) that the abuses acted under the present system,
+      are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
+      whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
+      effectual reform, has endeavoured to preclude the event, by sturdily
+      denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
+      bestow a thought upon this case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it necessarily
+      implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from absolute
+      necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because, without it,
+      there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is, perhaps, the
+      only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas upon other
+      matters, can consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode of decision
+      derived from the primary original right of every individual concerned; <i>that</i>
+      right being first individually exercised in giving an opinion, and whether
+      that opinion shall arrange with the minority or the majority, is a
+      subsequent accidental thing that neither increases nor diminishes the
+      individual original right itself. Prior to any debate, enquiry, or
+      investigation, it is not supposed to be known on which side the majority
+      of opinions will fall, and therefore, whilst this mode of decision secures
+      to every one the right of giving an opinion, it admits to every one an
+      equal chance in the ultimate event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of a
+      national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so
+      marvellously loaded with con-fusion, as to appear at first sight, almost
+      impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called Law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so much
+      the subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the remedy will
+      immediately present itself, but, with it, the means of preventing the like
+      case hereafter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the absurdity
+      of every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and the laws partake
+      in a similar manner, of this assumption. They have no period of legal or
+      natural expiration; and, however absurd in principle, or inconsistent in
+      practice many of them have become, they still are, if not especially
+      repealed, considered as making a part of the general mass. By this means
+      the body of what is called Law, is spread over a space of <i>several
+      hundred years</i>, comprehending laws obsolete, laws repugnant, laws
+      ridiculous, and every other kind of laws forgotten or remembered; and what
+      renders the case still worse, is, that the confusion multiplies with the
+      progress of time. (*)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To bring this misshapen monster into form, and to prevent its lapsing
+      again into a wilderness state, only two things, and those very simple, are
+      necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first is, to review the whole mass of laws, and to bring forward such
+      only as are worth retaining, and let all the rest drop; and to give to the
+      laws so brought forward a new era, commencing from the time of such
+      reform.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * In the time of Henry IV. a law was passed making it felony
+     "to multiply gold or silver, or to make use of the craft of
+     multiplication," and this law remained two hundred and
+     eighty-six years upon the statute books. It was then
+     repealed as being ridiculous and injurious.&mdash;<i>Author</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Secondly; that at the expiration of every twenty-one years (or any other
+      stated period) a like review shall again be taken, and the laws, found
+      proper to be retained, be again carried forward, commencing with that
+      date, and the useless laws dropped and discontinued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this means there can be no obsolete laws, and scarcely such a thing as
+      laws standing in direct or equivocal contradiction to each other, and
+      every person will know the period of time to which he is to look back for
+      all the laws in being.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is worth remarking, that while every other branch of science is brought
+      within some commodious system, and the study of it simplified by easy
+      methods, the laws take the contrary course, and become every year more
+      complicated, entangled, confused, and obscure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the paragraphs which the Attorney General has taken from the <i>Rights
+      of Man</i>, and put into his information, one is, that where I have said,
+      "that with respect to regular law, there is <i>scarcely such a thing</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I do not know whether the Attorney-General means to show this
+      expression to be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE, I
+      shall make no other reply to him in this place, than by remarking, that if
+      almanack-makers had not been more judicious than law-makers, the study of
+      almanacks would by this time have become as abstruse as the study of the
+      law, and we should hear of a library of almanacks as we now do of
+      statutes; but by the simple operation of letting the obsolete matter drop,
+      and carrying forward that only which is proper to be retained, all that is
+      necessary to be known is found within the space of a year, and laws also
+      admit of being kept within some given period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addresses, the
+      Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to
+      the Society, styling itself "The Friends of the People."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than
+      in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition,
+      and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the
+      experience of every day-proves to be true, as well in England as in other
+      countries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of opinion,
+      and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed its habits of
+      thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed by before, the only
+      true method to prevent popular discontents and commotions is, to throw, by
+      every fair and rational argument, all the light upon the subject that can
+      possibly be thrown; and at the same time, to open the means of collecting
+      the general sense of the nation; and this cannot, as already observed, be
+      done by any plan so effectually as a national convention. Here individual
+      opinion will quiet itself by having a centre to rest upon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various
+      descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me, either
+      to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have acted with
+      cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a new phrase, namely,
+      that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the interpretation of which is,
+      <i>a continuance of the abuses as long as possible, If we cannot hold all
+      let us hold some</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that
+      their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure
+      places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid that
+      their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out
+      mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect of
+      receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier
+      frightened at the thoughts of his discharge, and three shillings per week
+      during life? Is the sailor afraid that press-warrants will be abolished?
+      The Society mistakes the fears of borough-mongers, placemen, and
+      pensioners, for the fears of the people; and the <i>temperate and moderate
+      Reform</i> it talks of, is calculated to suit the condition of the former.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political
+      cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.&mdash;A thing, moderately good, is
+      not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue;
+      but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. But who is to be the
+      judge of what is a temperate and moderate Reform? The Society is the
+      representative of nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the nation
+      commit this power to those in Parliament, in whose election they had no
+      choice; and, therefore, even upon the ground the Society has taken,
+      recourse must be had to a National Convention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The objection which Mr. Fox made to Mr. Grey's proposed Motion for a
+      Parliamentary Reform was, that it contained no plan.&mdash;It certainly
+      did not. But the plan very easily presents itself; and whilst it is fair
+      for all parties, it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from
+      private or popular discontent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Editorial Note on Burke's Alleged Secret Pension.&mdash;By
+     reference to Vol. II., pp. 271, 360, of this work, it will
+     be seen that Paine mentions a report that Burke was a
+     "pensioner in a fictitious name." A letter of John Hall to a
+     relative in Leicester, (London, May 1,1792.) says: "You will
+     remember that there was a vote carried, about the conclusion
+     of the American war, that the influence of the Crown had
+     increased, was increasing, and should be diminished. Burke,
+     poor, and like a good angler, baited a hook with a bill to
+     bring into Parliament, that no pensions should be given
+     above £300 a year, but what should be publicly granted, and
+     for what, (I may not be quite particular.) To stop that he
+     took in another person's name £1500 a year for life, and
+     some time past he disposed of it, or sold his life out. He
+     has been very still since his declension from the Whigs, and
+     is not concerned in the slave-trade [question?] as I hear
+     of." This letter, now in possession of Hall's kinsman, Dr.
+     Dutton Steele of Philadelphia, contains an item not in
+     Paine's account, which may have been derived from it. Hall
+     was an English scientific engineer, and acquainted with
+     intelligent men in London. Paine was rather eager for a
+     judicial encounter with Burke, and probably expected to be
+     sued by him for libel, as he (Burke) had once sued the
+     "Public Advertiser" for a personal accusation. But Burke
+     remained quiet under this charge, and Paine, outlawed, and
+     in France, had no opportunity for summoning witnesses in its
+     support. The biographers of Burke have silently passed over
+     the accusation, and this might be fair enough were this
+     unconfirmed charge made against a public man of stainless
+     reputation in such matters. But though Burke escaped
+     parliamentary censure for official corruption (May 16, 1783,
+     by only 24 majority) he has never been vindicated. It was
+     admitted that he had restored to office a cashier and an
+     accountant dismissed for dishonesty by his predecessor.
+     ("Pari. Hist.," xxiii., pp. 801,902.) He escaped censure by
+     agreeing to suspend them.    One was proved guilty, the
+     other committed suicide. It was subsequently shown that one
+     of the men had been an agent of the Burkes in raising India
+     stock. (Dilke's "Papers of a Critic," ii-, p. 333&mdash;"Dict.
+     Nat Biography": art Burke.) Paine, in his letter to the
+     Attorney-General (IV. of this volume), charged that Burke
+     had been a "masked pensioner" ten years. The date
+     corresponds with a secret arrangement made in 1782 with
+     Burke for a virtual pension to his son, for life, and his
+     mother. Under date April 34 of that year, Burke, writing to
+     William Burke at Madras, reports his appointment as
+     Paymaster: "The office is to be 4000L. certain. Young
+     Richard [his son] is the deputy with a salary of 500L. The
+     office to be reformed according to the Bill. There is enough
+     emoluments. In decency it could not be more. Something
+     considerable is also to be secured for the life of young
+     Richard to be a security for him and his mother."("Mem. and
+     Cor. of Charles James Fox," i., p. 451.) It is thus certain
+     that the Rockingham Ministry were doing for the Paymaster
+     all they could "in decency," and that while posing as a
+     reformer in reducing the expenses of that office, he was
+     arranging for secret advantages to his family. It is said
+     that the arrangement failed by his loss of office, but while
+     so many of Burke's papers are withheld from the public (if
+     not destroyed), it cannot be certain that something was not
+     done of the kind charged by Paine. That Burke was not strict
+     in such matters is further shown by his efforts to secure
+     for his son the rich sinecure of the Clerkship of the Polls,
+     in which he failed. Burke was again Paymaster in 1783-4, and
+     this time remained long enough in office to repeat more
+     successfully his secret attempts to secure irregular
+     pensions for his family. On April 7, 1894, Messrs. Sotheby,
+     Wilkinson, and Hodge sold in London (Lot 404) a letter of
+     Burke (which I have not seen in print), dated July 16, 1795.
+     It was written to the Chairman of the Commission on Public
+     Accounts, who had required him to render his accounts for
+     the time he was in office as Paymaster-General, 1783-4.
+     Burke refuses to do so in four angry and quibbling pages,
+     and declares he will appeal to his country against the
+     demand if it is pressed. Why should Burke wish to conceal
+     his accounts? There certainly were suspicions around Burke,
+     and they may have caused Pitt to renounce his intention,
+     conveyed to Burke, August 30, 1794, of asking Parliament to
+     bestow on him a pension. "It is not exactly known," says one
+     of Burke's editors, "what induced Mr. Pitt to decline
+     bringing before Parliament a measure which he had himself
+     proposed without any solicitation whatever on the part of
+     Burke." (Burke's "Works," English Ed., 1852, ii., p. 252.)
+     The pensions were given without consultation with
+     Parliament&mdash;1200L. granted him by the King from the Civil
+     List, and 2500L. by Pitt in West Indian 41/2 per cents.
+     Burke, on taking his seat beside Pitt in the great Paine
+     Parliament (December, 1792), had protested that he had not
+     abandoned his party through expectation of a pension, but
+     the general belief of those with whom he had formerly acted
+     was that he had been promised a pension.   A couplet of the
+     time ran:
+
+     "A pension makes him change his plan,
+     And loudly damn the rights of man."
+
+     Writing in 1819, Cobbett says: "As my Lord Grenville
+     introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to
+     introduce the name of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to
+     shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in
+     the Pension List, and who is now named fifty million times
+     where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      X. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Paris, Sept. 25, [1792.] First Year of the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fellow Citizens,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I RECEIVE, with affectionate gratitude, the honour which the late National
+      Assembly has conferred upon me, by adopting me a Citizen of France: and
+      the additional honor of being elected by my fellow citizens a Member of
+      the National Convention.(1) Happily impressed, as I am, by those
+      testimonies of respect shown towards me as an individual, I feel my
+      felicity increased by seeing the barrier broken down that divided
+      patriotism by spots of earth, and limited citizenship to the soil, like
+      vegetation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had those honours been conferred in an hour of national tranquillity, they
+      would have afforded no other means of shewing my affection, than to have
+      accepted and enjoyed them; but they come accompanied with circumstances
+      that give me the honourable opportunity of commencing my citizenship in
+      the stormy hour of difficulties. I come not to enjoy repose. Convinced
+      that the cause of France is the cause of all mankind, and that liberty
+      cannot be purchased by a wish, I gladly share with you the dangers and
+      honours necessary to success.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The National Assembly (August 26, 1792) conferred the
+     title of "French Citizen" on "Priestley, Payne, Bentham,
+     Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, Campe, Cormelle, Paw,
+     David Williams, Gorani, Anacharsis Clootz, Pestalozzi,
+     Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Klopstoc, Kosciusko,
+     Gilleers."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>. vol ni&mdash;7
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I am well aware that the moment of any great change, such as that
+      accomplished on the 10th of August, is unavoidably the moment of terror
+      and confusion. The mind, highly agitated by hope, suspicion and
+      apprehension, continues without rest till the change be accomplished. But
+      let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is certain. It
+      is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this, or of that individual,
+      that calls France and her armies into action. It is the great cause of
+      all. It is the establishment of a new aera, that shall blot despotism from
+      the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of peace and citizenship,
+      the great Republic of Man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been my fate to have borne a share in the commencement and complete
+      establishment of one Revolution, (I mean the Revolution of America.) The
+      success and events of that Revolution are encouraging to us. The
+      prosperity and happiness that have since flowed to that country, have
+      amply rewarded her for all the hardships she endured and for all the
+      dangers she encountered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The principles on which that Revolution began, have extended themselves to
+      Europe; and an over-ruling Providence is regenerating the Old World by the
+      principles of the New. The distance of America from all the other parts of
+      the globe, did not admit of her carrying those principles beyond her own
+      situation. It is to the peculiar honour of France, that she now raises the
+      standard of liberty for all nations; and in fighting her own battles,
+      contends for the rights of all mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same spirit of fortitude that insured success to America; will insure
+      it to France, for it is impossible to conquer a nation determined to be
+      free! The military circumstances that now unite themselves to France, are
+      such as the despots of the earth know nothing of, and can form no
+      calculation upon. They know not what it is to fight against a nation; they
+      have only been accustomed to make war upon each other, and they know, from
+      system and practice, how to calculate the probable success of despot
+      against despot; and here their knowledge and their experience end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But in a contest like the present a new and boundless variety of
+      circumstances arise, that deranges all such customary calculations. When a
+      whole nation acts as an army, the despot knows not the extent of the power
+      against which he contends. New armies arise against him with the necessity
+      of the moment. It is then that the difficulties of an invading enemy
+      multiply, as in the former case they diminished; and he finds them at
+      their height when he expected them to end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only war that has any similarity of circumstances with the present, is
+      the late revolution war in America. On her part, as it now is in France,
+      it was a war of the whole nation:&mdash;there it was that the enemy, by
+      beginning to conquer, put himself in a condition of being conquered. His
+      first victories prepared him for defeat. He advanced till he could not
+      retreat, and found himself in the midst of a nation of armies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Were it now to be proposed to the Austrians and Prussians, to escort them
+      into the middle of France, and there leave them to make the most of such a
+      situation, they would see too much into the dangers of it to accept the
+      offer, and the same dangers would attend them, could they arrive there by
+      any other means. Where, then, is the military policy of their attempting
+      to obtain, by force, that which they would refuse by choice? But to reason
+      with despots is throwing reason away. The best of arguments is a vigorous
+      preparation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Man is ever a stranger to the ways by which Providence regulates the order
+      of things. The interference of foreign despots may serve to introduce into
+      their own enslaved countries the principles they come to oppose. Liberty
+      and Equality are blessings too great to be the inheritance of France
+      alone. It is an honour to her to be their first champion; and she may now
+      say to her enemies, with a mighty voice, "O! ye Austrians, ye Prussians!
+      ye who now turn your bayonets against us, it is for you, it is for all
+      Europe, it is for all mankind, and not for France alone, that she raises
+      the standard of Liberty and Equality!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The public cause has hitherto suffered from the contradictions contained
+      in the Constitution of the Constituent Assembly. Those contradictions have
+      served to divide the opinions of individuals at home, and to obscure the
+      great principles of the Revolution in other countries. But when those
+      contradictions shall be removed, and the Constitution be made conformable
+      to the declaration of Rights; when the bagatelles of monarchy, royalty,
+      regency, and hereditary succession, shall be exposed, with all their
+      absurdities, a new ray of light will be thrown over the world, and the
+      Revolution will derive new strength by being universally understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scene that now opens itself to France extends far beyond the
+      boundaries of her own dominions. Every nation is becoming her colleague,
+      and every court is become her enemy. It is now the cause of all nations,
+      against the cause of all courts. The terror that despotism felt,
+      clandestinely begot a confederation of despots; and their attack upon
+      France was produced by their fears at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In entering on this great scene, greater than any nation has yet been
+      called to act in, let us say to the agitated mind, be calm. Let us punish
+      by instructing, rather than by revenge. Let us begin the new ara by a
+      greatness of friendship, and hail the approach of union and success.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your Fellow-Citizen,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XI. ANTI-MONARCHAL ESSAY. FOR THE USE OF NEW REPUBLICANS.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      When we reach some great good, long desired, we begin by felicitating
+      ourselves. We triumph, we give ourselves up to this joy without rendering
+      to our minds any full account of our reasons for it. Then comes reflexion:
+      we pass in review all the circumstances of our new happiness; we compare
+      it in detail with our former condition; and each of these thoughts becomes
+      a fresh enjoyment. This satisfaction, elucidated and well-considered, we
+      now desire to procure for our readers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In seeing Royalty abolished and the Republic established, all France has
+      resounded with unanimous plaudits.(2) Yet, Citizen President: In the name
+      of the Deputies of the Department of the Pas de Calais, I have the honor
+      of presenting to the Convention the felicitations of the General Council
+      of the Commune of Calais on the abolition of Royalty.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Translated for this work from Le Patriote François,
+     "Samedi 20 Octobre, 1793, l'an Ier de la République.
+     Supplement au No. 1167," in the Bibliothèque Nationale,
+     Paris. It is headed, "Essai anti-monarchique, à l'usage des
+     nouveaux républicains, tiré de la Feuille Villageoise." I
+     have not found this Feuille, but no doubt Brissot, in
+     editing the essay for his journal (Le Patriote François)
+     abridged it, and in one instance Paine is mentioned by name.
+     Although in this essay Paine occasionally repeats sentences
+     used elsewhere, and naturally maintains his well-known
+     principles, the work has a peculiar interest as indicating
+     the temper and visions of the opening revolution.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Royalty was abolished by the National Convention on the
+     first day of its meeting, September 21, 1792, the
+     revolutionary Calendar beginning next day. Paine was chosen
+     by his fellow-deputies of Calais to congratulate the
+     Convention, and did so in a brief address, dated October 27,
+     which was loaned by M. Charavay to the Historical Exposition
+     of the Revolution at Paris, 1889, where I made the subjoined
+     translation: "folly of oar ancestor», who have placed us
+     under the necessity of treating gravely (solennellement) the
+     abolition of a phantom (fantôme).&mdash;Thomas Paine, Deputy."&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Amid the joy inspired by this event, one cannot forbear some pain at the
+      some who clap their hands do not sufficiently understand the condition
+      they are leaving or that which they are assuming.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The perjuries of Louis, the conspiracies of his court, the wildness of his
+      worthy brothers, have filled every Frenchman with horror, and this race
+      was dethroned in their hearts before its fall by legal decree. But it is
+      little to throw down an idol; it is the pedestal that above all must be
+      broken down; it is the regal office rather than the incumbent that is
+      murderous. All do not realize this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why is Royalty an absurd and detestable government? Why is the Republic a
+      government accordant with nature and reason? At the present time a
+      Frenchman should put himself in a position to answer these two questions
+      clearly. For, in fine, if you are free and contented it is yet needful
+      that you should know why.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us first discuss Royalty or Monarchy. Although one often wishes to
+      distinguish between these names, common usage gives them the same sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ROYALTY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bands of brigands unite to subvert a country, place it under tribute,
+      seize its lands, enslave its inhabitants. The expedition completed, the
+      chieftain of the robbers adopts the title of monarch or king. Such is the
+      origin of Royalty among all tribes&mdash;huntsmen, agriculturists,
+      shepherds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A second brigand arrives who finds it equitable to take away by force what
+      was conquered by violence: he dispossesses the first; he chains him, kills
+      him, reigns in his place. Ere long time effaces the memory of this origin;
+      the successors rule under a new form; they do a little good, from policy;
+      they corrupt all who surround them; they invent fictitious genealogies to
+      make their families sacred (1); the knavery of priests comes to their aid;
+      they take Religion for a life-guard: thenceforth tyranny becomes immortal,
+      the usurped power becomes an hereditary right.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The Boston Investigator's compilation of Paine's Works
+     contains the following as  supposed to be Mr. Paine's:
+
+     "Royal Pedigree.&mdash;George the Third, who was the grandson of
+     George the Second, who was the son of George the First, who
+     was the son of the Princess Sophia, who was the cousin of
+     Anne, who was the sister of William and Mary, who were the
+     daughter and son-in-law of James the Second, who was the son
+     of Charles the First, who was a traitor to his country and
+     decapitated as such, who was the son of James the First, who
+     was the son of Mary, who was the sister of Edward the Sixth,
+     who was the son of Henry the Eighth, who was the coldblooded
+     murderer of his wives, and the promoter of the Protestant
+     religion, who was the son of Henry the Seventh, who slew
+     Richard the Third, who smothered his nephew Edward the
+     Fifth, who was the son of Edward the Fourth, who with bloody
+     Richard slew Henry the Sixth, who succeeded Henry the Fifth,
+     who was the son of Henry the Fourth, who was the cousin of
+     Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward the Third, who
+     was the son of Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward
+     the First, who was the son of Henry the Third, who was the
+     son of John, who was the brother of Richard the First, who
+     was the son of Henry the Second, who was the son of Matilda,
+     who was the daughter of Henry the First, who was the brother
+     of William Rufus, who was the son of William the Conqueror,
+     who was the son of a whore."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The effects of Royalty have been entirely harmonious with its origin. What
+      scenes of horror, what refinements of iniquity, do the annals of
+      monarchies present! If we should paint human nature with a baseness of
+      heart, an hypocrisy, from which all must recoil and humanity disavow, it
+      would be the portraiture of kings, their ministers and courtiers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And why should it not be so? What should such a monstrosity produce but
+      miseries and crimes? What is monarchy? It has been finely disguised, and
+      the people familiarized with the odious title: in its real sense the word
+      signifies <i>the absolute power of one single individual</i>, who may with
+      impunity be stupid, treacherous, tyrannical, etc. Is it not an insult to
+      nations to wish them so governed?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Government by a single individual is vicious in itself, independently of
+      the individual's vices. For however little a State, the prince is nearly
+      always too small: where is the proportion between one man and the affairs
+      of a whole nation?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      True, some men of genius have been seen under the diadem; but the evil is
+      then even greater: the ambition of such a man impels him to conquest and
+      despotism, his subjects soon have to lament his glory, and sing their <i>Te-deums</i>
+      while perishing with hunger. Such is the history of Louis XIV. and so many
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if ordinary men in power repay you with incapacity or with princely
+      vices? But those who come to the front in monarchies are frequently mere
+      mean mischief-makers, commonplace knaves, petty intriguers, whose small
+      wits, which in courts reach large places, serve only to display their
+      ineptitude in public, as soon as they appear. (*) In short, monarchs do
+      nothing, and their ministers do evil: this is the history of all
+      monarchies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if Royalty as such is baneful, as hereditary succession it is equally
+      revolting and ridiculous. What! there exists among my kind a man who
+      pretends that he is born to govern me? Whence derived he such right? From
+      his and my ancestors, says he. But how could they transmit to him a right
+      they did not possess? Man has no authority over generations unborn. I
+      cannot be the slave of the dead, more than of the living. Suppose that
+      instead of our posterity, it was we who should succeed ourselves: we
+      should not to-day be able to despoil ourselves of the rights which would
+      belong to us in our second life: for a stronger reason we cannot so
+      despoil others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hereditary crown! A transmissible throne! What a notion! With even a
+      little reflexion, can any one tolerate it? Should human beings then be the
+      property of certain individuals, born or to be born? Are we then to treat
+      our descendants in advance as cattle, who shall have neither will nor
+      rights of their own? To inherit government is to inherit peoples, as if
+      they were herds. It is the basest, the most shameful fantasy that ever
+      degraded mankind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is wrong to reproach kings with their ferocity, their brutal
+      indifference, the oppressions of the people, and molestations of citizens:
+      it is hereditary succession that makes them what they are: this breeds
+      monsters as a marsh breeds vipers.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * J. J. Rousseau, Contrat Social.&mdash;Author.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The logic on which the hereditary prince rests is in effect this: I derive
+      my power from my birth; I derive my birth from God; therefore I owe
+      nothing to men. It is little that he has at hand a complacent minister, he
+      continues to indulge, conscientiously, in all the crimes of tyranny. This
+      has been seen in all times and countries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tell me, then, what is there in common between him who is master of a
+      people, and the people of whom he is master? Are these masters really of
+      their kind? It is by sympathy that we are good and human: with whom does a
+      monarch sympathize? When my neighbor suffers I pity, because I put myself
+      in his place: a monarch pities none, because he has never been, can never
+      be, in any other place than his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A monarch is an egoist by nature, the <i>egoist par excellence</i>. A
+      thousand traits show that this kind of men have no point of contact with
+      the rest of humanity. There was demanded of Charles II. the punishment of
+      Lauderdale, his favorite, who had infamously oppressed the Scotch. "Yes,"
+      said Charles coolly, "this man has done much against the Scotch, but I
+      cannot see that he has done anything against my interests." Louis XIV.
+      often said: "If I follow the wishes of the people, I cannot act the king."
+      Even such phrases as "misfortunes of the State," "safety of the State,"
+      filled Louis XIV. with wrath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could nature make a law which should assure virtue and wisdom invariably
+      in these privileged castes that perpetuate themselves on thrones, there
+      would be no objection to their hereditary succession. But let us pass
+      Europe in review: all of its monarchs are the meanest of men. This one a
+      tyrant, that one an imbecile, another a traitor, the next a debauchee,
+      while some muster all the vices. It looks as if fate and nature had aimed
+      to show our epoch, and all nations, the absurdity and enormity of Royalty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I mistake: this epoch has nothing peculiar. For, such is the essential
+      vice of this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples have not
+      even the chances of nature,&mdash;they cannot even hope for a good prince
+      as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason and justice an
+      individual reared to command others. The word of young Dionysius was very
+      sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful action, said, "Have I
+      given thee such example?" "Ah," answered the youth, "thy father was not a
+      king!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would
+      suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic institution of hereditary
+      kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there really exist
+      particular lineages possessing certain qualities which enter the blood of
+      the embryo prince, and adapt him physically for royalty, as a horse for
+      the racecourse? But then, in this wild supposition, it yet becomes
+      necessary to assure the genuine family descent of the heir presumptive. To
+      perpetuate the noble race of Andalusian chargers, the circumstances pass
+      before witnesses, and similar precautions seem necessary, however
+      indecent, to make sure that the trickeries of queens shall not supply
+      thrones with bastards, and that the kings, like the horses, shall always
+      be thoroughbreds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary
+      royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be
+      filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple
+      workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be a
+      living automaton. We are astonished when reading that the Egyptians placed
+      on the throne a flint, and called it their king. We smile at the dog
+      Barkouf, sent by an Asiatic despot to govern one of his provinces.(*) But
+      mon-archs of this kind are less mischievous and less absurd than those
+      before whom whole peoples prostrate themselves. The flint and the dog at
+      least imposed on nobody. None ascribed to them qualities or characters
+      they did not possess. They were not styled 'Father of the People,'&mdash;though
+      this were hardly more ridiculous than to give that title to a rattle-head
+      whom inheritance crowns at eighteen. Better a mute than an animate idol.
+      Why, there can hardly be cited an instance of a great man having children
+      worthy of him, yet you will have the royal function pass from father to
+      son! As well declare that a wise man's son will be wise. A king is an
+      administrator, and an hereditary administrator is as absurd as an author
+      by birthright.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See the first year of La Feuille Villageoise, No. 42.&mdash;
+     Author. [Cf. Montaigne's Essays, chap. xii.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Royalty is thus as contrary to common sense as to com-mon right. But it
+      would be a plague even if no more than an absurdity; for a people who can
+      bow down in honor of a silly thing is a debased people. Can they be fit
+      for great affairs who render equal homage to vice and virtue, and yield
+      the same submission to ignorance and wisdom? Of all institutions, none has
+      caused more intellectual degeneracy. This explains the often-remarked
+      abjectness of character under monarchies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is also the effect of this contagious institution that it renders
+      equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the evils
+      of "Nobility." If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that of a
+      distinction? The Nobility's heritage asks only homage, that of the Crown
+      commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born illustrious,' I
+      merely smile; when he says 'I am born your master,' I set my foot on him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Convention pronounced the abolition of Royalty none rose for the
+      defence that was expected. On this subject a philosopher, who thought
+      discussion should always precede enactment, proposed a singular thing; he
+      desired that the Convention should nominate an orator commissioned to
+      plead before it the cause of Royalty, so that the pitiful arguments by
+      which it has in all ages been justified might appear in broad daylight.
+      Judges give one accused, however certain his guilt, an official defender.
+      In the ancient Senate of Venice there existed a public officer whose
+      function was to contest all propositions, however incontestible, or
+      however perfect their evidence. For the rest, pleaders for Royalty are not
+      rare: let us open them, and see what the most specious of royalist
+      reasoners have said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. <i>A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of
+      powerful men</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Establish the Rights of Man(1); enthrone Equality; form a good
+      Constitution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no
+      distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry
+      and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity
+      of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established, you
+      will be assured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men.
+      Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The reader should bear in mind that this phrase, now used
+     vaguely, had for Paine and his political school a special
+     significance; it implied a fundamental Declaration of
+     individual rights, of supreme force and authority, invasion
+     which, either by legislatures, law courts, majorities, or
+     administrators, was to be regarded as the worst treason and
+     despotism.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      2. <i>The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to
+      restrain it</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With representatives, frequently renewed, who neither administer nor
+      judge, whose functions are determined by the laws; with national
+      conventions, with primary assemblies, which can be convoked any moment;
+      with a people knowing how to read, and how to defend itself; with good
+      journals, guns, and pikes; a Legislature would have a good deal of trouble
+      in enjoying any months of tyranny. Let us not suppose an evil for the sake
+      of its remedy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. <i>A king is needed to give force to executive power</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This might be said while there existed nobles, a priesthood, parliaments,
+      the privileged of every kind. But at present who can resist the Law, which
+      is the will of all, whose execution is the interest of all? On the
+      contrary the existence of an hereditary prince inspires perpetual distrust
+      among the friends of liberty; his authority is odious to them; in checking
+      despotism they constantly obstruct the action of government. Observe how
+      feeble the executive power was found, after our recent pretence of
+      marrying Royalty with Liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Take note, for the rest, that those who talk in this way are men who
+      believe that the King and the Executive Power are only one and the same
+      thing: readers of <i>La Feuille Villageoise</i> are more advanced.(*)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * See No. 50.&mdash;<i>Author</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Others use this bad reasoning: "Were there no hereditary chief there would
+      be an elective chief: the citizens would side with this man or that, and
+      there would be a civil war at every election." In the first place, it is
+      certain that hereditary succession alone has produced the civil wars of
+      France and England; and that beyond this are the pre-tended rights, of
+      royal families which have twenty times drawn on these nations the scourge
+      of foreign wars. It is, in fine, the heredity of crowns that has caused
+      the troubles of Regency, which Thomas Paine calls Monarchy at nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But above all it must be said, that if there be an elective chief, that
+      chief will not be a king surrounded by courtiers, burdened with pomp,
+      inflated by idolatries, and endowed with thirty millions of money; also,
+      that no citizen will be tempted to injure himself by placing another
+      citizen, his equal, for some years in an office without limited income and
+      circumscribed power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a word, whoever demands a king demands an aristocracy, and thirty
+      millions of taxes. See why Franklin described Royalism as <i>a crime like
+      poisoning</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Royalty, its fanatical eclat, its superstitious idolatry, the delusive
+      assumption of its necessity, all these fictions have been invented only to
+      obtain from men excessive taxes and voluntary servitude. Royalty and
+      Popery have had the same aim, have sustained themselves by the same
+      artifices, and crumble under the same Light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XII. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, ON THE PROSECUTION AGAINST THE SECOND PART
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      OF RIGHTS OF MAN.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, 11th of November, 1st Year of the Republic. [1792.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Attorney General:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir,&mdash;As there can be no personal resentment between two strangers, I
+      write this letter to you, as to a man against whom I have no animosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You have, as Attorney General, commenced a prosecution against me, as the
+      author of Rights of Man. Had not my duty, in consequence of my being
+      elected a member of the National Convention of France, called me from
+      England, I should have staid to have contested the injustice of that
+      prosecution; not upon my own account, for I cared not about the
+      prosecution, but to have defended the principles I had advanced in the
+      work.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Read to the Jury by the Attorney General, Sir Archibald
+     Macdonald, at the trial of Paine, December 18, 1792, which
+     resulted in his outlawry.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The duty I am now engaged in is of too much importance to permit me to
+      trouble myself about your prosecution: when I have leisure, I shall have
+      no objection to meet you on that ground; but, as I now stand, whether you
+      go on with the prosecution, or whether you do not, or whether you obtain a
+      verdict, or not, is a matter of the most perfect indifference to me as an
+      individual. If you obtain one, (which you are welcome to if you can get
+      it,) it cannot affect me either in person, property, or reputation,
+      otherwise than to increase the latter; and with respect to yourself, it is
+      as consistent that you obtain a verdict against the Man in the Moon as
+      against me; neither do I see how you can continue the prosecution against
+      me as you would have done against one <i>your own people, who</i> had
+      absented himself because he was prosecuted; what passed at Dover proves
+      that my departure from England was no secret. (1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My necessary absence from your country affords the opportunity of knowing
+      whether the prosecution was intended against Thomas Paine, or against the
+      Right of the People of England to investigate systems and principles of
+      government; for as I cannot now be the object of the prosecution, the
+      going on with the prosecution will shew that something else was the
+      object, and that something else can be no other than the People of
+      England, for it is against <i>their Rights</i>, and not against me, that a
+      verdict or sentence can operate, if it can operate at all. Be then so
+      candid as to tell the Jury, (if you choose to continue the process,) whom
+      it is you are prosecuting, and on whom it is that the verdict is to
+      fall.(2)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I have other reasons than those I have mentioned for writing you this
+      letter; and, however you may choose to interpret them, they proceed from a
+      good heart. The time, Sir, is becoming too serious to play with Court
+      prosecutions, and sport with national rights. The terrible examples that
+      have taken place here, upon men who, less than a year ago, thought
+      themselves as secure as any prosecuting Judge, Jury, or Attorney General,
+      now can in England, ought to have some weight with men in your situation.
+      That the government of England is as great, if not the greatest,
+      perfection of fraud and corruption that ever took place since governments
+      began, is what you cannot be a stranger to, unless the constant habit of
+      seeing it has blinded your senses; but though you may not chuse to see it,
+      the people are seeing it very fast, and the progress is beyond what you
+      may chuse to believe. Is it possible that you, or I, can believe, or that
+      reason can make any other man believe, that the capacity of such a man as
+      Mr. Guelph, or any of his profligate sons, is necessary to the government
+      of a nation? I speak to you as one man ought to speak to another; and I
+      know also that I speak what other people are beginning to think.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See Chapter VIII. of this volume.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 In reading the letter in court the Attorney General said
+     at this point: "Gentlemen, I certainly will comply with
+     this request. I am prosecuting both him and his work; and
+     if I succeed in this prosecution, he shall never return to
+     this country otherwise than <i>in vintulis</i>, for I will outlaw
+     him."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if you do, it will signify nothing)
+      <i>without packing a Jury</i>, (and we <i>both</i> know that such tricks
+      are practised,) is what I have very good reason to believe, I have gone
+      into coffee-houses, and places where I was unknown, on purpose to learn
+      the currency of opinion, and I never yet saw any company of twelve men
+      that condemned the book; but I have often found a greater number than
+      twelve approving it, and this I think is <i>a fair way of collecting the
+      natural currency of opinion</i>. Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of
+      drawing twelve men into a situation that may be <i>injurious</i> to them
+      afterwards. I do not speak this from policy, but from benevolence; but if
+      you chuse to go on with the process, I make it my request to you that you
+      will read this letter in Court, after which the Judge and the Jury may do
+      as they please. As I do not consider myself the object of the prosecution,
+      neither can I be affected by the issue, one way or the other, I shall,
+      though a foreigner in your country, subscribe as much money as any other
+      man towards supporting the right of the nation against the prosecution;
+      and it is for this purpose only that I shall do it.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I have not time to copy letters, you will excuse the corrections.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In reading this letter at the trial the Attorney
+     interspersed comments. At the phrase, "Mr. Guelph and his
+     profligate sons," he exclaimed: "This passage is
+     contemptuous, scandalous, false, cruel. Why, gentlemen, is
+     Mr. Paine, in addition to the political doctrines he is
+     teaching us in this country, to teach us the morality and
+     religion of implacability? Is he to teach human creatures,
+     whose moments of existence depend upon the permission of a
+     Being, merciful, long-suffering, and of great goodness, that
+     those youthful errors from which even royalty is not
+     exempted, are to be treasured up in a vindictive memory, and
+     are to receive sentence of irremissible sin at His hands....
+     If giving me pain was his object he has that hellish
+     gratification." Erskine, Fame's counsel, protested in
+     advance against the reading of this letter (of which he had
+     heard), as containing matter likely to divert the Jury from
+     the subject of prosecution (the book). Lord Kenyon admitted
+     the letter.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      P. S. I intended, had I staid in England, to have published the
+      information, with my remarks upon it, before the trial came on; but as I
+      am otherwise engaged, I reserve myself till the trial is over, when I
+      shall reply fully to every thing you shall advance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XIII. ON THE PROPRIETY OF BRINGING LOUIS XVI. TO TRIAL.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Read to the Convention, November 21, 1792.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Paris, Nov. 20, 1792.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizen President,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I do not know precisely what day the Convention will resume the
+      discussion on the trial of Louis XVI., and, on account of my inability to
+      express myself in French, I cannot speak at the tribune, I request
+      permission to deposit in your hands the enclosed paper, which contains my
+      opinion on that subject. I make this demand with so much more eagerness,
+      because circumstances will prove how much it imports to France, that Louis
+      XVI. should continue to enjoy good health. I should be happy if the
+      Convention would have the goodness to hear this paper read this morning,
+      as I propose sending a copy of it to London, to be printed in the English
+      journals.(2)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This address, which has suffered by alterations in all
+     editions is here revised and completed by aid of the
+     official document: "Opinion de Thomas Payne, Depute du
+     Département de la Somme [error], concernant le jugement de
+     Louis XVI. Précédé par sa lettre d'envoi au Président de la
+     Convention. Imprimé par ordre de la Convention Nationale. À
+     Paris. De l'Imprimerie Nationale." Lamartine has censured
+     Paine for this speech; but the trial of the King was a
+     foregone conclusion, and it will be noted that Paine was
+     already trying to avert popular wrath from the individual
+     man by directing it against the general league of monarchs,
+     and the monarchal system. Nor would his plea for the King's
+     life have been listened to but for this previous address.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Of course no English journal could then venture to print
+     it.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A Secretary read the opinion of Thomas Paine. I think it necessary that
+      Louis XVI. should be tried; not that this advice is suggested by a spirit
+      of vengeance, but because this measure appears to me just, lawful, and
+      conformable to sound policy. If Louis is innocent, let us put him to prove
+      his innocence; if he is guilty, let the national will determine whether he
+      shall be pardoned or punished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But besides the motives personal to Louis XVI., there are others which
+      make his trial necessary. I am about to develope these motives, in the
+      language which I think expresses them, and no other. I forbid myself the
+      use of equivocal expression or of mere ceremony. There was formed among
+      the crowned brigands of Europe a conspiracy which threatened not only
+      French liberty, but likewise that of all nations. Every thing tends to the
+      belief that Louis XVI. was the partner of this horde of conspirators. You
+      have this man in your power, and he is at present the only one of the band
+      of whom you can make sure. I consider Louis XVI. in the same point of view
+      as the two first robbers taken up in the affair of the Store Room; their
+      trial led to discovery of the gang to which they belonged. We have seen
+      the unhappy soldiers of Austria, of Prussia, and the other powers which
+      declared themselves our enemies, torn from their fire-sides, and drawn to
+      butchery like wretched animals, to sustain, at the cost of their blood,
+      the common cause of these crowned brigands. They loaded the inhabitants of
+      those regions with taxes to support the expenses of the war. All this was
+      not done solely for Louis XVI. Some of the conspirators have acted openly:
+      but there is reason to presume that this conspiracy is composed of two
+      classes of brigands; those who have taken up arms, and those who have lent
+      to their cause secret encouragement and clandestine assistance. Now it is
+      indispensable to let France and the whole world know all these
+      accomplices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little time after the National Convention was constituted, the Minister
+      for Foreign Affairs presented the picture of all the governments of
+      Europe,&mdash;those whose hostilities were public, and those that acted
+      with a mysterious circumspection. This picture supplied grounds for just
+      suspicions of the part the latter were disposed to take, and since then
+      various circumstances have occurred to confirm those suspicions. We have
+      already penetrated into some part of the conduct of Mr. Guelph, Elector of
+      Hanover, and strong presumptions involve the same man, his court and
+      ministers, in quality of king of England. M. Calonne has constantly been
+      favoured with a friendly reception at that court.(1) The arrival of Mr.
+      Smith, secretary to Mr. Pitt, at Coblentz, when the emigrants were
+      assembling there; the recall of the English ambassador; the extravagant
+      joy manifested by the court of St. James' at the false report of the
+      defeat of Dumouriez, when it was communicated by Lord Elgin, then Minister
+      of Great Britain at Brussels&mdash;all these circumstances render him
+      [George III.] extremely suspicious; the trial of Louis XVI. will probably
+      furnish more decisive proofs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The long subsisting fear of a revolution in England, would alone, I
+      believe, prevent that court from manifesting as much publicity in its
+      operations as Austria and Prussia. Another reason could be added to this:
+      the inevitable decrease of credit, by means of which alone all the old
+      governments could obtain fresh loans, in proportion as the probability of
+      revolutions increased. Whoever invests in the new loans of such
+      governments must expect to lose his stock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every body knows that the Landgrave of Hesse fights only as far as he is
+      paid. He has been for many years in the pay of the court of London. If the
+      trial of Louis XVI. could bring it to light, that this detestable dealer
+      in human flesh has been paid with the produce of the taxes imposed on the
+      English people, it would be justice to that nation to disclose that fact.
+      It would at the same time give to France an exact knowledge of the
+      character of that court, which has not ceased to be the most intriguing in
+      Europe, ever since its connexion with Germany.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Calonne (1734-1802), made Controller General of the
+     Treasury in 1783, lavished the public money on the Queen, on
+     courtiers, and on himself (purchasing St. Cloud and
+     Rambouillet), borrowing vast sums and deceiving the King as
+     to the emptiness of the Treasury, the annual deficit having
+     risen in 1787 to 115 millions of francs. He was then
+     banished to Lorraine, whence he proceeded to England, where
+     he married the wealthy widow Haveley. By his agency for the
+     Coblentz party he lost his fortune. In 1802 Napoleon brought
+     him back from London to Paris, where he died the same year.
+     &mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Louis XVI., considered as an individual, is an object beneath the notice
+      of the Republic; but when he is looked upon as a part of that band of
+      conspirators, as an accused man whose trial may lead all nations in the
+      world to know and detest the disastrous system of monarchy, and the plots
+      and intrigues of their own courts, he ought to be tried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the crimes for which Louis XVI. is arraigned were absolutely personal
+      to him, without reference to general conspiracies, and confined to the
+      affairs of France, the plea of inviolability, that folly of the moment,
+      might have been urged in his behalf with some appearance of reason; but he
+      is arraigned not only for treasons against France, but for having
+      conspired against all Europe, and if France is to be just to all Europe we
+      ought to use every means in our power to discover the whole extent of that
+      conspiracy. France is now a republic; she has completed her revolution;
+      but she cannot earn all its advantages so long as she is surrounded with
+      despotic governments. Their armies and their marine oblige her also to
+      keep troops and ships in readiness. It is therefore her immediate interest
+      that all nations shall be as free as herself; that revolutions shall be
+      universal; and since the trial of Louis XVI. can serve to prove to the
+      world the flagitiousness of governments in general, and the necessity of
+      revolutions, she ought not to let slip so precious an opportunity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The despots of Europe have formed alliances to preserve their respective
+      authority, and to perpetuate the oppression of peoples. This is the end
+      they proposed to themselves in their invasion of French territory. They
+      dread the effect of the French revolution in the bosom of their own
+      countries; and in hopes of preventing it, they are come to attempt the
+      destruction of this revolution before it should attain its perfect
+      maturity. Their attempt has not been attended with success. France has
+      already vanquished their armies; but it remains for her to sound the
+      particulars of the conspiracy, to discover, to expose to the eyes of the
+      world, those despots who had the infamy to take part in it; and the world
+      expects from her that act of justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are my motives for demanding that Louis XVI. be judged; and it is in
+      this sole point of view that his trial appears to me of sufficient
+      importance to receive the attention of the Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to "inviolability," I would not have such a word mentioned. If, seeing
+      in Louis XVI. only a weak and narrow-minded man, badly reared, like all
+      his kind, given, as it is said, to frequent excesses of drunkenness&mdash;a
+      man whom the National Assembly imprudently raised again on a throne for
+      which he was not made&mdash;he is shown hereafter some compassion, it
+      shall be the result of the national magnanimity, and not the burlesque
+      notion of a pretended "inviolability."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XIV. REASONS FOR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF LOUIS CAPET,
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      As Delivered to the National Convention, January 15, 1703.(1)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Citizen President,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My hatred and abhorrence of monarchy are sufficiently known: they
+      originate in principles of reason and conviction, nor, except with life,
+      can they ever be extirpated; but my compassion for the unfortunate,
+      whether friend or enemy, is equally lively and sincere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I voted that Louis should be tried, because it was necessary to afford
+      proofs to the world of the perfidy, corruption, and abomination of the
+      monarchical system. The infinity of evidence that has been produced
+      exposes them in the most glaring and hideous colours; thence it results
+      that monarchy, whatever form it may assume, arbitrary or otherwise,
+      becomes necessarily a centre round which are united every species of
+      corruption, and the kingly trade is no less destructive of all morality in
+      the human breast, than the trade of an executioner is destructive of its
+      sensibility. I remember, during my residence in another country, that I
+      was exceedingly struck with a sentence of M. Autheine, at the Jacobins
+      [Club], which corresponds exactly with my own idea,&mdash;"Make me a king
+      to-day," said he, "and I shall be a robber to-morrow."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Printed in Paris (Hartley, Adlard &amp; Son) and published in
+     London with the addition of D. I. Eaton's name, in 1796.
+     While Paine was in prison, he was accused in England and
+     America of having helped to bring Louis XVI. to the
+     scaffold. The English pamphlet has a brief preface in which
+     it is presented "as a burnt offering to Truth, in behalf of
+     the most zealous friend and advocate of the Rights of Man;
+     to protect him against the barbarous shafts of scandal and
+     delusion, and as a reply to all the horrors which despots of
+     every description have, with such unrelenting malice,
+     attempted to fix on his conduct. But truth in the end must
+     triumph: cease then such calumnies: all your efforts are
+     in vain &mdash;you bite a file."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, I am inclined to believe that if Louis Capet had been born
+      in obscure condition, had he lived within the circle of an amiable and
+      respectable neighbourhood, at liberty to practice the duties of domestic
+      life, had he been thus situated, I cannot believe that he would have shewn
+      himself destitute of social virtues: we are, in a moment of fermentation
+      like this, naturally little indulgent to his vices, or rather to those of
+      his government; we regard them with additional horror and indignation; not
+      that they are more heinous than those of his predecessors, but because our
+      eyes are now open, and the veil of delusion at length withdrawn; yet the
+      lamentable, degraded state to which he is actually reduced, is surely far
+      less imputable to him than to the Constituent Assembly, which, of its own
+      authority, without consent or advice of the people, restored him to the
+      throne.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in Paris at the time of the flight, or abdication of Louis XVI., and
+      when he was taken and brought back. The proposal of restoring him to
+      supreme power struck me with amazement; and although at that time I was
+      not a French citizen, yet as a citizen of the world I employed all the
+      efforts that depended on me to prevent it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A small society, composed only of five persons, two of whom are now
+      members of the Convention,(1) took at that time the name of the Republican
+      Club (Société Républicaine). This society opposed the restoration of
+      Louis, not so much on account of his personal offences, as in order to
+      overthrow the monarchy, and to erect on its ruins the republican system
+      and an equal representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this design, I traced out in the English language certain
+      propositions, which were translated with some trifling alterations, and
+      signed by Achille Duchâtelet, now Lieutenant-General in the army of the
+      French republic, and at that time one of the five members which composed
+      our little party: the law requiring the signature of a citizen at the
+      bottom of each printed paper.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Condorect and Paine; the other members were Achille
+     Duchitelet, and probably Nicolas de Bonneville and
+     Lanthenas,&mdash;translator of Paine's "Works."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The paper was indignantly torn by Malouet; and brought forth in this very
+      room as an article of accusation against the person who had signed it, the
+      author and their adherents; but such is the revolution of events, that
+      this paper is now received and brought forth for a very opposite purpose&mdash;to
+      remind the nation of the errors of that unfortunate day, that fatal error
+      of not having then banished Louis XVI. from its bosom, and to plead this
+      day in favour of his exile, preferable to his death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The paper in question, was conceived in the following terms:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [The address constitutes the first chapter of the present volume.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus explained the principles and the exertions of the republicans
+      at that fatal period, when Louis was rein-stated in full possession of the
+      executive power which by his flight had been suspended, I return to the
+      subject, and to the deplorable situation in which the man is now actually
+      involved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was neglected at the time of which I have been speaking, has been
+      since brought about by the force of necessity. The wilful, treacherous
+      defects in the former constitution have been brought to light; the
+      continual alarm of treason and conspiracy aroused the nation, and produced
+      eventually 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 whole world, the intrigues, the cabals,
+      the falsehood, corruption, and rooted depravity, the inevitable effects of
+      monarchical government. There remains then only one question to be
+      considered, what is to be done with this man?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For myself I seriously confess, that when I reflect on the unaccountable
+      folly that restored the executive power to his hands, all covered as he
+      was with perjuries and treason, I am far more ready to condemn the
+      Constituent Assembly than the unfortunate prisoner Louis Capet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But abstracted from every other consideration, there is one circumstance
+      in his life which ought to cover or at least to palliate a great number of
+      his transgressions, and this very circumstance affords to the French
+      nation a blessed occasion of extricating itself from the yoke of kings,
+      without defiling itself in the impurities of their blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is to France alone, I know, that the United States of America owe that
+      support which enabled them to shake off the unjust and tyrannical yoke of
+      Britain. The ardour and zeal which she displayed to provide both men and
+      money, were the natural consequence of a thirst for liberty. But as the
+      nation at that time, restrained by the shackles of her own government,
+      could only act by the means of a monarchical organ, this organ&mdash;whatever
+      in other respects the object might be&mdash;certainly performed a good, a
+      great action.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let then those 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 not in kings, but in fair, equal, and
+      honourable representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In relating this circumstance, and in submitting 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 which he owes to every
+      Frenchman. I submit it also as a man, who, although the enemy of kings,
+      cannot forget that they are subject to human frailties. I support my
+      proposition as a citizen of the French republic, because it appears to me
+      the best, the most politic measure that can be adopted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 an effect does
+      not always shew itself in the first instance. For example: the English
+      nation had groaned under the despotism of the Stuarts. Hence Charles I.
+      lost his life; yet Charles II. was restored to all the plenitude of power,
+      which his father had lost. Forty years had not expired when the same
+      family strove to reestablish their ancient oppression; so the nation then
+      banished from its territories the whole race. The remedy was effectual.
+      The Stuart family sank into obscurity, confounded itself with the
+      multitude, and is at length extinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French nation has carried her measures of government to a greater
+      length. France is not satisfied with exposing the guilt of the monarch.
+      She has penetrated into the vices and horrors of the monarchy. She has
+      shown them clear as daylight, and forever crushed that system; and he,
+      whoever he may be, that should ever dare to reclaim those rights would be
+      regarded not as a pretender, but punished as a traitor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two brothers of Louis Capet have banished themselves from the country; but
+      they are obliged to comply with the spirit and etiquette of the courts
+      where they reside. They can advance no pretensions on their own account,
+      so long as Louis Capet shall live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monarchy, in France, was a system pregnant with crime and murders,
+      cancelling all natural ties, even those by which brothers are united. We
+      know how often they have assassinated each other to pave a way to power.
+      As those hopes which 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 around a more
+      active chief, and try one further effort under the fortune of the
+      ci-devant Monsieur and d'Artois. That such an enterprize would precipitate
+      them into a new abyss of calamity and disgrace, it is not difficult to
+      foresee; yet it might be attended with mutual loss, and it is our duty as
+      legislators not to spill a drop of blood when our purpose may be
+      effectually accomplished without it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has already been proposed 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
+      enlightened politicians and lovers of humanity exist, and it ought above
+      all to find them in this assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monarchical governments have trained the human race, and inured it to the
+      sanguinary arts and refinements of punishment; and it is exactly the same
+      punishment which has so long shocked the sight and tormented the patience
+      of the people, that now, in their turn, they practice in revenge upon
+      their oppressors. But it becomes us to be strictly on our guard against
+      the abomination and perversity of monarchical examples: as France has been
+      the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let her also be the
+      first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find out a milder and
+      more effectual substitute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the particular case now under consideration, I submit the following
+      propositions: 1st, That the National Convention shall pronounce sentence
+      of banishment on Louis and his family. 2d, That Louis Capet shall be
+      detained in prison till the end of the war, and at that epoch the sentence
+      of banishment to be executed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XV. SHALL LOUIS XVI. HAVE RESPITE?
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      SPEECH IN THE CONVENTION, JANUARY 19, 1793.(1)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      (Read in French by Deputy Bancal,)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very sincerely do I regret the Convention's vote of yesterday for death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marat [<i>interrupting</i>]: I submit that Thomas Paine is incompetent to
+      vote on this question; being a Quaker his religious principles are opposed
+      to capital punishment. [<i>Much confusion, quieted by cries for "freedom
+      of speech" on which Bancal proceeds with Paine's speech</i>.]
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Not included in any previous edition of Paine's "Works."
+     It is here printed from contemporary French reports,
+     modified only by Paine's own quotations of a few sentences
+     in his Memorial to Monroe (xxi.).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years that I
+      have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed something to
+      it in the revolution of the United States of America, My language has
+      always been that of liberty <i>and</i> humanity, and I know that nothing
+      so exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all
+      circumstances. I know that the public mind of France, and particularly
+      that of Paris, has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which they
+      have been exposed; but could we carry our thoughts into the future, when
+      the dangers are ended and the irritations forgotten, what to-day seems an
+      act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance. [<i>Murmurs</i>.] My
+      anxiety for the cause of France has become for the moment concern for her
+      honor. If, on my return to America, I should employ myself on a history of
+      the French Revolution, I had rather record a thousand errors on the side
+      of mercy, than be obliged to tell one act of severe justice. I voted
+      against an appeal to the people, because it appeared to me that the
+      Convention was needlessly wearied on that point; but I so voted in the
+      hope that this Assembly would pronounce against death, and for the same
+      punishment that the nation would have voted, at least in my opinion, that
+      is for reclusion during the war, and banishment thereafter.(1) That is the
+      punishment most efficacious, because it includes the whole family at once,
+      and none other can so operate. I am still against the appeal to the
+      primary assemblies, because there is a better method. This Convention has
+      been elected to form a Constitution, which will be submitted to the
+      primary assemblies. After its acceptance a necessary consequence will be
+      an election and another assembly. We cannot suppose that the present
+      Convention will last more than five or six months. The choice of new
+      deputies will express the national opinion, on the propriety or
+      impropriety of your sentence, with as much efficacy as if those primary
+      assemblies had been consulted on it. As the duration of our functions here
+      cannot be long, it is a part of our duty to consider the interests of
+      those who shall replace us. If by any act of ours the number of the
+      nation's enemies shall be needlessly increased, and that of its friends
+      diminished,&mdash;at a time when the finances may be more strained than
+      to-day,&mdash;we should not be justifiable for having thus unnecessarily
+      heaped obstacles in the path of our successors. Let us therefore not be
+      precipitate in our decisions.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 It is possible that the course of the debate may have
+     produced some reaction among the people, but when Paine
+     voted against submitting the king's fate to the popular vote
+     it was believed by the king and his friends that it would be
+     fatal. The American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, who had
+     long been acting for the king, wrote to President
+     Washington, Jan. 6, 1793: "The king's fate is to be decided
+     next Monday, the 14th. That unhappy man, conversing with one
+     of his Council on his own fate, calmly summed up the motives
+     of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the Council
+     would vote for referring his case to the people, and that in
+     consequence he should be massacred." Writing to Washington
+     on Dec. 28, 1792, Morris mentions having heard from Paine
+     that he was to move the king's banishment to America, and he
+     may then have informed Paine that the king believed
+     reference of his case to popular vote would be fatal.
+     Genet was to have conducted the royal family to America.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      France has but one ally&mdash;the United States of America. That is the
+      only nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the
+      kingdoms of northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It
+      unfortunately happens that the person now under discussion is considered
+      by the Americans as having been the friend of their revolution. His
+      execution will be an affliction to them, and it is in your power not to
+      wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French language I would
+      descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to respite
+      the execution of the sentence on Louis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thuriot: This is not the language of Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marat: I denounce the interpreter. I maintain that it is not Thomas
+      Paine's opinion. It is an untrue translation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Garran: I have read the original, and the translation is correct.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [<i>Prolonged uproar. Paine, still standing in the tribune beside his
+      interpreter, Deputy Bancal, declared the sentiments to be his.</i>]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your Executive Committee will nominate an ambassador to Philadelphia; my
+      sincere wish is that he may announce to America that the National
+      Convention of France, out of pure friendship to America, has consented to
+      respite Louis. That people, by my vote, ask you to delay the execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the man
+      perish on the scaffold who had aided my much-loved America to break his
+      chains!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Marat ["<i>launching himself into the middle of the hall</i>"]: Paine
+      voted against the punishment of death because he is a Quaker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine: I voted against it from both moral motives and motives of public
+      policy.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See Guizot, "Hist, of France," vi., p. 136. "Hist.
+     Parliamentair," vol. ii., p. 350. Louis Blanc says that
+     Paine's appeal was so effective that Marat interrupted
+     mainly in order to destroy its effect.&mdash;"Hist, de la Rev.,"
+     tome vii, 396.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XVI. DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The object of all union of men in society being maintenance of their
+      natural rights, civil and political, these rights are the basis of the
+      social pact: their recognition and their declaration ought to precede the
+      Constitution which assures their guarantee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The natural rights of men, civil and political, are liberty, equality,
+      security, property, social protection, and resistance to oppression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Liberty consists in the right to do whatever is not contrary to the
+      rights of others: thus, exercise of the natural rights of each individual
+      has no limits other than those which secure to other members of society
+      enjoyment of the same rights.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In his appeal from prison to the Convention (August 7,
+     1794) Paine states that he had, as a member of the Committee
+     for framing the Constitution, prepared a Plan, which was in
+     the hands of Barère, also of that Committee. I have not yet
+     succeeded in finding Paine's Constitution, but it is certain
+     that the work of framing the Constitution of 1793 was mainly
+     entrusted to Paine and Condorcet.
+
+     Dr. John Moore, in his work on the French Revolution,
+     describes the two at their work; and it is asserted that he
+     "assisted in drawing up the French Declaration of Rights,"
+     by "Juvencus," author of an able "Essay on the Life and
+     Genius of Thomas Paine," whose information came from a
+     personal friend of Paine. ("Aphorisms, Opinions, and
+     Reflections of Thomas Paine," etc., London, 1826. Pp. 3,
+     14.) A translation of the Declaration and Constitution
+     appeared in England (Debrett, Picadilly, 1793), but with
+     some faults. The present translation is from "Oeuvres
+     Complètes de Condorcet," tome xviii. The Committee reported
+     their Constitution February 15th, and April 15th was set for
+     its discussion, Robespierre then demanded separate
+     discussion of the Declaration of Rights, to which he
+     objected that it made no mention of the Supreme Being, and
+     that its extreme principles of freedom would shield illicit
+     traffic. Paine and Jefferson were troubled that the United
+     States Constitution contained no Declaration of Rights, it
+     being a fundamental principle in Paine's theory of
+     government that such a Declaration was the main safeguard of
+     the individual against the despotism of numbers.    See
+     supra, vol. ii.t pp. 138, 139.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      3. The preservation of liberty depends on submission to the Law, which is
+      the expression of the general will. Nothing unforbidden by law can be
+      hindered, and none may be forced to do what the law does not command.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. Every man is free to make known his thoughts and opinions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. Freedom of the press, and every other means of publishing one's
+      opinion, cannot be interdicted, suspended, or limited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. Every citizen shall be free in the exercise of his religion (<i>culte</i>).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      7. Equality consists in the enjoyment by every one of the same rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      8. The law should be equal for all, whether it rewards or punishes,
+      protects or represses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      9. All citizens are admissible to all public positions, employments, and
+      functions. Free nations recognize no grounds of preference save talents
+      and virtues.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      10. Security consists in the protection accorded by society to every
+      citizen for the preservation of his person, property, and rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      11. None should be sued, accused, arrested, or detained, save in cases
+      determined by the law, and in accordance with forms prescribed by it.
+      Every other act against a citizen is arbitrary and null.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      12. Those who solicit, further, sign, execute, or cause to be executed,
+      such arbitrary acts are culpable, and should be punished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      13. Citizens against whom the execution of such acts is attempted have the
+      right to repel force by force; but every citizen summoned or arrested by
+      authority of the Law, and in the forms by it prescribed, should instantly
+      obey: he renders himself guilty by resistance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      14. Every man being presumed innocent until legally pronounced guilty,
+      should his arrest be deemed indispensable, all rigor not necessary to
+      secure his person should be severely represssed by law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      15. None should be punished save in virtue of a law formally enacted,
+      promulgated anterior to the offence, and legally applied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      16. Any law that should punish offences committed before its existence
+      would be an arbitrary act. Retroactive effect given to the law is a crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      17. The law should award only penalties strictly and evidently necessary
+      to the general safety. Penalties should be proportioned to offences, and
+      useful to society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      18. The right of property consists in every man's being master in the
+      disposal, at his will, of his goods, capital, income, and industry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      19. No kind of labor, commerce, or culture, can be prohibited to any one:
+      he may make, sell, and transport every species of production.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      20. Every man may engage his services and his time; but he cannot sell
+      himself; his person is not an alienable property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      21. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without
+      his consent, unless evidently required by public necessity, legally
+      determined, and under the condition of a just indemnity in advance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      22. No tax shall be imposed except for the general welfare, and to meet
+      public needs. All citizens have the right to unite personally, or by their
+      representatives, in the fixing of imposts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      23. Instruction is the need of all, and society owes it to all its members
+      equally.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      24. Public succours are a sacred debt of society; it is for the law to
+      determine their extent and application.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      25. The social guarantee of the rights of man rests on the national
+      sovereignty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      26. This sovereignty is one, indivisible, imprescriptible, and
+      inalienable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      27. It resides essentially in the whole people, and every citizen has an
+      equal right to unite in its exercise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      28. No partial assemblage of citizens, and no individual, may attribute to
+      themselves sovereignty, or exercise any authority, or discharge any public
+      function, without formal delegation thereto by the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      29. The social guarantee cannot exist if the limits of public
+      administration are not clearly determined by law, and if the
+      responsibility of all public functionaries is not assured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      30. All citizens are bound to unite in this guarantee, and in enforcing
+      the law when summoned in its name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      31. Men united in society should have legal means of resisting oppression.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      32. There is oppression when any law violates the natural rights, civil
+      and political, which it should guarantee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is oppression when the law is violated by public officials in its
+      application to individual cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is oppression when arbitrary actions violate the rights of citizen
+      against the express purpose (<i>expression</i>) of the law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a free government the mode of resisting these different acts of
+      oppression should be regulated by the Constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      33. A people possesses always the right to reform and alter its
+      Constitution. A generation has no right to subject a future generation to
+      its laws; and all heredity in offices is absurd and tyrannical.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XVII. PRIVATE LETTERS TO JEFFERSON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Paris, 20 April, 1793.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear Friend,&mdash;The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I entrust this
+      letter is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the
+      opportunity of seeing him, as he had set off for Havre prior to my writing
+      this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his friends,
+      who is also an acquaintance of mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without
+      some considerable faults here. Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed
+      principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the
+      Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off to the
+      Enemy, and taken a considerable part of the Army with him. The expedition
+      to Holland has totally failed, and all Brabant is again in the hands of
+      the Austrians.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of fortune
+      has occasioned, but it has been without commotion. Dumouriez threatened to
+      be in Paris in three weeks. It is now three weeks ago; he is still on the
+      frontier near to Mons with the Enemy, who do not make any progress.
+      Dumouriez has proposed to re-establish the former Constitution in which
+      plan the Austrians act with him. But if France and the National Convention
+      act prudently this project will not succeed. In the first place there is a
+      popular disposition against it, and there is force sufficient to prevent
+      it. In the next place, a great deal is to be taken into the calculation
+      with respect to the Enemy. There are now so many persons accidentally
+      jumbled together as to render it exceedingly difficult to them to agree
+      upon any common object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first object, that of restoring the old Monarchy, is evidently given
+      up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution. The object of
+      England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object of Austria was
+      to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted, each party having
+      one, the Confederation could hold together, each helping the other; but
+      after this I see not how a common object is to be formed. To all this is
+      to be added the probable disputes about opportunity, the expence, and the
+      projects of reimbursements. The Enemy has once adventured into France, and
+      they had the permission or the good fortune to get back again. On every
+      military calculation it is a hazardous adventure, and armies are not much
+      disposed to try a second time the ground upon which they have been
+      defeated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had this revolution been conducted consistently with its principles, there
+      was once a good prospect of extending liberty through the greatest part of
+      Europe; but I now relinquish that hope. Should the Enemy by venturing into
+      France put themselves again in a condition of being captured, the hope
+      will revive; but this is a risk I do not wish to see tried, lest it should
+      fail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the prospect of a general freedom is now much shortened, I begin to
+      contemplate returning home. I shall await the event of the proposed
+      Constitution, and then take my final leave of Europe. I have not written
+      to the President, as I have nothing to communicate more than in this
+      letter. Please to present him my affection and compliments, and remember
+      me among the circle of my friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your sincere and affectionate friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P. S. I just now received a letter from General Lewis Morris, who tells me
+      that the house and Barn on my farm at New Rochelle are burnt down. I
+      assure you I shall not bring money enough to build another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, 20 Oct., 1793.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre about the 20th
+      of this month. This will probably be brought you by Mr. Barlow or Col.
+      Oswald. Since my letter by Dominick I am every day more convinced and
+      impressed with the propriety of Congress sending Commissioners to Europe
+      to confer with the Ministers of the Jesuitical Powers on the means of
+      terminating the War. The enclosed printed paper will shew there are a
+      variety of subjects to be taken into consideration which did not appear at
+      first, all of which have some tendency to put an end to the War. I see not
+      how this War is to terminate if some intermediate power does not step
+      forward. There is now no prospect that France can carry revolutions into
+      Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can conquer France on
+      the other hand. It is a sort of defensive War on both sides. This being
+      the case, how is the War to close? Neither side will ask for peace though
+      each may wish it. I believe that England and Holland are tired of the War.
+      Their Commerce and Manufactures have suffered most exceedingly,&mdash;besides
+      this, it is for them a War without an object. Russia keeps herself at a
+      distance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners,
+      and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the ocean, as
+      one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would know
+      what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney [Gen. Thomas Pinckney,
+      American Minister in England] to their councils, and it would be of use,
+      on many accounts, that one of them should come over from Holland to
+      France. Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral powers,
+      would have all the effects of a Peace, without the difficulties attending
+      the adjustment of all the forms of Peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yours affectionately,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XVIII. LETTER TO DANTON.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Paris, May 6, 2nd year of the Republic [1793.]
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Citoyen Danton: As you read English, I write this letter to you without
+      passing it through the hands of a translator. I am exceedingly disturbed
+      at the distractions, jealousies, discontents and uneasiness that reign
+      among us, and which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on the
+      Republic. When I left America in the year 1787, it was my intention to
+      return the year following, but the French Revolution, and the prospect it
+      afforded of extending the principles of liberty and fraternity through the
+      greater part of Europe, have induced me to prolong my stay upwards of six
+      years. I now despair of seeing the great object of European liberty
+      accomplished, and my despair arises not from the combined foreign powers,
+      not from the intrigues of aristocracy and priestcraft, but from the
+      tumultuous misconduct with which the internal affairs of the present
+      revolution are conducted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that now can be hoped for is limited to France only, and I agree with
+      your motion of not interfering in the government of any foreign country,
+      nor permitting any foreign country to interfere in the government of
+      France. This decree was necessary as a preliminary toward terminating the
+      war. But while these internal contentions continue, while the hope remains
+      to the enemy of seeing the Republic fall to pieces, while not only the
+      representatives of the departments but representation itself is publicly
+      insulted, as it has lately been and now is by the people of Paris, or at
+      least by the tribunes, the enemy will be encouraged to hang about the
+      frontiers and await the issue of circumstances.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This admirable letter was brought to light by the late M.
+     Taine, and first published in full by Taine's translator,
+     John Durand ("New Materials for the History of the American
+     Revolution," 1889). The letter to Marat mentioned by Paine
+     has not been discovered. Danton followed Paine to prison,
+     and on meeting him there said: "That which you did for the
+     happiness and liberty of your country I tried to do for
+     mine. I have been less fortunate, but not less innocent.
+     They will send me to the scaffold; very well, my friend, I
+     will go gaily." M. Taine in La Révolution (vol. ii., pp.
+     382, 413, 414) refers to this letter of Paine, and says:
+     "Compared with the speeches and writings of the time, it
+     produces the strangest effect by its practical good sense."
+     &mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I observe that the confederated powers have not yet recognized Monsieur,
+      or D'Artois, as regent, nor made any proclamation in favour of any of the
+      Bourbons; but this negative conduct admits of two different conclusions.
+      The one is that of abandoning the Bourbons and the war together; the other
+      is that of changing the object of the war and substituting a partition
+      scheme in the place of their first object, as they have done by Poland. If
+      this should be their object, the internal contentions that now rage will
+      favour that object far more than it favoured their former object. The
+      danger every day increases of a rupture between Paris and the departments.
+      The departments did not send their deputies to Paris to be insulted, and
+      every insult shown to them is an insult to the departments that elected
+      and sent them. I see but one effectual plan to prevent this rupture taking
+      place, and that is to fix the residence of the Convention, and of the
+      future assemblies, at a distance from Paris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I saw, during the American Revolution, the exceeding inconvenience that
+      arose by having the government of Congress within the limits of any
+      Municipal Jurisdiction. Congress first resided in Philadelphia, and after
+      a residence of four years it found it necessary to leave it. It then
+      adjourned to the State of Jersey. It afterwards removed to New York; it
+      again removed from New York to Philadelphia, and after experiencing in
+      every one of these places the great inconvenience of a government, it
+      formed the project of building a Town, not within the limits of any
+      municipal jurisdiction, for the future residence of Congress. In any one
+      of the places where Congress resided, the municipal authority privately or
+      openly opposed itself to the authority of Congress, and the people of each
+      of these places expected more attention from Congress than their equal
+      share with the other States amounted to. The same thing now takes place in
+      France, but in a far greater excess.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see also another embarrassing circumstance arising in Paris of which we
+      have had full experience in America. I mean that of fixing the price of
+      provisions. But if this measure is to be attempted it ought to be done by
+      the Municipality. The Convention has nothing to do with regulations of
+      this kind; neither can they be carried into practice. The people of Paris
+      may say they will not give more than a certain price for provisions, but
+      as they cannot compel the country people to bring provisions to market the
+      consequence will be directly contrary to their expectations, and they will
+      find dearness and famine instead of plenty and cheapness. They may force
+      the price down upon the stock in hand, but after that the market will be
+      empty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will give you an example. In Philadelphia we undertook, among other
+      regulations of this kind, to regulate the price of Salt; the consequence
+      was that no Salt was brought to market, and the price rose to thirty-six
+      shillings sterling per Bushel. The price before the war was only one
+      shilling and sixpence per Bushel; and we regulated the price of flour
+      (farina) till there was none in the market, and the people were glad to
+      procure it at any price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is also a circumstance to be taken into the account which is not
+      much attended to. The assignats are not of the same value they were a year
+      ago, and as the quantity increases the value of them will diminish. This
+      gives the appearance of things being dear when they are not so in fact,
+      for in the same proportion that any kind of money falls in value articles
+      rise in price. If it were not for this the quantity of assignats would be
+      too great to be circulated. Paper money in America fell so much in value
+      from this excessive quantity of it, that in the year 1781 I gave three
+      hundred paper dollars for one pair of worsted stockings. What I write you
+      upon this subject is experience, and not merely opinion. I have no
+      personal interest in any of these matters, nor in any party disputes. I
+      attend only to general principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as a constitution shall be established I shall return to America;
+      and be the future prosperity of France ever so great, I shall enjoy no
+      other part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In the mean time I am
+      distressed to see matters so badly conducted, and so little attention paid
+      to moral principles. It is these things that injure the character of the
+      Revolution and discourage the progress of liberty all over the world. When
+      I began this letter I did not intend making it so lengthy, but since I
+      have gone thus far I will fill up the remainder of the sheet with such
+      matters as occur to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of
+      denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his
+      private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and
+      without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all
+      authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of Treachery that ought to be
+      punished as well as any other kind of Treachery. It is a private vice
+      productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into
+      disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected. It
+      is therefore, equally as necessary to guard against the evils of unfounded
+      or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind confidence. It is
+      equally as necessary to protect the characters of public officers from
+      calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or misconduct. For my own
+      part I shall hold it a matter of doubt, until better evidence arises than
+      is known at present, whether Dumouriez has been a traitor from policy or
+      resentment. There was certainly a time when he acted well, but it is not
+      every man whose mind is strong enough to bear up against ingratitude, and
+      I think he experienced a great deal of this before he revolted. Calumny
+      becomes harmless and defeats itself, when it attempts to act upon too
+      large a scale. Thus the denunciation of the Sections [of Paris] against
+      the twenty-two deputies [Girondists] falls to the ground. The departments
+      that elected them are better judges of their moral and political
+      characters than those who have denounced them. This denunciation will
+      injure Paris in the opinion of the departments because it has the
+      appearance of dictating to them what sort of deputies they shall elect.
+      Most of the acquaintances that I have in the Convention are among those
+      who are in that list, and I know there are not better men nor better
+      patriots than what they are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have written a letter to Marat of the same date as this but not on the
+      same subject. He may show it to you if he chuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Votre Ami,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citoyen Danton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XIX. A CITIZEN OF AMERICA TO THE CITIZENS OF EUROPE (1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      18th Year of Independence.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 State Archives, Paris: États Unis, vol. 38, fol. 90. This
+     pamphlet is in English, without indication of authorship or
+     of the place of publication. It is accompanied by a French
+     translation (MS.) inscribed "Par Thomas Payne." In the
+     printed pamphlet the date (18th Year, etc) is preceded by
+     the French words (printed): "Philadelphie 28 Juillet 1793."
+     It was no doubt the pamphlet sent by Paine to Monroe, with
+     various documents relating to his imprisonment, describing
+     it as "a Letter which I had printed here as an American
+     letter, some copies of which I sent to Mr. Jefferson." A
+     considerable portion of the pamphlet embodies, with
+     occasional changes of phraseology, a manuscript (États Unis,
+     vol. 37, Do. 39) endorsed: "January 1793. Thorn. Payne.
+     Copie. Observations on the situation of the Powers joined
+     against France." This opens with the following paragraph:
+     "It is always useful to know the position and the designs of
+     one's enemies. It is much easier to do so by combining and
+     comparing the events, and by examining the consequences
+     which result from them, than by forming one's judgment by
+     letters found or intercepted. These letters could be
+     fabricated with the intention of deceiving, but events or
+     circumstances have a character which is proper to them. If
+     in the course of our political operations we mistake the
+     designs of our enemy, it leads us to do precisely that which
+     he desires we should do, and it happens by the fact, but
+     against our intentions, that we work for him." That the date
+     written on this MS. is erroneous appears by an allusion to
+     the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk in the closing
+     paragraph: "There are three distinct parties in England at
+     this moment: the government party, the revolutionary party,
+     and an intermedial party,&mdash;which is only opposed to the war
+     on account of the expense it entails, and the harm it does
+     commerce and manufactures. I am speaking of the People, and
+     not of the Parliament. The latter is divided into two
+     parties: the Ministerial, and the Anti-ministerial. The
+     revolutionary party, the intermedial party, and the anti-
+     ministerial party, will all rejoice, publicly or privately,
+     at the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk."   The two
+     paragraphs quoted represent the only actual additions to the
+     pamphlet. I have a clipping from the London Morning
+     Chronicle of Friday, April 25, 1794, containing the part of
+     the pamphlet headed "Of the present state of Europe and the
+     Confederacy," signed "Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense,
+     etc." On February 1,1793, the Convention having declared
+     war, appointed Paine, Barère, Condorcet and Faber, a
+     Committee to draft an address to the English people. It was
+     never done, but these fragments may represent notes written
+     by Paine with reference to that task.   The pamphlet
+     probably appeared late in September, 1793.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Understanding that a proposal is intended to be made at the ensuing
+      meeting of the Congress of the United States of America "to send
+      commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of all the Neutral
+      Powers for the purpose of negotiating preliminaries of peace," I address
+      this letter to you on that subject, and on the several matters connected
+      therewith.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In order to discuss this subject through all its circumstances, it will be
+      necessary to take a review of the state of Europe, prior to the French
+      revolution. It will from thence appear, that the powers leagued against
+      France are fighting to attain an object, which, were it possible to be
+      attained, would be injurious to themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is not an uncommon error in the history of wars and governments, of
+      which the conduct of the English government in the war against America is
+      a striking instance. She commenced that war for the avowed purpose of
+      subjugating America; and after wasting upwards of one hundred millions
+      sterling, and then abandoning the object, she discovered, in the course of
+      three or four years, that the prosperity of England was increased, instead
+      of being diminished, by the independence of America. In short, every
+      circumstance is pregnant with some natural effect, upon which intentions
+      and opinions have no influence; and the political error lies in misjudging
+      what the effect will be. England misjudged it in the American war, and the
+      reasons I shall now offer will shew, that she misjudges it in the present
+      war. In discussing this subject, I leave out of the question everything
+      respecting forms and systems of government; for as all the governments of
+      Europe differ from each other, there is no reason that the government of
+      France should not differ from the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clamours continually raised in all the countries of Europe were, that
+      the family of the Bourbons was become too powerful; that the intrigues of
+      the court of France endangered the peace of Europe. Austria saw with a
+      jealous eye the connection of France with Prussia; and Prussia, in her
+      turn became jealous of the connection of France with Austria; England had
+      wasted millions unsuccessfully in attempting to prevent the family compact
+      with Spain; Russia disliked the alliance between France and Turkey; and
+      Turkey became apprehensive of the inclination of France towards an
+      alliance with Russia. Sometimes the quadruple alliance alarmed some of the
+      powers, and at other times a contrary system alarmed others, and in all
+      those cases the charge was always made against the intrigues of the
+      Bourbons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Admitting those matters to be true, the only thing that could have quieted
+      the apprehensions of all those powers with respect to the interference of
+      France, would have been her entire NEUTRALITY in Europe; but this was
+      impossible to be obtained, or if obtained was impossible to be secured,
+      because the genius of her government was repugnant to all such
+      restrictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It now happens that by entirely changing the genius of her government,
+      which France has done for herself, this neutrality, which neither wars
+      could accomplish nor treaties secure, arises naturally of itself, and
+      becomes the ground upon which the war should terminate. It is the thing
+      that approaches the nearest of all others to what ought to be the
+      political views of all the European powers; and there is nothing that can
+      so effectually secure this neutrality, as that the genius of the French
+      government should be different from the rest of Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if their object is to restore the Bourbons and monarchy together, they
+      will unavoidably restore with it all the evils of which they have
+      complained; and the first question of discord will be, whose ally is that
+      monarchy to be?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Will England agree to the restoration of the family compact against which
+      she has been fighting and scheming ever since it existed? Will Prussia
+      agree to restore the alliance between France and Austria, or will Austria
+      agree to restore the former connection between France and Prussia, formed
+      on purpose to oppose herself; or will Spain or Russia, or any of the
+      maritime powers, agree that France and her navy should be allied to
+      England? In fine, will any of the powers agree to strengthen the hands of
+      the other against itself? Yet all these cases involve themselves in the
+      original question of the restoration of the Bourbons; and on the other
+      hand, all of them disappear by the neutrality of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If their object is not to restore the Bourbons, it must be the
+      impracticable project of a partition of the country. The Bourbons will
+      then be out of the question, or, more properly speaking, they will be put
+      in a worse condition; for as the preservation of the Bourbons made a part
+      of the first object, the extirpation of them makes a part of the second.
+      Their pretended friends will then become interested in their destruction,
+      because it is favourable to the purpose of partition that none of the
+      nominal claimants should be left in existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But however the project of a partition may at first blind the eyes of the
+      confederacy, or however each of them may hope to outwit the other in the
+      progress or in the end, the embarrassments that will arise are
+      insurmountable. But even were the object attainable, it would not be of
+      such general advantage to the parties as the neutrality of France, which
+      costs them nothing, and to obtain which they would formerly have gone to
+      war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      OF THE PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE, AND THE CONFEDERACY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place the confederacy is not of that kind that forms itself
+      originally by concert and consent. It has been forced together by chance&mdash;a
+      heterogeneous mass, held only by the accident of the moment; and the
+      instant that accident ceases to operate, the parties will retire to their
+      former rivalships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will now, independently of the impracticability of a partition project,
+      trace out some of the embarrassments which will arise among the
+      confederated parties; for it is contrary to the interest of a majority of
+      them that such a project should succeed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To understand this part of the subject it is necessary, in the first
+      place, to cast an eye over the map of Europe, and observe the geographical
+      situation of the several parts of the confederacy; for however strongly
+      the passionate politics of the moment may operate, the politics that arise
+      from geographical situation are the most certain, and will in all cases
+      finally prevail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The world has been long amused with what is called the "<i>balance of
+      power</i>." But it is not upon armies only that this balance depends.
+      Armies have but a small circle of action. Their progress is slow and
+      limited. But when we take maritime power into the calculation, the scale
+      extends universally. It comprehends all the interests connected with
+      commerce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two great maritime powers are England and France. Destroy either of
+      those, and the balance of naval power is destroyed. The whole world of
+      commerce that passes on the Ocean would then lie at the mercy of the
+      other, and the ports of any nation in Europe might be blocked up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The geographical situation of those two maritime powers comes next under
+      consideration. Each of them occupies one entire side of the channel from
+      the straits of Dover and Calais to the opening into the Atlantic. The
+      commerce of all the northern nations, from Holland to Russia, must pass
+      the straits of Dover and Calais, and along the Channel, to arrive at the
+      Atlantic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This being the case, the systematical politics of all the nations,
+      northward of the straits of Dover and Calais, can be ascertained from
+      their geographical situation; for it is necessary to the safety of their
+      commerce that the two sides of the Channel, either in whole or in part,
+      should not be in the possession either of England or France. While one
+      nation possesses the whole of one side, and the other nation the other
+      side, the northern nations cannot help seeing that in any situation of
+      things their commerce will always find protection on one side or the
+      other. It may sometimes be that of England and sometimes that of France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, while the English navy continues in its present condition, it is
+      necessary that another navy should exist to controul the universal sway
+      the former would otherwise have over the commerce of all nations. France
+      is the only nation in Europe where this balance can be placed. The navies
+      of the North, were they sufficiently powerful, could not be sufficiently
+      operative. They are blocked up by the ice six months in the year. Spain
+      lies too remote; besides which, it is only for the sake of her American
+      mines that she keeps up her navy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Applying these cases to the project of a partition of France, it will
+      appear, that the project involves with it a DESTRUCTION OF THE BALANCE OF
+      MARITIME POWER; because it is only by keeping France entire and
+      indivisible that the balance can be kept up. This is a case that at first
+      sight lies remote and almost hidden. But it interests all the maritime and
+      commercial nations in Europe in as great a degree as any case that has
+      ever come before them.&mdash;In short, it is with war as it is with law.
+      In law, the first merits of the case become lost in the multitude of
+      arguments; and in war they become lost in the variety of events. New
+      objects arise that take the lead of all that went before, and everything
+      assumes a new aspect. This was the case in the last great confederacy in
+      what is called the succession war, and most probably will be the case in
+      the present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now thrown together such thoughts as occurred to me on the several
+      subjects connected with the confederacy against France, and interwoven
+      with the interest of the neutral powers. Should a conference of the
+      neutral powers take place, these observations will, at least, serve to
+      generate others. The whole matter will then undergo a more extensive
+      investigation than it is in my power to give; and the evils attending upon
+      either of the projects, that of restoring the Bourbons, or of attempting a
+      partition of France, will have the calm opportunity of being fully
+      discussed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the part of England, it is very extraordinary that she should have
+      engaged in a former confederacy, and a long expensive war, to <i>prevent</i>
+      the family compact, and now engage in another confederacy to <i>preserve</i>
+      it. And on the part of the other powers, it is as inconsistent that they
+      should engage in a partition project, which, could it be executed, would
+      immediately destroy the balance of maritime power in Europe, and would
+      probably produce a second war, to remedy the political errors of the
+      first.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A Citizen of the United States of America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0021" id="link2H_4_0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XX. APPEAL TO THE CONVENTION.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Citizens Representatives: If I should not express myself with the energy I
+      used formerly to do, you will attribute it to the very dangerous illness I
+      have suffered in the prison of the Luxembourg. For several days I was
+      insensible of my own existence; and though I am much recovered, it is with
+      exceeding great difficulty that I find power to write you this letter.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Written in Luxembourg prison, August 7, 1794. Robespierre
+     having fallen July 29th, those who had been imprisoned under
+     his authority were nearly all at once released, but Paine
+     remained. There were still three conspirators against him on
+     the Committee of Public Safety, and to that Committee this
+     appeal was unfortunately confided; consequently it never
+     reached the Convention. The circumstances are related at
+     length infra, in the introduction to the Memorial to Monroe
+     (XXI.). It will also be seen that Paine was mistaken in his
+     belief that his imprisonment was due to the enmity of
+     Robespierre, and this he vaguely suspected when his
+     imprisonment was prolonged three months after Robespierre's
+     death.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But before I proceed further, I request the Convention to observe: that
+      this is the first line that has come from me, either to the Convention or
+      to any of the Committees, since my imprisonment,&mdash;which is
+      approaching to eight months. &mdash;Ah, my friends, eight months' loss of
+      liberty seems almost a life-time to a man who has been, as I have been,
+      the unceasing defender of Liberty for twenty years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having written
+      before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe that
+      Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every man of
+      virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention some time
+      about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre, I have
+      always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the partizans he
+      had in the place. The intention of that address was to prepare the way for
+      destroying me, by making the people declare (though without assigning any
+      reason) that I had lost their confidence; the Address, however, failed of
+      success, as it was immediately opposed by a counter-address from St. Omer,
+      which declared the direct contrary. But the strange power that
+      Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy and the most hardened
+      cruelties, had obtained, rendered any attempt on my part to obtain justice
+      not only useless but dangerous; for it is the nature of Tyranny always to
+      strike a deeper blow when any attempt has been made to repel a former one.
+      This being my situation, I submitted with patience to the hardness of my
+      fate and waited the event of brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to
+      the nation and to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787 I promised to all
+      my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope of
+      seeing a revolution happily established in France, that might serve as a
+      model to the rest of Europe,(1) and the earnest and disinterested desire
+      of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me to defer
+      my return to that country, and to the society of my friends, for more than
+      seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity, especially after
+      having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the American Revolution
+      which continued almost eight years, deserved a better fate than the long
+      imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it is not the nation but a
+      faction that has done me this injustice. Parties and Factions, various and
+      numerous as they have been, I have always avoided. My heart was devoted to
+      all France, and the object to which I applied myself was the Constitution.
+      The Plan which I proposed to the Committee, of which I was a member, is
+      now in the hands of Barère, and it will speak for itself.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Revolutions have now acquired such sanguinary associations
+     that it is important to bear in mind that by "revolution"
+     Paine always means simply a change or reformation of
+     government, which might be and ought to be bloodless. See
+     "Rights of Man" Part II., vol. ii. of this work, pp. 513,
+     523.&mdash;:<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is perhaps proper that I inform you of the cause as-assigned in the
+      order for my imprisonment. It is that I am 'a Foreigner'; whereas, the <i>Foreigner</i>
+      thus imprisoned was invited into France by a decree of the late National
+      Assembly, and that in the hour of her greatest danger, when invaded by
+      Austrians and Prussians. He was, moreover, a citizen of the United States
+      of America, an ally of France, and not a subject of any country in Europe,
+      and consequently not within the intentions of any decree concerning
+      Foreigners. But any excuse can be made to serve the purpose of malignity
+      when in power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will not intrude on your time by offering any apology for the broken and
+      imperfect manner in which I have expressed myself. I request you to accept
+      it with the sincerity with which it comes from my heart; and I conclude
+      with wishing Fraternity and prosperity to France, and union and happiness
+      to her representatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizens, I have now stated to you my situation, and I can have no doubt
+      but your justice will restore me to the Liberty of which I have been
+      deprived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luxembourg, Thermidor 19, 2nd Year of the French Republic, one and
+      indivisible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0022" id="link2H_4_0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXI. THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      EDITOR'S historical introduction:
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Memorial is here printed from the manuscript of Paine now among the
+      Morrison Papers, in the British Museum,&mdash;no doubt the identical
+      document penned in Luxembourg prison. The paper in the United States State
+      Department (vol. vii., Monroe Papers) is accompanied by a note by Monroe:
+      "Mr. Paine, Luxembourg, on my arrival in France, 1794. My answer was after
+      the receipt of his second letter. It is thought necessary to print only
+      those parts of his that relate directly to his confinement, and to omit
+      all between the parentheses in each." The paper thus inscribed seems to
+      have been a wrapper for all of Paine's letters. An examination of the MS.
+      at Washington does not show any such "parentheses," indicating omissions,
+      whereas that in the British Museum has such marks, and has evidently been
+      prepared for the press,&mdash;being indeed accompanied by the long title
+      of the French pamphlet. There are other indications that the British
+      Museum MS. is the original Memorial from which was printed in Paris the
+      pamphlet entitled:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mémoire de Thomas Payne, autographe et signé de sa main: addressé à M.
+      Monroe, ministre des États-unis en france, pour réclamer sa mise en
+      liberté comme citoyen Américain, 10 Sept 1794. Robespierre avait fait
+      arrêter Th. Payne, en 1793&mdash;il fut conduit au Luxembourg où le glaive
+      fut longtemps suspendu sur sa tête. Après onze mois de captivité, il
+      recouvra la liberté, sur la réclamation du ministre Américain&mdash;c'était
+      après la chute de Robespierre&mdash;il reprit sa place à la convention, le
+      8 décembre 1794. (18 frimaire an iii.) Ce Mémoire contient des renseigne
+      mens curieux sur la conduite politique de Th. Payne en france, pendant la
+      Révolution, et à l'époque du procès de Louis XVI. Ce n'est point, dit il,
+      comme Quaker, qu'il ne vota pas La Mort du Roi mais par un sentiment
+      d'humanité, qui ne tenait point à ses principes religieux. Villenave."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No date is given, but the pamphlet probably appeared early in 1795.
+      Matthieu Gillaume Thérèse Villenave (b. 1762, d. 1846) was a journalist,
+      and it will be noticed that he, or the translator, modifies Paine's answer
+      to Marat about his Quakerism. There are some loose translations in the
+      cheap French pamphlet, but it is the only publication which has given
+      Paine's Memorial with any fulness. Nearly ten pages of the manuscript were
+      omitted from the Memorial when it appeared as an Appendix to the pamphlet
+      entitled "Letter to George Washington, President of the United States of
+      America, on Affairs public and private." By Thomas Paine, Author of the
+      Works entitled, Common Sense, Rights of Man, Age of Reason, &amp;c.
+      Philadelphia: Printed by Benj. Franklin Bache, No. 112 Market Street.
+      1796. [Entered according to law.] This much-abridged copy of the Memorial
+      has been followed in all subsequent editions, so that the real document
+      has not hitherto appeared.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In appending the Memorial to his "Letter to Washington," Paine would
+      naturally omit passages rendered unimportant by his release, but his
+      friend Bache may have suppressed others that might have embarrassed
+      American partisans of France, such as the scene at the king's trial.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Bache's pamphlet reproduces the portrait engraved in
+     Villenave, where it is underlined: "Peint par Ped [Peale] à
+     Philadelphie, Dessiné par F. Bonneville, Gravé par Sandoz."
+     In Bache it is: "Bolt sc. 1793 "; and beneath this the
+     curious inscription: "Thomas Paine. Secretair d. Americ:
+     Congr: 1780. Mitgl: d. fr. Nat. Convents. 1793." The
+     portrait is a variant of that now in Independence Hall, and
+     one of two painted by C. W. Peale. The other (in which the
+     chin is supported by the hand) was for religious reasons
+     refused by the Boston Museum when it purchased the
+     collection of "American Heroes" from Rembrandt Peale. It was
+     bought by John McDonough, whose brother sold it to Mr.
+     Joseph Jefferson, the eminent actor, and perished when his
+     house was burned at Buzzard's Bay. Mr. Jefferson writes me
+     that he meant to give the portrait to the Paine Memorial
+     Society, Boston; "but the cruel fire roasted the splendid
+     <i>Infidel</i>, so I presume the saints are satisfied."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This description, however, and a large proportion of the suppressed pages,
+      are historically among the most interesting parts of the Memorial, and
+      their restoration renders it necessary to transfer the document from its
+      place as an appendix to that of a preliminary to the "Letter to
+      Washington."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine's Letter to Washington burdens his reputation today more, probably,
+      than any other production of his pen. The traditional judgment was formed
+      in the absence of many materials necessary for a just verdict. The editor
+      feels under the necessity of introducing at this point an historical
+      episode; he cannot regard it as fair to the memory of either Paine or
+      Washington that these two chapters should be printed without a full
+      statement of the circumstances, the most important of which, but recently
+      discovered, were unknown to either of those men. In the editor's "Life of
+      Thomas Paine" (ii., pp. 77-180) newly discovered facts and documents
+      bearing on the subject are given, which may be referred to by those who
+      desire to investigate critically such statements as may here appear
+      insufficiently supported. Considerations of space require that the history
+      in that work should be only summarized here, especially as important new
+      details must be added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine was imprisoned (December 28, 1793) through the hostility of
+      Gouverneur Morris, the American Minister in Paris. The fact that the
+      United States, after kindling revolution in France by its example, was
+      then represented in that country by a Minister of vehement royalist
+      opinions, and one who literally entered into the service of the King to
+      defeat the Republic, has been shown by that Minister's own biographers.
+      Some light is cast on the events that led to this strange situation by a
+      letter written to M. de Mont-morin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, by a
+      French Chargé d'Affaires, Louis Otto, dated Philadelphia, 10 March, 1792.
+      Otto, a nobleman who married into the Livingston family, was an astute
+      diplomatist, and enjoyed the intimacy of the Secretary of State,
+      Jefferson, and of his friends. At the close of a long interview Jefferson
+      tells him that "The secresy with which the Senate covers its deliberations
+      serves to veil personal interest, which reigns therein in all its
+      strength." Otto explains this as referring to the speculative operations
+      of Senators, and to the commercial connections some of them have with
+      England, making them unfriendly to French interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Among the latter the most remarkable is Mr. Robert Morris, of English
+      birth, formerly Superintendent of Finance, a man of greatest talent, whose
+      mercantile speculations are as unlimited as his ambition. He directs the
+      Senate as he once did the American finances in making it keep step with
+      his policy and his business.... About two years ago Mr. Robert Morris sent
+      to France Mr. Gouverneur Morris to negotiate a loan in his name, and for
+      different other personal matters.... During his sojourn in France, Mr.
+      Rob. Morris thought he could make him more useful for his aims by inducing
+      the President of the United States to entrust him with a negotiation with
+      England relative to the Commerce of the two countries. M. Gouv. Morris
+      acquitted himself in this as an adroit man, and with his customary zeal,
+      but despite his address (insinuation) obtained only the vague hope of an
+      advantageous commercial treaty on condition of an <i>Alliance resembling
+      that between France and the United States</i>.... [Mr. Robert Morris] is
+      himself English, and interested in all the large speculations founded in
+      this country for Great Britain.... His great services as Superintendent of
+      Finance during the Revolution have assured him the esteem and
+      consideration of General Washington, who, however, is far from adopting
+      his views about France. The warmth with which Mr. Rob. Morris opposed in
+      the Senate the exemption of French <i>armateurs</i> from tonnage, demanded
+      by His Majesty, undoubtedly had for its object to induce the king, by this
+      bad behavior, to break the treaty, in order to facilitate hereafter the
+      negotiations begun with England to form an alliance. As for Mr. Gouv.
+      Morris he is entirely devoted to his correspondent, with whom he has been
+      constantly connected in business and opinion. His great talents are
+      recognized, and his extreme quickness in conceiving new schemes and
+      gaining others to them. He is perhaps the most eloquent and ingenious man
+      of his country, but his countrymen themselves distrust his talents. They
+      admire but fear him." (1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Archives of the State Department, Paris, États Unis.,
+      vol. 35, fol. 301.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Commission given to Gouverneur Morris by Washington, to which Otto
+      refers, was in his own handwriting, dated October 13, 1789, and authorized
+      him "in the capacity of private agent, and in the credit of this letter,
+      to converse with His Britannic Majesty's ministers on these points, viz.
+      whether there be any, and what objection to performing those articles of
+      the treaty which remained to be performed on his part; and whether they
+      incline to a treaty of commerce on any and what terms. This communication
+      ought regularly to be made to you by the Secretary of State; but, that
+      office not being at present filled, my desire of avoiding delays induces
+      me to make it under my own hand."(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The President could hardly have assumed the authority of secretly
+      appointing a virtual ambassador had there not been a tremendous object in
+      view: this, as he explains in an accompanying letter, was to secure the
+      evacuation by Great Britain of the frontier posts. This all-absorbing
+      purpose of Washington is the key to his administration. Gouverneur Morris
+      paved the way for Jay's treaty, and he was paid for it with the French
+      mission. The Senate would not have tolerated his appointment to England,
+      and only by a majority of four could the President secure his confirmation
+      as Minister to France (January 12, 1792). The President wrote Gouverneur
+      Morris (January 28th) a friendly lecture about the objections made to him,
+      chiefly that he favored the aristocracy and was unfriendly to the
+      revolution, and expressed "the fullest confidence" that, supposing the
+      allegations founded, he would "effect a change." But Gouverneur Morris
+      remained the agent of Senator Robert Morris, and still held Washington's
+      mission to England, and he knew only as "conspirators" the rulers who
+      succeeded Louis XVI. Even while utilizing them, he was an agent of Great
+      Britain in its war against the country to which he was officially
+      commissioned.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Ford's "Writings of George Washington" vol. xi., p. 440.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Lafayette wrote to Washington ("Paris, March 15,1792") the following
+      appeal:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Permit me, my dear General, to make an observation for yourself alone, on
+      the recent selection of an American ambassador. Personally I am a friend
+      of Gouverneur Morris, and have always been, in private, quite content with
+      him; but the aristocratic and really contra-revolutionary principles which
+      he has avowed render him little fit to represent the only government
+      resembling ours.... I cannot repress the desire that American and French
+      principles should be in the heart and on the lips of the ambassador of the
+      United States in France." (1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In addition to this; two successive Ministers from France, after the fall
+      of the Monarchy, conveyed to the American Government the most earnest
+      remonstrances against the continuance of Gouverneur Morris in their
+      country, one of them reciting the particular offences of which he was
+      guilty. The President's disregard of all these protests and entreaties,
+      unexampled perhaps in history, had the effect of giving Gouverneur Morris
+      enormous power over the country against which he was intriguing. He was
+      recognized as the Irremovable. He represented Washington's fixed and
+      unalterable determination, and this at a moment when the main purpose of
+      the revolutionary leaders was to preserve the alliance with America.
+      Robespierre at that time ( 1793) had special charge of diplomatic affairs,
+      and it is shown by the French historian, Frédéric Masson, that he was very
+      anxious to recover for the republic the initiative of the American
+      alliance credited to the king; and "although their Minister, Gouverneur
+      Morris, was justly suspected, and the American republic was at that time
+      aiming only to utilize the condition of its ally, the French republic
+      cleared it at a cheap rate of its debts contracted with the King."(2)
+      Morris adroitly held this doubt, whether the alliance of his government
+      with Louis XVI. would be continued to that King's executioners, over the
+      head of the revolutionists, as a suspended sword. Under that menace, and
+      with the authentication of being Washington's irremovable mouthpiece, this
+      Minister had only to speak and it was done.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 "Mémoire», etc., du General Lafayette," Bruxelles, 1837,
+     tome ii., pp. 484,485.
+
+     2 "Le Département des Affaires Étrangères pendant la
+     Révolution," p. 395.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Gouverneur Morris was steadily working in France for the aim
+      which he held in common with Robert Morris, namely to transfer the
+      alliance from France to England. These two nations being at war, it was
+      impossible for France to fulfil all the terms of the alliance; it could
+      not permit English ships alone to seize American provisions on the seas,
+      and it was compelled to prevent American vessels from leaving French ports
+      with cargoes certain of capture by British cruisers. In this way a large
+      number of American Captains with their ships were detained in France, to
+      their distress, but to their Minister's satisfaction. He did not fail to
+      note and magnify all "infractions" of the treaty, with the hope that they
+      might be the means of annulling it in favor of England, and he did nothing
+      to mitigate sufferings which were counts in his indictment of the Treaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was at this point that Paine came in the American Minister's way. He
+      had been on good terms with Gouverneur Morris, who in 1790 (May 29th)
+      wrote from London to the President:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the 17th Mr. Paine called to tell me that he had conversed on the same
+      subject [impressment of American seamen] with Mr. Burke, who had asked him
+      if there was any minister, consul, or other agent of the United States who
+      could properly make application to the Government: to which he had replied
+      in the negative; but said that I was here, who had been a member of
+      Congress, and was therefore the fittest person to step forward. In
+      consequence of what passed thereupon between them he [Paine] urged me to
+      take the matter up, which I promised to do. On the 18th I wrote to the
+      Duke of Leeds requesting an interview."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Force's "American State Papers, For. Rel.," vol. i.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      At that time (1790) Paine was as yet a lion in London, thus able to give
+      Morris a lift. He told Morris, in 1792 that he considered his appointment
+      to France a mistake. This was only on the ground of his anti-republican
+      opinions; he never dreamed of the secret commissions to England. He could
+      not have supposed that the Minister who had so promptly presented the case
+      of impressed seamen in England would not equally attend to the distressed
+      Captains in France; but these, neglected by their Minister, appealed to
+      Paine. Paine went to see Morris, with whom he had an angry interview,
+      during which he asked Morris "if he did not feel ashamed to take the money
+      of the country and do nothing for it." Paine thus incurred the personal
+      enmity of Gouverneur Morris. By his next step he endangered this
+      Minister's scheme for increasing the friction between France and America;
+      for Paine advised the Americans to appeal directly to the Convention, and
+      introduced them to that body, which at once heeded their application,
+      Morris being left out of the matter altogether. This was August 22d, and
+      Morris was very angry. It is probable that the Americans in Paris felt
+      from that time that Paine was in danger, for on September 13th a memorial,
+      evidently concocted by them, was sent to the French government proposing
+      that they should send Commissioners to the United States to forestall the
+      intrigues of England, and that Paine should go with them, and set forth
+      their case in the journals, as he "has great influence with the people."
+      This looks like a design to get Paine safely out of the country, but it
+      probably sealed his fate. Had Paine gone to America and reported there
+      Morris's treacheries to France and to his own country, and his
+      licentiousness, notorious in Paris, which his diary has recently revealed
+      to the world, the career of the Minister would have swiftly terminated.
+      Gouverneur Morris wrote to Robert Morris that Paine was intriguing for his
+      removal, and intimates that he (Paine) was ambitious of taking his place
+      in Paris. Paine's return to America must be prevented.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had the American Minister not been well known as an enemy of the republic
+      it might have been easy to carry Paine from the Convention to the
+      guillotine; but under the conditions the case required all of the
+      ingenuity even of a diplomatist so adroit as Gouverneur Morris. But fate
+      had played into his hand. It so happened that Louis Otto, whose letter
+      from Philadelphia has been quoted, had become chief secretary to the
+      Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris, M. Deforgues. This Minister and his
+      Secretary, apprehending the fate that presently overtook both, were
+      anxious to be appointed to America. No one knew better than Otto the
+      commanding influence of Gouverneur Morris, as Washington's "irremovable"
+      representative, both in France and America, and this desire of the two
+      frightened officials to get out of France was confided to him.(1) By hope
+      of his aid, and by this compromising confidence, Deforgues came under the
+      power of a giant who used it like a giant. Morris at once hinted that
+      Paine was fomenting the troubles given by Genêt to Washington in America,
+      and thus set in motion the procedure by which Paine was ultimately lodged
+      in prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There being no charge against Paine in France, and no ill-will felt
+      towards him by Robespierre, compliance with the supposed will of
+      Washington was in this case difficult. Six months before, a law had been
+      passed to imprison aliens of hostile nationality, which could not affect
+      Paine, he being a member of the Convention and an American. But a decree
+      was passed, evidently to reach Paine, "that no foreigner should be
+      admitted to represent the French people"; by this he was excluded from the
+      Convention, and the Committee of General Surety enabled to take the final
+      step of assuming that he was an Englishman, and thus under the decree
+      against aliens of hostile nations.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Letter of Gouverneur Morris to Washington, Oct 19, 1793.
+     Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," vol. ii., p. 375.
+
+     2 Although, as I have said, there was no charge against
+     Paine in France, and none assigned in any document connected
+     with his arrest, some kind of insinuation had to be made in
+     the Convention to cover proceedings against a Deputy, and
+     Bourdon de l'Oise said, "I know that he has intrigued with a
+     former agent of the bureau of Foreign Affairs." It will be
+     seen by the third addendum to the Memorial to Monroe that
+     Paine supposed this to refer to Louis Otto, who had been his
+     interpreter in an interview requested by Barère, of the
+     Committee of Public Safety. But as Otto was then, early in
+     September, 1793, Secretary in the Foreign Office, and Barère
+     a fellow-terrorist of Bourdon, there could be no accusation
+     based on an interview which, had it been probed, would have
+     put Paine's enemies to confusion. It is doubtful, however,
+     if Paine was right in his conjecture. The reference of
+     Bourdon was probably to the collusion between Paine and
+     Genêt suggested by Morris.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Paine was thus lodged in prison simply to please Washington, to whom it
+      was left to decide whether he had been rightly represented by his Minister
+      in the case. When the large number of Americans in Paris hastened in a
+      body to the Convention to demand his release, the President (Vadier)
+      extolled Paine, but said his birth in England brought him under the
+      measures of safety, and referred them to the Committees. There they were
+      told that "their reclamation was only the act of individuals, without any
+      authority from the American Government." Unfortunately the American
+      petitioners, not understanding by this a reference to the President,
+      unsuspiciously repaired to Morris, as also did Paine by letter. The
+      Minister pretended compliance, thereby preventing their direct appeal to
+      the President. Knowing, however, that America would never agree that
+      nativity under the British flag made Paine any more than other Americans a
+      citizen of England, the American Minister came from Sain-port, where he
+      resided, to Paris, and secured from the obedient Deforgues a certificate
+      that he had reclaimed Paine as an American citizen, but that he was held
+      as a <i>French</i> citizen. This ingeniously prepared certificate which
+      was sent to the Secretary of State (Jefferson), and Morris's pretended
+      "reclamation," <i>which was never sent to America</i>, are translated in
+      my "Life of Paine," and here given in the original.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      À Paris le 14 février 1794, 26 pluviôse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Minisire plénipotentiaire des États Unis de l'Amérique près la
+      République française au Ministre des Affaires Étrangères.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine vient de s'adresser à moi pour que je le réclame comme
+      Citoyen des États Unis. Voici (je crois) les Faits que le regardent. Il
+      est né en Angleterre. Devenu ensuite Citoyen des États Unis il s'y est
+      acquise une grande célébrité par des Écrits révolutionnaires. En
+      consequence il fût adopté Citoyen français et ensuite élu membre de la
+      Convention. Sa conduite depuis cette époque n'est pas de mon ressort.
+      J'ignore la cause de sa Détention actuelle dans la prison du Luxembourg,
+      mais je vous prie Monsieur (si des raisons que ne me sont pas connues
+      s'opposent à sa liberation) de vouloir bien m'en instruire pour que je
+      puisse les communiquer au Gouvernement des États Unis. J'ai l'honneur
+      d'être, Monsieur,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Votre très humble Serviteur
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Gouv. Morris.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, i Ventôse l'An ad. de la République une et indivisible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Le Ministre des Affaires Étrangères au Ministre Plénipotentiaire des États
+      Unis de V Amérique près la République Française.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Par votre lettre du 26 du mois dernier, vous réclamez la liberté de Thomas
+      Faine, comme Citoyen américain. Né en Angleterre, cet ex-deputé est devenu
+      successivement Citoyen Américain et Citoyen français. En acceptant ce
+      dernier titre et en remplissant une place dans le Corps Législatif, il est
+      soumis aux lob de la République et il a renoncé de fait à la protection
+      que le droit des gens et les traités conclus avec les États Unis auraient
+      pu lui assurer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      J'ignore les motifs de sa détention mais je dois présumer qûils bien
+      fondés. Je vois néanmoins soumettre au Comité de Salut Public la démande
+      que vous m'avez adressée et je m'empresserai de vous faire connaître sa
+      décision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dir ORGUBS. (1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Archives of the Foreign Office, Paris, "États Unis," vol.
+     xl. Translations:&mdash;Morris: "Sir,&mdash;Thomas Paine has just
+     applied to me to claim him as a citizen of the United
+     States. Here (I believe) are the facts relating to him. He
+     was born in England. Having afterwards become a citizen of
+     the United States, he acquired great celebrity there by his
+     revolutionary writings. In consequence he was adopted a
+     French citizen and then elected Member of the Convention.
+     His conduct since this epoch is out of my jurisdiction. I am
+     ignorant of the reason for his present detention in the
+     Luxembourg prison, but I beg you, sir (if reasons unknown to
+     me prevent his liberation), be so good as to inform me, that
+     I may communicate them to the government of the United
+     States." Deporgurs: "By your letter of the 36th of last
+     month you reclaim the liberty of Thomas Paine as an American
+     citizen. Born in England, this ex-deputy has become
+     successively an American and a French citizen. In accepting
+     this last title, and in occupying a place in the Corps
+     Législatif he submitted himself to the laws of the Republic,
+     and has certainly renounced the protection which the law of
+     nations, and treaties concluded with the United States,
+     could have assured him. I am ignorant of the motives of his
+     detention, but I must presume they are well founded. I shall
+     nevertheless submit to the Committee of Public Safety the
+     demand you have addressed to me, and I shall lose no time in
+     letting you know its decision."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It will be seen that Deforgues begins his letter with a falsehood: "You
+      reclaim the liberty of Paine as an American citizen." Morris's letter had
+      declared him a French citizen out of his (the American Minister's)
+      "jurisdiction." Morris states for Deforgues his case, and it is obediently
+      adopted, though quite discordant with the decree, which imprisoned Paine
+      as a foreigner. Deforgues also makes Paine a member of a non-existent
+      body, the "Corps Législatif," which might suggest in Philadelphia previous
+      connection with the defunct Assembly. No such inquiries as Deforgues
+      promised, nor any, were ever made, and of course none were intended.
+      Morris had got from Deforgues the certificate he needed to show in
+      Philadelphia and to Americans in Paris. His pretended "reclamation" was of
+      course withheld: no copy of it ever reached America till brought from
+      French archives by the present writer. Morris does not appear to have
+      ventured even to keep a copy of it himself. The draft (presumably in
+      English), found among his papers by Sparks, alters the fatal sentence
+      which deprived Paine of his American citizenship and of protection.
+      "Res-sort"&mdash;jurisdiction&mdash;which has a definite technical meaning
+      in the mouth of a Minister, is changed to "cognizance"; the sentence is
+      made to read, "his conduct from that time has not come under my
+      cognizance." (Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 401). Even as
+      it stands in his book, Sparks says: "The application, it must be
+      confessed, was neither pressing in its terms, nor cogent in its
+      arguments."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The American Minister, armed with this French missive, dictated by
+      himself, enclosed it to the Secretary of State, whom he supposed to be
+      still Jefferson, with a letter stating that he had reclaimed Paine as an
+      American, that he (Paine) was held to answer for "crimes," and that any
+      further attempt to release him would probably be fatal to the prisoner. By
+      these falsehoods, secured from detection by the profound secrecy of the
+      Foreign Offices in both countries, Morris paralyzed all interference from
+      America, as Washington could not of course intervene in behalf of an
+      American charged with "crimes" committed in a foreign country, except to
+      demand his trial. But it was important also to paralyze further action by
+      Americans in Paris, and to them, too, was shown the French certificate of
+      a reclamation never made. A copy was also sent to Paine, who returned to
+      Morris an argument which he entreated him to embody in a further appeal to
+      the French Minister. This document was of course buried away among the
+      papers of Morris, who never again mentioned Paine in any communication to
+      the French government, but contented himself with personal slanders of his
+      victim in private letters to Washington's friend, Robert Morris, and no
+      doubt others. I quote Sparks's summary of the argument unsuspectingly sent
+      by Paine to Morris:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He first proves himself to have been an American citizen, a character of
+      which he affirms no subsequent act had deprived him. The title of French
+      citizen was a mere nominal and honorary one, which the Convention chose to
+      confer, when they asked him to help them in making a Constitution. But let
+      the nature or honor of the title be what it might, the Convention had
+      taken it away of their own accord. 'He was excluded from the Convention on
+      the motion for excluding <i>foreigners</i>. Consequently he was no longer
+      under the law of the Republic as a <i>citizen</i>, but under the
+      protection of the Treaty of Alliance, as fully and effectually as any
+      other citizen of America. It was therefore the duty of the American
+      Minister to demand his release.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this Sparks adds:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Such is the drift of Paine's argument, and it would seem indeed that he
+      could not be a foreigner and a citizen at the same time. It was hard that
+      his only privilege of citizenship should be that of imprisonment. But this
+      logic was a little too refined for the revolutionary tribunals of the
+      Jacobins in Paris, and Mr. Morris well knew it was not worth while to
+      preach it to them. He did not believe there was any serious design at that
+      time against the life of the prisoner, and he considered his best chance
+      of safety to be in preserving silence for the present. Here the matter
+      rested, and Paine was left undisturbed till the arrival of Mr. Monroe, who
+      procured his discharge from confinement." ("Life of Gouverneur Morris,"
+      i., p. 417.)l
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sparks takes the gracious view of the man whose Life he was writing, but
+      the facts now known turn his words to sarcasm. The Terror by which Paine
+      suffered was that of Morris, who warned him and his friends, both in Paris
+      and America, that if his case was stirred the knife would fall on him.
+      Paine declares (see xx.) that this danger kept him silent till after the
+      fall of Robespierre. None knew so well as Morris that there were no
+      charges against Paine for offences in France, and that Robespierre was
+      awaiting that action by Washington which he (Morris) had rendered
+      impossible. Having thus suspended the knife over Paine for six months,
+      Robespierre interpreted the President's silence, and that of Congress, as
+      confirmation of Morris's story, and resolved on the execution of Paine "in
+      the interests of America as well as of France"; in other words to
+      conciliate Washington to the endangered alliance with France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine escaped the guillotine by the strange accident related in a further
+      chapter. The fall of Robespierre did not of course end his imprisonment,
+      for he was not Robespierre's but Washington's prisoner. Morris remained
+      Minister in France nearly a month after Robespierre's death, but the word
+      needed to open Paine's prison was not spoken. After his recall, had Monroe
+      been able at once to liberate Paine, an investigation must have followed,
+      and Morris would probably have taken his prisoner's place in the
+      Luxembourg. But Morris would not present his letters of recall, and
+      refused to present his successor, thus keeping Monroe out of his office
+      four weeks. In this he was aided by Bourdon de l'Oise (afterwards banished
+      as a royalist conspirator, but now a commissioner to decide on prisoners);
+      also by tools of Robespierre who had managed to continue on the Committee
+      of Public Safety by laying their crimes on the dead scapegoat&mdash;Robespierre.
+      Against Barère (who had signed Paine's death-warrant), Billaud-Varennes,
+      and Colloit d'Her-bois, Paine, if liberated, would have been a terrible
+      witness. The Committee ruled by them had suppressed Paine's appeal to the
+      Convention, as they presently suppressed Monroe's first appeal. Paine,
+      knowing that Monroe had arrived, but never dreaming that the manoeuvres of
+      Morris were keeping him out of office, wrote him from prison the following
+      letters, hitherto unpublished.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 There is no need to delay the reader here with any
+     argument about Paine's unquestionable citizenship, that
+     point having been settled by his release as an American, and
+     the sanction of Monroe's action by his government. There was
+     no genuineness in any challenge of Paine's citizenship, but
+     a mere desire to do him an injury. In this it had marvellous
+     success. Ten years after Paine had been reclaimed by Monroe,
+     with the sanction of Washington, as an American citizen, his
+     vote was refused at New Rochelle, New York, by the
+     supervisor, Elisha Ward, on the ground that Washington and
+     Morris had refused to Declaim him. Under his picture of the
+     dead Paine, Jarvis, the artist, wrote: "A man who devoted
+     his whole life to the attainment of two objects&mdash;rights of
+     man, and freedom of conscience&mdash;had his vote denied when
+     living, and was denied a grave when dead."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      August 17th, 1794.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Dear Sir: As I believe none of the public papers have announced your
+      name right I am unable to address you by it, but a <i>new</i> minister
+      from America is joy to me and will be so to every American in France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Eight months I have been imprisoned, and I know not for what, except that
+      the order says that I am a Foreigner. The Illness I have suffered in this
+      place (and from which I am but just recovering) had nearly put an end to
+      my existence. My life is but of little value to me in this situation tho'
+      I have borne it with a firmness of patience and fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I enclose you a copy of a letter, (as well the translation as the English)&mdash;which
+      I sent to the Convention after the fall of the Monster Robespierre&mdash;for
+      I was determined not to write a line during the time of his detestable
+      influence. I sent also a copy to the Committee of public safety&mdash;but
+      I have not heard any thing respecting it. I have now no expectation of
+      delivery but by your means&mdash;<i>Morris has been my inveterate enemy</i>
+      and I think he has permitted something of the national Character of
+      America to suffer by quietly letting a Citizen of that Country remain
+      almost eight months in prison without making every official exertion to
+      procure him justice,&mdash;for every act of violence offered to a
+      foreigner is offered also to the Nation to which he belongs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The gentleman, Mr. Beresford, who will present you this has been very
+      friendly to me.(1) Wishing you happiness in your appointment, I am your
+      affectionate friend and humble servant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      August 18th, 1794.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Sir: In addition to my letter of yesterday (sent to Mr. Beresford to
+      be conveyed to you but which is delayed on account of his being at St.
+      Germain) I send the following memoranda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was in London at the time I was elected a member of this Convention. I
+      was elected a Deputé in four different departments without my knowing any
+      thing of the matter, or having the least idea of it. The intention of
+      electing the Convention before the time of the former Legislature expired,
+      was for the purpose of reforming the Constitution or rather for forming a
+      new one. As the former Legislature shewed a disposition that I should
+      assist in this business of the new Constitution, they prepared the way by
+      voting me a French Citoyen (they conferred the same title on General
+      Washington and certainly I had no more idea than he had of vacating any
+      part of my real Citizenship of America for a nominal one in France,
+      especially at a time when she did not know whether she would be a Nation
+      or not, and had it not even in her power to promise me protection). I was
+      elected (the second person in number of Votes, the Abbé Sieves being
+      first) a member for forming the Constitution, and every American in Paris
+      as well as my other acquaintance knew that it was my intention to return
+      to America as soon as the Constitution should be established. The violence
+      of Party soon began to shew itself in the Convention, but it was
+      impossible for me to see upon what principle they differed&mdash;unless it
+      was a contention for power. I acted however as I did in America, I
+      connected myself with no Party, but considered myself altogether a
+      National Man&mdash;but the case with Parties generally is that when you
+      are not with one you are supposed to be with the other.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 A friendly lamp-lighter, alluded to in the Letter to
+     Washington, conveyed this letter to Mr. Beresford.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I was taken out of bed between three and four in the morning on the 28 of
+      December last, and brought to the Luxembourg&mdash;without any other
+      accusation inserted in the order than that I was a foreigner; a motion
+      having been made two days before in the Convention to expel Foreigners
+      therefrom. I certainly then remained, even upon their own tactics, what I
+      was before, a Citizen of America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About three weeks after my imprisonment the Americans that were in Paris
+      went to the bar of the Convention to reclaim me, but contrary to my
+      advice, they made their address into a Petition, and it miscarried. I then
+      applied to G. Morris, to reclaim me as an official part of his duty, which
+      he found it necessary to do, and here the matter stopt.(1) I have not
+      heard a single line or word from any American since, which is now seven
+      months. I rested altogether on the hope that a new Minister would arrive
+      from America. I have escaped with life from more dangers than one. Had it
+      not been for the fall of Roberspierre and your timely arrival I know not
+      what fate might have yet attended me. There seemed to be a determination
+      to destroy all the Prisoners without regard to merit, character, or any
+      thing else. During the time I laid at the height of my illness they took,
+      in one night only, 169 persons out of this prison and executed all but
+      eight. The distress that I have suffered at being obliged to exist in the
+      midst of such horrors, exclusive of my own precarious situation, suspended
+      as it were by the single thread of accident, is greater than it is
+      possible you can conceive&mdash;but thank God times are at last changed,
+      and I hope that your Authority will release me from this unjust
+      imprisonment.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The falsehood told Paine, accompanied by an intimation of
+     danger in pursuing the pretended reclamation, was of course
+     meant to stop any farther action by Paine or his friends.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      August 25, 1794.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My Dear Sir: Having nothing to do but to sit and think, I will write to
+      pass away time, and to say that I am still here. I have received two notes
+      from Mr. Beresford which are encouraging (as the generality of notes and
+      letters are that arrive to persons here) but they contain nothing explicit
+      or decisive with respect to my liberation, and <i>I shall be very glad to
+      receive a line from yourself to inform me in what condition the matter
+      stands</i>. If I only glide out of prison by a sort of accident America
+      gains no credit by my liberation, neither can my attachment to her be
+      increased by such a circumstance. She has had the services of my best
+      days, she has my allegiance, she receives my portion of Taxes for my house
+      in Borden Town and my farm at New Rochelle, and she owes me protection
+      both at home and thro' her Ministers abroad, yet I remain in prison, in
+      the face of her Minister, at the arbitrary will of a committee.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Excluded as I am from the knowledge of everything and left to a random of
+      ideas, I know not what to think or how to act. Before there was any
+      Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) and while the Robespierrian
+      faction lasted, I had nothing to do but to keep my mind tranquil and
+      expect the fate that was every day inflicted upon my comrades, not
+      individually but by scores. Many a man whom I have passed an hour with in
+      conversation I have seen marching to his destruction the next hour, or
+      heard of it the next morning; for what rendered the scene more horrible
+      was that they were generally taken away at midnight, so that every man
+      went to bed with the apprehension of never seeing his friends or the world
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I wish to impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in
+      Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any
+      over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my
+      liberation, you omit procuring it for me <i>now</i>, you may have to
+      lament the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to
+      the Northward or other possible accident may happen to bring this about. I
+      am not out of danger till I am out of Prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yours affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P. S.&mdash;I am now entirely without money. The Convention owes me 1800
+      livres salary which I know not how to get while I am here, nor do I know
+      how to draw for money on the rent of my farm in America. It is under the
+      care of my good friend General Lewis Morris. I have received no rent since
+      I have been in Europe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [Addressed] Minister Plenipotentiary from America, Maison des Étrangers,
+      Rue de la Loi, Rue Richelieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such was the sufficiently cruel situation when there reached Paine in
+      prison, September 4th, the letter of Peter Whiteside which caused him to
+      write his Memorial. Whiteside was a Philadelphian whose bankruptcy in
+      London had swallowed up some of Paine's means. His letter, reporting to
+      Paine that he was not regarded by the American Government or people as an
+      American citizen, and that no American Minister could interfere in his
+      behalf, was evidently inspired by Morris who was still in Paris, the
+      authorities being unwilling to give him a passport to Switzerland, as they
+      knew he was going in that direction to join the conspirators against
+      France. This Whiteside letter put Paine, and through him Monroe, on a
+      false scent by suggesting that the difficulty of his case lay in a <i>bona
+      fide</i> question of citizenship, whereas there never had been really any
+      such question. The knot by which Morris had bound Paine was thus
+      concealed, and Monroe was appealing to polite wolves in the interest of
+      their victim. There were thus more delays, inexplicable alike to Monroe
+      and to Paine, eliciting from the latter some heartbroken letters, not
+      hitherto printed, which I add at the end of the Memorial. To add to the
+      difficulties and dangers, Paris was beginning to be agitated by
+      well-founded rumors of Jay's injurious negotiations in England, and a
+      coldness towards Monroe was setting in. Had Paine's release been delayed
+      much longer an American Minister's friendship might even have proved
+      fatal. Of all this nothing could be known to Paine, who suffered agonies
+      he had not known during the Reign of Terror. The other prisoners of
+      Robespierre's time had departed; he alone paced the solitary corridors of
+      the Luxembourg, chilled by the autumn winds, his cell tireless, unlit by
+      any candle, insufficiently nourished, an abscess forming in his side; all
+      this still less cruel than the feeling that he was abandoned, not only by
+      Washington but by all America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the man of whom Washington wrote to Madison nine years before:
+      "Must the merits and services of 'Common Sense' continue to glide down the
+      stream of time unrewarded by this country?" This, then, is his reward. To
+      his old comrade in the battle-fields of Liberty, George Washington, Paine
+      owed his ten months of imprisonment, at the end of which Monroe found him
+      a wreck, and took him (November 4) to his own house, where he and his wife
+      nursed him back into life. But it was not for some months supposed that
+      Paine could recover; it was only after several relapses; and it was under
+      the shadow of death that he wrote the letter to Washington so much and so
+      ignorantly condemned. Those who have followed the foregoing narrative will
+      know that Paine's grievances were genuine, that his infamous treatment
+      stains American history; but they will also know that they lay chiefly at
+      the door of a treacherous and unscrupulous American Minister.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet it is difficult to find an excuse for the retention of that Minister
+      in France by Washington. On Monroe's return to America in 1797, he wrote a
+      pamphlet concerning the mission from which he had been curtly recalled, in
+      which he said:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was persuaded from Mr. Morris's known political character and
+      principles, that his appointment, and especially at a period when the
+      French nation was in a course of revolution from an arbitrary to a free
+      government, would tend to discountenance the republican cause there and at
+      home, and otherwise weaken, and greatly to our prejudice, the connexion
+      subsisting between the two countries."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a copy of this pamphlet found at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote on the
+      margin of this sentence:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Mr. Morris was known to be a man of first rate abilities; and his
+      integrity and honor had never been impeached. Besides, Mr. Morris was sent
+      whilst the kingly government was in existence, ye end of 91 or beginning
+      of 92." (1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this does not explain why Gouverneur Morris was persistently kept in
+      France after monarchy was abolished (September 21, 1792), or even after
+      Lafayette's request for his removal, already quoted. To that letter of
+      Lafayette no reply has been discovered. After the monarchy was abolished,
+      Ternant and Genêt successively carried to America protests from their
+      Foreign Office against the continuance of a Minister in France, who was
+      known in Paris, and is now known to all acquainted with his published
+      papers, to have all along made his office the headquarters of British
+      intrigue against France, American interests being quite subordinated.
+      Washington did not know this, but he might have known it, and his
+      disregard of French complaints can hardly be ascribed to any other cause
+      than his delusion that Morris was deeply occupied with the treaty
+      negotiations confided to him. It must be remembered that Washington
+      believed such a treaty with England to be the alternative of war.(2) On
+      that apprehension the British party in America, and British agents, played
+      to the utmost, and under such influences Washington sacrificed many old
+      friendships,&mdash;with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Edmund Randolph,
+      Paine,&mdash;and also the confidence of his own State, Virginia.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  Washington's marginal notes on Monroe's "View, etc.,"
+     were first fully given in Ford's "Writings of Washington,"
+     vol. xiii., p. 452, seq.
+
+     2 Ibid., p. 453.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There is a traditional impression that Paine's angry letter to Washington
+      was caused by the President's failure to inter-pose for his relief from
+      prison. But Paine believed that the American Minister (Morris) had
+      reclaimed him in some feeble fashion, as an American citizen, and he knew
+      that the President had officially approved Monroe's action in securing his
+      release. His grievance was that Washington, whose letters of friendship he
+      cherished, who had extolled his services to America, should have
+      manifested no concern personally, made no use of his commanding influence
+      to rescue him from daily impending death, sent to his prison no word of
+      kindness or inquiry, and sent over their mutual friend Monroe without any
+      instructions concerning him; and finally, that his private letter, asking
+      explanation, remained unanswered. No doubt this silence of Washington
+      concerning the fate of Paine, whom he acknowledged to be an American
+      citizen, was mainly due to his fear of offending England, which had
+      proclaimed Paine. The "outlaw's" imprisonment in Paris caused jubilations
+      among the English gentry, and went on simultaneously with Jay's
+      negotiations in London, when any expression by Washington of sympathy with
+      Paine (certain of publication) might have imperilled the Treaty, regarded
+      by the President as vital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So anxious was the President about this, that what he supposed had been
+      done for Paine by Morris, and what had really been done by Monroe, was
+      kept in such profound secrecy, that even his Secretary of State,
+      Pickering, knew nothing of it. This astounding fact I recently discovered
+      in the manuscripts of that Secretary.(1) Colonel Pickering, while
+      flattering enough to the President in public, despised his intellect, and
+      among his papers is a memorandum concluding as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But when the hazards of the Revolutionary War had ended, by the
+      establishment of our Independence, why was the knowledge of General
+      Washington's comparatively defective mental powers not freely divulged?
+      Why, even by the enemies of his civil administration were his abilities
+      very tenderly glanced at? &mdash;Because there were few, if any men, who
+      did not revere him for his distinguished virtues; his modesty&mdash;his
+      unblemished integrity, his pure and disinterested patriotism. These
+      virtues, of infinitely more value than exalted abilities without them,
+      secured to him the veneration and love of his fellow citizens at large.
+      Thus immensely popular, no man was willing to publish, under his hand,
+      even the simple truth. The only exception, that I recollect, was the
+      infamous Tom Paine; and this when in France, after he had escaped the
+      guillotine of Robespierre; and in resentment, because, after he had
+      participated in the French Revolution, President Washington seemed not to
+      have thought him so very important a character in the world, as officially
+      to interpose for his relief from the fangs of the French ephemeral Rulers.
+      In a word, no man, however well informed, was willing to hazard his own
+      popularity by exhibiting the real intellectual character of the immensely
+      popular Washington."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 11., p. 171.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      How can this ignorance of an astute man, Secretary of State under
+      Washington and Adams, be explained? Had Washington hidden the letters
+      showing on their face that he <i>had</i> "officially interposed" for Paine
+      by two Ministers?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madison, writing to Monroe, April 7, 1796, says that Pickering had spoken
+      to him "in harsh terms" of a letter written by Paine to the President.
+      This was a private letter of September 20, 1795, afterwards printed in
+      Paine's public Letter to Washington. The Secretary certainly read that
+      letter on its arrival, January 18, 1796, and yet Washington does not
+      appear to have told him of what had been officially done in Paine's case!
+      Such being the secrecy which Washington had carried from the camp to the
+      cabinet, and the morbid extent of it while the British Treaty was in
+      negotiation and discussion, one can hardly wonder at his silence under
+      Paine's private appeal and public reproach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much as Pickering hated Paine, he declares him the only man who ever told
+      the simple truth about Washington. In the lapse of time historical
+      research, while removing the sacred halo of Washington, has revealed
+      beneath it a stronger brain than was then known to any one. Paine
+      published what many whispered, while they were fawning on Washington for
+      office, or utilizing his power for partisan ends. Washington, during his
+      second administration, when his mental decline was remarked by himself, by
+      Jefferson, and others, was regarded by many of his eminent contemporaries
+      as fallen under the sway of small partisans. Not only was the influence of
+      Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Monroe, Livingston, alienated, but the
+      counsels of Hamilton were neutralized by Wolcott and Pickering, who
+      apparently agreed about the President's "mental powers." Had not Paine
+      previously incurred the <i>odium theologicum</i>, his pamphlet concerning
+      Washington would have been more damaging; even as it was, the verdict was
+      by no means generally favorable to the President, especially as the
+      replies to Paine assumed that Washington had indeed failed to try and
+      rescue him from impending death.(1) A pamphlet written by Bache, printed
+      anonymously (1797), Remarks occasioned by the late conduct of Mr.
+      Washington, indicates the belief of those who raised Washington to power,
+      that both Randolph and Paine had been sacrificed to please Great Britain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The <i>Bien-informé</i> (Paris, November 12, 1797) published a letter from
+      Philadelphia, which may find translation here as part of the history of
+      the pamphlet:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The letter of Thomas Paine to General Washington is read here with
+      avidity. We gather from the English papers that the Cabinet of St James
+      has been unable to stop the circulation of that pamphlet in England, since
+      it is allowable to reprint there any English work already published
+      elsewhere, however disagreeable to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas. We read in the
+      letter to Washington that Robespierre had declared to the Committee of
+      Public Safety that it was desirable in the interests of both France and
+      America that Thomas Paine, who, for seven or eight months had been kept a
+      prisoner in the Luxembourg, should forthwith be brought up for judgment
+      before the revolutionary tribunal. The proof of this fact is found in
+      Robespierre's papers, and gives ground for strange suspicions."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an
+     American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the
+     infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General
+     Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
+     Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington,
+     speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although
+     he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to
+     be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they
+     are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute
+     falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are
+     pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in
+     this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you
+     will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias
+     William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an
+     Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions,
+     and a want of official information as to many facts, it is
+     not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the
+     action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in
+     Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these
+     disclosed.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend
+      James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves
+      on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man.
+      Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine is
+      still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in America]
+      also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after actually
+      arriving he found his (really popular) <i>principles no longer the order
+      of the day</i>, and thought best to re-embark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The English journals, while repeating this idle rumor, observed that it
+      was unfounded, and that Paine had not left France. Some French journals
+      have copied these London paragraphs, but without comments; so that at the
+      very moment when Thomas Paine's Letter on the 18th. Fructidor is
+      published, <i>La Clef du Cabinet</i> says that this citizen is suffering
+      unpleasantness in America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine had intended to return with Monroe, in the spring of 1797, but,
+      suspecting the Captain and a British cruiser in the distance, returned
+      from Havre to Paris. The packet was indeed searched by the cruiser for
+      Paine, and, had he been captured, England would have executed the sentence
+      pronounced by Robespierre to please Washington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO JAMES MONROE, MINISTER FROM THE UNITED STATES OF
+      AMERICA TO THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Prison of the Luxembourg, Sept. 10th, 1794.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I address this memorial to you, in consequence of a letter I received from
+      a friend, 18 Fructidor (September 4th,) in which he says, "Mr. Monroe has
+      told me, that he has no orders [meaning from the American government]
+      respecting you; but I am sure he will leave nothing undone to liberate
+      you; but, from what I can learn, from all the late Americans, you are not
+      considered either by the Government, or by the individuals, as an American
+      citizen. You have been made a french Citizen, which you have accepted, and
+      you have further made yourself a servant of the french Republic; and,
+      therefore, it would be out of character for an American Minister to
+      interfere in their internal concerns. You must therefore either be
+      liberated out of Compliment to America, or stand your trial, which you
+      have a right to demand."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This information was so unexpected by me, that I am at a loss how to
+      answer it. I know not on what principle it originates; whether from an
+      idea that I had voluntarily abandoned my Citizenship of America for that
+      of France, or from any article of the American Constitution applied to me.
+      The first is untrue with respect to any intention on my part; and the
+      second is without foundation, as I shall shew in the course of this
+      memorial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of conferring honor of Citizenship upon foreigners, who had
+      distinguished themselves in propagating the principles of liberty and
+      humanity, in opposition to despotism, war, and bloodshed, was first
+      proposed by me to La Fayette, at the commencement of the french
+      revolution, when his heart appeared to be warmed with those principles. My
+      motive in making this proposal, was to render the people of different
+      nations more fraternal than they had been, or then were. I observed that
+      almost every branch of Science had possessed itself of the exercise of
+      this right, so far as it regarded its own institution. Most of the
+      Academies and Societies in Europe, and also those of America, conferred
+      the rank of honorary member, upon foreigners eminent in knowledge, and
+      made them, in fact, citizens of their literary or scientific republic,
+      without affecting or anyways diminishing their rights of citizenship in
+      their own country or in other societies: and why the Science of Government
+      should not have the same advantage, or why the people of one nation should
+      not, by their representatives, exercise the right of conferring the honor
+      of Citizenship upon individuals eminent in another nation, without
+      affecting <i>their</i> rights of citizenship, is a problem yet to be
+      solved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now proceed to remark on that part of the letter, in which the writer
+      says, that, <i>from what he can learn from all the late Americans, I am
+      not considered in America, either by the Government or by the individuals,
+      as an American citizen</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place I wish to ask, what is here meant by the Government of
+      America? The members who compose the Government are only individuals, when
+      in conversation, and who, most probably, hold very different opinions upon
+      the subject. Have Congress as a body made any declaration respecting me,
+      that they now no longer consider me as a citizen? If they have not,
+      anything they otherwise say is no more than the opinion of individuals,
+      and consequently is not legal authority, nor anyways sufficient authority
+      to deprive any man of his Citizenship. Besides, whether a man has
+      forfeited his rights of Citizenship, is a question not determinable by
+      Congress, but by a Court of Judicature and a Jury; and must depend upon
+      evidence, and the application of some law or article of the Constitution
+      to the case. No such proceeding has yet been had, and consequently I
+      remain a Citizen until it be had, be that decision what it may; for there
+      can be no such thing as a suspension of rights in the interim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am very well aware, and always was, of the article of the Constitution
+      which says, as nearly as I can recollect the words, that "any citizen of
+      the United States, who shall accept any title, place, or office, from any
+      foreign king, prince, or state, shall forfeit and lose his right of
+      Citizenship of the United States."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had the Article said, that <i>any citizen of the United States, who shall
+      be a member of any foreign convention, for the purpose of forming a free
+      constitution, shall forfeit and lose the right of citizenship of the
+      United States</i>, the article had been directly applicable to me; but the
+      idea of such an article never could have entered the mind of the American
+      Convention, and the present article <i>is</i> altogether foreign to the
+      case with respect to me. It supposes a Government in active existence, and
+      not a Government dissolved; and it supposes a citizen of America accepting
+      titles and offices under that Government, and not a citizen of America who
+      gives his assistance in a Convention chosen by the people, for the purpose
+      of forming a Government <i>de nouveau</i> founded on their authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The late Constitution and Government of France was dissolved the 10th of
+      August, 1792. The National legislative Assembly then in being, supposed
+      itself without sufficient authority to continue its sittings, and it
+      proposed to the departments to elect not another legislative Assembly, but
+      a Convention for the express purpose of forming a new Constitution. When
+      the Assembly were discoursing on this matter, some of the members said,
+      that they wished to gain all the assistance possible upon the subject of
+      free constitutions; and expressed a wish to elect and invite foreigners of
+      any Nation to the Convention, who had distinguished themselves in
+      defending, explaining, and propagating the principles of liberty. It was
+      on this occasion that my name was mentioned in the Assembly. (I was then
+      in England.)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the American pamphlet a footnote, probably added by
+     Bache, here says: "Even this article does not exist in the
+     manner here stated." It is a pity Paine did not have in his
+     prison the article, which says: "No person holding any
+     office of profit or trust under them [the United States]
+     shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any
+     present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever,
+     from any king, prince, or foreign State."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After this, a deputation from a body of the french people, in order to
+      remove any objection that might be made against my assisting at the
+      proposed Convention, requested the Assembly, as their representatives, to
+      give me the title of French Citizen; after which, I was elected a member
+      of the Convention, in four different departments, as is already known.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The case, therefore, is, that I accepted nothing from any king, prince, or
+      state, nor from any Government: for France was without any Government,
+      except what arose from common consent, and the necessity of the case.
+      Neither did I <i>make myself a servant of the french Republic</i>, as the
+      letter alluded to expresses; for at that time France was not a republic,
+      not even in name. She was altogether a people in a state of revolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not until the Convention met that France was declared a republic,
+      and monarchy abolished; soon after which a committee was elected, of which
+      I was a member,(2) to form a Constitution, which was presented to the
+      Convention [and read by Condorcet, who was also a member] the 15th and
+      16th of February following, but was not to be taken into consideration
+      till after the expiration of two months,(3) and if approved of by the
+      Convention, was then to be referred to the people for their acceptance,
+      with such additions or amendments as the Convention should make.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The deputation referred to was described as the
+     "Commission Extraordinaire," in whose name M. Guadet moved
+     that the title of French Citizen be conferred on Priestley,
+     Paine, Bentham, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, David
+     Williams, Cormelle, Paw, Pestalozzi, Washington, Madison,
+     Hamilton, Klopstock, Koscinsko, Gorani, Campe, Anacharsis
+     Clootz, Gilleers. This was on August 26, and Paine was
+     elected by Calais on September 6,1792; and in the same week
+     by Oise, Somme, and Puy-de-Dome.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Sieves, Paine, Brissot, Pétion, Vergniaud, Gensonne,
+     Barère, Danton, Condorcet.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     3 The remainder of this sentence is replaced in the American
+     pamphlet by the following: "The disorders and the
+     revolutionary government that took place after this put a
+     stop to any further progress upon the case."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In thus employing myself upon the formation of a Constitution, I certainly
+      did nothing inconsistent with the American Constitution. I took no oath of
+      allegiance to France, or any other oath whatever. I considered the
+      Citizenship they had presented me with as an honorary mark of respect paid
+      to me not only as a friend to liberty, but as an American Citizen. My
+      acceptance of that, or of the deputyship, not conferred on me by any king,
+      prince, or state, but by a people in a state of revolution and contending
+      for liberty, required no transfer of my allegiance or of my citizenship
+      from America to France. There I was a real citizen, paying Taxes; here, I
+      was a voluntary friend, employing myself on a temporary service. Every
+      American in Paris knew that it was my constant intention to return to
+      America, as soon as a constitution should be established, and that I
+      anxiously waited for that event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not what opinions have been circulated in America. It may have been
+      supposed there that I had voluntarily and intentionally abandoned America,
+      and that my citizenship had ceased by my own choice. I can easily
+      [believe] there are those in that country who would take such a proceeding
+      on my part somewhat in disgust. The idea of forsaking old friendships for
+      new acquaintances is not agreeable. I am a little warranted in making this
+      supposition by a letter I received some time ago from the wife of one of
+      the Georgia delegates in which she says "Your friends on this side the
+      water cannot be reconciled to the idea of your abandoning America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have never abandoned her in thought, word or deed; and I feel it
+      incumbent upon me to give this assurance to the friends I have in that
+      country and with whom I have always intended and am determined, if the
+      possibility exists, to close the scene of my life. It is there that I have
+      made myself a home. It is there that I have given the services of my best
+      days. America never saw me flinch from her cause in the most gloomy and
+      perilous of her situations; and I know there are those in that country who
+      will not flinch from me. If I have enemies (and every man has some) I
+      leave them to the enjoyment of their ingratitude.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * I subjoin in a note, for the sake of wasting the solitude
+     of a prison, the answer that I gave to the part of the
+     letter above mentioned.   It is not inapplacable to the
+     subject of this Memorial; but it contain! somewhat of a
+     melancholy idea, a little predictive, that I hope is not
+     becoming true so soon.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is somewhat extraordinary that the idea of my not being a citizen of
+      America should have arisen only at the time that I am imprisoned in France
+      because, or on the pretence that, I am a foreigner. The case involves a
+      strange contradiction of ideas. None of the Americans who came to France
+      whilst I was in liberty had conceived any such idea or circulated any such
+      opinion; and why it should arise now is a matter yet to be explained.
+      However discordant the late American Minister G. M. [Gouverneur Morris]
+      and the late French Committee of Public Safety were, it suited the purpose
+      of both that I should be continued in arrestation. The former wished to
+      prevent my return to America, that I should not expose his misconduct; and
+      the latter, lest I should publish to the world the history of its
+      wickedness. Whilst that Minister and the Committee continued I had no
+      expectation of liberty. I speak here of the Committee of which Robespierre
+      was member.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "You touch me on a very tender point when you say that my
+     friends on your side the water cannot be reconciled to the
+     idea of my abandoning America. They are right. I had rather
+     see my horse Button eating the grass of Borden-Town or
+     Morrisania than see all the pomp and show of Europe.
+
+     "A thousand years hence (for I must indulge a few thoughts)
+     perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The
+     innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all
+     nations in her favour, may sound like a romance and her
+     inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that
+     liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain 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 deride the principle and
+     deny the fact.
+
+     "When we contemplate the fall of Empires and the extinction
+     of the nations of the Ancient World, we see but little to
+     excite our regret than the mouldering ruins of pompous
+     palaces, magnificent museums, lofty pyramids and walls and
+     towers of the most costly workmanship; but when the Empire
+     of America shall fall, the subject for contemplative sorrow
+     will be infinitely greater than crumbling brass and marble
+     can inspire. It will not then be said, here stood a temple
+     of vast antiquity; here rose a babel of invisible height;
+     or there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; but here, Ah,
+     painful thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the
+     grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of Freedom
+     rose and fell. Read this, and then ask if I forget
+     America."&mdash;Author.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This letter, quoted also in Paine's Letter to Washington,
+     was written from London, Jan. 6, 1789, to the wife of Col.
+     Few, née Kate Nicholson. It is given in full in my "Life of
+     Paine," i., p. 247.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I ever must deny, that the article of the American constitution already
+      mentioned, can be applied either verbally, intentionally, or
+      constructively, to me. It undoubtedly was the intention of the Convention
+      that framed it, to preserve the purity of the American republic from being
+      debased by foreign and foppish customs; but it never could be its
+      intention to act against the principles of liberty, by forbidding its
+      citizens to assist in promoting those principles in foreign Countries;
+      neither could it be its intention to act against the principles of
+      gratitude.(1) France had aided America in the establishment of her
+      revolution, when invaded and oppressed by England and her auxiliaries.
+      France in her turn was invaded and oppressed by a combination of foreign
+      despots. In this situation, I conceived it an act of gratitude in me, as a
+      citizen of America, to render her in return the best services I could
+      perform. I came to France (for I was in England when I received the
+      invitation) not to enjoy ease, emoluments, and foppish honours, as the
+      article supposes; but to encounter difficulties and dangers in defence of
+      liberty; and I much question whether those who now malignantly seek (for
+      some I believe do) to turn this to my injury, would have had courage to
+      have done the same thing. I am sure Gouverneur Morris would not. He told
+      me the second day after my arrival, (in Paris,) that the Austrians and
+      Prussians, who were then at Verdun, would be in Paris in a fortnight. I
+      have no idea, said he, that seventy thousand disciplined troops can be
+      stopped in their march by any power in France.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This and the two preceding paragraphs, including the
+     footnote, are entirely omitted from the American pamphlet.
+     It will be seen that Paine had now a suspicion of the
+     conspiracy between Gouverneur Morris and those by whom he
+     was imprisoned. Soon after his imprisonment he had applied
+     to Morris, who replied that he had reclaimed him, and
+     enclosed the letter of Deforgues quoted in my Introduction
+     to this chapter, of course withholding his own letter to the
+     Minister. Paine answered (Feb. 14, 1793): "You must not
+     leave me in the situation in which this letter places me.
+     You know I do not deserve it, and you see the unpleasant
+     situation in which I am thrown. I have made an answer to the
+     Minister's letter, which I wish you to make ground of a
+     reply to him. They have nothing against me&mdash;except that they
+     do not choose I should lie in a state of freedom to write my
+     mind freely upon things I have seen. Though you and I are
+     not on terms of the best harmony, I apply to you as the
+     Minister of America, and you may add to that service
+     whatever you think my integrity deserves. At any rate I
+     expect you to make Congress acquainted with my situation,
+     and to send them copies of the letters that have passed on
+     the subject. A reply to the Minister's letter is absolutely
+     necessary, were it only to continue the reclamation.
+     Otherwise your silence will be a sort of consent to his
+     observations." Deforgues' "observations" having been
+     dictated by Morris himself, no reply was sent to him, and no
+     word to Congress.&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+
+     2 In the pamphlet this last clause of the sentence is
+     omitted.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Besides the reasons I have already given for accepting the invitations to
+      the Convention, I had another that has reference particularly to America,
+      and which I mentioned to Mr. Pinckney the night before I left London to
+      come to Paris: "That it was to the interest of America that the system of
+      European governments should be changed and placed on the same principle
+      with her own." Mr. Pinckney agreed fully in the same opinion. I have done
+      my part towards it.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is certain that governments upon similar systems agree better together
+      than those that are founded on principles discordant with each other; and
+      the same rule holds good with respect to the people living under them. In
+      the latter case they offend each other by pity, or by reproach; and the
+      discordancy carries itself to matters of commerce. I am not an ambitious
+      man, but perhaps I have been an ambitious American. I have wished to see
+      America the <i>Mother Church</i> of government, and I have done my utmost
+      to exalt her character and her condition.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the American pamphlet the name of Pinckney (American
+     Minister in England) is left blank in this paragraph, and
+     the two concluding sentences are omitted from both the
+     French and American pamphlets.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have now stated sufficient matter, to shew that the Article in question
+      is not applicable to me; and that any such application to my injury, as
+      well in circumstances as in Rights, is contrary both to the letter and
+      intention of that Article, and is illegal and unconstitutional. Neither do
+      I believe that any Jury in America, when they are informed of the whole of
+      the case, would give a verdict to deprive me of my Rights upon that
+      Article. The citizens of America, I believe, are not very fond of
+      permitting forced and indirect explanations to be put upon matters of this
+      kind. I know not what were the merits of the case with respect to the
+      person who was prosecuted for acting as prize master to a french
+      privateer, but I know that the jury gave a verdict against the
+      prosecution. The Rights I have acquired are dear to me. They have been
+      acquired by honourable means, and by dangerous service in the worst of
+      times, and I cannot passively permit them to be wrested from me. I
+      conceive it my duty to defend them, as the case involves a constitutional
+      and public question, which is, how far the power of the federal government
+      (1) extends, in depriving any citizen of his Rights of Citizenship, or of
+      suspending them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the explanation of National Treaties belongs to Congress is strictly
+      constitutional; but not the explanation of the Constitution itself, any
+      more than the explanation of Law in the case of individual citizens. These
+      are altogether Judiciary questions. It is, however, worth observing, that
+      Congress, in explaining the Article of the Treaty with respect to french
+      prizes and french privateers, confined itself strictly to the letter of
+      the Article. Let them explain the Article of the Constitution with respect
+      to me in the same manner, and the decision, did it appertain to them,
+      could not deprive me of my Rights of Citizenship, or suspend them, for I
+      have accepted nothing from any king, prince, state, or Government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will please to observe, that I speak as if the federal Government had
+      made some declaration upon the subject of my Citizenship; whereas the fact
+      is otherwise; and your saying that you have no order respecting me is a
+      proof of it. Those therefore who propagate the report of my not being
+      considered as a Citizen of America by Government, do it to the
+      prolongation of my imprisonment, and without authority; for Congress, <i>as
+      a government</i>, has neither decided upon it, nor yet taken the matter
+      into consideration; and I request you to caution such persons against
+      spreading such reports. But be these matters as they may, I cannot have a
+      doubt that you find and feel the case very different, since you have heard
+      what I have to say, and known what my situation is [better] than you did
+      before your arrival.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the pamphlet occurs here a significant parenthesis by
+     Bache:  "it should have been said in this case, how far the
+     Executive."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But it was not the Americans only, but the Convention also, that knew what
+      my intentions were upon that subject. In my last discourse delivered at
+      the Tribune of the Convention, January 19,1793, on the motion for
+      suspending the execution of Louis 16th, I said (the Deputy Bancal read the
+      translation in French): "It unfortunately happens that the person who is
+      the subject of the present discussion, is considered by the Americans as
+      having been the friend of their revolution. His execution will be an
+      affliction to them, and it is in your power not to wound the feelings of
+      your ally. Could I speak the french language I would descend to your bar,
+      and in their name become your petitioner to respite the execution of the
+      sentence/"&mdash;"As the convention was elected for the express purpose of
+      forming a Constitution, its continuance cannot be longer than four or five
+      months more at furthest; and if, after my <i>return to America</i>, I
+      should employ myself in writing the history of the french Revolution, I
+      had rather record a thousand errors on the side of mercy, than be obliged
+      to tell one act of severe Justice."&mdash;"Ah Citizens! give not the
+      tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the man perish on a scaffold who
+      had aided my much-loved America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Does this look as if I had abandoned America? But if she abandons me in
+      the situation I am in, to gratify the enemies of humanity, let that
+      disgrace be to herself. But I know the people of America better than to
+      believe it,(1) tho' I undertake not to answer for every individual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When this discourse was pronounced, Marat launched himself into the middle
+      of the hall and said that "I voted against the punishment of death because
+      I was a quaker." I replied that "I voted against it both morally and
+      politically."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the French pamphlet: "pour jamais lui prêter du tels
+     sentiments."
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I certainly went a great way, considering the rage of the times, in
+      endeavouring to prevent that execution. I had many reasons for so doing. I
+      judged, and events have shewn that I judged rightly, that if they once
+      began shedding blood, there was no knowing where it would end; and as to
+      what the world might call <i>honour</i> the execution would appear like a
+      nation killing a mouse; and in a political view, would serve to transfer
+      the hereditary claim to some more formidable Enemy. The man could do no
+      more mischief; and that which he had done was not only from the vice of
+      his education, but was as much the fault of the Nation in restoring him
+      after he had absconded June 21st, 1791, as it was his. I made the proposal
+      for imprisonment until the end of the war and perpetual banishment after
+      the war, instead of the punishment of death. Upwards of three hundred
+      members voted for that proposal. The sentence for absolute death (for some
+      members had voted the punishment of death conditionally) was carried by a
+      majority of twenty-five out of more than seven hundred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I return from this digression to the proper subject of my memorial.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This and the preceding five paragraphs, and five following
+     the nest, are omitted from the American pamphlet.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Painful as the want of liberty may be, it is a consolation to me to
+      believe, that my imprisonment proves to the world, that I had no share in
+      the murderous system that then reigned. That I was an enemy to it, both
+      morally and politically, is known to all who had any knowledge of me; and
+      could I have written french as well as I can English, I would publicly
+      have exposed its wickedness and shewn the ruin with which it was pregnant.
+      They who have esteemed me on former occasions, whether in America or in
+      Europe will, I know, feel no cause to abate that esteem, when they
+      reflect, that <i>imprisonment with preservation of character is preferable
+      to liberty with disgrace</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I here close my Memorial and proceed to offer you a proposal that appears
+      to me suited to all the circumstances of the case; which is, that you
+      reclaim me conditionally, until the opinion of Congress can be obtained on
+      the subject of my citizenship of America; and that I remain in liberty
+      under your protection during that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I found this proposal upon the following grounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, you say you have no orders respecting me; consequently, you have no
+      orders <i>not</i> to reclaim me; and in this case you are left
+      discretionary judge whether to reclaim or not. My proposal therefore
+      unites a consideration of your situation with my own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly, I am put in arrestation because I am a foreigner. It is
+      therefore necessary to determine to what country I belong. The right of
+      determining this question cannot appertain exclusively to the Committee of
+      Public Safety or General Surety; because I appeal to the Minister of the
+      United States, and show that my citizenship of that country is good and
+      valid, referring at the same time, thro' the agency of the Minister, my
+      claim of right to the opinion of Congress. It being a matter between two
+      Governments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirdly. France does not claim me fora citizen; neither do I set up any
+      claim of citizenship in France. The question is simply, whether I am or am
+      not a citizen of America. I am imprisoned here on the decree for
+      imprisoning foreigners, because, say they, I was born in England. I say in
+      answer that, though born in England, I am not a subject of the English
+      Government any more than any other American who was born, as they all
+      were, under the same Government, or than the Citizens of France are
+      subjects of the French Monarchy under which they were born. I have twice
+      taken the oath of abjuration to the British King and Government and of
+      Allegiance to America,&mdash;once as a citizen of the State of
+      Pennsylvania in 1776, and again before Congress, administered to me by the
+      President, Mr. Hancock, when I was appointed Secretary in the Office of
+      Foreign Affairs in 1777.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter before quoted in the first page of this memorial, says, "It
+      would be out of character for an American minister to interfere in the
+      internal affairs of France." This goes on the idea that I am a citizen of
+      France, and a member of the Convention, which is not the fact. The
+      Convention have declared me to be a foreigner; and consequently the
+      citizenship and the election are null and void.(1) It also has the
+      appearance of a Decision, that the article of the Constitution, respecting
+      grants made to American Citizens by foreign kings, princes, or states, is
+      applicable to me; which is the very point in question, and against the
+      application of which I contend. I state evidence to the Minister, to shew
+      that I am not within the letter or meaning of that Article; that it cannot
+      operate against me; and I apply to him for the protection that I conceive
+      I have a right to ask and to receive. The internal affairs of France are
+      out of the question with respect to my application or his interference. I
+      ask it not as a citizen of France, for I am not one: I ask it not as a
+      member of the Convention, for I am not one; both these, as before said,
+      have been rendered null and void; I ask it not as a man against whom there
+      is any accusation, for there is none; I ask it not as an exile from
+      America, whose liberties I have honourably and generously contributed to
+      establish; I ask it as a Citizen of America, deprived of his liberty in
+      France, under the plea of being a foreigner; and I ask it because I
+      conceive I am entitled to it, upon every principle of Constitutional
+      Justice and National honour.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the pamphlet: "The Convention included me in the vote
+     for dismissing foreigners from the Convention, and the
+     Committees imprisoned me as a foreigner."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 All  previous editions of the pamphlet end with this
+     word.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But tho' I thus positively assert my claim because I believe I have a
+      right to do so, it is perhaps most eligible, in the present situation of
+      things, to put that claim upon the footing I have already mentioned; that
+      is, that the Minister reclaims me conditionally until the opinion of
+      Congress can be obtained on the subject of my citizenship of America, and
+      that I remain in liberty under the protection of the Minister during that
+      interval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      N. B. I should have added that as Gouverneur Morris could not inform
+      Congress of the cause of my arrestation, as he knew it not himself, it is
+      to be supposed that Congress was not enough acquainted with the case to
+      give any directions respecting me when you came away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T.P. ADDENDA.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Letters, hitherto unpublished, written by Paine to Monroe before his
+      release on November 4., 1794.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. Luxembourg Mem Vendemaire, Old Style Oct 4th 1794
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Sir: I thank you for your very friendly and affectionate letter of
+      the 18th September which I did not receive till this morning.(1) It has
+      relieved my mind from a load of disquietude. You will easily suppose that
+      if the information I received had been exact, my situation was without
+      hope. I had in that case neither section, department nor Country, to
+      reclaim me; but that is not all, I felt a poignancy of grief, in having
+      the least reason to suppose that America had so soon forgotten me who had
+      never forgotten her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Labonadaire, in a note of yesterday, directed me to write to the
+      Convention. As I suppose this measure has been taken in concert with you,
+      I have requested him to shew you the letter, of which he will make a
+      translation to accompany the original.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (I cannot see what motive can induce them to keep me in prison. It will
+      gratify the English Government and afflict the friends I have in America.
+      The supporters of the system of Terror might apprehend that if I was in
+      liberty and in America I should publish the history of their crimes, but
+      the present persons who have overset that immoral System ought to have no
+      such apprehension. On the contrary, they ought to consider me as one of
+      themselves, at least as one of their friends. Had I been an insignificant
+      character I had not been in arrestation. It was the literary and
+      philosophical reputation I had gained, in the world, that made them my
+      Enemies; and I am the victim of the principles, and if I may be permitted
+      to say it, of the talents, that procured me the esteem of America. My
+      character is the <i>secret</i> of my arrestation.)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Printed in the letter to Washington, chap. XXII. The delay
+     of sixteen days in Monroe's letter was probably due to the
+     manouvres of Paine's enemies on the Committee of Public
+     Safety. He was released only after their removal from the
+     Committee, and the departure of Gouverneur Morris.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If the letter I have written be not covered by other authority than my own
+      it will have no effect, for they already know all that I can say. On what
+      ground do they pretend to deprive America of the service of any of her
+      citizens without assigning a cause, or only the flimsy one of my being
+      born in England? Gates, were he here, might be arrested on the same
+      pretence, and he and Burgoyne be confounded together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult for me to give an opinion, but among other things that
+      occur to me, I think that if you were to say that, as it will be necessary
+      to you to inform the Government of America of my situation, you require an
+      explanation with the Committee upon that subject; that you are induced to
+      make this proposal not only out of esteem for the character of the person
+      who is the personal object of it, but because you know that his
+      arrestation will distress the Americans, and the more so as it will appear
+      to them to be contrary to their ideas of civil and national justice, it
+      might perhaps have some effect. If the Committee [of Public Safety] will
+      do nothing, it will be necessary to bring this matter openly before the
+      Convention, for I do most sincerely assure you, from the observations that
+      I hear, and I suppose the same are made in other places, that the
+      character of America lies under some reproach. All the world knows that I
+      have served her, and they see that I am still in prison; and you know that
+      when people can form a conclusion upon a simple fact, they trouble not
+      themselves about reasons. I had rather that America cleared herself of all
+      suspicion of ingratitude, though I were to be the victim.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You advise me to have patience, but I am fully persuaded that the longer I
+      continue in prison the more difficult will be my liberation. There are two
+      reasons for this: the one is that the present Committee, by continuing so
+      long my imprisonment, will naturally suppose that my mind will be soured
+      against them, as it was against those who put me in, and they will
+      continue my imprisonment from the same apprehensions as the former
+      Committee did; the other reason is, that it is now about two months since
+      your arrival, and I am still in prison. They will explain this into an
+      indifference upon my fate that will encourage them to continue my
+      imprisonment. When I hear some people say that it is the Government of
+      America that now keeps me in prison by not reclaiming me, and then pour
+      forth a volley of execrations against her, I know not how to answer them
+      otherwise than by a direct denial which they do not appear to believe. You
+      will easily conclude that whatever relates to imprisonments and
+      liberations makes a topic of prison conversation; and as I am now the
+      oldest inhabitant within these walls, except two or three, I am often the
+      subject of their remarks, because from the continuance of my imprisonment
+      they auger ill to themselves. You see I write you every thing that occurs
+      to me, and I conclude with thanking you again for your very friendly and
+      affectionate letter, and am with great respect,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your's affectionately,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      (To day is the anniversary of the action at German Town. [October 4,
+      1777.] Your letter has enabled me to contradict the observations before
+      mentioned.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. Oct 13, 1794 Dear Sir: On the 28th of this Month (October) I shall have
+      suffered ten months imprisonment, to the dishonour of America as well as
+      of myself, and I speak to you very honestly when I say that my patience is
+      exhausted. It is only my actual liberation that can make me believe it.
+      Had any person told me that I should remain in prison two months after the
+      arrival of a new Minister, I should have supposed that he meant to affront
+      me as an American. By the friendship and sympathy you express in your
+      letter you seem to consider my imprisonment as having connection only with
+      myself, but I am certain that the inferences that follow from it have
+      relation also to the National character of America, I already feel this in
+      myself, for I no longer speak with pride of being a citizen of that
+      country. Is it possible Sir that I should, when I am suffering unjust
+      imprisonment under the very eye of her new Minister?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While there was no Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) nobody
+      wondered at my imprisonment, but now everybody wonders. The continuance of
+      it under a change of diplomatic circumstances, subjects me to the
+      suspicion of having merited it, and also to the suspicion of having
+      forfeited my reputation with America; and it subjects her at the same time
+      to the suspicion of ingratitude, or to the reproach of wanting national or
+      diplomatic importance. The language that some Americans have held of my
+      not being considered as an American citizen, tho' contradicted by
+      yourself, proceeds, I believe, from no other motive, than the shame and
+      dishonour they feel at the imprisonment of a fellow-citizen, and they
+      adopt this apology, at my expence, to get rid of that disgrace. Is it not
+      enough that I suffer imprisonment, but my mind also must be wounded and
+      tortured with subjects of this kind? Did I reason from personal
+      considerations only, independent of principles and the pride of having
+      practiced those principles honourably, I should be tempted to curse the
+      day I knew America. By contributing to her liberty I have lost my own, and
+      yet her Government beholds my situation in silence. Wonder not, Sir, at
+      the ideas I express or the language in which I express them. If I have a
+      heart to feel for others I can feel also for myself, and if I have anxiety
+      for my own honour, I have it also for a country whose suffering infancy I
+      endeavoured to nourish and to which I have been enthusiastically attached.
+      As to patience I have practiced it long&mdash;as long as it was honorable
+      to do so, and when it goes beyond that point it becomes meanness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am inclined to believe that you have attended to my imprisonment more as
+      a friend than as a Minister. As a friend I thank you for your affectionate
+      attachment. As a Minister you have to look beyond me to the honour and
+      reputation of your Government; and your Countrymen, who have accustomed
+      themselves to consider any subject in one line of thinking only, more
+      especially if it makes a strong [impression] upon them, as I believe my
+      situation has made upon you, do not immediately see the matters that have
+      relation to it in another line; and it is to bring these two into one
+      point that I offer you these observations. A citizen and his country, in a
+      case like mine, are so closely connected that the case of one is the case
+      of both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you first arrived the path you had to pursue with respect to my
+      liberation was simple. I was imprisoned as a foreigner; you knew that
+      foreigner to be a citizen of America, and you knew also his character, and
+      as such you should immediately have reclaimed him. You could lose nothing
+      by taking strong ground, but you might lose much by taking an inferior
+      one; but instead of this, which I conceive would have been the right line
+      of acting, you left me in their hands on the loose intimation that my
+      liberation would take place without your direct interference, and you
+      strongly recommended it to me to wait the issue. This is more than seven
+      weeks ago and I am still in prison. I suspect these people are trifling
+      with you, and if they once believe they can do that, you will not easily
+      get any business done except what they wish to have done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I take a review of my whole situation&mdash;my circumstances ruined,
+      my health half destroyed, my person imprisoned, and the prospect of
+      imprisonment still staring me in the face, can you wonder at the agony of
+      my feelings? You lie down in safety and rise to plenty; it is otherwise
+      with me; I am deprived of more than half the common necessaries of life; I
+      have not a candle to burn and cannot get one. Fuel can be procured only in
+      small quantities and that with great difficulty and very dear, and to add
+      to the rest, I am fallen into a relapse and am again on the sick list. Did
+      you feel the whole force of what I suffer, and the disgrace put upon
+      America by this injustice done to one of her best and most affectionate
+      citizens, you would not, either as a friend or Minister, rest a day till
+      you had procured my liberation. It is the work of two or three hours when
+      you set heartily about it, that is, when you demand me as an American
+      citizen, or propose a conference with the Committee upon that subject; or
+      you may make it the work of a twelve-month and not succeed. I know these
+      people better than you do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You desire me to believe that "you are placed here on a difficult Theatre
+      with many important objects to attend to, and with but few to consult
+      with, and that it becomes you in pursuit of these to regulate your conduct
+      with respect to each, as to manner and time, as will in your judgment be
+      best calculated to accomplish the whole." As I know not what these objects
+      are I can say nothing to that point. But I have always been taught to
+      believe that the liberty of a Citizen was the first object of all free
+      Governments, and that it ought not to give preference to, or be blended
+      with, any other. It is that public object that all the world can see, and
+      which obtains an influence upon public opinion more than any other. This
+      is not the case with the objects you allude to. But be those objects what
+      they may, can you suppose you will accomplish them the easier by holding
+      me in the back-ground, or making me only an accident in the negotiation?
+      Those with whom you confer will conclude from thence that you do not feel
+      yourself very strong upon those points, and that you politically keep me
+      out of sight in the meantime to make your approach the easier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is one part in your letter that is equally as proper should be
+      communicated to the Committee as to me, and which I conceive you are under
+      some diplomatic obligation to do. It is that part which you conclude by
+      saying that "<i>to the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans are not and
+      cannot be indifferent</i>." As it is impossible the Americans can preserve
+      their esteem for me and for my oppressors at the same time, the injustice
+      to me strikes at the popular part of the Treaty of Alliance. If it be the
+      wish of the Committee to reduce the treaty to a mere skeleton of
+      Government forms, they are taking the right method to do it, and it is not
+      improbable they will blame you afterwards for not in-forming them upon the
+      subject. The disposition to retort has been so notorious here, that you
+      ought to be guarded against it at all points.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You say in your letter that you doubt whether the gentleman who informed
+      me of the language held by some Americans respecting my citizenship of
+      America conveyed even his own ideas clearly upon the subject.(1) I know
+      not how this may be, but I believe he told me the truth. I received a
+      letter a few days ago from a friend and former comrade of mine in which he
+      tells me, that all the Americans he converses with, say, that I should
+      have been in liberty long ago if the Minister could have reclaimed me as
+      an American citizen. When I compare this with the counter-declarations in
+      your letter I can explain the case no otherwise than I have already done,
+      that it is an apology to get rid of the shame and dishonour they feel at
+      the imprisonment of an American citizen, and because they are not willing
+      it should be supposed there is want of influence in the American Embassy.
+      But they ought to see that this language is injurious to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the 2d of this month Vendemaire I received a line from Mr. Beresford in
+      which he tells me I shall be in liberty in two or three days, and that he
+      has this from good authority. On the 12th I received a note from Mr.
+      Labonadaire, written at the Bureau of the Concierge, in which he tells me
+      of the interest you take in procuring my liberation, and that after the
+      steps that had been already taken that I ought to write to the Convention
+      to demand my liberty <i>purely and simply</i> as a citizen of the United
+      States of America. He advised me to send the letter to him, and he would
+      translate it. I sent the letter inclosing at the same time a letter to
+      you. I have heard nothing since of the letter to the Convention. On the
+      17th I received a letter from my former comrade Vanhuele, in which he says
+      "I am just come from Mr. Russell who had yesterday a conversation with
+      your Minister and your liberation is certain&mdash;you will be in liberty
+      to-morrow." Vanhuele also adds, "I find the advice of Mr. Labonadaire
+      good, for tho' you have some enemies in the Convention, the strongest and
+      best part are in your favour." But the case is, and I felt it whilst I was
+      writing the letter to the Convention, that there is an awkwardness in my
+      appearing, you being present; for every foreigner should apply thro' his
+      Minister, or rather his Minister for him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The letter of Peter Whiteside, quoted at the beginning of
+     the Memorial. See introduction to the Memorial. It would
+     seem from this whole letter that it was not known by
+     Americans in Paris that Monroe had been kept ont of his
+     office by Morris for nearly a month after his arrival in
+     Paris.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When I thus see day after day and month after month, and promise after
+      promise, pass away without effect, what can I conclude but that either the
+      Committees are secretly determined not to let me go, or that the measures
+      you take are not pursued with the vigor necessary to give them effect; or
+      that the American National character is without sufficient importance in
+      the French Republic? The latter will be gratifying to the English
+      Government. In short, Sir, the case is now arrived to that crisis, that
+      for the sake of your own reputation as a Minister you ought to require a
+      positive answer from the Committee. As to myself, it is more agreeable to
+      me now to contemplate an honourable destruction, and to perish in the act
+      of protesting against the injustice I suffer, and to caution the people of
+      America against confiding too much in the Treaty of Alliance, violated as
+      it has been in every principle, and in my imprisonment though an American
+      Citizen, than remain in the wretched condition I am. I am no longer of any
+      use to the world or to myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a time when I beheld the Revolution of the 10th. Thermidor [the
+      fall of Robespierre] with enthusiasm. It was the first news my comrade
+      Vanhuele communicated to me during my illness, and it contributed to my
+      recovery. But there is still something rotten at the Center, and the
+      Enemies that I have, though perhaps not numerous, are more active than my
+      friends. If I form a wrong opinion of men or things it is to you I must
+      look to set me right. You are in possession of the secret. I know nothing
+      of it. But that I may be guarded against as many wants as possible I shall
+      set about writing a memorial to Congress, another to the State of
+      Pennsylvania, and an address to the people of America; but it will be
+      difficult for me to finish these until I know from yourself what
+      applications you have made for my liberation, and what answers you have
+      received.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah, Sir, you would have gotten a load of trouble and difficulties off your
+      hands that I fear will multiply every day, had you made it a point to
+      procure my liberty when you first arrived, and not left me floating on the
+      promises of men whom you did not know. You were then a new character. You
+      had come in consequence of their own request that Morris should be
+      recalled; and had you then, before you opened any subject of negociation
+      that might arise into controversy, demanded my liberty either as a
+      Civility or as a Right I see not how they could have refused it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have already said that after all the promises that have been made I am
+      still in prison. I am in the dark upon all the matters that relate to
+      myself. I know not if it be to the Convention, to the Committee of Public
+      Safety, of General Surety, or to the deputies who come sometimes to the
+      Luxembourg to examine and put persons in liberty, that applications have
+      been made for my liberation. But be it to whom it may, my earnest and
+      pressing request to you as Minister is that you will bring this matter to
+      a conclusion by reclaiming me as an American citizen imprisoned in France
+      under the plea of being a foreigner born in England; that I may know the
+      result, and how to prepare the Memorials I have mentioned, should there be
+      occasion for them. The right of determining who are American citizens can
+      belong only to America. The Convention have declared I am not a French
+      Citizen because she has declared me to be a foreigner, and have by that
+      declaration cancelled and annulled the vote of the former assembly that
+      conferred the Title of Citizen upon Citizens or subjects of other
+      Countries. I should not be honest to you nor to myself were I not to
+      express myself as I have done in this letter, and I confide and request
+      you will accept it in that sense and in no other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am, with great respect, your suffering fellow-citizen,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      P. S.&mdash;If my imprisonment is to continue, and I indulge very little
+      hope to the contrary, I shall be under the absolute necessity of applying
+      to you for a supply of several articles. Every person here have their
+      families or friends upon the spot who make provision for them. This is not
+      the case with me; I have no person I can apply to but the American
+      Minister, and I can have no doubt that if events should prevent my
+      repaying the expence Congress or the State of Pennsylvania will discharge
+      it for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To day is 22 Vendemaire Monday October 13, but you will not receive this
+      letter till the 14th. I will send the bearer to you again on the 15th,
+      Wednesday, and I will be obliged to you to send me for the present, three
+      or four candles, a little sugar of any kind, and some soap for shaving;
+      and I should be glad at the same time to receive a line from you and a
+      memorandum of the articles. Were I in your place I would order a Hogshead
+      of Sugar, some boxes of Candles and Soap from America, for they will
+      become still more scarce. Perhaps the best method for you to procure them
+      at present is by applying to the American Consuls at Bordeaux and Havre,
+      and have them up by the diligence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. [Undated.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Sir: As I have not yet received any answer to my last, I have amused
+      myself with writing you the inclosed memoranda. Though you recommend
+      patience to me I cannot but feel very pointedly the uncomfortableness of
+      my situation, and among other reflections that occur to me I cannot think
+      that America receives any credit from the long imprisonment that I suffer.
+      It has the appearance of neglecting her citizens and her friends and of
+      encouraging the insults of foreign nations upon them, and upon her
+      commerce. My imprisonment is as well and perhaps more known in England
+      than in France, and they (the English) will not be intimidated from
+      molesting an American ship when they see that one of her best citizens
+      (for I have a right to call myself so) can be imprisoned in another
+      country at the mere discretion of a Committee, because he is a foreigner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When you first arrived every body congratulated me that I should soon, if
+      not immediately, be in liberty. Since that time about two hundred have
+      been set free from this prison on the applications of their sections or of
+      individuals&mdash;and I am continually hurt by the observations that are
+      made&mdash;"that a section in Paris has more influence than America."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is right that I furnish you with these circumstances. It is the effect
+      of my anxiety that the character of America suffer no reproach; for the
+      world knows that I have acted a generous duty by her. I am the third
+      American that has been imprisoned. Griffiths nine weeks, Haskins about
+      five, and myself eight [months] and yet in prison. With respect to the two
+      former there was then no Minister, for I consider Morris as none; and they
+      were liberated on the applications of the Americans in Paris. As to myself
+      I had rather be publicly and honorably reclaimed, tho' the reclamation was
+      refused, than remain in the uncertain situation that I am. Though my
+      health has suffered my spirits are not broken. I have nothing to fear
+      unless innocence and fortitude be crimes. America, whatever may be my
+      fate, will have no cause to blush for me as a citizen; I hope I shall have
+      none to blush for her as a country. If, my dear Sir, there is any-thing in
+      the perplexity of ideas I have mistaken, only suppose yourself in my
+      situation, and you will easily find an excuse for it. I need not say how
+      much I shall rejoice to pay my respects to you without-side the walls of
+      this prison, and to enquire after my American friends. But I know that
+      nothing can be accomplished here but by unceasing perseverance and
+      application. Yours affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. October 20, 1794.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Sir: I recd. your friendly letter of the 26 Vendemaire on the day it
+      was written, and I thank you for communicating to me your opinion upon my
+      case. Ideas serve to beget ideas, and as it is from a review of every
+      thing that can be said upon a subject, or is any ways connected with it,
+      that the best judgment can be formed how to proceed, I present you with
+      such ideas as occur to me. I am sure of one thing, which is that you will
+      give them a patient and attentive perusal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You say in your letter that "I must be sensible that although I am an
+      American citizen, yet if you interfere in my behalf as the Minister of my
+      country you must demand my liberation only in case there be no charge
+      against me; and that if there is I must be brought to trial previously,
+      since no person in a <i>private</i> character can be exempt from the laws
+      of the country in which he resides."&mdash;This is what I have twice
+      attempted to do. I wrote a letter on the 3d Sans Culottodi(1) to the
+      Deputies, members of the Committee of Surety General, who came to the
+      Luxembourg to examine the persons detained. The letter was as follows:&mdash;"Citizens
+      Representatives: I offer myself for examination. Justice is due to every
+      Man. It is Justice only that I ask.&mdash;Thomas Paine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I was not called for examination, nor heard anything in consequence of
+      my letter the first time of sending it, I sent a duplicate of it a few
+      days after. It was carried to them by my good friend and comrade Vanhuele,
+      who was then going in liberty, having been examined the day before.
+      Vanhuele wrote me on the next day and said: "Bourdon de l'Oise [who was
+      one of the examining Deputies] is the most inveterate enemy you can have.
+      The answer he gave me when I presented your letter put me in such a
+      passion with him that I expected I should be sent back again to prison." I
+      then wrote a third letter but had not an opportunity of sending it, as
+      Bourdon did not come any more till after I received Mr. Labonadaire's
+      letter advising me to write to the Convention. The letter was as follows:&mdash;"Citizens,
+      I have twice offered myself for examination, and I chose to do this while
+      Bourdon de l'Oise was one of the Commissioners.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Festival of Labour, September 19, 1794.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      This Deputy has said in the Convention that I intrigued with an ancient
+      agent of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs. My examination therefore while he
+      is present will give him an opportunity of proving his charge or of
+      convincing himself of his error. If Bourdon de l'Oise is an honest man he
+      will examine me, but lest he should not I subjoin the following. That
+      which B[ourdon] calls an intrigue was at the request of a member of the
+      former Committee of Salut Public, last August was a twelvemonth. I met the
+      member on the Boulevard. He asked me something in French which I did not
+      understand and we went together to the Bureau of Foreign Affairs which was
+      near at hand. The Agent (Otto, whom you probably knew in America) served
+      as interpreter, The member (it was Barère) then asked me 1st, If I could
+      furnish him with the plan of Constitution I had presented to the Committee
+      of Constitution of which I was member with himself, because, he said, it
+      contained several things which he wished had been adopted: 2dly, He asked
+      me my opinion upon sending Commissioners to the United States of America:
+      3dly, If fifty or an hundred ship loads of flour could be procured from
+      America. As verbal interpretation was tedious, it was agreed that I should
+      give him my opinion in writing, and that the Agent [Otto] should translate
+      it, which he did. I answered the first question by sending him the plan
+      [of a Constitution] which he still has. To the second, I replied that I
+      thought it would be proper to send Commissioners, because that in
+      Revolutions circumstances change so fast that it was often necessary to
+      send a better supply of information to an Ally than could be communicated
+      by writing; and that Congress had done the same thing during the American
+      War; and I gave him some information that the Commissioners would find
+      useful on their arrival. I answered the third question by sending him a
+      list of American exports two years before, distinguishing the several
+      articles by which he would see that the supply he mentioned could be
+      obtained. I sent him also the plan of Paul Jones, giving it as his, for
+      procuring salt-petre, which was to send a squadron (it did not require a
+      large one) to take possession of the Island of St. Helen's, to keep the
+      English flag flying at the port, that the English East India ships coming
+      from the East Indies, and that ballast with salt-petre, might be induced
+      to enter as usual; And that it would be a considerable time before the
+      English Government could know of what had happened at St. Helen's. See
+      here what Bourdon de l'Oise has called an intrigue.&mdash;If it was an
+      intrigue it was between a Committee of Salut Public and myself, for the
+      Agent was no more than the interpreter and translator, and the object of
+      the intrigue was to furnish France with flour and salt-petre."&mdash;I
+      suppose Bourdon had heard that the agent and I were seen together talking
+      English, and this was enough for <i>him</i> to found his charge upon.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You next say that "I must likewise be sensible that although I am an
+      American citizen that it is likewise believed there [in America] that I am
+      become a citizen of France, and that in consequence this latter character
+      has so far [illegible] the former as to weaken if not destroy any claim
+      you might have to interpose in my behalf." I am sorry I cannot add any new
+      arguments to those I have already advanced on this part of the subject.
+      But I cannot help asking myself, and I wish you would ask the Committee,
+      if it could possibly be the intention of France to <i>kidnap</i> citizens
+      from America under the pretence of dubbing them with the title of French
+      citizens, and then, after inviting or rather enveigling them into France,
+      make it a pretence for detaining them? If it was, (which I am sure it was
+      not, tho' they now act as if it was) the insult was to America, tho' the
+      injury was to me, and the treachery was to both.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The communications of Paine to Barère are given in my
+     "Life of Paine," vol. ii-i PP. 73, 87. Otto was Secretary to
+     the Minister of Foreign Affairs when he acted as interpreter
+     between Paine and Barère. There was never any charge at all
+     made against Paine, as the Archives of France now prove,
+     save that he was a "foreigner." Paine was of coarse ignorant
+     of the conspiracy between Morris and Deforgues which had
+     imprisoned him. Bourdon de l'Oise, one of the most cruel
+     Jacobins and Terrorists, afterwards conspired with Pichegru
+     to overthrow the Republic, and was with him banished (1797)
+     to Sinamari, South America, where he died soon after his
+     arrival.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Did they mean to kidnap General Washington, Mr. Madison, and several other
+      Americans whom they dubbed with the same title as well as me? Let any man
+      look at the condition of France when I arrived in it,&mdash;invaded by
+      Austrians and Prussians and declared to be in danger,&mdash;and then ask
+      if any man who had a home and a country to go to, as I had in America,
+      would have come amongst them from any other motive than of assisting them.
+      If I could possibly have supposed them capable of treachery I certainly
+      would not have trusted myself in their power. Instead therefore of your
+      being unwilling or apprehensive of meeting the question of French
+      citizenship, they ought to be ashamed of advancing it, and this will be
+      the case unless you admit their arguments or objections too passively. It
+      is a case on their part fit only for the continuations of Robespierre to
+      set up. As to the name of French citizen, I never considered it in any
+      other light, so far as regarded myself, than as a token of honorary
+      respect. I never made them any promise nor took any oath of allegiance or
+      of citizenship, nor bound myself by an act or means whatever to the
+      performance of any thing. I acted altogether as a friend invited among
+      them as I supposed on honorable terms. I did not come to join myself to a
+      Government already formed, but to assist in forming one <i>de nouveau</i>,
+      which was afterwards to be submitted to the people whether they would
+      accept it or not, and this any foreigner might do. And strictly speaking
+      there are no citizens before this is a government. They are all of the
+      People. The Americans were not called citizens till after Government was
+      established, and not even then until they had taken the oath of
+      allegiance. This was the case in Pennsylvania. But be this French
+      citizenship more or less, the Convention have swept it away by declaring
+      me to be a foreigner, and imprisoning me as such; and this is a short
+      answer to all those who affect to say or to believe that I am French
+      Citizen. A Citizen without Citizenship is a term non-descript.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the two preceeding paragraphs you ask&mdash;"If it be my wish that
+      you should embark in this controversy (meaning that of reclaiming me) and
+      risque the consequences with respect to myself and the good understanding
+      subsisting between the two countries, or, without relinquishing any point
+      of right, and which might be insisted on in case of extremities, pursue
+      according to your best judgment and with the light before you, the object
+      of my liberation?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I believe from the apparent obstinacy of the Committees that
+      circumstances will grow towards the extremity you mention, unless
+      prevented beforehand, I will endeavour to throw into your hands all the
+      lights I can upon the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, reclamation may mean two distinct things. All the
+      reclamations that are made by the sections in behalf of persons detained
+      as <i>suspect</i> are made on the ground that the persons so detained are
+      patriots, and the reclamation is good against the charge of "suspect"
+      because it proves the contrary. But my situation includes another
+      circumstance. I am imprisoned on the charge (if it can be called one) of
+      being a foreigner born in England. You know that foreigner to be a citizen
+      of the United States of America, and that he has been such since the 4th
+      of July 1776, the political birthday of the United States, and of every
+      American citizen, for before that period all were British subjects, and
+      the States, then provinces, were British dominions.&mdash;Your reclamation
+      of me therefore as a citizen of the United States (all other
+      considerations apart) is good against the pretence for imprisoning me, or
+      that pretence is equally good against every American citizen born in
+      England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or Holland, and you know this
+      description of men compose a very great part of the population of the
+      three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and make also a
+      part of Congress, and of the State Legislatures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every politician ought to know, and every civilian does know, that the Law
+      of Treaty of Alliance, and also that of Amity and Commerce knows no
+      distinction of American Citizens on account of the place of their birth,
+      but recognizes all to be Citizens whom the Constitution and laws of the
+      United States of America recognize as such; and if I recollect rightly
+      there is an article in the Treaty of Commerce particular to this point.
+      The law therefore which they have here, to put all persons in arrestation
+      born in any of the Countries at war with France, is, when applied to
+      Citizens of America born in England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or
+      holland, a violation of the treaties of Alliance and of Commerce, because
+      it assumes to make a distinction of Citizens which those Treaties and the
+      Constitution of America know nothing of. This is a subject that officially
+      comes under your cognizance as Minister, and it would be consistent that
+      you expostulated with them upon the Case. That foolish old man Vadier, who
+      was president of the Convention and of the Committee of Surety general
+      when the Americans then in Paris went to the Bar of the Convention to
+      reclaim me, gave them for answer that my being born in England was cause
+      sufficient for imprisoning me. It happened that at least half those who
+      went up with that address were in the same case with myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to reclamations on the ground of Patriotism it is difficult to know
+      what is to be understood by Patriotism here. There is not a vice, and
+      scarcely a virtue, that has not as the fashion of the moment suited been
+      called by the name of Patriotism. The wretches who composed the
+      revolutionary tribunal of Nantz were the Patriots of that day and the
+      criminals of this. The Jacobins called themselves Patriots of the first
+      order, men up to the height of the circumstances, and they are now
+      considered as an antidote to Patriotism. But if we give to Patriotism a
+      fixed idea consistent with that of a Republic, it would signify a strict
+      adherence to the principles of Moral Justice, to the equality of civil and
+      political Rights, to the System of representative Government, and an
+      opposition to every hereditary claim to govern; and of this species of
+      Patriotism you know my character. But, Sir, there are men on the Committee
+      who have changed their Party but not their principles. Their aim is to
+      hold power as long as possible by preventing the establishment of a
+      Constitution, and these men are and will be my Enemies, and seek to hold
+      me in prison as long as they can. I am too good a Patriot for them. It is
+      not improbable that they have heard of the strange language held by some
+      Americans that I am not considered in America as an American citizen, and
+      they may also have heard say, that you had no orders respecting me, and it
+      is not improbable that they interpret that language and that silence into
+      a connivance at my imprisonment. If they had not some ideas of this kind
+      would they resist so long the civil efforts you make for my liberation, or
+      would they attach so much importance to the imprisonment of an Individual
+      as <i>to risque</i> (as you say to me) <i>the good understanding that
+      exists between the two Countries?</i>You also say that <i>it is impossible
+      for any person to do more than you have done without adopting the other
+      means</i>, meaning that of reclaiming me. How then can you account for the
+      want of success after so many efforts, and such a length of time, upwards
+      of ten weeks, without supposing that they fortify themselves in the
+      interpretation I have just mentioned? I can admit that it was not
+      necessary to give orders, and that it was difficult to give direct orders,
+      for I much question if Morris had informed Congress or the President of
+      the whole of the case, or had sent copies of my letters to him as I had
+      desired him to do. You would find the case here when you came, and you
+      could not fully understand it till you did come, and as Minister you would
+      have authority to act upon it. But as you inform me that you know what the
+      wishes of the President are, you will see also that his reputation is
+      exposed to some risque, admitting there to be ground for the supposition I
+      have made. It will not add to his popularity to have it believed in
+      America, as I am inclined to think the Committee believe here, that he
+      connives at my imprisonment. You say also that <i>it is known to everybody
+      that you wish my liberation</i>. It is, Sir, because they know your wishes
+      that they misinterpret the means you use. They suppose that those mild
+      means arise from a restriction that you cannot use others, or from a
+      consciousness of some defect on my part of which you are unwilling to
+      provoke the enquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as you ask me if it be my wish that you should embark in this
+      controversy and risque the consequences with respect to myself, I will
+      answer this part of the question by marking out precisely the part I wish
+      you to take. What I mean is a sort of middle line above what you have yet
+      gone, and not up to the full extremity of the case, which will still lie
+      in reserve. It is to write a letter to the Committee that shall in the
+      first place defeat by anticipation all the objections they might make to a
+      simple reclamation, and at the same time make the ground good for that
+      object. But, instead of sending the letter immediately, to invite some of
+      the Committee to your house and to make that invitation the opportunity of
+      shewing them the letter, expressing at the same time a wish that you had
+      done this, from a hope that the business might be settled in an amicable
+      manner without your being forced into an official interference, that would
+      excite the observations of the Enemies of both Countries, and probably
+      interrupt the harmony that subsisted between the two republics. But as I
+      can not convey the ideas I wish you to use by any means so concisely or so
+      well as to suppose myself the writer of the letter I shall adopt this
+      method and you will make use of such parts or such ideas of it as you
+      please if you approve the plan. Here follows the supposed letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizens: When I first arrived amongst you as Minister from the United
+      States of America I was given to understand that the liberation of Thomas
+      Paine would take place without any official interference on my part. This
+      was the more agreeable to me as it would not only supercede the necessity
+      of that interference, but would leave to yourselves the whole opportunity
+      of doing justice to a man who as far as I have been able to learn has
+      suffered much cruel treatment under what you have denominated the system
+      of Terror. But as I find my expectations have not been fulfilled I am
+      under the official necessity of being more explicit upon the subject than
+      I have hitherto been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Permit me, in the first place, to observe that as it is impossible for me
+      to suppose that it could have been the intention of France to seduce any
+      citizens of America from their allegiance to their proper country by
+      offering them the title of French citizen, so must I be compelled to
+      believe, that the title of French citizen conferred on Thomas Paine was
+      intended only as a mark of honorary respect towards a man who had so
+      eminently distinguished himself in defence of liberty, and on no occasion
+      more so than in promoting and defending your own revolution. For a proof
+      of this I refer you to his two works entitled <i>Rights of Man</i>. Those
+      works have procured to him an addition of esteem in America, and I am
+      sorry they have been so ill rewarded in France. But be this title of
+      French Citizen more or less, it is now entirely swept away by the vote of
+      the Convention which declares him to be a foreigner, and which supercedes
+      the vote of the Assembly that conferred that title upon him, consequently
+      upon the case superceded with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In consequence of this vote of the Convention declaring him to be a
+      foreigner the former Committees have imprisoned him. It is therefore
+      become my official duty to declare to you that the foreigner thus
+      imprisoned is a citizen of the United States of America as fully, as
+      legally, as constitutionally as myself, and that he is moreover one of the
+      principal founders of the American Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have been informed of a law or decree of the Convention which subjects
+      foreigners born in any of the countries at war with France to arrestation
+      and imprisonment. This law when applied to citizens of America born in
+      England is an infraction of the Treaty of Alliance and of Amity and
+      Commerce, which knows no distinction of American citizens on account of
+      the place of their birth, but recognizes all to be citizens whom the
+      Constitution and laws of America recognize as such. The circumstances
+      under which America has been peopled requires this guard on her Treaties,
+      because the mass of her citizens are composed not of natives only but also
+      of the natives of almost all the countries of Europe who have sought an
+      asylum there from the persecutions they experienced in their own
+      countries. After this intimation you will without doubt see the propriety
+      of modelling that law to the principles of the Treaty, because the law of
+      Treaty in cases where it applies is the governing law to both parties
+      alike, and it cannot be infracted without hazarding the existence of the
+      Treaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the Patriotism of Thomas Paine I can speak fully, if we agree to give
+      to patriotism a fixed idea consistent with that of a republic. It would
+      then signify a strict adherence to Moral Justice, to the equality of civil
+      and political rights, to the system of representative government, and an
+      opposition to all hereditary claims to govern. Admitting patriotism to
+      consist in these principles, I know of no man who has gone beyond Thomas
+      Paine in promulgating and defending them, and that for almost twenty years
+      past.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now spoken to you on the principal matters concerned in the case of
+      Thomas Paine. The title of French citizen which you had enforced upon him,
+      you have since taken away by declaring him to be a foreigner, and
+      consequently this part of the subject ceases of itself. I have declared to
+      you that this foreigner is a citizen of the United States of America, and
+      have assured you of his patriotism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I cannot help at the same time repeating to you my wish that his
+      liberation had taken place without my being obliged to go thus far into
+      the subject, because it is the mutual interest of both republics to avoid
+      as much as possible all subjects of controversy, especially those from
+      which no possible good can flow. I still hope that you will save me the
+      unpleasant task of proceeding any farther by sending me an order for his
+      liberation, which the injured state of his health absolutely requires. I
+      shall be happy to receive such an order from you and happy in presenting
+      it to him, for to the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans are not and
+      cannot be indifferent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the sort of letter I wish you to write, for I have no idea that
+      you will succeed by any measures that can, by any kind of construction, be
+      interpreted into a want of confidence or an apprehension of consequences.
+      It is themselves that ought to be apprehensive of consequences if any are
+      to be apprehended. They, I mean the Committees, are not certain that the
+      Convention or the nation would support them in forcing any question to
+      extremity that might interrupt the good understanding subsisting between
+      the two countries; and I know of no question [so likely] to do this as
+      that which involves the rights and liberty of a citizen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You will please to observe that I have put the case of French citizenship
+      in a point of view that ought not only to preclude, but to make them
+      ashamed to advance any thing upon this subject; and this is better than to
+      have to answer their counter-reclamation afterwards. Either the
+      Citizenship was intended as a token of honorary respect, or it was
+      in-tended to deprive America of a citizen or to seduce him from his
+      allegiance to his proper country. If it was intended as an honour they
+      must act consistently with the principle of honour. But if they make a
+      pretence for detaining me, they convict themselves of the act of
+      seduction. Had America singled out any particular French citizen,
+      complimented him with the title of Citizen of America, which he without
+      suspecting any fraudulent intention might accept, and then after having
+      invited or rather inveigled him into America made his acceptance of that
+      Title a pretence for seducing or forcing him from his allegiance to
+      France, would not France have just cause to be offended at America? And
+      ought not America to have the same right to be offended at France? And
+      will the Committees take upon themselves to answer for the dishonour they
+      bring upon the National Character of their Country? If these arguments are
+      stated beforehand they will prevent the Committees going into the subject
+      of French Citizenship. They must be ashamed of it. But after all the case
+      comes to this, that this French Citizenship appertains no longer to me
+      because the Convention, as I have already said, have swept it away by
+      declaring me to be foreigner, and it is not in the power of the Committees
+      to reverse it. But if I am to be citizen and foreigner, and citizen again,
+      just when and how and for any purpose they please, they take the
+      Government of America into their own hands and make her only a Cypher in
+      their system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though these ideas have been long with me they have been more particularly
+      matured by reading your last Communication, and I have many reasons to
+      wish you had opened that Communication sooner. I am best acquainted with
+      the persons you have to deal with and the circumstances of my own case. If
+      you chuse to adopt the letter as it is, I send you a translation for the
+      sake of expediting the business. I have endeavoured to conceive your own
+      manner of expression as well as I could, and the civility of language you
+      would use, but the matter of the letter is essential to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you chuse to confer with some of the members of the Committee at your
+      own house on the subject of the letter it may render the sending it
+      unnecessary; but in either case I must request and press you not to give
+      away to evasion and delay, and that you will fix positively with them that
+      they shall give you an answer in three or four days whether they will
+      liberate me on the representation you have made in the letter, or whether
+      you must be forced to go further into the subject. The state of my health
+      will not admit of delay, and besides the tortured state of my mind wears
+      me down. If they talk of bringing me to trial (and I well know there is no
+      accusation against me and that they can bring none) I certainly summons
+      you as an Evidence to my Character. This you may mention to them either as
+      what I intend to do or what you intend to do voluntarily for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am anxious that you undertake this business without losing time, because
+      if I am not liberated in the course of this decade, I intend, if in case
+      the seventy-one detained deputies are liberated, to follow the same track
+      that they have done, and publish my own case myself.(1) I cannot rest any
+      longer in this state of miserable suspense, be the consequences what they
+      may.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Those deputies, imprisoned for having protested against
+     the overthrow of the Girondin government, May 31,1793, when
+     the Convention was invaded and overawed by the armed
+     communes of Paris. These deputies were liberated and
+     recalled to the Convention, December 8, 1794. Paine was
+     invited to resume his seat the day before, by a special act
+     of the Convention, after an eloquent speech by Thibaudeau.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Dear Sir: I need not mention to you the happiness I received from the
+      information you sent me by Mr. Beresford. I easily guess the persons you
+      have conversed with on the subject of my liberation&mdash;but matters and
+      even promises that pass in conversation are not quite so strictly attended
+      to here as in the Country you come from. I am not, my Dear Sir, impatient
+      from any thing in my disposition, but the state of my health requires
+      liberty and a better air; and besides this, the rules of the prison do not
+      permit me, though I have all the indulgences the Concierge can give, to
+      procure the things necessary to my recovery, which is slow as to strength.
+      I have a tolerable appetite but the allowance of provision is scanty. We
+      are not allowed a knife to cut our victuals with, nor a razor to shave;
+      but they have lately allowed some barbers that are here to shave. The room
+      where I am lodged is a ground floor level with the earth in the garden and
+      floored with brick, and is so wet after every rain that I cannot guard
+      against taking colds that continually cheat my recovery. If you could,
+      without interfering with or deranging the mode proposed for my liberation,
+      inform the Committee that the state of my health requires liberty and air,
+      it would be good ground to hasten my liberation. The length of my
+      imprisonment is also a reason, for I am now almost the oldest inhabitant
+      of this uncomfortable mansion, and I see twenty, thirty and sometimes
+      forty persons a day put in liberty who have not been so long confined as
+      myself. Their liberation is a happiness to me; but I feel sometimes, a
+      little mortification that I am thus left behind. I leave it entirely to
+      you to arrange this matter. The messenger waits. Your's affectionately,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T. P.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope and wish much to see you. I have much to say. I have had the
+      attendance of Dr. Graham (Physician to Genl. O'Hara, who is prisoner here)
+      and of Dr. Makouski, house physician, who has been most exceedingly kind
+      to me. After I am at liberty I shall be glad to introduce him to you.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This letter, written in a feeble handwriting, is not
+     dated, but Monroe's endorsement, "2d. Luxembourg,"
+     indicates November 2, two days before Paine's liberation.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0023" id="link2H_4_0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXII. LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Paris, July 30, 1796.
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      As censure is but awkwardly softened by apology. I shall offer you no
+      apology for this letter. The eventful crisis to which your double politics
+      have conducted the affairs of your country, requires an investigation
+      uncramped by ceremony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a time when the fame of America, moral and political, stood fair
+      and high in the world. The lustre of her revolution extended itself to
+      every individual; and to be a citizen of America gave a title to respect
+      in Europe. Neither meanness nor ingratitude had been mingled in the
+      composition of her character. Her resistance to the attempted tyranny of
+      England left her unsuspected of the one, and her open acknowledgment of
+      the aid she received from France precluded all suspicion of the other. The
+      Washington of politics had not then appeared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the time I left America (April 1787) the Continental Convention, that
+      formed the federal Constitution was on the point of meeting. Since that
+      time new schemes of politics, and new distinctions of parties, have
+      arisen. The term <i>Antifederalist</i> has been applied to all those who
+      combated the defects of that constitution, or opposed the measures of your
+      administration. It was only to the absolute necessity of establishing some
+      federal authority, extending equally over all the States, that an
+      instrument so inconsistent as the present federal Constitution is,
+      obtained a suffrage. I would have voted for it myself, had I been in
+      America, or even for a worse, rather than have had none, provided it
+      contained the means of remedying its defects by the same appeal to the
+      people by which it was to be established. It is always better policy to
+      leave removeable errors to expose themselves, than to hazard too much in
+      contending against them theoretically. I have introduced these
+      observations, not only to mark the general difference between
+      Antifederalist and Anti-constitutionalist, but to preclude the effect, and
+      even the application, of the former of these terms to myself. I declare
+      myself opposed to several matters in the Constitution, particularly to the
+      manner in which what is called the Executive is formed, and to the long
+      duration of the Senate; and if I live to return to America, I will use all
+      my endeavours to have them altered.(*) I also declare myself opposed to
+      almost the whole of your administration; for I know it to have been
+      deceitful, if not perfidious, as I shall shew in the course of this
+      letter. But as to the point of consolidating the States into a Federal
+      Government, it so happens, that the proposition for that purpose came
+      originally from myself. I proposed it in a letter to Chancellor Livingston
+      in the spring of 1782, while that gentleman was Minister for Foreign
+      Affairs. The five per cent, duty recommended by Congress had then fallen
+      through, having been adopted by some of the States, altered by others,
+      rejected by Rhode Island, and repealed by Virginia after it had been
+      consented to. The proposal in the letter I allude to, was to get over the
+      whole difficulty at once, by annexing a continental legislative body to
+      Congress; for in order to have any law of the Union uniform, the case
+      could only be, that either Congress, as it then stood, must frame the law,
+      and the States severally adopt it without alteration, or the States must
+      erect a Continental Legislature for the purpose. Chancellor Livingston,
+      Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, and myself, had a meeting at the house
+      of Robert Morris on the subject of that letter. There was no diversity of
+      opinion on the proposition for a Continental Legislature: the only
+      difficulty was on the manner of bringing the proposition forward. For my
+      own part, as I considered it as a remedy in reserve, that could be applied
+      at any time <i>when the States saw themselves wrong enough to be put right</i>,
+      (which did not appear to be the case at that time) I did not see the
+      propriety of urging it precipitately, and declined being the publisher of
+      it myself. After this account of a fact, the leaders of your party will
+      scarcely have the hardiness to apply to me the term of Antifederalist. But
+      I can go to a date and to a fact beyond this; for the proposition for
+      electing a continental convention to form the Continental Government is
+      one of the subjects treated of in the pamphlet <i>Common Sense</i>.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * I have always been opposed to the mode of refining
+     Government up to an individual, or what is called a single
+     Executive. Such a man will always be the chief of a party. A
+     plurality is far better: It combines the mass of a nation
+     better together: And besides this, it is necessary to the
+     manly mind of a republic that it loses the debasing idea of
+     obeying an individual.&mdash;<i>Author</i>.
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See vol. i. of this work, pp. 97, 98, 109, no.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having thus cleared away a little of the rubbish that might otherwise have
+      lain in my way, I return to the point of time at which the present Federal
+      Constitution and your administration began. It was very well said by an
+      anonymous writer in Philadelphia, about a year before that period, that "<i>thirteen
+      staves and ne'er a hoop will not make a barrel</i>" and as any kind of
+      hooping the barrel, however defectively executed, would be better than
+      none, it was scarcely possible but that considerable advantages must arise
+      from the federal hooping of the States. It was with pleasure that every
+      sincere friend of America beheld, as the natural effect of union, her
+      rising prosperity; and it was with grief they saw that prosperity mixed,
+      even in the blossom, with the germ of corruption. Monopolies of every kind
+      marked your administration almost in the moment of its commencement. The
+      lands obtained by the revolution were lavished upon partisans; the
+      interest of the disbanded soldier was sold to the speculator; injustice
+      was acted under the pretence of faith; and the chief of the army became
+      the patron of the fraud.(2) From such a beginning what else could be
+      expected, than what has happened? A mean and servile submission to the
+      insults of one nation; treachery and ingratitude to another.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2 The history of the Scioto Company, by which so many
+     Frenchmen as well as Americans were ruined, warranted an
+     even stronger statement. Though Washington did not know what
+     was going on, he cannot be acquitted of a lack of due
+     precaution in patronizing leading agents of these
+     speculations, and introducing them in France.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Some vices make their approach with such a splendid appearance, that we
+      scarcely know to what class of moral distinctions they belong. They are
+      rather virtues corrupted than vices, originally. But meanness and
+      ingratitude have nothing equivocal in their character. There is not a
+      trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so originally vice,
+      that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into
+      existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found
+      protection in you, and the levee-room is their place of rendezvous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Federal Constitution is a copy, though not quite so base as the
+      original, of the form of the British Government, an imitation of its vices
+      was naturally to be expected. So intimate is the connection between <i>form
+      and practice</i>, that to adopt the one is to invite the other. Imitation
+      is naturally progressive, and is rapidly so in matters that are vicious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after the Federal Constitution arrived in England, I received a
+      letter from a female literary correspondent (a native of New York) very
+      well mixed with friendship, sentiment, and politics. In my answer to that
+      letter, I permitted myself to ramble into the wilderness of imagination,
+      and to anticipate what might hereafter be the condition of America. I had
+      no idea that the picture I then drew was realizing so fast, and still less
+      that Mr. Washington was hurrying it on. As the extract I allude to is
+      congenial with the subject I am upon, I here transcribe it:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     [<i>The extract is the same as that given in a footnote, in
+     the Memorial to Monroe, p. 180</i>.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Impressed, as I was, with apprehensions of this kind, I had America
+      constantly in my mind in all the publications I afterwards made. The
+      First, and still more the Second, Part of the Rights of Man, bear evident
+      marks of this watchfulness; and the Dissertation on First Principles of
+      Government [XXIV.] goes more directly to the point than either of the
+      former. I now pass on to other subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will be supposed by those into whose hands this letter may fall, that I
+      have some personal resentment against you; I will therefore settle this
+      point before I proceed further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I have any resentment, you must acknowledge that I have not been hasty
+      in declaring it; neither would it now be declared (for what are private
+      resentments to the public) if the cause of it did not unite itself as well
+      with your public as with your private character, and with the motives of
+      your political conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The part I acted in the American revolution is well known; I shall not
+      here repeat it. I know also that had it not been for the aid received from
+      France, in men, money and ships, that your cold and unmilitary conduct (as
+      I shall shew in the course of this letter) would in all probability have
+      lost America; at least she would not have been the independent nation she
+      now is. You slept away your time in the field, till the finances of the
+      country were completely exhausted, and you have but little share in the
+      glory of the final event. It is time, sir, to speak the undisguised
+      language of historical truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of every
+      thing to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution began
+      to appear. You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging and
+      swallowing the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from one end
+      to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many
+      addresses in your chest as James the II. As to what were your views, for
+      if you are not great enough to have ambition you are little enough to have
+      vanity, they cannot be directly inferred from expressions of your own; but
+      the partizans of your politics have divulged the secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Adams has said, (and John it is known was always a speller after
+      places and offices, and never thought his little services were highly
+      enough paid,)&mdash;John has said, that as Mr. Washington had no child,
+      the Presidency should be made hereditary in the family of Lund Washington.
+      John might then have counted upon some sinecure himself, and a provision
+      for his descendants. He did not go so far as to say, also, that the
+      Vice-Presidency should be hereditary in the family of John Adams. He
+      prudently left that to stand on the ground that one good turn deserves
+      another.(*)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Adams is one of those men who never contemplated the origin of
+      government, or comprehended any thing of first principles. If he had, he
+      might have seen, that the right to set up and establish hereditary
+      government, never did, and never can, exist in any generation at any time
+      whatever; that it is of the nature of treason; because it is an attempt to
+      take away the rights of all the minors living at that time, and of all
+      succeeding generations. It is of a degree beyond common treason. It is a
+      sin against nature. The equal right of every generation is a right fixed
+      in the nature of things. It belongs to the son when of age, as it belonged
+      to the father before him. John Adams would himself deny the right that any
+      former deceased generation could have to decree authoritatively a
+      succession of governors over him, or over his children; and yet he assumes
+      the pretended right, treasonable as it is, of acting it himself. His
+      ignorance is his best excuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Jay has said,(**) (and this John was always the sycophant of every
+      thing in power, from Mr. Girard in America, to Grenville in England,)&mdash;John
+      Jay has said, that the Senate should have been appointed for life. He
+      would then have been sure of never wanting a lucrative appointment for
+      himself, and have had no fears about impeachment. These are the disguised
+      traitors that call themselves Federalists.(**)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Could I have known to what degree of corruption and perfidy the
+      administrative part of the government of America had descended, I could
+      have been at no loss to have understood the reservedness of Mr. Washington
+      towards me, during my imprisonment in the Luxembourg. There are cases in
+      which silence is a loud language. I will here explain the cause of that
+      imprisonment, and return to Mr. Washington afterwards.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Two persons to whom John Adams said this, told me of it.
+     The secretary of Mr. Jay was present when it was told to
+     me.&mdash;<i>Author</i>.
+
+     **  If Mr. John Jay desires to know on what authority I say
+     this, I will give that authority publicly when he chooses to
+     call for it&mdash;<i>Author</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the course of that rage, terror and suspicion, which the brutal letter
+      of the Duke of Brunswick first started into existence in France, it
+      happened that almost every man who was opposed to violence, or who was not
+      violent himself, became suspected. I had constantly been opposed to every
+      thing which was of the nature or of the appearance of violence; but as I
+      had always done it in a manner that shewed it to be a principle founded in
+      my heart, and not a political manouvre, it precluded the pretence of
+      accusing me. I was reached, however, under another pretence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A decree was passed to imprison all persons born in England; but as I was
+      a member of the Convention, and had been complimented with the honorary
+      style of Citizen of France, as Mr. Washington and some other Americans had
+      been, this decree fell short of reaching me. A motion was afterwards made
+      and carried, supported chiefly by Bourdon de l'Oise, for expelling
+      foreigners from the Convention. My expulsion being thus effected, the two
+      committees of Public Safety and of General Surety, of which Robespierre
+      was the dictator, put me in arrestation under the former decree for
+      imprisoning persons born in England. Having thus shewn under what pretence
+      the imprisonment was effected, I come to speak of such parts of the case
+      as apply between me and Mr. Washington, either as a President or as an
+      individual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have always considered that a foreigner, such as I was in fact, with
+      respect to France, might be a member of a Convention for framing a
+      Constitution, without affecting his right of citizenship in the country to
+      which he belongs, but not a member of a government after a Constitution is
+      formed; and I have uniformly acted upon this distinction» To be a member
+      of a government requires that a person be in allegiance to that government
+      and to the country locally. But a Constitution, being a thing of
+      principle, and not of action, and which, after it is formed, is to be
+      referred to the people for their approbation or rejection, does not
+      require allegiance in the persons forming and proposing it; and besides
+      this, it is only to the thing after it be formed and established, and to
+      the country after its governmental character is fixed by the adoption of a
+      constitution, that the allegiance can be given. No oath of allegiance or
+      of citizenship was required of the members who composed the Convention:
+      there was nothing existing in form to swear allegiance to. If any such
+      condition had been required, I could not, as Citizen of America in fact,
+      though Citizen of France by compliment, have accepted a seat in the
+      Convention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As my citizenship in America was not altered or diminished by any thing I
+      had done in Europe, (on the contrary, it ought to be considered as
+      strengthened, for it was the American principle of government that I was
+      endeavouring to spread in Europe,) and as it is the duty of every
+      govern-ment to charge itself with the care of any of its citizens who may
+      happen to fall under an arbitrary persecution abroad, and is also one of
+      the reasons for which ambassadors or ministers are appointed,&mdash;it was
+      the duty of the Executive department in America, to have made (at least)
+      some enquiries about me, as soon as it heard of my imprisonment. But if
+      this had not been the case, that government owed it to me on every ground
+      and principle of honour and gratitude. Mr. Washington owed it to me on
+      every score of private acquaintance, I will not now say, friendship; for
+      it has some time been known by those who know him, that he has no
+      friendships; that he is incapable of forming any; he can serve or desert a
+      man, or a cause, with constitutional indifference; and it is this cold
+      hermaphrodite faculty that imposed itself upon the world, and was credited
+      for a while by enemies as by friends, for prudence, moderation and
+      impartiality.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 "L'on pent dire qu'il [Washington] jouit de tous les
+     avantages possibles a l'exception des douceurs de
+     l'amitié."&mdash;Louis Otto, Chargé d'Affaires (at New York) to
+     his government, 13 June, 1790. French Archives, vol. 35, No.
+     32.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Soon after I was put into arrestation, and imprisoned in the Luxembourg,
+      the Americans who were then in Paris went in a body to the bar of the
+      Convention to reclaim me. They were answered by the then President Vadier,
+      who has since absconded, that <i>I was born in England</i>, and it was
+      signified to them, by some of the Committee of <i>General Surety</i>, to
+      whom they were referred (I have been told it was Billaud Varennes,) that
+      their reclamation of me was only the act of individuals, without any
+      authority from the American government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few days after this, all communications from persons imprisoned to any
+      person without the prison was cut off by an order of the Police. I neither
+      saw, nor heard from, any body for six months; and the only hope that
+      remained to me was, that a new Minister would arrive from America to
+      supercede Morris, and that he would be authorized to enquire into the
+      cause of my imprisonment. But even this hope, in the state to which
+      matters were daily arriving, was too remote to have any consolatory
+      effect, and I contented myself with the thought, that I might be
+      remembered when it would be too late. There is perhaps no condition from
+      which a man conscious of his own uprightness cannot derive consolation;
+      for it is in itself a consolation for him to find, that he can bear that
+      condition with calmness and fortitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From about the middle of March (1794) to the fall of Robespierre July 29,
+      (9th of Thermidor,) the state of things in the prisons was a continued
+      scene of horror. No man could count upon life for twenty-four hours. To
+      such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his Committee
+      arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man living. Scarcely
+      a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or more, were
+      not taken out of the prison, carried before a pretended tribunal in the
+      morning, and guillotined before night. One hundred and sixty-nine were
+      taken out of the Luxembourg one night, in the month of July, and one
+      hundred and sixty of them guillotined. A list of two hundred more,
+      according to the report in the prison, was preparing a few days before
+      Robespierre fell. In this last list I have good reason to believe I was
+      included. A memorandum in the hand-writing of Robespierre was afterwards
+      produced in the Convention, by the committee to whom the papers of
+      Robespierre were referred, in these words:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "Demander que Thomas           "I Demand that Thomas Paine
+     "Payne soit décrété d'ac-       be decreed of accusation
+     "cusation pour les inté-        for the interests of America
+     "rôtsde l'Amérique,autant       as well as of France."
+     "que de la France."
+</pre>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In reading this the Committee added, "Why Thomas Payne
+     more than another? Because He helped to establish the
+     liberty of both worlds."&mdash;<i>Editor</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I had then been imprisoned seven months, and the silence of the Executive
+      part of the government of America (Mr. Washington) upon the case, and upon
+      every thing respecting me, was explanation enough to Robespierre that he
+      might proceed to extremities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A violent fever which had nearly terminated my existence, was, I believe,
+      the circumstance that preserved it. I was not in a condition to be
+      removed, or to know of what was passing, or of what had passed, for more
+      than a month. It makes a blank in my remembrance of life. The first thing
+      I was informed of was the fall of Robespierre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About a week after this, Mr. Monroe arrived to supercede Gouverneur
+      Morris, and as soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be
+      read, I found a way to convey one to him by means of the man who lighted
+      the lamps in the prison; and whose unabated friendship to me, from whom he
+      had never received any service, and with difficulty accepted any
+      recompense, puts the character of Mr. Washington to shame.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a few days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed to me in a
+      note from an intermediate person, with assurance of his friendship, and
+      expressing a desire that I would rest the case in his hands. After a
+      fortnight or more had passed, and hearing nothing farther, I wrote to a
+      friend who was then in Paris, a citizen of Philadelphia, requesting him to
+      inform me what was the true situation of things with respect to me. I was
+      sure that something was the matter; I began to have hard thoughts of Mr.
+      Washington, but I was unwilling to encourage them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In about ten days, I received an answer to my letter, in which the writer
+      says, "Mr. Monroe has told me that he has no order [meaning from the
+      President, Mr. Washington] respecting you, but that he (Mr. Monroe) will
+      do every thing in his power to liberate you; but, from what I learn from
+      the Americans lately arrived in Paris, you are not considered, either by
+      the American government, or by the individuals, as an American citizen."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was now at no loss to understand Mr. Washington and his new fangled
+      faction, and that their policy was silently to leave me to fall in France.
+      They were rushing as fast as they could venture, without awakening the
+      jealousy of America, into all the vices and corruptions of the British
+      government; and it was no more consistent with the policy of Mr.
+      Washington, and those who immediately surrounded him, than it was with
+      that of Robespierre or of Pitt, that I should survive. They have, however,
+      missed the mark, and the reaction is upon themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon the receipt of the letter just alluded to, I sent a memorial to Mr.
+      Monroe, which the reader will find in the appendix, and I received from
+      him the following answer.(1) It is dated the 18th of September, but did
+      not come to hand till about the 4th of October. I was then failing into a
+      relapse, the weather was becoming damp and cold, fuel was not to be had,
+      and the abscess in my side, the consequence of these things, and of the
+      want of air and exercise, was beginning to form, and which has continued
+      immoveable ever since. Here follows Mr. Monroe's letter.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The appendix consisted of an abridgment of the Memorial,
+     which forms the preceding chapter (XXI.) in this volume.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Paris, September 18th, 1794. "Dear Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I was favoured soon after my arrival here with several letters from you,
+      and more latterly with one in the character of memorial upon the subject
+      of your confinement; and should have answered them at the times they were
+      respectively written had I not concluded you would have calculated with
+      certainty upon the deep interest I take in your welfare, and the pleasure
+      with which I shall embrace every opportunity in my power to serve you. I
+      should still pursue the same course, and for reasons which must obviously
+      occur, if I did not find that you are disquieted with apprehensions upon
+      interesting points, and which justice to you and our country equally
+      forbid you should entertain. You mention that you have been informed you
+      are not considered as an American citizen by the Americans, and that you
+      have likewise heard that I had no instructions respecting you by the
+      government. I doubt not the person who gave you the information meant
+      well, but I suspect he did not even convey accurately his own ideas on the
+      first point: for I presume the most he could say is, that you had likewise
+      become a French citizen, and which by no means deprived you of being an
+      American one. Even this, however, may be doubted, I mean the acquisition
+      of citizenship in France, and I confess you have said much to show that it
+      has not been made. I really suspect that this was all that the gentleman
+      who wrote to you, and those Americans he heard speak upon the subject
+      meant. It becomes my duty, however, to declare to you, that I consider you
+      as an American citizen, and that you are considered universally in that
+      character by the people of America. As such you are entitled to my
+      attention; and so far as it can be given consistently with those
+      obligations which are mutual between every government and even a transient
+      passenger, you shall receive it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Congress have never decided upon the subject of citizenship in a
+      manner to regard the present case. By being with us through the revolution
+      you are of our country as absolutely as if you had been born there, and
+      you are no more of England, than every native American is. This is the
+      true doctrine in the present case, so far as it becomes complicated with
+      any other consideration. I have mentioned it to make you easy upon the
+      only point which could give you any disquietude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Is it necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I speak
+      of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare? They have
+      not forgotten the history of their own revolution and the difficult scenes
+      through which they passed; nor do they review its several stages without
+      reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who
+      served them in that great and arduous conflict. The crime of ingratitude
+      has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national character.
+      You are considered by them as not only having rendered important service
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Of the sense which the President has always entertained of your merits,
+      and of his friendly disposition towards you, you are too well assured to
+      require any declaration of it from me. That I forward his wishes in
+      seeking your safety is what I well know, and this will form an additional
+      obligation on me to perform what I should otherwise consider as a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You are, in my opinion, at present menaced by no kind of danger. To
+      liberate you, will be an object of my endeavours, and as soon as possible.
+      But you must, until that event shall be accomplished, bear your situation
+      with patience and fortitude. You will likewise have the justice to
+      recollect, that I am placed here upon a difficult theatre* many important
+      objects to attend to, with few to consult It becomes me in pursuit of
+      those to regulate my conduct in respect to each, as to the manner and the
+      time, as will, in my judgment, be best calculated to accomplish the whole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "With great esteem and respect consider me personally your friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "James Monroe."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The part in Mr. Monroe's letter, in which he speaks of the President, (Mr.
+      Washington,) is put in soft language. Mr. Monroe knew what Mr. Washington
+      had said formerly, and he was willing to keep that in view. But the fact
+      is, not only that Mr. Washington had given no orders to Mr. Monroe, as the
+      letter [of Whiteside] stated, but he did not so much as say to him,
+      enquire if Mr. Paine be dead or alive, in prison or out, or see if there
+      be any assistance we can give him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     This I presume alludes to the embarrassments which the
+     strange conduct of Gouverneur Morris had occasioned, and
+     which, I well know, had created suspicions of the sincerity
+     of Mr. Washington.&mdash;<i>Author</i>. voi. m&mdash;ij
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      While these matters were passing, the liberations from the prisons were
+      numerous; from twenty to forty in the course of almost every twenty-four
+      hours. The continuance of my imprisonment after a new Minister had arrived
+      immediately from America, which was now more than two months, was a matter
+      so obviously strange, that I found the character of the American
+      government spoken of in very unqualified terms of reproach; not only by
+      those who still remained in prison, but by those who were liberated, and
+      by persons who had access to the prison from without. Under these
+      circumstances I wrote again to Mr. Monroe, and found occasion, among other
+      things, to say: "It will not add to the popularity of Mr. Washington to
+      have it believed in America, as it is believed here, that he connives at
+      my imprisonment."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The case, so far as it respected Mr. Monroe, was, that having to get over
+      the difficulties, which the strange conduct of Gouverneur Morris had
+      thrown in the way of a successor, and having no authority from the
+      American government to speak officially upon any thing relating to me, he
+      found himself obliged to proceed by unofficial means with individual
+      members; for though Robespierre was overthrown, the Robespierrian members
+      of the Committee of Public Safety still remained in considerable force,
+      and had they found out that Mr. Monroe had no official authority upon the
+      case, they would have paid little or no regard to his reclamation of me.
+      In the mean time my health was suffering exceedingly, the dreary prospect
+      of winter was coming on, and imprisonment was still a thing of danger.
+      After the Robespierrian members of the Committee were removed by the
+      expiration of their time of serving, Mr. Monroe reclaimed me, and I was
+      liberated the 4th of November. Mr. Monroe arrived in Paris the beginning
+      of August before. All that period of my imprisonment, at least, I owe not
+      to Robespierre, but to his colleague in projects, George Washington.
+      Immediately upon my liberation, Mr. Monroe invited me to his house, where
+      I remained more than a year and a half; and I speak of his aid and
+      friendship, as an open-hearted man will always do in such a case, with
+      respect and gratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon after my liberation, the Convention passed an unanimous vote, to
+      invite me to return to my seat among them. The times were still unsettled
+      and dangerous, as well from without as within, for the coalition was
+      unbroken, and the constitution not settled. I chose, however, to accept
+      the invitation: for as I undertake nothing but what I believe to be right,
+      I abandon nothing that I undertake; and I was willing also to shew, that,
+      as I was not of a cast of mind to be deterred by prospects or retrospects
+      of danger, so neither were my principles to be weakened by misfortune or
+      perverted by disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being now once more abroad in the world, I began to find that I was not
+      the only one who had conceived an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Washington;
+      it was evident that his character was on the decline as well among
+      Americans as among foreigners of different nations. From being the chief
+      of the government, he had made himself the chief of a party; and his
+      integrity was questioned, for his politics had a doubtful appearance. The
+      mission of Mr. Jay to London, notwithstanding there was an American
+      Minister there already, had then taken place, and was beginning to be
+      talked of. It appeared to others, as it did to me, to be enveloped in
+      mystery, which every day served either to increase or to explain into
+      matter of suspicion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the year 1790, or about that time, Mr. Washington, as President, had
+      sent Gouverneur Morris to London, as his secret agent to have some
+      communication with the British Ministry. To cover the agency of Morris it
+      was given out, I know not by whom, that he went as an agent from Robert
+      Morris to borrow money in Europe, and the report was permitted to pass
+      uncontradicted. The event of Morris's negociation was, that Mr. Hammond
+      was sent Minister from England to America, Pinckney from America to
+      England, and himself Minister to France. If, while Morris was Minister in
+      France, he was not a emissary of the British Ministry and the coalesced
+      powers, he gave strong reasons to suspect him of it. No one who saw his
+      conduct, and heard his conversation, could doubt his being in their
+      interest; and had he not got off the time he did, after his recall, he
+      would have been in arrestation. Some letters of his had fallen into the
+      hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and enquiry was making after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great bustle had been made by Mr. Washington about the conduct of Genet
+      in America, while that of his own Minister, Morris, in France, was
+      infinitely more reproachable. If Genet was imprudent or rash, he was not
+      treacherous; but Morris was all three. He was the enemy of the French
+      revolution, in every stage of it. But notwithstanding this conduct on the
+      part of Morris, and the known profligacy of his character, Mr. Washington
+      in a letter he wrote to him at the time of recalling him on the complaint
+      and request of the Committee of Public Safety, assures him, that though he
+      had complied with that request, he still retained the same esteem and
+      friendship for him as before. This letter Morris was foolish enough to
+      tell of; and, as his own char-acter and conduct were notorious, the
+      telling of it could have but one effect, which was that of implicating the
+      character of the writer.(1) Morris still loiters in Europe, chiefly in
+      England; and Mr. Washington is still in correspondence with him. Mr.
+      Washington ought, therefore, to expect, especially since his conduct in
+      the affairs of Jay's treaty, that France must consider Morris and
+      Washington as men of the same description. The chief difference, however,
+      between the two is, (for in politics there is none,) that the one is
+      profligate enough to profess an indifference about <i>moral</i>
+      principles, and the other is prudent enough to conceal the want of them.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Washington wrote to Morris, June 19,1794, "my confidence
+     in and friendship for you remain undiminished." It was not
+     "foolish" but sagacious to show this one sentence, without
+     which Morris might not have escaped out of France. The
+     letter reveals Washington's mental decline. He says "until
+     then [Fauchet's demand for recall of Morris, early 1794] I
+     had supposed you stood well with the powers that were."
+     Lafayette had pleaded for Morris's removal, and two French
+     Ministers before Fauchet, Ternant and Genet, had expressed
+     their Government's dissatisfaction with him. See Ford's
+     Writings of Washington, vii., p. 453; also Editor's
+     Introduction to XXI.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      About three months after I was at liberty, the official note of Jay to
+      Grenville on the subject of the capture of American vessels by the British
+      cruisers, appeared in the American papers that arrived at Paris. Every
+      thing was of a-piece. Every thing was mean. The same kind of character
+      went to all circumstances public or private. Disgusted at this national
+      degradation, as well as at the particular conduct of Mr. Washington to me,
+      I wrote to him (Mr. Washington) on the 22d of February (1795) under cover
+      to the then Secretary of State, (Mr. Randolph,) and entrusted the letter
+      to Mr. Le-tombe, who was appointed French consul to Philadelphia, and was
+      on the point of taking his departure. When I supposed Mr. Letombe had
+      sailed, I mentioned the letter to Mr. Monroe, and as I was then in his
+      house, I shewed it to him. He expressed a wish that I would recall it,
+      which he supposed might be done, as he had learnt that Mr. Letombe had not
+      then sailed. I agreed to do so, and it was returned by Mr. Letombe under
+      cover to Mr. Monroe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letter, however, will now reach Mr. Washington publicly in the course
+      of this work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the month of September following, I had a severe relapse which gave
+      occasion to the report of my death. I had felt it coming on a considerable
+      time before, which occasioned me to hasten the work I had then in hand,
+      the <i>Second part of the Age of Reason</i>. When I had finished that
+      work, I bestowed another letter on Mr. Washington, which I sent under
+      cover to Mr. Benj. Franklin Bache of Philadelphia. The letter is as
+      follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paris, September 20th, 1795.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I had written you a letter by Mr. Letombe, French consul, but, at the
+      request of Mr. Monroe, I withdrew it, and the letter is still by me. I was
+      the more easily prevailed upon to do this, as it was then my intention to
+      have returned to America the latter end of the present year, 1795; but the
+      illness I now suffer prevents me. In case I had come, I should have
+      applied to you for such parts of your official letters (and of your
+      private ones, if you had chosen to give them) as contained any
+      instructions or directions either to Mr. Monroe, or to Mr. Morris, or to
+      any other person respecting me; for after you were informed of my
+      imprisonment in France, it was incumbent on you to have made some enquiry
+      into the cause, as you might very well conclude that I had not the
+      opportunity of informing you of it. I cannot understand your silence upon
+      this subject upon any other ground, than as <i>connivance</i> at my
+      imprisonment; and this is the manner it is understood here, and will be
+      understood in America, unless you give me authority for contradicting it.
+      I therefore write you this letter, to propose to you to send me copies of
+      any letters you have written, that may remove that suspicion. In the
+      preface to the second part of the Age of Reason, I have given a memorandum
+      from the hand-writing of Robespierre, in which he proposed a decree of
+      accusation against me, '<i>for the interests of America as well as of
+      France!</i>' He could have no cause for putting America in the case, but
+      by interpreting the silence of the American government into connivance and
+      consent. I was imprisoned on the ground of being born in England; and your
+      silence in not enquiring into the cause of that imprisonment, and
+      reclaiming me against it, was tacitly giving me up. I ought not to have
+      suspected you of treachery; but whether I recover from the illness I now
+      suffer or not, I shall continue to think you treacherous, till you give me
+      cause to think otherwise. I am sure you would have found yourself more at
+      your ease, had you acted by me as you ought; for whether your desertion of
+      me was intended to gratify the English Government, or to let me fall into
+      destruction in France that you might exclaim the louder against the French
+      Revolution, or whether you hoped by my extinction to meet with less
+      opposition in mounting up the American government&mdash;either of these
+      will involve you in reproach you will not easily shake off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "THOMAS Paine."
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Washington Papers in State Department. Endorsed by Bache:
+     "Jan. 18, 1796. Enclosed to Benj. Franklin Bache, and by him
+     forwarded immediately upon receipt."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Here follows the letter above alluded to, which I had stopped in
+      complaisance to Mr. Monroe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Paris, February aad, 1795.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Sir,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As it is always painful to reproach those one would wish to respect, it
+      is not without some difficulty that I have taken the resolution to write
+      to you. The dangers to which I have been exposed cannot have been unknown
+      to you, and the guarded silence you have observed upon that circumstance
+      is what I ought not to have expected from you, either as a friend or as
+      President of the United States.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "You knew enough of my character to be assured that I could not have
+      deserved imprisonment in France; and, without knowing any thing more than
+      this, you had sufficient ground to have taken some interest for my safety.
+      Every motive arising from recollection of times past, ought to have
+      suggested to you the propriety of such a measure. But I cannot find that
+      you have so much as directed any enquiry to be made whether I was in
+      prison or at liberty, dead or alive; what the cause of that imprisonment
+      was, or whether there was any service or assistance you could render. Is
+      this what I ought to have expected from America, after the part I had
+      acted towards her, or will it redound to her honour or to yours, that I
+      tell the story? I do not hesitate to say, that you have not served America
+      with more disinterestedness, or greater zeal, or more fidelity, than
+      myself, and I know not if with better effect. After the revolution of
+      America was established I ventured into new scenes of difficulties to
+      extend the principles which that revolution had produced, and you rested
+      at home to partake of the advantages. In the progress of events, you
+      beheld yourself a President in America, and me a prisoner in France. You
+      folded your arms, forgot your friend, and became silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As every thing I have been doing in Europe was connected with my wishes
+      for the prosperity of America, I ought to be the more surprised at this
+      conduct on the part of her government. It leaves me but one mode of
+      explanation, which is, <i>that every thing is not as it ought to be
+      amongst you</i>, and that the presence of a man who might disapprove, and
+      who had credit enough with the country to be heard and believed, was not
+      wished for. This was the operating motive with the despotic faction that
+      imprisoned me in France, (though the pretence was, that I was a
+      foreigner,) and those that have been silent and inactive towards me in
+      America, appear to me to have acted from the same motive. It is impossible
+      for me to discover any other.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "After the part I have taken in the revolution of America, it is natural
+      that I feel interested in whatever relates to her character and
+      prosperity. Though I am not on the spot to see what is immediately acting
+      there, I see some part of what she is acting in Europe. For your own sake,
+      as well as for that of America, I was both surprised and concerned at the
+      appointment of Gouverneur Morris to be Minister to France. His conduct has
+      proved that the opinion I had formed of that appointment was well founded.
+      I wrote that opinion to Mr. Jefferson at the time, and I was frank enough
+      to say the same thing to Morris&mdash;<i>that it was an unfortunate
+      appointment?</i> His prating, insignificant pomposity, rendered him at
+      once offensive, suspected, and ridiculous; and his total neglect of all
+      business had so disgusted the Americans, that they proposed drawing up a
+      protest against him. He carried this neglect to such an extreme, that it
+      was necessary to inform him of it; and I asked him one day, if he did not
+      feel himself ashamed to take the money of the country, and do nothing for
+      it?' But Morris is so fond of profit and voluptousness, that he cares
+      nothing about character. Had he not been removed at the time he was, I
+      think his conduct would have precipitated the two countries into a
+      rupture; and in this case, hated <i>systematically</i> as America is and
+      ever will be by the British government, and at the same time suspected by
+      France, the commerce of America would have fallen a prey to both
+      countries.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This paragraph of the original letter was omitted from the
+     American pamphlet, probably by the prudence of Mr. Bache.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 "I have just heard of Gouverneur Morris's appointment. It
+     is a most unfortunate one; and, as I shall mention the same
+     thing to him when I see him, I do not express it to you with
+     the injunction of confidence."&mdash;Paine to Jefferson, Feb.
+     13,1792.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     3  Paine could not of course know that Morris was willing
+     that the Americans, to whom he alludes, captains of captured
+     vessels, should suffer, in order that there might be a case
+     against France of violation of treaty, which would leave the
+     United States free to transfer the alliance to England. See
+     Introduction to XXI.. also my "Life of Paine," ii., p.
+     83.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "If the inconsistent conduct of Morris exposed the interest of America to
+      some hazard in France, the pusillanimous conduct of Mr. Jay in England has
+      rendered the American government contemptible in Europe. Is it possible
+      that any man who has contributed to the independence of Amer-ica, and to
+      free her from the tyranny and injustice of the British government, can
+      read without shame and indignation the note of Jay to Grenville? It is a
+      satire upon the declaration of Independence, and an encouragement to the
+      British government to treat America with contempt. At the time this
+      Minister of Petitions was acting this miserable part, he had every means
+      in his hands to enable him to have done his business as he ought. The
+      success or failure of his mission depended upon the success or failure of
+      the French arms. Had France failed, Mr. Jay might have put his humble
+      petition in his pocket, and gone home. The case happened to be otherwise,
+      and he has sacrificed the honour and perhaps all the advantages of it, by
+      turning petitioner. I take it for granted, that he was sent over to demand
+      indemnification for the captured property; and, in this case, if he
+      thought he wanted a preamble to his demand, he might have said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'That, tho' the government of England might suppose itself under the
+      necessity of seizing American property bound to France, yet that supposed
+      necessity could not preclude indemnification to the proprietors, who,
+      acting under the authority of their own government, were not accountable
+      to any other.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But Mr. Jay sets out with an implied recognition of the right of the
+      British government to seize and condemn: for he enters his complaint
+      against the <i>irregularity</i> of the seizures and the condemnation, as
+      if they were reprehensible only by not being <i>conformable</i> to the <i>terms</i>
+      of the proclamation under which they were seized. Instead of being the
+      Envoy of a government, he goes over like a lawyer to demand a new trial. I
+      can hardly help thinking that Grenville wrote that note himself and Jay
+      signed it; for the style of it is domestic and not diplomatic. The term,
+      <i>His</i> Majesty, used without any descriptive epithet, always signifies
+      the King whom the Minister that speaks represents. If this sinking of the
+      demand into a petition was a juggle between Grenville and Jay, to cover
+      the indemnification, I think it will end in another juggle, that of never
+      paying the money, and be made use of afterwards to preclude the right of
+      demanding it: for Mr. Jay has virtually disowned the right <i>by appealing
+      to the magnanimity of his Majesty against the capturers</i>. He has made
+      this magnanimous Majesty the umpire in the case, and the government of the
+      United States must abide by the decision. If, Sir, I turn some part of
+      this business into ridicule, it is to avoid the unpleasant sensation of
+      serious indignation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Among other things which I confess I do not understand, is the
+      proclamation of neutrality. This has always appeared to me as an
+      assumption on the part of the executive not warranted by the Constitution.
+      But passing this over, as a disputable case, and considering it only as
+      political, the consequence has been that of sustaining the losses of war,
+      without the balance of reprisals. When the profession of neutrality, on
+      the part of America, was answered by hostilities on the part of Britain,
+      the object and intention of that neutrality existed no longer; and to
+      maintain it after this, was not only to encourage farther insults and
+      depredations, but was an informal breach of neutrality towards France, by
+      passively contributing to the aid of her enemy. That the government of
+      England considered the American government as pusillanimous, is evident
+      from the encreasing insolence of the conduct of the former towards the
+      latter, till the affair of General Wayne. She then saw that it might be
+      possible to kick a government into some degree of spirit.(1) So far as the
+      proclamation of neutrality was intended to prevent a dissolute spirit of
+      privateering in America under foreign colors, it was undoubtedly laudable;
+      but to continue it as a government neutrality, after the commerce of
+      America was made war upon, was submission and not neutrality. I have heard
+      so much about this thing called neutrality, that I know not if the
+      ungenerous and dishonorable silence (for I must call it such,) that has
+      been observed by your part of the government towards me, during my
+      imprisonment, has not in some measure arisen from that policy.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Wayne's success against the Indians of the Six Nations,
+     1794, was regarded by Washington also as a check on England.
+     Writing to Pendleton, Jan. 22, 1795, he says: "There is
+     reason to believe that the Indians....<i>together with their
+     abettors</i>; begin to see things in a different point of
+     view." (Italics mine).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "Tho' I have written you this letter, you ought not to suppose it has been
+      an agreeable undertaking to me. On the contrary, I assure you, it has
+      caused me some disquietude. I am sorry you have given me cause to do it;
+      for, as I have always remembered your former friendship with pleasure, I
+      suffer a loss by your depriving me of that sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Thomas Paine."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That this letter was not written in very good temper, is very evident; but
+      it was just such a letter as his conduct appeared to me to merit, and
+      every thing on his part since has served to confirm that opinion. Had I
+      wanted a commentary on his silence, with respect to my imprisonment in
+      France, some of his faction have furnished me with it. What I here allude
+      to, is a publication in a Philadelphia paper, copied afterwards into a New
+      York paper, both under the patronage of the Washington faction, in which
+      the writer, still supposing me in prison in France, wonders at my lengthy
+      respite from the scaffold; and he marks his politics still farther, by
+      saying:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It appears, moreover, that the people of England did not relish his
+      (Thomas Paine's) opinions quite so well as he expected, and that for one
+      of his last pieces, as destructive to the peace and happiness of their
+      country, (meaning, I suppose, the <i>Rights of Man</i>,) they threatened
+      our knight-errant with such serious vengeance, that, to avoid a trip to
+      Botany Bay, he fled over to France, as a less dangerous voyage."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am not refuting or contradicting the falsehood of this publication, for
+      it is sufficiently notorious; neither am I censuring the writer: on the
+      contrary, I thank him for the explanation he has incautiously given of the
+      principles of the Washington faction. Insignificant, however, as the piece
+      is, it was capable of having some ill effects, had it arrived in France
+      during my imprisonment, and in the time of Robespierre; and I am not
+      uncharitable in supposing that this was one of the intentions of the
+      writer.(*)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * I know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the
+     Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but
+     now a British consul; and that he writes under the
+     signature of Peter Skunk or Peter Porcupine, or some such
+     signature.&mdash;Author.
+
+     This footnote probably added to the gall of Porcupine's
+     (Cobbett's) "Letter to the Infamous Tom Paine, in Answer to
+     his Letter to General Washington" (Polit. Censor, Dec.,
+     1796), of which he (Cobbett) afterwards repented. Phineas
+     Bond had nothing to do with it.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have now done with Mr. Washington on the score of private affairs. It
+      would have been far more agreeable to me, had his conduct been such as not
+      to have merited these reproaches. Errors or caprices of the temper can be
+      pardoned and forgotten; but a cold deliberate crime of the heart, such as
+      Mr. Washington is capable of acting, is not to be washed away. I now
+      proceed to other matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After Jay's note to Grenville arrived in Paris from America, the character
+      of every thing that was to follow might be easily foreseen; and it was
+      upon this anticipation that <i>my</i> letter of February the 22d was
+      founded. The event has proved that I was not mistaken, except that it has
+      been much worse than I expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would naturally occur to Mr. Washington, that the secrecy of Jay's
+      mission to England, where there was already an American Minister, could
+      not but create some suspicion in the French government; especially as the
+      conduct of Morris had been notorious, and the intimacy of Mr. Washington
+      with Morris was known.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world, is a
+      sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called <i>prudence</i>.
+      It is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied
+      to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence
+      furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is the
+      natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the
+      embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for he
+      authorized it to be made known to the French government, as a confidential
+      matter, (Mr. Washington should recollect that I was a member of the
+      Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here state) he authorized
+      it, I say, to be announced, and that for the purpose of preventing any
+      uneasiness to France on the score of Mr. Jay's mission to England, that
+      the object of that mission, and of Mr. Jay's authority, was restricted to
+      that of demanding the surrender of the western posts, and indemnification
+      for the cargoes captured in American vessels. Mr. Washington knows that
+      this was untrue; and knowing this, he had good reason to himself for
+      refusing to furnish the House of Representatives with copies of the
+      instructions given to Jay, as he might suspect, among other things, that
+      he should also be called upon for copies of instructions given to other
+      Ministers, and that, in the contradiction of instructions, his want of
+      integrity would be detected.(1) Mr. Washington may now, perhaps, learn,
+      when it is too late to be of any use to him, that a man will pass better
+      through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being
+      detected in <i>one</i> sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are
+      suspected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negotiated by
+      Mr. Jay, (for nobody suspected any,) came in an English newspaper, which
+      announced that a treaty <i>offensive and defensive</i> had been concluded
+      between the United States of America and England. This was immediately
+      denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though it
+      was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some
+      underhand business was going forward.(*) At length the treaty itself
+      arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 When the British treaty had been ratified by the Senate
+     (with one stipulation) and signed by the President, the
+     House of Representatives, required to supply the means for
+     carrying into effect, believed that its power over the
+     supplies authorized it to check what a large majority
+     considered an outrage on the country and on France. This was
+     the opinion of Edmund Randolph (the first Attorney General),
+     of Jefferson, Madison, and other eminent men. The House
+     having respectfully requested the President to send them
+     such papers on the treaty as would not affect any existing
+     negotiations, he refused in a message (March 30, 1796),
+     whose tenor Madison described as "improper and indelicate."
+     He said "the assent of the House of Representatives is not
+     necessary to the validity of a treaty." The House regarded
+     the message as menacing a serious conflict, and receded.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+
+     * It was the embarrassment into which the affairs and credit
+     of America were thrown at this instant by the report above
+     alluded to, that made it necessary to contradict it, and
+     that by every means arising from opinion or founded upon
+     authority. The Committee of Public Safety, existing at that
+     time, had agreed to the full execution, on their part, of
+     the treaty between America and France, notwithstanding some
+     equivocal conduct on the part of the American government,
+     not very consistent with the good faith of an ally; but they
+     were not in a disposition to be imposed upon by a counter-
+     treaty. That Jay had no instructions beyond the points above
+     stated, or none that could possibly be construed to extend
+     to the length the British treaty goes, was a matter believed
+     in America, in England, and in France; and without going to
+     any other source it followed naturally from the message of
+     the President to Congress, when he nominated Jay upon that
+     mission. The secretary of Mr. Jay came to Paris soon after
+     the treaty with England had been concluded, and brought with
+     him a copy of Mr. Jay's instructions, which he offered to
+     shew to me as <i>justification of Jay</i>. I advised him, as a
+     friend, not to shew them to anybody, and did not permit him
+     to shew them to me. "Who is it," said I to him, "that you
+     intend to implicate as censureable by shewing those
+     instructions? Perhaps that implication may fall upon your
+     own government." Though I did not see the instructions, I
+     could not be at a loss to understand that the American
+     administration had been playing a double game.&mdash;Author.
+
+     That there was a "double game" in this business, from first
+     to last, is now a fact of history. Jay was confirmed by the
+     Senate on a declaration of the President in which no
+     faintest hint of a treaty was given, but only the
+     "adjustment of our complaints," "vindication of our rights,"
+     and cultivation of "peace." Only after the Envoy's
+     confirmation did the Cabinet add the main thing, his
+     authority to negotiate a commercial treaty. This was done
+     against the protest of the only lawyer among them, Edmund
+     Randolph, Secretary of State, who said the exercise of such
+     a power by Jay would be an abridgment of the rights of the
+     Senate and of the nation. See my "Life of Randolph," p. 220.
+     For Jay's Instructions, etc., see I. Am. State Papers,
+     Foreign Relations.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is curious to observe, how the appearance of characters will change,
+      whilst the root that produces them remains the same. The Washington
+      faction having waded through the slough of negociation, and whilst it
+      amused France with professions of friendship contrived to injure her,
+      immediately throws off the hypocrite, and assumes the swaggering air of a
+      bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on this
+      occasion filled with paragraphs about <i>Sovereignty</i>. A paltroon may
+      boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the only
+      kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. But those daring
+      paragraphs, as Timothy Pickering(1) well knows, were intended for France;
+      without whose assistance, in men, money, and ships, Mr. Washington would
+      have cut but a poor figure in the American war. But of his military
+      talents I shall speak hereafter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I mean not to enter into any discussion of any article of Jay's treaty; I
+      shall speak only upon the whole of it. It is attempted to be justified on
+      the ground of its not being a violation of any article or articles of the
+      treaty pre-existing with France. But the sovereign right of explanation
+      does not lie with George Washington and his man Timothy; France, on her
+      part, has, at least, an equal right: and when nations dispute, it is not
+      so much about words as about things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man, such as the world calls a sharper, and versed as Jay must be
+      supposed to be in the quibbles of the law, may find a way to enter into
+      engagements, and make bargains, in such a manner as to cheat some other
+      party, without that party being able, as the phrase is, <i>to take the law
+      of him</i>. This often happens in the cabalistical circle of what is
+      called law. But when this is attempted to be acted on the national scale
+      of treaties, it is too despicable to be defended, or to be permitted to
+      exist. Yet this is the trick upon which Jay's treaty is founded, so far as
+      it has relation to the treaty pre-existing with France. It is a
+      counter-treaty to that treaty, and perverts all the great articles of that
+      treaty to the injury of France, and makes them operate as a bounty to
+      England, with whom France is at war.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Secretary of State.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The Washington administration shews great desire that the treaty between
+      France and the United States be preserved. Nobody can doubt their
+      sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British
+      merchant, or a British agent or sailor in America, that does not anxiously
+      wish the same thing. The treaty with France serves now as a passport to
+      supply England with naval stores and other articles of American produce,
+      whilst the same articles, when coming to France, are made contraband or
+      seizable by Jay's treaty with England. The treaty with France says, that
+      neutral ships make neutral property, and thereby gives protection to
+      English property on board American ships; and Jay's treaty delivers up
+      French property on board American ships to be seized by the English. It is
+      too paltry to talk of faith, of national honour, and of the preservation
+      of treaties, whilst such a bare-faced treachery as this stares the world
+      in the face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Washington administration may save itself the trouble of proving to
+      the French government its <i>most faithful</i> intentions of preserving
+      the treaty with France; for France has now no desire that it should be
+      preserved. She had nominated an Envoy extraordinary to America, to make
+      Mr. Washington and his government a present of the treaty, and to have no
+      more to do with <i>that</i>, or with <i>him</i>. It was at the same time
+      officially declared to the American Minister at Paris, <i>that the French
+      Republic had rather have the American government for an open enemy than a
+      treacherous friend</i>. This, sir, together with the internal distractions
+      caused in America, and the loss of character in the world, is the <i>eventful
+      crisis</i>, alluded to in the beginning of this letter, to which your
+      double politics have brought the affairs of your country. It is time that
+      the eyes of America be opened upon you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How France would have conducted herself towards America and American
+      commerce, after all treaty stipulations had ceased, and under the sense of
+      services rendered and injuries received, I know not. It is, however, an
+      unpleasant reflection, that in all national quarrels, the innocent, and
+      even the friendly part of the community, become involved with the culpable
+      and the unfriendly; and as the accounts that arrived from America
+      continued to manifest an invariable attachment in the general mass of the
+      people to their original ally, in opposition to the new-fangled Washington
+      faction,&mdash;the resolutions that had been taken in France were
+      suspended. It happened also, fortunately enough, that Gouverneur Morris
+      was not Minister at this time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is, however, one point that still remains in embryo, and which,
+      among other things, serves to shew the ignorance of Washington
+      treaty-makers, and their inattention to preexisting treaties, when they
+      were employing themselves in framing or ratifying the new treaty with
+      England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second article of the treaty of commerce between the United States and
+      France says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The most christian king and the United States engage mutually, not to
+      grant any particular favour to other nations in respect of commerce and
+      navigation that shall not immediately become common to the other party,
+      who shall enjoy the same favour freely, if the concession was freely made,
+      or on allowing the same compensation if the concession was conditional."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the concessions, therefore, made to England by Jay's treaty are,
+      through the medium of this second article in the pre-existing treaty, made
+      to France, and become engrafted into the treaty with France, and can be
+      exercised by her as a matter of right, the same as by England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jay's treaty makes a concession to England, and that unconditionally, of
+      seizing naval stores in American ships, and condemning them as contraband.
+      It makes also a concession to England to seize provisions and <i>other
+      articles</i> in American ships. <i>Other articles are all other articles</i>,
+      and none but an ignoramus, or something worse, would have put such a
+      phrase into a treaty. The condition annexed in this case is, that the
+      provisions and other articles so seized, are to be paid for at a price to
+      be agreed upon. Mr. Washington, as President, ratified this treaty after
+      he knew the British Government had recommended an indiscriminate seizure
+      of provisions and all other articles in American ships; and it is now
+      known that those seizures were made to fit out the expedition going to
+      Quiberon Bay, and it was known before hand that they would be made. The
+      evidence goes also a good way to prove that Jay and Grenville understood
+      each other upon that subject. Mr. Pinckney,(1) when he passed through
+      France on his way to Spain, spoke of the recommencement of the seizures as
+      a thing that would take place.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Gen. Thomas Pinckney, U. S. Minister to England.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The French government had by some means received information from London
+      to the same purpose, with the addition, that the recommencement of the
+      seizures would cause no misunderstanding between the British and American
+      governments. Grenville, in defending himself against the opposition in
+      Parliament, on account of the scarcity of corn, said (see his speech at
+      the opening of the Parliament that met October 29, 1795) that <i>the
+      supplies for the Quiberon expedition were furnished out of the American
+      ships</i>, and all the accounts received at that time from England stated
+      that those seizures were made under the treaty. After the supplies for the
+      Quiberon expedition had been procured, and the expected success had
+      failed, the seizures were countermanded; and had the French seized
+      provision vessels going to England, it is probable that the Quiberon
+      expedition could not have been attempted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In one point of view, the treaty with England operates as a loan to the
+      English government. It gives permission to that government to take
+      American property at sea, to any amount, and pay for it when it suits her;
+      and besides this, the treaty is in every point of view a surrender of the
+      rights of American commerce and navigation, and a refusal to France of the
+      rights of neutrality. The American flag is not now a neutral flag to
+      France; Jay's treaty of surrender gives a monopoly of it to England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the contrary, the treaty of commerce between America and France was
+      formed on the most liberal principles, and calculated to give the greatest
+      encouragement to the infant commerce of America. France was neither a
+      carrier nor an exporter of naval stores or of provisions. Those articles
+      belonged wholly to America, and they had all the protection in that treaty
+      which a treaty could give. But so much has that treaty been perverted,
+      that the liberality of it on the part of France, has served to encourage
+      Jay to form a counter-treaty with England; for he must have supposed the
+      hands of France tied up by her treaty with America, when he was making
+      such large concessions in favour of England. The injury which Mr.
+      Washington's administration has done to the character as well as to the
+      commerce of America, is too great to be repaired by him. Foreign nations
+      will be shy of making treaties with a government that has given the
+      faithless example of perverting the liberality of a former treaty to the
+      injury of the party with whom it was made.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 For an analysis of the British Treaty see Wharton's
+     "Digest of the International Law of the United States," vol.
+     it, § 150 a. Paine's analysis is perfectly correct.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In what a fraudulent light must Mr. Washington's character appear in the
+      world, when his declarations and his conduct are compared together! Here
+      follows the letter he wrote to the Committee of Public Safety, while Jay
+      was negotiating in profound secrecy this treacherous treaty:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "George Washington, President of the United States of America, to the
+      Representatives of the French people, members of the Committee of Public
+      Safety of the French Republic, the great and good friend and ally of the
+      United States.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "On the intimation of the wish of the French republic that à new Minister
+      should be sent from the United States, I resolved to manifest my sense of
+      the readiness with which <i>my</i> request was fulfilled, [that of
+      recalling Genet,] by immediately fulfilling the request of your
+      government, [that of recalling Morris].
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "It was some time before a character could be obtained, worthy of the high
+      office of expressing the attachment of the United States to the happiness
+      of our allies, <i>and drawing closer the bonds of our friendship</i>. I
+      have now made choice of James Monroe, one of our distinguished citizens,
+      to reside near the French republic, in quality of Minister Plenipotentiary
+      of the United States of America. He is instructed to bear to you our <i>sincere
+      solicitude for your welfare, and to cultivate with teal the cordiality so
+      happily subsisting between us</i>. From a knowledge of his fidelity,
+      probity, and good conduct, I have entire confidence that he will render
+      himself acceptable to you, and give effect to your desire of preserving
+      and <i>advancing, on all occasions, the interest and connection of the two
+      nations</i>. I beseech you, therefore, to give full credence to whatever
+      he shall say to you on the part of the United States, and <i>most of all,
+      when he shall assure you that your prosperity is an object of our
+      affection</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And I pray God to have the French Republic in his holy keeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "G. Washington."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Was it by entering into a treaty with England to surrender French property
+      on board American ships to be seized by the English, while English
+      property on board American ships was declared by the French treaty not to
+      be seizable, <i>that the bonds of friendship between America and France
+      were to be drawn the closer?</i> Was it by declaring naval stores
+      contraband when coming to France, whilst by the French treaty they were
+      not contraband when going to England, that the <i>connection between
+      France and America was to be advanced?</i> Was it by opening the American
+      ports to the British navy in the present war, from which ports the same
+      navy had been expelled by the aid solicited from France in the American
+      war (and that aid gratuitously given) (2) that the gratitude of America
+      was to be shewn, and the <i>solicitude</i> spoken of in the letter
+      demonstrated?
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The italics are Paine's. Paine's free use of this document
+     suggests that he possessed the confidence of the French
+     Directory.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2  It is notable that Paine adheres to his old contention in
+     his controversy with Deane. See vol. i., ch. aa of this work;
+     and vol. i., ch. 9 of my "Life of Paine."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As the letter was addressed to the Committee of Public Safety, Mr.
+      Washington did not expect it would get abroad in the world, or be seen by
+      any other eye than that of Robespierre, or be heard by any other ear than
+      that of the Committee; that it would pass as a whisper across the
+      Atlantic, from one dark chamber to the other, and there terminate. It was
+      calculated to remove from the mind of the Committee all suspicion upon
+      Jay's mission to England, and, in this point of view, it was suited to the
+      circumstances of the movement then passing; but as the event of that
+      mission has proved the letter to be hypocritical, it serves no other
+      purpose of the present moment than to shew that the writer is not to be
+      credited. Two circumstances serve to make the reading of the letter
+      necessary in the Convention. The one was, that they who succeeded on the
+      fall of Robespierre, found it most proper to act with publicity; the
+      other, to extinguish the suspicions which the strange conduct of Morris
+      had occasioned in France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the British treaty, and the ratification of it by Mr. Washington, was
+      known in France, all further declarations from him of his good disposition
+      as an ally and friend, passed for so many cyphers; but still it appeared
+      necessary to him to keep up the farce of declarations. It is stipulated in
+      the British treaty, that commissioners are to report at the end of two
+      years, on the case of <i>neutral ships making neutral property</i>. In the
+      mean time, neutral ships do <i>not</i> make neutral property, according to
+      the British treaty, and they <i>do</i> according to the French treaty. The
+      preservation, therefore, of the French treaty became of great importance
+      to England, as by that means she can employ American ships as carriers,
+      whilst the same advantage is denied to France. Whether the French treaty
+      could exist as a matter of right after this clandestine perversion of it,
+      could not but give some apprehensions to the partizans of the British
+      treaty, and it became necessary to them to make up, by fine words, what
+      was wanting in good actions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An opportunity offered to that purpose. The Convention, on the public
+      reception of Mr. Monroe, ordered the American flag and the French flags to
+      be displayed unitedly in the hall of the Convention. Mr. Monroe made a
+      present of an American flag for the purpose. The Convention returned this
+      compliment by sending a French flag to America, to be presented by their
+      Minister, Mr. Adet, to the American government. This resolution passed
+      long before Jay's treaty was known or suspected: it passed in the days of
+      confidence; but the flag was not presented by Mr. Adet till several months
+      after the treaty had been ratified. Mr. Washington made this the occasion
+      of saying some fine things to the French Minister; and the better to get
+      himself into tune to do this, he began by saying the finest things of
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Born, sir (said he) in a land of liberty; <i>having</i> early learned its
+      value; <i>having</i> engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; <i>having</i>,
+      in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent
+      establishment in my own country; <i>my</i> anxious recollections, my
+      sympathetic feelings, and <i>my</i> best wishes are irresistibly excited,
+      whenever, in any country, I see an oppressed people unfurl the banner of
+      freedom."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Washington, having expended so many fine phrases upon himself, was
+      obliged to invent a new one for the French, and he calls them "wonderful
+      people!" The coalesced powers acknowledged as much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is laughable to hear Mr. Washington talk of his <i>sympathetic feelings</i>,
+      who has always been remarked, even among his friends, for not having any.
+      He has, however, given no proofs of any to me. As to the pompous encomiums
+      he so liberally pays to himself, on the score of the American revolution,
+      the reality of them may be questioned; and since he has forced them so
+      much into notice, it is fair to examine his pretensions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stranger might be led to suppose, from the egotism with which Mr.
+      Washington speaks, that himself, and himself only, had generated,
+      conducted, compleated, and established the revolution: In fine, that it
+      was all his own doing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, as to the political part, he had no share in it; and,
+      therefore, the whole of <i>that</i> is out of the question with respect to
+      him. There remains, then, only the military part; and it would have been
+      prudent in Mr. Washington not to have awakened enquiry upon that subject.
+      Fame then was cheap; he enjoyed it cheaply; and nobody was disposed to
+      take away the laurels that, whether they were <i>acquired</i> or not, had
+      been <i>given</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Washington's merit consisted in constancy. But constancy was the
+      common virtue of the revolution. Who was there that was inconstant? I know
+      but of one military defection, that of Arnold; and I know of no political
+      defection, among those who made themselves eminent when the revolution was
+      formed by the declaration of independence. Even Silas Deane, though he
+      attempted to defraud, did not betray.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This generous judgment by Deane's old adversary has become
+     questionable under recent investigations.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But when we speak of military character, something more is to be
+      understood than constancy; and something more <i>ought</i> to be
+      understood than the Fabian system of <i>doing nothing</i>. The <i>nothing</i>
+      part can be done by any body. Old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper of head
+      quarters, (who threatened to make the sun and the wind shine through
+      Rivington of New York,) 'could have done it as well as Mr. Washington.
+      Deborah would have been as good as Barak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Washington had the nominal rank of Commander in Chief, but he was not
+      so in fact. He had, in reality, only a separate command. He had no
+      controul over, or direction of, the army to the northward under Gates,
+      that captured Burgoyne; nor of that to the south under [Nathaniel] Greene,
+      that recovered the southern States.(2) The nominal rank, however, of
+      Commander in Chief, served to throw upon him the lustre of those actions,
+      and to make him appear as the soul and centre of all military operations
+      in America.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The Tory publisher of New York City, whose press was
+     destroyed in 1775 by a mob of Connecticut soldiers.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 See Mr. Winterbotham's valuable History of America, lately
+     published.&mdash;Author. [The "History of the Establishment of
+     Independence" is contained in the first of Mr.
+     Winterbotham's four volumes (London, 1795).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.]
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      He commenced his command June, 1775, during the time the Massachusetts
+      army lay before Boston, and after the affair of Bunker-hill. The
+      commencement of his command was the commencement of inactivity. Nothing
+      was afterwards done, or attempted to be done, during the nine months he
+      remained before Boston. If we may judge from the resistance made at
+      Concord, and afterwards at Bunker-hill, there was a spirit of enterprise
+      at that time, which the presence of Mr. Washington chilled into cold
+      defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts respect, which
+      his habitual silence tends to preserve; but he has not the talent of
+      inspiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Boston in March 1776,
+      to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more advantageous
+      position at New York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The inactivity of the campaign of 1775, on the part of General Washington,
+      when the enemy had a less force than in any other future period of the
+      war, and the injudicious choice of positions taken by him in the campaign
+      of 1776, when the enemy had its greatest force, necessarily produced the
+      losses and misfortunes that marked that gloomy campaign. The positions
+      taken were either islands or necks of land. In the former, the enemy, by
+      the aid of their ships, could bring their whole force against apart of
+      General Washington's, as in the affair of Long Island; and in the latter,
+      he might be shut up as in the bottom of a bag. This had nearly been the
+      case at New York, and it was so in part; it was actually the case at Fort
+      Washington; and it would have been the case at Fort Lee, if General Greene
+      had not moved precipitately off, leaving every thing behind, and by
+      gaining Hackinsack bridge, got out of the bag of Bergen Neck. How far Mr.
+      Washington, as General, is blameable for these matters, I am not
+      undertaking to determine; but they are evidently defects in military
+      geography. The successful skirmishes at the close of that campaign,
+      (matters that would scarcely be noticed in a better state of things,) make
+      the brilliant exploits of General Washington's seven campaigns. No wonder
+      we see so much pusillanimity in the President, when we see so little
+      enterprise in the General!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The campaign of 1777 became famous, not by anything on the part of General
+      Washington, but by the capture of General Burgoyne, and the army under his
+      command, by the Northern army at Saratoga, under General Gates. So totally
+      distinct and unconnected were the two armies of Washington and Gates, and
+      so independent was the latter of the authority of the nominal Commander in
+      Chief, that the two Generals did not so much as correspond, and it was
+      only by a letter of General (since Governor) Clinton, that General
+      Washington was informed of that event. The British took possession of
+      Philadelphia this year, which they evacuated the next, just time enough to
+      save their heavy baggage and fleet of transports from capture by the
+      French Admiral d'Estaing, who arrived at the mouth of the Delaware soon
+      after.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The capture of Burgoyne gave an eclat in Europe to the American arms, and
+      facilitated the alliance with France. The eclat, however, was not kept up
+      by any thing on the part of General Washington. The same unfortunate
+      languor that marked his entrance into the field, continued always.
+      Discontent began to prevail strongly against him, and a party was formed
+      in Congress, whilst sitting at York-town, in Pennsylvania, for removing
+      him from the command of the army. The hope, however, of better times, the
+      news of the alliance with France, and the unwillingness of shewing
+      discontent, dissipated the matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was done in the campaigns of 1778, 1779, 1780, in the part where
+      General Washington commanded, except the taking of Stony Point by General
+      Wayne. The Southern States in the mean time were over-run by the enemy.
+      They were afterwards recovered by General Greene, who had in a very great
+      measure created the army that accomplished that recovery. In all this
+      General Washington had no share. The Fabian system of war, followed by
+      him, began now to unfold itself with all its evils; but what is Fabian war
+      without Fabian means to support it? The finances of Congress depending
+      wholly on emissions of paper money, were exhausted. Its credit was gone.
+      The continental treasury was not able to pay the expense of a brigade of
+      waggons to transport the necessary stores to the army, and yet the sole
+      object, the establishment of the revolution, was a thing of remote
+      distance. The time I am now speaking of is in the latter end of the year
+      1780.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this situation of things it was found not only expedient, but
+      absolutely necessary, for Congress to state the whole case to its ally. I
+      knew more of this matter, (before it came into Congress or was known to
+      General Washington) of its progress, and its issue, than I chuse to state
+      in this letter. Colonel John Laurens was sent to France as an Envoy
+      Extraordinary on this occasion, and by a private agreement between him and
+      me I accompanied him. We sailed from Boston in the Alliance frigate,
+      February 11th, 1781. France had already done much in accepting and paying
+      bills drawn by Congress. She was now called upon to do more. The event of
+      Colonel Laurens's mission, with the aid of the venerable Minister,
+      Franklin, was, that France gave in money, as a present, six millions of
+      livres, and ten millions more as a loan, and agreed to send a fleet of not
+      less than thirty sail of the line, at her own expense, as an aid to
+      America. Colonel Laurens and myself returned from Brest the 1st of June
+      following, taking with us two millions and a half of livres (upwards of
+      one hundred thousand pounds sterling) of the money given, and convoying
+      two ships with stores.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We arrived at Boston the 25th of August following. De Grasse arrived with
+      the French fleet in the Chesapeak at the same time, and was afterwards
+      joined by that of Barras, making 31 sail of the line. The money was
+      transported in waggons from Boston to the Bank at Philadelphia, of which
+      Mr. Thomas Willing, who has since put himself at the head of the list of
+      petitioners in favour of the British treaty, was then President. And it
+      was by the aid of this money, and this fleet, and of Rochambeau's army,
+      that Cornwallis was taken; the laurels of which have been unjustly given
+      to Mr. Washington. His merit in that affair was no more than that of any
+      other American officer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have had, and still have, as much pride in the American revolution as
+      any man, or as Mr. Washington has a right to have; but that pride has
+      never made me forgetful whence the great aid came that compleated the
+      business. Foreign aid (that of France) was calculated upon at the
+      commencement of the revolution. It is one of the subjects treated of in
+      the pamphlet <i>Common Sense</i>, but as a matter that could not be hoped
+      for, unless independence was declared.1 The aid, however, was greater than
+      could have been expected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is as well the ingratitude as the pusillanimity of Mr. Washington, and
+      the Washington faction, that has brought upon America the loss of
+      character she now suffers in the world, and the numerous evils her
+      commerce has undergone, and to which it is yet exposed. The British
+      Ministry soon found out what sort of men they had to deal with, and they
+      dealt with them accordingly; and if further explanation was wanting, it
+      has been fully given since, in the snivelling address of the New York
+      Chamber of Commerce to the President, and in that of sundry merchants of
+      Philadelphia, which was not much better.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  See vol. i. of this work, p. ixx. Paine was sharply taken
+     to task on this point by "Cato."   Ib.% pp. 145-147.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When the revolution of America was finally established by the termination
+      of the war, the world gave her credit for great character; and she had
+      nothing to do but to stand firm upon that ground. The British ministry had
+      their hands too full of trouble to have provoked a rupture with her, had
+      she shown a proper resolution to defend her rights. But encouraged as they
+      were by the submissive character of the American administration, they
+      proceeded from insult to insult, till none more were left to be offered.
+      The proposals made by Sweden and Denmark to the American administration
+      were disregarded. I know not if so much as an answer has been returned to
+      them. The minister penitentiary, (as some of the British prints called
+      him,) Mr. Jay, was sent on a pilgrimage to London, to make up all by
+      penance and petition. In the mean time the lengthy and drowsy writer of
+      the pieces signed <i>Camillas</i> held himself in reserve to vindicate
+      every thing; and to sound in America the tocsin of terror upon the
+      inexhaustible resources of England. Her resources, says he, are greater
+      than those of all the other powers. This man is so intoxicated with fear
+      and finance, that he knows not the difference between <i>plus</i> and <i>minus</i>&mdash;between
+      a hundred pounds in hand, and a hundred pounds worse than nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The commerce of America, so far as it had been established by all the
+      treaties that had been formed prior to that by Jay, was free, and the
+      principles upon which it was established were good. That ground ought
+      never to have been departed from. It was the justifiable ground of right,
+      and no temporary difficulties ought to have induced an abandonment of it.
+      The case is now otherwise. The ground, the scene, the pretensions, the
+      everything, are changed. The commerce of America is, by Jay's treaty, put
+      under foreign dominion. The sea is not free for her. Her right to navigate
+      it is reduced to the right of escaping; that is, until some ship of
+      England or France stops her vessels, and carries them into port. Every
+      article of American produce, whether from the sea or the sand, fish,
+      flesh, vegetable, or manufacture, is, by Jay's treaty, made either
+      contraband or seizable. Nothing is exempt. In all other treaties of
+      commerce, the article which enumerates the contraband articles, such as
+      fire arms, gunpowder, &amp;c, is followed by another article which
+      enumerates the articles not contraband: but it is not so in Jay's treaty.
+      There is no exempting article. Its place is supplied by the article for
+      seizing and carrying into port; and the sweeping phrase of "provisions and
+      <i>other articles </i>" includes every thing. There never was such a base
+      and servile treaty of surrender since treaties began to exist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is the ground upon which America now stands. All her rights of
+      commerce and navigation are to begin anew, and that with loss of character
+      to begin with. If there is sense enough left in the heart to call a blush
+      into the cheek, the Washington administration must be ashamed to appear.&mdash;And
+      as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to
+      me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the
+      world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an
+      impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever
+      had any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXIII. OBSERVATIONS.(1)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 State Archives, Paris, États Unis, vol. 43, fol. 100.
+     Undated, but evidently written early in the year 1795, when
+     Jay's Treaty was as yet unknown. Paine was then staying in
+     the house of the American Minister, Monroe.&mdash;' Editor,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The United States of America are negociating with Spain respecting the
+      free Navigation of the Mississippi, and the territorial limits of this
+      large river, in conformity with the Treaty of Peace with England dated
+      30th November, 1782. As the brilliant successes of the French Republic
+      have forced England to grant us, what was in all justice our due, so the
+      continuation of the prosperity of the Republic, will force Spain to make a
+      Treaty with us on the points in controversy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since it is certain that all that we shall obtain from Spain will be due
+      to the victories of France, and as the inhabitants of the western part of
+      the United States (which part contains or covers more than half the United
+      States), have decided to claim their rights to the free navigation of the
+      Mississippi, would it not be a wiser policy for the Republican Government
+      (who have only to command to obtain) to arrogate all the merit, by making
+      our demands to Spain, one of the conditions, of France, to consent to
+      restore peace to the Castilians. They have only to declare, they will not
+      make Peace, or that they will support with all their might, the just
+      reclamations of their allies against these Powers,&mdash;against England
+      for the surrender of the frontier posts, and for the indemnities due
+      through their depredations on our Trade, and against Spain for our
+      territorial limits, and the free navigation of the Mississippi. This
+      declaration would certainly not prolong the War a single day more, nor
+      cost the Republic an obole, whilst it would assure all the merit of
+      success to France, and besides produce all the good effects mentioned
+      above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may perhaps be observed that the Negociation is already finished with
+      England, and perhaps in a manner which will not be approved of by France.
+      That may be, (though the terms of this arrangement may not be known); but
+      as to Spain, the negociation is still pending, and it is evident that if
+      France makes the above <i>Declaration</i> as to this Power (which
+      declaration would be a demonstrative proof of what she would have done in
+      the other case if circumstances had required it), she would receive the
+      same credit as if the Declaration had been made relatively to the two
+      Powers. In fact the Decree or resolution (and perhaps this last would be
+      preferable) can be worded in terms which would declare that in case the
+      arrangement with England were not satisfactory, France will nevertheless,
+      maintain the just demands of America against that Power. A like
+      Declaration, in case Mr. Jay should do anything reprehensible, and which
+      might even be approved of in America, would certainly raise the reputation
+      of the French Republic to the most eminent degree of splendour, and lower
+      in proportion that of her enemies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very certain that France cannot better favour the views of the
+      British party in America, and wound in a most sensible manner the
+      Republican Government of this country, than by adopting a strict and
+      oppressive policy with regard to us. Every one knows that the injustices
+      committed by the privateers and other ships belonging to the French
+      Republic against our navigation, were causes of exultation and joy to this
+      party, even when their own properties were subjected to these
+      depredations, whilst the friends of France and the Revolution were vexed
+      and most confused about it. It follows then, that a generous policy would
+      produce quite opposite effects&mdash;it would acquire for France the merit
+      that is her due; it would discourage the hopes of her adversaries, and
+      furnish the friends of humanity and liberty with the means of acting
+      against the intrigues of England, and cement the Union, and contribute
+      towards the true interests of the two republics.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So sublime and generous a manner of acting, which would not cost anything
+      to France, would cement in a stronger way the ties between the two
+      republics. The effect of such an event, would confound and annihilate in
+      an irrevocable manner all the partisans for the British in America. There
+      are nineteen twentieths of our nation attached through inclination and
+      gratitude to France, and the small number who seek uselessly all sorts of
+      pretexts to magnify the small occasions of complaint which might have
+      subsisted previously will find itself reduced to silence, or have to join
+      their expressions of gratitude to ours.&mdash;The results of this event
+      cannot be doubted, though not reckoned on: all the American hearts will be
+      French, and England will be afflicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An American.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXIV. DISSERTATION ON FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. (1)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Printed from the first edition, whose title is as above,
+     with the addition: "By Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense;
+     Rights of Man; Age of Reason. Paris, Printed at the
+     English Press, me de Vaugerard, No. 970. Third year of the
+     French Republic." The pamphlet seems to have appeared early
+     in July (perhaps the Fourth), 1795, and was meant to
+     influence the decision of the National Convention on the
+     Constitution then under discussion. This Constitution,
+     adopted September 23d, presently swept away by Napoleon,
+     contained some features which appeared to Paine reactionary.
+     Those to which he most objected are quoted by him in his
+     speech in the Convention, which is bound up in the same
+     pamphlet, and follows this "Dissertation" in the present
+     volume. In the Constitution as adopted Paine's preference
+     for a plural Executive was established, and though the
+     bicameral organization (the Council of Five Hundred and the
+     Council of Ancients) was not such as he desired, his chief
+     objection was based on his principle of manhood suffrage.
+     But in regard to this see Paine's "Dissertations on
+     Government," written nine years before (vol. ii., ch. vi. of
+     this work), and especially p. 138 seq. of that volume, where
+     he indicates the method of restraining the despotism of
+     numbers.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There is no subject more interesting to every man than the subject of
+      government. His security, be he rich or poor, and in a great measure his
+      prosperity, are connected therewith; it is therefore his interest as well
+      as his duty to make himself acquainted with its principles, and what the
+      practice ought to be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every art and science, however imperfectly known at first, has been
+      studied, improved, and brought to what we call perfection by the
+      progressive labours of succeeding generations; but the science of
+      government has stood still. No improvement has been made in the principle
+      and scarcely any in the practice till the American revolution began. In
+      all the countries of Europe (except in France) the same forms and systems
+      that were erected in the remote ages of ignorance still continue, and
+      their antiquity is put in the place of principle; it is forbidden to
+      investigate their origin, or by what right they exist. If it be asked how
+      has this happened, the answer is easy: they are established on a principle
+      that is false, and they employ their power to prevent detection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the mystery with which the science of government has been
+      enveloped, for the purpose of enslaving, plundering, and imposing upon
+      mankind, it is of all things the least mysterious and the most easy to be
+      understood. The meanest capacity cannot be at a loss, if it begins its
+      enquiries at the right point. Every art and science has some point, or
+      alphabet, at which the study of that art or science begins, and by the
+      assistance of which the progress is facilitated. The same method ought to
+      be observed with respect to the science of government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead then of embarrassing the subject in the outset with the numerous
+      subdivisions under which different forms of government have been classed,
+      such as aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, &amp;c. the better
+      method will be to begin with what may be called primary divisions, or
+      those under which all the several subdivisions will be comprehended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The primary divisions are but two:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, government by election and representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly, government by hereditary succession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the several forms and systems of government, however numerous or
+      diversified, class themselves under one or other of those primary
+      divisions; for either they are on the system of representation, or on that
+      of hereditary succession. As to that equivocal thing called mixed
+      government, such as the late government of Holland, and the present
+      government of England, it does not make an exception to the general rule,
+      because the parts separately considered are either representative or
+      hereditary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beginning then our enquiries at this point, we have first to examine into
+      the nature of those two primary divisions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If they are equally right in principle, it is mere matter of opinion which
+      we prefer. If the one be demonstratively better than the other, that
+      difference directs our choice; but if one of them should be so absolutely
+      false as not to have a right to existence, the matter settles itself at
+      once; because a negative proved on one thing, where two only are offered,
+      and one must be accepted, amounts to an affirmative on the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The revolutions that are now spreading themselves in the world have their
+      origin in this state of the case, and the present war is a conflict
+      between the representative system founded on the rights of the people, and
+      the hereditary system founded in usurpation. As to what are called
+      Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, they do not, either as things or as
+      terms, sufficiently describe the hereditary system; they are but secondary
+      things or signs of the hereditary system, and which fall of themselves if
+      that system has not a right to exist. Were there no such terms as
+      Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, or were other terms substituted in
+      their place, the hereditary system, if it continued, would not be altered
+      thereby. It would be the same system under any other titulary name as it
+      is now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The character therefore of the revolutions of the present day
+      distinguishes itself most definitively by grounding itself on the system
+      of representative government, in opposition to the hereditary. No other
+      distinction reaches the whole of the principle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus opened the case generally, I proceed, in the first place, to
+      examine the hereditary system, because it has the priority in point of
+      time. The representative system is the invention of the modern world; and,
+      that no doubt may arise as to my own opinion, I declare it before hand,
+      which is, <i>that there is not a problem in Euclid more mathematically
+      true, than that hereditary government has not a right to exist. When
+      therefore we take from any man the exercise of hereditary power, we take
+      away that which he never had the right to possess, and which no law or
+      custom could, or ever can, give him a title to</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arguments that have hitherto been employed against the hereditary
+      system have been chiefly founded upon the absurdity of it, and its
+      incompetency to the purpose of good government. Nothing can present to our
+      judgment, or to our imagination, a figure of greater absurdity, than that
+      of seeing the government of a nation fall, as it frequently does, into the
+      hands of a lad necessarily destitute of experience, and often little
+      better than a fool. It is an insult to every man of years, of character,
+      and of talents, in a country. The moment we begin to reason upon the
+      hereditary system, it falls into derision; let but a single idea begin,
+      and a thousand will soon follow. Insignificance, imbecility, childhood,
+      dotage, want of moral character; in fine, every defect serious or
+      laughable unite to hold up the hereditary system as a figure of ridicule.
+      Leaving, however, the ridiculousness of the thing to the reflections of
+      the reader, I proceed to the more important part of the question, namely,
+      whether such a system has a right to exist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To be satisfied of the right of a thing to exist, we must be satisfied
+      that it had a right to begin. If it had not a right to begin, it has not a
+      right to continue. By what right then did the hereditary system begin? Let
+      a man but ask himself this question, and he will find that he cannot
+      satisfy himself with an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The right which any man or any family had to set itself up at first to
+      govern a nation, and to establish itself hereditarily, was no other than
+      the right which Robespierre had to do the same thing in France. If he had
+      none, they had none. If they had any, he had as much; for it is impossible
+      to discover superiority of right in any family, by virtue of which
+      hereditary government could begin. The Capets, the Guelphs, the
+      Robespierres, the Marats, are all on the same standing as to the question
+      of right. It belongs exclusively to none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is one step towards liberty, to perceive that hereditary government
+      could not begin as an exclusive right in any family. The next point will
+      be, whether, having once begun, it could grow into a right by the
+      influence of time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This would be supposing an absurdity; for either it is putting time in the
+      place of principle, or making it superior to principle; whereas time has
+      no more connection with, or influence upon principle, than principle has
+      upon time. The wrong which began a thousand years ago, is as much a wrong
+      as if it began to-day; and the right which originates to-day, is as much a
+      right as if it had the sanction of a thousand years. Time with respect to
+      principles is an eternal now: it has no operation upon them: it changes
+      nothing of their nature and qualities. But what have we to do with a
+      thousand years? Our life-time is but a short portion of that period, and
+      if we find the wrong in existence as soon as we begin to live, that is the
+      point of time at which it begins to us; and our right to resist it is the
+      same as if it never existed before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As hereditary government could not begin as a natural right in any family,
+      nor derive after its commencement any right from time, we have only to
+      examine whether there exist in a nation a right to set it up, and
+      establish it by what is called law, as has been done in England. I answer
+      NO; and that any law or any constitution made for that purpose is an act
+      of treason against the right of every minor in the nation, at the time it
+      is made, and against the rights of all succeeding generations. I shall
+      speak upon each of those cases. First, of the minor at the time such law
+      is made. Secondly, of the generations that are to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A nation, in a collective sense, comprehends all the individuals of
+      whatever age, from just born to just dying. Of these, one part will be
+      minors, and the other aged. The average of life is not exactly the same in
+      every climate and country, but in general, the minority in years are the
+      majority in numbers; that is, the number of persons under twenty-one
+      years, is greater than the number of persons above that age. This
+      difference in number is not necessary to the establishment of the
+      principle I mean to lay down, but it serves to shew the justice of it more
+      strongly. The principle would be equally as good, if the majority in years
+      were also the majority in numbers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rights of minors are as sacred as the rights of the aged. The
+      difference is altogether in the different age of the two parties, and
+      nothing in the nature of the rights; the rights are the same rights; and
+      are to be preserved inviolate for the inheritance of the minors when they
+      shall come of age. During the minority of minors their rights are under
+      the sacred guardianship of the aged. The minor cannot surrender them; the
+      guardian cannot dispossess him; consequently, the aged part of a nation,
+      who are the law-makers for the time being, and who, in the march of life
+      are but a few years ahead of those who are yet minors, and to whom they
+      must shortly give place, have not and cannot have the right to make a law
+      to set up and establish hereditary government, or, to speak more
+      distinctly, <i>an hereditary succession of governors</i>; because it is an
+      attempt to deprive every minor in the nation, at the time such a law is
+      made, of his inheritance of rights when he shall come of age, and to
+      subjugate him to a system of government to which, during his minority, he
+      could neither consent nor object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If a person who is a minor at the time such a law is proposed, had
+      happened to have been born a few years sooner, so as to be of the age of
+      twenty-one years at the time of proposing it, his right to have objected
+      against it, to have exposed the injustice and tyrannical principles of it,
+      and to have voted against it, will be admitted on all sides. If,
+      therefore, the law operates to prevent his exercising the same rights
+      after he comes of age as he would have had a right to exercise had he been
+      of age at the time, it is undeniably a law to take away and annul the
+      rights of every person in the nation who shall be a minor at the time of
+      making such a law, and consequently the right to make it cannot exist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I come now to speak of government by hereditary succession, as it applies
+      to succeeding generations; and to shew that in this case, as in the case
+      of minors, there does not exist in a nation a right to set it up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A nation, though continually existing, is continually in a state of
+      renewal and succession. It is never stationary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every day produces new births, carries minors forward to maturity, and old
+      persons from the stage. In this ever running flood of generations there is
+      no part superior in authority to another. Could we conceive an idea of
+      superiority in any, at what point of time, or in what century of the
+      world, are we to fix it? To what cause are we to ascribe it? By what
+      evidence are we to prove it? By what criterion are we to know it? A single
+      reflection will teach us that our ancestors, like ourselves, were but
+      tenants for life in the great freehold of rights. The fee-absolute was not
+      in them, it is not in us, it belongs to the whole family of man, thro* all
+      ages. If we think otherwise than this, we think either as slaves or as
+      tyrants. As slaves, if we think that any former generation had a right to
+      bind us; as tyrants, if we think that we have authority to bind the
+      generations that are to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may not be inapplicable to the subject, to endeavour to define what is
+      to be understood by a generation, in the sense the word is here used.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a natural term its meaning is sufficiently clear. The father, the son,
+      the grandson, are so many distinct generations. But when we speak of a
+      generation as describing the persons in whom legal authority resides, as
+      distinct from another generation of the same description who are to
+      succeed them, it comprehends all those who are above the age of twenty-one
+      years, at the time that we count from; and a generation of this kind will
+      continue in authority between fourteen and twenty-one years, that is,
+      until the number of minors, who shall have arrived at age, shall be
+      greater than the number of persons remaining of the former stock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For example: if France, at this or any other moment, contains twenty-four
+      millions of souls, twelve millions will be males, and twelve females. Of
+      the twelve millions of males, six millions will be of the age of
+      twenty-one years, and six will be under, and the authority to govern will
+      reside in the first six. But every day will make some alteration, and in
+      twenty-one years every one of those minors who survives will have arrived
+      at age, and the greater part of the former stock will be gone: the
+      majority of persons then living, in whom the legal authority resides, will
+      be composed of those who, twenty-one years before, had no legal existence.
+      Those will be fathers and grandfathers in their turn, and, in the next
+      twenty-one years, (or less) another race of minors, arrived at age, will
+      succeed them, and so on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this is ever the case, and as every generation is equal in rights to
+      another, it consequently follows, that there cannot be a right in any to
+      establish government by hereditary succession, because it would be
+      supposing itself possessed of a right superior to the rest, namely, that
+      of commanding by its own authority how the world shall be hereafter
+      governed and who shall govern it. Every age and generation is, and must
+      be, (as a matter of right,) as free to act for itself in all cases, as the
+      age and generation that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of
+      governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all
+      tyrannies. Man has no property in man, neither has one generation a
+      property in the generations that are to follow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first part of the Rights of Man I have spoken of government by
+      hereditary succession; and I will here close the subject with an extract
+      from that work, which states it under the two following heads. (1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The quotation, here omitted, will be found in vol. ii. of
+     this work, beginning with p. 364, and continuing, with a few
+     omissions, to the 15th line of p. 366. This "Dissertation"
+     was originally written for circulation in Holland, where
+     Paine's "Rights of Man" was not well known.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      The history of the English parliament furnishes an example of this kind;
+      and which merits to be recorded, as being the greatest instance of
+      legislative ignorance and want of principle that is to be found in any
+      country. The case is as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The English parliament of 1688, imported a man and his wife from Holland,
+      <i>William and Mary</i>, and made them king and queen of England. (2)
+      Having done this, the said parliament made a law to convey the government
+      of the country to the heirs of William and Mary, in the following words:
+      "We, the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, do, in the name of the
+      people of England, most humbly and faithfully submit <i>ourselves, our
+      heirs, and posterities</i>, to William and Mary, <i>their heirs and
+      posterities</i>, for ever." And in a subsequent law, as quoted by Edmund
+      Burke, the said parliament, in the name of the people of England then
+      living, <i>binds the said people, their heirs and posterities, to William
+      and Mary, their heirs and posterities, to the end of time</i>.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2 "The Bill of Rights (temp. William III.) shows that the
+     Lords and Commons met not in Parliament but in convention,
+     that they declared against James II., and in favour of
+     William III.  The latter was accepted as sovereign, and, when
+     monarch. Acta of Parliament were passed confirming what had
+     been done."&mdash;Joseph Fisher in Notes and Queries (London),
+     May 2,1874. This does not affect Paine's argument, as a
+     Convention could have no more right to bind the future than
+     a Parliament.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is not sufficient that we laugh at the ignorance of such law-makers; it
+      is necessary that we reprobate their want of principle. The constituent
+      assembly of France, 1789, fell into the same vice as the parliament of
+      England had done, and assumed to establish an hereditary succession in the
+      family of the Capets, as an act of the constitution of that year. That
+      every nation, <i>for the time being</i>, has a right to govern itself as
+      it pleases, must always be admitted; but government by hereditary
+      succession is government for another race of people, and not for itself;
+      and as those on whom it is to operate are not yet in existence, or are
+      minors, so neither is the right in existence to set it up for them, and to
+      assume such a right is treason against the right of posterity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I here close the arguments on the first head, that of government by
+      hereditary succession; and proceed to the second, that of government by
+      election and representation; or, as it may be concisely expressed, <i>representative
+      government</i>, in contra-distinction to <i>hereditary government</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Reasoning by exclusion, if <i>hereditary government</i> has not a right to
+      exist, and that it has not is proveable, <i>representative government</i>
+      is admitted of course.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In contemplating government by election and representation, we amuse not
+      ourselves in enquiring when or how, or by what right, it began. Its origin
+      is ever in view. Man is himself the origin and the evidence of the right.
+      It appertains to him in right of his existence, and his person is the
+      title deed.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The true and only true basis of representative government is equality of
+      Rights. Every man has a right to one vote, and no more, in the choice of
+      representatives. The rich have no more right to exclude the poor from the
+      right of voting, or of electing and being elected, than the poor have to
+      exclude the rich; and wherever it is attempted, or proposed, on either
+      side, it is a question of force and not of right. Who is he that would
+      exclude another? That other has a right to exclude him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That which is now called aristocracy implies an inequality of rights; but
+      who are the persons that have a right to establish this inequality? Will
+      the rich exclude themselves? No. Will the poor exclude themselves? No. By
+      what right then can any be excluded? It would be a question, if any man or
+      class of men have a right to exclude themselves; but, be this as it may,
+      they cannot have the right to exclude another. The poor will not delegate
+      such a right to the rich, nor the rich to the poor, and to assume it is
+      not only to assume arbitrary power, but to assume a right to commit
+      robbery. Personal rights, of which the right of voting for representatives
+      is one, are a species of property of the most sacred kind: and he that
+      would employ his pecuniary property, or presume upon the influence it
+      gives him, to dispossess or rob another of his property of rights, uses
+      that pecuniary property as he would use fire-arms, and merits to have it
+      taken from him.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for
+     among old parchments or musty records. They are written as
+     with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the
+     hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured
+     by mortal power."&mdash;Alexander Hamilton, 1775. (Cf. Rights of
+     Man, Toi. ii., p. 304): "Portions of antiquity by proving
+     everything establish nothing. It is authority against
+     authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of
+     the rights of man at the creation."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Inequality of rights is created by a combination in one part of the
+      community to exclude another part from its rights. Whenever it be made an
+      article of a constitution, or a law, that the right of voting, or of
+      electing and being elected, shall appertain exclusively to persons
+      possessing a certain quantity of property, be it little or much, it is a
+      combination of the persons possessing that quantity to exclude those who
+      do not possess the same quantity. It is investing themselves with powers
+      as a self-created part of society, to the exclusion of the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of
+      rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves; and in
+      this view of the case, pardoning the vanity of the thing, aristocracy is a
+      subject of laughter. This self-soothing vanity is encouraged by another
+      idea not less selfish, which is, that the opposers conceive they are
+      playing a safe game, in which there is a chance to gain and none to lose;
+      that at any rate the doctrine of equality includes <i>them</i>, and that
+      if they cannot get more rights than those whom they oppose and would
+      exclude, they shall not have less. This opinion has already been fatal to
+      thousands, who, not contented with <i>equal rights</i>, have sought more
+      till they lost all, and experienced in themselves the degrading <i>inequality</i>
+      they endeavoured to fix upon others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In any view of the case it is dangerous and impolitic, sometimes
+      ridiculous, and always unjust, to make property the criterion of the right
+      of voting. If the sum or value of the property upon which the right is to
+      take place be considerable, it will exclude a majority of the people, and
+      unite them in a common interest against the government and against those
+      who support it; and as the power is always with the majority, they can
+      overturn such a government and its supporters whenever they please.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, in order to avoid this danger, a small quantity of property be fixed,
+      as the criterion of the right, it exhibits liberty in disgrace, by putting
+      it in competition with accident and insignificance. When a brood-mare
+      shall fortunately produce a foal or a mule that, by being worth the sum in
+      question, shall convey to its owner the right of voting, or by its death
+      take it from him, in whom does the origin of such a right exist? Is it in
+      the man, or in the mule? When we consider how many ways property may be
+      acquired without merit, and lost without a crime, we ought to spurn the
+      idea of making it a criterion of rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the offensive part of the case is, that this exclusion from the right
+      of voting implies a stigma on the moral char* acter of the persons
+      excluded; and this is what no part of the community has a right to
+      pronounce upon another part. No external circumstance can justify it:
+      wealth is no proof of moral character; nor poverty of the want of it. On
+      the contrary, wealth is often the presumptive evidence of dishonesty; and
+      poverty the negative evidence of innocence. If therefore property, whether
+      little or much, be made a criterion, the means by which that property has
+      been acquired ought to be made a criterion also.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only ground upon which exclusion from the right of voting is
+      consistent with justice, would be to inflict it as a punishment for a
+      certain time upon those who should propose to take away that right from
+      others. The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by
+      which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce a
+      man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of
+      another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is
+      in this case. The proposal therefore to disfranchise any class of men is
+      as criminal as the proposal to take away property. When we speak of right,
+      we ought always to unite with it the idea of duties: rights become duties
+      by reciprocity. The right which I enjoy becomes my duty to guarantee it to
+      another, and he to me; and those who violate the duty justly incur a
+      forfeiture of the right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a political view of the case, the strength and permanent security of
+      government is in proportion to the number of people interested in
+      supporting it. The true policy therefore is to interest the whole by an
+      equality of rights, for the danger arises from exclusions. It is possible
+      to exclude men from the right of voting, but it is impossible to exclude
+      them from the right of rebelling against that exclusion; and when all
+      other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While men could be persuaded they had no rights, or that rights
+      appertained only to a certain class of men, or that government was a thing
+      existing in right of itself, it was not difficult to govern them
+      authoritatively. The ignorance in which they were held, and the
+      superstition in which they were instructed, furnished the means of doing
+      it. But when the ignorance is gone, and the superstition with it; when
+      they perceive the imposition that has been acted upon them; when they
+      reflect that the cultivator and the manufacturer are the primary means of
+      all the wealth that exists in the world, beyond what nature spontaneously
+      produces; when they begin to feel their consequence by their usefulness,
+      and their right as members of society, it is then no longer possible to
+      govern them as before. The fraud once detected cannot be re-acted. To
+      attempt it is to provoke derision, or invite destruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That property will ever be unequal is certain. Industry, superiority of
+      talents, dexterity of management, extreme frugality, fortunate
+      opportunities, or the opposite, or the means of those things, will ever
+      produce that effect, without having recourse to the harsh, ill sounding
+      names of avarice and oppression; and besides this, there are some men who,
+      though they do not despise wealth, will not stoop to the drudgery or the
+      means of acquiring it, nor will be troubled with it beyond their wants or
+      their independence; whilst in others there is an avidity to obtain it by
+      every means not punishable; it makes the sole business of their lives, and
+      they follow it as a religion. All that is required with respect to
+      property is to obtain it honestly, and not employ it criminally; but it is
+      always criminally employed when it is made a criterion for exclusive
+      rights.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In institutions that are purely pecuniary, such as that of a bank or a
+      commercial company, the rights of the members composing that company are
+      wholly created by the property they invest therein; and no other rights
+      are represented in the government of that company, than what arise out of
+      that property; neither has that government cognizance of <i>any thing but
+      property</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the case is totally different with respect to the institution of civil
+      government, organized on the system of representation. Such a government
+      has cognizance of every thing, and of <i>every man</i> as a member of the
+      national society, whether he has property or not; and, therefore, the
+      principle requires that <i>every man</i>, and <i>every kind of right</i>,
+      be represented, of which the right to acquire and to hold property is but
+      one, and that not of the most essential kind. The protection of a man's
+      person is more sacred than the protection of property; and besides this,
+      the faculty of performing any kind of work or services by which he
+      acquires a livelihood, or maintaining his family, is of the nature of
+      property. It is property to him; he has acquired it; and it is as much the
+      object of his protection as exterior property, possessed without that
+      faculty, can be the object of protection in another person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have always believed that the best security for property, be it much or
+      little, is to remove from every part of the community, as far as can
+      possibly be done, every cause of complaint, and every motive to violence;
+      and this can only be done by an equality of rights. When rights are
+      secure, property is secure in consequence. But when property is made a
+      pretence for unequal or exclusive rights, it weakens the right to hold the
+      property, and provokes indignation and tumult; for it is unnatural to
+      believe that property can be secure under the guarantee of a society
+      injured in its rights by the influence of that property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next to the injustice and ill-policy of making property a pretence for
+      exclusive rights, is the unaccountable absurdity of giving to mere <i>sound</i>
+      the idea of property, and annexing to it certain rights; for what else is
+      a <i>title</i> but sound? Nature is often giving to the world some
+      extraordinary men who arrive at fame by merit and universal consent, such
+      as Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, &amp;c. They were truly great or noble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when government sets up a manufactory of nobles, it is as absurd as if
+      she undertook to manufacture wise men. Her nobles are all counterfeits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This wax-work order has assumed the name of aristocracy; and the disgrace
+      of it would be lessened if it could be considered only as childish
+      imbecility. We pardon foppery because of its insignificance» and on the
+      same ground we might pardon the foppery of Titles. But the origin of
+      aristocracy was worse than foppery. It was robbery. The first aristocrats
+      in all countries were brigands. Those of later times, sycophants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is very well known that in England, (and the same will be found in
+      other countries) the great landed estates now held in descent were
+      plundered from the quiet inhabitants at the conquest. The possibility did
+      not exist of acquiring such estates honestly. If it be asked how they
+      could have been acquired, no answer but that of robbery can be given. That
+      they were not acquired by trade, by commerce, by manufactures, by
+      agriculture, or by any reputable employment, is certain. How then were
+      they acquired? Blush, aristocracy, to hear your origin, for your
+      progenitors were Thieves. They were the Robespierres and the Jacobins of
+      that day. When they had committed the robbery, they endeavoured to lose
+      the disgrace of it by sinking their real names under fictitious ones,
+      which they called Titles. It is ever the practice of Felons to act in this
+      manner. They never pass by their real names.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This and the preceding paragraph have been omitted from
+     some editions.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of Rights,
+      so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He
+      who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavour to disarm him
+      of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the
+      legislator he believes himself secure. That part of the government of
+      England that is called the house of lords, was originally composed of
+      persons who had committed the robberies of which I have been speaking. It
+      was an association for the protection of the property they had stolen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But besides the criminality of the origin of aristocracy, it has an
+      injurious effect on the moral and physical character of man. Like slavery
+      it debilitates the human faculties; for as the mind bowed down by slavery
+      loses in silence its elastic powers, so, in the contrary extreme, when it
+      is buoyed up by folly, it becomes incapable of exerting them, and dwindles
+      into imbecility. It is impossible that a mind employed upon ribbands and
+      titles can ever be great. The childishness of the objects consumes the
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is at all times necessary, and more particularly so during the progress
+      of a revolution, and until right ideas confirm themselves by habit, that
+      we frequently refresh our patriotism by reference to first principles. It
+      is by tracing things to their origin that we learn to understand them: and
+      it is by keeping that line and that origin always in view that we never
+      forget them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An enquiry into the origin of Rights will demonstrate to us that <i>rights</i>
+      are not <i>gifts</i> from one man to another, nor from one class of men to
+      another; for who is he who could be the first giver, or by what principle,
+      or on what authority, could he possess the right of giving? A declaration
+      of rights is not a creation of them, nor a donation of them. It is a
+      manifest of the principle by which they exist, followed by a detail of
+      what the rights are; for every civil right has a natural right for its
+      foundation, and it includes the principle of a reciprocal guarantee of
+      those rights from man to man. As, therefore, it is impossible to discover
+      any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man, it consequently
+      follows, that rights appertain to man in right of his existence only, and
+      must therefore be equal to every man. The principle of an <i>equality of
+      rights</i> is clear and simple. Every man can understand it, and it is by
+      understanding his rights that he learns his duties; for where the rights
+      of men are equal, every man must finally see the necessity of protecting
+      the rights of others as the most effectual security for his own. But if,
+      in the formation of a constitution, we depart from the principle of equal
+      rights, or attempt any modification of it, we plunge into a labyrinth of
+      difficulties from which there is no way out but by retreating. Where are
+      we to stop? Or by what principle are we to find out the point to stop at,
+      that shall discriminate between men of the same country, part of whom
+      shall be free, and the rest not? If property is to be made the criterion,
+      it is a total departure from every moral principle of liberty, because it
+      is attaching rights to mere matter, and making man the agent of that
+      matter. It is, moreover, holding up property as an apple of discord, and
+      not only exciting but justifying war against it; for I maintain the
+      principle, that when property is used as an instrument to take away the
+      rights of those who may happen not to possess property, it is used to an
+      unlawful purpose, as fire-arms would be in a similar case.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a state of nature all men are equal in rights, but they are not equal
+      in power; the weak cannot protect themselves against the strong. This
+      being the case, the institution of civil society is for the purpose of
+      making an equalization of powers that shall be parallel to, and a
+      guarantee of, the equality of rights. The laws of a country, when properly
+      constructed, apply to this purpose. Every man takes the arm of the law for
+      his protection as more effectual than his own; and therefore every man has
+      an equal right in the formation of the government, and of the laws by
+      which he is to be governed and judged. In extensive countries and
+      societies, such as America and France, this right in the individual can
+      only be exercised by delegation, that is, by election and representation;
+      and hence it is that the institution of representative government arises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto, I have confined myself to matters of principle only. First, that
+      hereditary government has not a right to exist; that it cannot be
+      established on any principle of right; and that it is a violation of all
+      principle. Secondly, that government by election and representation has
+      its origin in the natural and eternal rights of man; for whether a man be
+      his own lawgiver, as he would be in a state of nature; or whether he
+      exercises his portion of legislative sovereignty in his own person, as
+      might be the case in small democracies where all could assemble for the
+      formation of the laws by which they were to be governed; or whether he
+      exercises it in the choice of persons to represent him in a national
+      assembly of representatives, the origin of the right is the same in all
+      cases. The first, as is before observed, is defective in power; the
+      second, is practicable only in democracies of small extent; the third, is
+      the greatest scale upon which human government can be instituted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next to matters of <i>principle</i> are matters of <i>opinion</i>, and it
+      is necessary to distinguish between the two. Whether the rights of men
+      shall be equal is not a matter of opinion but of right, and consequently
+      of principle; for men do not hold their rights as grants from each other,
+      but each one in right of himself. Society is the guardian but not the
+      giver. And as in extensive societies, such as America and France, the
+      right of the individual in matters of government cannot be exercised but
+      by election and representation, it consequently follows that the only
+      system of government consistent with principle, where simple democracy is
+      impracticable, is the representative system. But as to the organical part,
+      or the manner in which the several parts of government shall be arranged
+      and composed, it is altogether <i>matter of opinion</i>, It is necessary
+      that all the parts be conformable with the <i>principle of equal rights</i>;
+      and so long as this principle be religiously adhered to, no very material
+      error can take place, neither can any error continue long in that part
+      which falls within the province of opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In all matters of opinion, the social compact, or the principle by which
+      society is held together, requires that the majority of opinions becomes
+      the rule for the whole, and that the minority yields practical obedience
+      thereto. This is perfectly conformable to the principle of equal rights:
+      for, in the first place, every man has a <i>right to give an opinion</i>
+      but no man has a right that his opinion should <i>govern the rest</i>. In
+      the second place, it is not supposed to be known beforehand on which side
+      of any question, whether for or against, any man's opinion will fall. He
+      may happen to be in a majority upon some questions, and in a minority upon
+      others; and by the same rule that he expects obedience in the one case, he
+      must yield it in the other. All the disorders that have arisen in France,
+      during the progress of the revolution, have had their origin, not in the
+      <i>principle of equal rights</i>, but in the violation of that principle.
+      The principle of equal rights has been repeatedly violated, and that not
+      by the majority but by the minority, and <i>that minority has been
+      composed of men possessing property as well as of men without property;
+      property, therefore, even upon the experience already had, is no more a
+      criterion of character than it is of rights</i>. It will sometimes happen
+      that the minority are right, and the majority are wrong, but as soon as
+      experience proves this to be the case, the minority will increase to a
+      majority, and the error will reform itself by the tranquil operation of
+      freedom of opinion and equality of rights. Nothing, therefore, can justify
+      an insurrection, neither can it ever be necessary where rights are equal
+      and opinions free.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking then the principle of equal rights as the foundation of the
+      revolution, and consequently of the constitution, the organical part, or
+      the manner in which the several parts of the government shall be arranged
+      in the constitution, will, as is already said, fall within the province of
+      opinion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Various methods will present themselves upon a question of this kind, and
+      tho' experience is yet wanting to determine which is the best, it has, I
+      think, sufficiently decided which is the worst. That is the worst, which
+      in its deliberations and decisions is subject to the precipitancy and
+      passion of an individual; and when the whole legislature is crowded into
+      one body it is an individual in mass. In all cases of deliberation it is
+      necessary to have a corps of reserve, and it would be better to divide the
+      representation by lot into two parts, and let them revise and correct each
+      other, than that the whole should sit together, and debate at once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Representative government is not necessarily confined to any one
+      particular form. The principle is the same in all the forms under which it
+      can be arranged. The equal rights of the people is the root from which the
+      whole springs, and the branches may be arranged as present opinion or
+      future experience shall best direct. As to that <i>hospital of incurables</i>
+      (as Chesterfield calls it), the British house of peers, it is an
+      excrescence growing out of corruption; and there is no more affinity or
+      resemblance between any of the branches of a legislative body originating
+      from the right of the people, and the aforesaid house of peers, than
+      between a regular member of the human body and an ulcerated wen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to that part of government that is called the <i>executive</i>, it is
+      necessary in the first place to fix a precise meaning to the word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are but two divisions into which power can be arranged. First, that
+      of willing or decreeing the laws; secondly, that of executing or putting
+      them in practice. The former corresponds to the intellectual faculties of
+      the human mind, which reasons and determines what shall be done; the
+      second, to the mechanical powers of the human body, that puts that
+      determination into practice.(1) If the former decides, and the latter does
+      not perform, it is a state of imbecility; and if the latter acts without
+      the predetermination of the former, it is a state of lunacy. The executive
+      department therefore is official, and is subordinate to the legislative,
+      as the body is to the mind, in a state of health; for it is impossible to
+      conceive the idea of two sovereignties, a sovereignty to <i>will</i>, and
+      a sovereignty to <i>act</i>. The executive is not invested with the power
+      of deliberating whether it shall act or not; it has no discretionary
+      authority in the case; for it can <i>act no other thing</i> than what the
+      laws decree, and it is <i>obliged</i> to act conformably thereto; and in
+      this view of the case, the executive is made up of all the official
+      departments that execute the laws, of which that which is called the
+      judiciary is the chief.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine may have had in mind the five senses, with reference
+     to the proposed five members of the Directory.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But mankind have conceived an idea that <i>some kind of authority</i> is
+      necessary to <i>superintend</i> the execution of the laws and to see that
+      they are faithfully performed; and it is by confounding this
+      superintending authority with the official execution that we get
+      embarrassed about the term <i>executive power</i>. All the parts in the
+      governments of the United States of America that are called THE EXECUTIVE,
+      are no other than authorities to superintend the execution of the laws;
+      and they are so far independent of the legislative, that they know the
+      legislative only thro' the laws, and cannot be controuled or directed by
+      it through any other medium.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In what manner this superintending authority shall be appointed, or
+      composed, is a matter that falls within the province of opinion. Some may
+      prefer one method and some another; and in all cases, where opinion only
+      and not principle is concerned, the majority of opinions forms the rule
+      for all. There are however some things deducible from reason, and
+      evidenced by experience, that serve to guide our decision upon the case.
+      The one is, never to invest any individual with extraordinary power; for
+      besides his being tempted to misuse it, it will excite contention and
+      commotion in the nation for the office. Secondly, never to invest power
+      long in the hands of any number of individuals. The inconveniences that
+      may be supposed to accompany frequent changes are less to be feared than
+      the danger that arises from long continuance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall conclude this discourse with offering some observations on the
+      means of <i>preserving liberty</i>; for it is not only necessary that we
+      establish it, but that we preserve it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, in the first place, necessary that we distinguish between the means
+      made use of to overthrow despotism, in order to prepare the way for the
+      establishment of liberty, and the means to be used after the despotism is
+      overthrown.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The means made use of in the first case are justified by necessity. Those
+      means are, in general, insurrections; for whilst the established
+      government of despotism continues in any country it is scarcely possible
+      that any other means can be used. It is also certain that in the
+      commencement of a revolution, the revolutionary party permit to themselves
+      a <i>discretionary exercise of power</i> regulated more by circumstances
+      than by principle, which, were the practice to continue, liberty would
+      never be established, or if established would soon be overthrown. It is
+      never to be expected in a revolution that every man is to change his
+      opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth or any principle
+      so irresistibly obvious, that all men believed it at once. Time and reason
+      must co-operate with each other to the final establishment of any
+      principle; and therefore those who may happen to be first convinced have
+      not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction operates more slowly.
+      The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct, not to destroy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had a constitution been established two years ago, (as ought to have been
+      done,) the violences that have since desolated France and injured the
+      character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been prevented.(1)
+      The nation would then have had a bond of union, and every individual would
+      have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But, instead of this, a
+      revolutionary government, a thing without either principle or authority,
+      was substituted in its place; virtue and crime depended upon accident; and
+      that which was patriotism one day, became treason the next. All these
+      things have followed from the want of a constitution; for it is the nature
+      and intention of a constitution to <i>prevent governing by party</i>, by
+      establishing a common principle that shall limit and control the power and
+      impulse of party, and that says to all parties, <i>thus far shalt thou go
+      and no further</i>. But in the absence of a constitution, men look
+      entirely to party; and instead of principle governing party, party governs
+      principle.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The Constitution adopted August 10, 1793, was by the
+     determination of "The Mountain," suspended during the war
+     against France. The revolutionary government was thus made
+     chronic&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to
+      stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that
+      would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from
+      oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that
+      will reach to himself. Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, July, 1795.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1795.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      SPEECH IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL CONVENTION, JULY 7, 1795.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the motion of Lanthenas, "That permission be granted to Thomas Paine,
+      to deliver his sentiments on the declaration of rights and the
+      constitution," Thomas Paine ascended the Tribune; and no opposition being
+      made to the motion, one of the Secretaries, who stood by Mr. Paine, read
+      his speech, of which the following is a literal translation:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizens:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effects of a malignant fever, with which I was afflicted during a
+      rigorous confinement in the Luxembourg, have thus long prevented me from
+      attending at my post in the bosom of the Convention, and the magnitude of
+      the subject under discussion, and no other consideration on earth, could
+      induce me now to repair to my station.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A recurrence to the vicissitudes I have experienced, and the critical
+      situations in which I have been placed in consequence of the French
+      Revolution, will throw upon what I now propose to submit to the Convention
+      the most unequivocal proofs of my integrity, and the rectitude of those
+      principles which have uniformly influenced my conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In England I was proscribed for having vindicated the French Revolution,
+      and I have suffered a rigorous imprisonment in France for having pursued a
+      similar mode of conduct. During the reign of terrorism, I was a close
+      prisoner for eight long months, and remained so above three months after
+      the era of the 10th Thermidor.(1) I ought, however, to state, that I was
+      not persecuted by the <i>people</i> either of England or France. The
+      proceedings in both countries were the effects of the despotism existing
+      in their respective governments. But, even if my persecution had
+      originated in the people at large, my principles and conduct would still
+      have remained the same. Principles which are influenced and subject to the
+      controul of tyranny, have not their foundation in the heart.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 By the French republican calendar this was nearly the
+     time. Paine's imprisonment lasted from December 28, 1793, to
+     November 4, 1794. He was by a unanimous vote recalled to the
+     Convention, Dec 7, 1794, but his first appearance there was
+     on July 7, 1795.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A few days ago, I transmitted to you by the ordinary mode of distribution,
+      a short Treatise, entitled "Dissertation on the First Principles of
+      Government." This little work I did intend to have dedicated to the people
+      of Holland, who, about the time I began to write it, were determined to
+      accomplish a Revolution in their Government, rather than to the people of
+      France, who had long before effected that glorious object. But there are,
+      in the Constitution which is about to be ratified by the Convention
+      certain articles, and in the report which preceded it certain points, so
+      repugnant to reason, and incompatible with the true principles of liberty,
+      as to render this Treatise, drawn up for another purpose, applicable to
+      the present occasion, and under this impression I presumed to submit it to
+      your consideration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If there be faults in the Constitution, it were better to expunge them
+      now, than to abide the event of their mischievous tendency; for certain it
+      is, that the plan of the Constitution which has been presented to you is
+      not consistent with the grand object of the Revolution, nor congenial to
+      the sentiments of the individuals who accomplished it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To deprive half the people in a nation of their rights as citizens, is an
+      easy matter in theory or on paper: but it is a most dangerous experiment,
+      and rarely practicable in the execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall now proceed to the observations I have to offer on this important
+      subject; and I pledge myself that they shall be neither numerous nor
+      diffusive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In my apprehension, a constitution embraces two distinct parts or objects,
+      the <i>Principle</i> and the <i>Practice</i>; and it is not only an
+      essential but an indispensable provision that the practice should emanate
+      from, and accord with, the principle. Now I maintain, that the reverse of
+      this proposition is the case in the plan of the Constitution under
+      discussion. The first article, for instance, of the <i>political state</i>
+      of citizens, (v. Title ii. of the Constitution,) says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Every man born and resident in France, who, being twenty-one years of
+      age, has inscribed his name on the Civic Register of his Canton, and who
+      has lived afterwards one year on the territory of the Republic, and who
+      pays any direct contribution whatever, real or personal, is a French
+      citizen." (1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The article as ultimately adopted substituted "person" for
+     "man," and for "has inscribed his name" (a slight
+     educational test) inserted "whose name is inscribed."&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I might here ask, if those only who come under the above description are
+      to be considered as citizens, what designation do you mean to give the
+      rest of the people? I allude to that portion of the people on whom the
+      principal part of the labour falls, and on whom the weight of indirect
+      taxation will in the event chiefly press. In the structure of the social
+      fabric, this class of people are infinitely superior to that privileged
+      order whose only qualification is their wealth or territorial possessions.
+      For what is trade without merchants? What is land without cultivation? And
+      what is the produce of the land without manufactures? But to return to the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, this article is incompatible with the three first
+      articles of the Declaration of Rights, which precede the Constitutional
+      Act.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The end of society is the public good; and the institution of government
+      is to secure to every individual the enjoyment of his rights."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the article of the Constitution to which I have just adverted proposes
+      as the object of society, not the public good, or in other words, the good
+      of <i>all</i>, but a partial good; or the good only of a <i>few</i>; and
+      the Constitution provides solely for the rights of this few, to the
+      exclusion of the many.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Rights of Man in society are Liberty, Equality, Security of his
+      person and property."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the article alluded to in the Constitution has a direct tendency to
+      establish the reverse of this position, inasmuch as the persons excluded
+      by this <i>inequality</i> can neither be said to possess liberty, nor
+      security against oppression. They are consigned totally to the caprice and
+      tyranny of the rest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The third article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Liberty consists in such acts of volition as are not injurious to
+      others."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the article of the Constitution, on which I have observed, breaks down
+      this barrier. It enables the liberty of one part of society to destroy the
+      freedom of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus pointed out the inconsistency of this article to the
+      Declaration of Rights, I shall proceed to comment on that of the same
+      article which makes a direct contribution a necessary qualification to the
+      right of citizenship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A modern refinement on the object of public revenue has divided the taxes,
+      or contributions, into two classes, the <i>direct</i> and the<i> indirect</i>,
+      without being able to define precisely the distinction or difference
+      between them, because the effect of both is the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those are designated indirect taxes which fall upon the consumers of
+      certain articles, on which the tax is imposed, because, the tax being
+      included in the price, the consumer pays it without taking notice of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same observation is applicable to the territorial tax. The land
+      proprietors, in order to reimburse themselves, will rack-rent their
+      tenants: the farmer, of course, will transfer the obligation to the
+      miller, by enhancing the price of grain; the miller to the baker, by
+      increasing the price of flour; and the baker to the consumer, by raising
+      the price of bread. The territorial tax, therefore, though called <i>direct</i>,
+      is, in its consequences, <i>indirect</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this tax the land proprietor contributes only in proportion to the
+      quantity of bread and other provisions that are consumed in his own
+      family. The deficit is furnished by the great mass of the community, which
+      comprehends every individual of the nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the logical distinction between the direct and in-direct taxation,
+      some emolument may result, I allow, to auditors of public accounts, &amp;c.,
+      but to the people at large I deny that such a distinction (which by the by
+      is without a difference) can be productive of any practical benefit. It
+      ought not, therefore, to be admitted as a principle in the constitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides this objection, the provision in question does not affect to
+      define, secure, or establish the right of citizenship. It consigns to the
+      caprice or discretion of the legislature the power of pronouncing who
+      shall, or shall not, exercise the functions of a citizen; and this may be
+      done effectually, either by the imposition of a <i>direct or indirect</i>
+      tax, according to the selfish views of the legislators, or by the mode of
+      collecting the taxes so imposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither a tenant who occupies an extensive farm, nor a merchant or
+      manufacturer who may have embarked a large capital in their respective
+      pursuits, can ever, according to this system, attain the preemption of a
+      citizen. On the other hand, any upstart, who has, by succession or
+      management, got possession of a few acres of land or a miserable tenement,
+      may exultingly exercise the functions of a citizen, although perhaps
+      neither possesses a hundredth part of the worth or property of a simple
+      mechanic, nor contributes in any proportion to the exigencies of the
+      State.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The contempt in which the old government held mercantile pursuits, and the
+      obloquy that attached on merchants and manufacturers, contributed not a
+      little to its embarrassments, and its eventual subversion; and, strange to
+      tell, though the mischiefs arising from this mode of conduct are so
+      obvious, yet an article is proposed for your adoption which has a manifest
+      tendency to restore a defect inherent in the monarchy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall now proceed to the second article of the same Title, with which I
+      shall conclude my remarks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second article says, "Every French soldier, who shall have served one
+      or more campaigns in the cause of liberty, is deemed a citizen of the
+      republic, without any respect or reference to other qualifications."(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would seem, that in this Article the Committee were desirous of
+      extricating themselves from a dilemma into which they had been plunged by
+      the preceding article. When men depart from an established principle they
+      are compelled to resort to trick and subterfuge, always shifting their
+      means to preserve the unity of their objects; and as it rarely happens
+      that the first expedient makes amends for the prostitution of principle,
+      they must call in aid a second, of a more flagrant nature, to supply the
+      deficiency of the former. In this manner legislators go on accumulating
+      error upon error, and artifice upon artifice, until the mass becomes so
+      bulky and incongruous, and their embarrassment so desperate, that they are
+      compelled, as their last expedient, to resort to the very principle they
+      had violated. The Committee were precisely in this predicament when they
+      framed this article; and to me, I confess, their conduct appears specious
+      rather than efficacious.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This article eventually stood: "All Frenchmen who shall
+     have made one or more campaigns for the establishment of the
+     Republic, are citizens, without condition as to taxes."&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 The head of the Committee (eleven) was the Abbé Sieves,
+     whose political treachery was well known to Paine before it
+     became known to the world by his services to Napoleon in
+     overthrowing the Republic.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was not for himself alone, but for his family, that the French citizen,
+      at the dawn of the revolution, (for then indeed every man was considered a
+      citizen) marched soldier-like to the frontiers, and repelled a foreign
+      invasion. He had it not in his contemplation, that he should enjoy liberty
+      for the residue of his earthly career, and by his own act preclude his
+      offspring from that inestimable blessing. No! He wished to leave it as an
+      inheritance to his children, and that they might hand it down to their
+      latest posterity. If a Frenchman, who united in his person the character
+      of a Soldier and a Citizen, was now to return from the army to his
+      peaceful habitation, he must address his small family in this manner:
+      "Sorry I am, that I cannot leave to you a small portion of what I have
+      acquired by exposing my person to the ferocity of our enemies and
+      defeating their machinations. I have established the republic, and,
+      painful the reflection, all the laurels which I have won in the field are
+      blasted, and all the privileges to which my exertions have entitled me
+      extend not beyond the period of my own existence!" Thus the measure that
+      has been adopted by way of subterfuge falls short of what the framers of
+      it speculated upon; for in conciliating the affections of the <i>Soldier</i>,
+      they have subjected the <i>Father</i> to the most pungent sensations, by
+      obliging him to adopt a generation of Slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizens, a great deal has been urged respecting insurrections. I am
+      confident that no man has a greater abhorrence of them than myself, and I
+      am sorry that any insinuations should have been thrown out upon me as a
+      promoter of violence of any kind. The whole tenor of my life and
+      conversation gives the lie to those calumnies, and proves me to be a
+      friend to order, truth and justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope you will attribute this effusion of my sentiments to my anxiety for
+      the honor and success of the revolution. I have no interest distinct from
+      that which has a tendency to meliorate the situation of mankind. The
+      revolution, as far as it respects myself, has been productive of more loss
+      and persecution than it is possible for me to describe, or for you to
+      indemnify. But with respect to the subject under consideration, I could
+      not refrain from declaring my sentiments.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In my opinion, if you subvert the basis of the revolution, if you dispense
+      with principles, and substitute expedients, you will extinguish that
+      enthusiasm and energy which have hitherto been the life and soul of the
+      revolution; and you will substitute in its place nothing but a cold
+      indifference and self-interest, which will again degenerate into intrigue,
+      cunning, and effeminacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to discard all considerations of a personal and subordinate nature, it
+      is essential to the well-being of the republic that the practical or
+      organic part of the constitution should correspond with its principles;
+      and as this does not appear to be the case in the plan that has been
+      presented to you, it is absolutely necessary that it should be submitted
+      to the revision of a committee, who should be instructed to compare it
+      with the Declaration of Rights, in order to ascertain the difference
+      between the two, and to make such alterations as shall render them
+      perfectly consistent and compatible with each other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXVI. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM OF FINANCE.(1)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     "On the verge, nay even in the gulph of bankruptcy."
+
+     1 This pamphlet, as Paine predicts at its close (no doubt on
+     good grounds), was translated into all languages of Europe,
+     and probably hastened the gold suspension of the Bank of
+     England (1797), which it predicted. The British Government
+     entrusted its reply to Ralph Broome and George Chalmers, who
+     wrote pamphlets. There is in the French Archives an order
+     for 1000 copies, April 27, 1796, nineteen days after Paine's
+     pamphlet appeared. "Mr. Cobbett has made this little
+     pamphlet a text-book for most of his elaborate treatises on
+     our finances.... On the authority of a late Register of Mr.
+     Cobbett's I learn that the profits arising from the sale of
+     this pamphlet were devoted [by Paine] to the relief of the
+     prisoners confined in Newgate for debt."&mdash;"Life of Paine,"
+     by Richard Carlile, 1819.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Debates in Parliament.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing, they say, is more certain than death, and nothing more uncertain
+      than the time of dying; yet we can always fix a period beyond which man
+      cannot live, and within some moment of which he will die. We are enabled
+      to do this, not by any spirit of prophecy, or foresight into the event,
+      but by observation of what has happened in all cases of human or animal
+      existence. If then any other subject, such, for instance, as a system of
+      finance, exhibits in its progress a series of symptoms indicating decay,
+      its final dissolution is certain, and the period of it can be calculated
+      from the symptoms it exhibits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who have hitherto written on the English system of finance, (the
+      funding system,) have been uniformly impressed with the idea that its
+      downfall would happen <i>some time or other</i>. They took, however, no
+      data for their opinion, but expressed it predictively,&mdash;or merely as
+      opinion, from a conviction that the perpetual duration of such a system
+      was a natural impossibility. It is in this manner that Dr. Price has
+      spoken of it; and Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, has spoken in the same
+      manner; that is, merely as opinion without data. "The progress," says
+      Smith, "of the enormous debts, which at present oppress, and will in the
+      long run <i>most probably ruin</i>, all the great nations of Europe [he
+      should have said <i>governments</i>] has been pretty uniform." But this
+      general manner of speaking, though it might make some impression, carried
+      with it no conviction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not my intention to predict any thing; but I will show from data
+      already known, from symptoms and facts which the English funding system
+      has already exhibited publicly, that it will not continue to the end of
+      Mr. Pitt's life, supposing him to live the usual age of a man. How much
+      sooner it may fall, I leave to others to predict.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let financiers diversify systems of credit as they will, it <i>is</i>
+      nevertheless true, that every system of credit is a system of paper money.
+      Two experiments have already been had upon paper money; the one in
+      America, the other in France. In both those cases the whole capital was
+      emitted, and that whole capital, which in America was called continental
+      money, and in France assignats, appeared in circulation; the consequence
+      of which was, that the quantity became so enormous, and so disproportioned
+      to the quantity of population, and to the quantity' of objects upon which
+      it could be employed, that the market, if I may so express it, was glutted
+      with it, and the value of it fell. Between five and six years determined
+      the fate of those experiments. The same fate would have happened to gold
+      and silver, could gold and silver have been issued in the same abundant
+      manner that paper had been, and confined within the country as paper money
+      always is, by having no circulation out of it; or, to speak on a larger
+      scale, the same thing would happen in the world, could the world be
+      glutted with gold and silver, as America and France have been with paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The English system differs from that of America and France in this one
+      particular, that its capital is kept out of sight; that is, it does not
+      appear in circulation. Were the whole capital of the national debt, which
+      at the time I write this is almost one hundred million pounds sterling, to
+      be emitted in assignats or bills, and that whole quantity put into
+      circulation, as was done in America and in France, those English
+      assignats, or bills, would soon sink in value as those of America and
+      France have done; and that in a greater degree, because the quantity of
+      them would be more disproportioned to the quantity of population in
+      England, than was the case in either of the other two countries. A nominal
+      pound sterling in such bills would not be worth one penny.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though the English system, by thus keeping the capital out of sight,
+      is preserved from hasty destruction, as in the case of America and France,
+      it nevertheless approaches the same fate, and will arrive at it with the
+      same certainty, though by a slower progress. The difference is altogether
+      in the degree of speed by which the two systems approach their fate,
+      which, to speak in round numbers, is as twenty is to one; that is, the
+      English system, that of funding the capital instead of issuing it,
+      contained within itself a capacity of enduring twenty times longer than
+      the systems adopted by America and France; and at the end of that time it
+      would arrive at the same common grave, the Potter's Field of paper money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The datum, I take for this proportion of twenty to one, is the difference
+      between a capital and the interest at five per cent. Twenty times the
+      interest is equal to the capital. The accumulation of paper money in
+      England is in proportion to the accumulation of the interest upon every
+      new loan; and therefore the progress to the dissolution is twenty times
+      slower than if the capital were to be emitted and put into circulation
+      immediately. Every twenty years in the English system is equal to one year
+      in the French and American systems.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus stated the duration of the two systems, that of funding upon
+      interest, and that of emitting the whole capital without funding, to be as
+      twenty to one, I come to examine the symptoms of decay, approaching to
+      dissolution, that the English system has already exhibited, and to compare
+      them with similar systems in the French and American systems.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The English funding system began one hundred years ago; in which time
+      there have been six wars, including the war that ended in 1697.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      1. The war that ended, as I have just said, in 1697.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2. The war that began in 1702.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      3. The war that began in 1739.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4. The war that began in 1756.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      5. The American war, that began in 1775.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6. The present war, that began in 1793.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The national debt, at the conclusion of the war which ended in 1697, was
+      twenty-one millions and an half. (See Smith's Wealth of Nations, chapter
+      on Public Debts.) We now see it approaching fast to four hundred millions.
+      If between these two extremes of twenty-one millions and four hundred
+      millions, embracing the several expenses of all the including wars, there
+      exist some common ratio that will ascertain arithmetically the amount of
+      the debts at the end of each war, as certainly as the fact is known to be,
+      that ratio will in like manner determine what the amount of the debt will
+      be in all future wars, and will ascertain the period within which the
+      funding system will expire in a bankruptcy of the government; for the
+      ratio I allude to, is the ratio which the nature of the thing has
+      established for itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hitherto no idea has been entertained that any such ratio existed, or
+      could exist, that would determine a problem of this kind; that is, that
+      would ascertain, without having any knowledge of the fact, what the
+      expense of any former war had been, or what the expense of any future war
+      would be; but it is nevertheless true that such a ratio does exist, as I
+      shall show, and also the mode of applying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ratio I allude to is not in arithmetical progression like the numbers
+      2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; nor yet in geometrical progression, like the
+      numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; but it is in the series of one half
+      upon each preceding number; like the numbers 8, 12, 18, 27, 40, 60, 90,
+      135.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Any person can perceive that the second number, 12, is produced by the
+      preceding number, 8, and half 8; and that the third number, 18, is in like
+      manner produced by the preceding number, 12, and half 12; and so on for
+      the rest. They can also see how rapidly the sums increase as the ratio
+      proceeds. The difference between the two first numbers is but four; but
+      the difference between the two last is forty-five; and from thence they
+      may see with what immense rapidity the national debt has increased, and
+      will continue to increase, till it exceeds the ordinary powers of
+      calculation, and loses itself in ciphers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I come now to apply the ratio as a rule to determine in all cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began with the war that ended in 1697, which was the war in which the
+      funding system began. The expense of that war was twenty-one millions and
+      an half. In order to ascertain the expense of the next war, I add to
+      twenty-one millions and an half, the half thereof (ten millions and three
+      quarters) which makes thirty-two millions and a quarter for the expense of
+      that war. This thirty-two millions and a quarter, added to the former debt
+      of twenty-one millions and an half, carries the national debt to
+      fifty-three millions and three quarters. Smith, in his chapter on Public
+      Debts, says, that the national debt was at this time fifty-three millions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I proceed to ascertain the expense of the next war, that of 1739, by
+      adding, as in the former case, one half to the expense of the preceding
+      war. The expense of the preceding war was thirty-two millions and a
+      quarter; for the sake of even numbers, say, thirty-two millions; the half
+      of which (16) makes forty-eight millions for the expense of that war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I proceed to ascertain the expense of the war of 1756, by adding,
+      according to the ratio, one half to the expense of the preceding war. The
+      expense of the preceding was taken at 48 millions, the half of which (24)
+      makes 72 millions for the expense of that war. Smith, (chapter on Public
+      Debts,) says, the expense of the war of 1756, was 72 millions and a
+      quarter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I proceed to ascertain the expense of the American war, of 1775, by
+      adding, as in the former cases, one half to the expense of the preceding
+      war. The expense of the preceding war was 72 millions, the half of which
+      (36) makes 108 millions for the expense of that war. In the last edition
+      of Smith, (chapter on Public Debts,) he says, the expense of the American
+      war was <i>more than an hundred millions</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I come now to ascertain the expense of the present war, supposing it to
+      continue as long as former wars have done, and the funding system not to
+      break up before that period. The expense of the preceding war was 108
+      millions, the half of which (54) makes 162 millions for the expense of the
+      present war. It gives symptoms of going beyond this sum, supposing the
+      funding system not to break up; for the loans of the last year and of the
+      present year are twenty-two millions each, which exceeds the ratio
+      compared with the loans of the preceding war. It will not be from the
+      inability of procuring loans that the system will break up. On the
+      contrary, it is the facility with which loans can be procured that hastens
+      that event. The loans are altogether paper transactions; and it is the
+      excess of them that brings on, with accelerating speed, that progressive
+      depreciation of funded paper money that will dissolve the funding system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I proceed to ascertain the expense of future wars, and I do this merely to
+      show the impossibility of the continuance of the funding system, and the
+      certainty of its dissolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The expense of the next war after the present war, according to the ratio
+      that has ascertained the preceding cases, will be 243 millions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Expense of the second war 364
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; third war 546
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; fourth war 819
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; fifth war 1228
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+                                                        3200 millions;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      which, at only four per cent. will require taxes to the nominal amount of
+      one hundred and twenty-eight millions to pay the annual interest, besides
+      the interest of the present debt, and the expenses of government, which
+      are not included in this account. Is there a man so mad, so stupid, as to
+      sup-pose this system can continue?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I first conceived the idea of seeking for some common ratio that
+      should apply as a rule of measurement to all the cases of the funding
+      system, so far as to ascertain the several stages of its approach to
+      dissolution, I had no expectation that any ratio could be found that would
+      apply with so much exactness as this does. I was led to the idea merely by
+      observing that the funding system was a thing in continual progression,
+      and that whatever was in a state of progression might be supposed to admit
+      of, at least, some general ratio of measurement, that would apply without
+      any very great variation. But who could have supposed that falling
+      systems, or falling opinions, admitted of a ratio apparently as true as
+      the descent of falling bodies? I have not made the ratio any more than
+      Newton made the ratio of gravitation. I have only discovered it, and
+      explained the mode of applying it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To shew at one view the rapid progression of the funding system to
+      destruction, and to expose the folly of those who blindly believe in its
+      continuance, and who artfully endeavour to impose that belief upon others,
+      I exhibit in the annexed table, the expense of each of the six wars since
+      the funding system began, as ascertained by ratio, and the expense of the
+      six wars yet to come, ascertained by the same ratio.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img src="images/table318.jpg" alt="Table318 " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * The actual expense of the war of 1739 did not come up to
+     the sum ascertained by the ratio.   But as that which is the
+     natural disposition of a thing, as it is the natural
+     disposition of a stream of water to descend, will, if
+     impeded in its course, overcome by a new effort what it had
+     lost by that impediment, so it was with respect to this war
+     and the next (1756) taken collectively; for the expense of
+     the war of 1756 restored the equilibrium of the ratio, as
+     fully as if it had not been impeded. A circumstance that
+     serves to prove the truth of the ratio more folly than if
+     the interruption had not taken place. The war of 1739 ***
+     languid; the efforts were below the value of money et that
+     time; for the ratio is the measure of the depreciation of
+     money in consequence of the funding system; or what comes
+     to the same end, it is the measure of the increase of paper.
+     Every additional quantity of it, whether in bank notes or
+     otherwise, diminishes the real, though not the nominal value
+     of the former quantity.&mdash;<i>Author</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Those who are acquainted with the power with which even a small ratio,
+      acting in progression, multiplies in a long series, will see nothing to
+      wonder at in this table. Those who are not acquainted with that subject,
+      and not knowing what else to say, may be inclined to deny it. But it is
+      not their opinion one way, nor mine the other, that can influence the
+      event. The table exhibits the natural march of the funding system to its
+      irredeemable dissolution. Supposing the present government of England to
+      continue, and to go on as it has gone on since the funding system began, I
+      would not give twenty shillings for one hundred pounds in the funds to be
+      paid twenty years hence. I do not speak this predictively; I produce the
+      data upon which that belief is founded; and which data it is every body's
+      interest to know, who have any thing to do with the funds, or who are
+      going to bequeath property to their descendants to be paid at a future
+      day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps it may be asked, that as governments or ministers proceeded by no
+      ratio in making loans or incurring debts, and nobody intended any ratio,
+      or thought of any, how does it happen that there is one? I answer, that
+      the ratio is founded in necessity; and I now go to explain what that
+      necessity is.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will always happen, that the price of labour, or of the produce of
+      labour, be that produce what it may, will be in proportion to the quantity
+      of money in a country, admitting things to take their natural course.
+      Before the invention of the funding system, there was no other money than
+      gold and silver; and as nature gives out those metals with a sparing hand,
+      and in regular annual quantities from the mines, the several prices of
+      things were proportioned to the quantity of money at that time, and so
+      nearly stationary as to vary but little in any fifty or sixty years of
+      that period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the funding system began, a substitute for gold and silver began
+      also. That substitute was paper; and the quantity increased as the
+      quantity of interest increased upon accumulated loans. This appearance of
+      a new and additional species of money in the nation soon began to break
+      the relative value which money and the things it will purchase bore to
+      each other before. Every thing rose in price; but the rise at first was
+      little and slow, like the difference in units between two first numbers, 8
+      and 12, compared with the two last numbers 90 and 135, in the table. It
+      was however sufficient to make itself considerably felt in a large
+      transaction. When therefore government, by engaging in a new war, required
+      a new loan, it was obliged to make a higher loan than the former loan, to
+      balance the increased price to which things had risen; and as that new
+      loan increased the quantity of paper in proportion to the new quantity of
+      interest, it carried the price of things still higher than before. The
+      next loan was again higher, to balance that further increased price; and
+      all this in the same manner, though not in the same degree, that every new
+      emission of continental money in America, or of assignats in France, was
+      greater than the preceding emission, to make head against the advance of
+      prices, till the combat could be maintained no longer. Herein is founded
+      the necessity of which I have just spoken. That necessity proceeds with
+      accelerating velocity, and the ratio I have laid down is the measure of
+      that acceleration; or, to speak the technical language of the subject, it
+      is the measure of the increasing depreciation of funded paper money, which
+      it is impossible to prevent while the quantity of that money and of bank
+      notes continues to multiply. What else but this can account for the
+      difference between one war costing 21 millions, and another war costing
+      160 millions?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difference cannot be accounted for on the score of extraordinary
+      efforts or extraordinary achievements. The war that cost twenty-one
+      millions was the war of the con-federates, historically called the grand
+      alliance, consisting of England, Austria, and Holland in the time of
+      William III. against Louis XIV. and in which the confederates were
+      victorious. The present is a war of a much greater confederacy&mdash;a
+      confederacy of England, Austria, Prussia, the German Empire, Spain,
+      Holland, Naples, and Sardinia, eight powers, against the French Republic
+      singly, and the Republic has beaten the whole confederacy.&mdash;But to
+      return to my subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is said in England, that the value of paper keeps equal with the value
+      of gold and silver. But the case is not rightly stated; for the fact is,
+      that the paper has <i>pulled down</i> the value of gold and silver to a
+      level with itself. Gold and silver will not purchase so much of any
+      purchasable article at this day as if no paper had appeared, nor so much
+      as it will in any country in Europe where there is no paper. How long this
+      hanging together of money and paper will continue, makes a new case;
+      because it daily exposes the system to sudden death, independent of the
+      natural death it would otherwise suffer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I consider the funding system as being now advanced into the last twenty
+      years of its existence. The single circumstance, were there no other, that
+      a war should now cost nominally one hundred and sixty millions, which when
+      the system began cost but twenty-one millions, or that the loan for one
+      year only (including the loan to the Emperor) should now be nominally
+      greater than the whole expense of that war, shows the state of
+      depreciation to which the funding system has arrived. Its depreciation is
+      in the proportion of eight for one, compared with the value of its money
+      when the system began; which is the state the French assignats stood a
+      year ago (March 1795) compared with gold and silver. It is therefore that
+      I say, that the English funding system has entered on the last twenty
+      years of its existence, comparing each twenty years of the English system
+      with every single year of the American and French systems, as before
+      stated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, supposing the present war to close as former wars have done, and
+      without producing either revolution or reform in England, another war at
+      least must be looked for in the space of the twenty years I allude to; for
+      it has never yet happened that twenty years have passed off without a war,
+      and that more especially since the English government has dabbled in
+      German politics, and shown a disposition to insult the world, and the
+      world of commerce, with her navy. The next war will carry the national
+      debt to very nearly seven hundred millions, the interest of which, at four
+      per cent, will be twenty-eight millions besides the taxes for the (then)
+      expenses of government, which will increase in the same proportion, and
+      which will carry the taxes to at least forty millions; and if another war
+      only begins, it will quickly carry them to above fifty; for it is in the
+      last twenty years of the funding system, as in the last year of the
+      American and French systems without funding, that all the great shocks
+      begin to operate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have just mentioned that, paper in England has <i>pulled down</i> the
+      value of gold and silver to a level with itself; and that <i>this pulling
+      dawn</i> of gold and silver money has created the appearance of paper
+      money keeping up. The same thing, and the same mistake, took place in
+      America and in France, and continued for a considerable time after the
+      commencement of their system of paper; and the actual depreciation of
+      money was hidden under that mistake.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was said in America, at that time, that everything was becoming <i>dear</i>;
+      but gold and silver could then buy those dear articles no cheaper than
+      paper could; and therefore it was not called depreciation. The idea of <i>dearness</i>
+      established itself for the idea of depreciation. The same was the case in
+      France. Though every thing rose in price soon after assignats appeared,
+      yet those dear articles could be purchased no cheaper with gold and
+      silver, than with paper, and it was only said that things were <i>dear</i>.
+      The same is still the language in England. They call it <i>deariness</i>.
+      But they will soon find that it is an actual depreciation, and that this
+      depreciation is the effect of the funding system; which, by crowding such
+      a continually increasing mass of paper into circulation, carries down the
+      value of gold and silver with it. But gold and silver, will, in the long
+      run, revolt against depreciation, and separate from the value of paper;
+      for the progress of all such systems appears to be, that the paper will
+      take the command in the beginning, and gold and silver in the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this succession in the command of gold and silver over paper, makes a
+      crisis far more eventful to the funding system than to any other system
+      upon which paper can be issued; for, strictly speaking, it is not a crisis
+      of danger but a symptom of death. It is a death-stroke to the funding
+      system. It is a revolution in the whole of its affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If paper be issued without being funded upon interest, emissions of it can
+      be continued after the value of it separates from gold and silver, as we
+      have seen in the two cases of America and France. But the funding system
+      rests altogether upon the value of paper being equal to gold and silver;
+      which will be as long as the paper can continue carrying down the value of
+      gold and silver to the same level to which itself descends, and no longer.
+      But even in this state, that of descending equally together, the minister,
+      whoever he may be, will find himself beset with accumulating difficulties;
+      because the loans and taxes voted for the service of each ensuing year
+      will wither in his hands before the year expires, or before they can be
+      applied. This will force him to have recourse to emissions of what are
+      called exchequer and navy bills, which, by still increasing the mass of
+      paper in circulation, will drive on the depreciation still more rapidly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It ought to be known that taxes in England are not paid in gold and
+      silver, but in paper (bank notes). Every person who pays any considerable
+      quantity of taxes, such as maltsters, brewers, distillers, (I appeal for
+      the truth of it, to any of the collectors of excise in England, or to Mr.
+      White-bread,)(1) knows this to be the case. There is not gold and silver
+      enough in the nation to pay the taxes in coin, as I shall show; and
+      consequently there is not money enough in the bank to pay the notes. The
+      interest of the national funded debt is paid at the bank in the same kind
+      of paper in which the taxes are collected. When people find, as they will
+      find, a reservedness among each other in giving gold and silver for bank
+      notes, or the least preference for the former over the latter, they will
+      go for payment to the bank, where they have a right to go. They will do
+      this as a measure of prudence, each one for himself, and the truth or
+      delusion of the funding system will then be proved.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 An eminent Member of Parliament.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have said in the foregoing paragraph that there is not gold and silver
+      enough in the nation to pay the taxes in coin, and consequently that there
+      cannot be enough in the bank to pay the notes. As I do not choose to rest
+      anything upon assertion, I appeal for the truth of this to the
+      publications of Mr. Eden (now called Lord Auckland) and George Chalmers,
+      Secretary to the Board of Trade and Plantation, of which Jenkinson (now
+      Lord Hawkesbury) is president.(1) (These sort of folks change their names
+      so often that it is as difficult to know them as it is to know a thief.)
+      Chalmers gives the quantity of gold and silver coin from the returns of
+      coinage at the Mint; and after deducting for the light gold recoined, says
+      that the amount of gold and silver coined is about twenty millions. He had
+      better not have proved this, especially if he had reflected that <i>public
+      credit is suspicion asleep</i>. The quantity is much too little.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Concerning Chalmers and Hawkesbury see vol. ii., p. 533.
+     Also, preface to my "Life of Paine",  xvi., and other
+     passages.&mdash;-<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Of this twenty millions (which is not a fourth part of the quantity of
+      gold and silver there is in France, as is shown in Mr. Neckar's Treatise
+      on the Administration of the Finances) three millions at least must be
+      supposed to be in Ireland, some in Scotland, and in the West Indies,
+      Newfoundland, &amp;c. The quantity therefore in England cannot be more
+      than sixteen millions, which is four millions less than the amount of the
+      taxes. But admitting that there are sixteen millions, not more than a
+      fourth part thereof (four millions) can be in London, when it is
+      considered that every city, town, village, and farm-house in the nation
+      must have a part of it, and that all the great manufactories, which most
+      require cash, are out of London. Of this four millions in London, every
+      banker, merchant, tradesman, in short every individual, must have some. He
+      must be a poor shopkeeper indeed, who has not a few guineas in his till.
+      The quantity of cash therefore in the bank can never, on the evidence of
+      circumstances, be so much as two millions; most probably not more than one
+      million; and on this slender twig, always liable to be broken, hangs the
+      whole funding system of four hundred millions, besides many millions in
+      bank notes. The sum in the bank is not sufficient to pay one-fourth of
+      only one year's interest of the national debt, were the creditors to
+      demand payment in cash, or demand cash for the bank notes in which the
+      interest is paid, a circumstance always liable to happen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the amusements that has kept up the farce of the funding system is,
+      that the interest is regularly paid. But as the interest is always paid in
+      bank notes, and as bank notes can always be coined for the purpose, this
+      mode of payment proves nothing. The point of proof is, can the bank give
+      cash for the bank notes with which the interest is paid? If it cannot, and
+      it is evident it cannot, some millions of bank notes must go without
+      payment, and those holders of bank notes who apply last will be worst off.
+      When the present quantity of cash in the bank is paid away, it is next to
+      impossible to see how any new quantity is to arrive. None will arrive from
+      taxes, for the taxes will all be paid in bank notes; and should the
+      government refuse bank notes in payment of taxes, the credit of bank notes
+      will be gone at once. No cash will arise from the business of discounting
+      merchants' bills; for every merchant will pay off those bills in bank
+      notes, and not in cash. There is therefore no means left for the bank to
+      obtain a new supply of cash, after the present quantity is paid away. But
+      besides the impossibility of paying the interest of the funded debt in
+      cash, there are many thousand persons, in London and in the country, who
+      are holders of bank notes that came into their hands in the fair way of
+      trade, and who are not stockholders in the funds; and as such persons have
+      had no hand in increasing the demand upon the bank, as those have had who
+      for their own private interest, like Boyd and others, are contracting or
+      pretending to contract for new loans, they will conceive they have a just
+      right that their bank notes should be paid first. Boyd has been very sly
+      in France, in changing his paper into cash. He will be just as sly in
+      doing the same thing in London, for he has learned to calculate; and then
+      it is probable he will set off for America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stoppage of payment at the bank is not a new thing. Smith in his Wealth
+      of Nations, book ii. chap. 2, says, that in the year 1696, exchequer bills
+      fell forty, fifty, and sixty per cent; bank notes twenty per cent; and the
+      bank stopped payment. That which happened in 1696 may happen again in
+      1796. The period in which it happened was the last year of the war of King
+      William. It necessarily put a stop to the further emissions of exchequer
+      and navy bills, and to the raising of new loans; and the peace which took
+      place the next year was probably hurried on by this circumstance, and
+      saved the bank from bankruptcy. Smith in speaking from the circumstances
+      of the bank, upon another occasion, says (book ii. chap. 2.) "This great
+      company had been reduced to the necessity of paying in sixpences." When a
+      bank adopts the expedient of paying in sixpences, it is a confession of
+      insolvency.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is worthy of observation, that every case of failure in finances, since
+      the system of paper began, has produced a revolution in governments,
+      either total or partial. A failure in the finances of France produced the
+      French revolution. A failure in the finance of the assignats broke up the
+      revolutionary government, and produced the present French Constitution. A
+      failure in the finances of the Old Congress of America, and the
+      embarrassments it brought upon commerce, broke up the system of the old
+      confederation, and produced the federal Constitution. If, then, we admit
+      of reasoning by comparison of causes and events, the failure of the
+      English finances will produce some change in the government of that
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to Mr. Pitt's project of paying off the national debt by applying a
+      million a-year for that purpose, while he continues adding more than
+      twenty millions a-year to it, it is like setting a man with a wooden leg
+      to run after a hare. The longer he runs the farther he is off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I said that the funding system had entered the last twenty years of
+      its existence, I certainly did not mean that it would continue twenty
+      years, and then expire as a lease would do. I meant to describe that age
+      of decrepitude in which death is every day to be expected, and life cannot
+      continue long. But the death of credit, or that state that is called
+      bankruptcy, is not always marked by those progressive stages of visible
+      decline that marked the decline of natural life. In the progression of
+      natural life age cannot counterfeit youth, nor conceal the departure of
+      juvenile abilities. But it is otherwise with respect to the death of
+      credit; for though all the approaches to bankruptcy may actually exist in
+      circumstances, they admit of being concealed by appearances. Nothing is
+      more common than to see the bankrupt of to-day a man in credit but the day
+      before; yet no sooner is the real state of his affairs known, than every
+      body can see he had been insolvent long before. In London, the greatest
+      theatre of bankruptcy in Europe, this part of the subject will be well and
+      feelingly understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pitt continually talks of credit, and the national resources. These
+      are two of the feigned appearances by which the approaches to bankruptcy
+      are concealed. That which he calls credit may exist, as I have just shown,
+      in a state of insolvency, and is always what I have before described it to
+      be, <i>suspicion asleep</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to national resources, Mr. Pitt, like all English financiers that
+      preceded him since the funding system began, has uniformly mistaken the
+      nature of a resource; that is, they have mistaken it consistently with the
+      delusion of the funding system; but time is explaining the delusion. That
+      which he calls, and which they call, a resource, is not a resource, but is
+      the <i>anticipation</i> of a resource. They have anticipated what <i>would
+      have been</i> a resource in another generation, had not the use of it been
+      so anticipated. The funding system is a system of anticipation. Those who
+      established it an hundred years ago anticipated the resources of those who
+      were to live an hundred years after; for the people of the present day
+      have to pay the interest of the debts contracted at that time, and all
+      debts contracted since. But it is the last feather that breaks the horse's
+      back. Had the system begun an hundred years before, the amount of taxes at
+      this time to pay the annual interest at four per cent. (could we suppose
+      such a system of insanity could have continued) would be two hundred and
+      twenty millions annually: for the capital of the debt would be 5486
+      millions, according to the ratio that ascertains the expense of the wars
+      for the hundred years that are past. But long before it could have reached
+      this period, the value of bank notes, from the immense quantity of them,
+      (for it is in paper only that such a nominal revenue could be collected,)
+      would have been as low or lower than continental paper has been in
+      America, or assignats in France; and as to the idea of exchanging them for
+      gold and silver, it is too absurd to be contradicted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do we not see that nature, in all her operations, disowns the visionary
+      basis upon which the funding system is built? She acts always by renewed
+      successions, and never by accumulating additions perpetually progressing.
+      Animals and vegetables, men and trees, have existed since the world began:
+      but that existence has been carried on by succession of generations, and
+      not by continuing the same men and the same trees in existence that
+      existed first; and to make room for the new she removes the old. Every
+      natural idiot can see this; it is the stock-jobbing idiot only that
+      mistakes. He has conceived that art can do what nature cannot. He is
+      teaching her a new system&mdash;that there is no occasion for man to die&mdash;that
+      the scheme of creation can be carried on upon the plan of the funding
+      system&mdash;that it can proceed by continual additions of new beings,
+      like new loans, and all live together in eternal youth. Go, count the
+      graves, thou idiot, and learn the folly of thy arithmetic!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But besides these things, there is something visibly farcical in the whole
+      operation of loaning. It is scarcely more than four years ago that such a
+      rot of bankruptcy spread itself over London, that the whole commercial
+      fabric tottered; trade and credit were at a stand; and such was the state
+      of things that, to prevent or suspend a general bankruptcy, the government
+      lent the merchants six millions in <i>government</i> paper, and now the
+      merchants lend the government twenty-two millions in <i>their</i> paper;
+      and two parties, Boyd and Morgan, men but little known, contend who shall
+      be the lenders. What a farce is this! It reduces the operation of loaning
+      to accommodation paper, in which the competitors contend, not who shall
+      lend, but who shall sign, because there is something to be got for
+      signing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every English stock-jobber and minister boasts of the credit of England.
+      Its credit, say they, is greater than that of any country in Europe. There
+      is a good reason for this: for there is not another country in Europe that
+      could be made the dupe of such a delusion. The English funding system will
+      remain a monument of wonder, not so much on account of the extent to which
+      it has been carried, as of the folly of believing in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who had formerly predicted that the funding system would break up
+      when the debt should amount to one hundred or one hundred and fifty
+      millions, erred only in not distinguishing between insolvency and actual
+      bankruptcy; for the insolvency commenced as soon as the government became
+      unable to pay the interest in cash, or to give cash for the bank notes in
+      which the interest was paid, whether that inability was known or not, or
+      whether it was suspected or not. Insolvency always takes place before
+      bankruptcy; for bankruptcy is nothing more than the publication of that
+      insolvency. In the affairs of an individual, it often happens that
+      insolvency exists several years before bankruptcy, and that the insolvency
+      is concealed and carried on till the individual is not able to pay one
+      shilling in the pound. A government can ward off bankruptcy longer than an
+      individual: but insolvency will inevitably produce bankruptcy, whether in
+      an individual or in a government. If then the quantity of bank notes
+      payable on demand, which the bank has issued, are greater than the bank
+      can pay off, the bank is insolvent: and when that insolvency is declared,
+      it is bankruptcy.(*)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     *  Among the delusions that have been imposed upon the
+     nation by ministers to give a false colouring to its
+     affairs, and by none more than by Mr. Pitt, is a motley,
+     amphibious-charactered thing called the <i>balance of trade</i>.
+     This balance of trade, as it is called, is taken from the
+     custom-house books, in which entries are made of all cargoes
+     exported, and also of all cargoes imported, in each year;
+     and when the value of the exports, according to the price
+     set upon them by the exporter or by the custom-house, is
+     greater than the value of the imports, estimated in the same
+     manner, they say the balance of trade is much in their
+     favour.
+
+     The custom-house books prove regularly enough that so many
+     cargoes have been exported, and so many imported; but this
+     is all that they prove, or were intended to prove. They have
+     nothing to do with the balance of profit or loss; and it is
+     ignorance to appeal to them upon that account: for the case
+     is, that the greater the loss is in any one year, the higher
+     will this thing called the balance of trade appear to be
+     according to the custom-house books. For example, nearly the
+     whole of the Mediterranean convoy has been taken by the
+     French this year; consequently those cargoes will not
+     appear as imports on the custom-house books, and therefore
+     the balance of trade, by which they mean the profits of it,
+     will appear to be so much the greater as the loss amounts to;
+     and, on the other hand, had the loss not happened, the
+     profits would have appeared to have been so much the less.
+     All the losses happening at sea to returning cargoes, by
+     accidents, by the elements, or by capture, make the balance
+     appear the higher on the side of the exports; and were they
+     all lost at sea, it would appear to be all profit on the
+     custom-house books. Also every cargo of exports that is lost
+     that occasions another to be sent, adds in like manner to
+     the side of the exports, and appears as profit. This year
+     the balance of trade will appear high, because the losses
+     have been great by capture and by storms. The ignorance of
+     the British Parliament in listening to this hackneyed
+     imposition of ministers about the balance of trade is
+     astonishing. It shows how little they know of national
+     affairs&mdash;and Mr. Grey may as well talk Greek to them, as to
+     make motions about the state of the nation. They understand
+     only fox-hunting and the game laws,&mdash;<i>Author</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I come now to show the several ways by which bank notes get into
+      circulation: I shall afterwards offer an estimate on the total quantity or
+      amount of bank notes existing at this moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bank acts in three capacities. As a bank of discount; as a bank of
+      deposit; and as a banker for the government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, as a bank of discount. The bank discounts merchants' bills of
+      exchange for two months. When a merchant has a bill that will become due
+      at the end of two months, and wants payment before that time, the bank
+      advances that payment to him, deducting therefrom at the rate of five per
+      cent, per annum. The bill of exchange remains at the bank as a pledge or
+      pawn, and at the end of two months it must be redeemed. This transaction
+      is done altogether in paper; for the profits of the bank, as a bank of
+      discount, arise entirely from its making use of paper as money. The bank
+      gives bank notes to the merchant in discounting the bill of exchange, and
+      the redeemer of the bill pays bank notes to the bank in redeeming it. It
+      very seldom happens that any real money passes between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the profits of a bank be, for example, two hundred thousand pounds a
+      year (a great sum to be made merely by exchanging one sort of paper for
+      another, and which shows also that the merchants of that place are pressed
+      for money for payments, instead of having money to spare to lend to
+      government,) it proves that the bank discounts to the amount of four
+      millions annually, or 666,666L. every two months; and as there never
+      remain in the bank more than two months' pledges, of the value of
+      666,666L., at any one time, the amount of bank notes in circulation at any
+      one time should not be more than to that amount. This is sufficient to
+      show that the present immense quantity of bank notes, which are
+      distributed through every city, town, village, and farm-house in England,
+      cannot be accounted for on the score of discounting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly, as a bank of deposit. To deposit money at the bank means to
+      lodge it there for the sake of convenience, and to be drawn out at any
+      moment the depositor pleases, or to be paid away to his order. When the
+      business of discounting is great, that of depositing is necessarily small.
+      No man deposits and applies for discounts at the same time; for it would
+      be like paying interest for lending money, instead of for borrowing it.
+      The deposits that are now made at the bank are almost entirely in bank
+      notes, and consequently they add nothing to the ability of the bank to pay
+      off the bank notes that may be presented for payment; and besides this,
+      the deposits are no more the property of the bank than the cash or bank
+      notes in a merchant's counting-house are the property of his book-keeper.
+      No great increase therefore of bank notes, beyond what the discounting
+      business admits, can be accounted for on the score of deposits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thirdly, the bank acts as banker for the government. This is the
+      connection that threatens to ruin every public bank. It is through this
+      connection that the credit of a bank is forced far beyond what it ought to
+      be, and still further beyond its ability to pay. It is through this
+      connection, that such an immense redundant quantity of bank notes, have
+      gotten into circulation; and which, instead of being issued because there
+      was property in the bank, have been issued because there was none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the treasury is empty, which happens in almost every year of every
+      war, its coffers at the bank are empty also. It is in this condition of
+      emptiness that the minister has recourse to emissions of what are called
+      exchequer and navy bills, which continually generates a new increase of
+      bank notes, and which are sported upon the public, without there being
+      property in the bank to pay them. These exchequer and navy bills (being,
+      as I have said, emitted because the treasury and its coffers at the bank
+      are empty, and cannot pay the demands that come in) are no other than an
+      acknowledgment that the bearer is entitled to receive so much money. They
+      may be compared to the settlement of an account, in which the debtor
+      acknowledges the balance he owes, and for which he gives a note of hand;
+      or to a note of hand given to raise money upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes the bank discounts those bills as it would discount merchants'
+      bills of exchange; sometimes it purchases them of the holders at the
+      current price; and sometimes it agrees with the ministers to pay an
+      interest upon them to the holders, and keep them in circulation. In every
+      one of these cases an additional quantity of bank notes gets into
+      circulation, and are sported, as I have said, upon the public, without
+      there being property in the bank, as banker for the government, to pay
+      them; and besides this, the bank has now no money of its own; for the
+      money that was originally subscribed to begin the credit of the bank with,
+      at its first establishment, has been lent to government and wasted long
+      ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The bank" (says Smith, book ii. chap. 2.) "acts not only as an ordinary
+      bank, but as a great engine of State; it receives and pays a greater part
+      of the annuities which are due to the creditors of the <i>public</i>." (It
+      is worth observing, that the <i>public</i>, or the <i>nation</i>, is
+      always put for the government, in speaking of debts.) "It circulates"
+      (says Smith) "exchequer bills, and it advances to government the annual
+      amount of the land and malt taxes, which are frequently not paid till
+      several years afterwards." (This advancement is also done in bank notes,
+      for which there is not property in the bank.) "In those different
+      operations" (says Smith) "<i>its duty to the public</i> may sometimes have
+      obliged it, without any fault of its directors, <i>to overstock the
+      circulation with paper money</i>."&mdash;bank notes. How its <i>duty</i>
+      to <i>the public</i> can induce it <i>to overstock that public</i> with
+      promissory bank notes which it <i>cannot pay</i>, and thereby expose the
+      individuals of that public to ruin, is too paradoxical to be explained;
+      for it is on the credit which individuals <i>give to the bank</i>, by
+      receiving and circulating its notes, and not upon its <i>own</i> credit or
+      its <i>own</i> property, for it has none, that the bank sports. If,
+      however, it be the duty of the bank to expose the public to this hazard,
+      it is at least equally the duty of the individuals of that public to get
+      their money and take care of themselves; and leave it to placemen,
+      pensioners, government contractors, Reeves' association, and the members
+      of both houses of Parliament, who have voted away the money at the nod of
+      the minister, to continue the credit if they can, and for which their
+      estates individually and collectively ought to answer, as far as they will
+      go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There has always existed, and still exists, a mysterious, suspicious
+      connection, between the minister and the directors of the bank, and which
+      explains itself no otherways than by a continual increase in bank notes.
+      Without, therefore, entering into any further details of the various
+      contrivances by which bank notes are issued, and thrown upon the public, I
+      proceed, as I before mentioned, to offer an estimate on the total quantity
+      of bank notes in circulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However disposed governments may be to wring money by taxes from the
+      people, there is a limit to the practice established by the nature of
+      things. That limit is the proportion between the quantity of money in a
+      nation, be that quantity what it may, and the greatest quantity of taxes
+      that can be raised upon it. People have other uses for money besides
+      paying taxes; and it is only a proportional part of the money they can
+      spare for taxes, as it is only a proportional part they can spare for
+      house-rent, for clothing, or for any other particular use. These
+      proportions find out and establish themselves; and that with such
+      exactness, that if any one part exceeds its proportion, all the other
+      parts feel it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before the invention of paper money (bank notes,) there was no other money
+      in the nation than gold and silver, and the greatest quantity of money
+      that was ever raised in taxes during that period never exceeded a fourth
+      part of the quantity of money in the nation. It was high taxing when it
+      came to this point. The taxes in the time of William III. never reached to
+      four millions before the invention of paper, and the quantity of money in
+      the nation at that time was estimated to be about sixteen millions. The
+      same proportions established themselves in France. There was no paper
+      money in France before the present revolution, and the taxes were
+      collected in gold and silver money. The highest quantity of taxes never
+      exceeded twenty-two millions sterling; and the quantity of gold and silver
+      money in the nation at the same time, as stated by M. Neckar, from returns
+      of coinage at the Mint, in his Treatise on the Administration of the
+      Finances, was about ninety millions sterling. To go beyond this limit of a
+      fourth part, in England, they were obliged to introduce paper money; and
+      the attempt to go beyond it in France, where paper could not be
+      introduced, broke up the government. This proportion, therefore, of a
+      fourth part, is the limit which the thing establishes for itself, be the
+      quantity of money in a nation more or less.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The amount of taxes in England at this time is full twenty millions; and
+      therefore the quantity of gold and silver, and of bank notes, taken
+      together, amounts to eighty millions. The quantity of gold and silver, as
+      stated by Lord Hawkes-bury's Secretary, George Chalmers, as I have before
+      shown, is twenty millions; and, therefore, the total amount of bank notes
+      in circulation, all made payable on demand, is sixty millions. This
+      enormous sum will astonish the most stupid stock-jobber, and overpower the
+      credulity of the most thoughtless Englishman: but were it only a third
+      part of that sum, the bank cannot pay half a crown in the pound.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is something curious in the movements of this modern complicated
+      machine, the funding system; and it is only now that it is beginning to
+      unfold the full extent of its movements. In the first part of its
+      movements it gives great powers into the hands of government, and in the
+      last part it takes them completely away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The funding system set out with raising revenues under the name of loans,
+      by means of which government became both prodigal and powerful. The
+      loaners assumed the name of creditors, and though it was soon discovered
+      that loaning was government-jobbing, those pretended loaners, or the
+      persons who purchased into the funds afterwards, conceived themselves not
+      only to be creditors, but to be the <i>only</i> creditors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But such has been the operation of this complicated machine, the funding
+      system, that it has produced, unperceived, a second generation of
+      creditors, more numerous and far more formidable and withal more real than
+      the first generation; for every holder of a bank note is a creditor, and a
+      real creditor, and the debt due to him is made payable on demand. The debt
+      therefore which the government owes to individuals is composed of two
+      parts; the one about four hundred millions bearing interest, the other
+      about sixty millions payable on demand. The one is called the funded debt,
+      the other is the debt due in bank notes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second debt (that contained in the bank notes) has, in a great
+      measure, been incurred to pay the interest of the first debt; so that in
+      fact little or no real interest has been paid by government. The whole has
+      been delusion and fraud. Government first contracted a debt, in the form
+      of loans, with one class of people, and then run clandestinely into debt
+      with another class, by means of bank notes, to pay the interest.
+      Government acted of itself in contracting the first debt, and made a
+      machine of the bank to contract the second. It is this second debt that
+      changes the seat of power and the order of things; for it puts it in the
+      power of even a small part of the holders of bank notes (had they no other
+      motives than disgust at Pitt and Grenville's sedition bills,) to control
+      any measure of government they found to be injurious to their interest;
+      and that not by popular meetings, or popular societies, but by the simple
+      and easy opera-tion of withholding their credit from that government; that
+      is, by individually demanding payment at the bank for every bank note that
+      comes into their hands. Why should Pitt and Grenville expect that the very
+      men whom they insult and injure, should, at the same time, continue to
+      support the measures of Pitt and Grenville, by giving credit to their
+      promissory notes of payment? No new emissions of bank notes could go on
+      while payment was demanding on the old, and the cash in the bank wasting
+      daily away; nor any new advances be made to government, or to the emperor,
+      to carry on the war; nor any new emission be made on exchequer bills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>The bank</i>" says Smith, (book ii. chap. 2) "<i>is a great engine of
+      state</i>." And in the same paragraph he says, "<i>The stability of the
+      bank is equal to that of the British government</i>;" which is the same as
+      to say that the stability of the government is equal to that of the bank,
+      and no more. If then the bank cannot pay, the <i>arch-treasurer</i> of the
+      holy Roman empire (S. R. I. A.*) is a bankrupt. When Folly invented
+      titles, she did not attend to their application; forever since the
+      government of England has been in the hands of <i>arch-treasurers</i>, it
+      has been running into bankruptcy; and as to the arch-treasurer <i>apparent</i>,
+      he has been a bankrupt long ago. What a miserable prospect has England
+      before its eyes!
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Put of the inscription on an English guinea.&mdash;<i>Author</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Before the war of 1755 there were no bank notes lower than twenty pounds.
+      During that war, bank notes of fifteen pounds and of ten pounds were
+      coined; and now, since the commencement of the present war, they are
+      coined as low as five pounds. These five-pound notes will circulate
+      chiefly among little shop-keepers, butchers, bakers, market-people,
+      renters of small houses, lodgers, &amp;c. All the high departments of
+      commerce and the affluent stations of life were already <i>overstocked</i>,
+      as Smith expresses it, with the bank notes. No place remained open wherein
+      to crowd an additional quantity of bank notes but among the class of
+      people I have just mentioned, and the means of doing this could be best
+      effected by coining five-pound notes. This conduct has the appearance of
+      that of an unprincipled insolvent, who, when on the verge of bankruptcy to
+      the amount of many thousands, will borrow as low as five pounds of the
+      servants in his house, and break the next day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But whatever momentary relief or aid the minister and his bank might
+      expect from this low contrivance of five-pound notes, it will increase the
+      inability of the bank to pay the higher notes, and hasten the destruction
+      of all; for even the small taxes that used to be paid in money will now be
+      paid in those notes, and the bank will soon find itself with scarcely any
+      other money than what the hair-powder guinea-tax brings in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bank notes make the most serious part of the business of finance: what
+      is called the national funded debt is but a trifle when put in comparison
+      with it; yet the case of the bank notes has never been touched upon. But
+      it certainly ought to be known upon what authority, whether that of the
+      minister or of the directors, and upon what foundation, such immense
+      quantities are issued. I have stated the amount of them at sixty millions;
+      I have produced data for that estimation; and besides this, the apparent
+      quantity of them, far beyond that of gold and silver in the nation,
+      corroborates the statement. But were there but a third part of sixty
+      millions, the bank cannot pay half a crown in the pound; for no new supply
+      of money, as before said, can arrive at the bank, as all the taxes will be
+      paid in paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the funding system began, it was not doubted that the loans that had
+      been borrowed would be repaid. Government not only propagated that belief,
+      but it began paying them off. In time this profession came to be
+      abandoned: and it is not difficult to see that bank notes will march the
+      same way; for the amount of them is only another debt under another name;
+      and the probability is that Mr. Pitt will at last propose funding them. In
+      that case bank notes will not be so valuable as French assignats. The
+      assignats have a solid property in reserve, in the national domains; bank
+      notes have none; and, besides this, the English revenue must then sink
+      down to what the amount of it was before the funding system began&mdash;between
+      three and four millions; one of which the <i>arch-treasurer</i> would
+      require for himself, and the arch-treasurer <i>apparent</i> would require
+      three-quarters of a million more to pay his debts. "<i>In France</i>,"
+      says Sterne, "<i>they order these things better</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now exposed the English system of finance to the eyes of all
+      nations; for this work will be published in all languages. In doing this,
+      I have done an act of justice to those numerous citizens of neutral
+      nations who have been imposed upon by that fraudulent system, and who have
+      property at stake upon the event.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As an individual citizen of America, and as far as an individual can go, I
+      have revenged (if I may use the expression without any immoral meaning)
+      the piratical depredations committed on the American commerce by the
+      English government. I have retaliated for France on the subject of
+      finance: and I conclude with retorting on Mr. Pitt the expression he used
+      against France, and say, that the English system of finance "is on the
+      verge, nay even in the
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GULPH OF BANKRUPTCY."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      PARIS, 19th Germinal. 4th year of the Republic, April 8, 1796.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXVII. FORGETFULNESS.(1)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This undated composition, of much biographical interest,
+     was shown by Paine to Henry Redhead Yorke, who visited him
+     in Paris (1802), and was allowed to copy the only portions
+     now preserved. In the last of Yorke's Letters from France
+     (Lond., 1814), thirty-three pages are given to Paine. Under
+     the name "Little Corner of the World," Lady Smyth wrote
+     cheering letters to Paine in his prison, and he replied to
+     his then unknown correspondent under the name of "The Castle
+     in die Air." After his release he discovered in his
+     correspondent a lady who had appealed to him for assistance,
+     no doubt for her husband. With Sir Robert (an English banker
+     in Paris) and Lady Smyth, Paine formed a fast friendship
+     which continued through life. Sir Robert was born in 1744,
+     and married (1776) a Miss Blake of Hanover Square, London.
+     He died in 1802 of illness brought on by his imprisonment
+     under Napoleon. Several of Paine's poems were addressed to
+     Lady Smyth.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      FROM "THE CASTLE IN THE AIR," TO THE "LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear her-self 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 goddess of ease, though not of pleasure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the mind is like a room hung with black, and every corner of it
+      crowded with the most horrid images 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How dismal must the picture of life appear to the mind in that dreadful
+      moment when it resolves on darkness, and to die! One can scarcely believe
+      such a choice was possible. Yet how many of the young and beautiful, timid
+      in every thing else, and formed for delight, have shut their eyes upon the
+      world, and made the waters their sepulchral bed! Ah, would they in that
+      crisis, when life and death are before them, and each within their reach,
+      would they but think, or try to think, that Forgetfulness 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 in 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 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 circumstances of each are strongly pictured in my
+      memory, I will relate them to you. They will in some measure corroborate
+      what I have said of Forgetfulness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in England, 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 were 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 was 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, and was following it, it took up another 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 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 recollect 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&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and who, when we sat down to supper,
+      said she found herself extremely ill, and would go to bed. I called to
+      Mrs. E&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, who came, and I said to her, "It is Miss N&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;."
+      Mrs. E&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; said, "My God, I hope you are not going to do
+      yourself any hurt;" for Mrs. E&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; suspected something.
+      She replied with pathetic melancholy, "Life has not one pleasure for me."
+      We got her into the house, and Mrs. E&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; took her to
+      sleep with her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The case was, the man to whom she expected to be married had forsaken her,
+      and when she heard he was to be married to another the shock appeared to
+      her to be too great to be borne. She had retired, as I have said, to her
+      room, and when she supposed all the family were gone to bed, (which would
+      have been the case if Mrs. E&mdash;&mdash;&mdash; and I had not walked
+      into the garden,) she undressed herself, and tied her apron over her head;
+      which, descending below her waist, gave her the shapeless figure I have
+      spoken of. 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, and aided by the obscurity of almost midnight, she came
+      down stairs, and was going to drown her-self in a pond at the bottom of
+      the garden, towards which she was going when Mrs. E&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;screamed
+      out. We found afterwards that she had heard the scream, and that was the
+      cause of her changing her walk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 a happy wife, and
+      the mother of a family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other case, and the conclusion in my next: In Paris, in 1793, had
+      lodgings in the Rue Fauxbourg, St. Denis, No. 63.(1) They were the most
+      agreeable, for situation, of any I ever had in Paris, except that they
+      were too remote from the Convention, of which I was then a member. But
+      this was recompensed by their being also remote from the alarms and
+      confusion into which the interior of Paris was then often thrown. The news
+      of those things used to arrive to us, as if we were in a state of
+      tranquility in the country. The house, which was enclosed by a wall and
+      gateway from the street, was a good deal like an old mansion farm house,
+      and the court yard was like a farm-yard, stocked with fowls, ducks,
+      turkies, and geese; which, for amusement, we used to feed out of the
+      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 plum, were the best I ever tasted; and it is the
+      only place where I saw the wild cucumber. The place had formerly been
+      occupied by some curious person.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This ancient mansion is still standing (1895).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Madame de Pompadour, among others.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>»
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      My apartments consisted of three rooms; the first for wood, water, etc.,
+      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 through a glass door; and on the outside there was a small
+      landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs almost hidden by
+      the vines that grew over it, by which I could descend into the garden,
+      without going down stairs through the house. I 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 [Robert Smyth], who was then, as I was soon
+      afterwards, in arrestation. But it was winter when you came, and it is a
+      summer scene I am describing.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      I went into my chambers to write and sign a certificate for them, which I
+      intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release. Just as I had
+      finished it a man came into my room dressed in the Parisian uniform of a
+      captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with a good address. He told
+      me that two young men, Englishmen, were arrested and detained in the guard
+      house, and that the section, (meaning those who represented and acted for
+      the section,) had sent him to ask me if I knew them, in which case they
+      would be liberated. This matter being soon settled between us, he talked
+      to me about the Revolution, and something about the "Rights of Man," which
+      he had read in English; and at parting offered me in a polite and civil
+      manner, his services. And who do you think the man was that offered me his
+      services? It was no other than the public executioner Samson, who
+      guillotined the king, and all who were guillotined in Paris; and who lived
+      in the same section, and in the same street with me.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      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 turned the character of the Revolution I had been proud to
+      defend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my appearance;
+      because I found it impossible to join in their tremendous decrees, and
+      useless and dangerous to oppose them. My having voted and spoken
+      extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution of the
+      king, had already fixed a mark upon me: neither dared any of my associates
+      in the Convention to translate and speak in French for me anything I might
+      have dared to have written.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Pen and ink were then of no use to me: no good could be done by writing,
+      and no printer dared to print; and whatever I might have written for my
+      private amusement, as anecdotes of the times, would have been continually
+      exposed to be examined, and tortured into any meaning that the rage of
+      party might fix upon it; and as to softer subjects, my heart was in
+      distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp hung upon the weeping
+      willows.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it was summer we spent most of our time in the garden, and passed it
+      away in those childish amusements that serve to keep reflection from the
+      mind, such as marbles, scotch-hops, battledores, etc., at which we were
+      all pretty expert.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now, my "Little Corner of the World," led you on, step by step, to
+      the scene that makes the sequel to this narrative, and I will put that
+      scene before your eyes. You shall see it in description as I saw it in
+      fact.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This allusion is to the Girondins.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+
+     2 Yorke omits the description "from motives of personal
+     delicacy." The case was that of young Johnson, a wealthy
+     devotee of Paine in London, who had followed him to Paris
+     and lived in the same house with him. Hearing that Marat had
+     resolved on Paine's death, Johnson wrote a will bequeathing
+     his property to Paine, then stabbed himself, but recovered.
+     Paine was examined about this incident at Marat's trial.
+     (Moniteur, April 24, 1793.) See my "Life of Paine," vol.
+     ii., p. 48 seq.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a passage was
+      obtained for him and Mr. Choppin: they received it late in the evening,
+      and set off the 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, "and I only am escaped."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 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 [Johnson and Choppin],
+      but, I thank God, they were out of their reach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 on me, and sorry I
+      was it was not in my power to render to [Sir Robert Smyth] the service
+      that you asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now fulfilled my engagement, and I hope your expectation, in
+      relating the case of [Johnson], 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      Here, my contemplative correspondent, let us stop 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is often difficult to know what is a misfortune: that which we feel as
+      a great one today, may be the 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 impenetrable 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 counsel
+      only with itself; when the very idea of consolation would add to the
+      torture, and self-destruction 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 feelings 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 herself
+      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 though dethroned, and
+      can dictate no more, to wait upon us in the humble station of a handmaid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXVIII. AGRARIAN JUSTICE.
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      Editor's introduction:
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      This pamphlet appeared first in Paris, 1797, with the title: "Thomas Payne
+      à La Législature et au Directoire. Ou la Justice Agraire opposée à la Loi
+      Agraire, et aux privilèges agraires. Prix 15 sols. À Paris, chez la
+      citoyenne Ragouleau, près le Théâtre de la République, No. 229. Et chez
+      les Marchands de Nouveautés." A prefatory note says (translated): "The
+      sudden departure of Thomas Paine has pre-vented his supervising the
+      translation of this work, to which he attached great value. He entrusted
+      it to a friend. It is for the reader to decide whether the scheme here set
+      forth is worthy of the publicity given it." (Paine had gone to Havre early
+      in May with the Monroes, intending to accompany them to America, but,
+      rightly suspecting plans for his capture by an English cruiser, returned
+      to Paris.) In the same year the pamphlet was printed in English, by W.
+      Adlard in Paris, and in London for "T. Williams, No. 8 Little Turnstile,
+      Holborn." Paine's preface to the London edition contained some sentences
+      which the publishers, as will be seen, suppressed under asterisks, and two
+      sentences were omitted from the pamphlet which I have supplied from the
+      French. The English title adds a brief resume of Paine's scheme to the
+      caption&mdash;"Agrarian Justice opposed to Agrarian Law, and to Agrarian
+      Monopoly." The work was written in the winter of 1795-6, when Paine was
+      still an invalid in Monroe's house, though not published until 1797.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The prefatory Letter to the Legislature and the Directory, now for the
+      first time printed in English, is of much historical interest, and shows
+      the title of the pamphlet related to the rise of Socialism in France. The
+      leader of that move-ment, François Noel Babeuf, a frantic and pathetic
+      figure of the time, had just been executed. He had named himself
+      "Gracchus," and called his journal "Tribune du Peuple," in homage to the
+      Roman Tribune, Caius Gracchus, the original socialist and agrarian, whose
+      fate (suicide of himself and his servant) Babeuf and his disciple Darthé
+      invoked in prison, whence they were carried bleeding to the guillotine.
+      This, however, was on account of the conspiracy they had formed, with the
+      remains of the Robespierrian party and some disguised royalists, to
+      overthrow the government. The socialistic propaganda of Babeuf, however,
+      prevailed over all other elements of the conspiracy: the reactionary
+      features of the Constitution, especially the property qualification of
+      suffrage of whose effects Paine had warned the Convention in the speech
+      printed in this volume, (chapter xxv.) and the poverty which survived a
+      revolution that promised its abolition, had excited wide discontent. The
+      "Babouvists" numbered as many as 17,000 in Paris. Babeuf and Lepelletier
+      were appointed by the secret council of this fraternity (which took the
+      name of "Equals") a "Directory of Public Safety." May 11, 1796, was fixed
+      for seizing on the government, and Babeuf had prepared his Proclamation of
+      the socialistic millennium. But the plot was discovered, May 10th, the
+      leaders arrested, and, after a year's delay, two of them executed,&mdash;the
+      best-hearted men in the movement, Babeuf and Darthé. Paine too had been
+      moved by the cry for "Bread, and the Constitution of '93 "; and it is a
+      notable coincidence that in that winter of 1795-6, while the socialists
+      were secretly plotting to seize the kingdom of heaven by violence, Paine
+      was devising his plan of relief by taxing inheritances of land,
+      anticipating by a hundred years the English budget of Sir William
+      Harcourt. Babeuf having failed in his socialist, and Pichegru in his
+      royalist, plot, their blows were yet fatal: there still remained in the
+      hearts of millions a Babeuf or a Pichegru awaiting the chieftain strong
+      enough to combine them, as Napoleon presently did, making all the nation
+      "Égaux" as parts of a mighty military engine, and satisfying the royalist
+      triflers with the pomp and glory of war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AUTHOR'S INSCRIPTION.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the Legislature and the Executive Directory of the French Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plan contained in this work is not adapted for any particular country
+      alone: the principle on which it is based is general. But as the rights of
+      man are a new study in this world, and one needing protection from
+      priestly imposture, and the insolence of oppressions too long established,
+      I have thought it right to place this little work under your safeguard.
+      When we reflect on the long and dense night in which France and all Europe
+      have remained plunged by their governments and their priests, we must feel
+      less surprise than grief at the bewilderment caused by the first burst of
+      light that dispels the darkness. The eye accustomed to darkness can hardly
+      bear at first the broad daylight. It is by usage the eye learns to see,
+      and it is the same in passing from any situation to its opposite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we have not at one instant renounced all our errors, we cannot at one
+      stroke acquire knowledge of all our rights. France has had the honour of
+      adding to the word <i>Liberty</i> that of <i>Equality</i>; and this word
+      signifies essentially a principal that admits of no gradation in the
+      things to which it applies. But equality is often misunderstood, often
+      misapplied, and often violated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Liberty</i> and <i>Property</i> are words expressing all those of our
+      possessions which are not of an intellectual nature. There are two kinds
+      of property. Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from the
+      Creator of the universe,&mdash;such as the earth, air, water. Secondly,
+      artificial or acquired property,&mdash;the invention of men. In the latter
+      equality is impossible; for to distribute it equally it would be necessary
+      that all should have contributed in the same proportion, which can never
+      be the case; and this being the case, every individual would hold on to
+      his own property, as his right share. Equality of natural property is the
+      subject of this little essay. Every individual in the world is born
+      therein with legitimate claims on a certain kind of property, or its
+      equivalent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The right of voting for persons charged with the execution of the laws
+      that govern society is inherent in the word Liberty, and constitutes the
+      equality of personal rights. But even if that right (of voting) were
+      inherent in property, which I deny, the right of suffrage would still
+      belong to all equally, because, as I have said, all individuals have
+      legitimate birthrights in a certain species of property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have always considered the present Constitution of the French Republic
+      the <i>best organized system</i> the human mind has yet produced. But I
+      hope my former colleagues will not be offended if I warn them of an error
+      which has slipped into its principle. Equality of the right of suffrage is
+      not maintained. This right is in it connected with a condition on which it
+      ought not to depend; that is, with a proportion of a certain tax called
+      "direct." The dignity of suffrage is thus lowered; and, in placing it in
+      the scale with an inferior thing, the enthusiasm that right is capable of
+      inspiring is diminished. It is impossible to find any equivalent
+      counterpoise for the right of suffrage, because it is alone worthy to be
+      its own basis, and cannot thrive as a graft, or an appendage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the Constitution was established we have seen two conspiracies
+      stranded,&mdash;that of Babeuf, and that of some obscure personages who
+      decorate themselves with the despicable name of "royalists." The defect in
+      principle of the Constitution was the origin of Babeuf's conspiracy. He
+      availed himself of the resentment caused by this flaw, and instead of
+      seeking a remedy by legitimate and constitutional means, or proposing some
+      measure useful to society, the conspirators did their best to renew
+      disorder and confusion, and constituted themselves personally into a
+      Directory, which is formally destructive of election and representation.
+      They were, in fine, extravagant enough to suppose that society, occupied
+      with its domestic affairs, would blindly yield to them a directorship
+      usurped by violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conspiracy of Babeuf was followed in a few months by that of the
+      royalists, who foolishly flattered themselves with the notion of doing
+      great things by feeble or foul means. They counted on all the
+      discontented, from whatever cause, and tried to rouse, in their turn, the
+      class of people who had been following the others. But these new chiefs
+      acted as if they thought society had nothing more at heart than to
+      maintain courtiers, pensioners, and all their train, under the
+      contemptible title of royalty. My little essay will disabuse them, by
+      showing that society is aiming at a very different end,&mdash;maintaining
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all know or should know, that the time during which a revolution is
+      proceeding is not the time when its resulting advantages can be enjoyed.
+      But had Babeuf and his accomplices taken into consideration the condition
+      of France under this constitution, and compared it with what it was under
+      the tragical revolutionary government, and during the execrable reign of
+      Terror, the rapidity of the alteration must have appeared to them very
+      striking and astonishing. Famine has been replaced by abundance, and by
+      the well-founded hope of a near and increasing prosperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As for the defect in the Constitution, I am fully convinced that it will
+      be rectified constitutionally, and that this step is indispensable; for so
+      long as it continues it will inspire the hopes and furnish the means of
+      conspirators; and for the rest, it is regrettable that a Constitution so
+      wisely organized should err so much in its principle. This fault exposes
+      it to other dangers which will make themselves felt. Intriguing candidates
+      will go about among those who have not the means to pay the direct tax and
+      pay it for them, on condition of receiving their votes. Let us maintain
+      inviolably equality in the sacred right of suffrage: public security can
+      never have a basis more solid. Salut et Fraternité.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your former colleague,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      AUTHOR'S ENGLISH PREFACE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following little Piece was written in the winter of 1795 and 96; and,
+      as I had not determined whether to publish it during the present war, or
+      to wait till the commencement of a peace, it has lain by me, without
+      alteration or addition, from the time it was written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What has determined me to publish it now is, a sermon preached by Watson,
+      <i>Bishop of Llandaff</i>. Some of my Readers will recollect, that this
+      Bishop wrote a Book entitled <i>An Apology for the Bible</i> in answer to
+      my <i>Second Part of the Age of Reason</i>. I procured a copy of his Book,
+      and he may depend upon hearing from me on that subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the end of the Bishop's Book is a List of the Works he has written.
+      Among which is the sermon alluded to; it is entitled: "The Wisdom and
+      Goodness of God, in having made both Rich and Poor; with an Appendix,
+      containing Reflections on the Present State of England and France."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The error contained in this sermon determined me to publish my Agrarian
+      Justice. It is wrong to say God made <i>rich and poor</i>; he made only <i>male
+      and female</i>; and he gave them the earth for their inheritance. '...
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of preaching to encourage one part of mankind in insolence... it
+      would be better that Priests employed their time to render the general
+      condition of man less miserable than it is. Practical religion consists in
+      doing good: and the only way of serving God is, that of endeavouring to
+      make his creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its object is
+      nonsense and hypocracy.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The omissions are noted in the English edition of 1797.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy
+      at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered as
+      one of the first objects of reformed legislation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called
+      civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness of
+      man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side, the
+      spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is shocked
+      by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The most
+      affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found in the
+      countries that are called civilized.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to
+      have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is at
+      this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that state,
+      any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want present to
+      our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe. Poverty, therefore, is a
+      thing created by that which is called civilized life. It exists not in the
+      natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is without those
+      advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science, and manufactures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of
+      Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared to
+      the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has
+      operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the
+      other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural
+      state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but
+      it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The
+      reason is, that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires
+      ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself
+      sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the earth
+      is cultivated. When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the
+      additional aids of cultivation, art, and science, there is a necessity of
+      preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be
+      sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The
+      thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the
+      benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that
+      which is called the civilized state.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of civilization
+      ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the condition of every
+      person born into the world, after a state of civilization commences, ought
+      not to be worse than if he had been born before that period. But the fact
+      is, that the condition of millions, in every country in Europe, is far
+      worse than if they had been born before civilization began, or had been
+      born among the Indians of North America at the present day. I will shew
+      how this fact has happened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural
+      uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, <i>the common
+      property of the human race</i>. In that state every man would have been
+      born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with the rest
+      in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions, vegetable
+      and animal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of
+      supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it is
+      capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to
+      separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon
+      which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from
+      that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is the
+      value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is
+      individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land, owes
+      to the community a <i>ground-rent</i> (for I know of no better term to
+      express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this
+      ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing as from all the
+      histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced
+      with cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property
+      before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that of
+      hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds: neither
+      Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the Bible may be
+      credited in probable things, were owners of land. Their property
+      consisted, as is always enumerated, in flocks and herds, and they
+      travelled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions at that
+      time, about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia, where those
+      people lived, also shew that there was no landed property. It was not
+      admitted that land could be claimed as property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not
+      make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no
+      right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did
+      the creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first
+      title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed property?
+      I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of landed
+      property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the
+      improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that
+      improvement was made. The value of the improvement so far exceeded the
+      value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the
+      end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right
+      of the individual. But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of
+      rights, and will continue to be so long as the earth endures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful
+      ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the
+      boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know his
+      own. I have entitled this tract Agrarian Justice, to distinguish it from
+      Agrarian Law. Nothing could be more unjust than Agrarian Law in a country
+      improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant of the
+      earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it does not
+      follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The additional
+      value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted, became the
+      property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them, or who
+      purchased it. It had originally no owner. Whilst, therefore, I advocate
+      the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all those who have been
+      thrown out of their natural inheritance by the introduction of the system
+      of landed property, I equally defend the right of the possessor to the
+      part which is his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever made
+      by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value. But the
+      landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest evil. It has
+      dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their
+      natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought to have been
+      done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby created a species
+      of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right,
+      and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right
+      which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards
+      till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of
+      government. Let us then do honour to revolutions by justice, and give
+      currency to their principles by blessings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now
+      proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every
+      person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen
+      pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her
+      natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed property:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person
+      now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall
+      arrive at that age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MEANS BY WHICH THE FUND IS TO BE CREATED.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its
+      natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the
+      <i>common property of the human race</i>; that in that state, every person
+      would have been born to property; and that the system of landed property,
+      by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what is called
+      civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom it
+      dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an
+      indemnification for that loss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is
+      intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the crime
+      by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen
+      imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of the
+      sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive
+      generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of
+      the present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and be
+      in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after, as I
+      shall shew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every
+      person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious
+      distinctions. It is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of
+      the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over and
+      above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who did.
+      Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the common
+      fund.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse condition
+      when born under what is called a state of civilization, than he would have
+      been had he been born in a state of nature, and that civilization ought to
+      have made, and ought still to make, provision for that purpose, it can
+      only be done by subtracting from property a portion equal in value to the
+      natural inheritance it has absorbed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears
+      to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any
+      present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes or
+      emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the revolution, but
+      because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and also
+      because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it) is at
+      the moment that.. property is passing by the death of one person to the
+      possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives nothing: the
+      receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is, that the monopoly of
+      natural inheritance, to which there never was a right, begins to cease in
+      his person. A generous man would not wish it to continue, and a just man
+      will rejoice to see it abolished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect to
+      the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with such
+      degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I offer on
+      this head is more the result of observation and reflection than of
+      received information; but I believe it will be found to agree sufficiently
+      with fact.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity, all
+      the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the possession
+      of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a datum of
+      calculation, the average of years which persons above that age will live.
+      I take this average to be about thirty years, for though many persons will
+      live forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age of twenty-one years,
+      others will die much sooner, and some in every year of that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without
+      any material variation one way or other, the average of time in which the
+      whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will have
+      passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have gone
+      by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some parts of
+      this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the possession of
+      one person, other parts will have revolved two or three times before those
+      thirty years expire, which will bring it to that average; for were one
+      half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in thirty years, it would
+      produce the same fund as if the whole revolved once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole
+      capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the
+      thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year, that
+      is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being thus
+      known, and the ratio per cent, to be subtracted from it determined, it
+      will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, to be applied
+      as already mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In looking over the discourse of the English minister, Pitt, in his
+      opening of what is called in England the budget, (the scheme of finance
+      for the year 1796,) I find an estimate of the national capital of that
+      country. As this estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my
+      hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon
+      the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will
+      serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and
+      population be more or less. I am the more disposed to take this estimate
+      of Mr. Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own
+      calculation, how much better money may be employed than in wasting it, as
+      he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What, in the
+      name of heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is better
+      that the people have bread.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal, to be
+      one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about one-fourth
+      part of the national capital of France, including Belgia. The event of the
+      last harvest in each country proves that the soil of France is more
+      productive than that of England, and that it can better support
+      twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of England
+      can seven or seven and a half millions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thirtieth part of this capital of 1,300,000,000L. is 43,333,333L.
+      which is the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country
+      to new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France in the
+      proportion of four to one, will be about one hundred and seventy-three
+      millions sterling. From this sum of 43,333,333L. annually revolving, is to
+      be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance absorbed in it, which,
+      perhaps, in fair justice, cannot be taken at less, and ought not to be
+      taken for more, than a tenth part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will always happen, that of the property thus revolving by deaths every
+      year a part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters, and the
+      other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be about
+      three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will descend
+      to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of 13,333,333L. to more distant
+      relations, and in part to strangers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering, then, that man is always related to society, that
+      relationship will become comparatively greater in proportion as the next
+      of kin is more distant, it is therefore consistent with civilization to
+      say that where there are no direct heirs society shall be heir to a part
+      over and above the tenth part due to society. If this additional part be
+      from five to ten or twelve per cent., in proportion as the next of kin be
+      nearer or more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may fall,
+      which ought always to go to society and not to the government (an addition
+      of ten per cent, more), the produce from the annual sum of 43,333,333L.
+      will be:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img src="images/table361.jpg" alt="Table361 " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed fund, I come, in
+      the next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund, and
+      to compare it with the uses to which the fund is to be applied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions and
+      a half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in that case
+      be about four hundred thousand. There would not, however, be more than
+      that number that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling per annum,
+      though they would be entitled to it. I have no idea it would be accepted
+      by many persons who had a yearly income of two or three hundred pounds
+      sterling. But as we often see instances of rich people falling into sudden
+      poverty, even at the age of sixty, they would always have the right of
+      drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions, therefore, of the
+      above annual sum of 5,666,6667L. will be required for four hundred
+      thousand aged persons, at ten pounds sterling each.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years
+      of age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one
+      years, the number of persons annually arriving at that age, must be equal
+      to the annual number of deaths, to keep the population stationary. But the
+      greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the number of
+      persons annually arriving at twenty-one will be less than half the number
+      of deaths. The whole number of deaths upon a population of seven millions
+      and an half will be about 220,000 annually. The number arriving at
+      twenty-one years of age will be about 100,000. The whole number of these
+      will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for the reasons already
+      mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would be entitled to it.
+      Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving it, the amount would
+      stand thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%">
+      <img src="images/table362.jpg" alt="Table362 " width="100%" /><br />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      There are, in every country, a number of blind and lame persons, totally
+      incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the
+      greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above the age
+      of fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The remaining sum
+      of 316,666L. will provide for the lame and blind under that age, at the
+      same rate of 10L. annually for each person.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the
+      particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some observations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading
+      for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is
+      absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a
+      revolution should be made in it.(1) The contrast of affluence and
+      wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and
+      living bodies chained together. Though I care as little about riches, as
+      any man, I am a friend to riches because they are capable of good. I care
+      not how affluent some may be, provided that none be miserable in
+      consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy affluence with the
+      felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, whilst so much misery is mingled
+      in the scene. The sight of the misery, and the unpleasant sensations it
+      suggests, which, though they may be suffocated cannot be extinguished, are
+      a greater drawback upon the felicity of affluence than the proposed 10 per
+      cent, upon property is worth. He that would not give the one to get rid of
+      the other has no charity, even for himself.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This and the preceding sentence axe omitted in all
+     previous English and American editions.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by
+      individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do, when
+      the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may
+      satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he has,
+      and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing
+      civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pullies, that
+      the whole weight of misery can be removed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve
+      and take out of view three classes of wretchedness&mdash;the blind, the
+      lame, and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with
+      means to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do this without
+      deranging or interfering with any national measures. To shew that this
+      will be the case, it is sufficient to observe that the operation and
+      effect of the plan will, in all cases, be the same as if every individual
+      were <i>voluntarily</i> to make his will and dispose of his property in
+      the manner here proposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan. In
+      all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally
+      active than charity; and, with respect to justice, it ought not to be left
+      to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice or not.
+      Considering then, the plan on the ground of justice, it ought to be the
+      act of the whole, growing spontaneously out of the principles of the
+      revolution, and the reputation of it ought to be national and not
+      individual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy that
+      springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also the
+      national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases by offsets.
+      When a young couple begin the world, the difference is exceedingly great
+      whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds apiece. With this
+      aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate a few acres of land;
+      and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which is always the case
+      where children are produced faster than they can be fed, would be put in
+      the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens. The national domains
+      also would sell the better if pecuniary aids were provided to cultivate
+      them in small lots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of civilization
+      (and the practice merits not to be called either charity or policy) to
+      make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched only at the
+      time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of economy, be far
+      better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor? This can best be
+      done by making every person when arrived at the age of twenty-one years an
+      inheritor of something to begin with. The rugged face of society,
+      chequered with the extremes of affluence and want, proves that some
+      extraordinary violence has been committed upon it, and calls on justice
+      for redress. The great mass of the poor in all countries are become an
+      hereditary race, and it is next to impossible for them to get cut of that
+      state of themselves. It ought also to be observed that this mass increases
+      in all countries that are called civilized. More persons fall annually
+      into it than get out of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though in a plan of which justice and humanity are the
+      foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the
+      calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of any
+      plan to shew that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The success of
+      any proposed plan submitted to public consideration must finally depend on
+      the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the justice of its
+      principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will
+      consolidate the interest of the Republic with that of the individual. To
+      the numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the system
+      of landed property it will be an act of national justice. To persons dying
+      possessed of moderate fortunes it will operate as a tontine to their
+      children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid into the fund: and it
+      will give to the accumulation of riches a degree of security that none of
+      the old governments of Europe, now tottering on their foundations, can
+      give.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the countries
+      of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear property left of
+      five hundred pounds sterling. To all such the plan is advantageous. That
+      property would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if there were only two
+      children under age they would receive fifteen pounds each, (thirty
+      pounds,) on coming of age, and be entitled to ten pounds a-year after
+      fifty. It is from the overgrown acquisition of property that the fund will
+      support itself; and I know that the possessors of such property in
+      England, though they would eventually be benefited by the protection of
+      nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But without entering
+      into any inquiry how they came by that property, let them recollect that
+      they have been the advocates of this war, and that Mr. Pitt has already
+      laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon the people of England,
+      and that for supporting the despotism of Austria and the Bourbons against
+      the liberties of France, than would pay annually all the sums proposed in
+      this plan.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have made the calculations stated in this plan, upon what is called
+      personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon
+      land is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property
+      into the calculation is equally well founded though on a different
+      principle. Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in common
+      to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society; and it is
+      as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the
+      aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally. Separate an
+      individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess,
+      and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably
+      are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former
+      do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore,
+      of personal property, beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to
+      him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of
+      gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to
+      society from whence the whole came. This is putting the matter on a
+      general principle, and perhaps it is best to do so; for if we examine the
+      case minutely it will be found that the accumulation of personal property
+      is, in many instances, the effect of paying too little for the labour that
+      produced it; the consequence of which is, that the working hand perishes
+      in old age, and the employer abounds in affluence. It is, perhaps,
+      impossible to proportion exactly the price of labour to the profits it
+      produces; and it will also be said, as an apology for the injustice, that
+      were a workman to receive an increase of wages daily he would not save it
+      against old age, nor be much bet-ter for it in the interim. Make, then,
+      society the treasurer to guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no
+      reason, that because he might not make a good use of it for himself,
+      another should take it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as
+      unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the
+      consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot
+      continue when once investigation begins in any country, that makes the
+      possessors of property dread every idea of a revolution. It is the hazard
+      and not the principle of revolutions that retards their progress. This
+      being the case, it is necessary as well for the protection of property, as
+      for the sake of justice and humanity, to form a system that, whilst it
+      preserves one part of society from wretchedness, shall secure the other
+      from depredation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded
+      affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor of
+      property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour,
+      instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when,
+      instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon
+      wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call the
+      right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and it is
+      only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and this
+      can only be done by making property productive of a national blessing,
+      extending to every individual. When the riches of one man above another
+      shall increase the national fund in the same proportion; when it shall be
+      seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on the prosperity of
+      individuals; when the more riches a man acquires, the better it shall be
+      for the general mass; it is then that antipathies will cease, and property
+      be placed on the permanent basis of national interest and protection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have no property in France to become subject to the plan I propose. What
+      I have which is not much, is in the United States of America. But I will
+      pay one hundred pounds sterling towards this fund in rance, the instant it
+      shall be established; and I will pay the same sum in England whenever a
+      similar establishment shall take place in that country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A revolution in the state of civilization is the necessary companion of
+      revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country be
+      from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called
+      civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give
+      that revolution effect. Despotic government supports itself by abject
+      civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness in
+      the mass of the people, are the chief enterions. Such governments consider
+      man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual faculty is not
+      his privilege; <i>that he has nothing to do with the laws but to obey them
+      </i>; (*) and they politically depend more upon breaking the spirit of the
+      people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by desperation.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     * Expression of Horsley, an English bishop, in the English
+     parliament.&mdash;Author.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is a revolution in the state of civilization that will give perfection
+      to the revolution of France. Already the conviction that government by
+      representation is the true system of government is spreading itself fast
+      in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen by all. The justness of
+      it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But when a system of
+      civilization, growing out of that system of government, shall be so
+      organized that not a man or woman born in the Republic but shall inherit
+      some means of beginning the world, and see before them the certainty of
+      escaping the miseries that under other governments accompany old age, the
+      revolution of France will have an advocate and an ally in the heart of all
+      nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot; it
+      will succeed where diplomatic management would fail: it is neither the
+      Rhine, the Channel, nor the Ocean that can arrest its progress: it will
+      march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MEANS FOR CARRYING THE PROPOSED PLAN INTO EXECUTION, AND TO RENDER IT AT
+      THE SAME TIME CONDUCIVE TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons, as
+      commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep a
+      register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the
+      charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into
+      execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      II. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased persons
+      shall be ascertained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      III. When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be
+      ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the
+      co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age the person authorized by the
+      will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the
+      commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four
+      equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the
+      choice of the payers. One half of the whole property shall remain as a
+      security until the bond be paid off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IV. The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of the
+      canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national bank at
+      Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount of the
+      bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been paid off,
+      or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      V. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the bonds
+      in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay the
+      pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving at
+      twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to suppose,
+      that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their right of
+      drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater degree of
+      ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary register be kept,
+      in each canton, of the names of the persons thus suspending that right, at
+      least during the present war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VI. As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in four
+      quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always be <i>numéraire</i>
+      [cash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the first quarter, to
+      exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VII. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all
+      possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times the
+      amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with <i>numéraire</i>
+      continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off whenever they
+      shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire a permanent value
+      in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be received in payment of
+      taxes, or emprunts equal to numéraire, because the government can always
+      receive numéraire for them at the bank.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VIII. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent, be made
+      in numeraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan. But
+      after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property may pay
+      ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in numeraire,
+      If the payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at the bank, to
+      be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount; and if in notes
+      issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the fund, equal thereto;
+      and thus the operation of the plan will create means to carry itself into
+      execution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXIX. THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      To the People of France and the French Armies (1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 This pamphlet was written between the defeat of Pichegru's
+     attempt, September 4, 1794, and November 12, of the same
+     year, the date of the Bien-informé in which the publication
+     is noticed. General Pichegra (Charles), (1761-1804) having
+     joined a royalist conspiracy against the Republic, was
+     banished to Cayenne (1797), whence he escaped to England;
+     having returned to Paris (1804) he was imprisoned in the
+     Temple, and there found strangled by a silk handkerchief,
+     whether by his own or another's act remaining doubtful.
+     &mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When an extraordinary measure, not warranted by established constitutional
+      rules, and justifiable only on the supreme law of absolute necessity,
+      bursts suddenly upon us, we must, in order to form a true judgment
+      thereon, carry our researches back to the times that preceded and
+      occasioned it. Taking up then the subject with respect to the event of the
+      Eighteenth of Fructidor on this ground, I go to examine the state of
+      things prior to that period. I begin with the establishment of the
+      constitution of the year 3 of the French Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A better <i>organized</i> constitution has never yet been devised by human
+      wisdom. It is, in its organization, free from all the vices and defects to
+      which other forms of government are more or less subject. I will speak
+      first of the legislative body, because the Legislature is, in the natural
+      order of things, the first power; the Executive is the first magistrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By arranging the legislative body into two divisions, as is done in the
+      French Constitution, the one, (the Council of Five Hundred,) whose part it
+      is to conceive and propose laws; the other, a Council of Ancients, to
+      review, approve, or reject the laws proposed; all the security is given
+      that can arise from coolness of reflection acting upon, or correcting the
+      precipitancy or enthusiasm of conception and imagination. It is seldom
+      that our first thought, even upon any subject, is sufficiently just.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 For Paine's ideas on the right division of representatives
+     into two chambers, which differ essentially from any
+     bicameral system ever adopted, see vol. ii., p. 444 of this
+     work; also, in the present volume, Chapter XXXIV.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The policy of renewing the Legislature by a third part each year, though
+      not entirely new, either in theory or in practice, is nevertheless one of
+      the modern improvements in the science of government. It prevents, on the
+      one hand, that convulsion and precipitate change of measures into which a
+      nation might be surprised by the going out of the whole Legislature at the
+      same time, and the instantaneous election of a new one; on the other hand,
+      it excludes that common interest from taking place that might tempt a
+      whole Legislature, whose term of duration expired at once, to usurp the
+      right of continuance. I go now to speak of the Executive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a principle uncontrovertible by reason, that each of the parts by
+      which government is composed, should be so constructed as to be in
+      perpetual maturity. We should laugh at the idea of a Council of Five
+      Hundred, or a Council of Ancients, or a Parliament, or any national
+      assembly, who should be all children in leading strings and in the cradle,
+      or be all sick, insane, deaf, dumb, lame or blind, at the same time, or be
+      all upon crutches, tottering with age or infirmities. Any form of
+      government that was so constructed as to admit the possibility of such
+      cases happening to a whole Legislature would justly be the ridicule of the
+      world; and on a parity of reasoning, it is equally as ridiculous that the
+      same cases should happen in that part of government which is called the
+      Executive; yet this is the contemptible condition to which an Executive is
+      always subject, and which is often happening, when it is placed in an
+      hereditary individual called a king. When that individual is in either of
+      the cases before mentioned, the whole Executive is in the same case; for
+      himself is the whole. He is then (as an Executive) the ridiculous picture
+      of what a Legislature would be if all its members were in the same case.
+      The one is a whole made up of parts, the other a whole without parts; and
+      anything happening to the one, (as a part or sec-tion of the government,)
+      is parallel to the same thing happening to the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As, therefore, an hereditary executive called a king is a perfect
+      absurdity in itself, any attachment to it is equally as absurd. It is
+      neither instinct or reason; and if this attachment is what is called
+      royalism in France, then is a royalist inferior in character to every species
+      of the animal world; for what can that being be who acts neither by
+      instinct nor by reason? Such a being merits rather our derision than our
+      pity; and it is only when it assumes to act its folly that it becomes
+      capable of provoking republican indignation. In every other case it is too
+      contemptible to excite anger. For my own part, when I contemplate the
+      self-evident absurdity of the thing, I can scarcely permit myself to
+      believe that there exists in the high-minded nation of France such a mean
+      and silly animal as a royalist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As it requires but a single glance of thought to see (as is before said)
+      that all the parts of which government is composed must be at all times in
+      a state of full maturity, it was not possible that men acting under the
+      influence of reason, could, in forming a Constitution, admit an hereditary
+      Executive, any more than an hereditary Legislature. I go therefore to
+      examine the other cases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the first place, (rejecting the hereditary system,) shall the Executive
+      by election be an <i>individual or a plurality</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An individual by election is almost as bad as the hereditary system,
+      except that there is always a better chance of not having an idiot. But he
+      will never be any thing more than a chief of a party, and none but those
+      of that party will have access to him. He will have no person to consult
+      with of a standing equal with himself, and consequently be deprived of the
+      advantages arising from equal discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those whom he admits in consultation will be ministers of his own
+      appointment, who, if they displease by their advice, must expect to be
+      dismissed. The authority also is too great, and the business too
+      complicated, to be intrusted to the ambition or the judgment of an
+      individual; and besides these cases, the sudden change of measures that
+      might follow by the going out of an individual Executive, and the election
+      of a new one, would hold the affairs of a nation in a state of perpetual
+      uncertainty. We come then to the case of a plural Executive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must be sufficiently plural, to give opportunity to discuss all the
+      various subjects that in the course of national business may come before
+      it; and yet not so numerous as to endanger the necessary secrecy that
+      certain cases, such as those of war, require.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Establishing, then, plurality as a principle, the only question is, What
+      shall be the number of that plurality?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three are too few either for the variety or the quantity of business. The
+      Constitution has adopted five; and experience has shewn, from the
+      commencement of the Constitution to the time of the election of the new
+      legislative third, that this number of Directors, when well chosen, is
+      sufficient for all national executive purposes; and therefore a greater
+      number would be only an unnecessary expence. That the measures of the
+      Directory during that period were well concerted is proved by their
+      success; and their being well concerted shews they were well discussed;
+      and, therefore, that five is a sufficient number with respect to
+      discussion; and, on the other hand, the secret, whenever there was one,
+      (as in the case of the expedition to Ireland,) was well kept, and
+      therefore the number is not too great to endanger the necessary secrecy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason why the two Councils are numerous is not from the necessity of
+      their being so, on account of business, but because that every part of the
+      republic shall find and feel itself in the national representation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next to the general principle of government by representation, the
+      excellence of the French Constitution consists in providing means to
+      prevent that abuse of power that might arise by letting it remain too long
+      in the same hands. This wise precaution pervades every part of the
+      Constitution. Not only the legislature is renewable by a third every year,
+      but the president of each of the Councils is renewable every month; and of
+      the Directory, one member each year, and its president every three months.
+      Those who formed the Constitution cannot be accused of having contrived
+      for themselves. The Constitution, in this respect, is as impartially
+      constructed as if those who framed it were to die as soon as they had
+      finished their work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only defect in the Constitution is that of having narrowed the right
+      of suffrage; and it is in a great measure due to this narrowing the right,
+      that the last elections have not generally been good. My former colleagues
+      will, I presume, pardon my saying this to day, when they recollect my
+      arguments against this defect, at the time the Constitution was discussed
+      in the Convention.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1  See Chapters XXIV. and XXV., also the letter prefaced to
+     XXVIII., in this volume.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I will close this part of the subject by remarking on one of the most
+      vulgar and absurd sayings or dogmas that ever yet imposed itself upon the
+      world, which is, "<i>that a Republic is fit only for a small country, and
+      a Monarchy for a large one</i>." Ask those who say this their reasons why
+      it is so, and they can give none.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us then examine the case. If the quantity of knowledge in a government
+      ought to be proportioned to the extent of a country, and the magnitude and
+      variety of its affairs, it follows, as an undeniable result, that this
+      absurd dogma is false, and that the reverse of it is true. As to what is
+      called Monarchy, if it be adaptable to any country it can only be so to a
+      small one, whose concerns are few, little complicated, and all within the
+      comprehension of an individual. But when we come to a country of large
+      extent, vast population, and whose affairs are great, numerous, and
+      various, it is the representative republican system only, that can collect
+      into the government the quantity of knowledge necessary to govern to the
+      best national advantage. Montesquieu, who was strongly inclined to
+      republican government, sheltered himself under this absurd dogma; for he
+      had always the Bastile before his eyes when he was speaking of Republics,
+      and therefore <i>pretended</i> not to write for France. Condorcet governed
+      himself by the same caution, but it was caution only, for no sooner had he
+      the opportunity of speaking fully out than he did it. When I say this of
+      Condorcet, I know it as a fact. In a paper published in Paris, July, 1791,
+      entitled, "<i>The Republican, or the Defender of Representative
+      Government?</i>" is a piece signed <i>Thomas Paine</i>.(1) That piece was
+      concerted between Condorcet and myself. I wrote the original in English,
+      and Condorcet translated it. The object of it was to expose the absurdity
+      and falsehood of the above mentioned dogma.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Chapter II. of this volume. See also my "Life of Paine,"
+     vol. i., p. 311.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Having thus concisely glanced at the excellencies of the Constitution, and
+      the superiority of the representative system of government over every
+      other system, (if any other can be called a system,) I come to speak of
+      the circumstances that have intervened between the time the Constitution
+      was established and the event that took place on the 18th of Fructidor of
+      the present year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Almost as suddenly as the morning light dissipates darkness, did the
+      establishment of the Constitution change the face of affairs in France.
+      Security succeeded to terror, prosperity to distress, plenty to famine,
+      and confidence increased as the days multiplied, until the coming of the
+      new third. A series of victories unequalled in the world, followed each
+      other, almost too rapidly to be counted, and too numerous to be
+      remembered. The Coalition, every where defeated and confounded, crumbled
+      away like a ball of dust in the hand of a giant. Every thing, during that
+      period, was acted on such a mighty scale that reality appeared a dream,
+      and truth outstript romance. It may figuratively be said, that the Rhine
+      and the Rubicon (Germany and Italy) replied in triumphs to each other, and
+      the echoing Alps prolonged the shout. I will not here dishonour a great
+      description by noticing too much the English government. It is sufficient
+      to say paradoxically, that in the magnitude of its littleness it cringed,
+      it intrigued, and sought protection in corruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the achievements of these days might give trophies to a nation and
+      laurels to its heroes, they derive their full radiance of glory from the
+      principle they inspired and the object they accomplished. Desolation,
+      chains, and slavery had marked the progress of former wars, but to conquer
+      for Liberty had never been thought of. To receive the degrading submission
+      of a distressed and subjugated people, and insultingly permit them to
+      live, made the chief triumph of former conquerors; but to receive them
+      with fraternity, to break their chains, to tell them they are free, and
+      teach them to be so, make a new volume in the history of man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Amidst those national honours, and when only two enemies remained, both of
+      whom had solicited peace, and one of them had signed preliminaries, the
+      election of the new third commenced. Every thing was made easy to them.
+      All difficulties had been conquered before they arrived at the government.
+      They came in the olive days of the revolution, and all they had to do was
+      not to do mischief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, however, not difficult to foresee, that the elections would not be
+      generally good. The horrid days of Robespierre were still remembered, and
+      the gratitude due to those who had put an end to them was forgotten.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thousands who, by passive approbation during that tremendous scene, had
+      experienced no suffering, assumed the merit of being the loudest against
+      it. Their cowardice in not opposing it, became courage when it was over.
+      They exclaimed against Terrorism as if they had been the heroes that
+      overthrew it, and rendered themselves ridiculous by fantastically
+      overacting moderation. The most noisy of this class, that I have met with,
+      are those who suffered nothing. They became all things, at all times, to
+      all men; till at last they laughed at principle. It was the real
+      republicans who suffered most during the time of Robespierre. The
+      persecution began upon them on the 31st of May 1793, and ceased only by
+      the exertions of the remnant that survived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such a confused state of things as preceded the late elections the
+      public mind was put into a condition of being easily deceived; and it was
+      almost natural that the hypocrite would stand the best chance of being
+      elected into the new third. Had those who, since their election, have
+      thrown the public affairs into confusion by counter-revolutionary
+      measures, declared themselves beforehand, they would have been denounced
+      instead of being chosen. Deception was necessary to their success. The
+      Constitution obtained a full establishment; the revolution was considered
+      as complete; and the war on the eve of termination. In such a situation,
+      the mass of the people, fatigued by a long revolution, sought repose; and
+      in their elections they looked out for quiet men. They unfortunately found
+      hypocrites. Would any of the primary assemblies have voted for a civil
+      war? Certainly they would not. But the electoral assemblies of some
+      departments have chosen men whose measures, since their election, tended
+      to no other end but to provoke it. Either those electors have deceived
+      their constituents of the primary assemblies, or they have been themselves
+      deceived in the choice they made of deputies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That there were some direct but secret conspirators in the new third can
+      scarcely admit of a doubt; but it is most reasonable to suppose that a
+      great part were seduced by the vanity of thinking they could do better
+      than those whom they succeeded. Instead of trusting to experience, they
+      attempted experiments. This counter-disposition prepared them to fall in
+      with any measures contrary to former measures, and that without seeing,
+      and probably without suspecting, the end to which they led.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner were the members of the new third arrived at the seat of
+      government, than expectation was excited to see how they would act. Their
+      motions were watched by all parties, and it was impossible for them to
+      steal a march unobserved. They had it in their power to do great good, or
+      great mischief. A firm and manly conduct on their part, uniting with that
+      of the Directory and their colleagues, would have terminated the war. But
+      the moment before them was not the moment of hesitation. He that hesitates
+      in such situation is lost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first public act of the Council of Five Hundred was the election of
+      Pichegru to the presidency of that Council. He arrived at it by a very
+      large majority, and the public voice was in his favour. I among the rest
+      was one who rejoiced at it. But if the defection of Pichegru was at that
+      time known to Condé, and consequently to Pitt, it unveils the cause that
+      retarded all negotiations for peace.(1) They interpreted that election
+      into a signal of a counter-revolution, and were waiting for it; and they
+      mistook the respect shown to Pichegru, founded on the supposition of his
+      integrity, as a symptom of national revolt. Judging of things by their own
+      foolish ideas of government, they ascribed appearances to causes between
+      which there was no connection. Every thing on their part has been a comedy
+      of errors, and the actors have been chased from the stage.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Condé (1736-1818),
+     organized the French emigrants on the Rhine into an army
+     which was incorporated with that of Austria but paid by
+     England. He converted Pichegru into a secret partisan of the
+     Bourbons. He ultimately returned to France with Louis
+     XVIII., who made him colonel of infantry and master of the
+     royal household.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Two or three decades of the new sessions passed away without any thing
+      very material taking place; but matters soon began to explain themselves.
+      The first thing that struck the public mind was, that no more was heard of
+      negotiations for peace, and that public business stood still. It was not
+      the object of the conspirators that there should be peace; but as it was
+      necessary to conceal their object, the Constitution was ransacked to find
+      pretences for delays. In vain did the Directory explain to them the state
+      of the finances and the wants of the army. The committee, charged with
+      that business, trifled away its time by a series of unproductive reports,
+      and continued to sit only to produce more. Every thing necessary to be
+      done was neglected, and every thing improper was attempted. Pichegru
+      occupied himself about forming a national guard for the Councils&mdash;the
+      suspicious signal of war,&mdash;Camille Jordan about priests and bells,
+      and the emigrants, with whom he had associated during the two years he was
+      in England.1 Willot and Delarue attacked the Directory: their object was
+      to displace some one of the directors, to get in another of their own.
+      Their motives with respect to the age of Barras (who is as old as he
+      wishes to be, and has been a little too old for them) were too obvious not
+      to be seen through.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine's pamphlet, addressed to Jordan, deals mainly with
+     religions matters, and is reserved for oar fourth volume.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+
+     2 Paul François Jean Nicolas Barras (1755-1899) was
+     President of the Directory at this time, 1797.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In this suspensive state of things, the public mind, filled with
+      apprehensions, became agitated, and without knowing what it might be,
+      looked for some extraordinary event. It saw, for it could not avoid
+      seeing, that things could not remain long in the state they were in, but
+      it dreaded a convulsion. That spirit of triflingness which it had indulged
+      too freely when in a state of security, and which it is probable the new
+      agents had interpreted into indifference about the success of the
+      Republic, assumed a serious aspect that afforded to conspiracy no hope of
+      aid; but still it went on. It plunged itself into new measures with the
+      same ill success, and the further it went the further the public mind
+      retired. The conspiracy saw nothing around it to give it encouragement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The obstinacy, however, with which it persevered in its repeated attacks
+      upon the Directory, in framing laws in favour of emigrants and refractory
+      priests, and in every thing inconsistent with the immediate safety of the
+      Republic, and which served to encourage the enemy to prolong the war,
+      admitted of no other direct interpretation than that something was rotten
+      in the Council of Five Hundred. The evidence of circumstances became every
+      day too visible not to be seen, and too strong to be explained away. Even
+      as errors, (to say no worse of them,) they are not entitled to apology;
+      for where knowledge is a duty, ignorance is a crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The more serious republicans, who had better opportunities than the
+      generality had, of knowing the state of politics, began to take the alarm,
+      and formed themselves into a Society, by the name of the Constitutional
+      Club. It is the only Society of which I have been a member in France; and
+      I went to this because it was become necessary that the friends of the
+      Republic should rally round the standard of the constitution. I met there
+      several of the original patriots of the revolution; I do not mean of the
+      last order of Jacobins, but of the first of that name. The faction in the
+      Council of Five Hundred, who, finding no counsel from the public, began to
+      be frightened at appearances, fortified itself against the dread of this
+      Society, by passing a law to dissolve it. The constitutionality of the law
+      was at least doubtful: but the Society, that it might not give the example
+      of exasperating matters already too much inflamed, suspended its meetings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A matter, however, of much greater moment soon after presented itself. It
+      was the march of four regiments, some of whom, in the line of their route,
+      had to pass within about twelve leagues of Paris, which is the boundary
+      the Constitution had fixed as the distance of any armed force from the
+      legislative body. In another state of things, such a circumstance would
+      not have been noticed. But conspiracy is quick of suspicion, and the fear
+      which the faction in the Council of Five Hundred manifested upon this
+      occasion could not have suggested itself to innocent men; neither would
+      innocent men have expostulated with the Directory upon the case, in the
+      manner these men did. The question they urged went to extort from the
+      Directory, and to make known to the enemy, what the destination of the
+      troops was. The leaders of the faction conceived that the troops were
+      marching against them; and the conduct they adopted in consequence of it
+      was sufficient to justify the measure, even if it had been so. From what
+      other motive than the consciousness of their own designs could they have
+      fear? The troops, in every instance, had been the gallant defenders of the
+      Republic, and the openly declared friends of the Constitution; the
+      Directory had been the same, and if the faction were not of a different
+      description neither fear nor suspicion could have had place among them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All those manouvres in the Council were acted under the most professional
+      attachment to the Constitution; and this as necessarily served to enfeeble
+      their projects. It is exceedingly difficult, and next to impossible, to
+      conduct a conspiracy, and still more so to give it success, in a popular
+      government. The disguised and feigned pretences which men in such cases
+      are obliged to act in the face of the public, suppress the action of the
+      faculties, and give even to natural courage the features of timidity. They
+      are not half the men they would be where no disguise is necessary. It is
+      impossible to be a hypocrite and to be brave at the same instant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faction, by the imprudence of its measures, upon the march of the
+      troops, and upon the declarations of the officers and soldiers to support
+      the Republic and the Constitution against all open or concealed attempts
+      to overturn them, had gotten itself involved with the army, and in effect
+      declared itself a party against it. On the one hand, laws were proposed to
+      admit emigrants and refractory priests as free citizens; and on the other
+      hand to exclude the troops from Paris, and to punish the soldiers who had
+      declared to support the Republic In the mean time all negociations for
+      peace went backward; and the enemy, still recruiting its forces, rested to
+      take advantage of circumstances. Excepting the absence of hostilities, it
+      was a state worse than war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If all this was not a conspiracy, it had at least the features of one, and
+      was pregnant with the same mischiefs. The eyes of the faction could not
+      avoid being open to the dangers to which it obstinately exposed the
+      Republic; yet still it persisted. During this scene, the journals devoted
+      to the faction were repeatedly announcing the near approach of peace with
+      Austria and with England, and often asserting that it was concluded. This
+      falsehood could be intended for no other purpose than to keep the eyes of
+      the people shut against the dangers to which they were exposed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking all circumstances together, it was impossible that such a state of
+      things could continue long; and at length it was resolved to bring it to
+      an issue. There is good reason to believe that the affair of the 18th
+      Fructidor (September 4) was intended to have taken place two days before;
+      but on recollecting that it was the 2d of September, a day mournful in the
+      annals of the revolution, it was postponed. When the issue arrived, the
+      faction found to its cost it had no party among the public. It had sought
+      its own disasters, and was left to suffer the consequences. Foreign
+      enemies, as well as those of the interior, if any such there be, ought to
+      see in the event of this day that all expectation of aid from any part of
+      the public in support of a counter revolution is delusion. In a state of
+      security the thoughtless, who trembled at terror, may laugh at principles
+      of Liberty (for they have laughed) but it is one thing to indulge a
+      foolish laugh, quite another thing to surrender Liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Considering the event of the 18th Fructidor in a political light, it is
+      one of those that are justifiable only on the supreme law of absolute
+      necessity, and it is the necessity abstracted from the event that is to be
+      deplored. The event itself is matter of joy. Whether the manouvres in the
+      Council of Five Hundred were the conspiracy of a few, aided l>y the
+      perverseness of many, or whether it had a deeper root, the dangers were
+      the same. It was impossible to go on. Every thing was at stake, and all
+      national business at a stand. The case reduced itself to a simple
+      alternative&mdash;shall the Republic be destroyed by the darksome
+      manouvres -of a faction, or shall it be preserved by an exceptional act?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the American Revolution, and that after the State constitutions
+      were established, particular cases arose that rendered it necessary to act
+      in a manner that would have been treasonable in a state of peace. At one
+      time Congress invested General Washington with dictatorial power. At
+      another time the Government of Pennsylvania suspended itself and declared
+      martial law. It was the necessity of the times only that made the apology
+      of those extraordinary measures. But who was it that produced the
+      necessity of an extraordinary measure in France? A faction, and that in
+      the face of prosperity and success. Its conduct is without apology; and it
+      is on the faction only that the exceptional measure has fallen. The public
+      has suffered no inconvenience. If there are some men more disposed than
+      others not to act severely, I have a right to place myself in that class;
+      the whole of my political life invariably proves it; yet I cannot see,
+      taking all parts of the case together, what else, or what better, could
+      have been done, than has been done. It was a great stroke, applied in a
+      great crisis, that crushed in an instant, and without the loss of a life,
+      all the hopes of the enemy, and restored tranquillity to the interior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The event was ushered in by the discharge of two cannon at four in the
+      morning, and was the only noise that was heard throughout the day. It
+      naturally excited a movement among the Parisians to enquire the cause.
+      They soon learned it, and the countenance they carried was easy to be
+      interpreted. It was that of a people who, for some time past, had been
+      oppressed with apprehensions of some direful event, and who felt
+      themselves suddenly relieved, by finding what it was. Every one went about
+      his business, or followed his curiosity in quietude. It resembled the
+      cheerful tranquillity of the day when Louis XVI. absconded in 1791, and
+      like that day it served to open the eyes of the nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If we take a review of the various events, as well conspiracies as
+      commotions, that have succeeded each other in this revolution, we shall
+      see how the former have wasted consumptively away, and the consequences of
+      the latter have softened. The 31st May and its consequences were terrible.
+      That of the 9th and 10th Thermidor, though glorious for the republic, as
+      it overthrew one of the most horrid and cruel despotisms that ever raged,
+      was nevertheless marked with many circumstances of severe and continued
+      retaliation. The commotions of Germinal and Prairial of the year 3, and of
+      Vendemaire of the year 4, were many degrees below those that preceded
+      them, and affected but a small part of the public. This of Pichegru and
+      his associates has been crushed in an instant, without the stain of blood,
+      and without involving the public in the least inconvenience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These events taken in a series, mark the progress of the Republic from
+      disorder to stability. The contrary of this is the case in all parts of
+      the British dominions. There, commotions are on an ascending scale; every
+      one is higher than the former. That of the sailors had nearly been the
+      overthrow of the government. But the most potent of all is the invisible
+      commotion in the Bank. It works with the silence of time, and the
+      certainty of death. Every thing happening in France is curable; but this
+      is beyond the reach of nature or invention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving the event of the 18th Fructidor to justify itself by the necessity
+      that occasioned it, and glorify itself by the happiness of its
+      consequences, I come to cast a coup-d'oil on the present state of affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have seen by the lingering condition of the negociations for peace,
+      that nothing was to be expected from them, in the situation that things
+      stood prior to the 18th Fructidor. The armies had done wonders, but those
+      wonders were rendered unproductive by the wretched manouvres of a faction.
+      New exertions are now necessary to repair the mischiefs which that faction
+      has done. The electoral bodies, in some Departments, who by an injudicious
+      choice, or a corrupt influence, have sent improper deputies to the
+      Legislature, have some atonement to make to their country. The evil
+      originated with them, and the least they can do is to be among the
+      foremost to repair it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, however, in vain to lament an evil that is past. There is neither
+      manhood nor policy in grief; and it often happens that an error in
+      politics, like an error in war, admits of being turned to greater
+      advantage than if it had not occurred. The enemy, encouraged by that
+      error, presumes too much, and becomes doubly foiled by the re-action.
+      England, unable to conquer, has stooped to corrupt; and defeated in the
+      last, as in the first, she is in a worse condition than before.
+      Continually increasing her crimes, she increases the measure of her
+      atonement, and multiplies the sacrifices she must make to obtain peace.
+      Nothing but the most obstinate stupidity could have induced her to let
+      slip the opportunity when it was within her reach. In addition to the
+      prospect of new expenses, she is now, to use Mr. Pitt's own figurative
+      expression against France, <i>not only on the brink, but in the gulph of
+      bankruptcy</i>. There is no longer any mystery in paper money. Call it
+      assignats, mandats, exchequer bills, or bank notes, it is still the same.
+      Time has solved the problem, and experience has fixed its fate.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See Chapter XXVI. of this volume.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The government of that unfortunate country discovers its faithlessness so
+      much, that peace on any terms with her is scarcely worth obtaining. Of
+      what use is peace with a government that will employ that peace for no
+      other purpose than to repair, as far as it is possible, her shattered
+      finances and broken credit, and then go to war again? Four times within
+      the last ten years, from the time the American war closed, has the
+      Anglo-germanic government of England been meditating fresh war. First with
+      France on account of Holland, in 1787; afterwards with Russia; then with
+      Spain, on account of Nootka Sound; and a second time against France, to
+      overthrow her revolution. Sometimes that government employs Prussia
+      against Austria; at another time Austria against Prussia; and always one
+      or the other, or both against France. Peace with such a government is only
+      a treacherous cessation of hostilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The frequency of wars on the part of England, within the last century,
+      more than before, must have had some cause that did not exist prior to
+      that epoch. It is not difficult to discover what that cause is. It is the
+      mischievous compound of an Elector of the Germanic body and a King of
+      England; and which necessarily must, at some day or other, become an
+      object of attention to France. That one nation has not a right to
+      interfere in the internal government of another nation, is admitted; and
+      in this point of view, France has no right to dictate to England what its
+      form of government shall be. If it choose to have a thing called a King,
+      or whether that King shall be a man or an ass, is a matter with which
+      France has no business. But whether an Elector of the Germanic body shall
+      be King of England, is an <i>external</i> case, with which France and
+      every other nation, who suffers inconvenience and injury in consequence of
+      it, has a right to interfere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is from this mischievous compound of Elector and King, that originates
+      a great part of the troubles that vex the continent of Europe; and with
+      respect to England, it has been the cause of her immense national debt,
+      the ruin of her finances, and the insolvency of her bank. All intrigues on
+      the continent, in which England is a party, or becomes involved, are
+      generated by, and act through, the medium of this Anglo-germanic compound.
+      It will be necessary to dissolve it. Let the Elector retire to his
+      Electorate, and the world will have peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      England herself has given examples of interference in matters of this
+      kind, and that in cases where injury was only apprehended. She engaged in
+      a long and expensive war against France (called the succession war) to
+      prevent a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth being king of Spain; because,
+      said she, <i>it will be injurious</i> to me; and she has been fighting and
+      intriguing against what was called the family-compact ever since. In 1787
+      she threatened France with war to prevent a connection between France and
+      Hoi-land; and in all her propositions of peace to-day she is dictating
+      separations. But if she look at the Anglo-germanic compact at home, called
+      the Hanover succession, she cannot avoid seeing that France necessarily
+      must, some day or other, take up that subject, and make the return of the
+      Elector to his Electorate one of the conditions of peace. There will be no
+      lasting peace between the two countries till this be done, and the sooner
+      it be done the better will it be for both.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have not been in any company where this matter aas been a topic, that
+      did not see it in the light it is here stated. Even Barthélémy,(1) when he
+      first came to the Directory (and Barthélémy was never famous for
+      patriotism) acknowledged in my hearing, and in company with Derché,
+      Secretary to the Legation at Lille, the connection of an Elector of
+      Germany and a King of England to be injurious to France. I do not,
+      however, mention it from a wish to embarrass the negociation for peace.
+      The Directory has fixed its <i>ultimatum</i>; but if that ultimatum be
+      rejected, the obligation to adhere to it is discharged, and a new one may
+      be assumed. So wretchedly has Pitt managed his opportunities» that every
+      succeeding negociation has ended in terms more against him than the
+      former. If the Directory had bribed him, he could not serve his interest
+      better than he does. He serves it as Lord North served that of America,
+      which finished in the discharge of his master.*
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Marquis de Barthélémy (François) (1750-1830) entered the
+     Directory in June, 1796, through royalist influence. He
+     shared Pichegru's banishment, and subsequently became an
+     agent of Louis XVIII.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     * The father of Pitt, when a member of the House of Commons,
+     exclaiming one day, during a former war, against the
+     enormous and ruinous expense of German connections, as the
+     offspring of the Hanover succession, and borrowing a
+     metaphor from the story of Prometheus, cried out: "Thus,
+     Hie Prometheus, is Britain chained to the barren rock of
+     Hanover; whilst the imperial eagle preys upon her vitals."&mdash;
+     Author.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thus far I had written when the negociation at Lille became suspended, in
+      consequence of which I delayed the publication, that the ideas suggested
+      in this letter might not intrude themselves during the interval. The <i>ultimatum</i>
+      offered by the Directory, as the terms of peace, was more moderate than
+      the government of England had a right to expect. That government, though
+      the provoker of the war, and the first that committed hostilities by
+      sending away the ambassador Chauvelin,(**) had formerly talked of
+      demanding from France, <i>indemnification for the past and security for
+      the future</i>. France, in her turn, might have retorted, and demanded the
+      same from England; but she did not. As it was England that, in consequence
+      of her bankruptcy, solicited peace, France offered it to her on the simple
+      condition of her restoring the islands she had taken. The ultimatum has
+      been rejected, and the negociation broken off. The spirited part of France
+      will say, <i>tant mieux</i>, so much the better.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     ** It was stipulated in the treaty of commerce between
+     France and England, concluded at Paris, that the sending
+     away an ambassador by either party, should be taken as an
+     act of hostility by the other party. The declaration of war
+     (Feb. M *793) by the Convention, of which I was then a
+     member and know well the case, was made in exact conformity
+     to this article in the treaty; for it was not a declaration
+     of war against England, but a declaration that the French
+     Republic is in war with England; the first act of hostility
+     having been committed by England. The declaration was made
+     immediately on Chauvelin's return to France, and in
+     consequence of it. Mr. Pitt should inform himself of things
+     better than he does, before he prates so much about them, or
+     of the sending away of Malmesbury, who was only on a visit
+     of permission.&mdash;Author.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      How the people of England feel on the breaking up of the negociation,
+      which was entirely the act of their own Government, is best known to
+      themselves; but from what I know of the two nations, France ought to hold
+      herself perfectly indifferent about a peace with the Government of
+      England. Every day adds new strength to France and new embarrassments to
+      her enemy. The resources of the one increase, as those of the other become
+      exhausted. England is now reduced to the same system of paper money from
+      which France has emerged, and we all know the inevitable fate of that
+      system. It is not a victory over a few ships, like that on the coast of
+      Holland, that gives the least support or relief to a paper system. On the
+      news of this victory arriving in England, the funds did not rise a
+      farthing. The Government rejoiced, but its creditors were silent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is difficult to find a motive, except in folly and madness, for the
+      conduct of the English government. Every calculation and prediction of Mr.
+      Pitt has turned out directly the contrary; yet still he predicts. He
+      predicted, with all the solemn assurance of a magician, that France would
+      be bankrupt in a few months. He was right as to the thing, but wrong as to
+      the place, for the bankruptcy happened in England whilst the words were
+      yet warm upon his lips. To find out what will happen, it is only necessary
+      to know what Mr. Pitt predicts. He is a true prophet if taken in the
+      reverse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such is the ruinous condition that England is now in, that great as the
+      difficulties of war are to the people, the difficulties that would
+      accompany peace are equally as great to the Government. Whilst the war
+      continues, Mr. Pitt has a pretence for shutting up the bank. But as that
+      pretence could last no longer than the war lasted, he dreads the peace
+      that would expose the absolute bankruptcy of the government, and unveil to
+      a deceived nation the ruinous effect of his measures. Peace would be a day
+      of accounts to him, and he shuns it as an insolvent debtor shuns a meeting
+      of his creditors. War furnishes him with many pretences; peace would
+      furnish him with none, and he stands alarmed at its consequences. His
+      conduct in the negociation at Lille can be easily interpreted. It is not
+      for the sake of the nation that he asks to retain some of the taken
+      islands; for what are islands to a nation that has already too many for
+      her own good, or what are they in comparison to the expense of another
+      campaign in the present depreciating state of the English funds? (And even
+      then those islands must be restored.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, it is not for the sake of the nation that he asks. It is for the sake
+      of himself. It is as if he said to France, Give me some pretence, cover me
+      from disgrace when my day of reckoning comes!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Any person acquainted with the English Government knows that every
+      Minister has some dread of what is called in England the winding up of
+      accounts at the end of a war; that is, the final settlement of all
+      expenses incurred by the war; and no Minister had ever so great cause of
+      dread as Mr. Pitt. A burnt child dreads the fire, and Pitt has had some
+      experience upon this case. The winding up of accounts at the end of the
+      American war was so great, that, though he was not the cause of it, and
+      came into the Ministry with great popularity, he lost it all by
+      undertaking, what was impossible for him to avoid, the voluminous business
+      of the winding up. If such was the case in settling the accounts of his
+      predecessor, how much more has he to apprehend when the accounts to be
+      settled are his own? All men in bad circumstances hate the settlement of
+      accounts, and Pitt, as a Minister, is of that description.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But let us take a view of things on a larger ground than the case of a
+      Minister. It will then be found, that England, on a comparison of strength
+      with France, when both nations are disposed to exert their utmost, has no
+      possible chance of success. The efforts that England made within the last
+      century were not generated on the ground of <i>natural ability</i>, but of
+      <i>artificial anticipations</i>. She ran posterity into debt, and
+      swallowed up in one generation the resources of several generations yet to
+      come, till the project can be pursued no longer. It is otherwise in
+      France. The vastness of her territory and her population render the burden
+      easy that would make a bankrupt of a country like England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not the weight of a thing, but the numbers who are to bear that
+      weight, that makes it feel light or heavy to the shoulders of those who
+      bear it. A land-tax of half as much in the pound as the land-tax is in
+      England, will raise nearly four times as much revenue in France as is
+      raised in England. This is a scale easily understood, by which all the
+      other sections of productive revenue can be measured. Judge then of the
+      difference of natural ability.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      England is strong in a navy; but that navy costs about eight millions
+      sterling a-year, and is one of the causes that has hastened her
+      bankruptcy. The history of navy bills sufficiently proves this. But strong
+      as England is in this case, the fate of navies must finally be decided by
+      the natural ability of each country to carry its navy to the greatest
+      extent; and France is able to support a navy twice as large as that of
+      England, with less than half the expense per head on the people, which the
+      present navy of England costs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all know that a navy cannot be raised as expeditiously as an army. But
+      as the average duration of a navy, taking the decay of time, storms, and
+      all circumstances and accidents together, is less than twenty years, every
+      navy must be renewed within that time; and France at the end of a few
+      years, can create and support a navy of double the extent of that of
+      England; and the conduct of the English government will provoke her to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But of what use are navies otherwise than to make or prevent invasions?
+      Commercially considered, they are losses. They scarcely give any
+      protection to the commerce of the countries which have them, compared with
+      the expense of maintaining them, and they insult the commerce of the
+      nations that are neutral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the American war, the plan of the armed neutrality was formed and
+      put in execution: but it was inconvenient, expensive, and ineffectual.
+      This being the case, the problem is, does not commerce contain within
+      itself, the means of its own protection? It certainly does, if the neutral
+      nations will employ that means properly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead then of an <i>armed neutrality</i>, the plan should be directly
+      the contrary. It should be an <i>unarmed neutrality</i>. In the first
+      place, the rights of neutral nations are easily defined. They are such as
+      are exercised by nations in their intercourse with each other in time of
+      peace, and which ought not, and cannot of right, be interrupted in
+      consequence of war breaking out between any two or more of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Taking this as a principle, the next thing is to give it effect. The plan
+      of the armed neutrality was to effect it by threatening war; but an
+      unarmed neutrality can effect it by much easier and more powerful means.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Were the neutral nations to associate, under an honourable injunction of
+      fidelity to each other, and publicly declare to the world, that if any
+      belligerent power shall seize or molest any ship or vessel belonging to
+      the citizens or subjects of any of the powers composing that Association,
+      that the whole Association will shut its ports against the flag of the
+      offending nation, and will not permit any goods, wares, or merchandise,
+      produced or manufactured in the offending nation, or appertaining thereto,
+      to be imported into any of the ports included in the Association, until
+      reparation be made to the injured party,&mdash;the reparation to be three
+      times the value of the vessel and cargo,&mdash;and moreover that all
+      remittances on money, goods, and bills of exchange, do cease to be made to
+      the offending nation, until the said reparation be made: were the neutral
+      nations only to do this, which it is their direct interest to do, England,
+      as a nation depending on the commerce of neutral nations in time of war,
+      dare not molest them, and France would not. But whilst, from the want of a
+      common system, they individually permit England to do it, because
+      individually they cannot resist it, they put France under the necessity of
+      doing the same thing. The supreme of all laws, in all cases, is that of
+      self-preservation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the commerce of neutral nations would thus be protected by the means
+      that commerce naturally contains within itself, all the naval operations
+      of France and England would be confined within the circle of acting
+      against each other: and in that case it needs no spirit of prophecy to
+      discover that France must finally prevail. The sooner this be done, the
+      better will it be for both nations, and for all the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine had already prepared his "Maritime Compact," and
+     devised the Rainbow Flag, which was to protect commerce, the
+     substance and history of which constitutes his Seventh
+     Letter to the People of the United States, Chapter XXXIII.
+     of the present volume. He sent the articles of his proposed
+     international Association to the Minister of Foreign
+     Relations, Talleyrand, who responded with a cordial letter.
+     The articles of "Maritime Compact," translated into French
+     by Nicolas Bouneville, were, in 1800, sent to all the
+     Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Europe, and to the
+     ambassadors in Paris.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXX. THE RECALL OF MONROE. (1)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Monroe, like Edmund Randolph and Thomas Paine, was
+     sacrificed to the new commercial alliance with Great
+     Britain. The Cabinet of Washington were entirely hostile to
+     France, and in their determination to replace Monroe were
+     assisted by Gouverneur Morris, still in Europe, who wrote to
+     President Washington calumnies against that Minister. In a
+     letter of December 19, 1795, Morris tells Washington that he
+     had heard from a trusted informant that Monroe had said to
+     several Frenchmen that "he had no doubt but that, if they
+     would do what was proper here, he and his friends would turn
+     out Washington." On July 2, 1796, the Cabinet ministers,
+     Pickering, Wolcott, and Mo-Henry, wrote to the President
+     their joint opinion that the interests of the United States
+     required Monroe's recall, and slanderously connected him
+     with anonymous letters from France written by M.
+     Montflorence. The recall, dated August 22, 1796, reached
+     Monroe early in November. It alluded to certain "concurring
+     circumstances," which induced his removal, and these "hidden
+     causes" (in Paine's phrase) Monroe vainly demanded on his
+     return to America early in 1797. The Directory, on
+     notification of Monroe's recall, resolved not to recognize
+     his successor, and the only approach to an American Minister
+     in Paris for the remainder of the century was Thomas Paine,
+     who was consulted by the Foreign Ministers, De la Croix and
+     Talleyrand, and by Napoleon. On the approach of C. C.
+     Pinckney, as successor to Monroe, Paine feared that his
+     dismissal might entail war, and urged the Minister (De la
+     Croix) to regard Pinckney,&mdash;nominated in a recess of the
+     Senate,&mdash;as in "suspension" until confirmed by that body.
+     There might be unofficial "pourparlers," with him. This
+     letter (State Archives, Paris, États Unis, vol. 46, fol. 425)
+     was considered for several days before Pinckney reached
+     Paris (December 5, 1796), but the Directory considered that
+     it was not a "dignified" course, and Pinckney was ordered to
+     leave French territory, under the existing decree against
+     foreigners who had no permit to remain.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Paris, Sept. 27, 1797. Editors of the Bien-in formé.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Citizens: in your 19th number of the complementary 5th, you gave an
+      analysis of the letters of James Monroe to Timothy Pickering. The
+      newspapers of Paris and the departments have copied this correspondence
+      between the ambassador of the United States and the Secretary of State. I
+      notice, however, that a few of them have omitted some important facts,
+      whilst indulging in comments of such an extraordinary nature that it is
+      clear they know neither Monroe's integrity nor the intrigues of Pitt in
+      this affair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The recall of Monroe is connected with circumstances so important to the
+      interests of France and the United States, that we must be careful not to
+      confound it with the recall of an ordinary individual. The Washington
+      faction had affected to spread it abroad that James Monroe was the cause
+      of rupture between the two Republics. This accusation is a perfidious and
+      calumnious one; since the main point in this affair is not so much the
+      recall of a worthy, enlightened and republican minister, as the
+      ingratitude and clandestine manoeuvering of the government of Washington,
+      who caused the misunderstanding by signing a treaty injurious to the
+      French Republic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      James Monroe, in his letters, does not deny the right of government to
+      withdraw its confidence from any one of its delegates, representatives, or
+      agents. He has hinted, it is true, that caprice and temper are not in
+      accordance with the spirit of paternal rule, and that whenever a
+      representative government punishes or rewards, good faith, integrity and
+      justice should replace <i>the good pleasure of Kings</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the present case, they have done more than recall an agent. Had they
+      confined themselves to depriving him of his appointment, James Monroe
+      would have kept silence; but he has been accused of lighting the torch of
+      discord in both Republics. The refutation of this absurd and infamous
+      reproach is the chief object of his correspondence. If he did not
+      immediately complain of these slanders in his letters of the 6th and 8th
+      [July], it is because he wished to use at first a certain degree of
+      caution, and, if it were possible, to stifle intestine troubles at their
+      birth. He wished to reopen the way to peaceful negotiations to be
+      conducted with good faith and justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arguments of the Secretary of State on the rights of the supreme
+      administration of the United States are peremptory; but the observations
+      of Monroe on the hidden causes of his recall are touching; they come from
+      the heart; they are characteristic of an excellent citizen. If he does
+      more than complain of his unjust recall as a man of feeling would; if he
+      proudly asks for proofs of a grave accusation, it is after he has tried in
+      vain every honest and straightforward means. He will not suffer that a
+      government, sold to the enemies of freedom, should discharge upon him its
+      shame, its crimes, its ingratitude, and all the odium of its unjust
+      dealings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Were Monroe to find himself an object of public hatred, the Republican
+      party in the United States, that party which is the sincere ally of
+      France, would be annihilated, and this is the aim of the English
+      government.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Imagine the triumph of Pitt, if Monroe and the other friends of freedom in
+      America, should be unjustly attacked in France!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monroe does not lay his cause before the Senate since the Senate itself
+      ratified the unconstitutional treaty; he appeals to the house of
+      Representatives, and at the same time lays his cause before the upright
+      tribunal of the American nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0032" id="link2H_4_0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXXI. PRIVATE LETTER TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON.
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Paris, October 1, 1800.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dear Sir,&mdash;I wrote to you from Havre by the ship Dublin Packet in the
+      year 1797. It was then my intention to return to America; but there were
+      so many British frigates cruising in sight of the port, and which after a
+      few days knew that I was at Havre waiting to go to America, that I did not
+      think it best to trust myself to their discretion, and the more so, as I
+      had no confidence in the captain of the Dublin Packet (Clay).(1) I
+      mentioned to you in that letter, which I believe you received thro' the
+      hands of Colonel [Aaron] Burr, that I was glad since you were not
+      President that you had accepted the nomination of Vice President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Commissioners Ellsworth &amp; Co.(2) have been here about eight
+      months, and three more useless mortals never came upon public business.
+      Their presence appears to me to have been rather an injury than a benefit.
+      They set themselves up for a faction as soon as they arrived. I was then
+      in Belgia.(3) Upon my return to Paris I learnt they had made a point of
+      not returning the visits of Mr. Skipwith and Barlow, because, they said,
+      they had not the confidence of the executive. Every known republican was
+      treated in the same manner. I learned from Mr. Miller of Philadelphia, who
+      had occasion to see them upon business, that they did not intend to return
+      my visit, if I made one. This, I supposed, it was intended I should know,
+      that I might not make one. It had the contrary effect. I went to see Mr.
+      Ellsworth. I told him, I did not come to see him as a commissioner, nor to
+      congratulate him upon his mission; that I came to see him because I had
+      formerly known him in Congress. "I mean not," said I, "to press you with
+      any questions, or to engage you in any conversation upon the business you
+      are come upon, but I will nevertheless candidly say that I know not what
+      expectations the Government or the people of America may have of your
+      mission, or what expectations you may have yourselves, but I believe you
+      will find you can do but little. The treaty with England lies at the
+      threshold of all your business. The American Government never did two more
+      foolish things than when it signed that Treaty and recalled Mr. Monroe,
+      who was the only man could do them any service." Mr. Ellsworth put on the
+      dull gravity of a Judge, and was silent. I added, "You may perhaps make a
+      treaty like that you have made with England, which is a surrender of the
+      rights of the American flag; for the principle that neutral ships make
+      neutral property must be general or not at all." I then changed the
+      subject, for I had all the talk to myself upon this topic, and enquired
+      after Samuel Adams, (I asked nothing about John,) Mr. Jefferson, Mr.
+      Monroe, and others of my friends; and the melancholy case of the yellow
+      fever,&mdash;of which he gave me as circumstantial an account as if he had
+      been summing up a case to a Jury. Here my visit ended, and had Mr.
+      Ellsworth been as cunning as a statesman, or as wise as a Judge, he would
+      have returned my visit that he might appear insensible of the intention of
+      mine.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The packet was indeed searched for Paine by a British
+     cruiser.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Oliver Ellsworth (Chief Justice), W. V. Murray, and W. R.
+     Davie, were sent by President Adams to France to negotiate a
+     treaty. In this they failed, but a convention was signed
+     September 30, 1800, which terminated the treaty of 1778,
+     which had become a source of discord, and prepared the way
+     for the negotiations of Livingston and Monroe in 1803.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>
+
+     3 Paine had visited his room-mate in Luxembourg prison,
+     Vanhuele, who was now Mayor of Bruges.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I now come to the affairs of this country and of Europe. You will, I
+      suppose, have heard before this arrives to you, of the battle of Marengo
+      in Italy, where the Austrians were defeated&mdash;of the armistice in
+      consequence thereof, and the surrender of Milan, Genoa etc. to the french&mdash;of
+      the successes of the french Army in Germany&mdash;and the extension of the
+      armistice in that quarter&mdash;of the preliminaries of Peace signed at
+      Paris&mdash;of the refusal of the Emperor [of Austria] to ratify these
+      preliminaries&mdash;of the breaking of the armistice by the french
+      Government in consequence of that refusal&mdash;of the "gallant"
+      expedition of the Emperor to put himself at the head of his Army&mdash;of
+      his pompous arrival there&mdash;of his having made his will&mdash;of
+      prayers being put in all his churches for the preservation of the life of
+      this Hero&mdash;of General Moreau announcing to him, immediately on his
+      arrival at the Army, that hostilities would commence the day after the
+      next at sunrise unless he signed the treaty or gave security that he would
+      sign within 45 days&mdash;of his surrendering up three of the principal
+      keys of Germany (Ulm, Philipsbourg, and Ingolstadt) as security that he
+      would sign them. This is the state things are now in, at the time of
+      writing this letter; but it is proper to add that the refusal of the
+      Emperor to sign the preliminaries was motived upon a note from the King of
+      England to be admitted to the Congress for negociating Peace, which was
+      consented to by the french upon the condition of an armistice at Sea,
+      which England, before knowing of the surrender the Emperor had made, had
+      refused. From all which it appears to me, judging from circumstances, that
+      the Emperor is now so compleatly in the hands of the french, that he has
+      no way of getting out but by a peace. The Congress for the peace is to be
+      held at Lunéville, a town in France. Since the affair of Rastadt the
+      French commissioners will not trust themselves within the Emperor's
+      territory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now come to domestic Affairs. I know not what the Commissioners have
+      done, but from a paper I enclose to you, which appears to have some
+      authority, it is not much. The paper as you will perceive is considerably
+      prior to this letter. I know that the Commissioners before this piece
+      appeared intended setting off. It is therefore probable that what they
+      have done is conformable to what this paper mentions, which certainly will
+      not atone for the expence their mission has incurred, neither are they, by
+      all the accounts I hear of them, men fitted for the business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But independently of these matters there appears to be a state of
+      circumstances rising, which if it goes on, will render all partial
+      treaties unnecessary. In the first place I doubt if any peace will be made
+      with England; and in the second place, I should not wonder to see a
+      coalition formed against her, to compel her to abandon her insolence on
+      the seas. This brings me to speak of the manuscripts I send you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The piece No. I, without any title, was written in consequence of a
+      question put to me by Bonaparte. As he supposed I knew England and English
+      Politics he sent a person to me to ask, that in case of negociating a
+      Peace with Austria, whether it would be proper to include England. This
+      was when Count St. Julian was in Paris, on the part of the Emperor
+      negociating the preliminaries:&mdash;which as I have before said the
+      Emperor refused to sign on the pretence of admitting England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The piece No. 2, entitled <i>On the Jacobinism of the English at sea</i>,
+      was written when the English made their insolent and impolitic expedition
+      to Denmark, and is also an auxiliary to the politic of No. I. I shewed it
+      to a friend [Bonneville] who had it translated into french, and printed in
+      the form of a Pamphlet, and distributed gratis among the foreign
+      Ministers, and persons in the Government. It was immediately copied into
+      several of the french Journals, and into the official Paper, the Moniteur.
+      It appeared in this paper one day before the last dispatch arrived from
+      Egypt; which agreed perfectly with what I had said respecting Egypt. It
+      hit the two cases of Denmark and Egypt in the exact proper moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Piece No. 3, entitled <i>Compact Maritime</i>, is the sequel of No. 2,
+      digested in form. It is translating at the time I write this letter, and I
+      am to have a meeting with the Senator Garat upon the subject. The pieces 2
+      and 3 go off in manuscript to England, by a confidential person, where
+      they will be published.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The substance of most of these "pieces" are embodied in
+     Paine's Seventh Letter to the People of the United States
+     (infra p. 420).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      By all the news we get from the North there appears to be something
+      meditating against England. It is now given for certain that Paul has
+      embargoed all the English vessels and English property in Russia till some
+      principle be established for protecting the Rights of neutral Nations, and
+      securing the liberty of the Seas. The preparations in Denmark continue,
+      notwithstanding the convention that she has made with England, which
+      leaves the question with respect to the right set up by England to stop
+      and search Neutral vessels undecided. I send you the paragraphs upon the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tumults are great in all parts of England on account of the excessive
+      price of corn and bread, which has risen since the harvest. I attribute it
+      more to the abundant increase of paper, and the non-circulation of cash,
+      than to any other cause. People in trade can push the paper off as fast as
+      they receive it, as they did by continental money in America; but as
+      farmers have not this opportunity, they endeavor to secure themselves by
+      going considerably in advance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now given you all the great articles of intelligence, for I trouble
+      not myself with little ones, and consequently not with the Commissioners,
+      nor any thing they are about, nor with John Adams, otherwise than to wish
+      him safe home, and a better and wiser man in his place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the present state of circumstances and the prospects arising from them,
+      it may be proper for America to consider whether it is worth her while to
+      enter into any treaty at this moment, or to wait the event of those
+      circumstances which if they go on will render partial treaties useless by
+      deranging them. But if, in the mean time, she enters into any treaty it
+      ought to be with a condition to the following purpose: Reserving to
+      herself the right of joining in an Association of Nations for the
+      protection of the Rights of Neutral Commerce and the security of the
+      liberty of the Seas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pieces 2, 3, may go to the press. They will make a small pamphlet and
+      the printers are welcome to put my name to it. (It is best it should be
+      put.) From thence they will get into the newspapers. I know that the
+      faction of John Adams abuses me pretty heartily. They are welcome.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It does not disturb me, and they lose their labour; and in return for it I
+      am doing America more service, as a neutral Nation, than their expensive
+      Commissioners can do, and she has that service from me for nothing. The
+      piece No. 1 is only for your own amusement and that of your friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I come now to speak confidentially to you on a private subject. When Mr.
+      Ellsworth and Davie return to America, Murray will return to Holland, and
+      in that case there will be nobody in Paris but Mr. Skipwith that has been
+      in the habit of transacting business with the french Government since the
+      revolution began. He is on a good standing with them, and if the chance of
+      the day should place you in the presidency you cannot do better than
+      appoint him for any purpose you may have occasion for in France. He is an
+      honest man and will do his country justice, and that with civility and
+      good manners to the government he is commissioned to act with; a faculty
+      which that Northern Bear Timothy Pickering wanted, and which the Bear of
+      that Bear, John Adams, never possessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I know not much of Mr. Murray, otherwise than of his unfriendliness to
+      every American who is not of his faction, but I am sure that Joel Barlow
+      is a much fitter man to be in Holland than Mr. Murray. It is upon the
+      fitness of the man to the place that I speak, for I have not communicated
+      a thought upon the subject to Barlow, neither does he know, at the time of
+      my writing this (for he is at Havre), that I have intention to do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will now, by way of relief, amuse you with some account of the progress
+      of iron bridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [Here follows an account of the building of the iron bridge at Sunderland,
+      England, and some correspondence with Mr. Milbanke, M. P., which will be
+      given more fully and precisely in a chapter of vol. IV. (Appendix), on
+      Iron Bridges, and is therefore omitted here.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have now made two other Models [of bridges]. One is pasteboard, five
+      feet span and five inches of height from the cords. It is in the opinion
+      of every person who has seen it one of the most beautiful objects the eye
+      can behold. I then cast a model in metal following the construction of
+      that in paste-board and of the same dimensions. The whole was executed in
+      my own Chamber. It is far superior in strength, elegance, and readiness in
+      execution to the model I made in America, and which you saw in Paris.(1) I
+      shall bring those models with me when I come home, which will be as soon
+      as I can pass the seas in safety from the piratical John Bulls. I suppose
+      you have seen, or have heard of the Bishop of Landaff's answer to my
+      second part of the Age of Reason. As soon as I got a copy of it I began a
+      third part, which served also as an answer to the Bishop; but as soon as
+      the clerical society for promoting <i>Christian Knowledge</i> knew of my
+      intention to answer the Bishop, they prosecuted, as a Society, the printer
+      of the first and second parts, to prevent that answer appearing. No other
+      reason than this can be assigned for their prosecuting at the time they
+      did, because the first part had been in circulation above three years and
+      the second part more than one, and they prosecuted immediately on knowing
+      that I was taking up their Champion. The Bishop's answer, like Mr. Burke's
+      attack on the french revolution, served me as a back-ground to bring
+      forward other subjects upon, with more advantage than if the background
+      was not there. This is the motive that induced me to answer him, otherwise
+      I should have gone on without taking any notice of him. I have made and am
+      still making additions to the manuscript, and shall continue to do so till
+      an opportunity arrive for publishing it.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 "These models exhibit an extraordinary degree not only of
+     skill, but of taste, and are wrought with extreme delicacy
+     entirely by his own hands. The largest is nearly four feet
+     in length; the iron-works, the chains, and every other
+     article belonging to it, were forged and manufactured by
+     himself. It is intended as the model of a bridge which is to
+     be constructed across the Delaware, extending 480 feet, with
+     only one arch. The other is to be erected over a lesser
+     river, whose name I forget, and is likewise a single arch,
+     and of his own workmanship, excepting the chains, which,
+     instead of iron, are cut out of paste-hoard by the fair hand
+     of his correspondent, the 'Little Corner of the World' (Lady
+     Smyth), whose indefatigable perseverance is extraordinary.
+     He was offered £3000 for these models and refused it."&mdash;
+     Yorke's <i>Letters from France</i>, These models excited much
+     admiration in Washington and Philadelphia. They remained for
+     a long time in Peale's Museum at Philadelphia, but no trace
+     is left of them.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If any American frigate should come to france, and the direction of it
+      fall to you, I will be glad you would give me the opportunity of
+      returning. The abscess under which I suffered almost two years is entirely
+      healed of itself, and I enjoy exceeding good health. This is the first of
+      October, and Mr. Skipwith has just called to tell me the Commissioners set
+      off for Havre to-morrow. This will go by the frigate but not with the
+      knowledge of the Commissioners. Remember me with much affection to my
+      friends and accept the same to yourself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXXII. PROPOSAL THAT LOUISIANA BE PURCHASED.(1)
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      (SENT TO THE PRESIDENT, CHRISTMAS DAY, 1802.)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine, being at Lovell's Hotel, Washington, suggested the
+     purchase of Louisiana to Dr. Michael Leib, representative
+     from Pennsylvania, who, being pleased with the idea,
+     suggested that he should write it to Jefferson. On the day
+     after its reception the President told Paine that "measures
+     were already taken in that business."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Spain has ceded Louisiana to France, and France has excluded Americans
+      from New Orleans, and the navigation of the Mississippi. The people of the
+      Western Territory have complained of it to their Government, and the
+      Government is of consequence involved and interested in the affair. The
+      question then is&mdash;What is the best step to be taken?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The one is to begin by memorial and remonstrance against an infraction of
+      a right. The other is by accommodation,&mdash;still keeping the right in
+      view, but not making it a groundwork.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose then the Government begin by making a proposal to France to
+      re-purchase the cession made to her by Spain, of Louisiana, provided it be
+      with the consent of the people of Louisiana, or a majority thereof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By beginning on this ground any thing can be said without carrying the
+      appearance of a threat. The growing power of the Western Territory can be
+      stated as a matter of information, and also the impossibility of
+      restraining them from seizing upon New Orleans, and the equal
+      impossibility of France to prevent it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suppose the proposal attended to, the sum to be given comes next on the
+      carpet. This, on the part of America, will be estimated between the value
+      of the commerce and the quantity of revenue that Louisiana will produce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The French Treasury is not only empty, but the Government has consumed by
+      anticipation a great part of the next year's revenue. A monied proposal
+      will, I believe, be attended to; if it should, the claims upon France can
+      be stipulated as part of the payment, and that sum can be paid here to the
+      claimants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &mdash;&mdash;I congratulate you on <i>The Birthday of the New Sun</i>,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      now called Christmas Day; and I make you a present of a thought on
+      Louisiana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      T.P. <a name="link2H_4_0034" id="link2H_4_0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXXIII. THOMAS PAINE TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES,
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      And particularly to the Leaders of the Federal Faction, LETTER I.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The National Intelligencer, November 15th. The venerable
+     Mr. Gales, so long associated with this paper, had been in
+     youth a prosecuted adherent of Paine in Sheffield, England.
+     The paper distinguished itself by the kindly welcome it gave
+     Paine on his return to America. (See issues of Nov. 3 and
+     10, 1802.) Paine landed at Baltimore, Oct. 30th.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After an absence of almost fifteen years, I am again returned to the
+      country in whose dangers I bore my share, and to whose greatness I
+      contributed my part.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I sailed for Europe, in the spring of 1787, it was my intention to
+      return to America the next year, and enjoy in retirement the esteem of my
+      friends, and the repose I was entitled to. I had stood out the storm of
+      one revolution, and had no wish to embark in another. But other scenes and
+      other circumstances than those of contemplated ease were allotted to me.
+      The French revolution was beginning to germinate when I arrived in France.
+      The principles of it were good, they were copied from America, and the men
+      who conducted it were honest. But the fury of faction soon extinguished
+      the one, and sent the other to the scaffold. Of those who began that
+      revolution, I am almost the only survivor, and that through a thousand
+      dangers. I owe this not to the prayers of priests, nor to the piety of
+      hypocrites, but to the continued protection of Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But while I beheld with pleasure the dawn of liberty rising in Europe, I
+      saw with regret the lustre of it fading in America. In less than two years
+      from the time of my departure some distant symptoms painfully suggested
+      the idea that the principles of the revolution were expiring on the soil
+      that produced them. I received at that time a letter from a female
+      literary correspondent, and in my answer to her, I expressed my fears on
+      that head.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I now know from the information I obtain upon the spot, that the
+      impressions that then distressed me, for I was proud of America, were but
+      too well founded. She was turning her back on her own glory, and making
+      hasty strides in the retrograde path of oblivion. But a spark from the
+      altar of <i>Seventy-six</i>, unextinguished and unextinguishable through
+      the long night of error, is again lighting up, in every part of the Union,
+      the genuine name of rational liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the French revolution advanced, it fixed the attention of the world,
+      and drew from the pensioned pen (2) of Edmund Burke a furious attack. This
+      brought me once more on the public theatre of politics, and occasioned the
+      pamphlet <i>Rights of Man</i>. It had the greatest run of any work ever
+      published in the English language. The number of copies circulated in
+      England, Scotland, and Ireland, besides translations into foreign
+      languages, was between four and five hundred thousand. The principles of
+      that work were the same as those in <i>Common Sense</i>, and the effects
+      would have been the same in England as that had produced in America, could
+      the vote of the nation been quietly taken, or had equal opportunities of
+      consulting or acting existed. The only difference between the two works
+      was, that the one was adapted to the local circumstances of England, and
+      the other to those of America. As to myself, I acted in both cases alike;
+      I relinquished to the people of England, as I had done to those of
+      America, all profits from the work. My reward existed in the ambition to
+      do good, and the independent happiness of my own mind.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine here quotes a passage from his letter to Mrs. Few,
+     already given in the Memorial to Monroe (XXI.). The entire
+     letter to Mrs. Few will be printed in the Appendix to Vol.
+     IV. of this work.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 See editorial note p. 95 in this volume.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But a faction, acting in disguise, was rising in America; they had lost
+      sight of first principles. They were beginning to contemplate government
+      as a profitable monopoly, and the people as hereditary property. It is,
+      therefore, no wonder that the <i>Rights of Man</i> was attacked by that
+      faction, and its author continually abused. But let them go on; give them
+      rope enough and they will put an end to their own insignificance. There is
+      too much common sense and independence in America to be long the dupe of
+      any faction, foreign or domestic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, in the midst of the freedom we enjoy, the licentiousness of the
+      papers called Federal, (and I know not why they are called so, for they
+      are in their principles anti-federal and despotic,) is a dishonour to the
+      character of the country, and an injury to its reputation and importance
+      abroad. They represent the whole people of America as destitute of public
+      principle and private manners. As to any injury they can do at home to
+      those whom they abuse, or service they can render to those who employ
+      them, it is to be set down to the account of noisy nothingness. It is on
+      themselves the disgrace recoils, for the reflection easily presents itself
+      to every thinking mind, that <i>those who abuse liberty when they possess
+      it would abuse power could they obtain it</i>; and, therefore, they may as
+      well take as a general motto, for all such papers, <i>We and our patrons
+      are not fit to be trusted with power</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is in America, more than in any other country, a large body of
+      people who attend quietly to their farms, or follow their several
+      occupations; who pay no regard to the clamours of anonymous scribblers,
+      who think for themselves, and judge of government, not by the fury of
+      newspaper writers, but by the prudent frugality of its measures, and the
+      encouragement it gives to the improvement and prosperity of the country;
+      and who, acting on their own judgment, never come forward in an election
+      but on some important occasion. When this body moves, all the little
+      barkings of scribbling and witless curs pass for nothing. To say to this
+      independent description of men, "You must turn out such and such persons
+      at the next election, for they have taken off a great many taxes, and
+      lessened the expenses of government, they have dismissed my son, or my
+      brother, or myself, from a lucrative office, in which there was nothing to
+      do"&mdash;is to show the cloven foot of faction, and preach the language
+      of ill-disguised mortification. In every part of the Union, this faction
+      is in the agonies of death, and in proportion as its fate approaches,
+      gnashes its teeth and struggles. My arrival has struck it as with an
+      hydrophobia, it is like the sight of water to canine madness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this letter is intended to announce my arrival to my friends, and to my
+      enemies if I have any, for I ought to have none in America, and as
+      introductory to others that will occasionally follow, I shall close it by
+      detailing the line of conduct I shall pursue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have no occasion to ask, and do not intend to accept, any place or
+      office in the government.(1) There is none it could give me that would be
+      any ways equal to 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 politics or religion. I must be in every
+      thing what I have ever been, a disinterested volunteer; my proper sphere
+      of action is on the common floor of citizenship, and to honest men I give
+      my hand and my heart freely.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The President (Jefferson) being an intimate friend of
+     Paine, and suspected, despite his reticence, of sympathizing
+     with Paine's religions views, was included in the
+     denunciations of Paine ("The Two Toms" they were called),
+     and Paine here goes out of his way to soften matters for
+     Jefferson.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I have some manuscript works to publish, of which I shall give proper
+      notice, and some mechanical affairs to bring forward, that will 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 welcome; I shall
+      not descend to answer them. I have been too much used to such common stuff
+      to take any notice of it. The government of England honoured me with a
+      thousand martyrdoms, by burning me in effigy in every town in that
+      country, and their hirelings in America may do the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      City of Washington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THOMAS PAINE. LETTER II(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As the affairs of the country to which I am returned are of more
+      importance to the world, and to me, than of that I have lately left, (for
+      it is through the new world the old must be regenerated, if regenerated at
+      all,) I shall not take up the time of the reader with an account of scenes
+      that have passed in France, many of which are painful to remember and
+      horrid to relate, but come at once to the circumstances in which I find
+      America on my arrival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fourteen years, and something more, have produced a change, at least among
+      a part of the people, and I ask my-self what it is? I meet or hear of
+      thousands of my former connexions, who are men of the same principles and
+      friendships as when I left them. But a non-descript race, and of equivocal
+      generation, assuming the name of <i>Federalist</i>,&mdash;a name that
+      describes no character of principle good or bad, and may equally be
+      applied to either,&mdash;has since started up with the rapidity of a
+      mushroom, and like a mushroom is withering on its rootless stalk. Are
+      those men <i>federalized</i> to support the liberties of their country or
+      to overturn them? To add to its fair fame or riot on its spoils? The name
+      contains no defined idea. It is like John Adams's definition of a
+      Republic, in his letter to Mr. Wythe of Virginia.(2) <i>It is</i>, says
+      he, <i>an empire of laws and not of men</i>. But as laws may be bad as
+      well as good, an empire of laws may be the best of all governments or the
+      worst of all tyrannies. But John Adams is a man of paradoxical heresies,
+      and consequently of a bewildered mind. He wrote a book entitled, "<i>A
+      Defence of the American Constitutions</i>," and the principles of it are
+      an attack upon them. But the book is descended to the tomb of
+      forgetfulness, and the best fortune that can attend its author is quietly
+      to follow its fate. John was not born for immortality. But, to return to
+      Federalism.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 National Intelligencer, Nov. 23d, 1802.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Chancellor Wythe, 1728-1806.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i> vol m&mdash;«5
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In the history of parties and the names they assume, it often happens that
+      they finish by the direct contrary principles with which they profess to
+      begin, and thus it has happened with Federalism.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the time of the old Congress, and prior to the establishment of the
+      federal government, the continental belt was too loosely buckled. The
+      several states were united in name but not in fact, and that nominal union
+      had neither centre nor circle. The laws of one state frequently
+      interferred with, and sometimes opposed, those of another. Commerce
+      between state and state was without protection, and confidence without a
+      point to rest on. The condition the country was then in, was aptly
+      described by Pelatiah Webster, when he said, "<i>thirteen staves and ne'er
+      a hoop will not make a barrel</i>."(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If, then, by <i>Federalist</i> is to be understood one who was for
+      cementing the Union by a general government operating equally over all the
+      States, in all matters that embraced the common interest, and to which the
+      authority of the States severally was not adequate, for no one State can
+      make laws to bind another; if, I say, by a <i>Federalist</i> is meant a
+      person of this description, (and this is the origin of the name,) <i>I
+      ought to stand first on the list of Federalists</i>, for the proposition
+      for establishing a general government over the Union, came originally from
+      me in 1783, in a written Memorial to Chancellor Livingston, then Secretary
+      for Foreign Affairs to Congress, Robert Morris, Minister of Finance, and
+      his associate, Gouverneur Morris, all of whom are now living; and we had a
+      dinner and conference at Robert Morris's on the subject. The occasion was
+      as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Congress had proposed a duty of five per cent, on imported articles, the
+      money to be applied as a fund towards paying the interest of loans to be
+      borrowed in Holland. The resolve was sent to the several States to be
+      enacted into a law. Rhode Island absolutely refused. I was at the trouble
+      of a journey to Rhode Island to reason with them on the subject.(2) Some
+      other of the States enacted it with alterations, each one as it pleased.
+      Virginia adopted it, and afterwards repealed it, and the affair came to
+      nothing.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 "Like a stare in a cask well bound with hoops, it [the
+     individual State] stands firmer, is not so easily shaken,
+     bent, or broken, as it would be were it set up by itself
+     alone."&mdash;Pelatiah Webster, 1788. See Paul L. Ford's
+     Pamphlets cm the Constitution, etc., p. 128.&mdash;Editor
+
+     2  See my "Life of Paine." vol i., p. 103.&mdash;Editor,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It was then visible, at least to me, that either Congress must frame the
+      laws necessary for the Union, and send them to the several States to be
+      enregistered without any alteration, which would in itself appear like
+      usurpation on one part and passive obedience on the other, or some method
+      must be devised to accomplish the same end by constitutional principles;
+      and the proposition I made in the memorial was, to <i>add a continental
+      legislature to Congress, to be elected by the several States</i>. The
+      proposition met the full approbation of the gentlemen to whom it was
+      addressed, and the conversation turned on the manner of bringing it
+      forward. Gouverneur Morris, in walking with me after dinner, wished me to
+      throw out the idea in the newspaper; I replied, that I did not like to be
+      always the proposer of new things, that it would have too assuming an
+      appearance; and besides, that <i>I did not think the country was quite
+      wrong enough to be put right</i>. I remember giving the same reason to Dr.
+      Rush, at Philadelphia, and to General Gates, at whose quarters I spent a
+      day on my return from Rhode Island; and I suppose they will remember it,
+      because the observation seemed to strike them.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The Letter Books of Robert Morris (16 folio volumes, which
+     should be in our national Archives) contain many entries
+     relating to Paine's activity in the public service. Under
+     date Aug. 21, 1783, about the time referred to by Paine in
+     this letter, Robert Morris mentions a conversation with him
+     on public affairs. I am indebted to General Meredith Read,
+     owner of these Morris papers, for permission to examine
+     them.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But the embarrassments increasing, as they necessarily must from the want
+      of a better cemented union, the State of Virginia proposed holding a
+      commercial convention, and that convention, which was not sufficiently
+      numerous, proposed that another convention, with more extensive and better
+      defined powers, should be held at Philadelphia, May 10, 1787.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the plan of the Federal Government, formed by this Convention, was
+      proposed and submitted to the consideration of the several States, it was
+      strongly objected to in each of them. But the objections were not on
+      anti-federal grounds, but on constitutional points. Many were shocked at
+      the idea of placing what is called Executive Power in the hands of a
+      single individual. To them it had too much the form and appearance of a
+      military government, or a despotic one. Others objected that the powers
+      given to a president were too great, and that in the hands of an ambitious
+      and designing man it might grow into tyranny, as it did in England under
+      Oliver Cromwell, and as it has since done in France. A Republic must not
+      only be so in its principles, but in its forms. The Executive part of the
+      Federal government was made for a man, and those who consented, against
+      their judgment, to place Executive Power in the hands of a single
+      individual, reposed more on the supposed moderation of the person they had
+      in view, than on the wisdom of the measure itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two considerations, however, overcame all objections. The one was, the
+      absolute necessity of a Federal Government. The other, the rational
+      reflection, that as government in America is founded on the representative
+      system any error in the first essay could be reformed by the same quiet
+      and rational process by which the Constitution was formed, and that either
+      by the generation then living, or by those who were to succeed. If ever
+      America lose sight of this principle, she will no longer be the <i>land of
+      liberty</i>. The father will become the assassin of the rights of the son,
+      and his descendants be a race of slaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As many thousands who were minors are grown up to manhood since the name
+      of <i>Federalist</i> began, it became necessary, for their information, to
+      go back and show the origin of the name, which is now no longer what it
+      originally was; but it was the more necessary to do this, in order to
+      bring forward, in the open face of day, the apostacy of those who first
+      called themselves Federalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To them it served as a cloak for treason, a mask for tyranny. Scarcely
+      were they placed in the seat of power and office, than Federalism was to
+      be destroyed, and the representative system of government, the pride and
+      glory of America, and the palladium of her liberties, was to be overthrown
+      and abolished. The next generation was not to be free. The son was to bend
+      his neck beneath the father's foot, and live, deprived of his rights,
+      under hereditary control. Among the men of this apostate description, is
+      to be ranked the ex-president <i>John Adams</i>. It has been the political
+      career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with arrogance, and
+      finish in contempt. May such be the fate of all such characters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have had doubts of John Adams ever since the year 1776. In a
+      conversation with me at that time, concerning the pamphlet <i>Common Sense</i>,
+      he censured it because it attacked the English form of government. John
+      was for independence because he expected to be made great by it; but it
+      was not difficult to perceive, for the surliness of his temper makes him
+      an awkward hypocrite, that his head was as full of kings, queens, and
+      knaves, as a pack of cards. But John has lost deal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When a man has a concealed project in his brain that he wants to bring
+      forward, and fears will not succeed, he begins with it as physicians do by
+      suspected poison, try it first on an animal; if it agree with the stomach
+      of the animal, he makes further experiments, and this was the way John
+      took. His brain was teeming with projects to overturn the liberties of
+      America, and the representative system of government, and he began by
+      hinting it in little companies. The secretary of John Jay, an excellent
+      painter and a poor politician, told me, in presence of another American,
+      Daniel Parker, that in a company where himself was present, John Adams
+      talked of making the government hereditary, and that as Mr. Washington had
+      no children, it should be made hereditary in the family of Lund
+      Washington.(1) John had not impudence enough to propose himself in the
+      first instance, as the old French Normandy baron did, who offered to come
+      over to be king of America, and if Congress did not accept his offer, that
+      they would give him thirty thousand pounds for the generosity of it(2);
+      but John, like a mole, was grubbing his way to it under ground. He knew
+      that Lund Washington was unknown, for nobody had heard of him, and that as
+      the president had no children to succeed him, the vice-president had, and
+      if the treason had succeeded, and the hint with it, the goldsmith might be
+      sent for to take measure of the head of John or of his son for a golden
+      wig. In this case, the good people of Boston might have for a king the man
+      they have rejected as a delegate. The representative system is fatal to
+      ambition.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See supra footnote on p. 288.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 See vol. ii. p. 318 of this work.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Knowing, as I do, the consummate vanity of John Adams, and the shallowness
+      of his judgment, I can easily picture to myself that when he arrived at
+      the Federal City he was strutting in the pomp of his imagination before
+      the presidential house, or in the audience hall, and exulting in the
+      language of Nebuchadnezzar, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built
+      for the honour of my Majesty!" But in that unfortunate hour, or soon
+      after, John, like Nebuchadnezzar, was driven from among men, and fled with
+      the speed of a post-horse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Some of John Adams's loyal subjects, I see, have been to present him with
+      an address on his birthday; but the language they use is too tame for the
+      occasion. Birthday addresses, like birthday odes, should not creep along
+      like mildrops down a cabbage leaf, but roll in a torrent of poetical
+      metaphor. I will give them a specimen for the next year. Here it is&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When an Ant, in travelling over the globe, lift up its foot, and put it
+      again on the ground, it shakes the earth to its centre: but when YOU, the
+      mighty Ant of the East, was born, &amp;c. &amp;c. &amp;c, the centre
+      jumped upon the surface.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, gentlemen, is the proper style of addresses from <i>well-bred</i>
+      ants to the monarch of the ant hills; and as I never take pay for
+      preaching, praying, politics, or poetry, I make you a present of it. Some
+      people talk of impeaching John Adams; but I am for softer measures. I
+      would keep him to make fun of. He will then answer one of the ends for
+      which he was born, and he ought to be thankful that I am arrived to take
+      his part. I voted in earnest to save the life of one unfortunate king, and
+      I now vote in jest to save another. It is my fate to be always plagued
+      with fools. But to return to Federalism and apostacy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The plan of the leaders of the faction was to overthrow the liberties of
+      the new world, and place government on the corrupt system of the old. They
+      wanted to hold their power by a more lasting tenure than the choice of
+      their constituents. It is impossible to account for their conduct and the
+      measures they adopted on any other ground. But to accomplish that object,
+      a standing army and a prodigal revenue must be raised; and to obtain
+      these, pretences must be invented to deceive. Alarms of dangers that did
+      not exist even in imagination, but in the direct spirit of lying, were
+      spread abroad. Apostacy stalked through the land in the garb of
+      patriotism, and the torch of treason blinded for a while the flame of
+      liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For what purpose could an army of twenty-five thousand men be wanted? A
+      single reflection might have taught the most credulous that while the war
+      raged between France and England, neither could spare a man to invade
+      America. For what purpose, then, could it be wanted? The case carries its
+      own explanation. It was wanted for the purpose of destroying the
+      representative system, for it could be employed for no other. Are these
+      men Federalists? If they are, they are federalized to deceive and to
+      destroy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rage against Dr. Logan's patriotic and voluntary mission to France was
+      excited by the shame they felt at the detection of the false alarms they
+      had circulated. As to the opposition given by the remnant of the faction
+      to the repeal of the taxes laid on during the former administration, it is
+      easily accounted for. The repeal of those taxes was a sentence of
+      condemnation on those who laid them on, and in the opposition they gave in
+      that repeal, they are to be considered in the light of criminals standing
+      on their defence, and the country has passed judgment upon them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      City of Washington, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 19, 1802.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LETTER III.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 29th, 1802.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      To ELECT, and to REJECT, is the prerogative of a free people.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the establishment of Independence, no period has arrived that so
+      decidedly proves the excellence of the representative system of
+      government, and its superiority over every other, as the time we now live
+      in. Had America been cursed with John Adams's <i>hereditary Monarchy</i>
+      or Alexander Hamilton's <i>Senate for life</i> she must have sought, in
+      the doubtful contest of civil war, what she now obtains by the expression
+      of public will. An appeal to elections decides better than an appeal to
+      the sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the
+      Washington administration, and the whole of that of Adams, is enveloped in
+      mystery to me. That there were men in the government hostile to the
+      representative system, was once their boast, though it is now their
+      overthrow, and therefore the fact is established against them. But that so
+      large a mass of the people should become the dupes of those who were
+      loading them with taxes in order to load them with chains, and deprive
+      them of the right of election, can be ascribed only to that species of
+      wildfire rage, lighted up by falsehood, that not only acts without
+      reflection, but is too impetuous to make any.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a general and striking difference between the genuine effects of
+      truth itself, and the effects of falsehood believed to be truth. Truth is
+      naturally benign; but falsehood believed to be truth is always furious.
+      The former delights in serenity, is mild and persuasive, and seeks not the
+      auxiliary aid of invention. The latter sticks at nothing. It has naturally
+      no morals. Every lie is welcome that suits its purpose. It is the innate
+      character of the thing to act in this manner, and the criterion by which
+      it may be known, whether in politics or religion. When any thing is
+      attempted to be supported by lying, it is presumptive evidence that the
+      thing so supported is a lie also. The stock on which a lie can be grafted
+      must be of the same species as the graft.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What is become of the mighty clamour of French invasion, and the cry that
+      our country is in danger, and taxes and armies must be raised to defend
+      it? The danger is fled with the faction that created it, and what is worst
+      of all, the money is fled too. It is I only that have committed the
+      hostility of invasion, and all the artillery of popguns are prepared for
+      action. Poor fellows, how they foam! They set half their own partisans in
+      laughter; for among ridiculous things nothing is more ridiculous than
+      ridiculous rage. But I hope they will not leave off. I shall lose half my
+      greatness when they cease to lie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far as respects myself, I have reason to believe, and a right to say,
+      that the leaders of the Reign of Terror in America and the leaders of the
+      Reign of Terror in France, during the time of Robespierre, were in
+      character the same sort of men; or how is it to be accounted for, that I
+      was persecuted by both at the same time? When I was voted out of the
+      French Convention, the reason assigned for it was, that I was 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 when he proposed bringing me to the tribunal, which was like
+      sending me at once to the scaffold, he then assigned a reason, and the
+      reason was, <i>for the interests of America as well as of France, "Pour
+      les intérêts de l'Amérique autant que de la France</i>" The words are in
+      his own hand-writing, and reported to the Convention by the committee
+      appointed to examine his papers, and are printed in their report, with
+      this reflection added to them, "<i>Why Thomas Paine more than another?
+      Because he contributed to the liberty of both worlds</i>."(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See my "Life of Paine," vol. ii., pp. 79, 81. Also, the
+     historical introduction to XXI., p. 330, of this volume.
+     Robespierre never wrote an idle word. This Paine well knew,
+     as Mirabeau, who said of Robespierre: "That man will go far
+     he believes every word he says."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There must have been a coalition in sentiment, if not in fact, between the
+      Terrorists of America and the Terrorists of France, and Robespierre must
+      have known it, or he could not have had the idea of putting America into
+      the bill of accusation against me. Yet these men, these Terrorists of the
+      new world, who were waiting in the devotion of their hearts for the joyful
+      news of my destruction, are the same banditti who are now bellowing in all
+      the hacknied language of hacknied hypocrisy, about humanity, and piety,
+      and often about something they call infidelity, and they finish with the
+      chorus of <i>Crucify him, crucify him</i>. I am become so famous among
+      them, they cannot eat or drink without me. I serve them as a standing
+      dish, and they cannot make up a bill of fare if I am not in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But there is one dish, and that the choicest of all, that they have not
+      presented on the table, and it is time they should. They have not yet <i>accused
+      Providence of Infidelity</i>. Yet according to their outrageous piety,
+      she(1) must be as bad as Thomas Paine; she has protected him in all his
+      dangers, patronized him in all his undertakings, encouraged him in all his
+      ways, and rewarded him at last by bringing him in safety and in health to
+      the Promised Land. This is more than she did by the Jews, the chosen
+      people, that they tell us she brought out of the land of Egypt, and out of
+      the house of bondage; for they all died in the wilderness, and Moses too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was one of the nine members that composed the first Committee of
+      Constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Sièyes and myself have
+      survived&mdash;he by bending with the times, and I by not bending. The
+      other survivor joined Robespierre, he was seized and imprisoned in his
+      turn, and sentenced to transportation. He has since apologized to me for
+      having signed the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger and was
+      obliged to do it.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Is this a "survival" of the goddess Fortuna?&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Barère.    His apology to Paine proves that a death-
+     warrant had been issued, for Barère did not sign the order
+     for Paine's arrest or imprisonment.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Hérault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jefferson, and a good patriot,
+      was my <i>suppléant</i> as member of the Committee of Constitution, that
+      is, he was to supply my place, if I had not accepted or had resigned,
+      being next in number of votes to me. He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg
+      with me, was taken to the tribunal and the guillotine, and I, his
+      principal, was left.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two foreigners in the Convention, Anarcharsis Clootz 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 was again left. Joel Barlow was with us
+      when we went to prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph Lebon, one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and who made
+      the streets of Arras run with blood, was my <i>suppléant</i>, as member of
+      the Convention for the department of the Pas de Calais. When I was put out
+      of the Convention he came and took my place. When I was liberated from
+      prison and voted again into the Convention, he was sent to the same prison
+      and took my place there, and he was sent to the guillotine instead of me.
+      He supplied my place all the way through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One hundred and sixty-eight persons were taken out of the Luxembourg in
+      one night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillotined next day, of which
+      I now know I was to have been one; and the manner I escaped that fate is
+      curious, and has all the appearance of accident.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The room in which I was lodged was on the ground floor, and one of a long
+      range of rooms under a gallery, and the door of it opened outward and flat
+      against the wall; 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 Vanhuele, of Bruges, since President of the
+      Municipality of that town, Michael Rubyns, and Charles Bastini of Louvain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When persons by scores and by hundreds were to be taken out of the prison
+      for the guillotine it was always done in the night, and those who
+      performed that office had a private mark or signal, by which they knew
+      what rooms to go to, and what number to take. We, as I have stated, were
+      four, and the door of our room was marked, unobserved by us, with that
+      number in chalk; but it happened, if happening is a proper word, that the
+      mark was put on when the door was open, and flat against the wall, and
+      thereby came on the inside when we shut it at night, and the destroying
+      angel passed by it.(1) A few days after this, Robespierre fell, and Mr.
+      Monroe arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me to his house.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Painefs preface to the "Age of Reason" Part IL, and his
+     Letter to Washington (p. 222.) show that for some time after
+     his release from prison he had attributed his escape from
+     the guillotine to a fever which rendered him unconscious at
+     the time when his accusation was demanded by Robespierre;
+     but it will be seen (XXXI.) that he subsequently visited his
+     prison room-mate Vanhuele, who had become Mayor of Bruges,
+     and he may have learned from him the particulars of their
+     marvellous escape. Carlyle having been criticised by John G.
+     Alger for crediting this story of the chalk mark, an
+     exhaustive discussion of the facts took place in the London
+     Athenoum, July 7, 21, August 25, September 1, 1894, in which
+     it was conclusively proved, I think, that there is no reason
+     to doubt the truth of the incident See also my article on
+     Paine's escape, in The Open Court (Chicago), July 26,1894.
+     The discussion in the Athenoum elicited the fact that a
+     tradition had long existed in the family of Sampson Perry
+     that he had shared Paine's cell and been saved by the
+     curious mistake. Such is not the fact. Perry, in his book on
+     the French Revolution, and in his "Argus," told the story of
+     Paine's escape by his illness, as Paine first told it; and
+     he also relates an anecdote which may find place here:
+     "Mr. Paine speaks gratefully of the kindness shown him by his
+     fellow-prisoners of the same chamber during his severe
+     malady, and especially of the skilful and voluntary
+     assistance lent him by General O'Hara's surgeon. He relates
+     an anecdote of himself which may not be unworthy of
+     repeating. An arrêt of the Committee of Public Welfare had
+     given directions to the administrators of the palace
+     [Luxembourg] to enter all the prisons with additional guards
+     and dispossess every prisoner of his knives, forks, and
+     every other sharp instrument; and also to take their money
+     from them. This happened a short time before Mr. Paine's
+     illness, and as this ceremony was represented to him as an
+     atrocious plunder in the dregs of municipality, he
+     determined to avert its effect so far as it concerned
+     himself. He had an English bank note of some value and gold
+     coin in his pocket, and as he conceived the visitors would
+     rifle them, as well as his trunks (though they did not do so
+     by any one) he took off the lock from his door, and hid the
+     whole of what he had about him in its inside. He recovered
+     his health, he found his money, but missed about three
+     hundred of his associated prisoners, who had been sent in
+     crowds to the murderous tribunal, while he had been
+     insensible of their or his own danger." This was probably
+     the money (£200) loaned by Paine to General O'Hara (who
+     figured at the Yorktown surrender) in prison.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      During the whole of my imprisonment, prior to the fall of Robespierre,
+      there was no time when I could think my life worth twenty-four hours, and
+      my mind was 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 with respect to me. My only hope then rested on the
+      government of America, that it would <i>remember me</i>. But the icy heart
+      of ingratitude, in whatever man it be placed, has neither feeling nor
+      sense of honour. The letter of Mr. Jefferson has served to wipe away the
+      reproach, and done justice to the mass of the people of America.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Printed in the seventh of this series of Letters.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      When a party was forming, in the latter end of 1777, and beginning of
+      1778, of which John Adams was one, to remove Mr. Washington from the
+      command of the army on the complaint that <i>he did nothing</i>, I wrote
+      the fifth number of the Crisis, and published it at Lancaster, (Congress
+      then being at Yorktown, in Pennsylvania,) to ward off that meditated blow;
+      for though I well knew that the black times of '76 were the natural
+      consequence of his want of military judgment in the choice of positions
+      into which the army was put about New York and New Jersey, I could see no
+      possible advantage, and nothing but mischief, that could arise by
+      distracting the army into parties, which would have been the case had the
+      intended motion gone on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      General [Charles] Lee, who with a sarcastic genius joined a great fund of
+      military knowledge, was perfectly right when he said "<i>We have no
+      business on islands, and in the bottom of bogs, where the enemy, by the
+      aid of its ships, can bring its whole force against apart of ours and shut
+      it up</i>." This had like to have been the case at New York, and it was
+      the case at Fort Washington, and would have been the case at Fort Lee if
+      General [Nathaniel] Greene had not moved instantly off on the first news
+      of the enemy's approach. I was with Greene through the whole of that
+      affair, and know it perfectly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though I came forward in defence of Mr. Washington when he was
+      attacked, and made the best that could be made of a series of blunders
+      that had nearly ruined the country, he left me to perish when I was in
+      prison. But as I told him of it in his life-time, I should not now bring
+      it up if the ignorant impertinence of some of the Federal papers, who are
+      pushing Mr. Washington forward as their stalking horse, did not make it
+      necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That gentleman did not perform his part in the Revolution better, nor with
+      more honour, than I did mine, and the one part was as necessary as the
+      other. He accepted as a present, (though he was already rich,) a hundred
+      thousand acres of land in America, and left me to occupy six foot of earth
+      in France.(1) I wish, for his own reputation, he had acted with more
+      justice. But it was always known of Mr. Washington, by those who best knew
+      him, that he was of such an icy and death-like constitution, that he
+      neither loved his friends nor hated his enemies. But, be this as it may, I
+      see no reason that a difference between Mr. Washington and me should be
+      made a theme of discord with other people. There are those who may see
+      merit in both, without making themselves partisans of either, and with
+      this reflection I close the subject.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Paine was mistaken, as many others were, about the gifts
+     of Virginia (1785) to Washington. They were 100 shares, of
+     $100 each, in the James River Company, and 50 shares, of
+     £100 each, in the Potomac Company. Washington, accepted on
+     condition that he might appropriate them <i>to public uses</i>
+     which was done in his Will.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As to the hypocritical abuse thrown out by the Federalists on other
+      subjects, I recommend to them the observance of a commandment that existed
+      before either Christian or Jew existed:
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses:
+     With thine eye  that it behold no evil,
+     With thine ear, that it hear no evil,
+     With thy tongue, that it speak no evil,
+     With thy hands, that they commit no evil.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      If the Federalists will follow this commandment, they will leave off
+      lying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 26,1802.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LETTER IV.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 6th. 1802.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      As Congress is on the point of meeting, the public papers will necessarily
+      be occupied with the debates of the ensuing session, and as, in
+      consequence of my long absence from America, my private affairs require my
+      attendance, (for it is necessary I do this, or I could not preserve, as I
+      do, my independence,) I shall close my address to the public with this
+      letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I congratulate them on the success of the late elections, and <i>that</i>
+      with the additional confidence, that while honest men are chosen and wise
+      measures pursued, neither the treason of apostacy, masked under the name
+      of Federalism, of which I have spoken in my second letter, nor the
+      intrigues of foreign emissaries, acting in concert with that mask, can
+      prevail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to the licentiousness of the papers calling themselves <i>Federal</i>,
+      a name that apostacy has taken, it can hurt nobody but the party or the
+      persons who support such papers. There is naturally a wholesome pride in
+      the public mind that revolts at open vulgarity. It feels itself
+      dishonoured even by hearing it, as a chaste woman feels dishonour by
+      hearing obscenity she cannot avoid. It can smile at wit, or be diverted
+      with strokes of satirical humour, but it detests the <i>blackguard</i>.
+      The same sense of propriety that governs in private companies, governs in
+      public life. If a man in company runs his wit upon another, it may draw a
+      smile from some persons present, but as soon as he turns a blackguard in
+      his language the company gives him up; and it is the same in public life.
+      The event of the late election shows this to be true; for in proportion as
+      those papers have become more and more vulgar and abusive, the elections
+      have gone more and more against the party they support, or that supports
+      them. Their predecessor, <i>Porcupine</i> [Cobbett] had wit&mdash;these
+      scribblers have none. But as soon as his <i>blackguardism</i> (for it is
+      the proper name of it) outran his wit, he was abandoned by every body but
+      the English Minister who protected him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Spanish proverb says, "<i>there never was a cover large enough to hide
+      itself</i>"; and the proverb applies to the case of those papers and the
+      shattered remnant of the faction that supports them. The falsehoods they
+      fabricate, and the abuse they circulate, is a cover to hide something from
+      being seen, but it is not large enough to hide itself. It is as a tub
+      thrown out to the whale to prevent its attacking and sinking the vessel.
+      They want to draw the attention of the public from thinking about, or
+      inquiring into, the measures of the late administration, and the reason
+      why so much public money was raised and expended; and so far as a lie
+      today, and a new one tomorrow, will answer this purpose, it answers
+      theirs. It is nothing to them whether they be believed or not, for if the
+      negative purpose be answered the main point is answered, to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He that picks your pocket always tries to make you look another way.
+      "Look," says he, "at yon man t'other side the street&mdash;what a nose he
+      has got?&mdash;Lord, yonder is a chimney on fire!&mdash;Do you see yon man
+      going along in the salamander great coat? That is the very man that stole
+      one of Jupiter's satellites, and sold it to a countryman for a gold watch,
+      and it set his breeches on fire!" Now the man that has his hand in your
+      pocket, does not care a farthing whether you believe what he says or not.
+      All his aim is to prevent your looking at <i>him</i>; and this is the case
+      with the remnant of the Federal faction. The leaders of it have imposed
+      upon the country, and they want to turn the attention of it from the
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In taking up any public matter, I have never made it a consideration, and
+      never will, whether it be popular or unpopular; but whether it be <i>right</i>
+      or <i>wrong</i>. The right will always become the popular, if it has
+      courage to show itself, and the shortest way is always a straight line. I
+      despise expedients, they are the gutter-hole of politics, and the sink
+      where reputation dies. In the present case, as in every other, I cannot be
+      accused of using any; and I have no doubt but thousands will hereafter be
+      ready to say, as Gouverneur Morris said to me, after having abused me
+      pretty handsomely in Congress for the opposition I gave the fraudulent
+      demand of Silas Deane of two thousand pounds sterling: "<i>Well, we were
+      all duped, and I among the rest!</i>"(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 See vol. I., chapters xxii., xxiii., xxiv., of this work.
+     Also my "Life of Paine," vol. I., ch. ix., x.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Were the late administration to be called upon to give reasons for the
+      expence it put the country to, it can give none. The danger of an invasion
+      was a bubble that served as a cover to raise taxes and armies to be
+      employed on some other purpose. But if the people of America believed it
+      true, the cheerfulness with which they supported those measures and paid
+      those taxes is an evidence of their patriotism; and if they supposed me
+      their enemy, though in that supposition they did me injustice, it was not
+      injustice in them. He that acts as he believes, though he may act wrong,
+      is not conscious of wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But though there was no danger, no thanks are due to the late
+      administration for it. They sought to blow up a flame between the two
+      countries; and so intent were they upon this, that they went out of their
+      way to accomplish it. In a letter which the Secretary of State, Timothy
+      Pickering, wrote to Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul at Paris, he broke
+      off from the official subject of his letter, to <i>thank God</i> in very
+      exulting language, <i>that the Russians had cut the French army to pieces</i>.
+      Mr. Skipwith, after showing me the letter, very prudently concealed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the injudicious and wicked acrimony of this letter, and some other
+      like conduct of the then Secretary of State, that occasioned me, in a
+      letter to a friend in the government, to say, that if there was any
+      official business to be done in France, till a regular Minister could be
+      appointed, it could not be trusted to a more proper person than Mr.
+      Skipwith. "<i>He is</i>," said I, "<i>an honest man, and will do business,
+      and that with good manners to the government he is commissioned to act
+      with. A faculty which that BEAR, Timothy Pickering, wanted, and which the
+      BEAR of that bear, John Adams, never possessed</i>."(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     2 By reference to the letter itself (p. 376 of this volume)
+     it will be seen that Paine here quotes it from memory.&mdash;
+     <i>Editor.</i> vol III&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      In another letter to the same friend, in 1797, and which was put unsealed
+      under cover to Colonel Burr, I expressed a satisfaction that Mr.
+      Jefferson, since he was not president, had accepted the vice presidency; "<i>for</i>,"
+      said I, "<i>John Adams has such a talent for blundering and offending, it
+      will be necessary to keep an eye over him</i>." He has now sufficiently
+      proved, that though I have not the spirit of prophecy, I have the gift of
+      <i>judging right</i>. And all the world knows, for it cannot help knowing,
+      that to judge <i>rightly</i> and to write <i>clearly</i>, and that upon
+      all sorts of subjects, to be able to command thought and as it were to
+      play with it at pleasure, and be always master of one's temper in writing,
+      is the faculty only of a serene mind, and the attribute of a happy and
+      philosophical temperament. The scribblers, who know me not, and who fill
+      their papers with paragraphs about me, besides their want of talents,
+      drink too many slings and drams in a morning to have any chance with me.
+      But, poor fellows, they must do something for the little pittance they get
+      from their employers. This is my apology for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My anxiety to get back to America was great for many years. It is the
+      country of my heart, and the place of my political and literary birth. It
+      was the American revolution that 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. By the accounts I received, she appeared to me to be going wrong,
+      and that some meditated treason against her liberties lurked at the bottom
+      of her government. I heard that my friends were oppressed, and I longed to
+      take my stand among them, and if other times to <i>try mens souls</i> were
+      to arrive, that I might bear my share. But my efforts to return were
+      ineffectual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as Mr. Monroe had made a good standing with the French government,
+      for the conduct of his predecessor [Morris] had made his reception as
+      Minister difficult, he wanted to send despatches to his own government by
+      a person to whom he could confide a verbal communication, and he fixed his
+      choice on 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 known, I was obliged
+      to sustain the disappointment, and Mr. Monroe to lose the opportunity.(1)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When that gentleman left France to return to America, I was to have gone
+      with him. It was fortunate I did not. The vessel he sailed in was visited
+      by a British frigate, that searched every part of it, and down to the
+      hold, for Thomas Paine.(2) I then went, the same year, to embark at Havre.
+      But several British frigates were cruizing in sight of the port who knew I
+      was there, and I had to return again to Paris. Seeing myself thus cut off
+      from every opportunity that was in my power to command, I wrote to Mr.
+      Jefferson, 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 would give me the opportunity of returning by it, which he did.
+      But I declined coming by the <i>Maryland</i>, the vessel that was offered
+      me, and waited for the frigate that was to bring the new Minister, Mr.
+      Chancellor Livingston, to France. But that frigate was ordered round to
+      the Mediterranean; and as at that time the war was over, and the British
+      cruisers called in, I could come any way. I then agreed to come with
+      Commodore Barney in a vessel he had engaged. It was again fortunate I did
+      not, for the vessel sank at sea, and the people were preserved in the
+      boat.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The correspondence is in my "Life of Paine," vol. ii.,
+     pp. 154-5.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 The "Dublin Packet," Captain Clay, in whom Paine, as he
+     wrote to Jefferson, "had  no confidence."&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Had half the number of evils befallen me that the number of dangers amount
+      to through which I have been pre-served, there are those who would ascribe
+      it to the wrath of heaven; why then do they not ascribe my preservation to
+      the protecting favour of heaven? Even in my worldly concerns I have been
+      blessed. The little property I left in America, and which I cared nothing
+      about, not even to receive the rent of it, has been increasing in the
+      value of its capital more than eight hundred 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. I am in every instance a living contradiction to the mortified
+      Federalists.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In my publications, I follow the rule I began with in <i>Common Sense</i>,
+      that is, to consult nobody, nor to let any body see what I write till it
+      appears publicly. Were I to do otherwise, the case would be, that between
+      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
+      <i>expedient to right</i>, as if the world was a world of babies in
+      leading strings, I should get forward with nothing. My path is a right
+      line, as straight and clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness (if they
+      will have it to be so) with which I speak on any subject, is a compliment
+      to the judgment of the reader. It is like saying to him, <i>I treat you as
+      a man and not as a child</i>. With respect to any worldly object, as it is
+      impossible to discover any in me, therefore what I do, and my manner of
+      doing it, ought to be ascribed to a good motive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a great affair, where the happiness of man is at stake, I love to work
+      for nothing; and so fully am I under the influence of this principle, that
+      I should lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride of it, were I
+      conscious that I looked for reward; and with this declaration, I take my
+      leave for the present.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The self-assertion of this and other letters about this
+     time was really self-defence, the invective against him, and
+     the calumnies, being such as can hardly be credited by those
+     not familiar with the publications of that time.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Dec. 3, 1802.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LETTER V.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Feb., 1803. In the Tarions
+     collections of these Letters there appears at this point a
+     correspondence between Paine and Samuel Adams of Boston, but
+     as it relates to religious matters I reserve it for the
+     fourth volume.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      It is always the interest of a far greater part of the nation to have a
+      thing right than to have it wrong; and therefore, in a country whose
+      government is founded on the system of election and representation, the
+      fate of every party is decided by its principles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As this system is the only form and principle of government by which
+      liberty can be preserved, and the only one that can embrace all the
+      varieties of a great extent of country, it necessarily follows, that to
+      have the representation real, the election must be real; and that where
+      the election is a fiction, the representation is a fiction also. <i>Like
+      will always produce like</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A great deal has been said and written concerning the conduct of Mr. Burr,
+      during the late contest, in the federal legislature, whether Mr. Jefferson
+      or Mr. Burr should be declared President of the United States. Mr. Burr
+      has been accused of intriguing to obtain the Presidency. Whether this
+      charge be substantiated or not makes little or no part of the purport of
+      this letter. There is a point of much higher importance to attend to than
+      any thing that relates to the individual Mr. Burr: for the great point is
+      not whether Mr. Burr has intrigued, but whether the legislature has
+      intrigued with <i>him</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ogden, a relation of one of the senators of New Jersey of the same
+      name, and of the party assuming the style of Federalists, has written a
+      letter published in the New York papers, signed with his name, the purport
+      of which is to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charges brought against him. In
+      this letter he says:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "When about to return from Washington, two or three <i>members of Congress</i>
+      of the federal party spoke to me of <i>their views</i>, as to the election
+      of a president, desiring me to converse with Colonel Burr on the subject,
+      and to ascertain <i>whether he would enter into terms</i>. On my return to
+      New York I called on Colonel Burr, and communicated the above to him. He
+      explicitly declined the explanation, and <i>did neither propose nor agree
+      to any terms</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How nearly is human cunning allied to folly! The animals to whom nature
+      has given the faculty we call <i>cunning</i>, know always when to use it,
+      and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and
+      betrays.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Ogden's letter is intended to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charge of
+      intriguing to obtain the presidency; and the letter that he (Ogden) writes
+      for this purpose is direct evidence against his party in Congress, that
+      they intrigued with Burr to obtain him for President, and employed him
+      (Ogden) for the purpose. To save <i>Aaron</i>, he betrays <i>Moses</i>,
+      and then turns informer against the <i>Golden Calf</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is but of little importance to the world to know if Mr. Burr <i>listened</i>
+      to an intriguing proposal, but it is of great importance to the
+      constituents to know if their representatives in Congress made one. The
+      ear can commit no crime, but the tongue may; and therefore the right
+      policy is to drop Mr. Burr, as being only the hearer, and direct the whole
+      charge against the Federal faction in Congress as the active original
+      culprit, or, if the priests will have scripture for it, as the serpent
+      that beguiled Eve.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In the presidential canvas of 1800, the votes in the
+     electoral college being equally divided between Burr and
+     Jefferson, the election was thrown into the House of
+     Representatives. Jefferson was elected on the 36th ballot,
+     but he never forgave Burr, and between these two old friends
+     Paine had to write this letter under some embarrassment. The
+     last paragraph of this Letter shows Paine's desire for a
+     reconciliation between Burr and Jefferson. Aaron Burr is one
+     of the traditionally slandered figures of American history.
+     &mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The plot of the intrigue was to make Mr. Burr President, on the private
+      condition of his agreeing to, and entering into, terms with them, that is,
+      with the proposers. Had then the election been made, the country, knowing
+      nothing of this private and illegal transaction, would have supposed, for
+      who could have supposed otherwise, that it had a President according to
+      the forms, principles, and intention of the constitution. No such thing.
+      Every form, principle, and intention of the constitution would have been
+      violated; and instead of a President, it would have had a mute, a sort of
+      image, hand-bound and tongue-tied, the dupe and slave of a party, placed
+      on the theatre of the United States, and acting the farce of President.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is of little importance, in a constitutional sense, to know what the
+      terms to be proposed might be, because any terms other than those which
+      the constitution prescribes to a President are criminal. Neither do I see
+      how Mr. Burr, or any other person put in the same condition, could have
+      taken the oath prescribed by the constitution to a President, which is, "<i>I
+      do solemnly swear (or affirm,) that I will faithfully execute the office
+      of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability
+      preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States</i>."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How, I ask, could such a person have taken such an oath, knowing at the
+      same time that he had entered into the Presidency on terms unknown in the
+      Constitution, and private, and which would deprive him of the freedom and
+      power of acting as President of the United States, agreeably to his
+      constitutional oath?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Burr, by not agreeing to terms, has escaped the danger to which they
+      exposed him, and the perjury that would have followed, and also the
+      punishment annexed thereto. Had he accepted the Presidency on terms
+      unknown in the constitution, and private, and had the transaction
+      afterwards transpired, (which it most probably would, for roguery is a
+      thing difficult to conceal,) it would have produced a sensation in the
+      country too violent to be quieted, and too just to be resisted; and in any
+      case the election must have been void.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But what are we to think of those members of Congress, who having taken an
+      oath of the same constitutional import as the oath of the President,
+      violate that oath by tampering to obtain a President on private
+      conditions. If this is not sedition against the constitution and the
+      country, it is difficult to define what sedition in a representative can
+      be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Say not that this statement of the case is the effect of personal or party
+      resentment. No. It is the effect of <i>sincere concern</i> that such
+      corruption, of which this is but a sample, should, in the space of a few
+      years, have crept into a country that had the fairest opportunity that
+      Providence ever gave, within the knowledge of history, of making itself an
+      illustrious example to the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the terms were, or were to be, it is probable we never shall know; or
+      what is more probable, that feigned ones, if any, will be given. But from
+      the conduct of the party since that time we may conclude, that no taxes
+      would have been taken off, that the clamour for war would have been kept
+      up, new expences incurred, and taxes and offices increased in consequence;
+      and, among the articles of a private nature, that the leaders in this
+      seditious traffic were to stipulate with the mock President for lucrative
+      appointments for themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if these plotters against the Constitution understood their business,
+      and they had been plotting long enough to be masters of it, a single
+      article would have comprehended every thing, which is, <i>That the
+      President (thus made) should be governed in all cases whatsoever by a
+      private junto appointed by themselves</i>. They could then, through the
+      medium of a mock President, have negatived all bills which their party in
+      Congress could not have opposed with success, and reduced representation
+      to a nullity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The country has been imposed upon, and the real culprits are but few; and
+      as it is necessary for the peace, harmony, and honour of the Union, to
+      separate the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the betrayed,
+      that men who once were friends, and that in the worst of times, should be
+      friends again, it is necessary, as a beginning, that this dark business be
+      brought to full investigation. Ogden's letter is direct evidence of the
+      fact of tampering to obtain a conditional President. He knows the two or
+      three members of Congress that commissioned him, and they know who
+      commissioned them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Jan. 29th, 1803.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LETTER VI.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 The Aurora (Philadelphia).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Religion and War is the cry of the Federalists; Morality and Peace the
+      voice of Republicans. The union of Morality and Peace is congenial; but
+      that of Religion and War is a paradox, and the solution of it is
+      hypocrisy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leaders of the Federalists have no judgment; their plans no
+      consistency of parts; and want of consistency is the natural consequence
+      of want of principle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They exhibit to the world the curious spectacle of an <i>Opposition</i>
+      without a <i>cause</i>, and conduct without system. Were they, as doctors,
+      to prescribe medicine as they practise politics, they would poison their
+      patients with destructive compounds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are not two things more opposed to each other than War and Religion;
+      and yet, in the double game those leaders have to play, the one is
+      necessarily the theme of their politics, and the other the text of their
+      sermons. The week-day orator of Mars, and the Sunday preacher of Federal
+      Grace, play like gamblers into each other's hands, and this they call
+      Religion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though hypocrisy can counterfeit every virtue, and become the associate of
+      every vice, it requires a great dexterity of craft to give it the power of
+      deceiving. A painted sun may glisten, but it cannot warm. For hypocrisy to
+      personate virtue successfully it must know and feel what virtue is, and as
+      it cannot long do this, it cannot long deceive. When an orator foaming for
+      War breathes forth in another sentence a <i>plaintive piety of words</i>,
+      he may as well write hypocrisy on his front.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The late attempt of the Federal leaders in Congress (for they acted
+      without the knowledge of their constituents) to plunge the country into
+      War, merits not only reproach but indignation. It was madness, conceived
+      in ignorance and acted in wickedness. The head and the heart went partners
+      in the crime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A neglect of punctuality in the performance of a treaty is made a <i>cause</i>
+      of war by the <i>Barbary powers</i>, and of remonstrance and explanation
+      by <i>civilised powers</i>. The Mahometans of Barbary negociate by the
+      sword&mdash;they seize first, and ex-postulate afterwards; and the federal
+      leaders have been labouring to <i>barbarize</i> the United States by
+      adopting the practice of the Barbary States, and this they call honour.
+      Let their honour and their hypocrisy go weep together, for both are
+      defeated. Their present Administration is too moral for hypocrites, and
+      too economical for public spendthrifts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A man the least acquainted with diplomatic affairs must know that a
+      neglect in punctuality is not one of the legal causes of war, unless that
+      neglect be confirmed by a refusal to perform; and even then it depends
+      upon circumstances connected with it. The world would be in continual
+      quarrels and war, and commerce be annihilated, if Algerine policy was the
+      law of nations. And were America, instead of becoming an example to the
+      old world of good and moral government and civil manners, or, if they like
+      it better, of gentlemanly conduct towards other nations, to set up the
+      character of ruffian, that of <i>word and blow, and the blow first</i>,
+      and thereby give the example of pulling down the little that civilization
+      has gained upon barbarism, her Independence, instead of being an honour
+      and a blessing, would become a curse upon the world and upon herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The conduct of the Barbary powers, though unjust in principle, is suited
+      to their prejudices, situation, and circumstances. The crusades of the
+      church to exterminate them fixed in their minds the unobliterated belief
+      that every Christian power was their mortal enemy. Their religious
+      prejudices, therefore, suggest the policy, which their situation and
+      circumstances protect them in. As a people, they are neither commercial
+      nor agricultural, they neither import nor export, have no property
+      floating on the seas, nor ships and cargoes in the ports of foreign
+      nations. No retaliation, therefore, can be acted upon them, and they sin
+      secure from punishment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this is not the case with the United States. If she sins as a Barbary
+      power, she must answer for it as a Civilized one. Her commerce is
+      continually passing on the seas exposed to capture, and her ships and
+      cargoes in foreign ports to detention and reprisal. An act of War
+      committed by her in the Mississippi would produce a War against the
+      commerce of the Atlantic States, and the latter would have to curse the
+      policy that provoked the former. In every point, therefore, in which the
+      character and interest of the United States be considered, it would ill
+      become her to set an example contrary to the policy and custom of
+      Civilized powers, and practised only by the Barbary powers, that of
+      striking before she expostulates.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But can any man, calling himself a Legislator, and supposed by his
+      constituents to know something of his duty, be so ignorant as to imagine
+      that seizing on New Orleans would finish the affair or even contribute
+      towards it? On the contrary it would have made it worse. The treaty right
+      of deposite at New Orleans, and the right of the navigation of the
+      Mississippi into the Gulph of Mexico, are distant things. New Orleans is
+      more than an hundred miles in the country from the mouth of the river,
+      and, as a place of deposite, is of no value if the mouth of the river be
+      shut, which either France or Spain could do, and which our possession of
+      New Orleans could neither prevent or remove. New Orleans in our
+      possession, by an act of hostility, would have become a blockaded port,
+      and consequently of no value to the western people as a place of deposite.
+      Since, therefore, an interruption had arisen to the commerce of the
+      western states, and until the matter could be brought to a fair
+      explanation, it was of less injury to have the port shut and the river
+      open, than to have the river shut and the port in our possession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That New Orleans could be taken required no stretch of policy to plan, nor
+      spirit of enterprize to effect. It was like marching behind a man to knock
+      him down: and the dastardly slyness of such an attack would have stained
+      the fame of the United States. Where there is no danger cowards are bold,
+      and Captain Bobadils are to be found in the Senate as well as on the
+      stage. Even <i>Gouverneur</i>, on such a march, dare have shown a leg.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Gouverneur Morris being now leader of the belligerent
+     faction in Congress, Paine could not resist the temptation
+     to allude to a well-known incident (related in his Diary and
+     Letters, i., p. 14). A mob in Paris having surrounded his
+     fine carriage, crying "Aristocrat!" Morris showed his
+     wooden leg, declaring he had lost his leg in the cause of
+     American liberty. Morris was never in any fight, his leg
+     being lost by a commonplace accident while driving in
+     Philadelphia. Although Paine's allusion may appear in bad
+     taste, even with this reference, it was politeness itself
+     compared with the brutal abuse which Morris (not content
+     with imprisoning Paine in Paris) and his adherents were
+     heaping on the author on his return to America; also on
+     Monroe, whom Jefferson had returned to France to negotiate
+     for the purchase of Louisiana.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      The people of the western country to whom the Mississippi serves as an
+      inland sea to their commerce, must be supposed to understand the
+      circumstances of that commerce better than a man who is a stranger to it;
+      and as they have shown no approbation of the war-whoop measures of the
+      Federal senators, it becomes presumptive evidence they disapprove them.
+      This is a new mortification for those war-whoop politicians; for the case
+      is, that finding themselves losing ground and withering away in the
+      Atlantic States, they laid hold of the affair of New Orleans in the vain
+      hope of rooting and reinforcing themselves in the western States; and they
+      did this without perceiving that it was one of those ill judged
+      hypocritical expedients in politics, that whether it succeeded or failed
+      the event would be the same. Had their motion [that of Ross and Morris]
+      succeeded, it would have endangered the commerce of the Atlantic States
+      and ruined their reputation there; and on the other hand the attempt to
+      make a tool of the western people was so badly concealed as to extinguish
+      all credit with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But hypocrisy is a vice of sanguine constitution. It flatters and promises
+      itself every thing; and it has yet to learn, with respect to moral and
+      political reputation, it is less dangerous to offend than to deceive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To the measures of administration, supported by the firmness and integrity
+      of the majority in Congress, the United States owe, as far as human means
+      are concerned, the preservation of peace, and of national honour. The
+      confidence which the western people reposed in the government and their
+      representatives is rewarded with success. They are reinstated in their
+      rights with the least possible loss of time; and their harmony with the
+      people of New Orleans, so necessary to the prosperity of the United
+      States, which would have been broken, and the seeds of discord sown in its
+      place, had hostilities been preferred to accommodation, remains
+      unimpaired. Have the Federal ministers of the church meditated on these
+      matters? and laying aside, as they ought to do, their electioneering and
+      vindictive prayers and sermons, returned thanks that peace is preserved,
+      and commerce, without the stain of blood?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the pleasing contemplation of this state of things the mind, by
+      comparison, carries itself back to those days of uproar and extravagance
+      that marked the career of the former administration, and decides, by the
+      unstudied impulse of its own feelings, that something must then have been
+      wrong. Why was it, that America, formed for happiness, and remote by
+      situation and circumstances from the troubles and tumults of the European
+      world, became plunged into its vortex and contaminated with its crimes?
+      The answer is easy. Those who were then at the head of affairs were
+      apostates from the principles of the revolution. Raised to an elevation
+      they had not a right to expect, nor judgment to conduct, they became like
+      feathers in the air, and blown about by every puff of passion or conceit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Candour would find some apology for their conduct if want of judgment was
+      their only defect. But error and crime, though often alike in their
+      features, are distant in their characters and in their origin. The one has
+      its source in the weakness of the head, the other in the hardness of the
+      heart, and the coalition of the two, describes the former
+      Administration.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 That of John Adams.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Had no injurious consequences arisen from the conduct of that
+      Administration, it might have passed for error or imbecility, and been
+      permitted to die and be forgotten. The grave is kind to innocent offence.
+      But even innocence, when it is a cause of injury, ought to undergo an
+      enquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The country, during the time of the former Administration, was kept in
+      continual agitation and alarm; and that no investigation might be made
+      into its conduct, it entrenched itself within a magic circle of terror,
+      and called it a SEDITION LAW.(1) Violent and mysterious in its measures
+      and arrogant in its manners, it affected to disdain information, and
+      insulted the principles that raised it from obscurity. John Adams and
+      Timothy Pickering were men whom nothing but the accidents of the times
+      rendered visible on the political horizon. Elevation turned their heads,
+      and public indignation hath cast them to the ground. But an inquiry into
+      the conduct and measures of that Administration is nevertheless necessary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The country was put to great expense. Loans, taxes, and standing armies
+      became the standing order of the day. The militia, said Secretary
+      Pickering, are not to be depended upon, and fifty thousand men must be
+      raised. For what? No cause to justify such measures has yet appeared. No
+      discovery of such a cause has yet been made. The pretended Sedition Law
+      shut up the sources of investigation, and the precipitate flight of John
+      Adams closed the scene. But the matter ought not to sleep here.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not to gratify resentment, or encourage it in others, that I enter
+      upon this subject. It is not in the power of man to accuse me of a
+      persecuting spirit. But some explanation ought to be had. The motives and
+      objects respecting the extraordinary and expensive measures of the former
+      Administration ought to be known. The Sedition Law, that shield of the
+      moment, prevented it then, and justice demands it now. If the public have
+      been imposed upon, it is proper they should know it; for where judgment is
+      to act, or a choice is to be made, knowledge is first necessary. The
+      conciliation of parties, if it does not grow out of explanation, partakes
+      of the character of collusion or indifference.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Passed July 14, 1798, to continue until March 3, 1801.
+     This Act, described near the close of this Letter, and one
+     passed June 35th, giving the President despotic powers over
+     aliens in the United States, constituted the famous "Alien
+     and Sedition Laws." Hamilton opposed them, and rightly saw
+     in them the suicide of the Federal party.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>,
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      There has been guilt somewhere; and it is better to fix it where it
+      belongs, and separate the deceiver from the deceived, than that suspicion,
+      the bane of society, should range at large, and sour the public mind. The
+      military measures that were proposed and carrying on during the former
+      administration, could not have for their object the defence of the country
+      against invasion. This is a case that decides itself; for it is self
+      evident, that while the war raged in Europe, neither France nor England
+      could spare a man to send to America. The object, therefore, must be
+      something at home, and that something was the overthrow of the
+      representative system of government, for it could be nothing else. But the
+      plotters got into confusion and became enemies to each other. Adams hated
+      and was jealous of Hamilton, and Hamilton hated and despised both Adams
+      and Washington.(1) Surly Timothy stood aloof, as he did at the affair of
+      Lexington, and the part that fell to the public was to pay the expense.(2)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Hamilton's bitter pamphlet against Adams appeared in 1800,
+     but his old quarrel with Washington (1781) had apparently
+     healed. Yet, despite the favors lavished by Washington on
+     Hamilton, there is no certainty that the latter ever changed
+     his unfavorable opinion of the former, as expressed in a
+     letter to General Schuylor, Feb. 18, 1781 (Lodge's
+     "Hamilton's Works," vol. viii., p. 35).&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+
+     2 Colonel Pickering's failure, in 1775, to march his Salem
+     troops in time to intercept the British retreat from
+     Lexington was attributed to his half-heartedness
+     in the patriotic cause.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      But ought a people who, but a few years ago, were fighting the battles of
+      the world, for liberty had no home but here, ought such a people to stand
+      quietly by and see that liberty undermined by apostacy and overthrown by
+      intrigue? Let the tombs of the slain recall their recollection, and the
+      forethought of what their children are to be revive and fix in their
+      hearts the love of liberty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the former administration can justify its conduct, give it the
+      opportunity. The manner in which John Adams disappeared from the
+      government renders an inquiry the more necessary. He gave some account of
+      himself, lame and confused as it was, to certain <i>eastern wise men</i>
+      who came to pay homage to him on his birthday. But if he thought it
+      necessary to do this, ought he not to have rendered an account to the
+      public. They had a right to expect it of him. In that tête-à-tête account,
+      he says, "Some measures were the effect of imperious necessity, much
+      against my inclination." What measures does Mr. Adams mean, and what is
+      the imperious necessity to which he alludes? "Others (says he) were
+      measures of the Legislature, which, although approved when passed, were
+      never previously proposed or recommended by me." What measures, it may be
+      asked, were those, for the public have a right to know the conduct of
+      their representatives? "Some (says he) left to my discretion were never
+      executed, because no necessity for them, in my judgment, ever occurred."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What does this dark apology, mixed with accusation, amount to, but to
+      increase and confirm the suspicion that something was wrong?
+      Administration only was possessed of foreign official information, and it
+      was only upon that information communicated by him publicly or privately,
+      or to Congress, that Congress could act; and it is not in the power of Mr.
+      Adams to show, from the condition of the belligerent powers, that any
+      imperious necessity called for the warlike and expensive measures of his
+      Administration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What the correspondence between Administration and Rufus King in London,
+      or Quincy Adams in Holland, or Berlin, might be, is but little known. The
+      public papers have told us that the former became cup-bearer from the
+      London underwriters to Captain Truxtun,(1) for which, as Minister from a
+      neutral nation, he ought to have been censured. It is, however, a feature
+      that marks the politics of the Minister, and hints at the character of the
+      correspondence.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Thomas Truxtun (1755-1822), for having captured the French
+     frigate "L'Insurgente," off Hen's Island, 1799, was
+     presented at Lloyd's coffee-house with plate to the value of
+     600 guineas. Rufus King (1755-1827), made Minister to England
+     in 1796, continued under Adams, and for two years under
+     Jefferson's administration.&mdash;<i>Editor.</i>
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      I know that it is the opinion of several members of both houses of
+      Congress, that an enquiry, with respect to the conduct of the late
+      Administration, ought to be gone into. The convulsed state into which the
+      country has been thrown will be best settled by a full and fair exposition
+      of the conduct of that Administration, and the causes and object of that
+      conduct. To be deceived, or to remain deceived, can be the interest of no
+      man who seeks the public good; and it is the deceiver only, or one
+      interested in the deception, that can wish to preclude enquiry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The suspicion against the late Administration is, that it was plotting to
+      overturn the representative system of government, and that it spread
+      alarms of invasions that had no foundation, as a pretence for raising and
+      establishing a military force as the means of accomplishing that object.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The law, called the Sedition Law, enacted, that if any person should write
+      or publish, or cause to be written or published, any libel [without
+      defining what a libel is] against the Government of the United States, or
+      either house of congress, or against the President, he should be punished
+      by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not
+      exceeding two years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it is a much greater crime for a president to plot against a
+      Constitution and the liberties of the people, than for an individual to
+      plot against a President; and consequently, John Adams is accountable to
+      the public for his conduct, as the individuals under his administration
+      were to the sedition law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The object, however, of an enquiry, in this case, is not to punish, but to
+      satisfy; and to shew, by example, to future administrations, that an abuse
+      of power and trust, however disguised by appearances, or rendered
+      plausible by pretence, is one time or other to be accounted for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORDENTOWN, ON THE DELAWARE,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      New Jersey, March 12, 1803. vol. III&mdash;27
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      LETTER VII.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     EDITOR'S PREFACE.
+
+     This letter was printed in <i>The True American</i>, Trenton, New
+     Jersey, soon after Paine's return to his old home at
+     Bordenton. It is here printed from the original manuscript,
+     for which I am indebted to Mr. W. F. Havemeyer of New York.
+     Although the Editor has concluded to present Paine's
+     "Maritime Compact" in the form he finally gave it, the
+     articles were printed in French in 1800, and by S. H. Smith,
+     Washington, at the close of the same year. There is an
+     interesting history connected with it. John Hall, in his
+     diary ("Trenton, 20 April, 1787") relates that Paine told
+     him of Dr. Franklin, whom he (Paine) had just visited in
+     Philadelphia,  and the Treaty he, the Doctor, made with the
+     late King of Prussia by adding an article that, should war
+     ever break out, Commerce should be free. The Doctor said he
+     showed it to Vergennes, who said it met his idea, and was
+     such as he would make even with England. In his Address to
+     the People of France, 1797 (see p. 366), Paine closes with a
+     suggestion on the subject, and a year later (September 30,
+     1798), when events were in a critical condition, he sent
+     nine articles of his proposed <i>Pacte Maritime</i> to
+     Talleyrand, newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. The
+     letters that passed are here taken from the originals (State
+     Archives, Paris, États Unis, vol. 48).
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      "Rue Theatre française, No. 4, 9 Vendemaire, 6 year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Citizen Minister: I promised you some observations on the state of things
+      between France and America. I divide the case into two parts. First, with
+      respect to some Method that shall effectually put an end to all
+      interruptions of the American Commerce. Secondly, with respect to the
+      settlement for the captures that have been made on that Commerce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "As to the first case (the interruption of the American Commerce by
+      France) it has foundation in the British Treaty, and it is the continuance
+      of that treaty that renders the remedy difficult. Besides, the American
+      administration has blundered so much in the business of treaty-making,
+      that it is probable it will blunder again in making another with France.
+      There is, however, one method left, and there is but one that I can see,
+      that will be effectual. It is a <i>non-importation Convention; that
+      America agrees not to import from any Nation in Europe who shall interrupt
+      her Commerce on the seas, any goods, wares, or merchandize whatever, and
+      that all her ports shall be shut against the Nation that gives the offence</i>.
+      This will draw America out of her difficulties with respect to her treaty
+      with England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "But it will be far better if this non-importation convention were to be a
+      general convention of Nations acting as a Whole. It would give a better
+      protection to Neutral Commerce than the armed neutrality could do. I would
+      rather be a Neutral Nation under the protection of such a Convention,
+      which costs nothing to make it, than be under the protection of a navy
+      equal to that of Great Britain. France should be the patron of such a
+      Convention and sign it. It would be giving both her consent and her
+      protection to the Rights of Neutral Nations. If England refuse to sign it
+      she will nevertheless be obliged to respect it, or lose all her Commerce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I enclose you a plan I drew up about four months ago, when there was
+      expectation that Mr. Madison would come to France. It has lain by me ever
+      since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The second part, that of settlement for the captures, I will make the
+      subject of a future correspondence. Salut et respect."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talleyrand's Reply ("Foreign Relations, 15 Vendemaire An. 6," Oct. 6,
+      1797): "I have the honor to return you, Citizen, with very sincere thanks,
+      your Letter to General Washington which you have had the goodness to show
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "I have received the letter which you have taken the trouble to write me,
+      the 9th of this month. I need not assure you of the appreciation with
+      which I shall receive the further indications you promise on the means of
+      terminating in a durable manner the differences which must excite your
+      interest as a patriot and as a Republican. Animated by such a principle
+      your ideas cannot fail to throw valuable light on the discussion you open,
+      and which should have for its object to reunite the two Republics in whose
+      alienation the enemies of liberty triumph."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paine's plan made a good impression in France&mdash;He writes to
+      Jefferson, October 6, 1800, that the Consul Le Brun, at an entertainment
+      given to the American envoys, gave for his toast: "À l'union de 1'
+      Amérique avec les Puissances du Nord pour faire respecter la liberté des
+      mers."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The malignant mind, like the jaundiced eye, sees everything through a
+      false medium of its own creating. The light of heaven appears stained with
+      yellow to the distempered sight of the one, and the fairest actions have
+      the form of crimes in the venomed imagination of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For seven months, both before and after my return to America in October
+      last, the apostate papers styling themselves "Federal" were filled with
+      paragraphs and Essays respecting a letter from Mr. Jefferson to me at
+      Paris; and though none of them knew the contents of the letter, nor the
+      occasion of writing it, malignity taught them to suppose it, and the lying
+      tongue of injustice lent them its aid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the public may no longer be imposed upon by Federal apostacy, I will
+      now publish the Letter, and the occasion of its being written.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Treaty negociated in England by John Jay, and ratified by the
+      Washington Administration, had so disgracefully surrendered the right and
+      freedom of the American flag, that all the Commerce of the United States
+      on the Ocean became exposed to capture, and suffered in consequence of it.
+      The duration of the Treaty was limited to two years after the war; and
+      consequently America could not, during that period, relieve herself from
+      the Chains which the Treaty had fixed upon her. This being the case, the
+      only relief that could come must arise out of something originating in
+      Europe, that would, in its consequences, extend to America. It had long
+      been my opinion that Commerce contained within itself the means of its own
+      protection; but as the time for bringing forward any new system is not
+      always happening, it is necessary to watch its approach, and lay hold of
+      it before it passes away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the late Emperor Paul of Russia abandoned his coalition with
+      England and become a Neutral Power, this Crisis of time, and also of
+      circumstances, was then arriving; and I employed it in arranging a plan
+      for the protection of the Commerce of Neutral Nations during War, that
+      might, in its operation and consequences, relieve the Commerce of America.
+      The Plan, with the pieces accompanying it, consisted of about forty pages.
+      The Citizen Bonneville, with whom I lived in Paris, translated it into
+      French; Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul, Joel Barlow, and myself, had
+      the translation printed and distributed as a present to the Foreign
+      Ministers of all the Neutral Nations then resident in Paris. This was in
+      the summer of 1800.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was entitled Maritime Compact (in French <i>Pacte Maritime</i>), The
+      plan, exclusive of the pieces that accompanied it, consisted of the
+      following Preamble and Articles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MARITIME COMPACT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being an Unarmed Association of Nations for the protection of the Rights
+      and Commerce of Nations that shall be neutral in time of War.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereas, the Vexations and Injuries to which the Rights and Commerce of
+      Neutral Nations have been, and continue to be, exposed during the time of
+      maritime War, render it necessary to establish a law of Nations for the
+      purpose of putting an end to such vexations and Injuries, and to guarantee
+      to the Neutral Nations the exercise of their just Rights,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We, therefore, the undersigned Powers, form ourselves into an Association,
+      and establish the following as a Law of Nations on the Seas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE FIRST. Definition of the Rights of neutral Nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Rights of Nations, such as are exercised by them in their intercourse
+      with each other in time of Peace, are, and of right ought to be, the
+      Rights of Neutral Nations at all times; because,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First, those Rights not having been abandoned by them, remain with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Secondly, because those Rights cannot become forfeited or void, in
+      consequence of War breaking out between two or more other Nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A War of Nation against Nation being exclusively the act of the Nations
+      that make the War, and not the act of the Neutral Nations, cannot, whether
+      considered in itself or in its consequences, destroy or diminish the
+      Rights of the Nations remaining in Peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE SECOND.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ships and Vessels of Nations that rest neuter and at Peace with the
+      World during a War with other Nations, have a Right to navigate freely on
+      the Seas as they navigated before that War broke out, and to proceed to
+      and enter the Port or Ports of any of the Belligerent Powers, <i>with the
+      consent of that Power</i>, without being seized, searched, visited, or any
+      ways interrupted, by the Nation or Nations with which that Nation is at
+      War.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE THIRD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the Conservation of the aforesaid Rights, We, the undersigned Powers,
+      engaging to each other our Sacred Faith and Honour, declare,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That if any Belligerent Power shall seize, search, visit, or any ways
+      interrupt any Ship or Vessel belonging to the Citizens or Subjects of any
+      of the Powers composing this Association, then each and all of the said
+      undersigned Powers will cease to import, and will not permit to be
+      imported into the Ports or Dominions of any of the said undersigned
+      Powers, in any Ship or Vessel whatever, any Goods, wares, or Merchandize,
+      produced or manufactured in, or exported from, the Dominions of the Power
+      so offending against the Association hereby established and Proclaimed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE FOURTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That all the Ports appertaining to any and all of the Powers composing
+      this Association shall be shut against the Flag of the offending Nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE FIFTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That no remittance or payment in Money, Merchandize, or Bills of Exchange,
+      shall be made by any of the Citizens, or Subjects, of any of the Powers
+      composing this Association, to the Citizens or Subjects of the offending
+      Nation, for the Term of one year, or until reparation be made. The
+      reparation to be &mdash;&mdash; times the amount of the damages sustained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE SIXTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If any Ship or Vessel appertaining to any of the Citizens or Subjects of
+      any of the Powers composing this Association shall be seized, searched,
+      visited, or interrupted, by any Belligerent Nation, or be forcibly
+      prevented entering the Port of her destination, or be seized, searched,
+      visited, or interrupted, in coming out of such Port, or be forcibly
+      prevented from proceeding to any new destination, or be insulted or
+      visited by any Agent from on board any Vessel of any Belligerent Power,
+      the Government or Executive Power of the Nation to which the Ship or
+      Vessel so seized, searched, visited, or interrupted belongs, shall, on
+      evidence of the fact, make public Proclamation of the same, and send a
+      Copy thereof to the Government, or Executive, of each of the Powers
+      composing this Association, who shall publish the same in all the extent
+      of his Dominions, together with a Declaration, that at the expiration of
+      &mdash;&mdash; days after publication, the penal articles of this
+      Association shall be put in execution against the offending Nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE SEVENTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If reparation be not made within the space of one year, the said
+      Proclamation shall be renewed for one year more, and so on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE EIGHTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Association chooses for itself a Flag to be carried at the Mast-head
+      conjointly with the National Flag of each Nation composing this
+      Association.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Flag of the Association shall be composed of the same colors as
+      compose the Rainbow, and arranged in the same order as they appear in that
+      Phenomenon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE NINTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And whereas, it may happen that one or more of the Nations composing this
+      Association may be, at the time of forming it, engaged in War or become so
+      in future, in that case, the Ships and Vessels of such Nation shall carry
+      the Flag of the Association bound round the Mast, to denote that the
+      Nation to which she belongs is a Member of the Association and a respecter
+      of its Laws.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      N. B. This distinction in the manner of carrying the Flag is mearly for
+      the purpose, that Neutral Vessels having the Flag at the Mast-head, may be
+      known at first sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ARTICLE THE TENTH.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And whereas, it is contrary to the moral principles of Neutrality and
+      Peace, that any Neutral Nation should furnish to the Belligerent Powers,
+      or any of them, the means of carrying on War against each other, We,
+      therefore, the Powers composing this Association, Declare, that we will
+      each one for itself, prohibit in our Dominions the exportation or
+      transportation of military stores, comprehending gunpowder, cannon, and
+      cannon-balls, fire arms of all kinds, and all kinds of iron and steel
+      weapons used in War. Excluding therefrom all kinds of Utensils and
+      Instruments used in civil or domestic life, and every other article that
+      cannot, in its immediate state, be employed in War.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus declared the moral Motives of the foregoing Article, We
+      declare also the civil and political Intention thereof, to wit,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That as Belligerent Nations have no right to visit or search any Ship or
+      Vessel belonging to a Nation at Peace, and under the protection of the
+      Laws and Government thereof, and as all such visit or search is an insult
+      to the Nation to which such Ship or Vessel belongs and to the Government
+      of the same, We, therefore, the Powers composing this Association, will
+      take the right of prohibition on ourselves to whom it properly belongs,
+      and by whom only it can be legally exercised, and not permit foreign
+      Nations, in a state of War, to usurp the right of legislating by
+      Proclamation for any of the Citizens or Subjects of the Powers composing
+      this Association.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is, therefore, in order to take away all pretence of search or visit,
+      which by being offensive might become a new cause of War, that we will
+      provide Laws and publish them by Proclamation, each in his own Dominion,
+      to prohibit the supplying, or carrying to, the Belligerent Powers, or
+      either of them, the military stores or articles before mentioned, annexing
+      thereto a penalty to be levied or inflicted upon any persons within our
+      several Dominions transgressing the same. And we invite all Persons, as
+      well of the Belligerent Nations as of our own, or of any other, to give
+      information of any knowledge they may have of any transgressions against
+      the said Law, that the offenders may be prosecuted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By this conduct we restore the word Contraband (<i>contra</i> and <i>ban</i>)
+      to its true and original signification, which means against Law, edict, or
+      Proclamation; and none but the Government of a Nation can have, or can
+      exercise, the right of making Laws, edicts, or Proclamations, for the
+      conduct of its Citizens or Subjects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now We, the undersigned Powers, declare the aforesaid Articles to be a Law
+      of Nations at all times, or until a Congress of Nations shall meet to form
+      some Law more effectual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And we do recommend that immediately on the breaking out of War between
+      any two or more Nations, that Deputies be appointed by all Neutral
+      Nations, whether members of this Association or not, to meet in Congress
+      in some central place to take cognizance of any violations of the Rights
+      of Neutral Nations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Signed, &amp;c.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the purpose of giving operation to the aforesaid plan of an <i>unarmed
+      Association</i>, the following Paragraph was subjoined:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It may be judged proper for the order of Business, that the Association of
+      Nations have a President for a term of years, and the Presidency to pass
+      by rotation, to each of the parties composing the Association.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In that case, and for the sake of regularity, the first President to be
+      the Executive power of the most northerly Nation composing the
+      Association, and his deputy or Minister at the Congress to be President of
+      the Congress,&mdash;and the next most northerly to be Vice-president, who
+      shall succeed to the Presidency, and so on. The line determining the
+      Geographical situation of each, to be the latitude of the Capital of each
+      Nation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this method be adopted it will be proper that the first President be
+      nominally constituted in order to give rotation to the rest. In that case
+      the following Article might be added to the foregoing, viz't. The
+      Constitution of the Association nominates the Emperor Paul to be <i>first
+      President</i> of the Association of Nations for the protection of Neutral
+      Commerce, and securing the freedom of the Seas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The foregoing plan, as I have before mentioned, was presented to the
+      Ministers of all the Neutral Nations then in Paris, in the summer of 1800.
+      Six Copies were given to the Russian General Springporten; and a Russian
+      Gentleman who was going to Petersburgh took two expressly for the purpose
+      of putting them into the hands of Paul I sent the original manuscript, in
+      my own handwriting, to Mr. Jefferson, and also wrote him four Letters,
+      dated the 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th of October, 1800, giving him an account of
+      what was then going on in Europe respecting Neutral Commerce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Case was, that in order to compel the English Government to
+      acknowledge the rights of Neutral Commerce, and that free Ships make free
+      Goods, the <i>Emperor Paul</i>, in the month of September following the
+      publication of the plan, shut all the Ports of Russia against England.
+      Sweden and Denmark did the same by their Ports, and Denmark shut up
+      Hamburgh. Prussia shut up the Elbe and the Weser. The ports of Spain,
+      Portugal, and Naples were shut up, and, in general, all the ports of
+      Italy, except Venice, which the Emperor of Germany held; and had it not
+      been for the untimely death of Paul, a <i>Law of Nations</i>, founded on
+      the authority of Nations, for establishing the rights of Neutral Commerce
+      and the freedom of the Seas, would have been proclaimed, and the
+      Government of England must have consented to that Law, or the Nation must
+      have lost its Commerce; and the consequence to America would have been,
+      that such a Law would, in a great measure if not entirely, have released
+      her from the injuries of Jay's Treaty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all these matters I informed Mr. Jefferson. This was before he was
+      President, and the Letter he wrote me after he was President was in answer
+      to those I had written to him and the manuscript Copy of the plan I had
+      sent here. Here follows the Letter:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Washington, March 18, 1801. Dear Sir:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your letters of Oct. 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th, came duly to hand, and the
+      papers which they covered were, according to your permission, published in
+      the Newspapers, and in a Pamphlet, and under your own name. These papers
+      contain precisely our principles, and I hope they will be generally
+      recognized here. <i>Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting
+      the energies of our People in war and destruction, we shall avoid
+      implicating ourselves with the Powers of Europe, even in support of
+      principles which we mean to pursue. They have so many other Interests
+      different from ours that we must avoid being entangled in them. We believe
+      we can enforce those principles as to ourselves by Peaceable means, now
+      that we are likely to have our Public Councils detached from foreign
+      views. The return of our citizens from the phrenzy into which they had
+      been wrought, partly by ill conduct in France, partly by artifices
+      practiced upon them, is almost extinct, and will, I believe, become quite
+      so</i>, But these details, too minute and long for a Letter, will be
+      better developed by Mr. Dawson, the Bearer of this, a Member of the late
+      Congress, to whom I refer you for them. He goes in the Maryland Sloop of
+      War, which will wait a few days at Havre to receive his Letters to be
+      written on his arrival at Paris. You expressed a wish to get a passage to
+      this Country in a Public Vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders to the
+      Captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you back if you can be
+      ready to depart at such a short warning. Rob't R. Livingston is appointed
+      Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of France, but will not leave
+      this, till we receive the ratification of the Convention by Mr. Dawson. I
+      am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments worthy of
+      former times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily laboured and
+      with as much effect as any man living. That you may long live to continue
+      your useful Labours and to reap the reward in the thankfulness of Nations
+      is my sincere prayer. Accept assurances of my high esteem and affectionate
+      attachment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Jefferson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, Citizens of the United States, is the Letter about which the leaders
+      and tools of the Federal faction, without knowing its contents or the
+      occasion of writing it, have wasted so many malignant falsehoods. It is a
+      Letter which, on account of its wise economy and peaceable principles, and
+      its forbearance to reproach, will be read by every good Man and every good
+      Citizen with pleasure; and the faction, mortified at its appearance, will
+      have to regret they forced it into publication. The least atonement they
+      can now offer is to make the Letter as public as they have made their own
+      infamy, and learn to lie no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same injustice they shewed to Mr. Jefferson they shewed to me. I had
+      employed myself in Europe, and at my own expense, in forming and promoting
+      a plan that would, in its operation, have benefited the Commerce of
+      America; and the faction here invented and circulated an account in the
+      papers they employ, that I had given a plan to the French for burning all
+      the towns on the Coast from Savannah to Baltimore. Were I to prosecute
+      them for this (and I do not promise that I will not, for the Liberty of
+      the Press is not the liberty of lying,) there is not a federal judge, not
+      even one of Midnight appointment, but must, from the nature of the case,
+      be obliged to condemn them. The faction, however, cannot complain they
+      have been restrained in any thing. They have had their full swing of lying
+      uncontradicted; they have availed themselves, unopposed, of all the arts
+      Hypocrisy could devise; and the event has been, what in all such cases it
+      ever will and ought to be, <i>the ruin of themselves</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Characters of the late and of the present Administrations are now
+      sufficiently marked, and the adherents of each keep up the distinction.
+      The former Administration rendered itself notorious by outrage,
+      coxcombical parade, false alarms, a continued increase of taxes, and an
+      unceasing clamor for War; and as every vice has a virtue opposed to it,
+      the present Administration moves on the direct contrary line. The
+      question, therefore, at elections is not properly a question upon Persons,
+      but upon principles. Those who are for Peace, moderate taxes, and mild
+      Government, will vote for the Administration that conducts itself by those
+      principles, in whatever hands that Administration may be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are in the United States, and particularly in the middle States,
+      several religious Sects, whose leading moral principle is PEACE. It is,
+      therefore, impossible that such Persons, consistently with the dictates of
+      that principle, can vote for an Administration that is clamorous for War.
+      When moral principles, rather than Persons, are candidates for Power, to
+      vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That persons who are hunting after places, offices, and contracts, should
+      be advocates for War, taxes, and extravagance, is not to be wondered at;
+      but that so large a portion of the People who had nothing to depend upon
+      but their Industry, and no other public prospect but that of paying taxes,
+      and bearing the burden, should be advocates for the same measures, is a
+      thoughtlessness not easily accounted for. But reason is recovering her
+      empire, and the fog of delusion is clearing away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Paine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BORDENTOWN, ON THE DELAWARE,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      New Jersey, April 21, 1803.(1)
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 Endorsed: "Sent by Gen. Bloomfield per Mr. Wilson for Mr.
+     Duane." And, in a later hand: "Paine Letter 6. Found among
+     the Bartram Papers sent by Col. Carr."&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0035" id="link2H_4_0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      XXXIV. TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA.(1)
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     1 In a letter to Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury
+     (Oct 14, 1804), John Randolph of Roanoke proposed "the
+     printing of &mdash; thousand copies of Tom Paine's answer to
+     their remonstrance, and transmitting them by as many
+     thousand troops, who can speak a language perfectly
+     intelligible to the people of Louisiana, whatever that of
+     their government may be," The purchase of Louisiana was
+     announced to the Senate by President Jefferson, October 17,
+     1803.&mdash;Editor.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      A publication having the appearance of a memorial and remonstrance, to be
+      presented to Congress at the ensuing session, has appeared in several
+      papers. It is therefore open to examination, and I offer you my remarks
+      upon it. The title and introductory paragraph are as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "<i>To the Congress of the United States in the Senate and House of
+      Representatives convened</i>: We the subscribers, planters, merchants, and
+      other inhabitants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the legislature of
+      the United States with a memorial of <i>our rights</i>, a remonstrance
+      against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for that
+      redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive stipulations,
+      have entitled us."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It often happens that when one party, or one that thinks itself a party,
+      talks much about its rights, it puts those of the other party upon
+      examining into their own, and such is the effect produced by your
+      memorial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A single reading of that memorial will show it is the work of some person
+      who is not of your people. His acquaintance with the cause, commencement,
+      progress, and termination of the American revolution, decides this point;
+      and his making our merits in that revolution the ground of your claims, as
+      if our merits could become yours, show she does not understand your
+      situation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We obtained our rights by calmly understanding principles, and by the
+      successful event of a long, obstinate, and expensive war. But it is not
+      incumbent on us to fight the battles of the world for the world's profit.
+      You are already participating, without any merit or expense in obtaining
+      it, the blessings of freedom acquired by ourselves; and in proportion as
+      you become initiated into the principles and practice of the
+      representative system of government, of which you have yet had no
+      experience, you will participate more, and finally be partakers of the
+      whole. You see what mischief ensued in France by the possession of power
+      before they understood principles. They earned liberty in words, but not
+      in fact. The writer of this was in France through the whole of the
+      revolution, and knows the truth of what he speaks; for after endeavouring
+      to give it principle, he had nearly fallen a victim to its rage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a great want of judgment in the person who drew up your memorial.
+      He has mistaken your case, and forgotten his own; and by trying to court
+      your applause has injured your pretensions. He has written like a lawyer,
+      straining every point that would please his client, without studying his
+      advantage. I find no fault with the composition of the memorial, for it is
+      well written; nor with the principles of liberty it contains, considered
+      in the abstract. The error lies in the misapplication of them, and in
+      assuming a ground they have not a right to stand upon. Instead of their
+      serving you as a ground of reclamation against us, they change into a
+      satire on yourselves. Why did you not speak thus when you ought to have
+      spoken it? We fought for liberty when you stood quiet in slavery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The author of the memorial injudiciously confounding two distinct cases
+      together, has spoken as if he was the memorialist of a body of Americans,
+      who, after sharing equally with us in all the dangers and hardships of the
+      revolutionary war, had retired to a distance and made a settlement for
+      themselves. If, in such a situation, Congress had established a temporary
+      government over them, in which they were not personally consulted, they
+      would have had a right to speak as the memorial speaks. But your situation
+      is different from what the situation of such persons would be, and
+      therefore their ground of reclamation cannot of right become yours. You
+      are arriving at freedom by the easiest means that any people ever enjoyed
+      it; without contest, without expense, and even without any contrivance of
+      your own. And you already so far mistake principles, that under the name
+      of <i>rights</i> you ask for <i>powers; power to import and enslave
+      Africans</i>; and <i>to govern</i> a territory that <i>we have purchased</i>.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To give colour to your memorial, you refer to the treaty of cession, (in
+      which <i>you were not</i> one of the contracting parties,) concluded at
+      Paris between the governments of the United States and France.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The third article" you say "of the treaty lately concluded at Paris
+      declares, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be
+      incorporated in the union of the United States, and admitted <i>as soon as
+      possible, according to the principles</i> of the Federal Constitution, to
+      the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of
+      the United States; and <i>in the mean time</i>, they shall be protected in
+      the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the religion
+      they profess."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As from your former condition, you cannot be much acquainted with
+      diplomatic policy, and I am convinced that even the gentleman who drew up
+      the memorial is not, I will explain to you the grounds of this article. It
+      may prevent your running into further errors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The territory of Louisiana had been so often ceded to different European
+      powers, that it became a necessary article on the part of France, and for
+      the security of Spain, the ally of France, and which accorded perfectly
+      with our own principles and intentions, that it should be <i>ceded no more</i>;
+      and this article, stipulating for the incorporation of Louisiana into the
+      union of the United States, stands as a bar against all future cession,
+      and at the same time, as well as "<i>in the mean time</i>" secures to you
+      a civil and political permanency, personal security and liberty which you
+      never enjoyed before.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      France and Spain might suspect, (and the suspicion would not have been
+      ill-founded had the cession been treated for in the administration of John
+      Adams, or when Washington was president, and Alexander Hamilton president
+      over him,) that we <i>bought</i> Louisiana for the British government, or
+      with a view of selling it to her; and though such suspicion had no just
+      ground to stand upon with respect to our present president, Thomas
+      Jefferson, who is not only not a man of intrigue but who possesses that
+      honest pride of principle that cannot be intrigued with, and which keeps
+      intriguers at a distance, the article was nevertheless necessary as a
+      precaution against future contingencies. But you, from not knowing the
+      political ground of the article, apply to yourselves <i>personally</i> and
+      <i>exclusively</i>, what had reference to the <i>territory</i>, to prevent
+      its falling into the hands of any foreign power that might endanger the
+      [establishment of] <i>Spanish</i> dominion in America, or those of the <i>French</i>
+      in the West India Islands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You claim, (you say), to be incorporated into the union of the United
+      States, and your remonstrances on this subject are unjust and without
+      cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You are already <i>incorporated</i> into it as fully and effectually as
+      the Americans themselves are, who are settled in Louisiana. You enjoy the
+      same rights, privileges, advantages, and immunities, which they enjoy; and
+      when Louisiana, or some part of it, shall be erected into a constitutional
+      State, you also will be citizens equal with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You speak in your memorial, as if you were the only people who were to
+      live in Louisiana, and as if the territory was purchased that you
+      exclusively might govern it. In both these cases you are greatly mistaken.
+      The emigrations from the United States into the purchased territory, and
+      the population arising therefrom, will, in a few years, exceed you in
+      numbers. It is but twenty-six years since Kentucky began to be settled,
+      and it already contains more than <i>double</i> your population.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a candid view of the case, you ask for what would be injurious to
+      yourselves to receive, and unjust in us to grant. <i>Injurious</i>,
+      because the settlement of Louisiana will go on much faster under the
+      government and guardianship of Congress, then if the government of it were
+      committed to <i>your</i> hands; and consequently, the landed property you
+      possessed as individuals when the treaty was concluded, or have purchased
+      since, will increase so much faster in value.&mdash;<i>Unjust to ourselves</i>,
+      because as the reimbursements of the purchase money must come out of the
+      sale of the lands to new settlers, the government of it cannot suddenly go
+      out of the hands of Congress. They are guardians of that property for <i>all
+      the people of the United States</i>. And besides this, as the new settlers
+      will be chiefly from the United States, it would be unjust and ill policy
+      to put them and their property under the jurisdiction of a people whose
+      freedom they had contributed to purchase. You ought also to recollect,
+      that the French Revolution has not exhibited to the world that grand
+      display of principles and rights, that would induce settlers from other
+      countries to put themselves under a French jurisdiction in Louisiana.
+      Beware of intriguers who may push you on from private motives of their
+      own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You complain of two cases, one of which you have <i>no right</i>, no
+      concern with; and the other is founded in direct injustice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      You complain that Congress has passed a law to divide the country into two
+      territories. It is not improper to inform you, that after the
+      revolutionary war ended, Congress divided the territory acquired by that
+      war into ten territories; each of which was to be erected into a
+      constitutional State, when it arrived at a certain population mentioned in
+      the Act; and, in the mean time, an officer appointed by the President, as
+      the Governor of Louisiana now is, presided, as Governor of the Western
+      Territory, over all such parts as have not arrived at the maturity of <i>statehood</i>.
+      Louisiana will require to be divided into twelve States or more; but this
+      is a matter that belongs to <i>the purchaser</i> of the territory of
+      Louisiana, and with which the inhabitants of the town of New-Orleans have
+      no right to interfere; and beside this, it is probable that the
+      inhabitants of the other territory would choose to be independent of
+      New-Orleans. They might apprehend, that on some speculating pretence,
+      their produce might be put in requisition, and a maximum price put on it&mdash;a
+      thing not uncommon in a French government. As a general rule, without
+      refining upon sentiment, one may put confidence in the justice of those
+      who have no inducement to do us injustice; and this is the case Congress
+      stands in with respect to both territories, and to all other divisions
+      that may be laid out, and to all inhabitants and settlers, of whatever
+      nation they may be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There can be no such thing as what the memorial speaks of, that is, <i>of
+      a Governor appointed by the President who may have no interest in the
+      welfare of Louisiana</i>. He must, from the nature of the case, have more
+      interest in it than any other person can have. He is entrusted with the
+      care of an extensive tract of country, now the property of the United
+      States by purchase. The value of those lands will depend on the increasing
+      prosperity of Louisiana, its agriculture, commerce, and population. You
+      have only a local and partial interest in the town of New-Orleans, or its
+      vicinity; and if, in consequence of exploring the country, new seats of
+      commerce should offer, his general interest would lead him to open them,
+      and your partial interest to shut them up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is probably some justice in your remark, as it applies to the
+      governments under which you <i>formerly</i> lived. Such governments always
+      look with jealousy, and an apprehension of revolt, on colonies increasing
+      in prosperity and population, and they send governors to <i>keep them down</i>.
+      But when you argue from the conduct of governments <i>distant and despotic</i>,
+      to that of <i>domestic</i> and <i>free</i> government, it shows you do not
+      understand the principles and interest of a Republic, and to put you right
+      is friendship. We have had experience, and you have not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other case to which I alluded, as being founded in direct injustice,
+      is that in which you petition for <i>power</i>, under the name of <i>rights</i>,
+      to import and enslave Africans!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing
+      to be struck from the earth by its justice?</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Why, then, do you ask it of man against man?</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <i>Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo?</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Common Sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sept 22, 1804.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      END OF VOLUME III. <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III., by
+Thomas Paine
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III.
+       1791-1804
+
+Author: Thomas Paine
+
+Editor: Moncure Daniel Conway
+
+Release Date: February 13, 2010 [EBook #31271]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE
+
+By Thomas Paine
+
+Edited By Moncure Daniel Conway
+
+
+VOLUME III.
+
+1791-1804
+
+G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+New York London
+
+
+Copyright, 1895
+
+By G. P. Putnam's Sons
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  Introduction to the Third Volume
+
+  I.  The Republican Proclamation
+
+  II.  To the Authors of "Le Republicain"
+
+  III.  To the Abbe Sieyes
+
+  IV.  To the Attorney General
+
+  V.  To Mr. Secretary Dundas
+
+  VI.  Letters to Onslow Cranley
+
+  VII.  To the Sheriff of the County of Sussex
+
+  VIII.  To Mr. Secretary Dundas
+
+  IX.  Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation
+
+  X.  Address to the People of France
+
+  XI.  Anti-Monarchal Essay
+
+  XII.  To the Attorney General, on the Prosecution AGAINST
+        THE SECOND PART OF RIGHTS of Man
+
+  XIII.  On the Propriety of Bringing Louis XVI to Trial
+
+  XIV.  Reasons for Preserving the Life of Louis Capet
+
+  XV.  Shall Louis XVI. Have Respite?
+
+  XVI.  Declaration of Rights.
+
+  XVII.  Private Letters to Jefferson
+
+  XVIII.  Letters to Danton
+
+  XIX.  A Citizen of America to the Citizens of Europe
+
+  XX.  Appeal to the Convention
+
+  XXI.  The Memorial to Monroe
+
+  XXII.  Letter to George Washington
+
+  XXIII.  Observations
+
+  XXIV.  Dissertation on First Principles of Government
+
+  XXV.  The Constitution of 1795
+
+  XXVI.  The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance
+
+  XXVII.  Forgetfulness
+
+  XXVIII.  Agrarian Justice
+
+  XXIX.  The Eighteenth Fructidor
+
+  XXX.  The Recall of Monroe
+
+  XXXI.  Private Letter to President Jefferson
+
+  XXXII.  Proposal that Louisiana be Purchased
+
+  XXXIII.  Thomas Paine to the Citizens of the United States
+
+  XXXIV.  To the French Inhabitants of Louisiana
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD VOLUME.
+
+WITH HISTORICAL NOTES AND DOCUMENTS.
+
+In a letter of Lafayette to Washington ("Paris, 12 Jan., 1790") he
+writes: "_Common Sense_ is writing for you a brochure where you will see
+a part of my adventures." It thus appears that the narrative embodied in
+the reply to Burke ("Rights of Man," Part I.), dedicated to Washington,
+was begun with Lafayette's collaboration fourteen months before its
+publication (March 13, 1791).
+
+In another letter of Lafayette to Washington (March 17, 1790) he writes:
+
+"To Mr. Paine, who leaves for London, I entrust the care of sending
+you my news.... Permit me, my dear General, to offer you a picture
+representing the Bastille as it was some days after I gave the order for
+its demolition. I also pay you the homage of sending you the principal
+Key of that fortress of despotism. It is a tribute I owe as a son to
+my adoptive father, as aide-de-camp to my General, as a missionary of
+liberty to his Patriarch."
+
+The Key was entrusted to Paine, and by him to J. Rut-ledge, Jr., who
+sailed from London in May. I have found in the manuscript despatches of
+Louis Otto, Charge d' Affaires, several amusing paragraphs, addressed to
+his govern-ment at Paris, about this Key.
+
+"August 4, 1790. In attending yesterday the public audience of the
+President, I was surprised by a question from the Chief Magistrate,
+'whether I would like to see the Key of the Bastille?' One of his
+secretaries showed me at the same moment a large Key, which had
+been sent to the President by desire of the Marquis de la Fayette. I
+dissembled my surprise in observing to the President that 'the time had
+not yet come in America to do ironwork equal to that before him.'
+The Americans present looked at the key with indifference, and as if
+wondering why it had been sent But the serene face of the President
+showed that he regarded it as an homage from the French nation."
+"December 13, 1790. The Key of the Bastille, regularly shown at the
+President's audiences, is now also on exhibition in Mrs. Washington's
+_salon_, where it satisfies the curiosity of the Philadelphians. I am
+persuaded, Monseigneur, that it is only their vanity that finds pleasure
+in the exhibition of this trophy, but Frenchmen here are not the less
+piqued, and many will not enter the President's house on this account."
+
+In sending the key Paine, who saw farther than these distant Frenchmen,
+wrote to Washington: "That the principles of America opened the Bastille
+is not to be doubted, and therefore the Key comes to the right place."
+
+Early in May, 1791 (the exact date is not given), Lafayette writes
+Washington: "I send you the rather indifferent translation of Mr. Paine
+as a kind of preservative and to keep me near you." This was a hasty
+translation of "Rights of Man," Part I., by F. Soules, presently
+superseded by that of Lanthenas.
+
+The first convert of Paine to pure republicanism in France was Achille
+Duchatelet, son of the Duke, and grandson of the authoress,--the friend
+of Voltaire. It was he and Paine who, after the flight of Louis XVI.,
+placarded Paris with the Proclamation of a Republic, given as the first
+chapter of this volume. An account of this incident is here quoted from
+Etienne Dumont's "Recollections of Mirabeau":
+
+"The celebrated Paine was at this time in Paris, and intimate in
+Condorcet's family. Thinking that he had effected the American
+Revolution, he fancied himself called upon to bring about one in France.
+Duchatelet called on me, and after a little preface placed in my hand an
+English manuscript--a Proclamation to the French People. It was nothing
+less than an anti-royalist Manifesto, and summoned the nation to
+seize the opportunity and establish a Republic. Paine was its author.
+Duchatelet had adopted and was resolved to sign, placard the walls of
+Paris with it, and take the consequences. He had come to request me to
+translate and develop it. I began discussing the strange proposal,
+and pointed out the danger of raising a republican standard without
+concurrence of the National Assembly, and nothing being as yet known
+of the king's intentions, resources, alliances, and possibilities of
+support by the army, and in the provinces. I asked if he had consulted
+any of the most influential leaders,--Sieves, Lafayette, etc. He had
+not: he and Paine had acted alone. An American and an impulsive nobleman
+had put themselves forward to change the whole governmental system
+of France. Resisting his entreaties, I refused to translate the
+Proclamation. Next day the republican Proclamation appeared on the walls
+in every part of Paris, and was denounced to the Assembly. The idea of
+a Republic had previously presented itself to no one: this first
+intimation filled with consternation the Right and the moderates of the
+Left. Malouet, Cazales, and others proposed prosecution of the author,
+but Chapelier, and a numerous party, fearing to add fuel to the fire
+instead of extinguishing it, prevented this. But some of the seed sown
+by the audacious hand of Paine were now budding in leading minds."
+
+A Republican Club was formed in July, consisting of five members, the
+others who joined themselves to Paine and Duchatelet being Condorcet,
+and probably Lanthenas (translator of Paine's works), and Nicolas de
+Bonneville. They advanced so far as to print "Le Republicain," of which,
+however, only one number ever appeared. From it is taken the second
+piece in this volume.
+
+Early in the year 1792 Paine lodged in the house and book-shop of Thomas
+"Clio" Rickman, now as then 7 Upper Marylebone Street. Among his friends
+was the mystical artist and poet, William Blake. Paine had become to
+him a transcendental type; he is one of the Seven who appear in Blake's
+"Prophecy" concerning America (1793):
+
+
+  "The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent
+  Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore;
+  Piercing the souls of warlike men, who rise in silent night:--
+  Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Warren, Gates, Hancock, and Greene,
+  Meet on the coast glowing with blood from Albion's fiery Prince."
+
+
+The Seven are wrapt in the flames of their enthusiasm. Albion's Prince
+sends to America his thirteen Angels, who, however, there become
+Governors of the thirteen States. It is difficult to discover from
+Blake's mystical visions how much political radicalism was in him, but
+he certainly saved Paine from the scaffold by forewarning him (September
+13, 1792) that an order had been issued for his arrest. Without
+repeating the story told in Gilchrist's "Life of Blake," and in my "Life
+of Paine," I may add here my belief that Paine also appears in one of
+Blake's pictures. The picture is in the National Gallery (London), and
+called "The spiritual form of Pitt guiding Behemoth." The monster jaws
+of Behemoth are full of struggling men, some of whom stretch imploring
+hands to another spiritual form, who reaches down from a crescent
+moon in the sky, as if to rescue them. This face and form appear to me
+certainly meant for Paine.
+
+Acting on Blake's warning Paine's friends got him off to Dover, where,
+after some trouble, related in a letter to Dundas (see p. 41 of this
+volume), he reached Calais. He had been elected by four departments to
+the National Convention, and selected Calais, where he was welcomed
+with grand civic parades. On September 19, 1792, he arrived in Paris,
+stopping at "White's Hotel," 7 Passage des Petits Peres, about five
+minutes' walk from the Salle de Manege, where, on September 21st, the
+National Convention opened its sessions. The spot is now indicated by a
+tablet on the wall of the Tuileries Garden, Rue de Rivoli. On that
+day Paine was introduced to the Convention by the Abbe Gregoire, and
+received with acclamation.
+
+The French Minister in London, Chauvelin, had sent to his government
+(still royalist) a despatch unfavorable to Paine's work in England, part
+of which I translate:
+
+"May 23, 1792. An Association [for Parliamentary Reform, see pp. 78,
+93, of this volume] has been formed to seek the means of forwarding the
+demand. It includes some distinguished members of the Commons, and a few
+peers. The writings of M. Payne which preceded this Association by a
+few days have done it infinite harm. People suspect under the veil of
+a reform long demanded by justice and reason an intention to destroy a
+constitution equally dear to the peers whose privileges it consecrates,
+to the wealthy whom it protects, and to the entire nation, to which
+it assures all the liberty desired by a people methodical and slow in
+character, and who, absorbed in their commercial interests, do not
+like being perpetually worried about the imbecile George III. or public
+affairs. Vainly have the friends of reform protested their attachment
+to the Constitution. Vainly they declare that they desire to demand
+nothing, to obtain nothing, save in lawful ways. They are persistently
+disbelieved. Payne alone is seen in all their movements; and this author
+has not, like Mackintosh, rendered imposing his refutation of Burke. The
+members of the Association, although very different in principles, find
+themselves involved in the now almost general disgrace of Payne."
+
+M. Noel writes from London, November 2, 1792, to the republican
+Minister, Le Brun, concerning the approaching trial of Paine, which had
+been fixed for December 18th.
+
+"This matter above all excites the liveliest interest. People desire
+to know whether they live in a free country, where criticism even of
+government is a right of every citizen. Whatever may be the decision in
+this interesting trial, the result can only be fortunate for the cause
+of liberty. But the government cannot conceal from itself that it is
+suspended over a volcano. The wild dissipations of the King's sons
+add to the discontent, and if something is overlooked in the Prince of
+Wales, who is loved enough, it is not so with the Duke of York, who
+has few friends. The latter has so many debts that at this moment the
+receivers are in his house, and the creditors wish even his bed to be
+seized. You perceive, Citizen, what a text fruitful in reflexions this
+conduct presents to a people groaning under the weight of taxes for the
+support of such whelps (_louvetaux_)."
+
+Under date of December 22, 1792, M. Noel writes:
+
+"London is perfectly tranquil. The arbitrary measures taken by the
+government in advance [of Paine's trial] cause no anxiety to the mass
+of the nation about its liberties. Some dear-headed people see well that
+the royal prerogative will gain in this crisis, and that it is dangerous
+to leave executive power to become arbitrary at pleasure; but this very
+small number groan in silence, and dare not speak for fear of seeing
+their property pillaged or burned by what the miserable hirelings
+of government call 'Loyal Mob,' or 'Church and King Mob.' To the
+'Addressers,' of whom I wrote you, are added the associations for
+maintaining the Constitution they are doing all they can to destroy.
+There is no corporation, no parish, which is not mustered for this
+object. All have assembled, one on the other, to press against
+those whom they call 'The Republicans and the Levellers,' the most
+inquisitorial measures. Among other parishes, one (S. James' Vestry
+Room) distinguishes itself by a decree worthy of the sixteenth century.
+It promises twenty guineas reward to any one who shall denounce those
+who in conversation or otherwise propagate opinions contrary to the
+public tranquillity, and places the denouncer under protection of the
+parish. The inhabitants of London are now placed under a new kind of
+_Test_, and those who refuse it will undoubtedly be persecuted. Meantime
+these papers are carried from house to house to be signed, especially by
+those lodging as strangers. This _Test_ causes murmurs, and some try to
+evade signature, but the number is few. The example of the capital is
+generally followed. The trial of Payne, which at one time seemed likely
+to cause events, has ended in the most peaceful way. Erskine has been
+borne to his house by people shouting _God Save the King! Erskine
+forever!_ The friends of liberty generally are much dissatisfied with
+the way in which he has defended his client. They find that he threw
+himself into commonplaces which could make his eloquence shine, but
+guarded himself well from going to the bottom of the question. Vane
+especially, a distinguished advocate and zealous democrat, is furious
+against Erskine. It is now for Payne to defend himself. But whatever
+he does, he will have trouble enough to reverse the opinion. The Jury's
+verdict is generally applauded: a mortal blow is dealt to freedom of
+thought. People sing in the streets, even at midnight, _God save the
+King and damn Tom Payne!_" (1)
+
+     1 The despatches from which these translations are made are
+     in the Archives of the Department of State at Paris, series
+     marked _Angleterre_ vol. 581.
+
+The student of that period will find some instruction in a collection,
+now in the British Museum, of coins and medals mostly struck after the
+trial and outlawry of Paine. A halfpenny, January 21,1793: _obverse_,
+a man hanging on a gibbet, with church in the distance; motto "End of
+Pain"; _reverse_, open book inscribed "The Wrongs of Man." A token: bust
+of Paine, with his name; _reverse_, "The Mountain in Labour, 1793."
+Farthing: Paine gibbeted; _reverse_, breeches burning, legend,
+"Pandora's breeches"; beneath, serpent decapitated by a dagger,
+the severed head that of Paine. Similar farthing, but _reverse_,
+combustibles intermixed with labels issuing from a globe marked
+"Fraternity"; the labels inscribed "Regicide," "Robbery," "Falsity,"
+"Requisition"; legend, "French Reforms, 1797"; near by, a church with
+flag, on it a cross. Half-penny without date, but no doubt struck in
+1794, when a rumor reached London that Paine had been guillotined:
+Paine gibbeted; above, devil smoking a pipe; _reverse_, monkey dancing;
+legend, "We dance, Paine swings." Farthing: three men hanging on a
+gallows; "The three Thomases, 1796." _Reverse_, "May the three knaves
+of Jacobin Clubs never get a trick." The three Thomases were Thomas
+Paine, Thomas Muir, and Thomas Spence. In 1794 Spence was imprisoned
+seven months for publishing some of Paine's works at his so-called
+"Hive of Liberty." Muir, a Scotch lawyer, was banished to Botany Bay for
+fourteen years for having got up in Edinburgh (1792) a "Convention," in
+imitation of that just opened in Paris; two years later he escaped from
+Botany Bay on an American ship, and found his way to Paine in Paris.
+Among these coins there are two of opposite character. A farthing
+represents Pitt on a gibbet, against which rests a ladder; inscription,
+"End of P [here an eye] T." _Reverse_, face of Pitt conjoined with that
+of the devil, and legend, "Even Fellows." Another farthing like the
+last, except an added legend, "Such is the reward of tyrants, 1796."
+These anti-Pitt farthings were struck by Thomas Spence.
+
+In the winter of 1792-3 the only Reign of Terror was in England. The
+Ministry had replied to Paine's "Rights of Man" by a royal proclamation
+against seditious literature, surrounding London with militia, and
+calling a meeting of Parliament (December, 1792) out of season.
+Even before the trial of Paine his case was prejudged by the royal
+proclamation, and by the Addresses got up throughout the country in
+response,--documents which elicited Paine's Address to the Addressers,
+chapter IX. in this volume. The Tory gentry employed roughs to burn
+Paine in effigy throughout the country, and to harry the Nonconformists.
+Dr. Priestley's house was gutted. Mr. Fox (December 14, 1792) reminded
+the House of Commons that all the mobs had "Church and King" for their
+watchword, no mob having been heard of for "The Rights of Man"; and
+he vainly appealed to the government to prosecute the dangerous libels
+against Dissenters as they were prosecuting Paine's work. Burke, who in
+the extra session of Parliament for the first time took his seat on the
+Treasury Bench, was reminded that he had once "exulted at the victories
+of that rebel Washington," and welcomed Franklin. "Franklin," he said,
+"was a native of America; Paine was born in England, and lived under the
+protection of our laws; but, instigated by his evil genius, he conspired
+against the very country which gave him birth, by attempting to
+introduce the new and pernicious doctrines of republicans."
+
+In the course of the same harangue, Burke alluded to the English and
+Irish deputations, then in Paris, which had congratulated the Convention
+on the defeat of the invaders of the Republic. Among them he named
+Lord Semphill, John Frost, D. Adams, and "Joel--Joel the Prophet" (Joel
+Barlow). These men were among those who, towards the close of 1792,
+formed a sort of Paine Club at "Philadelphia House"--as White's Hotel
+was now called. The men gathered around Paine, as the exponent of
+republican principles, were animated by a passion for liberty which
+withheld no sacrifice. Some of them threw away wealth and rank as
+trifles. At a banquet of the Club, at Philadelphia House, November 18,
+1792, where Paine presided, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Sir Robert Smyth,
+Baronet, formally renounced their titles. Sir Robert proposed the toast,
+"A speedy abolition of all hereditary titles and feudal distinctions."
+Another toast was, "Paine--and the new way of making good books known by
+a Royal proclamation and a King's Bench prosecution."
+
+There was also Franklin's friend, Benjamin Vaughan, Member of
+Parliament, who, compromised by an intercepted letter, took refuge in
+Paris under the name of Jean Martin. Other Englishmen were Rev. Jeremiah
+Joyce, a Unitarian minister and author (coadjutor of Dr. Gregory in
+his "Cyclopaedia "); Henry Redhead Yorke, a West Indian with some negro
+blood (afterwards an agent of Pitt, under whom he had been imprisoned);
+Robert Merry, husband of the actress "Miss Brunton"; Sayer, Rayment,
+Macdonald, Perry.
+
+Sampson Perry of London, having attacked the government in his journal,
+"The Argus," fled from an indictment, and reached Paris in January,
+1793. These men, who for a time formed at Philadelphia House their
+Parliament of Man, were dashed by swift storms on their several rocks.
+Sir Robert Smyth was long a prisoner under the Reign of Terror, and died
+(1802) of the illness thereby contracted. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was
+slain while trying to kindle a revolution in Ireland. Perry was a
+prisoner in the Luxembourg, and afterwards in London. John Frost, a
+lawyer (struck off the roll), ventured back to London, where he was
+imprisoned six months in Newgate, sitting in the pillory at Charing
+Cross one hour per day. Robert Merry went to Baltimore, where he died
+in 1798. Nearly all of these men suffered griefs known only to the "man
+without a country."
+
+Sampson Perry, who in 1796 published an interesting "History of the
+French Revolution," has left an account of his visit to Paine in
+January, 1793:
+
+"I breakfasted with Paine about this time at the Philadelphia Hotel, and
+asked him which province in America he conceived the best calculated
+for a fugitive to settle in, and, as it were, to begin the world with no
+other means or pretensions than common sense and common honesty. Whether
+he saw the occasion and felt the tendency of this question I know not;
+but he turned it aside by the political news of the day, and added that
+he was going to dine with Petion, the mayor, and that he knew I should
+be welcome and be entertained. We went to the mayoralty in a hackney
+coach, and were seated at a table about which were placed the following
+persons: Petion, the mayor of Paris, with his female relation who did
+the honour of the table; Dumourier, the commander-in-chief of the French
+forces, and one of his aides-de-camp; Santerre, the commandant of the
+armed force of Paris, and an aide-de-camp; Condorcet; Brissot; Gaudet;
+Genson-net; Danton; Rersaint; Claviere; Vergniaud; and Syeyes; which,
+with three other persons, whose names I do not now recollect, and
+including Paine and myself, made in all nineteen."
+
+Paine found warm welcome in the home of Achille Du-chatelet, who with
+him had first proclaimed the Republic, and was now a General. Madame
+Duchatelet was an English lady of rank, Charlotte Comyn, and English was
+fluently spoken in the family. They resided at Auteuil, not far from the
+Abbe Moulet, who preserved an arm-chair with the inscription, _Benjamin
+Franklin hic sedebat_, Paine was a guest of the Duchatelets soon after
+he got to work in the Convention, as I have just discovered by a letter
+addressed "To Citizen Le Brun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paris."
+
+"Auteuil, Friday, the 4th December, 1792. I enclose an Irish newspaper
+which has been sent me from Belfast. It contains the Address of the
+Society of United Irishmen of Dublin (of which Society I am a member)
+to the volunteers of Ireland. None of the English newspapers that I have
+seen have ventured to republish this Address, and as there is no other
+copy of it than this which I send you, I request you not to let it go
+out of your possession. Before I received this newspaper I had drawn up
+a statement of the affairs of Ireland, which I had communicated to my
+friend General Duchatelet at Auteuil, where I now am. I wish to confer
+with you on that subject, but as I do not speak French, and as the
+matter requires confidence, General Duchatelet has desired me to say
+that if you can make it convenient to dine with him and me at Auteuil,
+he will with pleasure do the office of interpreter. I send this letter
+by my servant, but as it may not be convenient to you to give an answer
+directly, I have told him not to wait--Thomas Paine."
+
+It will be noticed that Paine now keeps his servant, and drives to the
+Mayor's dinner in a hackney coach. A portrait painted in Paris about
+this time, now owned by Mr. Alfred Howlett of Syracuse, N. Y., shows him
+in elegant costume.
+
+It is mournful to reflect, even at this distance, that only a little
+later both Paine and his friend General Duchatelet were prisoners. The
+latter poisoned himself in prison (1794).
+
+The illustrative notes and documents which it seems best to set before
+the reader at the outset may here terminate. As in the previous volumes
+the writings are, as a rule, given in chronological sequence, but an
+exception is now made in respect of Paine's religious writings, some of
+which antedate essays in the present volume. The religious writings
+are reserved for the fourth and final volume, to which will be added
+an Appendix containing Paine's poems, scientific fragments, and several
+letters of general interest.
+
+
+
+
+I. THE REPUBLICAN PROCLAMATION.(1)
+
+"Brethren and Fellow Citizens:
+
+"The serene tranquillity, the mutual confidence which prevailed amongst
+us, during the time of the late King's escape, the indifference with
+which we beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that the absence of
+a King is more desirable than his presence, and that he is not only a
+political superfluity, but a grievous burden, pressing hard on the whole
+nation.
+
+"Let us not be imposed on by sophisms; all that concerns this is reduced
+to four points.
+
+"He has abdicated the throne in having fled from his post. Abdication
+and desertion are not characterized by the length of absence; but by the
+single act of flight. In the present instance, the act is everything,
+and the time nothing.
+
+"The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who, false to
+his trust, perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine flight, obtains
+a fraudulent passport, conceals a King of France under the disguise of
+a valet, directs his course towards a frontier covered with traitors
+and deserters, and evidently meditates a return into our country, with a
+force capable of imposing his own despotic laws.
+
+"Should his flight be considered as his own act, or the act of those
+who fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution of his own, or was
+it inspired by others? The alternative is immaterial; whether fool or
+hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself equally unworthy of
+the important functions that had been delegated to him.
+
+     1 See Introduction to this volume. This manifesto with which
+     Paris was found placarded on July 1, 1791, is described by
+     Dumont as a "Republican Proclamation," but what its literal
+     caption was I have not found.--_Editor_.
+
+"In every sense in which the question can be considered, the reciprocal
+obligation which subsisted between us is dissolved. He holds no longer
+any authority. We owe him no longer obedience. We see in him no more
+than an indifferent person; we can regard him only as Louis Capet.
+
+"The history of France presents little else than a long series of public
+calamity, which takes its source from the vices of 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
+only vacancy is filled up, the dreadful list is full; the system is
+exhausted; there are no remaining errors for them to commit; their reign
+is consequently at an end.
+
+"What kind of office must that be in a government which requires for its
+execution neither experience nor ability, that may be abandoned to the
+desperate chance of birth, that may be filled by an idiot, a madman, a
+tyrant, with equal effect as by the good, the virtuous, and the wise? An
+office of this nature is a mere nonentity; it is a place of show, not of
+use. Let France then, arrived at the age of reason, no longer be deluded
+by the sound of words, and let her deliberately examine, if a King,
+however insignificant and contemptible in himself, may not at the same
+time be extremely dangerous.
+
+"The thirty millions which it costs to support a King in the eclat of
+stupid brutal luxury, presents us with an easy method of reducing taxes,
+which reduction would at once relieve the people, and stop the progress
+of political corruption. The grandeur of nations consists, not, as Kings
+pretend, in the splendour of thrones, but in a conspicuous sense of
+their own dignity, and in a just disdain of those barbarous follies and
+crimes which, under the sanction of Royalty, have hitherto desolated
+Europe.
+
+"As to the personal safety of Louis Capet, it is so much the more
+confirmed, as France will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit of
+revenge against a wretch who has dishonoured himself. In defending
+a just and glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade it, and the
+universal tranquillity which prevails is an undeniable proof that a free
+people know how to respect themselves."
+
+
+
+
+II. TO THE AUTHORS OF "LE REPUBLICAIN."(1)
+
+
+Gentlemen:
+
+M. Duchatelet has mentioned to me the intention of some persons to
+commence a work under the title of "The Republican."
+
+As I am a Citizen of a country which knows no other Majesty than that of
+the People; no other Government than that of the Representative body;
+no other sovereignty than that of the Laws, and which is attached to
+_France_ both by alliance and by gratitude, I voluntarily offer you my
+services in support of principles as honorable to a nation as they are
+adapted to promote the happiness of mankind. I offer them to you with
+the more zeal, as I know the moral, literary, and political character
+of those who are engaged in the undertaking, and find myself honoured in
+their good opinion.
+
+But I must at the same time observe, that from ignorance of the French
+language, my works must necessarily undergo a translation; they can of
+course be of but little utility, and my offering must consist more of
+wishes than services. I must add, that I am obliged to pass a part of
+this summer in England and Ireland.
+
+As the public has done me the unmerited favor of recognizing me under
+the appellation of "Common Sense," which is my usual signature, I shall
+continue it in this publication to avoid mistakes, and to prevent
+my being supposed the author of works not my own. As to my political
+principles, I shall endeavour, in this letter, to trace their general
+features in such a manner, as that they cannot be misunderstood.
+
+     1 "Le Republicain; ou le Defenseur du gouvernement
+     Representatif. Par une Societe des Republicains. A Paris.
+     July, 1791." See Introduction to this volume.--_Editor_.
+
+It is desirable in most instances to avoid that which may give even the
+least suspicion as to the part meant to be adopted, and particularly
+on the present occasion, where a perfect clearness of expression is
+necessary to the avoidance of any possible misinterpretation. I am
+happy, therefore, to find, that the work in question is entitled "The
+Republican." This word expresses perfectly the idea which we ought to
+have of Government in general--_Res Publico_,--the public affairs of a
+nation.
+
+As to the word _Monarchy_, though the address and intrigue of Courts
+have rendered it familiar, it does not contain the less of reproach or
+of insult to a nation. The word, in its immediate or original sense,
+signifies _the absolute power of a single individual_, who may prove
+a fool, an hypocrite, or a tyrant. The appellation admits of no other
+interpretation than that which is here given. France is therefore not a
+_Monarchy_; it is insulted when called by that name. The servile spirit
+which characterizes this species of government is banished from France,
+and this country, like AMERICA, can now afford to Monarchy no more than
+a glance of disdain.
+
+Of the errors which monarchic ignorance or knavery has spread through
+the world, the one which bears the marks of the most dexterous
+invention, is the opinion that the system of _Republicanism_ is only
+adapted to a small country, and that a _Monarchy_ is suited, on the
+contrary, to those of greater extent. Such is the language of Courts,
+and such the sentiments which they have caused to be adopted in
+monarchic countries; but the opinion is contrary, at the same time, to
+principle and to experience.
+
+The Government, to be of real use, should possess a complete knowledge
+of all the parties, all the circumstances, and all the interests of a
+nation. The monarchic system, in consequence, instead of being suited
+to a country of great extent, would be more admissible in a small
+territory, where an individual may be supposed to know the affairs and
+the interests of the whole. But when it is attempted to extend this
+individual knowledge to the affairs of a great country, the capacity of
+knowing bears no longer any proportion to the extent or multiplicity of
+the objects which ought to be known, and the government inevitably falls
+from ignorance into tyranny. For the proof of this position we need only
+look to Spain, Russia, Germany, Turkey, and the whole of the Eastern
+Continent,--countries, for the deliverance of which I offer my most
+sincere wishes.
+
+On the contrary, the true _Republican_ system, by Election and
+Representation, offers the only means which are known, and, in my
+opinion, the only means which are possible, of proportioning the wisdom
+and the information of a Government to the extent of a country.
+
+The system of _Representation_ is the strongest and most powerful center
+that can be devised for a nation. Its attraction acts so powerfully,
+that men give it their approbation even without reasoning on the cause;
+and France, however distant its several parts, finds itself at this
+moment _an whole_, in its _central_ Representation. The citizen is
+assured that his rights are protected, and the soldier feels that he
+is no longer the slave of a Despot, but that he is become one of the
+Nation, and interested of course in its defence.
+
+The states at present styled _Republican_, as Holland, Genoa, Venice,
+Berne, &c. are not only unworthy the name, but are actually in
+opposition to every principle of a _Republican_ government, and the
+countries submitted to their power are, truly speaking, subject to an
+_Aristocratic_ slavery!
+
+It is, perhaps, impossible, in the first steps which are made in a
+Revolution, to avoid all kind of error, in principle or in practice, or
+in some instances to prevent the combination of both. Before the sense
+of a nation is sufficiently enlightened, and before men have entered
+into the habits of a free communication with each other of their natural
+thoughts, a certain reserve--a timid prudence seizes on the human mind,
+and prevents it from obtaining its level with that vigor and promptitude
+that belongs to _right_.--An example of this influence discovers
+itself in the commencement of the present Revolution: but happily this
+discovery has been made before the Constitution was completed, and in
+time to provide a remedy.
+
+The _hereditary succession_ can never exist as a matter of _right_; it
+is a _nullity_--a _nothing_. To admit the idea is to regard man as a
+species of property belonging to some individuals, either born or to
+be born! It is to consider our descendants, and all posterity, as mere
+animals without a right or will! It is, in fine, the most base and
+humiliating idea that ever degraded the human species, and which, for
+the honor of Humanity, should be destroyed for ever.
+
+The idea of hereditary succession is so contrary to the rights of man,
+that if we were ourselves to be recalled to existence, instead of being
+replaced by our posterity, we should not have the right of depriving
+ourselves beforehand of those _rights_ which would then properly belong
+to us. On what ground, then, or by what authority, do we dare to deprive
+of their rights those children who will soon be men? Why are we not
+struck with the injustice which we perpetrate on our descendants, by
+endeavouring to transmit them as a vile herd to masters whose vices are
+all that can be foreseen.
+
+Whenever the _French_ constitution shall be rendered conformable to its
+_Declaration of Rights_, we shall then be enabled to give to France, and
+with justice, the appellation of a _civic Empire_; for its government
+will be the empire of laws founded on the great republican principles
+of _Elective Representation_, and the _Rights of Man_.--But Monarchy
+and Hereditary Succession are incompatible with the _basis_ of its
+constitution.
+
+I hope that I have at present sufficiently proved to you that I am
+a good Republican; and I have such a confidence in the truth of the
+principles, that I doubt not they will soon be as universal in _France_
+as in _America_. The pride of human nature will assist their evidence,
+will contribute to their establishment, and men will be ashamed of
+Monarchy.
+
+I am, with respect, Gentlemen, your friend,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Paris, June, 1791.
+
+
+
+
+III. TO THE ABBE SIEYES.(1)
+
+Paris, 8th July, 1791.
+
+Sir,
+
+At the moment of my departure for England, I read, in the _Moniteur_
+of Tuesday last, your letter, in which you give the challenge, on
+the subject of Government, and offer to defend what is called the
+_Monarchical opinion_ against the Republican system.
+
+I accept of your challenge with pleasure; and I place such a confidence
+in the superiority of the Republican system over that nullity of a
+system, called _Monarchy_, that I engage not to exceed the extent of
+fifty pages, and to leave you the liberty of taking as much latitude as
+you may think proper.
+
+The respect which I bear your moral and literary reputation, will be
+your security for my candour in the course of this discussion; but,
+notwithstanding that I shall treat the subject seriously and sincerely,
+let me promise, that I consider myself at liberty to ridicule, as they
+deserve, Monarchical absurdities, whensoever the occasion shall present
+itself.
+
+By Republicanism, I do not understand what the name signifies in
+Holland, and in some parts of Italy. I understand simply a government
+by representation--a government founded upon the principles of the
+Declaration of Rights; principles to which several parts of the French
+Constitution arise in contradiction. The Declaration of Rights of France
+and America are but one and the same thing in principles, and almost in
+expressions; and this is the Republicanism which I undertake to defend
+against what is called _Monarchy_ and _Aristocracy_.
+
+     1 Written to the _Moniteur_ in reply to a letter of the Abbe
+     (July 8) elicited by Paine's letter to "Le Republicain"
+     (II.). The Abbe now declining a controversy, Paine dealt
+     with his views in "Rights of Man," Part IL, ch. 3.--
+     _Editor_.
+
+I see with pleasure that in respect to one point we are already agreed;
+and _that is, the extreme danger of a civil list of thirty millions_. I
+can discover no reason why one of the parts of the government should
+be supported with so extravagant a profusion, whilst the other scarcely
+receives what is sufficient for its common wants.
+
+This dangerous and dishonourable disproportion at once supplies the one
+with the means of corrupting, and throws the other into the predicament
+of being corrupted. In America there is but little difference, with
+regard to this point, between the legislative and the executive part of
+our government; but the first is much better attended to than it is in
+France.
+
+In whatsoever manner, Sir, I may treat the subject of which you
+have proposed the investigation, I hope that you will not doubt my
+entertaining for you the highest esteem. I must also add, that I am not
+the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man more heartily
+wishes than myself to see them all in the happy and honourable state of
+private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid enemy of
+what is called Monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can
+either alter or corrupt--by my attachment to humanity; by the anxiety
+which I feel within myself, for the dignity and the honour of the human
+race; by the disgust which I experience, when I observe men directed by
+children, and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the evils that
+Monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast; and by those
+sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the exactions, the
+wars, and the massacres with which Monarchy has crushed mankind: in
+short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have declared war.
+
+Thomas Paine.(1)
+
+     1 To the sixth paragraph of the above letter is appended a
+     footnote: "A deputy to the congress receives about a guinea
+     and a half daily: and provisions are cheaper in America
+     than in France." The American Declaration of Rights referred
+     to unless the Declaration of Independence, was no doubt,
+     especially that of Pennsylvania, which Paine helped to
+     frame.--Editor.
+
+
+
+
+IV. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.
+
+
+[Undated, but probably late in May, 1793.]
+
+
+Sir,
+
+Though I have some reason 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 intended to
+affect 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 Attorney 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, he 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
+way, nor in the least instance varied from his usual conduct, to avoid
+any measure you might choose to adopt with respect to him. It is on the
+purity of his heart, and the universal utility of the principles and
+plans which his writings contain, that he rests the issue; and he will
+not dishonour it by any kind of subterfuge. The apartments which he
+occupied at the time of writing the work last winter, he has continued
+to occupy to the present hour, and the solicitors of the prosecution
+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.(1)
+
+     1 Paine was residing at the house of one of his publishers,
+     Thomas Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street, London. His
+     Attorney was the Hon. Thomas Erskine.--_Editor_.
+
+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 useful
+and benevolent books ever offered to mankind, I directed my Attorney
+to put in an appearance; and as I shall meet the prosecution fully and
+fairly, and with a good and upright conscience, I have a right to
+expect that no act of littleness will be made use of on the part of the
+prosecution towards influencing the future issue with respect to the
+author. This expression may, perhaps, appear obscure to you, but I am
+in the possession of some matters which serve to shew that the action
+against the publisher is not intended to be a _real_ action. If,
+therefore, any persons concerned in the prosecution have found their
+cause so weak, as to make it appear convenient to them to enter into
+a negociation with the publisher, whether for the purpose of his
+submitting to a verdict, and to make use of the verdict so obtained as a
+circumstance, by way of precedent, on a future trial against myself;
+or for any other purpose not fully made known to me; if, I say, I have
+cause to suspect this to be the case, I shall most certainly withdraw
+the defence I should otherwise have made, or promoted on his (the
+publisher's) behalf, and leave the negociators to themselves, and shall
+reserve the whole of the defence for the _real_ trial.(1)
+
+But, sir, for the purpose of conducting this matter with at least the
+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 investigation that is questioned,) I have to propose 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 would direct the whole process
+against me, with whom the prosecuting party will not find it possible to
+enter into any private negociation.
+
+     1 A detailed account of the proceedings with regard to the
+     publisher will be found infra, in ix., Letter to the
+     Addressers.--_Editor_.
+
+I will do the cause full justice, as well for the sake of the nation, as
+for my own reputation.
+
+Another reason for discontinuing the process against the publisher is,
+because it can amount to nothing. First, because a jury in London cannot
+decide upon the fact of publishing beyond the limits of the jurisdiction
+of London, and therefore the work may be republished 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 will then be fully open to see that the
+work in question contains a plan the best calculated to root out all the
+abuses of government, and to lessen the taxes of the nation upwards of
+_six millions annually_.
+
+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 government beneficial to themselves as
+individuals, the rest of the nation may not be disposed to consider them
+sufficiently qualified nor authorized to determine for the whole Nation
+on plans of reform, and on systems and principles of Government. This
+would be in effect to erect a jury into a National Convention, instead
+of electing a Convention, and to lay a precedent for the probable
+tyranny of juries, under the pretence of supporting their rights.
+
+That the possibility always exists of packing 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 principles and systems of Government is attempted to be
+suppressed by a verdict, or in those where the object of the work that
+is prosecuted is the reform of abuse and the abolition of sinecure
+places and pensions, in all these cases the verdict of a jury will
+itself become a subject of discussion; and therefore, it furnishes
+an additional reason for discontinuing the prosecution against the
+publisher, more especially as it is not a secret that there has been a
+negociation with 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 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
+1500L. 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,
+
+Thomas Paine.(1)
+
+     1 Paine's case was set down for June 8th, and on that day he
+     appeared in court; but, much to his disappointment, the
+     trial was adjourned to December 18th, at which time he was
+     in his place in the National Convention at Paris.--_Editor_.
+
+
+
+
+V. TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.(1)
+
+
+London, June 6, 1793.
+
+Sir,
+
+As you opened the debate in the House of Commons, May 25th, on the
+proclamation for suppressing publications, which that proclamation
+(without naming any) calls wicked and seditious: and as you applied
+those opprobious epithets to the works entitled "RIGHTS OF MAN," I think
+it unnecessary to offer any other reason for addressing this letter to
+you.
+
+I begin, then, at once, by declaring, that I do not believe there are
+found in the writings of any author, ancient or modern, on the subject
+of government, a spirit of greater benignity, and a stronger inculcation
+of moral principles than in those which I have published. They come,
+Sir, from a man, who, by having lived in different countries, and
+under different systems of government, and who, being intimate in
+the construction of them, is a better judge of the subject than it is
+possible that you, from the want of those opportunities, can be:--And
+besides this, they come from a heart that knows not how to beguile.
+
+I will farther say, that when that moment arrives in which the best
+consolation that shall be left will be looking back on some past
+actions, more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then
+with happiness remember, among other things, I have written the RIGHTS
+OF MAN.---As to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or place-men,
+and place-expectants,--those who possess, or those who are gaping for
+office,--may say of them, it will not alter their character, either with
+the world or with me.
+
+     1 Henry D. (afterwards Viscount Melville), appointed
+     Secretary for the Home Department, 1791. In 1805 he was
+     impeached by the Commons for "gross malversation" while
+     Treasurer of the Navy; he was acquitted by the Lords
+     (1806), but not by public sentiment or by history.--
+     _Editor_.
+
+Having, Sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not
+particularly on your speech on that occasion, but on any one to which
+your motion on that day gave rise; and I shall begin with that of Mr.
+Adam.
+
+This Gentleman accuses me of not having done the very thing that _I have
+done_, and which, he says, if I _had_ done, he should not have accused
+me.
+
+Mr. Adam, in his speech, (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26,) says,
+
+"That he had well considered the subject of Constitutional Publications,
+and was by no means ready to say (but the contrary) that books of
+science upon government though recommending a doctrine or system
+different from the form of our constitution (meaning that of England)
+were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn
+Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Eutopia, and Hume
+for his Idea of a perfect Commonwealth. But (continued Mr. Adam) the
+publication of Mr. Paine was very different; for it reviled what
+was most sacred in the constitution, destroyed every principle of
+subordination, and _established nothing in their room_."
+
+I readily perceive that Mr. Adam has not read the Second Part of _Rights
+of Man_, and I am put under the necessity, either of submitting to an
+erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly
+shall prefer the latter.--If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in
+my reasoning upon systems of government, in the Second Part of _Rights
+of Man_, I have shown as clearly, I think, as words can convey ideas, a
+certain system of government, and that not existing in theory only,
+but already in full and established practice, and systematically
+and practically free from all the vices and defects of the English
+government, and capable of producing more happiness to the people, and
+that also with an eightieth part of the taxes, which the present English
+system of government consumes; I hope he will do me the justice, when
+he next goes to the House, to get up and confess he had been mistaken in
+saying, that I had _established nothing, and that I had destroyed every
+principle of subordination_. Having thus opened the case, I now come to
+the point.
+
+In the Second Part of the Rights of Man, I have distinguished government
+into two classes or systems: the one the hereditary system, the other
+the representative system.
+
+In the First Part of _Rights of Man_, I have endeavoured to shew, and
+I challenge any man to refute it, that there does not exist a right
+to establish hereditary government; or, in other words, hereditary
+governors; because hereditary government always means a government
+yet to come, and the case always is, that the people who are to live
+afterwards, have always the same right to choose a government for
+themselves, as the people had who lived before them.
+
+In the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, I have not repeated those
+arguments, because they are irrefutable; but have confined myself to
+shew the defects of what is called hereditary government, or hereditary
+succession, that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into
+the hands of men totally unworthy of it, from want of principle, or
+unfitted for it from want of capacity.--James the IId. is recorded as
+an instance of the first of these cases; and instances are to be found
+almost all over Europe to prove the truth of the latter.
+
+To shew the absurdity of the Hereditary System still more strongly, I
+will now put the following case:--Take any fifty men promiscuously, and
+it will be very extraordinary, if, out of that number, one man should be
+found, whose principles and talents taken together (for some might have
+principles, and others might have talents) would render him a person
+truly fitted to fill any very extraordinary office of National Trust.
+If then such a fitness of character could not be expected to be found
+in more than one person out of fifty, it would happen but once in a
+thousand years to the eldest son of any one family, admitting each, on
+an average, to hold the office twenty years. Mr. Adam talks of something
+in the Constitution which he calls _most sacred_; but I hope he does not
+mean hereditary succession, a thing which appears to me a violation of
+every order of nature, and of common sense.
+
+When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise
+virtuous, who have died, and their families been ruined, in the defence
+of knaves and fools, and which they would not have done, had they
+reasoned at all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an
+individual can render to mankind, than to endeavour to break the chains
+of political superstition. Those chains are now dissolving fast,
+and proclamations and persecutions will serve but to hasten that
+dissolution.
+
+Having thus spoken of the Hereditary System as a bad System, and subject
+to every possible defect, I now come to the Representative System, and
+this Mr. Adam will find stated in the Second Part of Rights of Man, not
+only as the best, but as the only _Theory_ of Government under which the
+liberties of the people can be permanently secure.
+
+But it is needless now to talk of mere theory, since there is already a
+government in full practice, established upon that theory; or in other
+words, upon the Rights of Man, and has been so for almost twenty years.
+Mr. Pitt, in a speech of his some short time since, said, "That there
+never did, and never could exist a Government established upon those
+Rights, and that if it began at noon, it would end at night." Mr. Pitt
+has not yet arrived at the degree of a school-boy in this species of
+knowledge; his practice has been confined to the means of _extorting
+revenue_, and his boast has been--_how much!_ Whereas the boast of the
+system of government that I am speaking of, is not how much, but how
+little.
+
+The system of government purely representative, unmixed with any thing
+of hereditary nonsense, began in America. I will now compare the effects
+of that system of government with the system of government in England,
+both during, and since the close of the war.
+
+So powerful is the Representative system, first, by combining and
+consolidating all the parts of a country together, however great the
+extent; and, secondly, by admitting of none but men properly qualified
+into the government, or dismissing them if they prove to be otherwise,
+that America was enabled thereby totally to defeat and overthrow all
+the schemes and projects of the hereditary government of England against
+her. As the establishment of the Revolution and Independence of America
+is a proof of this fact, it is needless to enlarge upon it.
+
+I now come to the comparative effect of the two systems _since_ the
+close of the war, and I request Mr. Adam to attend to it.
+
+America had internally sustained the ravages of upwards of seven years
+of war, which England had not. England sustained only the expence of the
+war; whereas America sustained not only the expence, but the destruction
+of property committed by _both_ armies. Not a house was built
+during that period, and many thousands were destroyed. The farms and
+plantations along the coast of the country, for more than a thousand
+miles, were laid waste. Her commerce was annihilated. Her ships were
+either taken, or had rotted within her own harbours. The credit of
+her funds had fallen upwards of ninety per cent., that is, an original
+hundred pounds would not sell for ten pounds. In fine, she was
+apparently put back an hundred years when the war closed, which was not
+the case with England.
+
+But such was the event, that the same representative system of
+government, though since better organized, which enabled her to conquer,
+enabled her also to recover, and she now presents a more flourishing
+condition, and a more happy and harmonized society, under that system of
+government, than any country in the world can boast under any other. Her
+towns are rebuilt, much better than before; her farms and plantations
+are in higher improvement than ever; her commerce is spread over the
+world, and her funds have risen from less than ten pounds the hundred to
+upwards of one hundred and twenty. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues talk
+of the things that have happened in his boyish administration, without
+knowing what greater things have happened elsewhere, and under other
+systems of government.
+
+I now come to state the expence of the two systems, as they now stand
+in each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that
+government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honour and
+trust, and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre.
+
+The whole amount of the nett(sic) taxes in England (exclusive of the
+expence of collection, of drawbacks, of seizures and condemnation, of
+fines and penalties, of fees of office, of litigations and informers,
+which are some of the blessed means of enforcing them) is seventeen
+millions. Of this sum, about nine millions go for the payment of the
+interest of the national debt, and the remainder, being about eight
+millions, is for the current annual expences. This much for one side of
+the case. I now come to the other.
+
+The expence of the several departments of the general Representative
+Government of the United States of America, extending over a space
+of country nearly ten times larger than England, is two hundred and
+ninety-four thousand, five hundred and fifty-eight dollars, which, at
+4s. 6d. per dollar, is 66,305L. 11s. sterling, and is thus apportioned;
+
+[Illustration: table046]
+
+On account of the incursions of the Indians on the back settlements,
+Congress is at this time obliged to keep six thousand militia in pay, in
+addition to a regiment of foot, and a battalion of artillery, which it
+always keeps; and this increases the expence of the War Department to
+390,000 dollars, which is 87,795L. sterling, but when peace shall be
+concluded with the Indians, the greatest part of this expence will
+cease, and the total amount of the expence of government, including that
+of the army, will not amount to 100,000L. sterling, which, as has been
+already stated, is but an eightieth part of the expences of the English
+government.
+
+I request Mr. Adam and Mr. Dundas, and all those who are talking of
+Constitutions, and blessings, and Kings, and Lords, and the Lord
+knows what, to look at this statement. Here is a form and system of
+government, that is better organized and better administered than any
+government in the world, and that for less than one hundred thousand
+pounds per annum, and yet every Member of Congress receives, as a
+compensation for his time and attendance on public business, one pound
+seven shillings per day, which is at the rate of nearly five hundred
+pounds a year.
+
+This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations
+to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political
+superstition to support it; it was by encouraging discussion and
+rendering the press free upon all subjects of government, that the
+principles of government became understood in America, and the people
+are now enjoying the present blessings under it. You hear of no riots,
+tumults, and disorders in that country; because there exists no cause
+to produce them. Those things are never the effect of Freedom, but of
+restraint, oppression, and excessive taxation.
+
+In America, there is not that class of poor and wretched people that
+are so numerously dispersed all over England, who are to be told by a
+proclamation, that they are happy; and this is in a great measure to
+be accounted for, not by the difference of proclamations, but by the
+difference of governments and the difference of taxes between that
+country and this. What the labouring people of that country earn, they
+apply to their own use, and to the education of their children, and
+do not pay it away in taxes as fast as they earn it, to support Court
+extravagance, and a long enormous list of place-men and pensioners;
+and besides this, they have learned the manly doctrine of reverencing
+themselves, and consequently of respecting each other; and they laugh
+at those imaginary beings called Kings and Lords, and all the fraudulent
+trumpery of Court.
+
+When place-men and pensioners, or those who expect to be such, are
+lavish in praise of a government, it is not a sign of its being a good
+one. The pension list alone in England (see sir John Sinclair's History
+of the Revenue, p. 6, of the Appendix) is one hundred and seven thousand
+four hundred and four pounds, _which is more than the expences of the
+whole Government of America amount to_. And I am now more convinced than
+before, that the offer that was made to me of a thousand pounds for the
+copy-right of the second part of the Rights of Man, together with the
+remaining copyright of the first part, was to have effected, by a quick
+suppression, what is now attempted to be done by a prosecution. The
+connection which the person, who made the offer, has with the King's
+printing-office, may furnish part of the means of inquiring into this
+affair, when the ministry shall please to bring their prosecution to
+issue.(1) But to return to my subject.--
+
+I have said in the second part of the _Rights of Man_, and I repeat
+it here, that the service of any man, whether called King, President,
+Senator, Legislator, or any thing else, cannot be worth more to any
+country, in the regular routine of office, than ten thousand pounds per
+annum. We have a better man in America, and more of a gentleman, than
+any King I ever knew of, who does not occasion half that ex-pence; for,
+though the salary is fixed at L5625 he does not accept it, and it is
+only the incidental expences that are paid out of it.(2) The name by
+which a man is called is of itself but an empty thing. It is worth and
+character alone which can render him valuable, for without these, Kings,
+and Lords, and Presidents, are but jingling names.
+
+But without troubling myself about Constitutions of Government, I have
+shewn in the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, that an alliance may be
+formed between England, France, and America, and that the expences of
+government in England may be put back to one million and a half, viz.:
+
+     Civil expence of Government...... 500,000L.
+     Army............................. 500,000
+     Navy............................. 500,000
+                                      ----------
+                                     1,500,000L.
+
+And even this sum is fifteen times greater than the expences of
+government are in America; and it is also greater than the whole peace
+establishment of England amounted to about an hundred years ago. So much
+has the weight and oppression of taxes increased since the Revolution,
+and especially since the year 1714.
+
+     1 At Paine's trial, Chapman, the printer, in answer to fa
+     question of the Solicitor General, said: "I made him three
+     separate offers in the different stages of the work; the
+     first, I believe, was a hundred guineas, the second five
+     hundred, and the last was a thousand."--_Editor_.
+
+     2 Error. See also ante, and in vol. ii., p. 435.
+     Washington had retracted his original announcement, and
+     received his salary regularly.--_Editor_.
+
+To shew that the sum of 500,000L. is sufficient to defray all civil
+expences of government, I have, in that work, annexed the following
+estimate for any country of the same extent as England.--
+
+In the first place, three hundred Representatives, fairly elected, are
+sufficient for all the purposes to which Legislation can apply, and
+preferable to a larger number.
+
+If, then, an allowance, at the rate of 500L. per annum be made to every
+Representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expence, if the whole
+number attended six months each year, would be.......75,000L.
+
+The Official Departments could not possibly exceed the following number,
+with the salaries annexed, viz.:
+
+
+
+[ILLUSTRATION: Table]
+
+Three offices at
+ 10,000L.
+ each
+ 30,000
+
+Ten ditto at
+ 5,000
+ u
+ 50,000
+
+Twenty ditto at
+ 2,000
+ u
+ 40,000
+
+Forty ditto at
+ 1,000
+ it
+ 40,000
+
+Two hundred ditto at
+ 500
+ u
+ 100,000
+
+Three hundred ditto at  200
+ u
+ 60,000
+
+Five hundred ditto at
+ 100
+ u
+ 50,000
+
+Seven hundred ditto at  75
+ it
+ 52,500
+
+497,500L.
+
+
+If a nation chose, it might deduct four per cent, from all the offices,
+and make one of twenty thousand pounds per annum, and style the person
+who should fill it, King or Madjesty, (1) or give him any other title.
+
+Taking, however, this sum of one million and a half, as an abundant
+supply for all the expences of government under any form whatever,
+there will remain a surplus of nearly six millions and a half out of
+the present taxes, after paying the interest of the national debt; and
+I have shewn in the Second Part of _Rights of Man_, what appears to me,
+the best mode of applying the surplus money; for I am now speaking of
+expences and savings, and not of systems of government.
+
+     1 A friend of Paine advised him against this pun, as too
+     personal an allusion to George the Third, to whom however
+     much has been forgiven on account of his mental infirmity.
+     Yorke, in his account of his visit to Paine, 1802, alludes
+     to his (Paine's) anecdotes "of humor and benevolence"
+     concerning George III.--_Editor_.
+
+I have, in the first place, estimated the poor-rates at two millions
+annually, and shewn that the first effectual step would be to abolish
+the poor-rates entirely (which would be a saving of two millions to the
+house-keepers,) and to remit four millions out of the surplus taxes to
+the poor, to be paid to them in money, in proportion to the number of
+children in each family, and the number of aged persons.
+
+I have estimated the number of persons of both sexes in England, of
+fifty years of age and upwards, at 420,000, and have taken one third of
+this number, viz. 140,000, to be poor people.
+
+To save long calculations, I have taken 70,000 of them to be upwards of
+fifty years of age, and under sixty, and the others to be sixty years
+and upwards; and to allow six pounds per annum to the former class, and
+ten pounds per annum to the latter. The expence of which will be,
+
+  Seventy thousand persons at 6L. per annum..... 420,000L.
+  Seventy thousand persons at 10L. per annum.... 700,000
+                                                -----------
+                                               1,120,000L.
+
+There will then remain of the four millions, 2,880,000L. I have stated
+two different methods of appropriating this money. The one is to pay it
+in proportion to the number of children in each family, at the rate of
+three or four pounds per annum for each child; the other is to apportion
+it according to the expence of living in different counties; but in
+either of these cases it would, together with the allowance to be
+made to the aged, completely take off taxes from one third of all the
+families in England, besides relieving all the other families from the
+burthen of poor-rates.
+
+The whole number of families in England, allotting five souls to each
+family, is one million four hundred thousand, of which I take one third,
+_viz_. 466,666 to be poor families who now pay four millions of taxes,
+and that the poorest pays at least four guineas a year; and that the
+other thirteen millions are paid by the other two-thirds. The plan,
+therefore, as stated in the work, is, first, to remit or repay, as is
+already stated, this sum of four millions to the poor, because it is
+impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of
+collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish
+the poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the
+commutation tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars
+of all which are set forth in the work, to which I desire Mr. Adam to
+refer for particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to
+a town of the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its
+favour, compared with the present state of things, of upwards of fifty
+thousand pounds annually, and so in proportion to all other places
+throughout the nation. This certainly is of more consequence than that
+the same sums should be collected to be afterwards spent by riotous
+and profligate courtiers, and in nightly revels at the Star and Garter
+tavern, Pall Mall.
+
+I will conclude this part of my letter with an extract from the Second
+Part of the _Rights of Man_, which Mr. Dundas (a man rolling in luxury
+at the expence of the nation) has branded with the epithet of "wicked."
+
+"By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments
+of civil torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful ex-pence of
+litigation prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by
+ragged and hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of
+age begging for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to
+place to breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows
+will have a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on
+the death of their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children
+will no longer be considered as increasing the distresses of their
+parents. The haunts of the wretched will be known, because it will be
+to their advantage; and the number of petty crimes, the offspring of
+poverty and distress, will be lessened. The poor as well as the rich
+will then be interested in the support of Government, and the cause and
+apprehension of riots and tumults will cease. Ye who sit in ease, and
+solace yourselves in plenty, and such there are in Turkey and Russia,
+as well as in England, and who say to yourselves, _are we not well off_
+have ye thought of these things? When ye do, ye will cease to speak and
+feel for yourselves alone."
+
+After this remission of four millions be made, and the poor-rates
+and houses and window-light tax be abolished, and the commutation
+tax changed, there will still remain nearly one million and a half
+of surplus taxes; and as by an alliance between England, France and
+America, armies and navies will, in a great measure, be rendered
+unnecessary; and as men who have either been brought up in, or long
+habited to, those lines of life, are still citizens of a nation in
+common with the rest, and have a right to participate in all plans of
+national benefit, it is stated in that work (_Rights of Man_, Part ii.)
+to apply annually 507,000L. out of the surplus taxes to this purpose, in
+the following manner:
+
+[Illustration: table 053]
+
+The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter, will not admit
+of my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas
+because he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose, to
+appear conspicuous; but the purport of it is to justify myself from the
+charge which Mr. Adam has made.
+
+This Gentleman, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter,
+considers the writings of Harrington, More and Hume, as justifiable and
+legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so
+doing they shewed plans and systems of government, not only different
+from, but preferable to, that of England; and he accuses me of
+endeavouring to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of
+that which I had reasoned against; whereas, the fact is, that I have
+not only reasoned by comparison of the representative system against
+the hereditary system, but I have gone further; for I have produced
+an instance of a government established entirely on the representative
+system, under which greater happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes
+required, and much higher credit is established, than under the system
+of government in England. The funds in England have risen since the war
+only from 54L. to 97L. and they have been down since the proclamation,
+to 87L. whereas the funds in America rose in the mean time from 10L. to
+120L.
+
+His charge against me of "destroying every principle of subordination,"
+is equally as groundless; which even a single paragraph from the work
+will prove, and which I shall here quote:
+
+"Formerly when divisions arose respecting Governments, recourse was had
+to the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded
+by the new system, and _recourse is had to a national convention_.
+Discussion, and the general will, arbitrates the question, and to
+this private opinion yields with a good grace, and _order is preserved
+uninterrupted_."
+
+That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one
+by a Member of the Legislative, for _not_ doing a certain thing, and
+the other by the Attorney General for _doing_ it, is a strange jumble of
+contradictions. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against
+the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of
+the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the
+work will go on.
+
+I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objection
+I found against the plan and principles contained in the Second Part
+of _Rights of Man_, when I had written the book, was, that they would
+beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred
+throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for
+men to act from the direct and disinterested principles of honour; but
+the prosecution now commenced has fortunately removed that objection,
+and the approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate
+impulse of honour added to that of national interest.
+
+I am, Mr. Dundas,
+
+Not your obedient humble Servant,
+
+But the contrary,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+VI. LETTERS TO ONSLOW CRANLEY,
+
+Lord Lieutenant of the county of Surry; on the subject of the late
+excellent proclamation:--or the chairman who shall preside at the
+meeting to be held at Epsom, June 18.
+
+
+FIRST LETTER.
+
+London, June 17th, 1792.
+
+SIR,
+
+I have seen in the public newspapers the following advertisement, to
+wit--
+
+"To the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants of
+the county of Surry.
+
+"At the requisition and desire of several of the freeholders of the
+county, I am, in the absence of the Sheriff, to desire the favour of
+your attendance, at a meeting to be held at Epsom, on Monday, the 18th
+instant, at 12 o'clock at noon, to consider of an humble address to his
+majesty, to express our grateful approbation of his majesty's paternal,
+and well-timed attendance to the public welfare, in his late most
+gracious Proclamation against the enemies of our happy Constitution.
+
+"(Signed.) Onslow Cranley."
+
+
+Taking it for granted, that the aforesaid advertisement, equally as
+obscure as the proclamation to which it refers, has nevertheless some
+meaning, and is intended to effect some purpose; and as a prosecution
+(whether wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly) is already commenced
+against a work intitled RIGHTS OF MAN, of which I have the honour and
+happiness to be the author; I feel it necessary to address this letter
+to you, and to request that it may be read publicly to the gentlemen who
+shall meet at Epsom in consequence of the advertisement.
+
+The work now under prosecution is, I conceive, the same work which is
+intended to be suppressed by the aforesaid proclamation. Admitting this
+to be the case, the gentlemen of the county of Surry are called upon by
+somebody to condemn a work, and they are at the same time forbidden by
+the proclamation to know what that work is; and they are further called
+upon to give their aid and assistance to prevent other people from
+knowing it also. It is therefore necessary that the author, for his own
+justification, as well as to prevent the gentlemen who shall meet from
+being imposed upon by misrepresentation, should give some outlines of
+the principles and plans which that work contains.
+
+The work, Sir, in question, contains, first, an investigation of general
+principles of government.
+
+It also distinguishes government into two classes or systems, the one
+the hereditary system; the other the representative system; and it
+compares these two systems with each other.
+
+It shews that what is called hereditary government cannot exist as a
+matter of right; because hereditary government always means a government
+yet to come; and the case always is, that those who are to live
+afterwards have always the same right to establish a government for
+themselves as the people who had lived before them.
+
+It also shews the defect to which hereditary government is unavoidably
+subject: that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into
+the hands of men totally unworthy of it from the want of principle, and
+unfitted for it from want of capacity. James II. and many others are
+recorded in the English history as proofs of the former of those cases,
+and instances are to be found all over Europe to prove the truth of the
+latter.
+
+It then shews that the representative system is the only true system of
+government; that it is also the only system under which the liberties of
+any people can be permanently secure; and, further, that it is the
+only one that can continue the same equal probability at all times of
+admitting of none but men properly qualified, both by principles and
+abilities, into government, and of excluding such as are otherwise.
+
+The work shews also, by plans and calculations not hitherto denied nor
+controverted, not even by the prosecution that is commenced, that the
+taxes now existing may be reduced at least six millions, that taxes may
+be entirely taken off from the poor, who are computed at one third of
+the nation; and that taxes on the other two thirds may be considerably
+reduced; that the aged poor may be comfortably provided for, and the
+children of poor families properly educated; that fifteen thousand
+soldiers, and the same number of sailors, may be allowed three
+shillings per week during life out of the surplus taxes; and also that a
+proportionate allowance may be made to the officers, and the pay of the
+remaining soldiers and sailors be raised; and that it is better to apply
+the surplus taxes to those purposes, than to consume them on lazy and
+profligate placemen and pensioners; and that the revenue, said to be
+twenty thousand pounds per annum, raised by a tax upon coals, and given
+to the Duke of Richmond, is a gross imposition upon all the people of
+London, and ought to be instantly abolished.
+
+This, Sir, is a concise abstract of the principles and plans contained
+in the work that is now prosecuted, and for the suppression of which the
+proclamation appears to be intended; but as it is impossible that I can,
+in the compass of a letter, bring into view all the matters contained
+in the work, and as it is proper that the gentlemen who may compose that
+meeting should know what the merits or demerits of it are, before they
+come to any resolutions, either directly or indirectly relating thereto,
+I request the honour of presenting them with one hundred copies of the
+second part of the Rights of Man, and also one thousand copies of my
+letter to Mr. Dundas, which I have directed to be sent to Epsom for that
+purpose; and I beg the favour of the Chairman to take the trouble of
+presenting them to the gentlemen who shall meet on that occasion, with
+my sincere wishes for their happiness, and for that of the nation in
+general.
+
+Having now closed thus much of the subject of my letter, I next come
+to speak of what has relation to me personally. I am well aware of the
+delicacy that attends it, but the purpose of calling the meeting appears
+to me so inconsistent with that justice that is always due between man
+and man, that it is proper I should (as well on account of the gentlemen
+who may meet, as on my own account) explain myself fully and candidly
+thereon.
+
+I have already informed the gentlemen, that a prosecution is commenced
+against a work of which I have the honour and happiness to be the
+author; and I have good reasons for believing that the proclamation
+which the gentlemen are called to consider, and to present an address
+upon, is purposely calculated to give an impression to the jury before
+whom that matter is to come. In short, that it is dictating a verdict by
+proclamation; and I consider the instigators of the meeting to be held
+at Epsom, as aiding and abetting the same improper, and, in my opinion,
+illegal purpose, and that in a manner very artfully contrived, as I
+shall now shew.
+
+Had a meeting been called of the Freeholders of the county of Middlesex,
+the gentlemen who had composed that meeting would have rendered
+themselves objectionable as persons to serve on a Jury, before whom the
+judicial case was afterwards to come. But by calling a meeting out
+of the county of Middlesex, that matter is artfully avoided, and the
+gentlemen of Surry are summoned, as if it were intended thereby to give
+a tone to the sort of verdict which the instigators of the meeting no
+doubt wish should be brought in, and to give countenance to the Jury in
+so doing. I am, sir,
+
+With much respect to the
+
+Gentlemen who shall meet, Their and your obedient and humble Servant,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+TO ONSLOW CRANLEY,
+
+COMMONLY CALLED LORD ONSLOW.
+
+SECOND LETTER. SIR,
+
+London, June 21st 1792.
+
+WHEN I wrote you the letter which Mr. Home Tooke did me the favour to
+present to you, as chairman of the meeting held at Epsom, Monday, June
+18, it was not with much expectation that you would do me the justice of
+permitting, or recommending it to be publicly read. I am well aware that
+the signature of Thomas Paine has something in it dreadful to sinecure
+Placemen and Pensioners; and when you, on seeing the letter opened,
+informed the meeting that it was signed Thomas Paine, and added in a
+note of exclamation, "the common enemy of us all." you spoke one of the
+greatest truths you ever uttered, if you confine the expression to
+men of the same description with yourself; men living in indolence and
+luxury, on the spoil and labours of the public.
+
+The letter has since appeared in the "Argus," and probably in other
+papers.(1) It will justify itself; but if any thing on that account
+hath been wanting, your conduct at the meeting would have supplied
+the omission. You there sufficiently proved that I was not mistaken in
+supposing that the meeting was called to give an indirect aid to the
+prosecution commenced against a work, the reputation of which will long
+outlive the memory of the Pensioner I am writing to.
+
+When meetings, Sir, are called by the partisans of the Court, to
+preclude the nation the right of investigating systems and principles
+of government, and of exposing errors and defects, under the pretence
+of prosecuting an individual--it furnishes an additional motive for
+maintaining sacred that violated right.
+
+The principles and arguments contained in the work in question, _Rights
+OF Man_, have stood, and they now stand, and I believe ever will stand,
+unrefuted. They are stated in a fair and open manner to the world, and
+they have already received the public approbation of a greater number of
+men, of the best of characters, of every denomination of religion, and
+of every rank in life, (placemen and pensioners excepted,) than all the
+juries that shall meet in England, for ten years to come, will amount
+to; and I have, moreover, good reasons for believing that the approvers
+of that work, as well private as public, are already more numerous than
+all the present electors throughout the nation.
+
+     1 The _Argus_ was edited by Sampson Perry, soon after
+     prosecuted.--_Editor_.
+
+Not less than forty pamphlets, intended as answers thereto, have
+appeared, and as suddenly disappeared: scarcely are the titles of any of
+them remembered, notwithstanding their endeavours have been aided by all
+the daily abuse which the Court and Ministerial newspapers, for almost
+a year and a half, could bestow, both upon the work and the author;
+and now that every attempt to refute, and every abuse has failed,
+the invention of calling the work a libel has been hit upon, and the
+discomfited party has pusillanimously retreated to prosecution and a
+jury, and obscure addresses.
+
+As I well know that a long letter from me will not be agreeable to you,
+I will relieve your uneasiness by making it as short as I conveniently
+can; and will conclude it with taking up the subject at that part where
+Mr. HORNE TOOKE was interrupted from going on when at the meeting.
+
+That gentleman was stating, that the situation you stood in rendered it
+improper for you to appear _actively_ in a scene in which your private
+interest was too visible: that you were a Bedchamber Lord at a thousand
+a year, and a Pensioner at three thousand pounds a year more--and here
+he was stopped by the little but noisy circle you had collected round.
+Permit me then, Sir, to add an explanation to his words, for the benefit
+of your neighbours, and with which, and a few observations, I shall
+close my letter.
+
+When it was reported in the English Newspapers, some short time since,
+that the empress of RUSSIA had given to one of her minions a large tract
+of country and several thousands of peasants as property, it very justly
+provoked indignation and abhorrence in those who heard it. But if we
+compare the mode practised in England, with that which appears to us so
+abhorrent in Russia, it will be found to amount to very near the same
+thing;--for example--
+
+As the whole of the revenue in England is drawn by taxes from the
+pockets of the people, those things called gifts and grants (of which
+kind are all pensions and sinecure places) are paid out of that stock.
+The difference, therefore, between the two modes is, that in England the
+money is collected by the government, and then given to the Pensioner,
+and in Russia he is left to collect it for himself. The smallest sum
+which the poorest family in a county so near London as Surry, can be
+supposed to pay annually, of taxes, is not less than five pounds; and as
+your sinecure of one thousand, and pension of three thousand per annum,
+are made up of taxes paid by eight hundred such poor families, it comes
+to the same thing as if the eight hundred families had been given to
+you, as in Russia, and you had collected the money on your account.
+Were you to say that you are not quartered particularly on the people
+of Surrey, but on the nation at large, the objection would amount to
+nothing; for as there are more pensioners than counties, every one may
+be considered as quartered on that in which he lives.
+
+What honour or happiness you can derive from being the PRINCIPAL PAUPER
+of the neighbourhood, and occasioning a greater expence than the poor,
+the aged, and the infirm, for ten miles round you, I leave you to enjoy.
+At the same time I can see that it is no wonder you should be strenuous
+in suppressing a book which strikes at the root of those abuses. No
+wonder that you should be against reforms, against the freedom of the
+press, and the right of investigation. To you, and to others of your
+description, these are dreadful things; but you should also consider,
+that the motives which prompt you to _act_, ought, by reflection, to
+compel you to be _silent_.
+
+Having now returned your compliment, and sufficiently tired your
+patience, I take my leave of you, with mentioning, that if you had not
+prevented my former letter from being read at the meeting, you would not
+have had the trouble of reading this; and also with requesting, that
+the next time you call me "_a common enemy_," you would add, "_of us
+sinecure placemen and pensioners_."
+
+I am, Sir, &c. &c. &c.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+VII. TO THE SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY OF SUSSEX,
+
+OR, THE GENTLEMAN WHO SHALL PRESIDE AT THE MEETING TO BE HELD AT LEWES,
+JULY 4.
+
+London, June 30, 1792.
+
+Sir,
+
+I have seen in the Lewes newspapers, of June 25, an advertisement,
+signed by sundry persons, and also by the sheriff, for holding a meeting
+at the Town-hall of Lewes, for the purpose, as the advertisement states,
+of presenting an Address on the late Proclamation for suppressing
+writings, books, &c. And as I conceive that a certain publication
+of mine, entitled "Rights of Man," in which, among other things, the
+enormous increase of taxes, placemen, and pensioners, is shewn to be
+unnecessary and oppressive, _is the particular writing alluded to in
+the said publication_; I request the Sheriff, or in his absence, whoever
+shall preside at the meeting, or any other person, to read this letter
+publicly to the company who shall assemble in consequence of that
+advertisement.
+
+Gentlemen--It is now upwards of eighteen years since I was a resident
+inhabitant of the town of Lewes. My situation among you, as an officer
+of the revenue, for more than six years, enabled me to see into the
+numerous and various distresses which the weight of taxes even at that
+time of day occasioned; and feeling, as I then did, and as it is natural
+for me to do, for the hard condition of others, it is with pleasure I
+can declare, and every person then under my survey, and now living, can
+witness, the exceeding candour, and even tenderness, with which that
+part of the duty that fell to my share was executed. The name of _Thomas
+Paine_ is not to be found in the records of the Lewes' justices, in any
+one act of contention with, or severity of any kind whatever towards,
+the persons whom he surveyed, either in the town, or in the country;
+of this, _Mr. Fuller_ and _Mr. Shelley_, who will probably attend the
+meeting, can, if they please, give full testimony. It is, however, not
+in their power to contradict it.
+
+Having thus indulged myself in recollecting a place where I formerly
+had, and even now have, many friends, rich and poor, and most probably
+some enemies, I proceed to the more important purport of my letter.
+
+Since my departure from Lewes, fortune or providence has thrown me
+into a line of action, which my first setting out into life could not
+possibly have suggested to me.
+
+I have seen the fine and fertile country of America ravaged and deluged
+in blood, and the taxes of England enormously increased and multiplied
+in consequence thereof; and this, in a great measure, by the instigation
+of the same class of placemen, pensioners, and Court dependants, who
+are now promoting addresses throughout England, on the present
+_unintelligible_ Proclamation.
+
+I have also seen a system of Government rise up in that country, free
+from corruption, and now administered over an extent of territory ten
+times as large as England, _for less expence than the pensions alone in
+England amount to_; and under which more freedom is enjoyed, and a more
+happy state of society is preserved, and a more general prosperity is
+promoted, than under any other system of Government now existing in the
+world. Knowing, as I do, the things I now declare, I should reproach
+myself with want of duty and affection to mankind, were I not in the
+most undismayed manner to publish them, as it were, on the house-tops,
+for the good of others.
+
+Having thus glanced at what has passed within my knowledge, since my
+leaving Lewes, I come to the subject more immediately before the meeting
+now present.
+
+Mr. Edmund Burke, who, as I shall show, in a future publication, has
+lived a concealed pensioner, at the expence of the public, of fifteen
+hundred pounds per annum, for about ten years last past, published a
+book the winter before last, in open violation of the principles of
+liberty, and for which he was applauded by that class of men _who are
+now promoting addresses_. Soon after his book appeared, I published the
+first part of the work, entitled "Rights of Man," as an answer thereto,
+and had the happiness of receiving the public thanks of several bodies
+of men, and of numerous individuals of the best character, of every
+denomination in religion, and of every rank in life--placemen and
+pensioners excepted.
+
+In February last, I published the Second Part of "Rights of Man," and as
+it met with still greater approbation from the true friends of national
+freedom, and went deeper into the system of Government, and exposed the
+abuses of it, more than had been done in the First Part, it consequently
+excited an alarm among all those, who, insensible of the burthen of
+taxes which the general mass of the people sustain, are living in luxury
+and indolence, and hunting after Court preferments, sinecure places, and
+pensions, either for themselves, or for their family connections.
+
+I have shewn in that work, that the taxes may be reduced at least _six
+millions_, and even then the expences of Government in England would be
+twenty times greater than they are in the country I have already spoken
+of. That taxes may be entirely taken off from the poor, by remitting to
+them in money at the rate of between _three and four pounds_ per head
+per annum, for the education and bringing up of the children of the poor
+families, who are computed at one third of the whole nation, and _six
+pounds_ per annum to all poor persons, decayed tradesmen, or others,
+from the age of fifty until sixty, and _ten pounds_ per annum from after
+sixty. And that in consequence of this allowance, to be paid out of the
+surplus taxes, the poor-rates would become unnecessary, and that it is
+better to apply the surplus taxes to these beneficent purposes, _than to
+waste them on idle and profligate courtiers, placemen, and pensioners_.
+
+These, gentlemen, are a part of the plans and principles contained in
+the work, which this meeting is now called upon, in an indirect manner,
+to vote an address against, and brand with the name of _wicked and
+seditious_. But that the work may speak for itself, I request leave to
+close this part of my letter with an extract therefrom, in the following
+words: [_Quotation the same as that on p. 26_.]
+
+Gentlemen, I have now stated to you such matters as appear necessary
+to me to offer to the consideration of the meeting. I have no other
+interest in what I am doing, nor in writing you this letter, than the
+interest of the _heart_. I consider the proposed address as calculated
+to give countenance to placemen, pensioners, enormous taxation, and
+corruption. Many of you will recollect, that whilst I resided among you,
+there was not a man more firm and open in supporting the principles of
+liberty than myself, and I still pursue, and ever will, the same path.
+
+I have, Gentlemen, only one request to make, which is--that those
+who have called the meeting will speak _out_, and say, whether in
+the address they are going to present against publications, which the
+proclamation calls wicked, they mean the work entitled _Rights of Man_,
+or whether they do not?
+
+I am, Gentlemen, With sincere wishes for your happiness,
+
+Your friend and Servant,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+VIII. TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.
+
+Calais, Sept. 15, 1792.
+
+Sir,
+
+I CONCEIVE it necessary to make you acquainted with the following
+circumstance:--The department of Calais having elected me a member
+of the National Convention of France, I set off from London the 13th
+instant, in company with Mr. Frost, of Spring Garden, and Mr. Audibert,
+one of the municipal officers of Calais, who brought me the certificate
+of my being elected. We had not arrived more, I believe, than five
+minutes at the York Hotel, at Dover, when the train of circumstances
+began that I am going to relate. We had taken our baggage out of the
+carriage, and put it into a room, into which we went. Mr. Frost, having
+occasion to go out, was stopped in the passage by a gentleman, who told
+him he must return into the room, which he did, and the gentleman came
+in with him, and shut the door. I had remained in the room; Mr. Audibert
+was gone to inquire when the packet was to sail. The gentleman then
+said, that he was collector of the customs, and had an information
+against us, and must examine our baggage for prohibited articles. He
+produced his commission as Collector. Mr. Frost demanded to see the
+information, which the Collector refused to shew, and continued to
+refuse, on every demand that we made. The Collector then called in
+several other officers, and began first to search our pockets. He took
+from Mr. Audibert, who was then returned into the room, every thing
+he found in his pocket, and laid it on the table. He then searched Mr.
+Frost in the same manner, (who, among other things, had the keys of the
+trunks in his pocket,) and then did the same by me. Mr. Frost wanting
+to go out, mentioned it, and was going towards the door; on which the
+Collector placed himself against the door, and said, nobody should
+depart the room. After the keys had been taken from Mr. Frost, (for I
+had given him the keys of my trunks beforehand, for the purpose of his
+attending the baggage to the customs, if it should be necessary,) the
+Collector asked us to open the trunks, presenting us the keys for
+that purpose; this we declined to do, unless he would produce his
+information, which he again refused. The Collector then opened the
+trunks himself, and took out every paper and letter, sealed or unsealed.
+On our remonstrating with him on the bad policy, as well as the
+illegality, of Custom-House officers seizing papers and letters, which
+were things that did not come under their cognizance, he replied, that
+the _Proclamation_ gave him the authority.
+
+Among the letters which he took out of my trunk, were two sealed
+letters, given into my charge by the American Minister in London
+[Pinckney], one of which was directed to the American Minister at Paris
+[Gouverneur Morris], the other to a private gentleman; a letter from the
+President of the United States, and a letter from the Secretary of
+State in America, both directed to me, and which I had received from
+the American Minister, now in London, and were private letters of
+friendship; a letter from the electoral body of the Department of
+Calais, containing the notification of my being elected to the National
+Convention; and a letter from the President of the National Assembly,
+informing me of my being also elected for the Department of the Oise.
+
+As we found that all remonstrances with the Collector, on the bad policy
+and illegality of seizing papers and letters, and retaining our persons
+by force, under the pretence of searching for prohibited articles,
+were vain, (for he justified himself on the Proclamation, and on the
+information which he refused to shew,) we contented ourselves with
+assuring him, that what he was then doing, he would afterwards have to
+answer for, and left it to himself to do as he pleased.
+
+It appeared to us that the Collector was acting under the direction of
+some other person or persons, then in the hotel, but whom he did not
+choose we should see, or who did not choose to be seen by us; for the
+Collector went several times out of the room for a few minutes, and was
+also called out several times.
+
+When the Collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of
+the trunks, he proceeded to read them. The first letter he took up for
+this purpose was that from the President of the United States to me.
+While he was doing this, I said, that it was very extraordinary that
+General Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to
+me, without its being subject to be read by a custom-house officer. Upon
+this Mr. Frost laid his hand over the face of the letter, and told the
+Collector that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost
+then, casting his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said,
+I will read this part to you, which he did; of which the following is an
+exact transcript--
+
+"And as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind
+than I do, it is the first wish of my heart, that the enlightened policy
+of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which
+they are entitled, and lay the foundation of happiness for future
+generations."(1)
+
+As all the other letters and papers lay then on the table, the Collector
+took them up, and was going out of the room with them. During the
+transactions already stated, I contented myself with observing what
+passed, and spoke but little; but on seeing the Collector going out of
+the room with the letters, I told him that the papers and letters then
+in his hand were either belonging to me, or entrusted to my charge, and
+that as I could not permit them to be out of my sight, I must insist on
+going with him.
+
+     1 Washington's letter is dated 6 May, 1792. See my _Life of
+     Paine_ vol. i., p. 302.--_Editor_.
+
+The Collector then made a list of the letters and papers, and went out
+of the room, giving the letters and papers into the charge of one of
+the officers. He returned in a short time, and, after some trifling
+conversation, chiefly about the Proclamation, told us, that he saw _the
+Proclamation was ill-founded_, and asked if we chose to put the letters
+and papers into the trunks ourselves, which, as we had not taken them
+out, we declined doing, and he did it himself, and returned us the keys.
+
+In stating to you these matters, I make no complaint against the
+personal conduct of the Collector, or of any of the officers. Their
+manner was as civil as such an extraordinary piece of business could
+admit of.
+
+My chief motive in writing to you on this subject is, that you may take
+measures for preventing the like in future, not only as it concerns
+private individuals, but in order to prevent a renewal of those
+unpleasant consequences that have heretofore arisen between nations from
+circumstances equally as insignificant. I mention this only for myself;
+but as the interruption extended to two other gentlemen, it is probable
+that they, as individuals, will take some more effectual mode for
+redress.
+
+I am, Sir, yours, &c.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+P. S. Among the papers seized, was a copy of the Attorney-General's
+information against me for publishing the _Rights of Man_, and a printed
+proof copy of my Letter to the Addressers, which will soon be published.
+
+
+
+
+IX. LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION.(1)
+
+COULD I have commanded circumstances with a wish, I know not of any that
+would have more generally promoted the progress of knowledge, than
+the late Proclamation, and the numerous rotten Borough and Corporation
+Addresses thereon. They have not only served as advertisements, but they
+have excited a spirit of enquiry into principles of government, and a
+desire to read the Rights OF Man, in places where that spirit and that
+work were before unknown.
+
+The people of England, wearied and stunned with parties, and alternately
+deceived by each, had almost resigned the prerogative of thinking. Even
+curiosity had expired, and a universal languor had spread itself over
+the land. The opposition was visibly no other than a contest for power,
+whilst the mass of the nation stood torpidly by as the prize.
+
+In this hopeless state of things, the First Part of the Rights of
+Man made its appearance. It had to combat with a strange mixture
+of prejudice and indifference; it stood exposed to every species of
+newspaper abuse; and besides this, it had to remove the obstructions
+which Mr. Burke's rude and outrageous attack on the French Revolution
+had artfully raised.
+
+     1 The Royal Proclamation issued against seditious writings,
+     May 21st. This pamphlet, the proof of which was read in
+     Paris (see P. S. of preceding chapter), was published at 1s.
+     6d. by H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row, and Thomas Clio
+     Rickman, 7 Upper Marylebone Street (where it was written),
+     both pub-Ushers being soon after prosecuted.--_Editor_.
+
+But how easy does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the
+spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the laboured productions of
+the brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally
+familiar to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight.
+No artificial light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of
+daylight; so neither can the best invented fiction fill the mind with
+every conviction which truth begets.
+
+To overthrow Mr. Burke's fallacious book was scarcely the operation of a
+day. Even the phalanx of Placemen and Pensioners, who had given the
+tone to the multitude, by clamouring forth his political fame, became
+suddenly silent; and the final event to himself has been, that as he
+rose like a rocket, he fell like the stick.
+
+It seldom happens, that the mind rests satisfied with the simple
+detection of error or imposition. Once put in motion, _that_ motion soon
+becomes accelerated; where it had intended to stop, it discovers new
+reasons to proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the
+limits it first prescribed to itself. Thus it has happened to the people
+of England. From a detection of Mr. Burke's incoherent rhapsodies, and
+distorted facts, they began an enquiry into the first principles of
+Government, whilst himself, like an object left far behind, became
+invisible and forgotten.
+
+Much as the First Part of RIGHTS OF Man impressed at its first
+appearance, the progressive mind soon discovered that it did not go far
+enough. It detected errors; it exposed absurdities; it shook the fabric
+of political superstition; it generated new ideas; but it did not
+produce a regular system of principles in the room of those which it
+displaced. And, if I may guess at the mind of the Government-party,
+they beheld it as an unexpected gale that would soon blow over, and
+they forbore, like sailors in threatening weather, to whistle, lest they
+should encrease(sic) the wind. Every thing, on their part, was profound
+silence.
+
+When the Second Part of _Rights of Man, combining Principle and
+Practice_, was preparing to appear, they affected, for a while, to act
+with the same policy as before; but finding their silence had no more
+influence in stifling the progress of the work, than it would have in
+stopping the progress of time, they changed their plan, and affected
+to treat it with clamorous contempt. The Speech-making Placemen and
+Pensioners, and Place-expectants, in both Houses of Parliament, the
+_Outs_ as well as the _Ins_, represented it as a silly, insignificant
+performance; as a work incapable of producing any effect; as something
+which they were sure the good sense of the people would either despise
+or indignantly spurn; but such was the overstrained awkwardness with
+which they harangued and encouraged each other, that in the very act of
+declaring their confidence they betrayed their fears.
+
+As most of the rotten Borough Addressers are obscured in holes and
+corners throughout the country, and to whom a newspaper arrives as
+rarely as an almanac, they most probably have not had the opportunity of
+knowing how far this part of the farce (the original prelude to all the
+Addresses) has been acted. For _their_ information, I will suspend a
+while the more serious purpose of my Letter, and entertain them with two
+or three Speeches in the last Session of Parliament, which will serve
+them for politics till Parliament meets again.
+
+You must know, Gentlemen, that the Second Part of the Rights of Man (the
+book against which you have been presenting Addresses, though it is
+most probable that many of you did not know it) was to have come out
+precisely at the time that Parliament last met. It happened not to be
+published till a few days after. But as it was very well known that the
+book would shortly appear, the parliamentary Orators entered into a very
+cordial coalition to cry the book down, and they began their attack by
+crying up the _blessings_ of the Constitution.
+
+Had it been your fate to have been there, you could not but have been
+moved at the heart-and-pocket-felt congratulations that passed between
+all the parties on this subject of _blessings_; for the _Outs_ enjoy
+places and pensions and sinecures as well as the _Ins_, and are as
+devoutly attached to the firm of the house.
+
+One of the most conspicuous of this motley groupe, is the Clerk of
+the Court of King's Bench, who calls himself Lord Stormont. He is also
+called Justice General of Scotland, and Keeper of Scoon, (an opposition
+man,) and he draws from the public for these nominal offices, not less,
+as I am informed, than six thousand pounds a-year, and he is, most
+probably, at the trouble of counting the money, and signing a receipt,
+to shew, perhaps, that he is qualified to be Clerk as well as Justice.
+He spoke as follows.(*)
+
+"That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
+constitution of these realms, I am confident. It is a subject upon which
+there can be no divided opinion in this house. I do not pretend to be
+deep read in the knowledge of the Constitution, but I take upon me to
+say, that from the extent of my knowledge [_for I have so many thousands
+a year for nothing_] it appears to me, that from the period of the
+Revolution, for it was by no means created then, it has been, both in
+theory and practice, the wisest system that ever was formed. I never was
+[he means he never was till now] a dealer in political cant. My life has
+not been occupied in that way, but the speculations of late years seem
+to have taken a turn, for which I cannot account. When I came into
+public life, the political pamphlets of the time, however they might be
+charged with the heat and violence of parties, were agreed in extolling
+the radical beauties of the Constitution itself. I remember [_he means
+he has forgotten_] a most captivating eulogium on its charms, by Lord
+Bolingbroke, where he recommends his readers to contemplate it in all
+its aspects, with the assurance that it would be found more estimable
+the more it was seen, I do not recollect his precise words, but I wish
+that men who write upon these subjects would take this for their
+model, instead of the political pamphlets, which, I am told, are now in
+circulation, [_such, I suppose, as Rights of Man,_] pamphlets which
+I have not read, and whose purport I know only by report, [_he means,
+perhaps, by the noise they make_.] This, however, I am sure, that
+pamphlets tending to unsettle the public reverence for the constitution,
+will have very little influence. They can do very little harm--for
+[_by the bye, he is no dealer in political cant_] the English are a
+sober-thinking people, and are more intelligent, more solid, more steady
+in their opinions, than any people I ever had the fortune to see. [_This
+is pretty well laid on, though, for a new beginner_.] But if there
+should ever come a time when the propagation of those doctrines should
+agitate the public mind, I am sure for every one of your Lordships, that
+no attack will be made on the constitution, from which it is truly said
+that we derive all our prosperity, without raising every one of
+your Lordships to its support It will then be found that there is no
+difference among us, but that we are all determined to stand or fall
+together, in defence of the inestimable system "--[_of places and
+pensions_].
+
+     * See his speech in the Morning Chronicle of Feb. 1.--
+     Author.
+
+After Stormont, on the opposition side, sat down, up rose another noble
+Lord, on the ministerial side, Grenville. This man ought to be as strong
+in the back as a mule, or the sire of a mule, or it would crack with
+the weight of places and offices. He rose, however, without feeling any
+incumbrance, full master of his weight; and thus said this noble Lord to
+t'other noble Lord!
+
+"The patriotic and manly manner in which the noble Lord has declared
+his sentiments on the subject of the constitution, demands my cordial
+approbation. The noble Viscount has proved, that however we may differ
+on particular measures, amidst all the jars and dissonance of parties,
+we are unanimous in principle. There is a perfect and entire consent
+[_between us_] in the love and maintenance of the constitution as
+happily subsisting. It must undoubtedly give your Lordships concern, to
+find that the time is come [heigh ho!] when there is propriety in the
+expressions of regard to [o! o! o!] the constitution. And that there are
+men [confound--their--po-li-tics] who disseminate doctrines hostile to
+the genuine spirit of our well balanced system, [_it is certainly well
+balanced when both sides hold places and pensions at once._] I agree
+with the noble viscount that they have not [I hope] much success. I am
+convinced that there is no danger to be apprehended from their attempts:
+but it is truly important and consolatory [to us placemen, I suppose] to
+know, that if ever there should arise a serious alarm, there is but one
+spirit, one sense, [_and that sense I presume is not common sense_]
+and one determination in this house "--which undoubtedly is to hold all
+their places and pensions as long as they can.
+
+Both those speeches (except the parts enclosed in parenthesis, which
+are added for the purpose of illustration) are copied verbatim from the
+Morning Chronicle of the 1st of February last; and when the situation of
+the speakers is considered, the one in the opposition, and the other
+in the ministry, and both of them living at the public expence, by
+sinecure, or nominal places and offices, it required a very unblushing
+front to be able to deliver them. Can those men seriously suppose
+any nation to be so completely blind as not to see through them? Can
+Stormont imagine that the political _cant_, with which he has larded his
+harangue, will conceal the craft? Does he not know that there never was
+a cover large enough to hide _itself_? Or can Grenvilie believe that his
+credit with the public encreases with his avarice for places?
+
+But, if these orators will accept a service from me, in return for the
+allusions they have made to the _Rights of Man_, I will make a speech
+for either of them to deliver, on the excellence of the constitution,
+that shall be as much to the purpose as what they have spoken, or as
+_Bolingbroke's captivating eulogium_. Here it is.
+
+"That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
+constitution, I am confident. It is, my Lords, incomprehensibly good:
+but the great wonder of all is the wisdom; for it is, my lords, _the
+wisest system that ever was formed_.
+
+"With respect to us, noble Lords, though the world does not know it, it
+is very well known to us, that we have more wisdom than we know what to
+do with; and what is still better, my Lords, we have it all in stock. I
+defy your Lordships to prove, that a tittle of it has been used yet; and
+if we but go on, my Lords, with the frugality we have hitherto done, we
+shall leave to our heirs and successors, when we go out of the world,
+the whole stock of wisdom, _untouched_, that we brought in; and there is
+no doubt but they will follow our example. This, my lords, is one of the
+blessed effects of the hereditary system; for we can never be without
+wisdom so long as we keep it by us, and do not use it.
+
+"But, my Lords, as all this wisdom is hereditary property, for the sole
+benefit of us and our heirs, and it is necessary that the people should
+know where to get a supply for their own use, the excellence of our
+constitution has provided us a King for this very purpose, and for _no
+other_. But, my Lords, I perceive a defect to which the constitution
+is subject, and which I propose to remedy by bringing a bill into
+Parliament for that purpose.
+
+"The constitution, my Lords, out of delicacy, I presume, has left it as
+a matter of _choice_ to a King whether he will be wise or not. It has
+not, I mean, my Lords, insisted upon it as a constitutional point,
+which, I conceive it ought to have done; for I pledge myself to your
+Lordships to prove, and that with _true patriotic boldness_, that he has
+_no choice in the matter_. This bill, my Lords, which I shall bring in,
+will be to declare, that the constitution, according to the true intent
+and meaning thereof, does not invest the King with this choice; our
+ancestors were too wise to do that; and, in order to prevent any doubts
+that might otherwise arise, I shall prepare, my Lords, an enacting
+clause, to fix the wisdom of Kings by act of Parliament; and then, my
+Lords our Constitution will be the wonder of the world!
+
+"Wisdom, my lords, is the one thing needful: but that there may be no
+mistake in this matter, and that we may proceed consistently with the
+true wisdom of the constitution, I shall propose a _certain criterion_
+whereby the _exact quantity of wisdom_ necessary for a King may be
+known. [Here should be a cry of, Hear him! Hear him!]
+
+"It is recorded, my Lords, in the Statutes at Large of the Jews, 'a
+book, my Lords, which I have not read, and whose purport I know only by
+report,' _but perhaps the bench of Bishops can recollect something about
+it_, that Saul gave the most convincing proofs of royal wisdom before
+he was made a King, _for he was sent to seek his father's asses and he
+could not find them_.
+
+"Here, my Lords, we have, most happily for us, a case in point: This
+precedent ought to be established by act of Parliament; and every King,
+before he be crowned, should be sent to seek his father's asses, and
+if he cannot find them, he shall be declared wise enough to be King,
+according to the true meaning of our excellent constitution. All,
+therefore, my Lords, that will be necessary to be done by the enacting
+clause that I shall bring in, will be to invest the King beforehand with
+the quantity of wisdom necessary for this purpose, lest he should happen
+not to possess it; and this, my Lords, we can do without making use of
+any of our own.
+
+"We further read, my Lords, in the said Statutes at Large of the
+Jews, that Samuel, who certainly was as mad as any Man-of-Rights-Man
+now-a-days (hear him! hear him!), was highly displeased, and even
+exasperated, at the proposal of the Jews to have a King, and he warned
+them against it with all that assurance and impudence of which he was
+master. I have been, my Lords, at the trouble of going all the way to
+_Paternoster-row_, to procure an extract from the printed copy. I was
+told that I should meet with it there, or in _Amen-eorner_, for I was
+then going, my Lords, to rummage for it among the curiosities of the
+_Antiquarian Society_. I will read the extracts to your Lordships, to
+shew how little Samuel knew of the matter.
+
+"The extract, my Lords, is from 1 Sam. chap. viii.:
+
+"'And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked
+of him a King.
+
+"'And he said, this will be the manner of the King that shall reign
+over you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for
+his chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his
+chariots.
+
+"'And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over
+fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest,
+and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.
+
+"'And he will take your daughters to be confectionnes, and to be cooks,
+and to be bakers.
+
+"'And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your
+olive-yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.
+
+"'And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and
+give to his officers and to his servants.
+
+"'And he will take your men-servants, and your maid-servants, and your
+goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.
+
+"'And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his
+servants.
+
+"'And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your King, which ye shall
+have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day.'
+
+"Now, my Lords, what can we think of this man Samuel? Is there a word of
+truth, or any thing like truth, in all that he has said? He pretended
+to be a prophet, or a wise man, but has not the event proved him to be a
+fool, or an incendiary? Look around, my Lords, and see if any thing has
+happened that he pretended to foretell! Has not the most profound peace
+reigned throughout the world ever since Kings were in fashion? Are not,
+for example, the present Kings of Europe the most peaceable of mankind,
+and the Empress of Russia the very milk of human kindness? It would not
+be worth having Kings, my Lords, if it were not that they never go to
+war.
+
+"If we look at home, my Lords, do we not see the same things here as are
+seen every where else? Are our young men taken to be horsemen, or foot
+soldiers, any more than in Germany or in Prussia, or in Hanover or in
+Hesse? Are not our sailors as safe at land as at sea? Are they ever
+dragged from their homes, like oxen to the slaughter-house, to serve on
+board ships of war? When they return from the perils of a long voyage
+with the merchandize of distant countries, does not every man sit down
+under his own vine and his own fig-tree, in perfect security? Is the
+tenth of our seed taken by tax-gatherers, or is any part of it given to
+the King's servants? In short, _is not everything as free from taxes as
+the light from Heaven!_ (1)
+
+"Ah! my Lords, do we not see the blessed effect of having Kings in every
+thing we look at? Is not the G. R., or the broad R., stampt upon every
+thing? Even the shoes, the gloves, and the hats that we wear,
+are enriched with the impression, and all our candles blaze a
+burnt-offering.
+
+"Besides these blessings, my Lords, that cover us from the sole of the
+foot to the crown of the head, do we not see a race of youths growing
+up to be Kings, who are the very paragons of virtue? There is not one of
+them, my Lords, but might be trusted with untold gold, as safely as
+the other. Are they not '_more sober, intelligent, more solid, more
+steady_,' and withal, _more learned, more wise, more every thing, than
+any youths we '_ever had the fortune to see.' Ah! my Lords, they are a
+_hopeful family_.
+
+"The blessed prospect of succession, which the nation has at this moment
+before its eyes, is a most undeniable proof of the excellence of our
+constitution, and of the blessed hereditary system; for nothing, my
+Lords, but a constitution founded on the truest and purest wisdom
+could admit such heaven-born and heaven-taught characters into the
+government.--Permit me now, my Lords, to recal your attention to the
+libellous chapter I have just read about Kings. I mention this, my
+Lords, because it is my intention to move for a bill to be brought into
+parliament to expunge that chapter from the Bible, and that the Lord
+Chancellor, with the assistance of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
+York, and the Duke of Clarence, be requested to write a chapter in the
+room of it; and that Mr. Burke do see that it be truly canonical, and
+faithfully inserted."--Finis.
+
+     1 Allusion to the window-tax.--Editor,
+
+If the Clerk of the Court of King's Bench should chuse to be the orator
+of this luminous encomium on the constitution, I hope he will get
+it well by heart before he attempts to deliver it, and not have
+to apologize to Parliament, as he did in the case of Bolingbroke's
+encomium, for forgetting his lesson; and, with this admonition I leave
+him.
+
+Having thus informed the Addressers of what passed at the meeting of
+Parliament, I return to take up the subject at the part where I broke
+off in order to introduce the preceding speeches.
+
+I was then stating, that the first policy of the Government party was
+silence, and the next, clamorous contempt; but as people generally
+choose to read and judge for themselves, the work still went on, and the
+affectation of contempt, like the silence that preceded it, passed for
+nothing.
+
+Thus foiled in their second scheme, their evil genius, like a
+will-with-a-wisp, led them to a third; when all at once, as if it had
+been unfolded to them by a fortune-teller, or Mr. Dundas had discovered
+it by second sight, this once harmless, insignificant book, without
+undergoing the alteration of a single letter, became a most wicked and
+dangerous Libel. The whole Cabinet, like a ship's crew, became alarmed;
+all hands were piped upon deck, as if a conspiracy of elements was
+forming around them, and out came the Proclamation and the Prosecution;
+and Addresses supplied the place of prayers.
+
+Ye silly swains, thought I to myself, why do you torment yourselves
+thus? The Rights OF Man is a book calmly and rationally written; why
+then are you so disturbed? Did you see how little or how suspicious such
+conduct makes you appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty,
+would hush you into prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments,
+contained in that work, are placed before the eyes of the nation, and
+of the world, in a fair, open, and manly manner, and nothing more is
+necessary than to refute them. Do this, and the whole is done; but if ye
+cannot, so neither can ye suppress the reading, nor convict the author;
+for the Law, in the opinion of all good men, would convict itself, that
+should condemn what cannot be refuted.
+
+Having now shown the Addressers the several stages of the business,
+prior to their being called upon, like Caesar in the Tyber, crying to
+Cassius, "_help, Cassius, or I sink_!" I next come to remark on the
+policy of the Government, in promoting Addresses; on the consequences
+naturally resulting therefrom; and on the conduct of the persons
+concerned.
+
+With respect to the policy, it evidently carries with it every mark
+and feature of disguised fear. And it will hereafter be placed in the
+history of extraordinary things, that a pamphlet should be produced by
+an individual, unconnected with any sect or party, and not seeking to
+make any, and almost a stranger in the land, that should compleatly
+frighten a whole Government, and that in the midst of its most
+triumphant security. Such a circumstance cannot fail to prove, that
+either the pamphlet has irresistible powers, or the Government very
+extraordinary defects, or both. The nation exhibits no signs of fear at
+the Rights of Man; why then should the Government, unless the interest
+of the two are really opposite to each other, and the secret is
+beginning to be known? That there are two distinct classes of men in
+the nation, those who pay taxes, and those who receive and live upon
+the taxes, is evident at first sight; and when taxation is carried to
+excess, it cannot fail to disunite those two, and something of this kind
+is now beginning to appear.
+
+It is also curious to observe, amidst all the fume and bustle about
+Proclamations and Addresses, kept up by a few noisy and interested men,
+how little the mass of the nation seem to care about either. They
+appear to me, by the indifference they shew, not to believe a word the
+Proclamation contains; and as to the Addresses, they travel to London
+with the silence of a funeral, and having announced their arrival in
+the Gazette, are deposited with the ashes of their predecessors, and Mr.
+Dundas writes their _hic facet_.
+
+One of the best effects which the Proclamation, and its echo the
+Addresses have had, has been that of exciting and spreading curiosity;
+and it requires only a single reflection to discover, that the object
+of all curiosity is knowledge. When the mass of the nation saw that
+Placemen, Pensioners, and Borough-mongers, were the persons that stood
+forward to promote Addresses, it could not fail to create suspicions
+that the public good was not their object; that the character of the
+books, or writings, to which such persons obscurely alluded, not daring
+to mention them, was directly contrary to what they described them to
+be, and that it was necessary that every man, for his own satisfaction,
+should exercise his proper right, and read and judge for himself.
+
+But how will the persons who have been induced to read the _Rights of
+Man_, by the clamour that has been raised against it, be surprized
+to find, that, instead of a wicked, inflammatory work, instead of a
+licencious and profligate performance, it abounds with principles of
+government that are uncontrovertible--with arguments which every reader
+will feel, are unanswerable--with plans for the increase of commerce
+and manufactures--for the extinction of war--for the education of
+the children of the poor--for the comfortable support of the aged and
+decayed persons of both sexes--for the relief of the army and navy, and,
+in short, for the promotion of every thing that can benefit the moral,
+civil, and political condition of Man.
+
+Why, then, some calm observer will ask, why is the work prosecuted, if
+these be the goodly matters it contains? I will tell thee, friend;
+it contains also a plan for the reduction of Taxes, for lessening the
+immense expences of Government, for abolishing sinecure Places and
+Pensions; and it proposes applying the redundant taxes, that shall
+be saved by these reforms, to the purposes mentioned in the former
+paragraph, instead of applying them to the support of idle and
+profligate Placemen and Pensioners.
+
+Is it, then, any wonder that Placemen and Pensioners, and the whole
+train of Court expectants, should become the promoters of Addresses,
+Proclamations, and Prosecutions? or, is it any wonder that Corporations
+and rotten Boroughs, which are attacked and exposed, both in the First
+and Second Parts of _Rights of Man_, as unjust monopolies and public
+nuisances, should join in the cavalcade? Yet these are the sources from
+which Addresses have sprung. Had not such persons come forward to
+oppose the _Rights of Man_, I should have doubted the efficacy of my
+own writings: but those opposers have now proved to me that the blow was
+well directed, and they have done it justice by confessing the smart.
+
+The principal deception in this business of Addresses has been, that the
+promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They
+have assumed to pass themselves upon the public as a part of the Public,
+bearing a share of the burthen of Taxes, and acting for the public good;
+whereas, they are in general that part of it that adds to the public
+burthen, by living on the produce of the public taxes. They are to the
+public what the locusts are to the tree: the burthen would be less, and
+the prosperity would be greater, if they were shaken off.
+
+"I do not come here," said Onslow, at the Surry County meeting, "as the
+Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as
+a plain country gentleman." The fact is, that he came there as what he
+was, and as no other, and consequently he came as one of the beings I
+have been describing. If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by
+the public, as a pauper is by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the
+title; and the same description will suit the Duke of Richmond, who led
+the Address at the Sussex meeting. He also may set up for a gentleman.
+
+As to the meeting in the next adjoining county (Kent), it was a scene of
+disgrace. About two hundred persons met, when a small part of them drew
+privately away from the rest, and voted an Address: the consequence of
+which was that they got together by the ears, and produced a riot in the
+very act of producing an Address to prevent Riots.
+
+That the Proclamation and the Addresses have failed of their intended
+effect, may be collected from the silence which the Government party
+itself observes. The number of addresses has been weekly retailed in the
+Gazette; but the number of Addressers has been concealed. Several of the
+Addresses have been voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a
+considerable number of them by not more than thirty. The whole number of
+Addresses presented at the time of writing this letter is three hundred
+and twenty, (rotten Boroughs and Corporations included) and even
+admitting, on an average, one hundred Addressers to each address, the
+whole number of addressers would be but thirty-two thousand, and nearly
+three months have been taken up in procuring this number. That the
+success of the Proclamation has been less than the success of the work
+it was intended to discourage, is a matter within my own knowledge; for
+a greater number of the cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of
+the Rights OF Man has been sold in the space only of one month, than the
+whole number of Addressers (admitting them to be thirty-two thousand)
+have amounted to in three months.
+
+It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a Nation, "_thou
+shalt not read_." This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done under
+the old Government of France; but it served to procure the downfall of
+the latter, and is subverting that of the former; and it will have
+the same tendency in all countries; because _thought_ by some means
+or other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though
+reading may.
+
+If _Rights of Man_ were a book that deserved the vile description which
+the promoters of the Address have given of it, why did not these men
+prove their charge, and satisfy the people, by producing it, and reading
+it publicly? This most certainly ought to have been done, and would also
+have been done, had they believed it would have answered their purpose.
+But the fact is, that the book contains truths which those time-servers
+dreaded to hear, and dreaded that the people should know; and it is now
+following up the,
+
+
+ADDRESS TO ADDRESSERS.
+
+Addresses in every part of the nation, and convicting them of
+falsehoods.
+
+Among the unwarrantable proceedings to which the Proclamation has given
+rise, the meetings of the Justices in several of the towns and counties
+ought to be noticed.. Those men have assumed to re-act the farce of
+General Warrants, and to suppress, by their own authority, whatever
+publications they please. This is an attempt at power equalled only by
+the conduct of the minor despots of the most despotic governments in
+Europe, and yet those Justices affect to call England a Free Country.
+But even this, perhaps, like the scheme for garrisoning the country
+by building military barracks, is necessary to awaken the country to a
+sense of its Rights, and, as such, it will have a good effect.
+
+Another part of the conduct of such Justices has been, that of
+threatening to take away the licences from taverns and public-houses,
+where the inhabitants of the neighbourhood associated to read and
+discuss the principles of Government, and to inform each other thereon.
+This, again, is similar to what is doing in Spain and Russia; and the
+reflection which it cannot fail to suggest is, that the principles and
+conduct of any Government must be bad, when that Government dreads and
+startles at discussion, and seeks security by a prevention of knowledge.
+
+If the Government, or the Constitution, or by whatever name it be
+called, be that miracle of perfection which the Proclamation and
+the Addresses have trumpeted it forth to be, it ought to have defied
+discussion and investigation, instead of dreading it. Whereas, every
+attempt it makes, either by Proclamation, Prosecution, or Address, to
+suppress investigation, is a confession that it feels itself unable to
+bear it. It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from enquiry. All
+the numerous pamphlets, and all the newspaper falsehood and abuse, that
+have been published against the Rights of Man, have fallen before it
+like pointless arrows; and, in like manner, would any work have fallen
+before the Constitution, had the Constitution, as it is called, been
+founded on as good political principles as those on which the Rights OF
+Man is written.
+
+It is a good Constitution for courtiers, placemen, pensioners,
+borough-holders, and the leaders of Parties, and these are the men that
+have been the active leaders of Addresses; but it is a bad Constitution
+for at least ninety-nine parts of the nation out of an hundred, and this
+truth is every day making its way.
+
+It is bad, first, because it entails upon the nation the unnecessary
+expence of supporting three forms and systems of Government at once,
+namely, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratical.
+
+Secondly, because it is impossible to unite such a discordant
+composition by any other means than perpetual corruption; and therefore
+the corruption so loudly and so universally complained of, is no
+other than the natural consequence of such an unnatural compound of
+Governments; and in this consists that excellence which the numerous
+herd of placemen and pensioners so loudly extol, and which at the same
+time, occasions that enormous load of taxes under which the rest of the
+nation groans.
+
+Among the mass of national delusions calculated to amuse and impose upon
+the multitude, the standing one has been that of flattering them into
+taxes, by calling the Government (or as they please to express it,
+the English Constitution) "_the envy and the admiration of the world_"
+Scarcely an Address has been voted in which some of the speakers have
+not uttered this hackneyed nonsensical falsehood.
+
+Two Revolutions have taken place, those of America and France; and both
+of them have rejected the unnatural compounded system of the English
+government. America has declared against all hereditary Government, and
+established the representative system of Government only. France has
+entirely rejected the aristocratical part, and is now discovering
+the absurdity of the monarchical, and is approaching fast to the
+representative system. On what ground then, do these men continue a
+declaration, respecting what they call the _envy and admiration of other
+nations_, which the voluntary practice of such nations, as have had the
+opportunity of establishing Government, contradicts and falsifies. Will
+such men never confine themselves to truth? Will they be for ever the
+deceivers of the people?
+
+But I will go further, and shew, that were Government now to begin in
+England, the people could not be brought to establish the same system
+they now submit to.
+
+In speaking on this subject (or on any other) _on the pure ground
+of principle_, antiquity and precedent cease to be authority, and
+hoary-headed error loses its effect. The reasonableness and propriety of
+things must be examined abstractedly from custom and usage; and, in this
+point of view, the right which grows into practice to-day is as much a
+right, and as old in principle and theory, as if it had the customary
+sanction of a thousand ages. Principles have no connection with time,
+nor characters with names.
+
+To say that the Government of this country is composed of King, Lords,
+and Commons, is the mere phraseology of custom. It is composed of
+men; and whoever the men be to whom the Government of any country is
+intrusted, they ought to be the best and wisest that can be found, and
+if they are not so, they are not fit for the station. A man derives
+no more excellence from the change of a name, or calling him King, or
+calling him Lord, than I should do by changing my name from Thomas to
+George, or from Paine to Guelph. I should not be a whit more able to
+write a book because my name was altered; neither would any man, now
+called a King or a lord, have a whit the more sense than he now has,
+were he to call himself Thomas Paine.
+
+As to the word "Commons," applied as it is in England, it is a term
+of degradation and reproach, and ought to be abolished. It is a term
+unknown in free countries.
+
+But to the point.--Let us suppose that Government was now to begin in
+England, and that the plan of Government, offered to the nation for its
+approbation or rejection, consisted of the following parts:
+
+First--That some one individual should be taken from all the rest of the
+nation, and to whom all the rest should swear obedience, and never be
+permitted to sit down in his presence, and that they should give to him
+one million sterling a year.--That the nation should never after have
+power or authority to make laws but with his express consent; and that
+his sons and his sons' sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or
+bad, fit or unfit, should have the same power, and also the same money
+annually paid to them for ever.
+
+Secondly--That there should be two houses of Legislators to assist in
+making laws, one of which should, in the first instance, be entirely
+appointed by the aforesaid person, and that their sons and their sons'
+sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should for
+ever after be hereditary Legislators.
+
+Thirdly--That the other house should be chosen in the same manner as the
+house now called the House of Commons is chosen, and should be subject
+to the controul of the two aforesaid hereditary Powers in all things.
+
+It would be impossible to cram such a farrago of imposition and
+absurdity down the throat of this or any other nation that was capable
+of reasoning upon its rights and its interest.
+
+They would ask, in the first place, on what ground of right, or on what
+principle, such irrational and preposterous distinctions could, or ought
+to be made; and what pretensions any man could have, or what services he
+could render, to entitle him to a million a year? They would go
+farther, and revolt at the idea of consigning their children, and their
+children's children, to the domination of persons hereafter to be born,
+who might, for any thing they could foresee, turn out to be knaves or
+fools; and they would finally discover, that the project of hereditary
+Governors and Legislators _was a treasonable usurpation over the rights
+of posterity_. Not only the calm dictates of reason, and the force of
+natural affection, but the integrity of manly pride, would impel men to
+spurn such proposals.
+
+From the grosser absurdities of such a scheme, they would extend their
+examination to the practical defects--They would soon see that it would
+end in tyranny accomplished by fraud. That in the operation of it, it
+would be two to one against them, because the two parts that were to be
+made hereditary would form a common interest, and stick to each other;
+and that themselves and representatives would become no better
+than hewers of wood and drawers of water for the other parts of the
+Government.--Yet call one of those powers King, the other Lords, and the
+third the Commons, and it gives the model of what is called the English
+Government.
+
+I have asserted, and have shewn, both in the First and Second Parts
+of _Rights of Man_, that there is not such a thing as an English
+Constitution, and that the people have yet a Constitution to form. _A
+Constitution is a thing antecedent to a Government; it is the act of a
+people creating a Government and giving it powers, and defining the
+limits and exercise of the powers so given_. But whenever did the people
+of England, acting in their original constituent character, by a
+delegation elected for that express purpose, declare and say, "We, the
+people of this land, do constitute and appoint this to be our system and
+form of Government." The Government has assumed to constitute itself,
+but it never was constituted by the people, in whom alone the right of
+constituting resides.
+
+I will here recite the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the
+United States of America. I have shewn in the Second Part of _Rights
+of Man_, the manner by which the Constitution was formed and afterwards
+ratified; and to which I refer the reader. The preamble is in the
+following words:
+
+"We, the people, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
+union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for
+common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings
+of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
+constitution for the United States of America."
+
+Then follow the several articles which appoint the manner in which the
+several component parts of the Government, legislative and executive,
+shall be elected, and the period of their duration, and the powers they
+shall have: also, the manner by which future additions, alterations,
+or amendments, shall be made to the constitution. Consequently, every
+improvement that can be made in the science of government, follows in
+that country as a matter of order. It is only in Governments founded on
+assumption and false principles, that reasoning upon, and investigating
+systems and principles of Government, and shewing their several
+excellencies and defects, are termed libellous and seditious. These
+terms were made part of the charge brought against Locke, Hampden, and
+Sydney, and will continue to be brought against all good men, so long as
+bad government shall continue.
+
+The Government of this country has been ostentatiously giving challenges
+for more than an hundred years past, upon what it called its own
+excellence and perfection. Scarcely a King's Speech, or a Parliamentary
+Speech, has been uttered, in which this glove has not been thrown, till
+the world has been insulted with their challenges. But it now appears
+that all this was vapour and vain boasting, or that it was intended to
+conceal abuses and defects, and hush the people into taxes. I have taken
+the challenge up, and in behalf of the public have shewn, in a fair,
+open, and candid manner, both the radical and practical defects of the
+system; when, lo! those champions of the Civil List have fled away,
+and sent the Attorney-General to deny the challenge, by turning the
+acceptance of it into an attack, and defending their Places and Pensions
+by a prosecution.
+
+I will here drop this part of the subject, and state a few particulars
+respecting the prosecution now pending, by which the Addressers will
+see that they have been used as tools to the prosecuting party and their
+dependents. The case is as follows:
+
+The original edition of the First and Second Parts of the Rights of
+Man, having been expensively printed, (in the modern stile of printing
+pamphlets, that they might be bound up with Mr. Burke's Reflections on
+the French Revolution,) the high price(1) precluded the generality
+of people from purchasing; and many applications were made to me from
+various parts of the country to print the work in a cheaper manner. The
+people of Sheffield requested leave to print two thousand copies for
+themselves, with which request I immediately complied. The same request
+came to me from Rotherham, from Leicester, from Chester, from several
+towns in Scotland; and Mr. James Mackintosh, author of _Vindico
+Gallico_, brought me a request from Warwickshire, for leave to print ten
+thousand copies in that county. I had already sent a cheap edition to
+Scotland; and finding the applications increase, I concluded that the
+best method of complying therewith, would be to print a very numerous
+edition in London, under my own direction, by which means the work would
+be more perfect, and the price be reduced lower than it could be by
+_printing_ small editions in the country, of only a few thousands each.
+
+     1 Half  a crown.--_Editor_.
+
+The cheap edition of the first part was begun about the first of last
+April, and from that moment, and not before, I expected a prosecution,
+and the event has proved that I was not mistaken. I had then occasion to
+write to Mr. Thomas Walker of Manchester, and after informing him of my
+intention of giving up the work for the purpose of general information,
+I informed him of what I apprehended would be the consequence; that
+while the work was at a price that precluded an extensive circulation,
+the government party, not able to controvert the plans, arguments,
+and principles it contained, had chosen to remain silent; but that I
+expected they would make an attempt to deprive the mass of the nation,
+and especially the poor, of the right of reading, by the pretence of
+prosecuting either the Author or the Publisher, or both. They chose to
+begin with the Publisher.
+
+Nearly a month, however, passed, before I had any information given me
+of their intentions. I was then at Bromley, in Kent, upon which I came
+immediately to town, (May 14) and went to Mr. Jordan, the publisher of
+the original edition. He had that evening been served with a summons to
+appear at the Court of King's Bench, on the Monday following, but for
+what purpose was not stated. Supposing it to be on account of the
+work, I appointed a meeting with him on the next morning, which was
+accordingly had, when I provided an attorney, and took the ex-pence of
+the defence on myself. But finding afterwards that he absented himself
+from the attorney employed, and had engaged another, and that he had
+been closeted with the Solicitors of the Treasury, I left him to follow
+his own choice, and he chose to plead Guilty. This he might do if he
+pleased; and I make no objection against him for it. I believe that his
+idea by the word _Guilty_, was no other than declaring himself to be the
+publisher, without any regard to the merits or demerits of the work; for
+were it to be construed otherwise, it would amount to the absurdity of
+converting a publisher into a Jury, and his confession into a verdict
+upon the work itself. This would be the highest possible refinement upon
+packing of Juries.
+
+On the 21st of May, they commenced their prosecution against me, as the
+author, by leaving a summons at my lodgings in town, to appear at the
+Court of King's Bench on the 8th of June following; and on the same day,
+(May 21,) _they issued also their Proclamation_. Thus the Court of St.
+James and the Court of King's Bench, were playing into each other's
+hands at the same instant of time, and the farce of Addresses brought up
+the rear; and this mode of proceeding is called by the prostituted name
+of Law. Such a thundering rapidity, after a ministerial dormancy of
+almost eighteen months, can be attributed to no other cause than their
+having gained information of the forwardness of the cheap Edition, and
+the dread they felt at the progressive increase of political knowledge.
+
+I was strongly advised by several gentlemen, as well those in the
+practice of the law, as others, to prefer a bill of indictment
+against the publisher of the Proclamation, as a publication tending to
+influence, or rather to dictate the verdict of a Jury on the issue of a
+matter then pending; but it appeared to me much better to avail myself
+of the opportunity which such a precedent justified me in using, by
+meeting the Proclamation and the Addressers on their own ground, and
+publicly defending the Work which had been thus unwarrantably attacked
+and traduced.--And conscious as I now am, that the Work entitled
+Rights OF Man so far from being, as has been maliciously or erroneously
+represented, a false, wicked, and seditious libel, is a work abounding
+with unanswerable truths, with principles of the purest morality and
+benevolence, and with arguments not to be controverted--Conscious, I
+say, of these things, and having no object in view but the happiness
+of mankind, I have now put the matter to the best proof in my power, by
+giving to the public a cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of
+that Work. Let every man read and judge for himself, not only of the
+merits and demerits of the Work, but of the matters therein contained,
+which relate to his own interest and happiness.
+
+If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species
+of hereditary government--to lessen the oppression of taxes--to propose
+plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support
+of the aged and distressed--to endeavour to conciliate nations to each
+other--to extirpate the horrid practice of war--to promote universal
+peace, civilization, and commerce--and to break the chains of political
+superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank;--if these
+things be libellous, let me live the life of a Libeller, and let the
+name of Libeller be engraved on my tomb.
+
+Of all the weak and ill-judged measures which fear, ignorance,
+or arrogance could suggest, the Proclamation, and the project for
+Addresses, are two of the worst. They served to advertise the work which
+the promoters of those measures wished to keep unknown; and in doing
+this they offered violence to the judgment of the people, by calling on
+them to condemn what they forbad them to know, and put the strength
+of their party to that hazardous issue that prudence would have
+avoided.--The County Meeting for Middlesex was attended by only
+one hundred and eighteen Addressers. They, no doubt, expected, that
+thousands would flock to their standard, and clamor against the _Rights
+of Man_. But the case most probably is, that men in all countries, are
+not so blind to their Rights and their Interest as Governments believe.
+
+Having thus shewn the extraordinary manner in which the Government party
+commenced their attack, I proceed to offer a few observations on the
+prosecution, and on the mode of trial by Special Jury.
+
+In the first place, I have written a book; and if it cannot be refuted,
+it cannot be condemned. But I do not consider the prosecution as
+particularly levelled against me, but against the general right, or
+the right of every man, of investigating systems and principles of
+government, and shewing their several excellencies or defects. If the
+press be free only to flatter Government, as Mr. Burke has done, and to
+cry up and extol what certain Court sycophants are pleased to call a
+"glorious Constitution," and not free to examine into its errors or
+abuses, or whether a Constitution really exist or not, such freedom is
+no other than that of Spain, Turkey, or Russia; and a Jury in this case,
+would not be a Jury to try, but an Inquisition to condemn.
+
+I have asserted, and by fair and open argument maintained, the right
+of every nation at all times to establish such a system and form of
+government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest,
+and happiness; and to change and alter it as it sees occasion. Will any
+Jury deny to the Nation this right? If they do, they are traitors, and
+their verdict would be null and void. And if they admit the right, the
+means must be admitted also; for it would be the highest absurdity to
+say, that the right existed, but the means did not. The question then
+is, What are the means by which the possession and exercise of
+this National Right are to be secured? The answer will be, that
+of maintaining, inviolably, the right of free investigation; for
+investigation always serves to detect error, and to bring forth truth.
+
+I have, as an individual, given my opinion upon what I believe to be
+not only the best, but the true system of Government, which is the
+representative system, and I have given reasons for that opinion.
+
+First, Because in the representative system, no office of very
+extraordinary power, or extravagant pay, is attached to any individual;
+and consequently there is nothing to excite those national contentions
+and civil wars with which countries under monarchical governments are
+frequently convulsed, and of which the History of England exhibits such
+numerous instances.
+
+Secondly, Because the representative is a system of Government always
+in maturity; whereas monarchical government fluctuates through all the
+stages, from non-age to dotage.
+
+Thirdly, Because the representative system admits of none but men
+properly qualified into the Government, or removes them if they prove
+to be otherwise. Whereas, in the hereditary system, a nation may be
+encumbered with a knave or an ideot for a whole life-time, and not be
+benefited by a successor.
+
+Fourthly, Because there does not exist a right to establish hereditary
+government, or, in other words, hereditary successors, because
+hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and the
+case always is, that those who are to live afterwards have the same
+right to establish government for themselves, as the people had who
+lived before them; and, therefore, all laws attempting to establish
+hereditary government, are founded on assumption and political fiction.
+
+If these positions be truths, and I challenge any man to prove the
+contrary; if they tend to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to free
+them from error, oppression, and political superstition, which are the
+objects I have in view in publishing them, that Jury would commit an act
+of injustice to their country, and to me, if not an act of perjury, that
+should call them _false, wicked, and malicious_.
+
+Dragonetti, in his treatise "On Virtues and Rewards," has a paragraph
+worthy of being recorded in every country in the world--"The science
+(says he,) of the politician, consists, in, fixing the true point of
+happiness and freedom. Those men deserve the gratitude of ages who
+should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of
+_individual happiness_ with the least _national expence_." But if Juries
+are to be made use of to prohibit enquiry, to suppress truth, and
+to stop the progress of knowledge, this boasted palladium of liberty
+becomes the most successful instrument of tyranny.
+
+Among the arts practised at the Bar, and from the Bench, to impose
+upon the understanding of a Jury, and to obtain a Verdict where
+the consciences of men could not otherwise consent, one of the most
+successful has been that of calling _truth a libel_, and of insinuating
+that the words "_falsely, wickedly, and maliciously_," though they
+are made the formidable and high sounding part of the charge, are not
+matters of consideration with a Jury. For what purpose, then, are they
+retained, unless it be for that of imposition and wilful defamation?
+
+I cannot conceive a greater violation of order, nor a more abominable
+insult upon morality, and upon human understanding, than to see a man
+sitting in the judgment seat, affecting by an antiquated foppery of
+dress to impress the audience with awe; then causing witnesses and Jury
+to be sworn to truth and justice, himself having officially sworn the
+same; then causing to be read a prosecution against a man charging him
+with having _wickedly and maliciously written and published a certain
+false, wicked, and seditious book_; and having gone through all this
+with a shew of solemnity, as if he saw the eye of the Almighty darting
+through the roof of the building like a ray of light, turn, in an
+instant, the whole into a farce, and, in order to obtain a verdict
+that could not otherwise be obtained, tell the Jury that the charge of
+_falsely, wickedly, and seditiously_, meant nothing; that _truth_ was
+out of the question; and that whether the person accused spoke truth or
+falsehood, or intended _virtuously or wickedly_, was the same thing;
+and finally conclude the wretched inquisitorial scene, by stating
+some antiquated precedent, equally as abominable as that which is then
+acting, or giving some opinion of his own, and _falsely calling the one
+and the other--Law_. It was, most probably, to such a Judge as this,
+that the most solemn of all reproofs was given--"_The Lord will smite
+thee, thou whitened wall_."
+
+I now proceed to offer some remarks on what is called a Special Jury. As
+to what is called a Special Verdict, I shall make no other remark upon
+it, than that it is in reality _not_ a verdict. It is an attempt on the
+part of the Jury to delegate, or of the Bench to obtain, the exercise of
+that right, which is committed to the Jury only.
+
+With respect to the Special Juries, I shall state such matters as I have
+been able to collect, for I do not find any uniform opinion concerning
+the mode of appointing them.
+
+In the first place, this mode of trial is but of modern invention, and
+the origin of it, as I am told, is as follows:
+
+Formerly, when disputes arose between Merchants, and were brought before
+a Court, the case was that the nature of their commerce, and the method
+of keeping Merchants' accounts not being sufficiently understood by
+persons out of their own line, it became necessary to depart from the
+common mode of appointing Juries, and to select such persons for a Jury
+whose _practical knowledge_ would enable them to decide upon the case.
+From this introduction, Special Juries became more general; but some
+doubts having arisen as to their legality, an act was passed in the 3d
+of George II. to establish them as legal, and also to extend them to all
+cases, not only between individuals, but in cases where _the Government
+itself should be the prosecutor_. This most probably gave rise to the
+suspicion so generally entertained of packing a Jury; because, by this
+act, when the Crown, as it is called, is the Prosecutor, the Master of
+the Crown-office, who holds his office under the Crown, is the person
+who either wholly nominates, or has great power in nominating the Jury,
+and therefore it has greatly the appearance of the prosecuting party
+selecting a Jury.
+
+The process is as follows:
+
+On motion being made in Court, by either the Plaintiff or Defendant, for
+a Special Jury, the Court grants it or not, at its own discretion.
+
+If it be granted, the Solicitor of the party that applied for the
+Special Jury, gives notice to the Solicitor of the adverse party, and a
+day and hour are appointed for them to meet at the office of the Master
+of the Crown-office. The Master of the Crown-office sends to the Sheriff
+or his deputy, who attends with the Sheriff's book of Freeholders. From
+this book, forty-eight names are taken, and a copy thereof given to each
+of the parties; and, on a future day, notice is again given, and the
+Solicitors meet a second time, and each strikes out twelve names. The
+list being thus reduced from forty-eight to twenty-four, the first
+twelve that appear in Court, and answer to their names, is the Special
+Jury for that cause. The first operation, that of taking the forty-eight
+names, is called nominating the Jury; and the reducing them to
+twenty-four is called striking the Jury.
+
+Having thus stated the general process, I come to particulars, and the
+first question will be, how are the forty-eight names, out of which the
+Jury is to be struck, obtained from the Sheriff's book? For herein lies
+the principal ground of suspicion, with respect to what is understood by
+packing of Juries.
+
+Either they must be taken by some rule agreed upon between the parties,
+or by some common rule known and established beforehand, or at the
+discretion of some person, who in such a case, ought to be perfectly
+disinterested in the issue, as well officially as otherwise.
+
+In the case of Merchants, and in all cases between individuals,
+the Master of the office, called the Crown-office, is officially an
+indifferent person, and as such may be a proper person to act between
+the parties, and present them with a list of forty-eight names, out of
+which each party is to strike twelve. But the case assumes an entire
+difference of character, when the Government itself is the Prosecutor.
+The Master of the Crown-office is then an officer holding his office
+under the Prosecutor; and it is therefore no wonder that the suspicion
+of packing Juries should, in such cases, have been so prevalent.
+
+This will apply with additional force, when the prosecution is commenced
+against the Author or Publisher of such Works as treat of reforms, and
+of the abolition of superfluous places and offices, &c, because in such
+cases every person holding an office, subject to that suspicion, becomes
+interested as a party; and the office, called the Crown-office, may,
+upon examination, be found to be of this description.
+
+I have heard it asserted, that the Master of the Crown-office is to open
+the sheriff's book as it were per hazard, and take thereout forty-eight
+_following_ names, to which the word Merchant or Esquire is affixed.
+The former of these are certainly proper, when the case is between
+Merchants, and it has reference to the origin of the custom, and to
+nothing else. As to the word Esquire, every man is an Esquire who
+pleases to call himself Esquire; and the sensible part of mankind are
+leaving it off. But the matter for enquiry is, whether there be any
+existing law to direct the mode by which the forty-eight names shall be
+taken, or whether the mode be merely that of custom which the office has
+created; or whether the selection of the forty-eight names be wholly
+at the discretion and choice of the Master of the Crown-office? One or
+other of the two latter appears to be the case, because the act already
+mentioned, of the 3d of George II. lays down no rule or mode, nor refers
+to any preceding law--but says only, that Special Juries shall hereafter
+be struck, "_in such manner as Special Juries have been and are usually
+struck_."
+
+This act appears to have been what is generally understood by a "_deep
+take in_." It was fitted to the spur of the moment in which it was
+passed, 3d of George II. when parties ran high, and it served to throw
+into the hands of Walpole, who was then Minister, the management of
+Juries in Crown prosecutions, by making the nomination of the
+forty-eight persons, from whom the Jury was to be struck, follow the
+precedent established by custom between individuals, and by this means
+slipt into practice with less suspicion. Now, the manner of obtaining
+Special Juries through the medium of an officer of the Government, such,
+for instance, as a Master of the Crown-office, may be impartial in the
+case of Merchants or other individuals, but it becomes highly improper
+and suspicious in cases where the Government itself is one of the
+parties. And it must, upon the whole, appear a strange inconsistency,
+that a Government should keep one officer to commence prosecutions, and
+another officer to nominate the forty-eight persons from whom the Jury
+is to be struck, both of whom are _officers of the Civil List_, and yet
+continue to call this by the pompous name of _the glorious "Right of
+trial by Jury!_"
+
+In the case of the King against Jordan, for publishing the Rights of
+Man, the Attorney-General moved for the appointment of a Special Jury,
+and the Master of the Crown-office nominated the forty-eight persons
+himself, and took them from such part of the Sheriff's book as he
+pleased.
+
+The trial did not come on, occasioned by Jordan withdrawing his plea;
+but if it had, it might have afforded an opportunity of discussing the
+subject of Special Juries; for though such discussion might have had
+no effect in the Court of King's Bench, it would, in the present
+disposition for enquiry, have had a considerable effect upon the
+Country; and, in all national reforms, this is the proper point to begin
+at. But a Country right, and it will soon put Government right. Among
+the improper things acted by the Government in the case of Special
+Juries, on their own motion, one has been that of treating the Jury with
+a dinner, and afterwards giving each Juryman two guineas, if a verdict
+be found for the prosecution, and only one if otherwise; and it has been
+long observed, that, in London and Westminster, there are persons who
+appear to make a trade of serving, by being so frequently seen upon
+Special Juries.
+
+Thus much for Special Juries. As to what is called a _Common Jury_, upon
+any Government prosecution against the Author or Publisher of RIGHTS OF
+Man, during the time of the _present Sheriffry_, I have one question
+to offer, which is, _whether the present Sheriffs of London, having
+publicly prejudged the case, by the part they have taken in procuring
+an Address from the county of Middlesex, (however diminutive and
+insignificant the number of Addressers were, being only one hundred and
+eighteen,) are eligible or proper persons to be intrusted with the power
+of returning a Jury to try the issue of any such prosecution_.
+
+But the whole matter appears, at least to me, to be worthy of a more
+extensive consideration than what relates to any Jury, whether Special
+or Common; for the case is, whether any part of a whole nation, locally
+selected as a Jury of twelve men always is, be competent to judge and
+determine for the whole nation, on any matter that relates to systems
+and principles of Government, and whether it be not applying the
+institution of Juries to purposes for which such institutions were not
+intended? For example,
+
+I have asserted, in the Work Rights of Man, that as every man in the
+nation pays taxes, so has every man a right to a share in government,
+and consequently that the people of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
+Leeds, Halifax, &c have the same right as those of London. Shall, then,
+twelve men, picked out between Temple-bar and Whitechapel, because the
+book happened to be first published there, decide upon the rights of
+the inhabitants of those towns, or of any other town or village in the
+nation?
+
+Having thus spoken of Juries, I come next to offer a few observations on
+the matter contained in the information or prosecution.
+
+The work, Rights of Man, consists of Part the First, and Fart the
+Second. The First Part the prosecutor has thought it most proper to let
+alone; and from the Second Fart he has selected a few short paragraphs,
+making in the whole not quite two pages of the same printing as in the
+cheap edition. Those paragraphs relate chiefly to certain facts, such
+as the revolution of 1688, and the coming of George the First, commonly
+called of the House of Hanover, or the House of Brunswick, or some such
+House. The arguments, plans and principles contained in the work, the
+prosecutor has not ventured to attack. They are beyond his reach.
+
+The Act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support
+of the prosecution, is the Act intituled, "An Act, declaring the rights
+and liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the crown,"
+passed in the first year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by
+the name of the "Bill of Rights."
+
+I have called this bill "_A Bill of wrongs and of insult_." My reasons,
+and also my proofs, are as follow:
+
+The method and principle which this Bill takes for declaring rights and
+liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties; it is an
+assumed attempt to take them wholly from posterity--for the declaration
+in the said Bill is as follows:
+
+"The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in _the name of all
+the people_, most humbly and faithfully _submit themselves, their heirs,
+and posterity for ever_;" that is, to William and Mary his wife, their
+heirs and successors. This is a strange way of declaring rights and
+liberties. But the Parliament who made this declaration in the name, and
+on the part, of the people, had no authority from them for so doing;
+and with respect to _posterity for ever_, they had no right or authority
+whatever in the case. It was assumption and usurpation. I have reasoned
+very extensively against the principle of this Bill, in the first part
+of Rights of Man; the prosecutor has silently admitted that reasoning,
+and he now commences a prosecution on the authority of the Bill, after
+admitting the reasoning against it.
+
+It is also to be observed, that the declaration in this Bill, abject and
+irrational as it is, had no other intentional operation than against the
+family of the Stuarts, and their abettors. The idea did not then exist,
+that in the space of an hundred years, posterity might discover a
+different and much better system of government, and that every species
+of hereditary government might fall, as Popes and Monks had fallen
+before. This, I say, was not then thought of, and therefore the
+application of the Bill, in the present case, is a new, erroneous, and
+illegal application, and is the same as creating a new Bill _ex post
+facto_.
+
+It has ever been the craft of Courtiers, for the purpose of keeping
+up an expensive and enormous Civil List, and a mummery of useless and
+antiquated places and offices at the public expence, to be continually
+hanging England upon some individual or other, called _King_, though
+the man might not have capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and
+absurdity of this, is appearing more and more every day; and still those
+men continue to act as if no alteration in the public opinion had taken
+place. They hear each other's nonsense, and suppose the whole nation
+talks the same Gibberish.
+
+Let such men cry up the House of Orange, or the House of Brunswick,
+if they please. They would cry up any other house if it suited their
+purpose, and give as good reasons for it. But what is this house, or
+that house, or any other house to a nation? "_For a nation to be free,
+it is sufficient that she wills it_." Her freedom depends wholly upon
+herself, and not on any house, nor on any individual. I ask not in what
+light this cargo of foreign houses appears to others, but I will say in
+what light it appears to me--It was like the trees of the forest, saying
+unto the bramble, come thou and reign over us.
+
+Thus much for both their houses. I now come to speak of two other
+houses, which are also put into the information, and those are the
+House of Lords, and the House of Commons. Here, I suppose, the
+Attorney-General intends to prove me guilty of speaking either truth
+or falsehood; for, according to the modern interpretation of Libels, it
+does not signify which, and the only improvement necessary to shew the
+compleat absurdity of such doctrine, would be, to prosecute a man for
+uttering a most _false and wicked truth_.
+
+I will quote the part I am going to give, from the Office Copy, with the
+Attorney General's inuendoes, enclosed in parentheses as they stand in
+the information, and I hope that civil list officer will caution the
+Court not to laugh when he reads them, and also to take care not to
+laugh himself.
+
+The information states, that _Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious,
+seditious, and evil-disposed person, hath, with force and arms, and
+most wicked cunning, written and published a certain false, scandalous,
+malicious, and seditious libel; in one part thereof, to the tenor and
+effect following, that is to say_--
+
+"With respect to the two Houses, of which the English Parliament
+(_meaning the Parliament of this Kingdom_) is composed, they appear to
+be effectually influenced into one, and, as a Legislature, to have no
+temper of its own. The Minister, (_meaning the Minuter employed by the
+King of this Realm, in the administration of the Government thereof_)
+whoever he at any time may be, touches it (_meaning the two Houses of
+Parliament of this Kingdom_) as with an opium wand, and it (_meaning the
+two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom_) sleeps obedience."
+
+As I am not malicious enough to disturb their repose, though it be time
+they should awake, I leave the two Houses and the Attorney General, to
+the enjoyment of their dreams, and proceed to a new subject.
+
+The Gentlemen, to whom I shall next address myself, are those who have
+stiled themselves "_Friends of the people_," holding their meeting at
+the Freemasons' Tavern, London.(1)
+
+One of the principal Members of this Society, is Mr. Grey, who, I
+believe, is also one of the most independent Members in Parliament.(2)
+I collect this opinion from what Mr. Burke formerly mentioned to me,
+rather than from any knowledge of my own. The occasion was as follows:
+
+I was in England at the time the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound:
+and the day after the King's Message, as it is called, was sent to
+Parliament, I wrote a note to Mr. Burke, that upon the condition the
+French Revolution should not be a subject (for he was then writing
+the book I have since answered) I would call on him the next day, and
+mention some matters I was acquainted with, respecting the affair; for
+it appeared to me extraordinary that any body of men, calling themselves
+Representatives, should commit themselves so precipitately, or "sleep
+obedience," as Parliament was then doing, and run a nation into expence,
+and perhaps a war, without so much as enquiring into the case, or the
+subject, of both which I had some knowledge.
+
+     1 See in the Introduction to this volume Chauvelin's account
+     of this Association.--_Editor._
+
+     2  In the debate in the House of Commons, Dec. 14, 1793, Mr.
+     Grey is thus reported: "Mr. Grey was not a friend to
+     Paine's doctrines, but he was not to be deterred by a man
+     from acknowledging that he considered the rights of man as
+     the foundation of every government, and those who stood out
+     against those rights as conspirators against the people." He
+     severely denounced the Proclamation.   Parl. Hist., vol.
+     xxvi.--_Editor._
+
+When I saw Mr. Burke, and mentioned the circumstances to him, he
+particularly spoke of Mr. Grey, as the fittest Member to bring such
+matters forward; "for," said Mr. Burke, "_I am not the proper_ person to
+do it, as I am in a treaty with Mr. Pitt about Mr. Hastings's trial." I
+hope the Attorney General will allow, that Mr. Burke was then _sleeping
+his obedience_.--But to return to the Society------
+
+I cannot bring myself to believe, that the general motive of this
+Society is any thing more than that by which every former parliamentary
+opposition has been governed, and by which the present is sufficiently
+known. Failing in their pursuit of power and place within doors, they
+have now (and that in not a very mannerly manner) endeavoured to possess
+themselves of that ground out of doors, which, had it not been made
+by others, would not have been made by them. They appear to me to have
+watched, with more cunning than candour, the progress of a certain
+publication, and when they saw it had excited a spirit of enquiry,
+and was rapidly spreading, they stepped forward to profit by the
+opportunity, and Mr. Fox _then_ called it a Libel. In saying this, he
+libelled himself. Politicians of this cast, such, I mean, as those who
+trim between parties, and lye by for events, are to be found in every
+country, and it never yet happened that they did not do more harm
+than good. They embarrass business, fritter it to nothing, perplex the
+people, and the event to themselves generally is, that they go just
+far enough to make enemies of the few, without going far enough to make
+friends of the many.
+
+Whoever will read the declarations of this Society, of the 25th of April
+and 5th of May, will find a studied reserve upon all the points that are
+real abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of Government, of
+the abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and pensions, of
+the enormity of the Civil List, of the excess of taxes, nor of any one
+matter that substantially affects the nation; and from some conversation
+that has passed in that Society, it does not appear to me that it is
+any part of their plan to carry this class of reforms into practice. No
+Opposition Party ever did, when it gained possession.
+
+In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into contention
+with this Society; their incivility towards me is what I should expect
+from place-hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground
+they have advanced upon, and I wish that every individual among them may
+act in the same upright, uninfluenced, and public spirited manner that I
+have done. Whatever reforms may be obtained, and by whatever means,
+they will be for the benefit of others and not of me. I have no other
+interest in the cause than the interest of my heart. The part I have
+acted has been wholly that of a volunteer, unconnected with party; and
+when I quit, it shall be as honourably as I began.
+
+I consider the reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as
+proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out hackneyed subject, about which
+the nation is tired, and the parties are deceiving each other. It is not
+a subject that is cognizable before Parliament, because no Government
+has a right to alter itself, either in whole or in part. The right,
+and the exercise of that right, appertains to the nation only, and the
+proper means is by a national convention, elected for the purpose, by
+all the people. By this, the will of the nation, whether to reform or
+not, or what the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend, will be
+known, and it cannot be known by any other means. Partial addresses, or
+separate associations, are not testimonies of the general will.
+
+It is, however, certain, that the opinions of men, with respect
+to systems and principles of government, are changing fast in all
+countries. The alteration in England, within the space of a little more
+than a year, is far greater than could have been believed, and it is
+daily and hourly increasing. It moves along the country with the silence
+of thought. The enormous expence of Government has provoked men to
+think, by making them feel; and the Proclamation has served to increase
+jealousy and disgust. To prevent, therefore, those commotions which too
+often and too suddenly arise from suffocated discontents, it is best
+that the general WILL should have the full and free opportunity of being
+publicly ascertained and known.
+
+Wretched as the state of representation is in England, it is every
+day becoming worse, because the unrepresented parts of the nation are
+increasing in population and property, and the represented parts are
+decreasing. It is, therefore, no ill-grounded estimation to say, that
+as not one person in seven is represented, at least fourteen millions of
+taxes out of the seventeen millions, are paid by the unrepresented part;
+for although copyholds and leaseholds are assessed to the land-tax, the
+holders are unrepresented. Should then a general demur take place as to
+the obligation of paying taxes, on the ground of not being represented,
+it is not the Representatives of Rotten Boroughs, nor Special Juries,
+that can decide the question. This is one of the possible cases that
+ought to be foreseen, in order to prevent the inconveniencies that might
+arise to numerous individuals, by provoking it.
+
+I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the rights
+of people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either
+to withhold them, or to grant them. Government ought to be established
+on such principles of justice as to exclude the occasion of all such
+applications, for wherever they appear they are virtually accusations.
+
+I wish that Mr. Grey, since he has embarked in the business, would take
+the whole of it into consideration. He will then see that the right of
+reforming the state of the Representation does not reside in Parliament,
+and that the only motion he could consistently make would be, that
+Parliament should _recommend_ the election of a convention of the
+people, because all pay taxes. But whether Parliament recommended it
+or not, the right of the nation would neither be lessened nor increased
+thereby.
+
+As to Petitions from the unrepresented part, they ought not to be looked
+for. As well might it be expected that Manchester, Sheffield, &c.
+should petition the rotten Boroughs, as that they should petition the
+Representatives of those Boroughs. Those two towns alone pay far more
+taxes than all the rotten Boroughs put together, and it is scarcely to
+be expected they should pay their court either to the Boroughs, or the
+Borough-mongers.
+
+It ought also to be observed, that what is called Parliament, is
+composed of two houses that have always declared against the right of
+each other to interfere in any matter that related to the circumstances
+of either, particularly that of election. A reform, therefore, in the
+representation cannot, on the ground they have individually taken,
+become the subject of an act of Parliament, because such a mode would
+include the interference, against which the Commons on their part have
+protested; but must, as well on the ground of formality, as on that of
+right, proceed from a National Convention.
+
+Let Mr. Grey, or any other man, sit down and endeavour to put his
+thoughts together, for the purpose of drawing up an application to
+Parliament for a reform of Parliament, and he will soon convince himself
+of the folly of the attempt. He will find that he cannot get on; that
+he cannot make his thoughts join, so as to produce any effect; for,
+whatever formality of words he may use, they will unavoidably include
+two ideas directly opposed to each other; the one in setting forth
+the reasons, the other in praying for relief, and the two, when placed
+together, would stand thus: "_The Representation in Parliament is so
+very corrupt, that we can no longer confide in it,--and, therefore,
+confiding in the justice and wisdom of Parliament, we pray_," &c, &c.
+
+The heavy manner in which every former proposed application to
+Parliament has dragged, sufficiently shews, that though the nation might
+not exactly see the awkwardness of the measure, it could not clearly see
+its way, by those means. To this also may be added another remark, which
+is, that the worse Parliament is, the less will be the inclination to
+petition it. This indifference, viewed as it ought to be, is one of the
+strongest censures the public express. It is as if they were to say to
+them, "Ye are not worth reforming."
+
+Let any man examine the Court-Kalendar of Placemen in both Houses, and
+the manner in which the Civil List operates, and he will be at no loss
+to account for this indifference and want of confidence on one side, nor
+of the opposition to reforms on the other.
+
+Who would have supposed that Mr. Burke, holding forth as he formerly
+did against secret influence, and corrupt majorities, should become
+a concealed Pensioner? I will now state the case, not for the little
+purpose of exposing Mr. Burke, but to shew the inconsistency of any
+application to a body of men, more than half of whom, as far as the
+nation can at present know, may be in the same case with himself.
+
+Towards the end of Lord North's administration, Mr. Burke brought a bill
+into Parliament, generally known by Mr. Burke's Reform Bill; in which,
+among other things, it is enacted, "That no pension exceeding the sum
+of three hundred pounds a year, shall be granted to any one person,
+and that the whole amount of the pensions granted in one year shall not
+exceed six hundred pounds; a list of which, together with the _names
+of the persons_ to whom the same are granted, shall be laid before
+Parliament in twenty days after the beginning of each session, until
+the whole pension list shall be reduced to ninety thousand pounds." A
+provisory clause is afterwards added, "That it shall be lawful for the
+First Commissioner of the Treasury, to return into the Exchequer any
+pension or annuity, _without a name_, on his making oath that such
+pension or annuity is not directly or indirectly for the benefit, use,
+or behoof of any Member of the House of Commons."
+
+But soon after that administration ended, and the party Mr. Burke acted
+with came into power, it appears from the circumstances I am going to
+relate, that Mr. Burke became himself a Pensioner in disguise; in a
+similar manner as if a pension had been granted in the name of John
+Nokes, to be privately paid to and enjoyed by Tom Stiles. The name of
+Edmund Burke does not appear in the original transaction: but after the
+pension was obtained, Mr. Burke wanted to make the most of it at once,
+by selling or mortgaging it; and the gentleman in whose name the pension
+stands, applied to one of the public offices for that purpose. This
+unfortunately brought forth the name of _Edmund Burke_, as the real
+Pensioner of 1,500L. per annum.(1) When men trumpet forth what they call
+the blessings of the Constitution, it ought to be known what sort of
+blessings they allude to.
+
+As to the Civil List of a million a year, it is not to be supposed that
+any one man can eat, drink, or consume the whole upon himself. The case
+is, that above half the sum is annually apportioned among Courtiers,
+and Court Members, of both Houses, in places and offices, altogether
+insignificant and perfectly useless as to every purpose of civil,
+rational, and manly government. For instance,
+
+Of what use in the science and system of Government is what is called
+a Lord Chamberlain, a Master and Mistress of the Robes, a Master of the
+Horse, a Master of the Hawks, and one hundred other such things? Laws
+derive no additional force, nor additional excellence from such mummery.
+
+In the disbursements of the Civil List for the year 1786, (which may be
+seen in Sir John Sinclair's History of the Revenue,) are four separate
+charges for this mummery office of Chamberlain:
+
+[Illustration: table110]
+
+From this sample the rest may be guessed at. As to the Master of the
+Hawks, (there are no hawks kept, and if there were, it is no reason the
+people should pay the expence of feeding them, many of whom are put to
+it to get bread for their children,) his salary is 1,372L. 10s.
+
+     1 See note at the end of this chapter.--_Editor._
+
+And besides a list of items of this kind, sufficient to fill a quire of
+paper, the Pension lists alone are 107,404L. 13s. 4d. which is a greater
+sum than all the expences of the federal Government in America amount
+to.
+
+Among the items, there are two I had no expectation of finding, and
+which, in this day of enquiry after Civil List influence, ought to be
+exposed. The one is an annual payment of one thousand seven hundred
+pounds to the Dissenting Ministers in England, and the other, eight
+hundred pounds to those of Ireland.
+
+This is the fact; and the distribution, as I am informed, is as follows:
+The whole sum of 1,700L. is paid to one person, a Dissenting Minister
+in London, who divides it among eight others, and those eight among such
+others as they please. The Lay-body of the Dissenters, and many of their
+principal Ministers, have long considered it as dishonourable, and have
+endeavoured to prevent it, but still it continues to be secretly paid;
+and as the world has sometimes seen very fulsome Addresses from parts of
+that body, it may naturally be supposed that the receivers, like Bishops
+and other Court-Clergy, are not idle in promoting them. How the money is
+distributed in Ireland, I know not.
+
+To recount all the secret history of the Civil List, is not the
+intention of this publication. It is sufficient, in this place, to
+expose its general character, and the mass of influence it keeps alive.
+It will necessarily become one of the objects of reform; and therefore
+enough is said to shew that, under its operation, no application to
+Parliament can be expected to succeed, nor can consistently be made.
+
+Such reforms will not be promoted by the Party that is in possession of
+those places, nor by the Opposition who are waiting for them; and as
+to a _mere reform_, in the state of the Representation, the idea that
+another Parliament, differently elected from the present, but still a
+third component part of the same system, and subject to the controul of
+the other two parts, will abolish those abuses, is altogether delusion;
+because it is not only impracticable on the ground of formality, but is
+unwisely exposing another set of men to the same corruptions that have
+tainted the present.
+
+Were all the objects that require reform accomplishable by a mere reform
+in the state of the Representation, the persons who compose the present
+Parliament might, with rather more propriety, be asked to abolish all
+the abuses themselves, than be applied to as the more instruments of
+doing it by a future Parliament. If the virtue be wanting to abolish the
+abuse, it is also wanting to act as the means, and the nation must, from
+necessity, proceed by some other plan.
+
+Having thus endeavoured to shew what the abject condition of Parliament
+is, and the impropriety of going a second time over the same ground that
+has before miscarried, I come to the remaining part of the subject.
+
+There ought to be, in the constitution of every country, a mode of
+referring back, on any extraordinary occasion, to the sovereign and
+original constituent power, which is the nation itself. The right of
+altering any part of a Government, cannot, as already observed, reside
+in the Government, or that Government might make itself what it pleased.
+
+It ought also to be taken for granted, that though a nation may feel
+inconveniences, either in the excess of taxation, or in the mode of
+expenditure, or in any thing else, it may not at first be sufficiently
+assured in what part of its government the defect lies, or where the
+evil originates. It may be supposed to be in one part, and on enquiry
+be found to be in another; or partly in all. This obscurity is naturally
+interwoven with what are called mixed Governments.
+
+Be, however, the reform to be accomplished whatever it may, it can only
+follow in consequence of obtaining a full knowledge of all the causes
+that have rendered such reform necessary, and every thing short of this
+is guess-work or frivolous cunning. In this case, it cannot be supposed
+that any application to Parliament can bring forward this knowledge.
+That body is itself the supposed cause, or one of the supposed causes,
+of the abuses in question; and cannot be expected, and ought not to be
+asked, to give evidence against itself. The enquiry, therefore, which
+is of necessity the first step in the business, cannot be trusted to
+Parliament, but must be undertaken by a distinct body of men, separated
+from every suspicion of corruption or influence.
+
+Instead, then, of referring to rotten Boroughs and absurd Corporations
+for Addresses, or hawking them about the country to be signed by a few
+dependant tenants, the real and effectual mode would be to come at once
+to the point, and to ascertain the sense of the nation by electing a
+National Convention. By this method, as already observed, the general
+WILL, whether to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how
+far it shall extend, will be known, and it cannot be known by any other
+means. Such a body, empowered and supported by the nation, will have
+authority to demand information upon all matters necessary to be
+en-quired into; and no Minister, nor any person, will dare to refuse it.
+It will then be seen whether seventeen millions of taxes are necessary,
+and for what purposes they are expended. The concealed Pensioners will
+then be obliged to unmask; and the source of influence and corruption,
+if any such there be, will be laid open to the nation, not for the
+purpose of revenge, but of redress.
+
+By taking this public and national ground, all objections against
+partial Addresses on the one side, or private associations on the other,
+will be done away; THE NATION WILL DECLARE ITS OWN REFORMS; and the
+clamour about Party and Faction, or Ins or Outs, will become ridiculous.
+
+The plan and organization of a convention is easy in practice.
+
+In the first place, the number of inhabitants in every county can be
+sufficiently ascertained from the number of houses assessed to the
+House and Window-light tax in each county. This will give the rule
+for apportioning the number of Members to be elected to the National
+Convention in each of the counties.
+
+If the total number of inhabitants in England be seven millions, and the
+total number of Members to be elected to the Convention be one thousand,
+the number of members to be elected in a county containing one hundred
+and fifty thousand inhabitants will be _twenty-one_, and in like
+proportion for any other county.
+
+As the election of a Convention must, in order to ascertain the general
+sense of the nation, go on grounds different from that of Parliamentary
+elections, the mode that best promises this end will have no
+difficulties to combat with from absurd customs and pretended rights.
+The right of every man will be the same, whether he lives in a city,
+a town, or a village. The custom of attaching Rights to _place_, or
+in other words, to inanimate matter, instead of to the _person_,
+independently of place, is too absurd to make any part of a rational
+argument.
+
+As every man in the nation, of the age of twenty-one years, pays taxes,
+either out of the property he possesses, or out of the product of his
+labor, which is property to him; and is amenable in his own person to
+every law of the land; so has every one the same equal right to vote,
+and no one part of the nation, nor any individual, has a right to
+dispute the right of another. The man who should do this ought to
+forfeit the exercise of his _own_ right, for a term of years. This would
+render the punishment consistent with the crime.
+
+When a qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the
+firmest possible ground; because the qualification is such, as nothing
+but dying before the time can take away; and the equality of Rights, as
+a principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But
+when Rights are placed upon, or made dependant upon property, they are
+on the most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings,
+and fly away," and the rights fly with them; and thus they become lost
+to the man when they would be of most value.
+
+It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice, that exclusions
+have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first,
+changes afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The
+Representatives in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to
+do right, even in part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of
+all the wrongs it has endured. This case serves to shew, that the same
+conduct that best constitutes the safety of an individual, namely,
+a strict adherence to principle, constitutes also the safety of a
+Government, and that without it safety is but an empty name. When the
+rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example to the poor
+to plunder the rich of his property; for the rights of the one are
+as much property to him, as wealth is property to the other, and the
+_little all_ is as dear as the _much_. It is only by setting out on just
+principles that men are trained to be just to each other; and it will
+always be found, that when the rich protect the rights of the poor, the
+poor will protect the property of the rich. But the guarantee, to be
+effectual, must be parliamentarily reciprocal.
+
+Exclusions are not only unjust, but they frequently operate as
+injuriously to the party who monopolizes, as to those who are excluded.
+When men seek to exclude others from participating in the exercise of
+any right, they should, at least, be assured, that they can effectually
+perform the whole of the business they undertake; for, unless they do
+this, themselves will be losers by the monopoly. This has been the case
+with respect to the monopolized right of Election. The monopolizing
+party has not been able to keep the Parliamentary Representation, to
+whom the power of taxation was entrusted, in the state it ought to have
+been, and have thereby multiplied taxes upon themselves equally with
+those who were excluded.
+
+A great deal has been, and will continue to be said, about
+disqualifications, arising from the commission of offences; but were
+this subject urged to its full extent, it would disqualify a great
+number of the present Electors, together with their Representatives;
+for, of all offences, none are more destructive to the morals of Society
+than Bribery and Corruption. It is, therefore, civility to such persons
+to pass this subject over, and to give them a fair opportunity of
+recovering, or rather of creating character.
+
+Every thing, in the present mode of electioneering in England, is the
+reverse of what it ought to be, and the vulgarity that attends elections
+is no other than the natural consequence of inverting the order of the
+system.
+
+In the first place, the Candidate seeks the Elector, instead of the
+Elector seeking for a Representative; and the Electors are advertised as
+being in the interest of the Candidate, instead of the Candidate being
+in the interest of the Electors. The Candidate pays the Elector for his
+vote, instead of the Nation paying the Representative for his time and
+attendance on public business. The complaint for an undue election is
+brought by the Candidate, as if he, and not the Electors, were the party
+aggrieved; and he takes on himself, at any period of the election, to
+break it up, by declining, as if the election was in his right and not
+in theirs.
+
+The compact that was entered into at the last Westminster election
+between two of the candidates (Mr. Fox and Lord Hood,) was an indecent
+violation of the principles of election. The Candidates assumed, in
+their own persons, the rights of the Electors; for, it was only in the
+body of the Electors, and not at all in the Candidates, that the
+right of making any such compact, or compromise, could exist. But the
+principle of Election and Representation is so completely done away,
+in every stage thereof, that inconsistency has no longer the power of
+surprising.
+
+Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten Borough
+Addressers, nor from County-meetings, promoted by Placemen and
+Pensioners, can the sense of the nation be known. It is still corruption
+appealing to itself. But a Convention of a thousand persons, fairly
+elected, would bring every matter to a decided issue.
+
+As to County-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live
+near to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such
+occasions is but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The
+only consistent service which such meetings could render, would be that
+of apportioning the county into convenient districts, and when this is
+done, each district might, according to its number of inhabitants, elect
+its quota of County Members to the National Convention; and the vote of
+each Elector might be taken in the parish where he resided, either by
+ballot or by voice, as he should chuse to give it.
+
+A National Convention thus formed, would bring together the sense and
+opinions of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of
+Government, and the interest of the Public, and of the several parts
+thereof, would then undergo an ample and rational discussion, freed from
+the language of parliamentary disguise.
+
+But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to
+reason with, and endeavour to convince each other, upon any matter that
+respects their common good, yet, in point of practice, the majority of
+opinions, when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every
+good citizen practically conforms.
+
+Mr. Burke, as if he knew, (for every concealed Pensioner has the
+opportunity of knowing,) that the abuses acted under the present system,
+are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
+whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
+effectual reform, has endeavoured to preclude the event, by sturdily
+denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
+bestow a thought upon this case.
+
+When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it
+necessarily implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from
+absolute necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because,
+without it, there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is,
+perhaps, the only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas
+upon other matters, can consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode
+of decision derived from the primary original right of every individual
+concerned; _that_ right being first individually exercised in giving an
+opinion, and whether that opinion shall arrange with the minority or the
+majority, is a subsequent accidental thing that neither increases nor
+diminishes the individual original right itself. Prior to any debate,
+enquiry, or investigation, it is not supposed to be known on which side
+the majority of opinions will fall, and therefore, whilst this mode of
+decision secures to every one the right of giving an opinion, it admits
+to every one an equal chance in the ultimate event.
+
+Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of
+a national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so
+marvellously loaded with con-fusion, as to appear at first sight, almost
+impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called Law.
+
+But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so
+much the subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the
+remedy will immediately present itself, but, with it, the means of
+preventing the like case hereafter.
+
+In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the
+absurdity of every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and
+the laws partake in a similar manner, of this assumption. They have no
+period of legal or natural expiration; and, however absurd in principle,
+or inconsistent in practice many of them have become, they still are,
+if not especially repealed, considered as making a part of the general
+mass. By this means the body of what is called Law, is spread over a
+space of _several hundred years_, comprehending laws obsolete, laws
+repugnant, laws ridiculous, and every other kind of laws forgotten
+or remembered; and what renders the case still worse, is, that the
+confusion multiplies with the progress of time. (*)
+
+To bring this misshapen monster into form, and to prevent its lapsing
+again into a wilderness state, only two things, and those very simple,
+are necessary.
+
+The first is, to review the whole mass of laws, and to bring forward
+such only as are worth retaining, and let all the rest drop; and to give
+to the laws so brought forward a new era, commencing from the time of
+such reform.
+
+     * In the time of Henry IV. a law was passed making it felony
+     "to multiply gold or silver, or to make use of the craft of
+     multiplication," and this law remained two hundred and
+     eighty-six years upon the statute books. It was then
+     repealed as being ridiculous and injurious.--_Author_.
+
+Secondly; that at the expiration of every twenty-one years (or any other
+stated period) a like review shall again be taken, and the laws, found
+proper to be retained, be again carried forward, commencing with that
+date, and the useless laws dropped and discontinued.
+
+By this means there can be no obsolete laws, and scarcely such a thing
+as laws standing in direct or equivocal contradiction to each other, and
+every person will know the period of time to which he is to look back
+for all the laws in being.
+
+It is worth remarking, that while every other branch of science is
+brought within some commodious system, and the study of it simplified by
+easy methods, the laws take the contrary course, and become every year
+more complicated, entangled, confused, and obscure.
+
+Among the paragraphs which the Attorney General has taken from the
+_Rights of Man_, and put into his information, one is, that where I
+have said, "that with respect to regular law, there is _scarcely such a
+thing_."
+
+As I do not know whether the Attorney-General means to show this
+expression to be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE,
+I shall make no other reply to him in this place, than by remarking,
+that if almanack-makers had not been more judicious than law-makers,
+the study of almanacks would by this time have become as abstruse as the
+study of the law, and we should hear of a library of almanacks as we
+now do of statutes; but by the simple operation of letting the obsolete
+matter drop, and carrying forward that only which is proper to be
+retained, all that is necessary to be known is found within the space of
+a year, and laws also admit of being kept within some given period.
+
+I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addresses, the
+Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to
+the Society, styling itself "The Friends of the People."
+
+That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than
+in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition,
+and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the
+experience of every day-proves to be true, as well in England as in
+other countries.
+
+As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of
+opinion, and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed
+its habits of thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed
+by before, the only true method to prevent popular discontents and
+commotions is, to throw, by every fair and rational argument, all the
+light upon the subject that can possibly be thrown; and at the same
+time, to open the means of collecting the general sense of the nation;
+and this cannot, as already observed, be done by any plan so effectually
+as a national convention. Here individual opinion will quiet itself by
+having a centre to rest upon.
+
+The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various
+descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me,
+either to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have
+acted with cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a
+new phrase, namely, that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the
+interpretation of which is, _a continuance of the abuses as long as
+possible, If we cannot hold all let us hold some_.
+
+Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that
+their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure
+places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid
+that their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out
+mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect
+of receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier
+frightened at the thoughts of his discharge, and three shillings per
+week during life? Is the sailor afraid that press-warrants will be
+abolished? The Society mistakes the fears of borough-mongers, placemen,
+and pensioners, for the fears of the people; and the _temperate and
+moderate Reform_ it talks of, is calculated to suit the condition of the
+former.
+
+Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political
+cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.--A thing, moderately good, is
+not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue;
+but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. But who is to be the
+judge of what is a temperate and moderate Reform? The Society is the
+representative of nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the
+nation commit this power to those in Parliament, in whose election they
+had no choice; and, therefore, even upon the ground the Society has
+taken, recourse must be had to a National Convention.
+
+The objection which Mr. Fox made to Mr. Grey's proposed Motion for a
+Parliamentary Reform was, that it contained no plan.--It certainly did
+not. But the plan very easily presents itself; and whilst it is fair
+for all parties, it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from
+private or popular discontent.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+     Editorial Note on Burke's Alleged Secret Pension.--By
+     reference to Vol. II., pp. 271, 360, of this work, it will
+     be seen that Paine mentions a report that Burke was a
+     "pensioner in a fictitious name." A letter of John Hall to a
+     relative in Leicester, (London, May 1,1792.) says: "You will
+     remember that there was a vote carried, about the conclusion
+     of the American war, that the influence of the Crown had
+     increased, was increasing, and should be diminished. Burke,
+     poor, and like a good angler, baited a hook with a bill to
+     bring into Parliament, that no pensions should be given
+     above L300 a year, but what should be publicly granted, and
+     for what, (I may not be quite particular.) To stop that he
+     took in another person's name L1500 a year for life, and
+     some time past he disposed of it, or sold his life out. He
+     has been very still since his declension from the Whigs, and
+     is not concerned in the slave-trade [question?] as I hear
+     of." This letter, now in possession of Hall's kinsman, Dr.
+     Dutton Steele of Philadelphia, contains an item not in
+     Paine's account, which may have been derived from it. Hall
+     was an English scientific engineer, and acquainted with
+     intelligent men in London. Paine was rather eager for a
+     judicial encounter with Burke, and probably expected to be
+     sued by him for libel, as he (Burke) had once sued the
+     "Public Advertiser" for a personal accusation. But Burke
+     remained quiet under this charge, and Paine, outlawed, and
+     in France, had no opportunity for summoning witnesses in its
+     support. The biographers of Burke have silently passed over
+     the accusation, and this might be fair enough were this
+     unconfirmed charge made against a public man of stainless
+     reputation in such matters. But though Burke escaped
+     parliamentary censure for official corruption (May 16, 1783,
+     by only 24 majority) he has never been vindicated. It was
+     admitted that he had restored to office a cashier and an
+     accountant dismissed for dishonesty by his predecessor.
+     ("Pari. Hist.," xxiii., pp. 801,902.) He escaped censure by
+     agreeing to suspend them.    One was proved guilty, the
+     other committed suicide. It was subsequently shown that one
+     of the men had been an agent of the Burkes in raising India
+     stock. (Dilke's "Papers of a Critic," ii-, p. 333--"Dict.
+     Nat Biography": art Burke.) Paine, in his letter to the
+     Attorney-General (IV. of this volume), charged that Burke
+     had been a "masked pensioner" ten years. The date
+     corresponds with a secret arrangement made in 1782 with
+     Burke for a virtual pension to his son, for life, and his
+     mother. Under date April 34 of that year, Burke, writing to
+     William Burke at Madras, reports his appointment as
+     Paymaster: "The office is to be 4000L. certain. Young
+     Richard [his son] is the deputy with a salary of 500L. The
+     office to be reformed according to the Bill. There is enough
+     emoluments. In decency it could not be more. Something
+     considerable is also to be secured for the life of young
+     Richard to be a security for him and his mother."("Mem. and
+     Cor. of Charles James Fox," i., p. 451.) It is thus certain
+     that the Rockingham Ministry were doing for the Paymaster
+     all they could "in decency," and that while posing as a
+     reformer in reducing the expenses of that office, he was
+     arranging for secret advantages to his family. It is said
+     that the arrangement failed by his loss of office, but while
+     so many of Burke's papers are withheld from the public (if
+     not destroyed), it cannot be certain that something was not
+     done of the kind charged by Paine. That Burke was not strict
+     in such matters is further shown by his efforts to secure
+     for his son the rich sinecure of the Clerkship of the Polls,
+     in which he failed. Burke was again Paymaster in 1783-4, and
+     this time remained long enough in office to repeat more
+     successfully his secret attempts to secure irregular
+     pensions for his family. On April 7, 1894, Messrs. Sotheby,
+     Wilkinson, and Hodge sold in London (Lot 404) a letter of
+     Burke (which I have not seen in print), dated July 16, 1795.
+     It was written to the Chairman of the Commission on Public
+     Accounts, who had required him to render his accounts for
+     the time he was in office as Paymaster-General, 1783-4.
+     Burke refuses to do so in four angry and quibbling pages,
+     and declares he will appeal to his country against the
+     demand if it is pressed. Why should Burke wish to conceal
+     his accounts? There certainly were suspicions around Burke,
+     and they may have caused Pitt to renounce his intention,
+     conveyed to Burke, August 30, 1794, of asking Parliament to
+     bestow on him a pension. "It is not exactly known," says one
+     of Burke's editors, "what induced Mr. Pitt to decline
+     bringing before Parliament a measure which he had himself
+     proposed without any solicitation whatever on the part of
+     Burke." (Burke's "Works," English Ed., 1852, ii., p. 252.)
+     The pensions were given without consultation with
+     Parliament--1200L. granted him by the King from the Civil
+     List, and 2500L. by Pitt in West Indian 41/2 per cents.
+     Burke, on taking his seat beside Pitt in the great Paine
+     Parliament (December, 1792), had protested that he had not
+     abandoned his party through expectation of a pension, but
+     the general belief of those with whom he had formerly acted
+     was that he had been promised a pension.   A couplet of the
+     time ran:
+
+     "A pension makes him change his plan,
+     And loudly damn the rights of man."
+
+     Writing in 1819, Cobbett says: "As my Lord Grenville
+     introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to
+     introduce the name of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to
+     shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in
+     the Pension List, and who is now named fifty million times
+     where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."--
+     _Editor._
+
+
+
+
+X. ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE.
+
+
+Paris, Sept. 25, [1792.] First Year of the Republic.
+
+Fellow Citizens,
+
+I RECEIVE, with affectionate gratitude, the honour which the late
+National Assembly has conferred upon me, by adopting me a Citizen of
+France: and the additional honor of being elected by my fellow citizens
+a Member of the National Convention.(1) Happily impressed, as I am, by
+those testimonies of respect shown towards me as an individual, I feel
+my felicity increased by seeing the barrier broken down that divided
+patriotism by spots of earth, and limited citizenship to the soil, like
+vegetation.
+
+Had those honours been conferred in an hour of national tranquillity,
+they would have afforded no other means of shewing my affection, than
+to have accepted and enjoyed them; but they come accompanied with
+circumstances that give me the honourable opportunity of commencing
+my citizenship in the stormy hour of difficulties. I come not to enjoy
+repose. Convinced that the cause of France is the cause of all mankind,
+and that liberty cannot be purchased by a wish, I gladly share with you
+the dangers and honours necessary to success.
+
+     1 The National Assembly (August 26, 1792) conferred the
+     title of "French Citizen" on "Priestley, Payne, Bentham,
+     Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, Campe, Cormelle, Paw,
+     David Williams, Gorani, Anacharsis Clootz, Pestalozzi,
+     Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Klopstoc, Kosciusko,
+     Gilleers."--_Editor._. vol ni--7
+
+I am well aware that the moment of any great change, such as that
+accomplished on the 10th of August, is unavoidably the moment of
+terror and confusion. The mind, highly agitated by hope, suspicion and
+apprehension, continues without rest till the change be accomplished.
+But let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is
+certain. It is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this, or of
+that individual, that calls France and her armies into action. It is the
+great cause of all. It is the establishment of a new aera, that shall
+blot despotism from the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of
+peace and citizenship, the great Republic of Man.
+
+It has been my fate to have borne a share in the commencement and
+complete establishment of one Revolution, (I mean the Revolution of
+America.) The success and events of that Revolution are encouraging to
+us. The prosperity and happiness that have since flowed to that country,
+have amply rewarded her for all the hardships she endured and for all
+the dangers she encountered.
+
+The principles on which that Revolution began, have extended themselves
+to Europe; and an over-ruling Providence is regenerating the Old World
+by the principles of the New. The distance of America from all the
+other parts of the globe, did not admit of her carrying those principles
+beyond her own situation. It is to the peculiar honour of France, that
+she now raises the standard of liberty for all nations; and in fighting
+her own battles, contends for the rights of all mankind.
+
+The same spirit of fortitude that insured success to America; will
+insure it to France, for it is impossible to conquer a nation determined
+to be free! The military circumstances that now unite themselves to
+France, are such as the despots of the earth know nothing of, and can
+form no calculation upon. They know not what it is to fight against a
+nation; they have only been accustomed to make war upon each other,
+and they know, from system and practice, how to calculate the probable
+success of despot against despot; and here their knowledge and their
+experience end.
+
+But in a contest like the present a new and boundless variety of
+circumstances arise, that deranges all such customary calculations. When
+a whole nation acts as an army, the despot knows not the extent of the
+power against which he contends. New armies arise against him with the
+necessity of the moment. It is then that the difficulties of an invading
+enemy multiply, as in the former case they diminished; and he finds them
+at their height when he expected them to end.
+
+The only war that has any similarity of circumstances with the present,
+is the late revolution war in America. On her part, as it now is in
+France, it was a war of the whole nation:--there it was that the enemy,
+by beginning to conquer, put himself in a condition of being conquered.
+His first victories prepared him for defeat. He advanced till he could
+not retreat, and found himself in the midst of a nation of armies.
+
+Were it now to be proposed to the Austrians and Prussians, to escort
+them into the middle of France, and there leave them to make the most
+of such a situation, they would see too much into the dangers of it to
+accept the offer, and the same dangers would attend them, could they
+arrive there by any other means. Where, then, is the military policy of
+their attempting to obtain, by force, that which they would refuse by
+choice? But to reason with despots is throwing reason away. The best of
+arguments is a vigorous preparation.
+
+Man is ever a stranger to the ways by which Providence regulates the
+order of things. The interference of foreign despots may serve to
+introduce into their own enslaved countries the principles they come
+to oppose. Liberty and Equality are blessings too great to be the
+inheritance of France alone. It is an honour to her to be their first
+champion; and she may now say to her enemies, with a mighty voice, "O!
+ye Austrians, ye Prussians! ye who now turn your bayonets against us,
+it is for you, it is for all Europe, it is for all mankind, and not for
+France alone, that she raises the standard of Liberty and Equality!"
+
+The public cause has hitherto suffered from the contradictions contained
+in the Constitution of the Constituent Assembly. Those contradictions
+have served to divide the opinions of individuals at home, and to
+obscure the great principles of the Revolution in other countries. But
+when those contradictions shall be removed, and the Constitution be
+made conformable to the declaration of Rights; when the bagatelles of
+monarchy, royalty, regency, and hereditary succession, shall be exposed,
+with all their absurdities, a new ray of light will be thrown over the
+world, and the Revolution will derive new strength by being universally
+understood.
+
+The scene that now opens itself to France extends far beyond the
+boundaries of her own dominions. Every nation is becoming her colleague,
+and every court is become her enemy. It is now the cause of all nations,
+against the cause of all courts. The terror that despotism felt,
+clandestinely begot a confederation of despots; and their attack upon
+France was produced by their fears at home.
+
+In entering on this great scene, greater than any nation has yet been
+called to act in, let us say to the agitated mind, be calm. Let us
+punish by instructing, rather than by revenge. Let us begin the new
+ara by a greatness of friendship, and hail the approach of union and
+success.
+
+Your Fellow-Citizen,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XI. ANTI-MONARCHAL ESSAY. FOR THE USE OF NEW REPUBLICANS.(1)
+
+When we reach some great good, long desired, we begin by felicitating
+ourselves. We triumph, we give ourselves up to this joy without
+rendering to our minds any full account of our reasons for it. Then
+comes reflexion: we pass in review all the circumstances of our new
+happiness; we compare it in detail with our former condition; and
+each of these thoughts becomes a fresh enjoyment. This satisfaction,
+elucidated and well-considered, we now desire to procure for our
+readers.
+
+In seeing Royalty abolished and the Republic established, all France
+has resounded with unanimous plaudits.(2) Yet, Citizen President: In the
+name of the Deputies of the Department of the Pas de Calais, I have the
+honor of presenting to the Convention the felicitations of the General
+Council of the Commune of Calais on the abolition of Royalty.
+
+     1 Translated for this work from Le Patriote Francois,
+     "Samedi 20 Octobre, 1793, l'an Ier de la Republique.
+     Supplement au No. 1167," in the Bibliotheque Nationale,
+     Paris. It is headed, "Essai anti-monarchique, a l'usage des
+     nouveaux republicains, tire de la Feuille Villageoise." I
+     have not found this Feuille, but no doubt Brissot, in
+     editing the essay for his journal (Le Patriote Francois)
+     abridged it, and in one instance Paine is mentioned by name.
+     Although in this essay Paine occasionally repeats sentences
+     used elsewhere, and naturally maintains his well-known
+     principles, the work has a peculiar interest as indicating
+     the temper and visions of the opening revolution.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Royalty was abolished by the National Convention on the
+     first day of its meeting, September 21, 1792, the
+     revolutionary Calendar beginning next day. Paine was chosen
+     by his fellow-deputies of Calais to congratulate the
+     Convention, and did so in a brief address, dated October 27,
+     which was loaned by M. Charavay to the Historical Exposition
+     of the Revolution at Paris, 1889, where I made the subjoined
+     translation: "folly of oar ancestor", who have placed us
+     under the necessity of treating gravely (solennellement) the
+     abolition of a phantom (fantome).--Thomas Paine, Deputy."--
+     _Editor._
+
+Amid the joy inspired by this event, one cannot forbear some pain
+at the some who clap their hands do not sufficiently understand the
+condition they are leaving or that which they are assuming.
+
+The perjuries of Louis, the conspiracies of his court, the wildness of
+his worthy brothers, have filled every Frenchman with horror, and this
+race was dethroned in their hearts before its fall by legal decree. But
+it is little to throw down an idol; it is the pedestal that above all
+must be broken down; it is the regal office rather than the incumbent
+that is murderous. All do not realize this.
+
+Why is Royalty an absurd and detestable government? Why is the Republic
+a government accordant with nature and reason? At the present time a
+Frenchman should put himself in a position to answer these two questions
+clearly. For, in fine, if you are free and contented it is yet needful
+that you should know why.
+
+Let us first discuss Royalty or Monarchy. Although one often wishes to
+distinguish between these names, common usage gives them the same sense.
+
+
+ROYALTY.
+
+Bands of brigands unite to subvert a country, place it under tribute,
+seize its lands, enslave its inhabitants. The expedition completed, the
+chieftain of the robbers adopts the title of monarch or king. Such
+is the origin of Royalty among all tribes--huntsmen, agriculturists,
+shepherds.
+
+A second brigand arrives who finds it equitable to take away by force
+what was conquered by violence: he dispossesses the first; he chains
+him, kills him, reigns in his place. Ere long time effaces the memory
+of this origin; the successors rule under a new form; they do a little
+good, from policy; they corrupt all who surround them; they invent
+fictitious genealogies to make their families sacred (1); the knavery
+of priests comes to their aid; they take Religion for a life-guard:
+thenceforth tyranny becomes immortal, the usurped power becomes an
+hereditary right.
+
+     1 The Boston Investigator's compilation of Paine's Works
+     contains the following as  supposed to be Mr. Paine's:
+
+     "Royal Pedigree.--George the Third, who was the grandson of
+     George the Second, who was the son of George the First, who
+     was the son of the Princess Sophia, who was the cousin of
+     Anne, who was the sister of William and Mary, who were the
+     daughter and son-in-law of James the Second, who was the son
+     of Charles the First, who was a traitor to his country and
+     decapitated as such, who was the son of James the First, who
+     was the son of Mary, who was the sister of Edward the Sixth,
+     who was the son of Henry the Eighth, who was the coldblooded
+     murderer of his wives, and the promoter of the Protestant
+     religion, who was the son of Henry the Seventh, who slew
+     Richard the Third, who smothered his nephew Edward the
+     Fifth, who was the son of Edward the Fourth, who with bloody
+     Richard slew Henry the Sixth, who succeeded Henry the Fifth,
+     who was the son of Henry the Fourth, who was the cousin of
+     Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward the Third, who
+     was the son of Richard the Second, who was the son of Edward
+     the First, who was the son of Henry the Third, who was the
+     son of John, who was the brother of Richard the First, who
+     was the son of Henry the Second, who was the son of Matilda,
+     who was the daughter of Henry the First, who was the brother
+     of William Rufus, who was the son of William the Conqueror,
+     who was the son of a whore."--_Editor._
+
+The effects of Royalty have been entirely harmonious with its origin.
+What scenes of horror, what refinements of iniquity, do the annals of
+monarchies present! If we should paint human nature with a baseness of
+heart, an hypocrisy, from which all must recoil and humanity disavow, it
+would be the portraiture of kings, their ministers and courtiers.
+
+And why should it not be so? What should such a monstrosity produce
+but miseries and crimes? What is monarchy? It has been finely disguised,
+and the people familiarized with the odious title: in its real sense the
+word signifies _the absolute power of one single individual_, who may
+with impunity be stupid, treacherous, tyrannical, etc. Is it not an
+insult to nations to wish them so governed?
+
+Government by a single individual is vicious in itself, independently of
+the individual's vices. For however little a State, the prince is
+nearly always too small: where is the proportion between one man and the
+affairs of a whole nation?
+
+True, some men of genius have been seen under the diadem; but the evil
+is then even greater: the ambition of such a man impels him to conquest
+and despotism, his subjects soon have to lament his glory, and sing
+their _Te-deums_ while perishing with hunger. Such is the history of
+Louis XIV. and so many others.
+
+But if ordinary men in power repay you with incapacity or with princely
+vices? But those who come to the front in monarchies are frequently
+mere mean mischief-makers, commonplace knaves, petty intriguers, whose
+small wits, which in courts reach large places, serve only to display
+their ineptitude in public, as soon as they appear. (*) In short,
+monarchs do nothing, and their ministers do evil: this is the history of
+all monarchies.
+
+But if Royalty as such is baneful, as hereditary succession it is
+equally revolting and ridiculous. What! there exists among my kind a man
+who pretends that he is born to govern me? Whence derived he such right?
+From his and my ancestors, says he. But how could they transmit to him
+a right they did not possess? Man has no authority over generations
+unborn. I cannot be the slave of the dead, more than of the living.
+Suppose that instead of our posterity, it was we who should succeed
+ourselves: we should not to-day be able to despoil ourselves of the
+rights which would belong to us in our second life: for a stronger
+reason we cannot so despoil others.
+
+An hereditary crown! A transmissible throne! What a notion! With even a
+little reflexion, can any one tolerate it? Should human beings then be
+the property of certain individuals, born or to be born? Are we then to
+treat our descendants in advance as cattle, who shall have neither will
+nor rights of their own? To inherit government is to inherit peoples,
+as if they were herds. It is the basest, the most shameful fantasy that
+ever degraded mankind.
+
+It is wrong to reproach kings with their ferocity, their brutal
+indifference, the oppressions of the people, and molestations of
+citizens: it is hereditary succession that makes them what they are:
+this breeds monsters as a marsh breeds vipers.
+
+     * J. J. Rousseau, Contrat Social.--Author.
+
+The logic on which the hereditary prince rests is in effect this: I
+derive my power from my birth; I derive my birth from God; therefore
+I owe nothing to men. It is little that he has at hand a complacent
+minister, he continues to indulge, conscientiously, in all the crimes of
+tyranny. This has been seen in all times and countries.
+
+Tell me, then, what is there in common between him who is master of a
+people, and the people of whom he is master? Are these masters really of
+their kind? It is by sympathy that we are good and human: with whom does
+a monarch sympathize? When my neighbor suffers I pity, because I put
+myself in his place: a monarch pities none, because he has never been,
+can never be, in any other place than his own.
+
+A monarch is an egoist by nature, the _egoist par excellence_. A
+thousand traits show that this kind of men have no point of contact with
+the rest of humanity. There was demanded of Charles II. the punishment
+of Lauderdale, his favorite, who had infamously oppressed the Scotch.
+"Yes," said Charles coolly, "this man has done much against the Scotch,
+but I cannot see that he has done anything against my interests." Louis
+XIV. often said: "If I follow the wishes of the people, I cannot act the
+king." Even such phrases as "misfortunes of the State," "safety of the
+State," filled Louis XIV. with wrath.
+
+Could nature make a law which should assure virtue and wisdom invariably
+in these privileged castes that perpetuate themselves on thrones, there
+would be no objection to their hereditary succession. But let us pass
+Europe in review: all of its monarchs are the meanest of men. This one
+a tyrant, that one an imbecile, another a traitor, the next a debauchee,
+while some muster all the vices. It looks as if fate and nature had
+aimed to show our epoch, and all nations, the absurdity and enormity of
+Royalty.
+
+But I mistake: this epoch has nothing peculiar. For, such is the
+essential vice of this royal succession by animal filiation, the peoples
+have not even the chances of nature,--they cannot even hope for a good
+prince as an alternative. All things conspire to deprive of reason
+and justice an individual reared to command others. The word of young
+Dionysius was very sensible: his father, reproaching him for a shameful
+action, said, "Have I given thee such example?" "Ah," answered the
+youth, "thy father was not a king!"
+
+In truth, were laughter on such a subject permissible, nothing would
+suggest ideas more burlesque than this fantastic institution of
+hereditary kings. Would it not be believed, to look at them, that there
+really exist particular lineages possessing certain qualities which
+enter the blood of the embryo prince, and adapt him physically
+for royalty, as a horse for the racecourse? But then, in this wild
+supposition, it yet becomes necessary to assure the genuine family
+descent of the heir presumptive. To perpetuate the noble race of
+Andalusian chargers, the circumstances pass before witnesses, and
+similar precautions seem necessary, however indecent, to make sure that
+the trickeries of queens shall not supply thrones with bastards, and
+that the kings, like the horses, shall always be thoroughbreds.
+
+Whether one jests or reasons, there is found in this idea of hereditary
+royalty only folly and shame. What then is this office, which may be
+filled by infants or idiots? Some talent is required to be a simple
+workman; to be a king there is need to have only the human shape, to be
+a living automaton. We are astonished when reading that the Egyptians
+placed on the throne a flint, and called it their king. We smile at
+the dog Barkouf, sent by an Asiatic despot to govern one of his
+provinces.(*) But mon-archs of this kind are less mischievous and less
+absurd than those before whom whole peoples prostrate themselves. The
+flint and the dog at least imposed on nobody. None ascribed to them
+qualities or characters they did not possess. They were not styled
+'Father of the People,'--though this were hardly more ridiculous than
+to give that title to a rattle-head whom inheritance crowns at eighteen.
+Better a mute than an animate idol. Why, there can hardly be cited an
+instance of a great man having children worthy of him, yet you will have
+the royal function pass from father to son! As well declare that a wise
+man's son will be wise. A king is an administrator, and an hereditary
+administrator is as absurd as an author by birthright.
+
+     * See the first year of La Feuille Villageoise, No. 42.--
+     Author. [Cf. Montaigne's Essays, chap. xii.--_Editor._]
+
+Royalty is thus as contrary to common sense as to com-mon right. But it
+would be a plague even if no more than an absurdity; for a people who
+can bow down in honor of a silly thing is a debased people. Can they be
+fit for great affairs who render equal homage to vice and virtue, and
+yield the same submission to ignorance and wisdom? Of all institutions,
+none has caused more intellectual degeneracy. This explains the
+often-remarked abjectness of character under monarchies.
+
+Such is also the effect of this contagious institution that it renders
+equality impossible, and draws in its train the presumption and the
+evils of "Nobility." If you admit inheritance of an office, why not that
+of a distinction? The Nobility's heritage asks only homage, that of
+the Crown commands submission. When a man says to me, 'I am born
+illustrious,' I merely smile; when he says 'I am born your master,' I
+set my foot on him.
+
+When the Convention pronounced the abolition of Royalty none rose
+for the defence that was expected. On this subject a philosopher, who
+thought discussion should always precede enactment, proposed a singular
+thing; he desired that the Convention should nominate an orator
+commissioned to plead before it the cause of Royalty, so that the
+pitiful arguments by which it has in all ages been justified might
+appear in broad daylight. Judges give one accused, however certain
+his guilt, an official defender. In the ancient Senate of Venice there
+existed a public officer whose function was to contest all propositions,
+however incontestible, or however perfect their evidence. For the rest,
+pleaders for Royalty are not rare: let us open them, and see what the
+most specious of royalist reasoners have said.
+
+1. _A king is necessary to preserve a people from the tyranny of
+powerful men_.
+
+Establish the Rights of Man(1); enthrone Equality; form a good
+Constitution; divide well its powers; let there be no privileges, no
+distinctions of birth, no monopolies; make safe the liberty of industry
+and of trade, the equal distribution of [family] inheritances, publicity
+of administration, freedom of the press: these things all established,
+you will be assured of good laws, and need not fear the powerful men.
+Willingly or unwillingly, all citizens will be under the Law.
+
+     1 The reader should bear in mind that this phrase, now used
+     vaguely, had for Paine and his political school a special
+     significance; it implied a fundamental Declaration of
+     individual rights, of supreme force and authority, invasion
+     which, either by legislatures, law courts, majorities, or
+     administrators, was to be regarded as the worst treason and
+     despotism.--_Editor._
+
+2. _The Legislature might usurp authority, and a king is needed to
+restrain it_.
+
+With representatives, frequently renewed, who neither administer
+nor judge, whose functions are determined by the laws; with national
+conventions, with primary assemblies, which can be convoked any moment;
+with a people knowing how to read, and how to defend itself; with good
+journals, guns, and pikes; a Legislature would have a good deal of
+trouble in enjoying any months of tyranny. Let us not suppose an evil
+for the sake of its remedy.
+
+3. _A king is needed to give force to executive power_.
+
+This might be said while there existed nobles, a priesthood,
+parliaments, the privileged of every kind. But at present who can resist
+the Law, which is the will of all, whose execution is the interest of
+all? On the contrary the existence of an hereditary prince inspires
+perpetual distrust among the friends of liberty; his authority is odious
+to them; in checking despotism they constantly obstruct the action of
+government. Observe how feeble the executive power was found, after our
+recent pretence of marrying Royalty with Liberty.
+
+Take note, for the rest, that those who talk in this way are men who
+believe that the King and the Executive Power are only one and the same
+thing: readers of _La Feuille Villageoise_ are more advanced.(*)
+
+     * See No. 50.--_Author_
+
+Others use this bad reasoning: "Were there no hereditary chief there
+would be an elective chief: the citizens would side with this man or
+that, and there would be a civil war at every election." In the first
+place, it is certain that hereditary succession alone has produced
+the civil wars of France and England; and that beyond this are the
+pre-tended rights, of royal families which have twenty times drawn on
+these nations the scourge of foreign wars. It is, in fine, the heredity
+of crowns that has caused the troubles of Regency, which Thomas Paine
+calls Monarchy at nurse.
+
+But above all it must be said, that if there be an elective chief, that
+chief will not be a king surrounded by courtiers, burdened with pomp,
+inflated by idolatries, and endowed with thirty millions of money; also,
+that no citizen will be tempted to injure himself by placing another
+citizen, his equal, for some years in an office without limited income
+and circumscribed power.
+
+In a word, whoever demands a king demands an aristocracy, and thirty
+millions of taxes. See why Franklin described Royalism as _a crime like
+poisoning_.
+
+Royalty, its fanatical eclat, its superstitious idolatry, the delusive
+assumption of its necessity, all these fictions have been invented only
+to obtain from men excessive taxes and voluntary servitude. Royalty
+and Popery have had the same aim, have sustained themselves by the same
+artifices, and crumble under the same Light.
+
+
+
+
+XII. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, ON THE PROSECUTION AGAINST THE SECOND PART
+OF RIGHTS OF MAN.(1)
+
+Paris, 11th of November, 1st Year of the Republic. [1792.]
+
+Mr. Attorney General:
+
+Sir,--As there can be no personal resentment between two strangers, I
+write this letter to you, as to a man against whom I have no animosity.
+
+You have, as Attorney General, commenced a prosecution against me, as
+the author of Rights of Man. Had not my duty, in consequence of my being
+elected a member of the National Convention of France, called me from
+England, I should have staid to have contested the injustice of
+that prosecution; not upon my own account, for I cared not about the
+prosecution, but to have defended the principles I had advanced in the
+work.
+
+     1 Read to the Jury by the Attorney General, Sir Archibald
+     Macdonald, at the trial of Paine, December 18, 1792, which
+     resulted in his outlawry.--_Editor._
+
+The duty I am now engaged in is of too much importance to permit me to
+trouble myself about your prosecution: when I have leisure, I shall have
+no objection to meet you on that ground; but, as I now stand, whether
+you go on with the prosecution, or whether you do not, or whether you
+obtain a verdict, or not, is a matter of the most perfect indifference
+to me as an individual. If you obtain one, (which you are welcome to
+if you can get it,) it cannot affect me either in person, property, or
+reputation, otherwise than to increase the latter; and with respect to
+yourself, it is as consistent that you obtain a verdict against the Man
+in the Moon as against me; neither do I see how you can continue the
+prosecution against me as you would have done against one _your own
+people, who_ had absented himself because he was prosecuted; what passed
+at Dover proves that my departure from England was no secret. (1)
+
+My necessary absence from your country affords the opportunity of
+knowing whether the prosecution was intended against Thomas Paine, or
+against the Right of the People of England to investigate systems and
+principles of government; for as I cannot now be the object of the
+prosecution, the going on with the prosecution will shew that something
+else was the object, and that something else can be no other than the
+People of England, for it is against _their Rights_, and not against
+me, that a verdict or sentence can operate, if it can operate at all.
+Be then so candid as to tell the Jury, (if you choose to continue the
+process,) whom it is you are prosecuting, and on whom it is that the
+verdict is to fall.(2)
+
+But I have other reasons than those I have mentioned for writing you
+this letter; and, however you may choose to interpret them, they proceed
+from a good heart. The time, Sir, is becoming too serious to play
+with Court prosecutions, and sport with national rights. The terrible
+examples that have taken place here, upon men who, less than a year ago,
+thought themselves as secure as any prosecuting Judge, Jury, or Attorney
+General, now can in England, ought to have some weight with men in
+your situation. That the government of England is as great, if not the
+greatest, perfection of fraud and corruption that ever took place since
+governments began, is what you cannot be a stranger to, unless the
+constant habit of seeing it has blinded your senses; but though you
+may not chuse to see it, the people are seeing it very fast, and the
+progress is beyond what you may chuse to believe. Is it possible that
+you, or I, can believe, or that reason can make any other man believe,
+that the capacity of such a man as Mr. Guelph, or any of his profligate
+sons, is necessary to the government of a nation? I speak to you as one
+man ought to speak to another; and I know also that I speak what other
+people are beginning to think.
+
+     1 See Chapter VIII. of this volume.--_Editor._
+
+     2 In reading the letter in court the Attorney General said
+     at this point: "Gentlemen, I certainly will comply with
+     this request. I am prosecuting both him and his work; and
+     if I succeed in this prosecution, he shall never return to
+     this country otherwise than _in vintulis_, for I will outlaw
+     him."--_Editor._
+
+That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if you do, it will signify
+nothing) _without packing a Jury_, (and we _both_ know that such tricks
+are practised,) is what I have very good reason to believe, I have gone
+into coffee-houses, and places where I was unknown, on purpose to learn
+the currency of opinion, and I never yet saw any company of twelve men
+that condemned the book; but I have often found a greater number than
+twelve approving it, and this I think is _a fair way of collecting the
+natural currency of opinion_. Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of
+drawing twelve men into a situation that may be _injurious_ to them
+afterwards. I do not speak this from policy, but from benevolence; but
+if you chuse to go on with the process, I make it my request to you that
+you will read this letter in Court, after which the Judge and the Jury
+may do as they please. As I do not consider myself the object of the
+prosecution, neither can I be affected by the issue, one way or the
+other, I shall, though a foreigner in your country, subscribe as much
+money as any other man towards supporting the right of the nation
+against the prosecution; and it is for this purpose only that I shall do
+it.(1)
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+As I have not time to copy letters, you will excuse the corrections.
+
+     1 In reading this letter at the trial the Attorney
+     interspersed comments. At the phrase, "Mr. Guelph and his
+     profligate sons," he exclaimed: "This passage is
+     contemptuous, scandalous, false, cruel. Why, gentlemen, is
+     Mr. Paine, in addition to the political doctrines he is
+     teaching us in this country, to teach us the morality and
+     religion of implacability? Is he to teach human creatures,
+     whose moments of existence depend upon the permission of a
+     Being, merciful, long-suffering, and of great goodness, that
+     those youthful errors from which even royalty is not
+     exempted, are to be treasured up in a vindictive memory, and
+     are to receive sentence of irremissible sin at His hands....
+     If giving me pain was his object he has that hellish
+     gratification." Erskine, Fame's counsel, protested in
+     advance against the reading of this letter (of which he had
+     heard), as containing matter likely to divert the Jury from
+     the subject of prosecution (the book). Lord Kenyon admitted
+     the letter.--_Editor._
+
+P. S. I intended, had I staid in England, to have published the
+information, with my remarks upon it, before the trial came on; but as
+I am otherwise engaged, I reserve myself till the trial is over, when I
+shall reply fully to every thing you shall advance.
+
+
+
+
+XIII. ON THE PROPRIETY OF BRINGING LOUIS XVI. TO TRIAL.(1)
+
+Read to the Convention, November 21, 1792.
+
+Paris, Nov. 20, 1792.
+
+Citizen President,
+
+As I do not know precisely what day the Convention will resume the
+discussion on the trial of Louis XVI., and, on account of my inability
+to express myself in French, I cannot speak at the tribune, I request
+permission to deposit in your hands the enclosed paper, which contains
+my opinion on that subject. I make this demand with so much more
+eagerness, because circumstances will prove how much it imports to
+France, that Louis XVI. should continue to enjoy good health. I should
+be happy if the Convention would have the goodness to hear this paper
+read this morning, as I propose sending a copy of it to London, to be
+printed in the English journals.(2)
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+     1 This address, which has suffered by alterations in all
+     editions is here revised and completed by aid of the
+     official document: "Opinion de Thomas Payne, Depute du
+     Departement de la Somme [error], concernant le jugement de
+     Louis XVI. Precede par sa lettre d'envoi au President de la
+     Convention. Imprime par ordre de la Convention Nationale. A
+     Paris. De l'Imprimerie Nationale." Lamartine has censured
+     Paine for this speech; but the trial of the King was a
+     foregone conclusion, and it will be noted that Paine was
+     already trying to avert popular wrath from the individual
+     man by directing it against the general league of monarchs,
+     and the monarchal system. Nor would his plea for the King's
+     life have been listened to but for this previous address.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 Of course no English journal could then venture to print
+     it.--_Editor._
+
+A Secretary read the opinion of Thomas Paine. I think it necessary
+that Louis XVI. should be tried; not that this advice is suggested by
+a spirit of vengeance, but because this measure appears to me just,
+lawful, and conformable to sound policy. If Louis is innocent, let us
+put him to prove his innocence; if he is guilty, let the national will
+determine whether he shall be pardoned or punished.
+
+But besides the motives personal to Louis XVI., there are others which
+make his trial necessary. I am about to develope these motives, in the
+language which I think expresses them, and no other. I forbid myself the
+use of equivocal expression or of mere ceremony. There was formed among
+the crowned brigands of Europe a conspiracy which threatened not only
+French liberty, but likewise that of all nations. Every thing tends
+to the belief that Louis XVI. was the partner of this horde of
+conspirators. You have this man in your power, and he is at present the
+only one of the band of whom you can make sure. I consider Louis XVI. in
+the same point of view as the two first robbers taken up in the affair
+of the Store Room; their trial led to discovery of the gang to which
+they belonged. We have seen the unhappy soldiers of Austria, of Prussia,
+and the other powers which declared themselves our enemies, torn from
+their fire-sides, and drawn to butchery like wretched animals, to
+sustain, at the cost of their blood, the common cause of these crowned
+brigands. They loaded the inhabitants of those regions with taxes to
+support the expenses of the war. All this was not done solely for Louis
+XVI. Some of the conspirators have acted openly: but there is reason
+to presume that this conspiracy is composed of two classes of brigands;
+those who have taken up arms, and those who have lent to their cause
+secret encouragement and clandestine assistance. Now it is indispensable
+to let France and the whole world know all these accomplices.
+
+A little time after the National Convention was constituted, the
+Minister for Foreign Affairs presented the picture of all the
+governments of Europe,--those whose hostilities were public, and those
+that acted with a mysterious circumspection. This picture supplied
+grounds for just suspicions of the part the latter were disposed to
+take, and since then various circumstances have occurred to confirm
+those suspicions. We have already penetrated into some part of the
+conduct of Mr. Guelph, Elector of Hanover, and strong presumptions
+involve the same man, his court and ministers, in quality of king
+of England. M. Calonne has constantly been favoured with a friendly
+reception at that court.(1) The arrival of Mr. Smith, secretary to Mr.
+Pitt, at Coblentz, when the emigrants were assembling there; the recall
+of the English ambassador; the extravagant joy manifested by the court
+of St. James' at the false report of the defeat of Dumouriez, when
+it was communicated by Lord Elgin, then Minister of Great Britain at
+Brussels--all these circumstances render him [George III.] extremely
+suspicious; the trial of Louis XVI. will probably furnish more decisive
+proofs.
+
+The long subsisting fear of a revolution in England, would alone, I
+believe, prevent that court from manifesting as much publicity in its
+operations as Austria and Prussia. Another reason could be added to
+this: the inevitable decrease of credit, by means of which alone all
+the old governments could obtain fresh loans, in proportion as the
+probability of revolutions increased. Whoever invests in the new loans
+of such governments must expect to lose his stock.
+
+Every body knows that the Landgrave of Hesse fights only as far as he is
+paid. He has been for many years in the pay of the court of London. If
+the trial of Louis XVI. could bring it to light, that this detestable
+dealer in human flesh has been paid with the produce of the taxes
+imposed on the English people, it would be justice to that nation to
+disclose that fact. It would at the same time give to France an exact
+knowledge of the character of that court, which has not ceased to be the
+most intriguing in Europe, ever since its connexion with Germany.
+
+     1 Calonne (1734-1802), made Controller General of the
+     Treasury in 1783, lavished the public money on the Queen, on
+     courtiers, and on himself (purchasing St. Cloud and
+     Rambouillet), borrowing vast sums and deceiving the King as
+     to the emptiness of the Treasury, the annual deficit having
+     risen in 1787 to 115 millions of francs. He was then
+     banished to Lorraine, whence he proceeded to England, where
+     he married the wealthy widow Haveley. By his agency for the
+     Coblentz party he lost his fortune. In 1802 Napoleon brought
+     him back from London to Paris, where he died the same year.
+     --_Editor._
+
+Louis XVI., considered as an individual, is an object beneath the notice
+of the Republic; but when he is looked upon as a part of that band of
+conspirators, as an accused man whose trial may lead all nations in
+the world to know and detest the disastrous system of monarchy, and the
+plots and intrigues of their own courts, he ought to be tried.
+
+If the crimes for which Louis XVI. is arraigned were absolutely personal
+to him, without reference to general conspiracies, and confined to the
+affairs of France, the plea of inviolability, that folly of the moment,
+might have been urged in his behalf with some appearance of reason; but
+he is arraigned not only for treasons against France, but for having
+conspired against all Europe, and if France is to be just to all Europe
+we ought to use every means in our power to discover the whole extent
+of that conspiracy. France is now a republic; she has completed her
+revolution; but she cannot earn all its advantages so long as she is
+surrounded with despotic governments. Their armies and their marine
+oblige her also to keep troops and ships in readiness. It is therefore
+her immediate interest that all nations shall be as free as herself;
+that revolutions shall be universal; and since the trial of Louis XVI.
+can serve to prove to the world the flagitiousness of governments in
+general, and the necessity of revolutions, she ought not to let slip so
+precious an opportunity.
+
+The despots of Europe have formed alliances to preserve their respective
+authority, and to perpetuate the oppression of peoples. This is the end
+they proposed to themselves in their invasion of French territory. They
+dread the effect of the French revolution in the bosom of their own
+countries; and in hopes of preventing it, they are come to attempt
+the destruction of this revolution before it should attain its perfect
+maturity. Their attempt has not been attended with success. France has
+already vanquished their armies; but it remains for her to sound the
+particulars of the conspiracy, to discover, to expose to the eyes of
+the world, those despots who had the infamy to take part in it; and the
+world expects from her that act of justice.
+
+These are my motives for demanding that Louis XVI. be judged; and it is
+in this sole point of view that his trial appears to me of sufficient
+importance to receive the attention of the Republic.
+
+As to "inviolability," I would not have such a word mentioned. If,
+seeing in Louis XVI. only a weak and narrow-minded man, badly reared,
+like all his kind, given, as it is said, to frequent excesses of
+drunkenness--a man whom the National Assembly imprudently raised again
+on a throne for which he was not made--he is shown hereafter some
+compassion, it shall be the result of the national magnanimity, and not
+the burlesque notion of a pretended "inviolability."
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XIV.  REASONS FOR PRESERVING THE LIFE OF LOUIS CAPET,
+
+As Delivered to the National Convention, January 15, 1703.(1)
+
+Citizen President,
+
+My hatred and abhorrence of monarchy are sufficiently known: they
+originate in principles of reason and conviction, nor, except with life,
+can they ever 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 was necessary to afford
+proofs to the world of the perfidy, corruption, and abomination of the
+monarchical system. The infinity of evidence that has been produced
+exposes them in the most glaring and hideous colours; thence it results
+that monarchy, whatever form it may assume, arbitrary or otherwise,
+becomes necessarily a centre round which are united every species of
+corruption, and the kingly trade is no less destructive of all morality
+in the human breast, than the trade of an executioner is destructive
+of its sensibility. I remember, during my residence in another country,
+that I was exceedingly struck with a sentence of M. Autheine, at the
+Jacobins [Club], which corresponds exactly with my own idea,--"Make me a
+king to-day," said he, "and I shall be a robber to-morrow."
+
+     1 Printed in Paris (Hartley, Adlard & Son) and published in
+     London with the addition of D. I. Eaton's name, in 1796.
+     While Paine was in prison, he was accused in England and
+     America of having helped to bring Louis XVI. to the
+     scaffold. The English pamphlet has a brief preface in which
+     it is presented "as a burnt offering to Truth, in behalf of
+     the most zealous friend and advocate of the Rights of Man;
+     to protect him against the barbarous shafts of scandal and
+     delusion, and as a reply to all the horrors which despots of
+     every description have, with such unrelenting malice,
+     attempted to fix on his conduct. But truth in the end must
+     triumph: cease then such calumnies: all your efforts are
+     in vain --you bite a file."--_Editor._
+
+Nevertheless, I am inclined to believe that if Louis Capet had been born
+in obscure condition, had he lived within the circle of an amiable and
+respectable neighbourhood, at liberty to practice the duties of domestic
+life, had he been thus situated, I cannot believe that he would have
+shewn himself destitute of social virtues: we are, in a moment of
+fermentation like this, naturally little indulgent to his vices, or
+rather to those of his government; we regard them with additional
+horror and indignation; not that they are more heinous than those of
+his predecessors, but because our eyes are now open, and the veil of
+delusion at length withdrawn; yet the lamentable, degraded state to
+which he is actually reduced, is surely far less imputable to him
+than to the Constituent Assembly, which, of its own authority, without
+consent or advice of the people, restored him to the throne.
+
+I was in Paris at the time of the flight, or abdication of Louis XVI.,
+and when he was taken and brought back. The proposal of restoring him to
+supreme power struck me with amazement; and although at that time I was
+not a French 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
+now members of the Convention,(1) took at that time the name of the
+Republican Club (Societe Republicaine). This society opposed the
+restoration of Louis, not so much on account of his personal offences,
+as in order to overthrow the monarchy, and to erect on 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 alterations, and
+signed by Achille Duchatelet, now Lieutenant-General in the army of the
+French republic, and at that time one of the five members which composed
+our little party: the law requiring the signature of a citizen at the
+bottom of each printed paper.
+
+     1 Condorect and Paine; the other members were Achille
+     Duchitelet, and probably Nicolas de Bonneville and
+     Lanthenas,--translator of Paine's "Works."--_Editor._
+
+The paper was indignantly torn by Malouet; and brought forth in this
+very room as an article of accusation against the person who had signed
+it, the author and their adherents; but such is the revolution of
+events, that this paper is now received and brought forth for a very
+opposite purpose--to remind the nation of the errors of that unfortunate
+day, that fatal error of not having then banished Louis XVI. from its
+bosom, and to plead this day in favour of his exile, preferable to his
+death.
+
+The paper in question, was conceived in the following terms:
+
+[The address constitutes the first chapter of the present volume.]
+
+Having thus explained the principles and the exertions of the
+republicans at that fatal period, when Louis was rein-stated in
+full possession of the executive power which by his flight had been
+suspended, I return to the subject, and to the deplorable situation in
+which the man is now actually involved.
+
+What was neglected at the time of which I have been speaking, has been
+since brought about by the force of necessity. The wilful, treacherous
+defects in the former constitution have been brought to light; the
+continual alarm of treason and conspiracy aroused the nation, and
+produced eventually 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 whole world, the intrigues,
+the cabals, the falsehood, corruption, and rooted depravity, the
+inevitable effects of monarchical government. There remains then only
+one question to be considered, what is to be done with this man?
+
+For myself I seriously confess, that when I reflect on the unaccountable
+folly that restored the executive power to his hands, all covered as
+he was with perjuries and treason, I am far more ready to condemn the
+Constituent Assembly than the unfortunate prisoner Louis Capet.
+
+But abstracted from every other consideration, there is one circumstance
+in his life which ought to cover or at least to palliate a great number
+of his transgressions, and this very circumstance affords to the French
+nation a blessed occasion of extricating itself from the yoke of kings,
+without 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 the unjust and tyrannical
+yoke of Britain. The ardour and zeal which she displayed to provide both
+men and money, were the natural consequence of a thirst for liberty.
+But as the nation at that time, restrained by the shackles of her own
+government, could only act by the means of a monarchical organ, this
+organ--whatever in other respects the object might be--certainly
+performed a good, a great action.
+
+Let then those 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 not in kings, but in fair, equal, and
+honourable representation.
+
+In relating this circumstance, and in submitting 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 which he owes to every
+Frenchman. I submit it also as a man, who, although the enemy of kings,
+cannot forget that they are subject to human frailties. I support my
+proposition 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 an
+effect does not always shew itself in the first instance. For example:
+the English nation had groaned under the despotism of the Stuarts.
+Hence Charles I. lost his life; yet Charles II. was restored to all
+the plenitude of power, which his father had lost. Forty years had
+not expired when the same family strove to reestablish their ancient
+oppression; so the nation then banished from its territories the whole
+race. The remedy was effectual. The Stuart family sank into obscurity,
+confounded itself with the multitude, and is at length extinct.
+
+The French nation has carried her measures of government to a greater
+length. France is not satisfied with exposing the guilt of the monarch.
+She has penetrated into the vices and horrors of the monarchy. She has
+shown them clear as daylight, and forever crushed that system; and he,
+whoever he may be, that should ever dare to reclaim those rights would
+be regarded not as a pretender, but punished as a traitor.
+
+Two brothers of Louis Capet have banished themselves from the country;
+but they are obliged to comply with the spirit and etiquette of the
+courts where they reside. They can advance no pretensions on their own
+account, so long as Louis Capet shall live.
+
+Monarchy, in France, was a system pregnant with crime and murders,
+cancelling all natural ties, even those by which brothers are united. We
+know how often they have assassinated each other to pave a way to power.
+As those hopes which 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 around
+a more active chief, and try one further effort under the fortune of
+the ci-devant Monsieur and d'Artois. That such an enterprize would
+precipitate them into a new abyss of calamity and disgrace, it is not
+difficult to foresee; yet it might be attended with mutual loss, and it
+is our duty as legislators not to spill a drop of blood when our purpose
+may be effectually accomplished without it.
+
+It has already been proposed 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
+enlightened politicians and lovers of humanity exist, and it ought above
+all to find them in this assembly.
+
+Monarchical governments have trained the human race, and inured it to
+the sanguinary arts and refinements of punishment; and it is exactly the
+same punishment which has so long shocked the sight and tormented
+the patience of the people, that now, in their turn, they practice in
+revenge upon their oppressors. But it becomes us to be strictly on our
+guard against the abomination and perversity of monarchical examples:
+as France has been the first of European nations to abolish royalty, let
+her also be the first to abolish the punishment of death, and to find
+out a milder and more effectual substitute.
+
+In the particular case now under consideration, I submit the following
+propositions: 1st, That the National Convention shall pronounce sentence
+of banishment on Louis and his family. 2d, That Louis Capet shall
+be detained in prison till the end of the war, and at that epoch the
+sentence of banishment to be executed.
+
+
+
+
+XV. SHALL LOUIS XVI. HAVE RESPITE?
+
+SPEECH IN THE CONVENTION, JANUARY 19, 1793.(1)
+
+(Read in French by Deputy Bancal,)
+
+Very sincerely do I regret the Convention's vote of yesterday for death.
+
+Marat [_interrupting_]: I submit that Thomas Paine is incompetent to
+vote on this question; being a Quaker his religious principles are
+opposed to capital punishment. [_Much confusion, quieted by cries for
+"freedom of speech" on which Bancal proceeds with Paine's speech_.]
+
+     1 Not included in any previous edition of Paine's "Works."
+     It is here printed from contemporary French reports,
+     modified only by Paine's own quotations of a few sentences
+     in his Memorial to Monroe (xxi.).--_Editor._
+
+I have the advantage of some experience; it is near twenty years that I
+have been engaged in the cause of liberty, having contributed something
+to it in the revolution of the United States of America, My language has
+always been that of liberty _and_ humanity, and I know that nothing
+so exalts a nation as the union of these two principles, under all
+circumstances. I know that the public mind of France, and particularly
+that of Paris, has been heated and irritated by the dangers to which
+they have been exposed; but could we carry our thoughts into the future,
+when the dangers are ended and the irritations forgotten, what
+to-day seems an act of justice may then appear an act of vengeance.
+[_Murmurs_.] My anxiety for the cause of France has become for the
+moment concern for her honor. If, on my return to America, I should
+employ myself on a history of the French Revolution, I had rather record
+a thousand errors on the side of mercy, than be obliged to tell one act
+of severe justice. I voted against an appeal to the people, because it
+appeared to me that the Convention was needlessly wearied on that point;
+but I so voted in the hope that this Assembly would pronounce against
+death, and for the same punishment that the nation would have voted,
+at least in my opinion, that is for reclusion during the war, and
+banishment thereafter.(1) That is the punishment most efficacious,
+because it includes the whole family at once, and none other can so
+operate. I am still against the appeal to the primary assemblies,
+because there is a better method. This Convention has been elected to
+form a Constitution, which will be submitted to the primary assemblies.
+After its acceptance a necessary consequence will be an election and
+another assembly. We cannot suppose that the present Convention will
+last more than five or six months. The choice of new deputies will
+express the national opinion, on the propriety or impropriety of your
+sentence, with as much efficacy as if those primary assemblies had been
+consulted on it. As the duration of our functions here cannot be long,
+it is a part of our duty to consider the interests of those who shall
+replace us. If by any act of ours the number of the nation's enemies
+shall be needlessly increased, and that of its friends diminished,--at a
+time when the finances may be more strained than to-day,--we should
+not be justifiable for having thus unnecessarily heaped obstacles in
+the path of our successors. Let us therefore not be precipitate in our
+decisions.
+
+     1 It is possible that the course of the debate may have
+     produced some reaction among the people, but when Paine
+     voted against submitting the king's fate to the popular vote
+     it was believed by the king and his friends that it would be
+     fatal. The American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, who had
+     long been acting for the king, wrote to President
+     Washington, Jan. 6, 1793: "The king's fate is to be decided
+     next Monday, the 14th. That unhappy man, conversing with one
+     of his Council on his own fate, calmly summed up the motives
+     of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the Council
+     would vote for referring his case to the people, and that in
+     consequence he should be massacred." Writing to Washington
+     on Dec. 28, 1792, Morris mentions having heard from Paine
+     that he was to move the king's banishment to America, and he
+     may then have informed Paine that the king believed
+     reference of his case to popular vote would be fatal.
+     Genet was to have conducted the royal family to America.--
+     _Editor._
+
+France has but one ally--the United States of America. That is the only
+nation that can furnish France with naval provisions, for the
+kingdoms of northern Europe are, or soon will be, at war with her. It
+unfortunately happens that the person now under discussion is considered
+by the Americans as having been the friend of their revolution. His
+execution will be an affliction to them, and it is in your power not
+to wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the French language I
+would descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to
+respite the execution of the sentence on Louis.
+
+Thuriot: This is not the language of Thomas Paine.
+
+Marat: I denounce the interpreter. I maintain that it is not Thomas
+Paine's opinion. It is an untrue translation.
+
+Garran: I have read the original, and the translation is correct.(1)
+
+[_Prolonged uproar. Paine, still standing in the tribune beside his
+interpreter, Deputy Bancal, declared the sentiments to be his._]
+
+Your Executive Committee will nominate an ambassador to Philadelphia;
+my sincere wish is that he may announce to America that the National
+Convention of France, out of pure friendship to America, has consented
+to respite Louis. That people, by my vote, ask you to delay the
+execution.
+
+Ah, citizens, give not the tyrant of England the triumph of seeing the
+man perish on the scaffold who had aided my much-loved America to break
+his chains!
+
+Marat ["_launching himself into the middle of the hall_"]: Paine voted
+against the punishment of death because he is a Quaker.
+
+Paine: I voted against it from both moral motives and motives of public
+policy.
+
+     1 See Guizot, "Hist, of France," vi., p. 136. "Hist.
+     Parliamentair," vol. ii., p. 350. Louis Blanc says that
+     Paine's appeal was so effective that Marat interrupted
+     mainly in order to destroy its effect.--"Hist, de la Rev.,"
+     tome vii, 396.--_Editor._
+
+
+
+
+XVI. DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.(1)
+
+The object of all union of men in society being maintenance of their
+natural rights, civil and political, these rights are the basis of the
+social pact: their recognition and their declaration ought to precede
+the Constitution which assures their guarantee.
+
+1. The natural rights of men, civil and political, are liberty,
+equality, security, property, social protection, and resistance to
+oppression.
+
+2. Liberty consists in the right to do whatever is not contrary to
+the rights of others: thus, exercise of the natural rights of each
+individual has no limits other than those which secure to other members
+of society enjoyment of the same rights.
+
+     1 In his appeal from prison to the Convention (August 7,
+     1794) Paine states that he had, as a member of the Committee
+     for framing the Constitution, prepared a Plan, which was in
+     the hands of Barere, also of that Committee. I have not yet
+     succeeded in finding Paine's Constitution, but it is certain
+     that the work of framing the Constitution of 1793 was mainly
+     entrusted to Paine and Condorcet.
+
+     Dr. John Moore, in his work on the French Revolution,
+     describes the two at their work; and it is asserted that he
+     "assisted in drawing up the French Declaration of Rights,"
+     by "Juvencus," author of an able "Essay on the Life and
+     Genius of Thomas Paine," whose information came from a
+     personal friend of Paine. ("Aphorisms, Opinions, and
+     Reflections of Thomas Paine," etc., London, 1826. Pp. 3,
+     14.) A translation of the Declaration and Constitution
+     appeared in England (Debrett, Picadilly, 1793), but with
+     some faults. The present translation is from "Oeuvres
+     Completes de Condorcet," tome xviii. The Committee reported
+     their Constitution February 15th, and April 15th was set for
+     its discussion, Robespierre then demanded separate
+     discussion of the Declaration of Rights, to which he
+     objected that it made no mention of the Supreme Being, and
+     that its extreme principles of freedom would shield illicit
+     traffic. Paine and Jefferson were troubled that the United
+     States Constitution contained no Declaration of Rights, it
+     being a fundamental principle in Paine's theory of
+     government that such a Declaration was the main safeguard of
+     the individual against the despotism of numbers.    See
+     supra, vol. ii.t pp. 138, 139.--_Editor._.
+
+3. The preservation of liberty depends on submission to the Law, which
+is the expression of the general will. Nothing unforbidden by law can be
+hindered, and none may be forced to do what the law does not command.
+
+4. Every man is free to make known his thoughts and opinions.
+
+5. Freedom of the press, and every other means of publishing one's
+opinion, cannot be interdicted, suspended, or limited.
+
+6. Every citizen shall be free in the exercise of his religion
+(_culte_).
+
+7. Equality consists in the enjoyment by every one of the same rights.
+
+8. The law should be equal for all, whether it rewards or punishes,
+protects or represses.
+
+9. All citizens are admissible to all public positions, employments, and
+functions. Free nations recognize no grounds of preference save talents
+and virtues.
+
+10. Security consists in the protection accorded by society to every
+citizen for the preservation of his person, property, and rights.
+
+11. None should be sued, accused, arrested, or detained, save in cases
+determined by the law, and in accordance with forms prescribed by it.
+Every other act against a citizen is arbitrary and null.
+
+12. Those who solicit, further, sign, execute, or cause to be executed,
+such arbitrary acts are culpable, and should be punished.
+
+13. Citizens against whom the execution of such acts is attempted
+have the right to repel force by force; but every citizen summoned or
+arrested by authority of the Law, and in the forms by it prescribed,
+should instantly obey: he renders himself guilty by resistance.
+
+14. Every man being presumed innocent until legally pronounced guilty,
+should his arrest be deemed indispensable, all rigor not necessary to
+secure his person should be severely represssed by law.
+
+15. None should be punished save in virtue of a law formally enacted,
+promulgated anterior to the offence, and legally applied.
+
+16. Any law that should punish offences committed before its existence
+would be an arbitrary act. Retroactive effect given to the law is a
+crime.
+
+17. The law should award only penalties strictly and evidently necessary
+to the general safety. Penalties should be proportioned to offences, and
+useful to society.
+
+18. The right of property consists in every man's being master in the
+disposal, at his will, of his goods, capital, income, and industry.
+
+19. No kind of labor, commerce, or culture, can be prohibited to any
+one: he may make, sell, and transport every species of production.
+
+20. Every man may engage his services and his time; but he cannot sell
+himself; his person is not an alienable property.
+
+21. No one can be deprived of the least portion of his property without
+his consent, unless evidently required by public necessity, legally
+determined, and under the condition of a just indemnity in advance.
+
+22. No tax shall be imposed except for the general welfare, and to meet
+public needs. All citizens have the right to unite personally, or by
+their representatives, in the fixing of imposts.
+
+23. Instruction is the need of all, and society owes it to all its
+members equally.
+
+24. Public succours are a sacred debt of society; it is for the law to
+determine their extent and application.
+
+25. The social guarantee of the rights of man rests on the national
+sovereignty.
+
+26. This sovereignty is one, indivisible, imprescriptible, and
+inalienable.
+
+27. It resides essentially in the whole people, and every citizen has an
+equal right to unite in its exercise.
+
+28. No partial assemblage of citizens, and no individual, may attribute
+to themselves sovereignty, or exercise any authority, or discharge any
+public function, without formal delegation thereto by the law.
+
+29. The social guarantee cannot exist if the limits of public
+administration are not clearly determined by law, and if the
+responsibility of all public functionaries is not assured.
+
+30. All citizens are bound to unite in this guarantee, and in enforcing
+the law when summoned in its name.
+
+31. Men united in society should have legal means of resisting
+oppression.
+
+32. There is oppression when any law violates the natural rights, civil
+and political, which it should guarantee.
+
+There is oppression when the law is violated by public officials in its
+application to individual cases.
+
+There is oppression when arbitrary actions violate the rights of citizen
+against the express purpose (_expression_) of the law.
+
+In a free government the mode of resisting these different acts of
+oppression should be regulated by the Constitution.
+
+33. A people possesses always the right to reform and alter its
+Constitution. A generation has no right to subject a future generation
+to its laws; and all heredity in offices is absurd and tyrannical.
+
+
+
+
+XVII. PRIVATE LETTERS TO JEFFERSON.
+
+
+Paris, 20 April, 1793.
+
+My dear Friend,--The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I entrust this
+letter is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the
+opportunity of seeing him, as he had set off for Havre prior to my
+writing this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his
+friends, who is also an acquaintance of mine.
+
+We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without
+some considerable faults here. Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed
+principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the
+Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off
+to the Enemy, and taken a considerable part of the Army with him. The
+expedition to Holland has totally failed, and all Brabant is again in
+the hands of the Austrians.
+
+You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of fortune
+has occasioned, but it has been without commotion. Dumouriez threatened
+to be in Paris in three weeks. It is now three weeks ago; he is still on
+the frontier near to Mons with the Enemy, who do not make any progress.
+Dumouriez has proposed to re-establish the former Constitution in
+which plan the Austrians act with him. But if France and the National
+Convention act prudently this project will not succeed. In the first
+place there is a popular disposition against it, and there is force
+sufficient to prevent it. In the next place, a great deal is to be taken
+into the calculation with respect to the Enemy. There are now so many
+persons accidentally jumbled together as to render it exceedingly
+difficult to them to agree upon any common object.
+
+The first object, that of restoring the old Monarchy, is evidently given
+up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution. The object of
+England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object of Austria
+was to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted, each party
+having one, the Confederation could hold together, each helping the
+other; but after this I see not how a common object is to be formed.
+To all this is to be added the probable disputes about opportunity,
+the expence, and the projects of reimbursements. The Enemy has once
+adventured into France, and they had the permission or the good fortune
+to get back again. On every military calculation it is a hazardous
+adventure, and armies are not much disposed to try a second time the
+ground upon which they have been defeated.
+
+Had this revolution been conducted consistently with its principles,
+there was once a good prospect of extending liberty through the greatest
+part of Europe; but I now relinquish that hope. Should the Enemy by
+venturing into France put themselves again in a condition of being
+captured, the hope will revive; but this is a risk I do not wish to see
+tried, lest it should fail.
+
+As the prospect of a general freedom is now much shortened, I begin
+to contemplate returning home. I shall await the event of the proposed
+Constitution, and then take my final leave of Europe. I have not written
+to the President, as I have nothing to communicate more than in this
+letter. Please to present him my affection and compliments, and remember
+me among the circle of my friends.
+
+Your sincere and affectionate friend,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+P. S. I just now received a letter from General Lewis Morris, who tells
+me that the house and Barn on my farm at New Rochelle are burnt down. I
+assure you I shall not bring money enough to build another.
+
+
+
+Paris, 20 Oct., 1793.
+
+I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre about the
+20th of this month. This will probably be brought you by Mr. Barlow or
+Col. Oswald. Since my letter by Dominick I am every day more convinced
+and impressed with the propriety of Congress sending Commissioners to
+Europe to confer with the Ministers of the Jesuitical Powers on the
+means of terminating the War. The enclosed printed paper will shew there
+are a variety of subjects to be taken into consideration which did not
+appear at first, all of which have some tendency to put an end to the
+War. I see not how this War is to terminate if some intermediate power
+does not step forward. There is now no prospect that France can carry
+revolutions into Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can
+conquer France on the other hand. It is a sort of defensive War on both
+sides. This being the case, how is the War to close? Neither side
+will ask for peace though each may wish it. I believe that England
+and Holland are tired of the War. Their Commerce and Manufactures have
+suffered most exceedingly,--besides this, it is for them a War without
+an object. Russia keeps herself at a distance.
+
+I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners,
+and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the ocean,
+as one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would
+know what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney [Gen. Thomas
+Pinckney, American Minister in England] to their councils, and it would
+be of use, on many accounts, that one of them should come over from
+Holland to France. Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral
+powers, would have all the effects of a Peace, without the difficulties
+attending the adjustment of all the forms of Peace.
+
+Yours affectionately,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII. LETTER TO DANTON.(1)
+
+Paris, May 6, 2nd year of the Republic [1793.]
+
+Citoyen Danton: As you read English, I write this letter to you without
+passing it through the hands of a translator. I am exceedingly disturbed
+at the distractions, jealousies, discontents and uneasiness that reign
+among us, and which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on
+the Republic. When I left America in the year 1787, it was my intention
+to return the year following, but the French Revolution, and the
+prospect it afforded of extending the principles of liberty and
+fraternity through the greater part of Europe, have induced me to
+prolong my stay upwards of six years. I now despair of seeing the great
+object of European liberty accomplished, and my despair arises not from
+the combined foreign powers, not from the intrigues of aristocracy and
+priestcraft, but from the tumultuous misconduct with which the internal
+affairs of the present revolution are conducted.
+
+All that now can be hoped for is limited to France only, and I agree
+with your motion of not interfering in the government of any foreign
+country, nor permitting any foreign country to interfere in the
+government of France. This decree was necessary as a preliminary toward
+terminating the war. But while these internal contentions continue,
+while the hope remains to the enemy of seeing the Republic fall to
+pieces, while not only the representatives of the departments but
+representation itself is publicly insulted, as it has lately been and
+now is by the people of Paris, or at least by the tribunes, the enemy
+will be encouraged to hang about the frontiers and await the issue of
+circumstances.
+
+     1 This admirable letter was brought to light by the late M.
+     Taine, and first published in full by Taine's translator,
+     John Durand ("New Materials for the History of the American
+     Revolution," 1889). The letter to Marat mentioned by Paine
+     has not been discovered. Danton followed Paine to prison,
+     and on meeting him there said: "That which you did for the
+     happiness and liberty of your country I tried to do for
+     mine. I have been less fortunate, but not less innocent.
+     They will send me to the scaffold; very well, my friend, I
+     will go gaily." M. Taine in La Revolution (vol. ii., pp.
+     382, 413, 414) refers to this letter of Paine, and says:
+     "Compared with the speeches and writings of the time, it
+     produces the strangest effect by its practical good sense."
+     --_Editor._,
+
+I observe that the confederated powers have not yet recognized Monsieur,
+or D'Artois, as regent, nor made any proclamation in favour of any
+of the Bourbons; but this negative conduct admits of two different
+conclusions. The one is that of abandoning the Bourbons and the war
+together; the other is that of changing the object of the war and
+substituting a partition scheme in the place of their first object, as
+they have done by Poland. If this should be their object, the internal
+contentions that now rage will favour that object far more than it
+favoured their former object. The danger every day increases of a
+rupture between Paris and the departments. The departments did not send
+their deputies to Paris to be insulted, and every insult shown to them
+is an insult to the departments that elected and sent them. I see but
+one effectual plan to prevent this rupture taking place, and that is to
+fix the residence of the Convention, and of the future assemblies, at a
+distance from Paris.
+
+I saw, during the American Revolution, the exceeding inconvenience that
+arose by having the government of Congress within the limits of any
+Municipal Jurisdiction. Congress first resided in Philadelphia, and
+after a residence of four years it found it necessary to leave it. It
+then adjourned to the State of Jersey. It afterwards removed to
+New York; it again removed from New York to Philadelphia, and after
+experiencing in every one of these places the great inconvenience of
+a government, it formed the project of building a Town, not within
+the limits of any municipal jurisdiction, for the future residence of
+Congress. In any one of the places where Congress resided, the municipal
+authority privately or openly opposed itself to the authority of
+Congress, and the people of each of these places expected more attention
+from Congress than their equal share with the other States amounted to.
+The same thing now takes place in France, but in a far greater excess.
+
+I see also another embarrassing circumstance arising in Paris of which
+we have had full experience in America. I mean that of fixing the price
+of provisions. But if this measure is to be attempted it ought to
+be done by the Municipality. The Convention has nothing to do with
+regulations of this kind; neither can they be carried into practice. The
+people of Paris may say they will not give more than a certain price
+for provisions, but as they cannot compel the country people to bring
+provisions to market the consequence will be directly contrary to their
+expectations, and they will find dearness and famine instead of plenty
+and cheapness. They may force the price down upon the stock in hand, but
+after that the market will be empty.
+
+I will give you an example. In Philadelphia we undertook, among other
+regulations of this kind, to regulate the price of Salt; the consequence
+was that no Salt was brought to market, and the price rose to thirty-six
+shillings sterling per Bushel. The price before the war was only one
+shilling and sixpence per Bushel; and we regulated the price of flour
+(farina) till there was none in the market, and the people were glad to
+procure it at any price.
+
+There is also a circumstance to be taken into the account which is not
+much attended to. The assignats are not of the same value they were a
+year ago, and as the quantity increases the value of them will diminish.
+This gives the appearance of things being dear when they are not so in
+fact, for in the same proportion that any kind of money falls in
+value articles rise in price. If it were not for this the quantity of
+assignats would be too great to be circulated. Paper money in America
+fell so much in value from this excessive quantity of it, that in the
+year 1781 I gave three hundred paper dollars for one pair of worsted
+stockings. What I write you upon this subject is experience, and not
+merely opinion. I have no personal interest in any of these matters, nor
+in any party disputes. I attend only to general principles.
+
+As soon as a constitution shall be established I shall return to
+America; and be the future prosperity of France ever so great, I shall
+enjoy no other part of it than the happiness of knowing it. In the mean
+time I am distressed to see matters so badly conducted, and so little
+attention paid to moral principles. It is these things that injure the
+character of the Revolution and discourage the progress of liberty all
+over the world. When I began this letter I did not intend making it so
+lengthy, but since I have gone thus far I will fill up the remainder of
+the sheet with such matters as occur to me.
+
+There ought to be some regulation with respect to the spirit of
+denunciation that now prevails. If every individual is to indulge his
+private malignancy or his private ambition, to denounce at random and
+without any kind of proof, all confidence will be undermined and all
+authority be destroyed. Calumny is a species of Treachery that ought to
+be punished as well as any other kind of Treachery. It is a private vice
+productive of public evils; because it is possible to irritate men into
+disaffection by continual calumny who never intended to be disaffected.
+It is therefore, equally as necessary to guard against the evils
+of unfounded or malignant suspicion as against the evils of blind
+confidence. It is equally as necessary to protect the characters of
+public officers from calumny as it is to punish them for treachery or
+misconduct. For my own part I shall hold it a matter of doubt, until
+better evidence arises than is known at present, whether Dumouriez has
+been a traitor from policy or resentment. There was certainly a time
+when he acted well, but it is not every man whose mind is strong enough
+to bear up against ingratitude, and I think he experienced a great deal
+of this before he revolted. Calumny becomes harmless and defeats itself,
+when it attempts to act upon too large a scale. Thus the denunciation
+of the Sections [of Paris] against the twenty-two deputies [Girondists]
+falls to the ground. The departments that elected them are better judges
+of their moral and political characters than those who have denounced
+them. This denunciation will injure Paris in the opinion of the
+departments because it has the appearance of dictating to them what sort
+of deputies they shall elect. Most of the acquaintances that I have in
+the Convention are among those who are in that list, and I know there
+are not better men nor better patriots than what they are.
+
+I have written a letter to Marat of the same date as this but not on the
+same subject. He may show it to you if he chuse.
+
+Votre Ami,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Citoyen Danton.
+
+
+
+
+XIX. A CITIZEN OF AMERICA TO THE CITIZENS OF EUROPE (1)
+
+
+18th Year of Independence.
+
+     1 State Archives, Paris: Etats Unis, vol. 38, fol. 90. This
+     pamphlet is in English, without indication of authorship or
+     of the place of publication. It is accompanied by a French
+     translation (MS.) inscribed "Par Thomas Payne." In the
+     printed pamphlet the date (18th Year, etc) is preceded by
+     the French words (printed): "Philadelphie 28 Juillet 1793."
+     It was no doubt the pamphlet sent by Paine to Monroe, with
+     various documents relating to his imprisonment, describing
+     it as "a Letter which I had printed here as an American
+     letter, some copies of which I sent to Mr. Jefferson." A
+     considerable portion of the pamphlet embodies, with
+     occasional changes of phraseology, a manuscript (Etats Unis,
+     vol. 37, Do. 39) endorsed: "January 1793. Thorn. Payne.
+     Copie. Observations on the situation of the Powers joined
+     against France." This opens with the following paragraph:
+     "It is always useful to know the position and the designs of
+     one's enemies. It is much easier to do so by combining and
+     comparing the events, and by examining the consequences
+     which result from them, than by forming one's judgment by
+     letters found or intercepted. These letters could be
+     fabricated with the intention of deceiving, but events or
+     circumstances have a character which is proper to them. If
+     in the course of our political operations we mistake the
+     designs of our enemy, it leads us to do precisely that which
+     he desires we should do, and it happens by the fact, but
+     against our intentions, that we work for him." That the date
+     written on this MS. is erroneous appears by an allusion to
+     the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk in the closing
+     paragraph: "There are three distinct parties in England at
+     this moment: the government party, the revolutionary party,
+     and an intermedial party,--which is only opposed to the war
+     on account of the expense it entails, and the harm it does
+     commerce and manufactures. I am speaking of the People, and
+     not of the Parliament. The latter is divided into two
+     parties: the Ministerial, and the Anti-ministerial. The
+     revolutionary party, the intermedial party, and the anti-
+     ministerial party, will all rejoice, publicly or privately,
+     at the defeat of the Duke of York at Dunkirk."   The two
+     paragraphs quoted represent the only actual additions to the
+     pamphlet. I have a clipping from the London Morning
+     Chronicle of Friday, April 25, 1794, containing the part of
+     the pamphlet headed "Of the present state of Europe and the
+     Confederacy," signed "Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense,
+     etc." On February 1,1793, the Convention having declared
+     war, appointed Paine, Barere, Condorcet and Faber, a
+     Committee to draft an address to the English people. It was
+     never done, but these fragments may represent notes written
+     by Paine with reference to that task.   The pamphlet
+     probably appeared late in September, 1793.--_Editor._,
+
+
+Understanding that a proposal is intended to be made at the ensuing
+meeting of the Congress of the United States of America "to send
+commissioners to Europe to confer with the Ministers of all the Neutral
+Powers for the purpose of negotiating preliminaries of peace," I address
+this letter to you on that subject, and on the several matters connected
+therewith.
+
+In order to discuss this subject through all its circumstances, it
+will be necessary to take a review of the state of Europe, prior to the
+French revolution. It will from thence appear, that the powers leagued
+against France are fighting to attain an object, which, were it possible
+to be attained, would be injurious to themselves.
+
+This is not an uncommon error in the history of wars and governments, of
+which the conduct of the English government in the war against America
+is a striking instance. She commenced that war for the avowed purpose of
+subjugating America; and after wasting upwards of one hundred millions
+sterling, and then abandoning the object, she discovered, in the course
+of three or four years, that the prosperity of England was increased,
+instead of being diminished, by the independence of America. In short,
+every circumstance is pregnant with some natural effect, upon which
+intentions and opinions have no influence; and the political error
+lies in misjudging what the effect will be. England misjudged it in
+the American war, and the reasons I shall now offer will shew, that she
+misjudges it in the present war. In discussing this subject, I leave out
+of the question everything respecting forms and systems of government;
+for as all the governments of Europe differ from each other, there is no
+reason that the government of France should not differ from the rest.
+
+The clamours continually raised in all the countries of Europe were,
+that the family of the Bourbons was become too powerful; that the
+intrigues of the court of France endangered the peace of Europe. Austria
+saw with a jealous eye the connection of France with Prussia; and
+Prussia, in her turn became jealous of the connection of France with
+Austria; England had wasted millions unsuccessfully in attempting to
+prevent the family compact with Spain; Russia disliked the alliance
+between France and Turkey; and Turkey became apprehensive of the
+inclination of France towards an alliance with Russia. Sometimes the
+quadruple alliance alarmed some of the powers, and at other times a
+contrary system alarmed others, and in all those cases the charge was
+always made against the intrigues of the Bourbons.
+
+Admitting those matters to be true, the only thing that could have
+quieted the apprehensions of all those powers with respect to the
+interference of France, would have been her entire NEUTRALITY in Europe;
+but this was impossible to be obtained, or if obtained was impossible
+to be secured, because the genius of her government was repugnant to all
+such restrictions.
+
+It now happens that by entirely changing the genius of her government,
+which France has done for herself, this neutrality, which neither wars
+could accomplish nor treaties secure, arises naturally of itself, and
+becomes the ground upon which the war should terminate. It is the
+thing that approaches the nearest of all others to what ought to be the
+political views of all the European powers; and there is nothing that
+can so effectually secure this neutrality, as that the genius of the
+French government should be different from the rest of Europe.
+
+But if their object is to restore the Bourbons and monarchy together,
+they will unavoidably restore with it all the evils of which they have
+complained; and the first question of discord will be, whose ally is
+that monarchy to be?
+
+Will England agree to the restoration of the family compact against
+which she has been fighting and scheming ever since it existed? Will
+Prussia agree to restore the alliance between France and Austria, or
+will Austria agree to restore the former connection between France and
+Prussia, formed on purpose to oppose herself; or will Spain or Russia,
+or any of the maritime powers, agree that France and her navy should be
+allied to England? In fine, will any of the powers agree to strengthen
+the hands of the other against itself? Yet all these cases involve
+themselves in the original question of the restoration of the Bourbons;
+and on the other hand, all of them disappear by the neutrality of
+France.
+
+If their object is not to restore the Bourbons, it must be the
+impracticable project of a partition of the country. The Bourbons will
+then be out of the question, or, more properly speaking, they will be
+put in a worse condition; for as the preservation of the Bourbons made
+a part of the first object, the extirpation of them makes a part of the
+second. Their pretended friends will then become interested in their
+destruction, because it is favourable to the purpose of partition that
+none of the nominal claimants should be left in existence.
+
+But however the project of a partition may at first blind the eyes of
+the confederacy, or however each of them may hope to outwit the other
+in the progress or in the end, the embarrassments that will arise are
+insurmountable. But even were the object attainable, it would not be of
+such general advantage to the parties as the neutrality of France, which
+costs them nothing, and to obtain which they would formerly have gone to
+war.
+
+
+
+OF THE PRESENT STATE OF EUROPE, AND THE CONFEDERACY.
+
+In the first place the confederacy is not of that kind that forms
+itself originally by concert and consent. It has been forced together by
+chance--a heterogeneous mass, held only by the accident of the moment;
+and the instant that accident ceases to operate, the parties will retire
+to their former rivalships.
+
+I will now, independently of the impracticability of a partition
+project, trace out some of the embarrassments which will arise among the
+confederated parties; for it is contrary to the interest of a majority
+of them that such a project should succeed.
+
+To understand this part of the subject it is necessary, in the
+first place, to cast an eye over the map of Europe, and observe the
+geographical situation of the several parts of the confederacy; for
+however strongly the passionate politics of the moment may operate, the
+politics that arise from geographical situation are the most certain,
+and will in all cases finally prevail.
+
+The world has been long amused with what is called the "_balance of
+power_." But it is not upon armies only that this balance depends.
+Armies have but a small circle of action. Their progress is slow and
+limited. But when we take maritime power into the calculation, the scale
+extends universally. It comprehends all the interests connected with
+commerce.
+
+The two great maritime powers are England and France. Destroy either of
+those, and the balance of naval power is destroyed. The whole world of
+commerce that passes on the Ocean would then lie at the mercy of the
+other, and the ports of any nation in Europe might be blocked up.
+
+The geographical situation of those two maritime powers comes next under
+consideration. Each of them occupies one entire side of the channel from
+the straits of Dover and Calais to the opening into the Atlantic. The
+commerce of all the northern nations, from Holland to Russia, must pass
+the straits of Dover and Calais, and along the Channel, to arrive at the
+Atlantic.
+
+This being the case, the systematical politics of all the nations,
+northward of the straits of Dover and Calais, can be ascertained from
+their geographical situation; for it is necessary to the safety of their
+commerce that the two sides of the Channel, either in whole or in part,
+should not be in the possession either of England or France. While one
+nation possesses the whole of one side, and the other nation the other
+side, the northern nations cannot help seeing that in any situation of
+things their commerce will always find protection on one side or the
+other. It may sometimes be that of England and sometimes that of France.
+
+Again, while the English navy continues in its present condition, it is
+necessary that another navy should exist to controul the universal sway
+the former would otherwise have over the commerce of all nations. France
+is the only nation in Europe where this balance can be placed. The
+navies of the North, were they sufficiently powerful, could not be
+sufficiently operative. They are blocked up by the ice six months in the
+year. Spain lies too remote; besides which, it is only for the sake of
+her American mines that she keeps up her navy.
+
+Applying these cases to the project of a partition of France, it will
+appear, that the project involves with it a DESTRUCTION OF THE BALANCE
+OF MARITIME POWER; because it is only by keeping France entire and
+indivisible that the balance can be kept up. This is a case that at
+first sight lies remote and almost hidden. But it interests all the
+maritime and commercial nations in Europe in as great a degree as any
+case that has ever come before them.--In short, it is with war as it
+is with law. In law, the first merits of the case become lost in the
+multitude of arguments; and in war they become lost in the variety of
+events. New objects arise that take the lead of all that went before,
+and everything assumes a new aspect. This was the case in the last great
+confederacy in what is called the succession war, and most probably will
+be the case in the present.
+
+I have now thrown together such thoughts as occurred to me on the
+several subjects connected with the confederacy against France, and
+interwoven with the interest of the neutral powers. Should a conference
+of the neutral powers take place, these observations will, at least,
+serve to generate others. The whole matter will then undergo a more
+extensive investigation than it is in my power to give; and the evils
+attending upon either of the projects, that of restoring the Bourbons,
+or of attempting a partition of France, will have the calm opportunity
+of being fully discussed.
+
+On the part of England, it is very extraordinary that she should have
+engaged in a former confederacy, and a long expensive war, to _prevent_
+the family compact, and now engage in another confederacy to _preserve_
+it. And on the part of the other powers, it is as inconsistent that they
+should engage in a partition project, which, could it be executed, would
+immediately destroy the balance of maritime power in Europe, and would
+probably produce a second war, to remedy the political errors of the
+first.
+
+A Citizen of the United States of America.
+
+
+
+
+XX. APPEAL TO THE CONVENTION.(1)
+
+
+Citizens Representatives: If I should not express myself with the energy
+I used formerly to do, you will attribute it to the very dangerous
+illness I have suffered in the prison of the Luxembourg. For several
+days I was insensible of my own existence; and though I am much
+recovered, it is with exceeding great difficulty that I find power to
+write you this letter.
+
+     1 Written in Luxembourg prison, August 7, 1794. Robespierre
+     having fallen July 29th, those who had been imprisoned under
+     his authority were nearly all at once released, but Paine
+     remained. There were still three conspirators against him on
+     the Committee of Public Safety, and to that Committee this
+     appeal was unfortunately confided; consequently it never
+     reached the Convention. The circumstances are related at
+     length infra, in the introduction to the Memorial to Monroe
+     (XXI.). It will also be seen that Paine was mistaken in his
+     belief that his imprisonment was due to the enmity of
+     Robespierre, and this he vaguely suspected when his
+     imprisonment was prolonged three months after Robespierre's
+     death.--_Editor._.
+
+But before I proceed further, I request the Convention to observe: that
+this is the first line that has come from me, either to the Convention
+or to any of the Committees, since my imprisonment,--which is
+approaching to eight months. --Ah, my friends, eight months' loss of
+liberty seems almost a life-time to a man who has been, as I have been,
+the unceasing defender of Liberty for twenty years.
+
+I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having
+written before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe
+that Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every
+man of virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention
+some time about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre,
+I have always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the
+partizans he had in the place. The intention of that address was to
+prepare the way for destroying me, by making the people declare (though
+without assigning any reason) that I had lost their confidence; the
+Address, however, failed of success, as it was immediately opposed by a
+counter-address from St. Omer, which declared the direct contrary. But
+the strange power that Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy and
+the most hardened cruelties, had obtained, rendered any attempt on my
+part to obtain justice not only useless but dangerous; for it is the
+nature of Tyranny always to strike a deeper blow when any attempt has
+been made to repel a former one. This being my situation, I submitted
+with patience to the hardness of my fate and waited the event of
+brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to the nation and to me.
+
+Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787 I promised to
+all my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope
+of seeing a revolution happily established in France, that might serve
+as a model to the rest of Europe,(1) and the earnest and disinterested
+desire of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me
+to defer my return to that country, and to the society of my friends,
+for more than seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity,
+especially after having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the
+American Revolution which continued almost eight years, deserved a
+better fate than the long imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it
+is not the nation but a faction that has done me this injustice. Parties
+and Factions, various and numerous as they have been, I have always
+avoided. My heart was devoted to all France, and the object to which I
+applied myself was the Constitution. The Plan which I proposed to the
+Committee, of which I was a member, is now in the hands of Barere, and
+it will speak for itself.
+
+     1 Revolutions have now acquired such sanguinary associations
+     that it is important to bear in mind that by "revolution"
+     Paine always means simply a change or reformation of
+     government, which might be and ought to be bloodless. See
+     "Rights of Man" Part II., vol. ii. of this work, pp. 513,
+     523.--:_Editor_.
+
+It is perhaps proper that I inform you of the cause as-assigned in the
+order for my imprisonment. It is that I am 'a Foreigner'; whereas, the
+_Foreigner_ thus imprisoned was invited into France by a decree of the
+late National Assembly, and that in the hour of her greatest danger,
+when invaded by Austrians and Prussians. He was, moreover, a citizen of
+the United States of America, an ally of France, and not a subject of
+any country in Europe, and consequently not within the intentions of any
+decree concerning Foreigners. But any excuse can be made to serve the
+purpose of malignity when in power.
+
+I will not intrude on your time by offering any apology for the broken
+and imperfect manner in which I have expressed myself. I request you to
+accept it with the sincerity with which it comes from my heart; and I
+conclude with wishing Fraternity and prosperity to France, and union and
+happiness to her representatives.
+
+Citizens, I have now stated to you my situation, and I can have no doubt
+but your justice will restore me to the Liberty of which I have been
+deprived.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Luxembourg, Thermidor 19, 2nd Year of the French Republic, one and
+indivisible.
+
+
+
+
+XXI. THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
+
+EDITOR'S historical introduction:
+
+The Memorial is here printed from the manuscript of Paine now among the
+Morrison Papers, in the British Museum,--no doubt the identical document
+penned in Luxembourg prison. The paper in the United States State
+Department (vol. vii., Monroe Papers) is accompanied by a note by
+Monroe: "Mr. Paine, Luxembourg, on my arrival in France, 1794. My answer
+was after the receipt of his second letter. It is thought necessary to
+print only those parts of his that relate directly to his confinement,
+and to omit all between the parentheses in each." The paper thus
+inscribed seems to have been a wrapper for all of Paine's letters.
+An examination of the MS. at Washington does not show any such
+"parentheses," indicating omissions, whereas that in the British Museum
+has such marks, and has evidently been prepared for the press,--being
+indeed accompanied by the long title of the French pamphlet. There are
+other indications that the British Museum MS. is the original Memorial
+from which was printed in Paris the pamphlet entitled:
+
+"Memoire de Thomas Payne, autographe et signe de sa main: addresse a
+M. Monroe, ministre des Etats-unis en france, pour reclamer sa mise en
+liberte comme citoyen Americain, 10 Sept 1794. Robespierre avait fait
+arreter Th. Payne, en 1793--il fut conduit au Luxembourg ou le glaive
+fut longtemps suspendu sur sa tete. Apres onze mois de captivite, il
+recouvra la liberte, sur la reclamation du ministre Americain--c'etait
+apres la chute de Robespierre--il reprit sa place a la convention, le 8
+decembre 1794. (18 frimaire an iii.) Ce Memoire contient des renseigne
+mens curieux sur la conduite politique de Th. Payne en france, pendant
+la Revolution, et a l'epoque du proces de Louis XVI. Ce n'est point, dit
+il, comme Quaker, qu'il ne vota pas La Mort du Roi mais par un sentiment
+d'humanite, qui ne tenait point a ses principes religieux. Villenave."
+
+No date is given, but the pamphlet probably appeared early in 1795.
+Matthieu Gillaume Therese Villenave (b. 1762, d. 1846) was a journalist,
+and it will be noticed that he, or the translator, modifies Paine's
+answer to Marat about his Quakerism. There are some loose translations
+in the cheap French pamphlet, but it is the only publication which
+has given Paine's Memorial with any fulness. Nearly ten pages of
+the manuscript were omitted from the Memorial when it appeared as
+an Appendix to the pamphlet entitled "Letter to George Washington,
+President of the United States of America, on Affairs public and
+private." By Thomas Paine, Author of the Works entitled, Common Sense,
+Rights of Man, Age of Reason, &c. Philadelphia: Printed by Benj.
+Franklin Bache, No. 112 Market Street. 1796. [Entered according to
+law.] This much-abridged copy of the Memorial has been followed in
+all subsequent editions, so that the real document has not hitherto
+appeared.(1)
+
+In appending the Memorial to his "Letter to Washington," Paine would
+naturally omit passages rendered unimportant by his release, but his
+friend Bache may have suppressed others that might have embarrassed
+American partisans of France, such as the scene at the king's trial.
+
+     1 Bache's pamphlet reproduces the portrait engraved in
+     Villenave, where it is underlined: "Peint par Ped [Peale] a
+     Philadelphie, Dessine par F. Bonneville, Grave par Sandoz."
+     In Bache it is: "Bolt sc. 1793 "; and beneath this the
+     curious inscription: "Thomas Paine. Secretair d. Americ:
+     Congr: 1780. Mitgl: d. fr. Nat. Convents. 1793." The
+     portrait is a variant of that now in Independence Hall, and
+     one of two painted by C. W. Peale. The other (in which the
+     chin is supported by the hand) was for religious reasons
+     refused by the Boston Museum when it purchased the
+     collection of "American Heroes" from Rembrandt Peale. It was
+     bought by John McDonough, whose brother sold it to Mr.
+     Joseph Jefferson, the eminent actor, and perished when his
+     house was burned at Buzzard's Bay. Mr. Jefferson writes me
+     that he meant to give the portrait to the Paine Memorial
+     Society, Boston; "but the cruel fire roasted the splendid
+     _Infidel_, so I presume the saints are satisfied."
+
+This description, however, and a large proportion of the suppressed
+pages, are historically among the most interesting parts of the
+Memorial, and their restoration renders it necessary to transfer the
+document from its place as an appendix to that of a preliminary to the
+"Letter to Washington."
+
+Paine's Letter to Washington burdens his reputation today more,
+probably, than any other production of his pen. The traditional judgment
+was formed in the absence of many materials necessary for a just
+verdict. The editor feels under the necessity of introducing at this
+point an historical episode; he cannot regard it as fair to the memory
+of either Paine or Washington that these two chapters should be printed
+without a full statement of the circumstances, the most important of
+which, but recently discovered, were unknown to either of those men. In
+the editor's "Life of Thomas Paine" (ii., pp. 77-180) newly discovered
+facts and documents bearing on the subject are given, which may
+be referred to by those who desire to investigate critically such
+statements as may here appear insufficiently supported. Considerations
+of space require that the history in that work should be only summarized
+here, especially as important new details must be added.
+
+Paine was imprisoned (December 28, 1793) through the hostility of
+Gouverneur Morris, the American Minister in Paris. The fact that the
+United States, after kindling revolution in France by its example, was
+then represented in that country by a Minister of vehement royalist
+opinions, and one who literally entered into the service of the King to
+defeat the Republic, has been shown by that Minister's own biographers.
+Some light is cast on the events that led to this strange situation by
+a letter written to M. de Mont-morin, Minister of Foreign Affairs, by
+a French Charge d'Affaires, Louis Otto, dated Philadelphia, 10 March,
+1792. Otto, a nobleman who married into the Livingston family, was an
+astute diplomatist, and enjoyed the intimacy of the Secretary of
+State, Jefferson, and of his friends. At the close of a long interview
+Jefferson tells him that "The secresy with which the Senate covers its
+deliberations serves to veil personal interest, which reigns therein in
+all its strength." Otto explains this as referring to the speculative
+operations of Senators, and to the commercial connections some of them
+have with England, making them unfriendly to French interests.
+
+"Among the latter the most remarkable is Mr. Robert Morris, of English
+birth, formerly Superintendent of Finance, a man of greatest talent,
+whose mercantile speculations are as unlimited as his ambition. He
+directs the Senate as he once did the American finances in making it
+keep step with his policy and his business.... About two years ago Mr.
+Robert Morris sent to France Mr. Gouverneur Morris to negotiate a loan
+in his name, and for different other personal matters.... During his
+sojourn in France, Mr. Rob. Morris thought he could make him more useful
+for his aims by inducing the President of the United States to entrust
+him with a negotiation with England relative to the Commerce of the two
+countries. M. Gouv. Morris acquitted himself in this as an adroit man,
+and with his customary zeal, but despite his address (insinuation)
+obtained only the vague hope of an advantageous commercial treaty on
+condition of an _Alliance resembling that between France and the United
+States_.... [Mr. Robert Morris] is himself English, and interested in
+all the large speculations founded in this country for Great Britain....
+His great services as Superintendent of Finance during the Revolution
+have assured him the esteem and consideration of General Washington,
+who, however, is far from adopting his views about France. The warmth
+with which Mr. Rob. Morris opposed in the Senate the exemption of French
+_armateurs_ from tonnage, demanded by His Majesty, undoubtedly had
+for its object to induce the king, by this bad behavior, to break the
+treaty, in order to facilitate hereafter the negotiations begun with
+England to form an alliance. As for Mr. Gouv. Morris he is entirely
+devoted to his correspondent, with whom he has been constantly connected
+in business and opinion. His great talents are recognized, and his
+extreme quickness in conceiving new schemes and gaining others to them.
+He is perhaps the most eloquent and ingenious man of his country, but
+his countrymen themselves distrust his talents. They admire but fear
+him." (1)
+
+     1 Archives of the State Department, Paris, Etats Unis.,
+      vol. 35, fol. 301.
+
+The Commission given to Gouverneur Morris by Washington, to which
+Otto refers, was in his own handwriting, dated October 13, 1789, and
+authorized him "in the capacity of private agent, and in the credit of
+this letter, to converse with His Britannic Majesty's ministers on these
+points, viz. whether there be any, and what objection to performing
+those articles of the treaty which remained to be performed on his part;
+and whether they incline to a treaty of commerce on any and what terms.
+This communication ought regularly to be made to you by the Secretary
+of State; but, that office not being at present filled, my desire of
+avoiding delays induces me to make it under my own hand."(1)
+
+The President could hardly have assumed the authority of secretly
+appointing a virtual ambassador had there not been a tremendous object
+in view: this, as he explains in an accompanying letter, was to
+secure the evacuation by Great Britain of the frontier posts. This
+all-absorbing purpose of Washington is the key to his administration.
+Gouverneur Morris paved the way for Jay's treaty, and he was paid for
+it with the French mission. The Senate would not have tolerated his
+appointment to England, and only by a majority of four could the
+President secure his confirmation as Minister to France (January 12,
+1792). The President wrote Gouverneur Morris (January 28th) a friendly
+lecture about the objections made to him, chiefly that he favored the
+aristocracy and was unfriendly to the revolution, and expressed "the
+fullest confidence" that, supposing the allegations founded, he would
+"effect a change." But Gouverneur Morris remained the agent of Senator
+Robert Morris, and still held Washington's mission to England, and he
+knew only as "conspirators" the rulers who succeeded Louis XVI. Even
+while utilizing them, he was an agent of Great Britain in its war
+against the country to which he was officially commissioned.
+
+     1 Ford's "Writings of George Washington" vol. xi., p. 440.
+
+Lafayette wrote to Washington ("Paris, March 15,1792") the following
+appeal:
+
+"Permit me, my dear General, to make an observation for yourself alone,
+on the recent selection of an American ambassador. Personally I am a
+friend of Gouverneur Morris, and have always been, in private, quite
+content with him; but the aristocratic and really contra-revolutionary
+principles which he has avowed render him little fit to represent the
+only government resembling ours.... I cannot repress the desire that
+American and French principles should be in the heart and on the lips of
+the ambassador of the United States in France." (1)
+
+In addition to this; two successive Ministers from France, after the
+fall of the Monarchy, conveyed to the American Government the most
+earnest remonstrances against the continuance of Gouverneur Morris in
+their country, one of them reciting the particular offences of which
+he was guilty. The President's disregard of all these protests and
+entreaties, unexampled perhaps in history, had the effect of giving
+Gouverneur Morris enormous power over the country against which he
+was intriguing. He was recognized as the Irremovable. He represented
+Washington's fixed and unalterable determination, and this at a moment
+when the main purpose of the revolutionary leaders was to preserve the
+alliance with America. Robespierre at that time ( 1793) had special
+charge of diplomatic affairs, and it is shown by the French historian,
+Frederic Masson, that he was very anxious to recover for the republic
+the initiative of the American alliance credited to the king; and
+"although their Minister, Gouverneur Morris, was justly suspected,
+and the American republic was at that time aiming only to utilize the
+condition of its ally, the French republic cleared it at a cheap rate of
+its debts contracted with the King."(2) Morris adroitly held this
+doubt, whether the alliance of his government with Louis XVI. would
+be continued to that King's executioners, over the head of the
+revolutionists, as a suspended sword. Under that menace, and with
+the authentication of being Washington's irremovable mouthpiece, this
+Minister had only to speak and it was done.
+
+     1 "Memoire", etc., du General Lafayette," Bruxelles, 1837,
+     tome ii., pp. 484,485.
+
+     2 "Le Departement des Affaires Etrangeres pendant la
+     Revolution," p. 395.
+
+Meanwhile Gouverneur Morris was steadily working in France for the
+aim which he held in common with Robert Morris, namely to transfer the
+alliance from France to England. These two nations being at war, it was
+impossible for France to fulfil all the terms of the alliance; it could
+not permit English ships alone to seize American provisions on the seas,
+and it was compelled to prevent American vessels from leaving French
+ports with cargoes certain of capture by British cruisers. In this way
+a large number of American Captains with their ships were detained in
+France, to their distress, but to their Minister's satisfaction. He did
+not fail to note and magnify all "infractions" of the treaty, with the
+hope that they might be the means of annulling it in favor of England,
+and he did nothing to mitigate sufferings which were counts in his
+indictment of the Treaty.
+
+It was at this point that Paine came in the American Minister's way. He
+had been on good terms with Gouverneur Morris, who in 1790 (May 29th)
+wrote from London to the President:
+
+"On the 17th Mr. Paine called to tell me that he had conversed on the
+same subject [impressment of American seamen] with Mr. Burke, who had
+asked him if there was any minister, consul, or other agent of the
+United States who could properly make application to the Government: to
+which he had replied in the negative; but said that I was here, who had
+been a member of Congress, and was therefore the fittest person to step
+forward. In consequence of what passed thereupon between them he [Paine]
+urged me to take the matter up, which I promised to do. On the 18th I
+wrote to the Duke of Leeds requesting an interview."
+
+     1 Force's "American State Papers, For. Rel.," vol. i.
+
+At that time (1790) Paine was as yet a lion in London, thus able to
+give Morris a lift. He told Morris, in 1792 that he considered his
+appointment to France a mistake. This was only on the ground of his
+anti-republican opinions; he never dreamed of the secret commissions
+to England. He could not have supposed that the Minister who had so
+promptly presented the case of impressed seamen in England would
+not equally attend to the distressed Captains in France; but these,
+neglected by their Minister, appealed to Paine. Paine went to see
+Morris, with whom he had an angry interview, during which he asked
+Morris "if he did not feel ashamed to take the money of the country
+and do nothing for it." Paine thus incurred the personal enmity of
+Gouverneur Morris. By his next step he endangered this Minister's
+scheme for increasing the friction between France and America; for
+Paine advised the Americans to appeal directly to the Convention, and
+introduced them to that body, which at once heeded their application,
+Morris being left out of the matter altogether. This was August 22d, and
+Morris was very angry. It is probable that the Americans in Paris
+felt from that time that Paine was in danger, for on September 13th a
+memorial, evidently concocted by them, was sent to the French government
+proposing that they should send Commissioners to the United States to
+forestall the intrigues of England, and that Paine should go with them,
+and set forth their case in the journals, as he "has great influence
+with the people." This looks like a design to get Paine safely out of
+the country, but it probably sealed his fate. Had Paine gone to America
+and reported there Morris's treacheries to France and to his own
+country, and his licentiousness, notorious in Paris, which his diary has
+recently revealed to the world, the career of the Minister would have
+swiftly terminated. Gouverneur Morris wrote to Robert Morris that
+Paine was intriguing for his removal, and intimates that he (Paine) was
+ambitious of taking his place in Paris. Paine's return to America must
+be prevented.
+
+Had the American Minister not been well known as an enemy of the
+republic it might have been easy to carry Paine from the Convention to
+the guillotine; but under the conditions the case required all of the
+ingenuity even of a diplomatist so adroit as Gouverneur Morris. But fate
+had played into his hand. It so happened that Louis Otto, whose letter
+from Philadelphia has been quoted, had become chief secretary to the
+Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris, M. Deforgues. This Minister and
+his Secretary, apprehending the fate that presently overtook both, were
+anxious to be appointed to America. No one knew better than Otto the
+commanding influence of Gouverneur Morris, as Washington's "irremovable"
+representative, both in France and America, and this desire of the two
+frightened officials to get out of France was confided to him.(1) By
+hope of his aid, and by this compromising confidence, Deforgues came
+under the power of a giant who used it like a giant. Morris at
+once hinted that Paine was fomenting the troubles given by Genet to
+Washington in America, and thus set in motion the procedure by which
+Paine was ultimately lodged in prison.
+
+There being no charge against Paine in France, and no ill-will felt
+towards him by Robespierre, compliance with the supposed will of
+Washington was in this case difficult. Six months before, a law had been
+passed to imprison aliens of hostile nationality, which could not affect
+Paine, he being a member of the Convention and an American. But a decree
+was passed, evidently to reach Paine, "that no foreigner should be
+admitted to represent the French people"; by this he was excluded from
+the Convention, and the Committee of General Surety enabled to take the
+final step of assuming that he was an Englishman, and thus under the
+decree against aliens of hostile nations.(2)
+
+     1 Letter of Gouverneur Morris to Washington, Oct 19, 1793.
+     Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," vol. ii., p. 375.
+
+     2 Although, as I have said, there was no charge against
+     Paine in France, and none assigned in any document connected
+     with his arrest, some kind of insinuation had to be made in
+     the Convention to cover proceedings against a Deputy, and
+     Bourdon de l'Oise said, "I know that he has intrigued with a
+     former agent of the bureau of Foreign Affairs." It will be
+     seen by the third addendum to the Memorial to Monroe that
+     Paine supposed this to refer to Louis Otto, who had been his
+     interpreter in an interview requested by Barere, of the
+     Committee of Public Safety. But as Otto was then, early in
+     September, 1793, Secretary in the Foreign Office, and Barere
+     a fellow-terrorist of Bourdon, there could be no accusation
+     based on an interview which, had it been probed, would have
+     put Paine's enemies to confusion. It is doubtful, however,
+     if Paine was right in his conjecture. The reference of
+     Bourdon was probably to the collusion between Paine and
+     Genet suggested by Morris.
+
+Paine was thus lodged in prison simply to please Washington, to whom
+it was left to decide whether he had been rightly represented by his
+Minister in the case. When the large number of Americans in Paris
+hastened in a body to the Convention to demand his release, the
+President (Vadier) extolled Paine, but said his birth in England brought
+him under the measures of safety, and referred them to the Committees.
+There they were told that "their reclamation was only the act of
+individuals, without any authority from the American Government."
+Unfortunately the American petitioners, not understanding by this a
+reference to the President, unsuspiciously repaired to Morris, as
+also did Paine by letter. The Minister pretended compliance, thereby
+preventing their direct appeal to the President. Knowing, however, that
+America would never agree that nativity under the British flag made
+Paine any more than other Americans a citizen of England, the American
+Minister came from Sain-port, where he resided, to Paris, and secured
+from the obedient Deforgues a certificate that he had reclaimed Paine
+as an American citizen, but that he was held as a _French_ citizen.
+This ingeniously prepared certificate which was sent to the Secretary
+of State (Jefferson), and Morris's pretended "reclamation," _which was
+never sent to America_, are translated in my "Life of Paine," and here
+given in the original.
+
+
+A Paris le 14 fevrier 1794, 26 pluviose.
+
+Le Minisire plenipotentiaire des Etats Unis de l'Amerique pres la
+Republique francaise au Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres.
+
+Monsieur:
+
+Thomas Paine vient de s'adresser a moi pour que je le reclame comme
+Citoyen des Etats Unis. Voici (je crois) les Faits que le regardent. Il
+est ne en Angleterre. Devenu ensuite Citoyen des Etats Unis il s'y
+est acquise une grande celebrite par des Ecrits revolutionnaires. En
+consequence il fut adopte Citoyen francais et ensuite elu membre de la
+Convention. Sa conduite depuis cette epoque n'est pas de mon ressort.
+J'ignore la cause de sa Detention actuelle dans la prison du Luxembourg,
+mais je vous prie Monsieur (si des raisons que ne me sont pas connues
+s'opposent a sa liberation) de vouloir bien m'en instruire pour que je
+puisse les communiquer au Gouvernement des Etats Unis. J'ai l'honneur
+d'etre, Monsieur,
+
+Votre tres humble Serviteur
+
+Gouv. Morris.
+
+Paris, i Ventose l'An ad. de la Republique une et indivisible.
+
+Le Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres au Ministre Plenipotentiaire des
+Etats Unis de V Amerique pres la Republique Francaise.
+
+Par votre lettre du 26 du mois dernier, vous reclamez la liberte de
+Thomas Faine, comme Citoyen americain. Ne en Angleterre, cet ex-depute
+est devenu successivement Citoyen Americain et Citoyen francais. En
+acceptant ce dernier titre et en remplissant une place dans le Corps
+Legislatif, il est soumis aux lob de la Republique et il a renonce de
+fait a la protection que le droit des gens et les traites conclus avec
+les Etats Unis auraient pu lui assurer.
+
+J'ignore les motifs de sa detention mais je dois presumer quils bien
+fondes. Je vois neanmoins soumettre au Comite de Salut Public la demande
+que vous m'avez adressee et je m'empresserai de vous faire connaitre sa
+decision.
+
+Dir ORGUBS. (1)
+
+     1 Archives of the Foreign Office, Paris, "Etats Unis," vol.
+     xl. Translations:--Morris: "Sir,--Thomas Paine has just
+     applied to me to claim him as a citizen of the United
+     States. Here (I believe) are the facts relating to him. He
+     was born in England. Having afterwards become a citizen of
+     the United States, he acquired great celebrity there by his
+     revolutionary writings. In consequence he was adopted a
+     French citizen and then elected Member of the Convention.
+     His conduct since this epoch is out of my jurisdiction. I am
+     ignorant of the reason for his present detention in the
+     Luxembourg prison, but I beg you, sir (if reasons unknown to
+     me prevent his liberation), be so good as to inform me, that
+     I may communicate them to the government of the United
+     States." Deporgurs: "By your letter of the 36th of last
+     month you reclaim the liberty of Thomas Paine as an American
+     citizen. Born in England, this ex-deputy has become
+     successively an American and a French citizen. In accepting
+     this last title, and in occupying a place in the Corps
+     Legislatif he submitted himself to the laws of the Republic,
+     and has certainly renounced the protection which the law of
+     nations, and treaties concluded with the United States,
+     could have assured him. I am ignorant of the motives of his
+     detention, but I must presume they are well founded. I shall
+     nevertheless submit to the Committee of Public Safety the
+     demand you have addressed to me, and I shall lose no time in
+     letting you know its decision."
+
+It will be seen that Deforgues begins his letter with a falsehood: "You
+reclaim the liberty of Paine as an American citizen." Morris's letter
+had declared him a French citizen out of his (the American Minister's)
+"jurisdiction." Morris states for Deforgues his case, and it is
+obediently adopted, though quite discordant with the decree, which
+imprisoned Paine as a foreigner. Deforgues also makes Paine a member
+of a non-existent body, the "Corps Legislatif," which might suggest
+in Philadelphia previous connection with the defunct Assembly. No such
+inquiries as Deforgues promised, nor any, were ever made, and of course
+none were intended. Morris had got from Deforgues the certificate he
+needed to show in Philadelphia and to Americans in Paris. His pretended
+"reclamation" was of course withheld: no copy of it ever reached America
+till brought from French archives by the present writer. Morris does
+not appear to have ventured even to keep a copy of it himself. The draft
+(presumably in English), found among his papers by Sparks, alters the
+fatal sentence which deprived Paine of his American citizenship and of
+protection. "Res-sort"--jurisdiction--which has a definite technical
+meaning in the mouth of a Minister, is changed to "cognizance"; the
+sentence is made to read, "his conduct from that time has not come under
+my cognizance." (Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 401).
+Even as it stands in his book, Sparks says: "The application, it must
+be confessed, was neither pressing in its terms, nor cogent in its
+arguments."
+
+The American Minister, armed with this French missive, dictated by
+himself, enclosed it to the Secretary of State, whom he supposed to be
+still Jefferson, with a letter stating that he had reclaimed Paine as an
+American, that he (Paine) was held to answer for "crimes," and that any
+further attempt to release him would probably be fatal to the prisoner.
+By these falsehoods, secured from detection by the profound secrecy of
+the Foreign Offices in both countries, Morris paralyzed all interference
+from America, as Washington could not of course intervene in behalf of
+an American charged with "crimes" committed in a foreign country, except
+to demand his trial. But it was important also to paralyze further
+action by Americans in Paris, and to them, too, was shown the French
+certificate of a reclamation never made. A copy was also sent to Paine,
+who returned to Morris an argument which he entreated him to embody in
+a further appeal to the French Minister. This document was of course
+buried away among the papers of Morris, who never again mentioned Paine
+in any communication to the French government, but contented himself
+with personal slanders of his victim in private letters to Washington's
+friend, Robert Morris, and no doubt others. I quote Sparks's summary of
+the argument unsuspectingly sent by Paine to Morris:
+
+"He first proves himself to have been an American citizen, a character
+of which he affirms no subsequent act had deprived him. The title of
+French citizen was a mere nominal and honorary one, which the
+Convention chose to confer, when they asked him to help them in making a
+Constitution. But let the nature or honor of the title be what it might,
+the Convention had taken it away of their own accord. 'He was
+excluded from the Convention on the motion for excluding _foreigners_.
+Consequently he was no longer under the law of the Republic as a
+_citizen_, but under the protection of the Treaty of Alliance, as fully
+and effectually as any other citizen of America. It was therefore the
+duty of the American Minister to demand his release.'"
+
+To this Sparks adds:
+
+"Such is the drift of Paine's argument, and it would seem indeed that
+he could not be a foreigner and a citizen at the same time. It was hard
+that his only privilege of citizenship should be that of imprisonment.
+But this logic was a little too refined for the revolutionary tribunals
+of the Jacobins in Paris, and Mr. Morris well knew it was not worth
+while to preach it to them. He did not believe there was any serious
+design at that time against the life of the prisoner, and he considered
+his best chance of safety to be in preserving silence for the present.
+Here the matter rested, and Paine was left undisturbed till the arrival
+of Mr. Monroe, who procured his discharge from confinement." ("Life of
+Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 417.)l
+
+Sparks takes the gracious view of the man whose Life he was writing, but
+the facts now known turn his words to sarcasm. The Terror by which Paine
+suffered was that of Morris, who warned him and his friends, both in
+Paris and America, that if his case was stirred the knife would fall
+on him. Paine declares (see xx.) that this danger kept him silent till
+after the fall of Robespierre. None knew so well as Morris that
+there were no charges against Paine for offences in France, and that
+Robespierre was awaiting that action by Washington which he (Morris) had
+rendered impossible. Having thus suspended the knife over Paine for six
+months, Robespierre interpreted the President's silence, and that
+of Congress, as confirmation of Morris's story, and resolved on the
+execution of Paine "in the interests of America as well as of France";
+in other words to conciliate Washington to the endangered alliance with
+France.
+
+Paine escaped the guillotine by the strange accident related in a
+further chapter. The fall of Robespierre did not of course end his
+imprisonment, for he was not Robespierre's but Washington's prisoner.
+Morris remained Minister in France nearly a month after Robespierre's
+death, but the word needed to open Paine's prison was not spoken.
+After his recall, had Monroe been able at once to liberate Paine, an
+investigation must have followed, and Morris would probably have taken
+his prisoner's place in the Luxembourg. But Morris would not present his
+letters of recall, and refused to present his successor, thus keeping
+Monroe out of his office four weeks. In this he was aided by Bourdon
+de l'Oise (afterwards banished as a royalist conspirator, but now a
+commissioner to decide on prisoners); also by tools of Robespierre who
+had managed to continue on the Committee of Public Safety by laying
+their crimes on the dead scapegoat--Robespierre. Against Barere (who had
+signed Paine's death-warrant), Billaud-Varennes, and Colloit d'Her-bois,
+Paine, if liberated, would have been a terrible witness. The Committee
+ruled by them had suppressed Paine's appeal to the Convention, as they
+presently suppressed Monroe's first appeal. Paine, knowing that Monroe
+had arrived, but never dreaming that the manoeuvres of Morris were
+keeping him out of office, wrote him from prison the following letters,
+hitherto unpublished.
+
+     1 There is no need to delay the reader here with any
+     argument about Paine's unquestionable citizenship, that
+     point having been settled by his release as an American, and
+     the sanction of Monroe's action by his government. There was
+     no genuineness in any challenge of Paine's citizenship, but
+     a mere desire to do him an injury. In this it had marvellous
+     success. Ten years after Paine had been reclaimed by Monroe,
+     with the sanction of Washington, as an American citizen, his
+     vote was refused at New Rochelle, New York, by the
+     supervisor, Elisha Ward, on the ground that Washington and
+     Morris had refused to Declaim him. Under his picture of the
+     dead Paine, Jarvis, the artist, wrote: "A man who devoted
+     his whole life to the attainment of two objects--rights of
+     man, and freedom of conscience--had his vote denied when
+     living, and was denied a grave when dead."--_Editor._
+
+
+August 17th, 1794.
+
+My Dear Sir: As I believe none of the public papers have announced your
+name right I am unable to address you by it, but a _new_ minister from
+America is joy to me and will be so to every American in France.
+
+Eight months I have been imprisoned, and I know not for what, except
+that the order says that I am a Foreigner. The Illness I have suffered
+in this place (and from which I am but just recovering) had nearly put
+an end to my existence. My life is but of little value to me in
+this situation tho' I have borne it with a firmness of patience and
+fortitude.
+
+I enclose you a copy of a letter, (as well the translation as the
+English)--which I sent to the Convention after the fall of the Monster
+Robespierre--for I was determined not to write a line during the time of
+his detestable influence. I sent also a copy to the Committee of public
+safety--but I have not heard any thing respecting it. I have now
+no expectation of delivery but by your means--_Morris has been my
+inveterate enemy_ and I think he has permitted something of the national
+Character of America to suffer by quietly letting a Citizen of that
+Country remain almost eight months in prison without making every
+official exertion to procure him justice,--for every act of violence
+offered to a foreigner is offered also to the Nation to which he
+belongs.
+
+The gentleman, Mr. Beresford, who will present you this has been very
+friendly to me.(1) Wishing you happiness in your appointment, I am your
+affectionate friend and humble servant.
+
+
+August 18th, 1794.
+
+Dear Sir: In addition to my letter of yesterday (sent to Mr. Beresford
+to be conveyed to you but which is delayed on account of his being at
+St. Germain) I send the following memoranda.
+
+I was in London at the time I was elected a member of this Convention.
+I was elected a Depute in four different departments without my knowing
+any thing of the matter, or having the least idea of it. The intention
+of electing the Convention before the time of the former Legislature
+expired, was for the purpose of reforming the Constitution or rather for
+forming a new one. As the former Legislature shewed a disposition that
+I should assist in this business of the new Constitution, they prepared
+the way by voting me a French Citoyen (they conferred the same title
+on General Washington and certainly I had no more idea than he had of
+vacating any part of my real Citizenship of America for a nominal one in
+France, especially at a time when she did not know whether she would
+be a Nation or not, and had it not even in her power to promise me
+protection). I was elected (the second person in number of Votes, the
+Abbe Sieves being first) a member for forming the Constitution, and
+every American in Paris as well as my other acquaintance knew that it
+was my intention to return to America as soon as the Constitution should
+be established. The violence of Party soon began to shew itself in the
+Convention, but it was impossible for me to see upon what principle they
+differed--unless it was a contention for power. I acted however as I
+did in America, I connected myself with no Party, but considered myself
+altogether a National Man--but the case with Parties generally is that
+when you are not with one you are supposed to be with the other.
+
+     1 A friendly lamp-lighter, alluded to in the Letter to
+     Washington, conveyed this letter to Mr. Beresford.--
+     _Editor._
+
+I was taken out of bed between three and four in the morning on the
+28 of December last, and brought to the Luxembourg--without any other
+accusation inserted in the order than that I was a foreigner; a motion
+having been made two days before in the Convention to expel Foreigners
+therefrom. I certainly then remained, even upon their own tactics, what
+I was before, a Citizen of America.
+
+About three weeks after my imprisonment the Americans that were in Paris
+went to the bar of the Convention to reclaim me, but contrary to my
+advice, they made their address into a Petition, and it miscarried.
+I then applied to G. Morris, to reclaim me as an official part of his
+duty, which he found it necessary to do, and here the matter stopt.(1)
+I have not heard a single line or word from any American since, which
+is now seven months. I rested altogether on the hope that a new Minister
+would arrive from America. I have escaped with life from more dangers
+than one. Had it not been for the fall of Roberspierre and your timely
+arrival I know not what fate might have yet attended me. There seemed to
+be a determination to destroy all the Prisoners without regard to merit,
+character, or any thing else. During the time I laid at the height of my
+illness they took, in one night only, 169 persons out of this prison
+and executed all but eight. The distress that I have suffered at being
+obliged to exist in the midst of such horrors, exclusive of my own
+precarious situation, suspended as it were by the single thread of
+accident, is greater than it is possible you can conceive--but thank God
+times are at last changed, and I hope that your Authority will release
+me from this unjust imprisonment.
+
+     1 The falsehood told Paine, accompanied by an intimation of
+     danger in pursuing the pretended reclamation, was of course
+     meant to stop any farther action by Paine or his friends.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+August 25, 1794.
+
+My Dear Sir: Having nothing to do but to sit and think, I will write
+to pass away time, and to say that I am still here. I have received two
+notes from Mr. Beresford which are encouraging (as the generality of
+notes and letters are that arrive to persons here) but they contain
+nothing explicit or decisive with respect to my liberation, and _I
+shall be very glad to receive a line from yourself to inform me in what
+condition the matter stands_. If I only glide out of prison by a sort
+of accident America gains no credit by my liberation, neither can my
+attachment to her be increased by such a circumstance. She has had the
+services of my best days, she has my allegiance, she receives my portion
+of Taxes for my house in Borden Town and my farm at New Rochelle, and
+she owes me protection both at home and thro' her Ministers abroad, yet
+I remain in prison, in the face of her Minister, at the arbitrary will
+of a committee.
+
+Excluded as I am from the knowledge of everything and left to a random
+of ideas, I know not what to think or how to act. Before there was
+any Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) and while the
+Robespierrian faction lasted, I had nothing to do but to keep my mind
+tranquil and expect the fate that was every day inflicted upon my
+comrades, not individually but by scores. Many a man whom I have passed
+an hour with in conversation I have seen marching to his destruction the
+next hour, or heard of it the next morning; for what rendered the scene
+more horrible was that they were generally taken away at midnight, so
+that every man went to bed with the apprehension of never seeing his
+friends or the world again.
+
+I wish to impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in
+Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any
+over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my
+liberation, you omit procuring it for me _now_, you may have to lament
+the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the
+Northward or other possible accident may happen to bring this about. I
+am not out of danger till I am out of Prison.
+
+Yours affectionately.
+
+P. S.--I am now entirely without money. The Convention owes me 1800
+livres salary which I know not how to get while I am here, nor do I know
+how to draw for money on the rent of my farm in America. It is under
+the care of my good friend General Lewis Morris. I have received no rent
+since I have been in Europe.
+
+[Addressed] Minister Plenipotentiary from America, Maison des Etrangers,
+Rue de la Loi, Rue Richelieu.
+
+
+Such was the sufficiently cruel situation when there reached Paine in
+prison, September 4th, the letter of Peter Whiteside which caused him
+to write his Memorial. Whiteside was a Philadelphian whose bankruptcy in
+London had swallowed up some of Paine's means. His letter, reporting to
+Paine that he was not regarded by the American Government or people as
+an American citizen, and that no American Minister could interfere in
+his behalf, was evidently inspired by Morris who was still in Paris, the
+authorities being unwilling to give him a passport to Switzerland,
+as they knew he was going in that direction to join the conspirators
+against France. This Whiteside letter put Paine, and through him Monroe,
+on a false scent by suggesting that the difficulty of his case lay in a
+_bona fide_ question of citizenship, whereas there never had been really
+any such question. The knot by which Morris had bound Paine was thus
+concealed, and Monroe was appealing to polite wolves in the interest of
+their victim. There were thus more delays, inexplicable alike to Monroe
+and to Paine, eliciting from the latter some heartbroken letters, not
+hitherto printed, which I add at the end of the Memorial. To add to
+the difficulties and dangers, Paris was beginning to be agitated by
+well-founded rumors of Jay's injurious negotiations in England, and a
+coldness towards Monroe was setting in. Had Paine's release been delayed
+much longer an American Minister's friendship might even have proved
+fatal. Of all this nothing could be known to Paine, who suffered agonies
+he had not known during the Reign of Terror. The other prisoners of
+Robespierre's time had departed; he alone paced the solitary corridors
+of the Luxembourg, chilled by the autumn winds, his cell tireless, unlit
+by any candle, insufficiently nourished, an abscess forming in his side;
+all this still less cruel than the feeling that he was abandoned, not
+only by Washington but by all America.
+
+This is the man of whom Washington wrote to Madison nine years before:
+"Must the merits and services of 'Common Sense' continue to glide down
+the stream of time unrewarded by this country?" This, then, is his
+reward. To his old comrade in the battle-fields of Liberty, George
+Washington, Paine owed his ten months of imprisonment, at the end of
+which Monroe found him a wreck, and took him (November 4) to his own
+house, where he and his wife nursed him back into life. But it was not
+for some months supposed that Paine could recover; it was only after
+several relapses; and it was under the shadow of death that he wrote the
+letter to Washington so much and so ignorantly condemned. Those who have
+followed the foregoing narrative will know that Paine's grievances were
+genuine, that his infamous treatment stains American history; but they
+will also know that they lay chiefly at the door of a treacherous and
+unscrupulous American Minister.
+
+Yet it is difficult to find an excuse for the retention of that Minister
+in France by Washington. On Monroe's return to America in 1797, he
+wrote a pamphlet concerning the mission from which he had been curtly
+recalled, in which he said:
+
+"I was persuaded from Mr. Morris's known political character and
+principles, that his appointment, and especially at a period when the
+French nation was in a course of revolution from an arbitrary to a free
+government, would tend to discountenance the republican cause there
+and at home, and otherwise weaken, and greatly to our prejudice, the
+connexion subsisting between the two countries."
+
+In a copy of this pamphlet found at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote on
+the margin of this sentence:
+
+"Mr. Morris was known to be a man of first rate abilities; and his
+integrity and honor had never been impeached. Besides, Mr. Morris was
+sent whilst the kingly government was in existence, ye end of 91 or
+beginning of 92." (1)
+
+But this does not explain why Gouverneur Morris was persistently kept in
+France after monarchy was abolished (September 21, 1792), or even after
+Lafayette's request for his removal, already quoted. To that letter
+of Lafayette no reply has been discovered. After the monarchy was
+abolished, Ternant and Genet successively carried to America protests
+from their Foreign Office against the continuance of a Minister in
+France, who was known in Paris, and is now known to all acquainted with
+his published papers, to have all along made his office the headquarters
+of British intrigue against France, American interests being quite
+subordinated. Washington did not know this, but he might have known it,
+and his disregard of French complaints can hardly be ascribed to any
+other cause than his delusion that Morris was deeply occupied with
+the treaty negotiations confided to him. It must be remembered that
+Washington believed such a treaty with England to be the alternative of
+war.(2) On that apprehension the British party in America, and British
+agents, played to the utmost, and under such influences Washington
+sacrificed many old friendships,--with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
+Edmund Randolph, Paine,--and also the confidence of his own State,
+Virginia.
+
+     1  Washington's marginal notes on Monroe's "View, etc.,"
+     were first fully given in Ford's "Writings of Washington,"
+     vol. xiii., p. 452, seq.
+
+     2 Ibid., p. 453.
+
+There is a traditional impression that Paine's angry letter to
+Washington was caused by the President's failure to inter-pose for
+his relief from prison. But Paine believed that the American Minister
+(Morris) had reclaimed him in some feeble fashion, as an American
+citizen, and he knew that the President had officially approved Monroe's
+action in securing his release. His grievance was that Washington, whose
+letters of friendship he cherished, who had extolled his services to
+America, should have manifested no concern personally, made no use of
+his commanding influence to rescue him from daily impending death, sent
+to his prison no word of kindness or inquiry, and sent over their mutual
+friend Monroe without any instructions concerning him; and finally, that
+his private letter, asking explanation, remained unanswered. No doubt
+this silence of Washington concerning the fate of Paine, whom he
+acknowledged to be an American citizen, was mainly due to his fear
+of offending England, which had proclaimed Paine. The "outlaw's"
+imprisonment in Paris caused jubilations among the English gentry,
+and went on simultaneously with Jay's negotiations in London, when any
+expression by Washington of sympathy with Paine (certain of publication)
+might have imperilled the Treaty, regarded by the President as vital.
+
+So anxious was the President about this, that what he supposed had been
+done for Paine by Morris, and what had really been done by Monroe,
+was kept in such profound secrecy, that even his Secretary of State,
+Pickering, knew nothing of it. This astounding fact I recently
+discovered in the manuscripts of that Secretary.(1) Colonel Pickering,
+while flattering enough to the President in public, despised his
+intellect, and among his papers is a memorandum concluding as follows:
+
+"But when the hazards of the Revolutionary War had ended, by the
+establishment of our Independence, why was the knowledge of General
+Washington's comparatively defective mental powers not freely divulged?
+Why, even by the enemies of his civil administration were his abilities
+very tenderly glanced at? --Because there were few, if any men, who
+did not revere him for his distinguished virtues; his modesty--his
+unblemished integrity, his pure and disinterested patriotism. These
+virtues, of infinitely more value than exalted abilities without them,
+secured to him the veneration and love of his fellow citizens at large.
+Thus immensely popular, no man was willing to publish, under his hand,
+even the simple truth. The only exception, that I recollect, was the
+infamous Tom Paine; and this when in France, after he had escaped the
+guillotine of Robespierre; and in resentment, because, after he had
+participated in the French Revolution, President Washington seemed
+not to have thought him so very important a character in the world,
+as officially to interpose for his relief from the fangs of the French
+ephemeral Rulers. In a word, no man, however well informed, was willing
+to hazard his own popularity by exhibiting the real intellectual
+character of the immensely popular Washington."
+
+     1 Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 11., p. 171.
+
+How can this ignorance of an astute man, Secretary of State under
+Washington and Adams, be explained? Had Washington hidden the letters
+showing on their face that he _had_ "officially interposed" for Paine by
+two Ministers?
+
+Madison, writing to Monroe, April 7, 1796, says that Pickering had
+spoken to him "in harsh terms" of a letter written by Paine to the
+President. This was a private letter of September 20, 1795, afterwards
+printed in Paine's public Letter to Washington. The Secretary certainly
+read that letter on its arrival, January 18, 1796, and yet Washington
+does not appear to have told him of what had been officially done in
+Paine's case! Such being the secrecy which Washington had carried from
+the camp to the cabinet, and the morbid extent of it while the British
+Treaty was in negotiation and discussion, one can hardly wonder at his
+silence under Paine's private appeal and public reproach.
+
+Much as Pickering hated Paine, he declares him the only man who ever
+told the simple truth about Washington. In the lapse of time historical
+research, while removing the sacred halo of Washington, has revealed
+beneath it a stronger brain than was then known to any one. Paine
+published what many whispered, while they were fawning on Washington for
+office, or utilizing his power for partisan ends. Washington, during his
+second administration, when his mental decline was remarked by
+himself, by Jefferson, and others, was regarded by many of his eminent
+contemporaries as fallen under the sway of small partisans. Not only
+was the influence of Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Monroe, Livingston,
+alienated, but the counsels of Hamilton were neutralized by Wolcott and
+Pickering, who apparently agreed about the President's "mental powers."
+Had not Paine previously incurred the _odium theologicum_, his pamphlet
+concerning Washington would have been more damaging; even as it was, the
+verdict was by no means generally favorable to the President, especially
+as the replies to Paine assumed that Washington had indeed failed to
+try and rescue him from impending death.(1) A pamphlet written by Bache,
+printed anonymously (1797), Remarks occasioned by the late conduct of
+Mr. Washington, indicates the belief of those who raised Washington to
+power, that both Randolph and Paine had been sacrificed to please Great
+Britain.
+
+The _Bien-informe_ (Paris, November 12, 1797) published a letter from
+Philadelphia, which may find translation here as part of the history of
+the pamphlet:
+
+"The letter of Thomas Paine to General Washington is read here with
+avidity. We gather from the English papers that the Cabinet of St James
+has been unable to stop the circulation of that pamphlet in England,
+since it is allowable to reprint there any English work already
+published elsewhere, however disagreeable to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas.
+We read in the letter to Washington that Robespierre had declared to
+the Committee of Public Safety that it was desirable in the interests
+of both France and America that Thomas Paine, who, for seven or eight
+months had been kept a prisoner in the Luxembourg, should forthwith be
+brought up for judgment before the revolutionary tribunal. The proof of
+this fact is found in Robespierre's papers, and gives ground for strange
+suspicions."
+
+     1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an
+     American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the
+     infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General
+     Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
+     Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington,
+     speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although
+     he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to
+     be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they
+     are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute
+     falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are
+     pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in
+     this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you
+     will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias
+     William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an
+     Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions,
+     and a want of official information as to many facts, it is
+     not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the
+     action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in
+     Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these
+     disclosed.
+
+"It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend
+James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves
+on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man.
+Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine
+is still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in
+America] also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after
+actually arriving he found his (really popular) _principles no longer
+the order of the day_, and thought best to re-embark.
+
+"The English journals, while repeating this idle rumor, observed that it
+was unfounded, and that Paine had not left France. Some French journals
+have copied these London paragraphs, but without comments; so that at
+the very moment when Thomas Paine's Letter on the 18th. Fructidor is
+published, _La Clef du Cabinet_ says that this citizen is suffering
+unpleasantness in America."
+
+Paine had intended to return with Monroe, in the spring of 1797, but,
+suspecting the Captain and a British cruiser in the distance, returned
+from Havre to Paris. The packet was indeed searched by the cruiser
+for Paine, and, had he been captured, England would have executed the
+sentence pronounced by Robespierre to please Washington.
+
+
+
+MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO JAMES MONROE,
+
+MINISTER FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
+
+Prison of the Luxembourg, Sept. 10th, 1794.
+
+I address this memorial to you, in consequence of a letter I received
+from a friend, 18 Fructidor (September 4th,) in which he says, "Mr.
+Monroe has told me, that he has no orders [meaning from the American
+government] respecting you; but I am sure he will leave nothing
+undone to liberate you; but, from what I can learn, from all the late
+Americans, you are not considered either by the Government, or by
+the individuals, as an American citizen. You have been made a french
+Citizen, which you have accepted, and you have further made yourself
+a servant of the french Republic; and, therefore, it would be out
+of character for an American Minister to interfere in their internal
+concerns. You must therefore either be liberated out of Compliment to
+America, or stand your trial, which you have a right to demand."
+
+This information was so unexpected by me, that I am at a loss how to
+answer it. I know not on what principle it originates; whether from an
+idea that I had voluntarily abandoned my Citizenship of America for that
+of France, or from any article of the American Constitution applied to
+me. The first is untrue with respect to any intention on my part; and
+the second is without foundation, as I shall shew in the course of this
+memorial.
+
+The idea of conferring honor of Citizenship upon foreigners, who had
+distinguished themselves in propagating the principles of liberty and
+humanity, in opposition to despotism, war, and bloodshed, was first
+proposed by me to La Fayette, at the commencement of the french
+revolution, when his heart appeared to be warmed with those principles.
+My motive in making this proposal, was to render the people of different
+nations more fraternal than they had been, or then were. I observed that
+almost every branch of Science had possessed itself of the exercise
+of this right, so far as it regarded its own institution. Most of the
+Academies and Societies in Europe, and also those of America, conferred
+the rank of honorary member, upon foreigners eminent in knowledge, and
+made them, in fact, citizens of their literary or scientific republic,
+without affecting or anyways diminishing their rights of citizenship
+in their own country or in other societies: and why the Science of
+Government should not have the same advantage, or why the people of
+one nation should not, by their representatives, exercise the right of
+conferring the honor of Citizenship upon individuals eminent in another
+nation, without affecting _their_ rights of citizenship, is a problem
+yet to be solved.
+
+I now proceed to remark on that part of the letter, in which the writer
+says, that, _from what he can learn from all the late Americans, I
+am not considered in America, either by the Government or by the
+individuals, as an American citizen_.
+
+In the first place I wish to ask, what is here meant by the Government
+of America? The members who compose the Government are only individuals,
+when in conversation, and who, most probably, hold very different
+opinions upon the subject. Have Congress as a body made any declaration
+respecting me, that they now no longer consider me as a citizen? If they
+have not, anything they otherwise say is no more than the opinion
+of individuals, and consequently is not legal authority, nor anyways
+sufficient authority to deprive any man of his Citizenship. Besides,
+whether a man has forfeited his rights of Citizenship, is a question not
+determinable by Congress, but by a Court of Judicature and a Jury; and
+must depend upon evidence, and the application of some law or article of
+the Constitution to the case. No such proceeding has yet been had, and
+consequently I remain a Citizen until it be had, be that decision what
+it may; for there can be no such thing as a suspension of rights in the
+interim.
+
+I am very well aware, and always was, of the article of the Constitution
+which says, as nearly as I can recollect the words, that "any citizen
+of the United States, who shall accept any title, place, or office, from
+any foreign king, prince, or state, shall forfeit and lose his right of
+Citizenship of the United States."
+
+Had the Article said, that _any citizen of the United States, who shall
+be a member of any foreign convention, for the purpose of forming a free
+constitution, shall forfeit and lose the right of citizenship of the
+United States_, the article had been directly applicable to me; but
+the idea of such an article never could have entered the mind of the
+American Convention, and the present article _is_ altogether foreign
+to the case with respect to me. It supposes a Government in active
+existence, and not a Government dissolved; and it supposes a citizen of
+America accepting titles and offices under that Government, and not a
+citizen of America who gives his assistance in a Convention chosen by
+the people, for the purpose of forming a Government _de nouveau_ founded
+on their authority.
+
+The late Constitution and Government of France was dissolved the 10th of
+August, 1792. The National legislative Assembly then in being, supposed
+itself without sufficient authority to continue its sittings, and it
+proposed to the departments to elect not another legislative Assembly,
+but a Convention for the express purpose of forming a new Constitution.
+When the Assembly were discoursing on this matter, some of the members
+said, that they wished to gain all the assistance possible upon the
+subject of free constitutions; and expressed a wish to elect and invite
+foreigners of any Nation to the Convention, who had distinguished
+themselves in defending, explaining, and propagating the principles
+of liberty. It was on this occasion that my name was mentioned in the
+Assembly. (I was then in England.)
+
+     1 In the American pamphlet a footnote, probably added by
+     Bache, here says: "Even this article does not exist in the
+     manner here stated." It is a pity Paine did not have in his
+     prison the article, which says: "No person holding any
+     office of profit or trust under them [the United States]
+     shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any
+     present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever,
+     from any king, prince, or foreign State."--_Editor._
+
+
+After this, a deputation from a body of the french people, in order
+to remove any objection that might be made against my assisting at the
+proposed Convention, requested the Assembly, as their representatives,
+to give me the title of French Citizen; after which, I was elected a
+member of the Convention, in four different departments, as is already
+known.(1)
+
+The case, therefore, is, that I accepted nothing from any king,
+prince, or state, nor from any Government: for France was without any
+Government, except what arose from common consent, and the necessity of
+the case. Neither did I _make myself a servant of the french Republic_,
+as the letter alluded to expresses; for at that time France was not a
+republic, not even in name. She was altogether a people in a state of
+revolution.
+
+It was not until the Convention met that France was declared a republic,
+and monarchy abolished; soon after which a committee was elected, of
+which I was a member,(2) to form a Constitution, which was presented to
+the Convention [and read by Condorcet, who was also a member] the
+15th and 16th of February following, but was not to be taken into
+consideration till after the expiration of two months,(3) and if
+approved of by the Convention, was then to be referred to the people for
+their acceptance, with such additions or amendments as the Convention
+should make.
+
+     1 The deputation referred to was described as the
+     "Commission Extraordinaire," in whose name M. Guadet moved
+     that the title of French Citizen be conferred on Priestley,
+     Paine, Bentham, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, David
+     Williams, Cormelle, Paw, Pestalozzi, Washington, Madison,
+     Hamilton, Klopstock, Koscinsko, Gorani, Campe, Anacharsis
+     Clootz, Gilleers. This was on August 26, and Paine was
+     elected by Calais on September 6,1792; and in the same week
+     by Oise, Somme, and Puy-de-Dome.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Sieves, Paine, Brissot, Petion, Vergniaud, Gensonne,
+     Barere, Danton, Condorcet.--_Editor._
+
+     3 The remainder of this sentence is replaced in the American
+     pamphlet by the following: "The disorders and the
+     revolutionary government that took place after this put a
+     stop to any further progress upon the case."--_Editor._
+
+In thus employing myself upon the formation of a Constitution, I
+certainly did nothing inconsistent with the American Constitution. I
+took no oath of allegiance to France, or any other oath whatever. I
+considered the Citizenship they had presented me with as an honorary
+mark of respect paid to me not only as a friend to liberty, but as
+an American Citizen. My acceptance of that, or of the deputyship, not
+conferred on me by any king, prince, or state, but by a people in a
+state of revolution and contending for liberty, required no transfer of
+my allegiance or of my citizenship from America to France. There I was
+a real citizen, paying Taxes; here, I was a voluntary friend, employing
+myself on a temporary service. Every American in Paris knew that it was
+my constant intention to return to America, as soon as a constitution
+should be established, and that I anxiously waited for that event.
+
+I know not what opinions have been circulated in America. It may have
+been supposed there that I had voluntarily and intentionally abandoned
+America, and that my citizenship had ceased by my own choice. I can
+easily [believe] there are those in that country who would take such
+a proceeding on my part somewhat in disgust. The idea of forsaking
+old friendships for new acquaintances is not agreeable. I am a little
+warranted in making this supposition by a letter I received some time
+ago from the wife of one of the Georgia delegates in which she says
+"Your friends on this side the water cannot be reconciled to the idea of
+your abandoning America."
+
+I have never abandoned her in thought, word or deed; and I feel it
+incumbent upon me to give this assurance to the friends I have in that
+country and with whom I have always intended and am determined, if the
+possibility exists, to close the scene of my life. It is there that I
+have made myself a home. It is there that I have given the services of
+my best days. America never saw me flinch from her cause in the most
+gloomy and perilous of her situations; and I know there are those in
+that country who will not flinch from me. If I have enemies (and every
+man has some) I leave them to the enjoyment of their ingratitude.*
+
+     * I subjoin in a note, for the sake of wasting the solitude
+     of a prison, the answer that I gave to the part of the
+     letter above mentioned.   It is not inapplacable to the
+     subject of this Memorial; but it contain! somewhat of a
+     melancholy idea, a little predictive, that I hope is not
+     becoming true so soon.
+
+It is somewhat extraordinary that the idea of my not being a citizen
+of America should have arisen only at the time that I am imprisoned
+in France because, or on the pretence that, I am a foreigner. The case
+involves a strange contradiction of ideas. None of the Americans who
+came to France whilst I was in liberty had conceived any such idea or
+circulated any such opinion; and why it should arise now is a matter
+yet to be explained. However discordant the late American Minister G. M.
+[Gouverneur Morris] and the late French Committee of Public Safety were,
+it suited the purpose of both that I should be continued in arrestation.
+The former wished to prevent my return to America, that I should not
+expose his misconduct; and the latter, lest I should publish to the
+world the history of its wickedness. Whilst that Minister and the
+Committee continued I had no expectation of liberty. I speak here of the
+Committee of which Robespierre was member.(1)
+
+     "You touch me on a very tender point when you say that my
+     friends on your side the water cannot be reconciled to the
+     idea of my abandoning America. They are right. I had rather
+     see my horse Button eating the grass of Borden-Town or
+     Morrisania than see all the pomp and show of Europe.
+
+     "A thousand years hence (for I must indulge a few thoughts)
+     perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The
+     innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all
+     nations in her favour, may sound like a romance and her
+     inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that
+     liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain 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 deride the principle and
+     deny the fact.
+
+     "When we contemplate the fall of Empires and the extinction
+     of the nations of the Ancient World, we see but little to
+     excite our regret than the mouldering ruins of pompous
+     palaces, magnificent museums, lofty pyramids and walls and
+     towers of the most costly workmanship; but when the Empire
+     of America shall fall, the subject for contemplative sorrow
+     will be infinitely greater than crumbling brass and marble
+     can inspire. It will not then be said, here stood a temple
+     of vast antiquity; here rose a babel of invisible height;
+     or there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; but here, Ah,
+     painful thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the
+     grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of Freedom
+     rose and fell. Read this, and then ask if I forget
+     America."--Author.
+
+
+     1 This letter, quoted also in Paine's Letter to Washington,
+     was written from London, Jan. 6, 1789, to the wife of Col.
+     Few, nee Kate Nicholson. It is given in full in my "Life of
+     Paine," i., p. 247.--_Editor._
+
+
+
+THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
+
+I ever must deny, that the article of the American constitution
+already mentioned, can be applied either verbally, intentionally,
+or constructively, to me. It undoubtedly was the intention of the
+Convention that framed it, to preserve the purity of the American
+republic from being debased by foreign and foppish customs; but it never
+could be its intention to act against the principles of liberty, by
+forbidding its citizens to assist in promoting those principles in
+foreign Countries; neither could it be its intention to act against
+the principles of gratitude.(1) France had aided America in the
+establishment of her revolution, when invaded and oppressed by England
+and her auxiliaries. France in her turn was invaded and oppressed by a
+combination of foreign despots. In this situation, I conceived it an act
+of gratitude in me, as a citizen of America, to render her in return the
+best services I could perform. I came to France (for I was in England
+when I received the invitation) not to enjoy ease, emoluments, and
+foppish honours, as the article supposes; but to encounter difficulties
+and dangers in defence of liberty; and I much question whether those who
+now malignantly seek (for some I believe do) to turn this to my injury,
+would have had courage to have done the same thing. I am sure Gouverneur
+Morris would not. He told me the second day after my arrival, (in
+Paris,) that the Austrians and Prussians, who were then at Verdun,
+would be in Paris in a fortnight. I have no idea, said he, that seventy
+thousand disciplined troops can be stopped in their march by any power
+in France.
+
+     1 This and the two preceding paragraphs, including the
+     footnote, are entirely omitted from the American pamphlet.
+     It will be seen that Paine had now a suspicion of the
+     conspiracy between Gouverneur Morris and those by whom he
+     was imprisoned. Soon after his imprisonment he had applied
+     to Morris, who replied that he had reclaimed him, and
+     enclosed the letter of Deforgues quoted in my Introduction
+     to this chapter, of course withholding his own letter to the
+     Minister. Paine answered (Feb. 14, 1793): "You must not
+     leave me in the situation in which this letter places me.
+     You know I do not deserve it, and you see the unpleasant
+     situation in which I am thrown. I have made an answer to the
+     Minister's letter, which I wish you to make ground of a
+     reply to him. They have nothing against me--except that they
+     do not choose I should lie in a state of freedom to write my
+     mind freely upon things I have seen. Though you and I are
+     not on terms of the best harmony, I apply to you as the
+     Minister of America, and you may add to that service
+     whatever you think my integrity deserves. At any rate I
+     expect you to make Congress acquainted with my situation,
+     and to send them copies of the letters that have passed on
+     the subject. A reply to the Minister's letter is absolutely
+     necessary, were it only to continue the reclamation.
+     Otherwise your silence will be a sort of consent to his
+     observations." Deforgues' "observations" having been
+     dictated by Morris himself, no reply was sent to him, and no
+     word to Congress.--_Editor_.
+
+     2 In the pamphlet this last clause of the sentence is
+     omitted.--_Editor._.
+
+Besides the reasons I have already given for accepting the invitations
+to the Convention, I had another that has reference particularly to
+America, and which I mentioned to Mr. Pinckney the night before I left
+London to come to Paris: "That it was to the interest of America that
+the system of European governments should be changed and placed on the
+same principle with her own." Mr. Pinckney agreed fully in the same
+opinion. I have done my part towards it.(1)
+
+It is certain that governments upon similar systems agree better
+together than those that are founded on principles discordant with each
+other; and the same rule holds good with respect to the people living
+under them. In the latter case they offend each other by pity, or by
+reproach; and the discordancy carries itself to matters of commerce. I
+am not an ambitious man, but perhaps I have been an ambitious American.
+I have wished to see America the _Mother Church_ of government, and I
+have done my utmost to exalt her character and her condition.
+
+     1 In the American pamphlet the name of Pinckney (American
+     Minister in England) is left blank in this paragraph, and
+     the two concluding sentences are omitted from both the
+     French and American pamphlets.--_Editor._,
+
+I have now stated sufficient matter, to shew that the Article in
+question is not applicable to me; and that any such application to my
+injury, as well in circumstances as in Rights, is contrary both to
+the letter and intention of that Article, and is illegal and
+unconstitutional. Neither do I believe that any Jury in America, when
+they are informed of the whole of the case, would give a verdict to
+deprive me of my Rights upon that Article. The citizens of America,
+I believe, are not very fond of permitting forced and indirect
+explanations to be put upon matters of this kind. I know not what were
+the merits of the case with respect to the person who was prosecuted for
+acting as prize master to a french privateer, but I know that the jury
+gave a verdict against the prosecution. The Rights I have acquired
+are dear to me. They have been acquired by honourable means, and by
+dangerous service in the worst of times, and I cannot passively permit
+them to be wrested from me. I conceive it my duty to defend them, as the
+case involves a constitutional and public question, which is, how
+far the power of the federal government (1) extends, in depriving any
+citizen of his Rights of Citizenship, or of suspending them.
+
+That the explanation of National Treaties belongs to Congress is
+strictly constitutional; but not the explanation of the Constitution
+itself, any more than the explanation of Law in the case of individual
+citizens. These are altogether Judiciary questions. It is, however,
+worth observing, that Congress, in explaining the Article of the Treaty
+with respect to french prizes and french privateers, confined itself
+strictly to the letter of the Article. Let them explain the Article
+of the Constitution with respect to me in the same manner, and the
+decision, did it appertain to them, could not deprive me of my Rights of
+Citizenship, or suspend them, for I have accepted nothing from any king,
+prince, state, or Government.
+
+You will please to observe, that I speak as if the federal Government
+had made some declaration upon the subject of my Citizenship; whereas
+the fact is otherwise; and your saying that you have no order respecting
+me is a proof of it. Those therefore who propagate the report of my not
+being considered as a Citizen of America by Government, do it to the
+prolongation of my imprisonment, and without authority; for Congress,
+_as a government_, has neither decided upon it, nor yet taken the matter
+into consideration; and I request you to caution such persons against
+spreading such reports. But be these matters as they may, I cannot have
+a doubt that you find and feel the case very different, since you have
+heard what I have to say, and known what my situation is [better] than
+you did before your arrival.
+
+     1 In the pamphlet occurs here a significant parenthesis by
+     Bache:  "it should have been said in this case, how far the
+     Executive."--_Editor._.
+
+But it was not the Americans only, but the Convention also, that
+knew what my intentions were upon that subject. In my last discourse
+delivered at the Tribune of the Convention, January 19,1793, on the
+motion for suspending the execution of Louis 16th, I said (the Deputy
+Bancal read the translation in French): "It unfortunately happens that
+the person who is the subject of the present discussion, is considered
+by the Americans as having been the friend of their revolution. His
+execution will be an affliction to them, and it is in your power not
+to wound the feelings of your ally. Could I speak the french language I
+would descend to your bar, and in their name become your petitioner to
+respite the execution of the sentence/"--"As the convention was elected
+for the express purpose of forming a Constitution, its continuance
+cannot be longer than four or five months more at furthest; and if,
+after my _return to America_, I should employ myself in writing the
+history of the french Revolution, I had rather record a thousand
+errors on the side of mercy, than be obliged to tell one act of severe
+Justice."--"Ah Citizens! give not the tyrant of England the triumph
+of seeing the man perish on a scaffold who had aided my much-loved
+America."
+
+Does this look as if I had abandoned America? But if she abandons me
+in the situation I am in, to gratify the enemies of humanity, let that
+disgrace be to herself. But I know the people of America better than to
+believe it,(1) tho' I undertake not to answer for every individual.
+
+When this discourse was pronounced, Marat launched himself into the
+middle of the hall and said that "I voted against the punishment of
+death because I was a quaker." I replied that "I voted against it both
+morally and politically."
+
+     1 In the French pamphlet: "pour jamais lui preter du tels
+     sentiments."
+
+I certainly went a great way, considering the rage of the times, in
+endeavouring to prevent that execution. I had many reasons for so doing.
+I judged, and events have shewn that I judged rightly, that if they once
+began shedding blood, there was no knowing where it would end; and as
+to what the world might call _honour_ the execution would appear like a
+nation killing a mouse; and in a political view, would serve to transfer
+the hereditary claim to some more formidable Enemy. The man could do no
+more mischief; and that which he had done was not only from the vice of
+his education, but was as much the fault of the Nation in restoring
+him after he had absconded June 21st, 1791, as it was his. I made
+the proposal for imprisonment until the end of the war and perpetual
+banishment after the war, instead of the punishment of death. Upwards of
+three hundred members voted for that proposal. The sentence for absolute
+death (for some members had voted the punishment of death conditionally)
+was carried by a majority of twenty-five out of more than seven hundred.
+
+I return from this digression to the proper subject of my memorial.(1)
+
+     1 This and the preceding five paragraphs, and five following
+     the nest, are omitted from the American pamphlet.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+Painful as the want of liberty may be, it is a consolation to me to
+believe, that my imprisonment proves to the world, that I had no share
+in the murderous system that then reigned. That I was an enemy to it,
+both morally and politically, is known to all who had any knowledge of
+me; and could I have written french as well as I can English, I would
+publicly have exposed its wickedness and shewn the ruin with which it
+was pregnant. They who have esteemed me on former occasions, whether in
+America or in Europe will, I know, feel no cause to abate that esteem,
+when they reflect, that _imprisonment with preservation of character is
+preferable to liberty with disgrace_.
+
+I here close my Memorial and proceed to offer you a proposal that
+appears to me suited to all the circumstances of the case; which is,
+that you reclaim me conditionally, until the opinion of Congress can be
+obtained on the subject of my citizenship of America; and that I remain
+in liberty under your protection during that time.
+
+I found this proposal upon the following grounds.
+
+First, you say you have no orders respecting me; consequently, you
+have no orders _not_ to reclaim me; and in this case you are left
+discretionary judge whether to reclaim or not. My proposal therefore
+unites a consideration of your situation with my own.
+
+Secondly, I am put in arrestation because I am a foreigner. It is
+therefore necessary to determine to what country I belong. The right of
+determining this question cannot appertain exclusively to the Committee
+of Public Safety or General Surety; because I appeal to the Minister of
+the United States, and show that my citizenship of that country is good
+and valid, referring at the same time, thro' the agency of the Minister,
+my claim of right to the opinion of Congress. It being a matter between
+two Governments.
+
+Thirdly. France does not claim me fora citizen; neither do I set up any
+claim of citizenship in France. The question is simply, whether I am
+or am not a citizen of America. I am imprisoned here on the decree for
+imprisoning foreigners, because, say they, I was born in England. I
+say in answer that, though born in England, I am not a subject of the
+English Government any more than any other American who was born, as
+they all were, under the same Government, or than the Citizens of France
+are subjects of the French Monarchy under which they were born. I have
+twice taken the oath of abjuration to the British King and Government
+and of Allegiance to America,--once as a citizen of the State of
+Pennsylvania in 1776, and again before Congress, administered to me by
+the President, Mr. Hancock, when I was appointed Secretary in the Office
+of Foreign Affairs in 1777.
+
+The letter before quoted in the first page of this memorial, says, "It
+would be out of character for an American minister to interfere in the
+internal affairs of France." This goes on the idea that I am a citizen
+of France, and a member of the Convention, which is not the fact. The
+Convention have declared me to be a foreigner; and consequently the
+citizenship and the election are null and void.(1) It also has the
+appearance of a Decision, that the article of the Constitution,
+respecting grants made to American Citizens by foreign kings, princes,
+or states, is applicable to me; which is the very point in question,
+and against the application of which I contend. I state evidence to the
+Minister, to shew that I am not within the letter or meaning of that
+Article; that it cannot operate against me; and I apply to him for the
+protection that I conceive I have a right to ask and to receive. The
+internal affairs of France are out of the question with respect to my
+application or his interference. I ask it not as a citizen of France,
+for I am not one: I ask it not as a member of the Convention, for I am
+not one; both these, as before said, have been rendered null and void;
+I ask it not as a man against whom there is any accusation, for there
+is none; I ask it not as an exile from America, whose liberties I
+have honourably and generously contributed to establish; I ask it as a
+Citizen of America, deprived of his liberty in France, under the plea of
+being a foreigner; and I ask it because I conceive I am entitled to it,
+upon every principle of Constitutional Justice and National honour.(2)
+
+     1 In the pamphlet: "The Convention included me in the vote
+     for dismissing foreigners from the Convention, and the
+     Committees imprisoned me as a foreigner."--_Editor._
+
+     2 All  previous editions of the pamphlet end with this
+     word.--_Editor._
+
+But tho' I thus positively assert my claim because I believe I have a
+right to do so, it is perhaps most eligible, in the present situation
+of things, to put that claim upon the footing I have already mentioned;
+that is, that the Minister reclaims me conditionally until the opinion
+of Congress can be obtained on the subject of my citizenship of America,
+and that I remain in liberty under the protection of the Minister during
+that interval.
+
+N. B. I should have added that as Gouverneur Morris could not inform
+Congress of the cause of my arrestation, as he knew it not himself, it
+is to be supposed that Congress was not enough acquainted with the case
+to give any directions respecting me when you came away.
+
+T.P.
+
+
+
+ADDENDA.
+
+Letters, hitherto unpublished, written by Paine to Monroe before his
+release on November 4., 1794.
+
+
+1. Luxembourg Mem Vendemaire, Old Style Oct 4th 1794
+
+Dear Sir: I thank you for your very friendly and affectionate letter of
+the 18th September which I did not receive till this morning.(1) It has
+relieved my mind from a load of disquietude. You will easily suppose
+that if the information I received had been exact, my situation was
+without hope. I had in that case neither section, department nor
+Country, to reclaim me; but that is not all, I felt a poignancy of
+grief, in having the least reason to suppose that America had so soon
+forgotten me who had never forgotten her.
+
+Mr. Labonadaire, in a note of yesterday, directed me to write to the
+Convention. As I suppose this measure has been taken in concert with
+you, I have requested him to shew you the letter, of which he will make
+a translation to accompany the original.
+
+(I cannot see what motive can induce them to keep me in prison. It
+will gratify the English Government and afflict the friends I have in
+America. The supporters of the system of Terror might apprehend that if
+I was in liberty and in America I should publish the history of their
+crimes, but the present persons who have overset that immoral System
+ought to have no such apprehension. On the contrary, they ought to
+consider me as one of themselves, at least as one of their friends. Had
+I been an insignificant character I had not been in arrestation. It was
+the literary and philosophical reputation I had gained, in the world,
+that made them my Enemies; and I am the victim of the principles, and
+if I may be permitted to say it, of the talents, that procured me the
+esteem of America. My character is the _secret_ of my arrestation.)
+
+     1 Printed in the letter to Washington, chap. XXII. The delay
+     of sixteen days in Monroe's letter was probably due to the
+     manouvres of Paine's enemies on the Committee of Public
+     Safety. He was released only after their removal from the
+     Committee, and the departure of Gouverneur Morris.--
+     _Editor._,
+
+If the letter I have written be not covered by other authority than my
+own it will have no effect, for they already know all that I can say. On
+what ground do they pretend to deprive America of the service of any
+of her citizens without assigning a cause, or only the flimsy one of
+my being born in England? Gates, were he here, might be arrested on the
+same pretence, and he and Burgoyne be confounded together.
+
+It is difficult for me to give an opinion, but among other things
+that occur to me, I think that if you were to say that, as it will be
+necessary to you to inform the Government of America of my situation,
+you require an explanation with the Committee upon that subject; that
+you are induced to make this proposal not only out of esteem for the
+character of the person who is the personal object of it, but because
+you know that his arrestation will distress the Americans, and the more
+so as it will appear to them to be contrary to their ideas of civil and
+national justice, it might perhaps have some effect. If the Committee
+[of Public Safety] will do nothing, it will be necessary to bring this
+matter openly before the Convention, for I do most sincerely assure you,
+from the observations that I hear, and I suppose the same are made in
+other places, that the character of America lies under some reproach.
+All the world knows that I have served her, and they see that I am still
+in prison; and you know that when people can form a conclusion upon a
+simple fact, they trouble not themselves about reasons. I had rather
+that America cleared herself of all suspicion of ingratitude, though I
+were to be the victim.
+
+You advise me to have patience, but I am fully persuaded that the longer
+I continue in prison the more difficult will be my liberation. There
+are two reasons for this: the one is that the present Committee, by
+continuing so long my imprisonment, will naturally suppose that my mind
+will be soured against them, as it was against those who put me in, and
+they will continue my imprisonment from the same apprehensions as the
+former Committee did; the other reason is, that it is now about two
+months since your arrival, and I am still in prison. They will explain
+this into an indifference upon my fate that will encourage them to
+continue my imprisonment. When I hear some people say that it is the
+Government of America that now keeps me in prison by not reclaiming me,
+and then pour forth a volley of execrations against her, I know not
+how to answer them otherwise than by a direct denial which they do not
+appear to believe. You will easily conclude that whatever relates to
+imprisonments and liberations makes a topic of prison conversation;
+and as I am now the oldest inhabitant within these walls, except two
+or three, I am often the subject of their remarks, because from the
+continuance of my imprisonment they auger ill to themselves. You see I
+write you every thing that occurs to me, and I conclude with thanking
+you again for your very friendly and affectionate letter, and am with
+great respect,
+
+Your's affectionately,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+(To day is the anniversary of the action at German Town. [October 4,
+1777.] Your letter has enabled me to contradict the observations before
+mentioned.)
+
+
+
+2. Oct 13, 1794 Dear Sir: On the 28th of this Month (October) I shall
+have suffered ten months imprisonment, to the dishonour of America as
+well as of myself, and I speak to you very honestly when I say that my
+patience is exhausted. It is only my actual liberation that can make me
+believe it. Had any person told me that I should remain in prison two
+months after the arrival of a new Minister, I should have supposed that
+he meant to affront me as an American. By the friendship and sympathy
+you express in your letter you seem to consider my imprisonment as
+having connection only with myself, but I am certain that the inferences
+that follow from it have relation also to the National character of
+America, I already feel this in myself, for I no longer speak with pride
+of being a citizen of that country. Is it possible Sir that I should,
+when I am suffering unjust imprisonment under the very eye of her new
+Minister?
+
+While there was no Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) nobody
+wondered at my imprisonment, but now everybody wonders. The continuance
+of it under a change of diplomatic circumstances, subjects me to the
+suspicion of having merited it, and also to the suspicion of having
+forfeited my reputation with America; and it subjects her at the same
+time to the suspicion of ingratitude, or to the reproach of wanting
+national or diplomatic importance. The language that some Americans
+have held of my not being considered as an American citizen, tho'
+contradicted by yourself, proceeds, I believe, from no other motive,
+than the shame and dishonour they feel at the imprisonment of a
+fellow-citizen, and they adopt this apology, at my expence, to get rid
+of that disgrace. Is it not enough that I suffer imprisonment, but my
+mind also must be wounded and tortured with subjects of this kind? Did I
+reason from personal considerations only, independent of principles and
+the pride of having practiced those principles honourably, I should be
+tempted to curse the day I knew America. By contributing to her liberty
+I have lost my own, and yet her Government beholds my situation in
+silence. Wonder not, Sir, at the ideas I express or the language in
+which I express them. If I have a heart to feel for others I can feel
+also for myself, and if I have anxiety for my own honour, I have it also
+for a country whose suffering infancy I endeavoured to nourish and
+to which I have been enthusiastically attached. As to patience I have
+practiced it long--as long as it was honorable to do so, and when it
+goes beyond that point it becomes meanness.
+
+I am inclined to believe that you have attended to my imprisonment
+more as a friend than as a Minister. As a friend I thank you for your
+affectionate attachment. As a Minister you have to look beyond me to the
+honour and reputation of your Government; and your Countrymen, who have
+accustomed themselves to consider any subject in one line of thinking
+only, more especially if it makes a strong [impression] upon them, as
+I believe my situation has made upon you, do not immediately see the
+matters that have relation to it in another line; and it is to bring
+these two into one point that I offer you these observations. A citizen
+and his country, in a case like mine, are so closely connected that the
+case of one is the case of both.
+
+When you first arrived the path you had to pursue with respect to my
+liberation was simple. I was imprisoned as a foreigner; you knew that
+foreigner to be a citizen of America, and you knew also his character,
+and as such you should immediately have reclaimed him. You could lose
+nothing by taking strong ground, but you might lose much by taking an
+inferior one; but instead of this, which I conceive would have been the
+right line of acting, you left me in their hands on the loose intimation
+that my liberation would take place without your direct interference,
+and you strongly recommended it to me to wait the issue. This is more
+than seven weeks ago and I am still in prison. I suspect these people
+are trifling with you, and if they once believe they can do that, you
+will not easily get any business done except what they wish to have
+done.
+
+When I take a review of my whole situation--my circumstances ruined,
+my health half destroyed, my person imprisoned, and the prospect of
+imprisonment still staring me in the face, can you wonder at the
+agony of my feelings? You lie down in safety and rise to plenty; it
+is otherwise with me; I am deprived of more than half the common
+necessaries of life; I have not a candle to burn and cannot get one.
+Fuel can be procured only in small quantities and that with great
+difficulty and very dear, and to add to the rest, I am fallen into a
+relapse and am again on the sick list. Did you feel the whole force of
+what I suffer, and the disgrace put upon America by this injustice done
+to one of her best and most affectionate citizens, you would not, either
+as a friend or Minister, rest a day till you had procured my liberation.
+It is the work of two or three hours when you set heartily about
+it, that is, when you demand me as an American citizen, or propose a
+conference with the Committee upon that subject; or you may make it the
+work of a twelve-month and not succeed. I know these people better than
+you do.
+
+You desire me to believe that "you are placed here on a difficult
+Theatre with many important objects to attend to, and with but few to
+consult with, and that it becomes you in pursuit of these to regulate
+your conduct with respect to each, as to manner and time, as will in
+your judgment be best calculated to accomplish the whole." As I know
+not what these objects are I can say nothing to that point. But I have
+always been taught to believe that the liberty of a Citizen was the
+first object of all free Governments, and that it ought not to give
+preference to, or be blended with, any other. It is that public object
+that all the world can see, and which obtains an influence upon public
+opinion more than any other. This is not the case with the objects you
+allude to. But be those objects what they may, can you suppose you will
+accomplish them the easier by holding me in the back-ground, or making
+me only an accident in the negotiation? Those with whom you confer will
+conclude from thence that you do not feel yourself very strong upon
+those points, and that you politically keep me out of sight in the
+meantime to make your approach the easier.
+
+There is one part in your letter that is equally as proper should be
+communicated to the Committee as to me, and which I conceive you are
+under some diplomatic obligation to do. It is that part which you
+conclude by saying that "_to the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans
+are not and cannot be indifferent_." As it is impossible the Americans
+can preserve their esteem for me and for my oppressors at the same
+time, the injustice to me strikes at the popular part of the Treaty of
+Alliance. If it be the wish of the Committee to reduce the treaty to a
+mere skeleton of Government forms, they are taking the right method to
+do it, and it is not improbable they will blame you afterwards for not
+in-forming them upon the subject. The disposition to retort has been so
+notorious here, that you ought to be guarded against it at all points.
+
+You say in your letter that you doubt whether the gentleman who informed
+me of the language held by some Americans respecting my citizenship of
+America conveyed even his own ideas clearly upon the subject.(1) I know
+not how this may be, but I believe he told me the truth. I received a
+letter a few days ago from a friend and former comrade of mine in which
+he tells me, that all the Americans he converses with, say, that
+I should have been in liberty long ago if the Minister could have
+reclaimed me as an American citizen. When I compare this with the
+counter-declarations in your letter I can explain the case no otherwise
+than I have already done, that it is an apology to get rid of the shame
+and dishonour they feel at the imprisonment of an American citizen,
+and because they are not willing it should be supposed there is want
+of influence in the American Embassy. But they ought to see that this
+language is injurious to me.
+
+On the 2d of this month Vendemaire I received a line from Mr. Beresford
+in which he tells me I shall be in liberty in two or three days, and
+that he has this from good authority. On the 12th I received a note from
+Mr. Labonadaire, written at the Bureau of the Concierge, in which he
+tells me of the interest you take in procuring my liberation, and that
+after the steps that had been already taken that I ought to write to the
+Convention to demand my liberty _purely and simply_ as a citizen of the
+United States of America. He advised me to send the letter to him, and
+he would translate it. I sent the letter inclosing at the same time
+a letter to you. I have heard nothing since of the letter to the
+Convention. On the 17th I received a letter from my former comrade
+Vanhuele, in which he says "I am just come from Mr. Russell who had
+yesterday a conversation with your Minister and your liberation is
+certain--you will be in liberty to-morrow." Vanhuele also adds, "I find
+the advice of Mr. Labonadaire good, for tho' you have some enemies in
+the Convention, the strongest and best part are in your favour." But
+the case is, and I felt it whilst I was writing the letter to the
+Convention, that there is an awkwardness in my appearing, you being
+present; for every foreigner should apply thro' his Minister, or rather
+his Minister for him.
+
+     1 The letter of Peter Whiteside, quoted at the beginning of
+     the Memorial. See introduction to the Memorial. It would
+     seem from this whole letter that it was not known by
+     Americans in Paris that Monroe had been kept ont of his
+     office by Morris for nearly a month after his arrival in
+     Paris.--_Editor._
+
+When I thus see day after day and month after month, and promise after
+promise, pass away without effect, what can I conclude but that either
+the Committees are secretly determined not to let me go, or that the
+measures you take are not pursued with the vigor necessary to give them
+effect; or that the American National character is without sufficient
+importance in the French Republic? The latter will be gratifying to
+the English Government. In short, Sir, the case is now arrived to that
+crisis, that for the sake of your own reputation as a Minister you ought
+to require a positive answer from the Committee. As to myself, it is
+more agreeable to me now to contemplate an honourable destruction, and
+to perish in the act of protesting against the injustice I suffer,
+and to caution the people of America against confiding too much in the
+Treaty of Alliance, violated as it has been in every principle, and in
+my imprisonment though an American Citizen, than remain in the wretched
+condition I am. I am no longer of any use to the world or to myself.
+
+There was a time when I beheld the Revolution of the 10th. Thermidor
+[the fall of Robespierre] with enthusiasm. It was the first news
+my comrade Vanhuele communicated to me during my illness, and it
+contributed to my recovery. But there is still something rotten at the
+Center, and the Enemies that I have, though perhaps not numerous, are
+more active than my friends. If I form a wrong opinion of men or things
+it is to you I must look to set me right. You are in possession of the
+secret. I know nothing of it. But that I may be guarded against as many
+wants as possible I shall set about writing a memorial to Congress,
+another to the State of Pennsylvania, and an address to the people of
+America; but it will be difficult for me to finish these until I know
+from yourself what applications you have made for my liberation, and
+what answers you have received.
+
+Ah, Sir, you would have gotten a load of trouble and difficulties off
+your hands that I fear will multiply every day, had you made it a point
+to procure my liberty when you first arrived, and not left me floating
+on the promises of men whom you did not know. You were then a new
+character. You had come in consequence of their own request that Morris
+should be recalled; and had you then, before you opened any subject
+of negociation that might arise into controversy, demanded my liberty
+either as a Civility or as a Right I see not how they could have refused
+it.
+
+I have already said that after all the promises that have been made I
+am still in prison. I am in the dark upon all the matters that relate
+to myself. I know not if it be to the Convention, to the Committee of
+Public Safety, of General Surety, or to the deputies who come
+sometimes to the Luxembourg to examine and put persons in liberty, that
+applications have been made for my liberation. But be it to whom it
+may, my earnest and pressing request to you as Minister is that you
+will bring this matter to a conclusion by reclaiming me as an American
+citizen imprisoned in France under the plea of being a foreigner born in
+England; that I may know the result, and how to prepare the Memorials
+I have mentioned, should there be occasion for them. The right of
+determining who are American citizens can belong only to America. The
+Convention have declared I am not a French Citizen because she has
+declared me to be a foreigner, and have by that declaration cancelled
+and annulled the vote of the former assembly that conferred the Title
+of Citizen upon Citizens or subjects of other Countries. I should not be
+honest to you nor to myself were I not to express myself as I have done
+in this letter, and I confide and request you will accept it in that
+sense and in no other.
+
+I am, with great respect, your suffering fellow-citizen,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+P. S.--If my imprisonment is to continue, and I indulge very little hope
+to the contrary, I shall be under the absolute necessity of applying
+to you for a supply of several articles. Every person here have their
+families or friends upon the spot who make provision for them. This is
+not the case with me; I have no person I can apply to but the American
+Minister, and I can have no doubt that if events should prevent
+my repaying the expence Congress or the State of Pennsylvania will
+discharge it for me.
+
+To day is 22 Vendemaire Monday October 13, but you will not receive this
+letter till the 14th. I will send the bearer to you again on the 15th,
+Wednesday, and I will be obliged to you to send me for the present,
+three or four candles, a little sugar of any kind, and some soap for
+shaving; and I should be glad at the same time to receive a line from
+you and a memorandum of the articles. Were I in your place I would order
+a Hogshead of Sugar, some boxes of Candles and Soap from America, for
+they will become still more scarce. Perhaps the best method for you
+to procure them at present is by applying to the American Consuls at
+Bordeaux and Havre, and have them up by the diligence.
+
+
+
+3. [Undated.]
+
+Dear Sir: As I have not yet received any answer to my last, I have
+amused myself with writing you the inclosed memoranda. Though
+you recommend patience to me I cannot but feel very pointedly the
+uncomfortableness of my situation, and among other reflections that
+occur to me I cannot think that America receives any credit from the
+long imprisonment that I suffer. It has the appearance of neglecting
+her citizens and her friends and of encouraging the insults of foreign
+nations upon them, and upon her commerce. My imprisonment is as well
+and perhaps more known in England than in France, and they (the English)
+will not be intimidated from molesting an American ship when they see
+that one of her best citizens (for I have a right to call myself so) can
+be imprisoned in another country at the mere discretion of a Committee,
+because he is a foreigner.
+
+When you first arrived every body congratulated me that I should soon,
+if not immediately, be in liberty. Since that time about two hundred
+have been set free from this prison on the applications of their
+sections or of individuals--and I am continually hurt by the
+observations that are made--"that a section in Paris has more influence
+than America."
+
+It is right that I furnish you with these circumstances. It is the
+effect of my anxiety that the character of America suffer no reproach;
+for the world knows that I have acted a generous duty by her. I am the
+third American that has been imprisoned. Griffiths nine weeks, Haskins
+about five, and myself eight [months] and yet in prison. With respect
+to the two former there was then no Minister, for I consider Morris as
+none; and they were liberated on the applications of the Americans in
+Paris. As to myself I had rather be publicly and honorably reclaimed,
+tho' the reclamation was refused, than remain in the uncertain situation
+that I am. Though my health has suffered my spirits are not broken. I
+have nothing to fear unless innocence and fortitude be crimes. America,
+whatever may be my fate, will have no cause to blush for me as a
+citizen; I hope I shall have none to blush for her as a country. If, my
+dear Sir, there is any-thing in the perplexity of ideas I have mistaken,
+only suppose yourself in my situation, and you will easily find an
+excuse for it. I need not say how much I shall rejoice to pay my
+respects to you without-side the walls of this prison, and to enquire
+after my American friends. But I know that nothing can be
+accomplished here but by unceasing perseverance and application. Yours
+affectionately.
+
+
+
+4. October 20, 1794.
+
+Dear Sir: I recd. your friendly letter of the 26 Vendemaire on the day
+it was written, and I thank you for communicating to me your opinion
+upon my case. Ideas serve to beget ideas, and as it is from a review of
+every thing that can be said upon a subject, or is any ways connected
+with it, that the best judgment can be formed how to proceed, I present
+you with such ideas as occur to me. I am sure of one thing, which is
+that you will give them a patient and attentive perusal.
+
+You say in your letter that "I must be sensible that although I am an
+American citizen, yet if you interfere in my behalf as the Minister of
+my country you must demand my liberation only in case there be no charge
+against me; and that if there is I must be brought to trial previously,
+since no person in a _private_ character can be exempt from the laws of
+the country in which he resides."--This is what I have twice attempted
+to do. I wrote a letter on the 3d Sans Culottodi(1) to the Deputies,
+members of the Committee of Surety General, who came to the Luxembourg
+to examine the persons detained. The letter was as follows:--"Citizens
+Representatives: I offer myself for examination. Justice is due to every
+Man. It is Justice only that I ask.--Thomas Paine."
+
+As I was not called for examination, nor heard anything in consequence
+of my letter the first time of sending it, I sent a duplicate of it a
+few days after. It was carried to them by my good friend and comrade
+Vanhuele, who was then going in liberty, having been examined the day
+before. Vanhuele wrote me on the next day and said: "Bourdon de l'Oise
+[who was one of the examining Deputies] is the most inveterate enemy you
+can have. The answer he gave me when I presented your letter put me in
+such a passion with him that I expected I should be sent back again
+to prison." I then wrote a third letter but had not an opportunity of
+sending it, as Bourdon did not come any more till after I received Mr.
+Labonadaire's letter advising me to write to the Convention. The letter
+was as follows:--"Citizens, I have twice offered myself for examination,
+and I chose to do this while Bourdon de l'Oise was one of the
+Commissioners.
+
+     1 Festival of Labour, September 19, 1794.--_Editor._.
+
+This Deputy has said in the Convention that I intrigued with an ancient
+agent of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs. My examination therefore while
+he is present will give him an opportunity of proving his charge or of
+convincing himself of his error. If Bourdon de l'Oise is an honest man
+he will examine me, but lest he should not I subjoin the following. That
+which B[ourdon] calls an intrigue was at the request of a member of the
+former Committee of Salut Public, last August was a twelvemonth. I met
+the member on the Boulevard. He asked me something in French which I
+did not understand and we went together to the Bureau of Foreign Affairs
+which was near at hand. The Agent (Otto, whom you probably knew in
+America) served as interpreter, The member (it was Barere) then asked
+me 1st, If I could furnish him with the plan of Constitution I had
+presented to the Committee of Constitution of which I was member with
+himself, because, he said, it contained several things which he
+wished had been adopted: 2dly, He asked me my opinion upon sending
+Commissioners to the United States of America: 3dly, If fifty or an
+hundred ship loads of flour could be procured from America. As verbal
+interpretation was tedious, it was agreed that I should give him my
+opinion in writing, and that the Agent [Otto] should translate it, which
+he did. I answered the first question by sending him the plan [of
+a Constitution] which he still has. To the second, I replied that
+I thought it would be proper to send Commissioners, because that in
+Revolutions circumstances change so fast that it was often necessary
+to send a better supply of information to an Ally than could be
+communicated by writing; and that Congress had done the same thing
+during the American War; and I gave him some information that the
+Commissioners would find useful on their arrival. I answered the third
+question by sending him a list of American exports two years before,
+distinguishing the several articles by which he would see that the
+supply he mentioned could be obtained. I sent him also the plan of Paul
+Jones, giving it as his, for procuring salt-petre, which was to send
+a squadron (it did not require a large one) to take possession of the
+Island of St. Helen's, to keep the English flag flying at the port,
+that the English East India ships coming from the East Indies, and that
+ballast with salt-petre, might be induced to enter as usual; And that it
+would be a considerable time before the English Government could know
+of what had happened at St. Helen's. See here what Bourdon de l'Oise has
+called an intrigue.--If it was an intrigue it was between a Committee of
+Salut Public and myself, for the Agent was no more than the interpreter
+and translator, and the object of the intrigue was to furnish France
+with flour and salt-petre."--I suppose Bourdon had heard that the agent
+and I were seen together talking English, and this was enough for _him_
+to found his charge upon.(1)
+
+You next say that "I must likewise be sensible that although I am an
+American citizen that it is likewise believed there [in America] that
+I am become a citizen of France, and that in consequence this latter
+character has so far [illegible] the former as to weaken if not destroy
+any claim you might have to interpose in my behalf." I am sorry I cannot
+add any new arguments to those I have already advanced on this part of
+the subject. But I cannot help asking myself, and I wish you would
+ask the Committee, if it could possibly be the intention of France to
+_kidnap_ citizens from America under the pretence of dubbing them
+with the title of French citizens, and then, after inviting or rather
+enveigling them into France, make it a pretence for detaining them? If
+it was, (which I am sure it was not, tho' they now act as if it was) the
+insult was to America, tho' the injury was to me, and the treachery was
+to both.
+
+     1 The communications of Paine to Barere are given in my
+     "Life of Paine," vol. ii-i PP. 73, 87. Otto was Secretary to
+     the Minister of Foreign Affairs when he acted as interpreter
+     between Paine and Barere. There was never any charge at all
+     made against Paine, as the Archives of France now prove,
+     save that he was a "foreigner." Paine was of coarse ignorant
+     of the conspiracy between Morris and Deforgues which had
+     imprisoned him. Bourdon de l'Oise, one of the most cruel
+     Jacobins and Terrorists, afterwards conspired with Pichegru
+     to overthrow the Republic, and was with him banished (1797)
+     to Sinamari, South America, where he died soon after his
+     arrival.--_Editor._.
+
+Did they mean to kidnap General Washington, Mr. Madison, and several
+other Americans whom they dubbed with the same title as well as me? Let
+any man look at the condition of France when I arrived in it,--invaded
+by Austrians and Prussians and declared to be in danger,--and then ask
+if any man who had a home and a country to go to, as I had in America,
+would have come amongst them from any other motive than of assisting
+them. If I could possibly have supposed them capable of treachery
+I certainly would not have trusted myself in their power. Instead
+therefore of your being unwilling or apprehensive of meeting the
+question of French citizenship, they ought to be ashamed of advancing
+it, and this will be the case unless you admit their arguments or
+objections too passively. It is a case on their part fit only for
+the continuations of Robespierre to set up. As to the name of French
+citizen, I never considered it in any other light, so far as regarded
+myself, than as a token of honorary respect. I never made them any
+promise nor took any oath of allegiance or of citizenship, nor bound
+myself by an act or means whatever to the performance of any thing.
+I acted altogether as a friend invited among them as I supposed on
+honorable terms. I did not come to join myself to a Government already
+formed, but to assist in forming one _de nouveau_, which was afterwards
+to be submitted to the people whether they would accept it or not, and
+this any foreigner might do. And strictly speaking there are no citizens
+before this is a government. They are all of the People. The Americans
+were not called citizens till after Government was established, and not
+even then until they had taken the oath of allegiance. This was the
+case in Pennsylvania. But be this French citizenship more or less, the
+Convention have swept it away by declaring me to be a foreigner, and
+imprisoning me as such; and this is a short answer to all those who
+affect to say or to believe that I am French Citizen. A Citizen without
+Citizenship is a term non-descript.
+
+After the two preceeding paragraphs you ask--"If it be my wish that you
+should embark in this controversy (meaning that of reclaiming me)
+and risque the consequences with respect to myself and the good
+understanding subsisting between the two countries, or, without
+relinquishing any point of right, and which might be insisted on in
+case of extremities, pursue according to your best judgment and with the
+light before you, the object of my liberation?"
+
+As I believe from the apparent obstinacy of the Committees that
+circumstances will grow towards the extremity you mention, unless
+prevented beforehand, I will endeavour to throw into your hands all the
+lights I can upon the subject.
+
+In the first place, reclamation may mean two distinct things. All the
+reclamations that are made by the sections in behalf of persons detained
+as _suspect_ are made on the ground that the persons so detained are
+patriots, and the reclamation is good against the charge of "suspect"
+because it proves the contrary. But my situation includes another
+circumstance. I am imprisoned on the charge (if it can be called one)
+of being a foreigner born in England. You know that foreigner to be a
+citizen of the United States of America, and that he has been such since
+the 4th of July 1776, the political birthday of the United States,
+and of every American citizen, for before that period all were British
+subjects, and the States, then provinces, were British dominions.--Your
+reclamation of me therefore as a citizen of the United States (all other
+considerations apart) is good against the pretence for imprisoning me,
+or that pretence is equally good against every American citizen born
+in England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or Holland, and you know this
+description of men compose a very great part of the population of the
+three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and make also a
+part of Congress, and of the State Legislatures.
+
+Every politician ought to know, and every civilian does know, that the
+Law of Treaty of Alliance, and also that of Amity and Commerce knows no
+distinction of American Citizens on account of the place of their birth,
+but recognizes all to be Citizens whom the Constitution and laws of the
+United States of America recognize as such; and if I recollect rightly
+there is an article in the Treaty of Commerce particular to this
+point. The law therefore which they have here, to put all persons in
+arrestation born in any of the Countries at war with France, is, when
+applied to Citizens of America born in England, Ireland, Scotland,
+Germany, or holland, a violation of the treaties of Alliance and of
+Commerce, because it assumes to make a distinction of Citizens which
+those Treaties and the Constitution of America know nothing of. This is
+a subject that officially comes under your cognizance as Minister, and
+it would be consistent that you expostulated with them upon the Case.
+That foolish old man Vadier, who was president of the Convention and of
+the Committee of Surety general when the Americans then in Paris went
+to the Bar of the Convention to reclaim me, gave them for answer that
+my being born in England was cause sufficient for imprisoning me. It
+happened that at least half those who went up with that address were in
+the same case with myself.
+
+As to reclamations on the ground of Patriotism it is difficult to know
+what is to be understood by Patriotism here. There is not a vice, and
+scarcely a virtue, that has not as the fashion of the moment suited
+been called by the name of Patriotism. The wretches who composed the
+revolutionary tribunal of Nantz were the Patriots of that day and the
+criminals of this. The Jacobins called themselves Patriots of the first
+order, men up to the height of the circumstances, and they are now
+considered as an antidote to Patriotism. But if we give to Patriotism a
+fixed idea consistent with that of a Republic, it would signify a strict
+adherence to the principles of Moral Justice, to the equality of civil
+and political Rights, to the System of representative Government, and an
+opposition to every hereditary claim to govern; and of this species
+of Patriotism you know my character. But, Sir, there are men on the
+Committee who have changed their Party but not their principles. Their
+aim is to hold power as long as possible by preventing the establishment
+of a Constitution, and these men are and will be my Enemies, and seek to
+hold me in prison as long as they can. I am too good a Patriot for them.
+It is not improbable that they have heard of the strange language held
+by some Americans that I am not considered in America as an American
+citizen, and they may also have heard say, that you had no orders
+respecting me, and it is not improbable that they interpret that
+language and that silence into a connivance at my imprisonment. If they
+had not some ideas of this kind would they resist so long the civil
+efforts you make for my liberation, or would they attach so much
+importance to the imprisonment of an Individual as _to risque_ (as
+you say to me) _the good understanding that exists between the two
+Countries?_You also say that _it is impossible for any person to do more
+than you have done without adopting the other means_, meaning that of
+reclaiming me. How then can you account for the want of success after so
+many efforts, and such a length of time, upwards of ten weeks, without
+supposing that they fortify themselves in the interpretation I have just
+mentioned? I can admit that it was not necessary to give orders, and
+that it was difficult to give direct orders, for I much question if
+Morris had informed Congress or the President of the whole of the case,
+or had sent copies of my letters to him as I had desired him to do.
+You would find the case here when you came, and you could not fully
+understand it till you did come, and as Minister you would have
+authority to act upon it. But as you inform me that you know what the
+wishes of the President are, you will see also that his reputation is
+exposed to some risque, admitting there to be ground for the supposition
+I have made. It will not add to his popularity to have it believed in
+America, as I am inclined to think the Committee believe here, that he
+connives at my imprisonment. You say also that _it is known to everybody
+that you wish my liberation_. It is, Sir, because they know your wishes
+that they misinterpret the means you use. They suppose that those mild
+means arise from a restriction that you cannot use others, or from a
+consciousness of some defect on my part of which you are unwilling to
+provoke the enquiry.
+
+But as you ask me if it be my wish that you should embark in this
+controversy and risque the consequences with respect to myself, I will
+answer this part of the question by marking out precisely the part I
+wish you to take. What I mean is a sort of middle line above what you
+have yet gone, and not up to the full extremity of the case, which will
+still lie in reserve. It is to write a letter to the Committee that
+shall in the first place defeat by anticipation all the objections they
+might make to a simple reclamation, and at the same time make the ground
+good for that object. But, instead of sending the letter immediately, to
+invite some of the Committee to your house and to make that invitation
+the opportunity of shewing them the letter, expressing at the same time
+a wish that you had done this, from a hope that the business might be
+settled in an amicable manner without your being forced into an official
+interference, that would excite the observations of the Enemies of both
+Countries, and probably interrupt the harmony that subsisted between the
+two republics. But as I can not convey the ideas I wish you to use by
+any means so concisely or so well as to suppose myself the writer of the
+letter I shall adopt this method and you will make use of such parts or
+such ideas of it as you please if you approve the plan. Here follows the
+supposed letter:
+
+Citizens: When I first arrived amongst you as Minister from the United
+States of America I was given to understand that the liberation of
+Thomas Paine would take place without any official interference on my
+part. This was the more agreeable to me as it would not only supercede
+the necessity of that interference, but would leave to yourselves the
+whole opportunity of doing justice to a man who as far as I have been
+able to learn has suffered much cruel treatment under what you have
+denominated the system of Terror. But as I find my expectations have not
+been fulfilled I am under the official necessity of being more explicit
+upon the subject than I have hitherto been.
+
+Permit me, in the first place, to observe that as it is impossible for
+me to suppose that it could have been the intention of France to seduce
+any citizens of America from their allegiance to their proper country
+by offering them the title of French citizen, so must I be compelled to
+believe, that the title of French citizen conferred on Thomas Paine was
+intended only as a mark of honorary respect towards a man who had
+so eminently distinguished himself in defence of liberty, and on no
+occasion more so than in promoting and defending your own revolution.
+For a proof of this I refer you to his two works entitled _Rights of
+Man_. Those works have procured to him an addition of esteem in America,
+and I am sorry they have been so ill rewarded in France. But be this
+title of French Citizen more or less, it is now entirely swept away by
+the vote of the Convention which declares him to be a foreigner, and
+which supercedes the vote of the Assembly that conferred that title upon
+him, consequently upon the case superceded with it.
+
+In consequence of this vote of the Convention declaring him to be a
+foreigner the former Committees have imprisoned him. It is therefore
+become my official duty to declare to you that the foreigner thus
+imprisoned is a citizen of the United States of America as fully, as
+legally, as constitutionally as myself, and that he is moreover one of
+the principal founders of the American Republic.
+
+I have been informed of a law or decree of the Convention which
+subjects foreigners born in any of the countries at war with France
+to arrestation and imprisonment. This law when applied to citizens of
+America born in England is an infraction of the Treaty of Alliance and
+of Amity and Commerce, which knows no distinction of American citizens
+on account of the place of their birth, but recognizes all to be
+citizens whom the Constitution and laws of America recognize as such.
+The circumstances under which America has been peopled requires this
+guard on her Treaties, because the mass of her citizens are composed not
+of natives only but also of the natives of almost all the countries
+of Europe who have sought an asylum there from the persecutions they
+experienced in their own countries. After this intimation you will
+without doubt see the propriety of modelling that law to the principles
+of the Treaty, because the law of Treaty in cases where it applies is
+the governing law to both parties alike, and it cannot be infracted
+without hazarding the existence of the Treaty.
+
+Of the Patriotism of Thomas Paine I can speak fully, if we agree to give
+to patriotism a fixed idea consistent with that of a republic. It would
+then signify a strict adherence to Moral Justice, to the equality of
+civil and political rights, to the system of representative government,
+and an opposition to all hereditary claims to govern. Admitting
+patriotism to consist in these principles, I know of no man who has gone
+beyond Thomas Paine in promulgating and defending them, and that for
+almost twenty years past.
+
+I have now spoken to you on the principal matters concerned in the case
+of Thomas Paine. The title of French citizen which you had enforced upon
+him, you have since taken away by declaring him to be a foreigner, and
+consequently this part of the subject ceases of itself. I have declared
+to you that this foreigner is a citizen of the United States of America,
+and have assured you of his patriotism.
+
+I cannot help at the same time repeating to you my wish that his
+liberation had taken place without my being obliged to go thus far into
+the subject, because it is the mutual interest of both republics to
+avoid as much as possible all subjects of controversy, especially those
+from which no possible good can flow. I still hope that you will save me
+the unpleasant task of proceeding any farther by sending me an order
+for his liberation, which the injured state of his health absolutely
+requires. I shall be happy to receive such an order from you and
+happy in presenting it to him, for to the welfare of Thomas Paine the
+Americans are not and cannot be indifferent.
+
+This is the sort of letter I wish you to write, for I have no idea that
+you will succeed by any measures that can, by any kind of construction,
+be interpreted into a want of confidence or an apprehension of
+consequences. It is themselves that ought to be apprehensive of
+consequences if any are to be apprehended. They, I mean the Committees,
+are not certain that the Convention or the nation would support them
+in forcing any question to extremity that might interrupt the good
+understanding subsisting between the two countries; and I know of no
+question [so likely] to do this as that which involves the rights and
+liberty of a citizen.
+
+You will please to observe that I have put the case of French
+citizenship in a point of view that ought not only to preclude, but to
+make them ashamed to advance any thing upon this subject; and this is
+better than to have to answer their counter-reclamation afterwards.
+Either the Citizenship was intended as a token of honorary respect, or
+it was in-tended to deprive America of a citizen or to seduce him from
+his allegiance to his proper country. If it was intended as an honour
+they must act consistently with the principle of honour. But if they
+make a pretence for detaining me, they convict themselves of the act
+of seduction. Had America singled out any particular French citizen,
+complimented him with the title of Citizen of America, which he without
+suspecting any fraudulent intention might accept, and then after having
+invited or rather inveigled him into America made his acceptance of
+that Title a pretence for seducing or forcing him from his allegiance to
+France, would not France have just cause to be offended at America? And
+ought not America to have the same right to be offended at France? And
+will the Committees take upon themselves to answer for the dishonour
+they bring upon the National Character of their Country? If these
+arguments are stated beforehand they will prevent the Committees going
+into the subject of French Citizenship. They must be ashamed of it.
+But after all the case comes to this, that this French Citizenship
+appertains no longer to me because the Convention, as I have already
+said, have swept it away by declaring me to be foreigner, and it is not
+in the power of the Committees to reverse it. But if I am to be citizen
+and foreigner, and citizen again, just when and how and for any purpose
+they please, they take the Government of America into their own hands
+and make her only a Cypher in their system.
+
+Though these ideas have been long with me they have been more
+particularly matured by reading your last Communication, and I have
+many reasons to wish you had opened that Communication sooner. I am best
+acquainted with the persons you have to deal with and the circumstances
+of my own case. If you chuse to adopt the letter as it is, I send you a
+translation for the sake of expediting the business. I have endeavoured
+to conceive your own manner of expression as well as I could, and the
+civility of language you would use, but the matter of the letter is
+essential to me.
+
+If you chuse to confer with some of the members of the Committee at
+your own house on the subject of the letter it may render the sending it
+unnecessary; but in either case I must request and press you not to give
+away to evasion and delay, and that you will fix positively with them
+that they shall give you an answer in three or four days whether they
+will liberate me on the representation you have made in the letter, or
+whether you must be forced to go further into the subject. The state of
+my health will not admit of delay, and besides the tortured state of
+my mind wears me down. If they talk of bringing me to trial (and I well
+know there is no accusation against me and that they can bring none)
+I certainly summons you as an Evidence to my Character. This you may
+mention to them either as what I intend to do or what you intend to do
+voluntarily for me.
+
+I am anxious that you undertake this business without losing time,
+because if I am not liberated in the course of this decade, I intend, if
+in case the seventy-one detained deputies are liberated, to follow the
+same track that they have done, and publish my own case myself.(1)
+I cannot rest any longer in this state of miserable suspense, be the
+consequences what they may.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+     1 Those deputies, imprisoned for having protested against
+     the overthrow of the Girondin government, May 31,1793, when
+     the Convention was invaded and overawed by the armed
+     communes of Paris. These deputies were liberated and
+     recalled to the Convention, December 8, 1794. Paine was
+     invited to resume his seat the day before, by a special act
+     of the Convention, after an eloquent speech by Thibaudeau.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+Dear Sir: I need not mention to you the happiness I received from the
+information you sent me by Mr. Beresford. I easily guess the persons
+you have conversed with on the subject of my liberation--but matters
+and even promises that pass in conversation are not quite so strictly
+attended to here as in the Country you come from. I am not, my Dear Sir,
+impatient from any thing in my disposition, but the state of my health
+requires liberty and a better air; and besides this, the rules of the
+prison do not permit me, though I have all the indulgences the Concierge
+can give, to procure the things necessary to my recovery, which is
+slow as to strength. I have a tolerable appetite but the allowance of
+provision is scanty. We are not allowed a knife to cut our victuals
+with, nor a razor to shave; but they have lately allowed some barbers
+that are here to shave. The room where I am lodged is a ground floor
+level with the earth in the garden and floored with brick, and is so
+wet after every rain that I cannot guard against taking colds that
+continually cheat my recovery. If you could, without interfering with or
+deranging the mode proposed for my liberation, inform the Committee that
+the state of my health requires liberty and air, it would be good ground
+to hasten my liberation. The length of my imprisonment is also a reason,
+for I am now almost the oldest inhabitant of this uncomfortable mansion,
+and I see twenty, thirty and sometimes forty persons a day put in
+liberty who have not been so long confined as myself. Their liberation
+is a happiness to me; but I feel sometimes, a little mortification
+that I am thus left behind. I leave it entirely to you to arrange this
+matter. The messenger waits. Your's affectionately,
+
+T. P.
+
+I hope and wish much to see you. I have much to say. I have had the
+attendance of Dr. Graham (Physician to Genl. O'Hara, who is prisoner
+here) and of Dr. Makouski, house physician, who has been most
+exceedingly kind to me. After I am at liberty I shall be glad to
+introduce him to you.
+
+     1 This letter, written in a feeble handwriting, is not
+     dated, but Monroe's endorsement, "2d. Luxembourg,"
+     indicates November 2, two days before Paine's liberation.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+
+
+XXII. LETTER TO GEORGE WASHINGTON.
+
+Paris, July 30, 1796.
+
+As censure is but awkwardly softened by apology. I shall offer you
+no apology for this letter. The eventful crisis to which your double
+politics have conducted the affairs of your country, requires an
+investigation uncramped by ceremony.
+
+There was a time when the fame of America, moral and political, stood
+fair and high in the world. The lustre of her revolution extended itself
+to every individual; and to be a citizen of America gave a title to
+respect in Europe. Neither meanness nor ingratitude had been mingled
+in the composition of her character. Her resistance to the attempted
+tyranny of England left her unsuspected of the one, and her open
+acknowledgment of the aid she received from France precluded all
+suspicion of the other. The Washington of politics had not then
+appeared.
+
+At the time I left America (April 1787) the Continental Convention, that
+formed the federal Constitution was on the point of meeting. Since that
+time new schemes of politics, and new distinctions of parties, have
+arisen. The term _Antifederalist_ has been applied to all those who
+combated the defects of that constitution, or opposed the measures
+of your administration. It was only to the absolute necessity of
+establishing some federal authority, extending equally over all the
+States, that an instrument so inconsistent as the present federal
+Constitution is, obtained a suffrage. I would have voted for it myself,
+had I been in America, or even for a worse, rather than have had none,
+provided it contained the means of remedying its defects by the same
+appeal to the people by which it was to be established. It is always
+better policy to leave removeable errors to expose themselves, than
+to hazard too much in contending against them theoretically. I have
+introduced these observations, not only to mark the general difference
+between Antifederalist and Anti-constitutionalist, but to preclude
+the effect, and even the application, of the former of these terms to
+myself. I declare myself opposed to several matters in the Constitution,
+particularly to the manner in which what is called the Executive is
+formed, and to the long duration of the Senate; and if I live to return
+to America, I will use all my endeavours to have them altered.(*) I also
+declare myself opposed to almost the whole of your administration; for
+I know it to have been deceitful, if not perfidious, as I shall shew
+in the course of this letter. But as to the point of consolidating the
+States into a Federal Government, it so happens, that the proposition
+for that purpose came originally from myself. I proposed it in a letter
+to Chancellor Livingston in the spring of 1782, while that gentleman
+was Minister for Foreign Affairs. The five per cent, duty recommended
+by Congress had then fallen through, having been adopted by some of the
+States, altered by others, rejected by Rhode Island, and repealed by
+Virginia after it had been consented to. The proposal in the letter I
+allude to, was to get over the whole difficulty at once, by annexing a
+continental legislative body to Congress; for in order to have any law
+of the Union uniform, the case could only be, that either Congress, as
+it then stood, must frame the law, and the States severally adopt it
+without alteration, or the States must erect a Continental Legislature
+for the purpose. Chancellor Livingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur
+Morris, and myself, had a meeting at the house of Robert Morris on
+the subject of that letter. There was no diversity of opinion on the
+proposition for a Continental Legislature: the only difficulty was on
+the manner of bringing the proposition forward. For my own part, as I
+considered it as a remedy in reserve, that could be applied at any time
+_when the States saw themselves wrong enough to be put right_, (which
+did not appear to be the case at that time) I did not see the propriety
+of urging it precipitately, and declined being the publisher of it
+myself. After this account of a fact, the leaders of your party will
+scarcely have the hardiness to apply to me the term of Antifederalist.
+But I can go to a date and to a fact beyond this; for the proposition
+for electing a continental convention to form the Continental Government
+is one of the subjects treated of in the pamphlet _Common Sense_.(1)
+
+     * I have always been opposed to the mode of refining
+     Government up to an individual, or what is called a single
+     Executive. Such a man will always be the chief of a party. A
+     plurality is far better: It combines the mass of a nation
+     better together: And besides this, it is necessary to the
+     manly mind of a republic that it loses the debasing idea of
+     obeying an individual.--_Author_.
+
+
+     1 See vol. i. of this work, pp. 97, 98, 109, no.--_Editor._.
+
+Having thus cleared away a little of the rubbish that might otherwise
+have lain in my way, I return to the point of time at which the present
+Federal Constitution and your administration began. It was very well
+said by an anonymous writer in Philadelphia, about a year before that
+period, that "_thirteen staves and ne'er a hoop will not make a barrel_"
+and as any kind of hooping the barrel, however defectively executed,
+would be better than none, it was scarcely possible but that
+considerable advantages must arise from the federal hooping of the
+States. It was with pleasure that every sincere friend of America
+beheld, as the natural effect of union, her rising prosperity; and it
+was with grief they saw that prosperity mixed, even in the blossom,
+with the germ of corruption. Monopolies of every kind marked your
+administration almost in the moment of its commencement. The lands
+obtained by the revolution were lavished upon partisans; the interest
+of the disbanded soldier was sold to the speculator; injustice was acted
+under the pretence of faith; and the chief of the army became the patron
+of the fraud.(2) From such a beginning what else could be expected, than
+what has happened? A mean and servile submission to the insults of one
+nation; treachery and ingratitude to another.
+
+     2 The history of the Scioto Company, by which so many
+     Frenchmen as well as Americans were ruined, warranted an
+     even stronger statement. Though Washington did not know what
+     was going on, he cannot be acquitted of a lack of due
+     precaution in patronizing leading agents of these
+     speculations, and introducing them in France.--_Editor._
+
+Some vices make their approach with such a splendid appearance, that we
+scarcely know to what class of moral distinctions they belong. They
+are rather virtues corrupted than vices, originally. But meanness and
+ingratitude have nothing equivocal in their character. There is not a
+trait in them that renders them doubtful. They are so originally vice,
+that they are generated in the dung of other vices, and crawl into
+existence with the filth upon their back. The fugitives have found
+protection in you, and the levee-room is their place of rendezvous.
+
+As the Federal Constitution is a copy, though not quite so base as the
+original, of the form of the British Government, an imitation of its
+vices was naturally to be expected. So intimate is the connection
+between _form and practice_, that to adopt the one is to invite the
+other. Imitation is naturally progressive, and is rapidly so in matters
+that are vicious.
+
+Soon after the Federal Constitution arrived in England, I received a
+letter from a female literary correspondent (a native of New York) very
+well mixed with friendship, sentiment, and politics. In my answer
+to that letter, I permitted myself to ramble into the wilderness of
+imagination, and to anticipate what might hereafter be the condition
+of America. I had no idea that the picture I then drew was realizing
+so fast, and still less that Mr. Washington was hurrying it on. As the
+extract I allude to is congenial with the subject I am upon, I here
+transcribe it:
+
+     [_The extract is the same as that given in a footnote, in
+     the Memorial to Monroe, p. 180_.]
+
+Impressed, as I was, with apprehensions of this kind, I had America
+constantly in my mind in all the publications I afterwards made. The
+First, and still more the Second, Part of the Rights of Man, bear
+evident marks of this watchfulness; and the Dissertation on First
+Principles of Government [XXIV.] goes more directly to the point than
+either of the former. I now pass on to other subjects.
+
+It will be supposed by those into whose hands this letter may fall, that
+I have some personal resentment against you; I will therefore settle
+this point before I proceed further.
+
+If I have any resentment, you must acknowledge that I have not been
+hasty in declaring it; neither would it now be declared (for what are
+private resentments to the public) if the cause of it did not unite
+itself as well with your public as with your private character, and with
+the motives of your political conduct.
+
+The part I acted in the American revolution is well known; I shall not
+here repeat it. I know also that had it not been for the aid received
+from France, in men, money and ships, that your cold and unmilitary
+conduct (as I shall shew in the course of this letter) would in all
+probability have lost America; at least she would not have been the
+independent nation she now is. You slept away your time in the field,
+till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have
+but little share in the glory of the final event. It is time, sir, to
+speak the undisguised language of historical truth.
+
+Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of every
+thing to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution
+began to appear. You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging
+and swallowing the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from
+one end to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You
+have as many addresses in your chest as James the II. As to what were
+your views, for if you are not great enough to have ambition you are
+little enough to have vanity, they cannot be directly inferred from
+expressions of your own; but the partizans of your politics have
+divulged the secret.
+
+John Adams has said, (and John it is known was always a speller after
+places and offices, and never thought his little services were highly
+enough paid,)--John has said, that as Mr. Washington had no child, the
+Presidency should be made hereditary in the family of Lund Washington.
+John might then have counted upon some sinecure himself, and a provision
+for his descendants. He did not go so far as to say, also, that the
+Vice-Presidency should be hereditary in the family of John Adams. He
+prudently left that to stand on the ground that one good turn deserves
+another.(*)
+
+John Adams is one of those men who never contemplated the origin of
+government, or comprehended any thing of first principles. If he had,
+he might have seen, that the right to set up and establish hereditary
+government, never did, and never can, exist in any generation at any
+time whatever; that it is of the nature of treason; because it is an
+attempt to take away the rights of all the minors living at that time,
+and of all succeeding generations. It is of a degree beyond common
+treason. It is a sin against nature. The equal right of every generation
+is a right fixed in the nature of things. It belongs to the son when of
+age, as it belonged to the father before him. John Adams would himself
+deny the right that any former deceased generation could have to
+decree authoritatively a succession of governors over him, or over his
+children; and yet he assumes the pretended right, treasonable as it is,
+of acting it himself. His ignorance is his best excuse.
+
+John Jay has said,(**) (and this John was always the sycophant of
+every thing in power, from Mr. Girard in America, to Grenville in
+England,)--John Jay has said, that the Senate should have been appointed
+for life. He would then have been sure of never wanting a lucrative
+appointment for himself, and have had no fears about impeachment. These
+are the disguised traitors that call themselves Federalists.(**)
+
+Could I have known to what degree of corruption and perfidy the
+administrative part of the government of America had descended, I
+could have been at no loss to have understood the reservedness of Mr.
+Washington towards me, during my imprisonment in the Luxembourg. There
+are cases in which silence is a loud language. I will here explain the
+cause of that imprisonment, and return to Mr. Washington afterwards.
+
+     * Two persons to whom John Adams said this, told me of it.
+     The secretary of Mr. Jay was present when it was told to
+     me.--_Author_.
+
+     **  If Mr. John Jay desires to know on what authority I say
+     this, I will give that authority publicly when he chooses to
+     call for it--_Author_.
+
+In the course of that rage, terror and suspicion, which the brutal
+letter of the Duke of Brunswick first started into existence in France,
+it happened that almost every man who was opposed to violence, or who
+was not violent himself, became suspected. I had constantly been opposed
+to every thing which was of the nature or of the appearance of violence;
+but as I had always done it in a manner that shewed it to be a principle
+founded in my heart, and not a political manouvre, it precluded the
+pretence of accusing me. I was reached, however, under another pretence.
+
+A decree was passed to imprison all persons born in England; but as
+I was a member of the Convention, and had been complimented with the
+honorary style of Citizen of France, as Mr. Washington and some other
+Americans had been, this decree fell short of reaching me. A motion was
+afterwards made and carried, supported chiefly by Bourdon de l'Oise,
+for expelling foreigners from the Convention. My expulsion being thus
+effected, the two committees of Public Safety and of General Surety,
+of which Robespierre was the dictator, put me in arrestation under the
+former decree for imprisoning persons born in England. Having thus shewn
+under what pretence the imprisonment was effected, I come to speak of
+such parts of the case as apply between me and Mr. Washington, either as
+a President or as an individual.
+
+I have always considered that a foreigner, such as I was in fact, with
+respect to France, might be a member of a Convention for framing a
+Constitution, without affecting his right of citizenship in the
+country to which he belongs, but not a member of a government after
+a Constitution is formed; and I have uniformly acted upon this
+distinction" To be a member of a government requires that a person be
+in allegiance to that government and to the country locally. But a
+Constitution, being a thing of principle, and not of action, and
+which, after it is formed, is to be referred to the people for their
+approbation or rejection, does not require allegiance in the persons
+forming and proposing it; and besides this, it is only to the thing
+after it be formed and established, and to the country after its
+governmental character is fixed by the adoption of a constitution, that
+the allegiance can be given. No oath of allegiance or of citizenship was
+required of the members who composed the Convention: there was nothing
+existing in form to swear allegiance to. If any such condition had been
+required, I could not, as Citizen of America in fact, though Citizen of
+France by compliment, have accepted a seat in the Convention.
+
+As my citizenship in America was not altered or diminished by any thing
+I had done in Europe, (on the contrary, it ought to be considered as
+strengthened, for it was the American principle of government that I
+was endeavouring to spread in Europe,) and as it is the duty of every
+govern-ment to charge itself with the care of any of its citizens who
+may happen to fall under an arbitrary persecution abroad, and is also
+one of the reasons for which ambassadors or ministers are appointed,--it
+was the duty of the Executive department in America, to have made (at
+least) some enquiries about me, as soon as it heard of my imprisonment.
+But if this had not been the case, that government owed it to me on
+every ground and principle of honour and gratitude. Mr. Washington owed
+it to me on every score of private acquaintance, I will not now say,
+friendship; for it has some time been known by those who know him, that
+he has no friendships; that he is incapable of forming any; he can serve
+or desert a man, or a cause, with constitutional indifference; and it is
+this cold hermaphrodite faculty that imposed itself upon the world,
+and was credited for a while by enemies as by friends, for prudence,
+moderation and impartiality.(1)
+
+     1 "L'on pent dire qu'il [Washington] jouit de tous les
+     avantages possibles a l'exception des douceurs de
+     l'amitie."--Louis Otto, Charge d'Affaires (at New York) to
+     his government, 13 June, 1790. French Archives, vol. 35, No.
+     32.--Editor.
+
+Soon after I was put into arrestation, and imprisoned in the Luxembourg,
+the Americans who were then in Paris went in a body to the bar of the
+Convention to reclaim me. They were answered by the then President
+Vadier, who has since absconded, that _I was born in England_, and it
+was signified to them, by some of the Committee of _General Surety_, to
+whom they were referred (I have been told it was Billaud Varennes,) that
+their reclamation of me was only the act of individuals, without any
+authority from the American government.
+
+A few days after this, all communications from persons imprisoned to
+any person without the prison was cut off by an order of the Police. I
+neither saw, nor heard from, any body for six months; and the only hope
+that remained to me was, that a new Minister would arrive from America
+to supercede Morris, and that he would be authorized to enquire into
+the cause of my imprisonment. But even this hope, in the state to which
+matters were daily arriving, was too remote to have any consolatory
+effect, and I contented myself with the thought, that I might be
+remembered when it would be too late. There is perhaps no condition from
+which a man conscious of his own uprightness cannot derive consolation;
+for it is in itself a consolation for him to find, that he can bear that
+condition with calmness and fortitude.
+
+From about the middle of March (1794) to the fall of Robespierre
+July 29, (9th of Thermidor,) the state of things in the prisons was a
+continued scene of horror. No man could count upon life for twenty-four
+hours. To such a pitch of rage and suspicion were Robespierre and his
+Committee arrived, that it seemed as if they feared to leave a man
+living. Scarcely a night passed in which ten, twenty, thirty, forty,
+fifty, or more, were not taken out of the prison, carried before a
+pretended tribunal in the morning, and guillotined before night. One
+hundred and sixty-nine were taken out of the Luxembourg one night, in
+the month of July, and one hundred and sixty of them guillotined. A
+list of two hundred more, according to the report in the prison, was
+preparing a few days before Robespierre fell. In this last list I have
+good reason to believe I was included. A memorandum in the hand-writing
+of Robespierre was afterwards produced in the Convention, by the
+committee to whom the papers of Robespierre were referred, in these
+words:
+
+     "Demander que Thomas           "I Demand that Thomas Paine
+     "Payne soit decrete d'ac-       be decreed of accusation
+     "cusation pour les inte-        for the interests of America
+     "rotsde l'Amerique,autant       as well as of France."
+     "que de la France."
+
+
+     1 In reading this the Committee added, "Why Thomas Payne
+     more than another? Because He helped to establish the
+     liberty of both worlds."--_Editor_.
+
+I had then been imprisoned seven months, and the silence of the
+Executive part of the government of America (Mr. Washington) upon the
+case, and upon every thing respecting me, was explanation enough to
+Robespierre that he might proceed to extremities.
+
+A violent fever which had nearly terminated my existence, was, I
+believe, the circumstance that preserved it. I was not in a condition to
+be removed, or to know of what was passing, or of what had passed, for
+more than a month. It makes a blank in my remembrance of life. The first
+thing I was informed of was the fall of Robespierre.
+
+About a week after this, Mr. Monroe arrived to supercede Gouverneur
+Morris, and as soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be
+read, I found a way to convey one to him by means of the man who lighted
+the lamps in the prison; and whose unabated friendship to me, from whom
+he had never received any service, and with difficulty accepted any
+recompense, puts the character of Mr. Washington to shame.
+
+In a few days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed to me in a
+note from an intermediate person, with assurance of his friendship, and
+expressing a desire that I would rest the case in his hands. After a
+fortnight or more had passed, and hearing nothing farther, I wrote to a
+friend who was then in Paris, a citizen of Philadelphia, requesting him
+to inform me what was the true situation of things with respect to me. I
+was sure that something was the matter; I began to have hard thoughts of
+Mr. Washington, but I was unwilling to encourage them.
+
+In about ten days, I received an answer to my letter, in which the
+writer says, "Mr. Monroe has told me that he has no order [meaning from
+the President, Mr. Washington] respecting you, but that he (Mr. Monroe)
+will do every thing in his power to liberate you; but, from what I learn
+from the Americans lately arrived in Paris, you are not considered,
+either by the American government, or by the individuals, as an American
+citizen."
+
+I was now at no loss to understand Mr. Washington and his new fangled
+faction, and that their policy was silently to leave me to fall in
+France. They were rushing as fast as they could venture, without
+awakening the jealousy of America, into all the vices and corruptions of
+the British government; and it was no more consistent with the policy
+of Mr. Washington, and those who immediately surrounded him, than it was
+with that of Robespierre or of Pitt, that I should survive. They have,
+however, missed the mark, and the reaction is upon themselves.
+
+Upon the receipt of the letter just alluded to, I sent a memorial to Mr.
+Monroe, which the reader will find in the appendix, and I received from
+him the following answer.(1) It is dated the 18th of September, but did
+not come to hand till about the 4th of October. I was then failing into
+a relapse, the weather was becoming damp and cold, fuel was not to be
+had, and the abscess in my side, the consequence of these things, and
+of the want of air and exercise, was beginning to form, and which has
+continued immoveable ever since. Here follows Mr. Monroe's letter.
+
+     1 The appendix consisted of an abridgment of the Memorial,
+     which forms the preceding chapter (XXI.) in this volume.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+
+Paris, September 18th, 1794. "Dear Sir,
+
+"I was favoured soon after my arrival here with several letters from
+you, and more latterly with one in the character of memorial upon the
+subject of your confinement; and should have answered them at the
+times they were respectively written had I not concluded you would have
+calculated with certainty upon the deep interest I take in your welfare,
+and the pleasure with which I shall embrace every opportunity in my
+power to serve you. I should still pursue the same course, and for
+reasons which must obviously occur, if I did not find that you are
+disquieted with apprehensions upon interesting points, and which justice
+to you and our country equally forbid you should entertain. You mention
+that you have been informed you are not considered as an American
+citizen by the Americans, and that you have likewise heard that I had
+no instructions respecting you by the government. I doubt not the person
+who gave you the information meant well, but I suspect he did not even
+convey accurately his own ideas on the first point: for I presume the
+most he could say is, that you had likewise become a French citizen,
+and which by no means deprived you of being an American one. Even
+this, however, may be doubted, I mean the acquisition of citizenship in
+France, and I confess you have said much to show that it has not been
+made. I really suspect that this was all that the gentleman who wrote
+to you, and those Americans he heard speak upon the subject meant. It
+becomes my duty, however, to declare to you, that I consider you as
+an American citizen, and that you are considered universally in that
+character by the people of America. As such you are entitled to my
+attention; and so far as it can be given consistently with those
+obligations which are mutual between every government and even a
+transient passenger, you shall receive it.
+
+"The Congress have never decided upon the subject of citizenship in
+a manner to regard the present case. By being with us through the
+revolution you are of our country as absolutely as if you had been born
+there, and you are no more of England, than every native American is.
+This is the true doctrine in the present case, so far as it becomes
+complicated with any other consideration. I have mentioned it to make
+you easy upon the only point which could give you any disquietude.
+
+"Is it necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I
+speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare?
+They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution and the
+difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its
+several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the
+merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The
+crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain,
+our national character. You are considered by them as not only having
+rendered important service 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.
+
+"Of the sense which the President has always entertained of your merits,
+and of his friendly disposition towards you, you are too well assured
+to require any declaration of it from me. That I forward his wishes
+in seeking your safety is what I well know, and this will form an
+additional obligation on me to perform what I should otherwise consider
+as a duty.
+
+"You are, in my opinion, at present menaced by no kind of danger.
+To liberate you, will be an object of my endeavours, and as soon as
+possible. But you must, until that event shall be accomplished, bear
+your situation with patience and fortitude. You will likewise have the
+justice to recollect, that I am placed here upon a difficult theatre*
+many important objects to attend to, with few to consult It becomes me
+in pursuit of those to regulate my conduct in respect to each, as to
+the manner and the time, as will, in my judgment, be best calculated to
+accomplish the whole.
+
+"With great esteem and respect consider me personally your friend,
+
+"James Monroe."
+
+
+The part in Mr. Monroe's letter, in which he speaks of the President,
+(Mr. Washington,) is put in soft language. Mr. Monroe knew what Mr.
+Washington had said formerly, and he was willing to keep that in view.
+But the fact is, not only that Mr. Washington had given no orders to Mr.
+Monroe, as the letter [of Whiteside] stated, but he did not so much as
+say to him, enquire if Mr. Paine be dead or alive, in prison or out, or
+see if there be any assistance we can give him.
+
+     This I presume alludes to the embarrassments which the
+     strange conduct of Gouverneur Morris had occasioned, and
+     which, I well know, had created suspicions of the sincerity
+     of Mr. Washington.--_Author_. voi. m--ij
+
+While these matters were passing, the liberations from the prisons were
+numerous; from twenty to forty in the course of almost every twenty-four
+hours. The continuance of my imprisonment after a new Minister had
+arrived immediately from America, which was now more than two months,
+was a matter so obviously strange, that I found the character of the
+American government spoken of in very unqualified terms of reproach;
+not only by those who still remained in prison, but by those who were
+liberated, and by persons who had access to the prison from without.
+Under these circumstances I wrote again to Mr. Monroe, and found
+occasion, among other things, to say: "It will not add to the popularity
+of Mr. Washington to have it believed in America, as it is believed
+here, that he connives at my imprisonment."
+
+The case, so far as it respected Mr. Monroe, was, that having to get
+over the difficulties, which the strange conduct of Gouverneur Morris
+had thrown in the way of a successor, and having no authority from the
+American government to speak officially upon any thing relating to me,
+he found himself obliged to proceed by unofficial means with individual
+members; for though Robespierre was overthrown, the Robespierrian
+members of the Committee of Public Safety still remained in considerable
+force, and had they found out that Mr. Monroe had no official authority
+upon the case, they would have paid little or no regard to his
+reclamation of me. In the mean time my health was suffering exceedingly,
+the dreary prospect of winter was coming on, and imprisonment was still
+a thing of danger. After the Robespierrian members of the Committee were
+removed by the expiration of their time of serving, Mr. Monroe reclaimed
+me, and I was liberated the 4th of November. Mr. Monroe arrived in Paris
+the beginning of August before. All that period of my imprisonment,
+at least, I owe not to Robespierre, but to his colleague in projects,
+George Washington. Immediately upon my liberation, Mr. Monroe invited me
+to his house, where I remained more than a year and a half; and I speak
+of his aid and friendship, as an open-hearted man will always do in such
+a case, with respect and gratitude.
+
+Soon after my liberation, the Convention passed an unanimous vote,
+to invite me to return to my seat among them. The times were still
+unsettled and dangerous, as well from without as within, for the
+coalition was unbroken, and the constitution not settled. I chose,
+however, to accept the invitation: for as I undertake nothing but what
+I believe to be right, I abandon nothing that I undertake; and I
+was willing also to shew, that, as I was not of a cast of mind to be
+deterred by prospects or retrospects of danger, so neither were my
+principles to be weakened by misfortune or perverted by disgust.
+
+Being now once more abroad in the world, I began to find that I was
+not the only one who had conceived an unfavourable opinion of Mr.
+Washington; it was evident that his character was on the decline as well
+among Americans as among foreigners of different nations. From being the
+chief of the government, he had made himself the chief of a party;
+and his integrity was questioned, for his politics had a doubtful
+appearance. The mission of Mr. Jay to London, notwithstanding there
+was an American Minister there already, had then taken place, and was
+beginning to be talked of. It appeared to others, as it did to me, to
+be enveloped in mystery, which every day served either to increase or to
+explain into matter of suspicion.
+
+In the year 1790, or about that time, Mr. Washington, as President,
+had sent Gouverneur Morris to London, as his secret agent to have some
+communication with the British Ministry. To cover the agency of Morris
+it was given out, I know not by whom, that he went as an agent from
+Robert Morris to borrow money in Europe, and the report was permitted
+to pass uncontradicted. The event of Morris's negociation was, that Mr.
+Hammond was sent Minister from England to America, Pinckney from
+America to England, and himself Minister to France. If, while Morris was
+Minister in France, he was not a emissary of the British Ministry and
+the coalesced powers, he gave strong reasons to suspect him of it. No
+one who saw his conduct, and heard his conversation, could doubt his
+being in their interest; and had he not got off the time he did, after
+his recall, he would have been in arrestation. Some letters of his had
+fallen into the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and enquiry was
+making after him.
+
+A great bustle had been made by Mr. Washington about the conduct of
+Genet in America, while that of his own Minister, Morris, in France, was
+infinitely more reproachable. If Genet was imprudent or rash, he was not
+treacherous; but Morris was all three. He was the enemy of the French
+revolution, in every stage of it. But notwithstanding this conduct
+on the part of Morris, and the known profligacy of his character, Mr.
+Washington in a letter he wrote to him at the time of recalling him on
+the complaint and request of the Committee of Public Safety, assures
+him, that though he had complied with that request, he still retained
+the same esteem and friendship for him as before. This letter Morris was
+foolish enough to tell of; and, as his own char-acter and conduct were
+notorious, the telling of it could have but one effect, which was that
+of implicating the character of the writer.(1) Morris still loiters
+in Europe, chiefly in England; and Mr. Washington is still in
+correspondence with him. Mr. Washington ought, therefore, to expect,
+especially since his conduct in the affairs of Jay's treaty, that France
+must consider Morris and Washington as men of the same description. The
+chief difference, however, between the two is, (for in politics there
+is none,) that the one is profligate enough to profess an indifference
+about _moral_ principles, and the other is prudent enough to conceal the
+want of them.
+
+     1 Washington wrote to Morris, June 19,1794, "my confidence
+     in and friendship for you remain undiminished." It was not
+     "foolish" but sagacious to show this one sentence, without
+     which Morris might not have escaped out of France. The
+     letter reveals Washington's mental decline. He says "until
+     then [Fauchet's demand for recall of Morris, early 1794] I
+     had supposed you stood well with the powers that were."
+     Lafayette had pleaded for Morris's removal, and two French
+     Ministers before Fauchet, Ternant and Genet, had expressed
+     their Government's dissatisfaction with him. See Ford's
+     Writings of Washington, vii., p. 453; also Editor's
+     Introduction to XXI.--_Editor._
+
+About three months after I was at liberty, the official note of Jay
+to Grenville on the subject of the capture of American vessels by the
+British cruisers, appeared in the American papers that arrived at Paris.
+Every thing was of a-piece. Every thing was mean. The same kind of
+character went to all circumstances public or private. Disgusted at
+this national degradation, as well as at the particular conduct of Mr.
+Washington to me, I wrote to him (Mr. Washington) on the 22d of February
+(1795) under cover to the then Secretary of State, (Mr. Randolph,) and
+entrusted the letter to Mr. Le-tombe, who was appointed French consul
+to Philadelphia, and was on the point of taking his departure. When I
+supposed Mr. Letombe had sailed, I mentioned the letter to Mr. Monroe,
+and as I was then in his house, I shewed it to him. He expressed a
+wish that I would recall it, which he supposed might be done, as he had
+learnt that Mr. Letombe had not then sailed. I agreed to do so, and it
+was returned by Mr. Letombe under cover to Mr. Monroe.
+
+The letter, however, will now reach Mr. Washington publicly in the
+course of this work.
+
+About the month of September following, I had a severe relapse which
+gave occasion to the report of my death. I had felt it coming on a
+considerable time before, which occasioned me to hasten the work I
+had then in hand, the _Second part of the Age of Reason_. When I had
+finished that work, I bestowed another letter on Mr. Washington, which I
+sent under cover to Mr. Benj. Franklin Bache of Philadelphia. The letter
+is as follows:
+
+
+"Paris, September 20th, 1795.
+
+"Sir,
+
+"I had written you a letter by Mr. Letombe, French consul, but, at the
+request of Mr. Monroe, I withdrew it, and the letter is still by me.
+I was the more easily prevailed upon to do this, as it was then my
+intention to have returned to America the latter end of the present
+year, 1795; but the illness I now suffer prevents me. In case I had
+come, I should have applied to you for such parts of your official
+letters (and of your private ones, if you had chosen to give them) as
+contained any instructions or directions either to Mr. Monroe, or to
+Mr. Morris, or to any other person respecting me; for after you were
+informed of my imprisonment in France, it was incumbent on you to have
+made some enquiry into the cause, as you might very well conclude that I
+had not the opportunity of informing you of it. I cannot understand your
+silence upon this subject upon any other ground, than as _connivance_ at
+my imprisonment; and this is the manner it is understood here, and will
+be understood in America, unless you give me authority for contradicting
+it. I therefore write you this letter, to propose to you to send me
+copies of any letters you have written, that may remove that suspicion.
+In the preface to the second part of the Age of Reason, I have given a
+memorandum from the hand-writing of Robespierre, in which he proposed a
+decree of accusation against me, '_for the interests of America as well
+as of France!_' He could have no cause for putting America in the
+case, but by interpreting the silence of the American government into
+connivance and consent. I was imprisoned on the ground of being born
+in England; and your silence in not enquiring into the cause of that
+imprisonment, and reclaiming me against it, was tacitly giving me up. I
+ought not to have suspected you of treachery; but whether I recover
+from the illness I now suffer or not, I shall continue to think you
+treacherous, till you give me cause to think otherwise. I am sure you
+would have found yourself more at your ease, had you acted by me as
+you ought; for whether your desertion of me was intended to gratify the
+English Government, or to let me fall into destruction in France that
+you might exclaim the louder against the French Revolution, or whether
+you hoped by my extinction to meet with less opposition in mounting up
+the American government--either of these will involve you in reproach
+you will not easily shake off.
+
+"THOMAS Paine."
+
+     1 Washington Papers in State Department. Endorsed by Bache:
+     "Jan. 18, 1796. Enclosed to Benj. Franklin Bache, and by him
+     forwarded immediately upon receipt."--_Editor._.
+
+Here follows the letter above alluded to, which I had stopped in
+complaisance to Mr. Monroe.
+
+
+"Paris, February aad, 1795.
+
+"Sir,
+
+"As it is always painful to reproach those one would wish to respect, it
+is not without some difficulty that I have taken the resolution to
+write to you. The dangers to which I have been exposed cannot have been
+unknown to you, and the guarded silence you have observed upon that
+circumstance is what I ought not to have expected from you, either as a
+friend or as President of the United States.
+
+"You knew enough of my character to be assured that I could not have
+deserved imprisonment in France; and, without knowing any thing more
+than this, you had sufficient ground to have taken some interest for my
+safety. Every motive arising from recollection of times past, ought to
+have suggested to you the propriety of such a measure. But I cannot find
+that you have so much as directed any enquiry to be made whether I
+was in prison or at liberty, dead or alive; what the cause of that
+imprisonment was, or whether there was any service or assistance you
+could render. Is this what I ought to have expected from America, after
+the part I had acted towards her, or will it redound to her honour or
+to yours, that I tell the story? I do not hesitate to say, that you have
+not served America with more disinterestedness, or greater zeal, or more
+fidelity, than myself, and I know not if with better effect. After the
+revolution of America was established I ventured into new scenes
+of difficulties to extend the principles which that revolution had
+produced, and you rested at home to partake of the advantages. In the
+progress of events, you beheld yourself a President in America, and me a
+prisoner in France. You folded your arms, forgot your friend, and became
+silent.
+
+"As every thing I have been doing in Europe was connected with my wishes
+for the prosperity of America, I ought to be the more surprised at this
+conduct on the part of her government. It leaves me but one mode of
+explanation, which is, _that every thing is not as it ought to be
+amongst you_, and that the presence of a man who might disapprove, and
+who had credit enough with the country to be heard and believed, was not
+wished for. This was the operating motive with the despotic faction
+that imprisoned me in France, (though the pretence was, that I was a
+foreigner,) and those that have been silent and inactive towards me
+in America, appear to me to have acted from the same motive. It is
+impossible for me to discover any other.(1)
+
+"After the part I have taken in the revolution of America, it is
+natural that I feel interested in whatever relates to her character
+and prosperity. Though I am not on the spot to see what is immediately
+acting there, I see some part of what she is acting in Europe. For
+your own sake, as well as for that of America, I was both surprised
+and concerned at the appointment of Gouverneur Morris to be Minister
+to France. His conduct has proved that the opinion I had formed of that
+appointment was well founded. I wrote that opinion to Mr. Jefferson at
+the time, and I was frank enough to say the same thing to Morris--_that
+it was an unfortunate appointment?_ His prating, insignificant
+pomposity, rendered him at once offensive, suspected, and ridiculous;
+and his total neglect of all business had so disgusted the Americans,
+that they proposed drawing up a protest against him. He carried this
+neglect to such an extreme, that it was necessary to inform him of it;
+and I asked him one day, if he did not feel himself ashamed to take the
+money of the country, and do nothing for it?' But Morris is so fond of
+profit and voluptousness, that he cares nothing about character. Had
+he not been removed at the time he was, I think his conduct would have
+precipitated the two countries into a rupture; and in this case,
+hated _systematically_ as America is and ever will be by the British
+government, and at the same time suspected by France, the commerce of
+America would have fallen a prey to both countries.
+
+     1 This paragraph of the original letter was omitted from the
+     American pamphlet, probably by the prudence of Mr. Bache.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 "I have just heard of Gouverneur Morris's appointment. It
+     is a most unfortunate one; and, as I shall mention the same
+     thing to him when I see him, I do not express it to you with
+     the injunction of confidence."--Paine to Jefferson, Feb.
+     13,1792.--_Editor._
+
+     3  Paine could not of course know that Morris was willing
+     that the Americans, to whom he alludes, captains of captured
+     vessels, should suffer, in order that there might be a case
+     against France of violation of treaty, which would leave the
+     United States free to transfer the alliance to England. See
+     Introduction to XXI.. also my "Life of Paine," ii., p.
+     83.--_Editor._.
+
+"If the inconsistent conduct of Morris exposed the interest of America
+to some hazard in France, the pusillanimous conduct of Mr. Jay in
+England has rendered the American government contemptible in Europe.
+Is it possible that any man who has contributed to the independence of
+Amer-ica, and to free her from the tyranny and injustice of the British
+government, can read without shame and indignation the note of Jay to
+Grenville? It is a satire upon the declaration of Independence, and an
+encouragement to the British government to treat America with contempt.
+At the time this Minister of Petitions was acting this miserable part,
+he had every means in his hands to enable him to have done his business
+as he ought. The success or failure of his mission depended upon the
+success or failure of the French arms. Had France failed, Mr. Jay might
+have put his humble petition in his pocket, and gone home. The case
+happened to be otherwise, and he has sacrificed the honour and perhaps
+all the advantages of it, by turning petitioner. I take it for granted,
+that he was sent over to demand indemnification for the captured
+property; and, in this case, if he thought he wanted a preamble to his
+demand, he might have said,
+
+'That, tho' the government of England might suppose itself under
+the necessity of seizing American property bound to France, yet
+that supposed necessity could not preclude indemnification to the
+proprietors, who, acting under the authority of their own government,
+were not accountable to any other.'
+
+"But Mr. Jay sets out with an implied recognition of the right of the
+British government to seize and condemn: for he enters his complaint
+against the _irregularity_ of the seizures and the condemnation, as if
+they were reprehensible only by not being _conformable_ to the _terms_
+of the proclamation under which they were seized. Instead of being the
+Envoy of a government, he goes over like a lawyer to demand a new trial.
+I can hardly help thinking that Grenville wrote that note himself and
+Jay signed it; for the style of it is domestic and not diplomatic.
+The term, _His_ Majesty, used without any descriptive epithet, always
+signifies the King whom the Minister that speaks represents. If this
+sinking of the demand into a petition was a juggle between Grenville
+and Jay, to cover the indemnification, I think it will end in another
+juggle, that of never paying the money, and be made use of afterwards to
+preclude the right of demanding it: for Mr. Jay has virtually disowned
+the right _by appealing to the magnanimity of his Majesty against the
+capturers_. He has made this magnanimous Majesty the umpire in the case,
+and the government of the United States must abide by the decision. If,
+Sir, I turn some part of this business into ridicule, it is to avoid the
+unpleasant sensation of serious indignation.
+
+"Among other things which I confess I do not understand, is the
+proclamation of neutrality. This has always appeared to me as
+an assumption on the part of the executive not warranted by the
+Constitution. But passing this over, as a disputable case, and
+considering it only as political, the consequence has been that of
+sustaining the losses of war, without the balance of reprisals. When
+the profession of neutrality, on the part of America, was answered by
+hostilities on the part of Britain, the object and intention of that
+neutrality existed no longer; and to maintain it after this, was not
+only to encourage farther insults and depredations, but was an informal
+breach of neutrality towards France, by passively contributing to the
+aid of her enemy. That the government of England considered the American
+government as pusillanimous, is evident from the encreasing insolence of
+the conduct of the former towards the latter, till the affair of General
+Wayne. She then saw that it might be possible to kick a government into
+some degree of spirit.(1) So far as the proclamation of neutrality was
+intended to prevent a dissolute spirit of privateering in America under
+foreign colors, it was undoubtedly laudable; but to continue it as a
+government neutrality, after the commerce of America was made war upon,
+was submission and not neutrality. I have heard so much about this thing
+called neutrality, that I know not if the ungenerous and dishonorable
+silence (for I must call it such,) that has been observed by your part
+of the government towards me, during my imprisonment, has not in some
+measure arisen from that policy.
+
+     1 Wayne's success against the Indians of the Six Nations,
+     1794, was regarded by Washington also as a check on England.
+     Writing to Pendleton, Jan. 22, 1795, he says: "There is
+     reason to believe that the Indians...._together with their
+     abettors_; begin to see things in a different point of
+     view." (Italics mine).--_Editor._
+
+"Tho' I have written you this letter, you ought not to suppose it has
+been an agreeable undertaking to me. On the contrary, I assure you, it
+has caused me some disquietude. I am sorry you have given me cause to
+do it; for, as I have always remembered your former friendship with
+pleasure, I suffer a loss by your depriving me of that sentiment.
+
+"Thomas Paine."
+
+
+That this letter was not written in very good temper, is very evident;
+but it was just such a letter as his conduct appeared to me to merit,
+and every thing on his part since has served to confirm that
+opinion. Had I wanted a commentary on his silence, with respect to my
+imprisonment in France, some of his faction have furnished me with it.
+What I here allude to, is a publication in a Philadelphia paper, copied
+afterwards into a New York paper, both under the patronage of the
+Washington faction, in which the writer, still supposing me in prison
+in France, wonders at my lengthy respite from the scaffold; and he marks
+his politics still farther, by saying:
+
+"It appears, moreover, that the people of England did not relish his
+(Thomas Paine's) opinions quite so well as he expected, and that for one
+of his last pieces, as destructive to the peace and happiness of their
+country, (meaning, I suppose, the _Rights of Man_,) they threatened
+our knight-errant with such serious vengeance, that, to avoid a trip to
+Botany Bay, he fled over to France, as a less dangerous voyage."
+
+I am not refuting or contradicting the falsehood of this publication,
+for it is sufficiently notorious; neither am I censuring the writer: on
+the contrary, I thank him for the explanation he has incautiously given
+of the principles of the Washington faction. Insignificant, however, as
+the piece is, it was capable of having some ill effects, had it arrived
+in France during my imprisonment, and in the time of Robespierre; and I
+am not uncharitable in supposing that this was one of the intentions of
+the writer.(*)
+
+     * I know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the
+     Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but
+     now a British consul; and that he writes under the
+     signature of Peter Skunk or Peter Porcupine, or some such
+     signature.--Author.
+
+     This footnote probably added to the gall of Porcupine's
+     (Cobbett's) "Letter to the Infamous Tom Paine, in Answer to
+     his Letter to General Washington" (Polit. Censor, Dec.,
+     1796), of which he (Cobbett) afterwards repented. Phineas
+     Bond had nothing to do with it.--Editor.
+
+I have now done with Mr. Washington on the score of private affairs. It
+would have been far more agreeable to me, had his conduct been such as
+not to have merited these reproaches. Errors or caprices of the temper
+can be pardoned and forgotten; but a cold deliberate crime of the heart,
+such as Mr. Washington is capable of acting, is not to be washed away. I
+now proceed to other matter.
+
+After Jay's note to Grenville arrived in Paris from America, the
+character of every thing that was to follow might be easily foreseen;
+and it was upon this anticipation that _my_ letter of February the 22d
+was founded. The event has proved that I was not mistaken, except that
+it has been much worse than I expected.
+
+It would naturally occur to Mr. Washington, that the secrecy of Jay's
+mission to England, where there was already an American Minister, could
+not but create some suspicion in the French government; especially
+as the conduct of Morris had been notorious, and the intimacy of Mr.
+Washington with Morris was known.
+
+The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world, is
+a sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called _prudence_. It
+is, in many cases, a substitute for principle, and is so nearly allied
+to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence
+furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is
+the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the
+embarrassments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for
+he authorized it to be made known to the French government, as a
+confidential matter, (Mr. Washington should recollect that I was a
+member of the Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here
+state) he authorized it, I say, to be announced, and that for the
+purpose of preventing any uneasiness to France on the score of Mr. Jay's
+mission to England, that the object of that mission, and of Mr. Jay's
+authority, was restricted to that of demanding the surrender of the
+western posts, and indemnification for the cargoes captured in American
+vessels. Mr. Washington knows that this was untrue; and knowing this,
+he had good reason to himself for refusing to furnish the House of
+Representatives with copies of the instructions given to Jay, as he
+might suspect, among other things, that he should also be called upon
+for copies of instructions given to other Ministers, and that, in
+the contradiction of instructions, his want of integrity would be
+detected.(1) Mr. Washington may now, perhaps, learn, when it is too late
+to be of any use to him, that a man will pass better through the world
+with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being detected in
+_one_ sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.
+
+The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negotiated by
+Mr. Jay, (for nobody suspected any,) came in an English newspaper, which
+announced that a treaty _offensive and defensive_ had been concluded
+between the United States of America and England. This was immediately
+denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though
+it was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some
+underhand business was going forward.(*) At length the treaty itself
+arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.
+
+     1 When the British treaty had been ratified by the Senate
+     (with one stipulation) and signed by the President, the
+     House of Representatives, required to supply the means for
+     carrying into effect, believed that its power over the
+     supplies authorized it to check what a large majority
+     considered an outrage on the country and on France. This was
+     the opinion of Edmund Randolph (the first Attorney General),
+     of Jefferson, Madison, and other eminent men. The House
+     having respectfully requested the President to send them
+     such papers on the treaty as would not affect any existing
+     negotiations, he refused in a message (March 30, 1796),
+     whose tenor Madison described as "improper and indelicate."
+     He said "the assent of the House of Representatives is not
+     necessary to the validity of a treaty." The House regarded
+     the message as menacing a serious conflict, and receded.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     * It was the embarrassment into which the affairs and credit
+     of America were thrown at this instant by the report above
+     alluded to, that made it necessary to contradict it, and
+     that by every means arising from opinion or founded upon
+     authority. The Committee of Public Safety, existing at that
+     time, had agreed to the full execution, on their part, of
+     the treaty between America and France, notwithstanding some
+     equivocal conduct on the part of the American government,
+     not very consistent with the good faith of an ally; but they
+     were not in a disposition to be imposed upon by a counter-
+     treaty. That Jay had no instructions beyond the points above
+     stated, or none that could possibly be construed to extend
+     to the length the British treaty goes, was a matter believed
+     in America, in England, and in France; and without going to
+     any other source it followed naturally from the message of
+     the President to Congress, when he nominated Jay upon that
+     mission. The secretary of Mr. Jay came to Paris soon after
+     the treaty with England had been concluded, and brought with
+     him a copy of Mr. Jay's instructions, which he offered to
+     shew to me as _justification of Jay_. I advised him, as a
+     friend, not to shew them to anybody, and did not permit him
+     to shew them to me. "Who is it," said I to him, "that you
+     intend to implicate as censureable by shewing those
+     instructions? Perhaps that implication may fall upon your
+     own government." Though I did not see the instructions, I
+     could not be at a loss to understand that the American
+     administration had been playing a double game.--Author.
+
+     That there was a "double game" in this business, from first
+     to last, is now a fact of history. Jay was confirmed by the
+     Senate on a declaration of the President in which no
+     faintest hint of a treaty was given, but only the
+     "adjustment of our complaints," "vindication of our rights,"
+     and cultivation of "peace." Only after the Envoy's
+     confirmation did the Cabinet add the main thing, his
+     authority to negotiate a commercial treaty. This was done
+     against the protest of the only lawyer among them, Edmund
+     Randolph, Secretary of State, who said the exercise of such
+     a power by Jay would be an abridgment of the rights of the
+     Senate and of the nation. See my "Life of Randolph," p. 220.
+     For Jay's Instructions, etc., see I. Am. State Papers,
+     Foreign Relations.--Editor.
+
+It is curious to observe, how the appearance of characters will change,
+whilst the root that produces them remains the same. The Washington
+faction having waded through the slough of negociation, and whilst it
+amused France with professions of friendship contrived to injure her,
+immediately throws off the hypocrite, and assumes the swaggering air of
+a bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on
+this occasion filled with paragraphs about _Sovereignty_. A paltroon may
+boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the
+only kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. But those
+daring paragraphs, as Timothy Pickering(1) well knows, were intended
+for France; without whose assistance, in men, money, and ships, Mr.
+Washington would have cut but a poor figure in the American war. But of
+his military talents I shall speak hereafter.
+
+I mean not to enter into any discussion of any article of Jay's treaty;
+I shall speak only upon the whole of it. It is attempted to be justified
+on the ground of its not being a violation of any article or articles
+of the treaty pre-existing with France. But the sovereign right of
+explanation does not lie with George Washington and his man Timothy;
+France, on her part, has, at least, an equal right: and when nations
+dispute, it is not so much about words as about things.
+
+A man, such as the world calls a sharper, and versed as Jay must be
+supposed to be in the quibbles of the law, may find a way to enter into
+engagements, and make bargains, in such a manner as to cheat some other
+party, without that party being able, as the phrase is, _to take the law
+of him_. This often happens in the cabalistical circle of what is called
+law. But when this is attempted to be acted on the national scale of
+treaties, it is too despicable to be defended, or to be permitted to
+exist. Yet this is the trick upon which Jay's treaty is founded, so
+far as it has relation to the treaty pre-existing with France. It is a
+counter-treaty to that treaty, and perverts all the great articles of
+that treaty to the injury of France, and makes them operate as a bounty
+to England, with whom France is at war.
+
+     1 Secretary of State.--_Editor._.
+
+The Washington administration shews great desire that the treaty between
+France and the United States be preserved. Nobody can doubt their
+sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British
+merchant, or a British agent or sailor in America, that does not
+anxiously wish the same thing. The treaty with France serves now as
+a passport to supply England with naval stores and other articles of
+American produce, whilst the same articles, when coming to France, are
+made contraband or seizable by Jay's treaty with England. The treaty
+with France says, that neutral ships make neutral property, and thereby
+gives protection to English property on board American ships; and Jay's
+treaty delivers up French property on board American ships to be seized
+by the English. It is too paltry to talk of faith, of national honour,
+and of the preservation of treaties, whilst such a bare-faced treachery
+as this stares the world in the face.
+
+The Washington administration may save itself the trouble of proving to
+the French government its _most faithful_ intentions of preserving
+the treaty with France; for France has now no desire that it should be
+preserved. She had nominated an Envoy extraordinary to America, to make
+Mr. Washington and his government a present of the treaty, and to
+have no more to do with _that_, or with _him_. It was at the same time
+officially declared to the American Minister at Paris, _that the French
+Republic had rather have the American government for an open enemy
+than a treacherous friend_. This, sir, together with the internal
+distractions caused in America, and the loss of character in the world,
+is the _eventful crisis_, alluded to in the beginning of this letter, to
+which your double politics have brought the affairs of your country. It
+is time that the eyes of America be opened upon you.
+
+How France would have conducted herself towards America and American
+commerce, after all treaty stipulations had ceased, and under the sense
+of services rendered and injuries received, I know not. It is, however,
+an unpleasant reflection, that in all national quarrels, the innocent,
+and even the friendly part of the community, become involved with the
+culpable and the unfriendly; and as the accounts that arrived from
+America continued to manifest an invariable attachment in the general
+mass of the people to their original ally, in opposition to the
+new-fangled Washington faction,--the resolutions that had been taken
+in France were suspended. It happened also, fortunately enough, that
+Gouverneur Morris was not Minister at this time.
+
+There is, however, one point that still remains in embryo, and
+which, among other things, serves to shew the ignorance of Washington
+treaty-makers, and their inattention to preexisting treaties, when they
+were employing themselves in framing or ratifying the new treaty with
+England.
+
+The second article of the treaty of commerce between the United States
+and France says:
+
+"The most christian king and the United States engage mutually, not to
+grant any particular favour to other nations in respect of commerce and
+navigation that shall not immediately become common to the other party,
+who shall enjoy the same favour freely, if the concession was freely
+made, or on allowing the same compensation if the concession was
+conditional."
+
+All the concessions, therefore, made to England by Jay's treaty are,
+through the medium of this second article in the pre-existing treaty,
+made to France, and become engrafted into the treaty with France, and
+can be exercised by her as a matter of right, the same as by England.
+
+Jay's treaty makes a concession to England, and that unconditionally,
+of seizing naval stores in American ships, and condemning them as
+contraband. It makes also a concession to England to seize provisions
+and _other articles_ in American ships. _Other articles are all other
+articles_, and none but an ignoramus, or something worse, would have put
+such a phrase into a treaty. The condition annexed in this case is, that
+the provisions and other articles so seized, are to be paid for at a
+price to be agreed upon. Mr. Washington, as President, ratified
+this treaty after he knew the British Government had recommended an
+indiscriminate seizure of provisions and all other articles in American
+ships; and it is now known that those seizures were made to fit out the
+expedition going to Quiberon Bay, and it was known before hand that they
+would be made. The evidence goes also a good way to prove that Jay and
+Grenville understood each other upon that subject. Mr. Pinckney,(1)
+when he passed through France on his way to Spain, spoke of the
+recommencement of the seizures as a thing that would take place.
+
+     1 Gen. Thomas Pinckney, U. S. Minister to England.--
+     _Editor._
+
+The French government had by some means received information from London
+to the same purpose, with the addition, that the recommencement of
+the seizures would cause no misunderstanding between the British and
+American governments. Grenville, in defending himself against the
+opposition in Parliament, on account of the scarcity of corn, said (see
+his speech at the opening of the Parliament that met October 29, 1795)
+that _the supplies for the Quiberon expedition were furnished out of the
+American ships_, and all the accounts received at that time from
+England stated that those seizures were made under the treaty. After the
+supplies for the Quiberon expedition had been procured, and the expected
+success had failed, the seizures were countermanded; and had the French
+seized provision vessels going to England, it is probable that the
+Quiberon expedition could not have been attempted.
+
+In one point of view, the treaty with England operates as a loan to
+the English government. It gives permission to that government to take
+American property at sea, to any amount, and pay for it when it suits
+her; and besides this, the treaty is in every point of view a surrender
+of the rights of American commerce and navigation, and a refusal to
+France of the rights of neutrality. The American flag is not now a
+neutral flag to France; Jay's treaty of surrender gives a monopoly of it
+to England.
+
+On the contrary, the treaty of commerce between America and France
+was formed on the most liberal principles, and calculated to give the
+greatest encouragement to the infant commerce of America. France was
+neither a carrier nor an exporter of naval stores or of provisions.
+Those articles belonged wholly to America, and they had all the
+protection in that treaty which a treaty could give. But so much has
+that treaty been perverted, that the liberality of it on the part
+of France, has served to encourage Jay to form a counter-treaty with
+England; for he must have supposed the hands of France tied up by her
+treaty with America, when he was making such large concessions in favour
+of England. The injury which Mr. Washington's administration has done to
+the character as well as to the commerce of America, is too great to be
+repaired by him. Foreign nations will be shy of making treaties with
+a government that has given the faithless example of perverting the
+liberality of a former treaty to the injury of the party with whom it
+was made.(1)
+
+     1 For an analysis of the British Treaty see Wharton's
+     "Digest of the International Law of the United States," vol.
+     it, Sec. 150 a. Paine's analysis is perfectly correct.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+In what a fraudulent light must Mr. Washington's character appear in the
+world, when his declarations and his conduct are compared together! Here
+follows the letter he wrote to the Committee of Public Safety, while Jay
+was negotiating in profound secrecy this treacherous treaty:
+
+"George Washington, President of the United States of America, to the
+Representatives of the French people, members of the Committee of Public
+Safety of the French Republic, the great and good friend and ally of the
+United States.
+
+"On the intimation of the wish of the French republic that a new
+Minister should be sent from the United States, I resolved to manifest
+my sense of the readiness with which _my_ request was fulfilled, [that
+of recalling Genet,] by immediately fulfilling the request of your
+government, [that of recalling Morris].
+
+"It was some time before a character could be obtained, worthy of the
+high office of expressing the attachment of the United States to
+the happiness of our allies, _and drawing closer the bonds of our
+friendship_. I have now made choice of James Monroe, one of our
+distinguished citizens, to reside near the French republic, in quality
+of Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. He is
+instructed to bear to you our _sincere solicitude for your welfare, and
+to cultivate with teal the cordiality so happily subsisting between
+us_. From a knowledge of his fidelity, probity, and good conduct, I have
+entire confidence that he will render himself acceptable to you,
+and give effect to your desire of preserving and _advancing, on all
+occasions, the interest and connection of the two nations_. I beseech
+you, therefore, to give full credence to whatever he shall say to you
+on the part of the United States, and _most of all, when he shall assure
+you that your prosperity is an object of our affection_.
+
+"And I pray God to have the French Republic in his holy keeping.
+
+"G. Washington."
+
+
+Was it by entering into a treaty with England to surrender French
+property on board American ships to be seized by the English, while
+English property on board American ships was declared by the French
+treaty not to be seizable, _that the bonds of friendship between America
+and France were to be drawn the closer?_ Was it by declaring naval
+stores contraband when coming to France, whilst by the French treaty
+they were not contraband when going to England, that the _connection
+between France and America was to be advanced?_ Was it by opening the
+American ports to the British navy in the present war, from which ports
+the same navy had been expelled by the aid solicited from France in the
+American war (and that aid gratuitously given) (2) that the gratitude
+of America was to be shewn, and the _solicitude_ spoken of in the letter
+demonstrated?
+
+     1 The italics are Paine's. Paine's free use of this document
+     suggests that he possessed the confidence of the French
+     Directory.--_Editor._
+
+     2  It is notable that Paine adheres to his old contention in
+     his controversy with Deane. See vol. i., ch. aa of this work;
+     and vol. i., ch. 9 of my "Life of Paine."--_Editor._.
+
+As the letter was addressed to the Committee of Public Safety, Mr.
+Washington did not expect it would get abroad in the world, or be seen
+by any other eye than that of Robespierre, or be heard by any other ear
+than that of the Committee; that it would pass as a whisper across the
+Atlantic, from one dark chamber to the other, and there terminate. It
+was calculated to remove from the mind of the Committee all suspicion
+upon Jay's mission to England, and, in this point of view, it was suited
+to the circumstances of the movement then passing; but as the event
+of that mission has proved the letter to be hypocritical, it serves no
+other purpose of the present moment than to shew that the writer is
+not to be credited. Two circumstances serve to make the reading of the
+letter necessary in the Convention. The one was, that they who succeeded
+on the fall of Robespierre, found it most proper to act with publicity;
+the other, to extinguish the suspicions which the strange conduct of
+Morris had occasioned in France.
+
+When the British treaty, and the ratification of it by Mr. Washington,
+was known in France, all further declarations from him of his good
+disposition as an ally and friend, passed for so many cyphers; but still
+it appeared necessary to him to keep up the farce of declarations. It
+is stipulated in the British treaty, that commissioners are to report
+at the end of two years, on the case of _neutral ships making neutral
+property_. In the mean time, neutral ships do _not_ make neutral
+property, according to the British treaty, and they _do_ according to
+the French treaty. The preservation, therefore, of the French treaty
+became of great importance to England, as by that means she can employ
+American ships as carriers, whilst the same advantage is denied to
+France. Whether the French treaty could exist as a matter of right after
+this clandestine perversion of it, could not but give some apprehensions
+to the partizans of the British treaty, and it became necessary to them
+to make up, by fine words, what was wanting in good actions.
+
+An opportunity offered to that purpose. The Convention, on the public
+reception of Mr. Monroe, ordered the American flag and the French flags
+to be displayed unitedly in the hall of the Convention. Mr. Monroe made
+a present of an American flag for the purpose. The Convention returned
+this compliment by sending a French flag to America, to be presented by
+their Minister, Mr. Adet, to the American government. This resolution
+passed long before Jay's treaty was known or suspected: it passed in
+the days of confidence; but the flag was not presented by Mr. Adet till
+several months after the treaty had been ratified. Mr. Washington made
+this the occasion of saying some fine things to the French Minister; and
+the better to get himself into tune to do this, he began by saying the
+finest things of himself.
+
+"Born, sir (said he) in a land of liberty; _having_ early learned its
+value; _having_ engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; _having_,
+in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent
+establishment in my own country; _my_ anxious recollections, my
+sympathetic feelings, and _my_ best wishes are irresistibly excited,
+whenever, in any country, I see an oppressed people unfurl the banner of
+freedom."
+
+Mr. Washington, having expended so many fine phrases upon himself, was
+obliged to invent a new one for the French, and he calls them "wonderful
+people!" The coalesced powers acknowledged as much.
+
+It is laughable to hear Mr. Washington talk of his _sympathetic
+feelings_, who has always been remarked, even among his friends, for
+not having any. He has, however, given no proofs of any to me. As to the
+pompous encomiums he so liberally pays to himself, on the score of the
+American revolution, the reality of them may be questioned; and since
+he has forced them so much into notice, it is fair to examine his
+pretensions.
+
+A stranger might be led to suppose, from the egotism with which Mr.
+Washington speaks, that himself, and himself only, had generated,
+conducted, compleated, and established the revolution: In fine, that it
+was all his own doing.
+
+In the first place, as to the political part, he had no share in it;
+and, therefore, the whole of _that_ is out of the question with respect
+to him. There remains, then, only the military part; and it would have
+been prudent in Mr. Washington not to have awakened enquiry upon that
+subject. Fame then was cheap; he enjoyed it cheaply; and nobody was
+disposed to take away the laurels that, whether they were _acquired_ or
+not, had been _given_.
+
+Mr. Washington's merit consisted in constancy. But constancy was the
+common virtue of the revolution. Who was there that was inconstant? I
+know but of one military defection, that of Arnold; and I know of no
+political defection, among those who made themselves eminent when the
+revolution was formed by the declaration of independence. Even Silas
+Deane, though he attempted to defraud, did not betray.(1)
+
+     1 This generous judgment by Deane's old adversary has become
+     questionable under recent investigations.--_Editor._.
+
+But when we speak of military character, something more is to be
+understood than constancy; and something more _ought_ to be understood
+than the Fabian system of _doing nothing_. The _nothing_ part can be
+done by any body. Old Mrs. Thompson, the housekeeper of head quarters,
+(who threatened to make the sun and the wind shine through Rivington of
+New York,) 'could have done it as well as Mr. Washington. Deborah would
+have been as good as Barak.
+
+Mr. Washington had the nominal rank of Commander in Chief, but he was
+not so in fact. He had, in reality, only a separate command. He had no
+controul over, or direction of, the army to the northward under Gates,
+that captured Burgoyne; nor of that to the south under [Nathaniel]
+Greene, that recovered the southern States.(2) The nominal rank,
+however, of Commander in Chief, served to throw upon him the lustre
+of those actions, and to make him appear as the soul and centre of all
+military operations in America.
+
+     1 The Tory publisher of New York City, whose press was
+     destroyed in 1775 by a mob of Connecticut soldiers.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 See Mr. Winterbotham's valuable History of America, lately
+     published.--Author. [The "History of the Establishment of
+     Independence" is contained in the first of Mr.
+     Winterbotham's four volumes (London, 1795).--_Editor._.]
+
+He commenced his command June, 1775, during the time the Massachusetts
+army lay before Boston, and after the affair of Bunker-hill. The
+commencement of his command was the commencement of inactivity. Nothing
+was afterwards done, or attempted to be done, during the nine months
+he remained before Boston. If we may judge from the resistance made at
+Concord, and afterwards at Bunker-hill, there was a spirit of enterprise
+at that time, which the presence of Mr. Washington chilled into cold
+defence. By the advantage of a good exterior he attracts respect, which
+his habitual silence tends to preserve; but he has not the talent of
+inspiring ardour in an army. The enemy removed from Boston in March
+1776, to wait for reinforcements from Europe, and to take a more
+advantageous position at New York.
+
+The inactivity of the campaign of 1775, on the part of General
+Washington, when the enemy had a less force than in any other future
+period of the war, and the injudicious choice of positions taken by
+him in the campaign of 1776, when the enemy had its greatest force,
+necessarily produced the losses and misfortunes that marked that gloomy
+campaign. The positions taken were either islands or necks of land.
+In the former, the enemy, by the aid of their ships, could bring their
+whole force against apart of General Washington's, as in the affair
+of Long Island; and in the latter, he might be shut up as in the bottom
+of a bag. This had nearly been the case at New York, and it was so in
+part; it was actually the case at Fort Washington; and it would have
+been the case at Fort Lee, if General Greene had not moved precipitately
+off, leaving every thing behind, and by gaining Hackinsack bridge, got
+out of the bag of Bergen Neck. How far Mr. Washington, as General, is
+blameable for these matters, I am not undertaking to determine; but they
+are evidently defects in military geography. The successful skirmishes
+at the close of that campaign, (matters that would scarcely be noticed
+in a better state of things,) make the brilliant exploits of General
+Washington's seven campaigns. No wonder we see so much pusillanimity in
+the President, when we see so little enterprise in the General!
+
+The campaign of 1777 became famous, not by anything on the part of
+General Washington, but by the capture of General Burgoyne, and the
+army under his command, by the Northern army at Saratoga, under General
+Gates. So totally distinct and unconnected were the two armies of
+Washington and Gates, and so independent was the latter of the authority
+of the nominal Commander in Chief, that the two Generals did not so much
+as correspond, and it was only by a letter of General (since Governor)
+Clinton, that General Washington was informed of that event. The British
+took possession of Philadelphia this year, which they evacuated
+the next, just time enough to save their heavy baggage and fleet of
+transports from capture by the French Admiral d'Estaing, who arrived at
+the mouth of the Delaware soon after.
+
+The capture of Burgoyne gave an eclat in Europe to the American arms,
+and facilitated the alliance with France. The eclat, however, was
+not kept up by any thing on the part of General Washington. The same
+unfortunate languor that marked his entrance into the field, continued
+always. Discontent began to prevail strongly against him, and a party
+was formed in Congress, whilst sitting at York-town, in Pennsylvania,
+for removing him from the command of the army. The hope, however,
+of better times, the news of the alliance with France, and the
+unwillingness of shewing discontent, dissipated the matter.
+
+Nothing was done in the campaigns of 1778, 1779, 1780, in the part
+where General Washington commanded, except the taking of Stony Point by
+General Wayne. The Southern States in the mean time were over-run by the
+enemy. They were afterwards recovered by General Greene, who had in a
+very great measure created the army that accomplished that recovery.
+In all this General Washington had no share. The Fabian system of war,
+followed by him, began now to unfold itself with all its evils; but
+what is Fabian war without Fabian means to support it? The finances of
+Congress depending wholly on emissions of paper money, were exhausted.
+Its credit was gone. The continental treasury was not able to pay the
+expense of a brigade of waggons to transport the necessary stores to the
+army, and yet the sole object, the establishment of the revolution,
+was a thing of remote distance. The time I am now speaking of is in the
+latter end of the year 1780.
+
+In this situation of things it was found not only expedient, but
+absolutely necessary, for Congress to state the whole case to its ally.
+I knew more of this matter, (before it came into Congress or was known
+to General Washington) of its progress, and its issue, than I chuse
+to state in this letter. Colonel John Laurens was sent to France as an
+Envoy Extraordinary on this occasion, and by a private agreement between
+him and me I accompanied him. We sailed from Boston in the Alliance
+frigate, February 11th, 1781. France had already done much in accepting
+and paying bills drawn by Congress. She was now called upon to do more.
+The event of Colonel Laurens's mission, with the aid of the venerable
+Minister, Franklin, was, that France gave in money, as a present, six
+millions of livres, and ten millions more as a loan, and agreed to send
+a fleet of not less than thirty sail of the line, at her own expense,
+as an aid to America. Colonel Laurens and myself returned from Brest the
+1st of June following, taking with us two millions and a half of livres
+(upwards of one hundred thousand pounds sterling) of the money given,
+and convoying two ships with stores.
+
+We arrived at Boston the 25th of August following. De Grasse arrived
+with the French fleet in the Chesapeak at the same time, and was
+afterwards joined by that of Barras, making 31 sail of the line.
+The money was transported in waggons from Boston to the Bank at
+Philadelphia, of which Mr. Thomas Willing, who has since put himself at
+the head of the list of petitioners in favour of the British treaty, was
+then President. And it was by the aid of this money, and this fleet, and
+of Rochambeau's army, that Cornwallis was taken; the laurels of which
+have been unjustly given to Mr. Washington. His merit in that affair was
+no more than that of any other American officer.
+
+I have had, and still have, as much pride in the American revolution as
+any man, or as Mr. Washington has a right to have; but that pride has
+never made me forgetful whence the great aid came that compleated
+the business. Foreign aid (that of France) was calculated upon at the
+commencement of the revolution. It is one of the subjects treated of
+in the pamphlet _Common Sense_, but as a matter that could not be hoped
+for, unless independence was declared.1 The aid, however, was greater
+than could have been expected.
+
+It is as well the ingratitude as the pusillanimity of Mr. Washington,
+and the Washington faction, that has brought upon America the loss
+of character she now suffers in the world, and the numerous evils her
+commerce has undergone, and to which it is yet exposed. The British
+Ministry soon found out what sort of men they had to deal with, and they
+dealt with them accordingly; and if further explanation was wanting, it
+has been fully given since, in the snivelling address of the New York
+Chamber of Commerce to the President, and in that of sundry merchants of
+Philadelphia, which was not much better.
+
+     1  See vol. i. of this work, p. ixx. Paine was sharply taken
+     to task on this point by "Cato."   Ib.% pp. 145-147.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+When the revolution of America was finally established by the
+termination of the war, the world gave her credit for great character;
+and she had nothing to do but to stand firm upon that ground. The
+British ministry had their hands too full of trouble to have provoked
+a rupture with her, had she shown a proper resolution to defend her
+rights. But encouraged as they were by the submissive character of the
+American administration, they proceeded from insult to insult, till none
+more were left to be offered. The proposals made by Sweden and Denmark
+to the American administration were disregarded. I know not if so much
+as an answer has been returned to them. The minister penitentiary,
+(as some of the British prints called him,) Mr. Jay, was sent on a
+pilgrimage to London, to make up all by penance and petition. In the
+mean time the lengthy and drowsy writer of the pieces signed _Camillas_
+held himself in reserve to vindicate every thing; and to sound in
+America the tocsin of terror upon the inexhaustible resources of
+England. Her resources, says he, are greater than those of all the other
+powers. This man is so intoxicated with fear and finance, that he knows
+not the difference between _plus_ and _minus_--between a hundred pounds
+in hand, and a hundred pounds worse than nothing.
+
+The commerce of America, so far as it had been established by all the
+treaties that had been formed prior to that by Jay, was free, and the
+principles upon which it was established were good. That ground ought
+never to have been departed from. It was the justifiable ground
+of right, and no temporary difficulties ought to have induced an
+abandonment of it. The case is now otherwise. The ground, the scene, the
+pretensions, the everything, are changed. The commerce of America is, by
+Jay's treaty, put under foreign dominion. The sea is not free for her.
+Her right to navigate it is reduced to the right of escaping; that is,
+until some ship of England or France stops her vessels, and carries them
+into port. Every article of American produce, whether from the sea or
+the sand, fish, flesh, vegetable, or manufacture, is, by Jay's treaty,
+made either contraband or seizable. Nothing is exempt. In all other
+treaties of commerce, the article which enumerates the contraband
+articles, such as fire arms, gunpowder, &c, is followed by another
+article which enumerates the articles not contraband: but it is not so
+in Jay's treaty. There is no exempting article. Its place is supplied by
+the article for seizing and carrying into port; and the sweeping phrase
+of "provisions and _other articles _" includes every thing. There never
+was such a base and servile treaty of surrender since treaties began to
+exist.
+
+This is the ground upon which America now stands. All her rights
+of commerce and navigation are to begin anew, and that with loss of
+character to begin with. If there is sense enough left in the heart
+to call a blush into the cheek, the Washington administration must
+be ashamed to appear.--And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private
+friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger)
+and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide
+whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned
+good principles, or whether you ever had any.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII. OBSERVATIONS.(1)
+
+     1 State Archives, Paris, Etats Unis, vol. 43, fol. 100.
+     Undated, but evidently written early in the year 1795, when
+     Jay's Treaty was as yet unknown. Paine was then staying in
+     the house of the American Minister, Monroe.--' Editor,
+
+The United States of America are negociating with Spain respecting the
+free Navigation of the Mississippi, and the territorial limits of this
+large river, in conformity with the Treaty of Peace with England dated
+30th November, 1782. As the brilliant successes of the French Republic
+have forced England to grant us, what was in all justice our due, so the
+continuation of the prosperity of the Republic, will force Spain to make
+a Treaty with us on the points in controversy.
+
+Since it is certain that all that we shall obtain from Spain will be due
+to the victories of France, and as the inhabitants of the western part
+of the United States (which part contains or covers more than half
+the United States), have decided to claim their rights to the free
+navigation of the Mississippi, would it not be a wiser policy for the
+Republican Government (who have only to command to obtain) to arrogate
+all the merit, by making our demands to Spain, one of the conditions, of
+France, to consent to restore peace to the Castilians. They have only
+to declare, they will not make Peace, or that they will support with
+all their might, the just reclamations of their allies against these
+Powers,--against England for the surrender of the frontier posts, and
+for the indemnities due through their depredations on our Trade, and
+against Spain for our territorial limits, and the free navigation of
+the Mississippi. This declaration would certainly not prolong the War a
+single day more, nor cost the Republic an obole, whilst it would assure
+all the merit of success to France, and besides produce all the good
+effects mentioned above.
+
+It may perhaps be observed that the Negociation is already finished
+with England, and perhaps in a manner which will not be approved of by
+France. That may be, (though the terms of this arrangement may not be
+known); but as to Spain, the negociation is still pending, and it is
+evident that if France makes the above _Declaration_ as to this Power
+(which declaration would be a demonstrative proof of what she would
+have done in the other case if circumstances had required it), she would
+receive the same credit as if the Declaration had been made relatively
+to the two Powers. In fact the Decree or resolution (and perhaps this
+last would be preferable) can be worded in terms which would declare
+that in case the arrangement with England were not satisfactory, France
+will nevertheless, maintain the just demands of America against
+that Power. A like Declaration, in case Mr. Jay should do anything
+reprehensible, and which might even be approved of in America, would
+certainly raise the reputation of the French Republic to the most
+eminent degree of splendour, and lower in proportion that of her
+enemies.
+
+It is very certain that France cannot better favour the views of the
+British party in America, and wound in a most sensible manner the
+Republican Government of this country, than by adopting a strict and
+oppressive policy with regard to us. Every one knows that the injustices
+committed by the privateers and other ships belonging to the French
+Republic against our navigation, were causes of exultation and joy
+to this party, even when their own properties were subjected to these
+depredations, whilst the friends of France and the Revolution were vexed
+and most confused about it. It follows then, that a generous policy
+would produce quite opposite effects--it would acquire for France the
+merit that is her due; it would discourage the hopes of her adversaries,
+and furnish the friends of humanity and liberty with the means of acting
+against the intrigues of England, and cement the Union, and contribute
+towards the true interests of the two republics.
+
+So sublime and generous a manner of acting, which would not cost
+anything to France, would cement in a stronger way the ties between
+the two republics. The effect of such an event, would confound and
+annihilate in an irrevocable manner all the partisans for the British
+in America. There are nineteen twentieths of our nation attached through
+inclination and gratitude to France, and the small number who seek
+uselessly all sorts of pretexts to magnify the small occasions of
+complaint which might have subsisted previously will find itself reduced
+to silence, or have to join their expressions of gratitude to ours.--The
+results of this event cannot be doubted, though not reckoned on: all the
+American hearts will be French, and England will be afflicted.
+
+An American.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV. DISSERTATION ON FIRST PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT. (1)
+
+     1 Printed from the first edition, whose title is as above,
+     with the addition: "By Thomas Paine, Author of Common Sense;
+     Rights of Man; Age of Reason. Paris, Printed at the
+     English Press, me de Vaugerard, No. 970. Third year of the
+     French Republic." The pamphlet seems to have appeared early
+     in July (perhaps the Fourth), 1795, and was meant to
+     influence the decision of the National Convention on the
+     Constitution then under discussion. This Constitution,
+     adopted September 23d, presently swept away by Napoleon,
+     contained some features which appeared to Paine reactionary.
+     Those to which he most objected are quoted by him in his
+     speech in the Convention, which is bound up in the same
+     pamphlet, and follows this "Dissertation" in the present
+     volume. In the Constitution as adopted Paine's preference
+     for a plural Executive was established, and though the
+     bicameral organization (the Council of Five Hundred and the
+     Council of Ancients) was not such as he desired, his chief
+     objection was based on his principle of manhood suffrage.
+     But in regard to this see Paine's "Dissertations on
+     Government," written nine years before (vol. ii., ch. vi. of
+     this work), and especially p. 138 seq. of that volume, where
+     he indicates the method of restraining the despotism of
+     numbers.--_Editor._,
+
+There is no subject more interesting to every man than the subject of
+government. His security, be he rich or poor, and in a great measure
+his prosperity, are connected therewith; it is therefore his interest
+as well as his duty to make himself acquainted with its principles, and
+what the practice ought to be.
+
+Every art and science, however imperfectly known at first, has been
+studied, improved, and brought to what we call perfection by the
+progressive labours of succeeding generations; but the science of
+government has stood still. No improvement has been made in the
+principle and scarcely any in the practice till the American revolution
+began. In all the countries of Europe (except in France) the same forms
+and systems that were erected in the remote ages of ignorance still
+continue, and their antiquity is put in the place of principle; it is
+forbidden to investigate their origin, or by what right they exist.
+If it be asked how has this happened, the answer is easy: they are
+established on a principle that is false, and they employ their power to
+prevent detection.
+
+Notwithstanding the mystery with which the science of government has
+been enveloped, for the purpose of enslaving, plundering, and imposing
+upon mankind, it is of all things the least mysterious and the most easy
+to be understood. The meanest capacity cannot be at a loss, if it begins
+its enquiries at the right point. Every art and science has some point,
+or alphabet, at which the study of that art or science begins, and by
+the assistance of which the progress is facilitated. The same method
+ought to be observed with respect to the science of government.
+
+Instead then of embarrassing the subject in the outset with the numerous
+subdivisions under which different forms of government have been
+classed, such as aristocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, &c.
+the better method will be to begin with what may be called primary
+divisions, or those under which all the several subdivisions will be
+comprehended.
+
+The primary divisions are but two:
+
+First, government by election and representation.
+
+Secondly, government by hereditary succession.
+
+All the several forms and systems of government, however numerous
+or diversified, class themselves under one or other of those primary
+divisions; for either they are on the system of representation, or on
+that of hereditary succession. As to that equivocal thing called mixed
+government, such as the late government of Holland, and the present
+government of England, it does not make an exception to the general
+rule, because the parts separately considered are either representative
+or hereditary.
+
+Beginning then our enquiries at this point, we have first to examine
+into the nature of those two primary divisions.
+
+If they are equally right in principle, it is mere matter of opinion
+which we prefer. If the one be demonstratively better than the other,
+that difference directs our choice; but if one of them should be so
+absolutely false as not to have a right to existence, the matter settles
+itself at once; because a negative proved on one thing, where two only
+are offered, and one must be accepted, amounts to an affirmative on the
+other.
+
+The revolutions that are now spreading themselves in the world have
+their origin in this state of the case, and the present war is a
+conflict between the representative system founded on the rights of the
+people, and the hereditary system founded in usurpation. As to what are
+called Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, they do not, either as things
+or as terms, sufficiently describe the hereditary system; they are but
+secondary things or signs of the hereditary system, and which fall of
+themselves if that system has not a right to exist. Were there no
+such terms as Monarchy, Royalty, and Aristocracy, or were other terms
+substituted in their place, the hereditary system, if it continued,
+would not be altered thereby. It would be the same system under any
+other titulary name as it is now.
+
+The character therefore of the revolutions of the present day
+distinguishes itself most definitively by grounding itself on the system
+of representative government, in opposition to the hereditary. No other
+distinction reaches the whole of the principle.
+
+Having thus opened the case generally, I proceed, in the first place, to
+examine the hereditary system, because it has the priority in point of
+time. The representative system is the invention of the modern world;
+and, that no doubt may arise as to my own opinion, I declare it
+before hand, which is, _that there is not a problem in Euclid more
+mathematically true, than that hereditary government has not a right to
+exist. When therefore we take from any man the exercise of hereditary
+power, we take away that which he never had the right to possess, and
+which no law or custom could, or ever can, give him a title to_.
+
+The arguments that have hitherto been employed against the hereditary
+system have been chiefly founded upon the absurdity of it, and its
+incompetency to the purpose of good government. Nothing can present to
+our judgment, or to our imagination, a figure of greater absurdity, than
+that of seeing the government of a nation fall, as it frequently does,
+into the hands of a lad necessarily destitute of experience, and often
+little better than a fool. It is an insult to every man of years, of
+character, and of talents, in a country. The moment we begin to reason
+upon the hereditary system, it falls into derision; let but a single
+idea begin, and a thousand will soon follow. Insignificance, imbecility,
+childhood, dotage, want of moral character; in fine, every defect
+serious or laughable unite to hold up the hereditary system as a figure
+of ridicule. Leaving, however, the ridiculousness of the thing to the
+reflections of the reader, I proceed to the more important part of the
+question, namely, whether such a system has a right to exist.
+
+To be satisfied of the right of a thing to exist, we must be satisfied
+that it had a right to begin. If it had not a right to begin, it has not
+a right to continue. By what right then did the hereditary system begin?
+Let a man but ask himself this question, and he will find that he cannot
+satisfy himself with an answer.
+
+The right which any man or any family had to set itself up at first to
+govern a nation, and to establish itself hereditarily, was no other than
+the right which Robespierre had to do the same thing in France. If he
+had none, they had none. If they had any, he had as much; for it is
+impossible to discover superiority of right in any family, by virtue of
+which hereditary government could begin. The Capets, the Guelphs,
+the Robespierres, the Marats, are all on the same standing as to the
+question of right. It belongs exclusively to none.
+
+It is one step towards liberty, to perceive that hereditary government
+could not begin as an exclusive right in any family. The next point
+will be, whether, having once begun, it could grow into a right by the
+influence of time.
+
+This would be supposing an absurdity; for either it is putting time in
+the place of principle, or making it superior to principle; whereas time
+has no more connection with, or influence upon principle, than principle
+has upon time. The wrong which began a thousand years ago, is as much a
+wrong as if it began to-day; and the right which originates to-day, is
+as much a right as if it had the sanction of a thousand years. Time with
+respect to principles is an eternal now: it has no operation upon them:
+it changes nothing of their nature and qualities. But what have we to
+do with a thousand years? Our life-time is but a short portion of that
+period, and if we find the wrong in existence as soon as we begin to
+live, that is the point of time at which it begins to us; and our right
+to resist it is the same as if it never existed before.
+
+As hereditary government could not begin as a natural right in any
+family, nor derive after its commencement any right from time, we have
+only to examine whether there exist in a nation a right to set it up,
+and establish it by what is called law, as has been done in England. I
+answer NO; and that any law or any constitution made for that purpose is
+an act of treason against the right of every minor in the nation, at the
+time it is made, and against the rights of all succeeding generations.
+I shall speak upon each of those cases. First, of the minor at the time
+such law is made. Secondly, of the generations that are to follow.
+
+A nation, in a collective sense, comprehends all the individuals of
+whatever age, from just born to just dying. Of these, one part will be
+minors, and the other aged. The average of life is not exactly the same
+in every climate and country, but in general, the minority in years are
+the majority in numbers; that is, the number of persons under twenty-one
+years, is greater than the number of persons above that age. This
+difference in number is not necessary to the establishment of the
+principle I mean to lay down, but it serves to shew the justice of it
+more strongly. The principle would be equally as good, if the majority
+in years were also the majority in numbers.
+
+The rights of minors are as sacred as the rights of the aged. The
+difference is altogether in the different age of the two parties, and
+nothing in the nature of the rights; the rights are the same rights;
+and are to be preserved inviolate for the inheritance of the minors when
+they shall come of age. During the minority of minors their rights are
+under the sacred guardianship of the aged. The minor cannot surrender
+them; the guardian cannot dispossess him; consequently, the aged part
+of a nation, who are the law-makers for the time being, and who, in the
+march of life are but a few years ahead of those who are yet minors, and
+to whom they must shortly give place, have not and cannot have the right
+to make a law to set up and establish hereditary government, or, to
+speak more distinctly, _an hereditary succession of governors_; because
+it is an attempt to deprive every minor in the nation, at the time such
+a law is made, of his inheritance of rights when he shall come of age,
+and to subjugate him to a system of government to which, during his
+minority, he could neither consent nor object.
+
+If a person who is a minor at the time such a law is proposed, had
+happened to have been born a few years sooner, so as to be of the age of
+twenty-one years at the time of proposing it, his right to have objected
+against it, to have exposed the injustice and tyrannical principles of
+it, and to have voted against it, will be admitted on all sides. If,
+therefore, the law operates to prevent his exercising the same rights
+after he comes of age as he would have had a right to exercise had he
+been of age at the time, it is undeniably a law to take away and annul
+the rights of every person in the nation who shall be a minor at the
+time of making such a law, and consequently the right to make it cannot
+exist.
+
+I come now to speak of government by hereditary succession, as it
+applies to succeeding generations; and to shew that in this case, as in
+the case of minors, there does not exist in a nation a right to set it
+up.
+
+A nation, though continually existing, is continually in a state of
+renewal and succession. It is never stationary.
+
+Every day produces new births, carries minors forward to maturity, and
+old persons from the stage. In this ever running flood of generations
+there is no part superior in authority to another. Could we conceive an
+idea of superiority in any, at what point of time, or in what century of
+the world, are we to fix it? To what cause are we to ascribe it? By
+what evidence are we to prove it? By what criterion are we to know it? A
+single reflection will teach us that our ancestors, like ourselves, were
+but tenants for life in the great freehold of rights. The fee-absolute
+was not in them, it is not in us, it belongs to the whole family of
+man, thro* all ages. If we think otherwise than this, we think either as
+slaves or as tyrants. As slaves, if we think that any former generation
+had a right to bind us; as tyrants, if we think that we have authority
+to bind the generations that are to follow.
+
+It may not be inapplicable to the subject, to endeavour to define what
+is to be understood by a generation, in the sense the word is here used.
+
+As a natural term its meaning is sufficiently clear. The father, the
+son, the grandson, are so many distinct generations. But when we speak
+of a generation as describing the persons in whom legal authority
+resides, as distinct from another generation of the same description who
+are to succeed them, it comprehends all those who are above the age of
+twenty-one years, at the time that we count from; and a generation of
+this kind will continue in authority between fourteen and twenty-one
+years, that is, until the number of minors, who shall have arrived at
+age, shall be greater than the number of persons remaining of the former
+stock.
+
+For example: if France, at this or any other moment, contains
+twenty-four millions of souls, twelve millions will be males, and twelve
+females. Of the twelve millions of males, six millions will be of the
+age of twenty-one years, and six will be under, and the authority
+to govern will reside in the first six. But every day will make some
+alteration, and in twenty-one years every one of those minors who
+survives will have arrived at age, and the greater part of the former
+stock will be gone: the majority of persons then living, in whom the
+legal authority resides, will be composed of those who, twenty-one years
+before, had no legal existence. Those will be fathers and grandfathers
+in their turn, and, in the next twenty-one years, (or less) another race
+of minors, arrived at age, will succeed them, and so on.
+
+As this is ever the case, and as every generation is equal in rights to
+another, it consequently follows, that there cannot be a right in any
+to establish government by hereditary succession, because it would be
+supposing itself possessed of a right superior to the rest, namely,
+that of commanding by its own authority how the world shall be hereafter
+governed and who shall govern it. Every age and generation is, and must
+be, (as a matter of right,) as free to act for itself in all cases, as
+the age and generation that preceded it. The vanity and presumption of
+governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all
+tyrannies. Man has no property in man, neither has one generation a
+property in the generations that are to follow.
+
+In the first part of the Rights of Man I have spoken of government by
+hereditary succession; and I will here close the subject with an extract
+from that work, which states it under the two following heads. (1)
+
+     1 The quotation, here omitted, will be found in vol. ii. of
+     this work, beginning with p. 364, and continuing, with a few
+     omissions, to the 15th line of p. 366. This "Dissertation"
+     was originally written for circulation in Holland, where
+     Paine's "Rights of Man" was not well known.--_Editor._
+
+
+*****
+
+
+The history of the English parliament furnishes an example of this kind;
+and which merits to be recorded, as being the greatest instance of
+legislative ignorance and want of principle that is to be found in any
+country. The case is as follows:
+
+The English parliament of 1688, imported a man and his wife from
+Holland, _William and Mary_, and made them king and queen of England.
+(2) Having done this, the said parliament made a law to convey the
+government of the country to the heirs of William and Mary, in the
+following words: "We, the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, do,
+in the name of the people of England, most humbly and faithfully submit
+_ourselves, our heirs, and posterities_, to William and Mary, _their
+heirs and posterities_, for ever." And in a subsequent law, as quoted by
+Edmund Burke, the said parliament, in the name of the people of England
+then living, _binds the said people, their heirs and posterities, to
+William and Mary, their heirs and posterities, to the end of time_.
+
+     2 "The Bill of Rights (temp. William III.) shows that the
+     Lords and Commons met not in Parliament but in convention,
+     that they declared against James II., and in favour of
+     William III.  The latter was accepted as sovereign, and, when
+     monarch. Acta of Parliament were passed confirming what had
+     been done."--Joseph Fisher in Notes and Queries (London),
+     May 2,1874. This does not affect Paine's argument, as a
+     Convention could have no more right to bind the future than
+     a Parliament.--_Editor._.
+
+It is not sufficient that we laugh at the ignorance of such law-makers;
+it is necessary that we reprobate their want of principle. The
+constituent assembly of France, 1789, fell into the same vice as the
+parliament of England had done, and assumed to establish an hereditary
+succession in the family of the Capets, as an act of the constitution
+of that year. That every nation, _for the time being_, has a right to
+govern itself as it pleases, must always be admitted; but government by
+hereditary succession is government for another race of people, and
+not for itself; and as those on whom it is to operate are not yet in
+existence, or are minors, so neither is the right in existence to set it
+up for them, and to assume such a right is treason against the right of
+posterity.
+
+I here close the arguments on the first head, that of government by
+hereditary succession; and proceed to the second, that of government
+by election and representation; or, as it may be concisely expressed,
+_representative government_, in contra-distinction to _hereditary
+government_.
+
+Reasoning by exclusion, if _hereditary government_ has not a right to
+exist, and that it has not is proveable, _representative government_ is
+admitted of course.
+
+In contemplating government by election and representation, we amuse
+not ourselves in enquiring when or how, or by what right, it began. Its
+origin is ever in view. Man is himself the origin and the evidence
+of the right. It appertains to him in right of his existence, and his
+person is the title deed.(1)
+
+The true and only true basis of representative government is equality of
+Rights. Every man has a right to one vote, and no more, in the choice
+of representatives. The rich have no more right to exclude the poor from
+the right of voting, or of electing and being elected, than the poor
+have to exclude the rich; and wherever it is attempted, or proposed, on
+either side, it is a question of force and not of right. Who is he that
+would exclude another? That other has a right to exclude him.
+
+That which is now called aristocracy implies an inequality of rights;
+but who are the persons that have a right to establish this inequality?
+Will the rich exclude themselves? No. Will the poor exclude themselves?
+No. By what right then can any be excluded? It would be a question, if
+any man or class of men have a right to exclude themselves; but, be this
+as it may, they cannot have the right to exclude another. The poor will
+not delegate such a right to the rich, nor the rich to the poor, and to
+assume it is not only to assume arbitrary power, but to assume a right
+to commit robbery. Personal rights, of which the right of voting for
+representatives is one, are a species of property of the most sacred
+kind: and he that would employ his pecuniary property, or presume upon
+the influence it gives him, to dispossess or rob another of his property
+of rights, uses that pecuniary property as he would use fire-arms, and
+merits to have it taken from him.
+
+     1 "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for
+     among old parchments or musty records. They are written as
+     with a sunbeam in the whole volume of human nature by the
+     hand of Divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured
+     by mortal power."--Alexander Hamilton, 1775. (Cf. Rights of
+     Man, Toi. ii., p. 304): "Portions of antiquity by proving
+     everything establish nothing. It is authority against
+     authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of
+     the rights of man at the creation."--_Editor._.
+
+Inequality of rights is created by a combination in one part of the
+community to exclude another part from its rights. Whenever it be made
+an article of a constitution, or a law, that the right of voting, or
+of electing and being elected, shall appertain exclusively to persons
+possessing a certain quantity of property, be it little or much, it is a
+combination of the persons possessing that quantity to exclude those who
+do not possess the same quantity. It is investing themselves with powers
+as a self-created part of society, to the exclusion of the rest.
+
+It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality
+of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves; and
+in this view of the case, pardoning the vanity of the thing, aristocracy
+is a subject of laughter. This self-soothing vanity is encouraged by
+another idea not less selfish, which is, that the opposers conceive they
+are playing a safe game, in which there is a chance to gain and none
+to lose; that at any rate the doctrine of equality includes _them_,
+and that if they cannot get more rights than those whom they oppose and
+would exclude, they shall not have less. This opinion has already been
+fatal to thousands, who, not contented with _equal rights_, have sought
+more till they lost all, and experienced in themselves the degrading
+_inequality_ they endeavoured to fix upon others.
+
+In any view of the case it is dangerous and impolitic, sometimes
+ridiculous, and always unjust, to make property the criterion of the
+right of voting. If the sum or value of the property upon which the
+right is to take place be considerable, it will exclude a majority of
+the people, and unite them in a common interest against the government
+and against those who support it; and as the power is always with
+the majority, they can overturn such a government and its supporters
+whenever they please.
+
+If, in order to avoid this danger, a small quantity of property be
+fixed, as the criterion of the right, it exhibits liberty in disgrace,
+by putting it in competition with accident and insignificance. When a
+brood-mare shall fortunately produce a foal or a mule that, by being
+worth the sum in question, shall convey to its owner the right of
+voting, or by its death take it from him, in whom does the origin of
+such a right exist? Is it in the man, or in the mule? When we consider
+how many ways property may be acquired without merit, and lost without a
+crime, we ought to spurn the idea of making it a criterion of rights.
+
+But the offensive part of the case is, that this exclusion from the
+right of voting implies a stigma on the moral char* acter of the persons
+excluded; and this is what no part of the community has a right to
+pronounce upon another part. No external circumstance can justify it:
+wealth is no proof of moral character; nor poverty of the want of it.
+On the contrary, wealth is often the presumptive evidence of dishonesty;
+and poverty the negative evidence of innocence. If therefore property,
+whether little or much, be made a criterion, the means by which that
+property has been acquired ought to be made a criterion also.
+
+The only ground upon which exclusion from the right of voting is
+consistent with justice, would be to inflict it as a punishment for a
+certain time upon those who should propose to take away that right from
+others. The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by
+which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce
+a man to slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of
+another, and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives
+is in this case. The proposal therefore to disfranchise any class of men
+is as criminal as the proposal to take away property. When we speak
+of right, we ought always to unite with it the idea of duties: rights
+become duties by reciprocity. The right which I enjoy becomes my duty
+to guarantee it to another, and he to me; and those who violate the duty
+justly incur a forfeiture of the right.
+
+In a political view of the case, the strength and permanent security
+of government is in proportion to the number of people interested in
+supporting it. The true policy therefore is to interest the whole by
+an equality of rights, for the danger arises from exclusions. It is
+possible to exclude men from the right of voting, but it is impossible
+to exclude them from the right of rebelling against that exclusion; and
+when all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made
+perfect.
+
+While men could be persuaded they had no rights, or that rights
+appertained only to a certain class of men, or that government was a
+thing existing in right of itself, it was not difficult to govern
+them authoritatively. The ignorance in which they were held, and the
+superstition in which they were instructed, furnished the means of doing
+it. But when the ignorance is gone, and the superstition with it; when
+they perceive the imposition that has been acted upon them; when they
+reflect that the cultivator and the manufacturer are the primary
+means of all the wealth that exists in the world, beyond what nature
+spontaneously produces; when they begin to feel their consequence by
+their usefulness, and their right as members of society, it is then no
+longer possible to govern them as before. The fraud once detected
+cannot be re-acted. To attempt it is to provoke derision, or invite
+destruction.
+
+That property will ever be unequal is certain. Industry, superiority
+of talents, dexterity of management, extreme frugality, fortunate
+opportunities, or the opposite, or the means of those things, will ever
+produce that effect, without having recourse to the harsh, ill sounding
+names of avarice and oppression; and besides this, there are some men
+who, though they do not despise wealth, will not stoop to the drudgery
+or the means of acquiring it, nor will be troubled with it beyond their
+wants or their independence; whilst in others there is an avidity to
+obtain it by every means not punishable; it makes the sole business of
+their lives, and they follow it as a religion. All that is required
+with respect to property is to obtain it honestly, and not employ it
+criminally; but it is always criminally employed when it is made a
+criterion for exclusive rights.
+
+In institutions that are purely pecuniary, such as that of a bank or a
+commercial company, the rights of the members composing that company are
+wholly created by the property they invest therein; and no other rights
+are represented in the government of that company, than what arise out
+of that property; neither has that government cognizance of _any thing
+but property_.
+
+But the case is totally different with respect to the institution of
+civil government, organized on the system of representation. Such a
+government has cognizance of every thing, and of _every man_ as a member
+of the national society, whether he has property or not; and, therefore,
+the principle requires that _every man_, and _every kind of right_, be
+represented, of which the right to acquire and to hold property is but
+one, and that not of the most essential kind. The protection of a man's
+person is more sacred than the protection of property; and besides
+this, the faculty of performing any kind of work or services by which
+he acquires a livelihood, or maintaining his family, is of the nature of
+property. It is property to him; he has acquired it; and it is as much
+the object of his protection as exterior property, possessed without
+that faculty, can be the object of protection in another person.
+
+I have always believed that the best security for property, be it much
+or little, is to remove from every part of the community, as far as
+can possibly be done, every cause of complaint, and every motive to
+violence; and this can only be done by an equality of rights. When
+rights are secure, property is secure in consequence. But when property
+is made a pretence for unequal or exclusive rights, it weakens the right
+to hold the property, and provokes indignation and tumult; for it is
+unnatural to believe that property can be secure under the guarantee of
+a society injured in its rights by the influence of that property.
+
+Next to the injustice and ill-policy of making property a pretence
+for exclusive rights, is the unaccountable absurdity of giving to mere
+_sound_ the idea of property, and annexing to it certain rights; for
+what else is a _title_ but sound? Nature is often giving to the world
+some extraordinary men who arrive at fame by merit and universal
+consent, such as Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, &c. They were truly great
+or noble.
+
+But when government sets up a manufactory of nobles, it is as absurd
+as if she undertook to manufacture wise men. Her nobles are all
+counterfeits.
+
+This wax-work order has assumed the name of aristocracy; and the
+disgrace of it would be lessened if it could be considered only as
+childish imbecility. We pardon foppery because of its insignificance"
+and on the same ground we might pardon the foppery of Titles. But the
+origin of aristocracy was worse than foppery. It was robbery. The
+first aristocrats in all countries were brigands. Those of later times,
+sycophants.
+
+It is very well known that in England, (and the same will be found
+in other countries) the great landed estates now held in descent were
+plundered from the quiet inhabitants at the conquest. The possibility
+did not exist of acquiring such estates honestly. If it be asked how
+they could have been acquired, no answer but that of robbery can
+be given. That they were not acquired by trade, by commerce, by
+manufactures, by agriculture, or by any reputable employment, is
+certain. How then were they acquired? Blush, aristocracy, to hear your
+origin, for your progenitors were Thieves. They were the Robespierres
+and the Jacobins of that day. When they had committed the robbery, they
+endeavoured to lose the disgrace of it by sinking their real names under
+fictitious ones, which they called Titles. It is ever the practice of
+Felons to act in this manner. They never pass by their real names.(1)
+
+     1 This and the preceding paragraph have been omitted from
+     some editions.--Editor.
+
+As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of
+Rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of
+rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavour
+to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the
+robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure. That part
+of the government of England that is called the house of lords, was
+originally composed of persons who had committed the robberies of which
+I have been speaking. It was an association for the protection of the
+property they had stolen.
+
+But besides the criminality of the origin of aristocracy, it has an
+injurious effect on the moral and physical character of man. Like
+slavery it debilitates the human faculties; for as the mind bowed down
+by slavery loses in silence its elastic powers, so, in the contrary
+extreme, when it is buoyed up by folly, it becomes incapable of exerting
+them, and dwindles into imbecility. It is impossible that a mind
+employed upon ribbands and titles can ever be great. The childishness of
+the objects consumes the man.
+
+It is at all times necessary, and more particularly so during the
+progress of a revolution, and until right ideas confirm themselves by
+habit, that we frequently refresh our patriotism by reference to first
+principles. It is by tracing things to their origin that we learn to
+understand them: and it is by keeping that line and that origin always
+in view that we never forget them.
+
+An enquiry into the origin of Rights will demonstrate to us that
+_rights_ are not _gifts_ from one man to another, nor from one class of
+men to another; for who is he who could be the first giver, or by what
+principle, or on what authority, could he possess the right of giving? A
+declaration of rights is not a creation of them, nor a donation of them.
+It is a manifest of the principle by which they exist, followed by a
+detail of what the rights are; for every civil right has a natural
+right for its foundation, and it includes the principle of a reciprocal
+guarantee of those rights from man to man. As, therefore, it is
+impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin
+of man, it consequently follows, that rights appertain to man in right
+of his existence only, and must therefore be equal to every man. The
+principle of an _equality of rights_ is clear and simple. Every man can
+understand it, and it is by understanding his rights that he learns his
+duties; for where the rights of men are equal, every man must finally
+see the necessity of protecting the rights of others as the most
+effectual security for his own. But if, in the formation of a
+constitution, we depart from the principle of equal rights, or attempt
+any modification of it, we plunge into a labyrinth of difficulties from
+which there is no way out but by retreating. Where are we to stop? Or
+by what principle are we to find out the point to stop at, that shall
+discriminate between men of the same country, part of whom shall be
+free, and the rest not? If property is to be made the criterion, it is
+a total departure from every moral principle of liberty, because it
+is attaching rights to mere matter, and making man the agent of that
+matter. It is, moreover, holding up property as an apple of discord,
+and not only exciting but justifying war against it; for I maintain the
+principle, that when property is used as an instrument to take away the
+rights of those who may happen not to possess property, it is used to an
+unlawful purpose, as fire-arms would be in a similar case.
+
+In a state of nature all men are equal in rights, but they are not equal
+in power; the weak cannot protect themselves against the strong. This
+being the case, the institution of civil society is for the purpose
+of making an equalization of powers that shall be parallel to, and
+a guarantee of, the equality of rights. The laws of a country, when
+properly constructed, apply to this purpose. Every man takes the arm of
+the law for his protection as more effectual than his own; and therefore
+every man has an equal right in the formation of the government, and
+of the laws by which he is to be governed and judged. In extensive
+countries and societies, such as America and France, this right in the
+individual can only be exercised by delegation, that is, by election and
+representation; and hence it is that the institution of representative
+government arises.
+
+Hitherto, I have confined myself to matters of principle only. First,
+that hereditary government has not a right to exist; that it cannot be
+established on any principle of right; and that it is a violation of all
+principle. Secondly, that government by election and representation has
+its origin in the natural and eternal rights of man; for whether a man
+be his own lawgiver, as he would be in a state of nature; or whether he
+exercises his portion of legislative sovereignty in his own person, as
+might be the case in small democracies where all could assemble for the
+formation of the laws by which they were to be governed; or whether he
+exercises it in the choice of persons to represent him in a national
+assembly of representatives, the origin of the right is the same in
+all cases. The first, as is before observed, is defective in power; the
+second, is practicable only in democracies of small extent; the third,
+is the greatest scale upon which human government can be instituted.
+
+Next to matters of _principle_ are matters of _opinion_, and it is
+necessary to distinguish between the two. Whether the rights of men
+shall be equal is not a matter of opinion but of right, and consequently
+of principle; for men do not hold their rights as grants from each
+other, but each one in right of himself. Society is the guardian but not
+the giver. And as in extensive societies, such as America and France,
+the right of the individual in matters of government cannot be exercised
+but by election and representation, it consequently follows that the
+only system of government consistent with principle, where simple
+democracy is impracticable, is the representative system. But as to the
+organical part, or the manner in which the several parts of government
+shall be arranged and composed, it is altogether _matter of opinion_,
+It is necessary that all the parts be conformable with the _principle of
+equal rights_; and so long as this principle be religiously adhered to,
+no very material error can take place, neither can any error continue
+long in that part which falls within the province of opinion.
+
+In all matters of opinion, the social compact, or the principle by which
+society is held together, requires that the majority of opinions becomes
+the rule for the whole, and that the minority yields practical obedience
+thereto. This is perfectly conformable to the principle of equal rights:
+for, in the first place, every man has a _right to give an opinion_ but
+no man has a right that his opinion should _govern the rest_. In the
+second place, it is not supposed to be known beforehand on which side
+of any question, whether for or against, any man's opinion will fall.
+He may happen to be in a majority upon some questions, and in a minority
+upon others; and by the same rule that he expects obedience in the one
+case, he must yield it in the other. All the disorders that have arisen
+in France, during the progress of the revolution, have had their origin,
+not in the _principle of equal rights_, but in the violation of that
+principle. The principle of equal rights has been repeatedly violated,
+and that not by the majority but by the minority, and _that minority
+has been composed of men possessing property as well as of men without
+property; property, therefore, even upon the experience already had,
+is no more a criterion of character than it is of rights_. It will
+sometimes happen that the minority are right, and the majority are
+wrong, but as soon as experience proves this to be the case, the
+minority will increase to a majority, and the error will reform itself
+by the tranquil operation of freedom of opinion and equality of rights.
+Nothing, therefore, can justify an insurrection, neither can it ever be
+necessary where rights are equal and opinions free.
+
+Taking then the principle of equal rights as the foundation of the
+revolution, and consequently of the constitution, the organical part,
+or the manner in which the several parts of the government shall be
+arranged in the constitution, will, as is already said, fall within the
+province of opinion.
+
+Various methods will present themselves upon a question of this kind,
+and tho' experience is yet wanting to determine which is the best,
+it has, I think, sufficiently decided which is the worst. That is
+the worst, which in its deliberations and decisions is subject to
+the precipitancy and passion of an individual; and when the whole
+legislature is crowded into one body it is an individual in mass. In all
+cases of deliberation it is necessary to have a corps of reserve, and it
+would be better to divide the representation by lot into two parts, and
+let them revise and correct each other, than that the whole should sit
+together, and debate at once.
+
+Representative government is not necessarily confined to any one
+particular form. The principle is the same in all the forms under which
+it can be arranged. The equal rights of the people is the root from
+which the whole springs, and the branches may be arranged as present
+opinion or future experience shall best direct. As to that _hospital of
+incurables_ (as Chesterfield calls it), the British house of peers,
+it is an excrescence growing out of corruption; and there is no more
+affinity or resemblance between any of the branches of a legislative
+body originating from the right of the people, and the aforesaid
+house of peers, than between a regular member of the human body and an
+ulcerated wen.
+
+As to that part of government that is called the _executive_, it is
+necessary in the first place to fix a precise meaning to the word.
+
+There are but two divisions into which power can be arranged. First,
+that of willing or decreeing the laws; secondly, that of executing or
+putting them in practice. The former corresponds to the intellectual
+faculties of the human mind, which reasons and determines what shall be
+done; the second, to the mechanical powers of the human body, that puts
+that determination into practice.(1) If the former decides, and the
+latter does not perform, it is a state of imbecility; and if the latter
+acts without the predetermination of the former, it is a state
+of lunacy. The executive department therefore is official, and is
+subordinate to the legislative, as the body is to the mind, in a
+state of health; for it is impossible to conceive the idea of two
+sovereignties, a sovereignty to _will_, and a sovereignty to _act_.
+The executive is not invested with the power of deliberating whether it
+shall act or not; it has no discretionary authority in the case; for it
+can _act no other thing_ than what the laws decree, and it is _obliged_
+to act conformably thereto; and in this view of the case, the executive
+is made up of all the official departments that execute the laws, of
+which that which is called the judiciary is the chief.
+
+     1 Paine may have had in mind the five senses, with reference
+     to the proposed five members of the Directory.--_Editor._.
+
+But mankind have conceived an idea that _some kind of authority_ is
+necessary to _superintend_ the execution of the laws and to see
+that they are faithfully performed; and it is by confounding this
+superintending authority with the official execution that we get
+embarrassed about the term _executive power_. All the parts in the
+governments of the United States of America that are called THE
+EXECUTIVE, are no other than authorities to superintend the execution of
+the laws; and they are so far independent of the legislative, that they
+know the legislative only thro' the laws, and cannot be controuled or
+directed by it through any other medium.
+
+In what manner this superintending authority shall be appointed, or
+composed, is a matter that falls within the province of opinion. Some
+may prefer one method and some another; and in all cases, where opinion
+only and not principle is concerned, the majority of opinions forms the
+rule for all. There are however some things deducible from reason, and
+evidenced by experience, that serve to guide our decision upon the case.
+The one is, never to invest any individual with extraordinary power; for
+besides his being tempted to misuse it, it will excite contention and
+commotion in the nation for the office. Secondly, never to invest power
+long in the hands of any number of individuals. The inconveniences that
+may be supposed to accompany frequent changes are less to be feared than
+the danger that arises from long continuance.
+
+I shall conclude this discourse with offering some observations on the
+means of _preserving liberty_; for it is not only necessary that we
+establish it, but that we preserve it.
+
+It is, in the first place, necessary that we distinguish between the
+means made use of to overthrow despotism, in order to prepare the way
+for the establishment of liberty, and the means to be used after the
+despotism is overthrown.
+
+The means made use of in the first case are justified by necessity.
+Those means are, in general, insurrections; for whilst the established
+government of despotism continues in any country it is scarcely possible
+that any other means can be used. It is also certain that in the
+commencement of a revolution, the revolutionary party permit to
+themselves a _discretionary exercise of power_ regulated more by
+circumstances than by principle, which, were the practice to continue,
+liberty would never be established, or if established would soon be
+overthrown. It is never to be expected in a revolution that every man is
+to change his opinion at the same moment. There never yet was any truth
+or any principle so irresistibly obvious, that all men believed it
+at once. Time and reason must co-operate with each other to the final
+establishment of any principle; and therefore those who may happen to be
+first convinced have not a right to persecute others, on whom conviction
+operates more slowly. The moral principle of revolutions is to instruct,
+not to destroy.
+
+Had a constitution been established two years ago, (as ought to have
+been done,) the violences that have since desolated France and injured
+the character of the revolution, would, in my opinion, have been
+prevented.(1) The nation would then have had a bond of union, and every
+individual would have known the line of conduct he was to follow. But,
+instead of this, a revolutionary government, a thing without either
+principle or authority, was substituted in its place; virtue and crime
+depended upon accident; and that which was patriotism one day, became
+treason the next. All these things have followed from the want of a
+constitution; for it is the nature and intention of a constitution to
+_prevent governing by party_, by establishing a common principle that
+shall limit and control the power and impulse of party, and that says to
+all parties, _thus far shalt thou go and no further_. But in the absence
+of a constitution, men look entirely to party; and instead of principle
+governing party, party governs principle.
+
+     1 The Constitution adopted August 10, 1793, was by the
+     determination of "The Mountain," suspended during the war
+     against France. The revolutionary government was thus made
+     chronic--_Editor._
+
+An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to
+stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He
+that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from
+oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent
+that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine.
+
+Paris, July, 1795.
+
+
+
+
+XXV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1795.
+
+
+SPEECH IN THE FRENCH NATIONAL CONVENTION, JULY 7, 1795.
+
+On the motion of Lanthenas, "That permission be granted to Thomas
+Paine, to deliver his sentiments on the declaration of rights and the
+constitution," Thomas Paine ascended the Tribune; and no opposition
+being made to the motion, one of the Secretaries, who stood by Mr.
+Paine, read his speech, of which the following is a literal translation:
+
+Citizens:
+
+The effects of a malignant fever, with which I was afflicted during a
+rigorous confinement in the Luxembourg, have thus long prevented me from
+attending at my post in the bosom of the Convention, and the magnitude
+of the subject under discussion, and no other consideration on earth,
+could induce me now to repair to my station.
+
+A recurrence to the vicissitudes I have experienced, and the critical
+situations in which I have been placed in consequence of the French
+Revolution, will throw upon what I now propose to submit to the
+Convention the most unequivocal proofs of my integrity, and the
+rectitude of those principles which have uniformly influenced my
+conduct.
+
+In England I was proscribed for having vindicated the French Revolution,
+and I have suffered a rigorous imprisonment in France for having pursued
+a similar mode of conduct. During the reign of terrorism, I was a close
+prisoner for eight long months, and remained so above three months after
+the era of the 10th Thermidor.(1) I ought, however, to state, that I
+was not persecuted by the _people_ either of England or France. The
+proceedings in both countries were the effects of the despotism existing
+in their respective governments. But, even if my persecution had
+originated in the people at large, my principles and conduct would still
+have remained the same. Principles which are influenced and subject to
+the controul of tyranny, have not their foundation in the heart.
+
+     1 By the French republican calendar this was nearly the
+     time. Paine's imprisonment lasted from December 28, 1793, to
+     November 4, 1794. He was by a unanimous vote recalled to the
+     Convention, Dec 7, 1794, but his first appearance there was
+     on July 7, 1795.--_Editor._,
+
+A few days ago, I transmitted to you by the ordinary mode of
+distribution, a short Treatise, entitled "Dissertation on the First
+Principles of Government." This little work I did intend to have
+dedicated to the people of Holland, who, about the time I began to write
+it, were determined to accomplish a Revolution in their Government,
+rather than to the people of France, who had long before effected that
+glorious object. But there are, in the Constitution which is about to
+be ratified by the Convention certain articles, and in the report which
+preceded it certain points, so repugnant to reason, and incompatible
+with the true principles of liberty, as to render this Treatise, drawn
+up for another purpose, applicable to the present occasion, and under
+this impression I presumed to submit it to your consideration.
+
+If there be faults in the Constitution, it were better to expunge them
+now, than to abide the event of their mischievous tendency; for certain
+it is, that the plan of the Constitution which has been presented to you
+is not consistent with the grand object of the Revolution, nor congenial
+to the sentiments of the individuals who accomplished it.
+
+To deprive half the people in a nation of their rights as citizens,
+is an easy matter in theory or on paper: but it is a most dangerous
+experiment, and rarely practicable in the execution.
+
+I shall now proceed to the observations I have to offer on this
+important subject; and I pledge myself that they shall be neither
+numerous nor diffusive.
+
+In my apprehension, a constitution embraces two distinct parts or
+objects, the _Principle_ and the _Practice_; and it is not only an
+essential but an indispensable provision that the practice should
+emanate from, and accord with, the principle. Now I maintain, that the
+reverse of this proposition is the case in the plan of the Constitution
+under discussion. The first article, for instance, of the _political
+state_ of citizens, (v. Title ii. of the Constitution,) says:
+
+"Every man born and resident in France, who, being twenty-one years of
+age, has inscribed his name on the Civic Register of his Canton, and who
+has lived afterwards one year on the territory of the Republic, and who
+pays any direct contribution whatever, real or personal, is a French
+citizen." (1)
+
+     1 The article as ultimately adopted substituted "person" for
+     "man," and for "has inscribed his name" (a slight
+     educational test) inserted "whose name is inscribed."--
+     _Editor._
+
+I might here ask, if those only who come under the above description are
+to be considered as citizens, what designation do you mean to give the
+rest of the people? I allude to that portion of the people on whom the
+principal part of the labour falls, and on whom the weight of indirect
+taxation will in the event chiefly press. In the structure of the social
+fabric, this class of people are infinitely superior to that privileged
+order whose only qualification is their wealth or territorial
+possessions. For what is trade without merchants? What is land without
+cultivation? And what is the produce of the land without manufactures?
+But to return to the subject.
+
+In the first place, this article is incompatible with the three first
+articles of the Declaration of Rights, which precede the Constitutional
+Act.
+
+The first article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+
+"The end of society is the public good; and the institution of
+government is to secure to every individual the enjoyment of his
+rights."
+
+But the article of the Constitution to which I have just adverted
+proposes as the object of society, not the public good, or in other
+words, the good of _all_, but a partial good; or the good only of a
+_few_; and the Constitution provides solely for the rights of this few,
+to the exclusion of the many.
+
+The second article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+
+"The Rights of Man in society are Liberty, Equality, Security of his
+person and property."
+
+But the article alluded to in the Constitution has a direct tendency to
+establish the reverse of this position, inasmuch as the persons excluded
+by this _inequality_ can neither be said to possess liberty, nor
+security against oppression. They are consigned totally to the caprice
+and tyranny of the rest.
+
+The third article of the Declaration of Rights says:
+
+"Liberty consists in such acts of volition as are not injurious to
+others."
+
+But the article of the Constitution, on which I have observed, breaks
+down this barrier. It enables the liberty of one part of society to
+destroy the freedom of the other.
+
+Having thus pointed out the inconsistency of this article to the
+Declaration of Rights, I shall proceed to comment on that of the same
+article which makes a direct contribution a necessary qualification to
+the right of citizenship.
+
+A modern refinement on the object of public revenue has divided the
+taxes, or contributions, into two classes, the _direct_ and the_
+indirect_, without being able to define precisely the distinction or
+difference between them, because the effect of both is the same.
+
+Those are designated indirect taxes which fall upon the consumers of
+certain articles, on which the tax is imposed, because, the tax being
+included in the price, the consumer pays it without taking notice of it.
+
+The same observation is applicable to the territorial tax. The land
+proprietors, in order to reimburse themselves, will rack-rent their
+tenants: the farmer, of course, will transfer the obligation to the
+miller, by enhancing the price of grain; the miller to the baker, by
+increasing the price of flour; and the baker to the consumer, by raising
+the price of bread. The territorial tax, therefore, though called
+_direct_, is, in its consequences, _indirect_.
+
+To this tax the land proprietor contributes only in proportion to the
+quantity of bread and other provisions that are consumed in his own
+family. The deficit is furnished by the great mass of the community,
+which comprehends every individual of the nation.
+
+From the logical distinction between the direct and in-direct taxation,
+some emolument may result, I allow, to auditors of public accounts, &c.,
+but to the people at large I deny that such a distinction (which by the
+by is without a difference) can be productive of any practical
+benefit. It ought not, therefore, to be admitted as a principle in the
+constitution.
+
+Besides this objection, the provision in question does not affect to
+define, secure, or establish the right of citizenship. It consigns to
+the caprice or discretion of the legislature the power of pronouncing
+who shall, or shall not, exercise the functions of a citizen; and
+this may be done effectually, either by the imposition of a _direct or
+indirect_ tax, according to the selfish views of the legislators, or by
+the mode of collecting the taxes so imposed.
+
+Neither a tenant who occupies an extensive farm, nor a merchant or
+manufacturer who may have embarked a large capital in their respective
+pursuits, can ever, according to this system, attain the preemption
+of a citizen. On the other hand, any upstart, who has, by succession
+or management, got possession of a few acres of land or a miserable
+tenement, may exultingly exercise the functions of a citizen, although
+perhaps neither possesses a hundredth part of the worth or property of a
+simple mechanic, nor contributes in any proportion to the exigencies of
+the State.
+
+The contempt in which the old government held mercantile pursuits, and
+the obloquy that attached on merchants and manufacturers, contributed
+not a little to its embarrassments, and its eventual subversion; and,
+strange to tell, though the mischiefs arising from this mode of conduct
+are so obvious, yet an article is proposed for your adoption which has a
+manifest tendency to restore a defect inherent in the monarchy.
+
+
+I shall now proceed to the second article of the same Title, with which
+I shall conclude my remarks.
+
+The second article says, "Every French soldier, who shall have served
+one or more campaigns in the cause of liberty, is deemed a citizen
+of the republic, without any respect or reference to other
+qualifications."(1)
+
+It would seem, that in this Article the Committee were desirous of
+extricating themselves from a dilemma into which they had been plunged
+by the preceding article. When men depart from an established principle
+they are compelled to resort to trick and subterfuge, always shifting
+their means to preserve the unity of their objects; and as it rarely
+happens that the first expedient makes amends for the prostitution of
+principle, they must call in aid a second, of a more flagrant nature,
+to supply the deficiency of the former. In this manner legislators go
+on accumulating error upon error, and artifice upon artifice, until
+the mass becomes so bulky and incongruous, and their embarrassment so
+desperate, that they are compelled, as their last expedient, to resort
+to the very principle they had violated. The Committee were precisely
+in this predicament when they framed this article; and to me, I confess,
+their conduct appears specious rather than efficacious.(2)
+
+     1 This article eventually stood: "All Frenchmen who shall
+     have made one or more campaigns for the establishment of the
+     Republic, are citizens, without condition as to taxes."--
+     _Editor._
+
+     2 The head of the Committee (eleven) was the Abbe Sieves,
+     whose political treachery was well known to Paine before it
+     became known to the world by his services to Napoleon in
+     overthrowing the Republic.--_Editor._
+
+It was not for himself alone, but for his family, that the French
+citizen, at the dawn of the revolution, (for then indeed every man
+was considered a citizen) marched soldier-like to the frontiers, and
+repelled a foreign invasion. He had it not in his contemplation, that he
+should enjoy liberty for the residue of his earthly career, and by his
+own act preclude his offspring from that inestimable blessing. No! He
+wished to leave it as an inheritance to his children, and that they
+might hand it down to their latest posterity. If a Frenchman, who united
+in his person the character of a Soldier and a Citizen, was now to
+return from the army to his peaceful habitation, he must address his
+small family in this manner: "Sorry I am, that I cannot leave to you
+a small portion of what I have acquired by exposing my person to
+the ferocity of our enemies and defeating their machinations. I have
+established the republic, and, painful the reflection, all the laurels
+which I have won in the field are blasted, and all the privileges to
+which my exertions have entitled me extend not beyond the period of
+my own existence!" Thus the measure that has been adopted by way of
+subterfuge falls short of what the framers of it speculated upon; for
+in conciliating the affections of the _Soldier_, they have subjected
+the _Father_ to the most pungent sensations, by obliging him to adopt a
+generation of Slaves.
+
+Citizens, a great deal has been urged respecting insurrections. I am
+confident that no man has a greater abhorrence of them than myself, and
+I am sorry that any insinuations should have been thrown out upon me
+as a promoter of violence of any kind. The whole tenor of my life and
+conversation gives the lie to those calumnies, and proves me to be a
+friend to order, truth and justice.
+
+I hope you will attribute this effusion of my sentiments to my anxiety
+for the honor and success of the revolution. I have no interest distinct
+from that which has a tendency to meliorate the situation of mankind.
+The revolution, as far as it respects myself, has been productive of
+more loss and persecution than it is possible for me to describe, or for
+you to indemnify. But with respect to the subject under consideration, I
+could not refrain from declaring my sentiments.
+
+In my opinion, if you subvert the basis of the revolution, if you
+dispense with principles, and substitute expedients, you will extinguish
+that enthusiasm and energy which have hitherto been the life and soul of
+the revolution; and you will substitute in its place nothing but a
+cold indifference and self-interest, which will again degenerate into
+intrigue, cunning, and effeminacy.
+
+But to discard all considerations of a personal and subordinate nature,
+it is essential to the well-being of the republic that the practical or
+organic part of the constitution should correspond with its principles;
+and as this does not appear to be the case in the plan that has been
+presented to you, it is absolutely necessary that it should be submitted
+to the revision of a committee, who should be instructed to compare it
+with the Declaration of Rights, in order to ascertain the difference
+between the two, and to make such alterations as shall render them
+perfectly consistent and compatible with each other.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI. THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ENGLISH SYSTEM OF FINANCE.(1)
+
+     "On the verge, nay even in the gulph of bankruptcy."
+
+     1 This pamphlet, as Paine predicts at its close (no doubt on
+     good grounds), was translated into all languages of Europe,
+     and probably hastened the gold suspension of the Bank of
+     England (1797), which it predicted. The British Government
+     entrusted its reply to Ralph Broome and George Chalmers, who
+     wrote pamphlets. There is in the French Archives an order
+     for 1000 copies, April 27, 1796, nineteen days after Paine's
+     pamphlet appeared. "Mr. Cobbett has made this little
+     pamphlet a text-book for most of his elaborate treatises on
+     our finances.... On the authority of a late Register of Mr.
+     Cobbett's I learn that the profits arising from the sale of
+     this pamphlet were devoted [by Paine] to the relief of the
+     prisoners confined in Newgate for debt."--"Life of Paine,"
+     by Richard Carlile, 1819.--_Editor._.
+
+
+Debates in Parliament.
+
+Nothing, they say, is more certain than death, and nothing more
+uncertain than the time of dying; yet we can always fix a period beyond
+which man cannot live, and within some moment of which he will die. We
+are enabled to do this, not by any spirit of prophecy, or foresight into
+the event, but by observation of what has happened in all cases of human
+or animal existence. If then any other subject, such, for instance, as
+a system of finance, exhibits in its progress a series of symptoms
+indicating decay, its final dissolution is certain, and the period of it
+can be calculated from the symptoms it exhibits.
+
+Those who have hitherto written on the English system of finance, (the
+funding system,) have been uniformly impressed with the idea that its
+downfall would happen _some time or other_. They took, however, no data
+for their opinion, but expressed it predictively,--or merely as opinion,
+from a conviction that the perpetual duration of such a system was a
+natural impossibility. It is in this manner that Dr. Price has spoken of
+it; and Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, has spoken in the same manner;
+that is, merely as opinion without data. "The progress," says Smith,
+"of the enormous debts, which at present oppress, and will in the long
+run _most probably ruin_, all the great nations of Europe [he should
+have said _governments_] has been pretty uniform." But this general
+manner of speaking, though it might make some impression, carried with
+it no conviction.
+
+It is not my intention to predict any thing; but I will show from data
+already known, from symptoms and facts which the English funding system
+has already exhibited publicly, that it will not continue to the end of
+Mr. Pitt's life, supposing him to live the usual age of a man. How much
+sooner it may fall, I leave to others to predict.
+
+Let financiers diversify systems of credit as they will, it _is_
+nevertheless true, that every system of credit is a system of paper
+money. Two experiments have already been had upon paper money; the one
+in America, the other in France. In both those cases the whole capital
+was emitted, and that whole capital, which in America was called
+continental money, and in France assignats, appeared in circulation; the
+consequence of which was, that the quantity became so enormous, and so
+disproportioned to the quantity of population, and to the quantity' of
+objects upon which it could be employed, that the market, if I may so
+express it, was glutted with it, and the value of it fell. Between five
+and six years determined the fate of those experiments. The same fate
+would have happened to gold and silver, could gold and silver have been
+issued in the same abundant manner that paper had been, and confined
+within the country as paper money always is, by having no circulation
+out of it; or, to speak on a larger scale, the same thing would happen
+in the world, could the world be glutted with gold and silver, as
+America and France have been with paper.
+
+The English system differs from that of America and France in this one
+particular, that its capital is kept out of sight; that is, it does
+not appear in circulation. Were the whole capital of the national debt,
+which at the time I write this is almost one hundred million pounds
+sterling, to be emitted in assignats or bills, and that whole quantity
+put into circulation, as was done in America and in France, those
+English assignats, or bills, would soon sink in value as those of
+America and France have done; and that in a greater degree, because
+the quantity of them would be more disproportioned to the quantity
+of population in England, than was the case in either of the other two
+countries. A nominal pound sterling in such bills would not be worth one
+penny.
+
+But though the English system, by thus keeping the capital out of sight,
+is preserved from hasty destruction, as in the case of America and
+France, it nevertheless approaches the same fate, and will arrive at it
+with the same certainty, though by a slower progress. The difference
+is altogether in the degree of speed by which the two systems approach
+their fate, which, to speak in round numbers, is as twenty is to one;
+that is, the English system, that of funding the capital instead of
+issuing it, contained within itself a capacity of enduring twenty times
+longer than the systems adopted by America and France; and at the end of
+that time it would arrive at the same common grave, the Potter's Field
+of paper money.
+
+The datum, I take for this proportion of twenty to one, is the
+difference between a capital and the interest at five per cent. Twenty
+times the interest is equal to the capital. The accumulation of paper
+money in England is in proportion to the accumulation of the interest
+upon every new loan; and therefore the progress to the dissolution is
+twenty times slower than if the capital were to be emitted and put into
+circulation immediately. Every twenty years in the English system is
+equal to one year in the French and American systems.
+
+Having thus stated the duration of the two systems, that of funding upon
+interest, and that of emitting the whole capital without funding, to be
+as twenty to one, I come to examine the symptoms of decay, approaching
+to dissolution, that the English system has already exhibited, and to
+compare them with similar systems in the French and American systems.
+
+The English funding system began one hundred years ago; in which time
+there have been six wars, including the war that ended in 1697.
+
+1. The war that ended, as I have just said, in 1697.
+
+2. The war that began in 1702.
+
+3. The war that began in 1739.
+
+4. The war that began in 1756.
+
+5. The American war, that began in 1775.
+
+6. The present war, that began in 1793.
+
+
+The national debt, at the conclusion of the war which ended in 1697, was
+twenty-one millions and an half. (See Smith's Wealth of Nations,
+chapter on Public Debts.) We now see it approaching fast to four hundred
+millions. If between these two extremes of twenty-one millions and four
+hundred millions, embracing the several expenses of all the including
+wars, there exist some common ratio that will ascertain arithmetically
+the amount of the debts at the end of each war, as certainly as the fact
+is known to be, that ratio will in like manner determine what the amount
+of the debt will be in all future wars, and will ascertain the period
+within which the funding system will expire in a bankruptcy of the
+government; for the ratio I allude to, is the ratio which the nature of
+the thing has established for itself.
+
+Hitherto no idea has been entertained that any such ratio existed, or
+could exist, that would determine a problem of this kind; that is, that
+would ascertain, without having any knowledge of the fact, what the
+expense of any former war had been, or what the expense of any future
+war would be; but it is nevertheless true that such a ratio does exist,
+as I shall show, and also the mode of applying it.
+
+The ratio I allude to is not in arithmetical progression like the
+numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9; nor yet in geometrical progression, like
+the numbers 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256; but it is in the series of
+one half upon each preceding number; like the numbers 8, 12, 18, 27, 40,
+60, 90, 135.
+
+Any person can perceive that the second number, 12, is produced by the
+preceding number, 8, and half 8; and that the third number, 18, is in
+like manner produced by the preceding number, 12, and half 12; and so
+on for the rest. They can also see how rapidly the sums increase as
+the ratio proceeds. The difference between the two first numbers is but
+four; but the difference between the two last is forty-five; and from
+thence they may see with what immense rapidity the national debt has
+increased, and will continue to increase, till it exceeds the ordinary
+powers of calculation, and loses itself in ciphers.
+
+I come now to apply the ratio as a rule to determine in all cases.
+
+I began with the war that ended in 1697, which was the war in which the
+funding system began. The expense of that war was twenty-one millions
+and an half. In order to ascertain the expense of the next war, I add
+to twenty-one millions and an half, the half thereof (ten millions and
+three quarters) which makes thirty-two millions and a quarter for the
+expense of that war. This thirty-two millions and a quarter, added to
+the former debt of twenty-one millions and an half, carries the national
+debt to fifty-three millions and three quarters. Smith, in his
+chapter on Public Debts, says, that the national debt was at this time
+fifty-three millions.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of the next war, that of 1739, by
+adding, as in the former case, one half to the expense of the preceding
+war. The expense of the preceding war was thirty-two millions and a
+quarter; for the sake of even numbers, say, thirty-two millions; the
+half of which (16) makes forty-eight millions for the expense of that
+war.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of the war of 1756, by adding,
+according to the ratio, one half to the expense of the preceding war.
+The expense of the preceding was taken at 48 millions, the half of which
+(24) makes 72 millions for the expense of that war. Smith, (chapter on
+Public Debts,) says, the expense of the war of 1756, was 72 millions and
+a quarter.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of the American war, of 1775, by
+adding, as in the former cases, one half to the expense of the preceding
+war. The expense of the preceding war was 72 millions, the half of which
+(36) makes 108 millions for the expense of that war. In the last
+edition of Smith, (chapter on Public Debts,) he says, the expense of the
+American war was _more than an hundred millions_.
+
+I come now to ascertain the expense of the present war, supposing it to
+continue as long as former wars have done, and the funding system not
+to break up before that period. The expense of the preceding war was 108
+millions, the half of which (54) makes 162 millions for the expense of
+the present war. It gives symptoms of going beyond this sum, supposing
+the funding system not to break up; for the loans of the last year and
+of the present year are twenty-two millions each, which exceeds the
+ratio compared with the loans of the preceding war. It will not be from
+the inability of procuring loans that the system will break up. On
+the contrary, it is the facility with which loans can be procured that
+hastens that event. The loans are altogether paper transactions; and
+it is the excess of them that brings on, with accelerating speed, that
+progressive depreciation of funded paper money that will dissolve the
+funding system.
+
+I proceed to ascertain the expense of future wars, and I do this merely
+to show the impossibility of the continuance of the funding system, and
+the certainty of its dissolution.
+
+The expense of the next war after the present war, according to the
+ratio that has ascertained the preceding cases, will be 243 millions.
+
+Expense of the second war 364
+
+---------------- third war 546
+
+---------------- fourth war 819
+
+-------- fifth war 1228
+
+                                                        3200 millions;
+
+which, at only four per cent. will require taxes to the nominal amount
+of one hundred and twenty-eight millions to pay the annual interest,
+besides the interest of the present debt, and the expenses of
+government, which are not included in this account. Is there a man so
+mad, so stupid, as to sup-pose this system can continue?
+
+When I first conceived the idea of seeking for some common ratio that
+should apply as a rule of measurement to all the cases of the funding
+system, so far as to ascertain the several stages of its approach to
+dissolution, I had no expectation that any ratio could be found that
+would apply with so much exactness as this does. I was led to the idea
+merely by observing that the funding system was a thing in continual
+progression, and that whatever was in a state of progression might be
+supposed to admit of, at least, some general ratio of measurement,
+that would apply without any very great variation. But who could have
+supposed that falling systems, or falling opinions, admitted of a ratio
+apparently as true as the descent of falling bodies? I have not made the
+ratio any more than Newton made the ratio of gravitation. I have only
+discovered it, and explained the mode of applying it.
+
+To shew at one view the rapid progression of the funding system to
+destruction, and to expose the folly of those who blindly believe in
+its continuance, and who artfully endeavour to impose that belief upon
+others, I exhibit in the annexed table, the expense of each of the six
+wars since the funding system began, as ascertained by ratio, and the
+expense of the six wars yet to come, ascertained by the same ratio.
+
+[Illustration: Table318]
+
+     * The actual expense of the war of 1739 did not come up to
+     the sum ascertained by the ratio.   But as that which is the
+     natural disposition of a thing, as it is the natural
+     disposition of a stream of water to descend, will, if
+     impeded in its course, overcome by a new effort what it had
+     lost by that impediment, so it was with respect to this war
+     and the next (1756) taken collectively; for the expense of
+     the war of 1756 restored the equilibrium of the ratio, as
+     fully as if it had not been impeded. A circumstance that
+     serves to prove the truth of the ratio more folly than if
+     the interruption had not taken place. The war of 1739 ***
+     languid; the efforts were below the value of money et that
+     time; for the ratio is the measure of the depreciation of
+     money in consequence of the funding system; or what comes
+     to the same end, it is the measure of the increase of paper.
+     Every additional quantity of it, whether in bank notes or
+     otherwise, diminishes the real, though not the nominal value
+     of the former quantity.--_Author_
+
+
+Those who are acquainted with the power with which even a small ratio,
+acting in progression, multiplies in a long series, will see nothing to
+wonder at in this table. Those who are not acquainted with that subject,
+and not knowing what else to say, may be inclined to deny it. But it is
+not their opinion one way, nor mine the other, that can influence the
+event. The table exhibits the natural march of the funding system to its
+irredeemable dissolution. Supposing the present government of England to
+continue, and to go on as it has gone on since the funding system began,
+I would not give twenty shillings for one hundred pounds in the funds to
+be paid twenty years hence. I do not speak this predictively; I produce
+the data upon which that belief is founded; and which data it is every
+body's interest to know, who have any thing to do with the funds, or
+who are going to bequeath property to their descendants to be paid at a
+future day.
+
+Perhaps it may be asked, that as governments or ministers proceeded by
+no ratio in making loans or incurring debts, and nobody intended any
+ratio, or thought of any, how does it happen that there is one? I
+answer, that the ratio is founded in necessity; and I now go to explain
+what that necessity is.
+
+It will always happen, that the price of labour, or of the produce
+of labour, be that produce what it may, will be in proportion to the
+quantity of money in a country, admitting things to take their natural
+course. Before the invention of the funding system, there was no other
+money than gold and silver; and as nature gives out those metals with
+a sparing hand, and in regular annual quantities from the mines, the
+several prices of things were proportioned to the quantity of money at
+that time, and so nearly stationary as to vary but little in any fifty
+or sixty years of that period.
+
+When the funding system began, a substitute for gold and silver began
+also. That substitute was paper; and the quantity increased as the
+quantity of interest increased upon accumulated loans. This appearance
+of a new and additional species of money in the nation soon began to
+break the relative value which money and the things it will purchase
+bore to each other before. Every thing rose in price; but the rise at
+first was little and slow, like the difference in units between two
+first numbers, 8 and 12, compared with the two last numbers 90 and 135,
+in the table. It was however sufficient to make itself considerably felt
+in a large transaction. When therefore government, by engaging in a new
+war, required a new loan, it was obliged to make a higher loan than the
+former loan, to balance the increased price to which things had risen;
+and as that new loan increased the quantity of paper in proportion
+to the new quantity of interest, it carried the price of things still
+higher than before. The next loan was again higher, to balance that
+further increased price; and all this in the same manner, though not
+in the same degree, that every new emission of continental money in
+America, or of assignats in France, was greater than the preceding
+emission, to make head against the advance of prices, till the combat
+could be maintained no longer. Herein is founded the necessity of which
+I have just spoken. That necessity proceeds with accelerating velocity,
+and the ratio I have laid down is the measure of that acceleration; or,
+to speak the technical language of the subject, it is the measure of the
+increasing depreciation of funded paper money, which it is impossible to
+prevent while the quantity of that money and of bank notes continues to
+multiply. What else but this can account for the difference between one
+war costing 21 millions, and another war costing 160 millions?
+
+The difference cannot be accounted for on the score of extraordinary
+efforts or extraordinary achievements. The war that cost twenty-one
+millions was the war of the con-federates, historically called the grand
+alliance, consisting of England, Austria, and Holland in the time of
+William III. against Louis XIV. and in which the confederates were
+victorious. The present is a war of a much greater confederacy--a
+confederacy of England, Austria, Prussia, the German Empire, Spain,
+Holland, Naples, and Sardinia, eight powers, against the French Republic
+singly, and the Republic has beaten the whole confederacy.--But to
+return to my subject.
+
+It is said in England, that the value of paper keeps equal with the
+value of gold and silver. But the case is not rightly stated; for the
+fact is, that the paper has _pulled down_ the value of gold and silver
+to a level with itself. Gold and silver will not purchase so much of any
+purchasable article at this day as if no paper had appeared, nor so much
+as it will in any country in Europe where there is no paper. How long
+this hanging together of money and paper will continue, makes a new
+case; because it daily exposes the system to sudden death, independent
+of the natural death it would otherwise suffer.
+
+I consider the funding system as being now advanced into the last twenty
+years of its existence. The single circumstance, were there no other,
+that a war should now cost nominally one hundred and sixty millions,
+which when the system began cost but twenty-one millions, or that the
+loan for one year only (including the loan to the Emperor) should now be
+nominally greater than the whole expense of that war, shows the state of
+depreciation to which the funding system has arrived. Its depreciation
+is in the proportion of eight for one, compared with the value of its
+money when the system began; which is the state the French assignats
+stood a year ago (March 1795) compared with gold and silver. It is
+therefore that I say, that the English funding system has entered on the
+last twenty years of its existence, comparing each twenty years of
+the English system with every single year of the American and French
+systems, as before stated.
+
+Again, supposing the present war to close as former wars have done, and
+without producing either revolution or reform in England, another war at
+least must be looked for in the space of the twenty years I allude to;
+for it has never yet happened that twenty years have passed off without
+a war, and that more especially since the English government has dabbled
+in German politics, and shown a disposition to insult the world, and the
+world of commerce, with her navy. The next war will carry the national
+debt to very nearly seven hundred millions, the interest of which, at
+four per cent, will be twenty-eight millions besides the taxes for
+the (then) expenses of government, which will increase in the same
+proportion, and which will carry the taxes to at least forty millions;
+and if another war only begins, it will quickly carry them to above
+fifty; for it is in the last twenty years of the funding system, as in
+the last year of the American and French systems without funding, that
+all the great shocks begin to operate.
+
+I have just mentioned that, paper in England has _pulled down_ the value
+of gold and silver to a level with itself; and that _this pulling dawn_
+of gold and silver money has created the appearance of paper money
+keeping up. The same thing, and the same mistake, took place in
+America and in France, and continued for a considerable time after the
+commencement of their system of paper; and the actual depreciation of
+money was hidden under that mistake.
+
+It was said in America, at that time, that everything was becoming
+_dear_; but gold and silver could then buy those dear articles no
+cheaper than paper could; and therefore it was not called depreciation.
+The idea of _dearness_ established itself for the idea of depreciation.
+The same was the case in France. Though every thing rose in price soon
+after assignats appeared, yet those dear articles could be purchased no
+cheaper with gold and silver, than with paper, and it was only said that
+things were _dear_. The same is still the language in England. They
+call it _deariness_. But they will soon find that it is an actual
+depreciation, and that this depreciation is the effect of the funding
+system; which, by crowding such a continually increasing mass of paper
+into circulation, carries down the value of gold and silver with it. But
+gold and silver, will, in the long run, revolt against depreciation, and
+separate from the value of paper; for the progress of all such systems
+appears to be, that the paper will take the command in the beginning,
+and gold and silver in the end.
+
+But this succession in the command of gold and silver over paper, makes
+a crisis far more eventful to the funding system than to any other
+system upon which paper can be issued; for, strictly speaking, it is not
+a crisis of danger but a symptom of death. It is a death-stroke to the
+funding system. It is a revolution in the whole of its affairs.
+
+If paper be issued without being funded upon interest, emissions of it
+can be continued after the value of it separates from gold and silver,
+as we have seen in the two cases of America and France. But the funding
+system rests altogether upon the value of paper being equal to gold and
+silver; which will be as long as the paper can continue carrying down
+the value of gold and silver to the same level to which itself descends,
+and no longer. But even in this state, that of descending equally
+together, the minister, whoever he may be, will find himself beset with
+accumulating difficulties; because the loans and taxes voted for the
+service of each ensuing year will wither in his hands before the year
+expires, or before they can be applied. This will force him to have
+recourse to emissions of what are called exchequer and navy bills,
+which, by still increasing the mass of paper in circulation, will drive
+on the depreciation still more rapidly.
+
+It ought to be known that taxes in England are not paid in gold
+and silver, but in paper (bank notes). Every person who pays any
+considerable quantity of taxes, such as maltsters, brewers, distillers,
+(I appeal for the truth of it, to any of the collectors of excise in
+England, or to Mr. White-bread,)(1) knows this to be the case. There is
+not gold and silver enough in the nation to pay the taxes in coin, as
+I shall show; and consequently there is not money enough in the bank to
+pay the notes. The interest of the national funded debt is paid at the
+bank in the same kind of paper in which the taxes are collected. When
+people find, as they will find, a reservedness among each other in
+giving gold and silver for bank notes, or the least preference for the
+former over the latter, they will go for payment to the bank, where they
+have a right to go. They will do this as a measure of prudence, each one
+for himself, and the truth or delusion of the funding system will then
+be proved.
+
+     1 An eminent Member of Parliament.--_Editor._.
+
+I have said in the foregoing paragraph that there is not gold and silver
+enough in the nation to pay the taxes in coin, and consequently that
+there cannot be enough in the bank to pay the notes. As I do not choose
+to rest anything upon assertion, I appeal for the truth of this to the
+publications of Mr. Eden (now called Lord Auckland) and George Chalmers,
+Secretary to the Board of Trade and Plantation, of which Jenkinson (now
+Lord Hawkesbury) is president.(1) (These sort of folks change their
+names so often that it is as difficult to know them as it is to know
+a thief.) Chalmers gives the quantity of gold and silver coin from the
+returns of coinage at the Mint; and after deducting for the light gold
+recoined, says that the amount of gold and silver coined is about twenty
+millions. He had better not have proved this, especially if he had
+reflected that _public credit is suspicion asleep_. The quantity is much
+too little.
+
+     1 Concerning Chalmers and Hawkesbury see vol. ii., p. 533.
+     Also, preface to my "Life of Paine",  xvi., and other
+     passages.---_Editor._.
+
+Of this twenty millions (which is not a fourth part of the quantity of
+gold and silver there is in France, as is shown in Mr. Neckar's Treatise
+on the Administration of the Finances) three millions at least must be
+supposed to be in Ireland, some in Scotland, and in the West Indies,
+Newfoundland, &c. The quantity therefore in England cannot be more than
+sixteen millions, which is four millions less than the amount of the
+taxes. But admitting that there are sixteen millions, not more than
+a fourth part thereof (four millions) can be in London, when it is
+considered that every city, town, village, and farm-house in the nation
+must have a part of it, and that all the great manufactories, which most
+require cash, are out of London. Of this four millions in London, every
+banker, merchant, tradesman, in short every individual, must have some.
+He must be a poor shopkeeper indeed, who has not a few guineas in his
+till. The quantity of cash therefore in the bank can never, on the
+evidence of circumstances, be so much as two millions; most probably
+not more than one million; and on this slender twig, always liable to be
+broken, hangs the whole funding system of four hundred millions, besides
+many millions in bank notes. The sum in the bank is not sufficient to
+pay one-fourth of only one year's interest of the national debt, were
+the creditors to demand payment in cash, or demand cash for the bank
+notes in which the interest is paid, a circumstance always liable to
+happen.
+
+One of the amusements that has kept up the farce of the funding system
+is, that the interest is regularly paid. But as the interest is always
+paid in bank notes, and as bank notes can always be coined for the
+purpose, this mode of payment proves nothing. The point of proof is, can
+the bank give cash for the bank notes with which the interest is paid?
+If it cannot, and it is evident it cannot, some millions of bank notes
+must go without payment, and those holders of bank notes who apply last
+will be worst off. When the present quantity of cash in the bank is paid
+away, it is next to impossible to see how any new quantity is to arrive.
+None will arrive from taxes, for the taxes will all be paid in bank
+notes; and should the government refuse bank notes in payment of taxes,
+the credit of bank notes will be gone at once. No cash will arise from
+the business of discounting merchants' bills; for every merchant will
+pay off those bills in bank notes, and not in cash. There is therefore
+no means left for the bank to obtain a new supply of cash, after the
+present quantity is paid away. But besides the impossibility of paying
+the interest of the funded debt in cash, there are many thousand
+persons, in London and in the country, who are holders of bank notes
+that came into their hands in the fair way of trade, and who are not
+stockholders in the funds; and as such persons have had no hand in
+increasing the demand upon the bank, as those have had who for their own
+private interest, like Boyd and others, are contracting or pretending to
+contract for new loans, they will conceive they have a just right that
+their bank notes should be paid first. Boyd has been very sly in France,
+in changing his paper into cash. He will be just as sly in doing the
+same thing in London, for he has learned to calculate; and then it is
+probable he will set off for America.
+
+A stoppage of payment at the bank is not a new thing. Smith in his
+Wealth of Nations, book ii. chap. 2, says, that in the year 1696,
+exchequer bills fell forty, fifty, and sixty per cent; bank notes twenty
+per cent; and the bank stopped payment. That which happened in 1696 may
+happen again in 1796. The period in which it happened was the last year
+of the war of King William. It necessarily put a stop to the further
+emissions of exchequer and navy bills, and to the raising of new loans;
+and the peace which took place the next year was probably hurried on by
+this circumstance, and saved the bank from bankruptcy. Smith in speaking
+from the circumstances of the bank, upon another occasion, says (book
+ii. chap. 2.) "This great company had been reduced to the necessity
+of paying in sixpences." When a bank adopts the expedient of paying in
+sixpences, it is a confession of insolvency.
+
+It is worthy of observation, that every case of failure in finances,
+since the system of paper began, has produced a revolution in
+governments, either total or partial. A failure in the finances of
+France produced the French revolution. A failure in the finance of
+the assignats broke up the revolutionary government, and produced
+the present French Constitution. A failure in the finances of the Old
+Congress of America, and the embarrassments it brought upon commerce,
+broke up the system of the old confederation, and produced the federal
+Constitution. If, then, we admit of reasoning by comparison of causes
+and events, the failure of the English finances will produce some change
+in the government of that country.
+
+As to Mr. Pitt's project of paying off the national debt by applying
+a million a-year for that purpose, while he continues adding more than
+twenty millions a-year to it, it is like setting a man with a wooden leg
+to run after a hare. The longer he runs the farther he is off.
+
+When I said that the funding system had entered the last twenty years
+of its existence, I certainly did not mean that it would continue twenty
+years, and then expire as a lease would do. I meant to describe that
+age of decrepitude in which death is every day to be expected, and life
+cannot continue long. But the death of credit, or that state that is
+called bankruptcy, is not always marked by those progressive stages
+of visible decline that marked the decline of natural life. In the
+progression of natural life age cannot counterfeit youth, nor conceal
+the departure of juvenile abilities. But it is otherwise with respect
+to the death of credit; for though all the approaches to bankruptcy
+may actually exist in circumstances, they admit of being concealed by
+appearances. Nothing is more common than to see the bankrupt of to-day a
+man in credit but the day before; yet no sooner is the real state of
+his affairs known, than every body can see he had been insolvent long
+before. In London, the greatest theatre of bankruptcy in Europe, this
+part of the subject will be well and feelingly understood.
+
+Mr. Pitt continually talks of credit, and the national resources. These
+are two of the feigned appearances by which the approaches to bankruptcy
+are concealed. That which he calls credit may exist, as I have just
+shown, in a state of insolvency, and is always what I have before
+described it to be, _suspicion asleep_.
+
+As to national resources, Mr. Pitt, like all English financiers that
+preceded him since the funding system began, has uniformly mistaken the
+nature of a resource; that is, they have mistaken it consistently with
+the delusion of the funding system; but time is explaining the delusion.
+That which he calls, and which they call, a resource, is not a resource,
+but is the _anticipation_ of a resource. They have anticipated what
+_would have been_ a resource in another generation, had not the use of
+it been so anticipated. The funding system is a system of anticipation.
+Those who established it an hundred years ago anticipated the resources
+of those who were to live an hundred years after; for the people of the
+present day have to pay the interest of the debts contracted at that
+time, and all debts contracted since. But it is the last feather that
+breaks the horse's back. Had the system begun an hundred years before,
+the amount of taxes at this time to pay the annual interest at four per
+cent. (could we suppose such a system of insanity could have continued)
+would be two hundred and twenty millions annually: for the capital of
+the debt would be 5486 millions, according to the ratio that ascertains
+the expense of the wars for the hundred years that are past. But long
+before it could have reached this period, the value of bank notes,
+from the immense quantity of them, (for it is in paper only that such
+a nominal revenue could be collected,) would have been as low or lower
+than continental paper has been in America, or assignats in France; and
+as to the idea of exchanging them for gold and silver, it is too absurd
+to be contradicted.
+
+Do we not see that nature, in all her operations, disowns the visionary
+basis upon which the funding system is built? She acts always by
+renewed successions, and never by accumulating additions perpetually
+progressing. Animals and vegetables, men and trees, have existed since
+the world began: but that existence has been carried on by succession
+of generations, and not by continuing the same men and the same trees in
+existence that existed first; and to make room for the new she removes
+the old. Every natural idiot can see this; it is the stock-jobbing idiot
+only that mistakes. He has conceived that art can do what nature cannot.
+He is teaching her a new system--that there is no occasion for man to
+die--that the scheme of creation can be carried on upon the plan of
+the funding system--that it can proceed by continual additions of new
+beings, like new loans, and all live together in eternal youth. Go,
+count the graves, thou idiot, and learn the folly of thy arithmetic!
+
+But besides these things, there is something visibly farcical in the
+whole operation of loaning. It is scarcely more than four years ago
+that such a rot of bankruptcy spread itself over London, that the whole
+commercial fabric tottered; trade and credit were at a stand; and
+such was the state of things that, to prevent or suspend a general
+bankruptcy, the government lent the merchants six millions in
+_government_ paper, and now the merchants lend the government twenty-two
+millions in _their_ paper; and two parties, Boyd and Morgan, men but
+little known, contend who shall be the lenders. What a farce is this!
+It reduces the operation of loaning to accommodation paper, in which
+the competitors contend, not who shall lend, but who shall sign, because
+there is something to be got for signing.
+
+Every English stock-jobber and minister boasts of the credit of England.
+Its credit, say they, is greater than that of any country in Europe.
+There is a good reason for this: for there is not another country in
+Europe that could be made the dupe of such a delusion. The English
+funding system will remain a monument of wonder, not so much on account
+of the extent to which it has been carried, as of the folly of believing
+in it.
+
+Those who had formerly predicted that the funding system would break
+up when the debt should amount to one hundred or one hundred and fifty
+millions, erred only in not distinguishing between insolvency and actual
+bankruptcy; for the insolvency commenced as soon as the government
+became unable to pay the interest in cash, or to give cash for the bank
+notes in which the interest was paid, whether that inability was known
+or not, or whether it was suspected or not. Insolvency always takes
+place before bankruptcy; for bankruptcy is nothing more than the
+publication of that insolvency. In the affairs of an individual, it
+often happens that insolvency exists several years before bankruptcy,
+and that the insolvency is concealed and carried on till the individual
+is not able to pay one shilling in the pound. A government can ward off
+bankruptcy longer than an individual: but insolvency will inevitably
+produce bankruptcy, whether in an individual or in a government. If then
+the quantity of bank notes payable on demand, which the bank has issued,
+are greater than the bank can pay off, the bank is insolvent: and when
+that insolvency is declared, it is bankruptcy.(*)
+
+     *  Among the delusions that have been imposed upon the
+     nation by ministers to give a false colouring to its
+     affairs, and by none more than by Mr. Pitt, is a motley,
+     amphibious-charactered thing called the _balance of trade_.
+     This balance of trade, as it is called, is taken from the
+     custom-house books, in which entries are made of all cargoes
+     exported, and also of all cargoes imported, in each year;
+     and when the value of the exports, according to the price
+     set upon them by the exporter or by the custom-house, is
+     greater than the value of the imports, estimated in the same
+     manner, they say the balance of trade is much in their
+     favour.
+
+     The custom-house books prove regularly enough that so many
+     cargoes have been exported, and so many imported; but this
+     is all that they prove, or were intended to prove. They have
+     nothing to do with the balance of profit or loss; and it is
+     ignorance to appeal to them upon that account: for the case
+     is, that the greater the loss is in any one year, the higher
+     will this thing called the balance of trade appear to be
+     according to the custom-house books. For example, nearly the
+     whole of the Mediterranean convoy has been taken by the
+     French this year; consequently those cargoes will not
+     appear as imports on the custom-house books, and therefore
+     the balance of trade, by which they mean the profits of it,
+     will appear to be so much the greater as the loss amounts to;
+     and, on the other hand, had the loss not happened, the
+     profits would have appeared to have been so much the less.
+     All the losses happening at sea to returning cargoes, by
+     accidents, by the elements, or by capture, make the balance
+     appear the higher on the side of the exports; and were they
+     all lost at sea, it would appear to be all profit on the
+     custom-house books. Also every cargo of exports that is lost
+     that occasions another to be sent, adds in like manner to
+     the side of the exports, and appears as profit. This year
+     the balance of trade will appear high, because the losses
+     have been great by capture and by storms. The ignorance of
+     the British Parliament in listening to this hackneyed
+     imposition of ministers about the balance of trade is
+     astonishing. It shows how little they know of national
+     affairs--and Mr. Grey may as well talk Greek to them, as to
+     make motions about the state of the nation. They understand
+     only fox-hunting and the game laws,--_Author_.
+
+I come now to show the several ways by which bank notes get into
+circulation: I shall afterwards offer an estimate on the total quantity
+or amount of bank notes existing at this moment.
+
+The bank acts in three capacities. As a bank of discount; as a bank of
+deposit; and as a banker for the government.
+
+First, as a bank of discount. The bank discounts merchants' bills of
+exchange for two months. When a merchant has a bill that will become due
+at the end of two months, and wants payment before that time, the bank
+advances that payment to him, deducting therefrom at the rate of five
+per cent, per annum. The bill of exchange remains at the bank as a
+pledge or pawn, and at the end of two months it must be redeemed. This
+transaction is done altogether in paper; for the profits of the bank,
+as a bank of discount, arise entirely from its making use of paper as
+money. The bank gives bank notes to the merchant in discounting the bill
+of exchange, and the redeemer of the bill pays bank notes to the bank in
+redeeming it. It very seldom happens that any real money passes between
+them.
+
+If the profits of a bank be, for example, two hundred thousand pounds a
+year (a great sum to be made merely by exchanging one sort of paper
+for another, and which shows also that the merchants of that place are
+pressed for money for payments, instead of having money to spare to lend
+to government,) it proves that the bank discounts to the amount of four
+millions annually, or 666,666L. every two months; and as there never
+remain in the bank more than two months' pledges, of the value of
+666,666L., at any one time, the amount of bank notes in circulation at
+any one time should not be more than to that amount. This is sufficient
+to show that the present immense quantity of bank notes, which are
+distributed through every city, town, village, and farm-house in
+England, cannot be accounted for on the score of discounting.
+
+Secondly, as a bank of deposit. To deposit money at the bank means to
+lodge it there for the sake of convenience, and to be drawn out at any
+moment the depositor pleases, or to be paid away to his order. When
+the business of discounting is great, that of depositing is necessarily
+small. No man deposits and applies for discounts at the same time;
+for it would be like paying interest for lending money, instead of for
+borrowing it. The deposits that are now made at the bank are almost
+entirely in bank notes, and consequently they add nothing to the ability
+of the bank to pay off the bank notes that may be presented for payment;
+and besides this, the deposits are no more the property of the bank than
+the cash or bank notes in a merchant's counting-house are the property
+of his book-keeper. No great increase therefore of bank notes, beyond
+what the discounting business admits, can be accounted for on the score
+of deposits.
+
+Thirdly, the bank acts as banker for the government. This is the
+connection that threatens to ruin every public bank. It is through this
+connection that the credit of a bank is forced far beyond what it ought
+to be, and still further beyond its ability to pay. It is through this
+connection, that such an immense redundant quantity of bank notes, have
+gotten into circulation; and which, instead of being issued because
+there was property in the bank, have been issued because there was none.
+
+When the treasury is empty, which happens in almost every year of every
+war, its coffers at the bank are empty also. It is in this condition of
+emptiness that the minister has recourse to emissions of what are called
+exchequer and navy bills, which continually generates a new increase of
+bank notes, and which are sported upon the public, without there being
+property in the bank to pay them. These exchequer and navy bills (being,
+as I have said, emitted because the treasury and its coffers at the bank
+are empty, and cannot pay the demands that come in) are no other than
+an acknowledgment that the bearer is entitled to receive so much money.
+They may be compared to the settlement of an account, in which the
+debtor acknowledges the balance he owes, and for which he gives a note
+of hand; or to a note of hand given to raise money upon it.
+
+Sometimes the bank discounts those bills as it would discount merchants'
+bills of exchange; sometimes it purchases them of the holders at the
+current price; and sometimes it agrees with the ministers to pay an
+interest upon them to the holders, and keep them in circulation. In
+every one of these cases an additional quantity of bank notes gets into
+circulation, and are sported, as I have said, upon the public, without
+there being property in the bank, as banker for the government, to pay
+them; and besides this, the bank has now no money of its own; for the
+money that was originally subscribed to begin the credit of the bank
+with, at its first establishment, has been lent to government and wasted
+long ago.
+
+"The bank" (says Smith, book ii. chap. 2.) "acts not only as an ordinary
+bank, but as a great engine of State; it receives and pays a greater
+part of the annuities which are due to the creditors of the _public_."
+(It is worth observing, that the _public_, or the _nation_, is always
+put for the government, in speaking of debts.) "It circulates" (says
+Smith) "exchequer bills, and it advances to government the annual amount
+of the land and malt taxes, which are frequently not paid till several
+years afterwards." (This advancement is also done in bank notes,
+for which there is not property in the bank.) "In those different
+operations" (says Smith) "_its duty to the public_ may sometimes have
+obliged it, without any fault of its directors, _to overstock the
+circulation with paper money_."--bank notes. How its _duty_ to _the
+public_ can induce it _to overstock that public_ with promissory bank
+notes which it _cannot pay_, and thereby expose the individuals of that
+public to ruin, is too paradoxical to be explained; for it is on
+the credit which individuals _give to the bank_, by receiving and
+circulating its notes, and not upon its _own_ credit or its _own_
+property, for it has none, that the bank sports. If, however, it be the
+duty of the bank to expose the public to this hazard, it is at least
+equally the duty of the individuals of that public to get their money
+and take care of themselves; and leave it to placemen, pensioners,
+government contractors, Reeves' association, and the members of both
+houses of Parliament, who have voted away the money at the nod of
+the minister, to continue the credit if they can, and for which their
+estates individually and collectively ought to answer, as far as they
+will go.
+
+There has always existed, and still exists, a mysterious, suspicious
+connection, between the minister and the directors of the bank, and
+which explains itself no otherways than by a continual increase in bank
+notes. Without, therefore, entering into any further details of the
+various contrivances by which bank notes are issued, and thrown upon the
+public, I proceed, as I before mentioned, to offer an estimate on the
+total quantity of bank notes in circulation.
+
+However disposed governments may be to wring money by taxes from the
+people, there is a limit to the practice established by the nature of
+things. That limit is the proportion between the quantity of money in a
+nation, be that quantity what it may, and the greatest quantity of taxes
+that can be raised upon it. People have other uses for money besides
+paying taxes; and it is only a proportional part of the money they can
+spare for taxes, as it is only a proportional part they can spare
+for house-rent, for clothing, or for any other particular use. These
+proportions find out and establish themselves; and that with such
+exactness, that if any one part exceeds its proportion, all the other
+parts feel it.
+
+Before the invention of paper money (bank notes,) there was no other
+money in the nation than gold and silver, and the greatest quantity of
+money that was ever raised in taxes during that period never exceeded a
+fourth part of the quantity of money in the nation. It was high taxing
+when it came to this point. The taxes in the time of William III. never
+reached to four millions before the invention of paper, and the quantity
+of money in the nation at that time was estimated to be about sixteen
+millions. The same proportions established themselves in France. There
+was no paper money in France before the present revolution, and the
+taxes were collected in gold and silver money. The highest quantity of
+taxes never exceeded twenty-two millions sterling; and the quantity of
+gold and silver money in the nation at the same time, as stated by M.
+Neckar, from returns of coinage at the Mint, in his Treatise on the
+Administration of the Finances, was about ninety millions sterling. To
+go beyond this limit of a fourth part, in England, they were obliged to
+introduce paper money; and the attempt to go beyond it in France, where
+paper could not be introduced, broke up the government. This proportion,
+therefore, of a fourth part, is the limit which the thing establishes
+for itself, be the quantity of money in a nation more or less.
+
+The amount of taxes in England at this time is full twenty millions;
+and therefore the quantity of gold and silver, and of bank notes, taken
+together, amounts to eighty millions. The quantity of gold and silver,
+as stated by Lord Hawkes-bury's Secretary, George Chalmers, as I have
+before shown, is twenty millions; and, therefore, the total amount
+of bank notes in circulation, all made payable on demand, is sixty
+millions. This enormous sum will astonish the most stupid stock-jobber,
+and overpower the credulity of the most thoughtless Englishman: but were
+it only a third part of that sum, the bank cannot pay half a crown in
+the pound.
+
+There is something curious in the movements of this modern complicated
+machine, the funding system; and it is only now that it is beginning
+to unfold the full extent of its movements. In the first part of its
+movements it gives great powers into the hands of government, and in the
+last part it takes them completely away.
+
+The funding system set out with raising revenues under the name of
+loans, by means of which government became both prodigal and powerful.
+The loaners assumed the name of creditors, and though it was soon
+discovered that loaning was government-jobbing, those pretended loaners,
+or the persons who purchased into the funds afterwards, conceived
+themselves not only to be creditors, but to be the _only_ creditors.
+
+But such has been the operation of this complicated machine, the funding
+system, that it has produced, unperceived, a second generation of
+creditors, more numerous and far more formidable and withal more
+real than the first generation; for every holder of a bank note is a
+creditor, and a real creditor, and the debt due to him is made payable
+on demand. The debt therefore which the government owes to individuals
+is composed of two parts; the one about four hundred millions bearing
+interest, the other about sixty millions payable on demand. The one is
+called the funded debt, the other is the debt due in bank notes.
+
+The second debt (that contained in the bank notes) has, in a great
+measure, been incurred to pay the interest of the first debt; so that in
+fact little or no real interest has been paid by government. The whole
+has been delusion and fraud. Government first contracted a debt, in the
+form of loans, with one class of people, and then run clandestinely into
+debt with another class, by means of bank notes, to pay the interest.
+Government acted of itself in contracting the first debt, and made a
+machine of the bank to contract the second. It is this second debt that
+changes the seat of power and the order of things; for it puts it in
+the power of even a small part of the holders of bank notes (had they no
+other motives than disgust at Pitt and Grenville's sedition bills,) to
+control any measure of government they found to be injurious to their
+interest; and that not by popular meetings, or popular societies, but
+by the simple and easy opera-tion of withholding their credit from that
+government; that is, by individually demanding payment at the bank
+for every bank note that comes into their hands. Why should Pitt and
+Grenville expect that the very men whom they insult and injure,
+should, at the same time, continue to support the measures of Pitt and
+Grenville, by giving credit to their promissory notes of payment? No new
+emissions of bank notes could go on while payment was demanding on the
+old, and the cash in the bank wasting daily away; nor any new advances
+be made to government, or to the emperor, to carry on the war; nor any
+new emission be made on exchequer bills.
+
+"_The bank_" says Smith, (book ii. chap. 2) "_is a great engine of
+state_." And in the same paragraph he says, "_The stability of the bank
+is equal to that of the British government_;" which is the same as to
+say that the stability of the government is equal to that of the bank,
+and no more. If then the bank cannot pay, the _arch-treasurer_ of the
+holy Roman empire (S. R. I. A.*) is a bankrupt. When Folly invented
+titles, she did not attend to their application; forever since the
+government of England has been in the hands of _arch-treasurers_, it has
+been running into bankruptcy; and as to the arch-treasurer _apparent_,
+he has been a bankrupt long ago. What a miserable prospect has England
+before its eyes!
+
+     * Put of the inscription on an English guinea.--_Author_.
+
+Before the war of 1755 there were no bank notes lower than twenty
+pounds. During that war, bank notes of fifteen pounds and of ten pounds
+were coined; and now, since the commencement of the present war, they
+are coined as low as five pounds. These five-pound notes will circulate
+chiefly among little shop-keepers, butchers, bakers, market-people,
+renters of small houses, lodgers, &c. All the high departments of
+commerce and the affluent stations of life were already _overstocked_,
+as Smith expresses it, with the bank notes. No place remained open
+wherein to crowd an additional quantity of bank notes but among the
+class of people I have just mentioned, and the means of doing this
+could be best effected by coining five-pound notes. This conduct has the
+appearance of that of an unprincipled insolvent, who, when on the verge
+of bankruptcy to the amount of many thousands, will borrow as low as
+five pounds of the servants in his house, and break the next day.
+
+But whatever momentary relief or aid the minister and his bank might
+expect from this low contrivance of five-pound notes, it will increase
+the inability of the bank to pay the higher notes, and hasten the
+destruction of all; for even the small taxes that used to be paid in
+money will now be paid in those notes, and the bank will soon find
+itself with scarcely any other money than what the hair-powder
+guinea-tax brings in.
+
+The bank notes make the most serious part of the business of finance:
+what is called the national funded debt is but a trifle when put in
+comparison with it; yet the case of the bank notes has never been
+touched upon. But it certainly ought to be known upon what authority,
+whether that of the minister or of the directors, and upon what
+foundation, such immense quantities are issued. I have stated the amount
+of them at sixty millions; I have produced data for that estimation; and
+besides this, the apparent quantity of them, far beyond that of gold and
+silver in the nation, corroborates the statement. But were there but a
+third part of sixty millions, the bank cannot pay half a crown in the
+pound; for no new supply of money, as before said, can arrive at the
+bank, as all the taxes will be paid in paper.
+
+When the funding system began, it was not doubted that the loans that
+had been borrowed would be repaid. Government not only propagated that
+belief, but it began paying them off. In time this profession came to be
+abandoned: and it is not difficult to see that bank notes will march
+the same way; for the amount of them is only another debt under another
+name; and the probability is that Mr. Pitt will at last propose
+funding them. In that case bank notes will not be so valuable as French
+assignats. The assignats have a solid property in reserve, in the
+national domains; bank notes have none; and, besides this, the English
+revenue must then sink down to what the amount of it was before the
+funding system began--between three and four millions; one of which
+the _arch-treasurer_ would require for himself, and the arch-treasurer
+_apparent_ would require three-quarters of a million more to pay his
+debts. "_In France_," says Sterne, "_they order these things better_."
+
+I have now exposed the English system of finance to the eyes of all
+nations; for this work will be published in all languages. In doing
+this, I have done an act of justice to those numerous citizens of
+neutral nations who have been imposed upon by that fraudulent system,
+and who have property at stake upon the event.
+
+As an individual citizen of America, and as far as an individual can
+go, I have revenged (if I may use the expression without any immoral
+meaning) the piratical depredations committed on the American commerce
+by the English government. I have retaliated for France on the subject
+of finance: and I conclude with retorting on Mr. Pitt the expression he
+used against France, and say, that the English system of finance "is on
+the verge, nay even in the
+
+GULPH OF BANKRUPTCY."
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+PARIS, 19th Germinal. 4th year of the Republic, April 8, 1796.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII. FORGETFULNESS.(1)
+
+     1 This undated composition, of much biographical interest,
+     was shown by Paine to Henry Redhead Yorke, who visited him
+     in Paris (1802), and was allowed to copy the only portions
+     now preserved. In the last of Yorke's Letters from France
+     (Lond., 1814), thirty-three pages are given to Paine. Under
+     the name "Little Corner of the World," Lady Smyth wrote
+     cheering letters to Paine in his prison, and he replied to
+     his then unknown correspondent under the name of "The Castle
+     in die Air." After his release he discovered in his
+     correspondent a lady who had appealed to him for assistance,
+     no doubt for her husband. With Sir Robert (an English banker
+     in Paris) and Lady Smyth, Paine formed a fast friendship
+     which continued through life. Sir Robert was born in 1744,
+     and married (1776) a Miss Blake of Hanover Square, London.
+     He died in 1802 of illness brought on by his imprisonment
+     under Napoleon. Several of Paine's poems were addressed to
+     Lady Smyth.--_Editor._
+
+
+FROM "THE CASTLE IN THE AIR," TO THE "LITTLE CORNER OF THE WORLD."
+
+Memory, like a beauty that is always present to hear her-self
+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 goddess of ease, though not of pleasure.
+
+When the mind is like a room hung with black, and every corner of it
+crowded with the most horrid images 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 darkness, and to die! One can scarcely
+believe such a choice was possible. Yet how many of the young and
+beautiful, timid in every thing else, and formed for delight, have shut
+their eyes upon the world, and made the waters their sepulchral bed! Ah,
+would they in that crisis, when life and death are before them, and
+each within their reach, would they but think, or try to think, that
+Forgetfulness 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
+in 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 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 circumstances of each are strongly pictured in my
+memory, I will relate them to you. They will in some measure corroborate
+what I have said of Forgetfulness.
+
+About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in England, 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 were 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 was 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, and was following it, it took up
+another 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 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 recollect 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 pleasure for
+me." We got her into the house, and Mrs. E------ took her to sleep with
+her.
+
+The case was, the man to whom she expected to be married had forsaken
+her, and when she heard he was to be married to another the shock
+appeared to her to be too great to be borne. She had retired, as I have
+said, to her room, and when she supposed all the family were gone to
+bed, (which would have been the case if Mrs. E------ and I had not
+walked into the garden,) she undressed herself, and tied her apron over
+her head; which, descending below her waist, gave her the shapeless
+figure I have spoken of. 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, and aided by the obscurity of
+almost midnight, she came down stairs, and was going to drown her-self
+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 a happy
+wife, and the mother of a family.
+
+The other case, and the conclusion in my next: In Paris, in 1793, had
+lodgings in the Rue Fauxbourg, St. Denis, No. 63.(1) They were the most
+agreeable, for situation, of any I ever had in Paris, except that they
+were too remote from the Convention, of which I was then a member. But
+this was recompensed by their being also remote from the alarms and
+confusion into which the interior of Paris was then often thrown. The
+news of those things used to arrive to us, as if we were in a state of
+tranquility in the country. The house, which was enclosed by a wall and
+gateway from the street, was a good deal like an old mansion farm house,
+and the court yard was like a farm-yard, stocked with fowls, ducks,
+turkies, and geese; which, for amusement, we used to feed out of the
+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 plum, were the best I ever tasted;
+and it is the only place where I saw the wild cucumber. The place had
+formerly been occupied by some curious person.(2)
+
+     1 This ancient mansion is still standing (1895).--_Editor._
+
+     2 Madame de Pompadour, among others.--_Editor._"
+
+My apartments consisted of three rooms; the first for wood, water, etc.,
+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 through a glass door; and on the outside there was a
+small landing place railed in, and a flight of narrow stairs almost
+hidden by the vines that grew over it, by which I could descend into
+the garden, without going down stairs through the house. I 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 [Robert Smyth], who was
+then, as I was soon afterwards, in arrestation. But it was winter when
+you came, and it is a summer scene I am describing.
+
+*****
+
+I went into my chambers to write and sign a certificate for them, which
+I intended to take to the guard house to obtain their release. Just as I
+had finished it a man came into my room dressed in the Parisian uniform
+of a captain, and spoke to me in good English, and with a good address.
+He told me that two young men, Englishmen, were arrested and detained
+in the guard house, and that the section, (meaning those who represented
+and acted for the section,) had sent him to ask me if I knew them,
+in which case they would be liberated. This matter being soon settled
+between us, he talked to me about the Revolution, and something about
+the "Rights of Man," which he had read in English; and at parting
+offered me in a polite and civil manner, his services. And who do you
+think the man was that offered me his services? It was no other than the
+public executioner Samson, who guillotined the king, and all who were
+guillotined in Paris; and who lived in the same 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 turned the character of the Revolution I had
+been proud to defend.
+
+I went but little to the Convention, and then only to make my
+appearance; because I found it impossible to join in their tremendous
+decrees, and useless and dangerous to oppose them. My having voted and
+spoken extensively, more so than any other member, against the execution
+of the king, had already fixed a mark upon me: neither dared any of my
+associates in the Convention to translate and speak in French for me
+anything I might have dared to have written.
+
+
+*****
+
+Pen and ink were then of no use to me: no good could be done by writing,
+and no printer dared to print; and whatever I might have written for
+my private amusement, as anecdotes of the times, would have been
+continually exposed to be examined, and tortured into any meaning that
+the rage of party might fix upon it; and as to softer subjects, my heart
+was in distress at the fate of my friends, and my harp hung upon the
+weeping willows.(1)
+
+As it was summer we spent most of our time in the garden, and passed it
+away in those childish amusements that serve to keep reflection from the
+mind, such as marbles, scotch-hops, battledores, etc., at which we were
+all pretty expert.
+
+In this retired manner we remained about six or seven weeks, and our
+landlord went every evening into the city to bring us the news of the
+day and the evening journal.
+
+I have now, my "Little Corner of the World," led you on, step by step,
+to the scene that makes the sequel to this narrative, and I will put
+that scene before your eyes. You shall see it in description as I saw it
+in fact.
+
+     1 This allusion is to the Girondins.--_Editor._,
+
+     2 Yorke omits the description "from motives of personal
+     delicacy." The case was that of young Johnson, a wealthy
+     devotee of Paine in London, who had followed him to Paris
+     and lived in the same house with him. Hearing that Marat had
+     resolved on Paine's death, Johnson wrote a will bequeathing
+     his property to Paine, then stabbed himself, but recovered.
+     Paine was examined about this incident at Marat's trial.
+     (Moniteur, April 24, 1793.) See my "Life of Paine," vol.
+     ii., p. 48 seq.--_Editor._.
+
+*****
+
+He recovered, and being anxious to get out of France, a passage was
+obtained for him and Mr. Choppin: they received it late in the evening,
+and set off the 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, "and I 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 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 [Johnson and
+Choppin], 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 on me, and sorry
+I was it was not in my power to render to [Sir Robert Smyth] the service
+that you asked.
+
+I have now fulfilled my engagement, and I hope your expectation, in
+relating the case of [Johnson], 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 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 today, may be the 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 impenetrable 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 counsel only with itself; when the very idea of consolation would
+add to the torture, and self-destruction 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
+feelings 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 herself 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 though dethroned, and can dictate
+no more, to wait upon us in the humble station of a handmaid.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII. AGRARIAN JUSTICE.
+
+Editor's introduction:
+
+This pamphlet appeared first in Paris, 1797, with the title: "Thomas
+Payne a La Legislature et au Directoire. Ou la Justice Agraire opposee a
+la Loi Agraire, et aux privileges agraires. Prix 15 sols. A Paris, chez
+la citoyenne Ragouleau, pres le Theatre de la Republique, No. 229. Et
+chez les Marchands de Nouveautes." A prefatory note says (translated):
+"The sudden departure of Thomas Paine has pre-vented his supervising the
+translation of this work, to which he attached great value. He entrusted
+it to a friend. It is for the reader to decide whether the scheme here
+set forth is worthy of the publicity given it." (Paine had gone to Havre
+early in May with the Monroes, intending to accompany them to America,
+but, rightly suspecting plans for his capture by an English cruiser,
+returned to Paris.) In the same year the pamphlet was printed in
+English, by W. Adlard in Paris, and in London for "T. Williams, No.
+8 Little Turnstile, Holborn." Paine's preface to the London edition
+contained some sentences which the publishers, as will be seen,
+suppressed under asterisks, and two sentences were omitted from the
+pamphlet which I have supplied from the French. The English title adds a
+brief resume of Paine's scheme to the caption--"Agrarian Justice opposed
+to Agrarian Law, and to Agrarian Monopoly." The work was written in the
+winter of 1795-6, when Paine was still an invalid in Monroe's house,
+though not published until 1797.
+
+The prefatory Letter to the Legislature and the Directory, now for the
+first time printed in English, is of much historical interest, and shows
+the title of the pamphlet related to the rise of Socialism in France.
+The leader of that move-ment, Francois Noel Babeuf, a frantic and
+pathetic figure of the time, had just been executed. He had named
+himself "Gracchus," and called his journal "Tribune du Peuple," in
+homage to the Roman Tribune, Caius Gracchus, the original socialist and
+agrarian, whose fate (suicide of himself and his servant) Babeuf and his
+disciple Darthe invoked in prison, whence they were carried bleeding to
+the guillotine. This, however, was on account of the conspiracy they had
+formed, with the remains of the Robespierrian party and some disguised
+royalists, to overthrow the government. The socialistic propaganda of
+Babeuf, however, prevailed over all other elements of the conspiracy:
+the reactionary features of the Constitution, especially the property
+qualification of suffrage of whose effects Paine had warned the
+Convention in the speech printed in this volume, (chapter xxv.) and the
+poverty which survived a revolution that promised its abolition, had
+excited wide discontent. The "Babouvists" numbered as many as 17,000 in
+Paris. Babeuf and Lepelletier were appointed by the secret council of
+this fraternity (which took the name of "Equals") a "Directory of Public
+Safety." May 11, 1796, was fixed for seizing on the government, and
+Babeuf had prepared his Proclamation of the socialistic millennium. But
+the plot was discovered, May 10th, the leaders arrested, and, after
+a year's delay, two of them executed,--the best-hearted men in the
+movement, Babeuf and Darthe. Paine too had been moved by the cry for
+"Bread, and the Constitution of '93 "; and it is a notable coincidence
+that in that winter of 1795-6, while the socialists were secretly
+plotting to seize the kingdom of heaven by violence, Paine was devising
+his plan of relief by taxing inheritances of land, anticipating by a
+hundred years the English budget of Sir William Harcourt. Babeuf having
+failed in his socialist, and Pichegru in his royalist, plot, their blows
+were yet fatal: there still remained in the hearts of millions a Babeuf
+or a Pichegru awaiting the chieftain strong enough to combine them,
+as Napoleon presently did, making all the nation "Egaux" as parts of a
+mighty military engine, and satisfying the royalist triflers with the
+pomp and glory of war.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S INSCRIPTION.
+
+To the Legislature and the Executive Directory of the French Republic.
+
+The plan contained in this work is not adapted for any particular
+country alone: the principle on which it is based is general. But as the
+rights of man are a new study in this world, and one needing protection
+from priestly imposture, and the insolence of oppressions too long
+established, I have thought it right to place this little work under
+your safeguard. When we reflect on the long and dense night in which
+France and all Europe have remained plunged by their governments and
+their priests, we must feel less surprise than grief at the bewilderment
+caused by the first burst of light that dispels the darkness. The eye
+accustomed to darkness can hardly bear at first the broad daylight. It
+is by usage the eye learns to see, and it is the same in passing from
+any situation to its opposite.
+
+As we have not at one instant renounced all our errors, we cannot at one
+stroke acquire knowledge of all our rights. France has had the honour of
+adding to the word _Liberty_ that of _Equality_; and this word signifies
+essentially a principal that admits of no gradation in the things to
+which it applies. But equality is often misunderstood, often misapplied,
+and often violated.
+
+_Liberty_ and _Property_ are words expressing all those of our
+possessions which are not of an intellectual nature. There are two kinds
+of property. Firstly, natural property, or that which comes to us from
+the Creator of the universe,--such as the earth, air, water. Secondly,
+artificial or acquired property,--the invention of men. In the latter
+equality is impossible; for to distribute it equally it would be
+necessary that all should have contributed in the same proportion, which
+can never be the case; and this being the case, every individual would
+hold on to his own property, as his right share. Equality of natural
+property is the subject of this little essay. Every individual in
+the world is born therein with legitimate claims on a certain kind of
+property, or its equivalent.
+
+The right of voting for persons charged with the execution of the laws
+that govern society is inherent in the word Liberty, and constitutes
+the equality of personal rights. But even if that right (of voting) were
+inherent in property, which I deny, the right of suffrage would still
+belong to all equally, because, as I have said, all individuals have
+legitimate birthrights in a certain species of property.
+
+I have always considered the present Constitution of the French Republic
+the _best organized system_ the human mind has yet produced. But I hope
+my former colleagues will not be offended if I warn them of an error
+which has slipped into its principle. Equality of the right of suffrage
+is not maintained. This right is in it connected with a condition on
+which it ought not to depend; that is, with a proportion of a certain
+tax called "direct." The dignity of suffrage is thus lowered; and, in
+placing it in the scale with an inferior thing, the enthusiasm that
+right is capable of inspiring is diminished. It is impossible to find
+any equivalent counterpoise for the right of suffrage, because it is
+alone worthy to be its own basis, and cannot thrive as a graft, or an
+appendage.
+
+Since the Constitution was established we have seen two conspiracies
+stranded,--that of Babeuf, and that of some obscure personages who
+decorate themselves with the despicable name of "royalists." The defect
+in principle of the Constitution was the origin of Babeuf's conspiracy.
+He availed himself of the resentment caused by this flaw, and instead
+of seeking a remedy by legitimate and constitutional means, or proposing
+some measure useful to society, the conspirators did their best to renew
+disorder and confusion, and constituted themselves personally into a
+Directory, which is formally destructive of election and representation.
+They were, in fine, extravagant enough to suppose that society, occupied
+with its domestic affairs, would blindly yield to them a directorship
+usurped by violence.
+
+The conspiracy of Babeuf was followed in a few months by that of the
+royalists, who foolishly flattered themselves with the notion of
+doing great things by feeble or foul means. They counted on all the
+discontented, from whatever cause, and tried to rouse, in their turn,
+the class of people who had been following the others. But these new
+chiefs acted as if they thought society had nothing more at heart
+than to maintain courtiers, pensioners, and all their train, under the
+contemptible title of royalty. My little essay will disabuse them, by
+showing that society is aiming at a very different end,--maintaining
+itself.
+
+We all know or should know, that the time during which a revolution is
+proceeding is not the time when its resulting advantages can be
+enjoyed. But had Babeuf and his accomplices taken into consideration the
+condition of France under this constitution, and compared it with what
+it was under the tragical revolutionary government, and during the
+execrable reign of Terror, the rapidity of the alteration must have
+appeared to them very striking and astonishing. Famine has been replaced
+by abundance, and by the well-founded hope of a near and increasing
+prosperity.
+
+As for the defect in the Constitution, I am fully convinced that it will
+be rectified constitutionally, and that this step is indispensable; for
+so long as it continues it will inspire the hopes and furnish the means
+of conspirators; and for the rest, it is regrettable that a Constitution
+so wisely organized should err so much in its principle. This fault
+exposes it to other dangers which will make themselves felt. Intriguing
+candidates will go about among those who have not the means to pay the
+direct tax and pay it for them, on condition of receiving their votes.
+Let us maintain inviolably equality in the sacred right of suffrage:
+public security can never have a basis more solid. Salut et Fraternite.
+
+Your former colleague,
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S ENGLISH PREFACE.
+
+The following little Piece was written in the winter of 1795 and 96;
+and, as I had not determined whether to publish it during the present
+war, or to wait till the commencement of a peace, it has lain by me,
+without alteration or addition, from the time it was written.
+
+What has determined me to publish it now is, a sermon preached by
+Watson, _Bishop of Llandaff_. Some of my Readers will recollect, that
+this Bishop wrote a Book entitled _An Apology for the Bible_ in answer
+to my _Second Part of the Age of Reason_. I procured a copy of his Book,
+and he may depend upon hearing from me on that subject.
+
+At the end of the Bishop's Book is a List of the Works he has written.
+Among which is the sermon alluded to; it is entitled: "The Wisdom and
+Goodness of God, in having made both Rich and Poor; with an Appendix,
+containing Reflections on the Present State of England and France."
+
+The error contained in this sermon determined me to publish my Agrarian
+Justice. It is wrong to say God made _rich and poor_; he made only _male
+and female_; and he gave them the earth for their inheritance. '...
+
+Instead of preaching to encourage one part of mankind in insolence... it
+would be better that Priests employed their time to render the general
+condition of man less miserable than it is. Practical religion consists
+in doing good: and the only way of serving God is, that of endeavouring
+to make his creation happy. All preaching that has not this for its
+object is nonsense and hypocracy.
+
+     1 The omissions are noted in the English edition of 1797.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+To preserve the benefits of what is called civilized life, and to remedy
+at the same time the evil which it has produced, ought to be considered
+as one of the first objects of reformed legislation.
+
+Whether that state that is proudly, perhaps erroneously, called
+civilization, has most promoted or most injured the general happiness
+of man, is a question that may be strongly contested. On one side,
+the spectator is dazzled by splendid appearances; on the other, he is
+shocked by extremes of wretchedness; both of which it has erected. The
+most affluent and the most miserable of the human race are to be found
+in the countries that are called civilized.
+
+To understand what the state of society ought to be, it is necessary to
+have some idea of the natural and primitive state of man; such as it is
+at this day among the Indians of North America. There is not, in that
+state, any of those spectacles of human misery which poverty and want
+present to our eyes in all the towns and streets in Europe. Poverty,
+therefore, is a thing created by that which is called civilized life. It
+exists not in the natural state. On the other hand, the natural state is
+without those advantages which flow from agriculture, arts, science, and
+manufactures.
+
+The life of an Indian is a continual holiday, compared with the poor of
+Europe; and, on the other hand it appears to be abject when compared
+to the rich. Civilization, therefore, or that which is so called, has
+operated two ways: to make one part of society more affluent, and the
+other more wretched, than would have been the lot of either in a natural
+state.
+
+It is always possible to go from the natural to the civilized state, but
+it is never possible to go from the civilized to the natural state. The
+reason is, that man in a natural state, subsisting by hunting, requires
+ten times the quantity of land to range over to procure himself
+sustenance, than would support him in a civilized state, where the
+earth is cultivated. When, therefore, a country becomes populous by the
+additional aids of cultivation, art, and science, there is a necessity
+of preserving things in that state; because without it there cannot be
+sustenance for more, perhaps, than a tenth part of its inhabitants. The
+thing, therefore, now to be done is to remedy the evils and preserve the
+benefits that have arisen to society by passing from the natural to that
+which is called the civilized state.
+
+In taking the matter upon this ground, the first principle of
+civilization ought to have been, and ought still to be, that the
+condition of every person born into the world, after a state of
+civilization commences, ought not to be worse than if he had been born
+before that period. But the fact is, that the condition of millions, in
+every country in Europe, is far worse than if they had been born before
+civilization began, or had been born among the Indians of North America
+at the present day. I will shew how this fact has happened.
+
+It is a position not to be controverted that the earth, in its natural
+uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, _the common
+property of the human race_. In that state every man would have been
+born to property. He would have been a joint life proprietor with the
+rest in the property of the soil, and in all its natural productions,
+vegetable and animal.
+
+But the earth in its natural state, as before said, is capable of
+supporting but a small number of inhabitants compared with what it
+is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And as it is impossible to
+separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon
+which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from
+that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true, that it is
+the value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is
+individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land,
+owes to the community a _ground-rent_ (for I know of no better term
+to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this
+ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue.
+
+It is deducible, as well from the nature of the thing as from all the
+histories transmitted to us, that the idea of landed property commenced
+with cultivation, and that there was no such thing as landed property
+before that time. It could not exist in the first state of man, that
+of hunters. It did not exist in the second state, that of shepherds:
+neither Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, nor Job, so far as the history of the
+Bible may be credited in probable things, were owners of land. Their
+property consisted, as is always enumerated, in flocks and herds, and
+they travelled with them from place to place. The frequent contentions
+at that time, about the use of a well in the dry country of Arabia,
+where those people lived, also shew that there was no landed property.
+It was not admitted that land could be claimed as property.
+
+There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not
+make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had
+no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither
+did the creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the
+first title-deeds should issue. Whence then, arose the idea of landed
+property? I answer as before, that when cultivation began the idea of
+landed property began with it, from the impossibility of separating the
+improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself, upon which that
+improvement was made. The value of the improvement so far exceeded the
+value of the natural earth, at that time, as to absorb it; till, in the
+end, the common right of all became confounded into the cultivated right
+of the individual. But there are, nevertheless, distinct species of
+rights, and will continue to be so long as the earth endures.
+
+It is only by tracing things to their origin that we can gain rightful
+ideas of them, and it is by gaining such ideas that we discover the
+boundary that divides right from wrong, and teaches every man to know
+his own. I have entitled this tract Agrarian Justice, to distinguish it
+from Agrarian Law. Nothing could be more unjust than Agrarian Law in a
+country improved by cultivation; for though every man, as an inhabitant
+of the earth, is a joint proprietor of it in its natural state, it
+does not follow that he is a joint proprietor of cultivated earth. The
+additional value made by cultivation, after the system was admitted,
+became the property of those who did it, or who inherited it from them,
+or who purchased it. It had originally no owner. Whilst, therefore, I
+advocate the right, and interest myself in the hard case of all
+those who have been thrown out of their natural inheritance by the
+introduction of the system of landed property, I equally defend the
+right of the possessor to the part which is his.
+
+Cultivation is at least one of the greatest natural improvements ever
+made by human invention. It has given to created earth a tenfold value.
+But the landed monopoly that began with it has produced the greatest
+evil. It has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation
+of their natural inheritance, without providing for them, as ought
+to have been done, an indemnification for that loss, and has thereby
+created a species of poverty and wretchedness that did not exist before.
+
+In advocating the case of the persons thus dispossessed, it is a right,
+and not a charity, that I am pleading for. But it is that kind of right
+which, being neglected at first, could not be brought forward afterwards
+till heaven had opened the way by a revolution in the system of
+government. Let us then do honour to revolutions by justice, and give
+currency to their principles by blessings.
+
+Having thus in a few words, opened the merits of the case, I shall now
+proceed to the plan I have to propose, which is,
+
+To create a National Fund, out of which there shall be paid to every
+person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one years, the sum of fifteen
+pounds sterling, as a compensation in part, for the loss of his or
+her natural inheritance, by the introduction of the system of landed
+property:
+
+And also, the sum of ten pounds per annum, during life, to every person
+now living, of the age of fifty years, and to all others as they shall
+arrive at that age.
+
+
+
+MEANS BY WHICH THE FUND IS TO BE CREATED.
+
+I have already established the principle, namely, that the earth, in its
+natural uncultivated state was, and ever would have continued to be, the
+_common property of the human race_; that in that state, every person
+would have been born to property; and that the system of landed
+property, by its inseparable connection with cultivation, and with what
+is called civilized life, has absorbed the property of all those whom
+it dispossessed, without providing, as ought to have been done, an
+indemnification for that loss.
+
+The fault, however, is not in the present possessors. No complaint is
+intended, or ought to be alleged against them, unless they adopt the
+crime by opposing justice. The fault is in the system, and it has stolen
+imperceptibly upon the world, aided afterwards by the agrarian law of
+the sword. But the fault can be made to reform itself by successive
+generations; and without diminishing or deranging the property of any of
+the present possessors, the operation of the fund can yet commence, and
+be in full activity, the first year of its establishment, or soon after,
+as I shall shew.
+
+It is proposed that the payments, as already stated, be made to every
+person, rich or poor. It is best to make it so, to prevent invidious
+distinctions. It is also right it should be so, because it is in lieu of
+the natural inheritance, which, as a right, belongs to every man, over
+and above the property he may have created, or inherited from those who
+did. Such persons as do not choose to receive it can throw it into the
+common fund.
+
+Taking it then for granted that no person ought to be in a worse
+condition when born under what is called a state of civilization, than
+he would have been had he been born in a state of nature, and that
+civilization ought to have made, and ought still to make, provision for
+that purpose, it can only be done by subtracting from property a portion
+equal in value to the natural inheritance it has absorbed.
+
+Various methods may be proposed for this purpose, but that which appears
+to be the best (not only because it will operate without deranging any
+present possessors, or without interfering with the collection of taxes
+or emprunts necessary for the purposes of government and the revolution,
+but because it will be the least troublesome and the most effectual, and
+also because the subtraction will be made at a time that best admits it)
+is at the moment that.. property is passing by the death of one person
+to the possession of another. In this case, the bequeather gives
+nothing: the receiver pays nothing. The only matter to him is, that
+the monopoly of natural inheritance, to which there never was a right,
+begins to cease in his person. A generous man would not wish it to
+continue, and a just man will rejoice to see it abolished.
+
+My state of health prevents my making sufficient inquiries with respect
+to the doctrine of probabilities, whereon to found calculations with
+such degrees of certainty as they are capable of. What, therefore, I
+offer on this head is more the result of observation and reflection
+than of received information; but I believe it will be found to agree
+sufficiently with fact.
+
+In the first place, taking twenty-one years as the epoch of maturity,
+all the property of a nation, real and personal, is always in the
+possession of persons above that age. It is then necessary to know, as a
+datum of calculation, the average of years which persons above that age
+will live. I take this average to be about thirty years, for though
+many persons will live forty, fifty, or sixty years after the age of
+twenty-one years, others will die much sooner, and some in every year of
+that time.
+
+Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time, it will give, without
+any material variation one way or other, the average of time in which
+the whole property or capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will
+have passed through one entire revolution in descent, that is, will have
+gone by deaths to new possessors; for though, in many instances, some
+parts of this capital will remain forty, fifty, or sixty years in the
+possession of one person, other parts will have revolved two or three
+times before those thirty years expire, which will bring it to that
+average; for were one half the capital of a nation to revolve twice in
+thirty years, it would produce the same fund as if the whole revolved
+once.
+
+Taking, then, thirty years as the average of time in which the whole
+capital of a nation, or a sum equal thereto, will revolve once, the
+thirtieth part thereof will be the sum that will revolve every year,
+that is, will go by deaths to new possessors; and this last sum being
+thus known, and the ratio per cent, to be subtracted from it determined,
+it will give the annual amount or income of the proposed fund, to be
+applied as already mentioned.
+
+In looking over the discourse of the English minister, Pitt, in his
+opening of what is called in England the budget, (the scheme of finance
+for the year 1796,) I find an estimate of the national capital of that
+country. As this estimate of a national capital is prepared ready to my
+hand, I take it as a datum to act upon. When a calculation is made upon
+the known capital of any nation, combined with its population, it will
+serve as a scale for any other nation, in proportion as its capital and
+population be more or less. I am the more disposed to take this estimate
+of Mr. Pitt, for the purpose of showing to that minister, upon his own
+calculation, how much better money may be employed than in wasting it,
+as he has done, on the wild project of setting up Bourbon kings. What,
+in the name of heaven, are Bourbon kings to the people of England? It is
+better that the people have bread.
+
+Mr. Pitt states the national capital of England, real and personal,
+to be one thousand three hundred millions sterling, which is about
+one-fourth part of the national capital of France, including Belgia. The
+event of the last harvest in each country proves that the soil of France
+is more productive than that of England, and that it can better support
+twenty-four or twenty-five millions of inhabitants than that of England
+can seven or seven and a half millions.
+
+The thirtieth part of this capital of 1,300,000,000L. is 43,333,333L.
+which is the part that will revolve every year by deaths in that country
+to new possessors; and the sum that will annually revolve in France
+in the proportion of four to one, will be about one hundred and
+seventy-three millions sterling. From this sum of 43,333,333L. annually
+revolving, is to be subtracted the value of the natural inheritance
+absorbed in it, which, perhaps, in fair justice, cannot be taken at
+less, and ought not to be taken for more, than a tenth part.
+
+It will always happen, that of the property thus revolving by deaths
+every year a part will descend in a direct line to sons and daughters,
+and the other part collaterally, and the proportion will be found to be
+about three to one; that is, about thirty millions of the above sum will
+descend to direct heirs, and the remaining sum of 13,333,333L. to more
+distant relations, and in part to strangers.
+
+Considering, then, that man is always related to society, that
+relationship will become comparatively greater in proportion as the next
+of kin is more distant, it is therefore consistent with civilization to
+say that where there are no direct heirs society shall be heir to a part
+over and above the tenth part due to society. If this additional part be
+from five to ten or twelve per cent., in proportion as the next of kin
+be nearer or more remote, so as to average with the escheats that may
+fall, which ought always to go to society and not to the government
+(an addition of ten per cent, more), the produce from the annual sum of
+43,333,333L. will be:
+
+[Illustration: table361]
+
+Having thus arrived at the annual amount of the proposed fund, I come,
+in the next place, to speak of the population proportioned to this fund,
+and to compare it with the uses to which the fund is to be applied.
+
+The population (I mean that of England) does not exceed seven millions
+and a half, and the number of persons above the age of fifty will in
+that case be about four hundred thousand. There would not, however, be
+more than that number that would accept the proposed ten pounds sterling
+per annum, though they would be entitled to it. I have no idea it would
+be accepted by many persons who had a yearly income of two or three
+hundred pounds sterling. But as we often see instances of rich people
+falling into sudden poverty, even at the age of sixty, they would always
+have the right of drawing all the arrears due to them. Four millions,
+therefore, of the above annual sum of 5,666,6667L. will be required for
+four hundred thousand aged persons, at ten pounds sterling each.
+
+I come now to speak of the persons annually arriving at twenty-one years
+of age. If all the persons who died were above the age of twenty-one
+years, the number of persons annually arriving at that age, must be
+equal to the annual number of deaths, to keep the population stationary.
+But the greater part die under the age of twenty-one, and therefore the
+number of persons annually arriving at twenty-one will be less than half
+the number of deaths. The whole number of deaths upon a population of
+seven millions and an half will be about 220,000 annually. The number
+arriving at twenty-one years of age will be about 100,000. The whole
+number of these will not receive the proposed fifteen pounds, for the
+reasons already mentioned, though, as in the former case, they would be
+entitled to it. Admitting then that a tenth part declined receiving it,
+the amount would stand thus:
+
+[Illustration: table362]
+
+There are, in every country, a number of blind and lame persons, totally
+incapable of earning a livelihood. But as it will always happen that the
+greater number of blind persons will be among those who are above
+the age of fifty years, they will be provided for in that class. The
+remaining sum of 316,666L. will provide for the lame and blind under
+that age, at the same rate of 10L. annually for each person.
+
+Having now gone through all the necessary calculations, and stated the
+particulars of the plan, I shall conclude with some observations.
+
+It is not charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am
+pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is
+unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is
+necessary that a revolution should be made in it.(1) The contrast of
+affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye,
+is like dead and living bodies chained together. Though I care as little
+about riches, as any man, I am a friend to riches because they are
+capable of good. I care not how affluent some may be, provided that
+none be miserable in consequence of it. But it is impossible to enjoy
+affluence with the felicity it is capable of being enjoyed, whilst so
+much misery is mingled in the scene. The sight of the misery, and the
+unpleasant sensations it suggests, which, though they may be suffocated
+cannot be extinguished, are a greater drawback upon the felicity of
+affluence than the proposed 10 per cent, upon property is worth. He that
+would not give the one to get rid of the other has no charity, even for
+himself.
+
+     1 This and the preceding sentence axe omitted in all
+     previous English and American editions.--_Editor._.
+
+There are, in every country, some magnificent charities established by
+individuals. It is, however, but little that any individual can do,
+when the whole extent of the misery to be relieved is considered. He may
+satisfy his conscience, but not his heart. He may give all that he
+has, and that all will relieve but little. It is only by organizing
+civilization upon such principles as to act like a system of pullies,
+that the whole weight of misery can be removed.
+
+The plan here proposed will reach the whole. It will immediately relieve
+and take out of view three classes of wretchedness--the blind, the lame,
+and the aged poor; and it will furnish the rising generation with means
+to prevent their becoming poor; and it will do this without deranging
+or interfering with any national measures. To shew that this will be the
+case, it is sufficient to observe that the operation and effect of
+the plan will, in all cases, be the same as if every individual were
+_voluntarily_ to make his will and dispose of his property in the manner
+here proposed.
+
+But it is justice, and not charity, that is the principle of the plan.
+In all great cases it is necessary to have a principle more universally
+active than charity; and, with respect to justice, it ought not to be
+left to the choice of detached individuals whether they will do justice
+or not. Considering then, the plan on the ground of justice, it ought to
+be the act of the whole, growing spontaneously out of the principles of
+the revolution, and the reputation of it ought to be national and not
+individual.
+
+A plan upon this principle would benefit the revolution by the energy
+that springs from the consciousness of justice. It would multiply also
+the national resources; for property, like vegetation, increases
+by offsets. When a young couple begin the world, the difference is
+exceedingly great whether they begin with nothing or with fifteen pounds
+apiece. With this aid they could buy a cow, and implements to cultivate
+a few acres of land; and instead of becoming burdens upon society, which
+is always the case where children are produced faster than they can be
+fed, would be put in the way of becoming useful and profitable citizens.
+The national domains also would sell the better if pecuniary aids were
+provided to cultivate them in small lots.
+
+It is the practice of what has unjustly obtained the name of
+civilization (and the practice merits not to be called either charity
+or policy) to make some provision for persons becoming poor and wretched
+only at the time they become so. Would it not, even as a matter of
+economy, be far better to adopt means to prevent their becoming poor?
+This can best be done by making every person when arrived at the age
+of twenty-one years an inheritor of something to begin with. The rugged
+face of society, chequered with the extremes of affluence and want,
+proves that some extraordinary violence has been committed upon it,
+and calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the poor in all
+countries are become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible
+for them to get cut of that state of themselves. It ought also to be
+observed that this mass increases in all countries that are called
+civilized. More persons fall annually into it than get out of it.
+
+Though in a plan of which justice and humanity are the
+foundation-principles, interest ought not to be admitted into the
+calculation, yet it is always of advantage to the establishment of any
+plan to shew that it is beneficial as a matter of interest. The success
+of any proposed plan submitted to public consideration must finally
+depend on the numbers interested in supporting it, united with the
+justice of its principles.
+
+The plan here proposed will benefit all, without injuring any. It will
+consolidate the interest of the Republic with that of the individual.
+To the numerous class dispossessed of their natural inheritance by the
+system of landed property it will be an act of national justice. To
+persons dying possessed of moderate fortunes it will operate as a
+tontine to their children, more beneficial than the sum of money paid
+into the fund: and it will give to the accumulation of riches a degree
+of security that none of the old governments of Europe, now tottering on
+their foundations, can give.
+
+I do not suppose that more than one family in ten, in any of the
+countries of Europe, has, when the head of the family dies, a clear
+property left of five hundred pounds sterling. To all such the plan is
+advantageous. That property would pay fifty pounds into the fund, and if
+there were only two children under age they would receive fifteen pounds
+each, (thirty pounds,) on coming of age, and be entitled to ten pounds
+a-year after fifty. It is from the overgrown acquisition of property
+that the fund will support itself; and I know that the possessors of
+such property in England, though they would eventually be benefited by
+the protection of nine-tenths of it, will exclaim against the plan. But
+without entering into any inquiry how they came by that property, let
+them recollect that they have been the advocates of this war, and that
+Mr. Pitt has already laid on more new taxes to be raised annually upon
+the people of England, and that for supporting the despotism of Austria
+and the Bourbons against the liberties of France, than would pay
+annually all the sums proposed in this plan.
+
+I have made the calculations stated in this plan, upon what is called
+personal, as well as upon landed property. The reason for making it upon
+land is already explained; and the reason for taking personal property
+into the calculation is equally well founded though on a different
+principle. Land, as before said, is the free gift of the Creator in
+common to the human race. Personal property is the effect of society;
+and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property
+without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.
+Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a
+continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot
+be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all
+cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained.
+All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man's
+own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes
+on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part
+of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came.
+This is putting the matter on a general principle, and perhaps it is
+best to do so; for if we examine the case minutely it will be found that
+the accumulation of personal property is, in many instances, the effect
+of paying too little for the labour that produced it; the consequence
+of which is, that the working hand perishes in old age, and the employer
+abounds in affluence. It is, perhaps, impossible to proportion exactly
+the price of labour to the profits it produces; and it will also be
+said, as an apology for the injustice, that were a workman to receive
+an increase of wages daily he would not save it against old age, nor be
+much bet-ter for it in the interim. Make, then, society the treasurer to
+guard it for him in a common fund; for it is no reason, that because he
+might not make a good use of it for himself, another should take it.
+
+The state of civilization that has prevailed throughout Europe, is as
+unjust in its principle, as it is horrid in its effects; and it is the
+consciousness of this, and the apprehension that such a state cannot
+continue when once investigation begins in any country, that makes
+the possessors of property dread every idea of a revolution. It is the
+hazard and not the principle of revolutions that retards their progress.
+This being the case, it is necessary as well for the protection of
+property, as for the sake of justice and humanity, to form a system
+that, whilst it preserves one part of society from wretchedness, shall
+secure the other from depredation.
+
+The superstitious awe, the enslaving reverence, that formerly surrounded
+affluence, is passing away in all countries, and leaving the possessor
+of property to the convulsion of accidents. When wealth and splendour,
+instead of fascinating the multitude, excite emotions of disgust; when,
+instead of drawing forth admiration, it is beheld as an insult upon
+wretchedness; when the ostentatious appearance it makes serves to call
+the right of it in question, the case of property becomes critical, and
+it is only in a system of justice that the possessor can contemplate
+security.
+
+To remove the danger, it is necessary to remove the antipathies, and
+this can only be done by making property productive of a national
+blessing, extending to every individual. When the riches of one man
+above another shall increase the national fund in the same proportion;
+when it shall be seen that the prosperity of that fund depends on the
+prosperity of individuals; when the more riches a man acquires, the
+better it shall be for the general mass; it is then that antipathies
+will cease, and property be placed on the permanent basis of national
+interest and protection.
+
+I have no property in France to become subject to the plan I propose.
+What I have which is not much, is in the United States of America. But
+I will pay one hundred pounds sterling towards this fund in rance, the
+instant it shall be established; and I will pay the same sum in England
+whenever a similar establishment shall take place in that country.
+
+A revolution in the state of civilization is the necessary companion of
+revolutions in the system of government. If a revolution in any country
+be from bad to good, or from good to bad, the state of what is called
+civilization in that country, must be made conformable thereto, to give
+that revolution effect. Despotic government supports itself by abject
+civilization, in which debasement of the human mind, and wretchedness
+in the mass of the people, are the chief enterions. Such governments
+consider man merely as an animal; that the exercise of intellectual
+faculty is not his privilege; _that he has nothing to do with the laws
+but to obey them _; (*) and they politically depend more upon breaking
+the spirit of the people by poverty, than they fear enraging it by
+desperation.
+
+     * Expression of Horsley, an English bishop, in the English
+     parliament.--Author.
+
+It is a revolution in the state of civilization that will give
+perfection to the revolution of France. Already the conviction that
+government by representation is the true system of government is
+spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen
+by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But
+when a system of civilization, growing out of that system of government,
+shall be so organized that not a man or woman born in the Republic but
+shall inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before them
+the certainty of escaping the miseries that under other governments
+accompany old age, the revolution of France will have an advocate and an
+ally in the heart of all nations.
+
+An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot;
+it will succeed where diplomatic management would fail: it is neither
+the Rhine, the Channel, nor the Ocean that can arrest its progress: it
+will march on the horizon of the world, and it will conquer.
+
+
+MEANS FOR CARRYING THE PROPOSED PLAN INTO EXECUTION,
+
+AND TO RENDER IT AT THE SAME TIME CONDUCIVE TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST.
+
+I. Each canton shall elect in its primary assemblies, three persons,
+as commissioners for that canton, who shall take cognizance, and keep
+a register of all matters happening in that canton, conformable to the
+charter that shall be established by law for carrying this plan into
+execution.
+
+II. The law shall fix the manner in which the property of deceased
+persons shall be ascertained.
+
+III. When the amount of the property of any deceased person shall be
+ascertained, the principal heir to that property, or the eldest of the
+co-heirs, if of lawful age, or if under age the person authorized by the
+will of the deceased to represent him or them, shall give bond to the
+commissioners of the canton to pay the said tenth part thereof in four
+equal quarterly payments, within the space of one year or sooner, at the
+choice of the payers. One half of the whole property shall remain as a
+security until the bond be paid off.
+
+IV. The bond shall be registered in the office of the commissioners of
+the canton, and the original bonds shall be deposited in the national
+bank at Paris. The bank shall publish every quarter of a year the amount
+of the bonds in its possession, and also the bonds that shall have been
+paid off, or what parts thereof, since the last quarterly publication.
+
+V. The national bank shall issue bank notes upon the security of the
+bonds in its possession. The notes so issued, shall be applied to pay
+the pensions of aged persons, and the compensations to persons arriving
+at twenty-one years of age. It is both reasonable and generous to
+suppose, that persons not under immediate necessity, will suspend their
+right of drawing on the fund, until it acquire, as it will do, a greater
+degree of ability. In this case, it is proposed, that an honorary
+register be kept, in each canton, of the names of the persons thus
+suspending that right, at least during the present war.
+
+VI. As the inheritors of property must always take up their bonds in
+four quarterly payments, or sooner if they choose, there will always
+be _numeraire_ [cash] arriving at the bank after the expiration of the
+first quarter, to exchange for the bank notes that shall be brought in.
+
+VII. The bank notes being thus put in circulation, upon the best of all
+possible security, that of actual property, to more than four times
+the amount of the bonds upon which the notes are issued, and with
+_numeraire_ continually arriving at the bank to exchange or pay them off
+whenever they shall be presented for that purpose, they will acquire
+a permanent value in all parts of the Republic. They can therefore be
+received in payment of taxes, or emprunts equal to numeraire, because
+the government can always receive numeraire for them at the bank.
+
+VIII. It will be necessary that the payments of the ten per cent, be
+made in numeraire for the first year from the establishment of the plan.
+But after the expiration of the first year, the inheritors of property
+may pay ten per cent either in bank notes issued upon the fund, or in
+numeraire, If the payments be in numeraire, it will lie as a deposit at
+the bank, to be exchanged for a quantity of notes equal to that amount;
+and if in notes issued upon the fund, it will cause a demand upon the
+fund, equal thereto; and thus the operation of the plan will create
+means to carry itself into execution.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX. THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR.
+
+
+To the People of France and the French Armies (1)
+
+     1 This pamphlet was written between the defeat of Pichegru's
+     attempt, September 4, 1794, and November 12, of the same
+     year, the date of the Bien-informe in which the publication
+     is noticed. General Pichegra (Charles), (1761-1804) having
+     joined a royalist conspiracy against the Republic, was
+     banished to Cayenne (1797), whence he escaped to England;
+     having returned to Paris (1804) he was imprisoned in the
+     Temple, and there found strangled by a silk handkerchief,
+     whether by his own or another's act remaining doubtful.
+     --Editor.
+
+When an extraordinary measure, not warranted by established
+constitutional rules, and justifiable only on the supreme law of
+absolute necessity, bursts suddenly upon us, we must, in order to form
+a true judgment thereon, carry our researches back to the times that
+preceded and occasioned it. Taking up then the subject with respect to
+the event of the Eighteenth of Fructidor on this ground, I go to examine
+the state of things prior to that period. I begin with the establishment
+of the constitution of the year 3 of the French Republic.
+
+A better _organized_ constitution has never yet been devised by human
+wisdom. It is, in its organization, free from all the vices and defects
+to which other forms of government are more or less subject. I will
+speak first of the legislative body, because the Legislature is, in the
+natural order of things, the first power; the Executive is the first
+magistrate.
+
+By arranging the legislative body into two divisions, as is done in the
+French Constitution, the one, (the Council of Five Hundred,) whose part
+it is to conceive and propose laws; the other, a Council of Ancients, to
+review, approve, or reject the laws proposed; all the security is given
+that can arise from coolness of reflection acting upon, or correcting
+the precipitancy or enthusiasm of conception and imagination. It is
+seldom that our first thought, even upon any subject, is sufficiently
+just.(1)
+
+     1 For Paine's ideas on the right division of representatives
+     into two chambers, which differ essentially from any
+     bicameral system ever adopted, see vol. ii., p. 444 of this
+     work; also, in the present volume, Chapter XXXIV.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+The policy of renewing the Legislature by a third part each year, though
+not entirely new, either in theory or in practice, is nevertheless one
+of the modern improvements in the science of government. It prevents,
+on the one hand, that convulsion and precipitate change of measures
+into which a nation might be surprised by the going out of the whole
+Legislature at the same time, and the instantaneous election of a new
+one; on the other hand, it excludes that common interest from taking
+place that might tempt a whole Legislature, whose term of duration
+expired at once, to usurp the right of continuance. I go now to speak of
+the Executive.
+
+It is a principle uncontrovertible by reason, that each of the parts
+by which government is composed, should be so constructed as to be in
+perpetual maturity. We should laugh at the idea of a Council of Five
+Hundred, or a Council of Ancients, or a Parliament, or any national
+assembly, who should be all children in leading strings and in the
+cradle, or be all sick, insane, deaf, dumb, lame or blind, at the same
+time, or be all upon crutches, tottering with age or infirmities. Any
+form of government that was so constructed as to admit the possibility
+of such cases happening to a whole Legislature would justly be the
+ridicule of the world; and on a parity of reasoning, it is equally as
+ridiculous that the same cases should happen in that part of government
+which is called the Executive; yet this is the contemptible condition to
+which an Executive is always subject, and which is often happening,
+when it is placed in an hereditary individual called a king. When
+that individual is in either of the cases before mentioned, the whole
+Executive is in the same case; for himself is the whole. He is then (as
+an Executive) the ridiculous picture of what a Legislature would be if
+all its members were in the same case. The one is a whole made up of
+parts, the other a whole without parts; and anything happening to the
+one, (as a part or sec-tion of the government,) is parallel to the same
+thing happening to the other.
+
+As, therefore, an hereditary executive called a king is a perfect
+absurdity in itself, any attachment to it is equally as absurd. It is
+neither instinct or reason; and if this attachment is what is called
+royalism in France, then is a royalist inferior in character to every
+species of the animal world; for what can that being be who acts neither
+by instinct nor by reason? Such a being merits rather our derision
+than our pity; and it is only when it assumes to act its folly that it
+becomes capable of provoking republican indignation. In every other
+case it is too contemptible to excite anger. For my own part, when I
+contemplate the self-evident absurdity of the thing, I can scarcely
+permit myself to believe that there exists in the high-minded nation of
+France such a mean and silly animal as a royalist.
+
+As it requires but a single glance of thought to see (as is before said)
+that all the parts of which government is composed must be at all times
+in a state of full maturity, it was not possible that men acting under
+the influence of reason, could, in forming a Constitution, admit an
+hereditary Executive, any more than an hereditary Legislature. I go
+therefore to examine the other cases.
+
+In the first place, (rejecting the hereditary system,) shall the
+Executive by election be an _individual or a plurality_.
+
+An individual by election is almost as bad as the hereditary system,
+except that there is always a better chance of not having an idiot. But
+he will never be any thing more than a chief of a party, and none but
+those of that party will have access to him. He will have no person
+to consult with of a standing equal with himself, and consequently be
+deprived of the advantages arising from equal discussion.
+
+Those whom he admits in consultation will be ministers of his own
+appointment, who, if they displease by their advice, must expect to
+be dismissed. The authority also is too great, and the business too
+complicated, to be intrusted to the ambition or the judgment of an
+individual; and besides these cases, the sudden change of measures
+that might follow by the going out of an individual Executive, and the
+election of a new one, would hold the affairs of a nation in a state of
+perpetual uncertainty. We come then to the case of a plural Executive.
+
+It must be sufficiently plural, to give opportunity to discuss all the
+various subjects that in the course of national business may come before
+it; and yet not so numerous as to endanger the necessary secrecy that
+certain cases, such as those of war, require.
+
+Establishing, then, plurality as a principle, the only question is, What
+shall be the number of that plurality?
+
+Three are too few either for the variety or the quantity of business.
+The Constitution has adopted five; and experience has shewn, from the
+commencement of the Constitution to the time of the election of the new
+legislative third, that this number of Directors, when well chosen, is
+sufficient for all national executive purposes; and therefore a greater
+number would be only an unnecessary expence. That the measures of the
+Directory during that period were well concerted is proved by their
+success; and their being well concerted shews they were well discussed;
+and, therefore, that five is a sufficient number with respect to
+discussion; and, on the other hand, the secret, whenever there was
+one, (as in the case of the expedition to Ireland,) was well kept, and
+therefore the number is not too great to endanger the necessary secrecy.
+
+The reason why the two Councils are numerous is not from the necessity
+of their being so, on account of business, but because that every
+part of the republic shall find and feel itself in the national
+representation.
+
+Next to the general principle of government by representation, the
+excellence of the French Constitution consists in providing means to
+prevent that abuse of power that might arise by letting it remain too
+long in the same hands. This wise precaution pervades every part of the
+Constitution. Not only the legislature is renewable by a third every
+year, but the president of each of the Councils is renewable every
+month; and of the Directory, one member each year, and its president
+every three months. Those who formed the Constitution cannot be accused
+of having contrived for themselves. The Constitution, in this respect,
+is as impartially constructed as if those who framed it were to die as
+soon as they had finished their work.
+
+The only defect in the Constitution is that of having narrowed the right
+of suffrage; and it is in a great measure due to this narrowing the
+right, that the last elections have not generally been good. My former
+colleagues will, I presume, pardon my saying this to day, when they
+recollect my arguments against this defect, at the time the Constitution
+was discussed in the Convention.(1)
+
+     1  See Chapters XXIV. and XXV., also the letter prefaced to
+     XXVIII., in this volume.--_Editor._,
+
+I will close this part of the subject by remarking on one of the most
+vulgar and absurd sayings or dogmas that ever yet imposed itself upon
+the world, which is, "_that a Republic is fit only for a small country,
+and a Monarchy for a large one_." Ask those who say this their reasons
+why it is so, and they can give none.
+
+Let us then examine the case. If the quantity of knowledge in a
+government ought to be proportioned to the extent of a country, and
+the magnitude and variety of its affairs, it follows, as an undeniable
+result, that this absurd dogma is false, and that the reverse of it is
+true. As to what is called Monarchy, if it be adaptable to any country
+it can only be so to a small one, whose concerns are few, little
+complicated, and all within the comprehension of an individual. But when
+we come to a country of large extent, vast population, and whose affairs
+are great, numerous, and various, it is the representative republican
+system only, that can collect into the government the quantity
+of knowledge necessary to govern to the best national advantage.
+Montesquieu, who was strongly inclined to republican government,
+sheltered himself under this absurd dogma; for he had always the
+Bastile before his eyes when he was speaking of Republics, and therefore
+_pretended_ not to write for France. Condorcet governed himself by
+the same caution, but it was caution only, for no sooner had he the
+opportunity of speaking fully out than he did it. When I say this of
+Condorcet, I know it as a fact. In a paper published in Paris, July,
+1791, entitled, "_The Republican, or the Defender of Representative
+Government?_" is a piece signed _Thomas Paine_.(1) That piece was
+concerted between Condorcet and myself. I wrote the original in
+English, and Condorcet translated it. The object of it was to expose the
+absurdity and falsehood of the above mentioned dogma.
+
+     1 Chapter II. of this volume. See also my "Life of Paine,"
+     vol. i., p. 311.--Editor.
+
+Having thus concisely glanced at the excellencies of the Constitution,
+and the superiority of the representative system of government over
+every other system, (if any other can be called a system,) I come to
+speak of the circumstances that have intervened between the time the
+Constitution was established and the event that took place on the 18th
+of Fructidor of the present year.
+
+Almost as suddenly as the morning light dissipates darkness, did the
+establishment of the Constitution change the face of affairs in France.
+Security succeeded to terror, prosperity to distress, plenty to famine,
+and confidence increased as the days multiplied, until the coming of the
+new third. A series of victories unequalled in the world, followed
+each other, almost too rapidly to be counted, and too numerous to be
+remembered. The Coalition, every where defeated and confounded, crumbled
+away like a ball of dust in the hand of a giant. Every thing, during
+that period, was acted on such a mighty scale that reality appeared a
+dream, and truth outstript romance. It may figuratively be said, that
+the Rhine and the Rubicon (Germany and Italy) replied in triumphs to
+each other, and the echoing Alps prolonged the shout. I will not
+here dishonour a great description by noticing too much the English
+government. It is sufficient to say paradoxically, that in the magnitude
+of its littleness it cringed, it intrigued, and sought protection in
+corruption.
+
+Though the achievements of these days might give trophies to a nation
+and laurels to its heroes, they derive their full radiance of glory
+from the principle they inspired and the object they accomplished.
+Desolation, chains, and slavery had marked the progress of former wars,
+but to conquer for Liberty had never been thought of. To receive
+the degrading submission of a distressed and subjugated people, and
+insultingly permit them to live, made the chief triumph of former
+conquerors; but to receive them with fraternity, to break their chains,
+to tell them they are free, and teach them to be so, make a new volume
+in the history of man.
+
+Amidst those national honours, and when only two enemies remained, both
+of whom had solicited peace, and one of them had signed preliminaries,
+the election of the new third commenced. Every thing was made easy to
+them. All difficulties had been conquered before they arrived at the
+government. They came in the olive days of the revolution, and all they
+had to do was not to do mischief.
+
+It was, however, not difficult to foresee, that the elections would not
+be generally good. The horrid days of Robespierre were still remembered,
+and the gratitude due to those who had put an end to them was forgotten.
+
+Thousands who, by passive approbation during that tremendous scene, had
+experienced no suffering, assumed the merit of being the loudest against
+it. Their cowardice in not opposing it, became courage when it was over.
+They exclaimed against Terrorism as if they had been the heroes that
+overthrew it, and rendered themselves ridiculous by fantastically
+overacting moderation. The most noisy of this class, that I have met
+with, are those who suffered nothing. They became all things, at all
+times, to all men; till at last they laughed at principle. It was the
+real republicans who suffered most during the time of Robespierre. The
+persecution began upon them on the 31st of May, 1793, and ceased only
+by the exertions of the remnant that survived.
+
+In such a confused state of things as preceded the late elections the
+public mind was put into a condition of being easily deceived; and it
+was almost natural that the hypocrite would stand the best chance of
+being elected into the new third. Had those who, since their election,
+have thrown the public affairs into confusion by counter-revolutionary
+measures, declared themselves beforehand, they would have been denounced
+instead of being chosen. Deception was necessary to their success.
+The Constitution obtained a full establishment; the revolution was
+considered as complete; and the war on the eve of termination. In such a
+situation, the mass of the people, fatigued by a long revolution, sought
+repose; and in their elections they looked out for quiet men. They
+unfortunately found hypocrites. Would any of the primary assemblies
+have voted for a civil war? Certainly they would not. But the electoral
+assemblies of some departments have chosen men whose measures, since
+their election, tended to no other end but to provoke it. Either those
+electors have deceived their constituents of the primary assemblies, or
+they have been themselves deceived in the choice they made of deputies.
+
+That there were some direct but secret conspirators in the new third can
+scarcely admit of a doubt; but it is most reasonable to suppose that a
+great part were seduced by the vanity of thinking they could do better
+than those whom they succeeded. Instead of trusting to experience, they
+attempted experiments. This counter-disposition prepared them to fall in
+with any measures contrary to former measures, and that without seeing,
+and probably without suspecting, the end to which they led.
+
+No sooner were the members of the new third arrived at the seat of
+government, than expectation was excited to see how they would act.
+Their motions were watched by all parties, and it was impossible for
+them to steal a march unobserved. They had it in their power to do great
+good, or great mischief. A firm and manly conduct on their part, uniting
+with that of the Directory and their colleagues, would have terminated
+the war. But the moment before them was not the moment of hesitation. He
+that hesitates in such situation is lost.
+
+The first public act of the Council of Five Hundred was the election of
+Pichegru to the presidency of that Council. He arrived at it by a very
+large majority, and the public voice was in his favour. I among the rest
+was one who rejoiced at it. But if the defection of Pichegru was at that
+time known to Conde, and consequently to Pitt, it unveils the cause that
+retarded all negotiations for peace.(1) They interpreted that election
+into a signal of a counter-revolution, and were waiting for it; and they
+mistook the respect shown to Pichegru, founded on the supposition of his
+integrity, as a symptom of national revolt. Judging of things by their
+own foolish ideas of government, they ascribed appearances to causes
+between which there was no connection. Every thing on their part has
+been a comedy of errors, and the actors have been chased from the stage.
+
+     1 Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Conde (1736-1818),
+     organized the French emigrants on the Rhine into an army
+     which was incorporated with that of Austria but paid by
+     England. He converted Pichegru into a secret partisan of the
+     Bourbons. He ultimately returned to France with Louis
+     XVIII., who made him colonel of infantry and master of the
+     royal household.--_Editor._,
+
+Two or three decades of the new sessions passed away without any
+thing very material taking place; but matters soon began to explain
+themselves. The first thing that struck the public mind was, that no
+more was heard of negotiations for peace, and that public business stood
+still. It was not the object of the conspirators that there should be
+peace; but as it was necessary to conceal their object, the Constitution
+was ransacked to find pretences for delays. In vain did the Directory
+explain to them the state of the finances and the wants of the army. The
+committee, charged with that business, trifled away its time by a series
+of unproductive reports, and continued to sit only to produce more.
+Every thing necessary to be done was neglected, and every thing improper
+was attempted. Pichegru occupied himself about forming a national guard
+for the Councils--the suspicious signal of war,--Camille Jordan about
+priests and bells, and the emigrants, with whom he had associated
+during the two years he was in England.1 Willot and Delarue attacked the
+Directory: their object was to displace some one of the directors, to
+get in another of their own. Their motives with respect to the age of
+Barras (who is as old as he wishes to be, and has been a little too old
+for them) were too obvious not to be seen through.(2)
+
+     1 Paine's pamphlet, addressed to Jordan, deals mainly with
+     religions matters, and is reserved for oar fourth volume.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+     2 Paul Francois Jean Nicolas Barras (1755-1899) was
+     President of the Directory at this time, 1797.--_Editor._.
+
+In this suspensive state of things, the public mind, filled with
+apprehensions, became agitated, and without knowing what it might be,
+looked for some extraordinary event. It saw, for it could not avoid
+seeing, that things could not remain long in the state they were in,
+but it dreaded a convulsion. That spirit of triflingness which it
+had indulged too freely when in a state of security, and which it is
+probable the new agents had interpreted into indifference about the
+success of the Republic, assumed a serious aspect that afforded to
+conspiracy no hope of aid; but still it went on. It plunged itself into
+new measures with the same ill success, and the further it went the
+further the public mind retired. The conspiracy saw nothing around it to
+give it encouragement.
+
+The obstinacy, however, with which it persevered in its repeated
+attacks upon the Directory, in framing laws in favour of emigrants and
+refractory priests, and in every thing inconsistent with the immediate
+safety of the Republic, and which served to encourage the enemy to
+prolong the war, admitted of no other direct interpretation than that
+something was rotten in the Council of Five Hundred. The evidence of
+circumstances became every day too visible not to be seen, and too
+strong to be explained away. Even as errors, (to say no worse of
+them,) they are not entitled to apology; for where knowledge is a duty,
+ignorance is a crime.
+
+The more serious republicans, who had better opportunities than the
+generality had, of knowing the state of politics, began to take
+the alarm, and formed themselves into a Society, by the name of the
+Constitutional Club. It is the only Society of which I have been a
+member in France; and I went to this because it was become necessary
+that the friends of the Republic should rally round the standard of
+the constitution. I met there several of the original patriots of the
+revolution; I do not mean of the last order of Jacobins, but of the
+first of that name. The faction in the Council of Five Hundred,
+who, finding no counsel from the public, began to be frightened at
+appearances, fortified itself against the dread of this Society, by
+passing a law to dissolve it. The constitutionality of the law was at
+least doubtful: but the Society, that it might not give the example of
+exasperating matters already too much inflamed, suspended its meetings.
+
+A matter, however, of much greater moment soon after presented itself.
+It was the march of four regiments, some of whom, in the line of their
+route, had to pass within about twelve leagues of Paris, which is the
+boundary the Constitution had fixed as the distance of any armed
+force from the legislative body. In another state of things, such a
+circumstance would not have been noticed. But conspiracy is quick of
+suspicion, and the fear which the faction in the Council of Five
+Hundred manifested upon this occasion could not have suggested itself
+to innocent men; neither would innocent men have expostulated with the
+Directory upon the case, in the manner these men did. The question they
+urged went to extort from the Directory, and to make known to the enemy,
+what the destination of the troops was. The leaders of the faction
+conceived that the troops were marching against them; and the conduct
+they adopted in consequence of it was sufficient to justify the measure,
+even if it had been so. From what other motive than the consciousness of
+their own designs could they have fear? The troops, in every instance,
+had been the gallant defenders of the Republic, and the openly declared
+friends of the Constitution; the Directory had been the same, and if the
+faction were not of a different description neither fear nor suspicion
+could have had place among them.
+
+All those manouvres in the Council were acted under the most
+professional attachment to the Constitution; and this as necessarily
+served to enfeeble their projects. It is exceedingly difficult, and next
+to impossible, to conduct a conspiracy, and still more so to give it
+success, in a popular government. The disguised and feigned pretences
+which men in such cases are obliged to act in the face of the public,
+suppress the action of the faculties, and give even to natural courage
+the features of timidity. They are not half the men they would be where
+no disguise is necessary. It is impossible to be a hypocrite and to be
+brave at the same instant.
+
+The faction, by the imprudence of its measures, upon the march of
+the troops, and upon the declarations of the officers and soldiers to
+support the Republic and the Constitution against all open or concealed
+attempts to overturn them, had gotten itself involved with the army, and
+in effect declared itself a party against it. On the one hand, laws were
+proposed to admit emigrants and refractory priests as free citizens; and
+on the other hand to exclude the troops from Paris, and to punish the
+soldiers who had declared to support the Republic In the mean time all
+negociations for peace went backward; and the enemy, still recruiting
+its forces, rested to take advantage of circumstances. Excepting the
+absence of hostilities, it was a state worse than war.
+
+If all this was not a conspiracy, it had at least the features of one,
+and was pregnant with the same mischiefs. The eyes of the faction could
+not avoid being open to the dangers to which it obstinately exposed
+the Republic; yet still it persisted. During this scene, the journals
+devoted to the faction were repeatedly announcing the near approach of
+peace with Austria and with England, and often asserting that it was
+concluded. This falsehood could be intended for no other purpose than to
+keep the eyes of the people shut against the dangers to which they were
+exposed.
+
+Taking all circumstances together, it was impossible that such a state
+of things could continue long; and at length it was resolved to bring it
+to an issue. There is good reason to believe that the affair of the
+18th Fructidor (September 4) was intended to have taken place two days
+before; but on recollecting that it was the 2d of September, a day
+mournful in the annals of the revolution, it was postponed. When the
+issue arrived, the faction found to its cost it had no party among the
+public. It had sought its own disasters, and was left to suffer the
+consequences. Foreign enemies, as well as those of the interior, if
+any such there be, ought to see in the event of this day that all
+expectation of aid from any part of the public in support of a counter
+revolution is delusion. In a state of security the thoughtless, who
+trembled at terror, may laugh at principles of Liberty (for they have
+laughed) but it is one thing to indulge a foolish laugh, quite another
+thing to surrender Liberty.
+
+Considering the event of the 18th Fructidor in a political light, it is
+one of those that are justifiable only on the supreme law of absolute
+necessity, and it is the necessity abstracted from the event that is to
+be deplored. The event itself is matter of joy. Whether the manouvres in
+the Council of Five Hundred were the conspiracy of a few, aided l>y the
+perverseness of many, or whether it had a deeper root, the dangers were
+the same. It was impossible to go on. Every thing was at stake, and
+all national business at a stand. The case reduced itself to a simple
+alternative--shall the Republic be destroyed by the darksome manouvres
+-of a faction, or shall it be preserved by an exceptional act?
+
+During the American Revolution, and that after the State constitutions
+were established, particular cases arose that rendered it necessary to
+act in a manner that would have been treasonable in a state of peace. At
+one time Congress invested General Washington with dictatorial power.
+At another time the Government of Pennsylvania suspended itself and
+declared martial law. It was the necessity of the times only that
+made the apology of those extraordinary measures. But who was it that
+produced the necessity of an extraordinary measure in France? A faction,
+and that in the face of prosperity and success. Its conduct is without
+apology; and it is on the faction only that the exceptional measure has
+fallen. The public has suffered no inconvenience. If there are some men
+more disposed than others not to act severely, I have a right to place
+myself in that class; the whole of my political life invariably proves
+it; yet I cannot see, taking all parts of the case together, what else,
+or what better, could have been done, than has been done. It was a
+great stroke, applied in a great crisis, that crushed in an instant,
+and without the loss of a life, all the hopes of the enemy, and restored
+tranquillity to the interior.
+
+The event was ushered in by the discharge of two cannon at four in the
+morning, and was the only noise that was heard throughout the day. It
+naturally excited a movement among the Parisians to enquire the cause.
+They soon learned it, and the countenance they carried was easy to be
+interpreted. It was that of a people who, for some time past, had
+been oppressed with apprehensions of some direful event, and who felt
+themselves suddenly relieved, by finding what it was. Every one went
+about his business, or followed his curiosity in quietude. It resembled
+the cheerful tranquillity of the day when Louis XVI. absconded in 1791,
+and like that day it served to open the eyes of the nation.
+
+If we take a review of the various events, as well conspiracies as
+commotions, that have succeeded each other in this revolution, we shall
+see how the former have wasted consumptively away, and the consequences
+of the latter have softened. The 31st May and its consequences were
+terrible. That of the 9th and 10th Thermidor, though glorious for the
+republic, as it overthrew one of the most horrid and cruel despotisms
+that ever raged, was nevertheless marked with many circumstances
+of severe and continued retaliation. The commotions of Germinal and
+Prairial of the year 3, and of Vendemaire of the year 4, were many
+degrees below those that preceded them, and affected but a small part of
+the public. This of Pichegru and his associates has been crushed in an
+instant, without the stain of blood, and without involving the public in
+the least inconvenience.
+
+These events taken in a series, mark the progress of the Republic from
+disorder to stability. The contrary of this is the case in all parts
+of the British dominions. There, commotions are on an ascending scale;
+every one is higher than the former. That of the sailors had nearly
+been the overthrow of the government. But the most potent of all is the
+invisible commotion in the Bank. It works with the silence of time, and
+the certainty of death. Every thing happening in France is curable; but
+this is beyond the reach of nature or invention.
+
+Leaving the event of the 18th Fructidor to justify itself by the
+necessity that occasioned it, and glorify itself by the happiness of
+its consequences, I come to cast a coup-d'oil on the present state of
+affairs.
+
+We have seen by the lingering condition of the negociations for peace,
+that nothing was to be expected from them, in the situation that things
+stood prior to the 18th Fructidor. The armies had done wonders, but
+those wonders were rendered unproductive by the wretched manouvres of a
+faction. New exertions are now necessary to repair the mischiefs which
+that faction has done. The electoral bodies, in some Departments, who
+by an injudicious choice, or a corrupt influence, have sent improper
+deputies to the Legislature, have some atonement to make to their
+country. The evil originated with them, and the least they can do is to
+be among the foremost to repair it.
+
+It is, however, in vain to lament an evil that is past. There is neither
+manhood nor policy in grief; and it often happens that an error in
+politics, like an error in war, admits of being turned to greater
+advantage than if it had not occurred. The enemy, encouraged by that
+error, presumes too much, and becomes doubly foiled by the re-action.
+England, unable to conquer, has stooped to corrupt; and defeated in
+the last, as in the first, she is in a worse condition than before.
+Continually increasing her crimes, she increases the measure of her
+atonement, and multiplies the sacrifices she must make to obtain peace.
+Nothing but the most obstinate stupidity could have induced her to let
+slip the opportunity when it was within her reach. In addition to the
+prospect of new expenses, she is now, to use Mr. Pitt's own figurative
+expression against France, _not only on the brink, but in the gulph
+of bankruptcy_. There is no longer any mystery in paper money. Call
+it assignats, mandats, exchequer bills, or bank notes, it is still the
+same. Time has solved the problem, and experience has fixed its fate.(1)
+
+     1 See Chapter XXVI. of this volume.--_Editor._.
+
+The government of that unfortunate country discovers its faithlessness
+so much, that peace on any terms with her is scarcely worth obtaining.
+Of what use is peace with a government that will employ that peace for
+no other purpose than to repair, as far as it is possible, her shattered
+finances and broken credit, and then go to war again? Four times within
+the last ten years, from the time the American war closed, has the
+Anglo-germanic government of England been meditating fresh war. First
+with France on account of Holland, in 1787; afterwards with Russia;
+then with Spain, on account of Nootka Sound; and a second time against
+France, to overthrow her revolution. Sometimes that government employs
+Prussia against Austria; at another time Austria against Prussia; and
+always one or the other, or both against France. Peace with such a
+government is only a treacherous cessation of hostilities.
+
+The frequency of wars on the part of England, within the last century,
+more than before, must have had some cause that did not exist prior to
+that epoch. It is not difficult to discover what that cause is. It is
+the mischievous compound of an Elector of the Germanic body and a King
+of England; and which necessarily must, at some day or other, become
+an object of attention to France. That one nation has not a right to
+interfere in the internal government of another nation, is admitted; and
+in this point of view, France has no right to dictate to England what
+its form of government shall be. If it choose to have a thing called a
+King, or whether that King shall be a man or an ass, is a matter with
+which France has no business. But whether an Elector of the Germanic
+body shall be King of England, is an _external_ case, with which
+France and every other nation, who suffers inconvenience and injury in
+consequence of it, has a right to interfere.
+
+It is from this mischievous compound of Elector and King, that
+originates a great part of the troubles that vex the continent of
+Europe; and with respect to England, it has been the cause of her
+immense national debt, the ruin of her finances, and the insolvency of
+her bank. All intrigues on the continent, in which England is a party,
+or becomes involved, are generated by, and act through, the medium of
+this Anglo-germanic compound. It will be necessary to dissolve it. Let
+the Elector retire to his Electorate, and the world will have peace.
+
+England herself has given examples of interference in matters of this
+kind, and that in cases where injury was only apprehended. She engaged
+in a long and expensive war against France (called the succession war)
+to prevent a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth being king of Spain;
+because, said she, _it will be injurious_ to me; and she has been
+fighting and intriguing against what was called the family-compact ever
+since. In 1787 she threatened France with war to prevent a connection
+between France and Hoi-land; and in all her propositions of peace to-day
+she is dictating separations. But if she look at the Anglo-germanic
+compact at home, called the Hanover succession, she cannot avoid seeing
+that France necessarily must, some day or other, take up that subject,
+and make the return of the Elector to his Electorate one of the
+conditions of peace. There will be no lasting peace between the two
+countries till this be done, and the sooner it be done the better will
+it be for both.
+
+I have not been in any company where this matter aas been a topic, that
+did not see it in the light it is here stated. Even Barthelemy,(1) when
+he first came to the Directory (and Barthelemy was never famous for
+patriotism) acknowledged in my hearing, and in company with Derche,
+Secretary to the Legation at Lille, the connection of an Elector of
+Germany and a King of England to be injurious to France. I do not,
+however, mention it from a wish to embarrass the negociation for peace.
+The Directory has fixed its _ultimatum_; but if that ultimatum be
+rejected, the obligation to adhere to it is discharged, and a new one
+may be assumed. So wretchedly has Pitt managed his opportunities" that
+every succeeding negociation has ended in terms more against him than
+the former. If the Directory had bribed him, he could not serve his
+interest better than he does. He serves it as Lord North served that of
+America, which finished in the discharge of his master.*
+
+     1 Marquis de Barthelemy (Francois) (1750-1830) entered the
+     Directory in June, 1796, through royalist influence. He
+     shared Pichegru's banishment, and subsequently became an
+     agent of Louis XVIII.--_Editor._
+
+     * The father of Pitt, when a member of the House of Commons,
+     exclaiming one day, during a former war, against the
+     enormous and ruinous expense of German connections, as the
+     offspring of the Hanover succession, and borrowing a
+     metaphor from the story of Prometheus, cried out: "Thus,
+     Hie Prometheus, is Britain chained to the barren rock of
+     Hanover; whilst the imperial eagle preys upon her vitals."--
+     Author.
+
+Thus far I had written when the negociation at Lille became suspended,
+in consequence of which I delayed the publication, that the ideas
+suggested in this letter might not intrude themselves during the
+interval. The _ultimatum_ offered by the Directory, as the terms of
+peace, was more moderate than the government of England had a right to
+expect. That government, though the provoker of the war, and the first
+that committed hostilities by sending away the ambassador Chauvelin,(**)
+had formerly talked of demanding from France, _indemnification for
+the past and security for the future_. France, in her turn, might have
+retorted, and demanded the same from England; but she did not. As it was
+England that, in consequence of her bankruptcy, solicited peace, France
+offered it to her on the simple condition of her restoring the islands
+she had taken. The ultimatum has been rejected, and the negociation
+broken off. The spirited part of France will say, _tant mieux_, so much
+the better.
+
+     ** It was stipulated in the treaty of commerce between
+     France and England, concluded at Paris, that the sending
+     away an ambassador by either party, should be taken as an
+     act of hostility by the other party. The declaration of war
+     (Feb. M *793) by the Convention, of which I was then a
+     member and know well the case, was made in exact conformity
+     to this article in the treaty; for it was not a declaration
+     of war against England, but a declaration that the French
+     Republic is in war with England; the first act of hostility
+     having been committed by England. The declaration was made
+     immediately on Chauvelin's return to France, and in
+     consequence of it. Mr. Pitt should inform himself of things
+     better than he does, before he prates so much about them, or
+     of the sending away of Malmesbury, who was only on a visit
+     of permission.--Author.
+
+How the people of England feel on the breaking up of the negociation,
+which was entirely the act of their own Government, is best known to
+themselves; but from what I know of the two nations, France ought to
+hold herself perfectly indifferent about a peace with the Government of
+England. Every day adds new strength to France and new embarrassments
+to her enemy. The resources of the one increase, as those of the other
+become exhausted. England is now reduced to the same system of paper
+money from which France has emerged, and we all know the inevitable fate
+of that system. It is not a victory over a few ships, like that on the
+coast of Holland, that gives the least support or relief to a paper
+system. On the news of this victory arriving in England, the funds did
+not rise a farthing. The Government rejoiced, but its creditors were
+silent.
+
+It is difficult to find a motive, except in folly and madness, for the
+conduct of the English government. Every calculation and prediction of
+Mr. Pitt has turned out directly the contrary; yet still he predicts.
+He predicted, with all the solemn assurance of a magician, that France
+would be bankrupt in a few months. He was right as to the thing, but
+wrong as to the place, for the bankruptcy happened in England whilst the
+words were yet warm upon his lips. To find out what will happen, it is
+only necessary to know what Mr. Pitt predicts. He is a true prophet if
+taken in the reverse.
+
+Such is the ruinous condition that England is now in, that great as
+the difficulties of war are to the people, the difficulties that would
+accompany peace are equally as great to the Government. Whilst the war
+continues, Mr. Pitt has a pretence for shutting up the bank. But as that
+pretence could last no longer than the war lasted, he dreads the peace
+that would expose the absolute bankruptcy of the government, and unveil
+to a deceived nation the ruinous effect of his measures. Peace would be
+a day of accounts to him, and he shuns it as an insolvent debtor shuns
+a meeting of his creditors. War furnishes him with many pretences; peace
+would furnish him with none, and he stands alarmed at its consequences.
+His conduct in the negociation at Lille can be easily interpreted. It is
+not for the sake of the nation that he asks to retain some of the taken
+islands; for what are islands to a nation that has already too many for
+her own good, or what are they in comparison to the expense of another
+campaign in the present depreciating state of the English funds? (And
+even then those islands must be restored.)
+
+No, it is not for the sake of the nation that he asks. It is for the
+sake of himself. It is as if he said to France, Give me some pretence,
+cover me from disgrace when my day of reckoning comes!
+
+Any person acquainted with the English Government knows that every
+Minister has some dread of what is called in England the winding up
+of accounts at the end of a war; that is, the final settlement of all
+expenses incurred by the war; and no Minister had ever so great cause of
+dread as Mr. Pitt. A burnt child dreads the fire, and Pitt has had some
+experience upon this case. The winding up of accounts at the end of the
+American war was so great, that, though he was not the cause of it,
+and came into the Ministry with great popularity, he lost it all by
+undertaking, what was impossible for him to avoid, the voluminous
+business of the winding up. If such was the case in settling the
+accounts of his predecessor, how much more has he to apprehend when the
+accounts to be settled are his own? All men in bad circumstances
+hate the settlement of accounts, and Pitt, as a Minister, is of that
+description.
+
+But let us take a view of things on a larger ground than the case of
+a Minister. It will then be found, that England, on a comparison of
+strength with France, when both nations are disposed to exert their
+utmost, has no possible chance of success. The efforts that England made
+within the last century were not generated on the ground of _natural
+ability_, but of _artificial anticipations_. She ran posterity into
+debt, and swallowed up in one generation the resources of several
+generations yet to come, till the project can be pursued no longer. It
+is otherwise in France. The vastness of her territory and her population
+render the burden easy that would make a bankrupt of a country like
+England.
+
+It is not the weight of a thing, but the numbers who are to bear that
+weight, that makes it feel light or heavy to the shoulders of those who
+bear it. A land-tax of half as much in the pound as the land-tax is in
+England, will raise nearly four times as much revenue in France as is
+raised in England. This is a scale easily understood, by which all the
+other sections of productive revenue can be measured. Judge then of the
+difference of natural ability.
+
+England is strong in a navy; but that navy costs about eight millions
+sterling a-year, and is one of the causes that has hastened her
+bankruptcy. The history of navy bills sufficiently proves this. But
+strong as England is in this case, the fate of navies must finally be
+decided by the natural ability of each country to carry its navy to the
+greatest extent; and France is able to support a navy twice as large as
+that of England, with less than half the expense per head on the people,
+which the present navy of England costs.
+
+We all know that a navy cannot be raised as expeditiously as an army.
+But as the average duration of a navy, taking the decay of time, storms,
+and all circumstances and accidents together, is less than twenty years,
+every navy must be renewed within that time; and France at the end of a
+few years, can create and support a navy of double the extent of that of
+England; and the conduct of the English government will provoke her to
+it.
+
+But of what use are navies otherwise than to make or prevent invasions?
+Commercially considered, they are losses. They scarcely give any
+protection to the commerce of the countries which have them, compared
+with the expense of maintaining them, and they insult the commerce of
+the nations that are neutral.
+
+During the American war, the plan of the armed neutrality was formed and
+put in execution: but it was inconvenient, expensive, and ineffectual.
+This being the case, the problem is, does not commerce contain within
+itself, the means of its own protection? It certainly does, if the
+neutral nations will employ that means properly.
+
+Instead then of an _armed neutrality_, the plan should be directly the
+contrary. It should be an _unarmed neutrality_. In the first place,
+the rights of neutral nations are easily defined. They are such as are
+exercised by nations in their intercourse with each other in time of
+peace, and which ought not, and cannot of right, be interrupted in
+consequence of war breaking out between any two or more of them.
+
+Taking this as a principle, the next thing is to give it effect. The
+plan of the armed neutrality was to effect it by threatening war; but an
+unarmed neutrality can effect it by much easier and more powerful means.
+
+Were the neutral nations to associate, under an honourable injunction of
+fidelity to each other, and publicly declare to the world, that if any
+belligerent power shall seize or molest any ship or vessel belonging
+to the citizens or subjects of any of the powers composing that
+Association, that the whole Association will shut its ports against the
+flag of the offending nation, and will not permit any goods, wares,
+or merchandise, produced or manufactured in the offending nation, or
+appertaining thereto, to be imported into any of the ports included in
+the Association, until reparation be made to the injured party,--the
+reparation to be three times the value of the vessel and cargo,--and
+moreover that all remittances on money, goods, and bills of exchange, do
+cease to be made to the offending nation, until the said reparation be
+made: were the neutral nations only to do this, which it is their
+direct interest to do, England, as a nation depending on the commerce of
+neutral nations in time of war, dare not molest them, and France would
+not. But whilst, from the want of a common system, they individually
+permit England to do it, because individually they cannot resist it,
+they put France under the necessity of doing the same thing. The supreme
+of all laws, in all cases, is that of self-preservation.
+
+As the commerce of neutral nations would thus be protected by the means
+that commerce naturally contains within itself, all the naval operations
+of France and England would be confined within the circle of acting
+against each other: and in that case it needs no spirit of prophecy to
+discover that France must finally prevail. The sooner this be done, the
+better will it be for both nations, and for all the world.
+
+Thomas Paine.(1)
+
+     1 Paine had already prepared his "Maritime Compact," and
+     devised the Rainbow Flag, which was to protect commerce, the
+     substance and history of which constitutes his Seventh
+     Letter to the People of the United States, Chapter XXXIII.
+     of the present volume. He sent the articles of his proposed
+     international Association to the Minister of Foreign
+     Relations, Talleyrand, who responded with a cordial letter.
+     The articles of "Maritime Compact," translated into French
+     by Nicolas Bouneville, were, in 1800, sent to all the
+     Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Europe, and to the
+     ambassadors in Paris.--_Editor._,
+
+
+
+
+XXX. THE RECALL OF MONROE. (1)
+
+
+     1 Monroe, like Edmund Randolph and Thomas Paine, was
+     sacrificed to the new commercial alliance with Great
+     Britain. The Cabinet of Washington were entirely hostile to
+     France, and in their determination to replace Monroe were
+     assisted by Gouverneur Morris, still in Europe, who wrote to
+     President Washington calumnies against that Minister. In a
+     letter of December 19, 1795, Morris tells Washington that he
+     had heard from a trusted informant that Monroe had said to
+     several Frenchmen that "he had no doubt but that, if they
+     would do what was proper here, he and his friends would turn
+     out Washington." On July 2, 1796, the Cabinet ministers,
+     Pickering, Wolcott, and Mo-Henry, wrote to the President
+     their joint opinion that the interests of the United States
+     required Monroe's recall, and slanderously connected him
+     with anonymous letters from France written by M.
+     Montflorence. The recall, dated August 22, 1796, reached
+     Monroe early in November. It alluded to certain "concurring
+     circumstances," which induced his removal, and these "hidden
+     causes" (in Paine's phrase) Monroe vainly demanded on his
+     return to America early in 1797. The Directory, on
+     notification of Monroe's recall, resolved not to recognize
+     his successor, and the only approach to an American Minister
+     in Paris for the remainder of the century was Thomas Paine,
+     who was consulted by the Foreign Ministers, De la Croix and
+     Talleyrand, and by Napoleon. On the approach of C. C.
+     Pinckney, as successor to Monroe, Paine feared that his
+     dismissal might entail war, and urged the Minister (De la
+     Croix) to regard Pinckney,--nominated in a recess of the
+     Senate,--as in "suspension" until confirmed by that body.
+     There might be unofficial "pourparlers," with him. This
+     letter (State Archives, Paris, Etats Unis, vol. 46, fol. 425)
+     was considered for several days before Pinckney reached
+     Paris (December 5, 1796), but the Directory considered that
+     it was not a "dignified" course, and Pinckney was ordered to
+     leave French territory, under the existing decree against
+     foreigners who had no permit to remain.--_Editor._.
+
+
+Paris, Sept. 27, 1797. Editors of the Bien-in forme.
+
+Citizens: in your 19th number of the complementary 5th, you gave an
+analysis of the letters of James Monroe to Timothy Pickering. The
+newspapers of Paris and the departments have copied this correspondence
+between the ambassador of the United States and the Secretary of State.
+I notice, however, that a few of them have omitted some important facts,
+whilst indulging in comments of such an extraordinary nature that it is
+clear they know neither Monroe's integrity nor the intrigues of Pitt in
+this affair.
+
+The recall of Monroe is connected with circumstances so important to the
+interests of France and the United States, that we must be careful not
+to confound it with the recall of an ordinary individual. The Washington
+faction had affected to spread it abroad that James Monroe was the cause
+of rupture between the two Republics. This accusation is a perfidious
+and calumnious one; since the main point in this affair is not so much
+the recall of a worthy, enlightened and republican minister, as
+the ingratitude and clandestine manoeuvering of the government of
+Washington, who caused the misunderstanding by signing a treaty
+injurious to the French Republic.
+
+James Monroe, in his letters, does not deny the right of government to
+withdraw its confidence from any one of its delegates, representatives,
+or agents. He has hinted, it is true, that caprice and temper are not
+in accordance with the spirit of paternal rule, and that whenever a
+representative government punishes or rewards, good faith, integrity and
+justice should replace _the good pleasure of Kings_.
+
+In the present case, they have done more than recall an agent. Had they
+confined themselves to depriving him of his appointment, James Monroe
+would have kept silence; but he has been accused of lighting the torch
+of discord in both Republics. The refutation of this absurd and infamous
+reproach is the chief object of his correspondence. If he did not
+immediately complain of these slanders in his letters of the 6th and
+8th [July], it is because he wished to use at first a certain degree of
+caution, and, if it were possible, to stifle intestine troubles at
+their birth. He wished to reopen the way to peaceful negotiations to be
+conducted with good faith and justice.
+
+The arguments of the Secretary of State on the rights of the supreme
+administration of the United States are peremptory; but the observations
+of Monroe on the hidden causes of his recall are touching; they come
+from the heart; they are characteristic of an excellent citizen. If he
+does more than complain of his unjust recall as a man of feeling would;
+if he proudly asks for proofs of a grave accusation, it is after he has
+tried in vain every honest and straightforward means. He will not suffer
+that a government, sold to the enemies of freedom, should discharge upon
+him its shame, its crimes, its ingratitude, and all the odium of its
+unjust dealings.
+
+Were Monroe to find himself an object of public hatred, the Republican
+party in the United States, that party which is the sincere ally
+of France, would be annihilated, and this is the aim of the English
+government.
+
+Imagine the triumph of Pitt, if Monroe and the other friends of freedom
+in America, should be unjustly attacked in France!
+
+Monroe does not lay his cause before the Senate since the Senate
+itself ratified the unconstitutional treaty; he appeals to the house of
+Representatives, and at the same time lays his cause before the upright
+tribunal of the American nation.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI. PRIVATE LETTER TO PRESIDENT JEFFERSON.
+
+
+Paris, October 1, 1800.
+
+Dear Sir,--I wrote to you from Havre by the ship Dublin Packet in the
+year 1797. It was then my intention to return to America; but there were
+so many British frigates cruising in sight of the port, and which after
+a few days knew that I was at Havre waiting to go to America, that I did
+not think it best to trust myself to their discretion, and the more so,
+as I had no confidence in the captain of the Dublin Packet (Clay).(1) I
+mentioned to you in that letter, which I believe you received thro'
+the hands of Colonel [Aaron] Burr, that I was glad since you were not
+President that you had accepted the nomination of Vice President.
+
+The Commissioners Ellsworth & Co.(2) have been here about eight months,
+and three more useless mortals never came upon public business. Their
+presence appears to me to have been rather an injury than a benefit.
+They set themselves up for a faction as soon as they arrived. I was then
+in Belgia.(3) Upon my return to Paris I learnt they had made a point of
+not returning the visits of Mr. Skipwith and Barlow, because, they said,
+they had not the confidence of the executive. Every known republican was
+treated in the same manner. I learned from Mr. Miller of Philadelphia,
+who had occasion to see them upon business, that they did not intend
+to return my visit, if I made one. This, I supposed, it was intended I
+should know, that I might not make one. It had the contrary effect. I
+went to see Mr. Ellsworth. I told him, I did not come to see him as a
+commissioner, nor to congratulate him upon his mission; that I came to
+see him because I had formerly known him in Congress. "I mean not,"
+said I, "to press you with any questions, or to engage you in
+any conversation upon the business you are come upon, but I will
+nevertheless candidly say that I know not what expectations the
+Government or the people of America may have of your mission, or what
+expectations you may have yourselves, but I believe you will find you
+can do but little. The treaty with England lies at the threshold of all
+your business. The American Government never did two more foolish things
+than when it signed that Treaty and recalled Mr. Monroe, who was the
+only man could do them any service." Mr. Ellsworth put on the dull
+gravity of a Judge, and was silent. I added, "You may perhaps make a
+treaty like that you have made with England, which is a surrender of the
+rights of the American flag; for the principle that neutral ships make
+neutral property must be general or not at all." I then changed the
+subject, for I had all the talk to myself upon this topic, and enquired
+after Samuel Adams, (I asked nothing about John,) Mr. Jefferson, Mr.
+Monroe, and others of my friends; and the melancholy case of the yellow
+fever,--of which he gave me as circumstantial an account as if he had
+been summing up a case to a Jury. Here my visit ended, and had Mr.
+Ellsworth been as cunning as a statesman, or as wise as a Judge, he
+would have returned my visit that he might appear insensible of the
+intention of mine.
+
+     1 The packet was indeed searched for Paine by a British
+     cruiser.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Oliver Ellsworth (Chief Justice), W. V. Murray, and W. R.
+     Davie, were sent by President Adams to France to negotiate a
+     treaty. In this they failed, but a convention was signed
+     September 30, 1800, which terminated the treaty of 1778,
+     which had become a source of discord, and prepared the way
+     for the negotiations of Livingston and Monroe in 1803.--
+     _Editor._
+
+     3 Paine had visited his room-mate in Luxembourg prison,
+     Vanhuele, who was now Mayor of Bruges.--_Editor._.
+
+I now come to the affairs of this country and of Europe. You will, I
+suppose, have heard before this arrives to you, of the battle of
+Marengo in Italy, where the Austrians were defeated--of the armistice
+in consequence thereof, and the surrender of Milan, Genoa etc. to
+the french--of the successes of the french Army in Germany--and the
+extension of the armistice in that quarter--of the preliminaries of
+Peace signed at Paris--of the refusal of the Emperor [of Austria] to
+ratify these preliminaries--of the breaking of the armistice by the
+french Government in consequence of that refusal--of the "gallant"
+expedition of the Emperor to put himself at the head of his Army--of his
+pompous arrival there--of his having made his will--of prayers being put
+in all his churches for the preservation of the life of this Hero--of
+General Moreau announcing to him, immediately on his arrival at the
+Army, that hostilities would commence the day after the next at sunrise
+unless he signed the treaty or gave security that he would sign within
+45 days--of his surrendering up three of the principal keys of Germany
+(Ulm, Philipsbourg, and Ingolstadt) as security that he would sign them.
+This is the state things are now in, at the time of writing this letter;
+but it is proper to add that the refusal of the Emperor to sign the
+preliminaries was motived upon a note from the King of England to be
+admitted to the Congress for negociating Peace, which was consented to
+by the french upon the condition of an armistice at Sea, which England,
+before knowing of the surrender the Emperor had made, had refused. From
+all which it appears to me, judging from circumstances, that the Emperor
+is now so compleatly in the hands of the french, that he has no way of
+getting out but by a peace. The Congress for the peace is to be held
+at Luneville, a town in France. Since the affair of Rastadt the French
+commissioners will not trust themselves within the Emperor's territory.
+
+I now come to domestic Affairs. I know not what the Commissioners have
+done, but from a paper I enclose to you, which appears to have
+some authority, it is not much. The paper as you will perceive is
+considerably prior to this letter. I know that the Commissioners before
+this piece appeared intended setting off. It is therefore probable that
+what they have done is conformable to what this paper mentions, which
+certainly will not atone for the expence their mission has incurred,
+neither are they, by all the accounts I hear of them, men fitted for the
+business.
+
+But independently of these matters there appears to be a state of
+circumstances rising, which if it goes on, will render all partial
+treaties unnecessary. In the first place I doubt if any peace will be
+made with England; and in the second place, I should not wonder to see a
+coalition formed against her, to compel her to abandon her insolence on
+the seas. This brings me to speak of the manuscripts I send you.
+
+The piece No. I, without any title, was written in consequence of a
+question put to me by Bonaparte. As he supposed I knew England and
+English Politics he sent a person to me to ask, that in case of
+negociating a Peace with Austria, whether it would be proper to include
+England. This was when Count St. Julian was in Paris, on the part of the
+Emperor negociating the preliminaries:--which as I have before said the
+Emperor refused to sign on the pretence of admitting England.
+
+The piece No. 2, entitled _On the Jacobinism of the English at sea_, was
+written when the English made their insolent and impolitic expedition to
+Denmark, and is also an auxiliary to the politic of No. I. I shewed it
+to a friend [Bonneville] who had it translated into french, and printed
+in the form of a Pamphlet, and distributed gratis among the foreign
+Ministers, and persons in the Government. It was immediately copied
+into several of the french Journals, and into the official Paper, the
+Moniteur. It appeared in this paper one day before the last dispatch
+arrived from Egypt; which agreed perfectly with what I had said
+respecting Egypt. It hit the two cases of Denmark and Egypt in the exact
+proper moment.
+
+The Piece No. 3, entitled _Compact Maritime_, is the sequel of No. 2,
+digested in form. It is translating at the time I write this letter,
+and I am to have a meeting with the Senator Garat upon the subject.
+The pieces 2 and 3 go off in manuscript to England, by a confidential
+person, where they will be published.(1)
+
+     1 The substance of most of these "pieces" are embodied in
+     Paine's Seventh Letter to the People of the United States
+     (infra p. 420).--_Editor._
+
+By all the news we get from the North there appears to be something
+meditating against England. It is now given for certain that Paul has
+embargoed all the English vessels and English property in Russia till
+some principle be established for protecting the Rights of neutral
+Nations, and securing the liberty of the Seas. The preparations in
+Denmark continue, notwithstanding the convention that she has made with
+England, which leaves the question with respect to the right set up by
+England to stop and search Neutral vessels undecided. I send you the
+paragraphs upon the subject.
+
+The tumults are great in all parts of England on account of the
+excessive price of corn and bread, which has risen since the harvest.
+I attribute it more to the abundant increase of paper, and the
+non-circulation of cash, than to any other cause. People in trade
+can push the paper off as fast as they receive it, as they did by
+continental money in America; but as farmers have not this opportunity,
+they endeavor to secure themselves by going considerably in advance.
+
+I have now given you all the great articles of intelligence, for I
+trouble not myself with little ones, and consequently not with the
+Commissioners, nor any thing they are about, nor with John Adams,
+otherwise than to wish him safe home, and a better and wiser man in his
+place.
+
+In the present state of circumstances and the prospects arising from
+them, it may be proper for America to consider whether it is worth her
+while to enter into any treaty at this moment, or to wait the event of
+those circumstances which if they go on will render partial treaties
+useless by deranging them. But if, in the mean time, she enters into
+any treaty it ought to be with a condition to the following purpose:
+Reserving to herself the right of joining in an Association of Nations
+for the protection of the Rights of Neutral Commerce and the security of
+the liberty of the Seas.
+
+The pieces 2, 3, may go to the press. They will make a small pamphlet
+and the printers are welcome to put my name to it. (It is best it should
+be put.) From thence they will get into the newspapers. I know that the
+faction of John Adams abuses me pretty heartily. They are welcome.
+
+It does not disturb me, and they lose their labour; and in return for
+it I am doing America more service, as a neutral Nation, than their
+expensive Commissioners can do, and she has that service from me for
+nothing. The piece No. 1 is only for your own amusement and that of your
+friends.
+
+I come now to speak confidentially to you on a private subject. When Mr.
+Ellsworth and Davie return to America, Murray will return to Holland,
+and in that case there will be nobody in Paris but Mr. Skipwith that
+has been in the habit of transacting business with the french Government
+since the revolution began. He is on a good standing with them, and if
+the chance of the day should place you in the presidency you cannot do
+better than appoint him for any purpose you may have occasion for in
+France. He is an honest man and will do his country justice, and that
+with civility and good manners to the government he is commissioned to
+act with; a faculty which that Northern Bear Timothy Pickering wanted,
+and which the Bear of that Bear, John Adams, never possessed.
+
+I know not much of Mr. Murray, otherwise than of his unfriendliness to
+every American who is not of his faction, but I am sure that Joel Barlow
+is a much fitter man to be in Holland than Mr. Murray. It is upon
+the fitness of the man to the place that I speak, for I have not
+communicated a thought upon the subject to Barlow, neither does he
+know, at the time of my writing this (for he is at Havre), that I have
+intention to do it.
+
+I will now, by way of relief, amuse you with some account of the
+progress of iron bridges.
+
+[Here follows an account of the building of the iron bridge at
+Sunderland, England, and some correspondence with Mr. Milbanke, M. P.,
+which will be given more fully and precisely in a chapter of vol. IV.
+(Appendix), on Iron Bridges, and is therefore omitted here.]
+
+I have now made two other Models [of bridges]. One is pasteboard, five
+feet span and five inches of height from the cords. It is in the opinion
+of every person who has seen it one of the most beautiful objects the
+eye can behold. I then cast a model in metal following the construction
+of that in paste-board and of the same dimensions. The whole was
+executed in my own Chamber. It is far superior in strength, elegance,
+and readiness in execution to the model I made in America, and which you
+saw in Paris.(1) I shall bring those models with me when I come
+home, which will be as soon as I can pass the seas in safety from the
+piratical John Bulls. I suppose you have seen, or have heard of the
+Bishop of Landaff's answer to my second part of the Age of Reason. As
+soon as I got a copy of it I began a third part, which served also as an
+answer to the Bishop; but as soon as the clerical society for promoting
+_Christian Knowledge_ knew of my intention to answer the Bishop, they
+prosecuted, as a Society, the printer of the first and second parts, to
+prevent that answer appearing. No other reason than this can be assigned
+for their prosecuting at the time they did, because the first part had
+been in circulation above three years and the second part more than one,
+and they prosecuted immediately on knowing that I was taking up their
+Champion. The Bishop's answer, like Mr. Burke's attack on the french
+revolution, served me as a back-ground to bring forward other subjects
+upon, with more advantage than if the background was not there. This is
+the motive that induced me to answer him, otherwise I should have gone
+on without taking any notice of him. I have made and am still making
+additions to the manuscript, and shall continue to do so till an
+opportunity arrive for publishing it.
+
+     1 "These models exhibit an extraordinary degree not only of
+     skill, but of taste, and are wrought with extreme delicacy
+     entirely by his own hands. The largest is nearly four feet
+     in length; the iron-works, the chains, and every other
+     article belonging to it, were forged and manufactured by
+     himself. It is intended as the model of a bridge which is to
+     be constructed across the Delaware, extending 480 feet, with
+     only one arch. The other is to be erected over a lesser
+     river, whose name I forget, and is likewise a single arch,
+     and of his own workmanship, excepting the chains, which,
+     instead of iron, are cut out of paste-hoard by the fair hand
+     of his correspondent, the 'Little Corner of the World' (Lady
+     Smyth), whose indefatigable perseverance is extraordinary.
+     He was offered L3000 for these models and refused it."--
+     Yorke's _Letters from France_, These models excited much
+     admiration in Washington and Philadelphia. They remained for
+     a long time in Peale's Museum at Philadelphia, but no trace
+     is left of them.--_Editor._
+
+If any American frigate should come to france, and the direction of
+it fall to you, I will be glad you would give me the opportunity of
+returning. The abscess under which I suffered almost two years is
+entirely healed of itself, and I enjoy exceeding good health. This is
+the first of October, and Mr. Skipwith has just called to tell me the
+Commissioners set off for Havre to-morrow. This will go by the frigate
+but not with the knowledge of the Commissioners. Remember me with much
+affection to my friends and accept the same to yourself.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII. PROPOSAL THAT LOUISIANA BE PURCHASED.(1)
+
+
+(SENT TO THE PRESIDENT, CHRISTMAS DAY, 1802.)
+
+     1 Paine, being at Lovell's Hotel, Washington, suggested the
+     purchase of Louisiana to Dr. Michael Leib, representative
+     from Pennsylvania, who, being pleased with the idea,
+     suggested that he should write it to Jefferson. On the day
+     after its reception the President told Paine that "measures
+     were already taken in that business."--_Editor._.
+
+Spain has ceded Louisiana to France, and France has excluded Americans
+from New Orleans, and the navigation of the Mississippi. The people of
+the Western Territory have complained of it to their Government, and the
+Government is of consequence involved and interested in the affair. The
+question then is--What is the best step to be taken?
+
+The one is to begin by memorial and remonstrance against an infraction
+of a right. The other is by accommodation,--still keeping the right in
+view, but not making it a groundwork.
+
+Suppose then the Government begin by making a proposal to France to
+re-purchase the cession made to her by Spain, of Louisiana, provided it
+be with the consent of the people of Louisiana, or a majority thereof.
+
+By beginning on this ground any thing can be said without carrying the
+appearance of a threat. The growing power of the Western Territory can
+be stated as a matter of information, and also the impossibility
+of restraining them from seizing upon New Orleans, and the equal
+impossibility of France to prevent it.
+
+Suppose the proposal attended to, the sum to be given comes next on
+the carpet. This, on the part of America, will be estimated between the
+value of the commerce and the quantity of revenue that Louisiana will
+produce.
+
+The French Treasury is not only empty, but the Government has consumed
+by anticipation a great part of the next year's revenue. A monied
+proposal will, I believe, be attended to; if it should, the claims upon
+France can be stipulated as part of the payment, and that sum can be
+paid here to the claimants.
+
+----I congratulate you on _The Birthday of the New Sun_,
+
+now called Christmas Day; and I make you a present of a thought on
+Louisiana.
+
+T.P.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII. THOMAS PAINE TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES,
+
+
+And particularly to the Leaders of the Federal Faction, LETTER I.(1)
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, November 15th. The venerable
+     Mr. Gales, so long associated with this paper, had been in
+     youth a prosecuted adherent of Paine in Sheffield, England.
+     The paper distinguished itself by the kindly welcome it gave
+     Paine on his return to America. (See issues of Nov. 3 and
+     10, 1802.) Paine landed at Baltimore, Oct. 30th.--_Editor._,
+
+After an absence of almost fifteen years, I am again returned to the
+country in whose dangers I bore my share, and to whose greatness I
+contributed my part.
+
+When I sailed for Europe, in the spring of 1787, it was my intention to
+return to America the next year, and enjoy in retirement the esteem of
+my friends, and the repose I was entitled to. I had stood out the storm
+of one revolution, and had no wish to embark in another. But other
+scenes and other circumstances than those of contemplated ease were
+allotted to me. The French revolution was beginning to germinate when I
+arrived in France. The principles of it were good, they were copied
+from America, and the men who conducted it were honest. But the fury of
+faction soon extinguished the one, and sent the other to the scaffold.
+Of those who began that revolution, I am almost the only survivor,
+and that through a thousand dangers. I owe this not to the prayers of
+priests, nor to the piety of hypocrites, but to the continued protection
+of Providence.
+
+But while I beheld with pleasure the dawn of liberty rising in Europe,
+I saw with regret the lustre of it fading in America. In less than two
+years from the time of my departure some distant symptoms painfully
+suggested the idea that the principles of the revolution were expiring
+on the soil that produced them. I received at that time a letter from a
+female literary correspondent, and in my answer to her, I expressed my
+fears on that head.(1)
+
+I now know from the information I obtain upon the spot, that the
+impressions that then distressed me, for I was proud of America, were
+but too well founded. She was turning her back on her own glory, and
+making hasty strides in the retrograde path of oblivion. But a spark
+from the altar of _Seventy-six_, unextinguished and unextinguishable
+through the long night of error, is again lighting up, in every part of
+the Union, the genuine name of rational liberty.
+
+As the French revolution advanced, it fixed the attention of the world,
+and drew from the pensioned pen (2) of Edmund Burke a furious attack.
+This brought me once more on the public theatre of politics, and
+occasioned the pamphlet _Rights of Man_. It had the greatest run of
+any work ever published in the English language. The number of copies
+circulated in England, Scotland, and Ireland, besides translations
+into foreign languages, was between four and five hundred thousand. The
+principles of that work were the same as those in _Common Sense_, and
+the effects would have been the same in England as that had produced in
+America, could the vote of the nation been quietly taken, or had equal
+opportunities of consulting or acting existed. The only difference
+between the two works was, that the one was adapted to the local
+circumstances of England, and the other to those of America. As to
+myself, I acted in both cases alike; I relinquished to the people of
+England, as I had done to those of America, all profits from the work.
+My reward existed in the ambition to do good, and the independent
+happiness of my own mind.
+
+     1 Paine here quotes a passage from his letter to Mrs. Few,
+     already given in the Memorial to Monroe (XXI.). The entire
+     letter to Mrs. Few will be printed in the Appendix to Vol.
+     IV. of this work.--_Editor._
+
+     2 See editorial note p. 95 in this volume.--_Editor._
+
+But a faction, acting in disguise, was rising in America; they had lost
+sight of first principles. They were beginning to contemplate government
+as a profitable monopoly, and the people as hereditary property. It
+is, therefore, no wonder that the _Rights of Man_ was attacked by that
+faction, and its author continually abused. But let them go on; give
+them rope enough and they will put an end to their own insignificance.
+There is too much common sense and independence in America to be long
+the dupe of any faction, foreign or domestic.
+
+But, in the midst of the freedom we enjoy, the licentiousness of the
+papers called Federal, (and I know not why they are called so, for they
+are in their principles anti-federal and despotic,) is a dishonour
+to the character of the country, and an injury to its reputation
+and importance abroad. They represent the whole people of America as
+destitute of public principle and private manners. As to any injury they
+can do at home to those whom they abuse, or service they can render
+to those who employ them, it is to be set down to the account of
+noisy nothingness. It is on themselves the disgrace recoils, for the
+reflection easily presents itself to every thinking mind, that _those
+who abuse liberty when they possess it would abuse power could they
+obtain it_; and, therefore, they may as well take as a general motto,
+for all such papers, _We and our patrons are not fit to be trusted with
+power_.
+
+There is in America, more than in any other country, a large body
+of people who attend quietly to their farms, or follow their several
+occupations; who pay no regard to the clamours of anonymous scribblers,
+who think for themselves, and judge of government, not by the fury of
+newspaper writers, but by the prudent frugality of its measures, and the
+encouragement it gives to the improvement and prosperity of the country;
+and who, acting on their own judgment, never come forward in an election
+but on some important occasion. When this body moves, all the little
+barkings of scribbling and witless curs pass for nothing. To say to this
+independent description of men, "You must turn out such and such persons
+at the next election, for they have taken off a great many taxes, and
+lessened the expenses of government, they have dismissed my son, or my
+brother, or myself, from a lucrative office, in which there was nothing
+to do"--is to show the cloven foot of faction, and preach the language
+of ill-disguised mortification. In every part of the Union, this faction
+is in the agonies of death, and in proportion as its fate approaches,
+gnashes its teeth and struggles. My arrival has struck it as with an
+hydrophobia, it is like the sight of water to canine madness.
+
+As this letter is intended to announce my arrival to my friends, and to
+my enemies if I have any, for I ought to have none in America, and as
+introductory to others that will occasionally follow, I shall close it
+by detailing the line of conduct I shall pursue.
+
+I have no occasion to ask, and do not intend to accept, any place or
+office in the government.(1) There is none it could give me that would
+be any ways equal to 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 politics or religion. I must be in every
+thing what I have ever been, a disinterested volunteer; my proper sphere
+of action is on the common floor of citizenship, and to honest men I
+give my hand and my heart freely.
+
+     1 The President (Jefferson) being an intimate friend of
+     Paine, and suspected, despite his reticence, of sympathizing
+     with Paine's religions views, was included in the
+     denunciations of Paine ("The Two Toms" they were called),
+     and Paine here goes out of his way to soften matters for
+     Jefferson.--_Editor._.
+
+I have some manuscript works to publish, of which I shall give proper
+notice, and some mechanical affairs to bring forward, that will 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
+welcome; I shall not descend to answer them. I have been too much used
+to such common stuff to take any notice of it. The government of England
+honoured me with a thousand martyrdoms, by burning me in effigy in every
+town in that country, and their hirelings in America may do the same.
+
+City of Washington.
+
+THOMAS PAINE.
+
+
+
+LETTER II(1)
+
+As the affairs of the country to which I am returned are of more
+importance to the world, and to me, than of that I have lately left,
+(for it is through the new world the old must be regenerated, if
+regenerated at all,) I shall not take up the time of the reader with an
+account of scenes that have passed in France, many of which are painful
+to remember and horrid to relate, but come at once to the circumstances
+in which I find America on my arrival.
+
+Fourteen years, and something more, have produced a change, at least
+among a part of the people, and I ask my-self what it is? I meet or hear
+of thousands of my former connexions, who are men of the same principles
+and friendships as when I left them. But a non-descript race, and of
+equivocal generation, assuming the name of _Federalist_,--a name that
+describes no character of principle good or bad, and may equally
+be applied to either,--has since started up with the rapidity of a
+mushroom, and like a mushroom is withering on its rootless stalk. Are
+those men _federalized_ to support the liberties of their country or to
+overturn them? To add to its fair fame or riot on its spoils? The
+name contains no defined idea. It is like John Adams's definition of a
+Republic, in his letter to Mr. Wythe of Virginia.(2) _It is_, says he,
+_an empire of laws and not of men_. But as laws may be bad as well as
+good, an empire of laws may be the best of all governments or the worst
+of all tyrannies. But John Adams is a man of paradoxical heresies, and
+consequently of a bewildered mind. He wrote a book entitled, "_A Defence
+of the American Constitutions_," and the principles of it are an attack
+upon them. But the book is descended to the tomb of forgetfulness, and
+the best fortune that can attend its author is quietly to follow its
+fate. John was not born for immortality. But, to return to Federalism.
+
+     1 National Intelligencer, Nov. 23d, 1802.--_Editor._
+
+     2 Chancellor Wythe, 1728-1806.--_Editor._ vol m--"5
+
+In the history of parties and the names they assume, it often happens
+that they finish by the direct contrary principles with which they
+profess to begin, and thus it has happened with Federalism.
+
+During the time of the old Congress, and prior to the establishment of
+the federal government, the continental belt was too loosely buckled.
+The several states were united in name but not in fact, and that nominal
+union had neither centre nor circle. The laws of one state frequently
+interferred with, and sometimes opposed, those of another. Commerce
+between state and state was without protection, and confidence without
+a point to rest on. The condition the country was then in, was aptly
+described by Pelatiah Webster, when he said, "_thirteen staves and ne'er
+a hoop will not make a barrel_."(1)
+
+If, then, by _Federalist_ is to be understood one who was for cementing
+the Union by a general government operating equally over all the States,
+in all matters that embraced the common interest, and to which the
+authority of the States severally was not adequate, for no one State
+can make laws to bind another; if, I say, by a _Federalist_ is meant
+a person of this description, (and this is the origin of the name,) _I
+ought to stand first on the list of Federalists_, for the proposition
+for establishing a general government over the Union, came originally
+from me in 1783, in a written Memorial to Chancellor Livingston, then
+Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Congress, Robert Morris, Minister
+of Finance, and his associate, Gouverneur Morris, all of whom are now
+living; and we had a dinner and conference at Robert Morris's on the
+subject. The occasion was as follows:
+
+Congress had proposed a duty of five per cent, on imported articles, the
+money to be applied as a fund towards paying the interest of loans to
+be borrowed in Holland. The resolve was sent to the several States to
+be enacted into a law. Rhode Island absolutely refused. I was at
+the trouble of a journey to Rhode Island to reason with them on the
+subject.(2) Some other of the States enacted it with alterations, each
+one as it pleased. Virginia adopted it, and afterwards repealed it, and
+the affair came to nothing.
+
+     1 "Like a stare in a cask well bound with hoops, it [the
+     individual State] stands firmer, is not so easily shaken,
+     bent, or broken, as it would be were it set up by itself
+     alone."--Pelatiah Webster, 1788. See Paul L. Ford's
+     Pamphlets cm the Constitution, etc., p. 128.--Editor
+
+     2  See my "Life of Paine." vol i., p. 103.--Editor,
+
+It was then visible, at least to me, that either Congress must frame the
+laws necessary for the Union, and send them to the several States to be
+enregistered without any alteration, which would in itself appear like
+usurpation on one part and passive obedience on the other, or some
+method must be devised to accomplish the same end by constitutional
+principles; and the proposition I made in the memorial was, to _add
+a continental legislature to Congress, to be elected by the several
+States_. The proposition met the full approbation of the gentlemen to
+whom it was addressed, and the conversation turned on the manner of
+bringing it forward. Gouverneur Morris, in walking with me after dinner,
+wished me to throw out the idea in the newspaper; I replied, that I did
+not like to be always the proposer of new things, that it would have too
+assuming an appearance; and besides, that _I did not think the country
+was quite wrong enough to be put right_. I remember giving the same
+reason to Dr. Rush, at Philadelphia, and to General Gates, at whose
+quarters I spent a day on my return from Rhode Island; and I suppose
+they will remember it, because the observation seemed to strike them.(1)
+
+     1 The Letter Books of Robert Morris (16 folio volumes, which
+     should be in our national Archives) contain many entries
+     relating to Paine's activity in the public service. Under
+     date Aug. 21, 1783, about the time referred to by Paine in
+     this letter, Robert Morris mentions a conversation with him
+     on public affairs. I am indebted to General Meredith Read,
+     owner of these Morris papers, for permission to examine
+     them.--_Editor._.
+
+But the embarrassments increasing, as they necessarily must from the
+want of a better cemented union, the State of Virginia proposed holding
+a commercial convention, and that convention, which was not sufficiently
+numerous, proposed that another convention, with more extensive and
+better defined powers, should be held at Philadelphia, May 10, 1787.
+
+When the plan of the Federal Government, formed by this Convention, was
+proposed and submitted to the consideration of the several States, it
+was strongly objected to in each of them. But the objections were not on
+anti-federal grounds, but on constitutional points. Many were shocked
+at the idea of placing what is called Executive Power in the hands of a
+single individual. To them it had too much the form and appearance of a
+military government, or a despotic one. Others objected that the
+powers given to a president were too great, and that in the hands of
+an ambitious and designing man it might grow into tyranny, as it did
+in England under Oliver Cromwell, and as it has since done in France.
+A Republic must not only be so in its principles, but in its forms. The
+Executive part of the Federal government was made for a man, and those
+who consented, against their judgment, to place Executive Power in the
+hands of a single individual, reposed more on the supposed moderation of
+the person they had in view, than on the wisdom of the measure itself.
+
+Two considerations, however, overcame all objections. The one was, the
+absolute necessity of a Federal Government. The other, the rational
+reflection, that as government in America is founded on the
+representative system any error in the first essay could be reformed
+by the same quiet and rational process by which the Constitution was
+formed, and that either by the generation then living, or by those who
+were to succeed. If ever America lose sight of this principle, she will
+no longer be the _land of liberty_. The father will become the assassin
+of the rights of the son, and his descendants be a race of slaves.
+
+As many thousands who were minors are grown up to manhood since the name
+of _Federalist_ began, it became necessary, for their information, to
+go back and show the origin of the name, which is now no longer what it
+originally was; but it was the more necessary to do this, in order to
+bring forward, in the open face of day, the apostacy of those who first
+called themselves Federalists.
+
+To them it served as a cloak for treason, a mask for tyranny. Scarcely
+were they placed in the seat of power and office, than Federalism was to
+be destroyed, and the representative system of government, the pride
+and glory of America, and the palladium of her liberties, was to be
+overthrown and abolished. The next generation was not to be free. The
+son was to bend his neck beneath the father's foot, and live, deprived
+of his rights, under hereditary control. Among the men of this apostate
+description, is to be ranked the ex-president _John Adams_. It has been
+the political career of this man to begin with hypocrisy, proceed with
+arrogance, and finish in contempt. May such be the fate of all such
+characters.
+
+I have had doubts of John Adams ever since the year 1776. In a
+conversation with me at that time, concerning the pamphlet _Common
+Sense_, he censured it because it attacked the English form of
+government. John was for independence because he expected to be made
+great by it; but it was not difficult to perceive, for the surliness of
+his temper makes him an awkward hypocrite, that his head was as full of
+kings, queens, and knaves, as a pack of cards. But John has lost deal.
+
+When a man has a concealed project in his brain that he wants to bring
+forward, and fears will not succeed, he begins with it as physicians
+do by suspected poison, try it first on an animal; if it agree with the
+stomach of the animal, he makes further experiments, and this was the
+way John took. His brain was teeming with projects to overturn the
+liberties of America, and the representative system of government, and
+he began by hinting it in little companies. The secretary of John Jay,
+an excellent painter and a poor politician, told me, in presence of
+another American, Daniel Parker, that in a company where himself was
+present, John Adams talked of making the government hereditary, and that
+as Mr. Washington had no children, it should be made hereditary in the
+family of Lund Washington.(1) John had not impudence enough to propose
+himself in the first instance, as the old French Normandy baron did,
+who offered to come over to be king of America, and if Congress did not
+accept his offer, that they would give him thirty thousand pounds for
+the generosity of it(2); but John, like a mole, was grubbing his way to
+it under ground. He knew that Lund Washington was unknown, for nobody
+had heard of him, and that as the president had no children to succeed
+him, the vice-president had, and if the treason had succeeded, and the
+hint with it, the goldsmith might be sent for to take measure of the
+head of John or of his son for a golden wig. In this case, the good
+people of Boston might have for a king the man they have rejected as a
+delegate. The representative system is fatal to ambition.
+
+     1 See supra footnote on p. 288.--_Editor._
+
+     2 See vol. ii. p. 318 of this work.--_Editor._
+
+Knowing, as I do, the consummate vanity of John Adams, and the
+shallowness of his judgment, I can easily picture to myself that when
+he arrived at the Federal City he was strutting in the pomp of his
+imagination before the presidential house, or in the audience hall, and
+exulting in the language of Nebuchadnezzar, "Is not this great Babylon,
+that I have built for the honour of my Majesty!" But in that unfortunate
+hour, or soon after, John, like Nebuchadnezzar, was driven from among
+men, and fled with the speed of a post-horse.
+
+Some of John Adams's loyal subjects, I see, have been to present him
+with an address on his birthday; but the language they use is too tame
+for the occasion. Birthday addresses, like birthday odes, should not
+creep along like mildrops down a cabbage leaf, but roll in a torrent of
+poetical metaphor. I will give them a specimen for the next year. Here
+it is--
+
+When an Ant, in travelling over the globe, lift up its foot, and put it
+again on the ground, it shakes the earth to its centre: but when YOU,
+the mighty Ant of the East, was born, &c. &c. &c, the centre jumped upon
+the surface.
+
+This, gentlemen, is the proper style of addresses from _well-bred_ ants
+to the monarch of the ant hills; and as I never take pay for preaching,
+praying, politics, or poetry, I make you a present of it. Some people
+talk of impeaching John Adams; but I am for softer measures. I would
+keep him to make fun of. He will then answer one of the ends for which
+he was born, and he ought to be thankful that I am arrived to take his
+part. I voted in earnest to save the life of one unfortunate king, and
+I now vote in jest to save another. It is my fate to be always plagued
+with fools. But to return to Federalism and apostacy.
+
+The plan of the leaders of the faction was to overthrow the liberties
+of the new world, and place government on the corrupt system of the old.
+They wanted to hold their power by a more lasting tenure than the choice
+of their constituents. It is impossible to account for their conduct and
+the measures they adopted on any other ground. But to accomplish that
+object, a standing army and a prodigal revenue must be raised; and to
+obtain these, pretences must be invented to deceive. Alarms of dangers
+that did not exist even in imagination, but in the direct spirit of
+lying, were spread abroad. Apostacy stalked through the land in the garb
+of patriotism, and the torch of treason blinded for a while the flame of
+liberty.
+
+For what purpose could an army of twenty-five thousand men be wanted?
+A single reflection might have taught the most credulous that while
+the war raged between France and England, neither could spare a man to
+invade America. For what purpose, then, could it be wanted? The case
+carries its own explanation. It was wanted for the purpose of destroying
+the representative system, for it could be employed for no other. Are
+these men Federalists? If they are, they are federalized to deceive and
+to destroy.
+
+The rage against Dr. Logan's patriotic and voluntary mission to France
+was excited by the shame they felt at the detection of the false alarms
+they had circulated. As to the opposition given by the remnant of
+the faction to the repeal of the taxes laid on during the former
+administration, it is easily accounted for. The repeal of those taxes
+was a sentence of condemnation on those who laid them on, and in the
+opposition they gave in that repeal, they are to be considered in the
+light of criminals standing on their defence, and the country has passed
+judgment upon them.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+City of Washington, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 19, 1802.
+
+
+
+LETTER III.(1)
+
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 29th, 1802.--_Editor._.
+
+To ELECT, and to REJECT, is the prerogative of a free people.
+
+Since the establishment of Independence, no period has arrived that
+so decidedly proves the excellence of the representative system of
+government, and its superiority over every other, as the time we now
+live in. Had America been cursed with John Adams's _hereditary Monarchy_
+or Alexander Hamilton's _Senate for life_ she must have sought, in the
+doubtful contest of civil war, what she now obtains by the expression of
+public will. An appeal to elections decides better than an appeal to the
+sword.
+
+The Reign of Terror that raged in America during the latter end of the
+Washington administration, and the whole of that of Adams, is enveloped
+in mystery to me. That there were men in the government hostile to the
+representative system, was once their boast, though it is now their
+overthrow, and therefore the fact is established against them. But that
+so large a mass of the people should become the dupes of those who were
+loading them with taxes in order to load them with chains, and deprive
+them of the right of election, can be ascribed only to that species
+of wildfire rage, lighted up by falsehood, that not only acts without
+reflection, but is too impetuous to make any.
+
+There is a general and striking difference between the genuine effects
+of truth itself, and the effects of falsehood believed to be truth.
+Truth is naturally benign; but falsehood believed to be truth is always
+furious. The former delights in serenity, is mild and persuasive, and
+seeks not the auxiliary aid of invention. The latter sticks at nothing.
+It has naturally no morals. Every lie is welcome that suits its purpose.
+It is the innate character of the thing to act in this manner, and the
+criterion by which it may be known, whether in politics or religion.
+When any thing is attempted to be supported by lying, it is presumptive
+evidence that the thing so supported is a lie also. The stock on which a
+lie can be grafted must be of the same species as the graft.
+
+What is become of the mighty clamour of French invasion, and the cry
+that our country is in danger, and taxes and armies must be raised to
+defend it? The danger is fled with the faction that created it, and what
+is worst of all, the money is fled too. It is I only that have committed
+the hostility of invasion, and all the artillery of popguns are prepared
+for action. Poor fellows, how they foam! They set half their own
+partisans in laughter; for among ridiculous things nothing is more
+ridiculous than ridiculous rage. But I hope they will not leave off. I
+shall lose half my greatness when they cease to lie.
+
+So far as respects myself, I have reason to believe, and a right to say,
+that the leaders of the Reign of Terror in America and the leaders of
+the Reign of Terror in France, during the time of Robespierre, were in
+character the same sort of men; or how is it to be accounted for, that
+I was persecuted by both at the same time? When I was voted out of
+the French Convention, the reason assigned for it was, that I was 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 when he proposed bringing me to the tribunal, which
+was like sending me at once to the scaffold, he then assigned a reason,
+and the reason was, _for the interests of America as well as of France,
+"Pour les interets de l'Amerique autant que de la France_" The words are
+in his own hand-writing, and reported to the Convention by the committee
+appointed to examine his papers, and are printed in their report, with
+this reflection added to them, "_Why Thomas Paine more than another?
+Because he contributed to the liberty of both worlds_."(1)
+
+     1 See my "Life of Paine," vol. ii., pp. 79, 81. Also, the
+     historical introduction to XXI., p. 330, of this volume.
+     Robespierre never wrote an idle word. This Paine well knew,
+     as Mirabeau, who said of Robespierre: "That man will go far
+     he believes every word he says."--_Editor._
+
+There must have been a coalition in sentiment, if not in fact, between
+the Terrorists of America and the Terrorists of France, and Robespierre
+must have known it, or he could not have had the idea of putting America
+into the bill of accusation against me. Yet these men, these Terrorists
+of the new world, who were waiting in the devotion of their hearts for
+the joyful news of my destruction, are the same banditti who are now
+bellowing in all the hacknied language of hacknied 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, they cannot eat or drink without me. I serve them
+as a standing dish, and they cannot make up a bill of fare if I am not
+in it.
+
+But there is one dish, and that the choicest of all, that they have not
+presented on the table, and it is time they should. They have not yet
+_accused Providence of Infidelity_. Yet according to their outrageous
+piety, she(1) must be as bad as Thomas Paine; she has protected him in
+all his dangers, patronized him in all his undertakings, encouraged him
+in all his ways, and rewarded him at last by bringing him in safety and
+in health to the Promised Land. This is more than she did by the Jews,
+the chosen people, that they tell us she brought out of the land
+of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; for they all died in the
+wilderness, and Moses 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 with the times, and I by not bending. The other
+survivor joined Robespierre, he was seized and imprisoned in his turn,
+and sentenced to transportation. He has since apologized to me for
+having signed the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger and was
+obliged to do it.(2)
+
+     1 Is this a "survival" of the goddess Fortuna?--_Editor._
+
+     2 Barere.    His apology to Paine proves that a death-
+     warrant had been issued, for Barere did not sign the order
+     for Paine's arrest or imprisonment.--_Editor._
+
+Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jefferson, and a good patriot,
+was my _suppleant_ as member of the Committee of Constitution, that is,
+he was to supply my place, if I had not accepted or had resigned, being
+next in number of votes to me. He was imprisoned in the Luxembourg with
+me, was taken to the tribunal and the guillotine, and I, his principal,
+was left.
+
+There were two foreigners in the Convention, Anarcharsis Clootz 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 was again left. Joel Barlow
+was with us when we went to prison.
+
+Joseph Lebon, one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and who
+made the streets of Arras run with blood, was my _suppleant_, as member
+of the Convention for the department of the Pas de Calais. When I
+was put out of the Convention he came and took my place. When I was
+liberated from prison and voted again into the Convention, he was sent
+to the same prison and took my place there, and he was sent to the
+guillotine instead of me. He supplied my place all the way through.
+
+One hundred and sixty-eight persons were taken out of the Luxembourg
+in one night, and a hundred and sixty of them guillotined next day, of
+which I now 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 was lodged was on the ground floor, and one of a
+long range of rooms under a gallery, and the door of it opened outward
+and flat against the wall; 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 Vanhuele, of Bruges, since
+President of the Municipality of that town, Michael Rubyns, and Charles
+Bastini of Louvain.
+
+When persons by scores and by hundreds were to be taken out of the
+prison for the guillotine it was always done in the night, and those who
+performed that office had a private mark or signal, by which they knew
+what rooms to go to, and what number to take. We, as I have stated, were
+four, and the door of our room was marked, unobserved by us, with that
+number in chalk; but it happened, if happening is a proper word, that
+the mark was put on when the door was open, and flat against the
+wall, and thereby came on the inside when we shut it at night, and the
+destroying angel passed by it.(1) A few days after this, Robespierre
+fell, and Mr. Monroe arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me to his
+house.
+
+     1 Painefs preface to the "Age of Reason" Part IL, and his
+     Letter to Washington (p. 222.) show that for some time after
+     his release from prison he had attributed his escape from
+     the guillotine to a fever which rendered him unconscious at
+     the time when his accusation was demanded by Robespierre;
+     but it will be seen (XXXI.) that he subsequently visited his
+     prison room-mate Vanhuele, who had become Mayor of Bruges,
+     and he may have learned from him the particulars of their
+     marvellous escape. Carlyle having been criticised by John G.
+     Alger for crediting this story of the chalk mark, an
+     exhaustive discussion of the facts took place in the London
+     Athenoum, July 7, 21, August 25, September 1, 1894, in which
+     it was conclusively proved, I think, that there is no reason
+     to doubt the truth of the incident See also my article on
+     Paine's escape, in The Open Court (Chicago), July 26,1894.
+     The discussion in the Athenoum elicited the fact that a
+     tradition had long existed in the family of Sampson Perry
+     that he had shared Paine's cell and been saved by the
+     curious mistake. Such is not the fact. Perry, in his book on
+     the French Revolution, and in his "Argus," told the story of
+     Paine's escape by his illness, as Paine first told it; and
+     he also relates an anecdote which may find place here:
+     "Mr. Paine speaks gratefully of the kindness shown him by his
+     fellow-prisoners of the same chamber during his severe
+     malady, and especially of the skilful and voluntary
+     assistance lent him by General O'Hara's surgeon. He relates
+     an anecdote of himself which may not be unworthy of
+     repeating. An arret of the Committee of Public Welfare had
+     given directions to the administrators of the palace
+     [Luxembourg] to enter all the prisons with additional guards
+     and dispossess every prisoner of his knives, forks, and
+     every other sharp instrument; and also to take their money
+     from them. This happened a short time before Mr. Paine's
+     illness, and as this ceremony was represented to him as an
+     atrocious plunder in the dregs of municipality, he
+     determined to avert its effect so far as it concerned
+     himself. He had an English bank note of some value and gold
+     coin in his pocket, and as he conceived the visitors would
+     rifle them, as well as his trunks (though they did not do so
+     by any one) he took off the lock from his door, and hid the
+     whole of what he had about him in its inside. He recovered
+     his health, he found his money, but missed about three
+     hundred of his associated prisoners, who had been sent in
+     crowds to the murderous tribunal, while he had been
+     insensible of their or his own danger." This was probably
+     the money (L200) loaned by Paine to General O'Hara (who
+     figured at the Yorktown surrender) in prison.--_Editor._
+
+During the whole of my imprisonment, prior to the fall of Robespierre,
+there was no time when I could think my life worth twenty-four hours,
+and my mind was 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 with respect to me. My only hope then rested on the
+government of America, that it would _remember me_. But the icy heart of
+ingratitude, in whatever man it be placed, has neither feeling nor
+sense of honour. The letter of Mr. Jefferson has served to wipe away the
+reproach, and done justice to the mass of the people of America.(1)
+
+     1 Printed in the seventh of this series of Letters.--
+     _Editor._.
+
+When a party was forming, in the latter end of 1777, and beginning of
+1778, of which John Adams was one, to remove Mr. Washington from the
+command of the army on the complaint that _he did nothing_, I wrote the
+fifth number of the Crisis, and published it at Lancaster, (Congress
+then being at Yorktown, in Pennsylvania,) to ward off that meditated
+blow; for though I well knew that the black times of '76 were the
+natural consequence of his want of military judgment in the choice of
+positions into which the army was put about New York and New Jersey, I
+could see no possible advantage, and nothing but mischief, that could
+arise by distracting the army into parties, which would have been the
+case had the intended motion gone on.
+
+General [Charles] Lee, who with a sarcastic genius joined a great fund
+of military knowledge, was perfectly right when he said "_We have no
+business on islands, and in the bottom of bogs, where the enemy, by the
+aid of its ships, can bring its whole force against apart of ours and
+shut it up_." This had like to have been the case at New York, and it
+was the case at Fort Washington, and would have been the case at Fort
+Lee if General [Nathaniel] Greene had not moved instantly off on the
+first news of the enemy's approach. I was with Greene through the whole
+of that affair, and know it perfectly.
+
+But though I came forward in defence of Mr. Washington when he was
+attacked, and made the best that could be made of a series of blunders
+that had nearly ruined the country, he left me to perish when I was in
+prison. But as I told him of it in his life-time, I should not now bring
+it up if the ignorant impertinence of some of the Federal papers, who
+are pushing Mr. Washington forward as their stalking horse, did not make
+it necessary.
+
+That gentleman did not perform his part in the Revolution better, nor
+with more honour, than I did mine, and the one part was as necessary
+as the other. He accepted as a present, (though he was already rich,)
+a hundred thousand acres of land in America, and left me to occupy six
+foot of earth in France.(1) I wish, for his own reputation, he had acted
+with more justice. But it was always known of Mr. Washington, by
+those who best knew him, that he was of such an icy and death-like
+constitution, that he neither loved his friends nor hated his enemies.
+But, be this as it may, I see no reason that a difference between Mr.
+Washington and me should be made a theme of discord with other people.
+There are those who may see merit in both, without making themselves
+partisans of either, and with this reflection I close the subject.
+
+     1 Paine was mistaken, as many others were, about the gifts
+     of Virginia (1785) to Washington. They were 100 shares, of
+     $100 each, in the James River Company, and 50 shares, of
+     L100 each, in the Potomac Company. Washington, accepted on
+     condition that he might appropriate them _to public uses_
+     which was done in his Will.--_Editor._
+
+As to the hypocritical abuse thrown out by the Federalists on other
+subjects, I recommend to them the observance of a commandment that
+existed before either Christian or Jew existed:
+
+     Thou shalt make a covenant with thy senses:
+     With thine eye  that it behold no evil,
+     With thine ear, that it hear no evil,
+     With thy tongue, that it speak no evil,
+     With thy hands, that they commit no evil.
+
+If the Federalists will follow this commandment, they will leave off
+lying.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Nov. 26,1802.
+
+
+
+LETTER IV.(1)
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Dec. 6th. 1802.--_Editor._.
+
+As Congress is on the point of meeting, the public papers will
+necessarily be occupied with the debates of the ensuing session, and
+as, in consequence of my long absence from America, my private affairs
+require my attendance, (for it is necessary I do this, or I could not
+preserve, as I do, my independence,) I shall close my address to the
+public with this letter.
+
+I congratulate them on the success of the late elections, and _that_
+with the additional confidence, that while honest men are chosen and
+wise measures pursued, neither the treason of apostacy, masked under the
+name of Federalism, of which I have spoken in my second letter, nor the
+intrigues of foreign emissaries, acting in concert with that mask, can
+prevail.
+
+As to the licentiousness of the papers calling themselves _Federal_, a
+name that apostacy has taken, it can hurt nobody but the party or the
+persons who support such papers. There is naturally a wholesome pride
+in the public mind that revolts at open vulgarity. It feels itself
+dishonoured even by hearing it, as a chaste woman feels dishonour by
+hearing obscenity she cannot avoid. It can smile at wit, or be diverted
+with strokes of satirical humour, but it detests the _blackguard_. The
+same sense of propriety that governs in private companies, governs in
+public life. If a man in company runs his wit upon another, it may draw
+a smile from some persons present, but as soon as he turns a blackguard
+in his language the company gives him up; and it is the same in public
+life. The event of the late election shows this to be true; for in
+proportion as those papers have become more and more vulgar and abusive,
+the elections have gone more and more against the party they support,
+or that supports them. Their predecessor, _Porcupine_ [Cobbett] had
+wit--these scribblers have none. But as soon as his _blackguardism_ (for
+it is the proper name of it) outran his wit, he was abandoned by every
+body but the English Minister who protected him.
+
+The Spanish proverb says, "_there never was a cover large enough to hide
+itself_"; and the proverb applies to the case of those papers and the
+shattered remnant of the faction that supports them. The falsehoods they
+fabricate, and the abuse they circulate, is a cover to hide something
+from being seen, but it is not large enough to hide itself. It is as
+a tub thrown out to the whale to prevent its attacking and sinking the
+vessel. They want to draw the attention of the public from thinking
+about, or inquiring into, the measures of the late administration, and
+the reason why so much public money was raised and expended; and so far
+as a lie today, and a new one tomorrow, will answer this purpose, it
+answers theirs. It is nothing to them whether they be believed or not,
+for if the negative purpose be answered the main point is answered, to
+them.
+
+He that picks your pocket always tries to make you look another way.
+"Look," says he, "at yon man t'other side the street--what a nose he has
+got?--Lord, yonder is a chimney on fire!--Do you see yon man going along
+in the salamander great coat? That is the very man that stole one of
+Jupiter's satellites, and sold it to a countryman for a gold watch,
+and it set his breeches on fire!" Now the man that has his hand in your
+pocket, does not care a farthing whether you believe what he says or
+not. All his aim is to prevent your looking at _him_; and this is the
+case with the remnant of the Federal faction. The leaders of it have
+imposed upon the country, and they want to turn the attention of it from
+the subject.
+
+In taking up any public matter, I have never made it a consideration,
+and never will, whether it be popular or unpopular; but whether it be
+_right_ or _wrong_. The right will always become the popular, if it has
+courage to show itself, and the shortest way is always a straight line.
+I despise expedients, they are the gutter-hole of politics, and the sink
+where reputation dies. In the present case, as in every other, I
+cannot be accused of using any; and I have no doubt but thousands will
+hereafter be ready to say, as Gouverneur Morris said to me, after having
+abused me pretty handsomely in Congress for the opposition I gave
+the fraudulent demand of Silas Deane of two thousand pounds sterling:
+"_Well, we were all duped, and I among the rest!_"(1)
+
+     1 See vol. I., chapters xxii., xxiii., xxiv., of this work.
+     Also my "Life of Paine," vol. I., ch. ix., x.--_Editor._
+
+Were the late administration to be called upon to give reasons for
+the expence it put the country to, it can give none. The danger of an
+invasion was a bubble that served as a cover to raise taxes and armies
+to be employed on some other purpose. But if the people of America
+believed it true, the cheerfulness with which they supported those
+measures and paid those taxes is an evidence of their patriotism; and
+if they supposed me their enemy, though in that supposition they did me
+injustice, it was not injustice in them. He that acts as he believes,
+though he may act wrong, is not conscious of wrong.
+
+But though there was no danger, no thanks are due to the late
+administration for it. They sought to blow up a flame between the two
+countries; and so intent were they upon this, that they went out of
+their way to accomplish it. In a letter which the Secretary of State,
+Timothy Pickering, wrote to Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul at Paris,
+he broke off from the official subject of his letter, to _thank God_ in
+very exulting language, _that the Russians had cut the French army
+to pieces_. Mr. Skipwith, after showing me the letter, very prudently
+concealed it.
+
+It was the injudicious and wicked acrimony of this letter, and some
+other like conduct of the then Secretary of State, that occasioned me,
+in a letter to a friend in the government, to say, that if there was any
+official business to be done in France, till a regular Minister could
+be appointed, it could not be trusted to a more proper person than Mr.
+Skipwith. "_He is_," said I, "_an honest man, and will do business, and
+that with good manners to the government he is commissioned to act with.
+A faculty which that BEAR, Timothy Pickering, wanted, and which the BEAR
+of that bear, John Adams, never possessed_."(2)
+
+     2 By reference to the letter itself (p. 376 of this volume)
+     it will be seen that Paine here quotes it from memory.--
+     _Editor._ vol III--
+
+In another letter to the same friend, in 1797, and which was put
+unsealed under cover to Colonel Burr, I expressed a satisfaction
+that Mr. Jefferson, since he was not president, had accepted the
+vice presidency; "_for_," said I, "_John Adams has such a talent for
+blundering and offending, it will be necessary to keep an eye over
+him_." He has now sufficiently proved, that though I have not the spirit
+of prophecy, I have the gift of _judging right_. And all the world
+knows, for it cannot help knowing, that to judge _rightly_ and to write
+_clearly_, and that upon all sorts of subjects, to be able to command
+thought and as it were to play with it at pleasure, and be always master
+of one's temper in writing, is the faculty only of a serene mind, and
+the attribute of a happy and philosophical temperament. The scribblers,
+who know me not, and who fill their papers with paragraphs about me,
+besides their want of talents, drink too many slings and drams in a
+morning to have any chance with me. But, poor fellows, they must do
+something for the little pittance they get from their employers. This is
+my apology for them.
+
+My anxiety to get back to America was great for many years. It is the
+country of my heart, and the place of my political and literary birth.
+It was the American revolution that 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. By the accounts I received, she appeared to me to be
+going wrong, and that some meditated treason against her liberties
+lurked at the bottom of her government. I heard that my friends were
+oppressed, and I longed to take my stand among them, and if other times
+to _try mens souls_ were to arrive, that I might bear my share. But my
+efforts to return were ineffectual.
+
+As soon as Mr. Monroe had made a good standing with the French
+government, for the conduct of his predecessor [Morris] had made his
+reception as Minister difficult, he wanted to send despatches to his own
+government by a person to whom he could confide a verbal communication,
+and he fixed his choice on 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 known, I was obliged to sustain the disappointment, and Mr.
+Monroe to lose the opportunity.(1)
+
+When that gentleman left France to return to America, I was to have
+gone with him. It was fortunate I did not. The vessel he sailed in was
+visited by a British frigate, that searched every part of it, and down
+to the hold, for Thomas Paine.(2) I then went, the same year, to embark
+at Havre. But several British frigates were cruizing in sight of the
+port who knew I was there, and I had to return again to Paris. Seeing
+myself thus cut off from every opportunity that was in my power to
+command, I wrote to Mr. Jefferson, 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 would give me the opportunity
+of returning by it, which he did. But I declined coming by the
+_Maryland_, the vessel that was offered me, and waited for the frigate
+that was to bring the new Minister, Mr. Chancellor Livingston, to
+France. But that frigate was ordered round to the Mediterranean; and
+as at that time the war was over, and the British cruisers called in,
+I could come any way. I then agreed to come with Commodore Barney in a
+vessel he had engaged. It was again fortunate I did not, for the vessel
+sank at sea, and the people were preserved in the boat.
+
+     1 The correspondence is in my "Life of Paine," vol. ii.,
+     pp. 154-5.--_Editor._
+
+     2 The "Dublin Packet," Captain Clay, in whom Paine, as he
+     wrote to Jefferson, "had  no confidence."--_Editor._
+
+Had half the number of evils befallen me that the number of dangers
+amount to through which I have been pre-served, there are those who
+would ascribe it to the wrath of heaven; why then do they not ascribe
+my preservation to the protecting favour of heaven? Even in my worldly
+concerns I have been blessed. The little property I left in America,
+and which I cared nothing about, not even to receive the rent of it,
+has been increasing in the value of its capital more than eight hundred
+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. I am in every instance a
+living contradiction to the mortified Federalists.
+
+In my publications, I follow the rule I began with in _Common Sense_,
+that is, to consult nobody, nor to let any body see what I write till
+it appears publicly. Were I to do otherwise, the case would be, that
+between 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 world was a world of babies
+in leading strings, I should get forward with nothing. My path is a
+right line, as straight and clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness
+(if they will have it to be so) with which I speak on any subject, is a
+compliment to the judgment of the reader. It is like saying to him,
+_I treat you as a man and not as a child_. With respect to any worldly
+object, as it is impossible to discover 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 happiness of man is at stake, I love
+to work for nothing; and so fully am I under the influence of this
+principle, that I should lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride
+of it, were I conscious that I looked for reward; and with this
+declaration, I take my leave for the present.(1)
+
+     1 The self-assertion of this and other letters about this
+     time was really self-defence, the invective against him, and
+     the calumnies, being such as can hardly be credited by those
+     not familiar with the publications of that time.--_Editor._
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Dec. 3, 1802.
+
+
+
+LETTER V.(1)
+
+     1 The National Intelligencer, Feb., 1803. In the Tarions
+     collections of these Letters there appears at this point a
+     correspondence between Paine and Samuel Adams of Boston, but
+     as it relates to religious matters I reserve it for the
+     fourth volume.--_Editor._.
+
+It is always the interest of a far greater part of the nation to have
+a thing right than to have it wrong; and therefore, in a country whose
+government is founded on the system of election and representation, the
+fate of every party is decided by its principles.
+
+As this system is the only form and principle of government by which
+liberty can be preserved, and the only one that can embrace all the
+varieties of a great extent of country, it necessarily follows, that to
+have the representation real, the election must be real; and that where
+the election is a fiction, the representation is a fiction also. _Like
+will always produce like_.
+
+A great deal has been said and written concerning the conduct of Mr.
+Burr, during the late contest, in the federal legislature, whether Mr.
+Jefferson or Mr. Burr should be declared President of the United States.
+Mr. Burr has been accused of intriguing to obtain the Presidency.
+Whether this charge be substantiated or not makes little or no part of
+the purport of this letter. There is a point of much higher importance
+to attend to than any thing that relates to the individual Mr. Burr: for
+the great point is not whether Mr. Burr has intrigued, but whether the
+legislature has intrigued with _him_.
+
+Mr. Ogden, a relation of one of the senators of New Jersey of the same
+name, and of the party assuming the style of Federalists, has written
+a letter published in the New York papers, signed with his name, the
+purport of which is to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charges brought
+against him. In this letter he says:
+
+"When about to return from Washington, two or three _members of
+Congress_ of the federal party spoke to me of _their views_, as to the
+election of a president, desiring me to converse with Colonel Burr on
+the subject, and to ascertain _whether he would enter into terms_. On my
+return to New York I called on Colonel Burr, and communicated the above
+to him. He explicitly declined the explanation, and _did neither propose
+nor agree to any terms_."
+
+How nearly is human cunning allied to folly! The animals to whom nature
+has given the faculty we call _cunning_, know always when to use it,
+and use it wisely; but when man descends to cunning, he blunders and
+betrays.
+
+Mr. Ogden's letter is intended to exculpate Mr. Burr from the charge
+of intriguing to obtain the presidency; and the letter that he (Ogden)
+writes for this purpose is direct evidence against his party in
+Congress, that they intrigued with Burr to obtain him for President,
+and employed him (Ogden) for the purpose. To save _Aaron_, he betrays
+_Moses_, and then turns informer against the _Golden Calf_.
+
+It is but of little importance to the world to know if Mr. Burr
+_listened_ to an intriguing proposal, but it is of great importance to
+the constituents to know if their representatives in Congress made one.
+The ear can commit no crime, but the tongue may; and therefore the right
+policy is to drop Mr. Burr, as being only the hearer, and direct the
+whole charge against the Federal faction in Congress as the active
+original culprit, or, if the priests will have scripture for it, as the
+serpent that beguiled Eve.
+
+     1 In the presidential canvas of 1800, the votes in the
+     electoral college being equally divided between Burr and
+     Jefferson, the election was thrown into the House of
+     Representatives. Jefferson was elected on the 36th ballot,
+     but he never forgave Burr, and between these two old friends
+     Paine had to write this letter under some embarrassment. The
+     last paragraph of this Letter shows Paine's desire for a
+     reconciliation between Burr and Jefferson. Aaron Burr is one
+     of the traditionally slandered figures of American history.
+     --_Editor._
+
+The plot of the intrigue was to make Mr. Burr President, on the private
+condition of his agreeing to, and entering into, terms with them, that
+is, with the proposers. Had then the election been made, the country,
+knowing nothing of this private and illegal transaction, would have
+supposed, for who could have supposed otherwise, that it had a President
+according to the forms, principles, and intention of the constitution.
+No such thing. Every form, principle, and intention of the constitution
+would have been violated; and instead of a President, it would have had
+a mute, a sort of image, hand-bound and tongue-tied, the dupe and slave
+of a party, placed on the theatre of the United States, and acting the
+farce of President.
+
+It is of little importance, in a constitutional sense, to know what the
+terms to be proposed might be, because any terms other than those which
+the constitution prescribes to a President are criminal. Neither do I
+see how Mr. Burr, or any other person put in the same condition, could
+have taken the oath prescribed by the constitution to a President, which
+is, "_I do solemnly swear (or affirm,) that I will faithfully execute
+the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of
+my ability preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United
+States_."
+
+How, I ask, could such a person have taken such an oath, knowing at the
+same time that he had entered into the Presidency on terms unknown
+in the Constitution, and private, and which would deprive him of the
+freedom and power of acting as President of the United States, agreeably
+to his constitutional oath?
+
+Mr. Burr, by not agreeing to terms, has escaped the danger to which
+they exposed him, and the perjury that would have followed, and also
+the punishment annexed thereto. Had he accepted the Presidency on
+terms unknown in the constitution, and private, and had the transaction
+afterwards transpired, (which it most probably would, for roguery is a
+thing difficult to conceal,) it would have produced a sensation in the
+country too violent to be quieted, and too just to be resisted; and in
+any case the election must have been void.
+
+But what are we to think of those members of Congress, who having taken
+an oath of the same constitutional import as the oath of the President,
+violate that oath by tampering to obtain a President on private
+conditions. If this is not sedition against the constitution and the
+country, it is difficult to define what sedition in a representative can
+be.
+
+Say not that this statement of the case is the effect of personal or
+party resentment. No. It is the effect of _sincere concern_ that such
+corruption, of which this is but a sample, should, in the space of a few
+years, have crept into a country that had the fairest opportunity that
+Providence ever gave, within the knowledge of history, of making itself
+an illustrious example to the world.
+
+What the terms were, or were to be, it is probable we never shall know;
+or what is more probable, that feigned ones, if any, will be given. But
+from the conduct of the party since that time we may conclude, that no
+taxes would have been taken off, that the clamour for war would have
+been kept up, new expences incurred, and taxes and offices increased
+in consequence; and, among the articles of a private nature, that
+the leaders in this seditious traffic were to stipulate with the mock
+President for lucrative appointments for themselves.
+
+But if these plotters against the Constitution understood their
+business, and they had been plotting long enough to be masters of it, a
+single article would have comprehended every thing, which is, _That the
+President (thus made) should be governed in all cases whatsoever by a
+private junto appointed by themselves_. They could then, through the
+medium of a mock President, have negatived all bills which their
+party in Congress could not have opposed with success, and reduced
+representation to a nullity.
+
+The country has been imposed upon, and the real culprits are but few;
+and as it is necessary for the peace, harmony, and honour of the Union,
+to separate the deceiver from the deceived, the betrayer from the
+betrayed, that men who once were friends, and that in the worst of
+times, should be friends again, it is necessary, as a beginning, that
+this dark business be brought to full investigation. Ogden's letter
+is direct evidence of the fact of tampering to obtain a conditional
+President. He knows the two or three members of Congress that
+commissioned him, and they know who commissioned them.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+Federal City, Lovett's Hotel, Jan. 29th, 1803.
+
+
+
+LETTER VI.(1)
+
+     1 The Aurora (Philadelphia).--_Editor._.
+
+Religion and War is the cry of the Federalists; Morality and Peace the
+voice of Republicans. The union of Morality and Peace is congenial;
+but that of Religion and War is a paradox, and the solution of it is
+hypocrisy.
+
+The leaders of the Federalists have no judgment; their plans no
+consistency of parts; and want of consistency is the natural consequence
+of want of principle.
+
+They exhibit to the world the curious spectacle of an _Opposition_
+without a _cause_, and conduct without system. Were they, as doctors,
+to prescribe medicine as they practise politics, they would poison their
+patients with destructive compounds.
+
+There are not two things more opposed to each other than War and
+Religion; and yet, in the double game those leaders have to play, the
+one is necessarily the theme of their politics, and the other the text
+of their sermons. The week-day orator of Mars, and the Sunday preacher
+of Federal Grace, play like gamblers into each other's hands, and this
+they call Religion.
+
+Though hypocrisy can counterfeit every virtue, and become the associate
+of every vice, it requires a great dexterity of craft to give it the
+power of deceiving. A painted sun may glisten, but it cannot warm. For
+hypocrisy to personate virtue successfully it must know and feel what
+virtue is, and as it cannot long do this, it cannot long deceive.
+When an orator foaming for War breathes forth in another sentence a
+_plaintive piety of words_, he may as well write hypocrisy on his front.
+
+The late attempt of the Federal leaders in Congress (for they acted
+without the knowledge of their constituents) to plunge the country into
+War, merits not only reproach but indignation. It was madness, conceived
+in ignorance and acted in wickedness. The head and the heart went
+partners in the crime.
+
+A neglect of punctuality in the performance of a treaty is made
+a _cause_ of war by the _Barbary powers_, and of remonstrance and
+explanation by _civilised powers_. The Mahometans of Barbary negociate
+by the sword--they seize first, and ex-postulate afterwards; and the
+federal leaders have been labouring to _barbarize_ the United States by
+adopting the practice of the Barbary States, and this they call honour.
+Let their honour and their hypocrisy go weep together, for both are
+defeated. Their present Administration is too moral for hypocrites, and
+too economical for public spendthrifts.
+
+A man the least acquainted with diplomatic affairs must know that a
+neglect in punctuality is not one of the legal causes of war, unless
+that neglect be confirmed by a refusal to perform; and even then it
+depends upon circumstances connected with it. The world would be in
+continual quarrels and war, and commerce be annihilated, if Algerine
+policy was the law of nations. And were America, instead of becoming an
+example to the old world of good and moral government and civil manners,
+or, if they like it better, of gentlemanly conduct towards other
+nations, to set up the character of ruffian, that of _word and blow, and
+the blow first_, and thereby give the example of pulling down the little
+that civilization has gained upon barbarism, her Independence, instead
+of being an honour and a blessing, would become a curse upon the world
+and upon herself.
+
+The conduct of the Barbary powers, though unjust in principle, is suited
+to their prejudices, situation, and circumstances. The crusades of the
+church to exterminate them fixed in their minds the unobliterated belief
+that every Christian power was their mortal enemy. Their religious
+prejudices, therefore, suggest the policy, which their situation and
+circumstances protect them in. As a people, they are neither commercial
+nor agricultural, they neither import nor export, have no property
+floating on the seas, nor ships and cargoes in the ports of foreign
+nations. No retaliation, therefore, can be acted upon them, and they sin
+secure from punishment.
+
+But this is not the case with the United States. If she sins as a
+Barbary power, she must answer for it as a Civilized one. Her commerce
+is continually passing on the seas exposed to capture, and her ships
+and cargoes in foreign ports to detention and reprisal. An act of War
+committed by her in the Mississippi would produce a War against the
+commerce of the Atlantic States, and the latter would have to curse the
+policy that provoked the former. In every point, therefore, in which the
+character and interest of the United States be considered, it would
+ill become her to set an example contrary to the policy and custom of
+Civilized powers, and practised only by the Barbary powers, that of
+striking before she expostulates.
+
+But can any man, calling himself a Legislator, and supposed by his
+constituents to know something of his duty, be so ignorant as to imagine
+that seizing on New Orleans would finish the affair or even contribute
+towards it? On the contrary it would have made it worse. The treaty
+right of deposite at New Orleans, and the right of the navigation of the
+Mississippi into the Gulph of Mexico, are distant things. New Orleans is
+more than an hundred miles in the country from the mouth of the river,
+and, as a place of deposite, is of no value if the mouth of the river be
+shut, which either France or Spain could do, and which our possession
+of New Orleans could neither prevent or remove. New Orleans in our
+possession, by an act of hostility, would have become a blockaded
+port, and consequently of no value to the western people as a place of
+deposite. Since, therefore, an interruption had arisen to the commerce
+of the western states, and until the matter could be brought to a fair
+explanation, it was of less injury to have the port shut and the river
+open, than to have the river shut and the port in our possession.
+
+That New Orleans could be taken required no stretch of policy to plan,
+nor spirit of enterprize to effect. It was like marching behind a man to
+knock him down: and the dastardly slyness of such an attack would have
+stained the fame of the United States. Where there is no danger cowards
+are bold, and Captain Bobadils are to be found in the Senate as well
+as on the stage. Even _Gouverneur_, on such a march, dare have shown a
+leg.(1)
+
+     1 Gouverneur Morris being now leader of the belligerent
+     faction in Congress, Paine could not resist the temptation
+     to allude to a well-known incident (related in his Diary and
+     Letters, i., p. 14). A mob in Paris having surrounded his
+     fine carriage, crying "Aristocrat!" Morris showed his
+     wooden leg, declaring he had lost his leg in the cause of
+     American liberty. Morris was never in any fight, his leg
+     being lost by a commonplace accident while driving in
+     Philadelphia. Although Paine's allusion may appear in bad
+     taste, even with this reference, it was politeness itself
+     compared with the brutal abuse which Morris (not content
+     with imprisoning Paine in Paris) and his adherents were
+     heaping on the author on his return to America; also on
+     Monroe, whom Jefferson had returned to France to negotiate
+     for the purchase of Louisiana.--_Editor._,
+
+The people of the western country to whom the Mississippi serves as
+an inland sea to their commerce, must be supposed to understand the
+circumstances of that commerce better than a man who is a stranger to
+it; and as they have shown no approbation of the war-whoop measures of
+the Federal senators, it becomes presumptive evidence they disapprove
+them. This is a new mortification for those war-whoop politicians; for
+the case is, that finding themselves losing ground and withering away in
+the Atlantic States, they laid hold of the affair of New Orleans in the
+vain hope of rooting and reinforcing themselves in the western States;
+and they did this without perceiving that it was one of those ill judged
+hypocritical expedients in politics, that whether it succeeded or failed
+the event would be the same. Had their motion [that of Ross and Morris]
+succeeded, it would have endangered the commerce of the Atlantic States
+and ruined their reputation there; and on the other hand the attempt
+to make a tool of the western people was so badly concealed as to
+extinguish all credit with them.
+
+But hypocrisy is a vice of sanguine constitution. It flatters and
+promises itself every thing; and it has yet to learn, with respect to
+moral and political reputation, it is less dangerous to offend than to
+deceive.
+
+To the measures of administration, supported by the firmness and
+integrity of the majority in Congress, the United States owe, as far as
+human means are concerned, the preservation of peace, and of national
+honour. The confidence which the western people reposed in the
+government and their representatives is rewarded with success. They are
+reinstated in their rights with the least possible loss of time; and
+their harmony with the people of New Orleans, so necessary to the
+prosperity of the United States, which would have been broken, and the
+seeds of discord sown in its place, had hostilities been preferred to
+accommodation, remains unimpaired. Have the Federal ministers of the
+church meditated on these matters? and laying aside, as they ought to
+do, their electioneering and vindictive prayers and sermons, returned
+thanks that peace is preserved, and commerce, without the stain of
+blood?
+
+In the pleasing contemplation of this state of things the mind, by
+comparison, carries itself back to those days of uproar and extravagance
+that marked the career of the former administration, and decides, by
+the unstudied impulse of its own feelings, that something must then have
+been wrong. Why was it, that America, formed for happiness, and remote
+by situation and circumstances from the troubles and tumults of the
+European world, became plunged into its vortex and contaminated with its
+crimes? The answer is easy. Those who were then at the head of affairs
+were apostates from the principles of the revolution. Raised to an
+elevation they had not a right to expect, nor judgment to conduct,
+they became like feathers in the air, and blown about by every puff of
+passion or conceit.
+
+Candour would find some apology for their conduct if want of judgment
+was their only defect. But error and crime, though often alike in their
+features, are distant in their characters and in their origin. The one
+has its source in the weakness of the head, the other in the hardness
+of the heart, and the coalition of the two, describes the former
+Administration.(1)
+
+     1 That of John Adams.--_Editor._
+
+Had no injurious consequences arisen from the conduct of that
+Administration, it might have passed for error or imbecility, and
+been permitted to die and be forgotten. The grave is kind to innocent
+offence. But even innocence, when it is a cause of injury, ought to
+undergo an enquiry.
+
+The country, during the time of the former Administration, was kept in
+continual agitation and alarm; and that no investigation might be made
+into its conduct, it entrenched itself within a magic circle of terror,
+and called it a SEDITION LAW.(1) Violent and mysterious in its measures
+and arrogant in its manners, it affected to disdain information, and
+insulted the principles that raised it from obscurity. John Adams and
+Timothy Pickering were men whom nothing but the accidents of the times
+rendered visible on the political horizon. Elevation turned their heads,
+and public indignation hath cast them to the ground. But an inquiry
+into the conduct and measures of that Administration is nevertheless
+necessary.
+
+The country was put to great expense. Loans, taxes, and standing armies
+became the standing order of the day. The militia, said Secretary
+Pickering, are not to be depended upon, and fifty thousand men must be
+raised. For what? No cause to justify such measures has yet appeared. No
+discovery of such a cause has yet been made. The pretended Sedition Law
+shut up the sources of investigation, and the precipitate flight of John
+Adams closed the scene. But the matter ought not to sleep here.
+
+It is not to gratify resentment, or encourage it in others, that I enter
+upon this subject. It is not in the power of man to accuse me of a
+persecuting spirit. But some explanation ought to be had. The motives
+and objects respecting the extraordinary and expensive measures of the
+former Administration ought to be known. The Sedition Law, that shield
+of the moment, prevented it then, and justice demands it now. If the
+public have been imposed upon, it is proper they should know it; for
+where judgment is to act, or a choice is to be made, knowledge is first
+necessary. The conciliation of parties, if it does not grow out of
+explanation, partakes of the character of collusion or indifference.
+
+     1 Passed July 14, 1798, to continue until March 3, 1801.
+     This Act, described near the close of this Letter, and one
+     passed June 35th, giving the President despotic powers over
+     aliens in the United States, constituted the famous "Alien
+     and Sedition Laws." Hamilton opposed them, and rightly saw
+     in them the suicide of the Federal party.--_Editor._,
+
+There has been guilt somewhere; and it is better to fix it where
+it belongs, and separate the deceiver from the deceived, than that
+suspicion, the bane of society, should range at large, and sour the
+public mind. The military measures that were proposed and carrying on
+during the former administration, could not have for their object the
+defence of the country against invasion. This is a case that decides
+itself; for it is self evident, that while the war raged in Europe,
+neither France nor England could spare a man to send to America. The
+object, therefore, must be something at home, and that something was the
+overthrow of the representative system of government, for it could be
+nothing else. But the plotters got into confusion and became enemies to
+each other. Adams hated and was jealous of Hamilton, and Hamilton hated
+and despised both Adams and Washington.(1) Surly Timothy stood aloof, as
+he did at the affair of Lexington, and the part that fell to the public
+was to pay the expense.(2)
+
+     1 Hamilton's bitter pamphlet against Adams appeared in 1800,
+     but his old quarrel with Washington (1781) had apparently
+     healed. Yet, despite the favors lavished by Washington on
+     Hamilton, there is no certainty that the latter ever changed
+     his unfavorable opinion of the former, as expressed in a
+     letter to General Schuylor, Feb. 18, 1781 (Lodge's
+     "Hamilton's Works," vol. viii., p. 35).--_Editor._
+
+     2 Colonel Pickering's failure, in 1775, to march his Salem
+     troops in time to intercept the British retreat from
+     Lexington was attributed to his half-heartedness
+     in the patriotic cause.--_Editor._
+
+But ought a people who, but a few years ago, were fighting the battles
+of the world, for liberty had no home but here, ought such a people
+to stand quietly by and see that liberty undermined by apostacy
+and overthrown by intrigue? Let the tombs of the slain recall their
+recollection, and the forethought of what their children are to be
+revive and fix in their hearts the love of liberty.
+
+If the former administration can justify its conduct, give it the
+opportunity. The manner in which John Adams disappeared from the
+government renders an inquiry the more necessary. He gave some account
+of himself, lame and confused as it was, to certain _eastern wise men_
+who came to pay homage to him on his birthday. But if he thought it
+necessary to do this, ought he not to have rendered an account to
+the public. They had a right to expect it of him. In that tete-a-tete
+account, he says, "Some measures were the effect of imperious necessity,
+much against my inclination." What measures does Mr. Adams mean, and
+what is the imperious necessity to which he alludes? "Others (says he)
+were measures of the Legislature, which, although approved when passed,
+were never previously proposed or recommended by me." What measures,
+it may be asked, were those, for the public have a right to know the
+conduct of their representatives? "Some (says he) left to my discretion
+were never executed, because no necessity for them, in my judgment, ever
+occurred."
+
+What does this dark apology, mixed with accusation, amount to, but
+to increase and confirm the suspicion that something was wrong?
+Administration only was possessed of foreign official information,
+and it was only upon that information communicated by him publicly or
+privately, or to Congress, that Congress could act; and it is not in
+the power of Mr. Adams to show, from the condition of the belligerent
+powers, that any imperious necessity called for the warlike and
+expensive measures of his Administration.
+
+What the correspondence between Administration and Rufus King in London,
+or Quincy Adams in Holland, or Berlin, might be, is but little known.
+The public papers have told us that the former became cup-bearer from
+the London underwriters to Captain Truxtun,(1) for which, as Minister
+from a neutral nation, he ought to have been censured. It is, however,
+a feature that marks the politics of the Minister, and hints at the
+character of the correspondence.
+
+     1 Thomas Truxtun (1755-1822), for having captured the French
+     frigate "L'Insurgente," off Hen's Island, 1799, was
+     presented at Lloyd's coffee-house with plate to the value of
+     600 guineas. Rufus King (1755-1827), made Minister to England
+     in 1796, continued under Adams, and for two years under
+     Jefferson's administration.--_Editor._
+
+I know that it is the opinion of several members of both houses of
+Congress, that an enquiry, with respect to the conduct of the late
+Administration, ought to be gone into. The convulsed state into which
+the country has been thrown will be best settled by a full and fair
+exposition of the conduct of that Administration, and the causes and
+object of that conduct. To be deceived, or to remain deceived, can be
+the interest of no man who seeks the public good; and it is the deceiver
+only, or one interested in the deception, that can wish to preclude
+enquiry.
+
+The suspicion against the late Administration is, that it was plotting
+to overturn the representative system of government, and that it spread
+alarms of invasions that had no foundation, as a pretence for raising
+and establishing a military force as the means of accomplishing that
+object.
+
+The law, called the Sedition Law, enacted, that if any person should
+write or publish, or cause to be written or published, any libel
+[without defining what a libel is] against the Government of the United
+States, or either house of congress, or against the President, he
+should be punished by a fine not exceeding two thousand dollars, and by
+imprisonment not exceeding two years.
+
+But it is a much greater crime for a president to plot against a
+Constitution and the liberties of the people, than for an individual to
+plot against a President; and consequently, John Adams is accountable to
+the public for his conduct, as the individuals under his administration
+were to the sedition law.
+
+The object, however, of an enquiry, in this case, is not to punish, but
+to satisfy; and to shew, by example, to future administrations, that an
+abuse of power and trust, however disguised by appearances, or rendered
+plausible by pretence, is one time or other to be accounted for.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+BORDENTOWN, ON THE DELAWARE,
+
+New Jersey, March 12, 1803. vol. III--27
+
+
+
+LETTER VII.
+
+     EDITOR'S PREFACE.
+
+     This letter was printed in _The True American_, Trenton, New
+     Jersey, soon after Paine's return to his old home at
+     Bordenton. It is here printed from the original manuscript,
+     for which I am indebted to Mr. W. F. Havemeyer of New York.
+     Although the Editor has concluded to present Paine's
+     "Maritime Compact" in the form he finally gave it, the
+     articles were printed in French in 1800, and by S. H. Smith,
+     Washington, at the close of the same year. There is an
+     interesting history connected with it. John Hall, in his
+     diary ("Trenton, 20 April, 1787") relates that Paine told
+     him of Dr. Franklin, whom he (Paine) had just visited in
+     Philadelphia,  and the Treaty he, the Doctor, made with the
+     late King of Prussia by adding an article that, should war
+     ever break out, Commerce should be free. The Doctor said he
+     showed it to Vergennes, who said it met his idea, and was
+     such as he would make even with England. In his Address to
+     the People of France, 1797 (see p. 366), Paine closes with a
+     suggestion on the subject, and a year later (September 30,
+     1798), when events were in a critical condition, he sent
+     nine articles of his proposed _Pacte Maritime_ to
+     Talleyrand, newly appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. The
+     letters that passed are here taken from the originals (State
+     Archives, Paris, Etats Unis, vol. 48).
+
+
+"Rue Theatre francaise, No. 4, 9 Vendemaire, 6 year.
+
+"Citizen Minister: I promised you some observations on the state of
+things between France and America. I divide the case into two parts.
+First, with respect to some Method that shall effectually put an end to
+all interruptions of the American Commerce. Secondly, with respect to
+the settlement for the captures that have been made on that Commerce.
+
+"As to the first case (the interruption of the American Commerce
+by France) it has foundation in the British Treaty, and it is the
+continuance of that treaty that renders the remedy difficult. Besides,
+the American administration has blundered so much in the business of
+treaty-making, that it is probable it will blunder again in making
+another with France. There is, however, one method left, and there is
+but one that I can see, that will be effectual. It is a _non-importation
+Convention; that America agrees not to import from any Nation in Europe
+who shall interrupt her Commerce on the seas, any goods, wares, or
+merchandize whatever, and that all her ports shall be shut against
+the Nation that gives the offence_. This will draw America out of her
+difficulties with respect to her treaty with England.
+
+"But it will be far better if this non-importation convention were to
+be a general convention of Nations acting as a Whole. It would give a
+better protection to Neutral Commerce than the armed neutrality could
+do. I would rather be a Neutral Nation under the protection of such a
+Convention, which costs nothing to make it, than be under the protection
+of a navy equal to that of Great Britain. France should be the patron of
+such a Convention and sign it. It would be giving both her consent and
+her protection to the Rights of Neutral Nations. If England refuse to
+sign it she will nevertheless be obliged to respect it, or lose all her
+Commerce.
+
+"I enclose you a plan I drew up about four months ago, when there was
+expectation that Mr. Madison would come to France. It has lain by me
+ever since.
+
+"The second part, that of settlement for the captures, I will make the
+subject of a future correspondence. Salut et respect."
+
+
+Talleyrand's Reply ("Foreign Relations, 15 Vendemaire An. 6," Oct.
+6, 1797): "I have the honor to return you, Citizen, with very sincere
+thanks, your Letter to General Washington which you have had the
+goodness to show me.
+
+"I have received the letter which you have taken the trouble to write
+me, the 9th of this month. I need not assure you of the appreciation
+with which I shall receive the further indications you promise on the
+means of terminating in a durable manner the differences which must
+excite your interest as a patriot and as a Republican. Animated by
+such a principle your ideas cannot fail to throw valuable light on the
+discussion you open, and which should have for its object to reunite the
+two Republics in whose alienation the enemies of liberty triumph."
+
+Paine's plan made a good impression in France--He writes to Jefferson,
+October 6, 1800, that the Consul Le Brun, at an entertainment given to
+the American envoys, gave for his toast: "A l'union de 1' Amerique avec
+les Puissances du Nord pour faire respecter la liberte des mers."
+
+The malignant mind, like the jaundiced eye, sees everything through a
+false medium of its own creating. The light of heaven appears stained
+with yellow to the distempered sight of the one, and the fairest actions
+have the form of crimes in the venomed imagination of the other.
+
+For seven months, both before and after my return to America in October
+last, the apostate papers styling themselves "Federal" were filled with
+paragraphs and Essays respecting a letter from Mr. Jefferson to me at
+Paris; and though none of them knew the contents of the letter, nor the
+occasion of writing it, malignity taught them to suppose it, and the
+lying tongue of injustice lent them its aid.
+
+That the public may no longer be imposed upon by Federal apostacy, I
+will now publish the Letter, and the occasion of its being written.
+
+The Treaty negociated in England by John Jay, and ratified by the
+Washington Administration, had so disgracefully surrendered the right
+and freedom of the American flag, that all the Commerce of the
+United States on the Ocean became exposed to capture, and suffered in
+consequence of it. The duration of the Treaty was limited to two years
+after the war; and consequently America could not, during that period,
+relieve herself from the Chains which the Treaty had fixed upon her.
+This being the case, the only relief that could come must arise out of
+something originating in Europe, that would, in its consequences, extend
+to America. It had long been my opinion that Commerce contained within
+itself the means of its own protection; but as the time for bringing
+forward any new system is not always happening, it is necessary to watch
+its approach, and lay hold of it before it passes away.
+
+As soon as the late Emperor Paul of Russia abandoned his coalition with
+England and become a Neutral Power, this Crisis of time, and also of
+circumstances, was then arriving; and I employed it in arranging a plan
+for the protection of the Commerce of Neutral Nations during War,
+that might, in its operation and consequences, relieve the Commerce of
+America. The Plan, with the pieces accompanying it, consisted of
+about forty pages. The Citizen Bonneville, with whom I lived in Paris,
+translated it into French; Mr. Skipwith, the American Consul, Joel
+Barlow, and myself, had the translation printed and distributed as
+a present to the Foreign Ministers of all the Neutral Nations then
+resident in Paris. This was in the summer of 1800.
+
+It was entitled Maritime Compact (in French _Pacte Maritime_), The plan,
+exclusive of the pieces that accompanied it, consisted of the following
+Preamble and Articles.
+
+
+MARITIME COMPACT.
+
+Being an Unarmed Association of Nations for the protection of the Rights
+and Commerce of Nations that shall be neutral in time of War.
+
+Whereas, the Vexations and Injuries to which the Rights and Commerce of
+Neutral Nations have been, and continue to be, exposed during the time
+of maritime War, render it necessary to establish a law of Nations for
+the purpose of putting an end to such vexations and Injuries, and to
+guarantee to the Neutral Nations the exercise of their just Rights,
+
+We, therefore, the undersigned Powers, form ourselves into an
+Association, and establish the following as a Law of Nations on the
+Seas.
+
+ARTICLE THE FIRST. Definition of the Rights of neutral Nations.
+
+The Rights of Nations, such as are exercised by them in their
+intercourse with each other in time of Peace, are, and of right ought to
+be, the Rights of Neutral Nations at all times; because,
+
+First, those Rights not having been abandoned by them, remain with them.
+
+Secondly, because those Rights cannot become forfeited or void, in
+consequence of War breaking out between two or more other Nations.
+
+A War of Nation against Nation being exclusively the act of the Nations
+that make the War, and not the act of the Neutral Nations, cannot,
+whether considered in itself or in its consequences, destroy or diminish
+the Rights of the Nations remaining in Peace.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE SECOND.
+
+The Ships and Vessels of Nations that rest neuter and at Peace with the
+World during a War with other Nations, have a Right to navigate freely
+on the Seas as they navigated before that War broke out, and to proceed
+to and enter the Port or Ports of any of the Belligerent Powers, _with
+the consent of that Power_, without being seized, searched, visited, or
+any ways interrupted, by the Nation or Nations with which that Nation is
+at War.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE THIRD.
+
+For the Conservation of the aforesaid Rights, We, the undersigned
+Powers, engaging to each other our Sacred Faith and Honour, declare,
+
+That if any Belligerent Power shall seize, search, visit, or any ways
+interrupt any Ship or Vessel belonging to the Citizens or Subjects of
+any of the Powers composing this Association, then each and all of the
+said undersigned Powers will cease to import, and will not permit to
+be imported into the Ports or Dominions of any of the said undersigned
+Powers, in any Ship or Vessel whatever, any Goods, wares, or
+Merchandize, produced or manufactured in, or exported from, the
+Dominions of the Power so offending against the Association hereby
+established and Proclaimed.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE FOURTH.
+
+That all the Ports appertaining to any and all of the Powers composing
+this Association shall be shut against the Flag of the offending Nation.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE FIFTH.
+
+That no remittance or payment in Money, Merchandize, or Bills of
+Exchange, shall be made by any of the Citizens, or Subjects, of any of
+the Powers composing this Association, to the Citizens or Subjects of
+the offending Nation, for the Term of one year, or until reparation
+be made. The reparation to be ---- times the amount of the damages
+sustained.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE SIXTH.
+
+If any Ship or Vessel appertaining to any of the Citizens or Subjects of
+any of the Powers composing this Association shall be seized, searched,
+visited, or interrupted, by any Belligerent Nation, or be forcibly
+prevented entering the Port of her destination, or be seized, searched,
+visited, or interrupted, in coming out of such Port, or be forcibly
+prevented from proceeding to any new destination, or be insulted or
+visited by any Agent from on board any Vessel of any Belligerent Power,
+the Government or Executive Power of the Nation to which the Ship or
+Vessel so seized, searched, visited, or interrupted belongs, shall, on
+evidence of the fact, make public Proclamation of the same, and send
+a Copy thereof to the Government, or Executive, of each of the Powers
+composing this Association, who shall publish the same in all the extent
+of his Dominions, together with a Declaration, that at the expiration
+of ---- days after publication, the penal articles of this Association
+shall be put in execution against the offending Nation.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE SEVENTH.
+
+If reparation be not made within the space of one year, the said
+Proclamation shall be renewed for one year more, and so on.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE EIGHTH.
+
+The Association chooses for itself a Flag to be carried at the Mast-head
+conjointly with the National Flag of each Nation composing this
+Association.
+
+The Flag of the Association shall be composed of the same colors as
+compose the Rainbow, and arranged in the same order as they appear in
+that Phenomenon.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE NINTH.
+
+And whereas, it may happen that one or more of the Nations composing
+this Association may be, at the time of forming it, engaged in War or
+become so in future, in that case, the Ships and Vessels of such Nation
+shall carry the Flag of the Association bound round the Mast, to denote
+that the Nation to which she belongs is a Member of the Association and
+a respecter of its Laws.
+
+N. B. This distinction in the manner of carrying the Flag is mearly for
+the purpose, that Neutral Vessels having the Flag at the Mast-head, may
+be known at first sight.
+
+
+ARTICLE THE TENTH.
+
+And whereas, it is contrary to the moral principles of Neutrality and
+Peace, that any Neutral Nation should furnish to the Belligerent Powers,
+or any of them, the means of carrying on War against each other, We,
+therefore, the Powers composing this Association, Declare, that we
+will each one for itself, prohibit in our Dominions the exportation or
+transportation of military stores, comprehending gunpowder, cannon, and
+cannon-balls, fire arms of all kinds, and all kinds of iron and steel
+weapons used in War. Excluding therefrom all kinds of Utensils and
+Instruments used in civil or domestic life, and every other article that
+cannot, in its immediate state, be employed in War.
+
+Having thus declared the moral Motives of the foregoing Article, We
+declare also the civil and political Intention thereof, to wit,
+
+That as Belligerent Nations have no right to visit or search any Ship or
+Vessel belonging to a Nation at Peace, and under the protection of
+the Laws and Government thereof, and as all such visit or search is an
+insult to the Nation to which such Ship or Vessel belongs and to
+the Government of the same, We, therefore, the Powers composing this
+Association, will take the right of prohibition on ourselves to whom it
+properly belongs, and by whom only it can be legally exercised, and
+not permit foreign Nations, in a state of War, to usurp the right of
+legislating by Proclamation for any of the Citizens or Subjects of the
+Powers composing this Association.
+
+It is, therefore, in order to take away all pretence of search or visit,
+which by being offensive might become a new cause of War, that we will
+provide Laws and publish them by Proclamation, each in his own Dominion,
+to prohibit the supplying, or carrying to, the Belligerent Powers,
+or either of them, the military stores or articles before mentioned,
+annexing thereto a penalty to be levied or inflicted upon any persons
+within our several Dominions transgressing the same. And we invite all
+Persons, as well of the Belligerent Nations as of our own, or of
+any other, to give information of any knowledge they may have of
+any transgressions against the said Law, that the offenders may be
+prosecuted.
+
+By this conduct we restore the word Contraband (_contra_ and _ban_) to
+its true and original signification, which means against Law, edict, or
+Proclamation; and none but the Government of a Nation can have, or can
+exercise, the right of making Laws, edicts, or Proclamations, for the
+conduct of its Citizens or Subjects.
+
+Now We, the undersigned Powers, declare the aforesaid Articles to be a
+Law of Nations at all times, or until a Congress of Nations shall meet
+to form some Law more effectual.
+
+And we do recommend that immediately on the breaking out of War between
+any two or more Nations, that Deputies be appointed by all Neutral
+Nations, whether members of this Association or not, to meet in Congress
+in some central place to take cognizance of any violations of the Rights
+of Neutral Nations.
+
+Signed, &c.
+
+
+For the purpose of giving operation to the aforesaid plan of an _unarmed
+Association_, the following Paragraph was subjoined:
+
+It may be judged proper for the order of Business, that the Association
+of Nations have a President for a term of years, and the Presidency to
+pass by rotation, to each of the parties composing the Association.
+
+In that case, and for the sake of regularity, the first President to
+be the Executive power of the most northerly Nation composing the
+Association, and his deputy or Minister at the Congress to be President
+of the Congress,--and the next most northerly to be Vice-president, who
+shall succeed to the Presidency, and so on. The line determining the
+Geographical situation of each, to be the latitude of the Capital of
+each Nation.
+
+If this method be adopted it will be proper that the first President
+be nominally constituted in order to give rotation to the rest. In that
+case the following Article might be added to the foregoing, viz't. The
+Constitution of the Association nominates the Emperor Paul to be _first
+President_ of the Association of Nations for the protection of Neutral
+Commerce, and securing the freedom of the Seas.
+
+
+The foregoing plan, as I have before mentioned, was presented to the
+Ministers of all the Neutral Nations then in Paris, in the summer of
+1800. Six Copies were given to the Russian General Springporten; and a
+Russian Gentleman who was going to Petersburgh took two expressly for
+the purpose of putting them into the hands of Paul I sent the original
+manuscript, in my own handwriting, to Mr. Jefferson, and also wrote him
+four Letters, dated the 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th of October, 1800, giving
+him an account of what was then going on in Europe respecting Neutral
+Commerce.
+
+The Case was, that in order to compel the English Government to
+acknowledge the rights of Neutral Commerce, and that free Ships make
+free Goods, the _Emperor Paul_, in the month of September following the
+publication of the plan, shut all the Ports of Russia against England.
+Sweden and Denmark did the same by their Ports, and Denmark shut up
+Hamburgh. Prussia shut up the Elbe and the Weser. The ports of Spain,
+Portugal, and Naples were shut up, and, in general, all the ports of
+Italy, except Venice, which the Emperor of Germany held; and had it not
+been for the untimely death of Paul, a _Law of Nations_, founded on the
+authority of Nations, for establishing the rights of Neutral Commerce
+and the freedom of the Seas, would have been proclaimed, and the
+Government of England must have consented to that Law, or the Nation
+must have lost its Commerce; and the consequence to America would have
+been, that such a Law would, in a great measure if not entirely, have
+released her from the injuries of Jay's Treaty.
+
+Of all these matters I informed Mr. Jefferson. This was before he was
+President, and the Letter he wrote me after he was President was in
+answer to those I had written to him and the manuscript Copy of the plan
+I had sent here. Here follows the Letter:
+
+
+Washington, March 18, 1801. Dear Sir:
+
+Your letters of Oct. 1st, 4th, 6th, 16th, came duly to hand, and the
+papers which they covered were, according to your permission, published
+in the Newspapers, and in a Pamphlet, and under your own name. These
+papers contain precisely our principles, and I hope they will be
+generally recognized here. _Determined as we are to avoid, if possible,
+wasting the energies of our People in war and destruction, we shall
+avoid implicating ourselves with the Powers of Europe, even in support
+of principles which we mean to pursue. They have so many other Interests
+different from ours that we must avoid being entangled in them. We
+believe we can enforce those principles as to ourselves by Peaceable
+means, now that we are likely to have our Public Councils detached from
+foreign views. The return of our citizens from the phrenzy into which
+they had been wrought, partly by ill conduct in France, partly by
+artifices practiced upon them, is almost extinct, and will, I believe,
+become quite so_, But these details, too minute and long for a Letter,
+will be better developed by Mr. Dawson, the Bearer of this, a Member of
+the late Congress, to whom I refer you for them. He goes in the Maryland
+Sloop of War, which will wait a few days at Havre to receive his Letters
+to be written on his arrival at Paris. You expressed a wish to get a
+passage to this Country in a Public Vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with
+orders to the Captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you
+back if you can be ready to depart at such a short warning. Rob't R.
+Livingston is appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the Republic of
+France, but will not leave this, till we receive the ratification of
+the Convention by Mr. Dawson. I am in hopes you will find us returned
+generally to sentiments worthy of former times. In these it will be
+your glory to have steadily laboured and with as much effect as any man
+living. That you may long live to continue your useful Labours and to
+reap the reward in the thankfulness of Nations is my sincere prayer.
+Accept assurances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.
+
+Thomas Jefferson.
+
+
+This, Citizens of the United States, is the Letter about which the
+leaders and tools of the Federal faction, without knowing its contents
+or the occasion of writing it, have wasted so many malignant falsehoods.
+It is a Letter which, on account of its wise economy and peaceable
+principles, and its forbearance to reproach, will be read by every good
+Man and every good Citizen with pleasure; and the faction, mortified at
+its appearance, will have to regret they forced it into publication. The
+least atonement they can now offer is to make the Letter as public as
+they have made their own infamy, and learn to lie no more.
+
+The same injustice they shewed to Mr. Jefferson they shewed to me. I
+had employed myself in Europe, and at my own expense, in forming and
+promoting a plan that would, in its operation, have benefited the
+Commerce of America; and the faction here invented and circulated an
+account in the papers they employ, that I had given a plan to the French
+for burning all the towns on the Coast from Savannah to Baltimore. Were
+I to prosecute them for this (and I do not promise that I will not, for
+the Liberty of the Press is not the liberty of lying,) there is not a
+federal judge, not even one of Midnight appointment, but must, from the
+nature of the case, be obliged to condemn them. The faction, however,
+cannot complain they have been restrained in any thing. They have had
+their full swing of lying uncontradicted; they have availed themselves,
+unopposed, of all the arts Hypocrisy could devise; and the event has
+been, what in all such cases it ever will and ought to be, _the ruin of
+themselves_.
+
+The Characters of the late and of the present Administrations are now
+sufficiently marked, and the adherents of each keep up the distinction.
+The former Administration rendered itself notorious by outrage,
+coxcombical parade, false alarms, a continued increase of taxes, and an
+unceasing clamor for War; and as every vice has a virtue opposed to
+it, the present Administration moves on the direct contrary line.
+The question, therefore, at elections is not properly a question upon
+Persons, but upon principles. Those who are for Peace, moderate taxes,
+and mild Government, will vote for the Administration that conducts
+itself by those principles, in whatever hands that Administration may
+be.
+
+There are in the United States, and particularly in the middle States,
+several religious Sects, whose leading moral principle is PEACE. It is,
+therefore, impossible that such Persons, consistently with the dictates
+of that principle, can vote for an Administration that is clamorous
+for War. When moral principles, rather than Persons, are candidates for
+Power, to vote is to perform a moral duty, and not to vote is to neglect
+a duty.
+
+That persons who are hunting after places, offices, and contracts,
+should be advocates for War, taxes, and extravagance, is not to be
+wondered at; but that so large a portion of the People who had nothing
+to depend upon but their Industry, and no other public prospect but that
+of paying taxes, and bearing the burden, should be advocates for the
+same measures, is a thoughtlessness not easily accounted for. But reason
+is recovering her empire, and the fog of delusion is clearing away.
+
+Thomas Paine.
+
+BORDENTOWN, ON THE DELAWARE,
+
+New Jersey, April 21, 1803.(1)
+
+
+     1 Endorsed: "Sent by Gen. Bloomfield per Mr. Wilson for Mr.
+     Duane." And, in a later hand: "Paine Letter 6. Found among
+     the Bartram Papers sent by Col. Carr."--Editor.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV. TO THE FRENCH INHABITANTS OF LOUISIANA.(1)
+
+     1 In a letter to Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury
+     (Oct 14, 1804), John Randolph of Roanoke proposed "the
+     printing of -- thousand copies of Tom Paine's answer to
+     their remonstrance, and transmitting them by as many
+     thousand troops, who can speak a language perfectly
+     intelligible to the people of Louisiana, whatever that of
+     their government may be," The purchase of Louisiana was
+     announced to the Senate by President Jefferson, October 17,
+     1803.--Editor.
+
+A publication having the appearance of a memorial and remonstrance, to
+be presented to Congress at the ensuing session, has appeared in several
+papers. It is therefore open to examination, and I offer you my remarks
+upon it. The title and introductory paragraph are as follows:
+
+"_To the Congress of the United States in the Senate and House of
+Representatives convened_: We the subscribers, planters, merchants, and
+other inhabitants of Louisiana, respectfully approach the legislature
+of the United States with a memorial of _our rights_, a remonstrance
+against certain laws which contravene them, and a petition for
+that redress to which the laws of nature, sanctioned by positive
+stipulations, have entitled us."
+
+It often happens that when one party, or one that thinks itself a party,
+talks much about its rights, it puts those of the other party upon
+examining into their own, and such is the effect produced by your
+memorial.
+
+A single reading of that memorial will show it is the work of some
+person who is not of your people. His acquaintance with the cause,
+commencement, progress, and termination of the American revolution,
+decides this point; and his making our merits in that revolution the
+ground of your claims, as if our merits could become yours, show she
+does not understand your situation.
+
+We obtained our rights by calmly understanding principles, and by the
+successful event of a long, obstinate, and expensive war. But it is
+not incumbent on us to fight the battles of the world for the world's
+profit. You are already participating, without any merit or expense in
+obtaining it, the blessings of freedom acquired by ourselves; and in
+proportion as you become initiated into the principles and practice of
+the representative system of government, of which you have yet had no
+experience, you will participate more, and finally be partakers of the
+whole. You see what mischief ensued in France by the possession of power
+before they understood principles. They earned liberty in words, but
+not in fact. The writer of this was in France through the whole of
+the revolution, and knows the truth of what he speaks; for after
+endeavouring to give it principle, he had nearly fallen a victim to its
+rage.
+
+There is a great want of judgment in the person who drew up your
+memorial. He has mistaken your case, and forgotten his own; and by
+trying to court your applause has injured your pretensions. He has
+written like a lawyer, straining every point that would please his
+client, without studying his advantage. I find no fault with the
+composition of the memorial, for it is well written; nor with the
+principles of liberty it contains, considered in the abstract. The error
+lies in the misapplication of them, and in assuming a ground they have
+not a right to stand upon. Instead of their serving you as a ground of
+reclamation against us, they change into a satire on yourselves. Why
+did you not speak thus when you ought to have spoken it? We fought for
+liberty when you stood quiet in slavery.
+
+The author of the memorial injudiciously confounding two distinct
+cases together, has spoken as if he was the memorialist of a body of
+Americans, who, after sharing equally with us in all the dangers and
+hardships of the revolutionary war, had retired to a distance and made
+a settlement for themselves. If, in such a situation, Congress had
+established a temporary government over them, in which they were not
+personally consulted, they would have had a right to speak as the
+memorial speaks. But your situation is different from what the situation
+of such persons would be, and therefore their ground of reclamation
+cannot of right become yours. You are arriving at freedom by the easiest
+means that any people ever enjoyed it; without contest, without expense,
+and even without any contrivance of your own. And you already so far
+mistake principles, that under the name of _rights_ you ask for _powers;
+power to import and enslave Africans_; and _to govern_ a territory that
+_we have purchased_.
+
+To give colour to your memorial, you refer to the treaty of cession, (in
+which _you were not_ one of the contracting parties,) concluded at Paris
+between the governments of the United States and France.
+
+"The third article" you say "of the treaty lately concluded at
+Paris declares, that the inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be
+incorporated in the union of the United States, and admitted _as soon as
+possible, according to the principles_ of the Federal Constitution, to
+the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens
+of the United States; and _in the mean time_, they shall be protected
+in the enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the exercise of the
+religion they profess."
+
+As from your former condition, you cannot be much acquainted with
+diplomatic policy, and I am convinced that even the gentleman who
+drew up the memorial is not, I will explain to you the grounds of this
+article. It may prevent your running into further errors.
+
+The territory of Louisiana had been so often ceded to different European
+powers, that it became a necessary article on the part of France,
+and for the security of Spain, the ally of France, and which accorded
+perfectly with our own principles and intentions, that it should be
+_ceded no more_; and this article, stipulating for the incorporation of
+Louisiana into the union of the United States, stands as a bar against
+all future cession, and at the same time, as well as "_in the mean
+time_" secures to you a civil and political permanency, personal
+security and liberty which you never enjoyed before.
+
+France and Spain might suspect, (and the suspicion would not have been
+ill-founded had the cession been treated for in the administration of
+John Adams, or when Washington was president, and Alexander Hamilton
+president over him,) that we _bought_ Louisiana for the British
+government, or with a view of selling it to her; and though such
+suspicion had no just ground to stand upon with respect to our present
+president, Thomas Jefferson, who is not only not a man of intrigue but
+who possesses that honest pride of principle that cannot be intrigued
+with, and which keeps intriguers at a distance, the article was
+nevertheless necessary as a precaution against future contingencies.
+But you, from not knowing the political ground of the article, apply
+to yourselves _personally_ and _exclusively_, what had reference to the
+_territory_, to prevent its falling into the hands of any foreign
+power that might endanger the [establishment of] _Spanish_ dominion in
+America, or those of the _French_ in the West India Islands.
+
+You claim, (you say), to be incorporated into the union of the United
+States, and your remonstrances on this subject are unjust and without
+cause.
+
+You are already _incorporated_ into it as fully and effectually as the
+Americans themselves are, who are settled in Louisiana. You enjoy the
+same rights, privileges, advantages, and immunities, which they
+enjoy; and when Louisiana, or some part of it, shall be erected into a
+constitutional State, you also will be citizens equal with them.
+
+You speak in your memorial, as if you were the only people who were
+to live in Louisiana, and as if the territory was purchased that
+you exclusively might govern it. In both these cases you are greatly
+mistaken. The emigrations from the United States into the purchased
+territory, and the population arising therefrom, will, in a few years,
+exceed you in numbers. It is but twenty-six years since Kentucky
+began to be settled, and it already contains more than _double_ your
+population.
+
+In a candid view of the case, you ask for what would be injurious to
+yourselves to receive, and unjust in us to grant. _Injurious_, because
+the settlement of Louisiana will go on much faster under the government
+and guardianship of Congress, then if the government of it were
+committed to _your_ hands; and consequently, the landed property
+you possessed as individuals when the treaty was concluded, or have
+purchased since, will increase so much faster in value.--_Unjust to
+ourselves_, because as the reimbursements of the purchase money must
+come out of the sale of the lands to new settlers, the government of it
+cannot suddenly go out of the hands of Congress. They are guardians of
+that property for _all the people of the United States_. And besides
+this, as the new settlers will be chiefly from the United States, it
+would be unjust and ill policy to put them and their property under the
+jurisdiction of a people whose freedom they had contributed to purchase.
+You ought also to recollect, that the French Revolution has not
+exhibited to the world that grand display of principles and rights, that
+would induce settlers from other countries to put themselves under a
+French jurisdiction in Louisiana. Beware of intriguers who may push you
+on from private motives of their own.
+
+You complain of two cases, one of which you have _no right_, no concern
+with; and the other is founded in direct injustice.
+
+You complain that Congress has passed a law to divide the country
+into two territories. It is not improper to inform you, that after the
+revolutionary war ended, Congress divided the territory acquired by
+that war into ten territories; each of which was to be erected into a
+constitutional State, when it arrived at a certain population mentioned
+in the Act; and, in the mean time, an officer appointed by the
+President, as the Governor of Louisiana now is, presided, as Governor
+of the Western Territory, over all such parts as have not arrived at
+the maturity of _statehood_. Louisiana will require to be divided
+into twelve States or more; but this is a matter that belongs to _the
+purchaser_ of the territory of Louisiana, and with which the inhabitants
+of the town of New-Orleans have no right to interfere; and beside this,
+it is probable that the inhabitants of the other territory would choose
+to be independent of New-Orleans. They might apprehend, that on some
+speculating pretence, their produce might be put in requisition, and a
+maximum price put on it--a thing not uncommon in a French government.
+As a general rule, without refining upon sentiment, one may put
+confidence in the justice of those who have no inducement to do us
+injustice; and this is the case Congress stands in with respect to both
+territories, and to all other divisions that may be laid out, and to all
+inhabitants and settlers, of whatever nation they may be.
+
+There can be no such thing as what the memorial speaks of, that is, _of
+a Governor appointed by the President who may have no interest in the
+welfare of Louisiana_. He must, from the nature of the case, have more
+interest in it than any other person can have. He is entrusted with the
+care of an extensive tract of country, now the property of the United
+States by purchase. The value of those lands will depend on the
+increasing prosperity of Louisiana, its agriculture, commerce, and
+population. You have only a local and partial interest in the town of
+New-Orleans, or its vicinity; and if, in consequence of exploring the
+country, new seats of commerce should offer, his general interest would
+lead him to open them, and your partial interest to shut them up.
+
+There is probably some justice in your remark, as it applies to the
+governments under which you _formerly_ lived. Such governments
+always look with jealousy, and an apprehension of revolt, on colonies
+increasing in prosperity and population, and they send governors to
+_keep them down_. But when you argue from the conduct of governments
+_distant and despotic_, to that of _domestic_ and _free_ government, it
+shows you do not understand the principles and interest of a Republic,
+and to put you right is friendship. We have had experience, and you have
+not.
+
+The other case to which I alluded, as being founded in direct injustice,
+is that in which you petition for _power_, under the name of _rights_,
+to import and enslave Africans!
+
+_Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power, without fearing
+to be struck from the earth by its justice?_
+
+_Why, then, do you ask it of man against man?_
+
+_Do you want to renew in Louisiana the horrors of Domingo?_
+
+
+Common Sense.
+
+Sept 22, 1804.
+
+
+END OF VOLUME III.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume
+III., by Thomas Paine
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