Soon after Paine had taken his seat in the Convention, Lord Fortescue
wrote to Miles, an English agent in Paris, a letter fairly expressive of
the feelings, fears, and hopes of his class.
"Tom Paine is just where he ought to be--a member of the Convention of
Cannibals. One would have thought it impossible that any society upon
the face of the globe should have been fit for the reception of such a
being until the late deeds of the National Convention have shown them to
be most fully qualified. His vocation will not be complete, nor theirs
either, till his head finds its way to the top of a pike, which will
probably not be long first."*
* This letter, dated September 26, 1792, appears in the
Miles Correspondence (London, 1890). There are indications
that Miles was favorably disposed towards Paine, and on that
account, perhaps, was subjected to influence by his
superiors. As an example of the way in which just minds were
poisoned towards Paine, a note of Miles may be mentioned. He
says he was "told by Col. Bosville, a declared friend of
Paine, that his manners and conversation were coarse, and he
loved the brandy bottle." But just as this Miles
Correspondence was appearing in London, Dr. Grece found the
manuscript diary of Rickman, who had discovered (as two
entries show) that this "declared friend of Paine," Col.
Bosville, and professed friend of himself, was going about
uttering injurious falsehoods concerning him (Rickman),
seeking to alienate his friends at the moment when he most
needed them. Rickman was a bookseller engaged in circulating
Paine's works. There is little doubt that this wealthy Col.
Bosville was at the time unfriendly to the radicals. He was
staying in Paris on Paine's political credit, while
depreciating him.
But if Paine was so fit for such a Convention, why should they behead
him? The letter betrays a real perception that Paine possesses humane
principles, and an English courage, which would bring him into danger.
This undertone of Fortescue's invective represented the profound
confidence of Paine's adherents in England, When tidings came of the
King's trial and execution, whatever glimpses they gained of their
outlawed leader showed him steadfast as a star caught in one wave and
another of that turbid tide. Many, alas, needed apologies, but Paine
required none. That one Englishman, standing on the tribune for justice
and humanity, amid three hundred angry Frenchmen in uproar, was as
sublime a sight as Europe witnessed in those days. To the English
radical the outlawry of Paine was as the tax on light, which was
presently walling up London windows, or extorting from them the means of
war against ideas.* The trial of Paine had elucidated nothing, except
that, like Jupiter, John Bull had the thunderbolts, and Paine the
arguments. Indeed, it is difficult to discover any other Englishman who
at the moment pre-eminently stood for principles now proudly called
English.
* In a copy of the first edition of "The Rights of Man,"
which I bought in London, I found, as a sort of book-mark, a
bill for 1L. 6s. 8d., two quarters' window-tax, due from Mr.
Williamson, Upper Fitzroy Place. Windows closed with bricks
are still seen in some of the gloomiest parts of London.
I have in manuscript a bitter anathema of the time:
"God made the Light, and saw that it was good: Pitt laid a
tax on it,--G---- d------ his blood!"
But Paine too presently held thunderbolts. Although his efforts to save
Louis had offended the "Mountain," and momentarily brought him into
the danger Lord Fortescue predicted, that party was not yet in the
ascendant. The Girondists were still in power, and though some of their
leaders had bent before the storm, that they might not be broken, they
had been impressed both by the courage and the tactics of Paine. "The
Girondists consulted Paine," says Lamartine, "and placed him on the
Committee of Surveillance." At this moment many Englishmen were in
France, and at a word from Paine some of their heads might have mounted
on the pike which Lord Fortescue had imaginatively prepared for the head
that wrote "The Rights of Man." There remained, for instance, Mr. Munro,
already mentioned. This gentleman, in a note preserved in the English
Archives, had written to Lord Grenville (September 8, 1792) concerning
Paine: "What must a nation come to that has so little discernment in
the election of their representatives, as to elect such a fellow?"
But having lingered in Paris after England's formal declaration of war
(February 11th), Munro was cast into prison. He owed his release to that
"fellow" Paine, and must be duly credited with having acknowledged it,
and changed his tone for the rest of his life,--which he probably owed
to the English committeeman. Had Paine met with the fate which Lords
Gower and Fortescue hoped, it would have gone hard with another eminent
countryman of theirs,--Captain Grimstone, R.A. This personage, during a
dinner party at the Palais Egalite, got into a controversy with Paine,
and, forgetting that the English Jove could not in Paris safely answer
argument with thunder, called Paine a traitor to his country and struck
him a violent blow. Death was the penalty of striking a deputy, and
Paine's friends were not unwilling to see the penalty inflicted on this
stout young Captain who had struck a man of fifty-six. Paine had much
trouble in obtaining from Barrere, of the Committee of Public Safety,
a passport out of the country for Captain Grimstone, whose travelling
expenses were supplied by the man he had struck.
In a later instance, related by Walter Savage Landor, Paine's generosity
amounted to quixotism. The story is finely told by Landor, who says in a
note: "This anecdote was communicated to me at Florence by Mr. Evans,
a painter of merit, who studied under Lawrence, and who knew personally
(Zachariah) Wilkes and Watt. In religion and politics he differed widely
from Paine."
"Sir," said he, "let me tell you what he did for me. My name is
Zachariah Wilkes. I was arrested in Paris and condemned to die. I had
no friend here; and it was a time when no friend would have served
me: Robespierre ruled. 'I am innocent!' I cried in desperation. 'I am
innocent, so help me God! I am condemned for the offence of another.'
I wrote a statement of my case with a pencil; thinking at first of
addressing it to my judge, then of directing it to the president of the
Convention. The jailer, who had been kind to me, gave me a gazette, and
told me not to mind seeing my name, so many were there before it.
"'O!' said I 'though you would not lend me your ink, do transmit this
paper to the president.'
"'No, my friend!' answered he gaily. 'My head is as good as yours, and
looks as well between the shoulders, to my liking. Why not send it (if
you send it anywhere) to the deputy Paine here?' pointing to a column in
the paper.
"'O God! he must hate and detest the name of Englishman: pelted,
insulted, persecuted, plundered...'
"'I could give it to him,' said the jailer.
"'Do then!' said I wildly. 'One man more shall know my innocence.' He
came within the half hour. I told him my name, that my employers were
Watt and Boulton of Birmingham, that I had papers of the greatest
consequence, that if I failed to transmit them, not only my life was
in question, but my reputation. He replied: 'I know your employers by
report only; there are no two men less favourable to the principles I
profess, but no two upon earth are honester. You have only one great
man among you: it is Watt; for Priestley is gone to America. The
church-and-king men would have japanned him. He left to these
philosophers of the rival school his house to try experiments on; and
you may know, better than I do, how much they found in it of carbon and
calx, of silex and argilla.'
"He examined me closer than my judge had done; he required my proofs.
After a long time I satisfied him. He then said, 'The leaders of the
Convention would rather have my life than yours. If by any means I can
obtain your release on my own security, will you promise me to return
within twenty days?' I answered, 'Sir, the security I can at present
give you, is trifling... I should say a mere nothing.'
"'Then you do not give me your word?' said he.
"'I give it and will redeem it.'
"He went away, and told me I should see him again when he could inform
me whether he had succeeded. He returned in the earlier part of the
evening, looked fixedly upon me, and said, 'Zachariah Wilkes! if you
do not return in twenty-four days (four are added) you will be the most
unhappy of men; for had you not been an honest one, you could not be
the agent of Watt and Boulton. I do not think I have hazarded much in
offering to take your place on your failure: such is the condition.' I
was speechless; he was unmoved. Silence was first broken by the jailer.
'He seems to get fond of the spot now he must leave it.' I had thrown my
arms upon the table towards my liberator, who sat opposite, and I rested
my head and breast upon it too, for my temples ached and tears had not
yet relieved them. He said, 'Zachanah! follow me to the carriage.' The
soldiers paid the respect due to his scarf, presenting arms, and drawing
up in file as we went along. The jailer called for a glass of wine, gave
it me, poured out another, and drank to our next meeting."*
Another instance may be related in Paine's own words, written (March 20,
1806) to a gentleman in New York.
"Sir,--I will inform you of what I know respecting General Miranda, with
whom I first became acquainted at New York, about the year 1783. He is a
man of talents and enterprise, and the whole of his life has been a life
of adventures.
"I went to Europe from New York in April, 1787. Mr. Jefferson was then
Minister from America to France, and Mr. Littlepage, a Virginian
(whom Mr. Jay knows), was agent for the king of Poland, at Paris. Mr.
Littlepage was a young man of extraordinary talents, and I first met
with him at Mr. Jefferson's house at dinner. By his intimacy with
the king of Poland, to whom also he was chamberlain, he became well
acquainted with the plans and projects of the Northern Powers of Europe.
He told me of Miranda's getting himself introduced to the Empress
Catharine of Russia, and obtaining a sum of money from her, four
thousand pounds sterling; but it did not appear to me what the object
was for which the money was given; it appeared a kind of retaining fee.
"After I had published the first part of the 'Rights of Man' in England,
in the year 1791, I met Miranda at the house of Turnbull and Forbes,
merchants, Devonshire Square, London. He had been a little before this
in the employ of Mr. Pitt, with respect to the affair of Nootka Sound,
but I did not at that time know it; and I will, in the course of this
letter, inform you how this connection between Pitt and Miranda ended;
for I know it of my own knowledge.
* Zachanah Wilkes did not fail to return, or Paine to greet
him with safety, and the words, "There is yet English blood
in England." But here Landor passes off into an imaginative
picture of villages rejoicing at the fall of Robespierre.
Paine himself had then been in prison seven months; so we
can only conjecture the means by which Zachariah was
liberated.--Lander's Works, London, 1853, i., p. 296.
"I published the second part of the 'Rights of Man' in London, in
February, 1792, and I continued in London till I was elected a member of
the French Convention, in September of that year; and went from London
to Paris to take my seat in the Convention, which was to meet the 20th
of that month. I arrived in Paris on the 19th. After the Convention met,
Miranda came to Paris, and was appointed general of the French army,
under General Dumouriez. But as the affairs of that army went wrong in
the beginning of the year 1793, Miranda was suspected, and was brought
under arrest to Paris to take his trial. He summoned me to appear to his
character, and also a Mr. Thomas Christie, connected with the house of
Turnbull and Forbes. I gave my testimony as I believed, which was, that
his leading object was and had been the emancipation of his country,
Mexico, from the bondage of Spain; for I did not at that time know of
his engagements with Pitt Mr. Christie's evidence went to show that
Miranda did not come to France as a necessitous adventurer; but believed
he came from public-spirited motives, and that he had a large sum of
money in the hands of Turnbull and Forbes. The house of Turnbull and
Forbes was then in a contract to supply Paris with flour. Miranda was
acquitted.
"A few days after his acquittal he came to see me, and in a few days
afterwards I returned his visit. He seemed desirous of satisfying me
that he was independent, and that he had money in the hands of Turnbull
and Forbes. He did not tell me of his affair with old Catharine of
Russia, nor did I tell him that I knew of it. But he entered into
conversation with respect to Nootka Sound, and put into my hands several
letters of Mr. Pitt's to him on that subject; amongst which was one
which I believe he gave me by mistake, for when I had opened it, and was
beginning to read it, he put forth his hand and said, 'O, that is not
the letter I intended'; but as the letter was short I soon got through
with it, and then returned it to him without making any remarks upon it.
The dispute with Spain was then compromised; and Pitt compromised with
Miranda for his services by giving him twelve hundred pounds sterling,
for this was the contents of the letter.
"Now if it be true that Miranda brought with him a credit upon certain
persons in New York for sixty thousand pounds sterling, it is not
difficult to suppose from what quarter the money came; for the opening
of any proposals between Pitt and Miranda was already made by the affair
of Nootka Sound. Miranda was in Paris when Mr. Monroe arrived there as
Minister; and as Miranda wanted to get acquainted with him, I cautioned
Mr. Monroe against him, and told him of the affair of Nootka Sound, and
the twelve hundred pounds.
"You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter, and with
my name to it."
Here we find a paid agent of Pitt calling on outlawed Paine for aid,
by his help liberated from prison; and, when his true character is
accidentally discovered, and he is at the outlaw's mercy, spared,--no
doubt because this true English ambassador, who could not enter England,
saw that at the moment passionate vengeance had taken the place of
justice in Paris. Lord Gower had departed, and Paine must try and shield
even his English enemies and their agents, where, as in Miranda's case,
the agency did not appear to affect France. This was while his friends
in England were hunted down with ferocity.
In the earlier stages of the French Revolution there was much sympathy
with it among literary men and in the universities. Coleridge, Southey,
Wordsworth, were leaders in the revolutionary cult at Oxford and
Cambridge. By 1792, and especially after the institution of Paine's
prosecution, the repression became determined. The memoir of Thomas
Poole, already referred to, gives the experiences of a Somerset
gentleman, a friend of Coleridge. After the publication of Paine's
"Rights of Man" (1791) he became a "political Ishmaelite." "He made
his appearance amongst the wigs and powdered locks of his kinsfolk and
acquaintance, male and female, without any of the customary powder in
his hair, which innocent novelty was a scandal to all beholders, seeing
that it was the outward and visible sign of a love of innovation, a
well-known badge of sympathy with democratic ideas."
Among Poole's friends, at Stowey, was an attorney named Symes, who
lent him Paine's "Rights of Man." After Paine's outlawry Symes met a
cabinet-maker with a copy of the book, snatched it out of his hand, tore
it up, and, having learned that it was lent him by Poole, propagated
about the country that he (Poole) was distributing seditious literature
about the country. Being an influential man, Poole prevented the burning
of Paine in effigy at Stowey. As time goes on this country-gentleman
and scholar finds the government opening his letters, and warning his
friends that he is in danger.
"It was," he writes to a friend, "the boast an Englishman was wont to
make that he could think, speak, and write whatever he thought proper,
provided he violated no law, nor injured any individual. But now an
absolute controul exists, not indeed over the imperceptible operations
of the mind, for those no power of man can controul; but, what is the
same thing, over the effects of those operations, and if among these
effects, that of speaking is to be checked, the soul is as much enslaved
as the body in a cell of the Bastille. The man who once feels, nay
fancies, this, is a slave. It shows as if the suspicious secret
government of an Italian Republic had replaced the open, candid
government of the English laws."
As Thomas Poole well represents the serious and cultured thought of
young England in that time, it is interesting to read his judgment on
the king's execution and the imminent war.
"Many thousands of human beings will be sacrificed in the ensuing
contest, and for what? To support three or four individuals, called
arbitrary kings, in the situation which they have usurped. I consider
every Briton who loses his life in the war us much murdered as the
King of France, and every one who approves the war, as signing the
death-warrant of each soldier or sailor that falls.... The excesses
in France are great; but who are the authors of them? The Emperor of
Germany, the King of Prussia, and Mr. Burke. Had it not been for their
impertinent interference, I firmly believe the King of France would be
at this moment a happy monarch, and that people would be enjoying every
advantage of political liberty.... The slave-trade, you will see, will
not be abolished, because to be humane and honest now is to be a traitor
to the constitution, a lover of sedition and licentiousness! But this
universal depression of the human mind cannot last long."
It was in this spirit that the defence of a free press was undertaken
in England. That thirty years' war was fought and won on the works of
Paine. There were some "Lost Leaders": the kings execution, the reign
of terror, caused reaction in many a fine spirit; but the rank and file
followed their Thomas Paine with a faith that crowned heads might envy.
The London men knew Paine thoroughly. The treasures of the world would
not draw him, nor any terrors drive him, to the side of cruelty
and inhumanity. Their eye was upon him. Had Paine, after the king's
execution, despaired of the republic there might have ensued some
demoralization among his followers in London. But they saw him by the
side of the delivered prisoner of the Bastille, Brissot, an author well
known in England, by the side of Condorcet and others of Franklin's
honored circle, engaged in death-struggle with the fire-breathing dragon
called "The Mountain." That was the same unswerving man they had been
following, and to all accusations against the revolution their answer
was--Paine is still there! A reign of terror in England followed
the outlawry of Paine. Twenty-four men, at one time or another, were
imprisoned, fined, or transported for uttering words concerning abuses
such as now every Englishman would use concerning the same. Some who
sold Paine's works were imprisoned before Paine's trial, while the
seditious character of the books was not yet legally settled. Many were
punished after the trial, by both fine and imprisonment. Newspapers were
punished for printing extracts, and for having printed them before the
trial.* For this kind of work old statutes passed for other purposes
were impressed, new statutes framed, until Fox declared the Bill of
Rights repealed, the constitution cut up by the roots, and the obedience
of the people to such "despotism" no longer "a question of moral
obligation and duty, but of prudence."*
* The first trial after Paine's, that of Thomas Spence
(February 26, 1793), for selling "The Rights of Man," failed
through a flaw in the indictment, but the mistake did not
occur again. At the same time William Holland was awarded a
year's imprisonment and L100 fine for selling "Letter to the
Addressers." H. D. Symonds, for publishing "Rights of Man,"
L20 fine and two years; f or "Letter to the Addressers,"
one year, L100 fine, with sureties in L1,000 for three
years, and imprisonment till the fine be paid and sureties
given. April 17, 1793, Richard Phillips, printer, Leicester,
eighteen months. May 8th, J. Ridgway, London, selling
"Rights of Man," L100 and one year; "Letter to the
Addressers," one year, L100 fine; in each case sureties in
L1,000, with imprisonment until fines paid and sureties
given. Richard Peart, "Rights" and "Letter," three months.
William Belcher, "Rights" and "Letter," three months. Daniel
Holt, L50, four years. Messrs. Robinson, L200. Eaton and
Thompson, the latter in Birmingham, were acquitted. Clio
Rickman escaped punishment by running over to Paris. Dr.
Currie (1793) writes: "The prosecutions that are commenced
all over England against printers, publishers, etc., would
astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed
many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has
had seven different indictments preferred against him for
paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for
selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,--all
previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent,
supposed worth ment by running over to Paris. Dr. Currie
(1793) writes: *' The prosecutions that are commenced all
over England against printers, publishers, etc., would
astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed
many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has
had seven different indictments preferred against him for
paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for
selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,--all
previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent,
supposed worth ment by running over to Paris. Dr. Currie
(1793) writes: "The prosecutions that are commenced all
over England against printers, publishers, etc., would
astonish you; and most of these are for offences committed
many months ago. The printer of the Manchester Herald has
had seven different indictments preferred against him for
paragraphs in his paper; and six different indictments for
selling or disposing of six different copies of Paine,--all
previous to the trial of Paine. The man was opulent,
supposed worth L20,000; but these different actions will
ruin him, as they were intended to do."--"Currie's Life,"
i., p. 185. See Buckle's "History of Civilization," etc.,
American ed., p. 352. In the cases where "gentlemen" were
found distributing the works the penalties were ferocious.
Fische Palmer was sentenced to seven years' transportation.
Thomas Muir, for advising persons to read "the works of that
wretched outcast Paine" (the Lord Advocate's words) was
sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. This sentence
was hissed. The tipstaff being ordered to take those who
hissed into custody, replied: "My lord, they 're all
hissing."
From his safe retreat in Paris bookseller Rickman wrote his impromptu:
"Hail Briton's land!
Hail freedom's shore!
Far happier than of old;
For in thy blessed realms no more
The Rights of Man are sold!"
The famous town-crier of Bolton, who reported to his masters that he
had been round that place "and found in it neither the rights of man
nor common sense," made a statement characteristic of the time. The
aristocracy and gentry had indeed lost their humanity and their sense
under a disgraceful panic. Their serfs, unable to read, were fairly
represented by those who, having burned Paine in effigy, asked their
employer if there was "any other gemman he would like burnt, for a glass
o' beer."
* "Pari. Hist.," xxxii., p. 383.
The White Bear (now replaced by the Criterion Restaurant) no longer knew
its little circle of radicals. A symbol of how they were trampled out
is discoverable in the "T. P." shoe-nails. These nails, with heads so
lettered, were in great request among the gentry, who had only to hold
up their boot-soles to show how they were trampling on Tom Paine and his
principles. This at any rate was accurate. Manufacturers of vases also
devised ceramic anathemas.*
* There are two Paine pitchers in the Museum at Brighton,
England. Both were made at Leeds, one probably before
Paine's trial, since it presents a respectable full-length
portrait, holding in his hand a book, and beneath, the words:
"Mr. Thomas Paine, Author of The Rights of Man." The other
shows a serpent with Paine's head, two sides being adorned
with the following lines:
"God save the King, and all his subjects too,
Likewise his forces and commanders true,
May he their rights forever hence Maintain
Against all strife occasioned by Tom Paine."
"Prithee Tom Paine why wilt thou meddling be
In others' business which concerns not thee;
For while thereon thou dost extend thy cares
Thou dost at home neglect thine own affairs."
"God save the King!"
"Observe the wicked and malicious man
Projecting all the mischief that he can."
In all of this may be read the frantic fears of the King and aristocracy
which were driving the Ministry to make good Paine's aphorism, "There
is no English Constitution." An English Constitution was, however, in
process of formation,--in prisons, in secret conclaves, in lands of
exile, and chiefly in Paine's small room in Paris. Even in that time of
Parisian turbulence and peril the hunted liberals of England found more
security in France than in their native land.* For the eyes of the
English reformer of that period, seeing events from prison or exile,
there was a perspective such as time has now supplied to the historian.
It is still difficult to distribute the burden of shame fairly. Pitt
was unquestionably at first anxious to avoid war. That the King was
determined on the war is certain; he refused to notice Wilberforce when
he appeared at court after his separation from Pitt on that point.
* When William Pitt died in 1806,--crushed under disclosures
in the impeachment of Lord Melville,--the verdict of many
sufferers was expressed in an "Epitaph Impromptu" (MS.)
found among the papers of Thomas Rickman. It has some
historic interest.
"Reader! with eye indignant view this bier;
The foe of all the human race lies here.
With talents small, and those directed, too,
Virtue and truth and wisdom to subdue,
He lived to every noble motive blind,
And died, the execration of mankind.
"Millions were butchered by his damned plan
To violate each sacred right of man;
Exulting he o'er earth each misery hurled,
And joyed to drench in tears and blood, the world.
"Myriads of beings wretched he has made
By desolating war, his favourite trade,
Who, robbed of friends and dearest ties, are left
Of every hope and happiness bereft.
"In private life made up of fuss and pride,
Not e'en his vices leaned to virtue's side;
Unsound, corrupt, and rotten at the core,
His cold and scoundrel heart was black all o'er;
Nor did one passion ever move his mind
That bent towards the tender, warm, and kind.
"Tyrant, and friend to war! we hail the day
When Death, to bless mankind, made thee his prey,
And rid the earth of all could earth disgrace,--
The foulest, bloodiest scourge of man's oppressed race."
But the three attempts on his life, and his mental infirmity, may
be pleaded for George III. Paine, in his letter to Dundas, wrote
"Madjesty"; when Rickman objected, he said: "Let it stand." And it
stands now as the best apology for the King, while it rolls on Pitt's
memory the guilt of a twenty-two years' war for the subjugation of
thought and freedom. In that last struggle of the barbarism surviving
in civilization, it was shown that the madness of a populace was
easily distanced by the cruelty of courts. Robespierre and Marat were
humanitarian beside George and his Ministers; the Reign of Terror,
and all the massacres of the French Revolution put together, were
child's-play compared with the anguish and horrors spread through Europe
by a war whose pretext was an execution England might have prevented.