_that he did not consult one single author thereon_. He says so himself.
Mr. Bancroft, the great American historian, says so. If I had found him
mistaken in this statement, I would have shown wherein. He is correct,
and it is unnecessary for me to add any thing to support his fame. But
will he change his conclusions, and will he re-write his own history to
support the statement that Mr. Jefferson produced it, not from "the
fullness of his own mind," but from the fullness of Common Sense? I
would not cast an aspersion, by the remotest insinuation, upon the
faithfulness of Mr. Bancroft as a historian. He penned the truth in
regard to a historic fact, but founded a conclusion thereon not
warranted by the fact. This will prove a lesson to the historian, and,
therefore, I will further remark, that a scientific method has also
dawned upon history. Voltaire struck the principle when he brought
history within the realm of natural causes, and Mr. Buckle began to
develop the method in an able manner, but his life was too short to
complete it. That he has erred in some particulars, may be true, but he
has traveled far out on the highways of nature, and, in the main, he is
right. In this age the historian has no business to write unless he
travels the same road. In fact, he would not be a _historian_, unless he
did, but merely the _chronicler_ of events. There is a vast distance in
the realm of mind between the high station of a historian, and the low
office of a chronicler. But, with this remark I pass on with my
argument.
Is it at variance with nature and the general order of things that Mr.
Jefferson should reproduce Common Sense, in all its small particulars,
as well as grand outlines, observing the same order in its construction,
a perfect epitome thereof, without studying it. But if he did study it,
and thus reproduce it, the theft would be too monstrous, and there is
not in human nature an impudence so audacious as to do such a thing
under the very eye of its author. It would have been a literary piracy
too disgraceful for human nature to commit or to endure. It would have
been a robbery too easy of detection by Mr. Paine, and there could not
be found on earth a man so devoid of shame, or of all personal honor,
or of self-respect as to have committed it. Now if Jefferson wrote the
Declaration of Independence, never was man more disgraced in the
literary world. But on the other hand, as chairman of a committee of
five to whom collectively belong the duty to produce it or procure it,
and who collectively shall share its honor, for him as such chairman, to
receive from the hand of Mr. Paine, as a gift to the nation, the
document which the country needed, there would be no dishonor connected
with it. It was nobody's business who wrote it. Mr. Paine and Jefferson
understood it, and none but themselves could be wronged. History records
that Mr. Paine and Jefferson were ever after bound heart and hand
together. Jefferson confided in the most faithful heart of the world.
But after Mr. Paine died, it was wrong for Mr. Jefferson to take
advantage of the silence of death and claim the document. It was the
wickedness of vanity and a narrow mind that would direct to be carved on
his tombstone, "_The author of the Declaration of Independence_." For
his own name's sake, it ought to be struck out with some friendly
chisel. It is as painful for me to write this as it would be to receive
the news of the death of a dear friend, who had died with some curse
upon his character. But while we look with compassion, let us tell the
truth.
At first, Mr. Jefferson did not write himself down the author of the
Declaration, and there seems to be a growth in this like all other
things. Here are the different stages:
1. Notes written on the spot, as events were passing, for the
truth of which he pledges himself to Heaven and earth. He writes
as follows:
"It appearing in the course of these debates that the colonies
of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and
South Carolina, were not yet matured for falling into the
parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state,
it was thought most prudent to wait awhile for them, and to
postpone the final decision to July 1st. But that this might
occasion as little delay as possible, a committee was
appointed to prepare a Declaration of Independence. The
committee were John Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert
R. Livingston, and myself. This was reported to the House on
Friday, the 28th of June, when it was read and ordered to lie
on the table." Works, vol. i, page 118.
There is no acknowledgment at this time. This is July, 1776. Mr.
Paine is in Philadelphia. Had Mr. Jefferson been the author, this
would have been the time for him to have recorded it, as he has
not failed to record all his other public acts. He is now
thirty-three years old.
2. Eleven years afterward, when in Paris, he writes to the editor
of the _Journal de Paris_ as follows, in regard to the history of
the Declaration: "I was on the spot and can relate to you this
transaction with precision. On the 7th of June, 1776, the
delegates from Virginia moved, in obedience to instructions from
their constituents, that Congress shall declare the thirteen
united colonies to be independent of Great Britain, and a
confederation should be formed to bind them together, and measures
be taken to procure the assistance of foreign powers. The House
ordered a punctual attendance of all their members the next day at
ten o'clock, and then resolved themselves into a committee of the
whole and entered on the discussion. It appeared in the course of
the debate that seven states, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia,
were decided for a separation; but that six others still
hesitated, to-wit: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, and South Carolina. Congress desirous of unanimity, and
seeing that the public mind was advancing rapidly to it, referred
the further discussion to the first of July, appointing in the
meantime, a committee to prepare a Declaration of Independence; a
second, to form articles for the confederation of the states; and
a third, to prepare measures for obtaining foreign aid. On the
28th of June, the Declaration of Independence was reported to the
House, and was laid on the table."--Works, vol. ix, pp. 310, 311.
There is no acknowledgment that he was the author of it yet. This
is August, 1787. Mr. Paine is in Paris, just on the eve of
starting for London. Jefferson is forty-four years old.
3. In September, 1809, in answer to a proposition to publish his
writings, after mentioning many of them, he says: "I say nothing
of numerous drafts of reports, resolutions, declarations, etc.,
drawn as a member of Congress, or of the legislature of Virginia,
such as the Declaration of Independence, Report on the Money Mint
of the United States, the Act of Religious Freedom, etc., etc.
These having become the acts of public bodies, there can be no
personal claim to them." This is nearly three months after the
death of Mr. Paine.--Works, vol. v, p. 466. And here he says he
makes no personal claim to it. He is now sixty-six years old.
4. In May, 1819, he gives the same account as first above given.
Mr. Paine has been dead about ten years. He makes no
acknowledgment yet that he was the author of it, but in the same
account pledges himself to Heaven and earth for the truth of the
statement.--Works, vol. vii, page 123. He is now seventy-six years
old.
5. In January, 1821, he indirectly acknowledges himself to be the
author, but with a great deal of ambiguity. He takes the same
account as given first and third above, but interpolates into it a
clause, which I have placed in brackets in the passage which I
give, as follows: "It appearing, in the course of these debates,
that the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, and South Carolina were not yet matured for falling into
the parent stem, but that they were fast advancing to that state,
it was thought most prudent to wait awhile for them, and to
postpone the final decision to July 1st; but, that this might
occasion as little delay as possible, a committee was appointed to
prepare a Declaration of Independence. The committee were John
Adams, Dr. Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert R. Livingston, and
myself. [Committees were also appointed at the same time to
prepare a plan of confederation for the colonies, and to state the
terms proper to be proposed for foreign alliance. The committee
for drawing the Declaration of Independence desired me to do it.
It was accordingly done, and, being approved by them, I] reported
[it] to the House on Friday, the 28th of June, when it was read,
and ordered to lie on the table."--Works, vol. i, pages 17 and
18. This is the first insinuation. I say insinuation, for the
sentence, "_It_ was accordingly done, and I reported it," is not
frank and outspoken, as it ought to be, if he meant to say he
drafted it. Mr. Paine has been dead almost twelve years, but Mr.
Jefferson has dropped the pledge to Heaven and earth for the truth
of it, which he has heretofore been careful to put in. He is now
seventy-eight years old.
6. In August, 1823, he now comes forward, and says: "The committee
of five met; no such thing as a sub-committee was proposed, but
they unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draft. I
consented. I drew it."--Works, vol. vii, page 304. John Adams had
said there was a sub-committee of two, viz., Jefferson and
himself, appointed by the other three. But Jefferson says there
was not--"that John Adams had forgotten about it." Query: Can a
person forget about something which never was? To this statement
there is no "pledge to Heaven and earth." He is eighty years old.
7. In the year 1825 he says once that he wrote it, and once that
he drafted it; but no "pledge to Heaven and earth" as before.
Now, he never acknowledged that he was the author of it in any of his
works before the death of Mr. Paine. He gave several full accounts of
the whole transaction, and calls on Heaven and earth to witness the
truth of his statements. About the time Mr. Paine dies he says he can
make no personal claim to it. Ten years after Mr. Paine's death, he very
ambiguously claims it, as if his pen refused to write it, and drops his
oath. But twelve years after Mr. Paine's death, and he now in his
eightieth year, he first says he drew it. Was he too _modest_ to affirm
it till he had got into his dotage? The reader must answer. It is with
painful feelings I record the above facts. "But they are too true, and
the more is the pity." But to proceed.
Mr. Jefferson could not have followed so closely Common Sense in the
production of the Declaration of Independence, if he had studied it for
a whole year with this special purpose in view. For, the style he could
not have imitated; the figures of speech he could not have adopted; the
impassioned eloquence would have stuck to the dry leaves; the exact
order would have been missed; the fine shades of sentiment would have
been blotted out; the complex ideas he would have failed to grasp; its
architectural plan he could not have idealized; and its construction
would never have arisen from the chaos of scattered materials which he
would have gleaned. And, above all, the personal character of Mr. Paine
would have been left out. He would have failed in every one of these
things. And why? Want of mental similarity thereto. This, and nothing
else.
I will sum up his mentality as I find it in his writings. I have given
you Mr. Paine's already. In this I shall be brief, speaking only of
those powers which would be incompatible with, or necessary to, the
production of the Declaration.
Mr. Jefferson was a zealous partisan. Mr. Paine was a consummate
statesman. Here was the great difference between the two men. Those
qualities of the mind which produce the former are very unlike those
which produce the latter. The former mind must be narrow and selfish,
the latter broad and generous. This will take in the whole world, that
but a small portion of it. The partisan has an understanding subject to
the vice and discipline of cunning; the statesman has an understanding
subject to the noblest and most generous affections. It was this which
made Mr. Jefferson such a grand success as a party leader, and that,
too, which perhaps saved the nation from passing into the hands of the
monarchists. Without these consummate powers of the partisan, it would
have been impossible for Mr. Jefferson to have taken command of the
people, to have organized his party, to have marshaled his forces, and
with his army of followers to have put royalty under his heel. How
unlike Washington and John Adams, who preceded him. Hamilton, who would
toast a president of America and give three cheers for George the Third
of England, ruled Washington and governed the nation. John Adams, who
was so beguiled with royalty and the British constitution, could not
heartily sympathize with the people; the dupe of his own passions, he
was unfit to be the ruler of a free people. But Jefferson, while
secretary under Washington, began to form his party and draw his party
lines. Through Freneau he drove Washington to cry out: "By God, I had
rather be in my grave than in my present situation!" And, afterward, the
party he was marshaling made John Adams, then president of the United
States, desert his post for seven months, at the most trying crisis of
this government. But the cold, unfeeling partisanship of the great
democrat saved the nation.
The other crowning difference between the two men is, Mr. Paine had
extraordinary genius, Mr. Jefferson had not; and by genius I mean a
lively constructive and comprehensive mind, one that can generalize
facts and deduce principles therefrom, one that can idealize and build
in the imagination what it would put into material shape or on paper. If
this comparison be true (and the reader is at liberty to bring facts to
contradict it), then Mr. Jefferson could not produce the Declaration for
want of capacity.
The Declaration is the work of a master. It is the work of one with
_great experience_ in the art of composition, one who produced the whole
in the ideal before he touched pen to paper, and one who followed plan
and specifications with unerring precision. It is a work of the most
finished rhetoric, and produced with such skill as to defy adverse
criticism. It shows vast labor and time bestowed upon its execution. In
its mechanism I have never seen its equal in all my reading and study.
It is the most masterly work of genius I ever saw in composition. It
stands alone in the world of letters. There is nothing its equal which
has come down to us from the ages, and I know of no one save Thomas
Paine capable of producing it. That he was a master in the art of
composition, no one can dispute, and he frequently takes pains to give
the principles which reveal his success; here is one of them, to be
found in his Letter to the Abbe Raynal: "To fit the powers of thinking
and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear
conclusion that shall hit the point in question, and nothing else, is
the true criterion of writing," See a fine passage on this point in the
introduction to the same letter. Now Jefferson had not the genius to
produce the Declaration.
If we look also at several passages in the Declaration we can only feel
their full force after knowing the previous career of Mr. Paine as
Junius in England. Take for example the two paragraphs, 24 and 25, the
one of the king and the other of the "British brethren." We see in the
one the proud disdain and haughty contempt for the tyrant; in the other
that tender sympathy for the English people, with a sly thrust at the
Scotch, and then the wounded affection which comes from betrayal of
friendship--"the last stab to agonizing affection." And then regathering
himself from the affliction of a broken heart, he exclaims, "Manly
spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren." But _no_,
this can not be done, and in the next breath he says, "we must endeavor
to forget our former love for them;" and then comes the wail of anguish
in the loss of his native country, "We might have been a great and a
free people together, but a communication of grandeur and of freedom it
seems is below their dignity. Be it so." He now bends beneath the hand
of fate and cries out, "I acquiesce in our eternal separation," but
persist in denouncing it. This is the very picture of Mr. Paine's own
heart. It is a pitch of enthusiasm and anguish which Mr. Jefferson had
neither circumstance in his life nor capacity in his soul to work
himself up to. It is neither art nor contrivance, it is the recorded
beating of his own heart, the sequel to his previous life.
Take again the passage on human slavery. "He has waged cruel war against
human nature itself." It is well known that Mr. Paine, before he wrote
Common Sense, attracted the eyes of the world to him by denouncing human
slavery in the most impassioned eloquence. This piece he termed "Serious
Thoughts," etc. Herein he hopes when the Declaration is made that "our
first gratitude to the Almighty may be shown by an act of Continental
legislation, which shall put a stop to the importation of negroes,
soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their
freedom." And he says, long afterward, to the French inhabitants of
Louisiana who wished the power 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?" But the person who wrote the
passage on slavery in the original draft of the Declaration could never
have kept a slave in bondage, if any thing can be gathered from the
nobility, the manliness, the justice, and the philanthropy of its
spirit. But Jefferson, while he has left on record his opposition _in
words_ to slavery, has left also on record his acts to contradict both
them and the Declaration. I here draw the veil over Jefferson as a
slaveholder.
While Mr. Jefferson was far above the average mind, yet from his mental
make-up, either in his head, heart, character, or capacity, he could not
be the author of the Declaration of Independence. Neither in the
circumstances of his previous life nor personal history, neither in the
heart nor the head, can we find a foundation for the famous document. I
know of but one man American born, at that day, with sufficient genius
to write it--Benjamin Franklin--and he would have failed in the style
and language, and especially in those fine strokes of the affection.[A]
For Mr. Paine to write the Declaration and be ready to hand it to the
chairman of the committee, is characteristic of the man. He did the same
thing at the "Thatched House" tavern meeting in England in 1791. Mr.
Horne Tooke who signed the Address and Declaration as chairman of the
meeting, received the document privately from the hand of Mr. Paine, and
had Mr. Tooke not afterward disclaimed the authorship of it when charged
upon him, Mr. Paine would never have revealed the secret. It was
revealed in this manner: Mr. Tooke having spoken in commendation of the
Declaration which he signed "was jocularly accused of praising his own
work, and to free him from this embarrassment [says Mr. Paine], and the
repeated trouble of mentioning the author, _as he has not failed to do_,
I make no hesitation in saying, I drew up the publication," etc. Now,
Mr. Paine was never guilty of _praising his own work_, and nowhere can I
find that he ever praised the Declaration of Independence as a work, or
that he ever mentioned Junius but once. [B]Had Mr. Jefferson been the
author of the Declaration, Mr. Paine no doubt would have called it "_A
masterly performance_."
And thus it is, his hand is seen, though not publicly acknowledged, in
all those first principles upon which the fabric of our government
rests. And it was the peculiarity of this great man _to do the work, and
let others carry off the honors_.
"But truth shall conquer at the last;
For round and round we run,
And ever the right comes uppermost,
And ever is justice done."
NOTE A.
Truly speaking, there is no original Declaration in existence. There are
several "original" Declarations extant, all differing somewhat. John
Adams had one, Benjamin Franklin, it is said, had one in England.
Richard Henry Lee and others had "originals," all in manuscript. The one
I have followed may be found in Marshall's Life of Washington, and does
not differ, only in a few minor respects, from the one in Jefferson's
works, Washington edition. The real _original_ was destroyed as soon as
copied, and we have only nature to guide us in the study of one which is
almost a faithful copy.
NOTE B.
In 1787, with regard to the Scotch and the Hanover succession, Paine
says: "The present reign, by embracing the Scotch, has tranquillized and
conciliated the spirit that disturbed the two former reigns.
_Accusations were not wanting at that time to reprobate the policy as
tinctured with ingratitude toward those who were the immediate means of
the Hanover succession._" This _policy_ is what so embittered _Junius_
toward the Scotch. See his letter to the king (No. 35), in which he
says: "Nor do I mean to condemn the policy of giving _some_
encouragement to the novelty of their affections for the House of
Hanover." Now, Paine says, in connection with the above quotation, which
parallels with Junius: "The brilliant pen of Junius was drawn forth, but
in vain. It enraptured without convincing; and though in the plentitude
of its rage it might be said to give elegance to bitterness, yet the
policy survived the blast." Fifteen years had obliterated the prejudice
of Paine toward the Scotch.
For this mention of the Scotch by Mr. Paine, in his Prospects on the
Rubicon, which had escaped my notice, I am indebted to the critical eye
of Wm. Henry Burr, of Washington City.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Since writing the above criticism, I sent for and obtained
Theodore Parker's work entitled Historic Sketches. Previous to this I
had not read a word of the work. With this explanation I will give two
extracts from the work, pp. 281, 282: "Mr. Jefferson had intellectual
talents greatly superior to the common mass of men, and for the times
his opportunities of culture in youth, were admirable."
"But I can not think his mind a great one. I can not point out any name
of those times, which may stand in the long interval [of capacity]
between the names of Franklin and John Adams. In the shorter space
between Adams and Jefferson there were many. There was a certain lack of
solidity; his intellect was not very profound, not very comprehensive.
Intelligent, able, adroit as he was, his success as an intellectual man
was far from being entire or complete. He exhibited no spark of genius,
nor any remarkable degree of original, natural talent."
This so coincides with what I had written, I add it to excite the reader
to an investigation, for I know full well, the intellectual fame of Mr.
Jefferson will not bear looking into.
[B] See Note B.
GRAND OUTLINES OF THOMAS PAINE'S LIFE.
Were I to write the biography of Thomas Paine, I should, with a bold
hand, transcend the low office of a chronicler, and hand him down in
history thus:
Thomas Paine was of Quaker origin. In this he inherited more than
paternal flesh and blood, more than family form and feature: he had
transmitted to him the principles of George Fox--principles which were,
when Mr. Paine was born, more than a hundred years old. These were a
reliance on the internal evidences of the conscience, prompting to moral
action and to the love of God. In this the shadow of Fox fell athwart
the Scriptures. The internal light was with him greater than that which
shone down on the centuries from Jesus of Nazareth. The religions, and
creeds, and opinions of the world were to be brought to the bar of
conscience for trial, and "the motions of the spirit"--not the teachings
of the Bible--were to be taken in evidence. His principles were
universal in the heart of man--not particular in any special book.
To these religious principles was added simplicity of conduct in all the
ways of life. In religious or civil affairs, whether at home or abroad,
with his fellow-man or his God, he was to obey the behests of nature,
and not of man. To avoid the extravagance of dress, to walk with
dignity and grace, to deal uprightly, to love mercy, to rely on the
light within, to train the heart to courage and the head to
understanding, became the chief aim of all the followers of Fox. The
consequence was, they never bent the knee to the forms of worship, nor
uncovered the head to the forms of fashion. To the Quaker, a virtuous,
upright, and honorable laborer was of as much consequence, in the line
of respect and the eyes of God, as the noblest lord of the realm. No
outward show, no pageantry of church or court, could awaken him to
respect. He looked within: there he felt the movings of the spirit,
there he saw the image of his God, there he went in to worship.
What must be the result of this religion? It must transmit
self-reliance, fortitude, courage, and morality to the individual, and a
sympathy for mankind which will grant the equality of rights, and
produce a contempt for outward show, for outward forms and ceremonies.
These characteristics will be transmitted to children's children, and
democracy is born into a race of men before they know it, or before they
know how or why. But here an effect must not be taken for a cause. It
was the democratic principle abroad in the world which produced the
Quaker religion, not this religion which produced it, and this religion
became afterward an engine for thrusting democracy more deeply into the
constitution of man. It had a work to do, and it did it by inheritance.
It was the democracy of Cromwell, "that accomplished President of
England," which could sympathize with the religion of Fox, which could
see no wrong in the man, and which could protect him from persecution.
On the other hand, it was the religion of Penn, which would insult the
pride of nobles by not uncovering itself, and bowing in the presence of
royalty.
Now, every religion has a birth, growth, culmination, and subsequent
decay. It culminates in the production of some great man, who
represents, and at the same time transcends, the causes which produced
him, and who afterward abandons the religion which gave him birth. It
has then fulfilled its work, and will eventually die. Jesus of Nazareth
was the fulfillment of the Jewish religion; Luther, of the Catholic. The
minor religions obey the same law. Unitarianism culminated in Theodore
Parker; Quakerism, in Thomas Paine. At the culminating point, the
typical child which is born, grows up, and comes out from or tramples
upon the religion which produced him, and is called a "come-outer," a
"protester," an "image-breaker," or an "infidel." But he has been
produced by causes over which he had no control, and is the result for
which they existed. With him the religion declines, and eventually will
expire.
The Quaker religion culminated on the 29th of January, 1737, in the
little town of Thetford, and county of Norfolk, England, in the birth of
Thomas Paine. Here Nature deserted her connection with the meeting, and
took up her abode in the soul of the child. She has concentrated herein
the democracy of centuries, and the special forces of a hundred years.
The great principles of democracy have all been gathered here, and
organized into a power which will move the world.
Nature has also given a hardy physical constitution, without corruption
of blood or bodily disease, and this health of body shall carry him safe
through the three-score and ten, with a fraction of years to spare. Let
us now follow the lines of his life.
A religious antagonism between father and mother, both before and after
his birth, strengthened the child's mind, for we grow strong only
through antagonism. But he inclined to the Quaker principles of the
father, who had him privately named, and did not suffer him to be
baptized, though he was afterward confirmed by a bishop, through the
influence of an aunt. But the outward acts of omission or commission, by
priest or parent, counted nothing in the life of the child; for he had
thoughts of his own as soon as old enough to reflect, and he had great
gifts of inspiration, for there came to him thoughts "which would bolt
into the mind of their own accord." Of this intuition or inspiration he
says: "I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors
with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they
were worth entertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all
the knowledge that I have." Here those inherited principles, the result
of previous ages of thought, concentrated within the child's mind, began
to teach him, and he listened to their instruction at an early age. "I
well remember, when about seven or eight years of age," says he,
"hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of
the _church_ [not of the Quaker meeting], upon the subject of what is
called _redemption by the death of the son of God_. After the sermon was
ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps,
for I perfectly recollect the spot, I revolted at the recollection of
what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty
act like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge
himself in any other way; and, as I was sure a man would be hanged that
did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such
sermons." Here the young child's mind was shocked, and the "voice of
God" within taught him much wisdom--more than he could get in all the
sermons of the bishops.
His father, from Quaker principles, gave him moral instruction which
never left him in after life. He sent him also, to a grammar school,
where he learned some Latin and became acquainted with the subject
matter of all the Latin books used in school; but this was clandestinely
done, as the Quakers were opposed to the books in which the language was
taught. He says he did not study Latin for the above reason, and because
he had no taste for it. But at school and at home he gained a useful
stock of learning, "the bent of his mind being to science."
But when the lad was thirteen he was taken from school, as it had long
been too heavy a tax upon his father, and he was put to work in the shop
as stay-maker. He enters into full sympathy with his father, and works
by his side three years. The "good father," as he afterward calls him,
pays out no more for the son's education; he has already been "sorely
pressed" for this purpose.
But during these three years at the stay-making business, many thoughts
have "bolted into his mind," strange "voluntary visitors," talking of
war, the army and navy. These thoughts have been "heated by the false
heroism" of his former master, and have set the lad's mind on fire,
burning up all peace and contentment. So in the year 1753, a little the
rise of sixteen, he began to carve out his own fortune by going to sea
in the privateer, "King of Prussia." The "good father" must have
"thought him lost," but this was a phantom of the imagination in both
father and son. There is a principle in him which shall hold him steady
on land and sea. Restless and venturesome, driven by a force he wots not
of, the little island of Britain could not confine him, much less his
father's shop. Here he satisfies the war spirit, and tinges his
skeptical mind with a slight shade of sailors' superstition. Yet with
this adventure of "false heroism against him" in setting out in life, he
passes through a schooling with the world which shall make for him
mightily in the end. He never considered this beginning in his favor,
and has said but little about it. I can not find out how long he lived
on the sea, but he turns up at Sandwich five or six years afterward as
master stay-maker. Here he married to Mary Lambert, a young woman of
much personal worth, who, dying a year afterward, leaves a shade on his
mind for life.
But his employment did not suit the turn of his mind, and near the close
of 1763 he entered the employ of government as exciseman. For a faithful
performance of his duty he was dismissed from this office, because the
impartial performance of that duty would expose him to the censure of
the power which invested him with office. I say for a faithful
performance of his duty he was dismissed, and for these reasons I say
it:
1. When he is restored to the same office afterward upon his
petition are these words, "No complaint of the _least dishonesty_
or intemperance appeared against me." And so it was not for a
dereliction of duty.
2. Mr. Paine was a man of uncommon abilities, and it could not be
for want of capacity.
3. Excise officers were compelled sometimes to violate the law to
favor the nobility and the court of the realm, or suffer the
penalty of dismissal. See Vale's Life of Paine, p. 19.
Honest and capable he has wounded the corrupt heart of the government.
Too proud to retract, too honest to confess, he is turned out of office
to brood over his offense. The government has also stabbed him to the
heart, and the stab reaches to the most tender chords, his personal
pride, his honor. This sets on fire his whole nature, yet darkly
secretive it becomes molten lava in his own breast. It will some day
burst forth a consuming fire. "Vengeance is mine," says the war-spirit
within him. "Bide thy time," says caution. "Keep thy own council," says
secretiveness. He has now an object in view, his resolution is made.
"I will strike the dagger to the heart of profligate lords and
courtiers. I will trample on the pride of kings, and fortified with that
proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate
the rights of man." He now steps forth to begin his _life's work_.
He waits not long to brood over his miseries, but immediately sets off
for London to inform the mind. A little the rise of twenty-eight he
enters fully into the study of the natural sciences, and teaches in an
academy to defray expenses. He attends the philosophical lectures of Mr.
Martin and Ferguson, and becomes acquainted with Dr. Bevis, the
astronomer and member of the Royal Society. He made himself master of
the globes and orrery, and acquired a knowledge of _natural philosophy_,
a term which then took in a wide field of science. We find him well
acquainted with chemistry, and also the higher mathematics. Here he
doubtless studied French, for afterward we find when called from an
active life to visit France he could read but not speak the language.
Yet this, as well as rhetoric and law, and many other branches of
learning, he could acquire while in the employ of government.
It is evident that while at London this year he threw his whole soul
into study.
How easily he could have risen to preferment in any branch of natural
science must have been well known to himself when coming in contact with
these great minds of his age. But he has other work on hand.
There are many reasons for concluding he became acquainted with Franklin
this year, among them these five:
1. Because he was eager to cultivate the acquaintance of great men
of science, and Franklin, then in London, stood at the head of
all.
2. Franklin was easy of access to the friends of learning.
3. Mr. Paine would be brought in hearty sympathy with the
representative of the new world, who was at court, to represent
the rights of man.
4. At this very time, Feb. 3, 1766, when we know Mr. Paine was
attending to his studies and cultivating the acquaintance of the
learned, Dr. Franklin was brought more conspicuously before the
English nation than ever before, or thereafter, by undergoing an
examination in the House of Commons upon the policy of repealing
the Stamp Act; and never were the great talents of this great man
exhibited so fully and favorably as then.
5. Mr. Paine says: "The favor of Dr. Franklin's _friendship_ I
possessed in England [and _friendship_ with Mr. Paine means _time
to prove it_], and my introduction to this part of the world was
through his _patronage_." Patronage means to aid or promote a
design. This _design_, and this _friendship_ formed upon which it
was founded, would take some few years with both of these men, for
they were both secretive, reserved, and noncommittal, slow in
forming attachments, and extremely cautious in the selection of
_friends_. "The first foundation of friendship," says Junius, "is
not the power of conferring benefits, but the _equality_ with
which they are received and may be returned."
Mr. Paine now makes application to be restored to the office from which
he was dismissed. On his petition was written: "JULY 4TH, 1766; to be
restored on a proper vacancy." The FOURTH OF JULY is ominous. Great
events are in store for this young man within the next ten years. He
quits the society of the learned and the halls of learning, and goes
down at the most hopeful and ambitious period of life into this
"inferior office of the revenue" to serve for the "petty pittance of
less than fifty pounds a year." Does he go there to satisfy his taste
for learning, or to get rich? No; but to reach the object of his
ambition. He goes there to spy out the meanness, the corruption, the
villainy, the abandoned profligacy of the British Government.
The British Government has now a masked enemy who is coming in and going
out at the nation's doors, not a spy upon her liberties, but her
villainies, a foe to the one and a friend to the other.
But he has not forsaken his studies, he is just entering upon them.
Taking up English history he makes it a study, which becomes the history
of the civilized world, for it reaches out into Spain, France, Austria,
Prussia, Russia, America, India, and Rome. Mr. Paine followed its lines
into all countries. He also made a study of her laws and the principles
of her constitution, and read the French commentators thereon, at the
same time he had an eye to politics and the personal history of her
living public men. For three years and a half, together with his public
duties, he labored to lay a foundation for a long and active literary
life.
Do you ask how I know this? I answer, because when he came to America he
was thus accomplished, and when he went into the excise office he was
not.
It is now six years since he first entered the employ of government, one
year of which time he spent in the arts and sciences, and nearly four as
student, officer, and detective for the sons of freedom throughout the
world. He is, by nature, a detective of the highest order. He has formed
the friendship of Benjamin Franklin, who, at the court, is also a
detective, and what he knows of America and the English court shall now
be made known. He has written "numberless trifles" for the public press
to get his hand in, and now, having a definite plan formed, and a noble
object in view, he opens the new year of 1769, with something which
indeed is _new_. It was the first Letter of "Junius," named after Junius
Brutus, who stabbed Caesar for having usurped the liberties of Rome.
Junius thrust home his dagger. This stab went to the heart of a rotten
court, and, since Cromwell, it was the greatest thing that ever happened
to England. The people read it with mingled sentiments of fear and hope;
the partisan read it with fear and rage; the scholar, with feelings of
respect; the courtesan, with pallor on his cheek, and trembling in his
limbs; and the king and ministers, with sentiments of torture and
frenzy. But when Franklin took it up, with what feelings of hope and
pride did he read and re-read the paragraphs in regard to the colonies,
which began with this sentence: "A series of inconsistent measures has
alienated the colonies from their duty as subjects, and from their
natural affection to their common country." This is the key note to the
Declaration of Independence, which shall appear seven years afterward.
The dagger was driven to the hilt. Paine long afterward said: "The cause
of America made me an author."
Three years, to a day, and he is Junius no more. His object was
revolution on British soil, the ministers brought to trial, and the king
deposed. He called for a leader in vain--he wrote against fate. But the
work must go on. He consecrates himself anew to the cause; he dedicates
his life to the good of man. Friend, kindred, wife, and the dear, native
land, weigh lightly in the balance against the "_business of a world_."
He leaves them all. His mind has been liberated from the prejudices of
an island by the study of astronomy, and a life on the sea, and schooled
by disappointment in political strife, he turns his face to the _West_.
He has left his second wife; parted with her forever. Mr. Paine was a
man of strong personal attachment; he had deep and lasting affection.
But what was wife to the "_business of a world_." Long after this
separation, in his old age, after he had gone through two revolutions,
the American and the French, Mrs. Paine, though not agreeing with Thomas
in religious opinions, on hearing him disrespectfully spoken of because
he had written the Age of Reason, indignantly left the company of his
revilers. And Mr. Paine, when asked why did you leave your wife, would
respond: "I had a cause; it is no business of any body." True to her
during life, and she to him, there is more in this than has been
revealed.
But before he leaves England there is a definite plan formed, it is
revolution and reconciliation; but if not reconciliation, it is
revolution and independence. Tyranny shall be destroyed at all hazards.
He prepares himself for war, "and if the English Government wins in the
contest," says Paine, "she wins from me my life." He leaves all his
world's goods for the support of his wife, his capital stock is his pen.
Franklin understands it all. He knows full well this son of a Quaker,
this Junius of the quill, and he feels the need of him for America's
sake, and that scientific head of his thinks soundly on the work which
shall tell for the ages. Franklin was then acknowledged to be the
greatest man in the world, as he was; and the same judgment which never
led him wrong, and which made for him renown, pronounced also on the
character and abilities of Thomas Paine. These two men perfectly agreed
in politics and religion, and this covers the whole realm of opinion.
Their origin and their leading traits of character were the same;
secretive, cautious, courageous, and proud of heart, witty and
sarcastic, deeply read in the history of the world and of the human
heart, having come out of the loins of toil and the lap of poverty, the
history of their lives blend and conspire to unite their affections and
direct their labors. What these two men shall do, the world is yet too
stupid to think about. But their plan is made in England, and under the
patronage of the one the other is introduced to America.
If you truly believe Benjamin Franklin to be a fool, let me tell you how
you can demonstrate it. Prove to the world that Thomas Paine began his
literary life in America, and that Franklin intrusted the greatest work
of a nation, and the business of a world to an obscure English
exciseman, without previous history or character, and your point is
made. Yet this is just what chronologists would have us believe; _but
history delves beneath recorded events_.
Franklin was then an old man, he had almost reached his three-score
years and ten; Paine was thirty-one years and twelve days the younger.
Franklin has fifteen years of life and labor before him yet; Paine
thirty-four. The young scion of Democracy is growing up from the same
root by the side of the old stalk. Here youth supports old age, and the
boughs interlock, and they shall thus stand firm, supported by each
other against the terrible shocks which are yet to come during the
"hurricane months" of political revolution. "I am the sole depository of
my own secret, and it shall perish with me," said Junius; but Franklin
had been taught of nature, and the secret was kept.
Near the close of the year 1774, Junius lands in America, and begins to
dwell in the capital of the colonies, Philadelphia. Many things
conspired to take him there: it was the Quaker city of brotherly love;
it was Franklin's home; and, above all, the Continental Congress sat
there.
Immediately, that is, within two months after landing, he is employed as
editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. He did not write as editors do, but
his contributions appeared over the signature of ATLANTICUS--a name
which, like Junius, was the shadow of the writer. From the first he
wielded a mighty pen, and his contributions were noticed and highly
commended. The following extract is from one of his first efforts in
America, and consequently stands almost a year closer to Junius than
Common Sense. As it shows the hand of a master, long trained at the art,
I give it here, as a perfect sample of Junius:
"Though nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen,
rude, and niggardly at home. Return the visit, and she admits you
with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an
antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in
antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste
of receiving visitants in her dressing-room; she locks and bolts
up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only
resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide
the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of
Adam. He that would view nature in her undress, and partake of her
internal treasures, must proceed with the resolution of a robber,
if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation to follow her to the
caverns: the external earth makes no proclamation of the internal
stores, but leaves to chance and industry the discovery of the
whole. In such gifts as nature can annually recreate she is noble
and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of
her fortunes, but watches over the capital with the care of a
miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth in caves of
utter darkness; the hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps, mould in
the chests, like the riches of the necromancer's cell. It must be
very pleasant to an adventurous speculatist to make excursions
into these gothic regions, and in his travels he may possibly come
to a cabinet, locked up in some rocky vault, whose treasures shall
reward his toil, and enable him to shine, on his return, as
splendidly as nature herself."
* * * * *
The massacre of Lexington takes place the 19th of April, this year.
Paine had been but a few months in America. Franklin is in the middle of
the Atlantic, on his way home. He arrives in May, and the _Declaration
of Independence_ is now in existence, but only conceived in thought. It
will have to bide its time, locked up there in the brain; besides,
events are yet to happen which shall be put in it, and the country is
not yet prepared for it. The people have no unanimity of sentiment.
Congress is weak and trifling; it wants reconciliation, and permits the
British to land troops, to destroy the liberties of the people, and to
steal the powder of the colonies. The country must be roused to
sentiments of patriotism, and the magazines must be filled with powder,
to support the Declaration of Independence, before it appears to the
world.
Mr. Paine now sets about the work. He wishes the American people to be
consistent--to not talk of liberty without acting it out; and he gives
them "Serious Thoughts" on negro slavery to think about. It is a feeler,
sent out to test public sentiment, and to put the people to thinking in
the right direction. He struck--as he always did--when the iron was hot;
and, between the hammer and the iron, sparks were emitted which kept
burning in America for ninety years. His words were: "Stop the
importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and
in time procure their freedom." He believed that the justice of Heaven
would some day blot it out. This piece brought Mr. Paine many friends
and high hopes. Common Sense shortly afterward came from the press, to
stir up revolution in the hearts of the people.
He now turns his attention to chemistry, experiments in the art of
making saltpeter cheaply, publishes his researches, and organizes a
company to gratuitously supply the public magazines with powder. He is
boldly working out his plan. He gives Common Sense to each colony by
copyright, and the poor, ignorant dolts of that age and this age wonder
why he did not make himself rich in the sale of it. The fools must learn
that he was making patriots, not pounds and pence, to serve his purpose
and plan. Franklin smiles at the work as it goes on, for to effect a
revolution the country will be sorely in need of powder and patriotism.
But Washington they can rely on for this latter. When others fail whose
mouths were always open to profess liberty, he shall stand firm; when
_they_ desert the cause, he shall strike the harder and more nobly.
When war begins public sentiment changes quickly. The American people
are now ready for war, made so within a few months. Congress comes
together with more strength in its back-bone, more pluck in its heart;
and, on the 7th of June, a committee of five is appointed to draft a
Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine makes a concise reproduction
of Common Sense; constructs it upon mechanical principles, so that it
will first convince the understanding, and, having entered the head,
will soon reach the heart, for it is made on purpose to storm the
passions of men. He privately hands it to Thomas Jefferson. It is quite
fortunate that he was chairman of that committee. But in the act the
_honor_ of Thomas Paine is pledged for secrecy; it is an honor without
spot, and he locks up the act forever in his own breast with Junius.
The Declaration is read on the streets amid cheers; it is read in
churches with thanksgiving and praise; it is read in the legislative
halls of the states, and at the firesides of patriots; it is read in the
camp of the soldier, and by officers to their battalions; it is
proclaimed by the congress of the new nation, and from the house-tops to
all mankind. It is the second child of a man who has on his hands the
"BUSINESS OF A WORLD."
Now let the nation buckle on its armor, and look forward to peace won
only in blood. The Declaration of Independence is an easy thing
compared with what is to come. We shall see this man's work in war.
Washington is at the head of the army; John Adams, whose head is a
perfect battery of war forces, is at the head of the board of war. Upon
this man's office depends more than any other in the nation, for he is
_Secretary of War_. Mr. Paine has no office, no power of position, not
known to the nation, nor to the world, for Common Sense was thought to
be the production of Franklin or John Adams. Thomas Paine had great
faith in Washington, not so much in Lee. John Adams distrusted
Washington, and called him "a dolt," but put great confidence in Lee, an
English deserter, and more than an American traitor. Paine never
misjudged a man; John Adams never judged a man rightly. As colonies,
this country has done much for independence; as a nation, nothing. She
is now to be tried.
Paine enlists as a soldier with the "Flying Camp."
The British fleet is repulsed from Charleston, S.C., and can not land
her army of English, Scotch, and Hessians; but now, in August, she
effects a landing on Long Island. Washington is there with twenty
thousand men with guns, but no soldiers in arms. He loses a battle on
Long Island, and retreats therefrom. In October, he loses the battle of
White Plains. In November, Fort Washington, with two thousand six
hundred men, and our best cannon and arms are taken by the British
command, and Fort Lee falls, leaving commissary and quartermasters'
stores and cannon in the hands of the British. Washington now retreats
through the Jerseys, the British hard after. As they retreat, Paine
writes at night on a drum-head. In nineteen days, "often in sight and
within cannon-shot of each other, the rear of the one employed in
pulling down bridges, and the van of the other in building them up,"
Washington effected a march of ninety miles. The weather was severe, the
roads bad, and his army without blankets, tents, or provisions. In four
months his army dwindles from twenty thousand down to less than three
thousand. In the meantime, the Indians have been committing ravages on
the frontier, and in the heart of the country a great party demand
absolute submission. The Quakers oppose the war. There is no money to
pay soldiers, nor clothing to put on them; they are poorly armed, and
there is but little powder to put in the guns. Congress has only _voted_
for battalions, and there is an enemy "in the nation's bowels" that
votes can not resist. After Congress had voted for battalions, it took
its flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore, destroying public credit and
throwing upon Washington the responsibility of directing all things
relative to the operations of the war. The fate of the nation rests in
the balance; the beam is not equally poised, the nation is going down.
Washington is beyond the Delaware; the Hessians are at Trenton. He makes
a stand to look into the faces of but "twenty-four hundred men strong
enough to be his companions." And on the 20th of December, he tells a
voting and cowardly Congress: "Ten days more will put an end to this
army." These are "black days."
Where now are the hopes of America? Where are the committeemen who took
the Declaration of Independence into Congress? Franklin has gone to
France to work for the nation; Jefferson has refused to go with him, and
is at home in Virginia safe with his slaves. But where is John Adams,
who said that Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the
Declaration of Independence? Where is the chief representative from New
England, this "Colossus" of debate, this chief of the war committee?
_Where is John Adams_ in this darkest hour of his country's trial? He
has deserted her; he went home on the 13th of October after the first
reverse, and is "brave in his home by the sea," but will not come back
till four months are past, and Washington makes himself famous. The poor
dupe to his passions. Lee he loved, Washington he hated; a patriot this,
a traitor that. But where is the man who has on hand the _business of a
world_? We shall see. In this midnight of the revolution he has been
writing something. He has been in the army as a soldier, but has found
time to write. It is his first crisis, and it runs thus:
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service
of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and
thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily
conquered, yet we have this consolation left with us, that the
harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." He produces
one of his most masterly pieces. He appeals to Heaven, and prays
for some Jersey maid, like Joan of Arc, to spirit up her
countrymen. He deals the king and Lord Howe heavy blows, deftly
laid on; and of the tory, he says: "Good God! what is he? Every
tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is
the foundation of toryism." Having reviewed the enemies of the
country he then "turns with the warm ardor of a friend to those
who have nobly stood and are determined to stand the matter out."
... "Let them call me rebel and welcome," says he, "I feel no
concern from it; but I should suffer the miseries of devils were I
to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose
character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless,
brutish man." In this he also pays a tribute to Washington, in
which he says: "God has given him a mind that can flourish upon
care." "The heart that feels not now is dead, the blood of his
children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back now." "I love
the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength by
distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little
minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm will pursue his
principle unto death." "By perseverance and fortitude we have the
prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad
choice of a variety of evils--a ravaged country, a depopulated
city, habitations without safety, and slavery without hope; our
homes turned into barracks and bawdy houses for Hessians, and a
future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look
on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one
thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it
unlamented."
This little pamphlet was dated Dec. 23, 1776. It was read at the head of
the regiments which made up the small remnant of Washington's army. On
Christmas night, Washington recrosses the Delaware, and strikes the
Hessians at Trenton the next morning. His horse is shot under him, but
he wins his _first battle_ and takes nearly a thousand prisoners, eight
cannon, and twelve hundred small arms. A few days afterward, Washington
struck the British at Princeton, who lost in killed and wounded two
hundred, and of prisoners the Americans took two hundred and thirty.
Many of Washington's best soldiers being now quite barefoot and badly
clad, and the winter weather severe, he closed the first campaign made
glorious for freedom by the pen of that man who had undertaken the
"_business of a world_."
But in the fall and winter before this his pen was not idle. The new
Constitution of Pennsylvania had distracted the State, and Paine tries
to bring order out of chaos. He is not unmindful of the Quakers, who
will not obey the teachings of their religion and remain neutral, and it
is a severe chastisement he gives them, for he talks to them as one
having authority.
Five weeks after the first campaign was ended John Adams came back to
Congress, not willing to be called "a sunshine patriot" in his home by
the sea. But it was not cowardice which made this chief of the war
committee desert his post in the most trying months of his country--it
was downright meanness of the temper. I mention him again here because
in April this year, 1777, he makes a motion that Thomas Paine be made
secretary to the committee on foreign affairs. Mr. Paine went on duty.
This was, doubtless, brought about by Benjamin Franklin, who is now in
France to secure the favors of the government, and as secrecy is the
success of diplomacy, Franklin wants Paine to receive his dispatches,
for in him he can trust. It was while in this office, as detective, that
he was made acquainted with the misconduct of Silas Deane. The stores
which Mr. Deane obtained from France were a gift to this country, but he
afterward brought in a demand for them, fraudulently pretending that he
had purchased them. This was in December, 1778. On the 29th of this
month Mr. Paine began a series of letters in the _Pennsylvania Packet_
entitled, "Common Sense to the Public on Mr. Deane's Affairs." He did
this to protect the Government, and took the responsibility upon himself
to save other parties. He began by saying of Mr. Deane, "as he rose like
a rocket he would fall like a stick." Three letters had made their
appearance when Mr. Paine was commanded to appear before Congress. The
President inquired of him, "Did you write this piece?" "I am the author
of that piece," responded Paine. "And this? and this?" "I am." "You may
retire." The Congress tried to dismiss him. It was a tie vote. The next
day, the 8th of January, 1779, Mr. Paine wrote to Congress as follows:
"As I can not consistently with my character as a freeman, submit to be
censured unheard, therefore to preserve that character and maintain that
right, I think it my duty to resign the office of secretary of the
committee for foreign affairs, and I do hereby resign the same."
He now opens up on Silas Deane a terrible battery of invective, and
exposed the fraud so completely, that Congress became ashamed of
supporting him, and Mr. Deane absconded to France, and afterward died in
England, it is said, of remorse, after taking poison. But Mr. Paine
became the "_victim of his integrity_," to save the money of the
government, which the soldiers were sorely in need of, and to bravely
push forward the "_business of a world_."
But, during this time, he has also written Nos. II, III, and IV of _The
Crisis_. No. II is to Lord Howe, dated January 13, 1777. This is one of
his finest pieces of satire, which is also filled with sentiments of
patriotism, courage, and hope. These periodical productions are among
his best efforts, and they were continued till the war ended. There are
sixteen in all. They were written to produce patriotism in the hearts of
the people. No. VIII, I think, is one of the finest productions I ever
read. It is addressed to the people of England, and is the sad wailing
of Junius.
In December of 1778, he puts forth the proposition to apply steam to
navigation--the first thought of the kind in America, which came in
advance of the fact about eight years, and in this America was the first
in the world.
Mr. Paine offers, at this time, to be one of a party of four or five to
set fire to the British fleet in the Delaware. But the three men like
him can not be found.
In 1779 he is appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly.
In 1780 he is dissuaded and prevented from going to England to get out,
in secret, a publication to stir up revolution there. The fates will not
permit him to try Junius over again. It is as well.
But the spring of this year was marked with an accumulation of
misfortunes to our army. The defense of Charleston had failed, and,
besides this, there was no money to pay the soldiers. A general gloom
rested on the whole country, patriotism was at its ebb, and petitions
were abundant to exempt the people from paying taxes. Government had
neither money nor credit, and things had come to a "_dead lock_."
Washington wrote to the Assembly of Pennsylvania. The doors were shut,
and it fell to Thomas Paine, the clerk, to read the letter.
"In this letter the naked truth of things was unfolded. Among
other informations, the general said that, notwithstanding his
confidence in the attachment of the army to the cause of the
country, the distresses of it, from the want of every necessary
which men could be destitute of, had arisen to such a pitch that
the appearances of mutiny and discontent were so strongly marked
on the countenances of the army, that he dreaded the event of
every hour."
After the letter was read, a despairing silence pervaded the hall.
Nobody spoke for a considerable time. At last a member of much fortitude
arose and said: "If the account in that letter is a true state of
things, and we are in the situation there represented, it appears to me
in vain to contend the matter any longer. We may as well give up the
matter first as last." Another man arose and said: "Well, well, don't
let the house despair; if things are not so well as we wish, we must
endeavor to make them better," and then moved an adjournment.
What shall now be done? Where is the god of battle, that he has deserted
America? When all others fail, both in council and in war, who shall be
able to cheer the heart and lift up the head of the nation? We shall
see. Thomas Paine draws his salary; he writes a stirring appeal for a
private subscription; heads it with five hundred dollars, "his mite, and
will increase it as far as the last ability will enable him to go." This
subscription is to be a _donation_ to carry on the war. In nine days the
subscription "amounts to four hundred pounds hard money, and one hundred
and one thousand three hundred and sixty pounds continental." The
subscribers now meet and form a bank, with a capital basis of three
hundred thousand pounds, real money, _for the purpose of supplying the
army_; and the country is once more saved by the man who has on his
hands "_the business of a world_."
It is now the university of Pennsylvania makes itself honorable and
famous by conferring on Thomas Paine the degree of Master of Arts. It is
in 1780 this is done, and on the FOURTH OF JULY.
But more money must be had. A continental dollar is worth about one
cent. "Hard money must be had," says Thomas Paine. But how shall it be
obtained? By an appeal to the king of France. Paine now sets about the
work. It is near the close of the year 1780. He takes up the pen and
undisguisedly states the true case of the nation, and requests that
France, either as a subsidy or a loan, will supply the United States
with a million sterling, and continue that supply annually during the
war. This letter was addressed to Count Vergennes, the French minister
of foreign affairs. Paine, as soon as he had written it, showed it to M.
Marbois, secretary to the French minister. His reply was: "A million
sent out of a nation exhausts it more than ten millions spent in it."
But nothing daunted he then took it to Ralph Isard, member of Congress
from South Carolina. Isard said: "We will try and do something about it
in Congress." Congress favored the letter, and it was thus made a
memorial. But who shall now take it to France, and in person represent
the situation and demand assistance, as set forth in this letter? Paine
had his eye on the man when he went to the member from South Carolina
with his letter. It was one of this state's noblest sons, Col. John
Laurens, aid to Washington; for Paine loved the Laurenses, both father
and son. Through Washington this son was named as agent. But he said:
"No, appoint Colonel Hamilton." Congress refused. Now young Laurens
states his case to Paine. He said he was acquainted with the military
difficulties, but not at all acquainted with political affairs, nor with
the resources of the country, "but if you will go with me, I will
accept." Of course Paine will go, and that, too, without pay, never
expecting a cent for it. Paine had planned his work well, he has got his
man, the bravest heart of the land, and we shall now see the boldest act
of diplomacy on record. For five weeks Paine had been about this work,
and about the first of February, 1781, they sail for France. As soon as
they reach Paris, Laurens promptly reports his arrival and business to
Vergennes. It is in vain. "The formalities of court and the
self-complaisancy of the minister, who would not be hurried, baffled him
for more than two months." But this young son of war has a spirit to
dare and a tutor to direct--who knows from long experience the stuff
kings are made of. He will not be trifled with by subordinates; he will
appeal directly to the king. He declares this to the minister, who
responds, "I am confounded with your audacity." This is more than
Franklin would dare, who is there at court. There comes "a public
lever." Louis XVI is there, and so is young Laurens, in uniform, his
sword at his side. Now act well thy part, a nation's life dwells in thy
words. He is presented to the king, who only expects the passing
formalities of an introduction. But Laurens speaks: "I am just from the
army of Washington. I know well its condition, it is fully set forth in
this memorial;" and then touching his sword, he adds, with animation,
"Unless speedy succor is sent to my country, the weapon I now wear at my
side as the ally of your majesty, might be drawn as the _subject_ of
Great Britain against you and France." The king was struck dumb; but
soon rallied himself and replied briefly, but favorably. He took the
memorial, the money was granted, and Paine accompanied Laurens home with
$2,500,000 in silver. The army is paid, fed, and clothed; Yorktown is
attacked upon the strength of it; Cornwallis surrenders, and the British
power is broken in this country forever, through those great causes put
in motion and faithfully sustained by the man who had on his hands "THE
BUSINESS OF A WORLD."
The great work of Thomas Paine is now nearly done in America, but mighty
things are yet to be done for the world. The next year he writes his
famous letter to the Abbe Raynal, and the Crisis, which guides the
nation to honor. A few years of rest, in which he writes his
Dissertation on Government, and other pieces; is elected a member of the
Philosophical Society, receives the hospitalities of Washington, and
three thousand dollars from Congress for his ten years services in
America, and he sails for France where he sees the fires of revolution
beginning to kindle.
But he has taken care to provide wisdom for his country before he quits
her shores. His far-reaching eye sees that a Federal Constitution will
have to be formed for the states, and in 1786 he is careful to
incorporate into his Dissertation on Government a _Declaration of
Rights_. In this Declaration of Rights lies the foundation of the
republic, and although not prefixed to the Federal Constitution at the
time it was formed and adopted, a complete synopsis of it was afterward
added as the ten first amendments thereto. Franklin has also come home
to labor awhile, now more than eighty years old; and being chosen a
delegate to the Federal Convention, Mr. Paine sailed for France the 16th
of April, 1787, just a month before it convened. He has finished his
work in America. This work he did faithfully and well. He is now fifty
years old, and there are ten years of revolutionary work, and twenty-two
of life before him yet.
He took with him to Paris the model of an _iron bridge_. He submits it
to the Academy of Sciences. It is pronounced a success, if theory can be
sustained by mathematical demonstration. He proposes an iron arch with a
span of four hundred and eighty feet. But theory must be tested, and the
next year he builds his bridge in an open field near Paddington, in
England. Experiment said it was a success, but he got into gaol for debt
on account of it. The bridge now spans the river Wear, at Sunderland.
This iron arch bridge was the first in the world. The principles are
now seen in thousands of bridges in Europe and America; and if they
could speak, each one would say: "I was born from the brain of Thomas
Paine."
Two American merchants assist him to pay his debts, and he gets out of
an English gaol in time to go over to France to witness the taking of
the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789. That "high altar and castle of
despotism" fell at the bidding of those republican principles which he
had dedicated his life to teach and maintain. It was a most fitting and
grand event when Lafayette gave to Thomas Paine the key to the Bastile
to present to Washington. It is now the property of this nation.
Mr. Burke the next year writes his "Reflections" on the French
Revolution, and Mr. Paine returns in November, 1790, to answer the
publication. In March, the first part of "The Rights of Man" appeared
for this purpose. It was dedicated to Washington. In another year the
second part appeared, dedicated to Lafayette. A hundred thousand copies
of this work went into the hands of the people. It was translated into
all the European languages, and was read by the poor and the rich, the
high and the low; it became the companion alike of the vassal and his
lord. In this he says: "The peer is exalted into the man. Titles are but
nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly
harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human
character which degrades it. It talks about its fine ribbon like a girl,
and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of antiquity says,
'When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put
away childish things.' ... The insignificance of a senseless word like
duke, count, or earl, has ceased to please, and as they outgrew the
rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting
for its native home society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from
it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand to contract the
sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the bastile of a word,
and surveys at a distance the envied life of man." Aristocracy "is a law
against every law of nature, and nature herself calls for its
destruction. Establish family justice and aristocracy falls. By the
aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children
five are exposed. Aristocracy has never but one child. The rest are
begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and
the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast." ... "By nature they
are children, and by marriage they are heirs, but by aristocracy they
are bastards and orphans."
"In taking up this subject," he says, "I seek no recompense; I fear no
consequences. Fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to
triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man." ... "Knowing my
own heart, and feeling myself, as I now do, superior to all the skirmish
of party, the inveteracy of interested or mistaken opponents, I answer
not to falsehood or abuse." ... "Independence is my happiness, and I view
things as they are, without regard to place or person. My country is the
world, and my religion is to do good."
Mr. Paine is now doing openly and boldly the work which Junius tried to
do with less success. The same pen has now twenty years more experience;
it has added wisdom, but lost a trifle of its vivacity; yet it has lost
none of its terrible satire. Never did Junius use secretly such severe
language toward the king as Mr. Paine now openly writes. Of the crown,
he says: "It signifies a nominal office of a million a year, the
business of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be
wise or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not.
The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from
any thing that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the
nation; the danger of its coming to its senses.... When we speak of the
Crown now it means nothing; it signifies neither a judge nor a general;
besides which it is the laws that govern, and not the man."
"It is time that nations should be rational, and not governed like
animals, for the pleasure of their riders. To read the history of kings,
a man would be almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in
stag hunting, and that every nation paid a million a year to the
huntsman. Man ought to have pride or shame enough to blush at being thus
imposed upon, and when he feels his proper character he will.... It has
cost England almost seventy millions sterling to maintain a family
imported from abroad, of very inferior capacity to thousands in the
nation. No wonder that jails are crowded, and taxes and poor-rates
increased. Under such systems nothing is to be looked for but what has
already happened; and, as to reformation, whenever it comes, it must be
from the nation, and not from the government."
In the above how one is reminded of Junius, when he says: "The original
fault is in the government," and "there are many things which we ought
to affirm can not be done by king, lords, and commons." "The ruin or
prosperity of a state depends on the administration of its government."
"Behold a nation overwhelmed with debt, her revenues wasted, her trade
declining." That "a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no
relief but death." "And that if an honest man were permitted to approach
a king, it would be matter of curious speculation how he would be
received," if the king himself had "spirit enough to bid him speak
freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention."
For the publication of this work in England many men were fined and
imprisoned. Mr. Paine himself was tried and convicted, but having been
elected a representative to the National Assembly of France, by the
Department of Calais, he left England in September, 1792, and being
afterward outlawed, never set foot on her soil again. Had it not been
for this election to the National Assembly, he would have remained to
contest in an English court the principles he had proclaimed. Twenty
minutes after he left her shores forever, an order arrived at Dover,
from which place he sailed, for his detention, but it was too late;
there is yet a sublime deed to be done.
At Calais, France embraced him, and a daughter of the New Republic
placed in his hat the national cockade. Mr. Paine is now entering the
dark days of his life. With what fortitude and manliness he shall pass
through them we shall see. He takes his seat in the National Assembly.
In this he addresses the people of France, and says; "I come not to
enjoy repose. I commence my citizenship in the stormy hour of
difficulties. Convinced that the cause of France is THE CAUSE OF ALL
MANKIND, and that liberty can not be purchased by a wish, I gladly share
with you the dangers and honors necessary to success.... 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 that individual, that calls
France and her armies into action. It is the great cause of ALL. It is
the establishment of a new era that shall blot despotism from the earth,
and fix, on the lasting principles of peace and citizenship the great
REPUBLIC OF MAN."
France is declared a republic, and Mr. Paine is one of nine men to draft
a new constitution. This work is done. In the meantime, charges are
preferred against the king, and Louis XVI is brought to trial. Mr. Paine
voted for the trial. The king is found guilty, and condemned to die. But
he has now a friend in Thomas Paine. He speaks against the death
penalty, and says:
"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." He then reviews the causes which
brought him to trial, and pictures the deplorable condition he is
in--condemns the constituent assembly, rather than the
unfortunate prisoner, and then asks: "What shall be done with this
man?" He has now taken his own life in his hands, when he proffers
to the King of France an asylum in America. Besides, he has a duty
to perform for the United States, which now he offers his own life
to fulfill. He has not forgotten the great feat of young Laurens,
when he touched his sword in presence of this same king, demanding
_that_ aid which made his country free and independent, and which
was granted. He therefore says: "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
ardor and zeal which she displayed to provide 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 means of a monarchical organ, this organ,
whatever in other respects the object might be, certainly
performed a good, a great action. Let, then, these United States
be the safeguard and asylum of Louis Capet."
Marat cries out: "Paine is a Quaker," and the benevolence of this good
man is whelmed over by the fierce and bloody sentiment of revenge. This
is one of the sublime deeds which give us faith in man, but which appear
at such wide intervals that they mark eras in the world's history. I
know of but one other which rises to such touching sublimity--it is
Socrates, at the head of the Athenian Senate, refusing to put the vote
demanded by the laws, religion, and united voice of his country, which
would condemn to death the admirals who were unable to bury the dead
that had been slain in battle. Both offered their lives that others
might live, rather than be themselves unjust.
Mr. Paine, by this effort to save the king's life, lost his influence in
the assembly, and he became afterward a silent member, and, in the minds
of many, set apart to die. Foreigners are now expelled from the
convention, and an order having passed that all persons born in England,
and residing in France, should be imprisoned, he was, by order of
Robespierre, arrested, and thrown into the Luxembourg. Of his narrow
escapes, Mr. Paine says:
"I was one of the nine members that composed the first committee
of constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Syeyes and
myself have survived--he by bending with the times, and I by not
bending. The other survivor joined Robespierre, and signed with
him the warrant of my arrestation. After the fall of 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.
"Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jefferson, and a good
patriot, was my _suppliant_ 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 but two foreigners in the convention--Anacharsis
Cloots and myself. We were both put out of the convention by the
same vote, arrested by the same order, and carried to prison
together the same night. He was taken to the guillotine, and I
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 suppliant as
member of the convention for the department of the Pays 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 into the same prison, and took my place
there; and he went 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 one hundred and
sixty of them guillotined the next day, of which I know I was to
have been one; and the manner I escaped that fate is curious, and
has all the appearance of accident. When persons by scores and
hundreds were to be taken out of 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 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. A few days after this Robespierre fell, and the
American embassador arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me to
his house.
"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 may be placed, has neither feeling nor sense of honor. The
letter of Mr. Jefferson has served to wipe away the reproach, and
has done justice to the mass of the people of America.
"About two months before this event, I was seized with a fever
that, in its progress, had every symptom of becoming mortal.... I
have some reason to believe, because I can not discover any other
cause, that this illness preserved me in existence."
In these hours of death, and when he expects to be beheaded at any
moment, he is writing his AGE OF REASON. The first part he completed
just before going to prison; the second part he studies upon, and partly
writes, while in prison, and publishes it a few months after his
release.
This work was planned years before it appeared, and its completion was
deferred till near the close of his life, that the purity of his motives
might not be impeached. It was written at that time, too, before he had
intended it, because he expected soon to be put to death, and lest, in
"the general shipwreck of superstition, of false systems of government,
and false theology, the people lose sight of morality, of humanity, and
of the theology that is true." It was written to combat superstition,
fanaticism, and atheism on the one hand, and to defend religion,
morality, and deism on the other. It is the good and religious work of
a good and religious man. The work it was designed to accomplish is not
yet done, but it is well begun. As the world grows wiser it will be
valued the more highly, and the more it is read the better will people
become.
Had Mr. Paine died at this time, his life's work would have been
fulfilled, and the tranquillity of his life would not have been
disturbed by the curses of the whole order of the priesthood. But there
are fourteen years of life before him yet, in which he is maligned,
vilified, slandered, and publicly and privately insulted.
I will briefly sum them up. Seven of these years he spends in France. He
writes his essays "On the English System of Finance," "Agrarian
Justice," and the "Letter to General Washington;" also, one "To the
People and Armies of France." It seems he became attached to Napoleon,
for the project of the gun-boat invasion of England is started, and
should it succeed, Mr. Paine is to give England a more liberal
government. In 1802, he came to America, and the folly of gun-boats also
enters into Jefferson's administration. These seven years of life in
America are years of trouble and grief. Jefferson, the great Democratic
partisan, secures his services to write for his party; but he had never
been a partisan, he had stood on higher ground, he had labored for all
mankind, and the work, which ill became him, served only to aggravate
his own life. We can see a mental change coming over the old man; the
reason is yet strong, but the temper is irritable; he grows peevish and
broods over his wrongs. "I ought not to have an enemy in America," he
said. But the generation of people he now lived among, near the close
of his life, were not yet born "in the times that tried men's souls,"
and they knew him not. He was the friend of Jefferson, and Jefferson had
bitter enemies, who said "they both ought to dangle from the same
gallows."
He had been paid but little for his revolutionary services, and he now
felt the ingratitude of the old Congress, which had treated him badly,
and the new one, which could not be bothered with him. Thus his miseries
multiply. "After so many years of service, my heart grows cold toward
America," he writes, a year before his death, to the Speaker of the
House of Representatives. Jefferson ought to have kept the old man aloof
from politics, instead of thrusting him into his party broils, and
bringing down on his head the whole host of his own personal enemies.
Paine had enemies enough of his own without these. But great ideas and
generous affections, it seems, Jefferson never had. Now, in his old age,
the great apostle of liberty is deserted by many he had labored to
befriend, and, though he does not meet death at the hands of his
enemies, they have venom enough in their hearts to slay him.
It is sad to think that his last hours were embittered for the want of a
friend. Washington had long before forgotten him while a prisoner in the
Luxembourg. Samuel Adams had condemned him. John Adams has it in his
heart to blast his memory, and four years after he is dead writes to
Jefferson, "Joel Barlow was about to record Tom Paine as the great
author of the American Revolution. If he was, I desire that my name may
be blotted out forever from its record." This came from the man who
twice deserted his post in the trying hour of his country; once for four
months when at the head of the war committee, and once for seven months
when president of the nation. It came from the man who said: Jefferson
had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of
Independence. "Blotted out," No! John Adams, your name will live forever
on the records of your country. You were sometimes a great man. But by
the side of Thomas Paine, on the records of your country, you stand
thus:
_History._
John Adams, Member of Congress, the Colossus of
debate, signer of the Declaration of Independence,
famous in the world, chief of the war committee,
on whom great trusts were imposed, in whom great
faith was had, in the first trying crisis of the
new nation DESERTED HER. _Brave in his home by the
sea._
Thomas Paine, the Junius of England, author of
Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence,
whose fame is unknown, on whom no trust was
imposed by the public, undertakes the business of
a world; enlists in the army of Washington, and in
the first trying crisis of the new nation, by the
inspiration of his pen, SAVED HER. _Bravest when
stout hearts fail._
Franklin, the firm friend, has been dead these nineteen years, and many
more of the old first friends had gone the same way. His mind now
reverts to his home in England, and the religion of his father haunts
his affections. He asks to be buried in the Quaker burying-ground, and
is refused, lest this act of decency should offend the sanctified
followers of Fox. It is as well. The old man's will records, that if
this be not granted him on account of his father's religion, he was to
be buried on his own farm at New Rochelle. On the 8th of June, 1809, he
took his final leave of the world. "I have lived," said he, "an honest
and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I
die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my
Creator--God."
Thus the great REVOLUTIONIST passed away. Like all great men, he lived a
virtuous, upright life. He had a noble object in view, and labored
manfully to accomplish it. But having done his work well, his enemies
have added to his fame by trying to undo what time has approved, and by
reviling him when nature has applauded.
CONCLUSION.
Thomas Paine is now placed right before the world. He was peculiarly a
favored child of nature. The great strokes of his character are these: A
spirit to resent an injury which made him sometimes revengeful and
vindictive. Yet a friend in his defense could call upon him for his
life, and it would be granted. Too proud to be vain, he rose above the
common level in personal honor, and demanded that the character of a
nation should be without spot. Benevolent beyond his means, he lived
like a miser, that he might have wherewith to bestow upon the needy,
whether man, woman, child, or country.
Secretive beyond estimate, he lived a perfect spy upon the world, and
obtained from friend and foe, from society and government, what they
wished to conceal, and stored away facts which he locked up in his own
mind to be used if needed, or everlastingly kept. He was too hopeful to
estimate the future correctly, and had too much faith in man to judge
correctly of his actions. Yet character he scarcely ever misjudged. As
for courage, he dared to do any thing that was right. He dared to think
like a philosopher, and to act like a man. Intellectually he was a
prodigy; and as for _genius_, under which I combine the constructive,
analytic and imaginative faculties the world has never seen his equal.
He was, in short, an artist, inventor, scholar, poet, philosopher, enemy
and friend. These mental characteristics were so combined and regulated
by his will, that nature could never repeat what she produced in Thomas
Paine.
I have faithfully followed the lines of nature in this criticism, and
have endeavored to produce a work which the student and statesman can
study with profit; which the lawyer may consider as an argument; which
will arrest the attention of the historian, and present new themes to
the mind of the philosopher; one which will open up a new method for the
critic, and in all these a work which the scholar will not despise. This
I say without vanity. Mine indeed are humble labors; and my work,
whatever it is, has not been laborious and artful, but easy and natural.
I have not written this to make proselytes to his religion, but to do a
much injured man a good service. Yet, as hero-worship is a part of man's
nature, it may not be improbable that one age will extol what a
previous one reviled, and a temple be erected to the religion of a man
who was once thought to be a devil. This reminds me of a story which
long ago I remember of reading in a volume of the Letters of the Turkish
Spy; and as I quote from memory I will give only the substance:
Two hundred years ago, somewhere in Spain, in front of a Christian house
of worship, stood a statue. This was the black image of a man sitting on
an ass. As each pious devotee passed in to worship, or came out
therefrom, he spat upon the statue. But a Mussulman embassador coming
from the king of Morocco, observing these rites, which he was told had
been performed for centuries, asked the king why they treated this image
with such insult. He was told it was the image of Mahomet. The follower
of Mahomet, being better informed, replied: This can not be, for Mahomet
rode always on camels, and it was Jesus Christ who, it is recorded, rode
on an ass. This fact was soon confirmed by the priests, and thereupon
the people took to kissing and worshiping what they had before
insultingly spat upon, and afterward erected a temple where it stood in
honor of it.
APPENDIX.
Those who have never examined the claims advanced in favor of Philip
Francis, may be benefited by this Appendix. I think it will herein be
made out, that his case has been founded on spurious and unauthenticated
records. The case may be stated as follows:
On March 3, 1772, there was published, under the supervision of Junius,
a _genuine_ edition of the Letters. In his Preface, he states: "The
encouragement given to a _multitude_ of _spurious_ mangled publications
of the Letters of Junius persuades me that a complete edition, corrected
and improved by the author, will be favorably received.... This edition
contains _all_ the letters of Junius, Philo Junius," etc.
Forty years after this edition was published, when Mr. H. S. Woodfall,
the publisher, was dead, his son issued a new edition, in which he
collected from the files of the Advertiser what he supposed to be other
letters of Junius, and classed them as Miscellaneous Letters. This new
edition, which is called Woodfall's, was first published in 1812. Upon
the heel of this edition, John Taylor published his "Junius Identified,"
supporting his claims in favor of Francis nearly or quite altogether on
the Miscellaneous Letters. Till then the claims of Francis were never
brought forward. I now proceed to show that these Miscellaneous Letters
are not all genuine.
1. They show in many instances internal evidence of fraud. Private Note
No. 61 is as follows:
"SUNDAY, May 3, 1772.
"I am in no manner of hurry about the books. I hope the sale has
answered. I think it will always be a saleable book. The inclosed
is fact, and I wish it could be printed to-morrow. It is not worth
announcing. The proceedings of this wretch are unaccountable.
There must be some mystery in it, which I hope will soon be
discovered, to his confusion. Next to the Duke of Grafton, I
verily believe that the blackest heart in the kingdom belongs to
Lord Barrington."
The above note accompanied a letter signed _Scotus_, published in the
Advertiser, May 4, 1772. Now, mark! The private note which accompanied
this letter of _Scotus_ says: "_This is fact._" And the letter of
_Scotus_ opens as follows: "To Lord Barrington: My lord, _I am a
Scotchman_," etc. He then goes on, without dignity or grace, to talk
bluntly to Lord Barrington, and with an egotistical defense of the
Scotch. He says: "There is courage at least in _our_ composition." "For
the future, my lord, be more sparing of your reflections on the Scotch."
This letter and the note accompanying it are yet in existence in the
original, and are called genuine. Now, that they are forgeries is quite
evident from the whole spirit of Junius in regard to the Scotch. In
Letter 44, he says of Mr. Wedderburne: "I speak tenderly of this
gentleman, for when treachery is in question, I think we should make
allowances for a Scotchman." He speaks of the Scotch "cunning,"
"treachery," and "fawning sycophancy," of "the characteristic prudence,
the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, the persevering
assiduity, the everlasting profession of a discreet and moderate
resentment." This last quotation may be found in the Preface, and was
written about four months prior to the publication of the letter of
_Scotus_. Now, is the positive evidence of the _genuine_ Letters to be
set aside by this fugitive note and letter of _Scotus_? Reason and
Common Sense say not. Here then one of the Miscellaneous Letters, and
one of the private letters to Woodfall are proven to be forgeries. How
many more may have to go the same way? Even the nationality of _Francis_
is against this one of _Scotus_, for he was an Irishman.
It may be well to remark, in passing, that as the manuscript of this
letter of _Scotus_ is still in existence, the claims of Francis founded
on handwriting will have to go the same way, for proof on genuine
handwriting is _doubtful_, but proof on disguised handwriting is
_worthless_. All that can be proven from handwriting is, Francis _may_
have been the author of this forged letter of _Scotus_, and other
letters of _Veteran_, which were written solely from personal spite
toward Lord Barrington.
2. I would call attention to another manifest forgery of a private note
and letter. The note is No. 8, vol. i, p. 198, and the letter is No. 58,
vol. iii, p. 218, Woodfall's edition. The letter is one of low wit, and
somewhat vulgar in its construction, and is an answer to another signed
_Junia_, probably written by Mr. Caleb Whiteford. The note says: "The
last letter you printed was idle and improper, and, I assure you,
printed against my own opinion. _The truth is, there are people about me
whom I would wish not to contradict, and who had rather see Junius in
the papers ever so improperly than not at all._" The question now is:
Did those people, for whose benefit he wrote the letter, keep the
_secret_ which has baffled the world?--for these people must have known
him to be Junius. And did Junius write falsely, when he said in his
Dedication more than two years afterward: "I am the sole depository of
my own secret, and it shall perish with me?" Did Junius write falsely
when he said: "This edition contains _all_ the letters of Junius?" for
this one which he cast out, and is in the Miscellaneous collection, was
signed _Junius_. Besides, the handwriting is different from the genuine
notes. Compare No. 8, spurious, with No. 3, genuine, vol. i, Woodfall's
edition.
Here is clear evidence of forgery in two cases, not from handwriting be
it remembered, but from internal evidence. May there not be many more
such cases? Moreover, from the style and spirit of all the miscellaneous
letters written _after_ the one signed _Atticus_, and printed November
14, 1768, there is no evidence whatever of the hand or head of Junius.
Prior to this time Junius had been writing to get his hand in, and his
contributions appeared over the signatures of _Atticus_, _Lucius_, _C_,
and a few others, but all prior to the above date. Junius _proper_ began
with his famous Letter of January 21, 1769, and closed in just three
years to a day.
I am now prepared to state: In the comparison of Thomas Paine with
Junius I did not suffer myself in a single instance to go outside of the
_genuine_ edition; because I plainly saw, after a long and critical
study of the Letters, that there was no safe footing outside of it.
Whatever, therefore, has been established in style, character,
occupation, rank, opinion, etc., in favor of Paine, has at least this
merit: _its foundation is good_. I propose now to show that this can not
be said in favor of Francis.
I have given on pages 190 and 191 the summing up of the main argument of
John Taylor in favor of Francis, by Mr. Macaulay. Macaulay writes only
as a reviewer of Taylor, not an original investigator; and a reviewer,
too, like many at this day, without searching at the fountain head for
the facts in the case. Let us now look at the five points Mr. Taylor
makes:
"First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary
of State's office." Under this Taylor begins by observing: "One method
of discovering the rank and _station_ of Junius is to see with whose
names he is most familiar." He then says: "The only persons to whom
Junius applies epithets of familiarity are Welbore Ellis, Esq., Lord
Barrington, Messrs. Rigby, Whateley, Bradshaw, and Chamier." Taylor then
proves Junius to have been familiar with Whateley by a long quotation
from miscellaneous letters, one without a signature, and one signed
_Henricus_. See Taylor's Junius Identified, page 54. In this connection
comes a very important disclosure in regard to Mr. _Grenville_. I will
quote Taylor, page 54: "Comparing these indications of personal
acquaintance with the opportunities afforded Sir P. Francis, we find
that Mr. George Grenville was one of the secretaries of state at the
time Sir Philip Francis held that place in the Secretary of State's
office, which had been given him by Lord Holland, and Mr. Whateley was
then Mr. Grenville's private secretary. This contiguity of station would
afford Sir Philip Francis frequent opportunities of acquiring all that
_intimate_ and _ocular_ knowledge of Mr. Whateley which is evinced by
Junius." That is, which is evinced by Junius in the letter signed
"_Henricus_," and the one _without_ signature, and which are not in the
genuine edition. But Mr. Taylor proves too much; for then Junius, if he
were Sir Philip Francis, would also have been acquainted with Grenville,
as Francis doubtless was, and there is nothing to hinder Grenville from
becoming acquainted with Francis, where there is such "_intimacy_"
between Grenville's _private secretary_ and Francis, and where there is
such "_contiguity of station_." Let us now produce positive proof on the
other side from a _genuine_ letter. Letter 18 says: "It is not my design
to enter into a formal vindication of Mr. Grenville upon his own
principles. I have neither the honor of being _personally known to him_,
nor do I pretend to be completely master of the facts." But if Francis
was Junius, this statement could not be true.
While I am upon this subject of personal knowledge and acquaintance, let
me bring forward something against Francis. It is well known that he
attended school for about three years with Mr. Woodfall, and that a
friendship strong and intimate existed between them through life. Put
over against this, from private note to Woodfall, No. 17, the following:
"I doubt much whether I shall ever have the pleasure of knowing you; but
if things take the turn I expect, you shall know _me by my works_." The
italics are his own. Here is a positive statement that Junius did not
know Woodfall, and an implied one that Woodfall did not know Junius. If
Francis was Junius, here is confusion confounded; but if Paine was
Junius, it is as clear as day. But to proceed.
In regard to Bradshaw, Chamier, and Barrington, Taylor quotes from
_Domitian_, _Veteran_, _Q. in the Corner_, and _Arthur Tell Truth_, all
miscellaneous letters. He also quotes once from private note No. 52,
which, like the two others I have shown, is undoubtedly a forgery. This
note was dated January 25, 1772, and was written with the manifest
purpose of paving the way to those four low and scurrilous attacks on
Lord Barrington by _Veteran_. These he began on the 28th, three days
after the private note, and promised sixteen letters "already written,"
but only wrote four, when he exhausted himself. Nearly all the evidence
in favor of Francis is taken from these letters. Taylor establishes _not
a single fact_ under the first head from _Junius_, and I believe only
quotes him _once, and to prove nothing_. I now proceed with the next
count.
"Secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the
War Office." In answer to this, I will quote Taylor, page 61, as
follows: "But in the letters at the end of the third volume [Letters of
_Veteran_, vol. iii, Woodfall's Junius] it seems as if he was almost
indifferent to discovery, he so clearly betrays his _personal
acquaintance_ with the proceedings of the Secretary of War." This he
founds solely on _Veteran_.
"Thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House
of Lords, and took notes of the speeches, particularly of the speeches
of Lord Chatham." Taylor tries to establish this claim on the letter _Y.
Z._, which is in the Miscellaneous collection. But I insist, _Y. Z._
must be proven to be Junius before any inference can be drawn from it.
Taylor can not even prove that Francis wrote it. But he draws an
inference from the following in Philo Junius: "In regard to Lord Camden,
the truth is, that he inadvertently overshot himself, as appears plainly
by that unguarded mention of a tyranny of forty days, _which I myself
heard_." The argument is, Junius heard speeches in Parliament, and
therefore _might_ have been Francis, as speeches were not reported till
long after. As this extract is from authority which I indorse, I will
meet it by a passage from Thomas Paine's Crisis vii, showing that he
also heard debates in Parliament. Speaking of national honor, he says:
"I remember the late Admiral Saunders declaring in the House of Commons,
and that in the time of peace, 'that the city of Madrid laid in ashes
was not a sufficient atonement for the Spaniards taking off the rudder
of an English sloop of war.'"
"Fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to
the place of Deputy Secretary at War." This is founded entirely on the
letters of _Veteran_.
"Fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord
Holland." This argument is founded on the _silence_ of Junius in regard
to Lord Holland, and one letter of _Anti-Fox_, which is in the
Miscellaneous collection.
These five points, then, of Taylor's argument are all founded on
unauthenticated letters, and yet Macaulay says: "If this argument does
not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on
circumstantial evidence." But, if the evidence of those miscellaneous
letters is to be taken as true, which were written nobody knows by whom,
and collected forty years after Junius ceased writing, and which had
been thrown out of the genuine edition by Junius himself, or had not yet
been written, by what rule are we to be guided in settling the question?
Let me present a difficulty at once. Suppose I am a Scotchman. I wish to
make out a case for some one of my countrymen, and I turn to the
Miscellaneous collection and find a letter signed _Scotus_. Ah! here is
a Scotchman, as the signature denotes. I immediately begin to read, and
to my happiness the first sentence is an unqualified affirmation: "My
lord, I am a Scotchman." This is positive, I affirm; and then how
delighted I am to find, in a private note, the assurance to Mr. Woodfall
that this letter "_is fact_." And, more than this, the original
manuscript is at this hour in existence. Now, all I have to do is to
show that this disguised hand resembles that of some cotemporary
Scotchman's, and Scotland has the honor. This shows how absolutely
worthless any argument is, founded on the Miscellaneous Letters. Query:
Did not the experts depend largely on the manuscript of this spurious
Scotch epistle to make out a case of identity in handwriting? As the
above five points which I have reviewed, form the head and body of
Taylor's argument, it would be trifling to attack the appendages. These
hints will guide the reader.
But the fact is, were the five points which Taylor enumerates and tries
to prove from miscellaneous letters established, still there would be no
case for Francis. But even _admitting there is_ a good case made out for
him on miscellaneous letters, _there is nothing incompatible_ with my
case in favor of Thomas Paine founded on the _genuine Letters_. This may
be made manifest by the following further observations:
There is no evidence of any weight brought forward to prove that Francis
was Junius, because it is _assumed_ that Junius wrote those
miscellaneous letters, and especially _Veteran's_ productions. But first
prove that Junius was _Veteran_. This can not be done, and it is an
important premise in the argument left out. It would be easier to prove
that Francis was _Veteran_; and this I do not dispute. It makes my case
far stronger to have a clear case made for Francis, founded on the
spurious and miscellaneous letters. But that Junius did not write the
letters which Taylor makes the foundation of his argument there is
abundance of internal evidence to prove. The evidence of forgery I have
already adduced. But could Francis have forged the hand of Junius? I
answer yes; and for the following reasons:
1. His acquaintance, friendship, intimacy, and peculiar political
views would give a ready access to Woodfall's office.
2. The handwriting of Junius could not be kept a secret for it
went to the compositors. Nor did Woodfall keep it from the public;
nor did he even keep the secrets of Junius as he ought to have
done, for it was from Woodfall himself that Garrick obtained the
fact that Junius would write no more, after he had compiled his
work.
3. After getting a specimen of the disguised hand of Junius,
Francis could easily forge it. As evidence of this I quote from
Taylor, p. 278, as follows: "It has been observed of him [Francis]
that he possessed so perfect a command of his pen that he could
write every kind of hand." Taylor acknowledges this extraordinary
power of Francis.
Now take with the above three facts the internal evidence of forgery,
both in the spirit and on the face of the letters, and we have a strong
case in favor of Francis forging the hand of Junius, but assuming the
name of _Veteran_.
But again, private notes may be forged as well as letters for
publication, which injures them as evidence. And who shall decide at
this late day on forgeries? I have herein adduced enough evidence to
throw great doubt on the Miscellaneous Letters, and if any thing can be
proven from internal evidence, which is acknowledged by all to be the
best in the world; then two letters and two private notes accompanying
them, I have shown in the language of Junius to be _spurious_. The truth
is, there is nothing absolutely safe outside of the _genuine_ edition,
for this alone has the plain and positive approval of Junius. Moreover,
it was compiled for the purpose of sifting the cheat from the pure
grain, and as Junius had assumed one other signature besides his own, he
thought it necessary to cast out other publications falsely attributed
to him, and unqualifiedly states in reference to Philo Junius, "The
fraud was innocent, and I always intended to explain it." Why was he
thus explicit if he had been writing continually over other signatures?
Besides the above, the letters of Junius are finished productions, which
took much time and care to write, and Junius could not therefore be the
author of all those miscellaneous letters attributed to him in
Woodfall's edition, for the time is too short to produce them. But it is
preposterous to assume that Francis could attend to his clerical duties,
and often take down speeches in Parliament, and at the same time write
all those letters, both genuine and miscellaneous.
Again in the _genuine_ Letters, there is perfect harmony from the first
to the last. There is the same sentiment, spirit, object and style,
throughout the whole, and not a single contradiction anywhere to be
found. This can not be said of the Miscellaneous Letters, as I have
already shown. I would particularly call attention to the language of
Junius when charged by Mr. Horne of writing under various signatures,
and that he was known. To this Junius responds: "I rely on the
consciousness of _my own integrity_, and defy him to fix any colorable
charge of inconsistency upon me." The whole _life_, as well as writings
of Thomas Paine, sustains this assertion. I have studied Paine and
Junius with this affirmation in view, and never have I found Paine to
express an opinion inconsistent with Junius. Sometimes there is a change
of opinion which he indicates or points out. For example, Junius
thought highly of the English army. Paine had reason to change his mind
in regard to it, and he says, he once thought the same and reasoned from
the same prejudices.
These facts are enough to open the eyes of the reader, and to show him
that Taylor's Junius Identified, is a literary fraud no doubt innocently
perpetrated. Taylor jumped at a conclusion, namely, that the
Miscellaneous Letters were the letters of Junius, and took them as
authority, without one thought of inquiry into their authenticity. But
his great work should have been, first to _prove_ the Miscellaneous
Letters _genuine_. After this he should have shown that Francis was a
Scotchman, who was chagrined at the abuse of the Scotch, and at the same
time was an Englishman who was intensely exasperated at the Scotch, and
that these two facts are not inconsistent with his being an Irishman.
In conclusion, I will submit the following letter of Francis in reply to
the editor of the Monthly Magazine, who had made inquiry of Sir Philip,
in regard to his being the author of the Letters of Junius:
JULY, 1813.
SIR--The great civility of your letter induces me to answer it,
which, with reference merely to its subject matter, I should have
declined. Whether you will assist in giving currency to a silly,
malignant falsehood, is a question for your own discretion. To me
it is a matter of perfect indifference.
I am sir, yours, etc.,
P. FRANCIS.
I think the word _silly_ in the above letter has a telling significance.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
1. General transcription clarifying notes:
A. The original printing of this book did not include a Table of
Contents, one has been added by the transcriber to aid reader
navigation. Major text breaks and page headers were used to
formulate the "Chapters".
B. Footnotes have been moved to Chapter ends and have been
assigned letters instead of symbols. Each footnote originally
appeared on the same page as its reference point.
C. In the chapter entitled "Letter--To the Printer of the Public
Advertiser" the footnotes section has been re-titled "DOCTORS
NOTES" to coordinate with the next chapter entitled "Comments on
Doctors Notes". The note references have been placed in brackets,
[1], [2], etc., instead of the parentheses in the original text.
E. In the original book passages of "Common Sense" and the
"Letters of Junius" were presented side by side. In this e-text
these comparisons have been made by differently indented paragraph
blocks. Additional quotes and emdashes have been added as needed.
2. Spelling corrections: (#) = times correctly spelled elsewhere in text.
Pg. 62 "interpid" to "intrepid" (an intrepid leader)
Pg. 206 "surmont" to "surmount" (1) (surmount local prejudices)
Pg. 208 "dependance" to "dependence" (6) (dependence on, Great Britain)
Pg. 253 "christian" to "Christian" (27) (between infidel and Christian)
Pg. 255 "repetiton" to "repetition" (3) (in the repetition of)
Pg. 328 "Whately" to "Whateley" (3) (of Mr. Whateley)
3. Printers corrections and notations on anomolies:
Pg. 112 "--Letter to." - has been retained as it appears in the text,
no name for the "to" was given.
Pg. 214 changed "Is" to "is" (to one point, is the power)
Pg. 219 removed duplicate word "of" (sum of individual happiness)
Pg. 228 Section: USURPATION, notations of Paragraph 10, 11, 12, Item
"b", sentence correctly ends with "," as item "c" is it's continuation
and Paragraph 15, Item "f" "to be" correctly ends without punctuation,
and continues in item "g" (to be "Tried").
Pg. 239 Section "First Period", Item 10. "...laws have given" ends
without punctuation but continues in Item 11 (Equally to all).
Pg. 254 Paragraph ends with a new sentence starting "And" with no
punctuation, which may be the lead in to the next paragraph beginning
with "First," and has been retained in this text.
Pg. 268 added word "Works," ("...on the table."--Works, vol. ix,)
Pg. 268 note *Works, vol. v, p. 466. appearing at the bottom of the
page had NO REFERENCE POINT, but has been retained in this text and
incorporated into the final paragraph of the page which appears to
have been the authors intent.
Pg. 310 added correct indentation to quotation: (It signifies a nominal
office)
4. Known or suspected archaic words used and retained in this text:
"banditti" (alt. of "bandit")
"belligerant" (Fr. Lat. belligerans, arch. of "belligerent")
"burthen" (arch. of "burden")
"cotemporary(ies)" (arch. of "contemporary")
"embassador" (arch. of "ambassador")
"eulogium" (ML. of "eulogy")
"gayety" (alt. of "gaiety")
"incontestible" (alt. for "incontestable")
"plentitude" (alt. for "plenitude")
"pretentions" (alt. for "pretensions")
"rythm" (arch. of "rhythm")
"vascillating" (alt. for "vacillating")
"wot" (1st and 3rd pers. sing., pr., ind. of "wit")
5. Word variations retained in this text:
"aspertion" (Let. of Junius) and "aspersion" (elsewhere)
"gun-boat" (1), "gun-boats" (1), and "gunboats" (1)
"Int." (1), "Introd." (1), and "Introduc." (1) (all abbreviations of
"Introduction")
"re-write" (1) and "rewrite" (1)
"viz.," and "viz" (W.E.D. ind. either is correct for "namely")
"Wedderburn" (1), "Wedderburn's" (2) and "Wedderburne" (3)