1 Archives of the Foreign Office, Paris, "Etats Unis," vol.
xl. Translations:--Morris: "Sir,--Thomas Paine has just
applied to me to claim him as a citizen of the United
States. Here (I believe) are the facts relating to him. He
was born in England. Having afterwards become a citizen of
the United States, he acquired great celebrity there by his
revolutionary writings. In consequence he was adopted a
French citizen and then elected Member of the Convention.
His conduct since this epoch is out of my jurisdiction. I am
ignorant of the reason for his present detention in the
Luxembourg prison, but I beg you, sir (if reasons unknown to
me prevent his liberation), be so good as to inform me, that
I may communicate them to the government of the United
States." Deporgurs: "By your letter of the 36th of last
month you reclaim the liberty of Thomas Paine as an American
citizen. Born in England, this ex-deputy has become
successively an American and a French citizen. In accepting
this last title, and in occupying a place in the Corps
Legislatif he submitted himself to the laws of the Republic,
and has certainly renounced the protection which the law of
nations, and treaties concluded with the United States,
could have assured him. I am ignorant of the motives of his
detention, but I must presume they are well founded. I shall
nevertheless submit to the Committee of Public Safety the
demand you have addressed to me, and I shall lose no time in
letting you know its decision."
It will be seen that Deforgues begins his letter with a falsehood: "You
reclaim the liberty of Paine as an American citizen." Morris's letter
had declared him a French citizen out of his (the American Minister's)
"jurisdiction." Morris states for Deforgues his case, and it is
obediently adopted, though quite discordant with the decree, which
imprisoned Paine as a foreigner. Deforgues also makes Paine a member
of a non-existent body, the "Corps Legislatif," which might suggest
in Philadelphia previous connection with the defunct Assembly. No such
inquiries as Deforgues promised, nor any, were ever made, and of course
none were intended. Morris had got from Deforgues the certificate he
needed to show in Philadelphia and to Americans in Paris. His pretended
"reclamation" was of course withheld: no copy of it ever reached America
till brought from French archives by the present writer. Morris does
not appear to have ventured even to keep a copy of it himself. The draft
(presumably in English), found among his papers by Sparks, alters the
fatal sentence which deprived Paine of his American citizenship and of
protection. "Res-sort"--jurisdiction--which has a definite technical
meaning in the mouth of a Minister, is changed to "cognizance"; the
sentence is made to read, "his conduct from that time has not come under
my cognizance." (Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 401).
Even as it stands in his book, Sparks says: "The application, it must
be confessed, was neither pressing in its terms, nor cogent in its
arguments."
The American Minister, armed with this French missive, dictated by
himself, enclosed it to the Secretary of State, whom he supposed to be
still Jefferson, with a letter stating that he had reclaimed Paine as an
American, that he (Paine) was held to answer for "crimes," and that any
further attempt to release him would probably be fatal to the prisoner.
By these falsehoods, secured from detection by the profound secrecy of
the Foreign Offices in both countries, Morris paralyzed all interference
from America, as Washington could not of course intervene in behalf of
an American charged with "crimes" committed in a foreign country, except
to demand his trial. But it was important also to paralyze further
action by Americans in Paris, and to them, too, was shown the French
certificate of a reclamation never made. A copy was also sent to Paine,
who returned to Morris an argument which he entreated him to embody in
a further appeal to the French Minister. This document was of course
buried away among the papers of Morris, who never again mentioned Paine
in any communication to the French government, but contented himself
with personal slanders of his victim in private letters to Washington's
friend, Robert Morris, and no doubt others. I quote Sparks's summary of
the argument unsuspectingly sent by Paine to Morris:
"He first proves himself to have been an American citizen, a character
of which he affirms no subsequent act had deprived him. The title of
French citizen was a mere nominal and honorary one, which the
Convention chose to confer, when they asked him to help them in making a
Constitution. But let the nature or honor of the title be what it might,
the Convention had taken it away of their own accord. 'He was
excluded from the Convention on the motion for excluding _foreigners_.
Consequently he was no longer under the law of the Republic as a
_citizen_, but under the protection of the Treaty of Alliance, as fully
and effectually as any other citizen of America. It was therefore the
duty of the American Minister to demand his release.'"
To this Sparks adds:
"Such is the drift of Paine's argument, and it would seem indeed that
he could not be a foreigner and a citizen at the same time. It was hard
that his only privilege of citizenship should be that of imprisonment.
But this logic was a little too refined for the revolutionary tribunals
of the Jacobins in Paris, and Mr. Morris well knew it was not worth
while to preach it to them. He did not believe there was any serious
design at that time against the life of the prisoner, and he considered
his best chance of safety to be in preserving silence for the present.
Here the matter rested, and Paine was left undisturbed till the arrival
of Mr. Monroe, who procured his discharge from confinement." ("Life of
Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 417.)l
Sparks takes the gracious view of the man whose Life he was writing, but
the facts now known turn his words to sarcasm. The Terror by which Paine
suffered was that of Morris, who warned him and his friends, both in
Paris and America, that if his case was stirred the knife would fall
on him. Paine declares (see xx.) that this danger kept him silent till
after the fall of Robespierre. None knew so well as Morris that
there were no charges against Paine for offences in France, and that
Robespierre was awaiting that action by Washington which he (Morris) had
rendered impossible. Having thus suspended the knife over Paine for six
months, Robespierre interpreted the President's silence, and that
of Congress, as confirmation of Morris's story, and resolved on the
execution of Paine "in the interests of America as well as of France";
in other words to conciliate Washington to the endangered alliance with
France.
Paine escaped the guillotine by the strange accident related in a
further chapter. The fall of Robespierre did not of course end his
imprisonment, for he was not Robespierre's but Washington's prisoner.
Morris remained Minister in France nearly a month after Robespierre's
death, but the word needed to open Paine's prison was not spoken.
After his recall, had Monroe been able at once to liberate Paine, an
investigation must have followed, and Morris would probably have taken
his prisoner's place in the Luxembourg. But Morris would not present his
letters of recall, and refused to present his successor, thus keeping
Monroe out of his office four weeks. In this he was aided by Bourdon
de l'Oise (afterwards banished as a royalist conspirator, but now a
commissioner to decide on prisoners); also by tools of Robespierre who
had managed to continue on the Committee of Public Safety by laying
their crimes on the dead scapegoat--Robespierre. Against Barere (who had
signed Paine's death-warrant), Billaud-Varennes, and Colloit d'Her-bois,
Paine, if liberated, would have been a terrible witness. The Committee
ruled by them had suppressed Paine's appeal to the Convention, as they
presently suppressed Monroe's first appeal. Paine, knowing that Monroe
had arrived, but never dreaming that the manoeuvres of Morris were
keeping him out of office, wrote him from prison the following letters,
hitherto unpublished.
1 There is no need to delay the reader here with any
argument about Paine's unquestionable citizenship, that
point having been settled by his release as an American, and
the sanction of Monroe's action by his government. There was
no genuineness in any challenge of Paine's citizenship, but
a mere desire to do him an injury. In this it had marvellous
success. Ten years after Paine had been reclaimed by Monroe,
with the sanction of Washington, as an American citizen, his
vote was refused at New Rochelle, New York, by the
supervisor, Elisha Ward, on the ground that Washington and
Morris had refused to Declaim him. Under his picture of the
dead Paine, Jarvis, the artist, wrote: "A man who devoted
his whole life to the attainment of two objects--rights of
man, and freedom of conscience--had his vote denied when
living, and was denied a grave when dead."--_Editor._
August 17th, 1794.
My Dear Sir: As I believe none of the public papers have announced your
name right I am unable to address you by it, but a _new_ minister from
America is joy to me and will be so to every American in France.
Eight months I have been imprisoned, and I know not for what, except
that the order says that I am a Foreigner. The Illness I have suffered
in this place (and from which I am but just recovering) had nearly put
an end to my existence. My life is but of little value to me in
this situation tho' I have borne it with a firmness of patience and
fortitude.
I enclose you a copy of a letter, (as well the translation as the
English)--which I sent to the Convention after the fall of the Monster
Robespierre--for I was determined not to write a line during the time of
his detestable influence. I sent also a copy to the Committee of public
safety--but I have not heard any thing respecting it. I have now
no expectation of delivery but by your means--_Morris has been my
inveterate enemy_ and I think he has permitted something of the national
Character of America to suffer by quietly letting a Citizen of that
Country remain almost eight months in prison without making every
official exertion to procure him justice,--for every act of violence
offered to a foreigner is offered also to the Nation to which he
belongs.
The gentleman, Mr. Beresford, who will present you this has been very
friendly to me.(1) Wishing you happiness in your appointment, I am your
affectionate friend and humble servant.
August 18th, 1794.
Dear Sir: In addition to my letter of yesterday (sent to Mr. Beresford
to be conveyed to you but which is delayed on account of his being at
St. Germain) I send the following memoranda.
I was in London at the time I was elected a member of this Convention.
I was elected a Depute in four different departments without my knowing
any thing of the matter, or having the least idea of it. The intention
of electing the Convention before the time of the former Legislature
expired, was for the purpose of reforming the Constitution or rather for
forming a new one. As the former Legislature shewed a disposition that
I should assist in this business of the new Constitution, they prepared
the way by voting me a French Citoyen (they conferred the same title
on General Washington and certainly I had no more idea than he had of
vacating any part of my real Citizenship of America for a nominal one in
France, especially at a time when she did not know whether she would
be a Nation or not, and had it not even in her power to promise me
protection). I was elected (the second person in number of Votes, the
Abbe Sieves being first) a member for forming the Constitution, and
every American in Paris as well as my other acquaintance knew that it
was my intention to return to America as soon as the Constitution should
be established. The violence of Party soon began to shew itself in the
Convention, but it was impossible for me to see upon what principle they
differed--unless it was a contention for power. I acted however as I
did in America, I connected myself with no Party, but considered myself
altogether a National Man--but the case with Parties generally is that
when you are not with one you are supposed to be with the other.
1 A friendly lamp-lighter, alluded to in the Letter to
Washington, conveyed this letter to Mr. Beresford.--
_Editor._
I was taken out of bed between three and four in the morning on the
28 of December last, and brought to the Luxembourg--without any other
accusation inserted in the order than that I was a foreigner; a motion
having been made two days before in the Convention to expel Foreigners
therefrom. I certainly then remained, even upon their own tactics, what
I was before, a Citizen of America.
About three weeks after my imprisonment the Americans that were in Paris
went to the bar of the Convention to reclaim me, but contrary to my
advice, they made their address into a Petition, and it miscarried.
I then applied to G. Morris, to reclaim me as an official part of his
duty, which he found it necessary to do, and here the matter stopt.(1)
I have not heard a single line or word from any American since, which
is now seven months. I rested altogether on the hope that a new Minister
would arrive from America. I have escaped with life from more dangers
than one. Had it not been for the fall of Roberspierre and your timely
arrival I know not what fate might have yet attended me. There seemed to
be a determination to destroy all the Prisoners without regard to merit,
character, or any thing else. During the time I laid at the height of my
illness they took, in one night only, 169 persons out of this prison
and executed all but eight. The distress that I have suffered at being
obliged to exist in the midst of such horrors, exclusive of my own
precarious situation, suspended as it were by the single thread of
accident, is greater than it is possible you can conceive--but thank God
times are at last changed, and I hope that your Authority will release
me from this unjust imprisonment.
1 The falsehood told Paine, accompanied by an intimation of
danger in pursuing the pretended reclamation, was of course
meant to stop any farther action by Paine or his friends.--
_Editor._.
August 25, 1794.
My Dear Sir: Having nothing to do but to sit and think, I will write
to pass away time, and to say that I am still here. I have received two
notes from Mr. Beresford which are encouraging (as the generality of
notes and letters are that arrive to persons here) but they contain
nothing explicit or decisive with respect to my liberation, and _I
shall be very glad to receive a line from yourself to inform me in what
condition the matter stands_. If I only glide out of prison by a sort
of accident America gains no credit by my liberation, neither can my
attachment to her be increased by such a circumstance. She has had the
services of my best days, she has my allegiance, she receives my portion
of Taxes for my house in Borden Town and my farm at New Rochelle, and
she owes me protection both at home and thro' her Ministers abroad, yet
I remain in prison, in the face of her Minister, at the arbitrary will
of a committee.
Excluded as I am from the knowledge of everything and left to a random
of ideas, I know not what to think or how to act. Before there was
any Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) and while the
Robespierrian faction lasted, I had nothing to do but to keep my mind
tranquil and expect the fate that was every day inflicted upon my
comrades, not individually but by scores. Many a man whom I have passed
an hour with in conversation I have seen marching to his destruction the
next hour, or heard of it the next morning; for what rendered the scene
more horrible was that they were generally taken away at midnight, so
that every man went to bed with the apprehension of never seeing his
friends or the world again.
I wish to impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in
Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any
over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my
liberation, you omit procuring it for me _now_, you may have to lament
the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the
Northward or other possible accident may happen to bring this about. I
am not out of danger till I am out of Prison.
Yours affectionately.
P. S.--I am now entirely without money. The Convention owes me 1800
livres salary which I know not how to get while I am here, nor do I know
how to draw for money on the rent of my farm in America. It is under
the care of my good friend General Lewis Morris. I have received no rent
since I have been in Europe.
[Addressed] Minister Plenipotentiary from America, Maison des Etrangers,
Rue de la Loi, Rue Richelieu.
Such was the sufficiently cruel situation when there reached Paine in
prison, September 4th, the letter of Peter Whiteside which caused him
to write his Memorial. Whiteside was a Philadelphian whose bankruptcy in
London had swallowed up some of Paine's means. His letter, reporting to
Paine that he was not regarded by the American Government or people as
an American citizen, and that no American Minister could interfere in
his behalf, was evidently inspired by Morris who was still in Paris, the
authorities being unwilling to give him a passport to Switzerland,
as they knew he was going in that direction to join the conspirators
against France. This Whiteside letter put Paine, and through him Monroe,
on a false scent by suggesting that the difficulty of his case lay in a
_bona fide_ question of citizenship, whereas there never had been really
any such question. The knot by which Morris had bound Paine was thus
concealed, and Monroe was appealing to polite wolves in the interest of
their victim. There were thus more delays, inexplicable alike to Monroe
and to Paine, eliciting from the latter some heartbroken letters, not
hitherto printed, which I add at the end of the Memorial. To add to
the difficulties and dangers, Paris was beginning to be agitated by
well-founded rumors of Jay's injurious negotiations in England, and a
coldness towards Monroe was setting in. Had Paine's release been delayed
much longer an American Minister's friendship might even have proved
fatal. Of all this nothing could be known to Paine, who suffered agonies
he had not known during the Reign of Terror. The other prisoners of
Robespierre's time had departed; he alone paced the solitary corridors
of the Luxembourg, chilled by the autumn winds, his cell tireless, unlit
by any candle, insufficiently nourished, an abscess forming in his side;
all this still less cruel than the feeling that he was abandoned, not
only by Washington but by all America.
This is the man of whom Washington wrote to Madison nine years before:
"Must the merits and services of 'Common Sense' continue to glide down
the stream of time unrewarded by this country?" This, then, is his
reward. To his old comrade in the battle-fields of Liberty, George
Washington, Paine owed his ten months of imprisonment, at the end of
which Monroe found him a wreck, and took him (November 4) to his own
house, where he and his wife nursed him back into life. But it was not
for some months supposed that Paine could recover; it was only after
several relapses; and it was under the shadow of death that he wrote the
letter to Washington so much and so ignorantly condemned. Those who have
followed the foregoing narrative will know that Paine's grievances were
genuine, that his infamous treatment stains American history; but they
will also know that they lay chiefly at the door of a treacherous and
unscrupulous American Minister.
Yet it is difficult to find an excuse for the retention of that Minister
in France by Washington. On Monroe's return to America in 1797, he
wrote a pamphlet concerning the mission from which he had been curtly
recalled, in which he said:
"I was persuaded from Mr. Morris's known political character and
principles, that his appointment, and especially at a period when the
French nation was in a course of revolution from an arbitrary to a free
government, would tend to discountenance the republican cause there
and at home, and otherwise weaken, and greatly to our prejudice, the
connexion subsisting between the two countries."
In a copy of this pamphlet found at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote on
the margin of this sentence:
"Mr. Morris was known to be a man of first rate abilities; and his
integrity and honor had never been impeached. Besides, Mr. Morris was
sent whilst the kingly government was in existence, ye end of 91 or
beginning of 92." (1)
But this does not explain why Gouverneur Morris was persistently kept in
France after monarchy was abolished (September 21, 1792), or even after
Lafayette's request for his removal, already quoted. To that letter
of Lafayette no reply has been discovered. After the monarchy was
abolished, Ternant and Genet successively carried to America protests
from their Foreign Office against the continuance of a Minister in
France, who was known in Paris, and is now known to all acquainted with
his published papers, to have all along made his office the headquarters
of British intrigue against France, American interests being quite
subordinated. Washington did not know this, but he might have known it,
and his disregard of French complaints can hardly be ascribed to any
other cause than his delusion that Morris was deeply occupied with
the treaty negotiations confided to him. It must be remembered that
Washington believed such a treaty with England to be the alternative of
war.(2) On that apprehension the British party in America, and British
agents, played to the utmost, and under such influences Washington
sacrificed many old friendships,--with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe,
Edmund Randolph, Paine,--and also the confidence of his own State,
Virginia.
1 Washington's marginal notes on Monroe's "View, etc.,"
were first fully given in Ford's "Writings of Washington,"
vol. xiii., p. 452, seq.