How can this ignorance of an astute man, Secretary of State under
Washington and Adams, be explained? Had Washington hidden the letters
showing on their face that he _had_ "officially interposed" for Paine by
two Ministers?
Madison, writing to Monroe, April 7, 1796, says that Pickering had
spoken to him "in harsh terms" of a letter written by Paine to the
President. This was a private letter of September 20, 1795, afterwards
printed in Paine's public Letter to Washington. The Secretary certainly
read that letter on its arrival, January 18, 1796, and yet Washington
does not appear to have told him of what had been officially done in
Paine's case! Such being the secrecy which Washington had carried from
the camp to the cabinet, and the morbid extent of it while the British
Treaty was in negotiation and discussion, one can hardly wonder at his
silence under Paine's private appeal and public reproach.
Much as Pickering hated Paine, he declares him the only man who ever
told the simple truth about Washington. In the lapse of time historical
research, while removing the sacred halo of Washington, has revealed
beneath it a stronger brain than was then known to any one. Paine
published what many whispered, while they were fawning on Washington for
office, or utilizing his power for partisan ends. Washington, during his
second administration, when his mental decline was remarked by
himself, by Jefferson, and others, was regarded by many of his eminent
contemporaries as fallen under the sway of small partisans. Not only
was the influence of Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Monroe, Livingston,
alienated, but the counsels of Hamilton were neutralized by Wolcott and
Pickering, who apparently agreed about the President's "mental powers."
Had not Paine previously incurred the _odium theologicum_, his pamphlet
concerning Washington would have been more damaging; even as it was, the
verdict was by no means generally favorable to the President, especially
as the replies to Paine assumed that Washington had indeed failed to
try and rescue him from impending death.(1) A pamphlet written by Bache,
printed anonymously (1797), Remarks occasioned by the late conduct of
Mr. Washington, indicates the belief of those who raised Washington to
power, that both Randolph and Paine had been sacrificed to please Great
Britain.
The _Bien-informe_ (Paris, November 12, 1797) published a letter from
Philadelphia, which may find translation here as part of the history of
the pamphlet:
"The letter of Thomas Paine to General Washington is read here with
avidity. We gather from the English papers that the Cabinet of St James
has been unable to stop the circulation of that pamphlet in England,
since it is allowable to reprint there any English work already
published elsewhere, however disagreeable to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas.
We read in the letter to Washington that Robespierre had declared to
the Committee of Public Safety that it was desirable in the interests
of both France and America that Thomas Paine, who, for seven or eight
months had been kept a prisoner in the Luxembourg, should forthwith be
brought up for judgment before the revolutionary tribunal. The proof of
this fact is found in Robespierre's papers, and gives ground for strange
suspicions."
1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an
American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the
infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General
Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington,
speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although
he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to
be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they
are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute
falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are
pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in
this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you
will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias
William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an
Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions,
and a want of official information as to many facts, it is
not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the
action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in
Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these
disclosed.
"It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend
James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves
on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man.
Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine
is still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in
America] also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after
actually arriving he found his (really popular) _principles no longer
the order of the day_, and thought best to re-embark.
"The English journals, while repeating this idle rumor, observed that it
was unfounded, and that Paine had not left France. Some French journals
have copied these London paragraphs, but without comments; so that at
the very moment when Thomas Paine's Letter on the 18th. Fructidor is
published, _La Clef du Cabinet_ says that this citizen is suffering
unpleasantness in America."
Paine had intended to return with Monroe, in the spring of 1797, but,
suspecting the Captain and a British cruiser in the distance, returned
from Havre to Paris. The packet was indeed searched by the cruiser
for Paine, and, had he been captured, England would have executed the
sentence pronounced by Robespierre to please Washington.