While James Monroe was minister to France Paine was for a year and
a half a member of his household, enjoying in the highest degree the
esteem of both Mr. and Mrs. Monroe.
Paine was one of the most amiable of men and possessed a most charming
personality. Nicolas and Margaret Bonneville, with whom he resided in
Paris, in a biographical sketch of him, written after his death and
revised by Cobbett, bear this testimony: "Thomas Paine loved his friends
with sincere and tender affection. His simplicity of heart and that
happy kind of openness, or rather, carelessness, which charms our
hearts in reading the fables of the good Lafontaine, made him extremely
amiable. If little children were near him he patted them, searched his
pockets for the store of cakes, biscuits, sugar-plums, pieces of sugar,
of which he used to take possession as of a treasure belonging to them,
and the distribution of which belonged to him."
"He was always gentle to children and to animals."--_Ellery Sedgwick_.
The deep affection entertained for Paine by his Parisian friends was
shown when, grievously ill and believed to be dying, he was carried from
his cot in the Luxembourg to the home of the Monroes. I quote again from
Dr. Conway: "Paine had been restored by the tenderness and devotion of
friends. Had it not been for friendship he could hardly have been saved.
We are little able, in the present day, to appreciate the reverence and
affection with which Thomas Paine was regarded by those who saw in him
the greatest apostle of liberty in the world.... In Paris there
were ladies and gentlemen who had known something of the cost of
liberty--Col. and Mrs. Monroe, Sir Robert and Lady Smith, Madame
Lafayette, Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, M. and Madame de Bonneville. They
had known what it was to watch through anxious nights with terrors
surrounding them. He who % had suffered most was to them a sacred
person. He had come out of the succession of ordeals, so weak in body,
so wounded by American ingratitude, so sore at heart, that no delicate
child needed more tender care.... Men say their Arthur is dead, but
their love is stronger than death. And though the service of these
friends might at first have been reverential, it ended with attachment,
so great was Paine's power, so wonderful and pathetic his memories, so
charming the play of his wit, so full his response to kindness."
"In Luxembourg prison," says Conway, "he won all hearts."
Augustus C. Buel: "Jones [John Paul] liked Tom Paine and Paine
almost worshiped Jones [they were in Paris]. All through the American
Revolution they had been fast friends, familiarly calling each other
'Tom' and 'Paul.'"
Joseph Mazzini Wheeler: "Landor [Walter Savage] told my friend Mr. Birch
of Florence that he particularly admired Paine, and that he visited him,
having first obtained an interview at the house of General Dumouriez
[the most famous general of the Revolution]. Landor declared that Paine
was always called 'Tom,' not out of disrespect, but because he was a
jolly good fellow."
Lord Edward Fitzgerald (to his mother): "I lodge with my friend Paine
[in Paris]; we breakfast, dine, and sup together. The more I see of his
interior the more I like and respect him. I cannot express how kind he
is to me. There is a simplicity of manner, a goodness of heart, and a
strength of mind in him that I never knew a man before to possess."
Lady Lucy Fitzgerald: "Although he [Lord Edward] was unsuccessful in the
glorious attempt of liberating his country [Ireland] from slavery, still
he was not unmindful of the lessons you taught him. Accept, then, his
picture from his unhappy sister. Its place is in your house; my heart
will be satisfied with such a Pantheon: it knows no consolation but the
approbation of such men as you, and the soothing recollection that he
did his duty and died faithful to the cause of liberty."
Zachariah Wilkes: "Let me tell you what he did for me. I was arrested in
Paris and condemned to die. I had no friend here; and it was at a time
when no friend would have served me: Robespierre ruled. 'I am innocent!'
I cried in desperation. 'I am innocent, so help me God! I am condemned
for the offense of another.' I wrote a statement of my case with
a pencil; thinking at first of addressing it to my judge, then of
directing it to the president of the Convention."
[Wilkes, who was an Englishman, had important business to transact which
involved his honor and he could not bear the thought of dying with it
unperformed. The jailer referred him to Paine, who, though a prisoner,
had much influence with the authorities.]
"He [Paine] examined me closer than my judge had done; he required my
proofs. After a long time I satisfied him. He then said: 'The leaders of
the Convention would rather have my life than yours. If by any means
I can obtain your release on my own security, will you promise me to
return in twenty days?'"
Wilkes promised to return. Paine then obtained permission for him to
leave the prison, guaranteeing his return and agreeing to take his
place at the guillotine if he failed to do so. Wilkes kept his word. He
returned to the prison, drawing from Paine the exclamation, "There is
yet English blood in England!" Wilkes had been opposed to Paine both in
politics and religion.
Another instance of Paine's noble magnanimity is related by Dr. Conway:
"This personage [Captain Grimstone, R. A.], during a dinner party at the
Palais Egalité, got into a controversy with Paine, and, forgetting that
the English Jove could not in Paris answer argument with thunder, called
Paine a traitor to his country and struck him a violent blow. Death was
the penalty for striking a deputy and Paine's friends were not unwilling
to see the penalty inflicted on this stout young captain who had struck
a man of fifty-six. Paine had much trouble in obtaining from Barrere,
of the Committee of Public Safety, a passport out of the country for
Captain Grimstone, whose traveling expenses were supplied by the man he
had struck."
Lady Smith: "If the usual style of gallantry was as clever as your 'New
Covenant' [a beautiful poem by Paine addressed to Lady Smith] many a
fair lady's heart would be in danger; but the Little Corner of the
World [Lady Smith] receives it from the Castle in the Air [Paine]; it is
agreeable to her as being the elegant fancy of a friend."
Sir Robert and Lady Smith were Paine's most devoted English friends in
Paris. When Paine was languishing in prison Lady Smith wrote him letters
of cheer and comfort, signing herself "Little Corner of the World."
Frederick Freeman: "He [Captain Rowland Crocker] had taken the great
Napoleon by the hand; he had familiarly known Paine.... He remembered
Paine as a well-dressed and most gentlemanly man, of sound and orthodox
republican principles, of a good heart, a strong intellect, and a
fascinating address."
Among the many calumnies circulated against Paine is the charge that
during his later years, after he wrote the "Age of Reason," he was, both
in France and in America, a drunkard. This charge is false. Paine
was one of the most temperate men of his time. Concerning his use of
intoxicants in France his old friend Clio Rickman, who visited him
in Paris, who was with him during his last day in that city, and who
accompanied him to Havre when he sailed for America, says: "He did not
drink spirits, and wine he took moderately; he even objected to any
spirits being laid in as a part of his sea-stock."
Hon. E. B. Washburne, who made a thorough investigation of Paine's
career in France, bears the following testimony: "A somewhat extended
study of the French Revolution during the extraordinary period in which
Paine was so intimately connected with it, fails to show anything to the
prejudice of his personal or political character."
"Returned to the United States on the invitation of Jefferson in
1802."--_Library of World's Best Literature_.
Charles T. Sprading: "Jefferson offered him return passage from Europe
on a United States man-of-war."
National Intelligencer (Washington, Nov. 10, 1802): "Thomas Paine has
arrived in this city and has received a cordial reception from the Whigs
of Seventy-six and the Republicans of 1800."
"He was cordially received by the President, Thomas Jefferson. He also
visited the heads of the departments."--_Boston Post_.
Philadelphia Aurora, Washington Correspondent of (November 26, 1802):
"His address is unaffected and unceremonious. He neither shuns nor
courts observation. At table he enjoys what is good with the appetite
of temperance and vigor, and puts to shame his calumniators by the
moderation with which he partakes of the common beverage of the
boarders.... I am proud to find a man whose political writings upon the
whole have never been equaled, and whom I have admired on that account,
free from the contamination of debauchery and habits of inebriety which
have been so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him."
Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell, M. C. (Washington, Dec. 11, 1802): "At Mr.
Gallatin's I saw for the first time the celebrated Thomas Paine. We had
some conversation before dinner and we sat side by side at the table....
This extraordinary man contributed exceedingly much to entertain the
company."
Albert Gallatin was at this time Secretary of the Treasury. Referring to
this period, including all the remaining years of his life, Conway
says: "Paine's defamers have manifested an eagerness to ascribe his
maltreatment to personal faults. This is not the case.... He was neat
in his attire. In all portraits, French and American, his dress is in
accordance with the fashion. There was not, so far as I can discover, a
suggestion while he was at Washington, that he was not a suitable guest
for any drawing-room in the capital."
Gilbert Vale, next to Dr. Conway, one of Paine's best biographers, says:
"Mr. Paine was as much esteemed in his private life as in his public.
He was a welcome visitor to the tables of the most distinguished
citizens.... He possessed every prominent virtue in large proportions,
and to these he added the most social qualities."
Annie Cary Morris: "Mr. Jefferson, it was said, received him warmly,
dined him at the White House, and could be seen walking arm in arm with
him on the street any fine afternoon."
"The author [Paine] was for some days a guest in the President's
family."--_Dr. Conway_.
In his old age Paine received the following, one of many similar
assurances of Jefferson's affection: "That you may live long to continue
your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations,
is my sincere prayer. Accept the assurances of my high esteem and
affectionate attachment."
"Jefferson's dearest friend," says Albert Payson Terhune, "was Thomas
Paine."
Albert Badeau: "My mother [in whose mother's family, prominent and
wealthy residents of New Rochelle, Paine boarded for a time during
his later years] would never tolerate the aspersions on Mr. Paine.
She declared steadfastly to the end of her life that he was a
perfect gentleman, and a most faithful friend, amiable, gentle,
never intemperate in eating or drinking. My mother declared that my
grandmother equally pronounced the disparaging reports about Mr. Paine
slanders. I never remembered to have seen my mother angry except when
she heard such calumnies of Mr. Paine, when she would almost insult
those who uttered them. My mother and grandmother were very religious,
members of the Episcopal church."
The handsome monument erected to Paine at New Rochelle is said to have
been suggested by Mrs. Badeau.
D. Burger (one of Paine's acquaintances at New Rochelle, who often took
him out riding): "Mr. Paine was really abstemious, and when pressed to
drink by those on whom he called during his rides he usually refused
with great firmness, but politely."
D. M. Bennett of New York, writing forty years ago, says: "I have
conversed with Major A. Coutant and Mr. Barker of New Rochelle, now
very far advanced in life, but who distinctly remember Mr. Paine. They
remember him as a pleasant, genial man, who lived on good terms with his
neighbors and was not known to ever have been intoxicated." Judge J. B.
Stallo, Minister to Italy during President Cleveland's administration,
told Dr. Conway "that in early life he visited the place [New Rochelle]
and saw persons who had known Paine, and who declared that Paine resided
there without fault."
Judge Tabor: "I was an associate editor of the New York _Beacon_ with
Col. John Fellows, then (1836) advanced in years but retaining all the
vigor and fire of his manhood. He was a ripe scholar, a most agreeable
companion, and had been the correspondent and friend of Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams, under all of whom he held a
responsible office. One of his productions was dedicated, by permission,
to Adams and was republished and favorably received in England. Colonel
Fellows was the soul of honor and inflexible in his adhesion to
truth. He was intimate with Paine during the whole time he lived after
returning to this country, and boarded for a year in the same house with
him. I also was acquainted with Judge Herttell of New York city, a man
of wealth and position, being a member of the New York Legislature, both
in the Senate and Assembly, and serving likewise on the judicial bench.
Like Colonel Fellows he was an author and a man of unblemished life and
irreproachable character. These men assured me of their own knowledge
derived from constant personal intercourse during the last seven years
of Paine's life that he never kept any company but what was entirely
respectable, and that all accusations of drunkenness were grossly
untrue. They saw him under all circumstances and _knew_ that he was
never intoxicated. Nay, more, they said for that day he was even
abstemious."
W. J. Hilton (1877): "It is over twenty years ago that professionally
I made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom, a justice of the peace of
Rensselaer county, New York. He was then over seventy years of age and
had the reputation of being a man of candor and integrity. He was a
great admirer of Paine. He told me that he was personally acquainted
with him and used to see him frequently during the last years of his
life in the city of New York, where Hogeboom then resided. I asked him
if there was any truth in the charge that Paine was in the habit of
getting drunk. He said that it was utterly false; that he never heard of
such a thing during the lifetime cf Mr. Paine and did not believe anyone
else did."
Mr. Lovet (Proprietor of City Hotel, New York): "Paine boarded for a
time at my hotel. He drank the least of all my boarders."
Gilbert Vale says: "We know more than twenty persons who were more or
less acquainted with Mr. Paine, and not one of whom ever saw him in
liquor." "We know that he was not only temperate in after life, but even
abstemious."
"He was accused of offenses he had never committed and of conduct
impossible to him."--_Library of the World's Best Literature_.
"That he was a very likeable man is shown... by the prediction of the
brilliant Home Tooke that whoever should be at a certain dinner party,
Paine would be sure to say the best things said; and by the friendships
he made so easily. In middle age, at least, he was fastidious in
his dress, inclined to elegance in his manners, and attractive in
looks."--_Ibid_.
"There are eleven original portraits of Thomas Paine, besides a death
mask, a bust, and the profile copied in this [Conway's] work.... In all
of the original portraits of Paine his dress is neat and in accordance
with fashion."--_Dr. Conway_.
The foregoing testimonials regarding Paine's personal appearance and
dress are equally true of his old age. The Jarvis painting, executed
when he was an old man of sixty-seven, is a mute witness to this. This
portrait is that of a handsome, temperate, well-preserved man. It is
of itself a standing refutation of the slanders of his defamers, and
especially of the charge that he was addicted to drunkenness in his old
age.
Aaron Burr: "I always considered Mr. Paine a gentleman, a pleasant
companion, and a good-natured and intelligent man, _decidedly
temperate_."
Regarding another base calumny, Dr. Conway says: "During Paine's life
the world heard no hint of sexual immorality connected with him,
but after his death Cheetham published [in his 'Life of Paine'] the
following: 'Paine brought with him from Paris, and from her husband in
whose house he had lived, Margaret Brazier Bonneville, and her three
sons. Thomas has the features, countenance, and temper of Paine.'"
Madame Bonneville was a lady of unblemished character, educated,
cultured and refined. For this vile insinuation its author, a
disreputable publisher of New York, who boasted of having nine libel
suits pending against him at one time, was pronounced guilty of slander
by a jury composed mostly of Christians.
Counsellor Sampson (Cheetham's prosecutor): "It is argued that
everything should be intended to favor the defendant, who has written
so godly a work against the prince of deists and for the Holy Gospel....
His book, a godly book--a vile obscene, and filthy compilation, which
bears throughout the character of rancorous malice!"
Commenting on this case, Ellery Sedgwick, the able editor of the
_Atlantic Monthly_, in his Beacon biography of Paine, says: "The
evidence which her (Madame Bonneville's) lawyers adduced at the trial
was conclusive, and the jury found Cheetham guilty; but Judge Hoffman,
with casuistry worthy of his version of Christianity, held that Mr.
Cheetham, while guilty of libel, had written a very useful book in
favor of religion, and fixed the damages at the modest sum of $150. Thus
sheltered, Cheetham's lies grew into history."
Some years ago the evangelist, Rev. Dr. R. A. Torrey, while in England,
made a brutal attack upon Paine's character, repeating the slanders
that have been circulated against him. W. T. Stead, the noted editor and
publisher of the _Review of Reviews_, London, who later perished on
the ill-fated Titanic, in his magazine defended Paine and refuted the
slanders of Torrey. Of the Madame Bonneville slander he says:
"The 'commonly believed outrageous action' [quoting Torrey] of Thomas
Paine in living with another man's wife was shown to have been the
kindly hospitality shown by an old man of sixty-seven to the refugee
family of his French benefactor. The only man who had ever imputed a
shadow of obloquy to Paine in this connection went into the witness-box
after Paine's death and solemnly swore that there was no foundation for
his calumny."
The basis of this calumny was one of the many noble acts of Paine's
life. When it became known that Napoleon had designs against the
liberties of France, and was planning to elevate himself to power, Paine
and Bonneville opposed him. Concerning the results of this rupture Stead
quotes from Conway as follows:
"In return Bonaparte suppressed Bonneville's paper, threw Bonneville
into prison and placed Paine in surveillance. Afterwards by the
intervention of the American minister Paine was permitted to leave the
country. Bonneville was forbidden to quit France. A year after Paine
crossed the Atlantic Madame Bonneville with her children escaped to
America.... So far from Paine having taken Bonneville's wife away from
her husband, he did everything to induce Napoleon to free Bonneville
from surveillance and to allow him to rejoin his wife in New York."
Stead finally forced Torrey to eat his words and to make the following
retraction: "It is the obligation of those who make the charges to prove
them, and to my mind this particular charge against Paine has not been
proven."
M. and Madame Bonneville had befriended Paine, had invited him to their
home where for years he enjoyed their hospitality. When Bonneville was
imprisoned and impoverished and his family reduced to penury, Paine
would have been a base ingrate had he not befriended them.
Dr. Lucy Waite: "The one circumstance in the life of Thomas Paine that
to my mind more than any other reflects credit upon him as a man,
has been made the target of the most bitter attacks against him--his
relations to Madame Bonneville.... His detractors would no doubt have
considered it a more 'moral' act if he had sent them to the poor-farm
instead of to his own farm at New Rochelle; but to the everlasting
credit of this great man he defied the town gossips, and made them
comfortable in his own home."
Slanders concerning Paine's marital troubles have been published. He
was married twice before coming to America, in 1759 to Mary Lambert, who
died, and in 1771 to Elizabeth Olive, from whom he was separated. The
separation was by mutual consent and nothing discreditable to either
party was alleged. As to the cause of the separation all that is known,
or rather surmised, is stated in McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia, an
Orthodox authority: "His first wife had died about a year after
their marriage; he lived about three years with his second, when they
separated by mutual consent, it is said, on account of her physical
disability."
Paine's subsequent treatment of his wife was in the highest degree
honorable. He had but little property, but what he had he gave to her.
Regarding his conduct in this matter Clio Rickman, his most intimate
friend in England, and a highly honorable man, bears this testimony:
"This I can assert, that Mr. Paine always spoke tenderly and
respectfully of his wife; and sent her several times pecuniary aid,
without her knowing even whence it came."
Concerning this slander W. T. Stead says: "No one even among Paine's
worst libelers suggests that she had any reason of complaint against
him." One of Paine's calumniators, "Francis Oldys" (George Chalmers), a
pretended biographer of Paine whose statements are nearly all false or
misleading, says that while he was an excise officer he bought smuggled
tobacco and was dismissed from the service for the offense. This
statement is false. Dr. Conway says:
"I have before me the minutes of the Board concerning Paine, and there
is no hint whatever of any such accusation."
Falsehoods generally grow rather than diminish with age, and now we are
told that Paine himself was a smuggler and was dismissed for smuggling.
The Excise laws were the most odious laws in England, odious alike to
the people and to the excise officers, who were underpaid (fifty pounds
a year) and otherwise mistreated. Paine espoused the cause of his
fellow excisemen and in a memorial addressed to Parliament pleaded for
a redress of their grievances. His activity in this matter offended
the Government and a trivial irregularity commonly practiced by the
excisemen was made a pretext for his dismissal.
The Everyman Encyclopedia: "Became an excise officer, but agitating for
the removal of grievances, was dismissed from the service."
Had Paine been discharged for any dishonest or immoral act Franklin
would have known it and would not have recommended him as "a worthy
young man."
Paine's dismissal was for him, for England, for America and for the
world one of the most fortunate things that ever occurred. His loss of
the excise office which occurred in April, 1774, took him to America in
November of the same year. The independence of the United States and the
agitation in behalf of popular government throughout the civilized world
followed as a result.
Rev. Willet Hicks, a Quaker minister, who was with Paine when he died,
testified that emissaries of the church tried to bribe him to slander
Paine. He says: "I could have had any sums if I would have said anything
against Thomas Paine, or if even I would have consented to remain
silent. They informed me that the doctor was willing to say something
that would satisfy them if I would engage to be silent. Mr. Paine was a
good man--an honest man."
Rev. G. H. Humphrey: "He was honest. Nor was he uncharitable. He
abstained from profanity and rebuked it in others."
Boston Post (Jan. 29, 1856): "Calumny has blistered her relentless hand
in trying to stamp him as profane, intemperate and mendacious. The
real truth appears to be that he was never habituated to profanity,
to drunkenness, nor to falsehood; and that his calumniators are
unconsciously his eulogists."
The Manchester _Guardian_, probably the most influential journal in
the British empire, outside of London, says that while the popular
conception of Paine is that of a blatant and immoral demagogue he was
noted by his companions "for his shyness, his benevolence, and his
gentleness." Joel Barlow, who saw much of him, both in London and Paris,
as well as in America, says: "He was one of the most benevolent and
disinterested of mankind." "He was always charitable to the poor beyond
his means." Clio Rickman, most intimate of all his associates, says:
"He was mild, unoffending, sincere, gentle, humble and unassuming." Dr.
Bond, who was imprisoned with him in the Luxembourg, says: "He was the
most conscientious man I ever knew." James Parton says: "He loved the
truth for its own sake; and he stood by what he conceived to be the
truth when all around him reviled it." Ellery Sedgwick says: "The goal
which he sought was the happiness of his fellow-men."
Hon. George W. Julian, the first Antislavery nominee for Vice-President,
one of the founders of the Republican party, and for many years a
distinguished leader in Congress, says: "Paine was a perfectly unselfish
and incorruptible patriot; he was a philanthropist in the best sense of
the word; he was a man of the rarest intelligence and moral courage."
Charles Watts of England says: "Thomas Paine had a generous and
affectionate nature, a mind superior to fear and selfish interests; a
mind governed by the principles of uniform rectitude and integrity; a
mind the same in prosperity and adversity; a mind which no bribe could
seduce and no terror overawe."
Eva Ingersoll Brown: "Thomas Paine was one of the mental and moral
giants of his time. He ranked among the foremost of his age. He was
royal in rectitude, kingly in compassion, sovereign in sympathy. His
reverence for truth and justice was sublime; his love of mercy and his
ardor for liberty were unsurpassed.... His was a religion untainted
by touch of dogma or of sect; a thing stainless and pure; of wondrous
beauty and grandeur."
While the orthodox clergy, with a few noble exceptions, have been,
to their overlasting shame, mainly responsible for the ignorance
and prejudice that have prevailed concerning Thomas Paine, Liberal
ministers, many of them, to their eternal honor, have braved public
sentiment and dared to do him justice. In an address more than fifty
years ago the Rev. Moncure D. Conway paid this tribute to the moral
character of Thomas Paine: "In his life, in his justice, in his truth,
in his adherence to high principles, I look in vain for a parallel in
those times and in these times. I am selecting my words. I know I am to
be held accountable for them." Rev. Theodore Parker says: "I think
he did more to promote piety and morality among men than a hundred
ministers of that age in America."
Prof. L. F. Laybarger: "Great was Thomas Paine intellectually, morally
he was greater."
Col. E. A. Stevens: "May Americans long appreciate the genius and
reverence the virtues of their noble benefactor, for he left them a
legacy greater than his works--the contemplation of his high-souled,
unselfish character."
Every person who has charged Paine with immorality has either invented
a falsehood or repeated one. The character of Paine; was as blameless as
that of Washington. Both men, in their last days, were bitterly assailed
by political enemies. With their deaths political censure, for the most
part, ceased. But Paine's religious opinions were not forgotten, and
could not be forgiven. His "Age of Reason" continued to be read, and
remained unanswered, because unanswerable. What "Common Sense" had
done to kingcraft in America the "Age of Reason" promised to do to
priestcraft throughout the world. In her desperation the church seized
her only available weapon, slander. Every inventor of a calumny against
Paine was hailed as a defender of the faith. Unscrupulous biographers
and historians, like Cheetham and McMaster, to curry favor with the
church, have recorded these calumnies as facts; and others, accepting
these writers as reliable authorities, have innocently repeated them.
Many who have acknowledged Paine's services to mankind have felt
compelled to apologize for his supposed errors. Sir Leslie Stephen, who
had accepted some of these charges, thus frankly admits that he had been
deceived: "I regret to say that I had accepted certain charges against
Paine's character, which Mr. Conway has shown to rest upon worse than
suspicious evidence.... I fully admit that I was entirely misled by a
hasty reliance upon worthless testimony." (_History of English Thought
in the Eighteenth Century, 3rd ed., vol. ii, p. 261, note._)
William H. Burr: "While the corpse of the philanthropist lay cooling in
the ground the English Tory Cheetham wrote a biography full of malignity
and detraction."
Cheetham had a double motive in writing his Life of Paine--revenge and
gain. He was an Englishman and had been an ardent Republican. But he had
betrayed his party and as a result of this he and Paine became engaged
in a bitter controversy. Paine's punishment of the renegade was
terrible. His wounds still smarting when his adversary died, Cheetham
wreaked his vengeance by writing a book in which he presented as facts
all the calumnies that Paine's political and religious enemies had
circulated concerning him, supplemented by all that his own malignant
mind could invent. Realizing that his career in America was ended he had
decided to return to England and the book, he believed, would win for
him the favor and patronage of England's two most powerful institutions,
the Tory Government and the Orthodox Church.
"When, therefore, a party hack, as Cheetham doubtless was, disappointed
and a renegade, with talents, as he certainly possessed, but embittered
in feelings and regardless of truth, as all circumstances contribute to
show--what could be expected from such a man but just what he produced,
a Life of Paine abounding in bold falsehoods, cunningly contrived, and
addressed to a people who wished to be deceived."--_Gilbert Vale_.
"Cheetham's book is one of the most malicious ever written."--_Dr.
Conway_.
"We have no hesitation in saying that we knew perfectly well at the time
the motives of that author [Cheetham] for writing and publishing a work,
which, we have every reason to believe, is a libel almost from beginning
to end."--_Rev. Solomon Southwick._
Eighteen years prior to the appearance of Cheetham's book George
Chalmers, an English writer, under the pseudonymn of "Francis Oldys,"
backed by the friends of the English Tory government and for a
consideration, it is claimed, of £500, to counteract the influence
of the "Rights of Man" which was threatening to overthrow monarchy in
England, wrote a pretended biography of Paine filled with slander and
vituperation. Referring to this book and the corrupt English political
and religious age in which it was written, Edward Smith, an English
author, writing nearly a century later, characterizes it as "one of the
most horrible collections of abuse which even that venal day produced."
Excepting Cheetham and Chalmers, all of the biographers of
Paine--Conway, Vale, Rickman, Sedgwick, Sherwin, Blanchard, Linton and
others--have endeavored to do him justice. But Cheetham's and Chalmer's
books have been the arsenals where the orthodox of England and America
have gone for their weapons with which to attack the author of the "Age
of Reason." Not only have they tried to suppress Paine's book, they have
tried to banish from the public library and book-store every work that
has appeared in defense of it or its author. For three-quarters of a
century the only biographies of Paine to be found in the London library
were those of Cheetham and Chalmers; the only one to be found in the
public libraries of America was that of Cheetham. Is it any wonder,
then, that nearly all the pictures of Paine, even those drawn by
friendly hands, to be found in our histories, biographical dictionaries,
encyclopedias and other works, should be largely caricatures?
One of the foulest of these caricatures is that drawn by the historian
John Bach McMaster. For this writer's scurrilous attack on Paine no
excuse can be offered. The plea of ignorance of Paine's true character
and history cannot be urged in his behalf. He had before him the
authentic records of Paine's career, in America, at least. He knew
that his statements were untruthful and unjust. His tirade of abuse is
seemingly for the sole purpose of securing for his books the endorsement
of the clerical bigots who dominate our schools and colleges.
Louisa Harding: "One would imagine that even the religious bigot would
know that he [McMaster] drew for us the picture of a great man, looming
up tall and wide behind the chronicler who strove to pull him down....
In the course of a careful, impartial investigation of the various
lives of, and articles on, Paine, it became necessary to resort to
the explanation of blinding religious prejudice; and that, too, having
failed to fit the case, there seems to be no recourse save to use a
shorter, uglier word--John Bach McMaster _lies_."
A little while ago a prominent American, misled by Paine's calumniators
and too proud to retract it when the error was called to his
attention, applied to the author-hero the brutal epithet "filthy little
Atheist"--three falsehoods in three words, for Paine was neither filthy,
little, nor an Atheist.
[See the works of President Theodore Roosevelt for
this quotation of his opinion of Thomas Paine. DW]
"Every syllable of that characterization is a shameful
falsehood."--_William M. Salter, A.M._
"One of the most transparently false and indefensible slanders that ever
came from lip or pen."--_J. P. Bland, B. D._
"Was he filthy? He was the friend and associate of Washington and
Franklin. He was a member of the most conspicuous philosophical society
in the new world. He was associated with the most distinguished men
of the philosophical circles of France. Was he little? He entered an
intellectual combat with Edmund Burke, and won immortal renown. Was he
little? He was big enough and mighty enough to make the throne of Great
Britain tremble. Was he little? He was big enough to make in America as
well as in France the cause of human liberty his debtor forever "--_Dr.
John E. Roberts._
Commenting on this slander the _Nation_ of England says: "After all,
our feelings of resentment at such a brutality are assuaged by the
reflection that whereas, this man, will in a quick generation sink to
the obscurity from which a series of accidents lifted him for a few
years, history will gradually set in its proper place among the makers
of the Republic the memory of the man whom he defamed."
"All this vilification is really the tribute that mediocrity pays to
genius."--_Elbert Hubbard_.