The Message and papers therein referred to were read.
WEDNESDAY, January 13.
Mr. FRANKLIN, from the State of North Carolina, attended.
MONDAY, February 1.
_Claim of Thomas Paine._
The PRESIDENT communicated an address, signed Thomas Paine, stating his
claim on the United States for services rendered during the Revolutionary
war, and his title to remuneration. The address was read, and is as
follows:
NEW YORK, _January 21, 1808_.
_To the honorable the Senate of the United States_:
The purport of this address is to state a claim I feel myself
entitled to make on the United States, leaving it to their
Representatives in Congress to decide on its worth and its
merits. The case is as follows:
Towards the latter end of the year 1780, the continental money
had become so depreciated (a paper dollar not being more than a
cent) that it seemed next to impossible to continue the war.
As the United States were then in alliance with France, it
became necessary to make France acquainted with our real
situation. I therefore drew up a letter to Count de Vergennes,
stating undisguisedly the true case, and concluding with the
request whether France could not, either as a subsidy or a
loan, supply the United States with a million sterling, and
continue that supply, annually, during the war.
I showed the letter to Mr. Marbois, Secretary to the French
Minister. His remark upon it was, that a million sent out of
the nation exhausted it more than ten millions spent in it.
I then showed it to Mr. Ralph Izard, member of Congress from
South Carolina. He borrowed the letter of me, and said, “We
will endeavor to do something about it in Congress.”
Accordingly, Congress appointed Colonel John Laurens, then
aid to General Washington, to go to France and make a
representation of our situation, for the purpose of obtaining
assistance. Colonel Laurens wished to decline the mission, and
that Congress would appoint Colonel Hamilton; which Congress
did not choose to do.
Colonel Laurens then came to state the case to me. He said he
was enough acquainted with the military difficulties of the
Army, but that he was not enough acquainted with political
affairs, nor with the resources of the country, to undertake
the mission; “but,” said he, “if you will go with me, I will
accept it;” which I agreed to do, and did do.
We sailed from Boston in the Alliance frigate, Captain Barry,
the beginning of February, 1781, and arrived at L’Orient the
beginning of March.
The aid obtained from France was six millions of livres as a
present, and ten millions as a loan, borrowed in Holland, on
the security of France.
We sailed from Brest in the French Resoulue frigate the first
of June, and arrived at Boston on the 25th of August, bringing
with us two millions and a half of livres, in silver, and
convoying a ship and a brig laden with clothing and military
stores. The money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the
National Bank at Philadelphia, which enabled the army to move
to Yorktown to attack, in conjunction with the French army
under Rochambeau, the British army under Cornwallis. As I never
had a cent for this service, I feel myself entitled, as the
country is now in a state of prosperity, to state the case to
Congress.
As to my political works, beginning with the pamphlet _Common
Sense_, published the beginning of January, 1776, which
awakened America to a declaration of independence, as the
President and Vice President both know, as they were works done
from principle, I cannot dishonor that principle by asking any
reward for them. The country has been benefited by them, and I
make myself happy in the knowledge of it It is, however, proper
for me to add, that the mere independence of America, were
it to have been followed by a system of government modelled
after the corrupt system of the English Government, it would
not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did. It was
to bring forward and establish the representative system of
government, as the work itself will show, that was the leading
principle with me in writing that work, and all my other works,
during the progress of the Revolution. And I followed the same
principle in writing the _Rights of Man_, in England.
There is a resolve of the old Congress, while they sat at New
York, of a grant of three thousand dollars to me. The resolve
is put in handsome language, but it has relation to a matter
which it does not express. Elbridge Gerry was chairman of the
committee who brought in the resolve. If Congress should think
proper to refer this memorial to a committee, I will inform
that committee of the particulars of it. I have also to state
to Congress, that the authority of the old Congress was become
so reduced towards the latter end of the war as to be unable
to hold the States together. Congress could do no more than
recommend, of which the States frequently took no notice; and
when they did, it was never uniformly.
After the failure of the five-per-cent duty, recommended by
Congress, to pay the interest of a loan to be borrowed in
Holland, I wrote to Chancellor Livingston, then Minister for
Foreign Affairs, and Robert Morris, Minister of Finance,
and proposed a method for getting over the whole difficulty
at once; which was, by adding a Continental Legislature to
Congress, who should be empowered to-make laws for the Union,
instead of recommending them; so the method proposed met with
their full approbation. I held myself in reserve, to take the
subject up whenever a direct occasion occurred.
In a conversation afterwards with Governor Clinton, of New
York, now Vice President, it was judged that, for the purpose
of my going fully into the subject, and to prevent any
misconstruction of my motive or object, it would be best that
I received nothing from Congress, but leave it to the States,
individually, to make me what acknowledgment they pleased.
The State of New York made me a present of a farm, which,
since my return to America, I have found it necessary to sell;
and the State of Pennsylvania voted me five hundred pounds,
their currency. But none of the States to the east of New
York, or the south of Philadelphia, ever made me the least
acknowledgment. They had received benefits from me, which they
accepted, and there the matter ended. This story will not tell
well in history. All the civilized world know I have been of
great service to the United States, and have generously given
away talent that would have made me a fortune.
I much question if an instance is to be found in ancient or
modern times of a man who had no personal interest in the cause
he took up--that of independence and the establishment of a
representative system of government, and who sought neither
place nor office after it was established--that persevered in
the same undeviating principles as I have done, for more than
thirty years, and that in spite of difficulties, dangers, and
inconveniences, of which I have had my share.