CHAPTER XX. "THE RIGHTS OF MAN"

Edmund Burke's "Reflexions on the Revolution in France" appeared about

November 1, 1790 Paine was staying at the Angel inn, Islington, and

there immediately began his reply. With his sentiment for anniversaries,

he may have begun his work on November 4th, in honor of the English

Revolution, whose centenary celebration he had witnessed three years

before. In a hundred years all that had been turned into a more secure

lease of monarchy. Burke's pamphlet founded on that Revolution a claim

that the throne represented a perpetual popular franchise. Paine might

have heard under his window the boys, with their

"Please to remember The fifth of November,"

and seen their effigy of Guy Fawkes, which in two years his own effigy

was to replace. But no misgivings of that kind haunted him. For his eyes

the omens hung over the dark Past; on the horizon a new day was breaking

in morning stars and stripes. With the inspiration of perfect faith,

born of the sacrifices that had ended so triumphantly in America, Paine

wrote the book which, coming from such deep, the deeps answered.

Although Paine had been revising his religion, much of the orthodox

temper survived in him; notably, he still required some kind of Satan

to bring out his full energy. In America it had been George III., duly

hoofed and horned, at whom his inkstand was hurled; now it is Burke, who

appeared with all the seductive brilliancy of a fallen Lucifer. No man

had been more idealized by Paine than Burke. Not only because of

his magnificent defence of American patriots, but because of his

far-reaching exposures of despotism, then creeping, snake-like, from one

skin to another. At the very time that Paine was writing "Common Sense,"

Burke was pointing out that "the power of the crown, almost dead and

rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and

far less odium, under the name of influence." He had given liberalism

the sentence: "The forms of a free and the ends of an arbitrary

government are things not altogether incompatible." He had been the

intimate friend of Priestley and other liberals, and when Paine arrived

in 1787 had taken him to his heart and home. Paine maintained his faith

in Burke after Priestley and Price had remarked a change. In the winter

of 1789, when the enthusiastic author was sending out jubilant missives

to Washington and others, announcing the glorious transformation of

France, he sent one to Burke, who might even then have been preparing

the attack on France, delivered early in the Parliament of 1790. When,

soon after his return from Paris, Paine mingled with the mourners for

their lost leader, he was informed that Burke had for some time been a

"masked pensioner," to the extent of L1,500 per annum. This rumor Paine

mentioned, and it was not denied, whether because true, or because Burke

was looking forward to his subsequent pension of L2,500, is doubtful.

Burke's book preceded the events in France which caused reaction in

the minds of Wordsworth and other thinkers in England and America.

The French were then engaged in adapting their government to the free

principles of which Burke himself had long been the eloquent advocate.

It was not without justice that Erskine charged him with having

challenged a Revolution in England, by claiming that its hereditary

monarchy was bound on the people by a compact of the previous century,

and that, good or bad, they had no power to alter it. The power of

Burke's pamphlet lay largely in his deftness with the methods of those

he assailed. He had courted their company, familiarized himself with

their ideas, received their confidences. This had been especially the

case with Paine. So there seemed to be a _soupcon_ of treachery in his

subtleties and his disclosures.

But after all he did not know Paine. He had not imagined the

completeness with which the struggle in America had trained this man in

every art of controversy. Grappling with Philadelphia Tories, Quakers,

reactionists, with aristocrats on the one hand and anarchists on the

other, Paine had been familiarized beyond all men with every deep and

by-way of the subject on which Burke had ventured. Where Burke had

dabbled Paine had dived. Never did man reputed wise go beyond

his depth in such a bowl as when Burke appealed to a revolution of 1688

as authoritative. If one revolution could be authoritative, why

not another? How did the seventeenth century secure a monopoly in

revolution? If a revolution in one century could transfer the throne

from one family to another, why might not the same power in another

transfer it to an elective monarch, or a president, or leave it vacant?

To demolish Burke was the least part of Paine's task. Burke was, indeed,

already answered by the government established in America, presided over

by a man to whom the world paid homage. To Washington, Paine's work was

dedicated. His real design was to write a Constitution for the English

nation. And to-day the student of political history may find in Burke's

pamphlet the fossilized, and in Paine's (potentially) the living,

Constitution of Great Britain.

{1791}

For adequacy to a purpose Paine's "Common Sense" and his "Rights of

Man" have never been surpassed. Washington pronounced the former

unanswerable, and Burke passed the like verdict on the latter when he

said that the refutation it deserved was "that of criminal justice."

There was not the slightest confusion of ideas and aim in this book.

In laying down first principles of human government, Paine imports no

preference of his own for one form or another. The people have the

right to establish any government they choose, be it democracy or

monarchy,--if not hereditary. He explains with nicety of consecutive

statement that a real Constitution must be of the people, and for the

people. That is, for the people who make it; they have no right, by any

hereditary principle, to bind another people, unborn. His principle of

the rights of man was founded in the religious axiom of his age that

all men derived existence from a divine maker. To say men are born equal

means that they are created equal. Precedent contradicts precedent,

authority is against authority, in all our appeals to antiquity, until

we reach the time when man came from the hands of his maker. "What was

he then? Man. Man was his high and only title, and a higher cannot be

given him." "God said Let us make man in our own image." No distinction

between men is pointed out. All histories, all traditions, of the

creation agree as to the unity of man. Generation being the mode by

which creation is carried forward, every child derives its existence

from God. "The world is as new to him as it was to the first man that

existed, and his natural right to it is of the same kind." On these

natural rights Paine founds man's civil rights. To secure his natural

rights the individual deposits some of them--e.g. the right to judge in

his own cause--in the common stock of society.

Paine next proceeds to distinguish governments which have arisen out

of this social compact from those which have not. Governments are

classified as founded on--(1) superstition; (2) power; (3) the common

interests of society, and the common rights of man: that is, on

priestcraft, on conquest, on reason. A national constitution is the act

of the people antecedent to government; a government cannot therefore

determine or alter the organic law it temporarily represents. Pitt's

bill to reform Parliament involves the absurdity of trusting an

admittedly vitiated body to reform itself. The judges are to sit in

their own case. "The right of reform is in the nation in its original

character, and the constitutional method would be by a general

convention elected for the purpose." The organization of the aggregate

of rights which individuals concede to society, for the security of all

rights, makes the Republic. So far as the rights have been surrendered

to extraneous authority, as of priest-craft, hereditary power, or

conquest,--it is Despotism.

To set forth these general principles was Paine's first design. His next

aim was to put on record the true and exact history of events in France

up to the year 1791. This history, partly that of an eyewitness, partly

obtained from the best men in France--Lafayette, Danton, Brissot, and

others,--and by mingling with the masses, constitutes the most fresh and

important existing contribution to our knowledge of the movement in

its early stages. The majority of histories of the French Revolution,

Carlyle's especially, are vitiated by reason of their inadequate

attention to Paine's narrative. There had been then few serious

outbreaks of the mob, but of these Burke had made the most Paine

contends that the outrages can no more be charged against the French

than the London riots of 1780 against the English nation; then retorts

that mobs are the inevitable consequence of mis-government.

"It is by distortedly exalting some men, that others are distortedly

debased. A vast mass of mankind are degradedly thrown into the

background of the human picture, to bring forward, with greater glare,

the puppet show of state and aristocracy. In the commencement of a

revolution, those men are rather followers of the camp than of the

standard of liberty, and have yet to be instructed how to use it."

Part I. of "The Rights of Man" was printed by Johnson in time for the

opening of Parliament (February), but this publisher became frightened,

and only a few copies bearing his name found their way into private

hands,--one of these being in the British Museum. J. S. Jordan, 166

Fleet Street, consented to publish it, and Paine, entrusting it to a

committee of his friends--William Godwin, Thomas Holcroft, and Thomas

Brand Hollis--took his departure for Paris.* From that city he sent

a brief preface which appeared with Jordan's first edition, March 13,

1791. Oldys (Chalmers) asserts that the work was altered by Jordan. This

assertion, in its sweeping form, is disproved not only by Holcroft's

note to Godwin, but by a comparison of the "Johnson" and "Jordan

"volumes in the British Museum."**

* "I have got it--If this do not cure my cough it is a

damned perverse mule of a cough--The pamphlet--From the row

--But mum--We don't sell it--Oh, no--Ears and Eggs--Verbatim,

except the addition of a short preface, which as you have

not seen, I send you my copy--Not a single castration (Laud

be unto God and J. S. Jordan!) can I discover--Hey for the

New Jerusalem! The Millennium! And peace and eternal

beatitude be unto the soul of Thomas Paine!"--C. Kegan

Paul's "William Godwin." In supposing that Paine may have

gone to Paris before his book appeared (March 13th), I have

followed Rickman, who says the work was written "partly at

the Angel, at Islington, partly in Harding Street, Fetter

Lane, and finished at Versailles." He adds that "many

hundred thousand more copies were rapidly sold." But I have

no certain trace of Paine in Paris in 1791 earlier than

April 8th.

** This comparison was made for me by a careful writer, Mr.

J. M. Wheeler, of London, who finds, with a few corrections

in spelling, but one case of softening: "P. 60, in Johnson

Paine wrote 'Everything in the English government appears to

me the reverse of what it ought to be' which in Jordan is

modified to 'Many things,' etc."

The preface to which Holcroft alludes is of biographical interest

both as regards Paine and Burke. As it does not appear in the American

edition it is here inserted:

"From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural

that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance

commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to

have had cause to continue in that opinion, than to change it.

"At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in the

English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National

Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written him, but a short time before,

to inform him how prosperously matters were going on. Soon after this

I saw his advertisement of the Pamphlet he intended to publish. As

the attack was to be made in a language but little studied, and less

understood, in France, and as everything suffers by translation, I

promised some of the friends of the Revolution in that country, that

whenever Mr. Burke's Pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This

appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant

misrepresentations which Mr. Burke's Pamphlet contains; and that while

it is an outrageous abuse of the French Revolution, and the principles

of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of the world.

"I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct in Mr. Burke,

as (from the circumstance I am going to mention) I had formed other

expectations.

"I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might never more

have existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found

out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the

neighbourhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were

disposed to set honestly about it, or if countries were enlightened

enough not to be made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had

been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that time

characterized the people of England; but experience and an acquaintance

with the French Nation have most effectually shown to the Americans the

falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe that a more cordial

and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than

between America and France.

"When I came to France in the spring of 1787, the Archbishop of

Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I became

much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a man of

an enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments and my own

perfectly agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched

impolicy of two nations, like England and France, continually worrying

each other, to no other end than that of a mutual increase of burdens

and taxes. That I might be assured I had not misunderstood him, nor he

me, I put the substance of our opinions into writing, and sent it to

him; subjoining a request, that if I should see among the people of

England any disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the

two nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be authorised

to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of France? He

answered me by letter in the most unreserved manner, and that not for

himself only, but for the Minister, with whose knowledge the letter was

declared to be written.

"I put this letter into the hands of Mr. Burke almost three years ago,

and left it with him, where it still remains, hoping, and at the same

time naturally expecting, from the opinion I had conceived of him,

that he would find some opportunity of making a good use of it, for the

purpose of removing those errors and prejudices which two neighbouring

nations, from the want of knowing each other, had entertained, to the

injury of both.

"When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded to Mr.

Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been disposed to it;

instead of which, no sooner did he see the old prejudices wearing away,

than he immediately began sowing the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if

he were afraid that England and France would cease to be enemies. That

there are men in all countries who get their living by war, and by

keeping up the quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but

when those who are concerned in the government of a country, make it

their study to sow discord, and cultivate prejudices between Nations, it

becomes the more unpardonable.

"With respect to a paragraph in this work alluding to Mr. Burke's having

a pension, the report has been some time in circulation, at least two

months; and as a person is often the last to hear what concerns him

the most to know, I have mentioned it, that Mr. Burke may have an

opportunity of contradicting the rumour, if he thinks proper."

"The Rights of Man" produced a great impression from the first. It

powerfully reinforced the "Constitutional Society," formed seven years

before, which Paine had joined. The book was adopted as their new _Magna

Charta_. Their enthusiasm was poured forth on March 23d in resolutions

which Daniel Williams, secretary, is directed to transmit "to all

our corresponding Constitutional Societies in England, Scotland, and

France." In Ireland the work was widely welcomed. I find a note that "at

a numerous meeting of the Whigs of the Capital [Dublin] on Tuesday the

5th of April, Hugh Crothers in the chair," a committee was appointed to

consider the most effectual mode of disseminating Mr. Paine's pamphlet

on "The Rights of Man."

In order to be uniform with Burke's pamphlet the earlier editions of

"The Rights of Man," were in the three-shilling style. The proceeds

enriched the Society for Constitutional Information, though Paine had

been drained of funds by the failure of Whiteside. Gouverneur Morris,

as appears by the subjoined extracts from his diary, is disgusted with

Paine's "wretched apartments" in Paris, in which, however, the reader

may see something finer than the diarist's luxury, which the author

might have rivalled with the means devoted to his Cause. This was

perhaps what Morris and Paine s friend Hodges agreed in deeming a sort

of lunacy.

"April 8. Return home, and read the answer of Paine to Burke's book;

there are good things in the answer as well as in the book. Paine calls

on me. He says that he found great difficulty in prevailing on any

bookseller to publish his book; that it is extremely popular in England,

and, of course, the writer, which he considers as one of the many

uncommon revolutions of this age. He turns the conversation on times of

yore, and as he mentions me among those who were his enemies, I frankly

acknowledge that I urged his dismissal from the office he held of

secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs."

"April 16. This morning I visit Paine and Mr. Hodges. The former is

abroad, the latter is in the wretched apartments they occupy. He speaks

of Paine as being a little mad, which is not improbable."

"April 25. This morning Paine calls and tells me that the Marquis de

Lafayette has accepted the position of head of the National Guards."

"May 1. Dine with Montmorin. Bouinville is here. He is just returned

from England. He tells me that Paine's book works mightily in England."

Up to this point Paine had, indeed, carried England with him,--for

England was at heart with Fox and the Opposition. When Burke made

his first attack on the French Revolution (February 9, 1790), he

was repeatedly called to order; and Fox--with tears, for their long

friendship was breaking forever--overwhelmed Burke with his rebuke.

Even Pitt did not say a word for him. His pamphlet nine months later was

ascribed to inspiration of the King, from whom he expected favors; and

although the madmen under whom the French Revolution fell presently came

to the support of his case.

Burke personally never recovered his place in the esteem of England.

That the popular instinct was true, and that Burke was playing a deeper

game than appeared, was afterwards revealed in the archives of England

and France.*

* "Thirty thousand copies of Burke's book were circulated in

all the courts and among the European aristocracy as so many

lighted brands to set Europe in flames. During this time the

author, by his secret correspondence, excited Queen Marie-

Antoinette, the court, the foreigners, to conspire against

the Revolution. 'No compromises with rebels!' he wrote;

'appeal to sovereign neighbors; above all trust to the

support of foreign armies.'"--"Histoire de France," par

Henri Martin, i., p. 151.

There was every reason why Paine's reply should carry liberal statesmen

with him. His pamphlet was statesmanlike. The French Constitution at

that time was the inchoate instrument beginning with the "Declaration

of Rights," adopted on Lafayette's proposal (August 26, 1789), and

containing provisions contrary to Paine's views. It recognized the

reigning house, and made its executive power hereditary. Yet so free was

Paine from pedantry, so anxious for any peaceful advance, that it was at

the expected inauguration of this Constitution he had consented to bear

the American flag, and in his reply to Burke he respects the right of

a people to establish even hereditary executive, the right of

constitutional reform being retained. "The French constitution

distinguishes between the king and the sovereign; it considers the

station of the king as official, and places sovereignty in the nation."

In the same practical way he deals with other survivals in the French

Constitution--such as clericalism, and the property qualification for

suffrage--by dwelling on their mitigations, while reaffirming his own

principles on these points.

A very important part of Paine's answer was that which related to

the United States. Burke, the most famous defender of American

revolutionists, was anxious to separate their movement from that in

France. Paine, with ample knowledge, proved how largely the uprising in

France was due to the training of Lafayette and other French officers in

America, and to the influence of Franklin, who was "not the diplomatist

of a court, but of man." He also drew attention to the effect of the

American State Constitutions, which were a grammar of liberty.* He

points out that under this transatlantic influence French liberalism had

deviated from the line of its forerunners,--from Montesquieu, "obliged

to divide himself between principle and prudence"; Voltaire, "both the

flatterer and satirist of despotism"; Rousseau, leaving "the mind in

love with an object without describing the means of possessing it";

Turgot, whose maxims are directed to "reform the administration of

government rather than the government itself." To these high praise is

awarded, but they all had to be filtered through America.

* Dr. Franklin had these constitutions translated, and

presented them in a finely bound volume to the King.

According to Paine, who must have heard it from Franklin,

Vergennes resisted their publication, but was obliged to

give way to public demand. Paine could not allude to the

effect of his own work, "Common Sense," which may have been

the more effective because its argument against monarchy was

omitted from the translation. But his enemies did not fail

to credit his pen with the catastrophes in France. John

Adams declares that the Constitution of Pennsylvania was

ascribed wrongly to Franklin; it was written by Paine and

three others; Turgot, Condorcet, and the Duke de la

Rochefoucauld were enamored of it, and two of them "owed

their final and fatal catastrophe to this blind love"

(Letter to S. Perley, June 19, 1809). Whence Cheetham.

dwelling on the enormity of the "single representative

assembly," queries: "May not Paine's constitution of

Pennsylvania have been the cause of the tyranny of

Robespierre?"

And it goes without saying that it was not the reactionary America with

which John Adams and Gouverneur Morris had familiarized Burke. "The

Rights of Man" was the first exposition of the republicanism of

Jefferson, Madison, and Edmund Randolph that ever appeared. And as this

republicanism was just then in deadly struggle with reaction, the

first storm raised by Paine's book occurred in America. It was known in

America that Paine was about to beard the British lion in his den, and

to expectant ears the roar was heard before its utterance.

"Paine's answer to Burke (writes Madison to Jefferson, May 1st) has not

yet been received here [New York]. The moment it can be got, Freneau

tells me, it will be published in Child's paper [_Daily Advertiser_],

It is said that the pamphlet has been suppressed, and that the author

withdrew to France before or immediately after its appearance. This may

account for his not sending copies to his friends in this country."

Mr. Beckley, however, had by this time received a copy and loaned it to

Jefferson, with a request that he would send it to J. B. Smith, whose

brother, S. H. Smith, printed it with the following Preface:

"The following Extracts from a note accompanying a copy of this pamphlet

for republication is so respectable a testing of its value, that

the Printer hopes the distinguished writer will excuse its present

appearance. It proceeds from a character equally eminent in the councils

of America, and conversant in the affairs of France, from a long

and recent residence at the Court of Versailles in the Diplomatic

department; and at the same time that it does justice to the writings

of Mr. Paine, it reflects honor on the source from which it flows by

directing the mind to a contemplation of that Republican firmness and

Democratic simplicity which endear their possessor to every friend of

the Rights of Man.

"After some prefatory remarks the Secretary of State observes:

"' I am extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted, and that

something is at length to be publickly said against the political

heresies which have sprung up among us.

"'I have no doubt our citizens will rally a _second _time round the

_standard_ of Common Sense.'"

As the pamphlet had been dedicated to the President,* this encomium of

the Secretary of State ("Jefferson" was not mentioned by the sagacious

publisher) gave it the air of a manifesto by the administration. Had

all been contrived, Paine's arrow could not have been more perfectly

feathered to reach the heart of the anti-republican faction. The

Secretary's allusion to "political heresies" was so plainly meant for

the Vice-President that a million hands tossed the gauntlet to him, and

supposed it was his own hand that took it up. These letters, to _The

Columbian Centinel_ (Boston), were indeed published in England as

by "John Adams," and in the trial of Paine were quoted by the

Attorney-General as proceeding from "the second in the executive

government" of America. Had it been generally known, however, that they

were by the Vice-President's son, John Quincy Adams, the effect might

not have been very different on the father. Edmund Randolph, in view of

John Adams' past services, felt some regret at the attacks on him,

and wrote to Madison: "I should rejoice that the controversy has been

excited, were it not that under the character of [Publicola] he, who was

sufficiently depressed before, is now irredeemable in the public opinion

without being the real author." The youth, however, was only in his

twenty-fourth year, and pretty certainly under his father's inspiration.

* "Sir, I present you a small treatise in defence of those

principles of freedom which your exemplary virtue hath so

eminently contributed to establish. That the rights of men

may become as universal as your benevolence can wish, and

that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing the new world

regenerate the old, is the prayer of, Sir, your much obliged

and obedient humble servant, Thomas Paine."

It is improbable, however, that John Adams could have written such

scholarly and self-restrained criticisms on any work by Paine, mere

mention of whom always made him foam at the mouth. Publicola's

arguments could not get a fair hearing amid surviving animosities

against England and enthusiasm for a republican movement in France, as

yet not a revolution, which promised the prevalence of American ideas

in Europe. The actual England of that era, whose evils were powerfully

portrayed by Paine, defeated in advance any theoretical estimate of

the advantages of its unwritten Constitution. America had, too,

an inventor's pride in its written Constitution, as yet untried by

experience. Publicola assailed, successfully as I think, Paine's

principle that a vitiated legislature could never be trusted to reform

itself. It was answered that there is no reason why the people may not

delegate to a legislature, renewed by suffrage, the power of altering

even the organic law. Publicola contends that the people could not act

in their original character in changing a constitution, in opposition to

an existing legislature, without danger of anarchy and war; that if the

people were in harmony with their legislature it could be trusted

to carry out their amendments; that a legislature without such

constitutional powers would nevertheless exercise them by forced

constructions; and that the difficulty and delay of gathering the people

in convention might conceivably endanger the commonwealth, were the

power of fundamental alteration not delegated to the legislature,--a

concurrent right being reserved by the people.

This philosophical statement, interesting in the light of French

revolutions and English evolutions, recoiled on Publicola from the walls

of Paine's real fortress. This was built of the fact that in England the

majority was not represented even in the Commons, and that the people

had no representation at all in two branches of their government.

Moreover, Paine's plea had been simply for such reconstitution of

government as would enable the people to reform it without revolution or

convulsion. Publicola was compelled to admit that the English people

had no resort but the right of revolution, so that it appeared

mere Monarchism to argue against Paine's plea for a self-amending

constitution in England.

Publicola's retort on the Secretary's phrase, "political heresies"

(infelicitous from a freethinker),--"Does he consider this pamphlet

of Mr. Paine's as the canonical book of political scripture,--hurt

Jefferson so much that he supposed himself harmed. He was indeed much

annoyed by the whole affair, and straightway wrote to political leaders

letters--some private, others to be quoted,--in which he sought to

smooth things by declaring that his note was not meant for publication.

To Washington he writes (May 8th) the Beckley-Smith story, beginning:

"I am afraid the indiscretion of a printer has committed me with my

friend Mr. Adams, for whom, as one of the most honest and disinterested

men alive, I have a cordial esteem, increased by long habits of

concurrence in opinion in the days of his republicanism; and even since

his apostasy to hereditary monarchy and nobility, though we differ, we

differ as friends should do."

The "Jeffersonians" were, of course, delighted, and there is no knowing

how much reputation for pluck the Secretary was gaining in the country

at the very moment when his intimate friends were soothing his tremors.

These were increased by the agitation of the British representatives

in America over the affair. The following re-enforcement was sent by

Madison on May 12th:

"I had seen Paine's pamphlet, with the Preface of the Philadelphia

edition. It immediately occurred that you were brought into the

frontispiece in the manner you explain. But I had not foreseen the

particular use made of it by the British partizans. Mr. Adams can least

of all complain. Under a mock defence of the Republican constitutions of

his country he attacked them with all the force he possessed, and this

in a book with his name to it, while he was the Representative of his

country at a foreign Court. Since he has been the second magistrate in

the new Republic, his pen has constantly been at work in the same

Cause; and though his name has not been prefixed to his anti-republican

discourses, the author has been as well known as if that formality had

been observed. Surely if it be innocent and decent in one servant of the

public thus to write attacks against its Government, it cannot be very

criminal or indecent in another to patronize a written defence of the

principles on which that Government is founded. The sensibility of

Hammond [British Minister] and Bond [British Consul-General] for the

indignity to the British Constitution is truly ridiculous. If offence

could be justly taken in that quarter, what would France have a right to

say to Burke's pamphlet, and the countenance given to it and its author,

particularly by the King himself? What, in fact, might not the United

States say, when revolutions and democratic Governments come in for a

large charge of the scurrility lavished on those of France?"

One curious circumstance of this incident was that the fuss made by

these British agents was about a book concerning which their government,

under whose nose it was published, had not said a word. There was,

indeed, one sting in the American edition which was not in the English,

but that does not appear to have been noticed.* The resentment shown by

the British agents was plainly meant to aid Adams and the partisans of

England in their efforts to crush the republicans, and bring Washington

to their side in hostility to Jefferson. Four years later they

succeeded, and already it was apparent to the republican leaders that

fine engineering was required to keep the Colossus on their side.

Washington being at Mount Vernon, his secretary, Tobias Lear, was

approached by Major Beckwith, an English agent (at Mrs. Washington's

reception), who undertook to lecture through him the President and

Secretary of State. He expressed surprise that Paine's pamphlet should

be dedicated to the President, as it contained remarks "that could not

but be offensive to the British government." The Major might have been

embarrassed if asked his instructions on the point, but Lear only said

that the President had not seen the pamphlet, nor could he be held

responsible for its sentiments. "True," said Beckwith, "but I observe,

in the American edition, that the Secretary of State has given a most

unequivocal sanction to the book, as _Secretary of State_; it is not

said as Mr. Jefferson." Lear said he had not seen the pamphlet, "but,"

he added, "I will venture to say that the Secretary of State has not

done a thing which he would not justify." Beckwith then remarked that

he had spoken only as "a private character," and Lear went off to report

the conversation in a letter to Washington (May 8th), and next day to

Attorney-General Randolph. Lear also reports to Washington that he had

heard Adams say, with his hand upon his breast: "I detest that book

and its tendency, from the bottom of my heart." Meanwhile the

Attorney-General, after conversation with Beckwith, visited Jefferson,

and asked if he had authorized the publication of his note in Paine's

pamphlet.

* It has already been stated that the volume as printed by

Jordan (London) in March, contained one single modification

of that which Johnson had printed in February, but declined

to publish. The American edition was printed from the

Johnson volume; and where the English were reading "Many

things," etc, the Americans read: "Every thing in the

English government appears to me the reverse of what it

ought to be, and of what it is said to be."

"Mr. Jefferson said that, so far from having authorized it, he

was exceedingly sorry to see it there; not from a disavowal of the

approbation which it gave the work, but because it had been sent to the

printer, with the pamphlet for republication, without the most distant

idea that he would think of publishing any part of it. And Mr. Jefferson

further added that he wished it might be understood, that he did not

authorize the publication of any part of his note."

These words of Lear to Washington, written no doubt in Randolph's

presence, suggest the delicacy of the situation. Jefferson's anxiety led

him to write Vice-President Adams (July 17th) the Beckley-Smith story.

"I thought [he adds] so little of the note that I did not even keep a

copy of it, nor ever heard a tittle more of it till, the week following,

I was thunderstruck with seeing it come out at the head of the pamphlet.

I hoped that it would not attract. But I found on my return from

a journey of a month, that a writer came forward under the name of

Publicola, attacking not only the author and principles of the pamphlet,

but myself as its sponsor by name. Soon after came hosts of other

writers, defending the pamphlet and attacking you by name as the

writer of Publicola. Thus our names were thrown on the stage as public

antagonists."

Then follows some effusiveness for Adams, and protestations that he has

written none of these attacks. Jefferson fully believed that Publicola

was the Vice-President, and had so informed Monroe, on July 10th. It

was important that his lieutenants should not suspect their leader of

shrinking, and Jefferson's letters to them are in a different vein.

"Publicola," he tells Monroe, "in attacking all Paine's principles, is

very desirous of involving me in the same censure with the author. I

certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles; but it

is equally certain I never meant to have entered as a volunteer in the

cause. My occupations do not permit it." To Paine he writes (July 29th):

"Indeed I am glad you did not come away till you had written your Rights

of Man. A writer under the signature of Publicola has attacked it, and a

host of champions has entered the arena immediately in your defence."

It is added that the controversy has shown the people firm in their

republicanism, "contrary to the assertions of a sect here, high in name

but small in numbers," who were hoping that the masses were becoming

converted "to the doctrine of King, Lords, and Commons."

In the letter to which this was a reply, Paine had stated his intention

of returning to America in the spring.* The enthusiasm for Paine and his

principles elicited by the controversy was so overwhelming that

Edmund Randolph and Jefferson made an effort to secure him a place in

Washington's Cabinet. But, though reinforced by Madison, they failed**

* "I enclose you a few observations on the establishment of

a Mint. I have not seen your report on that subject and

therefore cannot tell how nearly our opinions run together;

but as it is by thinking upon and talking subjects over that

we approach towards truth, there may probably be something

in the enclosed that may be of use.--As the establishment of

a Mint combines a portion of politics with a knowledge of

the Arts, and a variety of other matters, it is a subject I

shall very much like to talk with you upon. I intend at all

events to be in America in the Spring, and it will please me

much to arrive before you have gone thro' the arrangement."

--Paine to Jefferson, dated London, September 28, 1790.

** Madison to Jefferson, July 13th,--"I wish you success

with all my heart in your efforts for Paine. Besides the

advantage to him which he deserves, an appointment for him

at this moment would do public good in various ways."

These statesmen little knew how far Washington had committed himself to

the British government. In October, 1789, Washington, with his own

hand, had written to Gouverneur Morris, desiring him in "the capacity

of private agent, and on the authority and credit of this letter, to

converse with His Britannic Majesty's ministers on these points; viz.,

whether there be any, and what objections to performing those articles

in the treaty which remained to be performed on his part, and whether

they incline to a treaty of commerce with the United States on any,

and what terms?" This was a secret between Washington, Morris, and

the British Cabinet.* It was the deepest desire of Washington to free

America from British garrisons, and his expectation was to secure this

by the bribe of a liberal commercial treaty, as he ultimately did. The

demonstration of the British agents in America against Paine's pamphlet,

their offence at its dedication to the President and sanction by the

Secretary of State, were well calculated. That it was all an American

_coup_, unwarranted by any advice from England, could not occur to

Washington, who was probably surprised when he presently received a

letter from Paine showing that he was getting along quite comfortably

under the government he was said to have aggrieved.

* "Diary of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 310.

Edmund Randolph to Madison, July 21st.--"I need not relate to you, that

since the _standard_ of republicanism has been erected, it has been

resorted to by a numerous corps. The newspapers will tell you how much

the crest of aristocracy has fallen.... But he [Adams] is impotent, and

something is due to past services. Mr. J. and myself have attempted to

bring Paine forward as a successor to Osgood [Postmaster-General]. It

seems to be a fair opportunity for a declaration of certain sentiments.

But all that I have heard has been that it would be too pointed to keep

a vacancy unfilled until his return from the other side of the water."

"London, July 21, 1791--Dear Sir.--I received your favor of last August

by Col: Humphries since which I have not written to or heard from you.

I mention this that you may know no letters have miscarried. I took the

liberty of addressing my late work 'Rights of Man,' to you; but tho'

I left it at that time to find its way to you, I now request your

acceptance of fifty copies as a token of remembrance to yourself and my

Friends. The work has had a run beyond anything that has been published

in this Country on the subject of Government, and the demand continues.

In Ireland it has had a much greater. A letter I received from Dublin,

10th of May, mentioned that the fourth edition was then on sale. I

know not what number of copies were printed at each edition, except the

second, which was ten thousand. The same fate follows me here as I _at

first_ experienced in America, strong friends and violent enemies, but

as I have got the ear of the Country, I shall go on, and at least shew

them, what is a novelty here, that there can be a person beyond the

reach of corruption.

"I arrived here from france about ten days ago. M. de la Fayette is

well. The affairs of that Country are verging to a new crisis,

whether the Government shall be Monarchical and heredetary or wholly

representative? I think the latter opinion will very generally prevail

in the end. On this question the people are much forwarder than the

National Assembly.

"After the establishment of the American Revolution, it did not appear

to me that any object could arise great enough to engage me a second

time. I began to feel myself happy in being quiet; but I now experience

that principle is not confined to Time or place, and that the ardour of

seventy-six is capable of renewing itself. I have another work on hand

which I intend shall be my last, for I long much to return to America.

It is not natural that fame should wish for a rival, but the case is

otherwise with me, for I do most sincerely wish there was some person

in this Country that could usefully and successfully attract the public

attention, and leave me with a satisfied mind to the enjoyment of

quiet life: but it is painful to see errors and abuses and sit down a

senseless spectator. Of this your own mind will interpret mine.

"I have printed sixteen thousand copies; when the whole are gone of

which there remain between three and four thousand I shall then make a

cheap edition, just sufficient to bring in the price of the printing and

paper as I did by Common Sense.

"Mr. Green who will present you this, has been very much my friend. I

wanted last October to draw for fifty pounds on General Lewis Morris who

has some money of mine, but as he is unknown in the Commercial line, and

American credit not very good, and my own expended, I could not succeed,

especially as Gov'r Morris was then in Holland. Col: Humphries went

with me to your Agent Mr. Walsh, to whom I stated the case, and took

the liberty of saying that I knew you would not think it a trouble to

receive it of Gen. Morris on Mr. Walsh's account, but he declined it.

Mr. Green afterwards supplied me and I have since repaid him. He has a

troublesome affair on his hands here, and is in danger of losing thirty

or forty thousand pounds, embarked under the flag of the United States

in East India property. The persons who have received it withhold it and

shelter themselves under some law contrivance. He wishes to state the

case to Congress not only on his own account, but as a matter that may

be nationally interesting.

"The public papers will inform you of the riots and tumults at

Birmingham, and of some disturbances at Paris, and as Mr. Green can

detail them to you more particularly than I can do in a letter I leave

those matters to his information. I am, etc."

Nine months elapsed before Washington answered this letter, and although

important events of those months have yet to be related, the answer may

be here put on record.

"Philadelphia, 6 May, 1792.--Dear Sir.--To my friends, and those who

know my occupations, I am sure no apology is necessary for keeping their

letters so much longer unanswered, than my inclination would lead me to

do. I shall therefore offer no excuse for not having sooner acknowledged

the receipt of your letter of the 21st of June [July]. My thanks,

however, for the token of your remembrance, in the fifty copies of '_The

Rights of Man_,' are offered with no less cordiality, than they would

have been had I answered your letter in the first moment of receiving

it.

"The duties of my office, which at all times, especially during the

session of Congress, require an unremitting attention, naturally become

more pressing towards the close of it; and as that body have resolved to

rise tomorrow, and as I have determined, in case they should, to set

out for Mount Vernon on the next day, you will readily conclude that

the present is a busy moment with me; and to that I am persuaded your

goodness will impute my not entering into the several points touched

upon in your letter. Let it suffice, therefore, at this time, to say,

that I rejoice in the information of your personal prosperity, and, as

no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than I

do, that it is the first wish of my heart, that the enlightened policy

of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings, to which

they are entitled, and lay the foundation of happiness for future

generations.--With great esteem, I am, dear Sir &c.

"P. S. Since writing the foregoing, I have received your letter of

the 13th of February, with the twelve copies of your new work, which

accompanied it, and for which you must accept my additional thanks."

There is no lack of personal cordiality in this letter, but one

may recognize in its ingenious vagueness, in its omission of any

acknowledgment of the dedication of Paine's book, that he mistrusts the

European revolution and its American allies.

CHAPTER XXI. FOUNDING THE EUROPEAN REPUBLIC

It has already been mentioned that John Adams had been proclaimed in

France the author of "Common Sense."* The true author was now known,

but, as the anti-monarchal parts of his work were expurgated, Paine, in

turn, was supposed to be a kind of John Adams--a revolutionary royalist.

This misunderstanding was personally distasteful, but it had the

important compensation of enabling Paine to come before Europe with

a work adapted to its conditions, essentially different from those of

America to which "Common Sense" was addressed in 1776. It was a matter

of indifference to him whether the individual executive was called

"King "or "President." He objected to the thing, not the name, but as

republican superstition had insisted on it in America there was little

doubt that France would follow the example. Under these circumstances

Paine made up his mind that the republican principle would not be lost

by the harmonizing policy of preserving the nominal and ornamental

king while abolishing his sovereignty. The erection of a tremendous

presidential power in the United States might well suggest to so staunch

a supporter of ministerial government that this substance might be

secured under a show of royalty. Dr. Robinet considers it a remarkable

"prophecy" that Paine should have written in 1787 of an approaching

alliance of "the Majesty of the Sovereign with the Majesty of the

Nation" in France. This was opposed to the theories of Jefferson, but

it was the scheme of Mirabeau, the hope of Lafayette, and had not the

throne been rotten this prudent policy might have succeeded. It was

with an eye to France as well as to England that Paine, in his reply

to Burke, had so carefully distinguished between executive sovereignty

subject to law and personal monarchy.

* "When I arrived in France, the French naturally had a

great many questions to settle. The first was whether I was

the famous Adams, 'Ah, le fameux Adams.' In order to

speculate a little upon this subject, the pamphlet 'Common

Sense' had been printed in the 'Affaires de l'Angle-terre et

de l'Amerique,' and expressly ascribed to Mr. Adams, 'the

celebrated member of Congress.' It must be further known

that although the pamphlet 'Common Sense' was received in

France and in all Europe with rapture, yet there were

certain parts of it that they did not dare to publish in

France. The reasons of this any man may guess. 'Common

Sense' undertakes to prove that monarchy is unlawful by the

Old Testament They therefore gave the substance of it, as

they said; and paying many compliments to Mr. Adams, his

sense and rich imagination, they were obliged to ascribe

some parts of it to republican zeal. When I arrived at

Bordeaux all that I could say or do would not convince

anybody but that I was the fameux Adams. 'C'est un homme

calibre. Votre nom est bien connu ici.'"--"Works of John

Adams," vol. iii., p. 189. This was in 1779, and when Adams

entered on his official duties at Paris the honors thrust

upon him at Bordeaux became burdensome.

When the last proof of his book was revised Paine sped to Paris, and

placed it in the hand of his friend M. Lanthenas for translation.

Mirabeau was on his death-bed, and Paine witnessed that historic

procession, four miles long, which bore the orator to his shrine.

Witnessed it with relief, perhaps, for he is ominously silent concerning

Mirabeau. With others he strained his eyes to see the Coming Man; with

others he sees formidable Danton glaring at Lafayette; and

presently sees advancing softly between them the sentimental,

philanthropic--Robespierre.

It was a happy hour for Paine when, on a day in May, he saw Robespierre

rise in the National Assembly to propose abolition of the death

penalty. How sweet this echo of the old "testimonies" of Thetford

Quaker meetings. "Capital punishment," cries Robespierre, "is but a base

assassination--punishing one crime by another, murder with murder. Since

judges are not infallible they have no right to pronounce irreparable

sentences." He is seconded by the jurist Duport, who says impressively:

"Let us at least make revolutionary scenes as little tragic as possible!

Let us render man honorable to man!" Marat, right man for the role,

answered with the barbaric demand "blood for blood," and prevailed. But

Paine was won over to Robespierre by this humane enthusiasm. The day was

to come when he must confront Robespierre with a memory of this scene.

That Robespierre would supersede Lafayette Paine could little imagine.

The King was in the charge of the great friend of America, and never had

country a fairer prospect than France in those beautiful spring days.

But the royal family fled. In the early morning of June 21st Lafayette

burst into Paine's bedroom, before he was up, and cried: "The birds are

flown!" "It is well," said Paine; "I hope there will be no attempt to

recall them." Hastily dressing, he rushed out into the street, and found

the people in uproar. They were clamoring as if some great loss had

befallen them. At the Hotel deVille Lafayette was menaced by the crowd,

which accused him of having assisted the King's flight, and could only

answer them: "What are you complaining of? Each of you saves twenty

sous tax by suppression of the Civil List." Paine encounters his friend

Thomas Christie. "You see," he said, "the absurdity of monarchical

governments; here will be a whole nation disturbed by the folly of one

man."*

* The letter of Christie (Priestley's nephew), written June

22d, appeared in the London Morning Chronicle, June 29th.

Here was Marat's opportunity. His journal, _L'Ami du Peuple_, clamored

for a dictator, and for the head of Lafayette. Against him rose young

Bonneville, who, in _La Bouche de Fer_ wrote: "No more kings! No

dictator! Assemble the People in the face of the sun; proclaim that

the Law alone shall be sovereign,--the Law, the Law alone, and made for

all!"

Bonneville's words in his journal about that time were apt to be

translations from the works of his friend Paine, with whom his life

was afterwards so closely interwoven. The little group of men who had

studied Paine, ardent republicans, beheld a nation suddenly become

frantic to recover a king who could not be of the slightest value to any

party in the state. The miserable man had left a letter denouncing all

the liberal measures he had signed since October, 1789, which sealed

his doom as a monarch. The appalling fact was revealed that the most

powerful revolutionists--Robespierre and Marat especially--had never

considered a Republic, and did not know what it was.

On June 25th, Paine was a heavy-hearted spectator of the return of the

arrested king. He had personal realization that day of the folly of a

people in bringing back a king who had relieved them of his presence. He

had omitted to decorate his hat with a cockade, and the mob fell on him

with cries of "Aristocrat! a la lanterne!" After some rough handling

he was rescued by a Frenchman who spoke English, and explained the

accidental character of the offence. Poor Paine's Quaker training had

not included the importance of badges, else the incident had revealed to

him that even the popular rage against Louis was superstitious homage to

a cockade. Never did friend of the people have severer proofs that they

are generally wrong. In America, while writing as with his heart's blood

the first plea for its independence, he was "shadowed" as a British spy;

and in France he narrowly escapes the aristocrat's lantern, at the very

moment when he was founding the first republican society, and writing

its declaration.

This "Societe Republicaine," as yet of five members, inaugurated itself

on July 1st, by placarding Paris with its manifesto, which was even

nailed on the door of the National Assembly.

"Brethren and fellow citizens:

"The serene tranquillity, the mutual confidence which prevailed amongst

us, during the time of the late King's escape, the indifference with

which we beheld him return, are unequivocal proofs that the absence of

a King is more desirable than his presence, and that he is not only a

political superfluity, but a grievous burden, pressing hard on the whole

nation.

"Let us not be imposed upon by sophisms; all that concerns this is

reduced to four points.

"He has abdicated the throne in having fled from his post. Abdication

and desertion are not characterized by the length of absence; but by the

single act of flight. In the present instance, the act is everything,

and the time nothing.

"The nation can never give back its confidence to a man who false to his

trust, perjured to his oath, conspires a clandestine flight, obtains a

fraudulent passport, conceals a King of France under the disguise of a

valet, directs his course towards a frontier covered with traitors and

deserters, and evidently meditates a return into our country, with a

force capable of imposing his own despotic laws.

"Whether ought his flight to be considered as his own act, or the act of

those who fled with him? Was it a spontaneous resolution of his own,

or was it inspired into him by others? The alternative is immaterial;

whether fool or hypocrite, idiot or traitor, he has proved himself

equally unworthy of the important functions that had been delegated to

him.

"In every sense that the question can be considered, the reciprocal

obligation which subsisted between us is dissolved. He holds no longer

any authority. We owe him no longer obedience. We see in him no more

than an indifferent person; we can regard him only as Louis Capet.

"The history of France presents little else than a long series of public

calamity, which takes its source from the vices of the Kings; we have

been the wretched victims that have never ceased to suffer either for

them or by them. The catalogue of their oppressions was complete, but to

complete the sum of their crimes, treason yet was wanting. Now the

only vacancy is filled up, the dreadful list is full; the system is

exhausted; there are no remaining errors for them to commit, their reign

is consequently at an end.

"What kind of office must that be in a government which requires

neither experience nor ability to execute? that may be abandoned to the

desperate chance of birth, that may be filled with an idiot, a madman, a

tyrant, with equal effect as by the good, the virtuous, and the wise? An

office of this nature is a mere nonentity: it is a place of show, not of

use. Let France then, arrived at the age of reason, no longer be deluded

by the sound of words, and let her deliberately examine, if a King,

however insignificant and contemptible in himself, may not at the same

time be extremely dangerous.

"The thirty millions which it costs to support a King in the eclat of

stupid brutal luxury, presents us with an easy method of reducing taxes,

which reduction would at once release the people, and stop the progress

of political corruption. The grandeur of nations consists, not, as Kings

pretend, in the splendor of thrones, but in a conspicuous sense of

their own dignity, and in a just disdain of those barbarous follies and

crimes, which, under the sanction of royalty have hitherto desolated

Europe.

"As to the personal safety of Louis Capet, it is so much the more

confirmed, as France will not stoop to degrade herself by a spirit of

revenge against a wretch who has dishonored himself. In defending a just

and glorious cause, it is not possible to degrade it, and the universal

tranquillity which prevails is an undeniable proof, that a free people

know how to respect themselves."

Malouet, a leading royalist member, tore down the handbill, and, having

ascertained its author, demanded the prosecution of Thomas Paine and

Achille Duchatelet. He was vehemently supported by Martineau, deputy of

Paris, and for a time there was a tremendous agitation. The majority,

not prepared to commit themselves to anything at all.

* "How great is a calm, couchant people! On the morrow men

will say to one another, 'We have no king, yet we slept

sound enough.' On the morrow Achille Duchatelet, and Thomas

Paine, the rebellious needleman, shall have the walls of

Paris profusely plastered with their placard, announcing

that there must be a republic."--Carlyle.

Dumont ("Recollections of Mirabeau") gives a particular account of this

paper, which Duchatelet wished him to translate. "Paine and he, the

one an American, the other a young thoughtless member of the French

nobility, put themselves forward to change the whole system of

government in France." Lafayette had been sounded, but said it would

take twenty years to bring freedom to maturity in France. "But some of

the seed thrown out by the audacious hand of Paine began to bud forth

in the minds of many leading individuals." (E. g. Condorcet, Brissot,

Petion, Claviere.) voted the order of the day, affecting, says Henri

Martin, a disdain that hid embarrassment and inquietude.

This document, destined to reappear in a farther crisis, and the

royalist rage, raised Paine's Republican Club to vast importance. Even

the Jacobins, who had formally declined to sanction republicanism, were

troubled by the discovery of a society more radical than themselves. It

was only some years later that it was made known (by Paine) that this

formidable association consisted of five members, and it is still

doubtful who these were. Certainly Paine, Achille Duchatelet, and

Condorcet; probably also Brissot, and Nicolas Bonneville. In order to

avail itself of this tide of fame, the Societe Republicaine started a

journal,--_The Republican._* The time was not ripe, however; only one

copy appeared; that, however, contained a letter by Paine, written in

June, which excited considerable flutter. To the reader of to-day it

is mainly interesting as showing Paine's perception that the French

required instruction in the alphabet of republicanism; but, amid its

studied moderation, there was a paragraph which the situation rendered

pregnant:

* "Le Republicain; on le defenseur du gouvernement

Representatif; par une Societe des Republicans. A Paris.

July 1791. No. 1."

"Whenever the French Constitution shall be rendered conformable to its

declaration of rights, we shall then be enabled to give to France, and

with justice, the appellation of a _Civic Empire_; for its government

will be the empire of laws, founded on the great republican principles

of _elective representation_ and the rights of man. But monarchy

and hereditary succession are incompatible with the _basis_ of its

Constitution."

Now this was the very constitution which Paine, in his answer to Burke,

had made comparatively presentable; to this day it survives in human

memory mainly through indulgent citations in "The Rights of Man." Those

angels who, in the celestial war, tried to keep friendly with both

sides, had human counterparts in France, their constitutional oracle

being the Abbe Sieves. He had entered warmly into the Revolution,

invented the name "National Assembly," opposed the veto power,

supported the Declaration of Rights. But he had a superstitious faith in

individual executive, which, as an opportunist, he proposed to vest in

the reigning house. This class of "survivals" in the constitution

were the work of Sieyes, who was the brain of the Jacobins, now led by

Robespierre, and with him ignoring republicanism for no better reason

than that their title was "Societe des Amis de la Constitution."* Sieyes

petted his constitution maternally, perhaps because nobody else

loved it, and bristled at Paine's criticism. He wrote a letter to the

_Moniteur_, asserting that there was more liberty under a monarchy than

under a republic He announced his intention of maintaining monarchical

executive against the new party started into life by the King's flight.

In the same journal (July 8th,) Paine accepts the challenge "with

pleasure."** Paine himself was something of an opportunist; as in

America he had favored reconciliation with George III. up to the

Lexington massacre, so had he desired a _modus vivendi_ with Louis XVI.

up to his flight.* But now he unfurls the anti-monarchical flag.

* The club, founded in 1789, was called "Jacobin," because

they met in the hall of the Dominicans, who had been called

Jacobins from the street St. Jacques in which they were

first established, anno 1219.

** It was probably this letter that Gouverneur Morris

alludes to in his "Diary," when, writing of a Fourth of July

dinner given by Mr. Short (U. S. Charge d'Affaires), he

mentions the presence of Paine, "inflated to the eyes and

big with a letter of Revolutions."

*** In this spirit was written Part I. of "The Rights of

Man" whose translation by M. Lanthenas, with new preface,

appeared in May. Sieyes agreed that "hereditaryship" was

theoretically wrong, "but," he said, "refer to the histories

of all elective monarchies and principalities: is there one

in which the elective mode is not worse than the hereditary

succession?" For notes on this incident see Professor F. A.

Aulard's important work, "Les Orateurs de l'Assemblee

Constituante," p. 411. Also Henri Martin's "Histoire de

France," i., p. 193.

"I am not the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man wishes

more heartily than myself to see them all in the happy and honorable

state of private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid

enemy of what is called monarchy; and I am such by principles which

nothing can either alter or corrupt--by my attachment to humanity; by

the anxiety which I feel within myself for the dignity and honor of

the human race; by the disgust which I experience when I observe men

directed by children and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the

evils that monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast;

and by those sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the

exactions, the wars, and the massacres with which monarchy has crushed

mankind: in short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have

declared war."

In reply Sieyes used the terms "monarchy" and "republic" in unusual

senses. He defines "republic" as a government in which the executive

power is lodged in more than one person, "monarchy" as one where it is

entrusted to one only. He asserted that while he was in this sense a

monarchist Paine was a "polycrat." In a republic all action must finally

lodge in an executive council deciding by majority, and nominated by the

people or the National Assembly. Sieyes did not, however, care to enter

the lists. "My letter does not announce that I have leisure to enter

into a controversy with republican _polycrats_."

Paine now set out for London. He travelled with Lord Daer and Etienne

Dumont, Mirabeau's secretary. Dumont had a pique against Paine, whose

republican manifesto had upset a literary scheme of his,--to evoke

Mirabeau from the tomb and make him explain to the National Assembly

that the King's flight was a court plot, that they should free Louis

XVI. from aristocratic captivity, and support him. But on reading

the Paine placard, "I determined," says Dumont, "for fear of evil

consequences to myself, to make Mirabeau return to his tomb."* Dumont

protests that Paine was fully convinced that the world would be

benefited if all other books were burned except "The Rights of Man,"

and no doubt the republican apostle had a sublime faith in the sacred

character of his "testimonies" against kings. Without attempting to

determine whether this was the self-reliance of humility or egoism, it

may be safely affirmed that it was that which made Paine's strokes so

effective.

* "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau." Par Etienne Dumont.

It may also be remarked again that Paine showed a prudence with which he

has not been credited. Thus, there is little doubt that this return to

London was in pursuance of an invitation to attend a celebration of the

second anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. He arrived at the White

Bear, Piccadilly, the day before (July 13th), but on finding that

there was much excitement about his republican manifesto in France

he concluded that his presence at the meeting might connect it with

movements across the Channel, and did not attend. Equal prudence was

not, however, displayed by his opponents, who induced the landlord of

the Crown and Anchor to close his doors against the advertised meeting.

This effort to prevent the free assemblage of Englishmen, and for the

humane purpose of celebrating the destruction of a prison whose horrors

had excited popular indignation, caused general anger. After due

consideration it was deemed opportune for those who sympathized with the

movement in France to issue a manifesto on the subject. It was written

by Paine, and adopted by a meeting held at the Thatched House Tavern,

August 20th, being signed by John Home Tooke, as Chairman. This "Address

and Declaration of the Friends of Universal Peace and Liberty," though

preceded by the vigorous "Declaration of the Volunteers of Belfast,"

quoted in its second paragraph, was the earliest warning England

received that the revolution was now its grim guest.

"Friends and Fellow Citizens: At a moment like the present, when wilful

misrepresentations are industriously spread by partizans of arbitrary

power and the advocates of passive obedience and court government, we

think it incumbent upon us to declare to the world our principles, and

the motives of our conduct.

"We rejoice at the glorious event of the French revolution. If it be

asked, 'What is the French revolution to us?' we answer as has already

been answered in another place, 'It is much--much to us as men; much

to us as Englishmen. As men, we rejoice in the freedom of twenty-five

millions of men.

"We rejoice in the prospect which such a magnificent example opens to the

world.'

"We congratulate the French nation for having laid the ax; to the root

of tyranny, and for erecting government on the sacred hereditary rights

of man; rights which appertain to all, and not to any one more than

another.

"We know of no human authority superior to that of a whole nation; and

we profess and claim it as our principle that every nation has at all

times an inherent and indefeasable right to constitute and establish

such government for itself as best accords with its disposition,

interest, and happiness.

"As Englishmen we also rejoice, because we are immediately interested in

the French Revolution.

"Without inquiring into the justice, on either side, of the reproachful

charges of intrigue and ambition which the English and French courts

have constantly made on each other, we confine ourselves to this

observation,--that if the court of France only was in fault, and the

numerous wars which have distressed both countries are chargeable to

her alone, that court now exists no longer, and the cause and the

consequence must cease together. The French therefore, by the revolution

they have made, have conquered for us as well as for themselves, if it

be true that this court only was in fault, and ours never.

"On this side of the case the French revolution concerns us immediately:

we are oppressed with a heavy national debt, a burthen of taxes, an

expensive administration of government, beyond those of any people in

the world.

"We have also a very numerous poor; and we hold that the moral

obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty,

is far superior to that of supplying the invented wants of courtly

extravagance, ambition, and intrigue.

"We believe there is no instance to be produced but in England, of seven

millions of inhabitants, which make but little more than one million

families, paying yearly seventeen millions of taxes.

"As it has always been held out by the administrations that the restless

ambition of the court of France rendered this ex-pences necessary to us

for our own defence, we consequently rejoice, as men deeply interested

in the French revolution; for that court, as we have already said,

exists no longer, and consequently the same enormous expences need not

continue to us.

"Thus rejoicing as we sincerely do, both as men and Englishmen, as

lovers of universal peace and freedom, and as friends to our national

prosperity and reduction of our public expences, we cannot but express

our astonishment that any part or any members of our own government

should reprobate the extinction of that very power in France, or wish

to see it restored, to whose influence they formerly attributed (whilst

they appeared to lament) the enormous increase of our own burthens and

taxes. What, then, are they sorry that the pretence for new oppressive

taxes, and the occasion for continuing many old taxes, will be at an

end? If so, and if it is the policy of courts and court government to

prefer enemies to friends, and a system of war to that of peace, as

affording more pretences for places, offices, pensions, revenue and

taxation, it is high time for the people of every nation to look with

circumspection to their own interest.

"Those who pay the expences, and not those who participate in the

emoluments arising from them, are the persons immediately interested in

inquiries of this kind. We are a part of that national body on whom this

annual expence of seventeen millions falls; and we consider the present

opportunity of the French revolution as a most happy one for lessening

the enormous load under which this nation groans. If this be not done we

shall then have reason to conclude that the cry of intrigue and ambition

against other courts is no more than the common cant of all courts.

"We think it also necessary to express our astonishment that a

government desirous of being called free, should prefer connexion with

the most despotic and arbitrary powers in Europe. We know of none more

deserving this description than those of Turkey and Prussia, and the

whole combination of German despots.

"Separated as we happily are by nature from the tumults of the

continent, we reprobate all systems and intrigues which sacrifice (and

that too at a great expence) the blessings of our natural situation.

Such systems cannot have a natural origin.

"If we are asked what government is, we hold it to be nothing more than

a national association; and we hold that to be the best which secures

to every man his rights and promotes the greatest quantity of happiness

with the least expence. We live to improve, or we live in vain; and

therefore we admit of no maxims of government or policy on the mere

score of antiquity or other men's authority, the old whigs or the new.

"We will exercise the reason with which we are endued, or we possess it

unworthily. As reason is given at all times, it is for the purpose of

being used at all times.

"Among the blessings which the French revolution has produced to that

nation we enumerate the abolition of the feudal system, of injustice,

and of tyranny, on the 4th of August, 1789. Beneath the feudal system

all Europe has long groaned, and from it England is not yet free. Game

laws, borough tenures, and tyrannical monopolies of numerous kinds still

remain amongst us; but rejoicing as we sincerely do in the freedom

of others till we shall haply accomplish our own, we intended to

commemorate this prelude to the universal extirpation of the feudal

system by meeting on the anniversary of that day (the 4th of August)

at the Crown and Anchor: from this meeting we were prevented by the

interference of certain unnamed and sculking persons with the master of

the tavern, who informed us that on their representation he would not

receive us. Let those who live by or countenance feudal oppressions take

the reproach of this ineffectual meanness and cowardice to themselves:

they cannot stifle the public declaration of our honest, open, and

avowed opinions. These are our principles, and these our sentiments;

they embrace the interest and happiness of the great body of the nation

of which we are a part. As to riots and tumults, let those answer for

them who by wilful misrepresentations endeavour to excite and promote

them; or who seek to stun the sense of the nation, and lose the great

cause of public good in the outrages of a mis-informed mob. We take our

ground on principles that require no such riotous aid.

"We have nothing to apprehend from the poor for we are pleading their

cause; and we fear not proud oppression for we have truth on our side.

"We say and we repeat it that the French revolution opens to the

world an opportunity in which all good citizens must rejoice, that of

promoting the general happiness of man, and that it moreover offers

to this country in particular an opportunity of reducing our enormous

taxes: these are our objects, and we will pursue them."

A comparative study of Paine's two republican manifestos--that placarded

in Paris July 1st, and this of August 20th to the English--reveals the

difference between the two nations at that period. No break with the

throne in England is suggested, as none had been declared in France

until the King had fled, leaving behind him a virtual proclamation of

war against all the reforms he had been signing since 1789. The Thatched

House address leaves it open for the King to take the side of

the Republic, and be its chief. The address is simply an applied

"Declaration of Rights." Paine had already maintained, in his reply to

Burke, that the English monarch was an importation unrelated to the

real nation, "which is left to govern itself, and does govern itself,

by magistrates and juries, almost on its own charge, on republican

principles." His chief complaint is that royalty is an expensive

"sinecure." So far had George III. withdrawn from his attempt to govern

as well as reign, which had ended so disastrously in America. The fall

of the French King who had aided the American "rebellion" was probably

viewed with satisfaction by the English court, so long as the revolution

confined itself to France. But now it had raised its head in England,

and the alarm of aristocracy was as if it were threatened with an

invasion of political cholera.

The disease was brought over by Paine. He must be isolated. But he had

a hold on the people, including a large number of literary men, and

Nonconformist preachers. The authorities, therefore, began working

cautiously, privately inducing the landlords of the Crown and Anchor and

the Thatched House to refuse their rooms to the "Painites," as they

were beginning to be called But this was a confession of Paine's power.

Indeed all opposition at that time was favorable to Paine. Publicola's

reply to "The Rights of Man," attributed to Vice-President Adams, could

only heighten Paine's fame; for John Adams' blazing court-dress, which

amused us at the Centenary (1889), was not forgotten in England; and

while his influence was limited to court circles, the entrance of so

high an official into the arena was accepted as homage to the author.

The publication at the same time of the endorsement of Paine's "Rights

of Man" by the Secretary of State, the great Jefferson, completed the

triumph. The English government now had Paine on its hands, and must

deal with him in one way or another.

The closing of one door after another of the usual places of assembly

to sympathizers with the republican movement in France, being by hidden

hands, could not be charged upon Pitt's government; it was, however, a

plain indication that a free expression through public meetings could

not be secured without risk of riots. And probably there would have

been violent scenes in London had it not been for the moderation of

the Quaker leader. At this juncture Paine held a supremacy in the

constitutional clubs of England and Ireland equal to that of Robespierre

over the Jacobins of Paris. He had the giant's strength, but did not use

it like a giant. He sat himself down in a quiet corner of London, began

another book, and from time to time consulted his Cabinet of Reformers.

His abode was with Thomas Rickman, a bookseller, his devoted friend.

He had known Rickman at Lewes, as a youthful musical genius of the club

there, hence called "Clio." He had then set some song of Paine's to

music, and afterwards his American patriotic songs, as well as many of

his own. He now lived in London with wife and children--these bearing

names of the great republicans, beginning with Thomas Paine,--and with

them the author resided for a time. A particular value, therefore,

attaches to the following passages in Rickman's book:

"Mr. Paine's life in London was a quiet round of philosophical leisure

and enjoyment. It was occupied in writing, in a small epistolary

correspondence, in walking about with me to visit different friends,

occasionally lounging at coffee-houses and public places, or being

visited by a select few. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the French and

American ambassadors, Mr. Sharp the engraver, Romney the painter, Mrs.

Wolstonecraft, Joel Barlow, Mr. Hull, Mr. Christie, Dr. Priestley, Dr.

Towers, Col. Oswald, the walking Stewart, Captain Sampson Perry, Mr.

Tuffin, Mr. William Choppin, Captain De Stark, Mr. Home Tooke, &c. &c.

were among the number of his friends and acquaintance; and of course, as

he was my inmate, the most of my associates were frequently his. At this

time he read but little, took his nap after dinner, and played with my

family at some game in the evening, as chess, dominos, and drafts,

but never at cards; in recitations, singing, music, &c; or passed it

in conversation: the part he took in the latter was always enlightened,

full of information, entertainment, and anecdote. Occasionally we

visited enlightened friends, indulged in domestic jaunts and recreations

from home, frequently lounging at the White Bear, Picadilly, with his

old friend the walking Stewart, and other clever travellers from France,

and different parts of Europe and America. When by ourselves we sat very

late, and often broke in on the morning hours, indulging the reciprocal

interchange of affectionate and confidential intercourse. 'Warm from the

heart and faithful to its fires' was that intercourse, and gave to us

the 'feast of reason and the flow of soul.'"

"Mr. Paine in his person was about five feet ten inches high, and rather

athletic; he was broad shouldered, and latterly stooped a little. His

eye, of which the painter could not convey the exquisite meaning, was

full, brilliant, and singularly piercing; it had in it the 'muse of

fire.' In his dress and person he was generally very cleanly, and

wore his hair cued, with side curls, and powdered, so that he looked

altogether like a gentleman of the old French school. His manners were

easy and gracious; his knowledge was universal and boundless; in private

company and among his friends his conversation had every fascination

that anecdote, novelty and truth could give it. In mixt company and

among strangers he said little, and was no public speaker."

Paine does not appear to have ever learned that his name had been

pressed for a place in Washington's Cabinet, and apparently he did not

know until long after it was over what a tempest in Jefferson's teapot

his book had innocently caused. The facts came to him while he was

engaged on his next work, in which they are occasionally reflected. In

introducing an English friend to William Short, U. S. Charge d'Affaires

at Paris, under date of November 2d, Paine reports progress:

"I received your favour conveying a letter from Mr. Jefferson and the

answers to Publicola for which I thank you. I had John Adams in my mind

when I wrote the pamphlet and it has hit as I expected.

"M. Lenobia who presents you this is come to pass a few days at Paris.

He is a bon republicain and you will oblige me much by introducing him

among our friends of bon foi. I am again in the press but shall not be

out till about Christmas, when the Town will begin to fill. By what I

can find, the Government Gentry begin to threaten. They have already

tried all the under-plots of abuse and scurrility without effect; and

have managed those in general so badly as to make the work and the

author the more famous; several answers also have been written against

it which did not excite reading enough to pay the expence of printing.

"I have but one way to be secure in my next work which is, to go further

than in my first. I see that _great rogues_ escape by the excess of

their crimes, and, perhaps, it may be the same in honest cases. However,

I shall make a pretty large division in the public opinion, probably too

much so to encourage the Government to put it to issue, for it will be

rather like begging them than me.

"By all the accounts we have here, the french emigrants are in a

hopeless condition abroad; for my own part I never saw anything to fear

from foreign courts--they are more afraid of the french Revolution than

the revolution needs to be of them; and the same caution which they

take to prevent the french principles getting among their armies, will

prevent their sending armies among the principles.

"We have distressing accounts here from St. Domingo. It is the natural

consequence of Slavery and must be expected every where. The Negroes are

enraged at the opposition made to their relief and are determined,

if not to relieve themselves to punish their enemies. We have no new

accounts from the East Indies, and people are in much doubt. I am,

affectionately yours, Thomas Paine."

The "scurrility" referred to may have been that of George Chalmers,

elsewhere mentioned. Two days after this letter to Short was written

Paine received a notable ovation.

There was a so-called "Revolution Society" in London, originally formed

by a number of prominent dissenters. The Society had manifested its

existence only by listening to a sermon on the anniversary of the

Revolution of 1688 (November 4th) and thereafter dining together. It had

not been supposed to interest itself in any later revolution until 1789.

In that year the annual sermon was delivered by Dr. Richard Price, the

Unitarian whose defence of the American Revolution received the thanks

of Congress. In 1776 Price and Burke stood shoulder to shoulder, but the

sermon of 1789 sundered them. It was "On the Love of our Country," and

affirmed the constitutional right of the English people to frame their

own government, to choose their own governors, and to cashier them for

misconduct. This was the "red rag" that drew Burke into the arena. Dr.

Price died April 19, 1791, and his great discourse gathered new force

from the tributes of Priestley and others at his grave. He had been a

staunch friend of Paine, and at the November festival of this year his

place was accorded to the man on whom the "Constitutionalists" beheld

the mantle of Price and the wreath of Washington. The company at this

dinner of 1791 at the London Tavern, included many eminent men, some of

them members of Parliament. The old Society was transformed--William and

Mary and 1688 passed into oblivion before Thomas Paine and 1791. It was

probably for this occasion that the song was written (by whom I know

not)--"Paine's Welcome to Great Britain."

"He comes--the great Reformer comes!

Cease, cease your trumpets, cease, cease your drums!

Those warlike sounds offend the ear,

Peace and Friendship now appear:

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome,

Welcome, thou Reformer, here!

"Prepare, prepare, your songs prepare,

Freedom cheers the brow of care;

The joyful tidings spread around,

Monarchs tremble at the sound!

Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom,--

Rights of Man, and Paine resound!"

Mr. Dignum sang (to the tune of "The tear that bedews sensibility's

shrine.")

"Unfold, Father Time, thy long records unfold,

Of noble achievements accomplished of old;

When men, by the standard of Liberty led,

Undauntedly conquered or chearfully bled:

But now 'midst the triumphs these moments reveal,

Their glories all fade and their lustre turns pale,

While France rises up, and proclaims the decree

That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free.

"As spring to the fields, or as dew to the flowers.

To the earth parched with heat, as the soft dropping showers,

As health to the wretch that lies languid and wan,

Or rest to the weary--is Freedom to man!

Where Freedom the light of her countenance gives,

There only he triumphs, there only he lives;

Then seize the glad moment and hail the decree

That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free.

"Too long had oppression and terror entwined

Those tyrant-formed chains that enslaved the free mind;

While dark superstition, with nature at strife,

For ages had locked up the fountain of life;

But the daemon is fled, the delusion is past,

And reason and virtue have triumphed at last;

Then seize the glad moments, and hail the decree,

That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free.

"France, we share in the rapture thy bosom that fills,

While the Genius of Liberty bounds o'er thy hills:

Redundant henceforth may thy purple juice flow,

Prouder wave thy green woods, and thine olive trees grow!

While the hand of philosophy long shall entwine,

Blest emblems, the laurel, the myrtle and vine,

And heaven through all ages confirm the decree

That tears off their chains, and bids millions be free!"

Paine gave as his toast, "The Revolution of the World," and no doubt

at this point was sung "A New Song," as it was then called, written by

Paine himself to the tune of "Rule Britannia":

"Hail, Great Republic of the world,

The rising empire of the West,

Where famed Columbus, with a mighty mind inspired,

Gave tortured Europe scenes of rest.

Be thou forever, forever great and free,

The Land of Love and Liberty.

"Beneath thy spreading mantling vine,

Beside thy flowery groves and springs,

And on thy lofty, thy lofty mountains' brow,

May all thy sons and fair ones sing.

Chorus.

"From thee may rudest nations learn

To prize the cause thy sons began;

From thee may future, may future tyrants know

That sacred are the Rights of Man.

"From thee may hated discord fly,

With all her dark, her gloomy train;

And o'er thy fertile, thy fertile wide domain

May everlasting friendship reign.

"Of thee may lisping infancy

The pleasing wondrous story tell,

And patriot sages in venerable mood

Instruct the world to govern well.

"Ye guardian angels watch around,

From harm protect the new-born State;

And all ye friendly, ye friendly nations join,

And thus salute the Child of Fate.

Be thou forever, forever great and free,

The Land of Love and Liberty!"

Notwithstanding royal tremors these gentlemen were genuinely loyal in

singing the old anthem with new words:

"God save the Rights of Man!

Give him a heart to scan

Blessings so dear;

Let them be spread around,

Wherever Man is found,

And with the welcome sound

Ravish his ear!"

No report is preserved of Paine's speech, but we may feel sure that

in giving his sentiment "The Revolution of the World" he set forth his

favorite theme--that revolutions of nations should be as quiet, lawful,

and fruitful as the revolutions of the earth.

{1792}

CHAPTER XXII. THE RIGHT OF EVOLUTION

The Abbe Sieyes did not escape by declining to stand by his challenge

of the republicans. In the second part of "The Rights of Man" Paine

considers the position of that gentleman, namely, that hereditary

monarchy is an evil, but the elective mode historically proven worse.

That both are bad Paine agrees, but "such a mode of reasoning on such a

subject is inadmissible, because it finally amounts to an accusation of

providence, as if she had left to man no other choice with respect

to government than between two evils." Every now and then this Quaker

Antaeus touches his mother earth--the theocratic principle--in this way;

the invigoration is recognizable in a religious seriousness, which,

however, makes no allowance for the merely ornamental parts of

government, always so popular. "The splendor of a throne is the

corruption of a state." However, the time was too serious for the

utility of bagatelles to be much considered by any. Paine engages Sieyes

on his own ground, and brings historic evidence to prove that the wars

of succession, civil and foreign, show hereditary a worse evil than

elective headship, as illustrated by Poland, Holland, and America. But

he does not defend the method of either of these countries, and clearly

shows that he is, as Sieyes said, a "poly-crat," so far as the numerical

composition of the Executive is concerned.* He affirms, however, that

governing is no function of a republican Executive. The law alone

governs. "The sovereign authority in any country is the power of making

laws, and everything else is an official department."

*"I have always been opposed to the mode of refining

government up to an individual, or what is called a single

Executive. Such a man will always be the chief of a party. A

plurality is far better. It combines the mass of a nation

better together. And besides this, it is necessary to the

manly mind of a republic that it lose the debasing idea of

obeying an individual."--Paine MS.