More than fifty thousand copies of the first part of "The Rights of Man"

had been sold, and the public hungrily awaited the author's next work.

But he kept back his proofs until Burke should fulfil his promise

of returning to the subject and comparing the English and French

constitutions. He was disappointed, however, at finding no such

comparison in Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs." It did,

however, contain a menace that was worth waiting for.

"Oldys" (Chalmers) says that Paine was disappointed at not being

arrested for his first pamphlet on "The Rights of Man," and had, "while

fluttering on the wing for Paris, hovered about London a whole week

waiting to be taken." It is, indeed, possible that he would have been

glad to elicit just then a fresh decision from the courts in favor of

freedom of speech and of the press, which would strengthen faint hearts.

If he had this desire he was resolved not to be disappointed a second

time.

A publisher (Chapman) offered him a thousand guineas for the manuscript

of Part II. Paine declined; "he wished to reserve it in his own hands."

Facts afterwards appeared which rendered it probable that this was a

ministerial effort to suppress the book.*

* Paine may, indeed, only have apprehended alterations,

which he always dreaded. His friends, knowing how much his

antagonists had made of his grammatical faults, sometimes

suggested expert revision. "He would say," says Richard

Carlile, "that he only wished to be known as he was, without

being decked with the plumes of another."

Paine's Part Second was to appear about the first of February, or

before the meeting of Parliament But the printer (Chapman) threw up the

publication, alleging its "dangerous tendencies," whereby it was delayed

until February 17th, when it was published by Jordan. Meanwhile, his

elaborate scheme for reducing taxes so resembled that which Pitt had

just proposed in Parliament that the author appended his reasons

for believing that his pages had been read by the government clerk,

Chalmers, and his plan revealed to Pitt. "Be the case, however, as it

may, Mr. Pitt's plan, little and diminutive as it is, would have made a

very awkward appearance had this work appeared at the time the printer

had engaged to finish it."

At the time (September) when Chapman began printing Paine's Part II.,

George Chalmers brought to the same press his libellous "Life of Pain."

On learning that Chapman was printing Paine, Chalmers took his book

away. As Chalmers was a government employe, and his work larger. Chapman

returned Paine's work to him half printed, and the Chalmers book was

restored to him. As Chapman stated in his testimony, and so wrote

to Paine (January 17, 1792), that he was unwilling to go on with the

printing because of the dangerous tendency of a part of it, his offer of

a thousand guineas for it could only have contemplated its expurgation

or total suppression. That it was the latter, and that the money was

to be paid by the government, is rendered probable by the evidences in

Chalmers' book, when it appeared, that he had been allowed the perusal

of Paine's manuscript while in Chapman's hands. Chalmers also displays

intimate knowledge of Chapman's business transactions with Paine.

In the light of Pitt's subsequent career it is a significant fact that,

in the beginning of 1792, he should be suspected of stealing Paine's

thunder! And, indeed, throughout Paine's Part Second the tone towards

Pitt implies some expectation of reform from him. Its severity is

that which English agitators for constitutional reform have for a

half century made familiar and honorable. The historical student finds

mirrored in this work the rosy picture of the United States as seen

at its dawn by the disfranchised people of Europe, and beside that

a burdened England now hardly credible. It includes an historical

statement of the powers claimed by the crown and gradually distributed

among non-elective peers and class-elective commoners, the result being

a combination of all three against admission of the people to any degree

of self-government. Though the arraignment is heavy, the method of

reform is set forth with moderation. Particular burdens are pointed

out, and England is warned to escape violent revolution by accommodating

itself to the new age. It is admitted that no new system need be

constructed. "Mankind (from the long tyranny of assumed power) have

had so few opportunities of making the necessary trials on modes

and principles of government, in order to discover the best, _that

government is but now beginning to be known_, and experience is yet

wanting to determine many particulars." Paine frankly retracts an old

opinion of his own, that the legislature should be unicameral. He now

thinks that, though there should be but one representation, it might

secure wiser deliberation to divide it, by lot, into two or three

parts. "Every proposed bill shall first be debated in those parts, by

succession, that they may become hearers of each other, but without

taking any vote; after which the whole representation to assemble, for a

general debate, and determination by vote." The great necessity is that

England shall gather its people, by representation, in convention

and frame a constitution which shall contain the means of peaceful

development in accordance with enlightenment and necessity.

In Part I. Paine stated his general principles with some reservations,

in view of the survival of royalty in the French constitution. In Part

II. his political philosophy is freely and fully developed, and may be

summarized as follows:

1. Government is the organization of the aggregate of those natural

rights which individuals are not competent to secure individually,

and therefore surrender to the control of society in exchange for the

protection of all rights.

2. Republican government is that in which the welfare of the whole

nation is the object.

3. Monarchy is government, more or less arbitrary, in which the

interests of an individual are paramount to those of the people

generally.

4. Aristocracy is government, partially arbitrary, in which the

interests of a class are paramount to those of the people generally.

5. Democracy is the whole people governing themselves without secondary

means.

6. Representative government is the control of a nation by persons

elected by the whole nation.

7. The Rights of Man mean the right of all to representation.

Democracy, simple enough in small and primitive societies, degenerates

into confusion by extension to large populations. Monarchy, which

originated amid such confusion, degenerates into incapacity by extension

to vast and complex interests requiring "an assemblage of practical

knowledges which no one individual can possess." "The aristocratical

form has the same vices and defects with the monarchical, except that

the chance of abilities is better from the proportion of numbers."

The representative republic advocated by Paine is different from merely

epitomized democracy. "Representation is the delegated monarchy of a

nation." In the early days of the American republic, when presidential

electors were independent of the constituents who elected them, the

filtration of democracy was a favorite principle among republicans.

Paine evidently regards the representative as different from a delegate,

or mere commissioner carrying out instructions. The representatives of

a people are clothed with their sovereignty; that, and not opinions or

orders, has been transferred to them by constituencies. Hence we find

Paine, after describing the English people as "fools" (p. 260), urging

representation as a sort of natural selection of wisdom.

"Whatever wisdom constituency is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be

reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is

always a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all

purposes; but, with respect to the parts of society, it is continually

changing place. It rises in one today, in another tomorrow, and has

most probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again

withdrawn. As this is the order of nature, the order of government

must follow it, or government will, as we see it does, degenerate into

ignorance. The hereditary system therefore, is as repugnant to human

wisdom as to human rights; and is as absurd as unjust As the republic

of letters brings forward the best literary productions, by giving to

genius a fair and universal chance, so the representative system is

calculated to produce the wisest laws, by collecting wisdom where it can

be found."

We have seen that "Publicola" (John Quincy Adams) in his answer to

Paine's Part I. had left the people no right to alter government but

the right of revolution, by violence; Erskine pointed out that Burkes

pamphlet had similarly closed every other means of reform. Paine would

civilize reformation:

"Formerly, when divisions arose respecting governments, recourse was had

to the sword, and civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by

the new system, and reference is had to national conventions. Discussion

and the general will arbitrate the question, private opinion yields with

a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted."

Thus he is really trying to supplant the right of revolution with the

right of evolution:

"It is now towards the middle of February. Were I to take a turn in the

country the trees would present a leafless wintery appearance. As people

are apt to pluck twigs as they go along, I perhaps might do the same,

and by chance might observe that a single bud on that twig had begun to

smell. I should reason very unnaturally, or rather not reason at all

to suppose this was the only bud in England which had this appearance.

Instead of deciding thus, I should instantly conclude that the same

appearance was beginning, or about to begin, everywhere; and though

the vegetable sleep will continue longer on some trees and plants than

others, and though some of them may not blossom for two or three years,

all will be in leaf in the summer, except those which are rotten. What

pace the political summer may keep with the natural, no human foresight

can determine. It is, however, not difficult to perceive that the Spring

is begun. Thus wishing, as I sincerely do, freedom and happiness to all

nations, I close the Second Part."

Apparently the publisher expected trouble. In the _Gazetteer_, January

25th, had appeared the following notice:

"Mr. Paine, it is known, is to produce another book this season. The

composition of this is now past, and it was given a few weeks since to

two printers, whose presses it was to go through as soon as possible.

They printed about half of it, and then, being alarmed by _some

intimations,_ refused to go further. Some delay has thus occurred, but

another printer has taken it, and in the course of the next month it

will appear. Its title is to be a repetition of the former, 'The Rights

of Man,' of which the words 'Part the Second' will shew that it is a

continuation."

That the original printer, Chapman, impeded the publication is suggested

by the fact that on February 7th, thirteen days after the above

announcement, Paine writes: "Mr. Chapman, please to deliver to Mr.

Jordan the remaining sheets of the Rights of Man." And that "some

intimations" were received by Jordan also may be inferred from the

following note and enclosure to him:

"February 16, 1792.--For your satisfaction and my own, I send you the

enclosed, tho' I do not apprehend there will be any occasion to use it.

If, in case there should, you will immediately send a line for me under

cover to Mr. Johnson, St. Paul's Church-Yard, who will forward it to me,

upon which I shall come and answer personally for the work. Send also to

Mr. Home Tooke.--T. P."

"February 16, 1792.--Sir: Should any person, under the sanction of any

kind of authority, enquire of you respecting the author and publisher

of the Rights of Man, you will please to mention me as the author and

publisher of that work, and shew to such person this letter. I will,

as soon as I am made acquainted with it, appear and answer for the work

personally.--Your humble servant,

"Thomas Pain."

"Mr. Jordan, No. 166 Fleet-street."

Some copies were in Paine's hands three days before publication, as

appears by a note of February 13th to Jefferson, on hearing of Morris'

appointment as Minister to France:

"Mr. Kennedy, who brings this to New York, is on the point of setting

out. I am therefore confined to time. I have enclosed six copies of my

work for yourself in a parcel addressed to the President, and three

or four for my other friends, which I wish you to take the trouble of

presenting.

"I have just heard of Governeur Morris's appointment. _It is a most

unfortunate one_; and, as I shall mention the same thing to him when I

see him, I do not express it to you with the injunction of confidence.

He is just now arrived in London, and this circumstance has served, as I

see by the french papers, to increase the dislike and suspicion of some

of that nation and the National Assembly against him.

"In the present state of Europe it would be best to make no

appointments."

Lafayette wrote Washington a strong private protest against Morris, but

in vain. Paine spoke frankly to Morris, who mentions him on Washington's

birthday:

"February 22. I read Paine's new publication today, and tell him that

I am really afraid he will be punished. He seems to laugh at this, and

relies on the force he has in the nation. He seems to become every hour

more drunk with self-conceit. It seems, however, that his work excites

but little emotion, and rather raises indignation. I tell him that

the disordered state of things in France works against all schemes of

reformation both here and elsewhere. He declares that the riots and

outrages in France are nothing at all. It is not worth while to contest

such declarations. I tell him, therefore, that as I am sure he does not

mean what he says, I shall not dispute it. Visit the Duchess of Gordon,

who tells me that she supposes I give Paine his information about

America, and speaks very slightly of our situation, as being engaged in

a civil war with the Indians. I smile, and tell her that Britain is also

at war with Indians, though in another hemisphere."

In his appendix Paine alludes vaguely to the book of George Chalmers

("Oldys").

"A ministerial bookseller in Picadilly, who has been employed, as common

report says, by a clerk of one of the boards closely connected with the

Ministry (the board of Trade and Plantations, of which Lord Hawkesbury

is president) to publish what he calls my Life (I wish his own life and

that of the Cabinet were as good,) used to have his books printed at the

same printing office that I employed."

In his fifth edition Chalmers claims that this notice of his work,

unaccompanied by any denial of its statements, is an admission of their

truth. It looks as if Paine had not then seen the book, but he never

further alluded to it. There was nothing in Chalmers' political or

orthographical criticisms requiring answer, and its tar and feathers

were so adroitly mixed, and applied with such a masterly hand, that

Paine had to endure his literary lynching in silence. "Nothing can lie

like the truth."*

* Not that Chalmers confines himself to perversions of fact.

The book bore on its title-page five falsehoods: "Pain,"

instead of "Paine": "Francis Oldys"; "A. M.";

"University of Pennsylvania"; "With a Defence of his

Writings." There is a marked increase of virulence with the

successive editions. The second is in cheap form, and bears

at the back of its title this note: "Read this, and then

hand it to others who are requested to do likewise."

Chalmers' libels were so ingeniously interwoven with the actual stumbles

and humiliations of Paine's early life, that the facts could not be told

without dragging before the public his mother's corpse, and breaking

treaty with his divorced wife. Chalmers would have been more successful

as a government employe in this business had he not cared more for

himself than for his party. By advertising, as we have seen (Preface,

xv), his first edition as a "Defence" of Paine's writings he reaped a

pecuniary harvest from the Painites before the substitution of

"Review" tempted the Burkites. This trick probably enraged more than

it converted. The pompous pseudonym covered a vanity weak enough to

presently drop its lion skin, revealing ears sufficiently long to expect

for a government clerk the attention accorded to a reverend M.A. of

the University of Pennsylvania. This degree was not only understood in

England with a clerical connotation, but it competed with Paine's "M.A."

from the same institution. The pseudonym also concealed the record of

Chalmers as a Tory refugee from Maryland, and an opponent of Burke, long

enough to sell several editions. But the author was known early in 1792,

and was named in an important pamphlet by no means altogether favorable

to Paine. After rebuking Paine for personalities towards men whose

station prevents reply, this writer also disagrees with him about the

Constitution. But he declares that Paine has collected the essence of

the most venerated writers of Europe in the past, and applied the same

to the executive government, which cannot stand the test.

"The Constitution will; but _the present mode of administering that

Constitution_ must shrink from the comparison. And this is the reason,

that foolish Mr. Rose of the Treasury trembles on the bench, and the

crafty clerk in Lord Hawkesbury's office, carries on his base attacks

against Paine by sap, fights him under the mask of a Philadelphia

parson, fit disguise for the most impudent falsehoods that ever were

published, and stabs him in the dark. But, of this upstart clerk at the

Cockpit, more hereafter."*

* "Paine's Political and Moral Maxims, etc. By a Free-Born

Englishman. London. Printed for H. D. Symonds, Paternoster

Row, 1792." The introductory letter is dated May 15th.

George Chalmers being mentioned by name in this and other pamphlets, and

nothing like a repudiation coming from him or from "Oldys" in any of

his ten editions, the libel recoiled on the government, while it damaged

Paine. The meanness of meeting inconvenient arguments by sniffing

village gossip for private scandals was resented, and the calumnies

were discounted. Nevertheless, there was probably some weakening in the

"Paineite" ranks. Although this "un-English" tracking of a man from

his cradle, and masked assassination angered the republicans, it could

hardly fail to intimidate some. In every period it has been seen that

the largest interests, even the liberties, of English peoples may be

placed momentarily at the mercy of any incident strongly exciting the

moral sentiment A crafty clerk accuses Paine of maltreating his wife;

the leader's phalanx of friends is for one instant disconcerted; Burke

perceives the opportunity and points it out to the King; Pitt must show

equal jealousy of royal authority; Paine is prosecuted. There is

little doubt that Pitt was forced to this first step which reversed the

traditions of English freedom, and gave that Minister his historic place

as the English Robespierre of counter-revolution.*

* "Pitt 'used to say,' according to Lady Hester Stanhope,

'that Tom Paine was quite in the right, but then he would

add, what am I to do? As things are, if I were to encourage

Tom Paine's opinions we should have a bloody revolution."--

Encyclop. Britaanica.

On May 14th Paine, being at Bromley, Kent, learned that the government

had issued summons against Jordan, his publisher. He hastened to London

and assumed the expense of Jordan's defence. Jordan, however, privately

compromised the affair by agreeing to plead guilty, surrender his notes

relating to Paine, and receive a verdict to the author's prejudice--that

being really the end of the government's business with the publisher. On

May 21st a summons was left on Paine at his London lodgings (Rickman's

house) to appear at the Court of King's Bench on June 8th. On the same

day issued a royal proclamation against seditious writings. On May 25th,

in the debate on the Proclamation, Secretary Dundas said in the House of

Commons that the proceedings against Jordan were instituted because Mr.

Paine could not be found. Thereupon Paine, detecting the unreality

of the prosecution of his publisher, addressed a letter to the

Attorney-General.. Alluding to the remark of Dundas in Parliament, he

says:

"Mr. Paine, Sir, so far from secreting himself never went a step out

of his way, nor in the least instance varied from his usual conduct, to

avoid any measure you might choose to adopt with respect to him. It is

on the purity of his heart, and the universal utility of the principles

and plans which his writings contain, that he rests the issue; and he

will not dishonour it by any kind of subterfuge. The apartments which he

occupied at the time of writing the work last winter, he has continued

to occupy to the present hour, and the solicitors of the prosecution

know where to find him; of which there is a proof in their own office,

as far back as the 21st of May, and also in the office of my own

attorney.--But admitting, for the sake of the case, that the reason for

proceeding against the publication was, as Mr. Dundas stated, that

Mr. Paine could not be found, that reason can now exist no longer. The

instant that I was informed that an information was preparing to be

filed against me as the author of, I believe, one of the most useful and

benevolent books ever offered to mankind, I directed my attorney to put

in an appearance; and as I shall meet the prosecution fully and fairly,

and with a good and upright conscience, I have a right to expect that

no act of littleness will be made use of on the part of the prosecution

towards influencing the future issue with respect to the author.

This expression may, perhaps, appear obscure to you, but I am in the

possession of some matters which serve to show that the action against

the publisher is not intended to be a _real_ action."

He then intimates that, if his suspicions should prove well-founded,

he will withdraw from his intention of defending the publisher, and

proposes that the case against Jordan be given up. At the close of his

letter Paine says:

"I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself defeated, has been one of

the promoters of this prosecution; and I shall return the compliment by

shewing, in a future publication, that he has been a masked pensioner at

L1500 per annum for about ten years. Thus it is that the public money is

wasted, and the dread of public investigation is produced."

The secret negotiations with the publisher being thus discovered, no

more was heard of Jordan, except that his papers were brought out at

Paine's trial.

The Information against Paine, covering forty-one pages, octavo, is a

curiosity. It recites that "Thomas Paine, late of London, gentleman,

being a wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person, and being

greatly disaffected to our said Sovereign Lord the now King, and to the

happy constitution and government of this kingdom... and to bring them

into hatred and contempt, on the sixteenth day of February, in the

thirty-second year of the reign of our said present Sovereign Lord the

King, with force and arms at London aforesaid, to wit, in the parish of

St. Mary le Bone, in the Ward of Cheap, he, the said Thomas, wickedly,

maliciously and seditiously, did write and publish, and caused to be

written and published, a certain false, scandalous, malicious, and

seditious libel, of and concerning the said late happy Revolution, and

the said settlements and limitations of the crown and regal governments

of the said kingdoms and dominions... intituled, 'Rights of Man, Part

the Second, Combining principle and practice.'... In one part thereof,

according to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, 'All

hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown'

(meaning, amongst others, the crown of this kingdom) 'or an heritable

throne,' (meaning the throne of this kingdom), 'or by what-other

fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant

explanation than that mankind are heritable property. To inherit a

government is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and

herds.'... 'The time is not very distant when England will laugh at

itself for sending to Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick, for men'

(meaning the said King William the Third, and King George the First) "

at the expence of a million a year, who understood neither her laws, her

language, nor her interest, and whose capacities would scarcely have

fitted them for the office of a parish constable. If government could be

trusted to such hands, it must be some easy and simple thing indeed; and

materials fit for all the purposes may be found in every town and

village in England.' In contempt of our said Lord the now King and his

laws, to the evil example of all others in like case offending, and

against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and dignity.

Whereupon the said Attorney General of our said Lord the King, who for

our said Lord the King in this behalf, prose-cuteth for our said Lord

the King, prayeth the consideration of the court here in the premises,

and that due process of law may be awarded against him, the said Thomas

Paine, in this behalf, to make him answer to our said Lord the King,

touching and concerning the premises aforesaid.

"To this information the defendant hath appeared, and pleaded Not

Guilty, and thereupon issue is joined."

The specifications and quotations in the Information are reiterated

twice, in one case (Paine's note on William and Mary centenary), three

times.*

* "I happened to be in England at the celebration of the

centenary of the Revolution of 1688. The characters of

William and Mary have always appeared to me detestable; the

one seeking to destroy his uncle, the other her father, to

get possession of power themselves; yet, as the nation was

disposed to think something of the event, I felt hurt at

seeing it ascribe the whole reputation of it to a man who

had undertaken it as a job; and who besides what he

otherwise got, charged six hundred thousand pounds for the

expense of the little fleet that brought him from Holland.

George the First acted the same close-fisted part as William

had done, and bought the Duchy of Bremen with the money he

got from England, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds over

and above his pay as King; and, having thus purchased it at

the expense of England, added it to his Hanoverian dominions

for his own private profit. In fact every nation that does

not govern itself is governed as a job. England has been the

prey of jobs ever since the Revolution."

It is marvellous that such an author, martial with "force and arms,"

could still walk freely about London. But the machinery for suppressing

thought had always a tendency to rust in England; it had to be

refurbished. To the royal proclamation against seditious writings

corporations and rotten boroughs responded with loyal addresses. In the

debate on that proclamation (May 25th) Secretary Dundas and Mr. Adam had

arraigned Paine, and he addressed an open letter to the Secretary (June

6th) which was well received. Mr. Adam had said that:

"He had well considered the subject of constitutional publications,

and was by no means ready to say that books of science upon government

though recommending a doctrine or system different from the form of our

constitution were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must

condemn Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Utopia, and

Hume for his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth. But the publication of Mr.

Paine reviled what was most sacred in the Constitution, destroyed every

principle of subordination, and established nothing in their room."

The real difficulty was that Paine _had_ put something in the room of

hereditary monarchy--not a Utopia, but the representative system of

the United States. He now again compares the governmental expenses

of England and America and their condition. He shows that the entire

government of the United States costs less than the English pension list

alone.

"Here is a form and system of government that is better organized than

any other government in the world, and that for less than one hundred

thousand pounds, and yet every member of Congress receives as a

compensation for his time and attendance on public business, one pound

seven shillings per day, which is at the rate of nearly five hundred

pounds a year. This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs

no proclamations to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no

political superstition to support it. It was by encouraging discussion

and rendering the press free upon all subjects of government, that the

principles of government became understood in America, and the people

are now enjoying their present blessings under it. You hear of no riots,

tumults and disorders in that country; because there exists no cause

to produce them. Those things are never the effect of freedom, but of

restraint, oppression, and excessive taxation."

On June 8th Paine appeared in court and was much disappointed by the

postponement of his trial to December. Lord Onslow having summoned

a meeting at Epsom of the gentry in Surrey, to respond to the

proclamation, receives due notice. Paine sends for presentation to the

gentlemen one hundred copies of his "Rights of Man," one thousand of his

"Letter to Dundas." The bearer is Home Tooke, who opens his speech of

presentation by remarking on the impropriety that the meeting should be

presided over by Lord Onslow, a bed-chamber lord (sinecure) at L1,000,

with a pension of L3,000. Tooke, being cut short, his speech was

continued by Paine, whose two letters to Onslow (June 17th and 21st)

were widely circulated.*

* To this noble pensioner and sinecurist he says: "What

honour or happiness you can derive from being the principal

pauper of the neighborhood, and occasioning a greater

expence than the poor, the aged, and the infirm for ten

miles round, I leave you to enjoy. At the same time I can

see that it is no wonder you should be strenuous in

suppressing a book which strikes at the root of these

abuses."

On June 20th was written a respectful letter to the Sheriff of Sussex,

or other presiding officer, requesting that it be read at a meeting to

be held in Lewes. This interesting letter has already been quoted in

connection with Paine's early residence at Lewes. In these letters the

author reinforces his accused book, reminds the assemblies of their

illegal conduct in influencing the verdict in a pending matter, taunts

them with their meanness in seeking to refute by brute force what forty

pamphlets had failed to refute by argument.

The meeting at Lewes, his old town, to respond to the proclamation

occurred on the fourth of July. That anniversary of his first cause was

celebrated by Paine also. Notified by his publisher that upwards of a

thousand pounds stood to his credit, he directed it to be all sent as a

present to the Society for Constitutional Information.*

A careful tract of 1793 estimates the sales of "The Rights of Man" up to

that year at 200,000 copies.** In the opinion of the famous publisher

of such literature, Richard Carlile, the kings proclamation seriously

impeded the sale. "One part of the community is afraid to sell, and

another to purchase, under such conditions. It is not too much to

say that, if 'Rights of Man' had obtained two or three years' free

circulation in England and Scotland, it would have produced a similar

effect to that which 'Common Sense' did in the United States." However,

the reign of terror had not yet begun in France, nor the consequent

reign of panic in England.

* The Argus, July 6, 1792. See "Biographia Addenda," No.

Til., London, 1792. To the same society Paine had given the

right to publish his "Letter to Dundas," "Common Sense," and

"Letter to Raynal" in new editions.

** "Impartial Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Paine," London,

1793. There were numbers of small "Lives" of Paine printed

in these years, but most of them were mere stealings from

"Oldys."

CHAPTER XXIII. THE DEPUTY FOR CALAIS IN THE CONVENTION

The prosecution of Paine in England had its counterpart in a shrine

across the channel. The _Moniteur_, June 17, 1792, announces the burning

of Paine's works at "Excester," and the expulsion from Manchester of

a man pointed out as Paine. Since April 16th his "Rights of Man,"

sympathetically translated by M. Lanthenas, had been in every French

home. Paine's portrait, just painted in England by Romney and engraved

by Sharpe, was in every cottage, framed in immortelles. In this book the

philosophy of visionary reformers took practical shape. From the ashes

of Rousseau's "Contrat Social," burnt in Paris, rose "The Rights of

Man," no phoenix, but an eagle of the new world, with eye not blinded by

any royal sun.*

* L'Esprit da Contrat Social; suivi de l'Esprit de Sens

Commun do Thomas Paine. Present a la Convention. Par le

Citoyen Boinvilliers, Instituteur et ci-devant Membre de

plusieurs Soci&es Litteraires. L'an second.

It comes to tell how by union of France and America--of Lafayette and

Washington--the "Contrat Social" was framed into the Constitution of a

happy and glorious new earth, over it a new heaven unclouded by priestly

power or superstitions. By that book of Paine's (Part I), the idea of a

national convention was made the purpose of the French leaders who were

really inspired by an "enthusiasm of humanity." In December, 1791, when

the legislature sits paralyzed under royal vetoes, Paine's panacea is

proposed.*

On the tenth of August, 1792, after the massacre of the Marseillese by

the King's Swiss guards, one book, hurled from the window of the mobbed

palace, felled an American spectator--Robert Gilmor, of Baltimore--who

consoled himself by carrying it home. The book, now in the collection

of Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, New York, was a copy of "The Thirteen

Constitutions," translated by Franklin's order into French (1783) and

distributed among the monarchs of Europe.**

* "Veto after Veto; your thumbscrew paralysed! Gods and men

may see that the Legislature is in a false position. As,

alas, who is in a true one? Voices already murmur for a

National Convention."--Carlyle.

** "Constitutions des Treize etats-Unis de l'Amerique." The

French king's arms are on the red morocco binding, and on

the title a shield, striped and winged; above this thirteen

minute stars shaped into one large star, six-pointed. For

the particulars of Franklin's gift to the monarchs see

Sparks' "Franklin," x., p. 39. See also p. 390 of this

volume.

What a contrast between the peace and order amid which the thirteen

peoples, when the old laws and authorities were abolished, formed new

ones, and these scenes in France! "For upwards of two years from the

commencement of the American war," wrote Paine, "and a longer period,

in several of the American States, there were no established forms of

government. The old governments had been abolished, and the country was

too much occupied in defence to employ its attention in establishing new

governments; yet, during this interval, order and harmony were preserved

as inviolate as in any country in Europe." When Burke pointed to the

first riots in France, Paine could make a retort: the mob is what

your cruel governments have made it, and only proves how necessary the

overthrow of such governments. That French human nature was different

from English nature he could not admit. Liberty and equality would soon

end these troubles of transition. On that same tenth of August Paine's

two great preliminaries are adopted: the hereditary representative is

superseded and a national convention is called. The machinery for such

convention, the constituencies, the objects of it, had been read in "The

Rights of Man," as illustrated in the United States and Pennsylvania, by

every French statesman.1 It was the American Republic they were about to

found; and notwithstanding the misrepresentation of that nation by its

surviving courtiers, these French republicans recognized their real

American Minister: Paine is summoned.

* "Theorie et Pratique des Droits de l'Homme. Par Thomas

Paine, Secrettaire da Congres au Departement des Affaires

Ltrangeres pendant la guerre d'Araenque, auteur du ' Sens

Commun,' et des Reponses a Burke. Traduit en Francais par F.

Lanthenas, D.M., et par le Traducteur du "Sens Common." A

Paris: Chez les Directeurs de l'lmprimerie du Cercle Social,

rue du Theatre Francais, No. 4. 1792. L'an quatrierae de La

Liberte."

On August 26, 1792, the National Assembly, on proposal of M. Guadet,

in the name of the "Commission Extraordinaire," conferred the title of

French citizen on "Priestley, Payne, Ben thorn, Wilberforce, Clarkson,

Mackintosh, David Williams, Gorani, Anacharsis Clootz, Campe, Cornielle,

Paw, N. Pestalozzi, Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Klopstoc, Kosciusko,

Gilleers." Schiller was afterwards added, and on September 25 th the

_Patriote_ announces the same title conferred on Thomas Cooper, John

Home Tooke, John Oswald, George Boies, Thomas Christie, Dr. Joseph

Warner, Englishmen, and Joel Barlow, American.*

* "Life and Letters of Joel Barlow," etc., by Charles Burr

Todd, New York, 1886, p. 97.

Paine was elected to the French Convention by four different

departments--Oise, Puy-de-Dome, Somme, and Pas-de-Calais. The votes

appear to have been unanimous.

Here is an enthusiastic appeal (Riom, le 8 Septembre) signed by Louvet,

"auteur de la Sentinelle," and thirty-two others, representing nine

communes, to Paine, that day elected representative of Puy-de-Dome:

"Your love for humanity, for liberty and equality, the useful works that

have issued from your heart and pen in their defence, have determined

our choice. It has been hailed with universal and reiterated applause.

Come, friend of the people, to swell the number of patriots in an

assembly which will decide the destiny of a great people, perhaps of

the human race. The happy period you have predicted for the nations has

arrived. Come! do not deceive their hope!"

But already Calais, which elected him September 6th, had sent a

municipal officer, Achille Audibert, to London, to entreat Paine's

acceptance. Paine was so eager to meet the English government in court,

that he delayed his answer. But his friends had reason to fear that

his martyrdom might be less mild than he anticipated, and urged his

acceptance. There had been formed a society of the "Friends of Liberty,"

and, at its gathering of September 12th, Paine appears to have poured

forth "inflammatory eloquence." At the house of his friend Johnson,

on the following evening, Paine was reporting what he had said to some

sympathizers, among them the mystical William Blake, who was convinced

that the speech of the previous night would be followed by arrest.

Gilchrist's account of what followed is here quoted:

"On Paine's rising to leave, Blake laid his hand on the orator's

shoulder, saying, 'You must not go home, or you are a dead man,' and

hurried him off on his way to France, whither he was now in any case

bound to take his seat as a legislator. By the time Paine was at

Dover, the officers were in his house, [he was staying at Rickman's, in

Marylebone] and, some twenty minutes after the Custom House officials

at Dover had turned over his slender baggage, narrowly escaped from the

English Tories. Those were hanging days! Blake on the occasion showed

greater sagacity than Paine, whom, indeed, Fuseli affirmed to be more

ignorant of the common affairs of life than himself even. Spite of

unworldliness and visionary faculty, Blake never wanted for prudence and

sagacity in ordinary matters."*

* "Life of William Blake," by Alexander Gilchrist, p. 94.

Before leaving London Paine managed to have an interview with the

American Minister, Pinckney, who thought he could do good service in the

Convention.

Mr. Frost, who accompanied Paine and Audibert, had information of

certain plans of the officials. He guided them to Dover by a circuitous

route--Rochester, Sandwich, Deal. With what emotions does our

world-wanderer find himself in the old town where he married and

suffered with his first love, Mary Lambert, whose grave is near! Nor

is he so far from Cranbrook, where his wife receives her mysterious

remittances, but since their separation "has not heard of" this said

Thomas Paine, as her testimony goes some years later. Paine is parting

from England and its ghosts forever. The travellers find Dover excited

by the royal proclamation. The collector of customs has had general

instructions to be vigilant, and searches the three men, even to their

pockets. Frost pretended a desire to escape, drawing the scent from

Paine. In his report (September 15th) of the search to Mr. Dundas, Paine

says:

"Among the letters which he took out of my trunk were two sealed

letters, given into my charge by the American minister in London

[Pinckney], one of which was addressed to the American minister at

Paris, the other to a private gentleman; a letter from the president of

the United States, and a letter from the secretary of State in America,

both directed to me, and which I had received from the American

minister, now in London, and were private letters of friendship; a

letter from the electoral body of the department of Calais, containing

the notification of my being elected to the National Convention; and a

letter from the president of the National Assembly informing me of my

being also elected for the department of the Oise [Versailles].... When

the collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of the

trunks, he proposed to read them. The first letter he took up for this

purpose was that from the president of the United States to me. While

he was doing this I said, that it was very extraordinary that General

Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to me, without

its being subject to be read by a customhouse officer. Upon this Mr.

Frost laid his hand over the face of the letter, and told the collector

that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost then,

casting his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said, I will

read this part to you, which he did; of which the following is an exact

transcript--'And as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness

of mankind than I do, 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.'"

So Washington's nine months' delay (p. 302) in acknowledging Paine's

letter and gift of fifty volumes had brought his letter in the nick of

time. The collector quailed before the President's signature. He took

away the documents, leaving a list of them, and they were presently

returned. Soon afterward the packet sailed, and "twenty minutes later"

the order for Paine's arrest reached Dover. Too late! Baffled pursuers

gnash their teeth, and Paine passes to his ovation.

What the ovation was to be he could hardly anticipate even from the

cordial, or glowing, letter of Herault Sechelles summoning him to the

Convention,--a fine translation of which by Cobbett is given in the

Appendix. Ancient Calais, in its time, had received heroes from across

the channel, but hitherto never with joy. That honor the centuries

reserved for a Thetford Quaker. As the packet sails in a salute is fired

from the battery; cheers sound along the shore. As the representative

for Calais steps on French soil soldiers make his avenue, the officers

embrace him, the national cockade is presented. A beautiful lady

advances, requesting the honor of setting the cockade in his hat, and

makes him a pretty speech, ending with Liberty, Equality, and France.

As they move along the Rue de l'Egalite (late Rue du Roi) the air

rings with "Vive Thomas Paine!" At the town hall he is presented to the

Municipality, by each member embraced, by the Mayor also addressed. At

the meeting of the Constitutional Society of Calais, in the _Minimes_,

he sits beside the president, beneath the bust of Mirabeau and the

united colors of France, England, and America. There is an official

ceremony announcing his election, and plaudits of the crowd, "_Vive la

Nation!_" "_Vive Thomas Paine!_" The _Minimes_ proving too small,

the meeting next day is held in the church, where martyred saints and

miraculous Madonnas look down on this miraculous Quaker, turned savior

of society. In the evening, at the theatre, a box is decorated "For the

Author of 'The Rights of Man.'"

Thus for once our wayfarer, so marked by time and fate, received such

welcome as hitherto had been accorded only to princes. Alas, that the

aged eyes which watched over his humble cradle could not linger long

enough to see a vision of this greatness, or that she who bore the name

of Elizabeth Paine was too far out of his world as not even to know

that her husband was in Europe. A theatrical La France must be his

only bride, and in the end play the role of a cruel stepmother. When

Washington was on his way to his inauguration in New York, passing

beneath triumphal arches, amid applauding crowds, a sadness came

over him as he reflected, so he wrote a friend, how easily all this

enthusiasm might be reversed by a failure in the office for which he

felt himself so little competent But for Paine on his way to sit in the

Convention of a People's representatives--one summoned by his own pen

for objects to which his life was devoted, for which he had the training

of events as well as studies,--for him there could be no black star

hovering over his welcome and his triumphal pathway to Paris. For,

besides his fame, there had preceded him to every town rumors of how

this representative of man--of man in America, England, France--had been

hunted by British oppressors down to the very edge of their coast. Those

outwitted pursuers had made Paine a greater power in France than he

might otherwise have been. The _Moniteur_ (September 23d) told the

story, and adds: "Probably M. Payne will have been indemnified for such

injustices by the brilliant reception accorded him on his arrival on

French soil."

Other representatives of Calais were Personne, Carnat, Bollet, Magniez,

Varlet, Guffroy, Eulard, Duquesnoy, Lebas, Daunon. It could hardly

be expected that there should be no jealousy of the concentration of

enthusiasm on the brilliant Anglo-American. However, none of this

yet appeared, and Paine glided flower-crowned in his beautiful barge,

smoothly toward his Niagara rapids. He had, indeed, heard the distant

roar, in such confused, hardly credited, rumors of September massacres

as had reached London, but his faith in the National Convention was

devout. All the riots were easily explained by the absence of that

charm. He had his flask of constitutional oil, other representatives

no doubt had theirs, and when they gathered on September 21 st, amid

equinoctial gales, the troubled waters would be still.

Paine reached White's Hotel, Paris, September 19th; on the 20th attends

a gathering of the "Conventionnels"; on the 21st moves in their

procession to the Tuileries, for verification of credentials by the

expiring Assembly, repairing with them for work in the Salle du Manege.

He was introduced by the Abbe Gregoire, and received with acclamations.

On September 21st, then, the Year One opens. It greets mankind with the

decree: "Royalty is from this day abolished in France."

September 22d, on a petition from Orleans, Dan-ton proposes removal

of the entire administrative corps, municipal and judicial, to prevent

their removal by popular violence. Paine (through Goupilleau) suggests

postponement for more thorough discussion. Having got rid of kings they

must be rid of royal hirelings; but if partial reforms are made in the

judiciary system those institutions cannot possess coherence; for the

present persons might be changed without altering laws; finally, justice

cannot be administered by men ignorant of the laws. Danton welcomes

Paine's views, and it is decreed that the administrative bodies be

renewed by popular election; but the limitations on eligibility, fixed

by the Constitution of 1791, are abolished--the judge need not be a

lawyer, nor the municipal officer a proprietor.

On September 25th appears Paine's letter to his "Fellow Citizens,"

expressing his "affectionate gratitude" for his adoption and his

election. "My felicity is increased by seeing the barrier broken down

that divided patriotism by spots of earth, and limited citizenship

to the soil, like vegetation." The letter is fairly "floreal" with

optimistic felicities. "An over-ruling Providence is regenerating the

old world by the principles of the new." "It is impossible to conquer

a nation determined to be free." "It is now the cause of all nations

against the cause of all courts." "In entering on this great scene,

greater than any nation has been called to act in, let us say to the

agitated mind, be calm! Let us punish by instruction, rather than by

revenge. Let us begin the new era by a greatness of friendship, and hail

the approach of union and success."

October 11th, a committee to frame a constitution is appointed,

consisting of Sieyes, Paine, Bris-sot, Potion, Vergniaud, Gensonne,

Barrere, Danton, Condorcet. Supplementary--Barbaroux, Herault Sechelles,

Lanthenas, Debry, the Abbe Fauchet, Lavicourterie. Paine was placed

second to his old adversary, Sieyes, only because of his

unfamiliarity with French. At least four of the committee understood

English--Condorcet, Danton, Barrere, and Brissot. Paine had known

Brissot in America, their friendship being caused by literary tastes in

common, and the zeal of both for negro emancipation.

On October 25th was written for _Le Patriote Francais_ (edited by

Brissot) an address by Paine arguing carefully the fallacies of

royalism. He tersely expresses the view now hardly paradoxical, that "a

talented king is worse than a fool."

"We are astonished at reading that the Egyptians set upon the throne a

stone, which they called king. Well! such a monarch was less absurd and

less mischievous than those before whom nations prostrate themselves. At

least he deceived no one. None supposed that he possessed qualities or a

character. They did not call him Father of his People; and yet it

would have been scarcely more ridiculous than to give such a title to a

blockhead (_un eturdi_) whom the right of succession crowns at eighteen.

A dumb idol is better than one animated."'

In this letter Paine adroitly prepares the way for his purpose of saving

the life of Louis XVI., for whose blood the thirst is growing. "It is

little," he says, "to overthrow the idol; it is the pedestal which must

especially be beaten down. It is the kingly _office_, rather than the

officer, that is destructive (_meurtriere_). This is not seen by every

one."

In those who sympathized with the human spirit of his views Paine

inspired deep affection. A volume might be filled with the personal

tributes to him. In Paris he was the centre of a loving circle, from the

first. "I lodge," writes Lord Edward Fitzgerald to his mother (October

30th), "with my friend Paine--we breakfast, dine, and sup together. The

more I see of his interior, the more I like and respect him. I cannot

express how kind he is to me; there is a simplicity of manner, a

goodness of heart, and a strength of mind in him, that I never knew a

man before possess."**

* "Father of his People" was a title of Geo. III. "Father of

his Country" was applied to Peyton Randolph, first president

of Congress. Paine's essay, quoted above, which is not

included in the editions of Paine's works, was printed by

James Watson in London, 1843, the translation being by W. J.

Linton, who, while editing the National, also wrote the same

year, and for the same publisher, a small but useful "Life

of Paine."

** Moore's "Life and Death of Lord Edward Fitzgerald."

Paine was chosen by his fellow-deputies of Calais to offer the

Convention the congratulations of their department on the abolition of

monarchy. This letter, written October 27th, was on that day read in

Convention, in French.

"Citizen President: In the name of the deputies of the department of

Pas de Calais, I have the honor of presenting to the Convention the

felicitations of the General Council of the Commune of Calais on the

abolition of royalty.

"Amid the joy inspired by this event, one can not forbear some pain at

the folly of our ancestors, who have placed us under the necessity of

treating seriously (_solennellement_) the abolition of a phantom.

"Thomas Paine, Deputy, etc."*

The _Moniteur_, without printing the letter, says that applause followed

the word "_fantome_" The use of this word was a resumption of Paine's

effort to save the life of the king, then a prisoner of state, by a

suggestion of his insignificance.** But he very soon realizes the power

of the phantom, which lies not only in the monarchical Trade Union

of Europe but in the superstition of monarchy in those who presently

beheaded poor Louis. Paine was always careful to call him Louis Capet,

but the French deputies took the king seriously to the last. The king's

divine foot was on their necks in the moment when their axe was on his.

But Paine feared a more terrible form which had arisen in place of the

royal prisoner of the Temple. On the fourth day of the Convention Marat

arose with the words, "It seems a great many here are my enemies," and

received the shouted answer, "All! all!" Paine had seen Marat hypnotize

the Convention, and hold it subdued in the hollow of his hand. Here was

King Stork ready to succeed King Log.

* This letter I copied and translated in the Historical

Exhibition of the Revolution, in Paris, 1889. This letter of

the "_philosophe anglais_" as he is described in the

catalogue, is in the collection of M. Charavay, and was

framed with the Bonneville portrait of Paine.

** In his republican manifesto at the time of the king's

flight he had deprecated revenge towards the captured

monarch.

But what has the Convention to do with deciding about Louis XVI., or

about affairs, foreign or domestic? It is there like the Philadelphia

Convention of 1787; its business is to frame a Constitution, then

dissolve, and let the organs it created determine special affairs. So

the committee work hard on the Constitution; "Deputy Paine and France

generally expect," finds Carlyle, "all finished in a few months." But,

alas, the phantom is too strong for the political philosophers. The

crowned heads of Europe are sinking their differences for a time and

consulting about this imprisoned brother. And at the same time the

subjects of those heads are looking eagerly towards the Convention.*

* "That which will astonish posterity is that at Stockholm,

five months after the death of Gustavus, and while the

northern Powers are leaguing themselves against the liberty

of France, there has been published a translation of Thomas

Paine's "Rights of Man," the translator being one of the

King's secretaries! "--Moniteur Nov. 8, 1792.

The foreign menaces had thus far caused the ferocities of the

revolution, for France knew it was worm-eaten with enemies of

republicanism. But now the Duke of Brunswick had retreated, the French

arms were victorious everywhere; and it is just possible that the

suicide of the Republic--the Reign of Terror--might never have been

completed but for that discovery (November 20th) of secret papers walled

up in the Tuileries. These papers compromised many, revealed foreign

schemes, and made all Paris shriek "Treason!" The smith (Gamain) who

revealed the locality of that invisible iron press which he had set

under the wainscot, made a good deal of history that day.

A cry for the king's life was raised, for to France he was the head and

front of all conspiracy.

How everybody bent under the breath of those days may be seen in the

fact that even Gouverneur Morris is found writing to Lord Wycombe

(November 22d): "All who wish to partake thereof [freedom] will find

in us (ye French) a sure and certain ally. We will chase tyranny, and,

above all, _aristocracy_, off the theatre of the Universe."*

* "Diary and Letters." The letter was probably written with

knowledge of its liability to fall into the hands of the

French Committee. It could not deceive Wycombe.

Paine was living in the "Passage des Petites Peres, No. 7." There are

now two narrow passages of that name, uniting near the church "Notre

Dame des Victoires," which still bears the words, "Liberty Egalite,

Fraternity." No. 7 has disappeared as a number, but it may have

described a part of either No. 8 or No. 9,--both ancient. Here he was

close to a chapel of the Capucines, unless, indeed, it had already been

replaced by this church, whose interior walls are covered with tablets

set up by individuals in acknowledgment of the Virgin's miraculous

benefits to them. Here he might study superstition, and no doubt did;

but on November 20th he has to deal with the madness of a populace which

has broken the outer chains of superstition with a superstition of their

own, one without restraints to replace the chains. Beneath his window

the Place des Victoires will be crowded with revolutionists, frantic

under rumors of the discovered iron press and its treasonable papers. He

could hardly look out without seeing some poor human scape-goat

seeking the altar's safety. Our Lady will look on him from her church

the sad-eyed inquiry: "Is this, then, the new religion of Liberty, with

which you supplant the Mother and Babe?"

Paine has carried to success his anti-monarchical faith. He was the

first to assail monarchy in America and in France. A little more than a

year before, he had founded the first Republican Society in Europe, and

written its Declaration on the door of the National Assembly. Sieyes

had denounced him then as a "polyarchist." Now he sat with Sieyes

daily, framing a republican Constitution, having just felicitated the

Convention on the abolition of the phantom--Royalty. And now, on this

terrible night of November 20th, this unmaker of kings finds himself the

solitary deputy ready to risk his life to save the man whose crown he

had destroyed. It is not simply because the old Quaker heart in him

recoils from bloodshed, but that he would save the Republic from the

peril of foreign invasion, which would surely follow the execution of

Louis, and from disgrace in America, whose independence owed much to the

fallen monarch.

In his little room, the lonely author, unable to write French, animated

by sentiments which the best of the French revolutionists could not

understand--Danton reminding him that "revolutions are not made of

rose-water"--must have before the morrow's Convention some word that

shall control the fury of the moment. Rose-water will not answer now.

Louis must pass his ordeal; his secret schemes have been revealed; the

treachery of his submissions to the people exposed. He is guilty, and

the alternatives are a calm trial, or death by the hands of the mob.

What is now most needed is delay, and, that secured, diversion of

national rage from the individual Louis to the universal anti-republican

Satan inspiring the crowned heads of Europe. Before the morning dawns,

Paine has written his letter to the president It is translated before

the Convention meets, November 21st, and is read to that body the same

day.* Louis XVI., he says, should be tried. The advice is not suggested

by vengeance, but by justice and policy. If innocent, he may be allowed

to prove it; if guilty, he must be punished or pardoned by the nation.

He would, however, consider Louis, individually, beneath the notice of

the republic. The importance of his trial is that there is a conspiracy

of "crowned brigands" against the liberties not only of France, but of

all nations, and there is ground for suspecting that Louis XVI. was a

partner in it. He should be utilized to ferret out the whole gang, and

reveal to the various peoples what their monarchs, some of whom work in

secret for fear of their subjects, are doing. Louis XVI. should not be

dealt with except in the interest of all Europe.

"If, seeing in Louis XVI. only a weak and narrow-minded man, badly

reared, as all like him, subject, it is said, to intemperance,

imprudently re-established by the Constituent Assembly on a throne for

which he was unfit,--if we hereafter show him some compassion, this

compassion should be the effect of national magnanimity, and not a

result of the burlesque notion of pretended inviolability.'"

* "L' Histoire Parlementaire," xx., p. 367.

** This essay has suffered in the translation found in

English and American editions of Paine. The words "national

magnanimity" are omitted. The phrase "brigands couronnes"

becomes "crowned robbers" in England, and "crowned ruffians"

in America. Both versions are commonplace, and convey an

impression of haste and mere abuse. But Paine was a slow

writer, and weighed his words even when "quarelling in

print. When this letter was written to the Convention its

members were reading his Essay on Royalty, which filled

seven columns of Brissot's Patriot Francois three weeks

before. In that he had traced royalty to the bandit-chief.

Several troops of banditti assemble for the purpose of

upsetting some country, of laying contributions over it, of

seizing the landed property, of reducing the people to

thraldom. The expedition being accomplished, the chief of

the gang assumes the title of king or monarch. Such has been

the origin of royalty among all nations who live by the

chase, agriculture, or the tending of flocks. A second

chieftain arriving obtains by force what has been acquired

by violence. He despoils his predecessor, loads him with

fetters, puts him to death, and assumes his title. In the

course of ages the memory of the outrage is lost; his

successors establish new forms of government; through

policy, they become the instruments of a little good; they

invent, or cause to be invented, false genealogical tables;

they employ every means to render their race sacred; the

knavery of priests steps in to their assistance; for their

body-guard they take religion itself; then it is that

Royalty, or rather Tyranny, becomes immortal. A power

unjustly usurped is transformed into a hereditary right."

Lamartine, in his history of the Girondists, reproaches Paine for these

words concerning a king-who had shown him friendship during the American

war. But the facts were not well explored in Lamartine's time. Louis

Blanc recognizes Paine's intent.*

* "Hist, de la Revolution," etc., vol. vii., p. 396.

"He had learned in England that killing a monarch does not kill

monarchs." This grand revolutionary proposal to raise the inevitable

trial from the low plane of popular wrath against a prisoner to the

dignity of a process against European monarchy, would have secured delay

and calmer counsels. If the reader, considering the newly discovered

papers, and the whole situation, will examine critically Paine's words

just quoted, he will find them meriting a judgment the reverse of

Lamartine's. With consummate art, the hourly imperilled king is shielded

from vindictive wrath by the considerations that he is _non compos_,

not responsible for his bringing up, was put back on the throne by the

Assembly, after he had left it, acknowledging his unfitness, and that

compassion for him would be becoming to the magnanimity of France.

A plea for the King's immunity from trial, for his innocence or his

virtues, would at that juncture have been fatal. As it was, this

ingenious document made an impression on the Convention, which ordered

it to be printed. *

* "Convention Nationale. Opinion de Thomas Payne, Depute"

du Departement de la Somme, concern ant le jugement de Louis

XVI. Precede" de sa lettre d'envoi au President de la

Convention. Imprime" par ordre de la Convention Nationale. A

Paris. De rimprimerie Nationale." It is very remarkable

that, in a State paper, Paine should be described as deputy

for the Somme. His votes in the Convention are all entered

under Calais. Dr. John Moore, who saw much of Paine at this

time, says, in his work on the French Revolution, that his

(Paine's) writings for the Convention were usually

translated into French by the Marchioness of Condorcet.

The delay which Paine's proposal would involve was, as Louis Blanc

remarks, fatal to it. It remains now only to work among the members of

the Convention, and secure if possible a majority that will be content,

having killed the king, to save the man; and, in saving him, to preserve

him as an imprisoned hostage for the good behavior of Europe. This is

now Paine's idea, and never did man toil more faithfully for another

than he did for that discrowned Louis Capet.

CHAPTER XXIV. OUTLAWED IN ENGLAND

While Paine was thus, towards the close of 1792, doing the work of a

humane Englishman in France, his works were causing a revolution in

England--a revolution the more effectual because bloodless.

In Paine's letter to Secretary Dundas (Calais, September 15th),

describing the examination of his papers at Dover, a "postscript" states

that among the papers handled was "a printed proof copy of my Letter

to the Addressers, which will soon be published." This must have been

a thumbscrew for the Secretary when he presently read the pamphlet that

escaped his officers. In humor, freedom, and force this production may

be compared with Carlyle's "Latter Day Pamphlets." Lord Stormont

and Lord Grenville having made speeches about him, their services are

returned by a speech which the author has prepared for them to deliver

in Parliament. This satirical eulogy on the British constitution set the

fashion for other radical encomiums of the wisdom of the king and of the

peers, the incorruptibility of the commons, beauty of rotten boroughs,

and freedom of the people from taxes, with which prosecuting attorneys

were unable to deal. Having felicitated himself on the circulation of

his opinions by the indictment, and the advertisements of his books

by loyal "Addresses," Paine taunts the government for its method of

answering argument. It had been challenging the world for a hundred

years to admire the perfection of its institutions. At length the

challenge is taken up, and, lo, its acceptance is turned into a crime,

and the only defence of its perfection is a prosecution! Paine points

out that there was no sign of prosecution until his book was placed

within reach of the poor. When cheap editions were clamored for by

Sheffield, Leicester, Chester, Warwickshire, and Scotland, he had

announced that any one might freely publish it. About the middle of

April he had himself put a cheap edition in the press. He knew he would

be prosecuted for that, and so wrote to Thomas Walker.*

* At the trial the Attorney-General admitted that he had not

prosecuted Part I. because it was likely to be confined to

judicious readers; but this still more reprehensible Part

II. was, he said, with an industry incredible, ushered into

the world in all shapes and sizes, thrust into the hands of

subjects of every description, even children's sweetmeats

being wrapped in it.

It was the common people the government feared. He remarks that on

the same day (May 21st) the prosecution was instituted and the royal

proclamation issued--the latter being indictable as an effort to

influence the verdict in a pending case. He calls attention to the

"special jury," before which he was summoned. It is virtually selected

by the Master of the Crown Office, a dependant on the Civil List

assailed in his book. The special jury is treated to a dinner, and

given two guineas for a conviction, and but one guinea and no dinner for

acquittal. Even a fairly selected local jury could not justly determine

a constitutional issue affecting every part of the empire. So Paine

brings under scrutiny every part of the legal machinery sprung on him,

adding new illustrations of his charges against the whole system. He

begins the siege, which Bradlaugh was to carry forward in a later time,

against the corrupt Pension List, introducing it with his promised

exposure of Edmund Burke. Near the end of Lord North's administration

Burke brought in a bill by which it was provided that a pension or

annuity might be given without name, if under oath that it was not for

the benefit of a member of the House of Commons. Burke's pension had

been taken out under the name of another man; but being under the

necessity of mortgaging it, the real pensioner had to be disclosed to

the mortgagee.* For the rest, this "Address to the Addressers," as it

was popularly called,--or "Part Third of the Rights of Man," as one

publisher entitled it,--sowed broadcast through England passages that

were recited in assemblies, and sentences that became proverbs.

* This disclosure, though not disproved, is passed over

silently by most historians. Nevertheless it was probably

that which ended Burke's parliamentary career. Two years

later, at the age of sixty-two, he retired with an

accumulation of pensions given at the king's request,

amounting to L3,700 per annum. His reputation had been built

up on his supposed energy in favor of economy. The secret

and illegal pension (L1,500) cast light on his sudden

coalition with Lord North, whom he once proposed to impeach

as a traitor. The title of "masked pensioner" given by Paine

branded Burke. Writing in 1819 Cobbett says: "As my Lord

Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord,

to introduce that of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to

shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in

the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times

where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."

"It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a Nation, _Thou

shalt not read_."

"Thought, by some means or other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot

be restrained, though reading may."

"Whatever the rights of the people are, they have a right to them, and

none have a right either to withhold or to grant them."

"The project of hereditary Governors and Legislatures was a treasonable

usurpation over the rights of posterity."

"Put a country right, and it will soon put government right."

"When the rich plunder the poor of his rights, it becomes an example to

the poor to plunder the rich of his property."

"Who are those that are frightened at reform? Are the public afraid

their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure

places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid

that their condition should be rendered too comfortable?"

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be."

"If to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species

of hereditary government--to lessen the oppression of taxes--to propose

plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support

of the aged and distressed--to endeavour to conciliate nations with each

other--to extirpate the horrid practice of war--to promote universal

peace, civilization, and commerce--and to break the chains of political

superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank--if these things

be libellous, let me live the life of a Libeller, and let the name of

Libeller be engraven on my tomb."

Two eminent personages were burnt in effigy in Europe about this time,

one in France, the other in England: Paine and the Pope.

Under date of December 19th, the American minister (Morris) enters in

his diary: "Several Americans dine with me. Paine looks a little down at

the news from England; he has been burned in effigy."

This was the reply of the Addressers, the noblemen and gentry, to

Paine's "Letter." It is said that on the Fifth of November it was hinted

to the boys that their Guy Fawkes would extort more pennies if labelled

"Tom Paine," and that thenceforth the new Guy paraded with a pair of

stays under his arm. The holocaust of Paines went on through December,

being timed for the author's trial, set for the eighteenth. One gets

glimpses in various local records and memoirs of the agitation in

England. Thus in Mrs. Henry Sandford's account of Thomas Poole,* we read

in Charlotte Poole's journal:

"December 18, 1792.--John dined with Tom Poole, and from him heard that

there was a great bustle at Bridgwater yesterday--that Tom Paine was

burnt in Effigy, and that he saw Richard Symes sitting on the Cornhill

with a table before him, receiving the oaths of loyalty to the king, and

affection to the present constitution, from the populace. I fancy this

could not have been a very pleasant sight to Tom Poole, for he has

imbibed some of the wild notions of liberty and equality that at present

prevail so much; and it is but within these two or three days that a

report has been circulated that he has distributed seditious pamphlets

to the common people of Stowey. But this report is entirely without

foundation. Everybody at this time talks politicks, and is looking with

anxiety for fresh intelligence from France, which is a scene of guilt

and confusion."

* "Thomas Poole and his Friends." By Mrs. Henry Sandford.

New York: Macmillan, 1888.

In Richardson's "Borderer's Table Book" is recorded: "1792 (Dec.)--This

month, Thomas Paine, author of the 'Rights of Man,' &c. &c., was burnt

at most of the towns and considerable villages in Northumberland and

Durham." No doubt, among the Durham towns, Wearmouth saw at the stake an

effigy of the man whose iron bridge, taken down at Paddington, and sold

for other benefit than Paine's, was used in spanning the Wear with

the arch of his invention; all amid shouts of "God save the King," and

plaudits for the various public-spirited gentlemen and architects, who

patriotically appropriated the merits and patent of the inventor. The

_Bury Post_ (published near Paine's birthplace) says, December 12th:

"The populace in different places have been lately amusing themselves

by burning effigies. As the culprit on whom they meant to execute this

punishment was Thomas Paine, they were not interrupted by any power

civil or military. The ceremony has been at Croydon in Surrey, at

Warrington, at Lymington, and at Plymouth."

January 9, 1793:

"On Saturday last the effigy of Thomas Paine was carried round the town

of Swaffham, and afterwards hung on a gibbet, erected on the market-hill

for that purpose. In the evening his remains were committed to the

flames amidst acclamations of God save the King, etc."

The trial of Paine for high treason was by a Special Jury in the Court

of King's Bench, Guildhall, on Tuesday, December 18, 1792, before Lord

Kenyon.*

* Special Jury: John Campbell, John Lightfoot, Christopher

Taddy, Robert Oliphant, Cornelias Donovan, Robert Rolleston,

John Lubbock, Richard Tuckwell, William Porter, Thomas

Bruce, Isaac Railton, Henry Evans. Counsel for the Crown:

Sir Archibald Macdonald (Attorney-General), Solicitor-

General, Mr. Bearcroft, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Wood, Mr. Per-

cival. Counsel for the Defendant: The Hon. Thomas Erskine,

Mr. Piggot, Mr. Shepherd, Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. F. Vaughan.

Solicitors: For the Crown, Messrs. Chamberlayne and White;

for Defendant, Mr. Bonney.

The "Painites" had probably little hope of acquittal. In Rickman's

journal (manuscript) he says: "C. Lofft told me he knew a gentleman who

tried for five or six years to be on the special juries, but could not,

being known to be a liberty man. He says special juries are packed

to all intents and purposes." The reason for gathering such powerful

counsel for defence must have been to obtain from the trial some

definitive adjudication on the legal liabilities of writers and

printers, and at the same time to secure, through the authority

of Erskine, an affirmation of their constitutional rights. Lord

Loughborough and others vainly tried to dissuade Erskine from defending

Paine. For himself, Paine had given up the case some time before, and

had written from Paris, November 11th, to the Attorney-General, stating

that, having been called to the Convention in France, he could not stay

to contest the prosecution, as he wished.

"My necessary absence from your country affords the opportunity of

knowing whether the prosecution was intended against Thomas Paine, or

against the Rights of the People of England to investigate systems

and principles of government; for as I cannot now be the object of the

prosecution, the going on with the prosecution will show that something

else was the object, and that something else can be no other than

the People of England.... But I have other reasons than those I

have mentioned for writing you this letter; and however you chuse

to interpret them they proceed from a good heart. The time, Sir, is

becoming too serious to play with Court prosecutions, and sport with

national rights. The terrible examples that have taken place here

upon men who, less than a year ago, thought themselves as secure as

any prosecuting Judge, Jury, or Attorney-General can do now in England,

ought to have some weight with men in your situation.

That the Government of England is as great, if not the greatest

perfection of fraud and corruption that ever took place since

governments began, is what you cannot be a stranger to; unless the

constant habit of seeing it has blinded your sense. But though you

may not chuse to see it, the people are seeing it very fast, and the

progress is beyond what you may chuse to believe. Is it possible that

you or I can believe, or that reason can make any other man believe,

that the capacity of such a man as Mr. Guelph, or any of his profligate

sons, is necessary to the government of a nation? I speak to you as one

man ought to speak to another; and I know also that I speak what other

people are beginning to think. That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if

you do it will signify nothing) without _packing a Jury_, and we _both_

know that such tricks are practised, is what I have very good reason to

believe.... Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of drawing away twelve

men into a situation that may be injurious to them afterwards. I do not

speak this from policy, but from benevolence; but if you chuse to go on

with the process, I make it my request that you would read this letter

in Court, after which the Judge and the Jury may do what they please. As

I do not consider myself the object of the prosecution, neither can I be

affected by the issue one way or the other, I shall, though a foreigner

in your country, subscribe as much money as any other man towards

supporting the right of the nation against the prosecution; and it is

for this purpose only that I shall do it. As I have not time to copy

letters, you will excuse the corrections."

A month after this awful letter was written, Paine no doubt knew its

imprudence. It was sprung on the Court by the Attorney-General, and

must alone have settled the verdict, had it not been foregone. Erskine,

Paine's leading counsel, was Attorney-General for the Prince of

Wales--foremost of "Mr. Guelph's profligate sons,"--and he was compelled

to treat as a forgery the letter all felt to be genuine. He endeavored

to prevent the reading of it, but Lord Kenyon decided that "in

prosecutions for high treason, where overt acts are laid, you may prove

overt acts not laid to prove those that are laid. If it [the letter]

goes to prove him the author of the book, I am bound to admit it."

Authorship of the book being admitted, this was only a pretext. The

Attorney-General winced a good deal at the allusion to the profligate

sons, and asked:

"Is he [Paine] to teach human creatures, whose moments of existence

depend upon the permission of a Being, merciful, long-suffering, and

of great goodness, that those whose youthful errors, from which even

royalty is not exempted, are to be treasured up in a vindictive memory,

and are to receive sentence of irremissible sin at His hands?"

It may be incidentally remarked here that the Attorney-General could

hardly have failed to retort with charges against the author, had not

Paine's reputation remained proof against the libellous "biography" by

the government clerk, Chalmers.

The main part of the prosecution was thus uttered by Paine himself.

While reading the letter the prosecutor paused to say: "If I succeed in

this prosecution he shall never return to this country otherwise than

_in vinculis_, for I will outlaw him."*

* 22 Howell's State Trials 357. Other reports are by Joseph

Gurney and "by an eminent advocate." The brief evidence

consisted mainly of the notes and statements of Paine's

publishers already mentioned in connection with the

publication of the indicted work. The Attorney-General cited

effectively the reply to Paine which he attributed to Vice-

President Adams. Publicola's pamphlet gave great comfort to

Paine's prosecutors. Mr. Long writes to Mr. Miles, agent in

Paris (December 1st), about this "book by the American

Adams, which is admirable, proving that the American

government is not founded upon the absurd doctrine of the

pretended rights of man, and that if it had been it could

not have stood for a week."

Erskine's powerful defence of the constitutional rights of thought

and speech in England is historical. He built around Paine an enduring

constitutional fortress, compelling Burke and Fox to lend aid from their

earlier speeches. The fable with which he closed was long remembered.

"Constraint is the natural parent of resistance, and a pregnant proof

that reason is not on the side of those who use it. You must all

remember, gentlemen, Lucian's pleasant story: Jupiter and a countryman

were walking together, conversing with great freedom and familiarity

upon the subject of heaven and earth. The countryman listened with

attention and acquiescence, while Jupiter strove only to convince

him; but happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily around and

threatened him with his thunder. 'Ah, ha!' says the countryman, 'now,

Jupiter, I know that you are wrong; you are always wrong when you appeal

to your thunder.'

"This is the case with me. I can reason with the people of England, but

I cannot fight against the thunder of authority."

Mr. Attorney-General arose immediately to reply to Mr. Erskine, when Mr.

Campbell (the foreman of the jury) said: "My Lord, I am authorized

by the jury here to inform the Attorney-General that a reply is not

necessary for them, unless the Attorney-General wishes to make it, or

your Lordship." Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the jury gave in

their verdict--Guilty.

Paine was outlawed.

The eye of England followed its outlaw before and after his trial. In

the English state archives is a note of G. Munro to Lord Grenville,

September 8th, announcing "Mr. Payne's election for the Departement

de l'Oise." Earl Gower announces, on information of Mr. Mason, that "Tom

Payne is on his road to take his seat." On September 22d a despatch

mentions Paine's speech on the judiciary question. "December 17, 1792.

Tom Payne is in the country unwell, or pretending to be so. The most

remarkable of the secret despatches, however, are two sent from Paris

on the last day of the year 1792. One of these alludes to the effect of

Paine's trial and outlawry on the English radicals in Paris:

"Tom Payne's fate and the unanimity of the English has staggered the

boldest of them, and they are now dwindling into nothing. Another

address was, however, proposed for the National Convention; this motion,

I understand, was made by Tom Payne and seconded by Mr. Mery; it was

opposed by Mr. Frost, seconded by Mr. McDonald."

The second allusion to Paine on December 31st deserves to be pondered by

historians:

"Tom Payne has proposed banishing the royal family of France, and I have

heard is writing his opinion on the subject; his consequence seems daily

lessening in this country, and I should never be surprised if he some

day receives the fate he merits."

It thus seems that whatever good deed Paine was about, he deserves

death. Earl Gower, and the agents he left on his departure (September)

in Paris, must have known that Paine's proposal was the only alternative

of the king's execution, and that if his consequence was lessening it

was solely because of labors to save the lives of the royal family. This

humane man has the death-sentence of Robespierre on him anticipated by

the ambassador of a country which, while affecting grief for Louis XVI.,

was helping on his fate.* Danton said to Count Theodore de Lameth:

"I am willing to try and save the King, but I must have a million of

money to buy up the necessary votes, and the money must be on hand in

eight days. I warn you that although I may save his life I shall vote

for his death; I am quite willing to save his head, but not to lose

mine."

{1793}

The Count and the Spanish Ambassador broached the matter to Pitt, who

refused the money.** He was not willing to spend a few thousands to save

the life of America's friend, though he made his death a pretext for

exhausting his treasury to deluge Europe with blood.

Gouverneur Morris, whose dislike of Paine's republicanism was equally

cynical,*** was intimate with Earl Gower, and no doubt gave him his

information.

* After September it was, as Talleyrand says, "no longer a

question that the king should reign, but that he himself,

the queen, their children, his sister, should be saved. It

might have been done. It was at least a duty to attempt it.

At that time France was only at war with the Emperor

[Austria], the Empire [the German states], and Sardinia, Had

all the other states concerted themselves to offer their

mediation by proposing to recognise whatever form of

government France might be pleased to adopt, with the sole

condition that the prisoners in the Temple should be allowed

to leave the country and retire wherever they liked, though

such a proposal, as may be supposed, would not have filled

the demagogues with delight, they would have been powerless

to resist it."--Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand. New

York, 1891, i., p. 168.

** Taine's "French Revolution" (American ed.), iii., p.

135. See also the "Correspondence of W. A. Miles on the

French Revolution," London, 1890, i., p. 398. The Abbe Noel,

a month before the king's death, pointed out to this British

agent how he might be saved.

*** In relating to John Randolph of Roanoke Paine's

exposure of Silas Deane, Morris regards it as the prevention

of a fraud, but nevertheless thinks Paine deserved

punishment for his "impudence"!

Morris was clear-headed enough to perceive that the massacres in France

were mainly due to the menaces of foreign monarchs, and was in hearty

sympathy with Paine's plan for saving the life of Louis XVI. On December

28th he writes to Washington that a majority of the Convention

"...have it in contemplation not only to refer the judgment to the

electors of France, that is, to her people, but also to send him and his

family to America, which Paine is to move for. He mentioned this to me

in confidence, but I have since heard it from another quarter."

On January 6, 1793, Morris writes to Washington concerning Genet, the

new Minister to the United States, who had been introduced to him by

Paine, and dined with him. At the close he says:

"The King's fate is to be decided next Monday the 14th. That unhappy

man, conversing with one of his council on his own fate, calmly summed

up the motives of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the

Council [Convention] would vote for referring his case to the people,

and that in consequence he should be massacred. I think he must die or

reign."

Paine also feared that a reference to the populace meant death. He had

counted a majority in the Convention who were opposed to the execution.

Submission of the question to the masses would thus, if his majority

stood firm, be risking the life of Louis again. Unfortunately this

question had to be determined before the vote on life or death. At

the opening of the year 1793 he felt cheerful about the situation. On

January 3d he wrote to John King, a retreating comrade in England, as

follows:

"Dear King,--I don't know anything, these many years, that surprised and

hurt me more than the sentiments you published in the Courtly Herald,

the 12th December, signed John King, Egham Lodge. You have gone back

from all you ever said. When I first knew you in Ailiffe-street, an

obscure part of the city, a child, without fortune or friends, I noticed

you; because I thought I saw in you, young as you was, a bluntness

of temper, a boldness of opinion, and an originality of thought, that

portended some future good. I was pleased to discuss with you, under our

friend Oliver's lime-tree, those political notions which I have since

given the world in my 'Rights of Man.'

"You used to complain of abuses as well as me. What, then, means this

sudden attachment to Kings? this fondness of the English Government,

and hatred of the French? If you mean to curry favour, by aiding your

Government, you are mistaken; they never recompence those who serve it;

they buy off those who can annoy it, and let the good that is rendered

it be its own reward. Believe me, King, more is to be obtained by

cherishing the rising spirit of the People, than by subduing it.

Follow my fortunes, and I will be answerable that you shall make your

own.--Thomas Paine."*

* "Mr. King's Speech, at Egham, with Thomas Paine's Letter,"

etc Egham, 1793. In his reply, January 11th, King says:

"Such men as Frost, Barlow, and others, your associates,

show the forlornness of your cause. Our respectable citizens

do not go to you," etc. Writing February 11th, King

expresses satisfaction at Paine's vote on the King's fate:

"the imputation of cruelty will not now be added to the

other censures on your character; but the catastrophe of

this unhappy Monarch has shewn you the danger of putting a

nation in ferment."

This last sentence may even now raise a smile. King must subsequently

have reflected with satisfaction that he did not "follow the fortunes"

of Paine, which led him into prison at the end of the year. A third

letter from him to Paine appeared in the _Morning Herald_, April 17,

1793, in which he says:

"'If the French kill their king, it will be a signal for my departure,

for I will not abide among such sanguinary men.' These, Mr. Paine, were

your words at our last meeting; yet after this you are not only with

them, but the chief modeller of their new Constitution."

Mr. King might have reflected that the author of the "Rights of Man,"

which he had admired, was personally safer in regicide France than in

liberticide England, which had outlawed him.

END OF VOL. I.