The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 28

"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 circ.u.mstance has served, as I see by the french papers, to increase the dislike and suspicion of some of that nation and the National a.s.sembly against him.

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

Lafayette wrote Was.h.i.+ngton a strong private protest against Morris, but in vain. Paine spoke frankly to Morris, who mentions him on Was.h.i.+ngton'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 d.u.c.h.ess 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 t.i.tle-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 t.i.tle 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 subst.i.tution 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 inst.i.tution. 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 Const.i.tution. 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 Const.i.tution will; but _the present mode of administering that Const.i.tution_ 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 c.o.c.kpit, 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 a.s.sumed 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 inst.i.tuted 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 1500 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 const.i.tution 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... int.i.tuled, '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 const.i.tutional 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 const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, 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 s.h.i.+llings 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 superst.i.tion 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 1,000, with a pension of 3,000. Tooke, being cut short, his speech was continued by Paine, whose two letters to Onslow (June 17th and 21st) were widely circulated.*

* To this n.o.ble pensioner and sinecurist he says: "What honour or happiness you can derive from being the princ.i.p.al 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 Suss.e.x, 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 a.s.semblies 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 Const.i.tutional 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, Inst.i.tuteur 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 Was.h.i.+ngton--the "Contrat Social" was framed into the Const.i.tution of a happy and glorious new earth, over it a new heaven unclouded by priestly power or superst.i.tions. 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 ma.s.sacre of the Ma.r.s.eillese 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 Const.i.tutions," translated by Franklin's order into French (1783) and distributed among the monarchs of Europe.**