The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 10

Paine was not forgotten by his old friends in France. So soon as the excitement attending Robespierre's execution had calmed a little, Lan-thenas (August 7th) sent Merlin de Thionville a copy of the "Age of Reason," which he had translated, and made his appeal.

"I think it would be in the well-considered interest of the Republic, since the fall of the tyrants we have overthrown, to re-examine the motives of Thomas Paine's imprisonment. That re-examination is suggested by too many and sensible grounds to be related in detail. Every friend of liberty familiar with the history of our Revolution, and feeling the necessity of repelling the slanders with which despots are loading it in the eyes of nations, misleading them against us, will understand these grounds. Should the Committee of Public Safety, having before it no founded charge or suspicion against Thomas Paine, retain any scruples, and think that from my occasional conversation with that foreigner, whom the people's suffrage called to the national representation, and some acquaintance with his language, I might perhaps throw light upon their doubt, I would readily communicate to them all that I know about him. I request Merlin de Thionville to submit these considerations to the Committee."

Merlin was now a leading member of the Committee. On the following day Paine sent (in French) the following letters:

"Citizens, Representatives, and Members of the Committee of Public Safety: I address you a copy of a letter which I have to-day written to the Convention. The singular situation in which I find myself determines me to address myself to the whole Convention, of which you are a part

"Thomas Paine. Maison d'Arret du Luxembourg, Le 19 Thermidor, l'an 2 de la Republique, une et indivisible."

"Citizen Representatives: If I should not express myself with the energy I used formerly to do, you will attribute it to the very dangerous illness I have suffered in the prison of the Luxembourg. For several days I was insensible of my own existence; and though I am much recovered, it is with exceeding great difficulty that I find power to write you this letter.

"But before I proceed further, I request the Convention to observe: that this is the first line that has come from me, either to the Convention, or to any of the Committees, since my imprisonment,--which is approaching to Eight months.--Ah, my friends, eight months' loss of Liberty seems almost a life-time to a man who has been, as I have been, the unceasing defender of Liberty for twenty years.

"I have now to inform the Convention of the reason of my not having written before. It is a year ago that I had strong reason to believe that Robespierre was my inveterate enemy, as he was the enemy of every man of virtue and humanity. The address that was sent to the Convention some time about last August from Arras, the native town of Robespierre, I have always been informed was the work of that hypocrite and the partizans he had in the place. The intention of that address was to prepare the way for destroying me, by making the People declare (though without a.s.signing any reason) that I had lost their confidence; the Address, however, failed of success, as it was immediately opposed by a counter-address from St. Omer which declared the direct contrary. But the strange power that Robespierre, by the most consummate hypocrisy and the most hardened cruelties, had obtained rendered any attempt on my part to obtain justice not only useless but even dangerous; for it is the nature of Tyranny always to strike a deeper blow when any attempt has been made to repel a former one. This being my situation I submitted with patience to the hardness of my fate and waited the event of brighter days. I hope they are now arrived to the nation and to me.

"Citizens, when I left the United States in the year 1787, I promised to all my friends that I would return to them the next year; but the hope of seeing a Revolution happily established in France, that might serve as a model to the rest of Europe, and the earnest and disinterested desire of rendering every service in my power to promote it, induced me to defer my return to that country, and to the society of my friends, for more than seven years. This long sacrifice of private tranquillity, especially after having gone through the fatigues and dangers of the American Revolution which continued almost eight years, deserved a better fate than the long imprisonment I have silently suffered. But it is not the nation but a faction that has done me this injustice, and it is to the national representation that I appeal against that injustice.

Parties and Factions, various and numerous as they have been, I have always avoided. My heart was devoted to all France, and the object to which I applied myself was the Const.i.tution. The Plan which I proposed to the Committee, of which I was a member, is now in the hands of Barrere, and it will speak for itself.

"It is perhaps proper that I inform you of the cause a.s.signed in the order for my imprisonment It is that I am 'a Foreigner'; whereas, the _Foreigner_ thus imprisoned was invited into France by a decree of the late national a.s.sembly, and that in the hour of her greatest danger, when invaded by Austrians and Prussians. He was, moreover, a citizen of the United States of America, an ally of France, and not a subject of any country in Europe, and consequently not within the intentions of any of the decrees concerning Foreigners. But any excuse can be made to serve the purpose of malignity when it is in power.

"I will not intrude on your time by offering any apology for the broken and imperfect manner in which I have expressed myself. I request you to accept it with the sincerity with which it comes from my heart; and I conclude with wis.h.i.+ng Fraternity and prosperity to France, and union and happiness to her representatives.

"Citizens, I have now stated to you my situation, and I can have no doubt but your justice will restore me to the Liberty of which I have been deprived.

"Thomas Paine.

"Luxembourg, Thermidor 19th, 2d year of the French Republic, one and indivisible."

No doubt this touching letter would have been effectual had it reached the Convention. But the Committee of Public Safety took care that no whisper even of its existence should be heard. Paine's partic.i.p.ation in their fostered dogma, that _Robespierre le veut_ explained all crimes, probably cost him three more months in prison. The lamb had confided its appeal to the wolf. Barrere, Bil-laud-Varennes, and Collot d'Herbois, by skilful use of the dead scapegoat, maintained their places on the Committee until September 1st, and after that influenced its counsels.

At the same time Morris, as we shall see, was keeping Monroe out of his place. There might have been a serious reckoning for these men had Paine been set free, or his case inquired into by the Convention. And Thuriot was now on the Committee of Public Safety; he was eager to lay his own crimes on Robespierre, and to conceal those of the Committee. Paine's old friend, Achille Audibert, unsuspicious as himself of the real facts, sent an appeal (August 20th) to "Citizen Thuriot, member of the Committee of Public Safety."

"Representative:--A friend of mankind is groaning in chains,--Thomas Paine, who was not so politic as to remain silent in regard to a man unlike himself, but dared to say that Robespierre was a monster to be erased from the list of men. From that moment he became a criminal; the despot marked him as his victim, put him into prison, and doubtless prepared the way to the scaffold for him, as for others who knew him and were courageous enough to speak out.*

* It most be remembered that at this time it seemed the strongest recommendation of any one to public favor to describe him as a victim of Robespierre; and Paine's friends could conceive no other cause for the detention of a man they knew to be innocent.

"Thomas Paine is an acknowledged citizen of the United States. He was the secretary of the Congress for the department of foreign affairs during the Revolution. He has made himself known in Europe by his writings, and especially by his 'Rights of Man.' The electoral a.s.sembly of the department of Pas-de-Calais elected him one of its representatives to the Convention, and commissioned me to go to London, inform him of his election, and bring him to France. I hardly escaped being a victim to the English Government with which he was at open war; I performed my mission; and ever since friends.h.i.+p has attached me to Paine. This is my apology for soliciting you for his liberation.

"I can a.s.sure you, Representative, that America was by no means satisfied with the imprisonment of a strong column of its Revolution.

Please to take my prayer into consideration. But for Robespierre's villainy this friend of man would now be free. Do not permit liberty longer to see in prison a victim of the wretch who lives no more but by his crimes; and you will add to the esteem and veneration I feel for a man who did so much to save the country amidst the most tremendous crisis of our Revolution.

"Greeting, respect, and brotherhood,

"Achille Audibert, of Calais.

"No. 216 Rue de Bellechase, Fauborg St Germaine."

Audibert's letter, of course, sank under the burden of its Robespierre myth to a century's sleep beside Paine's, in the Committee's closet.

Meanwhile, the regulation against any communication of prisoners with the outside world remaining in force, it was some time before Paine could know that his letter had been suppressed on its way to the Convention. He was thus late in discovering his actual enemies.

An interesting page in the annals of diplomacy remains to be written on the closing weeks of Morris in France. On August 14th he writes to Robert Morris: "I am preparing for my departure, but as yet can take no step, as there is a kind of interregnum in the government and Mr. Monroe is not yet received, at which he grows somewhat impatient." There was no such interregnum, and no such explanation was given to Monroe, who writes:

"I presented my credentials to the commissary of foreign affairs soon after my arrival [August 2d]; but more than a week had elapsed, and I had obtained no answer, when or whether I should be received. A delay beyond a few days surprised me, because I could discern no adequate or rational motive for it."*

* "View of the Conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the United States," by James Monroe, p. 7.

It is plain that the statement of Paine, who was certainly in communication with the Committees a year later, is true, that Morris was in danger on account of the interception of compromising letters written by him. He needed time to dispose of his house and horses, and s.h.i.+p his wines, and felt it important to retain his protecting credentials. At any moment his friends might be expelled from the Committee, and their papers be examined. While the arrangements for Monroe's reception rested with Morris and this unaltered Committee, there was little prospect of Monroe's being installed at all. The new Minister was therefore compelled, as other Americans had been, to appeal directly to the Convention. That a.s.sembly responded at once, and he was received (August 28th) with highest honors. Morris had nothing to do with the arrangement. The historian Frederic Ma.s.son, alluding to the "unprecedented" irregularity of Morris in not delivering or receiving letters of recall, adds that Monroe found it important to state that he had acted without consultation with his predecessor.* This was necessary for a cordial reception by the Convention, but it invoked the cordial hatred of Morris, who marked him for his peculiar guillotine set up in Philadelphia.

* "Le Departement des Affaires etrangeres," etc., p. 345.

So completely had America and Congress been left in the dark about Paine that Monroe was surprised to find him a prisoner. When at length the new Minister was in a position to consult the French Minister about Paine, he found the knots so tightly tied around this particular victim--almost the only one left in the Luxembourg of those imprisoned during the Terror--that it was difficult to untie them. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was now M. Bouchot, a weak creature who, as Morris said, would not wipe his nose without permission of the Committee of Public Safety.

When Monroe opened Paine's case he was asked whether he had brought instructions. Of course he had none, for the administration had no suspicion that Morris had not, as he said, attended to the case.

When Paine recovered from his fever he heard that Monroe had superseded Morris.

"As soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be read, I found a way to convey one to him [Monroe] by means of the man who lighted the lamps in the prison, and whose unabated friends.h.i.+p to me, from whom he never received any service, and with difficulty accepted any recompense, puts the character of Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton to shame. In a few days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed in a note from an intermediate person, with a.s.surance of his friends.h.i.+p, and expressing a desire that I should rest the case in his hands. After a fortnight or more had pa.s.sed, and hearing nothing farther, I wrote to a friend [Whiteside], a citizen of Philadelphia, requesting him to inform me what was the true situation of things with respect to me. I was sure that something was the matter; I began to have hard thoughts of Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton, but I was unwilling to encourage them. In about ten days I received an answer to my letter, in which the writer says: 'Mr. Monroe told me he had no order (meaning from the president, Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton) respecting you, but that he (Mr. Monroe) will do everything in his power to liberate you, but, from what I learn from the Americans lately arrived in Paris, you are not considered, either by the American government or by individuals, as an American citizen.'"

As the American government did regard Paine as an American citizen, and approved Monroe's demanding him as such, there is no difficulty in recognizing the source from which these statements were diffused among Paine's newly arriving countrymen. Morris was still in Paris.

On the receipt of Whiteside's note, Paine wrote a Memorial to Monroe, of which important parts--amounting to eight printed pages--are omitted from American and English editions of his works. In quoting this Memorial, I select mainly the omitted portions.*

* The whole is published in French: "Memoire de Thomas Payne, autographe et signe de sa main: addresse a M. Monroe, ministre des etats-unis en France, pour reclamer sa mise en liberte comme Citoyen Americain, zo Septembre, 1794.

Villeneuve."

Paine says that before leaving London for the Convention, he consulted Minister Pinckney, who agreed with him that "it was for the interest of America that the system of European governments should be changed and placed on the same principle with her own"; and adds: "I have wished to see America the mother church of government, and I have done my utmost to exalt her character and her condition." He points out that he had not accepted any t.i.tle or office under a foreign government, within the meaning of the United States Const.i.tution, because there was no government in France, the Convention being a.s.sembled to frame one; that he was a citizen of France only in the honorary sense in which others in Europe and America were declared such; that no oath of allegiance was required or given. The following paragraphs are from various parts of the Memorial.

"They who propagate the report of my not being considered as a citizen of America by government, do it to the prolongation of my imprisonment, and without authority; for Congress, as a government, has neither decided upon it, nor yet taken the matter into consideration; and I request you to caution such persons against spreading such reports....

"I know not what opinions have been circulated in America. It may have been supposed there, that I had voluntarily and intentionally abandoned America, and that my citizens.h.i.+p had ceased by my own choice. I can easily conceive that there are those in that Country who would take such a proceeding on my part somewhat in disgust. The idea of forsaking old friends.h.i.+ps for new acquaintances is not agreeable. I am a little warranted in making this supposition by a letter I received some time ago from the wife of one of the Georgia delegates, in which she says, 'your friends on this side the water cannot be reconciled to the idea of your abandoning America.' I have never abandoned America in thought, word, or deed, and I feel it inc.u.mbent upon me to give this a.s.surance to the friends I have in that country, and with whom I have always intended, and am determined, if the possibility exists, to close the scene of my life. It is there that I have made myself a home. It is there that I have given the services of my best days. America never saw me flinch from her cause in the most gloomy and perilous of her situations: and I know there are those in that Country who will not flinch from me. If I have Enemies (and every man has some) I leave them to the enjoyment of their ingrat.i.tude....

"It is somewhat extraordinary, that the Idea of my not being a Citizen of America should have arisen only at the time that I am imprisoned in France because, or on the pretence that, I am a foreigner. The case involves a strange contradiction of Ideas. None of the Americans who came to France whilst I was in liberty, had conceived any such idea or circulated any such opinion; and why it should arise now is a matter yet to be explained. However discordant the late American Minister, Gouverneur Morris, and the late French Committee of Public Safety were, it suited the purpose of both that I should be continued in arrestation.

The former wished to prevent my return to America, that I should not expose his misconduct; and the latter, lest I should publish to the world the history of its wickedness. Whilst that Minister and that Committee continued, I had no expectation of liberty. I speak here of the Committee of which Robespierre was a member....

"I here close my Memorial and proceed to offer to you a proposal, that appears to me suited to all the circ.u.mstances of the case; which is, that you reclaim me conditionally, until the opinion of Congress can be obtained upon the subject of my Citizens.h.i.+p of America, and that I remain in liberty under your protection during that time. I found this proposal upon the following grounds:

"First, you say you have no orders respecting me; consequently you have no orders _not_ to reclaim me; and in this case you are left discretionary judge whether to reclaim or not. My proposal therefore unites a consideration of your situation with my own.

"Secondly, I am put in arrestation because I am a foreigner. It is therefore necessary to determine to what Country I belong. The right of determining this question cannot appertain exclusively to the committee of public safety or general surety; because I appear to the Minister of the United States, and shew that my citizens.h.i.+p of that Country is good and valid, referring at the same time, through the agency of the Minister, my claim of Right to the opinion of Congress,--it being a matter between two governments.

"Thirdly, France does not claim me for a citizen; neither do I set up any claim of citizens.h.i.+p in France. The question is simply, whether I am or am not a citizen of America. I am imprisoned here on the decree for imprisoning Foreigners, because, say they, I was born in England. I say in answer, that, though born in England, I am not a subject of the English Government any more than any other American is who was born, as they all were, under the same government, or that the citizens of France are subjects of the French monarchy, under which they were born. I have twice taken the oath of abjuration to the British king and government, and of Allegiance to America. Once as a citizen of the State of Pennsylvania in 1776; and again before Congress, administered to me by the President, Mr. Hanc.o.c.k, when I was appointed Secretary in the office of foreign affairs in 1777....

"Painful as the want of liberty may be, it is a consolation to me to believe that my imprisonment proves to the world that I had no share in the murderous system that then reigned. That I was an enemy to it, both morally and politically, is known to all who had any knowledge of me; and could I have written French as well as I can English, I would publicly have exposed its wickedness, and shown the ruin with which it was pregnant. They who have esteemed me on former occasions, whether in America or England, will, I know, feel no cause to abate that esteem when they reflect, that imprisonment with preservation of character, is preferable to liberty with disgrace."

In a postscript Paine adds that "as Gouverneur Morris could not inform Congress of the cause of my arrestation, as he knew it not himself, it is to be supposed that Congress was not enough acquainted with the case to give any directions respecting me when you left." Which to the reader of the preceding pages will appear sufficiently nave.

To this Monroe responded (September 18th) with a letter of warm sympathy, worthy of the high-minded gentleman that he was. After ascribing the notion that Paine was not an American to mental confusion, and affirming his determination to maintain his rights as a citizen of the United States, Monroe says: