The Writings Of Thomas Paine Volume III Part 24

That this letter was not written in very good temper, is very evident; but it was just such a letter as his conduct appeared to me to merit, and every thing on his part since has served to confirm that opinion. Had I wanted a commentary on his silence, with respect to my imprisonment in France, some of his faction have furnished me with it.

What I here allude to, is a publication in a Philadelphia paper, copied afterwards into a New York paper, both under the patronage of the Was.h.i.+ngton faction, in which the writer, still supposing me in prison in France, wonders at my lengthy respite from the scaffold; and he marks his politics still farther, by saying:

"It appears, moreover, that the people of England did not relish his (Thomas Paine's) opinions quite so well as he expected, and that for one of his last pieces, as destructive to the peace and happiness of their country, (meaning, I suppose, the _Rights of Man_,) they threatened our knight-errant with such serious vengeance, that, to avoid a trip to Botany Bay, he fled over to France, as a less dangerous voyage."

I am not refuting or contradicting the falsehood of this publication, for it is sufficiently notorious; neither am I censuring the writer: on the contrary, I thank him for the explanation he has incautiously given of the principles of the Was.h.i.+ngton faction. Insignificant, however, as the piece is, it was capable of having some ill effects, had it arrived in France during my imprisonment, and in the time of Robespierre; and I am not uncharitable in supposing that this was one of the intentions of the writer.(*)

* I know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but now a British consul; and that he writes under the signature of Peter Skunk or Peter Porcupine, or some such signature.--Author.

This footnote probably added to the gall of Porcupine's (Cobbett's) "Letter to the Infamous Tom Paine, in Answer to his Letter to General Was.h.i.+ngton" (Polit. Censor, Dec., 1796), of which he (Cobbett) afterwards repented. Phineas Bond had nothing to do with it.--Editor.

I have now done with Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton on the score of private affairs. It would have been far more agreeable to me, had his conduct been such as not to have merited these reproaches. Errors or caprices of the temper can be pardoned and forgotten; but a cold deliberate crime of the heart, such as Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton is capable of acting, is not to be washed away. I now proceed to other matter.

After Jay's note to Grenville arrived in Paris from America, the character of every thing that was to follow might be easily foreseen; and it was upon this antic.i.p.ation that _my_ letter of February the 22d was founded. The event has proved that I was not mistaken, except that it has been much worse than I expected.

It would naturally occur to Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, that the secrecy of Jay's mission to England, where there was already an American Minister, could not but create some suspicion in the French government; especially as the conduct of Morris had been notorious, and the intimacy of Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton with Morris was known.

The character which Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton has attempted to act in the world, is a sort of non-describable, camelion-colored thing, called _prudence_. It is, in many cases, a subst.i.tute for principle, and is so nearly allied to hypocrisy that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence furnished him in this instance with an expedient that served, as is the natural and general character of all expedients, to diminish the embarra.s.sments of the moment and multiply them afterwards; for he authorized it to be made known to the French government, as a confidential matter, (Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton should recollect that I was a member of the Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here state) he authorized it, I say, to be announced, and that for the purpose of preventing any uneasiness to France on the score of Mr. Jay's mission to England, that the object of that mission, and of Mr. Jay's authority, was restricted to that of demanding the surrender of the western posts, and indemnification for the cargoes captured in American vessels. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton knows that this was untrue; and knowing this, he had good reason to himself for refusing to furnish the House of Representatives with copies of the instructions given to Jay, as he might suspect, among other things, that he should also be called upon for copies of instructions given to other Ministers, and that, in the contradiction of instructions, his want of integrity would be detected.(1) Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton may now, perhaps, learn, when it is too late to be of any use to him, that a man will pa.s.s better through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being detected in _one_ sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.

The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negotiated by Mr. Jay, (for n.o.body suspected any,) came in an English newspaper, which announced that a treaty _offensive and defensive_ had been concluded between the United States of America and England. This was immediately denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though it was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some underhand business was going forward.(*) At length the treaty itself arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.

1 When the British treaty had been ratified by the Senate (with one stipulation) and signed by the President, the House of Representatives, required to supply the means for carrying into effect, believed that its power over the supplies authorized it to check what a large majority considered an outrage on the country and on France. This was the opinion of Edmund Randolph (the first Attorney General), of Jefferson, Madison, and other eminent men. The House having respectfully requested the President to send them such papers on the treaty as would not affect any existing negotiations, he refused in a message (March 30, 1796), whose tenor Madison described as "improper and indelicate."

He said "the a.s.sent of the House of Representatives is not necessary to the validity of a treaty." The House regarded the message as menacing a serious conflict, and receded.-- _Editor._

* It was the embarra.s.sment into which the affairs and credit of America were thrown at this instant by the report above alluded to, that made it necessary to contradict it, and that by every means arising from opinion or founded upon authority. The Committee of Public Safety, existing at that time, had agreed to the full execution, on their part, of the treaty between America and France, notwithstanding some equivocal conduct on the part of the American government, not very consistent with the good faith of an ally; but they were not in a disposition to be imposed upon by a counter- treaty. That Jay had no instructions beyond the points above stated, or none that could possibly be construed to extend to the length the British treaty goes, was a matter believed in America, in England, and in France; and without going to any other source it followed naturally from the message of the President to Congress, when he nominated Jay upon that mission. The secretary of Mr. Jay came to Paris soon after the treaty with England had been concluded, and brought with him a copy of Mr. Jay's instructions, which he offered to shew to me as _justification of Jay_. I advised him, as a friend, not to shew them to anybody, and did not permit him to shew them to me. "Who is it," said I to him, "that you intend to implicate as censureable by shewing those instructions? Perhaps that implication may fall upon your own government." Though I did not see the instructions, I could not be at a loss to understand that the American administration had been playing a double game.--Author.

That there was a "double game" in this business, from first to last, is now a fact of history. Jay was confirmed by the Senate on a declaration of the President in which no faintest hint of a treaty was given, but only the "adjustment of our complaints," "vindication of our rights,"

and cultivation of "peace." Only after the Envoy's confirmation did the Cabinet add the main thing, his authority to negotiate a commercial treaty. This was done against the protest of the only lawyer among them, Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, who said the exercise of such a power by Jay would be an abridgment of the rights of the Senate and of the nation. See my "Life of Randolph," p. 220.

For Jay's Instructions, etc., see I. Am. State Papers, Foreign Relations.--Editor.

It is curious to observe, how the appearance of characters will change, whilst the root that produces them remains the same. The Was.h.i.+ngton faction having waded through the slough of negociation, and whilst it amused France with professions of friends.h.i.+p contrived to injure her, immediately throws off the hypocrite, and a.s.sumes the swaggering air of a bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on this occasion filled with paragraphs about _Sovereignty_. A paltroon may boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the only kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. But those daring paragraphs, as Timothy Pickering(1) well knows, were intended for France; without whose a.s.sistance, in men, money, and s.h.i.+ps, Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton would have cut but a poor figure in the American war. But of his military talents I shall speak hereafter.

I mean not to enter into any discussion of any article of Jay's treaty; I shall speak only upon the whole of it. It is attempted to be justified on the ground of its not being a violation of any article or articles of the treaty pre-existing with France. But the sovereign right of explanation does not lie with George Was.h.i.+ngton and his man Timothy; France, on her part, has, at least, an equal right: and when nations dispute, it is not so much about words as about things.

A man, such as the world calls a sharper, and versed as Jay must be supposed to be in the quibbles of the law, may find a way to enter into engagements, and make bargains, in such a manner as to cheat some other party, without that party being able, as the phrase is, _to take the law of him_. This often happens in the cabalistical circle of what is called law. But when this is attempted to be acted on the national scale of treaties, it is too despicable to be defended, or to be permitted to exist. Yet this is the trick upon which Jay's treaty is founded, so far as it has relation to the treaty pre-existing with France. It is a counter-treaty to that treaty, and perverts all the great articles of that treaty to the injury of France, and makes them operate as a bounty to England, with whom France is at war.

1 Secretary of State.--_Editor._.

The Was.h.i.+ngton administration shews great desire that the treaty between France and the United States be preserved. n.o.body can doubt their sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British merchant, or a British agent or sailor in America, that does not anxiously wish the same thing. The treaty with France serves now as a pa.s.sport to supply England with naval stores and other articles of American produce, whilst the same articles, when coming to France, are made contraband or seizable by Jay's treaty with England. The treaty with France says, that neutral s.h.i.+ps make neutral property, and thereby gives protection to English property on board American s.h.i.+ps; and Jay's treaty delivers up French property on board American s.h.i.+ps to be seized by the English. It is too paltry to talk of faith, of national honour, and of the preservation of treaties, whilst such a bare-faced treachery as this stares the world in the face.

The Was.h.i.+ngton administration may save itself the trouble of proving to the French government its _most faithful_ intentions of preserving the treaty with France; for France has now no desire that it should be preserved. She had nominated an Envoy extraordinary to America, to make Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton and his government a present of the treaty, and to have no more to do with _that_, or with _him_. It was at the same time officially declared to the American Minister at Paris, _that the French Republic had rather have the American government for an open enemy than a treacherous friend_. This, sir, together with the internal distractions caused in America, and the loss of character in the world, is the _eventful crisis_, alluded to in the beginning of this letter, to which your double politics have brought the affairs of your country. It is time that the eyes of America be opened upon you.

How France would have conducted herself towards America and American commerce, after all treaty stipulations had ceased, and under the sense of services rendered and injuries received, I know not. It is, however, an unpleasant reflection, that in all national quarrels, the innocent, and even the friendly part of the community, become involved with the culpable and the unfriendly; and as the accounts that arrived from America continued to manifest an invariable attachment in the general ma.s.s of the people to their original ally, in opposition to the new-fangled Was.h.i.+ngton faction,--the resolutions that had been taken in France were suspended. It happened also, fortunately enough, that Gouverneur Morris was not Minister at this time.

There is, however, one point that still remains in embryo, and which, among other things, serves to shew the ignorance of Was.h.i.+ngton treaty-makers, and their inattention to preexisting treaties, when they were employing themselves in framing or ratifying the new treaty with England.

The second article of the treaty of commerce between the United States and France says:

"The most christian king and the United States engage mutually, not to grant any particular favour to other nations in respect of commerce and navigation that shall not immediately become common to the other party, who shall enjoy the same favour freely, if the concession was freely made, or on allowing the same compensation if the concession was conditional."

All the concessions, therefore, made to England by Jay's treaty are, through the medium of this second article in the pre-existing treaty, made to France, and become engrafted into the treaty with France, and can be exercised by her as a matter of right, the same as by England.

Jay's treaty makes a concession to England, and that unconditionally, of seizing naval stores in American s.h.i.+ps, and condemning them as contraband. It makes also a concession to England to seize provisions and _other articles_ in American s.h.i.+ps. _Other articles are all other articles_, and none but an ignoramus, or something worse, would have put such a phrase into a treaty. The condition annexed in this case is, that the provisions and other articles so seized, are to be paid for at a price to be agreed upon. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, as President, ratified this treaty after he knew the British Government had recommended an indiscriminate seizure of provisions and all other articles in American s.h.i.+ps; and it is now known that those seizures were made to fit out the expedition going to Quiberon Bay, and it was known before hand that they would be made. The evidence goes also a good way to prove that Jay and Grenville understood each other upon that subject. Mr. Pinckney,(1) when he pa.s.sed through France on his way to Spain, spoke of the recommencement of the seizures as a thing that would take place.

1 Gen. Thomas Pinckney, U. S. Minister to England.-- _Editor._

The French government had by some means received information from London to the same purpose, with the addition, that the recommencement of the seizures would cause no misunderstanding between the British and American governments. Grenville, in defending himself against the opposition in Parliament, on account of the scarcity of corn, said (see his speech at the opening of the Parliament that met October 29, 1795) that _the supplies for the Quiberon expedition were furnished out of the American s.h.i.+ps_, and all the accounts received at that time from England stated that those seizures were made under the treaty. After the supplies for the Quiberon expedition had been procured, and the expected success had failed, the seizures were countermanded; and had the French seized provision vessels going to England, it is probable that the Quiberon expedition could not have been attempted.

In one point of view, the treaty with England operates as a loan to the English government. It gives permission to that government to take American property at sea, to any amount, and pay for it when it suits her; and besides this, the treaty is in every point of view a surrender of the rights of American commerce and navigation, and a refusal to France of the rights of neutrality. The American flag is not now a neutral flag to France; Jay's treaty of surrender gives a monopoly of it to England.

On the contrary, the treaty of commerce between America and France was formed on the most liberal principles, and calculated to give the greatest encouragement to the infant commerce of America. France was neither a carrier nor an exporter of naval stores or of provisions.

Those articles belonged wholly to America, and they had all the protection in that treaty which a treaty could give. But so much has that treaty been perverted, that the liberality of it on the part of France, has served to encourage Jay to form a counter-treaty with England; for he must have supposed the hands of France tied up by her treaty with America, when he was making such large concessions in favour of England. The injury which Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton's administration has done to the character as well as to the commerce of America, is too great to be repaired by him. Foreign nations will be shy of making treaties with a government that has given the faithless example of perverting the liberality of a former treaty to the injury of the party with whom it was made.(1)

1 For an a.n.a.lysis of the British Treaty see Wharton's "Digest of the International Law of the United States," vol.

it, -- 150 a. Paine's a.n.a.lysis is perfectly correct.-- _Editor._.

In what a fraudulent light must Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton's character appear in the world, when his declarations and his conduct are compared together! Here follows the letter he wrote to the Committee of Public Safety, while Jay was negotiating in profound secrecy this treacherous treaty:

"George Was.h.i.+ngton, President of the United States of America, to the Representatives of the French people, members of the Committee of Public Safety of the French Republic, the great and good friend and ally of the United States.

"On the intimation of the wish of the French republic that a new Minister should be sent from the United States, I resolved to manifest my sense of the readiness with which _my_ request was fulfilled, [that of recalling Genet,] by immediately fulfilling the request of your government, [that of recalling Morris].

"It was some time before a character could be obtained, worthy of the high office of expressing the attachment of the United States to the happiness of our allies, _and drawing closer the bonds of our friends.h.i.+p_. I have now made choice of James Monroe, one of our distinguished citizens, to reside near the French republic, in quality of Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. He is instructed to bear to you our _sincere solicitude for your welfare, and to cultivate with teal the cordiality so happily subsisting between us_. From a knowledge of his fidelity, probity, and good conduct, I have entire confidence that he will render himself acceptable to you, and give effect to your desire of preserving and _advancing, on all occasions, the interest and connection of the two nations_. I beseech you, therefore, to give full credence to whatever he shall say to you on the part of the United States, and _most of all, when he shall a.s.sure you that your prosperity is an object of our affection_.

"And I pray G.o.d to have the French Republic in his holy keeping.

"G. Was.h.i.+ngton."

Was it by entering into a treaty with England to surrender French property on board American s.h.i.+ps to be seized by the English, while English property on board American s.h.i.+ps was declared by the French treaty not to be seizable, _that the bonds of friends.h.i.+p between America and France were to be drawn the closer?_ Was it by declaring naval stores contraband when coming to France, whilst by the French treaty they were not contraband when going to England, that the _connection between France and America was to be advanced?_ Was it by opening the American ports to the British navy in the present war, from which ports the same navy had been expelled by the aid solicited from France in the American war (and that aid gratuitously given) (2) that the grat.i.tude of America was to be shewn, and the _solicitude_ spoken of in the letter demonstrated?

1 The italics are Paine's. Paine's free use of this doc.u.ment suggests that he possessed the confidence of the French Directory.--_Editor._

2 It is notable that Paine adheres to his old contention in his controversy with Deane. See vol. i., ch. aa of this work; and vol. i., ch. 9 of my "Life of Paine."--_Editor._.

As the letter was addressed to the Committee of Public Safety, Mr.

Was.h.i.+ngton did not expect it would get abroad in the world, or be seen by any other eye than that of Robespierre, or be heard by any other ear than that of the Committee; that it would pa.s.s as a whisper across the Atlantic, from one dark chamber to the other, and there terminate. It was calculated to remove from the mind of the Committee all suspicion upon Jay's mission to England, and, in this point of view, it was suited to the circ.u.mstances of the movement then pa.s.sing; but as the event of that mission has proved the letter to be hypocritical, it serves no other purpose of the present moment than to shew that the writer is not to be credited. Two circ.u.mstances serve to make the reading of the letter necessary in the Convention. The one was, that they who succeeded on the fall of Robespierre, found it most proper to act with publicity; the other, to extinguish the suspicions which the strange conduct of Morris had occasioned in France.

When the British treaty, and the ratification of it by Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, was known in France, all further declarations from him of his good disposition as an ally and friend, pa.s.sed for so many cyphers; but still it appeared necessary to him to keep up the farce of declarations. It is stipulated in the British treaty, that commissioners are to report at the end of two years, on the case of _neutral s.h.i.+ps making neutral property_. In the mean time, neutral s.h.i.+ps do _not_ make neutral property, according to the British treaty, and they _do_ according to the French treaty. The preservation, therefore, of the French treaty became of great importance to England, as by that means she can employ American s.h.i.+ps as carriers, whilst the same advantage is denied to France. Whether the French treaty could exist as a matter of right after this clandestine perversion of it, could not but give some apprehensions to the partizans of the British treaty, and it became necessary to them to make up, by fine words, what was wanting in good actions.

An opportunity offered to that purpose. The Convention, on the public reception of Mr. Monroe, ordered the American flag and the French flags to be displayed unitedly in the hall of the Convention. Mr. Monroe made a present of an American flag for the purpose. The Convention returned this compliment by sending a French flag to America, to be presented by their Minister, Mr. Adet, to the American government. This resolution pa.s.sed long before Jay's treaty was known or suspected: it pa.s.sed in the days of confidence; but the flag was not presented by Mr. Adet till several months after the treaty had been ratified. Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton made this the occasion of saying some fine things to the French Minister; and the better to get himself into tune to do this, he began by saying the finest things of himself.

"Born, sir (said he) in a land of liberty; _having_ early learned its value; _having_ engaged in a perilous conflict to defend it; _having_, in a word, devoted the best years of my life to secure its permanent establishment in my own country; _my_ anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and _my_ best wishes are irresistibly excited, whenever, in any country, I see an oppressed people unfurl the banner of freedom."

Mr. Was.h.i.+ngton, having expended so many fine phrases upon himself, was obliged to invent a new one for the French, and he calls them "wonderful people!" The coalesced powers acknowledged as much.