The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 1

The Life Of Thomas Paine.

Vol. I.

by Moncure Daniel Conway.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

In the Preface to the first edition of this work, it was my painful duty to remark with severity on the dissemination of libels on Paine in a work of such importance as Mr. Leslie Stephen's "History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century." The necessity of doing so was impressed on me by the repet.i.tion of some of Mr. Stephen's unfounded disparagements in Mr. O. B. Frothingham's "Recollections and Impressions." I have now the satisfaction of introducing this edition with retractations by both of those authors. Mr. Frothingham, in a letter which he authorizes me to use, says: "Your charge is true, and I hasten to say _peccavi_ The truth is that I never made a study of Paine, but took Stephen's estimates. Now my mistake is clear, and I am willing to stand in the cold with nothing on but a hair shirt Your vindication of Paine is complete." Mr. Frothingham adds that in any future edition of his work the statements shall be altered. The note of Mr. Leslie Stephen appeared in The National Reformer, September 11, 1892, to which it was sent by a correspondent, at his desire; for it equally relates to strictures in a pamphlet by the editor of that journal, Mr. John M.

Robertson.

"The account which I gave of Paine in the book upon the Eighteenth Century was, I have no doubt, erroneous. My only excuse, if it be an excuse, was the old one, 'pure ignorance.' I will not ask whether or how far the ignorance was excusable.

"Mr. Conway pointed out the error in an article contributed, I think, to the Fortnightly Review at the time. He has, no doubt, added, since then, to his exposure of my (and other people's) blunders, and I hope to read his book soon. Meanwhile, I must state that in consequence of the _Fortnightly_ article, I altered the statements in the second edition of my book. I have no copy at hand [Mr. S. writes from the country] and cannot say what alterations precisely I made, though it is very possible that they were inadequate, as for certain reasons I was unable to attend properly to the revision. If a third edition should ever be required, I would go into the question more thoroughly. I have since that time read some letters upon Paine contributed by Mr. Conway to the _New York Nation_. I had seen the announcement of his new publication, and had made up my mind to take the first opportunity of going into the question again with Mr. Conway's additional information. I hope that I may be able to write Paine's life for the Dictionary of National Biography, and if so, shall have the best opportunity for putting on record my final judgment It will be a great pleasure to me if I find, as I expect to find, that he was greatly maligned, and to make some redress for my previous misguided remarks."

It is indeed to be hoped that Mr. Stephen will write the Life in the Dictionary, whose list of subjects for the coming volume, inserted in the _Athenaeum_ since his above retraction, designates Thomas Paine as an "infidel" writer. Mr. Stephen can do much to terminate the carefully fostered ignorance of which he has found himself a victim. In advance of his further treatment of the subject, and with perfect confidence in his justice, I here place by the side of my original criticism a retraction of anything that may seem to include him among authors who have shown a lack of magnanimity towards Paine.

The general statement (First Preface, p. xvi) must, however, remain; for recent discussions reveal a few unorthodox writers willing to throw, or to leave, "a traditionally hated head to the orthodox mob." On the other hand, some apology is due for this phrase. No orthodox mob is found.

Here and there some halloo of the old Paine hunt is heard dying away in the distance, but the conservative religious and political press, American and English, has generally revised the traditional notions, and estimated the evidence with substantial justice. Nearly all of the most influential journals have dealt with the evidence submitted; their articles have been carefully read by me, and in very few are the old prejudices against Paine discoverable. Were these estimates of Paine collected with those of former times the volume would measure this century's advance in political liberty, and religious civilization.

My occasionally polemical treatment of the subject has been regretted by several reviewers, but its necessity, I submit, is the thing to be regretted. Being satisfied that Paine was not merely an interesting figure, but that a faithful investigation of his life would bring to light important facts of history, I found it impossible to deal with him as an ordinary subject of inquiry. It were vain to try and persuade people to take seriously a man tarred, feathered, pilloried, pelted. It was not whitewashing Paine needed, but removal of the pitch, and release from the pillory. There must first of all be an appeal against such sentence. And because the wrongs represented a league of prejudices, the pleadings had to be in several tribunals--moral, religious, political, social,--before the man could be seen at all, much less accorded the attention necessary for disclosure of the history suppressed through his degradation. Paine's personal vindication would still have required only a pamphlet, but that it was ancillary to the historic revelations which const.i.tute the larger part of this work. A wiser writer--unless too wise to touch Paine at all--might have concealed such sympathies as those pervading this biography; but where sympathies exist the reader is ent.i.tled to know them, and the author subjects himself to a severer self-criticism if only in view of the vigilance he must excite. I have no feeling towards Paine inconsistent with recognition of his faults and errors. My vindication of him has been the production of evidence that removed my own early and baseless prejudices, and rendered it possible for me to study his career genuinely, so that others might do the same.

The phantasmal Paine cleared away, my polemic ends. I have endeavored to portray the real Paine, and have brought to light some things unfavorable to him which his enemies had not discovered, and, I believe, could never have discovered.

The _errata_ in the first edition are few and of slight importance. I wish to retract a suggestion made in my apology for Washington which I have discovered to be erroneous. It was suggested (vol. ii., pp. 173 and 382) that Washington's failure to answer Paine's private letter of September 20,1795, asking an explanation of his neglect while he (Paine) was in prison and his life in peril, may have been due to its interception by Pickering (who had by a suppression of doc.u.ments sealed the sad fate of his predecessor in office, Edmund Randolph). I have, however, discovered that Paine's letter did reach Washington.

I would be glad if my own investigations, continued while preparing an edition of Paine's works, or any of my reviewers, had enabled me to relieve the shades with which certain famous names are touched by doc.u.mentary facts in this history. The publication of those relating to Gouverneur Morris, while American Minister in France, was for personal reasons especially painful to myself. Though such publication was not of any importance to Paine's reputation, it was essential to a fair judgment of others--especially of Washington,--and to any clear comprehension of the relations between France and the United States at that period. As the correspondence between Gouverneur Morris and the French Minister concerning Paine, after his imprisonment, is in French, and the originals (in Paris) are not easily accessible to American and English readers, I have concluded to copy them here.

a Paris le 14 fevrier 1794 26 pluviose.

Le Ministre plenipotentiaire des etats Unis de l'Amerique pres la Republique francaise au Ministre des Affaires etrangeres.

Monsieur:

Thomas Paine vient de s'addresser a moi pour que je le reclame comme Citoyen des etats Unis. Voici (je crois) les Faits que le regardent. Il est ne en Angleterre. Devenu ensuite Citoyen des etats Unis il s'y est acquise une grande celebrite par des ecrits revolutionnaires. En consequence il fut adopte Citoyen francais et ensuite elu membre de la Convention. Sa conduite depuis cette Epoque n'est pas de mon ressort J'ignore la cause de sa Detention actuelle dans la prison du Luxembourg, mais je vous prie Monsieur (si des raisons qui ne me sont pas connues s'opposent a sa liberation) de vouloir bien m'en instruire pour que je puisse les communiquer au Gouvernement des etats Unis.

J'ai l'honneur d'etre, Monsieur,

Votre tres humble Serviteur,

Gouv. Morris.

Paris, 1 Ventose l'An 2d. de la Republic une et indivisible.

Le ministre des Affaires etrangeres au Ministre Plenipotentiaire des-etats Unis de l'Amerique pres la Republique Francaise.

Par votre lettre du 26 du mois dernier, vous reclames la liberte de Thomas Paine, comme Citoyen americain. Ne en Angleterre, cet ex-depute est devenu successivement Citoyen Americain et Citoyen francais. En acceptant ce dernier t.i.tre et en remplissant une place dans le corps legislatif, il s'est soumis aux lois de la Republique et il a renonce de fait a la protection que le droit des gens et les traites conclus avec les etats Unis auraient pu lui a.s.surer.

J'ignore les motifs de sa detention mais je dois presumer qu'ils sont bien fondes. Je vais neanmoins soumettre au Comite de Salut public la demande que vous m'avez adressee et je m'empresserai de vous faire connaitre sa decision.

DEFORGES.

The translations of these letters are on page 120, vol ii., of this work. No other letters on the subject between these Ministers are known. The reader may judge whether there is anything in the American Minister's application to warrant the opening a.s.sertion in that of Deforgues. Morris forwarded the latter to his government, but withheld his application, of which no copy exists in the State Archives at Washington.

PREFACE.

At Hornsey, England, I saw a small square mahogany table, bearing at its centre the following words: "This Plate is inscribed by Thos. Clio Rickman in Remembrance of his dear friend Thomas Paine, who on this table in the year 1792 wrote several of his invaluable Works."

The works written by Paine in Rickman's house were the second part of "The Rights of Man," and "A Letter to the Addressers." Of these two books vast numbers were circulated, and though the government prosecuted them, they probably contributed largely to make political progress in England evolutionary instead of revolutionary. On this table he set forth const.i.tutional reforms that might be peacefully obtained, and which have been substantially obtained And here he warned the "Addressers," pet.i.tioning the throne for suppression of his works: "It is dangerous in any government to say to a nation, _Thou shalt not read_. This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done under the old government of France; but it served to procure the downfall of the latter, and is subverting that of the former; and it will have the same tendency in all countries; because Thought, by some means or other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though reading may."

At this table the Quaker chieftain, whom Danton rallied for hoping to make revolutions with rose-water, unsheathed his pen and animated his Round Table of Reformers for a conflict free from the bloodshed he had witnessed in America, and saw threatening France. This little table was the field chosen for the battle of free speech; its abundant ink-spots were the shed blood of hearts transfused with humanity. I do not wonder that Rickman was wont to show the table to his visitors, or that its present owner, Edward Truelove--a bookseller who has suffered imprisonment for selling proscribed books,--should regard it with reverence.

The table is what was once called a candle-stand, and there stood on it, in my vision, Paine's clear, honest candle, lit from his "inner light,"

now covered by a bushel of prejudice. I myself had once supposed his light an infernal torch; now I sat at the ink-spotted candle-stand to write the first page of this history, for which I can invoke nothing higher than the justice that inspired what Thomas Paine here wrote.

The educated ignorance concerning Paine is astounding. I once heard an English prelate speak of "the vulgar atheism of Paine." Paine founded the first theistic society in Christendom; his will closes with the words, "I die in perfect composure, and resignation to the will of my Creator, G.o.d." But what can be expected of an English prelate when an historian like Jared Sparks, an old Unitarian minister, could suggest that a letter written by Franklin, to persuade some one not to publish a certain attack on religion, was "probably" addressed to Paine.

(Franklin's "Writings," vol. x., p. 281.) Paine never wrote a page that Franklin could have so regarded, nor anything in the way of religious controversy until three years after Franklin's death. "The remarks in the above letter," says Sparks, "are strictly applicable to the deistical writings which Paine afterwards published." On the contrary, they are strictly inapplicable. They imply that the writer had denied a "particular providence," which Paine never denied, and it is asked, "If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?" Paine's "deism" differed from Franklin's only in being more fervently religious.

No one who had really read Paine could imagine the above question addressed to the author to whom the Bishop of Llandaff wrote: "There is a philosophical sublimity in some of your ideas when speaking of the Creator of the Universe." The reader may observe at work, in this example, the tiny builder, prejudice, which has produced the large formation of Paine mythology. Sparks, having got his notion of Paine's religion at secondhand, becomes unwittingly a weighty authority for those who have a case to make out. The American Tract Society published a tract ent.i.tled "Don't Unchain the Tiger," in which it is said: "When an infidel production was submitted--probably by Paine--to Benjamin Franklin, in ma.n.u.script, he returned it to the author, with a letter from which the following is extracted: 'I would advise you not to attempt unchaining the Tiger, but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person.'" Thus our Homer of American history nods, and a tract floats through the world misrepresenting both Paine and Franklin, whose rebuke is turned from some anti-religious essay against his own convictions. Having enjoyed the personal friendship of Mr. Sparks, while at college, and known his charity to all opinions, I feel certain that he was an unconscious victim of the Paine mythology to which he added.

His own creed was, in essence, little different from Paine's. But how many good, and even liberal, people will find by the facts disclosed in this volume that they have been accepting the Paine mythology and contributing to it? It is a notable fact that the most effective distortions of Paine's character and work have proceeded from unorthodox writers--some of whom seem not above throwing a traditionally hated head to the orthodox mob. A recent instance is the account given of Paine in Leslie Stephen's "History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century."

On its appearance I recognized the old effigy of Paine elaborately constructed by Oldys and Cheetham, and while writing a paper on the subject (Fortnightly Review, March, 1879) discovered that those libels were the only "biographies" of Paine in the London Library, which (as I knew) was used by Mr. Stephen. The result was a serious miscarriage of historical and literary justice. In his second edition Mr. Stephen adds that the portrait presented "is drawn by an enemy," but on this Mr.

Robertson pertinently asks why it was allowed to stand? ("Thomas Paine: an Investigation," by John M. Robertson, London, 1888). Mr. Stephen, eminent as an agnostic and editor of a biographical dictionary, is a.s.sumed to be competent, and his disparagements of a fellow heretic necessitated by verified facts. His scholarly style has given new lease to vulgar slanders. Some who had discovered their untruth, as uttered by Paine's personal enemies, have taken them back on Mr. Stephen's authority. Even brave O. B. Frothingham, in his high estimate of Paine, introduces one or two of Mr. Stephen's depreciations (Frothingham's "Recollection and Impressions," 1891).

There has been a sad absence of magnanimity among eminent historians and scholars in dealing with Paine. The vignette in Oldys--Paine with his "Rights of Man" preaching to apes;--the Tract Society's picture of Paine's death-bed--hair on end, grasping a bottle,--might have excited their inquiry. Goethe, seeing Spinoza's face de-monized on a tract, was moved to studies of that philosopher which ended in recognition of his greatness. The chivalry of Goethe is indeed almost as rare as his genius, but one might have expected in students of history an historic instinct keen enough to suspect in the real Paine some proportion to his monumental mythology, and the pyramidal cairn of curses covering his grave. What other last-century writer on political and religious issues survives in the hatred and devotion of a time engaged with new problems?

What power is confessed in that writer who was set in the place of a decadent Satan, hostility to him being a sort of sixth point of Calvinism, and fortieth article of the Church? Large indeed must have been the influence of a man still perennially denounced by sectarians after heretical progress has left him comparatively orthodox, and retained as the figure-head of "Freethought" after his theism has been abandoned by its leaders. "Religion," said Paine, "has two princ.i.p.al enemies, Fanaticism and Infidelity." It was his strange destiny to be made a battle-field between these enemies. In the smoke of the conflict the man has been hidden. In the catalogue of the British Museum Library I counted 327 entries of books by or concerning Thomas Paine, who in most of them is a man-shaped or devil-shaped shuttlec.o.c.k tossed between fanatical and "infidel" rackets.

Here surely were phenomena enough to attract the historic sense of a scientific age, yet they are counterpart of an historic suppression of the most famous author of his time. The meagre references to Paine by other than controversial writers are perfunctory; by most historians he is either wronged or ignored. Before me are two histories of "American Slavery" by eminent members of Congress; neither mentions that Paine was the first political writer who advocated and devised a scheme of emanc.i.p.ation. Here is the latest "Life of Washington" (1889), by another member of Congress, who manages to exclude even the name of the man who, as we shall see, chiefly converted Washington to the cause of independence. And here is a history of the "American Revolution" (1891), by John Fiske, who, while recognizing the effect of "Common Sense,"

reveals his ignorance of that pamphlet, and of all Paine's works, by describing it as full of scurrilous abuse of the English people,--whom Paine regarded as fellow-sufferers with the Americans under royal despotism.

It may be said for these contemporaries that the task of sifting out the facts about Paine was formidable. The intimidated historians of the last generation, pa.s.sing by this famous figure, left an historic vacuum, which has been filled with mingled fact and fable to an extent hardly manageable by any not prepared to give some years to the task. Our historians, might, however, have read Paine's works, which are rather historical doc.u.ments than literary productions. None of them seem to have done this, and the omission appears in many a flaw in their works.

The reader of some doc.u.ments in this volume, left until now to slumber in accessible archives, will get some idea of the cost to historic truth of this long timidity and negligence. But some of the results are more deplorable and irreparable, and one of these must here be disclosed.

In 1802 an English friend of Paine, Redman Yorke, visited him in Paris.

In a letter written at the time Yorke states that Paine had for some time been preparing memoirs of his own life, and his correspondence, and showed him two volumes of the same. In a letter of Jan. 25, 1805, to Jefferson, Paine speaks of his wish to publish his works, which will make, with his ma.n.u.scripts, five octavo volumes of four hundred pages each. Besides which he means to publish "a miscellaneous volume of correspondence, essays, and some pieces of poetry." He had also, he says, prepared historical prefaces, stating the circ.u.mstances under which each work was written. All of which confirms Yorke's statement, and shows that Paine had prepared at least two volumes of autobiographic matter and correspondence. Paine never carried out the design mentioned to Jefferson, and his ma.n.u.scripts pa.s.sed by bequest to Madame Bonneville. This lady, after Paine's death, published a fragment of Paine's third part of "The Age of Reason," but it was afterwards found that she had erased pa.s.sages that might offend the orthodox.

Madame Bonneville returned to her husband in Paris, and the French "Biographical Dictionary" states that in 1829 she, as the depositary of Paine's papers, began "editing" his life. This, which could only have been the autobiography, was never published. She had become a Roman Catholic. On returning (1833) to America, where her son, General Bonneville, also a Catholic, was in military service, she had personal as well as religious reasons for suppressing the memoirs. She might naturally have feared the revival of an old scandal concerning her relations with Paine. The same motives may have prevented her son from publishing Paine's memoirs and ma.n.u.scripts. Madame Bonneville died at the house of the General, in St. Louis. I have a note from his widow, Mrs. Sue Bonneville, in which she says: "The papers you speak of regarding Thomas Paine are all destroyed--at least all which the General had in his possession. On his leaving St. Louis for an indefinite time all his effects--a handsome library and valuable papers included--were stored away, and during his absence the store-house burned down, and all that the General stored away were burned."

There can be little doubt that among these papers burned in St. Louis were the two volumes of Paine's autobiography and correspondence seen by Redman Yorke in 1802. Even a slight acquaintance with Paine's career would enable one to recognize this as a catastrophe. No man was more intimately acquainted with the inside history of the revolutionary movement, or so competent to record it. Franklin had deposited with him his notes and papers concerning the American Revolution. He was the only Girondist who survived the French Revolution who was able to tell their secret history. His personal acquaintance included nearly every great or famous man of his time, in England, America, France. From this witness must have come testimonies, facts, anecdotes, not to be derived from other sources, concerning Franklin, Goldsmith, Ferguson, Rittenhouse, Rush, Fulton, Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, the Adamses, Lees, Morrises, Condorcet, Vergennes, Sieves, Lafayette, Danton, Genet, Brissot, Robespierre, Marat, Burke, Erskine, and a hundred others. All this, and probably invaluable letters from these men, have been lost through the timidity of a woman before the theological "boycott" on the memory of a theist, and the indifference of this country to its most important materials of History.

When I undertook the biography of Edmund Randolph I found that the great ma.s.s of his correspondence had been similarly destroyed by fire in New Orleans, and probably a like fate will befall the Madison papers, Monroe papers, and others, our national neglect of which will appear criminal to posterity. After searching through six States to gather doc.u.ments concerning Randolph which should all have been in Washington City, the writer pet.i.tioned the Library Committee of Congress to initiate some action towards the preservation of our historical ma.n.u.scripts. The Committee promptly and unanimously approved the proposal, a definite scheme was reported by the Librarian of Congress, and--there the matter rests. As the plan does not include any device for advancing partisan interests, it stands a fair chance of remaining in our national _oubliette_ of intellectual _desiderata_.

In writing the "Life of Paine" I have not been saved much labor by predecessors in the same field They have all been rather controversial pamphleteers than biographers, and I have been unable to accept any of their statements without verification. They have been useful, however, in pointing out regions of inquiry, and several of them--Rickman, Sherwin, Linton--contain valuable citations from contemporary papers.

The truest delineation of Paine is the biographical sketch by his friend Rickman. The "Life" by Vale, and sketches by Richard Carlile, Blanchard, and others, belong to the controversial _collectanea_ in which Paine's posthumous career is traceable. The hostile accounts of Paine, chiefly found in tracts and encyclopaedias, are mere repet.i.tions of those written by George Chalmers and James Cheetham.

The first of these was published in 1791 under the t.i.tle: "The Life of Thomas Pain, Author of 'The Rights of Men,' with a Defence of his Writings. By Francis Oldys, A.M., of the University of Pennsylvania.

London. Printed for John Stock-dale, Pickadilly." This writer, who begins his vivisection of Paine by accusing him of adding "e" to his name, a.s.sumed in his own case an imposing pseudonym. George Chalmers never had any connection with the University of Philadelphia, nor any such degree. Sherwin (1819) states that Chalmers admitted having received L500 from Lord Hawksbury, in whose bureau he was a clerk, for writing the book; but though I can find no denial of this I cannot verify it. In his later editions the author claims that his book had checked the influence of Paine, then in England, and his "Rights of Man," which gave the government such alarm that subsidies were paid several journals to counteract their effect. (See the letter of Freching, cited from the Vansitart Papers, British Museum, by W. H.

Smith, in the _Century_, August, 1891.) It is noticeable that Oldys, in his first edition, ent.i.tles his work a "Defence" of Paine's writings--a trick which no doubt carried this elaborate libel into the hands of many "Paineites." The third edition has, "With a Review of his Writings."

In a later edition we find the vignette of Paine surrounded by apes.