The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 31

* 22 Howell's State Trials 357. Other reports are by Joseph Gurney and "by an eminent advocate." The brief evidence consisted mainly of the notes and statements of Paine's publishers already mentioned in connection with the publication of the indicted work. The Attorney-General cited effectively the reply to Paine which he attributed to Vice- President Adams. Publicola's pamphlet gave great comfort to Paine's prosecutors. Mr. Long writes to Mr. Miles, agent in Paris (December 1st), about this "book by the American Adams, which is admirable, proving that the American government is not founded upon the absurd doctrine of the pretended rights of man, and that if it had been it could not have stood for a week."

Erskine's powerful defence of the const.i.tutional rights of thought and speech in England is historical. He built around Paine an enduring const.i.tutional fortress, compelling Burke and Fox to lend aid from their earlier speeches. The fable with which he closed was long remembered.

"Constraint is the natural parent of resistance, and a pregnant proof that reason is not on the side of those who use it. You must all remember, gentlemen, Lucian's pleasant story: Jupiter and a countryman were walking together, conversing with great freedom and familiarity upon the subject of heaven and earth. The countryman listened with attention and acquiescence, while Jupiter strove only to convince him; but happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily around and threatened him with his thunder. 'Ah, ha!' says the countryman, 'now, Jupiter, I know that you are wrong; you are always wrong when you appeal to your thunder.'

"This is the case with me. I can reason with the people of England, but I cannot fight against the thunder of authority."

Mr. Attorney-General arose immediately to reply to Mr. Erskine, when Mr.

Campbell (the foreman of the jury) said: "My Lord, I am authorized by the jury here to inform the Attorney-General that a reply is not necessary for them, unless the Attorney-General wishes to make it, or your Lordship." Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the jury gave in their verdict--Guilty.

Paine was outlawed.

The eye of England followed its outlaw before and after his trial. In the English state archives is a note of G. Munro to Lord Grenville, September 8th, announcing "Mr. Payne's election for the Departement de l'Oise." Earl Gower announces, on information of Mr. Mason, that "Tom Payne is on his road to take his seat." On September 22d a despatch mentions Paine's speech on the judiciary question. "December 17, 1792.

Tom Payne is in the country unwell, or pretending to be so. The most remarkable of the secret despatches, however, are two sent from Paris on the last day of the year 1792. One of these alludes to the effect of Paine's trial and outlawry on the English radicals in Paris:

"Tom Payne's fate and the unanimity of the English has staggered the boldest of them, and they are now dwindling into nothing. Another address was, however, proposed for the National Convention; this motion, I understand, was made by Tom Payne and seconded by Mr. Mery; it was opposed by Mr. Frost, seconded by Mr. McDonald."

The second allusion to Paine on December 31st deserves to be pondered by historians:

"Tom Payne has proposed banishing the royal family of France, and I have heard is writing his opinion on the subject; his consequence seems daily lessening in this country, and I should never be surprised if he some day receives the fate he merits."

It thus seems that whatever good deed Paine was about, he deserves death. Earl Gower, and the agents he left on his departure (September) in Paris, must have known that Paine's proposal was the only alternative of the king's execution, and that if his consequence was lessening it was solely because of labors to save the lives of the royal family. This humane man has the death-sentence of Robespierre on him antic.i.p.ated by the amba.s.sador of a country which, while affecting grief for Louis XVI., was helping on his fate.* Danton said to Count Theodore de Lameth:

"I am willing to try and save the King, but I must have a million of money to buy up the necessary votes, and the money must be on hand in eight days. I warn you that although I may save his life I shall vote for his death; I am quite willing to save his head, but not to lose mine."

{1793}

The Count and the Spanish Amba.s.sador broached the matter to Pitt, who refused the money.** He was not willing to spend a few thousands to save the life of America's friend, though he made his death a pretext for exhausting his treasury to deluge Europe with blood.

Gouverneur Morris, whose dislike of Paine's republicanism was equally cynical,*** was intimate with Earl Gower, and no doubt gave him his information.

* After September it was, as Talleyrand says, "no longer a question that the king should reign, but that he himself, the queen, their children, his sister, should be saved. It might have been done. It was at least a duty to attempt it.

At that time France was only at war with the Emperor [Austria], the Empire [the German states], and Sardinia, Had all the other states concerted themselves to offer their mediation by proposing to recognise whatever form of government France might be pleased to adopt, with the sole condition that the prisoners in the Temple should be allowed to leave the country and retire wherever they liked, though such a proposal, as may be supposed, would not have filled the demagogues with delight, they would have been powerless to resist it."--Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand. New York, 1891, i., p. 168.

** Taine's "French Revolution" (American ed.), iii., p.

135. See also the "Correspondence of W. A. Miles on the French Revolution," London, 1890, i., p. 398. The Abbe Noel, a month before the king's death, pointed out to this British agent how he might be saved.

*** In relating to John Randolph of Roanoke Paine's exposure of Silas Deane, Morris regards it as the prevention of a fraud, but nevertheless thinks Paine deserved punishment for his "impudence"!

Morris was clear-headed enough to perceive that the ma.s.sacres in France were mainly due to the menaces of foreign monarchs, and was in hearty sympathy with Paine's plan for saving the life of Louis XVI. On December 28th he writes to Washington that a majority of the Convention

"...have it in contemplation not only to refer the judgment to the electors of France, that is, to her people, but also to send him and his family to America, which Paine is to move for. He mentioned this to me in confidence, but I have since heard it from another quarter."

On January 6, 1793, Morris writes to Washington concerning Genet, the new Minister to the United States, who had been introduced to him by Paine, and dined with him. At the close he says:

"The King's fate is to be decided next Monday the 14th. That unhappy man, conversing with one of his council on his own fate, calmly summed up the motives of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the Council [Convention] would vote for referring his case to the people, and that in consequence he should be ma.s.sacred. I think he must die or reign."

Paine also feared that a reference to the populace meant death. He had counted a majority in the Convention who were opposed to the execution.

Submission of the question to the ma.s.ses would thus, if his majority stood firm, be risking the life of Louis again. Unfortunately this question had to be determined before the vote on life or death. At the opening of the year 1793 he felt cheerful about the situation. On January 3d he wrote to John King, a retreating comrade in England, as follows:

"Dear King,--I don't know anything, these many years, that surprised and hurt me more than the sentiments you published in the Courtly Herald, the 12th December, signed John King, Egham Lodge. You have gone back from all you ever said. When I first knew you in Ailiffe-street, an obscure part of the city, a child, without fortune or friends, I noticed you; because I thought I saw in you, young as you was, a bluntness of temper, a boldness of opinion, and an originality of thought, that portended some future good. I was pleased to discuss with you, under our friend Oliver's lime-tree, those political notions which I have since given the world in my 'Rights of Man.'

"You used to complain of abuses as well as me. What, then, means this sudden attachment to Kings? this fondness of the English Government, and hatred of the French? If you mean to curry favour, by aiding your Government, you are mistaken; they never recompence those who serve it; they buy off those who can annoy it, and let the good that is rendered it be its own reward. Believe me, King, more is to be obtained by cherishing the rising spirit of the People, than by subduing it.

Follow my fortunes, and I will be answerable that you shall make your own.--Thomas Paine."*

* "Mr. King's Speech, at Egham, with Thomas Paine's Letter,"

etc Egham, 1793. In his reply, January 11th, King says: "Such men as Frost, Barlow, and others, your a.s.sociates, show the forlornness of your cause. Our respectable citizens do not go to you," etc. Writing February 11th, King expresses satisfaction at Paine's vote on the King's fate: "the imputation of cruelty will not now be added to the other censures on your character; but the catastrophe of this unhappy Monarch has shewn you the danger of putting a nation in ferment."

This last sentence may even now raise a smile. King must subsequently have reflected with satisfaction that he did not "follow the fortunes"

of Paine, which led him into prison at the end of the year. A third letter from him to Paine appeared in the _Morning Herald_, April 17, 1793, in which he says:

"'If the French kill their king, it will be a signal for my departure, for I will not abide among such sanguinary men.' These, Mr. Paine, were your words at our last meeting; yet after this you are not only with them, but the chief modeller of their new Const.i.tution."

Mr. King might have reflected that the author of the "Rights of Man,"

which he had admired, was personally safer in regicide France than in liberticide England, which had outlawed him.

END OF VOL. I.