The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 18

Accustom a people to believe that priests, or any other cla.s.s of men, can forgive sins, and you will have sins in abundance."

While Thomas Paine was thus founding; in Paris a religion of love to G.o.d expressed in love to man, his enemies in England were ill.u.s.trating by characteristic fruits the dogmas based on a human sacrifice. The ascendency of the priesthood of one church over others, which he was resisting in France, was exemplified across the channel in the prosecution of his publisher, and the confiscation of a thousand pounds which had somehow fallen due to Paine.* The "Age of Reason," amply advertised by its opponents, had reached a vast circulation, and a prosecution of its publisher, Thomas Williams, for blasphemy, was inst.i.tuted in the King's Bench. Williams being a poor man, the defence was sustained by a subscription.**

* This loss, mentioned by Paine in a private note, occurred about the time when he had devoted the proceeds of his pamphlet on English Finance, a very large sum, to prisoners held for debt in Newgate. I suppose the thousand pounds were the proceeds of the "Age of Reason."

** Subscriptions (says his circular) will be received by J.

Ashley, Shoemaker, No. 6 High Holborn; C. Cooper, Grocer, New Compton St., Soho; G. Wilkinson, Printer, No. 115 Sh.o.r.editch; J. Rhynd, Printer, Ray St., Clerkenwell; R.

Hodgson, Hatter, No. 29 Brook St., Holborn. It will be observed that the defence of free printing had fallen to humble people.

The trial occurred June 24th. The extent to which the English reign of terror had gone was shown in the fact that Erskine was now the prosecutor; he who five years before had defended the "Rights of Man,"

who had left the court in a carriage drawn by the people, now stood in the same room to a.s.sail the most sacred of rights. He began with a menace to the defendant's counsel (S. Kyd) on account of a notice served on the prosecution, foreshadowing a search into the Scriptures.*

* "The King v. Thomas Williams for Blasphemy.--Take notice that the Prosecutors of the Indictment against the above named Defendant will upon the Trial of this cause be required to produce a certain Book described in the said Indictment to be the Holy Bible.--John Martin. Solicitor for the Defendant. Dated the 17th day of June 1797."

"No man," he cried, "deserves to be upon the Rolls of the Court who dares, as an Attorney, to put his name to such a notice. It is an insult to the authority and dignity of the Court of which he is an officer; since it seems to call in question the very foundations of its jurisdiction." So soon did Erskine point the satire of the fable he quoted from Lucian, in Paine's defence, of Jupiter answering arguments with thunderbolts. Erskine's argument was that the King had taken a solemn oath "to maintain the Christian Religion as it is promulgated by G.o.d in the Holy Scriptures." "Every man has a right to investigate, with modesty and decency, controversial points of the Christian religion; but no man, consistently with a law which only exists under its sanction, has a right not only broadly to deny its very existence, but to pour forth a shocking and insulting invective, etc." The law, he said, permits, by a like principle, the intercourse between the s.e.xes to be set forth in plays and novels, but punishes such as "address the imagination in a manner to lead the pa.s.sions into dangerous excesses."

Erskine read several pa.s.sages from the "Age of Reason," which, their main point being omitted, seemed mere aimless abuse. In his speech, he quoted as Paine's words of his own collocation, representing the author as saying, "The Bible teaches nothing but 'lies, obscenity, cruelty, and injustice.'" This is his entire and inaccurate rendering of what Paine,--who always distinguishes the "Bible" from the "New Testament,"--says at the close of his comment on the ma.s.sacre of the Midianites and appropriation of their maidens:

"People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended word of G.o.d. Brought up in habits of superst.i.tion, they take it for granted that the Bible [Old Testament] is true, and that it is good; they permit themselves not to doubt it; and they carry the ideas they form of the benevolence of the Almighty to the book they have been taught to believe was written by his authority. Good heavens! it is quite another thing! it is a book of lies, wickedness, and blasphemy; for what can be greater blasphemy than to ascribe the wickedness of man to the orders of the Almighty?"

Erskine argued that the sanction of Law was the oath by which judges, juries, witnesses administered law and justice under a belief in "the revelation of the unutterable blessings which shall attend their observances, and the awful punishments which shall await upon their transgressions." The rest of his opening argument was, mainly, that great men had believed in Christianity.

Mr. Kyd, in replying, quoted from the Bishop of Llandaff's "Answer to Gibbon": "I look upon the right of private judgment, in every respect concerning G.o.d and ourselves, as superior to the control of human authority"; and his claim that the Church of England is distinguished from Mahometanism and Romanism by its permission of every man to utter his opinion freely. He also cites Dr. Lardner, and Dr. Waddington, the Bishop of Chichester, who declared that Woolston "ought not to be punished for being an infidel, nor for writing against the Christian religion." He quoted Paine's profession of faith on the first page of the incriminated book: "I believe in one G.o.d and no more; I hope for happiness, beyond this life; I believe in the equality of men, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow creatures happy." He also quoted Paine's homage to the character of Jesus. He defied the prosecution to find in the "Age of Reason" a single pa.s.sage "inconsistent with the most chaste, the most correct system of morals," and declared the very pa.s.sages selected for indictment pleas against obscenity and cruelty.

Mr. Kyd pointed out fourteen narratives in the Bible (such as Sarah giving Hagar to Abraham, Lot and his daughters, etc.) which, if found in any other book, would be p.r.o.nounced obscene. He was about to enumerate instances of cruelty when the judge, Lord Kenyon, indignantly interrupted him, and with consent of the jury said he could only allow him to cite such pa.s.sages without reading them. (Mr. Kyd gratefully acknowledged this release from the "painful task" of reading such horrors from the "Word of G.o.d"!) One of the interesting things about this trial was the disclosure of the general reliance on Butler's "a.n.a.logy," used by Bishop Watson in his reply to Paine,--namely, that the cruelties objected to in the G.o.d of the Bible are equally found in nature, through which deists look up to their G.o.d. When Kyd, after quoting from Bishop Watson, said, "Gentlemen, observe the weakness of this answer," Lord Kenyon exclaimed: "I cannot sit in this place and hear this kind of discussion." Kyd said: "My Lord, I stand here on the privilege of an advocate in an English Court of Justice: this man has applied to me to defend him; I have undertaken his defence; and I have often heard your Lordship declare, that every man had a right to be defended. I know no other mode by which I can seriously defend him against this charge, than that which I am now pursuing; if your Lordship wish to prevent me from pursuing it, you may as well tell me to abandon my duty to my client at once." Lord Kenyon said: "Go on, Sir." Returning to the a.n.a.logy of the divinely ordered ma.s.sacres in the Bible with the like in nature, Kyd said:

"Gentlemen, this is reasoning by comparison; and reasoning by comparison is often fallacious. On the present occasion the fallacy is this: that, in the first case, the persons perish by the operation of the general laws of nature, not suffering punishment for a crime; whereas, in the latter, the general laws of nature are suspended or transgressed, and G.o.d commands the slaughter to avenge his offended will. Is this then a satisfactory answer to the objection? I think it is not; another may think so too; which it may be fairly supposed the Author did; and then the objection, as to him, remains in full force, and he cannot, from insisting upon it, be fairly accused of malevolent intention."

In his answer Erskine said: "The history of man is the history of man's vices and pa.s.sions, which could not be censured without adverting to their existence; many of the instances that have been referred to were recorded as memorable warnings and examples for the instruction of mankind." But for this argument Erskine was indebted to his old client, Paine, who did not argue against the things being recorded, but against the belief "that the inhuman and horrid butcheries of men, women, and children, told of in those books, were done, as those books say they were done, at the command of G.o.d." Paine says: "Those accounts are nothing to us, nor to any other persons, unless it be to the Jews, as a part of the history of their nation; and there is just as much of the word of G.o.d in those books as there is in any of the histories of France, or Rapin's 'History of England,' or the history of any other country."

As in Paines own trial in 1792, the infallible scheme of a special jury was used against Williams. Lord Kenyon closed his charge with the words: "Unless it was for the most malignant purposes, I cannot conceive how it was published. It is, however, for you to judge of it, and to do justice between the Public and the Defendant."

"The jury instantly found the Defendant--Guilty."

Paine at once wrote a letter to Erskine, which was first printed in Paris. He calls attention to the injustice of the special jury system, in which all the jurymen are nominated by the crown. In London a special jury generally consists of merchants. "Talk to some London merchants about scripture, and they will understand you mean scrip, and tell you how much it is worth at the Stock Exchange. Ask them about Theology, and they will say they know no such gentleman upon 'Change." He also declares that Lord Kenyon's course in preventing Mr. Kyd from reading pa.s.sages from the Bible was irregular, and contrary to words, which he cites, used by the same judge in another case.

This Letter to Erskine contains some effective pa.s.sages. In one of these he points out the sophistical character of the indictment in declaring the "Age of Reason" a blasphemous work, tending to bring in contempt the holy scriptures. "The charge should have stated that the work was intended to prove certain books not the holy scriptures. It is one thing if I ridicule a work as being written by a certain person; but it is quite a different thing if I write to prove that such a work was not written by such person. In the first case I attack the person through the work; in the other case I defend the honour of the person against the work." After alluding to the two accounts in Genesis of the creation of man, according to one of which there was no Garden of Eden and no forbidden tree, Paine says:

"Perhaps I shall be told in the cant language of the day, as I have often been told by the Bishop of Llandaff and others, of the great and laudable pains that many pious and learned men have taken to explain the obscure, and reconcile the contradictory, or, as they say, the seemingly contradictory pa.s.sages of the Bible. It is because the Bible needs such an undertaking, that is one of the first causes to suspect it is _not_ the word of G.o.d: this single reflection, when carried home to the mind, is in itself a volume. What! does not the Creator of the Universe, the Fountain of all Wisdom, the Origin of all Science, the Author of all Knowledge, the G.o.d of Order and of Harmony, know how to write? When we contemplate the vast economy of the creation, when we behold the unerring regularity of the visible solar system, the perfection with which all its several parts revolve, and by corresponding a.s.semblage form a whole;--when we launch our eye into the boundless ocean of s.p.a.ce, and see ourselves surrounded by innumerable worlds, not one of which varies from its appointed place--when we trace the power of a Creator, from a mite to an elephant, from an atom to an universe, can we suppose that the mind [which] could conceive such a design, and the power that executed it with incomparable perfection, cannot write without inconsistence; or that a book so written can be the work of such a power? The writings of Thomas Paine, even of Thomas Paine, need no commentator to explain, compound, arrange, and re-arrange their several parts, to render them intelligible--he can relate a fact, or write an essay, without forgetting in one page what he has written in another; certainly then, did the G.o.d of all perfection condescend to write or dictate a book, that book would be as perfect as himself is perfect: The Bible is not so, and it is confessedly not so, by the attempts to mend it."

Paine admonishes Erskine that a prosecution to preserve G.o.d's word, were it really G.o.d's word, would be like a prosecution to prevent the sun from falling out of heaven; also that he should be able to comprehend that the motives of those who declare the Bible not G.o.d's word are religious. He then gives him an account of the new church of Theophilanthropists in Paris, and appends his discourse before that society.

In the following year, Paine's discourse to the Theophilanthropists was separately printed by Clio Rickman, with a sentence from Shakespeare in the t.i.tle-page: "I had as lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality of imprisonment" There was also the following dedication:

"The following little Discourse is dedicated to the enemies of Thomas Paine, by one who has known him long and intimately, and who is convinced that he is the enemy of no man. It is printed to do good, by a well wisher to the world. By one who thinks that discussion should be unlimited, that all coercion is error; and that human beings should adopt no other conduct towards each other but an appeal to truth and reason."

Paine wrote privately, in the same sense as to Erskine, to his remonstrating friends. In one such letter (May 12th) he goes again partly over the ground. "You," he says, "believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other _infidel_. This answer to your letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem, that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious belief in G.o.d." "All are infidels who believe falsely of G.o.d." "Belief in a cruel G.o.d makes a cruel man."

Paine had for some time been attaining unique fame in England. Some publisher had found it worth while to issue a book, ent.i.tled "Tom Paine's Jests: Being an entirely new and select Collection of Patriotic Bon Mots, Repartees, Anecdotes, Epigrams, &c, on Political Subjects. By Thomas Paine." There are hardly a half dozen items by Paine in the book (72 pages), which shows that his name was considered marketable. The government had made the author a cause. Erskine, who had lost his office as Attorney-General for the Prince of Wales by becoming Paine's counsel in 1792, was at once taken back into favor after prosecuting the "Age of Reason," and put on his way to become Lord Erskine. The imprisonment of Williams caused a reaction in the minds of those who had turned against Paine. Christianity suffered under royal patronage. The terror manifested at the name of Paine--some were arrested even for showing his portrait--was felt to be political. None of the aristocratic deists, who wrote for the upper cla.s.ses, were dealt with in the same way. Paine had proclaimed from the housetops what, as Dr. Watson confessed, scholars were whispering in the ear. There were lampoons of Paine, such as those of Peter Pindar (Rev. John Wolcott), but they only served to whet popular curiosity concerning him.* The "Age of Reason" had pa.s.sed through several editions before it was outlawed, and every copy of it pa.s.sed through many hands. From the prosecution and imprisonment of Williams may be dated the consolidation of the movement for the "Rights of Man," with antagonism to the kind of Christianity which that injustice ill.u.s.trated. Political liberalism and heresy thenceforth progressed in England, hand in hand.

* "I have preserved," says Royall Tyler, "an epigram of Peter Pindar's, written originally in a blank leaf of a copy of Paine's 'Age of Reason,' and not inserted in any of his works.

"'Tommy Paine wrote this book to prove that the bible Was an old woman's dream of fancies most idle; That Solomon's proverbs were made by low livers, That prophets were fellows who sang semiquavers; That religion and miracles all were a jest, And the devil in torment a tale of the priest. Though Beelzebub's absence from h.e.l.l I 'll maintain! Yet we all must allow that the Devil's in Paine.'"

CHAPTER XIV. THE REPUBLICAN ABDIEL

The sight of James Monroe and Thomas Paine in France, representing Republican America, was more than Gouverneur Morris could stand. He sent to Washington the abominable slander of Monroe already quoted (ii., p.

173), and the Minister's recall came at the close of 1796.* Monroe could not sail in midwinter with his family, so they remained until the following spring. Paine made preparations to return to America with them, and accompanied them to Havre; but he found so many "british frigates cruising in sight" (so he writes Jefferson) that he did not "trust [himself] to their discretion, and the more so as [he] had no confidence in the Captain of the Dublin Packet" Sure enough this Captain Clay was friendly enough with the British cruiser which lay in wait to catch Paine, but only succeeded in finding his letter to Jefferson.

Before returning from Havre to Paris he wrote another letter to Vice-President Jefferson.

* This sudden recall involved Monroe in heavy expenses, which Congress afterwards repaid. I am indebted to Mr.

Frederick McGuire, of Washington, for the ma.n.u.script of Monroe's statement of his expenses and annoyances caused by his recall, which he declares due to "the representations which were made to him [Washington] by those in whom he confided." He states that Paine remained in his house a year and a half, and that be advanced him 250 louis d'or. For these services to Paine, he adds, "no claims were ever presented on my part, nor is any indemnity now desired."

This money was repaid ($1,188) to Monroe by an Act of Congress, April 7, 1831. The advances are stated in the Act to have been made "from time to time," and were no doubt regarded by both Paine and Monroe as compensated by the many services rendered by the author to the Legation.

"Havre, May 14th, 1797.

"Dear Sir,--I wrote to you by the Ship Dublin Packet, Captain Clay, mentioning my intention to have returned to America by that Vessel, and to have suggested to some Member of the House of Representatives the propriety of calling Mr. Monroe before them to have enquired into the state of their affairs in France. This might have laid the foundation for some resolves on their part that might have led to an accommodation with France, for that House is the only part of the American Government that have any reputation here. I apprised Mr. Monroe of my design, and he wishes to be called up.

"You will have heard before this reaches you that the Emperor has been obliged to sue for peace, and to consent to the establishment of the new republic in Lombardy. How France will proceed with respect to England, I am not, at this distance from Paris, in the way of knowing, but am inclined to think she meditates a descent upon that Country, and a revolution in its Government. If this should be the plan, it will keep me in Europe at least another year.

"As the british party has thrown the American commerce into wretched confusion, it is necessary to pay more attention to the appointment of Consuls in the ports of france, than there was occasion to do in time of peace; especially as there is now no Minister, and Mr. Skipwith, who stood well with the Government here, has resigned. Mr. Cutting, the Consul for Havre, does not reside at it, and the business is altogether in the hands of De la Motte, the Vice Consul, who is a frenchman, [and]

cannot have the full authority proper for the office in the difficult state matters are now in. I do not mention this to the disadvantage of Mr. Cutting, for no man is more proper than himself if he thought it an object to attend to.

"I know not if you are acquainted with Captain Johnson of Ma.s.sachusetts--he is a staunch man and one of the oldest American Captains in the American employ. He is now settled at Havre and is a more proper man for a Vice Consul than La Motte. You can learn his character from Mr. Monroe. He has written to some of his friends to have the appointment and if you can see an opportunity of throwing in a little service for him, you will do a good thing. We have had several reports of Mr. Madison's coming. He would be well received as an individual, but as an Envoy of John Adams he could do nothing.

"Thomas Paine."

The following, in Paine's handwriting, is copied from the original in the Morrison papers, at the British Museum. It was written in the summer of 1797, when Lord Malmsbury was at Lille in negotiation for peace.

The negotiations were broken off because the English commissioners were unauthorized to make the demanded restorations to Holland and Spain.

Paine's essay was no doubt sent to the Directory in the interests of peace, suggesting as it does a compromise, as regards the Cape of Good Hope.

"Cape of Good Hope.--It is very well known that Dun-das, the English Minister for Indian affairs, is tenacious of holding the Cape of Good Hope, because it will give to the English East India Company a monopoly of the commerce of India; and this, on the other hand, is the very reason that such a claim is inadmissible by France, and by all the nations trading in India and to Canton, and would also be injurious to Canton itself.--We pretend not to know anything of the negociations at Lille, but it is very easy to see, from the nature of the case, what ought to be the condition of the Cape. It ought to be a free port open to the vessels of all nations trading to any part of the East Indias. It ought also to be a neutral port at all times, under the guarantee of all nations; the expense of keeping the port in constant repair to be defrayed by a tonnage tax to be paid by every vessel, whether of commerce or of war, and in proportion to the time of their stay.--Nothing then remains but with respect to the nation who shall be the port-master; and this ought to be the Dutch, because they understand the business best. As the Cape is a half-way stage between Europe and India, it ought to be considered as a tavern, where travellers on a long journey put up for rest and refreshment.--T. P."

The suspension of peace negotiations,* and the bloodless defeat of Pichigru's conspiracy of 18 Fructidor (September 4th) were followed by a pamphlet addressed to "The People of France and the French Armies." This little work is of historical value, in connection with 18 Fructidor, but it was evidently written to carry two practical points. The first was, that if the war with England must continue it should be directed to the end of breaking the Anglo-Germanic compact. England has the right to her internal arrangements, but this is an external matter. While "with respect to England it has been the cause of her immense national debt, the ruin of her finances, and the insolvency of her bank," English intrigues on the continent "are generated by, and act through, the medium of this Anglo-Germanic compound. It will be necessary to dissolve it. Let the elector retire to his electorate, and the world will have peace." Paine's other main point is, that the neutral nations should secure, in time of war, an unarmed neutrality.

* In a letter to Duane, many years later, Paine relates the following story concerning the British Union: "When Lord Malmsbury arrived in Paris, in the time of the Directory Government, to open a negociation for a peace, his credentials ran in the old style of 'George, by the grace of G.o.d, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, king.' Malmsbury was informed that although the a.s.sumed t.i.tle of king of France, in his credentials, would not prevent France opening a negociation, yet that no treaty of peace could be concluded until that a.s.sumed t.i.tle was removed. Pitt then hit on the Union. Bill, under which the a.s.sumed t.i.tle of king of France was discontinued."

"Were the neutral nations to a.s.sociate, under an honorable injunction of fidelity to each other, and publickly declare to the world, that if any belligerent power shall seize or molest any ship or vessel belonging to the citizens or subjects of any of the powers composing that a.s.sociation, that the whole a.s.sociation will shut its ports against the flag of the offending nation, and will not permit any goods, wares, or merchandize, produced or manufactured in the offending nation, or appertaining thereto, to be imported into any of the ports included in the a.s.sociation, until reparation be made to the injured party; the reparation to be three times the value of the vessel and cargo; and moreover that all remittances in money, goods, and bills of exchange, do cease to be made to the offending nation, until the said reparation be made. Were the neutral nations only to do this, which it is their direct interest to do, England, as a nation depending on the commerce of neutral nations in time of war, dare not molest them, and France would not But whilst, from want of a common system, they individually permit England to do it, because individually they cannot resist it, they put France under the necessity of doing the same thing. The supreme of all laws, in all cases, is that of self-preservation."

It is a notable ill.u.s.tration of the wayward course of political evolution, that the English republic--for it is such--grew largely out of the very parts of its const.i.tution once so oppressive. The foreign origin of the royal family helped to form its wholesome timidity about meddling with politics, allowing thus a development of ministerial government. The hereditary character of the throne, which George III.'s half-insane condition a.s.sociated with the recklessness of irresponsibility, was by his complete insanity made to serve ministerial independence. Regency is timid about claiming power, and childhood cannot exercise it. The decline of royal and aristocratic authority in England secured freedom to commerce, which necessarily gave hostages to peace. The protection of neutral commerce at sea, concerning which Paine wrote so much, ultimately resulted from English naval strength, which formerly scourged the world.

To Paine, England, at the close of 1797, could appear only as a dragon-guarded prison of fair Humanity. The press was paralyzed, thinkers and publishers were in prison, some of the old orators like Erskine were bought up, and the forlorn hope of liberty rested only with Fox and his fifty in Parliament, overborne by a majority made brutal by strength. The groans of imprisoned thought in his native land reached its outlawed representative in Paris. And at the same time the inhuman decree went forth from that country that there should be no peace with France. It had long been his conviction that the readiness of Great Britain to go to war was due to an insular position that kept the horrors at a distance. War never came home to her. This conviction, which we have several times met in these pages, returned to him with new force when England now insisted on more bloodshed. He was convinced that the right course of France would be to make a descent on England, ship the royal family to Hanover, open the political prisons, and secure the people freedom to make a Const.i.tution. These views, freely expressed to his friends of the Directory and Legislature, reached the ears of Napoleon on his triumphal return from Italy.

The great man called upon Paine in his little room, and invited him to dinner. He made the eloquent professions of republicanism so characteristic of Napoleons until they became pretenders. He told Paine that he slept with the "Rights of Man" under his pillow, and that its author ought to have a statue of gold.*

* Rickman, p. 164.

He consulted Paine about a descent on England, and adopted the plan. He invited the author to accompany the expedition, which was to consist of a thousand gun-boats, with a hundred men each. Paine consented, "as [so he wrote Jefferson] the intention of the expedition was to give the people of England an opportunity of forming a government for themselves, and thereby bring about peace." One of the points to be aimed at was Norfolk, and no doubt Paine indulged a happy vision of standing once more in Thetford and proclaiming liberty throughout the land!