The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume II Part 28

Paine had in New York the most formidable of enemies,--an enemy with a newspaper. This was James Cheetham, of whom something has been said in the preface to this work (p. xvi.). In addition to what is there stated, it may be mentioned that Paine had observed, soon after he came to New York, the shifty course of this man's paper, _The American Citizen_.

But it was the only republican paper in New York, supported Governor Clinton, for which it had reason, since it had the State printing,--and Colonel Fellows advised that Cheetham should not be attacked. Cheetham had been an attendant on Elihu Palmer's lectures, and after his partic.i.p.ation in the dinner to Paine, his federalist opponent, the _Evening Post_, alluded to his being at Palmer's. Thereupon Cheetham declared that he had not heard Palmer for two years. In the winter of 1804 he casually spoke of Paine's "mischievous doctrines." In the following year, when Paine wrote the defence of Jefferson's personal character already alluded to, Cheetham omitted a reference in it to Alexander Hamilton's pamphlet, by which he escaped accusation of official defalcation by confessing an amorous intrigue.*

* "I see that Cheetham has left out the part respecting Hamilton and Mrs. Reynolds, but for my own part I wish it had been in. Had the story never been publicly told I would not have been the first to tell it; but Hamilton had told it himself, and therefore it was no secret; but my motive in introducing it was because it was applicable to the subject I was upon, and to show the revilers of Mr.

Jefferson that while they are affecting a morality of horror at an unproved and unfounded story about Mr. Jefferson, they had better look at home and give vent to their horror, if they had any, at a real case of their own Dagon (sic) and his Delilah."--Paine to Colonel Fellows, July 31, 1805.

Cheetham having been wont to write of Hamilton as "the gallant of Mrs.

Reynolds," Paine did not give much credit to the pretext of respect for the dead, on which the suppression was justified. He was prepared to admit that his allusion might be fairly suppressed, but perceived that the omission was made merely to give Cheetham a chance for vaunting his superior delicacy, and casting a suspicion on Paine. "Cheetham," wrote Paine, "might as well have put the part in, as put in the reasons for which he left it out. Those reasons leave people to suspect that the part suppressed related to some new discovered immorality in Hamilton worse than the old story."

About the same time with Paine, an Irishman came to America, and, after travelling about the country a good deal, established a paper in New York called _The People's Friend_. This paper began a furious onslaught on the French, professed to have advices that Napoleon meant to retake New Orleans, and urged an offensive alliance of the United States with England against France and Spain. These articles appeared in the early autumn of 1806, when, as we have seen, Paine was especially beset by personal worries. They made him frantic. His denunciations, merited as they were, of this a.s.sailant of France reveal the unstrung condition of the old author's nerves. Duane, of the Philadelphia _Aurora_, recognized in Carpenter a man he had seen in Calcutta, where he bore the name of Cullen. It was then found that he had on his arrival in America borne the _alias_ of Mac-cullen. Paine declared that he was an "emissary"

sent to this country by Windham, and indeed most persons were at length satisfied that such was the case. Paine insisted that loyalty to our French alliance demanded Cullen's expulsion. His exposures of "the emissary Cullen" (who disappeared) were printed in a new republican paper in New York, _The Public Advertiser_, edited by Mr. Frank. The combat drew public attention to the new paper, and Cheetham was probably enraged by Paines transfer of his pen to Frank. In 1807, Paine had a large following in New York, his friends being none the less influential among the ma.s.ses because not in the fashionable world Moreover, the very popular Mayor of New York, De Witt Clinton, was a hearty admirer of Paine. So Cheetham's paper suffered sadly, and he opened his guns on Paine, declaring that in the Revolution he (Paine) "had stuck very correctly to his pen in a safe retreat," that his "Rights of Man" merely repeated Locke, and so forth. He also began to denounce France and applaud England, which led to the belief that, having lost republican patronage, Cheetham was aiming to get that of England.

In a "Reply to Cheetham" (August 21st), Paine met personalities in kind.

"Mr. Cheetham, in his rage for attacking everybody and everything that is not his own (for he is an ugly-tempered man, and he carries the evidence of it in the vulgarity and forbiddingness of his countenance--G.o.d has set a mark upon Cain), has attacked me, etc." In reply to further attacks, Paine printed a piece headed "Cheetham and his Tory Paper." He said that Cheetham was discovering symptoms of being the successor of Cullen, _alias_ Carpenter. "Like him he is seeking to involve the United States in a quarrel with France for the benefit of England." This article caused a duel between the rival editors, Cheetham and Frank, which seems to have been harmless. Paine wrote a letter to the _Evening Post_, saying that he had entreated Frank to answer Cheetham's challenge by declaring that he (Paine) had written the article and was the man to be called to account. In company Paine mentioned an opinion expressed by the President in a letter just received. This got into the papers, and Cheetham declared that the President could not have so written, and that Paine was intoxicated when he said so. For this Paine inst.i.tuted a suit against Cheetham for slander, but died before any trial.

Paine had prevailed with his pen, but a terrible revenge was plotted against his good name. The farrier William Carver, in whose house he had lived, turned Judas, and concocted with Cheetham the libels against Paine that have pa.s.sed as history.

CHAPTER XIX. PERSONAL TRAITS

On July 1, 1806, two young English gentlemen, Daniel and William Constable, arrived in New York, and for some years travelled about the country. The Diary kept by Daniel Constable has been shown me by his nephew, Clair J. Grece, LL.D. It contains interesting allusions to Paine, to whom they brought an introduction from Rickman.

"July 1. To the Globe, in Maiden Lane, to dine. Mr. Segar at the Globe offered to send for Mr. Paine, who lived only a few doors off: He seemed a true Painite.

"3d. William and I went to see Thomas Paine. When we first called he was taking a nap.... Back to Mr. Paine's about 5 o'clock, sat about an hour with him.... I meant to have had T. Paine in a carriage with me to-morrow, and went to inquire for one. The price was $1 per hour, but when I proposed it to T. P. he declined it on account of his health.

"4th. Friday. Fine clear day. The annual Festival of Independence. We were up by five o'clock, and on the battery saw the cannons fired, in commemoration of liberty, which had been employed by the English against the sacred cause. The people seemed to enter into the spirit of the day: stores &c were generally shut.... In the fore part of the day I had the honour of walking with T. Paine along the Broadway. The day finished peaceably, and we saw no scenes of quarreling or drunkenness.

"14. A very hot day. Evening, met T. Paine in the Broadway and walked with him to his house.

"Oct. 29 [on returning from a journey]. Called to see T. Paine, who was walking about Carver's shop."

"Nov. 1. Changed snuff-boxes with T. Paine at his lodgings.* The old philosopher, in bed at 4 o'clock afternoon, seems as talkative and well as when we saw him in the summer."

* Dr. Grece showed me Paine's papier-mache snuff-box, which his uncle had fitted with silver plate, inscription, decorative eagle, and banner of "Liberty, Equality." It is kept in a jewel-box with an engraving of Paine on the lid.

In a letter written jointly by the brothers to their parents, dated July 5th, they say that Paine "begins to feel the effects of age. The print I left at Horley is a very strong likeness. He lives with a small family who came from Lewes [Carvers] quite retired, and but little known or noticed." They here also speak of "the honour of walking with our old friend T. Paine in the midst of the bustle on Independence Day." There is no suggestion, either here or in the Diary, that these gentlemen of culture and position observed anything in the appearance or habits of Paine that diminished the pleasure of meeting him. In November they travelled down the Mississippi, and on their return to New York, nine months later, they heard (July 20, 1807) foul charges against Paine from Carver. "Paine has left his house, and they have had a violent disagreement. Carver charges Paine with many foul vices, as debauchery, lying, ingrat.i.tude, and a total want of common honour in all his actions, says that he drinks regularly a quart of brandy per day." But next day they call on Paine, in "the Bowery road," and William Constable writes:

"He looks better than last year. He read us an essay on national defence, comparing the different expenses and powers of gunboats and ships of war and, batteries in protecting a sea coast; and gave D. C.

[Daniel Constable] a copy of his Examination of the texts of scriptures called prophecies, etc. which he published a short time since. He says that this work is of too high a cut for the priests and that they will not touch it."

These brothers Constable met Fulton, a friend of Paine's just then experimenting with his steam-boat on the Hudson. They also found that a scandal had been caused by a report brought to the British Consul that thirty pa.s.sengers on the ship by which they (the Constables) came, had "the Bible bound up with the 'Age of Reason,' and that they spoke in very disrespectful terms of the mother country." Paine had left his farm at New Roch.e.l.le, at which place the travellers heard stories of his slovenliness, also that he was penurious, though nothing was said of intemperance.

Inquiry among aged residents of New Roch.e.l.le has been made from time to time for a great many years. The Hon. J. B. Stallo, late U. S. Minister to Italy, told me that in early life he visited the place and saw persons who had known Paine, and declared that Paine resided there without fault. Paine lived for a time with Mr. Staple, brother of the influential Captain Pelton, and the adoption of Paine's religious views by some of these persons caused the odium.* Paine sometimes preached at New Roch.e.l.le.

* Mr. Burger, Pelton's clerk, used to drive Paine about daily. Vale says:

"He [Burger] describes Mr. Paine as really abstemious, and when pressed to drink by those on whom he called during his rides, he usually refused with great firmness, but politely.

In one of these rides he was met by De Witt Clinton, and their mutual greetings were extremely hearty. Mr. Paine at this time was the reverse of morose, and though careless of his dress and prodigal of his snuff, he was always clean and well clothed. Mr. Burger describes him as familiar with children and humane to animals, playing with the neighboring children, and communicating a friendly pat even to a pa.s.sing dog." Our frontispiece shows Paine's dress in 1803.

Cheetham publishes a correspondence purporting to have pa.s.sed between Paine and Carver, in November, 1806, in which the former repudiates the latter's bill for board (though paying it), saying he was badly and dishonestly treated in Carver's house, and had taken him out of his Will. To this a reply is printed, signed by Carver, which he certainly never wrote; specimens of his composition, now before me, prove him hardly able to spell a word correctly or to frame a sentence.*

* In the Concord (Ma.s.s.) Public Library there is a copy of Cheetham's book, which belonged to Carver, by whom it was filled with notes. He says: "Cheetham was a hypocrate turned Tory," "Paine was not Drunk when he wrote the thre pedlars for me, I sold them to a gentleman, a Jew for a dollar-- Cheetham knew that he told a lie saying Paine was drunk--any person reading Cheetham's life of Paine that [sic] his pen was guided by prejudice that was brought on by Cheetham's altering a peice that Paine had writen as an answer to a peice that had apeared in his paper, I had careyd the peice to Cheetham, the next Day the answer was printed with the alteration, Paine was angry, sent me to call Cheetham I then asked how he undertook to mutilate the peice, if aney thing was rong he knew ware to find him & sad he never permitted a printer to alter what he had wrote, that the sence of the peice was spoiled--by this means their freind ship was broken up through life------" (The marginalia in this volume have been copied for me with exactness by Miss E. G.

Crowell, of Concord.)

The letter in Cheetham shows a practised hand, and was evidently written for Carver by the "biographer." This ungenuineness of Carver's letter, and expressions not characteristic in that of Paine render the correspondence mythical. Although Carver pa.s.sed many penitential years hanging about Paine celebrations, deploring the wrong he had done Paine, he could not squarely repudiate the correspondence, to which Cheetham had compelled him to swear in court. He used to declare that Cheetham had obtained under false pretences and printed without authority letters written in anger. But thrice in his letter to Paine Carver says he means to publish it. Its closing words are: "There may be many grammatical errours in this letter. To you I have no apologies to make; but I hope a candid and impartial public will not view them 'with a critick's eye.'"

This is artful; besides the fling at Paine's faulty grammar, which Carver could not discover, there is a pretence to faults in his own letter which do not exist, but certainly would have existed had he written it The style throughout is transparently Cheethan's.

* "A Bone to Gnaw for Grant Thorburn." By W. Carver (1836).

In the book at Concord the una.s.sisted Carver writes: "The libel for wich [sic] he [Cheetham] was sued was contained in the letter I wrote to Paine." This was the libel on Madame Bonneville, Carver's antipathy to whom arose from his hopes of Paine's property. In reply to Paine's information, that he was excluded from his Will, Carver says: "I likewise have to inform you, that I totally disregard the power of your mind and pen; for should you, by your conduct, permit this letter to appear in public, in vain may you attempt to print or publish any thing afterwards." This is plainly an attempt at blackmail. Carver's letter is dated December 2, 1806. It was not published during Paine's life, for the farrier hoped to get back into the Will by frightening Madame Bonneville and other friends of Paine with the stories he meant to tell.

About a year before Paine's death he made another blackmailing attempt.

He raked up the scandalous stories published by "Oldys" concerning Paine's domestic troubles in Lewes, pretending that he knew the facts personally. "Of these facts Mr. Carver has offered me an affidavit,"

says Cheetham. "He stated them all to Paine in a private letter which he wrote to him a year before his death; to which no answer was returned.

Mr. Carver showed me the letter soon after it was written." On this plain evidence of long conspiracy with Cheetham, and attempt to blackmail Paine when he was sinking in mortal illness, Carver never made any comment. When Paine was known to be near his end Carver made an effort at conciliation. "I think it a pity," he wrote, "that you or myself should depart this life with envy in our hearts against each other--and I firmly believe that no difference would have taken place between us, had not some of your pretended friends endeavored to have caused a separation of friendship between us." But abjectness was not more effectual than blackmail. The property went to the Bonnevilles, and Carver, who had flattered Paine's "great mind," in the letter just quoted, proceeded to write a mean one about the dead author for Cheetham's projected biography. He did not, however, expect Cheetham to publish his slanderous letter about Paine and Madame Bonneville, which he meant merely for extortion; nor could Cheetham have got the letter had he not written it. All of Cheetham's libels on Paine's life in New York are amplifications of Carver's insinuations. In describing Cheetham as "an abominable liar," Carver pa.s.ses sentence on himself. On this blackmailer, this confessed libeller, rest originally and fundamentally the charges relating to Paine's last years.

It has already been stated that Paine boarded for a time in the Bayeaux mansion. With Mrs. Bayeaux lived her daughter, Mrs. Badeau. In 1891 I visited, at New Roch.e.l.le, Mr. Albert Badeau, son of the lady last named, finding him, as I hope he still is, in good health and memory. Seated in the arm-chair given him by his mother, as that in which Paine used to sit by their fireside, I took down for publication some words of his. "My mother would never tolerate the aspersions on Mr. Paine.

She declared steadfastly to the end of her life that he was a perfect gentleman, and a most faithful friend, amiable, gentle, never intemperate in eating or drinking. My mother declared that my grandmother equally p.r.o.nounced the disparaging reports about Mr. Paine slanders. I never remember to have seen my mother angry except when she heard such calumnies of Mr. Paine, when she would almost insult those who uttered them. My mother and grandmother were very religious, members of the Episcopal Church." What Mr. Albert Badeau's religious opinions are I do not know, but no one acquainted with that venerable gentleman could for an instant doubt his exactness and truthfulness. It certainly was not until some years after his return to America that any slovenliness could be observed about Paine, and the contrary was often remarked in former times.* After he had come to New York, and was neglected by the pious ladies and gentlemen with whom he had once a.s.sociated, he neglected his personal appearance. "Let those dress who need it," he said to a friend.

* "He dined at my table," said Aaron Burr. "I always considered Mr. Paine a gentleman, a pleasant companion, and a good-natured and intelligent man; decidedly temperate, with a proper regard for his personal appearance, whenever I have seen him." (Quoted in The Beacon, No. 30, May, 1837.) "In his dress." says Joel Barlow, "he was generally very cleanly, though careless, and wore his hair queued with side curls, and powdered, like a gentleman of the old French School. His manners were easy and gracious, his knowledge universal."

Paine was prodigal of snuff, but used tobacco in no other form. He had aversion to profanity, and never told or listened to indecent anecdotes.

With regard to the charges of excessive drinking made against Paine, I have sifted a vast ma.s.s of contrarious testimonies, and arrived at the following conclusions. In earlier life Paine drank spirits, as was the custom in England and America; and he unfortunately selected brandy, which causes alcoholic indigestion, and may have partly produced the oft-quoted witness against him--his somewhat red nose. His nose was prominent, and began to be red when he was fifty-five. That was just after he had been dining a good deal with rich people in England, and at public dinners. During his early life in England (1737--1774) no instance of excess was known, and Paine expressly pointed the Excise Office to his record. "No complaint of the least dishonesty or intemperance has ever appeared against me." His career in America (1774-1787) was free from any suspicion of intemperance. John Hall's daily diary while working with Paine for months is minute, mentioning everything, but in no case is a word said of Paine's drinking. This was in 1785-7. Paine's enemy, Chalmers ("Oldys"), raked up in 1791 every charge he could against Paine, but intemperance is not included. Paine told Rickman that in Paris, when borne down by public and private affliction, he had been driven to excess. That period I have identified on a former page (ii., p. 59) as a few weeks in 1793, when his dearest friends were on their way to the guillotine, whither he daily expected to follow them. After that Paine abstained altogether from spirits, and drank wine in moderation. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel, New York, where Paine stopped in 1803 and 1804 for some weeks, wrote a note to Caleb Bingham, of Boston, in which he says that Paine drank less than any of his boarders. Gilbert Vale, in preparing his biography, questioned D. Burger, the clerk of Pelton's store at New Roch.e.l.le, and found that Paine's liquor supply while there was one quart of rum per week. Brandy he had entirely discarded. He also questioned Jarvis, the artist, in whose house Paine resided in New York (Church Street) five months, who declared that what Cheetham had reported about Paine and himself was entirely false. Paine, he said, "did not and could not drink much." In July, 1809, just after Paine's death, Cheetham wrote Barlow for information concerning Paine, "useful in ill.u.s.trating his character," and said: "He was a great drunkard here, and Mr. M., a merchant of this city, who lived with him when he was arrested by order of Robespierre, tells me he was intoxicated when that event happened."

Barlow, recently returned from Europe, was living just out of Washington; he could know nothing of Cheetham's treachery, and fell into his trap; he refuted the story of "Mr. M.," of course, but took it for granted that a supposed republican editor would tell the truth about Paine in New York, and wrote of the dead author as having "a mind, though strong enough to bear him up and to rise elastic under the heaviest hand of oppression, yet unable to endure the contempt of his former friends and fellow-laborers, the rulers of the country that had received his first and greatest services; a mind incapable of looking down with serene compa.s.sion, as it ought, on the rude scoffs of their imitators, a new generation that knows him not; a mind that shrinks from their society, and unhappily seeks refuge in low company, or looks for consolation in the sordid, solitary bottle, etc."! Barlow, misled as he was, well knew Paine's nature, and that if he drank to excess it was not from appet.i.te, but because of ingrat.i.tude and wrong. The man was not a stock or a stone. If any can find satisfaction in the belief that Paine found no Christian in America so merciful as rum, they may perhaps discover some grounds for it in a brief period of his sixty-ninth year.

While living in the house of Carver, Paine was seized with an illness that threatened to be mortal, and from which he never fully recovered.

It is probable that he was kept alive for a time by spirits during the terrible time, but this ceased when in the latter part of 1806 he left Carver's to live with Jarvis. In the spring of 1808 he resided in the house of Mr. Hitt, a baker, in Broome Street, and there remained ten months. Mr. Hitt reports that Paine's weekly supply then--his seventy-second year, and his last--was three quarts of rum per week.

* Todd's "Joel Barlow," p. 236. The "Mr. M." was one Murray, an English speculator in France, where he never resided with Paine at all.

After Paine had left Carver's he became acquainted with more people.

The late Judge Tabor's recollections have been sent me by his son, Mr.

Stephen Tabor, of Independence, Iowa.

"I was an a.s.sociate editor of the _New York Beacon_ with Col. John Fellows, then (1836) advanced in years, but retaining all the vigor and fire of his manhood. He was a ripe scholar, a most agreeable companion, and had been the correspondent and friend of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams, under all of whom he held a responsible office.

One of his productions was dedicated, by permission, to [J. Q.] Adams, and was republished and favorably received in England. Col. Fellows was the soul of honor and inflexible in his adherence to truth. He was intimate with Paine during the whole time he lived after returning to this country, and boarded for a year in the same house with him.

"I also was acquainted with Judge Hertell, of New York City, a man of wealth and position, being a member of the New York Legislature, both in the Senate and a.s.sembly, and serving likewise on the judicial bench.

Like Col. Fellows, he was an author, and a man of unblemished life and irreproachable character.

"These men a.s.sured me of their own knowledge derived from constant personal intercourse during the last seven years of Paine's life, that he never kept any company but what was entirely respectable, and that all accusations of drunkenness were grossly untrue. They saw him under all circ.u.mstances and _knew_ that he was never intoxicated. Nay, more, they said, for that day, he was even abstemious. That was a drinking age and Paine, like Jefferson, could 'bear but little spirit,' so that he was const.i.tutionally temperate.

"Cheetham refers to William Carver and the portrait painter Jarvis. I visited Carver, in company with Col. Fellows, and naturally conversed with the old man about Paine. He said that the allegation that Paine was a drunkard was altogether without foundation. In speaking of his letter to Paine which Cheetham published, Carver said that he was angry when he wrote it and that he wrote unwisely, as angry men generally do; that Cheetham obtained the letter under false pretenses and printed it without authority.

"Col. Fellows and Judge Hertell visited Paine throughout the whole course of his last illness. They repeatedly conversed with him on religious topics and they declared that he died serenely, philosophically and resignedly. This information I had directly from their own lips, and their characters were so spotless, and their integrity so unquestioned, that more reliable testimony it would be impossible to give."

During Paine's life the world heard no hint of s.e.xual immorality connected with him, but after his death Cheetham published the following: "Paine brought with him from Paris, and from her husband in whose house he had lived, Margaret Brazier Bonneville, and her three sons. _Thomas_ has the features, countenance, and temper of Paine,"