The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 6

This letter of "The Forester" is dated April 8th (printed on the 10th).

"Common Sense," published January 10th, had, therefore, in less than three months, gained this sale. In the end probably half a million copies were sold. In reply to "Cato's" sneer about "interested writers,"

Paine did not announce the fact that he had donated the copyright to the States for the cause of independence. It was sold at two shillings, and the author thus gave away a fortune in that pamphlet alone. It never brought him a penny; he must even have paid for copies himself, as the publisher figured up a debt against him, on account of "Common Sense,"

for 29 12s. 1d. Notwithstanding this experience and the popularity he had acquired, Paine also gave to the States the copyright of his _Crisis_ (thirteen numbers), was taunted by Tories as a "garreteer," ate his crust contentedly, peace finding him a penniless patriot, who might easily have had fifty thousand pounds in his pocket.

The controversy between "Cato" and "The Forester" was the most important that preceded the Declaration of Independence. The president of the University represented "Toryism" in distress. The "ma.s.sacre at Lexington" disabled him from justifying the government, which, however, he was not prepared to denounce. He was compelled to a.s.sume the tone of an American, while at the same time addressing his appeal "To the People of Pennsylvania," trying to detach its non-resident Quakers and its mercantile interest from sympathy with the general cause. Having a bad case, in view of Lexington, he naturally resorted to abuse of the plaintiff's attorney. He soon found that when it came to Quaker sentiment and dialect, his unknown antagonist was at home.

"Remember, thou hast thrown me the glove, Cato, and either thee or I must tire. I fear not the field of fair debate, but thou hast stepped aside and made it personal. Thou hast tauntingly called me by name; and if I cease to hunt thee from every lane and lurking hole of mischief, and bring thee not a trembling culprit before the public bar, then brand me with reproach by naming me in the list of your confederates."

"The Forester" declares his respect for the honest and undisguised opponents of independence. "To be n.o.bly wrong is more manly than to be meanly right." But "Cato" wears the mask of a friend, and shall be proved a foe.

The so-called "Tories" of the American Revolution have never had justice done them. In another work I have told the story of John Randolph, King's Attorney in Virginia, and there were many other martyrs of loyalty in those days.* Four months after the affair at Lexington, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Randolph, in London: "Looking with fondness towards a reconciliation with Great Britain, I cannot help hoping you may be able to contribute towards expediting the good work."

This was written on August 25, 1775; and if this was the feeling of Jefferson only ten months before the Declaration, how many, of more moderate temper, surrounded "Cato" and "The Forester" in loyal and peace-loving Philadelphia? But "Cato" was believed ungenuine. The Rev.

Dr. William Smith, who wrote under that name, a native of Aberdeen with an Oxonian D.D., had been a glowing Whig patriot until June, 1775. But his wife was a daughter of the loyalist, William Moore. This lady of fashion was distinguished by her contempt for the independents, and her husband, now near fifty, was led into a false position.**

* "Omitted Chapters of History, Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph," p. 20.

** R. H. Lee, in a letter to his brother (July 5, 1778) says: "We had a magnificent celebration of the anniversary of independence. The Whigs of the city dressed up a woman of the town with the monstrous head-dress of the Tory ladies, and escorted her through the town with a great concourse of people. Her head was elegantly and expensively dressed, I suppose about three feet high and proportionate width, with a profusion of curls, etc. The figure was droll, and occasioned much mirth. It has lessened some heads already, and will probably bring the rest within the bounds of reason, for they are monstrous indeed. The Tory wife of Dr.

Smith has christened this figure Continella, or the d.u.c.h.ess of Independence, and prayed for a pin from her head by way of relic. The Tory women are very much mortified, notwithstanding this."--"Omitted Chapters of History," p.

40.

"Cato's" brilliant wife had to retire before "Continella" in the following year. The charter of the College of Philadelphia was taken away, and its president retired to an obscure living at Chestertown, Maryland. He had, however, some of the dexterity of the Vicar of Bray; when the cause he had reviled was nearly won he founded a "Washington"

college in Maryland. He was chosen by that diocese for a bishop (1783), but the General Convention refused to recommend him for consecration. In 1789 he managed to regain his place as college president in Philadelphia.

He held the highest literary position in Philadelphia, and perhaps felt some jealousy of Paine's fame. He picked out all the mistakes he could find in "Common Sense," and tried in every way to belittle his antagonist. Himself a Scotchman, his wife an Englishwoman, he sneered at Paine for being a foreigner; having modified his principles to those of the loyalist's daughter, he denounced Paine as an "interested writer." He was out of his element in the controversy he began with personalities. He spoke of the trouble as a lovers' quarrel. Paine answers:

"It was not in the power of France or Spain, or all the other powers in Europe, to have given such a wound, or raised us to such mortal hatred as Britain hath done. We see the same kind of undescribed anger at her conduct, as we would at the sight of an animal devouring its young."

The strongest point of "Cato" was based on the proposed emba.s.sy for negotiation, and he demanded reverence for "Amba.s.sadors coming to negotiate a peace." To this "The Forester" replied:

"Cato discovers a gross ignorance of the British Const.i.tution in supposing that these men _can_ be empowered to act as Amba.s.sadors. To prevent his future errors, I will set him right. The present war differs from every other, in this instance, viz., that it is not carried on under the prerogative of the crown, as other wars have always been, but under the authority of the whole legislative power united; and as the barriers which stand in the way of a negotiation are not proclamations, but acts of Parliament, it evidently follows that were even the King of England here in person, he could not ratify the terms or conditions of a reconciliation; because, in the single character of King, he could not stipulate for the repeal of any acts of Parliament, neither can the Parliament stipulate for him. There is no body of men more jealous of their privileges than the Commons: Because they sell them."

Paine wrote three letters in reply to "Cato," the last of which contained a memorable warning to the people on the eve of the Declaration of Independence: "_Forget not the hapless African_." That was forgotten, but the summing up made Dr. William Smith an object of detestation. He never ventured into political controversy again, and when he returned from exile to Philadelphia, a penitent patriot, he found his old antagonist, Thomas Paine, honored by a degree from the University of Pennsylvania into which the college had been absorbed.

On May 8th a fourth letter, signed "The Forester," appeared in the same paper (_Pennsylvania Journal_), which I at first suspected of not being from Paine's pen.* This was because of a sentence beginning: "The clergy of the English Church, of which I profess myself a member," etc. There is no need to question the truth of this, for, as we have seen, Paine had been confirmed, and no doubt previously baptized; nor is there reason to disbelieve the statement of Oldys that he wished to enter holy orders. There was a good deal of rationalism in the American church at that time, and that Paine, with his religious fervor and tendency to inquire, should have maintained his place in that scholarly church is natural. His quakerism was a philosophy, but he could by no means have found any home in its rigid and dogmatic societies in Philadelphia. The casual sentence above quoted was probably inserted for candor, as the letter containing it opens with a censure on the att.i.tude of the Quakers towards the proposal for independence. The occasion was an election of four burgesses to represent Philadelphia in the State a.s.sembly, a body in which Quakers (loyalists) preponderated. Had the independents been elected they must have taken the oath of allegiance to the crown, with which the State was at war. Indeed Paine declares that the "Tories"

succeeded in the election because so many patriots were absent for defence of their country. Under these circ.u.mstances Paine urges the necessity of a popular convention. The House of a.s.sembly is disqualified from "sitting in its own case."

* A theft of Paine's usual signature led to his first public identification of himself (Feb. 13, 1779). "As my signature, 'Common Sense,' has been counterfeited, either by Mr.

[Silas] Deane, or some of his adherents in Mr. Bradford's paper of Feb. 3, I shall subscribe this with my name, Thomas Paine." He, however, in Almon's Remembrancer (vol. viii.) is indexed by name in connection with a letter of the previous year signed "Common Sense."

The extracts given from this letter are of historic interest as reflecting the conflict of opinions in Pennsylvania amid which the Declaration was pa.s.sed two months later.

"Whoever will take the trouble of attending to the progress and changeability of times and things, and the conduct of mankind thereon, will find that _extraordinary circ.u.mstances_ do sometimes arise before us, of a species, either so purely natural or so perfectly original, that none but the man of nature can understand them. When precedents fail to a.s.sist us, we must return to the first principles of things for information, and think, as if we were the first men that thought. And this is the true reason, that in the present state of affairs, the wise are become foolish, and the foolish wise. I am led to this reflection by not being able to account for the conduct of the Quakers on any other; for although they do not seem to perceive it themselves, yet it is amazing to hear with what unanswerable ignorance many of that body, wise in other matters, will discourse on the present one. Did they hold places or commissions under the king, were they governors of provinces, or had they any interest apparently distinct from us, the mystery would cease; but as they have not, their folly is best attributed to that superabundance of worldly knowledge which in original matters is too cunning to be wise. Back to the first plain path of nature, friends, and begin anew, for in this business your first footsteps were wrong. You have now travelled to the summit of inconsistency, and that, with such accelerated rapidity as to acquire autumnal ripeness by the first of May. Now your _rotting time comes on_."

"The Forester" reminds the Quakers of their predecessors who, in 1704, defended the rights of the people against the proprietor. He warns them that the people, though unable to vote, represent a patriotic power tenfold the strength of Toryism, by which they will not submit to be ruled.

"He that is wise will reflect, that the safest asylum, especially in times of general convulsion, when no settled form of government prevails, is _the love of the people_. All property is safe under their protection. Even in countries where the lowest and most licentious of them have risen into outrage, they have never departed from the path of _natural_ honor. Volunteers unto death in defence of the person or fortune of those who had served or defended them, division of property never entered the mind of the populace. It is incompatible with that spirit which impels them into action. An avaricious mob was never heard of; nay, even a miser, pausing in the midst of them, and catching their spirit, would from that instant cease to be covetous."

The Quakers of Pennsylvania and New Jersey had held a congress in Philadelphia and issued (January 20th) "The Ancient Testimony and Principles of the People called Quakers renewed, with respect to the King and Government; and touching the Commotions now prevailing in these and other Parts of America; addressed to the People in General." Under this lamb-like tract, and its bleat of texts, was quite discoverable the "Tory" wolf; but it was widely circulated and became a danger. The Quakers of Rhode Island actually made efforts to smuggle provisions into Boston during the siege. Paine presently reviewed this testimony in a pamphlet, one extract from which will show that he could preach a better Quaker sermon than any of them:

"O ye partial ministers of your own acknowledged principles! If the bearing arms be sinful, the first going to war must be more so, by all the difference between wilful attack and unavoidable defence. Wherefore, if ye really preach from conscience, and mean not to make a political hobbyhorse of your religion, convince the world thereof by proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies, for they likewise bear arms. Give us proof of your sincerity by publishing it at St James's, to the commanders in chief at Boston, to the admirals and captains who are piratically ravaging our coasts, and to all the murdering miscreants who are acting in authority under Him whom ye profess to serve. Had ye the honest soul of Barclay ye would preach repentance to your king; ye would tell the Royal Wretch his sins, and warn him of eternal ruin; ye would not spend your partial invectives against the injured and insulted only, but, like faithful ministers, cry aloud and spare none."

* Paine was not then aware of the extent of the intrigues of leading Quakers with the enemy. The State archives of England and France contain remarkable evidences on this subject. Paul Wentworth, in a report to the English government (1776 or 1777.) mentions the loyalty of Pemberton and the Quakers. Wentworth says that since the publication of "Common Sense" it had become hard to discover the real opinions of leading men. "Mr. Payne," he says, "should not be forgot. He is an Englishman, was schoolmaster in Philadelphia; must be driven to work; naturally indolent; led by His pa.s.sions." These "pa.s.sions," chiefly for liberty and humanity, seem to have so driven the indolent man to work that, according to Wentworth, his pamphlet "worked up [the people] to such a high temper as fitted them for the impression of the Declaration, etc." The Quakers, however, held out long, though more covertly. M. Gerard de Rayneval, in a letter from Philadelphia, Sept. 18, 1778, reports to his government: "During the occupation of Philadelphia by the English, proofs were obtained of the services rendered them by the Quakers; some of these were caught acting as spies, etc." La Luzerne writes (May 4, 1781): "All the Quakers in Philadelphia who have taken up arms, or voluntarily paid war taxes, have been excommunicated; these, increasing in number, declare themselves loyal." See for further information on this matter, "New Materials for the History of the American Revolution," etc By John Durand. New York, 1889,

CHAPTER VII. UNDER THE BANNER OF INDEPENDENCE

As in North Carolina had occurred the first armed resistance to British oppressions (1771), and its Mecklenburg County been the first to organize a government independent of the Crown, so was that colony the first to instruct its delegates in Congress to vote for national independence. She was followed in succession by South Carolina,*

Virginia,** Ma.s.sachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Georgia, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Maryland pa.s.sed patriotic resolutions, but not sufficiently decisive for its delegates to act. New York alone forbade its delegates to vote for independence.

* Colonel Gadsden, having left the Continental Congress to take command in South Carolina, appeared in the provincial Congress at Charleston February 10,1776. "Col. Gadsden (having brought the first copy of Paine's pamphlet 'Common Sense, etc.,') boldly declared himself... for the absolute Independence of America. This last sentiment came like an explosion of thunder on the members" (Rev. John Drayton's Memoirs; etc., p. 172). The sentiment was abhorred, and a member "called the author of 'Common Sense'

--------"; but on March 21st the pamphlet was reinforced by tidings of an Act of Parliament (Dec. 21, 1775) for seizure of American ships, and on March 23d South Carolina instructed its delegates at Philadelphia to agree to whatever that Congress should "judge necessary, etc."

** A thousand copies of "Common Sense" were at once ordered from Virginia, and many more followed. On April 1st Washington writes to Joseph Reed: "By private letters which I have lately received from Virginia, I find 'Common Sense'

is working a wonderful change there in the minds of many men." On June 29th union with England was "totally dissolved"

by Virginia.

Meanwhile, on June 7th, Richard Henry Lee, in behalf of the Virginians, had submitted resolutions of independence; but as six States hesitated, Congress adjourned the decision until July 1st, appointing, however, (June 11th) a committee to consider the proper form of the probable Declaration--Jefferson, John Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. But this interval, from June 7th to July 1st, was perilous for independence. News came of the approach of Lord Howe bearing from England the "olive branch." The powerful colonies New York and Pennsylvania were especially anxious to await the proposals for peace. At this juncture Paine issued one of his most effective pamphlets, "A Dialogue between the Ghost of General Montgomery, Just Arrived from the Ely-sian Fields, and an American Delegate, in a Wood near Philadelphia." Montgomery, the first heroic figure fallen in the war, reproaches the hesitating delegate for willingness to accept pardon from a royal criminal for defending "the rights of humanity." He points out that France only awaits their declaration of independence to come to their aid, and that America "teems with patriots, heroes, and legislators who are impatient to burst forth into light and importance."

The most effective part of the pamphlet, however, was a reply to the commercial apprehensions of New York and Pennsylvania. "Your dependance upon the Crown is no advantage, but rather an injury, to the people of Great Britain, as it increases the power and influence of the King. The people are benefited only by your trade, and this they may have after you are independent of the Crown." There is a shrewd prescience of what actually happened shown in this opportune work. Of course the gallant ghost remarks that "monarchy and aristocracy have in all ages been the vehicles of slavery." The allusion to the arming of negroes and Indians against America, and other pa.s.sages, resemble clauses in one of the paragraphs eliminated from the original Declaration of Independence.

At this time Paine saw much of Jefferson, and there can be little doubt that the anti-slavery clause struck out of the Declaration was written by Paine, or by some one who had Paine's anti-slavery essay before him.

In the following pa.s.sages it will be observed that the ant.i.theses are nearly the same--"infidel and Christian," "heathen and Christian."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Anti-slavery essay 117-118]

PARAGRAPH STRUCK OUT OF THE DECLARATION.

"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prost.i.tuted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this a.s.semblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them, thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."

THOMAS PAINE.

"--these inoffensive people are brought into slavery, by stealing them, tempting kings to sell subjects, which they can have no right to do, and hiring one tribe to war against another, in order to catch prisoners.

By such wicked and inhuman ways the English, etc.... an hight of outrage that seems left by Heathen nations to be practised by pretended Chris Hansr

"--that barbarous and h.e.l.lish power which has stirred up the Indians and Negroes to destroy us; the cruelty hath a double guilt--it is dealing brutally by us and treacherously by them."

Thus did Paine try to lay at the corner the stone which the builders rejected, and which afterwards ground their descendants to powder.

Jefferson withdrew the clause on the objection of Georgia and South Carolina, which wanted slaves, and of Northerners interested in supplying them. That, however, was not known till all the parties were dead. Paine had no reason to suppose that the Declaration of human freedom and equality, pa.s.sed July 4th, could fail eventually to include the African slaves. The Declaration embodied every principle he had been a.s.serting, and indeed Cobbett is correct in saying that whoever may have written the Declaration Paine was its author. The world being his country, and America having founded its independence on such universal interests, Paine could not hesitate to become a soldier for mankind.*

His Quaker principles, always humanized, were not such as would applaud a resistance in which he was not prepared to partic.i.p.ate. While the signers of the Declaration of Independence were affixing their names--a procedure which reached from August 2d into November--Paine resigned his _Pennsylvania Magazine_, and marched with his musket to the front. He enlisted in a Pennsylvania division of the Flying Camp of ten thousand men, who were to be sent wherever needed. He was under General Roberdeau, and a.s.signed at first to service at Amboy, afterwards at Bergen. The Flying Camp was enlisted for a brief period, and when that had expired Paine travelled to Fort Lee, on the Hudson, and renewed his enlistment. Fort Lee was under the command of General Nathaniel Greene who, on or about September 19th, appointed Paine a Volunteer Aide-de-camp.

* Professor John Fiske (whose "American Revolution" suffers from ignorance of Paine's papers) appreciates the effect of Paine's "Common Sense" but not its cause. He praises the pamphlet highly, but proves that he has only glanced at it by his exception: "The pamphlet is full of scurrilous abuse of the English people; and resorts to such stupid arguments as the denial of the English origin of the Americans" (i., p. 174). Starting with the principle that the cause of America is "the cause of all mankind," Paine abuses no people, but only their oppressors. As to Paine's argument, it might have appeared less "stupid" to Professor Fiske had he realized that in Paine's mind negroes were the equals of whites. However, Paine does not particularly mention negroes; his argument was meant to carry its point, and it might have been imprudent for him, in that connection, to have cla.s.sed the slaves with the Germans, who formed a majority in Pennsylvania, and with the Dutch of New York. In replying to the "Mother-Country" argument it appears to me far from stupid to point out that Europe is our parent country, and that if English descent made men Englishmen, the descendants of William the Conqueror and half the peers of England were Frenchmen, and, if the logic held, should be governed by France.

General Greene in a gossipy letter to his wife (November 2d) says: "Common Sense (Thomas Paine) and Colonel Snarl, or Cornwell, are perpetually wrangling about mathematical problems." On November 20th came the surprise of Fort Lee; the boiling kettles and baking ovens of a dinner to be devoured by the British were abandoned, with three hundred tents, for a retreat made the more miserable by hunger and cold. By November 22d the whole army had retreated to Newark, where Paine began writing his famous first _Crisis_.*