altogether a National Man--but the case with Parties generally is that when you are not with one you are supposed to be with the other.
1 A friendly lamp-lighter, alluded to in the Letter to Washington, conveyed this letter to Mr. Beresford.-- _Editor._ I was taken out of bed between three and four in the morning on the 28 of December last, and brought to the Luxembourg--without any other accusation inserted in the order than that I was a foreigner; a motion having been made two days before in the Convention to expel Foreigners therefrom. I certainly then remained, even upon their own tactics, what I was before, a Citizen of America.
About three weeks after my imprisonment the Americans that were in Paris went to the bar of the Convention to reclaim me, but contrary to my advice, they made their address into a Petition, and it miscarried.
I then applied to G. Morris, to reclaim me as an official part of his duty, which he found it necessary to do, and here the matter stopt.(1) I have not heard a single line or word from any American since, which is now seven months. I rested altogether on the hope that a new Minister would arrive from America. I have escaped with life from more dangers than one. Had it not been for the fall of Roberspierre and your timely arrival I know not what fate might have yet attended me. There seemed to be a determination to destroy all the Prisoners without regard to merit, character, or any thing else. During the time I laid at the height of my illness they took, in one night only, 169 persons out of this prison and executed all but eight. The distress that I have suffered at being obliged to exist in the midst of such horrors, exclusive of my own precarious situation, suspended as it were by the single thread of accident, is greater than it is possible you can conceive--but thank God times are at last changed, and I hope that your Authority will release me from this unjust imprisonment.
1 The falsehood told Paine, accompanied by an intimation of danger in pursuing the pretended reclamation, was of course meant to stop any farther action by Paine or his friends.-- _Editor._.
August 25, 1794.
My Dear Sir: Having nothing to do but to sit and think, I will write to pass away time, and to say that I am still here. I have received two notes from Mr. Beresford which are encouraging (as the generality of notes and letters are that arrive to persons here) but they contain nothing explicit or decisive with respect to my liberation, and _I shall be very glad to receive a line from yourself to inform me in what condition the matter stands_. If I only glide out of prison by a sort of accident America gains no credit by my liberation, neither can my attachment to her be increased by such a circumstance. She has had the services of my best days, she has my allegiance, she receives my portion of Taxes for my house in Borden Town and my farm at New Rochelle, and she owes me protection both at home and thro' her Ministers abroad, yet I remain in prison, in the face of her Minister, at the arbitrary will of a committee.
Excluded as I am from the knowledge of everything and left to a random of ideas, I know not what to think or how to act. Before there was any Minister here (for I consider Morris as none) and while the Robespierrian faction lasted, I had nothing to do but to keep my mind tranquil and expect the fate that was every day inflicted upon my comrades, not individually but by scores. Many a man whom I have passed an hour with in conversation I have seen marching to his destruction the next hour, or heard of it the next morning; for what rendered the scene more horrible was that they were generally taken away at midnight, so that every man went to bed with the apprehension of never seeing his friends or the world again.
I wish to impress upon you that all the changes that have taken place in Paris have been sudden. There is now a moment of calm, but if thro' any over complaisance to the persons you converse with on the subject of my liberation, you omit procuring it for me _now_, you may have to lament the fate of your friend when its too late. The loss of a Battle to the Northward or other possible accident may happen to bring this about. I am not out of danger till I am out of Prison.
Yours affectionately.
P. S.--I am now entirely without money. The Convention owes me 1800 livres salary which I know not how to get while I am here, nor do I know how to draw for money on the rent of my farm in America. It is under the care of my good friend General Lewis Morris. I have received no rent since I have been in Europe.
[Addressed] Minister Plenipotentiary from America, Maison des Étrangers, Rue de la Loi, Rue Richelieu.
Such was the sufficiently cruel situation when there reached Paine in prison, September 4th, the letter of Peter Whiteside which caused him to write his Memorial. Whiteside was a Philadelphian whose bankruptcy in London had swallowed up some of Paine's means. His letter, reporting to Paine that he was not regarded by the American Government or people as an American citizen, and that no American Minister could interfere in his behalf, was evidently inspired by Morris who was still in Paris, the authorities being unwilling to give him a passport to Switzerland, as they knew he was going in that direction to join the conspirators against France. This Whiteside letter put Paine, and through him Monroe, on a false scent by suggesting that the difficulty of his case lay in a _bona fide_ question of citizenship, whereas there never had been really any such question. The knot by which Morris had bound Paine was thus concealed, and Monroe was appealing to polite wolves in the interest of their victim. There were thus more delays, inexplicable alike to Monroe and to Paine, eliciting from the latter some heartbroken letters, not hitherto printed, which I add at the end of the Memorial. To add to the difficulties and dangers, Paris was beginning to be agitated by well-founded rumors of Jay's injurious negotiations in England, and a coldness towards Monroe was setting in. Had Paine's release been delayed much longer an American Minister's friendship might even have proved fatal. Of all this nothing could be known to Paine, who suffered agonies he had not known during the Reign of Terror. The other prisoners of Robespierre's time had departed; he alone paced the solitary corridors of the Luxembourg, chilled by the autumn winds, his cell tireless, unlit by any candle, insufficiently nourished, an abscess forming in his side; all this still less cruel than the feeling that he was abandoned, not only by Washington but by all America.
This is the man of whom Washington wrote to Madison nine years before: "Must the merits and services of 'Common Sense' continue to glide down the stream of time unrewarded by this country?" This, then, is his reward. To his old comrade in the battle-fields of Liberty, George Washington, Paine owed his ten months of imprisonment, at the end of which Monroe found him a wreck, and took him (November 4) to his own house, where he and his wife nursed him back into life. But it was not for some months supposed that Paine could recover; it was only after several relapses; and it was under the shadow of death that he wrote the letter to Washington so much and so ignorantly condemned. Those who have followed the foregoing narrative will know that Paine's grievances were genuine, that his infamous treatment stains American history; but they will also know that they lay chiefly at the door of a treacherous and unscrupulous American Minister.
Yet it is difficult to find an excuse for the retention of that Minister in France by Washington. On Monroe's return to America in 1797, he wrote a pamphlet concerning the mission from which he had been curtly recalled, in which he said: "I was persuaded from Mr. Morris's known political character and principles, that his appointment, and especially at a period when the French nation was in a course of revolution from an arbitrary to a free government, would tend to discountenance the republican cause there and at home, and otherwise weaken, and greatly to our prejudice, the connexion subsisting between the two countries."
In a copy of this pamphlet found at Mount Vernon, Washington wrote on the margin of this sentence: "Mr. Morris was known to be a man of first rate abilities; and his integrity and honor had never been impeached. Besides, Mr. Morris was sent whilst the kingly government was in existence, ye end of 91 or beginning of 92." (1) But this does not explain why Gouverneur Morris was persistently kept in France after monarchy was abolished (September 21, 1792), or even after Lafayette's request for his removal, already quoted. To that letter of Lafayette no reply has been discovered. After the monarchy was abolished, Ternant and Genêt successively carried to America protests from their Foreign Office against the continuance of a Minister in France, who was known in Paris, and is now known to all acquainted with his published papers, to have all along made his office the headquarters of British intrigue against France, American interests being quite subordinated. Washington did not know this, but he might have known it, and his disregard of French complaints can hardly be ascribed to any other cause than his delusion that Morris was deeply occupied with the treaty negotiations confided to him. It must be remembered that Washington believed such a treaty with England to be the alternative of war.(2) On that apprehension the British party in America, and British agents, played to the utmost, and under such influences Washington sacrificed many old friendships,--with Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Edmund Randolph, Paine,--and also the confidence of his own State, Virginia.
1 Washington's marginal notes on Monroe's "View, etc.," were first fully given in Ford's "Writings of Washington," vol. xiii., p. 452, seq.
2 Ibid., p. 453.
There is a traditional impression that Paine's angry letter to Washington was caused by the President's failure to inter-pose for his relief from prison. But Paine believed that the American Minister (Morris) had reclaimed him in some feeble fashion, as an American citizen, and he knew that the President had officially approved Monroe's action in securing his release. His grievance was that Washington, whose letters of friendship he cherished, who had extolled his services to America, should have manifested no concern personally, made no use of his commanding influence to rescue him from daily impending death, sent to his prison no word of kindness or inquiry, and sent over their mutual friend Monroe without any instructions concerning him; and finally, that his private letter, asking explanation, remained unanswered. No doubt this silence of Washington concerning the fate of Paine, whom he acknowledged to be an American citizen, was mainly due to his fear of offending England, which had proclaimed Paine. The "outlaw's" imprisonment in Paris caused jubilations among the English gentry, and went on simultaneously with Jay's negotiations in London, when any expression by Washington of sympathy with Paine (certain of publication) might have imperilled the Treaty, regarded by the President as vital.
So anxious was the President about this, that what he supposed had been done for Paine by Morris, and what had really been done by Monroe, was kept in such profound secrecy, that even his Secretary of State, Pickering, knew nothing of it. This astounding fact I recently discovered in the manuscripts of that Secretary.(1) Colonel Pickering, while flattering enough to the President in public, despised his intellect, and among his papers is a memorandum concluding as follows: "But when the hazards of the Revolutionary War had ended, by the establishment of our Independence, why was the knowledge of General Washington's comparatively defective mental powers not freely divulged?
Why, even by the enemies of his civil administration were his abilities very tenderly glanced at? --Because there were few, if any men, who did not revere him for his distinguished virtues; his modesty--his unblemished integrity, his pure and disinterested patriotism. These virtues, of infinitely more value than exalted abilities without them, secured to him the veneration and love of his fellow citizens at large.
Thus immensely popular, no man was willing to publish, under his hand, even the simple truth. The only exception, that I recollect, was the infamous Tom Paine; and this when in France, after he had escaped the guillotine of Robespierre; and in resentment, because, after he had participated in the French Revolution, President Washington seemed not to have thought him so very important a character in the world, as officially to interpose for his relief from the fangs of the French ephemeral Rulers. In a word, no man, however well informed, was willing to hazard his own popularity by exhibiting the real intellectual character of the immensely popular Washington."
1 Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 11., p. 171.
How can this ignorance of an astute man, Secretary of State under Washington and Adams, be explained? Had Washington hidden the letters showing on their face that he _had_ "officially interposed" for Paine by two Ministers?
Madison, writing to Monroe, April 7, 1796, says that Pickering had spoken to him "in harsh terms" of a letter written by Paine to the President. This was a private letter of September 20, 1795, afterwards printed in Paine's public Letter to Washington. The Secretary certainly read that letter on its arrival, January 18, 1796, and yet Washington does not appear to have told him of what had been officially done in Paine's case! Such being the secrecy which Washington had carried from the camp to the cabinet, and the morbid extent of it while the British Treaty was in negotiation and discussion, one can hardly wonder at his silence under Paine's private appeal and public reproach.
Much as Pickering hated Paine, he declares him the only man who ever told the simple truth about Washington. In the lapse of time historical research, while removing the sacred halo of Washington, has revealed beneath it a stronger brain than was then known to any one. Paine published what many whispered, while they were fawning on Washington for office, or utilizing his power for partisan ends. Washington, during his second administration, when his mental decline was remarked by himself, by Jefferson, and others, was regarded by many of his eminent contemporaries as fallen under the sway of small partisans. Not only was the influence of Jefferson, Madison, Randolph, Monroe, Livingston, alienated, but the counsels of Hamilton were neutralized by Wolcott and Pickering, who apparently agreed about the President's "mental powers."
Had not Paine previously incurred the _odium theologicum_, his pamphlet concerning Washington would have been more damaging; even as it was, the verdict was by no means generally favorable to the President, especially as the replies to Paine assumed that Washington had indeed failed to try and rescue him from impending death.(1) A pamphlet written by Bache, printed anonymously (1797), Remarks occasioned by the late conduct of Mr. Washington, indicates the belief of those who raised Washington to power, that both Randolph and Paine had been sacrificed to please Great Britain.
The _Bien-informé_ (Paris, November 12, 1797) published a letter from Philadelphia, which may find translation here as part of the history of the pamphlet: "The letter of Thomas Paine to General Washington is read here with avidity. We gather from the English papers that the Cabinet of St James has been unable to stop the circulation of that pamphlet in England, since it is allowable to reprint there any English work already published elsewhere, however disagreeable to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas.
We read in the letter to Washington that Robespierre had declared to the Committee of Public Safety that it was desirable in the interests of both France and America that Thomas Paine, who, for seven or eight months had been kept a prisoner in the Luxembourg, should forthwith be brought up for judgment before the revolutionary tribunal. The proof of this fact is found in Robespierre's papers, and gives ground for strange suspicions."
1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington, speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions, and a want of official information as to many facts, it is not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these disclosed.
"It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man.
Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine is still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in America] also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after actually arriving he found his (really popular) _principles no longer the order of the day_, and thought best to re-embark.
"The English journals, while repeating this idle rumor, observed that it was unfounded, and that Paine had not left France. Some French journals have copied these London paragraphs, but without comments; so that at the very moment when Thomas Paine's Letter on the 18th. Fructidor is published, _La Clef du Cabinet_ says that this citizen is suffering unpleasantness in America."
Paine had intended to return with Monroe, in the spring of 1797, but, suspecting the Captain and a British cruiser in the distance, returned from Havre to Paris. The packet was indeed searched by the cruiser for Paine, and, had he been captured, England would have executed the sentence pronounced by Robespierre to please Washington.
MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO JAMES MONROE, MINISTER FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
Prison of the Luxembourg, Sept. 10th, 1794.
I address this memorial to you, in consequence of a letter I received from a friend, 18 Fructidor (September 4th,) in which he says, "Mr.
Monroe has told me, that he has no orders [meaning from the American government] respecting you; but I am sure he will leave nothing undone to liberate you; but, from what I can learn, from all the late Americans, you are not considered either by the Government, or by the individuals, as an American citizen. You have been made a french Citizen, which you have accepted, and you have further made yourself a servant of the french Republic; and, therefore, it would be out of character for an American Minister to interfere in their internal concerns. You must therefore either be liberated out of Compliment to America, or stand your trial, which you have a right to demand."
This information was so unexpected by me, that I am at a loss how to answer it. I know not on what principle it originates; whether from an idea that I had voluntarily abandoned my Citizenship of America for that of France, or from any article of the American Constitution applied to me. The first is untrue with respect to any intention on my part; and the second is without foundation, as I shall shew in the course of this memorial.
The idea of conferring honor of Citizenship upon foreigners, who had distinguished themselves in propagating the principles of liberty and humanity, in opposition to despotism, war, and bloodshed, was first proposed by me to La Fayette, at the commencement of the french revolution, when his heart appeared to be warmed with those principles.
My motive in making this proposal, was to render the people of different nations more fraternal than they had been, or then were. I observed that almost every branch of Science had possessed itself of the exercise of this right, so far as it regarded its own institution. Most of the Academies and Societies in Europe, and also those of America, conferred the rank of honorary member, upon foreigners eminent in knowledge, and made them, in fact, citizens of their literary or scientific republic, without affecting or anyways diminishing their rights of citizenship in their own country or in other societies: and why the Science of Government should not have the same advantage, or why the people of one nation should not, by their representatives, exercise the right of conferring the honor of Citizenship upon individuals eminent in another nation, without affecting _their_ rights of citizenship, is a problem yet to be solved.
I now proceed to remark on that part of the letter, in which the writer says, that, _from what he can learn from all the late Americans, I am not considered in America, either by the Government or by the individuals, as an American citizen_.
In the first place I wish to ask, what is here meant by the Government of America? The members who compose the Government are only individuals, when in conversation, and who, most probably, hold very different opinions upon the subject. Have Congress as a body made any declaration respecting me, that they now no longer consider me as a citizen? If they have not, anything they otherwise say is no more than the opinion of individuals, and consequently is not legal authority, nor anyways sufficient authority to deprive any man of his Citizenship. Besides, whether a man has forfeited his rights of Citizenship, is a question not determinable by Congress, but by a Court of Judicature and a Jury; and must depend upon evidence, and the application of some law or article of the Constitution to the case. No such proceeding has yet been had, and consequently I remain a Citizen until it be had, be that decision what it may; for there can be no such thing as a suspension of rights in the interim.
I am very well aware, and always was, of the article of the Constitution which says, as nearly as I can recollect the words, that "any citizen of the United States, who shall accept any title, place, or office, from any foreign king, prince, or state, shall forfeit and lose his right of Citizenship of the United States."
Had the Article said, that _any citizen of the United States, who shall be a member of any foreign convention, for the purpose of forming a free constitution, shall forfeit and lose the right of citizenship of the United States_, the article had been directly applicable to me; but the idea of such an article never could have entered the mind of the American Convention, and the present article _is_ altogether foreign to the case with respect to me. It supposes a Government in active existence, and not a Government dissolved; and it supposes a citizen of America accepting titles and offices under that Government, and not a citizen of America who gives his assistance in a Convention chosen by the people, for the purpose of forming a Government _de nouveau_ founded on their authority.
The late Constitution and Government of France was dissolved the 10th of August, 1792. The National legislative Assembly then in being, supposed itself without sufficient authority to continue its sittings, and it proposed to the departments to elect not another legislative Assembly, but a Convention for the express purpose of forming a new Constitution.
When the Assembly were discoursing on this matter, some of the members said, that they wished to gain all the assistance possible upon the subject of free constitutions; and expressed a wish to elect and invite foreigners of any Nation to the Convention, who had distinguished themselves in defending, explaining, and propagating the principles of liberty. It was on this occasion that my name was mentioned in the Assembly. (I was then in England.)
1 In the American pamphlet a footnote, probably added by Bache, here says: "Even this article does not exist in the manner here stated." It is a pity Paine did not have in his prison the article, which says: "No person holding any office of profit or trust under them [the United States] shall, without the consent of Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State."--_Editor._ After this, a deputation from a body of the french people, in order to remove any objection that might be made against my assisting at the proposed Convention, requested the Assembly, as their representatives, to give me the title of French Citizen; after which, I was elected a member of the Convention, in four different departments, as is already known.(1) The case, therefore, is, that I accepted nothing from any king, prince, or state, nor from any Government: for France was without any Government, except what arose from common consent, and the necessity of the case. Neither did I _make myself a servant of the french Republic_, as the letter alluded to expresses; for at that time France was not a republic, not even in name. She was altogether a people in a state of revolution.
It was not until the Convention met that France was declared a republic, and monarchy abolished; soon after which a committee was elected, of which I was a member,(2) to form a Constitution, which was presented to the Convention [and read by Condorcet, who was also a member] the 15th and 16th of February following, but was not to be taken into consideration till after the expiration of two months,(3) and if approved of by the Convention, was then to be referred to the people for their acceptance, with such additions or amendments as the Convention should make.
1 The deputation referred to was described as the "Commission Extraordinaire," in whose name M. Guadet moved that the title of French Citizen be conferred on Priestley, Paine, Bentham, Wilberforce, Clarkson, Mackintosh, David Williams, Cormelle, Paw, Pestalozzi, Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Klopstock, Koscinsko, Gorani, Campe, Anacharsis Clootz, Gilleers. This was on August 26, and Paine was elected by Calais on September 6,1792; and in the same week by Oise, Somme, and Puy-de-Dome.--_Editor._ 2 Sieves, Paine, Brissot, Pétion, Vergniaud, Gensonne, Barère, Danton, Condorcet.--_Editor._ 3 The remainder of this sentence is replaced in the American pamphlet by the following: "The disorders and the revolutionary government that took place after this put a stop to any further progress upon the case."--_Editor._ In thus employing myself upon the formation of a Constitution, I certainly did nothing inconsistent with the American Constitution. I took no oath of allegiance to France, or any other oath whatever. I considered the Citizenship they had presented me with as an honorary mark of respect paid to me not only as a friend to liberty, but as an American Citizen. My acceptance of that, or of the deputyship, not conferred on me by any king, prince, or state, but by a people in a state of revolution and contending for liberty, required no transfer of my allegiance or of my citizenship from America to France. There I was a real citizen, paying Taxes; here, I was a voluntary friend, employing myself on a temporary service. Every American in Paris knew that it was my constant intention to return to America, as soon as a constitution should be established, and that I anxiously waited for that event.
I know not what opinions have been circulated in America. It may have been supposed there that I had voluntarily and intentionally abandoned America, and that my citizenship had ceased by my own choice. I can easily [believe] there are those in that country who would take such a proceeding on my part somewhat in disgust. The idea of forsaking old friendships for new acquaintances is not agreeable. I am a little warranted in making this supposition by a letter I received some time ago from the wife of one of the Georgia delegates in which she says "Your friends on this side the water cannot be reconciled to the idea of your abandoning America."
I have never abandoned her in thought, word or deed; and I feel it incumbent upon me to give this assurance to the friends I have in that country and with whom I have always intended and am determined, if the possibility exists, to close the scene of my life. It is there that I have made myself a home. It is there that I have given the services of my best days. America never saw me flinch from her cause in the most gloomy and perilous of her situations; and I know there are those in that country who will not flinch from me. If I have enemies (and every man has some) I leave them to the enjoyment of their ingratitude.* * I subjoin in a note, for the sake of wasting the solitude of a prison, the answer that I gave to the part of the letter above mentioned. It is not inapplacable to the subject of this Memorial; but it contain! somewhat of a melancholy idea, a little predictive, that I hope is not becoming true so soon.
It is somewhat extraordinary that the idea of my not being a citizen of America should have arisen only at the time that I am imprisoned in France because, or on the pretence that, I am a foreigner. The case involves a strange contradiction of ideas. None of the Americans who came to France whilst I was in liberty had conceived any such idea or circulated any such opinion; and why it should arise now is a matter yet to be explained. However discordant the late American Minister G. M.
[Gouverneur Morris] and the late French Committee of Public Safety were, it suited the purpose of both that I should be continued in arrestation.
The former wished to prevent my return to America, that I should not expose his misconduct; and the latter, lest I should publish to the world the history of its wickedness. Whilst that Minister and the Committee continued I had no expectation of liberty. I speak here of the Committee of which Robespierre was member.(1) "You touch me on a very tender point when you say that my friends on your side the water cannot be reconciled to the idea of my abandoning America. They are right. I had rather see my horse Button eating the grass of Borden-Town or Morrisania than see all the pomp and show of Europe.
"A thousand years hence (for I must indulge a few thoughts) perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all nations in her favour, may sound like a romance and her inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain may just furnish materials for a village tale or extort a sigh from rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall deride the principle and deny the fact.
"When we contemplate the fall of Empires and the extinction of the nations of the Ancient World, we see but little to excite our regret than the mouldering ruins of pompous palaces, magnificent museums, lofty pyramids and walls and towers of the most costly workmanship; but when the Empire of America shall fall, the subject for contemplative sorrow will be infinitely greater than crumbling brass and marble can inspire. It will not then be said, here stood a temple of vast antiquity; here rose a babel of invisible height; or there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; but here, Ah, painful thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of Freedom rose and fell. Read this, and then ask if I forget America."--Author.
1 This letter, quoted also in Paine's Letter to Washington, was written from London, Jan. 6, 1789, to the wife of Col.
Few, née Kate Nicholson. It is given in full in my "Life of THE MEMORIAL TO MONROE.
I ever must deny, that the article of the American constitution already mentioned, can be applied either verbally, intentionally, or constructively, to me. It undoubtedly was the intention of the Convention that framed it, to preserve the purity of the American republic from being debased by foreign and foppish customs; but it never could be its intention to act against the principles of liberty, by forbidding its citizens to assist in promoting those principles in foreign Countries; neither could it be its intention to act against the principles of gratitude.(1) France had aided America in the establishment of her revolution, when invaded and oppressed by England and her auxiliaries. France in her turn was invaded and oppressed by a combination of foreign despots. In this situation, I conceived it an act of gratitude in me, as a citizen of America, to render her in return the best services I could perform. I came to France (for I was in England when I received the invitation) not to enjoy ease, emoluments, and foppish honours, as the article supposes; but to encounter difficulties and dangers in defence of liberty; and I much question whether those who now malignantly seek (for some I believe do) to turn this to my injury, would have had courage to have done the same thing. I am sure Gouverneur Morris would not. He told me the second day after my arrival, (in Paris,) that the Austrians and Prussians, who were then at Verdun, would be in Paris in a fortnight. I have no idea, said he, that seventy thousand disciplined troops can be stopped in their march by any power in France.
1 This and the two preceding paragraphs, including the footnote, are entirely omitted from the American pamphlet.
It will be seen that Paine had now a suspicion of the conspiracy between Gouverneur Morris and those by whom he was imprisoned. Soon after his imprisonment he had applied to Morris, who replied that he had reclaimed him, and enclosed the letter of Deforgues quoted in my Introduction to this chapter, of course withholding his own letter to the Minister. Paine answered (Feb. 14, 1793): "You must not