with a Tuscan colony before the Revolution, in which he took
up arms and was captured by the British. His colony had
been under the patronage of Jefferson, to whose fortunes he
was always devoted, though the publication of Jefferson's
famous letter to him, reflecting on Washington's
administration, caused his patron much trouble.
"London, Jan. 15, 1789.—My last letter requested to know if you had any thoughts of coming to England before you sailed to America. There will certainly be a change of ministry, and probably some change of measures, and it might not be inconvenient if you could know before your sailing, for the information of the new Congress, what measures the new Ministry here intended to pursue or adopt with respect to commercial arrangements with America. I am in some intimacy with Mr. Burke, and after the new ministry are formed he has proposed to introduce me to them. The Duke of Portland, at whose seat in the country I was a few days last summer, will be at the head of the Treasury, and Mr. Fox Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The King continues, I believe, as mad as ever. It appears that he has amassed several millions of money, great part of which is in foreign funds. He had made a Will, while he had his senses, and devised it among his children, but a second Will has been produced, made since he was mad, dated the 25th of Oct., in which he gives his property to the Queen. This will probably produce much dispute, as it is attended with many suspicious circumstances. It came out in the examination of the physicians, that one of them, Dr. Warrens, on being asked the particular time of his observing the King's insanity, said the twenty-second of October, and some influence has been exerted to induce him to retract that declaration, or to say that the insanity was not so much as to prevent him making a Will, which he has refused to do."
"London, February 16.—Your favour of the 23d December continued to the —— Janry. came safe to hand,—for which I thank you. I begin this without knowing of any opportunity of conveyance, and shall follow the method of your letter by writing on till an opportunity offers.
"I thank you for the many and judicious observations about my bridge. I am exactly in your Ideas as you will perceive by the following account.—I went to the Iron Works the latter end of Octr. My intention at the time of writing to you was to construct an experiment arch of 250 feet, but in the first place, the season was too far advanced to work out of doors and an arch of that extent could not be worked within doors, and nextly, there was a prospect of a real Bridge being wanted on the spot of 90 feet extent. The person who appeared disposed to erect a Bridge is Mr. Foljambe nephew to the late Sir George Saville, and member in the last Parliament for Yorkshire. He lives about three miles from the works, and the River Don runs in front of his house, over which there is an old ill constructed Bridge which he wants to remove. These circumstances determined me to begin an arch of 90 feet with an elevation of 5 feet. This extent I could manage within doors by working half the arch at a time.... A great part of our time, as you will naturally suppose was taken up in preparations, but after we began to work we went on rapidly, and that without any mistake, or anything to alter or amend. The foreman of the works is a Relation to the Proprietors, an excellent mechanic and who fell into all my Ideas with great ease and penetration. I staid at the works till one half the Rib, 45 feet, was compleated and framed horizontally together and came up to London at the meeting of Parliament on the 4th of December. The foreman, whom, as I told him, I should appoint 'President of the Board of Works,' in my absence wrote me word that he has got the other half together with much less trouble than the first. He is now preparing for erecting and I for returning.
"February 26.—A few days ago I received a letter from Mr. Foljambe in which he says: I saw the Rib of your Bridge. In point of elegance and beauty, it far exceeded my expectations and is certainly beyond any thing I ever saw.'—My model and myself had many visitors while I was at the works. A few days after I got there, Lord Fitz-William, heir to the Marquis of Rockingham, came with Mr. Burke. The former gave the workmen five guineas and invited me to Wentworth House, a few miles distant from the works, where I went, and staid a few days.
"This Bridge I expect will bring forth something greater, but in the meantime I feel like a Bird from its nest and wishing most anxiously to return. Therefore, as soon as I can bring any thing to bear, I shall dispose of the contract and bid adieu. I can very truly say that my mind is not at home.
"I am very much rejoiced at the account you give me of the state of affairs in France. I feel exceedingly interested in the happiness of that nation. They are now got or getting into the right way, and the present reign will be more Immortalized in France than any that ever preceded it. They have all died away, forgotten in the common mass of things, but this will be to France like an Anno Mundi, or an Anno Domini. The happiness of doing good and the Pride of doing great things unite themselves in this business. But as there are two kinds of Pride—the little and the great, the privileged orders will in some degree be governed by this Division.
"Those of little pride (I mean little-minded pride) will be schismatical, and those of the great pride will be orthodox, with respect to the States General. Interest will likewise have some share, and could this operate freely it would arrange itself on the orthodox side. To enrich a Nation is to enrich the individuals which compose it. To enrich the farmer is to enrich the farm—and consequently the Landlord;—for whatever the farmer is, the farm will be. The richer the subject, the richer the revenue, because the consumption from which Taxes are raised is in proportion to the abilities of people to consume; therefore the most effectual method to raise both the revenue and the rental of a country is to raise the condition of the people,—or that order known in france by the Tiers Etat. But I ought to ask pardon for entering into reasonings in a letter to you, and only do it because I like the subject.
"I observe in all the companies I go into the impression which the present circumstances of France has upon this Country. An internal Alliance in France [between Throne and People] is an alliance which England never dreamed of, and which she most dreads. Whether she will be better or worse tempered afterwards I cannot judge of, but I believe she will be more cautious in giving offence. She is likewise impressed with an Idea that a negotiation is on foot between the King [Louis XVI.] and the Emperor for adding Austrian Flanders to France. This appears to me such a probable thing, and may be rendered so conducive to the interest and good of all the parties concerned, that I am inclined to give it credit and wish it success. I hope then to see the Scheld opened, for it is a sin to refuse the bounties of nature. On these matters I shall be glad of your opinion. I think the States General of Holland could not be in earnest when they applied to France for the payment of the quota to the Emperor. All things considered to request it was meanness, and to expect it absurdity. I am more inclined to think they made it an opportunity to find how they stood with France. Absalom (I think it was) set fire to his brother's field of corn to bring on a conversation.
"March 12.—With respect to Political matters here, the truth is, the people are fools. They have no discernment into principles and consequences. Had Mr. Pitt proposed a National Convention, at the time of the King's insanity, he had done right; but instead of this he has absorbed the right of the Nation into a right of Parliament,—one house of which (the Peers) is hereditary in its own right, and over which the people have no controul (not so much as they have over their King;) and the other elective by only a small part of the Nation. Therefore he has lessened instead of increased the rights of the people; but as they have not sense enough to see it, they have been huzzaing him. There can be no fixed principles of government, or anything like a constitution in a country where the Government can alter itself, or one part of it supply the other.
"Whether a man that has been so compleatly mad as not to be managed but by force and the mad shirt can ever be confided in afterwards as a reasonable man, is a matter I have very little opinion of. Such a circumstance, in my estimation, if mentioned, ought to be a perpetual disqualification.
"The Emperor I am told has entered a caveat against the Elector of Hanover (not the electoral vote) for King of the Romans. John Bull, however, is not so mad as he was, and a message has been manufactured for him to Parliament in which there is nothing particular. The Treaty with Prussia is not yet before Parliament but is to be.
"Had the Regency gone on and the new administration been formed I should have been able to communicate some matters of business to you, both with respect to America and France; as an interview for that purpose was agreed upon and to take place as soon as the persons who were to fill the offices should succeed. I am the more confidential with those persons, as they are distinguished by the name of the Blue & Buff,—a dress taken up during the American War, and is the undress uniform of General Washington with Lapels which they still wear.* But, at any rate, I do not think it is worth while for Congress to appoint any Minister to this Court. The greater distance Congress observes on this point the better. It will be all money thrown away to go to any expence about it—at least during the present reign. I know the nation well, and the line of acquaintance I am in enables me to judge better than any other American can judge—especially at a distance. If Congress should have any business to state to the Government here, it can be easily done thro' their Minister at Paris—but the seldomer the better.
satirical verses. He also described "French philanthropy" as
"Condorcet filtered through the dregs of Paine."
"I believe I am not so much in the good graces of the Marquis of Landsdowne as I used to be—I do not answer his purpose. He was always talking of a sort of reconnection of England and America, and my coldness and reserve on this subject checked communication."
"London, April 10.—The King continues in his amended state, but Dr. Willis, his son, and attendants, are yet about his person. He has not been to Parliament nor made any public appearance, but he has fixed the 23d April for a public thanksgiving, and he is to go in great Parade to offer up his Devotions at St. Paul's on that day. Those about him have endeavoured to dissuade him from this ostentatious pilgrimage, most probably from an apprehension of some effect it may have upon him, but he persists.... The acts for regulating the trade with America are to be continued as last year. A paper from the Privy Council respecting the American fly is before Parliament. I had some conversation with Sir Joseph Banks upon this subject, as he was the person whom the Privy Council referred to. I told him that the Hessian fly attacked only the green plant, and did not exist in the dry grain. He said that with respect to the Hessian fly, they had no apprehension, but it was the weevil they alluded to. I told him the weevil had always more or less been in the wheat countries of America, and that if the prohibition was on that account it was as necessary fifty or sixty years ago, as now; that I believe it was only a political manoeuvre of the Ministry to please the landed interest, as a balance for prohibiting the exportation of wool to please the manufacturing interest. He did not reply, and as we are on very sociable terms I went farther by saying—The English ought not to complain of the non-payment of Debts from America while they prohibit the means of payment.
"I suggest to you a thought on this subject. The debts due before the war, ought to be distinguished from the debts contracted since, and all and every mode of payment and remittance under which they have bein discharged at the time they were contracted ought to accompany those Debts, so long as any of them shall continue unpaid; because the circumstances of payment became united with the debt, and cannot be separated by subsequent acts of one side only. If this was taken up in America, and insisted on as a right coeval with and inseparable from those Debts, it would force some of the restrictions here to give way.
"You speak very truly of this country when you say 'that they are slumbering under a half reformation of Politics and religion, and cannot be excited by any thing they hear or see to question the remains of prejudice.' Their ignorance on some matters, is unfathomable, for instance the Bank of England discount Bills at 5 p cent, but a proposal is talked of for discounting at 4 1/2; and the reason given is the vast quantity of money, and that money of the good houses discounts at 4 1/2; from this they deduce the great ability and credit of the nation. Whereas the contrary is the case. This money is all in paper, and the quantity is greater than the object to circulate it upon, and therefore shows that the market is glutted, and consequently the ability for farther paper excretions is lessened.—If a war should ever break out, between the countries again, this is the spot where it ought to be prosecuted, they neither feel nor care for any thing at a distance, but are frightened and spiritless at every thing which happens at home. The Combined fleet coming up the Channel, Paul Jones, and the Mob of 1738, are the dreadful eras of this country. But for national puffing none equals them. The addresses which have been presented are stuffed with nonsense of this kind. One of them published in the London Gazette and presented by a Sir William Appleby begins thus,—'Britain, the Queen of Isles, the pride of Nations, the Arbitress of Europe, perhaps of the world.'... On the receipt of your last, I went to Sir Joseph Banks to inform him of your having heard from Ledyard, from Grand Cairo, but found he had a letter from him of the same date. Sir Joseph is one of the society for promoting that undertaking. He has an high opinion of Ledyard, and thinks him the only man fitted for such an exploration. As you may probably hear of Ledyard by accounts that may not reach here, Sir Joseph will be obliged to you to communicate to him any matters respecting him that may come to you (Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., Soho Square)....
"While writing this I am informed that the Minister has had a conference with some of the American creditors, and proposed to them to assume the debts and give them ten shillings on the pound—the conjecture is that he means, when the new Congress is established, to demand the payment. If you are writing to General Washington, it may not be amiss to mention this—and if I hear farther on the matter I will inform you.* But, as being a money matter it cannot come forward but thro' Parliament, there will be notice given of the business. This would be a proper time to show that the British Acts since the Peace militate against the payment by narrowing the means by which those debts might have been paid when they were contracted, and which ought to be considered as constituant parts of the contract."
forwarded to Washington.
"June 17.—I received your last to the 21st May. I am just now informed of Messrs. Parker and Cutting setting off tomorrow morning for Paris by whom this will be delivered to you. Nothing new is showing here. The trial of Hastings, and the Examination of evidence before the house of Commons into the Slave Trade still continue.
"I wrote Sir Joseph Banks an account of my Experiment Arch. In his answer he informs me of its being read before the Royal Society who expressed 'great satisfaction at the Communication.' 'I expect' says Sir Joseph 'many improvements from your Countrymen who think with vigor, and are in a great measure free from those shackles of Theory which are imposed on the minds of our people before they are capable of exerting their mental faculties to advantage.' In the close of his letter he says: 'We have lost poor Ledyard. He had agreed with certain Moors to conduct him to Sennar. The time for their departure was arrived when he found himself ill, and took a large dose of Emetic Tartar, burst a blood-vessel in the operation, which carried him off in three days. We sincerely lament his loss, as the papers we have received from him are full of those emanations of spirit, which taught you to construct a Bridge without any reference to the means used by your predecessors in that art.' I have wrote to the Walkers and proposed to them to manufacture me a compleat Bridge and erect it in London, and afterwards put it up to sale. I do this by way of bringing forward a Bridge over the Thames—which appears to me the most advantageous of all objects. For, if only a fifth of the persons, at a half penny each, pass over a new Bridge as now pass over the old ones the tolls will pay 25 per Cent besides what will arise from carriage and horses. Mrs. Williams tells me that her letters from America mention Dr. Franklin as being exceedingly ill. I have been to see the Cotton Mills,—the Potteries—the Steel furnaces—Tin plate manufacture—White lead manufacture. All those things might be easily carried on in America. I saw a few days ago part of a hand bill of what was called a geometrical wheelbarrow,—but cannot find where it is to be seen. The Idea is one of those that needed only to be thought of,—for it is very easy to conceive that if a wheelbarrow, as it is called, be driven round a piece of land,—a sheet of paper may be placed in it—so as to receive by the tracings of a Pencil, regulated by a little Mechanism—the figure and content of the land—and that neither Theodolite nor chain are necessary."
"Rotherham,Yorkshire, July 13.—The Walkers are to find all the materials, and fit and frame them ready for erecting, put them on board a vessel & send them to London. I am to undertake all expense from that time & to compleat the erecting. We intend first to exhibit it and afterwards put it up to sale, or dispose of it by private contract, and after paying the expences of each party the remainder to be equally divided—one half theirs, the other mine. My principal object in this plan is to open the way for a Bridge over the Thames.... I shall now have occasion to draw upon some funds I have in America. I have one thousand Dollars stock in the Bank at Philadelphia, and two years interest due upon it last April, £180 in the hands of General Morris ',£40 with Mr. Constable of New York; a house at Borden Town, and a farm at New Rochelle. The stock and interest in the Bank, which Mr. Willing manages for me, is the easiest negotiated, and full sufficient for what I shall want. On this fund I have drawn fifteen guineas payable to Mr. Trumbull, tho' I shall not want the money longer than till the Exhibition and sale of the Bridge. I had rather draw than ask to borrow of any body here. If you go to America this year I shall be very glad if you can manage this matter for me, by giving me credit for two hundred pounds, on London, and receiving that amount of Mr. Willing. I am not acquainted with the method of negotiating money matters, but if you can accommodate me in this, and will direct me how the transfer is to be made, I shall be much obliged to you. Please direct to me under cover to Mr. Trumbull. I have some thoughts of coming over to France for two or three weeks, as I shall have little to do here until the Bridge is ready for erecting.
"September 15.—When I left Paris I was to return with the Model, but I could now bring over a compleat Bridge. Tho' I have a slender opinion of myself for executive business, I think, upon the whole that I have managed this matter tolerable well. With no money to spare for such an undertaking I am the sole Patentee here, and connected with one of the first and best established houses in the Nation. But absent from America I feel a craving desire to return and I can scarcely forbear weeping at the thoughts of your going and my staying behind.
"Accept my dear Sir, my most hearty thanks for your many services and friendship. Remember me with an overflowing affection to my dear America—the people and the place. Be so kind to shake hands with them for me, and tell our beloved General Washington, and my old friend Dr. Franklin how much I long to see them. I wish you would spend a day with General Morris of Morrisania, and present my best wishes to all the family.—But I find myself wandering into a melancholy subject that will be tiresome to read,—so wishing you a prosperous passage, and a happy meeting with all your friends and mine, I remain yours affectionately, etc.
"I shall be very glad to hear from you when you arrive. If you direct for me to the care of Mr. Benjamin Vaughn it will find me.—Please present my friendship to Captain Nicholson and family of New York, and to Mr. and Mrs. Few.
"September 18.—I this moment receive yours of ye 13 int. which being Post Night, affords me the welcome opportunity of acknowledging it. I wrote you on the 15 th by post—but I was so full of the thoughts of America and my American friends that I forgot France.
"The people of this Country speak very differently on the affairs of France. The mass of them, so far as I can collect, say that France is a much freer Country than England. The Peers, the Bishops, &c. say the National Assembly has gone too far. There are yet in this country, very considerable remains of the feudal System which people did not see till the revolution in france placed it before their eyes. While the multitude here could be terrified with the cry and apprehension of Arbitrary power, wooden shoes, popery, and such like stuff, they thought themselves by comparison an extraordinary free people; but this bugbear now loses its force, and they appear to me to be turning their eyes towards the Aristocrats of their own Nation. This is a new mode of conquering, and I think it will have its effect.
"I am looking out for a place to erect my Bridge, within some of the Squares would be very convenient. I had thought of Soho Square, where Sir Joseph Banks lives, but he is now in Lincolnshire. I expect it will be ready for erecting and in London by the latter end of October. Whether I shall then sell it in England or bring it over to Paris, and re-erect it there, I have not determined in my mind.. In order to bring any kind of a contract forward for the Seine, it is necessary it should be seen, and, as oeconomy will now be a principle in the Government, it will have a better chance than before.
"If you should pass thro' Borden Town in Jersey, which is not out of your way from Philadelphia to New York, I shall be glad you would enquire out my particular friend Col. Kirkbride. You will be very much pleased with him. His house is my home when in that part of the Country—and it was there that I made the Model of my Bridge."
CHAPTER XIX. THE KEY OF THE BASTILLE
In June, 1777, the Emperor Joseph II. visited his sister, the Queen of France, and passed a day at Nantes. The Count de Menou, commandant of the place, pointed out in the harbor, among the flags raised in his honor, one bearing thirteen stars. The Emperor turned away his eyes, saying: "I cannot look on that; my own profession is to be royalist"
Weber, foster-brother of Marie Antoinette, who reports the Emperor's remark, recognized the fate of France in those thirteen stars. That republic, he says, was formed by the subjects of a King, aided by another King. These French armies, mingling their flags with those of America, learned a new language. Those warriors, the flower of their age, went out Frenchmen and returned Americans. They returned to a court, but decorated with republican emblems and showing the scars of Liberty. Lafayette, it is said, had in his study a large carton, splendidly framed, in two columns: on one was inscribed the American Declaration of Independence; the other was blank, awaiting the like Declaration of France.*
The year 1789 found France afflicted with a sort of famine, its finances in disorder; while the people, their eyes directed to the new world by the French comrades of Washington, beheld that great chieftain inaugurated as president of a prosperous republic. The first pamphlet of Thomas Paine, expurgated in translation of anti-monarchism, had been widely circulated, and John Adams (1779) found himself welcomed in France as the supposed author of "Common Sense." The lion's skin dropped from Paine's disgusted enemy, and when, ten years later, the lion himself became known in Paris, he was hailed with enthusiasm. This was in the autumn of 1789, when Paine witnessed the scenes that ushered in the "crowned republic," from which he hoped so much. Jefferson had sailed in September, and Paine was recognized by Lafayette and other leaders as the representative of the United States. To him Lafayette gave for presentation to Washington the Key of the destroyed Bastille, ever since visible at Mount Vernon,—symbol of the fact that, in Paine's words, "the principles of America opened the Bastille."
But now an American enemy of Paine's principles more inveterate than Adams found himself similarly eclipsed in Paris by the famous author. Early in 1789 Gouverneur Morris came upon the stage of events in Europe. He was entrusted by the President with a financial mission which, being secret, swelled him to importance in the imagination of courtiers. At Jefferson's request Gouverneur Morris posed to Houdon for the bust of Washington; and when, to Morris' joy, Jefferson departed, he posed politically as Washington to the eyes of Europe. He was scandalized that Jefferson should retain recollections of the Declaration of Independence strong enough to desire for France "a downright republican form of government"; and how it happened that under Jefferson's secretaryship of state this man, whom even Hamilton pronounced "an exotic" in a republic, was presently appointed Minister to France, is a mystery remaining to be solved.
Morris had a "high old time" in Europe. Intimacy with Washington secured him influence with Lafayette, and the fine ladies of Paris, seeking official favors for relatives and lovers, welcomed him to the boudoirs, baths, and bedrooms to which his diary now introduces the public.
{1790}
It was but natural that such a man, just as he had been relieved of the overlaying Jefferson, should try to brush Paine aside. On January 26, 1790, he enters in his diary:
"To-day, at half-past three, I go to M. de Lafayette's. He tells me that he wishes to have a meeting of Mr. Short, Mr. Paine, and myself, to consider their judiciary, because his place imposes on him the necessity of being right. I tell him that Paine can do him no good, for that, although he has an excellent pen to write, he has but an indifferent head to think."
Eight years before, Gouverneur Morris had joined Robert Morris in appealing to the author to enlighten the nation on the subject of finance and the direction of the war. He had also confessed to Paine that he had been duped by Silas Deane, who, by the way, was now justifying all that Paine had said of him by hawking his secret letter-books in London. Now, in Paris, Morris discovers that Paine has but an indifferent head to think.*
Gouverneur Morris was a fascinating man. His diary and letters, always entertaining, reveal the secret of his success in twisting the Constitution and Jefferson and Washington around his fingers in several important junctures. To Paine also he was irresistible. His cordial manners disarm suspicion, and we presently find the author pouring into the ear of his secret detractor what state secrets he learns in London.
On March 17, 1790, Paine left Paris to see after his Bridge in Yorkshire, now near completion. On the day before, he writes to a friend in Philadelphia how prosperously everything is going on in France, where Lafayette is acting the part of a Washington; how the political reformation is sure to influence England; and how he longs for America.
"I wish most anxiously to see my much loved America. It is the country from whence all reformation must originally spring. I despair of seeing an abolition of the infernal traffic in negroes. We must push that matter further on your side of the water. I wish that a few well-instructed could be sent among their brethren in bondage; for until they are able to take their own part nothing will be done."**
Cary Morris. i., p. 286.
** One cannot help wondering how, in this matter, Paine got
along with his friend Jefferson, who, at the very time of
his enthusiasm for the French Revolution, had a slave in his
house at Challiot. Paine was not of the philanthropic type
portrayed in the "Biglow Papers":
"I du believe in Freedom's cause
Ez fur away ez Payris is;
I love to see her stick her claws
In them infarnal Phayrisees.
It's well enough agin a king
To dror resolves and triggers,
But libbaty 's a kind 'o thing
That don't agree with niggers."
On his arrival in London he has the happiness of meeting his old friend General Morris of Morrisania, and his wife. Gouverneur is presently over there, to see his brother; and in the intervals of dancing attendance at the opera on titled ladies—among them Lady Dunmore, whose husband desolated the Virginia coast,—he gets Paine's confidences.* Poor Paine was an easy victim of any show of personal kindness, especially when it seemed like the magnanimity of a political opponent.
The historic sense may recognize a picturesque incident in the selection by Lafayette of Thomas Paine to convey the Key of the Bastille to Washington. In the series of intellectual and moral movements which culminated in the French Revolution, the Bastille was especially the prison of Paine's forerunners, the writers, and the place where their books were burned. "The gates of the Bastille," says Rocquain, "were opened wide for Abbés, savants, brilliant intellects, professors of the University and doctors of the Sorbonne, all accused of writing or reciting verses against the King, casting reflections on the Government, or publishing books in favor of Deism, and contrary to good morals. Diderot was one of the first arrested, and it was during his detention that he conceived the plan of his 'Encyclopedia.'" **
** "L'Esprit revolutionaire avant la Revolution." A good
service has just been done by Miss Hunting in translating
and condensing the admirable historical treatise of M. Felix
Rocquain on "The Revolutionary Spirit Preceding the
Revolution," for which Professor Huxley has written a
preface.
The coming Key was announced to Washington with the following letters:
"London, May 1, 1790.—Sir,—Our very good friend the Marquis de la Fayette has entrusted to my care the Key of the Bastille, and a drawing, handsomely framed, representing the demolition of that detestable prison, as a present to your Excellency, of which his letter will more particularly inform. I feel myself happy in being the person thro' whom the Marquis has conveyed this early trophy of the Spoils of despotism, and the first ripe fruits of American principles transplanted into Europe, to his great master and patron. When he mentioned to me the present he intended you, my heart leaped with joy. It is something so truly in character that no remarks can illustrate it, and is more happily expressive of his remembrance of his American friends than any letters can convey. That the principles of America opened the Bastille is not to be doubted, and therefore the Key comes to the right place.
"I beg leave to suggest to your Excellency the propriety of congratulating the King and Queen of France (for they have been our friends,) and the National Assembly, on the happy example they are giving to Europe. You will see by the King's speech, which I enclose, that he prides himself on being at the head of the Revolution; and I am certain that such a congratulation will be well received and have a good effect.
"I should rejoice to be the direct bearer of the Marquis's present to your Excellency, but I doubt I shall not be able to see my much loved America till next Spring. I shall therefore send it by some American vessel to New York. I have permitted no drawing to be taken here, tho' it has been often requested, as I think there is a propriety that it should first be presented. B[ut] Mr. West wishes Mr. Trumbull to make a painting of the presentation of the Key to you.
"I returned from France to London about five weeks ago, and I am engaged to return to Paris when the Constitution shall be proclaimed, and to carry the American flag in the procession. I have not the least doubt of the final and compleat success of the French Revolution. Little Ebbings and Flow-ings, for and against, the natural companions of revolutions, sometimes appear; but the full current of it, is, in my opinion, as fixed as the Gulph Stream.
"I have manufactured a Bridge (a single arch) of one hundred and ten feet span, and five feet high from the cord of the arch. It is now on board a vessel coming from Yorkshire to London, where it is to be erected. I see nothing yet to disappoint my hopes of its being advantageous to me. It is this only which keeps me [in] Europe, and happy shall I be when I shall have it in my power to return to America. I have not heard of Mr. Jefferson since he sailed, except of his arrival. As I have always indulged the belief of having many friends in America, or rather no enemies, I have [mutilated] to mention but my affectionate [mutilated'] and am Sir with the greatest respect, &c.
"If any of my friends are disposed to favor me with a letter it will come to hand by addressing it to the care of Benjamin Vaughn Esq., Jeffries Square, London."
"London, May 31, 1790.—Sir,—By Mr. James Morris, who sailed in the May Packet, I transmitted you a letter from the Marquis de la Fayette, at the same time informing you that the Marquis had entrusted to my charge the Key of the Bastille, and a drawing of that prison, as a present to your Excellency. Mr. J. Rutledge, jun'r, had intended coming in the ship 'Marquis de la Fayette,' and I had chosen that opportunity for the purpose of transmitting the present; but, the ship not sailing at the time appointed, Mr. Rutledge takes his passage on the Packet, and I have committed to his care that trophie of Liberty which I know it will give you pleasure to receive. The french Revolution is not only compleat but triumphant, and the envious despotism of this nation is compelled to own the magnanimity with which it has been conducted.
"The political hemisphere is again clouded by a dispute between England and Spain, the circumstances of which you will hear before this letter can arrive. A Messenger was sent from hence the 6th inst. to Madrid with very peremptory demands, and to wait there only forty-eight hours. His return has been expected for two or three days past. I was this morning at the Marquis del Campo's but nothing is yet arrived. Mr. Rutledge sets off at four o'clock this afternoon, but should any news arrive before the making up the mail on Wednesday June 2, I will forward it to you under cover.
"The views of this Court as well as of the Nation, so far as they extend to South America, are not for the purpose of freedom, but conquest. They already talk of sending some of the young branches to reign over them, and to pay off their national debt with the produce of their Mines. The Bondage of those countries will, as far as I can perceive, be prolonged by what this Court has in contemplation.
"My Bridge is arrived and I have engaged a place to erect it in. A little time will determine its fate, but I yet see no cause to doubt of its success, tho' it is very probable that a War, should it break out, will as in all new things prevent its progress so far as regards profits.
"In the partition in the Box, which contains the Key of the Bastille, I have put up half a dozen Razors, manufactured from Cast-steel made at the Works where the Bridge was constructed, which I request you to accept as a little token from a very grateful heart.
"I received about a week ago a letter from Mr. G. Clymer. It is dated the 4th February, but has been travelling ever since. I request you to acknowledge it for me and that I will answer it when my Bridge is erected. With much affection to all my friends, and many wishes to see them again, I am, etc."
Washington received the Key at New York, along with this last letter, and on August 10, 1790, acknowledges Paine's "agreeable letters."
"It must, I dare say, give you great pleasure to learn by repeated opportunities, that our new government answers its purposes as well as could have been reasonably expected, that we are gradually overcoming the difficulties which presented in its first organization, and that our prospects in general are growing more favorable."
Paine is said by several biographers to have gone to Paris in the May of this year. No doubt he was missed from London, but it was probably because he had gone to Thetford, where his mother died about the middle of May. Gouverneur Morris reports interviews with him August 8th and 15th, in London. The beautiful iron bridge, 110 feet long, had been erected in June at Leasing-Green (now Paddington-Green) at the joint expense of Paine and Peter Whiteside, an American merchant in London. It was attracting a fair number of visitors, at a shilling each, also favorable press notices, and all promised well.
So Paine was free to run over to Paris, where Carlyle mentions him, this year, as among the English "missionaries."* It was a brief visit, however, for October finds him again in London, drawn probably by intimations of disaster to the interests of his Bridge. Whiteside had failed, and his assignees, finding on his books £620 debited to Paine's Bridge, came upon the inventor for the money; no doubt unfairly, for it seems to have been Whiteside's investment, but Paine, the American merchants Cleggett and Murdoch becoming his bail, scraped together the money and paid it Probably he lost through Whiteside's bankruptcy other moneys, among them the sum he had deposited to supply his mother with her weekly nine shillings. Paine was too much accustomed to straitened means to allow this affair to trouble him much. The Bridge exhibition went on smoothly enough. Country gentlemen, deputations from riverside towns, visited it, and suggested negotiations for utilizing the invention. The snug copyright fortune which the author had sacrificed to the American cause seemed about to be recovered by the inventor.
he, a single needleman, did, by his 'Common Sense' pamphlet,
free America;—that he can and will free all this World;
perhaps even the other."—French Revolution.
But again the Cause arose before him; he must part from all—patent interests, literary leisure, fine society—and take the hand of Liberty, undowered, but as yet unstained. He must beat his bridge-iron into a Key that shall unlock the British Bastille, whose walls he sees steadily closing around the people.
CHAPTER XX. "THE RIGHTS OF MAN"
Edmund Burke's "Reflexions on the Revolution in France" appeared about November 1, 1790 Paine was staying at the Angel inn, Islington, and there immediately began his reply. With his sentiment for anniversaries, he may have begun his work on November 4th, in honor of the English Revolution, whose centenary celebration he had witnessed three years before. In a hundred years all that had been turned into a more secure lease of monarchy. Burke's pamphlet founded on that Revolution a claim that the throne represented a perpetual popular franchise. Paine might have heard under his window the boys, with their
and seen their effigy of Guy Fawkes, which in two years his own effigy was to replace. But no misgivings of that kind haunted him. For his eyes the omens hung over the dark Past; on the horizon a new day was breaking in morning stars and stripes. With the inspiration of perfect faith, born of the sacrifices that had ended so triumphantly in America, Paine wrote the book which, coming from such deep, the deeps answered.
Although Paine had been revising his religion, much of the orthodox temper survived in him; notably, he still required some kind of Satan to bring out his full energy. In America it had been George III., duly hoofed and horned, at whom his inkstand was hurled; now it is Burke, who appeared with all the seductive brilliancy of a fallen Lucifer. No man had been more idealized by Paine than Burke. Not only because of his magnificent defence of American patriots, but because of his far-reaching exposures of despotism, then creeping, snake-like, from one skin to another. At the very time that Paine was writing "Common Sense," Burke was pointing out that "the power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less odium, under the name of influence." He had given liberalism the sentence: "The forms of a free and the ends of an arbitrary government are things not altogether incompatible." He had been the intimate friend of Priestley and other liberals, and when Paine arrived in 1787 had taken him to his heart and home. Paine maintained his faith in Burke after Priestley and Price had remarked a change. In the winter of 1789, when the enthusiastic author was sending out jubilant missives to Washington and others, announcing the glorious transformation of France, he sent one to Burke, who might even then have been preparing the attack on France, delivered early in the Parliament of 1790. When, soon after his return from Paris, Paine mingled with the mourners for their lost leader, he was informed that Burke had for some time been a "masked pensioner," to the extent of £1,500 per annum. This rumor Paine mentioned, and it was not denied, whether because true, or because Burke was looking forward to his subsequent pension of £2,500, is doubtful. Burke's book preceded the events in France which caused reaction in the minds of Wordsworth and other thinkers in England and America. The French were then engaged in adapting their government to the free principles of which Burke himself had long been the eloquent advocate. It was not without justice that Erskine charged him with having challenged a Revolution in England, by claiming that its hereditary monarchy was bound on the people by a compact of the previous century, and that, good or bad, they had no power to alter it. The power of Burke's pamphlet lay largely in his deftness with the methods of those he assailed. He had courted their company, familiarized himself with their ideas, received their confidences. This had been especially the case with Paine. So there seemed to be a soupcon of treachery in his subtleties and his disclosures.
But after all he did not know Paine. He had not imagined the completeness with which the struggle in America had trained this man in every art of controversy. Grappling with Philadelphia Tories, Quakers, reactionists, with aristocrats on the one hand and anarchists on the other, Paine had been familiarized beyond all men with every deep and by-way of the subject on which Burke had ventured. Where Burke had dabbled Paine had dived. Never did man reputed wise go beyond his depth in such a bowl as when Burke appealed to a revolution of 1688 as authoritative. If one revolution could be authoritative, why not another? How did the seventeenth century secure a monopoly in revolution? If a revolution in one century could transfer the throne from one family to another, why might not the same power in another transfer it to an elective monarch, or a president, or leave it vacant?
To demolish Burke was the least part of Paine's task. Burke was, indeed, already answered by the government established in America, presided over by a man to whom the world paid homage. To Washington, Paine's work was dedicated. His real design was to write a Constitution for the English nation. And to-day the student of political history may find in Burke's pamphlet the fossilized, and in Paine's (potentially) the living, Constitution of Great Britain.