Chapter XII: Part II (4)

"Though nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen,
rude, and niggardly at home. Return the visit, and she admits you
with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an
antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in
antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste
of receiving visitants in her dressing-room; she locks and bolts
up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only
resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide
the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of
Adam. He that would view nature in her undress, and partake of her
internal treasures, must proceed with the resolution of a robber,
if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation to follow her to the
caverns: the external earth makes no proclamation of the internal
stores, but leaves to chance and industry the discovery of the
whole. In such gifts as nature can annually recreate she is noble
and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of
her fortunes, but watches over the capital with the care of a
miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth in caves of
utter darkness; the hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps, mould in
the chests, like the riches of the necromancer's cell. It must be
very pleasant to an adventurous speculatist to make excursions
into these gothic regions, and in his travels he may possibly come
to a cabinet, locked up in some rocky vault, whose treasures shall
reward his toil, and enable him to shine, on his return, as
splendidly as nature herself."

* * * * *

The massacre of Lexington takes place the 19th of April, this year. Paine had been but a few months in America. Franklin is in the middle of the Atlantic, on his way home. He arrives in May, and the _Declaration of Independence_ is now in existence, but only conceived in thought. It will have to bide its time, locked up there in the brain; besides, events are yet to happen which shall be put in it, and the country is not yet prepared for it. The people have no unanimity of sentiment. Congress is weak and trifling; it wants reconciliation, and permits the British to land troops, to destroy the liberties of the people, and to steal the powder of the colonies. The country must be roused to sentiments of patriotism, and the magazines must be filled with powder, to support the Declaration of Independence, before it appears to the world.

Mr. Paine now sets about the work. He wishes the American people to be consistent--to not talk of liberty without acting it out; and he gives them "Serious Thoughts" on negro slavery to think about. It is a feeler, sent out to test public sentiment, and to put the people to thinking in the right direction. He struck--as he always did--when the iron was hot; and, between the hammer and the iron, sparks were emitted which kept burning in America for ninety years. His words were: "Stop the importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their freedom." He believed that the justice of Heaven would some day blot it out. This piece brought Mr. Paine many friends and high hopes. Common Sense shortly afterward came from the press, to stir up revolution in the hearts of the people.

He now turns his attention to chemistry, experiments in the art of making saltpeter cheaply, publishes his researches, and organizes a company to gratuitously supply the public magazines with powder. He is boldly working out his plan. He gives Common Sense to each colony by copyright, and the poor, ignorant dolts of that age and this age wonder why he did not make himself rich in the sale of it. The fools must learn that he was making patriots, not pounds and pence, to serve his purpose and plan. Franklin smiles at the work as it goes on, for to effect a revolution the country will be sorely in need of powder and patriotism. But Washington they can rely on for this latter. When others fail whose mouths were always open to profess liberty, he shall stand firm; when _they_ desert the cause, he shall strike the harder and more nobly.

When war begins public sentiment changes quickly. The American people are now ready for war, made so within a few months. Congress comes together with more strength in its back-bone, more pluck in its heart; and, on the 7th of June, a committee of five is appointed to draft a Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine makes a concise reproduction of Common Sense; constructs it upon mechanical principles, so that it will first convince the understanding, and, having entered the head, will soon reach the heart, for it is made on purpose to storm the passions of men. He privately hands it to Thomas Jefferson. It is quite fortunate that he was chairman of that committee. But in the act the _honor_ of Thomas Paine is pledged for secrecy; it is an honor without spot, and he locks up the act forever in his own breast with Junius.

The Declaration is read on the streets amid cheers; it is read in churches with thanksgiving and praise; it is read in the legislative halls of the states, and at the firesides of patriots; it is read in the camp of the soldier, and by officers to their battalions; it is proclaimed by the congress of the new nation, and from the house-tops to all mankind. It is the second child of a man who has on his hands the "BUSINESS OF A WORLD."

Now let the nation buckle on its armor, and look forward to peace won only in blood. The Declaration of Independence is an easy thing compared with what is to come. We shall see this man's work in war.

Washington is at the head of the army; John Adams, whose head is a perfect battery of war forces, is at the head of the board of war. Upon this man's office depends more than any other in the nation, for he is _Secretary of War_. Mr. Paine has no office, no power of position, not known to the nation, nor to the world, for Common Sense was thought to be the production of Franklin or John Adams. Thomas Paine had great faith in Washington, not so much in Lee. John Adams distrusted Washington, and called him "a dolt," but put great confidence in Lee, an English deserter, and more than an American traitor. Paine never misjudged a man; John Adams never judged a man rightly. As colonies, this country has done much for independence; as a nation, nothing. She is now to be tried.

Paine enlists as a soldier with the "Flying Camp."

The British fleet is repulsed from Charleston, S.C., and can not land her army of English, Scotch, and Hessians; but now, in August, she effects a landing on Long Island. Washington is there with twenty thousand men with guns, but no soldiers in arms. He loses a battle on Long Island, and retreats therefrom. In October, he loses the battle of White Plains. In November, Fort Washington, with two thousand six hundred men, and our best cannon and arms are taken by the British command, and Fort Lee falls, leaving commissary and quartermasters' stores and cannon in the hands of the British. Washington now retreats through the Jerseys, the British hard after. As they retreat, Paine writes at night on a drum-head. In nineteen days, "often in sight and within cannon-shot of each other, the rear of the one employed in pulling down bridges, and the van of the other in building them up," Washington effected a march of ninety miles. The weather was severe, the roads bad, and his army without blankets, tents, or provisions. In four months his army dwindles from twenty thousand down to less than three thousand. In the meantime, the Indians have been committing ravages on the frontier, and in the heart of the country a great party demand absolute submission. The Quakers oppose the war. There is no money to pay soldiers, nor clothing to put on them; they are poorly armed, and there is but little powder to put in the guns. Congress has only _voted_ for battalions, and there is an enemy "in the nation's bowels" that votes can not resist. After Congress had voted for battalions, it took its flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore, destroying public credit and throwing upon Washington the responsibility of directing all things relative to the operations of the war. The fate of the nation rests in the balance; the beam is not equally poised, the nation is going down. Washington is beyond the Delaware; the Hessians are at Trenton. He makes a stand to look into the faces of but "twenty-four hundred men strong enough to be his companions." And on the 20th of December, he tells a voting and cowardly Congress: "Ten days more will put an end to this army." These are "black days."

Where now are the hopes of America? Where are the committeemen who took the Declaration of Independence into Congress? Franklin has gone to France to work for the nation; Jefferson has refused to go with him, and is at home in Virginia safe with his slaves. But where is John Adams, who said that Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence? Where is the chief representative from New England, this "Colossus" of debate, this chief of the war committee? _Where is John Adams_ in this darkest hour of his country's trial? He has deserted her; he went home on the 13th of October after the first reverse, and is "brave in his home by the sea," but will not come back till four months are past, and Washington makes himself famous. The poor dupe to his passions. Lee he loved, Washington he hated; a patriot this, a traitor that. But where is the man who has on hand the _business of a world_? We shall see. In this midnight of the revolution he has been writing something. He has been in the army as a soldier, but has found time to write. It is his first crisis, and it runs thus:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service
of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and
thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily
conquered, yet we have this consolation left with us, that the
harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." He produces
one of his most masterly pieces. He appeals to Heaven, and prays
for some Jersey maid, like Joan of Arc, to spirit up her
countrymen. He deals the king and Lord Howe heavy blows, deftly
laid on; and of the tory, he says: "Good God! what is he? Every
tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is
the foundation of toryism." Having reviewed the enemies of the
country he then "turns with the warm ardor of a friend to those
who have nobly stood and are determined to stand the matter out."
... "Let them call me rebel and welcome," says he, "I feel no
concern from it; but I should suffer the miseries of devils were I
to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose
character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless,
brutish man." In this he also pays a tribute to Washington, in
which he says: "God has given him a mind that can flourish upon
care." "The heart that feels not now is dead, the blood of his
children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back now." "I love
the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength by
distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little
minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm will pursue his
principle unto death." "By perseverance and fortitude we have the
prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad
choice of a variety of evils--a ravaged country, a depopulated
city, habitations without safety, and slavery without hope; our
homes turned into barracks and bawdy houses for Hessians, and a
future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look
on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one
thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it
unlamented."

This little pamphlet was dated Dec. 23, 1776. It was read at the head of the regiments which made up the small remnant of Washington's army. On Christmas night, Washington recrosses the Delaware, and strikes the Hessians at Trenton the next morning. His horse is shot under him, but he wins his _first battle_ and takes nearly a thousand prisoners, eight cannon, and twelve hundred small arms. A few days afterward, Washington struck the British at Princeton, who lost in killed and wounded two hundred, and of prisoners the Americans took two hundred and thirty. Many of Washington's best soldiers being now quite barefoot and badly clad, and the winter weather severe, he closed the first campaign made glorious for freedom by the pen of that man who had undertaken the "_business of a world_."

But in the fall and winter before this his pen was not idle. The new Constitution of Pennsylvania had distracted the State, and Paine tries to bring order out of chaos. He is not unmindful of the Quakers, who will not obey the teachings of their religion and remain neutral, and it is a severe chastisement he gives them, for he talks to them as one having authority.

Five weeks after the first campaign was ended John Adams came back to Congress, not willing to be called "a sunshine patriot" in his home by the sea. But it was not cowardice which made this chief of the war committee desert his post in the most trying months of his country--it was downright meanness of the temper. I mention him again here because in April this year, 1777, he makes a motion that Thomas Paine be made secretary to the committee on foreign affairs. Mr. Paine went on duty. This was, doubtless, brought about by Benjamin Franklin, who is now in France to secure the favors of the government, and as secrecy is the success of diplomacy, Franklin wants Paine to receive his dispatches, for in him he can trust. It was while in this office, as detective, that he was made acquainted with the misconduct of Silas Deane. The stores which Mr. Deane obtained from France were a gift to this country, but he afterward brought in a demand for them, fraudulently pretending that he had purchased them. This was in December, 1778. On the 29th of this month Mr. Paine began a series of letters in the _Pennsylvania Packet_ entitled, "Common Sense to the Public on Mr. Deane's Affairs." He did this to protect the Government, and took the responsibility upon himself to save other parties. He began by saying of Mr. Deane, "as he rose like a rocket he would fall like a stick." Three letters had made their appearance when Mr. Paine was commanded to appear before Congress. The President inquired of him, "Did you write this piece?" "I am the author of that piece," responded Paine. "And this? and this?" "I am." "You may retire." The Congress tried to dismiss him. It was a tie vote. The next day, the 8th of January, 1779, Mr. Paine wrote to Congress as follows: "As I can not consistently with my character as a freeman, submit to be censured unheard, therefore to preserve that character and maintain that right, I think it my duty to resign the office of secretary of the committee for foreign affairs, and I do hereby resign the same."

He now opens up on Silas Deane a terrible battery of invective, and exposed the fraud so completely, that Congress became ashamed of supporting him, and Mr. Deane absconded to France, and afterward died in England, it is said, of remorse, after taking poison. But Mr. Paine became the "_victim of his integrity_," to save the money of the government, which the soldiers were sorely in need of, and to bravely push forward the "_business of a world_."

But, during this time, he has also written Nos. II, III, and IV of _The Crisis_. No. II is to Lord Howe, dated January 13, 1777. This is one of his finest pieces of satire, which is also filled with sentiments of patriotism, courage, and hope. These periodical productions are among his best efforts, and they were continued till the war ended. There are sixteen in all. They were written to produce patriotism in the hearts of the people. No. VIII, I think, is one of the finest productions I ever read. It is addressed to the people of England, and is the sad wailing of Junius.

In December of 1778, he puts forth the proposition to apply steam to navigation--the first thought of the kind in America, which came in advance of the fact about eight years, and in this America was the first in the world.

Mr. Paine offers, at this time, to be one of a party of four or five to set fire to the British fleet in the Delaware. But the three men like him can not be found.

In 1779 he is appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

In 1780 he is dissuaded and prevented from going to England to get out, in secret, a publication to stir up revolution there. The fates will not permit him to try Junius over again. It is as well.

But the spring of this year was marked with an accumulation of misfortunes to our army. The defense of Charleston had failed, and, besides this, there was no money to pay the soldiers. A general gloom rested on the whole country, patriotism was at its ebb, and petitions were abundant to exempt the people from paying taxes. Government had neither money nor credit, and things had come to a "_dead lock_." Washington wrote to the Assembly of Pennsylvania. The doors were shut, and it fell to Thomas Paine, the clerk, to read the letter.

"In this letter the naked truth of things was unfolded. Among
other informations, the general said that, notwithstanding his
confidence in the attachment of the army to the cause of the
country, the distresses of it, from the want of every necessary
which men could be destitute of, had arisen to such a pitch that
the appearances of mutiny and discontent were so strongly marked
on the countenances of the army, that he dreaded the event of
every hour."

After the letter was read, a despairing silence pervaded the hall. Nobody spoke for a considerable time. At last a member of much fortitude arose and said: "If the account in that letter is a true state of things, and we are in the situation there represented, it appears to me in vain to contend the matter any longer. We may as well give up the matter first as last." Another man arose and said: "Well, well, don't let the house despair; if things are not so well as we wish, we must endeavor to make them better," and then moved an adjournment.

What shall now be done? Where is the god of battle, that he has deserted America? When all others fail, both in council and in war, who shall be able to cheer the heart and lift up the head of the nation? We shall see. Thomas Paine draws his salary; he writes a stirring appeal for a private subscription; heads it with five hundred dollars, "his mite, and will increase it as far as the last ability will enable him to go." This subscription is to be a _donation_ to carry on the war. In nine days the subscription "amounts to four hundred pounds hard money, and one hundred and one thousand three hundred and sixty pounds continental." The subscribers now meet and form a bank, with a capital basis of three hundred thousand pounds, real money, _for the purpose of supplying the army_; and the country is once more saved by the man who has on his hands "_the business of a world_."

It is now the university of Pennsylvania makes itself honorable and famous by conferring on Thomas Paine the degree of Master of Arts. It is in 1780 this is done, and on the FOURTH OF JULY.

But more money must be had. A continental dollar is worth about one cent. "Hard money must be had," says Thomas Paine. But how shall it be obtained? By an appeal to the king of France. Paine now sets about the work. It is near the close of the year 1780. He takes up the pen and undisguisedly states the true case of the nation, and requests that France, either as a subsidy or a loan, will supply the United States with a million sterling, and continue that supply annually during the war. This letter was addressed to Count Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs. Paine, as soon as he had written it, showed it to M. Marbois, secretary to the French minister. His reply was: "A million sent out of a nation exhausts it more than ten millions spent in it." But nothing daunted he then took it to Ralph Isard, member of Congress from South Carolina. Isard said: "We will try and do something about it in Congress." Congress favored the letter, and it was thus made a memorial. But who shall now take it to France, and in person represent the situation and demand assistance, as set forth in this letter? Paine had his eye on the man when he went to the member from South Carolina with his letter. It was one of this state's noblest sons, Col. John Laurens, aid to Washington; for Paine loved the Laurenses, both father and son. Through Washington this son was named as agent. But he said: "No, appoint Colonel Hamilton." Congress refused. Now young Laurens states his case to Paine. He said he was acquainted with the military difficulties, but not at all acquainted with political affairs, nor with the resources of the country, "but if you will go with me, I will accept." Of course Paine will go, and that, too, without pay, never expecting a cent for it. Paine had planned his work well, he has got his man, the bravest heart of the land, and we shall now see the boldest act of diplomacy on record. For five weeks Paine had been about this work, and about the first of February, 1781, they sail for France. As soon as they reach Paris, Laurens promptly reports his arrival and business to Vergennes. It is in vain. "The formalities of court and the self-complaisancy of the minister, who would not be hurried, baffled him for more than two months." But this young son of war has a spirit to dare and a tutor to direct--who knows from long experience the stuff kings are made of. He will not be trifled with by subordinates; he will appeal directly to the king. He declares this to the minister, who responds, "I am confounded with your audacity." This is more than Franklin would dare, who is there at court. There comes "a public lever." Louis XVI is there, and so is young Laurens, in uniform, his sword at his side. Now act well thy part, a nation's life dwells in thy words. He is presented to the king, who only expects the passing formalities of an introduction. But Laurens speaks: "I am just from the army of Washington. I know well its condition, it is fully set forth in this memorial;" and then touching his sword, he adds, with animation, "Unless speedy succor is sent to my country, the weapon I now wear at my side as the ally of your majesty, might be drawn as the _subject_ of Great Britain against you and France." The king was struck dumb; but soon rallied himself and replied briefly, but favorably. He took the memorial, the money was granted, and Paine accompanied Laurens home with $2,500,000 in silver. The army is paid, fed, and clothed; Yorktown is attacked upon the strength of it; Cornwallis surrenders, and the British power is broken in this country forever, through those great causes put in motion and faithfully sustained by the man who had on his hands "THE BUSINESS OF A WORLD."

The great work of Thomas Paine is now nearly done in America, but mighty things are yet to be done for the world. The next year he writes his famous letter to the Abbe Raynal, and the Crisis, which guides the nation to honor. A few years of rest, in which he writes his Dissertation on Government, and other pieces; is elected a member of the Philosophical Society, receives the hospitalities of Washington, and three thousand dollars from Congress for his ten years services in America, and he sails for France where he sees the fires of revolution beginning to kindle.

But he has taken care to provide wisdom for his country before he quits her shores. His far-reaching eye sees that a Federal Constitution will have to be formed for the states, and in 1786 he is careful to incorporate into his Dissertation on Government a _Declaration of Rights_. In this Declaration of Rights lies the foundation of the republic, and although not prefixed to the Federal Constitution at the time it was formed and adopted, a complete synopsis of it was afterward added as the ten first amendments thereto. Franklin has also come home to labor awhile, now more than eighty years old; and being chosen a delegate to the Federal Convention, Mr. Paine sailed for France the 16th of April, 1787, just a month before it convened. He has finished his work in America. This work he did faithfully and well. He is now fifty years old, and there are ten years of revolutionary work, and twenty-two of life before him yet.

He took with him to Paris the model of an _iron bridge_. He submits it to the Academy of Sciences. It is pronounced a success, if theory can be sustained by mathematical demonstration. He proposes an iron arch with a span of four hundred and eighty feet. But theory must be tested, and the next year he builds his bridge in an open field near Paddington, in England. Experiment said it was a success, but he got into gaol for debt on account of it. The bridge now spans the river Wear, at Sunderland. This iron arch bridge was the first in the world. The principles are now seen in thousands of bridges in Europe and America; and if they could speak, each one would say: "I was born from the brain of Thomas Paine."

Two American merchants assist him to pay his debts, and he gets out of an English gaol in time to go over to France to witness the taking of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789. That "high altar and castle of despotism" fell at the bidding of those republican principles which he had dedicated his life to teach and maintain. It was a most fitting and grand event when Lafayette gave to Thomas Paine the key to the Bastile to present to Washington. It is now the property of this nation.

Mr. Burke the next year writes his "Reflections" on the French Revolution, and Mr. Paine returns in November, 1790, to answer the publication. In March, the first part of "The Rights of Man" appeared for this purpose. It was dedicated to Washington. In another year the second part appeared, dedicated to Lafayette. A hundred thousand copies of this work went into the hands of the people. It was translated into all the European languages, and was read by the poor and the rich, the high and the low; it became the companion alike of the vassal and his lord. In this he says: "The peer is exalted into the man. Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. It talks about its fine ribbon like a girl, and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of antiquity says, 'When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.' ... The insignificance of a senseless word like duke, count, or earl, has ceased to please, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the bastile of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man." Aristocracy "is a law against every law of nature, and nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice and aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children five are exposed. Aristocracy has never but one child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast." ... "By nature they are children, and by marriage they are heirs, but by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans."

"In taking up this subject," he says, "I seek no recompense; I fear no consequences. Fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man." ... "Knowing my own heart, and feeling myself, as I now do, superior to all the skirmish of party, the inveteracy of interested or mistaken opponents, I answer not to falsehood or abuse." ... "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person. My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

Mr. Paine is now doing openly and boldly the work which Junius tried to do with less success. The same pen has now twenty years more experience; it has added wisdom, but lost a trifle of its vivacity; yet it has lost none of its terrible satire. Never did Junius use secretly such severe language toward the king as Mr. Paine now openly writes. Of the crown, he says: "It signifies a nominal office of a million a year, the business of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from any thing that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the nation; the danger of its coming to its senses.... When we speak of the Crown now it means nothing; it signifies neither a judge nor a general; besides which it is the laws that govern, and not the man."

"It is time that nations should be rational, and not governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders. To read the history of kings, a man would be almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in stag hunting, and that every nation paid a million a year to the huntsman. Man ought to have pride or shame enough to blush at being thus imposed upon, and when he feels his proper character he will.... It has cost England almost seventy millions sterling to maintain a family imported from abroad, of very inferior capacity to thousands in the nation. No wonder that jails are crowded, and taxes and poor-rates increased. Under such systems nothing is to be looked for but what has already happened; and, as to reformation, whenever it comes, it must be from the nation, and not from the government."

In the above how one is reminded of Junius, when he says: "The original fault is in the government," and "there are many things which we ought to affirm can not be done by king, lords, and commons." "The ruin or prosperity of a state depends on the administration of its government." "Behold a nation overwhelmed with debt, her revenues wasted, her trade declining." That "a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but death." "And that if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, it would be matter of curious speculation how he would be received," if the king himself had "spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention."

For the publication of this work in England many men were fined and imprisoned. Mr. Paine himself was tried and convicted, but having been elected a representative to the National Assembly of France, by the Department of Calais, he left England in September, 1792, and being afterward outlawed, never set foot on her soil again. Had it not been for this election to the National Assembly, he would have remained to contest in an English court the principles he had proclaimed. Twenty minutes after he left her shores forever, an order arrived at Dover, from which place he sailed, for his detention, but it was too late; there is yet a sublime deed to be done.

At Calais, France embraced him, and a daughter of the New Republic placed in his hat the national cockade. Mr. Paine is now entering the dark days of his life. With what fortitude and manliness he shall pass through them we shall see. He takes his seat in the National Assembly. In this he addresses the people of France, and says; "I come not to enjoy repose. I commence my citizenship in the stormy hour of difficulties. Convinced that the cause of France is THE CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND, and that liberty can not be purchased by a wish, I gladly share with you the dangers and honors necessary to success.... Let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is certain. It is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this or that individual, that calls France and her armies into action. It is the great cause of ALL. It is the establishment of a new era that shall blot despotism from the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of peace and citizenship the great REPUBLIC OF MAN."

France is declared a republic, and Mr. Paine is one of nine men to draft a new constitution. This work is done. In the meantime, charges are preferred against the king, and Louis XVI is brought to trial. Mr. Paine voted for the trial. The king is found guilty, and condemned to die. But he has now a friend in Thomas Paine. He speaks against the death penalty, and says:

"CITIZEN PRESIDENT: My hatred and abhorrence of monarchy are
sufficiently known; they originate in principles of reason and
conviction, nor, except with life, can they ever be extirpated;
but my compassion for the unfortunate, whether friend or enemy, is
equally lively and sincere." He then reviews the causes which
brought him to trial, and pictures the deplorable condition he is
in--condemns the constituent assembly, rather than the
unfortunate prisoner, and then asks: "What shall be done with this
man?" He has now taken his own life in his hands, when he proffers
to the King of France an asylum in America. Besides, he has a duty
to perform for the United States, which now he offers his own life
to fulfill. He has not forgotten the great feat of young Laurens,
when he touched his sword in presence of this same king, demanding
_that_ aid which made his country free and independent, and which
was granted. He therefore says: "It is to France alone, I know,
that the United States of America owe that support which enabled
them to shake off the unjust and tyrannical yoke of Britain. The
ardor and zeal which she displayed to provide men and money, were
the natural consequence of a thirst for liberty. But as the nation
at that time, restrained by the shackles of her own government,
could only act by means of a monarchical organ, this organ,
whatever in other respects the object might be, certainly
performed a good, a great action. Let, then, these United States
be the safeguard and asylum of Louis Capet."

Marat cries out: "Paine is a Quaker," and the benevolence of this good man is whelmed over by the fierce and bloody sentiment of revenge. This is one of the sublime deeds which give us faith in man, but which appear at such wide intervals that they mark eras in the world's history. I know of but one other which rises to such touching sublimity--it is Socrates, at the head of the Athenian Senate, refusing to put the vote demanded by the laws, religion, and united voice of his country, which would condemn to death the admirals who were unable to bury the dead that had been slain in battle. Both offered their lives that others might live, rather than be themselves unjust.

Mr. Paine, by this effort to save the king's life, lost his influence in the assembly, and he became afterward a silent member, and, in the minds of many, set apart to die. Foreigners are now expelled from the convention, and an order having passed that all persons born in England, and residing in France, should be imprisoned, he was, by order of Robespierre, arrested, and thrown into the Luxembourg. Of his narrow escapes, Mr. Paine says:

"I was one of the nine members that composed the first committee
of constitution. Six of them have been destroyed. Syeyes and
myself have survived--he by bending with the times, and I by not
bending. The other survivor joined Robespierre, and signed with
him the warrant of my arrestation. After the fall of Robespierre,
he was seized and imprisoned, in his turn, and sentenced to
transportation. He has since apologized to me for having signed
the warrant, by saying he felt himself in danger, and was obliged
to do it.

"Herault Sechelles, an acquaintance of Mr. Jefferson, and a good
patriot, was my _suppliant_ as member of the committee of
constitution--that is, he was to supply my place, if I had not
accepted or had resigned, being next in number of votes to me. He
was imprisoned in the Luxembourg with me, was taken to the
tribunal and the guillotine, and I, his principal, was left.

"There were but two foreigners in the convention--Anacharsis
Cloots and myself. We were both put out of the convention by the
same vote, arrested by the same order, and carried to prison
together the same night. He was taken to the guillotine, and I
was again left. Joel Barlow was with us when we went to prison.

"Joseph Lebon, one of the vilest characters that ever existed, and
who made the streets of Arras run with blood, was my suppliant as
member of the convention for the department of the Pays de Calais.
When I was put out of the convention, he came and took my place;
when I was liberated from prison, and voted again into the
convention, he was sent into the same prison, and took my place
there; and he went to the guillotine instead of me. He supplied my
place all the way through. One hundred and sixty-eight persons
were taken out of the Luxembourg in one night, and one hundred and
sixty of them guillotined the next day, of which I know I was to
have been one; and the manner I escaped that fate is curious, and
has all the appearance of accident. When persons by scores and
hundreds were to be taken out of prison for the guillotine, it was
always done in the night, and those who performed that office had
a private mark, or signal, by which they knew what rooms to go to,
and what number to take. We were four, and the door of our room
was marked, unobserved by us, with that number, in chalk; but it
happened, if happening is a proper word, that the mark was put on
when the door was open and flat against the wall, and thereby came
on the inside when we shut it at night, and the destroying angel
passed by it. A few days after this Robespierre fell, and the
American embassador arrived and reclaimed me, and invited me to
his house.

"During the whole of my imprisonment, prior to the fall of
Robespierre, there was no time when I could think my life worth
twenty-four hours, and my mind was made up to meet its fate. The
Americans in Paris went in a body to the convention to reclaim me,
but without success. There was no party among them with respect to
me. My only hope then rested on the government of America, that it
would remember me. But the icy heart of ingratitude, in whatever
man it may be placed, has neither feeling nor sense of honor. The
letter of Mr. Jefferson has served to wipe away the reproach, and
has done justice to the mass of the people of America.

"About two months before this event, I was seized with a fever
that, in its progress, had every symptom of becoming mortal.... I
have some reason to believe, because I can not discover any other
cause, that this illness preserved me in existence."

In these hours of death, and when he expects to be beheaded at any moment, he is writing his AGE OF REASON. The first part he completed just before going to prison; the second part he studies upon, and partly writes, while in prison, and publishes it a few months after his release.

This work was planned years before it appeared, and its completion was deferred till near the close of his life, that the purity of his motives might not be impeached. It was written at that time, too, before he had intended it, because he expected soon to be put to death, and lest, in "the general shipwreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and false theology, the people lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the theology that is true." It was written to combat superstition, fanaticism, and atheism on the one hand, and to defend religion, morality, and deism on the other. It is the good and religious work of a good and religious man. The work it was designed to accomplish is not yet done, but it is well begun. As the world grows wiser it will be valued the more highly, and the more it is read the better will people become.

Had Mr. Paine died at this time, his life's work would have been fulfilled, and the tranquillity of his life would not have been disturbed by the curses of the whole order of the priesthood. But there are fourteen years of life before him yet, in which he is maligned, vilified, slandered, and publicly and privately insulted.

I will briefly sum them up. Seven of these years he spends in France. He writes his essays "On the English System of Finance," "Agrarian Justice," and the "Letter to General Washington;" also, one "To the People and Armies of France." It seems he became attached to Napoleon, for the project of the gun-boat invasion of England is started, and should it succeed, Mr. Paine is to give England a more liberal government. In 1802, he came to America, and the folly of gun-boats also enters into Jefferson's administration. These seven years of life in America are years of trouble and grief. Jefferson, the great Democratic partisan, secures his services to write for his party; but he had never been a partisan, he had stood on higher ground, he had labored for all mankind, and the work, which ill became him, served only to aggravate his own life. We can see a mental change coming over the old man; the reason is yet strong, but the temper is irritable; he grows peevish and broods over his wrongs. "I ought not to have an enemy in America," he said. But the generation of people he now lived among, near the close of his life, were not yet born "in the times that tried men's souls," and they knew him not. He was the friend of Jefferson, and Jefferson had bitter enemies, who said "they both ought to dangle from the same gallows."

He had been paid but little for his revolutionary services, and he now felt the ingratitude of the old Congress, which had treated him badly, and the new one, which could not be bothered with him. Thus his miseries multiply. "After so many years of service, my heart grows cold toward America," he writes, a year before his death, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jefferson ought to have kept the old man aloof from politics, instead of thrusting him into his party broils, and bringing down on his head the whole host of his own personal enemies. Paine had enemies enough of his own without these. But great ideas and generous affections, it seems, Jefferson never had. Now, in his old age, the great apostle of liberty is deserted by many he had labored to befriend, and, though he does not meet death at the hands of his enemies, they have venom enough in their hearts to slay him.

It is sad to think that his last hours were embittered for the want of a friend. Washington had long before forgotten him while a prisoner in the Luxembourg. Samuel Adams had condemned him. John Adams has it in his heart to blast his memory, and four years after he is dead writes to Jefferson, "Joel Barlow was about to record Tom Paine as the great author of the American Revolution. If he was, I desire that my name may be blotted out forever from its record." This came from the man who twice deserted his post in the trying hour of his country; once for four months when at the head of the war committee, and once for seven months when president of the nation. It came from the man who said: Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence. "Blotted out," No! John Adams, your name will live forever on the records of your country. You were sometimes a great man. But by the side of Thomas Paine, on the records of your country, you stand thus:

_History._

John Adams, Member of Congress, the Colossus of
debate, signer of the Declaration of Independence,
famous in the world, chief of the war committee,
on whom great trusts were imposed, in whom great
faith was had, in the first trying crisis of the
new nation DESERTED HER. _Brave in his home by the
sea._

Thomas Paine, the Junius of England, author of
Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence,
whose fame is unknown, on whom no trust was
imposed by the public, undertakes the business of
a world; enlists in the army of Washington, and in
the first trying crisis of the new nation, by the
inspiration of his pen, SAVED HER. _Bravest when
stout hearts fail._

Franklin, the firm friend, has been dead these nineteen years, and many more of the old first friends had gone the same way. His mind now reverts to his home in England, and the religion of his father haunts his affections. He asks to be buried in the Quaker burying-ground, and is refused, lest this act of decency should offend the sanctified followers of Fox. It is as well. The old man's will records, that if this be not granted him on account of his father's religion, he was to be buried on his own farm at New Rochelle. On the 8th of June, 1809, he took his final leave of the world. "I have lived," said he, "an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator--God."

Thus the great REVOLUTIONIST passed away. Like all great men, he lived a virtuous, upright life. He had a noble object in view, and labored manfully to accomplish it. But having done his work well, his enemies have added to his fame by trying to undo what time has approved, and by reviling him when nature has applauded.