The Life Of Thomas Paine Volume I Part 13

"But whatever is necessary or proper to be done, must be done immediately. We must rise vigorously upon the evil, or it will rise upon us. A show of spirit will grow into real spirit, but the Country must not be suffered to ponder over their loss for a day. The circ.u.mstance of the present hour will justify any means from which good may arise. We want rousing.

"On the loss of Charleston I would remark--the expectation of a foreign force arriving will embarra.s.s them whether to go or to stay; and in either case, what will they do with their prisoners? If they return, they will be but as they were as to dominion; if they continue, they will leave New York an attackable post. They can make no new movements for a considerable time. They may pursue their object to the Southward in detachments, but then in every main point they will naturally be at a stand; and we ought immediately to lay hold of the vacancy.

"I am, Sir, your obedient humble servant,

"Thomas Paine."

If Paine had lost any popularity in consequence of his indirect censure by Congress, a year before, it had been more than regained by his action in heading the subscription, and the inspiriting effect of his pamphlets of March and June, 1780. The University of the State of Pennsylvania, as it was now styled, celebrated the Fourth of July by conferring on him the degree of Master of Arts.* Among the trustees who voted to confer on him this honor were some who had two years before refused to take the American oath of allegiance.

In the autumn appeared Paine's _Crisis Extraordinary_. It would appear by a payment made to him personally, that in order to make his works cheap he had been compelled to take his publications into his own hands.** The sum of $360 paid for ten dozen copies of this pamphlet was really at the rate of five cents per copy. It is a forcible reminder of the depreciation of the Continental currency. At one period Paine says he paid $300 for a pair of woollen stockings.

* Mr. Burk, Secretary of the University of Pennsylvania, sends me some interesting particulars. The proposal to confer the degree on Paine was unanimously agreed to by the trustees present, who were the Hon. Joseph Reed, President of the Province; Mr. Moore, Vice-President; Mr. Sproat (Presbyterian minister), Mr. White (the Bishop), Mr.

Helmuth, Mr. Wei-borg (minister of the German Calvinist Church), Mr. Farmer (Roman Catholic Rector of St. Mary's), Dr. Bond, Dr. Hutchkinson, Mr. Muhlenberg (Lutheran minister). There were seven other recipients of the honor on that day, all eminent ministers of religion; and M.D. was conferred on David Ramsay, a prisoner with the enemy.

** "In Council. Philadelphia, October 10th, 1780. Sir,--Pay to Thomas Paine Esquire, or his order, the amount of three hundred and sixty dollars Continental money in State money, at sixty to one, amount of his account for 10 dozen of the Crisis Extraordinary. Wm. Moore, Vice President.--To David Rittenhouse Esquire, Treasurer."

Although the financial emergency had been tided over by patriotic sacrifices, it had disclosed a chaos.

"Sir,--Please to pay the within to Mr. Willm. Harris, and you will oblige yr. obt. Hble. Sert., Thos. Paine.--David Rittenhouse Esq."

"Red. in full, H. Wm. Harris." [Harris printed the pamphlet].

Congress, so far from being able to contend with Virginia on a point of sovereignty, was without power to levy taxes. "One State," writes Was.h.i.+ngton (May 31st) "will comply with a requisition of Congress; another neglects to do it; a third executes it by halves; and all differ either in the manner, the matter, or so much in point of time, that we are always working up hill, and ever shall be; and, while such a system as the present one or rather want of one prevails, we shall ever be unable to apply our strength or resources to any advantage." In the letter of May 28th, to the President of Pennsylvania, which led to the subscription headed by Paine, Was.h.i.+ngton pointed out that the resources of New York and Jersey were exhausted, that Virginia could spare nothing from the threatened South, and Pennsylvania was their chief dependence.

"The crisis, in every point of view, is extraordinary." This sentence of Was.h.i.+ngton probably gave Paine his t.i.tle, Crisis Extraordinary. It is in every sense a masterly production. By a careful estimate he shows that the war and the several governments cost two millions sterling annually.

The population being 3,000,000, the amount would average 13s. 4d. per head. In England the taxation was 2 per head. With independence a peace establishment in America would cost 5s. per head; with the loss of it Americans would have to pay the 2 per head like other English subjects.

Of the needed annual two millions, Pennsylvania's quota would be an eighth, or 250,000; that is, a s.h.i.+lling per month to her 375,000 inhabitants,--which subjugation would increase to three-and-threepence per month. He points out that the Pennsylvanians were then paying only 64,280 per annum, instead of their real quota of 250,000, leaving a deficiency of 185, 720, and consequently a distressed army. After showing that with peace and free trade all losses and ravages would be speedily redressed, Paine proposes that half of Pennsylvania's quota, and 60,000 over, shall be raised by a tax of 7s. per head. With this sixty thousand (interest on six millions) a million can be annually borrowed. He recommends a war-tax on landed property, houses, imports, prize goods, and liquors. "It would be an addition to the pleasures of society to know that, when the health of the army goes round, a few drops from every gla.s.s become theirs."

On December 30, 1780, Dunlap advertised Paine's pamphlet "Public Good."

Under a charter given the Virginia Company in 1609 the State of Virginia claimed that its southern boundary extended to the Pacific; and that its northern boundary, starting four hundred miles above, on the Atlantic coast, stretched due northwest. To this Paine replies that the charter was given to a London company extinct for one hundred and fifty years, during which the State had never acted under that charter. Only the heirs of that company's members could claim anything under its extinct charter. Further, the State unwarrantably a.s.sumed that the northwestern line was to extend from the northern point of its Atlantic base; whereas there was more reason to suppose that it was to extend from the southern point, and meet a due west line from the northern point, thus forming a triangular territory of forty-five thousand square miles. Moreover, the charter of 1609 said the lines should stretch "from sea to sea." Paine shows by apt quotations that the western sea was supposed to be a short distance from the Atlantic, and that the northwestern boundary claimed by Virginia would never reach the said sea, "but would form a spiral line of infinite windings round the globe, and after pa.s.sing over the northern parts of America and the frozen ocean, and then into the northern parts of Asia, would, when eternity should end, and not before, terminate in the north pole." Such a territory is nondescript, and a charter that describes nothing gives nothing. It may be remarked here that though the Attorney-General of Virginia, Edmund Randolph, had to vindicate his State's claim, he used a similar argument in defeating Lord Fairfax's claim to lands in Virginia which had not been discovered when his grant was issued.* All this, however, was mere fencing preliminary to the real issue. The western lands, on the extinction of the Virginia companies, had reverted to the Crown, and the point in which the State was really interested was its succession to the sovereignty of the Crown over all that territory. It was an early cropping up of the question of State sovereignty. By royal proclamation of 1763 the province of Virginia was defined so as not to extend beyond heads of rivers emptying in the Atlantic.

* "Omitted Chapters of History Disclosed in the Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph," pp. 47, 60.

Paine contended that to the sovereignty of the Crown over all territories beyond limits of the thirteen provinces the United States had succeeded. This early a.s.sertion of the federal doctrine, enforced with great historical and legal learning, alienated from Paine some of his best Southern friends. The controversy did not end until some years later. After the peace, a proposal in the Virginia Legislature to present Paine with something for his services, was lost on account of this pamphlet.*

* Of course this issue of State v. National sovereignty was adjourned to the future battle-field, where indeed it was not settled. Congress accepted Virginia's concession of the territory in question (March I, 1784), without conceding that it was a donation; it accepted some of Virginia's conditions, but refused others, which the State surrendered.

A motion that this acceptance did not imply endors.e.m.e.nt of Virginia's claim was lost, but the contrary was not affirmed. The issue was therefore settled only in Paine's pamphlet, which remains a doc.u.ment of paramount historical interest.

There was, of course, a rumor that Paine's pamphlet was a piece of paid advocacy. I remarked among the Lee MSS., at the University of Virginia, an unsigned sc.r.a.p of paper saying he had been promised twelve thousand acres of western land. Such a promise could only have been made by the old Indiana, or Vandalia, Company, which was trying to revive its defeated claim for lands conveyed by the Indians in compensation for property they had destroyed. Their agent, Samuel Wharton, may have employed Paine's pen for some kind of work. But there is no faintest trace of advocacy in Paine's "Public Good." He simply maintains that the territories belong to the United States, and should be sold to pay the public debt,--a principle as fatal to the claim of a Company as to that of a State.

The students of history will soon be enriched by a "Life of Patrick Henry," by his grandson, William Wirt Henry, and a "Life of George Mason," by his descendant, Miss Rowland. In these works by competent hands important contributions will be made (as I have reason to know) to right knowledge of the subject dealt with by Paine in his "Public Good."

It can here only be touched on; but in pa.s.sing I may say that Virginia had good ground for resisting even the semblance of an a.s.sertion of sovereignty by a Congress representing only a military treaty between the colonies; and that Paine's doctrine confesses itself too idealistic and premature by the plea, with which his pamphlet closes, for the summoning of a "continental convention, for the purpose of forming a continental const.i.tution, defining and describing the powers and authority of Congress."

CHAPTER XII. A JOURNEY TO FRANCE

The suggestion of Franklin to Paine, in October, 1775, that he should write a history of the events that led up to the conflict, had never been forgotten by either. From Franklin he had gathered important facts and materials concerning the time antedating his arrival in America, and he had been a careful chronicler of the progress of the Revolution. He was now eager to begin this work. At the close of the first year of his office as Clerk of the a.s.sembly, which left him with means of support for a time, he wrote to the Speaker (November 3, 1780) setting forth his intention of collecting materials for a history of the Revolution, and saying that he could not fulfil the duties of Clerk if re-elected.*

* Dr. Egle informs me that the following payments to Paine appear in the Treasurer's account: 1779, November 27, 450.

1780, February 14. For public service at a treaty held at Easton in 1777, 300. February 14. Pay as clerk, 582. 10.

o. March 18. On account as clerk, 187. 10. o. March 27, "for his services "(probably those mentioned on p. 94), 2,355, 7. 6. June 7, "for 60 days attendance and extra expenses," 1,699. j. 6, (This was all paper money, and of much less value than it seems. The last payment was drawn on the occasion of his subscription of the $500, apparently hard money, in response to Was.h.i.+ngton's appeal.) In March, 1780, a Fee Act was pa.s.sed regulating the payment of officers of the State in accordance with the price of wheat; but this was ineffectual to preserve the State paper from depreciation. In June, 1780, a list of lawyers and State- officers willing to take paper money of the March issue as gold and silver was published, and in it appears "Thomas Paine, clerk to the General a.s.sembly."

This and another letter (September 14, 1780), addressed to the Hon. John Bayard, Speaker of the late a.s.sembly, were read, and ordered to lie on the table. Paine's office would appear to have ended early in November; the next three months were devoted to preparations for his history.

But events determined that Paine should make more history than he was able to chronicle. Soon after his _Crisis Extraordinary_ (dated October 6, 1780) had appeared, Congress issued its estimate of eight million dollars (a million less than Paine's) as the amount to be raised. It was plain that the money could not be got in the country, and France must be called on for help. Paine drew up a letter to Vergennes, informing him that a paper dollar was worth only a cent, that it seemed almost impossible to continue the war, and asking that France should supply America with a million sterling per annum, as subsidy or loan. This letter was shown to M. Marbois, Secretary of the French Legation, who spoke discouragingly. But the Hon. Ralph Izard showed the letter to some members of Congress, whose consultation led to the appointment of Col. John Laurens to visit France. It was thought that Laurens, one of Was.h.i.+ngton's aids, would be able to explain the military situation. He was reluctant, but agreed to go if Paine would accompany him.

It so happened that Paine had for some months had a dream of crossing the Atlantic, with what purpose is shown in the following confidential letter (September 9, 1780), probably to Gen. Nathaniel Greene.

"Sir,--Last spring I mentioned to you a wish I had to take a pa.s.sage for Europe, and endeavour to go privately to England. You pointed out several difficulties in the way, respecting my own safety, which occasioned me to defer the matter at that time, in order not only to weigh it more seriously, but to submit to the government of subsequent circ.u.mstances. I have frequently and carefully thought of it since, and were I now to give an opinion on it as a measure to which I was not a party, it would be this:--that as the press in that country is free and open, could a person possessed of a knowledge of America, and capable of fixing it in the minds of the people of England, go suddenly from this country to that, and keep himself concealed, he might, were he to manage his knowledge rightly, produce a more general disposition for peace than by any method I can suppose. I see my way so clearly before me in this opinion, that I must be more mistaken than I ever yet was on any political measure, if it fail of its end. I take it for granted that the whole country, ministry, minority, and all, are tired of the war; but the difficulty is how to get rid of it, or how they are to come down from the high ground they have taken, and accommodate their feelings to a treaty for peace. Such a change must be the effect either of necessity or choice. I think it will take, at least, three or four more campaigns to produce the former, and they are too wrong in their opinions of America to act from the latter. I imagine that next spring will begin with a new Parliament, which is so material a crisis in the politics of that country, that it ought to be attended to by this; for, should it start wrong, we may look forward to six or seven years more of war. The influence of the press rightly managed is important; but we can derive no service in this line, because there is no person in England who knows enough of America to treat the subject properly. It was in a great measure owing to my bringing a knowledge of England with me to America, that I was enabled to enter deeper into politics, and with more success, than other people; and whoever takes the matter up in England must in like manner be possessed of a knowledge of America. I do not suppose that the acknowledgment of Independence is at this time a more unpopular doctrine in England than the declaration of it was in America immediately before the publication of the pamphlet 'Common Sense,' and the ground appears as open for the one now as it did for the other then.

"The manner in which I would bring such a publication out would be under the cover of an Englishman who had made the tour of America incog. This will afford me all the foundation I wish for and enable me to place matters before them in a light in which they have never yet viewed them. I observe that Mr. Rose in his speech on Governor Pownall's bill, printed in Bradford's last paper, says that 'to form an opinion on the propriety of yielding independence to America requires an accurate knowledge of the state of that country, the temper of the people, the resources of their Government,' &c. Now there is no other method to give this information a national currency but this,--the channel of the press, which I have ever considered the tongue of the world, and which governs the sentiments of mankind more than anything else that ever did or can exist.

"The simple point I mean to aim at is, to make the acknowledgment of Independence a popular subject, and that not by exposing and attacking their errors, but by stating its advantages and apologising for their errors, by way of accomodating the measure to their pride. The present parties in that country will never bring one another to reason. They are heated with all the pa.s.sion of opposition, and to rout the ministry, or to support them, makes their capital point. Were the same channel open to the ministry in this country which is open to us in that, they would stick at no expense to improve the opportunity. Men who are used to government know the weight and worth of the press, when in hands which can use it to advantage. Perhaps with me a little degree of literary pride is connected with principle; for, as I had a considerable share in promoting the declaration of Independence in this country, I likewise wish to be a means of promoting the acknowledgment of it in that; and were I not persuaded that the measure I have proposed would be productive of much essential service, I would not hazard my own safety, as I have everything to apprehend should I fall into their hands; but, could I escape in safety, till I could get out a publication in England, my apprehensions would be over, because the manner in which I mean to treat the subject would procure me protection.

"Having said thus much on the matter, I take the liberty of hinting to you a mode by which the expense may be defrayed without any new charge.

Drop a delegate in Congress at the next election, and apply the pay to defray what I have proposed; and the point then will be, whether you can possibly put any man into Congress who could render as much service in that station as in the one I have pointed out. When you have perused this, I should be glad of some conversation upon it, and will wait on you for that purpose at any hour you may appoint. I have changed my lodgings, and am now in Front Street opposite the Coffee House, next door to Aitkin's bookstore.

"I am, Sir, your ob't humble servant,

"Thomas Paine."

{1781}

The invitation of Colonel Laurens was eagerly accepted by Paine, who hoped that after their business was transacted in France he might fulfil his plan of a literary descent on England. They sailed from Boston early in February, 1781, and arrived at L'Orient in March.

Young Laurens came near ruining the scheme by an imprudent advocacy, of which Vergennes complained, while ascribing it to his inexperience.

According to Lamartine, the King "loaded Paine with favors." The gift of six millions was "confided into the hands of Franklin and Paine." The author now revealed to Laurens, and no doubt to Franklin, his plan for going to England, but was dissuaded from it. From Brest, May 28th, he writes to Franklin in Paris:

"I have just a moment to spare to bid you farewell. We go on board in an hour or two, with a fair wind and everything ready. I understand that you have expressed a desire to withdraw from business, and I beg leave to a.s.sure you that every wish of mine, so far as it can be attended with any service, will be employed to make your resignation, should it be accepted, attended with every possible mark of honor which your long services and high character in life justly merit."*

* He confides to Franklin a letter to be forwarded to Bury St. Edmunds, the region of his birth. Perhaps he had already been corresponding with some one there about his projected visit. Ten years later the Bury Post vigorously supported Paine and his "Rights of Man."

They sailed from Brest on the French frigate _Resolve_ June 1st, reaching Boston August 25th, with 2,500,000 livres in silver, and in convoy a s.h.i.+p laden with clothing and military stores.

The glad tidings had long before reached Was.h.i.+ngton, then at New Windsor. On May 14, 1781, the General writes to Philip Schuyler:

"I have been exceedingly distressed by the repeated accounts I have received of the sufferings of the troops on the frontier, and the terrible consequences which must ensue unless they were speedily supplied. What gave a particular poignancy to the sting I felt on the occasion was my inability to afford relief."

On May 26th his diary notes a letter from Laurens reporting the relief coming from France. The information was confided by Was.h.i.+ngton only to his diary, lest it should forestall efforts of self-help. Of course Was.h.i.+ngton knew that the starting of convoys from France could not escape English vigilance, and that their arrival was uncertain; so he pa.s.sed near three months in preparations, reconnoitrings, discussions.

By menacing the British in New York he made them draw away some of the forces of Cornwallis from Virginia, where he meant to strike; but his delay in marching south brought on him complaints from Governor Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, and others, who did not know the secret of that delay. Was.h.i.+ngton meant to carry to Virginia an army well clad, with hard money in their pockets, and this he did. The arrival of the French supplies at Boston, August 25th, was quickly heralded, and while sixteen ox-teams were carrying them to Philadelphia, Was.h.i.+ngton was there getting, on their credit, all the money and supplies he wanted for the campaign that resulted in the surrender of Cornwallis.

For this great service Paine never received any payment or acknowledgment. The plan of obtaining aid from France was conceived by him, and mainly executed by him. It was at a great risk that he went on this expedition; had he been captured he could have hoped for little mercy from the British. Laurens, who had nearly upset the business, got the glory and the pay; Paine, who had given up his clerks.h.i.+p of the a.s.sembly, run the greater danger, and done the real work, got nothing.

But it was a role he was used to. The young Colonel hastened to resume his place in Was.h.i.+ngton's family, but seems to have given little attention to Paine's needs, while asking attention to his own. So it would appear by the following friendly letter of Paine, addressed to "Col. Laurens, Head Quarters, Virginia:

"Philadelphia, Oct. 4,1781.--Dear Sir,--I received your favor (by the post,) dated Sep. 9th, Head of Elk, respecting a mislaid letter. A gentleman who saw you at that place about the same time told me he had likewise a letter from you to me which he had lost, and that you mentioned something to him respecting baggage. This left me in a difficulty to judge whether after writing to me by post, you had not found the letter you wrote about, and took that opportunity to inform me about it. However, I have wrote to Gen. Heath in case the trunk should be there, and inclosed in it a letter to Blodget in case it should not.