Chapter XI. Cause, Country, Self

       Table of Contents

      Whatever might be thought of Paine's course in the Deane-Beaumarchais affair, there could be no doubt that the country was saved from a questionable payment unjustly pressed at a time when it must have crippled the Revolution, for which the French subsidies were given. Congress was relieved, and he who relieved it was the sufferer. From the most important congressional secretaryship he was reduced to a clerkship in Owen Bid-die's law office.

      Paine's patriotic interest in public affairs did not abate. In the summer of 1779 he wrote able articles in favor of maintaining our right to the Newfoundland fisheries in any treaty of peace that might be made with England. Congress was secretly considering what instructions should be sent to its representatives in Europe; in case negotiations should arise, and the subject was discussed by "Americanus" in a letter to the Pennsylvania Gazette, June 23d. This writer argued that the fisheries should not be mentioned in such negotiations; England would stickle at the claim, and our ally, France, should not be called on to guarantee a right which should be left to the determination of natural laws. This position Paine combated; he maintained that independence was not a change of ministry, but a real thing; it should mean prosperity as well as political liberty. Our ally would be aggrieved by a concession to Great Britain of any means of making our alliance useful. "There are but two natural sources of wealth—the Earth and the Ocean,—and to lose the right to either is, in our situation, to put up the other for sale." The fisheries are needed, "first, as an Employment Secondly, as producing national Supply and Commerce, and a means of national wealth. Thirdly, as a Nursery for Seamen." Should Great Britain be in such straits as to ask for peace, that would be the right opportunity to settle the matter. "To leave the Fisheries wholly out, on any pretence whatever, is to sow the seeds of another war." (Pennsylvania Gazette, June 30th, July 14th, 21st.) The prospects of peace seemed now sufficiently fair for Paine to give the attention which nobody else did to his own dismal situation. His scruples about making money out of the national cause were eccentric. The manuscript diary of Rickman, just found by Dr. Clair Grece, contains this note:

      "Franklin, on returning to America from France, where he had been conducting great commercial and other concerns of great import and benefit to the States of America, on having his accounts looked over by the Committee appointed to do so, there was a deficit of £100,000. He was asked how this happened. 'I was taught,' said he very gravely, 'when a boy to read the scriptures and to attend to them, and it is there said: muzzle not the ox that treadeth out his master's grain.' No further inquiry was ever made or mention of the deficient £100,000, which, it is presumed, he devoted to some good and great purpose to serve the people,—his own aim through life."

      Rickman, who named a son after Franklin, puts a more charitable construction on the irregularities of the Doctor's accounts than Gouverneur Morris (p. 140). The anecdote may not be exact, but it was generally rumored, in congressional circles, that Franklin had by no means been muzzled. Nor does it appear to have been considered a serious matter. The standard of political ethics being thus lowered, it is easy to understand that Paine gave more offence by his Diogenes-lantern than if he had quietly taken his share of the grain he trod out The security of independence and the pressure of poverty rendered it unnecessary to adhere to his quixotic Quaker repugnance to the sale of his inspirations, and he now desired to collect these into marketable shape. His plans are stated in a letter to Henry Laurens.

      "Philadelphia, Sepr. 14th, 1779.—Dear Sir,—It was my intention to have communicated to you the substance of this letter last Sunday had I not been prevented by a return of my fever; perhaps finding myself unwell, and feeling, as well as apprehending, inconveniences, have produced in me some thoughts for myself as well as for others. I need not repeat to you the part I have acted or the principle I have acted upon; and perhaps America would feel the less obligation to me, did she know, that it was neither the place nor the people but the Cause itself that irresistibly engaged me in its support; for I should have acted the same part in any other Country could the same circumstances have arisen there which have happened here. I have often been obliged to form this distinction to myself by way of smoothing over some disagreeable ingratitudes, which, you well know, have been shewn to me from a certain quarter.

      "I find myself so curiously circumstanced that I have both too many friends and too few, the generality of them thinking that from the public part I have so long acted I cannot have less than a mine to draw from—What they have had from me they have got for nothing, and they consequently suppose I must be able to afford it. I know but one kind of life I am fit for, and that is a thinking one, and, of course, a writing one—but I have confined myself so much of late, taken so little exercise, and lived so very sparingly, that unless I alter my way of life it will alter me. I think I have a right to ride a horse of my own, but I cannot now even afford to hire one, which is a situation I never was in before, and I begin to know that a sedentary life cannot be supported without jolting exercise. Having said thus much, which, in truth, is but loss of time to tell to you who so well know how I am situated, I take the liberty of communicating to you my design of doing some degree of justice to myself, but even this is accompanied with some present difficulties, but it is the easiest, and, I believe, the most useful and reputable of any I can think of. I intend this winter to collect all my Publications, beginning with Common Sense and ending with the fisheries, and publishing them in two volumes Octavo, with notes. I have no doubt of a large subscription. The principal difficulty will be to get Paper and I can think of no way more practicable than to desire Arthur Lee to send over a quantity from France in the Confederacy if she goes there, and settling for it with his brother. After that work is com pleated, I intend prosecuting a history of the Revolution by means of a subscription—but this undertaking will be attended with such an amazing expense, and will take such a length of Time, that unless the States individually give some assistance therein, scarcely any man could afford to go through it. Some kind of an history might be easily executed made up of daily events and triffling matters which would lose their Importance in a few years. But a proper history cannot even be began unless the secrets of the other side of the water can be obtained, for the first part is so interwoven with the Politics of England, that, that which will be the last to get at must be the first to begin with—and this single instance is sufficient to show that no history can take place of some time. My design, if I undertake it, is to comprise it in three quarto volumes and to publish one each year from the time of beginning, and to make an abridgment afterwards in an easy agreeable language for a school book.

      "All the histories of ancient wars that are used for this purpose, promotes no Moral Reflection, but like the beggars opera renders the villain pleasing in the hero. Another thing that will prolong the completion of an history is the want of Plates which only can be done in Europe, for that part of a history which is intended to convey discription of places or persons will ever be imperfect without them. I have now, Sir, acquainted you with my design, and unwilling, as you know I am, to make use of a friend while I can possibly avoid it, I am really obliged to say that I should now be glad to consult with two or three on some matters that regard my situation till such time as I can bring the first of those subscriptions to bear, or set them on foot, which cannot well be until I can get the paper; for should I be disappointed of that, with the subscriptions in my hand, I might be reflected upon, and the reason, tho' a true one, would be subject to other explanations.

      "Here lies the difficulty I alluded to in the beginning of this letter, and I would rather wish to borrow something of a friend or two in the interim than run the risk I have mentioned,