Common Sense. Thomas Paine
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because should I be disappointed by the Paper being taken or not arriving in time, the reason being understood by them beforehand will not injure me, but in the other case it would, and in the mean Time I can be preparing for publication. I have hitherto kept all my private matters a secret, but as I know your friendship and you a great deal of my situation, I can with more ease communicate them to you than to another.
"P. S. If you are not engaged to-morrow evening I should be glad to spend part of it with you—if you are, I shall wait your opportunity."1
It was a cruel circumstance of Paine's poverty that he was compelled to call attention not only to that but to his services, and to appraise the value of his own pen. He had to deal with hard men, on whom reserve was wasted. On September 28th he reminded the Executive Council of Pennsylvania of his needs and his uncompensated services, which, he declared, he could not afford to continue without support. The Council realized the importance of Paine's pen to its patriotic measures, but was afraid of offending the French Minister. Its president, Joseph Reed, on the following day (September 29th) wrote to that Minister intimating that they would like to employ Paine if he (the minister) had no objection. On October 11th Gerard replies with a somewhat equivocal letter, in which he declares that Paine had agreed to terms he had offered through M. de Mirales, but had not fulfilled them. "I willingly," he says, "leave M. Payne to enjoy whatever advantages he promises himself by his denial of his acceptance of the offers of M. de Mirales and myself. I would even add, Sir, that if you feel able to direct his pen in a way useful to the public welfare—which will perhaps not be difficult to your zeal, talents, and superior lights,—I will be the first to applaud the success of an attempt in which I have failed."2 On the same date Paine, not having received any reply to his previous letter, again wrote to the Council.
"Honble. Sirs.—Some few days ago I presented a letter to this Honble. Board stating the inconveniences which I lay under from an attention to public interest in preference to my own, to which I have recd, no reply. It is to me a matter of great concern to find in the government of this State, that which appears to be a disposition in them to neglect their friends and to throw discouragements in the way of genius and Letters.
"At the particular request of the Gentleman who presides at this board, I took up the defence of the Constitution, at a time when he declared to me that unless he could be assisted he must give it up and quit the state; as matters then pressed too heavy upon him, and the opposition was gaining ground; yet this Board has since suffered me to combat with all the inconveniences incurred by that service, without any attention to my interest or my situation. For the sake of not dishonoring a cause, good in itself, I have hitherto been silent on these matters, but I cannot help expressing to this board the concern I feel on this occasion, and the ill effect which such discouraging examples will have on those who might otherwise be disposed to act as I have done.
"Having said this much, which is but a little part of which I am sensible, I have a request to make which if complied with will enable me to overcome the difficulties alluded to and to withdraw from a service in which I have experienced nothing but misfortune and neglect. I have an opportunity of importing a quantity of printing paper from France, and intend collecting my several pieces, beginning with Common Sense, into two Volumes, and publishing them by Subscription, with notes; but as I cannot think of beginning the Subscription until the paper arrive, and as the undertaking, exclusive of the paper, will be attended with more expense than I, who have saved money both in the Service of the Continent and the State, can bear, I should be glad to be assisted with the loan of fifteen hundred pounds for which I will give bond payable within a year. If this should not be complied with, I request that the services I have rendered may be taken into consideration and such compensation made me therefor as they shall appear to deserve.
"I am, Honble. Sirs, your obt. and humble servt.,
"Thomas Paine."
The constitution which Paine, in the above letter, speaks of defending was that of 1776, which he had assisted Dr. Franklin, James Cannon and others in framing for Pennsylvania. It was a fairly republican constitution, and by its enfranchisement of the people generally reduced the power enjoyed by the rich and reactionary under the colonial government In Still's biography of John Dickinson the continued conflicts concerning this constitution are described. In 1805, when a constitutional convention was proposed in Pennsylvania, Paine pointed out the superiority of its constitution of 1776, which "was conformable to the Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of Rights, which the present constitution (framed in 1790) is not".3 The constitution of 1776, and Paine's exposure of the services rendered to the enemy by Quakers, cleared the Pennsylvania Assembly of the members of that society who had been supreme. This process had gone on. The oath of allegiance to the State, proposed by Paine in 1777, and adopted, had been followed in 1778 (April 1st) by one imposing renunciation of all allegiance to George III., his heirs and successors, to be taken by all trustees, provosts, professors, and masters. This was particularly aimed at the nest of "Tories" in the University of Philadelphia, whose head was the famous Dr. William Smith. This provost, and all members of the University except three trustees, took the oath, but the influence of those who had been opposed to independence remained the same.
In 1779 the Assembly got rid of the provost (Smith), and this was done by the act of November which took away the charter of the University.4 It was while this agitation was going on, and the Philadelphia "Tories" saw the heads of their chieftains falling beneath Paine's pen, that his own official head had been thrown to them by his own act. The sullen spite of the "Tories" did not fail to manifest itself. In conjunction with Deane's defeated friends, they managed to give Paine many a personal humiliation. This was, indeed, easy enough, since Paine, though willing to fight for his cause, was a non-resistant in his own behalf. It may have been about this time that an incident occurred which was remembered with gusto by the aged John Joseph Henry after the "Age of Reason" had added horns and cloven feet to his early hero. Mr. Mease, Clothier-General, gave a dinner party, and a company of his guests, on their way home, excited by wine, met Paine. One of them remarking, "There comes 'Common Sense'"; Matthew Slough said, "Damn him, I shall common-sense him," and thereupon tripped Paine into the gutter.5 But patriotic America was with Paine, and missed his pen; for no Crisis had appeared for nearly a year. Consequently on November 2, 1779, the Pennsylvania Assembly elected him its Clerk.
1. I am indebted to Mr. Simon Gratz of Philadelphia for a copy of this letter.
2. "Life and Correspondence of Joseph Reed." By his grandson. 1847.
3. Paine forgot the curious inconsistency in this constitution of 1776, between the opening Declaration of Rights in securing religious freedom and equality to all who "acknowledge the being of a God," and the oath provided for all legislators, requiring belief in future rewards and punishments, and in the divine inspiration of the Old and New Testaments. This deistical oath, however, was probably considered a victory of latitudiarianism, for the members of the convention had taken a rigid trinitarian oath on admission to their seats.
4. See "A Memoir of the Rev. William Smith, D.D.," by Charles J. Stille, Philadelphia, 1869. Provost Stille, in this useful historical pamphlet, states all that can be said in favor of Dr. Smith, but does not refer to his controversy with Paine.
5. This incident is related in the interest of religion in Mr. Henry's "Account of Arnold's Campaign against Quebec." The book repeats the old charge of drunkenness against Paine, but the untrustworthiness of the writer's memory is shown in his saying that