CHAPTER XVI. THE AMERICAN INQUISITION
On October 30th Paine landed at Baltimore. More than two and a half centuries had elapsed since the Catholic Lord Baltimore appointed a Protestant Governor of Maryland, William Stone, who proclaimed in that province (1648) religious freedom and equality. The Puritans, crowding thither, from regions of oppression, grew strong enough to exterminate the religion of Lord Baltimore who had given them shelter, and imprisoned his Protestant Governor. So, in the New World, passed the Inquisition from Catholic to Protestant hands.
In Paine's first American pamphlet, he had repeated and extolled the principle of that earliest proclamation of religious liberty. "Diversity of religious opinions affords a larger field for Christian kindness." The Christian kindness now consists in a cessation of sectarian strife that they may unite in stretching the author of the "Age of Reason" on their common rack, so far as was possible under a Constitution acknowledging no deity. This persecution began on the victim's arrival.
Soon after landing Paine wrote to President Jefferson:
"I arrived here on Saturday from Havre, after a passage of sixty days. I have several cases of models, wheels, etc., and as soon as I can get them from the vessel and put them on board the packet for Georgetown I shall set off to pay my respects to you. Your much obliged fellow-citizen,—Thomas Paine."
On reaching Washington City Paine found his dear friend Monroe starting off to resume his ministry in Paris, and by him wrote to Mr. Este, banker in Paris (Sir Robert Smith's son-in-law), enclosing a letter to Rickman, in London. "You can have no idea," he tells Rickman, "of the agitation which my arrival occasioned." Every paper is "filled with applause or abuse."
"My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and is now worth six thousand pounds sterling; which put in the funds will bring me £400 sterling a year. Remember me in friendship and affection to your wife and family, and in the circle of our friends. I am but just arrived here, and the minister sails in a few hours, so that I have just time to write you this. If he should not sail this tide I will write to my good friend Col. Bosville, but in any case I request you to wait on him for me.* Yours in friendship."
* Paine still had faith in Bosville. He was slow in
suspecting any man who seemed enthusiastic for liberty. In
this connection it may be mentioned that it is painful to
find in the "Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris," (ii.,
p. 426) a confidential letter to Robert R. Livingston,
Minister in France, which seems to assume that Minister's
readiness to receive slanders of Jefferson, who appointed
him, and of Paine whose friendship he seemed to value.
Speaking of the President, Morris says: "The employment of
and confidence in adventurers from abroad will sooner or
later rouse the pride and indignation of this country."
Morris' editor adds: "This was probably an allusion to
Thomas Paine, who had recently returned to America and was
supposed to be an intimate friend of Mr. Jefferson, who, it
was said, received him warmly, dined him at the White House,
and could be seen walking arm in arm with him on the street
any fine afternoon." The allusion to "adventurers" was no
doubt meant for Paine, but not to his reception by
Jefferson, for Morris' letter was written on August 27th,
some two months before Paine's arrival. It was probably
meant by Morris to damage Paine in Paris, where it was known
that he was intimate with Livingston, who had been
introduced by him to influential men, among others to Sir
Robert Smith and Este, bankers. It is to be hoped that
Livingston resented Morris' assumption of his treacherous
character. Morris, who had shortly before dined at the White
House, tells Livingston that Jefferson is "descending to a
condition which I find no decent word to designate." Surely
Livingston's descendants should discover his reply to that
letter.
The defeated Federalists had already prepared their batteries to assail the President for inviting Paine to return on a national ship, under escort of a Congressman. It required some skill for these adherents of John Adams, a Unitarian, to set the Inquisition in motion. It had to be done, however, as there was no chance of breaking down Jefferson but by getting preachers to sink political differences and hound the President's favorite author. Out of the North, stronghold of the "British Party," came this partisan crusade under a pious flag. In Virginia and the South the "Age of Reason" was fairly discussed, its influence being so great that Patrick Henry, as we have seen, wrote and burnt a reply. In Virginia, Deism, though largely prevailing, had not prevented its adherents from supporting the Church as an institution. It had become their habit to talk of such matters only in private. Jefferson had not ventured to express his views in public, and was troubled at finding himself mixed up with the heresies of Paine.*
* To the Rev. Dr. Waterhouse (Unitarian) who had asked
permission to publish a letter of his, Jefferson, with a
keen remembrance of Paine's fate, wrote (July 19, 1822):
"No, my dear Sir, not for the world. Into what a hornet's
nest would it thrust my head!—The genus irritabile vatmm,
on whom argument is lost, and reason is by themselves
disdained in matters of religion. Don Quixote undertook to
redress the bodily wrongs of the world, but the redressaient
of mental vagaries would be an enterprise more than Quixotic
I should as soon undertake to bring the crazy skulls of
Bedlam to sound understanding as to inculcate reason into
that of an Athanasian. I am old, and tranquillity is now my
summum bonum. Keep me therefore from the fire and faggot of
Calvin and his victim Servetus. Happy in the prospect of a
restoration of a primitive Christianity, I must leave to
younger athletes to lop off the false branches which have
been engrafted into it by the mycologists of the middle and
modern ages."—MS. belonging to Dr. Fogg of Boston.
The author on reaching Lovell's Hotel, Washington, had made known his arrival to the President, and was cordially received; but as the newspapers came in with their abuse, Jefferson may have been somewhat intimidated. At any rate Paine so thought. Eager to disembarrass the administration, Paine published a letter in the National Intelligencer which had cordially welcomed him, in which he said that he should not ask or accept any office.*
* The National Intelligencer (Nov. 3d), announcing Paine's
arrival at Baltimore, said, among other things: "Be his
religious sentiments what they may, it must be their [the
American people's] wish that he may live in the undisturbed
possession of our common blessings, and enjoy them the more
from his active participation in their attainment." The same
paper said, Nov. 10th: "Thomas Paine has arrived in this
city [Washington] and has received a cordial reception from
the Whigs of Seventy-six, and the republicans of 1800, who
have the independence to feel and avow a sentiment of
gratitude for his eminent revolutionary services."
He meant to continue writing and bring forward his mechanical projects. None the less did the "federalist" press use Paine's infidelity to belabor the President, and the author had to write defensive letters from the moment of his arrival. On October 29th, before Paine had landed, the National Intelligencer had printed (from a Lancaster, Pa., journal) a vigorous letter, signed "A Republican," showing that the denunciations of Paine were not religious, but political, as John Adams was also unorthodox. The "federalists" must often have wished that they had taken this warning, for Paine's pen was keener than ever, and the opposition had no writer to meet him. His eight "Letters to the Citizens of the United States" were scathing, eloquent, untrammelled by partisanship, and made a profound impression on the country,—for even the opposition press had to publish them as part of the news of the day.*
* They were published in the National Intelligencer of
November 15th, 22d. 29th, December 6th, January 25th, and
February 2d, 1803. Of the others one appeared in the Aurora
(Philadelphia), dated from Bordentown, N. J., March 12th,
and the last in the Trenton True American % dated April
21st.
On Christmas Day Paine wrote the President a suggestion for the purchase of Louisiana. The French, to whom Louisiana had been ceded by Spain, closed New Orleans (November 26th) against foreign ships (including American), and prohibited deposits there by way of the Mississippi. This caused much excitement, and the "federalists" showed eagerness to push the administration into a belligerent attitude toward France. Paines "common sense" again came to the front, and he sent Jefferson the following paper:
"OF LOUISIANA.
"Spain has ceded Louisiana to france, and france has excluded the Americans from N. Orleans and the navigation of the Mississippi; the people of the Western Territory have complained of it to their Government, and the governt. is of consequence involved and interested in the affair The question then is—What is the best step to be taken?
"The one is to begin by memorial and remonstrance against an infraction of a right. The other is by accommodation, still keeping the right in view, but not making it a groundwork.
"Suppose then the Government begin by making a proposal to france to repurchase the cession, made to her by Spain, of Louisiana, provided it be with the consent of the people of Louisiana or a majority thereof.
"By beginning on this ground any thing can be said without carrying the appearance of a threat,—the growing power of the western territory can be stated as matter of information, and also the impossibility of restraining them from seizing upon New Orleans, and the equal impossibility of france to prevent it.
"Suppose the proposal attended to, the sum to be given comes next on the carpet This, on the part of America, will be estimated between the value of the Commerce, and the quantity of revenue that Louisiana will produce.
"The french treasury is not only empty, but the Government has consumed by anticipation a great part of the next year's revenue. A monied proposal will, I believe, be attended to; if it should, the claims upon france can be stipulated as part of the payment, and that sum can be paid here to the claimants.
"———I congratulate you on the birthday of the New Sun, now called christmas-day; and I make you a present of a thought on Louisiana."
Jefferson next day told Paine, what was as yet a profound secret, that he was already contemplating the purchase of Louisiana.*
* "The idea occurred to me," Paine afterwards wrote to the
President, "without knowing it had occurred to any other
person, and I mentioned it to Dr. Leib who lived in the same
house (Lovell's); and, as he appeared pleased with it, I
wrote the note and showed it to him before I sent it. The
next morning you said to me that measures were already taken
in that business. When Leib returned from Congress I told
him of it. 'I knew that,' said he. 'Why then,' said I, 'did
you not tell me so, because in that case I would not have
sent the note.' 'That is the very reason,' said he; 'I would
not tell you, because two opinions concurring on a case
strengthen it.' I do not, however, like Dr. Leib's motion
about Banks. Congress ought to be very cautious how it gives
encouragement to this speculating project of banking, for it
is now carried to an extreme. It is but another kind of
striking paper money. Neither do I like the notion
respecting the recession of the territory [District of
Columbia.]." Dr. Michael Leib was a representative from
Pennsylvania.