Mr. Conway believes implicitly in Paine—not merely in his virtue and intelligence, but that he was a truly great man, who played a great part in human affairs. He will no more admit that Paine was a busybody, inflated with conceit and with a strong dash of insolence, than he will that Thomas was a drunkard. That Paine's speech was undoubtedly plain and his nose undeniably red is as far as Mr. Conway will go. If we are to follow the biographer the whole way, we must not only unhang the dog, but give him sepulture amongst the sceptred Sovereigns who rule us from their urns.
Thomas Paine was born at Thetford, in Norfolk, in January, 1737, and sailed for America in 1774, then being thirty-seven years of age. Up to this date he was a rank failure. His trade was staymaking, but he had tried his hand at many things. He was twice an Excise officer, but was twice dismissed the service, the first time for falsely pretending to have made certain inspections which, in fact, he had not made, and the second time for carrying on business in an excisable article—tobacco, to wit—without the leave of the Board. Paine had married the tobacconist's business, but neither the marriage nor the business prospered; the second was sold by auction, and the first terminated by mutual consent.
Mr. Conway labours over these early days of his hero very much, but he can make nothing of them. Paine was an Excise officer at Lewes, where, so Mr. Conway reminds us, 'seven centuries before Paine opened his office in Lewes, came Harold's son, possibly to take charge of the Excise as established by Edward the Confessor, just deceased.' This device of biographers is a little stale. The Confessor was guiltless of the Excise.
Paine's going to America was due to Benjamin Franklin, who made Paine's acquaintance in London, and, having the wit to see his ability, recommended him 'as a clerk or assistant-tutor in a school or assistant-surveyor.' Thus armed, Paine made his appearance in Philadelphia, where he at once obtained employment as editor of an intended periodical called the Pennsylvanian Magazine or American Museum, the first number of which appeared in January, 1775. Never was anything luckier. Paine was, without knowing it, a born journalist. His capacity for writing on the spur of the moment was endless, and his delight in doing so boundless. He had no difficulty for 'copy', though in those days contributors were few. He needed no contributors. He was 'Atlanticus'; he was 'Vox Populi'; he was 'Aesop.' The unsigned articles were also mostly his. Having at last, after many adventures and false starts, found his vocation, Paine stuck to it. He spent the rest of his days with a pen in his hand, scribbling his advice and obtruding his counsel on men and nations. Both were usually of excellent quality.
Paine was also happy in the moment of his arrival in America. The War of Independence was imminent, and in April, 1775, occurred 'the massacre of Lexington.' The Colonists were angry, but puzzled. They hardly knew what they wanted. They lacked a definite opinion to entertain and a cry to asseverate. Paine had no doubts. He hated British institutions with all the hatred of a civil servant who has had 'the sack.'
In January, 1776, he published his pamphlet Common-sense, which must be ranked with the most famous pamphlets ever written. It is difficult to wade through now, but even The Conduct of the Allies is not easy reading, and yet between Paine and Swift there is a great gulf fixed. The keynote of Common-sense was separation once and for ever, and the establishment of a great Republic of the West. It hit between wind and water, had a great sale, and made its author a personage and, in his own opinion, a divinity.
Paine now became the penman of the rebels. His series of manifestoes, entitled The Crisis, were widely read and carried healing on their wings, and in 1777 he was elected Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs. Charles Lamb once declared that Rousseau was a good enough Jesus Christ for the French, and he was capable of declaring Tom Paine a good enough Milton for the Yankees. However that may be, Paine was an indefatigable and useful public servant. He was a bad gauger for King George, but he was an admirable scribe for a revolution conducted on constitutional principles.
To follow his history through the war would be tedious. What Washington and Jefferson really thought of him we shall never know. He was never mercenary, but his pride was wounded that so little recognition of his astounding services was forthcoming. The ingratitude of Kings was a commonplace; the ingratitude of peoples an unpleasing novelty. But Washington bestirred himself at last, and Paine was voted an estate of 277 acres, more or less, and a sum of money. This was in 1784.
Three years afterwards Thomas visited England, where he kept good company and was very usefully employed engineering, for which excellent pursuit he would appear to have had great natural aptitude. Blackfriars Bridge had just tumbled down, and it was Paine's laudable ambition to build its successor in iron. But the Bastille fell down as well as Blackfriars Bridge, and was too much for Paine. As Mr. Conway beautifully puts it: 'But again the Cause arose before him; he must part from all—patent interests, literary leisure, fine society—and take the hand of Liberty undowered, but as yet unstained. He must beat his bridge-iron into a key that shall unlock the British Bastille, whose walls he sees steadily closing around the people.' 'Miching mallecho—this means mischief;' and so it proved.
Burke is responsible for the Rights of Man. This splendid sentimentalist published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in November, 1790. Paine immediately sat down in the Angel, Islington, and began his reply. He was not unqualified to answer Burke; he had fought a good fight between the years 1775 and 1784. Mr. Conway has some ground for his epigram, 'where Burke had dabbled, Paine had dived.' There is nothing in the Rights of Man which would now frighten, though some of its expressions might still shock, a lady-in-waiting; but to profess Republicanism in 1791 was no joke, and the book was proclaimed and Paine prosecuted. Acting upon the advice of William Blake (the truly sublime), Paine escaped to France, where he was elected by three departments to a seat in the Convention, and in that Convention he sat from September, 1792, to December, 1793, when he was found quarters in the Luxembourg Prison.