In connection with the above sentence from Junius, I subjoin the same sentiment in regard to natural affection from the Declaration a few sentences further on, as follows: "These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends." Compare with this, Common Sense, p. 47, as follows: "To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them." In regard to the phrase "renounce forever" above, as quoted from the Declaration, compare Common Sense, p. 38, as follows: "That seat of wretchedness [speaking of Boston] will teach us wisdom and instruct us to forever renounce a power in whom we can have no trust." See also Common Sense, p. 37, as follows: "And our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instructs us to renounce the alliance."
The expression "forever" will not be mistaken, for it runs through Junius' and all of Mr. Paine's writings as a common expression.
The figure "to stab" is one which Mr. Paine adopted in Junius and carried through his whole life. Thus he talks about "stabbing the Constitution," and "to stab the character of the nation." The former is found in Junius, the latter in his Letter to the Abbe Raynal.
The italicised phrases in the following expression, "These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever," etc., are so very like Mr. Paine, and so entirely unlike Mr. Jefferson, that the cursory reader, with the commonest understanding, would not fail to pronounce in favor of the former being the author.
I now call attention to a striking peculiarity in regard to the mention of the Scotch. It is found in the same paragraph, and is as follows: "At this very time, too, they [our British brethren] are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries, to invade and destroy us." The word mercenaries is used once before in the Declaration.
The writer of the Declaration is speaking of the "British brethren," whom he designates as "of our common blood," but excludes the Scotch therefrom. Now, we know Mr. Paine to have been an Englishman, and that in Junius he often inveighed bitterly against the Scotch. The reader will remember what he said of Mr. Wedderburn, on page [195] of this work. Mansfield was a Scotchman, and this fact embitters Junius. He speaks of the Scotch "cunning," "treachery," and "fawning sycophancy," of "the characteristic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, the persevering assiduity, the everlasting profession of a discreet and moderate resentment." It is quite evident that the writer of the Declaration did not consider the Scotch as included in the term "British brethren," whom he warned, as he called them "mercenaries;" nor as having the like origin, nor as being of the same race as the term "common blood" indicates. These are facts which speak out of the Declaration, and as such Jefferson could not have written them, for two reasons:
1. He had no antipathy to the Scotch, but rather a liking. This is seen in the selection of his teachers, both by his parents and himself. At nine years of age he studies Latin, Greek, and French under the Rev. Mr. Douglas, a Scotchman, living with the minister at the same time. At fourteen, and after his father's death, he goes away to attend the school of Mr. Murray, a Scotchman; and when he goes to college at Williamsburg, being then a young man grown, he becomes strongly attached to one Professor Small, a Scotchman. In short, Jefferson was peculiarly attached to the Scotch, and why?
2. Because he was nearer related to them by "common blood" than to the English. He was of Welsh origin—a perfect Celt, and not a Briton. Now, the Cimbri of Wales and the Gael of Scotland are of the same blood, build, habits, and instincts. Jefferson, on Scotch soil, would have been taken, from personal appearance, to be a red-headed Scotchman, and a fine specimen at that. From "common blood," then, he could not consistently have written it, if he knew any thing about his origin, or comprehended what he was writing.
But there is an argument in this connection, which goes toward the whole instrument, showing that Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of it. In a special commentary of Mr. Jefferson's on this phrase, "Scotch and foreign mercenaries," he misquotes the Declaration, which he would not be likely to do if he wrote it. In volume viii, page 500, of his works, he says: "When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it, which gave offense to some members. The words, 'Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries' excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country." In the phrase "Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries," Jefferson is trying to quote the words "Scotch and foreign mercenaries." There is a vast difference between the two words "auxiliaries" and "mercenaries." But the former expresses the real spirit of Jefferson, the latter of Paine. Entirely different sentiments produced the two expressions. The style, also, is changed from Paine's to Jefferson's, by putting in the word "other." It is thus changed from the concise to the diffuse. Mr. Jefferson says this expression was "unlucky;" and it still proves to be, near the close of a century.
Now, the word mercenaries, which, with the author of the Declaration, means prostituted hirelings, is used twice in the instrument, but auxiliaries, which would mean honorable allies, is not used once. It is not strange that he should forget, for the sentiment is foreign to his own character; and I had written my argument, and given my reasons above why Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of that sentiment, a month before I found that Jefferson had misquoted the Declaration. I reason from first principles, which rest on established facts, the silent language of nature, compared with which the vain babblings of men amount to nothing. For example, John Adams says that he and Mr. Jefferson met as a sub-committee to draft the Declaration; that he urged Jefferson to do it; that afterward they both met, and conned it over, and he does not remember of making or suggesting a single alteration. This Mr. Jefferson denies. He says there was no sub-committee; that Adams has forgotten about it; that he [Jefferson] drew it, and turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it, and that Adams did correct it.—Jefferson's Works, vol. vii, pages 304, 305. Here are two men, one eighty and the other eighty-eight, on whose words history rests, differing materially about historic facts. The one who can not quote an important passage correctly, as to fact or language which he says he wrote himself, accuses the other of forgetting about a committee which never existed. The reader must judge.