"I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself defeated, has been one of the promoters of this prosecution; and I shall return the compliment by shewing, in a future publication, that he has been a masked pensioner at £1500 per annum for about ten years. Thus it is that the public money is wasted, and the dread of public investigation is produced."
The secret negotiations with the publisher being thus discovered, no more was heard of Jordan, except that his papers were brought out at Paine's trial.
The Information against Paine, covering forty-one pages, octavo, is a curiosity. It recites that "Thomas Paine, late of London, gentleman, being a wicked, malicious, seditious, and ill-disposed person, and being greatly disaffected to our said Sovereign Lord the now King, and to the happy constitution and government of this kingdom... and to bring them into hatred and contempt, on the sixteenth day of February, in the thirty-second year of the reign of our said present Sovereign Lord the King, with force and arms at London aforesaid, to wit, in the parish of St. Mary le Bone, in the Ward of Cheap, he, the said Thomas, wickedly, maliciously and seditiously, did write and publish, and caused to be written and published, a certain false, scandalous, malicious, and seditious libel, of and concerning the said late happy Revolution, and the said settlements and limitations of the crown and regal governments of the said kingdoms and dominions... intituled, 'Rights of Man, Part the Second, Combining principle and practice.'... In one part thereof, according to the tenor and effect following, that is to say, 'All hereditary government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown' (meaning, amongst others, the crown of this kingdom) 'or an heritable throne,' (meaning the throne of this kingdom), 'or by what-other fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind are heritable property. To inherit a government is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.'... 'The time is not very distant when England will laugh at itself for sending to Holland, Hanover, Zell, or Brunswick, for men' (meaning the said King William the Third, and King George the First) « at the expence of a million a year, who understood neither her laws, her language, nor her interest, and whose capacities would scarcely have fitted them for the office of a parish constable. If government could be trusted to such hands, it must be some easy and simple thing indeed; and materials fit for all the purposes may be found in every town and village in England.' In contempt of our said Lord the now King and his laws, to the evil example of all others in like case offending, and against the peace of our said Lord the King, his crown and dignity. Whereupon the said Attorney General of our said Lord the King, who for our said Lord the King in this behalf, prose-cuteth for our said Lord the King, prayeth the consideration of the court here in the premises, and that due process of law may be awarded against him, the said Thomas Paine, in this behalf, to make him answer to our said Lord the King, touching and concerning the premises aforesaid.
"To this information the defendant hath appeared, and pleaded Not Guilty, and thereupon issue is joined."
The specifications and quotations in the Information are reiterated twice, in one case (Paine's note on William and Mary centenary), three times.*
* "I happened to be in England at the celebration of the
centenary of the Revolution of 1688. The characters of
William and Mary have always appeared to me detestable; the
one seeking to destroy his uncle, the other her father, to
get possession of power themselves; yet, as the nation was
disposed to think something of the event, I felt hurt at
seeing it ascribe the whole reputation of it to a man who
had undertaken it as a job; and who besides what he
otherwise got, charged six hundred thousand pounds for the
expense of the little fleet that brought him from Holland.
George the First acted the same close-fisted part as William
had done, and bought the Duchy of Bremen with the money he
got from England, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds over
and above his pay as King; and, having thus purchased it at
the expense of England, added it to his Hanoverian dominions
for his own private profit. In fact every nation that does
not govern itself is governed as a job. England has been the
prey of jobs ever since the Revolution."
It is marvellous that such an author, martial with "force and arms," could still walk freely about London. But the machinery for suppressing thought had always a tendency to rust in England; it had to be refurbished. To the royal proclamation against seditious writings corporations and rotten boroughs responded with loyal addresses. In the debate on that proclamation (May 25th) Secretary Dundas and Mr. Adam had arraigned Paine, and he addressed an open letter to the Secretary (June 6th) which was well received. Mr. Adam had said that:
"He had well considered the subject of constitutional publications, and was by no means ready to say that books of science upon government though recommending a doctrine or system different from the form of our constitution were fit objects of prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn Harrington for his Oceana, Sir Thomas More for his Utopia, and Hume for his Idea of a Perfect Commonwealth. But the publication of Mr. Paine reviled what was most sacred in the Constitution, destroyed every principle of subordination, and established nothing in their room."
The real difficulty was that Paine had put something in the room of hereditary monarchy—not a Utopia, but the representative system of the United States. He now again compares the governmental expenses of England and America and their condition. He shows that the entire government of the United States costs less than the English pension list alone.
"Here is a form and system of government that is better organized than any other government in the world, and that for less than one hundred thousand pounds, and yet every member of Congress receives as a compensation for his time and attendance on public business, one pound seven shillings per day, which is at the rate of nearly five hundred pounds a year. This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political superstition to support it. It was by encouraging discussion and rendering the press free upon all subjects of government, that the principles of government became understood in America, and the people are now enjoying their present blessings under it. You hear of no riots, tumults and disorders in that country; because there exists no cause to produce them. Those things are never the effect of freedom, but of restraint, oppression, and excessive taxation."