* "Convention Nationale. Opinion de Thomas Payne, Depute"
du Departement de la Somme, concern ant le jugement de Louis
XVI. Precede" de sa lettre d'envoi au President de la
Convention. Imprime" par ordre de la Convention Nationale. A
Paris. De rimprimerie Nationale." It is very remarkable
that, in a State paper, Paine should be described as deputy
for the Somme. His votes in the Convention are all entered
under Calais. Dr. John Moore, who saw much of Paine at this
time, says, in his work on the French Revolution, that his
(Paine's) writings for the Convention were usually
translated into French by the Marchioness of Condorcet.
The delay which Paine's proposal would involve was, as Louis Blanc remarks, fatal to it. It remains now only to work among the members of the Convention, and secure if possible a majority that will be content, having killed the king, to save the man; and, in saving him, to preserve him as an imprisoned hostage for the good behavior of Europe. This is now Paine's idea, and never did man toil more faithfully for another than he did for that discrowned Louis Capet.
CHAPTER XXIV. OUTLAWED IN ENGLAND
While Paine was thus, towards the close of 1792, doing the work of a humane Englishman in France, his works were causing a revolution in England—a revolution the more effectual because bloodless.
In Paine's letter to Secretary Dundas (Calais, September 15th), describing the examination of his papers at Dover, a "postscript" states that among the papers handled was "a printed proof copy of my Letter to the Addressers, which will soon be published." This must have been a thumbscrew for the Secretary when he presently read the pamphlet that escaped his officers. In humor, freedom, and force this production may be compared with Carlyle's "Latter Day Pamphlets." Lord Stormont and Lord Grenville having made speeches about him, their services are returned by a speech which the author has prepared for them to deliver in Parliament. This satirical eulogy on the British constitution set the fashion for other radical encomiums of the wisdom of the king and of the peers, the incorruptibility of the commons, beauty of rotten boroughs, and freedom of the people from taxes, with which prosecuting attorneys were unable to deal. Having felicitated himself on the circulation of his opinions by the indictment, and the advertisements of his books by loyal "Addresses," Paine taunts the government for its method of answering argument. It had been challenging the world for a hundred years to admire the perfection of its institutions. At length the challenge is taken up, and, lo, its acceptance is turned into a crime, and the only defence of its perfection is a prosecution! Paine points out that there was no sign of prosecution until his book was placed within reach of the poor. When cheap editions were clamored for by Sheffield, Leicester, Chester, Warwickshire, and Scotland, he had announced that any one might freely publish it. About the middle of April he had himself put a cheap edition in the press. He knew he would be prosecuted for that, and so wrote to Thomas Walker.*
* At the trial the Attorney-General admitted that he had not
prosecuted Part I. because it was likely to be confined to
judicious readers; but this still more reprehensible Part
II. was, he said, with an industry incredible, ushered into
the world in all shapes and sizes, thrust into the hands of
subjects of every description, even children's sweetmeats
being wrapped in it.
It was the common people the government feared. He remarks that on the same day (May 21st) the prosecution was instituted and the royal proclamation issued—the latter being indictable as an effort to influence the verdict in a pending case. He calls attention to the "special jury," before which he was summoned. It is virtually selected by the Master of the Crown Office, a dependant on the Civil List assailed in his book. The special jury is treated to a dinner, and given two guineas for a conviction, and but one guinea and no dinner for acquittal. Even a fairly selected local jury could not justly determine a constitutional issue affecting every part of the empire. So Paine brings under scrutiny every part of the legal machinery sprung on him, adding new illustrations of his charges against the whole system. He begins the siege, which Bradlaugh was to carry forward in a later time, against the corrupt Pension List, introducing it with his promised exposure of Edmund Burke. Near the end of Lord North's administration Burke brought in a bill by which it was provided that a pension or annuity might be given without name, if under oath that it was not for the benefit of a member of the House of Commons. Burke's pension had been taken out under the name of another man; but being under the necessity of mortgaging it, the real pensioner had to be disclosed to the mortgagee.* For the rest, this "Address to the Addressers," as it was popularly called,—or "Part Third of the Rights of Man," as one publisher entitled it,—sowed broadcast through England passages that were recited in assemblies, and sentences that became proverbs.
* This disclosure, though not disproved, is passed over
silently by most historians. Nevertheless it was probably
that which ended Burke's parliamentary career. Two years
later, at the age of sixty-two, he retired with an
accumulation of pensions given at the king's request,
amounting to £3,700 per annum. His reputation had been built
up on his supposed energy in favor of economy. The secret
and illegal pension (£1,500) cast light on his sudden
coalition with Lord North, whom he once proposed to impeach
as a traitor. The title of "masked pensioner" given by Paine
branded Burke. Writing in 1819 Cobbett says: "As my Lord
Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord,
to introduce that of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to
shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in
the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times
where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."
"It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a Nation, Thou shalt not read."