* I am reluctantly compelled to give only the main ideas of
several theses of this kind by Paine, found among
Jefferson's papers. The portion of the "Jefferson Papers"
at Washington written by Paine would fill a good volume.
"The biographers of Paine," wrote his friend, Joel Barlow, "should not forget his mathematical acquirements and his mechanical genius." But it would require a staff of specialists, and a large volume, to deal with Paine's scientific studies and contrivances—with his planing machine, his new crane, his smokeless candle, his wheel of concentric rim, his scheme for using gunpowder as a motor, above all his iron bridge. As for the bridge, Paine feels that it is a sort of American revolution carried into mechanics; his eagle cannot help spreading a little in the wondering eyes of the Old World. "Great scenes inspire great ideas," he writes to Sir George Staunton.
"The natural mightiness of America expands the mind, and it partakes of the greatness it contemplates. Even the war, with all its evils, had some advantages. It energized invention and lessened the catalogue of impossibilities. At the conclusion of it every man returned to his home to repair the ravages it had occasioned, and to think of war no more. As one amongst thousands who had borne a share in that memorable revolution, I returned with them to the re-enjoyment of quiet life, and, that I might not be idle, undertook to construct a single arch for this river [Schuylkill]. Our beloved General had engaged in rendering another river, the Potowmac, navigable. The quantity of iron I had allowed in my plan for this arch was five hundred and twenty tons, to be distributed into thirteen ribs, in commemoration of the Thirteen United States."
It is amusing after this to find Paine, in his patent, declaring his special license from "His Most Excellent Majesty King George the Third."* Had poor George been in his right senses, or ever heard of the invention, he might have suspected some connection between this insurrection of the iron age and the American "rebellion." However, Paine is successful in keeping America out of his specification, albeit a poetic touch appears.
* "No. 1667. Specification of Thomas Paine. Constructing
Arches. Vaulted Roofs, and Ceilings." The specification,
dated August 28, 1788, declares his invention to be "on
principles new and different to anything hitherto
practised." The patents for England, Scotland, and Ireland
were granted in September. An iron arch of one hundred feet
was designed by Pritchard and erected by Darby at Coalbrook
Dale, Shropshire, in 1779, but it did not anticipate the
invention of Paine, as may be seen by the article on "Iron
Bridges" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which also well
remarks that Paine's "daring in engineering does full
justice to the fervour of his political career." (Eighth
edition; it is omitted in the ninth.)
"The idea and construction of this arch is taken from the figure of a spider's circular web, of which it resembles a section, and from a conviction that when nature empowered this insect to make a web she also instructed her in the strongest mechanical method of constructing it. Another idea, taken from nature in the construction of this arch, is that of increasing the strength of matter by dividing and combining it, and thereby causing it to act over a larger space than it would occupy in a solid state, as is seen in the quills of birds, bones of animals, reeds, canes, &c. The curved bars of the arch are composed of pieces of any length joined together to the whole extent of the arch, and take curvature by bending."
Paine and his bridge came to England at a fortunate moment. Blackfriars Bridge had just given way, and two over the Tyne, one built by Smeaton, had collapsed by reason of quicksands under their piers. And similarly Pitt's policy was collapsing through the treacherous quicksands on which it was based. Paper money and a "sinking fund" at home, and foreign alliances that disregarded the really controlling interests of nations, Paine saw as piers set in the Channel.* He at once took his place in England as a sort of institution. While the engineers beheld with admiration his iron arch clearing the treacherous river-beds, statesmen saw with delight his prospective bridges spanning the political "Rubicon." Nothing could be more felicitous than the title of his inaugural pamphlet, "Prospects on the Rubicon." It remembered an expression in Parliament at the beginning of the war on America. "'The Rubicon is passed,' was once given as a reason for prosecuting the most expensive war that England ever knew. Sore with the event, and groaning beneath a galling yoke of taxes, she has again been led ministerially on to the shore of the same delusive and fatal river." The bridge-builder stretches his shining arches to France, Holland, Germany,—free commerce and friendship with all peoples, but no leagues with the sinking piers called thrones.
* It is droll to find even Paine's iron bridge resting
somewhat on a "paper "pier. "Perhaps," he writes Jefferson,
"the excess of paper currency, and the wish to find objects
for realizing it, is one of the motives for promoting the
plan of the Bridge."
At Rotherham, in Yorkshire, where Messrs. Walker fitted up a workshop for Paine, he was visited by famous engineers and political personages. There and in London he was "lionized," as Franklin had been in Paris. We find him now passing a week with Edmund Burke, now at the country-seat of the Duke of Portland, or enjoying the hospitalities of Lord Fitzwilliam at Wentworth House. He is entertained and consulted on public affairs by Fox, Lord Lansdowne, Sir George Staunton, Sir Joseph Banks; and many an effort is made to enlist his pen. Lord Lansdowne, it appears, had a notion of Paine's powers of political engineering so sublime that he thought he might bridge the Atlantic, and re-connect England and America! All of this may be gathered from the Jefferson papers, as we shall presently see; but it should be remarked here that Paine's head was not turned by his association with the gentry and aristocracy. The impression he made on these eminent gentlemen was largely due to his freedom from airs. They found him in his workshop, hammer in hand, proud only of free America and of his beautiful arch.
Professor Peter Lesley of Philadelphia tells me that when visiting in early life the works at Rotherham, Paine's workshop and the very tools he used were pointed out. They were preserved with care. He conversed with an aged and intelligent workman who had worked under Paine as a lad. Professor Lesley, who had shared some of the prejudice against Paine, was impressed by the earnest words of this old man. Mr. Paine, he said, was the most honest man, and the best man he ever knew. After he had been there a little time everybody looked up to him, the Walkers and their workmen. He knew the people for miles round, and went into their homes; his benevolence, his friendliness, his knowledge, made him beloved by all, rich and poor. His memory had always lasted there.