* Thomas Bonneville, Paine's godson, at school in Stonington.
What you heard of a gun being fired into the room is true—Robert and Rachel were both gone out to keep Christmas Eve and about eight o'clock at Night the gun were fired. I ran immediately out, one of Mr. Dean's boys with me, but the person that had done it was gone. I directly suspected who it was, and I halloed to him by name, that he was discovered. I did this that the party who fired might know I was on the watch. I cannot find any ball, but whatever the gun was charged with passed through about three or four inches below the window making a hole large enough to a finger to go through—the muzzle must have been very near as the place is black with the powder, and the glass of the window is shattered to pieces. Mr Shute after examining the place and getting what information could be had, issued a warrant to take up Derrick, and after examination committed him.
"He is now on bail (five hundred dollars) to take his trial at the supreme Court in May next. Derrick owes me forty-eight dollars for which I have his note, and he was to work it out in making stone fence which he has not even begun and besides this I have had to pay forty-two pounds eleven shillings for which I had passed my word for him at Mr. Pelton's store. Derrick borrowed the Gun under pretence of giving Mrs. Bayeaux a Christmas Gun. He was with Purdy about two hours before the attack on the house was made and he came from thence to Dean's half drunk and brought with him a bottle of Rum, and Purdy was with him when he was taken up.
"I am exceedingly well in health and shall always be glad to see you. Hubbs tells me that your horse is getting better. Mrs. Shute sent for the horse and took him when the first snow came but he leaped the fences and came back. Hubbs says there is a bone broke. If this be the case I suppose he has broke or cracked it in leaping a fence when he was lame on the other hind leg, and hung with his hind legs in the fence. I am glad to hear what you tell me of Thomas. He shall not want for anything that is necessary if he be a good boy for he has no friend but me. You have not given me any account about the meeting house. Remember me to our Friends. Yours in friendship."
The window of the room said to have been Paine's study is close to the ground, and it is marvellous that he was not murdered.**
* I am indebted for this letter to Dr. Clair J. Grèce, of
England, whose uncle, Daniel Constable, probably got it from
Carver.
** Derrick (or Dederick) appears by the records at White
Plains to have been brought up for trial May 19, 1806, and
to have been recognized in the sum of $500 for his
appearance at the next Court of Oyer and Terminer and
General Gaol Delivery, and in the meantime to keep the peace
towards the
People, and especially towards Thomas Payne (sic). Paine, Christopher Hubbs, and Andrew A. Dean were recognized in $50 to appear and give evidence against Derrick. Nothing further appears in the records (examined for me by Mr. B. D. Washburn up to 1810). It is pretty certain that Paine did not press the charges.
The most momentous change which had come over America during Paine's absence was the pro-slavery reaction. This had set in with the first Congress. An effort was made by the Virginia representatives to check the slave traffic by imposing a duty of $10 on each negro imported, but was defeated by an alliance of members from more Southern States and professedly antislavery men of the North. The Southern leader in this first victory of slavery in Congress was Major Jackson of Georgia, who defended the institution as scriptural and civilizing. The aged Dr. Franklin published (Federal Gazette, March 25, 1790) a parody of Jackson's speech, purporting to be a speech uttered in 1687 by a Divan of Algiers in defence of piracy and slavery, against a sect of Erika, or Purists, who had petitioned for their suppression. Franklin was now president of the American Antislavery Society, founded in Philadelphia in 1775 five weeks after the appearance of Paine's scheme of emancipation (March 8, 1775). Dr. Rush was also active in the cause, and to him Paine wrote (March 16, 1790) the letter on the subject elsewhere quoted (L, p. 271). This letter was published by Rush (Columbian Magazine, vol. ii., p. 318) while the country was still agitated by the debate which was going on in Congress at the time when it was written, on a petition of the Antislavery Society, signed by Franklin,—his last public act.
Franklin died April 17, 1790, twenty-five days after the close of the debate, in which he was bitterly denounced by the proslavery party. Washington had pronounced the petition "inopportune,"—his presidential mansion in New York was a few steps from the slave-market,—Jefferson (now Secretary of State) had no word to say for it, Madison had smoothed over the matter by a compromise. Thenceforth slavery had become a suppressed subject, and the slave trade, whenever broached in Congress, had maintained its immunity. In 1803, even under Jefferson's administration, the negroes fleeing from oppression in Domingo were forbidden asylum in America, because it was feared that they would incite servile insurrections. That the United States, under presidency of Jefferson, should stand aloof from the struggle of the negroes in Domingo for liberty, cut Paine to the heart. Unperturbed by the attempt made on his own life a few days before, he wrote to Jefferson on New Year's Day, 1805, (from New Rochelle,) what may be regarded as an appeal: