"Since receiving your letter, which contained no direct information of any thing I wrote to you about, I have written myself to Mr. Barrett accompanied with a piece for the editor of the Baltimore Evening Post, who is an acquaintance of his, but I have received no answer from Mr. B., neither has the piece been published in the Evening Post. I will be obliged to you to call on him & to inform me about it. You did not tell me if you called upon Foster; but at any rate do not delay the enclosed.—I do not trouble you with any messages or compliments, for you never deliver any. Your's in friendship."'
* I am indebted for this letter to Mr. John T. Robertson.
editor of the National Reformer, London.
By a minute comparison of the two alleged specifications of immorality, Paine proved that one was intrinsically absurd, and the other without trustworthy testimony. As for the charge of cowardice, Paine contended that it was the duty of a civil magistrate to move out of danger, as Congress had done in the Revolution. The article was signed "A Spark from the Altar of '76," but the writer was easily recognized. The service thus done Jefferson was greater than can now be easily realized.
Another paper by Paine was on "Constitutions, Governments and Charters." It was an argument to prove the unconstitutionality in New York of the power assumed by the legislature to grant charters. This defeated the object of annual elections, by placing the act of one legislature beyond the reach of its successor. He proposes that all matters of "extraordinary legislation," such as those involving grants of land and incorporations of companies, "shall be passed only by a legislature succeeding the one in which it was proposed." Had such an article been originally in the Constitution [of New York] the bribery and corruption employed to seduce and manage the members of the late legislature, in the affair of the Merchants' Bank, could not have taken place. It would not have been worth while to bribe men to do what they had no power of doing.
Madame Bonneville hated country life, and insisted on going to New York. Paine was not sorry to have her leave, as she could not yet talk English, and did not appreciate Paine's idea of plain living and high thinking. She apparently had a notion that Paine had a mint of money, and, like so many others, might have attributed to parsimony efforts the unpaid author was making to save enough to give her children, practically fatherless, some start in life. The philosophic solitude in which he was left at New Rochelle is described in a letter (July 31st) to John Fellows, in New York.
"It is certainly best that Mrs. Bonneville go into some family as a teacher, for she has not the least talent of managing affairs for herself. She may send Bebia up to me. I will take care of him for his own sake and his father's, but that is all I have to say.... I am master of an empty house, or nearly so. I have six chairs and a table, a straw-bed, a featherbed, and a bag of straw for Thomas, a tea kettle, an iron pot, an iron baking pan, a frying pan, a gridiron, cups, saucers, plates and dishes, knives and forks, two candlesticks and a pair of snuffers. I have a pair of fine oxen and an ox-cart, a good horse, a Chair, and a one-horse cart; a cow, and a sow and 9 pigs. When you come you must take such fare as you meet with, for I live upon tea, milk, fruit-pies, plain dumplins, and a piece of meat when I get it; but I live with that retirement and quiet that suit me. Mrs. Bonneville was an encumbrance upon me all the while she was here, for she would not do anything, not even make an apple dumplin for her own children. If you cannot make yourself up a straw bed, I can let you have blankets, and you will have no occasion to go over to the tavern to sleep.
"As I do not see any federal papers, except by accident, I know not if they have attempted any remarks or criticisms on my Eighth Letter, [or] the piece on Constitutional Governments and Charters, the two numbers on Turner's letter, and also the piece on Hulbert. As to anonymous paragraphs, it is not worth noticing them. I consider the generality of such editors only as a part of their press, and let them pass.—I want to come to Morrisania, and it is probable I may come on to N. Y., but I wish you to answer this letter first.—Yours in friendship."
* I am indebted for an exact copy of the letter from which
this is extracted to-Dr. Garnett of the British Museum,
though it is not in that institution.
It must not be supposed from what Paine says of Madame Bonneville that there was anything acrimonious in their relations. She was thirty-one years younger than Paine, fond of the world, handsome. The old gentleman, all day occupied with writing, could give her little companionship, even if he could have conversed in French, But he indulged her in every way, gave her more money than he could afford, devoted his ever decreasing means to her family. She had boundless reverence for him, but, as we have seen, had no taste for country life. Probably, too, after Dederick's attempt on Paine's life she became nervous in the lonely house. So she had gone to New York, where she presently found good occupation as a teacher of French in several families. Her sons, however, were fond of New Rochelle, and of Paine, who had a knack of amusing children, and never failed to win their affection.*
* In the Tarrytown Argus, October 18, 1890, appeared an
interesting notice of the Rev. Alexander Davis (Methodist),
by C. K. B[uchanan] in which it is stated that Davis, a
native of New Rochelle, remembered the affection of Paine,
who "would bring him round-hearts and hold him on his knee."
Many such recollections of his little neighbors have been
reported.