It is plain that the statement of Paine, who was certainly in communication with the Committees a year later, is true, that Morris was in danger on account of the interception of compromising letters written by him. He needed time to dispose of his house and horses, and ship his wines, and felt it important to retain his protecting credentials. At any moment his friends might be expelled from the Committee, and their papers be examined. While the arrangements for Monroe's reception rested with Morris and this unaltered Committee, there was little prospect of Monroe's being installed at all. The new Minister was therefore compelled, as other Americans had been, to appeal directly to the Convention. That assembly responded at once, and he was received (August 28th) with highest honors. Morris had nothing to do with the arrangement. The historian Frédéric Masson, alluding to the "unprecedented" irregularity of Morris in not delivering or receiving letters of recall, adds that Monroe found it important to state that he had acted without consultation with his predecessor.* This was necessary for a cordial reception by the Convention, but it invoked the cordial hatred of Morris, who marked him for his peculiar guillotine set up in Philadelphia.

* "Le Département des Affaires Étrangères," etc., p. 345.

So completely had America and Congress been left in the dark about Paine that Monroe was surprised to find him a prisoner. When at length the new Minister was in a position to consult the French Minister about Paine, he found the knots so tightly tied around this particular victim—almost the only one left in the Luxembourg of those imprisoned during the Terror—that it was difficult to untie them. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was now M. Bouchot, a weak creature who, as Morris said, would not wipe his nose without permission of the Committee of Public Safety. When Monroe opened Paine's case he was asked whether he had brought instructions. Of course he had none, for the administration had no suspicion that Morris had not, as he said, attended to the case.

When Paine recovered from his fever he heard that Monroe had superseded Morris.

"As soon as I was able to write a note legible enough to be read, I found a way to convey one to him [Monroe] by means of the man who lighted the lamps in the prison, and whose unabated friendship to me, from whom he never received any service, and with difficulty accepted any recompense, puts the character of Mr. Washington to shame. In a few days I received a message from Mr. Monroe, conveyed in a note from an intermediate person, with assurance of his friendship, and expressing a desire that I should rest the case in his hands. After a fortnight or more had passed, and hearing nothing farther, I wrote to a friend [Whiteside], a citizen of Philadelphia, requesting him to inform me what was the true situation of things with respect to me. I was sure that something was the matter; I began to have hard thoughts of Mr. Washington, but I was unwilling to encourage them. In about ten days I received an answer to my letter, in which the writer says: 'Mr. Monroe told me he had no order (meaning from the president, Mr. Washington) respecting you, but that he (Mr. Monroe) will do everything in his power to liberate you, but, from what I learn from the Americans lately arrived in Paris, you are not considered, either by the American government or by individuals, as an American citizen.'"

As the American government did regard Paine as an American citizen, and approved Monroe's demanding him as such, there is no difficulty in recognizing the source from which these statements were diffused among Paine's newly arriving countrymen. Morris was still in Paris.

On the receipt of Whiteside's note, Paine wrote a Memorial to Monroe, of which important parts—amounting to eight printed pages—are omitted from American and English editions of his works. In quoting this Memorial, I select mainly the omitted portions.*

* The whole is published in French: "Mémoire de Thomas
Payne, autographe et signé de sa main: addressé à M. Monroe,
ministre des États-unis en France, pour réclamer sa mise en
liberté comme Citoyen Américain, zo Septembre, 1794.
Villeneuve."

Paine says that before leaving London for the Convention, he consulted Minister Pinckney, who agreed with him that "it was for the interest of America that the system of European governments should be changed and placed on the same principle with her own"; and adds: "I have wished to see America the mother church of government, and I have done my utmost to exalt her character and her condition." He points out that he had not accepted any title or office under a foreign government, within the meaning of the United States Constitution, because there was no government in France, the Convention being assembled to frame one; that he was a citizen of France only in the honorary sense in which others in Europe and America were declared such; that no oath of allegiance was required or given. The following paragraphs are from various parts of the Memorial.

"They who propagate the report of my not being considered as a citizen of America by government, do it to the prolongation of my imprisonment, and without authority; for Congress, as a government, has neither decided upon it, nor yet taken the matter into consideration; and I request you to caution such persons against spreading such reports....