"Suppose then the Government begin by making a proposal to france to repurchase the cession, made to her by Spain, of Louisiana, provided it be with the consent of the people of Louisiana or a majority thereof.
"By beginning on this ground any thing can be said without carrying the appearance of a threat,—the growing power of the western territory can be stated as matter of information, and also the impossibility of restraining them from seizing upon New Orleans, and the equal impossibility of france to prevent it.
"Suppose the proposal attended to, the sum to be given comes next on the carpet This, on the part of America, will be estimated between the value of the Commerce, and the quantity of revenue that Louisiana will produce.
"The french treasury is not only empty, but the Government has consumed by anticipation a great part of the next year's revenue. A monied proposal will, I believe, be attended to; if it should, the claims upon france can be stipulated as part of the payment, and that sum can be paid here to the claimants.
"———I congratulate you on the birthday of the New Sun, now called christmas-day; and I make you a present of a thought on Louisiana."
Jefferson next day told Paine, what was as yet a profound secret, that he was already contemplating the purchase of Louisiana.*
* "The idea occurred to me," Paine afterwards wrote to the
President, "without knowing it had occurred to any other
person, and I mentioned it to Dr. Leib who lived in the same
house (Lovell's); and, as he appeared pleased with it, I
wrote the note and showed it to him before I sent it. The
next morning you said to me that measures were already taken
in that business. When Leib returned from Congress I told
him of it. 'I knew that,' said he. 'Why then,' said I, 'did
you not tell me so, because in that case I would not have
sent the note.' 'That is the very reason,' said he; 'I would
not tell you, because two opinions concurring on a case
strengthen it.' I do not, however, like Dr. Leib's motion
about Banks. Congress ought to be very cautious how it gives
encouragement to this speculating project of banking, for it
is now carried to an extreme. It is but another kind of
striking paper money. Neither do I like the notion
respecting the recession of the territory [District of
Columbia.]." Dr. Michael Leib was a representative from
Pennsylvania.
{1803}
The "New Sun" was destined to bring his sunstrokes on Paine. The pathetic story of his wrongs in England, his martyrdom in France, was not generally known, and, in reply to attacks, he had to tell it himself. He had returned for repose and found himself a sort of battlefield. One of the most humiliating circumstances was the discovery that in this conflict of parties the merits of his religion were of least consideration. The outcry of the country against him, so far as it was not merely political, was the mere ignorant echo of pulpit vituperation. His well-considered theism, fruit of so much thought, nursed amid glooms of the dungeon, was called infidelity or atheism. Even some from whom he might have expected discriminating criticism accepted the vulgar version and wrote him in deprecation of a work they had not read. Samuel Adams, his old friend, caught in this schwârmerei, wrote him from Boston (November 30th) that he had "heard" that he had "turned his mind to a defence of infidelity." Paine copied for him his creed from the "Age of Reason," and asked, "My good friend, do you call believing in God infidelity?"