As I do not know whether the Attorney-General means to show this expression to be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE, I shall make no other reply to him in this place, than by remarking, that if almanack-makers had not been more judicious than law-makers, the study of almanacks would by this time have become as abstruse as the study of the law, and we should hear of a library of almanacks as we now do of statutes; but by the simple operation of letting the obsolete matter drop, and carrying forward that only which is proper to be retained, all that is necessary to be known is found within the space of a year, and laws also admit of being kept within some given period.

I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the Addresses, the Proclamation, and the Prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to the Society, styling itself "The Friends of the People."

That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition, and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the experience of every day-proves to be true, as well in England as in other countries.

As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of opinion, and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed its habits of thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed by before, the only true method to prevent popular discontents and commotions is, to throw, by every fair and rational argument, all the light upon the subject that can possibly be thrown; and at the same time, to open the means of collecting the general sense of the nation; and this cannot, as already observed, be done by any plan so effectually as a national convention. Here individual opinion will quiet itself by having a centre to rest upon.

The society already mentioned, (which is made up of men of various descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites,) appears to me, either to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have acted with cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a new phrase, namely, that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the interpretation of which is, a continuance of the abuses as long as possible, If we cannot hold all let us hold some.

Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid that their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect of receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier frightened at the thoughts of his discharge, and three shillings per week during life? Is the sailor afraid that press-warrants will be abolished? The Society mistakes the fears of borough-mongers, placemen, and pensioners, for the fears of the people; and the temperate and moderate Reform it talks of, is calculated to suit the condition of the former.

Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction.—A thing, moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice. But who is to be the judge of what is a temperate and moderate Reform? The Society is the representative of nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the nation commit this power to those in Parliament, in whose election they had no choice; and, therefore, even upon the ground the Society has taken, recourse must be had to a National Convention.

The objection which Mr. Fox made to Mr. Grey's proposed Motion for a Parliamentary Reform was, that it contained no plan.—It certainly did not. But the plan very easily presents itself; and whilst it is fair for all parties, it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from private or popular discontent.

Thomas Paine.

Editorial Note on Burke's Alleged Secret Pension.—By
reference to Vol. II., pp. 271, 360, of this work, it will
be seen that Paine mentions a report that Burke was a
"pensioner in a fictitious name." A letter of John Hall to a
relative in Leicester, (London, May 1,1792.) says: "You will
remember that there was a vote carried, about the conclusion
of the American war, that the influence of the Crown had
increased, was increasing, and should be diminished. Burke,
poor, and like a good angler, baited a hook with a bill to
bring into Parliament, that no pensions should be given
above £300 a year, but what should be publicly granted, and
for what, (I may not be quite particular.) To stop that he
took in another person's name £1500 a year for life, and
some time past he disposed of it, or sold his life out. He
has been very still since his declension from the Whigs, and
is not concerned in the slave-trade [question?] as I hear
of." This letter, now in possession of Hall's kinsman, Dr.
Dutton Steele of Philadelphia, contains an item not in
Paine's account, which may have been derived from it. Hall
was an English scientific engineer, and acquainted with
intelligent men in London. Paine was rather eager for a
judicial encounter with Burke, and probably expected to be
sued by him for libel, as he (Burke) had once sued the
"Public Advertiser" for a personal accusation. But Burke
remained quiet under this charge, and Paine, outlawed, and
in France, had no opportunity for summoning witnesses in its
support. The biographers of Burke have silently passed over
the accusation, and this might be fair enough were this
unconfirmed charge made against a public man of stainless
reputation in such matters. But though Burke escaped
parliamentary censure for official corruption (May 16, 1783,
by only 24 majority) he has never been vindicated. It was
admitted that he had restored to office a cashier and an
accountant dismissed for dishonesty by his predecessor.
("Pari. Hist.," xxiii., pp. 801,902.) He escaped censure by
agreeing to suspend them. One was proved guilty, the
other committed suicide. It was subsequently shown that one
of the men had been an agent of the Burkes in raising India
stock. (Dilke's "Papers of a Critic," ii-, p. 333—"Dict.
Nat Biography": art Burke.) Paine, in his letter to the
Attorney-General (IV. of this volume), charged that Burke
had been a "masked pensioner" ten years. The date
corresponds with a secret arrangement made in 1782 with
Burke for a virtual pension to his son, for life, and his
mother. Under date April 34 of that year, Burke, writing to
William Burke at Madras, reports his appointment as
Paymaster: "The office is to be 4000L. certain. Young
Richard [his son] is the deputy with a salary of 500L. The
office to be reformed according to the Bill. There is enough
emoluments. In decency it could not be more. Something
considerable is also to be secured for the life of young
Richard to be a security for him and his mother."("Mem. and
Cor. of Charles James Fox," i., p. 451.) It is thus certain
that the Rockingham Ministry were doing for the Paymaster
all they could "in decency," and that while posing as a
reformer in reducing the expenses of that office, he was
arranging for secret advantages to his family. It is said
that the arrangement failed by his loss of office, but while
so many of Burke's papers are withheld from the public (if
not destroyed), it cannot be certain that something was not
done of the kind charged by Paine. That Burke was not strict
in such matters is further shown by his efforts to secure
for his son the rich sinecure of the Clerkship of the Polls,
in which he failed. Burke was again Paymaster in 1783-4, and
this time remained long enough in office to repeat more
successfully his secret attempts to secure irregular
pensions for his family. On April 7, 1894, Messrs. Sotheby,
Wilkinson, and Hodge sold in London (Lot 404) a letter of
Burke (which I have not seen in print), dated July 16, 1795.
It was written to the Chairman of the Commission on Public
Accounts, who had required him to render his accounts for
the time he was in office as Paymaster-General, 1783-4.
Burke refuses to do so in four angry and quibbling pages,
and declares he will appeal to his country against the
demand if it is pressed. Why should Burke wish to conceal
his accounts? There certainly were suspicions around Burke,
and they may have caused Pitt to renounce his intention,
conveyed to Burke, August 30, 1794, of asking Parliament to
bestow on him a pension. "It is not exactly known," says one
of Burke's editors, "what induced Mr. Pitt to decline
bringing before Parliament a measure which he had himself
proposed without any solicitation whatever on the part of
Burke." (Burke's "Works," English Ed., 1852, ii., p. 252.)
The pensions were given without consultation with
Parliament—1200L. granted him by the King from the Civil
List, and 2500L. by Pitt in West Indian 41/2 per cents.
Burke, on taking his seat beside Pitt in the great Paine
Parliament (December, 1792), had protested that he had not
abandoned his party through expectation of a pension, but
the general belief of those with whom he had formerly acted
was that he had been promised a pension. A couplet of the
time ran:
"A pension makes him change his plan,
And loudly damn the rights of man."
Writing in 1819, Cobbett says: "As my Lord Grenville
introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to
introduce the name of the man [Paine] who put this Burke to
shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in
the Pension List, and who is now named fifty million times
where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once."—
Editor.