1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an
American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the
infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General
Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington,
speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although
he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to
be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they
are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute
falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are
pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in
this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you
will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias
William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an
Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions,
and a want of official information as to many facts, it is
not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the
action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in
Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these
disclosed.
"It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man. Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine is still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in America] also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after actually arriving he found his (really popular) principles no longer the order of the day, and thought best to re-embark.
"The English journals, while repeating this idle rumor, observed that it was unfounded, and that Paine had not left France. Some French journals have copied these London paragraphs, but without comments; so that at the very moment when Thomas Paine's Letter on the 18th. Fructidor is published, La Clef du Cabinet says that this citizen is suffering unpleasantness in America."
Paine had intended to return with Monroe, in the spring of 1797, but, suspecting the Captain and a British cruiser in the distance, returned from Havre to Paris. The packet was indeed searched by the cruiser for Paine, and, had he been captured, England would have executed the sentence pronounced by Robespierre to please Washington.
MEMORIAL ADDRESSED TO JAMES MONROE, MINISTER FROM THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA TO THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.
Prison of the Luxembourg, Sept. 10th, 1794.
I address this memorial to you, in consequence of a letter I received from a friend, 18 Fructidor (September 4th,) in which he says, "Mr. Monroe has told me, that he has no orders [meaning from the American government] respecting you; but I am sure he will leave nothing undone to liberate you; but, from what I can learn, from all the late Americans, you are not considered either by the Government, or by the individuals, as an American citizen. You have been made a french Citizen, which you have accepted, and you have further made yourself a servant of the french Republic; and, therefore, it would be out of character for an American Minister to interfere in their internal concerns. You must therefore either be liberated out of Compliment to America, or stand your trial, which you have a right to demand."
This information was so unexpected by me, that I am at a loss how to answer it. I know not on what principle it originates; whether from an idea that I had voluntarily abandoned my Citizenship of America for that of France, or from any article of the American Constitution applied to me. The first is untrue with respect to any intention on my part; and the second is without foundation, as I shall shew in the course of this memorial.
The idea of conferring honor of Citizenship upon foreigners, who had distinguished themselves in propagating the principles of liberty and humanity, in opposition to despotism, war, and bloodshed, was first proposed by me to La Fayette, at the commencement of the french revolution, when his heart appeared to be warmed with those principles. My motive in making this proposal, was to render the people of different nations more fraternal than they had been, or then were. I observed that almost every branch of Science had possessed itself of the exercise of this right, so far as it regarded its own institution. Most of the Academies and Societies in Europe, and also those of America, conferred the rank of honorary member, upon foreigners eminent in knowledge, and made them, in fact, citizens of their literary or scientific republic, without affecting or anyways diminishing their rights of citizenship in their own country or in other societies: and why the Science of Government should not have the same advantage, or why the people of one nation should not, by their representatives, exercise the right of conferring the honor of Citizenship upon individuals eminent in another nation, without affecting their rights of citizenship, is a problem yet to be solved.
I now proceed to remark on that part of the letter, in which the writer says, that, from what he can learn from all the late Americans, I am not considered in America, either by the Government or by the individuals, as an American citizen.