Our ancestors read the "Crisis Extraordinary," and understood every word of it, we may be sure. Paine's lucidity of statement is never more remarkable than when he handles financial questions. But conviction did not work its way down to the pocket. Few men gave who could avoid it, and each State appeared more fearful of paying, by accident, a larger sum than its neighbor, than of the success of the British arms. Congress, finding it at last almost impossible to get money or even provisions at home, resolved to resort again to the financial expedient which has proved so often profitable to this country, namely, to borrow in Europe. Colonel Laurens, son of the late President of Congress, was appointed commissioner to negotiate an annual loan from France of a million sterling during the continuation of the war. Paine accompanied him at his request. They sailed in February, 1781, and were graciously received by King Louis, who promised them six millions of livres as a present and ten millions as a loan. In little more than ten years, the American secretary, who stands respectfully and unnoticed in the presence of his Majesty of France, will sit as one of his judges in a trial for life! Is there anything more wonderful in the transmutations of fiction than this? Meanwhile, the future member of the Convention, as little dreaming of what was in store for him as the King, sailed for Boston with his principal. They carried with them two millions and a half in silver,—a great help to Washington in the movement southward, which ended with the capitulation of Yorktown. While in Paris, Paine was again seized with the desire of invading England, incognito, with a pamphlet in his pocket, to open the eyes of the people. But Colonel Laurens thought no better of this scheme than General Greene, and brought his secretary safely home again.
Cornwallis had surrendered, and it was evident that the war could not last much longer. The danger past, the Colonial aversion to pay Union expenses and to obey the orders of Congress became daily stronger. The want of a "Crisis," as a corrective medicine for the body politic, was so much felt, that Robert Morris, with the knowledge and approbation of Washington, requested Paine to take pen in hand again, offering him, if his private affairs made it necessary, a salary for his services. Paine consented. A "Crisis" appeared which produced a most salutary effect. This was followed a few days later by another, in which a passage occurs which may be quoted as a specimen of Paine's rhetorical powers. A rumor was abroad that England was treating with France for a separate peace. Paine finds it impossible to express his contempt for the baseness of the ministry who could attempt to sow dissension between such faithful allies. "We sometimes experience sensations to which language is not equal. The conception is too bulky to be born alive, and in the torture of thinking we stand dumb. Our feelings, imprisoned by their magnitude, find no way out; and in the struggle of expression every finger tries to be a tongue." It will be difficult to describe better the struggle of an indignant soul with an insufficient vocabulary.
When peace was proclaimed, Paine, the untiring advocate of independence, had a right to print his "Io Paean." The last "Crisis" announces, "that the times that tried men's souls were over, and the greatest and completest revolution the world ever knew gloriously and happily accomplished." "America need never be ashamed to tell her birth, nor relate the stages by which she rose to empire." But it is to the future he bids her look, rather than to the past. "The remembrance of what is past, if it operates rightly, must inspire her with the most laudable of all ambition, that of adding to the fair fame she began with." "She is now descending to the scenes of quiet and domestic life,—not beneath the cypress shade of disappointment, but to enjoy in her own land and under her own vine the sweet of her labors and the reward of her toil. In this situation may she never forget that a fair national reputation is of as much importance as independence,—that it possesses a charm that wins upon the world, and makes even enemies civil,—that it gives a dignity which is often superior to power, and commands reverence where pomp and splendor fail." As indispensable to a future of prosperity and dignity, he warmly recommends the Union. "I ever feel myself hurt," he says, "when I hear the Union, that great Palladium of our liberty and safety, the least irreverently spoken of. It is the most sacred thing in the Constitution of America, and that which every man should be most proud and tender of." Thus he anticipated by seventy-five years our "Union-savers" of 1856, few of whom dreamed that their pet phrases, or something very like them, originated with Thomas Paine.
The war left Paine no richer than it found him. He had made fame, but no money, by his writings. None of the proceeds of large editions had enriched his purse. He had an exalted ideal of an author's duty when his work is on political subjects. Louis Blanc has written somewhere, "Le journalisme est un sacerdoce." This seems to have been Paine's thought, although he may not have expressed it so sonorously,—for there are no phrase-makers like the French. But Paine went, we suspect, much farther than Louis Blanc; for he held that the priest ought to take no pay for his ministrations. And he acted up to this unusual theory in literary ethics. If he took out a copyright, he gave it away to some public use. As he himself said, late in life,—"I could never reconcile it to my principles to make money by my polities or my religion." "In a great affair, where the happiness of man is at stake, I love to work for nothing; and so fully am I under the influence of this principle, that I should lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride of it, were I conscious that I looked for reward."
His friends and admirers did not permit him to have the honor of giving not only his services, but his actual expenses, to the Republic. The State of New York presented him with a confiscated Royalist estate, near New Rochelle, three hundred acres of good land, with the necessary fences and buildings upon it. Pennsylvania voted him five hundred pounds, currency. And the Virginians were talking about making a similar donation, when an unlucky pamphlet from Paine appeared, demolishing the claim of Virginia to the Western country. This publication changed the views of the chivalry, and Paine lost his grant. He owned, besides, a small place in Bordentown,—a gift, we believe, of the State of New Jersey. The other nine States passed him over. New England had expended enough, both of men and means, for the cause,—and the South had fine feelings, but no money.
In the autumn of 1783, when Paine was residing at Bordentown, he received a letter from Washington, who had fixed his quarters at Rocky Hill, near Princeton, until he could resign his command to Congress. It ran thus:—
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"I have learned, since I have been at this place, that you are at Bordentown,—whether for the sake of retirement or economy; be it for either or both, or whatever it may, I shall be exceedingly happy to see you here.
"Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes himself