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Title: Junius Unmasked
       or, Thomas Paine the author of the Letters of Junius and
              the Declaration of Independence

Author: Joel Moody

Release Date: July 7, 2010 [EBook #33107]

Language: English

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JUNIUS UNMASKED:

OR,

THOMAS PAINE

THE AUTHOR OF

THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS,

AND THE

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

Non stat diutius nominis umbra.

WASHINGTON, D.C.:
JOHN GRAY & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1872.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by

JOHN GRAY & CO.,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

CONTENTS

[5]

PREFACE.

One hundred years ago to-day, Junius wrote as follows:

These were the concluding words of his last Letter. So say I now, and I make them the preface to an argument which now sets the great apostle of liberty right before the world. They serve, like a literary hyphen, to connect the two ages—his own with this; and the two lives—the masked with the open one; in both of which ages and lives he did good to mankind, and that mightily.

Washington, D.C., January 21, 1872.

[6]

[7]

PART I.

INTRODUCTION.

The literary work which survives a century has uncommon merit. Time has set the seal of approval upon it. It has passed its probation and entered the ages. A century has just closed upon the work of Junius. The causes which produced it, either in act or person, have long since passed away. The foolish king, the corrupt minister, and the prostituted legislature are forgotten, or only recalled to be despised; but the work of Junius, startling in thought, daring in design, bristling with satire, a consuming fire to those he attacked, remains to be admired for its principles, and to be studied for its beauty and strength.

The times in which Junius wrote were big with events. The Seven Years' War had just closed with shining victories to Prussia and England. Frederic, with an unimpaired nation and a permanent peace, it left with a good heart and much personal glory; but George III., with India and America in his hands, with the plunder of a great conquest to distribute to a greedy and licentious court, it left pious, but simple.

Great wars disturb the masses. They awaken them[8] from the plodding, dull routine of physical labor, and, thrusting great questions of conquest and defense, of justice and honor, before them, agitate them into thought. Conditions change; new ideas take the place of old ones, and a revolution in thought and action follows. But a war of ideas, starting from principles of peace, brings the enslaved again to the sword, and this crisis is termed a revolution.

Junius wrote at the dawn of the age of revolutions. The war of ideas was waged against priestcraft, and skepticism was the result. Voltaire had struck fable from history with the pen of criticism, and a scientific method here dawned upon history. Rousseau's democracy had entered the hearts of the down-trodden in France, and, a wandering exile, he had spread the contagion in England. George Berkeley, the Irish idealist, had just died, and the Scotch Thomas Reid arose with the weapon of common sense to test the metaphysician's ideas. Common Sense was, in the strictest sense, revolutionary, and, under the tyranny of king, lords, and commons, meant war. It was not a phrase without meaning, but a principle proclaimed, and it passed more readily into the understanding of the common people because conveyed in common speech. When Reid said, "I despise philosophy, and renounce its guidance; let my soul dwell in common sense," he illuminated all Britain and America. The philosophy of common sense entered the professor's chair, invaded the pulpit, and, having passed thence into the humblest cottage, soon took a higher range—it went immediately up and knocked at the king's gate. It would be false to say it found admittance there. It was only because there had[9] been a new world opened as an asylum for the oppressed of every land, that it did not sweep kings and monarchs from all the high places in Europe.

At this time, too, Mr. Pitt, the great commoner, the friend of common sense and English liberty, in his old age, war-worn and sick, had compromised with his vanity for a title. In his great fall from Pitt to Chatham, from the people to a peerage, he gained nothing but lost his good name. He exchanged worth for a bauble, and a noble respect for the contempt of nobles and the sorrows of the people. Mr. Pitt had departed, Lord Chatham was passing away; and in any assault by a trafficking ministry and corrupt legislature upon the people's rights, there was no one left to bend the bow at the gates.

To tax the colonies became the settled plan of king, ministers, and parliament. The tax was easily imposed, but could not be enforced. Freedom had long before been driven to America, and, in a line of direct descent, her blood had been transmitted from mother to son. The true sons of freedom now stood shoulder to shoulder, and, looking forward to independence, claimed to have rights as men, which king and lords would not concede to subjects. The Stamp Act was passed and repealed, and a Test Act substituted. England refused to compel the colonies to give up their money without their consent, but menaced them, and consoled herself with these words: "The king in parliament hath full power to bind the colonies in all things whatsoever." Having surrendered the fact, she indulged in declamation, and the world laughed at her folly. Like a fretful and stupid mother demanding a favor of her son grown[10] to manhood, and, being refused, persists in scolding and shaking the fist at him, as if he still wore a baby's frock.

At this juncture Junius wrote his Letters. The circumstances called him forth. He was a child of fate. He spoke to the greatest personages, assaulted the strongest power, and advocated the rights of man before the highest tribunal then acknowledged on earth. This he could not do openly, and what he said came as with the power of a hidden god. There is no evidence that Junius ever revealed himself. "I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with me." This he said and religiously kept. But his was the age which demanded it. He also said: "Whenever Junius appears, he must encounter a host of enemies." One hundred years have passed since he said this, but this "host" is less to be feared now than when he wrote. No one now can injure him, and there are few who would assault his grave. It is time to unmask Junius, and though still to be hated, I will reveal the enemy of kings and the friend of man. The reforms he advocated for England are partly accomplished, and the principles he taught, if not adopted there, have been established in America. He left no child to bear his name, but he was the father of a nation. The unimpaired inheritance was his thoughts and principles; these he transmitted, not alone to this nation, but to the world—for the world was his country.

[11]

METHOD.

In the investigation of a subject so startling and novel, and especially when it leads to the criticism of a work which has found favor with the public, and now to be attributed to an author who has been publicly condemned, it becomes the critic to state clearly the plan of his argument, what he designs to do, and how he intends to do it. I therefore ask: Who was Junius? I answer: Thomas Paine. The object of this book is to prove this, and possibly to demonstrate it. To do this, I shall follow as closely as possible the order of events, giving parallels and coincidences in character, conduct, and composition of the masked and the open life.

I do not fear as to the proof of my proposition, but I shall aim higher, I shall try to demonstrate by the overwhelming weight of facts. Proof produces belief, demonstration knowledge. The innocent have been hanged on the evidence of proof, but a fact is established by demonstration. Demonstration follows proof, and knowledge follows belief; and ascending from the individual to mankind, we find the age of reason to succeed the age of faith. Science dwells in demonstration, and establishes principles from observed facts. Why may there not be a scientific criticism? To arrive at this[12] the writer must ascend to that eminence in feeling where the opposing prejudices of mankind can not reach him; he must rise above praise or censure, he must dwell alone in the light of reason, he must be a child of Truth. Vain, however, would it be to expect to find himself or a public devoid of prejudice. This is impossible, for prejudice is produced by strong conviction. It is a feeling which, like a magnet, points as the electric force directs. To counteract this force is to destroy the magnet. It is those who think deeply, and have investigated thoroughly, who have an enlightened prejudice, and those who take upon authority what others tell them, who have a blind prejudice; but those who neither think nor investigate for themselves may truly be said to have no prejudice. My object is to convince the understanding and thereby build up a prejudice in favor of my proposition, which shall have a foundation of fact and argument, not to be removed, and to be but little disturbed. The world is my jury, they shall decide upon the facts. Lord Bacon gave the world a method, this method is also mine: Let facts reveal the inward truth of nature.

[13]

MYSTERY.

There is a scarcity of facts, a painful obscurity connected with that part of Mr. Paine's life before he removed to America. In fact, history has given him to the world, as almost beginning life on his arrival at Philadelphia, near the close of the year 1774. At this time, in the full stature of manhood, a little less than forty years of age, we find him without a personal history, without any events in life sufficient to predicate his after life upon. Can the great life to come rest on nothing? How came that mighty mind so fully stored with history, so deeply analytic, so skilled in literature and science, so perfect in the art of expressing ideas, so highly disciplined and finely equipped, ready to do battle against kings and ministers and in behalf of human rights? Whence came that mighty pen, which has often been acknowledged to have done more for human freedom than the sword of Washington? Why this dumb silence of history? There comes to us no thought of Mr. Paine worth recording prior to this time. The proud and imposing superstructure stands on a basis fit and substantial, but it rises out of the depths of mystery. And what little we do know of him prior to this time, aside from the great fact of his birth, is only a series of minor facts, with great blanks not even capable of being filled up by the imagination.

[14]When a lad he went to school, but how long he went, or with what proficiency he studied, nobody knows. At sixteen he went aboard a privateer, but how long he served, or what made him quit the service, nobody knows. At twenty-seven he enters the employ of the English government as an exciseman, but was dismissed in a little over a year, nobody knows why. He now teaches school in London a year, but nobody knows with what success, or what were his accomplishments. He now quits London and letters, and the society of the learned, to return to the same petty office from which he had been dismissed, and for the trifling salary of less than fifty pounds a year. This office he now holds eight years more. Only a solitary ray of light illuminates this long period, when in the full tide of life. The chronicler renders it insignificant by a single dash of the pen. It is closed with another dismissal and dismal mystery. He now forever separates from his wife upon amicable terms, nobody knows why. During their after lives they neither of them marry, and never speak disrespectfully of each other. He leaves her all the property, and often sends her money during his after life. This obscure and twice dismissed English exciseman, it is said, now goes to talk with Benjamin Franklin, minister at the court of St. James, for several of the colonies; and, by what means nobody knows, obtains letters of the highest commendation, as an introduction to America, from her greatest and most honored citizen. A few months afterward Benjamin Franklin places in the hands of Mr. Paine important documents, for him to write a history of the political troubles and a defense of the[15] colonies. A mighty work, worthy of a greater than Franklin! These facts stagger credulity. An obscure English exciseman, whose life is yet a blank, who has never been an author, save perhaps of some fugitive pamphlet to demand more pay for excise officers, is introduced to America, and is solicited and intrusted by America's greatest writer, thinker, patriot, and statesman, to do America's greatest work, and that work, too, which shall decide forever the fate of a world. Franklin! by what mysterious gift of divination hast thou found thy man? Is there no child of America among all the sons of Freedom equal to the task? Where art thou thyself? But the man Franklin found had no need of books or his documents. This obscure Englishman had the facts in his memory, the wrongs in his heart, the logic in his reason, and he thought for himself. His work was half written before Franklin had furnished him with the "necessary papers," and as a New Year's gift surprised the learned doctor with the first pamphlet of Common Sense.

The appearance of this greatest of political works which has blessed a world, with all the attending circumstances—the obscure life of Paine, the few wild events connected with it, the unprecedented action of Franklin, the introduction to the world of a profound thinker and almost perfect writer in the full ripeness of his intellect, and the beginning of an unceasing brilliant literary life at its meridian, are mysteries, save in this instance, unknown to history. Common Sense is a child of mystery. It is the best of this great author's productions. He himself so considered it, for he directs[16] that his tombstone shall bear the simple inscription, Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense.

That Thomas Paine should have lived an easy, idle life, without any great effort in thought, study, or composition, for fifteen years immediately preceding the appearance of Common Sense, is what no writer, or thinker, or student, or statesman will believe. Great works of genius do not come in this way, much less profound political writings. Even inspiration would desert the connection. And that the proud, ambitious, literary adventurer, who shall dedicate his life to the good of mankind, who shall wrest the power from priests and the scepter from kings, should content himself to fill a poor and petty office under a king he despised, without some nobler object in view, and at that age too when the mind of man is the most aspiring, and drives to the greatest activity, is what no one who knows the heart of man, and the secret springs of action, will believe. But if it can be proven that Thomas Paine was Junius, then will every blank be filled and every mystery dispelled.

There is no external evidence, direct in its nature, as to the authorship of Junius; the evidence is internal. That the secret did not perish with Junius, no one can gainsay. But that he told it to no one, we are not at liberty to conclude. Time has sufficiently removed us from the scene of conflict. We are not bewildered with a multitude of claimants, with an army of witnesses for and against; nor are we disturbed by the clamors of the public, and the hearsay evidence of belligerant. In this universal calm I will bring Junius forth to speak for himself.

[17]

STATEMENT.

The time occupied in writing the Letters of Junius was just three years. The first one is dated January 21, 1769, and the last one January 21, 1772. They were written for the Public Advertiser, a newspaper printed in London, and were afterward revised and corrected by Junius. The edition which he corrected "contains all the letters of Junius, Philo Junius, and of Sir William Draper, and Mr. Horne to Junius, with their respective dates, and according to the order in which they appeared in the Public Advertiser." There are sixty-nine in all. Of these, Junius wrote sixty-one; thirty the first year, six the second, and twenty-five the third year. In these Letters Junius frequently defends himself over the signature of Philo Junius, which he deemed indispensably necessary in answer to plausible objections. On this point Junius observes: "The subordinate character is never guilty of the indecorum of praising his principal. The fraud was innocent, and I always intended to explain it." These letters were an attack upon the king and ministry, and a defense of the people, whose original rights had been invaded. If Thomas Paine wrote them, he was then an exciseman stationed at Lewes, about forty[18] miles south of London, and was just thirty-five years old when he completed them.

I will now introduce to the reader Junius himself through his first letter, which was one of his most finished productions, and contains the germs of all the rest. I will give also the comments of Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., formerly professor of Rhetoric in Yale College. These comments are to be found in the doctor's work, entitled British Eloquence. I do this for two reasons: to let the reader see what high value is placed on Junius by the learned who teach eloquence by example, and also that he may see the object, method, and style of Junius. I shall afterward add my own comments on the doctor's notes, setting him right when in error in matters of fact. This will fully open the question and prepare the reader for my argument.

[19]

LETTER

TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER.[A]

Sir,—The submission of a free people to the executive authority of government is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted. While the national honor is firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is impartially administered at home, the obedience of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful,[20] and, I might say, almost unlimited. A generous nation is grateful even for the preservation of its rights, and willingly extends the respect due to the office of a good prince into an affection for his person. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of an Englishman, is a rational attachment to the guardian of the laws. Prejudices and passion have sometimes carried it to a criminal length, and, whatever foreigners may imagine, we know that Englishmen have erred as much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons and families, as they ever did in defense of what they thought most dear and interesting to themselves.

It naturally fills us with resentment to see such a temper insulted and abused.[B] In reading the history of a free people,[21] whose rights have been invaded, we are interested in their cause. Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to have submitted, and at what moment it would have been treachery to themselves not to have resisted. How much warmer will be our resentment, if experience should bring the fatal example home to ourselves!

[22]The situation of this country is alarming enough to rouse the attention of every man who pretends to a concern for the public welfare. Appearances justify suspicion; and, when the safety of a nation is at stake, suspicion is a just ground of inquiry. Let us enter into it with candor and decency. Respect is due to the station of ministers; and if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness as that which has been adopted with moderation.

The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so much upon the administration of its government, that, to be acquainted with the merit of a ministry, we need only observe the condition of the people. If we see them obedient to the laws, prosperous in their industry, united at home, and respected abroad, we may reasonably presume that their affairs are conducted by men of experience, abilities, and virtue. If, on the contrary, we see a universal spirit of distrust and dissatisfaction, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all parts of the empire, and a total loss of respect in the eyes of foreign powers, we may pronounce, without hesitation, that the government of that country is weak, distracted, and corrupt. The multitude, in all countries, are patient to a certain point. Ill usage may rouse their indignation and hurry them into excesses, but the original fault is in government.[C] Perhaps there never was an instance[23] of a change in the circumstances and temper of a whole nation, so sudden and extraordinary as that which the misconduct of ministers has, within these very few years, produced in Great Britain. When our gracious sovereign ascended the throne, we were a flourishing and a contented people. If the personal virtues of a king could have insured the happiness of his subjects, the scene could not have altered so entirely as it has done. The idea of uniting all parties, of trying all characters, and distributing the offices of state by rotation, was gracious and benevolent to an extreme, though it has not yet produced the many salutary effects which were intended by it. To say nothing of the wisdom of such plan, it undoubtedly arose from an unbounded goodness of heart, in which folly had no share. It was not a capricious partiality to new faces; it was not a natural turn for low intrigue, nor was it the treacherous amusement of double and triple negotiations. No, sir; it arose from a continued anxiety in the purest of all possible hearts for the general welfare.[D] [24]Unfortunately for us, the event has not been answerable to the design. After a rapid succession of changes, we are reduced to that change which hardly any change can mend. Yet there is no extremity of distress which of itself ought to reduce a great nation to despair.[25] It is not the disorder, but the physician; it is not a casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious hand of government, which alone can make a whole people desperate.

Without much political sagacity, or any extraordinary depth of observation, we need only mark how the principal departments of the state are bestowed [distributed], and look no farther for the true cause of every mischief that befalls us.

The finances of a nation, sinking under its debts and expenses, are committed to a young nobleman already ruined by play.[E] Introduced to act under the auspices[26] of Lord Chatham, and left at the head of affairs by that nobleman's retreat, he became a minister by accident; but, deserting the principles and professions which gave him a moment's popularity, we see him, from every honorable engagement to the public, an apostate by design. As for business, the world yet knows nothing of his talents or resolution, unless a wavering, wayward inconsistency be a mark of genius, and caprice a demonstration of spirit. It may be said, perhaps, that it is his Grace's province, as surely as it is his passion, rather to distribute than to save the public money, and that while Lord North is Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first Lord of the Treasury may be as thoughtless and extravagant as he pleases. I hope, however, he will not rely too much on the fertility of Lord North's genius for finance. His Lordship is yet to give us the first proof of his abilities.

It may be candid to suppose that he has hitherto voluntarily concealed his talents; intending, perhaps, to astonish the world, when we least expect it, with a knowledge of trade, a choice of expedients, and a depth of resources equal to the necessities, and far beyond the hopes of his country. He must now exert the whole power of his capacity, if he would wish us to forget that, since he has been in office, no plan has been formed, no system adhered to, nor any one important measure adopted for the relief of public credit. If his plan for the service of the current year be not irrevocably fixed on, let me warn him to think seriously of consequences before he ventures to increase the public debt. Outraged and oppressed as we are, this nation will not bear, after a six years' peace, to see new[27] millions borrowed, without any eventual diminution of debt or reduction of interest. The attempt might rouse a spirit of resentment, which might reach beyond the sacrifice of a minister. As to the debt upon the civil list, the people of England expect that it will not be paid without a strict inquiry how it was incurred.[F] If it must be paid by Parliament, let me advise the Chancellor of the Exchequer to think of some better expedient than a lottery. To support an expensive war, or in circumstances of absolute necessity, a lottery may perhaps be allowable; but, besides that it is at all times the very worst way of raising money upon the people, I think it ill becomes the royal dignity to have the debts of a prince provided for, like the repairs of a country bridge or a decayed hospital. The management of the king's affairs in the House of Commons can not be more disgraced than it has been. A leading minister repeatedly called down for absolute ignorance—ridiculous motions ridiculously withdrawn—deliberate plans disconcerted, and a week's preparation of graceful oratory lost in a moment, give us some, though[28] not an adequate idea of Lord North's parliamentary abilities and influence.[G] Yet, before he had the misfortune of being Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was neither an object of derision to his enemies, nor of melancholy pity to his friends.

A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the colonies from their duty as subjects and from their natural affection to their common country. When Mr. Grenville was placed at the head of the treasury, he felt the impossibility of Great Britain's supporting such an establishment as her former successes had made indispensable, and, at the same time, of giving any sensible relief to foreign trade and to the weight of the public debt. He thought it equitable that those parts of the empire which had benefited most by the expenses of the war, should contribute something to the expenses of the peace, and he had no doubt of the constitutional right vested in Parliament to raise the contribution. But, unfortunately for this country, Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed because he was minister, and Mr. Pitt and Lord Camden were to be patrons of America, because they were in opposition. Their declaration gave spirit and argument to the colonies; and while, perhaps, they meant no more than the ruin of a minister, they in effect divided one-half of the empire from the other.[H]

[29]Under one administration the Stamp Act is made, under the second it is repealed, under the third, in spite of all experience, a new mode of taxing the colonies is invented, and a question revived, which ought to have been buried in oblivion. In these circumstances, a new office is established for the business of the Plantations, and the Earl of Hillsborough called forth, at a most[30] critical season, to govern America. The choice at least announced to us a man of superior capacity and knowledge. Whether he be so or not, let his dispatches as far as they have appeared, let his measures as far as they have operated, determine for him. In the former we have seen strong assertions without proof, declamation without argument, and violent censures without dignity or moderation, but neither correctness in the composition, nor judgment in the design. As for his measures, let it be remembered that he was called upon to conciliate and unite, and that, when he entered into office, the most refractory of the colonies were still disposed to proceed by the constitutional methods of petition and remonstrance. Since that period they have been driven into excesses little short of rebellion. Petitions have been hindered from reaching the throne, and the continuance of one of the principal assemblies put upon an arbitrary condition, which, considering the temper they were in, it was impossible they should comply with, and which would have availed nothing as to the general question if it had been complied with.[I] So violent, and I believe I may call it so unconstitutional an exertion of the prerogative, to say nothing of the weak, injudicious terms in which it was conveyed, gives us as humble an opinion of his Lordship's capacity[31] as it does of his temper and moderation. While we are at peace with other nations, our military force may perhaps be spared to support the Earl of Hillsborough's measures in America. Whenever that force shall be necessarily withdrawn or diminished, the dismission of such a minister will neither console us for his imprudence, nor remove the settled resentment of a people, who, complaining of an act of the legislature, are outraged by an unwarrantable stretch of prerogative, and, supporting their claims by argument, are insulted with declamation.

Drawing lots would be a prudent and reasonable method of appointing the officers of state, compared to a late disposition of the secretary's office. Lord Rochford was acquainted with the affairs and temper of the Southern courts; Lord Weymouth was equally qualified for either department. By what unaccountable caprice has it happened, that the latter, who pretends to no experience whatsoever, is removed to the most important of the two departments, and the former, by preference, placed in an office where his experience can be of no use to him?[J] Lord Weymouth had distinguished himself in his first employment by a spirited, if not judicious conduct.[32] He had animated the civil magistrate beyond the tone of civil authority, and had directed the operations of the army to more than military execution. Recovered from the errors of his youth, from the distraction of play, and the bewitching smiles of Burgundy, behold him exerting the whole strength of his clear, unclouded faculties in the service of the crown. It was not the heat of midnight excesses, nor ignorance of the laws, nor the furious spirit of the house of Bedford; no, sir; when this respectable minister interposed his authority between the magistrate and the people, and signed the mandate on which, for aught he knew, the lives of thousands depended, he did it from the deliberate motion of his heart, supported by the best of his judgment.[K]

[33]It has lately been a fashion to pay a compliment to the bravery and generosity of the Commander-in-chief [the Marquess of Granby] at the expense of his understanding. They who love him least make no question of his courage, while his friends dwell chiefly on the facility of his disposition. Admitting him to be as brave as a total absence of all feeling and reflection can make him, let us see what sort of merit he derives from the remainder of his character. If it be generosity to accumulate in his own person and family a number of lucrative employments; to provide, at the public expense, for every creature that bears the name of Manners; and, neglecting the merit and services of the rest of the army, to heap promotions upon his favorites and dependents, the present Commander-in-chief is the most generous man alive. Nature has been sparing of her gifts to this noble lord; but where birth and fortune[34] are united, we expect the noble pride and independence of a man of spirit, not the servile, humiliating complaisance of a courtier. As to the goodness of his heart, if a proof of it be taken from the facility of never refusing, what conclusion shall we draw from the indecency of never performing? And if the discipline of the army be in any degree preserved, what thanks are due to a man whose cares, notoriously confined to filling up vacancies, have degraded the office of Commander-in-chief into [that of] a broker of commissions.[L]

With respect to the navy, I shall only say that this country is so highly indebted to Sir Edward Hawke, [35]that no expense should be spared to secure him an honorable and affluent retreat.

The pure and impartial administration of justice is perhaps the firmest bond to secure a cheerful submission of the people, and to engage their affections to government. It is not sufficient that questions of private right or wrong are justly decided, nor that judges are superior to the vileness of pecuniary corruption. Jeffries himself, when the court had no interest, was an upright judge. A court of justice may be subject to another sort of bias, more important and pernicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of individuals and affects the whole community. A judge, under the influence of government, may be honest enough in the decision of private causes, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim is marked out by the ministry, this judge will offer himself to perform the sacrifice. He will not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary point is to be carried for government, or the resentment of a court to be gratified.

These principles and proceedings, odious and contemptible as they are, in effect are no less injudicious. A wise and generous people are roused by every appearance of oppressive, unconstitutional measures, whether those measures are supported openly by the power of government, or masked under the forms of a court of justice. Prudence and self-preservation will oblige the most moderate dispositions to make common cause, even with a man whose conduct they censure, if they see him persecuted in a way which the real spirit of the laws[36] will not justify. The facts on which these remarks are founded are too notorious to require an application.[M]

This, sir, is the detail. In one view, behold a nation overwhelmed with debt; her revenues wasted; her trade declining; the affections of her colonies alienated; the duty of the magistrate transferred to the soldiery; a gallant army, which never fought unwillingly but against their fellow-subjects, moldering away for want of the direction of a man of common abilities and spirit; and, in the last instance, the administration of justice become odious and suspected to the whole body of the people. This deplorable scene admits of but one addition—that we are governed by counsels, from which a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no[37] relief but death. If, by the immediate interposition of Providence, it were [be] possible for us to escape a crisis so full of terror and despair, posterity will not believe the history of the present times. They will either conclude that our distresses were imaginary, or that we had the good fortune to be governed by men of acknowledged integrity and wisdom. They will not believe it possible that their ancestors could have survived or recovered from so desperate a condition, while a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, a Lord North Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Weymouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of State, a Granby Commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield chief criminal judge of the kingdom.

Junius.

DOCTORS NOTES:

[38]

COMMENTS ON THE DOCTOR'S NOTES.

Note 8, p. 28. (1.) The doctor is here in error. In no place does Junius use language which can even be distorted into an argument in favor of enforcing the right to tax America. He here attacks the opposition or minority because they had from selfish motives divided one-half of the empire from the other. He states the views of Mr. Grenville on the subject of taxing the colonies, but not his own. Elsewhere, however, he does, and this is his language: "Junius considers the right of taxing the colonies by an act of the British Legislature as a speculative right merely, never to be exerted, nor ever to be renounced."—Let. 63. But Camden and Pitt denied the right.—Bancroft, vol. v., pp. 395, 403. Junius stood between the two parties in regard to taxing the colonies, hence could not be a partisan.

(2.) Here again is an error. Rockingham and Chatham led the two wings of the minority. The former was in favor of septennial, the latter of triennial parliaments.—Let. 52. Herein Junius agreed with Chatham, and hence could not be a partisan of Rockingham.—Let. 53. But because Junius eulogized Chatham, he was said to be a partisan of Chatham, which he afterwards contradicts when he compiled his letters, in a note to the name of Mr. Pitt in his first letter, and[39] is as follows: "And yet Junius has been called the partisan of Lord Chatham." In Letter 53, Junius denies partisanship to both. Neither did he agree with Lord Camden, and mildly censures him for his action.—Let. 59. Junius was never a partisan, as will be fully proven hereafter. This shows how limited a knowledge the doctor had of Junius, and also how unfit to comment on these matters of fact. He had not even caught the design or spirit of Junius. He was advocating the cause of the people and not the cause of any party or faction.

Note 10, p. 31. (3.) Shelburne was dismissed; he did not resign. This is a grave error in the doctor, when the conduct of king and ministers is the theme, and when we are studying the motives and character of the writer. As I wish to excite inquiry, in the mind of the reader, to lead him to a just method of criticism and investigation, I will briefly state how I detected even so apparently trifling a mistake as the above. The first sentence of the paragraph is as follows: "Drawing lots would be a prudent and reasonable method of appointing the officers of state compared to a late disposition of the secretary's office." After reading this, and then the note, it occurred to me that the king should not be so severely censured for any mistake in judgment in filling an office suddenly left vacant by a resignation. If the writer did so he was malignant, and ought to be condemned by all liberal-minded and good people. And after having studied thoroughly the character of Mr. Paine, for I now supposed him to be the author, I said: although the language is his, the spirit is not. I confess[40] this staggered me not a little, but in a few moments I regained myself, after reading these lines from Bancroft's History, vol. vi., pp. 214, 215, 216: "Yielding to the daily importunities of the king, Grafton prepared to dismiss Shelburne.... Shelburne was removed. The resignation of Chatham instantly followed.... The removal of Shelburne opened the cabinet to the ignorant and incapable Earl of Rochford, who owed his selection to the mediocrity of his talents and the impossibility of finding a secretary of state more thoroughly submissive." This was satisfactory to me. What was evidence against my hypothesis by the note of Doctor Goodrich, was evidence in favor of it when the facts were known. This shows how careless men become who do not have in view a scientific method, and who do not search after the soul of things, but content themselves with a superficial reading. I would here warn the reader to question the statement of any writer which does not come with more than a plausible degree of truth. The day of historic fable is past. History is a science. The man of science takes but little on authority not capable of proof, and it is through this scientific method that the humblest mind, capable of rational judgment, becomes supreme over itself.

Note 12, p. 34. (4.) That Junius had a private grudge against Lord Granby, is an affirmation not supported by the facts. Junius himself says, in a note to Letter 7: "The death of Lord Granby was lamented by Junius. He undoubtedly owed some compensations to the public, and seemed determined to acquit himself of them. In private life he was unquestionably that good man, who, for the interest of his country, ought to[41] have been a great one. I speak of him now without partiality. I never spoke of him with resentment. His mistakes in public conduct did not arise either from want of sentiment, or want of judgment, but in general from the difficulty of saying no to the bad people who surrounded him."

Note 13, p. 36. (5.) To which I reply: every student of history does believe just the things ascribed to Lord Mansfield by Junius, and as the doctor has given us no authority in support of his rash affirmation, I will dismiss him to the tender mercies of those who will search for themselves.

[42]

ESTIMATE OF JUNIUS, BY MR. BURKE.[A]

How comes this Junius to have broke through the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrolled, unpunished, through the land? The myrmidons of the court have been long, and are still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend their time upon me, or you, or you. No; they disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of the forest that has broken through all their toils, is before them. But what will all their efforts avail? No sooner has he wounded one than he lays another dead at his feet. For my part, when I saw his attack upon the king, I own my blood ran cold. I thought that he had ventured too far, and there was an end of his triumphs. Not that he had not asserted many truths. Yes, sir, there are in that composition many bold truths, by which a wise prince might profit. It was the rancor and venom with which I was struck. In these respects the North Briton is as much inferior to him as in strength, wit, and judgment. But while I expected in this daring flight his final ruin and fall, behold him rising still higher, and coming down souse upon both houses of Parliament. Yes, he did make you his quarry, and[43] you still bleed from the wounds of his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, beneath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the terrors of your brow, sir;[B] he has attacked even you—he has—and I believe you have no reason to triumph in the encounter. In short, after carrying away our Royal Eagle in his pounces, and dashing him against a rock, he has laid you prostrate. Kings, Lords, and Commons are but the sport of his fury. Were he a member of this House, what might not be expected from his knowledge, his firmness, and integrity? He would be easily known by his contempt of all danger, by his penetration, by his vigor. Nothing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad ministers could conceal nothing from his sagacity; nor could promises or threats induce him to conceal any thing from the public.

[44]

SOCIAL POSITION.

What was the position of Junius in society? Was he a man of fortune or of humble means? Was he a peer, or the leader of a party or faction, or was he one of the common people? Let Junius tell. In his reply to Sir William Draper, he says: "I will not contend with you in point of composition—you are a scholar, Sir William, and, if I am truly informed, you write Latin with almost as much purity as English. Suffer me then (for I am a plain, unlettered man) to continue that style of interrogation which suits my capacity."—Let. 7. In the following the italics are Junius'. He had been upbraided by Sir William for his assumed signature, and replied: "I should have hoped that even my name might carry some authority with it, if I had not seen how very little weight or consideration a printed paper receives, even from the respectable signature of Sir William Draper."—Let. 3. Again, he says: "Mine, I confess, are humble labors. I do not presume to instruct the learned, but simply to inform the body of the people, and I prefer that channel of conveyance which is likely to spread farthest among them."—Let. 22. Again: "Welbore Ellis, what say you? Is this the law of Parliament, or is it not? I am a plain man, sir, and can not follow you through the phlegmatic forms of an oration. Speak out, Gildrig! Say yes or no."—Let. 47.[45] Again: "I speak to the people as one of the people."—Let. 58. In Let. 57 he says he is a "stranger" to the Livery of London. He says, also, in Let. 25, to Sir William Draper: "I believe, sir, you will never know me. A considerable time must certainly elapse before we are personally acquainted." This language is not equivocal. They neither of them personally knew the other. In Let. 18 he says he is not personally known to Mr. Grenville, a member of the House of Commons. Nor was he a collegian or lawyer. In Let. 53 he says: "I speak to facts with which all of us are conversant. I speak to men and to their experience, and will not descend to answer the little sneering sophistries of a collegian." And again: "This may be logic at Cambridge, or at the treasury, but among men of sense and honor it is folly or villainy in the extreme." In Let. 7 he says to Sir William Draper: "An academical education has given you an unlimited command over the most beautiful figures of speech. Masks, hatchets, racks, and vipers dance through your letters in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion." This is one of Junius' most withering sarcasms. In his Preface he says: "I am no lawyer by profession, nor do I pretend to be more deeply read than every English gentleman should be in the laws of his country." ... "I speak to the plain understanding of the people, and appeal to their honest, liberal construction of me." And of the Letters he says in the Dedication: "To me, originally, they owe nothing but a healthy, sanguine constitution."

Now, from the above facts, and the method of elimination, it may be affirmed, Junius was not prominent before[46] the English nation. He was not a peer, nor member of the House of Commons. He could not have been an army officer. He was not a collegian, nor a lawyer. What, then, was he? Just what he says himself to be: "one of the common people, with a healthy, sanguine constitution," but by no means without genius, education, and practical knowledge.

[47]

JUNIUS NOT A PARTISAN.

But let us continue the method of elimination till we find his true position. Because we can not safely affirm what he was, till we know in some particulars, what he was not; and it is thus the spirit and object of Junius may be made visible. I affirm, therefore, Junius was not a partisan. In proof of which I submit the following, from Let. 58, to the study of the reader:

In the above Junius places himself on the side of the people, and clearly above all party or faction. But he continues:

Nor did Junius ever receive pay for his writings. The charges made against him are thus briefly disposed of: "To write for profit, without taxing the press; to write for fame, and to be unknown; to support the intrigues of faction, and to be disowned as a dangerous auxiliary by every party in the kingdom, are contradictions which the minister must reconcile before I forfeit my credit with the public. I may quit the service, but it would be absurd to charge me with desertion. The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment to the people.... But, in truth, sir, I have left no room for an accommodation with the piety of St. James'. My offenses are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance. On one side, our warmest patriots would disclaim me as a burthen to their honest ambition. On the other, the vilest[54] prostitution, if Junius could descend to it, would lose its natural merit and influence in the cabinet, and treachery be no longer a recommendation to the royal favor."—Let. 44. "He is not paid for his labor, and certainly has a right to choose his employment."—Let. 63. "As for myself, it is no longer a question whether I shall mix with the throng and take a single share in the danger. Whenever Junius appears he must encounter a host of enemies. But is there no honorable way to serve the public without engaging in personal quarrels with insignificant individuals, or submitting to the drudgery of canvassing votes for an election? Is there no merit in dedicating my life to the information of my fellow-subjects? What public question have I declined? What villain have I spared? Is there no labor in the composition of these letters?"—Let. 53.

In compiling the Letters, he says in his Preface: "The printer will readily acquit me of any view to my own profit. I undertake this troublesome task merely to serve a man who has deserved well of me and the public, and who, on my account, has been exposed to an expensive, tyrannical prosecution." This was Mr. Woodfall, publisher of the Public Advertiser.

I am now prepared to ask: What, then, was the object of Junius? What does he mean by "The Cause and the People"? To what Cause has he "dedicated his life"? and which, if he should desert, would be the "vilest prostitution?" Why this great zeal and disinterested benevolence? Aloof from party, unknown to the public, writing for neither fame nor favor, what is the meaning of this literary adventurer?

[55]

A REVOLUTIONIST.

The object of Junius was to produce a revolution in England, to dethrone the king, depose the ministry, dissolve Parliament, and bring the constitution back to its original principles. He defends, at the same time, the action of the American colonies, and encourages them to move on with the work.

It is, perhaps, noticeable to the historian, and especially if he studies the causes of human action, that great movements in behalf of human weal are at no given time confined to a particular locality, but that they, in a measure, span the world. They at least radiate till they affect the whole of a particular type of mankind. Nor is this attributable altogether to commerce and a social interchange of thought, for these take time; but it seems as though, at times, convulsions of thought instantaneously affect great classes of people widely separated by ocean or country. The study of mobs and riots in America, England, and France would lead to this conclusion. It is, however, not a mooted point, that the same cause which moved the colonies to action just prior to the revolution, at the same time convulsed the English nation. The tyranny of king, ministers,[56] and Parliament put its heel on the neck of Englishmen as well as Americans. The people rose in rebellion there as well as here. Patriots arose in England as well as in America, and foremost among them all was Junius, for he fought the battle of freedom for the whole world.

But that Junius meant war in England, is evident from almost every letter. I will give a few extracts in proof. In his Dedication he says: "Although the king should continue to support his present system of government, the period is not very distant at which you will have the means of redress in your own power: it may be nearer, perhaps, than any of us expect; and I would warn you to be prepared for it." If Thomas Paine wrote the Letters of Junius, he said this just before departing for America.

In his address to the Livery of London, he says, in regard to the candidates for election: "Will they grant you common halls when it shall be necessary? Will they go up with remonstrances to the king? Have they firmness enough to meet the fury of a venal House of Commons? Have they fortitude enough not to shrink at imprisonment? Have they spirit enough to hazard their lives and fortunes in a contest, if it should be necessary, with a prostituted legislature? If these questions can fairly be answered in the affirmative, your choice is made. Forgive this passionate language. I am unable to correct it. The subject comes home to us all. It is the language of my heart."—Let. 57. Upon the appointment of Luttrell as adjutant-general, and who, thereupon, takes command of the army in Ireland, Junius says: "My Lord, though it[57] may not be possible to trace this measure to its source, we can follow the stream, and warn the country of its approaching destruction. The English nation must be roused and put upon its guard. Mr. Luttrell has already shown us how far he may be trusted, whenever an open attack is to be made upon the liberties of this country. I do not doubt that there is a deliberate plan formed. Your lordship best knows by whom. The corruption of the legislative body on this side, a military force on the other, and then, farewell to England."—Let. 40. Addressed to Lord North. The italics are his own.

Speaking of the king, he says: "If he loves his people, he will dissolve the parliament which they can never confide in or respect. If he has any regard for his own honor, he will disdain to be any longer connected with such abandoned prostitution. But if it were conceivable [and it was with Junius] that a king of this country had lost all sense of personal honor, and all concern for the welfare of his subjects, I confess, sir, I should be contented to renounce the forms of the constitution once more, if there were no other way to obtain substantial justice for the people."—Let. 44. Any one who is acquainted with the English constitution knows that "its forms" can not be renounced without a revolution. And as to his opinion of the king, he says, "his virtues had ceased to be a question." ... "The man I speak of [the king] has not a heart to feel for the frailties of his fellow creatures. It is their virtues that afflict, it is their vices that console him."—Let. 53. But this will be brought out more strongly[58] in my Parallels, and I will leave it here and pass on to speak of his sympathy with the colonies.

It has perhaps been already noticed by the reader, that Junius, in the extracts given, spoke in the most respectful terms of the colonies. But when he says: "The spirit of the Americans may be an useful example to us;" and, "patriotism may be improved by transplanting," he meant more than praise of the colonies. He meant to stir up the English nation to action and rebellion. He speaks of the affections of the colonies as having been "alienated from their common country" by a series of inconsistent measures.—Let. 1 and Let. 3. But in no instance does he blame them. In his address to the king, he says: "The distance of the colonies would make it impossible for them to take an active concern in your affairs, if they were as well affected to your government as they once pretended to be to your person. They are ready enough to distinguish between you and your ministers. They complained of an act of the legislature, but traced the origin of it no higher than to the servants of the crown; they pleased themselves with the hope that their sovereign, if not favorable to their cause, at least was impartial. They consider you as united with your servants against America; and know how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal parliament on one side, from the real sentiments of the English people on the other. Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but if ever you retire to America [this would be after Junius had effected a revolution in England], be assured they will[59] give you such a covenant to digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided, as they are, into a thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one point in which they all agree: they equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop."—Let. 35. Oliver Cromwell he calls an "accomplished president," and extols his genius.—Let. 14. Much more could be given of the same nature, but this is sufficient.

[60]

REVIEW OF JUNIUS.

I wish the reader to catch the spirit of Junius, and to this end I will briefly review the book.

Junius, before beginning, has an orderly plan for his literary campaign. He opens it with the new year, and closes it with the same. He begins with a full and sweeping broadside at king, ministers, and parliament, at the same time defending the English people and the American colonies. He knew this would call forth a return fire, for which he held himself in readiness. He expected a defense of the Duke of Grafton, but was disappointed in this, for it came from Sir William Draper, in behalf of Lord Granby. After he had temporarily silenced this gun, the last shot from Sir William being, "Cease, viper!" he pours charge after charge into Grafton, the prime minister. He does not attack the king at this time, for the reason that "it had been a maxim of the English government, not unwillingly admitted by the people, that every ungracious or severe exertion of the prerogative should be placed to the account of the minister; but that whenever an act of grace or benevolence was to be performed, the whole merit of it should be attributable to the sovereign himself." That is, the maxim that "The king can do no wrong," was yet[61] admitted by the people, and for Junius to attack the king instead of the prime minister, would have thwarted his design, which was, as before stated, Revolution. Nor does Junius dare to assault the throne till he has brought forth a response in defense of Grafton, knowing that when it came it must reflect on the king. The last of May of the first year he had brought all his charges against Grafton, and to them there had been no response but "the flat general charge of scurrility and falsehood." This Junius did not deign to answer. He now appears over the signature of Philo Junius, compiling the facts and giving them in their order. The principle charges were: an invasion upon "the first rights of the people and the first principles of the constitution" by the arbitrary appointment of Mr. Luttrell as a member of the House of Commons in the place of Mr. Wilkes, who, at the king's solicitation, had been expelled: the disgraceful conduct of Grafton in associating with a prostitute in public: the charge of bastardy upon the duke: the desertion of Lord Chatham: the betrayal of Rockingham and Wilkes: his vascillating and weak action in regard to the colonies: and marrying the near relative of a man who had debauched his wife. But nothing could provoke any reply worthy of an answer by Junius till he, near the close of the year, brought forward the charge against Grafton of "selling a patent place in the collection of customs at Exeter to one Mr. Hine." Junius says of this: "No sale by the candle was ever conducted with greater formality. I thank God! there is not in human nature a degree of impudence daring enough to deny the charge I have fixed upon you." To[62] aggravate this charge, Junius works up another, which is as follows: "A little before the publication of this and the preceding letter, the Duke of Grafton had commenced a prosecution against Mr. Samuel Vaughan for endeavoring to corrupt his integrity by an offer of five thousand pounds for a patent place in Jamaica." But now the duke is charged by Junius with the acceptance of a bribe from Mr. Hine, and to save the duke from impeachment, and Lord Mansfield from embarrassment, the prosecution is immediately dropped. See Let. 34. In a note to the above Letter Junius says: "From the publication of the preceding to this date, not one word was said in defense of the Duke of Grafton. But vice and impudence soon regained themselves, and the sale of the royal favor was openly avowed and defended. We acknowledge the piety of St. James', but what has become of its morality?"

It is now the 12th of December, and on the 19th Junius assaults the throne. Till now there was no opportunity offered, for up to this time the king stood within the impregnable fortress, "The king can do no wrong." Junius, while he acknowledges this maxim, does so merely to get the ear of the king, for he afterward in his Preface takes occasion to place himself right before the public. But having once entered the king's castle, he makes George the Third the most insignificant and detestable object on earth. It is the most powerful piece of satire against kingcraft in the English language, and while it remains to be read by the people, kings may look on and tremble. Junius also in this not only hints war, but threatens revolution. In closing he says: "But this is not a time to trifle[63] with your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell you that you have many friends whose affections are founded upon a principle of personal attachment. The fortune which made you a king forbade you to have a friend. It is a law of nature which can not be violated with impunity. The mistaken prince who looks for friendship, will find a favorite, and in that favorite the ruin of his affairs." And the closing sentence is: "While he plumes himself upon the security of his title to the crown, should remember, that, as it was acquired by one revolution, it may be lost by another."—Let. 35.

But Junius failed to produce the desired effect. The spirit of revolution was now at its height. The ocean must ebb. A reaction follows, and during two years more Junius strives to put new life into the flagging energies of his countrymen, and to kindle anew the fire of liberty. But the flame goes out.

The commons have been corrupted by the king, and now the lords give way: "The three branches of the legislature (king, lords, and commons) seem to treat their separate rights and interests as the Roman triumvirs did their friends; they reciprocally sacrifice them to the animosities of each other, and establish a detestable union among themselves upon the ruin of the laws and liberty of the commonwealth."—Let. 39.

Of the House of Lords he says: "By resolving that they had no right to impeach a judgment of the House of Commons in any case whatsoever, where that house has a competent jurisdiction, they in effect gave up that constitutional check and reciprocal control of one branch of the legislature over the other, which is, perhaps, the greatest and most important object provided[64] for by the division of the whole legislative power into three estates; and now let the judicial decisions of the House of Commons be ever so extravagant, let their declarations of law be ever so flagrantly false, arbitrary, and oppressive to the subject, the House of Lords have imposed a slavish silence upon themselves; they can not interpose; they can not protect the subject; they can not defend the laws of their country. A concession so extraordinary in itself, so contradictory to the principles of their own institution, can not but alarm the most unsuspecting mind."—Let. 39. Junius, in a note to this Letter, calls for a leader upon this state of facts: "The man who resists and overcomes this iniquitous power assumed by the lords, must be supported by the whole people. We have the laws on our side, and want nothing but an intrepid leader. When such a man stands forth, let the nation look to it. It is not his cause, but our own."

But the leader did not come, and Junius is no more known to England. After such declarations it would outrage all degrees of probability to suppose that Junius revealed himself to the king and ministry, and that they conferred on him a fat office for what he had written. I will not insult the common sense of my readers by offering an argument against it, founded upon the laws of human nature. And yet, Lord Macaulay has surrendered his reason to just such an assumption. Had Junius ever revealed himself to the king and his "detestable junto," that would have been the last of him.

Before I take my leave of Junius, I will give two extracts in which he sounds, TO ARMS!

[65]He is addressing the Duke of Grafton: "You have now brought the merits of your administration to an issue, on which every Englishman, of the narrowest capacity, may determine for himself; it is not an alarm to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judgment of the people upon their own most essential interests. A more experienced minister would not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first principles of the constitution before he had made some progress in subduing the spirit of the people. With such a cause as yours, my lord, it is not sufficient that you have the court at your devotion, unless you find means to corrupt or intimidate the jury. The collective body of the people form that jury, and from their decision there is but one appeal. Whether you have talents to support you at a crisis of such difficulty and danger, should long ago have been considered."—Let. 15.

"My lord, you should not encourage these appeals to Heaven. The pious prince from whom you are supposed to descend made such frequent use of them in his public declarations, that, at last, the people also found it necessary to appeal to Heaven in their turn. Your administration has driven us into circumstances of equal distress—beware, at least, how you remind us of the remedy."—Let. 9.

Junius breathed the spirit of revolution. This is the purpose, and only purpose, of the Letters, namely: to produce a revolution in England. And, if Thomas Paine was Junius, the idea never left him. As this is a fact which extends through the life of Mr. Paine, I shall offer some proof here, on this point, as amidst the multiplicity of facts and arguments it may hereafter escape[66] me. It will serve, also, to introduce Mr. Paine to the reader.

An obscure English exciseman has now been a little more than two years in America, and just five years since Junius wrote his last Letter; he has written "Common Sense" and one "Crisis;" he has revolutionized public sentiment in America, the Declaration of Independence has been sent abroad to the world, and the war well begun, when in his second "Crisis" he indites the following to Lord Howe: "I, who know England and the disposition of the people well, am confident that it is easier for us to effect a revolution there than you a conquest here. A few thousand men landed in England with the declared design of deposing the present king, bringing his ministers to trial, and setting up the Duke of Gloucester in his stead, would assuredly carry their point while you were groveling here ignorant of the matter. As I send all my papers to England, this, like Common Sense, will find its way there; and, though it may put one party on their guard, it will inform the other and the nation in general of our design to help them."

Here Mr. Paine has announced the name of the leader whom Junius called for. But Paine proposes to do Junius over again. Hear him! In the year 1792 he writes: "During the war, in the latter end of the year 1780, I formed to myself the design of coming over to England.... I was strongly impressed with the idea that if I could get over to England without being known, and only remain in safety till I could get out a publication, I could open the eyes of the country with respect to the madness and stupidity of its government.[67] I saw that the parties in parliament had pitted themselves as far as they could go, and could make no new impression on each other. General Greene entered fully into my views, but the affair of Arnold and Andre happening just after, he changed his mind, and, under strong apprehensions for my safety, wrote to me very pressingly to give up the design, which, with some reluctance, I did." He afterward renews the same design. In accompanying Colonel Laurens to France, certain dispatches from the English government fell into his hands through the capture of an English frigate. These dispatches Paine read at Paris, and brought them to America on his return. He says: "By these dispatches I saw further into the stupidity of the English cabinet than I otherwise could have done, and I renewed my former design. But Colonel Laurens was so unwilling to return alone, more especially as, among other matters, he had a charge of upward of two hundred thousand pounds sterling money, that I gave in to his wishes, and finally gave up my plan. But I am now certain that, if I could have executed it, it would not have been altogether unsuccessful."—Note, Rights of Man, part ii. Nor is this all. "When Napoleon meditated a descent upon England by means of gunboats, he secured the services of Thomas Paine to establish, after the conquest, a more popular government."—New Am. Cyc., Art. Thomas Paine. From all that I can gather, Mr. Paine was himself the author of this "plan of Napoleon's."

[68]

COMMON SENSE.

Junius is heard no more in England. The fame of this unknown author has gone round the world. A score of volumes have been written to prove his identity with a score of names. But all that has been said is wild with conjecture, and arguments have only been built upon "rumor," and "facts" drawn from the imagination. A scientific criticism has never been attempted. Truth has been insulted by the imagination in its wild ramblings, and writers have contented themselves with theory and fancy, "to pile up reluctant quarto upon solid folio, as if their labors, because they are gigantic, could contend with truth and Heaven." But while the king and his cabinet are setting traps, and hunting up and down the whole realm for this "mighty boar of the forest," in fear that he will again plunge at the king, or tear the ermine of Lord Mansfield, Thomas Paine, just landed upon the shores of America, hurls back a shaft at royalty which transfixes it to the wall of its castle. This was Common Sense. A reaction had taken place in England, and the people of America were also affected thereby. Reconciliation was the cry, independence scarcely lisped, and, when lisped, people "startled at the novelty of it." "In this state of political suspense," says Mr. Paine, "the pamphlet of[69] Common Sense made its appearance, and the success it met with does not become me to mention. Dr. Franklin, Mr. Samuel, and John Adams were severally spoken of as the supposed author. I had not, at that time, the pleasure either of personally knowing or being known to the two last gentlemen. The favor of Dr. Franklin's friendship I possessed in England, and my introduction to this part of the world was through his patronage.... In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin proposed giving me such materials as were in his hands toward completing a history of the present transactions, and seemed desirous of having the first volume out the next spring. I had then formed the outlines of Common Sense and finished nearly the first part; and, as I supposed the doctor's design in getting out a history was to open the new year with a new system, I expected to surprise him with a production on that subject much earlier than he thought of, and, without informing him what I was doing, got it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently could, and sent him the first pamphlet that was printed off."—Note, Crisis, iii.

Opening the new year with a new system is emphatically what Junius also did, and it is most remarkable that the appearance of Junius' first Letter had, at first, the same effect in England that Common Sense had in America. Both came like thunderbolts. "On January 10, 1776, when 'a reconciliation with the mother country was the wish of almost every American,' a pamphlet called Common Sense, advocating the establishment of a republic of free and independent states, 'burst upon the world'—in the language of Dr. Rush—'with an effect which has rarely been produced by types and paper[70] in any age or country.' It was immediately denounced as 'one of the most artful, insidious, and pernicious of pamphlets!' John Dickinson, a staunch supporter of the American cause, and author of the 'Farmers' Letters,' opposed the idea of independence in a speech as a member of the Continental Congress. The author of 'Plain Truth,' one of the many replies to Common Sense, thought that 'volumes were insufficient to describe the horror, misery, and desolation awaiting the people at large in the siren form of American independence.' Dr. William Smith, provost of the University of Pennsylvania, said, in his 'Cato's Letters,' published in March, 1776: 'Nor have many weeks yet elapsed since the first open proposition for independence was published to the world; it certainly has no countenance from congress, and is only the idol of those who wish to subvert all order among us, and rise on the ruins of their country.'"—Art. Thomas Paine, New Am. Cyc.

This was the first effort in America toward revolution. It was a bold hand, moved by a daring heart, that wrote Common Sense. In style and language, in argument and sentiment, in spirit and character, it is the finest political document ever produced in the English language. The object for which Junius and Common Sense were written I have shown to be the same, namely: revolution, and that the base of operation has only been changed. It is still an attack upon king, lords, and commons, and a defense of the people. I now go to show that Common Sense is a concise reproduction of Junius, in sentiment, style, and method of argumentation. But I will first call to the reader's[71] mind a sentence from Junius in answer to the assertion of Dr. Smith just quoted, that Common Sense was "the first open proposition for independence." On the contrary, the first open statement of Junius in regard to the colonies, addressed to the king six years before this, is as follows: "Looking forward to independence, they might possibly receive you for their king; but, if you ever retire to America, be assured they will give you such a covenant to digest as the presbytery of Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to Charles the Second. They left their native land in search of freedom, and found it in a desert. Divided as they are into a thousand forms of policy and religion, there is one point in which they all agree—they equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop."

I have now only to remark: when Thomas Paine came to America, at least when he wrote Common Sense, he understood the American people and what they wanted better than they did themselves; and so did Junius.

I now bring Common Sense and Junius together to show parallels of idea, method, and style.

[74]I would call the attention of the reader to the manner in which they close: to the cause of which they speak: to the object of their labors: to the fact that they stand above party or faction: to the expression of Junius, "written by one of yourselves:" to the declaration that if he lives he will often remind the English people of the danger they are in and of the remedy: to the fact that Mr. Paine here does it, and continues to do it ever after while he lives: in short, I would call the attention of the reader to the perfect similarity in style, object, and sentiment, save in this—the one was the requiem of Freedom in England, the other, her natal song in America.

As I have called attention to the style, I would caution the reader not to be betrayed by the word "hath" of Mr. Paine. It by no means affects the style. It was doubtless used or not used at first as a blind by Mr. Paine; for he sometimes used it and sometimes did not. A few years later in life it is abandoned altogether, and Junius occasionally lets it slip. See Let. 37. And also the word "doth."—Note, Let. 41.

The following gives a distinction between society and government, the failure of human conscience, and the necessary surrender of human liberty:

[76]Mr. Paine now proceeds to form a government upon an ideal plan, and show the origin of those first principles which would operate in the first peopling of a country. "But as nothing but heaven is impregnable to vice," the natural restraints of society will not be sufficient to check it; this will necessitate the establishment of a government. At first, the whole colony may deliberate, and in the first parliament every man will have a seat. But as the colony increases this can not be done, because inconvenience prohibits it. He now observes:

In the above the sentiment is not only the same, but the same metaphors are used. As a "rod" for the representative, and the "voice of reason."

In the following the same metaphor also is used, but with a change in the application.

In the above, Junius is speaking, in his first Letter, with all the prejudices of an Englishman in favor of the constitution. But this soon wears off, and in his closing Letter he speaks as boldly as Common Sense.

I would remark on the above passage from Junius, that this is one of his finest rhetorical efforts, and it is[81] well worthy of a moment's pause, to study its plan and probable effect on the English mind. This was written near the close of his literary campaign. The reaction had set in, and he was stemming the tide of public opinion. He wishes to bring the people up to his republican notions, and to rouse them to action. He begins by admiring the liberal spirit and integrity of the man, but reflects on his judgment who prefers a republic to a monarchy so qualified and limited in a country of that size. He limits monarchy to a small country. The reader will mark how guarded he is here. He is fully aware of the prejudices of the people in favor of monarchy, and doubtless he spoke his own sentiments at the time, qualified as they were. Mr. Paine afterward spoke of "setting up the Duke of Gloucester, deposing the king, and bringing the ministers to trial." Junius has now prepared the public ear for an attentive and respectful hearing; he has bowed to monarchy, and touched the heart of his audience. He now introduces the principles of a republic, which produce a spirit devoid of anarchy and riot, but one attached to the common weal and submissive to the laws only. He now tenderly chides the people for their dependence upon the crown, especially the leaders. He then advances to a charge of inconsistency, and shows the advantage the friends of arbitrary power take of it. He now supports himself by authority in a eulogy on Mr. Sawbridge, of whom he says: "He has shown himself possessed of that republican firmness which the times require." He at last caps the climax with an array of republics, and a hint that an English gentleman would be "honorably distinguished" if he would come forward and play[82] the part of Brutus. The whole paragraph is deeply planned and finely wrought out, and would fall with stunning weight upon the mind of the English nation.

But let us proceed. Mr. Paine asked, in the last sentence quoted above in the parallel column: "Why is the constitution of England sickly?" etc. He also further says: "An inquiry into the constitutional errors in the English form of government is at this time highly necessary, for, as we are never in a proper condition of doing justice to others while we continue under the influence of some leading partiality, so neither are we capable of doing it to ourselves while we remain fettered by an obstinate prejudice. And as a man who is attached to a prostitute is unfit to choose or judge of a wife, so any prepossession in favor of a rotten constitution of government will disable us from discerning a good one."—Common Sense, Part I.

Englishmen considered rotten boroughs the only rotten part of the constitution, but Common Sense and Junius both considered that the disease had extended from the extremities to the heart. Junius says:

"As to cutting away the rotten boroughs, I am as much offended as any man at seeing so many of them under the direct influence of the crown, or at the disposal of private persons. Yet, I own I have both doubts and apprehensions in regard to the remedy you propose.... When all your instruments of amputation are prepared, when the unhappy patient lies bound at your feet, without the possibility of resistance, by what infallible rule will you direct the operation? When you propose to cut away the rotten parts, can you tell us what parts are perfectly sound? Are there[83] any certain limits, in fact or theory, to inform you at what point you must stop—at what point the mortification ends? To a man [Mr. Wilkes] so capable of observation and reflection as you are, it is unnecessary to say all that might be said upon the subject. Besides that, I approve highly of Lord Chatham's idea of infusing a portion of new health into the constitution, to enable it to bear its infirmities—a brilliant expression, and full of intrinsic wisdom."—Last Letter of Junius.

I will now present their doctrine of equal rights:

[86]

[87]While I am upon the subject of king, I will present their views in this place. And I would call attention to the severity of the language:

I will now make a few remarks upon Common Sense. I have introduced a few extracts to show its spirit, scope, and object; and the opinions, principles, language, and style of Mr. Paine. I have also thrown by the side of them the similar characteristics of Junius, but this is not all.

Common Sense was to America what Junius would have been to England if the same success had attended it. There is a plan in Common Sense similar to that of Junius. It opens the new year with a new policy; it begins by a contrast between society and government; it attacks the government and defends the original rights of the people; it assaults the king and his minions; it defends republicanism against royalty; it calls on the people to rebel against the tyrant, to take up arms in their defense, and to establish government upon the natural and original rights of the people. If one will study the two works he will find not only the general plan the same, but even in detail they strikingly correspond; showing the same head to plan, and the same hand to execute. There is the same language, the same figures of speech, the same wit, the same method of argumentation, the same withering satire, the same appeals to Heaven, and the same bold, proud, unconquerable spirit, in the one as in the other.

If Mr. Paine was Junius, these things would naturally be expected. And it would be expected, also, that having failed to produce the desired effect in[91] England, and all further effort there being at an end, that if Junius lived he would change his base of operations if a favorable opportunity offered, and strike once more for the liberties of the people. Thus the natural order of things leads us to an irresistible conclusion. But in order not to be too hasty we ought to ask: Is there not one fact in the whole life and character of Mr. Paine incompatible with Junius? When it is found I will surrender the argument. But let us proceed.

Nature is prodigal of varieties. No two individuals are alike, either in physical form or mental features. Great differences may be found even among those most resembling each other, but when we find a man prominent among his fellow-kind, it is because of marked characteristics in which he greatly differs from the rest. These characteristics are expressed in action. A record of these actions is the history of men. Faust gives us movable type, and Watt the steam-engine. Newton asks nature to reveal her mode of operation in the movement of matter. Bacon asks her for her method. Buckle inquires after the science of history. Napoleon was a magazine of war. And thus great minds reveal themselves in their own way; and the more striking and peculiar the characteristic, the more easily can we distinguish and describe the person. Mr. Paine was a literary adventurer. And unlike adventurers in conquest or discovery, he left the record of his course as he went along. His was not a path in the sea, nor foot-prints in the sand, but a work like that of Euclid or Laplace, carved out of thought; he called[92] out of chaos a new world of politics; he fought great battles and won victories with the pen. To know the man, then, we must examine his writings. To this end, therefore, I call the reader's attention to his style.

[93]

STYLE.

I will first make some concise remarks upon this subject, to aid us in comparing Junius with Mr. Paine; because I propose to show that the style of the one is the style of the other.

Style, by most authors, is treated under the following heads: Perspicuity, Vivacity, and Beauty. Perspicuity, I define, the clear and true expression of our thoughts in the fewest words. Vivacity is the energy or life of expression; it attracts the attention, and excites the imagination. It takes the will by storm and produces conviction. Combined with perspicuity it becomes eloquence. Beauty is the harmony and smoothness of of expression, and is often made synonymous with elegance.

The first requisite in style is perspicuity. It is a prevalent notion among the vulgar that clearness of expression leads to dryness and dullness in speaking or writing, owing to the plain garb in which ideas are clothed. But the fact is, the very reverse of this is true, and as the legitimate result.

Words are said to be the signs of ideas, or symbols of thought. But words spoken is thought passing in the air; they are ideas in invisible vibrations, and a sound can neither be a sign nor a symbol. But words written are symbols[94] of thought. Language addresses both the ear and the eye. The true end and aim of language is to make others feel the full force of an idea as it is felt by the speaker. Language must therefore be forever imperfect, and this from the nature of things, or at least till ideas can be silently conveyed upon the waves of some subtle nerve force. Ideas flit from the mind with the rapidity of lightning. To the inward beholder truth becomes visible at times instantaneously. He sees it, he feels it; it fills him with emotions; it struggles for utterance. Truth writhes to get free and become universally, instead of particularly, known and felt. It may be and is felt instantaneously, yet it can not be expressed in words for hours, and perhaps never: certainly never as it should be. Truth rests in the mind, or flutters there in ideal beauty. It requires an artist transcending earthly perfection to breathe it to the ear or throw it out to the eye on canvas. The tongue and hand both fail, the sounds are discordant, and the lines are broken. In the one instance we have a jumble of sounds, and in the other a daub for a picture.

It becomes apparent at once, the more words we use to express thought, the more it is cumbered with technicalities and idiomatic phrases, just so much more gross, and feeble, and uninviting it becomes, because robbed of its ideal beauty. But, on the contrary, if a word or a look or a touch could express it, its beauty, and its power, and its worth would not be thus blemished. Byron would have spoken that word were it lightning. Hence arises the interest and charm in beholding the picture of an artist, where so much is revealed at a glance; for it is thought which is[95] expressed there. Hence, also, it becomes evident that far more can be expressed in a figure of speech, quickly and boldly put, than could be otherwise presented in hours or days. "A single hieroglyphic character," says Champoleon le June, "would probably convey more to the mind of an ancient Egyptian than a quarto page would to a European."

Perspicuity, therefore, is not necessarily devoid of energy or elegance, in fact the only means to secure a clear and concise style is to use the trope—especially in the two forms of metaphor and comparison: observing always that long and labored figures of speech are generally ambiguous, and always have a bad effect. Their beauty, and worth, and power consist in the brevity and clearness with which they are expressed. "The thought expressed in a single line by Chaucer," says Lord Kames, "gives more luster to a young beauty, than the whole of his much labored poem,

"Up rose the sun, and up rose Emilie."

Perspicuity, then, we would consider the very soul of vivacity, and vivacity the soul of eloquence.

The elegance or beauty of expression is of far less consequence, and must often be sacrificed to the very nature of ideas. It can not be said that all ideas are beautiful. There are uncomely and hideous things on earth; there are disagreeable and hateful subjects to be spoken of, and there are painful feelings to be expressed. Language would fail to subserve the end for which it exists, did it not correspond to the sources of thought and the objects to be described; otherwise it would not be language. To be elegant, therefore, at all times, in[96] speaking or writing, involves an absurdity, inasmuch as only a part of our ideas could be expressed were this the case. The simple narration of facts enlightens; elegance soothes and pleases; but vivacity moves to action. It is the duty of the writer to make his style and language correspond with his subject.

Keeping the foregoing principles in view, the reader may apply such terms to the piece he reads, or the discourse he hears, as may be most fitting. It is thus we speak of concise, diffuse, bold, feeble, nervous, plain, neat, dry, or flowery styles. A full sentence or period, as it is called, must therefore have: 1. Precision; that is, it must be clear and not ambiguous: 2. Unity; that is, it must not have crowded into it different subjects: 3. Strength; that is, all unnecessary words must be thrown away, and it must be built with such mechanical skill as will render it the most forcible to the mind: and, 4. Harmony; that is, it must sound with the sense.

For the purpose of an argument, it is immaterial to me whether I have cause to praise or censure the style of Mr. Paine. It is a comparison of the known with the unknown, in which I am about to engage, and it is the likeness, not the merits, which I wish to bring out. A good or a bad style would not affect the similarity were either produced by the same hand. But it is a fact worthy of remark, as I am passing, that a bad style in writing or speaking, has never produced any marked effect upon the world. It is the nature of great minds to be possessed of clear ideas, and to such minds nature never withholds the gift of purity of diction.

[97]The style of Mr. Paine is as peculiar as the great mind that produced it, and I will describe it to be: strong, bold, clear, and harmonious. The construction of any of his pieces, is like the building of a fine edifice. He never begins without plan and specifications. He builds it in the ideal before he puts it on paper. The reader finds a foundation fit and substantial in the first paragraph, often in the first sentence. Upon this he finds a superstructure to correspond, which in size and proportions, is neat and artistic, constructed with each separate material of the best kind, and in its proper place, never left without cornice and entablature, so that when taken all together it is most pleasing and useful. He never leaves a period like a broken column, yet a careless vine sometimes winds around it, to attract the mind from its stately proportions, and we have lost the argument in the beauty of the figure. But the effect is momentary. He soon brings us back to the practical and the real. And it is his peculiar beauty, that he does not impose ideas upon us which his language can not convey to the commonest understanding.

Mr. Jefferson says of his style: "No writer has exceeded Paine in familiarity of style, in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and unassuming language."

Style presents the law, as well as the image, of the writers' mind; in other words, style gives us the true portrait and habits of the mind, for the mind can by no means counterfeit itself. I will therefore proceed to an analysis and comparison of Mr. Paine's style with that of Junius; and, first, of the sentence, or period. The different members are of the same length, hence the[98] rythm or harmony. Take the following examples, and I will place bars between the different members to aid the eye:

"The style and language you have adopted are, I confess, | not ill suited to the elegance of your own manners, | or to the dignity of the cause you have undertaken. | Every common dauber writes rascal and villain under his pictures, | because the pictures themselves have neither character nor resemblance. | But the works of a master require no index; | his features and coloring are taken from nature; | the impression is immediate and uniform; | nor is it possible to mistake the characters, | whether they represent the treachery of a minister, | or the abused simplicity of a king." |

"Were I disposed to paint a contrast, | I could easily set off what you have done in the present case | against what you would have done in that case, | and by justly opposing them, | conclude a picture that would make you blush. | But as, when any of the prouder passions are hurt, | it is much better philosophy | to let a man slip into a good temper | than to attack him in a bad one— | for that reason, therefore, I only state the case, | and leave you to reflect upon it." |

"Ye that tell us of harmony and reconciliation, | can ye restore to us the time that is past? | Can ye give to prostitution its former innocence? | Neither can ye reconcile Britain and America. | The last cord now is broken— | the people of England are presenting addresses against us. | There are injuries which nature can not forgive— | she would cease to be nature if she did. | As well can the lover forgive the ravisher of his[99] mistress, | as the continent forgive the murders of Britain." |

"The question is not of what metal your instruments are made, | but whether they are adapted to the work you have in hand. | Will they grant you common halls when it shall be necessary? | Will they go up with remonstrances to the king? | Have they firmness enough to meet the fury of a venal House of Commons? | Have they fortitude enough not to shrink at imprisonment? | Have they spirit enough to hazard their lives and fortunes in a contest, | if it should be necessary, with a prostituted legislature? | If these questions can fairly be answered in the affirmative, your choice is made. | Forgive this passionate language. | I am unable to correct it. | The subject comes home to us all. | It is the language of my heart." |

The above is sufficient. The first and last paragraphs are from Junius, the other two from Paine. The last two paragraphs are passionate, the first two calm but energetic. Throughout the whole, nature is at work—there is nothing artificial. But it was the melody or rythm that I wished to indicate to the reader. This is peculiar and common to both, and itself can not be imitated. If a writer ever succeeds in reproducing this style, it will be from the nature of his own mind, and not from imitation.

If the reader will now return to page 71, and compare the Dedication to Junius with the Introduction to Common Sense, he will find in rythm a striking parallel, because the subject is the same, and the mind of the writer is performing the same work.

[100]Grammatical accuracy is often sacrificed to conciseness, as in the following:

Mr. Paine was bold enough to transcend the minor rules of grammar whenever he found them cumbersome to his style. In this he is consistent with Junius.

There is a majesty of manner, and a grandeur of style, which strike the mind of the reader with great force. Take, for example, the following:

In the following, diminutives are handled with telling effect:

The reader will observe that the method also of ridicule is the same. A hundred examples of this might be selected from both; and he has, doubtless, already noticed the biting satire of both. The Letters of Junius are among the finest specimens of satire in the English language, and are only equaled by Mr. Paine's Letters to Lord Howe, and passages in his Rights of Man to Mr. Burke. I will give a few extracts. It will be remembered how Junius called the king not only a "ruffian," but said "nature only intended him for a good humored fool," and that if he ever retired to[103] America he would get a severe covenant to digest from a people who united in detesting the pageantry of a king and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop. With this remembrance I will submit the following piece of satire from Crisis, No. vi:

"Your rightful sovereign, as you call him, may do well enough for you, who dare not inquire into the humble capacities of the man; but we, who estimate persons and things by their real worth, can not suffer our judgment to be so imposed upon; and unless it is your wish to see him exposed, it ought to be your endeavor to keep him out of sight. The less you have to say about him the better. We have done with him, and that ought to be answer enough. You have been often told so. Strange! that the answer must be so often repeated. You go a begging with your king as with a brat, or with some unsalable commodity you are tired of; and though every body tells you no, no, still you keep hawking him about. But there is one that will have him in a little time, and as we have no inclination to disappoint you of a customer, we bid nothing for him."

Many passages of similar severity could be collected. In fact, the two Letters addressed to Lord Howe are not equaled in force or severity by the most savage of Junius' productions. I now call attention to other parallel peculiarities.

The manner of threatening, commanding, and warning, is, the same:

But examples of this kind are not wanting in any chapter or Letter. The threat, the command, the warning, is a peculiarity so prominent that no one would fail to observe it. And this peculiarity often passes into the style of prophecy. As above, Junius says: "The period is not very distant," and Mr. Paine repeats the expression in the same style: "The time is not very distant." This reveals, not a literary theft, but a mind whose mode of thinking and expression was ever the same.

The reader will furthermore notice the peculiarity in the use of "sir," and the expressions, "You, Sir William," "You, sir," so common to both. This arises from the proud and commanding character of Mr. Paine. He always talks as one having authority, when addressing those he wishes to satirize, but with an avowed modesty when addressing those he wishes to influence. This last is seen in Junius, with regard to Lords Rockingham and Chatham, when speaking of parliamentary reform, and in Common Sense, when speaking of a constitution and methods of taxation. Junius says, after giving his own views: "Other measures may, undoubtedly, be supported in argument, as better adapted to the disorder, or more likely to be obtained." And Common Sense says: "In a former page I threw out a few thoughts on the propriety[106] of a continental charter, for I only presume to offer hints, not plans." These things point to the same mental source, and this characteristic influences the style to a marked degree.

I call attention now to what is termed alliteration: the bringing words together commencing with the same letter, as follows:

The above are only a few examples. Almost every page exhibits this feature of the writer. It is a mania with Mr. Paine, and it is almost the first observable feature of Junius. No other author that I have read so abounds in alliteration. But herein Junius and Mr. Paine, not content with two words, frequently unite three, as in some of the examples above. They also bring two words thus together, and ascending from the sound to the sense, give them relationship in meaning; as in the last examples above.

[107]As alliteration exhibits a law of the mind, it can easily be determined, by the rule of averages, whether Mr. Paine and Junius agree. I have estimated the ratio by counting twenty thousand words in each, and have found them to average the same. Were all the words in Junius counted and compared with the same number in Mr. Paine's political writings, it would give the true law of averages, but twenty thousand words will give an approximation not far from the truth.

There is another peculiarity in the style of Mr. Paine and Junius, arising out of this law of the mind, or this mania for alliteration, which is to continue the alliteration throughout the paragraph. For example, if a prominent word begins with an f, t, or p, or any other letter, he continues to select words beginning with the same letter, or in which the sound is prominent, while expressing the same thought or idea. In the following he plays upon like letters in a wonderful manner. I will put the words in italics:

I have not gone out of my way for the above examples.[108] Thousands of just such examples may be taken from both. This, together with the even length of the members of the period, is what produces the rythm and harmony of Mr. Paine's style, and which I have never seen paralleled, except in Junius. I have compared it with a hundred authors, and never have I found any thing like it. But Junius is in no respect unlike Mr. Paine. Had a perfect portrait been painted of Mr. Paine, at the time he wrote his Common Sense, and another at the time Junius wrote his Letters, the two portraits could not have more resembled each other than does the style of Junius resemble that of Mr. Paine. And this is what can not be imitated, for it arises out of the constitution of the mind, just like poetry or music; and the poet and musician are born, not made.

Mr. Paine and Junius never use poetry, unless it be a line at the head of a piece. And they both ridicule the use of it in prose composition.

They sometimes wander from the point, and then bring the reader back by mentioning the fact:

Another peculiarity is the method of bringing the subject "into one view:"

I have before called attention to the manner in which[110] Mr. Paine signed his Introduction to Common Sense, and Junius his Dedication; but there is a similarity in the manner in which they frequently close their pieces. The expressions, "To conclude," "I shall conclude," "I shall therefore conclude," are used by both.

There is a marked peculiarity in taking illustrations from the Bible, and I now speak of and compare the political writings of Mr. Paine with Junius. Junius is filled with such references, and they are no less plentiful in Common Sense. This leads me on to speak of figures of speech.

In the use of the trope I find the one a reproduction of the other. The metaphor comes before us in every conceivable beauty, and herein they paint with an artist's skill, and the many delicate touches, as well as bold strokes, show the same hand at the brush. There is never, for example, a long and labored metaphor; never a company of them together; never one that does not apply with admirable effect.

At the close of an article, a figure of speech is often used with a master's skill, and leaves an impression on the mind of the reader not easily effaced. In this they are alike. Junius, for example, closes thirty-six of his Letters in this manner; and in Mr. Paine's three works—Common Sense, The Crisis, and Rights of Man—he closes twenty-three parts in this manner, which gives us about the same ratio. They both abound in metaphor and comparison. Seldom do they use allegory or hyperbole, but personification and exclamation are frequent.[111] I will now give a few parallels which I have selected from the many examples, and I will begin the list with exclamations so common to both:

The expression, "I thank God!" is the most frequent with both. As this is not common with writers, the parallel is a strong one. But to continue:

In the last metaphor nature personified is brought[113] forward as the actor, by turning to ridicule the vanity of man in assuming more than he is. Junius, without expressing it in words, has put forward the fable of the ass in a lion's skin, when speaking of Lord Granby's courage. But Mr. Paine has applied the same fable to the king. The figures are differently expressed but exactly the same.

The above is the same figure, but differently applied. This figure is quite often used by Mr. Paine and Junius.

There are two facts in the above parallel showing that the same mind indited both. First: Turning away from those who have deserved and who have been receiving his censure to the friends of the cause; and, Secondly: The call which immediately follows: "I call upon you." That it was not stolen from Junius by Mr. Paine, is proven by two facts. First: The language and figure are different; and, Secondly: That which makes it a parallel it is impossible to steal. It is a parallel of conditions, the one in England and the other in America. But if Junius were not Mr. Paine, then would the conditions be destroyed. But there is a parallel of conditions, which can not be plagiarized; therefore Thomas Paine was Junius.

If it be argued in answer to this reasoning: There might be just such conditions existing with the character Junius in England as with Paine in America, which might produce a parallel as above, I admit the possibility; but the chances are infinity to one against such a hypothesis.

But to reduce the chances still more, let us bring a parallel of fact to illustrate a principle of national honor.

The above parallel, like the preceding one, arises primarily in the mind from the association of ideas. The definition of national honor is the same, and arose out of the same transaction. Taking away the rudder from an English frigate was a national insult, but instead of demanding reparation of the king of Spain, the king of England would satisfy his honor by attacking a king's servant, which furnishes the materials for the censure of Junius, and Admiral Saunders would be satisfied to see the city of Madrid laid in ashes, which furnishes the just ground for the aspersions of Mr. Paine; and from thence they define national honor to be that deportment which is best suited to an individual. They both state the case, and then define; the method and figures are the same. But there is another parallel in these two pieces, and in the same connection. Mr. Paine and Junius both use very harsh language in[117] commenting on the facts in the case, and when they close their censure they say:

This apology taken in the same connection, shows the same mind, for it is a law of nature, whether exhibited in mind or matter, that when given the same conditions the same results follow. Now if Thomas Paine be not Junius, then would no such parallels be found; for, as before remarked, literary theft is impossible, inasmuch as conditions can not be stolen, and more especially the most important condition in the above case, mental constitution. In other words the case is stated by the same person, in the same style, but not in the same language.

In the above Mr. Paine applies this figure of political chemistry to the causes which led to the separation of the colonies from England. Junius is speaking to the Duke of Grafton. "Menstruum" and "Caput mortuum," are old chemical terms. The former means that which will dissolve, and the latter the worthless matter which is left. They are both figures of analysis, and show the writer to have given his attention to chemistry. Mr. Paine, it is well known, in 1775, shortly after[120] arriving in America, "set his talents to work" to make saltpeter by some cheap and expeditious method, and formed an association to supply gratuitously the national magazines with powder. This fact also shows that Mr. Paine came to America to fight England; for it was before he had written his Common Sense. His object was, to be prepared; his method was, first the powder and then the Declaration of Independence, which last was produced by the pamphlet Common Sense.

Mr. Paine and Junius both reasoned, and this very often, from the nature of man, and especially his passions. The following are parallels:

[121]

[123]The last parallel above will bear a moment's thought and study. Paine says: "Without the least merit in the man." Junius says: "We owe it to the bounty of Providence." They were both deeply read in the history of the human heart. The following is of the same nature, showing the same mental philosophy:

The above are a few of the similar figures which have come under my eye. The careful reader will, doubtless, find many more, as I have given my attention to a multiplicity of subjects in this investigation, and many parallels would thus escape me. But I have given more than sixty, which ought to arrest the attention of any thinking man. Together with the above may be taken parallel phrases frequently used by both; for example: "I affirm," "Excess of folly," "In point of," "Give the lie to," "For several reasons," "Branded with," "It signifies not," "Circumstanced," "For my own part," "In short," "Forever," "Common cause."

I now pass on to those figures of speech which come in the form of argumentation, as antithesis and interrogation.

Antithesis is a species of word painting. It is to an argument what light and shade are to a painting. There can, therefore, be no argument without antithesis in some form. It may be defined, contrasting or placing in opposition opinions, sentiments, and ideas. The following are examples:

As would naturally be expected from what has already been brought forward, in regard to the mental constitution of Mr. Paine, he abounds in this figure and style of argumentation; and it is the same with Junius. Sentence after sentence, and period after period, are in antithesis. The expressions, "On the one hand, and on the other," "At home and abroad," "On this side, and on that," are the constant companions of both. Hence the method, also, in both, of bringing forward contradictions in the conduct and character of individuals, or in any proposition they are attacking. This is the language, also, of ridicule; the contradiction makes it absurd,[126] the incongruity ridiculous. Antithesis is, therefore, an argumentative figure of speech, in which contrast or comparison is made to present an image of things or principles to the mind. It is to rhetoric what light and shade are to painting. In no other way can a writer paint a picture. Hence, when Mr. Paine says, "Were I disposed to paint a contrast," and when Junius says, "Imagine what you might be, and then reflect upon what you are," they reveal the gift of that tremendous power they exhibit in their productions.

It is from this constitutional arrangement of the mind which makes a man a good mathematician. For, if one will trace a mathematical process of reasoning, he will find it to be a system of comparisons or antitheses—and nothing else—having foundation primarily in equality. The idea of equality is the origin of mathematics. It was, therefore, a mathematician who wrote Junius. We can not go wrong in this conclusion, for we reason from first principles, and we would expect to find his style and language assuming mathematical preciseness, and only equaled by Mr. Paine in argumentation.

From what has already been said, we would expect to find the frequent use of the dilemma, and the reductio ad absurdum—or, that the contrary of what is true leads to the absurd.

I give the following dilemmas:

But those methods of argumentation are only a species[128] of antithesis, and may all be reduced to the one fundamental form of comparison. This may remind us of the fact that all improvement arises from comparison, whether in language, government, or personal experience.

I have one marked feature of argumentative figure to point out, and this is, interrogation. This is insinuation without direct attack, a sort of flank movement, when charges are made that can not be proven, or when too evident to need proof. This style is also not only common to both Mr. Paine and Junius, but so prominent that it attracts attention at once.

It is frequently the case with Mr. Paine and Junius that "language fails," that is, it is poured forth in such torrents of abuse that the reader is made painfully aware of it, and to recapture the mind of the reader, they artfully charge it to the impossibility of doing justice to so bad a subject. For example:

In the last parallel above, it will be noticed, the strong terms were called forth by a sacrifice of national honor with Great Britain, and a prospect of it in the United States. I call attention to this in this place to[130] save repetition of proofs, showing that proud spirit of personal honor so prominent in Paine and Junius, and from which they both say: national honor is governed by the same rules as personal honor. I now pass to notice the most prominent mental characteristics.

[131]

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS.

If the reader will carry forward in his mind what I have already said on style and the object for which Mr. Paine and Junius wrote, it will greatly aid me in reducing the size of this book. I shall act on the principle of this suggestion, and while I give new matter upon new subjects, the reader will find the parallels greatly strengthened by what has already been said. The reader will also apply the facts already brought forward to the passages I shall hereafter present, so that, like a two-edged sword, it may be made to cut both ways. And first of avarice and the miser:

I call attention to that pride of character and personal honor, so conspicuous in both Paine and Junius:

A thousand passages might be selected from both to show this riding trait of character. The proud, imposing spirit that would dare to undertake the business of a world for the good of mankind, and to tread on the pride of courtiers, and to tell the king, who ruled over the greatest nation on earth,[133] that nature had only intended him for a good-humored fool, is pre-eminently the leading trait in Junius and Paine. No one can mistake it; no one can fail in finding it; no one can help feeling the force of it. It has never been produced in any other man. The world's history has given us but the one example of it. We search in vain for another parallel. And if Mr. Paine did not write Junius, nature produced twins of the same mental type to do the same work for mankind, and then defeated all her arts and gave the lie to all her laws, by exhibiting the one and forever concealing the other. But surely nature can conceal nothing. Her method is to reveal, not to conceal. She writes the character of man on all he touches, and reveals it in the very language he would employ to conceal it.

It was this proud spirit which gave Paine that contempt for monarchy which he so often expressed. "I have an aversion to monarchy," he says, "as being too debasing to the dignity of man." This is a language which courtiers could not understand, and they would consider it the vain babbling of a mad-man; but it is the very basis of that government which he labored to establish in America and France. This is also the spirit of Junius when he says with such withering sarcasm: "It may be matter of curious speculation to consider, if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, in what terms he would address himself to his sovereign." And after having gained the ear of the king, when he says: "Let it be imagined, no matter how improbable, that he has spirit enough to bid him speak freely and understanding enough to[134] listen to him with attention. Unacquainted with the vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his sentiments with dignity and firmness." Here Junius, also, fortified with that proud integrity of character which he held in common with all who would not be enslaved, and which he possessed as the birthright of man, was free to place the dignity of an honest man in antithesis to a weak understanding in a king only supported by the vain impertinence of forms. Paine was too proud to be vain; his pride came up from nature; it was the pride of human worth, and opposed to that vanity of art which always makes pretentions to more worth than nature has conferred. Nature gives us pride, art makes us vain. It was this pride, in opposition to vanity, which Junius expressed in his great battle against the usurpations of government, when he says: "Both liberty and property are precarious unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them. This is not the language of vanity. If I am a vain man my gratification lies within a narrow circle." That is, "to write for fame and be unknown."

From this pride of character, so strong and peculiar, we may draw no weak conclusion in regard to the authorship of Junius, for the parallel is perfect, and the age in which he wrote gave us nothing like it in any one but Paine. This characteristic gives tone to the whole mind, and a shade of coloring to every faculty. It reflects itself upon the people, and draws therefrom the conclusion that they have more "sense and spirit" than they really possess. It gives a double coloring to hope, paints two bows instead of one, and reduces the time for the establishment of right. It thus produces[135] more faith in the people than facts will sustain. For example:

But Paine and Junius were both mistaken. Reason[136] will, perhaps, forever fail to produce a revolution without bloodshed. Reason only prepares for war, and when time has slowly accomplished the work of reason in any reform, it terminates that work in convulsions of war. The political corruptions, also, which Junius was so hopeful would soon be resisted by the English people, still exist, and the reforms he advocated, although partly accomplished, fail to produce any better result. The reason is, the people never resist tyranny till scourged into it, from self-interest; and, besides, they must worship a tyrant of some political form, bending the knee to king or party, and baring the back to the lash. A leader the people must have, under whose banner they can rally, and which they consider it treason to desert, and whether they vote for a president or bow to a king, is all the same. The political prayer of royalty or republicanism, if not in the same words, expresses the same fact. The one is, "Oh, Lord! to the king I bow, thou knowest he can do no wrong." The other is, "Oh, Lord! to the party I bow, thou knowest I never scratched a ticket."

Although Paine and Junius were thoroughly read in the history of the human heart, they failed to place a proper estimate on the character of mankind. They failed because they reasoned from their own pride of character, their own feelings, hopes, and desires, and these far exceeded the mass of mankind.

They were both too proud to flatter.

The above characteristic is quite peculiar. I do not remember of ever seeing the like of it in any other writer, and as there is a perfect parallel here, the fact that it stands almost alone gives it great weight.

They were both enthusiasts, as the following parallel on moderation will show:

Paine and Junius both had the same opinion of moderate[138] men.

They both, also, had secretiveness large. That Junius never revealed himself to the world, and that he baffled all the king's spies, is evidence enough on his side. I will now present a few evidences in regard to Mr. Paine. First, in regard to his wife. No one knows why they parted, and, when interrogated, he would make the evasive answer, "I had a cause." But, if pressed, he would bluntly respond, "It was a private affair, and nobody's business." He also sent her money without letting her know the source of it. Secondly: His Common Sense was kept a secret from Dr. Franklin till published, and this when the doctor had placed the materials in his hands toward completing a history of colonial affairs. He says: "I expected to surprise him with a production on that subject much earlier than he thought of, and, without informing him what I was doing, got it ready for the press as fast as I conveniently could, and sent him the first pamphlet that was printed off." Thirdly: He projected a plan of going to England in disguise, and getting out a pamphlet in secret, to rouse the English people. See what he says about it on page 66 of this book. Fourthly: "The Address and Declaration" of the gentlemen who met at the Thatched House tavern in 1791, in England, was written by Mr. Paine, although he was not known, and took no part in the meeting. He only revealed himself as the author of it after Horne Tooke, the supposed author, had stated that Mr. Paine was the author. But this is what he says about it: "The gentleman who[139] signed the address and declaration as chairman of the meeting, Mr. Horne Tooke, being generally supposed to be the person who drew it up, and having spoken much in commendation of it, has been jocularly accused of praising his own work. To free him from this embarrassment, and to save him the repeated trouble of mentioning the author, as he has not failed to do, I make no hesitation in saying, I drew up the publication in question," etc.—Rights of Man, note.

This is sufficient to show a trait of character which made Junius, as a secret, a success. Without this strong ruling passion there could have been no Junius to spring like a tiger upon king and court. But, if it can be shown in any mental characteristic that Mr. Paine is incompatible with that character which is stamped upon Junius and made him a success, I will surrender the argument.

Mr. Paine says, as Horne Tooke had not failed to declare him the author, he then acknowledged it as his own. Had Mr. Tooke been silent, you may well be assured Mr. Paine would never have divulged it to friend or foe of either. Since Mr. Paine above has used the expression, "Jocularly accused of praising his own work," the reader will not fail to remember the same characteristic in Junius, when he says of Philo Junius, and who was also the real Junius himself, that "the subordinate character was never guilty of the indecorum of praising his principal." This again reminds us of Mr. Paine, when speaking of that passage in Numbers: "Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were on the face of the earth." Paine bluntly responds: "If Moses said this of himself, instead[140] of being the meekest of men, he was one of the most vain and arrogant of coxcombs."

I now call attention to the fact that Mr. Paine and Junius, when attacking the private character of men, both seem to delight, when the fact would fit, in charging bastardy:

In their appeals to posterity they were both equal and frequent. Mr. Paine says, in closing his first Crisis: "By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission the sad choice of a variety of evils, a ravaged country, a depopulated city, habitations without safety, and slavery without hope; our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians and a future race[141] to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented." Junius also says in strains as pathetic and patriotic: "We owe it to posterity not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed. But if it were possible for us to be insensible of these sacred claims, there is yet an obligation binding on ourselves, from which nothing can acquit us, a personal interest which we can not surrender. To alienate even our own rights would be a crime as much more enormous than suicide as a life of civil security and freedom is superior to a bare existence; and if life be the bounty of Heaven, we scornfully reject the noblest part of the gift, if we consent to surrender that certain rule of living, without which the condition of human nature is not only miserable, but contemptible."—Let. 20.

In the study of the human heart, and in a knowledge of the secret workings of the mind they were both masters. And, had it not been that they overapplied the nobler virtues in the common people, they would never have gone wrong in their conclusions. They failed not in the knowledge, but in the application of the thing. They thought it existed where it did not. But this is the law, which they laid down as follows:

The mental constitution of Mr. Paine made him practical. What he knew he considered of no use to himself unless he could apply it in some way. He finds the people oppressed by the usurpations of government, and he urges to rebellion. He finds in America, Britain had prohibited the importation of powder, and his knowledge of chemistry immediately supplies the national magazines. His mechanical thought was not satisfied until it had taken the form of an iron bridge. It was the same disposition in Junius which kept him forever talking of "experience," and the "evidence of facts." I give a single parallel out of hundreds:

I merely call attention to the above fact as a practical feature of the mind common to both. In the same manner both make frequent mention of "reason" and "common sense." Examples of this kind it is useless to give, for they look out from every page.

I now pass to consider their doctrines and private opinions; and first of politics:

[143]I have heretofore proven that they were not partisans in the strict sense of the term, yet they both had party proclivities:

They both declare Law to be king:

They both express themselves on the game laws of England as follows:

Both express themselves the same on laws in general:

I would have the reader mark the fact that the[145] above sentiment of Junius is the first he proclaims in his book. This, it will readily be seen, contains in itself the whole system of politics which Junius and Paine labored to establish. From this sentiment arose the frequent expressions of Junius, "Original rights;" "First rights;" "Sacred original rights of the people;" "The meanest mechanic is equal to the noblest peer;" and which Paine embodied in the expression, "Mankind are originally equal in the order of creation." Herein also we find the foundation for that method of both in tracing the rights of man back to their origin, and the easy manner in distinguishing original right from usurpation. A parallel here will make this plain:

In regard to America, I have shown their views to run parallel. Mr. Paine says in Crisis vii: "The ministry and minority have both been wrong." And Junius says in his first Letter: "But unfortunately for his country, Mr. Grenville was at any rate to be distressed because he was minister, and Mr. Pitt and Lord Camden were to be the patrons of America because they were in opposition." The minority here meant no more than the ruin of a minister and split the nation, without doing the colonies any good. Mr. Paine also says of Lord Chatham on this same point in Crisis viii: "An opinion hangs about the gentlemen of the minority, that America would relish measures under their administration which she would not from the present cabinet. On this rock Lord Chatham would have split had he gained the helm."

I bring forward this parallel to show three things, the same political opinions, the same views of the parties in England, and the same figures of speech, all thrown into the same subject-matter. This, together with the same resemblance in style, surely point to the same author.

[147]This leads me on to speak of other private opinions. And first of lawyers, and especially Lord Mansfield:

The above parallel in regard to Lord Mansfield is most remarkable. Let us consider it. Whether the[148] statements be true or not, is immaterial. Mr. Paine said he knew no other influence than corruption; that his talents were those of a sophist, and that he understood the subtleties of nature, not its elegance. Reference is here had to the Athenian sophists, whose art it was "to make the worse appear the better reason." This art made them talented in a certain direction, and in the employment of it they became renowned and rich. Paine affirms that the law had corrupted him. Junius says the practice of the law makes a bad man, and that Mansfield was, considering the conditions, the worst man in the kingdom. This is an opinion so singular and prominent, so rare among men, and expressed so boldly and unqualifiedly, by both Paine and Junius, that it furnishes a parallel which comes with positive and telling force. Perhaps Paine and Junius were the only two writers at the time who held this opinion. And that they should express it in the same manner, with all the fine shades and attending peculiarities the same, and be at the same time two persons, is a phenomenon which nature never exhibited but once, and never will again among mankind. To remove the weight of this evidence, something positive must be brought forward to rebut it.

It will be noticed above that Mr. Paine spoke of "precedent" being the basis of reckoning all their probabilities, and that a new case was a new world. Here we find another parallel in opinion:

Many examples could be given of the above likeness, but these are sufficient.

I submit the following in regard to Lord North:

Mr. Paine, no doubt, had in his mind this passage of Junius when he described him as a twirling top, a good arithmetician in politics, but in every thing else nothing at all.

In speaking of the misconduct of England, they both make it commence at the termination of the Seven Years' War, and speak of the time reckoned from the beginning of the year 1763. I will notice Junius first, so as to present this parallel in chronological order. He says in his first Letter, written Jan. 21, 1769: "Outraged and oppressed as we are, this nation will not bear, after a six years' peace, to see new millions," etc. On February 14, 1770, he says: "At the end of seven years we are loaded with a debt," etc. This is the method, in regard to time Junius always employs when speaking of the distress and calamities of England.

Let us now pass over to America, and we find, near the close of 1778, Mr. Paine uses the same method and language, when addressing the people of England in Crisis, vii: "A period of sixteen years of misconduct and misfortune is certainly long enough for any one nation to suffer under." He elsewhere uses the same language in the same way, which shows a mental habit peculiar to both.

The same opinion of court and courtier has elsewhere[151] been shown, but a definite parallel or two may not be out of place:

They held the same opinion of oaths:

They place personal interest above strict moral right, as a means of improvement:

The reader will here see a mental characteristic the same, and a philosophy growing therefrom which is boldly affirmed by both.

That we gather strength by antagonism, and in this way the vicious are often brought into notice and become successful, is a prominent fact noticed by both.

I have heretofore given examples of the above to prove another fact.

I now call attention to the passion of suspicion:

The above is strong language in regard to suspicion. Paine thinks it mean and cowardly if not well founded, and Junius thinks it is justifiable when the safety of a nation is at stake. This is an uncommon sentiment, and, if Mr. Paine was Junius, he is found repeating himself after an interval of thirty-four years.

In regard to thinking for one's self, Junius says of Benson, in withering rebuke to Lord Mansfield, who had committed him for contempt: "He had the impudence to pretend to think for himself." Paine exclaims: "Why is man afraid to think?"

There is a fact now in regard to the English army which is of great weight in my argument relative to a change of opinion. Junius always spoke highly of the army, while he sometimes censured individual officers. Speaking of the regiments of the guards, he says: "Far be it from me to insinuate the most distant reflection upon the army. On the contrary, I honor and esteem the profession, and if these gentlemen were better soldiers I am sure they would be better subjects." Mr.[154] Paine, just nine years afterward, when in America, and fighting against the English army, says of the English people: "They are made to believe that their generals and armies differ from those of other nations, and have nothing of rudeness or barbarity in them. They suppose them what they wish them to be; they feel a disgrace in thinking otherwise. There was a time when I felt the same prejudices, and reasoned from the same errors; but experience—sad and painful experience—has taught me better. What the conduct of former armies was I know not, but what the conduct of the present is I well know—it is low, cruel, indolent, and profligate."—Crisis, vii. This is a species of dovetailing the life and opinions of Junius into those of Mr. Paine. But the reader will see there is no effort on my part. All I ask is for truth to take its course. It would be beneath the dignity of a scientific criticism to stoop to artifice.

I wish now to bring forward a complex parallel, to show that pride of character which would not stoop to the meanness of party politics, and to show, also, their opinion of bribery at elections, and the origin of "military governments" in England.

"It is difficult," says Mr. Paine, "to account for the origin of charter and corporation towns, unless we suppose them to have arisen out of, or having been connected with, some species of garrison service. The times in which they began justify this idea. The generality of these towns have been garrisons, and the corporations were charged with the care of the gates of the town when no military garrison was present. Their[155] refusing or granting admission to strangers, which has produced the custom of giving, selling, and buying freedom, has more of the nature of garrison authority than civil government."—Rights of Man, part ii, chap. 5, note.

I am now prepared to give the parallels:

Says Mr. Paine: "I love method." This, every action proved. His business transactions, his political plans, the productions of his pen, were all in design and execution methodical. In dedicating his life to the good of mankind, he studied method in the use of his great mental powers. He never set about doing any thing without a plan and specifications. He carried in the brain the ideal of the work he was to give material[156] shape and substance. His plans were always well-digested and often long in maturing. He, for example, anticipated the revolution, and proceeded to fill the public arsenals with powder. He then brought out Common Sense, when public opinion was decidedly against a declaration of independence, to educate that public sentiment in favor of it. This produced the desired effect, and when war was fairly begun upon a proper basis and plan, he struck the enemy at the proper time and place with an occasional Crisis. The first Crisis he wrote, for example, won a battle for the Union. After the war was over, he went to England and brought out his Rights of Man, laboring in the same lines and advocating the very principles of Junius. There is not a political principle expressed in Junius which was not again reproduced in Rights of Man. But method is stamped upon every production of his pen. Take, for example, Common Sense. The design was to bring public sentiment up to a declaration of independence. Now if we examine the method of the work, we will find the steps like a geometrical demonstration, from first principles to conclusion. In Common Sense he first convinces the reason, then inflames the passions, and lastly destroys dissension by a stirring, manly, patriotic appeal. The work proper is divided into four parts.

I. Of the origin and design of government. Here the first principles are laid down, and are such as to convince the mind of every man capable of thinking. He then shows that the English constitution is not founded upon such principles; and that a people seeking political happiness while clinging to such a rotten[157] government, is like a man seeking connubial happiness while he is attached to a prostitute.

II. Of monarchy and hereditary succession. Here he brings out his great political axiom, the equality of man in the order of creation, and then ridicules the pretentions of kings, and demolishes the whole fabric of "sacred titles" by an appeal to sacred and profane history, to the rights of man, to his reason, to his affections, and to posterity. He has now prepared the mind of the American reader for the reception of truth, and he brings forward—

III. Thoughts on the present state of the American affairs.

He begins by saying: "In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense." It is now he warms with the subject, and having before prepared the mind with exalted views of government and with the axioms upon which all just governments are founded; having before shown that all legislative powers are derived from the people, and founded in the consent of the governed; having, in short, announced his bill of rights, he now comes forward with an indictment against England. This is full and complete, and by the time the reader has done with it he is then prepared for his final argument, which is—

IV. The ability of America to acquire and maintain her independence.

He afterward added an appendix, in which he recounts the principal causes which impel the colonies to a separation.

The reader will remark the method of the whole piece. He takes hold of the mind by strategy at first, and then[158] places before it principles, facts, causes, and consequences, till he has made it entirely his own.

If now the reader will return to the first Letter of Junius, he will find an admirable example of the same method. As to method, the two pieces are every way identical. Did a person not study this Letter of Junius, he would perhaps fail to get, at first, the exact likeness which Mr. Paine has so completely reproduced in Common Sense, as an artistic performance.

Junius' Letter to the king is also an example of the same method. There is, first, the bill of rights, and then the indictment. We find here the same strategy, which takes possession of the mind of the people, the same method to place the writer above and beyond selfish motives, the same foundation of principles, the same superstructure of argument, and the same method of bringing the reader to the conclusions. Herein we find policy.

The policy of Mr. Paine made him extremely cautious, and he weighed well the consequences of speaking to the public, studying especially the proper time. This was the habit of Junius also. I will now give a few examples: When the civil laws of England had been trampled on by the military, in the case of General Gansel, Junius delayed speaking about it. He says: "Had I taken it up at an earlier period, I should have been accused of an uncandid, malignant precipitation, as if I watched for an unfair advantage against the ministry, and would not allow them a reasonable time to do their duty. They now stand without excuse."—Let. 30. He then proceeds to strike the ministry "hip[159] and thigh." In Letter 44 he also mentions the fact of having been silent, not from a "shameful indifference," but because he had determined to "not deliver a hasty opinion on a matter of so much delicacy and importance."

The same constitutional caution is exhibited in Mr. Paine. Upon national honor, in Crisis xii, dated May, 1782, he says: "In March, 1780, I published part of the Crisis, No. viii, in the newspapers, but did not conclude it in the following papers, and the remainder has lain by me till the present day. There appeared about that time some disposition in the British cabinet to cease the further prosecution of the war, and as I had formed my opinion that whenever such a design should take place, it would be accompanied by a dishonorable proposition to America respecting France, I had suppressed the remainder of that number, not to expose the baseness of any such proposition." He now incorporates it in this number, and then follows with one of the noblest productions on national honor which it has been the fortune of man to write.

I now give an opinion on the principles of the English constitution:

Although the above doctrine that the people, not the legislature, are supreme, is not new, yet it was rarely asserted in the time of Paine, and renders the above parallel strong and peculiar. Even the same language is used in making the same application to the septennial act, which might as well have empowered the members of parliament to sit for life.

Here is a parallel on the opinion of the jobbing spirit of courtiers:

Both Paine and Junius frequently give vent to their[161] detestation of gambling and gamblers. A single case in point is sufficient:

They both have the same opinion of the theater; but as the proof of this is only circumstantial, I will not cumber these pages with it. We know that Paine was a Quaker upon this point; and Junius contemptuously addresses Garrick, the actor, "Now mark me, vagabond! keep to your pantomimes," etc.

I now pass to consider their religious opinions. And, first, their views of God:

Of Providence they further say:

Mr. Paine wrote the Age of Reason as an argument against atheism on the one hand and fanaticism on the other. This he says himself.

I will now give the language of Mr. Paine on religion, infidelity, atheism, fanaticism, and morality, and then subscribe the language of Junius.

In his discourse to the Theophilanthropists of Paris, Mr. Paine says: "Religion has two principal enemies—fanaticism and infidelity, or that which is called atheism. The first requires to be combatted by reason or morality, the other by natural philosophy." In opposing atheism he makes intelligent force the God of the universe. This is his language: "God is the power, or first cause, nature is the law, and matter is the subject acted upon." That is, there is a duality in the universe—force and matter; and the action of force on matter produces the laws of nature, or, every phenomenon is produced by[164] the motion of matter. He founds his argument against atheism on the motion of matter, and elaborates it in his clear and forcible style, and then says: "Where will infidelity—where will atheism find cause for this astonishing velocity of motion, never ceasing, never varying, and which is the preservation of the earth in its orbit? It is not by reasoning from an acorn to an oak, or from any change in the state of matter on the surface of the earth, that this can be accounted for. Its cause is not to be found in matter, nor in any thing we call nature. The atheist who affects to reason, and the fanatic who rejects reason, plunge themselves alike into inextricable difficulties. The one perverts the sublime and enlightening study of natural philosophy into a deformity of absurdities by not reasoning to the end, the other loses himself in the obscurity of metaphysical theories, and dishonors the Creator by treating the study of his works with contempt. The one is a half-rational of whom there is some hope, the other is a visionary to whom we must be charitable."

I wish the reader to compare with the last sentence above the following extracts from Junius, to be found in Letters 44 and 35: "The opinions of these men are too absurd to be easily renounced. Liberal minds are open to conviction, liberal doctrines are capable of improvement. There are proselytes from atheism, but none from superstition." "When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms him in his faith."

But Junius, like Paine, was a religious man. In Letter 56, he says: "I know such a man; my lord, I[165] know you both, and, with the blessing of God (for I, too, am religious), the people of England shall know you as well as I do."

As Mr. Paine has been misunderstood by the religious world, and as so much has been said against his religion that a prejudice deep and bitter now rests on the world against him, I will give a couple of extracts from his Rights of Man on this point. I confess that my own prejudices were so great against him (and I thought myself quite liberal), that they would not suffer me to read his works till quite recently. Such is the tyranny of religious instruction. The first extract is from the first part. In a note, he says: "There is a single idea, which, if it strikes rightly upon the mind, either in a legal or a religious sense, will prevent any man, or any body of men, or any government, from going wrong on the subject of religion; which is, that before any human institutions of government were known in the world, there existed, if I may so express it, a compact between God and man from the beginning of time; and that, as the relation and condition which man in his individual person stands in toward his Maker can not be changed by any human laws or human authority, that religious devotion, which is a part of this compact, can not so much as be made a subject of human laws; and that all laws must conform themselves to the prior-existing compact, and not assume to make the compact conform to the laws, which, besides being human, are subsequent thereto. The first act of man, when he looked around and saw himself a creature which he did not make, and a world furnished for his reception, must have been devotion; and devotion[166] must ever continue sacred to every individual man, as it appears right to him, and governments do mischief by interfering."

The next extract is from part second, near its close, and I would call the attention of the reader to the beauty of the allegory:

"But as religion is very improperly made a political machine, and the reality of it is thereby destroyed, I will conclude this work with stating in what light religion appears to me.

"If we suppose a large family of children on any particular day, or particular occasion, made it a custom to present to their parents some token of their affection and gratitude, each of them would make a different offering, and most probably in a different manner. Some would pay their congratulations in themes of verse and prose, others by some little devices, as their genius dictated or according to what they thought would please; and, perhaps, the least of all, not able to do any of those things, would ramble into the garden or the field and gather what it thought the prettiest flower it could find, though perhaps it might be but a simple weed. The parents would be more gratified by such a variety than if the whole of them had acted on a concerted plan, and each had made exactly the same offering. This would have the cold appearance of contrivance, or the harsh one of control. But of all unwelcome things nothing would more afflict the parent than to know that the whole of them had afterwards gotten together by the ears, boys and girls, fighting, and reviling, and abusing each other about which was the best or the worst present.

[167]"Why may we not suppose that the great Father of all is pleased with a variety of devotion; and that the greatest offense we can act is that by which we seek to torment and render each other miserable? For my own part I am fully satisfied that what I am now doing with an endeavor to conciliate mankind, to render their condition happy, to unite nations that have hitherto been enemies, and to extirpate the horrid practice of war, and break the chains of slavery and oppression, is estimable in his sight, and being the best service I can perform, I act it cheerfully.

"I do not believe that any two men, on what are called doctrinal points, think alike who think at all."

[And this, my reader, is Thomas Paine who hath spoken. I would like to have Henry Ward Beecher, after he has read this book, take the above passage as a text and preach a sermon from it.]

I now call attention to a few parallels:

Junius is here speaking of the king, who with a narrow understanding would naturally have a narrow system of politics and religion. But again:

Above it is Philo Junius who is speaking; but the reader will remember he is the real Junius. He had been attacked for his impiety, and he puts Philo Junius forward to defend himself. The reader can not fail to notice the same hand in the last parallel. Paine says: "The writer of this is one of those few who never dishonors religion" by abusing the professors of it. And he never did. Junius ridiculed the ceremonial in the Catholic Church which denies the cup to the[169] laity; and of this he says: "It is, in this country, as fair an object of ridicule as transubstantiation, or any other part of Lord Peter's History in the Tale of the Tub." This reminds me of what Paine says of popery and Peter: "A man hath as good reason to believe that there is as much of kingcraft as priestcraft in withholding the scripture from the public in popish countries. For monarchy in every instance is the popery of government."—Common Sense. In regard to Peter, we see the same temptation to touch his pen with satire and ridicule, and the passage may be found in Rights of Man, part first. It is as follows: "I will quote Mr. Burke's catalogue of barriers that he has set up between man and his maker. Putting himself in the character of a herald, he says: 'We fear God; we look with awe to kings; with affection to parliaments; with duty to magistrates; with reverence to priests; and with respect to nobility.' Mr. Burke has forgot to put in chivalry. He has also forgot to put in Peter."

They both considered it true that there is a wide difference between piety and morality. Paine himself says (and it is the noblest sentiment ever uttered by man): "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good." Junius frequently puts piety and morality in antithesis, as the following examples will show: "They care not what injustice is practiced upon a man whose moral character they piously think themselves obliged to condemn."—Let. 39. "The unfeigned piety, the sanctified religion of George the Third have taught him to new-model the civil forces of the State. Corruption glitters in the van," etc. Then, speaking[170] of some of his predecessors, he says: "They were kings or gentlemen, not hypocrites or priests. They were at the head of the Church, but did not know the value of their office. They said their prayers without ceremony, and had too little of priestcraft in their understanding to reconcile the sanctimonious forms of religion with the utter destruction of the morality of the people."—Let. 55.

But Mr. Paine was the inveterate enemy to priestcraft as well as kingcraft. His whole life was spent in waging war against the two. Let us now see what Junius thought of the former. I have shown him to run parallel with Mr. Paine in the latter.

Junius says: "The resentment of a priest is implacable: no sufferings can soften; no penitence can appease."—Let. 53. In speaking of the Rev. Mr. Horne, he says: "No, my lord; it was the solitary, vindictive malice of a monk, brooding over the infirmities of his friends, until he thought they quickened into public life, and feasting with a rancorous rapture upon the sordid catalogue of his distresses. Now let him go back to his cloister. The Church is a proper retreat for him; in his principles he is already a bishop. The mention of this man has moved me from my natural moderation."—Let. 49. Again:

"The priesthood are accused of misinterpreting the scriptures. Mr. Horne has improved on his profession. He alters the text, and creates a refutable doctrine of his own."—Let. 53.

The above passages can not be mistaken for Mr. Paine's spirit, style, and language. These tell us they[171] are his with much more truth than a name attached to any writing tells us its author.

It seems they both had the same opinion of a Methodist:

Now the reader will recall the parallel I gave in regard to never dishonoring religion by saying any thing against particular forms or denominations. With the exception of the Catholic Church, this is the only instance which has fallen under my eye; and it seems they had such a disliking to Methodism, a sarcasm must be let loose upon it. Trifling as this instance may seem, there is great force in its being solitary, and apparently contradictory to what they both before affirmed in general. Such an instance has, in fact, more weight than a score of parallels on common characteristics, for it shows a peculiar and strong bias in a particular direction.

Of the term Christian there is no positive ground for a parallel, because it is one of no definite meaning. We call ourselves, as a nation, Christians; yet we are divided[172] into a hundred forms of religion, and many of them in the articles of faith contradictory and antagonistic. Yet, in the fundamental principles of morality, we are, in common with all civilized races, agreed. The Christian religion happens to belong to the highest civilization, and we frequently use the term as synonymous with the morality of this civilization. But when we come to define strictly according to the theological import of the word, there are many of us who are not Christians. In the former sense, Mr. Paine and Junius were Christians; in the latter sense, they were not. And now for the proof. Junius says, in Letter 15, to the Duke of Grafton: "It is not, indeed, the least of the thousand contradictions which attend you, that a man marked to the world by the grossest violation of ceremony and decorum, should be the first servant of a court in which prayers are morality, and kneeling is religion." For this, and his attacks on the priesthood, and his frequently putting piety in antithesis to morality, he was at last accused of being an impious and irreligious man. He now puts Philo Junius forward to explain his religious views, who says, in Letter 54: "These candid critics never remember any thing he says in honor of our holy religion, though it is true that one of his leading arguments is made to rest 'upon the internal evidence which the purest of all religions carries with it.' I quote his words, and conclude from them that he is a true and hearty Christian—in substance, not in ceremony—though possibly he may not agree with my reverend lords the bishops, or with the head of the Church, 'that prayers are morality, or that kneeling is religion.'"

[173]That is, Junius was a Christian who, upon moral principles, did not say his prayers, and who thought that forms were no part of religion. In other words, if the highest morality was Christianity, he claimed to be a Christian, and would not stoop "to reconcile the sanctimonious forms of religion with the utter destruction of morality."

This, too, was Mr. Paine's Christianity. In a national and moral sense he uses the term with approbation, but when in a theological sense he disowns it. He says, in Crisis, ii: "This ingratitude may suit a tory, or the unchristian peevishness of a fallen Quaker, but none else." In Crisis, i, he says: "I wish, with all the devotion of a Christian, that the names of whig and tory may never more be mentioned." To the Quakers he says: "Call not coldness of soul religion, nor put the bigot in the place of the Christian." In Common Sense he says: "For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness." And again: "This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe.... In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England), and carry our friendship on a larger scale; we claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment."

The above are a few of the many passages in which he indorses Christianity. But Christian here means only its moral phase or principles, and these principles[174] exalted by the feeling of universal brotherhood. But in a theological sense he uses the term very differently, and by keeping this fact in view, he is readily understood, and there is only the contradiction which the use of the word by common consent carries with it. In the Age of Reason, Conclusion, he says: "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented there is none more derogatory to the Almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity."

They both had the same views of Jesus. Mr. Paine says in the Age of Reason, part i: "Nothing that is here said can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and amiable man. The morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind; and though similar systems of morality had been preached by Confucius and by some of the Greek philosophers many years before, and by the Quakers since, and by many good men in all ages, it has not been exceeded by any.... He preached most excellent morality, and the equality of man; but he preached also against the corruptions and avarice of the Jewish priests, and this brought upon him the hatred and vengeance of the whole order of the priesthood." And between the Romans and the Jews "this virtuous reformer and revolutionist lost his life."

Junius, near the close of his last letter but one, boldly affirms Jesus a man. He says: "The holy author of our religion was seen in the company of sinners, but it was his gracious purpose to convert them from their[175] sins. Another man [the king], who, in the ceremonies of our faith, might give lessons to the great enemy of it [the devil] upon different principles, keeps much the same company."

Neither Mr. Paine nor Junius were superstitious. And first of Paine. In Crisis, i, he says: "I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up, to military destruction, a people," etc.

Junius says, in Letter 36, note: "Every coward pretends to be planet-struck." And in Letter 49, satirizing Lord Bute, he says: "When that noxious planet approaches England, he never fails to bring plague and pestilence along with him." In Letter 67 he says: "Superstition is certainly not the characteristic of this age; yet some men are bigoted in politics who are infidels in religion. I do not despair of making them ashamed of their credulity."

Above, Junius also casts an aspersion upon the term infidel. Mr. Paine was very tender upon this point, and could not bear to be taunted with infidelity. He says: "Infidelity is believing falsely. If what Christians believe is not true, it is the Christians that are the infidels."—Remarks on R. Hall's sermon. In the Examination of the Prophecies, he concludes with this sentence, emphasized as follows: "He that believes in the story of Christ, is an infidel to God." He also defines infidelity as being unfaithful to one's own convictions. In the Age of Reason, part i,[176] he says: "Infidelity consists in professing to believe what he does not believe." He also uses the word as synonymous with atheist, in his Discourse to the Theophilanthropists, as will be seen by reference to page 163 of this book.

I have heretofore given the views of Junius on Prayer. See page 172. It now remains to give Mr. Paine's views. In his Letter to Samuel Adams he says: "A man does not serve God when he prays, for it is himself he is trying to serve; and as to hiring or paying men to pray, as if the Deity needed instruction, it is, in my opinion, an abomination."

They both believe in the divine justice of retribution and future punishment. Junius says: "The divine justice of retribution seems now to have begun its progress. Deliberate treachery entails punishment upon the traitor. There is no possibility of escaping it."—Let. 66. "A death-bed repentance seldom reaches to restitution."—Dedication.

Mr. Paine says, in Crisis, ii, to Lord Howe: "How many you have thus privately sacrificed we know not, and the account can only be settled in another world." And in Crisis, v, to the same man, he says: "You may, perhaps, be unwilling to be serious, but this destruction of the goods of Providence, this havoc of the human race, and this sowing the world with mischief, must be accounted for to him who made and governs it."

But I will give a positive affirmation of the fact. In the Age of Reason, near the close of the Second Part, he says: "The existence of an Almighty power is sufficiently[177] demonstrated to us.... We must know, also, that the power that called us into being can, if he pleases, and when he pleases, call us to account for the manner in which we have lived here; and therefore, without seeking any other motive for the belief, it is rational to believe that he will, for we know beforehand that he can.... The probability that we may be called to account hereafter, will, to a reflecting mind, have the influence of belief; for it is not our belief or unbelief that can make or unmake the fact. As this is the state we are in, and which it is proper we should be in, as free agents, it is the fool only, and not the philosopher or even the prudent man, that would live as if there were no God."

Religiously, he can quite properly be classed with Theodore Parker. He stands close at his side, and, having preceded him, a shoulder higher. Yet, in this regard, Mr. Parker treats him with contempt.

The reader will be pleased to read the following letters; the one from Horace Seaver to Mr. Parker, and the reply:

Boston, January 11, 1843.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

Horace Seaver.

·····

[178]

West Roxbury, January 14, 1843.

I am, respectfully,
Your obedient servant,

Theodore Parker.

This is one arch-heretic trampling on his brother in the holy name of religion. Yet the great work which Thomas Paine performed before Mr. Parker was conceived in the womb of Time, made a Theodore Parker possible. Parker stood on the shoulders of Thomas Paine, and he uttered scarcely a thought on religion and theology which Mr. Paine had not written before him. Mr. Parker translated DeWette, but Mr. Paine's second part of the Age of Reason, as an original investigation and critical examination of the Bible, will be read when Parker's translation of DeWette is forgotten. The latter is a scholar's effort, dry, voluminous, costly, and soon to be laid away forever; the former, a friend's offering to mankind, brought within the reach of their understanding and their means. As an argument it has never been equaled; as a theological work it is fair and candid; as a religious work it breathes the spirit of forbearance, kindness,[179] morality, and brotherly love. I have searched in vain to find the authority for Mr. Parker's religious hatred to Thomas Paine. They taught the same morality and religion, the same theology, the same retributive justice, and denounced boldly the same errors in politics and religion; and differed only in this that Mr. Parker said his prayers in public, and Mr. Paine in private. The hatred to Mr. Paine is perhaps inherited, and we stand in awe of him as of the devil, without a reason and without knowing why. The Egyptian children still startle at the name of "Bonaparte;" the American children at the name of Thomas Paine; and Mr. Parker never outgrew this superstition of his youth. But the historian may safely record: Without Thomas Paine, there would have been no Theodore Parker.

The reader can not fail to see the substantial elements of the Quaker character in Junius, if we let Mr. Paine define it. In the Age of Reason, second part, he says: "The only sect that has not persecuted are the Quakers, and the only reason that can be given for it is, that they are rather Deists than Christians. They do not believe much about Jesus Christ, and they call the Scriptures a dead letter."

The Quakers have no priesthood. With them the power to teach is the immediate gift of God, and they speak as they are moved by the Spirit, and what they say is by the inspiration of the inner light. They have neither pulpit nor church, and in their meeting there is neither ceremony nor song, nor the dull routine of stated prayers. They oppose war, slavery, intemperance, litigation, extravagance, profanity, and priestcraft.[180] Dancing and dressing in the fashion of the day they forbid. Their religion consists in morality; not in ceremony and show. They hate a bishop as they hate a tyrant, and they hold an honest man the noblest work of God. What could be more like Junius than this? But if this does not satisfy the reader the evidence of Junius himself would have little weight. But he positively affirms the principles of the Quakers as the true religion, and this ought to satisfy the most doubtful. At the close of Letter 41, he says: "An honest man, like the true religion, appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides in the internal evidences of his conscience. The impostor employs force instead of argument, imposes silence when he can not convince, and propagates his character by the sword." This proves Junius to be a Quaker, in principle. No one can mistake the expression: "The internal evidences of the conscience," which often comes so forcibly from Junius. And says Paine also: "As for morality, the knowledge of it exists in every man's conscience." Were an artist called upon to produce a picture of Junius' moral, political, and religious character, he could give no shade or stroke which he could not find full and distinct in the living character of Mr. Paine.

Although Thomas Paine was not a professed Quaker, yet the rigid Quaker principles of moral conduct spoke out in every action; and while he did not spare their errors, he spoke highly of them as a sect. He chastised them with an unsparing hand, but it was in friendship, not in revenge. He loved their austere worship, he sought their society, he walked in their ways, and often paid them a tribute of praise. In[181] short, by birth he was a Quaker, but by profession not. He was himself, an original man thrown out upon earth, born for a purpose, which he fulfilled.

But the moral character of Junius was the same; he proves it so in a hundred different ways; in his pride of character, in his love of justice, in his sympathies for the people, in his declaration of human rights, in the austerity of his morals, in his faith in the interior evidence of the conscience, in his hatred to bad men and bad measures, in his moral courage to attack the strongholds of political corruption. No one but a man having a double portion of Quaker principles and Quaker spirit could talk as did Junius to the king, unmasking him before the public, and exposing his weakness, wickedness, folly, and stupidity. And herein nature comes powerfully in to my aid in my argument. In fact, it is my only object to trace the lines of argument which nature has drawn, and never to descend to art.

Says Mr. Paine: "It sometimes happens, as well in writing as in conversation, that a person lets slip an expression that serves to unravel what he intends to conceal." I will take him at his word and quote two short passages of his own, giving a few strokes of his personal history: "If I have anywhere expressed myself over-warmly, 'tis from a fixed, immovable hatred I have, and ever had, to cruel men and cruel measures. I have likewise an aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man, but I never troubled others with my notions till very lately, nor ever published a syllable in England in my life. What I[182] write is pure nature, and my pen and my soul have ever gone together. My writings I have always given away, reserving only the expense of printing and paper, and sometimes not even that. I never courted either fame or interest, and my manner of life, to those who know it, will justify what I say. My study is to be useful."

The above was thrown into the body of Crisis, ii, and addressed to Lord Howe. Let us examine its separate counts:

I. "Hatred to cruel men and cruel measures." See on this head the hatred of Junius to the tyrant in any form, to the "hoary lecher," Lord Irnham, to the "monsters" of the house of Bedford, and the "worst man in the kingdom," Lord Mansfield.

II. "An aversion to monarchy, as being too debasing to the dignity of man." This is the key-note to Junius.

III. "Never troubled others with my notions till very lately." This was dated January 13, 1777, just one year after Common Sense, and just five years after the last Letter of Junius. Very lately is an indefinite expression, and is meant to pave the way for the next, which was designed to mislead the unwary, and here we see unmistakable evidence of Junius.

IV. "I never published a syllable in England in my life." When Woodfall was prosecuted for publishing Junius' Letter to the king, the jury found him "guilty of publishing only." Then Junius, whoever he was, never published a syllable of the Letters. But Mr. Paine wrote a pamphlet, "The Case of the Excise Officers," while in England, and it was published by a[183] Mr. Lee. To the unthinking, the sentence: "I never published a syllable in England in my life," would be proof at first that he never wrote for the press, but a moment's thought will show it to be an innocent subterfuge. But why this subterfuge, if Mr. Paine was not Junius, and he had not yet a work to perform in England? If not Junius, what is the meaning of it? Why did he say it? The reader must answer.

V. "My writings I have always given away." Junius gave to Mr. Woodfall the whole of his Letters. See his Preface.

VI. "I never courted either fame or interest." Says Junius: "To write for profit, without taxing the press; to write for fame and be unknown; to support the intrigues of faction, and be disowned by every party in the kingdom, are contradictions," etc. That is, he was charged with writing for fame and interest, and he thus contradicts it.

VII. "What I write is pure nature." Thus, Junius says: "The works of a master require no index, his features and coloring are taken from nature;" and a hundred other examples could be given.

VIII. "My study is to be useful." Thus also Junius: "Is there no merit in dedicating my life to the information of my fellow-subjects? He is not paid for his labor, and certainly has a right to choose his employment."

It is thus I could take every statement of Thomas Paine, either of previous life, private purpose, or public principle, and find its counterpart in Junius. This could not be done were not the two characters the same person. Take again, for example, the statement[184] in Crisis, xv. Speaking of the part he took in the revolution, he says:

I. "So far as my endeavors could go, they have all been directed to conciliate the affections, unite the interests, and draw and keep the mind of the country together; (II) and the better to assist in this foundation work of the revolution, I have avoided all places of profit or office, either in the State I live in or in the United States, kept myself at a distance from all parties and party connections, and even disregarded all private and inferior concerns; and when we take into view the great work which we have gone through, and feel, as we ought to feel, the first importance of it, we shall then see that the little wranglings and indecent contentions of personal parley are as dishonorable to our characters as they are injurious to our purpose. (III) It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind, and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her—a Declaration of Independence—made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: (IV) and if in the course of more than seven years I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution."

Compare now the above with Junius, as follows: I. "It is time for those who really mean the Cause and the People, who have no view to private advantage, and[185] who have virtue enough to prefer the general good of the community to the gratification of personal animosities: it is time for such men to interpose. Let us try whether these fatal dissensions may not yet be reconciled, or if that be impracticable, let us guard at least against the worst effects of division, and endeavor to persuade these furious partisans, if they will not consent to draw together, to be separately useful to that cause which they all pretend to be attached to." II. "To write for profit without taxing the press, to write for fame and to be unknown, to support the intrigues of factions and to be disowned as a dangerous anxiliary by every party in the kingdom are contradictions which the minister must reconcile before I forfeit my credit with the public." III. "It was the cause of America that made me an author," says Paine. This is true of Junius; for the troubles which called him forth are well known to be those of America. But he would never have been known, perhaps, had he not written Common Sense, which was published anonymously, and was at first attributed to Benjamin Franklin. IV. "The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment to the people.... These letters, my lord, are read in other countries and in other languages. For my own part, I claim no merit from endeavoring to do a service to my fellow-subjects. I have done it to the best of my understanding, and without looking for the approbation of other men, my conscience is satisfied."

[186]

REVIEW.

Let us now retrace our steps, and see how strong a case is made out.

1. Twelve facts in the life of Mr. Paine shown to be the same as those in Junius.

2. An apparent contradiction proven to be a parallel fact.

3. They both represent Quaker principles.

4. They have the same views of conscience.

5. Both believe in the divine justice of retribution.

6. Both believe in future punishment.

7. Both have the same views of prayer.

8. Both have the same dislike to the word infidel.

9. Both have the same opinion of Jesus of Nazareth.

10. Both have the same views of Christianity.

11. Both use the term Christian the same.

12. Both had a special dislike to Methodism.

13. Both were inveterate enemies to priestcraft.

14. Both made a wide difference between piety and morality.

15. Both had the same views of the Catholic faith.

16. Both ridiculed "Peter."

17. Both affirmed that they did not persecute for religious opinion.

18. Both hated a narrow system in politics or religion.

19. Both had the same views of "religion."

20. Both had the same views of superstition.

21. Both had the same views of atheism.

22. Both had the same views of providence.

23. Both had the same views of the theater.[187]

24. Both detested gamblers and gambling.

25. Both had the same opinion of the English Constitution.

26. Both were extremely cautious.

27. Both were extremely politic.

28. Both loved method.

29. Both evinced the same kind of method in writing.

30. Both had the same views of the origin of military governments.

31. Both had the same views of party politics.

32. Neither would take part in party politics.

33. Both had the same pride of character.

34. Both had the same views of the English army.

35. Both loved free thought.

36. Both thought alike of suspicion.

37. Both expressed the same views of antagonism.

38. Both placed personal interest above strict moral right.

39. Both thought alike of oaths.

40. They had the same opinion of courts and courtiers.

41. They considered the termination of the Seven Years' War a distinguished period, and dated the misfortunes and establishment of tyranny in England from that period.

42. They both had the same opinion of Lord North.

43. Both had the same opinion of Lord Mansfield.

44. Both had the same views of precedent.

45. Both had the same opinion of lawyers.

46. Both had the same views of the cause of America.

47. Both had the same views of the minority in England.

48. And herein the same views of Lord Chatham.[188]

49. Both traced the rights of man back to their origin.

50. Both express themselves alike in regard to laws in general.

51. Both express themselves alike in regard to the game law.

52. Both declare law to be king.

53. They had the same predilections in regard to politics.

54. They were neither of them partisans.

55. They were both practical.

56. Both often appealed to experience and the evidence of facts.

57. Both assert the mind becomes what it contemplates.

58. Both were deeply read in the "history of the human heart."

59. Both delight in charging bastardy.

60. Secretiveness was a ruling characteristic.

61. Both had the same opinion of moderate men.

62. They were both enthusiasts.

63. Both were too proud to be vain or to flatter.

64. Both placed too high an estimate on the judgment of the masses.

65. Both were excessively hopeful.

66. Personal honor unparalleled in history.

67. Both express themselves alike in regard to avarice and the miser.

68. Both often assert that "language fails."

69. Both have the same method of argumentation, and hereunder many parallels are given.

[189]70. Both have the same style, and hereunder many parallels are given.

71. More than sixty parallel expressions and figures of speech are given.

72. They both use the same kind of figures the most frequently.

73. They use the figure in the same manner, and usually one at the close of an article.

74. Both use the same facts and figure to illustrate national honor.

75. The same rythm in style is common to both.

76. The same alliteration.

77. The same method of bringing the subject into one view.

78. The wandering from the point and mentioning the fact.

79. The same threat, command, and warning.

80. The same method of ridicule and satire.

81. The same use of diminutives.

82. The same sacrifice of grammar to conciseness.

83. The same majesty and grandeur of style.

84. Common Sense parallels with Junius, in many ways, and hereunder more than forty examples, which to repeat would be to rewrite them.

85. They were both revolutionists.

86. They both dedicated their life to the same object: to remove some wrong, to do mankind some good.

87. They both attacked the King of England and his ministry in the same spirit and language.

88. Both had the same opinion of bribery at elections.

[190]89. They were both political reformers, following the same principle without pay and above party.

In the above argument I have given nearly three hundred parallel facts and characteristics, many of them of such a nature that it would be at variance with nature itself to suppose them to belong to different men. But I have also searched for a solitary fact which would in the least render Mr. Paine and Junius incompatible, and have found it not. This is a task I hope some reader, who has some means and ample time, will devote a year or two to investigate. My case is much stronger than I hoped even to make it. I have by no means given all the facts and parallels, but where one would answer, I put it in the place of several on the same subject. I have labored to condense—not to expand; I have, therefore, commented but little, and reasoned scarcely any. There is no reasoning which is superior to the simple declaration of facts. It should be the office of the writer to present facts to A reasoning world. The literary world has had enough of the whirlwind of words; it wants a deluge of facts. Then each mind will take care of itself, if worth preserving. To this end I subjoin Lord Macaulay's five reasons why Sir Philip Francis was Junius:

"Was he the author of the Letters of Junius? Our own firm belief is that he was. The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil—nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and connections of Junius, the following are the most important[191] facts, which can be considered as clearly proved: First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State's office; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the War Office; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches—particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland.... Now here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence." [In answer to this, see appendix.]

If that kind and amount of evidence would hang a man in the time of Macaulay, the times have so changed that it takes far stronger evidence to hang men now than then. That kind of evidence is absolutely worthless for two reasons: first, the facts alleged in the separate counts are neither of them necessary to the production of Junius; and, secondly, they would prove nothing if they were, for they might be common to a hundred men, and that they were not would be matter of fact to prove. Even Macaulay makes this rest on his own belief. "We do not believe," he says, "that more than two of them can be found in any other person whatever." But the fact is, they are absolutely "imaginary," and not at all necessary.

"The internal evidence," he says, "seems to point in[192] the same way." First, he acknowledges that Francis, as a writer, is inferior to Junius, but not "decidedly," and then he goes on to say: "One of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was Junius, is the moral resemblance between the two men." Macaulay now sets up a character for Junius, the most of which is not to be found in Junius, and says it is like Francis. It is thus he imposes on the credulity of the ignorant. But I give his words, that the reader may investigate for himself:

"It is not difficult, from the letters which, under various signatures, are known to have been written by Junius, and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerable correct notion of his character." I call the attention of the reader to the above sentence, and have emphasized the word "notion," and the phrase "various signatures." Of the former, I would remark that a notion of one's character falls far short of a judgment, and in a criticism is not only trifling, but contemptible. In regard to "various signatures," I will let Junius himself answer: "The encouragement given to a multitude of spurious, mangled publications of the 'Letters of Junius,' persuades me that a complete edition, corrected and improved by the author, will be favorably received."—Preface. In this volume his signature is Junius, and occasionally, when he wishes to explain the meaning, or defend the principle, he puts forward Philo Junius, but never without this cause. I now proceed to give the character which Macaulay has picked up—I know not where:

"He was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity—a man whose vices were not of a[193] sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant and insolent—a man prone to malevolence, and prone to the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. 'Doest thou well to be angry?' was the question asked in olden time of the Hebrew prophet, and he answered: 'I do well.' This was evidently the temper of Junius, and to this cause we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his Letters. No man is so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with his duties. It may be added that Junius, though allied with the democratic party by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of the old constitution with a respect amounting to pedantry; pleaded the cause of Old Saurum with fervor, and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis."

Thus much Macaulay. Where he got the above character I am unable to tell, unless out of his own imagination. Before I answer it, I will give another perversion of the truth. Dr. Goodrich concludes his article on Junius as follows: "Junius continued his labors, with various ability, but with little success, nearly two year's longer; until, in the month of January, 1772, the king remarked to a friend in confidence: 'Junius is known, and will write no more.' Such proved to be[194] the fact. His last performance was dated January 21, 1772, three years to a day from his first letter to the printer of the Public Advertiser. Within a few months, Sir Philip Francis was appointed to one of the highest stations of profit and trust in India, at a distance of fifteen thousand miles from the seat of English politics!"

The "few months" in the above sentence is just a year and a half after the king "remarked in confidence," etc. But Francis did not go to India for more than two and a half years after. In March, 1772, he resigned his clerkship in the war department, in consequence of a quarrel with Lord Barrington, the new Minister at War. He then left England, and traveled on the continent the remainder of the year; in the June following he was appointed one of the Council of Bengal, with a salary of £10,000, and in the summer of 1774 went to India. That fall Thomas Paine came to America. It is thus the phrase "a few months," artfully put into a sentence in connection with the supposed fact that the king had found out Junius, and had bribed him to stop writing, would mislead the mind, and pervert a reasonable conclusion. This is a trick of the pen, and to which no honorable mind will descend. The fact is, Francis would never have been thought of as Junius, had he not been an intimate friend and schoolmate of Mr. Woodfall's.

But the above argument, summed up by Lord Macaulay, is the strongest on record for any man till now. I was not aware of its weakness till now. I supposed there was a plausible argument at least. To be answered, it needs only to be appended to this. I speak without vanity, for the argument is nature's own, not[195] mine. I will honor it, therefore, with a rebuttal from Junius himself. In Letter 44 he says: "I may quit the service, but it would be absurd to suspect me of desertion. The reputation of these papers is an honorable pledge for my attachment to the people. To sacrifice a respected character, and to renounce the esteem of society, requires more than Mr. Wedderburn's resolution; and though in him it was rather a profession than a desertion of his principles (I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for, when treachery is in question, I think we should make allowances for a Scotchman), yet we have seen him in the House of Commons, overwhelmed with confusion, and almost bereft of his faculties. But in truth, sir, I have left no room for an accommodation with the piety of St. James'. My offenses are not to be redeemed by recantation or repentance: on one side, our warmest patriots would disclaim me as a burthen to their honest ambition; on the other, the vilest prostitution, if Junius could descend to it, would lose its natural merit and influence in the cabinet, and treachery be no longer a recommendation to the royal favor."

There is not, among the dregs or scummings of human nature, a character so false and vile as to write that, and then do as Francis did, or do as the king of England did, if he believed him to be Junius. Nature rebels at such an argument, founded on the facts of the case. It is by a species of subterfuge, or literary legerdemain, exhibiting some facts and hiding others, calling the attention to some trifling thing, and then concealing the truth of the matter, is all that has ever rendered the argument in favor of Francis of any consequence with the public. There is more, for example,[196] in the one word Lord, placed just in front of Macaulay, than in any argument he may give on the subject. In fact, that word imposes on the mind an authority not easily resisted. It obscures the reason, quiets investigation, destroys the desire to search, beguiles thought, puts the mind to sleep, and the reader, like a young bird with eyes closed and mouth open, takes the food from out the old one's mouth, gulps it down, and goes to sleep. It is thus the student and the professor take, on authority, what they have no business to, and do what they never would do, did their own souls not bow basely at the shrine of some literary Baal. It is thus in politics, religion, history, law, philosophy, criticism, belles-lettres, science—whichever way we turn we find the false god and his worshipers. When the student and the professor come to find Mr. Macaulay to be a man of much talent in a certain direction, but by no means a literary god to be worshiped as infallible, they will lose faith in his assertions which come without proof.

It had been my intention to throw a few hints into the Introduction upon external and internal evidence, as it is called, but I concluded to defer it till now, because the remarks and the illustrations would then be thrown together.

In a criticism of this kind, but little confidence can be placed in external evidence, because it all comes within the realm of art or accident, and any scientific truth can not be founded thereon. For example, Macaulay says: "The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised." Handwriting is an art, just like chopping wood or playing on the piano. And to tell who wrote an article by the[197] "peculiar" handwriting, is about as safe as to hazard an opinion upon who is chopping wood by the "peculiar" swing of the ax. Nor does the same individual always write in the same style or manner. Such proof is good for nothing. And this is the nature of all external evidence, and is the cause of the endless litigation in our courts. A man may go on the stand and swear to a lie. I have known men do it. Then we draw inferences from the associations of men, which the real facts of the case might not warrant. The accidents of place and position, of friendships and age, of times and circumstances, and even of existence, all may or may not, in a world full of men, have bearing on the facts which form the opinion of an outside spectator. For example, Francis, it is said, "did not deny that he was Junius." If he had denied or affirmed he was, it would have proved just the same. It belongs to the most worthless kind of external evidence. A naturalist does not ask his horse whether or not he is a horse. If the horse could speak and say to his master, "I am a jackass," the master would be a fool to believe him. It is thus persons often put on a character in a word or two which does not belong to them, but nature takes care to always reveal the true character, if they say much. Now if we could get within the meaning of the words, get behind them to the spirit of their author, we would be getting at the very soul of evidence. This would be true, and we could found a scientific conclusion upon it, because natural and not artificial. This is internal evidence. At present, this kind of evidence is known only in such a criticism as this, for the soul of the author shines out of his work, I care not who he is. We may,[198] for aught I know, write our history on all we touch. If so, science will some day give the world a knowledge of it. It is then external evidence will have ceased.

In a work of this kind, it is incumbent on the critic to ascertain, first, the spirit and object of the work, and then to see if it be inconsistent with itself. If it is not, then the character he finds will be true to nature, and he can not go wrong in his conclusions. There is a passage in Letter 53 on this very point. Junius is speaking of the Rev. Mr. Horne, and says: "He repeatedly affirms, or intimates, at least, that he knows the author of these Letters. With what color of truth, then, can he pretend 'that I am nowhere to be encountered but in a newspaper?' I shall leave him to his suspicions. It is not necessary that I should confide in the honor and discretion of a man who always seems to hate me with as much rancor as if I had formerly been his friend. But he asserts that he has traced me through a variety of signatures. To make the discovery of any importance to his purpose, he should have proved either that the fictitious character of Junius has not been consistently supported, or that the author has maintained different principles under different signatures. I can not recall to my memory the numberless trifles I have written; but I rely on the consciousness of my own INTEGRITY, and defy him to fix any colorable charge of inconsistency upon me."

Now, what have I shown? It is that the character of Thomas Paine, as found in his writings (not in what people say about him), is the very same character, with all its shades and coloring, which is found in the[199] Letters of Junius. This is shown by the best and strongest evidence under the sun, internal evidence. I have purposely avoided all external evidence, from the mere fact of its worthlessness, inasmuch as it is that kind of evidence which itself needs proof. If, for example, Thomas Paine had said to some one: "I wrote Junius," it would be no evidence to me, and would weigh just the same as if he had said: "I did not write Junius." It is external evidence, and may be a lie, for lying is common to mankind. It is that kind of evidence which needs proof. But nature never makes two great characters alike, nor at the same time. She is prodigal of varieties. And if two characters seem alike, it is because of their insignificance; the orbit of their life is so small it can not be measured. But when a Paine, or a Parker, or a Luther, or a Jesus, is let loose on earth, they each describe an orbit so large and peculiar there is no mistaking it for any thing else the world ever exhibits among men. And in their earthly pilgrimage, however seemingly erratic in their course, nature holds them true to her purposes, and holds up no lie therein to deceive the senses. She is true, also, to herself, in giving to us these world's redeemers.

My argument, then, is, Nature would not be natural if Thomas Paine were not Junius, a mere absurdity. But let us suppose he is not. Then, to make out the case, strong evidence of the same internal kind would have to be produced in favor of this supposition. But I have searched for a solitary fact which would even tend to contradict my hypothesis, and have not found it. And I frankly confess, had I found it, this book[200] would not have been written. Reader, search for it yourself, and, when found, publish it to the world, for the world is suffering for the want of truth. And though my conclusions be false, if I have been the means of revealing the truth, I shall not have written in vain.

[201]

PART II.

AN EXAMINATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

It is with painful feelings I now call your attention to the famous document which sets forth the political creed of the United States. More than once my pen has refused to set about this work, but I now ask: Who wrote the original Declaration of Independence? I answer boldly, Thomas Paine. To prove this, my method is the same as with Junius, and the prejudices of the united world shall not intimidate me.

It is not my purpose to revive the old and long-forgotten controversy about the authorship of this document. Enough to say, volumes have been written to prove that it was not Jefferson's. But the method and object of a negative criticism I scorn. If it can not be shown to be some other man's, then let the claimant wear his honors; he certainly did not come by them meanly or dishonorably; they were forced upon him.

My evidence will be such as to exclude the possibility of even literary theft in Jefferson, and that it is, as a whole, the work of the author of Common Sense, and can not possibly be the work of any body else. This is a bold assertion, and a little out of my turn,[202] but my object is to raise the strongest doubt of the truth of what I assert in the mind of my reader, so as to enlist his attention, and hold me to the proof.

The method of my argument is as follows:

First, to show wherein this document is exactly like Mr. Paine; and,

Secondly, wherein it is entirely unlike Mr. Jefferson.

The points wherein they would agree are necessarily thrown out, and count nothing on either side. For example, the principles therein contained may be common to both, and can have no weight in an argument. It is said, in defense of this paper being Mr. Jefferson's, that the "Summary View" of his submitted to, but not passed by the Virginia Delegate Convention in 1774, contained the "germs" of the Declaration. This I do not admit, but if it did, it would prove nothing, for so did the writings of John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin, and Samuel Adams, and especially of James Otis. A thousand men in America had, perhaps, expressed the cardinal doctrine of equal rights, and that the British Parliament had usurped them. There is nothing peculiar nor individual in this; but when we find one man only who makes a specialty of the Declaration, it attracts attention, and must have great weight when supported by a multitude of other special facts, all pointing in the same direction. I, therefore, go to show:

First, Common Sense was written by Mr. Paine for the sole purpose of declaring independence, and, with this document in view. I have heretofore reviewed Common Sense, beginning on page 156 of this book. If it[203] were practicable for the reader to read the whole of Common Sense at this time, it would render my labor much less; but as this may not be the case, I will now give the whole of the third division of that paper, being:

ORIGINAL DECLARATION.[B]

I now place before the reader the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, as it was presented by Jefferson. I have placed in brackets the matter struck out or amended by Congress.

It will be remembered that Mr. Jefferson was chairman of the committee to draft the document; Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and R. R. Livingston, being the other four of the committee; that they changed but a word or two in it; and that John Adams became its champion in Congress, and fought manfully for every word of it. Jefferson said nothing, as he scarcely ever spoke in public:

ANALYSIS.

We have to do with the original draft, and to let the reader see the hand of a master, I will analyze it.

"I love method," said Mr. Paine. The method of the piece stands as follows, and, for the sake of elucidation, I have numbered the paragraphs in the original;

  I. Introduction, viz:—Paragraph 1.

 II. Bill of Rights—Paragraph 2.

III. Indictment—under three general charges: Usurpation, Abdication, and War, as follows:

[228]

IV. Peaceful Method of Redress, viz: Petitioning—Paragraph 23.

 V. Necessity of Separation—declared in Paragraphs 24, 25.

VI. Powers of an Independent State Declared To the World—in Paragraph 26.

ARGUMENT.

Let us now examine Articles III, IV, V, and VI. As they form the piece proper, namely, the indictment and the declaration thereunder, let us compare them with reference to the following:

In the conclusion of Common Sense Mr. Paine wrote: "Should a manifesto be published and dispatched to foreign courts setting forth—

I. "The miseries we have endured; [This is Art. III of the Declaration.]

[230]II. "The peaceful methods which we have ineffectually used for redress; [This is Art. IV of the Declaration.]

III. "Declaring at the same time that, not being able any longer to live happily or safely under the cruel disposition of the British court, we had been driven to the necessity of breaking off all connection with her; [This is Art. V of the Declaration.]

IV. "At the same time assuring all courts of our peaceful disposition toward them, and of our desire of entering into trade with them." [This is Art. VI of the Declaration.]

Here are, in their order, the directions for producing the four last articles of the famous document, and which constitute, as a special instrument, all there is of it. Did Mr. Jefferson study this production of Thomas Paine's so closely as to get the exact order, without transposing an article? A cursory reading would not do this, and if he did not study it for this purpose, then the same peculiar mind belonged to Jefferson that belonged to Thomas Paine; and in writing the Declaration a greater special miracle was performed than any recorded of Jesus of Nazareth.

In the above there is a striking coincidence of documentary facts, in the same order, and it is safe to say there is not one man in a million who, in reading Common Sense, would remember this order, unless he read it with such special purpose. But it is known Jefferson never consulted a book or paper upon the subject, nor for the purpose of producing it. Here is what Bancroft says, and I have found him to be a truthful historian as to current facts touching on the subject:

[231]"From the fullness of his own mind, without consulting one single book, Jefferson drafted the Declaration; he submitted it separately to Franklin and John Adams, accepted from each of them one or two verbal unimportant corrections," etc.—Hist., vol. viii, p. 465.

The above history is doubtless taken from the reply of Mr. Jefferson to attacks on the originality of the Declaration, which is as follows: "Pickering's observations and Mr. Adams' in addition, 'that it contained no new ideas; that it is a common-place compilation; its sentiments hackneyed in Congress for two years before, and its essence contained in Otis' pamphlet,' may all be true. Of that I am not to be the judge. Richard Henry Lee charged it as copied from Locke's Treatise on Government. Otis' pamphlet I never saw; and whether I had gathered my ideas from reading, I do not know. I know only that I turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it."—Works, vol. vii, p. 305.

This was written when he was eighty years old.

But it seems that Mr. Jefferson had never read the pamphlet, Common Sense, as the following gross error in regard to it will show. Speaking of Mr. Paine, he says: "Indeed, his Common Sense was for awhile believed to have been written by Dr. Franklin, and published under the borrowed name of Paine, who had come over with him from England."—Works, vol. vii., p. 198.

In the above sentence there are two historic errors. First, Common Sense was not published under the name of Paine; and, second, Mr. Paine did not come over with Franklin from England. He preceded Franklin six months.

[232]That Mr. Paine did not attach his name to the pamphlet, Common Sense, there is abundance of evidence to prove. The author of a pamphlet, subscribed Rationalis, in answer to Common Sense, says: "I know not the author, nor am I anxious to learn his name or character, for the book, and not the writer of it, is to be the subject of my animadversions."

But we have Mr. Paine's own testimony, in the second edition of Common Sense, direct to the point. In a postscript to the Introduction, he says: "Who the author of this production is, is wholly unnecessary to the public, as the object for attention is the doctrine, not the man. Yet it may not be unnecessary to say that he is unconnected with any party, and under no sort of influence, public or private, but the influence of reason and principle."

An examination of all the earliest editions which can be seen in the Congressional Library at Washington will satisfy any one on this subject.

If Mr. Jefferson had read Common Sense before the writing of the Declaration, he would never have erred so in regard to this fact. This goes to show he had not even read it, much less studied it. How, then, was the exact order followed, in writing the Declaration, which Mr. Paine laid down in Common Sense?

My first proposition, then, I have proven, namely: that Thomas Paine wrote a work for the sole purpose of bringing about a separation and making a Declaration of Independence. I have proven, also, that he therein submitted the subject-matter in the order in which it was afterwards put. This much on the positive side. On the negative side, I have shown that Mr. Jefferson[233] did none of these things, for it was produced from "the fullness of his own mind, without consulting one single book."

But if Mr. Bancroft be a truthful historian, there is already great doubt thrown on Jefferson's authorship of it, and it would have been better to have made Jefferson a close student and thorough reader for this special purpose. This is the view, in fact, taken of the question of authorship in the New American Cyclopedia (article Thomas Jefferson), and I will give an extract therefrom, to show how historians differ. Speaking of the Declaration, the Cyclopedia says: "Two questions have, however, arisen as to its originality: the first, a general one upon the substance of the document; the second, in regard to its phraseology in connection with the alleged Mecklenburg declaration of May, 1775. It is more than probable that Jefferson made use of some of the ideas expressed in newspapers at the time, and that his study of the great English writers upon constitutional freedom was of service to him. But an impartial criticism will not base upon this fact a charge of want of originality. It should rather be regarded as the peculiar merit of the writer that he thus collected and embodied the conclusions upon government of the leading thinkers of the age in Europe and America, rejecting what was false, and combining his material into a production of so much eloquence and dignity."

This does not sound much like Bancroft. The two historians have placed Mr. Jefferson in a sad dilemma. The one, to make him an original in the production of the Declaration, says he did not consult one single book, but produced it from the fullness of his own mind.[234] The other, to defend him from the charge of want of originality, says he made use of the newspapers, collected and embodied, etc. But the single fact which I have brought from the conclusion of Common Sense destroys the first hypothesis, and the last hypothesis, in being contradictory in itself destroys itself. How the reader will fathom this labyrinth of contradictions, and reconcile this conflict of historic opinion, is a question which does not trouble me, and I pass on to something more important.

STYLE.

The style of the Declaration of Independence is in every particular the style of Mr. Paine and Junius; and it is in no particular the style of Thomas Jefferson. This I now proceed to prove.

That equality in the members of the periods, which gives evenness and smoothness, and the alliteration which gives harmony in the sound, and which together render the writings of Mr. Paine so stately and metrical, are qualities so prominent that no one can mistake the style. And what renders the argument in this regard so strong, is the entire absence of these qualities in Mr. Jefferson's writings. In fact, if Mr. Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, he never before nor since wrote any thing like it, in the same style, order, or spirit; or produced any thing which evinced genius, or the hand of a master in literature. What I have already said on style, in the former part of this work, will render this readily understood by the reader; but I will now make a few comparisons, and first with Junius, and then Paine and Jefferson.

[235]Junius wrote two declarations, or rather pieces, after the very same style and manner, namely, the first and the thirty-fifth Letters. They can be thrown into the same synoptical form in which I have put the Declaration. But to show the rythm, and alliteration, and peculiar style, I give the following:

The above three extracts are from the Declaration, Junius, and Crisis, viii. There is in them the same stately measure or tread; the same harmony of sounds;[236] the same gravity of sentiment; the same clearness of diction; the same boldness of utterance; the same beauty and vivacity; in short, the same spirit and the same hand.

Now an extract from Jefferson will be in place, and I give it from one of his most impassioned pieces, the "Summary View." I do this for two reasons: first, because it is the only piece, up to the writing of the Declaration, which he ever produced worthy of note; and second, because it is his best. I give also the best of this piece, the exordium:

It will be observed in the above extract from Mr. Jefferson, that there is no proportion between the members of the sentences. We have them of all lengths, interlarded with phrases, and thrown into a confused mass. Hence, there is no harmony. Mr. Paine's periods are almost faultless in this regard; the members of the periods follow each other like the waves of the ocean, which gives evenness of "tread" and majesty of expression. While the style of Mr. Jefferson is absolutely devoid of all harmony, for the members of the periods move on like the rumbling of a government wagon over a rough and stony road.

This peculiarity of style is one of mental constitution. It is an effect of nature which education can never remedy. No art can reach it, for no mental training can annul a law of nature. It may be said of the writer in this regard as of the poet: "He is born, not made." It is herein nature made these two men entirely unlike. Paine was a poet; Jefferson was not. The former had the most lively imagination; the latter had none at all. It is this quality of the mind—imagination—which adorns language with the figure.

In the proper use of the figure Mr. Paine can not be excelled. Mr. Jefferson makes but infrequent use of figures of speech, and when he goes out of the ruts of custom, he almost always fails in his efforts. Two or three examples will suffice. In vol. i, p. 58, he says: "I never heard either of them speak ten minutes at a time,[238] nor to any but the main point which was to decide the question. They laid their shoulders to the great points, knowing that the little ones would follow of themselves." In this men are arguing the points of a question. But Mr. Jefferson says they "laid their shoulders" to them, instead of their tongues. In vol. i, p. 358, he says: "The Emperor, to satisfy this tinsel passion, plants a dagger in the heart of every Dutchman, which no time will extract." Perhaps these planted daggers will take root. He speaks also about "confabs" and "swallowing opinions."

Let us look now, for a moment, at the grand requisites of style, Precision, Unity, and Strength.

Of the first, I would say, I have never yet seen an ambiguous sentence in Paine's works. Mr. Jefferson's style is confused, labored, and prolix. There is no paragraph he ever wrote, especially in the first half of his life, but will bear me out in the assertion, that he uses a great many words to express a few ideas. The above quotation I cite on this point. It could all have been put into one-fourth of the space, and thus have been rendered clear and distinct. His style, however, grew better as he grew older. He is diffuse, which at once destroys Unity of expression. He puts subject after subject into one period, often into one sentence. The consequence is, there is no order in his style, and his ideas tumble over each other in the greatest confusion; and the consequence of this is, there is no Strength to his style.

That the reader may see all these faults, I will[239] make a brief analysis of the Introduction to the "Summary View," quoted above:

This is the first sentence. In it he has put the Introduction, the Bill of Rights, the Indictment, a proposition to Congress to go a begging before his Majesty, and several other particulars. But let us continue with the next sentence:

Here there is no relation between the beginning of the sentence and the conclusion.

[240]

It is only necessary to remark on the above, that thirty or forty subjects can hardly be handled successfully in three periods. How different is this from the Declaration, or, in fact, from any production of Mr. Paine's.

[241]In the three great requisites of style, Precision, Unity, and Strength, where Mr. Paine is so perfect, we see great defects in Jefferson; and in the fourth, Harmony, a complete failure.

If we now take the "Summary View," and submit it to the same critical analysis as I have the Declaration of Independence, we will find the same defects in it, as a whole, that we find in the first paragraph, which I have just analyzed. There is a complete mixture of all subjects. But this I leave to the reader, should he question the truth of my assertion.

If we now turn to the synopsis of the Declaration, we will find an exhibition of the most perfect order. The Introduction is short, to the point, and complete. The Bill of Rights contains the first principles. These apply to mankind universally. It then proceeds as a specialty. The Indictment is divided into three grand divisions, Usurpation, Abdication, and War, and the separate counts are stated, clearly containing but one subject. Nowhere do we find a mixing up of different subjects. We do not find a count of war under the head of usurpation, nor one of usurpation under the head of war.

There is also seen the passion for alliteration throughout the whole instrument, and especially in the following passages: "Fostered and fixed in principles of freedom." Paragraph 22 is filled with examples. But in paragraph 15 it seems he uses this power of the mind to aid him in itemizing counts. He takes t for the letter under which he marshals this army of charges: "Troops," "trial," "trade," "taxes," "trial,"[242] [No. 2,] "transportation," "tried." Here are seven words comprising as many charges following in succession. He follows it with others, but never uses the t again. This shows a passion for order and alliteration. I presume there is no other document in the world with these peculiarities so marked, and I presume there is no writer in the world who ever exhibited to such a remarkable degree these peculiarities of style, as did Thomas Paine. [See on this subject Junius Unmasked, p. 107.] Now, these peculiarities are almost entirely wanting in Thomas Jefferson, and without them it is absolutely impossible for him to be the author of the Declaration of Independence.

I wish now to call attention to the word "hath." It is found but once in the Declaration, and is in paragraph 2, in the following connection: "And accordingly all experience hath shown." It is put in here for the sake of harmony and force in sound, for if we substitute the word has, there will be a halting at shown, and a disagreeable hissing sound. At the time this was written Mr. Paine frequently used the word, and it may have slipped in unnoticed, on account of sound, or he may have put it in so that the critic could track him. I have never seen the word in any of Jefferson's writings.

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS.

I have heretofore shown that Mr. Paine had the Declaration of Independence in view in the production of Common Sense, and that he sketched therein the outlines in the same order in which they afterward appeared. I have shown its architecture and plan, and[243] also its style, to be that of Mr. Paine's, and not Mr. Jefferson's. I have shown this somewhat in detail, but not more than the subject demanded. Herein I have given the grand outlines and general features, but I shall now review the whole, to point out its special characteristics, that, in the multitude of small things all tending one way, it will be made conclusive to the mind of the reader that it is Mr. Paine's, and not Jefferson's. In this I shall be compelled, some times, to refer to propositions already proven in the first part of this work, to shorten the argument, not wishing to go over the same ground twice. In the demonstration of a theorem in geometry, what has been proven is made to aid what shall come after. I shall proceed with the same method, and not be guilty of taking any thing which Mr. Paine may have written afterward, to prove something which has gone before. But mental characteristics may be taken wherever we can find them. I am confined to Common Sense, and shall use also Junius as aiding, but never to entirely prove a point. In my references to Common Sense, I shall be compelled to refer to the page. I use the political works of Mr. Paine as published by J. P. Mendum, Boston, as they are most generally known and read in this country. With these explanations, the reader can not go wrong.

I now take up the original Declaration, beginning with the Introduction; and, as I have numbered its paragraphs, I shall use the figures to denote them, proceeding in their numerical order:

Paragraph 1. "Political bonds." The same figure is found on page 64, Common Sense.

[244]"To assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them." Here the crowning thought is that God, through his natural laws, and by natural proofs, designed a separation. Thus Mr. Paine, in Common Sense, page 37, says: "The distance at which the Almighty hath placed England and America is a strong and natural proof that the authority of the one over the other was never the design of Heaven."... "Every thing that is right or natural pleads for separation."

Note also above the phrase, "separate and equal station." The writer of the Declaration considered England and America equal, and thus Mr. Paine says, above: "It is proof that the authority of the one over the other was never the design of Heaven."

"A decent respect for the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." Note hereunder the phrase, "decent respect." Thus, in his introduction to his first Letter, which was an indictment and declaration of principles also, Junius says: "Let us enter into it [the inquiry] with candor and decency. Respect is due to the station of ministers, and, if a resolution must at last be taken, there is none so likely to be supported with firmness as that which has been adopted with moderation."

The above are perfect parallels in idea, and in the expression of the prominent thought, "decent respect." But the thought is expanded from the narrow confines of the British nation to the whole world, and if Mr. Paine wrote both, as they strongly indicate, to make the conclusion good we must find this change or mental[245] growth in Mr. Paine to coincide therewith. Here it is: "In this extensive quarter of the globe, we forget the narrow limits of three hundred and sixty miles (the extent of England), and carry our friendship on a larger scale. We claim brotherhood with every European Christian, and triumph in the generosity of the sentiment.

"It is pleasant to observe by what regular gradations we surmount local prejudices as we enlarge our acquaintance with the world. A man born in any town in England," etc. I wish the reader to read the whole of the paragraph I have begun. See Common Sense, pages 35 and 36. See also Crisis, viii, near its close; a noble passage on the same subject. Mr. Paine frequently takes the pains to tell us how he outgrew his local prejudices, and how he at last considered the "world his country." He undertook, also, for America what he calls "the business of a world."—Common Sense, page 63.

Paragraph 2. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights." Compare from Common Sense, pages 24, 25, and 28, as follows: "Mankind being originally equals in the order of creation, the equality could not be destroyed by some subsequent circumstance."... "The equal rights of nature." ... "For all men being originally equals," etc. So, also, Junius says: "In the rights of freedom we are all equal." ... "The first original rights of the people," etc. To show that he believes these rights to be inalienable, he says: "The equality can not be destroyed by some subsequent[246] circumstance."

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Junius uses the terms, "Life, liberty, and fortune."—Let. 66. And Mr. Paine frequently, "Life, liberty, and property." But these terms were in quite common use with many writers.

"To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men." What is said on government in this paragraph is paraphrased or condensed from page 21, Common Sense. It is a concise repetition of Mr. Paine's pet theme and political principles, first given to the world in Junius, and then elaborated in Common Sense.

"Prudence indeed will dictate." This word prudence is ever flowing from the pen of Mr. Paine. See an example on page 21, Common Sense. It is quite common in Junius. The same may be said, also, of the word experience.

"And accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." Compare Common Sense, page 17, as follows: "As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, and in matters, too, which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated to the inquiry," etc.

"Forms." That is, the "forms of the constitution." See Junius, Let. 44, where he says: "I should be contented to renounce the forms of the Constitution once more, if there were no other way to obtain substantial[247] justice for the people." And here the Declaration is renouncing the forms.

"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States." Paine says on tyranny: "Ye that oppose independence now, ye know not what ye do, ye are opening a door to eternal tyranny, by keeping vacant the seat of government." ... "Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth." Common Sense, p. 47.

"To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith, yet unsullied by falsehood." The above sentence is very peculiar, and I will show wherein. The last member of the sentence which I have italicised was stricken out of the original draft by Congress. The peculiarity in it is that "the truth of a fact" is affirmed, and its falsehood implied. Now a fact is always true. There can be no false facts. What is here meant, is, that we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood, that the statements are true. Not that the facts are true, but that they are facts. It is the passion (if I may so express it) for conciseness, to speak of facts being true or false. Now this is a peculiarity of Junius. In Let. 3 he says: "I am sorry to tell you, Sir William, that in this article your first fact is false." It is thus Mr. Paine frequently sacrifices both grammar and strict definition to conciseness; but never to obscure the sense. An example from the publicly acknowledged pen of Mr. Paine ought to be here produced; I, therefore, give one from his letter to the Abbe Raynal, which is as follows: "His facts are coldly and carelessly stated.[248] They neither inform the reader, nor interest him. Many of them are erroneous, and most of them are defective and obscure." Here "erroneous facts," "false facts," and "facts for the truth of which we pledge a faith unsullied by falsehood," are evidence of the same head and hand. It is thus an author puts some peculiar feature of his soul on paper unwittingly; and it lies there a fossil, till the critic, following the lines of nature, gathers it up to classify, arrange, and combine with others, and then to put on canvas, or in marble bust. It may be well to remind the reader that the above peculiarity I can nowhere find in Jefferson's writings.

I now call attention to the sentence: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations [begun at a distinguished period, and pursuing invariably the same object] evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."

I have placed in brackets what has been interpolated by Jefferson. I conclude this from the following reasons:

In all of these particulars it is not like Mr. Paine,[249] for he is never guilty of such a breach of rhetoric. But in all of the above particulars it is just like Mr. Jefferson.

The above two paragraphs comprise the Introduction and the Bill of Rights, and are the foundation of the Declaration. It is a basis fit and substantial, because one of universal principles, so that whatever special right may be enunciated, it will rest firmly on this foundation; or whatever special denunciation of wrongs, it will have its authority therein.

I now pass to consider the indictment under its three divisions—Usurpation, Abdication, and War.

If the reader will now turn back to page 223, he will find from paragraphs 3 to 15, inclusive, the whole charge of usurpation included therein. But, separately, we find paragraph 3 to be a charge of the abuse of the king's negative; and he concludes in paragraph 15 with the climax, "suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves [the king and parliament] invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever." Now, if the reader will turn to page 41, Common Sense, which is page 213 of this book, he will find Mr. Paine beginning the first of his "several reasons" as follows:

"1. The powers of governing still remaining in the hands of the king, he will have a negative over the whole of this continent."

It will be observed, in a general view, that the reasons given by Mr. Paine cover the whole thirteen paragraphs; and it will be observed specially that he begins the reasons the same as he does the indictment—namely, with the king's negative. Mr. Paine was violently[250] opposed to the king's negative, and all through life he never fails to attack it, when the opportunity offered itself. This would weigh most heavily on his mind, and be most naturally uttered first. On page 59 of Common Sense will also be found reasons for independence, which come within this part of the indictment. But pages 41, 42, 43 of Common Sense cover nearly, or quite all of it. But they are stated generally for the sake of argument—not specially for the sake of indictment.

Paragraph 16. "He has abdicated government here, withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection." Compare with this the following, to be found on page 61 of Common Sense: "The present state of America is truly alarming to every man who is capable of reflection. Without law, without government, without any other mode of power than what is founded on and granted by courtesy. Held together by an unexampled occurrence of sentiment, which is, nevertheless, subject to change, and which every secret enemy is endeavoring to dissolve. Our present condition is legislation without law, wisdom without a plan, a constitution without a name."

I now take up the third part of the indictment—War.

Paragraph 17. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."

Paragraph 18. "He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy unworthy the head of a civilized nation."

[251]On the above two counts, which charge war and invasion, I submit from Common Sense, page 62, as follows: "It is the violence which is done and threatened to our persons, the destruction of our property by an armed force, the invasion of our country by fire and sword, which conscientiously qualifies the use of arms; and the instant in which such mode of defense became necessary, all subjection to Britain ought to have ceased, and the independence of America should have been considered as dating its era from, and published by the first musket that was fired against her."

Under the above, also, may be classed paragraph 19.

Paragraph 20. "He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions of existence." Compare Common Sense, page 47, as follows: "There are thousands and tens of thousands who would think it glorious to expel from the continent that barbarous and hellish power which hath stirred up the Indians and negroes to destroy us."

Paragraph 21. "He has excited treasonable insurrection," etc. Compare Common Sense, page 61, as follows: "The tories dared not have assembled offensively, had they known that their lives, by that act, were forfeited to the laws of the State. A line of distinction should be drawn between English soldiers taken in battle and inhabitants of America taken in arms: the first are prisoners, but the latter traitors—the one forfeits his liberty, the other his head."

The above paragraph and the following one, it will be remembered, were stricken out by Congress.

[252]I now come to the closing paragraph of this part of the indictment, and, as it is the most important of all, the author kept it for a climax, and he throws his whole soul into it. I will transcribe it here:

Paragraph 22. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty, in the persons of a distant people, who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce; and, that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them; thus paying off former crimes, committed against the LIBERTIES of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another."

The capital words in the above are his own. Let us begin with the last sentence, and go backward. The substance of the last sentence is, that by exciting the negroes to rise on the people of this continent, the king was guilty of a double crime, both against the liberties of the negroes and the lives of the American people. Compare Common Sense, page 47, as follows: "He hath stirred up the Indians and negroes to destroy us; the cruelty hath a double guilt—it is dealing brutally by us and treacherously by them." This is the same[253] complex idea, well reasoned out, and expressed almost in the same language—certainly in the same style. But Jefferson "never consulted a single book," so original was the Declaration to his own mind and habits of thought!

Let us now take the sentence: "This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain." The antithesis above between infidel and Christian, falls upon the mind with such stunning weight; with such boldness of religious sentiment; with such emphasis in expression, and with such withering sarcasm toward the king, that it becomes an epitome of Mr. Paine himself, and a concise record of his whole life, up to that period. The reader can not fail here to see the pen of Junius, and to recall the great power of antithesis in all his Letters. This peculiarity of style is absolutely wanting in Jefferson.

The first sentence in the paragraph, is in every phrase so like Mr. Paine, the reader must think it superfluous to comment upon it. The expressions, "cruel war," "against human nature," "sacred rights," "life and liberty," "in the persons of," and especially "prostituted," are all to be found in Common Sense and Junius. For the phrase "in the persons of," see it repeated three times on page 22 of Common Sense.

Thus ends the indictment. It is Article I, of Mr. Paine's Manifesto, heretofore pointed out. I now proceed with Article II of the Manifesto, which he states to be "the peaceful methods which we have ineffectually used for redress." See Common Sense, p. 56. It is as follows:

[254]Paragraph 23. "In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered by repeated injuries." Compare Common Sense, pp. 39-40, as follows: "Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers hath been rejected with disdain, and only tended to convince us that nothing flatters vanity or confirms obstinacy in kings more than in repeated petitioning."

Paragraph 24. "A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe, that the hardiness of one man, adventured within the short compass of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad and so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered and fixed in principles of freedom."

The first sentence pronounces the king a tyrant, and is so often repeated heretofore by Mr. Paine, it is useless to cite any thing in proof. The second sentence was stricken out of the Declaration by Congress, and contains new matter which must be attended to. And

First, "Future ages will scarcely believe that." This phrase is peculiar to Mr. Paine, for his mind was continually dwelling on the future. So Junius says: "Posterity will scarce believe that."—Let. 48. And Mr. Paine says: "Mankind will scarcely believe that."—Rights of Man, p. 94.

I parallel this phrase not so much to show a verbal construction as to show a mental characteristic which must express itself in the same language.

Second, "That the hardiness of one man adventured."[255] Compare with this from Common Sense, page 41: "No man was a warmer wisher for reconciliation than myself, before the fatal nineteenth of April, 1775; but the moment the event of that day was made known, I rejected the hardened, sullen-tempered Pharaoh of England forever," etc. How different is this language in the Declaration, from that used by Mr. Jefferson in the "Summary View," when speaking of the king. Jefferson used the word majesty, as though he was speaking to a god; and seems to delight in the repetition of it. See p. 236.

Third, "Within the short compass of twelve years only." The Declaration was dated July 4th, 1776. Twelve years would take it back to 1764. This was the year the stamp act passed, and made an era in colonial troubles. Now, if Mr. Paine had been speaking of the troubles of the English people, he would have used the same expression, with the exception of adding a year; for, as before stated in the first part of this work, Mr. Paine dated the miseries, oppressions, and invasions on the rights of the English people from the close of the Seven Years' War, or the beginning of 1763. And the time was estimated in round numbers as follows:

Junius says, in the beginning of 1769: "Outraged and oppressed as we are, this nation will not bear after a six years' peace," etc.; and, also, in the beginning of 1770: "At the end of seven years we are loaded," etc. Mr. Paine, at the close of the year 1778, says to the English people: "A period of sixteen years of misconduct and misfortune," etc. These round numbers all refer back to the beginning of 1763, and the expression[256] in the Declaration, "within the short compass of twelve years only," is not, as it appears, inconsistent with this peculiarity, for the English era with him was 1763, and the American 1764. Nowhere do I find this mental characteristic in Jefferson. This is strong proof—it goes beyond proof, it is demonstration. Mr. Jefferson, nor any man living, could steal this fact; it is one of mental constitution, stamped there and pointing with fingers of truth both backward and forward to Thomas Paine, and at right angles to the character of Thomas Jefferson.

The figure "compass" is often found in Mr. Paine's writings, as "compass a plan," and the like. But I call attention to the perfect similarity in style between the Declaration and every passage from Common Sense.

Paragraph 25. "Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time," etc. It is the peculiarity of Mr. Paine to hold up a warning to the sense. See on this point, page 103 of this work.

"We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here." Compare Common Sense, p. 35, as follows: "This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of the monster, and it is so far true of England, that the same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home pursues their descendants still." Thus, also, says the Declaration (and note the style): "These were affected at the expense[257] of our own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or strength of Great Britain; that in constituting indeed our several forms of government we had adopted one common king."

I call attention to the phrases, "common king," "common blood," and "common kindred," in the same paragraph. Mr. Paine was never guilty of calling England the "parent" or "mother" country, but the "common" country. (See Common Sense, p. 36.) Junius in Let. 1 says: "A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the Colonies from their duty as subjects, and from their natural affection to their common country." Jefferson uses "parent" and "mother" country, both before and after the writing of the Declaration.

In connection with the above sentence from Junius, I subjoin the same sentiment in regard to natural affection from the Declaration a few sentences further on, as follows: "These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends." Compare with this, Common Sense, p. 47, as follows: "To talk of friendship with those in whom our reason forbids us to have faith, and our affections wounded through a thousand pores instruct us to detest, is madness and folly. Every day wears out the little remains of kindred between us and them." In regard to the phrase "renounce forever" above, as quoted from the Declaration, compare Common Sense, p. 38, as follows: "That seat of wretchedness [speaking[258] of Boston] will teach us wisdom and instruct us to forever renounce a power in whom we can have no trust." See also Common Sense, p. 37, as follows: "And our duty to mankind at large, as well as to ourselves, instructs us to renounce the alliance."

The expression "forever" will not be mistaken, for it runs through Junius' and all of Mr. Paine's writings as a common expression.

The figure "to stab" is one which Mr. Paine adopted in Junius and carried through his whole life. Thus he talks about "stabbing the Constitution," and "to stab the character of the nation." The former is found in Junius, the latter in his Letter to the Abbe Raynal.

The italicised phrases in the following expression, "These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever," etc., are so very like Mr. Paine, and so entirely unlike Mr. Jefferson, that the cursory reader, with the commonest understanding, would not fail to pronounce in favor of the former being the author.

I now call attention to a striking peculiarity in regard to the mention of the Scotch. It is found in the same paragraph, and is as follows: "At this very time, too, they [our British brethren] are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries, to invade and destroy us." The word mercenaries is used once before in the Declaration.

The writer of the Declaration is speaking of the "British brethren," whom he designates as "of our common blood," but excludes the Scotch therefrom. Now, we know Mr. Paine to have been an Englishman,[259] and that in Junius he often inveighed bitterly against the Scotch. The reader will remember what he said of Mr. Wedderburn, on page 195 of this work. Mansfield was a Scotchman, and this fact embitters Junius. He speaks of the Scotch "cunning," "treachery," and "fawning sycophancy," of "the characteristic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, the persevering assiduity, the everlasting profession of a discreet and moderate resentment." It is quite evident that the writer of the Declaration did not consider the Scotch as included in the term "British brethren," whom he warned, as he called them "mercenaries;" nor as having the like origin, nor as being of the same race as the term "common blood" indicates. These are facts which speak out of the Declaration, and as such Jefferson could not have written them, for two reasons:

But there is an argument in this connection, which goes toward the whole instrument, showing that Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of it. In a special commentary of Mr. Jefferson's on this phrase, "Scotch and foreign mercenaries," he misquotes the Declaration, which he would not be likely to do if he wrote it. In volume viii, page 500, of his works, he says: "When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it, which gave offense to some members. The words, 'Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries' excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country." In the phrase "Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries," Jefferson is trying to quote the words "Scotch and foreign mercenaries." There is a vast difference between the two words "auxiliaries" and "mercenaries." But the former expresses the real spirit of Jefferson, the latter of Paine. Entirely different sentiments produced the two expressions. The style, also, is changed from Paine's to Jefferson's, by putting in the word "other." It is thus changed from the concise to the diffuse. Mr. Jefferson says this expression was "unlucky;" and it still proves to be, near the close of a century.

Now, the word mercenaries, which, with the author[261] of the Declaration, means prostituted hirelings, is used twice in the instrument, but auxiliaries, which would mean honorable allies, is not used once. It is not strange that he should forget, for the sentiment is foreign to his own character; and I had written my argument, and given my reasons above why Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of that sentiment, a month before I found that Jefferson had misquoted the Declaration. I reason from first principles, which rest on established facts, the silent language of nature, compared with which the vain babblings of men amount to nothing. For example, John Adams says that he and Mr. Jefferson met as a sub-committee to draft the Declaration; that he urged Jefferson to do it; that afterward they both met, and conned it over, and he does not remember of making or suggesting a single alteration. This Mr. Jefferson denies. He says there was no sub-committee; that Adams has forgotten about it; that he [Jefferson] drew it, and turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it, and that Adams did correct it.—Jefferson's Works, vol. vii, pages 304, 305. Here are two men, one eighty and the other eighty-eight, on whose words history rests, differing materially about historic facts. The one who can not quote an important passage correctly, as to fact or language which he says he wrote himself, accuses the other of forgetting about a committee which never existed. The reader must judge.

"Be it so." Let us find the feeling which produced this expression. It is peculiar to Junius. See Letters 18, 34, and 44, where the sentence is used. And now let me remark, that the reader may be led to a just criticism, and not ramble after vague and unmeaning expressions,[262] the spirit of the writer must be found, the prominent sentiment of the heart must be felt, the cause must be seen which shall give utterance to the expression, "Be it so." How trifling it appears to the cursory reader! But let me arrest your attention. Junius uses the expression three times, and every time in connection with the sentiment of dignity. So, also, in the Declaration. It is only produced in him by a feeling, and the peculiar and particular feeling of dignity, in antithesis to contempt, littleness, disrepute, or meanness. I will now give the context. In Let. 18 he says: "You seem to think the channel of a pamphlet more respectable, and better suited to the dignity of your cause, than a newspaper. Be it so."

In Let. 34 he says: "We are told by the highest judicial authority that Mr. Vaughan's offer to purchase the reversion of a patent place in Jamaica amounts to a high misdemeanor. Be it so; and if he deserves it, let him be punished. But the learned judge might have had a fairer opportunity of displaying the powers of his eloquence. Having delivered himself with so much energy upon the criminal nature and dangerous consequences of any attempt to corrupt a man in your grace's station, what would he have said to the minister himself, to that very privy counselor, to that first commissioner of the treasury, who does not wait for, but impatiently solicits the touch of corruption, who employs the meanest of his creatures in these honorable services, and forgetting the genius and fidelity of the secretary, descends to apply to his housebuilder for assistance?"

[263]In Let. 44 he says: "There may be instances of contempt and insult to the House of Commons, which do not fall within my own exceptions, yet, in regard to the dignity of the house, ought not to pass unpunished. Be it so."

In the Declaration, paragraph 25, we read: "We might have been a free and a great people together, but a communication of grandeur and freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it."

So much for the trifling little trinity of words made up of six letters, when traced to their mental origin. The reader will see an aura of dignity always darting out from the sentence when used by Mr. Paine. It might never have this connection in the soul of any other man. This closes paragraph 25, and I proceed to the conclusion.

Paragraph 26. Here the nation is named. "The United States of America," are declared "free and independent States."... "And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Compare Common Sense, conclusion, as follows: "Wherefore, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the name of whig and tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind, and of the Free and Independent States of America."

[264]I have now gone through with the Declaration, both in a general and special manner. In the former regard I have found it to be the soul's image of Mr. Paine, in style, order, and construction, and, in the latter, a complete synopsis of Common Sense. I have fully and conclusively shown that the substance of every paragraph is found in Common Sense, with much of the language the same, and also that many special, mental peculiarities, common to Mr. Paine, and wanting in Mr. Jefferson, are found there. Now, Mr. Jefferson never before, nor since, ever produced any thing like it in any of these particulars. If we take a hasty review, we will find that in as many particulars as the Declaration has, in just so many there is a reproduction of Mr. Paine. In no single fact does the Declaration disagree with Mr. Paine. It does with Mr. Jefferson in very many. I have shown also that it would be impossible for Mr. Jefferson to steal it, for he would have to steal the very soul of Mr. Paine, and write under its influence. This is above proof, it is demonstration.

But I will hold the reader to history. It is a fact, well established, that he did not consult one single author thereon. He says so himself. Mr. Bancroft, the great American historian, says so. If I had found him mistaken in this statement, I would have shown wherein. He is correct, and it is unnecessary for me to add any thing to support his fame. But will he change his conclusions, and will he re-write his own history to support the statement that Mr. Jefferson produced it, not from "the fullness of his own mind," but from the fullness of Common Sense? I would not cast an aspersion, by the remotest insinuation, upon the faithfulness of Mr. Bancroft[265] as a historian. He penned the truth in regard to a historic fact, but founded a conclusion thereon not warranted by the fact. This will prove a lesson to the historian, and, therefore, I will further remark, that a scientific method has also dawned upon history. Voltaire struck the principle when he brought history within the realm of natural causes, and Mr. Buckle began to develop the method in an able manner, but his life was too short to complete it. That he has erred in some particulars, may be true, but he has traveled far out on the highways of nature, and, in the main, he is right. In this age the historian has no business to write unless he travels the same road. In fact, he would not be a historian, unless he did, but merely the chronicler of events. There is a vast distance in the realm of mind between the high station of a historian, and the low office of a chronicler. But, with this remark I pass on with my argument.

Is it at variance with nature and the general order of things that Mr. Jefferson should reproduce Common Sense, in all its small particulars, as well as grand outlines, observing the same order in its construction, a perfect epitome thereof, without studying it. But if he did study it, and thus reproduce it, the theft would be too monstrous, and there is not in human nature an impudence so audacious as to do such a thing under the very eye of its author. It would have been a literary piracy too disgraceful for human nature to commit or to endure. It would have been a robbery too easy of detection by Mr. Paine, and there could not be found on earth a man so devoid of shame, or of all personal[266] honor, or of self-respect as to have committed it. Now if Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, never was man more disgraced in the literary world. But on the other hand, as chairman of a committee of five to whom collectively belong the duty to produce it or procure it, and who collectively shall share its honor, for him as such chairman, to receive from the hand of Mr. Paine, as a gift to the nation, the document which the country needed, there would be no dishonor connected with it. It was nobody's business who wrote it. Mr. Paine and Jefferson understood it, and none but themselves could be wronged. History records that Mr. Paine and Jefferson were ever after bound heart and hand together. Jefferson confided in the most faithful heart of the world. But after Mr. Paine died, it was wrong for Mr. Jefferson to take advantage of the silence of death and claim the document. It was the wickedness of vanity and a narrow mind that would direct to be carved on his tombstone, "The author of the Declaration of Independence." For his own name's sake, it ought to be struck out with some friendly chisel. It is as painful for me to write this as it would be to receive the news of the death of a dear friend, who had died with some curse upon his character. But while we look with compassion, let us tell the truth.

At first, Mr. Jefferson did not write himself down the author of the Declaration, and there seems to be a growth in this like all other things. Here are the different stages:

Now, he never acknowledged that he was the author of it in any of his works before the death of Mr. Paine. He gave several full accounts of the whole transaction, and calls on Heaven and earth to witness the truth of his statements. About the time Mr. Paine dies he says he can make no personal claim to it. Ten years after Mr. Paine's death, he very ambiguously claims it, as if his pen refused to write it, and drops his oath. But[271] twelve years after Mr. Paine's death, and he now in his eightieth year, he first says he drew it. Was he too modest to affirm it till he had got into his dotage? The reader must answer. It is with painful feelings I record the above facts. "But they are too true, and the more is the pity." But to proceed.

Mr. Jefferson could not have followed so closely Common Sense in the production of the Declaration of Independence, if he had studied it for a whole year with this special purpose in view. For, the style he could not have imitated; the figures of speech he could not have adopted; the impassioned eloquence would have stuck to the dry leaves; the exact order would have been missed; the fine shades of sentiment would have been blotted out; the complex ideas he would have failed to grasp; its architectural plan he could not have idealized; and its construction would never have arisen from the chaos of scattered materials which he would have gleaned. And, above all, the personal character of Mr. Paine would have been left out. He would have failed in every one of these things. And why? Want of mental similarity thereto. This, and nothing else.

I will sum up his mentality as I find it in his writings. I have given you Mr. Paine's already. In this I shall be brief, speaking only of those powers which would be incompatible with, or necessary to, the production of the Declaration.

Mr. Jefferson was a zealous partisan. Mr. Paine was a consummate statesman. Here was the great difference between the two men. Those qualities of the mind which produce the former are very unlike those which[272] produce the latter. The former mind must be narrow and selfish, the latter broad and generous. This will take in the whole world, that but a small portion of it. The partisan has an understanding subject to the vice and discipline of cunning; the statesman has an understanding subject to the noblest and most generous affections. It was this which made Mr. Jefferson such a grand success as a party leader, and that, too, which perhaps saved the nation from passing into the hands of the monarchists. Without these consummate powers of the partisan, it would have been impossible for Mr. Jefferson to have taken command of the people, to have organized his party, to have marshaled his forces, and with his army of followers to have put royalty under his heel. How unlike Washington and John Adams, who preceded him. Hamilton, who would toast a president of America and give three cheers for George the Third of England, ruled Washington and governed the nation. John Adams, who was so beguiled with royalty and the British constitution, could not heartily sympathize with the people; the dupe of his own passions, he was unfit to be the ruler of a free people. But Jefferson, while secretary under Washington, began to form his party and draw his party lines. Through Freneau he drove Washington to cry out: "By God, I had rather be in my grave than in my present situation!" And, afterward, the party he was marshaling made John Adams, then president of the United States, desert his post for seven months, at the most trying crisis of this government. But the cold, unfeeling partisanship of the great democrat saved the nation.

The other crowning difference between the two men[273] is, Mr. Paine had extraordinary genius, Mr. Jefferson had not; and by genius I mean a lively constructive and comprehensive mind, one that can generalize facts and deduce principles therefrom, one that can idealize and build in the imagination what it would put into material shape or on paper. If this comparison be true (and the reader is at liberty to bring facts to contradict it), then Mr. Jefferson could not produce the Declaration for want of capacity.

The Declaration is the work of a master. It is the work of one with great experience in the art of composition, one who produced the whole in the ideal before he touched pen to paper, and one who followed plan and specifications with unerring precision. It is a work of the most finished rhetoric, and produced with such skill as to defy adverse criticism. It shows vast labor and time bestowed upon its execution. In its mechanism I have never seen its equal in all my reading and study. It is the most masterly work of genius I ever saw in composition. It stands alone in the world of letters. There is nothing its equal which has come down to us from the ages, and I know of no one save Thomas Paine capable of producing it. That he was a master in the art of composition, no one can dispute, and he frequently takes pains to give the principles which reveal his success; here is one of them, to be found in his Letter to the Abbe Raynal: "To fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question, and nothing else, is the true criterion of writing," See a fine passage on this point in the introduction to the same letter. Now[274] Jefferson had not the genius to produce the Declaration.

If we look also at several passages in the Declaration we can only feel their full force after knowing the previous career of Mr. Paine as Junius in England. Take for example the two paragraphs, 24 and 25, the one of the king and the other of the "British brethren." We see in the one the proud disdain and haughty contempt for the tyrant; in the other that tender sympathy for the English people, with a sly thrust at the Scotch, and then the wounded affection which comes from betrayal of friendship—"the last stab to agonizing affection." And then regathering himself from the affliction of a broken heart, he exclaims, "Manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren." But no, this can not be done, and in the next breath he says, "we must endeavor to forget our former love for them;" and then comes the wail of anguish in the loss of his native country, "We might have been a great and a free people together, but a communication of grandeur and of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so." He now bends beneath the hand of fate and cries out, "I acquiesce in our eternal separation," but persist in denouncing it. This is the very picture of Mr. Paine's own heart. It is a pitch of enthusiasm and anguish which Mr. Jefferson had neither circumstance in his life nor capacity in his soul to work himself up to. It is neither art nor contrivance, it is the recorded beating of his own heart, the sequel to his previous life.

Take again the passage on human slavery. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself." It is[275] well known that Mr. Paine, before he wrote Common Sense, attracted the eyes of the world to him by denouncing human slavery in the most impassioned eloquence. This piece he termed "Serious Thoughts," etc. Herein he hopes when the Declaration is made that "our first gratitude to the Almighty may be shown by an act of Continental legislation, which shall put a stop to the importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their freedom." And he says, long afterward, to the French inhabitants of Louisiana who wished the power to import and enslave Africans, "Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice?" But the person who wrote the passage on slavery in the original draft of the Declaration could never have kept a slave in bondage, if any thing can be gathered from the nobility, the manliness, the justice, and the philanthropy of its spirit. But Jefferson, while he has left on record his opposition in words to slavery, has left also on record his acts to contradict both them and the Declaration. I here draw the veil over Jefferson as a slaveholder.

While Mr. Jefferson was far above the average mind, yet from his mental make-up, either in his head, heart, character, or capacity, he could not be the author of the Declaration of Independence. Neither in the circumstances of his previous life nor personal history, neither in the heart nor the head, can we find a foundation for the famous document. I know of but one man American born, at that day, with sufficient genius to write it—Benjamin Franklin—and he would have[276] failed in the style and language, and especially in those fine strokes of the affection.[A]

For Mr. Paine to write the Declaration and be ready to hand it to the chairman of the committee, is characteristic of the man. He did the same thing at the "Thatched House" tavern meeting in England in 1791. Mr. Horne Tooke who signed the Address and Declaration as chairman of the meeting, received the document privately from the hand of Mr. Paine, and had Mr. Tooke not afterward disclaimed the authorship of it when charged upon him, Mr. Paine would never have revealed the secret. It was revealed in this manner:[277] Mr. Tooke having spoken in commendation of the Declaration which he signed "was jocularly accused of praising his own work, and to free him from this embarrassment [says Mr. Paine], and the repeated trouble of mentioning the author, as he has not failed to do, I make no hesitation in saying, I drew up the publication," etc. Now, Mr. Paine was never guilty of praising his own work, and nowhere can I find that he ever praised the Declaration of Independence as a work, or that he ever mentioned Junius but once. [B]Had Mr. Jefferson been the author of the Declaration, Mr. Paine no doubt would have called it "A masterly performance."

And thus it is, his hand is seen, though not publicly acknowledged, in all those first principles upon which the fabric of our government rests. And it was the peculiarity of this great man to do the work, and let others carry off the honors.

Note A.

Truly speaking, there is no original Declaration in existence. There are several "original" Declarations extant, all differing somewhat. John Adams had one, Benjamin Franklin, it is said, had one in England.[278] Richard Henry Lee and others had "originals," all in manuscript. The one I have followed may be found in Marshall's Life of Washington, and does not differ, only in a few minor respects, from the one in Jefferson's works, Washington edition. The real original was destroyed as soon as copied, and we have only nature to guide us in the study of one which is almost a faithful copy.

Note B.

In 1787, with regard to the Scotch and the Hanover succession, Paine says: "The present reign, by embracing the Scotch, has tranquillized and conciliated the spirit that disturbed the two former reigns. Accusations were not wanting at that time to reprobate the policy as tinctured with ingratitude toward those who were the immediate means of the Hanover succession." This policy is what so embittered Junius toward the Scotch. See his letter to the king (No. 35), in which he says: "Nor do I mean to condemn the policy of giving some encouragement to the novelty of their affections for the House of Hanover." Now, Paine says, in connection with the above quotation, which parallels with Junius: "The brilliant pen of Junius was drawn forth, but in vain. It enraptured without convincing; and though in the plentitude of its rage it might be said to give elegance to bitterness, yet the policy survived the blast." Fifteen years had obliterated the prejudice of Paine toward the Scotch.

For this mention of the Scotch by Mr. Paine, in his Prospects on the Rubicon, which had escaped my notice, I am indebted to the critical eye of Wm. Henry Burr, of Washington City.

[279]

GRAND OUTLINES OF THOMAS PAINE'S LIFE.

Were I to write the biography of Thomas Paine, I should, with a bold hand, transcend the low office of a chronicler, and hand him down in history thus:

Thomas Paine was of Quaker origin. In this he inherited more than paternal flesh and blood, more than family form and feature: he had transmitted to him the principles of George Fox—principles which were, when Mr. Paine was born, more than a hundred years old. These were a reliance on the internal evidences of the conscience, prompting to moral action and to the love of God. In this the shadow of Fox fell athwart the Scriptures. The internal light was with him greater than that which shone down on the centuries from Jesus of Nazareth. The religions, and creeds, and opinions of the world were to be brought to the bar of conscience for trial, and "the motions of the spirit"—not the teachings of the Bible—were to be taken in evidence. His principles were universal in the heart of man—not particular in any special book.

To these religious principles was added simplicity of conduct in all the ways of life. In religious or civil affairs, whether at home or abroad, with his fellow-man or his God, he was to obey the behests of nature, and[280] not of man. To avoid the extravagance of dress, to walk with dignity and grace, to deal uprightly, to love mercy, to rely on the light within, to train the heart to courage and the head to understanding, became the chief aim of all the followers of Fox. The consequence was, they never bent the knee to the forms of worship, nor uncovered the head to the forms of fashion. To the Quaker, a virtuous, upright, and honorable laborer was of as much consequence, in the line of respect and the eyes of God, as the noblest lord of the realm. No outward show, no pageantry of church or court, could awaken him to respect. He looked within: there he felt the movings of the spirit, there he saw the image of his God, there he went in to worship.

What must be the result of this religion? It must transmit self-reliance, fortitude, courage, and morality to the individual, and a sympathy for mankind which will grant the equality of rights, and produce a contempt for outward show, for outward forms and ceremonies. These characteristics will be transmitted to children's children, and democracy is born into a race of men before they know it, or before they know how or why. But here an effect must not be taken for a cause. It was the democratic principle abroad in the world which produced the Quaker religion, not this religion which produced it, and this religion became afterward an engine for thrusting democracy more deeply into the constitution of man. It had a work to do, and it did it by inheritance. It was the democracy of Cromwell, "that accomplished President of England," which could sympathize with the religion of Fox, which could see no wrong in the man, and which could[281] protect him from persecution. On the other hand, it was the religion of Penn, which would insult the pride of nobles by not uncovering itself, and bowing in the presence of royalty.

Now, every religion has a birth, growth, culmination, and subsequent decay. It culminates in the production of some great man, who represents, and at the same time transcends, the causes which produced him, and who afterward abandons the religion which gave him birth. It has then fulfilled its work, and will eventually die. Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of the Jewish religion; Luther, of the Catholic. The minor religions obey the same law. Unitarianism culminated in Theodore Parker; Quakerism, in Thomas Paine. At the culminating point, the typical child which is born, grows up, and comes out from or tramples upon the religion which produced him, and is called a "come-outer," a "protester," an "image-breaker," or an "infidel." But he has been produced by causes over which he had no control, and is the result for which they existed. With him the religion declines, and eventually will expire.

The Quaker religion culminated on the 29th of January, 1737, in the little town of Thetford, and county of Norfolk, England, in the birth of Thomas Paine. Here Nature deserted her connection with the meeting, and took up her abode in the soul of the child. She has concentrated herein the democracy of centuries, and the special forces of a hundred years. The great principles of democracy have all been gathered here, and organized into a power which will move the world.

Nature has also given a hardy physical constitution,[282] without corruption of blood or bodily disease, and this health of body shall carry him safe through the three-score and ten, with a fraction of years to spare. Let us now follow the lines of his life.

A religious antagonism between father and mother, both before and after his birth, strengthened the child's mind, for we grow strong only through antagonism. But he inclined to the Quaker principles of the father, who had him privately named, and did not suffer him to be baptized, though he was afterward confirmed by a bishop, through the influence of an aunt. But the outward acts of omission or commission, by priest or parent, counted nothing in the life of the child; for he had thoughts of his own as soon as old enough to reflect, and he had great gifts of inspiration, for there came to him thoughts "which would bolt into the mind of their own accord." Of this intuition or inspiration he says: "I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have." Here those inherited principles, the result of previous ages of thought, concentrated within the child's mind, began to teach him, and he listened to their instruction at an early age. "I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age," says he, "hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church [not of the Quaker meeting], upon the subject of what is called redemption by the death of the son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps, for I perfectly recollect the spot, I[283] revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any other way; and, as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons." Here the young child's mind was shocked, and the "voice of God" within taught him much wisdom—more than he could get in all the sermons of the bishops.

His father, from Quaker principles, gave him moral instruction which never left him in after life. He sent him also, to a grammar school, where he learned some Latin and became acquainted with the subject matter of all the Latin books used in school; but this was clandestinely done, as the Quakers were opposed to the books in which the language was taught. He says he did not study Latin for the above reason, and because he had no taste for it. But at school and at home he gained a useful stock of learning, "the bent of his mind being to science."

But when the lad was thirteen he was taken from school, as it had long been too heavy a tax upon his father, and he was put to work in the shop as stay-maker. He enters into full sympathy with his father, and works by his side three years. The "good father," as he afterward calls him, pays out no more for the son's education; he has already been "sorely pressed" for this purpose.

But during these three years at the stay-making business, many thoughts have "bolted into his mind," strange "voluntary visitors," talking of war, the army[284] and navy. These thoughts have been "heated by the false heroism" of his former master, and have set the lad's mind on fire, burning up all peace and contentment. So in the year 1753, a little the rise of sixteen, he began to carve out his own fortune by going to sea in the privateer, "King of Prussia." The "good father" must have "thought him lost," but this was a phantom of the imagination in both father and son. There is a principle in him which shall hold him steady on land and sea. Restless and venturesome, driven by a force he wots not of, the little island of Britain could not confine him, much less his father's shop. Here he satisfies the war spirit, and tinges his skeptical mind with a slight shade of sailors' superstition. Yet with this adventure of "false heroism against him" in setting out in life, he passes through a schooling with the world which shall make for him mightily in the end. He never considered this beginning in his favor, and has said but little about it. I can not find out how long he lived on the sea, but he turns up at Sandwich five or six years afterward as master stay-maker. Here he married to Mary Lambert, a young woman of much personal worth, who, dying a year afterward, leaves a shade on his mind for life.

But his employment did not suit the turn of his mind, and near the close of 1763 he entered the employ of government as exciseman. For a faithful performance of his duty he was dismissed from this office, because the impartial performance of that duty would expose him to the censure of the power which invested him with office. I say for a faithful performance of his duty he was dismissed, and for these reasons I say it:

Honest and capable he has wounded the corrupt heart of the government. Too proud to retract, too honest to confess, he is turned out of office to brood over his offense. The government has also stabbed him to the heart, and the stab reaches to the most tender chords, his personal pride, his honor. This sets on fire his whole nature, yet darkly secretive it becomes molten lava in his own breast. It will some day burst forth a consuming fire. "Vengeance is mine," says the war-spirit within him. "Bide thy time," says caution. "Keep thy own council," says secretiveness. He has now an object in view, his resolution is made.

"I will strike the dagger to the heart of profligate lords and courtiers. I will trample on the pride of kings, and fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man." He now steps forth to begin his life's work.

He waits not long to brood over his miseries, but immediately sets off for London to inform the mind. A little the rise of twenty-eight he enters fully into the study of the natural sciences, and teaches in an[286] academy to defray expenses. He attends the philosophical lectures of Mr. Martin and Ferguson, and becomes acquainted with Dr. Bevis, the astronomer and member of the Royal Society. He made himself master of the globes and orrery, and acquired a knowledge of natural philosophy, a term which then took in a wide field of science. We find him well acquainted with chemistry, and also the higher mathematics. Here he doubtless studied French, for afterward we find when called from an active life to visit France he could read but not speak the language. Yet this, as well as rhetoric and law, and many other branches of learning, he could acquire while in the employ of government.

It is evident that while at London this year he threw his whole soul into study.

How easily he could have risen to preferment in any branch of natural science must have been well known to himself when coming in contact with these great minds of his age. But he has other work on hand.

There are many reasons for concluding he became acquainted with Franklin this year, among them these five:

Mr. Paine now makes application to be restored to the office from which he was dismissed. On his petition was written: "July 4th, 1766; to be restored on a proper vacancy." The Fourth of July is ominous. Great events are in store for this young man within the next ten years. He quits the society of the learned and the halls of learning, and goes down at the most hopeful and ambitious period of life into this "inferior office of the revenue" to serve for the "petty pittance of less than fifty pounds a year." Does he go there to satisfy his taste for learning, or to get[288] rich? No; but to reach the object of his ambition. He goes there to spy out the meanness, the corruption, the villainy, the abandoned profligacy of the British Government.

The British Government has now a masked enemy who is coming in and going out at the nation's doors, not a spy upon her liberties, but her villainies, a foe to the one and a friend to the other.

But he has not forsaken his studies, he is just entering upon them. Taking up English history he makes it a study, which becomes the history of the civilized world, for it reaches out into Spain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, America, India, and Rome. Mr. Paine followed its lines into all countries. He also made a study of her laws and the principles of her constitution, and read the French commentators thereon, at the same time he had an eye to politics and the personal history of her living public men. For three years and a half, together with his public duties, he labored to lay a foundation for a long and active literary life.

Do you ask how I know this? I answer, because when he came to America he was thus accomplished, and when he went into the excise office he was not.

It is now six years since he first entered the employ of government, one year of which time he spent in the arts and sciences, and nearly four as student, officer, and detective for the sons of freedom throughout the world. He is, by nature, a detective of the highest order. He has formed the friendship of Benjamin Franklin, who, at the court, is also a detective, and what he knows of America and the English court shall[289] now be made known. He has written "numberless trifles" for the public press to get his hand in, and now, having a definite plan formed, and a noble object in view, he opens the new year of 1769, with something which indeed is new. It was the first Letter of "Junius," named after Junius Brutus, who stabbed Cæsar for having usurped the liberties of Rome. Junius thrust home his dagger. This stab went to the heart of a rotten court, and, since Cromwell, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to England. The people read it with mingled sentiments of fear and hope; the partisan read it with fear and rage; the scholar, with feelings of respect; the courtesan, with pallor on his cheek, and trembling in his limbs; and the king and ministers, with sentiments of torture and frenzy. But when Franklin took it up, with what feelings of hope and pride did he read and re-read the paragraphs in regard to the colonies, which began with this sentence: "A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the colonies from their duty as subjects, and from their natural affection to their common country." This is the key note to the Declaration of Independence, which shall appear seven years afterward. The dagger was driven to the hilt. Paine long afterward said: "The cause of America made me an author."

Three years, to a day, and he is Junius no more. His object was revolution on British soil, the ministers brought to trial, and the king deposed. He called for a leader in vain—he wrote against fate. But the work must go on. He consecrates himself anew to the cause; he dedicates his life to the good of man. Friend, kindred, wife, and the dear, native land, weigh lightly[290] in the balance against the "business of a world." He leaves them all. His mind has been liberated from the prejudices of an island by the study of astronomy, and a life on the sea, and schooled by disappointment in political strife, he turns his face to the West.

He has left his second wife; parted with her forever. Mr. Paine was a man of strong personal attachment; he had deep and lasting affection. But what was wife to the "business of a world." Long after this separation, in his old age, after he had gone through two revolutions, the American and the French, Mrs. Paine, though not agreeing with Thomas in religious opinions, on hearing him disrespectfully spoken of because he had written the Age of Reason, indignantly left the company of his revilers. And Mr. Paine, when asked why did you leave your wife, would respond: "I had a cause; it is no business of any body." True to her during life, and she to him, there is more in this than has been revealed.

But before he leaves England there is a definite plan formed, it is revolution and reconciliation; but if not reconciliation, it is revolution and independence. Tyranny shall be destroyed at all hazards. He prepares himself for war, "and if the English Government wins in the contest," says Paine, "she wins from me my life." He leaves all his world's goods for the support of his wife, his capital stock is his pen. Franklin understands it all. He knows full well this son of a Quaker, this Junius of the quill, and he feels the need of him for America's sake, and that scientific head of his thinks soundly on the work which shall tell for the ages. Franklin was then acknowledged to be the[291] greatest man in the world, as he was; and the same judgment which never led him wrong, and which made for him renown, pronounced also on the character and abilities of Thomas Paine. These two men perfectly agreed in politics and religion, and this covers the whole realm of opinion. Their origin and their leading traits of character were the same; secretive, cautious, courageous, and proud of heart, witty and sarcastic, deeply read in the history of the world and of the human heart, having come out of the loins of toil and the lap of poverty, the history of their lives blend and conspire to unite their affections and direct their labors. What these two men shall do, the world is yet too stupid to think about. But their plan is made in England, and under the patronage of the one the other is introduced to America.

If you truly believe Benjamin Franklin to be a fool, let me tell you how you can demonstrate it. Prove to the world that Thomas Paine began his literary life in America, and that Franklin intrusted the greatest work of a nation, and the business of a world to an obscure English exciseman, without previous history or character, and your point is made. Yet this is just what chronologists would have us believe; but history delves beneath recorded events.

Franklin was then an old man, he had almost reached his three-score years and ten; Paine was thirty-one years and twelve days the younger. Franklin has fifteen years of life and labor before him yet; Paine thirty-four. The young scion of Democracy is growing up from the same root by the side of the old stalk. Here youth supports old age, and the boughs interlock, and they shall thus stand firm,[292] supported by each other against the terrible shocks which are yet to come during the "hurricane months" of political revolution. "I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with me," said Junius; but Franklin had been taught of nature, and the secret was kept.

Near the close of the year 1774, Junius lands in America, and begins to dwell in the capital of the colonies, Philadelphia. Many things conspired to take him there: it was the Quaker city of brotherly love; it was Franklin's home; and, above all, the Continental Congress sat there.

Immediately, that is, within two months after landing, he is employed as editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. He did not write as editors do, but his contributions appeared over the signature of Atlanticus—a name which, like Junius, was the shadow of the writer. From the first he wielded a mighty pen, and his contributions were noticed and highly commended. The following extract is from one of his first efforts in America, and consequently stands almost a year closer to Junius than Common Sense. As it shows the hand of a master, long trained at the art, I give it here, as a perfect sample of Junius:

"Though nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home. Return the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste of receiving visitants in her dressing-room; she locks and bolts up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as[293] if not only resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of Adam. He that would view nature in her undress, and partake of her internal treasures, must proceed with the resolution of a robber, if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation to follow her to the caverns: the external earth makes no proclamation of the internal stores, but leaves to chance and industry the discovery of the whole. In such gifts as nature can annually recreate she is noble and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of her fortunes, but watches over the capital with the care of a miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth in caves of utter darkness; the hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps, mould in the chests, like the riches of the necromancer's cell. It must be very pleasant to an adventurous speculatist to make excursions into these gothic regions, and in his travels he may possibly come to a cabinet, locked up in some rocky vault, whose treasures shall reward his toil, and enable him to shine, on his return, as splendidly as nature herself."

The massacre of Lexington takes place the 19th of April, this year. Paine had been but a few months in America. Franklin is in the middle of the Atlantic, on his way home. He arrives in May, and the Declaration of Independence is now in existence, but only conceived in thought. It will have to bide its time, locked up there in the brain; besides, events are yet to happen which shall be put in it, and the country is not yet prepared for it. The people have no unanimity of sentiment. Congress is weak and trifling; it wants reconciliation,[294] and permits the British to land troops, to destroy the liberties of the people, and to steal the powder of the colonies. The country must be roused to sentiments of patriotism, and the magazines must be filled with powder, to support the Declaration of Independence, before it appears to the world.

Mr. Paine now sets about the work. He wishes the American people to be consistent—to not talk of liberty without acting it out; and he gives them "Serious Thoughts" on negro slavery to think about. It is a feeler, sent out to test public sentiment, and to put the people to thinking in the right direction. He struck—as he always did—when the iron was hot; and, between the hammer and the iron, sparks were emitted which kept burning in America for ninety years. His words were: "Stop the importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their freedom." He believed that the justice of Heaven would some day blot it out. This piece brought Mr. Paine many friends and high hopes. Common Sense shortly afterward came from the press, to stir up revolution in the hearts of the people.

He now turns his attention to chemistry, experiments in the art of making saltpeter cheaply, publishes his researches, and organizes a company to gratuitously supply the public magazines with powder. He is boldly working out his plan. He gives Common Sense to each colony by copyright, and the poor, ignorant dolts of that age and this age wonder why he did not make himself rich in the sale of it. The fools must learn that he was making patriots, not pounds and pence, to serve his purpose and plan. Franklin smiles at the work as it goes[295] on, for to effect a revolution the country will be sorely in need of powder and patriotism. But Washington they can rely on for this latter. When others fail whose mouths were always open to profess liberty, he shall stand firm; when they desert the cause, he shall strike the harder and more nobly.

When war begins public sentiment changes quickly. The American people are now ready for war, made so within a few months. Congress comes together with more strength in its back-bone, more pluck in its heart; and, on the 7th of June, a committee of five is appointed to draft a Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine makes a concise reproduction of Common Sense; constructs it upon mechanical principles, so that it will first convince the understanding, and, having entered the head, will soon reach the heart, for it is made on purpose to storm the passions of men. He privately hands it to Thomas Jefferson. It is quite fortunate that he was chairman of that committee. But in the act the honor of Thomas Paine is pledged for secrecy; it is an honor without spot, and he locks up the act forever in his own breast with Junius.

The Declaration is read on the streets amid cheers; it is read in churches with thanksgiving and praise; it is read in the legislative halls of the states, and at the firesides of patriots; it is read in the camp of the soldier, and by officers to their battalions; it is proclaimed by the congress of the new nation, and from the house-tops to all mankind. It is the second child of a man who has on his hands the "BUSINESS OF A WORLD."

Now let the nation buckle on its armor, and look forward to peace won only in blood. The Declaration[296] of Independence is an easy thing compared with what is to come. We shall see this man's work in war.

Washington is at the head of the army; John Adams, whose head is a perfect battery of war forces, is at the head of the board of war. Upon this man's office depends more than any other in the nation, for he is Secretary of War. Mr. Paine has no office, no power of position, not known to the nation, nor to the world, for Common Sense was thought to be the production of Franklin or John Adams. Thomas Paine had great faith in Washington, not so much in Lee. John Adams distrusted Washington, and called him "a dolt," but put great confidence in Lee, an English deserter, and more than an American traitor. Paine never misjudged a man; John Adams never judged a man rightly. As colonies, this country has done much for independence; as a nation, nothing. She is now to be tried.

Paine enlists as a soldier with the "Flying Camp."

The British fleet is repulsed from Charleston, S.C., and can not land her army of English, Scotch, and Hessians; but now, in August, she effects a landing on Long Island. Washington is there with twenty thousand men with guns, but no soldiers in arms. He loses a battle on Long Island, and retreats therefrom. In October, he loses the battle of White Plains. In November, Fort Washington, with two thousand six hundred men, and our best cannon and arms are taken by the British command, and Fort Lee falls, leaving commissary and quartermasters' stores and cannon in the hands of the British. Washington now retreats through the Jerseys, the British hard after. As they[297] retreat, Paine writes at night on a drum-head. In nineteen days, "often in sight and within cannon-shot of each other, the rear of the one employed in pulling down bridges, and the van of the other in building them up," Washington effected a march of ninety miles. The weather was severe, the roads bad, and his army without blankets, tents, or provisions. In four months his army dwindles from twenty thousand down to less than three thousand. In the meantime, the Indians have been committing ravages on the frontier, and in the heart of the country a great party demand absolute submission. The Quakers oppose the war. There is no money to pay soldiers, nor clothing to put on them; they are poorly armed, and there is but little powder to put in the guns. Congress has only voted for battalions, and there is an enemy "in the nation's bowels" that votes can not resist. After Congress had voted for battalions, it took its flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore, destroying public credit and throwing upon Washington the responsibility of directing all things relative to the operations of the war. The fate of the nation rests in the balance; the beam is not equally poised, the nation is going down. Washington is beyond the Delaware; the Hessians are at Trenton. He makes a stand to look into the faces of but "twenty-four hundred men strong enough to be his companions." And on the 20th of December, he tells a voting and cowardly Congress: "Ten days more will put an end to this army." These are "black days."

Where now are the hopes of America? Where are the committeemen who took the Declaration of Independence into Congress? Franklin has gone to[298] France to work for the nation; Jefferson has refused to go with him, and is at home in Virginia safe with his slaves. But where is John Adams, who said that Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence? Where is the chief representative from New England, this "Colossus" of debate, this chief of the war committee? Where is John Adams in this darkest hour of his country's trial? He has deserted her; he went home on the 13th of October after the first reverse, and is "brave in his home by the sea," but will not come back till four months are past, and Washington makes himself famous. The poor dupe to his passions. Lee he loved, Washington he hated; a patriot this, a traitor that. But where is the man who has on hand the business of a world? We shall see. In this midnight of the revolution he has been writing something. He has been in the army as a soldier, but has found time to write. It is his first crisis, and it runs thus:

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation left with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." He produces one of his most masterly pieces. He appeals to Heaven, and prays for some Jersey maid, like Joan of Arc, to spirit up her countrymen. He deals the king and Lord Howe heavy blows, deftly laid on; and of the tory, he says: "Good God! what is he? Every tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested[299] fear is the foundation of toryism." Having reviewed the enemies of the country he then "turns with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood and are determined to stand the matter out." ... "Let them call me rebel and welcome," says he, "I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the miseries of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man." In this he also pays a tribute to Washington, in which he says: "God has given him a mind that can flourish upon care." "The heart that feels not now is dead, the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back now." "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength by distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm will pursue his principle unto death." "By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils—a ravaged country, a depopulated city, habitations without safety, and slavery without hope; our homes turned into barracks and bawdy houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented."

This little pamphlet was dated Dec. 23, 1776. It was read at the head of the regiments which made up the small remnant of Washington's army. On Christmas night, Washington recrosses the Delaware, and strikes[300] the Hessians at Trenton the next morning. His horse is shot under him, but he wins his first battle and takes nearly a thousand prisoners, eight cannon, and twelve hundred small arms. A few days afterward, Washington struck the British at Princeton, who lost in killed and wounded two hundred, and of prisoners the Americans took two hundred and thirty. Many of Washington's best soldiers being now quite barefoot and badly clad, and the winter weather severe, he closed the first campaign made glorious for freedom by the pen of that man who had undertaken the "business of a world."

But in the fall and winter before this his pen was not idle. The new Constitution of Pennsylvania had distracted the State, and Paine tries to bring order out of chaos. He is not unmindful of the Quakers, who will not obey the teachings of their religion and remain neutral, and it is a severe chastisement he gives them, for he talks to them as one having authority.

Five weeks after the first campaign was ended John Adams came back to Congress, not willing to be called "a sunshine patriot" in his home by the sea. But it was not cowardice which made this chief of the war committee desert his post in the most trying months of his country—it was downright meanness of the temper. I mention him again here because in April this year, 1777, he makes a motion that Thomas Paine be made secretary to the committee on foreign affairs. Mr. Paine went on duty. This was, doubtless, brought about by Benjamin Franklin, who is now in France to secure the favors of the government, and as secrecy is the success of diplomacy, Franklin wants Paine to[301] receive his dispatches, for in him he can trust. It was while in this office, as detective, that he was made acquainted with the misconduct of Silas Deane. The stores which Mr. Deane obtained from France were a gift to this country, but he afterward brought in a demand for them, fraudulently pretending that he had purchased them. This was in December, 1778. On the 29th of this month Mr. Paine began a series of letters in the Pennsylvania Packet entitled, "Common Sense to the Public on Mr. Deane's Affairs." He did this to protect the Government, and took the responsibility upon himself to save other parties. He began by saying of Mr. Deane, "as he rose like a rocket he would fall like a stick." Three letters had made their appearance when Mr. Paine was commanded to appear before Congress. The President inquired of him, "Did you write this piece?" "I am the author of that piece," responded Paine. "And this? and this?" "I am." "You may retire." The Congress tried to dismiss him. It was a tie vote. The next day, the 8th of January, 1779, Mr. Paine wrote to Congress as follows: "As I can not consistently with my character as a freeman, submit to be censured unheard, therefore to preserve that character and maintain that right, I think it my duty to resign the office of secretary of the committee for foreign affairs, and I do hereby resign the same."

He now opens up on Silas Deane a terrible battery of invective, and exposed the fraud so completely, that Congress became ashamed of supporting him, and Mr. Deane absconded to France, and afterward died in England, it is said, of remorse, after taking poison. But[302] Mr. Paine became the "victim of his integrity," to save the money of the government, which the soldiers were sorely in need of, and to bravely push forward the "business of a world."

But, during this time, he has also written Nos. II, III, and IV of The Crisis. No. II is to Lord Howe, dated January 13, 1777. This is one of his finest pieces of satire, which is also filled with sentiments of patriotism, courage, and hope. These periodical productions are among his best efforts, and they were continued till the war ended. There are sixteen in all. They were written to produce patriotism in the hearts of the people. No. VIII, I think, is one of the finest productions I ever read. It is addressed to the people of England, and is the sad wailing of Junius.

In December of 1778, he puts forth the proposition to apply steam to navigation—the first thought of the kind in America, which came in advance of the fact about eight years, and in this America was the first in the world.

Mr. Paine offers, at this time, to be one of a party of four or five to set fire to the British fleet in the Delaware. But the three men like him can not be found.

In 1779 he is appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

In 1780 he is dissuaded and prevented from going to England to get out, in secret, a publication to stir up revolution there. The fates will not permit him to try Junius over again. It is as well.

But the spring of this year was marked with an accumulation of misfortunes to our army. The defense of Charleston had failed, and, besides this, there was no[303] money to pay the soldiers. A general gloom rested on the whole country, patriotism was at its ebb, and petitions were abundant to exempt the people from paying taxes. Government had neither money nor credit, and things had come to a "dead lock." Washington wrote to the Assembly of Pennsylvania. The doors were shut, and it fell to Thomas Paine, the clerk, to read the letter.

"In this letter the naked truth of things was unfolded. Among other informations, the general said that, notwithstanding his confidence in the attachment of the army to the cause of the country, the distresses of it, from the want of every necessary which men could be destitute of, had arisen to such a pitch that the appearances of mutiny and discontent were so strongly marked on the countenances of the army, that he dreaded the event of every hour."

After the letter was read, a despairing silence pervaded the hall. Nobody spoke for a considerable time. At last a member of much fortitude arose and said: "If the account in that letter is a true state of things, and we are in the situation there represented, it appears to me in vain to contend the matter any longer. We may as well give up the matter first as last." Another man arose and said: "Well, well, don't let the house despair; if things are not so well as we wish, we must endeavor to make them better," and then moved an adjournment.

What shall now be done? Where is the god of battle, that he has deserted America? When all others fail, both in council and in war, who shall be able to cheer the heart and lift up the head of the nation? We[304] shall see. Thomas Paine draws his salary; he writes a stirring appeal for a private subscription; heads it with five hundred dollars, "his mite, and will increase it as far as the last ability will enable him to go." This subscription is to be a donation to carry on the war. In nine days the subscription "amounts to four hundred pounds hard money, and one hundred and one thousand three hundred and sixty pounds continental." The subscribers now meet and form a bank, with a capital basis of three hundred thousand pounds, real money, for the purpose of supplying the army; and the country is once more saved by the man who has on his hands "the business of a world."

It is now the university of Pennsylvania makes itself honorable and famous by conferring on Thomas Paine the degree of Master of Arts. It is in 1780 this is done, and on the Fourth of July.

But more money must be had. A continental dollar is worth about one cent. "Hard money must be had," says Thomas Paine. But how shall it be obtained? By an appeal to the king of France. Paine now sets about the work. It is near the close of the year 1780. He takes up the pen and undisguisedly states the true case of the nation, and requests that France, either as a subsidy or a loan, will supply the United States with a million sterling, and continue that supply annually during the war. This letter was addressed to Count Vergennes, the French minister of foreign affairs. Paine, as soon as he had written it, showed it to M. Marbois, secretary to the French minister. His reply was: "A million sent out of a nation exhausts it more than ten millions spent in it." But nothing[305] daunted he then took it to Ralph Isard, member of Congress from South Carolina. Isard said: "We will try and do something about it in Congress." Congress favored the letter, and it was thus made a memorial. But who shall now take it to France, and in person represent the situation and demand assistance, as set forth in this letter? Paine had his eye on the man when he went to the member from South Carolina with his letter. It was one of this state's noblest sons, Col. John Laurens, aid to Washington; for Paine loved the Laurenses, both father and son. Through Washington this son was named as agent. But he said: "No, appoint Colonel Hamilton." Congress refused. Now young Laurens states his case to Paine. He said he was acquainted with the military difficulties, but not at all acquainted with political affairs, nor with the resources of the country, "but if you will go with me, I will accept." Of course Paine will go, and that, too, without pay, never expecting a cent for it. Paine had planned his work well, he has got his man, the bravest heart of the land, and we shall now see the boldest act of diplomacy on record. For five weeks Paine had been about this work, and about the first of February, 1781, they sail for France. As soon as they reach Paris, Laurens promptly reports his arrival and business to Vergennes. It is in vain. "The formalities of court and the self-complaisancy of the minister, who would not be hurried, baffled him for more than two months." But this young son of war has a spirit to dare and a tutor to direct—who knows from long experience the stuff kings are made of. He will not be trifled with by subordinates; he will appeal[306] directly to the king. He declares this to the minister, who responds, "I am confounded with your audacity." This is more than Franklin would dare, who is there at court. There comes "a public lever." Louis XVI is there, and so is young Laurens, in uniform, his sword at his side. Now act well thy part, a nation's life dwells in thy words. He is presented to the king, who only expects the passing formalities of an introduction. But Laurens speaks: "I am just from the army of Washington. I know well its condition, it is fully set forth in this memorial;" and then touching his sword, he adds, with animation, "Unless speedy succor is sent to my country, the weapon I now wear at my side as the ally of your majesty, might be drawn as the subject of Great Britain against you and France." The king was struck dumb; but soon rallied himself and replied briefly, but favorably. He took the memorial, the money was granted, and Paine accompanied Laurens home with $2,500,000 in silver. The army is paid, fed, and clothed; Yorktown is attacked upon the strength of it; Cornwallis surrenders, and the British power is broken in this country forever, through those great causes put in motion and faithfully sustained by the man who had on his hands "THE BUSINESS OF A WORLD."

The great work of Thomas Paine is now nearly done in America, but mighty things are yet to be done for the world. The next year he writes his famous letter to the Abbe Raynal, and the Crisis, which guides the nation to honor. A few years of rest, in which he writes his Dissertation on Government, and other pieces; is elected a member of the Philosophical Society,[307] receives the hospitalities of Washington, and three thousand dollars from Congress for his ten years services in America, and he sails for France where he sees the fires of revolution beginning to kindle.

But he has taken care to provide wisdom for his country before he quits her shores. His far-reaching eye sees that a Federal Constitution will have to be formed for the states, and in 1786 he is careful to incorporate into his Dissertation on Government a Declaration of Rights. In this Declaration of Rights lies the foundation of the republic, and although not prefixed to the Federal Constitution at the time it was formed and adopted, a complete synopsis of it was afterward added as the ten first amendments thereto. Franklin has also come home to labor awhile, now more than eighty years old; and being chosen a delegate to the Federal Convention, Mr. Paine sailed for France the 16th of April, 1787, just a month before it convened. He has finished his work in America. This work he did faithfully and well. He is now fifty years old, and there are ten years of revolutionary work, and twenty-two of life before him yet.

He took with him to Paris the model of an iron bridge. He submits it to the Academy of Sciences. It is pronounced a success, if theory can be sustained by mathematical demonstration. He proposes an iron arch with a span of four hundred and eighty feet. But theory must be tested, and the next year he builds his bridge in an open field near Paddington, in England. Experiment said it was a success, but he got into gaol for debt on account of it. The bridge now spans the river Wear, at Sunderland. This iron arch[308] bridge was the first in the world. The principles are now seen in thousands of bridges in Europe and America; and if they could speak, each one would say: "I was born from the brain of Thomas Paine."

Two American merchants assist him to pay his debts, and he gets out of an English gaol in time to go over to France to witness the taking of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789. That "high altar and castle of despotism" fell at the bidding of those republican principles which he had dedicated his life to teach and maintain. It was a most fitting and grand event when Lafayette gave to Thomas Paine the key to the Bastile to present to Washington. It is now the property of this nation.

Mr. Burke the next year writes his "Reflections" on the French Revolution, and Mr. Paine returns in November, 1790, to answer the publication. In March, the first part of "The Rights of Man" appeared for this purpose. It was dedicated to Washington. In another year the second part appeared, dedicated to Lafayette. A hundred thousand copies of this work went into the hands of the people. It was translated into all the European languages, and was read by the poor and the rich, the high and the low; it became the companion alike of the vassal and his lord. In this he says: "The peer is exalted into the man. Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character which degrades it. It talks about its fine ribbon like a girl, and shows its garter like a child. A certain writer of antiquity says, 'When I[309] was a child I thought as a child, but when I became a man I put away childish things.'... The insignificance of a senseless word like duke, count, or earl, has ceased to please, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the bastile of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man." Aristocracy "is a law against every law of nature, and nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice and aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children five are exposed. Aristocracy has never but one child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast."... "By nature they are children, and by marriage they are heirs, but by aristocracy they are bastards and orphans."

"In taking up this subject," he says, "I seek no recompense; I fear no consequences. Fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man."... "Knowing my own heart, and feeling myself, as I now do, superior to all the skirmish of party, the inveteracy of interested or mistaken opponents, I answer not to falsehood or abuse."... "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person. My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

[310]Mr. Paine is now doing openly and boldly the work which Junius tried to do with less success. The same pen has now twenty years more experience; it has added wisdom, but lost a trifle of its vivacity; yet it has lost none of its terrible satire. Never did Junius use secretly such severe language toward the king as Mr. Paine now openly writes. Of the crown, he says: "It signifies a nominal office of a million a year, the business of which consists in receiving the money. Whether the person be wise or foolish, sane or insane, a native or a foreigner, matters not. The hazard to which this office is exposed in all countries, is not from any thing that can happen to the man, but from what may happen to the nation; the danger of its coming to its senses.... When we speak of the Crown now it means nothing; it signifies neither a judge nor a general; besides which it is the laws that govern, and not the man."

"It is time that nations should be rational, and not governed like animals, for the pleasure of their riders. To read the history of kings, a man would be almost inclined to suppose that government consisted in stag hunting, and that every nation paid a million a year to the huntsman. Man ought to have pride or shame enough to blush at being thus imposed upon, and when he feels his proper character he will.... It has cost England almost seventy millions sterling to maintain a family imported from abroad, of very inferior capacity to thousands in the nation. No wonder that jails are crowded, and taxes and poor-rates increased. Under such systems nothing is to be looked for but what has already happened; and, as to reformation,[311] whenever it comes, it must be from the nation, and not from the government."

In the above how one is reminded of Junius, when he says: "The original fault is in the government," and "there are many things which we ought to affirm can not be done by king, lords, and commons." "The ruin or prosperity of a state depends on the administration of its government." "Behold a nation overwhelmed with debt, her revenues wasted, her trade declining." That "a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but death." "And that if an honest man were permitted to approach a king, it would be matter of curious speculation how he would be received," if the king himself had "spirit enough to bid him speak freely, and understanding enough to listen to him with attention."

For the publication of this work in England many men were fined and imprisoned. Mr. Paine himself was tried and convicted, but having been elected a representative to the National Assembly of France, by the Department of Calais, he left England in September, 1792, and being afterward outlawed, never set foot on her soil again. Had it not been for this election to the National Assembly, he would have remained to contest in an English court the principles he had proclaimed. Twenty minutes after he left her shores forever, an order arrived at Dover, from which place he sailed, for his detention, but it was too late; there is yet a sublime deed to be done.

At Calais, France embraced him, and a daughter of the New Republic placed in his hat the national cockade. Mr. Paine is now entering the dark days of his[312] life. With what fortitude and manliness he shall pass through them we shall see. He takes his seat in the National Assembly. In this he addresses the people of France, and says; "I come not to enjoy repose. I commence my citizenship in the stormy hour of difficulties. Convinced that the cause of France is THE CAUSE OF ALL MANKIND, and that liberty can not be purchased by a wish, I gladly share with you the dangers and honors necessary to success.... Let us now look calmly and confidently forward, and success is certain. It is no longer the paltry cause of kings, or of this or that individual, that calls France and her armies into action. It is the great cause of ALL. It is the establishment of a new era that shall blot despotism from the earth, and fix, on the lasting principles of peace and citizenship the great REPUBLIC OF MAN."

France is declared a republic, and Mr. Paine is one of nine men to draft a new constitution. This work is done. In the meantime, charges are preferred against the king, and Louis XVI is brought to trial. Mr. Paine voted for the trial. The king is found guilty, and condemned to die. But he has now a friend in Thomas Paine. He speaks against the death penalty, and says:

"Citizen President: My hatred and abhorrence of monarchy are sufficiently known; they originate in principles of reason and conviction, nor, except with life, can they ever be extirpated; but my compassion for the unfortunate, whether friend or enemy, is equally lively and sincere." He then reviews the causes which brought him to trial, and pictures the deplorable condition he is in—condemns the constituent assembly,[313] rather than the unfortunate prisoner, and then asks: "What shall be done with this man?" He has now taken his own life in his hands, when he proffers to the King of France an asylum in America. Besides, he has a duty to perform for the United States, which now he offers his own life to fulfill. He has not forgotten the great feat of young Laurens, when he touched his sword in presence of this same king, demanding that aid which made his country free and independent, and which was granted. He therefore says: "It is to France alone, I know, that the United States of America owe that support which enabled them to shake off the unjust and tyrannical yoke of Britain. The ardor and zeal which she displayed to provide men and money, were the natural consequence of a thirst for liberty. But as the nation at that time, restrained by the shackles of her own government, could only act by means of a monarchical organ, this organ, whatever in other respects the object might be, certainly performed a good, a great action. Let, then, these United States be the safeguard and asylum of Louis Capet."

Marat cries out: "Paine is a Quaker," and the benevolence of this good man is whelmed over by the fierce and bloody sentiment of revenge. This is one of the sublime deeds which give us faith in man, but which appear at such wide intervals that they mark eras in the world's history. I know of but one other which rises to such touching sublimity—it is Socrates, at the head of the Athenian Senate, refusing to put the vote demanded by the laws, religion, and united voice of his country, which would condemn to death the admirals who were unable to bury the dead that had been slain[314] in battle. Both offered their lives that others might live, rather than be themselves unjust.

Mr. Paine, by this effort to save the king's life, lost his influence in the assembly, and he became afterward a silent member, and, in the minds of many, set apart to die. Foreigners are now expelled from the convention, and an order having passed that all persons born in England, and residing in France, should be imprisoned, he was, by order of Robespierre, arrested, and thrown into the Luxembourg. Of his narrow escapes, Mr. Paine says:

In these hours of death, and when he expects to be beheaded at any moment, he is writing his Age of Reason. The first part he completed just before going to prison; the second part he studies upon, and partly writes, while in prison, and publishes it a few months after his release.

This work was planned years before it appeared, and its completion was deferred till near the close of his life, that the purity of his motives might not be impeached. It was written at that time, too, before he had intended it, because he expected soon to be put to death, and lest, in "the general shipwreck of superstition, of false systems of government, and false theology, the people lose sight of morality, of humanity, and of the theology that is true." It was written to combat superstition, fanaticism, and atheism on the one hand, and to defend religion, morality, and deism on the other. It is the good[317] and religious work of a good and religious man. The work it was designed to accomplish is not yet done, but it is well begun. As the world grows wiser it will be valued the more highly, and the more it is read the better will people become.

Had Mr. Paine died at this time, his life's work would have been fulfilled, and the tranquillity of his life would not have been disturbed by the curses of the whole order of the priesthood. But there are fourteen years of life before him yet, in which he is maligned, vilified, slandered, and publicly and privately insulted.

I will briefly sum them up. Seven of these years he spends in France. He writes his essays "On the English System of Finance," "Agrarian Justice," and the "Letter to General Washington;" also, one "To the People and Armies of France." It seems he became attached to Napoleon, for the project of the gun-boat invasion of England is started, and should it succeed, Mr. Paine is to give England a more liberal government. In 1802, he came to America, and the folly of gun-boats also enters into Jefferson's administration. These seven years of life in America are years of trouble and grief. Jefferson, the great Democratic partisan, secures his services to write for his party; but he had never been a partisan, he had stood on higher ground, he had labored for all mankind, and the work, which ill became him, served only to aggravate his own life. We can see a mental change coming over the old man; the reason is yet strong, but the temper is irritable; he grows peevish and broods over his wrongs. "I ought not to have an enemy in America," he said. But the generation of people he now lived among, near the close of his life,[318] were not yet born "in the times that tried men's souls," and they knew him not. He was the friend of Jefferson, and Jefferson had bitter enemies, who said "they both ought to dangle from the same gallows."

He had been paid but little for his revolutionary services, and he now felt the ingratitude of the old Congress, which had treated him badly, and the new one, which could not be bothered with him. Thus his miseries multiply. "After so many years of service, my heart grows cold toward America," he writes, a year before his death, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Jefferson ought to have kept the old man aloof from politics, instead of thrusting him into his party broils, and bringing down on his head the whole host of his own personal enemies. Paine had enemies enough of his own without these. But great ideas and generous affections, it seems, Jefferson never had. Now, in his old age, the great apostle of liberty is deserted by many he had labored to befriend, and, though he does not meet death at the hands of his enemies, they have venom enough in their hearts to slay him.

It is sad to think that his last hours were embittered for the want of a friend. Washington had long before forgotten him while a prisoner in the Luxembourg. Samuel Adams had condemned him. John Adams has it in his heart to blast his memory, and four years after he is dead writes to Jefferson, "Joel Barlow was about to record Tom Paine as the great author of the American Revolution. If he was, I desire that my name may be blotted out forever from its record."[319] This came from the man who twice deserted his post in the trying hour of his country; once for four months when at the head of the war committee, and once for seven months when president of the nation. It came from the man who said: Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence. "Blotted out," No! John Adams, your name will live forever on the records of your country. You were sometimes a great man. But by the side of Thomas Paine, on the records of your country, you stand thus:

Franklin, the firm friend, has been dead these nineteen years, and many more of the old first friends had gone the same way. His mind now reverts to his home in England, and the religion of his father haunts his affections. He asks to be buried in the Quaker burying-ground, and is refused, lest this act of decency[320] should offend the sanctified followers of Fox. It is as well. The old man's will records, that if this be not granted him on account of his father's religion, he was to be buried on his own farm at New Rochelle. On the 8th of June, 1809, he took his final leave of the world. "I have lived," said he, "an honest and useful life to mankind; my time has been spent in doing good; and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my Creator—God."

Thus the great REVOLUTIONIST passed away. Like all great men, he lived a virtuous, upright life. He had a noble object in view, and labored manfully to accomplish it. But having done his work well, his enemies have added to his fame by trying to undo what time has approved, and by reviling him when nature has applauded.

CONCLUSION.

Thomas Paine is now placed right before the world. He was peculiarly a favored child of nature. The great strokes of his character are these: A spirit to resent an injury which made him sometimes revengeful and vindictive. Yet a friend in his defense could call upon him for his life, and it would be granted. Too proud to be vain, he rose above the common level in personal honor, and demanded that the character of a nation should be without spot. Benevolent beyond his means, he lived like a miser, that he might have wherewith to bestow upon the needy, whether man, woman, child, or country.

Secretive beyond estimate, he lived a perfect spy[321] upon the world, and obtained from friend and foe, from society and government, what they wished to conceal, and stored away facts which he locked up in his own mind to be used if needed, or everlastingly kept. He was too hopeful to estimate the future correctly, and had too much faith in man to judge correctly of his actions. Yet character he scarcely ever misjudged. As for courage, he dared to do any thing that was right. He dared to think like a philosopher, and to act like a man. Intellectually he was a prodigy; and as for genius, under which I combine the constructive, analytic and imaginative faculties the world has never seen his equal. He was, in short, an artist, inventor, scholar, poet, philosopher, enemy and friend. These mental characteristics were so combined and regulated by his will, that nature could never repeat what she produced in Thomas Paine.

I have faithfully followed the lines of nature in this criticism, and have endeavored to produce a work which the student and statesman can study with profit; which the lawyer may consider as an argument; which will arrest the attention of the historian, and present new themes to the mind of the philosopher; one which will open up a new method for the critic, and in all these a work which the scholar will not despise. This I say without vanity. Mine indeed are humble labors; and my work, whatever it is, has not been laborious and artful, but easy and natural.

I have not written this to make proselytes to his religion, but to do a much injured man a good service. Yet, as hero-worship is a part of man's nature, it may not be improbable that one age will extol what a previous[322] one reviled, and a temple be erected to the religion of a man who was once thought to be a devil. This reminds me of a story which long ago I remember of reading in a volume of the Letters of the Turkish Spy; and as I quote from memory I will give only the substance:

Two hundred years ago, somewhere in Spain, in front of a Christian house of worship, stood a statue. This was the black image of a man sitting on an ass. As each pious devotee passed in to worship, or came out therefrom, he spat upon the statue. But a Mussulman embassador coming from the king of Morocco, observing these rites, which he was told had been performed for centuries, asked the king why they treated this image with such insult. He was told it was the image of Mahomet. The follower of Mahomet, being better informed, replied: This can not be, for Mahomet rode always on camels, and it was Jesus Christ who, it is recorded, rode on an ass. This fact was soon confirmed by the priests, and thereupon the people took to kissing and worshiping what they had before insultingly spat upon, and afterward erected a temple where it stood in honor of it.

[323]

APPENDIX.

Those who have never examined the claims advanced in favor of Philip Francis, may be benefited by this Appendix. I think it will herein be made out, that his case has been founded on spurious and unauthenticated records. The case may be stated as follows:

On March 3, 1772, there was published, under the supervision of Junius, a genuine edition of the Letters. In his Preface, he states: "The encouragement given to a multitude of spurious mangled publications of the Letters of Junius persuades me that a complete edition, corrected and improved by the author, will be favorably received.... This edition contains all the letters of Junius, Philo Junius," etc.

Forty years after this edition was published, when Mr. H. S. Woodfall, the publisher, was dead, his son issued a new edition, in which he collected from the files of the Advertiser what he supposed to be other letters of Junius, and classed them as Miscellaneous Letters. This new edition, which is called Woodfall's, was first published in 1812. Upon the heel of this edition, John Taylor published his "Junius Identified," supporting his claims in favor of Francis nearly or quite altogether on the Miscellaneous Letters.[324] Till then the claims of Francis were never brought forward. I now proceed to show that these Miscellaneous Letters are not all genuine.

1. They show in many instances internal evidence of fraud. Private Note No. 61 is as follows:

"Sunday, May 3, 1772.

"I am in no manner of hurry about the books. I hope the sale has answered. I think it will always be a saleable book. The inclosed is fact, and I wish it could be printed to-morrow. It is not worth announcing. The proceedings of this wretch are unaccountable. There must be some mystery in it, which I hope will soon be discovered, to his confusion. Next to the Duke of Grafton, I verily believe that the blackest heart in the kingdom belongs to Lord Barrington."

The above note accompanied a letter signed Scotus, published in the Advertiser, May 4, 1772. Now, mark! The private note which accompanied this letter of Scotus says: "This is fact." And the letter of Scotus opens as follows: "To Lord Barrington: My lord, I am a Scotchman," etc. He then goes on, without dignity or grace, to talk bluntly to Lord Barrington, and with an egotistical defense of the Scotch. He says: "There is courage at least in our composition." "For the future, my lord, be more sparing of your reflections on the Scotch." This letter and the note accompanying it are yet in existence in the original, and are called genuine. Now, that they are forgeries is quite evident from the whole spirit of Junius in regard to the Scotch. In Letter 44, he says of Mr. Wedderburne: "I speak tenderly of this gentleman, for when[325] treachery is in question, I think we should make allowances for a Scotchman." He speaks of the Scotch "cunning," "treachery," and "fawning sycophancy," of "the characteristic prudence, the selfish nationality, the indefatigable smile, the persevering assiduity, the everlasting profession of a discreet and moderate resentment." This last quotation may be found in the Preface, and was written about four months prior to the publication of the letter of Scotus. Now, is the positive evidence of the genuine Letters to be set aside by this fugitive note and letter of Scotus? Reason and Common Sense say not. Here then one of the Miscellaneous Letters, and one of the private letters to Woodfall are proven to be forgeries. How many more may have to go the same way? Even the nationality of Francis is against this one of Scotus, for he was an Irishman.

It may be well to remark, in passing, that as the manuscript of this letter of Scotus is still in existence, the claims of Francis founded on handwriting will have to go the same way, for proof on genuine handwriting is doubtful, but proof on disguised handwriting is worthless. All that can be proven from handwriting is, Francis may have been the author of this forged letter of Scotus, and other letters of Veteran, which were written solely from personal spite toward Lord Barrington.

2. I would call attention to another manifest forgery of a private note and letter. The note is No. 8, vol. i, p. 198, and the letter is No. 58, vol. iii, p. 218, Woodfall's edition. The letter is one of low wit, and somewhat vulgar in its construction, and is an answer[326] to another signed Junia, probably written by Mr. Caleb Whiteford. The note says: "The last letter you printed was idle and improper, and, I assure you, printed against my own opinion. The truth is, there are people about me whom I would wish not to contradict, and who had rather see Junius in the papers ever so improperly than not at all." The question now is: Did those people, for whose benefit he wrote the letter, keep the secret which has baffled the world?—for these people must have known him to be Junius. And did Junius write falsely, when he said in his Dedication more than two years afterward: "I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with me?" Did Junius write falsely when he said: "This edition contains all the letters of Junius?" for this one which he cast out, and is in the Miscellaneous collection, was signed Junius. Besides, the handwriting is different from the genuine notes. Compare No. 8, spurious, with No. 3, genuine, vol. i, Woodfall's edition.

Here is clear evidence of forgery in two cases, not from handwriting be it remembered, but from internal evidence. May there not be many more such cases? Moreover, from the style and spirit of all the miscellaneous letters written after the one signed Atticus, and printed November 14, 1768, there is no evidence whatever of the hand or head of Junius. Prior to this time Junius had been writing to get his hand in, and his contributions appeared over the signatures of Atticus, Lucius, C, and a few others, but all prior to the above date. Junius proper began with his famous Letter of January 21, 1769, and closed in just three years to a day.

[327]I am now prepared to state: In the comparison of Thomas Paine with Junius I did not suffer myself in a single instance to go outside of the genuine edition; because I plainly saw, after a long and critical study of the Letters, that there was no safe footing outside of it. Whatever, therefore, has been established in style, character, occupation, rank, opinion, etc., in favor of Paine, has at least this merit: its foundation is good. I propose now to show that this can not be said in favor of Francis.

I have given on pages 190 and 191 the summing up of the main argument of John Taylor in favor of Francis, by Mr. Macaulay. Macaulay writes only as a reviewer of Taylor, not an original investigator; and a reviewer, too, like many at this day, without searching at the fountain head for the facts in the case. Let us now look at the five points Mr. Taylor makes:

"First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms of the Secretary of State's office." Under this Taylor begins by observing: "One method of discovering the rank and station of Junius is to see with whose names he is most familiar." He then says: "The only persons to whom Junius applies epithets of familiarity are Welbore Ellis, Esq., Lord Barrington, Messrs. Rigby, Whateley, Bradshaw, and Chamier." Taylor then proves Junius to have been familiar with Whateley by a long quotation from miscellaneous letters, one without a signature, and one signed Henricus. See Taylor's Junius Identified, page 54. In this connection comes a very important disclosure in regard to Mr. Grenville. I will quote Taylor, page 54: "Comparing these indications of[328] personal acquaintance with the opportunities afforded Sir P. Francis, we find that Mr. George Grenville was one of the secretaries of state at the time Sir Philip Francis held that place in the Secretary of State's office, which had been given him by Lord Holland, and Mr. Whateley was then Mr. Grenville's private secretary. This contiguity of station would afford Sir Philip Francis frequent opportunities of acquiring all that intimate and ocular knowledge of Mr. Whateley which is evinced by Junius." That is, which is evinced by Junius in the letter signed "Henricus," and the one without signature, and which are not in the genuine edition. But Mr. Taylor proves too much; for then Junius, if he were Sir Philip Francis, would also have been acquainted with Grenville, as Francis doubtless was, and there is nothing to hinder Grenville from becoming acquainted with Francis, where there is such "intimacy" between Grenville's private secretary and Francis, and where there is such "contiguity of station." Let us now produce positive proof on the other side from a genuine letter. Letter 18 says: "It is not my design to enter into a formal vindication of Mr. Grenville upon his own principles. I have neither the honor of being personally known to him, nor do I pretend to be completely master of the facts." But if Francis was Junius, this statement could not be true.

While I am upon this subject of personal knowledge and acquaintance, let me bring forward something against Francis. It is well known that he attended school for about three years with Mr. Woodfall, and that a friendship strong and intimate existed between[329] them through life. Put over against this, from private note to Woodfall, No. 17, the following: "I doubt much whether I shall ever have the pleasure of knowing you; but if things take the turn I expect, you shall know me by my works." The italics are his own. Here is a positive statement that Junius did not know Woodfall, and an implied one that Woodfall did not know Junius. If Francis was Junius, here is confusion confounded; but if Paine was Junius, it is as clear as day. But to proceed.

In regard to Bradshaw, Chamier, and Barrington, Taylor quotes from Domitian, Veteran, Q. in the Corner, and Arthur Tell Truth, all miscellaneous letters. He also quotes once from private note No. 52, which, like the two others I have shown, is undoubtedly a forgery. This note was dated January 25, 1772, and was written with the manifest purpose of paving the way to those four low and scurrilous attacks on Lord Barrington by Veteran. These he began on the 28th, three days after the private note, and promised sixteen letters "already written," but only wrote four, when he exhausted himself. Nearly all the evidence in favor of Francis is taken from these letters. Taylor establishes not a single fact under the first head from Junius, and I believe only quotes him once, and to prove nothing. I now proceed with the next count.

"Secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with the business of the War Office." In answer to this, I will quote Taylor, page 61, as follows: "But in the letters at the end of the third volume [Letters of Veteran, vol. iii, Woodfall's Junius] it seems as if he was almost indifferent to discovery, he so clearly betrays[330] his personal acquaintance with the proceedings of the Secretary of War." This he founds solely on Veteran.

"Thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords, and took notes of the speeches, particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham." Taylor tries to establish this claim on the letter Y. Z., which is in the Miscellaneous collection. But I insist, Y. Z. must be proven to be Junius before any inference can be drawn from it. Taylor can not even prove that Francis wrote it. But he draws an inference from the following in Philo Junius: "In regard to Lord Camden, the truth is, that he inadvertently overshot himself, as appears plainly by that unguarded mention of a tyranny of forty days, which I myself heard." The argument is, Junius heard speeches in Parliament, and therefore might have been Francis, as speeches were not reported till long after. As this extract is from authority which I indorse, I will meet it by a passage from Thomas Paine's Crisis vii, showing that he also heard debates in Parliament. Speaking of national honor, he says: "I remember the late Admiral Saunders declaring in the House of Commons, and that in the time of peace, 'that the city of Madrid laid in ashes was not a sufficient atonement for the Spaniards taking off the rudder of an English sloop of war.'"

"Fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of Deputy Secretary at War." This is founded entirely on the letters of Veteran.

"Fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to[331] the first Lord Holland." This argument is founded on the silence of Junius in regard to Lord Holland, and one letter of Anti-Fox, which is in the Miscellaneous collection.

These five points, then, of Taylor's argument are all founded on unauthenticated letters, and yet Macaulay says: "If this argument does not settle the question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence." But, if the evidence of those miscellaneous letters is to be taken as true, which were written nobody knows by whom, and collected forty years after Junius ceased writing, and which had been thrown out of the genuine edition by Junius himself, or had not yet been written, by what rule are we to be guided in settling the question? Let me present a difficulty at once. Suppose I am a Scotchman. I wish to make out a case for some one of my countrymen, and I turn to the Miscellaneous collection and find a letter signed Scotus. Ah! here is a Scotchman, as the signature denotes. I immediately begin to read, and to my happiness the first sentence is an unqualified affirmation: "My lord, I am a Scotchman." This is positive, I affirm; and then how delighted I am to find, in a private note, the assurance to Mr. Woodfall that this letter "is fact." And, more than this, the original manuscript is at this hour in existence. Now, all I have to do is to show that this disguised hand resembles that of some cotemporary Scotchman's, and Scotland has the honor. This shows how absolutely worthless any argument is, founded on the Miscellaneous Letters. Query: Did not the experts depend largely on the manuscript of this spurious Scotch epistle to[332] make out a case of identity in handwriting? As the above five points which I have reviewed, form the head and body of Taylor's argument, it would be trifling to attack the appendages. These hints will guide the reader.

But the fact is, were the five points which Taylor enumerates and tries to prove from miscellaneous letters established, still there would be no case for Francis. But even admitting there is a good case made out for him on miscellaneous letters, there is nothing incompatible with my case in favor of Thomas Paine founded on the genuine Letters. This may be made manifest by the following further observations:

There is no evidence of any weight brought forward to prove that Francis was Junius, because it is assumed that Junius wrote those miscellaneous letters, and especially Veteran's productions. But first prove that Junius was Veteran. This can not be done, and it is an important premise in the argument left out. It would be easier to prove that Francis was Veteran; and this I do not dispute. It makes my case far stronger to have a clear case made for Francis, founded on the spurious and miscellaneous letters. But that Junius did not write the letters which Taylor makes the foundation of his argument there is abundance of internal evidence to prove. The evidence of forgery I have already adduced. But could Francis have forged the hand of Junius? I answer yes; and for the following reasons:

Now take with the above three facts the internal evidence of forgery, both in the spirit and on the face of the letters, and we have a strong case in favor of Francis forging the hand of Junius, but assuming the name of Veteran.

But again, private notes may be forged as well as letters for publication, which injures them as evidence. And who shall decide at this late day on forgeries? I have herein adduced enough evidence to throw great doubt on the Miscellaneous Letters, and if any thing can be proven from internal evidence, which is acknowledged by all to be the best in the world; then two letters and two private notes accompanying them, I have shown in the language of Junius to be spurious. The truth is, there is nothing absolutely safe outside of the genuine edition, for this alone has the plain and positive approval of Junius. Moreover, it was compiled for the purpose of sifting the cheat from the[334] pure grain, and as Junius had assumed one other signature besides his own, he thought it necessary to cast out other publications falsely attributed to him, and unqualifiedly states in reference to Philo Junius, "The fraud was innocent, and I always intended to explain it." Why was he thus explicit if he had been writing continually over other signatures?

Besides the above, the letters of Junius are finished productions, which took much time and care to write, and Junius could not therefore be the author of all those miscellaneous letters attributed to him in Woodfall's edition, for the time is too short to produce them. But it is preposterous to assume that Francis could attend to his clerical duties, and often take down speeches in Parliament, and at the same time write all those letters, both genuine and miscellaneous.

Again in the genuine Letters, there is perfect harmony from the first to the last. There is the same sentiment, spirit, object and style, throughout the whole, and not a single contradiction anywhere to be found. This can not be said of the Miscellaneous Letters, as I have already shown. I would particularly call attention to the language of Junius when charged by Mr. Horne of writing under various signatures, and that he was known. To this Junius responds: "I rely on the consciousness of my own integrity, and defy him to fix any colorable charge of inconsistency upon me." The whole life, as well as writings of Thomas Paine, sustains this assertion. I have studied Paine and Junius with this affirmation in view, and never have I found Paine to express an opinion inconsistent with Junius. Sometimes there is a change of opinion which he indicates or points out.[335] For example, Junius thought highly of the English army. Paine had reason to change his mind in regard to it, and he says, he once thought the same and reasoned from the same prejudices.

These facts are enough to open the eyes of the reader, and to show him that Taylor's Junius Identified, is a literary fraud no doubt innocently perpetrated. Taylor jumped at a conclusion, namely, that the Miscellaneous Letters were the letters of Junius, and took them as authority, without one thought of inquiry into their authenticity. But his great work should have been, first to prove the Miscellaneous Letters genuine. After this he should have shown that Francis was a Scotchman, who was chagrined at the abuse of the Scotch, and at the same time was an Englishman who was intensely exasperated at the Scotch, and that these two facts are not inconsistent with his being an Irishman.

In conclusion, I will submit the following letter of Francis in reply to the editor of the Monthly Magazine, who had made inquiry of Sir Philip, in regard to his being the author of the Letters of Junius:

July, 1813.

Sir—The great civility of your letter induces me to answer it, which, with reference merely to its subject matter, I should have declined. Whether you will assist in giving currency to a silly, malignant falsehood, is a question for your own discretion. To me it is a matter of perfect indifference.

I am sir, yours, etc.,

P. FRANCIS.

I think the word silly in the above letter has a telling significance.

Transcriber's Notes:

1. Minor punctuation errors have been corrected.

2. The original printing of this book did not include a Table of Contents. The Table of Contents appearing in this e-text has been added by the transcriber to aid reader navigation. Major text breaks and page headers were used to formulate the "Chapters". Stacked page numbers indicate blank pages.

3. All footnotes have been moved from the bottom of their respective pages to the Chapter ends and have been assigned letters instead of symbols.

4. On p. 37, the footnotes to the Junius Unmasked Chapter "Letter" are renamed "Doctors Notes" to acknowledge their connection with the next Chapter entitled "Comments on Doctors Notes" beginning on p. 38.

5. The APPENDIX, which was printed separately and was not a part of the original book, has been added to this e-text book version.

6. Spelling corrections: (#) = times correctly spelled elsewhere in text.

7. Printers corrections and/or clarification notations on anomolies:

8. Known or suspected archaic words used and retained in this text:

"banditti" (alt. of "bandit")
"belligerant" (Fr. Lat. belligerans, arch. of "belligerent")
"burthen" (arch. of "burden")
"cotemporary(ies)" (arch. of "contemporary")
"embassador" (arch. of "ambassador")
"eulogium" (ML. of "eulogy")
"gayety" (alt. of "gaiety")
"incontestible" (alt. for "incontestable")
"plentitude" (alt. for "plenitude")
"pretentions" (alt. for "pretensions")
"rythm" (arch. of "rhythm")
"vascillating" (alt. for "vacillating")
"wot" (1st and 3rd pers. sing., pr., ind. of "wit")

9. Word variations retained in this text:

"aspertion" and "aspersion"
"gun-boat" (1), "gun-boats" (1), and "gunboats" (1)
"Int." (1), "Introd." (1), and "Introduc." (1)
"re-write" (1) and "rewrite" (1)
"viz.," and "viz"
"Wedderburn" (1), "Wedderburn's" (2) and "Wedderburne" (3)

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Junius Unmasked, by Joel Moody

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