The Life of Thomas Paine, Author of "Common Sense", "Rights of Man

GUIPT OF Miss Sue Dunbar THE LIFE THOMAS PAINE, AUTHOR OF "COMMON SENSE," "RIGHTS OF MAN," "AGE OF REASON," &c., &e, WITH CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY OBSERVATIONS ON HIS WRITINGS; AND AN APPEND1I, CONTAINING HIS LETTERS TO WASHINGTON, SUPPRESSED IN HIS WORKS AT PRESENT PUBLISHED IN THIS COUNTRY. BY G. VALE, EDITOR OF THE BEACON. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, BEACON OFFICE, 84 ROSEVELT ST. 1841. \4-/ PREFACE. THERE are four lives of Mr. Thomas Paine now extant ; but none in print in the United States. Francis Oldys, or a person under that name, wrote a life of Mr. Paine about the year 1792, while Mr. Paine was yet alive, and active in the prog- ress of the French Revolution. This life was written in fact by George Chalmers, one of the clerks of the Board of Plant- ation, at the instigation of Lord Hawksbury, afterward Lord Liverpool, for which he gave him five hundred pounds. Mr. Chalmers acknowledged the authorship of this book. This it sunk into oblivion it served we have never seen ; has ; partly but the the political purpose for which it was written^ enemies of Mr. Paine and the Rights of Man were too prudent to en- dorse its acknowledged calumnies, and identify themselves with this transaction. Immediately after the death of Paine, Cheetham wrote his life in 1809. Cheetham was an Englishman and had been a 5 in and but zealous disciple of Paine, both politics religion ; the of he had retrogaded in politics, and deserted principles the democratic Paine had attacked him with his accus- party ; tomed force, and thus converted him into a personal enemy. Mr. Cheetham at this time edited a party paper (the Citizen) in New York, and while he was yet smarting under the lash fired with of Paine, heated by party politics, and revengCj like the ass in the fable, he kicked, not indeed the dying, but the dead lion, by writing the life of his adversary. Cheet* 4 PREFACE. connected this with a scheme of interest ham, however, ; for,' becoming the deadly enemy of democracy, and losing the support of his old friends (for he was turned out of the Tam- many society), he was preparing to go to Europe, and enlist in support of the tory government in England, by publishing a paper opposed to Cobbett, who had just come out in opposi- tion to the and Cheetham meant this government ; apparently life of Paine as a passport to the British treasury favor : at least, such was the opinion of the intimate friend of Cheet- ham, Mr. Charles Christian, who gave this relation to Mr. John Fellows and others, whom we have seen, and from whom we have learned this fact. This life of Paine, the only one published in the United States, abounds in calumnies, and after a lapse of some years caused the production of two other lives, one by Clio Rickman, the intimate friend of Mr. Paine T. for many years, and another by Mr. W. Sherwin, both published in London. Mr. Rickman was an excellent, amiable man, of the quaker profession, with whom Mr. Paine lived both in England and France, at different periods, and with whom he kept up a constant correspondence. The life of Mr. is sullied a little Paine, however, by Rickman, by vanity ; he is to Paine, what Boswell was to Johnson. We are indebt- for facts on which we can but ed to Mr. Rickman many rely ; with the best intentions he was not the man to do Mr. Paine justice. is that of Sherwin The best life of Paine before published, ; and from this life we shall freely extract. But Mr. Sherwin is incorrect on some points, and his whole work is so exclu- that it is deteriorated sively adapted to a London reader, for this market. Mr. Paine changed public opinion in favor at the time of the Revolution his earliest en- of a republic ; in favor of American it was here that his ergies were liberty ; and here his mighty powers were first developed, political 'His success in the United principles took root. Statesbrought " and his of which shook the him out in Europe ; Rights Man," and endeared him to all corrupt government of England, " based his Com- France and every friend of liberty, was upon in favor mon Sense," which had concentrated public opinion of a declaration of independence. And when the buds of PREFACE. 4 in and to this liberty were nipped England France, country the invitation of Mr. Paine retired, as his proper, home, at the and Jefferson, then the president, and avowedly greatest best statesman this country has known. And here, too, he the firm and consistent friend died in peace, in a good old age, in a manner of liberty. To this country, then, special belongs are his most numerous friends and ac- his life ; here personal it is here that the calumnies quaintances ; propagated by witnesses Cheetham may be effectually rebutted, by living of their faculties and it is here yet in the sound possession ; that Paine can be identified with every crisis in the glorious Revolution which gave birth to this nation, which has set the / glorious example of republicanism, whose principles 'are now progressing in the world. The want of a life thus identifying Mr. Paine with the glories of our Revolution, is our apology for our preserit undertaking. The life of Paine by Cheetham has had a considerable for his calumnies are and his mo- influence ; though palpable, tives in publishing them apparent, he has given to them a de- gree of credibility by the free use of names, which the reader necessarily concludes are respectable references for the facts has stated a in he ; fortunately, however, public trial, which he was convicted of libel y showed the shallow foundation on which his slander rested, and our acquaintance with some of the persons to whom he refers, enables us flatly to contradict these statements, and to denounce him on the very authority of many of his references as the utterer of gross falsehoods, to which he attached without their consent their names. With much ingenuity he relates a slander as a matter of fact, as if there were abundance of evidence, and apparently refers to the only source of this slander, as if this formed but a small part of his proof. Thus he declared Madame Bonne- ville to be the mistress of T. Paine, as if that fact were no- torious he but inserts ; produces no proof, a letter from Mr. W. Carver, written in anger, after a quarrel, in which such an insinuation is made, merely from the fact of that lady bringing her family to America, and leaving her husband in France. Madame Bonneville prosecuted Cheetham for this assertion, and Cheetham on that trial produced no other evidence than 6 PREFACE. Carver and his angry letter. His counsel admitted the false- ness of the charge, and pleaded only the insinuation in Car- ver's letter as justifying Cheetham as an historian to repeat the slander* This trial excited great interest at the time. The press it generally reported j and the brief facts with the counsel's speech have been preserved in a pamphlet form, from which pamphlet we shall give the introduction and a few extracts as pertinent to our object : [THE INTRODUCTION.] " One James Cheetham, a man who had once been an editor of a republican paper in New York, had abandoned his past professions, and become the advocate of the British party in America. Among other means to serve them, he undertook to ' write the life of Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense,' * Rights of Man,' &c., &c. In this biography, he introduced the name of Madame Bonneville, a virtuous and respectable lady, the wife of N. Bonneville of Paris. He charged her with said Paine prostitution ; was her paramour, and that one of her sons had the features, countenance, and temper of Thomas Paine. For this atrocious attack on the character of Madame Bonneville, and outrage to her feelings, Mr. Cheet- ham was indicted for a libel, and on the 19th of June, 1810, his trial was brought on. The counsel for libeller the took two grounds of defence : 1st. That the facts charged were true. 2d. That the defendant was an HISTORIAN, and, as such, had a right to publish what he had heard and believed, though it reflected on an innocent person. The first position was, after a contemptible effort to support it, abandoned even by the libeller's counsel. They were ashamed of it themselves. Several ladies of the first distinc- tion, whose daughters had been intrusted to the care of Mad- ame Bonneville, to learn the French language, appeared in court, and attested to the unblemished character of this much- injured female. The counsel for the libeller than had recourse to their last ground, and strenuously maintained the principle they had laid down. They perhaps felt confidence in the court, as it in had, an early stage of the trial, intimated an opinion favor- able to the new and extravagant pretension, which set up a libeller under the title of an historian. Nor was this confidence misplaced. Mr. Recorder Hoffman directed the jury, that if they should be of opinion, that Mr. Cheetham had PREFACE. 7 been informed of what he wrote, and believed it, he was justi- fied, and that, though Madame Bonneville was an innocent woman, they were authorized to acquit Mr. Cheetham. He also read the letter of a man, by the name of Carver, as a justification of the libeller, though his counsel had not men- tioned it.

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