writer—unless too wise to touch Paine at all—might have concealed such sympathies as those pervading this biography; but where sympathies exist the reader is entitled to know them, and the author subjects himself to a severer self-criticism if only in view of the vigilance he must excite. I have no feeling towards Paine inconsistent with recognition of his faults and errors. My vindication of him has been the production of evidence that removed my own early and baseless prejudices, and rendered it possible for me to study his career genuinely, so that others might do the same. The phantasmal Paine cleared away, my polemic ends. I have endeavored to portray the real Paine, and have brought to light some things unfavorable to him which his enemies had not discovered, and, I believe, could never have discovered.

The errata in the first edition are few and of slight importance. I wish to retract a suggestion made in my apology for Washington which I have discovered to be erroneous. It was suggested (vol. ii., pp. 173 and 382) that Washington's failure to answer Paine's private letter of September 20,1795, asking an explanation of his neglect while he (Paine) was in prison and his life in peril, may have been due to its interception by Pickering (who had by a suppression of documents sealed the sad fate of his predecessor in office, Edmund Randolph). I have, however, discovered that Paine's letter did reach Washington.

I would be glad if my own investigations, continued while preparing an edition of Paine's works, or any of my reviewers, had enabled me to relieve the shades with which certain famous names are touched by documentary facts in this history. The publication of those relating to Gouverneur Morris, while American Minister in France, was for personal reasons especially painful to myself. Though such publication was not of any importance to Paine's reputation, it was essential to a fair judgment of others—especially of Washington,—and to any clear comprehension of the relations between France and the United States at that period. As the correspondence between Gouverneur Morris and the French Minister concerning Paine, after his imprisonment, is in French, and the originals (in Paris) are not easily accessible to American and English readers, I have concluded to copy them here.

À Paris le 14 février 1794 26 pluviôse.

Le Ministre plénipotentiaire des États Unis de l'Amérique près la République française au Ministre des Affaires Étrangères.

Monsieur:

Thomas Paine vient de s'addresser à moi pour que je le reclame comme Citoyen des États Unis. Voici (je crois) les Faits que le regardent. Il est né en Angleterre. Devenu ensuite Citoyen des États Unis il s'y est acquise une grande célébrité par des Écrits révolutionnaires. En consequence il fut adopté Citoyen français et ensuite élu membre de la Convention. Sa conduite depuis cette Epoque n'est pas de mon ressort J'ignore la cause de sa Détention actuelle dans la prison du Luxembourg, mais je vous prie Monsieur (si des raisons qui ne me sont pas connues s'opposent à sa liberation) de vouloir bien m'en instruire pour que je puisse les communiquer au Gouvernement des États Unis.

J'ai l'honneur d'être, Monsieur,

Votre très humble Serviteur,

Gouv. Morris.

Paris, 1 Ventôse l'An 2d. de la Républic une et indivisible.

Le ministre des Affaires Étrangères au Ministre Plénipotentiaire des-États Unis de l'Amérique près la République Française.

Par votre lettre du 26 du mois dernier, vous réclames la liberté de Thomas Paine, comme Citoyen américain. Né en Angleterre, cet ex-deputé est devenu successivement Citoyen Américain et Citoyen français. En acceptant ce dernier titre et en remplissant une place dans le corps législatif, il s'est soumis aux lois de la République et il a renoncé de fait à la protection que le droit des gens et les traités conclus avec les États Unis auraient pu lui assurer.

J'ignore les motifs de sa détention mais je dois présumer qu'ils sont bien fondés. Je vais néanmoins soumettre au Comité de Salut public la demande que vous m'avez adressée et je m'empresserai de vous faire connaître sa decision.

DEFORGES.

The translations of these letters are on page 120, vol ii., of this work. No other letters on the subject between these Ministers are known. The reader may judge whether there is anything in the American Minister's application to warrant the opening assertion in that of Deforgues. Morris forwarded the latter to his government, but withheld his application, of which no copy exists in the State Archives at Washington.

PREFACE.

At Hornsey, England, I saw a small square mahogany table, bearing at its centre the following words: "This Plate is inscribed by Thos. Clio Rickman in Remembrance of his dear friend Thomas Paine, who on this table in the year 1792 wrote several of his invaluable Works."

The works written by Paine in Rickman's house were the second part of "The Rights of Man," and "A Letter to the Addressers." Of these two books vast numbers were circulated, and though the government prosecuted them, they probably contributed largely to make political progress in England evolutionary instead of revolutionary. On this table he set forth constitutional reforms that might be peacefully obtained, and which have been substantially obtained And here he warned the "Addressers," petitioning the throne for suppression of his works: "It is dangerous in any government to say to a nation, Thou shalt not read. This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done under the old government of France; but it served to procure the downfall of the latter, and is subverting that of the former; and it will have the same tendency in all countries; because Thought, by some means or other, is got abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though reading may."

At this table the Quaker chieftain, whom Danton rallied for hoping to make revolutions with rose-water, unsheathed his pen and animated his Round Table of Reformers for a conflict free from the bloodshed he had witnessed in America, and saw threatening France. This little table was the field chosen for the battle of free speech; its abundant ink-spots were the shed blood of hearts transfused with humanity. I do not wonder that Rickman was wont to show the table to his visitors, or that its present owner, Edward Truelove—a bookseller who has suffered imprisonment for selling proscribed books,—should regard it with reverence.

The table is what was once called a candle-stand, and there stood on it, in my vision, Paine's clear, honest candle, lit from his "inner light," now covered by a bushel of prejudice. I myself had once supposed his light an infernal torch; now I sat at the ink-spotted candle-stand to write the first page of this history, for which I can invoke nothing higher than the justice that inspired what Thomas Paine here wrote.

The educated ignorance concerning Paine is astounding. I once heard an English prelate speak of "the vulgar atheism of Paine." Paine founded the first theistic society in Christendom; his will closes with the words, "I die in perfect composure, and resignation to the will of my Creator, God." But what can be expected of an English prelate when an historian like Jared Sparks, an old Unitarian minister, could suggest that a letter written by Franklin, to persuade some one not to publish a certain attack on religion, was "probably" addressed to Paine. (Franklin's "Writings," vol. x., p. 281.) Paine never wrote a page that Franklin could have so regarded, nor anything in the way of religious controversy until three years after Franklin's death. "The remarks in the above letter," says Sparks, "are strictly applicable to the deistical writings which Paine afterwards published." On the contrary, they are strictly inapplicable. They imply that the writer had denied a