Part 11

Concerning Paine's connection with this invention Dr. Conway says: "Among his intimate friends at this time [about 1796] was Robert Fulton, then residing in Paris. Paine's extensive studies of the steam engine and his early discovery of its adaptability to navigation had caused Rumsey to seek him in England and Fitch to consult him both in, America and Paris. Paine's connection with the invention of the steamboat was recognized by Fulton as, indeed, by all of his scientific contemporaries. To Fulton he freely gave his ideas" (Life of Paine, vol. ii, p. 280). "In the controversy between Rumsey and Fitch, Paine's priority to both is conceded" (Ibid).

"A machine for planing boards was his next invention."--_Madame Bonneville_.

James Parton: "A benefactor... who conceived the planing machine and the iron bridge. A glorious monument to his honor swells aloft in many of our great towns. The principle of his arch now sustains the marvelous railroad depots that half abolish the distinction between in-doors and out."

In a letter to Jefferson, in 1801, Paine anticipates and suggests the explosive engine of today.

"The explosive engines which now drive machines over highways and waters and through the air are the perfection of Paine's explosive power."--_A. Outram Sherman_.

One of Paine's minor inventions which attracted the attention and received the approval of Franklin was an improved light.

Another invention, an improved carriage wheel, was greatly admired. After Paine's death Robert Fulton made a drawing of the model and deposited it at Washington.

Robert R. Livingston (to Paine in Paris): "Make your will; leave the mechanics, the iron bridge, the wheels, etc., to America."

Joseph N. Moreau: "The Archimedes of the eighteenth century."

Elihu Palmer: "Probably the most useful man that ever lived."

Refutation of Charges of Immorality.

Louis Masquerier:

"Paine who wrote in man's defense, 'Rights of Man' and 'Common Sense, Let not pious virulence Stain his honest fame."

Paine has been represented by his religious enemies as the embodiment of all that is bad. He was, they assert, drunken, filthy, and immoral. Banished from respectable society, he associated, they say, only with the low and vile. The following testimony covers all the years that elapsed from the beginning of his public career to the end of his life.

Dr. Franklin, writing from England while Paine was yet a resident of that country, says: "Mr. Thomas Paine is very well recommended to me as an ingenious worthy young man."

That his previous life had been above serious reproach is shown by a letter to the Excise Office in which he says: "No complaint of the least dishonesty or intemperance has ever appeared against me."

James B. Elliot: "Paine's pamphlet ['Case of the Officers of Excise'] secured for him the acquaintance of Oliver Goldsmith, who became and remained his friend until his death, and by whom he was introduced to Benjamin Franklin."

"At a coffeehouse in London Paine met that other great thinker, Franklin. They became fast friends."--_Elbert Hubbard_.

"Invited by Franklin he went to America."--_Encyclopedia of Social Reform_.

"His associates in Philadelphia were people of the highest respectability and importance.... He was welcomed everywhere."--_James B. Elliott_.

Referring to his first year in America Bancroft says: "In that time he had frequented the society of Rittenhouse, Clymer and Samuel Adams." Dr. Rush says: "He visited in the families of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Rittenhouse and Mr. George Clymer." Referring to the members of the Philosophical Society, founded by Franklin, Dr. Conway says: "Paine was welcomed into their circle by Rittenhouse, Clymer, Rush, Muhlenberg, and other representatives of the scientific and literary metropolis."

Writing in his journal at a later period John Hall, the English mechanician who then resided in Philadelphia, mentions among Paine's visitors and intimate associates Franklin, Gouverneur Morris, Dr. Rush, Tench Francis, Robert Morris, Rittenhouse, etc.

The Library of the World's Best Literature alludes to scientific experiments made by Paine "for the entertainment of Washington whose guest he was for some time."

Francis Marion Lemmon: "When my father [a son of one of Washington's officers] was about twelve years of age he was employed by George Washington to carry messages from his military camp to that of his father and other military posts, and for about four years lived as one of the family of Washington. It was my father's privilege during his service with Washington to meet and become acquainted with a number of the most popular and influential men of that time--such as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Paine, General Lafayette and General Francis Marion.... My father told me, when I was a boy, of the visits these men paid to Uncle George and Aunt Martha Washington, as he always called them, and he told me that Aunt Martha always called Paine 'Brother Tom' and always looked forward when a visit of Brother Tom was expected."

Alluding to Paine's conduct and public services during the Revolution, Dr. Conway says:

"They are best measured in the value set on them by the great leaders most cognizant of them,--by Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Robert Morris, Chancellor Livingston, R. H. Lee, Colonel Laurens, General Greene, Dickinson. Had there been anything dishonorable or mercenary in Paine's career, these are the men who would have known it; but their letters are searched in vain for even the faintest hint of anything disparaging to his patriotic self-devotion during those eight weary years."

Henry Adams: "Thomas Paine, down to the time of his departure for Europe, in 1787, was a fashionable member of society [in New York], admired and courted as the greatest literary genius of his day."

The oldest and one of the most powerful political organizations in this country, outside of the regular political parties, is the Tammany Society of New York. Whatever shortcomings may be justly charged to this society in later times it was in its earlier days, when devoted mainly to social and benevolent purposes, one of the most honorable and respectable of societies. Paine was the hero of this society.

Dr. Conway says: "At the great celebration (October 12, 1792) of the Third Centenary of the discovery of America, by the sons of St. Tammany, New York, the first man toasted after Columbus was Paine, and next to Paine 'The Rights of Man,' They were also extolled in an ode composed for the occasion, and sung." Paine was at this time a resident of France.

"Visited France in the summer of 1787, where he made the acquaintance of Buffon, Malesherbes, La Rochefoucauld, and other eminent men."--_Chambers' Encyclopedia_.

"Dr. Robinet, the French historian, says on this visit (1787) Paine, who had long known the 'soul of the people,' came into' relation with eminent men of all groups, philosophical and political--Condorcet, Achille Duchatelet, Cardinal De Brienne, and, he believes also Danton, who like the English republican [Paine] was a Freemason."--_Dr. Conway_.

Gilbert Patten Brown (in Masonic Monthly, July, 1916): "In the St. John's Regimental Lodge (the first Masonic body to be constituted among the troops) Thomas Paine (like Capt. James Monroe, Capt. John Marshall and many other of minor mention) was entered, crafted and raised a Master Mason."

Franklin, who in 1774 introduced Paine to the New World as "an ingenious worthy young man" in 1787, after an acquaintance of thirteen years, reaffirms his former estimate of the man. In a letter of introduction to the Duke of Rochefoucauld he says: "The bearer of this is Mr. Paine, the author of a famous piece entitled 'Common Sense,' published with great effect on the minds of the people at the beginning of the Revolution. He is an ingenious, honest man; and as such I beg leave to recommend him to your civilities."

Lamb's Biographical Dictionary: "Visiting London, he at once became a social and diplomatic feature of that metropolis."

Thomas "Clio" Rickman: "Mr. Paine's life in London was a quiet round of philosophical leisure and enjoyment.... Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the French and American embassadors, Mr. Sharp, the engraver, Romney, the painter, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, Joel Barlow,... Dr. Priestley,... Mr. Horne Tooke, etc., were among the number of his friends and acquaintances."

"His manners were easy and gracious; his knowledge was universal and boundless; in private company and among his friends his conversation had every fascination that anecdote, novelty and truth could give it."

"Mr. Paine in his person was about five feet ten inches high, and rather athletic.... His eye, of which the painter could not convey the exquisite meaning, was full, brilliant and singularly piercing."

Alexander Wilson: "The penetration and intelligence of his eye bespeak the man of genius."

John Adams, in a letter to his wife, refers to Paine as "a man who, General Lee says, has genius in his eyes." Carlyle describes him as "the man with the black beaming eyes." Walter Morton, who was with him when he died, says, "His eye glistened with genius under the pangs of death."

Dr. Thomas Cooper: "I have dined with Mr. Paine in literary society, in London, at least a dozen times, when his dress, manners, and conversation were such as became the character of an unobtrusive intelligent gentleman, accustomed to good society."

Regarding Paine's associations in England his biographer, Dr. Conway, says: "There [Rotherham] and in London he was 'lionized' as Franklin had been in Paris. We find him now passing a week with Edmund Burke, now at the country seat of the Duke of Portland, or enjoying the hospitalities of Lord Fitzwilliam at Wentworth House. He is entertained and consulted on public affairs by Fox, Lord Landsdowne, Sir George Staunton, Sir Joseph Banks."

"The Americans in London--the artists West and Trumbull, the Alexanders (Franklin's connections), and others were fond of him as a friend and proud of him as a countryman."--_Ibid_.

"His personal acquaintance," says Dr. Conway, "included nearly every great or famous man of his time, in England, America, France."

Paine not only enjoyed the friendship and esteem of the notables of the world, he was the idol of the common people who knew him. Before the Revolution in France began he spent two years in England, engaged a part of the time perfecting his iron bridge. The leading manufacturing firm of Rotherham encouraged him and fitted up a shop for him to work in. Nearly a half century later Professor Lesley of Philadelphia, then a young man, visited Rotherham. Notwithstanding the long time that had elapsed he found Paine's memory still green and one of the cherished possessions of Yorkshire. The results of his visit are thus related by Dr. Conway:

"Professor Lesley of Philadelphia tells me that when visiting in early life the works at Rotherham, Paine's workshop and the very tools he used were pointed out. They were preserved with care. He conversed with an aged and intelligent workman who had worked under Paine as a lad. Professor Lesley, who had shared some of the prejudice against Paine, was impressed by the earnest words of the old man. Mr. Paine he said was the most honest man, and the best man he ever knew. After he had been there a little time everybody looked up to him, the Walkers and their workmen. He knew the people for miles round, and went into their homes; his benevolence, his friendliness, his knowledge, made him beloved by all, rich and poor. His memory had always lasted there."

M. and Madame de Bonneville: "Not a day [in Paris] escaped without his receiving many visits. Mr. Barlow, Mr. [Robert] Fulton, Mr. [Sir Robert] Smith, came very often to see him. Many travelers also called on him."

"Paine was, indeed, so overrun with visitors and adventurers that he appropriated two mornings of each week at the Philadelphia House for levees. These, however, became insufficient to stem the constant stream of visitors, including spies and lion-hunters, so that he had little time for consultation with the men and women whose cooperation he needed in public affairs. He therefore leased an out-of-the-way house [the old Madame Pompadour mansion], reserving knowledge of it for particular friends, while still retaining his address at the Philadelphia House, where the levees were continued."--_Dr. Conway_.

"Here [at Paine's house] gathered sympathetic spirits from America, England, France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, freed from prejudices of race, rank, or nationality."--_Ibid_.

"And now the old hotel became the republican capitol of Europe. There sat an international Premier with his Cabinet."--_Ibid_.

"A grand dinner was given by Paine at the Hotel de Ville to Dumouriez, where this brilliant general met Brissot, Condorcet, Santerre, and several eminent English radicals."--_Ibid._

"In the beautiful courtyard of the Palais Royal, I saw today for the first time the statue of Camille Desmoulins, one of the most heroic figures of the French Revolution.... He was one of Paine's warmest friends in Paris. Desmoulins had known Paine when the latter was a member of the Convention and doubtless was one of the interesting coterie that met at Paine's house in the Faubourg St. Denis."--_William M. van der Weyde_.

"When Bonaparte returned from Italy he called on Paine and invited him to dinner."--_Clio Rickman_.

"Among the persons I was in the habit of receiving Paine deserves to be mentioned."--_Madame Roland._

Among Paine's most intimate French friends, besides the Bonnevilles with whom he lived for several years, were the Rolands, the Brissots, the Condorcets, and the Lafayettes, France's purest and noblest souls.

Baron Pichon: "Paine lived in Monroe's house at Paris."

While James Monroe was minister to France Paine was for a year and a half a member of his household, enjoying in the highest degree the esteem of both Mr. and Mrs. Monroe.

Paine was one of the most amiable of men and possessed a most charming personality. Nicolas and Margaret Bonneville, with whom he resided in Paris, in a biographical sketch of him, written after his death and revised by Cobbett, bear this testimony: "Thomas Paine loved his friends with sincere and tender affection. His simplicity of heart and that happy kind of openness, or rather, carelessness, which charms our hearts in reading the fables of the good Lafontaine, made him extremely amiable. If little children were near him he patted them, searched his pockets for the store of cakes, biscuits, sugar-plums, pieces of sugar, of which he used to take possession as of a treasure belonging to them, and the distribution of which belonged to him."

"He was always gentle to children and to animals."--_Ellery Sedgwick_.

The deep affection entertained for Paine by his Parisian friends was shown when, grievously ill and believed to be dying, he was carried from his cot in the Luxembourg to the home of the Monroes. I quote again from Dr. Conway: "Paine had been restored by the tenderness and devotion of friends. Had it not been for friendship he could hardly have been saved. We are little able, in the present day, to appreciate the reverence and affection with which Thomas Paine was regarded by those who saw in him the greatest apostle of liberty in the world.... In Paris there were ladies and gentlemen who had known something of the cost of liberty--Col. and Mrs. Monroe, Sir Robert and Lady Smith, Madame Lafayette, Mr. and Mrs. Barlow, M. and Madame de Bonneville. They had known what it was to watch through anxious nights with terrors surrounding them. He who % had suffered most was to them a sacred person. He had come out of the succession of ordeals, so weak in body, so wounded by American ingratitude, so sore at heart, that no delicate child needed more tender care.... Men say their Arthur is dead, but their love is stronger than death. And though the service of these friends might at first have been reverential, it ended with attachment, so great was Paine's power, so wonderful and pathetic his memories, so charming the play of his wit, so full his response to kindness."

"In Luxembourg prison," says Conway, "he won all hearts."

Augustus C. Buel: "Jones [John Paul] liked Tom Paine and Paine almost worshiped Jones [they were in Paris]. All through the American Revolution they had been fast friends, familiarly calling each other 'Tom' and 'Paul.'"

Joseph Mazzini Wheeler: "Landor [Walter Savage] told my friend Mr. Birch of Florence that he particularly admired Paine, and that he visited him, having first obtained an interview at the house of General Dumouriez [the most famous general of the Revolution]. Landor declared that Paine was always called 'Tom,' not out of disrespect, but because he was a jolly good fellow."

Lord Edward Fitzgerald (to his mother): "I lodge with my friend Paine [in Paris]; we breakfast, dine, and sup together. The more I see of his interior the more I like and respect him. I cannot express how kind he is to me. There is a simplicity of manner, a goodness of heart, and a strength of mind in him that I never knew a man before to possess."

Lady Lucy Fitzgerald: "Although he [Lord Edward] was unsuccessful in the glorious attempt of liberating his country [Ireland] from slavery, still he was not unmindful of the lessons you taught him. Accept, then, his picture from his unhappy sister. Its place is in your house; my heart will be satisfied with such a Pantheon: it knows no consolation but the approbation of such men as you, and the soothing recollection that he did his duty and died faithful to the cause of liberty."

Zachariah Wilkes: "Let me tell you what he did for me. I was arrested in Paris and condemned to die. I had no friend here; and it was at a time when no friend would have served me: Robespierre ruled. 'I am innocent!' I cried in desperation. 'I am innocent, so help me God! I am condemned for the offense of another.' I wrote a statement of my case with a pencil; thinking at first of addressing it to my judge, then of directing it to the president of the Convention."

[Wilkes, who was an Englishman, had important business to transact which involved his honor and he could not bear the thought of dying with it unperformed. The jailer referred him to Paine, who, though a prisoner, had much influence with the authorities.]

"He [Paine] examined me closer than my judge had done; he required my proofs. After a long time I satisfied him. He then said: 'The leaders of the Convention would rather have my life than yours. If by any means I can obtain your release on my own security, will you promise me to return in twenty days?'"

Wilkes promised to return. Paine then obtained permission for him to leave the prison, guaranteeing his return and agreeing to take his place at the guillotine if he failed to do so. Wilkes kept his word. He returned to the prison, drawing from Paine the exclamation, "There is yet English blood in England!" Wilkes had been opposed to Paine both in politics and religion.

Another instance of Paine's noble magnanimity is related by Dr. Conway: "This personage [Captain Grimstone, R. A.], during a dinner party at the Palais Egalité, got into a controversy with Paine, and, forgetting that the English Jove could not in Paris answer argument with thunder, called Paine a traitor to his country and struck him a violent blow. Death was the penalty for striking a deputy and Paine's friends were not unwilling to see the penalty inflicted on this stout young captain who had struck a man of fifty-six. Paine had much trouble in obtaining from Barrere, of the Committee of Public Safety, a passport out of the country for Captain Grimstone, whose traveling expenses were supplied by the man he had struck."

Lady Smith: "If the usual style of gallantry was as clever as your 'New Covenant' [a beautiful poem by Paine addressed to Lady Smith] many a fair lady's heart would be in danger; but the Little Corner of the World [Lady Smith] receives it from the Castle in the Air [Paine]; it is agreeable to her as being the elegant fancy of a friend."

Sir Robert and Lady Smith were Paine's most devoted English friends in Paris. When Paine was languishing in prison Lady Smith wrote him letters of cheer and comfort, signing herself "Little Corner of the World."

Frederick Freeman: "He [Captain Rowland Crocker] had taken the great Napoleon by the hand; he had familiarly known Paine.... He remembered Paine as a well-dressed and most gentlemanly man, of sound and orthodox republican principles, of a good heart, a strong intellect, and a fascinating address."

Among the many calumnies circulated against Paine is the charge that during his later years, after he wrote the "Age of Reason," he was, both in France and in America, a drunkard. This charge is false. Paine was one of the most temperate men of his time. Concerning his use of intoxicants in France his old friend Clio Rickman, who visited him in Paris, who was with him during his last day in that city, and who accompanied him to Havre when he sailed for America, says: "He did not drink spirits, and wine he took moderately; he even objected to any spirits being laid in as a part of his sea-stock."

Hon. E. B. Washburne, who made a thorough investigation of Paine's career in France, bears the following testimony: "A somewhat extended study of the French Revolution during the extraordinary period in which Paine was so intimately connected with it, fails to show anything to the prejudice of his personal or political character."

"Returned to the United States on the invitation of Jefferson in 1802."--_Library of World's Best Literature_.

Charles T. Sprading: "Jefferson offered him return passage from Europe on a United States man-of-war."

National Intelligencer (Washington, Nov. 10, 1802): "Thomas Paine has arrived in this city and has received a cordial reception from the Whigs of Seventy-six and the Republicans of 1800."

"He was cordially received by the President, Thomas Jefferson. He also visited the heads of the departments."--_Boston Post_.

Philadelphia Aurora, Washington Correspondent of (November 26, 1802): "His address is unaffected and unceremonious. He neither shuns nor courts observation. At table he enjoys what is good with the appetite of temperance and vigor, and puts to shame his calumniators by the moderation with which he partakes of the common beverage of the boarders.... I am proud to find a man whose political writings upon the whole have never been equaled, and whom I have admired on that account, free from the contamination of debauchery and habits of inebriety which have been so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him."

Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell, M. C. (Washington, Dec. 11, 1802): "At Mr. Gallatin's I saw for the first time the celebrated Thomas Paine. We had some conversation before dinner and we sat side by side at the table.... This extraordinary man contributed exceedingly much to entertain the company."

Albert Gallatin was at this time Secretary of the Treasury. Referring to this period, including all the remaining years of his life, Conway says: "Paine's defamers have manifested an eagerness to ascribe his maltreatment to personal faults. This is not the case.... He was neat in his attire. In all portraits, French and American, his dress is in accordance with the fashion. There was not, so far as I can discover, a suggestion while he was at Washington, that he was not a suitable guest for any drawing-room in the capital."

Gilbert Vale, next to Dr. Conway, one of Paine's best biographers, says: "Mr. Paine was as much esteemed in his private life as in his public. He was a welcome visitor to the tables of the most distinguished citizens.... He possessed every prominent virtue in large proportions, and to these he added the most social qualities."