Volume II Part 20 (2/2)
{1802}
_Paris, March 17,1802_ ”As it is now Peace, though the definitive Treaty is not yet signed, I shall set off by the first opportunity froales are over I continue in excellent health, which I know your friendshi+p will be glad to hear of--Wishi+ng you and America every happiness, I reed fellow-citizen”
Paine's determination not to return to Araph he saw in a Baltimore paper, headed ”Out at Last”
It stated that Paine had written to the President, expressing a wish to return by a national shi+p, and that ”periven” There was here an indication that Jefferson's invitation to Paine by the Hon John Dawson had become known to the President's eneized bythe matter appear an act of charity Paine would not believe that the President was personally responsible for the apologetic paragraph, which seeht by Dawson; but, as he afterwards wrote to Jefferson, ”it determined me not to come by a national shi+p”
His request had been made at a time when any other than a national Alish prison There was evidently no thought of any _eclat_ in the ard for economy as well as safety
It was cleared up afterwards Jefferson had been charged with sending a national shi+p to France for the sole purpose of bringing Paine home, and Paine himself would have been the first to condeh the President's adherents thought it right to deny this, Jefferson wrote to Paine that he had nothing to do with the paragraph ”With respect to the letter [offering the shi+p] I never hesitate to avow and justify it in conversation In no other way do I troublewhich is said At that time, however, there were anomalies in the th reduced to regularity”
The following to the eminent deist lecturer in New York, Elihu Palmer, bears the date, ”Paris, February 21, 1802, since the Fable of Christ”:
”Dear Friend, I received, by Mr Livingston, the letter you wrote me, and the excellent work you have published [”The Principles of Nature”]
I see you have thought deeply on the subject, and expressed your thoughts in a strong and clear style The hinting and inti that was formerly used on subjects of this kind, produced skepticism, but not conviction It is necessary to be bold Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others er thein to think
”There is an intimate friend of mine, Colonel Joseph Kirk-bride of Bordentown, New Jersey, to whom I would wish you to send your work He is an excellent man, and perfectly in our sentioes partly by land and partly by water, between New York and Philadelphia, and passes through Bordentown
”I expect to arrive in Ae of Reason to publish when I arrive, which, if II have yet published on the subject
”I write this by an ancient colleague of oing [as] Consul to Rhode Island, and aits while I write Yours in friendshi+p”
The following, dated July 8, 1802, to Consul Rotch, is the last letter I find written by Paine from Paris:
”My Dear Friend,--The bearer of this is a youngon board a shi+p to lesson the expense of his passage If you know any captain to whoed to you to speak to him about it
”As Mr Otte was to coo to Ae with hieiven up that idea I wait now for the arrival of a person froland whom I want to see, after which, I shall bid adieu to restless and wretched Europe I am with affectionate esteem to you and Mrs Rotch,
”Yours,
”Thomas Paine”
J M Lequinio, author of ”Prejudices Destroyed,” and other rationalistic works, especially dealt with in Priestley's ”Letters to the Philosophers of France”
No doubt Clio Rickman
The President's cordial letter had raised a happy vision before the eyes of one sitting amid the ruins of his republican world As he said of Job, he had ”deter ills, to impose upon himself the hard duty of contentle for liberty in France but a small circle remained
As he wrote to Lady Sht almost say like Job's servant, 'and I only alish friends who cared for him when he came out of prison few remain
The President's letter came to a poor man in a small room, furnished only with manuscripts and models of inventions Here he was found by an old friend froland, Henry Redhead Yorke, who, in 1795, had been tried in England for sedition Yorke has left us a last glihts of man” had become so antiquated in Napoleon's France, that Yorke found Paine's nas, the people ”ascribing to his espousal of the rights of the negroes of St Doo the resistance which Leclercq had experienced from them” He found Paine in No 4 Rue du Theatre Francais A ”jolly-looking wonize Mada enough on learning that he was Paine's old friend He was ushered into a little room heaped with boxes of documents, a chaos of pa on the contrast between this habitation of a founder of two great republics and the mansions of their rulers, his old friend entered, dressed in a long flannel gown
”Ties over his whole frame, and a settled melancholy was visible on his countenance He desired h he did not recollect me for a considerable time, he conversed with his usual affability I confess I felt extreottenas it could be avoided with propriety In order to try his memory, I referred to a number of circumstances which had occurred while ere in co that we had ever lived together He would frequently put his hand to his forehead, and exclaith I thought it time to remove his suspense, and stated an incident which instantly recalled e which this effected; his countenance brightened, he pressed me by the hand, and a silent tear stole down his cheek Nor was I less affected than hi from our lips 'Thus are weseparation of ten years, and after having been both of us severely weather-beaten' 'Aye,' he replied, 'and ould have thought that we should meet in Paris?'