Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 | Page 9

Zoar as from another Sodom, to shake off the very dust
of his feet and to abandon America." "He is coming," wrote Noah
Webster, ("the mender and murderer of English,") "to publish in
America the third part of the 'Age of Reason.'" And the epigrammatists,
such as they were, tried their goose-quills on the subject:--
"He passed his forces in review, Smith, Cheetham, Jones, Duane: 'Dull
rascals,--these will never do,' Quoth he,--'I'll send for Paine.'
"Then from his darling den in France To tempt the wretch to come, He
made Tom's brain with flattery dance And took the tax from rum."
The Administration editors held their tongues;--the religious side of the
question was too strong for them.
Paine was unable to accept the passage offered him in the frigate, and
returned in a merchant-vessel in the autumn of the next year (1802).
The excitement had not subsided. Early in October, the "Philadelphia
Gazette" announced that "a kind of tumultuous sensation was produced
in the city yesterday evening in consequence of the arrival of the ship
Benjamin Franklin from Havre. It was believed, for a few moments,
that the carcass of Thomas Paine was on board, and several individuals
were seen disgracing themselves by an impious joy. It was finally
understood that Paine had missed his passage by this vessel and was to
sail in a ship to New York. Under the New York news-head we
perceive a vessel from Havre reported. Infidels! hail the arrival of your
high-priest!"
A few days later, the infidel Tom Paine, otherwise Mr. Paine, arrived
safely at Baltimore and proceeded thence to Washington. The
journalists gave tongue at once: "Fire! Age of Reason! Look at his nose!
He drank all the brandy in Baltimore in nine days! What a dirty fellow!
Invited home by a brother Tom! Let Jefferson and his blasphemous
crony dangle from the same gallows." The booksellers, quietly mindful
of the opportunity, got out an edition of his works in two volumes.
As soon as he was fairly on shore, Paine took sides with his host, and
commenced writing "Letters to the People of the United States." He
announced in them that he was a genuine Federalist,--not one of that
disguised faction which had arisen in America, and which, losing sight

of first principles, had begun to contemplate the people as hereditary
property: No wonder that the author of the "Rights of Man" was
attacked by this faction: His arrival was to them like the sight of water
to canine madness: He served them for a standing dish of abuse: The
leaders during the Reign of Terror in France and during the late
despotism in America were the same men in character; for how else
was it to be accounted for that he was persecuted by both at the same
time? In every part of the Union this faction was in the agonies of death,
and, in proportion as its fate approached, gnashed its teeth and
struggled: He should lose half his greatness when they ceased to lie. Mr.
Adams, as the late chief of this faction, met with harsh and derisive
treatment in these letters, and did not attempt to conceal his irritation in
his own later correspondence.
Paine's few defenders tried to back him with weak paragraphs in the
daily papers: His great talents, his generous services, "in spite of a few
indiscreet writings about religion," should make him an object of
interest and respect. The "Aurora's" own correspondent sent to his
paper a favorable sketch of Paine's appearance, manner, and
conversation: He was "proud to find a man whom he had admired free
from the contaminations of debauchery and the habits of inebriety
which have been so grossly and falsely sent abroad concerning him."
But the enemy had ten guns to Paine's one, and served them with all the
fierceness of party-hate. A shower of abusive missiles rattled
incessantly about his ears. However thick-skinned a man may be, and
protected over all by the oes triplex of self-sufficiency, he cannot
escape being wounded by furious and incessant attacks. Paine felt
keenly the neglect of his former friends, who avoided him, when they
did not openly cut him. Mr. Jefferson, it is true, asked him to dinners,
and invited the British minister to meet him; at least, the indignant
Anglo-Federal editors said so. Perhaps he offered him an office. If he
did, Paine refused it, preferring "to serve as a disinterested volunteer."
Poor old man! his services were no longer of much use to anybody. The
current of American events had swept past him, leaving him stranded, a
broken fragment of a revolutionary wreck.
When the nine days of wonder had expired in Washington, and the
inhabitants had grown tired of staring at Paine and of pelting him with
abuse, he