The life of Thomas Paine with critical and explanatory observations on his writings

Contents

Preface, containing: earlier Histories, Cheetham’s Trials Carver’s Letter,

PART I Mr Paine, his birth, parentage, early life

education, religious impressions .... 16

Employment, arnves in London, goes to

Leaves the sea, his School-master’s in¬ fluence, settles at Sandwich, marries, removes to Margate, becomes Excise¬ man, is dismissed, Petitions . 18

Goes to London, becomes a Teacher, and Student in Natural Philosophy,

Astronomy, and Mathematics . 19

His style, and attainments . 20,21

Re-appointed in the Excise, resides at Lewes, second marriage, social hab¬ its, early Poetry, his Letter on Excise Officers, habits, and reputation . . . .22, 23 Becomes tobacconist, suffers in busi¬ ness, separates from his Wife, her property, after-conduct, religion, sin¬ gular connubial fact . 24, 25

His early Thoughts on Government, re¬ visits London, obtains Franklin’s friendship, leaves England for Amer¬ ica, Reflections . 26-28

Part II. X

Mr. Paine, his arrival in America, brings v letters from Franklin, edits “ Penn¬ sylvania Magazine,” his poetry, song on Wolfe, object in coming to Amer¬ ica, connexion with Dr. Rush, his literary attainments, a beautiful ex¬ tract . 39-33

Publishes “ Common Sense,” its ef¬ fects, gives up copy-right, enters the

army as a volunteer . 50-53

Publishes the “ Crisis,” ail extract, Cheetham’s account of its influence on the Trenton affair, 2d “Crisis,” to Lord Howe, 3d “ Crisis,” appoint¬ ed Secretary to the Committee on

Foreign Affairs . 54, 55

4th “ Crisis,” on the loss of the battle at Brandywine, salutary effects of this Crisis, 5th “ Crisis” (to Lord Howe), on predatory war, distribu¬ tion of forged bills . 56

6th “ Crisis,” to Carlisle, Clinton, &e., in ridicule of “ rightful sovereign,” after the treaty with Fiance, 7th “ Crisis,” to the People of England, resigns his office of Secretary .... 58, 59 Becomes Clerk to the Legislature of Pennsylvania, 8th “ Crisis,” address to the People of England, 9th “ Cri¬ sis,” after the loss of Charleston . . 60, 61 Crisis Extraordinary” on taxes, pro¬ poses in a letter to Mr. Isard of South Carolina, a loan from France, accom¬ panies Col. Laurens to France, effects a loan, intention to visit England, advice of Gen. Greene, obtains the despatches of an English packet, a French fleet, gives five hundred dol¬ lars in relief of the Treasury .... 62-64 10th “ Crisis” after the capture of Corn¬ wallis, a supernumerary “ Crisis” to Sir Guy Carleton, letter to Lord Shel¬ burne, 12th “ Crisis,” publication of “ Public Good,” his disinterestedness and pecuniary loss from Virginia . . 65-67 Ilia .etler to Abbe R.ivual. Washing-

.\jyanb

ton’s regard for Mr. Paine’s service? 58, 69 Receives $3,000 from Congress, re¬ ceives 5001. from Pennsylvania, re¬ ceives from New York an estate at Rochelle, publishes “ Dissertation on Government, do. on “ Paper Money,” commences a private subscription, when public failed . 71-71

Part III

Mr. Paine, his departure from America, object, reception in France, iron bridge, visits Sir Joseph Banks, his mother, publishes “ Prospects on the Rubicon,” connexion with Society of

Arts, their meanness . 75,73

Assisted by Mr. Whiteside, leaves Eng¬ land for France, account of French

Revolution . 77

Replies to Burke, secretly opposed by Government, “ Rights of Man,” . . 94-98 Goes to France, danger, reply to Abbe Syeyes, returns to Loudon, address at Thatched House, 2d part of “ Rights of Man,” Government offers to bnbe

or purchase the printer . 97-100

Prosecuted, his letter, addresses against “ Rights of Man” by corporations,

&c., “ Address to the Address¬ ers” . 101-106

Elected to the French Convention, treatment at Dover and Calais, elect¬ ed for Abbeville, Beauvais, and Ver¬ sailles, his trial and conviction, re

tailers prosecuted . 107-109

A list of his puhiisheis prosecuted, so¬ cial life in London, opposition to *,he death of the King of France, hated by Marat and others, attacked by

Capt. Grimstoue . 110-113

His life in Paris, expelled the Conven¬ tion by a motion to expel foreigners, is imprisoned by a motion to imprison persons born m England, publishes “Age of Reason,” Americans in Paris seek his release, coldness of Wash¬ ington, and Morris the American Minister in France, writes 2d part of “Age of Reason,” his letter to Mon¬ roe, and reply . 114 ii8

Released from prison, visits Mf. Mon¬ roe, miraculous escape, invited to re¬ turn to the Convention, publishes “Age of Reason,” its principles, Llandalf’s reply, the publisher Wil¬ liams prosecuted . 119 125

His speech on Boissy d’Anglas’ consti¬ tution, adopted, convention termi¬ nated, Mr. Paine not re-elected, 2d part of “Age of Reason,” “ D.sscr- . tation on Government,” “ Agrarian Justice,” English Finances, his let¬ ter to Washington, his letter to a lady at New York, and attachment to

“A Theophilanthropist,” his letter on the 18th Fructidor, to Camille Jor¬ dan, Mr. Paine at one. time unpopu¬ lar in France, resides in Bonne¬ ville’s family, resolves on leaving

His moral and social Character in

His treatment by historians and book¬ sellers, his iron bridge, poetry, his attempt to return, and final return to America . 136-140

I

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 we have never seen j it has sunk into oblivion ; it partly served the political purpose for which it was written, but* the 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 zealous disciple of Paine, both in politics and religion ; but he had retrogaded in politics, and deserted the principles of the democratic party j Paine had attacked him with his accus¬ 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 of Paine, heated by party politics, and fired with revenge, like the ass in the fable, he kicked, not indeed the dying, but the dead lio .1, by writing the life of his adversary. Cheet*

PREFACE.

ham, however, connected this with a scheme of interest ; 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 government ; and Cheetham apparently meant this 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 af¬ ter a lapse of some years caused the production of two other lives, one by Clio Rickman, the intimate friend of Mr. Paine for many years, and another by Mr. W. T. Sherwin, both pub¬ lished 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 Paine, however, by Mr. Rickman, is sullied by a little vanity ; he is to Paine, what Boswell was to Johnson. We are indebt¬ ed to Mr. Rickman for many facts on which we can rely ; but with the best intentions he was not the man to do Mr. Paine justice.

The best life of Paine before published, is that of Sherwin ; and from this life we shall freely extract. But Mr. Sherwin is incorrect on some points, and his whole work is so exclu¬ sively adapted to a London reader, that it is deteriorated for this market. Mr. Paine changed public opinion in favor of a republic at the time of the Revolution ; his earliest en¬ ergies were in favor of American liberty ; it was here that his mighty powers were first developed, and here his political principles took root. His success in the United States brought him out in Europe ; and his “ Rights of Man,” which shook the corrupt government of England, and endeared him to all France and every friend of liberty, was based upon his “ Com¬ mon Sense,” which had concentrated public opinion in favor of a declaration of independence. And when the buds of

PREFACE.

liberty were nipped in England' and France, to this country Mr. Paine retired, as his proper home, at the invitation of Jefferson, then the president, and avowedly the greatest and best statesman this country has known. And here, too, he died in peace, in a good old age, the firm and consistent friend of liberty. To this country, then, in a special manner belongs his life ; here are his most numerous friends and personal ac¬ quaintances ; it is here that the calumnies propagated by Cheetham may be effectually rebutted, by living witnesses yet in the sound possession of their faculties; and it is here 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 present undertaking.

The life of Paine by Cheetham has had a considerable influence ; for though his calumnies are palpable, and his mo¬ 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 he has stated ; fortunately, however, a public trial, in which he was convicted of libel, 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 produces no proof, but inserts 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 generally reported it $ 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 prostitution ; said Paine 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 the libeller 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 muchinjured 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 had, in 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 confi¬ dence misplaced. Mr. Recorder Hoffman directed the jury, that if they should be of opinion, that Mr. Cheetham had

PREFACE.

been informed of what he wrote, and be.ieved 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.

This monstrous doctrine, which leads to the prostration of private reputation, if not to the dissolution of civil society, was promptly rejected by the jury, although composed of men of different political sentiments, who returned in a few min¬ utes a verdict of guilty.

The court, however, when the libeller came up the next day to receive his sentence, highly commended the book which contained the libellous publication, declared that it tended to serve the cause of religion, and imposed no other punishment on the libeller, than the payment of two hundred and fifty dollars, with a direction that the costs be taken out of it.

It is fit to remark, lest foreigners who are unacquainted with our political condition, should receive erroneous impres¬ sions, that Mr. Recorder Hoffman does not belong to what is called the republican party in America, but has been elevated to office by men in hostility to it, who obtained a temporary ascendency in the councils of the state.”

EXTRACTS FROM MR. SAMPSON’S SPEECH ON THE TRIAL OF MR. JAMES

CHEETHAM, FOR A LIBEL ON MRS. MARGARET BONNEVILLE, IN HIS

LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE.

“In every other grief than that which this historian has in¬ flicted on her the innocent find comfort ; for innocence is in all other wrongs, against all other strokes of man’s injustice or oppression, a sevenfold shield. Not so where woman’s honor is assailed ; suspicion there is worse than death itself. It is that for which alone the innocent wife of Cesar was repu¬ diated. The man who dares attack it is of all other criminals the greatest. If he be not a traitor it is for this alone that he is worse. For many a man has suffered as a traitor, whom after-aofes have revered and honored. But never was he who set his cloven-hoof upon a woman’s honor worthy the name of man.

[Here the defendant rose and claimed the protection of the court, not so much with a desire to prevent the range of the ingenious counsel, as to prevent the utterance of personalities, that it would not be prudent perhaps to repeat out of court..

While the defendant was addressing the court, the counsel calmly advanced, and taking a pinch of snuff, modestly ob¬ served, that what he was doing was in court, and what was to be done out of court was not to be talked of here. Then

PREFACE.

pointing1 to the defendant, and casting a significant look upon him, he proceeded.]

This unrighteous man has, by this very * movement of his choler, justified all that I can ever say. If he complains of personalities — he who is hardened in every gross abuse — he who lives reviling and reviled ; who might construct him¬ self a monument, with no other materials hut those records to which he is a party, and in which he stands enrolled as an offender — if he cannot sit still to hear his accusation, but calls for the protection of the court against a counsel, whose duty it is to make his crimes appear — how does she deserve protection whom he has driven to the sad necessity of coming here to vindicate her honor from those personalities which he has lavished on her 1 Did not his opening counsel say before you that ‘he could make the color fade upon this lady’s cheek, and wish that she might be in court to hear him 1 re¬ gret that her own son was not here to testify against her V Was not this monstrous personality! And when it is consid¬ ered that before this very cause drew near its close, the other counsel of this same defendant rose and told you, that ‘ they admitted her character was spotless, and for that reason that no reproach was cast upon it, desire you to acquit their inno¬ cent client, who is a mere historian, who never could have malice, who was more ready to rectify his errors, than others to observe him.’

But it is well, and I am glad that I was interrupted ; for the very evil genius that waits upon his life has here, for once, worked to an honest end. For while my voice was almost choked with crowding truths, struggling for utterance, and while the swell of honest indignation rose even to suffocation, he came forward and pointed my attention to that sub¬ ject which first, deserved rebuke. *

I had said, that in the catalogue of crimes none could be found more base than his. Not treason, for the reasons I have given. Not murder ; for he who murders life, murders all sorrow with it ; but he has doomed this lady to days of sorrow, and to lingering death. The pirate meets his foe, or seeks his prey, where death and danger stare him in the face ; and when he falls before the sword of justice, some sympathy may mingle with his shame, and men regret that one so brave in manly enterprise should fall so ignominiously. But here is an attack upon a woman far from her husband’s side, from friends and home, whose infant sons are yet too tender to avenge their mother’s wrongs. The forger who counterfeits some instrument to cheat you of your money, for that crime spins out his wretched days in hard captivity, in infamy and labor: will you compare his crime with that of one who, by his fabricated histories, pilfers from helpless woman the only

PREFACE.

precious jewel which she prizes — her more than life, her all — her spotless honor 1 That which the robber or the thief purloins may be retrieved, or may be spared ; but not the worth of twenty thousand beings such as the libeller, were he worth twenty thousand times as much as ever he will be, reform how he may, would pay the twenty thousandth part of that which he has taken.

It is argued that everything should be intended in favor of this defendant, who has written so godly a work against the prince of deists, and for the holy gospel. I am sorry to hear such arguments advanced ; they go almost to burlesque reli¬ gion itself. He a man of God ! He write for the love of God! His book a godly book! a vile, obscene, and filthy compilation, which bears throughout the character of rancor¬ ous malice, and tramples upon every Christian charity. Libel an innocent woman, lie and calumniate, for the sake of Christianity ! If this be the only godly deed this man has done, I pray to Heaven to be more merciful to him than he has been to Mrs. Bonneville, and that for this very work of godliness he be not damned.

If you be Christian jurors punish him ; for be assured of this, that twenty Paines, were twenty such just now upon this earth, could not conjointly do more harm to Christianity by their most violent efforts, than this man by defending it would do. If any one of wavering faith should hear that the best vindication of God’s word was this most libellous and scan¬ dalous work, he never would be a Christian from that hour. Not every one that saith, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but least of all he that makes the blessed name of God a cloak for malice and iniquity. He may be like those priests of whom we read in history, who, with the holy cross in the one hand and the bloody sabre in the other, commit atrocities at which nature shudders.

Where did he learn, that the God of mercy took delight in human sacrifices, and that, to do him honor, a woman’s heart should palpitate upon a bloody altar 1 Has he ever read the word of God 1 or, this heavenly historian , does he know one letter of the gospel history 1 If he does, he is as blunt and dull in understanding, as he is dead .to sensibility arid delica¬ cy. When a woman was brought before the author of the Christian religion, taken in the very fact of adultery, what did he say 1 He left behind him a specimen of tenderness ever memorable and divine. ‘Let him,’ he said to. the fanat ical and malignant rabble, ‘ let him who is innocent cast the first stone.’

And if this Christian historian had ever known or felt the benignant spirit of holy inspiration, would he not be sensible that he was not innocent 1 If he be innocent, then are tigers gentle

PREFACE.

There was a monastery where deadly crimes were expiated called La Trappe : when sinners entered it they made a ter' rible vow of everlasting silence, and from that awful moment never uttered a word, and daily with their nails dug their own graves. When the midnight bell tolled them to prayer, they left their solitary cells, and moved with noiseless step through gloomy cloirters and whispering aisles, with downcast look, turning their rosaries, but never spoke. Such is the peni¬ tence, such the everlasting silence that would become the ruthless slanderer of woman’s honor. But he who acts the bully and the bravo, and calls himself the champion of high Heaven, what words can paint the horror he inspires ! Then let us leave him.

My duty calls me now to recapitulate the testimony of all his witnesses. The first and principal is Mr. Carver. He, with uplifted hand, affirmed, by the ever-living God, the truth of what he testified — and what was that 1 His letter tells us all : that he and Paine had a dispute for money ; and in their correspondence you may find the crimes and baseness they reciprocally urged against each other. Mr. Carver, whose vulgar scurrilous letter makes the chief buttress of this man’s defence, the more to spite his adversaries, flings out some calumny against the lady. Carver himself admits, that when she got a sight of it she threatened to prosecute him for that very letter. Yet on no better ground has this audacious libeller defamed her reputation.

From the same source springs the infernal hint that little Thomas Bonneville had the countenance and features of Thomas Paine. In his little nose no doubt the historian could discern, by learned inspection, the germes of future blossoms, and gems that in due course of nature should come to this world’s light.

Carver gives evidence of what he heard from Paine of Mrs. Bonneville, which he himself retailed to Cheetham ; and Cheetham, rather than such sublime history should not shine forth to save poor sinners’ souls, becomes his historian for the love of God, and gives them to the world as history. This is the history of this' historian and his history !

I pushed him (Carver) farther, and he stated that he and his wife had often gone to Mr. Purdy’s on the farm' to visit Mrs. Bonneville. Then it was, that seeing the toils in which his honesty and decency had fallen, he tapered off by saying he never had seen the slightest indication of any meretricious or illicit commerce between Paine and Mrs. Bonneville ; that they never were alone together, and that all the three chil¬ dren, the little godson Thomas and all, were alike the objects of Paine’s care.

Here ends the black conspiracy and conjuration for the love of God. And now the sickened soul revives, and a

PREFACE.

II bright scene appears: A group of matrons led by those hands which holy wedlock had joined to theirs for ever — heads of families, beloved, distinguished, full of respect and honor ; in form so bright, in innocence so lovely ; so pure in unsus¬ pected truth, so proud in conscious worth and dignity ; who never till that hour had crossed the threshold of a court of justice, or been where discord reigns: whose lips had never uttered other oaths than those which bound them by the wil¬ ling ties of constancy and love ; who, when the seraph-voice of piety called them down, first glided from their spheres up¬ on the wings of heaven-born charity, and having done their mission, disappeared. But, oh ! it was a holy sacrament when wife and husband twined their oaths together with such so¬ lemnity, such beaming truth, as when they made before the altar of their God that vow so full at once of joy and awe that linked their future destiny together and made them ever one. They would have told you of this lady’s sorrows and her res¬ ignation, of her spotless conduct, of her merit ; how they in¬ trusted to her care and tutelage the jewels of their souls, the children of their hearts ; with what reproachless truth ; what anxious duty she answered to the trust; had not the rules of evidence and technical formalities of law cut short their story. Her general character was all they were allowed to testify. Their words were few, but like so many messages of grace or high commands from heaven.

The wives of your own bosoms are not more pure than this injured lady is proved, nay, more, admitted now to be. If they were stigmatized by an historian , what would you say of him, that he was innocent or guilty 1

You have heard the witnesses for Mrs. Bonneville, and you may judge if this historian had inquired of them, instead of grubbing filth from every dunghill, how bright a name she would have deserved, who has been, nevertheless, doomed by this terrible man to misery.

If he had begged access to any of those high distinguished persons under whose roof she lived, whose children she had taught ; of Mr. Emmett, who oppresses no one, but protects the innocent ; or of Mr. Fulton, who knew her and her hus¬ band in their own country ; if he had asked of Mr. Jarvis — • that man of keen sagacity, of observation, with knowledge of mankind and of all the parties ; if he had been satisfied with Mr. Hitt’s wwd, rather than that of ‘pious nurses and kind attending doctors,’ and reverend teachers, who had disputes and lawsuits; he would have known what all but his mutinous genius now concedes. I have no cause of private malice against him, but quite the contrary. When he had any spark of character, he praised me more than ever I could merit, and I could not but thank him. When he had nothing good to give but his abuse, without offence or change in me,

PREFACE.

he gave me that with equal liberality, and I thanked him. If I could ask a favor of him now, it would be to abuse me more and more, and never let his malice go to the length of prais¬ ing me : for although my friends who know me well might not despise me, yet in this community where I am little known, and still almost a stranger, I may not have formed suf¬ ficient character to stand against his praise, nor he entitled to so much indulgence that it should be believed that I could have his praise, and yet be honest.”

This same Cheetbam, the libeller of Madame Bonneville, and through her of Paine’s memory, is the author of othbr calumnies on Paine. It is by him that the public have been informed that Paine was drunken and dirty in his person ; and so industriously and faithfully have the clergy preached and circulated these calumnies, that we shall scarcely be believed in contradicting them on the very best evidences, his com¬ panions now alive, and in some cases the very men whom Cheetham impudently names as sources of his information. Thus. Mr. Jarvis, the celebrated painter, with whom Mr. Paine lived, informs us distinctly that Mr. Paine was neither dirty in his habits nor drunken : nay, he good-humoredly ad¬ ded that he always drank a great deal more than ever Paine did. Mr. John Fellows lived in the same house with Mr. Paine, above a twelvemonth, and was his intimate friend for many years after his return to this country, and never saw him but once even elevated with liquor, and then he had been to a dinner-party. We know more than twenty persons who were more or less acquainted with Mr. Paine, and not one of whom ever saw him in liquor. His habit appears to have been to take one glass of rum and water with sugar in it, af¬ ter dinner, and another after supper. His limit at one period, when at Rochelle, was one quart of rum a week, for himself and friends, for Mr. Paine was rather penurious in his old age. This, and this alone, is the only moral fault we find in his character, and we wish to be his impartial historian. His manner of life at this time we get from Mr. Burger, a respect¬ able watchmaker in New York, but then a clerk in the only store at Rochelle, who served Mr. Paine with his liquor, and waited upon him when sick, and drove him about the neigh¬ borhood at the request of his employer, and thus saw much of his social habits. This gentleman never saw Mr. Paine