Thomas Paine, George Washington and American Politics

Thomas Paine By Laurent Dabos- 1791 National Portrait Gallery UK

The unique pamphlet Common Sense has time and time again been credited as a major catalyst in getting the middling classes involved in the American Revolution. The pamphlet, in some senses kick started the uprising. Common Sense made simpler, to the common man, the reasons for rebellion. For all its use of plain language the pamphlet initially left one big mystery, the author. When the work was first published the author chose to remain anonymous. Who was the person who seemed to speak directly to these people in language they could understand? Eric Foner writes, “The author of Common Sense was Thomas Paine, ‘a gentleman,’ as John Adams described him, ‘about two years ago from England, a man who…has genius in his eyes.”[1] If the pamphlet was, in fact the catalyst for the masses to revolt, it was also a personal catalyst for Paine to enter into Philadelphia politics and form relationships with some of the most powerful men of the revolutionary period, including George Washington. This relationship in particular would grow and then through the changing and unstable years after the revolution disintegrate, due to differing political views and circumstances.

To understand how Thomas Paine arrived at this point, we must first examine where he came from. What experiences did he have in his early years that would have led him across the ocean to a settlement who’s populous was filled with a rising distaste for the country in which he was born? Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, England on January 29, 1737. His Father Joseph, a Quaker, was a Farmer and a Staymaker (Corset maker.) His Mother, Elizabeth was the daughter of an attorney and a member of the Church of England. On this winter day in 1737, William M. Van der Weyde states “The parents and the doctor and the visiting neighbors little suspected that the tiny infant they gazed upon would someday fire the temper of a whole people into resistance against tyranny.”[2] In his youth Paine would have the chance to receive a good education; Van der Weyde will quote Paine reflecting back on this time saying "My father being of the Quaker profession, it was my good fortune to have an exceeding good moral education, and a tolerable stock of useful learning.[3]

Thetford Grammar- Paine's School- Courtesy Google

During his school years Paine would be in very close proximity to the stocks, and as he walked past each day he would hear the terrifying screams of the prisoners. Being merely a child, Paine was horrified by what he heard. It is therefore, a distinct possibility that being daily, within audible range of the sounds of imprisoned and tortured men, could have led Paine in his future to align himself with the causes of freedom, liberty and rights for all mankind. Despite any promise the young Paine showed in his studies, as soon as he turned thirteen he was taken out of school and sent to work, as was customary at the time, in his father’s Staymaking business.

Although he found the work to be terribly boring, Paine would stay on at his father’s Thetford shop for four years. During this time, circa 1754, Paine would become increasingly fascinated with the sea. Van der Weyde states, “The outcome was the shipping of the lad aboard the Terrible, a privateer, under the command of Captain Death. This inauspicious conjunction of names seems to have had no deterrent effect upon the youth eager for adventure."[4] As soon as Paine’s father found out about the plan he rushed to the ship and pulled his soon off the boat and brought him back to the shop. This was a good fortune for Paine, as on the Terrible’s next voyage, she would lose 175 of her 200 men and the captain in an engagement with another ship named the Vengence. In 1756, after England declared war on France, Paine would find himself again, a privateer on a ship called the King of Prussia.

The nautical stint did not last long and eventually Paine went to London and worked once more as a Staymaker. He eventually would go on to establish himself as a master of Staymaking in Sandwich, Kent. It was in Kent that Paine now twenty two years old, met and married Mary Lambert. The new couple moved to Dover, England, where Paine established his own staymaking business. The business did not take off and within a year had completely failed. To add insult to injury, Mary Lambert passed away at the very same time. However, as Eric Foner writes “Mary Lambert’s father was an officer in the Customs and Excise Service, and seems to have inspired Paine to abandon staymaking. Paine returned to Thetford to study for the excise officers’examanination, which required a grounding in mathematics and an ability to write in clear English.”[5] By December 1, 1762 Paine was collecting Taxes; by 1765 he was dismissed for the common practice of filing official reports on goods without first examining said goods.

After being let go from the excise collecting job, Paine tried to reestablish himself as a staymaker, which was also short lived. In fact, before reaching the shores of America, Paine would go on to teach, preach, collect excise and marry (both for the second time,) lead a group of seemingly underpaid excisemen to ask for higher salaries, write his first pamphlet; The Case of the Officers of Excise, run a shop and become separated. Upon separating from his wife Paine returned to London. While in London he met and befriended Benjamin Franklin. The details of how the friendship between the two men began are hazy, never the less; it is a fact that the two most definitely knew and respected one another. Paine actually had the unique experience of being present when Franklin conducted some of his experiments with electricity. Benjamin Franklin could see that Paine was in need of a drastic change in his life. Van der Weyde conveys that,

Dr. Franklin not only perceived this but he also appreciated the talents and genius of his friend, and the farsighted philosopher was keenly alive to America’s need of just such a spirit as Thomas Paine. He

Benjamin Franklin- Paine's ticket to America

strongly urged the young man to migrate to America – thereby not only befriending Paine but at the same time conferring upon this country the greatest of the many obligations for which it is indebted to Franklin.[6]

At the age of 37, having been a virtual failure at everything he had attempted, Paine decided to start anew in America. Van der Weyde relays Paine’s recollection of his youth, where he stated “I happened, when a schoolboy, to ‘pick up a pleasing natural history of Virginia, and my inclination from that day of seeing the western side of the Atlantic never left me.”[7] This inclination combined with a letter of introduction form Benjamin Franklin would find Paine setting off on a journey that would exceed his wildest expectations and change his life for the better, at least for a short time.

Paine arrived on America’s shores on September 30, 1774. Richard Bache, Franklin’s son-in-law, would be expecting Paine in Philadelphia. Paine carried with him, like a badge of honor, the letter of introduction from one of America’s most well respected thinkers. Paine would present the letter to Bache upon their first meeting. Van der Weyde relays what the letter read,

The bearer Mr. Thomas Paine is very well recommended to me as an ingenious worthy young man. He goes to Pennsylvania with a view of settling there. I request you to give him your best advice and countenance, as he is quite a stranger there. If you can put him in away of obtaining employment as a clerk, or assistant tutor in a school, or assistant surveyor, of all of which I think him very capable, so that he may procure a subsistence at least, till he can make acquaintance and obtain a knowledge of the country, you will do well, and much oblige your affectionate father.[8]

Bache did oblige his father and by 1775 Paine was working for The Pennsylvania Magazine. Van der Weyde writes that Paine, in a 1775 letter to Benjamin Franklin, thanking him for his help, would say that “Robert Aitkin, has lately attempted a magazine, but having little or no turn that way himself, he has applied to me for assistance. He had not above six hundred subscribers when I first assisted him. We have now upwards of fifteen hundred, and daily increasing.”[9] Paine would go on to become editor of this paper for eighteen months. There would appear in the Magazine many items written by Paine, sometimes under pen names like “Vox Populi” or voice of the people. Paine also wrote descriptions of the latest technology from England. Because of these articles specifically, Paine was able to befriend many of the scientists who were members of Ben Franklin’s Philosophical Society. These scientists would spark Paine’s interest in all things scientific, which would lead him to further explore some experimentation later in his life.

Paine had begun to make quite a name for himself in America. Always taking on the burdens of the people, Paine would now tackle one of the most taboo subjects of the time. Van der Weyde writes “on March 8, 1775 -- a notable essay by Paine on the subject of slavery, appeared in the Postscript to the Pennsylvania Journal and Weekly Advertiser. This essay, which was printed under the title of "African Slavery in America," was the first article published in this country urging the emancipation of slaves and the abolishment of the system of negro bondage. “[10] Paine had now taken a side, he was showing America that just because he was a native of England, it did not necessarily mean he considered himself an Englishman or had any allegiance to that country whatsoever.

As Foner states, “During the period of his residence there, from 1774 until his return to England in 1787, Paine’s Philadelphia would undergo enormous political, social and economic changes. New classes, particularly the city’s artisans, would emerge into political consciousness, challenging the dominance of a previously entrenched elite and often finding their voice in Paine’s writings.”[11] Paine’s writing indeed provided a voice, particularly in the pamphlet Common Sense, whose precursor was a short essay, entitled “A Serious Thought” to which Paine signed the pen name “Humanus.” Many scholars say this essay was the first indication that there would be a Declaration of Independence.

Following the essay Paine set to work on Common Sense. He would spend the autumn of 1775 writing

Common Sense and a Portrait of Paine
both from the MORR collection - on exhibit in the Smith Gallery 

passionately about why he felt the colonies needed to break free from what he saw as tyrannical British rule. The pamphlet was published by Robert Bell on January 10, 1776. It is estimated that in the first three months of the pamphlet being on sale 120,000 copies were sold. The title page, however, only indicated that the piece had been “written by an Englishman,” there was no name to attribute the stirring work to. “Although no announcement was made of the fact” Van der Wyde states, “Paine gave to the cause of independence all of his financial interest in the pamphlet, thereby depriving himself quite a large fortune, the price of the pamphlet being two shillings.”[12] Paine’s devotion to his adopted country is unquestionable; the selfless action of taking no compensation for Common Sense proves that his heart lay solely in seeing the people of America break free from England and establishes themselves as a republic. Eric Foner quotes Paine’s reason for writing Common Sense,“ My motive and object in all my political works, beginning with Common Sense,’ Paine recalled in 1806,’…have been to rescue man from tyranny and false systems and false principles of government, and enable him to be free.”[13] It was as simple as that for Paine. It is also no coincidence that six month after the publication of Common Sense the people of America had the Declaration of Independence drafted and signed.

The influence of Common Sense was an easy ticket for Paine to make his way into the inner circle of politics in Revolutionary Philadelphia. Once men like George Washington and John Adams saw what Ben Franklin had seen in Paine, back in 1774 combined with the brilliance of his best selling pamphlet they too would want him in their circle. Before the publication of Common Sense, Van der Weyde relays that,

The Rev. Jonathan Boucher in May, 1775, crossing the Potomac in a rowboat, happened in midstream to encounter another boat carrying George Washington, on his way to Congress. The two men had some conversation about the prospects of the colonies. Washington unequivocally declared himself loyal to the crown, saying to Boucher, "If you ever hear of my joining in any such measures" (measures for separation) "you have my leave to set me down for everything wicked." Two months later, in July, when Washington took command of the army, he (as he subsequently related) "abhorred the idea of independence.[14]

Soon after this account, Van der Weyde states “Washington, who only shortly before was protesting his loyalty to Great Britain, carefully read Paine’s pamphlet and was at once converted to the cause of independence.”[15]In 1776, Washington would be inspired by Paine again after the publication of his pamphlet entitled The American Crisis, Washington was so moved that he ordered that the pamphlet be read to all of the troops in the continental army. Indeed these examples would indicate that George Washington had an overwhelming respect for Paine and his ideas.

“In the course of this year,1776,” according to Thomas Clio Rickman, “Mr. Paine accompanied the army with General Washington, and was with him in his retreat from the Hudson River to the Delaware.”[16] Only a year later in 1777, Paine was first appointed secretary to a commission sent to Pennsylvania to make a treaty with the Native Americans. On April 17th of the same year Paine would be unanimously appointed by Congress as Secretary of the Committee of Foreign Affairs. This office saw Paine receive all letters written by Congress as well as all replies sent to Congress. Paine was expected to follow Congress wherever they met or were forced to flee to. He was afforded, in this position the opportunity to see foreign courts and how they conducted their politics.

 

Paine's personal message to Washington in a compilation of his works-
MORR Collection

The secretary position would also see Paine embroiled in the Silas Deane Affair, where Mr. Deane was accused of making bad deals with France in order to secure provisions for American troops. Paine spoke out against Deane, and would end up resigning from the position in 1779. Rickman quotes Paine, in his letter to Congress after his resignation saying “I prevented Deane’s fraudulent demand being paid, and so far the country is obliged to me, but I became the victim of my integrity.”[17] Despite this unfortunate downfall, Paine was, in late 1779 given a degree of Master of Arts by the University of Philadelphia and in 1780 he was inducted into Benjamin Franklin’s American Philosophical Society. Still respected by his political peers, in 1781 Paine was asked to accompany Colonel Laurens to France, to yet again try to obtain more money for the failing American economy. According to Rickman “his value, his firmness, his independence, as a political character, were now universally acknowledged.”[18] George Washington, once more in his undying respect for Paine, would ask that he rejoin Congress upon his return; Paine rejected him on the grounds that he simply thought it was inappropriate after his resignation only a few years earlier.

George Washington

Washington however would still visit with Paine. On September 10, 1783 Washington sent a letter to Paine, upon having heard of his presence in Borden Town, New Jersey where Washington happened to be staying as well. Washington wrote “if you will come to this place and partake with me, I shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind congress of your past services to this country …”[19] In fact the two men did meet at the home Washington was staying at called Rocky Hill. While they visited, Paine and Washington got into a debate about the fact that the nearby Millstone River could be set on fire. Paine proposed the phenomena causing this was inflammable air, while two of Washington’s troops argued that it was solid combustible material that had floated up to the surface from the river’s bottom, upon reaching the top this material would thereby provide fuel for the river to be ignited. The following night Paine, Washington and the soldiers took a flat bottom boat out on the river, Paine and Washington held burning paper just above the rivers surface, while the two soldiers stirred up the muck from the river bed. Marc Mappen writes that “according to Paine, ‘When the mud at the bottom was disturbed by the poles, the air bubbles rose fast, and I saw the fire take from General Washington’s light and descend from thence to the surface of the water.”[20] Paine was right, although it would take many more years to be discovered, the thing that ignited the river was Methane.

Paine and Washington shared a mutual respect and a solid friendship. This would change, however when Paine took off for Europe in 1787. Feeling he had in essence, worn out his welcome in America the great writer set his sights on the other side of the Atlantic. Though he spent much time in England working on his designs for an iron bridge, Paine would eventually get back to writing. His next offering would be the Rights of Man. The book was Paine’s thoughts on the French Revolution and in some ways could be said to be a catalyst for the uprising by peasants in France at the end of the 18th century. After the book took off and sold many, many copies worldwide, it was evident that Paine had ruffled the wrong feathers. However, George Washington was an admirer, once again, of his friend’s latest work. In a 1792 letter, thanking Paine for the fifty copies of Rights of Man that he had sent him, Washington wrote “Let it suffice, therefore, at this time to say, that I rejoice in the information of your personal prosperity—and as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than I do, that it is the first wish of my heart that the enlightened policy of the present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which they are entitled—and lay the foundation of happiness for future generations.”[21] Robespierre, France’s new leader, on the other hand would call for Paine to stand trial. He tried to escape, being slightly confused as to what he was actually being hunted for. Eventually Paine was caught and consequently found guilty of liable and was jailed in Paris.

From his prison cell he wrote letter after letter to his old friends in the United States. Paine’s main concern was trying to convince French officials that he was in fact an American citizen, since France was an ally to America, naturally he should be set free. It seemed the more Paine wrote, the less he was answered on this subject. Paine finally wrote to George Washington who was now the President of the fledgling republic pleading with him for assistance. Again, Paine heard nothing back.

Paine was finally rescued by James Monroe but was now feeling completely betrayed by his former brethren. In an out of character episode Paine would channel all his fear and anger at his erstwhile comrade George Washington. Paine gathered up all the letters he never sent Washington while he was imprisoned and that Monroe urged him not to send and had them published in Benjamin Franklin Bache’s Aurora. Now the entire nation could read Paine’s tirade. In a letter dated July 30, 1796 Paine would unleash a world of insults on the first President. He begins by saying “I shall offer you no apologies for this letter…”[22] he will go on to state his reasons for being unhappy with the American government. He will also lament how his vision of liberty was being put into practice. Paine will then go on to take full credit for the idea of unifying the colonies into one, as illustrated here,

I declare myself opposed to several matters in the Constitution, particularly to the manner in which what is called the Executive is formed, and to the long duration of the Senate; and if I live to return to America, I will use all my endeavours to have them altered. I also declare myself opposed to almost the whole of your administration; for I know it to have been deceitful, if not perfidious, as I shall show in the course of this letter. But as to the point of consolidating the States into a Federal Government, it so happens, that the proposition for that purpose came originally from myself.[23]

Paine will exhaust many topics in this particular letter, but the most surprising are his direct attacks on Washington’s character and conduct during and after the Revolutionary war. For Example Paine wrote “The part I acted in the American Revolution is well known; I shall not here repeat it. I know also that had it not been for the aid received from France, in men, money and ships that your cold and unmilitary conduct (as I shall show in the course of this letter) would in all probability have lost America…”[24] Paine again recalls Washington’s service as Commander of the Continental Army by saying “You slept away your time in the field, till the finances of the country were completely exhausted, and you have but little share in the glory of the final event.”[25] In a final attack, Paine will directly compare Washington to an English Monarch by saying “Elevated to the chair of the Presidency, you assumed the merit of everything to yourself, and the natural ingratitude of your constitution began to appear. You commenced your Presidential career by encouraging and swallowing the grossest adulation, and you travelled America from one end to the other to put yourself in the way of receiving it. You have as many addresses in your chest as James the II.”

Though Paine will go on to set forth some seemingly common thoughts about George Washington, as Joseph J. Ellis describes the public charges levied against Washington, “He had no compunction about driving around Philadelphia in an ornate carriage drawn by six cream colored horses; or, when on horseback, riding a white stallion with a leopard cloth and gold-trimmed saddle; or, accepting laurel crowns at public celebrations that resemble coronations.”[26] This is not how you correspond with a friend.

Paine will call out for an answer as to why not one person from the executive branch of the government made any inquiries as to his wellbeing, and will say “Mr. Washington owed it to me on every score of private acquaintance, I will not now say, friendship; for it has some time been known by those who know him, that he has no friendships; that he is incapable of forming any…”[27] The letter ends with Paine saying to Washington “And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.”[28] In a final insult, Elis writes that while “Tom Paine celebrated Washington’s departure, (he) actually prayed for his imminent death.”[29]

Although Washington himself never officially responded to Paine, he did once state according to Ellis “these attacks, unjust and unpleasant as they are, will occasion no change in my conduct; nor will they work any other effect in my mind.” [30] One friend did take it upon himself to come out in Washington’s defense, as stated in a 1798 letter to Washington from Timothy Pickering, he relays the news of a William Cobbet in his Porcupine Gazette saying “The vile traducers of the old General must blush to read what a foreigner and a Briton says of him.”[31]

It is true that Paine’s writings can be described as the ravings of a man gone mad. We must, however take into consideration Paine’s circumstances at the time the letter was written. He had given America a lifetime of service and now, in a time when his own soul was being tried, he stood alone and companionless in a foreign country. None of the great men who praised him and that he stood shoulder to shoulder with through the birth of a nation came to his aid. What Washington’s reasons were cannot be known. Perhaps it was his aids urging him to not get involved with the French Revolution, or perhaps his fondness for Paine had faded. Whatever the explanation, it seems that George Washington’s quote of "I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination" did not quite hold true when it came to Thomas Paine.

Written by: 

Holly Marino, Museum Specialist
___________________________________________________________

[1] Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), xxvii
[2] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 1-2.
[3] Ibid, 4.
[4] Ibid, 6.
[5] Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), 2.
[6] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 15.
[7] Ibid, 4.
[8]Ibid, 17-18.
[9] Ibid, 18.
[10] Ibid, 20.
[11] Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), 20.
[12] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 30-31.
[13]Eric Foner, Tom Paine and Revolutionary America, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005), 75.
[14] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 28.
[15] William M. Van der Weyde, The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 1, Life of Thomas Paine, (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 31.
[16] Thomas Clio Rickman, Life and Writings of Thomas Paine: Volume 1, Life and Appreciations of Thomas Paine, (New York, NY: Vincent Parke and Company, 1908), 25.
[17] Ibid, 26.
[18] Ibid, 28.
[19] Ibid, 29.
[20] Marc Mappen, There’s More to New Jersey than the Sopranos, (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2009), 48.
[21] The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed. Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008.< http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-05-10-02-0225> (13 Apr 2010)
[22] The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 5, Letters & Dissertations, ed. William Van der Weyde (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 139.
[23] Ibid, 141
[24] Ibid, 146
[25] Ibid, 156-147
[26] Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York, NY: Vintage Books: A Division of Random House, Inc., 2000), 127.
[27] The Life and Works of Thomas Paine: Patriot’s Edition, Volume 5, Letters & Dissertations,ed. William Van der Weyde (New Rochelle, NY: Thomas Paine National Historical Association, 1925), 152.
[28] Ibid, 200-201.
[29] Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation, (New York, NY: Vintage Books: A Division of Random House, Inc., 2000), 126.
[30] Ibid,126.
[31] The Papers of George Washington Digital Edition, ed. Theodore J. Crackel. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, 2008. <http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/GEWN-06-02-02-0046> (13 Apr 2010)