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Personal Traits. [1806-1808]
On July 1, 1806, two
young English gentlemen, Daniel and William Constable, arrived in New
York, and for some years traveled about the country. The Diary kept by
Daniel Constable has been shown me by his nephew, Clair J. Grece, LL.D. It
contains interesting allusions to Paine, to whom they brought an
introduction from Rickman.
July 1. To the
Globe, in Maiden Lane, to dine. Mr. Segar at the Globe offered to send for
Mr. Paine, who lived only a few doors off: He seemed a true Painite.
"3d. William and I
went to see Thomas Paine. When we first called he was taking a nap . . . .
Back to Mr. Paine's about 5 o'clock, sat about an hour with him . . . . I
meant to have had T. Paine in a carriage with me tomorrow, and went to
inquire for one. The price was $1 per hour, but when I proposed it to T.
P. he declined it on account of his health.
"4th. Friday. Fine
clear day. The annual Festival of Independence. We were up by five
o'clock, and on the battery saw the cannons fired, in commemoration of
liberty, which had been employed by the English against the sacred cause.
The people seemed to enter into the spirit of the day: stores &c. were
generally shut . . . . In the fore part of the day I had the honour of
walking with T. Paine along the Broadway. The day finished peaceably, and
we saw no scenes of quarreling or drunkenness.
"14. A very hot day.
Evening, met T. Paine in the Broadway and walked with him to his house.
"Oct. 29 [on
returning from a journey]. Called to see T. Paine, who was walking about
Carver's shop."
"Nov. 1. Changed
snuff-boxes with T. Paine at his lodgings. [1] The old philosopher, in bed at
4 o'clock afternoon, seems as talkative and well as when we saw him in the
summer."
In a letter written
jointly by the brothers to their parents, dated July 6th, they say that
Paine "begins to feel the effects of age. The print I left at Horley is a
very strong likeness. He lives with a small family who came from Lewes
Carvers, quite retired, and but little known or noticed." They here also
speak of "the honour of walking with our old friend T. Paine in the midst
of the bustle on Independence Day." There is no suggestion, either here or
in the Diary, that these gentlemen of culture and position observed
anything in the appearance or habits of Paine that diminished the pleasure
of meeting him. In November they traveled down the Mississippi, and on
their return to New York, nine months later, they heard (July 20, 1807)
foul charges against Paine from Carver. "Paine has left his house, and
they have had a violent disagreement. Carver charges Paine with many foul
vices, as debauchery, lying, ingratitude, and a total want of common
honour in all his actions, says that he drinks regularly a quart of brandy
per day." But next day they call on Paine, in "the Bowery road," and
William Constable writes:
"He looks better
than last year. He read us an essay on national defense, comparing the
different expenses and powers of gunboats and ships of war and batteries
in protecting a sea coast; and gave D. C. Daniel Constable a copy of his
Examination of the texts of scriptures called prophecies, etc., which he
published a short time since. He says that this work is of too high a cut
for the priests and that they will not touch it."
These brothers
Constable met Fulton, "a friend of Paine's," just then experimenting with
his steamboat on the Hudson. They also found that a scandal had been
caused by a report brought to the British Consul that thirty passengers on
the ship by which they (the Constables) came, had "the Bible bound up with
the `Age of Reason,' and that they spoke in very disrespectful terms of
the mother country." Paine had left his farm at New Rochelle, at which
place the travelers heard stories of his slovenliness, also that he was
penurious, though nothing was said of intemperance.
Inquiry among aged
residents of New Rochelle has been made from time to time for a great many
years. The Hon. J. B. Stallo, late U. S. Minister to Italy, told me that
in early life he visited the place and saw persons who had known Paine,
and declared that Paine resided there without fault. Paine lived for a
time with Mr. Staple, brother of the influential Captain Pelton, and the
adoption of Paine's religious views by some of these persons caused the
odium. [2] Paine sometimes preached at New Rochelle.
Cheetham publishes a
correspondence purporting to have passed between Paine and Carver, in
November, 1806, in which the former repudiates the latter's bill for board
(though paying it), saying he was badly and dishonestly treated in
Carver's house, and had taken him out of his Will. To this a reply is
printed, signed by Carver, which he certainly never wrote; specimens of
his composition, now before me, prove him hardly able to spell a word
correctly or to frame a sentence. [3] The letter in Cheetham shows a practised
hand, and was evidently written for Carver by the "biographer." This
ungenuineness of Carver's letter, and expressions not characteristic in
that of Paine render the correspondence mythical. Although Carver passed
many penitential years hanging about Paine celebrations, deploring the
wrong he had done Paine, he could not squarely repudiate the
correspondence, to which Cheetham had compelled him to swear in court. He
used to declare that Cheetham had obtained under false pretences and
printed without authority letters written in anger. But thrice in his
letter to Paine Carver says he means to publish it. Its closing words are:
"There may be many grammatical errours in this letter. To you I have no
apologies to make; but I hope a candid and impartial public will not view
them 'with a critick's eye.' " This is artful; besides the fling at
Paine's faulty grammar, which Carver could not discover, there is a
pretence to faults in his own letter which do not exist, but certainly
would have existed had he written it. The style throughout is
transparently Cheetham's.
In the book at
Concord the unassisted Carver writes: "The libel for wich [sic ] he [Cheetham]
was sued was contained in the letter I wrote to Paine." This was the libel
on Madame Bonneville, Carver's antipathy to whom arose from his hopes of
Paine's property. In reply to Paine's information, that he was excluded
from his Will, Carver says: "I likewise have to inform you, that I totally
disregard the power of your mind and pen; for should you, by your conduct,
permit this letter to appear in public, in vain may you attempt to print
or publish any thing afterwards." This is plainly an attempt at blackmail.
Carver's letter is dated December 2, 1806. It was not published during
Paine's life, for the farrier hoped to get back into the Will by
frightening Madame Bonneville and other friends of Paine with the stories
he meant to tell. About a year before Paine's death he made another
blackmailing attempt. He raked up the scandalous stories published by "Oldys"
concerning Paine's domestic troubles in Lewes, pretending that he knew the
facts personally. "Of these facts Mr. Carver has offered me an affidavit,"
says Cheetham.
"He stated them all
to Paine in a private letter which he wrote to him a year before his
death; to which no answer was returned. Mr. Carver showed me the letter
soon after it was written." On this plain evidence of long conspiracy with
Cheetham, and attempt to blackmail Paine when he was sinking in mortal
illness, Carver never made any comment. When Paine was known to be near
his end Carver made an effort at conciliation. "I think it a pity," he
wrote, "that you or myself should depart this life with envy in our hearts
against each other -- and I firmly believe that no difference would have
taken place between us, had not some of your pretended friends endeavored
to have caused a separation of friendship between us." [4] But abjectness was
not more effectual than blackmail. The property went to the Bonnevilles,
and Carver, who had flattered Paine's "great mind," in the letter just
quoted, proceeded to write a mean one about the dead author for Cheetham's
projected biography. He did not, however, expect Cheetham to publish his
slanderous letter about Paine and Madame Bonneville, which he meant merely
for extortion; nor could Cheetham have got the letter had he not written
it. All of Cheetham's libels on Paine's life in New York are
amplifications of Carver's insinuations. In describing Cheetham as "an
abominable liar," Carver passes sentence on himself. On this blackmailer,
this confessed libeler, rest originally and fundamentally the charges
relating to Paine's last years.
It has already been
stated that Paine boarded for a time in the Bayeaux mansion. With Mrs.
Bayeaux lived her daughter, Mrs. Badeau. In 1891, I visited, at New
Rochelle, Mr. Albert Badeau, son of the lady last named, finding him, as I
hope he still is, in good health and memory. Seated in the arm-chair given
him by his mother, as that in which Paine used to sit by their fireside, I
took down for publication some words of his. "My mother would never
tolerate the aspersions on Mr. Paine. She declared steadfastly to the end
of her life that he was a perfect gentleman, and a most faithful friend,
amiable, gentle, never intemperate in eating or drinking. My mother
declared that my grandmother equally pronounced the disparaging reports
about Mr. Paine slanders. I never remember to have seen my mother angry
except when she heard such calumnies of Mr. Paine, when she would almost
insult those who uttered them. My mother and grandmother were very
religious, members of the Episcopal Church." What Mr. Albert Badeau's
religious opinions are I do not know, but no one acquainted with that
venerable gentleman could for an instant doubt his exactness and
truthfulness. It certainly was not until some years after his return to
America that any slovenliness could be observed about Paine, and the
contrary was often remarked informer times. [5] After he had come to New York,
and was neglected by the pious ladies and gentlemen with whom he had once
associated, he neglected his personal appearance. "Let those dress who
need it," he said to a friend.
Paine was prodigal
of snuff, but used tobacco in no other form. He had aversion to profanity,
and never told or listened to indecent anecdotes.
With regard to the
charges of excessive drinking made against Paine, I have sifted a vast
mass of contrarious testimonies, and arrived at the following conclusions.
In earlier life Paine drank spirits, as was the custom in England and
America; and he unfortunately selected brandy, which causes alcoholic
indigestion, and may have partly produced the oft-quoted witness against
him -- his somewhat red nose. His nose was prominent, and began to be red
when he was fifty-five. That was just after he had been dining a good deal
with rich people in England, and at public dinners. During his early life
in England (1737-1774) no instance of excess was known, and Paine
expressly pointed the Excise Office to his record. "No complaint of the
least dishonesty or intemperance has ever appeared against me." His career
in America (1774-1787) was free from any suspicion of intemperance. John
Hall's daily diary while working with Paine for months is minute,
mentioning everything, but in no case is a word said of Paine's drinking.
This was in 1785-7. Paine's enemy, Chalmers ("Oldys"), raked up in 1791
every charge he could against Paine, but intemperance is not included.
Paine told Rickman that in Paris, when borne down by public and private
affliction, he had been driven to excess. That period I have identified on
a former page (ii., p.59) as a few weeks in 1793, when his dearest friends
were on their way to the guillotine, whither he daily expected to follow
them. After that Paine abstained altogether from spirits, and drank wine
in moderation. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City Hotel, New York, where Paine
stopped in 1803 and 1804 for some weeks, wrote a note to Caleb Bingham, of
Boston, in which he says that Paine drank less than any of his boarders.
Gilbert Vale, in preparing his biography, questioned D. Burger, the clerk
of Pelton's store at New Rochelle, and found that Paine's liquor supply
while there was one quart of rum per week. Brandy he had entirely
discarded. He also questioned Jarvis, the artist, in whose house Paine
resided in New York (Church Street) five months, who declared that what
Cheetham had reported about Paine and himself was entirely false. Paine,
he said, "did not and could not drink much." In July, 1809, just after
Paine's death, Cheetham wrote Barlow for information concerning Paine,
"useful in illustrating his character," and said: "He was a great drunkard
here, and Mr. M., a merchant of this city, who lived with him when he was
arrested by order of Robespierre, tells me he was intoxicated when that
event happened." Barlow, recently returned from Europe, was living just
out of Washington; he could know nothing of Cheetham's treachery, and fell
into his trap; he refuted the story of "Mr. M.," of course, but took it
for granted that a supposed republican editor would tell the truth about
Paine in New York, and wrote of the dead author as having "a mind, though
strong enough to bear him up and to rise elastic under the heaviest hand
of oppression, yet unable to endure the contempt of his former friends and
fellow-laborers, the rulers of the country that had received his first and
greatest services; a mind incapable of looking down with serene
compassion, as it ought, on the rude scoffs of their imitators, a new
generation that knows him not; a mind that shrinks from their society, and
unhappily seeks refuge in low company, or looks for consolation in the
sordid, solitary bottle, etc." [6] Barlow, misled as he was, well knew Paine's
nature, and that if he drank to excess it was not from appetite, but
because of ingratitude and wrong. The man was not a stock or a stone. If
any can find satisfaction in the belief that Paine found no Christian in
America so merciful as rum, they may perhaps discover some grounds for it
in a brief period of his sixty-ninth year. While living in the house of
Carver, Paine was seized with an illness that threatened to be mortal, and
from which he never fully recovered. It is probable that he was kept alive
for a time by spirits during the terrible time, but this ceased when in
the latter part of 1806 he left Carver's to live with Jarvis. In the
spring of 1808 he resided in the house of Mr. Hitt, a baker, in Broome
Street, and there remained ten months. Mr. Hitt reports that Paine's
weekly supply then -- his seventy-second year, and his last -- was three
quarts of rum per week.
After Paine had left
Carver's he became acquainted with more people. The late judge Tabor's
recollections have been sent me by his son, Mr. Stephen Tabor, of
Independence, Iowa.
"I was an associate
editor of the New York Beacon with Col. John Fellows, then (1836) advanced
in years, but retaining all the vigor and fire of his manhood. He was a
ripe scholar, a most agreeable companion, and had been the correspondent
and friend of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and John Quincy Adams, under all
of whom he held a responsible office. One of his productions was
dedicated, by permission, to [J. Q.] Adams, and was republished and
favorably received in England. Col. Fellows was the soul of honor and
inflexible in his adherence to truth. He was intimate with Paine during
the whole time he lived after returning to this country, and boarded for a
year in the same house with him.
"I also was
acquainted with Judge Hertell, of New York City, a man of wealth and
position, being a member of the New York Legislature, both in the Senate
and Assembly, and serving likewise on the judicial bench. Like Col.
Fellows, he was an author, and a man of unblemished life and
irreproachable character.
"These men assured
me of their own knowledge derived from constant personal intercourse
during the last seven years of Paine's life, that he never kept any
company but what was entirely respectable, and that all accusations of
drunkenness were grossly untrue. They saw him under all circumstances and
knew that he was never intoxicated. Nay, more, they said, for that day, he
was even abstemious. That was a drinking age and Paine, like Jefferson,
could "bear but little spirit," so that he was constitutionally temperate.
"Cheetham refers to
William Carver and the portrait painterJarvis. I visited Carver, in
company with Col. Fellows, and naturally conversed with the old man about
Paine. He said that the allegation that Paine was a drunkard was
altogether without foundation. In speaking of his letter to Paine which
Cheetham published, Carver said that he was angry when he wrote it and
that he wrote unwisely, as angry men generally do; that Cheetham obtained
the letter under false pretenses and printed it without authority.
"Col. Fellows and
Judge Hertell visited Paine throughout the whole course of his last
illness. They repeatedly conversed with him on religious topics and they
declared that he died serenely, philosophically and resignedly. This
information I had directly from their own lips, and their characters were
so spotless, and their integrity so unquestioned, that more reliable
testimony it would be impossible to give."
During Paine's life
the world heard no hint of sexual immorality connected with him, but after
his death Cheetham published the following: "Paine brought with him from
Paris, and from her husband in whose house he had lived, Margaret Brazier
Bonneville, and her three sons. Thomas has the features, countenance, and
temper of Paine." Madame Bonneville promptly sued Cheetham for slander.
Cheetham had betrayed his "pal," Carver, by printing the letter concocted
to blackmail Paine, for whose composition the farrier no doubt supposed he
had paid the editor with stories borrowed from "Oldys," or not actionable.
Cheetham probably recognized, when he saw Madame Bonneville in court, that
he too had been deceived, and that any illicit relation between the
accused lady and Paine, thirty years her senior, was preposterous.
Cheetham's lawyer
(Griffin) insinuated terrible things that his witnesses were to prove, but
they all dissolved into Carver. Mrs. Ryder, with whom Paine had boarded,
admitted trying to make Paine smile by saying Thomas was like him, but
vehemently repudiated the slander. "Mrs. Bonneville often came to visit
him. She never saw but decency with Mrs. Bonneville. She never staid there
but one night, when Paine was very sick." Mrs. Dean was summoned to
support one of Carver's lies that Madame Bonneville tried to cheat Paine,
but denied the whole story (which has unfortunately been credited by Vale
and other writers). The Rev. Mr. Foster, who had a claim against Paine's
estate for tuition of the Bonnevilles, was summoned. "Mrs. Bonneville," he
testified, "might possibly have said as much as that but for Paine she
would not have come here, and that he was under special obligations to
provide for her children." A Westchester witness, Peter Underhill,
testified that "he one day told Mrs. Bonneville that her child resembled
Paine, and Mrs. Bonneville said it was Paine's child." But, apart from the
intrinsic incredibility of this statement (unless she meant "godson"),
Underhill's character broke down under the testimony of his neighbors,
Judge Sommerville and Captain Pelton. Cheetham had thus no dependence but
Carver, who actually tried to support his slanders from the dead lips of
Paine! But in doing so he ruined Cheetham's case by saying that Paine told
him Madame Bonneville was never the wife of M. Bonneville; the charge
being that she was seduced from her husband. It was extorted from Carver
that Madame Bonneville, having seen his scurrilous letter to Paine,
threatened to prosecute him; also that he had taken his wife to visit
Madame Bonneville. Then it became plain to Carver that Cheetham's case was
lost, and he deserted it on the witness-stand; declaring that "he had
never 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 children were alike the objects of
Paine's care." Counsellor Sampson (no friend to Paine) perceived that
Paine's Will was at the bottom of the business. "That is the key to this
mysterious league of apostolic slanderers, mortified expectants and
disappointed speculators." Sampson's invective was terrific; Cheetham rose
and claimed protection of the court, hinting at a duel. Sampson took a
pinch of snuff, and pointing his finger at the defendant, said:
"If he complains of
personalities, he who is hardened in every gross abuse, he who lives
reviling and reviled, who might construct himself a monument with no other
materials but those records to which he is a party, and in which he stands
enrolled as an offender: [7] 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 he has lavished on her?"
The editor of
Counsellor Sampson's speech says that the jury "although composed of men
of different political sentiments, returned in a few minutes a verdict of
guilty." It is added:
"The court, however,
when the libeler came up the next day to receive his sentence, highly
commended the book which contained the libelous publication, declared that
it tended to serve the cause of religion, and imposed no other punishment
on the libeler than the payment of $150, 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
impressions, that Mr. Recorder Hoffman does not belong to 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 state."
[8]
Madame Bonneville
had in court eminent witnesses to her character -- Thomas Addis Emmet,
Fulton, Jarvis, and ladies whose children she had taught French. Yet the
scandal was too tempting an illustration of the "Age of Reason" to
disappear with Cheetham's defeat. Americans in their peaceful habitations
were easily made suspicious of a French woman who had left her husband in
Paris and followed Paine; they could little realize the complications into
which ten tempestuous years had thrown thousands of families in France,
and how such poor radicals as the Bonnevilles had to live as they could.
The scandal branched into variants. Twenty-five years later pious Grant
Thorburn promulgated that Paine had run off from Paris with the wife of a
tailor named Palmer. "Paine made no scruples of living with this woman
openly." (Mrs. Elihu Palmer, in her penury, was employed by Paine to
attend to his rooms, etc., during a few months of illness.) As to Madame
Bonneville, whose name Grant Thorburn seems not to have heard, she was
turned into a romantic figure. Thorburn says that Paine escaped the
guillotine by the execution of another man in his place.
"The man who
suffered death for Paine, left a widow, with two young children in poor
circumstances. Paine brought them all to this country, supported them
while he lived, and, it is said, left most of his property to them when he
died. The widow and children lived in apartments up town by themselves. He
then boarded with Carver. I believe his conduct was disinterested and
honorable to the widow. She appeared to be about thirty years of age, and
was far from being handsome." [9]
Grant Thorburn was
afterwards led to doubt whether this woman was the widow of the man
guillotined, but declares that when "Paine first brought her out, he and
his friends passed her off as such." As a myth of the time (1834), and an
indication that Paine's generosity to the Bonneville family was well known
in New York, the story is worth quoting. But the Bonnevilles never escaped
from the scandal. Long years afterward, when the late Gen. Bonneville was
residing in St. Louis, it was whispered about that he was the natural son
of Thomas Paine, though he was born before Paine ever met Madame
Bonneville. Of course it has gone into the religious encyclopadias. The
best of them, that of McClintock and Strong, says: "One of the women he
supported [in France] followed him to this country." After the fall of
Napoleon, Nicholas Bonneville, relieved of his surveillance, hastened to
New York, where he and his family were reunited, and enjoyed the happiness
provided by Paine's self-sacrificing economy.
The present writer,
having perused some thousands of documents concerning Paine, is convinced
that no charge of sensuality could have been brought against him by any
one acquainted with the facts, except out of malice. Had Paine held, or
practiced, any latitudinarian theory of sexual liberty, it would be
recorded here, and his reasons for the same given. I have no disposition
to suppress anything. Paine was conservative in such matters. And as to
his sacrificing the happiness of a home to his own pleasure, nothing could
be more inconceivable.
Above all, Paine was
a profoundly religious man, -- one of the few in our revolutionary era of
whom it can be said that his delight was in the law of his Lord, and in
that law did he meditate day and night. Consequently, he could not escape
the immemorial fate of the great believers, to be persecuted for unbelief
-- by unbelievers.
_______________
Notes:
1. Dr. Grece
showed me Paine's papier-maché snuff-box, which his uncle had fitted
with silver plate, inscription, decorative eagle, and banner of
"Liberty, Equality." It is kept in a jewel-box with an engraving of
Paine on the lid.
2. Mr.
Burger, Pelton's clerk, used to drive Paine about daily. Vale says:
"He [Burger] describes Mr. Paine
as really abstemious, and when pressed to drink by those on whom he
called during his rides, he usually refused with great firmness, but
politely. In one of these rides, he was met by De Witt Clinton, and
their mutual greetings were extremely hearty. Mr. Paine at (p.391) this
time was the reverse of morose, and though careless of his dress and
prodigal of his snuff, he was always clean and well clothed. Mr. Burger
describes him as familiar with children and humane to animals, playing
with the neighboring children, and communicating a friendly pat even to
a passing dog." Our frontispiece shows Paine's dress in 1803.
3. In the
Concord (Mass.) Public Library there is a copy of Cheetham's book, which
belonged to Carver, by whom it was filled with notes. He says: "Cheetham
was a hypocrate turned Tory," "Paine was not Drunk when he wrote the
thre pedlars for me, I sold them to a gentleman, a Jew for a dollar --
Cheetham knew that he told a lie saying Paine was drunk -- any person
reading Cheetham's Life of Paine that [sic] his pen was guided by
prejudice that was brought on by Cheetham's altering a peice that Paine
had writen as an answer to a peice that had apeared in his paper, I had
careyd the peice to Cheetham, the next Day the answer was printed with
the alteration, Paine was angry, sent me to call Cheetham. I then asked
how he undertook to mutilate the peice, if aney thing was rong he knew
ware to find him & sad he never permitted a printer to alter what he had
wrote, that the sence of the peice was spoiled -- by this means their
freind ship was broken up through life " (The marginalia in this volume
have been copied for me with exactness by Miss E, G. Crowell, of
Concord.)
4. "A Bone
to Gnaw for Grant Thorburn." By W. Carver (1836).
5. "He dined
at my table," said Aaron Burr. "I always considered Mr. (p.395) Paine a
gentleman, a pleasant companion, and a good-natured and intelligent man;
decidedly temperate, with a proper regard for his personal appearance,
whenever I have seen him." (Quoted in The Beacon, No. 30, May, 1837.)
"In his dress," says Joel Barlow, "he was generally very cleanly, though
careless, and wore his hair queued with side curls, and powdered, like a
gentleman of the old French School. His manners were easy and gracious,
his knowledge universal."
6.
Todd's "Joel Barlow," p. 236. The "Mr. M." was one Murray, an English
speculator in France, where he never resided with Paine at all.
7. Cheetham
was at the moment a defendant in nine or ten cases for libel.
8.
"Speech of Counsellor Sampson; with an Introduction to the Trial of
James Cheetham, Esq., for a libel on Margaret Brazier Bonneville, in his
Memoirs of Thomas Paine. Philadelphia: Printed by John Sweeny, No. 357
Arch Street, 1810." I am indebted for the use of this rare pamphlet, and
for other information, to the industrious collector of causes célèbres,
Mr. E. B. Wynn, of Watertown, N. Y.
9. "Forty
Years' Residence in America."
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