foreign enemy against their prince and country."* The following note was left with the publisher.†

"SIR:

"Feb. 16, 1792.

"Should any person, under the sanction of any kind of authority, inquire of you respecting the author and publisher of the Rights of Man, you will please to mention me as the author and publisher of that work, and show to such person this letter. I will, as soon as I am made acquainted with it, appear and answer for the work personally.‡

"MR. JORDAN,

"Your humble servant,

"No. 166, Fleet-street."

"THOMAS PAINE."

On the 14th of May, Paine, then at Bromley, in Kent, learned that Mr. Jordan had been served with a summons to appear at the court of King's Bench; and he immediately appointed a meeting with him, provided a solicitor, and engaged to furnish the necessary expenses for his defence. Jordan, however, preferred compro

*Hazlitt's Life of Napoleon.

† Sherwin, p. 115.

"On reaching Paris," says Richard Carlile, "Paine addressed a letter to the English Attorney-General, apprising him of the circumstances of his departure from England, and hinting to him that any further prosecution of Rights of Man, would form a proof that the author was not altogether the object, but the book, and the people of England who should approve its sentiments. A hint was also thrown out that the events in France ought to form a lesson for the English Government, on its attempt to arrest the progress of correct principles and wholesome truths. This letter was in some measure due to the Attorney-General, as Mr. Paine had written to him in England, on the commencement of the prosecution, assuring him that he should defend the work in person. Notwithstanding his departure, as a member of the French National Convention, the information against the Rights of Man was laid before a jury, on the 2nd of December, in the same year, and the government and its agents were obliged to content themselves with outlawing him, and punishing him in effigy throughout the country! Many a faggot have I gathered in my youth to burn old Tom Paine! In the West of England his name became quite a substitute for that of Guy Faux. Prejudice, so aptly termed by Mr. Paine, the spider of the mind, was never before carried to such a height against any other individual; and what will future ages think of the corrupt influence of the English Government at the close of the eighteenth century, when it could excite the rancor of a majority of the nation against such a man as Thomas Paine ?"-Eckler.

mising the matter by agreeing to appear in court and plead guilty, which course seeming to imply a condemnation of the work, partially answered the purpose of the ministry. * He also consented to give up all papers in his possession relative to the Rights of Man, in order to facilitate the conviction of the author, against whom proceedings were openly commenced on the 21st of May. On the same day that the government commenced legal proceedings against Paine, they issued a proclamation against "seditious writings," of course not with any intention of biasing the minds of a jury. Loyal addresses, (words to which sycophants attach their names) were also manufactured as a means of counteracting the effect of the "wicked and seditious libel," which had dared to assert in clear language, and to prove by incontrovertible arguments, the universality and inalienability of human rights. Notwithstanding, several addresses of a more spirited character congratulated the country “on the influence which Mr. Paine's publications appear to have had, in procuring the repeal" (before adverted to) "of some oppressive taxes, in the present session of parliament; and hoping that the other great plans of public benefit, which Mr. Paine has so powerfully recommended, will be speedily carried into effect."† Paine was not to be intimidated. About August, of the same year, he prepared another publication in defence of his principles and conduct, entitled A Letter addressed to the Addressers on the late Proclamation, a subject most favorable for the exercise of his fierce sarcasm, in which he thus adverts to the accusation against him:

"If to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy and every species of hereditary government-to lessen the oppression of taxes-to propose plans for the education of

*Sherwin, p. 116. See also the letter from Paine to Sir Archibald Macdonald, then attorney-general.

† Resolutions of the Manchester Constitutional Society.

Sherwin, p. 127.

helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed-to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other-to extirpate the horrid practice of war-to promote universal peace, civilization, and commerceand to break the chains of political superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank ;-if these things be libellous, let me live the life of a Libeller, and let the name of LIBELLER be engraven on my tomb !”

In the Letter, he also denies that unprincipled crownlawyers and packed and prejudiced juries are competent to decide so momentous a question: whether individuals have a right to investigate the principles of government and to publish the result of their inquiries; and contends that the government-brand of "wicked and malicious" is in reality an attack upon this liberty of expression, a liberty ever most dreaded by corrupt power. He had at first intended to conduct his defence in person; but was induced to change his purpose by the announcement of a French deputation, in September, 1792, that the department of Calais had elected him, as their representative in the National Convention. This, in his estimation, was a matter of more importance than that of defending his own conduct before judges predetermined to condemn him; and, accordingly, he proceeded to Dover, with the intention of immediately embarking for Calais. At Dover he met with much unworthy treatment and annoyance, under cover of the custom-house regulations, even his papers not escaping examination; but he was at length suffered to embark, a few minutes before the arrival of a government order for his detention. His reception at Calais was most enthusiastic: a salute was fired from the battery; the soldiers at the gates were drawn up in his honor; he was welcomed with shouts of "Long live Thomas Paine;" and was escorted by crowds to the Town-hall. On his road to Paris he was met with similar demonstrations of respect. He had

B

BRISSOT.

RISSOT and Condorcet were the most prominent leaders of the Girondists, and both were the intimate friends of Thomas Paine.

Lamartine describes Brissot as of a mixed character-half intrigue, half virtue. Destined to serve as the centre of a rallying point to the party of the Gironde, he had, by anticipation, in his character all there was in store for the Girondists, of destiny, of intrigue and patriotism, of faction and of martyrdom.

"Brissot," says Lamartine, was the root of the Girondist party and the first apostle and first martyr of the republic. He wrote La Patriote Français and carried away by the logic of his republican principles to the 10th of August had displayed, since the conquest of the republic, a force of resistance to the factions equal to the power of impulse he had previously communicated to the opinion of freemen. A stranger to power, his hands uncontaminated by blood or spoil, as poor after three years of the Revolution, as he was on the day he began to wage war in its cause; he dwelt for five years in an apartment on the fourth story, which was almost unfurnished, surrounded by his books and the cradles of his children. Every thing attested the mediocrity of his asylum; poor, almost to indigence. After the tumult of the day, and the fatigue of labor undergone in the conducting of his journal, Brissot walked home to rejoin his wife and young children, sheltered in a thatched cottage at St. Cloud. He cherished them by his labor as a workmen of the mind. Destitute of that exterior of eloquence which gives fire to discussion, and bursts out in gesture and accent, he left the tribune to Vergniaud. He had created a tribune for himself in his journal. In that he wrestled each day with Camille, Robespierre, and Marat. His articles were speeches. He voluntarily devoted himself to the hatred and the poignards of the Jacobins. The sacrifice of his life was made. But nature had created him rather to influence ideas than men. His short and slender stature, his meditative and placid figure, the palor and severe expression of his features, the melancholy gravity of his physiognomy, prevented him from displaying outwardly the antiquity of soul which burned within."-E.