  The Count and the Spanish Ambassador broached the matter to Pitt, who refused the money.** He was not willing to spend a few thousands to save the life of America's friend, though he made his death a pretext for exhausting his treasury to deluge Europe with blood. Gouverneur Morris, whose dislike of Paine's republicanism was equally cynical,*** was intimate with Earl Gower, and no doubt gave him his information. * After September it was, as Talleyrand says, "no longer a question that the king should reign, but that he himself, the queen, their children, his sister, should be saved. It might have been done. It was at least a duty to attempt it. At that time France was only at war with the Emperor [Austria], the Empire [the German states], and Sardinia, Had all the other states concerted themselves to offer their mediation by proposing to recognise whatever form of government France might be pleased to adopt, with the sole condition that the prisoners in the Temple should be allowed to leave the country and retire wherever they liked, though such a proposal, as may be supposed, would not have filled the demagogues with delight, they would have been powerless to resist it."—Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand. New York, 1891, i., p. 168. ** Taine's "French Revolution" (American ed.), iii., p. 135. See also the "Correspondence of W. A. Miles on the French Revolution," London, 1890, i., p. 398. The AbbÉ Noel, a month before the king's death, pointed out to this British agent how he might be saved. *** In relating to John Randolph of Roanoke Paine's exposure of Silas Deane, Morris regards it as the prevention of a fraud, but nevertheless thinks Paine deserved punishment for his "impudence"! Morris was clear-headed enough to perceive that the massacres in France were mainly due to the menaces of foreign monarchs, and was in hearty sympathy with Paine's plan for saving the life of Louis XVI. On December 28th he writes to Washington that a majority of the Convention "...have it in contemplation not only to refer the judgment to the electors of France, that is, to her people, but also to send him and his family to America, which Paine is to move for. He mentioned this to me in confidence, but I have since heard it from another quarter." On January 6, 1793, Morris writes to Washington concerning Genet, the new Minister to the United States, who had been introduced to him by Paine, and dined with him. At the close he says: "The King's fate is to be decided next Monday the 14th. That unhappy man, conversing with one of his council on his own fate, calmly summed up the motives of every kind, and concluded that a majority of the Council [Convention] would vote for referring his case to the people, and that in consequence he should be massacred. I think he must die or reign." Paine also feared that a reference to the populace meant death. He had counted a majority in the Convention who were opposed to the execution. Submission of the question to the masses would thus, if his majority stood firm, be risking the life of Louis again. Unfortunately this question had to be determined before the vote on life or death. At the opening of the year 1793 he felt cheerful about the situation. On January 3d he wrote to John King, a retreating comrade in England, as follows: "Dear King,—I don't know anything, these many years, that surprised and hurt me more than the sentiments you published in the Courtly Herald, the 12th December, signed John King, Egham Lodge. You have gone back from all you ever said. When I first knew you in Ailiffe-street, an obscure part of the city, a child, without fortune or friends, I noticed you; because I thought I saw in you, young as you was, a bluntness of temper, a boldness of opinion, and an originality of thought, that portended some future good. I was pleased to discuss with you, under our friend Oliver's lime-tree, those political notions which I have since given the world in my 'Rights of Man.' "You used to complain of abuses as well as me. What, then, means this sudden attachment to Kings? this fondness of the English Government, and hatred of the French? If you mean to curry favour, by aiding your Government, you are mistaken; they never recompence those who serve it; they buy off those who can annoy it, and let the good that is rendered it be its own reward. Believe me, King, more is to be obtained by cherishing the rising spirit of the People, than by subduing it. Follow my fortunes, and I will be answerable that you shall make your own.—Thomas Paine."* * "Mr. King's Speech, at Egham, with Thomas Paine's Letter," etc Egham, 1793. In his reply, January 11th, King says: "Such men as Frost, Barlow, and others, your associates, show the forlornness of your cause. Our respectable citizens do not go to you," etc. Writing February 11th, King expresses satisfaction at Paine's vote on the King's fate: "the imputation of cruelty will not now be added to the other censures on your character; but the catastrophe of this unhappy Monarch has shewn you the danger of putting a nation in ferment." This last sentence may even now raise a smile. King must subsequently have reflected with satisfaction that he did not "follow the fortunes" of Paine, which led him into prison at the end of the year. A third letter from him to Paine appeared in the Morning Herald, April 17, 1793, in which he says: "'If the French kill their king, it will be a signal for my departure, for I will not abide among such sanguinary men.' These, Mr. Paine, were your words at our last meeting; yet after this you are not only with them, but the chief modeller of their new Constitution." Mr. King might have reflected that the author of the "Rights of Man," which he had admired, was personally safer in regicide France than in liberticide England, which had outlawed him. END OF VOL. I. |
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