Washington telegraph (Washington, Ark.), April 4, 1855
Life and Character of Tom Paine.
The celebration of Tom Paine’s birth-day at Louisville, a few weeks since, by an association of Germans called the “Turners,” has elicited much comment in all quarters of the country, and some facts from the actual life and doings of the celebrated atheist and bloody minded red-republican, with which it would be well for “Turners” everywhere to become acquainted, before another celebration of his birthday, is ventured upon. A correspondent of the Louisville Journal resurrects Paine’s celebrated letter to Gen. Washington, published in 1796, in the United States, which was written from Paris, and sent home as fit fuel for the flame of partisan malignity then raging in certain Tory quarters against the Father of his Country. This was, probably, the most atrocious libel he ever penned. The following is a passage taken at random from this infamous document:
“As to you, (writing to General Washington,) treacherous in private friendship, and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an impostor or a villain—whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.”
Thus wrote the man whom the Turners “delight to honor!”—whose birthday they can celebrate—while that of Gen. Washington, the glorious 22d of February, they can pass over in silence! The man who scrupled not to brand as “treacherous,” a “hypocrite,” an “impostor” and a “villain,” and devoid of “good principles,” or as having “abandoned” them—the great and good Washington—the “Father of his Country,” the “first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!” Well may we exclaim, “O, tempora! O, mores!”
The last New York Observer contains a letter from old Mr. Grant Thorburn, late of New York city, written on his 83d birthday, February 18th, and dated at Winsted, Connecticut, where he expects to pass the remainder of his days. This letter is devoted chiefly to reminiscences of Tom Paine. We make the following extracts, which we hope will be read at the next and every subsequent anniversary of the infidel debauchee:
As there is but a step between me and death, I owe it to generations yet to come, to tell what I saw and heard of Thomas Paine. Perhaps there lives no man on earth, who traced him from his cradle to his grave, except myself. Carver and I were fellow-laborers in the same shop. Paine and Carver were born in the same town in England. Paine and I boarded with Carver. I often heard Carver, his wife, and Paine, as we four sat by the fire on a winter night, rehearse the items of his life. He married a respectable lady, who died eleven months thereafter, in consequence of brutal treatment. He then married a daughter of the Collector of the Port of Lewis; after three years he obtained a divorce for like treatment.
In 1778, while he held an office in the Custom House, (given him by his father-in-law,) he was detected in taking bribes from the smugglers, and fled to America. He was made Secretary to the private Committee of Congress, and took an oath of office to keep the secrets. He broke this oath by divulging the project of a secret mission to the Court of France by Silas Dean. He was dismissed with disgrace. (See the Journal of Congress in 1777 or 1778.) This treachery was the cause of much trouble in Congress, and in the Court of Louis XVI.
We next find him in Paris, helping Robespierre in his labors of love to establish the freedom of the press, and the right of speech by means of the guillotine. He quarrelled with Robbie, was chalked for the guillotine. God, willing to make the wrath of Paine to praise him, sent an angel who delivered him out of prison. (For particulars of this miracle, see the Life of Thorburn, 101st page.)
In 1801, when King Thomas the First ascended the throne of his kingdom, he instantly dispatched a national frigate to convey to our shores the venerated Thomas Paine. He arrived early in the year 1802. I spoke with him at the City Hotel, Bowery, a few hours after his arrival. He found letters urging him on to Washington (then a four days journey.) He started next morning. At Georgetown a messenger was sent forward to announce his approach; a feast was got ready, and all those of like thinking were invited. Paine entered late, his shirt unwashed, his beard unshorn, and reeling like a drunken man. A look of consternation shone forth from every face; mirth ceased; one by one they went out, leaving Paine alone on his chair fast asleep. Next day he received letters and instructions to return to New York.
When Aaron Burr returned from Europe, whither he had fled after his duel with Hamilton, he kept his office in Nassau st., near my seed store. From him I received the account above stated. Paine on his return, was unable to find lodgings. Carver took him in for old acquaintance sake. He died at Greenwich, of delirium tremens, in 1809.
The London Times says of Barnum’s Life—”Never was confession made of such a mass of audacious impostures.”