*On the Question, WILL THERE BE WAR?

from the Public Advertiser (New York), August 15, 1807.

Every one asks, Will there be war? The answer to this is easy, which is, That so long as the English government be permitted, at her own discretion, to search, capture, and condemn our vessels, controul our commerce, impress our seamen, and fire upon and plunder our national ships, as she has done, she will Not Declare War, because she will not give us the acknowledged right of making reprisals. Her plan is a monopoly of war, and she thinks to succeed by the manoeuver of not declaring war.

The case then is altogether a question among ourselves. Shall we make war on the English government, as the English government has made upon us; or shall we submit, as we have done, and that with long forbearance, to the evil of having war made upon us without reprisals? This is a right statement of the case between the United States and England.

For several years past it has been the scheme of that government to terrify us, by acts of violence, into submission to her measures, and in the insane stupidity of attempting this, she has incensed us into war. We neither fear nor care about England, otherwise than pitying the people who live under such a wretched system of government. As to navies, they have lost their terrifying powers. They can do nothing against us at land, and if they come within our waters, they will be taken the first calm that comes. They can rob us on the ocean as robbers can do, and we can find a way to indemnify ourselves by reprisals, in more ways than one.

The British Government is not entitled, even as an enemy, to be treated as civilized enemies are treated. She is a pirate, and should be treated as a pirate. Nations do not declare war against pirates, but attack them as a natural right. All civilities shown to the British government, is like pearl thrown before a swine. She is insensible of principle and destitute of honour. Her monarch is mad and her ministers have caught the contagion.

The British government, and also the nation, deceive themselves with respect to the power of navies. They suppose that ships of war can make conquests at land; that they can take or destroy towns or cities near the shore and obtain by terror what terms they please. They sent admiral Duckworth to Constantinople upon this stupid idea, and the event has shewn to the world the imbecility of navies against cannon on shore. Constantinople was not fortified any more than our American towns are now; but the Turks, on the appearance of the British fleet, got five hundred cannon and a hundred mortars down from the arsenals to the shore, and the blustering heroes of the navy seeing this, fled like a hound with a rattle at his tail. The gallant people of Norfolk and its neighbourhood have sent Douglas off in a similar manner. An Indian who studies nature is a better judge of naval power than an English minister.

In March, 1777, soon after taking the Hessians at Trenton, I was at a treaty held with the five northern nations of Indians at East Town, in Pennsylvania, and was often pleased with the sagacious remarks of those original people. The chief of one of the tribes, who went by the name of King Lastnight, because his tribe had sold their lands, had seen some English men of war in some of the waters of Canada and was impressed with an idea of the power of those great canoes; but he saw that the English made no progress against us by land. This was enough for an Indian to form an opinion by. He could speak some English, and in conversation with me, alluding to the great canoes, he gave me his idea of the power of a king of England by the following metaphor.

“The king of England,” said he, “is like a fish, When he is in the water he can wag his tail. — When he comes on land he lays down on his side.” — Now, if the English Government had but half the sense this Indian had they would not have sent Duckworth to Constantinople and Douglas to Norfolk to lay down on their side.

Accounts from Halifax state, that admiral Berkley has alleged in writing, that “his orders (to Douglas) were not issued until every application to restore the mutineers and deserters (as he calls them) had been made by his Britannic majesty’s minister, consul, and officer, and had been refused by the government of the United States.”

If this account be true, it shows that Berkley is an idiot in governmental affairs; for if the matter was in the hands of the British minister, who is the immediate representative of his government, Berkley could have no interference in it. That minister would report to his government the demand he made, if he made any, and the answer he received, if he received any, and Berkley could act only in consequence of orders received afterwards. It does not belong to subordinate officers of any government to commence hostilities at their own discretion.

I now come to speak of the politics of the day as they rise out of the circumstances that have taken place.

The injustice of the British government, and the insolence of its naval officers, is no longer to be borne. That injustice, and that insolence grows out of a presumption the British government has set up, which it calls “the right of search.” There is not, nor ever was, such a right appertaining to a nation in consequence of its being in war with another nation. Wherever such a right existed it has been by treaty, and where no such treaty exist, no such right can exist, and to assume the exercise of it is an act of hostility which if not abandoned must be repelled until it be abandoned. The United States cannot even cede such a right to England, without ceding the same right to France, Spain, Holland, Naples, Italy, and Turkey, or they will take it, and the United States must take the consequence. It is a very difficult matter, and requires great political wisdom for a neutral nation to make a treaty during a time of war with one belligerent nation, that shall not commit her with the other. — The best way then, since matters are come to the extremity they are, is to resist this pretended right of search in the first instance. The United States are able to do it, and she is the only neutral nation that is able.

We are not the diminutive people now that we were when the revolution began. Our population then was two millions and an half, it is now between six and seven millions, and in less than ten years will exceed the population of England. The United States have encreased more in power, ability, and wealth within the last twenty or twenty-two years than she did for almost two hundred years before, while the states were British colonies.

She owes this to two things, independence and the representative system of government. It was always the ill-judged and impracticable system of the British government to keep the colonies in a state of continual nonage. They never were to be of full age that she might always controul them.

While the United States have been going forward in this unparalleled manner, England has been going backward. Her government is a bankrupt, and her people miserable. More than a million of them are paupers. Her king is mad, and her parliaments corrupt. We have yet to see what the present new elected parliament will be. There is one man in it, whom I proudly call a friend, from whom there will be great expectations; but what can one honest independent member do, surrounded by such a mass of ignorance and corruption as have for many years past governed that unfortunate nation.

The great dependance of England has been on her navy, and it is her navy that has been her ruin. The falsely imagined power of that navy (for it was necessary it should be amphibious to perform what was expected from it) has prompted the ignorance of her government into insolence towards all foreign powers till England has not a friend left among nations. Russia and Sweden will quarter themselves upon her purse till it becomes empty, and then very probably will turn against her.

Depending on her navy she blockaded whole countries by proclamation, and now, Bonaparte, by way of justifiable retaliation, has blockaded her by land from the commerce of the western part of the continent of Europe. Her insolent and imbecile expedition to Constantinople, has excluded her from the commerce of Turkish Europe and Turkey in Asia, and thrown it into the hands of France — and her outrageous conduct to us will exclude her from the commerce of the United States. By the insolence of the crew of her navy she is in danger of losing her trade to China; and it is easy to see that Bonaparte is paving his way to India by Turkey and Persia. The madness of the British government has thrown Turkey into the arms of France. Persia lies between Turkey and India, and Bonaparte is forming friendly connections with the Persian government. There is already an exchange of ambassadors. Bonaparte is sending military officers into Persia, and will with the consent of its government, raise an army there and attack the English monopoly in India. If France holds her connections with Turkey and Persia, England cannot hold India.

It is in this wretched chaos of affairs that the mad Government of England has brought on herself a new enemy by commencing hostilities against the United States. She must be ignorant of the geography of America, or she would know that we can dispossess her of all her possessions on the Continent whenever we please, and she cannot, with safety, keep a fleet in the West Indies during the hurricane months. Bonaparte will find employment for every soldier she can raise, and those she may send to the continent of Europe will become prisoners. There never was an instance of a government conducting itself with the madness and ignorance the British government has done! This is John Adams’s stupendous fabric of human wisdom!

That the British government will disown giving hostile instructions to Berkeley I have no doubt. It is the trick of old governments to do so when they find themselves wrong and pay some scapegoat to bear the blame. But this will not be sufficient. The pretended right of search and the impressment of our seamen must be abandoned. Three thousand of them have been impressed by British ships to fight against France. The French government has shewn a great deal of patience in not complaining of it, for it is a great injury to her and must be redressed or worse consequences will follow.

I have said in the former part of this essay that it is a difficult matter and requires great political wisdom for a neutral nation during a war to form a treaty with one belligerent nation that shall not commit her with the other. I will now give an instance of it.

In 1794, Washington sent Mr. Monroe as minister to France, and John Jay to England, and gave them contradictory instructions. By the treaty that then existed between the United States and France, “Free ships made free goods.” So that English property on board American ships was protected from seizure by France. John Jay made a treaty with England which Washington and the stupid senate of that day ratified by which free ships DID NOT make free property, and that French property on board American ships could be seized by England. This of consequence vacated the free article in the treaty with France, and she availed herself of it, and the United States lost the carrying trade of both nations. There is a jesuitism in Jay’s treaty which says, that the question whether free ships make free goods shall be taken into consideration two years after the war. It is now more than two years since that war, and therefore it forms an item with the matters to be now settled with the English government.

The British government have been so long in the habit of insolence that she has not the sense of seeing when the power of being insolent ceases. — She ought to see that the power of France by land is far superior to her power at sea. France, by land, can blockade the commerce of England out of Europe and India, and the English navy can do nothing to prevent it. Of what use is it to “rule the waves,” if you cannot put your foot on shore? If it was a contest for fisheries, the most powerful navy would decide; but as it is a contest for commerce at land, it is land force that decides, and navies are out of the question.

If the British government were wise, she would cease the pretended right of search of her own accord, for it brings her into endless trouble. It makes all nations her enemy. Every nation detests the piratical insolence of England and none more so than the United States. The spirit that is now raised, cannot be appeased until reparation is made for the past, and security be given for the future.

COMMON SENSE.

GUN-BOATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS

[This article is reprinted from Miscellaneous Letters and Writings of Thomas Paine, London, 1819, pp. 221-25.-Editor.]

THE natural defense by men is common to all nations; but artificial defense as an auxiliary to human strength must be adapted to the local condition and circumstances of a country. What may be suitable to one country, or in one state of circumstances, may not be so in another.

The United States have a long line of coast of more than two thousand miles, every part of which requires defense, because every part is approachable by water.

The right principle for the United States to go upon as a water defense for the coast is that of combining the greatest practical power with the least possible bulk, that the whole quantity of power may be better distributed through the several parts of such an extensive coast.

The power of a ship of war is altogether in the number and size of the guns she carries, for the ship, of itself has no power. Ships cannot struggle with each other like animals; and besides this, as half her guns are on one side the ship and half on the other, and as she can use only the guns on one side at a time, her real power is only equal to half her number of guns. A seventy-four can use only thirty-seven guns. She must tack about to bring the other half into action, and while she is doing this she is defenseless and exposed.

As this is the case with ships of war, a question naturally arises therefrom, which is, whether seventy-four guns, or any other number, cannot be more effectually employed, and that with much less expense, than by putting them all into one ship of such enormous bulk that it cannot approach a shore either to defend it or attack it; and though the ship can change its place, the whole number of guns can be only in one place at a time, and only half that number can be used at a time.

This is a true statement of the case between ships of war and gun-boats for the defense of a coast and of towns situated near a coast. But the case often is, that men are led away by the GREATNESS of an idea and not by the JUSTNESS of it. This is always the case with those who are advocates for navies and large ships.

A gun-boat carrying as heavy metal as a ship of one hundred guns can carry, is a one gun ship of the line; and seventy-four of them which would cost much less than a 74 gun ship would cost, would be able to blow a 74 gun ship out of the water. They have, in the use of their guns, double the power of the ship, that is, they have the use of their whole number of 74 to 37.

Having thus stated the general outlines of the subject I come to particulars.

That I might have correct data to go upon with respect to the expense of ships and gun-boats, I wrote to the head of one of the departments at Washington for information on that subject.1

The following is the answer I received:

“Calculating the cost of a 74 or 100 gun ship, from the actual cost of the ship United States of 44 guns, built at Philadelphia, between the years 1795 and 1798, which amounted to 300,000 dollars, it may be presumed that a 74 gun ship would cost 500,000 dollars and a 100 gun ship 700,000 dollars.

“Gun-boats calculated merely for the defense of harbors and rivers will, on an average, cost about 4000 dollars each when fit to receive the crew and provisions.”

On the data here given I proceed to state comparative calculations respecting ships and gun-boats.

The ship, United States, cost 300,000 dollars. Gun-boats cost 4000 dollars each, consequently the 300,000 expended on the ship for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns, and those not heavy metal would have built seventy-five gun-boats each carrying a cannon of the same weight of metal that a ship of an hundred guns can carry. The difference therefore is, that the gun-boats give the use of 31 guns heavy metal, more than can be obtained by the ship and the expenses in both cases equal.

A 74 gun ship cost 500,000 dollars. This same money will build 125 gun-boats. The gain by gun-boats is the use of 51 guns more than can be obtained by expending the money on a ship of 74 guns.

The cost of an 100 gun ship is 700,000 dollars. This money will build 175 gun-boats. The gain, therefore, by the boats is the use of 75 guns more than by the ship.

Though I had a general impression, ever since I had a knowledge of gun-boats, that any given sum of money would go farther in building gun-boats than in building ships of war, and that gun-boats were preferable to ships for home defense, I did not suppose the difference was so great as the calculations above given prove them to be, for it is almost double in favor of gun-boats. It is as 175 to 100. The cause of this difference is easily explained.

The fact is, that all that part of the expense in building a ship from the deck upward, including mast, yards, sails and rigging is saved by building gun-boats which are moved by oars, or a light sail occasionally.

The difference also in point of repairs between ships of war and gun-boats is not only great but is greater in proportion than in their first cost. The repairs of ships of war is annually from 1-14 to 1-10 of their first cost. The annual expense of the repairs of a ship that cost 300,000 dollars will be above 21,000 dollars; the greatest part of this expense is in her sails and rigging which gun-boats are free from.

The difference also in point of duration is great. Gun-boats, when not in use, can be put under shelter and preserved from the weather, but ships cannot; or the boats can be sunk in the water or the mud. This is the way the nuts of cider mills for grinding apples are preserved. Were they to be exposed to the dry and hot air after coming wet from the mill they would crack and split and be good for nothing. But timber under water will continue sound for several hundred years, provided there be no worms.

Another advantage in favor of gun-boats is the expedition with which a great number of them can be built at once. An hundred may be built as soon as one if there are hands enough to set about them separately. They do not require the preparations for building them that ships require, nor deep water to launch them in. They can be built on the shore of shallow waters, or they might be framed in the woods or forests and the parts brought separately down and put together on the shore. But ships take up a long time building. The ship United States took up two whole years ’96 and ’97 and part of the years ’95 and ’98 and all this for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns and those not heavy metal. This foolish affair was not in the days of the present administration.

Ships and gun-boats are for different services. Ships are for distant expeditions; gun-boats for home defense. The one for the ocean; the other for the shore.

Gun-boats being moved by oars cannot be deprived of motion by calms, for the calmer the weather the better for the boat. But a hostile ship becalmed in any of our waters, can be taken by gun-boats moved by oars, let the rate of the ship be what it may. A 100 gun man of war becalmed, is like a giant in a dead palsy. Every little fellow can kick him.

The United States ought to have 500 gun-boats stationed in different parts of the coast, each carrying a thirty-two or thirty-six pounder. Hostile ships would not then venture to lie within our waters, were it only for the certainty of being sometimes becalmed. They would then become prizes, and the insulting bullies on the ocean become prisoners in our own waters.

Having thus stated the comparative powers and expense of ships of war and gun-boats, I come to speak of fortifications.

Fortifications may be comprehended under two general heads.

First, fortified towns; that is, towns enclosed within a fortified polygon, of which there are many on the continent of Europe but not any in England.

Secondly, simple forts and batteries. These are not formed on the regular principles of fortification, that is, they are not formed for the purpose of standing a siege as a fortified polygon is. They are for the purpose of obstructing or annoying the progress of an enemy by land or water.

Batteries are formidable in defending narrow passes by land; such as the passage of a bridge, or of a road cut through a rough and craggy mountain that cannot be passed any where else. But they are not formidable in defending water-passes, because a ship with a brisk wind tide and running at the rate of ten miles an hour will be out of the reach of the fire of the battery in fifteen or twenty minutes, and being a swift moving object all the time it would be a mere chance that any shot struck her.

When the object of a ship is that of passing a battery for the purpose of attaining or attacking some other object it is not customary with the ship to fire at the battery lest it should disturb her course. Three or four men are kept on deck to attend the helm, and the rest, having nothing to do, go below. Duckworth in passing the Dardenelles up to Constantinople did not fire at the batteries.

When batteries for the defense of water-passes can be erected without any great expense, and the men not exposed to capture, it may be very proper to have them. They may keep off small piratical vessels but they are not to be trusted to for defence.

Fortifications give, in general, a delusive idea of protection. All our principal losses in the revolutionary war were occasioned by trusting to Fortifications. Fort Washington with a garrison of 2500 men was taken in less than four hours and the men made prisoners of war. The same fate had befallen Fort Lee on the opposite shore, if General Lee had not moved hastily off and gained Hackinsack bridge. General Lincoln fortified Charleston, S. C, and himself and his army were made prisoners of war. General Washington began fortifying New York in 1776, General Howe passed up the East river landed his army at Frog’s Point about twenty miles above the city and marched down upon it, and had not General Washington stole silently and suddenly off on the North river side of York Island, himself and his army had also been prisoners. Trust not to Fortifications, otherwise than as batteries that can be abandoned at discretion.

The case however is, that batteries, as a water defence against the passage of ships cannot do much. Were any given number of guns to be put in a battery for that purpose, and an equal number of the same weight of metal put in gun-boats for the same purpose, those in the boats would be more effectual than those in the battery. The reason for this is obvious. A battery is stationary. Its fire is limited to about two miles, and there its power ceases. But every gun-boat moved by oars is a movable fortification that can follow up its fire and change its place and its position as circumstances may require. And besides this, gun-boats in calms are the sovereigns of ships.

As this matter interests the public, and most probably will come before Congress at its next meeting, if the printers in any of the States, after publishing it in their newspapers, have a mind to publish it in a pamphlet form, together with my former piece on gun-boats, they have my consent freely. I take neither copy-right nor profit for any thing I publish.

COMMON SENSE.

July 21, 1807. NEW YORK

1. The letter Paine refers to seems to have disappeared, for it is not included in any collections in the Library of Congress or in the National Archives.

Paine also sent two letters to Thomas Jefferson on the subject of gun-boats in the summer and fall of 1807, and included in the first letter (dated August 29, 1807) a “model of a contrivance for making one gun-boat do nearly double execution.” (See Jefferson’s letters to Paine, September 6, October 9, 1807, Andrew A. Lipscomb and

Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D. C , 1905,vol. XI, pp. 362, 378.) Both the letters and the diagram seem to have disappeared; they are not included in the Jefferson collection in the Library of Congress or in the collections of the Navy Department in the National Archives. In a report in the National Archives, Naval Affairs section, entitled “Data on the Gun-Boats built by the United States, 1804-1808,” Jefferson’s letter to Paine, September 6, 1807, is quoted, after which appears the following comment: “Whether Paine’s plan had any influence upon gun-boats authorized in 1807 and 1808, we are unable to say.” It may very well be that Paine simply sent Jefferson the articles on gun-boats which appear in the present collection of his writings, and wrote nothing else on the subject.-Editor.

Of the English Navy —

from the American Citizen, January 7, 1807.

THE boasted navy of England has been the ruin of England. This may appear strange to a set of stupid feds, who have no more foresight than a mole under ground or they would not abuse France as they do; but strange as it may appear it is nevertheless true, and a little reflection on the case will shew it.

The expence of that navy is greater than the nation can bear; and the deficiency is continually supplied by anticipation of revenue under the name of loans, till the national debt, which is the sum total of these anticipations, has amounted, according to the report of the chancellor of the exchequer to the English parliament the 28th of last March, to the enormous sum of 603,924,000 pounds sterling; and the interest of the debt at that time was 24,900,000 pounds sterling.

What are called loans are no other than creating a new quantity of stock and sending it to market to be sold, and then laying on new taxes to pay the interest of that new stock. The persons called loaners, or subscribers for the loan, contract with the minister for large wholesale quantities of this new stock at as low a price as they can get it, and all they can make by retailing it is their profit. This ruinous system, for it is certain ruin in the end, began in the time of William the third, 118 years ago.

The expence of the English navy this year, as given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, last March, is 15,281,000 pounds sterling, above sixty eight million dollars. The enormous expence of this navy, taken on an average of peace and war, has run the nation into debt upwards of five millions sterling every year for the 118 years since the system of what are called loans began. And it is this annual accumulation of more than five millions sterling every year for 118 years, that has carried the English national debt to this enormous sum of 603,924,000 pounds sterling, which was the amount of the debt, in March last.

If it be asked, what has this mighty navy done to balance this expence? it may be answered, that comparatively speaking it has done nothing. It has obtained some victories at sea where nothing was to be gained but blows and broken bones, and it has plundered the unarmed vessels of neutral nations, and this makes the short history of its services.

That the English government does not depend upon the navy to prevent Bonaparte making a descent upon England is demonstrated by the expensive preparations that government puts itself to by land to repel it. And that the navy contributes nothing to the protection of commerce is proved by the fact that all the ports on the continent of Europe are shut by land against the commerce of England. Of what use then is the navy that has incurred such an enormous debt, and which costs more than sixty eight millions of dollars annually to keep it up, which is three times more than all the gold and silver that the mines of Peru and Mexico annually produce. Such a navy will always keep a nation poor. No wonder then that every seventh person in England is a pauper, which is the fact. — The number of paupers now is 1,200,000.

Another evil to England attending this navy, besides the debt it has incurred, is that it drains the nation of specie. More than half the materials that go into the construction of a navy in England are procured from Russia and Sweden; and as the exports of English manufactures to those places are but small the balance must be paid in specie. If Bonaparte succeed in all his plans I hope he will put an end to navies for the good of the world.

COMMON SENSE.

THE battles which decided the fate of the King of Prussia and his Government, began on the 9th of October, and ended on the 14th of that month; but the final event, that of the total overthrow of the Russian army of one hundred and fifty thousand men on the 14th, was not known in England till the 26th or 27th of October. The first public notice of it is in a London paper of the 27th. (See the Mercantile Advertiser of Tuesday, Dec. 9th, and American Citizen, Dec. 10th.) The article in the London paper of the 27th, which announces this event, begins as follows:

“London, Oct. 27.- It is with very great concern that we are obliged to check the pleasing expectations that were entertained YESTERDAY of the success of the Prussian army.”

The manifesto and declaration of the English Government on the failure of the negotiation for peace with France, and which throws all the blame of that failure on the French Government, was published in the London Gazette (the official paper of the English Government) on the 21st of October, five or six days before that Government knew of the overthrow of the Prussians. Query.-Would the English Government have published that manifesto had it been kept back till after the overthrow of the Prussians were known? I think not, unless it be true which fanatics have formerly said, that “those whom God intends to destroy he first renders mad.”

It is a saying often verified by experience, that one story is good till another is told. In a little time we shall have the manifesto of the French Government, and then, by comparing the two with each other, and with such circumstances as are known, which is the only true way of interpreting manifestoes, we shall be enabled to form some judgment of the whole.

But as far as circumstances are already known, Bonaparte has done exactly what I would have done myself, with respect I mean to the present war, had I been in his place, which, thank God, I am not. Why are coalitions continually formed and forming against him, against the French nation, and the French Government? Or why does the Government of England oppress and impoverish the people it governs by loading them with the burdensome expence of paying those coalitions? It is they who pay all, and I pity them sincerely.

The opposers of Bonaparte say, “he is a usurper.” The case is, that all the kings in Europe are usurpers, and as to hereditary Government, it is a succession of usurpers. The present hereditary Government of England is derived from the usurper, William of Normandy, who conquered England and usurped the Government. If there is any man amongst them all that is less a usurper than the rest, it is Bonaparte; for he was elected by the French nation to the rank and title he now holds. The others assumed it by the sword, or succeeded in consequence of the first usurpation.

As to the coalitions against France, it is impossible in the nature of things they can succeed while the French Government conducts itself with the energy and activity it now does. The English Government may amuse itself with forming coalitions as long and as often as it pleases, but they will all come to the same fatal end. For, in the first place, there is no single power on the Continent of Europe that is able to stand against France until a coalition army, coming in detachments from different and distant parts of Europe, can be collected and formed. And, in the second place, those distant detachments of an intended coalition army cannot be put in motion for the purpose of assembling somewhere in Germany without its being known by the French Government. The case, therefore, will always be, that as soon as the French Government knows that those distant parts are in motion, the French army, with Bonaparte at its head, will march and attack the first part of the coalition army he can come up with, and overthrow it. Last year that part was Austria. This year it is Prussia. The English Government may vote coalition armies in the cabinet, but Bonaparte can always prevent them in the field. This is a matter so very obvious to any man who knows the scene of Europe, and can calculate the probability of events, that a Cabinet must be sunk in total ignorance and stupidity not to see it; and thus it is that the lives of unoffending men are sported away.

As to the late negotiation for peace between England and France, I view it as a trick of war on both sides, and the contest was which could outwit the other. The British manifesto says, “The negotiation originated in an offer made by the French Government of treating for peace on the basis of actual possession.” Well! be it so; it makes the matter neither better nor worse; for the fact is, though the British manifesto says nothing about it, that the British Cabinet had planned, and was forming this coalition army of Prussians, Russians, and Swedes, several months before that offer was made, and the French Government had knowledge of it, for it is impossible to keep such things a dead secret. The French Government, therefore, having at least, what may be called suspicious knowledge of this coalition intrigue, made the offer to find out the whole of that intrigue, that it might be prepared against it. And on the other hand, the British Cabinet closed with the offer, and went into the negotiation to give time to the Russians and Swedes to march and join the Prussians, while the comedy of negotiation was going on.

But the Corsican usurper, as they call him, has been too quick for them. He has outwitted the coalition intriguers, and out-generalled the coalition usurpers. The fallen King of Prussia has to deplore his fate, and the British Cabinet to dread the consequence.

In speaking of these circumstances, it ought always to be remembered that the British Government began this war. It had concluded a treaty of peace with France called the Treaty of Amiens, and soon after, declared war again to avoid fulfilling the conditions of that treaty. It will not be able to conclude another treaty so good as the treaty it has broken, and most probably no treaty at all. That Government must now abide by its fate, for it can raise no more coalitions. There does not remain powers on the Continent of Europe to form another. The last that could be raised has been tried and has perished.

THOMAS PAINE.

New York, Dec. 14, 1806.

Philip Foner’s introduction:

This interesting article on English affairs appeared in the Baltimore Evening Post of July 8, 1805, and has never before been reprinted or even mentioned in any discussion of Paine’s writings. It was preceded by an introductory comment by the editor of the Post which went: “The following excellent remarks upon English affairs, though the first we have received from our friend, we trust will not be the last. We feel highly gratified in having an opportunity to adorn our pages with an original from his pen, and beg that the Evening Post may be occasionally privileged with his lucubrations.”

For concrete evidence that Paine wrote this article, see his letter to John Fellows, July 9, 1805.

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THE imaginary importance of the government of England, draws to a close. In the two last wars, that with America, and the other with France, she was defeated and disgraced in all her projects; and the present war, as far as it has gone, gives symptoms of a similar fate. There is evidently a madness in her councils (besides the royal madness) that has no foresight, and cannot calculate events.

One would suppose, that when a government goes to war of its own choice, and is the first to declare it (which was the case with the English government in the present war with France), that it had arranged all its plans, and had everything in readiness to put these plans in operation the instant it declared war. But this was not the case with the English government; for as it has put no plan in execution, the inference is, that either it had none, or those it had were too imperfectly formed to be executed. Take which of the inferences you will, and it shows the incompetency of the English government to the condition into which it has plunged itself.

It was laughable enough to see how the British parliament passed away its time in debating whether there was cause for war or not when they declared it. A ministerial victory in parliament does not decide a battle in the field. Philosophers and naturalists have to do with causes, and politicians with consequences. For example, it would have been madness in America to have declared independence, if she had not possessed the means of obtaining it, and the same may be said of every hostile declaration.

As far as inferences can be drawn from circumstances, the British government went to war from internal craft, and not from external policy. After the publication in England of a small work of Thomas Paine in the year ’96, entitled Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance, there was so great a run upon the Bank of England, that the bank could not stand it. The directors of the bank made their condition known to Mr. Pitt, who undoubtedly knew it before, but farce was become necessary. Pitt, in order to ward off the blow that threatened destruction to the bank, and also to the government, brought a bill into parliament to restrain the bank (for that was the term used) from paying its notes in specie; whereas the case with the bank was, that it could not pay-it had not wherewithal. This act, at first was only for a few months, but it was afterwards renewed, and continued to be renewed in every session from year to year. By the last renewal, the restraint (as it was called) was to continue till some time after the end of the war then going on. But when that time came, the bank could not pay any more than it could before; and therefore the government, after it had made peace, declared war again, and this was made a pretence for again shutting up the bank. That bank will never open for payment. Its ruin is as fixed as fate.

The same farce about cause instead of consequence was again acted with respect to the declaration of war against Spain. Pitt made a long and wordy speech of three hours, to show, in his way, there was cause of war, whereas it was the consequence only that should have governed him.

In a treaty between France and Spain, when the last war ended, it was stipulated that in case either should be attacked, the other should, as an auxiliary, assist her with a certain number of ships and land forces. This was commuted for in money, and, instead of ships and forces, France agreed to take three millions sterling annually. The case therefore with Pitt ought to have been, not any thing about the cause, but about the consequence; that is, whether it was not better to let Spain fulfill her engagement in this manner quietly by commutation, than to force her, by a declaration of war, to join France with her whole force by sea and land. It is Bonaparte that is the gainer by this conduct of Pitt, who, by thus increasing the force of his enemy, has made that of England comparatively less.

When the family of the Bourbons reigned in France, the natural powers and resources of that country, which are greater than those of any country in the world, were never effectually called forth. Voluptuousness, effeminancy and intrigue were then the deities of the court, and the nation was governed by mistresses and the favorites of mistresses. The case now is the reverse of what it was then. France, at this time, has for its chief the most enterprizing man in Europe, and the greatest general in the world; and besides these virtues or vices (call them what you please, for they may be either), he is a deep and consummate politician in every thing which relates to the success of his measures. He knows both how to plan and how to execute. This is a talent that Pitt is defective in, for all his measures fail in execution. His forte lies in making long speeches, and in planning intrigues that evaporate in disappointment and disgrace.

England, at this time, is in the most critical situation she ever was put in by France, and there is no foreseeing when or how it is to end. According to appearances, France may hold England in constant alarm and insupportable expence as long as she pleases, and that without any new expence or suffering any alarms herself; and by drawing off the English fleet from the defence of its coast at home, by sending her own on distant expeditions, she encreases the chance of a descent by gunboats. France could not do this till Pitt, by his ill policy, joined the navy of Spain to France.

The discovery that has been made of the embezzlement of money in the treasury by Dundas alias Lord Melville, will go a great way towards breaking up the present ministry. That Pitt was privy to this embezzlement, there can scarcely be a doubt; for as he held the offices of first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer, and was, in consequence thereof, the person who brings in the budget, that is, the annual statement of expences, he cannot be supposed to be ignorant of it, and if he was, it shows he kept a bad look out, and is not fit for the office of treasurer and chancellor. The answer also of their king, involves suspicion. It implies a knowledge of the transaction, for it says, that, “notwithstanding the clamor that had been raised against that nobleman (Melville), he trusted his faithful commons would soon see reason to express an opinion that his lordship had acquitted himself with the utmost anxiety for the welfare and salvation of the British empire.” But neither his faithful commons as he calls them, nor his loyal subjects, as he sometimes calls the people, appear to believe a word of what he says, for they are pushing the matter still further on. Melville was first lord of the admiralty, and treasurer of the navy; and had the official direction of naval expeditions. The ill news from the West-Indies, would arrive in England about the time of the discovery of this embezzlement, and will in their consequences affect the whole of the present ministry.

C.S.