MANY YEARS AGO when Gifford Pinchot was Governor of Pennsylvania he honored me by requesting that I accept an appointment to a high position in his administration. Knowing nothing whatsoever about politics, I sought a confer- ence with him. I inquired, “What makes one successful in politics?” 

The astute Governor replied, “The main ingredient of success in politics is to restrict yourself to endorsing very few worthwhile projects. It would be best if you identified yourself with only one. For,” as he explained, “no matter how beneficial a project may be to the general community, it neverthe- less hurts quite a few persons, sometimes important in politics and finance. If you succumb to espousing every good cause, you keep building up the number of your enemies. Soon they reach such proportions that you cannot possibly be re-elected, and become generally disliked.” 

No one illustrates this form of committing political suicide better than Thomas Paine. He did not hesitate a moment to rush in to promote every good cause and to expose every injustice, and he ended up being generally despised, with virtually everyone his enemy for one reason or another. 

Two hundred and twenty-two years ago, when Thomas Paine was born in Thetford, Norfolk, England, nearly all governments were hereditary monarchies, despotic or benign. Opportunities for free education for the workingman’s children were either scarce or non-existent. Paine’s first thirty-seven years were of little significance. They included a formal education through the Thetford Grammar School, which was all his family could afford, and two brief marriages. He tried to earn a decent livelihood, but failed or was unhappy in every job he tried. When working for the government as an exciseman, he discovered that his meagre pay was insufficient to include upkeep for a horse, which was a necessity. Graft was rampant and the government was cheated to make ends meet. Seeing injustice to both sides, Paine organized the excisemen into a kind of union and wrote for them a plea for an increase in their pay, which he addressed to each member of Parliament. The result was foregone: he was dismissed. 

Benjamin Franklin had at this same time been dismissed from his position as Postmaster for North America, and the two of them met in London at scientific lectures and became friends. Franklin must have been favorably impressed by Paine’s methods of reasoning, because he sent him with letters of introduction to his son-in-law Richard Bache, a prosperous wine merchant in Philadelphia, and apparently also to his natural son William Franklin, then royal Governor of New Jersey (See letter from Paine to Franklin, March 4, 1775). 

The best way to correct an injustice, Paine thought, was to publicize it. When he found a slave market opposite his lodgings in Philadelphia, he immed- iately wrote for the newspaper (Pennsylvania Journal, March 8,1775) an article against slavery so powerful that it not only attracted attention, but also gained him important friends, such as the Philadelphia physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush. Perhaps it is only coincidental, but the first association against slavery in America was organised in Philadelphia shortly after Paine’s article appeared. 

A month later when blood was spilled in the Battle of Lexington (April 19, 1775), Paine felt so strongly against this outrage by the British Government that he thought the newspapers would not give sufficient space to do justice to his carefully worked-out arguments. The article, more than eighty pages long, he called Common Sense. Dr. Rush introduced Paine to a fearless liberal print named Robert Bell, who was willing to take the risk of publishing it. Its clear portrayal of the reasons for independence spread like wildfire throughout the colonies. As a direct result, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and Paine became a famous man. 

Paine enlisted in the war as a common soldier. After the long, disheartening retreat across the Jerseys, the war appeared lost, and it became necessary for Paine to pick up his pen. He wrote The American Crisis, opening with the words: “These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman” – words which were never to be forgotten. The pamphlet provided the needed lift. The result: Washington crossed the Delaware and the first American victory at Trenton followed. At each subsequent crisis Paine’s pen was called on for assistance, and he never failed to respond effectively, thirteen times in all. During the war his fiery arguments drove the Tories from positions of influence. He attacked profiteers, inflationists and counterfeiters as well. He revealed confidential data in order to expose the crooked dealings of the influential Silas Deane. When politicians considered taking the supreme command of the Army away from George Washington, Paine hastened to defend him. When funds were needed to feed and clothe the soldiers, he founded the first bank in this country and defended it from all attacks. He freely printed his opinions on every controversy. Not having Governor Pinchot as an adviser, he did not realize the growing number of enemies he was making. 

Although his pen had contributed as much to the success of the war as Washington’s sword, Paine was disappointed that he failed to receive any reward for his patriotic writings. To gain the widest circulation these had been sold by the hundreds of thousands, purposely without any recompense to the author. He was nearing fifty years of age and wished to retire to write a history of the War. His friends found, however, that he had trod on so many toes that they only succeeded with difficulty in securing for him a farm in New Rochelle from the State of New York, £500 from the State of Pennsylvania, and $3000 from Congress. This was but a fraction of what he deserved. 

His well known prejudice against slavery, his conviction that every adult should vote, landowner or not, prevented him from being considered as a delegate to the forthcoming Constitutional Convention. No one could have con- tributed more toward a liberal constitution than Paine. The Civil War might have been averted had Paine attended the Convention. 

Now Paine turned his attention to something useful in peace. He had invented the first large bridge to be made entirely of iron, designed to cross the broad Schuylkill River near Philadelphia in a single arch, without the use of piers. Franklin advised Paine that no one in America would dare build so novel a bridge without first getting the approval of the French Academy of Science. 

So, once again we find Paine, armed with appropriate letters of introduction from Franklin, setting sail for Paris. 

When he arrived there he conferred with our Ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, and these two great liberals saw everything eye to eye. The success of the American Revolution and the setting up of a republican form of government were making deep inroads in the minds of the downtrodden masses, both in France and in England. Paine’s dream of a world revolution seemed likely to come true. To Paine a revolution meant a change from. hereditary government to a representative democratic system with universal suffrage and safeguards for the inherent rights of the little people, who owned no land. 

While he was in Paris, the treacherous flight of Louis XV1, King of France, took place. Paine thought it was good riddance to bad rubbish, and was astound- ed that the people wanted their runaway King to return. As he had first sparked independence for America, he was now the first one to spark a republic for France. His printed Manifesto demanding a republic was posted all over Paris. Like the famous Theses of Martin Luther, it was audaciously nailed to the very door of the National Assembly, where it could not fail to receive attention. But with the capture of the King and his return to Paris, Paine’s republican “bubble” burst, though not without planting a seed that was to grow rapidly. 

He now returned to England, where a large-scale model of his iron bridge was being built. He fomented republican clubs, which exchanged sentiments of friendship with those in Scotland and Ireland, as well as those in France. Paine’s revolution seemed to be brewing in Great Britain, Edmund Burke, whose friendly actions during the American Revolution had endeared him to Paine, made Paine’s acquaintance. They visited together and corresponded. Suddenly, Burke changed sides and assailed the principles of the French Revolution. Paine accused Burke of being a pensioner in a fictitious name, and hinted this might have been the real reason he changed his mind. Paine gloried in the task of publicly answering him, which he did in his monumental work the Rights of Man. It first appeared on February 22, appropriately dedicated to George Washington. Praising Washington’s “exemplary virtue” he prayed that he would see the “new world regenerate the old.” At this time Paine was at the height of his popularity, and he felt certain that Rights of Man would do for England what Common Sense had done for America. Unfortunately for his cause, it was at just this time that dreadful massacres of innocent people in France took place. England, horrified at this kind of revolution, took warning and went to the other extreme, and for a while England was the least free spot on earth. The National Guard was called out. A royal proclamation was issued for the purpose of suppressing Paine’s book, and by court action Paine was declared an outlaw. Publishers, printers, and sellers of Paine’s work were jailed for libel as fast as they could be tried. Yet Paine’s book seems mild enough for us today. Paine said of the libel: 

If to expose the fraud and the imposition of monarchy, and every species of hereditary government-to lessen the oppression of taxes-to propose plans for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the aged and distressed-to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other-to extirpate the horrid practise of war-to promote universal peace, civilization, and com- merce-and 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 engraved on my tomb. 

The polished rhetoric of Burke could not refute the blunt logic of Paine’s arguments. The government resorted to a smear campaign of unprecedented proport- ions. It had published a Life of Paine, which maliciously purported on its title page to be “A Defense of Paine’s Works” and then was filled with lies and slander. According to this Life, the death of Paine’s first wife was due to ill usage and a premature birth; the cause of legal separation from his Second wife was said to be his refusal to cohabit with her through the three and one-half years of their marriage; and the claim was made that he had swindled many, including his own mother. 

In contradiction, consider the treatment Paine received when he went to France. Four Departments had vied with each other to elect Paine to the French National Convention. Paine accepted a seat from the Department of Calais and henceforth embraced and defended the French Revolution. He worked on a new democratic Constitution for France. Unfortunately, it was never activated, and as a result chaos reigned. This proved to be disastrous to France. The murderous course now taken by the Revolution alienated the entire world, and Paine had to take full share of responsibility for all actions coming from a government established according to the form he had so strongly advocated. Yet Paine tried to prevent bloodshed and went further than anyone else to save Louis XV1 from the guillotine. Paine, the hater of kings, cried, “Kill the King, but not the man, for he remembered that this same French King had courageously given vital aid to the struggling American colonies in their darkest hour. Robespierre, smashing all who opposed him, considered Paine’s humanitarianism a drawback, and ordered this “arch rebel” of England and America jailed, ironically, as a dangerous conservative. 

The tenets of Christian religion had troubled Paine from the time he was seven years old, but although he kept making notes on this subject, he purposely delayed publication of his beliefs until late in life, for then, being closer to the next world, he would be more concerned. But the reign of terror in France so threatened Paine’s life with early extinction that he resolved to bring his work to a close and publish it. So well had Paine estimated his remaining freedom that only six hours after he had finished his writing, the dreaded knock came on the door; the police had arrived and he was arrested. He contrived by a subterfuge to stop on the way to prison at the lodging of Joel Barlow, who was doing the proof-reading. He handed to Barlow the remainder of his manuscript, called The Age of Reason, and asked him to publish it at once. He had dedicated it to his fellow Citizens of America: 

I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon religion. You will do me the justice to remember that I have always strenu- ously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. 

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. 

He refused to believe that the orders to commit crimes, which he found in the Bible, were the words of God. He called them mythical. He would not accept any of the miracles, for he considered them based solely on hearsay evidence. 

However, it is difficult to find any logical reason for branding Paine an atheist, when his expression of faith is so unmistakably written in The Age of Reason: 

I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. 

Paine’s book failed in its purpose to save France from atheism, and was fiercely denounced in all other countries as the work of the devil. In England, Thomas Williams, who reprinted it, was thrown into jail and the work suppressed as blasphemous. Punishment as severe as fourteen years in a penal colony, like Botany Bay, was inflicted. Even speaking favourably of the work might earn one the pillory. Nevertheless, The Age of Reason continued to circulate surreptitiously. 

In his French prison Paine expected early release through intercession of President Washington. He was an American citizen against whom no charge had been made. But month by month he waited in vain and became dangerously ill as a result of his confinement in a damp cell. Robespierre finally condemned him to death, but before the busy guillotine could chop off Paine’s head, Robespierre had lost his own. Months later Paine’s release was obtained by the American Ambassador James Monroe on his own responsibility, but Paine’s grievance against Washington mounted. 

While being nursed back to health in Monroe’s home, he wrote Washington two identical letters, asking him to explain why he had ditched his old friend, and sent them by different vessels to guarantee their receipt. Washington received both. When a year had passed without a reply, Paine, feeling betrayed, hotheadedly published in America a bitter attack on Washington. This accomplished little more than to complete Paine’s fall from public favour, particularly in his own country. 

Paine’s next great work was Agrarian Justice. Here he outlined his plan for really ameliorating the conditions of the poor and aged. By leveling a tax on the landowners, he would create a national fund in every nation, to pay every person reaching twenty-one years of age a sum of money to enable him or her to begin the world. When one reached the age of fifty (the considered old) a sum would be given annually, sufficient to enable him to go on living without wretchedness, and to go decently out of the world. Paine’s excellently thought-out social security programme was unfortunately considered too advanced to receive the attention it deserved. 

Now Paine became one of a group in Paris to organise a new religious society called “The Theophilanthropists,” a compound word meaning “Lovers of God and Man.” Paine’s religion consisted only in belief in “one God” and “doing good. The French government at first supported this religion and allowed its followers to use Notre Dame and three other church edifices in Paris; but after a few years’ growth, Napoleon, who had made peace with the Pope, crushed the society. 

Paine’s battle for freedom in the Old World had come to a grinding halt. Paine, however, refused to give up. He now decided to return to the New World. He would go to his farm in New Rochelle, hoping to find freedom and tolerance there. Thomas Jefferson, the first real Democrat, who had steadfastly remained a friend of Paine, was President of the United States. He was bold enough to offer a frigate (today’s equivalent a battleship) to bring Paine safely through any British blockade back to America. However, Paine took an ordinary vessel. 

Much to Paine’s dismay, from the moment of landing in Baltimore he was outrageously attacked as a blasphemer. This continued unrelentingly for the remaining five years of his life. The Federalists, taking umbrage at Paine’s attack on their idol, Washington, pulled out all the stops in fiery denunciation of Paine the Infidel. Even on a stage coach, the driver, learning that Paine was a passenger, refused to proceed until Paine got out, fearing that such a defiler of God would invite retribution by lightning, at least. So whipped up was this hatred, that the City of New Rochelle stopped him from voting when he went to cast his ballot, on the grounds that he was no longer a citizen. How ungrateful could his country be? 

Many of Paine’s friends shunned him, except disciples like Elihu Palmer, or the fearless democrat, President Jefferson, and a few others. Paine, past seventy, still continued to publish powerful essays, furthering both his religious and political principles and assailing his enemies. Since his name was no longer an asset, they were mostly anonymous. 

All this controversy might have been expected to end in 1809 when Paine died at the age of seventy-two, one hundred and fifty years ago; but this was not to be the case. He had requested in his will to be buried in a Quaker burying ground, provided the authorities would admit a person who did not belong to their Society. Otherwise, he desired to be buried on his own farm in New Rochelle. 

His obituary, written by his enemy, James Cheetham, editor of the (New York) American Citizen, appeared on June 10 and was widely copied. It read: 

Died on Thursday morning, the 8th of June. Thomas Paine, author of the Crisis, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason. Mr.Paine had a desire to be interred in the Quaker burying ground, and some days previous to his demise, had an interview with some Quaker gentlemen on the subject, but as he declined a renunciation of his deistical views, his anxious wishes were not complied with. He was yesterday interred at New Rochelle, Westchester county, perhaps on his own farm. I am unacquainted with his age, but he had lived long, done some good, and much harm. 

The obituary written by his friend, Jacob Frank, editor of the (New York) Public Advertiser, had appeared the day before, June 9, but seems not to have been copied by any other paper. 

With heartfelt sorrow and poignant regret, we are compelled to announce to the world that Thomas Paine is no more. This distinguished Philanthropist, whose life was devoted to the cause of humanity, departed this life yesterday morning. But if ever a man’s memory deserved a place in the breast of a freeman, it is that of the deceased, for: 

Take ’em all in all 

We ne’er shall look upon his like again! 

The friends of the deceased, are invited to attend his funeral, at nine o’clock, from his late residence at Greenwich, from whence the corpse will be conveyed to New Rochelle, for interment. 

William Cobbett, an ultra-Tory during his first. American sojourn, printed in the (Philadelphia) – Political Censor, September 1796, thirteen years before Paine died, this unfriendly prediction: 

He has done all the mischief he can in the world, and whether his carcass is at last to be suffered to rot on the earth, or to be dried in the air is of little consequence. Whenever and wherever he breathes his last he will excite neither sorrow nor compassion; no friendly hand will close his eyes, not a groan will be uttered, not a tear will be shed. Like Judas he will be remembered by posterity; men will learn to express all that is base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural and blasphemous, by the single monosyllable, PAINE. 

Who would believe that only a few years after Paine’s death Cobbett would retract every vile word he had written about Paine? Having the opportunity to study Paine’s writings during a long confinement in Newgate Prison for expressing some liberal sentiments, Cobbett became a convert. Doing a complete about-face, he started to expound Paine’s principles to the British masses. Later he was forced to flee once more to America. After a two-year sojourn there, in an act of unusual penance he exhumed Paine’s bones from their resting place in New Rochelle and brought them to England in order to give them a new funeral worthy of so great a man. The British, however, now despising Cobbett almost as much as Paine, ruined the plan by ridicule. Paine’s bones have now disappeared, giving circulation to a weird tale used by a preacher, denouncing Paine: “Thomas Paine was so wicked that he could not be buried; his bones were thrown into a box which was bandied about the world until it came to a button manufacturer, and now Paine is traveling around in the form of buttons.” 

Suppression of Paine’s work in England had the opposite effect desired and increased the demand for them. New printers, like W.T. Sherwin and Richard Carlile, were found who would take the risk of publication. Arrested or not,they continued battling for the freedom of the press, even from their cells in jail. Over the years such freedom was finally won and Paine’s works have been regul- arly reprinted since then. For instance, nine editions of Rights of Man have been published in London since World War 1. The Age of Reason, now a Bible for Freethinkers, this year (1959) was reprinted in New York in an edition of 100,000 copies. Today people are not ostracized who refuse to take their Bible literally.

Succeeding generations have seen the smoke screen of personal abuse around Paine gradually disappear, allowing him to stand forth as the greatest advocate of democracy, social security, and freedom of thought the world has yet seen. 

Public appreciation of Paine is mounting. In England, his birthplace at Thetford, Norfolk, is marked in bronze, and at Lewes, Sussex, all places associated with him are marked. In London his portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, and there is another portrait and bust in the South Place Ethical Society. In France, a great statue by Gutzon Borglum of Paine pleading for the life of Louis XV1 stands facing the dormitories of the University of Paris, In America he has been elected to the Hall of Fame in New York, where his bust stands next to that of his great friend Thomas Jefferson. There is another bust in the New York Historical Society, and his last home in Greenwich Village is marked by a bronze plaque. If you visit Jefferson’s home in Monticello, the guides will point out to you the miniature portrait of Paine painted from life by John Trumbull. In the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; there is a portrait painted from life by John Wesley Jarvis. In Philadel- phia, his portrait hangs in Independence Hall. There is a small portrait in our American Antiquarian Society. In New Jersey, at Bordentown, his little house is marked with bronze, while in Morristown, there is a large statue which is gold-plated, carrying out the suggestion once made by Napoleon that every city in the world should erect a statue of gold to Paine, Napoleon also said he never went to bed at night without a copy of Paine’s Rights of Man under his pillow. New Rochelle has also repented, for the original burial place is graced by an imposing monument; the home is preserved as a historic shrine; and there is a beautiful museum building nearby which is devoted to an exhibition of his works. They even gave him back his citizenship by an official act a few years ago. Next Tuesday the Library of Yale University opens a comprehensive exhibit of his works and manuscripts. 

Paine has influenced nearly all our Presidents, particularly Abraham Lincoln. Woodrow Wilson’s “League of Nations” may have been indebted to Paine, who conceived an “Association of Nations” under a rainbow-coloured flag, who would maintain their neutrality by an economic blockade of any aggressor. In the Rights of Man, which with his other works, the Soviet Union has this year tran- slated into Russian, appears his plan of disarmament. Let me read to you what Paine wrote in 1792: 

It is, I think, certain, that if the fleets of England, France, and Holland were confederated, they could propose, with effect, a limitation to, and a general dismantling of all the navies in Europe, to a certain proportion to be agreed upon. 

First, That no new ship of war shall be built by any power in Europe, themselves included. 

Secondly, That all the navies now in existence shall be put back, suppose to one-tenth of their present force. 

If men will permit themselves to think, nothing can appear more ridiculous and absurd, exclusive of all moral reflections, than to be at the expense of building navies, filling them with men, and then hauling them into the ocean, to try to sink each other fastest. Peace, which costs nothing, is attended with infinitely more advantage, than any victory with all its expense. 

…the above confederated powers, together with that of the United States of America, can propose, with effect, the independence of South America…. …nations will become acquainted, and the animosities and prejudices formented by the intrigue and artifice of courts,will cease. The oppressed soldier will become a freeman; and the tortured sailor,no longer dragged along the streets like a felon, will pursue his mercantile voyage in safety. It would be better that nations should continue the pay of their soldiers during their lives, and give them their discharge and restore them to freedom and their friends, and cease recruiting, than retain such multitudes at the same expence, in a condition useless to society and themselves.

These were Paine’s words, taken from Part 11 of the Rights of Man. 

Do you suppose that Khrushchev, before he presented his plan of disarmament to the United Nations last month, had read Paine’s plan? 

I think there has been a resurgence of Thomas Paine. 

Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 

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RICHARD GIMBEL WAS A BRAVE MAN. He was a Colonel in the United States Army Air Force, so you would expect that. But he had another kind of bravery, too moral, which he particularly showed in the United States during the “Cold War.” 1959 was the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Paine’s death, and Richard Gimbel wrote an incisive assessment of Paine, The Resurgence of Thomas Paine The culmination of his examples of the mounting public appreciation of Paine against generations of bigotry was a proclamation of Paine’s plan of disarmament from Part 2 of Rights of Man. 

Gimbel pointed out that with other of his works, Rights of Man had just been translated into Russian in the USSR, and he conjectured, “Do you suppose that Khrushchev, before he presented his plan of disarmament to the United Nations last month, had read Paine’s plan? I think there has been a resurgence of Thomas Paine.” “Peace” was still a dirty word in 1959 USA “Paine” was far from being 100% clean either for someone like Gimbel, connected with the rich Gimbel Stores family, this was outspoken bravery. It has something of Paine’s character to it.. Gimbel in the same essay said that Paine “did not hesitate a moment to rush in to promote every good cause and to expose every injustice, and he ended up being generally despised with virtually everyone his enemy for one reason or another.’ “But people with principles are not motivated by the hope of flattery or public acclaim. Unlike Paine; Gimbel was no innovator. He was an historian this century’s most knowledgeable expert on Paine, but Paine’s principles have a habit of rubbing off on those who study him. Look how they converted William Cobbett from slinging the vilest mud at Paine to wanting to erect a grand monument to him. 

Now Richard Gimbel, who devoted so many years to researching Paine, has died suddenly in West Germany. My father, Adrian Brunel, first knew him in 1951, during preparations. for Thetford’s Festival of Britain commemorations of Paine, and, though separated by the Atlantic they became firm friends. After my father’s death in 1958, Richard and I became good friends, too, corresponding and sending each other material on Paine. 

Often, we posed each other questions that came up in our work. What Swedish editions do you know of Rights of Man, I asked him. He put this query to me: William Hazlitt and several others have claimed that England declared war on France in 1793 because of Paine’s Rights of Man. They thought not only could they crush the spread of his principles but by declaring war they would be able to stop Paine enthusiasts in England, since they would become ‘collaborators with the enemy’. Do you agree with this?” 

He was constantly working on different projects. Stationed in the USAAF near Thetford during the last war, Colonel Gimbel raised a subscription amongst American servicemen, which resulted in a plaque on Paine’s house for all who passed to see. In 1953 he led a campaign to get the white marble bust of Paine, which for many years had been hidden away in a Philadelphia basement, put on display once again in the city so full of Paine associations. 

In 1956 he claimed to have solved the bibliographical puzzle of the first edition of The Age of Reason with his discovery of a 1793 French publication of the work. Eighteen months ago he approached me about a study he was making” of Paine’s bridge at Monkswearmouth (commonly called the Sunderland Bridge), and eventually I was able to dig out some clues for him. So far I have been unable to find out how near to publication Gimbel was with his findings before he died. 

Perhaps his biggest work was, Thomas Paine: A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense with an account of its Publication (Yale University Press/Oxford University Press, 1956). This excellent publication contains over 150 listed editions of Common Sense, and about half the book is devoted to a copiously illustrated account of the early publications of Common Sense. Gimbel took twenty-nine years to collect material and write this book. 

Such a person was a very apt Vice-President for our Society, an active man, not just a figurehead. He was also a person of wide interests. Paine’s influence again? Gimbel was a Yale graduate in the class of 1920, and, until 1936, was associated in executive capacities with Gimbel Department Stores (the chairman, Bernard Gimbel, was his cousin) and with Saks Fifth Avenue. After service with the USAAF, he returned to his alma mater in 1951 to direct the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Programme, retiring in July 1953 to become the Curator of the Aeronautics Library at Yale. I shall always remember his Christmas cards to both my father and I, which had some aeronautical motif to them usually something jolly like Father Christmas in a balloon, 

In addition to owning the finest collection of Paine books and manuscripts in the world, Gimbel was a member of the Grollier Club and a collector of the works of Edgar Allen Poe and of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, which is quite a varied mixture. He was an enthusiast in all his interests and studies, but as a serious historian and researcher he never let his enthusiasm cause him to exaggerate in the way that some admirers of Paine have. He did not claim his work on Common Sense was a definitive bibliography, it was a check list, and he constantly sought more information from fellow collectors and librarians as steps towards a bibliography. His approach towards a bibliography of Rights of Man was the same. 

The quality of Gimbel’s work is seen in what is published in this number of our Bulletin. I hope that it will encourage others to continue in the same spirit. Richard Gimbel is among the magnificent band of fighters to restore Paine to his proper place in history. The Thomas Paine Society is dedicated to this work. The fact that it is easier than in 1963, when we were founded, is due to such giants as our late Vice-President, Richard Gimbel. 

It was also an honour to have him as a personal friend. I shall miss him, his cheerfulness, his kindness and his humanity.

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FAMOUS FOR THE GREATER part of his life and for some years after, C.F. Volney is now an almost forgotten figure. There was a time when his book, “The Ruins”, or “A Survey of the Revolutions of Empires”, usually referred to as The Ruins, appeared in edition after edition in many countries and places within them. Its influence in radical circles is seen in the fear it gave rise to in the ruling establishments, even the mere display of a print of Volney could mean financial ruin for small businessmen, as Hetherington pointed out was the case in Ireland in the 1830’s. (Poor Man’s Guardian. May 4th., 1833. No.100.) Volney personally experienced the wrath of some individuals, and he tells us that in Corsica he was looked upon as a heretic for writing The Ruins, and, as though this was not enough, suspected of being a French spy! (Moniteur. Paris, March 20th. & 21st., 1793.)

Volney was the author of a great many works but it is beyond question that his most influential was “The Ruins”. It first appeared in France in 1791 (the year that saw Part 1 of Paine’s Rights of Man appear), and soon ran through several editions. It became a must for the libraries of progressive minded 19th.century artisans. At the same time it aroused the fury of the supporters of the conservative establishments, and, in view of its anti- religious bias, among the religious. Although the fury has now diminished it still finds the odd echo or two, particularly among the less perceptive American academics. Thus L.G.Crocker displays a certain irritation and writes of it as “a shallow piece of rhetoric.” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 8. 1967.) An earlier and much better scholar, the Scot, J.M. Robertson, is much more to the point when calling attention to its original contributions to the study of Christian origins. He accurately describes it as “a brilliant work….” (Christianity and Mythology. London, 1910. pp.5.)

Volney was born at Craon in Anjou, on February 3rd., 1757, and named Constantin-Francois Chasseboeuf, this last name being soon changed by his father to Boisgirais. This was changed to Volney in 1783 just prior to his departure to the Middle East. Volney had an unhappy childhood, however, this does not appear to have prevented him developing a strong academic bias. When he was 15 he went to Paris to complete his higher education, studying history, ancient languages, medicine, sociology and physiology. In 1781 he published his first book, Chronology of Herodotus, and this brought him into contact with the materialist d’Holbach, who in turn introduced him to the gifted American Benjamin Franklin and Madam Helvetius. Such introductions paved his way into French intellectual circles which might otherwise have remained closed to him. 

The receipt of a small legacy in 1782, prompted Volney to take the decision to go abroad to undertake an historical and sociological survey in Egypt and Syria. It was characteristic of Volney that having decided to go he then took an entire year to prepare himself he even went so far as to walk from Paris to his port of embarkation. On arrival in Egypt he found that that nation was not quite to his liking and after seven months cut short his stay and went off to Syria, where again his practical streak asserted itself and he went to live “among the Druzes, in an Arabian convent, which rendered Arabic familiar to me”. (A sect of Christians now mainly found in the Lebanon) (Travels through Syria and Egypt in the years 1783, 1784, and 1785. Dublin, 1788.pp. .vii. Most writers on Volney, including not a few who contribute to leading reference works, wrongly state that he learned Arabic in Egypt.)

Volney found nothing spectacular during his travels in Egypt and Syria and after three years there he returned to France, where in 1787 he published a two volume work on his trip. (Voyage en Syrie et Egypte, pendant les annees 1783, 1784 et 1785. Paris, Desenne, 1787.) The book was very well received and the tsarina of Russia went as far as to award Volney a gold medal; not to be outdone the French king appointed him Director General of Commerce and Agriculture in Corsica. Volney put into his new position the same practical qualities he had displayed during his trip to the Middle East. 

In 1790 Volney plunged into the politica; arena, although not without having first resigned from his official post on the grounds that a “National Deputy ought not to be in any way a pensioner”. (Edmund Burke could have learned a lesson from this but lacking Volney’s principles he kept his government pension a secret while an M. P.) (A Brief Sketch of the Life of C.F.Volney. London, James Watson, Nd. pp.4. This work was published in the early 1840’s and its author anonymous, it was possibly by Watson himself. Hereafter BSLV.)  Politically Volney was a liberal republican radical who stood for major social change in French life. He disliked all forms of secrecy, and detested the Catholic Church for the political power it had. He was the first to propose a National Guard and the division of France into communes and departments. He attacked the right of the king to make war and proposed in the Assembly a motion, which was accepted, that France would make no further wars for territorial gain. As events were to show such motions constituted a rather futile gesture. Volney was elected Secretary of the Constitutional Assembly on November 23rd., 1790. The year which saw so much political effort also saw the publication of his Chronology of the Twelve Centuries anterior to the passage of Xerxes into Greece. 

In 1792 Volney returned to Corsica and there purchased an estate near Ajaccio, where he resumed his agricultural work, This continued until he was forced to leave the island following the revolt of Pascal Paoli. Paoli, who claimed to be Volney’s friend, put the estate up for sale. It was during this period in Corsica that Volney became very friendly with a young army officer named Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Volney, as mentioned, was a republican, but this did not save him from the wrath of Robespierre, he was imprisoned as, of all things, a royalist! It was not until the fall of Robespierre that he was released. Shortly after he was appointed professor at the Normal School, which was loosely a type of teachers training college. Of his work here George Underwood has commented that he appears to have “anticipated some of the methods of modern historians.” (Ruins of Empire. London, 1921. Introduction pp.viii.) The fall of Robespierre appears to have improved the political situation very little and Volney, having suffered one spell in prison, decided that the omens were bad and it would be best to leave France, thus on October 11th.,1795, we find him arriving in the infant United States. 

Volney’s visit to the United States was to result in the second book on which his reputation as a scientist rests. This work, which we shall look at in more detail shortly, was the first part of a projected two volume study. The first dealt with the physical characteristics of the nation, the second, the part that never appeared, was to cover its political institutions. Volney had intended to settle in the United States, but as the poet Burns so aptly points out, the best laid plans of mice and men sometimes come unstuck. Although given a friendly reception on his arrival the political situation changed, particularly with the election of the Tory Adams as President, and there was an increasing hostility displayed towards France. As well as political attack: Volney found himself the target for a bitter attack on him from the theologian cum chemist, Joseph Priestley. This person, himself a refugee from a hostile political situation in Britain, published a pamphlet with the long winded title Observations on the Progress of Infidelity with Critical Remarks on the Writings of Some Modern Unbelievers, and particularly on the Ruins of M. de Volney (1797). In this he calls Volney “an ignorant man. and scarcely superior to a Chinese or a Hottentot”. (BSLV. pp.7.) Volney replied to this ill-mannered outburst in a letter which was published in Philadelphia on March 2nd.,1797, in an English translation, although Count Daru hints that it was in fact written in English. Priestley’s latest biographer diplomati- cally ignores the affair. (“il repondit en Anglais, et les compatriotes de Priestley ne purent reconnaitre un Francais, dans cette reponse, qu’ a sa finesse et a son urbante,” (Notice sur M. le comte de Volney. pp.xvi. See BSLV .pp.7).)

Following his return to France Volney resumed his political activities, however, having no love for dictators he soon fell out with Napoleon, taking a dim view of his adoption of the royal title. He acidly commented that “it would be better to recall the Bourbons! and went on to resign his seat in the Senate, although he was later to resume it after the restoration and accept, under strong protest, the title of Count. (F.W.Gibbs.Joseph Priestley, Adventurer in Science and Champion of Truth. London, 1965. The last part of the title has a somewhat hollow ring in light of the incident referred to.) (BSLV .pp.9.) His attitude towards the title is shown in a letter he sent to a friend: “you may observe, by my seal, that I have armorial bearings, viz., two ruined Asiatic columns, the true supporters of my nobility, surmounted by a swallow, that faithful, though migratory bird, who every age sings to me of spring and liberty. (BSLV.pp.9.)

In 1810, Volney married his cousin, Mlle de Chasseboeuf, having in a sense been engaged to her since his youth but due to his travels she had married another, this person having died she was free to marry Volney. He lived a further ten years, active years too, and died, partly from the effect of something he had picked up in the Middle East, on April 25th.,1820, aged 63. He was buried after a religious ceremony in the Pere Lachaise. Despite the religious ceremony Volney was in life an atheist. In The Ruins he attacks priestcraft and theology as enemies of mankind, an attitude of mind also found in his little known History of Samuel (1819) – a work often attributed to Voltaire. Abbe Migne stated that “It appears that in his last moments he refused the consolations of religion.” (Dictionnaire de Biographie Chretienne et Anti-Chretienne.) English evangelicals who roundly detested his influence spread pious lies about his “recantation”, although what they gained from such childish tactics is impossible to fathom. (G.W.Foote and A.D. McLaren examine in detail this “edyfying fiction” in their book Infidel Death-Beds.)

Voyage en Syrie et en Egypte was Volney’s first scientific work, and is the first serious study of the area in modern times. It is not a travel book in the popular sense of being a connected string of adventures, incidents and comment; if this is expected then the reader will be disappointed. It is, as noted, a scientific work which goes into great detail on various aspects of the history, social conditions and physical description of two important nations in the Middle East, three if we include, as Volney did, Palestine as part of Syria. The author’s close interest in earth science is brought out clearly, although just where Volney came across his up to date knowledge of geological ideas is anything but clear. He has some pertinent points to make about the action of the Nile in respect to the deposition of material in the Delta region. He discusses the action of wind and rain, and does not forget the sea in his deliberations. He has some interesting observations on the forces causing land to rise in the Delta, and speculates on whether the high land there is so by virtue of the river cutting downwards. 

In Syria (which also at that time included Palestine), Volney found ample scope for geological observation and speculation. He points out that if a map of the region is examined it will be seen “that this country is in some way only a chain of mountains”. (Travels Through Syria & Egypt…Dublin, 1788. pp. 179. (And all quotes after) 20. pp. 186. 21.pp.187. 22. pp. 188. 23. pp. 189.) Volney brought his highly practical mind to bear upon the nature and origin of the mountains. An examination of their make-up showed them to consist of “a hard calcareous stone of whitish colour, sonorous like free-stone, and dispersed in strata variously inclined”20 The inclined strata he explained was the result of the action of earthquakes and volcanoes – a popular explanation invoked frequently by geologists of the time. Volney draws attention to the fossils contained in rocks in Syria, and in particular in those situated in the area bordering the Dead Sea, these he says are “small volutes and bivalves. 

The Valley of the Jordan greatly interested Volney and he sought to explain its formation, calling in again earthquakes and volcanic action. He argues that it might be attributable to a “violent sinking of a country which Volney was happy to formerly poured the Jordan into the Mediterranean. invoke earthquakes but he also wanted to know their origin; His speculations in this respect are rather amusing, He considered that the “action of water on dried earth” played a major role for earthquakes that seldom happened in Syria.

Volney’s book on Egypt “but in winter….after the autumnal rains… and Syria is not too weighted in favour of geology, but scattered about its considerable length are many geological observations and theories which make the book important in the history of geology, at the same time of course we must remember that geology was at the time a new science and so while many theories employed by Volney now amuse rather than explain, they were during the period in which he wrote often in advance of much that was written. 

Volney’s book on America, View of the Climate and Soil of the USA, like that on Egypt and Syria, has largely been forgotten by students of the history of geology. (Tableau du climat et du sol des Etats Unis d’Amerique…. 2 vols. Paris, 1803. English edition published in London the following year; an American edition, translated by C.B. Brown, also appeared in 1804. The modern Hafner edition (New York, 1964), which reprints the American 1804 translation, has the plates from the English edition.) Compared with the earlier work the book on America is much more geologically oriented. As a work on physiography and geology it was by far the best, of the United States it is, as Merrill has written, that had thus far appeared with the possible exception of those of Schopf”, Volney gives no clue that he knew of Schopf’s work, which is rather strange as he was well up on the available geological works. (G.P. Merrill. The First One Hundred Years of American Geology. N.Y. 1964 pp.25.) (Beitrage zur Mineralogischen Kenntniss des Oestlichen Theils von Nord Amerika und seiner Geburge. 1787. J.D.Schopf (1752-1800), was a professional scientist who served with the British Hessian troops during the American War of Independence. His work was published in German and I have not seen an English translation.)

Schopf had toured an area which in part had also been covered by Volney, and had advanced some ideas to explain the origin of the flat coastal region extending from the western end of Long Island to Florida. Fossils found there suggested to him that an explanation was to be found in it having been sea beaches of recent date, more or less. Schopf also saw in the northeast by southwest trend of the east coast an illustration of the action of the sea in determining appearance of land structures, the sea action in this case being the Gulf Stream. He was puzzled by the discovery of sea born sediments on mountain heights but their non-appearance at lower levels. 

In the 1790’s the population of what then constituted the United States was about three million, the bulk of which was located in the towns along the Atlantic seaboard. The interior was inhabited by Indian tribes, often hostile to white people. Despite the dangers it involved, Volney set off to explore the interior often on foot. (View of the Climate and Soil……London, 1804. pp.42.) His approach had a very modern ring to it, for field work is an essential part of modern geology. Geology was then, as noted earlier, in its infancy as a branch of science; as a specific subject it was still bound up with geography. If Woodward be correct, the very word geology had only been introduced in 1778 by J.A. de Luc. (H.B. Woodward. The History of the Geological Society of London, London, 1908. pp. 1.) Essentially, then, although Volney’s book has been described as geological it is also very much geographical. 

During his tour of America Volney assembled a comprehensive geological collection consisting of rocks, minerals and fossils, the latter being referred to also by the earlier term “petrifications”. This was a working collection, assembled to allow Volney to construct an account of the strata in various areas he visited between the Mississippi and the Atlantic. Although by our standards his account is oversimplified, it constituted an important stop towards a better understanding of the stratigraphy of a major region of the United States. Volney took the collection back with him to France and asked Lamarck to examine the fossils. He identified them as a species of mollusc similar to some described by Linneus as Anomia dorsata. He submitted that this indicated that the areas from which the fossils had come had at an earlier period been covered by the sea. This theory was extended by Volney and incorporated in his book. He argues that large areas had been covered by material derived from adjacent mountain ranges. In drawing up his account of the strata Volney pays credit to help gigging by “some mineralogical friends” on his return to Paris, although Merrill argues that this was in Philadelphia. (The First One Hundred Years of American Geology. pp.27.) Interestingly enough, Philadelphia was already the home of a geological collection for some years prior to the arrival of Volney. The famous radical Thomas Paine when editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine refers to the collection, although pointing out that the bulk was of European origin. The American material included consisted in the main, so Paine wrote, of “several specimens of earth, clay, sand, etc., with some account of each, and where brought from. (Pennsylvania Magazine,1772. Reprinted in Miscellaneous Letters and Essays on Various Subjects by Thomas Paine, London, Sherwin,1817.pp.9. Paine was a close friend of Volney.) One wonders whether Volney used this collection or even added to it. 

Volney divided the area he covered into three main regions, and went on to subdivide it partially into five smaller zones, characterised by what he thought were their dominant rocks. This by our present knowledge was superficial in the extreme, in fact he managed to ignore evidence he found himself which seemed to run counter to certain of his own conclusions, although he advanced what he thought good reasons for doing so. He accurately ascribed the channels leading to the falls at Niagara as the product of the erosive powers of water. George White has drawn attention to several geological firsts found in Volney’s book on America; in it will be found”the first extensive, organised account of the physical features of the trans-Allegheny region”; the first geological sections used to illustrate an American geological report; the first coloured geological map of the United States. (Introduction to the Hafner edition.pp.viii-ix.) (In the French 1st edition.) White’s claim that he was first to systematically collect geological specimens in America is, in the light of what Paine wrote, debatable. 

Armed with our present knowledge Volney’s ideas seem in many instances way out. However, at the same time we should remember that others, often famous in the history of geology, accepted much odder notions, Bean Buckland, justly famous in the annals of British geology, was hamstrung by narrow biblical fundamentalism it would well fit the description by the late Joseph McCabe as being “funnymentalism”. At least Volney escapes this, in fact 

Volney never sought to square his geological discoveries in the light of biblical “facts”, thus although catastrophism forms part of his theoretical armoury it is not a bible based theory. Likewise with geological time; Volney accepted that the geological time-span could be of great age. His work is refreshingly free of supernaturalism; not for him was there any need to present advanced ideas as did the Reverend Joseph Townsend, writing some thirt- een years later, in religious terms. (The Character of Moses Established for Veracity as an Historian: Recording 

Events from the Creation to the Deluge (3 vols. Bath & London, 1813-15.) Townsend gave, as Woodward notes “the of much of William Smith’s work….for the first time…” (H.B. Woodward. History of Geology. London, 1911. pp.56.) Woodward, a member of the Rationalist Press Association, was too polite to draw attention to Townsend’s failure to grasp the dangerous implications in Smith’s work in so far as religious theories went. Moses was to remain on his throne a few more years. Although Townsend’s narrow outlook now amuses many people we can also find not too many years later a man of Lyell’s distinction: glacial theory of Agassiz and then flying in the face of the evidence and changing his mind by attributing the Scottish tills to deposition from melting ice-bergs rather than to ice-sheet glaciation. There is some justiication in G.L. Davies description of him as “a renegade” in this context. We have passed over another of Volney’s great interests, the study of languages, particularly classical and oriental tongues. (Lyell was a member of an Ethicist church.) His earlier and later works are predominantly linguistic, but even his work on America displays his interest in language and has a lengthy appendix on the vocabulary of the Miami Indian language. (“The Tour of the British Isles made by Louis Agassiz in 1840”. Annals of Science. Vol. 24. 2. 1968. pp.146.)

Volney proposed a universal language, but does not appear to have pressed the subject with much vigour. At the height of the conflict between Britain and France he was elected a member of the Literary Society of Calcutta for his study of oriental languages. In his will he left a sum of money to promote the study of languages. 

Volney was a man of many parts, revolutionary, republican, teacher, professor, traveller, student of the origin of religion, philologist, and scientist. He inspired radicals in Europe and America, and his works were printed in cheap editions by the thousand. However, no one has yet written a good life of him either in French or English, or published a full bibliography. This is a pity, perhaps one day it will be remedied. 

Acknowledgements 

The author wishes to acknowledge with gratitude the help given him by many individuals, particularly: Christopher Brunel, Dr. W.A.S. Sarjeant, Peter Cadogan, Miss Ella Twynam, Mr. & Mrs. L. Ebury and Professor George W. White.

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