for I cared not about the prosecution, but to defend the principles I had advanced in the work. "The duty I am now engaged in is of too much impor"tance to permit me to trouble myself about your prosecu ❝tion; when I have leisure, I shall have no objection to "meet you on that ground: but, as I now stand, whether you go on with the prosecution, or whether you do not, or "whether you obtain a verdict, or not, is a matter of the "most perfect indifference to me as an individual. If you "obtain one (which you are welcome to if you can get it,) "it cannot affect me, either in person, property, or reputa❝tion, otherwise than to increase the latter; and with respect to yourself, it is as consistent that you obtain a ver"dict against the man in the moon, as against me; neither "do I see how you can continue the prosecution against me "as you would have done against one of your own people, "who had absented himself because he was prosecuted; "what passed at Dover, proves that my departure from England was no secret. "My necessary absence from your country affords the op"portunity of knowing whether the prosecution was intend"ed against Thomas Paine, or against the rights of the peo ple of England to investigate systems and principles of government; for as I cannot now be the object of the pro"secution, the going on with the prosecution will show that "something else was the object, and that something else "can be no other than the people of England; for it is. "against their rights, and not against me, that a verdict or sentence can operate, if it can operate at all. Be then so "candid as to tell the Jury (if you choose to continue the process) whom it is you are prosecuting, and on whom it "is that the verdict is to fall." 66 Gentlemen, I certainly will comply with this request. I am prosecuting both him and his work; and if I succeed in this prosecution, he shall never return to this country otherwise than in vinculis, for I will outlaw him. "But I have other reasons than those I have mentioned "for writing you this letter; and however you may choose "to interpret them, they proceed from a good heart. The "time, Sir, is becoming too serious to play with Court pro"secutions, and sport with national rights. The terrible ex"amples that have taken place here upon men who, less than a year ago, thought themselves as secure as any prosecu"ting Judge, Jury, or Attorney General, can now do in Eng"land, ought to have some weight with men in your situa"tion." Now, Gentlemen, I do not think that Mr. Paine judges very well of mankind-I do not think that it is a fair conclusion of Mr. Paine, that men such as you and myself, who are quietly living in obedience to the laws of the land which they inhabit, exercising their several functions peaceably, and I hope with a moderate share of reputation: I do not conceive that men called upon to think, and in the habit of reflection, are the most likely men to be immediately thrown off the hinges by menaces and threats; and I doubt whether men exercising public functions, as you and I do in the face of our country, could have the courage to run away. All I can tell Mr. Paine is this-if any of his assassins are here in London, and there is some ground to suppose they may be, or the assassins of those with whom he is connected; if they are here, I tell them, that I do in my conscience think, that for a man to die of doing his duty, is just as good a thing as dying of a raging fever, or under the tortures of the stone. Let him not think, that not to be an incendiary is to be a coward. He says "That the government of England is as great, if not the greatest perfection of fraud and corruption, that "ever took place since governments began, is what you can<< not be a stranger to; unless the constant habit of seeing it "has blinded your sense.' Upon my word, Gentlemen, I am stone blind, I am not sorry for it." But though you "may not choose to see it, the people are seeing it very fast, "and the progress is beyond what you may choose to "believe, or that reason can make any other man believe, "that the capacity of such a man as Mr. Guelph, or any "of his profligate sons, is necessary to the government of a "nation." Now, Gentlemen, with respect to this passage, I have this to say, it is contemptuous, scandalous, false, cruel.-Why, Gentlemen, is Mr. Paine, in addition to the political doctrines that he is teaching us in this country; is he to teach us the morality and religion of IMPLACABILITY? Is he to teach human creatures, whose moments of existence depend upon the permission of a Being, merciful, long suffering, and of great goodness, that those youthful errors from which even royalty is not exempted, are to be treasured up in a vindictive memory, and are to receive sentence of irremissible sin at HIS hands? Are they all to be confounded in these slanderous terms, shocking for British ears to hear, and I am sure distressing to their hearts? He is a barbarian, who could use such profligate expressions uncalled for by any thing which could be the object of his letter addressed to me. If giving me pain was his object, he has that hellish gratification. Would this man destroy that great auxiliary of all human laws and constitution" to judge of others as we would be "judged ourselves!"-This is the bill of wrongs and insults of the Christian religion. I presume it is considered as that bill of wrongs and insults, in the heart of that man who can have the barbarity to use those expressions, and address them to me in a way by which I could not but receive them. Gentlemen, there is not perhaps in the world a more beneficial analogy, nor a finer rule to judge by in public matters, than by assimilating them to what passes in domestic life. A family is a small kingdom, a kingdom is a large family. Suppose this to have happened in private life, judge of the good heart of this man, who thrusts into my hands, the grateful servant of a kind and beneficent master, and that too through the unavoidable trick of the common post, slander upon that master, and slander upon his whole offspring. Lay your hands upon your hearts, and tell me what is your verdict with respect to his heart.-I see it! Gentlemen, he has the audacity to say, "I speak to you as "one man ought to speak to another." Does he speak to me of those august Personages as one man ought to speak to another? Had he spoken those words to me personally, I will not answer for it, whether I should not have forgot the duties of my office, and the dignity of my station, by being hurried into a violation of that peace, the breach of which I am compelled to punish in others. He says, "And I know "also, that I speak, what other people are beginning to think, "That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if you do, it will "signify nothing) without packing a Jury, and we both know "that such tricks are practised, is what I have very good "reason to believe."-Mentiris impudentissime.-Gentlemen, I know of no such practice; I know, indeed, that no such practice exists, nor can exist; I know the very contrary of this to be true and I know too that this letter, containing this dangerous falsehood, was destined for future publication; that I have no doubt of, and therefore I dwell thus long upon it. "I have gone into coffee-houses, and places where I was “unknown, on purpose to learn the currency of opinion." Whether the sense of this nation is to be had in some pothouses and coffee-houses in this town of his own choosing, is a matter I leave to your judgment. "And I never yet saw any company of twelve men that condemned the book; but "I have often found a greater number than twelve approving "it; and this I think is a fair way of collecting the natural "currency of opinion. Do not then, Sir, be the instrument "of drawing twelve men into a situation that may be injurious "to them afterwards."-Injurious to them afterwards!those words speak for themselves. He proceeds thus: "I do not speak this from policy," (what then?) but from" -(Gentlemen, I will give you a hundred guesses)" BENEVOLENCE! But if you choose to go on with the process, I "make it my request that you would read this letter in Court, "after which the Judge and the Jury may do as they please. "As I do not consider myself the object of the prosecution, "neither can I be affected by the issue one way or the "other. I shall, though a foreigner in your country, sub"scribe as much money as any other man towards supporting the right of the nation against the prosecution; " and it is for this purpose only that I shall do it.-THOMAS "PAINE." 66 So it is a subscription defence you hear. "P. S. I intended, had I staid in England, to have pub"lished the Information, with my remarks upon it"-that would have been a decent thing" before the trial came on; "but as I am otherwise engaged, I reserve myself till the "trial is over, when I shall reply fully to every thing you "shall advance."-I hope in God he will not omit any one single word that I have uttered to-day, or shall utter in my future address to you. This conceited menace I despise, as I do those of a nature more cut-throat. Gentlemen, I do not think that I need to trouble you any farther for the present: according as you shall be of opinion, that the necessarily mischievous tendency and intent of this book is that which I have taken the liberty (at more length than I am warranted perhaps) to state to you; according as you shall or shall not be of that opinion, so necessarily will be your verdict. I have done my duty in bringing before a Jury an offender of this magnitude. Be the event what it may, I have done мy duty; I am satisfied with having placed this great and flourishing community under the powerful shield of your protection. |