THE CASE OF THE EXCISE OFFICERS. 23 the government to render their officers honest by relieving their necessities; and the pamphlet concludes by enumerating the advantages that would be ensured by adopting the recommendation. Of this pamphlet four thousand copies were printed by Mr. William Lee, of Lewes ; but to what extent they were circulated I have not been able to learn. It would doubtless be read with pleasure and avidity by the class of men who were interested in the result; but whatever might be the distresses. of the excisemen, it was not likely that they would meet with much sympathy or encouragement from the public. The nature of their occupation, and the unpleasant mode in which the duties of it are performed, have always rendered them objects of public odium; and however misdirected or useless such odium may be, it will ever continue an appendage to the character of those who collect this tyrannical impost. The public, therefore, viewed the complaints of the excisemen with indifference; and though considerable exertions were made by various individuals, as well as our author, there was no member to be found to bring the subject before parliament. The distresses of the officers, and the consequent depredations on the revenue, which our author had so ably pointed out, and so zealously endeavored to get removed, were not deemed of sufficient importance to merit parliamentary inquiry, and the proposal, like many other proposals for the removal of public evils, fell to the ground without investigation." During Mr. Paine's residence at Lewes, he was held as a man of talents in the small circle of that town. His company was sought by men of greater affluence than himself. He was decidedly a good companion, whether engaged in amusements or debate. Paine at that time was fond of bowls, then a fashionable game even Dr. Young, the elegant author of the Night Thoughts, was a member of a club, and attended a bowling-green. Paine in this amusement mingled with the best company in the place. He met, too, an evening club at Lewes in the principal tavern, for conversation and debate; and in that society, the best the town afforded, he carried the palm as a debater. While, however, he was thus social, he neither drank to excess, nor did he indulge in the vulgar habit of swearing, a habit he never contracted; and which, even in his latter days, he reproved in some of his intimate friends. This fact is confirmed to us by Mr. Jarvis, the celebrated painter, with whom Mr. Paine lived sometime before his death. This is worthy of note; for his enemies, foiled by X his arguments, and not being able to attach to him crimes, have assumed faults and magnified them into vices. We have these facts from those who knew Paine at Lewes, and from those who knew the company he kept, and his habits. Carver, with whom Paine afterward lived in New York, was then an apprentice in the town, and used to saddle Mr. Paine's horse, and well remembers both him and his reputation. We know, too, the family of Rickman, who always resided in that neighborhood; and on their information and others we can rely. "I have already observed, that on the marriage of our author with Miss Ollive, he commenced the business of a tobacconist and grocer, which he carried on in much the same method as his predecessor had done before him. This circumstance, as might have been anticipated, soon rendered him an object of suspicion in the eyes of the commissioners, and it is not improbable that the zeal which Paine had displayed in exposing the pernicious consequences of doling out so pitiful a provision to the active class of excisemen, while their betters were spending their days in ease and affluence, had rendered him an object of dislike among his superiors in office. The spirit of independence which he showed on all occasions, and which there is very little doubt he communicated in a considerable degree to those around him, was but little calculated to ensure the approbation of persons who regard implicit obedience as the test of merit, who look upon a proposal for reform as a step toward revolution, and the protection of abuses as the only mode of perpetuating the blessings of the English system of government. Considerable pains were taken to discover some flaw in the conduct of Paine; but so strictly had he performed his duty, that nothing of any consequence could be substantiated against him. His keeping a tobacconist's shop was, however, a sufficient pretext with those who wished to rid themselves of so troublesome a servant, and he was a second time dismissed from the excise in April, 1774." At this period Paine became unfortunate in his business; perhaps he suffered from his social qualities, and a spirit of independence. His companions, we have already remarked, were generally in better circumstances than himself; and these sought his company for its intrinsic worth, for he was both instructive and amusing; and perhaps he incurred expenses and a loss of time, which he was unable to afford; SEPARATES FROM HIS WIFE. 25 while a sanguine temper would still afford him hope, till his affairs were too bad to mend. His goods, at this period, were sold to pay his debts; and in the following month, May, 1774, he separated from his wife by mutual consent, and articles were signed on the 4th of June, by which she retained the little property she had brought him at marriage, and which was just sufficient to maintain her in a decent manner for the rest of her life. All the causes of this separation are not known. Mr. Paine uniformly spoke of his wife with kindness; and Clio Rickman informs us, in his life of Paine, that he frequently sent her money, without letting her know the source whence it came. She was afterward a professor of a sectarian religion in Cranbrook, Kent, and boarded in the house of a watchmaker, a member of the same church; his house was consequently visited by religious people, many of them with strong prejudices, and some very ignorant. These, after the publication of the "Age of Reason," would sometimes speak disrespectfully of Mr. Paine in her presence, when she uniformly left the room without a word. If, too, she was questioned on the subject of their separation, she did the same. We have these facts from those who resided with her. Our most intimate friend at one period, was a Mr. Bourne, a watchmaker in Rye, about eighteen miles from Cranbrook, England. This gentleman was apprenticed in the house where Mrs. Paine lived he sat at the same table with her for years. We have these facts confirmed by other residents at Cranbrook. Thus nothing could be learned from her, except that though she differed from Mr. Paine on religious subjects, she could not bear to hear him spoken ill of. Paine, as we have before remarked, spoke respectfully of her; but if any person became inquisitive, he immediately answered rudely, that "his separation was a private affair." Clio Rickman asserts, and the most intimate friends of Mr. Paine support him, that Paine never cohabited with his second wife. Sherwin treats the subject as ridiculous; but Clio Rickman was a man of integrity, and he asserts that he has the documents showing this strange point, together with others, proving that this arose from no physical defects in Paine. When the question was plainly put to Mr. Paine by a friend of ours, he admitted this singular fact; but replied, "I had a cause; it is no business of anybody." Singular, therefore, as this fact is, as both parties preserved a taciturnity on the subject, we have not the means of arriving at the truth. It was, as Paine said, a private affair; and we have not the means of withdrawing the veil, and have consequently no right to come to an uncharitable conclusion toward either party. We however infer that Paine had a cause; without which his wife ought to and would have exposed him, especially as she was surrounded by his bitter enemies. Paine, while at Lewes, was a whig; and as such never thought of examining the first principles of government. A king, lords, and commons, were admitted as forming the best government by the admixture of the three sorts, royal, aristocratic, and democratic. As a whig, all he sought was the preservation of the supposed constitution; but a trifling expression from one of his companions, gave his thoughts a deeper range, and formed the basis of his "Common Sense" and "Rights of Man," which afterward so materially influenced the people in North America, France, and England. While sitting over some punch after a game at bowls, a Mr. Verral observed of Frederick, king of Prussia, that "he was the best fellow in the world for a king; he had so much of the devil in him." Simple and accidental as this observation was, it turned Paine's thoughts on the rights by which kings existed and governed, and thus led him into an examination of the inherent rights of the people; while the breaking up of his business, and separation from his wife, led him forward to the proper scene in which his talents and his principles could be properly estimated. Sherwin, speaking of this period, remarks: "Our author was by this and prior events relieved from every tie which might be supposed to bind him to his country. Deprived of his home, and destitute of friends and employment, he had to commence life anew, and that without either credit or capital. His parents were become much advanced in years; their industry was no more than sufficient to procure a maintenance for themselves, and therefore Paine could not have derived, even if he had desired, any assistance from their kindness. The cheerless prospect which lay expanded before him, the misfortunes that had already befallen him, and the desolate situation in which he was then placed, must have LOSES HIS PROPERTY AND PROSPECTS. 27 impressed upon his mind the idea that to whatever country he went, it was impossible for his condition to become worse. In England there was no hope. Every change only brought an accumulation of fresh misfortunes. Borne down by poverty, and surrounded by difficulties of every description, his condition appears to have been that of a ruined, hopeless man. In this situation many would have sat down discouraged without a struggle. But despair and dismay appear to have formed no part of Paine's character. He seems never to have sunk into the extreme of depression, or to have risen to that tumultuous gladness which so often accompanies the extreme of elevation. His mind appears never to have been crushed by defeat, or elated by success. The unshaken fortitude which can smile on disappointment and danger, and look serenely amidst the tumult of triumph, seems to have been the most prominent feature in his character. "After the sale of his effects and the separation from his wife were concluded, our author again went to London. By what means he procured a living during his stay in the metropolis is unknown, but soon after his arrival he obtained an introduction to Dr. Franklin, who advised him to go to America. The doctor probably perceived in his interviews with Paine that he was a man possessed of abilities of no ordinary character, and this accounts for the readiness with which he furnished him with a letter of introduction to one of his most intimate friends in the United States. Our author was thus afforded an opportunity of beginning life again, and that at an age when his ardent and enterprising spirit must have been considerably tamed by the sharp lessons of adversity. He had as he himself observes, 'served an apprenticeship to life,' and it is more than probable that those sublime ideas on the subject of liberty which were afterward to raise his name so very high in the temple of fame, were produced by his early misfortunes. 'By wo the soul to daring action swells; By wo in plaintness patience it excels; From patience, prudent, clear experience springs, SAVAGE. Poverty is certainly not the parent of genius, but it is unquestionably its best preceptor. The finest productions we have in the language have been written by men whose intellectual powers have forced their way into life under circumstances of the most abject penury. In most instances it has happened that the fire of genius has been long confined by |