TO LORD ONSLOW,

Or the Chairman who shall preside at the Meeting to be held at Epsom, July 18.

SIR,

London, June 21, 1792.

WHEN I wrote you the letter which Mr. Horne Tooke did me the favour to present to you, as Chairman of the meeting held at Epsom, Monday, June 18th, it was not with much expectation that you would do me the justice of permitting, or recommending it to be publicly read. I am well aware that the signature of Thomas Paine has something in it dreadful to sinecure Placemen and Pensioners; and when you, on seeing the letter opened, informed the meeting it was signed Thomas Paine, and added, in a note of exclamation, "the common enemy to us all!" you spoke one of the greatest truths you ever uttered, if you confine the expression to men of the same description with yourself; men living in indolence and luxury, on the spoil and labours of the public.

The letter has since appeared in the Argus, and probably in other papers. It will justify itself; but if any thing on that account had been wanting, your own conduct at the meeting would have supplied the omission. You there sufficiently proved that I was not mistaken in supposing that the meeting was called to give an indirect aid to the prosecution commenced against a work, the reputation of which will long outlive the memory of the Pensioner I am writing to.

When meetings, Sir, are called by the partisans of the Court, to preclude the nation the right of investigating systems and principles of Government, and of exposing errors and defects, under the pretence of prosecuting an individual-it furnishes an additional motive for maintaining sacred that violated right.

The principles and arguments contained in the work in question, RIGHTS OF MAN, have stood, and they now stand, and I believe ever will stand, uurefuted. They are stated in a fair and open manner to the world, and they have already received the public approbation of a greater number of men, of the best of characters, of every denomination of religion, and of every rank in life, (placemen and pensioners excepted) than all the juries that shall meet

in England, for ten years to come, will amount to; and I have, moreover, good reasons for believing, that the approvers of that work, as well private as public, are already more numerous than all the present electors throughout the nation.

Not less than forty pamphlets, intended as answers thereto, have appeared, and as suddenly disappeared: scarcely are the titles of any of them remembered, notwithstanding their endeavours have been aided by all the daily abuse which the Court and Ministerial newspapers, for almost a year and a half, could bestow, both upon the work and the author; and now that every attempt to refute, and every abuse has failed, the invention of calling the work a libel has been hit upon, and the discomfited party has pusillanimously retreated to prosecution and a jury, and obscure addresses.

As I well know that a long letter from me will not be agreeable to you, I will relieve your uneasiness by making it as short as I conveniently can; and will conclude it with taking up the subject at that part where Mr. HORNE TOOKE was interrupted from going on when at the meeting.

That Gentleman was stating, that the situation which you stood in rendered it improper for you to appear actively in a scene in which your private interest was too visible: that you were a Bed-chamber Lord at a thousand a year, and a Pensioner at three thousand pounds a year more-and here he was stopped by the little, but noisy circle you had collected round. Permit me, then, Sir, to add an explanation to his words, for the benefit of your neighbours, and with which, and a few observations, I shall close my letter.

When it was reported in the English newspapers, some short time since, that the Empress of RUSSIA had given to one of her minions a large tract of country, and several thousands of peasants as property, it very justly provoked indignation and abhorrence in those who heard it. But if we compare the mode practised in England, with that which appears to us so abhorrent in Russia, it will be found to amount to very near the same thing;-for example

As the whole of the revenue in England is drawn by taxes from the pockets of the people, those things called gifts and grants, (of which kind are all pensions and sinecure places) are paid out of that stock. The difference, therefore, between the two modes is, that in England the money is collected by the Government, and then given to

the Pensioner, and in Russia he is left to collect it for himself. The smallest sum which the poorest family in a county so near London as Surrey, can be supposed to pay annually of rates, is not less than five pounds; and as your Sinecure of one thousand, and pension of three thousand per annum, are made up of taxes paid by eight hundred such poor families, it comes to the same thing as if the eight hundred families had been given to you, as in Russia, and you had collected the money on your account. Were you to say that you are not quartered particularly on the people of Surrey, but on the nation at large, the objection would amount to nothing; for as there are more pensioners than counties, every one may be considered as quartered on that in which he lives.

What honour or happiness you can derive from being the PRINCIPAL PAUPER of the neighbourhood, and occasioning a greater expence than the poor, the aged, and the infirm, for ten miles round you, I leave you to enjoy. At the same time, I can see that it is no wonder you should be strenuous in suppressing a book which strikes at the root ef those abuses. No wonder that you should be against reforms, against the freedom of the press, and the right of investigation. To you, and to others of your description, these are dreadful things; but you should also consider, that the motives which prompt you to act, ought, by reflec tion, to compel you to be silent.

Having now returned your compliment, and sufficiently tired your patience, I take my leave of you, with mentioning, that if you had not prevented my former letter from being read at the meeting, you would not have had the trouble of reading this; and also with requesting, that the next time you call me a common enemy," you would add, of us sinecure placemen and pensioners.'

66

I am, Sir, &c. &c. &c.

THOMAS PAINE.

SECOND LETTER TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS.

SIR,

Calais, September 15, 1792.

I CONCEIVE it necessary to make you acquainted with the following circumstance:-The Department of Calais having elected me a member of the National Convention of France, I set off from London the 13th inst. in company with Mr. Frost, of Spring Gardens, and Mr. Audibert, one of the Municipal Officers of Calais, who brought me the certificate of my being elected. We had not arrived more, I believe, than five minutes at the York Hotel, at Dover, when the train of circumstances began that I am going to relate. We had taken our baggage out of the carriage and put it into a room, into which we went. Mr. Frost having occasion to go out, was stopped in the passage by a gentleman, who told him he must return into the room, which he did, and the gentleman came in with him, and shut the door; I had remained in the room. Mr. Audibert was gone to inquire when the packet was to sail. The gentleman then said, that he was Collector of the Customs, and had an information against us, and must examine our baggage for prohibited articles. He produced his commission as Collector. Mr. Frost demanded to see the information, which the Collector refused to shew, and continued to refuse on every demand that we made. The Collector then called in several other officers, and began first to search our pockets. He took from Mr. Audibert, who was then returned into the room, every thing he found in his pocket, and laid it on the table. He then searched Mr. Frost in the same manner, (who, among other things, had the keys. of the trunks in his pocket) and then did the same by me. Mr. Frost wanting to go out, mentioned it, and was going towards the door; on which the Collector placed himself against the door, and said nobody should depart the room. After the keys had been taken from Mr. Frost (for I had given him the keys of my trunks beforehand, for the purpose of his attending the baggage to the Customs, if it should be necessary) the Collector asked us to open the trunks, presenting us the keys for that purpose; this we declined to do, unless he would produce his information,

which he again refused. The Collector then opened the trunks himself, and took out every paper and letter, sealed or unsealed. On our remonstrating with him on the bad policy, as well as the illegality of Custom-house Officers seizing papers and letters, which were things that did not come under their cognizance, he replied, that the Proclamation gave him the authority.

Among the letters which he took out of my trunk were two sealed letters, given into my charge by the American Minister in London, one of which was directed to the American Minister at Paris, the other to a private Gentleman; a letter from the President of the United States, and a letter from the Secretary of State in America, both directed to me, and which I had received from the American Minister now in London, and were private letters of friendship; a letter from the Electoral Body of the Department of Calais, containing the notification of my being elected to the National Convention; and a letter from the President of the National Assembly, informing me of my being also elected for the Department of Oise.

As we found that all remonstrances with the Collector, on the bad policy and illegality of seizing papers and letters, and retaining our persons by force, under the pretence of searching for prohibited articles, were vain, (for he justified himself on the Proclamation, and on the information which he refused to shew) we contented ourselves with assuring him, that what he was then doing, he would afterwards have to answer for, and left it to himself to do as he pleased.

It appeared to us that the Collector was acting under the direction of some other person or persons then in the Hotel, but whom he did not chuse we should see, or who did not chuse to be seen by us; for the Collector went several times out of the room for a few minutes, and was also called out several times.

When the Collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of the trunks, he proceeded to read them. The first letter he took up for this purpose was that from the President of the United States to me. While he was doing this, I said, that it was very extraordinary that General Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to me without its being subject to be read by a Custombouse Officer. Upon this Mr. Frost laid his hand over the face of the letters, and told the Collector that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost then casting his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said, I