Morris to Washington, July 31, 1789; Cor. Rev.: Sparks, iv, 270.
9
Lafayette to Washington, May 25, 1788; Cor. Rev.: Sparks, iv, 216. Lafayette's letters to Washington, from the beginning of the French Revolution down to his humiliating expulsion from France, constitute a thermometer of French temperature, all the more trustworthy because his letters are so naïve. For example, in March, 1790: "Our revolution is getting on as well as it can, with a nation that has swallowed liberty at once, and is still liable to mistake licentiousness for freedom." Or, in August of the same year: "I have lately lost some of my favor with the mob, and displeased the frantic lovers of licentiousness, as I am bent on establishing a legal subordination." Or, six months later: "I still am tossed about in the ocean of factions and commotions of every kind." Or, two months afterwards: "There appears a kind of phenomenon in my situation; all parties against me, and a national popularity which, in spite of every effort, has been unshakable." (Lafayette to Washington, March 17, 1790; ib., 321; Aug. 28, ib., 345; March 7, 1791, ib., 361; May 3, 1791, ib., 372.)
10
G. Morris to R. Morris, Dec. 24, 1792; Morris, ii, 15.
11
Ib., i, 582-84.
12
Louis Otto to De Montmorin, March 10, 1792; Writings: Conway, iii, 153.
13
Ib., 154-56.
14
Morris associated with the nobility in France and accepted the aristocratic view. (Ib.; and see A. Esmein, Membre de l'Institut: Gouverneur Morris, un témoin américain de la révolution française, Paris, 1906.)
15
Marshall, ii, note xvi, p. 17.
16
Recent investigation establishes the fact that the inmates of the Bastille generally found themselves very well off indeed. The records of this celebrated prison show that even prisoners of mean station, when incarcerated for so grave a crime as conspiracy against the King's life, had, in addition to remarkably abundant meals, an astonishing amount of extra viands and refreshments including comfortable quantities of wine, brandy, and beer. Prisoners of higher station fared still more generously, of course. (Funck-Brentano: Legends of the Bastille, 85-113; see also ib., introduction.) It should be said, however, that the lettres de cachet were a chief cause of complaint, although the stories, generally exaggerated, concerning the cruel treatment of prisoners came to be the principal count of the public indictment of the Bastille.
17
Lafayette to Washington, March 17, 1790; Cor. Rev.: Sparks, iv, 322.
18
Washington to Lafayette, August 11, 1790; Writings: Ford, xi, 493.
19
Paine to Washington, May 1, 1790; Cor. Rev.: Sparks, iv, 328. Paine did not, personally, bring the key, but forwarded it from London.
20
Burke in the House of Commons; Works: Burke, i, 451-53.
21
Ib.
22
Reflections on the Revolution in France; ib., i, 489. Jefferson well stated the American radical opinion of Burke: "The Revolution of France does not astonish me so much as the Revolution of Mr. Burke… How mortifying that this evidence of the rottenness of his mind must oblige us now to ascribe to wicked motives those actions of his life which were the mark of virtue & patriotism." (Jefferson to Vaughan, May 11, 1791; Works: Ford, vi, 260.)
23
Paine had not yet lost his immense popularity in the United States. While, later, he came to be looked upon with horror by great numbers of people, he enjoyed the regard and admiration of nearly everybody in America at the time his Rights of Man appeared.
24
Writings: Conway, ii, 272.
25
Writings: Conway, ii, 406. At this very moment the sympathizers with the French Revolution in America were saying exactly the reverse.
26
Writings: Conway, ii, 278-79, 407, 408, 413, 910.
27
Compare with Jefferson's celebrated letter to Mazzei (infra, chap. vii). Jefferson was now, however, in Washington's Cabinet.
28
Jefferson to Paine, June 19, 1792; Works: Ford, vii, 121-22; and see Hazen, 157-60. Jefferson had, two years before, expressed precisely the views set forth in Paine's Rights of Man. Indeed, he stated them in even more startling terms. (See Jefferson to Madison, Sept. 6, 1789; ib., vi, 1-11.)
29
Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, 65-110. John Quincy Adams wrote these admirable essays when he was twenty-four years old. Their logic, wit, and style suggest the writer's incomparable mother. Madison, who remarked their quality, wrote to Jefferson: "There is more of method … in the arguments, and much less of clumsiness & heaviness in the style, than characterizes his [John Adams's] writings." (Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; Writings: Hunt, vi, 56.)
The sagacious industry of Mr. Worthington C. Ford has made these and all the other invaluable papers of the younger Adams accessible, in his Writings of John Quincy Adams now issuing.
30
Jefferson to Adams, July 17, 1791; Works: Ford, vi, 283, and footnote; also see Jefferson to Washington, May 8, 1791; ib., 255-56.
Jefferson wrote Washington and the elder Adams, trying to evade his patronage of Paine's pamphlet; but, as Mr. Ford moderately remarks, "the explanation was somewhat lame." (Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, 65; and see Hazen, 156-57.) Later Jefferson avowed that "Mr. Paine's principles … were the principles of the citizens of the U. S." (Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; Works: Ford, vi, 314.) To his intimate friend, Monroe, Jefferson wrote that "Publicola, in attacking all Paine's principles, is very desirous of involving me in the same censure with the author. I certainly merit the same, for I profess the same principles." (Jefferson to Monroe, July 10, 1791; ib., 280.)
Jefferson at this time was just on the threshold of his discovery of and campaign against the "deep-laid plans" of Hamilton and the Nationalists to transform the newborn Republic into a monarchy and to deliver the hard-won "liberties" of the people into the rapacious hands of "monocrats," "stockjobbers," and other "plunderers" of the public. (See next chapter.)
31
Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, 65-66.
32
Although John Quincy Adams had just been admitted to the bar, he was still a student in the law office of Theophilus Parsons at the time he wrote the Publicola papers.
33
Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, 65-110.
34
Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, footnote to 107.
"As soon as Publicola attacked Paine, swarms appeared in his defense… Instantly a host of writers attacked Publicola in support of those [Paine's] principles." (Jefferson to Adams, Aug. 30, 1791; Works: Ford, vi, 314; and see Jefferson to Madison, July 10, 1791; ib., 279.)
35
Writings, J. Q. A.: Ford, i, 110.
36
Madison to Jefferson, July 13, 1791; Writings; Hunt, vi, 56; and see Monroe to Jefferson, July 25, 1791; Monroe's Writings: Hamilton, i, 225-26.
37
A verse of a song by French Revolutionary enthusiasts at a Boston "Civic Festival in commemoration of the Successes of their French brethren in their glorious enterprise for the Establishment of Equal Liberty," as a newspaper describes the meeting, expresses in reserved and moderate fashion the popular feeling: —
