Government contemptible in Europe. Is it possible that any man, who has contributed to the independence of America, and to free her from the tyranny and injustice of the British Government, can read without shame and indignation the note of Jay to Grenville? It is a satire upon the Declaration of Independence, and an encouragement to the British Government to treat America with contempt. At the time this Minister of petitious was acting this miserable part, he had every means in his hands to enable him to have done his business as he ought. The success or failure of his mission depended upon the success or failure of the French arms. Had France failed, Mr. Jay might have put his humble petition in his pocket, and gone home. The case happened to be otherwise, and he has sacrificed the honour, and perhaps the advantage of it, by turning petitioner. I take it for granted, that he was sent over to demand indemnification for the captured property; and, in this case, if he thought he wanted a preamble to his demand, he might have said, "That, though the Govern"ment of England might suppose itself under the necessity "of seizing American property bound to France, yet that "supposed necessity could not preclude indemnification to "the proprietors, who, acting under the authority of their "own Government, were not accountable to any other." But Mr. Jay sets out with an implied recognition of the right of the British Government to seize and condemn; for he enters his complaint against the irregularity of the seizures, and the condemnation, as if they were reprehensible only by not being conformable to the terms of the proclamation under which they were seized. Instead of being the envoy of a Government, he goes over like a lawyer to demand a new trial. I can hardly help thinking but that Grenville wrote that note himself and Jay signed it; for the style of it is domestic, and not diplomatic. The term, his Majesty, used without any descriptive epithet, always signifies the King whom the Minister represents. If this sinking of the demand into a petition was a juggle between Grenville and Jay to cover the indemnification, I think it will end in another juggle, that of never paying the money; and be made use of afterwards to preclude the right of demanding it: for Mr. Jay has virtually disowned the right by appealing to the magnanimity of his Majesty against the capturers. He has made this magnanimous Majesty the umpire in the case, and the Government of the United States must abide by the decision. If, Sir, I turn

some part of this business into ridicule, it is to avoid the unpleasant sensation of serious indignation.

"Among other things which I confess I do not understand, is your proclamation of neutrality. This has always appeared to me as an assumption on the part of the executive. But passing this over, as a disputable case, and considering it only as political, the consequence has been that of sustaining the losses of war, without the balance of reprisals. When the profession of neutrality, on the part of America, was answered by hostilities on the part of Britain, the object and intention of that neutrality existed no longer; and to maintain it after this, was not only to encourage farther insults and depredations, but was an informal breach of neutrality towards France, by passively contributing to the aid of her enemy. That the Government of England con sidered the American Government as pusillanimous, is evident from the increasing insolence of the conduct of the former towards the latter, till the affair of General Wayne. She then saw that it might be possible to kick a Government into some degree of spirit. So far as the proclamation of neutrality was intended to prevent a dissolute spirit of privateering in America under foreign colours, it was undoubtedly laudable; but to continue it as a Government neutrality, after the commerce of America was made war upon, was submission and not neutrality. —I have heard so much about this thing called neutrality, that I know not if the ungenerous and dishonourable silence (for I must call it such) that has been observed by your part of the Government towards me, during my imprisonment, has not in some measure arisen from that policy.

"Though I have written you this letter, you ought not to suppose it has been an agreeable undertaking to me. On the contrary, I assure you, it has caused me some disquietude. I am sorry you have given me cause to do it; for, as I have always remembered your former friendship with pleasure, I suffer a loss by your depriving me of that sentiment.

"THOMAS PAINE."

That this letter was not written in very good temper, is very evident; but it was just such a letter as his conduct appeared to me to merit, and every thing on his part since has served to confirm that opinion. Had I wanted a commentary on his silence, with respect to my imprisonment in France, some of his faction have furnished me with it.

What I here allude to, is a publication in a Philadelphia paper, copied afterwards into a New York paper, both under the patronage of the Washington faction, in which the writer, still supposing me in prison in France, wonders at my lengthy respite from the scaffold. And he marks his politics still farther, by saying, "It appears, moreover, that "the people of England did not relish his (Thomas Paine's) "opinions quite so well as he expected; and that for one "of his last pieces, as destructive to the peace and happi"ness of their country, (meaning I suppose, the Rights of "Man) they threatened our knight-errant with such serious “vengeance, that, to avoid a trip to Botany Bay, he fled "over to France, as a less dangerous voyage.'

I am not refuting or contradicting the falsehood of this publication, for it is sufficiently notorious; neither am I censuring the writer: on the contrary, I thank him for the explanation he has incautiously given of the principles of the Washington faction. Insignificant, however, as the piece is, it was capable of having some ill effects, had it arrived in France during my imprisonment, and in the time of Robespierre; and I am not uncharitable in supposing that this was one of the intentions of the writer.*

I have now done with Mr. Washington on the score of private affairs. It would have been far more agreeable to me, had his conduct been such as not to have merited these reproaches. Errors, or caprices of the temper, can be pardoned and forgotten; but a cold, deliberate crime of the heart, such as Mr. Washington is capable of acting, is not to be washed away.-I now proceed to other matter.

After Jay's note to Grenville arrived in Paris from America, the character of every thing that was to follow might be easily foreseen; and it was upon this anticipation that my letter of February the twenty-second was founded. The event has proved that I was not mistaken, except that it has been much worse than I expected.

It would naturally occur to Mr. Washington, that the secrecy of Jay's mission to England, where there was already an American Minister, could not but create some suspicion in the French Government, especially as the conduct of

• I know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but now a British consul, and that he writes under the signature of Peter Skunk, or Peter Porcupine, or some such signature.

Morris had been notorious, and the intimacy of Mr. Washington with Morris was known.

The character which Mr. Washington has attempted to act in the world, is a sort of non-describable camelioncoloured thing, called Prudence. It is, in many cases, a substitute for Principle, and is so nearly allied to Hypocrisy, that it easily slides into it. His genius for prudence furnished him, in this instance, with an expedient that served (as is the natural and general character of all expedients) to diminish the embarrassments of the moment, and multiply them afterwards; for he caused it to be announced to the French Government as a confidential matter (Mr. Washington should recollect that I was a member of the Convention, and had the means of knowing what I here state)-he caused it, I say, to be announced, and that for the purpose of preventing any uneasiness to France, on the score of Mr. Jay's mission to England, that the object of that mission, and Mr. Jay's authority, were restricted to the demanding of the surrender of the western posts, and indemnification for the cargoes captured in American vessels.— Mr. Washington knows that this was untrue; and knowing this, he had good reason, to himself, for refusing to furnish the House of Representatives with copies of the instructions given to Jay, as he might suspect, among other things, that he should also be called upon for copies of instructions given to other Ministers, and that in the contradiction of instructions, his want of integrity would be detected. Mr. Washington may now perhaps learn, when it is too late to be of any use to him, that a man will pass better through the world with a thousand open errors upon his back, than in being detected in one sly falsehood. When one is detected, a thousand are suspected.

The first account that arrived in Paris of a treaty being negociated by Mr. Jay (for nobody suspected any) came in an English newspaper, which announced that a treaty, offensive and defensive, had been concluded between the United States of America and England. This was immediately denied by every American in Paris, as an impossible thing; and though it was disbelieved by the French, it imprinted a suspicion that some underhand business was going forward. At length the treaty itself arrived, and every well-affected American blushed with shame.

It is curious to observe how the appearances of characters will change, whilst the root that produces them remains the same. The Washington faction having waded through the

slough of negociation, and, whilst it amused France; with. professions of friendship contrived to injure her, immediately throws off the hypocrite, and assumes the air of a swaggering bravado. The party papers of that imbecile administration were on this occasion filled with paragraphs about sovereignty. A poltroon may boast of his sovereign right to let another kick him, and this is the only kind of sovereignty shewn in the treaty with England. But those daring paragraphs, as Timothy Pickering well knows, were intended for France, without whose assistance, in men, money, and ships, Mr. Washington would have cut but a poor figure in the American war. But of his military talents I shall speak bereafter.

I mean not to enter into any discussion of any article of Jay's treaty; I shall speak only of the whole of it. It is attempted to be justified on the ground of its not being a violation of any article or articles of the treaty pre-existing with France. But the sovereign right of explanation does not lie with George Washington and his man Timothy; France, on her part, has, at least, an equal right: and when Nations dispute, it is not so much about words as about things.

A man, such as the world calls a sharper, as versed as Jay must be supposed to be in the quibbles of the law, may find a way to enter into engagements, and make bargains, in such a manner as to cheat some other party, without that party being able, as the phrase is, to take the law of him. This often happens in the cabalistical circle of what is called law. But when this is attempted to be acted on the national scale of treaties, it is too despicable to be defended, or to be permitted to exist. Yet this is the trick upon which Jay's treaty is founded, so far as it has relation to the treaty pre-existing with France. It is a counter-treaty to that treaty, and perverts all the great articles of that treaty to the injury of France, and makes them operate as a bounty to England, with whom France is at war. The Washington administration shews great desire that the treaty between France and the United States be preserved. Nobody can doubt its sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British merchant, or a British agent, or factor in America, that does not anxiously wish the same thing. The treaty with France, serves now as a passport to supply England with naval stores, and other articles of American produce; whilst the same articles, when coming to France are made contraband, or seizable, by Jay's treaty