this War is to terminate if some intermediate power
does not step forward. There is now no prospect that France can carry
revolutions into Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can
conquer France on the other hand. It is a sort of defensive War on both
sides. This being the case, how is the War to close? Neither side
will ask for peace though each may wish it. I believe that England
and Holland are tired of the War. Their Commerce and Manufactures have
suffered most exceedingly,--besides this, it is for them a War without
an object. Russia keeps herself at a distance.

I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send Commissioners,
and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the ocean,
as one of them. If the Commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would
know what steps to take. They could call Mr. Pinckney [Gen. Thomas
Pinckney, American Minister in England] to their councils, and it would
be of use, on many accounts, that one of them should come over from
Holland to France. Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral
powers, would have all the effects of a Peace, without the difficulties
attending the adjustment of all the forms of Peace.

Yours affectionately,

Thomas Paine.

XVIII. LETTER TO DANTON.(1)

Paris, May 6, 2nd year of the Republic [1793.]

Citoyen Danton: As you read English, I write this letter to you without
passing it through the hands of a translator. I am exceedingly disturbed
at the distractions, jealousies, discontents and uneasiness that reign
among us, and which, if they continue, will bring ruin and disgrace on
the Republic. When I left America in the year 1787, it was my intention
to return the year following, but the French Revolution, and the
prospect it afforded of extending the principles of liberty and
fraternity through the greater part of Europe, have induced me to
prolong my stay upwards of six years. I now despair of seeing the great
object of European liberty accomplished, and my despair arises not from
the combined foreign powers, not from the intrigues of aristocracy and
priestcraft, but from the tumultuous misconduct with which the internal
affairs of the present revolution are conducted.

All that now can be hoped for is limited to France only, and I agree
with your motion of not interfering in the government of any foreign
country, nor permitting any foreign country to interfere in the
government of France. This decr