e protection which the law of
nations, and treaties concluded with the United States,
could have assured him. I am ignorant of the motives of his
detention, but I must presume they are well founded. I shall
nevertheless submit to the Committee of Public Safety the
demand you have addressed to me, and I shall lose no time in
letting you know its decision."

It will be seen that Deforgues begins his letter with a falsehood: "You
reclaim the liberty of Paine as an American citizen." Morris's letter
had declared him a French citizen out of his (the American Minister's)
"jurisdiction." Morris states for Deforgues his case, and it is
obediently adopted, though quite discordant with the decree, which
imprisoned Paine as a foreigner. Deforgues also makes Paine a member
of a non-existent body, the "Corps Legislatif," which might suggest
in Philadelphia previous connection with the defunct Assembly. No such
inquiries as Deforgues promised, nor any, were ever made, and of course
none were intended. Morris had got from Deforgues the certificate he
needed to show in Philadelphia and to Americans in Paris. His pretended
"reclamation" was of course withheld: no copy of it ever reached America
till brought from French archives by the present writer. Morris does
not appear to have ventured even to keep a copy of it himself. The draft
(presumably in English), found among his papers by Sparks, alters the
fatal sentence which deprived Paine of his American citizenship and of
protection. "Res-sort"--jurisdiction--which has a definite technical
meaning in the mouth of a Minister, is changed to "cognizance"; the
sentence is made to read, "his conduct from that time has not come under
my cognizance." (Sparks's "Life of Gouverneur Morris," i., p. 401).
Even as it stands in his book, Sparks says: "The application, it must
be confessed, was neither pressing in its terms, nor cogent in its
arguments."

The American Minister, armed with this French missive, dictated by
himself, enclosed it to the Secretary of State, whom he supposed to be
still Jefferson, with a letter stating that he had reclaimed Paine as an
American, that he (Paine) was held to answer for "crimes," and that any
further attempt to release him would probably be fatal to the prisoner.
By these falsehoods, secured from detection by the profound secrecy of
the Foreign Offices in both countries, Morris paralyzed all interference
from America, as Washing