t the Cabinet of St James
has been unable to stop the circulation of that pamphlet in England,
since it is allowable to reprint there any English work already
published elsewhere, however disagreeable to Messrs. Pitt and Dundas.
We read in the letter to Washington that Robespierre had declared to
the Committee of Public Safety that it was desirable in the interests
of both France and America that Thomas Paine, who, for seven or eight
months had been kept a prisoner in the Luxembourg, should forthwith be
brought up for judgment before the revolutionary tribunal. The proof of
this fact is found in Robespierre's papers, and gives ground for strange
suspicions."

1 The principal ones were "A Letter to Thomas Paine. By an
American Citizen. New York, 1797," and "A Letter to the
infamous Tom Paine, in answer to his Letter to General
Washington. December 1796. By Peter Porcupine" (Cobbett).
Writing to David Stuart, January 8,1797, Washington,
speaking of himself in the third person, says: "Although
he is soon to become a private citizen, his opinions are to
be knocked down, and his character traduced as low as they
are capable of sinking it, even by resorting to absolute
falsehoods. As an evidence whereof, and of the plan they are
pursuing, I send you a letter of Mr. Paine to me, printed in
this city and disseminated with great industry. Enclosed you
will receive also a production of Peter Porcupine, alias
William Cobbett. Making allowances for the asperity of an
Englishman, for some of his strong and coarse expressions,
and a want of official information as to many facts, it is
not a bad thing." The "many facts" were, of course, the
action of Monroe, and the supposed action of Morris in
Paris, but not even to one so intimate as Stuart are these
disclosed.

"It was long believed that Paine had returned to America with his friend
James Monroe, and the lovers of freedom [there] congratulated themselves
on being able to embrace that illustrious champion of the Rights of Man.
Their hopes have been frustrated. We know positively that Thomas Paine
is still living in France. The partizans of the late presidency [in
America] also know it well, yet they have spread a rumor that after
actually arriving he found his (really popular) _principles no longer
the order of the day_, and thought best to re-embark.

"The English journals, whil