far [illegible] the former as to weaken if not destroy
any claim you might have to interpose in my behalf." I am sorry I cannot
add any new arguments to those I have already advanced on this part of
the subject. But I cannot help asking myself, and I wish you would
ask the Committee, if it could possibly be the intention of France to
_kidnap_ citizens from America under the pretence of dubbing them
with the title of French citizens, and then, after inviting or rather
enveigling them into France, make it a pretence for detaining them? If
it was, (which I am sure it was not, tho' they now act as if it was) the
insult was to America, tho' the injury was to me, and the treachery was
to both.

1 The communications of Paine to Barere are given in my
"Life of Paine," vol. ii-i PP. 73, 87. Otto was Secretary to
the Minister of Foreign Affairs when he acted as interpreter
between Paine and Barere. There was never any charge at all
made against Paine, as the Archives of France now prove,
save that he was a "foreigner." Paine was of coarse ignorant
of the conspiracy between Morris and Deforgues which had
imprisoned him. Bourdon de l'Oise, one of the most cruel
Jacobins and Terrorists, afterwards conspired with Pichegru
to overthrow the Republic, and was with him banished (1797)
to Sinamari, South America, where he died soon after his
arrival.--_Editor._.

Did they mean to kidnap General Washington, Mr. Madison, and several
other Americans whom they dubbed with the same title as well as me? Let
any man look at the condition of France when I arrived in it,--invaded
by Austrians and Prussians and declared to be in danger,--and then ask
if any man who had a home and a country to go to, as I had in America,
would have come amongst them from any other motive than of assisting
them. If I could possibly have supposed them capable of treachery
I certainly would not have trusted myself in their power. Instead
therefore of your being unwilling or apprehensive of meeting the
question of French citizenship, they ought to be ashamed of advancing
it, and this will be the case unless you admit their arguments or
objections too passively. It is a case on their part fit only for
the continuations of Robespierre to set up. As to the name of French
citizen, I never considered it in any other light, so far as regarded
myself, than as a token of honorary respect. I never made them any
prom