ty, that I know not if the ungenerous and dishonorable
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.

1 Wayne's success against the Indians of the Six Nations,
1794, was regarded by Washington also as a check on England.
Writing to Pendleton, Jan. 22, 1795, he says: "There is
reason to believe that the Indians...._together with their
abettors_; begin to see things in a different point of
view." (Italics mine).--_Editor._

"Tho' 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 happiness 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; a