ive land; but a turn for
politics ruined his business and made expatriation convenient. In the
United States, he had become the editor of the "American Citizen," and
was at that time busily engaged in attacking the Federalists and Burr's
"Little Band," for their supposed attempt to elect Mr. Burr in the place
of Mr. Jefferson. To Cheetham, accordingly, Paine wrote, requesting him
to engage lodgings at Lovett's, afterwards the City Hotel. He sent for
Cheetham, on the evening of his arrival. The journalist obeyed the
summons immediately. This was the first interview between Paine and the
man who was to hang, draw, and quarter his memory in a biography. This
libellous performance was written shortly after Paine's death. It was
intended as a peace-offering to the English government. The ex-hatter
had made up his mind to return home, and he wished to prove the
sincerity of his conversion from radicalism by trampling on the remains
of its high-priest. So long as Cheetham remained in good standing with
the Democrats, Paine and he were fast friends; but when he became
heretical and schismatic on the Embargo question, some three or four
years later, and was formally read out of the party, Paine laid the rod
across his back with all his remaining strength. He had vigor enough
left, it seems, to make the "Citizen" smart, for Cheetham cuts and stabs
with a spite which shows that the work was as agreeable to his feelings
as useful to his plans. His reminiscences must be read _multis cum
granis_.

In New York Paine enjoyed the same kind of second-rate ovation as in
Washington. A great number of persons called upon him, but mostly of the
laboring class of emigrants, who had heard of the "Rights of Man,"
and, feeling disposed to claim as many rights as possible in their new
country, looked with reverence upon the inventor of the system.
The Democratic leaders, with one or two exceptions, avoided Paine.
Respectabilities shunned him as a contamination. Grant Thorburn was
suspended from church-membership for shaking hands with him. To the boys
he was an object of curious attention; his nose was the burden of their
songs.

Cheetham carried round a subscription-list for a public dinner. Sixty or
seventy of Paine's admirers attended. It went off brilliantly, and was
duly reported in the "American Citizen." Then the effervescence of New
York curiosity subsided; Paine became an old story. He left Lovett's
Hotel for humble lodgings in the hou