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 remunerative, was now in difficulties. His salary, which had been only seventy dollars a month, had hitherto supported him, and he was now obliged to become a clerk in the office of Owen Biddle. He appealed to the executive council of Pennsylvania to help him towards a proposed collection of his works. He asked for a loan of 1,500l. for a year, when he would be able to propose a publication by subscription. The council asked Gérard whether he would be offended by their employing Paine. He replied in the negative, though making some complaints of Paine's conduct. On 2 Nov. 1779 the Pennsylvania assembly appointed Paine their clerk, and in that capacity he wrote a preamble to the act for the abolition of slavery in the state, which was passed on 1 March 1780. He published three more ‘Crises’ in the course of this year. On 4 July the university of Pennsylvania gave him the degree of M.A. The financial position of the insurgents was becoming almost desperate, and Washington addressed a letter to the assembly, speaking of the dangerous state of feeling in the army. Paine had to read it, and he suggested next day a voluntary subscription. He drew his own salary, amounting to 1,699l. 1s. 6d., and started the subscription with a sum of five hundred dollars. Mr. Conway (i. 167) gives accounts according to which Paine received over 5,500l. between November 1779 and June 1780; but the currency was so depreciated that the true value cannot be inferred, and pounds seem to be confused with dollars. A subscription was raised of 400l. ‘hard money’ and 101,360l. ‘continental.’ At a meeting held soon afterwards it was decided to abandon this plan and form a bank, which was of service in the autumn, and led in the next spring to the constitution by Robert Morris of the Bank of North America. Paine published at the end of the year a pamphlet called ‘Public Good’ in opposition to the claims of Virginia to the north-western territory. After the war a motion in the Virginian legislature to reward Paine for his services was lost on account of this performance.

Paine resigned his position as clerk at the end of the year, stating his intention to devote himself to a history of the revolution. He had also a scheme for going to England, where he imagined he could open the eyes of his countrymen to the folly of continuing the struggle by a pamphlet as effective as ‘Common Sense’ (see letter to Greene in, i. 169, and note in Rights of Man, pt. ii. chap. v.). Congress now resolved to make an application to the French government for a loan, and entrusted the mission to Colonel Laurens, an aide-de-camp of Washington. Laurens took Paine as his secretary, Paine intending to make his expedition to England after completing the business. They sailed from Boston in February 1781, and had a favourable reception in France. Paine was persuaded to give up the English plan, and returned with Laurens in a French frigate, reaching Boston on 25 Aug. 1781, with 2,500,000 livres in silver, besides military stores. Sixteen ox teams were sent with the money to Philadelphia. Washington was meanwhile advancing with Rochambeau upon Yorktown, and the surrender of Cornwallis ended the campaign. He had to obtain a loan from Rochambeau, which was repaid from the money brought by Laurens. Paine refers to this mission in his published ‘Letter to Washington,’ 1796. In 1808 he asked a reward from congress, claiming to have made the original suggestion of applying for a loan, and stating that the advance upon Yorktown was only made possible by the money obtained (Letter printed in the Appendix to ). Americans were probably capable of asking for loans without Paine's suggestion. On the virtual conclusion of the war, Paine appealed to Washington for some recognition of his services, and stated that he thought of retiring to France or Holland. At the suggestion of Washington, Robert Morris, and Livingston (10 Feb. 1782), a salary of eight hundred dollars was allowed to him from the secret service money in order to enable him to write. He received one year's salary under this arrangement (, i. 195), and wrote five more ‘Crises’ in 1782. The last appeared on 19 April 1783, the eighth anniversary of Lexington. Paine took part in a controversy excited by the refusal of Rhode Island to join in imposing a continental duty upon imports, and was present at discussions with a view to the formation of a stronger union. He was not proposed for the convention elected in 1787 to frame the constition of the United States. Paine had retired to a small house at Bordentown, New Jersey, on the east bank of the Delaware, and was devoting himself to mechanical contrivances. In 1784 the state of New York presented to him the estate of New Rochelle, of about 277 acres, the confiscated property of a loyalist. Washington wrote letters on his behalf, Pennsylvania voted 500l. to him in December, and congress in October 1785 gave him three thousand dollars. Paine, at the beginning of 1786, wrote his ‘Dissertations,’ mainly in defence of the Bank of