Private Letters to Jefferson

Paris, April 20, 1793. 

My Dear Friend -The gentleman (Dr. Romer) to whom I intrust this letter, is an intimate acquaintance of Lavater; but I have not had the opportunity of seeing him, as he had set off for Havre prior to my writing this letter, which I forward to him under cover from one of his friends, who is also an acquaintance of mine.
 
We are now in an extraordinary crisis, and it is not altogether without some considerable faults here.  Dumouriez, partly from having no fixed principles of his own, and partly from the continual persecution of the Jacobins, who act without either prudence or morality, has gone off to the enemy, and taken a considerable part of the army with him.  The expedition to Holland has totally failed, and all Brabant is again in the hands of the Austrians.
 
You may suppose the consternation which such a sudden reverse of fortune has occasioned, but it has been without commotion.  Dumouriez threatened to be in Paris in three weeks.  It is now three weeks ago; he is still on the frontier near to Mons with the enemy, who do not make any progress.  Dumouriez has proposed to re- [begin page 90] establish the former Constitution in which plan the Austrians act with him.  But if France and the National Convention act prudently this project will not succeed.  In the first place there is a popular disposition against it, and there is force sufficient to prevent it.  In the next place, a great deal is to be taken into the calculation with respect to the enemy.  There are now so many persons accidentally jumbled together as to render it exceedingly difficult to them to agree upon any common object.
 
The first object, that of restoring the old monarchy, is evidently given up by the proposal to re-establish the late Constitution.  The object of England and Prussia was to preserve Holland, and the object of Austria was to recover Brabant; while those separate objects lasted, each party having one, the Confederation could hold together, each helping the other; but after this I see not how a common object is to be formed.  To all this is to be added the probable disputes about opportunity, the expense, and the projects of reimbursements.  The enemy has once adventured into France, and they had the permission or the good fortune to get back again.  On every military calculation it is a hazardous adventure, and armies are not much [begin page 91] disposed to try a second time the ground upon which they have been defeated.
 
Had this Revolution been conducted consistently with its principles, there was once a good prospect of extending liberty through the greatest part of Europe; but I now relinquish that hope.  Should the enemy by venturing into France, put themselves again in a condition of being captured, the hope will revive; but this is a risk I do not wish to see tried, lest it should fail.  As the prospect of a general freedom is now much shortened, I begin to contemplate returning home.  I shall await the event of the proposed Constitution, and then take my final leave of Europe.  I have not written to the President, as I have nothing to communicate more than in this letter.  Please to present him my affection and compliments, and remember me among the circle of my friends.
 
Your sincere and affectionate friend,
Thomas Paine. 

P.S. I just now received a letter from General Lewis Morris, who tells me that the house and barn on my farm at New Rochelle are burnt down. I assure you I shall not bring money enough to build another. 
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Paris, October 20, 1798.

I wrote you by Captain Dominick who was to sail from Havre about the twentieth of this month.  This will probably be brought you by Mr. Barlow or Colonel Oswald.  Since my letter by Dominick I am every day more convinced I and impressed with the propriety of Congress  sending commissioners to Europe to confer with the ministers of the Jesuitical Powers on the means of terminating the war.  The inclosed printed paper will show there are a variety of subjects to be taken into consideration which did not appear at first, all of which have some tendency to put an end to the war.  I see not how this war is to terminate if some intermediate power does not step forward.
 
There is now no prospect that France can carry revolutions into Europe on the one hand, or that the combined powers can conquer France on the other hand.  It is a sort of defensive war on both sides.  This being the Case, how is the war to close?  Neither side will ask for peace though each may wish it.  I believe that England and Holland are tired of the war.  Their commerce and manufactures have suffered most exceedingly - besides this, it is for them a war [begin page 93] without an object.  Russia keeps herself at a distance.
 
I cannot help repeating my wish that Congress would send commissioners, and I wish also that yourself would venture once more across the ocean, as one of them.  If the commissioners rendezvous at Holland they would know what steps to take.  They could call Mr. Pinckney [General Thomas Pinckney, American Minister in England] to their councils, and it would be of use, on many accounts, that one of them should come over from Holland to France.  Perhaps a long truce, were it proposed by the neutral powers, would have all the effects of a peace, without the difficulties attending the adjustment of all the forms of peace. 

Yours affectionately,
Thomas Paine. 
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