se I had
come, I should have applied to you for such parts of your official
letters (and of your private ones, if you had chosen to give them) as
contained any instructions or directions either to Mr. Monroe, or to
Mr. Morris, or to any other person respecting me; for after you were
informed of my imprisonment in France, it was incumbent on you to have
made some enquiry into the cause, as you might very well conclude that I
had not the opportunity of informing you of it. I cannot understand your
silence upon this subject upon any other ground, than as _connivance_ at
my imprisonment; and this is the manner it is understood here, and will
be understood in America, unless you give me authority for contradicting
it. I therefore write you this letter, to propose to you to send me
copies of any letters you have written, that may remove that suspicion.
In the preface to the second part of the Age of Reason, I have given a
memorandum from the hand-writing of Robespierre, in which he proposed a
decree of accusation against me, '_for the interests of America as well
as of France!_' He could have no cause for putting America in the
case, but by interpreting the silence of the American government into
connivance and consent. I was imprisoned on the ground of being born
in England; and your silence in not enquiring into the cause of that
imprisonment, and reclaiming me against it, was tacitly giving me up. I
ought not to have suspected you of treachery; but whether I recover
from the illness I now suffer or not, I shall continue to think you
treacherous, till you give me cause to think otherwise. I am sure you
would have found yourself more at your ease, had you acted by me as
you ought; for whether your desertion of me was intended to gratify the
English Government, or to let me fall into destruction in France that
you might exclaim the louder against the French Revolution, or whether
you hoped by my extinction to meet with less opposition in mounting up
the American government--either of these will involve you in reproach
you will not easily shake off.

"THOMAS Paine."

1 Washington Papers in State Department. Endorsed by Bache:
"Jan. 18, 1796. Enclosed to Benj. Franklin Bache, and by him
forwarded immediately upon receipt."--_Editor._.

Here follows the letter above alluded to, which I had stopped in
complaisance to Mr. Monroe.

"Paris, February aad, 1795.

"Sir,

"As it is always painful to reproach tho