r 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; and I
am not uncharitable in supposing that this was one of the intentions of
the writer.(*)

* I know not who the writer of the piece is, but some of the
Americans say it is Phineas Bond, an American refugee, but
now a British consul; and that he writes under the
signature of Peter Skunk or Peter Porcupine, or some such
signature.--Author.

This footnote probably added to the gall of Porcupine's
(Cobbett's) "Letter to the Infamous Tom Paine, in Answer to
his Letter to General Washington" (Polit. Censor, Dec.,
1796), of which he (Cobbett) afterwards repented. Phineas
Bond had nothing to do with it.--Editor.

I have now done with Mr. Washington on the score of private affairs. It
would have been far more agreeable to me, had his conduct been such as
not to have merited these reproaches. Errors or caprices of the temper