, poor fellows, they must do
something for the little pittance they get from their employers. This is
my apology for them.

My anxiety to get back to America was great for many years. It is the
country of my heart, and the place of my political and literary birth.
It was the American revolution that made me an author, and forced into
action the mind that had been dormant, and had no wish for public life,
nor has it now. By the accounts I received, she appeared to me to be
going wrong, and that some meditated treason against her liberties
lurked at the bottom of her government. I heard that my friends were
oppressed, and I longed to take my stand among them, and if other times
to _try mens souls_ were to arrive, that I might bear my share. But my
efforts to return were ineffectual.

As soon as Mr. Monroe had made a good standing with the French
government, for the conduct of his predecessor [Morris] had made his
reception as Minister difficult, he wanted to send despatches to his own
government by a person to whom he could confide a verbal communication,
and he fixed his choice on me. He then applied to the Committee of
Public Safety for a passport; but as I had been voted again into the
Convention, it was only the Convention that could give the passport;
and as an application to them for that purpose, would have made my going
publicly known, I was obliged to sustain the disappointment, and Mr.
Monroe to lose the opportunity.(1)

When that gentleman left France to return to America, I was to have
gone with him. It was fortunate I did not. The vessel he sailed in was
visited by a British frigate, that searched every part of it, and down
to the hold, for Thomas Paine.(2) I then went, the same year, to embark
at Havre. But several British frigates were cruizing in sight of the
port who knew I was there, and I had to return again to Paris. Seeing
myself thus cut off from every opportunity that was in my power to
command, I wrote to Mr. Jefferson, that, if the fate of the election
should put him in the chair of the presidency, and he should have
occasion to send a frigate to France, he would give me the opportunity
of returning by it, which he did. But I declined coming by the
_Maryland_, the vessel that was offered me, and waited for the frigate
that was to bring the new Minister, Mr. Chancellor Livingston, to
France. But that frigate was ordered round to the Mediterranean; and
as at that time the war was over, and the Br