Tom Paine
Sir: John Higgins (27 October) is understandably critical of the performance of the 'non-play,' Tom Paine, at the Vaudeville Theatre, but he seems to have swallowed a major part of it, when he writes that one learns little about 'the eighteenth century revolutionary, philosopher and drunk.' Paine was certainly a revolutionary and philosopher, but the idea of him being a drunk was put out by his enemies, in order to detract from his revolutionary and philosophical teachings.
As Paul Foster's Tom Paine makes much of Paine's alleged craving for drink, it is time to try to put the record straight. Paine was the intimate friend, host or guest of such eminent and respect- able people as Sir Joseph Banks, William Blake, Edmund Burke, Charles James Fox, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Lord Lansdowne, the Duke of Portland, James Monroe and George Washington, who (even if they did not share all his political and religious views) mostly wrote of him with affection and respect.
Lord Edward FitzGerald, writing from Paris to his mother, said: 'I lodge with my friend Paine; we breakfast, dine and sup together. The more I see of his interior the more I like and respect him. . . There is a simplicity of manner, a goodness of heart, and a strength of mind in him that I never knew a man before to possess.'
Paine, who had a considerable knowledge of numerous branches of science, was himself well aware of the effect of drink. He was far too sen- able to risk affecting his own brain by drinking in the manner that his detractors said.
Christopher Brunel Chairman, Thomas Paine Society London Group, 134 Queen's Gate, London SW7
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