Sir. Being apparently opposed to Paine's political writings, Richards Luckett
(August 18) has been less than fair to the evidence in my book and has misread some of it (Paine, for inStance, did not marry his landlord's Widow but his young daughter, and Rickman maintains this marriage was never consummated, thus bearing out What on any evidence seems to have been a totally sexless life thereafter). So much for the ' libertine ' legend.
regards drunkeness, your reviewer is wrong in suggesting that this was brought forward in Chalmers' biography of 1791 (when Paine was already fifty-four years of age), although it was specifically written to bring him into disrepute. The fact that Chalmers fails to mention such a failing, which was first stressed in the even more savage and politically slanted biography in America by James Cheetham, in the year of Paine's death (I809), can only indicate that in England Paine had no such reputation. On the question of Paine's being a traitor," let us be quite clear: Paine's trial in England in 1792 was for "seditious libel (i.e. a censorship trial) and no accusation of treachery was ever Made against him officially in England. In fact, after the end of the American War, he was welcomed back to England by many in authority who had oPPosed our fighting the Americans, 001" 'kith and kin,' such as Fox, Lord Stanhope and Edmund Burke (yes, even Burke). Paine's support of Napoleonic invasion (naively, I agree, to bell) the people of England against their corrupt and oppressive Government) came after imprisonment (under the Terror) and severe illness and long after all his main political Writings (which included dislike of War, advocation of commerce to SOPersede it and even discussion organisations among nations, as well as Old Age Pensions and other social services Which your reviewer considers now devalued "). I have made no attempt to minimise this (unlike Paine's American biographers) ...nd have suggested mental deterioration and decline of character due partly to ill-health; but it should surely be admitted this was a decline in Paine's old age, not known to his fellow-countrymen and nothing whatever to do with his English trial and the main body of his work.
Incidentally, can your reviewer give a single instance of " bloodthirstiness" in Paine's writings? He opposed even capital punishment, as well as any form of violent retaliation on military or political opponents.
I have given my sources within my text for reasons of honesty to the reader: nothing detrimental to Paine is omitted, and I have given as ' rounded' a psychological portrait of Paine as is possible on all the extant material, which includes no letters on his personal life at all. I believe at this date no biographer could find more: the psychology can only be suggested, as I have done. I am certainly the first to try and give a picture of the social conditions and politics, in England, America and France, that sparked off Paine's writings and to make some attempt to compare his ideas with those of Rousseau, Godwin, Robespierre, Marat, Dr Price and other radical writers of the time.
Audrey Williamson 29 Turner House, Erasmus Street, London SW1
Previous page
