Paine was imprisoned in the Luxembourg on December 28, 1793, and released on November 4, 1794.His liberation was secured by his old friend, James Monroe (afterwards President), who had succeeded his (Paine's) relentless enemy, Gouvemeur Morris, as American Minister in Paris.He was found by Monroe more dead than alive from semi-starvation, cold, and an abscess contracted in prison, and taken to the Minister's own residence.It was not supposed that he could survive, and he owed his life to the tender care of Mr.and Mrs.Monroe.It was while thus a prisoner in his room, with death still hovering over him, that Paine wrote Part Second of "The Age of Reason."The work was published in London by H.D.Symonds on October 25, 1795, and claimed to be "from the Author's manuscript." It is marked as "Entered at Stationers Hall," and prefaced by an apologetic note of "The Bookseller to the Public," whose commonplaces about avoiding both prejudice and partiality, and considering "both sides," need not be quoted.While his volume was going through the press in Paris, Paine heard of the publication in London, which drew from him the following hurried note to a London publisher, no doubt Daniel Isaacs Eaton:
"SIR, -- I have seen advertised in the London papers the second Edition [part] of the Age of Reason, printed, the advertisement says, from the Author's Manuscript, and entered at Stationers Hall.I have never sent any manuscript to any person.It is therefore a forgery to say it is printed from the author's manuscript; and I suppose is done to give the Publisher a pretence of Copy Right, which he has no title to.
"I send you a printed copy, which is the only one I have sent to London.I wish you to make a cheap edition of it.I know not by what means any copy has got over to London.If any person has made a manuscript copy I have no doubt but it is full of errors.I wish you would talk to Mr.
----- upon this subject as I wish to know by what means this trick has been played, and from whom the publisher has got possession of any copy.
T.PAINE.
"PARIS, December 4, 1795,"
Eaton's cheap edition appeared January 1, 1796, with the above letter on the reverse of the title.The blank in the note was probably "Symonds" in the original, and possibly that publisher was imposed upon.
Eaton, already in trouble for printing one of Paine's political pamphlets, fled to America, and an edition of the "Age of Reason" was issued under a new title; no publisher appears; it is said to be "printed for, and sold by all the Booksellers in Great Britain and Ireland." It is also said to be "By Thomas Paine, author of several remarkable performances." I have never found any copy of this anonymous edition except the one in my possession.
It is evidently the edition which was suppressed by the prosecution of Williams for selling a copy of it.
A comparison with Paine's revised edition reveals a good many clerical and verbal errors in Symonds, though few that affect the sense.The worst are in the preface, where, instead of "1793," the misleading date "1790"is given as the year at whose close Paine completed Part First, -- an error that spread far and wide and was fastened on by his calumnious American "biographer," Cheetham, to prove his inconsistency.The editors have been fairly demoralized by, and have altered in different ways, the following sentence of the preface in Symonds: "The intolerant spirit of religious persecution had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, styled Revolutionary, supplied the place of the Inquisition; and the Guillotine of the State outdid the Fire and Faggot of the Church." The rogue who copied this little knew the care with which Paine weighed words, and that he would never call persecution "religious," nor connect the guillotine with the "State," nor concede that with all its horrors it had outdone the history of fire and faggot.What Paine wrote was: "The intolerant spirit of church persecution had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, styled Revolutionary, supplied the place of an Inquisition and the Guillotine, of the Stake."An original letter of Paine, in the possession of Joseph Cowen, ex-M.P., which that gentleman permits me to bring to light, besides being one of general interest makes clear the circumstances of the original publication.
Although the name of the correspondent does not appear on the letter, it was certainly written to Col.John Fellows of New York, who copyrighted Part I.of the "Age of Reason." He published the pamphlets of Joel Barlow, to whom Paine confided his manuscript on his way to prison.Fellows was afterwards Paine's intimate friend in New York, and it was chiefly due to him that some portions of the author's writings, left in manuscript to Madame Bonneville while she was a freethinker were rescued from her devout destructiveness after her return to Catholicism.The letter which Mr.Cowen sends me, is dated at Paris, January 20, 1797.
"SIR, -- Your friend Mr.Caritat being on the point of his departure for America, I make it the opportunity of writing to you.I received two letters from you with some pamphlets a considerable time past, in which you inform me of your entering a copyright of the first part of the Age of Reason: when I return to America we will settle for that matter.
"As Doctor Franklin has been my intimate friend for thirty years past you will naturally see the reason of my continuing the connection with his grandson.I printed here (Paris) about fifteen thousand of the second part of the Age of Reason, which I sent to Mr.F[ranklin] Bache.
I gave him notice of it in September 1795 and the copy-right by my own direction was entered by him.The books did not arrive till April following, but he had advertised it long before.
