Virginia Argus — Richmond, Va., 1810-07-20 00:00:00, page 1

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FROM THE N.Y. COLUMBIAN'. -!
Mu. SAMPSON’S REPLY,
CONTINUED.
- It is argued, that every thing should
foe intended in favor of this defendant
who has written so godly a work a
gainst the prince of deists, and for the
holy £08pel. I am sorry to hear such
arguments advanced i they go almost
to burlesque religion itself. 11 a a man
of God ! He write for the love of Go<1$
Hi*.book a godly book ! a v|le, ob
scene, and 5lthy compilation^ tfhich
bears throughout the character of ran
corous malice, and tramples uffcn eve*
ry Christian charity. Libel an inno
cent woman, lie ar.d calumniate, for
the sake of Christianity! If this be the
. £tkly godly deed this mad has dune, I
pray to Heaven to be more merciful to
him than he has been to Mrs Bonne
ville, and that for this very work of
godliness he he not damned. If ypu
be Christian jurors, punish him ; for
be assured of this, that twenty Paines,
were twenty such just now upon this
earth, could oot conjointly do more
harm to Christianity by their most vi„
' olent efforts, than this man by defend
ing it would do. If any one of wa-:
vering faith should hear, that the best
vindication or God’s word wras this
mo3t libellious and scandalous work,
he never would be Christian from that
hour. Not every one that saith, Lord,
I.orrl .hall i-nfpr tino-flnnft r»F
ven, but least of all he that make3, the I
blessed name of God a choak for ma
lice and iniquity ! He may be like
those priests of whom we read in his- |
tory, who with the holy cross in the
one hand, and the bloody sabre in the
other, commit atrocities at which na
% ture shudders. Where did he learn
that the God of mercy took delight in
human sacrifices, and that to do him
„ honor a woman’s heart should palpitate
‘upon a bloody alter? Has he ever
'read the word God, or, this Hea
venly historian, does he know one let
ter of the gospel history ? If he doe3,
. he '19 as blunt ;md dull in understand
ing di'he H dihd to sensibility and de
licacy. When a woman was brought
before the author of the Christian faith,
taken in the very fact of .adultry, what
did he say? He left behind him ales-i
\ son of tenderness ever memorable andj
w divine. Let him, he said to the far.a-1
tical and malignant rabble, let him who
is innocent cast the first stone. And
if ibis chiistian hhtormq had ever
known or felt the benignant spirit ot
holy inspiration, would he not be sen
sible that he was not that innocent ?
If he he innocent, theh are tigers gen
tle. If M r3. Bonntville were as guil
ty as he no later than this day propo
sed to prove her, was there no better
way to recommend the Christian faith
than by upbraiding her with such |>trt
a;.d contumelious malice ? But when
we prove her innocent, when she comes
from out the fiery furnace unhurt, un
scoiched, then “the more angel she,
and be the blacker devil.”
B> t it is said, he acted bona fitfe.
made inquiry and was deceived.
And being an historian, is justified e
ven for the blasphemies hetbb day ut
tered by his counsel’s lips. If this be
•eo, much as I love this country, ad
mire its people, and revere its laws, I
would rather once more tempt my
wandering destinies than lis e where
one historian was unpenned, unmuz
zled or unchained. I had rather be
exposed to some deformed thing with
claws, and horns, and tusks: tome
«pit-fire dragon whose bn nth was poi
sonous, whose tooth was cankered.
Tell me of all the monsters that anci
ent history or fable treats of; of har
pies, hydras, Caledonian boars, of
SVJinotaurs and Pythons, of («orgons
nnd Chimeras, of tierce anti ferocious
animals that prowl the desert or fright
the haunts of meti, and I will tell you
of a more fearful monster*—ihat is, an
biltrrian! If every man that keeps
♦the worst of company, that goes about
to hunt for lies and sc- ndal, whose or
ganic and natural perceptions are turn
ed to wickedness, whose scent is fitted
only to run the track of si tnder ; if
such an one be au historian, and maj
vend in open market the scandal he
Tuns down ; better that letters neve
had been known, printing invented,not
history composed.
The plagues that accident or nature
l Wring, must be endured »the evils with
which an angry providence sometimes
thinks (it to scourge the sinful sons of
man, must be submitted to with re
vrerenfce and pious resignation; but
thkt' a common libeller should be
invested with more than kingly pow
rr and prerogative, is what i never,
heard of.
Gentlemen, I have been drawn, in
to say n\ore of religious matters thgw
1 could wish to do. Nqt that such
things pre not good and (it to say ; but
I would willingly a topic so sa
cred because 1 am not worthy to dis.
cuss it, and because it sometimes is
made a cant; and notliing is more o
lTious thku a canting 1iwyer ; not e?eu
x canting libeller, l have cited to this
court those, cases, wher'e it has been ■
held no justification of a libeller that
what he published' had before been
DtibHshed by many othfcrts, and ancon*
cradicted. I have referred to the sta
tute which does not allow the truth it
self to be a justification, unless the de
fendant can make it satisfactorily ap
pear, that he published that truth with
good and justifiable motive. I have
cited English cases, where the good
intention of the defendant was not al.,
lowed to justify him ; for acts that are
in their own essence criminal, furnish
the inference of malice and of bad in
tention. . As well the robber or the
murderer might say, that some one told
him the victim of his fury deserved
his death^ and upon such villainous
suggestion constitute himself his le*
giblator, his accuser, his judge ami ex
ecutioner.
If ttie defendants counsel had pro
ved him an idiot from his nativity, or
one deranged in m'md, or under the
influence of temporary phrensv, they
might have excused him : but on the
contrary, they have compared him to
the great names of Burke and Bishop
W.ttson, nay mors, they have modest
ly preferred him to them both, for they
assert that his vile book has been the
ablest refutation of the Age of K'edson
that ever issued from tftb pen of man.
Was riot this gross and rank! Mark
but the differefice. When Paine was
in the vigour of his mind* whin bis
extraordinary writings had partisans
and countenance to b ck them, they at
tacked him with manly energy. They
provoked an answer, and left the world
to judge between their arguments* and
left behind them a monument of splen
did controversy. Not so, this man,
who lurched, and dodged, and crouch
ed, till death had d ne his work, and
then came forward, when his adversa
ry’s tongue was mute to prove he was
a beast* If be was it heart even, he!
was king of beasts compared to tins
one .* but you remember what kind of
beast th~t was, that kicked at the dead
bon.
But since we are' upon the subject
I of this God like wtrk, this history,
which I could never wade through,
die very preface is enough to shew
I you what the writer is, and whether
he has written faithfully, without de
ceit or malice.
r.« u. tM.t „c u' _
... ---W* , .»IO
historian s'ates, that on the arrival of
Thomas Paine, he wai thp man of all
the community that took upon him to
procure a lodging for him, anti the first
that sat at the same board with him.
I engaged a roc.-n for him in Lovett’s
hotel, supposing him to be a gentle
man.” And in the 23d page of his
preface he says—“ ?*Iy acquaintance
continued with him, with various
views, two or three years.” Now
weigh this well.- Paine was as much
n devil then as when he (lied. The
defendant knew him for no other than
Tom Paine, the author of »hat very
Age of Heaswn which holy inspirat
ion now calls upon him to arraign. Yes,
|he was the rirst to wait upon him, an 1
to welcome him ; to take a lodging for
him, and to continue his intimacy with
him with various views, two or three
[years. “ My intercourse (says this
I historian) was more frequent with him
! than agreeable ; but what I suffered in
'feelings from his want of good man
ners, his dogmatism, the tyranny of
nis opinions, his peevishness, his in.
temperance, and the low company he
Kept, was perhaps compensated by ac
quiring a knowledge ot the man. The
Utterpartof his Lie was spent in the
city ot New-York under my own eye
—but I have made particular en fai
ries cf the persons in whose houses he
successively lived, as to his manner
of living, his temper and his habits*”
“ The facts respecting his death and}
burial I have from a humane and sen-j
slble quaiicr genilemiih—from doctor '
Manly, his kind aud attentive physici-1
<tn, and from his nur^ . a woman of
intelligencc anH piety. Well said !
humanity and piety l Most humane
doctor 1 most pious nurse ! benevolent
and chaste historian, that haunts the'
living to revile the dead ; that keeps,
his ravenous eye upon his prey and;
follows him just as the shark does the
distempered vessel, to feed upon the
carcase ; that leagues with honest doc
tor* and pious nurses, whose babblinc
gftesip he vonchcs for the truth of his
most Christian history ! doctors and
pious nurses who betray the wretched,
secrets of human tensity and dissolve
ing nature; to this evangelical histori
an, Vho gloat* with pleasure at the 6r.
durious details, and give* them to the
World as the generous dedication* of
apostolic zeal, that labor* in the vine
yard of the faith to save poor Sinners1
souls! Oh, vile hypocricy! Oh, gross
iinpostarel And will you, honorable
citizen*; he gulled by this? . Will
you believa it possible that this man
has no malice? To my imagination
his own story presents the image of
sonic nasty vermin, that engenders in
the morbid parts of some decaying
body ; the 'creature of corruption j the
precursor of lifes dissolution ; wht>,
like a worm or a maggot, begins but
where life ends, and battens in the bow
els o? disease.
Gentlemen,
i uo cot speax at ranaom. l his
history is now in evidence, and every
line of it is now before you. I never
read it, but my eye has caught some
passages that warrant metosay, the au
thor was malicious Sc. unfair, Sc that he
neither could nor did believe the truth
of what he wrote, nor in the honesty
| of those from whom he got it. No ;
rbut he went about, like those that buy
old rags and broken glass, and sought
I for nothing sound, or whole or cleaaW.
For instance, he went to the house of
I Mr. Hitts, (I have raafked the page
down for your inspection,) and Mr.
Hitts being tvyo honorable to hold eupfr
vile communion,'or furnish this Ip
bcller of the living and the dead, with
any vicious caluitmy against the man
his roof had once protected, or violate
the faith of hospitality, he sets him
forth in history as a concealer of all
Heavenly truths, and tr ithels round to
g »ther scandalous gossip from angry
enemies, from disappointed claimants,
soured expectants, from adverse liti
gants, froip pious nursc3 and chagrin
ed doctors, whose bills and charg-a
were disputed and then returns with
his dirty budget, not like the bee that
sucks 3;veet honey from the fragrant
flowers, but like a wasp, whose only
industry is in his sting, or like a ser
pent, who leaves the wholesome ft)od,i
that nature spreads, to feed his venom*;
ous maw with what is rank.
He knew Tnm Pain.* tn »Vio ... !
thor of the Age of Reason, yet in his
bock he states himself to be the very
man who took upon himself the friend
ly and familiar office on his return [
from France, to take a lodging'for ’him. ■
In the very preface of his history, you!
may read this. He sat at table with !
him, whilst he ate beef steaks, drank {
beer & looked so ugly. Thus he con
tinued his acquaintance with him
“with various views.” He was his
eulogist and commemorator ; that is
notorious. And on this trial he 3eeir»3
to have no friends to vouch for him,
but all the worst of Paine’*. Whar
could his counsel mean, who opened
with this proverb. “Tell me jou^
company Sc I’ll tell you who you are ?”
I You see how truth will pierce through
brazen walls. In his history he gives
some ot Paine’s writings which the
public eye had never seen belore, so
profitable is his industry !
Gentlemen,
I never saw lorn Paine hut twice or
thrice. The first time w-a in Paris,
when he seemed to me the type of
fallen manhood ■—»a melancholy ruin.
His habits then, not suiting well with
mine, I left him to himself. I had no
“ various views.” I never comme.
niorated hnn li mg, nor libelled him
when dead. I never was his host, his
guest, nor tavern companion. I take
ir.s picture, therefore, from his hisio*
riaii and i ask could he believe, tta;'
such as he describes him, a wallow in,,
withered filthy being, uncksiulicr than
the swine, the fiilthiest thing thatevtu
walked erectfold petulant, ill natured!
—carbuncle*!, cirprosetl, a drunkard a
stinkard and a miser; a hater of the
nex, who did not cousumate his lawful
marriage-E ask it in the name of
Heaven and truth, if this were so (and
if it be not so, the historian lies,) cOuld
he believe that such a one as that eVer
seduced a woman? t>icl he Believe,
that such a piece of sh* and, at a
time when he wao both proscribed and j
penny less, lodged By the bounty of a
husband, immersed in danc&rous con
troversies; that such a one could be
the gay and fortunate seducer of a la
dy, Bred up at Paris, m the pridi of
fife, of polished habits and personal
attractions', and have seduced her from
the . father of her children, a man of
per9cnal figure, manner* sod shining
acquisitions? One of his counsel ar
gued, as if he thought his client’s cause
would be the safer, the more it was
entrenched in heaps of calumny, that
if she did not love his person she did
worse, she loved his principles* Gen*
tlemen, this lady had no more to do
with his opinions th;in you have with
those ot Mr. Cheetham. She neither
bated him nor Mr. Chretham, as those
who love hia new-botn virtues did
two years ag<*. And at this houir she
U, perhaps,to learn h'13 opinions, so
foreign are such topics to her guileless
naturfe and her feminine spirit. Nav,
more ; she did not even speak Pane’s
language, nor he her’s. This you may
^aiucr nom cne evidence, ana from
the history, Vrhich is now evidence.
Paine never could speak French,
though he could read if, she never
spoke the English ’till she learned it
nere,; and Mr. Underhill, the defcn-i
darn’s witness, has confirmed this,he*
cause in mimickry he tells you, that
after years of residence she spoke im.
perfectly, and called her child Paine’s
ifiild.
Could this man believe, even on an
atheist’s faith, though he affirmed with
uplifted hands, or on the faith of the
most ** pious and intelligent nurse,”
that kites and doves would bill and
ueck together l If he is not credu
lous enough for this and more than
this, he does not nor did not, when he
wrote, believe the horrible slander.
No, gendemen ; but truth was not his
wish. He wanted filthy anecdotes to
swell his scandalous chronicles, and
make his history a precious merchan
dize for all the idle and illiberal, who
take delight in wonders and in wicked
ness.
But it is said, all this must be ex
cused, because lie is. a laborer in the
vine yard, a Christian hero and histori
an. Whence fell this sudden dispen.,
nation upon him ? Did the star shine
upon him from the west, or from the
east, whence wise men come ? or who
ordained him to uphold that faith,
which no man in this country, except
his atheist friends and -he himself, had
questioned? or if it was in danger and
likely to succumb, could it receive
iv/sm I A nllA.'lffl I Mi. aU n..
Paine, so great an injury as from one
single advocate like him, who lives by
writing down all Christian charritie*. ?
Arc there not venerable men enough,
who spend their youths in studying,
and their maturer years in teaching
Christianity ? and do ihey want the aid
of common libellers ? Are there not
those, the chosen of their flock,
whose pure and innocent lives give ef
ficacy to their words ? Good fathers,
faithful friends ai d tender husbands,
who practise what tiiey preach $ whose
gentle manners and mild intercourse
inspire your souls with rtverence and
love? whom you can hear with confi
dence and follow with delight ? who
in your sickness visit you, in your al
dictions comfort you ? wiin whom you
and your fan i.tes can join in modest
prayer befoie ihe altar ol eternal mer
cy, in the blessed hope of everlasting
lite ? with whom invoke his power,
who by whatever name he may he cal
led, through whatsoever medium thj
erring eye of weak mortality may view
ins image, is ever God i Hut shall
such ruthan accents trouble tho peace
of Heaven and of man ? Has he not li
I'dled woman? lie h s! and never
could the foe of woman’s peace bt
trteud to God or man.
I oo not say that reformation may
not l-.ght upon the veriest sinner. Arut
we arc tout theie is more joy in ilea*
ven tor one sinner that repeats, than
0
ninety-nine that never went astray*
Be it so. But true coutrition is mark
ed with meekness and humilfty. Hits
his been so? It he now repents, *ti»
like an angry wolf, that stands at bay
grinding his teeth’, and who repents of
nothing but this, that he is caught.
The words his counsel opened with
this day, were they like penitence,
Vvhe'll he threatetrrd deep shame and
ruin to.this lady and her friends? to
make the color .fade upon her cheek ?
regretted that her own son was not
then present to stupratc his own mo.
theT, and hoped she might be then in
court to hear him say so ? Was it re
pentance, to have first pursued her
into the privacy of modest life, and
at the shrine of blessed hospitality, be
fore the household Oods of her pro
tectors, like a sanguinary savage, as
sail her with his club; but even with
in this hour, here in the sanctuary of
the law, once more to lift his worse
than homicidal arm, and aim another
dagger at her breast? Is this that
true repentance, in sack clyth and in
a&hes, that moves man’s pity and Hea
ven’s mercy ?
There was a monastery, where dead
ly crimes were expiated, called La
Trappe : when sinners entered it, they
made a terrible vow of everlasting si
lence, and from thac awful moment
never uttered a word, and daily with
their nails dug their own grave?.
When the midnight bell tolled them to
prayer, they left their solitary cells, -
and moved with noiseless step thro’
gloomy cloisters aud whispering ailes,
with down-cast look, turning their ro
saries, but never spoke. Such is the
penitence, such the everlasting silence
that would become the ruthless slan
derer of woman's honor. 11 ut he who
acts the bully and the bravo, and calls
himself the champion of “ high Hea
ven," what words can paint the hor
roJLhe inspires l Then let us leave
hijw ,
My' duty calls me notr to recapitu
late the testimony of all his witnesses.
The first and principal is Mr. Carver.
He* with uplifted hand, affirmed, by
the ever living God, the truth of what
he- testified--and what was that i
His letter tells us all—that he and
Paine had a dispute for money ; }Vbd
in their correspondence you may find
the crimes and baseness they recipref*
cally urged against each other. Mr.^
Carver, whose Vulgar, scurrilous 1< t
ter makes the chief buttress of this
man’s defence, the more to spite his
adversaries, flings out some calumny
against the lady. Carver himself ad
mits, that when she got a sight of it,
she threatened to prosecute him for
thac very litter. Yet, on no better
ground, has this audacious libeller de
tained her reputation.
From the sane source springs the infer,
i al hint that li'lle Thomas Bonneville had
'lie countenance and features of Tom
Paine in h s little nose, no doubt; the his
torian could discern by learned inspection,
the germs of futuie blossoms, and geims
i tuitj m due couise of nature; should come
to this world's sight.
Carver gives evidence of what he heard
from Paine of Mrs. Bonneville, which h<±
Ir.rmell retailed to Cheethant j and Chest*
ham, rather than such sublime history
should not shine forth 10 save poor sin.
ners souls, becomes historian lor the lov>
of God and gives them to the woild ’.■*
amour. This is the history 01 this ms*
toriam and b s history 1
Now* gentlemen, supported thus, Mr
Checlham the historian, had such fahh "n
it heists, that he would rather pie.ume
their Blunders uue, ihan any woman vir.
tutnis* bull the stcry of Mis. Bonrtevihe’s
never having been the vufeof Mr B .it..
| ville, which Carver writei that Pa ne did
I “*y in speaking harshly of her, and wl.i .
I is evidence before y< u now of Urn man’,
malice, being in his Imimy j this, i s.y,
he could i <j. have hL-litvrd. beuamt: it
came frtni Paine, ol \vh..m bn-h ht. A >d
Carver wii.e that lie d d never speak .»
word of irnih. See wnat a Strang e du
lemma lie is in. F.rst, i.c s uichHu* Mr
.Paine seduced her from lior lm..b « d« and
then he shows ynu, in an other.page, *ne
never had a husband, How beautiful aid
’umlorm is trtvh! How multilcrm end
•nmcate is false bond ! ilow like the up!.’ *
lei's flimsy web 1 How like ihe coning
of the scaly serpent, the windings of tl.o
guilty !
My eye just glanced upon some words
where there is mention made of ftmt'i In*;
jvill. That is the key to this mys erious
league of spos.olic slandoiets, lanrtiH*,
.id expe&ania and disappointed specu.a*
.or*.