Autograph manuscript letter signed Thomas Paine to Colonel John Fellows.

'It is time that Mr Washington retire' — signed Thomas Paine

An extraordinary, rediscovered letter signed by, and in the hand of, Thomas Paine (1737-1809) reiterating his call that President George Washington should retire from office.

The letter, dated 20th June 1797, was sent just weeks before Washington stood down at the end of his second term, thereby establishing the precedent, later codified in the Twenty-Second Amendment, that 'No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice'.

The thrust of the letter concerns the publication of Paine's infamous Letter to George Washington, which attacked the character of the President and the influence of the Federalists on government policy, including the highly inflammatory claims that John Adams had said 'that the Presidency should be made hereditary in the family of Lund Washington', and that John Jay believed 'that the Senate should have been appointed for life'.

Paine's animosity had been building since the ratification of the Jay Treaty the year before, which he saw as evidence not only of the Washington's administration pro-English and anti-French bias, but as a symptom of a general decline in the democratic ideals of the nascent republic. It also represents the culmination of Paine's personal animosity towards the President who he felt, and perhaps justly, had failed him in his hour of need. This harks back to Paine's imprisonment by the Jacobins in 1793 and the apparent refusal of the Washington administration to recognise Paine's American citizenship, for which treachery, Washington was never forgiven.

This animosity is felt particularly in the closing paragraph of our letter, which Paine wrote whilst awaiting 'news from America of the state of the federal elections. You will have heard long before this reaches you, that the French government has refused to receive Mr [Charles Cotesworth] Pinckey as minister. While Mr [James] Monroe was minister he had the opportunity of softening the matter with this governm[en]t for he was in good credit with them tho they were in high indignation at the infidelity of the Washington administration. It is time that Mr Washington retire; for he has played off so much prudential hypocrisy between France and England, that neither government believe any thing he says'.

Our letter recalls how Paine had sent his attack on Washington to his protégé Benjamin Franklin Bache (1769-1798) 'in August last' by way of his friend Captain Nathan Haley 'to be printed in a pamphlet'. However, still at the time of writing in January 1797, Paine had of 'yet no certain account of its publication. I mention this that the letter [to George Washington] may be enquired after, in case it has not been published or has not arrived to Mr. Bache. Barnes wrote to me from London 29 August informing me that he was offered three hundred pounds sterling for the manuscript. The offer was repulsed because it was my intention it should not appear till it appeared in America, as that and not England was the place for its operation'.

Its publication had in fact been held back by Bache himself, who perhaps felt that it would not help the Jeffersonian cause in the upcoming presidential election. The Letter finally appeared on the 8th December 1796, the day after Washington had given his farewell address and signalled his intention to stand down at the end of his second term, where it was met with embarrassment from fellow republicans and irrevocably tarnished Paine's reputation with the federalists. Washington, in any event, did not respond.

Although anonymous, our letter's recipient has long been identified as Paine's particular friend, Colonel John Fellows (1759-1844), who had served in his uncle's militia during the Revolutionary War. Fellows shared Paine's republican sympathies and his bookshop-come-publishing house, established in 1793, soon became 'notorious for containing what the Federalists considered heretical works' ('Letter from Fellows to William Lee of Washington', May 1821). He acquired the copyright for Part I of the Age of Reason, which he brought to the press in 1794, and published pamphlets of Joel Barlow, to whom Paine had confided his manuscript on his way to prison.

Provenance:

1. Firstly for the recipient, Colonel John Fellows, with a manuscript note to the top of the first page noting the letter's acquisition: 'From the late Col. Fellows original letter of Thom[as] Paine'.

2. Secondly for the English radical printer James Watson (1799-1874), who published a Life of Paine in 1839 (a copy of the 1849 edition of this work is provided with this letter). We know from this Life that Watson had obtained a different letter by Paine to Fellows dated July 31st 1805, which had been given to him by a Mr. William Clark, likely the printer who operated out of a shop on New Bond Street, who had obtained this letter directly from Fellows himself. It seems likely therefore, that our letter came by a similar route.

3. Thirdly for the Liberal MP Joseph Cowen Jr. (1829-1900), who served as Member of Parliament for Newcastle from 1865 until 1886. Cowen obtained the letter directly from Watson (see the accompanying note on ledger paper), and later gave permission to the American historian Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907) to publish the letter in full in his collected Writings of Thomas Paine, which appeared in four volumes between 1894 and 1896. The letter was then passed down by family descent to the present-day.

This is a rare opportunity to acquire a letter of real significance from the philosopher of the American Revolution, which has been in private hands since its acquisition in the nineteenth century. Paine is rightly regarded by most as a Founding Father, whose pamphlet Common Sense did more than any other to rally support for independence during the war years, and whose passionate commitment to the democratic ideal has shaped the course of the modern age.

A full transcription of the letter can be provided upon request.

Autograph manuscript letter signed; bifolium (21 x 16.5 cm); [3]pp in pen in the hand of Thomas Paine signed by him to the bottom of p.[3] in total forming 72 lines of text, manuscript corrections in text to lines 18 and 19 of p.[1], and line 1 of p.[3], later note in pen to head of p.[1] stating 'original letter of Tho[mas]s Paine' and 'from the late Col. Fellows', further pen note to verso of p.[3] 'Tho[ma] Paine Jan. 1797'; slightly browned, sometime folded in 8 further parts, split along central horizontal fold of second f., small hole at centre of first vertical fold of first f., and above 'w' of 'white' at the beginning of the 6th line of p.[3]; overall a fantastic, completely unrestored example, housed in a custom-made calf-backed folding portfolio case; with accompanying note of provenance, an 1817 printing of Paine's 'Letter to George Washington, disbound, and The Life of Thomas Paine printed by J. Watson, unbound.