He poured the full measure of
his indignation upon the party who directed affairs in the United
States, and upon the President. In two long letters, composed after his
release, under Monroe's roof, he accused Washington of conniving at his
imprisonment, to keep him, Paine, "the marplot of all designs against
the people," out of the way. "Mr. Washington and his new-fangled party
were rushing as fast as they dared venture into all the vices and
corruptions of the British government; and it was no more consistent
with the policy of Mr. Washington and those who immediately surrounded
him than it was with that of Robespierre or of Pitt that I should
survive." As he grew more angry, he became more abusive. He ridiculed
Washington's "cold, unmilitary conduct" during the War of Independence,
and accused his administration, since the new constitution, of
"vanity," "ingratitude," "corruption," "bare-faced treachery," and "the
tricks of a sharper." He closed this wretched outbreak of peevishness
and wounded self-conceit with the following passage:--
"And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have
been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public
life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate
or an impostor,--whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether
you ever had any.
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