"I suppose you have seen, or have heard of the Bishop of Landaff's answer to my second part of the Age of reason. As soon as I got a copy of it I began a third part, which served also as an answer to the Bishop; but as soon as the clerical Society for promoting _Christian Knowledge_ knew of my intention to answer the Bishop, they prosecuted, as a Society, the printer of the first and second parts, to prevent that answer appearing. No other reason than this can be assigned for their prosecuting at the time they did, because the first part had been in circulation above three years and the second part more than one, and they prosecuted immediately on knowing that I was taking up their Champion. The Bishop's answer, like Mr. Burke's attack on the french revolution; served me as a back-ground to bring forward other subjects upon, with more advantage than if the background was not there. This is the motive that induced me to answer him, otherwise I should have gone on without taking any notice of him. I have made and am still making additions to the manuscript, and shall continue to do so till an opportunity arrive for publishing it.
"If any American frigate should come to france, and the direction of it fall to you, I will be glad you would give me the opportunity of returning. The abscess under which I suffered almost two years is entirely healed of itself, and I enjoy exceeding good health. This is the first of October, and Mr. Skipwith has just called to tell me the Commissioners set off for Havre tomorrow. This will go by the frigate but not with the knowledge of the Commissioners. Remember me with much affection to my friends and accept the same to yourself."
As the Commissioners did not leave when they expected, Paine added several other letters to Jefferson, on public affairs. In one (October 1st) he says he has information of increasing aversion in the English people to their government. "It was the hope of conquest, and is now the hope of peace that keeps it [Pitt's administration] up." Pitt is anxious about his paper money. "The credit of Paper is suspicion asleep. When suspicion wakes the credit vanishes as the dream would." "England has a large Navy, and the expense of it leads to her ruin." The English nation is tired of war, longs for peace, "and calculates upon defeat as it would upon victory." On October 4th, after the Commissioners had concluded a treaty, Paine alludes to an article said to be in it, requiring certain expenditures in France, and says that if he, Jefferson, be "in the chair, and not otherwise," he should offer himself for this business, should an agent be required "It will serve to defray my expenses until I can return, but I wish it may be with the condition of returning. I am not tired of working for nothing, but I cannot afford it. This appointment will aid me in promoting the object I am now upon of a law of nations for the protection of neutral commerce." On October 6th he reports to Jefferson that at an entertainment given the American envoys, Consul Le Brun gave the toast: "A l'union de l'Amérique avec les puissances du Nord pour faire respecter la liberté des mers." On October 15th the last of his enclosures to Jefferson is written. He says that Napoleon, when asked if there would be more war, replied: "Nous n'aurions plus qu'une guerre d'écritoire." In all of Paine's writing about Napoleon, at this time, he seems as if watching a thundercloud, and trying to make out meteorologically its drift, and where it will strike.