The venal character of Deane's subsequent treason clearly appears in the correspondence of George III. with Lord North (Donne, pp. 145, 363, 380, 381, 384) It also appears, by a letter of January 9, 1778, that George III. was aware that the proposal had been sent to his brother-in-law, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, to become commander of the American revolutionists! CHAPTER XI. CAUSE, COUNTRY, SELF Whatever might be thought of Paine's course in the Deane-Beaumarchais affair, there could be no doubt that the country was saved from a questionable payment unjustly pressed at a time when it must have crippled the Revolution, for which the French subsidies were given. Congress was relieved, and he who relieved it was the sufferer. From the most important congressional secretaryship he was reduced to a clerkship in Owen Bid-die's law office. Paine's patriotic interest in public affairs did not abate. In the summer of 1779 he wrote able articles in favor of maintaining our right to the Newfoundland fisheries in any treaty of peace that might be made with England. Congress was secretly considering what instructions should be sent to its representatives in Europe; in case negotiations should arise, and the subject was discussed by "Americanus" in a letter to the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, June 23d. This writer argued that the fisheries should not be mentioned in such negotiations; England would stickle at the claim, and our ally, France, should not be called on to guarantee a right which should be left to the determination of natural laws. This position Paine combated; he maintained that independence was not a change of ministry, but a real thing; it should mean prosperity as well as political liberty. Our ally would be aggrieved by a concession to Great Britain of any means of making our alliance useful. "There are but two natural sources of wealth--the Earth and the Ocean,--and to lose the right to either is, in our situation, to put up the other for sale." The fisheries are needed, "_first_, as an Employment _Secondly_, as producing national Supply and Commerce, and a means of national wealth. _Thirdly_, as a Nursery for Seamen." Should Great Britain be in such straits as to ask for peace, that would be the right opportunity to settle the matter. "To leave the Fisheries wholly out, on any pretence whatever, is to sow the seeds of another war." (_Pennsylvania Gazette_, June 30th, July 14th, 21st.) The prospects of peace seemed now sufficiently fair for Paine to give the attention which nobody else did to his own dismal situation. His scruples about making money out of the national cause were eccentric. The manuscript diary of Rickman, just found by Dr. Clair Grece, contains this note: