Morris had a "high old time" in Europe. Intimacy with Washington secured him influence with Lafayette, and the fine ladies of Paris, seeking official favors for relatives and lovers, welcomed him to the boudoirs, baths, and bedrooms to which his diary now introduces the public. {1790} It was but natural that such a man, just as he had been relieved of the overlaying Jefferson, should try to brush Paine aside. On January 26, 1790, he enters in his diary: "To-day, at half-past three, I go to M. de Lafayette's. He tells me that he wishes to have a meeting of Mr. Short, Mr. Paine, and myself, to consider their judiciary, because his place imposes on him the necessity of being right. I tell him that Paine can do him no good, for that, although he has an excellent pen to write, he has but an indifferent head to think." Eight years before, Gouverneur Morris had joined Robert Morris in appealing to the author to enlighten the nation on the subject of finance and the direction of the war. He had also confessed to Paine that he had been duped by Silas Deane, who, by the way, was now justifying all that Paine had said of him by hawking his secret letter-books in London. Now, in Paris, Morris discovers that Paine has but an indifferent head to think.* Gouverneur Morris was a fascinating man. His diary and letters, always entertaining, reveal the secret of his success in twisting the Constitution and Jefferson and Washington around his fingers in several important junctures. To Paine also he was irresistible. His cordial manners disarm suspicion, and we presently find the author pouring into the ear of his secret detractor what state secrets he learns in London. On March 17, 1790, Paine left Paris to see after his Bridge in Yorkshire, now near completion. On the day before, he writes to a friend in Philadelphia how prosperously everything is going on in France, where Lafayette is acting the part of a Washington; how the political reformation is sure to influence England; and how he longs for America. "I wish most anxiously to see my much loved America. It is the country from whence all reformation must originally spring. I despair of seeing an abolition of the infernal traffic in negroes. We must push that matter further on your side of the water. I wish that a few well-instructed could be sent among their brethren in bondage; for until they are able to take their own part nothing will be done."** * "Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris." Edited by Anne Cary Morris. i., p. 286. ** One cannot help wondering how, in this matter, Paine got along with his friend Jefferson, who, at the very time of his enthusiasm for the French Revolution, had a slave in his house at Challiot. Paine was not of the philanthropic type portrayed in the "Biglow Papers": "I du believe in Freedom's cause Ez fur away ez Payris is; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Phayrisees.