While Monroe's reassuring letter to Paine was taking a month to penetrate his prison walls, he vainly grappled with the subtle obstacles. All manner of delays impeded the correspondence, the principal one being that he could present no instructions from the President concerning Paine. Of course he was fighting in the dark, having no suspicion that the imprisonment was due to his predecessor. At length, however, he received from Secretary Randolph a letter (dated July 30th), from which, though Paine was not among its specifications, he could select a sentence as basis of action: "We have heard with regret that several of our citizens have been thrown into prison in France, from a suspicion of criminal attempts against the government. If they are guilty we are extremely sorry for it; if innocent we must protect them." What Paine had said in his Memorial of collusion between Morris and the Committee of Public Safety probably determined Monroe to apply no more in that quarter; so he wrote (November 2d) to the Committee of General Surety. After stating the general principles and limitations of ministerial protection to an imprisoned countryman, he adds: "The citizens of the United States cannot look back upon the time of their own revolution without recollecting among the names of their most distinguished patriots that of Thomas Paine; the services he rendered to his country in its struggle for freedom have implanted in the hearts of his countrymen a sense of gratitude never to be effaced as long as they shall deserve the title of a just and generous people. "The above-named citizen is at this moment languishing in prison, affected with a disease growing more intense from his confinement. I beg, therefore, to call your attention to his condition and to request you to hasten the moment when the law shall decide his fate, in case of any accusation against him, and if none, to restore him to liberty. "Greeting and fraternity, "Monroe." At this the first positive assertion of Paine's American citizenship the prison door flew open. He had been kept there solely "pour les intérêts de l'Amérique," as embodied in Morris, and two days after Monroe undertook, without instructions, to affirm the real interests of America in Paine he was liberated. "Brumaire, 13th. Third year of the French Republic.--The Committee of General Surety orders that the Citizen Thomas Paine be set at liberty, and the seals taken from his papers, on sight of these presents. "Members of the Committee (signed): Clauzel, Lesage, Senault, Bentabole, Reverchon, Goupilleau de Fontenai, Rewbell. "Delivered to Clauzel, as Commissioner."*