Another paper by Paine was on "Constitutions, Governments and Charters." It was an argument to prove the unconstitutionality in New York of the power assumed by the legislature to grant charters. This defeated the object of annual elections, by placing the act of one legislature beyond the reach of its successor. He proposes that all matters of "extraordinary legislation," such as those involving grants of land and incorporations of companies, "shall be passed only by a legislature succeeding the one in which it was proposed." Had such an article been originally in the Constitution [of New York] the bribery and corruption employed to seduce and manage the members of the late legislature, in the affair of the Merchants' Bank, could not have taken place. It would not have been worth while to bribe men to do what they had no power of doing. Madame Bonneville hated country life, and insisted on going to New York. Paine was not sorry to have her leave, as she could not yet talk English, and did not appreciate Paine's idea of plain living and high thinking. She apparently had a notion that Paine had a mint of money, and, like so many others, might have attributed to parsimony efforts the unpaid author was making to save enough to give her children, practically fatherless, some start in life. The philosophic solitude in which he was left at New Rochelle is described in a letter (July 31st) to John Fellows, in New York. "It is certainly best that Mrs. Bonneville go into some family as a teacher, for she has not the least talent of managing affairs for herself. She may send Bebia up to me. I will take care of him for his own sake and his father's, but that is all I have to say.... I am master of an empty house, or nearly so. I have six chairs and a table, a straw-bed, a featherbed, and a bag of straw for Thomas, a tea kettle, an iron pot, an iron baking pan, a frying pan, a gridiron, cups, saucers, plates and dishes, knives and forks, two candlesticks and a pair of snuffers. I have a pair of fine oxen and an ox-cart, a good horse, a Chair, and a one-horse cart; a cow, and a sow and 9 pigs. When you come you must take such fare as you meet with, for I live upon tea, milk, fruit-pies, plain dumplins, and a piece of meat when I get it; but I live with that retirement and quiet that suit me. Mrs. Bonneville was an encumbrance upon me all the while she was here, for she would not do anything, not even make an apple dumplin for her own children. If you cannot make yourself up a straw bed, I can let you have blankets, and you will have no occasion to go over to the tavern to sleep.