* Mrs. Bayeaux is mentioned in Paine's letter about Dederick's attempt on his life. "But I wish you to be assured that whatever event this proposal may take it will make no alteration in my principles or my conduct I have been a volunteer to the world for thirty years without taking profits from anything I have published in America or Europe. I have relinquished all profits that those publications might come cheap among the people for whom they were intended--Yours in friendship." This was followed by another note (November 14th) asking if it had been received. What answer came from the President does not appear. About this time Paine published an essay on "The cause of the Yellow Fever, and the means of preventing it in places not yet infected with it Addressed to the Board of Health in America." The treatise, which he dates June 27th, is noticed by Dr. Francis as timely. Paine points out that the epidemic which almost annually afflicted New York, had been unknown to the Indians; that it began around the wharves, and did not reach the higher parts of the city. He does not believe the disease certainly imported from the West Indies, since it is not carried from New York to other places. He thinks that similar filthy conditions of the wharves and the water about them generate the miasma alike in the West Indies and in New York. It would probably be escaped if the wharves were built on stone or iron arches, permitting the tides to cleanse the shore and carry away the accumulations of vegetable and animal matter decaying around every ship and dock. He particularly proposes the use of arches for wharves about to be constructed at Corlder's Hook and on the North River. Dr. Francis justly remarks, in his "Old New York," that Paine's writings were usually suggested by some occasion. Besides this instance of the essay on the yellow fever, he mentions one on the origin of Freemasonry, there being an agitation in New York concerning that fraternity. But this essay---in which Paine, with ingenuity and learning, traces Freemasonry to the ancient solar mythology also identified with Christian mythology--was not published during his life. It was published by Madame Bonneville with the passages affecting Christianity omitted. The original manuscript was obtained, however, and published with an extended preface, criticizing Paine's theory, the preface being in turn criticized by Paine's editor. The preface was probably written by Colonel Fellows, author of a large work on Freemasonry. CHAPTER XVIII. A NEW YORK PROMETHEUS