In the new TV series about Jane Austen, I was intrigued to learn that the unfortunate husband of Jane’s flamboyant cousin was guillotined during the French Revolution. If it hadn’t been for a connection with Castle Eden and a naval surgeon, Thomas Paine may well have suffered the same fate.
In Castle Eden, the Salvin family of Sunderland Bridge had erected a factory to manufacture cotton goods. Just prior to the French Revolution they had dispatched a very valuable shipment of sail cloth to the French government. To pay for this sailcloth, the Exchange Bank had invested heavily in what appeared to be a good deal. But payment from the French government was slow to arrive, a debt of £70,000, equivalent to almost £5.5m today.
The Salvins in Revolutionary France
Mary Salvin and her brother decided to journey to France to retrieve the debt. Unfortunately for them, whilst in Paris, attempting to secure the payment, the French Revolution broke out so they were given what were later to prove, worthless assignats. However, before leaving Paris they were detained in the Luxembourg Palace, which at that time was being used as a temporary prison, holding mainly aristocrats and those who could afford to be imprisoned there.
Also imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace was Andrew Bond, a naval surgeon. He had been captured by the French during the siege of Toulon where a certain young artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte had distinguished himself.
At the same time as Andrew, Mary and her brother were imprisoned, Thomas Paine was also incarcerated in the Luxembourg. In Britain, Paine was considered a radical and revolutionary, connected with the American and French Revolutions. Yet in France he had been considered a hero, until he spoke out about the mass killings and especially opposed the execution of King Louis XVI in January 1793. Because of these outspoken beliefs, Paine was accused of treason and put into prison.
The Salvins and the Thomas Paine connection 1793-4
Thomas Paine and Andrew Bond became closely acquainted and Paine read parts of his Age of Reason to Andrew, possibly to take his mind off his expectation of himself being guillotined. Paine had a fever. He was ill. Andrew visited him more frequently and persuaded the guards to leave Thomas Paine’s cell door open, so that some fresh air could come into the room to alleviate his fever. The door remained open.
It was customary for guards to place a chalk cross on the outside of the closed door of condemned prisoners who were to be guillotined the next day. Andrew Bond was probably with Thomas Paine when the guard placed a chalk cross, not on the outside, but on the inside of Paine’s cell, possibly thinking the door would remain open as Paine was ill. Not so. After the guard had gone, a visitor, could it have been Andrew, left and closed the door behind him, probably removing the chalk cross on the inside before he left. If this was not so and it had been another visitor, Andrew Bond had been responsible for persuading the guards to open the door in the first instant to ensure fresh air cooled down Paine’s fever.
Sure enough, the next morning, those with chalk crosses on their cell doors were taken out, trundled through the jeering people-lined streets to their place of execution. Not so Thomas Paine. There was no chalk cross on the outside of his now closed prison cell so the guards walked straight past the door. This was 1793. Paine was pardoned one year later and released. On his release he could not return to Britain and eventually returned to America where he died in 1809.
Married life for Mary Salvin and Andrew Bond
As well as making friends with Thomas Paine during his imprisonment, Andrew Bond became more than friendly with Mary Salvin. Mary, her brother, and Andrew were also released from prison. They returned to England, Mary and her brother with their worthless assignats. Mary and Andrew became even more acquainted. On 13 November 1798 they were married by licence at St. Oswald’s Church Durham, with Jeffrey Salvin as their witness.
Andrew and Mary lived in Brighton. For some unknown reason, he went alone to Tours, France living in rue Fosse Saint George. Before he left England, he wrote a codicil to his will stating that because he did not want to cause his ‘beloved wife in the event of [his] death, happening at Tours or any other part of France’ any ‘anxiety’, it was his will to be ‘buried wherever he is.’ As Andrew referred to Mary as his ‘most excellent and truly affectionate wife’ there did not appear to be any estrangement. The reason for Andrew being in France is a mystery. He did die in France in 1826. There were two witnesses; a 35-year-old English doctor, William Conolley, and Stanilas Godefroy, aged 40, an upholstery merchant.
The legacy
After meeting in prison in France Andrew and Mary appear to have had a happy marriage. Thomas Paine had been saved from an untimely death. However, the factory closed in 1796. Two hundred men, boys and girls lost their jobs. The factory was demolished and houses built on the site; houses still known as the Factory today. But in 1803, the Exchange Bank stopped payment, mainly because of their bad investment. All this happened because the French government hadn’t paid promptly for their delivery of sail cloth made in Castle Eden.
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