130
The Doctor of the Rights of Man
Ian Armbruster
Monmouth College
Originally from Elmwood, Illinois, I am a senior at Monmouth College with a
major in History and minors in Classics and Political Science. I am the proud Vice
President of Monmouth’s chapter of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor
society, member of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society, and
Mortar Board. When it comes to research, I am very interested in the early modern
world of northern Europe and how religion and the onslaught of Enlightenment
ideals created a culture clash throughout the era. I intend to pursue a master's degree
in Early Modern History from a university in the U.K. at the conclusion of my
undergraduate studies. I would like especially to thank my advisor Dr. Christine
Myers, my research professor Dr. Fred Witzig, and all my friends and family who
helped me along the way for making this possible.
Abstract
Although born in 1717 in England, Dr. Richard Gem would spend most
of his adulthood studying and practicing French medicine, or French physic as it
was known. Dr. Gem’s passion for French medicine would lead him on the path to
becoming the doctor assigned to the English embassy in Paris in 1762, where he
would work for more than thirty years. Dr. Gem’s position at the embassy allowed
him to have a renaissance in political aairs while he worked closely with Thomas
Jeerson and many French patriots leading up to and during the French Revolution
of 1789. Dr. Gem’s primary and most important work involved writing foundational
ideas of essential rights for citizens that he then shared with Jeerson. It is highly
probable that Jeerson used these ideas and shared them when aiding the Marquis
de Lafayette in drafting their natural rights of man into the nal document known
as the Declaration of the Rights of Man, Lafayette’s catechism for France. Gem’s
inuence on the Declaration of the Rights of Man is revealed when one assesses the
relationship between Dr. Gem and Jeerson, considers a document that was written
by Dr. Gem and sent by Jeerson to James Madison in early 1789, and compares
the drafts for a Declaration of the Rights of Man by Lafayette throughout 1789 with
Dr. Gem’s earlier draft.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 131
On July 11, 1789, chaos reigned in the city of Paris and at the palaces in
Versailles, with disaster looming around every corner as mobs roamed the cities
due to food shortages and drought. The King’s guard openly fought royalist troops
in the streets of Versailles causing multiple casualties, and when the Assembly
became concerned, wanting all troops removed, the King denied their request.
The city streets of Paris and Versailles were a powder keg ready to explode with
revolutionary fervor, forcing the appointed Assembly into a tough decision:
conform to the King’s orders or resist him and risk arrest and condemnation.
1
It was during this tumultuous time that Lafayette stood up in the Assembly to
present his Declaration of the Rights of Man, a ten point document outlining what
he believed to be the natural rights of all men.
2
His initial remarks were given
a standing ovation and described by the members of the Assembly present as
“short but animated and expressive,” as well as having “the noble simplicity of
a hero-philosopher” and “it seemed as if we were listening to Wazington [sic]
speak to the people on a square in Philadelphia.”
3
When Lafayette nished giving
his “catechism for France,” the Assembly again erupted in uproarious applause
and the Comte de Lally-Tollendal seconded his motion for a declaration rights
by declaring, “It is tting that Lafayette be the rst to oer a declaration of rights
because he speaks of liberty as he has defended it.”
4
This foundational document has been prevalent through the centuries
to the present day, known in its original French as Déclaration des Droits de
l’Homme et du Citoyen, or in English as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and
the Citizen. It contains seventeen distinct articles as opposed to the ten originally
submitted by Lafayette. This document has been ever important and inuential,
both in understanding the parts of this document that were used in future French
Constitutions throughout the 1800s and 1900s, as well as in the charter for the
United Nations of 1948 and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
5
This document, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen,
was forged from the mind of Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de
Lafayette, Marquis de Lafayette, better known simply as Lafayette, with the help
of the American Thomas Jeerson throughout the year of 1789.
6
The historians
Margaret Maddox and Louis Gottschalk even go so far as to say, “In sum, the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen of 1789 was based more upon
his project than any one other.”
7
However, there is a relatively hidden gure lying
1. Margaret Maddox, and Louis Reichenthal Gottschalk, Lafayette in the French Revolution,
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 92.
2. Ibid, 92-93.
3. Ibid, 93.
4. Maddox, 97. Laura Auricchio, The Marquis: Lafayette Reconsidered (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2014), 182.
5. Stevenson, Douglas K, American Life and Institutions, Stuttgart, (Germany: Klett, 1996), 36.
6. Auricchio, 164-184; Thomas Jeerson and Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roc Gilbert Du Motier
Lafayette, The Letters of Lafayette and Jeerson, ed. Gilbert Chinard (New York: Arno Press, 1979).
80-82, 137-142; Susan Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light, (New York:
Faber and Faber, 1999), 143-145; Harlow G. Unger, Lafayette, (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002),
209; Dale Van Kley, ed., The French Idea of Freedom: The Old Regime and the Declaration of Rights
of 1789 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1994), 72-75.
7. Maddox, 225.
132 Armbruster
in the shadows of history who had sizeable inuence on the likes of Thomas
Jeerson and the Marquis de Lafayette.
This man’s name is Dr. Richard Gem. His inuence and importance may
not be quantiable, but the Englishman abroad, Dr. Gem, was there every step
of the way with Jeerson and Lafayette in 1789. Gem’s inuence is revealed
when one assesses the relationship between Dr. Gem and Jeerson, considers a
document that was written by Dr. Gem and sent by Jeerson to James Madison
in early 1789, and compares the drafts for a Declaration of the Rights of Man by
Lafayette throughout 1789 with Dr. Gem’s earlier draft.
Historical Context
Historians previously have shown great negligence in guring out
Dr. Gem’s works, life, and inuence around the opening year of the French
Revolution. Adrienne Koch gives him brief mention and refers more to Gem’s
thoughts and work with Thomas Paine in and around 1791.
8
In volume fteen
of his multi-volume set, The Papers of Thomas Jeerson, published in 1958,
the historian Julian P. Boyd shows us how Dr. Gem came to be of importance
in Thomas Jeerson’s life by describing not only how they met, but also how
Dr. Gem gained access to his inner circle.
9
Boyd also gives a roughly two-page
biography of Dr. Gem’s life, taken nearly word for word from John G. Alger’s
Englishmen in the French Revolution, published in 1889.
10
For the most part,
however, Dr. Gem is not mentioned at all in book after book and article after
article when historians through the years have written about Lafayette, Jeerson,
and the French Revolution. Even when Gem is mentioned, it is often one sentence
referring back to the work of Koch and Boyd in the 1950s, who themselves
reference their limited knowledge from a magazine or book from the 19th century.
In order truly to get to the bottom of Dr. Gem’s inuence on the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and its most prominent authors, Thomas
Jeerson and the Marquis de Lafayette, one must rst get to the bottom of who Dr.
Gem was and for what he stood in life. There is little written about Dr. Gem in the
historical record, and in fact his name is often misrepresented as Gesme, Ghym,
Gamm, Gam, and Gom in the rare occasions he does arise.
11
There is no doubt,
however, that these are references to him as with each misspelled name that arises
in the historical record, there is also an accompanying description of the man as
an English doctor. Even people who did claim to know him while he spent time
in France would refer to him as Dr. Gom and write in 1821 that, “It is remarkable
that so little (indeed scarcely anything in print) has been said . . . Dr. Gom was, in
body and mind, distinguished from ordinary men.”
12
8. Adrienne Koch, Jeerson and Madison, The Great Collaboration, (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1950), 52-54.
9. Thomas Jeerson, The Papers of Thomas Jeerson: 27 March 1789 to 30 November 1789, ed.
Julian P. Boyd, vol. 15 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1958), 386-387.
10. Ibid, 385-386.
11. Jeerson, 15: 384.
12. The Monthly Magazine, or, British Register. c.1 v.51 1821. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital
Library | HathiTrust Digital Library. Accessed November 12, 2018. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/
pt?id=chi.28583726;view=1up;seq=148, 138.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 133
Early Life & Enlightenment Associations
The Englishman Dr. Richard Gem was born the only child of a
gentleman, Richard Gem of Worcester, in 1717, and thus seems to have been
well o nancially.
13
His educational path, and ultimately his career path,
while untraditional, can be better described as chaotic from 1735 until his 1762
appointment to the position of Physician of the Embassy by John Russell, the 4th
Duke of Bedford and English ambassador to France.
14
Boyd says, “In 1735 he was
admitted pensioner to St. John’s College, Cambridge, but he seems to have left
without graduating. He appears to have received no medical degree, though he
may have served an apprenticeship to one of the two Gems of Worcestershire who
were physicians and who must have been related to him: one was Dr. Thomas Gem
and another was Dr. James Gem.”
15
Richard Gem’s tutor at St. John’s College of
Law at Cambridge was a Dr. Williams who pointed out to Gem that the study of
law would be the most protable, but nonetheless Gem ignored that suggestion,
deciding instead to leave the college in order to study his true passions of French
and Physic instead.
16
There is debate as to how exactly Gem became a doctor of Physic and
Medicine, but there is no debate amongst the limited sources on Gem about where
he stood politically. In a letter to James Madison, Thomas Jeerson describes Dr.
Gem as, “A very sensible man, a pure theorist, of the sect called the oeconomists,
of which Turgot was considered as the head.”
17
Boyd expands on the political and
theoretical background of Gem, calling Gem, “A successful physician, an ardent
devotee of republican principles, a friend of Diderot, Turgot, DuPont, Condorcet,
and Morellet, and of course one of those who gathered around Baron d’Holbach,
who died early in 1789.”
18
These men with whom Gem associated regularly, and
whose works he undoubtedly read, were known as political and philosophical
theorists, and some of them were also known as oeconomists. The oeconomists
were a sect that Gem, according to Jeerson, was a part of and that believed
in the economy of governance. Their goal was, “To create actors, institutional
arrangements, processes and regulations aiming to organize the production,
distribution and use of goods and services in order to guarantee human beings
the utmost possible well-being; whilst always striving to preserve and enrich
the biosphere and protect the interests, rights and power of initiative of future
13. Jeerson, 15: 385. This source actually lists his birth year as 1817, but that is clearly a typo
what with the years listed afterwards and everything known about him from other sources of the time
period. Also, when searching through Cambridge’s student records one nds that they have his birth
listed as 1716, but an Ancestry.com search reveals he was christened in December 1715, thus throwing
further confusion into the matter of his birth year.
14. Notes and Queries (London [etc.] Oxford University Press [etc.]), accessed November 12, 2018,
http://archive.org/details/a11notesqueries02londuoft, 122.
15. Jeerson, 15: 385. A pensioner means he was a paying student to the university.
16. Notes and Queries, 121. It is worth noting here that “Physic” is akin to our modern term
“physician” and meant that he was studying medicine.
17. Thomas Jeerson, The Papers of Thomas Jeerson: 8 October 1788 to 26 March 1789, ed.
Julian P. Boyd, vol. 14 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1958), 437.
18. Jeerson, 15: 384.
134 Armbruster
generations.”
19
Gem was also a follower of the oeconomist theory of Physiocracy,
which held that the wealth of a nation was derived solely from the value of
agriculture or the development of land and that all agricultural produce should be
priced high.
20
However, Gem was not only an oeconomist, he can also be referred
to as a philosophe, much like the men in France with whom he often associated.
The philosophes, French for philosophers, were the rational thinkers and
self-proclaimed scrupulous observers of the 18
th
-century Enlightenment in France
who believed that a society based around reason instead of religious fanaticism
would improve people’s ability to think critically and scientically about
social issues.
21
The philosophes also represented a move toward materialism,
determinism, and empiricism as well as a distinct move away from uncritical
acceptance of revealed providential Christianity, tradition, undemocratic political
power, and any non-naturalistic concepts of humanity.
22
These philosophers of
the French Enlightenment with whom Gem associated were diverse in social
and educational origin but recognized each other by common values, interests
and opponents.
23
The Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment further denes them by
saying,
They came to consciousness of the drama of their rejection
of inherited authority per se, and, in theory at least, of their
commitments to empirical evidence, rational analysis, nature
as the sole source of our knowledge and values, and, from their
analysis of nature, a commitment to the principle of utility.
By utility, they meant that the happiness of the species was
the highest value, and that all things should be judged by their
contribution to happiness or suering.
24
Perhaps the most famous philosophe and most famous philosophique work is by
Voltaire and is his Dictionnaire Philosophique. The renowned American historian
Peter Gay describes it and it’s purpose by saying, “Among the innumerable
polemics the philosophes poured out in the eighteenth century to pillory the
stupidity of religious men, the absurdity of religious doctrine, the viciousness of
priests, and the cruelties inspired by dogma, Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique
is the most famous.”
25
Voltaire along with Rousseau were founding names in the
philosophe movement and Gem was involved in their circles of thought throughout
his life in France. When one reads Gem’s General Principles Relating to Political
19. Pierre Calame, Why We Should Speak of the Oeconomy Rather than the Economy, and the
Denition of Oeconomy - Initiative Internationale Pour Repenser l’économie. Accessed October 11,
2018. http://www.i-r-e.org/che-analyse-226_en.html.
20. Manuela Albertone National Identity and the Agrarian Republic: The Transatlantic Commerce
of Ideas between America and France (1750–1830), (Abingdon, United Kingdom: Routledge, 2016),
95.
21. Mark Kishlansky, Patrick Geary, and Patricia O’Brien, (A Brief History of Western Civilization:
The Unnished Legacy. 5th ed. Vol. 2. Longman, 2006), 274-275.
22. Alan Charles Kors, ed., Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, vol. 3, 4 vols. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2003), 274.
23. Ibid, 268.
24. Ibid.
25. Peter Gay, ed., The Enlightenment: A Comprehensive Anthology (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1973).
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 135
State, it is clear to the reader that Gem was indeed an oeconomist, a philosophe,
and a “pure theorist” as Jeerson had described him because all of their ideals are
represented in his manuscript.
The Road to Becoming a Doctor
There is a relatively interesting span of six years in Dr. Gem’s life from
1735 until 1741 that shows what he was truly getting himself into as a scholar. The
anonymous writer in The Monthly Magazine who claimed to have known Gem in
France wrote, “In fact, in his youth he took a dislike to the generally established
system of school learning, but seemed better pleased with the instruction of a
neighbouring gentleman, characterised as a free-thinker . . . This volunteer
preceptor put into young Gem’s hands the works of Helvetius and Rousseau with
which writings he expressed himself delighted.”
26
Boyd, however, has a problem
with this image of Gem, and, upon investigating, so do I, as Helvetius and Rousseau
were both born within a few years of Dr. Gem in the 1710s and did not write their
most famous works until the 1750s and 1760s, a time when Gem was spending
a lot of time in Paris and France generally.
27
This information seems to suggest
that even a man who claimed to have met him, known him, and spent time with
him in fact hardly knew him at all or had, perhaps in this case, merely forgotten
in their old age by the time of writing their submission to The Monthly Magazine
in 1821. When it comes to what Gem read and studied, there is no denite record
to indicate that he fully knew the work of advanced thinkers and philosophers
such as Rousseau, Helvetius, or Diderot. However, we do know that he was active
in their sphere of inuence, and it is therefore reasonable to speculate that he
had detailed knowledge of at least a few of their published writings. A reader of
Helvetius would note that Helvetius was an uncompromising egalitarian when it
came to government and an individualist when discerning the citizenry.
28
It can
be argued then that Gem was knowledgeable of Helvetius, for in his General
Principles Relating to Political State, point three makes an egalitarian appeal,
saying, “The state must be homogeneous, have perfect unity in all its parts, even
constitution, and even legislation, and must not have subjects.” Additionally he
has an individualist appeal in point one saying, “Point of arbitrary distinction
between the citizens, neither nobility, nor power, nor hereditary charge.”
29
One
can argue who Gem was reading the most and what authors perhaps had more
weight on his conscience than others during his mid-life years, but their inuence
was foundational to his future political theorist renaissance.
While Dr. Gem’s political ideas are more concrete, his true educational
path to becoming a doctor is not known with one hundred percent certainty.
26. “The Monthly Magazine, or, British Register. c.1 v.51 1821. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital
Library | HathiTrust Digital Library.” Accessed November 12, 2018, 138.
27. Jeerson, 15: 385.
28. David Wootton, “Helvétius: From Radical Enlightenment to Revolution,” Political Theory 28,
no. 3 (2000): 312.
29. “Founders Online: Enclosure: Proposed Declarations of Rights Drawn by the Marqui …,”
accessed October 10, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-14-02-0209.
136 Armbruster
He most likely was not a degree holding doctor, but had studied and practiced
medicine so much and for so long that he earned the title, as was in fact relatively
common in this time period. What is known is that in 1741, Gem published an
article of fty-four pages with a long title called “An Account of the Remedy
of the Stone lately published in England…. extracted from the examinations of
this remedy, given into the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris by M. Morand
and M. Georey. By Richard Gem of the University of Cambridge.”
30
The “By
Richard Gem” alerts us to the fact that in 1741, at the age of 25, he had still not
yet received his medical degree despite his previous studies. The writer of the
Notes and Queries goes on to say that, “I am not acquainted with the nature of his
subsequent qualication. Probably it was from a foreign, if any, university.”
31
The
author also notes that by going through his own research on Dr. Richard Gem,
he found that Gem is not listed in either the London College of Physicians or the
Royal College of Surgeons, and that no librarian he consulted could nd him in
the records.
32
The anonymous writer who did not truly know Gem’s past in England,
but certainly knew him in France, gave a description of Gem that I believe shows
with a high degree of probability that Dr. Richard Gem had studied Physic
entirely under the French model, which would explain why any record of him
in the English doctoral catalogues does not exist. It also, and more importantly,
strengthens the evidence for how Dr. Gem was able to join the philosophes. The
writer said that,
It was chiey from the late Lord Stormont . . . that Dr. Gom’s
advice was required by the sick English of Paris . . . counting
the pulses by a stopwatch; and also making all the necessary
inquiries of the patient and the nurse, and giving directions even
concerning the ingredients of the buillion [sic]. These, which are
considered by the French practitioners of Physic, as requisite or
essential observations in the sick house or chamber, are, by the
English deemed almost universally unnecessary, especially by
the ycleped eminent ones, but are left to the province of the
nurse or cook.
33
This passage shows that if Dr. Gem was in fact schooled at a university in Physic,
it was almost certainly somewhere in France, not England. It also illustrates that
even if he was not properly schooled in any way to legitimately earn his Doctorate
in Physic or Medicine, that he was adequately learned enough in the ways of
French Physic to have excelled in the eld. No matter how he was trained in the
eld of French Physic, it was deemed enough to earn him the appointment as the
30. Notes and Queries, 121.
31. Notes and Queries, 121.
32. Ibid.
33. “The Monthly Magazine, or, British Register. c.1 v.51 1821. - Full View | HathiTrust Digital
Library | HathiTrust Digital Library.” Accessed November 12, 2018. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/
pt?id=chi.28583726;view=1up;seq=148, 138. Ycleped is a very archaic word that means to name or to
call. In this passage, it would currently, most likely note “so-called eminent ones” instead of ycleped
eminent ones.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 137
physician to the embassy of England in France for the rest of his life. It was there
that Dr. Gem’s devotion to republican principles would not go unnoticed by the
great Thomas Jeerson, who he met sometime in the late 1780’s, introduced to
each other by a mutual friend and fellow physician, the Italian, Phillip Mazzei,
who had known Gem for thirty-two years. In 1788, Mazzei would describe Gem,
as “One of the best men in the world and a true philosopher.”
34
A Friend of Thomas Jeerson
Politically speaking, Dr. Gem was an ardent and active republican among
the inner circle of French Revolutionaries, who met regularly at the United States
of America embassy, often in the company of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas
Jeerson.
35
It is clear from multiple letters that the Marquis de Lafayette was
calling meetings of the French patriots and republicans. This is especially made
clear in an August 25th letter to Jeerson requesting a meeting with him and eight
or so other Members of the National Assembly to discuss the Assembly’s business
and receive Jeerson’s advice and consultation on the subjects of the day over
dinner.
36
According to the historian Laura Auricchio, “Lafayette, Condorcet, and
their constitutionally minded colleagues joined together to form a faction of their
own … Lafayette and his circle claimed the name ‘patriots’ and welcomed anyone
who shared their views.”
37
In the summer of 1789, Thomas Jeerson’s Paris home
became the de facto meeting place for French patriots who, knowing his expertise
and history, asked him for his political judgements and to make recommendations
on how they should move forward.
38
These men who Gem associated with are all
famous Frenchmen and, more importantly, loud revolutionaries. Most of the men,
including Dr. Gem, were arrested later by the Jacobins, with a few being not as
fortunate as Gem, who was released before execution via guillotine.
39
The historian
Manuela Albertone, when referring to the French meetings at Jeerson’s house,
says, “An Englishmen, close to the Unitarians, Gem personied the meeting point
between the [religious] dissenters and the French philosophes.”
40
Gem was in fact
so close with these revolutionaries and their meetings that Thomas Jeerson’s
personal copy of Condorcet’s Declaration des droits, traduite de l’anglois, avec
l’original a cote shows a corrected title that reads “Declaration des Droits, par le
Marquis de Condorcet traduite en Anglois, par le Docteur Gem avec l’original a
cote,”
41
or “Declaration of Rights, translated from English, with the original,” and
“Declaration of Rights, by the Marquis de Condorcet translated into English by
34. Jeerson, 15: 385. What Mazzei said was written in the original French as, “Un des meilleurs
hommes du monde et veritable philosophe.”
35. Albertone, 95.
36. Jeerson, 15: 354.
37. Auricchio, 169.
38. Albertone, 95.
39. Jeerson, 15: 384 and 386.
40. Albertone, 95. A dissenter was someone who was an English Protestant and had shifted from
a reliance upon external authority in moral matters to their own internal authority, self-informed by
reason.
41. Jeerson, 15: 386-387.
138 Armbruster
Dr. Gem with the original.”
42
There is further evidence that Gem was often in the presence of Thomas
Jeerson and was a trusted condant in matters of a political nature. A January
11, 1789, letter from Jeerson to John Jay includes information on the character
of the Prince of Wales, veried from a source close to him that is undoubtedly
Dr. Gem. Jeerson wrote in his letter to Jay, “The information I most rely on
is from a person here with whom I am intimate, who divides his time between
Paris and London, an Englishman by birth, of truth, sagacity, and science.”
43
Boyd
himself also agrees that this was most likely Dr. Gem that Jeerson was referring
to as his informant because he was involved with the right circles and had many
opportunities to meet and talk to the Prince. The story goes that Dr. Gem, through
his status and connections that got him the embassy job, was able to secure a seat
at the table close to the Prince of Wales at a state-sponsored dinner. From there, he
was able to garner much information on the state of things in the English royalty,
the character of the Prince, and other important details of what was happening in
England to report back to Jeerson.
44
Another known occurrence of Gem being acknowledged for his work,
presence, and inuence on Jeerson, or anyone for that matter during the French
Revolution, comes from a letter Jeerson sent in 1790 after he had returned to
the United States and knew he would most likely never return to Paris. In saying
goodbye to France and Dr. Gem, Jeerson spoke candidly of Gem and what he
meant to him and his family while he stayed in Paris:
In bidding adieu, my dear Doctor, to the country which united
our residence, I nd the loss of your society and instructive
conversation among the leading circumstances of regret.
Be assured that I feel it most sensibly, and accept my warm
acknolegements [sic] for all your kindnesses and services to me
and my family while at Paris. I hope that your philanthropy is
by this time fully gratied by the nal establishment of order,
and equal government in a country which you love, and that
you will still be blessed in seeing them extended to others so
as to found a rational hope that man is at length destined to be
happy and free. Our aairs wear a very pleasing aspect.
45
Jeerson then goes on in his letter to give Gem an update on the aairs of his
family and the United States before nishing the letter by saying, “God bless
you my dear Doctor, with life & health, and be assured of the constant aections
of your sincere friend & humble servt [sic], Th: Jeerson.”
46
There is no known
reply to this letter, and it is relatively unclear whether or not Gem actually ever
received this letter that praises him and his contributions to the Jeerson family.
42. Translation done by the author with the help of a French Dictionary.
43. The Papers of Thomas Jeerson, vol. 14, 8 October 1788 - 26 March 1789, ed. Julian P. Boyd,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958), 430.
44. Jeerson, 14: 433.
45. Thomas Jeerson, The Papers of Thomas Jeerson: 30 November 1789 to 4 July 1790, ed.
Julian P. Boyd, vol. 16 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1961), 297-298.
46. The Papers of Thomas Jeerson, vol. 16, 30 November 1789–4 July 1790, ed. Julian P. Boyd,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961), 298.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 139
Regardless, this letter indicates that Dr. Gem was often present in the company of
Jeerson and was a trusted, respected member of his inner circle whose thoughts
and ideas were not only accepted, but sought after in times of need. Jeerson
hoped that Gem’s beloved France was nally in the right direction to becoming
a fully established and orderly republican government that Gem so admired, and
that what the French had done so far in turning around their government would
extend to others around the world so that they, too, would be both happy and free.
The ending of his letter shows that they had become good friends whose company
they both enjoyed quite often and very much in their short, but meaningful time
together in Paris.
The Drafts: Evidence of Gem’s Inuence
The letter Thomas Jeerson sent in 1790 signied the endpoint in his
and Dr. Gem’s transcendent relationship. However, in the late 1780s, these two
men were still together and united in the same cause since a certain fascination
with putting to paper a list of rights was sweeping both France and the United
States simultaneously. Jeerson was in the center of it all, and historian Susan
Dunn puts it best saying, “The American Minister in Paris was the living juncture
at which the two rights movements crossed paths.”
47
In a December 20
th
, 1788
letter to a friend, Thomas Jeerson observed, “All the world is occupied at present
in framing, every one [sic] his own plan of a bill of rights.”
48
He repeated his
thoughts in a January 12, 1789, letter to James Madison but putting it as, “Every
body [sic] here is trying their hands at forming declarations of rights.”
49
Jeerson
was by then the meeting point of most of the men in Paris, and most importantly
great friends with the Marquis de Lafayette. Thomas Jeerson, during the last
months of 1788 and rst few months of 1789, was meeting with and giving aid
to both the legendary American Revolutionary War General Marquis de Lafayette
and Dr. Richard Gem on their mutually inclusive quest to write a declaration of
rights for France.
In recording what the two men believed to be the natural rights of man,
Lafayette appears to have been more the pragmatist and Gem the theoretician.
In a January 12, 1789, letter to James Madison, Jeerson describes Lafayette’s
draft as “adapted to the existing abuses” while Gem’s spoke “of those possible as
well as those existing.”
50
It was Lafayette who Jeerson took more seriously and
who’s draft Jeerson had a major role in writing and inuencing. In that same
January 12
th
letter, Jeerson sent both Dr. Gem’s and Lafayette’s rst drafts of a
declaration of rights to Madison. It is important to note this triangle of inuence
anchored by Jeerson that reected back to each man portions of the others’
knowledge and expertise in political aairs. Through Jeerson, both men were
able to inuence the other.
47. Dunn, 143.
48. Jeerson, 14: 366.
49. Ibid, 437.
50. Jeerson, 14: 438.
140 Armbruster
While writing drafts throughout the rst seven months of 1789, Lafayette
would consistently call on Jeerson for aid in his writing, and even though Dr.
Gem only wrote one draft, it seems unlikely that Jeerson would forget or ignore
his company and instructive conversation. After the January 12
th
draft, there is not
another known one by Lafayette until late in June, 1789. By June, it had changed
from his original seven points in long written out paragraph form to a much
more focused list of ten points that read as shorter, more deliberate sentences. In
Jeerson’s papers accompanying this second draft of rights from Lafayette, there
is a sixteen point, bulleted list of rights written entirely in French entitled, Loix
Fondamentales d’une societe politique, which translates to “Fundamental Laws of
a Political Society.”
51
These sixteen points from late June of 1789 that accompany
Lafayette’s second draft are a shorthand form, in a slightly dierent order, with
one extra added “law” missing from the original Dr. Gem draft entitled “General
Principles Relating to Political State.” If Jeerson kept Gem and his draft in mind,
then it allows for a bridge where Jeerson’s aid to Lafayette in his writing of a
declaration of the rights of man was more than the traditionally known narrative
of a document made by only two men. Jeerson would meet with Lafayette again
and again to revise this draft before he would ultimately submit it to the Assembly
on July 11, 1789. In a July 6
th
letter to Jeerson, Lafayette concludes his letter
by asking, “Will you send me the Bill of Rights with Your Notes? I hope to see
You to Morrow [sic]. Where do You dine?”
52
In another letter dated July 9
th,
but
mostly likely from July 10
th,
Lafayette again looked for help and assistance from
Jeerson, saying, “To Morrow I present my bill of rights about the middle of
the sitting. Be pleased to Consider it Again, and Make Your observations. …
Bonjour, My dear friend, I Beg You to Answer as soon as you get up, and wish to
Hear from You about eight or Nine at last. God Bless You.”
53
Lafayette adds the
God Bless You that is not present in other letters between the two, showing how
thankful he is for his friend’s help in his endeavor. There are signicant enough
time gaps between the end of June, July 6
th
, and July 9
th
that allow for Jeerson
to have had time to review and revise Lafayette’s drafts while also sharing it with
his trusted condant, Dr. Gem. Lafayette sought Jeerson’s help in writing his
declaration and in doing so, accrued the knowledge, inspiration, and inuence of
all the other French luminaries who Jeerson associated with in Paris including
the Englishman, Dr. Richard Gem.
It is important, then, to identify the distinct details that emerge
simultaneously in Gem’s draft and in Lafayette’s that Jeerson had the privilege
of reading. Lafayette’s second draft adds six points while thoroughly editing and
reshaping what was written in his rst iteration. Therefore, it also worthwhile
to show what Gem’s draft has in common with both of Lafayette’s drafts
51. “Founders Online: Lafayette’s Draft of a Declaration of Rights, June 1789.” Accessed September
22, 2018. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-15-02-0223.
52. “Founders Online: I. Lafayette to Jeerson, 6 July 1789,” accessed November 27, 2018, http://
founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-15-02-0232-0002.
53. “Founders Online: X. Lafayette to Jeerson, 9 July 1789,” accessed November 27, 2018, http://
founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-15-02-0232-0012.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 141
simultaneously, as well as what Gem’s draft shares with only one of Lafayette’s
drafts and not the other (See Appendix). Lafayette’s rst draft shares a common
rst point with Gem’s, where Lafayette declares that nature has made men equal
and that any distinction between them should be measured on general utility.
54
Lafayette’s point here can also be seen again in his second draft where he then
makes his idea more concise by saying, “Nature has made men free and equal;
the distinctions between them are based on general utility.”
55
Lafayette’s second
point in his rst draft matches up with Gem’s fth, where Gem writes, “The civil
and criminal code, as well as all institutions whatever, must conform to universal
justice,” and Lafayette speaks of the right of man to secure aspects of his livelihood
that are eected by virtue of the laws granted to him and enforced by an equal,
legal court.
56
The main points here by Lafayette are in his second draft as well, but
are split between dierent points that refer to the rights of man, the application of
the laws, and an impartial judicial power.
There is more that connects these two men’s drafts. Another point that
they have in common is that in Lafayette’s rst draft, he outlines the doctrine
of separation of powers by speaking on the legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of government and what should be their focus. Gem does not go so
far as to outline how the government’s job is dened, but he does explain how
the country’s government should be divided, by writing, “The state must be
homogeneous, have perfect unity in all its parts, even constitution, and even
legislation.”
57
In Lafayette’s second draft, he essentially keeps what he wrote
in the rst one, but renes it by splitting it into four separate points with more
concise wording. There is a fourth and nal right that both rst drafts have in
common that are not exactly the same, but I feel as though they essentially have
the same clout. Gem’s point is verbatim freedom of the press while Lafayette’s
reads more as freedom of speech when he writes, “Man endowed with voice and
thought can not be harmed either for his opinions or for the communication of his
ideas.”
58
In Lafayette’s second draft, he also iterates this point, but makes it more
broad by writing that, “No man can be worried either for … his opinions, or the
communication of his thoughts by the word; writing or impressing.”
59
There is also one right that appears in Gem’s draft and Lafayette’s
second draft, but not his rst one, that we currently cherish wholeheartedly, as
do the French: freedom of religion. Lafayette did not include it in his rst draft
perhaps to appease the Assembly that contained three distinct branches, one of
which was the Clergy. The historians Gottschalk and Maddox agree and note that
54. “Founders Online: Enclosure: Proposed Declarations of Rights Drawn by the Marqui …,”
accessed October 10, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-14-02-0209.
55. “Founders Online: Lafayette’s Draft of a Declaration of Rights, June 1789.” Accessed September
22, 2018. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-15-02-0223.
56. “Founders Online: Enclosure: Proposed Declarations of Rights Drawn by the Marqui …,”
accessed October 10, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-14-02-0209.
57. “Founders Online: Enclosure: Proposed Declarations of Rights Drawn by the Marqui …,”
accessed October 10, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-14-02-0209.
58. Ibid.
59. “Founders Online: Lafayette’s Draft of a Declaration of Rights, June 1789.” Accessed September
22, 2018. http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-15-02-0223.
142 Armbruster
for his third and nal draft, which was submitted on the 11
th
of July, he yet again
dropped the phrase, “No man be disturbed … for his religion” and goes on to
say, “Despite Jeerson’s preferences, Lafayette was being careful not to alienate
… the clergy by explicitly including free thought.”
60
Auricchio seconds their
thoughts by stating, “Facing a fractious and frightened assembly, Lafayette was
in all likelihood more concerned with winning the support of the clergy than with
acting immediately on the matter of religious freedom.”
61
Lafayette was most
likely right at the time to leave this sentence out of his draft to the assembly so
that it would be taken seriously and not viewed as too radical for the Assembly
to adopt. Auricchio agrees, saying, “It may not have fullled all of Jeerson’s
expectations, but Lafayette’s Declaration of the Rights of Man was suciently
radical.”
62
Jeerson disagreed, and it was one of the few changes oered by
Jeerson to Lafayette that Lafayette chose not to keep in his nal draft to the
Assembly.
63
Gem has more rights of man listed in his draft than Lafayette does in
his two, which is why Jeerson said Lafayette was the pragmatist and Gem the
theoretician.
On August 26, 1789, Gem, Jeerson, and Lafayette were able to witness
the fruits of their labors when the National Assembly of France approved the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The document contained
seventeen distinct articles considered by the representatives of the French people
to be necessary and proper.
64
The rst nine of the Declaration’s articles, more than
half, were almost entirely derived from Lafayette’s rst paragraphs in his second
draft. The nal eight articles mostly stay the course with the last three paragraphs
of his second draft.
65
The only point in Lafayette’s drafts, where he wrote of future
amendment of the document by special convention that was not included in the
Declaration passed by the Assembly was in fact debated by them but in the end
not passed.
66
A few of Dr. Gem’s general principles that are nowhere to be found in
Lafayette’s drafts are in fact explicitly mentioned in the nal document passed
by the National Assembly. Gem’s twelfth point, “The single territorial tax,” is
seen in Article Thirteen, his tenth point, “The law of habeas corpus,” is seen in
Article seven, and his physiocratic tendencies towards the extreme appreciation
of property are seen in Article Seventeen.
67
It was tting for Gem to have part of
60. Maddox, 95.
61. Auricchio, 182.
62. Auricchio, 182.
63. I chose not to analyze draft number three because there are no signicant changes, only minor
word and phrasing changes that Jeerson gave to Lafayette. If one would like to read about it, Maddox
and Gottschalk go in depth in their book Lafayette in the French Revolution: Through the October
Days on pages 94-96. One can also read the draft in the motion oered by Lafayette at the Assembly
on July 11th at this link: https://www.persee.fr/doc/arcpa_0000-0000_1875_num_8_1_4654_
t2_0221_0000_19 where it is in its original French.
64. Van Kley, 1-3.
65. Maddox, 225.
66. Ibid.
67. “Founders Online: Enclosure: Proposed Declarations of Rights Drawn by the Marqui …,”
accessed October 10, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jeerson/01-14-02-0209; Van
Kley, 2-3.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 143
what he strongly believed added to the nal Declaration because, as Albertone
says, “He personally drafted a declaration inspired by Physiocracy that restricted
voting rights to ‘landowners,’ sanctioned ‘the complete liberty of industry and
commerce’ and xed ‘the single land tax’.”
68
Gem’s handwriting is all over
Lafayette’s drafts and subsequently throughout the seventeen articles passed by
the National Assembly. Dr. Gem’s inuence is recognized after assessing his
relationship with Thomas Jeerson, comparing the various drafts for a Declaration
of the Rights of Man by Lafayette with Dr. Gem’s draft, and by analyzing the nal
seventeen articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man passed by the National
Assembly.
Conclusion
In Lafayette’s opening remarks to the assembly on July 11, he contended,
“The merit of a declaration of rights consists in truth and precision; it should
say what everyone knows, what everyone feels.”
69
Dr. Gem most certainly felt
everything in his declaration, and he undoubtedly believed in what he had written.
The purpose of crafting a declaration of rights was not only for oneself, it was for
France and it was for the world. Writing a declaration was the right thing to do,
and Lafayette would also give reasons for why in his introductory remarks on the
11
th
of July by saying,
The rst reason for a declaration is to recall the sentiments that
nature has engraved on the heart of every individual and to
facilitate the development of them … The second reason is to
express these external truths from which all institutions should
be derived and to become … a loyal guide that always leads
them back to the source of natural and social right.
70
Lafayette and Gem framed their declarations of rights for France and the world to
act as the guide to natural and social rights for man. These were natural rights that
all men should be allowed to enjoy as nature intended, and that is how Lafayette,
Gem, Jeerson and their fellow French patriots saw it.
Unfortunately for Gem, he would not truly get to enjoy everything that
was accomplished through the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Gem would be constantly in and out of prison cells from 1793 until his death in
1800 at the age of eighty-three, due largely in part to his beliefs not being radical
enough during the Reign of Terror and because he was an Englishman.
71
Gem’s
life, once Jeerson returned to the United States and the French Revolution went
into full swing, can only be described as a humbling aair. An English journalist
named John G. Alger, writing in 1889 on Englishmen involved in the French
Revolution, was able to nd details on the nal years of Dr. Gem’s life in and out
68. Albertone, 95.
69. Lynn Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief History with Documents, ed.
David W. Blight and Bonnie G. Smith, 2nd ed. (Boston, Massachusetts: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016),
69.
70. Hunt, 69.
71. Jeerson, 15: 387.
144 Armbruster
of prisons. Alger notes that Gem was rst arrested in October of 1793, released
that November after nine days via an authoritative decree that exempted all
foreign doctors from arrest based on scarcity, and was then re-arrested outside of
Paris by the authorities at Versailles who placed him in jail until it was discovered
he was a doctor.
72
Alger also gives an account of what Gem was like in prison
based on an account told to Lord Malmesbury in 1796 of a cellmate of Gem’s, a
Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott, saying, “He cried the whole time and was terried
to death.”
73
It can be argued then that a reason why Dr. Gem remains so much in
the shadows of history is that some of his last days were spent in the shadows of
a prison cell and hiding in and around Paris. Unlike his friend Jeerson, whose
life made leaps and bounds post-French Revolution, Dr. Gem’s life never saw the
end of it and, instead, withered and died. Unfortunately for him, he was old and
frail at this point and could not use his work or connections in his various higher
thinking circles to boost himself; his writings given to Jeerson were his last
scholarly chapter in life and they hardly even saw the light of day. It was a sad
end to the life of a man who wrote passionately about freedom for man to have all
of his freedoms removed. However, as humbling and depressing as the last years
of his life were, it does not diminish the importance of his life’s work for human
rights by law. Certainly, Gem’s longest lasting inuence and impression on the
world is that of his work in lending his ideas to Jeerson and Lafayette in writing
and ultimately passing the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen for
themselves and posterity.
Appendix
First Draft by Lafayette First Draft by Dr. Richard Gem
Nature has made men equal, and the distinctions
between them necessitated by monarchy, have for
base, and must have as their measure, the general
utility.
Point of arbitrary distinction
between the citizens, neither
nobility, nor power, nor hereditary
charge.
The rights of man secure his property, his liberty,
his honor, his life; no infringement may be eected
except by virtue of the laws granted by him or
his representatives, previously promulgated, and
enforced by an equal tribunal.
The civil and criminal code, as
well as all institutions whatever,
must conform to universal justice.
72. John Goldworth Alger, Englishmen in the French Revolution (London S. Low, Marston, Searle
& Rivington, 1889), http://archive.org/details/englishmeninfren00algeuoft.
73. Alger, 30. The Lord Malmesbury helped Gem and, through the use of his secretaries, was able
to give witness to Dr. Gem’s nal will and testament which gave the majority of his estate back in
Worcestershire, England to his favorite nephew William Huskisson.
Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research 2019, Issue 10
Armbruster 145
All sovereignty resides essentially in the nation.
The government is divided into three powers, the
Legislative, which must be exercised principally
by a large representative assembly, freely and
frequently elected; the executive, who belongs
only to the king, whose person is sacred and the
ministers responsible; the Judiciary which must
be entrusted to courts whose sole function is
to keep the deposit of laws, and to apply them
literally to the cases submitted to them, and whose
organization and the system ensure the judges
their independence, the public their impartiality, to
the parties the means of justication, and an easy
distribution of justice.
The state must be homogeneous,
have perfect unity in all its parts,
even constitution, and even
legislation, and must not have
subjects.
Man endowed with voice and thought cannot
be harmed either for his opinions or for the
communication of his ideas, unless he has violated
the social order or the particular honor, in which
case he is subject to the law.
Freedom of the press.
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