-P165 
 1908 
 v.l 
 
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 .1 ii li ^-J/ .. 
 
 
 CONTAINING A BIOGRAPHY BY THOMAS 
 CLIO RICKMAN AND APPRECIATIONS BY 
 LESLIE STEPHEN, LORD ERSKINE, PAUL 
 DESJARDINS, ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, 
 ELBERT HUBBARD AND MARILLA M. RICKER 
 
 EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY 
 
 DANIEL EDWIN WHEELER 
 
 VINCENT PARKE AND COMPANY 
 NEW YORK 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY 
 VINCENT PARKE AND COMPANY 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATION! 
 
 OF 
 
 THOMAS PAINE 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction ------- ix 
 
 Rickman Preface ------ xvii 
 
 Life of Thomas Paine 
 
 By Thomas Clio Rickman - - - 1 
 
 Erskine's Defense of Paine 86 
 
 Thomas Paine: Father of Republics 
 
 By Paul Desjardins - 197 
 
 Paine in the American Revolution 
 
 By Leslie Stephen - 275 
 
 Thomas Paine. By Robert G. Ingersoll - 287 
 
 A Little Journey to the Home of Thomas 
 
 Paine. By Elbert Hubbard - 311 
 
 A Square Deal 
 
 By Marilla M. Ricker - 342 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Thomas Paine ----- Frontispiece 
 
 Goupilgravure from an Engraving by Will- 
 iam Sharp of the Original Painting by 
 George Romney 
 
 Lord Erskine - - - - - -196 
 
 Photogravure from an old Engraving by 
 George E. Perine of the Original Painting 
 
 The Thomas Paine Farm - 274 
 
 Photogravure from an Original Photograph 
 of the Home of Thomas Paine at New Ro- 
 chelle, N.Y. 
 
 Monument to Thomas Paine - - - - 310 
 Photogravure from an Original Photograph 
 of the Monument at New Rochelle, N.Y. 
 
 Vll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 NEITHER biographical nor critical disqui- 
 sition is necessary here, for the eminent 
 writers presented in this volume cover every es- 
 sential point in the career of Thomas Paine. Es- 
 pecially worthy of note is our international 
 critique on the extraordinary writings and world- 
 wide services of the most illustrious apostle 
 of freedom mankind has ever known. Combine 
 the candid, intimate account of Paine by his 
 bosom friend, Thomas Clio Rickman; the mar- 
 velous forensic effort made in behalf of "Rights 
 of Man" by Lord Erskine; the charming bit of 
 appreciation from the scholarly pen of Leslie 
 Stephen ; the keen psychological analysis of Paul 
 Desjardins, whose essay is now translated into 
 English for the first time ; the eloquent oration by 
 Robert Ingersoll; the brilliant contributions by 
 Elbert Hubbard and Marilla M. Ricker, and to- 
 gether they form a literary symposium of excep- 
 tional strength, representative of the three coun- 
 tries for which Paine incessantly, unselfishly la- 
 bored. Only a succinct resume of his achieve- 
 ments will, therefore, be possible or permissible in 
 this place. To facilitate the purpose an effort 
 will be made to draw up a scenario of that thril- 
 ling drama, the life-work of Thomas Paine, 
 author-hero. 
 
 The prologue, extending over a period of 
 thirty-seven years, is not too promising, unless 
 the reader is prepared to find in repeated failures 
 stimuli to success. Everything Paine followed, 
 
 ix 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 whether as staymaker, sailor, teacher, exciseman 
 or tobacconist, led him to the same bitter end — 
 failure. Two things, however, he could do : argue 
 and write. As a disputant he was locally famed, 
 and as a writer he displayed unusual power in 
 his plea for his fellow excisemen. Benjamin 
 Franklin, coming into his life, was the shrewd and 
 wise stage manager who advised a change of 
 scene, and Paine embarked for America, where 
 began the great first act of his noble life. But 
 before opening that act it would be well to 
 touch upon one significant, though mooted, phase 
 of the prologue. According to a well-founded 
 theory — at least as good as any competitive one 
 — Paine was Junius, and this has been proved by 
 skilful and subtle analogy. Howbeit, it is re- 
 ferred to here simply to arouse curiosity and 
 speculation, and perhaps will instigate further 
 research. In any event the supposition that 
 Paine and Junius were the same individual partly 
 explains the amazing authorship of the former 
 upon reaching these shores. 
 
 Arriving in America, Paine became a tutor, 
 but the opportunity offered itself for him to edit 
 the Pennsylvania Magazine, and from the begin- 
 ning his contributions were strikingly original. 
 One article advocated the abolition of negro 
 slavery, and may be said to have anticipated the 
 Emancipation Proclamation by a century, (and 
 it should be remembered that Lincoln in his 
 twenties read Paine with enthusiasm) ; another 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 essay was directed against the evil of dueling ; an- 
 other dealt with the "woman question" and urged 
 the civil and social rights of the fair sex ; while still 
 another favored the formation of societies to pre- 
 vent cruelty to animals and children. All of which 
 were in advance of Nineteenth Century reforms. 
 
 Then this seer "with genius in his eyes" wrote 
 a paper called "A Serious Thought" which was 
 the Declaration of Independence in embryo. 
 This was eight months before the epoch-making 
 charter of American freedom was drawn. Apro- 
 pos of that immortal document, many believe 
 Paine its author. At least it is known Jefferson 
 was in constant communication with Paine, and 
 to the latter is credited, without question, the 
 clause against slavery, which was stricken out of 
 the Declaration by Congress. If that clause had 
 remained the Civil War had not been fought. Its 
 author alone in his time foresaw the consequences 
 of slavery. He, too, stands responsible for the 
 anti-slavery preamble to the act passed by the 
 Pennsylvania Assembly March 1, 1870. 
 
 To return to the magazine writer: while 
 Washington was deprecating the possibility of 
 separation from the mother country, and while 
 Franklin was in England reassuring that Gov- 
 ernment of peaceful measures on the part of the 
 colonies, Paine realized the inevitable rupture. 
 Heart and soul aflame, he turned over the ques- 
 tion day and night — the result was "Common 
 Sense," the pamphlet that decided the destiny of 
 
 xi 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the United States. It sounded the tocsin of re- 
 bellion, and war enveloped the country. Shoul- 
 dering a musket, Paine joined the rank and file, 
 and won reputation as a brave soldier. Then, 
 during the darkest hours of the strife he took up 
 his pen and wrote his first "Crisis," which infused 
 courage into the army. From time to time, as 
 occasion demanded, he penned similar papers, 
 and so he deserves to be called the Tyrtaeus of 
 the American Revolution. Nor must be forgot- 
 ten the services rendered the cause when, with 
 Colonel Laurens, Paine went to France, where 
 they borrowed money with which to feed and 
 clothe the suffering soldiers; and again when 
 Paine headed with a five-hundred dollar subscrip- 
 tion (practically all his money) a fund to sup- 
 port the war. In passing it may be mentioned 
 that this action resulted in the establishment of 
 the Bank of North America. 
 
 After the close of the Revolutionary War he 
 urged stronger union among the States, and 
 pointed out the necessity of a Constitution. 
 About this time his invaluable services were rec- 
 ognized by Pennsylvania and Congress, both of 
 which voted him money, and by New York, which 
 granted him some two hundred acres in New 
 Rochelle. There was nothing exceptionally gen- 
 erous in these actions, for Paine had given the 
 copyright of his unequaled pamphlets to every 
 state, and had labored unceasingly for the cause 
 with meager recompense, 
 xii 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 His design of a model for an iron bridge led 
 Paine to cross the ocean for the approval of 
 French scientists, and also opened the stormy 
 second act of his life-drama. Its details are com- 
 prehensively given in the present volume, but 
 there is no resisting the temptation to allude to 
 his extraordinary role in the French Revolution, 
 after he had written the "Rights of Man." That 
 book had convulsed England and its fearless au- 
 thor had been condemned. Escaping the officers 
 of the King, Paine fled to Paris, where he was 
 made a citizen. Then followed wonderful months 
 of counsel in shaping the new republic, all to no 
 end, for Paine was thrown into prison, where he 
 languished upwards of a year, unheeded, ne- 
 glected. By a seeming miracle he escaped the 
 guillotine. During these days of horror and 
 blood, Paine wrote his most maltreated and most 
 misunderstood book, "The Age of Reason," which 
 was originally given to the world to counteract 
 the spread of atheism! Distinctly and repeat- 
 edly he affirms his belief in a Supreme Being. 
 Confirmatory of this we witness him founding a 
 Theophilanthropist Society for the worship of 
 God and the love of fellow-men. Thus he became 
 a pioneer in the field of theistic and ethical bodies. 
 But Theophilanthropy was swept away by the 
 Concordat between Napoleon and the Pope. 
 
 Disappointed in both political and religious 
 ideals in France, Paine turned his face toward 
 his "beloved America," and at that point begins 
 
 xiii 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the sad last act of our drama. Instead of a haven 
 of peace, he found the United States a nest of 
 vipers. Forgotten were his heroic services in the 
 Revolution, because he had turned "infidel." 
 Therefore, his declining years were made miser- 
 able, and his death welcomed by the inhabitants 
 of the country he had helped to create. 
 
 For giving to America his "Common Sense" 
 and "Crisis," for giving to England and France 
 his "Rights of Man," for giving to the world his 
 "Age of Reason," for endeavoring to give politi- 
 cal and religious liberty to mankind — he was 
 prosecuted, burnt in effigy in England, cast into 
 prison and condemned to death in France, and vil- 
 ified and rejected by America. Because he advo- 
 cated the "religion of humanity" and the "repub- 
 lic of the world" he was deprived of country and 
 creed, doomed to wander the earth in pursuit of 
 his glorious dream, which was not to be realized. 
 
 But let us, as an epilogue to our rapidly 
 sketched drama, recapitulate the undeniable and 
 undying thoughts and activities of Thomas 
 Paine. 
 
 He was first to advocate the emancipation of 
 the negro in America. 
 
 He was first to say "the American nation," 
 "the Free and Independent States of America." 
 
 He was first to propose constitutional govern- 
 ment to the United States. 
 
 He was first to form a plan of international 
 arbitration. 
 
 xiv 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 He was a pioneer in national and internation- 
 al copyright. 
 
 He was an early supporter of the plan to pur- 
 chase Louisiana from France. 
 
 He was a pioneer in the question of the rights 
 of women. 
 
 He was first to propose and see the advan- 
 tages of commercial alliance between the great 
 countries of Europe and the United States. 
 
 He was largely responsible for the organiza- 
 tion of the Bank of North America. 
 
 Had France heeded him the Reign of Terror 
 would never have come to pass. 
 
 Had the United States heeded him the Civil 
 War could not have happened. 
 
 He projected land reforms more practical 
 than those of Henry George. 
 
 He outlined an industrial and wage system 
 more practical than the socialist schemes of latter 
 days. 
 
 He invented the first iron bridge used in 
 Europe. 
 
 He inferred that the fixed stars were suns, 
 twenty years before Herschel. 
 
 He rightfully surmised the cause of, and 
 thereby pointed to the remedy for yellow fever. 
 
 He devised the plan to utilize small ex- 
 plosions of gun powder to run an engine. 
 
 He was one of the first to suggest the applica- 
 tion of steam to vessels — in fact, had made plans 
 for steamboats seven years before John Fitch. 
 
 xv 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 He forged a model of a crane with an im- 
 proved lever; invented a planing machine; and 
 experimented on a smokeless candle. 
 
 Does this man not deserve the honor of being 
 called the Eighteenth Century Archimedes, as 
 well as its political and religious prophet? 
 
 History continually revises her statements at 
 the command of truth, and the latter is slowly, cer- 
 tainly rehabilitating the name and fame of Paine. 
 The slime of a mythology which has for over a 
 century stained his reputation is disappearing and 
 the prophet pamphleteer is coming into his own. 
 
 Villainous type and paper have been usually 
 employed to print the writings of our author, but 
 at last we hope to have provided a format worthy 
 of the mighty man who changed the course of 
 the world with his pen. This edition, the reader 
 will observe, presents all of Paine's writings in 
 modern spelling, save in few instances where it 
 has been thought better to preserve a character- 
 istic word of the author. For greater clearness 
 new punctuation has been substituted. Finally, 
 attention is called to the condensation of the 
 Rickman "Life," from which have been cut 
 lengthy quotations from Paine, all of which are 
 in the body of the work. Unnecessary repetition 
 is thereby avoided. 
 
 Acknowledgments are gratefully made to 
 Mr. C. P. Farrell for the reprint of the Ingersoll 
 oration, and to Elbert Hubbard and Marilla M. 
 Ricker for the kind permission to use their es- 
 says. 
 
 xvi 
 
PREFACE TO RICKMAN'S "LIFE" 
 
 THE two following letters are explanatory 
 of the reasons why the publication of the 
 life of Mr. Paine has been so long delayed, 
 and are so well calculated to excite the candor of 
 the reader toward the work, that no apology is 
 offered for making them a part of the preface. 
 
 "To the Editor of the Universal Magazine: 
 [November, 1811.] 
 
 "ON MR. CLIO RICKMAN^ SUPPOSED UNDERTAKING 
 OF THE "LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE' 
 
 "Sir: The public has been, within the last 
 year or two, led to expect a Life of the celebrated 
 Thomas Paine, from the pen of Mr. Clio Rick- 
 man, well known, on various accounts, to be more 
 thoroughly qualified for that task than any other 
 person in this country. 
 
 "This information, however, I repeat as I re- 
 ceived it, uncertain whether it came abroad in 
 any authenticated shape; and can only add, that 
 no doubt need be entertained of sufficient atten- 
 tion from the public in times like the present, to 
 a well-written life of that extraordinary charac- 
 
 xvii 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 ter, whose principles and precepts are at this 
 moment in full operation over the largest and 
 richest portion of the habitable globe, and which 
 in regular process of time may, from the effica- 
 cious influence of the glorious principles of free- 
 dom, become the grand theater of civilization. 
 
 "I have often desired to make a communica- 
 tion of this kind to your magazine, but am par- 
 ticularly impelled thereto at this moment, from 
 observing in some periodical publications devoted 
 to political and religious bigotry, a sample of 
 their usual sophistical accounts of the last mo- 
 ments of men who have been in life eminent for 
 the independence and freedom of their opinions ; 
 but the whole that the bigot to whom I allude 
 has been able to effect in the case of Mr. Paine, 
 amounts to an acknowledgment that the philoso- 
 pher died steadfast to those opinions of religion 
 in which he had lived ; and the disappointment is 
 plain enough to be seen, that similar forgeries 
 could not, with any prospect of success, be cir- 
 culated concerning Paine's tergiversation and 
 death-bed conversion, which were so greedily 
 swallowed for a length of time by the gulls of 
 fanaticism respecting Voltaire, D'Alembert, and 
 others, until the Monthly Review, in the real 
 spirit of philosophy, dispelled the imposition, 
 xviii 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 "The late 'Life of Thomas Paine' by Chee- 
 tham of New York, gave rise to the above mag- 
 azine article. Cheetham, humph! Now should 
 it not rather be spelled Cheat'em, as applicable 
 to every reader of that farrago of imposition and 
 malignity, miscalled the 'Life of Paine'? 
 
 "Probably it may be but a traveling name in 
 order to set another book a-traveling, for the pur- 
 pose of scandalizing and maligning the reputa- 
 tion of a defunct public man, instead of the far 
 more difficult task of confuting his principles. 
 
 "Nothing can be more in course than this 
 conjecture, authorized indeed by the following 
 fact, with which I believe the public is, to this 
 day, unacquainted; namely, that Mr. Chalmers 
 publicly at a dinner acknowledged himself the 
 author of that very silly and insipid catchpenny, 
 formerly sent abroad under the misnomer of a 
 'Life of Thomas Paine, by F. Oldys, of 
 America.' 
 
 "The chief view of this application is to ascer- 
 tain whether or not Mr. Rickman really intends 
 to undertake the work in question. 
 
 "I am, Sir, etc., etc. 
 
 "Politictjs." 
 
 XIX 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Universal Magazine,, December, 1811. 
 "me. clio bickman's reply to politicus 
 
 "Sir: If you had done me the favor of a call, 
 I would readily have satisfied all your inquiries 
 about the 'Life of Mr. Paine.' 
 
 "It is true I had the memoirs of that truly 
 wise and good man in a great state of forward- 
 ness about a year ago; but a series of the most 
 severe and dreadful family distresses since that 
 time have rendered me incapable of completing 
 them. 
 
 "Though an entire stranger to me (for I 
 have not the least idea from whom the letter I 
 am replying to came), I feel obliged to you for 
 the liberal opinion therein expressed of me and 
 of my fitness for the work. 
 
 "I have taken great pains that the life of my 
 friend should be given to the world as the sub- 
 ject merits; and a few weeks, whenever I can sit 
 down to it, will complete it. 
 
 "Unhappily, Cheetham is the real name of a 
 real apostate. He lived, when Mr. Paine was 
 my inmate in 1792, at Manchester, and was a 
 violent and furious idolater of his. 
 
 "That Mr. Paine died in the full conviction 
 of the truth of the principles he held when living 
 xx 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 I shall fully prove, and should have answered 
 the contemptible trash about his death, so indus- 
 triously circulated, but that the whole account 
 exhibited on the face of it fanatical fraud ; and it 
 was pushed forward in a mode and manner so 
 ridiculous and glaringly absurd, as to carry with 
 it its own antidote. 
 
 "Such Christians would be much better em- 
 ployed in mending their own lives, and showing 
 in them an example of good manners and morals, 
 than in calumniating the characters and in de- 
 tailing silly stories of the deaths of those Deists 
 who have infinitely outstripped them, in their 
 journey through life, in every talent and virtue, 
 and in diffusing information and happiness 
 among their fellowmen. 
 
 "I again beg the favor of a call, as the cir- 
 cumstances attached to the query of yours, and 
 the delays and hindrances, which are of a family 
 and distressing nature, to the publication of Mr. 
 Paine's life, are better adapted for private than 
 for public discussion. 
 
 "I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 "Clio Hickman." 
 
 It may not be necessary for me to promise 
 anything further than to say, that I affect not 
 
 xxi 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to rank with literary men, nor, as they rise, do I 
 wish it; that authorship is neither my profession 
 nor pursuit; and that, except in an undeviating 
 attention to truth, and a better acquaintance with 
 Mr. Paine and his life than any other man, I am 
 perhaps the most unfit to arrange it for the pub- 
 lic eye. 
 
 What I have hitherto written and published 
 has arisen out of the moment, has been composed 
 on the spur of the occasion, inspired by the 
 scenery and circumstances around me, and pro- 
 duced abroad and at home, amid innumerable 
 vicissitudes, the hurry of travel, business, pleas- 
 ure, and during a life singularly active, eventful 
 and checkered. 
 
 Latterly, too, that life has been begloomed 
 by a train of ills which have trodden on each 
 other's heel, and which, added to the loss of my 
 inspirer, my guide, my genius, and my muse; of 
 her,, the most highly qualified and best able to 
 assist me, have rendered the work peculiarly irk- 
 some and oppressive. 
 
 In the year 1802, on my journey from 
 France, I had the misfortune to lose my desk of 
 papers — a loss I have never lamented more than 
 on the present occasion. Among these were Mr. 
 Paine's letters to me, particularly those from 
 xxii 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 France in the most interesting years to Europe, 
 1792, 1793. Not a scrap of these, together with 
 some of his poetry, could I ever recover. By 
 this misfortune the reader will lose much enter- 
 taining and valuable matter. 
 
 These memoirs [1819] have remained un- 
 touched from 1811 till now, and have not received 
 any addition of biographical matter since. They 
 were written by that part of my family who were 
 at hand, as I dictated them; by those loved be- 
 ings of whom death has deprived me, and from 
 whom other severe ills have separated me. The 
 manuscript, on these and many other accounts, 
 awakens "busy meddling memory/' and tortures 
 me with painful remembrances ; and save that it 
 is a duty I owe to the public and to the memory 
 and character of a valued friend, I should not 
 have set about its arrangement. 
 
 My heart is not in it. There are literary pro- 
 ductions, which, like some children, though dis- 
 agreeable to everybody else, are still favorites 
 with the parent: this offspring of mine is not of 
 this sort, it hath no such affection. 
 
 Thus surrounded, and every way broken in 
 upon by the most painful and harassing circum- 
 stances, I claim the reader's candor; and I now 
 
 xxiii 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 literally force myself to the publication of Mr. 
 Paine's Life, lest it should again be improperly 
 done, or not be done at all, and the knowledge of 
 so great and good a man be thereby lost to the 
 world. 
 
 The engraving of Mr. Paine, prefixed to this 
 work, is the only true likeness of him; it is from 
 his portrait by Romney, and is perhaps the great- 
 est likeness ever taken by any painter: to that 
 eminent artist I introduced him in 1792, and it 
 was by my earnest persuasion that he sat to him. 
 
 Mr. Paine in his person was about five feet 
 ten inches high ; and rather athletic ; he was broad- 
 shouldered, and latterly stooped a little. 
 
 His eye, of which the painter could not con- 
 vey the exquisite meaning, was full, brilliant, and 
 singularly piercing; it had in it the "muse of fire." 
 In his dress and person he was generally very 
 cleanly, and wore his hair cued, with side curls, 
 and powdered, so that he looked altogether like 
 a gentleman of the old French school. 
 
 His manners were easy and gracious; his 
 knowledge was universal and boundless; in pri- 
 vate company and among friends his conversation 
 had every fascination that anecdote, novelty and 
 xxiv 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 truth could give it. In mixed company and 
 among strangers he said little, and was no public 
 speaker. 
 
 Thus much is said of him in general, and in 
 this place, that the reader may the better bear us 
 company in his Life. 
 
 XXV 
 
LIFE OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 By Thomas Clio Rickman 
 
 THE following memoirs of Mr. Paine, if 
 they have no other merit, at least have that 
 of being true. 
 
 Europe and America have for years been in 
 possession of his works: these form the most im- 
 portant part of his life, and these are publicly 
 sold and generally read; nor will the spirit of 
 inquiry and sound reasoning, which the publica- 
 tion of them is so well calculated to promote, be 
 long confined to any part of the world; for, to 
 use his own words, "An army of principles will 
 penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot. It 
 will succeed where diplomatic management would 
 fail. It is neither the Rhine, the Channel, nor 
 the Ocean, that can arrest its progress. It will 
 march on the horizon of the world, and it will 
 conquer." 
 
 "What manner of man" Mr. Paine was, his 
 works will best exhibit, and from these his public, 
 and much of his private character, will be best 
 ascertained. But, as solicitude about the life 
 of a great man and an extraordinary writer is 
 
 1 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 common to all, it is here attempted to be gratified. 
 
 The Life of Mr. Paine by Francis Oldys was 
 written seventeen years before Mr. Paine's death ; 
 and was in fact, drawn up by a person employed 
 by a certain lord, and who was to have five hun- 
 dred pounds for the job, if he calumniated and 
 belied him to his lordship's and the Ministry's 
 satisfaction. 
 
 A continuation of this Life, printed at Phil- 
 adelphia in 1796, is in the same strain as the 
 above, and equally contemptible. 
 
 A most vile and scandalous memoir of Paine, 
 with the name of William Cobbett as the author, 
 though we hope he was not so, appeared in Lon- 
 don about the year 1795 with this motto: 
 
 A life that's one continued scene 
 Of all that's infamous and mean. 
 
 Mr. James Cheetham's Life of Mr. Paine, 
 published at New York after Mr. Paine's death 
 in 1809, is a farrago of still more silly, trifling, 
 false and malicious matter. It is an outrageous 
 attack upon Paine which bears upon the face of 
 it, idle gossiping and gross misrepresentation. 
 
 The critique of this Life, in the British Re- 
 view for June, 1811, consists of more corrupt 
 trash about Mr. Paine than even Cheetham's book 
 2 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 and is in its style inflated and bombastic to a 
 laughable excess. Whence this came, and for 
 what purpose published, the candid will readily 
 discern and cannot but lament the too frequent 
 abuse, both by the tongue and by the pen, of char- 
 acters entirely unknown to those who libel them, 
 and by whom, if they were known, they would 
 be approved and esteemed. 
 
 Indeed the whole of these works are so ridicu- 
 lously overstrained in their abuse that they carry 
 their own antidote with them. 
 
 The Life by Cheetham is so palpably written 
 to distort, disfigure, mislead, and vilify, and does 
 this so bunglingly, that it defeats its own pur- 
 poses, and becomes entertaining from the excess 
 of its labored and studied defamation. 
 
 It is indeed "guilt's blunder," and subverts all 
 it was intended to accomplish. It is filled with 
 long details of uninteresting American matter, 
 bickering letters of obscure individuals, gossiping 
 stories of vulgar fanatics, prejudiced political 
 cant and weak observations on theology. 
 
 It may be supposed, from my long and affec- 
 tionate intercourse with Mr. Paine, that these 
 memoirs will have an opposite bias, and portray 
 a too flattering and exalted character of him. 
 To this I reply, that I am not disposed to 
 
 3 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 advocate the errors or irregularities of any man, 
 however intimate with him, nor to suffer the par- 
 tialities of friendship to prevent the due appreci- 
 ation of character, or induce me to disregard the 
 hallowed dictates of truth. 
 Paine was of those — 
 
 Who, wise by centuries before the crowd, 
 Must by their novel systems, though correct, 
 
 Of course offend the wicked, weak and proud — 
 Must meet with hatred, calumny, neglect. 
 
 In his retirement to America, toward the close 
 of his life, Mr. Paine was particularly unfortu- 
 nate; for, as the author of the "Age of Reason," 
 he could not have gone to so unfavorable a quar- 
 ter of the world. 
 
 A country abounding in fanatics, could not 
 be a proper one for him whose mind was bold, in- 
 quiring, liberal and soaring, free from prejudice, 
 and who from the principle was a Deist. 
 
 Of all wrath, fanatical wrath is the most in- 
 tense ; nor can it be a matter of surprise that Mr. 
 Paine received from great numbers in America, 
 an unwelcome reception, and was treated with 
 neglect and illiberality. 
 
 It is true on his return to that country in 1802, 
 he received great attention from many of those 
 who remembered the mighty influence of his 
 4 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 writings in the gloomy period of the Revolution ; 
 and from others who had since embraced his prin- 
 ciples; but these attentions were by many not 
 long continued. 
 
 Thousands, who had formerly looked up to 
 Mr. Paine as the principal founder of the Repub- 
 lic, had imbibed a strong dislike to him on account 
 of his religious principles; and thousands more, 
 who were opposed to his political principles, 
 seized hold of the mean and dastardly expedient 
 of attacking those principles through the relig- 
 ious feelings and prejudices of the people. The 
 vilest calumnies were constantly vented against 
 him in the public papers, and the weak-minded 
 were afraid to encounter the popular prejudice. 
 
 The letter he wrote to General Washington 
 also estranged him from many of his old friends, 
 and has been to his adversaries a fruitful theme 
 of virulent accusation, and a foundation on which 
 to erect a charge of ingratitude and intemper- 
 ance. It must certainly be confessed that his 
 naturally warm feelings, which could ill brook 
 any slight, particularly where he was conscious 
 he so little deserved it, appear to have led him 
 to form a somewhat precipitate judgment of the 
 conduct of the American President, with regard 
 
 5 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to his (Mr. Paine's) imprisonment in France, 
 and to attribute to design and wilful neglect what 
 was probably only the result of inattention or 
 perhaps of misinformation; and under the influ- 
 ence of this incorrect impression he seems to have 
 indulged, rather too hastily, suspicions of Wash- 
 ington's political conduct with respect to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 But surely some little allowance should be 
 made for the circumstances under which he wrote ; 
 just escaped from the horrors of a prison where 
 he had been for several months confined under 
 the sanguinary reign of Robespierre, when death 
 strode incessantly through its cells, and the guil- 
 lotine floated in the blood of its wretched inhabi- 
 tants ; and if, with the recollection of these scenes 
 of terror fresh in his memory, and impressed with 
 the idea that it was by Washington's neglect 
 that his life had been thus endangered, he may 
 have been betrayed into a style of severity which 
 was perhaps not quite warranted, we can only la- 
 ment, without attaching blame to either, that 
 anything jarring should have occurred between 
 two men who were both stanch supporters of the 
 cause of freedom, and thus have given the ene- 
 mies of liberty occasion to triumph because its 
 advocates were not more than mortal. 
 6 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 The dark and troublous years of the Revo- 
 lution having passed away, and a government 
 being firmly established, wealth possessed more 
 influence than patriotism; and, a large portion 
 of the people consisting of dissenters, fanaticism 
 was more predominant than toleration, candor 
 and charity. 
 
 These causes produced the shameful and un- 
 grateful neglect of Mr. Paine in the evening of 
 his days ; of that Paine who by his long, faithful, 
 and disinterested services in the Revolution, and 
 afterwards by inculcating and enforcing correct 
 principles, deserved, above all other men, the 
 most kind and unremitting attention from, and 
 to be held in the highest estimation by, the Amer- 
 ican people. 
 
 There were indeed a chosen and enlightened 
 few, who, like himself "bold enough to be honest 
 and honest enough to be bold," feeling his value, 
 continued to be his friends to his last hour. 
 
 Paine was not one of the great men who live 
 amid great events, and forward and share their 
 splendor; he created them; and, in this point of 
 view, he was a very superior character to Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 Mr. Paine having ever in his mind the services 
 he had rendered the United States, of whose in- 
 
 7 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 dependence he was the principal author and 
 means, it cannot be a matter of wonder that he 
 was deeply hurt and affected at not being recog- 
 nized and treated by the Americans as he de- 
 served, and as his labors for their benefit merited. 
 
 Shunned where he ought to have been 
 caressed, coldly neglected where he ought to have 
 been cherished, thrown into the background where 
 he ought to have been prominent, and cruelly 
 treated and calumniated by a host of igno- 
 rant and canting fanatics, it cannot be a subject 
 of surprise, though it certainly must of regret, 
 that he sometimes, toward the close of his life, 
 fell into the too frequent indulgence of stimu- 
 lants, neglected his appearance, and retired, mor- 
 tified and disgusted, from an ill- judging, unkind, 
 unjust world, into obscurity, and the association 
 of characters in an inferior social position. 
 
 In this place it is absolutely necessary to 
 observe that during his residence with me in Lon- 
 don, in and about the year 1792, and in the course 
 of his life previous to that time, he was not in 
 the habit of drinking to excess; he was clean in 
 his person, and in his manners polite and en- 
 gaging; and ten years after this, when I was with 
 him in France, he did not drink spirits, and wine 
 he took moderately; he even objected to any 
 8 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 spirits being laid in as a part of his sea stock, 
 observing to me, that though sometimes, borne 
 down by public and private affliction, he had been 
 driven to excesses in Paris, the cause and effect 
 would cease together, and that in America he 
 should live as he liked, and as he ought to live. 
 
 That Mr. Paine had his failings is as true as 
 that he was a man, and that some of them grew 
 on him at a very advanced time of life, arising 
 from the circumstances before detailed, there can 
 be no doubt: but to magnify these, to give him 
 vices he had not, and seek only occasions of mis- 
 representing and vilifying his character, without 
 bringing forward the great and good traits in it, 
 is cruel, unkind, and unjust. 
 
 "Let those who stand take heed lest they 
 fall." They too, when age debilitates the body 
 and mind, and unexpected trials and grievances 
 assail them, may fall into errors that they now 
 vauntingly value themselves in not having. Sin- 
 gularly blest are they who are correct in their 
 conduct ; they should be happy and thankful that 
 they are so ; and instead of calumniating and be- 
 ing hard upon, should compassionate those who 
 are not. 
 
 The throwers of the first stone would indeed 
 be few if the condition were complied with on 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 which it should be cast. That Mr. Paine in his 
 declining years became careless of his personal 
 appearance, and maybe, somewhat parsimonious, 
 is in some measure true; but, to these errors of 
 his old age, we ought to oppose his being the prin- 
 cipal agent in creating the government of the 
 American States; and that through his efforts 
 millions have now the happiness of sitting at ease 
 under their own vines and their own fig trees ; his 
 fair and upright conduct through life, his honest 
 perseverance in principles which he might have 
 had immense sums for relinquishing, or for being 
 silent about, his never writing for money or 
 making his works matter of pecuniary advantage 
 to himself, but, on the contrary, as will be exem- 
 plified in these memoirs, his firmness in resisting 
 all such emolument and in not listening to the 
 voice of the briber. 
 
 Even amidst the violent party abuse of the 
 day there were contemporary writers who knew 
 how to appreciate Mr. Paine's talents and prin- 
 ciples, and to speak of him as he deserved.* 
 
 *There were also public meetings held, and addresses to him 
 from Nottingham, Norwich, etc., etc., from the Constitutional 
 Society in London, to which belonged persons of great affluence 
 and influence, and some of the best informed, best intentioned, 
 and most exalted characters. From these and from many other 
 bodies of men were published the highest testimonies of thanks 
 
 10 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 "We are now," says one of these, "to treat of 
 a real great man, a noble of nature, one whose 
 mind is enlarged and wholly free from prejudice; 
 one who has most usefully and honorably devoted 
 his pen to support the glorious cause of general 
 liberty and the rights of man. In his reply to 
 Mr. Burke's miserable rhapsody in favor of op- 
 pression, popery, and tyranny, he has urged the 
 most lucid arguments, and brought forward 
 truths the most convincing. Like a powerful 
 magician he touches with his wand the hills of 
 error and they smoke; the mountains of inhu- 
 manity and they melt away." 
 
 "Had Thomas Paine," says another most en- 
 lightened writer in 1795, in reply to Cheetham, 
 Cobbett, Oldys, etc., "been nothing superior to a 
 vagabond seaman, a bankrupt stay-maker, a dis- 
 carded exciseman, a porter in the streets of Phil- 
 adelphia, or whatever else the insanity of Grub 
 Street chooses to call him, hundreds of thousands 
 of copies of his writing had never announced his 
 name in every village on the globe where the 
 English language is spoken, and very extensively 
 where it is not ; nor would the rays of royal indig- 
 
 and approbation of Mr. Paine and his political works. These 
 addresses and the resolutions of the public meetings may be seen 
 in the papers and hand bills of the day. 
 
 11 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 nation have illuminated that character which they 
 cannot scorch." 
 
 Even Mr. Burke, writing on one of Mr. 
 Paine's works, "Common Sense," says, "that 
 celebrated pamphlet, which prepared the minds 
 of the people for independence." 
 
 It has been a fashion among the enemies of 
 Mr. Paine, when unable to cope with his argu- 
 ments, to attack his style, which they charge with 
 inaccuracy and want of elegance ; and some, even 
 of those most friendly to his principles have 
 joined in this captious criticism. It had not, per- 
 haps, all the meretricious ornaments and studied 
 graces that glitter in the pages of Burke, which 
 would have been so many obscurities in the eyes 
 of that part of the community for whose perusal 
 his writings were principally intended, but it is 
 singularly nervous and pointed; his arguments 
 are always forcibly stated, nor does a languid line 
 ever weary the attention of the reader. It is 
 true, he never studied variety of phrase at the ex- 
 pense of perspicuity. His object was to en- 
 lighten, not to dazzle; and often, for the sake of 
 more forcibly impressing an idea on the mind of 
 the reader, he has made use of verbal repetitions 
 which to a fastidious ear may perhaps sound un- 
 musical. But although, in the opinion of some, 
 12 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 his pages may be deficient in elegance, few will 
 deny that they are copious in matter ; and, if they 
 sometimes fail to tickle the ear, they will never 
 fail to fill the mind. 
 
 Distinctness and arrangement are the peculiar 
 characteristics of his writings: this reflection 
 brings to mind an observation once made to him 
 by an American girl, "that his head was like an 
 orange — it had a separate apartment for every- 
 thing it contained." 
 
 Notwithstanding this general character of his 
 writings, the bold and original style of thinking 
 which everywhere pervades them often displays 
 itself in a luxuriance of imagery, and a poetic 
 elevation of fancy, which stand unrivaled in the 
 pages of our English classics. 
 
 Thomas Paine was born at Thetford in the 
 County of Norfolk in England, on the twenty- 
 ninth of January, 1736. His father, Joseph 
 Paine, who was the son of a reputable farmer, fol- 
 lowed the trade of a stay-maker, and was by 
 religious profession a Quaker. His mother's 
 maiden name was Frances Cocke, a member of 
 the Church of England, and daughter of an at- 
 torney at Thetford. 
 
 They were married at the parish church of 
 
 13 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Euston, near Thetford, the twentieth of June, 
 1734. 
 
 His father, by this marriage out of the Soci- 
 ety of Quakers, was disowned by that community. 
 
 Mr. Paine received his education at the gram- 
 mar school at Thetford, under the Rev. William 
 Knowles, master; and one of his schoolmates at 
 that time was the late Counsellor Mingay. 
 
 He gave very early indication of talents and 
 strong abilities, and addicted himself when a mere 
 boy, to reading poetical authors ; but this disposi- 
 tion his parents endeavored to discourage. 
 
 When a child he composed some lines on a fly 
 being caught in a spider's web, and produced 
 when eight years of age, the following epitaph on 
 a crow which he buried in the garden : 
 
 Here lies the body of John Crow, 
 Who once was high but now is low: 
 Ye brother Crows take warning all, 
 For as you rise, so must you fall. 
 
 At this school his studies were directed merely 
 to the useful branches of reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic, and he left it at thirteen years of age, 
 applying, though he did not like it, to his father's 
 business for nearly five years. 
 
 In the year 1756, when about twenty years of 
 age, he went to London, where he worked some 
 14 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 time in Hanover Street, Long Acre, with Mr. 
 Morris, a noted stay-maker. 
 
 He continued but a short time in London, and 
 it is probable about this time made his seafaring 
 adventure of which he thus speaks : "At an early- 
 age, raw and adventurous, and heated with the 
 false heroism of a master [Rev. Mr. Knowles, 
 master of the grammar school at Thetford] who 
 had served in a man-of-war, I began my fortune, 
 and entered on board the Terrible, Captain 
 Death. From this adventure I was happily pre- 
 vented by the affectionate and moral remon- 
 strances of a good father, who from the habits of 
 his life, being of the Quaker profession, looked 
 on me as lost; but the impression, much as it af- 
 fected me at the time, wore away, and I entered 
 afterwards in the King of Prussia privateer, 
 Captain Mendez, and went with her to sea." 
 
 This way of life Mr. Paine soon left, and 
 about the year 1758, worked at his trade for near 
 twelve months at Dover. In April, 1759, he set- 
 tled as a master stay-maker at Sandwich ; and the 
 twenty-seventh of September following married 
 Mary Lambert, the daughter of an exciseman of 
 that place. In April, 1760, he removed with his 
 wife to Margate, where she died shortly after, 
 and he again mingled with the crowds of London. 
 
 15 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 In July, 1761, disgusted with the toil and lit- 
 tle gain of his late occupation, he renounced it for 
 ever, and determined to apply himself to the pro- 
 fession of an exciseman, toward which, as his 
 wife's father was of that calling, he had some time 
 turned his thoughts. 
 
 At this period he sought shelter under his 
 father's roof at Thetford, that he might prose- 
 cute, in quiet and retirement, the object of his 
 future course. Through the interest of Mr. 
 Cocksedge, the recorder of Thetford, after four- 
 teen months of study, he was established as a 
 supernumerary in the excise, at the age of 
 twenty-five. 
 
 In this situation at Grantham and Alford, 
 etc., he did not continue more than two or three 
 years, when he relinquished it in August, 1765, 
 and commenced it again in July, 1766. 
 
 In this interval he was teacher at Mr. Noble's 
 academy in Leman Street, Goodman's Fields, at 
 a salary of twenty-five pounds a year. In a simi- 
 lar occupation he afterwards lived for a short 
 time, at Kensington, with a Mr. Gardner. 
 
 I remember when once speaking of the im- 
 provement he gained in the above capacities and 
 some other lowly situations he had been in, he 
 made this observation. "Here I derived consid- 
 16 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 erable information; indeed I have seldom passed 
 five minutes of my life, however circumstanced, 
 in which I did not acquire some knowledge." 
 
 During this residence in London, Mr. Paine 
 attended the philosophical lectures of Martin and 
 Ferguson, and became acquainted with Dr. Bevis 
 of the Temple, a great astronomer. In these 
 studies and in the mathematics he soon became a 
 proficient. 
 
 In March, 1768, he was settled as an excise- 
 man at Lewes, in Sussex, and there, on the twen- 
 ty-sixth of March, 1771, married Elizabeth Ol- 
 live, shortly after the death of her father, whose 
 trade of a tobacconist he entered into and carried 
 on. 
 
 In this place he lived several years in habits 
 of intimacy with a very respectable, sensible, and 
 convivial set of acquaintance, who were enter- 
 tained with his witty sallies, and informed by his 
 more serious conversations. 
 
 In politics he was at this time a Whig, and 
 notorious for that quality which has been defined 
 perseverance in a good cause and obstinacy in a 
 bad one. He was tenacious of his opinions, 
 which were bold, acute, and independent, and 
 which he maintained with ardor, elegance, and 
 argument. 
 
 17 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 At this period, at Lewes, the White Hart 
 Evening Club was the resort of a social and intel- 
 ligent circle who, out of fun, seeing that disputes 
 often ran very warm and high, frequently had 
 what they called the "Headstrong Book." This 
 was no other than an old Greek Homer which 
 was sent the morning after a debate vehemently 
 maintained, to the most obstinate haranguer of 
 the club : this book had the following title, as im- 
 plying that Mr. Paine the best deserved and most 
 frequently obtained it. 
 
 THE 
 
 HEADSTRONG BOOK, 
 
 OS 
 
 ORIGINAL BOOK OF OBSTINACY, 
 
 WEITTEN BY 
 
 **** ****, OF LEWES, IN SUSSEX, 
 
 AND EEVISED AND CORRECTED BY 
 
 THOMAS PAINE. 
 
 Eulogy on Paine. 
 Immortal Paine, while mighty reasoners jar, 
 We crown thee General of the Headstrong War; 
 Thy logic vanished error, and thy mind 
 No bounds, but those of right and truth, confined. 
 Thy soul of fire must sure ascend the sky, 
 Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die; 
 For men like thee their names must ever save 
 From the black edicts of the tyrant grave. 
 
 18 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 My friend Mr. Lee, of Lewes, in communi- 
 cating this to me in September, 1810, said: 
 "This was manufactured nearly forty years ago, 
 as applicable to Mr. Paine, and I believe you will 
 allow, however indifferent the manner, that I did 
 not very erroneously anticipate his future 
 celebrity." 
 
 During his residence at Lewes, he wrote sev- 
 eral excellent little pieces in prose and verse, and 
 among the rest the celebrated song on the death 
 of General Wolfe, beginning 
 
 In a mouldering cave where the wretched retreat. 
 
 It was about this time he wrote " The Trial of 
 Farmer Carter's Dog Porter," in the manner of 
 a drama, a work of exquisite wit and humor. 
 
 In 1772 the excise officers throughout the 
 kingdom formed a design of applying to Parlia- 
 ment for some addition to their salaries. Upon 
 this occasion Mr. Paine, who, by this time, was 
 distinguished among them as a man of talent, was 
 fixed upon as a fit person, and solicited to draw 
 up their case, and this he did in a very succinct 
 and masterly manner. This case makes an oc- 
 tavo pamphlet, and four thousand copies were 
 printed by Mr. William Lee, of Lewes. It is 
 entitled "The Case of the Salary of the Officers 
 
 19 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 of Excise, and Thoughts on the Corruption Aris- 
 ing from the Poverty of Excise Officers." No 
 application, however, notwithstanding this effort, 
 was made to Parliament. 
 
 In April, 1774, the goods of his shop were 
 sold to pay his debts. As a grocer, he trafficked 
 in excisable articles, and being suspected of un- 
 fair practises, was dismissed the excise after being 
 in it twelve years. Whether this reason was a 
 just one or not never was ascertained; it was, 
 however, the ostensible one. Mr. Paine might 
 perhaps have been in the habit of smuggling, in 
 common with his neighbors. It was the universal 
 custom along the coast, and more or less the prac- 
 tise of all ranks of people, from lords and ladies, 
 ministers and magistrates, down to the cottager 
 and laborer. 
 
 As Mr. Paine's being dismissed the excise 
 has been a favorite theme with his abusers it may 
 be necessary here to relate the following fact: 
 
 At the time he was an exciseman at Lewes, 
 he was so approved for doing his duty that Mr. 
 Jenner, principal clerk in the excise office, Lon- 
 don, had several times occasion to write letters 
 from the Board of Excise, thanking Mr. Paine 
 for his assiduity in his profession, and for his 
 20 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 information and calculations forwarded to the 
 office. 
 
 In May following Mr. Paine and his wife 
 separated by mutual agreement, articles of which 
 were finally settled on the fourth of June. 
 Which of them was in this instance wrong, or 
 whether either of them was so, must be left unde- 
 termined, as on this subject no knowledge or 
 judgment can be formed. They are now both 
 removed, where, as we are told, none "are either 
 married or given in marriage," and where, con- 
 sequently, there can be no disagreements on this 
 score. This I can assert, that Mr. Paine always 
 spoke tenderly and respectfully of his wife, and 
 several times sent her pecuniary aid, without her 
 knowing even whence it came. 
 
 Toward the end of the year 1774, he was 
 strongly recommended to the great and good Dr. 
 Franklin, "the favor of whose friendship," he 
 says, "I possessed in England and my introduc- 
 tion to this part of the world [America] was 
 through his patronage."* 
 
 Mr. Paine now formed the resolution of quit- 
 ting his native country, and soon crossed the At- 
 lantic ; and, as he himself relates, arrived in Phil- 
 adelphia in the winter, a few months before the 
 
 *Crisis, No. 3. 
 
 21 
 
WRITINGS OF, THOMAS PAINE 
 
 battle of Lexington, which was fought in April, 
 
 1775. 
 
 It appears that his first employment in the 
 
 new world was with Mr. Aitken, a book-seller, as 
 
 editor of the Pennsylvanian Magazine; and his 
 
 introduction to that work, dated January 24, 
 
 1775, is thus concluded: "Thus encompassed with 
 
 difficulties, this first number of the Pennsylvanian 
 
 Magazine entreats a favorable reception, of which 
 
 we shall only say, that like the early snow-drop 
 
 it comes forth in a barren season, and contents 
 
 itself with foretelling the reader that choicer 
 
 flowers are preparing to appear." 
 
 Soon after his return [sic] to America, as 
 foreign supplies of gunpowder were stopped, he 
 turned his attention to chemistry, and set his fer- 
 tile talents to work in endeavoring to discover 
 some cheap and expeditious method of furnishing 
 Congress with saltpeter, and he proposed, in the 
 Pennsylvanian Journal, November 2, 1775, the 
 plan of a saltpeter association for voluntarily 
 supplying the national magazines with gun- 
 powder. 
 
 His popularity in America now increased 
 
 daily, and from this era he became a great public 
 
 character and an object of interest and attention 
 
 in the world. In 1776, on the tenth of January, 
 
 22 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 he published the celebrated and powerfully dis- 
 criminating pamphlet, "Common Sense." Per- 
 haps the greatest compliment that can be paid to 
 this work is the effect it so rapidly had on the peo- 
 ple, who had before no predisposition toward its 
 principles. 
 
 Even Mr. Cheetham, whom no one will sus- 
 pect of flattering Mr. Paine, thus forcibly de- 
 scribes the effects of "Common Sense" on the 
 people of America: 
 
 "This pamphlet of forty octavo pages, hold- 
 ing out relief by proposing independence to an 
 oppressed and despairing people, was published 
 in January, 1776, speaking a language which the 
 colonists had felt, but not thought of. Its popu- 
 larity, terrible in its consequences to the parent 
 country, was unexampled in the history of the 
 press. At first involving the colonists, it was 
 thought, in the crime of rebellion, and pointing to 
 a road leading inevitably to ruin, it was read with 
 indignation and alarm, but when the reader, (and 
 everybody read it), recovering from the first 
 shock, re-perused it, its arguments nourishing his 
 feelings, and appealing to his pride, reanimated 
 his hopes and satisfied his understanding, that 
 'Common Sense,' backed up by the resources and 
 force of the colonies, poor and feeble as they were, 
 
 23 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 could alone rescue them from the unqualified op- 
 pression with which they were threatened. The 
 unknown author, in the moments of enthusiasm 
 which succeeded, was an angel sent from heaven 
 to save from all the horrors of slavery by his 
 timely, powerful and unerring councils, a faithful 
 but abused, a brave but misrepresented people." 
 
 "Common Sense," it appears, was universally 
 read and approved; the first edition sold almost 
 immediately, and the second with very large addi- 
 tions was before the public soon after. 
 
 Owing to this disinterested conduct of Mr. 
 Paine, it appears that though the sale of "Com- 
 mon Sense" was so great, he was in debt to the 
 printer £29 12* Id. This liberality and con- 
 scientious discharge of his duty with respect to 
 his serviceable writings, as he called them, he 
 adopted through life. " When I bring out my 
 poetical and anecdotical works," he would often 
 6ay to me, "which will be little better than amus- 
 ing, I shall sell them ; but I must have no gain in 
 view, must make no traffic of my political and the- 
 ological writings. They are with me a matter of 
 principle and not a matter of money; I cannot 
 desire to derive benefit from them or make them 
 the subject to attain it." 
 24 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 In the course of this year, 1776, Mr. Paine ac- 
 companied the army with General Washington, 
 and was with him in his retreat from the Hudson 
 River to the Delaware. At this period our au- 
 thor stood undismayed, amid a flying Congress, 
 and the general terror of the land. The Ameri- 
 cans, he loudly asserted, were in possession of 
 resources sufficient to authorize hope, and he la- 
 bored to inspire others with the same sentiments 
 which animated himself. To effect this, on the 
 nineteenth of December he published "The Cri- 
 sis," wherein, with a masterly hand, he stated 
 every reason for hope, and examined all the mo- 
 tives for apprehension. This work he continued 
 at various intervals, till the Revolution was es- 
 tablished. The last number appeared on the 
 nineteenth of April, 1783, the same day a cessa- 
 tion of hostilities was proclaimed. 
 
 In 1777, Congress unanimously, and un- 
 known to Mr. Paine, appointed him Secretary in 
 the Foreign Department, and from this time a 
 close friendship continued between him and Dr. 
 Franklin. From his office went all letters that 
 were officially written by Congress, and the cor- 
 respondence of Congress rested afterwards in 
 his hands. This appointment gave Mr. Paine an 
 opportunity of seeing into foreign courts, and 
 
 25 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 their manner of doing business and conducting 
 themselves. In this office, which obliged him to 
 reside with Congress wherever it fled, or however 
 it was situated, Mr. Paine deserved the highest 
 praise for the clearness, firmness and magnani- 
 mity of his conduct. His uprightness and entire 
 fitness for this office did not, however, prevent 
 intrigue and interestedness, or defeat cabal; for 
 a difference being fomented between Congress 
 and him, respecting one of their commissioners 
 then in Europe (Mr. Silas Deane), he resigned 
 his secretaryship on the eighth of January, 1779, 
 and declined, at the same time, the pecuniary 
 offers made him by the ministers of France and 
 Spain, M. Gerard and Don Juan Mirralles. 
 
 This resignation of, or dismissal from his situ- 
 ation as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, has been 
 so variously mentioned and argued upon, that the 
 reader is referred to the tedious detail of it in the 
 journals of the day, if he has patience to wade 
 through so much American temporary and party 
 political gossip. Mr. Paine's own account in his 
 letter to Congress shortly is, " I prevented 
 Deane's fraudulent demand being paid, and so 
 far the country is obliged to me, but I became the 
 victim of my integrity." 
 26 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 The party junto against him say he was 
 guilty of a violation of his official duty, etc. 
 
 And here I shall leave it, as the bickerings of 
 parties in America, in the year 1779, cannot be 
 worth a European's attention; and as to the 
 Americans themselves they have various means, 
 by their legislatural records, registers of the day, 
 and pamphlets, then and since, to go into the sub- 
 ject if they think it of importance enough. 
 
 About this time Mr. Paine had the degree of 
 Master of Arts conferred on him by the Univer- 
 sity of Philadelphia, and in 1780 was chosen a 
 member of the American Philosophical Society, 
 when it was revived by the Legislature of the 
 Province of Pennsylvania. 
 
 In February, 1781, Colonel Laurens, amidst 
 the financial distress of America, was sent on a 
 mission to France in order to obtain a loan, and 
 Mr. Paine, at the solicitation of the Colonel, ac- 
 companied him. 
 
 Mr. Paine, in his letter to Congress, intimates 
 that this mission originated with himself, and 
 takes upon himself the credit of it. 
 
 They arrived in France the following month, 
 obtained a loan of ten millions of livres and a 
 present of six millions, and landed in America the 
 succeeding August with two millions and a half 
 
 27 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 in silver. His value, his firmness, his independ- 
 ence, as a political character, were now universal- 
 ly acknowledged; his great talents, and the high 
 purposes to which he devoted them, made him 
 generally sought after and looked up to, and 
 General Washington was foremost to express the 
 great sense he had of the excellence of his char- 
 acter and the importance of his services, and 
 would himself have proposed to Congress a great 
 remuneration of them, had not Mr. Paine posi- 
 tively objected to it as a bad precedent and an 
 improper mode. 
 
 In August, 1782, he published his spirited let- 
 ter to the Abbe Raynal ; of this letter a very sen- 
 sible writer observes, "that it displays an accuracy 
 of judgment and strength of penetration that 
 would do honor to the most enlightened philoso- 
 pher. It exhibits proofs of knowledge so com- 
 prehensive, and discrimination so acute, as must 
 in the opinion of the best judges place the author 
 in the highest ranks of literature." 
 
 On the twenty-ninth of October he brought 
 out his excellent letter to the Earl of Shelburne, 
 on his speech in the House of Lords, July 10, 
 1782. 
 
 To get an idea of the speech of this Earl it 
 may not be necessary to quote more than the fol- 
 28 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 lowing sentence : "When Great Britain acknowl- 
 edges American independence the sun of Britain's 
 glory is set forever." 
 
 " When the war ended," says Mr. Paine, " I 
 went from Philadelphia to Borden Town on the 
 East end of the Delaware, where I have a small 
 place. Congress was at this time at Prince 
 Town, fifteen miles distant, and General Wash- 
 ington had taken his headquarters at Rocky Hill, 
 within the neighborhood of Congress, for the pur- 
 pose of resigning his commission, the object for 
 which he had accepted it being accomplished, and 
 of retiring to private life. While he was on this 
 business he wrote me the letter which I here 
 subjoin:" 
 
 "Rocky Hill, September 10, 1783. 
 
 "I have learned since I have been at this place 
 that you are at Borden Town. Whether for the 
 sake of retirement or economy I know not; be it 
 for either, for both, or whatever it may, if you will 
 come to this place and partake with me, I shall 
 be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your 
 presence may remind Congress of your past ser- 
 vices to this country, and if it is in my power to 
 impress them, command my best services with 
 freedom; as they will be rendered cheerfully by 
 
 29 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 one who entertains a lively sense of the impor- 
 tance of your works, and who with much pleasure, 
 subscribes himself, 
 
 "Your sincere friend, 
 
 "G. Washington/' 
 
 In 1785, Congress granted Mr. Paine three 
 thousand dollars for his services to the people of 
 America, as may be seen by the following docu- 
 ment : 
 
 "Friday, August 26, 1785. 
 
 "On the report of a committee consisting of 
 Mr. Gerry, Mr. Petet and Mr. King, to whom 
 was referred a letter of the thirteenth from 
 Thomas Paine, 
 
 "Resolved, That the early, unsolicited, and 
 continued labors of Mr. Thomas Paine, in ex- 
 plaining the principles of the late Revolution, by 
 ingenious and timely publications upon the na- 
 ture of liberty and civil government, have been 
 well received by the citizens of these states, and 
 merit the approbation of Congress; and that in 
 consideration of these services, and the benefits 
 produced thereby, Mr. Paine is entitled to a lib- 
 eral gratification from the United States." 
 
 30 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 "Monday, October 3, 1785. 
 
 " On a report of a committee consisting of 
 Mr. Gerry, Mr. Howell and Mr. Long, to whom 
 were referred sundry letters from Mr. Thomas 
 Paine, and a report on his letter of the fourteenth 
 of September, 
 
 "Resolved, That the Board of Treasury take 
 order for paying to Mr. Thomas Paine, the sum 
 of three thousand dollars, for the considerations 
 of the twenty-third of August last." — Journals 
 of Congress. 
 
 The State of Pennsylvania, in which he first 
 published "Common Sense" and the "Crisis," in 
 1785, presented him, by an act of Legislature, 
 five hundred pounds currency. New York gave 
 him the estate at New Rochelle, in the county of 
 Westchester, consisting of more than three hun- 
 dred acres of land in high cultivation. On this 
 estate was an elegant stone house, 125 by 28 feet, 
 besides outhouses ; the latter property was farmed 
 much to his advantage, during his long stay in 
 Europe, by some friends, as will hereafter be 
 more fully noticed. 
 
 Mr. Monroe, when Ambassador in England, 
 once speaking on this subject at my house, said 
 that Mr. Paine would have received a very large 
 
 31 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 remuneration from the State of Virginia, but 
 that while the matter was before the Assembly, 
 and he was extremely popular and in high favor, 
 he published reasons against some proceedings of 
 that State which he thought improper, and there- 
 by lost, by a majority of one, the high reward he 
 would otherwise have received;* — a memorable 
 instance of the independence of his mind, and of 
 his attachment to truth and right above all other 
 considerations. A conduct exactly opposite to 
 that of the pensioned Burke, whose venality can- 
 not be better pointed out than in the following 
 conversation with Mr. Paine, after dining to- 
 gether at the Duke of Portland's at Bulstrode. 
 
 Burke was very inquisitive to know how the 
 Americans were disposed toward the King of 
 England, when Mr. Paine, to whom the subject 
 was an ungracious one, and who felt teased, re- 
 lated the following anecdote : 
 
 At a small town, in which was a tavern bear- 
 ing the sign of the King's head, it was insisted on 
 by the inhabitants that a memento so odious 
 should not continue up, but there was no painter 
 at hand to change it into General Washington, or 
 
 *This work was entitled "Public Good, being an Examination 
 of the Claim of Virginia to Vacant Western Territory." 
 
 32 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 any other favorite, so the sign was suffered to re- 
 main, with this inscription under it: 
 
 This is the sign of the Loggerhead ! 
 
 Burke, who at this moment was a concealed 
 pensioner, though a public oppositionist, replied, 
 peevishly: "Loggerhead or any other head, he 
 has many good things to give away, and I should 
 be glad of some of them." 
 
 This same Mr. Burke, in one of his speeches in 
 the House of Commons, said, "kings were natur- 
 ally fond of low company," and "that many of 
 the nobility act the part of flatterers, parasites, 
 pimps and buffoons, etc.," but his character will 
 be best appreciated by reading Mr. Paine's "Let- 
 ter to the Addressers." 
 
 In 1786 he published in Philadelphia "Dis- 
 sertation on Government, the Affairs of the 
 Bank, and Paper Money," an octavo pamphlet 
 of sixty-four pages. The bank alluded to is the 
 Bank of North America, of which he thus speaks : 
 
 "In the year 1780, when the British Army, 
 having laid waste the Southern States, closed its 
 ravages by the capture of Charleston, when the 
 financial sources of Congress were dried up, 
 when the public treasury was empty, and the 
 army of independence paralyzed by want, a vol- 
 
 33 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 untary subscription for its relief was raised in 
 Philadelphia." This voluntary fund, amounting 
 to three hundred thousand pounds, afterwards 
 converted into a bank by the subscribers, headed 
 by Robert Morris, supplied the wants of the 
 army; probably the aids which it furnished en- 
 abled Washington to carry into execution his 
 well-concerted plan against Cornwallis. Con- 
 gress, in the year 1781, incorporated the sub- 
 scribers to the fund, under the title of the Bank 
 of North America. In the following year it 
 was further incorporated by an Act of the Penn- 
 sylvanian Assembly. Mr. Paine liberally sub- 
 scribed five hundred dollars to this fund. 
 
 After the establishment of the independence 
 of America, of the vigorous and successful exer- 
 tions to attain which glorious object he had been 
 the animating principle, soul and support; feel- 
 ing his exertions no longer requisite in that coun- 
 try, he embarked for France, and arrived in 
 Paris early in 1787, carrying with him his fame 
 as a literary man, an acute philosopher, and most 
 profound politician. 
 
 At this time he presented to the Academy 
 of Science the model of a bridge which he in- 
 vented, the principle of which has been since so 
 highly celebrated and approved. 
 34 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 From Paris he arrived in England the third 
 of September, just thirteen years after his de- 
 parture for Philadelphia. Prompted by that 
 filial affection which his conduct had ever mani- 
 fested, he hastened to Thetford to visit his 
 mother, on whom he settled an allowance of nine 
 shillings a week. Of this comfortable solace she 
 was afterwards deprived by the bankruptcy of 
 the merchant in whom the trust was vested. 
 
 Mr. Paine resided at Rotherham in Yorkshire 
 during part of the year 1788, where an iron 
 bridge upon the principle alluded to was cast and 
 erected, and obtained for him among the mathe- 
 maticians of Europe a high reputation. In the 
 erection of this, a considerable sum had been ex- 
 pended, for which he was hastily arrested by the 
 assignees of an American merchant, and thrown 
 into confinement. From this, however, and the 
 debt, he cleared himself in about three weeks.* 
 
 The publication of Mr. Burke's "Reflections 
 on the French Revolution," produced in reply 
 from Mr. Paine his great, universally known, and 
 celebrated work, "Rights of Man." The first 
 part of this work was written partly at the Angel, 
 of Islington, partly in Harding Street, Fetter 
 
 *More or less upon this plan of Mr. Paine's, the different iron 
 bridges in Europe have been constructed. 
 
 35 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Lane, and finished at Versailles. In February, 
 1791, this book made its appearance in London, 
 and many hundred thousand copies were rapidly 
 sold. In May following he went again to France 
 and was at Paris at the time of the flight of the 
 King, and also on his return. On this memorable 
 occasion he made this observation: "You see the 
 absurdity of your system of government; here 
 will be a whole nation disturbed by the folly of 
 one man." Upon this subject also he made the 
 following reply to the Marquis Lafayette, who 
 came into his bedroom before he was up, saying, 
 "The birds are flown." " 'Tis well; I hope there 
 will be no attempt to recall them." 
 
 On the thirteenth of July he returned to Lon- 
 don, but did not attend the celebration of the 
 anniversary of the French Revolution the follow- 
 ing day, as has been falsely asserted. 
 
 On the twentieth of August he drew up the 
 address and declaration of the gentlemen who met 
 at the Thatched House Tavern. 
 
 The language of this address is bold and free, 
 but not more so than that of the late Lord Chat- 
 ham, or of that once violent advocate of reform, 
 the late Mr. Pitt, better known by the title of the 
 "Enemy of the Human Race." 
 
 On the subject of the address at the Thatched 
 36 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 House Tavern, which Mr. Paine did write, it is 
 impossible not to quote Cheetham's "Life," just 
 to exhibit his blindness and ignorance, and to 
 show how prejudice had warped this once idolizer 
 of Mr. Paine: "Home Tooke, perhaps the most 
 acute man of his age, was at this meeting; and 
 as it was rumored, Paine observes, that the great 
 grammarian was the author of the address, he 
 takes the liberty of mentioning the fact, that he 
 wrote it himself. I never heard of the rumor, 
 which was doubtless a fiction formed and asser- 
 ted by Paine merely to gratify his egotism. No 
 one could mistake the uncouth and ungrammat- 
 ical writings of one, for the correct and elegant 
 productions of the other." But what can be 
 expected from him who calls "Common Sense" 
 a wretched work; the "Rights of Man" a mis- 
 erable production; and "Burke's Reflections" a 
 book of the proudest sagacity? 
 
 What can be expected from him who a few 
 years before writing the above, in England dei- 
 fied Mr. Paine, and called his writings immortal ? 
 
 Mr. Paine's life in London was a quiet 
 round of philosophical leisure and enjoyment. It 
 was occupied in writing, in a small epistolary 
 correspondence, in walking about with me to 
 visit different friends, occasionally lounging at 
 
 37 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 coffee-houses and public places, or being visited 
 by a select few. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the 
 French and American ambassadors, Mr. Sharp 
 the engraver, Romney the painter, Mrs. Woll- 
 stonecraft, Joel Barlow, Mr. Hull, Mr. Chris- 
 tie, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Towers, Colonel Oswald, 
 the walking Stewart, Captain Sampson Perry, 
 Mr. Tuffin, Mr. William Choppin, Captain De 
 Stark, Mr. Home Tooke, etc., etc., were among 
 the number of his friends and acquaintance ; and 
 of course, as he was my inmate, the most of my 
 associates were frequently his. 
 
 At this time he read but little, took his nap 
 after dinner, and played with my family at some 
 game in the evening, as chess, dominos, and 
 drafts, but never at cards ; in recitations, singing, 
 music, etc., or passed it in conversation; the part 
 he took in the latter was always enlightened, full 
 of information, entertainment and anecdote. 
 Occasionally we visited enlightened friends, in- 
 dulged in domestic jaunts, and recreations from 
 home, frequently lounging at the White Bear, 
 Piccadilly, with his old friend, the walking Stew- 
 art, and other clever travelers from France, and 
 different parts of Europe and America. 
 
 When by ourselves we sat very late, and often 
 broke in on the morning hours, indulging the re- 
 88 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ciprocal interchange of affectionate and confiden- 
 tial intercourse. "Warm from the heart and 
 faithful to its fires," was that intercourse, and 
 gave to us the "feast of reason and the flow of 
 soul." 
 
 The second part of "Rights of Man," which 
 completed the celebrity of its author, and placed 
 him at the head of political writers, was published 
 in February, 1792. Never had any work so rap- 
 id and extensive a sale ; and it has been calculated 
 that near a million and a half of copies were 
 printed and published in England. 
 
 From this time Mr. Paine generally resided 
 in London, and principally with me, till the 
 twelfth of September, 1792, when he sailed for 
 France with Mr. Achilles Audibert, who came 
 express from the French Convention to my house 
 to request his personal assistance in their delib- 
 erations. 
 
 On his arrival at Calais a public dinner was 
 provided, a royal salute was fired from the bat- 
 tery, the troops were drawn out, and there was 
 a general rejoicing throughout the town. He 
 has often been heard to remark that the proudest 
 moment of his life was that in which, on this oc- 
 casion, he set foot upon the Gallic shore. 
 
 In his own country he had been infamously 
 
 39 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 treated, and at the time of his quitting Dover 
 most rudely dealt with both by the officers who 
 ransacked his trunks, and a set of hirelings who 
 were employed to hiss, hoot and maltreat, and it 
 is strongly suspected, to destroy him. 
 
 It depressed him to think that his endeavors 
 to cleanse the Augaean stable of corruption in 
 England should have been so little understood, 
 or so ill appreciated as to subject him to such 
 ignominious, such cowardly treatment. Yet 
 seven hours after this, those very endeavors ob- 
 tained him an honorable reception in France, and 
 on his landing he was respectfully escorted, 
 amidst the loud plaudits of the multitude, to the 
 house of his friend, Mr. Audibert, the chief mag- 
 istrate of the place, where he was visited by the 
 commandant and all the municipal officers in 
 form, who afterwards gave him a sumptuous en- 
 tertainment in the town hall. 
 
 The same honor was also paid him on his 
 departure for Paris.* 
 
 About the time of his arrival at Paris the 
 National Convention began to divide itself into 
 
 *The reader is referred to Brissot's paper, Le Patriot Frangois, 
 and Le Journal de Gorsas, for minute particulars of Mr. Paine's 
 introduction to the president of the Convention, to the ministers 
 and different committees; his being appointed a deputy, a mem- 
 ber of the committee of constitution, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 40 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 factions ; the King's friends had been completely 
 subdued by the suppression of the Feuillans, the 
 affair of the tenth of August, and the massacre 
 of the second and third of September; while the 
 Jacobins, who had been hitherto considered as 
 the patriotic party, became in their turns divided 
 into different cabals, some of them wishing a 
 federative government, others, the enragbs, de- 
 siring the death of the King, and of all allied to 
 the nobility; but none of those were republicans. 
 
 Those few deputies who had just ideas of a 
 commonwealth, and whose leader was Paine, did 
 not belong to the Jacobin Club. 
 
 I mention this, because Mr. Paine took in- 
 finite trouble to instil into their minds the dif- 
 ference between liberty and licentiousness, and 
 the danger to the peace, good order, and well- 
 doing of society, that must arise from letting the 
 latter encroach upon the prerogatives of the 
 former. 
 
 He labored incessantly to preserve the life 
 of the King, and he succeeded in making some 
 converts to his opinions on this subject; and his 
 life would have been saved but for Barrere, who, 
 having been appointed by Robespierre to an 
 office he was ambitious of obtaining, and certainly 
 very fit for, his influence brought with it forty 
 i-. 41 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 votes; so early was corruption introduced into 
 this assembly. For Calais, Mr. Paine was re- 
 turned deputy to the Convention ; he was elected 
 as well for Versailles, but as the former town first 
 did him the honor he became its representative. 
 He was extremely desirous and expected to be 
 appointed one of the deputies to Holland ; a cir- 
 cumstance that probably would have taken place 
 had not the Committee of Constitution delayed so 
 long the production of the new form that the Ja- 
 cobins anticipated them, and published proposals 
 for a new constitution before the committee. 
 
 This delay was owing to the jealousy of Con- 
 dorcet, who had written the preface, part of 
 which some of the members thought should have 
 been in the body of the work. Brissot and the 
 whole party of the Girondites lost ground daily 
 after this ; and with them died away all that was 
 national, just and humane: they were, however, 
 highly to blame for their want of energy. 
 
 In the beginning of April, 1793, the Conven- 
 tion received the letter from Dumourier that put 
 all France in a panic : in this letter he mentioned 
 the confidence the army had in him, and his in- 
 tention of marching to Paris to restore to France 
 her constitutional King: this had the strongest 
 effect, as it was accompanied by an address from 
 4,2 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 the Prince of Coburg, in which he agreed to co- 
 operate with Dumourier. 
 
 Mr. Paine, who never considered the vast dif- 
 ference between the circumstances of the two 
 countries, France and America, suggested an idea 
 that Dumourier might be brought about by ap- 
 pointing certain deputies to wait on him coolly 
 and dispassionately, to hear his grievances, and 
 armed with powers to redress them. 
 
 On this subject he addressed a letter to the 
 Convention, in which he instanced the case of an 
 American general who receded with the army 
 under his command in consequence of his being 
 dissatisfied with the proceedings of Congress. 
 The Congress were panic-struck by this event, 
 and gave up all for lost; and when the first im- 
 pression of alarm subsided they sent a deputation 
 from their own body to the general, who with his 
 staff gave them the meeting; and thus matters 
 were again reinstated. But there was too much 
 impetuosity and faction in the French Conven- 
 tion to admit of such temperate proceedings. 
 
 Mr. Paine, however, had written the letter, 
 and was going to Brissot's in order to meet Bar- 
 rere for the purpose of proposing an adjustment, 
 when he met a friend who had that moment left 
 the Convention, who informed him that a decree 
 
 43 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 had been passed offering one hundred thousand 
 crowns for Dumourier's head, and another mak- 
 ing it high treason to propose anything in his 
 favor. 
 
 What the consequence of Mr. Paine's project 
 might have been I do not know, but the offer of 
 the Convention made hundreds of desperate char- 
 acters leave Paris as speedily as possible, in hopes 
 of the proffered reward ; it detached the affection 
 of the soldiers from their general, and made them 
 go over to the enemy. 
 
 Toward the close of 1792 his "Letter to the 
 Addressers" was published, which was sought 
 after with the same avidity as his other produc- 
 tions. 
 
 Of this letter, which, with many other things, 
 he wrote at my house, I have the original manu- 
 script, and the table on which they were written 
 is still carefully preserved by me. It has a brass 
 plate in the center with this inscription, placed 
 there by my direction on his quitting England : 
 
 "This Plate is inscribed 
 
 by Thomas Clio Rickman, 
 
 in remembrance of his dear friend, 
 
 THOMAS PAINE, 
 
 who on this Table in the Year 1792, 
 wrote several of his invaluable 
 Works." 
 
 44 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 The "Letter to the Addressers" possesses all 
 Mr. Paine's usual strength of reasoning, and 
 abounds also in the finest strokes of genuine sat- 
 ire, wit and humor. About this time a prosecu- 
 tion took place against the publishers of "Rights 
 of Man." 
 
 As the Proclamation which gave rise to the 
 "Letter to the Addressers" is a curious document, 
 and evinces the temper of the powers that were 
 of that day, it is for the entertainment of the 
 reader here inserted: 
 
 "The London Gazette, published by au- 
 thority, from Saturday, May nineteenth, to Tues- 
 day, May twenty-second. 
 
 "By the King, a Proclamation. 
 "George R. 
 
 "Whereas, Divers wicked and seditious wri- 
 tings have been printed, published, and industri- 
 ously dispersed, tending to excite tumult and 
 disorder, by endeavoring to raise groundless 
 jealousies and discontents in the minds of our 
 faithful and loving subjects respecting the laws 
 and happy constitution of government, civil and 
 religious, established in this kingdom, and en- 
 deavoring to vilify, and bring into contempt, the 
 wise and wholesome provisions made at the time 
 of the glorious Revolution, and since strength- 
 
 45 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 ened and confirmed by subsequent laws for the 
 preservation and security of the rights and liber- 
 ties of our faithful and loving subjects: and 
 whereas divers writings have also been printed, 
 published, and industriously dispersed, recom- 
 mending the said wicked and seditious publica- 
 tions to the attention of all our faithful and lov- 
 ing subjects: 
 
 "And whereas we have also reason to believe 
 that correspondencies have been entered into with 
 sundry persons in foreign parts with a view to 
 forward the criminal and wicked purposes above 
 mentioned: and whereas the wealth, happiness 
 and prosperity of this kingdom do, under Divine 
 Providence, chiefly depend upon a due submission 
 to the laws, a just confidence in the integrity and 
 wisdom of Parliament, and a continuance of that 
 zealous attachment to that government and con- 
 stitution of the kingdom which has ever prevailed 
 in the minds of the people thereof: and whereas 
 there is nothing which we so earnestly desire as 
 to secure the public peace and prosperity, and to 
 preserve to all our loving subjects the full enjoy- 
 ment of their rights and liberties, both religious 
 and civil: 
 
 "We, therefore, being resolved, as far as in us 
 lies, to repress the wicked and seditious practises 
 46 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 aforesaid, and to deter all persons from following 
 so pernicious an example, have thought fit, by 
 the advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our 
 Royal Proclamation, solemnly warning all our 
 loving subjects, as they tender their own happi- 
 ness, and that of their posterity, to guard against 
 all such attempts, which aim at the subversion of 
 all regular government within this kingdom, and 
 which are inconsistent with the peace and order of 
 society : and earnestly exhorting them at all times, 
 and to the utmost of their power, to avoid and 
 discourage all proceedings, tending to produce 
 tumults and riots: and we do strictly charge and 
 command all our magistrates in and throughout 
 our kingdom of Great Britain, that they do make 
 diligent inquiry, in order to discover the authors 
 and printers of such wicked and seditious writings 
 as aforesaid, and all others who shall disperse 
 the same : and we do further charge and command 
 all our sheriffs, justices of the peace, chief mag- 
 istrates in our cities, boroughs and corpora- 
 tions, and all other our officers and magistrates 
 throughout our kingdom of Great Britain. 
 
 "That they do, in their several and respective 
 stations, take the most immediate and effectual 
 care to suppress and prevent all riots, tumults and 
 other disorders, which may be attempted to be 
 
 47 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 raised or made by any person or persons, which, 
 on whatever pretext they may be grounded, are 
 not only contrary to law, but dangerous to the 
 most important interests of this kingdom: and we 
 do further require and command all and every 
 our magistrates aforesaid that they do from time 
 to time transmit to one of our principal secre- 
 taries of state due and full information of such 
 persons as shall be found offending as aforesaid, 
 or in any degree aiding or abetting therein: it 
 being our determination, for the preservation of 
 the peace and happiness of our faithful and lov- 
 ing subjects, to carry the laws vigorously into 
 execution against such offenders as aforesaid. 
 Given at our Court at the Queen's House, the 
 twenty-first day of May, one thousand seven hun- 
 dred and ninety-two, in the thirty-second year of 
 our reign. — God save the King." 
 
 Soon after this, Mr. Paine's excellent "Let- 
 ters" to Lord Onslow, to Mr. Dundas, and the 
 Sheriff of Sussex were published. 
 
 Mr. Paine's trial for the second part of 
 "Rights of Man" took place on the eighteenth of 
 December, 1792, and he being found guilty, the 
 booksellers and publishers who were taken up and 
 imprisoned previously to this trial forbore to 
 stand one themselves, and suffered judgment to 
 48 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 go by default, for which they received the sen- 
 tence of three years' imprisonment each. Of 
 these booksellers and publishers I was one, but 
 by flying to France I eluded this merciful 
 sentence. 
 
 On the subject of these prosecutions I wrote 
 to Mr. Fox, whom I well knew, and my intimate 
 friend for years, Lord Stanhope, as I was myself 
 the subject of two of them, and was well ac- 
 quainted with the party factions of the day, and 
 the iniquitous intrigues of the opposing leaders, 
 in and out of office ; for the writings of Mr. Paine, 
 which were as broad as the universe, and having 
 nothing to do with impure elections and auger- 
 hole politics, gave equal offense to all sides. 
 
 In the course of these letters, which are still 
 extant, it was impossible not to dwell on the ab- 
 surdity of trial by jury in matters of opinion, and 
 the folly of any body of men deciding for others 
 in science and speculative discussion, in politics 
 and religion. Is it not applying the institution 
 of juries to purposes for which they were not in- 
 tended, to set up twelve men to judge and deter- 
 mine for a whole nation on matters that relate to 
 systems and principles of government? A mat- 
 ter of fact may be cognizable by a jury, and cer- 
 tainly ascertained with respect to offenses against 
 
 49 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 common law and in the ordinary intercourses of 
 society; but on matters of political opinion, of 
 taste, of metaphysical inquiry, and of religious 
 belief, everyone must be left to decide as his 
 inquiries, his experience, and his conviction impel 
 him. 
 
 If the arm of power in every country and on 
 every doctrine could have enforced its tyranny, 
 almost all we now possess, and that is valuable, 
 would have been destroyed ; and if all the govern- 
 ments and factions that have made the world mis- 
 erable could have had their way, everything 
 desirable in art, science, philosophy, literature, 
 politics and religion, would have been by turns 
 obliterated, and the Bible, the Testament, the 
 Alcoran, the writings of Locke, Erasmus, Hel- 
 vetius, Mercier, Milton, Shakespeare, Voltaire, 
 Montesquieu, Swift, Bolanger, Hume, Penn, 
 Tucker, Paine, Bacon, Bolingbroke, and of thou- 
 sands of others on all sides would have been 
 burned; nor would there be a printing press in 
 the world. 
 
 It has happened happily for many years past, 
 thanks to the art of printing and the means 
 adopted to crush the circulation of knowledge, 
 that the very modes employed to accomplish this 
 end have not only proved abortive, but have given 
 50 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 wings to truth, and diffused it into every corner 
 of the universe. The publication of trials con- 
 taining quotations from the works to be put down 
 have disseminated their contents infinitely wider 
 than they would else have reached, and have ex- 
 cited inquiries that would otherwise have lain 
 dormant. 
 
 So ludicrously did this strike Mr. Paine that 
 his frequent toast was, "The best way of adver- 
 tising good books — by prosecution." 
 
 As the attorney-general's attacks upon pros- 
 ecuted works of a clever and profound descrip- 
 tion, and the judges' charges upon them contain 
 nothing like argument or refutation, but follow 
 up the criminating and absurd language of the 
 indictment or ex-officio information, and breathe 
 only declamation and ignorant abuse, they by 
 their weakness expose the cause they espouse, and 
 strengthen the truths they affect to destroy. 
 
 I shall close these observations by quoting two 
 old and good humored lines : 
 
 Treason does never prosper — what's the reason? 
 When it prospers — it is never treason! 
 
 This trial of Mr. Paine, and these sentences, 
 subverted of course the very end they were in- 
 tended to effect. 
 
 51 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Mr. Paine was acknowledged deputy for Ca- 
 lais the twenty-first of September, 1792. In 
 France, during the early part of the Revolution, 
 his time was almost wholly occupied as a deputy 
 of the Convention and as a member of the Com- 
 mittee of Constitution. His company was now 
 coveted and sought after universally among every 
 description of people, and by many who for some 
 reasons never chose to avow it. With the Earl 
 of Lauderdale and Dr. Moore, whose company he 
 was fond of, he dined every Friday till Lord 
 Gower's departure made it necessary for them to 
 quit France, which was early in 1793. 
 
 About this period he removed from White's 
 Hotel to one near the Rue de Richelieu, where he 
 was so plagued and interrupted by numerous vis- 
 itors, and sometimes by adventurers, that in order 
 to have some time to himself he appropriated two 
 mornings in a week for his levee days. To this 
 indeed he was extremely averse, from the fuss and 
 formality attending it, but he was nevertheless 
 obliged to adopt it. 
 
 Annoyed and disconcerted with a life so con- 
 trary to his wishes and habits, and so inimical to 
 his views, he retired to the Faubourg St. Denis, 
 where he occupied part of the hotel that Madame 
 de Pompadour once resided in. 
 52 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Here was a good garden well laid out, and 
 here, too, our mutual friend, Mr. Choppin, occu- 
 pied apartments: at this residence, which for a 
 town one was very quiet, he lived a life of retire- 
 ment and philosophical ease, while it was believed 
 he was gone into the country for his health, which 
 by this time indeed was much impaired by intense 
 application to business, and by the anxious solici- 
 tude he felt for the welfare of public affairs. 
 
 Here, with a chosen few, he unbent himself; 
 among whom were Brissot, the Marquis de Cha- 
 telet le Roi, of the galerie de honore, and an old 
 friend of Dr. Franklin's, Bancal, and sometimes 
 General Miranda. His English associates were 
 Christie and family, Mrs. Wollstonecraft, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Stone, etc. Among his American 
 friends were Captain Imlay, Joel Barlow, etc., 
 etc. To these parties the French inmates were 
 generally invited. 
 
 Joel Barlow was for many years Mr. Paine's 
 intimate friend, and it was from Mr. Paine he 
 derived much of the great knowledge and acute- 
 ness of talent he possessed. 
 
 Joel Barlow was a great philosopher, and a 
 great poet; but there are spots in the sun, and I 
 instance the following littleness in his conduct as 
 a warning, and to prove how much of honest fame 
 
 53 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 and character is lost by anything like tergiver- 
 sation. 
 
 Joel Barlow has omitted the name of Mr. 
 Paine in his very fine poem, "The Columbiad"; a 
 name essential to the works, as the principal 
 founder of the American Republic and of the 
 happiness of its citizens. 
 
 Omitting the name of Mr. Paine in the history 
 of America, and where the amelioration of the 
 human race is so much concerned, is like omitting 
 the name of Newton in writing the history of his 
 philosophy, or that of God when creation is the 
 subject; yet this, Joel Barlow has done, and done 
 so, lest the name of Paine, combined with his the- 
 ological opinions, should injure the sale of the 
 poem. Mean and unhandsome conduct! 
 
 He usually rose about seven, breakfasted with 
 his friends, Choppin, Johnson, and two or three 
 other Englishmen, and a Monsieur La Borde, 
 who had been an officer in the ci-devante garde du 
 corps, an intolerable aristocrat, but whose skill in 
 mechanics and geometry brought on a friendship 
 between him and Paine: for the undaunted and 
 distinguished ability and firmness with which he 
 ever defended his own opinions when controver- 
 ted, do not reflect higher honor upon him than 
 that unbounded liberality toward the opinions of 
 54 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 others which constituted such a prominent feature 
 in his character, and which never suffered mere 
 difference of sentiment, whether political or re- 
 ligious, to interrupt the harmonious intercourse 
 of friendship, or impede the interchanges of 
 knowledge and information. 
 
 After breakfast he usually strayed an hour or 
 two in the garden, where he one morning pointed 
 out the kind of spider whose web furnished him 
 with the first idea of constructing his iron bridge ; 
 a fine model of which, in mahogany, is preserved 
 at Paris. 
 
 The little happy circle who lived with him here 
 will ever remember these days with delight : with 
 these select friends he would talk of his boyish 
 days, play at chess, whist, piquet, or cribbage, and 
 enliven the moments by many interesting anec- 
 dotes : with these he would play at marbles, scotch 
 hops, battledores, etc., on the broad and fine 
 gravel walk at the upper end of the garden, and 
 then retire to his boudoir, where he was up to his 
 knees in letters and papers of various descrip- 
 tions. Here he remained till dinner time; and 
 unless he visited Brissot's family, or some particu- 
 lar friend in the evening, which was his frequent 
 custom, he joined again the society of his favor- 
 rites and fellow-boarders, with whom his conver- 
 
 55 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 sation was often witty and cheerful, always acute 
 and improving, but never frivolous. 
 
 Incorrupt, straightforward and sincere, he 
 pursued his political course in France, as every- 
 where else, let the government or clamor or fac- 
 tion of the day be what it might, with firmness, 
 
 with clearness, and without a "shadow of turn- 
 ip .«. >» 
 mg. 
 
 In all Mr. Paine's inquiries and conversations 
 he evinced the strongest attachment to the inves- 
 tigation of truth, and was always for going to the 
 fountain head for information. He often lamen- 
 ted we had no good history of America, and that 
 the letters written by Columbus, the early navi- 
 gators, and others, to the Spanish Court, were 
 inaccessible, and that many valuable documents, 
 collected by Philip II, and deposited with the 
 national archives at Simania, had not yet been 
 promulgated. He used to speak highly of the 
 sentimental parts of Raynal's "History." 
 
 It is not intended to enter into an account of 
 the French Revolution, its progress, the different 
 colors it took and aspects it assumed. The his- 
 tory of this most important event may be found 
 at large detailed by French writers as well as 
 those of other nations, and the world is left to 
 judge of it. 
 56 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 It is unfortunate for mankind that Mr. Paine 
 by imprisonment and the loss of his invaluable 
 papers, was prevented giving the best, most can- 
 did, and philosophical account of these times. 
 These papers contained the history of the French 
 Revolution, and were no doubt a most correct, 
 discriminating, and enlightened detail of the 
 events of that important era. For these papers 
 the historian, Gibbon, sent to France, and made 
 repeated application, upon a conviction that they 
 would be impartial, profound, and philosophical 
 documents. 
 
 It is well known that Mr. Paine always la- 
 mented the turn affairs took in France, and 
 grieved at the period we are now adverting to, 
 when corrupt influence was rapidly infecting 
 every department of the state. He saw the 
 jealousies and animosities that were breeding, and 
 that a turbulent faction was forming among the 
 people that would first enslave and ultimately 
 overwhelm even the Convention itself. 
 
 On the day of the trial of Marat, Mr. Paine 
 dined at White's Hotel with Mr. Milnes, a gen- 
 tleman of great hospitality and profusion, who 
 usually gave a public dinner to twenty or thirty 
 gentlemen once a week. At table, among many 
 others besides Mr. Paine, was a Captain Grim- 
 i-t 57 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 stone, who was a lineal descendant from Sir Har- 
 bottle Grimstone, who was a member of Crom- 
 well's Parliament and an officer in his army. 
 This man was a high aristocrat, a great gambler, 
 and it was believed could not quit France on 
 account of his being much in debt. He took lit- 
 tle pains to conceal his political principles, and 
 when the glass had freely circulated, a short time 
 after dinner he attempted, loudly and imperti- 
 nently, to combat the political doctrines of the 
 philosopher ; this was, to be sure, the viper biting 
 at the file. 
 
 Mr. Paine, in few words, with much acute- 
 ness and address, continued exposing the fal- 
 lacy of his reasoning, and rebutting his invectives. 
 
 The Captain became more violent, and waxed 
 so angry, that at length, rising from his chair, he 
 walked round the table to where Mr. Paine was 
 sitting, and here began a volley of abuse, calling 
 him incendiary, traitor to his country, and struck 
 him a violent blow that nearly knocked him off 
 his seat. Captain Grimstone was a stout young 
 man about thirty, and Mr. Paine at this time 
 nearly sixty. 
 
 The company, who suspected not such an 
 outrage against everything decent, mannerly, 
 and just, and who had occasion frequently during 
 58 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 dinner to call him to order, were now obliged to 
 give him in charge of the National Guard. It 
 must be remembered that an act of the Conven- 
 tion had made it death to strike a deputy, and 
 every one in company with the person committing 
 the assault refusing to give up the offender was 
 considered as an accomplice. 
 
 But a short period before this circumstance 
 happened, nine men had been decapitated, one of 
 whom had struck Bourdeur de L'oise, at Orleans. 
 The other eight were walking with him in the 
 street at the time. 
 
 Paine was extremely agitated when he re- 
 flected on the danger of his unprovoked enemy, 
 and immediately applied to Barrere, at that time 
 president of the Committee of Public Safety, for 
 a passport for the unhappy man, who must other- 
 wise have suffered death; and though he found 
 the greatest difficulty in effecting this, he however 
 persevered and at length accomplished it, at the 
 same time sending Grimstone money to defray 
 his traveling expenses ; for his passport was of so 
 short a duration that he was obliged to go imme- 
 diately from his prison to the messagerie na- 
 tionale. 
 
 Of Mr. Paine's arrest by Robespierre and 
 his imprisonment, etc., we cannot be so well in- 
 
 59 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 formed as by himself in his own affecting and 
 interesting letters. 
 
 While Mr. Paine was in prison he wrote much 
 of his "Age of Reason," and amused himself with 
 carrying on an epistolary correspondence with 
 Lady S*** under the assumed name of the 
 castle in the air, and her ladyship answered 
 under the signature of the little corner of 
 the world. This correspondence is reported 
 to be extremely beautiful and interesting. 
 
 At this period a deputation of Americans so- 
 licited the release of Thomas Paine from prison; 
 and as this document, and the way in which it is 
 introduced in Mr. Sampson Perry's "History of 
 the French Revolution," bear much interest, and 
 are highly honorable to Mr. Paine, the deputa- 
 tion, and Mr. Perry, I give it in his own words : 
 
 "As an historian does not write in conformity 
 to the humors or caprice of the day, but looks to 
 the mature opinions of a future period, so the 
 humble tracer of these hasty sketches, though 
 without pretensions himself to live in after times, 
 is nevertheless at once desirous of proving his in- 
 difference to the unpopularity of the moment, 
 and his confidence in the justice posterity will 
 exercise toward one of the greatest friends of the 
 human race. The author is the more authorized 
 60 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 to pass this eulogium on a character already suf- 
 ficiently renowned, having had the means and the 
 occasion of exploring his mind and his qualities, 
 as well with suspicion as with confidence. 
 
 " The name of Thomas Paine may excite ha- 
 tred in some, and inspire terror in others. It 
 ought to do neither, he is the friend of all ; and it is 
 only because reason and virtue are not suffi- 
 ciently prevalent, that so many do not love him: 
 he is not the enemy of those even who are eager 
 to have his fate at their disposal. The time may 
 not be far off when they will be glad their fate 
 were at his; but the cowardly as well as the 
 brave have contributed to fill England with dis- 
 honor for silently allowing the best friends of 
 the human race to be persecuted with a virulence 
 becoming the darkest ages only. 
 
 "The physical world is in rapid movement, 
 the moral advances perhaps as quick; that part 
 of it which is dark now will be light; when it 
 shall have but half revolved, men and things 
 will be seen more clearly, and he will be most 
 esteemed by the good who shall have made the 
 largest sacrifice to truth and public virtue. 
 Thomas Paine was suspected of having checked 
 the aspiring light of the public mind by opinions 
 not suitable to the state France was in. He 
 
 61 
 
WRITINGS OF, THOMAS PAINE 
 
 was for confiding more to the pen, and doubting 
 the effect of the guillotine. 
 
 "Robespierre said, that method would do 
 with such a country as America, but could avail 
 nothing in one highly corrupted like France. 
 To disagree in opinion with a mind so heated 
 was to incur all the resentment it contained. 
 Thomas Paine had preserved an intimacy with 
 Brissot from an acquaintance of long date, and 
 because he spoke the English language; when 
 Brissot fell, Paine was in danger, and, as his 
 preface to the second part of the 'Rights of Man/ 
 shows, he had a miraculous escape. 
 
 "The Americans in Paris saw the perilous 
 situation of their fellow-citizen, of the champion 
 of the liberty of more than one-quarter of the 
 world; they drew up an address and presented 
 it at the bar of the Convention ; it was worded as 
 follows : 
 
 "'Citizens! the French nation had invited 
 the most illustrious of all foreign nations to the 
 honor of representing her. 
 
 " 'Thomas Paine, the apostle of liberty in 
 
 America, a profound and valuable philosopher, 
 
 a virtuous and esteemed citizen, came to France 
 
 and took a seat among you. Particular circum- 
 
 62 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 stances rendered necessary the decree to put un- 
 der arrest all the English residing in France. 
 
 " 'Citizens! representatives! we come to de- 
 mand of you Thomas Paine, in the name of the 
 friends of liberty, in the name of the Americans 
 your brothers and allies; was there anything 
 more wanted to obtain our demand we would 
 tell you. Do not give to the leagued despots the 
 pleasure of seeing Paine in irons. We shall in- 
 form you that the seals put upon the papers of 
 Thomas Paine have been taken off, that the Com- 
 mittee of General Safety examined them, and 
 far from finding among them any dangerous 
 propositions, they only found the love of liberty 
 which characterized him all his lifetime, that elo- 
 quence of nature and philosophy which made him 
 the friend of mankind, and those principles of 
 public morality which merited the hatred of 
 kings and the affection of his fellow-citizens. 
 
 " 'In short, citizens! if you permit us to re- 
 store Thomas Paine to the embraces of his fel- 
 low-citizens we offer to pledge ourselves as secu- 
 rity for his conduct during the short time he 
 shall remain in France.' " 
 
 After his liberation he found a friendly asy- 
 lum at the American Minister's house, Mr. 
 Monroe, and for some years before Mr. Paine 
 
 63 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 left Paris, he lodged at M. Bonneville's, associ- 
 ating occasionally with the great men of the day, 
 Condorcet, Volney, Mercier, Joel Barlow, etc., 
 etc., and sometimes dining with Bonaparte and 
 his generals.* He now indulged his mechanical 
 turn, and amused himself in bridge and ship 
 modeling, and in pursuing his favorite studies, 
 the mathematics and natural philosophy. 
 "These models," says a correspondent of that 
 time, "exhibit an extraordinary degree not only 
 of skill but of taste in mechanics, and are wrought 
 with extreme delicacy entirely by his own hands. 
 The largest of these, the model of a bridge, is 
 nearly four feet in length: the iron- works, the 
 chains, and every other article belonging to it 
 were forged and manufactured by himself. It 
 is intended as a model of a bridge which is to be 
 constructed across the Delaware, extending 480 
 feet with only one arch. The other is to be 
 erected over a narrower river, whose name I for- 
 get, and is likewise a single arch, and of his own 
 
 •When Bonaparte returned from Italy he called on Mr. Paine 
 and invited him to dinner: in the course of his rapturous ad- 
 dress to him he declared that a statue of gold ought to be erected 
 to him in every city in the universe, assuring him that he always 
 slept with his book "Rights of Man" under his pillow and con- 
 jured him to honor him with his correspondence and advice. 
 
 This anecdote is only related as a fact. Of the sincerity of 
 the compliment, those may judge who know Bonaparte's princi- 
 ples best. 
 
 64 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 workmanship excepting the chains, which in- 
 stead of iron are cut out of pasteboard, by the 
 fair hands of his correspondent, the little cor- 
 ner of the world, whose indefatigable perse- 
 verance is extraordinary. He was offered £3,000 
 for these models and refused it. He also forged 
 himself the model of a crane of a new descrip- 
 tion, which when put together exhibited the 
 power of the lever to a most surprising degree." 
 
 During this time he also published his "Dis- 
 sertation on First Principles of Government," 
 his "Essay on Finance," his first and second part 
 of the "Age of Reason," his "Letter to Washing- 
 ton," his "Address to the Theophilanthropists," 
 "Letter to Erskine," etc., etc. Poetry, too, em- 
 ployed his idle hours, and he produced some fine 
 pieces, which the world will probably one day see. 
 
 Wearied with the direction things took in 
 France, which he used to say, was "the promised 
 land, but not the land of promise," he had long 
 sighed for his own dear America. 
 
 "It is," he would say, "the country of my 
 heart and the place of my political and literary 
 birth. It was the American Revolution made 
 me an author, and forced into action the mind 
 that had been dormant and had no wish for public 
 life, nor has it now." Mr. Paine made many 
 
 65 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 efforts to cross the Atlantic, but they were inef- 
 fectual. 
 
 In July, 1802, Mr. Jefferson, the then Pres- 
 ident of America, in a letter to Mr. Paine writes 
 thus: 
 
 "You express a wish in your letter to return 
 to America by a national ship. 
 
 "Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, 
 and who will present you this letter, is charged 
 with orders to the captain of the Maryland, to 
 receive and accommodate you back if you can be 
 ready to return at such a short warning. You 
 will in general find us returned to sentiments 
 worthy of former times; in these it will be your 
 glory to have steadily labored, and with as much 
 effect as any man living. That you may live 
 long to continue your useful labors, and reap the 
 reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sin- 
 cere prayer. Accept the assurance of my high 
 esteem and affectionate attachment. 
 
 " Thomas Jefferson." 
 
 Washington, July, 1802. 
 
 By the Maryland, as Mr. Paine states, he did 
 not go; and it was not till the first of September, 
 1802, after spending some time with him at 
 66 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Havre de Grace, that I took leave of him on his 
 departure for America, in a ship named the Lon- 
 don P acquetj just ten years after his leaving my 
 house in London. 
 
 The ardent desire which Mr. Paine ever had 
 to retire to and dwell in his beloved America is 
 strongly portrayed in the following letter to a 
 female friend in that country, written some years 
 before. 
 
 "You touch me on a very tender point when 
 you say that my friends on your side of the water 
 cannot be reconciled to the idea of my abandon- 
 ing America even for my native England. 
 
 "They are right, I had rather see my horse 
 * Button' eating the grass of Borden Town or 
 Morrisania, than see all the pomp and show of 
 Europe. 
 
 "A thousand years hence, for I must indulge 
 a few thoughts, perhaps in less, America may be 
 what Europe now is. The innocence of her char- 
 acter that won the hearts of all nations in her 
 favor may sound like a romance, and her inimita- 
 ble virtue as if it had never been. 
 
 "The ruins of that liberty for which thousands 
 bled may just furnish materials for a village tale, 
 or extort a sigh from rustic sensibility, while the 
 
 67 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 fashionable of that day, enveloped in dissipation, 
 shall deride the principles and deny the fact. 
 
 "When we contemplate the fall of empires 
 and the extinction of the nations of the ancient 
 world we see but little more to excite our regret 
 than the moldering ruins of pompous palaces, 
 magnificent monuments, lofty pyramids, and 
 walls and towers of the most costly workmanship ; 
 but when the empire of America shall fall, the 
 subject for contemplative sorrow will be infinitely 
 greater than crumbling brass or marble can in- 
 spire. It will not then be said, here stood a tem- 
 ple of vast antiquity, here rose a babel of invisible 
 height, or there a palace of sumptuous extrava- 
 gance; but here (ah! painful thought!) the no- 
 blest work of human wisdom, the grandest scene 
 of human glory, and the fair cause of freedom, 
 rose and fell ! Read this, and then ask if I forget 
 America." 
 
 There is so uncommon a degree of interest, 
 and that which conveys an idea of so much heart 
 intercourse in this letter, that the reader may be 
 led to desire some knowledge of the person to 
 whom it was addressed. This lady's name was I 
 believe Nicholson, and afterwards the wife of 
 Colonel Few ; between her and Mr. Paine a very 
 68 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 affectionate attachment and sincere regard sub- 
 sisted, and it was no small mortification on his 
 final return to New York to be totally neglected 
 by her and her husband. 
 
 But against the repose of Mr. Paine's dying 
 moments there seems to have been a conspiracy, 
 and this lady after years of disregard and inat- 
 tention sought Mr. Paine on his death bed. 
 
 Mr. Few was with her, but Mr. Paine, refus- 
 ing to shake hands with her, said firmly and very 
 impressively, "You have neglected me, and I beg 
 you will leave the room." 
 
 Mrs. Few went into the garden, and wept 
 bitterly. 
 
 Of Mr. Paine's reception in America and 
 some interesting account of his own life and its 
 vicissitudes, his "Letters to the Citizens of Amer- 
 ica," before noticed, speak better than I can. 
 
 These letters, under the care of Mr. Monroe, 
 he sent me in 1804, and I published them, with 
 the following one of his own accompanying them. 
 
 "My dear Friend, 
 
 "Mr. Monroe, who is appointed Minister Ex- 
 traordinary to France, takes charge of this, to 
 be delivered to Mr. Este, banker in Paris, to be 
 forwarded to you. 
 
 69 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 "I arrived at Baltimore, thirtieth of October, 
 and you can have no idea of the agitation which 
 my arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire 
 to Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles) every news- 
 paper was filled with applause or abuse. 
 
 "My property in this country has been taken 
 care of by my friends, and is now worth six thou- 
 sand pounds sterling ; which put in the funds will 
 bring me £400 sterling a year. 
 
 "Remember me in friendship and affection to 
 your wife and family, and in the circle of our 
 friends. 
 
 "I am but just arrived here, and the Minister 
 sails in a few hours, so that I have just time to 
 write you this. If he should not sail this tide I 
 will write to my good friend Colonel Bosville, but 
 in any case I request you to wait on him for me. 
 "Yours in friendship, 
 
 "Thomas Paine/' 
 
 What course he meant to pursue in America, 
 his own words will best tell, and best characterize 
 his sentiments and principles: they are these: 
 
 "As this letter is intended to announce my 
 
 arrival to my friends, and my enemies if I have 
 
 any, for I ought to have none in America, and as 
 
 introductory to others that will occasionally fol- 
 
 70 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 low, I shall close it by detailing the line of conduct 
 I shall pursue. 
 
 "I have no occasion to ask, nor do I intend to 
 accept, any place or office in the Government. 
 
 "There is none it could give me that would in 
 any way be equal to the profits I could make as 
 an author ( for I have an established fame in the 
 literary world) could I reconcile it to my princi- 
 ples to make money by my politics or religion ; I 
 must be in everything as I have ever been, a dis- 
 interested volunteer. My proper sphere of ac- 
 tion is on the common floor of citizenship, and to 
 honest men I give my hand and my heart freely. 
 
 "I have some manuscript works to publish, of 
 which I shall give proper notice, and some 
 mechanical affairs to bring forward, that will em- 
 ploy all my leisure time. 
 
 "I shall continue these letters as I see occa- 
 sion, and as to the low party prints that choose to 
 abuse me, they are welcome; I shall not descend 
 to answer them. I have been too much used to 
 such common stuff to take any notice of it. 
 
 "Thomas Paine. 
 " City of Washington/' 
 
 From this period to the time of his death, 
 which was the ninth of June, 1809, Mr. Paine 
 
 71 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 lived principally at New York, and on his estate 
 at New Rochelle; publishing occasionally some 
 excellent things in the Aurora newspaper, also 
 "An Essay on the Invasion of England," "On 
 the Yellow Fever," "On Gun-Boats, etc., etc.," 
 and in 1807, "An Examination of the Passages in 
 the New Testament, Quoted from the Old, and 
 Called Prophecies Concerning Jesus Christ, etc." 
 
 This is a most acute, profound, clear, argu- 
 mentative, and entertaining work, and may be 
 considered and is now entitled "The Third Part 
 of the Age of Reason." 
 
 In the course of Mr. Paine's life, he was often 
 reminded of a reply he once made to this obser- 
 vation of Dr. Franklin's, "Where liberty is, there 
 is my country:" Mr. Paine's retort was, "Where 
 liberty is not, there is my country." And, un- 
 fortunately, he had occasion for many years in 
 Europe to realize the truth of his axiom. 
 
 Soon after Mr. Paine's arrival in America, he 
 invited over Mr. and Mrs. Bonneville and their 
 children. At Bonneville's house at Paris he had 
 for years found a home, a friendly shelter, when 
 the difficulty of getting supplies of money from 
 America, and other and many ills assailed him. 
 Bonneville and his family were poor, and sunk in 
 the world; Mr. Paine therefore, though he was 
 72 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 not their inmate without remuneration, offered 
 them an asylum with him in America. Mrs. 
 Bonneville and her three boys, to whom he was a 
 friend during his life and at his death, soon joined 
 him there. 
 
 The particulars of Mr. Paine being shot at 
 while sitting by his fireside at New Rochelle are 
 given in his own letters. The bullet from the 
 fire-arm shattered the glass over the chimney- 
 piece very near to him. I find a letter in reply to 
 one of mine, in which he writes, "the account you 
 heard of a man's firing into my house is true — 
 the grand jury found the bill against him, and he 
 lies over for trial." 
 
 In January, 1809, Mr. Paine became very 
 feeble and infirm, so much so, as to be scarcely 
 capable of doing anything for himself. 
 
 During this illness he was pestered on every 
 hand with the intrusive and impertinent visits of 
 the bigoted, the fanatic, and the designing. To 
 entertain the reader, some specimens of the con- 
 duct of these intruders are here given. 
 
 He usually took a nap after dinner, and 
 would not be disturbed let who would call to see 
 him. One afternoon a very old lady dressed in a 
 large, scarlet, hooded cloak knocked at the door 
 and inquired for Thomas Paine. Mr. Jarvis, 
 !-* 73 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 with whom Mr. Paine resided, told her he was 
 asleep. 
 
 "I am very sorry," she said, "for that, for I 
 want to see him particularly." 
 
 Thinking it a pity to make an old woman call 
 twice, Mr. Jarvis took her into Mr. Paine's bed 
 room, and awoke him. He rose upon one elbow, 
 and then, with an expression of eye that made 
 the old woman stagger back a step or two, he 
 asked, 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "Is your name Paine?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well then, I come from Almighty God to 
 tell you that if you do not repent of your sins, 
 and believe in our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ, 
 you will be damned, and — " 
 
 "Poh, poh, it is not true," replied Paine, "you 
 were not sent with any such impertinent mes- 
 sage. Jarvis make her go away: pshaw! He 
 would not send such a foolish, ugly old woman 
 about with His messages ; go away, go back, shut 
 the door." 
 
 The old lady retired, raised both her hands, 
 kept them so, and without saying another word 
 walked away in mute astonishment. 
 74 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 The following is a curious example of a 
 friendly, neighborly visit. 
 
 About two weeks before his death he was vis- 
 ited by the Rev. Mr. Milledollar, a Presbyterian 
 minister of great eloquence, and the Rev. Mr. 
 Cunningham. The latter gentleman said: 
 
 "Mr. Paine, we visit you as friends and neigh- 
 bors. You have now a full view of death, you 
 cannot live long, and whoever does not believe 
 in Jesus Christ will assuredly be damned." 
 
 "Let me," said Paine, "have none of your 
 popish stuff. Get away with you. Good morn- 
 ing, Sir, good morning." 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Milledollar attempted to ad- 
 dress him but he was interrupted in the same 
 language. When they were gone, he said to 
 Mrs. Hedden, his housekeeper, "do not let them 
 come here again, they intrude upon me." 
 
 They soon renewed their visit, but Mrs. Hed- 
 den told them they could not be admitted, and 
 that she thought the attempt useless, for if God 
 did not change his mind, she was sure no human 
 power could. They retired. 
 
 Among others, the Rev. Mr. Hargrove, min- 
 ister of a new sect called the New Jerusalemites, 
 once accosted him with this impertinent stuff: 
 
 "My name is Hargrove, Sir; I am a minister 
 
 75 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 of the New Jerusalem Church. We, Sir, ex- 
 plain the Scripture in its true meaning; the key 
 has been lost these four thousand years, and we 
 have found it." 
 
 "Then," said Paine in his own neat way, "it 
 must have been very rusty." 
 
 In his last moments he was very anxious to 
 die, and also very solicitous about the mode of 
 his burial ; for as he was completely unchanged in 
 his theological sentiments, he would on no ac- 
 count, even after death, countenance ceremonies 
 he disapproved, containing doctrines and ex- 
 pressions of a belief which he conscientiously ob- 
 jected to, and had spent a great part of his life 
 in combating. 
 
 He wished to be interred in the Quakers' 
 burying ground, and on this subject he requested 
 to see Mr. Willet Hicks, a member of the Soci- 
 ety, who called on him in consequence. 
 
 Mr. Paine, after the usual salutations, said, 
 "As I am going to leave one place it is neces- 
 sary to provide another ; I am now in my seventy- 
 third year, and do not expect to live long; I wish 
 to be buried in your burying ground." 
 
 He said his father was a Quaker, and that he 
 thought better of the principles of that Society 
 than any other, and approved their mode of 
 76 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 burial. This request of Mr. Paine was refused, 
 very much to the discredit of those who did so; 
 and as the Quakers are not unused to grant such 
 indulgences, in this case it seemed to arise from 
 very little and unworthy motives and prejudices 
 on the part of those who complied not with this 
 earnest and unassuming solicitation. 
 
 The above named Quaker in a conversation 
 of a serious nature with Mr. Paine, a short time 
 before his death, was assured by him that his 
 sentiments respecting the Christian religion were 
 now precisely the same as when he wrote the 
 "Age of Reason." 
 
 About the fourth of May, symptoms of ap- 
 proaching dissolution became very evident to 
 himself, and he soon fell off his milk-punch, and 
 became too infirm to take anything ; complaining 
 of much bodily pain. 
 
 On the eighth of June, 1809, about nine in 
 the morning, he placidly, and almost without a 
 struggle, died, as he had lived, a Deist. 
 
 Why so much consequence should be attached 
 to what is called a recantation in a man's last 
 moments of a belief or opinion held through life, 
 a thing I never witnessed nor knew anyone who 
 did, it is difficult to say, at least with any credit, 
 to those who harp so much upon it. A belief 
 
 77 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 or an opinion is none the less correct or true 
 even if it be recanted, and I strenuously urge the 
 reader to reflect seriously, how few there are who 
 really have any fixed belief and conviction 
 through life of a metaphysical or religious na- 
 ture; how few who devote any time to such in- 
 vestigation, or who are not the creatures of form, 
 education, and habit ; and take upon trust tenets, 
 instead of inquiring into their truth and ration- 
 ality. Indeed it appears that those who are so 
 loud about the recantation of philosophers, are 
 neither religious, moral, or correct themselves, 
 and exhibit not in their own lives, either religion 
 in belief, or principle in conduct. 
 
 Paine was aged seventy-two years and five 
 months. At nine of the clock in the forenoon of 
 the ninth of June, the day after his decease, he 
 was taken from his house at Greenwich, attended 
 by seven persons, to New Rochelle ; where he was 
 afterwards interred on his own farm. A stone 
 has been placed at the head of his grave accord- 
 ing to the direction in his will, with the following 
 inscription : 
 
 THOMAS PAINE, 
 
 AUTHOE OF 
 
 COMMON SENSE, 
 Died June 8, 1809, Aged 72 Years and 5 Months. 
 78 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 The reader must from the foregoing pages be 
 persuaded how unkindly teased and obtrusively 
 tormented were the closing hours of Mr. Paine's 
 life; hours that always should be soothed by ten- 
 derness, quietude, and every kind attention, and 
 in which the mind generally loses all its strength 
 and energy, and is as unlike its former self as its 
 poor suffering companion the body. 
 
 Infirmity doth still neglect all office, 
 Whereto our health is bound ; we are not ourselves 
 When nature, being oppress'd, commands the mind 
 To suffer with the body. — Shakespeare. 
 
 To a rational man it should seem that a Deist, 
 if he be so from principle, and he is as likely to 
 be so as any other religionist, is no more to be 
 expected to renounce his principles on his death- 
 bed or to abandon his belief at that moment, than 
 the Christian, the Jew, the Mahometan, or any 
 other religionist. 
 
 It will be seen that Mr. Paine very early, 
 when a mere child, was inspired as it were with 
 the anti-Christian principles which he held reli- 
 giously through life. 
 
 His philosophical and astronomical pursuits 
 could not but confirm him in the most exalted, 
 
 79 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the most divine ideas of a supreme being, and in 
 the purity and sublimity of Deism. 
 
 A belief in millions of millions of inhabited 
 worlds, millions of millions of miles apart, neces- 
 sarily leads the mind to the worship of a God in- 
 finitely above the one described by those religion- 
 ists who speak and write of Him as they do, and 
 as if He were only the maker of our earth, and as 
 alone being interested in what concerns it. In 
 contemplating the immense works of God, "the 
 creation" is the only book of revelation in which 
 the Deist can believe; and his religion consists in 
 contemplating the power, wisdom, and benignity 
 of God in His glorious works, and endeavoring 
 to imitate Him in everything moral, scientific and 
 mechanical. It cannot be urged too strongly, so 
 much wrongheadedness if not wrongheartedness 
 is there on this subject, that the religion of the 
 Deist no more precludes the blessed hope of sal- 
 vation than that of the Christian or of any other 
 religion. 
 
 We see through different mediums, and in 
 our pursuits and experience are unlike. How 
 others have felt after reading maturely the "Age 
 of Reason" and the "Rights of Man," and pur- 
 suing fairly, coolly, and assiduously the subjects 
 therein treated, I leave to them ; but for myself I 
 80 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 must say, these works carried perfect conviction 
 with them to my mind, and the opinions they 
 contain are fully confirmed by much reading, by 
 long, honest, unwearied investigation and ob- 
 servation. 
 
 The best and wisest of human beings both 
 male and female that I have known through life 
 have been Deists, nor did anything in the shape 
 of their recantation either in life or death ever 
 come to my knowledge, nor can I understand 
 how a real, serious, and long-adopted belief can 
 be recanted. 
 
 That Mr. Paine's religious belief had been 
 long established and was with him a deep-rooted 
 principle, may be seen by his conduct when im- 
 prisoned and extremely ill in the Luxembourg 
 prison in 1794.* 
 
 Mr. Bond, an English surgeon who was con- 
 fined there at the same time, though by no means 
 a friend to Mr. Paine's political or theological 
 doctrines, gave me the following testimony of 
 Mr. Paine's sentiments: 
 
 "Mr. Paine, while hourly expecting to die, 
 read to me parts of his 'Age of Reason'; and 
 every night when I left him to be separately 
 locked up, and expected not to see him alive in 
 
 •See "Age of Reason," Part 1. 
 
 81 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the morning, he always expressed his firm belief 
 in the principles of that book, and begged I 
 would tell the world such were his dying opin- 
 ions. He often said that if he lived he should 
 prosecute further that work, and print it." Mr. 
 Bond's frequent observation when speaking of 
 Mr. Paine was, that he was the most conscien- 
 tious man he ever knew. 
 
 While upon this subject, it will probably 
 occur to the reader, as well as to the writer, how 
 little belief from inquiry and principle there is 
 in the w r orld ; and how much of tener religious pro- 
 fession is adopted from education, form, pru- 
 dence, fear, and a variety of other motives, than 
 from unprejudiced inquiry, a love of truth, of 
 free discussion, and from entire conviction. 
 Reasoning thus, it may fairly be inferred that 
 men like Mr. Paine, a pious Deist, of deep re- 
 search, laborious inquiry, and critical examina- 
 tion, are the most likely from disinterested mo- 
 tives to adopt opinions, and of course the least 
 likely to relinquish them. 
 
 Before I quit the subject I give the following 
 authentic document, received in a letter from 
 New York: 
 
 "Sir: I witnessed a scene last night which 
 occasioned sensations only to be felt, not to be 
 82 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 described; the scene alluded to was no less ex- 
 traordinary than the beholding the well-known 
 Thomas Paine struggling to retain a little longer 
 in connection his soul and body. For near an 
 hour I sat by the bedside of that well-known 
 character, to whom I was introduced by one of 
 his friends. Could the memory have retained 
 the suggestions of my mind in the moments when 
 I was reviewing the pallid looks of him who had 
 attempted to overthrow kingdoms and monar- 
 chies, of him who had astonished the world with 
 the fruits of a vast mind, whose works have 
 caused a great part of mankind to think and feel 
 as they never did before, such suggestions would 
 not be uninteresting to you. I could not con- 
 template the approaching dissolution of such a 
 man, see him gasping for breath, without feel- 
 ings of a peculiar nature. Poor Paine's body 
 has given way before his mind, which is yet firm ; 
 mortification seems to have taken up its dwelling 
 in his frame, and he will soon be no more. With 
 respect to his principles he will die as he has lived ; 
 they are unaltered. 
 
 "Some Methodists went to him a few days 
 ago to endeavor to make a convert of him, but he 
 would not listen to their entreaties." 
 
 Before I take leave of my reader I would 
 
 83 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 press upon his mind the necessity of candor ; and 
 if he be a Christian I must tell him he will cease 
 to be so the moment he appeals to coercion and 
 resorts to prosecution and to persecution in mat- 
 ters of belief and opinion: such conduct his own 
 "New Testament" is decidedly against. It is 
 better not to believe in a God than to believe un- 
 worthily of Him, and the less we make Him after 
 our image the less we blaspheme Him. Let in- 
 quiry supersede calumny and censure, and let it 
 be ever remembered that those systems in govern- 
 ment and religion which will not bear discussion 
 and investigation are not worth solicitude. Ig- 
 norance is the only original sin; spread informa- 
 tion and knowledge, and virtue and truth will 
 follow. 
 
 Oppose argument to argument, reason to rea- 
 son, opinion to opinion, book to book, truth must 
 prevail; and that which is of divine origin will 
 bring itself through. 
 
 Set not attorney-generals and human laws at 
 work, nor pay any religion which boasts an heav- 
 enly origin so bad a compliment, or libel its 
 founders, by endeavoring to support it by such 
 infamous means. 
 
 How paltry, how detestable, is that criticism 
 which only seeks to find out and dwell on errors 
 84 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 and inaccuracies ; passing over in silence, what is 
 grand, sublime, and useful ! How still more pal- 
 try, and detestable, is that disposition, which 
 seeks only to find out and dwell on the defects and 
 foibles of character! 
 
 While Mr. Paine's enemies have labored, and 
 are still laboring, to detect vices and errors in his 
 life and manners, shall not his friends dwell on 
 the immense good he has done in public life, on 
 the happiness he has created for myriads, in pri- 
 vate? Shall they not point to the abodes of de- 
 light and comfort, where live and flourish the 
 blessings of domestic bliss; affection's dear in- 
 tercourses, friendship's solaces, and love's sa- 
 cred en j oyments ? And there are millions of such 
 abodes originating in his labors. Why seek oc- 
 casion, surly critics and detractors! to maltreat 
 and misrepresent Mr. Paine? He was mild, 
 unoffending, sincere, gentle, humble, and unas- 
 suming; his talents were soaring, acute, profound, 
 extensive, and original; and he possessed that 
 charity, which covers a multitude of sins. 
 
 85 
 
ERSKINE'S DEFENSE OF PAINE* 
 
 GENTLEMEN of the Jury.— The Attor- 
 ney-general, in that part of his address 
 which referred to a letter supposed to have been 
 written to him from France, exhibited signs of 
 strong sensibility and emotion. I do not, I am 
 sure, charge him with acting a part to seduce you ; 
 on the contrary, I am persuaded, from my own 
 feelings, and from my acquaintance with my 
 friend from our childhood upwards, that he ex- 
 pressed himself as he felt. 
 
 But — gentlemen, if he felt those painful em- 
 barrassments, you may imagine what mine must 
 be: he can only feel for the august character 
 whom he represents in this place as a subject 
 for his Sovereign, too far removed by custom 
 from the intercourses which generate affections to 
 produce any other sentiments than those that 
 flow from a relation common to us all : but it will 
 be remembered that I stand in the same relationf 
 toward another great person more deeply impli- 
 cated by this supposed letter ; who, not restrained 
 from the cultivation of personal attachments by 
 
 *Lord Erskine's Speech in behalf of Thomas Paine, Court of 
 King's Bench, December 18, 1792.— Ed. 
 
 fMr. Erskine was then Attorney-general to the Prince of Wales. 
 —Ed. j 
 
 86 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 those qualifications which must always secure 
 them, has exalted my duty to a prince into a 
 warm and honest affection between man and man. 
 
 Thus circumstanced, I certainly should have 
 been glad to have had an earlier opportunity of 
 knowing correctly the contents of this letter, and 
 whether (which I positively deny) it proceeded 
 from the defendant. Coming thus suddenly 
 upon us, I see but too plainly the impression it 
 has made upon you, who are to try the cause, and 
 I feel its weight upon myself, who am to conduct 
 it ; but this shall neither detach me from my duty, 
 nor enervate me (if I can help it) in the dis- 
 charge of it. 
 
 If the Attorney-general be well founded in 
 the commentaries he has made to you upon the 
 book which he prosecutes; if he be warranted by 
 the law of England in repressing its circulation, 
 from the illegal and dangerous matters contained 
 in it ; if that suppression be, as he avows it, and as 
 in common sense it must be, the sole object of 
 the prosecution, the public has great reason to 
 lament that this letter should have been at all 
 brought into the service of the cause. It is no 
 part of the charge upon the record; it had no 
 existence for months after the work was composed 
 and published ; it was not written by the def end- 
 
 87 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 ant, if written by him at all, till after he had been 
 in a manner insultingly expelled from the coun- 
 try by the influence of Government; it was not 
 even written till he had become the subject of 
 another country. It cannot, therefore, by any 
 fair inference, decipher the mind of the author 
 when he composed his work; still less can it af- 
 fect the construction of the language in which it 
 is written. 
 
 The introduction of this letter at all is, there- 
 fore, not only a departure from the charge, but a 
 dereliction of the object of the prosecution, which 
 is to condemn the book: since, if the condemnation 
 of the author is to be obtained, not by the work 
 itself \ but by collateral matter, not even existing 
 when it was written, nor known to its various pub- 
 lishers throughout the kingdom, how can a ver- 
 dict upon such grounds condemn the work, or 
 criminate other publishers, strangers to the col- 
 lateral matter on which the conviction may be 
 obtained to-day? 
 
 I maintain, therefore, upon every principle of 
 sound policy, as it affects the interests of the 
 Crown, and upon every rule of justice, as it af- 
 fects the author of "The Rights of Man," that 
 the letter should be wholly dismissed from your 
 consideration. 
 88 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Gentlemen, the Attorney-general has thought 
 it necessary to inform you that a rumor had been 
 spread, and had reached his ears, that he only 
 carried on the prosecution as a public prosecutor, 
 but without the concurrence of his own judg- 
 ment; and, therefore, to add the just weight of 
 his private character to his public duty, and to 
 repel what he thinks a calumny, he tells you that 
 he should have deserved to have been driven from 
 society, if he had not arraigned the work and the 
 author before you. 
 
 Here, too, we stand in situations very differ- 
 ent. I have no doubt of the existence of such a 
 rumor, and of its having reached his ears, be- 
 cause he says so; but for the narrow circle in 
 which any rumor, personally implicating my 
 learned friend's character, has extended, I might 
 appeal to the multitudes who surround us, and 
 ask, which of them all, except the few connected 
 in office with the Crown, ever heard of its ex- 
 istence? 
 
 But with regard to myself, every man within 
 hearing at this moment — nay, the whole people 
 of England, have been witnesses to the calumni- 
 ous clamor that, by every art, has been raised and 
 kept up against me: in every place where busi- 
 ness or pleasure collect the public together, day 
 
 1-8 89 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 after day my name and character have been the 
 topics of injurious reflection. And for what? 
 Only for not having shrunk from the discharge of 
 a duty which no personal advantage recommend- 
 ed, and which a thousand difficulties repelled. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, I have no complaint to 
 make, either against the printers of these libels, 
 or even against their authors : the greater part of 
 them, hurried perhaps away by honest prejudices, 
 may have believed they were serving their coun- 
 try by rendering me the object of its suspicions 
 and contempt; and if there has been among 
 them others who have mixed in it from personal 
 malice and unkindness, I thank God I can for- 
 give them also. 
 
 Little, indeed, did they know me, who thought 
 that such calumnies would influence my conduct. 
 I will forever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, 
 independence, and integrity of the English Bar, 
 without which impartial justice, the most valu- 
 able part of the English Constitution, can have 
 no existence. 
 
 From the moment that any advocate can be 
 permitted to say that he will or will not stand be- 
 tween the Crown and the subject in the court 
 where he daily sits to practise, from that moment 
 the liberties of England are at an end. 
 90 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 If the advocate refuses to defend, from what 
 he may think of the charge or of the defense he 
 assumes, the character of the judge; nay, he as- 
 sumes it before the hour of judgment; and, in 
 proportion to his rank and reputation, puts the 
 heavy influence of, perhaps, a mistaken opinion 
 into the scale against the accused, in whose favor 
 the benevolent principle of English law makes all 
 presumptions, and which commands the very 
 judge to be his counsel. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is now my duty to address my- 
 self without disgression to the defense. 
 
 The first thing which presents itself in the dis- 
 cussion of any subject is to state distinctly and 
 with precision, what the question is, and, where 
 prejudice and misrepresentation have been ex- 
 erted, to distinguish it accurately from what it is 
 not. The question, then, is not whether the Con- 
 stitution of our fathers — under which we live, 
 under which I present myself before you, and 
 under which alone you have any jurisdiction to 
 hear me — be or be not preferable to the Constitu- 
 tion of America or France, or any other human 
 constitution. For upon what principle can a 
 court, constituted by the authority of any govern- 
 ment, and administering a positive system of law 
 under it, pronounce a decision against the Con- 
 
 91 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 stitution which creates its authority, or the rule 
 of action which its jurisdiction is to enforce? 
 The common sense of the most uninformed per- 
 son must revolt at such an absurd supposition. 
 
 I have no difficulty, therefore, in admitting 
 that, if by accident some or all of you were alien- 
 ated in opinion and affection from the forms and 
 principles of the English Government, and were 
 impressed with the value of that unmixed repre- 
 sentative constitution which this work recom- 
 mends and inculcates, you could not on that ac- 
 count acquit the defendant. Nay, to speak out 
 plainly, I freely admit that even if you were 
 avowed enemies to monarchy, and devoted to re- 
 publicanism, you would be nevertheless bound by 
 your oaths, as a jury sworn to administer justice 
 according to the English law, to convict the 
 author of the "Rights of Man," if it were 
 brought home to your consciences that he had ex- 
 ceeded those widely extended bounds which the 
 ancient wisdom and liberal policy of the English 
 Constitution have allotted to the range of a free 
 press. 
 
 I freely concede this, because you have no ju- 
 risdiction to judge either the author or the work 
 by any rule but that of English law, which is the 
 source of your authority. But having made this 
 92 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 large concession, it follows, by a consequence so 
 inevitable as to be invulnerable to all argument 
 or artifice, that if, on the other hand, you should 
 be impressed (which I know you to be) not only 
 with a dutiful regard, but with an enthusiasm, for 
 the whole form and substance of your own Gov- 
 ernment; and though you should think that this 
 work, in its circulation among classes of men un- 
 equal to political researches, may tend to alienate 
 opinions; still you cannot, upon such grounds *, 
 without a similar breach of duty, convict the de- 
 fendant of a libel — unless he has clearly stepped 
 beyond that extended range of communication 
 which the same ancient wisdom and liberal policy 
 of the British Constitution has allotted for the 
 liberty of the press. 
 
 Gentlemen, I admit, with the Attorney-gen- 
 eral, that in every case where a court has to esti- 
 mate the quality of a writing, the mind and inten- 
 tion of the writer must be taken into the account 
 — the bona or mala fides, as lawyers express it, 
 must be examined — for a writing may undoubt- 
 edly proceed from a motive, and be directed to a 
 purpose, not to be deciphered by the mere con- 
 struction of the thing written. But wherever a 
 writing is arraigned as seditious or slanderous, 
 not upon its ordinary construction in language, 
 
 93 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 nor from the necessary consequences of its pub- 
 lication, under any circumstances, and at all 
 times, but that the criminality springs from some 
 extrinsic matter, not visible upon the page itself, 
 nor universally operative, but capable only of 
 being connected with it by evidence, so as to de- 
 monstrate the effect of the publication and the 
 design of the publisher; such a writing, libelous 
 per se, cannot be arraigned as the author's work 
 is arraigned upon the record before the court. 
 
 I maintain, without the hazard of contradic- 
 tion, that the law of England positively requires, 
 for the security of the subject, that every charge 
 of a libel complicated with extrinsic facts and 
 circumstances, dehors the writing, must appear 
 literally upon the record by an averment of such 
 extrinsic facts and circumstances, that the de- 
 fendant may know what crime he is called upon 
 to answer, and how to stand upon his defense. 
 
 What crime is it that the defendant comes to 
 answer for to-day? — what is the notice that I, 
 who am his counsel, have from this parchment of 
 the crime alleged against him? 
 
 I come to defend his having written this book. 
 The record states nothing else: the general 
 charge of sedition in the introduction is notorious- 
 ly paper and pack-thread ; because the innuendoes 
 94 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 cannot enlarge the sense or natural construction 
 of the text. The record does not state any one 
 extrinsic fact or circumstance to render the work 
 criminal at one time more than another; it states 
 no peculiarity of time or season or intention, not 
 provable from the writing itself, which is the 
 naked charge upon record. There is nothing, 
 therefore, which gives you any jurisdiction be- 
 yond the construction of the work itself; and you 
 cannot be justified in finding it criminal because 
 published at this time, unless it would have been 
 a criminal publication under any circumstances, 
 or at any other time. 
 
 The law of England, then, both in its forms 
 and substance, being the only rule by which the 
 author or the work can be justified or condemned, 
 and the charge upon the record being the naked 
 charge of a libel, the cause resolves itself into a 
 question of the deepest importance to us all — 
 the nature and extent of the liberty of the 
 English press. 
 
 But before I enter upon it, I wish to fulfil a 
 duty to the defendant, which, if I do not deceive 
 myself, is at this moment peculiarly necessary to 
 his impartial trial. If an advocate entertains 
 sentiments injurious to the defense he is engaged 
 in, he is not only justified, but bound in duty, to 
 
 95 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 conceal them; so, on the other hand, if his own 
 genuine sentiments, or anything connected with 
 his character or situation, can add strength to his 
 professional assistance, he is bound to throw them 
 into the scale. In addressing myself, therefore, 
 to gentlemen not only zealous for the honor of 
 English Government, but visibly indignant at 
 any attack upon its principles, and who would, 
 perhaps, be impatient of arguments from a sus- 
 pected quarter, I give my client the benefit of de- 
 claring that I am, and ever have been, attached 
 to the genuine principles of the British Govern- 
 ment; and that, however the Court or you may 
 reject the application, I defend him upon princi- 
 ples not only consistent with its permanence and 
 security, but without the establishment of which 
 it never could have had an existence. 
 
 The proposition which I mean to maintain as 
 the basis of the liberty of the press, and without 
 which it is an empty sound, is this: that every 
 man, not intending to mislead, but seeking to 
 enlighten others with what his own reason and 
 conscience, however erroneously, have dictated 
 to him as truth, may address himself to the uni- 
 versal reason of a whole nation, either upon the 
 subject of governments in general, or upon that 
 of our own particular country : that he may ana- 
 96 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 lyze the principles of its Constitution, point out 
 its errors and defects, examine and publish its 
 corruptions, warn his fellow-citizens against their 
 ruinous consequences, and exert his whole facul- 
 ties in pointing out the most advantageous 
 changes in establishments which he considers to 
 be radically defective, or sliding from their object 
 by abuse. 
 
 All this every subject of this country has a 
 right to do, if he contemplates only what he 
 thinks would be for its advantage, and but seeks 
 to change the public mind by the conviction which 
 flows from reasonings dictated by conscience. 
 
 If, indeed, he writes what he does not think; 
 if, contemplating the misery of others, he wick- 
 edly condemns what his own understanding ap- 
 proves; or, even admitting his real disgust 
 against the Government or its corruptions, if he 
 calumniates living magistrates, or holds out to 
 individuals that they have a right to run before 
 the public mind in their conduct; that they may 
 oppose by contumacy or force what private rea- 
 son only disapproves; that they may disobey the 
 law, because their judgment condemns it; or re- 
 sist the public will, because they honestly wish 
 to change it — he is then a criminal upon every 
 principle of rational policy, as well as upon the 
 
 97 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 immemorial precedents of English justice; be- 
 cause such a person seeks to disunite individuals 
 from their duty to the whole, and excites to overt 
 acts of misconduct in a part of the community, 
 instead of endeavoring to change, by the impulse 
 of reason, that universal assent which, in this 
 and in every country, constitutes the law for all. 
 
 I have, therefore, no difficulty in admitting 
 that if, upon an attentive perusal of this work, 
 it shall be found that the defendant has promul- 
 gated any doctrines which excite individuals to 
 withdraw from their subjection to the law by 
 which the whole nation consents to be governed ; 
 if his book shall be found to have warranted or 
 excited that unfortunate criminal who appeared 
 here yesterday to endeavor to relieve himself from 
 imprisonment by the destruction of a prison, or 
 dictated to him the language of defiance which 
 ran through the whole of his defense ; if through- 
 out the work there shall be found any syllable or 
 letter which strikes at the security of property, 
 or which hints that anything less than the whole 
 nation can constitute the law, or that the law, be 
 it what it may, is not the inexorable rule of action 
 for every individual, I willingly yield him up to 
 the justice of the Court. 
 
 Gentlemen, I say, in the name of Thomas 
 98 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Paine, and in his words as author of the " Rights 
 of Man," as written in the very volume that is 
 charged with seeking the destruction of property: 
 
 " The end of all political associations is the 
 preservation of the rights of man, which rights 
 are liberty, property, and security; that the na- 
 tion is the source of all sovereignty derived from 
 it; the right of property being secured and in- 
 violable, no one ought to be deprived of it, except 
 in cases of evident public necessity, legally ascer- 
 tained, and on condition of a previous just in- 
 demnity." 
 
 These are undoubtedly the rights of man — 
 the rights for which all governments are estab- 
 lished — and the only rights Mr. Paine contends 
 for; but which he thinks (no matter whether 
 right or wrong) are better to be secured by a 
 republican constitution than by the forms of 
 the English Government. He instructs me to 
 admit that, when government is once constituted, 
 no individual, without rebellion, can withdraw 
 their obedience from it; that all attempts to ex- 
 cite them to it are highly criminal, for the most 
 obvious reasons of policy and justice; that noth- 
 ing short of the will of a whole people can 
 change or affect the rule by which a nation is to be 
 governed; and that no private opinion, however 
 
 99 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 honestly inimical to the forms or substance of the 
 law, can justify resistance to its authority, while it 
 remains in force. The author of the " Rights of 
 Man" not only admits the truth of all this doc- 
 trine, but he consents to be convicted, and I also 
 consent for him, unless his work shall be found 
 studiously and painfully to inculcate those great 
 principles of government which it is charged to 
 have been written to destroy. 
 
 Let me not, therefore, be suspected to be con- 
 tending that it is lawful to write a book pointing 
 out defects in the English Government, and ex- 
 citing individuals to destroy its sanctions, and to 
 refuse obedience. But, on the other hand, I do 
 contend that it is lawful to address the English 
 nation on these momentous subjects; for had it 
 not been for this inalienable right (thanks be to 
 God and our fathers for establishing it!) how 
 should we have had this Constitution which we so 
 loudly boast of? If, in the march of the human 
 mind, no man could have gone before the estab- 
 lishments of the time he lived in, how could our 
 establishment, by reiterated changes, have be- 
 come what it is ? If no man could have awakened 
 the public mind to errors and abuses in our Gov- 
 ernment, how could it have passed on from stage 
 to stage, through reformation and revolution, so 
 100 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 as to have arrived from barbarism to such a pitch 
 of happiness and perfection, that the Attorney- 
 general considers it as profanation to touch it 
 further, or to look for any further amendment? 
 
 In this manner power has reasoned in every 
 age ; government, in its own estimation,, has been 
 at all times a system of perfection; but a free 
 press has examined and detected its errors, and 
 the people have from time to time reformed them. 
 This freedom has alone made our Government 
 what it is; this freedom alone can preserve it; 
 and therefore, under the banners of that freedom, 
 to-day I stand up to defend Thomas Paine. 
 But how, alas! shall this task be accomplished? 
 How may I expect from you what human nature 
 has not made man for the performance of ? How 
 am I to address your reasons, or ask them to 
 pause amidst the torrent of prejudice which has 
 hurried away the public mind on the subject 
 you are to judge. 
 
 Was any Englishman ever so brought as a 
 criminal before an English court of justice? 
 
 If I were to ask you, Gentlemen of the jury, 
 what is the choicest fruit that grows upon the tree 
 of English liberty, you would answer, security 
 under the law. If I were to ask the whole peo- 
 ple of England the return they looked for at the 
 
 101 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 hands of Government for the burdens under 
 which they bend to support it, I should still be 
 answered, security under the law ; or, in other 
 words, an impartial administration of justice. 
 So sacred, therefore, has the freedom of trial 
 been ever held in England; so anxiously does jus- 
 tice guard against every possible bias in her path, 
 that if the public mind has been locally agitated 
 upon any subject in judgment, the forum has 
 either been changed, or the trial postponed. The 
 circulation of any paper that brings, or can be 
 supposed to bring, prejudice, or even well- 
 founded knowledge, within the reach of a British 
 tribunal, on the spur of an occasion, is not only 
 highly criminal, but defeats itself, by leading to 
 put off the trial which its object was to pervert. 
 On this principle, the noble and learned judge 
 will permit me to remind him that on the trial 
 of the Dean of St. Asaph for a libel, or rather 
 when he was brought to trial, the circulation of 
 books by a society favorable to his defense was 
 held by His Lordship, as Chief -justice of Ches- 
 ter, to be a reason for not trying the cause; al- 
 though they contained no matter relative to the 
 Dean, nor to the object of his trial; being only 
 extracts from ancient authors of high reputation 
 on the general rights of juries to consider the 
 102 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 innocence as well as the guilt of the accused ; yet 
 still, as the recollection of these rights was pressed 
 forward with a view to affect the proceedings, 
 the proceedings were postponed. 
 
 Is the defendant, then, to be the only ex- 
 ception to these admirable provisions? Is the 
 English law to judge him, stripped of the armor 
 with which its universal justice encircles all 
 others? Shall we, in the very act of judging him 
 for detracting from the English Government, 
 furnish him with ample matter for just reproba- 
 tion, instead of detraction? Has not his cause 
 been prejudged through a thousand channels? 
 Has not the work before you been daily and pub- 
 licly reviled, and his person held up to derision 
 and reproach? Has not the public mind been 
 excited by crying down the very phrase and idea 
 of the " Rights of Man "? Nay, have not asso- 
 ciations of gentlemen — I speak it with regret, 
 because I am persuaded, from what I know of 
 some of them, that they, amongst them at least, 
 thought they were serving the public — yet have 
 they not, in utter contempt and ignorance of that 
 Constitution of which they declare themselves to 
 be the guardians, published the grossest attacks 
 upon the defendant? 
 
 Have they not, even while the cause has been 
 
 103 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 standing here for immediate trial, published a 
 direct protest against the very work now before 
 you ; advertising in the same paper, though under 
 the general description of seditious libels, a re- 
 ward on the conviction of any person who should 
 dare to sell the book itself, to which their own 
 publication was an answer? 
 
 The Attorney-general has spoken of a forced 
 circulation of this work ; but how have these pre- 
 judging papers been circulated? We all know 
 how. They have been thrown into our carriages 
 in every street; they have met us at every turn- 
 pike; and they lie in the areas of all our houses. 
 To complete the triumph of prejudice, that high 
 tribunal of which I have the honor to be a member 
 (my learned friends know what I say to be true) 
 has been drawn into this vortex of slander; and 
 some of its members — I must not speak of the 
 House itself — have thrown the weight of their 
 stations into the same scale. By all these means 
 I maintain that this cause has been prejudged. 
 
 It may be said that I have made no motion 
 to put off the trial for these causes, and that 
 courts of themselves take no cognizance of what 
 passes elsewhere, without facts laid before them. 
 Gentlemen, I know that I should have had equal 
 justice from the Court, if I had brought myself 
 104 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 within the rule. But when should I have been 
 better in the present aspect of things? And I 
 only remind you, therefore, of all these hardships, 
 that you may recollect that your judgment is to 
 proceed upon that alone which meets you here, 
 upon the evidence in the cause, and not upon sug- 
 gestions destructive of every principle of justice. 
 
 Having disposed of these foreign prejudices, 
 I hope you will as little regard some arguments 
 that have been offered to you in court. The 
 letter which has been so repeatedly pressed upon 
 you ought to be dismissed even from your recol- 
 lection. I have already put it out of the ques- 
 tion, as having been written long subsequent to 
 the book, and as being a libel on the King, which 
 no part of the information charges, and which 
 may hereafter be prosecuted as a distinct offense. 
 I consider that letter, besides, and indeed have al- 
 ways heard it treated, as a forgery, contrived to 
 injure the merits of the cause, and embarrass me 
 personally in its defense. I have a right so to 
 consider it, because it is unsupported by anything 
 similar at an earlier period. 
 
 The defendant's whole deportment, previous 
 to the publication, has been wholly unexception- 
 able: he properly desired to be given up as the 
 author of the book if any inquiry should take 
 1-10 105 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 place concerning it : and he is not affected in evi- 
 dence, either directly or indirectly, with any ille- 
 gal or suspicious conduct; not even with having 
 uttered an indiscreet or taunting expression, nor 
 with any one matter or thing inconsistent with 
 the duty of the best subject in England. His 
 opinions indeed were adverse to our system; but 
 I maintain that opinion is free, and that conduct 
 alone is amenable to the law. 
 
 You are next desired to judge of the author's 
 mind and intention by the modes and extent of 
 the circulation of his work. 
 
 The first part of the " Rights of Man " Mr. 
 Attorney-general tells you he did not prosecute, 
 although it was in circulation through the country 
 for a year and a half together, because it seems it 
 circulated only amongst what he styles the judi- 
 cious part of the public, who possessed in their 
 capacities and experience an antidote to the 
 poison; but that, with regard to the second part 
 now before you, its circulation had been forced 
 into every corner of society ; had been printed and 
 reprinted for cheapness even upon whited-brown 
 paper, and had crept into the very nurseries of 
 children as a wrapper for their sweetmeats. 
 
 In answer to this statement, which after all 
 stands only upon Mr. Attorney-general's own 
 106 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 assertion, unsupported by any kind of proof (no 
 witness having proved the author's personal in- 
 terference with the sale), I still maintain that if 
 he had the most anxiously promoted it, the ques- 
 tion would remain exactly the same: the question 
 would still be, whether at the time when Paine 
 composed his work, and promoted the most ex- 
 tensive purchase of it, he believed or disbelieved 
 what he had written? — and whether he contem- 
 plated the happiness or the misery of the English 
 nation, to which it is addressed? And whichever 
 of these intentions may be evidenced to your 
 judgments upon reading the book itself, I con- 
 fess I am utterly at a loss to comprehend how a 
 writer can be supposed to mean something differ- 
 ent from what he has written, by proof of an 
 anxiety (common, I believe, to all authors) that 
 his work should be generally read. 
 
 Remember, I am not asking your opinions of 
 the doctrines themselves — you have given them 
 already pretty visibly since I began to address 
 you — but I shall appeal not only to you, but to 
 those who, without our leave, will hereafter 
 judge, and without appeal, of all that we are do- 
 ing to-day — whether, upon the matter which I 
 hasten to lay before you, you can refuse to pro- 
 nounce that from his education — from the acci- 
 
 107 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 dents and habits of his life — from the time and 
 occasion of the publication — from the circum- 
 stances attending it — and from every line and let- 
 ter of the work itself, and from all his other wri- 
 tings, his conscience and understanding (no 
 matter whether erroneously or not) were deeply 
 and solemnly impressed with the matters con- 
 tained in his book? — that he addressed it to the 
 reason of the nation at large, and not to the pas- 
 sions of individuals? — and that, in the issue of its 
 influence, he contemplated only what appeared 
 to him (though it may not to us) to be the inter- 
 est and happiness of England, and of the whole 
 human race? 
 
 In drawing the one or the other of these con- 
 clusions, the book stands first in order, and it 
 shall now speak for itself. 
 
 Gentlemen, the whole of it is in evidence be- 
 fore you; the particular parts arraigned having 
 only been read by my consent, upon the presump- 
 tion that, on retiring from the court, you would 
 carefully compare them with the context, and 
 all the parts with the whole viewed together. 
 
 You cannot indeed do justice without it. The 
 
 most common letter, even in the ordinary course 
 
 of business, cannot be read in a cause to prove an 
 
 obligation for twenty shillings without the 
 
 108 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 .whole being read, that the writer's meaning may- 
 be seen without deception. But in a criminal 
 charge, comprehending only four pages and a 
 half, out of a work containing nearly two hun- 
 dred, you cannot, with even the appearance of 
 common decency, pronounce a judgment without 
 the most deliberate and cautious comparison. I 
 observe that the noble and learned judge confirms 
 me in this observation. 
 
 If any given part of a work be legally explan- 
 atory of every other part of it, the preface, a for- 
 tiori, is the most material ; because the preface is 
 the author's own key to his writing: it is there 
 that he takes the reader by the hand and intro- 
 duces him to his subject; it is there that the spirit 
 and intention of the whole is laid before him by 
 way of prologue. A preface is meant by the 
 author as a clue to ignorant or careless readers; 
 the author says by it, to every man who chooses 
 to begin where he ought, Look at my plan — 
 attend to my distinctions — mark the purpose and 
 limitations of the matter I lay before you. 
 
 Let, then, the calumniators of Thomas Paine 
 now attend to his preface, where, to leave no ex- 
 cuse for ignorance or misrepresentation, he ex- 
 presses himself thus: 
 
 109 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 I have differed from some professional gentlemen 
 on the subject of prosecutions, and I since find they are 
 falling into my opinion, which I will here state as fully 
 but as concisely as I can. 
 
 I will first put a case with respect to any law, and 
 then compare it with a government, or with what in 
 England is or has been called a Constitution. 
 
 It would be an act of despotism, or what in Eng- 
 land is called arbitrary power, to make a law to pro- 
 hibit investigating the principles, good or bad, on which 
 such a law, or any other, is founded. 
 
 If a law be bad, it is one thing to oppose the prac- 
 tise of it, but it is quite a different thing to expose its 
 errors, to reason on its defects, and to show cause why it 
 should be repealed, or why another ought to be sub- 
 stituted in its place. I have always held it an opinion 
 (making it also my practise) that it is better to obey a 
 bad law, making use at the same time of every argument 
 to show its errors and procure its repeal, than forcibly 
 to violate it; because the precedent of breaking a bad 
 law might weaken the force, and lead to discretionary 
 violation, of those which are good. 
 
 The case is the same with principles and forms of 
 governments, or to what are called constitutions, and the 
 parts of which they are composed. 
 
 It is for the good of nations, and not for the emolu- 
 ment or aggrandizement of particular individuals, that 
 government ought to be established, and that mankind 
 are at the expense of supporting it. The defects of 
 every government and constitution, both as to principle 
 and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to 
 discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which 
 every man owes to society to point them out. When 
 
 110 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 those defects and the means of remedying them are gen- 
 erally seen by a nation, that nation will reform its 
 government or its constitution in the one case as the 
 government repealed or reformed the law in the other. 
 
 Gentlemen, you must undoubtedly wish to 
 deal with every man who comes before you in 
 judgment as you would be dealt by; and surely 
 you will not lay it down to-day as a law to be 
 binding hereafter, even upon yourselves, that if 
 you should publish any opinion concerning exist- 
 ing abuses in your country's government, and 
 point out to the whole public the means of amend- 
 ment, you are to be acquitted or convicted as any 
 twelve men may happen to agree with you in 
 your opinions. Yet this is precisely what you 
 are asked to do to another — it is precisely the case 
 before you. 
 
 Mr. Paine expressly says, I obey a law until 
 it is repealed ; obedience is not only my principle 
 but my practise, since my disobedience of a law, 
 from thinking it bad, might apply to justify an- 
 other man in the disobedience of a good one; and 
 thus individuals would give the rule for them- 
 selves, and not society for all. You will pres- 
 ently see that the same principle pervades the 
 whole work; and I am the more anxious to call 
 your attention to it, however repetition may tire 
 
 111 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 you, because it unfolds the whole principle of my 
 argument ; for, if you find a sentence in the whole 
 book that invests any individual, or any number 
 of individuals, or any community short of the 
 whole nation, with a power of changing any 
 part of the law or constitution, I abandon the 
 cause — yes, I freely abandon it, because I will not 
 affront the majesty of a court of justice by main- 
 taining propositions which, even upon the surface 
 of them, are false. Mr. Paine, pages 162-168,* 
 goes on thus : 
 
 When a nation changes its opinion and habits of 
 thinking, it is no longer to be governed as before; but 
 it would not only be wrong, but bad policy, to attempt 
 by force what ought to be accomplished by reason. Re- 
 bellion consists in forcibly opposing the general will of 
 a nation, whether by a party or by a government. There 
 ought, therefore, to be, in every nation, a method of 
 occasionally ascertaining the state of public opinion with 
 respect to government. 
 
 There is, therefore, no power but the voluntary will 
 of the people that has a right to act in any matter re- 
 specting a general reform; and by the same right that 
 two persons can confer on such a subject, a thousand 
 may. The object in all such preliminary proceedings 
 is to find out what the general sense of a nation is, 
 and to be governed by it. If it prefer a bad or de- 
 fective government to a reform, or choose to pay ten 
 times more taxes than there is occasion for, it has a 
 
 *Folios of the original edition. — Ed. 
 
 112 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 right so to do; and, so long as the majority do not 
 impose conditions on the minority different to what they 
 impose on themselves, though there may be much error, 
 there is no injustice; neither will the error continue long. 
 Reason and discussion will soon bring things right, how- 
 ever wrong they may begin. By such a process no 
 tumult is to be apprehended. The poor, in all countries, 
 are naturally both peaceable and grateful in all reforms 
 in which their interest and happiness are included. It 
 is only by neglecting and rejecting them that they be- 
 come tumultuous. 
 
 Gentlemen, these are the sentiments of the 
 author of the " Rights of Man " ; and, whatever 
 his opinions may be of the defects in our Gov- 
 ernment, it never can change ours concerning it, 
 if our sentiments are just; and a writing can 
 never be seditious, in the sense of the English 
 law, which states that the Government leans on 
 the universal will for its support. 
 
 This universal will is the best and securest 
 title which His Majesty and his family have to 
 the throne of these kingdoms ; and in proportion 
 to the wisdom of our institutions, the title must 
 in common sense become the stronger. So little 
 idea indeed have I of any other, that in my place 
 in Parliament, not a week ago, I considered it as 
 the best way of expressing my reverence to the 
 Constitution ; as established at the Revolution, to 
 declare (I believe in the presence of the heir- 
 
 113 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 apparent to the Crown, to whom I have the great- 
 est personal attachment), that His Majesty 
 reigned in England by choice and consent, as the 
 magistrate of the English people; not indeed a 
 consent and choice by personal election, like a 
 King of Poland — the worst of all possible con- 
 stitutions; but by the election of a family for 
 great national objects, in defiance of that heredi- 
 tary right, which only becomes tyranny, in the 
 sense of Mr. Paine, when it claims to inherit a 
 nation, instead of governing by their consent, and 
 continuing for its benefit. This sentiment has the 
 advantage of Mr. Burke's high authority, who 
 says with great truth, in a "Letter to his Consti- 
 tuents" : 
 
 " Too little dependence cannot be had at this 
 time of day on names and prejudices: the eyes of 
 mankind are opened; and communities must be 
 held together by a visible and solid interest." I 
 believe, Gentlemen of the jury, that the Prince of 
 Wales will always render this title dear to the 
 people. The Attorney-general can only tell you 
 what he believes of him; I can tell you what I 
 know, and what I am bound to declare, since this 
 Prince may be traduced in every part of the king- 
 dom, without its coming in question, till brought 
 in to load a defense with matter collateral to the 
 114 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 charge. I therefore assert what the Attorney- 
 general can only hope, that whenever that Prince 
 shall come to the throne of this country (which 
 I pray, but, by the course of nature, may never 
 happen), he will make the Constitution of Great 
 Britain the foundation of all his conduct. 
 
 Having now established the author's general 
 intention by his own introduction, which is the 
 best and fairest exposition, let us next look at the 
 occasion which gave it birth. 
 
 The Attorney-general throughout the whole 
 course of his address to you ( I knew it would be 
 so), has avoided the most distant notice or hint 
 of any circumstance having led to the appearance 
 of the author in the political world, after a silence 
 of so many years ; he has not even pronounced, or 
 even glanced, at the name of Mr. Burke, but has 
 left you to take it for granted that the defendant 
 volunteered this delicate and momentous subject, 
 and, without being led to it by the provocation 
 of political controversy, had seized a favorable 
 moment to stigmatize, from mere malice, and 
 against his own confirmed opinions, the Constitu- 
 tion of this country. 
 
 Gentlemen, my learned friend knows too well 
 my respect and value for him to suppose that I 
 am charging him with wilful suppression ; I know 
 
 115 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 him to be incapable of it ; he knew it would come 
 from me. He will permit me, however, to la- 
 ment that it should have been left for me to in- 
 form you, at this late period of the cause, that 
 not only the work before you, but the first part, 
 of which it is a natural continuation, were writ- 
 ten, avowedly and upon the face of them, in 
 answer to Mr. Burke. 
 
 They were written, besides, under circum- 
 stances to be explained hereafter, in the course 
 of which explanation I may have occasion to 
 cite a few passages from the works of that 
 celebrated person. And I shall speak of him 
 with the highest respect; for, with whatever 
 contempt he may delight to look down upon 
 my humble talents, however, he may dispar- 
 age the principles which direct my public conduct, 
 he shall never force me to forget the regard which 
 this country owes to him for the writings which 
 he has left upon record as an inheritance to our 
 most distant posterity. 
 
 After the gratitude which we owe to God for 
 the divine gifts of reason and understanding, our 
 next thanks are due to those from the fountains 
 of whose enlightened minds they are fed and fruc- 
 tified. But pleading, as I do, the cause of free- 
 dom of opinions, I shall not give offense by 
 116 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 remarking that this great author has been 
 thought to have changed some of his; and, if 
 Thomas Paine had not thought so, I should not 
 now be addressing you, because the book which 
 is my subject would never have been written. 
 
 Who may be right and who in the wrong, in 
 the contention of doctrines, I have repeatedly dis- 
 claimed to be the question. I can only say that 
 Mr. Paine may be right throughout, but that 
 Mr. Burke cannot. Mr. Paine has been uni- 
 form in his opinions, but Mr. Burke has not. 
 Mr. Burke can only be right in part ; but should 
 Mr. Paine be even mistaken in the whole, still I 
 am not removed from the principle of his defense. 
 My defense has nothing to do with the rectitude 
 of his doctrines. 
 
 I admit Mr. Paine to be a republican; you 
 shall soon see what made him one. I do not seek 
 to shade or qualify his attack upon our Constitu- 
 tion; I put my defense on no such matter. He 
 undoubtedly means to declare it to be defective 
 in its forms, and contaminated with abuses which, 
 in his judgment, will, one day or other, bring on 
 the ruin of us all. It is in vain to mince the mat- 
 ter; this is the scope of his work. But still, if 
 it contain no attack upon the King's majesty, nor 
 upon any other living magistrate ; if it excite to 
 
 117 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 no resistance to magistracy, but, on the contrary, 
 if it even studiously inculcate obedience, then, 
 whatever may be its defects, the question con- 
 tinues as before, and ever must remain, an un- 
 mixed question of the liberty of the press. 
 
 I have therefore considered it as no breach of 
 professional duty, nor injurious to the cause I am 
 defending, to express my own admiration of the 
 real principles of our Constitution — a Constitu- 
 tion which I hope may never give way to any 
 other — a Constitution which has been productive 
 of many benefits, and which will produce many 
 more hereafter, if we have wisdom enough to 
 pluck up the weeds that grow in the richest soils 
 and amongst the brightest flowers. 
 
 I agree with the merchants of London, in a 
 late declaration, that the English Government is 
 equal to the reformation of its own abuses; and, 
 as an inhabitant of the city, I would have signed 
 it, if I had known, of my own knowledge, the 
 facts recited in its preamble. But abuses the 
 English Constitution unquestionably has, which 
 call loudly for reformation, the existence of which 
 has been the theme of our greatest statesmen, 
 which have too plainly formed the principles of 
 the defendant, and may have led to the very con- 
 juncture which produced his book. 
 118 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Gentlemen, we all but too well remember the 
 calamitous situation in which our country 
 stood but a few years ago — a situation which no 
 man can look back upon without horror, nor feel 
 himself safe from relapsing into again, while the 
 causes remain which produced it. The event I 
 allude to you must know to be the American War, 
 and the still existing causes of it, the corruptions 
 of this Government. In those days it was not 
 thought virtue by the patriots of England to con- 
 ceal the existence of them from the people; but 
 then, as now, authority condemned them as disaf- 
 fected subjects, and defeated the ends they 
 sought by their promulgation. 
 
 Hear the opinion of Sir George Saville — not 
 his speculative opinion concerning the structure 
 of our Government in the abstract, but his opin- 
 ion of the settled abuses which prevailed in his 
 own time, and which continue at this moment. 
 But first let me remind you who Sir George Sa- 
 ville was. I fear we shall hardly look upon his 
 like again. How shall I describe him to you? In 
 my own words I cannot. I was lately commended 
 by Mr. Burke in the House of Commons for 
 strengthening my own language by an appeal to 
 Dr. Johnson. Were the honorable gentleman 
 present at this moment he would no doubt doubly 
 
 119 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 applaud my choice in resorting to his own works 
 for the description of Sir George Saville. 
 
 " His fortune is among the largest ; a for- 
 tune which, wholly unencumbered as it is, with- 
 out one single charge from luxury, vanity, or 
 excess, sinks under the benevolence of its dispen- 
 ser. This private benevolence, expanding itself 
 into patriotism, renders his whole being the estate 
 of the public, in which he has not reserved a pecu- 
 lium for himself of profit, diversion, or relaxation. 
 During the session, the first in and the last out of 
 the House of Commons, he passes from the sen- 
 ate to the camp; and seldom seeing the seat of 
 his ancestors, he is always in Parliament to serve 
 his country, or in the field to defend it." 
 
 It is impossible to ascribe to such a character 
 any principle but patriotism, when he expressed 
 himself as follows: — 
 
 " I return to you baffled and dispirited, and I 
 am sorry that truth obliges me to add, with hardly 
 a ray of hope of seeing any change in the miser- 
 able course of public calamities. 
 
 " On this melancholy day of account, in ren- 
 dering up to you my trust, I deliver to you your 
 share of a country maimed and weakened; its 
 treasure lavished and misspent ; its honors faded ; 
 and its conduct the laughing-stock of Europe: 
 120 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 our nation in a manner without allies or friends, 
 except such as we have hired to destroy our fel- 
 low-subjects, and to ravage a country in which we 
 once claimed an invaluable share. I return to 
 you some of your principal privileges impeached 
 and mangled. And, lastly, I leave you, as I con- 
 ceive, at this hour and moment, fully, effectually, 
 and absolutely under the discretion and power of 
 a military force, which is to act without waiting 
 for the authority of the civil magistrates. 
 
 "Some have been accused of exaggerating the 
 public misfortunes, nay, of having endeavored to 
 help forward the mischief, that they might after- 
 wards raise discontents. I am willing to hope 
 that neither my temper nor my situation in life 
 will be thought naturally to urge me to promote 
 misery, discord, or confusion, or to exult in the 
 subversion of order, or in the ruin of property. I 
 have no reason to contemplate with pleasure the 
 poverty of our country, the increase of our debts 
 and of our taxes, or the decay of our commerce. 
 Trust not, however, to my report: reflect, com- 
 pare and judge for yourselves. 
 
 " But, under all these disheartening circum- 
 stances, I could yet entertain a cheerful hope, and 
 undertake again the commission with alacrity, as 
 well as zeal, if I could see any effectual steps 
 i-u 121 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 taken to remove the original cause of the mischief. 
 'Then would there be a hope.' 
 
 " But till the purity of the constituent body, 
 and thereby that of the representative, be re- 
 stored, there is none. 
 
 " I gladly embrace this most public oppor- 
 tunity of delivering my sentiments, not only to 
 all my constituents, but to those likewise not my 
 constituents, whom yet, in the large sense, I rep- 
 resent, and am faithfully to serve. 
 
 " I look upon restoring election and represen- 
 tation in some degree (for I expect no miracles) 
 to their original purity, to be that, without which 
 all other efforts will be vain and ridiculous. 
 
 " If something be not done, you may, indeed, 
 retain the outward form of your Constitution, 
 but not the power thereof." 
 
 Such were the words of that great, good man, 
 lost with those of many others of his time, and 
 his fame, as far as power could hurt it, put in the 
 shade along with them. The consequences we 
 have all seen and felt : America, from an obedient, 
 affectionate colony, became an independent na- 
 tion; and two millions of people, nursed in the 
 very lap of our monarchy, became the willing sub- 
 jects of a republican constitution. 
 
 Gentlemen, in that great and calamitous con- 
 122 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 flict Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine fought 
 in the same field of reason together, but with very 
 different successes. Mr. Burke spoke to a Par- 
 liament in England, such as Sir George Saville 
 describes it, having no ears but for sounds that 
 flattered its corruptions. Mr. Paine, on the other 
 hand, spoke to a people, reasoned with them, 
 told them that they were bound by no subjection 
 to any sovereignty, further than their own bene- 
 fit connected them ; and by these powerful argu- 
 ments prepared the minds of the American 
 people for that glorious., just., and happy revo- 
 lution. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have a right to distinguish it 
 by these epithets, because I aver that at this mo- 
 ment there is as sacred a regard to property, as 
 inviolable a security to all the rights of individ- 
 uals, lower taxes, fewer grievances, less to de- 
 plore, and more to admire, in the Constitution of 
 America, than that of any other country under 
 heaven. I wish indeed to except our own, but I 
 cannot even do that, till it shall be purged of 
 those abuses which, though they obscure and de- 
 form the surface, have not as yet, thank God, 
 destroyed the vital parts. 
 
 Why then is Mr. Paine to be calumniated and 
 reviled, because, out of a people consisting of 
 
 123 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 near three millions, he alone did not remain at- 
 tached in opinion to a monarchy? Remember 
 that all the blood which was shed in America, and 
 to which he was for years a melancholy and indig- 
 nant witness, was shed by the authority of the 
 Crown of Great Britain, under the influence of a 
 Parliament such as Sir George Saville has de- 
 scribed it, and such as Mr. Burke himself will 
 be called upon by and by in more glowing colors 
 to paint it. 
 
 How, then, can it be wondered at that Mr. 
 Paine should return to this country in his 
 heart a republican? Was he not equally a re- 
 publican when he wrote "Common Sense"? Yet 
 that volume has been sold without restraint or 
 prosecution in every shop in England ever since, 
 and which nevertheless (I appeal to the book, 
 which I have in Court, and which is in everybody's 
 hands) contains every one principle of govern- 
 ment, and every abuse in the British Constitution, 
 which is to be found in the " Rights of Man." 
 
 Yet Mi. Burke himself saw no reason to be 
 alarmed at that publication, nor to cry down its 
 contents, even when America, which was swayed 
 by it, was in arms against the Crown of Great 
 Britain. You shall hear his opinion of it in his 
 124 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol," pages 33 and 
 34. 
 
 " The Court Gazette accomplished what the 
 abettors of independence had attempted in vain. 
 When that disingenuous compilation, and strange 
 medley of railing and flattery, was adduced as a 
 proof of the united sentiments of the people of 
 Great Britain, there was a great change through- 
 out all America. The tide of popular affection, 
 which had still set toward the parent country, 
 began immediately to turn, and to flow with 
 great rapidity in a contrary course. 
 
 " Ear from concealing these wild declarations 
 of enmity, the author of the celebrated pamphlet* 
 which prepared the minds of the people for inde- 
 pendence, insists largely on the multitude and 
 the spirit of these addresses ; and draws an argu- 
 ment from them which (if the fact were as he 
 supposes) must be irresistible; for I never knew 
 a writer on the theory of government so partial 
 to authority as not to allow that the hostile mind 
 of the rulers to their people did fully justify a 
 change of government ; nor can any reason what- 
 ever be given why one people should voluntarily 
 yield any degree of pre-eminence to another, but 
 on a supposition of great affection and benevol- 
 
 *"Common Sense," written by Thomas Paine in America, 
 
 125 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 ence toward them. Unfortunately, your rulers, 
 trusting to other things, took no notice of this 
 great principle of connection." 
 
 Such were the sentiments of Mr. Burke; but 
 there is a time, it seems, for all things. 
 
 Gentlemen, the consequences of this mighty 
 Revolution are too notorious to require illustra- 
 tion. No audience would sit to hear (what every- 
 body has seen and felt), how the independence 
 of America notoriously produced, not by remote 
 and circuitous effect, but directly and palpably, 
 the revolutions which now agitate Europe, and 
 which portend such mighty changes over the face 
 of the earth. Let governments take warning. 
 
 The Revolution in France was the conse- 
 quence of her incurably corrupt and profligate 
 Government. God forbid that I should be 
 thought to lean, by this declaration, upon her 
 unfortunate monarch, bending perhaps at this 
 moment under afflictions which my heart sinks 
 within me to think of: when I speak with de- 
 testation of the former politics of the French 
 Court, I fasten as little of them upon that 
 fallen and unhappy prince, as I impute to 
 our gracious Sovereign the corruptions of our 
 own. I desire, indeed, in the distinctest manner, 
 to be understood that I mean to speak of His 
 126 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Majesty, not only with that obedience and duty 
 which I owe to him as a subject, but with that 
 justice which I think is due to him from all men 
 who examine his conduct either in public or pri- 
 vate life. 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Paine happened to be in 
 England when the French Revolution took place; 
 and notwithstanding what he must be supposed 
 and allowed from his own history to have felt 
 upon such a subject, he remained wholly silent 
 and inactive. The people of this country, too, 
 appeared to be indifferent spectators of the ani- 
 mating scene. They saw, without visible emo- 
 tion, despotism destroyed, and the King of 
 France, by his own consent, become the first 
 magistrates of a free people. 
 
 Certainly, at least, it produced none of those 
 effects which are so deprecated by Government 
 at present; nor, most probable, ever would, 
 if it had not occurred to the celebrated person 
 whose name I must so often mention volun- 
 tarily to provoke the subject — a subject which, 
 if dangerous to be discussed, he should not 
 have led to the discussion of; for surely it is 
 not to be endured that any private man shall 
 publish a creed for a whole nation; shall tell us 
 that we are not to think for ourselves, shall im- 
 
 127 
 
WRITINGS OF, THOMAS PAINE 
 
 pose his own fetters upon the human mind, shall 
 dogmatize at discretion, and yet that no man shall 
 sit down to answer him without being guilty of a 
 libel. I assert that if it be a libel to mistake our 
 Constitution, to attempt the support of it by 
 means that tend to destroy it, and to choose the 
 most dangerous season for doing so, Mr. Burke 
 is that libeler; but not therefore the object of a 
 criminal prosecution. 
 
 While I am not defending the motives of one 
 man, I have neither right nor disposition to crimi- 
 nate the motives of another. All I contend for is 
 a fact that cannot be controverted — viz., that 
 this officious interference was the origin of Mr. 
 Paine 's book. I put my cause upon its being the 
 origin of it — the avowed origin — as will abund- 
 antly appear from the introduction and preface 
 to both parts, and from the whole body of the 
 work ; nay, from the very work of Mr. Burke him- 
 self, to which both of them are answers. 
 
 For the history of that celebrated work, I ap- 
 peal to itself. 
 
 When the French Revolution had arrived at 
 some of its early stages, a few, and but a few, 
 persons (not to be named when compared with 
 the nation) took a visible interest in these mighty 
 events — an interest well worthy of Englishmen. 
 128 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 They saw a pernicious system of government 
 which had led to desolating wars, and had been 
 for ages the scourge of Great Britain, giving way 
 to a system which seemed to promise harmony 
 and peace amongst nations. They saw this with 
 virtuous and peaceable satisfaction; and a rev- 
 erend divine,* eminent for his eloquence, recol- 
 lecting that the issues of life are in the hands of 
 God, saw no profaneness in mixing the subject 
 with public thanksgiving, by reminding the peo- 
 ple of this country of their own glorious deliver- 
 ance in former ages. 
 
 It happened, also, that a society of gentle- 
 men, France being then a neutral nation, and 
 her own monarch swearing almost daily upon 
 her altars to maintain the new Constitution, 
 thought they infringed no law by sending a gen- 
 eral congratulation. Their members, indeed, 
 were very inconsiderable; so much so, that Mr. 
 Burke, with more truth than wisdom, begins his 
 volume with a sarcasm upon their insignificance : 
 
 " Until very lately he had never heard of such 
 a club. It certainly never occupied a moment 
 of his thoughts; nor, he believed, those of any 
 person out of their own set." 
 
 Why then make their proceedings the sub- 
 
 •Dr. Price. 
 
 129 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 ject of alarm throughout England? There had 
 been no prosecution against them, nor any charge 
 founded even upon suspicion of disaffection 
 against any of their body. But Mr. Burke 
 thought it was reserved for his eloquence to whip 
 these curs of faction to their kennels. How he 
 has succeeded, I appeal to all that has happened 
 since the introduction of his schism in the British 
 Empire, by giving to the King, whose title was 
 questioned by no man, a title which it is His 
 Majesty's most solemn interest to disclaim. 
 
 After having, in his first work, lashed Dr. 
 Price in a strain of eloquent irony for consider- 
 ing the monarchy to be elective, which he could 
 not but know Dr. Price, in the literal sense of 
 election, neither did nor could possibly consider 
 it, Mr. Burke published a second treatise; in 
 which, after reprinting many passages from Mr. 
 Paine's former work, he ridicules and denies the 
 supposed right of the people to change their gov- 
 ernments, in the following words: 
 
 " The French Revolution, say they" speak- 
 ing of the English societies, " was the act of the 
 majority of the people; and if the majority of 
 any other people, the people of England for in- 
 stance, wish to make the same change, they have 
 130 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 the same right; just the same undoubtedly; that 
 is, none at all." 
 
 And then, after speaking of the subserviency 
 of will to duty (in which I agree with him), he, 
 in a substantive sentence, maintains the same 
 doctrine, thus: 
 
 "The constitution of a country being once 
 settled upon some compact, tacit or expressed, 
 there is no power existing of force to alter it, 
 without the breach of the covenant, or the consent 
 of all the parties. Such is the nature of a con- 
 tract." 
 
 So that if reason, or even revelation itself, 
 were now to demonstrate to us that our Constitu- 
 tion was mischievous in its effects — if, to use Mr. 
 Attorney-general's expression, we had been in- 
 sane for the many centuries we have supported it ; 
 yet that still, if the King had not forfeited his 
 title to the Crown, nor the Lords their privileges, 
 the universal voice of the people of En-gland 
 could not build up a new government upon a le- 
 gitimate basis. 
 
 Passing by, for the present, the absurdity of 
 such a proposition, and supposing it could, be- 
 yond all controversy, be maintained; for Heav- 
 en's sake, let wisdom never utter it! Let policy 
 and prudence forever conceal it! If you seek 
 
 131 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the stability of the English Government, rather 
 put the book of Mr. Paine, which calls it bad, 
 into every hand in the kingdom, than doctrines 
 which bid human nature rebel even against that 
 which is the best. 
 
 Say to the people of England, Look at your 
 Constitution, there it lies before you — the work 
 of your pious fathers — handed down as a sacred 
 deposit from generation to generation — the re- 
 sult of wisdom and virtue — and its parts ce- 
 mented together with kindred blood: there are, 
 indeed, a few spots upon its surface; but the 
 same principle which reared the structure will 
 brush them all away. You may preserve your 
 Government — you may destroy it. To such an 
 address, what would be the answer? A chorus 
 of the nation — yes., we will preserve it. 
 
 But say to the same nation, even of the very 
 same Constitution, It is yours, such as it is, for 
 better or for worse — it is strapped upon your 
 backs, to carry it as beasts of burden — you have 
 no jurisdiction to cast it off. Let this be your 
 position, and you instantly raise up (I appeal to 
 every man's consciousness of his own nature) a 
 spirit of uneasiness and discontent. It is this 
 spirit alone that has pointed most of the passages 
 arraigned before you. 
 132 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 But let the prudence of Mr. Burke's argu- 
 ment be what it may, the argument itself is un- 
 tenable. His Majesty undoubtedly was not 
 elected to the throne. No man can be supposed, 
 in the teeth of fact, to have contended it ; but did 
 not the people of England elect King William, 
 and break the hereditary succession? and does 
 not His Majesty's title grow out of that election? 
 It is one of the charges against the defendant, his 
 having denied the Parliament which called the 
 Prince of Orange to the throne to have been a 
 legal convention of the whole people; and is not 
 the very foundation of that charge that it was 
 such a legal convention, and that it was intended 
 to be so? And if it was so, did not the people 
 then confer the crown upon King William with- 
 out any regard to hereditary right? 
 
 Did they not cut off the Prince of Wales, 
 who stood directly in the line of succession, and 
 who had incurred no personal forfeiture? Did 
 they not give their deliverer an estate in the 
 Crown totally new and unprecedented in the law 
 or history of the country? And, lastly, might 
 they not, by the same authority, have given the 
 royal inheritance to the family of a stranger? 
 Mr. Justice Blackstone, in his "Commentaries," 
 asserts in terms that they might; and ascribes 
 
 133 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 their choice of King William, and the subsequent 
 limitations of the Crown, not to want of jurisdic- 
 tion, but to their true origin, to prudence and 
 discretion in not disturbing a valuable institution 
 further than public safety and necessity dictated. 
 
 The English Government stands then on this 
 public consent, the true root of all governments. 
 And I agree with Mr. Burke that, while it is well 
 administered, it is not in the power of factions or 
 libels to disturb it; thougth, when ministers are 
 in fault, they are sure to set down all disturb- 
 ances to these causes. This is most justly and 
 eloquently exemplified in his own " Thoughts on 
 the Cause of the Present Discontents," pages 5 
 and 6: 
 
 " Ministers contend that no adequate provo- 
 cation has been given for so spreading a discon- 
 tent, our affairs having been conducted through- 
 out with remarkable temper and consummate 
 wisdom. The wicked industry of some libelers, 
 joined to the intrigues of a few disappointed 
 politicians, have, in their opinion, been able to 
 produce this unnatural ferment in the nation. 
 
 "Nothing, indeed, can be more unnatural than 
 
 the present convulsions of this country, if the 
 
 above account be a true one. I confess I shall 
 
 assent to it with great reluctance, and only on 
 
 134 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 the compulsion of the clearest and firmest proofs ; 
 because their account resolves itself into this short 
 but discouraging proposition: 'That we have a 
 very good Ministry, but that we are a very bad 
 people'; that we set ourselves to bite the hand 
 that feeds us; and, with a malignant insanity, 
 oppose the measures and ungratefully vilify the 
 persons of those whose sole object is our own 
 peace and prosperity. If a few puny libelers, 
 acting under a knot of factious politicians, with- 
 out virtue, parts, or character (for such they are 
 constantly represented by these gentlemen), are 
 sufficient to excite this disturbance, very perverse 
 must be the disposition of that people amongst 
 whom such a disturbance can be excited by such 
 means." 
 
 He says true ; never were serious disturbances 
 excited by such means! 
 
 But to return to the argument. Let us now 
 see how the rights of the people stand upon au- 
 thorities. Let us examine whether this great 
 source of government insisted on by Thomas 
 Paine be not maintained by persons on whom my 
 friend will find it difficult to fasten the character 
 of libelers. 
 
 I shall begin with the most modern author on 
 the subject of government — whose work lies 
 
 135 
 
.WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 spread out before me, as it often does at home for 
 my delight and instruction in my leisure hours. I 
 have also the honor of his personal acquaintance. 
 He is a man, perhaps more than any other, de- 
 voted to the real Constitution of this country, as 
 will be found throughout his valuable work ; he is 
 a person, besides, of great learning, which enabled 
 him to infuse much useful knowledge into my 
 learned friend now near me, who introduced me to 
 him.* I speak of Mr. Paley, Archdeacon of Car- 
 lisle, and of his work " The Principles of Political 
 and Moral Philosophy," in which he investigates 
 the first principles of all governments — a discus- 
 sion not thought dangerous till lately. I hope 
 we shall soon get rid of this ridiculous panic. 
 
 Mr. Paley professes to think of govern- 
 ments what the Christian religion was thought of 
 by its first teachers — "If it be of God, it will 
 stand"; and he puts the duty of obedience to 
 them upon free will and moral duty. After dis- 
 seting from Mr. Locke as to the origin of gov- 
 ernments in compact, he says: 
 
 "Wherefore, rejecting the intervention of a 
 compact as unfounded in its principle, and dan- 
 gerous in the application, we assign for the only 
 
 •Lord Ellenborough, then Mr. Law. 
 
 186 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ground of the subjects' obligation, the will of 
 God, as collected from expediency. 
 
 "The steps by which the argument proceeds 
 are few and direct. 'It is the will of God that 
 the happiness of human life be promoted' ; — this 
 is the first step, and the foundation, not only of 
 this, but of every moral conclusion. 'Civil soci- 
 ety conduces to that end' — this is the second 
 proposition. 'Civil societies cannot be upheld 
 unless in each the interest of the whole society be 
 binding upon every part and member of it' — 
 this is the third step, and conducts us to the con- 
 clusion — namely, 'That, so long as the interest of 
 the whole society requires it (that is, so long as 
 the established government cannot be resisted or 
 changed without public inconveniency), it is the 
 will of God (which will universally determines 
 our duty) that the established government be 
 obeyed' — and no longer. 
 
 " But who shall judge of this? We answer, 
 'Every man for himself/ In contentions be- 
 tween the sovereign and the subject, the parties 
 acknowledge no common arbitrator ; and it would 
 be absurd to commit the decision to those whose 
 conduct has provoked the question, and whose 
 own interest, authority, and fate are immediately 
 concerned in it. The danger of error and abuse 
 i-m 137 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 is no objection to the rule of expediency, because 
 every other rule is liable to the same or greater; 
 and every rule that can be propounded upon the 
 subject (like all rules which appeal to or bind the 
 conscience) must, in the application, depend up- 
 on private judgment. It may be observed, how- 
 ever, that it ought equally to be accounted the 
 exercise of a man's private judgment, whether 
 he determines by reasonings and conclusions of 
 his own, or submits to be directed by the advice of 
 others, provided he be free to choose his guide." 
 
 He then proceeds in a manner rather incon- 
 sistent with the principles entertained by my 
 learned friend in his opening to you: 
 
 " No usage, law, or authority whatever, is so 
 binding that it need or ought to be continued 
 when it may be changed with advantage to the 
 community. The family of the Prince — the or- 
 der of succession — the prerogative of the Crown 
 — the form and parts of the Legislature — to- 
 gether with the respective powers, office, duration, 
 and mutual dependency of the several parts — are 
 all only so many laws, mutable, like other laws, 
 whenever expediency requires, either by the ordi- 
 nary act of legislature, or, if the occasion deserve 
 
 it, BY THE INTERPOSITION OF THE PEOPLE." 
 
 No man can say that Mr. Paley intended to 
 138 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 diffuse discontent by this declaration. He must, 
 therefore, be taken to think with me, that freedom 
 and affection, and the sense of advantage, are the 
 best and the only supports of government. On 
 the same principle he then goes on to say : "These 
 points are wont to be approached with a kind of 
 awe; they are represented to the mind as princi- 
 ples of the Constitution, settled by our ancestors ; 
 and, being settled, to be no more committed to 
 innovation or debate; as foundations never to be 
 stirred; as the terms and conditions of the social 
 compact, to which every citizen of the state has 
 engaged his fidelity by virtue of a promise which 
 he cannot now recall. Such reasons have no 
 place in our system." 
 
 These are the sentiments of this excellent 
 author ; and there is no part of Mr. Paine's work, 
 from the one end of it to the other, that advances 
 any other proposition. 
 
 But the Attorney-general will say these are 
 the grave speculative opinions of a friend to the 
 English Government, whereas Mr. Paine is its 
 professed enemy; what then? The principle is, 
 that every man, while he obeys the law, is to think 
 for himself, and to communicate what he thinks. 
 The very ends of society exact this license, and 
 the policy of the law, in its provisions for its secu- 
 
 139 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 rity, has tacitly sanctioned it. The real fact is, 
 that writings against a free and well-propor- 
 tioned government need not be guarded against 
 by laws. They cannot often exist, and never 
 with effect. The just and lawful principles of 
 society are rarely brought forward but when they 
 are insulted or denied, or abused in practise. 
 Mr. Locke's " Essay on Government" we owe to 
 Sir Robert Filmer, as we owe Mr. Paine's to Mr. 
 Burke ; indeed, between the arguments of Filmer 
 and Burke I see no essential difference, since it is 
 not worth disputing whether a king exists by 
 divine right or by indissoluble human compact, if 
 he exists whether we will or no. If his existence 
 be without our consent, and is to continue with- 
 out benefit, it matters not whether his title be 
 from God or from man. 
 
 That his title is from man, and from every 
 generation of man, without regard to the deter- 
 mination of former ones, hear from Mr. Locke: 
 "All men" say they (i.e., Filmer and his adher- 
 ents), "are born under government, and there- 
 fore they cannot be at liberty to begin a new one. 
 Everyone is born a subject to his father, or his 
 Prince, and is therefore under the perpetual tie 
 of subjection and allegiance. It is plain man- 
 kind never owned nor considered any such nat- 
 140 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ural subjection that they were born in, to one or 
 the other, that tied them, without their own con- 
 sents, to a subjection to them and their heirs. 
 
 " It is true that whatever engagements or 
 promises anyone has made for himself, he is under 
 the obligation of them, but cannot, by any com- 
 pact whatsoever, bind his children or posterity; 
 for his son, when a man, being altogether as free 
 as his father, any act of the father can no more 
 give away the liberty of the son than it can of 
 anybody else." 
 
 So much for Mr. Locke's opinion of the rights 
 of man. Let us now examine his ideas of the 
 supposed danger of trusting him with them. 
 
 " Perhaps it will be said that — the people be- 
 ing ignorant, and always discontented — to lay 
 the foundation of government in the unsteady 
 opinion and uncertain humor of the people is to 
 expose it to certain ruin ; and no government will 
 be able long to subsist if the people may set up 
 a new legislature whenever they take offense at 
 the old one. 
 
 " To this I answer, Quite the contrary; people 
 are not so easily got out of their old forms as 
 some are apt to suggest; they are hardly to be 
 prevailed with to amend the acknowledged 
 faults in the frame they have been accustomed 
 
 141 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to; and if there be any original defects, or 
 adventitious ones, introduced by time or corrup- 
 tion, it is not an easy thing to be changed, even 
 when all the world sees there an opportunity for 
 it. This slowness and aversion in the people to 
 quit their old constitutions has, in the many revo- 
 lutions which have been seen in this kingdom in 
 this and former ages, still kept us to, or, after 
 some interval of fruitless attempts, still brought 
 us back again, to our old legislative of kings, 
 lords, and commons; and whatever provocations 
 have made the crown be taken from some of our 
 princes' heads, they never carried the people so 
 far as to place it in another line." 
 
 Gentlemen, I wish I had strength to go on 
 with all that follows ; but I have read enough, not 
 only to maintain the true principles of govern- 
 ment, but to put to shame the narrow system of 
 distrusting the people. 
 
 It may be said that Mr. Locke went great 
 lengths in his positions to beat down the contrary 
 doctrine of divine right, which was then endan- 
 gering the new establishment. But that cannot 
 be objected to David Hume, who maintains the 
 same doctrine. Speaking of the Magna Charta 
 in his "History," vol. ii, page 88, he says: 
 
 " It must be confessed that the former articles 
 142 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 of the great charter contain such mitigations and 
 explanations of the feudal law as are reasonable 
 and equitable; and that the latter involve all the 
 chief outlines of a legal government, and provide 
 for the equal distribution of justice and free en- 
 joyment of property; the great object for which 
 political society was founded by men, which the 
 people have a perpetual and unalienable right to 
 recall; and which no time, nor precedent, nor 
 statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter 
 them from keeping ever uppermost in their 
 thoughts and attention" 
 
 These authorities are sufficient to rest on ; yet 
 I cannot omit Mr. Burke himself, who is, if pos- 
 sible, still more distinct on the subject. Speak- 
 ing not of the ancient people of England, but of 
 colonies planted almost within our memories, he 
 says: 
 
 "If there be one fact in the world perfectly 
 clear, it is this, that the disposition of the people 
 of America is wholly averse to any other than a 
 free government; and this is indication enough to 
 any honest statesman how he ought to adapt 
 whatever power he finds in his hands to their case. 
 If any ask me what a free government is, I 
 answer, that it is what the people think so ; 
 
 AND THAT THEY, AND NOT I, AEE THE NATUEAL, 
 
 143 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 LAWFUL, AND COMPETENT JUDGES OF THIS MAT- 
 TER. If they practically allow me a greater 
 degree of authority over them than is consistent 
 with any correct ideas of perfect freedom, I 
 ought to thank them for so great a trust, and not 
 to endeavor to prove from thence that they have 
 reasoned amiss; and that, having gone so far, by 
 analogy, they must hereafter have no enjoyment 
 but by my pleasure.'* 
 
 Gentlemen, all that I have been stating hith- 
 erto has been only to show that there is not that 
 novelty in the opinions of the defendant as to lead 
 you to think he does not bona fide entertain them, 
 much less when connected with the history of his 
 life, which I therefore brought in review before 
 you. But still the great question remains un- 
 argued: Had he a right to promulgate these 
 opinions? If he entertained them, I shall argue 
 that he had; and although my arguments upon 
 the liberty of the press o?ay not to-day be hon- 
 ored with your or the Court's approbation, I 
 shall retire not at all disheartened, consoling my- 
 self with the reflection that a season may arrive 
 for their reception. 
 
 The most essential liberties of mankind have 
 been but slowly and gradually received; and so 
 very late indeed do some of them come to matu- 
 144 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 rity that, notwithstanding the Attorney-general 
 tells you that the very question I am now agita- 
 ting is most peculiarly for your consideration, as 
 a jury under our ancient Constitution, yet I 
 must remind both you and him that your juris- 
 diction to consider and deal with it at all in judg- 
 ment is but a year old. Before that late period 
 I ventured to maintain this very right of a jury 
 over the question of libel under the same ancient 
 Constitution (I do not mean before the noble 
 judge now present, for the matter was gone to 
 rest in the courts long before he came to sit where 
 he does, but) before a noble and reverend magis- 
 trate of the most exalted understanding, and of 
 the most uncorrupted integrity.* 
 
 He treated me not with contempt, indeed, 
 for of that his nature was incapable, but he put 
 me aside with indulgence, as you do a child while 
 it is lisping its prattle out of season; and if this 
 cause had been tried then,, instead of now, the 
 defendant must have been instantly convicted on 
 the proof of the publication, whatever you might 
 have thought of his case. Yet I have lived to see 
 it resolved, by an almost unanimous vote of the 
 whole Parliament of England, that I had all 
 along been in the right. If this be not an awful 
 
 *Earl of Mansfield. 
 
 145 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 lesson of caution concerning opinions, where are 
 such lessons to be read? 
 
 Gentlemen, I have insisted, at great length, 
 upon the origin of governments, and detailed the 
 authorities which you have heard upon the sub- 
 ject, because I consider it to be not only an es- 
 sential support, but the very foundation of the 
 liberty of the press. If Mr. Burke be right in 
 his principles of government, I admit that the 
 press, in my sense of its freedom, ought not to 
 be free, nor free in any sense at all; and that all 
 addresses to the people upon the subject of gov- 
 ernment, and all speculations of amendment, of 
 what kind or nature soever, are illegal and crim- 
 inal, since, if the people have, without possible 
 recall, delegated all their authorities, they have 
 no jurisdiction to act, and therefore none to think 
 or write upon such subjects; and it would be a 
 libel to arraign Government, or any of its acts, 
 before those who have no jurisdiction to correct 
 them. But, on the other hand, as it is a settled 
 rule in the law of England that the subject may 
 always address a competent jurisdiction, no legal 
 argument can shake the freedom of the press, in 
 my sense of it, if I am supported in my doctrines 
 concerning the great unalienable right of the 
 people, to reform or to change their governments. 
 146 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 It is because the liberty of the press resolves 
 itself into this great issue that it has been, in 
 every country, the last liberty which subjects have 
 been able to wrest from power. Other liberties 
 are held under governments, but the liberty of 
 opinion keeps governments themselves in due 
 subjection to their duties. This has produced 
 the martyrdom of truth in every age, and the 
 world has been only purged from ignorance with 
 the innocent blood of those who have enlight- 
 ened it. 
 
 Gentlemen, my strength and time are wasted, 
 and I can only make this melancholy history pass 
 like a shadow before you. 
 
 I shall begin with the grand type and ex- 
 ample. 
 
 The universal God of nature, the Savior of 
 mankind, the Fountain of all light, who came to 
 pluck the world from eternal darkness, expired 
 upon a cross — the scoff of infidel scorn; and His 
 blessed apostles followed Him in the train of 
 martyrs. When He came in the flesh, He might 
 have come like the Mahometan prophet, as a 
 powerful sovereign, and propagated His religion 
 with an unconquerable sword, which even now, 
 after the lapse of ages, is but slowly advancing 
 under the influence of reason over the face of the 
 
 147 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 earth ; but such a process would have been incon- 
 sistent with His mission, which was to confound 
 the pride, and to establish the universal rights of 
 men. He came, therefore, in that lowly state 
 which is represented in the Gospel, and preached 
 His consolations to the poor. 
 
 When the foundation of this religion was dis- 
 covered to be invulnerable and immortal, we find 
 political power taking the Church into partner- 
 ship ; thus began the corruptions, both of religion 
 and civil power ; and, hand in hand together, what 
 havoc have they not made in the world? — ruling 
 by ignorance and the persecution of truth; but 
 this very persecution only hastened the revival 
 of letters and liberty. Nay, you will find that 
 in the exact proportion that knowledge and learn- 
 ing have been beat down and fettered, they have 
 destroyed the governments which bound them. 
 
 The Court of Star Chamber, the first restric- 
 tion of the press of England, was erected previ- 
 ous to all the great changes in the Constitution. 
 From that moment, no man could legally write 
 without an imprimatur from the State ; but truth 
 and freedom found their way with greater force 
 through secret channels; and the unhappy 
 Charles, unwarned by a free press, was brought 
 to an ignominious death. When men can freely 
 148 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 communicate their thoughts and their sufferings, 
 real or imaginary, their passions spend them- 
 selves in air, like gunpowder scattered upon the 
 surface; but, pent up by terrors, they work un- 
 seen, burst forth in a moment, and destroy every- 
 thing in their course. Let reason be opposed to 
 reason, and argument to argument, and every 
 good government will be safe. 
 
 The usurper, Cromwell, pursued the same 
 system of restraint in support of his Govern- 
 ment, and the end of it speedily followed. 
 
 At the restoration of Charles II the Star 
 Chamber Ordinance of 1637 was worked up into 
 an act of Parliament, and was followed up dur- 
 ing that reign, and the short one that followed it, 
 by the most sanguinary prosecutions. But what 
 fact in history is more notorious than that this 
 blind and contemptible policy prepared and has- 
 tened the Revolution? At that great era these 
 cobwebs were all brushed away. The freedom 
 of the press was regenerated, and the country, 
 ruled by its affections, has since enjoyed a cen- 
 tury of tranquillity and glory. Thus I have 
 maintained by English history that, in propor- 
 tion as the press has been free, English govern- 
 ment has been secure. 
 
 Gentlemen, the same important truth may be 
 
 149 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 illustrated by great authorities. Upon a subject 
 of this kind resort cannot be had to law cases. 
 The ancient law of England knew nothing of 
 such libels; they began, and should have ended, 
 with the Star Chamber. What writings are 
 slanderous of individuals must be looked for 
 where these prosecutions are recorded; but upon 
 general subjects we must go to general writers. 
 If, indeed, I were to refer to obscure authors, I 
 might be answered that my very authorities were 
 libels, instead of justifications or examples; but 
 this cannot be said with effect of great men, whose 
 works are classics in our language, taught in our 
 schools, and repeatedly printed under the eye 
 of Government. 
 
 I shall begin with the poet Milton, a great 
 authority in all learning. It may be said, indeed, 
 he was a republican, but that would only prove 
 that republicanism is not incompatible with vir- 
 tue. It may be said, too, that the work which I 
 cite was written against previous licensing, which 
 is not contended for to-day. But if every work 
 were to be adjudged a libel which was adverse to 
 the wishes of Government, or to the opinions of 
 those who may compose it, the revival of a licenser 
 would be a security to the public. If I present 
 my book to a magistrate appointed by law, and 
 150 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 he rejects it, I have only to forbear from the pub- 
 lication. In the forbearance I am safe; and he 
 too is answerable to law for the abuse of his au- 
 thority. But, upon the argument of to-day, a 
 man must print at his peril, without any guide to 
 the principles of judgment upon which his work 
 may be afterwards prosecuted and condemned. 
 Milton's argument therefore applies, and was 
 meant to apply, to every interruption to writing, 
 which, while they oppress the individual, endan- 
 ger the state. 
 
 "We have them not," says Milton, "that can 
 be heard of, from any ancient state, or policy, or 
 church, nor by any statute left us by our ances- 
 tors, elder or later, nor from the modern custom 
 of any reformed city, or church abroad ; but from 
 the most anti-Christian council, and the most 
 tyrannous inquisition that ever existed. Till 
 then, books were ever as freely admitted into the 
 world as any other birth; the issue of the brain 
 was no more stifled than the issue of the womb. 
 
 "To the pure all things are pure; not only 
 meats and drinks, but all kind of knowledge, 
 whether good or evil. The knowledge cannot 
 defile, nor consequently the books, if the will and 
 conscience be not defiled. 
 
 "Bad books serve in many respects to dis- 
 
 151 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 cover, to confute, to forewarn, and to illustrate. 
 Whereof, what better witness can we expect I 
 should produce than one of your own, now sitting 
 in Parliament, the chief of learned men reputed 
 in this land, Mr. Selden, whose volume of nat- 
 ural and national laws proves, not only by great 
 authorities brought together, but by exquisite 
 reasons and theorems almost mathematically de- 
 monstrative, that all opinions, yea, errors, 
 known, read, and collated, are of main service 
 and assistance toward the speedy attainment of 
 what is truest? 
 
 "Opinions and understanding are not such 
 wares as to be monopolized and traded in by tick- 
 ets, and statutes, and standards. We must not 
 think to make a staple commodity of all the 
 knowledge in the land to mark and license it like 
 our broadcloth and our woolpacks. 
 
 "Nor is it to the common people less than a 
 reproach; for if we be jealous over them that 
 we cannot trust them with an English pamphlet, 
 what do we but censure them for a giddy, vicious, 
 and ungrounded people ; in such a sick and weak 
 estate of faith and discretion as to be able to take 
 nothing down but through the pipe of a licenser? 
 That this is care or love of them we cannot 
 pretend. 
 
 152 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 "Those corruptions which it seeks to prevent 
 break in faster at doors which cannot be shut. 
 To prevent men thinking and acting for them- 
 selves by restraints on the press is like to the ex- 
 ploits of that gallant man who thought to pound 
 up the crows by shutting his park gate. 
 
 " This obstructing violence meets, for the most 
 part, with an event utterly opposite to the end 
 which it drives at. Instead of suppressing books, 
 it raises them and invests them with a reputation. 
 The punishment of wits enhances their authority, 
 saith the Viscount St. Albans, and a forbidden 
 writing is thought to be a certain spark of truth 
 that flies up in the face of them who seek to tread 
 it out." 
 
 He then adverts to his visit to the famous 
 Galileo, whom he found and visited in the Inquisi- 
 tion, "for not thinking in astronomy with the 
 Franciscan and Dominican monks." And what 
 event ought more deeply to interest and affect us ? 
 The very laws of nature were to bend under 
 the rod of a licenser. This illustrious astronomer 
 ended his life within the bars of a prison, because, 
 in seeing the phases of Venus through his newly 
 invented telescope, he pronounced that she shone 
 with borrowed light, and from the sun as the cen- 
 ter of the universe. This was the mighty crime, 
 i-u 153 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the placing the sun in the center : that sun which 
 now inhabits it upon the foundation of mathe- 
 matical truth, which enables us to traverse the 
 pathless ocean, and to carry our line and rule 
 among other worlds, which, but for Galileo, we 
 had never known, perhaps even to the recesses of 
 an infinite and eternal God. 
 
 Milton then, in his most eloquent address to 
 the Parliament, puts the liberty of the press on 
 its true and most honorable foundation: 
 
 "Believe it, Lords and Commons, they who 
 counsel ye to such a suppressing of books, do as 
 good as bid you suppress yourselves, and I will 
 soon show how. 
 
 "If it be desired to know the immediate cause 
 of all this free writing and free speaking, there 
 cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild, 
 and free, and humane government. It is the 
 liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own 
 valorous and happy counsels have purchased us; 
 liberty, which is the nurse of all great wits. This 
 is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our 
 spirits like the influence of Heaven. This is that 
 which hath enfranchised, enlarged, and lifted up 
 our apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye 
 cannot make us now less capable, less knowing, 
 less eagerly pursuing the truth, unless ye first 
 154 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 make yourselves that made us so less the lovers, 
 less the founders, of our true liberty. We can 
 grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, 
 as ye found us; but you then must first become 
 that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, 
 and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have 
 freed us. That our hearts are now more capa- 
 cious, our thoughts now more erected to the 
 search and expectation of greatest and exactest 
 things, is the issue of your own virtue propa- 
 gated in us. Give me the liberty to know, to ut- 
 ter, and to argue freely, according to conscience, 
 above all liberties." 
 
 Gentlemen, I will yet refer you to another 
 author, whose opinion you may think more in 
 point, as having lived in our own times, and 
 as holding the highest monarchical principles of 
 government. I speak of Mr. Hume, who, never- 
 theless, considers that this liberty of the press 
 extends not only to abstract speculation, but to 
 keep the public on their guard against all the 
 acts of their government. 
 
 After showing the advantages of a monarchy 
 to public freedom, provided it is duly controlled 
 and watched by the popular part of the Constitu- 
 tion, he says, "These principles account for the 
 great liberty of the press in these kingdoms, be- 
 ll 55 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 yond what is indulged in any other government. 
 It is apprehended that arbitrary power would 
 steal in upon us were we not careful to prevent 
 its progress, and were there not an easy method 
 of conveying the alarm from one end of the king- 
 dom to the other. The spirit of the people must 
 frequently be roused in order to curb the ambi- 
 tion of the Court, and the dread of rousing this 
 spirit must be employed to prevent that ambi- 
 tion. Nothing is so effectual to this purpose as 
 the liberty of the press, by which all the learning, 
 wit, and genius of the nation may be employed 
 on the side of freedom, and everyone be animated 
 to its defense. As long, therefore, as the repub- 
 lican part of our Government can maintain itself 
 against the monarchical, it will naturally be care- 
 ful to keep the press open, as of importance to 
 its own preservation." 
 
 There is another authority contemporary with 
 the last, a splendid speaker in the Upper House 
 of Parliament, and who held during most of his 
 time high offices under the King. I speak of the 
 Earl of Chesterfield, who thus expressed himself 
 in the House of Lords: "One of the greatest 
 blessings, My Lords, we enjoy is liberty; but 
 every good in this life has its alloy of evil. Licen- 
 tiousness is the alloy of liberty, it is — " 
 156 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Lord Kenyon: Doctor Johnson claims to 
 pluck that feather from Lord Chesterfield's wing. 
 He speaks, I believe, of the eye of the political 
 body. 
 
 Mr. Erskine: My Lord, I am happy that it 
 is admitted to be a feather. I have heard it said 
 that Lord Chesterfield borrowed that which I 
 was just about to state, and which His Lordship 
 has anticipated. 
 
 Lord Kenyon : That very speech which did 
 Lord Chesterfield so much honor is supposed to 
 have been written by Doctor Johnson. 
 
 Mr. Erskine: Gentlemen, I believe it was 
 so, and I am much obliged to His Lordship for 
 giving me a far higher authority for my doctrine. 
 For though Lord Chesterfield was a man of great 
 wit, he was undoubtedly far inferior in learning 
 and, what is more to the purpose, in monarchical 
 opinion, to the celebrated writer to whom my 
 Lord has now delivered the work by his authority. 
 Doctor Johnson then says, "One of the greatest 
 blessings we enjoy, one of the greatest blessings 
 a people, My Lords, can enjoy, is liberty; but 
 every good in this life has its alloy of evil. Li- 
 centiousness is the alloy of liberty. It is an ebul- 
 lition, an excrescence; it is a speck upon the eye 
 of the political body, but which I can never touch 
 
 157 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 but with a gentle, with a trembling hand, lest I 
 destroy the body, lest I injure the eye upon which 
 it is apt to appear. 
 
 " There is such a connection between licen- 
 tiousness and liberty, that it is not easy to cor- 
 rect the one without dangerously wounding the 
 other: it is extremely hard to distinguish the true 
 limit between them : like a changeable silk, we can 
 easily see there are two different colors, but we 
 cannot easily discover where the one ends, or 
 where the other begins." 
 
 I confess I cannot help agreeing with this 
 learned author. The danger of touching the 
 
 PRESS IS THE DIFFICULTY OF MARKING ITS LIMITS. 
 
 My learned friend, who has just gone out of 
 court, has drawn no line and unfolded no princi- 
 ple. He has not told us, if this book is con- 
 demned, what book may be written. If I may 
 not write against the existence of a monarchy, and 
 recommend a republic, may I write against any 
 part of the Government? May I say that we 
 should be better without a House of Lords, or a 
 House of Commons, or a Court of Chancery, or 
 any other given part of our establishment? Or if, 
 as has been hinted, a work may be libelous for 
 stating even legal matter with sarcastic phrase, 
 158 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 the difficulty becomes the greater, and the liberty 
 of the press more impossible to define. 
 
 The same author, pursuing the subject, and 
 speaking of the fall of Roman liberty, says, "But 
 this sort of liberty came soon after to be called 
 licentiousness; for we are told that Augustus, 
 after having established his empire, restored or- 
 der in Rome by restraining licentiousness. God 
 forbid we should in this country have order re- 
 stored or licentiousness restrained, at so dear a 
 rate as the people of Rome paid for it to Au- 
 gustus. 
 
 " Let us consider, My Lords, that arbitrary 
 power has seldom or never been introduced into 
 any country at once. It must be introduced by 
 slow degrees, and as it were step by step, lest the 
 people should see its approach. The barriers 
 and fences of the people's liberty must be plucked 
 up one by one, and some plausible pretenses must 
 be found for removing or hoodwinking, one after 
 another, those sentries who are posted by the con- 
 stitution of a free country for warning the people 
 of their danger. When these preparatory steps 
 are once made, the people may then, indeed, with 
 regret, see slavery and arbitrary power making 
 long strides over their land ; but it will be too late 
 
 159 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to think of preventing or avoiding the impending 
 ruin. 
 
 " The stage, my Lords, and the press, are 
 two of our out-sentries; if we remove them, if 
 we hoodwink them, if we throw them in fetters, 
 the enemy may surprise us." 
 
 Gentlemen, this subject was still more lately 
 put in the justest and most forcible light by a 
 noble person high in the magistracy, whose mind 
 is not at all tuned to the introduction of disorder 
 by improper popular excesses: I mean Lord 
 Loughborough, Chief Justice of the Court of 
 Common Pleas. I believe I can answer for the 
 correctness of my note, which I shall follow up 
 with the opinion of another member of the Lords' 
 House of Parliament, the present Earl Stan- 
 hope ; or rather, I shall take Lord Stanhope first, 
 as His Lordship introduces the subject by advert- 
 ing to this argument of Lord Loughborough's. 
 "If," says Lord Stanhope, "our boasted liberty 
 of the press were to consist only in the liberty to 
 write in praise of the Constitution, this is a liberty 
 enjoyed under many arbitrary governments. I 
 suppose it would not be deemed quite an unpar- 
 donable offense, even by the Empress of Russia, 
 if any man were to take into his head to write a 
 panegyric upon the Russian form of govern- 
 160 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ment. Such a liberty as that might therefore 
 properly be termed the Russian liberty of the 
 press. But the English liberty of the press is of 
 a very different description: for, by the law of 
 England, it is not prohibited to publish specula- 
 tive works upon the Constitution, whether they 
 contain praise or censure." — (Lord Stanhope's 
 "Defense of the Libel Bill.") 
 
 You see, therefore, as far as the general prin- 
 ciple goes, I am supported by the opinion of 
 Lord Stanhope, for otherwise the noble Lord 
 has written a libel himself, by exciting other peo- 
 ple to write whatever they may think, be it good 
 or evil, of the Constitution of the country. As to 
 the other high authority, Lord Loughborough, I 
 will read what applies to this subject — " Every 
 man," said Lord Loughborough, " may publish 
 at his discretion his opinions concerning forms 
 and systems of government. If they be wise and 
 enlightening, the world will gain by them; if they 
 be weak and absurd, they will be laughed 
 at and forgotten ; and if they be bona fide, they 
 cannot be criminal, however erroneous. On 
 the other hand, the purpose and the direction 
 may give a different turn to writings whose com- 
 mon construction is harmless, or even meritorious. 
 
 " Suppose men, assembled in disturbance of 
 
 161 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the peace, to pull down mills or turnpikes, or to 
 do any other mischief, and that a mischievous per- 
 son should disperse among them an excitation to 
 the planned mischief known to both writer and 
 reader, To your tents, O Israel; that publication 
 would be criminal; — not as a libel, not as an ab- 
 stract writing, but as an act; and the act being 
 the crime, it must be stated as a fact extrinsic on 
 the record; for otherwise a court of error could 
 have no jurisdiction but over the natural con- 
 struction of the writing; nor would the defend- 
 ant have any notice of such matter at the trial, 
 without a charge on the record. To give the jury 
 cognizance of any matter beyond the construc- 
 tion of the writing, the averment should be, in 
 the case as I have instanced, that certain persons 
 were, as I have described, assembled; and that 
 the publisher, intending to excite these persons 
 so assembled, wrote so and so. Here the crime 
 is complete, and consists in an overt act of wick- 
 edness evidenced by a writing" 
 
 In answer to all these authorities, the Attor- 
 ney-general may say that if Mr. Paine had writ- 
 ten his observations with the views of those high 
 persons, and under other circumstances, he would 
 be protected and acquitted ; — to which I can only 
 answer, that no facts or circumstances attending 
 162 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 his work are either charged or proved; — that you 
 have no jurisdiction whatever but over the na- 
 tural construction of the work before you, and 
 tkat I am therefore brought without a flaw to the 
 support of the passages which are the particular 
 subject of complaint. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am not unmindful how long I 
 have already trespassed upon your patience ; and, 
 recollecting the nature of the human mind, and 
 how much, for a thousand reasons, I have to 
 struggle against at this moment, I shall not be 
 disconcerted if any of you should appear anxious 
 to retire from the pain of hearing me further. It 
 has been said in the newspapers, that my vanity 
 has forwarded my zeal in this cause ; — but I might 
 appeal even to the authors of those paragraphs 
 whether a situation ever existed which vanity 
 would have been fonder to fly from — the task of 
 speaking against every known prepossession — 
 with every countenance, as it were, planted and 
 lifted up against me. 
 
 But I stand at this bar to give to a criminal 
 arraigned before it the defense which the law 
 of the country entitles him to. If any of my 
 arguments be indecent, or unfit for the Court to 
 hear, the noble Judge presides to interrupt them ; 
 if all, or any of them, are capable of an answer, 
 
 163 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 they will be answered ; or if they be so unfounded 
 in your own minds, who are to judge them, as 
 not to call for refutation, your verdict in a mo- 
 ment will overthrow all that has been said. We 
 shall then have all discharged our duties. It is 
 your unquestionable province to judge, and mine 
 not less unquestionably to address your judg- 
 ments. 
 
 When the noble Judge and myself were coun- 
 sel for Lord George Gordon in 1781, it was not 
 considered by that jury, nor imputed to us by 
 anybody, that we were contending for the privi- 
 leges of overawing the House of Commons, or 
 recommending the conflagration of this city. I 
 am doing the same duty now which My Lord and 
 I then did in concert together ; and, whatever may 
 become of the cause, I expect to be heard; con- 
 scious that no just obloquy can be, or will in the 
 end be, cast upon me for having done my duty in 
 the manner I have endeavored to perform it. — 
 Sir, I shall name you presently.* 
 
 Gentlemen, I come now to observe on the 
 passages selected by the information; and with 
 regard to the first, I shall dispose of it in a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 *This expression was provoked by the conduct of one of the 
 jury, which this rebuke put an end to. — Ed. 
 
 164 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 " All hereditary government is in its nature 
 tyranny. An heritable crown, or an heritable 
 throne, or by what other fanciful name such 
 things may be called, have no other significant 
 explanation than that mankind are heritable 
 property. To inherit a government is to inherit 
 the people as if they were flocks and herds." 
 
 And is it to be endured, says the Attorney- 
 general, that the people of this country are to be 
 told that they are driven like oxen or sheep ? Cer- 
 tainly not. I am of opinion that a more danger- 
 ous doctrine cannot be instilled into the people 
 of England. But who instills such a doctrine? 
 I deny that it is instilled by Mr. Paine. When 
 he maintains that hereditary monarchy inherits 
 a people like flocks and herds, it is clear from the 
 context (which is kept out of view) that he is 
 combating the proposition in Mr. Burke's book, 
 which asserts that the hereditary monarchy of 
 England is fastened upon the people of England 
 by indissoluble compact. 
 
 Mr. Paine, on the contrary, asserts the King 
 of England to be the magistrate of the people, 
 existing by their consent, which is utterly incom- 
 patible with their being driven like herds. His 
 argument, therefore, is this, and it retorts on his 
 adversary: he says, Such a king as you, Mr. 
 
 165 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Burke, represent the King of England to be, 
 inheriting the people by virtue of conquest, or of 
 some compact, which, having once existed, can- 
 not be dissolved while the original terms of it are 
 kept is an inheritance like flocks and herds. But 
 I deny that to be the King of England's title. 
 He is the magistrate of the people ~, and that title 
 I respect. 
 
 It is to your own imaginary King of Eng- 
 land, therefore, and not to His Majesty, that 
 your unfounded innuendoes apply. It is the mon- 
 archs of Russia and Prussia, and all governments 
 fastened upon unwilling subjects by hereditary 
 indefeasible titles, who are stigmatized by Paine 
 as inheriting the people like flocks. The sentence, 
 therefore, must either be taken in the pure ab- 
 stract, and then it is not only merely speculative, 
 but the application of it to our own Government 
 fails altogether, or it must be taken connected 
 with the matter which constitutes the application, 
 and then it is Mr. Burke's King of England, 
 and not His Majesty, whose title is denied. 
 
 I pass, therefore, to the next passage, which 
 appears to be an extraordinary selection. It is 
 taken at a leap from page twenty-one to page 
 forty-seven, and breaks in at the words " This 
 convention." The sentence selected stands thus: 
 166 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 " This Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 
 1787, of which General Washington was elected 
 president. He was not at that time connected 
 with any of the state governments, or with Con- 
 gress. He delivered up his commission when the 
 war ended, and since then had lived a private 
 citizen. 
 
 " The Convention went deeply into all the 
 subjects; and having, after a variety of debate 
 and investigation, agreed among themselves upon 
 the several parts of a federal constitution, the 
 next question was, the manner of giving it au- 
 thority and practise. 
 
 "For this purpose they did not, like a cabal 
 of courtiers, send for a Dutch stadtholder, or a 
 German elector; but they referred the whole mat- 
 ter to the sense and interest of the country." 
 
 This sentence, standing thus by itself, may 
 appear to be a mere sarcasm on King William, 
 upon those who effected the Revolution, and 
 upon the Revolution itself, without any reason- 
 ing or deduction; but when the context and se- 
 quel are looked at and compared, it will appear 
 to be a serious historical comparison between the 
 Revolution effected in England in 1688 and the 
 late one in America when she established her in- 
 
 167 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 dependence; and no man can doubt that his judg- 
 ment on that comparison was sincere. 
 
 But where is the libel on the Constitution? 
 For whether King William was brought over 
 here by the sincerest and justest motives of the 
 whole people of England, each man acting for 
 himself, or from the motives and through the 
 agencies imputed by the defendant, it signifies 
 not one farthing at this time of day to the estab- 
 lishment itself. Blackstone properly warns us 
 not to fix our obedience or affection to the gov- 
 ernment on the motives of our ancestors, or the 
 rectitude of their proceedings, but to be satisfied 
 with what is established. This is safe reasoning, 
 and, for my own part, I should not be differently 
 affected to the Constitution of my country, which 
 my own understanding approved, whether angels 
 or demons had given it birth. 
 
 Do any of you love the Reformation the less 
 because Henry VIII was the author of it? 
 or because lust and poverty, not religion, were 
 his motives? He had squandered the treasures 
 of his father, and he preferred Anne Boleyn to 
 his queen: these were the causes which produced 
 it. What then? Does that affect the purity of 
 our reformed religion? Does it undermine its 
 establishment, or shake the King's title, to the 
 168 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 exclusion of those who held by the religion it had 
 abolished? Will the Attorney-general affirm that 
 I could be convicted of a libel for a volume of 
 asperity against Henry VIII, merely be- 
 cause he effected the Reformation; and if not, 
 why against King William, who effected the 
 Revolution? Where is the line to be drawn? 
 
 Are one, two, or three centuries to constitute 
 the statute of limitation? Nay, do not our own 
 historians detail this very cabal of courtiers from 
 the records of our own country? If you will turn 
 to Hume's " History," volume viii, page 188, 
 etc., etc., you will find that he states, at 
 great length, the whole detail of intrigues which 
 paved the way for the Revolution, and the inter- 
 ested coalition of parties which gave it effect. 
 
 But what of all this, concerning the motives 
 of parties, which is recorded by Hume? The 
 question is, What is the thing brought about? — 
 Not, how it was brought about. If it stands, 
 as Blackstone argues it, upon the consent of our 
 ancestors, followed up by our own, no individual 
 can withdraw his obedience. If he dislikes the 
 establishment, let him seek elsewhere for another ; 
 I am not contending for uncontrolled conduct, 
 but for freedom of opinion. 
 
 With regard to what has been stated of the 
 i-u 169 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Edwards and Henries, and the other princes un- 
 der which the author can only discover "restric- 
 tions on power, but nothing of a constitution/' 
 surely my friend is not in earnest when he selects 
 that passage as a libel. 
 
 Paine insists that there was no constitution 
 under these princes, and that English liberty was 
 obtained from usurped power by the struggles 
 of the people. So say I. And I think it for the 
 honor and advantage of the country that it should 
 be known. Was there any freedom after the 
 original establishment of the Normans by con- 
 quest? Was not the Magna Charta wrested 
 from John by open force of arms at Runnymede? 
 Was it not again re-enacted while menacing arms 
 were in the hands of the people? Were not its 
 stipulations broken through, and two-and-forty 
 times re-enacted by Parliament, upon the firm 
 demand of the people in the following reigns? 
 I protest it fills me with astonishment to hear 
 these truths brought in question. 
 
 I was formerly called upon, under the disci- 
 pline of a college, to maintain them, and was re- 
 warded for being thought to have successfully 
 maintained that our present Constitution was by 
 no means a remnant of Saxon liberty, nor any 
 other institution of liberty, but the pure conse- 
 170 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 quence of the oppression of the Norman tenures, 
 which, spreading the spirit of freedom from one 
 end of the kingdom to another, enabled our brave 
 fathers, inch by inch, not to reconquer, but for the 
 first time to obtain those privileges which are the 
 unalienable inheritance of all mankind. 
 
 But why do we speak of the Edwards and 
 Henries, when Hume himself expressly says, not- 
 withstanding all we have heard to-day of the an- 
 tiquity of our Constitution, that our monarchy 
 was nearly absolute till the middle of the last cen- 
 tury? It is his "Essay on the Liberty of the 
 Press," vol. 1, page 15 — 
 
 "All absolute governments, and such in a 
 great measure was England till the middle of the 
 last century, notwithstanding the numerous pane- 
 gyrics on ancient English liberty, must very 
 much depend on the administration." 
 
 This is Hume's opinion; the conclusion of a 
 grave historian from all that he finds recorded as 
 the materials for history ; and shall it be said that 
 Mr. Paine is to be punished for writing to-day 
 what was before written by another, who is now 
 a distinguished classic in the language? All the 
 verdicts in the world will not make such injus- 
 tice palatable to an impartial public or to pos- 
 terity. 
 
 171 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 The next passage arraigned is this (page 56) : 
 " The attention of the Government of England 
 (for I rather choose to call it by this name than 
 the English Government) appears, since its poli- 
 tical connection with Germany, to have been so 
 completely engrossed and absorbed by foreign 
 affairs, and the means of raising taxes, that it 
 seems to exist for no other purposes. Domestic 
 concerns are neglected ; and with respect to regu- 
 lar law, there is scarcely such a thing." 
 
 That the Government of this country has, in 
 consequence of its connection with the Continent, 
 and the Continental wars which it has occasioned, 
 been continually loaded with grievous taxes, no 
 man can dispute; and I appeal to your justice 
 whether this subject has not been, for years to- 
 gether, the constant topic of unreproved declama- 
 tion and grumbling. 
 
 As to what he says with regard to there 
 hardly existing such a thing as regular law, he 
 speaks in the abstract of the complexity of our 
 system ; he does not arraign the administration of 
 justice in its practise. But with regard to criti- 
 cisms and strictures on the general system of our 
 Government, it has been echoed over and over 
 again by various authors, and even from the pul- 
 pits, of our country. I have a sermon in court, 
 172 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 written during the American War by a person of 
 great eloquence and piety, in which he looks for- 
 ward to an exemption from the intolerable griev- 
 ances of our old legal system in the infant estab- 
 lishment of the New World : — 
 
 " It may be in the purposes of Providence, 
 on yon western shores, to raise the bulwark of a 
 purer reformation than ever Britain patronized; 
 to found a less burdensome, more auspicious, 
 stable, and incorruptible government than ever 
 Britain has enjoyed; and to establish there a sys- 
 tem of law more just and simple in its principles, 
 less intricate, dubious, and dilatory in its pro- 
 ceedings, more mild and equitable in its sanctions, 
 more easy and more certain in its execution; 
 wherein no man can err through ignorance of 
 what concerns him, or want justice through pov- 
 erty or weakness, or escape it by legal artifice, or 
 civil privileges, or interposing power; wherein 
 the rule of conduct shall not be hidden or dis- 
 guised in the language of principles and customs 
 that died with the barbarism which gave them 
 birth; wherein hasty formulas shall not dissipate 
 the reverence that is due to the tribunals and 
 transactions of justice; wherein obsolete pre- 
 scripts shall not pervert, nor entangle, nor impede 
 the administration of it, nor in any instance ex- 
 
 173 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 pose it to derision or to disregard; wherein mis- 
 representation shall have no share in deciding 
 upon right and truth; and under which no man 
 shall grow great by the wages of chicanery, or 
 thrive by the quarrels that are ruinous to his em- 
 ployers." 
 
 This is ten times stronger than Mr. Paine; 
 but who ever thought of prosecuting Mr. 
 Cappe?* 
 
 In various other instances you will find de- 
 fects in our jurisprudence pointed out and la- 
 mented, and not seldom by persons called upon 
 by their situations to deliver the law in the seat 
 of magistracy ; therefore, the author's general ob- 
 servation does not appear to be that species of at- 
 tack upon the magistracy of the country as to 
 fall within the description of a libel. 
 
 With respect to the two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, I believe I shall be able to show you that 
 the very person who introduced this controversy, 
 and who certainly is considered by those who now 
 administer the Government, as a man usef uly de- 
 voted to maintain the Constitution of the country 
 in the present crisis, has himself made remarks 
 upon these assemblies, that upon comparison you 
 will think more severe than those which are the 
 
 *A late eminent and pious minister at York. 
 
 174 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 subject of the Attorney-general's animadversion. 
 The passage in Mr. Paine runs thus — 
 
 ' With respect to the two Houses of which the 
 English Parliament is composed, they appear to 
 be effectually influenced into one, and, as a legis- 
 lature, to have no temper of its own. 
 
 " The Minister, whoever he at any time may 
 be, touches it as with an opium wand, and it 
 sleeps obedience. 
 
 " But if we look at the distinct abilities of the 
 two Houses, the difference will appear so great 
 as to show the inconsistency of placing power 
 where there can be no certainty of the judgment 
 to use it. Wretched as the state of representa- 
 tion is in England, it is manhood compared with 
 what is called the House of Lords; and so little 
 is this nicknamed House regarded that the people 
 scarcely inquire at any time what it is doing. It 
 appears also to be most under influence, and the 
 furthest removed from the general interest of the 
 nation." 
 
 The conclusion of the sentence, and which was 
 meant by Paine as evidence of the previous as- 
 sertion, the Attorney-general has omitted in the 
 information and in his speech; it is this: " In the 
 debate on engaging in the Russian and Turkish 
 War, the majority in the House of Peers in favor 
 
 175 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 of it was upwards of ninety, when in the other 
 House, which is more than double its numbers, 
 the majority was sixty-three." 
 
 The terms, however, in which Mr. Burke 
 speaks of the House of Lords are still more ex- 
 pressive: " It is something more than a century 
 ago since we voted the House of Lords useless. 
 They have now voted themselves so, and the whole 
 hope of reformation (speaking of the House of 
 Commons) is cast upon us." 
 
 This sentiment Mr. Burke not only expressed 
 in his place in Parliament, where no man can call 
 him to an account; but it has been since repeat- 
 edly printed among his works. Indeed his 
 opinion of both the Houses of Parliament, 
 which I am about to read to you, was originally 
 published in a separate pamphlet, and applied to 
 the settled habitual abuses of these high assem- 
 blies. Remember, I do not use them as argumen- 
 ta ad hominem, or ad invidiam, against the au- 
 thor; for if I did, it could be no defense of Mr. 
 Paine. But I use them as high authority, the 
 work* having been the just foundation of a sub- 
 stantial and lasting reputation. Would to God 
 
 *Mr. Burke's "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discon- 
 tents," published in 1775. 
 
 176 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 that any part of it were capable of being denied 
 or doubted! 
 
 " Against the being of Parliament I am satis- 
 fied no designs have ever been entertained since 
 the Revolution. Everyone must perceive that it 
 is strongly the interest of the Court to have some 
 second cause interposed between the Ministers 
 and the people. The gentlemen of the House of 
 Commons have an interest equally strong in sus- 
 taining the part of that intermediate cause. 
 However they may hire out the usufruct of their 
 voices, they never will part with the fee and in- 
 heritance. Accordingly, those who have been o{ 
 the most known devotion to the will and pleasure 
 of a court, have at the same time been most for- 
 ward in asserting an high authority in the House 
 of Commons. When they knew who were to 
 use that authority, and how it was to be employed, 
 they thought it never could be carried too far. 
 It must be always the wish of an unconstitutional 
 statesman, that a House of Commons who are 
 entirely dependent upon him, should have every 
 right of the people dependent upon their pleas- 
 ure. For it was discovered that the forms 
 
 OF A FREE AND THE ENDS OF AN ARBITRARY GOV- 
 ERNMENT WERE THINGS NOT ALTOGETHER IN- 
 COMPATIBLE. 
 
 177 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 " The power of the Crown, almost dead and 
 rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with 
 much more strength and far less odium, under 
 the name of influence. An influence which oper- 
 ates without noise and violence — which converts 
 the very antagonist into the instrument of power 
 — which contains in itself a perpetual principle 
 of growth and renovation; and which the dis- 
 tresses and the prosperity of the country equally 
 tend to augment, was an admirable substitute 
 for a prerogative that, being only the offspring 
 of antiquated prejudices, had moulded in its ori- 
 ginal stamina irresistible principles of decay and 
 dissolution. 
 
 " The ignorance of the people is a bottom 
 but for a temporary system; but the interest 
 of active men in the state is a foundation both 
 perpetual and infallible." 
 
 Mr. Burke, therefore, in page sixty-six 
 speaking of the same Court party, says — 
 
 " Parliament was indeed the great object of 
 all these politics, the end at which they aimed, 
 as well as the instrument by which they were 
 to operate." 
 
 And pursuing the subject in page seventy, 
 proceeds as follows: 
 
 " They who will not conform their conduct 
 178 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 to the public good, and cannot support it by the 
 prerogative of the Crown, have adopted a new 
 plan. They have totally abandoned the shattered 
 and old-fashioned fortress of prerogative, and 
 made a lodgment in the stronghold of Parliament 
 itself. If they have any evil design to which 
 there is no ordinary legal power commensurate, 
 they bring it into Parliament. There the whole 
 is executed from the beginning to the end; and 
 the power of obtaining their object absolute; and 
 the safety in the proceeding perfect; no rules to 
 confine, nor after-reckonings to terrify. For 
 Parliament cannot with any great propriety 
 punish others for things in which they themselves 
 have been accomplices. Thus its control upon 
 the executory power is lost, because it is made to 
 partake in every considerable act of government : 
 and impeachment, that great guardian of the 
 purity of the Constitution, is in danger of being 
 lost even to the idea of it. 
 
 " Until this time, the opinion of the people, 
 through the power of an Assembly, still in some 
 sort popular, led to the greatest honors and 
 emoluments in the gift of the Crown. Now the 
 principle is reversed ; and the favor of the Court 
 is the only sure way of obtaining and holding 
 
 179 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 those honors which ought to be in the disposal 
 
 OF THE PEOPLE." 
 
 Mr. Burke, in page one hundred, observes 
 with great truth that the mischiefs he complained 
 of did not at all arise from the monarchy, but 
 from the Parliament, and that it was the duty of 
 the people to look to it. He says, " The distem- 
 pers of monarchy were the great subjects of ap- 
 prehension and redress in the last century; in 
 this, the distempers of Parliament." 
 
 Not the distempers of Parliament in this year 
 or the last, but in this century — i.e., its settled 
 habitual distemper. "It is not in Parliament 
 alone that the remedy for parliamentary disor- 
 ders can be completed; and hardly indeed can it 
 begin there. Until a confidence in Government 
 is re-established, the people ought to be excited 
 to a more strict and detailed attention to the 
 conduct of their representatives. Standards for 
 judging more systematically upon their conduct 
 ought to be settled in the meetings of counties 
 and corporations, and frequent and correct lists 
 of the voters in all important questions ought to 
 be procured. 
 
 " By such means something may be done, 
 since it may appear who those are that, by an in- 
 discriminate support of all administrations, have 
 180 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 totally banished all integrity and confidence out 
 of public proceedings; have confounded the best 
 men with the worst ; and weakened and dissolved, 
 instead of strengthening and compacting, the 
 general frame of Government." 
 
 I wish it was possible to read the whole of 
 this most important volume — but the conse- 
 quences of these truths contained in it were all 
 eloquently summed up by the author in his speech 
 upon the reform of the household. 
 
 " But what I confess was uppermost with 
 me, what I bent the whole course of my mind to, 
 was the reduction of that corrupt influence which 
 is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality 
 and disorder; which loads us more than millions 
 of debt; which takes away vigor from our arms, 
 wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of 
 authority and credit from the most venerable 
 parts of our Constitution." 
 
 The same important truths were held out to 
 the whole public, upon a still later occasion, by 
 the person now at the head of His Majesty's 
 councils; and so high (as it appears) in the con- 
 fidence of the nation.* He, not in the abstract, 
 like the author before you, but upon the spur of 
 the occasion, and in the teeth of what had been 
 
 •Mr. Pitt 
 
 181 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 just declared in the House of Commons, came to, 
 and acted upon, resolutions which are contained 
 in this book* — resolutions pointed to the purifica- 
 tion of a Parliament dangerously corrupted into 
 the very state described by Mr. Paine. 
 
 Remember here, too, that I impute no censur- 
 able conduct to Mr. Pitt. It was the most bril- 
 liant passage in his life, and I should have 
 thought his life a better one if he had continued 
 uniform in the support of opinions which it is 
 said he has not changed, and which certainly have 
 had nothing to change them. But at all events, 
 I have a right to make use of the authority of his 
 splendid talents and high situation, not merely 
 to protect the defendant, but the public, by re- 
 sisting the precedent — that what one man may 
 do in England with approbation and glory, shall 
 conduct another to a pillory or a prison. 
 
 The abuses pointed out by the man before 
 you led that right honorable gentleman to asso- 
 ciate with many others of high rank, under the 
 banners of the Duke of Richmond, whose name 
 stands at the head of the list, and to pass various 
 public resolutions concerning the absolute neces- 
 sity of purifying the House of Commons; and 
 we collect the plan from a preamble entered in 
 
 *Mr. Erskine took up a book. — Ed. 
 
 182 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 the book: " Whereas the life, liberty, and prop- 
 erty of every man is or may be affected by the 
 law of the land in which he lives, and every 
 man is bound to pay obedience to the same. 
 
 " And whereas, by the Constitution of this 
 kingdom, the right of making laws is vested in 
 three estates, of King, Lords, and Commons, in 
 Parliament, assembled, and the consent of all the 
 three said estates, comprehending the whole com- 
 munity, is necessary to make laws to bind the 
 whole community. And whereas the House of 
 Commons represents all the commons of the 
 realm, and the consent of the House of Com- 
 mons binds the consent of all the commons of 
 the realm, and in all cases on which the Legisla- 
 ture is competent to decide. 
 
 "And whereas no man is, or can be, actually 
 represented who hath not a vote in the election 
 of his representative. 
 
 "And whereas it is the right of every com- 
 moner of this realm (infants, persons of insane 
 mind, and criminals incapacitated by law, only 
 excepted) to have a vote in the election of the 
 representative who is to give his consent to the 
 making of laws by which he is to be bound. 
 
 "And whereas the number of persons who are 
 suffered to vote for electing the members of the 
 
 183 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 House of Commons do not at this time amount 
 to one-sixth part of the whole commons of this 
 realm, whereby far the greater part of the said 
 commons are deprived of their right to elect their 
 representatives; and the consent of the majority 
 of the whole community to the passing of laws 
 is given by persons whom they have not dele- 
 gated for such purposes; and to which the said 
 majority have not in fact consented by them- 
 selves or by their representatives. 
 
 "And whereas the state of election of mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons hath in process of 
 time so grossly deviated from its simple and nat- 
 ural principle of representation and equality, 
 that in several places the members are returned 
 by the property of one man; that the smallest 
 boroughs send as many members as the largest 
 counties,, and that a majority of the representa- 
 tives of the whole nation are chosen by a number 
 of votes not exceeding twelve thousand." 
 
 These, with many others were published, not 
 as abstract speculative writings,, but within a few 
 days after the House of Commons had declared 
 that no such rights existed, and that no alteration 
 was necessary in the representation. It was then 
 that they met at the Thatched House and pub- 
 lished their opinions and resolutions to the coun- 
 184 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 try at large. Were any of them prosecuted for 
 these proceedings? Certainly not, for they were 
 legal proceedings. But I desire you, as men of 
 honor and truth, to compare all this with Mr. 
 Paine's expression of the Minister's touching 
 Parliament with his opiate wand, and let equal 
 justice be done — that is all I ask — let all be pun- 
 ished, or none. Do not let Mr. Paine be held out 
 to the contempt of the public upon the score of 
 his observations on Parliament, while others are 
 enjoying all the sweets which attend a supposed 
 attachment to their country, who have not only 
 expressed the same sentiments, but have reduced 
 their opinions to practise. 
 
 But now every man is to be cried down for 
 such opinions. I observed that my learned friend 
 significantly raised his voice in naming Mr. 
 Home Tooke, as if to connect him with Paine, 
 or Paine with him. This is exactly the same 
 course of justice; for, after all, he said nothing of 
 Mr. Tooke. What could he have said, but that 
 he was a man of great talents, and a subscriber 
 with the great names I have read in proceedings 
 which they have thought fit to desert? 
 
 Gentlemen, let others hold their opinions, and 
 change them at their pleasure ; I shall ever main- 
 tain it to be the dearest privilege of the people 
 i-i5 185 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 of Great Britain to watch over everything that 
 affects their happiness, either in the system of 
 their government or in the practise, and that for 
 this purpose the press must be free. It has al- 
 ways been so, and much evil has been corrected 
 by it. If Government finds itself annoyed by it, 
 let it examine its own conduct, and it will find 
 the cause; let it amend it, and it will find the 
 remedy. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am no friend to sarcasms in 
 the discussion of grave subjects, but you must 
 take writers according to the view of the mind at 
 the moment; Mr. Burke, as often as anybody, 
 indulges in it. Hear his reason, in his speech on 
 reform, for not taking away the salaries from 
 Lords who attend upon the British Court. "You 
 would," said he, "have the Court deserted by all 
 the nobility of the kingdom. 
 
 " Sir, the most serious mischiefs would fol- 
 low from such a desertion. Kings are naturally 
 lovers of low company ; they are so elevated above 
 all the rest of mankind, that they must look upon 
 all their subjects as on a level, they are rather 
 apt to hate than to love their nobility on account 
 of the occasional resistance to their will, which 
 will be made by their virtue, their petulance, or 
 their pride. It must indeed be admitted that 
 186 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 many of the nobility are as perfectly willing to 
 act the part of flatterers, tale-bearers, parasites, 
 pimps, and buffoons, as any of the lowest and 
 vilest of mankind can possibly be. But they are 
 not properly qualified for this object of their 
 ambition. The want of a regular education, and 
 early habits, with some lurking remains of their 
 dignity, will never permit them to become a 
 match for an Italian eunuch, a mountebank, a 
 fiddler, a player, or any regular practitioner of 
 that tribe. The Roman emperors, almost from 
 the beginning, threw themselves into such hands ; 
 and the mischief increased every day till its de- 
 cline and its final ruin. It is, therefore, of very 
 great importance (provided the thing is not over- 
 done) to contrive such an establishment as must, 
 almost whether a prince will or not, bring into 
 daily and hourly offices about his person a great 
 number of his first nobility; and it is rather a 
 useful prejudice that gives them a pride in such 
 a servitude : though they are not much the better 
 for a court, a court will be much the better for 
 them. I have therefore, not attempted to reform 
 any of the offices of honor about the King's 
 person." 
 
 What is all this but saying that a king is an 
 animal so incurably addicted to low company as 
 
 187 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 generally to bring on by it the ruin of nations; 
 but, nevertheless, he is to be kept as a necessary 
 evil, and his propensities bridled by surrounding 
 him with a parcel of miscreants still worse, if pos- 
 sible, but better than those he would choose for 
 himself. This, therefore, if taken by itself, would 
 be a most abominable and libelous sarcasm on 
 kings and nobility ; but look at the whole speech, 
 and you observe a great system of regulation; 
 and no man, I believe, ever doubted Mr. Burke's 
 attachment to monarchy. To judge, therefore, 
 of any part of a writing, the whole must be read. 
 With this same view, I will read to you the 
 beginning of Harrington's "Oceana"; but it is 
 impossible to name this well-known author with- 
 out exposing to just contempt and ridicule the 
 ignorant or profligate misrepresentations which 
 are vomited forth upon the public, to bear down 
 every man as desperately wicked who in any age 
 or country has countenanced a republic, for the 
 mean purpose of prejudging this trial. 
 
 [Mr. Erskine took up a book, but laid it down again without 
 reading from it, saying something to the gentleman who sat 
 near him, in a low voice, which the reporter did not hear.] 
 
 Is this the way to support the English Con- 
 stitution? Are these the means by which Eng- 
 lishmen are to be taught to cherish it? I say, 
 188 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 if the man upon trial were stained with blood in- 
 stead of ink, if he were covered over with crimes 
 which human nature would start at the naming 
 of, the means employed against him would not be 
 the less disgraceful. 
 
 For this notable purpose, then, Harrington, 
 not above a week ago* was handed out to us as 
 a low, obscure wretch, involved in the murder of 
 the monarch and the destruction of the mon- 
 archy, and as addressing his despicable works at 
 the shrine of a usurper. Yet this very Harring- 
 ton, this low blackguard, was descended (you 
 may see his pedigree at the Herald's Office for 
 sixpence) from eight dukes, three marquises, 
 seventy earls, twenty-seven viscounts, and thirty- 
 six barons, sixteen of whom were Knights of the 
 Garter — a descent which I think would save a 
 man from disgrace in any of the circles of Ger- 
 many. 
 
 But what was he besides? A blood-stained 
 ruffian ? Oh, brutal ignorance of the history of 
 the country! He was the most affectionate ser- 
 vant of Charles I. from whom he never concealed 
 his opinions ; for it is observed by Wood that the 
 King greatly affected his company; but when 
 
 *A pamphlet had been published just before, putting T. Paine 
 and Harrington on the same footing — as obscure blackguards. 
 
 189 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 they happened to talk of a commonwealth, he 
 would scarcely endure it. " I know not," says 
 Toland, "which most to commend: the King, for 
 trusting an honest man, though a republican; or 
 Harrington, for owning his principles while he 
 served a king." 
 
 But did his opinions affect his conduct? Let 
 history again answer. He preserved his fidelity 
 to his unhappy prince to the very last, after all 
 his fawning courtiers had left him to his enraged 
 subjects. He stayed with him while a prisoner 
 in the Isle of Wight; came up by stealth to fol- 
 low the fortunes of his monarch and master; 
 even hid himself in the boot of the coach when he 
 was conveyed to Windsor; and, ending as he 
 began, fell into his arms and fainted on the scaf- 
 fold. 
 
 After Charles's death, the "Oceana" was writ- 
 ten, and as if it were written from justice and 
 affection to his memory ; for it breathes the same 
 noble and spirited regard, and asserts that it was 
 not Charles that brought on the destruction of 
 the monarchy, but the feeble and ill-constituted 
 nature of monarchy itself. 
 
 But the book was a flattery to Cromwell. 
 Once more and finally let history decide. The 
 "Oceana" was seized by the Usurper as a libel, 
 190 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 and the way it was recovered is remarkable. I 
 mention it to show that Cromwell was a wise man 
 in himself, and knew on what governments must 
 stand for their support. 
 
 Harrington waited on the Protector's daugh- 
 ter to beg for his book, which her father had 
 taken, and on entering her apartment, snatched 
 up her child and ran away. On her following 
 him with surprise and terror, he turned to her 
 and said: " I know what you feel as a mother, 
 feel then for me; your father has got my child" 
 — meaning the "Oceana." The "Oceana" was 
 afterwards restored on her petition; Cromwell 
 answering with the sagacity of a sound politician, 
 " Let him have his book ; if my Government is 
 made to stand, it has nothing to fear from paper 
 shot." He said true. No good government 
 will ever be battered by paper shot. Montes- 
 quieu says that " In a free nation it matters not 
 whether individuals reason well or ill; it is suf- 
 ficient that they do reason. Truth arises from 
 the collision, and from hence springs liberty, 
 which is a security from the effect of reasoning." 
 The Attorney-general has read extracts from 
 Mr. Adam's answer to this book. Let others 
 write answers to it, like Mr. Adam ; I am not in- 
 sisting upon the infallibility of Mr. Paine's doc- 
 
 191 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 trines; if they are erroneous, let them be an- 
 swered, and truth will spring from the collision. 
 
 Milton wisely says that a disposition in a na- 
 tion to this species of controversy is no proof 
 of sedition or degeneracy, but quite the reverse. 
 [I omitted to cite the passage with the others.] 
 In speaking of this subject he rises into that in- 
 expressibly sublime style of writing wholly pe- 
 culiar to himself. He was indeed no plagiary 
 from anything human; he looked up for light 
 and expression, as he himself wonderfully de- 
 scribes it, by devout prayer to that great Being 
 who is the source of all utterance and knowledge ; 
 and who sendeth out His seraphim with the hal- 
 lowed fire of His altar to touch and purify the 
 lips of whom He pleases. 
 
 " When the cheerfulness of the people," says 
 this mighty poet, " is so sprightly up as that it 
 has not only wherewith to guard well its own 
 freedom and safety, but to spare and to bestow 
 upon the solidest and sublimest points of con- 
 troversy and new invention, it betokens us not 
 degenerated nor drooping to a fatal decay, but 
 casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corrup- 
 tion, to outlive these pangs, and wax young 
 again, entering the glorious ways of truth and 
 prosperous virtue, destined to become great and 
 192 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 honorable in these latter ages. Methinks I see, 
 in my mind, a noble and puissant nation rousing 
 herself, like a strong man after sleep, and shak- 
 ing her invincible locks : methinks I see her as an 
 eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling 
 her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; 
 purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at 
 the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while 
 the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, 
 with those also that love the twilight, flutter 
 about, amazed at what she means, and in their 
 envious gabble would prognosticate a year of 
 sects and schisms." 
 
 Gentlemen, what Milton only saw in his 
 mighty imagination, I see in fact; what he ex- 
 pected, but which never came to pass, I see now 
 fulfilling; methinks I see this noble and puissant 
 nation, not degenerated and drooping to a fatal 
 decay, but casting off the wrinkled skin of cor- 
 ruption to put on again the vigor of her youth. 
 And it is because others as well as myself see 
 this that we have all this uproar ! — France and its 
 Constitution are the mere pretenses. It is be- 
 cause Britons begin to recollect the inheritance 
 of their own Constitution, left them by their an- 
 cestors; — it is because they are awakened to the 
 corruptions which have fallen upon its most valu- 
 
 193 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 able parts, that forsooth the nation is in danger 
 of being destroyed by a single pamphlet. 
 
 I have marked the course of this alarm; it 
 began with the renovation of those exertions for 
 the public which the alarmists themselves had 
 originated and deserted ; and they became louder 
 and louder when they saw them avowed and sup- 
 ported by my admirable friend Mr. Fox, the 
 most eminently honest and enlightened states- 
 man that history brings us acquainted with: a 
 man whom to name is to honor, but whom in at- 
 tempting adequately to describe, I must fly to 
 Mr. Burke, my constant refuge when eloquence 
 is necessary: a man who, to relieve the sufferings 
 of the most distant nation, "put to the hazard 
 his ease, his security, his interest, his power, even 
 his darling popularity, for the benefit of a people 
 whom he had never seen." How much more 
 then for the inhabitants of his native country! — 
 yet this is the man who has been censured and dis- 
 avowed in the manner we have lately seen. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have but a few more words to 
 trouble you with: I take my leave of you with 
 declaring that all this freedom which I have been 
 endeavoring to assert is no more than the ancient 
 freedom which belongs to our own inbred Con- 
 stitution. I have not asked you to acquit Thomas 
 194 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Paine upon any new lights, or upon any prin- 
 ciple but that of the law, which you are sworn 
 to administer; — my great object has been to in- 
 culcate that wisdom and policy, which are the 
 parents of the Government of Great Britain, 
 forbid this jealous eye over her subjects; and 
 that, on the contrary, they cry aloud in the lan- 
 guage of the poet, adverted to by Lord Chatham 
 on the memorable subject of America, unfortu- 
 nately without effect — 
 
 Be to their faults a little blind, 
 Be to their virtues very kind, 
 Let all their thoughts be unconfined, 
 And clap your padlock on the mind. 
 
 Engage the people by their affections — con- 
 vince their reason — and they will be loyal from 
 the only principle that can make loyalty sincere, 
 vigorous or rational — a conviction that it is 
 their truest interest, and that their Government 
 is for their good. Constraint is the natural par- 
 ent of resistance, and a pregnant proof that rea- 
 son is not on the side of those who use it. You 
 must all remember Lucian's pleasant story : Jupi- 
 ter and a countryman were walking together, 
 conversing with great freedom and familiarity 
 upon the subject of heaven and earth. The coun- 
 tryman listened with attention and acquiescence, 
 
 195 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 while Jupiter strove only to convince him; but 
 happening to hint a doubt, Jupiter turned hastily 
 round and threatened him with his thunder. "Ah, 
 ah!" says the countryman, "now, Jupiter, I know 
 that you are wrong ; you are always wrong when 
 you appeal to your thunder." 
 
 This is the case with me — I can reason with 
 the people of England, but I cannot fight against 
 the thunder of authority. 
 
 Gentlemen, this is my defense for free opin- 
 ions. With regard to myself, I am, and always 
 have been, obedient and affectionate to the law — 
 to that rule of action, as long as I exist, I shall 
 ever give my voice and my conduct; but I shall 
 ever do as I have done to-day, maintain the dig- 
 nity of my high profession, and perform, as I 
 understand them, all its important duties. 
 
 [Mr. Attorney-general arose immediately to reply to Mr. Ers- 
 kine, when Mr. Campbell (the foreman of the jury) said: "My 
 Lord, I am authorized by the jury to inform the Attorney-general 
 that a reply is not necessary for them, unless the Attorney-general 
 wishes to make it, or Your Lordship." Mr. Attorney-general sat 
 down, and the jury gave in their verdict — Guilty.] 
 
 196 
 

ly to convince >ut 
 
 tit a doubt, Jupiter turned ha.' 
 
 ned him with his thunder. " Ah, 
 
 Irynian, "now, Jupiter, I know 
 
 ig; you are always wrong when 
 
 >eal to your thunder." 
 
 This is the case with ason with 
 
 I : ; i st 
 
 !h under of aut 
 
 LORD ERSKINE 
 
 Photogravure from an Old Engraving hi) George E. 
 Ferine of the Original Painting 
 
 hat ru) ist, I shall 
 
 t; but I shall 
 r do as mintain the dig- 
 
 id perform, as I 
 nt duties. 
 
 reply to Mr. I 
 if the jury) said: 
 
 I the Attorney-gene 
 ess the Attorney-general 
 
 jury gav diet — Guilty.] 
 
THOMAS PAINE: FATHER OF 
 REPUBLICS 
 
 By Paul Desjardins 
 
 1HAVE been attempting to learn some true 
 details concerning Thomas Paine, and I will 
 explain my motive for doing so as clearly as I 
 am able. After satisfying myself as to the real 
 meaning of the word "republic," I wished to 
 discover the reason why I am a republican: Is 
 it because of certain influences or on account of 
 a certain intellectual necessity? Then I asked 
 myself in what sense and to what degree are all 
 thinking men of the present day republicans, 
 and at what point do they cease to agree and 
 begin to quarrel on the subject. Afterwards I 
 formulated the modern idea of "republic," and 
 wrote it down in the three closely connected pro- 
 positions which follow: 
 
 The greatest possible liberty should be desired for 
 the greatest possible number of men, and no liberty 
 should be assured to anyone which is not assured to all. 
 A principle of justice. 
 
 This equal extension of every liberty, won for every- 
 body by the law, can only be sheltered from usurpation 
 when all equally concur in making the law. A lesson of 
 experience. 
 
 197 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 But this power of making the law is only guaran- 
 teed to all, even to the weak, when the force which exe- 
 cutes the law is controlled by all. Rejecting, then, the 
 government of a single individual, we try to found by 
 a written contract, or Constitution, mutual government, 
 as rightly conceived by moderns, under the ancient name 
 of republic. An arrangement also suggested by experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The first two propositions have long been re- 
 garded as almost truths of common sense. 
 Posted in every French primary school in the 
 very words of the decree of the Constituent As- 
 sembly of 1792, they have been inoculated into 
 every people, during the century which has 
 closed, along with our Western civilization. The 
 third is regarded as an opinion rather than an 
 absolute truth, but it is an opinion that is grow- 
 ing, an opinion that is embraced in a blind, yet 
 vigorous kind of fashion by four out of every 
 five Frenchmen. 
 
 Such, then, is the idea whose origin I have 
 been seeking. Now, it is clear that I cannot find 
 the origin of the first proposition in the ancient 
 world, for, although it has given us the word 
 republic, it assigned to it a different significance. 
 The Greek and Roman cities were built up by 
 means of a scaffolding of classes with slavery as 
 a foundation. The fine discipline to which the 
 198 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 youth of these cities was subjected owed its per- 
 fection to the refusal to see that an isolated per- 
 son had any rights against the despotism of the 
 community. Even conscience was not sheltered 
 against public ordinances, for religion was also 
 the concern of the state. So far was the repub- 
 lic from guaranteeing the "rights of man" and of 
 the citizen, that it exacted their sacrifice. And 
 this was not really an outrage, because the de- 
 sire of independence was either not felt at all or 
 was considered the mark of a bad citizen. Thus 
 the Republicans of 1792, when they believed 
 themselves to be the successors of those of Rome 
 or Sparta, were altogether mistaken. " I must 
 endeavor," I said to myself, "to gain a more ac- 
 curate conception of the matter." 
 
 Apparently, the idea of a state that protects 
 the "rights of man" supposes that man has rights 
 actually, and then that he has a destination, for 
 what is the use of a permit to travel except it is 
 given to a traveler who is going somewhere? 
 But this idea, that man is traveling somewhere 
 was introduced, as we all know, by a great pro- 
 phet, who said: "Father, Thy kingdom come!" 
 and filled hearts with the expectation of future 
 justice. We are thus induced to believe that 
 
 199 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 there is a Christian source of liberty, and we 
 must push our inquiries in this direction. 
 
 As to the other republican thesis, that of 
 equality, it also assumes the belief in a God who 
 is not nature; for in nature there is no equality, 
 and we improve nature in order to restore to the 
 weak their place in life. In presence of the mind 
 of God, visible grandeurs have no value, while 
 invisible ones exist, perhaps, where their exist- 
 ence is least suspected ; and so from fear of mak- 
 ing a wrong estimate of the value of some par- 
 ticular man, we are driven to the conclusion that 
 one man is as good as another, and that equality 
 is justice. Thus we are obliged to have recourse 
 to a Christian source again. 
 
 In fact, no book takes so little notice of social 
 hierarchies as the Gospels do. At no period has 
 a sincerer effort been made at equality than dur- 
 ing the early times of Christianity; and, still 
 later, wherever the spirit of Christ breathes free- 
 ly, emancipated from Roman imperialism, little 
 fraternities have been formed, real republics 
 in which election and universal suffrage were the 
 only source of power. 
 
 After the Reformation of the Seventeenth 
 Century, these republican organizations were 
 multiplied and secularized. Puritans and Quak- 
 200 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ers, especially, establish mutual government, 
 draw up constitutions, compacts, covenants or 
 agreements, supported by a declaration of the 
 "rights of man," on whatever coasts they select 
 for their settlements: in Holland, in Cromwell's 
 England for a moment, on the virgin shores of 
 America permanently. And America is prob- 
 ably the teacher — a teacher but half understood 
 — of modern France, who, in her turn, is teach- 
 ing Europe. 
 
 Such was the bird's-eye view which I took of 
 the idea now covered by the word republic. To 
 verify this hypothesis, it became necessary to find 
 out who were the men that, either as discoverers 
 or imitators, had transplanted the idea from 
 England to America, from America to France, 
 and from the order of religious doctrines to the 
 order of secular facts. 
 
 Now, Thomas Paine suddenly struck across 
 the path of my investigation as the mediator I 
 had been seeking; not, indeed, the only one, but 
 the chief. He was born an Englishman and be- 
 longed to the sect of Quakers; he emigrated to 
 America, and when the colonies were still hesi- 
 tating as to their action in their quarrel with the 
 mother country, he spoke out plainly for auton- 
 omy, and then for a republic. 
 
 i- M 201 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Finally, he came to France, and there, too, 
 when, during the Legislative Assembly, men 
 were disconcerted in presence of an incredible 
 crisis, he spoke out plainly for a republic; he 
 suggested doubtless to his friend Condorcet the 
 plan of the first republican Constitution; he sat 
 himself, although a foreigner, in the National 
 Convention and on the Constitutional Commit- 
 tee, and he did not abandon the French Revolu- 
 tion until it had degenerated into the Terror, 
 demagogism and, at last, the Empire. His ca- 
 reer makes me think of those insects that fecun- 
 date flowers by transporting the pollen through 
 space. If we had a really good biography of 
 him it would, I imagine, contain a complete epi- 
 tomized genealogy of the modern idea of a 
 republic. 
 
 The name of "Payne" is frequently men- 
 tioned by the historians of the French Revolu- 
 tion, and always in such relations as prove that in 
 the opinion of his contemporaries it was a very 
 great name indeed. He figures among the eigh- 
 teen illustrious foreign philosophers upon whom 
 the Legislative Assembly conferred on August 
 6, 1792, the title of French citizen, for "having 
 prepared the enfranchisement of peoples"; Wil- 
 berforce, Washington and Schiller are on the 
 202 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 same list. He is elected to the Convention by 
 four Departments, although neither a French- 
 man nor a candidate, and absent. 
 
 Just imagine the popularity a foreign author 
 would need to have to-day to win in this fashion 
 the senatorial electors of a province! Would 
 even Tolstoi succeed in doing so? The landing 
 of Paine at Calais might be compared to that of 
 President Kriiger some time ago at Marseilles, 
 with its salvos of artillery, its banquets, flags 
 and orations. 
 
 He was manifestly regarded as the real liber- 
 ator of America. Danton said to him : " What 
 you have done for the happiness and liberty of 
 your country, I have in vain tried to do for mine." 
 Brissot declared that the despots of Europe 
 feared Paine more than an army. Later on, M. 
 J. Chenier says: "He is endeared to all the 
 friends of humanity"; Bonaparte, on his return 
 from Italy, believes it his duty to visit him in his 
 room, where he tells him that his Droits de 
 Vhomme has been the companion of his pillow, 
 and that the author of such a work deserves a 
 statue of gold. 
 
 And now, in the midst of all this, what is the 
 action really exercised by this living idol? I no 
 longer find any traces of it. What has he ac- 
 
 203 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 complished in the legislative work of the Revolu- 
 tion? We do not know. He is always to be 
 found among the small group of the doctrinaire 
 republicans of 1792, Condorcet, Brissot, Gre- 
 goire; he is their friend; we should, however, like 
 to know if he is their inspirer. But what remains 
 on the morrow of a conversation, a phrase, a 
 word, which, perhaps on the evening before has 
 solved a difficulty and lit up the entire path? Is 
 anyone ever truly acquainted with the first au- 
 thor of a thought? 
 
 As to the famous books of Paine, "Common 
 Sense," the "Crisis," the "Rights of Man," 
 "The Age of Reason," at first they have a sale 
 of hundreds of thousands of copies, and are 
 translated into all languages. The first of these 
 books is bound with the Contrat social of Rous- 
 seau in the same French edition, like a Bible in 
 two parts. Furthermore, in 1832, the Societes 
 des droits de Vhomme et du citoyen draw from it 
 a Catechisme republicain for the political edu- 
 cation of young Frenchmen. Then, according 
 as the republican thesis begins to make its way, 
 these republican writings lose their luster and 
 their audacity. Nobody cares to look at them, 
 because everyone knows what they are. Not 
 being poems, but agents of revolution, their very 
 204 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 success puts them out of fashion, for they are no 
 longer useful. Which of us can say he has read 
 them to-day? 
 
 In countries where the English language is 
 spoken, these writings, with their robust elo- 
 quence, should, one would imagine, have re- 
 mained popular. But in these countries Tom 
 Paine has lost his reputation; and this is very 
 natural; he has offended every prejudice to 
 which the people of the Bible and of Custom 
 cling with a sort of fierce timidity. Tom Paine 
 has proved faithless to the mother country, then 
 to the religion of his ancestors ; he sneers at Eng- 
 lish traditions, denies the divinity of Christ — 
 so Great Britain will have nothing to do with 
 him ; he is rude to Washington — so America will 
 have nothing to do with him; he votes against 
 the death of Louis XVI, so the French revolu- 
 tionists will have nothing to do with him. 
 
 Finally, he does not belong to any compact 
 group. He is an outsider, let him take the con- 
 sequences. For all these reasons, he is bound to 
 be, then, a wicked man, a drunkard, an atheist, a 
 sort of antichrist. Even the Quakers repudiate 
 him. During his lifetime tracts are published 
 prophesying that he will be soon carried off by 
 his boon companion Satan. While waiting for 
 
 205 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 this catastrophe, the members of certain pious 
 clubs burn him in effigy ; he is caricatured, and has 
 the ears of an ass on plates and beer-mugs ; hon- 
 est citizens have the initials T. P. stamped on the 
 soles of their boots so that they can always tram- 
 ple on this heretic and renegade to his county. 
 On the news of his death, patriots sing in the 
 taverns : 
 
 The Fox has lost his tail, 
 
 The Ass has stopped his braying, 
 
 The Devil has carried off Tom Paine — 
 
 John Bull forever! 
 
 Never has a friend of the people suffered so 
 much from the people's hatred. Consequently, 
 his books and his fame have been flung into the 
 same common ditch, as usually happens to those 
 whom society repudiates. This is doubtless the 
 reason why, in my conversations with English- 
 men and Americans, I have never been able to 
 bring the singular personage whose attraction I 
 felt out of the darkness that envelops him. 
 
 It is only by a very careful examination of 
 his biographies, and especially of his diary, that 
 I have finally succeeded in gaining some concep- 
 tion of the circumstances under the influence of 
 which his idea of a republic took form and sub- 
 stance. And, in the second place, a similar ex- 
 206 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 amination of the content of this idea will show 
 us that it had been until then unheard of, par- 
 ticularly in France, and that it still holds within 
 itself, even at the present hour, a certain signifi- 
 cance that has been, so far, unperceived. 
 
 The work which M. Aulard has published on 
 the Histoire politique de la Revolution francaise 
 throws considerable light upon this second point. 
 We can easily deduce from this book that the 
 French people, even in 1791, disliked the very 
 notion of a republic, and that the latter owed its 
 realization to the abrupt shock of events, every 
 other issue being barred, and not to the precon- 
 ceived design of any of the public men of the 
 period, save and except of the man whom I re- 
 gard as its true inventor, the phlegmatic and 
 determined man who inferred the necessity of the 
 republic from principles independent of the hour 
 and of casualty. 
 
 From his earliest years Paine had experi- 
 enced all the miseries that crush the life out of 
 the humble, of those who are weighed down by 
 the enormous framework of society. As he pos- 
 sessed no other title but that of man upon which 
 to base his protest against being trampled under- 
 foot, his was a condition very favorable to the 
 discovery that man in society has, simply as man, 
 
 207 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 certain rights. For that matter, there was not 
 the slightest bitterness in his knowledge of the 
 situation. He never had a thought of personal 
 success. Gracious Heaven! success in what? He 
 took very little interest in himself. His careless- 
 ness in this respect was perfect. Provided he 
 had leisure to read, to meet a few friends at night 
 at a debating club where he could have the pleas- 
 ure of displaying his eloquence and the force of 
 his logic, he was satisfied with his fate. Marvel- 
 ously endowed as a dialectitian, he had no 
 passions except intellectual ones, and all his train- 
 ing was received in lecture-rooms and halls of 
 discussion. 
 
 It is by this intellectual training that, when 
 he sails for America, at the age of thirty-eight, 
 all his thoughts have been completely developed 
 and have received their final form. For their 
 expression he is gifted with an eloquence, not as 
 yet displayed in public, but already admired by 
 his friends. Moreover, although indigent and 
 unknown, he is not disturbed by the loss of the 
 years which are flying or by his failure to open 
 a path to the modest employments which, one 
 after another, have been shut against him. He 
 is tranquil. He quits England, where he can 
 no longer find means of subsistence, and he 
 208 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 leaves, not as an apostle of the enfranchisement 
 of a people, but simply as a workman who hopes 
 to earn four or five guineas a month. 
 
 Thomas Paine, then, is already a decided re- 
 publican. All that future experience in political 
 affairs can teach him is the difficulties to be over- 
 come in establishing a republic, not the duty and 
 necessity of establishing it. 
 
 And every idea which will be the basis of his 
 actions has its origin in three facts : he is an Eng- 
 lishman, he is one of the common people, he is a 
 Quaker, and all three combine to give him the 
 republican temperament. Now, this republican 
 temperament may also be recognized among sev- 
 eral of the countrymen and contemporaries of 
 Paine. In good truth, it is among the unbending 
 and sturdy English spirits of the Seventeenth 
 and Eighteenth Centuries that we encounter the 
 pioneers of that right of resistance to oppression 
 which is affirmed so decidedly in our French 
 Declaration of Rights. 
 
 Paine brought to America this obstinate Bri- 
 tannic conviction of the intangibility of his rights, 
 and he transported it to France. It is shown in 
 his letter to the Committee of General Safety, 
 written on September 19, 1794: "Citizen repre- 
 
 209 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 sentatives, I demand an inquiry. Justice is due 
 to every man. I demand only justice." 
 
 The same tranquil spirit of resistance also 
 marks his opposition in 1802 to the Government 
 of the First Consul: " I cannot live with ease in 
 the States of Bonaparte ; though he governed like 
 an angel, the memory would always haunt me 
 that he has perjured himself"; and, in rendering 
 judgment, he never raises his voice; but he makes 
 his meaning clear. 
 
 We have here, then, an authentic picture of 
 a republican temperament furnished by old Eng- 
 land to the new France, at a time when the lat- 
 ter was searching in the "Lives" of Plutarch and 
 elsewhere for the type of man that would har- 
 monize with free institutions. But the way had 
 also been opened in another manner by royal 
 old England for the modern republic; for, ever 
 since the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, 
 the mode of government had been discussed 
 there, at first by the parliamentary opposition, 
 then, among the people, by everyone. 
 
 The forums of debate were not, as in France, 
 salons in which the fatuous self-conceit engen- 
 dered by the presence of women found full satis- 
 faction in gibes and sarcasms directed at an op- 
 ponent, and in dogmatic assertion; but taverns, 
 210 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 clubs, A Society for the maintenance of the Dec- 
 laration of Rights, A Society of Constitutional 
 Studies , The Society of the Friends of the Revo- 
 lution, in which each disputant exhausted the 
 logical bearings of every question. Let us add 
 that the habit of theological controversies be- 
 tween the various sects, to which England and 
 Scotland had been accustomed for two centuries, 
 was also very efficacious. 
 
 Brought into collision with such influences, 
 mere idle dogmatism is no longer tenable; the 
 disputant must have a fixed notion in his own 
 mind of what he believes, must define it clearly, 
 and separate it from what he only half believes. 
 This is why nearly all the English radicals of 
 the Nineteenth Century are emancipated clergy- 
 men, like the Rev. John Home Tooke, Dr. 
 Richard Price and Dr. Joseph Priestley. They 
 are exactly contemporaries of Thomas Paine, his 
 collaborators, his friends. The little group which 
 they form unite and solder together the Eng- 
 lish Revolution of 1688 to the French Revolu- 
 tion of 1789. 
 
 These clubs have a checkered history. They 
 were often the antechamber of the royal prisons. 
 But in these isolated clubs, always menaced with 
 annihilation, certain logicians, sprung from the 
 
 211 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 people, distilled as it were into an alembic the 
 people's sufferings and complaints, and after- 
 wards converted them into clear ideas. The pro- 
 gramme of fraternal government was thus elab- 
 orated in darkness, article after article. Thus, 
 the republican spirit, which is the spirit of free 
 research, the spirit of criticism, applied to things 
 political, was sharpened in the same country in 
 which the republican temperament was steeled. 
 
 It is not, in fact, sufficient to set up a gov- 
 ernment of liberty, even though wide enough and 
 strong enough to resist the shocks of brute force ; 
 a cool head, which is not affected by demonstra- 
 tions and cannot be magnetized by words, is also 
 needed. Now a discipline of that kind is ac- 
 quired only by familiarity with scientific methods 
 or by the habit of debate in a small club, con- 
 fined to its members. As Paine was an Eng- 
 lishman of the Eighteenth Century, he had the 
 benefit of the latter. 
 
 And so, no sooner has this petty custom- 
 house clerk, this proletarian, as we may almost 
 call him, landed on American soil than he is at 
 once able to edit magazines, hold his own in the 
 most complex controversies with the ablest states- 
 men, jurists and theologians. From a confused 
 apperception he is able to draw the enlightening 
 212 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 formula, the one fit word; — and of the impor- 
 tant part that the nomenclator plays in a propa- 
 ganda we have numerous examples: the nomen- 
 clator is the person who supplies ideas with 
 wings. 
 
 Paine was also an adept at discussion, and, at 
 first, discussion with himself; he knew how to 
 extract ideas from the maze of impulsive pre- 
 judices. Shaded in a garden by some linden 
 tree, or in the evening around the tea-cups, it is 
 his pleasure to hold a debate, not on the chances 
 of this party or that succeeding, which is, in his 
 opinion only a "jockeyship," but on the need of 
 an entire upheaval, if total justice is to be real- 
 ized. 
 
 Consequently, when, later on, he will stand 
 in presence of the Conventionals, their discourses 
 and their plans will strike him as the vague am- 
 plifications of young collegians, gleaned by them 
 from their desultory readings. The only per- 
 sons who look to him like adult statesmen are 
 Condorcet and Brissot, who have traveled, who 
 have seen and reflected. The others make the 
 same use of words that they might make of a 
 gesture or a cry, to relieve their nerves, not to 
 objectivize their thought. They are children. 
 But, then, he has the advantage over the French 
 
 213 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 of two centuries of political seU-cross-examina- 
 tion and self-possession. 
 
 This statement, however, requires some cor- 
 rection. Although an Englishman by tempera- 
 ment and education, he does not belong to the 
 England of the classes, the England that is 
 harsh to the poor. He is poor himself, he is one 
 of the common people; and this fact, taken in 
 connection with his miserable years of appren- 
 ticeship, is not, perhaps, without consequence for 
 the future of the republic. 
 
 In the first place, he is thereby liberated from 
 that special English characteristic which would 
 have limited his action to his own country; for 
 the man who has not always earned enough to 
 insure him his dinner has, by practical experi- 
 ment, learned the grievous condition of human 
 life in every country. Diversity and non-com- 
 prehension are the concomitants of ease and com- 
 fort. Habituated to a frugal table, Paine will 
 never change his customary fare. His food will 
 always be of the simplest and plainest. Poverty 
 is so much his normal condition that for him it 
 is no longer poverty. 
 
 This ex-staymaker, who has witnessed the sale 
 of his shabby furniture on the street before his 
 door, will always remain on both continents the 
 214 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 friend of the poor, because he knows what their 
 life is, and on account of this impoverished con- 
 dition (which by the way is the natural condition 
 of man), he is as exempt from class prejudices 
 as from national prejudices. A few aristo- 
 crats in London had, indeed, championed the 
 cause of equality ; but with them this was an idea, 
 a caprice; it becomes an appetite in those to 
 whom inequality signifies the extreme difficulty 
 of mere existence; and it is appetite alone that 
 invigorates the will and loads the musket. 
 
 It is well to remark, in fact, that nearly all 
 the English radical associates of Paine were 
 born far below the middle class; they are work- 
 men, petty shopkeepers, petty country clergy- 
 men; they have not, therefore, an atom of class 
 pride about them. They are not at all likely to 
 be satisfied with a middle-class government ; they 
 make very little difference between the Tories 
 who believe in the divine right of kings, and the 
 Whigs who believe in the divine right of the gen- 
 try; as far as they are concerned, they will be 
 satisfied only with complete political equality 
 for the workmen. This is no small innovation. 
 
 Recollect that the very opposite thesis has 
 been supported by the philosophers who acted as 
 guides to the French revolutionists: Turgot, 
 
 215 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Rousseau, Mably, Condorcet. Rendered dis- 
 trustful by the spectacle of the destructive re- 
 sults of demagogism in ancient times, they ex- 
 clude from the right of suffrage "the stupid and 
 bestial populace" (Rousseau), "those dregs of 
 humanity destined to serve only as ballast to the 
 vessel of society" (Mably). Consequently, the 
 democracy will be limited to property-holders 
 alone, who have a stake in the country, and who, 
 being fixed to the soil, participate in the stability 
 of the nation. 
 
 This opinion will take the form of law in 
 July, 1789, with the distinction formulated by 
 Sieves between active and passive citizens. Thus 
 the Revolution will try to install the middle 
 class in power. Certainly, the arguments al- 
 leged in favor of this are not destitute of wisdom ; 
 nevertheless, they are of too different a char- 
 acter and sprung too suddenly not to have been 
 suggested by another motive, at once simple, 
 involuntary and secret: the semi-economic, semi- 
 intellectual prejudices of parvenus against the 
 class of the poor and ignorant. Thus the modern 
 republic was stopped on its road. 
 
 At that moment, Paine and his friends on the 
 other side of the Channel, who had at first ac- 
 claimed, in the destruction of the Bastile and the 
 216 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Declaration of the Rights of Man, the success of 
 their long struggle, suddenly come to a halt ; they 
 had believed in a radical advance; this is but a 
 Whig movement. They perceive that the French 
 Revolution is not made by the entire people, that 
 it is being developed outside the humbler classes, 
 which it has forgotten. This conclusion is still 
 more strongly enforced in 1792 by the fact that 
 among the attorneys, notaries, priests and doc- 
 tors who are his colleagues in the Convention, 
 there is scarcely a single artisan except himself. 
 
 He will, then, be a supporter of equality, not 
 less firm than Robespierre, but less ostentatious. 
 And the reason of this is that, while Robespierre 
 has discovered the dignity of labor in the home 
 of the Duplays, with whom he is lodging, Tom 
 Paine remembers that he has been a workman 
 himself. The man who has made stays, rolled to- 
 bacco and forged bars of iron will not experience 
 in his contact with the mobs of the faubourgs that 
 disgust and terror at the aspect of their black- 
 ened hands, their animal faces, which drawing- 
 room democrats, like Buzot, Madame Roland 
 and the other Girondins cannot surmount, and 
 which will cost them so dear, and the republic 
 also. 
 
 Thomas Paine, then, will know how to speak 
 i-n 217 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to the people like one who is of the people. He 
 will speak with such limpid clearness that the 
 first-comer understands all he says, for what he 
 says reflects the experience of the listener. It 
 is by this mark that I recognize the man of the 
 people: he is a man intelligible to all the people; 
 he is not a specialist in any direction, and cer- 
 tainly not in books, journals or other writings, 
 which tend to accustom the mind to act on signs 
 any emolument from it. 
 
 Now the man we are discussing exactly fits 
 this description. In what profession shall we 
 class him? If the nation were divided into trades 
 and professions, he might be regarded as a type 
 of the manual laborer or of the lower class of 
 employees; but he would also be a type of the 
 engineers, for, after applying his sound common 
 sense to the study of the arched threads by means 
 of which spiders hang their webs, he drew there- 
 from the plans of the first metallic bridge con- 
 structed in Europe; and of the hygienists also, 
 for, having applied this same sound common 
 sense to the etiology of yellow fever, he proved 
 that it is propagated in harbors by the putrefac- 
 tion of inorganic matter; and of astronomy as 
 well, for, always exercising the same sound com- 
 mon sense on everything he saw, he inferred, 
 218 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 twenty years before Herschel, that the fixed 
 stars are suns; finally, he might be taken as a 
 type of the statesman and author; for his books 
 stir up nations, although he has never made a 
 profession of literature or thought of drawing 
 any emolument from it. 
 
 His mind is free, because it is altogether con- 
 crete. When we read his pamphlets, we are 
 struck by the fact that his eloquence is com- 
 pounded of things rather than of words. His 
 imagination adheres strictly to reality, it does not 
 devote itself to expression for the purpose of or- 
 nament, but to the impression in order to render 
 it fixed and permanent as well as vivid and 
 naked. 
 
 He deduces the rights of man from in- 
 cidents in his own biography: he sees again the 
 Duke of Grafton passing in his carriage through 
 the lines of the bent backs of the Thetford mag- 
 istrates, the judges, in their long wigs at the 
 Lenten assizes, hanging men and women for 
 breaches of the game laws, and the grimaces on 
 the pallid faces of the Dissenters, framed by the 
 pillory at the corner of the market-place. His 
 conclusion that the republic is "a government of 
 justice" is not dictated to him by Plutarch's 
 "Life of Lycurgus," but by what he has dis- 
 
 219 
 
WRITINGS OF THf)MAS PAINE 
 
 covered during his walks in the streets or in the 
 country. Upon this groundwork of concrete and 
 common experience he reasons, asserting that the 
 common sense is the only authority, and that a 
 blacksmith's apprentice is as likely to possess this 
 common sense as a doctor of theology. 
 
 His method of reasoning is also common; 
 there is no preliminary imitation, no technical 
 jargon — "You have not read Plutarch? Nor 
 Montesquieu? Nor Rousseau? — that is a pity; 
 but it has nothing to do with my demonstration. 
 I do not suppose that you are in possession of 
 any fundamental principle except common 
 sense." 
 
 "Common Sense" is precisely the title of 
 Paine's first pamphlet, which is the first 
 defense of the modern republic. It was abso- 
 lutely necessary that the author should express 
 himself in natural and direct language; for in it 
 he had to give public expression to the thought 
 of everyone, and to do so with such simple natur- 
 alness that it appeals to the humblest, who think 
 it is what they have always been thinking them- 
 selves. Then, as evidence is piled on evidence, 
 he manifests a sort of exultant gaiety. The 
 logic is blended with joviality; for common sense 
 has its source in the natural man, and so we find, 
 220 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 here and there, certain hearty, downright words, 
 that will force the honest mechanic who reads 
 them to break into a triumphant laugh between 
 two whiffs of his pipe. There is nothing in his 
 discourses that resembles in the slightest degree 
 the rhetorical abstractions of our Revolutionary 
 orators or their melodramatic emphasis. 
 
 Thus in Thomas Paine, although he is a 
 worker at everything, there is no specialization; 
 he does not belong to this or that trade, or to this 
 or that class, certainly he is not a bourgeois; 
 neither is he an anti-bourgeois. The very real 
 life he has led has made of him a man of the com- 
 mons, in the fullest and noblest sense. But it is 
 a religious doctrine that authorizes and conse- 
 crates this sentiment of equality, which in him has 
 been the result of experience — in fact, a law of 
 God. This doctrine is that of Jesus Christ and 
 of the few who are faithful to Him. So when a 
 modern lays down the principle that equality 
 among men must be absolute, is essentially abso- 
 lute, you can boldly conjecture that his starting- 
 point is the Gospel, whether he knows it or not. 
 
 You may see this from the example of those 
 English radicals of the Eighteenth Century who 
 base the claims of the workingman on the Our 
 Father. And among the French democrats 
 
 221 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 who, in 1789, 1790 and 1791, oppose the preten- 
 sions of the middle class to exclusive privilege, 
 we find that they are chiefly priests, educated in 
 Gospel meditation : the Abbe Gregoire, who says : 
 "It is time to honor the indigent"; the Abbe de 
 Cournand, professor in the College de France, 
 who writes that the poor: "are also our brothers, 
 having all the same rights to the common herit- 
 age"; the Abbe Claude Fauchet, who declares: 
 " All rights are common property in a well 
 ordered society." 
 
 Having now reached down to the deep re- 
 ligious roots of the republic, let us try to show 
 how far religious beliefs affected the principles 
 of Thomas Paine: 
 
 He was born a Quaker Christian, and he re- 
 tained a certain Quaker bias even after he had 
 ceased to be a Christian, which occurred at a very 
 early age. He was hardly eight years old when 
 his conscience revolted against the official theol- 
 ogy; he refused to believe that a God and a 
 Father required the bloody sacrifice of His only 
 Son in order to appease His hatred toward hu- 
 manity. His first religious impressions persisted 
 long after he had publicly denied them, and for 
 this reason especially: the Quakers depend on 
 internal illumination rather than on any dogma 
 222 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 or sacrament, and this was the lantern by whose 
 light Paine had discovered the interior world; 
 he never at any period entirely departed from his 
 first point of view. The doctrine of his duty to 
 fraternity had always been his religion; it was 
 his philosophy. 
 
 Such lessons assuredly had their effect on 
 Thomas Paine. Fortified from childhood 
 against the glamor which begins in childhood 
 for grown men, he weighed kings and nobles by 
 their weight as men and no more; George III, 
 his own prince, is, in his judgment, simply a 
 poor madman. Later on, when our Frenchmen 
 experience the same thrill before Louis XVI, 
 anointed with the holy chrism, that they might 
 before the Holy Sacrament, and afterwards, 
 when by a natural reaction, they throw them- 
 selves on him with the fury of a profaner of the 
 sacred Host, the ex-Quaker deliberates as com- 
 posedly as if the fate of a trapped mouse was 
 only at stake. The personage who makes a 
 whole people tremble, now with veneration, now 
 with fury, is for him a weak-minded, but not an 
 ill-minded creature. He measures dukes, peers 
 and all persons of rank with the same tranquillity. 
 In short, there is not a fiction, not a challenge 
 to good sense, not an obstacle to republics, that 
 
 223 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 has not been effaced from his mind by his Quaker 
 phlegm. Even the glory and the great name of 
 Washington do not impose upon him. Believing 
 that the conduct of the hero has been marked in 
 his own case by duplicity, he plainly tells him 
 so. Thus the Quakers, respectful to God alone, 
 were the first to break "those cords," as Pascal 
 calls them, "which attach respect to such and 
 such a person, and which are simply cords of the 
 imagination." 
 
 Another inequality is that which our sym- 
 pathy places between our own countrymen and 
 the people of other lands. There again the 
 imagination plays a part. The Quakers are too 
 unimaginative to be "nationalists"; they find in 
 every country the same humanity of flesh and 
 spirit of which they feel they are members. 
 Paine, then, passes from England to America, 
 then to France, then back again to America 
 without the slightest quiver of emotional leave- 
 taking on his departure from one land for 
 another. He is in exile nowhere, for "my coun- 
 try is the world," he says, after the ancient stoic. 
 This "internationalism" of Paine, as was after- 
 wards that of Lamartine, is offensive to the pas- 
 sionate plebeians, who elevate impulses to the 
 rank of virtues. Thus, Marat, pure nationalist, 
 224 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 as well as perfect demagogue (he was born at 
 Neufchatel, but that does not disturb him) says 
 to a friend of Paine: "The French are mad to 
 allow foreigners to live among them. They 
 should cut off their ears, let them bleed for a few 
 days, then cut off their heads." Thus the hatred 
 of Marat for Paine is a natural thing, for they 
 are two mental structures one of which implies 
 the negation of the other. Still, it is in France 
 that Paine hopes to find the clearest comprehen- 
 sion of his humanitarian doctrine. France is a 
 country of common sense even more than of 
 imagination; for two centuries her philosophers 
 have had an immense audience, and an audience 
 not limited by frontiers; she has inaugurated 
 her Revolution by the affirmation of principles 
 which are essential to mankind. 
 
 As "Humanus," then, Paine attaches himself 
 to France as the missionary of that progressive 
 enfranchisement which he proclaims. But he 
 does not wish her to be an armed missionary. 
 What Paine desires is not the clash of nationali- 
 ties, still less their effacement, but a federation 
 among them, with a "Parliament of Man," in 
 which reason, by the agency of perpetual arbitra- 
 tion, would organize peace. Paris should be its 
 seat, for it is of Paris that men speak the most. 
 
 225 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 There a common flag would float composed of 
 the flags of all nations, a veritable scarf of iris 
 in which all the shades of the prism would succeed 
 one another as in the celestial bow. A dream, 
 no doubt. No matter ; in the colors of the dream 
 I recognize the mark of a mind which Chris- 
 tianity has liberated from all tribal fetichism. 
 How could Quakers, who call themselves the 
 Society of Friends, say: "Our friendship stops 
 here; this is its exact frontier; beyond, there is 
 a clear field for violence"? Thus the pupil of 
 Quakers, instead of representing to himself 
 society as a tower with stones superimposed upon 
 one another and without any ladder, sees transi- 
 tions everywhere, the possibilities of ascent every- 
 where, and he holds it as a sacred obligation 
 never to prevent them, never to keep the people 
 down. 
 
 Thomas Paine, then, felt in the very recesses 
 of his soul that be belonged to a society of per- 
 sons who had no authority over others, no claim 
 to exercise power of any kind, and who were not 
 considered entitled to any consideration whatever. 
 And, in addition to the severities of power, they 
 had to endure the insults of the brutal mob. On 
 every side they found all the outlets closed 
 against them, which, if they were open, would 
 22G 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 have allowed the Quakers to enjoy the ease and 
 comfort that render men insensible to injustice. 
 These were fortunate persecutions, and from 
 them has sprung the determination to subordi- 
 nate all other social ends to respect for the rights 
 of man. If the affirmation of the first republi- 
 can thesis is a progress of justice, this progress 
 had to be won from the very impossibility of 
 living otherwise, which was made manifest by 
 innumerable errors and sufferings, since forgot- 
 ten. It is the common law, already recognized 
 by the ancient sages: "Injustice gives birth to 
 Sorrow, and Sorrow gives birth to Justice." 
 
 I have tried to answer this question, in which, 
 as it seemed to me, all the permanent interest of 
 the career of Thomas Paine is contained: how 
 did it happen that, about the year 1770, an 
 obscure man, in a dependent position, the subject 
 of an ancient monarchy, was able to conceive, and 
 that with absolute assurance, a certain political 
 system as being both desirable and realizable, 
 which to-day appears very difficult to be realized, 
 although dictated by sound sense, and which was 
 then unheard of? Most decidedly, it was not a 
 sudden and fortuitous outburst. Such a dis- 
 covery was the result of long preparations under 
 
 227 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 divers influences of which some were explicit 
 traditions and others latent instincts. 
 
 It is clear that heredity, social condition and 
 religion acted together upon Thomas Paine, who 
 was simultaneously an Englishman, a man of the 
 people and a Quaker Christian. The formula, 
 according to which these forces were tempered, 
 was simply his own temperament. If, for 
 example, he separated himself from the Quakers 
 of Pennsylvania and New Jersey because their 
 principles of non-resistance would have led them 
 to endure everything from the Crown of Eng- 
 land rather than resolve to stuff bullets into their 
 muskets ; if he gave, to the great scandal of these 
 peaceful people, the signal for the battle in behalf 
 of right, it was because another English charac- 
 teristic of quite an opposite nature had tempered 
 his Quakerism ; on the other hand, there was none 
 of the English arrogance about him which might 
 have hindered him from becoming a naturalized 
 French citizen, and he remained to the very end 
 quite simply a friend of the human race; and 
 the reason for his action in both cases is obvious : 
 he had been as closely associated with a Christian 
 community as he was with popular life; if, 
 finally, he had freed himself, on attaining ma- 
 turity, from the Quaker principle of passive 
 228 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 resistance, it was because that opulent plebeian 
 nature of his could no longer be kept apart from 
 the joys of efficacious activity. We may be as- 
 sured, moreover, that his practical knowledge of 
 science would in any case have conducted him to 
 a religion of pure reason. 
 
 All this work of combination had been accom- 
 plished in him during the period which in every 
 fecund spirit is essentially the period of fecun- 
 dity : namely that of obscure, meditative groping. 
 Such a spirit accomplishes nothing, men say ; but 
 it is accomplishing its own formation. 
 
 After his arrival in America, none of the 
 adventures of Thomas Paine will modify his con- 
 victions, which then received their final form. 
 From this moment his inner biography loses 
 almost all importance, and, at the same time, his 
 external biography begins to become singularly 
 striking. 
 
 It is my intention to dwell only slightly on 
 the latter. 
 
 To pass from London to New York in that 
 day was to change from sky to sky, not from 
 kingdom to kingdom. On the other side of the 
 Atlantic, the English subject was still in Eng- 
 land. There was nothing to foretell to the indi- 
 gent pilgrim (nor to anyone else, either) that the 
 
 229 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 American colonies were on the eve of constitu- 
 ting themselves a distinct nation, and that he 
 had just arrived in time to assist them. When 
 he returns to his natal soil twelve years later, 
 this American land, which he is now seeking as 
 a temporary asylum against famine, will have 
 become his mother country forever. That nation 
 is our mother country really whose true destiny 
 we have discovered and adopted as our own; 
 who, therefore, could be more authentically 
 American among the sons of the first settlers 
 on the coast than this newly landed emigrant? 
 Having first discovered in himself the goal 
 assigned to the new nation, he is the first to point 
 it out to all the others. He is as much American 
 as Jeremiah is a Jew and Demosthenes an 
 Athenian. 
 
 It was in an article, chiefly directed toward 
 the suppression of the slave trade and signed 
 Humanus, that he mentioned the fateful word 
 Independence. Yet this article was not at all 
 his political manifesto; it was the imprecation of 
 a humanitarian Christian, revolted by the inhu- 
 manity of the world, and inclined, according to 
 the usual custom, to blame the Government for 
 it. Thus, Polyeucte, in the tragedy, does not 
 believe he is giving utterance to a political 
 230 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 prophecy when he curses the Emperor Decius, 
 "that tiger athirst for blood," and predicts that 
 "his hour has come." 
 
 But, once the word "independence" had been 
 launched, Thomas Paine is irresistibly impelled 
 to deliver himself of his whole thought at a 
 bound: with autonomy must be joined republi- 
 canism: all that Utopia, all that blissful dream 
 which the plebeian Quaker used to caress last 
 summer in the streets of London — why, a crevice 
 has now been opened through which it can enter 
 and meet with a probable and speedy realization ! 
 The hour is striking. Moreover, the uncertainty 
 in which he sees other men sunk is but a halting- 
 stage for the man who has absolute certainty. 
 Later on, Paine will say: "It was the cause of 
 America that suddenly made me an author." 
 And thus "Common Sense" came into being. 
 
 "Common Sense" was like a flash from the 
 heavens. It was just what the time and the men 
 of the time needed. The effect was prodigious. 
 For the first time, the colonies perceived suddenly 
 what they wanted and that what they wanted 
 was possible. If it be asked how could Paine, 
 but newly arrived from England, and the Ameri- 
 can public come to such an understanding all at 
 once, it must be remembered that community of 
 
 231 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 origin, language, and, above all, of religious 
 sentiment, predisposed the minds of both hemi- 
 spheres to a mutual understanding. The 
 Quakers of Pennsylvania found again their 
 principles in the missionary whom English Qua- 
 kerism had sent to them. The Non-conformists, 
 who had emigrated of yore for the sake of 
 religion, and whose republican temperament had 
 been nurtured by their meditations on the Bible 
 and by their subjection to arbitrary power, 
 formed a ready audience for the Good Tidings. 
 For that matter, the writings of Paine were 
 much more effective in winning success for his 
 ideas than fame for himself. As he preserved 
 his anonymity, many people, who were entirely 
 impregnated by his opinions, knew nothing of 
 the author. Once when he had come to a meet- 
 ing where his name did not excite any attention, 
 he had only to tell them that he was Common 
 Sense to arouse the most fiery enthusiasm in 
 one part of his audience and cries of fury in the 
 other. As for money, he would never touch it, 
 and he had to contribute a certain number of 
 guineas from his own ill-furnished purse to the 
 expenses of the publication of the book which 
 was soon seen in every hand. 
 
 "Common Sense" opened to the Americans a 
 232 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 perilous future. They committed themselves to 
 it. Six months after Paine had spoken, the ma- 
 jority of them were converted to his opinion. 
 Henceforth the ties that bound them to the 
 mother country were loosened. The die was 
 cast. 
 
 As for the writer who had inspired the efforts 
 of the states, if he were now to stand apart from 
 their cause, he would have incurred the blame of 
 having hurled a whole people into the direst 
 dangers. But he showed that his conviction was 
 serious. He shouldered a musket as a simple 
 volunteer, not having the fear of his Quaker 
 coreligionists before his eyes, was in the retreat 
 on the Delaware, saw with his own eyes the 
 wretched encampments, the night marches under 
 the rain, starvation, bleeding wounds, splendid 
 young fellows dead or at the last gasp, saw, 
 indeed, what were the consequence and the pay- 
 ment of the logical propositions which he had 
 written down tranquilly at his work-table. 
 
 Discouragement soon spread through Wash- 
 ington's poorly fed and badly equipped army, 
 and despair and lassitude were universal. 
 
 Then Paine becomes the self-constituted 
 orator of the forces. He sets about writing, in 
 the very bivouacs, under the stress of present ne- 
 i-i8 233 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 cessity. In this fashion was begun that series of 
 effective pamphlets, called severally the "Crisis," 
 which, for intensity of accent and prompt 
 unraveling of difficulties, may be compared to the 
 "Philippics" of Demosthenes. These papers suc- 
 ceeded one another at irregular intervals, 
 beginning on November 22, 1776, and ending 
 on October 29, 1782. The first is a mili- 
 tary exhortation after the manner of the 
 ancients. Washington ordered it to be read 
 aloud in his camp to every corporal's guard. 
 Another is addressed to Lord Howe, warning 
 him, in the interest of his own country, not to 
 continue the campaign; another brings home to 
 the American people the lamentable dearth of 
 soldiers ; the aim of another is to refute the auton- 
 omist prejudices of some of the states, and to 
 plead for federal union ; another, when the coun- 
 try is on the road to bankruptcy, proposes 
 practical measures for strengthening the public 
 credit. 
 
 Another, after the successful close of the 
 war, thanks to French assistance, proves that it 
 must always be America's duty to remain faith- 
 ful to the ally of her evil days ; the last, now that 
 peace has been finally established, is a farewell 
 234 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 to the public and an outline of the organization 
 which it is time to give the new nation. 
 
 Each of these papers, lightly thrown off, is 
 his gift to the insurgents of a thought that is 
 constantly lucid. And this lucidity is immediate ; 
 for Paine writes under the first shock of events. 
 He is with Washington at Valley Forge, among 
 those five thousand men in whom even their chief 
 has no longer confidence, and who crouch in mud 
 huts like beavers; he goes in a sloop to recon- 
 noiter Fort Mifflin under an English cannonade, 
 and he finds it nothing but a heap of ruins ; thus, 
 every day he verifies with his own eyes failure in 
 all directions ; and these are the very occasions he 
 chooses to proclaim the approaching triumph of 
 the cause of Independence and the near destruc- 
 tion of English power! And the event does not 
 belie t his prognostics. 
 
 Well, the Revolution had come to an end. It 
 would have been natural to believe that the office 
 of "guide for revolutions" was to come to an end 
 also. This American Revolution had been so 
 great and singular that it was hard to conjecture 
 that the same men should be reserved to see 
 another revolution still greater and still more 
 singular. 
 
 It was simply the wish to consult the Acad- 
 
 235 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 emy of Sciences in Paris on the construction of 
 an iron arch five hundred feet wide that led 
 Thomas Paine back to the old continent. He 
 arrived in Paris at the beginning of summer, 
 1787. Note this date, and you will recognize the 
 man fated to land always at the point where the 
 tocsin is sounding. However, he is at first 
 occupied with questions not requiring any special 
 activity. 
 
 He frequents the company of certain philoso- 
 phers who are friends of Franklin and are 
 adepts in mechanical science. As he does not 
 speak French, his circle is necessarily limited. 
 But this small circle is, as we know to-day, the 
 first nucleus of the republican party in France. 
 Those who form it are persons equally ready to 
 discuss in English the mechanism of an iron 
 bridge or the Constitution of the United States. 
 In addition to the Marquis and Marquise de la 
 Fayette, patrons of all Americans, there are the 
 Marquis de Condorcet, geometer, philosopher, 
 statesman and free thinker, and his wife, an 
 enthusiast about Paine and now busy with a 
 translation of his works; Brissot, later on to be 
 the leader of the Giron&e, who had traveled in 
 America and has lately founded a Societe des 
 Amis des Noirs that is trying to interest fashion- 
 236 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 able people in a cause of which Paine is the 
 prophet; Danton, who is soon a very intimate 
 friend of Paine, and a few others, all devout 
 disciples of "Common Sense," and they all know 
 English. 
 
 In fact, we have here the staff, all united 
 and ready, of Le Republicain, the journal that 
 in some years will have its own role in the 
 Revolution but will expire with its fourth num- 
 ber. I consider this moment of contact between 
 Paine's mind and theirs solemn. It is now that 
 the grafting begins to take hold on the old tree. 
 
 When the year 1790 is about to expire, Paine, 
 the engineer, is in England, anxious concerning 
 the success of his iron bridge, a model of which 
 is exposed in one of the suburbs of London. It 
 was at the very moment when Burke's "Reflec- 
 tions on the Revolution in France" appeared. 
 The entire spirit of conservatism is there unfolded 
 with the superb eloquence and arrogance of a 
 master in statesmanship rebuking his pupils. 
 The mixture of contempt for man and respect 
 for established power that marked the entire 
 work, the blending of that political optimism 
 and philosophic pessimism which are the charac- 
 teristic qualities of the authoritative and well- 
 contented conservative, was but too well known 
 
 237 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to Paine as the deadly enemy of every effort 
 to attain enfranchisement. 
 
 It was necessary to speak, the more so as 
 Burke had disdainfully passed aside as unworthy 
 of notice the marks of sympathy given to the 
 French revolutionists by Priestley, Price, and the 
 radical associations, and, as the "Reflections" 
 were immediately translated, and went through 
 five editions in France in a single year, it was evi- 
 dent that, if no Englishman^ replied to them, the 
 idea would spread through France that all Eng- 
 land was indifferent to the agonies of justice. 
 How could the misunderstandings between the 
 two peoples ever be dissipated if this belief was 
 established? 
 
 Paine for the second time in his life heard a 
 sudden call. Hardly had he finished the last 
 page of the "Reflections" at the Red Lion in 
 Islington before he asked for pen and ink, and 
 set about composing his reply in the inn itself. 
 In this fashion, was dashed off, in less than three 
 months, the first part of the "Rights of Man." 
 
 It is a strange book. Burke is there ban- 
 tered, parodied, caricatured by his friend of a 
 few years before. The most insulting abuse is 
 heaped on the monarchy of George III, with its 
 venal, incoherent Parliament, with the jobberies 
 238 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 and mania for every sort of oppression of its 
 unprincipled government, and above all, with the 
 decay and rottenness which are the natural con- 
 sequences of heredity of office and heredity of 
 royalty. Then the journalist, transforming 
 himself into the historian, gives what he regards 
 as a just estimate of the American Revolution, 
 based on his personal reminiscences, and pro- 
 ceeds to relate, on the testimony of his Parisian 
 friends, the beginnings of the French Revolution. 
 Finally, with all the serenity of the philosopher, 
 he lays down dogmatically the principles which 
 must guide any government that wishes to be- 
 stow effective protection on equality of rights. 
 
 The tone of the entire work is outspoken and 
 rough; it bears no resemblance to the gorgeous 
 and stately drapery, fashioned after the antique, 
 in which the eloquence of Burke is grabed; we 
 must rather find its parallel in the coarse cotton 
 homespun out of which are made the shirts of 
 the workman. Not only was the delicate epider- 
 mis of the literary classes excoriated, but the 
 entire English people shuddered, fairly quivered 
 with rage; for it is a people obstinately smitten 
 with its venerable servitude, and the least revolu- 
 tionary that has ever existed. 
 
 Who, then, is this public disturber who would 
 
 239 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 throw everything into confusion? Is he even 
 qualified to speak? No, he is a bad Englishman, 
 who glorifies all that is done on the other side of 
 the water. Let him take himself off to France, 
 if he find more reason there than we have here! 
 And, as the writer's face is not well known, a 
 supposed effigy of him is incased in stays by 
 workingmen, before being burned, in memory of 
 the trade Paine once followed at Thetford. This 
 little feature, this mockery of the artisan's con- 
 dition by a crowd composed of artisans, proves 
 to what a degree a long habit of slavery may 
 deform and degrade the human mind. Such 
 is the support supplied by the poor to their 
 defenders. 
 
 Burke himself, disconcerted by the attack, 
 declared with a shrug of the shoulders, that the 
 only refutation worthy of the "Rights of Man" 
 was that of criminal justice. And, in fact, all the 
 agencies of criminal justice were put in motion 
 against Paine. But before they could reach him 
 he was safe in Paris. 
 
 Certainly, the position of Paine, first as an 
 accused traitor, then as a proscribed exile, greatly 
 enhanced his prestige in France. Among the 
 Frenchmen who applauded with transports at 
 Calais, Amiens and Paris there were few who 
 240 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ever saw the pages of "Common Sense" and the 
 "Rights of Man." They hailed him, above all, 
 because he wals "the man who had suffered for 
 the cause." It is enough in France to make a 
 man popular, and, at electioneering time, to 
 make him a deputy. Thomas Paine was elected, 
 then, deputy to the National Convention in four 
 Departments. So, from being an enthusiastic 
 but distant spectator of the French Revolution, 
 lo, all of a sudden, he becomes an actor in it. 
 
 All France doubtless knew that he was a 
 republican. Not only had thousands of transla- 
 tions of his "Common Sense" and the "Rights of 
 Man" been sold, but the author had assumed the 
 attitude of a champion of republicanism more 
 than a year previously on two notable occasions : 
 on the first of July, 1791, by the publication of a 
 manifesto, and on the eighth of July, by a public 
 discussion with Sieves on the principles of gov- 
 ernment. The first was placarded on the walls 
 of Paris immediately after the King's return 
 from Varennes. 
 
 It is true the denunciation of this manifesto 
 was almost universal. One deputy said: "It is 
 ridiculous to take the trouble of censuring an 
 opinion so wild and extravagant." Another: 
 "The author of this manifesto is a lunatic, and 
 
 241 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 should be handed over to the care of his rela- 
 tives"; a third jeers at "the ridiculous chimera of 
 a French republic." Robespierre is disgusted: 
 "I will not," he says, "deign to answer certain 
 imputations of republicanism which some persons 
 would attach to the cause of justice and truth." 
 Thus all denounce as vain and delirious the 
 prophecy of an event that will be realized in less 
 than fifteen months in the midst of unanimous 
 applause. So true it is that the people, far from 
 marching of their own accord toward the future, 
 have to be dragged toward it backwards, and then 
 they fall into it. 
 
 However, the flight to Varennes had started 
 the question of a monarchy or a republic. On the 
 sixth of July Sieves published an article in the 
 Moniteur, wherein he attempted to demonstrate, 
 with his usual dogmatism, that men are freer in 
 a monarchy than in a republic. Paine entered 
 the lists against him with open vizor. He 
 addressed a long letter to him which the Moni- 
 teur published, with Sieyes's reply. 
 
 Paine declared himself the frank and intrepid 
 enemy of the form of government known as mon- 
 archy, and he did so, taking his stand on the 
 principles of humanity, fraternity and liberty for 
 all, which are exactly the principles of the 
 242 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 "Rights of Man," He demanded, therefore, a 
 representative government, but such a govern- 
 ment would not be sincere except with an execu- 
 tive elected by the people and dependent on the 
 people. And this fact was being every day 
 demonstrated by the experience of England. 
 Such a proposition plainly bound together mu- 
 tual government and the rights of man, the 
 third proposition of the republican thesis added 
 to the first two, which were approved of by 
 Sieves himself. Sieves retorted that the republic 
 of Paine was a "poliarchie" which would disin- 
 tegrate national unity, and, at the same time, 
 would compromise the division of powers, and, as 
 a necessary consequence, would compromise 
 liberty. This might be true, but it was to change 
 the question. 
 
 Such, then, was this controversy, to which I 
 have reason for believing the five "republican" 
 friends of Paine brought a concerted plan, for 
 on the same day on which Paine's letter appeared 
 in the Moniteur, Condorcet published in the Re- 
 publicain a scathing sarcasm upon monarchical 
 prejudice. But what were these five republicans 
 among a nation that had been monarchical for ten 
 centuries? They were not listened to. Their 
 time had not come. 
 
 243 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 A year later, however, events have taken a 
 rapid turn; the country is "in danger"; it looks 
 as if the royal war-lord has failed in his duty; 
 and the urgent character of the peril has forced 
 the nation to decide on governing itself or else 
 abandoning itself to the fate to which it has been 
 abandoned by its sovereign; and the phantom of 
 royal power has vanished on the tenth of August. 
 I am not surprised that, on this occasion, more 
 than one person called to mind the republican 
 declarations which had made him shrug his 
 shoulders the year preceding. On the republic 
 discovering that the republic was a fact, the mass 
 of Frenchmen became republican, republican 
 because of their very conservatism, as is the way 
 with Frenchmen generally, or rather because of 
 the principle of gravitation that exists in every 
 mass of human beings. So, the opinions of the 
 day have at last exactly coincided with those 
 expressed in the manifesto of Paine. It is recog- 
 nized that he has uttered the word which solves 
 the problem. And so, with the help of some who 
 lately fought against him, Thomas Paine is 
 elected to the Convention as the standard-bearer 
 of the republic. I have already explained that 
 the persecution of the English Government had 
 already rendered him popular in France. To 
 244 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 vote for this foreigner, therefore, becomes the act 
 of a patriot. 
 
 When our honest friend took his seat in the 
 Salle du Manege, where the Convention at first 
 held its sessions ; when he saw himself lost among 
 those seven hundred emphatic, gesticulating 
 Frenchmen, I imagine he must have felt not alto- 
 gether comforted by the success of his principles. 
 On the twenty-first of September, the formula of 
 the fateful break with the past was enunciated, 
 after a philippic from Gregoire: " The National 
 Convention decrees unanimously that Royalty is 
 abolished in France." And then there were cries 
 and applause and fraternal kisses and arms lifted 
 up, waving pocket handkerchiefs and canes and 
 hats, even in the lobbies and galleries. All this 
 must have disgusted Paine not a little. 
 
 He was present at the debates, but to a certain 
 extent outside them, for his ignorance of French 
 kept him beyond the magnetic circle of words. 
 He sat calmly on his bench, with that vague, enig- 
 matic smile we see on the lips of the deaf and 
 dumb which chills the spectator. Yet everyone 
 turned toward him as toward the living statue of 
 liberty. The enfranchisement of America conse- 
 crated him. Moreover, his presence in the midst 
 of Frenchmen, with that of Anacharsis Clootz, 
 
 245 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the Prussian, seemed to signify that the Conven- 
 tion had its ramifications in every country, and 
 this was congenial to its pretension to legislate 
 for all humanity. 
 
 On the eleventh of October, Paine was named 
 on the Constitutional Committee. Among the 
 eight members elected with him, he found his 
 friends Condorcet, Brissot, Danton, who would 
 serve him as interpreters, and his old antagonist, 
 Sieves. We do not know exactly what part he 
 took in the labors of the Committee; but it is 
 pretty certain that he had a good deal to do with 
 the project of Condorcet. 
 
 If we analyze this project, we shall discover 
 some of the English, plebeian and Quaker ideas 
 which I have already expounded. Universal 
 suffrage was definitely consecrated, contrary to 
 the doctrine of the Constituents and in accordance 
 with that of the radical supporters of equality; 
 the principle, not of toleration in the religious 
 order, but of respect for convictions, was affirmed 
 in the terms of the Puritans ; liberty of the press 
 and of all manifestations of opinion was guaran- 
 teed; universal instruction was promulgated as 
 the debt of society to its members ; all heredity in 
 functions were abolished as absurd and tyranni- 
 cal ; finally, the censorship of the people over the 
 246 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 acts of the national representation was minutely 
 organized: any citizen could protest against the 
 whole system of assemblies that went on, ever 
 widening, around him ; all he had to do was first 
 to win over fifty citizens, then a primary assem- 
 bly, then the primary assemblies of a commune, 
 then those of a department, and finally those of 
 the entire republic. 
 
 Now this system of concentric waves was, as 
 I have pointed out before, exactly that of the 
 Quaker meetings. Certainly Condorcet could 
 have found a model for it nowhere else. And let 
 us say, by the way, that this Constitution is the 
 most purely republican constitution that has ever 
 been drafted in France. 
 
 You know that it was not voted. There were 
 others, in which, however, the paragraphs which 
 exhibited a frank confidence in the intelligence of 
 the people were prudently altered, and religious 
 liberty was restricted from fear of the plots of 
 refractory priests ; the Quaker system of popular 
 initiative was destroyed. Whatever was demo- 
 cratic in the edifice was borrowed from the pro- 
 ject of Paine's friend Condorcet. 
 
 But no sooner is the republic established than 
 it begins to be very apparent indeed that the 
 fear of the past has not vanished. The past has 
 
 247 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 been killed, but, then, no one is fully sure, and it 
 is necessary to bury it speedily, and so deep that 
 it can never return. Penalties are multiplied 
 feverishly, like shovelfuls of earth. That most 
 deadly enemy of liberty, the panic of crowds, has 
 taken hold of the Assembly. There are shrieks 
 of treason. Death to the traitors ! 
 
 Thomas Paine knew better than anyone 
 could know from mere hearsay what this sort of 
 patriotic delirium foreshadowed. The madmen 
 who had sacked the house of his friend Priest- 
 ley, and who glutted their hatred by burning 
 manikins supposed to resemble himself were still 
 busy on the other side of the Channel; mobs of 
 the same character he saw now, always ready to 
 rise against reason and liberty. He recognized 
 them : he was not under the illusion of all, or near- 
 ly all, the members of the Convention that these 
 anarchists were republicans. He did everything 
 in his power to resist them, in harmony with that 
 Quaker prayer of his in which he asks to be en- 
 abled to serve the people in spite of themselves! 
 All that man could do to save the life of the de- 
 throned monarch he did. 
 
 The arguments of Thomas Paine fell under 
 two categories: that of policy and that of justice. 
 He invoked the experience of English history, 
 248 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 which points to the return of the Stuarts after 
 the beheading of Charles I ; while, with the simple 
 banishment of James II, it was all over with their 
 dynasty. To kill the man is not, therefore, to 
 kill royalty, and the younger brother of Louis 
 XVI, who was beyond the frontiers, would find 
 himself invested, by the death of his elder brother 
 and the captivity of his nephew, with that royal 
 prestige which would be a force in the ranks of 
 the enemies of France. This fault, he declares, 
 must be avoided. And if anyone advances the 
 interests of justice as an argument for a dif- 
 ferent procedure, it can be answered that the cul- 
 pability ought to be shared between Louis and the 
 National Assembly, which, after his voluntary 
 disappearance and his return from Varennes, re- 
 stored him, in spite of himself, to the throne. 
 
 In fine, capital punishments may be needed to 
 prop up old monarchies, but are repugnant to a 
 government of reason. The only real way to de- 
 stroy royalty is to destroy also the governing 
 methods of royalty and, first of all, the penalty 
 of death. 
 
 We know that the vote was for death. Even 
 
 Sieves, who had, a short time before, defended the 
 
 monarchy against Paine, voted for death, calmly 
 
 and with a shrug of his shoulders. Thomas 
 
 1-19 249 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Paine alone, when his name was called, rose, and, 
 in a distinct voice, and in French uttered these 
 words : 
 
 I vote for the seclusion of Louis until the end of the 
 war, and for perpetual banishment after the war. 
 
 We understand to-day the consequences of 
 the execution of Louis XVI, that deed of weak- 
 ness and anger, and we know the appalling events 
 which followed it, so that sympathetic spectators 
 beyond the borders of France, who had hoped 
 that the definite overthrow of a regime of hand- 
 cuffs and arbitrary imprisonment was the herald 
 of the closure of the zoological period of human 
 history, came to believe that even despotism is 
 better than the anarchy of a murderous popu- 
 lace. Even Paine, with all his robust optimism, 
 was plunged into despair by the bankruptcy of 
 his ardently desired republic. He has ingenu- 
 ously confessed that he drank rum to distract him 
 from the scenes around him. He was seen more 
 than once looking wild and absent-minded; this 
 was enough, in the eyes of some, to justify them 
 in branding his name with the stain of an ugly 
 vice. However, that he did not lose his lucidity, 
 his letters, written at that period, clearly demon- 
 strate. 
 
 250 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Meanwhile, the Revolution continued to 
 march in the same direction into which the weight 
 of its first errors had necessarily dragged it. 
 After the National Guard has demanded and ob- 
 tained by menaces from the Assembly its consent 
 to the death of twenty-nine of its own members, 
 Robespierre requires a law to be passed "against 
 foreigners." 
 
 Paine employed whatever prestige was left 
 him in saving some of these foreigners. He 
 spent the whole summer of 1793 in retirement; 
 he lodged in an old abandoned residence of 
 Madame de Pompadour. However, certain per- 
 sons soon began to recall the fact that Paine him- 
 self was not to the manor born; he came from 
 somewhere else. His origin, name, language, all 
 proclaimed the foreigner. Then, he was the 
 friend of the Girondists, and the dregs of the 
 Parisian populace were convinced that the Giron- 
 dists had plotted against the national unity, be- 
 cause they hated Paris. 
 
 The month of October, 1793, was one long 
 crisis. A decree of the Convention enacted on 
 the third that the Girondists, "as agents of the 
 English faction," should be tried before the Rev- 
 olutionary Tribunal. In his report, the Conven- 
 tionnel Amar denounced Thomas Paine as equal- 
 
 251 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 ly guilty — that very Thomas Paine whom Eng- 
 land had, notwithstanding, proscribed. "He 
 had," said Amar, "dishonored himself during the 
 trial of Capet by supporting Brissot and daring 
 to talk about the dissatisfaction of the United 
 States of America." But Robespierre, having 
 caught the Girondists in his net, was contented, 
 and scorned to support an accusation against the 
 author of the "Rights of Man" for the present. 
 However, on the tenth of October, it was decreed 
 that all Englishmen should be arrested; several 
 young republicans from across the Channel fled 
 stealthily, first to Paine, then beyond the frontier. 
 Now, on the very day upon which the decree was 
 issued, Paine, on his side, was writing to Jeffer- 
 son, advising the United States to take the ini- 
 tiative in convoking a congress of peace at The 
 Hague, the object of which should be to guaran- 
 tee freedom of commerce and to reconcile hostile 
 nations: it was the sole chance of saving the 
 rights of man — with innocent internationalism 
 on one side, venomous nationalism on the other, 
 and both of them manifesting themselves simul- 
 taneously. You see how far apart the gulf had 
 grown between Paine and the Revolution. 
 
 However, he sees that Brissot and his other 
 friends have been cut off from the land of the 
 252 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 living. The benches around him in the Conven- 
 tion were empty, and the Terrorists soon returned 
 to the charge against Paine himself. Bourdon 
 de l'Oise denounced him in the Convention on 
 the twenty-sixth of December. The accusation, 
 as might naturally have been expected, was based 
 on his "connivance with the foreigners," and this 
 "connivance" was wrapped up in deep mystery. 
 "I know," said Bourdon, "that he has been in- 
 triguing with an ex-agent of the Foreign Office." 
 That was all ; the accusation was of the vaguest, 
 and therefore, the more impossible to meet. 
 When Paine became aware of it, he was some- 
 what taken aback by the strange methods of dis- 
 cussion adopted by his "Nationalist" opponents. 
 "I should have wished," he said, in his honest 
 simplicity, "that Bourdon de l'Oise had taken the 
 trouble to make himself better acquainted with 
 the facts, before rising to speak against me." 
 Barrere defended the thesis upon which Bourdon 
 had founded his charge. "It is necessary that 
 the French people should understand how injuri- 
 ous to its interests is the decree that allows for- 
 eigners to form a part of the national representa- 
 tion." Robespierre was silent, but the Assembly 
 divined his wishes. It showed its docility by 
 decreeing that "no foreigner could be permitted 
 
 253 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 to represent the French people." So Thomas 
 Paine and the Prussian humanitarian, Anacharsis 
 Clootz, found themselves excluded from the 
 Assembly. 
 
 Two days afterwards, the Committee of Gen- 
 eral Safety ordered them both to be arrested. 
 Paine had passed the night with a few American 
 friends, and, in the morning, was awakened by a 
 commissary of police and some of the National 
 Guards. A perquisition was made in his domi- 
 cile in his presence, and he was then conducted to 
 the prison of the Luxembourg, where he remained 
 for more than eleven months, escaping the guil- 
 lotine by a miracle. 
 
 At all events, this tedious incarceration was 
 a benefit to him in one respect : he was not caught 
 up in the deluge of tyranny that followed. He 
 was really freer in a dungeon than he would have 
 been outside, for he was, at least, sheltered from 
 informers. And then, during the spring of 
 1794, France had to submit to a regime that was, 
 in every respect, directly opposed to his doctrine 
 of the equality of rights and of a real republic: 
 there was not a single liberty for which he had 
 struggled that was not flouted and crushed. 
 
 Yet, for all that, in the midst of all the terri- 
 ble forces that had been let loose, Thomas Paine 
 254 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 was quietly philosophizing in his prison. He was 
 arranging methodically his ideas upon religion. 
 It was not solely in order to distract his mind 
 from dwelling on external events that he was 
 doing so; he was too much of a journalist to al- 
 low his thoughts to loosen their hold on the actu- 
 al; and, in fact, the question of religious belief 
 was as actual at this period as anything well could 
 be. As a result of the maxims of the Terror, 
 fetichism began to have a new and flourishing 
 life. The origin of all the deadly errors of the 
 time lay in a certain confused theology which 
 went back many centuries behind the Declaration 
 of Rights, and which was, in all respects, the 
 downright contradiction of every principle em- 
 bodied in that document. For the universal, 
 humanitarian, rational God to whom Voltaire 
 said: "Thou hast not given us hearts to hate or 
 hands to butcher one another ; grant that all men 
 may hold in horror the tyranny that would con- 
 strain the soul!" was gradually substituted an 
 ancient, tribal God, jealous and murderous. 
 
 He was not known as God, but as La Patrie 
 (the Fatherland), and sometimes even as Liber- 
 ty, officially as Reason, or rather as the Supreme 
 Being. But, by whatever name He might be 
 styled, He was actually a god like the Yavah of 
 
 255 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Deborah and Gideon, and His devotees, the "pa- 
 triots," felt themselves bound by an inexorable 
 rule, a rule obeyed without examination, to use 
 the saber and the knife of the guillotine against 
 "incivism," I was almost going to say, against 
 the "uncircumcized." All the servants of this 
 deity had to swear to love certain objects and to 
 hate certain other objects. The wives, children 
 and relatives of the accused were all involved in 
 the same destruction; sepulchers were violated; 
 war was waged against stones, for men spoke in 
 the Convention the language that is found on a 
 Moabite or Assyrian stela, talked of razing rebel- 
 lious cities, like Toulon and Lyons, to the ground, 
 and of abolishing their very names, so as to kill 
 them even in the memory of men. And this new 
 religion has a whole liturgy of rites — those rites 
 that have always characterized holy wars, or the 
 wars of "the pure with the impure" — before God 
 was conceived as one and universal. 
 
 The time had arrived, therefore, for the grand 
 idea of the Eighteenth Century, Humanity, to 
 be resuscitated, if the new aberration was to be 
 successfully confronted. 
 
 And this is just what Paine endeavored to do 
 in his "Age of Reason." A government emanci- 
 pated from tyranny — and that was the sole form 
 256 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 of government he favored — could be maintained 
 only among a people that had arrived at the "age 
 of reason"; that is to say, at the age of free 
 thought. The man who does not natter himself 
 that he possesses definite truth, but who modestly 
 seeks to see clearer, and who has learned the 
 habit of self-criticism, is alone preserved from 
 wishing to tyrannize over consciences; he alone 
 has the republican spirit. But Robespierre and 
 his acolytes, being disciples of Rousseau, proved 
 that they were incapable of thinking freely. Did 
 they even know what sort of a thing free thought 
 was ? In their natural religion,, they dogmatized, 
 they excommunicated, just as the Pope did in his 
 literal religion. 
 
 Paine had observed this phenomenon, he had 
 noted that the intolerant spirit of ecclesiastical 
 persecution had been transported into politics, 
 and that the Revolutionary Tribunal had taken 
 the place of the Inquisition. No one would have 
 expected that the Profession de foi du Vicaire 
 Savoyard would have given birth to such servi- 
 tude. Thomas Paine has the same beliefs as the 
 Vicaire Savoyard, but his method is very differ- 
 ent. He is not like the village priest, an "Or- 
 pheus singing primal hymns" ; he is an utilitarian 
 who consults experience. Instead of setting 
 
 257 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 forth as primary truths his own inner illumina- 
 tions, he finds the marks of the truth of a religion 
 in the proofs it is able to show of its capacity for 
 insuring the general happiness of mankind. A 
 religion which stimulates men to hate and slaugh- 
 ter one another cannot help being false. The 
 true divine is the human. 
 
 True religion, then, does not consist in pure 
 good will, which simply renders the individual 
 himself blameless, but in carefully planned 
 and efficacious beneficence. It is the imitation 
 of God as Creator and Father, as Reason and 
 Love. Far from this true religion having 
 been revealed to us by the agency of a primitive 
 instinct and afterwards again discovered in the 
 recesses of our souls "in the silence of preju- 
 dices," it is a recent acquisition of experience, 
 valuable in proportion to the high price paid 
 for it, and in proportion to its salutary consequen- 
 ces. It is necessary to preserve this acquisition 
 and to increase it still further. 
 
 Thus the conscience of the modern man is 
 really a product of history; but its authority is 
 not the less sure on that account; the very 
 reverse is the case, for as it is the authority of 
 an authentic experiment prosecuted from age 
 to age, this modern conscience has the right to 
 258 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 sit in judgment on the religious conceptions of 
 the past; in the Bible, it makes selections; it 
 retains all that is conformable to reason and 
 promotes praternity; it rejects all the irrational 
 marvels, all the "Christian mythology," and 
 it particularly thrusts aside the barbarous com- 
 mandments given by the national Jewish God to 
 His people. The exclusivism of the synagogue is 
 certainly detestable, and it is necessary to deprive 
 it of the prestige it has gained by a pretended con- 
 formity to the will of God. The philanthropist 
 Jesus did his best, because of his natural good- 
 ness, to free his contemporaries from this notion ; 
 but he was the victim of the kindliness of his 
 heart, a victim well worthy of pity and still an 
 object of veneration. 
 
 Such is a summary of the ideas of Paine on 
 religion; they are, in my opinion, much nearer 
 to those of Voltaire than to those of Rousseau; 
 but they differ from Voltaire in tone and accent, 
 and are far more popular, serious and tender. 
 
 None of the pamphlets of Paine won him 
 more enemies than this little book of rational the- 
 ology. He touched the English reader on his 
 sensitive point, his reverence for the "Holy 
 Scriptures." From that moment, the malig- 
 nant hatred of the pious met him at every turn 
 
 259 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 and blackened his character with indefatigable 
 zeal. 
 
 Yet, it had never been his intention to wound 
 the feelings of anybody; all his purpose was to 
 render testimony to the truth as he saw it. He 
 had written the "Age of Reason" with profound 
 conviction: it was to be his last will and testa- 
 ment. He completed it in prison, in daily ex- 
 pectation of death, which everything predicted to 
 be inevitable. From the cells next his own, he saw 
 the departure, in tumbril after tumbril, of He- 
 rault de Sechelles, Clootz, Camille Desmoulins, 
 Danton, etc., all gagged by their judges, as had 
 been the Girondists. In a single night, 168 
 prisoners were dragged from the Luxembourg, 
 and of these 160 were guillotined the next day. 
 What chance had Paine, then, of surviving them? 
 Doubtless he was an American citizen; but Gou- 
 verneur Morris, the official representative of the 
 United States, had abandoned him. Some of 
 his fellow-citizens settled in France addressed, 
 indeed, a petition to the Convention (January 
 27, 1794) praying for his liberation; but at that 
 very moment, Vadier, one of the accusers of the 
 man they were trying to save, was president of 
 the Assembly; Vadier, instead of answering yes 
 or no, buried the protest under a heap of mean- 
 260 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 ingless phrases. Paine was, therefore, to all ap- 
 pearances, lost. He was undisturbed, devoting 
 all his care to the preservation of his papers and 
 the composition of a farewell dedication to his 
 fellow-citizens of North America. 
 
 The circumstance which saved his life was 
 quite fortuitous: it was simply the negligence of 
 his jailers. The door of his cell was open and 
 thrown back against the wall of the corridor on 
 the night when a keeper went round to chalk on 
 it the death sign for the following morning. In 
 a fit of absent-mindedness he wrote the name of 
 Paine on the inside of the door. The commis- 
 sary who, before daybreak, passed along the cor- 
 ridor, ordering the condemned prisoners to come 
 out of their cells, saw nothing on one particular 
 door, and went on. Then came the ninth Ther- 
 midor, the downfall of the Terror and the gen- 
 eral jail delivery. 
 
 Yes, delivery for the other captives; Paine, 
 who had been forgotten by the executioners, was 
 now forgotten by the liberators. He wrote to 
 the Convention on the nineteenth Thermidor, re- 
 minding it that he was still in existence and de- 
 manding his release; the communication never 
 reached the Legislature, so he continued to crouch 
 in that Luxembourg cell of his the whole autumn ; 
 
 261 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 he was very ill, exhausted hy the bad air and the 
 bad food, and suffering from an abscess in the 
 hip which was rapidly undermining his health. 
 Fortunately for him, his friend Monroe had re- 
 placed his personal enemy, Morris, as United 
 States Minister. Monroe at once interfered, and 
 Paine was restored to freedom. The author of 
 the "Age of Reason" was, then, again among the 
 living. The decree excluding him from the Con- 
 vention being annulled, he again took his seat in 
 it on the eighth of December, like the pallid ghost 
 of the days, already far distant, when the re- 
 public had been inaugurated with shouts and hur- 
 rahs. Of the nine members of the Constitutional 
 Committee only two were left : Sieyes, who owed 
 his safety to his pliancy, and Paine, who never 
 bent to anything or anybody. 
 
 After the Terror had been once banished, it 
 was the terror of the Terror that governed. The 
 pendulum had swung backward. Just as in 
 1792, all imaginable measures were adopted to 
 prevent the slightest possibility of the revival of 
 royal despotism and of the past, so, two years la- 
 ter, all energies were devoted to the task of ren- 
 dering the existence of a new Robespierre forever 
 impossible and of killing forever the recent past, 
 more hated than that of old. The longing for 
 262 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 security, after months of chaotic confusion, is 
 likely to reach a degree of savage exasperation in 
 the bosom of the honest bourgeois. 
 
 So Thomas Paine, who preserved his normal 
 serenity, found that he had to pass once more 
 from the right to the left. A while ago, an "aris- 
 tocrat" in the eyes of the Terrorists, he is now 
 a democrat from the standpoint of the Thermi- 
 dorians. But it was not because he really oscil- 
 lated. It was his opinion that principles which 
 could be influenced by circumstances had no gen- 
 uine foundation in the heart. He pardoned 
 everybody. Why not? None of the people had 
 done him wrong. The experience he had under- 
 gone had not in the slightest degree shaken his 
 confidence in the people. It was not, he believed, 
 the people that had imprisoned and persecuted 
 him, but a faction that had usurped the popular 
 power. The people is, and not the less on that 
 account, the legitimate sovereign, the only sover- 
 eign that has the right to establish a government 
 by the election of representatives, who are dele- 
 gated, not to issue decrees suggested by passing 
 whims, but to enact general and durable laws. 
 
 If the Constitution had been obeyed, these acts 
 of arbitrary power which now revolted everyone 
 would have been rendered impossible. What 
 
 263 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 constitution? That of Condorcet or that of He- 
 rault ? It did not make any difference, provided 
 that it was a written, printed constitution, con- 
 taining a certain number of articles, a constitu- 
 tion which each citizen could carry in his pocket. 
 Despotism arises only when people place them- 
 selves at the mercy of events. The evil is that 
 the republic has no stable defensive organization, 
 that liberty is not regulated. This thesis was de- 
 veloped with great force by Paine in his disser- 
 tations on the "First Principles of Government," 
 published in July, 1795, just when the Constitu- 
 tion of the Year III was the subject of deliber- 
 ation. It was a liberal constitution enough, but 
 it was never popular. It was a prudent return 
 to the vote by qualification, to the regime of the 
 middle classes. 
 
 Because the poor have brandished their pikes 
 during the past riotous days, the poor are to be 
 deprived of the right of voting. A strange 
 but yet natural mode of reasoning! Boissy ex- 
 pounds it in explicit terms: "We ought to be 
 governed by the best. The best are the best 
 educated and those most interested in the main- 
 tenance of the laws. Now, with very few excep- 
 tions, you will find such persons only amongst 
 those who possess property. A country gov- 
 264 , 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 erned by men of property is in the social order." 
 It was, in all its nakedness, the society of classes 
 against which Paine had always protested. He 
 could not permit such a theory to be advanced 
 without raising his voice against it. Although 
 enfeebled by sickness, he forced himself to come 
 to the Convention (seventh of July, 1795). He 
 remained standing in the tribune while the sec- 
 retary read a translation of his discourse. After 
 apologizing for his long, involuntary absence, he 
 affirmed the constancy of his republicanism, and 
 recalled the initial meaning of the French Revo- 
 lution as indicated by the Declaration of Rights. 
 Now, the proposed constitution was com- 
 pletely out of harmony with the latter; by with- 
 drawing universal suffrage from the people, it 
 showed that it was not truly republican. To in- 
 troduce political right as an attribute of property 
 was to strike with inertia a system of government 
 whose very essence was life and movement. Im- 
 portant words these, but they were not listened to. 
 Paine seemed not to understand the situation. 
 The Constitution was a confiteor that the Con- 
 vention knew itself to be unpopular, that it was 
 about to disappear, and that its only chance of 
 returning to power was to conciliate the respect- 
 able classes. The speech of Paine was heard 
 i-to 265 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 with deference, but found no echo; the French 
 translation was not even published. 
 
 It was the last time that the champion of the 
 Republic was to intervene in the affairs of France. 
 The Convention was dissolved on the twenty-sixth 
 of October, 1795, and Thomas Paine became a 
 private citizen. 
 
 He continued to vegetate in Paris under the 
 Directory, surrounded by a few faithful disci- 
 ples and forgotten by the public. Yet he still 
 tried to contribute, for the sake of a distant fu- 
 ture, to the progress of republican morals and 
 republican religion, the want of which had just 
 made the Revolution a failure. He had a French 
 translation published of the "Age of Reason," 
 the book in which the modern conscience first 
 dared, without indirection and without sarcasm, 
 to set itself up as the judge of Christian tradi- 
 tions, and laid the basis of a purified religion, 
 reduced to the only beliefs which appeared neces- 
 sary as a foundation of fraternity among men. 
 
 Naturally he was one of the first adherents, 
 if he was not the instigator, of Theophilanthro- 
 py. This new religion, in fact, owed its origin 
 to England. David Williams, that friend of 
 Paine who had presented him to Franklin, had 
 invented a Liturgy founded on the universal 
 266 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 principles of reason and morality, and he had 
 gathered together a number of free-thinkers in a 
 chapel in London, in order that they might 
 strengthen one another by their mutual sympathy. 
 The Theophilanthropists simply tried to natural- 
 ize this institution in France. They succeeded 
 at first. Certain fathers of families, anxious that 
 their children should have a moral training; cer- 
 tain philosophers who, although disciples of rea- 
 son, required an outlet for their spiritual emo- 
 tions, such as Thomas Paine, Gregoire, Marie 
 Joseph Chenier, Bernardin Saint-Pierre, became 
 naturally and eagerly its adherents. 
 
 For those who did not incline to any particu- 
 lar form of worship, the Theophilanthropist 
 meetings offered a substitute ; for the faithful of 
 some other church it was a help to listen to exhor- 
 tations which urged them to make their conduct 
 conform to their faith. All religious and politi- 
 cal polemics were forbidden, as well as all at- 
 tempts at proselytism. The simple influence of 
 a pure and practical system of morals was of it- 
 self calculated to rally free spirits to this free 
 church. The first meeting, on the sixteenth of 
 January, 1797, opened with a lay homily from 
 Thomas Paine on the existence of God. After a 
 demonstration analogous to that of the Vicaire 
 
 267 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Savoyard, the orator went on to insist on the peril 
 of plunging into mysticism and on the necessity 
 of keeping the mind in a condition of rational and 
 scientific lucidity. But he did not remain long 
 with the Theophilanthropists. The latter, fear- 
 ing to wound the sympathies of anyone, avoided 
 stating categorically what they did not believe. 
 This reticence by no means suited the taste of 
 Thomas Paine, who was always frank and out- 
 spoken. 
 
 Nevertheless the followers of this religion 
 were gaining some footing, and eighteen churches 
 were abandoned to them. They even installed 
 themselves in Notre Dame for a time. Then 
 came the Concordat, and the Theophilanthropists, 
 with other non-conformists, had to vanish into 
 obscurity. 
 
 When the priests returned openly and the 
 peals of the bells again rang out in triumph, the 
 temper of Thomas Paine was not at all in tune 
 with the change. In his passing freak of ill- 
 humor, he even wrote to Camille Jordan, who was 
 in favor of toleration, a letter of protest. The 
 kind of worship that commended itself to Paine 
 was of the silent, meditative order: no bells or 
 organs or trumpets for him! No manifestations 
 that are likely to arouse hostility, either. Have 
 268 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 not recent experiences taught us to distrust 
 whatever tends to overexcite the sensitive element 
 in man's nature? The influence which is gained 
 over him by such methods is neither legitimate nor 
 prudent : he is led like a somnambulist, it may be 
 to misery, it may be to crime. He must be lib- 
 erated from such a yoke ; every religion which has 
 any end in view except the happiness of human- 
 ity is a public peril, etc. 
 
 But apparently the First Consul had not the 
 least intention of liberating his fellow-citizens. 
 
 Paine had at first believed in Bonaparte. 
 The latter, on his return from Italy, had caressed 
 and cajoled him with the skill of which he alone 
 had the secret. What if this Bonaparte was pre- 
 destined to destroy all antiquated despotisms? 
 Perhaps even William Pitt would find his match 
 in him! For it was just the moment when ru- 
 mors were abroad that the conqueror of Italy 
 was meditating a descent on England. At this 
 news the old English radical fairly quivered with 
 hope : why should a general of the French Revo- 
 lution land in Britain if not to emancipate the 
 English people, and at last bring to them that 
 long-desired republic which could alone procure 
 peace? 
 
 The abandonment of this fine plan for the 
 
 269 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 liberation of England and the departure of Bo- 
 naparte for Egypt cruelly deceived Thomas 
 Paine. But if the departure of the First Consul 
 was a disappointment, how much more so was his 
 return! After the eighteenth Brumaire, France 
 no longer offered any field of activity to a coun- 
 selor of the people, for the people no longer in- 
 fluenced events. They were politely dispensed 
 from the trouble of watching over their own in- 
 terests. And, should any of them exhibit a ten- 
 dency to meddle with public affairs notwithstand- 
 ing, he encountered a diligent police and a deter- 
 mined censorship that quickly brought him to 
 his senses. "The love of order," has become, ac- 
 cording to the formula of Fouche, "the first of 
 public virtues." Woe to the man who shows 
 himself devoid of it! And so Nicholas de Bonne- 
 ville, Paine's host and good friend, is locked up in 
 prison and his journal, Le Bien Informe, is sus- 
 pended, because he has compared Bonaparte to 
 Cromwell. The Terror has apparently come to 
 life again, not more cruel, but chronic, regular, 
 and with every chance of surviving. 
 
 It was the rebound of the rock of Sisyphus. 
 This time Thomas Paine gave it up. All his 
 dreams had been vanquished, and he was begin- 
 ning to feel the weight of his advanced years — 
 270 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 he was near seventy. So he wanted rest, wanted 
 a holiday, the society of dumb nature. A long- 
 ing to till the land, to live on his farm at New 
 Rochelle, took hold of him, and he bade a last 
 farewell to the feverish agitations of unhappy 
 Europe. 
 
 He embarked at Havre on the first of Sep- 
 tember, 1802, and, on the thirtieth of October, 
 after an absence of fifteen years, years filled with 
 strife and trouble, he again saw the shores of 
 America. 
 
 The United States, after its pacification, 
 seemed a good country to die in. Having no 
 longer any enemies, the American people, at their 
 ease on the wide continent, were safe from that 
 patriotic fever which rendered the old nations of 
 Europe unfit for fraternal government. Ah, 
 yes, but another fever was agitating them, re- 
 ligious zeal. "The enemy" here was not the man 
 on the other side of the river, but Satan himself. 
 The sacred fetich was no longer the flag, the 
 cockade; it was the Bible. The Bible was still 
 considered inviolable among this primitive people 
 to whom Voltaire was unknown. Now Thomas 
 Paine had spoken in a very free and easy man- 
 ner of the Bible, and he was soon made to feel the 
 result. 
 
 271 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Doubtless, in gratitude for old services, 
 Common Sense was amicably received by Jef- 
 ferson, the successor of Washington in the Pres- 
 idency of the United States. He was permitted 
 to enter into possession of his lands, and make a 
 home for himself. But the "Age of Reason" had 
 been dedicated to the people of America, and 
 had reached its address. And the people of 
 America left no one in doubt as to the nature of 
 their reply: the reprobation of the clergy and of 
 all the simple hearts in the community fell on the 
 head of the daring innovator. Nor were the 
 Quakers less indignant with their former core- 
 ligionist. The number of those who had read the 
 book was very restricted; the number of those 
 who would not for the world have consented to 
 read it, and who anathematized it all the same, 
 was immense. The people in Paine's neighbor- 
 hood expected every day to see the devil spring 
 down through the chimney of his cottage and 
 bear away the soul of his servant. A cab-driver, 
 who was also blest with saving faith, refused to 
 drive him, because he knew if he did so, a thun- 
 derbolt would surely fall from heaven and shat- 
 ter his cab to pieces. 
 
 The archaic sentiment known as the impreca- 
 tion of the impure assumed at this period the 
 272 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 form of a political proscription. For to interdict 
 the communion of saints to a person who had, of 
 his own free will, withdrawn from it long before, 
 to devote to the infernal gods a man who did not 
 believe in them, was like brandishing a wooden 
 sword at an enemy. But to refuse to accept the 
 vote he had just deposited in the urn under the 
 pretext, invented on the spur of the moment, that 
 the emancipator of America was not regularly 
 an American citizen — that, indeed, was to attack 
 him in a weak point, for it was to attack the 
 rights to which he clung with all his energy, it 
 was to make a mockery of the very principles 
 which his enemies knew to be his most sacred 
 possession. Yet this the political adversaries of 
 Paine did at New Rochelle in 1806, for they had 
 the well-grounded persuasion that the compact 
 majority of the people would sustain this out- 
 lawry of the friend and ally of Satan. 
 
 Yet, unawed by excommunication and anath- 
 ema, and rather amused at the attempts of 
 some worthy clergymen to convert him, Paine 
 lived on tranquilly until 1809. He died, with 
 perfect calmness and perfect resignation, on the 
 ninth of June, and not a single clap of thunder 
 was heard, and not a single spark of flame shot 
 
 273 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 upwards from the bowels of the earth on the 
 occasion. 
 
 France, and even America herself, both be- 
 ing at that time, and for a considerable time 
 afterwards, plunged in barbarism, forgot the in- 
 ventor of the Republic, whose hour had not yet 
 come. 
 
 274 
 
rikif.OHT HHT 
 
 7. f aISajfooVl 
 
the bowels of the earth on the 
 
 even America herself, both be- 
 
 hat time, and for a considerable time 
 
 plunged in barbarism, forgot the in- 
 
 f the Republic, whose hour had not yet 
 
 ie. 
 
 THE THOMAS PAINE FARM 
 
 Photogravure from am Original Photograph of the home 
 of Thomas Paine at Xexc Rochelle, N.Y. 
 
PAINE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLU- 
 TION 
 
 By Leslie Stephen 
 
 WHAT was the real value and significance 
 of Paine's work? Paine, of course, 
 more than anyone else, represents for English- 
 men the principles of 1789 ; and in particular the 
 connection of those principles with the War of 
 Independence in America. What, then, were 
 his antecedents and his achievements? 
 
 Paine, in the first place, was the son of a poor 
 Quaker in Thetford. The Quaker spirit un- 
 doubtedly had much to do with his development. 
 He was, like Franklin, a Quaker minus the 
 orthodox creed, as in later years Carlyle was a 
 Calvinist who had dropped the dogma. With 
 the mysticism, indeed, which distinguished the 
 earlier members of the sect, Paine had no sym- 
 pathy. It was replaced in him as in Franklin 
 by the metaphysical Deism of the Eighteenth 
 Century. But he certainly imbibed the practical 
 
 sentiment which made Quakers take so honorable 
 
 1 
 and conspicuous a part in all the philanthropic 
 
 movements of his time, and shared their aversion 
 
 to all forms and ecclesiastical institutions. 
 
 275 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 The Quaker religion, he declared in the "Age 
 of Reason," was that which approached most 
 nearly to true Deism. A contempt for the 
 pomps and vanities of the world, an enthusiasm 
 for the brotherhood of mankind, and a reverence 
 for the rights of individual consciences, may be 
 expressed in terms of George Fox as of Thomas 
 Paine. For the "inner light" we have only to 
 substitute a metaphysical dogmatism, less emo- 
 tional but equally imperative. 
 
 Paine, however, from his youth must have 
 hung very lightly to any religious sect. There 
 are vague indications that he preached, but his 
 sermons, if any, are with the snows of last year. 
 Nor is there the least proof that he was specially 
 affected by the sight of the evils of the day. A 
 lad of nine years old was probably more pleased 
 by the drums of the regiments returning from 
 the Highlands — if, indeed, any of them passed 
 through Thetford — than shocked by the blood- 
 stained uniforms of the instruments of Cumber- 
 land's vengeance. 
 
 Certainly at the age of eighteen or nineteen 
 he became for a short time a privateersman, which 
 would hardly be the choice of a premature 
 philanthropist. His career as a staymaker and 
 afterwards as an exciseman is naturally obscure. 
 276 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 We can see dimly by that he had ambitions and 
 that he neglected his business. He was a mem- 
 ber of a jovial political club at Lewes, wrote 
 songs and comic poems, and argued with great 
 vivacity on behalf (it seems) of Wilkes and 
 liberty. 
 
 English radicalism was slowly stirring to life 
 after the profound calm of the middle of the 
 century. Paine, we may guess, read the English 
 translations of Rousseau's "Social Contract" and 
 discourse on the "Inequality of Mankind," which 
 were the prophetic utterances of the new-born 
 spirit. If he did not read them he learned their 
 formulae. 
 
 He became conspicuous enough among his 
 fellows to be put forward as their spokesman in 
 an agitation for an increase of salaries. The 
 position was dangerous, for of all classes of men, 
 excisemen were the last who could count upon 
 popular sympathy, and a request for more 
 money rarely conciliates superiors. It is not sur- 
 prising that Paine soon found himself an excise- 
 man out of place. He had one resource. 
 Paine's intellectual temper was that of a mathe- 
 matician, and he had at some period acquired a 
 knowledge of science. He got some teaching 
 from two self-educated men, Benjamin Martin 
 
 277 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 and the well-known astronomer, Thomas Fergu- 
 son, who both gave lectures in London. 
 
 It was possibly through them that he became 
 known to Franklin, already famous for having 
 snatched the lightning from heaven, and soon to 
 snatch the scepter from kings. Armed with a 
 letter of introduction from Franklin, Paine 
 sailed to Philadelphia toward the end of 1774, 
 intending to set up a school. He became editor 
 of a magazine at the humble salary of £50 a 
 year; but within a few months found much 
 livelier occupation. 
 
 When Paine reached America a Congress was 
 already sitting in Philadelphia. The skirmish at 
 Lexington (nineteenth April, 1775) and the 
 Battle of Bunker Hill (seventeenth June) were 
 followed by the choice of Washington to be 
 Commander-in-chief of the provincial armies. 
 Paine during the autumn wrote his "Common 
 Sense," which appeared in January, 1776, and 
 made him famous at a blow. In three months 
 120,000 copies were sold, and it became the 
 recognized manifesto of the Revolutionary party ; 
 an exciseman with such training only as was to 
 be had at Thetford had become the spokesman 
 of a nation in which hardly a year before he had 
 been almost a foreigner. What was the secret 
 278 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 of his success? In the first place, it was that 
 Paine was endowed with the most valuable in- 
 stinct that a journalist can possess. 
 
 Americans had up to the last moment been 
 declaring that they had no wish for separation. 
 Franklin asserted that he had heard no such 
 desire expressed by "any person, drunk or 
 sober." Paine says much the same elsewhere, 
 but in the pamphlet he also says that he never 
 met a man in England or America who did not 
 expect that separation would come sooner or 
 later. 
 
 A newspaper, it is said, has thriven by saying 
 a little better what everybody is already saying. 
 It is a still greater triumph to say what every- 
 body is going to say to-morrow, but does not 
 quite dare to say to-day. 
 
 A quaint illustration of the obvious principle 
 occurs in Coleridge's "Literary Remains." When 
 reading Leighton, he says, he seems to be "only 
 thinking his own thoughts over again." On the 
 next page he expresses the same opinion by say- 
 ing that he almost believes Leighton to have been 
 actually an inspired writer. Nothing is so im- 
 pressive as revelation of our own thoughts. 
 
 When armed resistance had actually begun, 
 when the colonists had formed a league and 
 
 279 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 chosen a commander-in-chief, it must, one would 
 suppose, have been hard for any man to keep up 
 the pretense of disavowing a wish for independ- 
 ence. It could be merely a way of throwing the 
 responsibility upon the mother country; and the 
 time for such special pleading passed with the 
 first outbreak of war. What was needed then 
 was a clear, distinctive unveiling of the hitherto 
 masked conviction. 
 
 Paine, in a literary sense, was the man who 
 "belled the cat." He had an audience ready to 
 hail him as a prophet because he was an echo, not 
 of their words, but of their thoughts. But he also 
 put the case with a clearness and vigor which is 
 the more remarkable from his entire want of 
 literary experience. His method is character- 
 istic. There is less than one might expect of 
 such rhetoric as is called inflammatory. A native 
 American would probably have dwelt more upon 
 specific grievances, but Paine had no special per- 
 sonal knowledge of such things. 
 
 He takes them for granted rather than 
 expatiates upon them. He speaks like a man 
 insisting upon an absolutely demonstrable scien- 
 tific truth. The thesis which he had to establish 
 is simply, "It is time to part"; and the proof is 
 drawn from the obvious designs of Providence as 
 280 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 manifested in geography. It is absurd to sup- 
 pose that a continent can be perpetually governed 
 by an island. Nature does not make a satellite 
 bigger than its primary planet. 
 
 When the quarrel has once broken out, com- 
 promise becomes obviously absurd. Such differ- 
 ences cannot be patched up by any settlement. 
 To come to terms for the moment could only be 
 to leave the quarrel to the next generation. 
 England is small, America a vast continent; 
 therefore English rule of America is in a position 
 of unstable equilibrium. Once upset it, and you 
 can never again balance the pyramid on its apex. 
 That is the substance of an argument which 
 undoubtedly deserves, too, the title of "Common 
 Sense." It rests upon broad, undeniable facts 
 and is, of course, backed up by sufficient refer- 
 ence to the abominations of the British Govern- 
 ment. But Paine also provides his argument with 
 certain prolegomena which supersede any refer- 
 ence to expediency. Sir Henry Maine has 
 traced the social contract theory from its sources 
 in Roman jurisprudence to its transfiguration by 
 Rousseau. 
 
 Rousseau, he says, transmitted it to Jefferson. 
 It appears, therefore, in the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, upon which Paine had, perhaps, some 
 1-21 281 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 influence. He had expounded it fully in "Com- 
 mon Sense." Starting from the natural equality 
 of man and the regular hypothesis of a small body 
 of men meeting "in some sequested part of the 
 earth," and making a bargain as to their rights, 
 we get at once a clean-cut theory of government 
 and a demonstration of the gross absurdity of 
 kings and aristocrats. It is plainly impossible 
 to prove the value of the British Constitution by 
 a priori reasoning. 
 
 To Paine, therefore, the American Revolu- 
 tion was already the promulgation of the "rights 
 of man" in the most absolute form. The colo- 
 nies revolted, according to him, not because 
 charters had been infringed or specific injuries 
 inflicted upon merchants; but in virtue of prin- 
 ciples as true as the propositions of Euclid, and 
 applicable not only to Englishmen or Americans, 
 but to man as man. 
 
 So long as all patriots were agreed to turn 
 out George III, it mattered little what meta- 
 physical principles they chose to postulate as the 
 ground of their claims; whether they fought in 
 the name of the great charter or of the rights 
 of man. The more sweeping the principle an- 
 nounced the more effective the war-cry. 
 
 Paine's doctrine covered claims enough, and 
 282 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 if it covered rather too many, that was for the 
 moment unimportant. He could speak as if his 
 enemies were not only wanting in prudence but 
 denying the plainest dictates of pure reason. 
 
 Paine, it must be added, acted in the spirit 
 of his doctrines through the war. At intervals 
 he published the series of pamphlets called, 
 collectively, the "Crisis," which, though of 
 such various degrees of merit, show the same 
 characteristic quality. 
 
 If overweening confidence in one's opinions is 
 a doubtful merit in a philosopher, it is undoubt- 
 edly valuable in the supporter of a precarious 
 enterprise. "These are the times that try men's 
 souls" was the opening — it became proverbial of 
 the most famous of these productions. 
 
 It was written at a time when the cause was 
 apparently in great danger, and it was followed 
 by an unexpected success. Washington, it is 
 said, had the paper distributed to be read 
 throughout his army, and in that sign they con- 
 quered. The secret of Paine's power is given in 
 a phrase from the same paper. "My own line 
 of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as 
 a ray of light." 
 
 Paine himself took part in active service until 
 he was appointed secretary to a committee of 
 
 283 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Congress; and his words have not unfrequently 
 the genuine ring as of one speaking actually 
 under fire. The unanimous opinion of his com- 
 panions, and especially Washington's declara- 
 tions, leave no doubt that they did more than any 
 other pamphlets to rouse the American spirit. 
 Paine, with the calm self-complacency pardon- 
 able, perhaps, in a man who had thus suddenly 
 sprung into fame, held in later years that his own 
 pen had done as much service as Washington's 
 sword. He might fairly claim whatever credit 
 belongs to the man who throws himself unflinch- 
 ingly into the defense of a great cause. He had 
 got into certain difficulties in his official character 
 which showed at worst that a desire to expose a 
 dishonest transaction had led him to disregard 
 diplomatic proprieties. 
 
 He had blurted out a statement about French 
 help to the colonies previous to the declaration 
 of war, which had to be disavowed, and which 
 forced him to resign his post. But he had staked 
 his fortunes unreservedly on the issue of the war 
 and deserved reward the more that he had gained 
 nothing by his pamphlets. 
 
 He had given up the copyright of his publi- 
 cations to increase their circulation; and the 
 reward which he ultimately received was certainly 
 284 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 not extravagant. New York generously pre- 
 sented him with an estate which it took from a 
 Tory, and Pennsylvania gave him £500. 
 
 When the plain issue of the war was finally 
 settled, Paine's occupation was gone. Work 
 had to be done in which mathematical demonstra- 
 tions of the rights of man were irrelevant. To 
 form the separate colonies into a nation, to recon- 
 cile their jealousies and make such compromises 
 as would practically work, was a task for men of 
 very different qualities. The Federalist, now 
 the most famous literary record of the guiding 
 principles of that achievement, belongs to 
 another order of thought. The writers follow 
 the lead of Montesquieu instead of Rousseau; 
 and any comparison with Paine's work would be 
 absurd. His merit is to have raised a war-cry. 
 
 jfc jfe & 3£ jjg .& 
 
 The main secret of Paine's strength is, I 
 think, the same throughout. Like other men 
 who have made a remarkable success, he com- 
 bined qualities not often found together. He 
 was an idealist, endowed with a strong view of 
 common sense. He was by nature a man of 
 science, who imagines the method of Euclid to be 
 applicable to all topics of speculation, and so 
 falls in love with a good mathematical axiom that 
 
 285 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 he despises the trifling difficulty of applying it 
 to concrete facts. The facts have to bend or 
 be ignored. The type is common enough in the 
 French theorists of the revolutionary movement, 
 but there is something generally uncongenial 
 about it to our rougher English minds. We 
 rather hate symmetry, and our suspicions are 
 roused by any appearance of logic. 
 
 286 
 
THOMAS PAINE * 
 
 By Robert G. Ingersoll 
 
 With His Name Left Out, the History of 
 Liberty Cannot be Written 
 
 r I ^ O speak the praises of the brave and 
 -*- thoughtful dead, is to me a labor of grati- 
 tude and love. 
 
 Through all the centuries gone, the mind of 
 man has been beleagured by the mailed hosts of 
 superstition. Slowly and painfully has ad- 
 vanced the army of deliverance. Hated by those 
 they wished to rescue, despised by those they 
 were dying to save, these grand soldiers, these 
 immortal deliverers, have fought without thanks, 
 labored without applause, suffered without pity, 
 and they have died execrated and abhorred. For 
 the good of mankind they accepted isolation, 
 poverty, and calumny. They gave up all, sacri- 
 ficed all, lost all but truth and self-respect. 
 
 One of the bravest soldiers in this army was 
 Thomas Paine; and for one, I feel indebted to 
 him for the liberty we are enjoying this da)'. 
 Born among the poor, where children are bur- 
 
 * From an oration delivered at Fairburg, 111., January 30, 
 1871, and again at the Academy of Music, New York City, May 
 14, 1899.— Ed 
 
 287 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 dens; in a country where real liberty was un- 
 known ; where the privileges of class were guard- 
 ed with infinite jealousy, and the rights of the 
 individual trampled beneath the feet of priests 
 and nobles; where to advocate justice was trea- 
 son; where intellectual freedom was infidelity, it 
 is wonderful that the idea of true liberty ever 
 entered his brain. 
 
 Poverty was his mother — Necessity his master. 
 
 He had more brains than books; more sense 
 than education; more courage than politeness; 
 more strength than polish. He had no venera- 
 tion for old mistakes — no admiration for ancient 
 lies. He loved the truth for the truth's sake, and 
 for man's sake. He saw oppression on every 
 hand; injustice everywhere; hypocrisy at the 
 altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the 
 throne; and with a splendid courage he espoused 
 the cause of the weak against the strong — of the 
 enslaved many against the titled few. 
 
 In England he was nothing. He belonged 
 to the lower classes. There was no avenue open 
 for him. The people hugged their chains, and 
 the whole power of the Government was ready 
 to crush any man who endeavored to strike a blow 
 for the right. 
 288 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 At the age of thirty-seven, Thomas Paine 
 left England for America, with the high hope 
 of being instrumental in the establishment of a 
 free government. In his own country he could 
 accomplish nothing. Those two vultures — 
 Church and State — were ready to tear in pieces 
 and devour the heart of anyone who might deny 
 their divine right to enslave the world. 
 
 Upon his arrival in this country, he found 
 himself possessed of a letter of introduction, 
 signed by another infidel, the illustrious Frank- 
 lin. This, and his native genius, constituted his 
 entire capital; and he needed no more. He 
 found the colonies clamoring for justice; whining 
 about their grievances; upon their knees at the 
 foot of the throne, imploring that mixture of 
 idiocy and insanity, George the III by the grace 
 of God, for a restoration of their ancient privi- 
 leges. They were not endeavoring to become 
 free men, but were trying to soften the heart of 
 their master. They were perfectly willing to 
 make brick if Pharaoh would furnish the straw. 
 The colonists wished for, hoped for, and prayed 
 for reconciliation. They did not dream of in- 
 dependence. 
 
 Paine gave to the world his "Common Sense." 
 It was the first argument for separation, the first 
 
 289 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 assault upon the British form of government, the 
 first blow for a republic, and it aroused our 
 fathers like a trumpet's blast. 
 
 He was the first to perceive the destiny of 
 the New World. 
 
 No other pamphlet ever accomplished such 
 wonderful results. It was filled with argument, 
 reason, persuasion, and unanswerable logic. It 
 opened a new world. It filled the present with 
 hope and the future with honor. Everywhere 
 the people responded, and in a few months the 
 Continental Congress declared the colonies free 
 and independent states. 
 
 A new nation was born. 
 
 It is simple justice to say that Paine did more 
 to cause the Declaration of Independence than 
 any other man. Neither should it be forgotten 
 that his attacks upon Great Britain were also 
 attacks upon monarchy; and while he convinced 
 the people that the colonies ought to separate 
 from the mother country, he also proved to them 
 that a free government is the best that can be 
 instituted among men. 
 
 In my judgment, Thomas Paine was the 
 
 best political writer that ever lived. "What he 
 
 wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen 
 
 ever went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and 
 
 290 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 all the paraphernalia of power, had no effect 
 upon him. He examined into the why and 
 wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical 
 in his mode of thought. Nothing short of the 
 bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for 
 what he believed to be right knew no bounds. 
 During all the dark scenes of the Revolution, 
 never for one moment did he despair. Year 
 after year his brave words were ringing through 
 the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary 
 soldiers read the inspiring words of "Common 
 Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their 
 swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the 
 cause of Freedom. 
 
 Paine was not content with having aroused 
 the spirit of independence, but he gave every 
 energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He 
 was with the army. He shared its defeats, its 
 dangers, and its glory. When the situation 
 became desperate, when gloom settled upon all, 
 he gave them the "Crisis." It was a cloud by 
 day and a pillar of fire by night, leading the 
 way to freedom, honor, and glory. He shouted 
 to them, "These are the times that try men's 
 souls. The summer soldier, and the sunshine 
 patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the ser- 
 vice of his country; but he that stands it now 
 
 291 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 deserves the love and thanks of man and wo- 
 man." 
 
 To those who wished to put the war off to 
 some future day with a lofty and touching spirit 
 of self-sacrifice he said: "Every generous pa- 
 rent should say, 'If there must be war let it 
 be in my day, that my child may have peace.' ' 
 To the cry that Americans were rebels, he re- 
 plied: "He that rebels against reason is a real 
 rebel; but he that in defense of reason rebels 
 against tyranny, has a better title to 'Defender 
 of the Faith' than George III." 
 
 Some said it was not to the interest of the 
 colonies to be free. Paine answered this by say- 
 ing, "To know whether it be the interest of the 
 continent to be independent, we need ask only 
 this simple, easy question: 'Is it the interest of 
 a man to be a boy all his life?' " He found many 
 who would listen to nothing, and to them he said, 
 "That to argue with a man who has renounced 
 his reason is like giving medicine to the dead." 
 This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every 
 orthodox church. 
 
 There is a world of political wisdom in this: 
 
 "England lost her liberty in a long chain of 
 
 right reasoning from wrong principles"; and 
 
 there is real discrimination in saying, "The 
 
 292 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Greeks and Romans were strongly possessed of 
 the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at 
 the time that they were determined not to be 
 slaves themselves, they employed their power to 
 enslave the rest of mankind." 
 
 In his letter to the British people, in which 
 he tried to convince them that war was not to 
 their interest, occurs the following passage brim- 
 ful of common sense: "War never can be the 
 interest of a trading nation any more than quar- 
 reling can be profitable to a man in business. 
 But to make war with those who trade with us 
 is like setting a bulldog upon a customer at the 
 shop door." 
 
 The writings of Paine fairly glitter with sim- 
 ple, compact, logical statements, that carry con- 
 viction to the dullest and most prejudiced. He 
 had the happiest possible way of putting the 
 case; in asking questions in such a way that they 
 answer themselves, and in stating his premises so 
 clearly that the deduction could not be avoided. 
 
 Day and night he labored for America; 
 month after month, year after year, he gave 
 himself to the Great Cause, until there was "a 
 government of the people and for the people," 
 and until the banner of the stars floated over 
 
 293 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 a continent redeemed, and consecrated to the 
 happiness of mankind. 
 
 At the close of the Revolution, no one stood 
 higher in America than Thomas Paine. The 
 best, the wisest, the most patriotic, were his 
 friends and admirers; and had he been thinking 
 only of his own good he might have rested from 
 his toils and spent the remainder of his life in 
 comfort and in ease. He could have been what 
 the world is pleased to call "respectable." He 
 could have died surrounded by clergymen, war- 
 riors and statesmen. At his death there would 
 have been an imposing funeral, miles of car- 
 riages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a nation 
 in mourning, and, above all, a splendid monu- 
 ment covered with lies. 
 
 He chose rather to benefit mankind. 
 
 At that time the seeds sown by the great 
 infidels were beginning to bear fruit in France. 
 The people were beginning to think. 
 
 The Eighteenth Century was crowning its 
 gray hairs with the wreath of Progress. 
 
 On every hand Science was bearing testimony 
 against the Church. Voltaire had filled Europe 
 with light; D'Holbach was giving to the elite of 
 Paris the principles contained in his "System of 
 Nature." The Encyclopedists had attacked su- 
 294 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 perstition with information for the masses. The 
 foundation of things began to be examined. A 
 few had the courage to keep their shoes on and 
 let the bush burn. Miracles began to get scarce. 
 Everywhere the people began to inquire. Amer- 
 ica had set an example to the world. The word 
 Liberty was in the mouths of men, and they 
 began to wipe the dust from their knees. 
 
 The dawn of a new day had appeared. 
 
 Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new 
 movement he threw all his energies. His fame 
 had gone before him, and he was welcomed as a 
 friend of the human race, and as a champion of 
 free government. 
 
 He had never relinquished his intention of 
 pointing out to his countrymen the defects, ab- 
 surdities and abuses of the English Government. 
 For this purpose he composed and published his 
 greatest political work, the "Rights of Man." 
 This work should be read by every man and 
 woman. It is concise, accurate, natural, convinc- 
 ing, and unanswerable. It shows great thought ; 
 an intimate knowledge of the various forms of 
 government; deep insight into the very springs 
 of human action, and a courage that compels 
 respect and admiration. The most difficult polit- 
 ical problems are solved in a few sentences. The 
 
 295 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 venerable arguments in favor of wrong are re- 
 futed with a question — answered with a word. 
 For forcible illustration, apt comparison, accu- 
 racy and clearness of statement, and absolute 
 thoroughness, it has never been excelled. 
 
 The fears of the Administration were aroused, 
 and Paine was prosecuted for libel and found 
 guilty; and yet there is not a sentiment in the 
 entire work that will not challenge the admira- 
 tion of every civilized man. It is a magazine of 
 political wisdom, an arsenal of ideas, and an 
 honor, not only to Thomas Paine, but to human 
 nature itself. It could have been written only 
 by the man who had the generosity, the exalted 
 patriotism, the goodness to say, "The world is 
 my country, and to do good my religion." 
 
 There is in all the utterances of the world no 
 grander, no sublimer sentiment. There is no 
 creed that can be compared with it for a mo- 
 ment. It should be wrought in gold, adorned 
 with jewels, and impressed upon every human 
 heart: "The world is my country, and to do 
 good my religion." 
 
 In 1792, Paine was elected by the department 
 
 of Calais as their representative in the National 
 
 Assembly. So great was his popularity in 
 
 France that he was selected about the same time 
 
 296 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 by the people of no less than four departments. 
 Upon taking his place in the Assembly he 
 was appointed as one of a committee to draft a 
 constitution for France. Had the French people 
 taken the advice of Thomas Paine there would 
 have been no "Reign of Terror." The streets of 
 Paris would not have been filled with blood. 
 The Revolution would have been the grandest 
 success of the world. The truth is that Paine 
 was too conservative to suit the leaders of the 
 French Revolution. They, to a great extent, 
 were carried away by hatred, and a desire to de- 
 stroy. They had suffered so long, they had 
 borne so much, that it was impossible for them to 
 be moderate in the hour of victory. 
 
 Besides all this, the French people had been 
 so robbed by the Government, so degraded by 
 the Church, that they were not fit material with 
 which to construct a republic. Many of the lead- 
 ers longed to establish a beneficent and just gov- 
 ernment, but the people asked for revenge. 
 
 Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. 
 His philanthropy was boundless. He wished to 
 destroy monarchy — not the monarch. He voted 
 for the destruction of tyranny, and against the 
 death of the King. He wished to establish a gov- 
 ernment on a new basis; one that would forget 
 « 297 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the past; one that would give privileges to none, 
 and protection to all. 
 
 In the Assembly, where nearly all were de- 
 manding the execution of the King — where to 
 differ from the majority was to be suspected, 
 and where to be suspected was almost certain 
 death, Thomas Paine had the courage, the good- 
 ness and the justice to vote against death. To 
 vote against the execution of the King was a vote 
 against his own life. This was the sublimity of 
 devotion to principle. For this he was arrested, 
 imprisoned, and doomed to death. 
 
 Search the records of the world and you will 
 find but few sublimer acts than that of Thomas 
 Paine voting against the King's death. He, the 
 hater of despotism, the abhorrer of monarchy, the 
 champion of the rights of man, the republican, 
 accepting death to save the life of a deposed 
 tyrant — of a throneless king. This was the last 
 grand act of his political life — the sublime con- 
 clusion of his political career. 
 
 All his life he had been the disinterested 
 friend of man. He had labored — not for money, 
 not for fame, but for the general good. He had 
 aspired to no office; had asked no recognition 
 of his services, but had ever been content to labor 
 as a common soldier in the army of Progress. 
 298 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Confining his efforts to no country, looking upon 
 the world as his field of action, filled with a genu- 
 ine love for the right, he found himself impris- 
 oned by the very people he had striven to save. 
 
 Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him 
 to the block, he would have escaped the calum- 
 nies and the hatred of the Christian world. In 
 this country, at least, he would have ranked with 
 the proudest names. On the anniversary of the 
 Declaration his name would have been upon the 
 lips of all the orators, and his memory in the 
 hearts of all the people. 
 
 Thomas Paine had not finished his career. 
 
 He had spent his life thus far in destroying 
 the power of kings, and now he turned his atten- 
 tion to the priests. He knew that every abuse 
 had been embalmed in Scripture — that every out- 
 rage was in partnership with some holy text. 
 He knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, 
 and both behind a pretended revelation from 
 God. By this time he had found that it was of 
 little use to free the body and leave the mind in 
 chains. He had explored the foundations of des- 
 potism, and had found them infinitely rotten. 
 He had dug under the throne, and it occurred to 
 him that he would take a look behind the altar. 
 
 The result of his investigations was given to 
 
 299 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the world in the "Age of Reason." From the 
 moment of its publication he became infamous. 
 He was calumniated beyond measure. To slan- 
 der him was to secure the thanks of the Church. 
 All his services were instantly forgotten, dispar- 
 aged or denied. He was shunned as though he 
 had been a pestilence. Most of his old friends 
 forsook him. He was regarded as a moral 
 plague, and at the bare mention of his name the 
 bloody hands of the Church were raised in horror. 
 He was denounced as the most despicable of men. 
 
 Not content with following him to his grave, 
 they pursued him after death with redoubled 
 fury, and recounted with infinite gusto and satis- 
 faction the supposed horrors of his death-bed; 
 gloried in the fact that he was forlorn and friend- 
 less, and gloated like fiends over what they sup- 
 posed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely 
 death. 
 
 It is wonderful that all his services were thus 
 forgotten. It is amazing that one kind word did 
 not fall from some pulpit; that someone did not 
 accord to him, at least — honesty. Strange, that 
 in the general denunciation someone did not 
 remember his labor for liberty, his devotion to 
 principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. 
 He had, by brave and splendid effort, associated 
 390 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 his name with the cause of Progress. He had 
 made it impossible to write the history of political 
 freedom with his name left out. He was one of 
 the creators of light; one of the heralds of the 
 dawn. He hated tyranny in the name of kings, 
 and in the name of God, with every drop of his 
 noble blood. He believed in liberty and justice, 
 and in the sacred doctrine of human equality. 
 Under these divine banners he fought the battle 
 of his life. In both worlds he offered his blood 
 for the good of man. In the wilderness of 
 America, in the French Assembly, in the somber 
 cell waiting for death, he was the same unflinch- 
 ing, unwavering friend of his race ; the same un- 
 daunted champion of universal freedom. And 
 for this he has been hated; for this the Church 
 has violated even his grave. 
 
 This is enough to make one believe that 
 nothing is more natural than for men to devour 
 their benefactors. The people in all ages have 
 crucified and glorified. Whoever lifts his voice 
 against abuses, whoever arraigns the past at the 
 bar of the present, whoever asks the king to show 
 his commission, or questions the authority of the 
 priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man 
 and God. In all ages reason has been regarded 
 as the enemy of religion. Nothing has been con- 
 
 301 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 sidered so pleasing to the Deity as a total denial 
 of the authority of your own mind. Self-reliance 
 has been thought a deadly sin; and the idea of 
 living and dying without the aid and consolation 
 of superstition has always horrified the Church. 
 By some unaccountable infatuation, belief has 
 been and still is considered of immense impor- 
 tance. All religions have been based upon the idea 
 that God will forever reward the true believer, 
 and eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. 
 Belief is regarded as the one essential thing. To 
 practise justice, to love mercy, is not enough. 
 You must believe in some incomprehensible creed. 
 You must say, "Once one is three, and three 
 times one is one." The man who practised every 
 virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated. 
 Nothing so outrages the feelings of the Church as 
 a moral unbeliever — nothing so horrible as a 
 charitable Atheist. 
 
 When Paine was born, the world was relig- 
 ious, the pulpit was the real throne, and the 
 churches were making every effort to crush out 
 of the brain the idea that it had the right to think. 
 
 The splendid saying of Lord Bacon, that 
 
 "the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or 
 
 wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the 
 
 presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the 
 
 302 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 enjoying of it, are the sovereign good of human 
 nature," has been, and ever will be, rejected by 
 religionists. Intellectual liberty, as a matter of 
 necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is 
 either praise- or blame-worthy, and is wholly 
 inconsistent with every creed in Christendom. 
 Paine recognized this truth. He also saw that 
 as long as the Bible was considered inspired, 
 this infamous doctrine of the virtue of belief 
 would be believed and preached. He examined 
 the Scriptures for himself, and found them filled 
 with cruelty, absurdity and immorality. 
 
 He again made up his mind to sacrifice him- 
 self for the good of his fellow-men. 
 
 He commenced with the assertion, "That any 
 system of religion that has anything in it that 
 shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true 
 system." What a beautiful, what a tender senti- 
 ment! No wonder the Church began to hate him. 
 He believed in one God, and no more. After 
 this life he hoped for happiness. He believed 
 that true religion consisted in doing justice, lov- 
 ing mercy, in endeavoring to make our fellow 
 creatures happy, and in offering to God the fruit 
 of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the 
 Scriptures. This was his crime. 
 
 He contended that it is a contradiction in 
 
 303 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 terms to call anything a revelation that comes to 
 us second-hand, either verbally or in writing. 
 He asserted that revelation is necessarily limited 
 to the first communication, and that after that it 
 is only an account of something which another 
 person says was a revelation to him. We have 
 only his word for it, as it was never made to us. 
 This argument never has been and probably 
 never will be answered. He denied the divine 
 origin of Christ, and showed conclusively that 
 the pretended prophecies of the Old Testament 
 had no reference to him whatever; and yet he 
 believed that Christ was a virtuous and amiable 
 man; that the morality he taught and practised 
 was of the most benevolent and elevated charac- 
 ter and that it had not been exceeded by any. 
 Upon this point he entertained the same senti- 
 ments now held by the Unitarians, and in fact by 
 all the most enlightened Christians. 
 
 In his time the Church believed and taught 
 that every word in the Bible was absolutely true. 
 Since his day it has been proven false in its cos- 
 mogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chro- 
 nology, false in its history, and so far as the Old 
 Testament is concerned, false in almost every- 
 thing. There are but few, if any, scientific men 
 who apprehend that the Bible is literally true. 
 304. 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Who on earth at this day would pretend to settle 
 any scientific question by a text from the Bible? 
 The old belief is confined to the ignorant and 
 zealous. The Church itself will before long be 
 driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine. 
 The best minds of the orthodox world, to-day, 
 are endeavoring to prove the existence of a per- 
 sonal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor 
 place. You are no longer asked to swallow the 
 Bible whole, whale, Jonah and all ; you are simply 
 required to believe in God, and pay your pew- 
 rent. There is not now an enlightened minister 
 in the world who will seriously contend that 
 Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the 
 necromancers of Egypt could turn water into 
 blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. 
 
 These follies have passed away, and the only 
 reason that the religious world can now have for 
 disliking Paine is that they have been forced to 
 adopt so many of his opinions. 
 
 Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Tes- 
 tament inconsistent with what he deemed the real 
 character of God. He believed that murder, 
 massacre and indiscriminate slaughter had never 
 been commanded by the Deity. He regarded 
 much of the Bible as childish, unimportant and 
 foolish. The scientific world entertains the same 
 
 305 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 opinion. Paine attacked the Bible precisely in 
 the same spirit in which he had attacked the pre- 
 tensions of kings. He used the same weapons. 
 All the pomp in the world could not make him 
 cower. His reason knew no "Holy of Holies," 
 except the abode of Truth. The sciences were 
 then in their infancy. The attention of the really 
 learned had not been directed to an impartial 
 examination of our pretended revelation. It 
 was accepted by most as a matter of course. The 
 Church was all-powerful, and no one, unless 
 thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, 
 thought for a moment of disputing the funda- 
 mental doctrines of Christianity. 
 
 The infamous doctrines that salvation de- 
 pends upon belief — upon a mere intellectual con- 
 viction — was then believed and preached. To 
 doubt was to secure the damnation of your soul. 
 This absurd and devilish doctrine shocked the 
 common sense of Thomas Paine, and he de- 
 nounced it with the fervor of honest indignation. 
 This doctrine, although infinitely ridiculous, has 
 been nearly universal, and has been as hurtful as 
 senseless. For the overthrow of this infamous 
 tenet, Paine exerted all his strength. He left few 
 arguments to be used by those who should come 
 after him, and he used none that have been re- 
 306 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 futed. The combined wisdom and genius of all 
 mankind cannot possibly conceive of an argument 
 against liberty of thought. Neither can they 
 show why anyone should be punished, either in 
 this world or another, for acting honestly in ac- 
 cordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with 
 every possible argument against it has been, and 
 still is, believed and defended by the entire ortho- 
 dox world. 
 
 Can it be possible that we have been endowed 
 with reason simply that our souls may be caught 
 in its toils and snares, that we may be led by its 
 false and delusive glare out of the narrow path 
 that leads to joy into the broad way of ever- 
 lasting death? Is it possible that we have been 
 given reason simply that we may through faith 
 ignore its deductions, and avoid its conclusions? 
 Ought the sailor to throw away his compass and 
 depend entirely upon the fog? If reason is not 
 to be depended upon in matters of religion, that 
 is to say, in respect of our duties to the Deity, 
 why should it be relied upon in matters respect- 
 ing the rights of our fellows? Why should we 
 throw away the laws given to Moses by God 
 himself, and have the audacity to make some of 
 our own? How dare we drown the thunders of 
 Sinai by calling the ayes and noes in a petty 
 
 307 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 legislature? If reason can determine what is 
 merciful, what is just, the duties of man to man, 
 what more do we want either in time or eternity? 
 Down, forever down, with any religion that 
 requires upon its ignorant altar the sacrifice of 
 the goddess Reason, that compels her to abdi- 
 cate forever the shining throne of the soul, strips 
 from her form the imperial purple, snatches from 
 her hand the scepter of thought and makes her 
 the bond-woman of a senseless faith! 
 ****** 
 
 I challenge the world to show that Thomas 
 Paine ever wrote one line, one word in favor of 
 tyranny — in favor of immorality; one line, one 
 word against what he believed to be for the high- 
 est and best interest of mankind; one line, one 
 word against justice, charity, or liberty, and yet 
 he has been pursued as though he had been a 
 fiend from hell. His memory has been execrated 
 as though he had murdered some Uriah for his 
 wife; driven some Hagar into the desert to 
 starve with his child upon her bosom; defiled his 
 own daughters; ripped open with the sword the 
 sweet bodies of loving and innocent women; ad- 
 vised one brother to assassinate another; kept a 
 harem with seven hundred wives and three hun- 
 308 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 dred concubines, or had persecuted Christians 
 even unto strange cities. . ,. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual 
 heroes — one of the men to whom we are indebted. 
 His name is associated forever with the Great 
 Republic. As long as free government exists he 
 will be remembered, admired and honored. 
 
 He lived a long, laborious and useful life. 
 The world is better for his having lived. For 
 the sake of truth he accepted hatred and reproach 
 for his portion. He ate the bitter bread of sor- 
 row. His friends were untrue to him because 
 he was true to himself, and true to them. He 
 lost the respect of what is called society, but kept 
 his own. His life is what the world calls failure 
 and what history calls success. 
 
 If to love your fellow-men more than self is 
 goodness, Thomas Paine was good. 
 
 If to be in advance of your time — to be a 
 pioneer in the direction of right — is greatness, 
 Thomas Paine was great. 
 
 If to avow your principles and discharge your 
 duty in the presence of death is heroic, Thomas 
 Paine was a hero. 
 
 At the age of seventy-three, death touched 
 his tired heart. He died in the land his genius 
 
 309 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 defended — under the flag he gave to the skies. 
 Slander cannot touch him now — hatred cannot 
 reach him more. He sleeps in the sanctuary of 
 the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars. 
 
 A few more years — a few more brave men — 
 a few more rays of light, and mankind will ven- 
 erate the memory of him who said: 
 
 "Any system of Religion that shocks the 
 mind of a child cannot be a true system"; 
 
 "The world is my Country, and to do good 
 my Religion." 
 
 310 
 
CHOMAS PAINE 
 
 the flag he gave to the skies. 
 >uch him now — hatred cannot 
 more. He sleeps in the sanctuary of 
 b, beneath the quiet of the stars. 
 A few more years — a few more brave men — 
 a few more rays < and mankind will ven- 
 
 erate the memory of him 
 "Any 
 
 „ Tiir MOM'.UENT TO THOMAS PAINK 
 
 Photogravure from an Original Photograph of the 
 Monument at New Rochelle, N.Y. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO THE HOME 
 OF THOMAS PAINE* 
 
 By Elbert Hubbard 
 
 THOMAS PAINE was an English me- 
 chanic, of Quaker origin, born in the year 
 1737- He was the author of four books that 
 have influenced mankind profoundly. These 
 books are "Common Sense," the "Age of Rea- 
 son," the "Crisis" and the "Rights of Man." 
 
 In 1774, when he was thirty-seven years old, 
 he came to America bearing letters of introduc- 
 tion from Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 On arriving at Philadelphia he soon found 
 work as editor of The Pennsylvania Magazine, 
 
 In 1775, in the magazine just named, he open- 
 ly advocated, and prophesied a speedy separation 
 of the American colonies from England. He 
 also threw a purple shadow over his popularity 
 by declaring his abhorrence of chattel slavery. 
 
 His writings, from the first, commanded a 
 profound attention, and on the advice and sug- 
 gestion of Dr. Benjamin Rush, an eminent citi- 
 zen of Philadelphia, the scattered editorials and 
 
 •Reprinted by special permission of the author. — Ed. 
 
 311 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 paragraphs on human rights, covering a year, 
 were gathered, condensed, revised, made into a 
 book. 
 
 This "pamphlet," or paper-bound book, was 
 called "Common Sense." 
 
 In France, John Adams was accused of wri- 
 ting "Common Sense." He stoutly denied it, 
 there being several allusions in it stronger than 
 he cared to stand sponsor for. 
 
 In England, Franklin was accused of being 
 the author, and he neither denied nor admitted it. 
 But when a lady reproached him for having used 
 the fine alliterative phrase, applied to the King, 
 "That Royal British Brute," he smiled and said 
 blandly, "Madame, I would never have been as 
 disrespectful to the brute creation as that." 
 
 "Common Sense" struck the keynote of pop- 
 ular feeling, and the accusation of "treason," 
 hurled at it from many sources, only served to 
 advertise it. It supplied the common people 
 with reasons, and gave statesmen arguments. 
 The Legislature of Pennsylvania voted Paine an 
 honorarium of five hundred pounds, and the Uni- 
 versity of Pennsylvania awarded him the degree 
 of "Master of Arts," in recognition of eminent 
 services to literature and human rights. John 
 Quincy Adams said, "Paine's pamphlet, 'Com- 
 312 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 mon Sense/ crystallized public opinion and was 
 the first factor in bringing about the Revolution." 
 
 Rev. Theodore Parker once said, "Every liv- 
 ing man in America in 1776, who could read, 
 read 'Common Sense,' by Thomas Paine. If 
 he were a Tory, he read it, at least a little, just 
 to find out for himself how atrocious it was ; and 
 if he was a Whig, he read it all to find the reasons 
 why he was one. This book was the arsenal to 
 which colonists went for their mental weapons." 
 
 As "Common Sense" was published anony- 
 mously and without copyright, and was circulated 
 at bare cost, Paine never received anything for 
 the work, save the twenty-five hundred dollars 
 voted to him by the Legislature. 
 
 When independence was declared, Paine en- 
 listed as a private, but was soon made aide-de- 
 camp to General Greene. He was an intrepid 
 and effective soldier and took an active part in 
 various battles. 
 
 In December, 1776, he published his second 
 book, the "Crisis," the first words of which have 
 gone into the electrotype of human speech, 
 "These are the times that try men's souls." The 
 intent of the letters which make up the "Crisis" 
 was to infuse courage into the sinking spirits of 
 the soldiers. Washington ordered the letters to 
 
 i-w 313 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 be read at the head of every regiment, and it 
 was so done. 
 
 In 1781 Paine was sent to France with 
 Colonel Laurens to negotiate a loan. The er- 
 rand was successful, and Paine then made 
 influential acquaintances, which were later to be 
 renewed. He organized the Bank of North 
 America to raise money to feed and clothe the 
 army, and performed sundry and various services 
 for the colonies. 
 
 In 1791 he published his third book, the 
 "Rights of Man," with a complimentary preface 
 by Thomas Jefferson. The book had an im- 
 mense circulation in America and England. By 
 way of left-handed recognition of the work, the 
 author was indicted by the British Government 
 for "sedition." A day was set for the trial but 
 as Paine did not appear — those were hanging 
 days — and could not be found, he was outlawed 
 and "banished forever." 
 
 He became a member of the French Assem- 
 bly, or "Chamber of Deputies," and for voting 
 against the death of the King, came under sus- 
 picion, and was imprisoned for one year, lacking 
 a few weeks. His life was saved by James Mon- 
 roe, America's Minister to France, and for eigh- 
 314 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 teen months he was a member of Monroe's house- 
 hold. 
 
 In 1794 while in France, there was published 
 simultaneously in England, America and France, 
 Paine's fourth book, the "Age of Reason." 
 
 In 1802 Thomas Jefferson, then President of 
 the United States, offered Paine passage to 
 America on board the man-of-war Maryland, in 
 order that he might be safe from capture by the 
 English who had him under constant surveillance, 
 and were intent on his arrest, regarding him as 
 the chief instigator in the American Rebellion. 
 Arriving in America, Paine was the guest for 
 several months of the President at Monticello. 
 His admirers in Baltimore, Washington, Phila- 
 delphia and New York gave banquets in his 
 honor, and he was tendered grateful recognition 
 on account of his services to humanity and his 
 varied talents. He was presented by the State of 
 New York "in token of heroic work for the 
 Union," a farm at New Rochelle, eighteen miles 
 from New York, and here he lived in compara- 
 tive ease, writing and farming. 
 
 He passed peacefully away, aged seventy-two, 
 in 1809, and his body was buried on his farm, near 
 the house where he lived, and a modest monument 
 erected marking the spot. He had no Christian 
 
 315 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 burial, although unlike Mr. Zangwill, he had a 
 Christian name. Nine years after the death of 
 Paine, William Cobbett, the eminent English re- 
 former, stung by the obloquy visited upon the 
 memory of Paine in America, had the grave 
 opened and the bones of the man who wrote the 
 first draft of our Declaration of Independence, 
 were removed to England, and buried near the 
 spot where he was born. Death having silenced 
 both the tongue and pen of the Thetford weaver, 
 no violent interference was offered by the British 
 Government. So now the dead man slept where 
 the presence of the living one was barred and 
 forbidden. A modest monument marks the spot. 
 Beneath the name are these words, "The world 
 is my country, mankind are my friends, to do 
 good is my religion." 
 
 In 1839 a monument was erected at New Ro- 
 chelle, N.Y., on the site of the empty grave where 
 the body of Paine was first buried, by the lovers 
 and admirers of the man. And while only one 
 land claims his birthplace, three countries dispute 
 for the privilege of honoring his dust, for in 
 France there is now a strong movement demand- 
 ing that the remains of Thomas Paine be re- 
 moved from England to France, and be placed 
 in the Pantheon, that resting place of so many of 
 316 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 the illustrious dead who gave their lives to the 
 cause of Freedom, close by the graves of Voltaire, 
 Rousseau and Victor Hugo. And the reason 
 the bones were not removed to Paris, was because 
 only an empty coffin rests in the grave at Thet- 
 ford, as at New Rochelle. Rumor says that 
 Paine's skull is in a London museum, but if so, 
 the head that produced the "Age of Reason" 
 cannot be identified. And the end is not yet. 
 
 The genius of Paine was a flower that blos- 
 somed slowly. But life is a sequence and the 
 man who does great work has been in training for 
 it. There is nothing like keeping in condition, 
 one does not know when he is going to be called 
 upon. Prepared people do not have to hunt for 
 a position — the position hunts for them. Paine 
 knew no more about what he was getting ready 
 for than did Benjamin Franklin, when at twenty 
 he studied French, evenings, and dived deep into 
 history. 
 
 The humble origin of Paine and his Quaker 
 ancestry were most helpful factors in his career. 
 Only a working man who had tasted hardship 
 could sympathize with the over-taxed and op- 
 pressed. And Quakerdom made him a rebel by 
 prenatal tendency. Paine's schooling was slight 
 but his parents, though poor, were thinking peo- 
 
 317 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 pie, for nothing sharpens the wits of men, pre- 
 venting fatty degeneration of the cerebrum, like 
 persecution. In this respect the Jews and 
 Quakers have been greatly blessed and benefited 
 — let us congratulate them. Very early in life 
 Paine acquired the study habit. And for the 
 youth who has the study habit no pedagogic tears 
 need be shed. There were debating clubs at cof- 
 fee-houses where great themes were discussed; 
 and our young weaver began his career by de- 
 fending the Quakers. He acquired considerable 
 local reputation as a weaver of thoughts upon 
 the warp and woof of words. Occasionally he 
 occupied the pulpit in dissenting chapels. 
 
 These were great times in England — the air 
 was all a-throb with thought and feeling. A 
 great tidal wave of unrest swept the land. It 
 was an epoch of growth, second only in history 
 to the Italian Renaissance. The two Wesleys 
 were attacking the Church and calling upon men 
 to methodize their lives and eliminate folly ; Gib- 
 bon was writing his "Decline and Fall"; Burke, 
 in the House of Commons, was polishing his 
 brogue ; Boswell was busy blithering about a book 
 concerning a man ; Captain Cook was sailing the 
 seas finding continents ; the two Pitts and Charles 
 Fox were giving the King unpalatable advice; 
 318 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Horace Walpole was setting up his private press 
 at Strawberry Hill; the Herschels — brother and 
 sister — were sweeping the heavens for comets; 
 Reynolds, West, Lawrence, Romney and Gains- 
 borough were founding the first school of British 
 art; and Hume, the Scotchman, was putting 
 forth arguments irrefutable. And into this 
 seething discontent came Thomas Paine, the 
 weaver, reading, studying, thinking, talking, with 
 nothing to lose but his reputation. 
 
 He was twenty-seven years of age when he 
 met Ben Franklin, at a coffee-house in London. 
 Paine got his first real mental impetus from 
 Franklin. Both were working men. Paine sat 
 and watched and listened to Franklin one whole 
 evening, and then said, "What he is I can at least 
 in part become." Paine thought Franklin quite 
 the greatest man of his time, an opinion he never 
 relinquished, and which also, among various 
 others held by Paine, the world has now finally 
 accepted. 
 
 Paine at twenty-four, from a simple weaver, 
 had been called into the office of his employer to 
 help straighten out the accounts. He tried store- 
 keeping but with indifferent success. Then it 
 seems he was employed by the Board of Excise 
 on a similar task. Finally he was given a posi- 
 
 319 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 tion in the Excise. This position he might have 
 held indefinitely, and been promoted in the work, 
 for he had clerical talents which made his services 
 valuable. But there was another theme that in- 
 terested him quite as much as collecting taxes for 
 the Government, and that was the philosophy 
 of taxation. This was very foolish in Thomas 
 Paine — a tax collector should collect taxes, and 
 not concern himself with the righteousness of 
 the business, nor about what becomes of the 
 money. 
 
 Paine had made note of the fact that England 
 collected taxes from Jews but that Jews were not 
 allowed to vote, because they were not "Chris- 
 tians," it being assumed that Jews were neither 
 as fit intellectually or morally to pass on questions 
 of state as members of the "Church." In 1771 in 
 a letter to a local paper he used the phrase, "The 
 iniquity of taxation without representation," re- 
 ferring to England's treatment of the Quakers. 
 About the same time he called attention to the 
 fact that the Christian religion was built on the 
 Judaic, and that the reputed founder of the es- 
 tablished religion was a Jew and his mother a 
 Jewess, and to deprive Jews of the right of full 
 citizenship, simply because they did not take the 
 same view of Jesus that others did was a perver- 
 320 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 sion of the natural rights of man. This expres- 
 sion, "The natural rights of man," gave offense 
 to a certain clergyman of Thetford who replied 
 that man had no natural rights, only privileges, 
 all the rights he had were those granted by the 
 Crown. Then followed a debate at the coffee- 
 house followed by a rebuke from Paine's superior 
 officer in the Excise, ordering him to cease all 
 political and religious controversy on penalty. 
 
 Paine felt the smart of the rebuke ; he thought 
 it was unjustified, in view of the fact that the 
 excellence of his work for the Government had 
 never been questioned. So he made a speech in 
 a dissenting chapel explaining the situation. 
 But explanations never explain, and his assertion 
 that the honesty of his service had never been 
 questioned was put out of commission the follow- 
 ing week by the charge of smuggling. His 
 name was dropped from the official pay-roll until 
 his case could be tried, and a little later he was 
 peremptorily discharged. The charge against 
 him was not pressed — he was simply not wanted, 
 and the statement by the head exciseman that a 
 man working for the Government should not 
 criticize the Government was pretty good logic, 
 anyway. Paine, however, contended that all gov- 
 ernments exist for the governed, and with the 
 
 321 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 consent of the governed, and it is the duty of all 
 good citizens to take an interest in their Govern- 
 ment and if possible show where it can be 
 strengthened and bettered. 
 
 It will thus be seen that Paine was forging 
 reasons — his active brain was at work, and his 
 sensitive spirit was writhing under a sense of per- 
 sonal injustice. One of his critics — a clergyman 
 — said that if Thomas Paine wished to preach 
 sedition there was plenty of room to do it outside 
 of England. Paine followed the suggestion, 
 and straightway sought out Franklin to ask him 
 about going to America. 
 
 Every idea that Paine had expressed was held 
 by Franklin and had been thought out at length. 
 Franklin was thirty-one years older than Paine, 
 and time had tempered his zeal, and besides that, 
 his tongue was always well under control and 
 when he expressed heresy he seasoned it with a 
 smile and a dash of wit that took the bitterness 
 out of it. Not so Paine — he was an earnest soul, 
 a little lacking in humor, without the adipose 
 which is required for a diplomat. 
 
 Franklin's letters of introduction show how he 
 admired the man — what faith he had in him — and 
 it is now believed that Franklin advanced him 
 money, that he might come to America. 
 322 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 William Cobbett says: 
 
 As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, 
 suffer me, my Lord, to introduce that of a man who put 
 this Burke to shame, who drove him off the public stage 
 to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is now named 
 fifty million times where the name of the pensioned 
 Burke is mentioned once. The cause of the American 
 colonies was the cause of the English Constitution, 
 which says that no man shall be taxed without his own 
 consent. A little cause sometimes produces a great effect ; 
 an insult offered to a man of great talent and uncon- 
 querable perseverance has in many instances produced, in 
 the long run, most tremendous effects ; and it appears to 
 me very clear that the inexcusable insults, offered to Mr. 
 Paine while he was in the Excise in England, was the 
 real cause of the Revolution in America ; for, though the 
 nature of the cause of America was such as I have before 
 described it ; though the principles were firm in the minds 
 of the people of that country ; still, it was Mr. Paine, and 
 Mr. Paine alone, who brought those principles into ac- 
 tion. 
 
 Paine's part in the Revolutionary War was 
 most worthy and honorable. He shouldered a 
 musket with the men at Valley Forge, carried 
 messages by night through the enemy's country, 
 acted as rear guard for Washington's retreating 
 army, and helped at break of day to capture 
 Trenton, and proved his courage in various ways. 
 As clerk, secretary, accountant and financier he 
 did excellent service. 
 
 323 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Of course, there had been the usual harmo- 
 nious discord that will occur among men hard- 
 pressed, overworked, where nerve-tension finds 
 vent at times in acrimony. But through all the 
 nine weary years before the British had enough, 
 Paine had never been censured with the same bit- 
 terness which had fallen upon the heads of Wash- 
 ington and Jefferson. Even Franklin came in 
 for his share of blame, and it was shown that he 
 expended an even hundred thousand pounds in 
 Europe, with no explanation of what he had done 
 with the money. When called upon to give an ac- 
 counting for the "yellow dog fund," Franklin 
 simply wrote back, " Thou shalt not muzzle the 
 ox that treadeth out the corn." And on the sug- 
 gestion of Thomas Paine the matter was officially 
 dropped. 
 
 Paine was a writing man — the very first 
 American writing man — and I am humiliated 
 when I have to acknowledge that we had to get 
 him from England. He was the first man who 
 ever used these words, " The American Nation," 
 and also these, " The United States of America." 
 Paine is the first American writer who had a liter- 
 ary style, and we have not had so many since but 
 that you may count them on the fingers of one 
 hand. Note this sample of antithesis: "There 
 324 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 are but two natural sources of wealth — the earth 
 and the ocean — and to lose the right to either, in 
 our situation, is to put the other up for sale." 
 
 Here is a little tribute from Paine's pen to 
 America which some of our boomers of boom 
 towns might do well to use : 
 
 America has now outgrown the state of infancy. 
 Her strength and commerce make large advances to man- 
 hood; and science in all its branches has not only blos- 
 somed, but even ripened upon the soil. The cottages as 
 it were of yesterday have grown into villages, and the 
 villages to cities ; and while proud antiquity, like a skele- 
 ton in rags, parades the streets of other nations, their 
 genius as if sickened and disgusted with the phantom, 
 comes hither for recovery. America yet inherits a large 
 portion of her first-imported virtue. Degeneracy is here 
 almost a useless word. Those who are conversant with 
 Europe would be tempted to believe that even the air of 
 the Atlantic disagrees with the constitution of foreign 
 vices; if they survive the voyage they either expire on 
 their arrival, or linger away with an incurable consump- 
 tion. There is a happy something in the climate of 
 America which disarms them of all their power both of 
 infection and attraction. 
 
 Ease, fluidity, grace, imagination, energy, 
 earnestness, mark his work. No wonder is it that 
 Franklin said, " Others can rule, many can fight, 
 but only Paine can write for us the English 
 tongue." And Jefferson, himself a great writer, 
 
 325 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 was constantly, for many years, sending to Paine 
 manuscript for criticism and correction. In one 
 letter to Paine, Jefferson adds this postscript, 
 " You must not be too much elated and set up 
 when I tell you my belief that you are the only 
 writer in America who can write better than your 
 obliged and obedient servant — Thomas Jeffer- 
 son." 
 
 Paine was living in peace at Bordentown in 
 the year 1787. The war was ended — the last hos- 
 tile Britisher had departed, and the country was 
 awakening to prosperity. Paine rode his mettle- 
 some old war-horse " Button," back and forth 
 from Philadelphia, often stopping and seating 
 himself by the roadway to write out a thought 
 while the horse that had known the smell of pow- 
 der quietly nibbled the grass. The success of 
 Benjamin Franklin as an inventor had fired the 
 heart of Paine. He devised a plan to utilize small 
 explosions of gunpowder to run an engine, thus 
 anticipating our gas and gasoline engines by near 
 a hundred years. He had also planned a bridge 
 to span the Schuylkill. Capitalists were ready to 
 build the bridge, provided Paine could get French 
 engineers, then the greatest in the world, to en- 
 dorse his plans. So he sailed away to France, in- 
 tending also to visit his parents in England, in- 
 326 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 structing his friends in Bordentown, with whom 
 lie boarded, to take care of his horse, his room and 
 books with all his papers, for he would be back in 
 less than a year. 
 
 He was fifty years old. It was thirteen years 
 since he had left England, and he felt that 
 his transplantation to a new soil had not been 
 in vain. England had practically exiled him, 
 but still the land of his birth called, and unseen 
 tendrils tugged at his heart. He must again see 
 England, even for a brief visit, and then back to 
 America, the land that he loved and which he had 
 helped to free. 
 
 And destiny devised that it was to be fifteen 
 years before he was again to see his beloved "Uni- 
 ted States of America." 
 
 Arriving in France, Paine was received with 
 great honors. There was much political unrest 
 and the fuse was then being lighted that was to 
 cause the explosion of 1789. However, of all this 
 Paine knew little. He met Danton, a Free- 
 mason like himself, and various other radicals. 
 "Common Sense" and the "Crisis" had been 
 translated into French, printed and widely dis- 
 tributed, and inasmuch as Paine had been a party 
 in bringing about one revolution, and had helped 
 carry it through to success, his counsel and advice 
 
 327 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 were sought. A few short weeks in France, and 
 Paine having secured the endorsement of the 
 Academy for his bridge, went over to England 
 preparatory to sailing for America. 
 
 Arriving in England, Paine found that his 
 father had died but a short time before. His 
 mother was living, aged ninety-one, and in full 
 possession of her faculties. The meeting of 
 mother and son was full of tender memories. 
 And the mother, while not being able to follow 
 her gifted son in all of his reasoning yet fully 
 sympathized with him in his efforts to increase 
 human rights. The Quakers, while in favor of 
 peace, are yet revolutionaries, for their policy is 
 one of protest. 
 
 Paine visited the old Quaker church at Strat- 
 ford, and there seated in the silence, wrote these 
 words : 
 
 When we consider, for the feelings of nature cannot 
 be dismissed, the calamities of war and the miseries it 
 inflicts upon the human species, the thousands and tens 
 of thousands, of every age and sex who are rendered 
 wretched by the event, surely there is something in the 
 heart of man that calls upon him to think ! Surely there 
 is some tender chord, tuned by the hand of the Creator, 
 that still struggles to emit in the hearing of the soul a 
 note of sorrowing sympathy. Let it then be heard, and 
 let man learn to feel that the true greatness of a nation 
 328 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 is founded on principles of humanity, and not on con- 
 quest. War involves in its progress such a train of 
 unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances, such a com- 
 bination of foreign matters, that no human wisdom can 
 calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that 
 is to increase taxes. I defend the cause of the poor, of 
 the manufacturer, of the tradesman, of the farmer, and 
 of all those on whom the real burden of taxes fall — but 
 above all, I defend the cause of women and children — of 
 all humanity. 
 
 Edmund Burke, hearing of Paine's presence 
 in England, sent for him to come to his house. 
 Paine accepted the invitation, and Burke doubt- 
 less got a few interesting chapters of history at 
 first hand. " It was equal to meeting Washing- 
 ton and perhaps better, for Paine is more of a 
 philosopher than his chief," wrote Burke to the 
 elder Pitt. 
 
 Paine saw that political unrest was not con- 
 fined to France — that England was in a state of 
 evolution, and was making painful efforts to 
 adapt herself to the progress of the times. Paine 
 could remember a time when in England women 
 and children were hanged for poaching; when 
 the insane were publicly whipped, and when, if 
 publicly expressed, a doubt concerning the truth 
 of Scripture meant exile or to have your ears cut 
 off. 
 
 t-*4 329 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Now he saw the old custom reversed and the 
 nobles were bowing to the will of the people. It 
 came to him that if the many in England could be 
 educated, the Crown having so recently received 
 its rebuke at the hands of the American colonies, 
 that a great stride to the front could be made. 
 Englishmen were talking about their rights. 
 What are the natural rights of a man? He be- 
 gan to set down his thoughts on the subject. 
 These soon extended themselves into chapters. 
 The chapters grew into a book — a book which he 
 hoped would peacefully do for England what 
 "Common Sense" had done for America. This 
 book, the "Rights of Man," was written at the 
 same time that Mary Wollstonecraft was writing 
 her book, " The Rights of Women." 
 
 In London, Paine made his home at the house 
 of Thomas Rickman, a publisher. Rickman has 
 given us an intimate glimpse into the life of the 
 patriot, and told us among other things that 
 Paine was five feet ten inches high, of an athletic 
 build, and very fond of taking long walks. 
 Among the visitors at Rickman's house who came 
 to see Paine were Dr. Priestley, Home Tooke, 
 Romney, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the Duke of 
 Portland and Mary Wollstonecraft. It seems 
 very probable that Mrs. Wollstonecraft read to 
 330 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Paine parts of her book, for very much in his 
 volume parallels hers, not only in the thought but 
 in actual wording. Whether he got more ideas 
 from her than she got from him, will have to be 
 left to the higher critics. Certain it is that they 
 were in mutual accord, and that Mrs. Wollstone- 
 craft had read "Common Sense" and the "Rights 
 of Man" to a purpose. 
 
 It was too much to expect that a native born 
 Englishman could go across the sea to British 
 colonies and rebel against British rule and then 
 come back to England and escape censure. 
 The very popularity of Paine in certain high cir- 
 cles centered attention on him. And Pitt, who 
 certainly admired Paine's talents, referred to his 
 stay in England as "indelicate." 
 
 England is the freest country on earth. It is 
 her rule to let her orators unmuzzle their ignor- 
 ance and find relief in venting grievances upon 
 the empty air. In Hyde Park any Sunday one 
 can hear the same sentiments for the suppression 
 of which Chicago paid in her Haymarket mas- 
 sacre. Grievances expressed are half cured, but 
 England did not think so then. The change came 
 about through a thirty years' fight, which Paine 
 precipitated. 
 
 The patience of England in dealing with 
 
 331 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Paine was extraordinary. Paine was right, but 
 at the same time he was as guilty as Theodore 
 Parker was when indicted by the State of Vir- 
 ginia along with Ol' John Brown. 
 
 The "Rights of Man" sold from the very 
 start, and in a year fifty thousand copies had been 
 called for. Unlike his other books this one was 
 bringing Paine a financial return. Newspaper 
 controversies followed, and Burke, the radical, 
 found himself unable to go the lengths to which 
 Paine was logically trying to force him. 
 
 Paine was in Paris, on a visit, on that memor- 
 able day which saw the fall of the Bastile. Jef- 
 ferson and Adams had left France and Paine 
 was regarded as the authorized representative of 
 America, and in fact he had been doing business 
 in France for Washington. Lafayette in a mo- 
 ment of exultant enthusiasm gave the key of the 
 Bastile to Paine to present to Washington, and 
 as every American schoolboy knows, this famous 
 key to a sad situation now hangs on its carefully 
 guarded peg at Mt. Vernon. Lafayette thought 
 that without the example of America, France 
 would never have found strength to throw off the 
 rule of kings, and so America must have the key 
 to the detested door that was now unhinged for- 
 ever. "And to me," said Lafayette, "America 
 332 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 without her Thomas Paine is unthinkable." The 
 words were carried to England and there did 
 Paine no especial good. But England was now 
 giving Paine a living — there was a market for 
 the product of his pen — and he was being adver- 
 tised both by his loving friends and his rabid 
 enemies. 
 
 Paine had many admirers in France, and in 
 some ways he felt more at home there than in 
 England. He spoke and wrote French. How- 
 ever, no man ever wrote well in more than one 
 language although he might speak intelligently 
 in several ; and the orator using a foreign tongue 
 never reaches fluidity. " Where liberty is, there 
 is my home," said Franklin. And Paine an- 
 swered, " Where liberty is not, there is my home." 
 The newspaper attacks had shown Paine that he 
 had not made himself clear on all points, and like 
 every worthy orator who considers, when too late, 
 all the great things he intended to say, he was 
 stung with the thought of all the brilliant things 
 he might have said, but had not. 
 
 And so straightway he began to prepare Part 
 II of the "Rights of Man." The book was 
 printed in cheap form similar to "Common 
 Sense," and was beginning to be widely read by 
 working men. 
 
 333 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 " Philosophy is all right," said Pitt, "but it 
 should be taught to philosophical people. If 
 this thing is kept up, London will re-enact the 
 scenes of Paris." 
 
 Many Englishmen thought the same. The 
 official order was given, and all of Paine's books 
 that could be f ound were seized and publicly used 
 for a bonfire by the official hangman. Paine was 
 burned in effigy in many cities, the charge being 
 made that he was one of the men who had brought 
 about the French Revolution. With better truth 
 it could have been stated that he was the man, 
 with the help of George III, who brought about 
 the American Revolution. The terms of peace 
 made between England and the colonies granted 
 amnesty to Paine and his colleagues in rebellion, 
 but his acts could not be forgotten, even though 
 they were nominally forgiven. This new fire- 
 brand of a book was really too much, and the au- 
 thor got a left-handed compliment from the 
 Premier on his literary style — books to burn! 
 
 Four French provinces nominated him to 
 represent them in the Chamber of Deputies. He 
 accepted the solicitations of Calais, and took his 
 seat for that province. 
 
 He knew Danton, Mirabeau, Marat and 
 Robespierre. Danton and Robespierre respected 
 334 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 him and often advised with him. Mirabeau and 
 Marat were in turn suspicious and afraid of him. 
 The times were feverish, and Paine, a radical at 
 heart, here was regarded as a conservative. In 
 America the enemy stood out to be counted; the 
 division was clear and sharp, but here the danger 
 was in the hearts of the French themselves. 
 
 Paine argued that of all things we must con- 
 quer our own spirits, and in this new birth of free- 
 dom not imitate the cruelty and harshness of roy- 
 alty against which we protest. " We will kill the 
 King, but not the man," were his words. But 
 with all of his tact and logic he could not make 
 his colleagues see that to abolish the kingly office, 
 not to kill the individual, was the thing desired. 
 
 So Louis, who helped free the American col- 
 onies, went to the block, and his enemy, Danton, 
 a little later, did the same. Mirabeau, the boast- 
 er, had died peacefully in his bed; Robespierre, 
 who signed the death warrant of Paine, "to save 
 his own head," died the death he had reserved for 
 Paine; Marat, "the terrible dwarf," horribly hon- 
 est, fearfully sincere, jealous and afraid of Paine, 
 hinting that he was the secret emissary of Eng- 
 land, was stabbed to his death by a woman's hand. 
 
 And amid the din, escape being impossible, 
 
 335 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 and also undesirable, Thomas Paine wrote the 
 first part of the "Age of Reason." 
 
 The second part was written in the Luxem- 
 bourg prison, under the shadow of the guillotine. 
 But life is only a sentence of death, with an in- 
 definite reprieve. Prison, to Paine, was not all 
 gloom. 
 
 The jailer, Benoit, was good-natured and 
 cherished his unwilling guests as his children. 
 When they left for freedom or for death, he 
 kissed them, and gave each a little ring in which 
 was engraved the single word, " Mizpah." But 
 finally Benoit, himself, was led away, and there 
 was none to kiss his cheek, nor to give him a ring 
 and cry cheerily, " Good luck, Citizen Comrade! 
 Until we meet again!" 
 
 A great deal has been said by the admirers of 
 Thomas Paine about the abuse and injustice 
 heaped upon his name, and the prevarications 
 concerning his life, by press and pulpit and those 
 who profess a life of love, meekness and humility. 
 But we should remember that all this vilification 
 was really the tribute that mediocrity pays gen- 
 ius. To escape censure one only has to move with 
 the mob, think with the mob, do nothing that the 
 mob does not do — then you are safe. The sa- 
 336 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 viors of the world have usually been crucified be- 
 tween thieves, despised, forsaken, spit upon, 
 rejected of men. In their lives they seldom had a 
 place where they could safely lay their weary 
 heads, and dying, their bodies were either hidden 
 in another man's tomb or else subjected to the 
 indignities which the living man failed to sur- 
 vive: torn limb from limb, eyeless, headless, arm- 
 less, burned and the ashes scattered or sunk in the 
 sea. 
 
 And the peculiar thing is that most of this 
 frightful inhumanity was the work of so-called 
 good men, the pillars of society, the respectable 
 element, what we are pleased to call "our first 
 citizens," instigated by the Church that happened 
 to be power. Socrates poisoned, Aristides ostra- 
 cized, Aristotle fleeing for his life, Jesus crucified, 
 Paul beheaded, Peter crucified head downward, 
 Savonarola martryred, Spinoza hunted, tracked 
 and cursed, and an order issued that no man 
 should speak to him nor supply him food or shel- 
 ter, Bruno burned, Galileo imprisoned, Huss, 
 Wyclif, Latimer and Tyndale used for kindling 
 — all this in the name of religion, institutional re- 
 ligion, the one thing that has caused more misery, 
 heartaches, bloodshed, war, than all other causes 
 combined. Leo Tolstoi says, " Love, truth, com- 
 
 337 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 passion, service, sympathy, tenderness exist in the 
 hearts of men, and are the essence of religion, but 
 try to encompass these things in an institution 
 and you get a church — and the Church stands 
 for and has always stood for coercion, intolerance, 
 injustice and cruelty." 
 
 No man ever lifted up his voice or pen in a 
 criticism against love, truth, compassion, service, 
 sympathy and tenderness. And if he had, do you 
 think that love, truth, compassion, service, sym- 
 pathy, tenderness would feel it necessary to go 
 after him with stocks, chains, thumbscrews and 
 torches ? 
 
 You cannot imagine it. 
 
 Then what is it goes after men who criticize 
 the prevailing religion and show where it can be 
 improved upon? Why, it is hate, malice, ven- 
 geance, jealousy, injustice, intolerance, cruelty, 
 fear. 
 
 The reason the Church does not visit upon its 
 critics to-day the same cruelties that it did three 
 hundred years ago is simply because it has not 
 the power. Incorporate a beautiful sentiment 
 and hire a man to preach and defend it, and then 
 buy property and build costly buildings in which 
 to preach your beautiful sentiment, and if the 
 gentleman who preaches your beautiful sentiment 
 338 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 is criticized he will fight and suppress his critics 
 if he can. And the reason he fights his critics 
 is not because he believes the beautiful sentiment 
 will suffer, but because he fears losing his position 
 which carries with it ease, honors and food, and a 
 parsonage and a church, taxes free. 
 
 Just as soon as the gentleman employed to 
 defend and preach the beautiful sentiment grows 
 fearful about the permanency of his position, and 
 begins to have gooseflesh when a critic's name is 
 mentioned, the beautiful sentiment evaporates out 
 of the window, and exists only in that place for- 
 ever as a name. The Church is ever a menace to 
 all beautiful sentiments, because it is an economic 
 institution, and the chief distributor of degrees, 
 titles and honors. 
 
 Anything that threatens to curtail its power 
 it is bound to oppose and suppress, if it can. Men 
 who cease useful work in order to devote them- 
 selves to religion, are right in the same class with 
 women who quit work to make a business of love. 
 Men who know history and humanity and have 
 reasonably open minds are not surprised at the 
 treatment visited upon Paine by the country he 
 had so much benefited. Superstition and hallu- 
 cination are really one thing, and fanaticism, 
 which is mental obsession, easily becomes acute 
 
 339 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 and the whirling dervish runs amuck at sight of a 
 man whose religious opinions are different from 
 his own. 
 
 Paine got off very easy ; he lived his life, and 
 expressed himself freely to the last. Men who 
 discover continents are destined to die in chains. 
 That is the price they pay for the privilege of 
 sailing on, and on, and on, and on. 
 
 Said Paine: 
 
 The moral duty of a man consists in imitating the 
 moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the 
 creation, toward all creatures. That seeing as we daily 
 do, the goodness of God to all men, it is an example call- 
 ing upon all men to practise toward each other, and 
 consequently that everything of persecution and revenge 
 between man and man, and everything of cruelty to 
 animals is a violation of moral duty. 
 
 The pen of Paine made the sword of Wash- 
 ington possible. And as Paine's book, "Common 
 Sense," broke the power of Great Britain in 
 America, and the "Rights of Man" gave free 
 speech and a free press to England, so did the 
 "Age of Reason" give pause to the juggernaut of 
 orthodoxy. Thomas Paine was the legitimate 
 ancestor of Hosea Ballou who founded the Uni- 
 versalist Church, and also of Theodore Parker 
 who made Unitarianism in America an intellec- 
 tual torch. 
 340 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 Channing, Ripley, Bartol, Martineau, Froth- 
 ingham, Hale, Curtis, Collyer, Swing, Thomas, 
 Conway, Leonard, Savage, Crapsey, yes — even 
 Emerson and Thoreau, were spiritual children, 
 all, of Thomas Paine. He blazed the way and 
 made it possible for men to preach the sweet rea- 
 sonableness of reason. He was the pioneer in a 
 jungle of superstition. Thomas Paine was the 
 real founder of the so-called Liberal Denomina- 
 tions and the business of the liberal denominations 
 has not been to become great, powerful and popu- 
 lar, but to make all other denominations more 
 liberal. So to-day in all so-called orthodox pul- 
 pits one can hear the ideas of Paine, Henry 
 Frank and B. Fay Mills expounded. 
 
 341 
 
A SQUARE DEAL* 
 By Makilla M. Ricker 
 
 IN the "Life of Gouverneur Morris," by Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt, on page 289 is the statement 
 that Thomas Paine was a "filthy, little atheist." 
 This was written in 1896, and in the last edition 
 of the book, printed in 1906, the soft orthodox 
 impeachment still remains, although Mr. Roose- 
 velt has been repeatedly reminded since the work 
 was first issued of his indelicacy. 
 
 When we cannot answer a man's arguments, 
 all is not lost, we can still call him vile names. 
 The fishwives supply us plenty of precedent, and 
 the traditions of Billingsgate still survive. 
 
 Roosevelt is a Presbyterian — Paine was some- 
 thing else. Paine criticized the faith of John 
 Knox and John Calvin, so Roosevelt, who be- 
 lieves in the religion of John Knox and John 
 Calvin, calls Paine "little" also "filthy"; and 
 other savory epithets, which I dare not reproduce, 
 are applied to those who reverence the memory 
 of men who lived and labored to make other men 
 free. 
 
 Paine was not "little," mentally or physically. 
 
 'Reprinted by permission from The Philistine, September, 
 1907.— Ed. 
 
 342 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 In height he was five feet, ten, and the man who 
 brings against him the damning indictment of 
 being little is five feet, five. Only in girth does 
 Roosevelt surpass Paine. 
 
 As for being "filthy," Paine was ascetic in his 
 manner of life and had the Englishman's passion 
 for his "tub," to such a degree that he was ridi- 
 culed for his cold-water habit by his soldier 
 comrades. 
 
 The third charge, that of being an "atheist," 
 not being a matter of physique or bodily habit, is 
 more easily controverted. Seven times in the 
 "Age of Reason" Paine says, "I believe in one 
 God." The closing paragraph of the book says, 
 "The creation we behold is the ever existing Word 
 of God." 
 
 And yet Mr. Roosevelt still insists that 
 Thomas Paine did not believe in God, and more- 
 over, adds the gratuity that the man was little, 
 also filthy. 
 
 In this book the author backs himself up 
 by references to a certain "Isaac Roosevelt." 
 Neither Bancroft, Greene, the "Encyclopedia 
 Britannica" Appleton's nor the "Century Dic- 
 tionary" mention "Isaac Roosevelt." He is evi- 
 dently a mythical Mrs. Harris or 01* Bill Jones, 
 conjured forth in a psychic moment as a happy 
 
 343 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 thought by the versatile author. Of course the 
 writer might have referred to Thomas Jefferson 
 or Benjamin Franklin, both of whom paid high 
 tribute to the genius of Paine, but instead he rings 
 in Isaac, who has no parts nor dimensions, being 
 neither little nor filthy, whom no one knows or 
 even heard of, who wrote nothing and said noth- 
 ing, being but a wraith of the figment of Theo- 
 dore's pigment. To such extremities does a re- 
 ligion of hate and prejudice often drive even very 
 excellent men. 
 
 ****** 
 
 "Tom" Paine was a straw man made by 
 frightened orthodoxy to save its religion. This 
 uncanny effigy was set up in churches to terrify 
 the timid and weak minded. But it has had its 
 day. This scarecrow has been picked to pieces 
 by the fingers of invisible air. The last rag is 
 gone; the last straw is dust and the cross-sticks 
 on which this scarecrow hung would not be pur- 
 chased by a Roman Catholic junk dealer in 
 religious relics. And so to-day, let us exclaim, 
 "Tom Paine is dead. Long live Thomas Paine." 
 
 The only thing that ever came back from the 
 
 grave that we know of was a lie. The lies which 
 
 professed followers of the gentle Christ told of 
 
 Paine were killed and buried hundreds of times, 
 
 344 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 but they break the bonds of death now and then 
 and appear in their ghastly robes in the pulpits, 
 just as though they were the white garments of 
 truth. But a lie about an infidel no longer re- 
 ceives credit as an argument in favor of Chris- 
 tianity. Had Thomas Paine been as cruel as 
 John Calvin, as wicked and vile as some of the 
 popes, as merciless as Jonathan Edwards, instead 
 of being one of the greatest and noblest of man- 
 kind, the doctrine of vicarious atonement would 
 be just as immoral, the dogma of endless punish- 
 ment just as barbarous, and a hell for unbelievers 
 just as hideous a thought. It is unnecessary for 
 an honest man to ever again misrepresent 
 Thomas Paine. 
 
 The time has been when the person who 
 defended the author of the "Age of Reason" 
 offered himself as a target for religious abuse, 
 but the time has come when to refuse to defend 
 Thomas Paine is to confess that one is a coward, 
 a knave or grossly ignorant. A just man is 
 applauded, a generous man is loved, but a man 
 who can give himself, all he has, and all he can 
 do for the good of his race, deserves immortality 
 in human hearts. 
 
 I have looked over the names of those men 
 who left their native land to cast their lot with 
 i- 85 345 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 that band of Pilgrims who sought these shores, 
 that they might have freedom to worship their 
 God and persecute their fellow man, and also, the 
 list of those who cast their lot with the descen- 
 dants of that band of Pilgrims, and I say now 
 and here that the most valuable emigrant that 
 ever came to America was Thomas Paine. He 
 did more for our country than every priest and 
 every parson that has touched our soil. He left 
 his home to help make a home for the oppressed 
 of all the world. He came at the right time, he 
 spoke the right word, he had the right spirit. 
 
 I have no faith in divinely guided stars, in 
 angels who direct human affairs, or in what is 
 called "Providence." Providence to me is good 
 luck, a happy accident, as there is as much bad 
 luck as good in this wayward world of ours ; any 
 theory of Providence makes God partial and 
 whimsical. But if fortuitous circumstances ever 
 furnished a foundation for faith in divine inter- 
 pretation, surely those attending the triumphant 
 career of Thomas Paine must be regarded as 
 notable examples. 
 
 No one knows what power plants in the hu- 
 man mind the seeds of greatness. We like to 
 think that great sons had great mothers, and that 
 loving hearts endowed their offspring with their 
 346 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 own rare natures. But there have been children 
 of the world who surpassed fathers and mothers, 
 who contradicted heredity and environment and 
 who in their bold undertakings turned away from 
 all instruction and defied all authority. 
 
 In 1774 Paine was living in England; he was 
 a man of humble parentage, a man poor and 
 unknown who had acted no brilliant part on the 
 stage of life, a man whose experience had not 
 fitted him to grasp great political principles 
 or to solve important political problems, but 
 who, within one year, contributed to the world 
 the greatest work on human liberty and human 
 government that had come from the human brain. 
 It is not too much to say that Paine's "Common 
 Sense" made a nation and that nation to-day 
 the greatest on earth. From being one of the 
 most obscure men on the globe in 1774, Thomas 
 Paine became one of the most influential in 1775. 
 The world delights in martial heroes, in men on 
 horseback, in swords and armor and deadly 
 weapons, and we yet see the stream of destiny 
 following the tide of war, but on the canvas of 
 history I can see a man with a pen in his hand 
 who was a grander hero than ever led a charge on 
 the field of battle. 
 
 Ink has made more fate than has blood and 
 
 347 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 the boldness of Thomas Paine in denouncing 
 tyranny and wrong makes a picture of bravery 
 which outshines in heroic splendor all the deeds 
 of rifle and sword. The man who one hundred 
 years ago dared to speak the truth, faced not 
 only poverty and disgrace, but in many instances 
 death as well. To defy the King was more dan- 
 gerous than to defy God, and when Paine char- 
 acterized George III as that "Royal British 
 Brute" he made a halter for his neck, had the 
 colonies not won independence. 
 
 I cannot open the book of this man's life with 
 cold, indifferent hands, nor read his burning 
 words without my blood answering to his. To 
 me, Thomas Paine has been not only a man of 
 destiny, but a man who made destiny. Nothing 
 could induce him to cut one inch from the stature 
 of his manhood. A conviction was as sacred to 
 him as an idol to its worshiper. He protected 
 his thought with all the chivalry of a knight of 
 old, who fought for the hand of the woman he 
 loved; as a mother watches over her crippled 
 child. So Paine was devoted to what he believed 
 to be right. 
 
 Thomas Paine did not ask a man about his 
 nationality, his color, or his religion; to him a 
 black face was not a mark of slavery, nor an 
 348 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 honest belief a badge of degradation. He knew 
 no rank higher than manhood. Titles were de- 
 ceptions. Every king was an impostor, every 
 noble a person obtaining honor under false pre- 
 tenses. He was as democratic as nature, as 
 impartial as rain or sunshine. He wanted a 
 government where those who held office should 
 be no higher than those they served. He wanted 
 every man who was elected to position high or 
 low, to represent the people, to stand for the 
 people, and to work for the people. He wanted 
 to strike the bauble from the head of every 
 monarch on earth, and say: "If manhood 
 be not written across your brow, you deserve no 
 respect from honest men." Every throne has 
 robbed the world, every altar has enslaved 
 it, and Thomas Paine knew that any gov- 
 ernment which fostered superstition or al- 
 lowed tyranny would trample upon human 
 rights and lead reason to the gallows. He looked 
 out upon the world with pity for the poor and 
 lowly, with sympathy for the toilers, but with 
 hatred for the thrones of power. I know of no 
 one who has placed duty to mankind higher than 
 did he. In whatever he did he obliterated self. 
 He sought for no advantage over others, and if 
 
 349 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 a man was endowed by nature with superior 
 ability, he saw in such power only a greater 
 opportunity to bless his race. He never entered 
 the wild race for money; never prostituted the 
 power of his mighty brain; never sold his 
 influence. 
 
 Thomas Paine was never a traitor to himself. 
 What did this man hate? Falsehood, wrong, 
 tyranny. What did he love? Justice, truth, right 
 and liberty. The dominating inspiration of 
 Paine's mind was love of freedom. He cried out 
 wherever he went, "Liberty, Liberty and yet 
 again Liberty!" In the land where he was born 
 there was no such thing taught as the equality of 
 mankind. All the springs of freedom in Great 
 Britain were dry. The birds could sing of lib- 
 erty, but man was dumb. 
 
 Thomas Paine dreamed the most glorious 
 dream of human freedom that ever enchanted the 
 mind of man; fairer and sweeter than lay under 
 the broken marbles of Greece; brighter and bet- 
 ter than was buried with the dead eagles of Rome. 
 We know not what gave birth to this dream in his 
 soul. The atmosphere of his early life has faded 
 from the sky. The key to his youth is lost. He 
 had seen and heard little of the world. He had 
 lived mostly in the hidden realm of thought. 
 350 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 How the hope of freedom for all mankind gained 
 entrance to his mind no one can tell ; what rivers 
 fed it, what suns nourished it, what stars looked 
 down upon it by night can never be learned. He 
 was a genius of solitude. His mind nursed sus- 
 tenance from the heart of the universe. The 
 wrongs he read of made him long for justice; the 
 falsehoods he heard turned his heart to truth, the 
 oppression about him kindled liberty within him. 
 
 His great dream for mankind came from his 
 love of man. He looked upon the King of Eng- 
 land as his personal enemy, and hence as the 
 enemy of all humanity. It was the taking of all 
 the wrongs and sufferings of his fellow beings to 
 himself that made him touch to life those "Truths 
 that wake to perish never." 
 
 Paine lived in a land where justice was in 
 the grave, where right was led to the scaffold, 
 where liberty had never been born; in a land 
 where honesty went barefoot; and where vice 
 held all the trumps. And yet, in this dismal 
 environment, Paine saw a vision of human 
 equality, a country where a king was not wanted, 
 and a pope was not needed; a country where 
 the people were their own rulers, and where 
 manhood was the brightest crown. He saw in 
 America the land of his dream. In October, 
 
 351 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 1774, he sailed for these shores and, "By his 
 vision splendid was on his way attended." 
 Thomas Paine did not come to America to look 
 upon some wonderful picture painted by a fa- 
 mous artist, or to see some marvelous figure 
 wrought from a marble block by a sculptor's 
 genius, or to gaze upon some spot sacred to relig- 
 ious faith, but he came to see if in the American 
 colonies an altar of freedom could be raised, and 
 if there were a possibility of establishing a gov- 
 ernment which would protect human rights. 
 
 He came here to find what he could not find in 
 England, what he could not find in Europe, what 
 he could not find in the Old World — a land which 
 would give to man the liberty to be a man and 
 which would respect manhood more than titles 
 and coronets. He came here to find a new world, 
 to found a new government, to help make a coun- 
 try where all men should be equal, to help found 
 a nation which would be the monarch of the earth, 
 as the eagle is of the air. 
 
 When Paine reached our shores he found the 
 people in rebellion against the King. The yeast 
 of discontent was working and the land was pre- 
 paring to resist oppression. The clay was ready 
 for the hand of the potter. One of the first 
 efforts of Paine was an essay condemning 
 852 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 negro slavery and advocating the emancipa- 
 tion of the slave. Before Lexington Green was 
 stained by patriot blood, the first American Anti- 
 slavery Society was formed in Philadelphia. 
 Had Paine's counsel been heeded, there would 
 have been no slaves in the United States, and 
 civil war would not have dug a grave in our soil 
 or broken a heart in our homes. The independ- 
 ence of the American colonies was not sought by 
 the men who emptied British tea into the waters 
 of Boston Harbor, nor was that the purpose 
 of the minutemen who faced the redcoats in the 
 Concord fight, nor did the hope of independence 
 win the victory of Bunker Hill. Only a few men 
 in 1775 believed that separation from England 
 was probable and no one publicly advocated it. 
 It was at this time that Thomas Paine set to 
 work to show the American people that the hour 
 had come for them to rid the land of monarchy. 
 The bold argument of Paine for national inde- 
 pendence could not be answered, and within a 
 few months it had converted a continent. On 
 the fourth of July following its publication the 
 colonies proclaimed their Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence, " Common Sense" flashed across the 
 political sky of the New World with a brilliancy 
 that won admiration and wonder from all. No 
 
 353 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 true estimate can be made of the mighty influence 
 which the ideas in this pamphlet have had, and 
 are destined to have upon the human race. 
 
 Paine stands between two epochs: the epoch 
 of Kings and the epoch of Man. To the King 
 he said, " The night is coming." To Man he said, 
 " The day is dawning; tyranny must leave the 
 earth, freedom and equality will possess it." 
 Paine did not say to Men, fall upon your knees 
 and implore God's help, but, stand upon your 
 feet and help yourselves. Muskets did better exe- 
 cution during the Revolutionary War than did 
 prayers. Paine did not say, " Thus saith the 
 Lord," for he had something better to say than 
 was ever said by the Lord. He cried to his fel- 
 low men out of his mighty passion for liberty to 
 rise and drive British oppression back over the 
 seas. 
 
 One has only to read the writings of Paine to 
 learn that the man who wields a big pen does 
 humanity a nobler service than a man who wields 
 a big stick. Reverence has chained the mind to 
 antiquity, and the lips of eulogy have bestowed 
 the highest praise upon the ancients, but Plato 
 and Socrates, Seneca and Epictetus, Paul and 
 Jesus combined did not do for human life on 
 earth so much as did Thomas Paine. I know that 
 854 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 my words sound extravagant to the popular ear, 
 but the philosophy which made the Athens of 
 Pericles and Aspasia is as dead as its sculptured 
 gods ; the morals which built up the Rome of the 
 Caesars are embalmed in a few rose- jars of litera- 
 ture ; and the gospel which conquered Egypt and 
 Syria is powerless before the truths of modern 
 science; while in the words of Paine sleep giants 
 that will yet vanquish every foe of man. 
 
 A nation is no stronger than its citizens. 
 Thomas Paine's work was to build man strong 
 and great that the nation might be strong and 
 great. The rights of man are to be defended, not 
 the word of God. When men have been corrupt, 
 governments have decayed. The salvation of the 
 race is not in gods or saviors, or bibles or churches, 
 but in the perpetuation of freedom and equality 
 among men and women. 
 
 The tree of liberty had blossomed a thousand 
 times, and the perfume of its flowers filled the air 
 with the glad promise of its ripened fruit, but not 
 until the Stars and Stripes waved over America's 
 soil, was political freedom a fact. Thomas Paine 
 did more than any other man to put the stars on 
 our flag and to give that flag to the breeze. And 
 what he did was done without expectation of pay. 
 When he had finished "Common Sense," he did 
 
 355 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 not ask the colonies to buy it. His strongest 
 convictions were in that work, his dearest hopes 
 had been written into its words, and these convic- 
 tions and those hopes were too precious to be 
 bartered for money. 
 
 Paine had no love of freedom to sell. This 
 man who started out to give his life to freedom 
 presented to the colonies all his rights in his 
 pamphlets and not less than fifty thousand dol- 
 lars were realized from the sales. Let us draw 
 the picture of this man in January, 1775: A self- 
 exiled Englishman living in Philadelphia with 
 only a few acquaintances, receiving a salary of 
 two hundred and fifty dollars a year for editing 
 a magazine. He had a head full of good ideas 
 and a heart full of good feeling. Under his arm 
 he carried the manuscript of his first book. He 
 had read portions of his work to the few friends 
 who urged him to publish his thoughts. This man 
 who had spent months in the preparation of his 
 work took it to a printer without thought of per- 
 sonal gain. He only wished that the people 
 would read his book and carry its principles to 
 the heights of victory. 
 
 Thomas Paine in writing and giving "Com- 
 mon Sense" to the colonies made the noblest and 
 best contribution to the cause of freedom in 
 356 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 America. During the seven years' war which the 
 revolutionists waged against Great Britain, Paine 
 contributed from time to time thirteen numbers 
 of his "Crisis." The first, which was printed in 
 December, 1776, commenced with this memor- 
 able sentence, " These are the times that try men's 
 souls," and the last which appeared on April 19, 
 1783, opened with these words "The times that 
 try men's souls are over." 
 
 Paine's words put strength into men's arms 
 and courage into their hearts, but not a dollar 
 into his own pocket. All he wrote in America 
 was given for her freedom. He gave his services 
 as the night gives its dew, as the flower gives its 
 perfume, as the sun gives its light. 
 
 In 1787, Paine sailed for England, intending 
 to be absent about one year. It was fifteen years 
 before he again saw the land of his dream. He 
 was intensely interested in the struggle for liberty 
 which was going on in France and studied its 
 every phase. Soon the struggle became a revolu- 
 tion, and the eyes of the civilized world were 
 watching for the outcome. 
 
 In 1790, Edmund Burke, the foremost orator 
 of England published his "Reflections on the 
 Revolution in France." It was a foul blow 
 struck at every attempt of man to overthrow 
 
 357 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 despotism. Although Burke had uttered noble 
 words of sympathy for Americans in their war 
 for freedom, and although he had been the warm 
 friend of Paine, as soon as his pamphlet reached 
 the public, Paine answered it. He never allowed 
 friendship to turn him from the path of right, or 
 to wreathe his lips with a lie. 
 
 In a short time the first volume of the "Rights 
 of Man" appeared. Paine dedicated this work 
 to George Washington and gave the proceeds 
 from its sales to the "Society for Constitutional 
 Information." The second volume was issued a 
 year later. The work created the greatest en- 
 thusiasm, both in England and France. It made 
 Paine an outlaw from his native land, and gained 
 him a seat in the French Convention. 
 
 Paine was a great power in France, but his 
 humane principles were not appreciated by men 
 who couli talk suavely, but act like beasts. He 
 was honored by the best and hated by the worst 
 of men. The Revolution, which opened the Bas- 
 tile that had held within its gloomy walls so many 
 of the brightest minds and truest hearts of 
 France, was hurried from a desire for liberty to 
 a demand for blood. 
 
 When Louis XVI fled from Paris, the cry for 
 his execution went up from the frenzied mob. 
 358 
 
LIFE AND APPRECIATIONS 
 
 It was then that Paine rose to the sublimest 
 heights of humanity. While he would trample 
 the crown of Louis under foot, he would not vote 
 for his death, and said to the infuriated Assem- 
 bly, "Kill the King but not the Man." When 
 Paine asked that the life of Louis be spared, he 
 saw his own face in the mirror of death, but he did 
 not take back his words. The King went to the 
 scaffold and Paine went to prison. 
 
 While daily expecting to be carried to the 
 guillotine, Paine wrote his "Age of Reason." 
 He dedicated this work to his fellow-citizens of 
 the United States in these words: "I put the fol- 
 lowing work under your protection. It contains 
 my opinion upon religion. You will do me the 
 justice to remember that I have always stren- 
 uously supported the right of every man to his 
 opinion, however different that opinion might be 
 to mine. He who denies to another this right 
 makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, 
 because he precludes himself the right of chang- 
 ing it. The most formidable weapon against 
 errors of every kind is reason. I have never used 
 any other and I trust I never shall." 
 
 In this book Paine told the straight truth 
 about the Christian Bible. He was the voice of 
 honesty in the wilderness of hypocrisy. Thomas 
 
 359 
 
WRITINGS OF THOMAS PAINE 
 
 Paine for forty years battled for truth, for right, 
 for liberty, for reason. He had the only religion 
 fit for a civilized person to profess or practise. 
 He did not say, " He that believeth and is bap- 
 tized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall 
 be damned," but he said, " To do good is my 
 religion," and, " The true theology of man is 
 happiness of mind." 
 
 Without Thomas Paine the battle of Bunker 
 Hill would have been fought in vain, and the sun 
 of liberty would have gone down in the darkness 
 of Valley Forge. Without Thomas Paine the 
 light of political independence would not have 
 followed the night of oppression, and America 
 would still be addressing petitions across the sea 
 to England's diminutive monarch. 
 
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