his office as exciseman. After petitioning in vain to be reinstated, he determined to emigrate.

His first scheme was, to establish a school for girls in Philadelphia; but Bache procured him an engagement as assistant editor of the "Pennsylvania Magazine," at fifty pounds a year. Paine's contributions were much applauded, and soon attracted subscribers. His "Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive" were considered admirable, but do not suit our present taste. A song on the Death of General Wolfe, still occasionally reprinted, does not rise above a low level of mediocrity. But here is a paragraph on the Mineral Riches of the Earth, which, many years later, found favor in the eyes of the surly Cheetham, and may still be read with some interest:

"Though Nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home; return the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste of receiving visitants in her dressing-room: she locks and bolts up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of Adam. He that would view Nature in her undress, and partake of her internal treasures, must proceed with the resolution of a robber, if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation to follow her to the cavern, the external earth makes no proclamation of the interior stores, but leaves to chance and industry the discovery of the whole. In such gifts as Nature can annually recreate, she is noble and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of her fortune, but watches over the capital with the care of a miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth, in caves of utter darkness; and hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps, mould in the chests, like the riches of a necromancer's cell."

An essay against African Slavery, written for Bradford's paper, introduced Paine to the notice of several distinguished men,

among others, to that of Dr. Rush. Many years afterward, in a letter to Cheetham, the Doctor described his first

interview with Paine. In this communication, he insinuates that he suggested the famous pamphlet and the no less famous signature, "Common Sense." But in 1809, the venerable Doctor was an old man; and even in earlier days, his keen appreciation of " Ille ego qui quondam" and "Quorum pars magna fui,” as the choicest passages in Virgil, was good-naturedly noticed by his contemporaries. Paine's own account of the work is probably the true one:

"In October, 1775, Dr. Franklin proposed giving me such materials as were in his hands towards completing a history of the present transactions, and seemed desirous to have the first volume out the next spring. I had then formed the outlines of "Common Sense," and finished nearly the first part; and as I supposed the Doctor's design in getting out a history was to open the new year with a new system, I expected to surprise him with a production on that subject much earlier than he thought of."

The times were more suggestive than doctors, even when Franklin was one of them. When Paine came to America, he found the dispute with England the all-absorbing topic. The atmosphere was heavy with the approaching storm. The First Congress was in session in the autumn of that year. On the 17th of September, John Adams felt certain that the other Colonies would support Massachusetts. The Second Congress met in May, 1775. During the winter and spring the quarrel had grown rapidly. Lexington and Concord had become national watchwords; the army was assembled about Boston; Washington was chosen commander-in-chief. Then came Bunker's Hill, the siege of Boston, the attack upon Quebec. There was open war between Great Britain and her Colonies. The Americans had drawn the sword, but were unwilling to raise the flag.

From the beginning of the troubles the Colonists had been consistent in their acts. Public meetings, protests, burnings in ef figy, tea-riots, militia levies, congresses, *See "Climenole" in The Portfolio, 1803.

skirmishes, war, followed each other in regular and logical succession;—but theoretically they did not make out so clear a case. They had fine-drawn distinctions, not easy to appreciate at this day, between taxes levied for the purpose of raising revenue and duties imposed for the regulation of trade. Parliament could lay a duty on tobacco in a seaport, but might not make the weed excisable on a plantation, could break down a loom in any part of British America, could shut out all intercourse with foreign nations by the Navigation Act, but had not the legal right to make the Colonial merchant write his contracts or draw his bills on stamped paper. As to independence, very few desired it. "Independence," it was the fashion to say, "would be ruin and loss of liberty forever." The Colonists insisted that they were the most loyal of subjects; but they had men and muskets ready, and were determined to resist the obnoxious acts of Parliament with both, if necessary. These arguments of our ancestors led them to an excellent conclusion, and so far are entitled to our respect; but logically we are afraid that King George had the best of it.

Before many months had passed, lagging theory was left so far in the rear by the rapid course of events, that the Colonists felt it necessary to move up a new set of principles to the van, if they wished to present a fair front to the enemy. They had raised an army, and taken the field. Unless they declared themselves a nation, they were confessedly rebels. And yet almost all hesitated. There was a deep-seated prejudice in favor of the English government, and a strong personal liking for the people. Even when it was known that the second petition to the King — Dickinson's “ measure of imbecility" was disregarded, as it deserved to be, and that the Hessians were coming, and all reasonable men admitted that there was no hope for reconciliation, they still refused to abandon the pleasing delusion, and talked over the old plans for redress of grievances, and

a constitutional union with the mother country. With little or no belief in the possibility of either, they stood shivering on the banks of the Rubicon, that mythical river of irretrievable self-committal, hesitating to enter its turbid waters.[A few of the bolder "shepherds of the people" tried to urge them onward; but no one was bold enough to dash in first and lead them through. Paine seized the opportunity. He had a mind whose eye always saw a subject, when it could perceive it at all, in its naked truth, stripped of the non-material accessories which disturb the vision of common men. He saw that reconciliation was impossible, mere rebellion folly; and that, to succeed in the struggle, it was necessary to fight Great Britain as an equal,-nation against nation. This course he recommended in "Common Sense," published in January, 1776.

Paine told the Colonists in this pamphlet that the connection with the mother country was of no use to them, and was rapidly becoming an impossibility. "It is not in the power of England to do this continent justice. The business of it is too weighty and too intricate to be managed with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant. To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which, when obtained, requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few years be looked upon as folly and childishness.” As to the protection of England, what is that but the privilege of contributing to her wars? "Our trade will always be a protection." "Neutrality is a safer convoy than a man-of-war." "It is the true interest of America to steer clear of European contentions, which she can never do while by her dependence on Britain she is made the make-weight in the scale of European politics." According to "Common Sense," not only was a separation necessary and unavoidable, but the present moment was the right time to establish it. "The time hath found us." The materials of war were

abundant; the union of the Colonies complete. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to form the continent into a government half a century hence. Now the task is easy. The interest of all is the same. "There is no religious difficulty in the way." "I fully believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. I look upon the various denominations among us as children of the same family, differing only in what is called their Christian names." All things considered, "nothing can settle our af fairs so expeditiously as an open and determined declaration of independence." "This proceeding may at first appear strange and difficult. A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right"; but in a little time it will become familiar. And until independence is declared, the continent will feel itself like a man who continues putting off some unpleasant business from day to day, yet knows it must be done; hates to set about it, wishes it over, and is continually haunted with the thoughts of its necessity." To this he thought it necessary to add a labored argument against kings from the Old Testament, which may possibly have had much weight with a people some of whose descendants still triumphantly quote the same holy book in favor of slavery.

The King's speech, "a piece of finished villany" in the eyes of true patriots, appeared in Philadelphia on the same day as "Common Sease." Thus Paine was as lucky in his time of publication as in his choice of a subject. All contemporaries admit that the pamphlet produced a prodigious effect.) Paine himself says, "The success it met with was beyond anything since the invention of printing. I gave the copyright up to every State in in the Union, and the demand ran to not less than one hundred thousand copies." The authorship was attributed to Dr. Franklin, to Samuel Adams, and to John Adams. It is hardly necessary to mention that the movement party, with General Wash

ington at its head, considered Paine's "doctrines sound, and his reasoning unanswerable." Even in England, Liberals read and applauded. The pamphlet was translated into French. When John Adams went to France, he heard himself called le fameux Adams, author of "Common Sense."

It soon became apparent that the people were charged with Independence doctrines, and, like an electrified Leyden jar, only waited for the touch of a skilful hand to produce the explosion. "Common Sense" drew the spark. The winged words flew over the country and produced so rapid a change of opinion, that, in most cases, conservatives judged it useless to publish the answers they had prepared. One or two appeared. None attracted attention. About five months later, Congress declared independence; “ as soon," Paine wrote, " as 'Common Sense' could spread through such an extensive country." In a few years Paine asserted and believed, that, had it not been for him, the Colonial government would have continued, and the United States would never have become a nation.

If we countermarch and get into the rear of Time, to borrow an expression from "The Crisis," and, placing ourselves in January, 1776, look at "Common Sense" from that date, we may understand without much difficulty why it produced so great an impression. Paine, as later, when he brought out the "Rights of Man," caused a chord to vibrate in the popular mind which was already strung to the exact point of tension. The publication was not only timely,—it was novel. Paine founded a new school of pamphleteering. He was the first who wrote politics for the million. The learned political dissertations of Junius Brutus, Publius, or Philanglus were guarded in expression, semi-metaphysical in theory, and Johnsonian in style. They were relished by comparatively few readers; but the

*Compare, for instance, Judge Drayton's Independence Charge to the Grand Jury of Charleston, delivered April 23, 1776, with "Common Sense."

6

Paine became suddenly famous. General Charles Lee said "that he burst upon the world like Jove, in thunder." His acquaintance was sought by all who were of the true faith in Independence; and when, soon afterward, he visited New York, he carried with him letters from Dr. Franklin and John Adams, introducing him to the principal residents "as a citizen of the world, the celebrated author of Common Sense."" Had he been a man of fortune or American-born, he might have reached a place in the foremost rank of the Fathers of the Country. But nativism was powerful, and position important at that time, as Lee and Gates and even Hamilton himself experienced. The signature, "Common Sense," Paine preserved through life. It became what our authorlings, who ought to know better, will persist in calling a nom* de plume, -a Yankee affectation, unknown to French idioms.

In the autumn of 1776, Paine joined the army as volunteer aide-de-camp to General Greene, and served through the gloomy campaign which opened with the loss of New York in September. He remained in the field until the army went into winter-quarters after the battles of Trenton and Princeton. It was not as a combatant that Paine did the States good service. He played the part of Tyrtæus in prose,—an adaptation of the old Greek lyrist to the eighteenth century and to British America,- and cheered the sol diers, not with songs, but with essays, continuations of " Common Sense." The first one was written on the retreat from Fort Lee, and published under the name of "The Crisis," on the 23d of December, They generally spell it "nomme."

when misfortune and severe weather had cast down the stoutest hearts. It began with the well-known phrase, "These are the times that try men's souls.' The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.". -"But after all," he continues, "matters might be worse. Howe has done very little. Fort Washington and Fort Lee were no loss to us. The retreat was admirably planned and conducted. General Washington is the right man for the place, 'with a mind that can even flourish upon care."" He closes with a cheerful sketch of the spirit and condition of the army, attacks the Tories, and appeals to the Colonies for union and contributions.

This "Crisis" produced the best effect at home; in England it had the honor of being burned by the hangman. The succeeding "Crisises" were brought out at irregular intervals, whenever the occasion seemed to demand Paine's attention; some of them not longer than a leader in a daily paper; others swollen to pamphlet dimensions. They were read by every corporal's guard in the army, and printed in every town of every State on brown or yellow paper; for white was rarely to be obtained. In their hours of despondency, the Colonists took consolation and courage from the "Crisis." "Never," says a contemporary, “was a writer better calculated for the meridian under which he wrote, or who knew how to adapt himself more happily to every circumstance. Even Cheetham admits, that to the army Paine's pen was an appendage almost as necessary and as formidable as its cannon."

The next campaign opened gloomily for the Colonies. The Tories felt certain of victory. In the political almanac of that party, 1777 was "the year with three gallows in it." The English held New York and ravaged the Jerseys on their way to Philadelphia. Howe issued a proclamation" commanding all congresse and committees to desist and cease from their treasonable doings," promising

pardon to all who should come in and take the oath of allegiance. Paine met him with a "Crisis." "By what means," he asked, "do you expect to conquer America? If you could not effect it in the summer, when our army was less than yours, nor in the winter, when we had none, how are you to do it? If you obtain possession of this city, [Philadelphia,] you could do nothing with it but plunder it; it would be only an additional dead-weight on your hands. You have both an army and a country to contend with. You may march over the country, but you cannot hold it; if you attempt to garrison it, your army would be like a stream of water running to nothing. Even were our men to disperse, every man to his home, engaging to reassemble at some future day, you would be as much at a loss in that case as now. You would be afraid to send out your troops in detachments; when we returned, the work would be all to do." Paine then turns to those who, frightened by the proclamation, betrayed their country, and paints their folly and its punishment. In speaking of them, he calls upon the Pennsylvania Council of Safety to take into serious consideration the case of the Quakers, whose published protest against breaking off the "happy connection" seemed to Paine of a treasonable nature. "They have voluntarily read themselves out of the Continental meeting," he adds, with a humor, doubtless, little relished by the Friends, "and cannot hope to be restored to it again, but by payment and penitence."

In April, Paine was elected, on motion of John Adams, Secretary to the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs, with a salary of seventy dollars a month. When Philadelphia surrendered, he accompanied Congress in the flight to Lancaster. The day after the affair at Brandywine, a short "Crisis" appeared, explaining the accidents which had caused the defeat of the Continentals, and insisting that the good cause was safe, and that Howe's victories were no better than defeats. Paine was right. The Americans

were gaining more ground in Northern New York than they had lost in Pennsylvania. Burgoyne, who,

"Unconscious of impending fates,

Could push through woods, but not through Gates,"

had capitulated. The news reached Philadelphia on the 18th of October.

This winter ought to have closed the war. The alliance with France, Burgoyne's capture, two campaigns without useful results, Washington's admirable patience and management at Valley Forge, with starvation and mutiny in the ranks and disaffection to his person in the officers of the Gates faction, ought to have convinced every Englishman in America that the attempt to reduce the Colonies was now hopeless. Paine was so indignant with the reckless obstinacy of the British government, that he conceived the idea of carrying the war into England with pen and paper,-weapons he began to think invincible in his hands. "If I could get over to England," he wrote to his old chief, General Greene, "without being known, and only remain in safety until I could get out a proclamation, I could open the eyes of the country with respect to the madness and stupidity of its government." Greene had no confidence in the success of this appeal to the English people, and advis ed Paine not to attempt it.

In the mean time the French fleet had arrived, bringing M. Gérard, the first foreign minister to the United States, and with him trouble to Thomas Paine. It is well known that the French government employed Beaumarchais, the author of the "Barber of Seville," as their agent to furnish secret supplies to the American insurgents, and that Beaumarchais imagined a firm, Rodrigue Hortalez & Co., who shipped to the United Colonies munitions of war furnished by the King, and were to receive return cargoes of tobacco, to keep up mercantile appearances. Silas Deane, a member of Congress from Connecticut, represented the Americans in the business. In 1777, Congress, out of patience with Deane for his foolish con