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THE WRITINGS
OF
THOMAS PAINE
COLLECTED AND EDITED BY
MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY
VOLUME II.
1779 - 1792
XIII.
RIGHTS OF MAN.
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
WHEN Thomas Paine sailed from America for France, in April, 1787, he
was perhaps as happy a man as any in the world. His most intimate
friend, Jefferson, was Minister at Paris, and his friend Lafayette
was the idol of France. His fame had preceded him, and he at once
became, in Paris, the centre of the same circle of savants and
philosophers that had surrounded Franklin. His main reason for
proceeding at once to Paris was that he might submit to the Academy
of Sciences his invention of an iron bridge, and with its favorable
verdict he came to England, in September. He at once went to his aged
mother at Thetford, leaving with a publisher (Ridgway), his "
Prospects on the Rubicon." He next made arrangements to patent his
bridge, and to construct at Rotherham the large model of it exhibited
on Paddington Green, London. He was welcomed in England by leading
statesmen, such as Lansdowne and Fox, and above all by Edmund Burke,
who for some time had him as a guest at Beaconsfield, and drove him
about in various parts of the country. He had not the slightest
revolutionary purpose, either as regarded England or France. Towards
Louis XVI. he felt only gratitude for the services he had rendered
America, and towards George III. he felt no animosity whatever. His
four months' sojourn in Paris had convinced him that there was
approaching a reform of that country after the American model, except
that the Crown would be preserved, a compromise he approved, provided
the throne should not be hereditary. Events in France travelled more
swiftly than he had anticipated, and Paine was summoned by Lafayette,
Condorcet, and others, as an adviser in the formation of a new
constitution.
Such was the situation immediately preceding the political and
literary duel between Paine and Burke, which in the event turned out
a tremendous war between Royalism and Republicanism in Europe. Paine
was, both in France and in England, the inspirer of moderate
counsels. Samuel Rogers relates that in early life he dined at a
friend's house in London with Thomas Paine, when one of the toasts
given was the " memory of Joshua,"-in allusion to the Hebrew leader's
conquest of the kings of Canaan, and execution of them. Paine
observed that he would not treat kings like Joshua. " I 'm of the
Scotch parson's opinion," he said, "when he prayed against Louis
XIV.-`Lord, shake him over the mouth of hell, but don't let him drop!
' " Paine then gave as his toast, " The Republic of the World,"-which
Samuel Rogers, aged twenty-nine, noted as a sublime idea. This was
Paine's faith and hope, and with it he confronted the revolutionary
storms which presently burst over France and England.
Until Burke's arraignment of France in his parliamentary speech
(February 9, 1790), Paine had no doubt whatever that he would
sympathize with the movement in France, and wrote to him from that
country as if conveying glad tidings. Burke's " Reflections on the
Revolution in France " appeared November 1, 1790, and Paine at once
set himself to answer it. He was then staying at the Angel Inn,
Islington. The inn has been twice rebuilt since that time, and from
its contents there is preserved only a small image, which perhaps was
meant to represent " Liberty,"-possibly brought from Paris by Paine
as an ornament for his study. From the Angel he removed to a house in
Harding Street, Fetter Lane. Rickman says Part First of " Rights of
Man " was finished at Versailles, but probably this has reference to
the preface only, as I cannot find Paine in France that year until
April 8. The book had been printed by Johnson, in time for the
opening of Parliament, in February ; but this publisher became
frightened after a few copies were out (there is one in the British
Museum), and the work was transferred to J. S. Jordan, 166 Fleet
Street, with a preface sent from Paris (not contained in Johnson's
edition, nor in the American editions). The pamphlet, though sold at
the same price as Burke's, three shillings, had a vast circulation,
and Paine gave the proceeds to the Constitutional Societies which
sprang up under his teachings in various parts of the country.
Soon after appeared Burke's " Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs."
In this Burke quoted a good deal from " Rights of Man," but replied
to it only with exclamation points, saying that the only answer such
ideas merited was "criminal justice." Paine's Part Second followed,
published February 17, 1792. In Part First Paine had mentioned a
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