In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England and a treatise on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information; in 1805 a treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In short, he was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympathized with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He looked upon monarchy as a species of physical slavery. He had the goodness to attack that form of government. He regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled the churches with hatred. Instead of answering his arguments they attacked him. Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes blackened his character. There is too much religious cant in the statement of Mr. Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Paine. He names Thomas Jefferson as one of the disreputable men who welcomed Paine with open arms. The testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable person, as to the character of anybody, is utterly without value. Now, Grant Thorburn--this gentleman who was "four feet and a half high, and who weighed ninety-eight pounds three and one-half ounces"--says that he used to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas Paine. Mrs. Ferguson, the daughter of William Carver, says that she knew Thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her father's house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn, and he at once wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was commenced by Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against Thorburn, the writer, and Fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. Thorburn ran away to Connecticut. Fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written. Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could not be proved. Fanshaw then settled with the Fergusons, paying them the amount demanded. In 1859 the Fergusons lived at 148 Duane Street, New York. In The Commercial Advertiser of New York, in 1830, appeared the written acknowledgement of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did, on the 22d of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock. Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested, and that when brought before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (Comstock's) mercy. The Philadelphia Tract Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his recollections of Thomas Paine. Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October, 1877, I received the following letter from James Parton: "Newburyport, Mass., Oct 27, 1877.--My dear Sir: Touching Grant Thorburn, I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age of 92 he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office of The Rome Journal as his own. It was I who received it and detected the deliberate forgery..... James Parton"