Life of Thomas Paine: Written Purposely to Bind with His Writings — John Shaqi
Life of Thomas Paine: Written Purposely to Bind with His WritingsCarlile, Richard
History
Life of Thomas Paine: Written Purposely to Bind with His Writings
Carlile, Richard
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
On reaching Paris, Mr. Paine addressed a letter to the English Attorney
General, apprizing him of the circumstances of his departure from
England, and hinting to him, that any further prosecution of "Rights of
Man," would form a proof that the Author was not altogether the
object, but the book, and the people of England who should approve its
sentiments. A hint was also thrown out that the events of France ought
to form a lesson to the English Government, on its attempt to arrest the
progress of correct principles and wholesome truths. This letter was in
some measure due to the Attorney General, as Mr. Paine had written to
him in England on the commencement of the prosecution assuring him, that
he should defend the work in person. Notwithstanding the departure
of Mr. Paine, as a member of the French National Convention, the
information against "Rights of Man" was laid before a jury, on the 2d
of December in the same year, and the Government, and its agents, were
obliged to content themselves with outlawing Mr. Paine, and punishing
him, in effigy, throughout the country! Many a faggot have I gathered in
my youth to burn old Tom Paine! In the West of England, his name became
quite a substitute for that of Guy Faux. Prejudice, so aptly termed by
Mr. Paine, the spider of the mind, was never before carried to such a
height against any other individual; and what will future ages think
of the corrupt influence of the English Government at the close of the
eighteenth century, when it could excite the rancour of a majority of
the nation against such a man as Thomas Paine!
We now find Mr. Paine engaged in new and still more important scenes.
His first effort as a member of the National Convention, was to lay the
basis of a self-renovating constitution, and to repair the defects of
that which had been previously adopted: but a circumstance very soon
occurred, which baffled all his good intentions, and brought him to
a narrow escape from the guillotine. It was his humane and strenuous
opposition to the putting Louis the XVIth to death. The famous or
infamous manifesto issued by the Duke of Brunswick, in July 1792, had
roused such a. spirit of hatred towards the Royal Family of France, and
all other Royal Families, that nothing short of their utter destruction
could appease the majority of the French nation. Mr. Paine willingly
voted for the trial of Louis as a necessary exposure of Court intrigue
and corruption; but when he found a disposition to destroy him at once,
in preference to banishment, he exposed the safety of his own person
in his endeavour to save the life of Louis. Mr. Paine was perfectly
a humane man, he deprecated the punishment of death on any occasion
whatever. His object was to destroy the monarchy, but not the man who
had filled the office of monarch.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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