The following anecdote is another unparalleled instance of humanity, and the moral precept of returning good for evil. Mr. Paine happened to be dining one day with about twenty friends at a Coffee House in the Palais Egalité, now the Palais Royal, when unfortunately for the harmony of the company, a Captain in the English service contrived to introduce himself as one of the party. The military gentleman was a strenuous supporter of what is called in England, the constitution in church and state, and a decided enemy of the French Revolution. After the cloth was drawn, the conversation chiefly turned on the state of affairs in England, and the means which had been adopted by the government to check the increase of political knowledge. Mr. Paine delivered his opinions very freely, and much to the satisfaction of every one present, with the exception of Captain Grimstone, who returned his arguments by calling him a traitor to his country, with a variety of terms equally opprobrious. Mr. Paine treated his abuse with much good humour, which rendered the Captain so furious, that he walked up to the part of the room where Mr. Paine was sitting, and struck him a violent blow, which nearly knocked him off his seat. The cowardice of this behaviour from a stout young man towards a person of Mr. Paine's age (he being then upwards of sixty) is not the least disgraceful part of the transaction. There was, however, no time for reflections of this sort; an alarm was instantly given, that the Captain had struck a Citizen Deputy of the Convention, which was considered an insult to the nation at large; the offender was hurried into custody, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Mr. Paine prevented him from being executed on the spot. It ought to be observed, that an act of the Convention had awarded the punishment of death to any one who should be convicted of striking a deputy; Mr. Paine was therefore placed in a very unpleasant situation. He immediately applied to Barrere, at that time president of the Committee of Public Safety, for a passport for his imprudent adversary, who after much hesitation complied with his request. It likewise occasioned Mr. Paine considerable personal inconvenience to procure his liberation; but even this was not sufficient; the Captain was without friends, and pennyless, and Mr. Paine generously supplied him with money to defray his travelling expences.