In a number of the Crisis, Mr. Paine says, it was the cause of independence to the United States, that made him an author; by this it has been argued, that he could not have written "The Case of the Officers of Excise" before going to America, but this I consider to be easy of explanation. As the latter pamphlet was published by the subscriptions of the officers of excise, and as it was a mere statement of their case, drawn up at their request and suggestion, Mr. Paine might hardly consider himself, intitled to the name of author for such a production which had but a momentary and partial object. He might have considered himself as the mere amanueusis of the body of excisemen, and, to have done nothing more than state their complaint and sentiments. It does not appear that the pamphlet was printed for sale, or that the writer ever had, or thought to have, any emolument from it. It must have been in this light that Mr. Paine declined the character of an Author on the account of that pamphlet, for no man need be ashamed to father it either for principle or style. In the same manner might be considered his song "On the Death of General Wolfe," his "Reflections on the Death of Lord Clive," and several other essays and articles that appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine, and the different newspapers of America, all of which had obtained celebrity as something superior to the general rank of literature that had appeared in the Colonies, and yet even on this ground he also relinquished the title of an author. To be sure, a man who writes a letter to his relatives or friends is an author, but Mr. Paine thought the word of more import, and did not call himself an author until he saw the benefits he had conferred on his fellow-citizens and mankind at large, by his well-timed "Common Sense" and "Crisis." During the struggle for independence, the Abbe Raynal, a French author, had written and published what he called a History of the Revolution, or Reflections on that History, in which he had made some erroneous statements, probably guided by the errors, wilful or accidental, in the European newspapers. Mr. Paine answered the Abbe in a letter, and pointed out all his misstatements, with a hope of correcting the future historian. This letter is remarkably well written, and abounds with brilliant ideas and natural embellishments. Ovid's classical and highly admired picture of Envy, can scarcely vie with the picture our Author has drawn of Prejudice in this letter. It will be sure to arrest the reader's attention, therefore I will not mar it by an extract. Mr. Paine never deviated from the path of nature, and he was unquestionably as bright an ornament as ever our Common Parent held up to mankind. He studied Nature in preference to books, and thought and compared as well as read.