The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England; to which is added a Sketch of Paine by William CobbettConway, Moncure Daniel
Religion
The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 1. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England; to which is added a Sketch of Paine by William Cobbett
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
A comparative study of Paine's two republican manifestos--that placarded
in Paris July 1st, and this of August 20th to the English--reveals the
difference between the two nations at that period. No break with the
throne in England is suggested, as none had been declared in France
until the King had fled, leaving behind him a virtual proclamation of
war against all the reforms he had been signing since 1789. The Thatched
House address leaves it open for the King to take the side of
the Republic, and be its chief. The address is simply an applied
"Declaration of Rights." Paine had already maintained, in his reply to
Burke, that the English monarch was an importation unrelated to the
real nation, "which is left to govern itself, and does govern itself,
by magistrates and juries, almost on its own charge, on republican
principles." His chief complaint is that royalty is an expensive
"sinecure." So far had George III. withdrawn from his attempt to govern
as well as reign, which had ended so disastrously in America. The fall
of the French King who had aided the American "rebellion" was probably
viewed with satisfaction by the English court, so long as the revolution
confined itself to France. But now it had raised its head in England,
and the alarm of aristocracy was as if it were threatened with an
invasion of political cholera.
The disease was brought over by Paine. He must be isolated. But he had
a hold on the people, including a large number of literary men, and
Nonconformist preachers. The authorities, therefore, began working
cautiously, privately inducing the landlords of the Crown and Anchor and
the Thatched House to refuse their rooms to the "Painites," as they
were beginning to be called But this was a confession of Paine's power.
Indeed all opposition at that time was favorable to Paine. Publicola's
reply to "The Rights of Man," attributed to Vice-President Adams, could
only heighten Paine's fame; for John Adams' blazing court-dress, which
amused us at the Centenary (1889), was not forgotten in England; and
while his influence was limited to court circles, the entrance of so
high an official into the arena was accepted as homage to the author.
The publication at the same time of the endorsement of Paine's "Rights
of Man" by the Secretary of State, the great Jefferson, completed the
triumph. The English government now had Paine on its hands, and must
deal with him in one way or another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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