"December 18, 1792.--John dined with Tom Poole, and from him heard that there was a great bustle at Bridgwater yesterday--that Tom Paine was burnt in Effigy, and that he saw Richard Symes sitting on the Cornhill with a table before him, receiving the oaths of loyalty to the king, and affection to the present constitution, from the populace. I fancy this could not have been a very pleasant sight to Tom Poole, for he has imbibed some of the wild notions of liberty and equality that at present prevail so much; and it is but within these two or three days that a report has been circulated that he has distributed seditious pamphlets to the common people of Stowey. But this report is entirely without foundation. Everybody at this time talks politicks, and is looking with anxiety for fresh intelligence from France, which is a scene of guilt and confusion." * "Thomas Poole and his Friends." By Mrs. Henry Sandford. New York: Macmillan, 1888. In Richardson's "Borderer's Table Book" is recorded: "1792 (Dec.)--This month, Thomas Paine, author of the 'Rights of Man,' &c. &c., was burnt at most of the towns and considerable villages in Northumberland and Durham." No doubt, among the Durham towns, Wearmouth saw at the stake an effigy of the man whose iron bridge, taken down at Paddington, and sold for other benefit than Paine's, was used in spanning the Wear with the arch of his invention; all amid shouts of "God save the King," and plaudits for the various public-spirited gentlemen and architects, who patriotically appropriated the merits and patent of the inventor. The _Bury Post_ (published near Paine's birthplace) says, December 12th: "The populace in different places have been lately amusing themselves by burning effigies. As the culprit on whom they meant to execute this punishment was Thomas Paine, they were not interrupted by any power civil or military. The ceremony has been at Croydon in Surrey, at Warrington, at Lymington, and at Plymouth." January 9, 1793: "On Saturday last the effigy of Thomas Paine was carried round the town of Swaffham, and afterwards hung on a gibbet, erected on the market-hill for that purpose. In the evening his remains were committed to the flames amidst acclamations of God save the King, etc." The trial of Paine for high treason was by a Special Jury in the Court of King's Bench, Guildhall, on Tuesday, December 18, 1792, before Lord Kenyon.*