"As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to introduce that of a man who put this Burke to shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once. The cause of the American colonies was the cause of the English Constitution, which says that no man shall be taxed without his own consent.... A little thing sometimes produces a great effect; an insult offered to a man of great talent and unconquerable perseverance has in many instances produced, in the long run, most tremendous effects; and it appears to me very clear that some beastly insults, offered to Mr. Paine while he was in the Excise in England, was the real cause of the Revolution in America; for, though the nature of the cause of America was such as I have before described it; though the principles were firm in the minds of the people of that country; still, it was Mr. Paine, and Mr. Paine alone, who brought those principles into action." In this passage Cobbett was more epigrammatic than exact. Paine, though not fairly treated, as we have seen, in his final dismissal from the excise, was not insulted. But there is more truth in what Cobbett suggests as to Paine's part than he fully realized. Paine's unique service in the work of independence may now be more clearly defined. It was that he raised the Revolution into an evolution. After the "Lexington massacre" separation was talked of by many, but had it then occurred America might have been another kingdom. The members of Congress were of the rich conservative "gentry," and royalists. Had he not been a patriot, Peyton Randolph, our first president, would probably have borne a title like his father, and Washington would certainly have been knighted. Paine was in the position of the abolitionists when the secession war began. They also held peace principles, and would have scorned a war for the old slave-holding union, as Paine would have scorned a separation from England preserving its political institutions. The war having begun, and separation become probable, Paine hastened to connect it with humanity and with republicanism. As the abolitionists resolved that the secession war should sweep slavery out of the country, Paine made a brave effort that the Revolution should clear away both slavery and monarchy. It was to be in every respect a new departure for humanity. So he anticipated the Declaration of Independence by more than eight months with one of his own, which was discovered by Moreau in the file of the _Pennsylvania Journal_, October 18th.* * Mr. Moreau mentions it as Paine's in his MS. notes in a copy of Cheetham's book, now owned by the Pennsylvania Historical Society. No one familiar with Paine's style at the time can doubt its authorship. "A SERIOUS THOUGHT.