The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and EnglandConway, Moncure Daniel
History
The Life Of Thomas Paine, Vol. 2. (of 2): With A History of His Literary, Political and Religious Career in America France, and England
Conway, Moncure Daniel
Paine, Thomas, 1737-1809
** Richard Carlile's sketch of Paine, p. 20. This large
generosity to English sufferers appears the more
characteristic beside the closing paragraph of Paine's
pamphlet, "As an individual citizen of America, and as far
as an individual can go, I have revenged (if I may use the
expression without any immoral meaning) the piratical
depredations committed on American commerce by the English
government. I have retaliated for France on the subject of
finance: and I conclude with retorting on Mr. Pitt the
expression he used against France, and say, that the English
system of finance 'is en the verge, nay even in the gulf of
bankruptcy.'"
Concerning the false French assignats forged in England,
see Louis Blanc's "History of the Revolution," vol. xii.,
p. 101.
The concentration of this pamphlet on its immediate subject, which made
it so effective, renders it of too little intrinsic interest in the
present day to delay us long, especially as it is included in all
editions of Paine's works. It possesses, however, much biographical
interest as proving the intellectual power of Paine while still but a
convalescent. He never wrote any work involving more study and mastery
of difficult details. It was this pamphlet, written in Paris, while
"Peter Porcupine," in America, was rewriting the slanders of "Oldys,"
which revolutionized Cobbett's opinion of Paine, and led him to try and
undo the injustice he had wrought.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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