In the autumn of 1792 William Cobbett arrived in America. Among the papers preserved by the family of Thomas Jefferson is a letter from Cobbett, enclosing an introduction from Mr. Short, U. S. Secretary of Legation at Paris. In this letter, dated at Wilmington, Delaware, November 2, 1792, the young Englishman writes: "Ambitious to become the citizen of a free state I have left my native country, England, for America. I bring with me youth, a small family, a few useful literary talents, and that is all." Cobbett had been married in the same year, on February 5th, and visited Paris, perhaps with an intention of remaining, but becoming disgusted with the revolution he left for America. He had conceived a dislike of the French revolutionary leaders, among whom he included Paine. He thus became an easy victim of the libellous Life of Paine, by George Chalmers, which had not been reprinted in America, and reproduced the statements of that work in a brief biographical sketch published in Philadelphia, 1796. In later life Cobbett became convinced that he had been deceived into giving fresh currency to a tissue of slanders. In the very year of this publication, afterwards much lamented, Paine published in Europe a work that filled Cobbett with admiration. This was "The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance," which predicted the suspension of gold payments by the Bank of England that followed the next year. The pamphlet became Cobbett's text-book, and his _Register_ was eloquent in Paine's praise, the more earnestly, he confessed, because he had "been one of his most violent assailants." "Old age having laid his hand upon this truly great man, this truly philosophical politician, at his expiring flambeau I lighted my taper."