"I happened to come to America a few months before the breaking out of hostilities. I found the disposition of the people such that they might have been led by a thread and governed by a reed. Their suspicion was quick and penetrating, but their attachment to Britain was obstinate, and it was at that time a kind of treason to speak against it. They disliked the Ministry, but they esteemed the Nation. Their idea of grievance operated without resentment, and their single object was reconciliation. Bad as I believed the Ministry to be, I never conceived them capable of a measure so rash and wicked as the commencing of hostilities; much less did I imagine the Nation would encourage it. I viewed the dispute as a kind of law-suit, in which I supposed the parties would find a way either to decide or settle it. I had no thoughts of independence or of arms. The world could not then have persuaded me that I should be either a soldier or an author. If I had any talents for either they were buried in me, and might ever have continued so had not the necessity of the times dragged and driven them into action. I had formed my plan of life, and conceiving myself happy wished everybody else so. But when the country, into which I had just set my foot, was set on fire about my ears, it was time to stir. It was time for every man to stir."* * From Crisis vii., dated Philadelphia, November 21, 1778. In Cobbett's MS. the extract is only indicated. His first intention at Philadelphia was to establish an Academy for young ladies, who were to be taught many branches of learning then little known in the education of young American ladies. But, in 1775, he undertook the management of the Pennsylvania Magazine. About this time he published, in Bradford's journal, an essay on the slavery, of the negroes, which was universally well received; and also stanzas on the death of General Wolfe. In 1776, January 10, he published Common Sense. In the same year he joined the army as aid-de-camp to General Greene. Gordon, in his history of the Independence of the United States (vol. ii. p. 78), says: [Wanting]--Ramsay (Lond. ed. i. p. 336) says: [Wanting!] Anecdote of Dr. Franklin preserved by Thomas Paine: [Wanting, but no doubt one else-where given, in the Hall manuscripts]