on augmenting the military forces with direct reference to France, the recent trial of Paine was rehearsed, and it was plainly shown that the object of the government was to suppress freedom of the press by Terror. Erskine was denounced for defending Paine and for afterwards attending a meeting of the "Society of Friends of the Liberty of the Press," to whose resolutions on Paine's case his name was attached. Erskine found gallant defenders in the House, among them Fox, who demanded of Pitt: "Can you not prosecute Paine without an army?" Burke at this time enacted a dramatic scene. Having stated that three thousand daggers had been ordered at Birmingham by an Englishman, he drew from his pocket a dagger, cast it on the floor of the House of Commons, and cried: "That is what we are to get from an alliance with France!" Paine--Paine--Paine--was the burden laid on Pitt, who had said to Lady Hester Stanhope: "Tom Paine is quite right." * "Histoire de la Révolution," vol. viii., p. 96. ** Vol. xxv. That Thomas Paine and his "Rights of Man" were the actual cause of the English insults to which their declaration of war replied was so well understood in the French Convention that its first answer to the menaces was to appoint Paine and Condorcet to write an address to the English people.* It is noticeable that on the question whether the judgment on the King's fate should be submitted to the people, Paine voted "No." His belief in the right of all to representation implied distrust of the immediate voice of the masses. The King had said that if his case were referred to the people "he should be massacred." Gouverneur Morris had heard this, and no doubt communicated it to Paine, who was in consultation with him on his plan of sending Louis to America.** Indeed, it is probable that popular suffrage would have ratified the decree. Nevertheless, it was a fair "appeal to the people" which Paine made, after the fatal verdict, in expressing to the Convention his belief that the people would not have done so. For after the decree the helplessness of the prisoner appealed to popular compassion, and on the fatal day the tide had turned. Four days after the execution the American Minister writes to Jefferson: "The greatest care was taken to prevent a concourse of people. This proves a conviction that the majority was not favorable to that severe measure. In fact the great mass of the people mourned the fate of their unhappy prince." * "Le Département des Affaires Étrangères pendant la Revolution, 1787-1804." Par Frédéric Masson, Bibliothécaire da Ministère des Affaires Étrangères. Paris, 1877, p. 273. ** Morris' "Diary," ii., pp. 19, 27. 32.