The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete: With Index to Volumes I - IVPaine, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Paine, Complete: With Index to Volumes I - IV
Paine, Thomas
Political science
Every one knows that I am not the flatterer of Congress, but in this
instance they are right; and if that measure is supported, the currency
will acquire a value, which, without it, it will not. But this is not
all: it will give relief to the finances until such time as they can be
properly arranged, and save the country from being immediately doubled
taxed under the present mode. In short, support that measure, and it
will support you.
I have now waded through a tedious course of difficult business, and
over an untrodden path. The subject, on every point in which it could be
viewed, was entangled with perplexities, and enveloped in obscurity, yet
such are the resources of America, that she wants nothing but system to
secure success.
COMMON SENSE.
PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 4, 1780.
THE CRISIS X. ON THE KING OF ENGLAND'S SPEECH.
OF all the innocent passions which actuate the human mind there is none
more universally prevalent than curiosity. It reaches all mankind, and
in matters which concern us, or concern us not, it alike provokes in us
a desire to know them.
Although the situation of America, superior to every effort to enslave
her, and daily rising to importance and opulence, has placed her above
the region of anxiety, it has still left her within the circle of
curiosity; and her fancy to see the speech of a man who had proudly
threatened to bring her to his feet, was visibly marked with that
tranquil confidence which cared nothing about its contents. It was
inquired after with a smile, read with a laugh, and dismissed with
disdain.
But, as justice is due, even to an enemy, it is right to say, that the
speech is as well managed as the embarrassed condition of their affairs
could well admit of; and though hardly a line of it is true, except the
mournful story of Cornwallis, it may serve to amuse the deluded commons
and people of England, for whom it was calculated.
"The war," says the speech, "is still unhappily prolonged by that
restless ambition which first excited our enemies to commence it, and
which still continues to disappoint my earnest wishes and diligent
exertions to restore the public tranquillity."
How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by habitual
wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance. That the very man
who began the war, who with the most sullen insolence refused to answer,
and even to hear the humblest of all petitions, who has encouraged
his officers and his army in the most savage cruelties, and the most
scandalous plunderings, who has stirred up the Indians on one side, and
the negroes on the other, and invoked every aid of hell in his behalf,
should now, with an affected air of pity, turn the tables from himself,
and charge to another the wickedness that is his own, can only be
equalled by the baseness of the heart that spoke it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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