The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III.: 1791-1804Paine, Thomas
History
The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Volume III.: 1791-1804
Paine, Thomas
Political science
The principal deception in this business of Addresses has been, that the
promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They
have assumed to pass themselves upon the public as a part of the Public,
bearing a share of the burthen of Taxes, and acting for the public good;
whereas, they are in general that part of it that adds to the public
burthen, by living on the produce of the public taxes. They are to the
public what the locusts are to the tree: the burthen would be less, and
the prosperity would be greater, if they were shaken off.
"I do not come here," said Onslow, at the Surry County meeting, "as the
Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as
a plain country gentleman." The fact is, that he came there as what he
was, and as no other, and consequently he came as one of the beings I
have been describing. If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by
the public, as a pauper is by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the
title; and the same description will suit the Duke of Richmond, who led
the Address at the Sussex meeting. He also may set up for a gentleman.
As to the meeting in the next adjoining county (Kent), it was a scene of
disgrace. About two hundred persons met, when a small part of them drew
privately away from the rest, and voted an Address: the consequence of
which was that they got together by the ears, and produced a riot in the
very act of producing an Address to prevent Riots.
That the Proclamation and the Addresses have failed of their intended
effect, may be collected from the silence which the Government party
itself observes. The number of addresses has been weekly retailed in the
Gazette; but the number of Addressers has been concealed. Several of the
Addresses have been voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a
considerable number of them by not more than thirty. The whole number of
Addresses presented at the time of writing this letter is three hundred
and twenty, (rotten Boroughs and Corporations included) and even
admitting, on an average, one hundred Addressers to each address, the
whole number of addressers would be but thirty-two thousand, and nearly
three months have been taken up in procuring this number. That the
success of the Proclamation has been less than the success of the work
it was intended to discourage, is a matter within my own knowledge; for
a greater number of the cheap edition of the First and Second Parts of
the Rights OF Man has been sold in the space only of one month, than the
whole number of Addressers (admitting them to be thirty-two thousand)
have amounted to in three months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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