Cheetham had a double motive in writing his Life of Paine--revenge and gain. He was an Englishman and had been an ardent Republican. But he had betrayed his party and as a result of this he and Paine became engaged in a bitter controversy. Paine's punishment of the renegade was terrible. His wounds still smarting when his adversary died, Cheetham wreaked his vengeance by writing a book in which he presented as facts all the calumnies that Paine's political and religious enemies had circulated concerning him, supplemented by all that his own malignant mind could invent. Realizing that his career in America was ended he had decided to return to England and the book, he believed, would win for him the favor and patronage of England's two most powerful institutions, the Tory Government and the Orthodox Church. "When, therefore, a party hack, as Cheetham doubtless was, disappointed and a renegade, with talents, as he certainly possessed, but embittered in feelings and regardless of truth, as all circumstances contribute to show--what could be expected from such a man but just what he produced, a Life of Paine abounding in bold falsehoods, cunningly contrived, and addressed to a people who wished to be deceived."--_Gilbert Vale_. "Cheetham's book is one of the most malicious ever written."--_Dr. Conway_. "We have no hesitation in saying that we knew perfectly well at the time the motives of that author [Cheetham] for writing and publishing a work, which, we have every reason to believe, is a libel almost from beginning to end."--_Rev. Solomon Southwick._ Eighteen years prior to the appearance of Cheetham's book George Chalmers, an English writer, under the pseudonymn of "Francis Oldys," backed by the friends of the English Tory government and for a consideration, it is claimed, of £500, to counteract the influence of the "Rights of Man" which was threatening to overthrow monarchy in England, wrote a pretended biography of Paine filled with slander and vituperation. Referring to this book and the corrupt English political and religious age in which it was written, Edward Smith, an English author, writing nearly a century later, characterizes it as "one of the most horrible collections of abuse which even that venal day produced."