James Cheetham (Paine's basest calumniator): "Speaking a language which the colonists had felt but not thought, its popularity, terrible in its consequences to the parent country, was unexampled in the history of the press." General Charles Lee: "Have you [Washington] seen the pamphlet 'Common Sense'? I never saw such a masterly irresistible performance." "He burst forth on the world like Jove in thunder." Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History: "Its trumpet tones awakened the continent, and made every patriot's heart beat with intense emotion." J. Dorman Steele, Ph. D.: "Every line glowed with the spirit of liberty, and men's hearts were thrilled as they read." Larned's Ready Reference History: "A more effective popular appeal never went to the bosoms of a nation.... Its effect was instantaneous and tremendous." Henry Cabot Lodge: "The pamphlet marked an epoch, was a very memorable production; from the time of its publication the tide flowing in the direction of independence began to race with devouring swiftness to high water mark." Encyclopedia Britannica (10th Ed.)--"There is a complete concurrence of testimony that Paine's pamphlet issued on the first of January, 1776, was a turning point in the struggle, that it roused and consolidated public feeling, and swept waverers along with the tide." Prof. Goldwin Smith: "Colonial resolution had been screwed to the sticking point by Tom Paine, the stormy petrel of three countries, with his pamphlet 'Common Sense.'" Dr. E. Benjamin Andrews: "Most potent of all as a cause of the resolution to separate was Thomas Paine's pamphlet 'Common Sense'." "No writing ever more instantly swung men to its humor."--_Woodrow Wilson_. Mary L. Booth: "This eloquent production severed the last link that bound the Colonies to the mother country." Mary Howitt: "The cause of Independence took as it were a definite form from this moment." Guilliam Tell Poussin: "It rendered the sentiment of Independence national." "The notion of a new State, wholly free from Great Britain, first found full and convincing expression in Paine's 'Common Sense'."--_London Times_. Gen. William A. Stokes: "When 'Common Sense' was published a great blow was struck. It was felt from New England to the Carolinas; it resounded throughout the world." The sympathy and assistance of liberty-loving Europeans contributed much to the success of the Revolution, and this was due largely to the influence of Paine's "Common Sense," which was printed in nearly every tongue and read in nearly every country of Continental Europe. Even in England thousands of copies were circulated, and the American party, the party of Chatham, Fox and Burke, was greatly strengthened, while the influence of the king and his ministry was correspondingly weakened by the effect of its masterly arguments.