Parker Pillsbury: "Without his 'Common Sense,' written in 1775, we should not have had the Declaration of Independence in 1776." Samuel Bryan: "This book, 'Common Sense,' may be called the Book of Genesis, for it was the beginning. From this book spread the Declaration of Independence, that not only laid the foundation of liberty in our own country, but the good of mankind throughout the world." "The open movement to Independence dates from its publication."--_Encyclopedia Britannica_ (11th Ed.) Elkanah Watson (one of Paine's calumniators): "It everywhere flashed conviction, and aroused a determined spirit which resulted in the Declaration of Independence." Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL. D.: "This spark was sufficient to rouse the Americans, who at once signed the Declaration of Independence." William Howitt: "It at once seized on the imagination of the public, cast all other writers into the shades and flew in thousands and tens of thousands all over the Colonies.... The common fire blazed up in Congress, and the thing was done." "He became the great oracle on the subject of governments and constitutions." Thomas Gaspey: "He was treated with great consideration by the members of the Revolutionary government, who took no steps of importance without consulting him." Grand Dictionary Universel: "He became the political catechism of the movement." Dictionary of National Biography (America): "Joined the Provincial army in the autumn [1776] and became a volunteer aid-de-camp to General Nathaniel Greene, animating the troops by his writings [the 'Crisis']." "The pamphlets that stirred like a trumpet call the flagging energies of a desponding people."--_Rev. John Snyder_. "General Greene made him one of his aides-de-camp; but an appointment on that staff, during those weeks, carried with it very little, either of privilege or luxury. In the flight from Fort Lee Paine lost his baggage and his private papers; but he had kept or borrowed a pen. He began to write at Newark, the first stage in the calamitous retreat; and he worked all night at every halting place until his new pamphlet was completed. It was published in Philadelphia on the 19th of December, under the title of 'The Crisis,' and at once flew like wildfire through all the towns and villages of the Confederacy."--_Sir George Trevelyan_. This, the first number of the "Crisis," opens with these words: "These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." Samuel Eliot: "His later pamphlets, issued during the war under the name of the 'Crisis,' were of equal power [to 'Common Sense']."