Online Library of Liberty: the Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779)
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The Online Library of Liberty A Project Of Liberty Fund, Inc. Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) [1774] The Online Library Of Liberty This E-Book (PDF format) is published by Liberty Fund, Inc., a private, non-profit, educational foundation established in 1960 to encourage study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. 2010 was the 50th anniversary year of the founding of Liberty Fund. It is part of the Online Library of Liberty web site http://oll.libertyfund.org, which was established in 2004 in order to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. To find out more about the author or title, to use the site's powerful search engine, to see other titles in other formats (HTML, facsimile PDF), or to make use of the hundreds of essays, educational aids, and study guides, please visit the OLL web site. This title is also part of the Portable Library of Liberty DVD which contains over 1,000 books and quotes about liberty and power, and is available free of charge upon request. The cuneiform inscription that appears in the logo and serves as a design element in all Liberty Fund books and web sites is the earliest-known written appearance of the word “freedom” (amagi), or “liberty.” It is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash, in present day Iraq. To find out more about Liberty Fund, Inc., or the Online Library of Liberty Project, please contact the Director at [email protected]. LIBERTY FUND, INC. 8335 Allison Pointe Trail, Suite 300 Indianapolis, Indiana 46250-1684 Online Library of Liberty: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) Edition Used: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Collected and Edited by Moncure Daniel Conway (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894). Vol. 1. Author: Thomas Paine Editor: Moncure Daniel Conway About This Title: Vol. 1 of a 4 vol. collection of the works of Thomas Paine. Vol. 1 contains letters and newspaper articles, Common Sense, and The American Crisis. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 2 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/343 Online Library of Liberty: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) About Liberty Fund: Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. Copyright Information: The text is in the public domain. Fair Use Statement: This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit. PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 3 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/343 Online Library of Liberty: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) Table Of Contents Introduction. Prefatory Note to Paine’s First Essay. I.: African Slavery In America. II.: A Dialogue Between General Wolfe and General Gage In a Wood Near Boston.1 III.: The Magazine In America.1 IV.: Useful and Entertaining Hints.1 V.: New Anecdotes of Alexander the Great.1 VI.: Reflections On the Life and Death of Lord Clive.1 VII.: Cupid and Hymen.1 VIII.: Duelling.1 IX.: Reflections On Titles.1 X.: The Dream Interpreted.1 XI.: Reflections On Unhappy Marriages.1 XII.: Thoughts On Defensive War.1 XIII.: An Occasional Letter On the Female Sex.1 XIV.: A Serious Thought.1 XV.: Common Sense.1 Introduction. Postscript to Preface In the Third Edition. Common Sense. On the Origin and Design of Government In Gen- Eral, With Concise Remarks On the English Constitution. Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession. Thoughts On the Present State of American Affairs. Of the Present Ability of America: With Some Miscellaneous Reflections. Appendix to Common Sense. XVI.: Epistle to Quakers. XVII.: The Forester’s Letters.1 I: To Cato. II.: To Cato. III.: To Cato. To the People. IV. XVIII.: A Dialogue1 XIX.: The American Crisis. Editor’s Preface. The Crisis.: I. II.: To Lord Howe.2 The Crisis.1: III. The Crisis.: IV. V.: To Gen. Sir William Howe.1 To the Inhabitants of America. VI.: To the Earl of Carlisle, General Clinton, and William Eden, Esq., British Commissioners At New York.1 PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 4 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/343 Online Library of Liberty: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) VII.: To the People of England. VIII.: Addressed to the People of England. The Crisis.: IX. The Crisis Extraordinary.: On the Subject of Taxation. X.: On the King of England’s Speech.1 To the People of America. XI.: On the Present State of News. A Supernumerary Crisis.: to Sir Guy Carleton.1 XII.: To the Earl of Shelburne.1 XIII.: Thoughts On the Peace, and the Probable Advantages Thereof. A Supernumerary Crisis.: to the People of America. XX.: Retreat Across the Delaware.1 XXI.: Letter to Franklin, In Paris.1 XXII.: The Affair of Silas Deane.1to Silas Deane, Esq’re. XXIII.: To the Public On Mr. Deane’s Affair.1 XXIV.: Messrs. Deane, Jay, and G PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 5 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/343 Online Library of Liberty: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) [Back to Table of Contents] INTRODUCTION. No apology is needed for an edition of Thomas Paine’s writings, but rather for the tardiness of its appearance. For although there have been laborious and useful collections of his more famous works, none of them can be fairly described as adequate. The compilers have failed to discover many characteristic essays, they printed from imperfect texts, and were unable to find competent publishers courageous enough to issue in suitable form the Works of Paine. It is not creditable that the world has had to wait so long for a complete edition of writings which excited the gratitude and admiration of the founders of republican liberty in America and Europe; nevertheless those writings, so far as accessible, have been read and pondered by multitudes, and are to-day in large and increasing demand. This indeed is not wonderful. Time, which destroys much literature, more slowly overtakes that which was inspired by any great human cause. “It was the cause of America that made me an author,” wrote Paine at the close of the American Revolution; and in the preface to his first pamphlet he had said: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” In the presence of such great argument he made no account of the poems and magazine essays published before the appearance of his first pamphlet, “Common Sense,”—the earliest plea for an independent American Republic. The magazine essays, which are printed in this volume, and the poems, reserved for the last, while they prove Paine’s literary ability, also reveal in him an over-powering moral sentiment and human sympathy which must necessarily make his literary art their organ. Paine knew the secret of good writing. In criticising a passage from the Abbé Raynal’s “Revolution of America” he writes: “In this paragraph the conception is lofty, and the expression elegant; but the colouring is too high for the original, and the likeness fails through an excess of graces. To fit the powers of thinking and the turn of language to the subject, so as to bring out a clear conclusion that shall hit the point in question, and nothing else, is the true criterion of writing. But the greater part of the Abbé’s writings (if he will pardon me the remark) appear to me uncentral, and burthened with variety. They represent a beautiful wilderness without paths; in which the eye is diverted by every thing, without being particularly directed to any thing; and in which it is agreeable to be lost, and difficult to find the way out.” One cannot but wonder how Paine acquired his literary equipment, almost as complete in his first work as in his last. In his thirty-second year, when exciseman at Lewes, he made on the intelligent gentlemen of the White Hart Club an impression which led one of them, Mr. Lee, to apostrophize him in such lines as these: “Thy logic vanquish’d error, and thy mind No bounds but those of right and truth confined. Thy soul of fire must sure ascend the sky, Immortal Paine, thy fame can never die.” PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) 6 http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/343 Online Library of Liberty: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Vol. I (1774-1779) This was written of a man who had never published a word, and who, outside his club, was one of the poorest and most obscure men in England. He must in some way have presently gained reputation for superior intelligence among his fellow- excisemen, who appointed him to write their plea to Parliament for an increase of salary. This document, printed but not published in 1772 (reserved for an appendix to our last volume), is written in the lucid and simple style characteristic of all Paine’s works,—“hitting the point in question and nothing else.” But with all of this power he would appear to have been without literary ambition, and writes to Goldsmith: “It is my first and only attempt, and even now I should not have undertaken it had I not been particularly applied to by some of my superiors in office.” Such, when nearly thirty-six, was the man who three years later published in America the book which made as much history as any ever written.