A Brief Thomas Paine Chronology
1737 Born in Thetford, Norfolk 1759–60 Works as corset maker, Kent 1764 Admitted to the King’s Excise service with postings in Lincolnshire and Lewes 1772 Writes his first substantial political tract,The Case of the Officers of the Excise 1774 Dismissed from the excise service, separates from his second wife, and emigrates to Philadelphia 1775 Begins working as the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine 1776 Publishes Common Sense and the firstAmerican Crisis essay 1777–79 Continues publishing Crisis essays while serving as secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in Congress and as clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly 1781 Visits France as a member of a diplomatic delegation seeking aid for the American war effort 1782 Publishes Letter to the Abbé Raynal 1786 Publishes Dissertations on Government and refines his design of a revolutionary new iron bridge 1787 Sails for Europe to promote his iron bridge 1788–90 Seeks financing to build a prototype of his iron bridge and begins writing a history of the French Revolution 1791 Publishes Rights of Man, his rebuttal of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
xv 1792 Publishes Rights of Man, Part the Second and Letter Addressed to the Addressers, extending his defense of the French Revolution and attacking the British system of government; elected to the new French constitutional convention 1793 Now residing in Paris, opposes the execution of the deposed French monarch Louis XVI, and later imprisoned by the Jacobin regime to await execution 1794 James Monroe, American envoy to France, secures Paine’s release from prison; publishes Age of Reason 1795 Remaining in Paris, publishes Dissertation on First Principles of Government and Age of Reason, Part Two 1796 Publishes Letter to George Washington, a bitter political attack on the first American president 1797 Publishes Agrarian Justice 1802 Returns to the United States for the first time since 1787 1809 Dies on June 8 in New York City after a lengthy illness
xvi The Daily Thomas Paine