But there is an argument in this connection, which goes toward the whole instrument, showing that Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of it. In a special commentary of Mr. Jefferson's on this phrase, "Scotch and foreign mercenaries," he misquotes the Declaration, which he would not be likely to do if he wrote it. In volume viii, page 500, of his works, he says: "When the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it, which gave offense to some members. The words, 'Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries' excited the ire of a gentleman or two of that country." In the phrase "Scotch and other foreign auxiliaries," Jefferson is trying to quote the words "Scotch and foreign mercenaries." There is a vast difference between the two words "auxiliaries" and "mercenaries." But the former expresses the real spirit of Jefferson, the latter of Paine. Entirely different sentiments produced the two expressions. The style, also, is changed from Paine's to Jefferson's, by putting in the word "other." It is thus changed from the concise to the diffuse. Mr. Jefferson says this expression was "unlucky;" and it still proves to be, near the close of a century.

Now, the word mercenaries, which, with the author of the Declaration, means prostituted hirelings, is used twice in the instrument, but auxiliaries, which would mean honorable allies, is not used once. It is not strange that he should forget, for the sentiment is foreign to his own character; and I had written my argument, and given my reasons above why Mr. Jefferson could not possibly be the author of that sentiment, a month before I found that Jefferson had misquoted the Declaration. I reason from first principles, which rest on established facts, the silent language of nature, compared with which the vain babblings of men amount to nothing. For example, John Adams says that he and Mr. Jefferson met as a sub-committee to draft the Declaration; that he urged Jefferson to do it; that afterward they both met, and conned it over, and he does not remember of making or suggesting a single alteration. This Mr. Jefferson denies. He says there was no sub-committee; that Adams has forgotten about it; that he [Jefferson] drew it, and turned to neither book nor pamphlet while writing it, and that Adams did correct it.—Jefferson's Works, vol. vii, pages 304, 305. Here are two men, one eighty and the other eighty-eight, on whose words history rests, differing materially about historic facts. The one who can not quote an important passage correctly, as to fact or language which he says he wrote himself, accuses the other of forgetting about a committee which never existed. The reader must judge.

"Be it so." Let us find the feeling which produced this expression. It is peculiar to Junius. See Letters 18, 34, and 44, where the sentence is used. And now let me remark, that the reader may be led to a just criticism, and not ramble after vague and unmeaning expressions, the spirit of the writer must be found, the prominent sentiment of the heart must be felt, the cause must be seen which shall give utterance to the expression, "Be it so." How trifling it appears to the cursory reader! But let me arrest your attention. Junius uses the expression three times, and every time in connection with the sentiment of dignity. So, also, in the Declaration. It is only produced in him by a feeling, and the peculiar and particular feeling of dignity, in antithesis to contempt, littleness, disrepute, or meanness. I will now give the context. In Let. 18 he says: "You seem to think the channel of a pamphlet more respectable, and better suited to the dignity of your cause, than a newspaper. Be it so."

In Let. 34 he says: "We are told by the highest judicial authority that Mr. Vaughan's offer to purchase the reversion of a patent place in Jamaica amounts to a high misdemeanor. Be it so; and if he deserves it, let him be punished. But the learned judge might have had a fairer opportunity of displaying the powers of his eloquence. Having delivered himself with so much energy upon the criminal nature and dangerous consequences of any attempt to corrupt a man in your grace's station, what would he have said to the minister himself, to that very privy counselor, to that first commissioner of the treasury, who does not wait for, but impatiently solicits the touch of corruption, who employs the meanest of his creatures in these honorable services, and forgetting the genius and fidelity of the secretary, descends to apply to his housebuilder for assistance?"

In Let. 44 he says: "There may be instances of contempt and insult to the House of Commons, which do not fall within my own exceptions, yet, in regard to the dignity of the house, ought not to pass unpunished. Be it so."

In the Declaration, paragraph 25, we read: "We might have been a free and a great people together, but a communication of grandeur and freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it."

So much for the trifling little trinity of words made up of six letters, when traced to their mental origin. The reader will see an aura of dignity always darting out from the sentence when used by Mr. Paine. It might never have this connection in the soul of any other man. This closes paragraph 25, and I proceed to the conclusion.

Paragraph 26. Here the nation is named. "The United States of America," are declared "free and independent States."... "And for the support of this declaration we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." Compare Common Sense, conclusion, as follows: "Wherefore, instead of gazing at each other with suspicious or doubtful curiosity, let each of us hold out to his neighbor the hearty hand of friendship, and unite in drawing a line which, like an act of oblivion, shall bury in forgetfulness every former dissension. Let the name of whig and tory be extinct; and let none other be heard among us than those of a good citizen, an open and resolute friend, and a virtuous supporter of the rights of mankind, and of the Free and Independent States of America."

I have now gone through with the Declaration, both in a general and special manner. In the former regard I have found it to be the soul's image of Mr. Paine, in style, order, and construction, and, in the latter, a complete synopsis of Common Sense. I have fully and conclusively shown that the substance of every paragraph is found in Common Sense, with much of the language the same, and also that many special, mental peculiarities, common to Mr. Paine, and wanting in Mr. Jefferson, are found there. Now, Mr. Jefferson never before, nor since, ever produced any thing like it in any of these particulars. If we take a hasty review, we will find that in as many particulars as the Declaration has, in just so many there is a reproduction of Mr. Paine. In no single fact does the Declaration disagree with Mr. Paine. It does with Mr. Jefferson in very many. I have shown also that it would be impossible for Mr. Jefferson to steal it, for he would have to steal the very soul of Mr. Paine, and write under its influence. This is above proof, it is demonstration.

But I will hold the reader to history. It is a fact, well established, that he did not consult one single author thereon. He says so himself. Mr. Bancroft, the great American historian, says so. If I had found him mistaken in this statement, I would have shown wherein. He is correct, and it is unnecessary for me to add any thing to support his fame. But will he change his conclusions, and will he re-write his own history to support the statement that Mr. Jefferson produced it, not from "the fullness of his own mind," but from the fullness of Common Sense? I would not cast an aspersion, by the remotest insinuation, upon the faithfulness of Mr. Bancroft as a historian. He penned the truth in regard to a historic fact, but founded a conclusion thereon not warranted by the fact. This will prove a lesson to the historian, and, therefore, I will further remark, that a scientific method has also dawned upon history. Voltaire struck the principle when he brought history within the realm of natural causes, and Mr. Buckle began to develop the method in an able manner, but his life was too short to complete it. That he has erred in some particulars, may be true, but he has traveled far out on the highways of nature, and, in the main, he is right. In this age the historian has no business to write unless he travels the same road. In fact, he would not be a historian, unless he did, but merely the chronicler of events. There is a vast distance in the realm of mind between the high station of a historian, and the low office of a chronicler. But, with this remark I pass on with my argument.

Is it at variance with nature and the general order of things that Mr. Jefferson should reproduce Common Sense, in all its small particulars, as well as grand outlines, observing the same order in its construction, a perfect epitome thereof, without studying it. But if he did study it, and thus reproduce it, the theft would be too monstrous, and there is not in human nature an impudence so audacious as to do such a thing under the very eye of its author. It would have been a literary piracy too disgraceful for human nature to commit or to endure. It would have been a robbery too easy of detection by Mr. Paine, and there could not be found on earth a man so devoid of shame, or of all personal honor, or of self-respect as to have committed it. Now if Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, never was man more disgraced in the literary world. But on the other hand, as chairman of a committee of five to whom collectively belong the duty to produce it or procure it, and who collectively shall share its honor, for him as such chairman, to receive from the hand of Mr. Paine, as a gift to the nation, the document which the country needed, there would be no dishonor connected with it. It was nobody's business who wrote it. Mr. Paine and Jefferson understood it, and none but themselves could be wronged. History records that Mr. Paine and Jefferson were ever after bound heart and hand together. Jefferson confided in the most faithful heart of the world. But after Mr. Paine died, it was wrong for Mr. Jefferson to take advantage of the silence of death and claim the document. It was the wickedness of vanity and a narrow mind that would direct to be carved on his tombstone, "The author of the Declaration of Independence." For his own name's sake, it ought to be struck out with some friendly chisel. It is as painful for me to write this as it would be to receive the news of the death of a dear friend, who had died with some curse upon his character. But while we look with compassion, let us tell the truth.

At first, Mr. Jefferson did not write himself down the author of the Declaration, and there seems to be a growth in this like all other things. Here are the different stages:

Now, he never acknowledged that he was the author of it in any of his works before the death of Mr. Paine. He gave several full accounts of the whole transaction, and calls on Heaven and earth to witness the truth of his statements. About the time Mr. Paine dies he says he can make no personal claim to it. Ten years after Mr. Paine's death, he very ambiguously claims it, as if his pen refused to write it, and drops his oath. But twelve years after Mr. Paine's death, and he now in his eightieth year, he first says he drew it. Was he too modest to affirm it till he had got into his dotage? The reader must answer. It is with painful feelings I record the above facts. "But they are too true, and the more is the pity." But to proceed.

Mr. Jefferson could not have followed so closely Common Sense in the production of the Declaration of Independence, if he had studied it for a whole year with this special purpose in view. For, the style he could not have imitated; the figures of speech he could not have adopted; the impassioned eloquence would have stuck to the dry leaves; the exact order would have been missed; the fine shades of sentiment would have been blotted out; the complex ideas he would have failed to grasp; its architectural plan he could not have idealized; and its construction would never have arisen from the chaos of scattered materials which he would have gleaned. And, above all, the personal character of Mr. Paine would have been left out. He would have failed in every one of these things. And why? Want of mental similarity thereto. This, and nothing else.

I will sum up his mentality as I find it in his writings. I have given you Mr. Paine's already. In this I shall be brief, speaking only of those powers which would be incompatible with, or necessary to, the production of the Declaration.

Mr. Jefferson was a zealous partisan. Mr. Paine was a consummate statesman. Here was the great difference between the two men. Those qualities of the mind which produce the former are very unlike those which produce the latter. The former mind must be narrow and selfish, the latter broad and generous. This will take in the whole world, that but a small portion of it. The partisan has an understanding subject to the vice and discipline of cunning; the statesman has an understanding subject to the noblest and most generous affections. It was this which made Mr. Jefferson such a grand success as a party leader, and that, too, which perhaps saved the nation from passing into the hands of the monarchists. Without these consummate powers of the partisan, it would have been impossible for Mr. Jefferson to have taken command of the people, to have organized his party, to have marshaled his forces, and with his army of followers to have put royalty under his heel. How unlike Washington and John Adams, who preceded him. Hamilton, who would toast a president of America and give three cheers for George the Third of England, ruled Washington and governed the nation. John Adams, who was so beguiled with royalty and the British constitution, could not heartily sympathize with the people; the dupe of his own passions, he was unfit to be the ruler of a free people. But Jefferson, while secretary under Washington, began to form his party and draw his party lines. Through Freneau he drove Washington to cry out: "By God, I had rather be in my grave than in my present situation!" And, afterward, the party he was marshaling made John Adams, then president of the United States, desert his post for seven months, at the most trying crisis of this government. But the cold, unfeeling partisanship of the great democrat saved the nation.

The other crowning difference between the two men is, Mr. Paine had extraordinary genius, Mr. Jefferson had not; and by genius I mean a lively constructive and comprehensive mind, one that can generalize facts and deduce principles therefrom, one that can idealize and build in the imagination what it would put into material shape or on paper. If this comparison be true (and the reader is at liberty to bring facts to contradict it), then Mr. Jefferson could not produce the Declaration for want of capacity.

The Declaration is the work of a master. It is the work of one with great experience in the art of composition, one who produced the whole in the ideal before he touched pen to paper, and one who followed plan and specifications with unerring precision. It is a work of the most finished rhetoric, and produced with such skill as to defy adverse criticism. It shows vast labor and time bestowed upon its execution. In its mechanism I have never seen its equal in all my reading and study. It is the most masterly work of genius I ever saw in composition. It stands alone in the world of letters. There is nothing its equal which has come down to us from the ages, and I know of no one save Thomas Paine capable of producing it. That he was a master in the art of composition, no one can dispute, and he frequently takes pains to give the principles which reveal his success; here is one of them, to be found in his Letter to the Abbe Raynal: "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," See a fine passage on this point in the introduction to the same letter. Now Jefferson had not the genius to produce the Declaration.

If we look also at several passages in the Declaration we can only feel their full force after knowing the previous career of Mr. Paine as Junius in England. Take for example the two paragraphs, 24 and 25, the one of the king and the other of the "British brethren." We see in the one the proud disdain and haughty contempt for the tyrant; in the other that tender sympathy for the English people, with a sly thrust at the Scotch, and then the wounded affection which comes from betrayal of friendship—"the last stab to agonizing affection." And then regathering himself from the affliction of a broken heart, he exclaims, "Manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren." But no, this can not be done, and in the next breath he says, "we must endeavor to forget our former love for them;" and then comes the wail of anguish in the loss of his native country, "We might have been a great and a free people together, but a communication of grandeur and of freedom it seems is below their dignity. Be it so." He now bends beneath the hand of fate and cries out, "I acquiesce in our eternal separation," but persist in denouncing it. This is the very picture of Mr. Paine's own heart. It is a pitch of enthusiasm and anguish which Mr. Jefferson had neither circumstance in his life nor capacity in his soul to work himself up to. It is neither art nor contrivance, it is the recorded beating of his own heart, the sequel to his previous life.

Take again the passage on human slavery. "He has waged cruel war against human nature itself." It is well known that Mr. Paine, before he wrote Common Sense, attracted the eyes of the world to him by denouncing human slavery in the most impassioned eloquence. This piece he termed "Serious Thoughts," etc. Herein he hopes when the Declaration is made that "our first gratitude to the Almighty may be shown by an act of Continental legislation, which shall put a stop to the importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their freedom." And he says, long afterward, to the French inhabitants of Louisiana who wished the power to import and enslave Africans, "Dare you put up a petition to Heaven for such a power without fearing to be struck from the earth by its justice?" But the person who wrote the passage on slavery in the original draft of the Declaration could never have kept a slave in bondage, if any thing can be gathered from the nobility, the manliness, the justice, and the philanthropy of its spirit. But Jefferson, while he has left on record his opposition in words to slavery, has left also on record his acts to contradict both them and the Declaration. I here draw the veil over Jefferson as a slaveholder.

While Mr. Jefferson was far above the average mind, yet from his mental make-up, either in his head, heart, character, or capacity, he could not be the author of the Declaration of Independence. Neither in the circumstances of his previous life nor personal history, neither in the heart nor the head, can we find a foundation for the famous document. I know of but one man American born, at that day, with sufficient genius to write it—Benjamin Franklin—and he would have failed in the style and language, and especially in those fine strokes of the affection.[A]

For Mr. Paine to write the Declaration and be ready to hand it to the chairman of the committee, is characteristic of the man. He did the same thing at the "Thatched House" tavern meeting in England in 1791. Mr. Horne Tooke who signed the Address and Declaration as chairman of the meeting, received the document privately from the hand of Mr. Paine, and had Mr. Tooke not afterward disclaimed the authorship of it when charged upon him, Mr. Paine would never have revealed the secret. It was revealed in this manner: Mr. Tooke having spoken in commendation of the Declaration which he signed "was jocularly accused of praising his own work, and to free him from this embarrassment [says Mr. Paine], and the repeated trouble of mentioning the author, as he has not failed to do, I make no hesitation in saying, I drew up the publication," etc. Now, Mr. Paine was never guilty of praising his own work, and nowhere can I find that he ever praised the Declaration of Independence as a work, or that he ever mentioned Junius but once. [B]Had Mr. Jefferson been the author of the Declaration, Mr. Paine no doubt would have called it "A masterly performance."

And thus it is, his hand is seen, though not publicly acknowledged, in all those first principles upon which the fabric of our government rests. And it was the peculiarity of this great man to do the work, and let others carry off the honors.

Note A.

Truly speaking, there is no original Declaration in existence. There are several "original" Declarations extant, all differing somewhat. John Adams had one, Benjamin Franklin, it is said, had one in England. Richard Henry Lee and others had "originals," all in manuscript. The one I have followed may be found in Marshall's Life of Washington, and does not differ, only in a few minor respects, from the one in Jefferson's works, Washington edition. The real original was destroyed as soon as copied, and we have only nature to guide us in the study of one which is almost a faithful copy.

Note B.

GRAND OUTLINES OF THOMAS PAINE'S LIFE.

Were I to write the biography of Thomas Paine, I should, with a bold hand, transcend the low office of a chronicler, and hand him down in history thus:

Thomas Paine was of Quaker origin. In this he inherited more than paternal flesh and blood, more than family form and feature: he had transmitted to him the principles of George Fox—principles which were, when Mr. Paine was born, more than a hundred years old. These were a reliance on the internal evidences of the conscience, prompting to moral action and to the love of God. In this the shadow of Fox fell athwart the Scriptures. The internal light was with him greater than that which shone down on the centuries from Jesus of Nazareth. The religions, and creeds, and opinions of the world were to be brought to the bar of conscience for trial, and "the motions of the spirit"—not the teachings of the Bible—were to be taken in evidence. His principles were universal in the heart of man—not particular in any special book.

To these religious principles was added simplicity of conduct in all the ways of life. In religious or civil affairs, whether at home or abroad, with his fellow-man or his God, he was to obey the behests of nature, and not of man. To avoid the extravagance of dress, to walk with dignity and grace, to deal uprightly, to love mercy, to rely on the light within, to train the heart to courage and the head to understanding, became the chief aim of all the followers of Fox. The consequence was, they never bent the knee to the forms of worship, nor uncovered the head to the forms of fashion. To the Quaker, a virtuous, upright, and honorable laborer was of as much consequence, in the line of respect and the eyes of God, as the noblest lord of the realm. No outward show, no pageantry of church or court, could awaken him to respect. He looked within: there he felt the movings of the spirit, there he saw the image of his God, there he went in to worship.

What must be the result of this religion? It must transmit self-reliance, fortitude, courage, and morality to the individual, and a sympathy for mankind which will grant the equality of rights, and produce a contempt for outward show, for outward forms and ceremonies. These characteristics will be transmitted to children's children, and democracy is born into a race of men before they know it, or before they know how or why. But here an effect must not be taken for a cause. It was the democratic principle abroad in the world which produced the Quaker religion, not this religion which produced it, and this religion became afterward an engine for thrusting democracy more deeply into the constitution of man. It had a work to do, and it did it by inheritance. It was the democracy of Cromwell, "that accomplished President of England," which could sympathize with the religion of Fox, which could see no wrong in the man, and which could protect him from persecution. On the other hand, it was the religion of Penn, which would insult the pride of nobles by not uncovering itself, and bowing in the presence of royalty.

Now, every religion has a birth, growth, culmination, and subsequent decay. It culminates in the production of some great man, who represents, and at the same time transcends, the causes which produced him, and who afterward abandons the religion which gave him birth. It has then fulfilled its work, and will eventually die. Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of the Jewish religion; Luther, of the Catholic. The minor religions obey the same law. Unitarianism culminated in Theodore Parker; Quakerism, in Thomas Paine. At the culminating point, the typical child which is born, grows up, and comes out from or tramples upon the religion which produced him, and is called a "come-outer," a "protester," an "image-breaker," or an "infidel." But he has been produced by causes over which he had no control, and is the result for which they existed. With him the religion declines, and eventually will expire.

The Quaker religion culminated on the 29th of January, 1737, in the little town of Thetford, and county of Norfolk, England, in the birth of Thomas Paine. Here Nature deserted her connection with the meeting, and took up her abode in the soul of the child. She has concentrated herein the democracy of centuries, and the special forces of a hundred years. The great principles of democracy have all been gathered here, and organized into a power which will move the world.

Nature has also given a hardy physical constitution, without corruption of blood or bodily disease, and this health of body shall carry him safe through the three-score and ten, with a fraction of years to spare. Let us now follow the lines of his life.

A religious antagonism between father and mother, both before and after his birth, strengthened the child's mind, for we grow strong only through antagonism. But he inclined to the Quaker principles of the father, who had him privately named, and did not suffer him to be baptized, though he was afterward confirmed by a bishop, through the influence of an aunt. But the outward acts of omission or commission, by priest or parent, counted nothing in the life of the child; for he had thoughts of his own as soon as old enough to reflect, and he had great gifts of inspiration, for there came to him thoughts "which would bolt into the mind of their own accord." Of this intuition or inspiration he says: "I have always made it a rule to treat those voluntary visitors with civility, taking care to examine, as well as I was able, if they were worth entertaining, and it is from them I have acquired almost all the knowledge that I have." Here those inherited principles, the result of previous ages of thought, concentrated within the child's mind, began to teach him, and he listened to their instruction at an early age. "I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age," says he, "hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church [not of the Quaker meeting], upon the subject of what is called redemption by the death of the son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps, for I perfectly recollect the spot, I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son when he could not revenge himself in any other way; and, as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons." Here the young child's mind was shocked, and the "voice of God" within taught him much wisdom—more than he could get in all the sermons of the bishops.

His father, from Quaker principles, gave him moral instruction which never left him in after life. He sent him also, to a grammar school, where he learned some Latin and became acquainted with the subject matter of all the Latin books used in school; but this was clandestinely done, as the Quakers were opposed to the books in which the language was taught. He says he did not study Latin for the above reason, and because he had no taste for it. But at school and at home he gained a useful stock of learning, "the bent of his mind being to science."

But when the lad was thirteen he was taken from school, as it had long been too heavy a tax upon his father, and he was put to work in the shop as stay-maker. He enters into full sympathy with his father, and works by his side three years. The "good father," as he afterward calls him, pays out no more for the son's education; he has already been "sorely pressed" for this purpose.

But during these three years at the stay-making business, many thoughts have "bolted into his mind," strange "voluntary visitors," talking of war, the army and navy. These thoughts have been "heated by the false heroism" of his former master, and have set the lad's mind on fire, burning up all peace and contentment. So in the year 1753, a little the rise of sixteen, he began to carve out his own fortune by going to sea in the privateer, "King of Prussia." The "good father" must have "thought him lost," but this was a phantom of the imagination in both father and son. There is a principle in him which shall hold him steady on land and sea. Restless and venturesome, driven by a force he wots not of, the little island of Britain could not confine him, much less his father's shop. Here he satisfies the war spirit, and tinges his skeptical mind with a slight shade of sailors' superstition. Yet with this adventure of "false heroism against him" in setting out in life, he passes through a schooling with the world which shall make for him mightily in the end. He never considered this beginning in his favor, and has said but little about it. I can not find out how long he lived on the sea, but he turns up at Sandwich five or six years afterward as master stay-maker. Here he married to Mary Lambert, a young woman of much personal worth, who, dying a year afterward, leaves a shade on his mind for life.

But his employment did not suit the turn of his mind, and near the close of 1763 he entered the employ of government as exciseman. For a faithful performance of his duty he was dismissed from this office, because the impartial performance of that duty would expose him to the censure of the power which invested him with office. I say for a faithful performance of his duty he was dismissed, and for these reasons I say it:

Honest and capable he has wounded the corrupt heart of the government. Too proud to retract, too honest to confess, he is turned out of office to brood over his offense. The government has also stabbed him to the heart, and the stab reaches to the most tender chords, his personal pride, his honor. This sets on fire his whole nature, yet darkly secretive it becomes molten lava in his own breast. It will some day burst forth a consuming fire. "Vengeance is mine," says the war-spirit within him. "Bide thy time," says caution. "Keep thy own council," says secretiveness. He has now an object in view, his resolution is made.

"I will strike the dagger to the heart of profligate lords and courtiers. I will trample on the pride of kings, and fortified with that proud integrity, that disdain to triumph or to yield, I will advocate the rights of man." He now steps forth to begin his life's work.

He waits not long to brood over his miseries, but immediately sets off for London to inform the mind. A little the rise of twenty-eight he enters fully into the study of the natural sciences, and teaches in an academy to defray expenses. He attends the philosophical lectures of Mr. Martin and Ferguson, and becomes acquainted with Dr. Bevis, the astronomer and member of the Royal Society. He made himself master of the globes and orrery, and acquired a knowledge of natural philosophy, a term which then took in a wide field of science. We find him well acquainted with chemistry, and also the higher mathematics. Here he doubtless studied French, for afterward we find when called from an active life to visit France he could read but not speak the language. Yet this, as well as rhetoric and law, and many other branches of learning, he could acquire while in the employ of government.

It is evident that while at London this year he threw his whole soul into study.

How easily he could have risen to preferment in any branch of natural science must have been well known to himself when coming in contact with these great minds of his age. But he has other work on hand.

There are many reasons for concluding he became acquainted with Franklin this year, among them these five:

Mr. Paine now makes application to be restored to the office from which he was dismissed. On his petition was written: "July 4th, 1766; to be restored on a proper vacancy." The Fourth of July is ominous. Great events are in store for this young man within the next ten years. He quits the society of the learned and the halls of learning, and goes down at the most hopeful and ambitious period of life into this "inferior office of the revenue" to serve for the "petty pittance of less than fifty pounds a year." Does he go there to satisfy his taste for learning, or to get rich? No; but to reach the object of his ambition. He goes there to spy out the meanness, the corruption, the villainy, the abandoned profligacy of the British Government.

The British Government has now a masked enemy who is coming in and going out at the nation's doors, not a spy upon her liberties, but her villainies, a foe to the one and a friend to the other.

But he has not forsaken his studies, he is just entering upon them. Taking up English history he makes it a study, which becomes the history of the civilized world, for it reaches out into Spain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, America, India, and Rome. Mr. Paine followed its lines into all countries. He also made a study of her laws and the principles of her constitution, and read the French commentators thereon, at the same time he had an eye to politics and the personal history of her living public men. For three years and a half, together with his public duties, he labored to lay a foundation for a long and active literary life.

Do you ask how I know this? I answer, because when he came to America he was thus accomplished, and when he went into the excise office he was not.

It is now six years since he first entered the employ of government, one year of which time he spent in the arts and sciences, and nearly four as student, officer, and detective for the sons of freedom throughout the world. He is, by nature, a detective of the highest order. He has formed the friendship of Benjamin Franklin, who, at the court, is also a detective, and what he knows of America and the English court shall now be made known. He has written "numberless trifles" for the public press to get his hand in, and now, having a definite plan formed, and a noble object in view, he opens the new year of 1769, with something which indeed is new. It was the first Letter of "Junius," named after Junius Brutus, who stabbed Cæsar for having usurped the liberties of Rome. Junius thrust home his dagger. This stab went to the heart of a rotten court, and, since Cromwell, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to England. The people read it with mingled sentiments of fear and hope; the partisan read it with fear and rage; the scholar, with feelings of respect; the courtesan, with pallor on his cheek, and trembling in his limbs; and the king and ministers, with sentiments of torture and frenzy. But when Franklin took it up, with what feelings of hope and pride did he read and re-read the paragraphs in regard to the colonies, which began with this sentence: "A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the colonies from their duty as subjects, and from their natural affection to their common country." This is the key note to the Declaration of Independence, which shall appear seven years afterward. The dagger was driven to the hilt. Paine long afterward said: "The cause of America made me an author."

Three years, to a day, and he is Junius no more. His object was revolution on British soil, the ministers brought to trial, and the king deposed. He called for a leader in vain—he wrote against fate. But the work must go on. He consecrates himself anew to the cause; he dedicates his life to the good of man. Friend, kindred, wife, and the dear, native land, weigh lightly in the balance against the "business of a world." He leaves them all. His mind has been liberated from the prejudices of an island by the study of astronomy, and a life on the sea, and schooled by disappointment in political strife, he turns his face to the West.

He has left his second wife; parted with her forever. Mr. Paine was a man of strong personal attachment; he had deep and lasting affection. But what was wife to the "business of a world." Long after this separation, in his old age, after he had gone through two revolutions, the American and the French, Mrs. Paine, though not agreeing with Thomas in religious opinions, on hearing him disrespectfully spoken of because he had written the Age of Reason, indignantly left the company of his revilers. And Mr. Paine, when asked why did you leave your wife, would respond: "I had a cause; it is no business of any body." True to her during life, and she to him, there is more in this than has been revealed.

But before he leaves England there is a definite plan formed, it is revolution and reconciliation; but if not reconciliation, it is revolution and independence. Tyranny shall be destroyed at all hazards. He prepares himself for war, "and if the English Government wins in the contest," says Paine, "she wins from me my life." He leaves all his world's goods for the support of his wife, his capital stock is his pen. Franklin understands it all. He knows full well this son of a Quaker, this Junius of the quill, and he feels the need of him for America's sake, and that scientific head of his thinks soundly on the work which shall tell for the ages. Franklin was then acknowledged to be the greatest man in the world, as he was; and the same judgment which never led him wrong, and which made for him renown, pronounced also on the character and abilities of Thomas Paine. These two men perfectly agreed in politics and religion, and this covers the whole realm of opinion. Their origin and their leading traits of character were the same; secretive, cautious, courageous, and proud of heart, witty and sarcastic, deeply read in the history of the world and of the human heart, having come out of the loins of toil and the lap of poverty, the history of their lives blend and conspire to unite their affections and direct their labors. What these two men shall do, the world is yet too stupid to think about. But their plan is made in England, and under the patronage of the one the other is introduced to America.

If you truly believe Benjamin Franklin to be a fool, let me tell you how you can demonstrate it. Prove to the world that Thomas Paine began his literary life in America, and that Franklin intrusted the greatest work of a nation, and the business of a world to an obscure English exciseman, without previous history or character, and your point is made. Yet this is just what chronologists would have us believe; but history delves beneath recorded events.

Franklin was then an old man, he had almost reached his three-score years and ten; Paine was thirty-one years and twelve days the younger. Franklin has fifteen years of life and labor before him yet; Paine thirty-four. The young scion of Democracy is growing up from the same root by the side of the old stalk. Here youth supports old age, and the boughs interlock, and they shall thus stand firm, supported by each other against the terrible shocks which are yet to come during the "hurricane months" of political revolution. "I am the sole depository of my own secret, and it shall perish with me," said Junius; but Franklin had been taught of nature, and the secret was kept.

Near the close of the year 1774, Junius lands in America, and begins to dwell in the capital of the colonies, Philadelphia. Many things conspired to take him there: it was the Quaker city of brotherly love; it was Franklin's home; and, above all, the Continental Congress sat there.

Immediately, that is, within two months after landing, he is employed as editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. He did not write as editors do, but his contributions appeared over the signature of Atlanticus—a name which, like Junius, was the shadow of the writer. From the first he wielded a mighty pen, and his contributions were noticed and highly commended. The following extract is from one of his first efforts in America, and consequently stands almost a year closer to Junius than Common Sense. As it shows the hand of a master, long trained at the art, I give it here, as a perfect sample of Junius:

"Though nature is gay, polite, and generous abroad, she is sullen, rude, and niggardly at home. Return the visit, and she admits you with all the suspicion of a miser, and all the reluctance of an antiquated beauty retired to replenish her charms. Bred up in antediluvian notions, she has not yet acquired the European taste of receiving visitants in her dressing-room; she locks and bolts up her private recesses with extraordinary care, as if not only resolved to preserve her hoards, but to conceal her age, and hide the remains of a face that was young and lovely in the days of Adam. He that would view nature in her undress, and partake of her internal treasures, must proceed with the resolution of a robber, if not a ravisher. She gives no invitation to follow her to the caverns: the external earth makes no proclamation of the internal stores, but leaves to chance and industry the discovery of the whole. In such gifts as nature can annually recreate she is noble and profuse, and entertains the whole world with the interest of her fortunes, but watches over the capital with the care of a miser. Her gold and jewels lie concealed in the earth in caves of utter darkness; the hoards of wealth, heaps upon heaps, mould in the chests, like the riches of the necromancer's cell. It must be very pleasant to an adventurous speculatist to make excursions into these gothic regions, and in his travels he may possibly come to a cabinet, locked up in some rocky vault, whose treasures shall reward his toil, and enable him to shine, on his return, as splendidly as nature herself."

The massacre of Lexington takes place the 19th of April, this year. Paine had been but a few months in America. Franklin is in the middle of the Atlantic, on his way home. He arrives in May, and the Declaration of Independence is now in existence, but only conceived in thought. It will have to bide its time, locked up there in the brain; besides, events are yet to happen which shall be put in it, and the country is not yet prepared for it. The people have no unanimity of sentiment. Congress is weak and trifling; it wants reconciliation, and permits the British to land troops, to destroy the liberties of the people, and to steal the powder of the colonies. The country must be roused to sentiments of patriotism, and the magazines must be filled with powder, to support the Declaration of Independence, before it appears to the world.

Mr. Paine now sets about the work. He wishes the American people to be consistent—to not talk of liberty without acting it out; and he gives them "Serious Thoughts" on negro slavery to think about. It is a feeler, sent out to test public sentiment, and to put the people to thinking in the right direction. He struck—as he always did—when the iron was hot; and, between the hammer and the iron, sparks were emitted which kept burning in America for ninety years. His words were: "Stop the importation of negroes, soften the hard fate of those already here, and in time procure their freedom." He believed that the justice of Heaven would some day blot it out. This piece brought Mr. Paine many friends and high hopes. Common Sense shortly afterward came from the press, to stir up revolution in the hearts of the people.

He now turns his attention to chemistry, experiments in the art of making saltpeter cheaply, publishes his researches, and organizes a company to gratuitously supply the public magazines with powder. He is boldly working out his plan. He gives Common Sense to each colony by copyright, and the poor, ignorant dolts of that age and this age wonder why he did not make himself rich in the sale of it. The fools must learn that he was making patriots, not pounds and pence, to serve his purpose and plan. Franklin smiles at the work as it goes on, for to effect a revolution the country will be sorely in need of powder and patriotism. But Washington they can rely on for this latter. When others fail whose mouths were always open to profess liberty, he shall stand firm; when they desert the cause, he shall strike the harder and more nobly.

When war begins public sentiment changes quickly. The American people are now ready for war, made so within a few months. Congress comes together with more strength in its back-bone, more pluck in its heart; and, on the 7th of June, a committee of five is appointed to draft a Declaration of Independence. Thomas Paine makes a concise reproduction of Common Sense; constructs it upon mechanical principles, so that it will first convince the understanding, and, having entered the head, will soon reach the heart, for it is made on purpose to storm the passions of men. He privately hands it to Thomas Jefferson. It is quite fortunate that he was chairman of that committee. But in the act the honor of Thomas Paine is pledged for secrecy; it is an honor without spot, and he locks up the act forever in his own breast with Junius.

The Declaration is read on the streets amid cheers; it is read in churches with thanksgiving and praise; it is read in the legislative halls of the states, and at the firesides of patriots; it is read in the camp of the soldier, and by officers to their battalions; it is proclaimed by the congress of the new nation, and from the house-tops to all mankind. It is the second child of a man who has on his hands the "BUSINESS OF A WORLD."

Now let the nation buckle on its armor, and look forward to peace won only in blood. The Declaration of Independence is an easy thing compared with what is to come. We shall see this man's work in war.

Washington is at the head of the army; John Adams, whose head is a perfect battery of war forces, is at the head of the board of war. Upon this man's office depends more than any other in the nation, for he is Secretary of War. Mr. Paine has no office, no power of position, not known to the nation, nor to the world, for Common Sense was thought to be the production of Franklin or John Adams. Thomas Paine had great faith in Washington, not so much in Lee. John Adams distrusted Washington, and called him "a dolt," but put great confidence in Lee, an English deserter, and more than an American traitor. Paine never misjudged a man; John Adams never judged a man rightly. As colonies, this country has done much for independence; as a nation, nothing. She is now to be tried.

Paine enlists as a soldier with the "Flying Camp."

The British fleet is repulsed from Charleston, S.C., and can not land her army of English, Scotch, and Hessians; but now, in August, she effects a landing on Long Island. Washington is there with twenty thousand men with guns, but no soldiers in arms. He loses a battle on Long Island, and retreats therefrom. In October, he loses the battle of White Plains. In November, Fort Washington, with two thousand six hundred men, and our best cannon and arms are taken by the British command, and Fort Lee falls, leaving commissary and quartermasters' stores and cannon in the hands of the British. Washington now retreats through the Jerseys, the British hard after. As they retreat, Paine writes at night on a drum-head. In nineteen days, "often in sight and within cannon-shot of each other, the rear of the one employed in pulling down bridges, and the van of the other in building them up," Washington effected a march of ninety miles. The weather was severe, the roads bad, and his army without blankets, tents, or provisions. In four months his army dwindles from twenty thousand down to less than three thousand. In the meantime, the Indians have been committing ravages on the frontier, and in the heart of the country a great party demand absolute submission. The Quakers oppose the war. There is no money to pay soldiers, nor clothing to put on them; they are poorly armed, and there is but little powder to put in the guns. Congress has only voted for battalions, and there is an enemy "in the nation's bowels" that votes can not resist. After Congress had voted for battalions, it took its flight from Philadelphia to Baltimore, destroying public credit and throwing upon Washington the responsibility of directing all things relative to the operations of the war. The fate of the nation rests in the balance; the beam is not equally poised, the nation is going down. Washington is beyond the Delaware; the Hessians are at Trenton. He makes a stand to look into the faces of but "twenty-four hundred men strong enough to be his companions." And on the 20th of December, he tells a voting and cowardly Congress: "Ten days more will put an end to this army." These are "black days."

Where now are the hopes of America? Where are the committeemen who took the Declaration of Independence into Congress? Franklin has gone to France to work for the nation; Jefferson has refused to go with him, and is at home in Virginia safe with his slaves. But where is John Adams, who said that Jefferson had stolen his ideas from him to put into the Declaration of Independence? Where is the chief representative from New England, this "Colossus" of debate, this chief of the war committee? Where is John Adams in this darkest hour of his country's trial? He has deserted her; he went home on the 13th of October after the first reverse, and is "brave in his home by the sea," but will not come back till four months are past, and Washington makes himself famous. The poor dupe to his passions. Lee he loved, Washington he hated; a patriot this, a traitor that. But where is the man who has on hand the business of a world? We shall see. In this midnight of the revolution he has been writing something. He has been in the army as a soldier, but has found time to write. It is his first crisis, and it runs thus:

"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 left with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph." He produces one of his most masterly pieces. He appeals to Heaven, and prays for some Jersey maid, like Joan of Arc, to spirit up her countrymen. He deals the king and Lord Howe heavy blows, deftly laid on; and of the tory, he says: "Good God! what is he? Every tory is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundation of toryism." Having reviewed the enemies of the country he then "turns with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood and are determined to stand the matter out." ... "Let them call me rebel and welcome," says he, "I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the miseries of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man." In this he also pays a tribute to Washington, in which he says: "God has given him a mind that can flourish upon care." "The heart that feels not now is dead, the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back now." "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength by distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm will pursue his principle unto death." "By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils—a ravaged country, a depopulated city, habitations without safety, and slavery without hope; our homes turned into barracks and bawdy houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented."

This little pamphlet was dated Dec. 23, 1776. It was read at the head of the regiments which made up the small remnant of Washington's army. On Christmas night, Washington recrosses the Delaware, and strikes the Hessians at Trenton the next morning. His horse is shot under him, but he wins his first battle and takes nearly a thousand prisoners, eight cannon, and twelve hundred small arms. A few days afterward, Washington struck the British at Princeton, who lost in killed and wounded two hundred, and of prisoners the Americans took two hundred and thirty. Many of Washington's best soldiers being now quite barefoot and badly clad, and the winter weather severe, he closed the first campaign made glorious for freedom by the pen of that man who had undertaken the "business of a world."

But in the fall and winter before this his pen was not idle. The new Constitution of Pennsylvania had distracted the State, and Paine tries to bring order out of chaos. He is not unmindful of the Quakers, who will not obey the teachings of their religion and remain neutral, and it is a severe chastisement he gives them, for he talks to them as one having authority.

Five weeks after the first campaign was ended John Adams came back to Congress, not willing to be called "a sunshine patriot" in his home by the sea. But it was not cowardice which made this chief of the war committee desert his post in the most trying months of his country—it was downright meanness of the temper. I mention him again here because in April this year, 1777, he makes a motion that Thomas Paine be made secretary to the committee on foreign affairs. Mr. Paine went on duty. This was, doubtless, brought about by Benjamin Franklin, who is now in France to secure the favors of the government, and as secrecy is the success of diplomacy, Franklin wants Paine to receive his dispatches, for in him he can trust. It was while in this office, as detective, that he was made acquainted with the misconduct of Silas Deane. The stores which Mr. Deane obtained from France were a gift to this country, but he afterward brought in a demand for them, fraudulently pretending that he had purchased them. This was in December, 1778. On the 29th of this month Mr. Paine began a series of letters in the Pennsylvania Packet entitled, "Common Sense to the Public on Mr. Deane's Affairs." He did this to protect the Government, and took the responsibility upon himself to save other parties. He began by saying of Mr. Deane, "as he rose like a rocket he would fall like a stick." Three letters had made their appearance when Mr. Paine was commanded to appear before Congress. The President inquired of him, "Did you write this piece?" "I am the author of that piece," responded Paine. "And this? and this?" "I am." "You may retire." The Congress tried to dismiss him. It was a tie vote. The next day, the 8th of January, 1779, Mr. Paine wrote to Congress as follows: "As I can not consistently with my character as a freeman, submit to be censured unheard, therefore to preserve that character and maintain that right, I think it my duty to resign the office of secretary of the committee for foreign affairs, and I do hereby resign the same."

He now opens up on Silas Deane a terrible battery of invective, and exposed the fraud so completely, that Congress became ashamed of supporting him, and Mr. Deane absconded to France, and afterward died in England, it is said, of remorse, after taking poison. But Mr. Paine became the "victim of his integrity," to save the money of the government, which the soldiers were sorely in need of, and to bravely push forward the "business of a world."

But, during this time, he has also written Nos. II, III, and IV of The Crisis. No. II is to Lord Howe, dated January 13, 1777. This is one of his finest pieces of satire, which is also filled with sentiments of patriotism, courage, and hope. These periodical productions are among his best efforts, and they were continued till the war ended. There are sixteen in all. They were written to produce patriotism in the hearts of the people. No. VIII, I think, is one of the finest productions I ever read. It is addressed to the people of England, and is the sad wailing of Junius.

In December of 1778, he puts forth the proposition to apply steam to navigation—the first thought of the kind in America, which came in advance of the fact about eight years, and in this America was the first in the world.

Mr. Paine offers, at this time, to be one of a party of four or five to set fire to the British fleet in the Delaware. But the three men like him can not be found.

In 1779 he is appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

In 1780 he is dissuaded and prevented from going to England to get out, in secret, a publication to stir up revolution there. The fates will not permit him to try Junius over again. It is as well.

But the spring of this year was marked with an accumulation of misfortunes to our army. The defense of Charleston had failed, and, besides this, there was no money to pay the soldiers. A general gloom rested on the whole country, patriotism was at its ebb, and petitions were abundant to exempt the people from paying taxes. Government had neither money nor credit, and things had come to a "dead lock." Washington wrote to the Assembly of Pennsylvania. The doors were shut, and it fell to Thomas Paine, the clerk, to read the letter.

"In this letter the naked truth of things was unfolded. Among other informations, the general said that, notwithstanding his confidence in the attachment of the army to the cause of the country, the distresses of it, from the want of every necessary which men could be destitute of, had arisen to such a pitch that the appearances of mutiny and discontent were so strongly marked on the countenances of the army, that he dreaded the event of every hour."