THE TOWN OF NEW ROCHELLE. 69 1 



under the confiscation act, by the State government act, to the notorious 

 Thomas Paine, for services he had rendered the country during the Rev- 

 olutionary struggle for independence. This remarkable man was the 

 son of a Quaker, a stay-maker by trade, and was born at Thetford, Nor- 

 folk, England, in 1737. His mother was the daughter of an attor- 

 ney — herself a member of the Church of England. ' In her religious 

 principles, the son appears to have been educated ; for we find he was 

 confirmed, at the usual age, by the Bishop of Norwich. After leaving 

 school, (at the early age of thirteen,) Paine embraced his father's trade 

 as a stay-maker, in which he continued five years. He next ventured 

 on a sea-faring life. In 1759 he again established himself in stay-mak- 

 ing, and married his first wife, Mary Lambert, who died the next year, 

 in consequence of his bad treatment of her. 



Two years after this, he obtained a place in the excise, from which he 

 was twice expelled for mal-practices. In 177 1 he married his second 

 wife, Elizabeth Olive, from whom in three years he obtained a divorce. 

 In 1 774 he composed his first production, (an election song,) for which he 

 obtained three guineas. The great Franklin found him a garret writer in 

 London, and was the first person who advised him to come to this country. 

 In Philadelphia, under the auspices of such men as Rush, Franklin and 

 others, he prepared and published his " Common Sense ; " a work which 

 appears to have been well-timed, and calcuated to rouse the enthusiasm 

 of the brave asserters of independence. As a work of merit, it was well 

 suited to the times in which it was first published ; but, as his own biog- 

 rapher remarks, " it is defective in arrangement, inelegant in diction, 

 with a few exceptions showing little profundity of argument, no facility 

 of remark, no extent of research, and no classical allusion, and cannot 

 be appealed to as authority on government." Its popularity was owing 

 entirely to the critical juncture of the times. 



He afterwards published his " Crisis." In 1777 he was elected secre- 

 tary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, from which office he was dis- 

 missed, in 1779, f° r a scandalous breach of trust; and this was decreed 

 by the assembled wisdom of the States. About this period, the State 

 of New York presented the farm which he afterwards occupied. 



In 1787 he formed the design of producing a revolution in England, 

 his native country. At this time the infidels of France were ripening 

 their plots in Paris; Paine joined with them, and viewed with rapture 

 the rising revolution in England. His infidel and revolutionary princi- 

 ples were opposed by the powerful and eloquent Burke, who, with other 

 noble-mmded coadjutors, crushed the revolution in that country, and 

 sentenced Paine as an outlaw: 



