PAIN E. 203 
In April 1774, the goods of his (hop were fold to pay his 
debts. As a grocer, he trafficked in excifable articles; 
and, being fufpefted of unfair practices, was difmifl'ed the 
excife, after being in it twelve years. Yet, at the time 
he was an excifeman at Lewes, he was fo approved for 
doing his duty, that Mr. Jenner, principal clerk in the 
Excife-office, London, had feveral times occafion to 
write letters from the Board of Excife, thanking him for 
his affiduity in his profeffion. 
Here Mr. Cobbett flops to remark, that Paine, being 
turned out of the excife, and barred the church, began 
to write againfl church and ftate; calling the excife a 
“hell-born monfter,” and tythes the “ whore of Baby¬ 
lon.” 
In May following (1774), Mr. Paine and his wife fepa- 
rated by mutual agreement; articles of which were finally 
fettled on the 4th of June. Which of them was in this 
inftance in the wrong, or whether either of them were fo, 
muff be left undetermined : this I can afl'ert, (fays Clio 
Rickman,) that Paine always fpoke tenderly and refpedt- 
fully of his wife; and fent her feveral times pecuniary 
aid, without her knowing even whence it came. Mr. 
Oldys, on the contrary, fays, that fhe paid him 35I. fter- 
ling, upon condition that he would trouble her no more, 
nor claim any part of the property fhe might thereafter 
acquire. From Oldys’s account, it is evident that Mr. 
Paine married for the fake of getting his debts paid, (by 
means of the property which Mifs Ollive inherited from 
her father,) and that he cared nothing about the woman ; 
in fa£t, he never cohabited with her, though they lived in 
the fame houfe for three years. Some perfons, perhaps, 
may recolledl a cafe very fimilar to this, but in a higher 
rank of life. 
Paine now went again to London; and he foon 
after procured a recommendation to Dr. Franklin in 
America. He accordingly failed in September 1774, and 
Strived at Philadelphia a few months before the battle of 
Lexington. He was firfl engaged as fhopman by Mr. 
Aitkin, bookfeller in Philadelphia, at the wages of 20I. 
a-year. In November 1775, he was employed in a labo¬ 
ratory. He took great pains in experiments for the pur- 
pofe of difeovering fome cheap and expeditious method of 
making faltpetre. He was alfo the propofer of a plan for 
the voluntary fupplying of the public magazines with 
unpowder. On the 10th of January, 1776, was publifhed 
is “ Common Senfe.” This was eagerly read. On the 
19th of December, 1776, he publifhed, in the Pennfyl- 
vania Journal, the firft number of “The Crifis,” in¬ 
tended to encourage the Americans in their oppofition 
to the Britifh government. The Crifis he continued to 
publifli till a ceffation of hoftilities between America and 
Britain was proclaimed, on the 19th of April, 1783. 
In Auguft 1782, Paine publifhed a Letter to the Abbe 
Raynal, in confequence of the latter author’s publication 
of his Hiftory of the Revolution of America. His next 
production was a Letter to the Earl of Shelburne, on the 
effects likely to arife to Great Britain from the indepen¬ 
dence of America. His labours had not yet received any 
fubftantial reward: but, in the year 1785, the ftate of 
Pennfylvania, in which he firft publifhed Common Senfe 
and The Crifis, prefented him, by an aCl: of legiflature, 
with 500I. currency; and New-York gave him an eftate 
at New Rochelle, in the county of Weltchefter, confifting 
of more than three hundred acres of land in high cultiva¬ 
tion : on this eftate was an elegant ftone houfe, 125 by 28 
feet, befides out-houfes. 
After the eftablifhment of the independence of Ame¬ 
rica, feeling his exertions no longer requifite in that 
country, he embarked for France, and arrived at Paris 
early in 1787, carrying with him his fame as a literary 
man, and profound politician. At this time he prefented 
to the Academy of Sciences the model of a bridge which 
he invented, the principle of which has fince been highly 
celebrated and approved. From Paris he arrived in Eng¬ 
land on the 3d of September, juft thirteen years after his 
departure for Philadelphia. Prompted by that filial affec¬ 
tion which his conduct had ever manifefted, he haftened 
to Thetford to vifit his mother, on whom he fettled an’ 
allowance of nine fhillings a-week. Of this comfortable 
folace fhe was afterwards deprived, by the bankruptcy of 
the merchant in wdiom the truft was vefted. Mr. Paine 
refided at Rotherham in Yorkfliire during part of the 
•ear 1788, where an iron bridge, upon the principle al- 
uded to, was caft and erefted, and obtained for him 
among the mathematicians of Europe a high reputation. 
In the erection of this, a confiderable fum had been ex¬ 
pended, for which he was haftily arrefted by the affignees 
of an American merchant, and thrown into confinement. 
From this, however, and the debt, he cleared himfelf in 
about three weeks. More or lefs upon this plan of Mr. 
Paine’s, the different iron bridges in Europe have been 
cohftrufted. 
The publication of Mr. Burke’s “ Refledlions on the 
French Revolution,” produced in reply from Mr. Paine 
his univerfally-known work, the “ Rights of Man.” The 
Firft Part of this work was written partly at the Angel 
at Iflington, partly in Eaft Harding-ftreet, Fetter-lane; 
and finifhed at Verfailles. In February 1791, this book 
made its appearance in London, and many hundred thou- 
fand copies were rapidly fold. It was dedicated to gene¬ 
ral Wafhington. The Second Part was publifhed in Fe¬ 
bruary 1792. Never had any work fo rapid and extenfive 
a fale; and it has been calculated that near a million and 
a half of copies were printed and publifhed in England. 
Thus far we have had the affiftance of Mr. Oldys’s Life 
of Paine, which was publifhed at Philadelphia in 1793. 
Mr. Paine was now refiding at the houfe of Mr. Clio 
Rickman, another of his biographers, and his great ad¬ 
mirer. On the 12th of September, 1792, he failed for 
France with Mr. Achilles Audibert, “ who came exprefs 
from the French Convention to my houfe, (fays this bio¬ 
grapher,) to requeft his perfonal affiftance in their deli¬ 
berations. On his arrival at Calais, a public dinner was 
provided, a royal falute was fired from the battery, the 
troops were drawn out, and there was a general rejoicing 
throughout the town. He has often been heard to re¬ 
mark, that the proudeft moment of his life was that in 
which, on this occafion, he fet foot upon the Gallic 
fhore.” About the time of his arrival at Paris the Na¬ 
tional Convention began to divide itfelf into factions; 
the king’s friends had been completely fubdued by the 
fupprefiion of the Feuillans, the affair of the 10th of An- 
guft, and the maffacre of the 2d and 3d of September ; 
while the Jacobins, who had been hitherto confidered as 
the patriotic party, became in their turn divided into dif¬ 
ferent cabals, fome of them wiffiing a federative govern¬ 
ment, others, the Enrages, defiring the death of the 
king, and of all allied to the nobility ; but none of thofe 
were republicans. Thofe few deputies who had juft ideas 
of a commonwealth, and whole leader was Paine, did not 
belong to the Jacobin club. He laboured inceffantly td 
preferve the lite of the king, and he fucceeded in making 
iome converts to his opinions on this fubjedt; and his life 
would have been faved, but for Barrere, who, having been 
appointed by Robefpierre to an office he was ambitious 
of obtaining, and certainly very fit for, his influence 
brought with it forty votes : fo early was corruption in¬ 
troduced into this affembly. 
Paine’s opinion upon this fubjeil wasalways the fame ; 
and in 1804 he thus fpeaksofit: “ With refpedt to the 
revolution, it was begun by good men on good princi¬ 
ples ; and I have ever believed it would have gone on fo, 
had not the interference of foreign powers diffracted 
it into madnefs, and fown jealoufies among the leaders.” 
“ I was one of the nine members that convpofed the firft 
Committee of Conftitution. Six of them have been de- 
ftroyed : Sieyes and myfelf have furvived ; he by bend¬ 
ing with the times, and I by not bending. The other 
furvivor joined Robefpierre, and figned with him this 
warrant for my arreft. After the fall of Robefpierre, he 
was 
