Durpun "the cheap edition of a thousand copies," which Dr. Smith sells off at two shillings a copy in his life of Duff, as noted above, stands at something less than a hundred. Here is the statement made by the Sumachar Durpun:— "We understand that some time since a large number of the works of Tom Paine, not far short of a hundred, were sent for sale to Calcutta from America; and that one of the native booksellers, despairing of a sale, fixed the price of each copy at a rupee; a few were sold at this price, which falling into the hands of some young men educated in English, the anxiety to purchase the work became great. The vendor immediately raised the price to five rupees a copy, but even at that price we hear that his whole stock was sold among the natives in a few days. Some one soon after took the trouble to translate some part of Paine's 'Age of Reason' into Bengalee, and to publish it in the Prubhakar, calling upon the missionaries and upon one venerable character by name to reply to it. We at the same time received several letters from some of the most respectable natives in Calcutta, subscribers of the Durpun, but staunch Hindoos, entreating us not to notice the challenge, or to make the pages of this journal the area for theological disputations."
Whoever gave way to "lawless lust and western vice," and comforted themselves with cold secularism
