Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/806

792 PAINE After independence was declared Paine volun- teered in Gen. Roberdeau's division of the flying camp, and afterward was aide-de-camp to Gen. Greene. In December, 1776, he published his first " Crisis," which began with the phrase : " These are the times that try men's souls." This was read by order at the head of every regiment, and did much to rouse the drooping ardor of the people. A second number of the " Crisis " appeared after the battle of Trenton, and other numbers at irregular intervals, until the 18th and last on the attainment of peace, April 19, 1783. In 1777 he was elected secre- tary to the committee on foreign affairs, but was censured by congress and obliged to re- sign for making improper use of official se- crets in his letters in the "Pennsylvania Pack- et" against Silas Deane. In November, 1779, he was elected clerk to the general assembly of Pennsylvania. In the following June a letter was received by the assembly of Penn- sylvania from Gen. "Washington, saying that, notwithstanding his confidence in the attach- ment of the army to the cause of the country, he feared their distresses would soon cause mutiny in the ranks. This letter was read by Paine as clerk. A despairing silence pervaded the hall, and the assembly soon adjourned. Paine wrote to Blair McClenaghan, a merchant of Philadelphia, explaining the urgency of af- fairs, and enclosed in the letter $500, the amount of salary due him as clerk, as his con- tribution toward a relief fund. McClenaghan called a meeting next day and read Paine's let- ter ; a subscription list was immediately circu- lated, and in a short time 300,000 Pennsylva- nia currency was collected. With this as a capital, the Pennsylvania bank (afterward ex- panded into the bank of North America) was established for the relief 6f the army. In 1781 Paine was sent with Col. Laurens to France to negotiate a loan, and secured 6,000,000 livres from the French government, and its guarantee for 10,000,000 advanced by Holland. In 1782 he wrote a "Letter to the Abbe Raynal," cor- recting mistakes in the account by the latter of the American revolution. In January, 1785, he was elected a member of the American philosophical society, and in the following Oc- tober received $3,000 from congress as a testi- monial for his services during the revolution ; and the state of New York granted him a house . and farm of 300 acres in New Rochelle, it be- ing the confiscated estate of a royalist. On April 26, 1787, he sailed for France, where he was cordially received by many eminent men. He submitted the model of an iron bridge which he had invented to the academy of sci- ences at Paris, whose opinion of its merits was decidedly favorable. In September he visited his mother in England, and wrote the "Prospects of the Rubicon." In 1788 he resided at Rotherham in Yorkshire, super- intending the erection of his iron bridge, of which Stephenson says: "If we are to con- sider Paine as its author, his daring in engi- neering certainly does full justice to the fervor of his political career; for successful as the result has undoubtedly proved, want of ex- perience and consequent ignorance of the risk could alone have induced so bold an experi- ment; and we are rather led to wonder at than admire a structure which, as regards its proportions, and the quantity of material em- ployed in its construction, will probably re- main unrivalled." This bridge was put up for exhibition in an open field at Paddington, and was afterward taken down and the materials used in the one which now spans the river Wear at Sunderland. In 1791 appeared the first part of his " Rights of Man," written as a reply to Burke's " Reflections on the French Revolution;" the second part was issued in 1792. This work had an immense circulation, and was translated into French. The Ameri- can edition was prefaced with a commendatory note by Thomas Jefferson. In 1792 he gave the revolutionary society of England an order on Jordan, his publisher, for 1,000, to be ap- plied in the furtherance of their objects. In September of the same year a deputation from France announced to Paine his election to the French national convention from the depart- ment of Calais. He immediately left England to take his seat, and met with a triumphant re- ception in Paris. The revolutionary doctrines of the " Rights of Man" caused his indictment in London for sedition. The following Decem- ber his trial took place, and, not appearing to receive his sentence, he was outlawed. In the national convention Paine generally voted with the Girondists. He was associated with Brissot and Condorcet on the committee that framed the constitution of 1793. As a member of the convention, he advocated the trial of Louis XVI. ; but when the sentence of that unfortu- nate monarch came up for discussion, he op- posed his death, and suggested his banishment to America. He incurred the ill will of the extreme party, and was imprisoned by Robes- pierre as a foreigner. On his way to prison he placed the manuscript of the first part of his "Age of Reason" in the hands of Joel Barlow. His confinement lasted from January to November, 1794. When he was first arrest- ed, the Americans in Paris went in a body to apply for the release of " the apostle of liberty in America," as they styled him ; but they were unsuccessful. A few months after the death of Robespierre, James Monroe, the American minister in France, procured his liberation, and tendered him a home in his own family, which Paine enjoyed for about 18 months. In De- cember he resumed his seat in the national con- vention, on the invitation of its members. In 1795 the second part of the "Age of Reason" appeared. It was denounced as atheistical, but unjustly. It assailed Christianity with great boldness, though not advancing many new ar- guments, or displaying any great study of the subject. Its position is deistical, declaring a belief in God and a future life. In April, 1796,