oppressed Americans. They had not ventured to harbour the idea of independence, and they dreaded war so much as to be anxious for reconciliation with Britain. One incident which gave a stimulus to the pamphlet "Common Sense" was, that it happened to appear on the very day that the King of England's speech reached the United States, in which the Americans were denounced as rebels and traitors, and in which speech it was asserted to be the right of the Legislature of England to bind the Colonies in all cases whatsoever! Such menace and assertion as this could not fail to kindle the ire of the Americans, and "Common Sense" came forward to touch their feelings with the spirit of independence in the very nick of time.

On the 4th of July, in the same year, the independence of the United States was declared, and Paine had then become so much an object of esteem, that he joined the army, and was with it a considerable time. He was the common favourite of all the officers, and every other liberal-minded man, that advocated the independence of his country, and preferred liberty to slavery. It does not appear that Paine held any rank in the army, but merely assisted with his advice and presence as a private individual. Whilst with the army, he began, in December of the same year, to publish his papers intitled "The Crisis." These came out as small pamphlets and appeared in the newspapers, they were written occasionally, as circumstances required. The chief object of these seems to have been to encourage the Americans, to stimulate them to exertion in support and defence of their independence, and to rouse their spirits after any little disaster or defeat. Those papers, which also bore the signature of Common Sense, were continued every three or four months until the struggle was over.

In the year 1777, Mr. Paine was called away from the army by an unexpected appointment to fill the office of Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs. In this office, as all foreign correspondence passed through his hands, he obtained an insight into the mode of transacting business in the different Courts of Europe, and imbibed much important information. He did not continue in it above two years, and the circumstance of his resignation seems to have been much to his honour as an honest man. It was in consequence of some peculation discovered to have been committed by one Silas Deane who had been a commissioner from the United States to some part of Europe. The discovery was made by Mr. Paine, and he immediately published it in the papers, which gave offence to certain members of the Congress, and in consequence of some threat of Silas Deane, the Congress shewed a disposition to censure Mr. Paine without giving him a hearing, who immediately protested against such a proceeding, and resigned his situation. However, he carried no pique with him into his retirement, but was as ardent as ever in the cause of independence and a total separation from Britain. He published several plans for an equal system of taxation to enable the Congress to recruit the finances and to reinforce the army, and in the most clear and pointed manner, held out to the inhabitants of the United States, the important advantages they would gain by a cheerful contribution towards the exigencies of the times, and at once to make themselves sufficiently formidable, not only to cope with, but to defeat the enemy. He reasoned with them on the impossibility of any army that Britain could send against them, being sufficient to conquer the Continent of America. He again and again explained to them that nothing but fortitude and exertion was necessary on their part to annihilate in one campaign the forces of Britain, and put a stop to the war. It is evident, and admitted on all sides, that these writings of Mr. Paine became the main spring of action in procuring independence to the United States.

Notwithstanding the little disagreement he had with the Congress, it was ready at the close of the war to acknowledge his services by a grant of three thousand dollars, and he also obtained from the State of New York, the confiscated estate of some slavish lory and royalist, situate at New Rochelle. This estate contained three hundred acres of highly, cultivated land, and a large and substantial stone built house. The State of Pennsylvania, in which he first published "Common Sense" and "The Crisis," presented him with £500 sterling; and the State of Virginia had come to an agreement for a liberal grant, but in consequence of Mr. Paine's interference and resistance to some claim of territory made by that State, in his pamphlet, intitled "Public Good," he lost this grant by a majority of one vote. This pamphlet is worthy of reading, but for this single circumstance, and nothing can more strongly argue the genuine patriotism and real disinterestedness of the man, than his opposing the claims of this State at a moment when it was about to make him a more liberal grant than any other State had done.

It was in the year 1779, that Mr. Paine resigned his office as Secretary to the Committee for Foreign Affairs, and in the year 1781, he was, in conjunction with a Colonel Laurens, dispatched to France to try to obtain a loan from that government. They succeeded in their object, and returned to America with two millions and a half of livres in silver, and stores to the united value of sixteen millions of livres. This circumstance gave such vigour to the cause of the Americans, that they shortly afterwards brought the Marquis Cornwallis to a capitulation. Six millions of livres were a present from France, and ten millions were borrowed from Holland on the security of France. In this trip to France, Mr. Paine not only accomplished the object of his embassy, but he also made a full discovery of the traitorous conduct of Silas Deane, and, on his return fully justified himself before his fellow citizens, in the steps he had taken in that affair, whilst Deane was obliged to shelter himself in England from the punishment due to his crimes.

In a number of the Crisis, Mr. Paine says, it was the cause of independence to the United States, that made him an author; by this it has been argued, that he could not have written "The Case of the Officers of Excise" before going to America, but this I consider to be easy of explanation. As the latter pamphlet was published by the subscriptions of the officers of excise, and as it was a mere statement of their case, drawn up at their request and suggestion, Mr. Paine might hardly consider himself, intitled to the name of author for such a production which had but a momentary and partial object. He might have considered himself as the mere amanueusis of the body of excisemen, and, to have done nothing more than state their complaint and sentiments. It does not appear that the pamphlet was printed for sale, or that the writer ever had, or thought to have, any emolument from it. It must have been in this light that Mr. Paine declined the character of an Author on the account of that pamphlet, for no man need be ashamed to father it either for principle or style. In the same manner might be considered his song "On the Death of General Wolfe," his "Reflections on the Death of Lord Clive," and several other essays and articles that appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine, and the different newspapers of America, all of which had obtained celebrity as something superior to the general rank of literature that had appeared in the Colonies, and yet even on this ground he also relinquished the title of an author. To be sure, a man who writes a letter to his relatives or friends is an author, but Mr. Paine thought the word of more import, and did not call himself an author until he saw the benefits he had conferred on his fellow-citizens and mankind at large, by his well-timed "Common Sense" and "Crisis."

During the struggle for independence, the Abbe Raynal, a French author, had written and published what he called a History of the Revolution, or Reflections on that History, in which he had made some erroneous statements, probably guided by the errors,