FullReads

And destiny devised that it was to be fifteen years before he was again to see his beloved “United States of America.”

Arriving in France, Paine was received with honours. There was much political unrest, and the fuse was then being lighted that was to cause the explosion of Seventeen Hundred Eighty-Nine. However, of all this Paine knew little.

He met Danton, a freemason, like himself, and various other radicals. “Common Sense” and “The Crisis” had been translated into French, printed and widely distributed, and inasmuch as Paine had been a party in bringing about one revolution, and had helped carry it through to success, his counsel and advice were sought. A few short weeks in France, and Paine having secured the endorsement of the Academy for his bridge, went over to England preparatory to sailing for America.

Arriving in England, Paine found that his father had died but a short time before. His mother was living, aged ninety-one, and in full possession of her faculties. The meeting of mother and son was full of tender memories. And the mother, while not being able to follow her gifted son in all of his reasoning, yet fully sympathized with him in his efforts to increase human rights. The Quakers, while in favor of peace, are yet revolutionaries, for their policy is one of protest.

Paine visited the old Quaker church at Thetford, and there seated in the silence, wrote these words:

When we consider, for the feelings of Nature can not be dismissed, the calamities of war and the miseries it inflicts upon the human species, the thousands and tens of thousands of every age and sex who are rendered wretched by the event, surely there is something in the heart of man that calls upon him to think! Surely there is some tender chord, tuned by the hand of the Creator, that still struggles to emit in the hearing of the soul a note of sorrowing sympathy. Let it then be heard, and let man learn to feel that the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity, and not on conquest. War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances, such a combination of foreign matters, that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes. I defend the cause of the poor, of the manufacturer, of the tradesman, of the farmer, and of all those on whom the real burden of taxes fall–but above all, I defend the cause of women and children–of all humanity.

Edmund Burke, hearing of Paine’s presence in England, sent for him to come to his house. Paine accepted the invitation, and Burke doubtless got a few interesting chapters of history at first hand. “It was equal to meeting Washington, and perhaps better, for Paine is more of a philosopher than his chief,” wrote Burke to the elder Pitt.

Paine saw that political unrest was not confined to France–that England was in a state of evolution, and was making painful efforts to adapt herself to the progress of the times. Paine could remember a time when in England women and children were hanged for poaching; when the insane were publicly whipped, and when, if publicly expressed, a doubt concerning the truth of Scripture meant exile or to have your ears cut off.

Now he saw the old custom reversed and the nobles were bowing to the will of the people. It came to him that if the many in England could be educated, the Crown having so recently received its rebuke at the hands of the American Colonies, a great stride to the front could be made. Englishmen were talking about their rights. What are the natural rights of a man? He began to set down his thoughts on the subject. These soon extended themselves into chapters. The chapters grew into a book–a book which he hoped would peacefully do for England what “Common Sense” had done for America. This book, “The Rights of Man,” was written at the same time that Mary Wollstonecraft was writing her book, “The Rights of Women.”