text:
PubDate: 1792-06-06
Slug: essays/english-affairs/letters-on-the-prosecution-of-rights-of-man
Title: Letters on the Prosecution of Rights of Man
Date: Mon Aug  4 09:08:51 EDT 2014

   Philip Foner's introduction:

   Rights of Man divided British public opinion into Burkeites and Paineites,
   inspired a generation of democratic reformers, and formed the programs of
   hundreds of popular societies which sprang up throughout Great Britain. It
   was inevitable, therefore, that British royalty would seek frantically to
   destroy the influence of the writer who had dared to defend the French
   Revolution and outline a social program which could win the support of all
   progressive forces, from upper class liberals, led by Charles James Fox,
   to working class democrats, directed by Thomas Hardy, the shoemaker. When
   the government failed to prevent the publication of Part II of the Rights
   of Man, it moved against Paine himself. On June 8, 1792, the author was
   charged with sedition and his trial was set for December 18. Before he
   could be arrested, Paine fled to France. But as soon as it was rumored
   that the government would prosecute him, Paine began to prepare his public
   replies to his accusers. These replies, answering the charges leveled
   against him, contain valuable elaborations of various issues raised in the
   Rights of Man.

   TO THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL

   Phillip Foner's introduction:

   On May 21, 1792 a Royal Proclamation in England was issued against "wicked
   seditious writings printed, published and industriously dispersed." Paine
   received notice that he would be prosecuted in the King's Bench for his
   Rights of Man. He came immediately to London to find Jordan, his
   publisher, had already been served with a summons, and was ready to
   compromise by agreeing to plead guilty. Paine refused to capitulate before
   the offensive of the British reactionaries, and wrote to Attorney-General
   Sir Archibald Macdonald, some time in May, informing him that he had no
   desire to avoid any prosecution.

   THOUGH I have some reason for believing that you were not the original
   promoter or encourager of the prosecution commenced against the work
   entitled "Rights of Man," either as that prosecution is intended to affect
   the author, the publisher, or the public; yet as you appear the official
   person therein, I address this letter to you, not as Sir Archibald
   Macdonald, but as Attorney-General.

   You began by a prosecution against the publisher Jordan, and the reason
   assigned by Mr. Secretary Dundas, in the House of Commons, in the debate
   on the Proclamation, May twenty-fifth, for taking that measure, was, he
   said, because Mr. Paine could not be found, or words to that effect. Mr.
   Paine, Sir, so far from secreting himself, never went a step out of his
   way, nor in the least instance varied from his usual conduct, to avoid any
   measure you might choose to adopt with respect to him. It is on the purity
   of his heart, and the universal utility of the principles and plans which
   his writings contain, that he rests the issue; and he will not dishonor it
   by any kind of subterfuge. The apartments which he occupied at the time of
   writing the work, last winter, he has continued to occupy to the present
   hour, and the solicitors of the prosecution knew where to find him; of
   which there is a proof in their own office, as far back as the
   twenty-first of May, and also in the office of my own attorney.

   But admitting, for the sake of the case, that the reason for proceeding
   against the publisher was, as Mr. Dundas stated, that Mr. Paine could not
   be found, that reason can now exist no longer.

   The instant that I was informed that an information was preparing to be
   filed against me, as the author of, I believe, one of the most useful and
   benevolent books ever offered to mankind, I directed my attorney to put in
   an appearance; and as I shall meet the prosecution fully and fairly, and
   with a good and upright conscience, I have a right to expect that no act
   of littleness will be made use of on the part of the prosecution toward
   influencing the future issue with respect to the author. This expression
   may, perhaps, appear obscure to you, but I am in the possession of some
   matters which serve to show that the action against the publisher is not
   intended to be a real action. If, therefore, any persons concerned in the
   prosecution have found their cause so weak, as to make it appear
   convenient to them to enter into a negotiation with the publisher, whether
   for the purpose of his submitting to a verdict, and to make use of the
   verdict so obtained as a circumstance, by way of precedent, on a future
   trial against myself; or for any other purpose not fully made known to me;
   if, I say, I have cause to suspect this to be the case, I shall most
   certainly withdraw the defense I should otherwise have made, or promoted
   on his (the publisher's) behalf, and leave the negotiators to themselves,
   and shall reserve the whole of the defense for the real trial.

   But, Sir, for the purpose of conducting this matter with at least the
   appearance of fairness and openness, that shall justify itself before the
   public, whose cause it really is (for it is the right of public discussion
   and investigation that is questioned), I have to propose to you to cease
   the prosecution against the publisher; and as the reason or pretext can no
   longer exist for continuing it against him because Mr. Paine could not be
   found, that you would direct the whole process against me, with whom the
   prosecuting party will not find it possible to enter into any private
   negotiation.

   I will do the cause full justice, as well for the sake of the nation, as
   for my own reputation.

   Another reason for discontinuing the process against the publisher is,
   because it can amount to nothing. First, because a jury in London cannot
   decide upon the fact of publishing beyond the limits of the jurisdiction
   of London, and therefore the work may be republished over and over again
   in every county in the nation, and every case must have a separate
   process; and by the time that three or four hundred prosecutions have been
   had, the eyes of the nation will then be fully open to see that the work
   in question contains a plan the best calculated to root out all the abuses
   of government, and to lessen the taxes of the nation upward of six
   millions annually.

   Secondly, because though the gentlemen of London may be very-expert in
   understanding their particular professions and occupations, and how to
   make business contracts with government beneficial to themselves as
   individuals, the rest of the nation may not be disposed to consider them
   sufficiently qualified nor authorized to determine for the whole nation on
   plans of reform, and on systems and principles of government. This would
   be in effect to erect a jury into a national convention, instead of
   electing a convention, and to lay a precedent for the probable tyranny of
   juries, under the pretense of supporting their rights.

   That the possibility always exists of packing juries will not be denied;
   and, therefore, in all cases, where government is the prosecutor, more
   especially in those where the right of public discussion and investigation
   of principles and systems of government is attempted to be suppressed by a
   verdict, or in those where the object of the work that is prosecuted is
   the reform of abuse and the abolition of sinecure places and pensions, in
   all these cases the verdict of a jury will itself become a subject of
   discussion; and therefore, it furnishes an additional reason for
   discontinuing the prosecution against the publisher, more especially as it
   is not a secret that there has been a negotiation with him for secret
   purposes, and for proceeding against me only. I shall make a much stronger
   defense than what I believe the Treasury Solicitor's agreement with him
   will permit him to do.

   I believe that Mr. Burke, finding himself defeated, and not being able to
   make any answer to the "Rights of Man," has been one of the promoters of
   this prosecution; and I shall return the compliment to him by showing, in
   a future publication, that he has been a masked pensioner at 1500 per
   annum for about ten years.

   Thus it is that the public money is wasted, and the dread of public
   investigation is produced.

   I am, sir,

   Your obedient humble servant,

   THOMAS PAINE.

   TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS

   London, June 6, 1792.

   AS you opened the debate in the House of Commons, May twenty-fifth, on the
   proclamation for suppressing publications, which that proclamation
   (without naming any) calls wicked and seditious: and as you applied those
   opprobrious epithets to the works entitled "Rights of Man," I think it
   unnecessary to offer any other reason for addressing this letter to you.

   I begin, then, at once, by declaring, that I do not believe there are
   found in the writings of any author, ancient or modern, on the subject of
   government, a spirit of greater benignity, and a stronger inculcation of
   moral principles than in those which I have published. They come, Sir,
   from a man, who, by having lived in different countries, and under
   different systems of government, and who, being intimate in the
   construction of them, is a better judge of the subject than it is possible
   that you, from the want of those opportunities, can be: and besides this,
   they come from a heart that knows not how to beguile.

   1 will further say, that when that moment arrives in which the best
   consolation that shall be left will be looking back on some past actions,
   more virtuous and more meritorious than the rest, I shall then with
   happiness remember, among other things, I have written the "Rights of
   Man." As to what proclamations, or prosecutions, or place-men, and
   place-expectants-those who possess, or those who are gaping for office-may
   say of them, it will not alter their character, either with the world or
   with me.

   Having, Sir, made this declaration, I shall proceed to remark, not
   particularly on your speech on that occasion, but on any one to which your
   motion on that day gave rise; and I shall begin with that of Mr. Adam.

   This gentleman accuses me of not having done the very thing that have
   done, and which, he says, if I had done, he should not have accused me.

   Mr. Adam, in his speech (see the Morning Chronicle of May 26), says,

   That he had well considered the subject of constitutional publications,
   and was by no means ready to say (but the contrary) that books of science
   upon government though recommending a doctrine or system different from
   the form of our Constitution (meaning that of England) were fit objects of
   prosecution; that if he did, he must condemn HARRINGTON for his "Oceana,"
   SIR THOMAS MORE for his "Utopia," and HUME for his "Idea of a Perfect
   Commonwealth." But (continued Mr. Adam) the publication of Mr. PAINE was
   very different; for it reviled what was most sacred in the Constitution,
   destroyed every principle of subordination, and established nothing in
   their room.

   I readily perceive that Mr. Adam has not read the second part of "Rights
   of Man," and I am put under the necessity, either of submitting to an
   erroneous charge, or of justifying myself against it; and certainly shall
   prefer the latter. If, then, I shall prove to Mr. Adam, that in my
   reasoning upon systems of government, in the second part of "Rights of
   Man," I have shown as clearly, I think, as words can convey ideas, a
   certain system of government, and that not existing in theory only, but
   already in full and established practise, and systematically and
   practically free from all the vices and defects of the English Government,
   and capable of producing more happiness to the people, and that also with
   an eightieth part of the taxes, which the present English system of
   government consumes; I hope he will do me the justice, when he next goes
   to the House, to get up and confess he had been mistaken in saying, that I
   had established nothing, and that I had destroyed every principle of
   subordination. Having thus opened the case, I now come to the point.

   In the second part of the "Rights of Man," I have distinguished government
   into two classes or systems: the one the hereditary system, the other the
   representative system.

   In the first part of "Rights of Man," I have endeavored to show, and I
   challenge any man to refute it, that there does not exist a right to
   establish hereditary government; or, in other words, hereditary governors;
   because hereditary government always means a government yet to come, and
   the case always is, that the people who are to live afterwards, have
   always the same right to choose a government for themselves, as the people
   had who lived before them.

   In the second part of "Rights of Man," I have not repeated those
   arguments, because they are irrefutable; but have confined myself to show
   the defects of what is called hereditary government, or hereditary
   succession, that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into the
   hands of men totally unworthy of it, from want of principle, or unfitted
   for it from want of capacity. James II is recorded as an instance of the
   first of these cases; and instances are to be found almost all over Europe
   to prove the truth of the latter.

   To show the absurdity of the hereditary system still more strongly, I will
   now put the following case: Take any fifty men promiscuously, and it will
   be very extraordinary if, out of that number, one man should be found,
   whose principles and talents taken together (for some might have
   principles, and others might have talents) would render him a person truly
   fitted to fill any very extraordinary office of national trust. If then
   such a fitness of character could not be expected to be found in more than
   one person out of fifty, it would happen but once in a thousand years to
   the eldest son of any one family, admitting each, on an average, to hold
   the office twenty years. Mr. Adam talks of something in the Constitution
   which he calls most sacred; but I hope he does not mean hereditary
   succession, a thing which appears to me a violation of every order of
   nature, and of common sense.

   When I look into history and see the multitudes of men, otherwise
   virtuous, who have died, and their families been ruined, in the defense of
   knaves and fools, and which they would not have done, had they reasoned at
   all upon the system; I do not know a greater good that an individual can
   render to mankind, than to endeavor to break the chains of political
   superstition. Those chains are now dissolving fast, and proclamations and
   persecutions will serve but to hasten that dissolution.

   Having thus spoken of the hereditary system as a bad system, and subject
   to every possible defect, I now come to the representative system, and
   this Mr. Adam will find stated in the second part of "Rights of Man," not
   only as the best, but as the only theory of government under which the
   liberties of the people can be permanently secure.

   But it is needless now to talk of more theory, since there is already a
   government in full practise, established upon that theory; or in other
   words, upon the "Rights of Man," and has been so for almost twenty years.
   Mr. Pitt, in a speech of his some short time since, said, "That there
   never did, and never could exist a government established upon those
   rights, and that if it began at noon, it would end at night." Mr. Pitt has
   not yet arrived at the degree of a schoolboy in this species of knowledge;
   his practise has been confined to the means of extorting revenue, and his
   boast has been-how much! Whereas the boast of the system of government
   that I am speaking of, is not how much, but how little.

   The system of government purely representative, unmixed with anything of
   hereditary nonsense, began in America. I will now compare the effects of
   that system of government with the system of government in England, both
   during, and since the close of the war.

   So powerful is the representative system, first, by combining and
   consolidating all the parts of a country together, however great the
   extent; and, secondly, by admitting of none but men properly qualified
   into the government, or dismissing them if they prove to be otherwise,
   that America was enabled thereby totally to defeat and overthrow all the
   schemes and projects of the hereditary Government of England against her.
   As the establishment of the Revolution and Independence of America is a
   proof of this fact, it is needless to enlarge upon it.

   I now come to the comparative effect of the two systems since the close of
   the war, and I request Mr. Adam to attend to it.

   America had internally sustained the ravages of upwards of seven years of
   war, which England had not. England sustained only the expense of the war;
   whereas America sustained not only the expense, but the destruction of
   property committed by both armies. Not a house was built during that
   period, and many thousands were destroyed. The farms and plantations along
   the coast of the country, for more than a thousand miles, were laid waste.
   Her commerce was annihilated. Her ships were either taken, or had rotted
   within her own harbors. The credit of her funds had fallen upwards of
   ninety per cent, that is, an original hundred pounds would not sell for
   ten pounds. In fine, she was apparently put back a hundred years when the
   war closed, which was not the case with England.

   But such was the event, that the same representative system of government,
   though since better organized, which enabled her to conquer, enabled her
   also to recover, and she now presents a more flourishing condition, and a
   more happy and harmonized society, under that system of government, than
   any country in the world can boast under any other. Her towns are rebuilt,
   much better than before; her farms and plantations are in higher
   improvement than ever; her commerce is spread over the world, and her
   funds have risen from less than ten pounds the hundred to upwards of one
   hundred and twenty. Mr. Pitt and his colleagues talk of the things that
   have happened in his boyish administration, without knowing what greater
   things have happened

   elsewhere, and under other systems of government.

   I now come to state the expense of the two systems, as they now stand in
   each of the countries; but it may first be proper to observe, that
   government in America is what it ought to be, a matter of honor and trust,
   and not made a trade of for the purpose of lucre.

   The whole amount of the net taxes in England (exclusive of the expense of
   collection, of drawbacks, of seizures and condemnation, of fines and
   penalties, of fees of office, of litigations and informers, which are some
   of the blessed means of enforcing them) is seventeen millions. Of this
   sum, about nine millions go for the payment of the interest of the
   national debt, and the remainder, being about eight millions, is for the
   current annual expenses. This much for one side of the case. I now come to
   the other.

   The expense of the several departments of the general Representative
   Government of the United States of America, extending over a space of
   country nearly ten times larger than England, is $294,558, which, at 45-.
   6d. per dollar, is -L-66,305, us. sterling, and is thus apportioned:

   Expense of the Executive Department.

   The Office of Presidency, for which the President receives nothing for
   himself 5,625 o

   Vice President 1,125 o

   Chief-justice 900 o

   IO

   Five associate Justices 3,937

   Nineteen Judges of Districts, and Attorney-General 6,873.15

   Legislative Department.

   Members of Congress at 6 dolls. (1/. Ls.) per day, their

   Secretaries, Clerks, Chaplains, Messengers, Door-keepers, etc. 25,515 o

   Treasury Department.

   Secretary, Assistant, Comptroller, Auditor, Treasurer, Register,

   and Loan-Office Keeper, in each state, together with all

   necessary Clerks, Office Keepers, etc 12,825 o

   Department of State, including Foreign Affairs.

   Secretary, Clerks, etc., etc 1,406 5

   Department of War.

   Secretary, Clerks, Paymasters, Commissioners, etc 1,462 10

   Commissioners for settling Old Accounts,

   The whole Board, Clerks, etc. 2,598 15

   Incidental and Contingent expenses.

   For Fire-wood, Stationery, Printing, etc 4,006 16

   Total 66,275 11

   On account of the incursions of the Indians on the back settlements,
   Congress is at this time obliged to keep six thousand militia in pay, in
   addition to a regiment of foot, and a battalion of artillery, which it
   always keeps; and this increases the expense of the War Department to
   $390,000 which is ,-L-87,795 sterling, but when peace shall be concluded
   with the Indians, the greatest part of this expense will cease, and the
   total amount of the expense of government, including that of the army,
   will not amount to 100,000 sterling, which, as has been already stated, is
   but an eightieth part of the expenses of the English Government.

   I request Mr. Adam and Mr. Dundas, and all those who are talking of
   constitutions, and blessings, and kings, and lords, and the Lord knows
   what, to look at this statement. Here is a form and system of government
   that is better organized and better administered than any government in
   the world, and that for less than 100,000 per annum, and yet every Member
   of Congress receives, as a compensation for his time and attendance on
   public business, one pound seven shillings per day, which is at the rate
   of nearly 500 a year.

   This is a government that has nothing to fear. It needs no proclamations
   to deter people from writing and reading. It needs no political
   superstition to support it; it was by encouraging discussion and rendering
   the press free upon all subjects of government, that the principles of
   government became understood in America, and the people are now enjoying
   the present blessings under it. You hear of no riots, tumults, and
   disorders in that country; because there exists no cause to produce them.
   Those things are never the effect of freedom, but of restraint,
   oppression, and excessive taxation.

   In America there is not that class of poor and wretched people that are so
   numerously dispersed all over England, who are to be told by a
   proclamation, that they are happy; and this is in a great measure to be
   accounted for, not by the difference of proclamations, but by the
   difference of governments and the difference of taxes between that country
   and this. What the laboring people of that country earn, they apply to
   their own use, and to the education of their children, and do not pay it
   away in taxes as fast as they earn it, to support court extravagance, and
   a long enormous list of place-men and pensioners; and besides this, they
   have learned the manly doctrine of reverencing themselves, and
   consequently of respecting each other; and they laugh at those imaginary
   beings called kings and lords, and all the fraudulent trumpery of court.

   When place-men and pensioners, or those who expect to be such, are lavish
   in praise of a government, it is not a sign of its being a good one. The
   pension list alone in England (see Sir John Sinclair's "History of the
   Revenue," p. 6, of the Appendix) is 107,404, which is more than the
   expenses of the whole Government of America amount to. And I am now more
   convinced than before, that the offer that was made to me of a thousand
   pounds for the copyright of the second part of the "Rights of Man,"
   together with the remaining copyright of the first part, was to have
   effected, by a quick suppression, what is now attempted to be done by a
   prosecution. The connection which the person, who made the offer, has with
   the King's printing office, may furnish part of the means of inquiring
   into this affair, when the Ministry shall please to bring their
   prosecution to issue. But to return to my subject.

   I have said in the second part of the "Rights of Man," and I repeat it
   here, that the service of any man, whether called king, president,
   senator, legislator, or anything else cannot be worth more to any country
   in the regular routine of office, than 10,000 per annum. We have a better
   man in America, and more of a gentleman, than any king I ever knew of, who
   does not occasion half that expense; for, though the salary is fixed at
   5,625 he does not accept it, and it is only the incidental expenses that
   are paid out of it.3 The name by which a man is called is of itself but an
   empty thing. It is worth and character alone which can render him
   valuable, for without these, kings, and lords, and presidents, are but
   jingling names.

   But without troubling myself about constitutions of government, I have
   shown in the second part of "Rights of Man," that an alliance may be
   formed between England, France, and America and that the expenses of
   government in England may be put back to one million and a half, viz.:

   Civil expense of government 500,000

   Army 500,000

   Navy 500,000

   Total -L- 1,500,000

   And even this sum is fifteen times greater than the expenses of government
   are in America; and it is also greater than the whole peace establishment
   of England amounted to about a hundred years ago. So much has the weight
   and oppression of taxes increased since the Revolution, and especially
   since the year 1714.

   To show that the sum of 500,000 is sufficient to defray all civil expenses
   of government, I have, in that work, annexed the following estimate for
   any country of the same extent as England.

   In the first place, three hundred representatives, fairly elected, are
   sufficient for all the purposes to which legislation can apply, and
   preferable to a larger number.

   If, then, an allowance, at the rate of 500 per annum be made to every
   representative, deducting for non-attendance, the expense, if the whole
   number attended six months each year, would be 75,000.

   The official departments could not possibly exceed the following number,
   with the salaries annexed, viz.:

   Three offices at ;-L- 10,000 each 30,000

   Ten ditto at 5,000 "' 50,000

   Brought over 155,000

   Twenty ditto at 2,000 " 40,000

   Forty ditto at 1,000 " 40,000

   Two hundred ditto at 500 " 100,000

   Three hundred ditto at 200 " 60,000

   Five hundred ditto at 100 " 50,000

   Seven hundred ditto at 75 " 52,500

   495.50DEG

   If a nation chose, it might deduct four per cent from all the offices, and
   make one of 20,000 per annum, and style the person who should fill it,
   king or Majesty, or give him any other title.

   Taking, however, this sum of one million and a half, as an abundant supply
   for all the expenses of government under any form whatever, there will
   remain a surplus of nearly six millions and a half out of the present
   taxes, after paying the interest of the national debt; and I have shown in
   the second part of the "Rights of Man," what appears to me, the best mode
   of applying the surplus money; for I am now speaking of expenses and
   savings, and not of systems of government.

   I have, in the first place, estimated the poor-rates at two millions
   annually, and shown that the first effectual step would be to abolish the
   poor-rates entirely (which would be a saving of two millions to the
   housekeepers), and to remit four millions out of the surplus taxes to the
   poor, to be paid to them in money, in proportion to the number of children
   in each family, and the number of aged persons.

   I have estimated the number of persons of both sexes in England, of fifty
   years of age and upwards, at 420,000, and have taken one-third of this
   number, viz, 140,000, to be poor people.

   To save long calculations, I have taken 70,000 of them to be upwards of
   fifty years of age, and under sixty, and the others to be sixty years and
   upwards; and to allow six pounds per annum to the former class, and ten
   pounds per annum to the latter. The expense of which will be:

   70,000 persons at -L-6 per annum 420,000

   70,000 persons at -L- 10 per annum 700,000

   1,120,000

   There will then remain of the four millions, 2,880,000. I have stated two
   different methods of appropriating this money. The one is to pay it in
   proportion to the number of children in each family, at the rate of three
   or four pounds per annum for each child; the other is to apportion it
   according to the expense of living in different counties; but in either of
   these cases it would, together with the allowance to be made to the aged,
   completely take off taxes from one-third of all the families in England,
   besides relieving all the other families from the burden of poor-rates.

   The whole number of families in England, allotting five souls to each
   family, is 1,400,000, of which I take one third, viz, 466,666, to be poor
   families who now pay four millions of taxes, and that the poorest pays at
   least four guineas a year; and that the other thirteen millions are paid
   by the other two-thirds.

   The plan, therefore, as stated in the work, is, first, to remit or repay,
   as is already stated, this sum of four millions to the poor, because it is
   impossible to separate them from the others in the present mode of
   collecting taxes on articles of consumption; and, secondly, to abolish the
   poor-rates, the house and window-light tax, and to change the commutation
   tax into a progressive tax on large estates, the particulars of all which
   are set forth in the work, to which I desire Mr. Adam to refer for
   particulars. I shall here content myself with saying, that to a town of
   the population of Manchester, it will make a difference in its favor,
   compared with the present state of things, of upwards of ^50,000 annually,
   and so in proportion to all other places throughout the nation. This
   certainly is of more consequence than that the same sums should be
   collected to be afterwards spent by riotous and profligate courtiers, and
   in nightly revels at the Star and Garter tavern, Pall Mall.

   I will conclude this part of my letter with an extract from the second
   part of the "Rights of Man," which Mr. Dundas (a man rolling in luxury at
   the expense of the nation) has branded with the epithet of "wicked."

   By the operation of this plan, the poor laws, those instruments of civil
   torture, will be superseded, and the wasteful expense of litigation
   prevented. The hearts of the humane will not be shocked by ragged and
   hungry children, and persons of seventy and eighty years of age begging
   for bread. The dying poor will not be dragged from place to place to
   breathe their last, as a reprisal of parish upon parish. Widows will have
   a maintenance for their children, and not be carted away, on the death of
   their husbands, like culprits and criminals; and children will no longer
   be considered as increasing the distresses of their parents. The haunts of
   the wretched will be known, because it will be to their advantage; and the
   number of petty crimes, the off-spring of poverty and distress, will be
   lessened. The poor as well as the rich will then be interested in the
   support of government, and the cause and apprehension of riots and tumults
   will cease. Ye who sit in ease, and solace yourselves in plenty, and such
   there are in Turkey and Russia, as well as in England, and who say to
   yourselves, are we not well off? have ye thought of these things? When ye
   do, ye will cease to speak and feel for yourselves alone.

   After this remission of four millions be made, and the poor-rates and
   houses and window-light tax be abolished, and the commutation tax changed,
   there will still remain nearly one million and a half o-L- surplus taxes;
   and as by an alliance between England, France and America, armies and
   navies will, in a great measure, be rendered unnecessary; and as men who
   have either been brought up in, or long habited to those lines of life,
   are still citizens of a nation in common with the rest, and have a right
   to participate in all plans of national benefit, it is stated in that work
   ("Rights of Man," Part II) to apply annually 507,000 out of the surplus
   taxes to this purpose, in the following manner:

   To 15,000 disbanded soldiers, 3s. per week (clear of deduction)

   during life -L- 117,000

   Additional pay to the remaining soldiers, per annum i9>5DEGo

   To the officers of the disbanded corps, during life, the sum of . . .
   . 117,000

   To 15,000 disbanded sailors, 3s. per week during life 117,000

   Additional pay to the remaining sailors 19,500

   To the officers of the disbanded part of the navy, during life 117,000

   ,-L-507,000

   The limits to which it is proper to confine this letter, will not admit of
   my entering into further particulars. I address it to Mr. Dundas because
   he took the lead in the debate, and he wishes, I suppose, to appear
   conspicuous; but the purport of it is to justify myself from the charge
   which Mr. Adam has made.

   This gentleman, as has been observed in the beginning of this letter,
   considers the writings of Harrington, More and Hume, as justifiable and
   legal publications, because they reasoned by comparison, though in so
   doing they showed plans and systems of government, not only different
   from, but preferable to, that of England; and he accuses me of endeavoring
   to confuse, instead of producing a system in the room of that which I had
   reasoned against; whereas, the fact is, that I have not only reasoned by
   comparison of the representative system against the hereditary system, but
   I have gone further; for I have produced an instance of a government
   established entirely on the representative system, under which greater
   happiness is enjoyed, much fewer taxes required, and much higher credit is
   established, than under the system of government in England. The funds in
   England have risen since the war only from ^54 to -L-gy and they have been
   down since the Proclamation to 87, whereas the funds in America rose in
   the meantime from 10 to ;-L-120.

   His charge against me of "destroying every principle of subordination," is
   equally as groundless; which even a single paragraph from the work will
   prove, and which I shall here quote:

   Formerly when divisions arose respecting governments, recourse was had to
   the sword, and a civil war ensued. That savage custom is exploded by the
   new system, and recourse is had to a national convention. Discussion, and
   the general will, arbitrates the question, and to this private opinion
   yields with a good grace, and order is preserved uninterrupted.

   That two different charges should be brought at the same time, the one by
   a member of the Legislature, for not doing a certain thing, and the other
   by the Attorney-general for doing it, is a strange jumble of
   contradictions. I have now justified myself, or the work rather, against
   the first, by stating the case in this letter, and the justification of
   the other will be undertaken in its proper place. But in any case the work
   will go on.

   I shall now conclude this letter with saying, that the only objection I
   found against the plan and principles contained in the second part of
   "Rights of Man," when I had written the book, was, that they would
   beneficially interest at least ninety-nine persons out of every hundred
   throughout the nation, and therefore would not leave sufficient room for
   men to act from the direct and disinterested principles of honor; but the
   prosecution now commenced has fortunately removed that objection, and the
   approvers and protectors of that work now feel the immediate impulse of
   honor added to that of national interest.

   I am, Mr. Dundas,

   Not your obedient humble servant,

   But the contrary,

   THOMAS PAINE.

   LETTERS TO ONSLOW CRANLEY5

   LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF SURRY; ON THE SUBJECT OF THE

   LATE EXCELLENT Proclamation:-OR THE Chairman W H O SHALL

   PRESIDE AT THE MEETING TO BE HELD AT EPSOM, JUNE 18.

   FIRST LETTER, DATED AT LONDON, JUNE 17TH, 1792.

   SIR,

   I HAVE seen in the public newspapers the following advertisement, to wit-

   "To the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders, and other Inhabitants

   of the county of Surry.

   "At the requisition and desire of several of the freeholders of the
   county, I am, in the absence of the Sheriff, to desire the favor of your
   attendance, at a meeting to be held at Epsom, on Monday, the 18th instant,
   at 12 o'clock at noon, to consider of an humble address to his MAJESTY, to
   express our grateful approbation of his MAJESTY'S paternal, and well-timed
   attendance to the public welfare, in his late most gracious Proclamation
   against the enemies of our happy Constitution.

   (Signed.) ONSLOW CRANLEY."

   Taking it for granted, that the aforesaid advertisement, equally as
   obscure as the proclamation to which it refers, has nevertheless some
   meaning, and is intended to effect some purpose; and as a prosecution
   (whether wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly) is already commenced
   against a work entitled RIGHTS OF MAN, of which I have the honor and
   happiness to be the author; I feel it necessary to address this letter to
   you, and to request that it may be read publicly to the gentlemen who
   shall meet at Epsom in consequence of the advertisement.

   The work now under prosecution is, I conceive, the same work which is
   intended to be suppressed by the aforesaid Proclamation. Admitting this to
   be the case, the gentlemen of the County of Surrey are called upon by
   somebody to condemn a work, and they are at the same time forbidden by the
   Proclamation to know what that work is; and they are further called upon
   to give their aid and assistance to prevent other people from knowing it
   also. It is therefore necessary that the author, for his own
   justification, as well as to prevent the gentlemen who shall

   meet from being imposed upon by misrepresentation, should give some
   outlines of the principles and plans which that work contains.

   The work, Sir, in question, contains, first, an investigation of general
   principles of government.

   It also distinguishes government into two classes or systems, the one the
   hereditary system; the other the representative system; and it compares
   these two systems with each other.

   It shows that what is called hereditary government cannot exist as a
   matter of right; because hereditary government always means a government
   yet to come; and the case always is, that those who are to live afterwards
   have always the same right to establish a government for themselves as the
   people who had lived before them.

   It also shows the defect to which hereditary government is unavoidably
   subject: that it must, from the nature of it, throw government into the
   hands of men totally unworthy of it from the want of principle, and
   unfitted for it from want of capacity. James II and many others are
   recorded in the English history as proofs of the former of those cases,
   and instances are to be found all over Europe to prove the truth of the
   latter.

   It then shows that the representation system is the only true system of
   government; that it is also the only system under which the liberties of
   any people can be permanently secure; and, further, that it is the only
   one that can continue the same equal probability at all times of admitting
   of none but men properly qualified, both by principles and abilities, into
   government, and of excluding such as are otherwise.

   The work shows also, by plans and calculations not hitherto denied nor
   controverted, not even by the prosecution that is commenced, that the
   taxes now existing may be reduced at least six millions, that taxes may be
   entirely taken off from the poor, who are computed at one third of the
   nation; and that taxes on the other two thirds may be considerably
   reduced; that the aged poor may be comfortably provided for, and the
   children of poor families properly educated; that fifteen thousand
   soldiers, and the same number of sailors, may be allowed three shillings
   per week during life out of the surplus taxes; and also that a
   proportionate allowance may be made to the officers, and the pay of the
   remaining soldiers and sailors be raised; and that it is better to apply
   the surplus taxes to those purposes, than to consume them on lazy and
   profligate placemen and pensioners; and that the revenue, said to be
   twenty thousand pounds per annum, raised by a tax upon coals, and given to
   the Duke of Richmond, is a gross imposition upon all the people of London,
   and ought to be instantly abolished.

   This, Sir, is a concise abstract of the principles and plans contained in
   the work that is now prosecuted, and for the suppression of which the
   Proclamation appears to be intended; but as it is impossible that I can,
   in the compass of a letter, bring into view all the matters contained in
   the work, and as it is proper that the gentlemen who may compose that
   meeting should know what the merits or demerits of it are, before they
   come to any resolutions, either directly or indirectly relating thereto, I
   request the honor of presenting them with one hundred copies of the second
   part of the "Rights of Man," and also one thousand copies of my letter to
   Mr. Dundas, which I have directed to be sent to Epsom for that purpose;
   and I beg the favor of the chairman to take the trouble of presenting them
   to the gentlemen who shall meet on that occasion, withmy sincere wishes
   for their happiness, and for that of the nation in general.

   Having now closed thus much of the subject of my letter, I next come to
   speak of what has relation to me personally. I am well aware of the
   delicacy that attends it, but the purpose of calling the meeting appears
   to me so inconsistent with that justice that is always due between man and
   man, that it is proper I should (as well on account of the gentlemen who
   may meet, as on my own account) explain myself fully and candidly thereon.

   I have already informed the gentlemen, that a prosecution is commenced
   against a work of which I have the honor and happiness to be the author;
   and I have good reasons for believing that the Proclamation which the
   gentlemen are called to consider, and to present an address upon, is
   purposely calculated to give an impression to the jury before whom that
   matter is to come. In short, that it is dictating a verdict by
   proclamation; and I consider the instigators of the meeting to be held at
   Epsom, as aiding and abetting the same improper, and, in my opinion,
   illegal purpose, and that in a manner very artfully contrived, as I shall
   now show.

   Had a meeting been called of the Freeholders of the County of Middlesex,
   the gentlemen who had composed that meeting would have rendered themselves
   objectionable as persons to serve on a jury, before whom a judicial case
   was afterwards to come. But by calling a meeting out of the County of
   Middlesex, that matter is artfully avoided, and the gentlemen of Surrey
   are summoned, as if it were intended thereby to give a tone to the sort of
   verdict which the instigators of the meeting no doubt wish should be
   brought in, and to give countenance to the jury in so doing.

   I am, sir,

   With much respect to the

   Gentlemen who shall meet,

   Their and your obedient and humble servant,

   THOMAS PAINE.

   SECOND LETTER, DATED AT LONDON, JUNE 21, 1792.

   Sir: When I wrote you the letter which Mr. Home Tooke did me the favor to
   present to you, as chairman of the meeting held at Epsom, Monday, June 18,
   it was not with much expectation that you would do me the justice o-L-
   permitting or recommending it to be publicly read. I am well aware that
   the signature of THOMAS PAINE has something in it dreadful to sinecure
   placemen and pensioners; and when you, on seeing the letter opened,
   informed the meeting that it was signed THOMAS PAINE, and added in a note
   of exclamation, "the common enemy o-L- us all," you spoke one of the
   greatest truths you ever uttered, if you confine the expression to men of
   the same description with yourself; men living in indolence and luxury, on
   the spoil and labors of the public.

   The letter has since appeared in the Argus? and probably in other papers.
   It will justify itself; but if anything on that account has been wanting,
   your conduct at the meeting would have supplied the omission. You there
   sufficiently proved that I was not mistaken in supposing that the meeting
   was called to give an indirect aid to the prosecution commenced against a
   work, the reputation of which will long outlive the memory of the
   Pensioner I am writing to.

   When meetings, Sir, are called by the partisans of the Court, to preclude
   the nation the right of investigating systems and principles of
   government, and of exposing errors and defects, under the pretense of
   prosecuting an individual-it furnishes an additional motive for
   maintaining sacred that violated right.

   The principles and arguments contained in the work in question, "Rights of
   Man," have stood, and they now stand, and I believe ever will stand,
   unrefuted. They are stated in a fair and open manner to the world, and
   they have already received the public approbation of a greater number of
   men, of the best of characters, of every denomination of religion, and of
   every rank in life (placemen and pensioners excepted) than all the juries
   that shall meet in England for ten years to come, will amount to; and I
   have, moreover, good reasons for believing that the approvers of that
   work, as well private as public, are already more numerous than all the
   present electors throughout the nation.

   Not less than forty pamphlets, intended as answers thereto, have appeared,
   and as suddenly disappeared; scarcely are the titles of any of them
   remembered, notwithstanding their endeavors have been aided by all the
   daily abuse which the court and ministerial newspapers, for almost a year
   and a half, could bestow, both upon the work and the author; and now that
   every attempt to refute, and every abuse has failed, the invention of
   calling the work a libel has been hit upon, and the discomfited party has
   pusillanimously retreated to prosecution and a jury, and obscure
   addresses.

   As I well know that a long letter from me will not be agreeable to you, I
   will relieve your uneasiness by making it as short as I conveniently can;
   and will conclude it with taking up the subject at that part where Mr.
   Home Tooke was interrupted from going on when at the meeting.

   That gentleman was stating, that the situation you stood in rendered it
   improper for you to appear actively in a scene in which your private
   interest was too visible: that you were a bedchamber lord at a thousand a
   year, and a pensioner at three thousand pounds a year more- and here he
   was stopped by the little but noisy circle you had collected round. Permit
   me then, Sir, to add an explanation to his words, for the benefit of your
   neighbors, and with which, and a few observations, I shall close my
   letter.

   When it was reported in the English newspapers, some short time since that
   the Empress of Russia had given to one of her minions a large tract of
   country and several thousands of peasants as property, it very justly
   provoked indignation and abhorrence in those who heard it. But if we
   compare the mode practised in England, with that which appears to us so
   abhorrent in Russia, it will be found to amount to very near the same
   thing;-for example-

   As the whole of the revenue in England is drawn by taxes from the pockets
   of the people, those things called gifts and grants (of which kind are all
   pensions and sinecure places) are paid out of that stock. The difference,
   therefore, between the two modes is, that in England the money is
   collected by the government, and then given to the pensioner, and in
   Russia he is left to collect it for himself.

   The smallest sum which the poorest family in a county so near London as
   Surrey, can be supposed to pay annually, of taxes, is not less than five
   pounds and as your sinecure of one thousand, and pension of three thousand
   per annum, are made up of taxes paid by eight hundred such poor families,
   it comes to the same thing as if the eight hundred families had been given
   to you, as in Russia, and you had collected the money on your account.
   Were you to say that you are not quartered particularly on the people of
   Surrey, but on the nation at large, the objection would amount to nothing;
   for as there are more pensioners than counties, every one may be
   considered as quartered on that in which he lives.

   What honor or happiness you can derive from being the PRINCIPAL of the
   neighborhood, and occasioning a greater expense than PAUPER the poor, the
   aged, and the infirm, for ten miles round you, I leave you to enjoy. At
   the same time I can see that it is no wonder you should be strenuous in
   suppressing a book which strikes at the root of those abuses. No wonder
   that you should be against reforms, against the freedom of the press, and
   the right of investigation. To you, and to others of your description,
   these are dreadful things; but you should also consider, that the motives
   which prompt you to act, ought, by reflection, to compel you to be silent.

   Having now returned your compliment, and sufficiently tired your patience,
   I take my leave of you, with mentioning, that if you had not prevented my
   former letter from being read at the meeting, you would not have had the
   trouble of reading this; and also with requesting, that the next time you
   call me "a common enemy" you would add, "of us sinecure placemen and
   pensioners!

   I am, Sir, etc., etc., etc.,

   THOMAS PAINE.

   TO THE SHERIFF OF THE COUNTY OF

   SUSSEX

   OR

   THE GENTLEMAN W H O SHALL PRESIDE AT THE MEETING TO BE HELD AT

   LEWES, JULY FOURTH

   DATED AT LONDON, JUNE 30, 1792.

   SIR: I have seen in the Lewes newspapers, of June twenty-fifth, an
   advertisement, signed by sundry persons, and also by the sheriff, for
   holding a meeting at the Town-hall of Lewes, for the purpose, as the
   advertisement states, of presenting an address 6n the late Proclamation
   for suppressing writings, books, etc. And as I conceive that a certain
   publication of mine, entitled "Rights of Man," in which, among other
   things, the enormous increase of taxes, placemen, and pensioners, is shown
   to be unnecessary and oppressive, is the particular writing alluded to in
   the said publication; I request the sheriff, or in his absence, who- ever
   shall preside at the meeting, or any other person, to read this letter
   publicly to the company who shall assemble in consequence of that
   advertisement.

   GENTLEMEN-It is now upwards of eighteen years since I was a resident
   inhabitant of the town of Lewes. My situation among you, as an officer of
   the revenue, for more than six years, enabled me to see into the numerous
   and various distresses which the weight of taxes even at that time of day
   occasioned; and feeling, as I then did, and as it is natural for me to do,
   for the hard condition of others, it is with pleasure I can declare, and
   every person then under my survey, and now living, can witness, the
   exceeding candor, and even tenderness, with which that part of the duty
   that fell to my share was executed. The name of Thomas Paine is not to be
   found in the records of the Lewes' justices, in any one act of contention
   with, or severity of any kind whatever toward, the persons whom he
   surveyed, either in the town, or in the country; of this, Mr. Fuller and
   Mr. Shelley, who will probably attend the meeting, can, if they please,
   give full testimony. It is, however, not in their power to contradict it.

   Having thus indulged myself in recollecting a place where I formerly had,
   and even now have, many friends, rich and poor, and most probably some
   enemies, I proceed to the more important purport of my letter.

   Since my departure from Lewes, fortune or providence has thrown me into a
   line of action, which my first setting out into life could not possibly
   have suggested to me.

   I have seen the fine and fertile country of America ravaged and deluged in
   blood, and the taxes of England enormously increased and multiplied in
   consequence thereof; and this, in a great measure, by the instigation of
   the same class of placemen, pensioners, and court dependents, who are now
   promoting addresses throughout England, on the present unintelligible
   Proclamation.

   I have also seen a system of government rise up in that country, free from
   corruption, and now administered over an extent of territory ten times as
   large as England, for less expense than the pensions alone in England
   amount to; and under which more freedom is enjoyed, arid a more happy
   state of society is preserved, and a more general prosperity is promoted,
   than under any other system of government now existing in the world.
   Knowing, as I do, the things I now declare, I should reproach myself with
   want of duty and affection to mankind, were I not

   in the most undismayed manner to publish them, as it were, on the
   house-tops, for the good of others.

   Having thus glanced at what has passed within my knowledge since my
   leaving Lewes, I come to the subject more immediately before the meeting
   now present.

   Mr. Edmund Burke, who, as I shall show, in a future publication,has lived
   a concealed pensioner, at the expense of the public of fifteen hundred
   pounds per annum, for about ten years last past, published a book the
   winter before last, in open violation of the principles of liberty, and
   for which he was applauded by that class of men who are now promoting
   addresses. Soon after his book appeared, I published the first part of the
   work, entitled "Rights of Man," as an answer thereto, and had the
   happiness of receiving the public thanks of several bodies of men, and of
   numerous individuals of the best character, of every denomination in
   religion, and of every rank in life-placemen and pensioners excepted.

   In February last, I published the second part of "Rights of Man," and as
   it met with still greater approbation from the true friends of national
   freedom, and went deeper into the system of government, and exposed the
   abuses of it, more than had been done in the first part, it consequently
   excited an alarm among all those, who, insensible of the burden of taxes
   which the general mass of the people sustain, are living in luxury and
   indolence, and hunting after court preferments, sinecure places, and
   pensions, either for themselves, or for their family connections.

   I have shown in that work, that the taxes may be reduced at least six
   millions, and even then the expenses of government in England would be
   twenty times greater than they are in the country I have already spoken
   of. That taxes may be entirely taken off from the poor, by remitting to
   them in money at the rate of between three and jour pounds per head per
   annum, for the education and bringing up of the children of the poor
   families, who are computed at one third of the whole nation, and six
   pounds per annum to all poor persons, decayed tradesmen, or others, from
   the age of fifty until sixty, and ten pounds per annum from after sixty.
   And that in consequence of this allowance, to be paid out of the surplus
   taxes, the poor-rates would become unnecessary, and that it is better to
   apply the surplus taxes to these beneficent purposes, than to waste them
   on idle and profligate courtiers, placemen and pensioners.

   These, gentlemen, are a part of the plans and principles contained in the
   work, which this meeting is now called upon, in an indirect manner, to
   vote an address against, and brand with the name of wicked and seditious.

   Gentlemen, I have now stated to you such matters as appear necessary to me
   to offer to the consideration of the meeting. I have no other interest in
   what I am doing, nor in writing you this letter, than the interest of the
   heart. I consider the proposed address as calculated to give countenance
   to placemen, pensioners, enormous taxation and corruption. Many of you
   will recollect that, while I resided among you, there was not a man more
   firm and open in supporting the principles of liberty than myself, and I
   still pursue, and ever will, the same path.

   I have, gentlemen, only one request to make, which is-that those who have
   called the meeting will speak out, and say, whether in the address they
   are going to present against publications, which the proclamation calls
   wicked, they mean the work entitled "Rights of Man," or whether they do
   not?

   I am, Gentlemen,

   With sincere wishes for your happiness,

   Your friend and servant,

   THOMAS PAINE.

   TO MR. SECRETARY DUNDAS

   CALAIS, Sept. 15, 1792.

   I CONCEIVE it necessary to make you acquainted with the following
   circumstance:-The Department of Calais having elected me a member of the
   National Convention of France, I set off from London the thirteenth
   instant, in company with Mr. Frost, of Spring Garden, and Mr. Audibert,
   one of the municipal officers of Calais, who brought me the certificate of
   my being elected. We had not arrived more, I believe, than five minutes at
   the York Hotel, at Dover, when the train of circumstances began that I am
   going to relate.

   We had taken our baggage out of the carriage, and put it into a room, into
   which we went. Mr. Frost, having occasion to go out, was stopped in the
   passage by a gentleman, who told him he must return into the room, which
   he did, and the gentleman came in with him, and shut the door. I had
   remained in the room; Mr. Audibert was gone to inquire when the packet was
   to sail. The gentleman then said that he was collector of the customs, and
   had an information against us, and must examine our baggage for prohibited
   articles. He produced his commission as collector. Mr. Frost demanded to
   see the information, which the collector refused to show, and continued to
   refuse, on every demand that we made. The collector then called in several
   other officers, and began first to search our pockets. He took from Mr.
   Audibert, who was then returned into the room, everything he found in his
   pocket, and laid it on the table. He then searched Mr. Frost in the same
   manner (who, among other things, had the keys of the trunks in his
   pocket), and then did the same by me.

   Mr. Frost wanting to go out, mentioned it, and was going toward the door;
   on which the collector placed himself against the door, and said, nobody
   should depart the room. After the keys had been taken from Mr. Frost (for
   I had given him the keys of my trunks beforehand, for the purpose of his
   attending the baggage to the customs, if it should be necessary), the
   collector asked us to open the trunks, presenting us the keys for that
   purpose; this we declined to do, unless he would produce his information,
   which he again refused. The collector then opened the trunks himself, and
   took out every paper and letter, sealed or unsealed. On our remonstrating
   with him on the bad policy, as well as the illegality, of Custom House
   officers seizing papers and letters, which were things that did not come
   under their cognizance, he replied, that the Proclamation gave him the
   authority.

   Among the letters which he took out of my trunk, were two sealed letters,
   given into my charge by the American Minister in London [Pinckney], one of
   which was directed to the American Minister at

   Paris [Gouverneur Morris], the other to a private gentleman; a letter from
   the President of the United States, and a letter from the Secretary of
   State in America, both directed to me, and which I had received from the
   American Minister, now in London, and were private letters of friendship;
   a letter from the electoral body of the Department of Calais, containing
   the notification of my being elected to the National Convention; and a
   letter from the President of the National Assembly, informing me of my
   being also elected for the Department of the Oise.

   As we found that all remonstrances with the collector, on the bad policy
   and illegality of seizing papers and letters, and retaining our persons by
   force, under the pretense of searching for prohibited articles, were vain
   (for he justified himself on the Proclamation, and on the information
   which he refused to show), we contented ourselves with assuring him, that
   what he was then doing, he would afterwards have to answer for, and left
   it to himself to do as he pleased.

   It appeared to us that the collector was acting under the direction of
   some other person or persons, then in the hotel, but whom he did not
   choose we should see, or who did not choose to be seen by us; for the
   collector went several times out of the room for a few minutes, and was

   also called out several times.

   When the collector had taken what papers and letters he pleased out of the
   trunks, he proceeded to read them. The first letter he took up for this
   purpose was that from the President of the United States to me. While he
   was doing this, I said, that it was very extraordinary that General
   Washington could not write a letter of private friendship to me, without
   its being subject to be read by a Custom House officer. Upon this Mr.
   Frost laid his hand over the face of the letter, and told the collector
   that he should not read it, and took it from him. Mr. Frost then, casting
   his eyes on the concluding paragraph of the letter, said, I will read this
   part to you, which he did; of which the following is an exact transcript-

   And as no one can feel a greater interest in the happiness of mankind than
   I do, it is the first wish of my heart, that the enlightened policy of the
   present age may diffuse to all men those blessings to which they are
   entitled, and lay the foundation of happiness for future generations.

   As all the other letters and papers lay then on the table, the collector
   took them up, and was going out of the room with them. During the
   transaction already stated, I contented myself with observing what passed,
   and spoke but little; but on seeing the collector going out of the room
   with the letters, I told him that the papers and letters then in his hand
   were either belonging to me, or entrusted to my charge, and that as I
   could not permit them to be out of my sight, I must insist on going with
   him.

   The collector then made a list of the letters and papers, and went out of
   the room, giving the letters and papers into the charge of one of the
   officers. He returned in a short time, and, after some trifling
   conversation, chiefly about the Proclamation, told us, that he saw the
   Proclamation was ill-founded, and asked if we chose to put the letters and
   papers into the trunks ourselves, which, as we had not taken them out, we
   declined doing, and he did it himself, and returned us the keys. In
   stating to you these matters, I make no complaint against the personal
   conduct

   of the collector, or of any of the officers. Their manner was as civil as
   such an extraordinary piece of business could admit of.

   My chief motive in writing to you on this subject is, that you may take
   measures for preventing the like in future, not only as it concerns
   private individuals, but in order to prevent a renewal of those unpleasant
   consequences that have heretofore arisen between nations from
   circumstances equally as insignificant. I mention this only for myself;
   but as the interruption extended to two other gentlemen, it is probable
   that they, as individuals, will take some more effectual mode for redress.

   I am, Sir, yours, etc.,

   THOMAS PAINE.

   P. S. Among the papers seized was a copy of the Attorney-General's
   information against me for publishing the "Rights of Man" and a printed
   proof copy of my "Letter to the Addressers," which will soon be published.

   LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE ADDRESSERS

   ON THE LATE PROCLAMATION

   Philip Foner's introduction:

   In the postscript to his second letter to Secretary Dundas Paine wrote
   that the customs officer at Dover had seized "a printed copy of my Letter
   to the Addressers, which will soon be published." The pamphlet must,
   therefore, have been written in London during the summer of 1792 before
   Paine's hurried departure for France. Paine read and corrected the proof
   in France and sent it back to England to be published. It was published by
   H. D. Symonds and Thomas Clio Rickman, both of whom were subsequently
   prosecuted for having printed and sold the Rights of Man.

   In this pamphlet Paine openly urged the British people to call a
   convention and set up a Republican form of government. To those liberals
   in England who were only interested in moderate reforms, such as annual
   meetings of Parliament and restrictions upon the power of the king, this
   pamphlet was entirely too extreme and quite a few joined in denouncing
   Paine. Since the government was intensifying its persecution of the
   popular movement in England, it seemed to these liberals that this was the
   time to get out from under the whole democratic wave which was becoming
   too radical for them to accept. Some joined in the burnings of Paine's
   effigy, a practice carefully organized by the reactionaries. Others simply
   remained quiet while the offensive against the reform movements swept
   across the country.

   **

   I have commanded circumstances with a wish, I know not of any that would
   have more generally promoted the progress of knowledge, than the late
   Proclamation, and the numerous rotten borough and corporation addresses
   thereon. They have not only served as advertisements, but they have
   excited a spirit of inquiry into the principles of government, and a
   desire to read the "Rights of Man," in places where that spirit and that
   work were before unknown.

   The people of England, wearied and stunned with parties, and alternately
   deceived by each, had almost resigned the prerogative of thinking. Even
   curiosity had expired, and a universal languor had spread itself over the
   land. The opposition was visibly no other than a contest for power, whilst
   the mass of the nation stood torpidly by as the prize.

   In this hopeless state of things, the first part of the "Rights of Man"
   made its appearance. It had to combat with a strange mixture of prejudice
   and indifference; it stood exposed to every species of newspaper abuse;
   and besides this, it had to remove the obstructions which Mr. Burke's rude
   and outrageous attack on the French Revolution had artfully raised.

   But how easy does even the most illiterate reader distinguish the
   spontaneous sensations of the heart, from the labored productions of the
   brain. Truth, whenever it can fully appear, is a thing so naturally
   familiar to the mind, that an acquaintance commences at first sight. No
   artificial light, yet discovered, can display all the properties of
   daylight; so neither can the best invented fiction fill the mind with
   every conviction which truth begets.

   To overthrow Mr. Burke's fallacious book was scarcely the operation of a
   day. Even the phalanx of placemen and pensioners, who had given the tone
   to the multitude by clamoring forth his political fame, became suddenly
   silent; and the final event to himself has been, that as he rose like a
   rocket, he fell like the stick.

   It seldom happens that the mind rests satisfied with the simple detection
   of error or imposition. Once put in motion, that motion soon becomes
   accelerated; where it had intended to stop, it discovers new reasons to
   proceed, and renews and continues the pursuit far beyond the limits it
   first prescribed to itself. Thus it has happened to the people of England.
   From a detection of Mr. Burke's incoherent rhapsodies, and distorted
   facts, they began an inquiry into the first principles of government,
   whilst himself like an object left far behind, became invisible and
   forgotten.

   Much as the first part of "Rights of Man" impressed at its first
   appearance, the progressive mind soon discovered that it did not go far
   enough. It detected errors; it exposed absurdities; it shook the fabric of
   political superstition; it generated new ideas; but it did not produce a
   regular system of principles in the room of those which it displaced. And,
   if I may guess at the mind of the Government-party, they beheld it as an
   unexpected gale that would soon blow over, and they forbore, like sailors
   in threatening weather, to whistle, lest they should increase the wind.

   Everything, on their part, was profound silence.

   When the second part of "Rights of Man," combining Principle and Practise,
   was preparing to appear, they affected, for a while, to act with the same
   policy as before; but finding their silence had no more influence in
   stifling the progress of the work, than it would have in stopping the
   progress of time, they changed their plan, and affected to treat it with
   clamorous contempt. The speech-making placemen and pensioners, and
   place-expectants, in both Houses of Parliament, the Outs as well as the
   Ins, represented it as a silly, insignificant performance; as a work
   incapable of producing any effect; as something which they were sure the
   good sense of the people would either despise or indignantly spurn; bur
   such was the overstrained awkwardness with which they harangued and
   encouraged each other, that in the very act of declaring their confidence
   they betrayed their fears.

   As most of the rotten borough addressers are obscured in holes and corners
   throughout the country, and to whom a newspaper arrives as rarely as an
   almanac, they most probably have not had the opportunity of knowing how
   far this part of the farce (the original prelude to all the addresses) has
   been acted. For their information, I will suspend a while the more serious
   purpose of my letter, and entertain them with two or three speeches in the
   last session of Parliament, which will serve them for politics till
   Parliament meets again.

   You must know, gentlemen, that the second part of the "Rights of Man" (the
   book against which you have been presenting addresses, though it is most
   probable that many of you did not know it), was to have come out precisely
   at the time that Parliament last met. It happened not to be published till
   a few days after. But as it was very well known that the book would
   shortly appear, the parliamentary orators entered into a very cordial
   coalition to cry the book down, and they began their attack by crying up
   the blessings of the Constitution.

   Had it been your fate to have been there, you could not but have been
   moved at the heart-and-pocket-felt congratulations that passed between all
   the parties on this subject of blessings; for the Outs enjoy places and
   pensions and sinecures as well as the Ins, and are as devoutly attached to
   the firm of the House.

   One of the most conspicuous of this motley group, is the Clerk of the
   Court of King's Bench, who calls himself Lord Stormont. He is also called
   Justice General of Scotland, and Keeper of Scoon (an opposition man), and
   he draws from the public for these nominal offices, not less, as I am
   informed than six thousand pounds a year, and he is, most probably, at the
   trouble of counting the money and signing a receipt, to show, perhaps,
   that he is qualified to be clerk as well as justice. He spoke as follows:
   (See his speech in the Morning Chronicle of February first.-Author.)

   That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
   Constitution of these realms, I am confident. It is a subject upon which
   there can be no divided opinion in this House. I do not pretend to be deep
   read in the knowledge of the Constitution, but take upon me to say, that
   from the extent of my knowledge [for 1 have so many thousands a year for
   nothing] it appears to me that from the period of the Revolution, for it
   was by no means created then, it has been, both in theory and practise,
   the wisest system that ever was formed. I never was [he means he never was
   till now] a dealer in political cant. My life has not been occupied in
   that way, but the speculations of late years seem to have taken a turn,
   for which I cannot account.

   When I came into public life, the political pamphlets of the time, however
   they might be charged with the heat and violence of parties, were agreed
   in extolling the radical beauties of the Constitution itself. I remember
   [he means he has forgotten] a most captivating eulogium on its charms, by
   Lord Bolingbroke, where he recommends his readers to contemplate it in all
   its aspects, with the assurance that it would be found more estimable the
   more it was seen. I do not recollect his precise words, but I wish that
   men who write upon these subjects would take this for their model, instead
   of the political pamphlets, which, I am told, are now in circulation
   [such, I suppose, as "Rights of Man"], pamphlets which I have not read,
   and whose purport I know only by report [he means, perhaps, by the noise
   they make].

   This, however, I am sure, that pamphlets tending to unsettle the public
   reverence for the Constitution, will have very little influence. They can
   do very little harm-for [by the bye, he is no dealer in political cant]
   the English are a sober, thinking people, and are more intelligent, more
   solid, more steady in their opinions, than any people I ever had the
   fortune to see. [This is pretty well laid on, though, for a new beginner.]
   But if there should ever come a time when the propagation of those
   doctrines should agitate the public mind, I am sure for every one of your
   Lordships, that no attack will be made on the Constitution, from which it
   is truly said that we derive all our prosperity without raising every one
   of your Lordships to its support. It will then be found that there is no
   difference among us, but that we are all determined to stand or fall
   together, in defense of the inestimable system [of places and pensions].

   After Stormont, on the opposition side, sat down, up rose another noble
   Lord, on the ministerial side, Grenville. This man ought to be as strong
   in the back as a mule, or the sire of a mule, or it would crack with the
   weight of places and offices. He rose, however, without feeling any
   incumbrance, full master of his weight; and thus said this noble Lord to
   the other noble Lord!

   The patriotic and manly manner in which the noble Lord has declared his
   sentiments on the subject of the Constitution, demands my cordial
   approbation. The noble Viscount has proved, that however we may differ on
   particular measures, amidst all the jars and dissonance of parties, we are
   unanimous in principle. There is a perfect and entire consent [between us]
   in the love and maintenance of the Constitution as happily subsisting. It
   must undoubtedly give your Lordships concern, to find that the time is
   come [heigh ho!] when there is propriety in the expressions of regard TO
   [O! O! O!] THE CONSTITUTION. And that there are men
   [confound-their-po-li-tics] who disseminate doctrines hostile to the
   genuine spirit of our well balanced system [it is certainly well balanced
   when both sides hold places and pensions at once]. I agree with the noble
   Viscount that they have not [I hope] muck success. I am convinced that
   there is no danger to be apprehended from their attempts: but it is truly
   important and consolatory [to us placemen, I suppose] to know, that if
   ever there should arise a serious alarm, there is but one spirit, one
   sense [and that sense I presume is not common sense] and one determination
   in this House [which undoubtedly is to hold all their places and pensions
   as long as they can].

   Both those speeches (except the parts enclosed in brackets, which are
   added for the purpose of illustration) are copied verbatim from the
   Morning Chronicle of the first of February last; and when the situation of
   the speakers is considered, the one in the Opposition, and the other

   in the Ministry, and both of them living at the public expense, by
   sinecure, or nominal places and offices, it required a very unblushing
   front to be able to deliver them. Can those men seriously suppose any
   nation to be so completely blind as not to see through them? Can Stormont
   imagine that the political cant, with which he has larded his harangue,
   will conceal the craft ? Does he not know that there never was a cover
   large enough to hide itself? Or can Grenville believe that his credit with
   the public increases with his avarice for places?

   But, if these orators will accept a service from me, in return for the
   allusions they have made to the "Rights of Man," I will make a speech for
   either of them to deliver, on the excellence of the Constitution, that
   shall be as much to the purpose as what they have spoken, or as
   Bolingbroke's captivating eulogium. Here it is:

   That we shall all be unanimous in expressing our attachment to the
   Constitution, I am confident. It is, my Lords, incomprehensibly good: but
   the great wonder of all is the wisdom; for it is, my Lords, the wisest
   system that ever was formed.

   With respect to us, noble Lords, though the world does not know it, it is
   very well known to us, that we have more wisdom than we know what to do
   with; and what is still better, my Lords, we have it all in stock. I defy
   your Lordships to prove, that a title of it has been used yet; and if we
   but go on, my Lords, with the frugality we have hitherto done, we shall
   leave to our heirs and successors, when we go out of the world, the whole
   stock of wisdom, untouched, that we brought in; and there is no doubt but
   they will follow our example. This, my Lords, is one of the blessed
   effects of the hereditary system; for we can never be without wisdom so
   long as we keep it by us, and do not use it.

   But, my Lords, as all this wisdom is hereditary property, for the sole
   benefit of us and our heirs, and it is necessary that the people should
   know where to get a supply for their own use, the excellence of our
   Constitution has provided us a king for this very purpose, and for no
   other. But, my Lords, I perceive a defect to which the Constitution is
   subject, and which I propose to remedy by bringing a bill into Parliament
   for that purpose.

   The Constitution, my Lords, out of delicacy, I presume, has left it as a
   matter of choice to a king whether he will be wise or not. It has not, I
   mean, my Lords, insisted upon it as a constitutional point, which, I
   conceive it ought to have done; for I pledge myself to your Lordships to
   prove, and that with true patriotic boldness, that he has no choice in the
   matter. This bill, my Lords, which I shall bring in, will be to declare,
   that the Constitution, according to the true intent and meaning thereof,
   does not invest the king with this choice; our ancestors were too wise to
   do that; and, in order to prevent any doubts that might otherwise arise, I
   shall prepare, my Lords, an enacting clause, to fix the wisdom of kings by
   act of Parliament; and then, my Lords, our Constitution will be the wonder
   of the world!

   Wisdom, my Lords, is the one thing needful: but that there may be no
   mistake in this matter, and that we may proceed consistently with the true
   wisdom of the Constitution, I shall propose a certain criterion whereby
   the exact quantity of wisdom necessary for a king may be known. [Here
   should be a cry of, Hear him! Hear him!]

   It is recorded, my Lords, in the Statutes at Large of the Jews, a "book,
   my Lords, which I have not read, and whose purport I know only by report,"
   but perhaps the bench of Bishops can recollect something about it, that
   Saul gave the most convincing proofs of royal wisdom before he was made a
   king, for he was sent to seek his father's asses and he could not find
   them.

   Here, my Lords, we have, most happily for us, a case in point: This
   precedent ought to be established by act of Parliament; and every king,
   before he be crowned, should be sent to seek his father's asses, and if he
   cannot find them, he shall be declared wise enough to be king, according
   to the true meaning of our excellent Constitution. All, therefore, my
   Lords, that will be necessary to be done, by the enacting clause that I
   shall bring in, will be to invest the king beforehand with the quantity of
   wisdom necessary for this purpose, lest he should happen not to possess
   it; and this, my Lords, we can do without making use of any of our own.

   We further read, my Lords, in the said Statutes at Large of the Jews, that
   Samuel, who certainly was as mad as any Man-of-Rights-Man now-a-days (hear
   him! hear him!), was highly displeased, and even exasperated, at the
   proposal of the Jews to have a king, and he warned them against it with
   all that assurance and impudence of which he was master. I have been, my
   Lords,

   at the trouble of going all the way to Paternoster Row, to procure an
   extract from the printed copy. I was told that I should meet with it
   there, or in Amen corner, for I was then going, my Lords, to rummage for
   it among the curiosities of the Antiquarian Society. I will read the
   extracts to your Lordships, to show how little Samuel knew of the matter.

   The extract, my Lords, is from I Sam. chap, viii.:

   "And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of
   him a king.

   "And he said, this will be the manner of the king that shall reign over
   you: he will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his
   chariots, and to be his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots.

   "And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over
   fifties, and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and
   to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots.

   "And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks,
   and to be bakers.

   "And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards,
   even the best of them, and give them to his servants.

   "And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give
   to his officers and to his servants.

   "And he will take your man-servants, and your maid-servants, and your
   goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work.

   "And he will take the tenth of your sheep, and ye shall be his servants.

   "And ye shall cry out in that day, because of your king, which ye shall
   have chosen you; and the Lord will not hear you in that day."

   Now, my Lords, what can we think of this man, Samuel? Is there a word of
   truth, or anything like truth, in all that he has said? He pretended to be
   a prophet, or a wise man, but has not the event proved him to be a fool,
   or an incendiary? Look around, my Lords, and see if anything has happened
   that he pretended to foretell! Has not the most profound peace reigned
   throughout the world ever since kings were in fashion? Are not, for
   example, the present kings of Europe the most peaceable of mankind, and
   the Empress of Russia the very milk of human kindness? It would not be
   worth having kings, my Lords, if it were not that they never go to war.

   If we look at home, my Lords, do we not see the same things here as are
   seen everywhere else? Are our young men taken to be horsemen, or foot
   soldiers, any more than in Germany or in Prussia, or in Hanover or in
   Hesse? Are not our sailors as safe at land as at sea? Are they ever
   dragged from their homes, like oxen to the slaughter-house, to serve on
   board ships of war?

   When they return from the perils of a long voyage with the merchandise of
   distant countries, does not every man sit down under his own vine and his
   own fig-tree, in perfect security? Is the tenth of our seed taken by
   tax-gatherers, or is any part of it given to the King's servants? In
   short, is not everything as free from taxes as the light from Heathen!

   Ah! my Lords, do we not see the blessed effect of having kings in
   everything we look at? Is not the G.R., or the broad R., stamped upon
   everything? Even the shoes, the gloves, and the hats that we wear, are
   enriched with the impression, and all our candles blaze a burnt-offering.

   Besides these blessings, my Lords, that cover us from the sole of the foot
   to the crown of the head, do we not see a race of youths growing up to be
   kings, who are the very paragons of virtue? There is not one of them, my
   Lords, but might be trusted with untold gold, as safely as the other. Are
   they not "more sober, more intelligent, more solid, more steady" and
   withal, more learned, more wise, more everything, than any youths we "ever
   had the fortune to see?" Ah! my Lords, they are a hopeful family.

   The blessed prospect of succession, which the nation has at this moment
   before its eyes, is a most undeniable proof of the excellence of our
   Constitution, and of the blessed hereditary system; for nothing, my Lords,
   but a constitution founded on the truest and purest wisdom could admit
   such heaven-born and heaven-taught characters into the government. Permit
   me now, my Lords, to recall your attention to the libellous chapter I have
   just read about kings. I mention this, my Lords, because it is my
   intention to move for a bill to be brought into Parliament to expunge that
   chapter from the Bible, and that the Lord Chancellor, with the assistance
   of the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Clarence, be
   requested to write a chapter in the room of it; and that Mr. Burke do see
   that it be truly canonical, and faithfully inserted.-Finis.

   If the clerk of the Court of King's Bench should choose to be the orator
   of this luminous encomium on the Constitution, I hope he will get it well
   by heart before he attempts to deliver it, and not have to apologize to
   Parliament, as he did in the case of Bolingbroke's encomium, for
   forgetting his lesson; and, with this admonition I leave him.

   Having thus informed the Addressers of what passed at the meeting of
   Parliament, I return to take up the subject at the part where I broke off
   in order to introduce the preceding speeches.

   I was then stating, that the first policy of the Government party was
   silence, and the next, clamorous contempt; but as people generally choose
   to read and judge for themselves, the work still went on, and the
   affectation of contempt, like the silence that preceded it, passed for
   nothing.

   Thus foiled in their second scheme, their evil genius, like a
   will-with-a-wisp, led them to a third; when all at once, as if it had been
   unfolded to them by a fortune-teller, or Mr. Dundas had discovered it by
   second sight, this once harmless, insignificant book, without undergoing
   the alteration of a single letter, became a most wicked and dangerous
   libel. The whole Cabinet, like a ship's crew, became alarmed; all hands
   were piped upon deck, as if a conspiracy of elements was forming around
   them, and out came the Proclamation and the Prosecution; and addresses
   supplied the place of prayers.

   Ye silly swains, thought I to myself, why do you torment yourselves thus?
   The "Rights of Man" is a book calmly and rationally written; why then are
   you so disturbed? Did you see how little or how suspicious such conduct
   makes you appear, even cunning alone, had you no other faculty, would hush
   you into prudence. The plans, principles, and arguments, contained in that
   work, are placed before the eyes of the nation, and of the world, in a
   fair, open, and manly manner, and nothing more is necessary than to refute
   them. Do this, and the whole is done; but if ye cannot, so neither can ye
   suppress the reading, nor convict the author; for the law, in the opinion
   of all good men, would convict itself, that should condemn what cannot be
   refuted.

   Having now shown the Addressers the several stages of the business, prior
   to their being called upon, like Caesar in the Tiber, crying to Cassius,
   "help, Cassius, or 1 sink!" I next come to remark on the policy of the
   Government, in promoting addresses; on the consequences naturally
   resulting therefrom; and on the conduct of the persons concerned.

   With respect to the policy, it evidently carries with it every mark and
   feature of disguised fear. And it will hereafter be placed in the history
   of extraordinary things, that a pamphlet should be produced by an
   individual, unconnected with any sect or party, and not seeking to make
   any, and almost a stranger in the land, that should completely frighten a
   whole government, and that in the midst of its most triumphant security.
   Such a circumstance cannot fail to prove that either the pamphlet has
   irresistible powers, or the Government very extraordinary defects, or
   both. The nation exhibits no signs of fear at the "Rights of Man"; why
   then should the Government, unless the interests of the two are really
   opposite to each other, and the secret is beginning to be known? That
   there are two distinct classes of men in the nation, those who pay taxes,
   and those who receive and live upon the taxes, is evident at first sight;
   and when taxation is carried to excess, it cannot fail to disunite those
   two, and something of this kind is now beginning to appear.

   It is also curious to observe, amidst all the fume and bustle about
   proclamations and addresses, kept up by a few noisy and interested men,
   how little the mass of the nation seem to care about either. They appear
   to me, by the indifference they show, not to believe a word the
   Proclamation contains; and as to the addresses, they travel to London with
   the silence of a funeral, and having announced their arrival in the
   Gazette, are deposited with the ashes of their predecessors, and Mr.
   Dundas writes their hie jacet.

   One of the best effects which the Proclamation and its echo the addresses
   have had, has been that of exciting and spreading curiosity; and it
   requires only a single reflection to discover that the object of all
   curiosity is knowledge. When the mass of the nation saw that placemen,
   pensioners, and borough-mongers, were the persons that stood forward to
   promote addresses, it could not fail to create suspicions that the public
   good was not their object; that the character of the books, or writings,
   to which such persons obscurely alluded, not daring to mention them,

   was directly contrary to what they described them to be, and that it was
   necessary that every man, for his own satisfaction, should exercise his
   proper right, and read and judge for himself.

   But how will the persons who have been induced to read the "Rights of
   Man," by the clamor that has been raised against it, be surprised to find,
   that, instead of a wicked, inflammatory work, instead of a licentious and
   profligate performance, it abounds with principles of government that are
   uncontrovertible-with arguments which every reader will feel, are
   unanswerable-with plans for the increase of commerce and manufactures-for
   the extinction of war-for the education of the children of the poor-for
   the comfortable support of the aged and decayed persons of both sexes-for
   the relief of the army and navy, and, in short, for the promotion of
   everything that can benefit the moral, civil, and political condition of
   man.

   Why, then, some calm observer will ask, why is the work prosecuted, if
   these be the goodly matters it contains? I will tell thee, friend; it
   contains also a plan for the reduction of taxes, for lessening the immense
   expenses of government, for abolishing sinecure places and pensions; and
   it proposes applying the redundant taxes, that shall be saved by these
   reforms, to the purposes mentioned in the former paragraph, instead of
   applying them to the support of idle and profligate placemen and
   pensioners.

   Is it, then, any wonder that placemen and pensioners, and the whole train
   of court expectants, should become the promoters of addresses,
   proclamations, and prosecutions? or, is it any wonder that corporations
   and rotten boroughs, which are attacked and exposed, both in the first and
   second parts of "Rights of Man," as unjust monopolies and public
   nuisances, should join in the cavalcade? Yet these are the sources from
   which addresses have sprung. Had not such persons come forward to oppose
   the "Rights of Man," I should have doubted the efficacy of my own
   writings: but those opposers have now proved to me that the blow was well
   directed, and they have done it justice by confessing the smart.

   The principal deception in this business of addresses has been that the
   promoters of them have not come forward in their proper characters. They
   have assumed to pass themselves upon the public as a part of the public,
   bearing a share of the burden of taxes, and acting for the public good;
   whereas, they are in general that part of it that adds to the public
   burden, by living on the produce of the public taxes. They are to the
   public what the locusts are to the tree: the burden would be less, and the
   prosperity would be greater, if they were shaken off.

   "I do not come here," said Onslow, at the Surrey County meeting, "as the
   Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the county, but I come here as a
   plain country gentleman." The fact is, that he came as what he was, and as
   no other, and consequently he came as one of the beings I have been
   describing. If it be the character of a gentleman to be fed by the public,
   as a pauper is by the parish, Onslow has a fair claim to the title; and
   the same description will suit the Duke of Richmond, who led the address
   at the Sussex meeting. He also may set up for a gentleman.

   As to the meeting in the next adjoining county (Kent), it was a scene of
   disgrace. About two hundred persons met, when a small part of them drew
   privately away from the rest, and voted an address: the consequence of
   which was that they got together by the ears, and produced a riot in the
   very act of producing an address to prevent riots.

   That the Proclamation and the addresses have failed of their intended
   effect, may be collected from the silence which the Government party
   itself observes. The number of addresses has been weekly retailed in the
   Gazette; but the number of addressers has been concealed. Several of the
   addresses have been voted by not more than ten or twelve persons; and a
   considerable number of them by not more than thirty. The whole number of
   addresses presented at the time of writing this letter is three hundred
   and twenty (rotten boroughs and corporations included), and even
   admitting, on an average, one hundred addressers to each address, the
   whole number of addressers would be but thirty- two thousand, and nearly
   three months have been taken up in procuring this number.

   That the success of the Proclamation has been less than the success of the
   work it was intended to discourage, is a matter within my own knowledge;
   for a greater number of the cheap edition of the first and second parts of
   the "Rights of Man" has been sold in the space only of one month, than the
   whole number of addressers (admitting them to be thirty-two thousand) have
   amounted to in three months.

   It is a dangerous attempt in any government to say to a nation, "thou
   shalt not read." This is now done in Spain, and was formerly done under
   the old government of France; but it served to procure the downfall of the
   latter, and is subverting that of the former; and it will have the same
   tendency in all countries; because thought by some means or other, is got
   abroad in the world, and cannot be restrained, though reading may.

   If "Rights of Man" were a book that deserved the vile description which
   promoters of the addresses have given of it, why did not these men prove
   their charge, and satisfy the people, by producing it, and reading it
   publicly ? This most certainly ought to have been done, and would also
   have been done, had they believed it would have answered their purpose.
   But the fact is, that the book contains truths which those timeservers
   dreaded to hear, and dreaded that the people should know; and it is now
   following up the addresses in every part of the nation, and convicting
   them of falsehoods.

   Among the unwarrantable proceedings to which the Proclamation has given
   rise, the meetings of the justices in several of the towns and counties
   ought to be noticed. Those men have assumed to re-act the farce of general
   warrants, and to suppress, by their own authority, whatever publications
   they please. This is an attempt at power equaled only by the conduct of
   the minor despots of the most despotic governments in Europe, and yet
   those justices affect to call England a free country. But even this,
   perhaps, like the scheme for garrisoning the country by building military
   barracks, is necessary to awaken the country to a sense of its rights,
   and, as such, it will have a good effect.

   Another part of the conduct of such justices has been, that of threatening
   to take away the licenses from taverns and public-houses, where the
   inhabitants of the neighborhood associated to read and discuss the
   principles of government, and to inform each other thereon. This, again,
   is similar to what is doing in Spain and Russia; and the reflection which
   it cannot fail to suggest is, that the principles and conduct of any
   government must be bad, when that government dreads and startles at
   discussion, and seeks security by a prevention of knowledge.

   If the Government, or the Constitution, or by whatever name it be called,
   be that miracle of perfection which the Proclamation and the addresses
   have trumpeted it forth to be, it ought to have defied discussion and
   investigation, instead of dreading it. Whereas, every attempt it makes,
   either by proclamation, prosecution, or address, to suppress
   investigation, is a confession that it feels itself unable to bear it. It
   is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry. All the numerous
   pamphlets, and all the newspaper falsehood and abuse, that have been
   published against the "Rights of Man," have fallen before it like
   pointless arrows; and, in like manner would any work have fallen before
   the Constitution, had the Constitution, as it is called, been founded on
   as good political principles as those on which the "Rights of Man" is
   written.

   It is a good constitution for courtiers, placemen, pensioners,
   borough-holders, and the leaders of parties, and these are the men that
   have been the active leaders of addresses; but it is a bad constitution
   for at least ninety-nine parts of the nation out of an hundred, and this
   truth is every day making its way.

   It is bad, first, because it entails upon the nation the unnecessary
   expense of supporting three forms and systems of government at once,
   namely, the monarchical, the aristocratical, and the democratical.

   Secondly, because it is impossible to unite such a discordant composition
   by any other means than perpetual corruption; and therefore the corruption
   so loudly and so universally complained of, is no other than the natural
   consequence of such an unnatural compound of governments; and in this
   consists that excellence which the numerous herd of placemen and
   pensioners so loudly extol, and which at the same time occasions that
   enormous load of taxes under which the rest of the nation groans.

   Among the mass of national delusions calculated to amuse and impose upon
   the multitude, the standing one has been that of flattering them into
   taxes, by calling the Government (or as they please to express it, the
   English Constitution) " the envy and the admiration of the world."

   Scarcely an address has been voted in which some of the speakers have not
   uttered this hackneyed, nonsensical falsehood.

   Two revolutions have taken place, those of America and France; and both of
   them have rejected the unnatural compounded system of the English
   Government. America has declared against all hereditary government, and
   established the representative system of government only. France has
   entirely rejected the aristocratical part, and is now discovering the
   absurdity of the monarchical, and is approaching fast to the
   representative system. On what ground then, do these men continue a
   declaration, respecting what they call the envy and admiration of other
   nations, which the voluntary practise of such nations, as have had the
   opportunity of establishing government, contradicts and falsifies? Will
   such men never confine themselves to truth? Will they be for ever the
   deceivers of the people?

   But I will go further, and show, that were government now to begin in
   England, the people could not be brought to establish the same system they
   now submit to.

   In speaking on this subject (or on any other) on the pure ground of
   principle, antiquity and precedent cease to be authority, and hoary-headed
   error loses its effect. The reasonableness and propriety of things must be
   examined abstractedly from custom and usage; and, in this point of view,
   the right which grows into practise today is as much a right, and as old
   in principle and theory, as if it had the customary sanction of a thousand
   ages. Principles have no connection with time, nor characters with names.

   To say that the Government of this country is composed of Kings, Lords,
   and Commons, is the mere phraseology of custom. It is composed of men; and
   whoever the men be to whom the government of any country be entrusted,
   they ought to be the best and wisest that can be found, and if they are
   not so, they are not fit for the station. A man derives no more excellence
   from the change of a name, or calling him king, or calling him lord, than
   I should do by changing my name from Thomas to George, or from Paine to
   Guelph. I should not be a whit more able to write a book because my name
   was altered; neither would any man, now called a king or a lord, have a
   whit more sense than he now has, were he to call himself Thomas Paine.

   As to the word "Commons," applied as it is in England, it is a term of
   degradation and reproach, and ought to be abolished. It is a term unknown
   in free countries.

   But to the point. Let us suppose that government was now to begin in
   England, and that the plan of government, offered to the nation for its
   approbation or rejection, consisted of the following parts:

   First-That some one individual should be taken from all the rest of the
   nation, and to whom all the rest should swear obedience, and never be
   permitted to sit down in his presence, and that they should give to him
   one million sterling a year. That the nation should never after have power
   or authority to make laws but with his express consent; and that his sons
   and his sons' sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or
   unfit, should have the same power, and also the same money annually paid
   to them for ever.

   Secondly-That there should be two houses of legislators to assist in
   making laws, one of which should, in the first instance, be entirely
   appointed by the aforesaid person, and that their sons and their sons'
   sons, whether wise or foolish, good men or bad, fit or unfit, should for
   ever after be hereditary legislators.

   Thirdly-That the other house should be chosen in the same manner as the
   house now called the House of Commons is chosen, and should be subject to
   the control of the two aforesaid hereditary powers in all things.

   It would be impossible to cram such a farrago of imposition and absurdity
   down the throat of this or any other nation that was capable of reasoning
   upon its rights and its interest.

   They would ask, in the first place, on what ground of right, or on what
   principle, such irrational and preposterous distinctions could, or ought
   to be made; and what pretensions any man could have, or what services he
   could render, to entitle him to a million a year ? They would go further,
   and revolt at the idea of consigning their children, and their children's
   children, to the domination of persons hereafter to be born, who might,
   for anything they could foresee, turn out to be knaves or fools; and they
   would finally discover, that the project of hereditary governors and
   legislators was a treasonable usurpation over the rights of posterity. Not
   only the calm dictates of reason, and the force of natural affection, but
   the integrity of manly pride, would impel men to spurn such proposals.

   From the grosser absurdities of such a scheme, they would extend their
   examination to the practical defects-They would soon see that it would end
   in tyranny accomplished by fraud. That in the operation of it, it would be
   two to one against them, because the two parts that were to be made
   hereditary would form a common interest, and stick to each other; and that
   themselves and representatives would become no better than hewers of wood
   and drawers of water for the other parts of the government. Yet call one
   of those powers King, the other Lords, and the third the Commons, and it
   gives the model of what is called the English Government.

   I have asserted, and have shown, both in the first and second parts of
   "Rights of Man," that there is not such a thing as an English
   Constitution, and that the people have yet a constitution to form. A
   constitution is a thing antecedent to a government; it is the act of a
   people creating a government and giving it powers, and defining the limits
   and exercise of the powers so given. But whenever did the people of
   England, acting in their original, constituent character, by a delegation
   elected for that express purpose, declare and say, "We, the people of this
   land, do constitute and appoint this to be our system and form of
   government?" The government has assumed to constitute itself, but it never
   was constituted by the people, in whom alone the right of constituting
   resides.

   I will here recite the preamble to the Federal Constitution of the United
   States of America. I have shown in the second part of "Rights of Man," the
   manner by which the Constitution was formed and afterwards ratified; and
   to which I refer the reader. The preamble is in the following words:

   WE, THE PEOPLE, of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
   union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for common
   defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
   to ourselves and our posterity, DO ORDAIN AND ESTABLISH THIS CONSTITUTION
   or the United States of America.

   Then follow the several articles which appoint the manner in which the
   several component parts of the government, legislative and executive,
   shall be elected, and the period of their duration, and the powers they
   shall have: also, the manner by which future additions, alterations, or
   amendments, shall be made to the Constitution. Consequently, every
   improvement that can be made in the science of government, follows in that
   country as a matter of order. It is only in governments founded on
   assumption and false principles, that reasoning upon, and investigating
   systems and principles of government, and showing their several
   excellencies and defects, are termed libellous and seditious. These terms
   were made part of the charge brought against Locke, Hampden, and Sydney,
   and will continue to be brought against all good men, so long as bad
   government shall continue.

   The Government of this country has been ostentatiously giving challenges
   for more than a hundred years past, upon what is called its own excellence
   and perfection. Scarcely a king's speech, or a parliamentary speech, has
   been uttered, in which this glove has not been thrown, till the world has
   been insulted with their challenges. But it now appears that all this was
   vapor and vain boasting, or that it was intended to conceal abuses and
   defects, and hush the people into taxes.

   I have taken the challenge up, and in behalf of the public, have shown, in
   a fair, open, and candid manner, both the radical and practical defects of
   the system; when lo! those champions of the civil list have fled away, and
   sent the Attorney-general to deny the challenge, by turning the acceptance
   of it into an attack, and defending their places and pensions by a
   prosecution.

   I will here drop this part of the subject, and state a few particulars
   respecting the prosecution now pending, by which the Addressers will see
   that they have been used as tools to the prosecuting party and their
   dependents. The case is as follows:

   The original edition of the first and second bill in the first part of the
   "Rights of Man"; expensively printed (in the modern style of printing
   "pamphlets, that they might be bound up with Mr. Burke's "Reflections on
   the French Revolution"), the high price precluded the generality of people
   from purchasing; and many applications were made to me from various parts
   of the country to print the work in a cheaper manner. The people of
   Sheffield requested leave to print two thousand copies for themselves,
   with which request I immediately complied.

   The same request came to me from Rotherham, from Leicester, from Chester,
   from several towns in Scotland; and Mr. James Mackintosh, author of
   "Vindicise Gallicae," brought me a request from Warwickshire, for leave to
   print ten thousand copies in that county. I had already sent a cheap
   edition to Scotland; and finding the applications increase, I concluded
   that the best method of complying therewith, would be to print a very
   numerous edition in London, under my own direction, by which means the
   work would be more perfect, and the price be reduced

   lower than it could be by printing small editions in the country, of only
   a few thousands each.

   The cheap edition of the first part was begun about the first of last
   April, and from that moment, and not before, I expected a prosecution, and
   the event has proved that I was not mistaken. I had then occasion to write
   to Mr. Thomas Walker of Manchester, and after informing him of my
   intention of giving up the work for the purpose of general information, I
   informed him of what I apprehended would be the consequence; that while
   the work was at a price that precluded an extensive circulation, the
   Government party, not able to controvert the plans, arguments, and
   principles it contained, had chosen to remain silent; but that I expected
   they would make an attempt to deprive the mass of the nation, and
   especially the poor, of the right of reading, by the pretense of
   prosecuting either the author or the publisher, or both. They chose to
   begin with the publisher.

   Nearly a month, however, passed, before I had any information given me of
   their intentions. I was then at Bromley, in Kent, upon which I came
   immediately to town (May 14), and went to Mr. Jordan, the publisher of the
   original edition. He had that evening been served with

   a summons to appear at the Court of King's Bench, on the Monday following,
   but for what purpose was not stated. Supposing it to be on account of the
   work, I appointed a meeting with him on the next morning, which was
   accordingly had, when I provided an attorney, and took the expense of the
   defense on myself. But finding afterwards that he absented himself from
   the attorney employed, and had engaged another, and that he had been
   closeted with the solicitors of the Treasury, I left him to follow his own
   choice, and he chose to plead guilty.

   This he might do if he pleased; and I make no objection against him for
   it. I believe that his idea by the word guilty, was no other than
   declaring himself to be the publisher, without any regard to the merits or
   demerits of the work; for were it to be construed otherwise, it would
   amount to the absurdity of converting a publisher into a jury, and his
   confession into a verdict upon the work itself. This would be the highest
   possible refinement upon packing of juries.

   On the twenty-first of May, they commenced their prosecution against me,
   as the author, by leaving a summons at my lodgings in town, to appear at
   the Court of King's Bench on the eighth of June following; and on the same
   day (May 21), they issued also their Proclamation. Thus the Court of St.
   James and the Court of King's Bench, were playing into each other's hands
   at the same instant of time, and the farce of addresses brought up the
   rear; and this mode of proceeding is called by the prostituted name of
   law. Such a thundering rapidity, after a ministerial dormancy of almost
   eighteen months, can be attributed to no other cause than their having
   gained information of the forwardness of the cheap edition, and the dread
   they felt at the progressive increase of political knowledge.

   I was strongly advised by several gentlemen, as well those in the practise
   of the law, as others, to prefer a bill of indictment against the
   publisher of the Proclamation, as a publication tending to influence, or
   rather to dictate the verdict of a jury on the issue of a matter then
   pending; but it appeared to me much better to avail myself of the
   opportunity which such a precedent justified me in using, by meeting the
   Proclamation and the Addressers on their own ground, and publicly
   defending the work which had been thus unwarrantably attacked and
   traduced. And conscious as I now am, that the work entitled "Rights of
   Man" so far from being, as has been maliciously or erroneously
   represented, a false, wicked, and seditious libel, is a work abounding
   with unanswerable truths, with principles of the purest morality and
   benevolence, and with arguments not to be controverted- Conscious, I say,
   of these things, and having no object in view but the happiness of
   mankind, I have now put the matter to the best proof in my power, by
   giving to the public a cheap edition of the first and second parts of that
   work.

   Let every man read and judge for himself, not only of the merits and
   demerits of the work, but of the matters therein contained, which relate
   to his own interest and happiness.

   If, to expose the fraud and imposition of monarchy, and every species of
   hereditary government-to lessen the oppression of taxes-to propose plans
   for the education of helpless infancy, and the comfortable support of the
   aged and distressed-to endeavor to conciliate nations to each other-to
   extirpate the horrid practise of war-to promote universal peace,
   civilization, and commerce-and to break the chains of political
   superstition, and raise degraded man to his proper rank;-if these things
   be libellous, let me live the life of a libeller, and let the name of
   LIBELLER be engraved on my tomb.

   Of all the weak and ill-judged measures which fear, ignorance, or
   arrogance could suggest, the Proclamation, and the project for addresses,
   are two of the worst. They served to advertise the work which the
   promoters of those measures wished to keep unknown; and in doing this they
   offered violence to the judgment of the people, by calling on them to
   condemn what they forbade them to know, and put the strength of their
   party to that hazardous issue that prudence would have avoided.- The
   county meeting for Middlesex was attended by only one hundred and eighteen
   Addressers. They, no doubt, expected that thousands would flock to their
   standard, and clamor against the "Rights of Man." But the case most
   probably is, that men in all countries, are not so blind to their rights
   and their interest as governments believe.

   Having thus shown the extraordinary manner in which the Government party
   commenced their attack, I proceed to offer a few observations on the
   prosecution, and on the mode of trial by special jury.

   In the first place, I have written a book; and if it cannot be refuted, it
   cannot be condemned. But I do not consider the prosecution as particularly
   leveled against me, but against the general right, or the right of every
   man, of investigating systems and principles of government, and showing
   their several excellencies or defects. If the press be free only to
   flatter Government, as Mr. Burke has done, and to cry up and extol what
   certain Court sycophants are pleased to call a "glorious Constitution,"
   and not free to examine into its errors or abuses, or whether a
   Constitution really exist or not, such freedom is no other than that of
   Spain, Turkey, or Russia; and a jury in this case, would not be a jury to
   try, but an inquisition to condemn.

   I have asserted, and by fair and open argument maintained, the right of
   every nation at all times to establish such a system and form of
   government for itself as best accords with its disposition, interest, and
   happiness; and to change and alter it as it sees occasion. Will any jury
   deny to the nation this right? If they do, they are traitors, and their
   verdict would be null and void. And if they admit the right, the means
   must be admitted also; for it would be the highest absurdity to say, that
   the right existed, but the means did not. The question then is, What are
   the means by which the possession and exercise of this national right are
   to be secured ? The answer will be, that of maintaining, inviolably, the
   right of free investigation; for investigation always serves to detect
   error, and to bring forth truth.

   I have, as an individual, given my opinion upon what I believe to be not
   only the best, but the true system of government, which is the
   representative system, and I have given reasons for that opinion.

   First, Because in the representative system, no office of very
   extraordinary power, or extravagant pay, is attached to any individual;
   and consequently there is nothing to excite those national contentions and
   civil wars with which countries under monarchical governments are
   frequently convulsed, and of which the history of England exhibits such
   numerous instances.

   Secondly, Because the representative is a system of government always in
   maturity; whereas monarchical government fluctuates through all the
   stages, from nonage to dotage.

   Thirdly, Because the representative system admits of none but men properly
   qualified into the government, or removes them if they prove to be
   otherwise. Whereas, in the hereditary system, a nation may be encumbered
   with a knave or an idiot for a whole lifetime, and not be benefited by a
   successor.

   Fourthly, Because there does not exist a right to establish hereditary
   government, or, in other words, hereditary successors, because hereditary
   government always means a government yet to come, and the case always is,
   that those who are to live afterwards have the same right to establish
   government for themselves, as the people had who lived before them; and,
   therefore, all laws attempting to establish hereditary government, are
   founded on assumption and political fiction.

   If these positions be truths, and I challenge any man to prove the
   contrary; if they tend to instruct and enlighten mankind, and to free them
   from error, oppression, and political superstition, which are the objects
   I have in view in publishing them, that jury would commit an act of
   injustice to their country, and to me, if not an act of perjury, that
   should call them false, wicked, and malicious.

   Dragonetti, in his treatise "On Virtues and Rewards," has a paragraph
   worthy of being recorded in every country in the world-"The science (says
   he), of the politician, consists, in fixing the true point of happiness
   and freedom. Those men deserve the gratitude of ages who should discover a
   mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness
   with the least national expense." But if juries are to be made use of to
   prohibit inquiry, to suppress truth, and to stop the progress of
   knowledge, this boasted palladium of liberty becomes the most successful
   instrument of tyranny.

   Among the arts practised at the bar, and from the bench, to impose upon
   the understanding of a jury, and to obtain a verdict where the consciences
   of men could not otherwise consent, one of the most successful has been
   that of calling truth a libel, and of insinuating that the words "falsely,
   wickedly, and maliciously," though they are made the formidable and high
   sounding part of the charge, are not matters of consideration with a jury.
   For what purpose, then, are they retained, unless it be for that of
   imposition and willful defamation?

   I cannot conceive a greater violation of order, nor a more
   abominable insult upon morality, and upon human understanding, than to see
   a man sitting in the judgment seat, affecting by an antiquated foppery of
   dress to impress the audience with awe; then causing witnesses and jury to
   be sworn to truth and justice, himself having officially sworn the same;
   then causing to be read a prosecution against a man charging him with
   having wickedly and maliciously written and published a certain false,
   wicked, and seditious book; and having gone through all this with a show
   of solemnity, as if he saw the eye of the Almighty darting through the
   roof of the building like a ray of light, turn, in an instant, the whole
   into a farce, and, in order to obtain a verdict that could not be
   otherwise obtained, tell the jury that the charge of falsely, wickedly,
   and seditiously, meant nothing; that truth was out of the question; and
   that whether the person accused spoke truth or falsehood, or intended
   virtuously or wickedly, was the same thing; and finally conclude the
   wretched inquisitorial scene, by stating some antiquated precedent,
   equally as abominable as that which is then acting, or giving some opinion
   of his own, and falsely calling the one and the other-haw. It was, most
   probably, to such a judge as this, that the most solemn of all reproofs
   was given-"The Lord will smite thee, thou whitened wall!' (Paul to
   Ananias. Acts xxiii. 2.)

   I now proceed to offer some remarks on what is called a special jury. As
   to what is called a special verdict, I shall make no other remark upon it,
   than that it is in reality not a verdict. It is an attempt on the part of
   the jury to delegate, or of the bench to obtain, the exercise of that
   right, which is committed to the jury only.

   With respect to the special juries, I shall state such matters as I have
   been able to collect, for I do not find any uniform opinion concerning the
   mode of appointing them.

   In the first place, this mode of trial is but of modern invention, and the
   origin of it, as I am told, is as follows:

   Formerly, when disputes arose between merchants, and were brought before a
   court, the case was that the nature of their commerce, and the method of
   keeping merchants' accounts not being sufficiently understood by persons
   out of their own line, it became necessary to depart from the common mode
   of appointing juries, and to select such persons for a jury whose
   practical knowledge would enable them to decide upon the case. From this
   introduction, special juries became more general; but some doubts having
   arisen as to their legality, an act was passed in the 3d of George II to
   establish them as legal, and also to extend them to all cases, not only
   between individuals, but in cases where the Government itself should be
   the prosecutor. This most probably gave rise to the suspicion so generally
   entertained of packing a jury; because, by this act, when the crown, as it
   is called, is the prosecutor, the master of the crown-office, who holds
   his office under the crown, is the person who either wholly nominates, or
   has great power in nominating the jury, and therefore it has greatly the
   appearance of the prosecuting party selecting a jury.

   The process is as follows:

   On motion being made in court, by either the plaintiff or defendant, for a
   special jury, the court grants it or not, at its own discretion.

   If it be granted, the solicitor of the party that applied for the special
   jury, gives notice to the solicitor of the adverse party, and a day and
   hour are appointed for them to meet at the office of the master of the
   crown- office. The master of the crown-office sends to the sheriff or his
   deputy, who attends with the sheriff's book of freeholders. From this
   book, forty-eight names are taken, and a copy thereof given to each of the
   parties; and, on a future day, notice is again given, and the solicitors
   meet a second time, and each strikes out twelve names. The list being thus
   reduced from forty-eight to twenty-four, the first twelve that appear in
   court, and answer to their names, is the special jury for that cause. The
   first operation, that of taking the forty-eight names, is called
   nominating the jury; and the reducing them to twenty-four is called
   striking the jury.

   Having thus stated the general process, I come to particulars, and the
   first question will be, how are the forty-eight names, out of which the
   jury is to be struck, obtained from the sheriff's book? For herein lies
   the principal ground of suspicion, with respect to what is understood by
   packing of juries.

   Either they must be taken by some rule agreed upon between the parties, or
   by some common rule known and established beforehand, or at the discretion
   of some person, who in such a case, ought to be perfectly disinterested in
   the issue, as well officially as otherwise.

   In the case of merchants, and in all cases between individuals, the master
   of the office called the crown-office, is officially an indifferent
   person, and as such may be a proper person to act between the parties, and
   present them with a list of forty-eight names, out of which each party is
   to strike twelve. But the case assumes an entire difference of character,
   when the government itself is the prosecutor. The master of the crown
   office is then an officer holding his office under the prosecutor; and it
   is therefore no wonder that the suspicion of packing juries should, in
   such cases, have been so prevalent.

   This will apply with additional force, when the prosecution is commenced
   against the author or publisher of such works as treat of reforms, and of
   the abolition of superfluous places and offices, etc., because in such
   cases every person holding an office, subject to that suspicion,

   becomes interested as a party; and the office, called the crown-office,
   may, upon examination, be found to be of this description.

   I have heard it asserted, that the master of the crown-office is to open
   the sheriff's book as it were per hazard, and take thereout forty-eight
   following names, to which the word merchant or esquire is affixed. The
   former of these are certainly proper, when the case is between merchants,
   and it has a reference to the origin of the custom, and to nothing else.
   As to the word esquire, every man is an esquire who pleases to call
   himself esquire; and the sensible part of mankind are leaving it off. But
   the matter for inquiry is, whether there be any existing law to direct the
   mode by which the forty-eight names shall be taken, or whether the mode be
   merely that of custom which the office has created; or whether the
   selection of the forty-eight names be wholly at the discretion and choice
   of the master of the crown-office ? One or other of the two latter appears
   to be the case, because the act already mentioned, of the 3d of George II
   lays down no rule or mode, nor refers to any preceding law- but says only,
   that special juries shall hereafter be struck, "in such manner as special
   juries have been and are usually struck!'

   This act appears to have been what is generally understood by a "deep lake
   in!' It was fitted to the spur of the moment in which it was passed, 3d of
   George II when parties ran high, and it served to throw into the hands of
   Walpole, who was then Minister, the management of juries in crown
   prosecutions, by making the nomination of the forty-eight persons, from
   whom the jury was to be struck, follow the precedent established by custom
   between individuals, and by this means slipped into practise with less
   suspicion. Now, the manner of obtaining special juries through the medium
   of an officer of the Government, such, for instance, as a master of the
   crown-office, may be impartial in the case of merchants or other
   individuals, but it becomes highly improper and suspicious in cases where
   the Government itself is one of the parties.

   And it must, upon the whole, appear a strange inconsistency, that a
   government should keep one officer to commence prosecutions, and another
   officer to nominate the forty-eight persons from whom the jury is to be
   struck, both of whom are officers of the civil list, and yet continue to
   call this by the pompous name of the glorious Right of trial by Jury!

   In the case of the King against Jordan, for publishing the "Rights of
   Man," the Attorney-general moved for the appointment of a special jury,
   and the master of the crown-office nominated the forty-eight persons
   himself, and took them from such part of the sheriff's book as he pleased.

   The trial did not come on, occasioned by Jordan withdrawing his plea; but
   if it had, it might have afforded an opportunity of discussing the subject
   of special juries; for though such discussion might have had no effect in
   the Court of King's Bench, it would, in the present disposition for
   inquiry, have had a considerable effect upon the country; and, in all
   national reforms, this is the proper point to begin at. Put a country
   right, and it will soon put government right.

   Among the improper things acted by the Government in the case of special
   juries, on their own motion, one has been that of treating the jury with a
   dinner, and afterwards giving each juryman two guineas, if a verdict be
   found for the prosecution, and only one if otherwise; and it has been long
   observed, that, in London and Westminster, there are persons who appear to
   make a trade of serving, by being so frequently seen upon special juries.

   Thus much for special juries. As to what is called a common jury, upon any
   Government prosecution against the author or publisher of "Rights of Man,"
   during the time of the present Sheriffry, I have one question to offer,
   which is, whether the present sheriffs of London, having publicly
   prejudged the case, by the part they have taken in procuring an address
   from the County of Middlesex {however diminutive and insignificant the
   number of Addressers were, being only one hundred and eighteen), are
   eligible or proper persons to be entrusted with the power of returning a
   jury to try the issue of any such prosecution?

   But the whole matter appears, at least to me, to be worthy of a more
   extensive consideration than what relates to any jury, whether special or
   common; for the case is, whether any part of a whole nation, locally
   selected as a jury of twelve men always is, be competent to judge and
   determine for the whole nation, on any matter that relates to systems and
   principles of government, and whether it be not applying the institution
   of juries to purposes for which such institutions were not intended? For
   example, I have asserted in the work, "Rights of Man," that as every man
   in the nation pays taxes, so has every man a right to a share in
   government, and consequently that the people of Manchester, Birmingham,
   Sheffield, Leeds, Halifax, etc., have the same right as those of London.
   Shall, then, twelve men, picked out between Templebar and Whitechapel,
   because the book happened to be first published there, decide upon the
   rights o-L- the inhabitants of those towns, or of any other town or
   village in the nation?

   Having thus spoken of juries, I come next to offer a few observations on
   the matter contained in the information or prosecution.

   The work, "Rights of Man," consists of part the first, and part the
   second. The first part the prosecutor has thought it most proper to let
   alone; and from the second part he has selected a few short paragraphs,
   making in the whole not quite two pages of the same printing as in the
   cheap edition. Those paragraphs relate chiefly to certain facts, such as
   the Revolution of 1688, and the coming of George I, commonly called the
   House of Hanover, or the House of Brunswick, or some such House. The
   arguments, plans and principles contained in the work, the prosecutor has
   not ventured to attack. They are beyond his reach.

   The act which the prosecutor appears to rest most upon for the support of
   the prosecution is the act entitled, "An Act, declaring the rights and
   liberties of the subject, and settling the succession of the Crown,"
   passed in the first year of William and Mary, and more commonly known by
   the name of the "Bill of Rights."

   I have called this bill "A Bill of wrongs and of insult." My reasons, and
   also my proofs, are as follow:

   The method and principle which this bill takes for declaring rights and
   liberties, are in direct contradiction to rights and liberties; it is an
   assumed attempt to take them wholly from posterity-for the declaration in
   the said bill is as follows:

   "The Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, do, in the name of all the
   people, most humbly and faithfully submit themselves, their heirs, and
   posterity for ever'; that is, to William and Mary his wife, their heirs
   and successors. This is a strange way of declaring rights and liberties.
   But the Parliament who made this declaration in the name, and on the part,
   of the people, had no authority from them for so doing; and with respect
   to posterity for ever, they had no right or authority whatever in the
   case. It was assumption and usurpation. I have reasoned very extensively
   against the principle of this bill the first part of the "Rights of Man";
   the prosecutor has silently admitted that reasoning, and he now commences
   a prosecution on the authority of the bill, after admitting the reasoning
   against it.

   It is also to be observed, that the declaration in this bill, abject and
   irrational as it is, had no other intentional operation than against the
   family of the Stuarts, and their abettors. The idea did not then exist,
   that in the space of an hundred years, posterity might discover a
   different and much better system of government, and that every species of
   hereditary government might fall, as popes and monks had fallen before.
   This I say, was not then thought of, and therefore the application of the
   bill, in the present case, is a new, erroneous, and illegal application,
   and is the same as creating a new Bill ex post facto.

   It has ever been the craft of courtiers, for the purpose of keeping up an
   expensive and enormous civil list, and a mummery of useless and antiquated
   places and offices at the public expense, to be continually hanging
   England upon some individual or other, called King, though the man might
   not have capacity to be a parish constable. The folly and absurdity of
   this is appearing more and more every day; and still those men continue to
   act as if no alteration in the public opinion had taken place. They hear
   each other's nonsense, and suppose the whole nation talks the same
   gibberish.

   Let such men cry up the House of Orange, or the House of Brunswick, if
   they please. They would cry up any other house if it suited their purpose,
   and give as good reasons for it. But what is this house, or that house, or
   any other house to a nation ? "For a nation to be free, it is sufficient
   that she wills it." Her freedom depends wholly upon herself, and not on
   any house, nor on any individual. I ask not in what light this cargo of
   foreign houses appears to others, but I will say in what light it appears
   to me-it was like the trees of the forest, saying unto the bramble, come
   thou and reign over us.

   Thus much for both their houses. I now come to speak of two other houses,
   which are also put into the information, and those are the House of Lords,
   and the House of Commons. Here, I suppose, the Attorney-general intends to
   prove me guilty of speaking either truth or falsehood;

   for according to the modern interpretation of libels, it does not signify
   which, and the only improvement necessary to show the complete absurdity
   of such doctrine, would be, to prosecute a man for uttering a most false
   and wicked truth.

   I will quote the part I am going to give, from the office copy, with the
   Attorney-general's innuendoes, enclosed in parentheses as they stand in
   the information, and I hope that civil list officer will caution the court
   not to laugh when he reads them, and also to take care not to laugh
   him-self.

   The information states, that Thomas Paine, being a wicked, malicious,
   seditious, and evil-disposed person, hath, with force and arms, and most
   wicked cunning, written and published a certain false, scandalous,
   malicious, and seditious libel; in one part thereof, to the tenor and
   effect following, that is to say-

   With respect to the two Houses, of which the English Parliament {meaning
   the Parliament of this Kingdom) is composed, they appear to be effectually
   influenced into one, and, as a Legislature, to have no temper of its own.
   The Minister {meaning the Minister employed by the King of this Realm, in
   the administration of the Government thereof), whoever he at any time may
   be, touches IT {meaning the two Houses of Parliament of this Kingdom) as
   with an opium wand, and IT {meaning the two Houses of Parliament of this
   Kingdom) sleeps obedience.

   As I am not malicious enough to disturb their repose, though it be time
   they should awake, I leave the two Houses and the Attorney-general, to the
   enjoyment of their dreams, and proceed to a new subject.

   The gentlemen, to whom I shall next address myself, are those who have
   styled themselves "Friends of the people',' holding their meetings at the
   Freemasons' Tavern, London.

   One of the principal members of this Society is Mr. Grey, who, I believe,
   is also one of the most independent members in Parliament. I collect this
   opinion from what Mr. Burke formerly mentioned to me, rather than from any
   knowledge of my own. The occasion was as follows:

   I was in England at the time the bubble broke forth about Nootka Sound:
   and the day after the King's Message, as it is called, was sent to
   Parliament, I wrote a note to Mr. Burke, that upon the condition the
   French Revolution should not be a subject (for he was then writing the
   book I have .since answered) I would call upon him the next day, and
   mention some matters I was acquainted with, respecting the affair; for it
   appeared to me extraordinary that any body of men, calling themselves
   representatives, should commit themselves so precipitately, or "sleep
   obedience," as Parliament was then doing, and run a nation into expense,
   and perhaps a war, without so much as inquiring into the case, or the
   subject, of both of which I had some knowledge.

   When I saw Mr. Burke, and mentioned the circumstances to him, he
   particularly spoke of Mr. Grey, as the fittest member to bring such
   matters forward; "for," said Mr. Burke, "1 am not the proper person to do
   it, as I am in a treaty with Mr. Pitt about Mr. Hastings's trial." I hope
   the

   Attorney-general will allow, that Mr. Burke was then sleeping his
   obedience.-But to return to the Society-

   I cannot bring myself to believe, that the general motive of this Society
   is anything more than that by which every former parliamentary opposition
   has been governed, and by which the present is sufficiently known. Failing
   in their pursuit of power and place within doors, they have now (and that
   in not a very mannerly manner) endeavored to possess themselves of that
   ground out of doors, which, had it not been made by others, would not have
   been made by them. They appear to me to have watched, with more cunning
   than candor, the progress of a certain publication, and when they saw it
   had excited a spirit of inquiry, and was rapidly spreading, they stepped
   forward to profit by the opportunity, and Mr. Fox then called it a libel.

   In saying this, he libelled himself. Politicians of this cast, such, I
   mean, as those who trim between parties and lie by for events, are to be
   found in every country, and it never yet happened that they did not do
   more harm than good. They embarrass business, fritter it to nothing,
   perplex the people, and the event to themselves generally is, that they go
   just far enough to make enemies of the few, without going far enough to
   make friends of the many.

   Whoever will read the declarations of this Society, of the twenty-fifth of
   April and fifth of May, will find a studied reserve upon all the points
   that are real abuses. They speak not once of the extravagance of
   government, of the abominable list of unnecessary and sinecure places and
   pensions, of the enormity of the civil list, of the excess of taxes, nor
   of any one matter that substantially affects the nation; and from some
   conversation that has passed in that Society, it does not appear to me
   that it is any part of their plan to carry this class of reforms into
   practise. No Opposition party ever did, when it gained possession.

   In making these free observations, I mean not to enter into contention
   with this Society; their incivility toward me is what I should expect from
   place-hunting reformers. They are welcome, however, to the ground they
   have advanced upon, and I wish that every individual among them may act in
   the same upright, uninfluenced, and public- spirited manner that I have
   done. Whatever reforms may be obtained, and by whatever means, they will
   be for the benefit of others and not of me. I have no other interest in
   the cause than the interest of my heart.

   The part I have acted has been wholly that of a volunteer, unconnected
   with party; and when I quit, it shall be as honorably as I began.

   I consider the reform of Parliament, by an application to Parliament, as
   proposed by the Society, to be a worn-out, hackneyed subject, about which
   the nation is tired, and the parties are deceiving each other. It is not a
   subject that is cognizable before Parliament, because no government has a
   right to alter itself, either in whole or in part. The right, and the
   exercise of that right, appertains to the nation only, and the proper
   means is by a national convention, elected for the purpose, by all the
   people. By this, the will of the nation, whether to reform or not, or what
   the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend, will be known, and it
   cannot be known by any other means. Partial addresses, or separate
   associations, are not testimonies of the general will.

   It is, however, certain that the opinions of men, with respect to systems
   and principles of government, are changing fast in all countries. The
   alteration in England, within the space of a little more than a year, is
   far greater than could have been believed, and it is daily and hourly
   increasing. It moves along the country with the silence of thought. The
   enormous expense of government has provoked men to think, by making them
   feel; and the Proclamation has served to increase jealousy and disgust. To
   prevent, therefore, those commotions which too often and too suddenly
   arise from suffocated discontents, it is best that the general WILL should
   have the full and free opportunity of being publicly ascertained and
   known.

   Wretched as the state of representation is in England, it is every day
   becoming worse, because the unrepresented parts of the nation are
   increasing in population and property, and the represented parts are
   decreasing. It is, therefore, no ill-grounded estimation to say that as
   not one person in seven is represented, at least fourteen millions of
   taxes out of the seventeen millions, are paid by the unrepresented part;
   for although copyholds and leaseholds are assessed to the land-tax the
   holders are unrepresented. Should then a general demur take place as to
   the obligation of paying taxes, on the ground of not being represented, it
   is not the representatives of rotten boroughs, nor special juries, that
   can decide the question. This is one of the possible cases that ought to
   be foreseen, in order to prevent the inconveniences that might arise to
   numerous individuals, by provoking it.

   I confess I have no idea of petitioning for rights. Whatever the rights of
   people are, they have a right to them, and none have a right either to
   withhold them, or to grant them. Government ought to be established on
   such principles of justice as to exclude the occasion of all such
   applications, for wherever they appear they are virtually accusations.

   I wish that Mr. Grey, since he has embarked in the business, would take
   the whole of it into consideration. He will then see that the right of
   reforming the state of the representation does not reside in Parliament,
   and that the only motion he could consistently make would be, that
   Parliament should recommend the election of a convention of the people,
   because all pay taxes. But whether Parliament recommended it or not, the
   right of the nation would neither be lessened nor increased thereby.

   As to petitions from the unrepresented part, they ought not to be looked
   for. As well might it be expected that Manchester, Sheffield, etc., should
   petition the rotten boroughs, as that they should petition the
   representatives of those boroughs. Those two towns alone pay far more
   taxes than all the rotten boroughs put together, and it is scarcely to be
   expected they should pay their court either to the boroughs, or the
   borough-mongers.

   It ought also to be observed, that what is called Parliament, is composed
   of two Houses that have always declared against the right of each other to
   interfere in any matter that related to the circumstances of either,
   particularly that of election. A reform, therefore, in the representation
   cannot, on the ground they have individually taken, become the subject of
   an act of Parliament, because such a mode would include the interference,
   against which the Commons on their part have protested; but must, as well
   on the ground of formality, as on that of right, proceed from a national
   convention.

   Let Mr. Grey, or any other man, sit down and endeavor to put his thoughts
   together, for the purpose of drawing up an application to Parliament for a
   reform of Parliament, and he will soon convince himself of the folly of
   the attempt. He will find that he cannot get on; that he cannot make his
   thoughts join, so as to produce any effect; for, whatever formality of
   words he may use, they will unavoidably include two ideas directly opposed
   to each other; the one in setting forth the reasons, the other in praying
   for relief, and the two, when placed together, would stand thus: "The
   representation in Parliament is so very corrupt, that we can no longer
   confide in it,-and, therefore, confiding in the justice and wisdom of
   Parliament, we pray," etc., etc.

   The heavy manner in which every former proposed application to Parliament
   has dragged, sufficiently shows, that though the nation might not exactly
   see the awkwardness of the measure, it could not clearly see its way, by
   those means. To this also may be added another remark, which is, that the
   worse Parliament is, the less will be the inclination to petition it. This
   indifference viewed as it ought to be, is one of the strongest censures
   the public express. It is as if they were to say to them, "Ye are not
   worth reforming."

   Let any man examine the Court-calendar of placemen in both houses, and the
   manner in which the civil list operates, and he will be at no loss to
   account for this indifference and want of confidence on one side, nor of
   the opposition to reforms on the other.

   Who would have supposed that Mr. Burke, holding forth as he formerly did
   against secret influence, and corrupt majorities, should become a
   concealed pensioner? I will now state the case, not for the little purpose
   of exposing Mr. Burke, but to show the inconsistency of any application to
   a body of men, more than half of whom, as far as the nation can at present
   know, may be in the same case with himself.

   Toward the end of Lord North's administration, Mr. Burke brought a bill
   into Parliament, generally known as Mr. Burke's Reform Bill; in which,
   among other things, it is enacted, "That no pension exceeding the sum of
   three hundred pounds a year, shall be granted to any one person, and that
   the whole amount of the pensions granted in one year shall not exceed six
   hundred pounds; a list of which, together with the names of the persons to
   whom the same are granted, shall be laid before Parliament in twenty days
   after the beginning of each session, until the whole pension list shall be
   reduced to ninety thousand pounds." A provisory clause is afterwards
   added, "That it shall be lawful for the First Commissioner of the
   Treasury, to return into the Exchequer any pension or annuity, without a
   name, on his making oath that such pension or annuity is not directly or
   indirectly for the benefit, use, or behoof of any member of the House of
   Commons."

   But soon after that administration ended, and the party Mr. Burke acted
   with came into power, it appears from the circumstances I am going to
   relate, that Mr. Burke became himself a pensioner in disguise; in a
   similar manner as if a pension had been granted in the name of John Nokes,
   to be privately paid to and enjoyed by Tom Stiles. The name of Edmund
   Burke does not appear in the original transaction: but after the pension
   was obtained, Mr. Burke wanted to make the most of it at once, by selling
   or mortgaging it; and the gentleman in whose name the pension stands,
   applied to one of the public offices for that purpose. This unfortunately
   brought forth the name of Edmund Burke, as the real pensioner of 1,500 per
   annum. When men trumpet forth what they call the blessings of the
   Constitution, it ought to be known what sort of blessings they allude to.

   As to the civil list of a million a year, it is not to be supposed that
   any one man can eat, drink, or consume the whole upon himself. The case
   is, that above half the sum is annually apportioned among courtiers, and
   court members, of both houses, in places and offices, altogether
   insignificant and perfectly useless as to every purpose of civil,
   rational, and manly government. For instance:

   Of what use in the science and system of government is what is called a
   lord chamberlain, a master and mistress of the robes, a master of the
   horse, a master of the hawks, and one hundred other such things? Laws
   derive no additional force, nor additional excellence from such mummery.

   In the disbursements of the civil list for the year 1786 (which may be
   seen in Sir John Sinclair's "History of the Revenue"), are four separate
   charges for this mummery office of chamberlain:

   1st, 38,778.17^ -

   2d, 3,000 --

   3d, 24,069.19 -

   4th, 10,000.18

   75,849.14.

   Besides 1,119 charged for alms.

   From this sample the rest may be guessed at. As to the master of the hawks
   (there are no hawks kept, and if there were, it is no reason the people
   should pay the expense of feeding them, many of whom are put to it to get
   bread for their children), his salary is 1,372.

   And besides a list of items of this kind, sufficient to fill a quire of
   paper, the pension lists alone are ,-L-107,404 13^. qd. which is a greater
   sum than all the expenses of the Federal Government of America.

   Among the items, there are two I had no expectation of finding, and which,
   in this day of inquiry after civil list influence, ought to be exposed.
   The one is an annual payment of one thousand seven hundred pounds to the
   dissenting ministers in. England, and the other, eight hundred pounds to
   those of Ireland.

   This is the fact; and the distribution, as I am informed, is as follows:
   The whole sum of 1,700 is paid to one person, a dissenting minister in
   London, who divides it among eight others, and those eight among such
   others as they please. The lay-body of the dissenters, and many of their
   principal ministers, have long considered it as dishonorable, and have
   endeavored to prevent it, but still it continues to be secretly paid; and
   as the world has sometimes seen very fulsome addresses from parts of that
   body, it may naturally be supposed that the receivers, like bishops and
   other court-clergy, are not idle in promoting them. How the money is
   distributed in Ireland, I know not.

   To recount all the secret history of the civil list, is not the intention
   of this publication. It is sufficient, in this place, to expose its
   general character, and the mass of influence it keeps alive. It will
   necessarily become one of the objects of reform; and therefore enough is
   said to show that under its operation, no application to Parliament can be
   expected to succeed, nor can consistently be made.

   Such reforms will not be promoted by the party that is in possession of
   those places, nor by the opposition who are waiting for them; and as to a
   mere reform, in the state of the representation, the idea that another
   Parliament, differently elected from the present, but still a third
   component part of the same system, and subject to the control of the other
   two parts, will abolish those abuses, is altogether delusion; because it
   is not only impracticable on the ground of formality, but is unwisely
   exposing another set of men to the same corruptions that have tainted the
   present.

   Were all the objects that require reform accomplishable by a mere reform
   in the state of representation, the persons who compose the present
   Parliament might, with rather more propriety, be asked to abolish all the
   abuses themselves, than be applied to as the mere instruments of doing it
   by a future Parliament. If the virtue be wanting to abolish the abuse, it
   is also wanting to act as the means, and the nation must, from necessity,
   proceed by some other plan.

   Having thus endeavored to show what the abject condition of Parliament is,
   and the impropriety of going a second time over the same ground that has
   before miscarried, I come to the remaining part of the subject.

   There ought to be, in the constitution of every country, a. mode of
   referring back, on any extraordinary -occasion, to the sovereign and
   original constituent power, which is the nation itself. The right of
   altering any part of a government, cannot, as already observed, reside in
   the government, or that government might make itself what it pleased.

   It ought also to be taken for granted, that though a nation may feel
   inconveniences, either in the excess of taxation, or in the mode of
   expenditure, or in anything else, it may not at first be sufficiently
   assured in what part of its government the defect lies, or where the evil
   originates. It may be supposed to be in one part, and on inquiry be found
   to be in another; or partly in all. This obscurity is naturally interwoven
   with what are called mixed governments.

   Be, however, the reform to be accomplished whatever it may, it can only
   follow in consequence of obtaining a full knowledge of all the causes that
   have rendered such reform necessary, and everything short of this is
   guess-work or frivolous cunning. In this case, it cannot be supposed that
   any application to Parliament can bring forward this knowledge. That body
   is itself the supposed cause, or one of the supposed causes, of the abuses
   in question; and cannot be expected, and ought not to be asked, to give
   evidence against itself. The inquiry, therefore, which is of necessity the
   first step in the business, cannot be trusted to Parliament, but must be
   undertaken by a distinct body of men, separated from every suspicion of
   corruption or influence.

   Instead, then, of referring to rotten boroughs and absurd corporations for
   addresses, or hawking them about the country to be signed by a few
   dependent tenants, the real and effectual mode would be to come at once to
   the point, and ascertain the sense of the nation by electing a national
   convention. By this method, as already observed, the general WILL, whether
   to reform or not, or what the reform shall be, or how far it shall extend,
   will be known, and it cannot be known by any other means.

   Such a body, empowered and supported by the nation, will have authority to
   demand information upon all matters necessary to be inquired into; and no
   minister, nor any person, will dare to refuse it. It will then be seen
   whether seventeen millions of taxes are necessary, and for what purposes
   they are expended. The concealed pensioners will then be obliged to
   unmask; and the source of influence and corruption, if any such there be,
   will be laid open to the nation, not for the purpose of revenge, but of
   redress.

   By taking this public and national ground, all objections against partial
   addresses on the one side, or private associations on the other, will be
   done away; THE NATION WILL DECLARE ITS OWN REFORMS; and the clamor about
   party and faction, or ins or outs, will become ridiculous.

   The plan and organization of a convention is easy in practise.

   In the first place, the number of inhabitants in every county can be
   sufficiently ascertained from the number of houses assessed to the house
   and window-light tax in each county. This will give the rule for
   apportioning the number of members to be elected to the national
   convention in each of the counties.

   If the total number of inhabitants in England be seven millions and the
   total number of members to be elected to the convention be one thousand,
   the number of members to be elected in a county containing one hundred and
   fifty thousand inhabitants will be twenty-one, and in like proportion for
   any other county.

   As the election of a convention must, in order to ascertain the general
   sense of the nation, go on grounds different from that of parliamentary
   elections, the mode that best promises this end will have no difficulties
   to combat with from absurd customs and pretended rights. The right of
   every man will be the same, whether he lives in a city, a town, or a
   village. The custom of attaching rights to place, or in other words, to
   inanimate matter, instead of to the person, independently of place, is too
   absurd to make any part of a rational argument.

   As every man in the nation, of the age of twenty-one years, pays taxes,
   either out of the property he possesses, or out of the product of his
   labor, which is property to him; and is amenable in his own person to
   every law of the land; so has everyone the same equal right to vote, and
   no one part of the nation, nor any individual, has a right to dispute the
   right of another. The man who should do this ought to forfeit the exercise
   of his own right, for a term of years. This would render the punishment
   consistent with the crime.

   When a qualification to vote is regulated by years, it is placed on the
   firmest possible ground; because the qualification is such, as nothing but
   dying before the time can take away; and the equality of rights, as a
   principle, is recognized in the act of regulating the exercise. But when
   rights are placed upon, or made dependent upon property, they are on the
   most precarious of all tenures. "Riches make themselves wings, and fly
   away," and the rights fly with them; and thus they become lost to the man
   when they would be of most value.

   It is from a strange mixture of tyranny and cowardice, that exclusions
   have been set up and continued. The boldness to do wrong at first, changes
   afterwards into cowardly craft, and at last into fear. The representatives
   in England appear now to act as if they were afraid to do right, even in
   part, lest it should awaken the nation to a sense of all the wrongs it has
   endured. This case serves to show that the same conduct that best
   constitutes the safety of an individual, namely, a strict adherence to
   principle, constitutes also the safety of a government, and that without
   it safety is but an empty name. When the rich plunder the poor of his
   rights, it becomes an example to the poor to plunder the rich of his
   property; for the rights of the one are as much property to him, as wealth
   is property to the other, and the little all is as dear as the much. It is
   only by setting out on just principles that men are trained to be just to
   each other; and it will always be found, that when the rich protect the
   rights of the poor, the poor will protect the property of the rich. But
   the guarantee, to be effectual, must be parliamentary reciprocal.

   Exclusions are not only unjust, but they frequently operate as injuriously
   to the party who monopolizes, as to those who are excluded. When men seek
   to exclude others from participating in the exercise of any right, they
   should at least, be assured, that they can effectually perform the whole
   of the business they undertake; for, unless they do this, themselves will
   be losers by the monopoly. This has been the case with respect to the
   monopolized right of election. The monopolizing party has not been able to
   keep the Parliamentary representation, to whom the power of taxation was
   entrusted, in the state it ought to have been, and have thereby multiplied
   taxes upon themselves equally with those who were excluded.

   A great deal has been, and will continue to be said, about
   disqualifications, arising from the commission of offenses; but were this
   subject urged to its full extent, it would disqualify a great number of
   the present electors, together with their representatives; for, of all
   offenses, none are more destructive to the morals of society than bribery
   and corruption. It is, therefore, civility to such persons to pass this
   subject over, and give them a fair opportunity of recovering, or rather of
   creating character.

   Everything, in the present mode of electioneering in England, is
   the reverse of what it ought to be, and the vulgarity that attends
   elections is no other than the natural consequence of inverting the order
   of the system.

   In the first place, the candidate seeks the elector, instead of the
   elector seeking for a representative; and the electors are advertised as
   being in the interest of the candidate, instead of the candidate being in
   the interest of the electors. The candidate pays the elector for his vote,
   instead of the nation paying the representative for his time and
   attendance on public business. The complaint for an undue election is
   brought by the candidate, as if he, and not the electors, were the party
   aggrieved; and he takes on himself, at any period of the election, to
   break it up, by declining, as if the election was in his right and not in
   theirs.

   The compact that was entered into at the last Westminster election between
   two of the candidates (Mr. Fox and Lord Hood), was an indecent violation
   of the principles of election The candidates assumed, in their own
   persons, the rights of the electors; for, it was only in the body of the
   electors, and not at all in the candidates, that the right of making such
   compact, or compromise, could exist. But the principle of election and
   representation is so completely done away in every stage thereof, that
   inconsistency has no longer the power of surprising.

   Neither from elections thus conducted, nor from rotten borough addressers,
   nor from county-meetings, promoted by placemen and pensioners, can the
   sense of the nation be known. It is still corruption appealing to itself.
   But a convention of a thousand persons, fairly elected, would bring every
   matter to a decided issue.

   As to county-meetings, it is only persons of leisure, or those who live
   near to the place of meeting, that can attend, and the number on such
   occasions is but like a drop in the bucket compared with the whole. The
   only consistent service which such meetings could render, would be that of
   apportioning the county into convenient districts, and when this is done,
   each district might, according to its number of inhabitants, elect its
   quota of county members to the national convention; and the vote of each
   elector might be taken in the parish where he resided, either by ballot or
   by voice, as he should choose to give it.

   A national convention thus formed, would bring together the sense and
   opinions of every part of the nation, fairly taken. The science of
   government, and the interest of the public, and of the several parts
   thereof, would then undergo an ample and rational discussion, freed from
   the language of parliamentary disguise.

   But in all deliberations of this kind, though men have a right to reason
   with, and endeavor to convince each other, upon any matter that respects
   their common good, yet, in point of practise, the majority of opinions,
   when known, forms a rule for the whole, and to this rule every good
   citizen practically conforms.

   Mr. Burke, as if he knew (for every concealed pensioner has the
   opportunity of knowing), that the abuses acted under the present system,
   are too flagrant to be palliated, and that the majority of opinions,
   whenever such abuses should be made public, would be for a general and
   effectual reform, has endeavored to preclude the event, by sturdily
   denying the right of a majority of a nation to act as a whole. Let us
   bestow a thought upon this case.

   When any matter is proposed as a subject for consultation, it necessarily
   implies some mode of decision. Common consent, arising from absolute
   necessity, has placed this in a majority of opinions; because, without it,
   there can be no decision, and consequently no order. It is, perhaps, the
   only case in which mankind, however various in their ideas upon other
   matters, can consistently be unanimous; because it is a mode of decision
   derived from the primary original right of every individual concerned;
   that right being first individually exercised in giving an opinion, and
   whether that opinion shall arrange with the minority or the majority, is a
   subsequent accidental thing that neither increases nor diminishes the
   individual, original right itself. Prior to any debate, inquiry, or
   investigation, it is not supposed to be known on which side the majority
   of opinions will fall, and therefore, while this mode of decision secures
   to everyone the right of giving an opinion, it admits to everyone an equal
   chance in the ultimate event.

   Among the matters that will present themselves to the consideration of a
   national convention, there is one, wholly of a domestic nature, but so
   marvellously loaded with confusion, as to appear at first sight, almost
   impossible to be reformed. I mean the condition of what is called law.

   But, if we examine into the cause from whence this confusion, now so much
   the subject of universal complaint, is produced, not only the remedy will
   immediately present itself, but, with it, the means of preventing the like
   case hereafter.

   In the first place, the confusion has generated itself from the absurdity
   of every Parliament assuming to be eternal in power, and the laws partake
   in a similar manner, of .this assumption. They have no period of legal or
   natural expiration; and, however absurd in principle, or inconsistent in
   practise many of them have become, they still are, if not especially
   repealed, considered as making a part of the general mass. By this means
   the body of what is called law, is spread over a space of several hundred
   years, comprehending laws obsolete, laws repugnant, laws ridiculous, and
   every other kind of laws forgotten or remembered; and what renders the
   case still worse, is, that the confusion multiplies with the progress of
   time. (In the time of Henry IV a law was passed making it felony "to
   multiply gold or silver, or to make use of the craft of multiplication,"
   and this law remained two hundred and eighty-six years upon the statute
   books. It was then repealed as being ridiculous and injurious.-Author.)

   To bring this misshapen monster into form, and to prevent its lapsing
   again into a wilderness state, only two things, and those very simple, are
   necessary.

   The first is, to review the whole mass of laws, and to bring forward such
   only as are worth retaining, and let all the rest drop; and to give to the
   laws so brought forward a new era, commencing from the time of such
   reform.

   Secondly; that at the expiration of every twenty-one years (or any other
   stated period) a like review shall again be taken, and the laws, found
   proper to be retained, be again carried forward, commencing with that
   date, and the useless laws dropped and discontinued.

   By this means there can be no obsolete laws, and scarcely such a thing as
   laws standing in direct or equivocal contradiction to each other, and

   every person will know the period of time to which he is to look back for
   all the laws in being.

   It is worth remarking, that while every other branch of science is brought
   within some commodious system, and the study of it simplified by easy
   methods, the laws take the contrary course, and become every year more
   complicated, entangled, confused, and obscure.

   Among the paragraphs which the Attorney-general has taken from the "Rights
   of Man," and put into his information, one is, that where I have said,
   "that with respect to regular law, there is scarcely such a thing."

   As I do not know whether the Attorney-general means to show this
   expression to be libellous, because it is TRUE, or because it is FALSE, I
   shall make no other reply to him in this place, than by remarking, that if
   almanac-makers had not been more judicious than law-makers, the study of
   almanacs would by this time have become as abstruse as the study of law,
   and we should hear of a library of almanacs as we now do of statutes; but
   by the simple operation of letting the obsolete matter drop, and carrying
   forward that only which is proper to be retained, all that is necessary to
   be known is found within the space of a year, and laws also admit of being
   kept within some given period.

   I shall here close this letter, so far as it respects the addresses, the
   Proclamation, and the prosecution; and shall offer a few observations to
   the Society, styling itself "THE FRIENDS OF THE PEOPLE."

   That the science of government is beginning to be better understood than
   in former times, and that the age of fiction and political superstition,
   and of craft and mystery, is passing away, are matters which the
   experience of every day proves to be true, as well in England as in other
   countries.

   As therefore it is impossible to calculate the silent progress of opinion,
   and also impossible to govern a nation after it has changed its habits of
   thinking, by the craft or policy that it was governed by before, the only
   true method to prevent popular discontents and commotions is, to throw, by
   every fair and rational argument, all the light upon the subject that can
   possibly be thrown; and at the same time, to open the means of collecting
   the general sense of the nation; and this cannot, as already observed, be
   done by any plan so effectually as a national convention. Here individual
   opinion will quiet itself by having a center to rest upon.

   The Society already mentioned (which is made of men of various
   descriptions, but chiefly of those called Foxites), appears to me, either
   to have taken wrong grounds from want of judgment, or to have acted with
   cunning reserve. It is now amusing the people with a new phrase, namely,
   that of "a temperate and moderate reform," the interpretation of which is,
   a continuance of the abuses as long as possible. If we cannot hold all let
   us hold some.

   Who are those that are frightened at reforms? Are the public afraid that
   their taxes should be lessened too much? Are they afraid that sinecure
   places and pensions should be abolished too fast? Are the poor afraid that
   their condition should be rendered too comfortable? Is the worn-out
   mechanic, or the aged and decayed tradesman, frightened at the prospect of
   receiving ten pounds a year out of the surplus taxes? Is the soldier
   frightened at the thoughts of his discharge, and three shillings per week
   during life? Is the sailor afraid that press-warrants will be abolished?
   The Society mistakes the fears of borough mongers, placemen, and
   pensioners, for the fears of the people; and the temperate and moderate
   reform it talks of is calculated to suit the condition of the former.

   Those words, "temperate and moderate," are words either of political
   cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing, moderately good, is not
   so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but
   moderation in principle, is a species of vice. But who is to be the judge
   of what is a temperate and moderate reform? The Society is the
   representative of nobody; neither can the unrepresented part of the nation
   commit this power to those in Parliament, in whose election they had no
   choice; and, therefore, even, upon the ground the Society has taken,
   recourse must be had to a national convention.

   The objection which Mr. Fox made to Mr. Grey's proposed motion for a
   parliamentary reform was, that it contained no plan.-It certainly did not.
   But the plan very easily presents itself; and while it is fair for all
   parties, it prevents the dangers that might otherwise arise from private
   or popular discontent.

   THOMAS PAINE.

   TO THE ENGLISH ATTORNEY-GENERAL, ON

   THE PROSECUTION AGAINST THE SECOND

   PART OF RIGHTS OF MAN

   SIR:-As there can be no personal resentment between two strangers, I write
   this letter to you, as to a man against whom I have no animosity.

   You have, as Attorney-General, commenced a prosecution against me as the
   author of "Rights of Man." Had not my duty, in consequence of my being
   elected a member of the National Convention of France, called me from
   England, I should have stayed to have contested the injustice of that
   prosecution; not upon my own account, for I cared not about the
   prosecution, but to have defended the principles I had advanced in the
   work.

   The duty I am now engaged in is of too much importance to permit me to
   trouble myself about your prosecution: when I have leisure, I shall have
   no objection to meet you on that ground; but, as I now stand, whether you
   go on with the prosecution, or whether you do not, or whether you obtain a
   verdict, or not, is a matter of the most perfect indifference to me as an
   individual. If you obtain one (which you are welcome to if you can get
   it), it cannot affect me either in person, property, or reputation,
   otherwise than to increase the latter; and with respect to yourself, it is
   as consistent that you obtain a verdict against the Man in the Moon as
   against me; neither do I see how you can continue the prosecution against
   me as you would have done against one of your own people, who had absented
   himself because he was prosecuted; what passed at Dover proves that my
   departure from England was no secret.

   My necessary absence from your country affords the opportunity of knowing
   whether the prosecution was intended against Thomas Paine, or against the
   right of the people of England to investigate systems and principles of
   government; for as I cannot now be the object of the prosecution, the
   going on with the prosecution will show that something else was the
   object, and that something else can be no other than the people of
   England, for it is against their rights, and not against me, that a
   verdict or sentence can operate, if it can operate at all. Be then so
   candid as to tell the jury (if you choose to continue the process), whom
   it is you are prosecuting, and on whom it is that the verdict is to fall.

   But I have other reasons than those I have mentioned for writing you this
   letter; and, however you may choose to interpret them, they proceed from a
   good heart. The time, Sir, is becoming too serious to play with court
   prosecutions, and sport with national rights. The terrible examples that
   have taken place here, upon men who, less than a year ago, thought
   themselves as secure as any prosecuting judge, jury, or attorney-general,
   now can in England, ought to have some weight with men in your situation.

   That the Government of England is as great, if not the greatest,
   perfection of fraud and corruption that ever took place since governments
   began, is what you cannot be a stranger to, unless the constant habit of
   seeing it has blinded your senses; but though you may not choose to see
   it, the people are seeing it very fast, and the progress is beyond what
   you may choose to believe. Is it possible that you or I can believe, or
   that reason can make any other man believe, that the capacity of such a
   man as Mr. Guelph, or any of his profligate sons, is necessary to the
   government of a nation? I speak to you as one man ought to speak to
   another; and I know also that I speak what other people are beginning to
   think.

   That you cannot obtain a verdict (and if you do, it will signify nothing)
   without packing a jury (and we both know that such tricks are practised),
   is what I have very good reason to believe. I have gone into
   coffee-houses, and places where I was unknown, on purpose to learn the
   currency of opinion, and I never yet saw any company of twelve men that
   condemned the book; but I have often found a greater number than twelve
   approving it, and this I think is a fair way of collecting the natural
   currency of opinion.

   Do not then, Sir, be the instrument of drawing twelve men into a situation
   that may be injurious to them afterwards. I do not speak this from policy,
   but from benevolence; but if you choose to go on with the process, I make
   it my request to you that you will read this letter in court, after which
   the judge and the jury may do as they please. As I do not consider myself
   the object of the prosecution, neither can I be affected by the issue, one
   way or the other, I shall, though a foreigner in your country, subscribe
   as much money as any other man toward supporting the right of the nation
   against the prosecution; and it is for this purpose only that I shall do
   it.

   THOMAS PAINE.

   As I have not time to copy letters, you will excuse the corrections.

   P. S.-I intended, had I stayed in England, to have published the
   information, with my remarks upon it, before the trial came on; but as I
   am otherwise engaged, I reserve myself till the trial is over when I shall
   reply fully to everything you shall advance.