While he was peaceably and patriotically performing the duties of his station, the ministry of England were using every effort to counteract the (to them) dangerous principles which he had disseminated. For this purpose they filed a number of informations against the different individuals who had retailed the work. The trial of Mr. Paine came on at Guildhall, on the 18th of December, before Lord Kenyon,* and a special jury. The former being pensioned, and the latter being packed, a verdict of guilty followed as a matter of course. The proceedings on this trial are not of much interest, except as they tend to develop the inquisitorial character of an English court of law in matters of libel. The attorney-general had selected a few passages from the second part of the 'Rights of Man," which he thought were most likely to answer his purpose, and these, in the verbose vulgarity of the law, he stigmatized as false, wicked, scandalous, and seditious. He was prudent enough to refrain from any attempt to prove the truth of his charge, well knowing that, with such a judge and such a jury, abuse would be received as a substitute for argument, and the coarsest and most improbable calumnies would be admitted as evidence of the writer's evil intention. The greater part of his speech to the jury was taken up with a comment on a letter relative to the prosecution, which Mr. Paine had written to him from Paris. In this letter he says: 'Had not my duty as a member of the national convention of France called me from England, I should have stayed to have contested the injus

This man was one of the most cruel, vindictive, and merciless characters that ever disgraced the bench of a British court of justice. As an illustration of his conduct, the following anecdote will be sufficient in the year 1799, a gentleman with whom I have the pleasure of being acquainted, of the name of Waddington. speculated very largely in hops. It is the custom, and has been so time out of mind, to purchase many of the hops of the growers before they are gathered, and to give so much a pound for them when gathered and put into bags. Mr. Waddington (who was an opulent banker, and whose character, as a commercial man, stood very high), about the time he was making large purchases of this sort, took the lead in calling a meeting in the city of London to petition against the war. The myrmidons of Pitt were set to work to discover how he might be annoyed. They trumped up a charge of forestalling against him for having purchased hops before they were brought to market. Nothing could be more unfounded than this charge, seeing that it had been the practice of thousands of persons for perhaps more than a century. In the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, Charles II., and Anne, divers acts of parliament had been passed against forestalling, regrating, engrossing, &c. But in time it was discovered that these acts were not only foolish, but mischievous, and in the 12th year of the reign of the present king, the whole of them were repealed, npon the ground that they tended to produce dearth and misery. But the common law had not been repealed, or at least Kenyon said so. Upon this was Mr. Waddington indicted, and a jury, packed for the purpose, found him guilty of dealings as honest and common as any in the country: in conse quence of this verdict, the wicked and malignant judge sentenced this worthy and respectable man to be imprisoned as well as fined, which, considering that it dissolved all his contracts, produced a forfeiture of his deposites, and caused a run upon his house and his bank, was, in fact, sentencing him to ruin, and almost to actual beggary. The result of these proceedings brought forth a number of informations against forestallers-fortunately for Kenyon he died soon after, and his successor declared that not to be an offence, which Kenyon had declared to be an offence for the sole purpose of ruining a man whom Pitt and his colleagues had marked out for destruction.

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tice 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.' He likewise delivers his opinion very freely, upon the capacity of the reigning king, and the profligacy of his sons, and very pointedly asks the attorney-general, whether he conceives such persons are necessary to the government of a nation? Mr. Erskine contended against the legal right of the prosecutor to avail himself of the contents of this letter, but the judge overruled the objection. Indeed the whole of the proceedings seem to have been marked out beforehand, and the trial seems to have been nothing but a convenient farce. Mr. Erskine addressed the jury for some hours, but his speech was rather an evasion of the charge, than a justification of the principles he professed to defend. It was, as Mr. Paine observed, on seeing the report of the trial, 'a good speech for himself, but a very poor defence of the "Rights of Man." The jury found a verdict for the crown, without the trouble of deliberation.

With respect to the different retailers of the work against whom informations were filed, their fate now became pretty evident. The ministry were not satisfied with punishing the venders of Rights of Man;' they likewise instituted prosecutions against the publishers of the 'Letter to the Addressers,' and obtained several convictions. The following statement contains, I believe, a correct account of the number of prosecutions against these works:

A LIST OF THE PERSONS WHO HAVE BEEN PROSECUTED FOR THE PUBLICATION OF PAINE'S WORKS.

December 18, 1792. Thomas Paine, 'Rights of Man, Part II.' convicted; went to France previous to the trial.

February 26, 1793. Thomas Spence, 'Rights of Man, Part II.' flaw in the indictment; acquitted.

William Holland. Address to the Addressers,' one year's imprisonment, and £100 fine.

H. D. Symonds. 'Rights of Man,' two years imprisonment, and £20 fine. 'Letter to the Addressers,' one year's imprisonment, £100, and two sureties of £250 each, and self for £500, for three years, and imprisonment till the fine be paid and sureties given.

April 15. Thompson, printer, Birmingham, 'Rights of Man' and Address to the Addressers;' acquitted.

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April 17. Richard Phillips, printer, Leicester, 'Rights of Man; eighteen months' imprisonment.

May 8. J. Ridgway, bookseller, London; 'Rights of Man,' one year's imprisonment, and £100. 'Letter to the Addressers,' one year's imprisonment, and £100 fine; in each case,

two sureties of £250 each, and self for £500 for three years, and imprisonment till the fine be paid, and sureties given.

June 3. D. I. Eaton, 'Rights of Man:' verdict which amounted to an acquittal. July 11. Do. 'Address to the Addressers' do.

Richard Peart and William Belcher, 'Address to the Addressers,' and 'Rights of Man;' imprisonment three months. August 10. Messrs. Robinsons, 'Rights of Man;' fine. Daniel Holt, bookseller, Newark, 'Address to the Addres sers;' four years' imprisonment, and £50 fine.

These prosecutions, though they were far from tranquillizing or satisfying the public mind, were certainly followed by one of their intended effects, that of suppressing the circulation of the work. Such was the acrimony with which the admirers of Mr. Paine were persecuted in all parts of the country, that it was regarded as highly dangerous for any person to be found with the book in his possession; for though the law took no cognizance of such an act, the individual became a marked object of destruction, and so vigilant were the agents of tyranny, that their malice was sure to be gratified by one means or other. On the trials of Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall, the circumstance of their having patronised the 'Rights of Man' was made a very material ground for the charge of high treason, and though the accusation failed, the obloquy, which by this and other means was cast upon the work, tended very greatly to prevent its farther dissemination."

We have hitherto only noticed the public character of Mr. Paine in England. Before we follow him into France, we shall extract from Clio Rickman's life of Paine, an article on his civil, social, or domestic habits, observing that Mr. Rickman was his friend and companion, a man of amiable disposition, extensively known, and esteemed wherever known. We knew the family, and are at this time intimate with those who were familiar with and companions of Mr. Rickman. This gentleman remarks:

"Mr. Paine's life in London was a quiet round of philosophical leisure and enjoyment. It was occupied in writing, in a small epistolary correspondence, in walking about with me to visit different friends, occasionally lounging at coffeehouses and public places, or being visited by a select few. Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the French and American ambassadors, Mr. Sharp, the engraver, Romney, the painter, Mrs. Wolstonecroft, Joel Barlow, Mr. Hull, Mr. Christie, Dr. Priestly, Dr. Towers, Colonel Oswald, the walking Stewart,

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Captain Sampson Perry, Mr. Tuffin, Mr. William Choppin, Captain de Stark, Mr. Horne Tooke, &c., &c., were among the number of his friends and acquaintance; and, of course, as he was my inmate, the most of my associates were frequently his. At this time he read but little, took his nap after dinner, and played with my family at some game in the evening, as chess, dominoes, or draughts, but never at cards; in recitations, singing, music, &c.; or passed it in conversation: the part he took in the latter was always enlightened, full of information, entertainment, and anecdote. Occasionally we visited enlightened friends, indulged in domestic jaunts and recreations from home, frequently lounging at the White Bear, Piccadilly, with his old friend, the walking Stewart, and other clever travellers from France, and different parts of Europe and America.

When by ourselves we sat very late, and often broke in on the morning hours, indulging the reciprocal interchange of affectionate and confidential intercourse. 6 Warm from the heart and faithful to its fires,' was that intercourse, and gave to us the 'feast of reason and the flow of soul.''

"To return to Mr. Paine and the French convention. On the 25th of July, 1792, the Duke of Brunswick issued his sanguinary manifesto: in this he stated that the allies were resolved to inflict the most dreadful punishments on the national assembly, and on the city of Paris, for their treatment of the royal family; he even went so far as to threaten to give up the place to military execution. The publication of this document threw the people of Paris into a state of complete confusion. They became frantic and furious, and the manifesto, instead of lulling them into repose, drove them to deeds of desperation. A party was soon formed in the convention for putting the king to death, and the agitated condition of the people facilitated the design. Mr. Paine labored hard to prevent this object from being carried into execution, but though his efforts produced a few converts to his doctrine, the majority of his colleagues were too enraged with the duplicity of the king, and the detestable conduct of the foreign monarchs, with whom he was leagued, to listen to anything short of the most unlimited vengeance. The conduct of Louis was too reprehensible to be passed over in silence; Mr. Paine therefore voted that he should be tried, but when the question whether he should be condemned to death, was brought forward, he opposed it by every argument in his power. His exertions were, however, ineffectual, and sentence of death was passed, though by a very small majority. Mr. Paine was determined to let slip no opportunity of protesting against this measure, and when the question, whether the sentence should be carried into execution, was discussed, he combated the proposition with great energy. As he was not in the habit of pronouncing

French, one of the secretaries read his discourse translated from the original English.

It is evident that his reasoning was thought very persuasive, since those who had heard the discourses of Buzot, Condorcet, and Brissot, to the same purpose without interruption, broke out in murmurs while Paine's opinion was reading; and Marat, at length, losing all patience, exclaimed that Paine was a quaker, and insinuated that his mind being contracted by the narrow principles of his religion, was incapable of the liberality that was requisite for condemning men to death. This shrewd argument not being thought convincing, the secretary continued to read, that the execution of the sentence, instead of an act of justice, would appear to all the world, and particularly to their allies, the American States, as an act of vengeance, and that if he were sufficiently master of the French language, he would, in the name of his brethren of America, present a petition at their bar against the execution of the sentence.' Marat and his associates said that these could not possibly be the sentiments of Thomas Paine, and that the assembly was imposed upon by a false translation. On comparing it with the original, however, it was found

correct.

Though these exertions were frustrated, they were attended with one effect, that of rendering Mr. Paine an object of hatred among the most violent actors in the revolution. They found that he could not be induced to participate in their acts of cruelty; they dreaded the opposition which he might make to these sanguinary deeds, and they therefore marked him out as a victim to be sacrificed the first opportunity.

The humanity of Mr. Paine was, indeed, one of the most prominent features in his character, and it was equally a matter of indifference to him whether the exercise of this high attribute of the human heart was required on a trivial or important, a public or private occasion. Of his strict attention to his public duty in this respect, even at the hazard of his own safety, we have a convincing proof in his opposition to the execution of the king, and of his humane and charitable disposition in a private point of view, the following circumstances are sufficient to warrant the most unqualified conclusion.

Mr. Paine happened to be dining one day with about twenty friends at a coffee-house in the Palais Egalite, now the Palais Royal, when, unfortunately for the harmony of the company, a captain in the English service contrived to introduce himself as one of the party. The military gentleman was a strenuous supporter of the constitution in church and state, and a decided enemy of the French revolution. After the cloth was drawn, the conversation chiefly turned on the state of affairs in England, and the means which had been adopted