William Cobbett says: As my Lord Grenville introduced the name of Burke, suffer me, my Lord, to introduce that of a man who put this Burke to shame, who drove him off the public stage to seek shelter in the pension list, and who is now named fifty million times where the name of the pensioned Burke is mentioned once The cause of the American Colonies was the cause of the English Constitution, which says that no man shall be taxed without his own consent. A little cause sometimes produces a great effect; an insult offered to a man of great talent and unconquerable perseverance has in many instances produced, in the long run, most tremendous effects; and it appears to me very clear that the inexcusable insults, offered to Mr. Paine while he was in the Excise in England, was the real cause of the Revolution in America; for, though the nature of the cause of America was such as I have before described it; though the principles were firm in the minds of the people of that country; still, it was Mr. Paine, and Mr. Paine alone, who brought those principles into action.

Paine's part in the Revolutionary War was most worthy and honorable. He shouldered a musket with the men at Valley Forge, carried messages by night through the enemy's country, acted as rear guard for Washington's retreating army, and helped at break of day to capture Trenton, and proved his courage in various ways & As clerk, secretary, accountant and financier he did excellent service.

Of course, there had been the usual harmonious discord that will occur among men hard-pressed, over

worked, where nerve-tension finds vent at times in acrimony. But through all the nine weary years before the British had enough, Paine had never been censured with the same bitterness which had fallen upon the heads of Washington and Jefferson. Even Franklin came in for his share of blame, and it was shown that he expended an even hundred thousand pounds in Europe, with no explanation of what he had done with the money When called upon to give an accounting for the "yellow dog fund," Franklin simply wrote back, "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn." And on the suggestion of Thomas Paine the matter was officially dropped.

Paine was a writing man-the very first American writing man-and I am humiliated when I have to acknowledge that we had to get him from England. He was the first man who ever used these words, "The American Nation," and also these, "The United States of America." Paine is the first American writer who had a literary style, and we have not had so many since but that you may count them on the fingers of one hand. Note this sample of antithesis: "There are but two natural sources of wealth-the earth and the ocean, and to lose the right to either, in our situation, is to put the other up for sale."

Here is a little tribute from Paine's pen to America which some of our boomers of boom towns might do well to use:

America has now outgrown the state of infancy. Her strength and commerce make large advances to manhood; and science in all its branches has not only blossomed, but even ripened upon the soil The cottages as it were of yesterday have grown into villages, and the villages to cities; and while proud antiquity, like a skeleton in rags, parades the streets of other nations, their genius as if sickened and disgusted with the phantom, comes hither for recovery. America yet inherits a large portion of her first-imported virtue. Degeneracy is here almost a useless word. Those who are conversant with Europe would be tempted to believe that even the air of the Atlantic disagrees with the constitution of foreign vices; if they survive the voyage they either expire on their arrival, or linger away with an incurable consumption. There is a happy something in the climate of America which disarms them of all their power both of infection and attraction.

Ease, fluidity, grace, imagination, energy, earnestness, mark his work No wonder is it that Franklin said, "Others can rule, many can fight, but only Paine can write for us the English tongue." And Jefferson, himself a great writer, was constantly, for many years, sending to Paine manuscript for criticism and correction. In one letter to Paine, Jefferson adds this postscript, "You must not be too much elated and set up when I tell you my belief that you are the only writer in America who can write better than your obliged and obedient servant-Thomas Jefferson."

AINE was living in peace at Bordentown in the year 1787. The war was ended-the last hostile Britisher had departed, and the country was awakening to prosperity. Paine rode his mettlesome old war-horse 66 Button," back and forth from Philadelphia, often stopping and seating himself by the roadway to write out a thought while the horse that had known the smell of powder quietly nibbled the grass The success of Benjamin Franklin as an inventor had fired the heart of Paine. He devised a plan to utilize small explosions of gunpowder to run an engine, thus anticipating our gas and gasoline engines by near a hundred years He had also planned a bridge to span the Schuylkill. Capitalists were ready to build the bridge, provided Paine could get French engineers, then the greatest in the world, to endorse his plans So he sailed away to France, intending also to visit his parents in England, instructing his friends in Bordentown, with whom he boarded, to take care of his horse, his room and books with all his papers, for he would be back in less than a year He was fifty years old. It was thirteen years since he had left England, and he felt that his transplantation to a new soil had not

been in vain. England had practically exiled him, but still the land of his birth called, and unseen tendrils tugged at his heart. He must again see England, even for a brief visit, and then back to America, the land that he loved and which he had helped to free. And destiny devised that it was to be fifteen years before he was again to see his beloved "United States of America."

Arriving in France, Paine was received with great honors There was much political unrest and the fuse was then being lighted that was to cause the explosion of 1789. However, of all this Paine knew little. He met Danton, a freemason, like himself, and various other radicals. "Common Sense" and "The Crisis had been translated into French, printed and widely distributed, and inasmuch as Paine had been a party in bringing about one revolution, and had helped carry it through to success, his counsel and advice were sought. A few short weeks in France, and Paine having secured the endorsement of the Academy for his bridge, went over to England preparatory to sailing for America.

Arriving in England, Paine found that his father had died but a short time before His mother was living, aged ninety-one, and in full possession of her faculties. The meeting of mother and son was full of tender memories And the mother, while not being able to follow her gifted son in all of his reasoning yet fully