The Rights of Man Thomas Paine (pdf to ebook reader .txt) 📖

mentioned as implying criminality in the French guards, who assisted in demolishing it. “They have not,” says he, “forgot the taking the king’s castles at Paris.” This is Mr. Burke, who pretends to write on constitutional freedom. ↩

In the French edition this allusion is explained in a footnote. —⁠Conway ↩

I am warranted in asserting this, as I had it personally from M. de la Fayette, with whom I lived in habits of friendship for fourteen years. ↩

An account of the expedition to Versailles may be seen in No. 13 of the Revolution de Paris containing the events from the 3rd to the 10th of October, 1789. ↩

The English rotten borough system was quoted in the United States Constitutional Convention, 1787, as precedent for the disproportionate representation embodied in the Senate. But the new Constitution in America had been little studied in 1791 by Paine, and, fortunately for this argument, less by his opponents. In a modern English edition Paine’s text is invaded by the anachronism: “It is admitted that all this is altered, but there is much to be done yet, before we have a fair representation of the people.” —⁠Conway ↩

In Jordan’s addition, which superseded Johnson’s (of which only a few copies obtained circulation) this sentence begins, “Many things, etc.” But Burke, in his Appeal, was careful to quote the original sentence. —⁠Conway ↩

It is a practice in some parts of the country, when two travellers have but one horse, which, like the national purse, will not carry double, that the one mounts and rides two or three miles ahead, and then ties the horse to a gate and walks on. When the second traveller arrives he takes the horse, rides on, and passes his companion a mile or two, and ties again, and so on⁠—Ride and tie. ↩

The word he used was renvoyé, dismissed or sent away. ↩

But on his return to America, after writing the Age of Reason, Paine learned by sad experience that the disestablishment of a church does not imply the disestablishment of Dogmas or of Intolerance. —⁠Conway ↩

When in any country we see extraordinary circumstances taking place, they naturally lead any man who has a talent for observation and investigation, to enquire into the causes. The manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield, are the principal manufacturers in England. From whence did this arise? A little observation will explain the case. The principal, and the generality of the inhabitants of those places, are not of what is called in England, the church established by law: and they, or their fathers, (for it is within but a few years) withdrew from the persecution of the chartered towns, where test-laws more particularly operate, and established a sort of asylum for themselves in those places. It was the only asylum that then offered, for the rest of Europe was worse.⁠—But the case is now changing. France and America bid all comers welcome, and initiate them into all the rights of citizenship. Policy and interest, therefore, will, but perhaps too late, dictate in England, what reason and justice could not. Those manufacturers are withdrawing, and arising in other places. There is now erecting in Passey, three miles from Paris, a large cotton manufactory, and several are already erected in America. Soon after the rejecting the Bill for repealing the test-law, one of the richest manufacturers in England said in my hearing, “England, Sir, is not a country for a dissenter to live in⁠—we must go to France.” These are truths, and it is doing justice to both parties to tell them. It is chiefly the dissenters that have carried English manufactures to the height they are now at, and the same men have it in their power to carry them away; and though those manufactures would afterwards continue in those places, the foreign market will be lost. There frequently appear in the London Gazette, extracts from certain acts to prevent machines and persons, as far as they can extend to persons, from going out of the country. It appears from these that the ill effects of the test-laws and church-establishment begin to be much suspected; but the remedy of force can never supply the remedy of reason. In the progress of less than a century, all the unrepresented part of England, of all denominations, which is at least a hundred times the most numerous, may begin to feel the necessity of a constitution, and then all those matters will come regularly before them. ↩

When the English Minister, Mr. Pitt, mentions the French finances again in the English Parliament, it would be well that he noticed this as an example. ↩

Mr. Burke, (and I must take the liberty of telling him that he is very unacquainted with French affairs), speaking upon this subject, says, “The first thing that struck me in calling the States-General, was a great departure from the ancient course;”⁠—and he soon after says, “From the moment I read the list, I saw distinctly, and very nearly as it has happened, all that was to follow.”⁠—Mr. Burke certainly did not see all that was to follow. I endeavoured to impress him, as well before as after the States-General met, that there would be a revolution; but was not able to make him see it, neither would he believe it. How then he could distinctly see all the parts, when the whole was out of sight, is beyond my comprehension. And with respect to the “departure from the ancient course,” besides the natural weakness of the remark, it shows that he is unacquainted with circumstances. The departure was necessary, from the experience had upon it, that the ancient course was a bad one. The States-General of 1614 were called