"Politics and self interest have been so uniformly connected that the world from be"ing so often deceived has a right to be suspi"cious of public characters. But with regard "to myself I am perfectly easy on this head. "I did not at my first setting out in pub"lic life, nearly seventeen years ago, turn my

thoughts to subjects of government from mo"tives of interest; and my conduct from that

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moment to this proves the fact. I saw an opportunity in which I thought I could do some good, and I followed exactly what my "heart dictated: I neither read books, nor "studied other people's opinions-I thought for myself. The case was this:

During the suspension of the old go"vernment in America, both prior to and

at the breaking out of hostilities, I was "struck with the order and decorum with "which every thing was conducted, and im"prest with the idea that a little more than "what society naturally performed was all the

government that was necessary. On these principles I published the pamphlet Com66 mon Sense."

"The success it met with was beyond any thing since the invention of printing. I

gave the copyright up to every state in the "Union, and the demand run to not less than "one hundred thousand copies, and I conti

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nued the subject under the title of 'American "Crisis,' till the complete establishment of the "American revolution."

Further he says, "It was the cause of Ame"rica that made me an author. The force "with which it struck my mind made it

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impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be

silent; and if in the course of seven years "I have rendered her any service, I have "added likewise something to the reputation "of literature by freely and disinterestedly "employing it in the service of mankind, and showing there may be genius without pros"titution."

Owing to this disinterested conduct of Mr. Paine, it appears that tho the sale of 'Common Sense' was so great, he was in debt to the printer £29. 128. 1d. This liberality and conscientious discharge of his duty with respect

to his serviceable writings, as he called them, he adopted thro life. "When I bring out my "poetical and anecdotical. works," he would "which will be little better

often say to me, "than amusing, I shall sell them; but I must "have no gain in view, must make no traffic of my political and theological writings: they

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are with me matter of principle, and not

matter of money: I cannot desire to derive "benefit from them, or make them the subject to attain it."

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And twenty-seven years after the publication of Common Sense,' he thus writes to a friend. "As the French revolution advanced "it fixed the attention of the world, and drew "from the pen of Edmund Burke a furious attack; "this brought me once more on the public the"atre of public politics, and occasioned my

writing a work that had the greatest run of any ever published in the English language. "The principles in it were the same as those in 66 my former one. As to myself I acted in both

cases alike.

"I relinquished to the people of England

"all profit, as I had done to those of America, "from the work; my reward existed in the am"bition of doing good, and in the independent

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happiness of my own mind. In my publica"tions I follow the rule I began, that is to "consult with nobody, nor let any body see "what I write till it appears publicly ;* were I "to do otherwise the case would be that be

* A, ridiculous notion has been often broached, that Mr. Paine wrote not the works attributed to him; or if he did, that he was greatly assisted this silly stuff has been generally urged by his opponents, as if, even supposing it was so, it invalidated their matter, or in any way rendered them less true: the contrary is the fact. Mr. Paine was so tenacious on this subject that he would not alter a line or word, at the suggestion even of a friend.

I remember when he read me his letter to Dundas in 1792, I objected to the pun, Madjesty, as beneath him; "Never mind," he said, "they say Mad Tom of me, so I shall let it stand Madjesty." I say not that his tenacity on this subject was not absurd; but it affords the fullest contradiction to the opinion, that he ever had the least aid or assistance in his writings, or suffered the smallest alteration to be made in them by others.

If the reader will refer to the period in which Mr. Paine made use of this pun he will find that it could not have any allusion to the king's melancholy infirmity - he was one of the last men in the world to be guilty of any thing of the kind; nor can it be supposed it is now brought forward but for the reason stated.

F

"tween the timidity of some who are so afraid "of doing wrong that they never do right, the

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puny judgment of others, and the despicable "craft of preferring expedient to right, as if "the world was a world of babies in leading strings, I should get forward with nothing.

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"My path is a right line, as strait and "clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness

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(if they will have it so) with which I speak

on any subject is a compliment to the person "I address; it is like saying to him, I treat you

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as a man and not as a child. With respect to

any worldly object, as it is impossible to dis

cover any in me, therefore what I do, and my

manner of doing it, ought to be ascribed to a

good motive. In a great affair, where the "good of man is at stake, I love to work for "nothing; and so fully am I under the influ

ence of this principle, that I should lose the

spirit, the pride, and the pleasure of it, were "I conscious that I looked for reward."

In the course of this year, 1776, Mr. Paine accompanied the army with General Washington, and was with him in his retreat