"cannot tell how the state can be retrieved, "its situation is desperate, and it is this "circumstance alone that makes me have recourse to the expedient I am going to adopt. It is not a change of ministers "that I look for, I do not want to see the crown out of office, "or the persons who sit near me appointed "in their room; it is a total change of sys

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present servants of the

tem and measures that I look for; and till "I can have some pledge that in this my "wishes shall be gratified I will oppose

privilege to prerogative, and vote that "not a shilling be given from the people to the crown until they shall first

"have received an earnest that ministers feel

a thorough conviction of past errors, and

are determined to do every thing to cor"rect them. When this shall be done no one shall surpass me in cheerfulness in

granting ample supplies; but I must pause. "before I can think of voting away the

money of the people with no probability "of national advantage, but with almost "moral certainty of ruin to their affairs." Mr. Pitt's Speech on Friday, Nov. 30, 1781.

On the subject of the address at the Thatched House Tavern, which Mr. Paine did write, it is impossible not to quote 'Cheetham's Life' just to exhibit his blindness and ignorance, and to show how prejudice had warped this once idoliser of Mr. Paine." Horne Tooke, perhaps the most

acute man of his age, was at this meet"ing; and as it was rumoured, Paine ob

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serves, that the great grammarian was the "author of the address, he takes the liberty "of mentioning the fact, that he wrote it " himself. I never heard of the rumour, "which was doubtless a fiction formed and

asserted by Paine merely to gratify his

egotism. No one could mistake the un"couth and ungrammatical writings of one, "for the correct and elegant productions of "the other." But what can be expected from him who calls Common Sense' a

6

wretched work; The Rights of Man,' a miserable production; and Burke's Reflections,'

a book of the proudest sagacity?

What can be expected from him who a few years before writing the above, in England

H

deified Mr. Paine, and called his writings immortal? And who says "Fox was vehemently

adverse, and in this he was right, to universal suffrage:" who further says of the American government,

"I hazard nothing in remarking, unless it "be hazardous to state the truth, that however excellent the system of our government may "be in theory, the whole operation of our system of politics in practice, with the chiefs "who lead the two parties, and who by hook

or by crook govern the nation, is one of mystery, craft, and imposition. In these "articles which abound amongst us, no nation 66 can vie with the United States. That I hold

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"This prodigy of human intellect Paine, or rather this sediment of ever-renewed "intoxication, was presented to the convention on the 15th of February 1798. In this "disproportioned thing, this dream of well "meaning fanatics or deliberate act of cool dilapidators, universal suffrage was laid down to perfection.

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મંદ

"May not Paine's constitution of Pennsylvania have been the cause of the tyranny "of Robespierre?

"Paine was always an advocate either of "democratic anarchy or of imperial despotism, "there was no medium with him.

"They talk," he said to a friend of mine, "of "the tyranny of the Emperor of France. I know Bonaparte, I have lived under his "government, and he allows as much freedom as I wish or as any body ought to have. "With Napoleon's invasion of Spain he was enraptured, and of course wished him success! "Could such a man be a friend of freedom?"*

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What can be expected from that Cheetham whose book is filled with such matter as the

* Of the infamous falsehood of this assertion I am a complete witness, being with him when he left France, and knowing how truly he appreciated, and disliked the character of Buonaparte, and his government, and how fervent his wishes were to leave that country, which he emphatically called Golgotha !

above, who was the worshipper of this very Paine in England, and the most violent disseminator of his writings, and who in his 'Life', of him has such trash as the following? and which I know to be false.

"When the 'Rights of Man' reached "Lewes, where Paine married Miss Ollive, "the women as with one voice said, 'Od rot "im, let im come ear if he dust, an we'll "tell im what the rights of women is; we'll "toss im in a blanket, an ring im out of "Lewis wi our frying pans.'

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 coffee-houses 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, Captain