RIGHTS OF MAN: BEING AN ANSWER TO MR. BURKE's ATTACK ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. BY THOMAS PAINE, SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO CONGRESS IN THE AUTHOR OF THE WORK INTITLED "COMMON SENSE” LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. S. JORDAN, No. 166. FLEET-STREET. ΤΟ GEORGE WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. SIR, I PRESENT you a fmall Treatife in defence of those Principles of Freedom which your exemplary Virtue hath so eminently contributed to establish.-That the Rights of Man may become as univerfal as your Benevolence can wish, and that you may enjoy the Happinefs of feeing the New World regenerate the Old, is the Prayer of SIR, Your much obliged, and Obedient humble Servant, THOMAS PAINE. PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. FRO ROM the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I fhould confider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to have had caufe to continue in that opinion, than to change it. At the time Mr. Burke made his violent fpeech laft winter in the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National Affembly, I was in Paris, and had written him, but a fhort time before, to inform him how profperoufly matters were going on. Soon after this, I faw his advertisement of the Pamphlet he intended to publifh: As the attack was to be made in a language but little ftudied, and lefs understood, in France, and as every thing fuffers by tranflation, I promifed fome of the friends of the Revolution in that country, that whenever Mr. Burke's Pamphlet came forth, I would |