HISTORICAL PREFACE.*

HOMAS PAINE, author of the Rights of Man,

TH was born in England of Quaker parents. On

Franklin's representations he visited North America in 1774, and at Philadelphia edited the first literary magazine. Just at the crisis when England spurned the humble petitioners and breathed only war and revenge-when the first large armament was about to descend on the shores of the defenceless Colonies, and when all persons seriously asked, "What can be done?" and "What shall we do?" there appeared a small pamphlet from the pen of Thomas Paine under the title of Common Sense. The effect of this pamphlet was magical. The people had only asked for redress of grievances, but now they demanded independence; and in the same year, 1776, it was declared. Mr. Paine followed this pamphlet up by a series of tracts or pamphlets called The Crisis, and signed COMMON SENSE. He had the merit of creating a public opinion, and directing it to a successful issue.

In 1787 Mr. Paine returned to Europe, and presented to the scientific bodies of France and England his model of iron bridges, which have since been adopted. He mixed in the society of the leading literary and political men of both countries; and while thus situated, the elements of the first French revolution began to appear. Mr. Paine hastened to the scene of action, as an intelligent observer; and on this subject became the correspondent of Edmund Burke, then the most eloquent man in the House of Commons, and the champion of liberty. But Mr. Burke was at that time a secret pensioner. He had stipulated for a handsome pension for himself, for his wife in case she survived, and for his family after

*By Gilbert VALE, author of Vale's Life of Paine.

their death. This pension not being known to the public at that time, to the surprise of all, the eloquent Mr. Burke changed his principles, and from being the warm supporter of America in her struggle for liberty, and the champion of the early efforts of the French in their revolution, he became the enemy of that revolution, and through that the supporter of corruption and the friend of the oppressor; but as Mr. Burke took advantage of some excesses in the French revolution to declare his change of opinion, he gave a coloring to this change which deceived even his personal friends. They gave him credit for sincerity, and when he announced his great work, Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, it made a great impression on the public mind. The friends of liberty and human rights in both Ireland and England were mortified at the defection of Mr. Burke, and dejected at the success of his work, till Mr. Paine announced a reply. That reply was the Rights of Man, and popular as Mr. Burke's work was in its beginning, it stood no chance against Mr. Paine's. Where a thousand copies were sold of the one, ten thousand were sold of the other. Mr. Burke, before the publication of the Rights of Man, had promised a rejoinder, but he never attempted it, and Mr. Paine, after waiting a long time, published his SECOND PART. * The present work contains both; it is Mr. Paine's chef d'œuvre in politics. He has given it a broad basis on principle. It is a condensation of sound political principles, applicable at all times, besides being a reminiscence of England and France at those stirring times.

The work had an immense run and influence, and as it could not be bought up, it was honored with a series of prosecutions by the British government; but the same work procured for Mr. Paine an election to the French convention from three different places, and the highest honors were awarded him on his landing at Calais.

The Rights of Man has now become a standard work, and as such is presented to the American public.

*The first part of the Rights of Man was published by Mr. Jordan, No. 166 Fleet Street, London, on the 13th of March, 1791, and the second part on the 16th of February, 1792. The offer of 1,000 for the copyright of the second part by Mr. Chapman, the printer, was probably inspired by the English government, which strove to suppress the work, and this offer was promptly declined by Mr. Paine, who wrote for the benefit of mankind and not for a pecuniary reward.-PUB,

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.*

F

ROM the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution, it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind; and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to continue in that opinion, than to change it.

At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the National Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written to him but a short time before, to inform him how prosperously matters were going on. Soon after this, I saw his advertisement of the pamphlet he intended to publish. As the attack was to be made in a language but little studied, and less understood, in France, and as everything suffers by translation, I promised some of the friends of the Revolution in that country, that whenever Mr. Burke's pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This appeared to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant misrepresentations which Mr. Burke's pamphlet contains; and that while it is an outrageous abuse on the French Revolution, and the principles of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of the world.

* This preface, which appeared in the original edition of the Rights of Man, published in 1791, by J. S. Jordan, 166 Fleet Street, London, and also in subsequent English editions, has been excluded from all the American editions of Paine's works which I have been able to examine. As it gives Mr. Paine's reasons for writing the volume, and explains the circumstances which induced him to reply to Mr. Burke's sinister attack on the French Revolution, it is deemed of sufficient importance to warrant its insertion in the present edition, which is an exact reproduction of the original edition, unaltered and unabridged.- Pub.

VIII

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.

I am the more astonished and disappointed at this conduct in Mr. Burke, as (from the circumstance I am going to mention), I had formed other expectations.

I had seen enough of the miseries of war to wish it might never more have existence in the world, and that some other mode might be found out to settle the differences that should occasionally arise in the neighborhood of nations. This certainly might be done if Courts were disposed to set honestly about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had been bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that time characterized the people of England; but experience and an acquaintance with the French nation have most effectually shown to the Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and I do not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse exists between any two countries than between America and France.

When I came to France, in the Spring of 1787, the Archbishop of Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time highly esteemed. I became much acquainted with the private Secretary of that Minister, a man of an enlarged benevolent heart; and found that his sentiments and my own perfectly agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched impolicy of two nations, like England and France, continually worrying each other, to no other end than that of a mutual increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be assured I had not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our opinions into writing, and sent it to him; subjoining a request, that if I should see among the people of England any disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the two nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be authorized to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part of France? He answered me by letter in the most red manner, and that not for