out: at this moment they separated. After having gone side by side during their whole lives, they steered a course directly opposite to each other. Paine became a flaming patriot, while Swanwick remained a royalist.-How came this? Why, Swanwick was still in office, whereas poor Tom was dismissed. Had Swanwick been dismissed and Paine in office, Tom would have followed the British waggons to New-York, and Swanwick would, probably, have written Common Sense. With the reader's permission, I will just step aside from my subject, to ask, how it happened, that Citizen John Swanwick, now one of the august representatives of the city of which I have the honour to be an inhabitant, came to be a staunch whig, while his respectable sire was as zealous a waggonmaster as any in the Royal army? Mr. Swanwick was, I presume, too young, at that time, to perceive the amazing advantage that a citizen enjoys over a subject; and, as he professes a great deal of filial piety, one may reasonably suppose, that he would have followed the fortunes of his father, had not his remaining behind been in consequence of a concerted plan. This is a stroke of domestic policy, which has been often practised in ticklish times, but never with more complete success than in the present instance. The father was a faithful subject and the son a firm patriot; the father sang God save the King and the son Yankey doodle; the father got a pension and the son a seat in Congress.I could continue a little further here, but it is time to return to our old broken Exciseman. 'Amid this knavery and mismanagement, Paine ⚫ had not distinguished himself by conjugal tender6 ness to his second wife. He had now lived with her three years and a half, and, besides cruelly beating, had otherwise treated her, wilfully and shamefully, in a manner which would excite the 'indignation indignation and resentment of every virtuous married woman; and which must ensure to him 'the detestation of every honourable man. From an attention to the known delicacy and modesty of our fair country-women, we forbear, in this abstract, to state the particulars, though they are published at length in Mr. Oldys's pamphlet. The consequence of all this was a separation ⚫ between him and his wife, upon the conditions of her paying her husband thirty-five pounds sterling, and his agreeing to claim no part of whatever property she might thereafter acquire.' 'Paine now retired to London; but would not 'leave his wife in peace till they had mutually entered into new articles of separation; in which it 6 6 was declared on his part, that he no longer found a wife a convenience, and on hers, that she had too long suffered the miseries of such a husband.' This is the kind and philanthropic Tom Paine, who sets up such a piteous howl about the cruelty and tyranny of kings!" I have known many of those bold champions for liberty in my time," says the good old Vicar of Wakefield, yet do I 66 not remember one who was not in his heart and "in his family a tyrant." What Dr. Johnson observes of Milton may with justice be applied to every individual of the king-killing crew: "he "looked upon woman as made only for obedience, "and man only for rebellion." I would request the reader to look round among his acquaintance, and see if this observation does not every where hold good; see if there be one among the yelping kennel of modern patriots, who is not a bad husband, father, brother, or son. The same pride and turbulence of 'spirit that lead them to withhold every mark of respect and obedience from their superiors, lead them also to tyrannize over those who are so unfortunate as to be subjected to their will. G 4 will. The laws of nature will seldom, if ever, be respected by the man who has set those of his country and of decorum at defiance; and from this degree of perversity there is but one step to the defiance of heaven itself. The good citizen or subject. the good husband, parent and child, and the good christian, exist together or they exist not at all. From the circumstances attending Tom's separation from this last wife, we may make a pretty correct calculation of his value as a husband. The poor woman was obliged to pay him thirty-five pounds sterling to get rid of him; so that, a democratic spouse, even supposing him to come up to his great leader in worth, is (in Federal currency) just one hundred and fifty-six dollars, sixty-six cents and two-thirds of a cent, worse than nothing. Oh, base democracy! Why, it is absolutely worse than street-sweepings, or the filth of common sewers. The mob of kings that the poor French have got, have lately set Thomas to writing down the credit of English bank-notes, a task that the dregs of his old brain were quite unequal to. Instead of useless labours of this kind, instead of attempting to write down the Bible and bank-notes, I would recommend to him to oblige the people of his "be"loved America," as he calls it, with a statement of the sums necessary to pay off all the democratic husbands in this continent, at the price his own wife fixed on himself; adding to the gross amount as much as would defray the expenses of their transportation to their proper climate, France. Their wives, I dare say, would have no objection to imitate Mrs. Painę, as far as their last farthing would go, and if all wisdom is not banished from within the walls of the Congress, they would never refuse to make up the deficiency. We We have seen enough of Tom as a husband; now let us see what it is to be cursed with such a son. Citizen Paine now finding that his notoriously bad character rendered it adviseable for him to leave a country where he was known: he had the address to procure a recommendation to the late • Dr. Franklin, in America, as a person who might, at such a crisis, be useful there. He accordingly sailed for America in September 1774.' The following letter from his mother to his wife, written about this time, proves that she had 'the distress of knowing his crimes and misfortunes, and of feeling for them as a parent naturally feels for a child, wicked or unhappy.' Thetford, Norfolk, 27th July 1774. "Dear Daughter, "I must beg leave to trouble you with my inqui"ries concerning my unhappy son and your hus"band various are the reports, the which I find 66 come originally from the Excise-office; such as "his vile treatment to you; his secreting upwards "of 30%. intrusted with him to manage the peti"tion for advance of salary; and that, since his "discharge, he have petitioned to be restored, "which was rejected with scorn. Since which, I "am told, he have left England. To all which I beg you will be kind enough to answer me by due "course of post.-You will not be a little surprised 66 at my so strongly desiring to know what is be"come of him, after I repeat to you his undutiful "behaviour to the tenderest of parents: he never "asked of us any thing but what was granted, "that were in our poor abilities to do; nay, we even distressed ourselves; whose works are given 66 POLITICAL CENSOR. No. V. "over by old age, to let him have 207. on bond, "Dear Daughter, "Your affectionate mother, "F. PAIN." “ For God's sake, let me have your answer, as I am almost distracted." 6 He arrived at Philadelphia in the winter of 1774, a few months before the battle of Lexington. He was first engaged as shopman, by Mr. Aitkin, a bookseller in Philadelphia, at the wages of twenty pounds a year. In November 1775, he was employed in a laboratory. He took great pains in experiments for the purpose of discovering some cheap, easy, and expeditious method of making saltpetre. He was also the proposer of a plan for the voluntary supplying of the public magazines with gunpowder; and earnestly laboured to persuade the inhabitants of Philadel'phia to adopt it.' On the 10th of January 1776, was published his Common Sense, an octavo pamphlet of sixtythree pages. This pamphlet was eagerly read, passed through several editions, and was even translated into German. Prosecuting the career, upon which he had thus not unsuccessfully entered, he, on the 19th of December 1776, pub•lished |