I have always reserved for myself. It not only belongs to me of right,
but nobody but myself can do it; and as every author is accountable (at
least in reputation) for his works, he only is the person to do it. If
he neglects it in his life-time the case is altered. It is my intention
to return to America in the course of the present year. I shall then
[do] it by subscription, with historical notes. As this work will employ
many persons in different parts of the Union, I will confer with you
upon the subject, and such part of it as will suit you to
undertake, will be at your choice. I have sustained so much loss, by
disinterestedness and inattention to money matters, and by accidents,
that I am obliged to look closer to my affairs than I have done. The
printer (an Englishman) whom I employed here to print the second part
of 'the Age of Reason' made a manuscript copy of the work while he was
printing it, which he sent to London and sold. It was by this means that
an edition of it came out in London.

"We are waiting here for news from America of the state of the federal
elections. You will have heard long before this reaches you that the
French government has refused to receive Mr. Pinckney as minister. While
Mr. Monroe was minister he had the opportunity of softening matters with
this government, for he was in good credit with them tho' they were in
high indignation at the infidelity of the Washington Administration.
It is time that Mr. Washington retire, for he has played off so much
prudent hypocrisy between France and England that neither government
believes anything he says.

"Your friend, etc.,

"THOMAS PAINE."

It would appear that Symonds' stolen edition must have got ahead of that
sent by Paine to Franklin Bache, for some of its errors continue in
all modern American editions to the present day, as well as in those of
England. For in England it was only the shilling edition--that
revised by Paine--which was suppressed. Symonds, who ministered to the
half-crown folk, and who was also publisher of replies to Paine, was
left undisturbed about his pirated edition, and the new Society for the
suppression of Vice and Immorality fastened on one Thomas Williams, who
sold pious tracts but was also convicted (June 24, 1797) of having sold
one copy of the "Age of Reason." Erskine, who had defended Paine at his
trial for the "Rights of Man," conducted the prosecution of Williams.
He gained the victory from a packed jur