om of the question. Vane
especially, a distinguished advocate and zealous democrat, is furious
against Erskine. It is now for Payne to defend himself. But whatever
he does, he will have trouble enough to reverse the opinion. The Jury's
verdict is generally applauded: a mortal blow is dealt to freedom of
thought. People sing in the streets, even at midnight, _God save the
King and damn Tom Payne!_" (1)

1 The despatches from which these translations are made are
in the Archives of the Department of State at Paris, series
marked _Angleterre_ vol. 581.

The student of that period will find some instruction in a collection,
now in the British Museum, of coins and medals mostly struck after the
trial and outlawry of Paine. A halfpenny, January 21,1793: _obverse_,
a man hanging on a gibbet, with church in the distance; motto "End of
Pain"; _reverse_, open book inscribed "The Wrongs of Man." A token: bust
of Paine, with his name; _reverse_, "The Mountain in Labour, 1793."
Farthing: Paine gibbeted; _reverse_, breeches burning, legend,
"Pandora's breeches"; beneath, serpent decapitated by a dagger,
the severed head that of Paine. Similar farthing, but _reverse_,
combustibles intermixed with labels issuing from a globe marked
"Fraternity"; the labels inscribed "Regicide," "Robbery," "Falsity,"
"Requisition"; legend, "French Reforms, 1797"; near by, a church with
flag, on it a cross. Half-penny without date, but no doubt struck in
1794, when a rumor reached London that Paine had been guillotined:
Paine gibbeted; above, devil smoking a pipe; _reverse_, monkey dancing;
legend, "We dance, Paine swings." Farthing: three men hanging on a
gallows; "The three Thomases, 1796." _Reverse_, "May the three knaves
of Jacobin Clubs never get a trick." The three Thomases were Thomas
Paine, Thomas Muir, and Thomas Spence. In 1794 Spence was imprisoned
seven months for publishing some of Paine's works at his so-called
"Hive of Liberty." Muir, a Scotch lawyer, was banished to Botany Bay for
fourteen years for having got up in Edinburgh (1792) a "Convention," in
imitation of that just opened in Paris; two years later he escaped from
Botany Bay on an American ship, and found his way to Paine in Paris.
Among these coins there are two of opposite character. A farthing
represents Pitt on a gibbet, against which rests a ladder; inscription,
"End of P [here an eye] T." _Reverse_, face of Pitt conjoined with that
of the devil, and legend,