ied occupations, he ran a "tobacco mill," and was twice
married. One wife died, and from the other he was separated. At all
events, at thirty-seven, alone and friendless, with empty pockets and
a letter from Benjamin Franklin as his sole asset, he set sail for
America in the year 1774.

Of course he went to the Quaker City, and speedily became the editor
of the _Pennsylvania Magazine_, through the pages of which he cried a
new message of liberty and justice to the troubled Colonies. He, an
Englishman, urged America to break away from England; he, of Quaker
birth and by heredity and training opposed to fighting, advocated the
most stringent steps for the consummation of national freedom. In that
clear-eyed and disinterested band of men who conceived and cradled our
Republic, Paine stands a giant even among giants.

Many persons believe that it was he who actually composed and wrote
the Declaration of Independence; it is certain that he is more than
half responsible for it. The very soul and fibre and living spirit of
the United States was the soul and fibre and living spirit of Thomas
Paine, and, in the highest American standards and traditions, remains
the same today.

In 1775 he wrote "Common Sense"--the book which was, as one historian
declares, the "clarion call for separation from England," and which
swept the country. Edmund Randolph drily ascribes American
independence first to George III and second to Paine. Five hundred
thousand copies of the pamphlet were sold, and he might easily have
grown rich on the proceeds, but he could never find it in his
conscience to make money out of patriotism, and he gave every cent to
the war fund.

This splendid fire-eating Quaker--is there anything stauncher than a
fighting Quaker?--proceeded to enlist in the Pennsylvania division of
the Flying Camp under General Roberdeau; then he went as aide-de-camp
to General Greene. It was in 1776 that he started his "Crisis," a
series of stirring and patriotic addresses in pamphlet form. General
Washington ordered the first copy read aloud to every regiment in the
Continental Army, and its effect is now history.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox has written of this:

"... Many of the soldiers were shoeless and left bloody
footprints on the snow-covered line of march. All were but
half-hearted at this time and many utterly discouraged.
Washington wrote most apprehensively concerning the
situation to the Congress. Paine,