ut replied to it
only with exclamation points, saying that the only answer such ideas
merited was "criminal justice." Paine's Part Second followed, published
February 17, 1792. In Part First Paine had mentioned a rumor that Burke
was a masked pensioner (a charge that will be noticed in connection with
its detailed statement in a further publication); and as Burke had
been formerly arraigned in Parliament, while Paymaster, for a very
questionable proceeding, this charge no doubt hurt a good deal. Although
the government did not follow Burke's suggestion of a prosecution
at that time, there is little doubt that it was he who induced the
prosecution of Part Second. Before the trial came on, December 18, 1792,
Paine was occupying his seat in the French Convention, and could only be
outlawed.

Burke humorously remarked to a friend of Paine and himself, "We hunt
in pairs." The severally representative character and influence of these
two men in the revolutionary era, in France and England, deserve more
adequate study than they have received. While Paine maintained freedom
of discussion, Burke first proposed criminal prosecution for sentiments
by no means libellous (such as Paine's Part First). While Paine was
endeavoring to make the movement in France peaceful, Burke fomented the
league of monarchs against France which maddened its people, and brought
on the Reign of Terror. While Paine was endeavoring to preserve the
French throne ("phantom" though he believed it), to prevent bloodshed,
Burke was secretly writing to the Queen of France, entreating her not
to compromise, and to "trust to the support of foreign armies"
("Histoire de France depuis 1789." Henri Martin, i., 151). While Burke
thus helped to bring the King and Queen to the guillotine, Paine pleaded
for their lives to the last moment. While Paine maintained the right of
mankind to improve their condition, Burke held that "the awful Author
of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence;
and that, having disposed and marshalled us by a divine tactick, not
according to our will, but according to his, he has, in and by that
disposition, virtually subjected us to act the part which belongs to
the place assigned us." Paine was a religious believer in eternal
principles; Burke held that "political problems do not primarily
concern truth or falsehood. They relate to good or evil. What in the
result is likely to produce evil is politically false, that whic