"might leave them to reason and act for them"selves; but these are concerns equally important "to all mankind; and the citizens of America are "called upon, from high authority (he alludes to a "gentleman in a high situation in that country, who "has published an opinion of this book), to rally "round the standard of this champion of revolu"tions. I shall, therefore, now proceed to examine "the reasons ;" and so he goes on.

Gentlemen, I would adopt, with your permission, a few more words from this publication :-" When "Mr. Paine invited the people of England to destroy their present government, and form another "constitution, he should have given them sober rea"soning, and not flippant witticisms." Whether that is or is not the case, what I have read to you today will enable you to judge. "He should have ex

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plained to them the nature of the grievances

by which they are oppressed, and demonstrated "the impossibility of reforming the government in "its present organization. He should have pointed "out some possible method for them to act, in their

original character, without a total dissolution of "civil society among them; he should have "proved what great advantages they would reap as 66 a nation from such a revolution, without dis"guising the great dangers and formidable difficul"ties with which it must be attended." So much

for the passages themselves, and this interpretation, which I humbly submit to your consideration. The next matter upon which I shall proceed is the

evidence which I propose to adduce, and that evidence will go to show, not only the fact of this man's being the writer of this book, by his own repeated admission, and by letters under his own hand, but will likewise go directly to show what is his intent in such publication, which appears I think most clearly; and over and above that I shall produce to you a letter, which this man was pleased to address to myself, in which letter he avows himself in so many words the author, and I shall prove it to be his hand-writing; and further than that, there is matter in that letter, apparently showing the intention with which that book was written, namely, to vilify this constitution, and to injure this country irretrievably.

Two letters I shall be under the necessity of reading to you, in which he has stated himself the author. The one is a letter to a person of the name of Jordan, in which he expresses himself in this

manner:

"February 16, 1792" (that was the day on which the book was published): "For your satisfaction "and my own I send you the inclosed, though I "do not apprehend there will be any occasion to "use it if in case there should, you will im"mediately send a line for me, under cover, to Mr. "Johnson, St. Paul's Churchyard, who will for"ward it to me, upon which I shall come and answer personally for the work; sénd also for Mr. "Horne Tooke."

“T. P."

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The letter inclosed was this; addressed to the same man, Jordan, the bookseller:-" Sir, should any person, under the sanction of any kind of authority, inquire of you respecting the author "and publisher of the Rights of Man, you will

please to mention me as the author and publisher "of that work, and show to such person this letter. "I will, as soon as I am acquainted with it, appear and answer for the work personally."

Gentlemen, with respect to his letter written to me, it is in these terms.

Mr. Erskine. My Lord, the Attorney General states a letter in the hand-writing of Mr. Paine, which establishes that he is the author. I desire to know whether he means to read a letter which may be the subject of a substantive and distinct prosecution; I do not mean to dispute the publication, or even to give him the trouble of proving the letters which he has just stated; whether the Attorney General will think it consistent with the situation in which he is placed, at this moment, to read a letter written at a time long subsequent to the publication, containing, as I understand (if I am mistaken in that, I withdraw my objection), but containing distinct, clear, and unequivocal libellous matter, and which I, in my address to the Jury, if I am not deceived in what I have heard, shall admit to be upon. every principle of the English law a libel. Therefore, if that should turn out to be the case, will your Lordship suffer the mind of the Jury to be en

tirely put aside from that matter which is the subject of the prosecution, and to go into matter which hereafter may be, and I cannot but suppose would be, if the Defendant were within the reach of the law of this country, the subject of a distinct and independent prosecution.

Lord Kenyon. If that letter goes a jot to prove that he is the author of this publication, I cannot reject that evidence; in prosecutions for high treason, where overt acts are laid, you may prove overt acts not laid, to prove those that are laid; if it goes to prove him the author of the book, I am bound to admit it,

Mr. Attorney General.
The letter is thus:

Paris, 11th of November, First Year of
the Republic.

"Sir, as there can be no personal resentment be"tween two strangers, I write this letter to you, as "to a man against whom I have no animosity.

"You have, as Attorney General, commenced a "prosecution against me as the author of the Rights "of Man. Had not my duty in consequence of 66 my being elected a member of the National Con"vention of France, called me from England, I should "have staid to have contested the injustice of that "prosecution; not upon my own account, for I cared "not about the prosecution, but to defend the prin"ciples I had advanced in the work.

"The duty I am now engaged in is of too much 66 importance to permit me to trouble myself about

your prosecution; when I have leisure, I shall "have no objection to meet you on that ground; “but, as I now stand, whether you go on with the "prosecution, or whether you do not, or whether 66 you obtain a verdict, or not, is a matter of the "most perfect indifference to me as an individual. " If you obtain one (which you are welcome to if

you can get it), it cannot affect me, either in "person, property, or reputation, otherwise than

to increase the latter; and with respect to your

self, it is as consistent that you obtain a verdict "against the man in the moon, as against me; "neither do I see how you can continue the prose"cution against me as you would have done against

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one of your own people, who had absented him"self because he was prosecuted; what passed at "Dover, proves that my departure from England 66 was no secret.

"My necessary absence from your country affords "the opportunity of knowing whether the prosecu❝tion was intended against Thomas Paine, or against "the rights of the people of England to investi"gate systems and principles of government; for as "I cannot now be the object of the prosecution, "the going on with the prosecution will show that "something else was the object, and that something "else can be no other than the people of England;