himself chiefly in mechanical speculations. In 1787 he eml)arked for France, and, after visiting Paris, ■went to England, vith a view to the prosecution of a project relative to the construction of an iron bridge, of his own invention, at Kotherham, in Yorkshire. This scheme involved him in considerable difficulties ; but his -writings, in which he foretold, or rather rec- ommended, the change that was approaching in France, brought him a supply of money. On the appearance of Burke's Reflections on the French BeV'lution, Paine •wrote the first part of his celebrated Rights of Man, in answer to that work, the most famous of all the replies to Burke, and circulated in innumerable edi- tions, not only in English, but also in foreign versions. The second part was published early in 1792; and on Ma}' 21 in that year a proclamation issued against wicked and seditious publications evidently alluded to, though it did not name, the Rights of Man. On the same da}' the attorney-general commenced a prosecu- tion against Paine as the author of that work, liecause of his outcry against the English aristocracy, and se- vere assaults on the British constitution. While the trial was pending he succeeded in making his escape. He set off for France, arriving there in September, 1792. The garrison of Calais were under arms to re- ceive this "friend of liberty," the tricolored cockade was presented to him by the mayor, and the hand- somest woman in the town was selected to place it in his hat. Meantime Paine had been declared in Paris ■worthy of the honors of citizenship, and being chosen member of the National Convention for the depart- ment of Calais, he proceeded to Paris, where he was received with every demonstration of extravagant joy. On the trial of Louis XVI he voted with the Girondists against the sentence of death, proposing his imprison- ment during the war, and his banishment afterwards. This conduct offended the Jacobins, and towards the close of 1793 he was excluded from the convention on the ground of being a foreigner (though naturalized), and immediately after he was arrestad and committed to the Luxembourg. Just before his confinement Paine had finished the first part of his work entitled the Age of Reason, and having confided it to the care of his friend Joel Barlow, it was published (see below). On the fall of Robespierre he -was released. In 1795 he published the second part of his Age of Reason; and in May, 1796, he addressed to the Council of Five Hun- dred a work entitled Decline and Fa'lofthe System of Finance in Eng'and, and also published his pamphlet entitled Agrarian Justice, being a plan for meliorating the condition of man. Fearful of being captured by English cruisers, he remained in France some years longer. He had, however, written to Mr. Jefferson, who had then but recently been elected president of the United States, and expressed a wish to be brought back to America in a government ship. Jefferson at last replied, offering Paine a passage in the Maryland sloop of war, which he had sent to France for a special purpose. In his letter, dated March, 1801, Jefferson expresses his higli estimate of Paine's services in the cause of American independence in the following words : " I am in hopes you will find us returned gen- erally to sentiments wortli}' of former times. In these it will lie your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That you may long live to continue your useful labors, and to reap their reward in the tliankfulncss of nations, is my sincere prayer." Paine did not embark for America, however, till August, 1802 : he reached Baltimore in the follow- ing October. His first wife had died about a year af- ter their marriage ; he lived about three years witli his second, whom he married soon after the death of his first, when they separated liy mutual consent, it is said, on account of her physical disability. During his last residence in France he led a dissolute life, and one of the women he supported followed him to tliis country. He died in the city of Xew York, June 8, 1809, and, being
refused burial by the Quakers, was interred in a field on his own estate near New Koclielle. Cobbett, some eight or nine years afterwards, disinterred Paine's bones and carried them to England ; but instead of arousing, as he expected, the enthusiasm of the republican party in that country, Cobbett only drew upon himself uni- versal contempt. Paine's political and religious ad- mirers in America erected in 1839 a showy monument, with a medallion portrait, over his empty grave. There is now a hall in Boston, supported by freethinkers, which is called after him.