This caused the
loss of a month. At last, Jordan, of Fleet Street, brought it out on
the 13th of March, 1791. No publication in Great Britain, not Junius
nor Wilkes's No. 45, had produced such an effect. All England was
divided into those who, like Cruger of Bristol, said "Ditto to Mr.
Burke," and those who swore by Thomas Paine. "It is a false, wicked,
and seditious libel," shouted loyal gentlemen. "It abounds in
unanswerable truths, and principles of the purest morality and
benevolence; it has no object in view but the happiness of mankind,"
answered the reformers. "He is the scavenger of rebellion and
infidelity."--"Say, rather, 'the Apostle of Freedom, whose heart is a
perpetual bleeding fountain of philanthropy.'" The friends of the
government carried Paine in effigy, with a pair of stays under his
arms, and burned the figure in the streets. The friends of humanity
added a new verse to the national hymn, and sung,--
"God save great Thomas Paine,
His Rights of Man proclaim
From pole to pole!"
This pamphlet, which excited Englishmen of seventy years ago to such a
pitch of angry and scornful contention, may be read safely now.
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