He immediately proceeded to Dover with his French
friend. In Dover, the collector of the customs searched their pockets
as well as their portmanteaus, in spite of many angry protestations.
Finally their papers were returned to them, and they were allowed to
embark. Paine was just in time; an order to detain him arrived about
twenty minutes after his embarkation.
The trial came on before Lord Kenyon. Erskine appeared for the absent
defendant. The Attorney-General used, as his brief, a foolish letter he
had received from Paine at Calais, read it to the jury, made a few
remarks, and rested his case. The jury found Paine guilty without
leaving their seats. Sentence of outlawry was passed upon him. Safe in
France, he treated the matter as a capital joke. Some years later he
found that it had a disagreeable meaning in it.
The prophet had been translated to another sphere of revolutionary
unrest. His influence gradually died away. He dwindled into a mere
name. "But the fact remains," to use his own words, "and will hereafter
be placed in the history of extraordinary things, that a pamphlet
should be produced by an individual, unconnected with any sect or
party, and almost a stranger in the land, that should completely
frighten a whole government, and that in the midst of its triumphant
security.
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