passage home in a national vessel. "You will, in general, find us," he
added, "returned to sentiments worthy of former times; in these it will
be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any
man living. That you may live long, to continue your useful labors and
reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer.
Accept the assurance of my high esteem and affectionate attachment." Mr.
Jefferson went even farther. He openly announced his intention of giving
Paine an office, if there were one in his gift suitable for him. Now,
although Paine had been absent for many years, he had not been forgotten
by the Americans. The echo of the noise he made in England reached our
shores; and English echoes were more attentively listened to then even
than at present. His "Rights of Man" had been much read in this country.
Indeed, it was asserted, and upon pretty good authority, that Jefferson
himself, when Secretary of State, had advised and encouraged the
publication of an American edition as an antidote to the "Davila" of Mr.
Adams. Even the "Age of Reason" had obtained an immense circulation from
the great reputation of the author. It reminded the Rev. Mr. Goodrich,
and other Orthodox New-Englanders, of Milton's description of Death,--

"Black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell."

Yet numbers of people, nothing frightened, would buy and read. "No
work," Dr. Francis tells us, "had a demand for readers comparable to
that of Paine. The 'Age of Reason,' on its first appearance in New York,
was printed as an orthodox book by orthodox publishers,--doubtless
deceived," the charitable Doctor adds, "by the vast renown which the
author of 'Common Sense' had obtained, and _by the prospects of sale_."
Paine's position in the French Convention, his long imprisonment,
poverty, slovenly habits, and fondness for drink, were all well