learn obedience. If George III would not reply to their petitions
until they laid down their arms, they could manage to get on
without a king. If England, as Horace Walpole admitted, would not
take them seriously and speakers in Parliament called them
obscure ruffians and cowards, so much the worse for England.

It was an Englishman, Thomas Paine, who fanned the fire into
unquenchable flames. He had recently been dismissed from a post
in the excise in England and was at this time earning in
Philadelphia a precarious living by his pen. Paine said it was
the interest of America to break the tie with Europe. Was a whole
continent in America to be governed by an island a thousand
leagues away? Of what advantage was it to remain connected with
Great Britain? It was said that a united British Empire could
defy the world, but why should America defy the world?
"Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation."
Interested men, weak men, prejudiced men, moderate men who do not
really know Europe, may urge reconciliation, but nature is
against it. Paine broke loose in that denunciation of kings with
which ever since the world has been familiar. The wretched
Briton, said Paine, is under a king and where there was a king
there was no security for liberty. Kings were crowned ruffians
and George III in particular was a sceptered savage, a royal
brute, and other evil things. He had inflicted on America
injuries not to be forgiven. The blood of the slain, not less
than the true interests of posterity, demanded separation. Paine
called his pamphlet "Common Sense". It was published on January
9, 1776. More than a hundred thousand copies were quickly sold
and it brought decision to many wavering minds.