4. At this very time, Feb. 3, 1766, when we know Mr. Paine was attending to his studies and cultivating the acquaintance of the learned, Dr. Franklin was brought more conspicuously before the English nation than ever before, or thereafter, by undergoing an examination in the House of Commons upon the policy of repealing the Stamp Act; and never were the great talents of this great man exhibited so fully and favorably as then.
5. Mr. Paine says: "The favor of Dr. Franklin's friendship I possessed in England [and friendship with Mr. Paine means time to prove it], and my introduction to this part of the world was through his patronage." Patronage means to aid or promote a design. This design, and this friendship formed upon which it was founded, would take some few years with both of these men, for they were both secretive, reserved, and noncommittal, slow in forming attachments, and extremely cautious in the selection of friends. "The first foundation of friendship," says Junius, "is not the power of conferring benefits, but the equality with which they are received and may be returned."
Mr. Paine now makes application to be restored to the office from which he was dismissed. On his petition was written: "July 4th, 1766; to be restored on a proper vacancy." The Fourth of July is ominous. Great events are in store for this young man within the next ten years. He quits the society of the learned and the halls of learning, and goes down at the most hopeful and ambitious period of life into this "inferior office of the revenue" to serve for the "petty pittance of less than fifty pounds a year." Does he go there to satisfy his taste for learning, or to get rich? No; but to reach the object of his ambition. He goes there to spy out the meanness, the corruption, the villainy, the abandoned profligacy of the British Government.
The British Government has now a masked enemy who is coming in and going out at the nation's doors, not a spy upon her liberties, but her villainies, a foe to the one and a friend to the other.
But he has not forsaken his studies, he is just entering upon them. Taking up English history he makes it a study, which becomes the history of the civilized world, for it reaches out into Spain, France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, America, India, and Rome. Mr. Paine followed its lines into all countries. He also made a study of her laws and the principles of her constitution, and read the French commentators thereon, at the same time he had an eye to politics and the personal history of her living public men. For three years and a half, together with his public duties, he labored to lay a foundation for a long and active literary life.
Do you ask how I know this? I answer, because when he came to America he was thus accomplished, and when he went into the excise office he was not.
It is now six years since he first entered the employ of government, one year of which time he spent in the arts and sciences, and nearly four as student, officer, and detective for the sons of freedom throughout the world. He is, by nature, a detective of the highest order. He has formed the friendship of Benjamin Franklin, who, at the court, is also a detective, and what he knows of America and the English court shall now be made known. He has written "numberless trifles" for the public press to get his hand in, and now, having a definite plan formed, and a noble object in view, he opens the new year of 1769, with something which indeed is new. It was the first Letter of "Junius," named after Junius Brutus, who stabbed Cæsar for having usurped the liberties of Rome. Junius thrust home his dagger. This stab went to the heart of a rotten court, and, since Cromwell, it was the greatest thing that ever happened to England. The people read it with mingled sentiments of fear and hope; the partisan read it with fear and rage; the scholar, with feelings of respect; the courtesan, with pallor on his cheek, and trembling in his limbs; and the king and ministers, with sentiments of torture and frenzy. But when Franklin took it up, with what feelings of hope and pride did he read and re-read the paragraphs in regard to the colonies, which began with this sentence: "A series of inconsistent measures has alienated the colonies from their duty as subjects, and from their natural affection to their common country." This is the key note to the Declaration of Independence, which shall appear seven years afterward. The dagger was driven to the hilt. Paine long afterward said: "The cause of America made me an author."
Three years, to a day, and he is Junius no more. His object was revolution on British soil, the ministers brought to trial, and the king deposed. He called for a leader in vain—he wrote against fate. But the work must go on. He consecrates himself anew to the cause; he dedicates his life to the good of man. Friend, kindred, wife, and the dear, native land, weigh lightly in the balance against the "business of a world." He leaves them all. His mind has been liberated from the prejudices of an island by the study of astronomy, and a life on the sea, and schooled by disappointment in political strife, he turns his face to the West.
He has left his second wife; parted with her forever. Mr. Paine was a man of strong personal attachment; he had deep and lasting affection. But what was wife to the "business of a world." Long after this separation, in his old age, after he had gone through two revolutions, the American and the French, Mrs. Paine, though not agreeing with Thomas in religious opinions, on hearing him disrespectfully spoken of because he had written the Age of Reason, indignantly left the company of his revilers. And Mr. Paine, when asked why did you leave your wife, would respond: "I had a cause; it is no business of any body." True to her during life, and she to him, there is more in this than has been revealed.
But before he leaves England there is a definite plan formed, it is revolution and reconciliation; but if not reconciliation, it is revolution and independence. Tyranny shall be destroyed at all hazards. He prepares himself for war, "and if the English Government wins in the contest," says Paine, "she wins from me my life." He leaves all his world's goods for the support of his wife, his capital stock is his pen. Franklin understands it all. He knows full well this son of a Quaker, this Junius of the quill, and he feels the need of him for America's sake, and that scientific head of his thinks soundly on the work which shall tell for the ages. Franklin was then acknowledged to be the greatest man in the world, as he was; and the same judgment which never led him wrong, and which made for him renown, pronounced also on the character and abilities of Thomas Paine. These two men perfectly agreed in politics and religion, and this covers the whole realm of opinion. Their origin and their leading traits of character were the same; secretive, cautious, courageous, and proud of heart, witty and sarcastic, deeply read in the history of the world and of the human heart, having come out of the loins of toil and the lap of poverty, the history of their lives blend and conspire to unite their affections and direct their labors. What these two men shall do, the world is yet too stupid to think about. But their plan is made in England, and under the patronage of the one the other is introduced to America.