"At a coffeehouse in London Paine met that other great thinker, Franklin. They became fast friends."—Elbert Hubbard.

"Invited by Franklin he went to America."—Encyclopedia of Social Reform.

"His associates in Philadelphia were people of the highest respectability and importance.... He was welcomed everywhere."—James B. Elliott.

Referring to his first year in America Bancroft says: "In that time he had frequented the society of Rittenhouse, Clymer and Samuel Adams." Dr. Rush says: "He visited in the families of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Rittenhouse and Mr. George Clymer." Referring to the members of the Philosophical Society, founded by Franklin, Dr. Conway says: "Paine was welcomed into their circle by Rittenhouse, Clymer, Rush, Muhlenberg, and other representatives of the scientific and literary metropolis."

Writing in his journal at a later period John Hall, the English mechanician who then resided in Philadelphia, mentions among Paine's visitors and intimate associates Franklin, Gouverneur Morris, Dr. Rush, Tench Francis, Robert Morris, Rittenhouse, etc.

The Library of the World's Best Literature alludes to scientific experiments made by Paine "for the entertainment of Washington whose guest he was for some time."

Francis Marion Lemmon: "When my father

Alluding to Paine's conduct and public services during the Revolution, Dr. Conway says:

"They are best measured in the value set on them by the great leaders most cognizant of them,—by Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Robert Morris, Chancellor Livingston, R. H. Lee, Colonel Laurens, General Greene, Dickinson. Had there been anything dishonorable or mercenary in Paine's career, these are the men who would have known it; but their letters are searched in vain for even the faintest hint of anything disparaging to his patriotic self-devotion during those eight weary years."

Henry Adams: "Thomas Paine, down to the time of his departure for Europe, in 1787, was a fashionable member of society [in New York], admired and courted as the greatest literary genius of his day."