All of the English prisoners became Paine's friends. Among these was General O'Hara,—that same general who had fired the American heart at Yorktown by offering the surrendered sword of Cornwallis to Rochambeau instead of Washington. O'Hara's captured suite included two physicians—Bond and Graham—who attended Paine during an illness, as he gratefully records. What money Paine had when arrested does not appear to have been taken from him, and he was able to assist General O'Hara with £200 to return to his country; though by this and similar charities he was left without means when his own unexpected deliverance came.**
The first part of "The Age of Reason" was sent out with final revision at the close of January.
* "Mémoires sur les prisons," t. ii., p. 153.
** Among the anecdotes told of O'Hara in prison, one is related of an argument he held with a Frenchman, on the relative degrees of liberty in England and France. "In England," he said, "we are perfectly free to write and print, George is a good King; but you—why you are not even Permitted to write, Robespierre is a tiger!"
In the second edition appeared the following inscription:
"TO MY FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.—I put the following work under your protection. It contains my opinion upon Religion. You will do me the justice to remember, that I have always strenuously supported the Right of every man to his opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is Reason. I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall.—Your affectionate friend and fellow citizen,
"Thomas Paine."
This dedication is dated, "Luxembourg (Paris), 8th Pluviôse, Second year of the French Republic, one and indivisible. January 27, O. S. 1794." Paine now addressed himself to the second part of "The Age of Reason," concerning which the following anecdote is told in the manuscript memoranda of Thomas Rickman:
"Paine, while in the Luxembourg prison and expecting to die hourly, read to Mr. Bond (surgeon of Brighton, from whom this anecdote came) parts of his Age of Reason; and every night, when Mr. Bond left him, to be separately locked up, and expecting not to see Paine alive in the morning, he [Paine] always expressed his firm belief in the principles of that book, and begged Mr. Bond should tell the world such were his dying sentiments. Paine further said, if he lived he should further prosecute the work and print it. Bond added, Paine was the most conscientious man he ever knew."
In after years, when Paine was undergoing persecution for "infidelity," he reminded the zealots that they would have to "accuse Providence of infidelity," for having "protected him in all his dangers." Incidentally he gives reminiscences of his imprisonment.