pendency; it is therefore more than a common debt, it is a debt of honor; it can never be considered as a pension or gratuity, nor be cancelled until it is fairly discharged.

With regard to a distinction between officers and soldiers, it is sufficient that the uniform experience of every nation of the world, combined with our own, proves the utility and propriety of the discrimination. Rewards, in proportion to the aids the public derives from them, are unquestionably due to all its servants. In some lines, the soldiers have perhaps generally had as ample a compensation for their services, by the large bounties which have been paid them, as their officers will receive in the proposed commutation; in others, if, besides the donations of lands, the payment of arrearages of clothing and wages (in which articles all the component parts of the army must be put upon the same footing), we take into the estimate the douceurs many of the soldiers have received, and the gratuity of one year's full pay, which is promised to all, possibly their situation (every circumstance being duly considered) will not be deemed less eligible than that of the officers. Should a further reward, however, be judged equitable, I will venture to assert no one will enjoy greater satisfaction than myself, on seeing an exemption from taxes for a limited time, (which has been petitioned for in some instances,) or any other adequate immunity or compensation granted to the brave defenders of their country's cause; but neither the adoption or rejection of this proposition will in any manner affect, much less militate against, the act of Congress, by which they have offered five years' full pay, in lieu of the halfpay for life, which had been before promised to the officers of the army.

Before I conclude the subject of public justice, I cannot omit to mention the obligations this country is under to that meritorious class of veteran non-commissioned officers and privates, who have been discharged for inability, in consequence of the resolution of Congress of the 23d of April, 1782, on an annual pension for life. Their peculiar sufferings, their singular merits, and claims to that provision, need only be known, to interest all the feelings of humanity in their behalf. Nothing but a punctual payment of their annual allowance can rescue them from the most

complicated misery; and nothing could be a more melancholy and distressing sight, than to behold those, who have shed their blood or lost their limbs in the service of their country, without a shelter, without a friend, and without the means of obtaining any of the necessaries or comforts of life, compelled to beg their daily bread from door to door. Suffer me to recommend those of this description, belonging to your State, to the warmest patronage of your Excellency and your legislature.

It is necessary to say but a few words on the third topic which was proposed, and which regards particularly the defence of the republic; as there can be little doubt but Congress will recommend a proper peace establishment for the United States, in which a due attention will be paid to the importance of placing the militia of the Union upon a regular and respectable footing. If this should be the case, I would beg leave to urge the great advantage of it in the strongest terms. The militia of this country must be considered as the palladium of our security, and the first effectual resort in case of hostility. It is essential, therefore, that the same system should pervade the whole; that the formation and discipline of the militia of the continent should be absolutely uniform, and that the same species of arms, accoutrements, and military apparatus, should be introduced in every part of the United States. No one, who has not learned it from experience, can conceive the difficulty, expense, and confusion, which result from a contrary system, or the vague arrangements which have hitherto prevailed.

If, in treating of political points, a greater latitude than usual has been taken in the course of this address, the importance of the crisis, and the magnitude of the objects in discussion, must be my apology. It is, however, neither my wish or expectation, that the preceding observations should claim any regard, except so far as they shall appear to be dictated by a good intention, consonant to the immutable rules of justice, calculated to produce a liberal system of policy, and founded on whatever experience may have been acquired by a long and close attention to public business. Here I might speak with the more confidence, from my actual observations; and, if it would not swell this letter (already too prolix) beyond the bounds I had prescribed to myself, I could

demonstrate to every mind open to conviction, that in less time, and with much less expense, than has been incurred, the war might have been brought to the same happy conclusion, if the resources of the continent could have been properly drawn forth; that the distresses and disappointments, which have very often occurred, have, in too many instances, resulted more from a want of energy in the Continental government, than a deficiency of means in the particular States; that the inefficacy of measures arising from the want of an adequate authority in the supreme power, from a partial compliance with the requisitions of Congress in some of the States, and from a failure of punctuality in others, while it tended to damp the zeal of those, which were more willing to exert themselves, served also to accumulate the expenses of the war, and to frustrate the best concerted plans; and that the discouragement occasioned by the complicated difficulties and embarrassments, in which our affairs were by this means involved, would have long ago produced the dissolution of any army, less patient, less virtuous, and less persevering, than that which I have had the honor to command. But, while I mention these things, which are notorious facts, as the defects of our federal constitution, particularly in the prosecution of a war, I beg it may be understood, that, as I have ever taken a pleasure in gratefully acknowledging the assistance and support I have derived from every class of citizens, so shall I always be happy to do justice to the unparalleled exertions of the individual States on many interesting occasions.

I have thus freely disclosed what I wished to make known, before I surrendered up my public trust to those who committed it to me. The task is now accomplished. I now bid adieu to your Excellency as the chief magistrate of your State, at the same time I bid a last farewell to the cares of office, and all the employments of public life.

It remains, then, to be my final and only request, that your Excellency will communicate these sentiments to your legislature at their next meeting, and that they may be considered as the legacy of one, who has ardently wished, on all occasions, to be useful to his country, and who, even in the shade of retirement, will not fail to implore the Divine benediction upon it.

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and

the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field; and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation. I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect, Sir, your Excellency's most obedient and most humble servant.

[Circular Letter Addressed to the Governors of all the States on Disbanding the Army. The text followed, with the permission of the publishers, is that employed by W. C. Ford, in his The Writings of George Washington, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1891, vol. x, pp. 254-265.]

THOMAS PAINE

[Thomas Paine was born at Thetford, in Norfolk County, England, Jan. 29, 1736/7. He was brought up in his father's faith, that of the Quakers, and trained to his father's trade of stay-making. He received a grammar school education, without the Latin; later this was broadened by attendance upon scientific lectures in London and by miscellaneous reading. After a brief experiment in privateering (1756), he sought his livelihood in a singular variety of occupations: he was, in turn or at the same time, stay-maker, schoolmaster, tobacconist, grocer, and exciseman. He was twice married, in 1759 and in 1771, but had no children. In 1774, bankrupt in business and dismissed from the excise, he separated by agreement from his wife and sailed for America. He carried letters from Franklin, whom he had met in London, and with their aid he secured employment in Philadelphia, first as a private tutor, then as editor of a literary magazine. Here, at last, he discovered his vocation. With the publication of Common Sense, in January, 1776, he became the leading pamphleteer of the American Revolution; and this position he retained to the close of the war by a series of patriotic brochures entitled The Crisis. He served for a time as aide-de-camp to General Greene, and in 1777 and 1778 he acted as secretary to the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs. In 1781 he accompanied Colonel Laurens on an important and successful mission to the French Court. At the end of the war, after all these services, he was as poor as at the beginning. His pay, as far as he got it, had barely defrayed his expenses; he was too honest to line his pockets in any irregular fashion; he had refused, from patriotic motives, to copyright his publications. The Republic showed some gratitude: at the instance of Washington, Paine received grants of money from Congress and from the Pennsylvania legislature, and from the legislature of New York a tract of confiscated land near New Rochelle. In 1787, he sailed for Europe with a plan for building iron bridges of novel construction and unprecedented length of span; but the outbreak of the French Revolution drew him back into literature and politics. To Burke's attack upon the Revolution he responded with a book upon the Rights of Man (1791). A second part (1792) caused his indictment and condemnation for treason; but he had already fled to France, where, as a friend of liberty, he had received honorary citizenship and had been elected a member of the Convention. In this capacity he acted with the Girondists and voted against the execution of Louis XVI. During the Terror he narrowly escaped the guillotine; but after ten months' imprisonment, he was liberated in November, 1794. In 1794 and 1795 appeared his Age of Reason, an attack upon the authenticity and morality of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.