the predicament
of being corrupted. In America there is but little difference, with
regard to this point, between the legislative and the executive part of
our government; but the first is much better attended to than it is in
France.

In whatsoever manner, Sir, I may treat the subject of which you
have proposed the investigation, I hope that you will not doubt my
entertaining for you the highest esteem. I must also add, that I am not
the personal enemy of Kings. Quite the contrary. No man more heartily
wishes than myself to see them all in the happy and honourable state of
private individuals; but I am the avowed, open, and intrepid enemy of
what is called Monarchy; and I am such by principles which nothing can
either alter or corrupt--by my attachment to humanity; by the anxiety
which I feel within myself, for the dignity and the honour of the human
race; by the disgust which I experience, when I observe men directed by
children, and governed by brutes; by the horror which all the evils that
Monarchy has spread over the earth excite within my breast; and by those
sentiments which make me shudder at the calamities, the exactions, the
wars, and the massacres with which Monarchy has crushed mankind: in
short, it is against all the hell of monarchy that I have declared war.

Thomas Paine.(1)

1 To the sixth paragraph of the above letter is appended a
footnote: "A deputy to the congress receives about a guinea
and a half daily: and provisions are cheaper in America
than in France." The American Declaration of Rights referred
to unless the Declaration of Independence, was no doubt,
especially that of Pennsylvania, which Paine helped to
frame.--Editor.

IV. TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL.

[Undated, but probably late in May, 1793.]

Sir,

Though I have some reason for believing that you were not the original
promoter or encourager of the prosecution commenced against the work
entitled "Rights of Man" either as that prosecution is intended to
affect the author, the publisher, or the public; yet as you appear
the official person therein, I address this letter to you, not as Sir
Archibald Macdonald, but as Attorney General.

You began by a prosecution against the publisher Jordan, and the reason
assigned by Mr. Secretary Dundas, in the House of Commons, in the debate
on the Proclamation, May 25, for taking that measure, was, he said,
because Mr. Paine could not be found, or words