g
about, or inquiring into, the measures of the late administration, and
the reason why so much public money was raised and expended; and so far
as a lie today, and a new one tomorrow, will answer this purpose, it
answers theirs. It is nothing to them whether they be believed or not,
for if the negative purpose be answered the main point is answered, to
them.

He that picks your pocket always tries to make you look another way.
"Look," says he, "at yon man t'other side the street--what a nose he has
got?--Lord, yonder is a chimney on fire!--Do you see yon man going along
in the salamander great coat? That is the very man that stole one of
Jupiter's satellites, and sold it to a countryman for a gold watch,
and it set his breeches on fire!" Now the man that has his hand in your
pocket, does not care a farthing whether you believe what he says or
not. All his aim is to prevent your looking at _him_; and this is the
case with the remnant of the Federal faction. The leaders of it have
imposed upon the country, and they want to turn the attention of it from
the subject.

In taking up any public matter, I have never made it a consideration,
and never will, whether it be popular or unpopular; but whether it be
_right_ or _wrong_. The right will always become the popular, if it has
courage to show itself, and the shortest way is always a straight line.
I despise expedients, they are the gutter-hole of politics, and the sink
where reputation dies. In the present case, as in every other, I
cannot be accused of using any; and I have no doubt but thousands will
hereafter be ready to say, as Gouverneur Morris said to me, after having
abused me pretty handsomely in Congress for the opposition I gave
the fraudulent demand of Silas Deane of two thousand pounds sterling:
"_Well, we were all duped, and I among the rest!_"(1)

1 See vol. I., chapters xxii., xxiii., xxiv., of this work.
Also my "Life of Paine," vol. I., ch. ix., x.--_Editor._

Were the late administration to be called upon to give reasons for
the expence it put the country to, it can give none. The danger of an
invasion was a bubble that served as a cover to raise taxes and armies
to be employed on some other purpose. But if the people of America
believed it true, the cheerfulness with which they supported those
measures and paid those taxes is an evidence of their patriotism; and
if they supposed me their enemy, though in that supposition they did me
injusti