itish cruisers called in,
I could come any way. I then agreed to come with Commodore Barney in a
vessel he had engaged. It was again fortunate I did not, for the vessel
sank at sea, and the people were preserved in the boat.

1 The correspondence is in my "Life of Paine," vol. ii.,
pp. 154-5.--_Editor._

2 The "Dublin Packet," Captain Clay, in whom Paine, as he
wrote to Jefferson, "had no confidence."--_Editor._

Had half the number of evils befallen me that the number of dangers
amount to through which I have been pre-served, there are those who
would ascribe it to the wrath of heaven; why then do they not ascribe
my preservation to the protecting favour of heaven? Even in my worldly
concerns I have been blessed. The little property I left in America,
and which I cared nothing about, not even to receive the rent of it,
has been increasing in the value of its capital more than eight hundred
dollars every year, for the fourteen years and more that I have been
absent from it. I am now in my circumstances independent; and my economy
makes me rich. As to my health, it is perfectly good, and I leave the
world to judge of the stature of my mind. I am in every instance a
living contradiction to the mortified Federalists.

In my publications, I follow the rule I began with in _Common Sense_,
that is, to consult nobody, nor to let any body see what I write till
it appears publicly. Were I to do otherwise, the case would be, that
between the timidity of some, who are so afraid of doing wrong that they
never do right, the puny judgment of others, and the despicable craft of
preferring _expedient to right_, as if the world was a world of babies
in leading strings, I should get forward with nothing. My path is a
right line, as straight and clear to me as a ray of light. The boldness
(if they will have it to be so) with which I speak on any subject, is a
compliment to the judgment of the reader. It is like saying to him,
_I treat you as a man and not as a child_. With respect to any worldly
object, as it is impossible to discover any in me, therefore what I do,
and my manner of doing it, ought to be ascribed to a good motive.

In a great affair, where the happiness of man is at stake, I love
to work for nothing; and so fully am I under the influence of this
principle, that I should lose the spirit, the pleasure, and the pride
of it, were I conscious that I looked for reward; and with this
declaration, I take