as executed. The name of _Thomas
Paine_ is not to be found in the records of the Lewes' justices, in any
one act of contention with, or severity of any kind whatever towards,
the persons whom he surveyed, either in the town, or in the country;
of this, _Mr. Fuller_ and _Mr. Shelley_, who will probably attend the
meeting, can, if they please, give full testimony. It is, however, not
in their power to contradict it.

Having thus indulged myself in recollecting a place where I formerly
had, and even now have, many friends, rich and poor, and most probably
some enemies, I proceed to the more important purport of my letter.

Since my departure from Lewes, fortune or providence has thrown me
into a line of action, which my first setting out into life could not
possibly have suggested to me.

I have seen the fine and fertile country of America ravaged and deluged
in blood, and the taxes of England enormously increased and multiplied
in consequence thereof; and this, in a great measure, by the instigation
of the same class of placemen, pensioners, and Court dependants, who
are now promoting addresses throughout England, on the present
_unintelligible_ Proclamation.

I have also seen a system of Government rise up in that country, free
from corruption, and now administered over an extent of territory ten
times as large as England, _for less expence than the pensions alone in
England amount to_; and under which more freedom is enjoyed, and a more
happy state of society is preserved, and a more general prosperity is
promoted, than under any other system of Government now existing in the
world. Knowing, as I do, the things I now declare, I should reproach
myself with want of duty and affection to mankind, were I not in the
most undismayed manner to publish them, as it were, on the house-tops,
for the good of others.

Having thus glanced at what has passed within my knowledge, since my
leaving Lewes, I come to the subject more immediately before the meeting
now present.

Mr. Edmund Burke, who, as I shall show, in a future publication, has
lived a concealed pensioner, at the expence of the public, of fifteen
hundred pounds per annum, for about ten years last past, published a
book the winter before last, in open violation of the principles of
liberty, and for which he was applauded by that class of men _who are
now promoting addresses_. Soon after his book appeared, I published the
first part of the work, entitled "Rights of M