ches out into Spain, France, Austria,
Prussia, Russia, America, India, and Rome. Mr. Paine followed its lines
into all countries. He also made a study of her laws and the principles
of her constitution, and read the French commentators thereon, at the
same time he had an eye to politics and the personal history of her
living public men. For three years and a half, together with his public
duties, he labored to lay a foundation for a long and active literary
life.

Do you ask how I know this? I answer, because when he came to America he
was thus accomplished, and when he went into the excise office he was
not.

It is now six years since he first entered the employ of government, one
year of which time he spent in the arts and sciences, and nearly four as
student, officer, and detective for the sons of freedom throughout the
world. He is, by nature, a detective of the highest order. He has formed
the friendship of Benjamin Franklin, who, at the court, is also a
detective, and what he knows of America and the English court shall now
be made known. He has written "numberless trifles" for the public press
to get his hand in, and now, having a definite plan formed, and a noble
object in view, he opens the new year of 1769, with something which
indeed is _new_. It was the first Letter of "Junius," named after Junius
Brutus, who stabbed Caesar for having usurped the liberties of Rome.
Junius thrust home his dagger. This stab went to the heart of a rotten
court, and, since Cromwell, it was the greatest thing that ever happened
to England. The people read it with mingled sentiments of fear and hope;
the partisan read it with fear and rage; the scholar, with feelings of
respect; the courtesan, with pallor on his cheek, and trembling in his
limbs; and the king and ministers, with sentiments of torture and
frenzy. But when Franklin took it up, with what feelings of hope and
pride did he read and re-read the paragraphs in regard to the colonies,
which began with this sentence: "A series of inconsistent measures has
alienated the colonies from their duty as subjects, and from their
natural affection to their common country." This is the key note to the
Declaration of Independence, which shall appear seven years afterward.
The dagger was driven to the hilt. Paine long afterward said: "The cause
of America made me an author."

Three years, to a day, and he is Junius no more. His object was
revolution on British soil, the ministers br