Paine, Tom (Thomas) 1737-1809
English radical political writer

He was born in Thetford, Norfolk, the son of a Quaker smallholder and corset-maker. He worked from the age of 13 as a corset-maker, then became a sailor and a schoolmaster. In 1771 he became an exciseman, but was dismissed as an agitator after fighting for an increase in pay. In London he met Benjamin Franklin, who in 1774 helped him to emigrate to America, where he settled in Philadelphia as a radical journalist. After the outbreak of the American Revolution (1775-83) he published a pamphlet, Common Sense (1776), which outlined the background to the war and urged immediate independence. He served in the continental army, and issued a series of pamphlets, The American Crisis (1776-83), urging the colonial cause, and became secretary to the Congress committee on foreign affairs (1777-79). He went to France in 1781, and published Dissertations on Government in 1786. He returned to England in 1787, where he published The Rights of Man (1791-92), a reply to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution (1790). In it he supported both the French Revolution and an overthrow of the British monarchy. He was indicted for treason, but escaped to Paris, was made a French citizen and became a member of the National Convention as the Deputy for Pas-de-Calais (1792-93). A supporter of the Girondins, he opposed the execution of the king, thus falling foul of Robespierre, who had his French citizenship rescinded and arrested him on the charge of being an enemy Englishman (1793-94). After the Terror, he was released on the plea that he was a US citizen. Just before his arrest he published Part I of his powerful attack on accepted religion, The Age of Reason (1794; Part II, written in prison, was published in 1796), alienating most of his friends, including George Washington. Following his release he remained in Paris, but in 1802 he returned to the USA, where he was ostracized as an atheist and a freethinker. He died, alone and in poverty, on the farm at New Rochelle which the state of New York had once given him. His influence lay not in his originality of thought but in his passion and directness, which, if only very occasionally, cut through the elegance and intricacy of Burke, and cause it to look a little disingenuous. His defences of democracy have always been extremely persuasive.

Bibliography: R R Fennessey, Burke, Paine and the Rights of Man (1963); H Pearson, Tom Paine, Friend of Mankind (1937)