I have now only to remark: when Thomas Paine came to America, at least when he wrote Common Sense, he understood the American people and what they wanted better than they did themselves; _and so did Junius_.
I now bring Common Sense and Junius together to show parallels of idea, method, and style.
COMMON SENSE was addressed to the inhabitants of America, the Introduction of which is as follows:
"Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises, at first, a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than Reason."
{ 71}JUNIUS was dedicated to the English nation; portions of the Dedication are as follows:
"I dedicate to you a collection of letters written _by one of yourselves_, for the common benefit of us all. They would never have grown to this size without your continued encouragement and applause. To me they originally owe nothing but a healthy, sanguine constitution. Under your care they have thriven; to you they are indebted for whatever strength or beauty they possess."
"A long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question (and in matters, too, which might never have been thought of had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry), and as the king of England hath undertaken, in his _own right_, to support the parliament in what he calls _theirs_, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either.
"In the following sheets the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly will cease of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversion."
"When kings and ministers are forgotten, when the force and direction of personal satire is no longer understood, and when measures are only felt in their remotest consequences, this book will, I believe, be found to contain principles worthy to be transmitted to posterity. When you leave the unimpaired, hereditary freehold to your children, you do but half your duty. Both liberty and property are precarious, unless the possessors have sense and spirit enough to defend them.