Essays by Thomas Paine (black books to read .TXT) 📕

“Portions of antiquity by proving everything establish nothing. It is authority against authority all the way, till we come to the divine origin of the rights of man at the creation.”

—⁠Conway ↩

This and the preceding paragraph have been omitted from some editions. —⁠Conway ↩

Paine may have had in mind the five senses, with reference to the proposed five members of the Directory. —⁠Conway ↩

The Constitution adopted August 10, 1793, was by the determination of “The Mountain,” suspended during the war against France. The revolutionary government was thus made chronic. —⁠Conway ↩

This pamphlet, as Paine predicts at its close (no doubt on good grounds), was translated into all languages of Europe, and probably hastened the gold suspension of the Bank of England (1797), which it predicted. The British Government entrusted its reply to Ralph Broome and George Chalmers, who wrote pamphlets. There is in the French Archives an order for 1,000 copies, April 27, 1796, nineteen days after Paine’s pamphlet appeared.

“Mr. Cobbett has made this little pamphlet a textbook for most of his elaborate treatises on our finances.⁠ ⁠… On the authority of a late Register of Mr. Cobbett’s I learn that the profits arising from the sale of this pamphlet were devoted [by Paine] to the relief of the prisoners confined in Newgate for debt.”

—⁠Conway ↩

The actual expense of the war of 1739 did not come up to the sum ascertained by the ratio. But as that which is the natural disposition of a thing, as it is the natural disposition of a stream of water to descend, will, if impeded in its course, overcome by a new effort what it had lost by that impediment, so it was with respect to this war and the next (1756) taken collectively; for the expense of the war of 1756 restored the equilibrium of the ratio, as fully as if it had not been impeded. A circumstance that serves to prove the truth of the ratio more folly than if the interruption had not taken place. The war of 1739 was languid; the efforts were below the value of money et that time; for the ratio is the measure of the depreciation of money in consequence of the funding system; or what comes to the same end, it is the measure of the increase of paper. Every additional quantity of it, whether in bank notes or otherwise, diminishes the real, though not the nominal value of the former quantity. ↩

An eminent Member of Parliament. —⁠Conway ↩

Concerning Chalmers and Hawkesbury see my appendix to The Rights of Man. Also, preface to my Life of Paine, xvi, and other passages. —⁠Conway ↩

Among the delusions that have been imposed upon the nation by ministers to give a false colouring to its affairs, and by none more than by Mr. Pitt, is a motley, amphibious-charactered thing called the balance of trade. This balance of trade, as it is called, is taken from the customhouse books, in which entries are made of all cargoes exported, and also of all cargoes imported, in each year; and when the value of the exports, according to the price set upon them by the exporter or by the customhouse, is greater than the value of the imports, estimated in the same manner, they say the balance of trade is much in their favour.

The customhouse books prove regularly enough that so many cargoes have been exported, and so many imported; but this is all that they prove, or were intended to prove. They have nothing to do with the balance of profit or loss; and it is ignorance to appeal to them upon that account: for the case is, that the greater the loss is in any one year, the higher will this thing called the balance of trade appear to be according to the customhouse books. For example, nearly the whole of the Mediterranean convoy has been taken by the French this year; consequently those cargoes will not appear as imports on the customhouse books, and therefore the balance of trade, by which they mean the profits of it, will appear to be so much the greater as the loss amounts to; and, on the other hand, had the loss not happened, the profits would have appeared to have been so much the less. All the losses happening at sea to returning cargoes, by accidents, by the elements, or by capture, make the balance appear the higher on the side of the exports; and were they all lost at sea, it would appear to be all profit on the customhouse books. Also every cargo of exports that is lost that occasions another to be sent, adds in like manner to the side of the exports, and appears as profit. This year the balance of trade will appear high, because the losses have been great by capture and by storms. The ignorance of the British Parliament in listening to this hackneyed imposition of ministers about the balance of trade is astonishing. It shows how little they know of national affairs⁠—and Mr. Grey may as well talk Greek to them, as to make motions about the state of the nation. They understand only foxhunting and the game laws. ↩

Part of the inscription on an English guinea. ↩

The omissions are noted in the English edition of 1797. —⁠Conway ↩

This and the preceding sentence are omitted in all previous English and American editions. —⁠Conway ↩

Expression of Horsley, an English bishop, in the English parliament. ↩

Cf. Montaigne’s Essays, chap. xii. —⁠Conway ↩

Essays
were published between 1776 and 1797 by
Thomas Paine.

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