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“you have only entertained us with some loose declamations upon abuses in the English government; and shocked us, for want of better arguments, by a perversion of things sacred; filling the papers with personal invectives, and calumnies against all who cannot swallow, at a venture, every crude notion, you may cook up as the politics of the day. This will as little agree with the stomachs of others as with mine; although I have declared that, when the last necessity comes, I have no expedient in view but to take my chance with you, for better and for worse.”

“Liberty or Slavery is now the question. Let us but fairly discover to the inhabitants of these Colonies on which side Liberty has erected her banner and we will leave it to them to determine whether they would choose Liberty tho’ accompanied with war, or Slavery attended by peace.”

[THOMAS PAINE]. Newspaper. The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, & New-Jersey Weekly Advertiser, April 13, 1776. Including Cato’s Letter VI, “To the People of Pennsylvania,” attacking Common Sense on political and religious grounds. This issue also prints the first part of Letter II by “Cassandra” [James Cannon]. Philadelphia: James Humphreys Jr. 4 pp., 10 x 16 in.

Inventory #25382       Price: $1,600

Excerpts -Cato’s Letter VI

“I charged the author of Common Sense with perverting the Scripture in his account of the origin of the Jewish monarchy.... this matter must be treated more seriously, for the sake of a country, in which (God be thanked) the Scriptures are read and regarded with that reverence which is due to a revelation from Heaven; I must therefore endeavour to rescue, out of our author’s hands, that portion of the sacred history, which he has converted into a lible against the civil constitution of Great-Britain....” (p1/c1)

“Here our author erects his standard, and here he compliments himself with the mockery of triumph.... ‘That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchial government is true, or the scripture is false.’—But I will take the liberty to say, that the scripture is true, and that this author’s inference is horribly false.... the Almighty would have as strongly expressed his displeasure against the Jews, had they rejected his government for one of their own appointment whether it had been Monarchial or Democratical—to be administered by one man or a thousand men.” (p1/c2)

“I contend for this—That where a people are left to chuse their own forms of government as has been the case of all the world for some thousand years, there is no particular denounciation of God’s displeasure against any Form whether Monarchial or Democratical, under which such a people may think their civil happiness best secured, and their duty to God best performed… You call on me to shew my plan? I have done it… a safe return to a connection with our ancient friends and kindred, accompanied with all the advantages we have formerly experienced, and perhaps more; which I trust are things yet practicable; or, if it should prove otherwise, we can lose nothing by the exercise of deliberation and wisdom in the mean while.” (p4/c2)

“although you ought to have counted the cost of your work, and have tried to reconcile with your design, a multitude of interests, commercial, political, and oeconomical—you have only entertained us with some loose declamations upon abuses in the English government; and shocked us, for want of better arguments, by a perversion of things sacred; filling the papers with personal invectives, and calumnies against all who cannot swallow, at a venture, every crude notion, you may cook up as the politics of the day. This will as little agree with the stomachs of others as with mine; although I have declared that, when the last necessity comes, I have no expedient in view but to take my chance with you, for better and for worse.” (p4/c2)

Excerpts - Cassandra to Cato, Number II

“Your talent lies in strong painting and declamation, and you expect to hold up such a terrific picture to the imaginations of the people, as will effectually frighten them into submission....” (p2/c1)

“I agree with the Common Man thus far, that some propositions he mentions ought, one day, to be discussed; but as there is one point not only prior to any of them, but of infinitely greater importance that [than] them all, viz, an absolute security for the enjoyment of our liberties… when it shall be fairly proved that our rights can be as effectually secured in a state of dependency as in an independent state, then, and not before, will be the proper time to examine which would be most to our advantage.” (p2/c1)

“Those freemen who nobly refuse to be ridden by a King, Lords and Commons will scarcely be tame enough to take Cato and his party on their backs.” (p2/c1)

“Slavery is certainly a much more terrible evil in every respect than war. For the evils of war are both tolerable and temporary, while the miseries of slavery are intolerable and endless… Liberty or Slavery is now the question. Let us but fairly discover to the inhabitants of these Colonies on which side Liberty has erected her banner and we will leave it to them to determine whether they would choose Liberty tho’ accompanied with war, or Slavery attended by peace.” (p2/c2)

“The present contest is a contest of constitutions, and the war a war of legislatures.... it is, in fact, become a war between the people of Great-Britain and the people of America.... so far as the present is a contest of constitutions, the Parliament has evidently won the field; for the whole force of the legislature of Great-Britain has been, from the first day of the controversy, armed against us, but we have in no one instance been able to call forth the strength of our legislatures to oppose, nay, we have constantly had them against us ready to join the foe.... It is because our legislatures are dependent on our very enemy and theirs is independent of us.” (p2/c2)

“Both the King and Parliament of Great-Britain are the choice of the people of Great-Britain; but tho’ our Assemblies are our choice, our Governors are not; they are either nominated by the King of Great-Britain, or some one of his British subjects, which effectually destroys their utility to us in this and every such controversy....” (p2/c2)

Additional Content

Includes Philadelphia printer Robert Bell’s front-page advertisement of Additions to Plain Truth, written by Loyalist James Chalmers (1734-1806). Born in Scotland and now of Chestertown, Maryland, Chalmers, as “Candidus,” rebuts Common Sense. (Bell (1732-1784) had published the first edition of Common Sense, but Paine parted ways after Bell claimed there were no profits to divide though the first 1,000 copies sold out immediately.)

Also included are a report of the seizure of Governor’s Island in New York harbor by patriots (p2/c3); “Plan of the American Compact,” reprinted from the New-York Packet, proposing eight points that would preserve the rights of freemen to Americans in continued union with Great Britain (p3/c1-2); notice of the creation of a gun lock factory in Philadelphia (p3/c2-3); a series of resolutions by the Second Continental Congress, including “Resolved, That no slaves be imported into any of the Thirteen United Colonies.” (p4/c2); and advertisements and notices, including one offering a $4 reward for the return of a deserter from the ship Reprisal (p3/c3).

Historical Background

William Smith first published his series of eight letters in the Pennsylvania Gazette in March and April 1776. They were reprinted almost immediately in the Pennsylvania Ledger, and in newspapers in Connecticut, Virginia, New York, and other colonies. Paine responded to Smith’s “Cato” letters with a series of four letters signed “The Forester,” first printed in the Pennsylvania Journal in April and May. Paine’s third Forrester letter dismissed offhand Cato’s fourth through seventh letters, “as they contain but little matter...” Paine then asserted that Cato’s fifth through seventh letters, “entirely deserts the subject of Independence, and sets up the proud standard of Kings, in preference to a Republican form of Government…. Cato shelters himself chiefly in quotations from other authors, without reasoning much on the matter himself.... Cato may observe that I scarcely ever quote; the reason is I always think.”

William Smith (1727-1803), born in Scotland, attended the University of Aberdeen and became an Anglican priest. In 1753, his pamphlet on education caused Benjamin Franklin and Richard Peters to persuade him to come to America. Smith became the first provost of the College of Philadelphia (now University of Pennsylvania), serving from 1755 to 1779 despite his attacks on Quakers, the political elite of Pennsylvania. Though he opposed Common Sense, he had served on the Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence in 1774, and was sympathetic to the patriot cause. After being forced to leave British occupied Philadelphia, he helped found Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, in 1782, and became its first president.

James Cannon (1740-1782) was born in Edinburgh and educated at the University of Edinburgh and the College of Philadelphia, graduating in 1767. In 1773, he returned to Philadelphia as a professor of mathematics. He was a leader of the city’s radical faction campaigning for independence. Although moderates won a majority of the seats in the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly on May 1, 1776, the radicals persuaded the Continental Congress to suppress local governments that derived their authority from the Crown. The Provincial Assembly voted itself out of existence. Cannon was one of the two principal drafters of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, which operated until 1790. His three Cassandra letters challenged Cato’s conservatism. Cannon didn’t attack the monarchy generally (as Paine had), but argued that America should not be governed by a British monarch.

The Pennsylvania Ledger (1775-1778) was a weekly newspaper published under variant titles in Philadelphia by James Humphreys Jr. (1748-1810). Accused of being a Tory, Humphreys was driven from town, but he returned to Philadelphia and restarted the Ledger during the nine-month British occupation. When the British left Philadelphia, Humphreys closed the Ledger and left with them. He settled in New York for a time and by 1785 had moved to Nova Scotia, where he published a newspaper and was a merchant. By 1797, he had returned to Philadelphia, where he was a printer.