How Thomas Paine met Benjamin Franklin -- no mystery.

A respected journalist and author inquired recently about the first meeting and introduction of Thomas Paine to Benjamin Franklin. There is indeed a bit of confusion and opacity among some historians and biographers of Paine on this issue. With some important exceptions, the uncertainty has been perpetuated by Paine's biographers. A few examples may serve to illustrate the whole. Moncure Daniel Conway's influential biography alluded to Paine's friendship with Oliver Goldsmith at the time of his introduction to Franklin -- perhaps contributing to the oft-repeated and incorrect assumption that it was Goldsmith who introduced them -- but seems otherwise unaware of how it came about. Samuel Edwards perpetuated the Goldsmith error in his Rebel! A Life of Thomas Paine. David Powell belabored the same erroneous point in his Tom Paine: The Greatest Exile. The infamous and slanderous attack-biography of James Cheetham makes no mention of how Paine and Franklin met. In the still widely circulated Thomas Paine: America's Godfather, biographer W. E. Woodward made no mention. He simply wrote that Paine called on Franklin from time to time in London during 1773-1774. John Keane's otherwise exhaustive -- though somewhat flawed -- biography overlooked how the introduction came about.  More recently, an article "The Sharpened Quill" in THE NEW YORKER 10-16-2006 by Harvard professor Jill Lepore states that Paine "once caught Franklin's eye during a chance meeting in London." Prof. Lepore's observation was in accordance with the online History.org website that attributes their meeting to "happenstance." (The author has written the history.org website with the correction). To be fair, the list of scholars who got it right includes David Freeman Hawke, Alfred Owen Aldridge, A. J. Ayer, Jack Fruchtman, Harvey J. Kaye, Vikki Vickers and others; but with the exception of Harvey J. Kaye's work, most have had little exposure in other than academic circles.

The mystery of how Thomas Paine met Benjamin Franklin is no mystery. Paine recounted the circumstances in a letter to his friend and political ally Henry Laurens of South Carolina, second president of the Second Continental Congress and president at the ratification of the first constitution.

"As I always had a taste for science, I naturally had friends of that cast in England; and among the rest George Lewis Scott, Esq., through whose formal introduction my first acquaintance with Dr. Franklin commenced. I esteem Mr. Scott as one of the most amiable characters I know of, but his particular situation had been that in the minority of the present King he was his sub-preceptor, and from the occasional traditionary accounts yet remaining in the family of Mr. Scott, I obtained the true character of the present King from his childhood upwards, and, you may naturally suppose, of the present ministry."

"To the Honorable Henry Laurens. Philadelphia.  January, 14 1779" in Philip Foner, ed., Complete Writings of Thomas Paine (New York: The Citadel Press, 1945), 2:1162.

Arkansas stalls on Thomas Paine Day proposal.

http://www.baxterbulletin.com/viewart/20130309/NEWS01/303090035/Ark-House-rejects-Thomas-Paine-Day-proposal

Just a note to let you all know that I've returned after something of a hiatus. Those who know the blogger personally will know that he's been defending a dissertation and putting the final touches on a doctorate in American history ... area of specialization Thomas Paine, his followers and the history of transatlantic democratic reform. Goal accomplished -- deal done. Hope to spend a bit more regular time here with you. And have a timely and topical post that will follow this note shortly.

Thomas Paine on men who believe they are born to reign.

"Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent. Selected from the rest of mankind, their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed in the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions."  Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776.

Thomas Paine looks at America today: Letter to George Washington (1796)

"A thousand years hence (for I must indulge a few thoughts), perhaps in less, America may be what Europe now is. The innocence of her character, that won the hearts of all nations in her favor, may sound like a romance and her inimitable virtue as if it had never been. The ruin of that liberty which thousands bled for or struggled to obtain may just furnish materials for a village tale or extort a sigh from rustic sensibility, whilst the fashionable of that day, enveloped in dissipation, shall deride the principle and deny the fact.

When we contemplate the fall of empires and the extinction of the nations of the Ancient World, we see but little to excite our regret than the mouldering ruins of pompous palaces, magnificent museums, lofty pyramids and walls and towers of the most costly workmanship; but when the empire of America shall fall, the subject for contemplative sorrow will be infinitely greater than crumbling brass and marble can inspire. It will not then be said, here stood a temple of vast antiquity; here rose a babel of invisible height; or there a palace of sumptuous extravagance; but here, Ah, painful thought! the noblest work of human wisdom, the grandest scene of human glory, the fair cause of Freedom rose and fell." Thomas Paine, Letter to George Washington (1796)

The entire letter can be found here: http://www.thomas-paine-friends.org/paine-thomas_letter-to-george-washington-1796-01.html

Thomas Paine on Time and Space.

"It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time." Thomas Paine, Age of Reason, Part First, Section 7.

Thomas Paine - a noble of nature

In research into nineteenth century literature on Thomas Paine, one frequently sees him referred to as "that noble of nature." A widely published collection of his poetry was so titled. This appears to be the source of the phrase:

“Whoe'er amidst the sons Of reason, valor, liberty and virtue,
Displays distinguished merit, is a noble Of Nature's own creating.”
James Thomson
Coriolanus (act III, sc. 3)