“ delight. the printers season every newspaper with extracts from your last, as they did before from your first part of the Rights of man. they have both served here to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to prove that tho the latter appears on the surface, it is on the surface only. the bulk below is sound & pure. go on then in doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword; shew that reformation is more practicable by operating on the mind than on the body of man, and be assured that it has not a more sincere votary, nor you a more ardent well-wisher than, Dear Sir

" Your friend & sevt

" Th: Jefferson”

Jefferson mentioned Paine’s pamphlet to various correspondents during this period. On May 11, 1791, in a letter to Benjamin Vaughan in London, he wrote: “ . . . we have some names of note here who have apostatised [ sic -- Ed. ] from the true faith: but they are few indeed, and the body of our citizens pure & insusceptible of taint in their republicanism. m ( ^~ r) Paine’s answer to Burke will be a refreshing shower to their minds. it would bring England itself to reason & revolution if it was permitted to be read there. however the same things will be said in milder forms, will make their way among the people, & you must reform at last . . . ”

On July 29 in the same year, to Lewis Littlepage in Paris, Jefferson wrote: “ . . . Mr. Paine’s Rights of man have been received & read here with great avidity & pleasure. a writer under the signature of Publicola having attacked him, has served only to call forth proofs of the firmness of our citizens in their republicanism. some great names here have been preaching & patronizing the doctrine of kings, lords & commons, & as men generally do, they believed what they hoped, that the people might be led to crown or coronet them at least. tho’ checked, they are not yet desperate. but I am happy in a general evidence that they will be found to be all head, without a body. if the revolution in France had failed, it might have intimidated some weak nerves here, but, for the happiness of mankind, that has succeeded . . . ”

Jefferson sent a copy to George Wythe, who acknowledged it without comment in June 1792.

Thomas Paine, 1737-1809, revolutionary political pamphleteer, an Englishman by birth, lived at different times in England, France (of which country he was made a citizen in 1792), and the United States. He was a friend of Franklin, Jefferson, and other members of the republican party. Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution , which went through numerous editions, first appeared in 1790, and was immediately answered by Paine in The Rights of Man.

This is another copy of no. 2803 above. This copy was also sent to Jefferson by Cooper, who has written on the half-title: Mr Cooper to Mr Jefferson.

The Advertisement is dated from Paris, 27th Sept. 1793.

The first edition was published in Paris in that year.