Beschreibung:

PAINE, THOMAS (1737-1809). Autograph letter signed ("Thomas Paine") to Elisha Babcock, "Printer of the Mercury, Hartford, Connecticut"; New Rochelle, [N.Y.], 11 September 1804. 1 full page, 4to, (three words of postscript on page 2), 204 x 191 mm. (8 x 96 in.), integral address leaf with panel in Paine's hand. Fine. AN AGING RADICAL CONTINUES HIS INVOLVEMENT IN THE POLITICS OF HIS ADOPTED NATION From retirement on his small farmstead in Westechester County, Paine sends a Hartford journalist a copy of one of his pamphlets, old, but perfectly suited, he insists, to America's present situation, and remarks negatively on John Adams' book on the American Constitution: "I received a copy of the Address of the Delegates from ninety seven Towns. It is a good beginning; and as it is always more difficult to start a loaded cart than to keep it going afterwards or to encrease the motion of it, I can have no apprehension but you will go well on. I see you have inserted the Paragraph from my last." He is sending "a small pamphlet. I have added a short introduction to it addressed to you which will explain the occasion of its being written and my motive in sending it. There is not a passage in it that is unsuitable to the circumstances you are in; and much that is as direct to the purpose as if it had been written for it. Every page in it answers to the Title; and therefore it is not like poor John's [John Adams'] Defence of the American Constitutions [1787-88] where every page contradicts the title." "If you change papers with the Courant I should be glad [if] you would send me that paper...It is always of use to know the ground an Enemy occupies. I have sometimes a leisure hour in which I might give a little auxiliary aid, but I am not enough informed of what is going on to do it." In a postscript he adds that he had written previously "to inform you of what Mr. Harchester told me of Mr. Ellsworth declaring himself a Monarchist." Paine was adamantly convinced that John Adams who had brought the nation near the brink of war, had been a disatrous President and hostile to true democratic principles. Connecticut adopted a state Constitution in 1818 after long deliberation and Paine likely followed the process with considerable interest.