This passage is taken from Thomas Paine’s preface to Rights of Man, originally published in 1791. Rights of Man was initially written as a response to Irish statesman Edmund Burke’s attack on the French Revolution.
From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution,
it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind;
and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would
have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to continue
in that opinion than to change it.
At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in
the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the
National Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written to him but a
short time before to inform him how prosperously matters were
going on. Soon after this I saw his advertisement of the
Pamphlet he intended to publish: As the attack was to be made
in a language but little studied, and less understood in France,
and as everything suffers by translation, I promised some of the
friends of the Revolution in that country that whenever Mr.
Burke’s Pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This appeared
to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant
misrepresentations which Mr. Burke’s Pamphlet contains; and
that while it is an outrageous abuse on the French Revolution,
and the principles of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of
the world.
[…]
I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might
never more have existence in the world, and that some other
mode might be found out to settle the differences that should
occasionally arise in the neighbourhood of nations. This
certainly might be done if Courts were disposed to set honesty
about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be
made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had been
bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that
time characterised the people of England; but experience and
an acquaintance with the French Nation have most effectually
shown to the Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and
I do not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse
exists between any two countries than between America and
France.
When I came to France, in the spring of 1787, the
Archbishop of Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time
highly esteemed. I became much acquainted with the private
Secretary of that Minister, a man of an enlarged benevolent
heart; and found that his sentiments and my own perfectly
agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched
impolicy of two nations, like England and France, continually
worrying each other, to no other end than that of a mutual
increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be assured I had
not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our
opinions into writing and sent it to him; subjoining a request,
that if I should see among the people of England, any
disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the two
nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be
authorised to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part
of France? He answered me by letter in the most unreserved
manner, and that not for himself only, but for the Minister, with
whose knowledge the letter was declared to be written.
I put this letter into the hands of Mr. Burke almost three
years ago, and left it with him, where it still remains; hoping,
and at the same time naturally expecting, from the opinion I
had conceived of him, that he would find some opportunity of
making good use of it, for the purpose of removing those errors
and prejudices which two neighbouring nations, from the want
of knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both.
When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded
to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been
disposed to it; instead of which, no sooner did he see the old
prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing
the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England
and France would cease to be enemies. That there are men in
all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the
quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those
who are concerned in the government of a country make it their
study to sow discord and cultivate prejudices between Nations,
it becomes the more unpardonable.
From the part Mr. Burke took in the American Revolution,
it was natural that I should consider him a friend to mankind;
and as our acquaintance commenced on that ground, it would
have been more agreeable to me to have had cause to continue
in that opinion than to change it.
At the time Mr. Burke made his violent speech last winter in
the English Parliament against the French Revolution and the
National Assembly, I was in Paris, and had written to him but a
short time before to inform him how prosperously matters were
going on. Soon after this I saw his advertisement of the
Pamphlet he intended to publish: As the attack was to be made
in a language but little studied, and less understood in France,
and as everything suffers by translation, I promised some of the
friends of the Revolution in that country that whenever Mr.
Burke’s Pamphlet came forth, I would answer it. This appeared
to me the more necessary to be done, when I saw the flagrant
misrepresentations which Mr. Burke’s Pamphlet contains; and
that while it is an outrageous abuse on the French Revolution,
and the principles of Liberty, it is an imposition on the rest of
the world.
[…]
I had seen enough of the miseries of war, to wish it might
never more have existence in the world, and that some other
mode might be found out to settle the differences that should
occasionally arise in the neighbourhood of nations. This
certainly might be done if Courts were disposed to set honesty
about it, or if countries were enlightened enough not to be
made the dupes of Courts. The people of America had been
bred up in the same prejudices against France, which at that
time characterised the people of England; but experience and
an acquaintance with the French Nation have most effectually
shown to the Americans the falsehood of those prejudices; and
I do not believe that a more cordial and confidential intercourse
exists between any two countries than between America and
France.
When I came to France, in the spring of 1787, the
Archbishop of Thoulouse was then Minister, and at that time
highly esteemed. I became much acquainted with the private
Secretary of that Minister, a man of an enlarged benevolent
heart; and found that his sentiments and my own perfectly
agreed with respect to the madness of war, and the wretched
impolicy of two nations, like England and France, continually
worrying each other, to no other end than that of a mutual
increase of burdens and taxes. That I might be assured I had
not misunderstood him, nor he me, I put the substance of our
opinions into writing and sent it to him; subjoining a request,
that if I should see among the people of England, any
disposition to cultivate a better understanding between the two
nations than had hitherto prevailed, how far I might be
authorised to say that the same disposition prevailed on the part
of France? He answered me by letter in the most unreserved
manner, and that not for himself only, but for the Minister, with
whose knowledge the letter was declared to be written.
I put this letter into the hands of Mr. Burke almost three
years ago, and left it with him, where it still remains; hoping,
and at the same time naturally expecting, from the opinion I
had conceived of him, that he would find some opportunity of
making good use of it, for the purpose of removing those errors
and prejudices which two neighbouring nations, from the want
of knowing each other, had entertained, to the injury of both.
When the French Revolution broke out, it certainly afforded
to Mr. Burke an opportunity of doing some good, had he been
disposed to it; instead of which, no sooner did he see the old
prejudices wearing away, than he immediately began sowing
the seeds of a new inveteracy, as if he were afraid that England
and France would cease to be enemies. That there are men in
all countries who get their living by war, and by keeping up the
quarrels of Nations, is as shocking as it is true; but when those
who are concerned in the government of a country make it their
study to sow discord and cultivate prejudices between Nations,
it becomes the more unpardonable.