person to do it. If he neglects it in his life-time the case is
altered. It is my intention to return to America in the course of the
present year. I shall then [do] it by subscription, with historical
notes. As this work will employ many persons in different parts of
the Union, I will confer with you upon the subject, and such part of
it as will suit you to undertake, will be at your choice. I have
sustained so much loss, by disinterestedness and inattention to money
matters, and by accidents, that I am obliged to look closer to my
affairs than I have done. The printer (an Englishman) whom I employed
here to print the second part of 'the Age of Reason' made a
manuscript copy of the work while he was printing it, which he sent
to London and sold. It was by this means that an edition of it came
out in London.

"We are waiting here for news from America of the state of the
federal elections. You will have heard long before this reaches you
that the French government has refused to receive Mr. Pinckney as
minister. While Mr. Monroe was minister he had the opportunity of
softening matters with this government, for he was in good credit
with them tho' they were in high indignation at the infidelity of the
Washington Administration. It is time that Mr. Washington retire, for
he has played off so much prudent hypocrisy between France and
England that neither government believes anything he says.

"Your friend, etc.,
"THOMAS PAINE."

It would appear that Symonds' stolen edition must have got ahead of
that sent by Paine to Franklin Bache, for some of its errors continue
in all modern American editions to the present day, as well as in