A few of the bolder "shepherds
of the people" tried to urge them onward; but no one was bold enough to
dash in first and lead them through. Paine seized the opportunity. He
had a mind whose eye always saw a subject, when it could perceive it at
all, in its naked truth, stripped of the non-material accessories which
disturb the vision of common men. He saw that reconciliation was
impossible, mere rebellion folly; and that, to succeed in the struggle,
it was necessary to fight Great Britain as an equal,--nation against
nation. This course he recommended in "Common Sense," published in
January, 1776.
Paine told the Colonists in this pamphlet that the connection with the
mother country was of no use to them, and was rapidly becoming an
impossibility. "It is not in the power of England to do this continent
justice. The business of it is too weighty and too intricate to be
managed with any tolerable degree of convenience by a power so distant.
_To be always running three or four thousand miles with a tale or a
petition, waiting four or five months for an answer, which, when
obtained, requires five or six more to explain it in, will in a few
years be looked upon as folly and childishness_." As to the protection
of England, what is that but the privilege of contributing to her wars?
"Our trade will always be a protection.
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