Samuel Rogers relates that in early life he dined at a friend’s house in London with Thomas Paine, when one of the toasts given was the “memory of Joshua,”—in allusion to the Hebrew leader’s conquest of the kings of Canaan, and execution of them. Paine observed that he would not treat kings like Joshua. “I’m of the Scotch parson’s opinion,” he said, “when he prayed against Louis XIV —‘Lord, shake him over the mouth of hell, but don’t let him drop!’ ” Paine then gave as his toast, “The Republic of the World,”—which Samuel Rogers, aged twenty-nine, noted as a sublime idea. This was Paine’s faith and hope, and with it he confronted the revolutionary storms which presently burst over France and England.
Until Burke’s arraignment of France in his parliamentary speech ( February 9, 1790 ), Paine had no doubt whatever that he would sympathize with the movement in France, and wrote to him from that country as if conveying glad tidings. Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France appeared November 1, 1790 , and Paine at once set himself to answer it. He was then staying at the Angel Inn, Islington. The inn has been twice rebuilt since that time, and from its contents there is preserved only a small image, which perhaps was meant to represent “Liberty,”—possibly brought from Paris by Paine as an ornament for his study. From the Angel he removed to a house in Harding Street, Fetter Lane. Rickman says Part First of Rights of Man was finished at Versailles, but probably this has reference to the preface only, as I cannot find Paine in France that year until April 8 . The book had been printed by Johnson, in time for the opening of Parliament, in February ; but this publisher became frightened after a few copies were out (there is one in the British Museum), and the work was transferred to J. S. Jordan, 166 Fleet Street, with a preface sent from Paris (not