Mad Tom in a Rage. In this caricature (c. 1801) Paine, aided by the devil, is trying to pull down the federal government. On the ground is a brandy bottle. His supposed fondness for brandy was a constant theme with his opponents, courtesy of COL. RICHARD GIMBEL. Fortunately for Federalist critics, the sixty-five year old "carcase" of Thomas Paine proved equal to the rigors of the Atlantic crossing, and on October 30,1802, the "obscene old sinner" landed at Baltimore. It was a toughened Thomas Paine who returned to America after fifteen years in restless England and revolutionary France. Since leaving post-Revolution retirement at Bordentown, New Jersey, in 1787, Paine had experienced the best and worst in mankind in a Europe torn with turmoil, and this experience had changed him deeply. Gone forever was the idealistic firebrand who had prodded the reluctant colonies to independence with his Common Sense pamphlet in 1776 and had bolstered the patriot cause with the fifteen issues of the Crisis papers from 1776 to 1780. There returned another Tom Paine—old, wracked with the pain of illness, and not a little disillusioned. He had been made a French citizen by the Assembly on August 26, 1792,