The Rage Around Tom Paine [ 39 ] cade!'7 The President extended his invitation to Paine in these terms: You expressed a wish to get a passage to this country in a public vessel. Mr. Dawson is charged with orders to the captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate you back if you can be ready to depart at such short warning.... I am in hopes you will find us returned generally to sentiments worthy of former times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily laboured and with as much effect as any man living. That you may long live to continue your useful labours and to reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations is my sincere prayer. Accept assurance of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.8 Paine had attempted to return to the United States in 1795, 1797, and 1799, but each time he was deterred by the possibility of capture by a British ship that would have returned him to England and death.9 Paine had been outlawed there and condemned for treason in December 1792 as the author of the Rights of Man, an appeal to the English people to overthrow their monarchy and establish a republic. Thus delayed seven years in Paris, Paine decided he could wait for the westward sailing of a later ship that was to bring the new American minister Robert Livingston. This vessel, however, was ordered to the Mediterranean after leaving France, and when the Peace of Amiens was concluded soon afterward Paine no longer needed the protection of a national warship. He embarked from Le Havre on September 1, 1802 in a private vessel.10 The offer of government passage to Thomas Paine may seem an entirely proper gesture of gratitude today, for as John Bach McMaster 7Quoted in Alfred Owen Aldridge, Man of Reason, the Life of Thomas Paine (Philadelphia: 1959), 269. This is the best available biography of Paine. Other significant recent research includes Bichard Gimbel, "New Political Writings by Thomas Paine" The Yale University Library Gazette, XXX (January 1956), 94—107. See also Gimbel's "The Resurgence of Thomas Paine" and "Thomas Paine Fights for Freedom in Three Worlds" Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, LXIX, pt. 2 and LXX, pt. 2 (October 1959 and October i960), 97-118, 399-492. 8 Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (10 vols.; New York: 1892-99) VIII, 18-19. 9 John Bach McMaster, A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War (8 vols.; New York: 1883-1913), II, 595. i° Crane Brinton, "Thomas Paine" DAB, states that Paine "wisely" refused passage on a government ship. However, Aldridge, Man of Reason, 271, asserts that "Actually Paine's correspondence reveals that he delayed his passage for reasons quite independent of events in America" Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson (2 vols.; New York: 1858), II, 642, erroneously states that Paine "got ready and returned in the sloop of war!'