Then the more shame upon
her conduct. Even brutes do not devour their young, nor savages make war
upon their families; wherefore, the assertion, if true, turns to her
reproach.... This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted
lovers of civil and religious liberty from _every part_ of Europe. Hither
have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the
cruelty of the monster; and it is so far true of England, that the same
tyranny which drove the first emigrants from home, pursues their
descendants still."
In the latter part of 1776 Washington wrote, "If every nerve is not
strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition, I think the
game is pretty nearly up." In those gloomy days, sharing the privations of
the army, Thomas Paine wrote the first number of an irregularly issued
periodical, known as the _Crisis_, beginning:--
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his
country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman."
Some have said that the pen of Thomas Paine was worth more to the cause of
liberty than twenty thousand men.
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