“ Washington said that it “worked a powerful change in the minds of many men.” Leaders in the New York Provincial Congress considered the advisability of answering it, but came to the conclusion that it was unanswerable. When war was declared, and fortune at first went against the colonists, Paine, who was then serving with General Greene as volunteer aide-de-camp, wrote the first of a series of influential tracts called The Crisis, of which the opening words, “These are the times that try men’s souls,” became a battle-cry. ”

“ It was written from the point of view of a Quaker who did not believe in revealed religion, but who held that “all religions are in their nature mild and benign” when not associated with political systems. Intermixed with the coarse unceremonious ridicule of what he considered superstition and bad faith are many passages of earnest and even lofty eloquence in favour of a pure morality founded on natural religion. ”

“ In 1787 he sailed for Europe with the model of an iron bridge he had designed. This was publicly exhibited in Paris and London, and attracted great crowds. In England he determined to “open the eyes of the people to the madness and stupidity of the government.” His first efforts in the Prospects on the Rubicon (1787) were directed against Pitt’s war policy, and towards securing friendly relations with France. When Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France appeared, in 1790, Paine at once wrote his answer, The Rights of Man. ”