To James Monroe December 30, 1807

Broome Street, New York,

DEAR SIR:

I congratulate and welcome you very sincerely on your return home. The British Government is mad and every thing [they] do or attempt to do prove them to be so. I received a letter from London dated Oct[ober] 15 which I have sent for publication to the Philadelphia Aurora. The writer says, “It is believed here (London) that “war with America is resolved on.”

I have numerous friends in England, and perhaps you are acquainted with some of them. Do you know Sir Francis Burdett, or Col. Bosville of Wilbeck Street. They came to Paris a short time before I left it for America and I received great attention and friendship from them. They are strong Rights of Man’s Men.

If I recollect right some Bankers at Brussels, I think Baron Walkers was one, made you an offer when you were at Paris of a loan of money for the United States. Should we get into trouble with the unprincipled government of England a resource of this kind may be useful. I remind you of it that you may, if you see it proper, mention it to the President.

If you have any information respecting the condition of England or the policy and plans of its government that I can make a good use of without saying how I came by it, I will be obliged to you for it. Is there any talk of a descent upon England? I wish to see that corrupt, unprincipled and oppressive government pulled down.

I hold my health very well, but I am a great deal disabled in my powers of walking. Present my compliments and respects to Mrs. Monroe.

Yours in Friendship,

THOMAS PAINE.

CHEETHAM AND HIS TORY PAPER.

from the Public Advertiser (New York), September 26, 1807.

CHEETHAM is frequently giving symptoms of being the successor of Cullen, alias Carpenter, as Cullen was the successor of Cobbett, alias Porcupine. Like him he is seeking to involve the United States in a quarrel with France for the benefit of England.

In his paper of Tuesday, Sept. 22, he has a long abusive piece against France, under the title of “Remarks” on the speech of the Arch Chancellor of France to the French Senate. This is a matter that Cheetham, as an adopted American Citizen, has no business with; and as a John Bull it is impertinence in him to come here to spew out his venom against France. But Cheetham cannot live without quarreling, nor write without abuse. He is a disgrace to the Republicans, whose principle is, to live in peace and friendship with all nations and not to interfere in the domestic concerns of any.

Cheetham seems to regret that peace is made on the continent of Europe, and he shews his spleen against it by the following round-about scurrilous paragraph:

“The people of France, says he, now breathe the air of peace under slavery closer, more systematic, military, and universal, (Cheetham knows nothing about it) than that with which they were overwhelmed previous to the beginning of the long continued calamity.” — This is spoken exactly in the character of a stupid prejudiced John Bull, who, shut up in his island and ignorant of the world supposes all nations slaves but themselves; whereas those at a distance can see that of all people enslaved by their governments, none are so much so as the people of England. Had Cheetham staid in England till this time he would have had to shoulder a musket and this would have been dreadful to him, for as all bullies are cowards, the smell of gunpowder would be as horrid to Cheetham as the scent of a skunk to other animals.

The danger to which the city of New York was exposed, by the continual abuse of France in such papers as Cullen’s, was, that the French government might be induced to consider the city of New York as a British Colony, such as it was during the revolutionary war, and exclude her from the commerce of the continent of Europe, as she has excluded Britain. Cheetham is following the footsteps of Cullen.

The French nation, under all its changes of government has always behaved in a civil and friendly manner to the United States. We have no cause of dispute with France. It was by the aid of France in men, money, and ships, that the revolution and independence of the United States were so completely established(1), and it is scarcely sufferable that a prejudiced and surly tempered John Bull should fix himself among us to abuse a friendly power.

September 25, 1807.

Six thousand French troops under General Rochambeau, and thirty-one sail of the line under Admiral De Grass, assisted at the capture of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia, which put an end to the war.

*On the Question, WILL THERE BE WAR?

from the Public Advertiser (New York), August 15, 1807.

Every one asks, Will there be war? The answer to this is easy, which is, That so long as the English government be permitted, at her own discretion, to search, capture, and condemn our vessels, controul our commerce, impress our seamen, and fire upon and plunder our national ships, as she has done, she will Not Declare War, because she will not give us the acknowledged right of making reprisals. Her plan is a monopoly of war, and she thinks to succeed by the manoeuver of not declaring war.

The case then is altogether a question among ourselves. Shall we make war on the English government, as the English government has made upon us; or shall we submit, as we have done, and that with long forbearance, to the evil of having war made upon us without reprisals? This is a right statement of the case between the United States and England.

For several years past it has been the scheme of that government to terrify us, by acts of violence, into submission to her measures, and in the insane stupidity of attempting this, she has incensed us into war. We neither fear nor care about England, otherwise than pitying the people who live under such a wretched system of government. As to navies, they have lost their terrifying powers. They can do nothing against us at land, and if they come within our waters, they will be taken the first calm that comes. They can rob us on the ocean as robbers can do, and we can find a way to indemnify ourselves by reprisals, in more ways than one.

The British Government is not entitled, even as an enemy, to be treated as civilized enemies are treated. She is a pirate, and should be treated as a pirate. Nations do not declare war against pirates, but attack them as a natural right. All civilities shown to the British government, is like pearl thrown before a swine. She is insensible of principle and destitute of honour. Her monarch is mad and her ministers have caught the contagion.

The British government, and also the nation, deceive themselves with respect to the power of navies. They suppose that ships of war can make conquests at land; that they can take or destroy towns or cities near the shore and obtain by terror what terms they please. They sent admiral Duckworth to Constantinople upon this stupid idea, and the event has shewn to the world the imbecility of navies against cannon on shore. Constantinople was not fortified any more than our American towns are now; but the Turks, on the appearance of the British fleet, got five hundred cannon and a hundred mortars down from the arsenals to the shore, and the blustering heroes of the navy seeing this, fled like a hound with a rattle at his tail. The gallant people of Norfolk and its neighbourhood have sent Douglas off in a similar manner. An Indian who studies nature is a better judge of naval power than an English minister.

In March, 1777, soon after taking the Hessians at Trenton, I was at a treaty held with the five northern nations of Indians at East Town, in Pennsylvania, and was often pleased with the sagacious remarks of those original people. The chief of one of the tribes, who went by the name of King Lastnight, because his tribe had sold their lands, had seen some English men of war in some of the waters of Canada and was impressed with an idea of the power of those great canoes; but he saw that the English made no progress against us by land. This was enough for an Indian to form an opinion by. He could speak some English, and in conversation with me, alluding to the great canoes, he gave me his idea of the power of a king of England by the following metaphor.

“The king of England,” said he, “is like a fish, When he is in the water he can wag his tail. — When he comes on land he lays down on his side.” — Now, if the English Government had but half the sense this Indian had they would not have sent Duckworth to Constantinople and Douglas to Norfolk to lay down on their side.

Accounts from Halifax state, that admiral Berkley has alleged in writing, that “his orders (to Douglas) were not issued until every application to restore the mutineers and deserters (as he calls them) had been made by his Britannic majesty’s minister, consul, and officer, and had been refused by the government of the United States.”

If this account be true, it shows that Berkley is an idiot in governmental affairs; for if the matter was in the hands of the British minister, who is the immediate representative of his government, Berkley could have no interference in it. That minister would report to his government the demand he made, if he made any, and the answer he received, if he received any, and Berkley could act only in consequence of orders received afterwards. It does not belong to subordinate officers of any government to commence hostilities at their own discretion.

I now come to speak of the politics of the day as they rise out of the circumstances that have taken place.

The injustice of the British government, and the insolence of its naval officers, is no longer to be borne. That injustice, and that insolence grows out of a presumption the British government has set up, which it calls “the right of search.” There is not, nor ever was, such a right appertaining to a nation in consequence of its being in war with another nation. Wherever such a right existed it has been by treaty, and where no such treaty exist, no such right can exist, and to assume the exercise of it is an act of hostility which if not abandoned must be repelled until it be abandoned. The United States cannot even cede such a right to England, without ceding the same right to France, Spain, Holland, Naples, Italy, and Turkey, or they will take it, and the United States must take the consequence. It is a very difficult matter, and requires great political wisdom for a neutral nation to make a treaty during a time of war with one belligerent nation, that shall not commit her with the other. — The best way then, since matters are come to the extremity they are, is to resist this pretended right of search in the first instance. The United States are able to do it, and she is the only neutral nation that is able.

We are not the diminutive people now that we were when the revolution began. Our population then was two millions and an half, it is now between six and seven millions, and in less than ten years will exceed the population of England. The United States have encreased more in power, ability, and wealth within the last twenty or twenty-two years than she did for almost two hundred years before, while the states were British colonies.

She owes this to two things, independence and the representative system of government. It was always the ill-judged and impracticable system of the British government to keep the colonies in a state of continual nonage. They never were to be of full age that she might always controul them.

While the United States have been going forward in this unparalleled manner, England has been going backward. Her government is a bankrupt, and her people miserable. More than a million of them are paupers. Her king is mad, and her parliaments corrupt. We have yet to see what the present new elected parliament will be. There is one man in it, whom I proudly call a friend, from whom there will be great expectations; but what can one honest independent member do, surrounded by such a mass of ignorance and corruption as have for many years past governed that unfortunate nation.

The great dependance of England has been on her navy, and it is her navy that has been her ruin. The falsely imagined power of that navy (for it was necessary it should be amphibious to perform what was expected from it) has prompted the ignorance of her government into insolence towards all foreign powers till England has not a friend left among nations. Russia and Sweden will quarter themselves upon her purse till it becomes empty, and then very probably will turn against her.

Depending on her navy she blockaded whole countries by proclamation, and now, Bonaparte, by way of justifiable retaliation, has blockaded her by land from the commerce of the western part of the continent of Europe. Her insolent and imbecile expedition to Constantinople, has excluded her from the commerce of Turkish Europe and Turkey in Asia, and thrown it into the hands of France — and her outrageous conduct to us will exclude her from the commerce of the United States. By the insolence of the crew of her navy she is in danger of losing her trade to China; and it is easy to see that Bonaparte is paving his way to India by Turkey and Persia. The madness of the British government has thrown Turkey into the arms of France. Persia lies between Turkey and India, and Bonaparte is forming friendly connections with the Persian government. There is already an exchange of ambassadors. Bonaparte is sending military officers into Persia, and will with the consent of its government, raise an army there and attack the English monopoly in India. If France holds her connections with Turkey and Persia, England cannot hold India.

It is in this wretched chaos of affairs that the mad Government of England has brought on herself a new enemy by commencing hostilities against the United States. She must be ignorant of the geography of America, or she would know that we can dispossess her of all her possessions on the Continent whenever we please, and she cannot, with safety, keep a fleet in the West Indies during the hurricane months. Bonaparte will find employment for every soldier she can raise, and those she may send to the continent of Europe will become prisoners. There never was an instance of a government conducting itself with the madness and ignorance the British government has done! This is John Adams’s stupendous fabric of human wisdom!

That the British government will disown giving hostile instructions to Berkeley I have no doubt. It is the trick of old governments to do so when they find themselves wrong and pay some scapegoat to bear the blame. But this will not be sufficient. The pretended right of search and the impressment of our seamen must be abandoned. Three thousand of them have been impressed by British ships to fight against France. The French government has shewn a great deal of patience in not complaining of it, for it is a great injury to her and must be redressed or worse consequences will follow.

I have said in the former part of this essay that it is a difficult matter and requires great political wisdom for a neutral nation during a war to form a treaty with one belligerent nation that shall not commit her with the other. I will now give an instance of it.

In 1794, Washington sent Mr. Monroe as minister to France, and John Jay to England, and gave them contradictory instructions. By the treaty that then existed between the United States and France, “Free ships made free goods.” So that English property on board American ships was protected from seizure by France. John Jay made a treaty with England which Washington and the stupid senate of that day ratified by which free ships DID NOT make free property, and that French property on board American ships could be seized by England. This of consequence vacated the free article in the treaty with France, and she availed herself of it, and the United States lost the carrying trade of both nations. There is a jesuitism in Jay’s treaty which says, that the question whether free ships make free goods shall be taken into consideration two years after the war. It is now more than two years since that war, and therefore it forms an item with the matters to be now settled with the English government.

The British government have been so long in the habit of insolence that she has not the sense of seeing when the power of being insolent ceases. — She ought to see that the power of France by land is far superior to her power at sea. France, by land, can blockade the commerce of England out of Europe and India, and the English navy can do nothing to prevent it. Of what use is it to “rule the waves,” if you cannot put your foot on shore? If it was a contest for fisheries, the most powerful navy would decide; but as it is a contest for commerce at land, it is land force that decides, and navies are out of the question.

If the British government were wise, she would cease the pretended right of search of her own accord, for it brings her into endless trouble. It makes all nations her enemy. Every nation detests the piratical insolence of England and none more so than the United States. The spirit that is now raised, cannot be appeased until reparation is made for the past, and security be given for the future.

COMMON SENSE.

GUN-BOATS, AND FORTIFICATIONS

[This article is reprinted from Miscellaneous Letters and Writings of Thomas Paine, London, 1819, pp. 221-25.-Editor.]

THE natural defense by men is common to all nations; but artificial defense as an auxiliary to human strength must be adapted to the local condition and circumstances of a country. What may be suitable to one country, or in one state of circumstances, may not be so in another.

The United States have a long line of coast of more than two thousand miles, every part of which requires defense, because every part is approachable by water.

The right principle for the United States to go upon as a water defense for the coast is that of combining the greatest practical power with the least possible bulk, that the whole quantity of power may be better distributed through the several parts of such an extensive coast.

The power of a ship of war is altogether in the number and size of the guns she carries, for the ship, of itself has no power. Ships cannot struggle with each other like animals; and besides this, as half her guns are on one side the ship and half on the other, and as she can use only the guns on one side at a time, her real power is only equal to half her number of guns. A seventy-four can use only thirty-seven guns. She must tack about to bring the other half into action, and while she is doing this she is defenseless and exposed.

As this is the case with ships of war, a question naturally arises therefrom, which is, whether seventy-four guns, or any other number, cannot be more effectually employed, and that with much less expense, than by putting them all into one ship of such enormous bulk that it cannot approach a shore either to defend it or attack it; and though the ship can change its place, the whole number of guns can be only in one place at a time, and only half that number can be used at a time.

This is a true statement of the case between ships of war and gun-boats for the defense of a coast and of towns situated near a coast. But the case often is, that men are led away by the GREATNESS of an idea and not by the JUSTNESS of it. This is always the case with those who are advocates for navies and large ships.

A gun-boat carrying as heavy metal as a ship of one hundred guns can carry, is a one gun ship of the line; and seventy-four of them which would cost much less than a 74 gun ship would cost, would be able to blow a 74 gun ship out of the water. They have, in the use of their guns, double the power of the ship, that is, they have the use of their whole number of 74 to 37.

Having thus stated the general outlines of the subject I come to particulars.

That I might have correct data to go upon with respect to the expense of ships and gun-boats, I wrote to the head of one of the departments at Washington for information on that subject.1

The following is the answer I received:

“Calculating the cost of a 74 or 100 gun ship, from the actual cost of the ship United States of 44 guns, built at Philadelphia, between the years 1795 and 1798, which amounted to 300,000 dollars, it may be presumed that a 74 gun ship would cost 500,000 dollars and a 100 gun ship 700,000 dollars.

“Gun-boats calculated merely for the defense of harbors and rivers will, on an average, cost about 4000 dollars each when fit to receive the crew and provisions.”

On the data here given I proceed to state comparative calculations respecting ships and gun-boats.

The ship, United States, cost 300,000 dollars. Gun-boats cost 4000 dollars each, consequently the 300,000 expended on the ship for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns, and those not heavy metal would have built seventy-five gun-boats each carrying a cannon of the same weight of metal that a ship of an hundred guns can carry. The difference therefore is, that the gun-boats give the use of 31 guns heavy metal, more than can be obtained by the ship and the expenses in both cases equal.

A 74 gun ship cost 500,000 dollars. This same money will build 125 gun-boats. The gain by gun-boats is the use of 51 guns more than can be obtained by expending the money on a ship of 74 guns.

The cost of an 100 gun ship is 700,000 dollars. This money will build 175 gun-boats. The gain, therefore, by the boats is the use of 75 guns more than by the ship.

Though I had a general impression, ever since I had a knowledge of gun-boats, that any given sum of money would go farther in building gun-boats than in building ships of war, and that gun-boats were preferable to ships for home defense, I did not suppose the difference was so great as the calculations above given prove them to be, for it is almost double in favor of gun-boats. It is as 175 to 100. The cause of this difference is easily explained.

The fact is, that all that part of the expense in building a ship from the deck upward, including mast, yards, sails and rigging is saved by building gun-boats which are moved by oars, or a light sail occasionally.

The difference also in point of repairs between ships of war and gun-boats is not only great but is greater in proportion than in their first cost. The repairs of ships of war is annually from 1-14 to 1-10 of their first cost. The annual expense of the repairs of a ship that cost 300,000 dollars will be above 21,000 dollars; the greatest part of this expense is in her sails and rigging which gun-boats are free from.

The difference also in point of duration is great. Gun-boats, when not in use, can be put under shelter and preserved from the weather, but ships cannot; or the boats can be sunk in the water or the mud. This is the way the nuts of cider mills for grinding apples are preserved. Were they to be exposed to the dry and hot air after coming wet from the mill they would crack and split and be good for nothing. But timber under water will continue sound for several hundred years, provided there be no worms.

Another advantage in favor of gun-boats is the expedition with which a great number of them can be built at once. An hundred may be built as soon as one if there are hands enough to set about them separately. They do not require the preparations for building them that ships require, nor deep water to launch them in. They can be built on the shore of shallow waters, or they might be framed in the woods or forests and the parts brought separately down and put together on the shore. But ships take up a long time building. The ship United States took up two whole years ’96 and ’97 and part of the years ’95 and ’98 and all this for the purpose of getting the use of 44 guns and those not heavy metal. This foolish affair was not in the days of the present administration.

Ships and gun-boats are for different services. Ships are for distant expeditions; gun-boats for home defense. The one for the ocean; the other for the shore.

Gun-boats being moved by oars cannot be deprived of motion by calms, for the calmer the weather the better for the boat. But a hostile ship becalmed in any of our waters, can be taken by gun-boats moved by oars, let the rate of the ship be what it may. A 100 gun man of war becalmed, is like a giant in a dead palsy. Every little fellow can kick him.

The United States ought to have 500 gun-boats stationed in different parts of the coast, each carrying a thirty-two or thirty-six pounder. Hostile ships would not then venture to lie within our waters, were it only for the certainty of being sometimes becalmed. They would then become prizes, and the insulting bullies on the ocean become prisoners in our own waters.

Having thus stated the comparative powers and expense of ships of war and gun-boats, I come to speak of fortifications.

Fortifications may be comprehended under two general heads.

First, fortified towns; that is, towns enclosed within a fortified polygon, of which there are many on the continent of Europe but not any in England.

Secondly, simple forts and batteries. These are not formed on the regular principles of fortification, that is, they are not formed for the purpose of standing a siege as a fortified polygon is. They are for the purpose of obstructing or annoying the progress of an enemy by land or water.

Batteries are formidable in defending narrow passes by land; such as the passage of a bridge, or of a road cut through a rough and craggy mountain that cannot be passed any where else. But they are not formidable in defending water-passes, because a ship with a brisk wind tide and running at the rate of ten miles an hour will be out of the reach of the fire of the battery in fifteen or twenty minutes, and being a swift moving object all the time it would be a mere chance that any shot struck her.

When the object of a ship is that of passing a battery for the purpose of attaining or attacking some other object it is not customary with the ship to fire at the battery lest it should disturb her course. Three or four men are kept on deck to attend the helm, and the rest, having nothing to do, go below. Duckworth in passing the Dardenelles up to Constantinople did not fire at the batteries.

When batteries for the defense of water-passes can be erected without any great expense, and the men not exposed to capture, it may be very proper to have them. They may keep off small piratical vessels but they are not to be trusted to for defence.

Fortifications give, in general, a delusive idea of protection. All our principal losses in the revolutionary war were occasioned by trusting to Fortifications. Fort Washington with a garrison of 2500 men was taken in less than four hours and the men made prisoners of war. The same fate had befallen Fort Lee on the opposite shore, if General Lee had not moved hastily off and gained Hackinsack bridge. General Lincoln fortified Charleston, S. C, and himself and his army were made prisoners of war. General Washington began fortifying New York in 1776, General Howe passed up the East river landed his army at Frog’s Point about twenty miles above the city and marched down upon it, and had not General Washington stole silently and suddenly off on the North river side of York Island, himself and his army had also been prisoners. Trust not to Fortifications, otherwise than as batteries that can be abandoned at discretion.

The case however is, that batteries, as a water defence against the passage of ships cannot do much. Were any given number of guns to be put in a battery for that purpose, and an equal number of the same weight of metal put in gun-boats for the same purpose, those in the boats would be more effectual than those in the battery. The reason for this is obvious. A battery is stationary. Its fire is limited to about two miles, and there its power ceases. But every gun-boat moved by oars is a movable fortification that can follow up its fire and change its place and its position as circumstances may require. And besides this, gun-boats in calms are the sovereigns of ships.

As this matter interests the public, and most probably will come before Congress at its next meeting, if the printers in any of the States, after publishing it in their newspapers, have a mind to publish it in a pamphlet form, together with my former piece on gun-boats, they have my consent freely. I take neither copy-right nor profit for any thing I publish.

COMMON SENSE.

July 21, 1807. NEW YORK

1. The letter Paine refers to seems to have disappeared, for it is not included in any collections in the Library of Congress or in the National Archives.

Paine also sent two letters to Thomas Jefferson on the subject of gun-boats in the summer and fall of 1807, and included in the first letter (dated August 29, 1807) a “model of a contrivance for making one gun-boat do nearly double execution.” (See Jefferson’s letters to Paine, September 6, October 9, 1807, Andrew A. Lipscomb and

Albert Ellery Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D. C , 1905,vol. XI, pp. 362, 378.) Both the letters and the diagram seem to have disappeared; they are not included in the Jefferson collection in the Library of Congress or in the collections of the Navy Department in the National Archives. In a report in the National Archives, Naval Affairs section, entitled “Data on the Gun-Boats built by the United States, 1804-1808,” Jefferson’s letter to Paine, September 6, 1807, is quoted, after which appears the following comment: “Whether Paine’s plan had any influence upon gun-boats authorized in 1807 and 1808, we are unable to say.” It may very well be that Paine simply sent Jefferson the articles on gun-boats which appear in the present collection of his writings, and wrote nothing else on the subject.-Editor.

From the original letter now in private hands.

New York Broome Street May 4th, 1807 –

Old Friend

I will first explain the direct occasion of my writing this letter and reserve meums and tuums to follow after.

I have a law suit coming on in this State (New York) the 20th of this month, May, The occsion of it is as follows.

Four or five men who had lived within the british lines in the revolutionary war got in to be inspectors of the election at New Rochelle where I lived on my Farm. These men refused my vote saying to me “You are not an American Citizen.” Upon my beginning to remonstrate with them, the chief of them (Ward, Supervisor, whose father and all his brothers had joined the british, but himself not being then old enough to carry a musket staid at home with his mother) got up and calling out for a Constable said to me “I commit you to Prison,” He chose however to sit down and go no farther with it. I have prosecuted the board of inspectors for disfranchising me.

I have written to Mr Madison for copies of Mr Monro’s letter to Mr Randolph in which Mr Monro informed Government of his having reclaimed me and my liberation in consequence of it, and of Mr Randolph’s answer in which he says “The president approves of what you have done in the case of Mr Paine.” These are necessary in order toprove falsehood on the inspectors, for the ground they went upon is this – “Our Minister at Paris Governeur Morris would not reclaim you when you were imprisoned in the Luxemburg and General Washington refused to do it.” — Morris dod reclaim me but his reclamation did me no good, and the probablility is that he did intend it should.

You and other Americans in Paris went in a body to the Convention to reclaim me and I want a certificate from you properly attested, of this fact. If you consult with Governor Clinton he will, in friendship, inform you who to address it to –

Having now done with business I come to meums and tuums. What are you about? You sometimes hear of me but I never hear of you. It seems as if I had got to be master of the feds and the priests. The former does not attack my political publications; they rather try to keep them out of sight by silence, and as to the priests they act as if they would say, let us alone and we will let you alone.

My examination of the passages called prophecies is printed and will be published next week. I have prepared it with the essay on dream. I do not believe that the priests will attack it for it is not a book of opinions but of facts. Had the Christian Religion done any good in the world I would not have exposed it however fabulous I might believe it to be. But the delusive Idea of having a friend at court whom they call a redeemer who pays all their scores, is an encouragement to wickedness.

What is Fulton about? Is he “taming a whale” to draw his submarine boat?

I wish you would desire Mr. Smith to send me his Country National Intelligencer. It is printed twice a week without advertisement. I am somewhat at a loss of want of authentic intelligence.

Yours in friendship

Thomas Paine