"summer soldier" and "sunshine patriot" were important in igniting the spark which enabled Washington to cross the Delaware River and fall upon the British forces in a limited offensive at Trenton and Princeton before going into winter quarters.

As conditions began to improve, Paine pointed out the hopeless position of the British by stating that General Howe's

condition and ours are very different. He has everybody to fight, we have only his one army to cope with, and which wastes away at every engagement: we can not only reinforce, but can redouble our numbers; he is cut off from all suppliers, and must sooner or later inevitably fall into our hands.

Continuing his argument, Paine wrote that "if Britain cannot conquer us, it proves that she is neither able to govern nor protect us. . . ." Any victories for the British were interpreted as defeats because "it is distressing to see an enemy advancing into a country but it is the only place in which we can beat them, and in which we have always beaten them, whenever they have made the attempt." The losses of Philadelphia and Charleston were considered unimportant; those cities could be liberated in a matter of hours should the inhabitants decide to rise up against the enemy.

With the British armies growing weaker, in his opinion, Paine constantly urged the people to make sacrifices and to become active in their support of the movement for liberty: "The nearer any disease approaches a crisis, the nearer it is to a cure. Danger and deliverance make their advances together, and it is only the last push, in which one or the other takes the lead." The essays, since they were intended for propaganda purposes, by necessity had to be written in a simple, clear, and forceful style which could be completely understood by all who read them or heard them read. They were read to the pitifully small army; they were posted on trees and in taverns in the hope that they would inspire all who read them to a more strenuous effort for the cause of liberty. An example of the simple and direct approach utilized by Paine is shown in the following passage:

Our support and success depend on such a variety of men and circumstances, that every one who does but wish well, is of some use: there are men who have a strange aversion to arms, yet have hearts to risk every shilling in the cause, or in support of those who have better talents for defending it. Nature, in the arrangement of mankind, has fitted some for every service in life: were all soldiers, all would starve and go naked, and were none soldiers, all would be slaves. As disaffection to independence is the badge of a Tory, so affection to it is the mark of a Whig; and the different services of the Whigs, down from those who nobly contribute every thing, to those who have nothing to render but their wishes, tend all to the same centre, though with different degrees of merit and ability. The larger we make the circle, the more we shall harmonize, and the stronger we shall be. All we want to shut out is disaffection, and, that excluded, we must accept from each other such duties as we are best fitted to bestow. A narrow system of politics, like a narrow system of religion, is calculated only to sour the temper, and be at variance with mankind. All we want to know in America is simply this, who is for independence, and who is not? Those who are for it, will support it, and the remainder will undoubtedly see the reasonableness of paying the charges; while those who oppose or seek to betray it, must expect the more rigid fate of the jail and the gibbet.

The true value of the essays to the reader of the present generation is to clear up the misconception of earlier historians who were of the belief that the Revolution had the almost universal support of the population. Also, the essays serve as a chief chronicle of events as they were occurring. It must be remembered, however, that Paine wrote favorably toward the American cause and that the true picture may not have been presented in every case.

Paine saw much of the actual fighting and perhaps understood the war more clearly than anyone else who wrote as the events occurred. He was a master at summing up the situation and then interpreting it as he would have liked it to have been. As an interpreter of changing events, he must be ranked among the outstanding interpreters of any period of history.

During the years of the Revolution, Thomas Paine was a widely read and highly influential propagandist. It was after the French Revolution, in which he participated, that he came to be considered a radical and a dangerous revolutionary. For a more complete understanding of the American Revolution one should read THE CRISIS pamphlets in their entirety.