Thomas Paine is in the news. Who was he

A.� A political writer (1737-1809) who inspired the American Revolution. He is considered a hero in the USA, less so in his native land, England.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� So why is he in the news at the moment

A.� Parts of his body were scatted across the world. His admirers are now trying to gather them to rebury with a memorial in New Rochelle, New York, where he settled in 1784.

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Q.� Scattered What happened

A.� Ten years after his death, his body was exhumed and brought back to England by an admirer, William Cobbett. The memorial was never built and his remains, incredibly, were sold as souvenirs.

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Q.� What

A.� You heard me. A woman in Australia claims to have part of his skull; a rib may be in France and some of his bones have been made into buttons. The Thomas Paine National Historical Association has a long way to go. So far, the group could lay claim only to his mummified brain stem and a lock of hair. Association president Gary Berton said: 'It's not going to be easy, but with the help of DNA we are hopeful we can find as many of his parts as possible.'

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Q.� Why was he so influential

A.� Paine's radical pamphlet, Common Sense, published in January 1776, laid the ground for the Declaration of Independence, ratified six months later.

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Q.� Hang on a minute, we haven't had the traditional biography yet.

A.� Oh all right then. Son of a Quaker corset-maker, born in 1737 at Thetford, Norfolk. After a basic education, Paine became an excise officer - a post from which he was sacked twice.

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In London in 1774, he met Benjamin Franklin, who advised him to emigrate to America, giving him letters of recommendation. Paine landed at Philadelphia on 30 November, 1774 and soon published a pamphlet criticising slavery in America. Paine, co-editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine, sensed the spirit of rebellion there. He believed the Colonies had the right to revolt against a government that imposed taxes on them, but which did not give them the right of representation in the Parliament at Westminster.

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Q.� Strong stuff!

A.� Yes - and he went even further. He thought the Colonies should not remain dependent on England. He formulated his ideas on American independence in his pamphlet Common Sense. In this Paine argued that independence from England would come, sooner or later, because America had lost touch with the mother country.

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Q.� Common sense

A.� Precisely. Government was a necessary evil, Paine said, that could become safe only when it was representative and changed by frequent elections. The function of government in society ought, he said, only be regulating and, therefore, as simple as possible.

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Q.� The book sold well

A.� Remarkably well - 500,000 copies.� The Declaration of Independence came on 4 July, 1776.

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Q.� And he lived a long and happy life in America

A.� Not really. He soon started writing his highly influential American Crisis papers, which he published between 1776 and 1783. In 1777 he became secretary of the Committee of Foreign Affairs in Congress, but was forced to resign because he disclosed secret information. The next nine years he worked as a clerk at the Pennsylvania Assembly and published several of his writings.

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Q.� Did he return to England

A.� Yes, in 1787, primarily to raise funds to build a bridge he had designed, but after the outbreak of the French Revolution he became deeply involved in it. In 1791 and 1792 he published numerous editions of his Rights of Man, in which he defended the French Revolution. It was banned in England and he went to France where he was elected to the revolutionary National Convention. Then Robespierre threw him in jail in 1793 for voting against the execution of King Louis XVI.

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Q.� Blimey! Not many survived that.

A.� Quite - but Paine did. During his imprisonment he wrote Age of Reason. After his release he stayed in France until 1802, when he sailed back to America.

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Q. Where he was welcomed with open arms

A.� Not exactly. The Americans forgot what he had done for them. Furthermore, they could not understand his support for the French Revolution or his apparent atheism. One of the newspaper epitaphs read: He lived long, did some good and much harm.

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