M. Brailsford,
says of him:
"His writing is of the age of enlightenment; his actions
belong to romance.... In his spirit of adventure, in his
passion for movement and combat, there Paine is romantic.
Paine thought in prose and acted epics. He drew horizons on
paper and pursued the infinite in deeds."
Let us see where this impulse of romance and adventure led him; it was
into strange enough paths at first!
He was a mere boy--fifteen or sixteen, if I remember accurately--when
the lure of the sea seized him. It is reported that he signed up on a
privateer (the Captain of which was appropriately called Death!),
putting out from England, and sailed with her piratical crew for a
year. This was doubtless adventurous enough, but young Thomas already
wanted adventure of a different and a higher order. He came back and
went into his Quaker father's business--which was that of a staymaker,
of all things! He got his excitement by studying _astronomy_!
Then he became an exciseman--what was sometimes called "gauger"--and
was speedily cashiered for negligence.
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