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Paine did write occasionally on political questions, but it was the news of last spring's skirmish at Lexington and Concord that turned him into the fiery prophet of the new America he saw taking form. Says he: "It was the cause of America that made me an author. I neither read books nor studied other people's opinions—I thought for myself." He adds that he has not earned a shilling from the huge popularity of his pamphlet (under his arrangement with Printer Robert Bell, Paine's half of the profits was to be donated to buy mittens for the American expedition against Quebec).
General Lee said after meeting Paine, "He has genius in his eyes." But that genius may be nothing more than the ability to speak plainly to plain citizens like himself, and thus to preach a sermon so powerful that the listener finds himself converted.
*"Wenn es im Lauf menschlicher Begebenheiten für ein Volk nöthig wird... "and so on.