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Thomas Paine (〔 – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is printed in Volume I, page 3, as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. Paine's birth date, between January 1, and March 25, advances by eleven days and his year increases by one to February 9, 1737. The O.S. link gives more detail if needed.〕〔Contemporary records, which used the Julian calendar and the Annunciation Style of enumerating years, recorded his birth as January 29, 1736. The provisions of the British Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, implemented in 1752, altered the official British dating method to the Gregorian calendar with the start of the year on January 1 (it had been March 25). These changes resulted in dates being moved forward 11 days, and for those between January 1 and March 25, an advance of one year. For a further explanation, see: Old Style and New Style dates.〕〔 (Both Franklin's and Paine's confusing birth dates are clearly explained.)〕 – June 8, 1809) was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary. One of the Founding Fathers of the United States, he authored the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and he inspired the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain. His ideas reflected Enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights.〔Jason D. Solinger. "Thomas Paine's Continental Mind". ''Early American Literature'' (2010) 45#3, Vol. 45 Issue 3, pp. 593-61.7〕 He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination".〔Saul K. Padover, ''Jefferson: A Great American's Life and Ideas'', (1952), p. 32.〕 Born in Thetford, England, in the county of Norfolk, Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 with the help of Benjamin Franklin, arriving just in time to participate in the American Revolution. Virtually every rebel read (or listened to a reading of) his powerful pamphlet ''Common Sense'' (1776), proportionally the all-time best-selling〔〔Biographer Harvey Kaye writes, "Within just a few months 150,000 copies of one or another edition were distributed in America alone. The equivalent sales today would be fifteen million, making it, proportionally, the nation's greatest best-seller ever." in 〕 American title which crystallized the rebellious demand for independence from Great Britain. His ''The American Crisis'' (1776–83) was a prorevolutionary pamphlet series. ''Common Sense'' was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of ''Common Sense'', the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."〔(The Sharpened Quill ), ''The New Yorker''. Accessed November 6, 2010.〕 Paine lived in France for most of the 1790s, becoming deeply involved in the French Revolution. He wrote ''Rights of Man'' (1791), in part a defense of the French Revolution against its critics. His attacks on British writer Edmund Burke led to a trial and conviction ''in absentia'' in 1792 for the crime of seditious libel. In 1792, despite not being able to speak French, he was elected to the French National Convention. The Girondists regarded him as an ally. Consequently, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of his pamphlet ''The Age of Reason'' (1793–94), in which he advocated deism, promoted reason and free thought, and argued against institutionalized religion in general and Christian doctrine in particular. He also published the pamphlet ''Agrarian Justice'' (1797), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income. In 1802, he returned to the U.S. where he died on June 8, 1809. Only six people attended his funeral as he had been ostracized for his ridicule of Christianity.〔Conway, Moncure D. (1892). ''(The Life of Thomas Paine )''. Vol. 2, pp. 417–418.〕 ==Early life and education== Paine was born on January 29, 1736〔 (NS February 9, 1737), the son of Joseph Pain, or Paine, a Quaker, and Frances (née Cocke), an Anglican, in Thetford, an important market town and coach stage-post, in rural Norfolk, England.〔 (Also see discussion page)〕 Born Thomas Pain, despite claims that he changed his family name upon his emigration to America in 1774,〔 he was using Paine in 1769, while still in Lewes, Sussex. He attended Thetford Grammar School (1744–49), at a time when there was no compulsory education.〔(School History ) Thetford Grammar School, Accessed January 3, 2008,〕 At the age of 13, he was apprenticed to his stay-maker father. Paine researchers contend his father's occupation has been widely misinterpreted to mean that he made the stays in ladies' corsets, which likely was an insult later invented by his political foes. Actually, the father and apprentice son made the thick rope stays (also called stay ropes) used on sailing ships. Thetford historically had maintained a brisk trade with the downriver, then major, port town of King's Lynn. A connection to shipping and the sea explains why, in late adolescence, Thomas enlisted and briefly served as a privateer,〔''Rights of Man II'', Chapter V.〕〔Thomas had intended to serve under the ill-fated Captain William Death but was dissuaded by his father. (Bring the Paine! )〕 before returning to Britain in 1759. There, he became a master stay-maker, establishing a shop in Sandwich, Kent. On September 27, 1759, Thomas Paine married Mary Lambert. His business collapsed soon after. Mary became pregnant; and, after they moved to Margate, she went into early labor, in which she and their child died. In July 1761, Paine returned to Thetford to work as a supernumerary officer. In December 1762, he became an Excise Officer in Grantham, Lincolnshire; in August 1764, he was transferred to Alford, also in Lincolnshire, at a salary of £50 per annum. On August 27, 1765, he was dismissed as an Excise Officer for "claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect". On July 31, 1766, he requested his reinstatement from the Board of Excise, which they granted the next day, upon vacancy. While awaiting that, he worked as a stay-maker. Again, he was making stay ropes for shipping, not stays for corsets. In 1767, he was appointed to a position in Grampound, Cornwall; subsequently, he asked to leave this post to await a vacancy, thus, he became a schoolteacher in London. On February 19, 1768, he was appointed to Lewes in Sussex, a town with a tradition of opposition to the monarchy and pro-republican sentiments going back to the revolutionary decades of the 17th century. Here he lived above the fifteenth-century Bull House, the tobacco shop of Samuel Ollive and Esther Ollive. There, Paine first became involved in civic matters, and he appears in the Town Book as a member of the Court Leet, the governing body for the town. He was also a member of the parish vestry, an influential local church group whose responsibilities for parish business would include collecting taxes and tithes to distribute among the poor. On March 26, 1771, at the age of 34, he married Elizabeth Ollive, his landlord's daughter. From 1772 to 1773, Paine joined excise officers asking Parliament for better pay and working conditions, publishing, in summer of 1772, ''The Case of the Officers of Excise'', a twenty-one-page article, and his first political work, spending the London winter distributing the 4,000 copies printed to the Parliament and others. In spring of 1774, he was again dismissed from the excise service for being absent from his post without permission; his tobacco shop failed, too. On April 14, to avoid debtors' prison, he sold his household possessions to pay debts. On June 4, 1774, he formally separated from his wife Elizabeth and moved to London, where, in September, mathematician, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Commissioner of the Excise George Lewis Scott introduced him to Benjamin Franklin,〔"Letter to the Honorable Henry Laurens" in Philip S. Foner's ''The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine'' (New York: Citadel Press, 1945), 2:1160–65.〕 who suggested emigration to British colonial America, and gave him a letter of recommendation. In October, Thomas Paine emigrated from Great Britain to the American colonies, arriving in Philadelphia on November 30, 1774. He barely survived the transatlantic voyage. The ship's water supplies were bad, and typhoid fever killed five passengers. On arriving at Philadelphia, he was too sick to debark. Benjamin Franklin's physician, there to welcome Paine to America, had him carried off ship; Paine took six weeks to recover his health. He became a citizen of Pennsylvania "by taking the oath of allegiance at a very early period".〔Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1892. ''The Life of Thomas Paine'' vol. 1, p. 209.〕 In January 1775, he became editor of the ''Pennsylvania Magazine'', a position he conducted with considerable ability. Paine designed the Sunderland Bridge of 1796 over the Wear River at Wearmouth, England. It was patterned after the model he had made for the Schuylkill River Bridge at Philadelphia in 1787, and the Sunderland arch became the prototype for many subsequent voussoir arches made in iron and steel.〔''History of Bridge Engineering'', H. G. Tyrrell, Chicago, 1911〕〔A biographical Dictionary of Civil Engineers in Great Britain and Ireland at 753–755, A. W. Skempton and M. Chrimes, ed.,Thomas Telford, 2002 (ISBN 0-7277-2939-X, 9780727729392)〕 He also received a British patent for a single-span iron bridge, developed a smokeless candle,〔See (Thomas Paine ), Independence Hall Association. Accessed online November 4, 2006.〕 and worked with inventor John Fitch in developing steam engines. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thomas Paine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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